Title: An Indecent Proposal

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not even the final quote which I am still trying to recall who's fanfic I stole it from.

Summary: Katara decides she's ready for the final stage of intimacy. Zuko thinks she's not. Twelve in the Proposal series.

Author's Notes: So this is a combination of angst and some potential for smut that's never realised, and I'm not sure I've rated this right, but I'm risking going with the rating I have so there's somewhere to go if/when this gets racier. Yes, I ended on a dirty joke, but I have a penchant for last words, and there it is.

It had been one of the longest days of his life, Zuko thought as he gratefully shut the door to his rooms behind him. Katara had been distracted all through breakfast, and the equilibrium he normally gained just from being able to talk to her in the morning was missing when he headed into the council rooms to meet with the ministers who handled the administration of the islands and the two other major cities of the Fire Nation that were large enough to have separate representation.

Katara hadn't been in the meeting because she'd had to deal with the ministers who were in charge of the schools and hospitals of the Nation, and then with the ambassadors from the air temples.

His meeting had dragged on and had stretched well past lunchtime, and he'd had no chance to do anything else for the bulk of the day but paperwork. Mountains and mountains of paperwork had been waiting for him, and he'd only barely managed to fit in a stretch of firebending practice late that evening by bolting his very late dinner. He knew he should take the time to meditate, but he was tired and quite irritable and all he wanted was a mattress, sheets and a pillow.

Which was partly why, after he'd stripped off all his clothes but a pair of short pants - for modesty if he were woken in the night - he tripped over nothing and went sprawling at the sight of what was in his bed.

It was his wife.

Which was shocking enough, since he had been fairly certain Katara wasn't ready for him to try starting anything with her, but she was dressed in a pale blue shift of near-transparent silk, pretty much just a veil. He could see her . . . everything. "Katara?" he asked, from where he was sprawled on the floor.

"Zuko?" She leaned over the edge of the bed, and the view was enough to make him miss where he was putting his hands, sending him falling over again. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Katara?" he repeated. It was pretty much the only word in his head at that moment. He was no virgin, but he was faithful to his wedding vows, and it had been a very long while. Also, Katara was quite fit. And rounded in spots.

She climbed out of the bed, crouched next to him, and a moment later was running a water-gloved hand all over him, clearly checking to see if he'd been hurt. Dimly Zuko realised he must be acting a little like he'd been concussed, but since he was feeling rather emotionally concussed, that was probably explicable. Katara's hand going over every inch of him wasn't really helping his situation, however, and he managed to gather his thoughts.

He got to his feet, pulling her up after him, and sat them both down on the edge of the bed. He really didn't trust himself to try standing or walking anywhere right then. "What . . . Why are you here, Katara?"

She didn't play coy. "I was talking to Ursa a couple days ago, and she got me thinking about a few things."

"What were those?" Zuko prompted. He determinedly did not look at anything but her eyes. He wasn't. He certainly wasn't noticing the way that her skin looked very soft and how there was probably a very pleasing couple of handfuls right there on her chest. Nope. Not noticing anything.

"I realised something Zuko. It's been a long time coming, but I realised that . . . after everything, I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you." She looked sincere, and certain and absolutely perfect as she said it. "Ursa said she thinks you love me too," she told him. "I don't know about that, because I'm okay with just being your friend. You make me feel safe and . . . right."

Zuko felt a wide smile stretch his mouth and he cupped her face in his hands, looked his wife in the eye and said, "Mother's right. I do love you. I don't know when it happened and I don't care. Katara I . . ." words failed him, and he impulsively leaned forward and kissed her.

They had kissed before, little brushed of his lips against hers. Closemouthed and passionless. Something to demonstrate affection to an audience without causing Katara distress. Zuko felt her lips open under his and her tongue shyly, hesitantly, slide forward. His self-control took a battering and for a moment he couldn't keep himself from ravaging her mouth. Too soon for his own peace of mind, Zuko pulled away.

"Don't stop," Katara said. She looked . . . determined. She was a little flushed, and hadn't resisted him, but the look on her face was a little too close to the one she'd had when they had gone to face his sister. "You wanted to know why I'm here," she said. "I'm your wife Zuko. We should . . . we should be sharing a bed." She swallowed.

He shook his head, backing away. "You're not ready. I'm glad you're here. You don't know how much it means to me that you feel the way about us that I do, but you're not ready."

"I say I'm ready. Isn't that enough?" she asked.

He rolled his eyes, backing away to get a little perspective on her and the whole conversation, then immediately regretted it because it gave him a lovely view down the deep vee of her shift, which was just as see-through now as it was when he tripped over his own feet minutes before. "No. It's not enough. You're ready for this like you were ready to face me at the North Pole, or ready to take on Azula. It's not the same. You're ready for it like a fight."

"That's . . . I . . . how am I supposed to do this if you're going to keep telling me how I feel?" she demanded, and crossed her arms. Zuko closed his eyes and groaned.

"If you can tell me that you're doing all this deliberately, maybe you are ready," he told her, dropping his face into his hands.

"Doing what?" When he looked up, she had stopped with the distracting postures and was now sitting, her knees drawn up to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. She stopped looking like some kind of seductive water nymph and now looked all of a very confused twelve years old.

His libido was feeling very confused right now.

"Katara," he said, taking a deep breath, searching for the right words. "Why do you want to make love to me?"

