"Zuko." I breathe, my blood hammering through my veins, adrenaline screaming past my ears. It only gets worse as he smiles and gets up to greet me, steadying himself as he stands against the tree's body. Soon enough it'll be all he has left to hold on to.

"Hey," He says softly, too softly for that harsh boy I had once shivered at the thought of. His scar looms off of his visage, making me even more nervous. He grew up in a world of hate; his own father did something unmentionable to him. Sometimes I cannot believe the place he has come from, as if it is just a fairy tale world, distorted and spun out of reality's ways.

"I have to talk to you, before the invasion, before anything happens." I say shakily, my own legs trembling. It seems like just yesterday that they were shivering under his spell, as he moved closer to me, his face obscuring everything, his fire so consuming, so ravenous.

His face shows confusion, not anxiety or dread, just blissful unknowing.

"What is it, 'Tara?" He asks, using that gentle abbreviation, to show how close we are. I couldn't tell him I hated it. Honesty has become the last option for me nowadays, sitting in a shady corner whilst gathering cobwebs. Zuko's endearing term makes me sink lower in my pit of guilt and despair. My gaze drops from his, and I watch my hands, which are clenching each other, holding each other together.

"This is so hard to say." I choke; ready to open up, to finally show myself to the world, to him, because it's the least I can do for him, before-

"Before you do, I have to tell you something." He says suddenly, taking my hand, stroking it tenderly with his thumb, in a smooth, regular rhythm, a pulse. I want to cry, because I know he is going to tell me how much I mean to him, how he felt the luckiest person in the world to be with me. But whatever I had in my mind is on a completely different mind wave from Zuko's.

He looks at me, and I watch him drink me in, his chest rises and falls as he sighs, breathes in and out, and I get a flash through my mind, of Zuko and Aang, standing together, Zuko lecturing Aang about breathing, how important it was in fire bending, completely over looking the fact that you cannot live without it.

And then I remember myself, so young and naïve, thinking about kissing Zuko, and how it was like breathing for the first time, as if I couldn't live without him.

But I've been breathing all this time. But now it feels like life kicked up, the lights started shining and the colour flooded in after a boy and his flying bison careered into my life…adventure shining all around him, excitement pulsing off of him. I wonder what Zuko would say if he knew I was thinking about Aang. Would he be angry? Or would he slink into the shadows, feeling himself breaking.

"You belong with the Avatar."

My breathing is cut short; my heart feels as if someone has seized it in their fist. I stare at Zuko, but with the faint realization that I'm falling, spiraling downwards, because there is no way that I can believe what he has just said to me.

He didn't say it.

He can't have said it.

But there he is with his mouth still slightly open, his words still hanging in the little air between us.

"What?" I gasp, my hands falling from his, symbolizing the most important thing of all, but neither of us notices it; we are both too caught up in now.

"You should be with him." He says simply, but I know how hard it is for him to say this, to realize this and to put it into words.

"I don't understand…" I murmur, still watching him, trying to escape this illusion.

"Katara, I've spent the last year of my life hating you. It was only when I saw you up close, not from the skies or behind your barricades of water, that I realized that you were someone different, someone I could learn to love." And so unlike me, he holds my gaze, the intensity somehow holding my head upwards so I can face him as well.

"Zuko…"

"Let me talk, Katara." Such a change from "Don't talk." But he haschanged. For me.

"I have such strong feelings for you," Zuko tells me, looking at me as if he's trying to take in as much as he can while he still has the chance, "Those feelings will take a while to handle, and then a while after that to get past. But I can do it. I'm just not sure you can do it concerning the Avatar."

Now I have to pull my eyes away from his. So he had known all along…

"But you have a small chance of getting past me. You were trying to avoid me for all that time when I was the crazy guy with the ponytail, right?"

I manage a small, painful smile, which just doesn't fit on my face anymore.

"I'm sorry…" I say finally, the pressure off my chest is unbelievable. I can't believe the relief of just telling him how I feel so terrible for deceiving him, deceiving myself. The more I say, the more that pours out of me, the easier it gets. "I thought that I loved you. I thought that the feeling you gave me was love, but it wasn't. It was just-"

"Lust?" He finishes. I nod slowly, figuring it out, finally putting down the thoughts and watching them fit.

