Well, clearly I was eaten by a shark and had to drag myself out and perform surgery on myself and my shark with one hand. That's the only reason why I'd be so late to write this new chapter, right?

I wish I could say that were true. What actually happened is Real Life, which is code word for university applications, tours, interviews and studying for my mock exams.

Nevertheless, here is the next chapter!

One more to go, and the next one will be rated M for My god can this level of naughtiness even be tolerated?

Answers to reviews are at the bottom!

Disclaimer: A:TLA is not mine.

She gaped like a fish for a while. To Zuko's credit, he seemed quite content with glaring at her while she grappled for words.

"You… you… him?" she asked, wide-eyed.

He sighed, rolling his eyes. It was a very Mai-like characteristic. No doubt it was where he picked it up from. "Yes. Me. Me. Him."

She scowled at him. She walked over to the Water Tribe mask grinning at the dark sky and picked it up.

When she turned back to face him, he was staring at her. "I thought I gave myself away so many times."

She snorted. "Of course you did. I knew it was you all along." She was lying out of her teeth.

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did!"

"No, because otherwise you wouldn't have stared at me like a hippo-sloth earlier."

She sighed. "You're a real charmer, Zuko."

She gestured towards the camp and they started walking back slowly. He kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, and she felt the blush spread to her neck.

"What?" she finally snapped.

He frowned. "Nothing."

"It's not nothing, it's something."

"If it were something, I would tell you what it was."

"Oh, like you told us about the Blue Spirit?"

"That's different!"

"It's not! It's exactly the same."

He paused there. They continued walking for a while before he spoke.

"I'd understand, you know."

"Understand what?" She was busy inspecting her elbow, where she had been singed by his firebending.

"If you hated me again." He glared at the ground.

She suddenly felt very awkward. "I don't. I mean, yes, it's a little irritating to run over to Wu Xing and have him think of me as a prostitute to figure out that you weren't in the prison and then have to waterbend like a bajillion soldiers away to get to safety and all but I don't hate you."

He blinked. "Wait, prostitute?"

She waved her hand away dismissively. "It's a long story; I'll tell you later."

The muscle in his jaw tightened but he wisely kept quiet.

"We were all worried, you know?"

She was surprised that he looked so surprised.

"Really?" he asked.

"Of course, Zuko. You're part of our gAang now."

There was a pause. Then: "Please. Don't call it that."

She poked her nose in the air. "We created the name before you join the group. You'll have to bring the issue up with Sokka."

"Fine then, I will." His lips had turned upwards in a slight smile.

"Good." She smiled back at him.

Toph was less forgiving than Katara was.

Katara even felt sorry for Zuko when he was bombarded with rocks.

Toph seemed to forgive him soon enough when Zuko gave her his share of moon peaches for dinner.

Aang uncharacteristically clung on to Zuko and Suki dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand.

It was Sokka whose punishment was the most brutal.

That, or he really was very stupid.

"… so I knocked those guards out and ran towards the town, and that's how I escaped."

"Wait, wait, wait," said Sokka, whose faux-moustache was made of Katara's salty noodles. "You know the Blue Spirit?"

"Yes."

"And she knows the Blue Spirit." Sokka pointed at his sister.

"Yes."

"And he knows the Blue Spirit." Sokka pointed at Aang, who studied his assortment of vegetables intensely all of a sudden.

"… Yes."

"But I don't know the Blue Spirit?"

"Apparently not."

"But nobody here is the Blue Spirit."

"No. I was in jail the whole time, how could I be?"

"Maybe the Blue Spirit likes jail…"

"That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

Sokka's eyes suddenly widened. "Wait. Katara was in jail."

"She is not the Blue Spirit."

"How would you know? The Blue Spirit likes jail!"

"No he doesn't! Katara isn't the Blue Spirit! She was a prostitute in jail!"

"What!?"

"I was not, Sokka."

"She was not. I don't know why I said that."

"Katara's not a prostitute?"

"No."

"So the Blue Spirit is a prostitute?"

"No… how did… that doesn't even make sense…"

Sokka stroked his non-existent beard. "Veeery interesting…"

"The Blue Spirit isn't a prostitute!"

"Alright, alright, yeesh…" Sokka glanced at Toph with wide-eyes.

Zuko smacked his forehead. "She is blind. She is short. She is a girl. She is not the Blue Spirit."

Sokka kept gaping at Toph.

"Spirits… Sokka! I'm the Blue Spirit!"

Sokka looked at Zuko. Then he laughed. And laughed. Then he wiped a tear from his eye. "Good one."

Sokka kept an eye on Toph throughout the meal.

Zuko nearly cried.

Katara just smirked.

"I knew something was up."

"Did you, Toph?" Katara asked distractedly as she started sewing Sokka's pants.

"Yeah. You snuck out last night to see the Blue Spirit."

Katara froze mid-way through sewing. That wasn't the night she went to meet the Blue Spirit. That was the night she and Zuko…

Katara cleared her throat. They hadn't talked about that, and truth be told, Zuko didn't seem like he wanted to.

She told herself it was okay, but it stung more than it should have.

"Don't take it personally, Sweetness. I just know these kinds of things."

"Right."

She walked into his tent. "Zuko?"

"You know… most people would call my name before entering the tent."

She ignored him. "Can I heal you now?"

"I'm not injured."

"How would you know? You can't feel some things. It could be internal bleeding!"

"You'd feel pain if it were bleeding internally."

"Says you."

"I wonder how it is you got to be a healer," he said, but he complied and lay down and Katara kneeled down beside him, her hands hovering above his chest.

