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She scrapes her sneaker across the tile, looks everywhere except for the waiting gaze of her brother and father, tugs the ends of her long hair.
"I don’t…" A sigh escapes her lips. "I don’t know how to say it."
Her father furrows his eyebrows, worry etches itself into his features. Sokka’s eyes, the same color as hers, are overbearing in intensity, his eyes going from her to Ty Lee standing beside her.
"Dad," he starts, lip twitching, "it’s obvious what she has to tell us." Hakoda gestures for him to continue. "Katara is obviously a lesbian, and Ty Lee is her girlfriend.”
Katara sputters, clenches her fists as her face changes color. “No I’m not a lesbian, you bonehead!” She whips her head to look at her friend, who awkwardly smiles and shrugs, tries to make herself as small as possible. Katara pinches the bridge of her nose. “No, what I want, what I need, is for you not to be angry with me.”
"Are you in trouble or anything? What did you do? Did you get a ticket?" Her father fires off questions, and she wishes one of his questions were right, anything but this misery she finds herself in.
Ty Lee nudges her, whispers for her to just spit it out, that her aura will be much pinker if she just said it.
"Dad, I’m pregnant."
Silence.
She closes her eyes. “I can’t bring myself to give it up or terminate, but I promise that I’ll take care of it, and I won’t let this burden you or anything. I’ll go to school when it’s older, and I’ll do whatever I have to to make sure this baby is happy and safe and taken care of.”
Silence.
"You’re pregnant." She looks into the worn eyes of her father, disbelief evident. More than likely, in his mind, there was no way that his responsible daughter would end up pregnant when she’s barely sixteen.
"I’m sorry." Her voice is hoarse, apologetic, and she opens her eyes to meet the bewildered expressions of her family. "But if it makes you feel any better, I have been peeing like a race horse, and I threw up in Toph’s bag the other day, and I can feel this heartburn in every joint on my body." Her gaze drops to the floor, watching her shoes scuff against tile. Her dear older brother was always the funny one, not so much her.
Sokka gapes at her, his mouth opening and closing, sputters a bit. “I didn’t-I didn’t even know you knew what sex was!” Katara narrows her eyes at him, because even though her brother was seventeen years old, he was still an idiot.
"Who’s the father, Katara?" Her father’s voice cuts through her irritation, his gaze set on her. Katara opens her mouth, looks away, the words bubbling to surface are unable to form. “Who is he?”
Her lips barely move when the quiet “Zuko” slides out of her mouth, but she can hear Ty Lee’s squeak behind her and the silence in front of her.
"Zuko, my friend Zuko, had sex with you?” Katara’s never heard her brother’s voice sound so dangerous, but she nods anyway, finding an interesting chip in the paint.”What did you do?”
She whips her head towards him, brows furrowed. “What do you mean, what did I do?” Her hands brace themselves on her hips, a scowl fastens itself to her features.
"Well, first of all, Zuko would never break bro code and do that, and secondly, if he didn’t have sex with his last girlfriend, what did you do to make him have sex with you?” Smug faced, he leans back into the armchair. Sokka knows his friend, and this had Katara written all over it.
"I’ll have you know that he consented to it, and he happens to be great on a bench!” Satisfied with his disgusted expression, she pales when she sees the look on her father’s face.
"Enough, you two. I just…how could you let this happen?"
Katara’s shoulders slump, a whoosh of air expels from her lungs. “It was an accident, and I take full responsibility. My baby needs me, and I’m not giving up on it.”
Yes, even though this wasn’t supposed to happen, even though she has no idea how she’s going to tell Zuko, she loves the small life growing inside of her womb, and she’ll be damned if anybody tries taking that away from her.