Collision

"This better be worth it, Sokka." The air bites her cheeks and she welcomes it, lets it pull her face into a smile even as she grumbles at her brother, as she shoves her hands deeper into her coat pockets and watches her boots meet the pavement.

"I already told you, Kitty," Sokka retorts immediately, his nose and cheeks pink as he looks at her over his shoulder, "it's the best place for hot chocolate."

"Because you're a child." Suki softens her taunt with a delicate kiss pressed to Sokka's cheek, the tightening of her arm looped through his.

Katara pulls into her brother's side to give more weight to her murderous side-eye. "And I already told you," she spits, "that my name is Ka-ta-ra." She emphasises every syllable with a jab to his forearm. Even through his winter layers, he whines and recoils, leaning into Suki who meets Katara's eye with a smirk over her boyfriend's head. "Is a lifetime of acquaintance not enough for you to accept this simple fact?"

"Too many syllables, Kitty," is Sokka's simple answer. There is something worryingly fierce about the way he refuses to meet her stare.

Katara's fingers find the loose pendant in her pocket even as she mutters, "One more syllable. One." She tries to breathe as she traces the ridges, the waves, the curves that hold firm beneath her touch. Times her breathing with the seconds it takes her to follow each wave across and back. Remembers a time when the cold and the sea were all she knew. When things were not as painful as they are now, and she did not rely on this pendant for emotional stability in the wake of her brother's relentless teasing.

She takes a final steadying breath. "Since we're only here because of me, shouldn't I get to pick where we go for coffee?"

Sokka's entire head follows the exaggerated roll of his eyes. "You'd just make us go to that boring coffee cart outside the hospital." The disdain drips from his mouth like saliva.

Katara bites back her indignant gasp. Clutches the pendant. Feels it pressing against the pads of her fingers. "Their chai lattes are infinitely superior and you know it."

"What good does that do me? I'm a hot chocolate man through and through, Kitty. You know this about me." He has the nerve to shake his head at Suki in apparent exasperation over his little sister. Suki has the dignity to shove him a little too roughly into an oncoming signpost. Katara does not attempt to stifle her giggle.

"You're the best sister-in-law I never thought I'd have," she announces triumphantly. Her pure euphoria at Sokka's immediate blush and uncomfortable squirming is perhaps a disproportionate reaction to the stimulus.

"Hold on there, Kitty-Kat," he manages to splutter, even as Suki wiggles her left ring finger, naked beneath her glove.

"I'll be right there with you, Katara, when this idiot finally gets his act together." Sokka accepts her press of lips to his cheek with a scowl, but Katara cannot help noticing the way he reaches for her hand, tucking it into his own. Cannot help the familiar ache that rips through her chest. Cannot help the yearning she has accepted she will never be without. It fills her chest like something palpable, tangible, expanding until she finds it difficult to draw breath. The kind of anguish that comes with missing someone too much, that leaves jagged edges she cuts herself on every time her heart beats.

"Thank the spirits," Sokka mutters as they finally approach the coffee shop. Katara feels her entire body responding with vehement agreement.

She reads the name off the mural on the wall behind the counter as they enter. "The Jasmine Dragon?"

Sokka leaps to its defence before she can utter a single disparaging syllable. "It's a fine establishment, and I'll not stand for your heartless taunting."

Katara holds both hands up in surrender. "You didn't even give me a chance to be heartless." Her eyes fall from the mural to the man standing behind the counter, grazing over his dark hair pulled into a top knot with a pen shot through it, the whisps that gather at his temples, the crease of his forehead, the pallor of his skin that throws back the red mottled flesh surrounding his left eye. An eye that burns like molten gold when it flickers upward to lock on her own.

She feels her face flushing with a startling dose of adrenaline, the kind that leaves her hands shaking and her knees unstable. For more than a second she has no idea what to do, where to look. The sun sets and rises behind her as she looks at him and he looks at her. His face betrays nothing. She cannot feel her own. Then he is no longer looking at her but the customer he is serving, exchanging change while she presses a frigid hand to her chest, feeling for a heartbeat. There it is, weak and faltering and irregular and sputtering beneath her palm.

