It all starts with a blue lightsabor and a fairy Barbie.

Sokka has a summer cold, so he is stuck inside, leaving Katara to play in the front yard by herself. Gran-Gran is on the front porch, reading the newspaper and sipping iced tea.

Mom and Dad are off doing grown up things and Katara hopes they'd bring back some ice cream.

It really is hot outside.

She's been playing for nearly an hour when she starts hearing funny noises coming from Mr. Iroh's backyard.

Mr. Iroh has been their neighbor for years. Sometimes Katara will see him when he's out in his backyard working in his garden. It's a really nice garden, too.

But these noises don't sound like noises Mr. Iroh would make.

Interested, Katara glances over at her grandmother to see that the elderly woman has dozed off.

The six-year old smiles to herself and, clutching her Barbie to her chest, trots around her house and into Mr. Iroh's backyard.

She nearly falls over laughing.

A boy with sticky-uppy black hair thrusts his toy lightsabor out at invisible enemies. He's also adding his own sound effects.

Katara recognizes his toy from all the funny sci-fi movies that Sokka and Dad like to watch. She's seen bits and pieces of them here and there, but she openly prefers watching The Little Mermaid.

"Hi," she calls out. She's never seen this boy before and wonders if he's related to Mr. Iroh somehow.

The boy freezes, hand in midair, before slowly turning his head to look at her. Then he drops his toy so that he's holding it by his side and stands up straight. He's older then her, Katara realizes. But not by much.

"Hi." He sounds mistrustful.

Katara decides that perhaps it's not smart to hold out her Barbie in a play offering, so she smiles at him instead. "Wanna play?"

"With you?"

"Uh huh." Katara crosses her arms over her chest, not caring if she squishes her Barbie's fairy wings in the process.

The boy actually curls his lip at her. "You'll only want to play girl games."

Katara splutters indignantly. "Nuh uh!"

"Yeah huh!"

"Nuh uh!"

"Yeah huh!"

"NUH UH!"

"YEAH HUH!"

Katara lets out a squeal of frustration, causing the boy to jump. "Never mind!" she exclaims. "I don't want to play anymore, you meanie!"

He smirks and shrugs one shoulder. "Your pigtails are stupid."

Katara's mouth falls open. She likes her pigtails, Mom had even braided them this morning. Thoroughly scandalized, Katara turns on her heel and marches away from Mr. Iroh's backyard.

This means war.

The next day Katara spies the boy from her bedroom window. He's in Mr. Iroh's backyard again, kicking around a soccer ball.

She lets her curtain fall across her window with a huff.

She leaves her bedroom and nearly sprints down the stairs and out the back door, not bothering to call out to her grandmother that she's going outside.

When the boy spots her coming into Mr. Iroh's backyard, he scowls. "What do you want?" he calls out, sounding wary.

Katara frowns down at her beat up blue Keds before forcing herself to look back up at the boy. "Kick me the ball," she commands, placing her hands on her hips. "And I'll kick it back."

The boy observes her for a moment and then he darts forward and kicks the soccer ball to her. Katara nearly stumbles when she tries to stop it with her feet—she's kind of small for a six year old and this ball is sort of big—but she manages to kick it back to him with something akin to speed. A rhythm starts. He swiftly kicks the ball to her and she awkwardly kicks it back.

At first the boy is tense, like he's sure that at any moment Katara is going to pick up the ball and throw it at him, just for laughs.

Katara never does, of course.

Eventually he relaxes and the two spend fifteen minutes kicking the ball back and forth in companionable silence.

Then the boy stops the ball with his foot and doesn't kick back. Katara looks at him, confused, before she sees something that surprises her. A smile. On the boy's face.

"I bet I can kick the ball over your shoulder." He stands still and waits for her answer. The wind catches his untidy black hair and makes it fly about his face.

Katara smirks. "Bet you can't," she challenges.

Challenge accepted, the boy backs up a couple of steps before rushing forward and kicking the ball into the air.

It misses her shoulder and hits her in the head.

Katara gasps and lets out a whine as tears sting her blue eyes. He vision blurs briefly and when it finally clears the boy is standing in front of her looking alarmed.

"I'm sorry!" he exclaims. "I didn't mean to, I just—"

"Did too," she snaps, furious. She shoves him, though she knows she's not supposed to hit or push people. "You nearly knocked my brains out!"

But this boy is mean and he deserves it. Who kicks balls at people's heads? Meanie.

The boy looks absolutely furious, but he doesn't shove her back. "You don't have any brains to knock out anyway."

Katara stamps a foot in rage and moves forward to shove him again. She expects him to push back. Sokka always pushes back.

Instead he side steps her and Katara trips over her own feet.

She lands in grass. Pouting and somewhat humiliated, she moves to stand up but there's a stinging sensation in her right knee. That's when she notices the blood.

Katara can usually handle blood well, but when her own blood starts to stream down her leg in rivulets she feels queasy.

The boy is already sprinting towards Mr. Iroh's house. "UNCLE!" he shouts. "UNCLE!"

Katara has to get six stitches.

She had fallen on glass.

Sokka starts calling her 'Penguin'. Since the stitches stretch over her knee, she can't bend it. So her walking is more like waddling.

