First post ever, and for an older fandom, so I'm kinda nervous but I hope it's not absolutely awful! Also I'm currently using my phone to post and write this and I haven't figured out all the controls so just bare with me. I have been rewatching this series from when I was a kid and this just kinda happened. It's just a one-shot, I promise. Enjoy!
Listened to Couple of Kids by Maggie Lindemann and Time to Say Goodbye by Lauren Aquilina on a loop while writing this (its inspired heavily by both of them). Check them out.
For him, loving them both was inevitable.
Just two very different types of inevitable, as they made two very different types of sense.
With Katara, it was expected. It was as if the fates had written it in the stars tht he would fall for her, completely naive and oblivious. He hadn't known a single thing about love and yet he was sure; he loved her with everything he had. In his defense, he wasn't wrong in that respect. She is smart and kind and one of the fiercest people he had ever met, and he's live a long time. Whenever he was with her, he felt a thick bundle of something akin to contentment lingering in his chest. It was a soft kind of happiness that he hadn't felt in a very long while. Too long.
With Katara, he felt that he could be his complete self, good and bad. He liked this because she accepted all of him. She loved every part of him and sometimes he would wake up in the morning and wonder if the day had finally come where she would find something, anything about him that displeased her enough to make it known. Even now that day has not arrived and he almost still expects it to. Around Katara, she always made everything seem like it would be okay like there was still hope and love to be had. Katara often lifted the weight he always carried around on his shoulders or lessened it at least. With her, he felt perfect and enough, and sometimes he clung to that.
There were days where he could perfectly picture every single day for the rest of his life- all his lives, really -right next to her, just like the day before. And as uneventful as they may have been, he would cherish it and keep it close to his heart. Just like her. He would capture every moment with his eyes and tuck it away safely in his mind and store it with all his other memories; never to be forgotten.
The reasons why he loved Katara- why he had since he'd woken up in her arms, surrounded by ice -was as endless as the number of lives he's lived. It could go on and on forever if he let it. And he could.
Toph, however, was her equal and her opposite in every sense of the word.
Aang almost finds it humorous that the world would make it so he loved two people who couldn't be more different. Where Katara was kind and gentle, Toph was sarcastic and loud. Where Katara was selfless and nurturing, Toph was self-reliant and though part of their team (family more like), preferred to do things alone.
With Toph, his other inevitability, things were never as they seemed. Unlike with Katara, the love he saw coming from a mile away, she was like a punch to the stomach. She was the one with the lack of sight and yet he was the one who was blinded. From the second he'd seen her in the swamp, and then again as The Blind Bandit, he suddenly knew everything would change. It was as if he had foreseen them and Katara and his internal battle. Toph had caught him entirely off-guard. Falling for her was like free-falling down an endless pit, not having the sense to care about the fact that there was no ground to land on- but rather relishing in it.
Whenever he was with Toph, instead of that steady throbbing ease he always had with Katara, he found a bursting sense of wildness, youth, and freedom cooling in his gut. With her, he had someone to understand and enjoy this special part of him that felt it could defy everything he'd ever known. With Toph, he could also be his complete self, but rest assured she was still nothing like Katara. She accepted every part of him as well, but with Toph, he knew there were parts of him she could very well do without. With Toph, he knew there were parts of him she didn't like, parts of him she wishes she could strangle out.
With Toph, he felt in no way perfect like with Katara. But instead, he felt flawed and human, equal to everyone else. He wasn't an icon or hero people relied on and turned to when they needed his help. With Toph, he was just Aang. Sometimes he clung to that. With her, that weight didn't disappear or dull, but it was shared.
They were two different types of inevitable.
Where being with Katara made sense, being with Toph felt like breaking the rules. Being with Katara was like an incredibly needed, long overdue breath of fresh air, filling his deprived lungs; like coming up for air after spending his whole life under water. Being with Toph was like feeling the grass underneath his feet for the first time. It was like running through open fields and forests and exploring the whole wide world because he could. Being with Toph was like first stepping foot on the ground after living only in the sky.