Shit.

She feels Sokka shifting beside her and turns to him with a carefully arranged expression of casual aloofness. Or, rather, a panicked desperation she hopes her brother will interpret as casual aloofness.

"Table on the wall?" He suggests, barely noticing her as he surveys their surroundings. She nods, follows him and Suki, takes the seat opposite them. She is immediately on edge with most of the café at her back, but it is an acceptable price if it means she keeps him at her back as well.

Even if that does nothing to set the hairs on her arms at ease beneath her sweater.

She wriggles out of her coat while Sokka espouses the virtues of this particular establishment in a voice that suddenly feels several decibels too loud. She cannot – she will not – look behind her to where she can feel him standing.

She will not.

He is already looking at her when she glances over her shoulder. Every muscle seizes, her breath catches, her throat closes like her body is committing to an agonisingly embarrassing death right here and now in the middle of this café with his eyes on her. She glances away first because she is a coward. Sokka is still speaking, appears not to have noticed her tapping fingers and jiggling foot beneath the table. But when Katara's eyes slide across the table to Suki, she is met with a gaze that holds far more recognition than she can stomach.

Suki raises an eyebrow. A silent question beneath the relentless timbre of Sokka's monologue. Katara blinks, looks at the table. Reaches into the pocket of the coat she has slung across the empty chair beside her and clutches the pendant with a force that unnerves her. She trembles with every intake of breath. She is freezing. There is a cluster of sweat blooming under her arms.

He approaches their table as though he hoped they wouldn't see him, head bent, feet careful and silent, hands hidden deep into the front pocket of the apron tied at his waist. He loiters at her end of the table, dressed completely in black so that the green and white nametag on his chest is even harder to ignore: Zuko.

She is suddenly certain she will vomit all over her shoes.

Shit.

"Zuko?" Sokka's exclamation is laced with jubilant surprise. "What in the hell are you doing here?" He leaps up, reaches across Suki to force a handshake upon his unwilling partner. "What's it been, three years?"

"Four." The reply is immediate, and from two sources at once. Katara thins her lips, feels Zuko stiffen not two inches away from her. Avoids Sokka's gaze as it darts back and forth between the two of them.

Shitshitshit.

"So, where have you been? What brings you back?" Sokka remains standing, leaning a hand against the back of Suki's chair as though he intends to linger in this conversation for as long as possible. As though his sister's discomfort is not slowly consuming her from the inside out as he speaks.

Zuko is close enough that she can get away with staring at the Jasmine Dragon logo stitched into the corner of his apron. She tries to count threads to avoid listening to whatever he responds with, but the minute he opens his mouth she can focus on nothing else but the familiar waves of his voice. She almost closes her eyes.

Almost.

"I was over in Makapu Village for a bit, then I did a stint in the Si Wong Desert." He pauses to swallow. She cannot see him do so, but she knows he will as soon as he takes a breath. "And I was supposed to come back to Ba Sing Se anyway to help with the outreach program in the outer ring, but, uh..." A decidedly uncomfortable pause void of swallows. "That fell through, so Uncle said I could help him out until I'm back on my feet." A shrug. Another fissure in her heart.

A silence broken by Sokka, as oblivious as the sun is reliable. "Wait, your Uncle owns this place?" He makes eyes of utter disbelief at Suki.

"He's been raving about the hot chocolates you guys do ever since he 'discovered' them last month," Suki supplies, her tone light with affectionate teasing. "Apparently, they're the best thing since– what was it?"

"Peanut sauce bombs." He plops down next to Suki and drapes himself around her, entirely at ease.

Katara cannot help herself. "Those didn't even work," she snaps somewhat icily. Sokka barely acknowledges her, focusing his energies instead on turning back to Zuko with the relaxed posture of a man who has clearly misread the room.

"How long do you think you'll be around for?"

