The Return - A Zutara Fanfiction

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."