Custard Danish is not, despite what his Uncle says, a proper replacement for Twinkies. Uncle may get his way because it's his birthday party and that all family and friends are here, but custard Danish a replacement for Twinkies?

Never.

Not.

Never will be!

Katara stabs him with a fork, a frown on her lips. "Oi. You eating it or not?"

No, I'd rather not, hangs on his mouth, almost spilling over, but then Zuko remembers that Katara loves pastries of all sorts, that he loves things with creamy ingredients of all sorts (--no, just Twinkies--) and that his relatives lurking over at the other side of the garden loves adorable Kodak moments of all sorts. Never mind that these 'oh, cute Zuzu! photographs' are taken without his consent -- because he's eleven; he can't give any -- and that his partner loathes photographs.

He can't disappoint though, because that's just not like him (and Uncle would be horribly upset) and continues with the generous slab of custard Danish, balanced on his mother's favourite china on both their knees. Katara is beginning to polish off a quarter of their equally (in her terms) halved portions and Zuko suddenly worries that she'll invade into his share.

The challenge is set; if he lets her get away with taking his custard Danish, she'll imagine that she could take over his Twinkies too!

(So her Gran-Gran buys the Twinkies and Katara shares them out; that, he thinks, is not the point because Mom made this custard Danish! I have more rights to it!)

Zuko suddenly and rather enthusiastically digs into it, all the while keeping his table manners perfect. Katara notices this, but does not notice the glint of the jet-black camera (on a tripod! They got a tripod too!) a good distance away from her and pointed at both of them.

"Stop eating so fast! You'll get into my half!"

A flake of buttery-warm almond almost went down the wrong way in his throat; he coughed slightly and waved it off before Katara could stop their contest. It's alright; don't think this will stop me!

She grins, but still a little worried and cuts away a portion of custard pastry with the side of her fork. There are almonds on it and if he squinted enough, there was cinnamon and vanilla sugar sprinkled over it too--

That's not fair!

Katara jabs the sharp end of her utensil into it and raises it to her mouth--

"Katara! You won't believe that they actually bought Krispy Kreme doughnuts because you asked! C'mon--"

Her fork is in mid-air; there's a delectable piece of pastry with a creamy topping and Katara's not looking.

Zuko leans forward with his sudden ultimatum and closes his mouth around it; she takes the exact opportunity to spin back around, confused about the extra weight pulling her fork-holding hand down.

"Zuko!"

At the other side of the garden, the shutters of Uncle's conservationist friend Chong snap for a perfect photo. It is a considerably good image -- of Zuko leaning over Katara's knees to take the danish from her fork and Katara's occupied hand frozen in midair, with her face stunned by her friend's boldness -- and it's even better that it was taken a second before she tackles him.