The day of her husband's funeral was a beautiful one, with almost no clouds in the sky and birds singing on every tree. Nature seemed to follow its usual course, blissfully normal, and some may have found consolation in knowing that the cycle of life had done nothing but move forward, hoping that eventually they could do the same.

But not her. Aang would have loved to know that his official goodbye would take place in such a beautiful day, but Katara couldn't focus on anything when all the flags in the city were at half-mast and there were so many people in white. Anytime one of Aang's acquaintances or coworkers or admirers came to her to give their condolences, she hid how her teeth gritted: it was too much; she wanted to scream at them at the top of her lungs "Get on with your lives! You didn't know him, you couldn't have known him like I did, so stop pretending and leave me alone with my grief, just LEAVE ME ALONE!"

But she nodded and smiled faintly at every well-wisher, letting them take her wrinkled hands and pat her back.

The only ones she would never lash out to (and ironically, the only ones who would let her) were Zuko, Toph, Sokka and her children. Thank the heavens for them.

Kya had been impossible to locate but had still somehow sensed that something was wrong in Republic City. She had arrived two days ago at dusk with her fleece-lined bag and a wild, concerned look in her eyes, after being away for months without sending any letters; and only found out that her father had died two hours before. She was the only one that Katara had actively wanted to comfort, her poor lost little girl who never got to say goodbye.

Tenzin, her adored ever-responsible youngest, had taken over the duty of talking to the White Lotus masters for her and arrange the preparations for finding the next Avatar, and she didn't have enough words to thank him. It would be some time before he or she could be located and identified, but it was comforting to simply let other people take over, knowing the first thing they'd do would be telling Katara "we found them."

…

"We found him. He lives right here in Harbor City, and he's… Mother, he can already bend three elements."

"His name is Korrak."

…

The past four years had been surprisingly kind to her after the first strike of grief, and her daughter had helped like no other, but Katara went to meet Aang's reincarnation with a growing numbness in her bones. She knew the parents in passing, a sweet young couple who lived near the outskirts in a tiny igloo, and they were so considerate and polite, never mentioning any prickly subjects and only gushing about their son over three cups of green tea, that a bit their happiness rubbed off on her. She had just started to laugh along with their anecdotes of little Korrak's antics, and even happily shared some of her own Aang tales, when-

"Mom! The bearded Lotus guy said there was a visitor I'd wanna meet!"

The heavy door opened with surprising ease considering the interloper was only four years old and not even up to Katara's waist, with baby fat clinging to his cheeks and little pink hands, a pout hidden somewhere behind his mouth. He wasn't anything she hadn't expected, just a Water Tribe toddler amongst a thousand looking at her in wonder, but when his father stood to make introductions, the boy ran up at Katara squealing her name and hugged her fiercely.

The teacup shattered.

Katara barely even heard it over the echo of Korrak's giddy shout, sat him on her knees and returned his hug. He pulled away and kissed her cheek, and only then did she notice that she was crying.

…

Even the so-called greatest waterbender alive and widow of the Avatar couldn't do much against the combined force of her own son, a protective father and a dozen worried White Lotus scholars, no matter how much she argued. She didn't even think they were completely in the wrong. Korrak couldn't be put at risk, and the terrorists who tried to abduct him would probably be only the first of many. If placing him in a compound until he came of age was what they needed to protect him, they'd do it.

You want to shape him into another Aang. You want to make him obey you, yet you also want him to be decisive. You want to preserve his innocence, yet you expect him to know what to do when he's ready to face the world. What will he grow up to be?

No one kept a closer watch on Korrak than Katara, despite all the White Lotus' guards and curfews and regulations. She knew perfectly well that protection didn't equal confinement, and supervision wasn't the same as control. The old impulse of wanting to freeze those old stiffs to the wall until they did what she wanted flared up every now and then, but forcing them to do things her way would be worse and more hypocritical than their own methods.

So Katara manipulated them, softly, with kind smiles and wise words that no one dared defy. She shamed them into letting Senna and Tonraq visit whenever they wanted without needing to tell the White Lotus in advance (half-hoping they would catch old Naartok yelling at their son and make him step down from his post), she told them nostalgic stories about Appa and Momo and Roku's dragon when they tried to refuse Korrak the right to keep the playful polar bear-dog cub he'd found in the tundra. She taught him healing and, more importantly, got him interested in it.

All the while, she saw her sweet protégé grow and thrive even in such a reclusive lifestyle. And grow he did! Korrak towered over her by the time he was thirteen (not that it was a great feat), at that time when he was all gangly limbs and a cracking voice. Even in his teen years he found it easy confiding in Katara, and that was the best gift he could have given her. Others only saw a friendly but rather arrogant teenager in the stupidest of ages, stubborn, impulsive and impulsively kind, and while she knew that part of him well, it was only the tip of the iceberg.

She doubted even his own parents knew how frustrated and worried he actually was about his shortcomings in airbending and the spiritual aspect of being the Avatar. She followed his progress closely, but taking care to never hover, and as a result he told her everything without Katara ever needing to ask. At fourteen and stumbling over his words, Korrak had told her about the first girl he crushed on (Anouk, his own age and daughter of one of his father's hunting partners; he couldn't remember her eye color but waxed poetical about her dry wit and mastery of the spear) and Katara gave him the spar of his life to put him out of his misery when she moved away.

The day of his firebending test, if Katara had been asked whether she trusted Korrak to travel the world on his own, she would have answered "yes". Well, maybe not on his own; after all, everyone needs counsel and support, elemental masters or not. He was seventeen now, well past the awkward age, nearing six feet two and capable of lifting a man over his head, and when he put his mind to it he could be exceptionally smart (unfortunately, he nearly always let his muscles do the thinking, sigh).

Her family's arrival had been on her mind for weeks on end, even before Korrak's firebending test. Meelo had only been a baby the last time she'd seen him, and now he appeared to be as much of a handful as Bumi and Korrak had been (goodness forbid!). If Katara had to pick the one grandchild she liked spending time with the best, it would undoubtedly be Jinora. Ikki was like a twelve-year-old Aang on a sugar rush, which alternated between adorable and exasperating, and she wouldn't change a single moment with them for all the peace of the Spirit World.

Of course they would have to leave the next day.

She still had Kya; surprisingly, her baby girl had never left the South Pole again. Katara loved that her daughter had found her place in the world, and that she didn't see taking care of her mother as a burden but as a pleasure, but oh, goodness, she would have given her bending for seeing their family together again.

Republic City had been Aang's city, his and Zuko's brainchild, and no one loved it more than he had. To hear Tenzin talking under his breath about triads and economic injustice and those crazy Equalists who may or may not have a point for all their garbage, to her, was like seeing her husband's legacy torn apart and spat on. Adding to the injury was that Korrak, the Avatar himself, was forbidden to go there to help. He could learn so much in Republic City, and not only about airbending and spirituality; for all his naïveté, he'd be a breath of fresh air and probably just what they needed. Not to mention he'd probably have a blast beating up gangsters.

That night she said goodbye to him, much like her own Gran-Gran had sent her and her brother off to save the world seventy years before. He bowed to her and she hugged him, remembering a chubby little boy with a familiar spark in his eyes.

"Goodbye, Korrak."

Katara absently thought, hugging Aang is just as beautiful in either life.