"You have your tunic on."

He snorted. "Well spotted." But there was an undercurrent of nervousness to his voice, and Katara knew why he might be nervous.

"Aren't you gonna take it off?"

"Um… alright."

As Zuko divested himself of his shirt, Katara swallowed back the confusion that was rising up her throat. Did he not want her to see him shirtless? Did he… regret last night?

She kept quiet as she worked past the bruises and the knots in his shoulders. She would not ask about last night. She would not.

"So…" she began conversationally, "about last night…"

They both winced.

"Yeah," he responded, "it was horrible."

She froze. "What?"

He swallowed. "You know, that you had to be a prostitute."

"Oh. Yes. Yes it was. Except I wasn't actually a prostitute. I played the part of one to get inside the jail."

"That was your idea?"

"No, um, the guard sort of assumed it and I went along with it."

"Oh." Silence. Then: "You don't look like a prostitute."

She sighed, and motioned for him to turn on to his front so she could heal his back. "Thanks, Zuko."

"I mean it. Prostitutes look all fake and made up and stuff and in the Fire Nation most prostitutes are from the Fire Nation."

"Wu Xing did say it was odd that I wasn't from the Earth Kingdom… You think they only like local girls?"

He shrugged. "I don't." There was a tremor in his voice.

She paused halfway through soothing the knots in his back with her waterbending. "Wait. How do you know this much about prostitutes?"

He colored. "Oh, um, I just do. Not… not that I… you know… had real experience with them… Uncle would tell me… and then I would see some in Ba Sing Se… I mean, it was Uncle who tells me that usually, they're… bald… ehm… everywhere."

"Oh." She wished Toph would make the ground swallow her up. "Do you… prefer that?"

When he turned his head to look at her properly, there was something she couldn't quite understand in his eyes. "No."

"Oh." That was all she was able to say. The agonizing silence that followed reminded her forcefully of when Sokka told Yue he liked her. Somehow, it seemed simpler for him. So she decided to follow her brother's path and speak with brash insensitivity about taboo topics.

"Did you regret last night?"

"Wh… What? Last night? You mean the getting kidnapped part?"

"No, the part where we had… almost... almost," she concluded lamely.

"Oh." He turned on to his back and looked at her. He crossed his arms over his chest in a self-conscious way. "… No. You?"

"No."

Spirits, what an awkward conversation…

"No, I didn't," he repeated, murmuring. It seemed like he was talking to himself. He cleared his throat. "I, um… also, last night wasn't just… to get off."

She had no idea what he meant. "I have no idea what you mean."

He scowled at her, before reluctantly elaborating: "I've wanted to do it for a while. With you."

She was insulted. "Is that all you see me as? Because I'll have you now I – "

"Nononono!" He sat up and waved his hands around slightly wildly, looking panicked. "I meant it in the nice sense. In the non-creepy way. Really."

She frowned at him. "Really."

He sighed and buried his face in his hands. "I… Ever since the sparring match a few days ago, I… I've wanted to do… this… but ever since the cata – Ba Sing Se… I've wanted… more than just friendship."

He looked at his fingers. Then he looked at the ceiling. Then he looked everywhere else but her. And her brain finally caught up with the conversation and the way he looked at her those days back when she offered him a bit of her moon peach suddenly made sense.

"Wait. Are you saying you like me?"

He sighed. "If you must put it that way…"

She scrambled backwards, and Zuko's head shot up, his expression confused and wary.

"What… what?"

He swallowed. "I said that I – "

"Zuko, we're in the middle of a war!"

"I know, but – "

"And it's all so sudden!"

"I know, I just – "

"And you spent most of your life chasing us around!"

"Not most!"

"And then Ba Sing Se!"

"I know about Ba Sing Se – "

"And what will my dad say and what will Sokka say and Aang – Oh, spirits, Aang!"

"Katara!"

She looked up at him with wide eyes. "What?"

He gave her a small smile, and it looked so much like the old Zuko's smile that she feared his face would crack. "I just thought I'd tell you. Because I didn't want you to think last night meant nothing to me."

"Zuko… but Aang…"

He got up. "I know. Aang." He didn't look at her as he walked out. "You can stay in here if you like. It's a nice night for me to sleep outside."

As she looked around his tent, she thought about the irony of the situation. She was so willing to be with people that she barely knew, but once she got to knowing and liking them… and maybe more… she always managed to shut them out.

ladyjane025: Ah yes, her bloodbending is quite controlled by her emotions, aren't they? It's quite a mark of how much Katara cares for you if she bloodbends for you, no? And yes, if she were any more oblivious, she would be Sokka. Poor siblings, barely understand important things… I absolutely will finish this story. I might take ages at some point but I will finish it. Reason is I don't let myself start a new story until I finish the one I'm working on now. So I do end up finishing all stories because I'm itching to move on to new ones.

Cheesehead101: Oh, thank you very much for saying that! It's going to be much, much longer, and it is going to be about Zutara, and it's going to be from alternating points of view! Hope I see you there when I do write it!

missmusician14: I'm quite pleased that I made you that anxious. Means I've done my job with writing it! And thanks for saying what you did about the action scene. I suck at action so that part worried me very much. And you're right about the OOC-ness. My favorite thing about the whole A:TLA series is that there is so much room for all the characters to grow that it means writing from older points of view is so interesting. We can shape the characters differently, because the original characterization allows for that. Did that make any sense or am I speaking nonsense again?

MustacheCats: So have I, hun, so have I… Eh. It's ok. Who needs the outdoors. We have Zutara inside.

megugoesnomnom: As per your request, dear!