They both gave him a feeling of permanence, dependability, and security. With them both, he knew, either way, nothing was temporary. He couldn't build a life, whether it be steady, blissful, and reliable or passionate, invincible, and defiant.
Unfortunately, a choice was as inevitable as they were.
As Aang grew up with these loves that he carried around and matured, he noticed two things. One; although none of his feelings changed, he learned that some of them weren't what he once perceived them to be. Two; just because he loved them both, doesn't mean they felt the same.
One of them, he knew, had found what he did in someone else. Even if she couldn't admit it to herself, he saw it. At first, he thought it was why he had felt for her, but he watched as it progressed into what his feelings never did. Aang watched slowly as they realized something similar.
Whereas she realized the love she had for the man that wasn't him, he realized the feelings he had stored away for her was just a ghost of what he had wanted it to be.
What he had felt for her was something much more simple than he had made it out of be. The imaginary thoughts and feelings and ideas of love he thought he harbored for her was just that: imaginary. Fabricated by what he wanted, not what he had. He built it up through the years, higher and higher until he was nearly fooled. Though something in him, deep down, something he used to hate, had always known the truth.
She kissed the other man and Aang had to finally let go of what never would've been.
It was (almost) surpringly much easier than he thought it would be.
He took a trip on his glider after that, not far, not for long. He had left a note this time, letting her know he was fine and he'd be back later. They probably thought he was having another one of his fits, being childish and immature. Though, if he was being honest with himself, he was getting up the nerve to accept both his decision and his realization.
It wasn't like he had only chosen her because the other was no longer an option. No. Truth be told, something inside him, maybe the same thing that had seen this coming, knew things would have ended like this regardless. It didn't matter what he or either of them hadn't done- or could have done -he knew his choice would have been the same. It would have been what it is now.
He flew back to Ember Island, where everyone from the Gaang (Sokka's name, not his) was taking a well-deserved and under appreciated vacation.
He passed Sokka and Suki, who were busy splashing around in the water. He passed MoMo and Appa, who were napping in the sun. He passed by Mai and Ty Lee (who had also been invited in an attempt to patch things up between them since the war), who were sitting around the fire that they had lit themselves. He passed by Zuko, who was enjoying his newfound happiness in the one Aang had let go, the girl Zuko loved.
Finally, as the sun began to set and the sky tinted with hues of pink and orange, he sat himself down in the sand.
The object of his affections and the one he'd silently vied for, for far too long turned to him with a curious frown. "Where have you been Twinkle Toes? I've been sitting here building a model Fire Palace by myself while Sweetness and Sparky over there have been overbearinngly affectionate."
Aang shook his head fondly at the earthbender, knowing she couldn't see it. "Just out for a fly, Toph. Don't worry about it."
He could practically feel his face unwittingly split in half as a wide smile took over his features. Toph, though blind, seemed to sense this, too, because she didn't end the conversation there.
He didn't think she would.
"I can't even see and I know you're smiling. You're hiding something!" She accused goodnaturedly, blowing her black hair from her forehead, only for it to fall back into the same place.
He laughed, not being able to help himself. "No, I'm not. You're just being paranoid, Toph."
Toph growled vexed, though it held no actual venom. "I can tell you're lying." She crossed her arms.
Chuckling, he simply patted her shoulder. In afraid of her powers of perception. "If you say so."
Her tongue clicked and she swatted at his hand. To the blind eye (no pun intended), it would seem as though she were angry. But to those who know Toph, it's clear that she's just irritated at her lack of information. The girl loves to know everything. She usually does.
"Twinkle Toes, just spit it out!" Her gaze, though unseeing, penetrated him and Aang had to hold back another laugh. "Why did you go? What are you thinking about?"
He shrugged, more to himself than to her. "Nothing, Toph. Just inevitability."