"Uh..." Without looking, she knows Zuko's hand has found its way to the back of his neck, and she glances up before she realises that she is looking for the gesture so familiar it feels like her own skin. "I'm not sure, really. Could be a couple of months, could be..." And at that moment he turns his eyes to hers and rubs the nape of his neck and in spite of herself she is suddenly drowning in a warmth far too comforting, far too deceptive. "...longer."

"Well, let us know if there's anything we can do to help out," Sokka offers immediately, his face set into a breezy grin. "Kitty has some social outreach connections through the hospital I'm sure she'd be happy to share." He doesn't even glance at her, just waves a hand in her direction. She feels as though her stare should surely be setting him alight around about now.

"Thanks, but I'm sure that won't be necessary." Zuko's hand dives into his apron to retrieve his notepad, the other sliding the pen from within his top knot. He moves like he always has, graceful tinged with uncertainty, elegance marred by awkward hesitation. She watches his arms through the sleeves of his sweater and despises herself for it. "Did you guys want to order anything...?"

Sokka rattles off their orders: a jasmine and elderflower tea for Suki, a hot chocolate for himself, and a chai latte for Katara.

"That's without the cinnamon dusting, right?"

It is a long moment before she realises Zuko is addressing her. Addressing her with the exact part of her usual order she remembers him teasing her about on the way to their Critiques of Modern Humanitarian Aid lecture every Thursday afternoon. Back when they were capable of such insurmountable tasks as pleasant conversation. She is rendered temporarily incapacitated, unable to register her look of faint shock mirrored in his expression.

"Uh, yeah. Thanks."

SHIT.

The moment he is gone, she kicks her chair back and stands. The sound makes her flinch, makes her skin itch, and she makes sure to avoid Suki's intentional stare as she mutters something about needing the bathroom before stumbling away in what she hopes is the right direction. It is tiny, a single women's stall tucked away next to the entrance to the kitchen, with a single cracked mirror above a rusting basin. She pulls the door closed with unnecessary force and slams the lock in place with trembling hands. With a trembling body. With a trembling soul. She leans over the basin and tries to breathe. Clutches the chilled porcelain with both hands and counts the rivulets of rust racing toward the plug. Feels the acidic burn of shame at the apparition of tears on her cheeks.

Four years, and this is how she still reacts. Four years, and this is what he can still do to her.

She forces herself to meet her own gaze in the mirror and swipes away her tears with aggression she isn't entirely sure is not aimed at herself. Her face is blotchy and red from the cold, the humiliation, the shock, the tears. Her curls are a sagging mess around her head, and without thinking too hard she scoops her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck and forgets about it, choosing instead to be glad that she at least wore her favourite navy sweater that she's been told on multiple occasions brings out her eyes. She tries to study herself objectively, to see what Sokka or Suki might see when she re-joins them.

Then, more difficult, is her exercise in perceiving what Zuko would see. Would the flush in her cheeks be off-putting or endearing? Would he find her hair's careless disarray comforting or embarrassing? Would he want to reach forward and tuck that stray hair behind her ear? Would she let him?

She closes her eyes, forces a breath. This is perhaps the least helpful thing she could have done while pretending to pee in the restroom of a café she hopes never to visit again in her life.

Or perhaps yearns to linger in every day that she has left to her.

The situation is wildly out of hand and she thinks her pulse may have accelerated even further in the roughly three minutes she's spent staring at herself in this frankly appalling bathroom. She dabs toilet paper under her eyes, rearranges the stray hairs around her face, washes her hands because the soap foams and smells like lavender. Then she unlocks and pulls open the door with as much force as she slammed it with on her way in.

And walks right into Zuko.

"What the hell?" It escapes her before she can think to say anything even remotely less scathing.

He doesn't jump back or bite out a retort or really do much of anything. Except his hand goes to her wrist and he makes to tug her further into the cramped alcove in front of the door to the kitchens, and she has no option but to tug her sleeve out from his grip and glare at him with all the ire she can muster.

It must be a fair amount of ire, because he blinks and steps backward.

"Did you need something?" She should really be making an effort to soften her tone, but she can't quite find it in her to do so at the moment.

"Spirits, Kit, what are you doing here?" He says the name like he's still allowed to, as though he didn't lose those privileges four years ago, along with any right to tug her into darkened corridors or look at her like that.