"Pass the Cheetos, Penguin." Sokka is sitting on the floor, is back against the couch.

Katara is sitting on the couch with her leg prompted up on the ottoman. She frowns and looks down at the bag of cheese puffs in her lap. "No."

"You have to share, Penguin."

"No, I don't—"

The doorbell rings.

Sokka stands up to answer it, but Mom beats him to it.

"Oh, hello Mr. Iroh, it's so nice to see you. And this must be your nephew, Zuko. Hi, Zuko."

Mr. Iroh greets mom cheerily from outside the front door. Then there's grumbling. Katara thinks that that must be Zuko.

Mom steps aside and Mr. Iroh and Zuko enter the house. Zuko looks at Katara's leg, then Katara. He frowns. Mr. Iroh clears his throat from behind him. His nephew sighs.

Zuko walks right up to Katara and sticks his hands in the pockets of his shorts. "I'm sorry that I kicked you in the head with a soccer ball. And that you fell on glass." He's staring at the carpet. "Sorry about your stitches, too. Hope you're feeling better." Then he quickly moves to stand behind Mr. Iroh.

Katara blinks, stunned. It isn't until she notices Mom's glare that she remembers she's supposed to say something in return. "Uh, it's okay." Mom's eyes narrow even further, so Katara sits up straight. "I accept your apology."

Mr. Iroh smiles kindly at her, but Zuko refuses to meet her gaze.

"Mr. Iroh," Mom says, gesturing toward the kitchen, "it's been awhile since we've had a chat. Would you like some tea?"

"Now, Kaya, you know that I can never refuse a cup of tea. And where is that lovely mother-in-law of yours?"

Mom laughs and the two adults walk into the kitchen, leaving Katara and Sokka alone with Zuko.

Katara is frozen to her seat, not at all sure what to do. The boy who kicked a soccer ball at her head is in her living room.

She expects Sokka to say something snide, since this is the boy who caused her stitches, after all. But of course he doesn't. Instead he grabs a video game box lying on the floor.

"You wanna play Donkey Kong?" Sokka holds up a Nintendo controller enticingly.

Zuko's expression lightens and he quickly nods. Minutes later the two boys are on the floor, laughing and talking as they play with the game.

Katara stuffs her hand back in the bag of Cheetos, and when Sokka asks for the cheese puffs again she chucks the whole bag at his head.

Mr. Iroh ends up going back to his house next door, but Zuko stays for dinner.

Katara wobbles to her chair at the kitchen table, where Zuko and Sokka are chatting excitedly about gross, stupid boy things. She sits down and pouts.

Macaroni and cheese is served. It's Katara's favorite meal, but she doesn't enjoy as much as she usually does.

Sokka and Zuko eat happily, and Katara wonders if this is the start of a new friendship. She glares at her plate. Her brother has betrayed her.

After dinner, Katara grabs her Lion King stuffed animals, puts her copy of The Lion King into the family's VCR, and proceeds to reenact the movie with her toys as it plays out onscreen. It manages to make her forget that the mean, evil boy next door is spending the night and that he and her brother are currently upstairs in her brother's room comparing their Star Wars action figures.

The summer comes to an end. Sokka and Zuko have become best friends.

Zuko technically lives on the other side of town in some big, fancy house with his parents and little sister. Once Sokka suggests that his sister should come over so that Katara will have someone to play with. Both Zuko and Katara are appalled by this idea.

Zuko also doesn't go to the local elementary school either. He goes to some private school where everyone has to wear a uniform.

But Zuko always, without fail, spends his weekends with his uncle. This makes weekends the worst part of Katara's week.

All the fun weekend activities that Katara used to look forward to, like going to the movies or going out for pizza, are now tainted by Zuko's presence.

Of course, Sokka loves having his best friend around all the time, and Mom, Dad, and Gran-Gran all think that Zuko is a "sweet boy". So they don't mind having him around.

Katara is the only one that knows the truth. That Zuko is a meanie who kicks balls at people's heads.

In October, when Katara and Sokka are trying on their Halloween costumes for Gran-Gran, Sokka tells Katara that she needs to get over her grudge towards Zuko. She chases him with scissors as a form of punishment, until Mom catches her. Then Katara is grounded for one week with no TV.

Katara spends the rest of the evening sniffling and clutching her stuffed Simba.

Mr. Iroh's nephew has ruined her life.

It's Halloween. Katara is supposed to go trick-or-treating with Sokka and Zuko in a couple of hours. She's dreading it.

It doesn't matter that she's going as a magical princess. What's the point of walking around in a fun costume and getting free candy if he was going to be there?

She's sitting on a swing, frowning down at the mulch, when someone takes the swing next to her. Katara lifts her head to say hello to the other person, because Katara really is very polite, when she sees a girl dressed entirely in green.

"Hi," the girl says cheerfully. "I'm Suki."

A/N:

Okay. So. I've always wanted to do a full-length modern day story, and I've always wanted to do a Zuko/Katara/Jet story. So I've decided to combine the two ideas and now we have this fic.

Ta-da!

Don't ask me who Katara is going to end up with, 'cause I won't tell you. *maniacal laughter*

Anyway, please review! :D