"I've spent all year trying to kill him." Zuko says, looking somewhere behind me, as if he can see the events of fire and air combining to make an explosion replaying for him, "A whole year terrorizing him, shooting flames at his skull, tantalizing him with his friends that I used as bait. And then I just walked into his gang, saying that I was on his side, and then I take probably the most important thing to him for myself. And I expect him to be ok with it? The way I've treated him…it's not much better from when I was set on killing him."

I lift a hand to his face, feeling that familiar shape against my fingertips. I feel the wind coaxing my hair and clothes, wondering if someone else is looking into our world and thinking that we look so spectral, so distant, as I had done whilst I watched him with Aang watch their flames birth from their palms.

When my fingers brush his scar, I am taken back to the beautiful cave of crystals, and the first time I had ever spoken to Zuko, properly, without the threats of flames and ice daggers. The first time I touched Zuko, felt the warmth of his skin burn through my fingertips, felt the softness of what I expected to be brittle and rough, I had no idea of what would happen next. But then Aang punched through the wall, and reality rushed back in again.

With Zuko it would always be unreal, a dream. But Aang would always be there when I woke up. It fits. And once again, I feel the pang of regret that I hadn't realized this earlier.

So much would've been spared.

"It's time you let go." Zuko tells me softly, his bittersweet titian eyes burning into my reflective blue. Like fire and water, we would never work, we were destined to clash. Our elements see truth clearer than we do and we stand there just a little longer, before I take in Zuko's advice, and my hand leaves him.

And this time I feel ok.

Red…red…red………finally, it stops. Silence remains and I revel in it, the calm after the storm.

Dancing shadows…haunting memories………they are laid to rest.

Nothing is like this………and nothing ever will be. But it had to stop; it was never going to work.

So many moments, all gathering towards this one.

The finality of everything, the simple ending, is not a huge blow. It is simply recognizing fate. That is why my tears are not of pain of sorrow- they are of happiness, and relief, that everything is going to be all right. And Zuko knows it too, as he smiles down at me and blinks, flash, flash, flash.

"I have to go, I have to see-"

"Aang." Zuko finishes for me, and it's only when I turn to leave that I realize- it was probably the first time Zuko had ever used Aang's name. My walking slows, and I turn to say something, but he's already heading up another hill, taking his own path and leaving all that had happened behind.

I think about this, and realize that this whole affair feels like it's happened in only a few chaotic and frivolous seconds- a moment of madness that would haunt me for the rest of my life. I think of how in just a few actions, so many people can get hurt- because you forget them for one second and I marvel at the thought of forgetting Aang, the most memorable person you could meet, whose image could be imprinted in your mind after a single glance.

But it's time to move on. I can't help but smile at how crazy the events have been, how the ropes of reality have been tangled and all that seemed possible pushed to another level. Prince Zuko is on our side, calling Aang by his name and teaching him how to fire bend. Everything is stretched out of what seems real right now, and it'll take a while to get used to.

But anything is possible and it's this that I will take from this experience, this mess that should have never happened.

It's been a few minutes since I've watched Zuko's profile disappear over the rolling slopes and when I turn my head and continue to walk, it surprises me that it's so easy to do this, to turn away from what could've been. But after all, the answer has always been obvious, and he's just over the hill, at the end of the path that I was always going to take, the right turn at the cross roads.

He's waiting, and this time he won't be disappointed.

"Katara." He calls to me, as I emerge over the slope, and his radiant smile lights me up, lifts me off my feet. I'm surprised not to see the leaves kick up as his fresh air ripples through me. The rest of the group looks to my direction, probably expecting to see Zuko with me. It's refreshing to see their confusion. Everyone is ready for the invasion- my own gear is lying in a pile with my water pouches. But the daunting attack is forgotten- all I can see is him.

I can only breathe his name as I run into his arms, feeling his warmth envelope me and letting my tears whisper down my cheeks and fall into him.

I'm home, it fits, I belong- I always had.

There is no doubt as his name slips through my lips.

Aang.

Thank you.