"Don't you dare," she spits. "Just..." She throws her hands up because she is, for once, at a complete and total loss. Moves to step around him and is once again impaled by the burning sensation of his hand around her arm. "Zuko." She glares at him, holds his gaze and lets him hold her arm until he withers beneath her stare and shrinks away again.

"Katara." He hovers on the correct use of her name as if to draw attention to it. She remains impassive. "I just... didn't expect to see you here."

"That makes two of us." She raises an eyebrow, prompting him to elaborate on his reasons for cornering her. He simply takes a breath.

"You didn't think to let me know you were around?"

She has to laugh – just once, just a harsh exhale, really – at the utter absurdity of his suggestion. "Because we've been such good pen pals since you left? You're the one who ran off to save the world." She throws her hand in a sharp jab at his chest. "Never mind that I'm the one who stuck around and actually made a difference here. No, you're the one who deserves a warning when his–" She gasps, swallowing the rest of her words. His what? In what manner is she possibly supposed to describe herself in relation to him? She has spent so long trying not to that she no longer knows how. "Spirits, Zuko, you really know how to make an entrance."

She shakes her head. She doesn't leave.

"I'm not the only one with a cell phone, Katara. You could have at least– texted, or something."

She quirks an eyebrow at him. "And you could've done the same, if that's what you so desperately wanted. Tell me, if I'd bothered to reach out, would you have even responded?" Scoffs at his silence. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

She crosses her arms. She doesn't leave.

"So, I ask again, Zuko: did you need something? Otherwise, I'd rather like to enjoy my latte with my brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law if he ever pulls his head out of his ass and actually proposes." She is speaking too quickly, her words tripping over themselves on their way out of her mouth, her pronunciation blurring as she presses her nails into the palm of her hand to calm herself. And still he just stands and blinks and breaths loudly enough for her to hear it, enough that his exhalation flirts with one of the stray hairs resting on her cheek.

"I just wanted to ask..." His hand is at the back of his neck again and she has to look away, bite the inside of her cheek. "I just wanted to ask that you, uh, maybe get your lattes somewhere else? Just while I'm here." Now he has the decency to avoid her gaze, looking instead at his shoes. "It'll just be easier that way."

"Wow." She finds herself unable to hold back a smile. It feels faintly hysterical. "Once I would've hoped you were kidding, but I guess I should know better by now." She shakes her head, looks at her boots for a moment. "Fine. You don't want to see me? You won't see me. But don't you dare try to find me to apologise when you finally realise how much of an asshole you've been." She almost bites back the next words. "If I never see you again, it'll be too soon."

His face doesn't fall as much as she hoped it would. She does not feel as much warped satisfaction as she thought she would. And when she finally has the presence of mind to march toward the exit, the bite of winter through her fashionably impractical sweater is much more painful than she could have anticipated.

She is cursing under her breath, just a string of words rolling out of her mouth as she settles slowly into autopilot. She leans against the window of the café, at a loss as to where she should go now that she has escaped. Her head is too heavy on her neck. Her limbs are too long. There is too much of her. She is going to explode right out of her own skin. She is going to freeze to death on this sidewalk because she left without her coat and there is no way in hell she's going back in for it.

"Katara?"

Her head moves automatically in response to her name and something in her snaps at the sight of Suki gripping Katara's coat and walking toward her with her brows furrowed and forehead creased in an expression of genuine concern, Sokka just a shadow lingering at her back.

"Katara?"

She realises she hasn't responded, but when she opens her mouth tears come instead and she is suddenly gasping without inhaling. Suki takes the last few steps at a run, wraps Katara's coat across her shoulders, grips her frozen hands in her gloved palms.

"Love, what happened?"

She can tell Suki. She trusts this woman imbued with the ferocity of a mother sabretooth moose lion and the tenderness of earnest affection. Katara can tell her everything. And she will. But right now, as she tries to shove her arms into the sleeves of her coat and hold herself together, she weeps into Suki's shoulder and leaves a smattering of eye makeup on her collar.