She looked him in the eye, just as serious, and said, "I love you. I know that you love me and you won't hurt me. I want to give you this. I want to have children with you and I want you to be happy. I know that you . . . have . . . I mean, sometimes after we spar you're . . . I know you want me to . . ." she stumbled over the words, flushing and gesturing vaguely in the direction of the most visible evidence of his interest in bedding her.

She looked adorable, and he did want her. But he couldn't tell right then if her hesitance to say it came from her trying not to think about the actual act, or if it was from a native or trained cultural shyness. If it was simple shyness, whether from her upbringing or just herself, then he could deal with that. But how could he tell?

"I'll make you a deal," he said after a pause. "We'll try. I'll try, and as long as you seem okay with things, I'll keep going. The moment you say no, the moment I think you don't want me to continue, we're stopping." It was the only thing he could come up with. Not to mention, he wasn't sure that any other approach would convince her she wasn't ready if she really wasn't ready.

She smiled bravely at him, and Zuko was tempted to send her back to her suite right then. But Katara was stubborn. Stubborn enough to think that intimacy needed to be faced head on like a confrontation with a powerful enemy. So he took a deep breath and kissed her the way he'd been wanting to for a while, ever since he'd realised she meant more to him than just the pretty young woman who was lightening his burden as Fire Lord.

He felt her pause, almost taking in the experience, before relaxing and kissing back. So far, so good, and he'd be happy to be wrong about it. Zuko carefully eased her back onto the bed, trying not to notice how good it felt, and trying not to think about how long it had been for him, and trying not to think about how her skin really was that soft.

It wasn't so much working.

He'd just settled on top of her, when she just stiffened up like a board. Zuko pulled away from her mouth, and sat up. Katara's eyes were closed, but not in pleasure. They were tensed shut as though she were bracing herself for something painful. Her hands had slipped off of his neck, and she was clutching the sheets, white-fisted. She didn't look like a woman enjoying the moment. She looked like someone about to be tortured, preparing herself to last through the pain.

"That's it," Zuko said. "You're not ready."

"What?" His wife looked insulted. "I'm here, I'm not even thinking about running away or maiming you if you come near me. What do you want?"

He stared, incredulous. "Well, I'd appreciate it if you'd talk to Suki or someone you trust about what it's like for them with their husbands or lovers."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Katara demanded.

He'd been trying to be delicate, really he had. "How about the fact that sex is supposed to feel good and when I get too close you look as though I'm about to give you forty lashes?" He snapped. "I get that you're used to what happened with . . . that . . . thing you had to marry before, but I'm not him and I'd appreciate you not lying there like a lump, so terrified of the pain you think you'll go through that I can't get you to enjoy it." He glared at her. "Katara, I'm very attracted to you, but I'm not particularly excited by you looking like being with me is something to be tolerated rather than enjoyed."

Her jaw set stubbornly. "Look. I just don't think I could ever want to be touched like that again, alright? You need an heir, and this is the only way to get one." She flushed. "And I did talk to Suki. She said that if we did enough . . . stuff before it would be . . . good."

"Katara," he dropped his head into his hands for a moment as he groaned again. "It's as much in your head as anything else. If you're scared, nothing will feel good because you'll be too scared to enjoy it. Part of why it hurt before was because your body wasn't prepared, which only happens if you're enjoying things."

"I-" she cut herself off. Then she paused, looking thoughtful, clearly thinking some things over. "I hadn't thought about it that way," she told him, looking quite flummoxed. "I mean, Ujarak, the women he was . . . with when he didn't want me, they all seemed to . . . enjoy him – it. So I thought maybe, since he wasn't trying to hurt me most of the time, that maybe it was just . . . me."

Just when I thought I couldn't dislike the man more, she comes up with something new, Zuko thought. "He just . . . other women and you were okay with it?" he sputtered.

"He wasn't getting his sweaty hands all over me," Katara told him with a shrug. "They all thought I didn't deserve him anyhow, what did it matter if there were a few more rumours?" Zuko wasn't sure what expression was on his face, but it made Katara ask, "Zuko? Are you feeling ill?"

"Not for any reason you can help," Zuko said, dragging them back onto the topic at hand. "Look. The point is, you expected him to hurt you, so you never were able to enjoy it because you have to be enjoying it for it not to hurt."

"Oh."

When she didn't say anything else, Zuko sighed, rubbed a hand across his face and got out of the bed. He offered her a hand up, saying, "So, now that we've worked out that you're not ready for this, will you please go to bed and stop tormenting me?"

"How am I tormenting you?" she demanded.

"By looking as amazing as you do dressed in almost nothing," he told her, flatly.

A pause, then a beautiful smile crossed her face, and Zuko tried not to let on how much it was all affecting him. She took his outstretched hand, letting him help her off the bed. She went and collected the robe she must have worn to get through the halls to his suite, and then stopped before opening the door to leave. Silently, Zuko watched all this, then watched in confusion as she walked up to him, and stood, inches away, staring at him. "What?" he finally asked.

Then her arms were around his neck, pulling him into a kiss. Zuko moaned into her mouth as it stretched on and on. Finally, however, she pulled away, and said, "I think I'm ready for that. I'd like more tomorrow, Fire Lord." Then she sashayed out of the room.

He stood there, stunned, for a full minute before he got himself together to climb into bed. Lying there, he glared at the wall in the general direction of Katara's rooms. "Katara," he muttered, "My right hand hates you so much right now."