Title: It seemed like a good idea at the time
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, I don't own the 'verse and I don't own the rights.
Rating: PG-13 for adult concepts.
Summary: It's right there in the title, really.
Notes: For the record, I had an idea, and I just wrote this in LJ. So . . . I make no comment as to quality. Another thing, yes I know what ice wine is, but it's just the right choice of words for a rotgut brewed by the water tribes, don't you think? And if the cut doesn't work right, I'll repost it, like, three seconds later, 'kay?

Right after Yon Rha, it just made sense.

They'd had a tremendously stressful stretch of time, Katara had just faced one of her greatest personal demons and Zuko . . . well, he hadn't exactly gotten much sleep then, either. Especially with Katara running around able to play puppet-master with people. They were lying together, it was just cold enough that sharing body heat with someone that didn't smell like Appa made too much sense to be avoided, and it just kind of happened. They kissed.

The both agreed not to speak of it, because it was obvious it was hormones, loneliness, stress and a bunch of other things coming to a head. That was all.

It also made sense right after Azula's defeat. However, duty called, then Aang showed up, then Mai, and they both came to a silent accord that it had been nothing, just the culmination of the fear of the fight, and neither Aang nor Mai deserved to be dumped right then, either.

It was the Spring Equinox, the fertility festival in the Earth Kingdom the next time they saw each other a year later. Katara had forgotten how devastatingly good-looking Zuko was, and presented with his unblemished profile first, she found herself simply looking appreciatively at him, the way the other girls back in the Southern Tribe stared appreciatively at Sokka and the other warriors.

Zuko turned and was struck by how pretty Katara was. He'd forgotten in the intervening year. "Katara," he said with a smile, ignoring the sputtering little man who was busy obsessing over protocol. He wrapped his arms around her in a hug. "I'm really glad to see you," he said. "Mai decided she wouldn't be caught dead at this, and I haven't seen anyone I know and like until now."

"Aang's busy with some negotiation that just happens to be near that . . . I don't even remember what it is. Some big animal that only comes out once every fifty years," Katara said wryly. "Someone had to show up on his behalf, and that left me."

"Well then," Zuko told her, offering her his arm. "How about I use my influence and you can be my date tonight, so I don't get stuck talking with terrifyingly boring old generals all night."

Katara smiled. "That makes sense to me," she said.

They had a wonderful time and danced and talked until midnight, which marked the beginning of the official spring season. It was traditional to share a kiss, it was a fertility rite, after all. So they kissed, for the third time. It took the little fussy man several minutes of increasingly loud throat clearings to get their attention.

When Aang dumped Katara for being a killjoy, they happened to be in the Fire Nation. Katara was left without a lift back home to the South Pole, so it only made sense to make her way to the Fire Lord's palace. She got there, and Zuko quietly arranged for Katara to spend an evening with Ty Lee, badmouthing all the members of the opposite sex and getting rather impressively drunk. He also went and fetched Katara and Ty Lee back, and found himself rather impressed that, completely hammered, dirty, drooling and incoherent, Katara still managed to be very pretty.

He was also totally ignoring how much she'd . . . developed over the years since he first saw her at the South Pole.

When Mai dumped Zuko for lacking the necessary interest in her, telling him that they were just wrong for each other (otherwise she wouldn't find him boring), Zuko was all set to go on a visit of state to Ba Sing Se. His uncle gave him some platitudes that didn't help at all, and Zuko tripped over Katara, who had come to Ba Sing Se to hang out in the spa mudbath for old times' sake.

He told her what happened and she offered to get Sokka for him to badmouth girls with, but Zuko didn't want that. So Katara dragged him out drinking anyhow, and they happily badmouthed the Fire Nation nobility together instead. The funniest part of the evening was when a Fire Nation ex-pat took offense and they got into a wild brawl over it. Afterwards the man was still spitting defiance about insolent Earth Kingdom people and nearly had an aneurysm when he realised he'd started a fight with the Fire Lord.

Katara, utterly sozzled, still managed to talk everyone down and got them both back to Zuko's rooms in Kuei's palace. "You're really pretty," Zuko had commented as she got him onto the bed. They must have been more drunk than he thought, because Katara just joined him on the covers and kissed him. Somehow that turned into wild groping, but they also, somehow, passed out before it got anywhere. Katara snuck out the next morning, just barely avoiding being seen by anyone.

They started exchanging letters, discovering that their respective diplomatic lives crossed paths more often than either had thought. Katara told Zuko things she'd never told anyone else before, while Zuko poured out his fears and anxieties about ruling a country onto the pieces of parchment sent winging across the ocean. In spite of the fact that they hadn't seen each other since ba Sing Se, both felt the other was the one person they could call best friend.

Finally, however, Zuko's diplomatic trips took him back to the South Pole. He apologised to Katara's grandmother, giving her some very lavish gifts to make up for his rudeness. The woman took his apologies in with a grin that rather frightened him, but politeness meant that, when she invited him to the icy home she shared with Katara and Water Master Pakku, he couldn't exactly turn her down.

At dinner she insisted on plying him with the potent liquor made by the Antarctic natives, called ice wine, and Zuko wasn't quite certain how he and Katara found themselves alone in Katara's bedroom, but the liquor made him bold enough to kiss the girl he hadn't seen for a few years, who had transformed into a breathtakingly beautiful (and let's be honest, sexy) woman.

Katara didn't know what her gran was up to, but when she found herself alone with Zuko, she also found that she didn't care. The couple of years since that brief interaction with him in Ba Sing Se had been very good to him. She silently admitted that they'd been good to her, as his shirt came off in her hands letting her touch an incredibly perfectly muscled torso.

They practically tore the clothes off each other and completely forgot there might be anyone else in the house as they loudly had some quite acrobatic sex. Then they both confessed their love for each other and made tender love to one another. Katara's quick use of bending to clean them up before going to sleep sparked another round because as Zuko told her, "Watching you bend makes me crazy."

They woke up the next morning, twined intimately together, with a furious Hakoda standing beside the bed. "You . . . I cannot believe you have dishonoured my daughter this way," he said tensely. "If you were Water Tribe I would demand that you marry her to correct this . . ." he clearly had no idea what word to use for it that wouldn't insult his daughter.

Zuko blinked. He looked at Katara, who looked stunning as ever, thought about stolen kisses, letters and bouts of drunkenness, then looked up at Kanna, who grinned and winked encouragingly. "Would you mind Katara?" he asked. The chief of the Southern Water Tribe made as sort of strangled gargling noise as the younger man twisted in bed to get at something in his tunic pocket from where it had landed at the chief's feet. "I was going to give you this as a present, but will it do until I get you a proper engagement necklace?" he asked, handing her a fire-red opal with the Water Tribe symbol carved into it, then filled in with silver.

Katara broke into a joyful smile. "Yes!" she said, throwing herself at him and kissing her now-betrothed.

"Wha . . .?" Hakoda said, as his mother-in-law steered him out the door.

The two ignored that byplay. Anyhow, they couldn't start in on a fourth round of lovemaking if they paid attention to Hakoda.

It just seemed like a good idea.