Aang knew his death was coming.
He knew.
It was a feeling, an intuition, that special Avatar sense that told him his days were numbered. Nobody could or wanted to believe him, but they knew he was telling the truth, they knew that he was going to leave them first.
He was only sixty-six.
He shared the knowledge quietly, but it did not stay quiet for long.
Katara knew first, then his children, then his friends, then the Air Acolytes, then Republic City, then the world. News spread fast, and soon people began to look upon the Avatar's life in a more historical context. So many things had been accomplished, but so many things were left undone. He was leaving so much behind, and after he'd be gone, there was so much that would never be. So many, so much. The fact hung thickly every time the news of his imminent death whispered in the world's ears and got people talking once more.
But when he was at home on the island he'd built for his people, for the Air Nomads that would be one day (for he hoped so strongly his dream would come true), things were different. And things changed as time passed and he grew more quiet, more still, more serene, more dead.
His friends had reacted strongly when he'd first told them:
Suki had stared, unblinking, mouth agape.
"You're lying," Toph had said. "I can tell that you're lying. Why are you lying?"
Zuko had hugged him and cried.
Sokka had left the room.
Katara had followed her brother, making sure that he was all right, making sure that he was okay. It was something she did for everybody, and she took it on as if it were her job. She tried to make everything right and make everybody happy. She consulted with the Acolytes to make sure everything was recorded that needed to be in order to preserve Aang's culture. She invited their friends into their home, cooking huge dinners every night so they could all spend time with him. Everybody worked a little less, except for Katara, for her time was spent helping and reassuring and loving and caring them all as her husband slowly, slowly, left the mortal world.
And all the while she was never without a smile, a hug, a hand.
Sokka noticed.
In the last days, those short last days, Aang spent much time with his family and with his friends, and he asked them quietly one night if he could share some alone time with each of them. He had last words.
He lay in bed as he spoke with everyone, propped up on pillows so he could see their faces. He spoke with his children. He spoke with Zuko. He spoke with Toph. He spoke with Suki. Sokka waited outside the room for a long time, watching each of his friends leave with grief on their faces, on their eyelashes. Aang called Sokka in, and he stood, the emptiness filling him.
When Sokka had first heard that Aang was to die, he had rushed out, not wanting to believe, not wanting to accept. When he came in to speak to him, to hear those last words meant just for his ears and his alone, he entered slowly, cautiously, yet willingly; the door creaked as he slid it open. The steps he took to the bed were long. They were heavy. They were sad. Aang was smiling at him, and he tried to smile back, but he felt his lips shake and he soon gave up on the attempt. He sat in the chair next to the bed and leaned forward.
"Hey, buddy," Sokka said. He tried again to smile, tried to think of some joke or some memory that they shared because he wanted Aang to laugh, he wanted to make him laugh so badly, but there was nothing there. So they were silent, letting the fifty years of friendship speak for them, letting the fifty years fill the space that laughter had once held.
Sokka finally reached forward for his hand, and Aang grasped it tightly. Their hands were old now. Old and tough but Sokka's were still strong. Aang's were not.
"How have you been... doing?" Aang asked him. "How has... everyone been doing?"
"Fine," he said, voice cracking, "Just fine."
"...Sokka. Don't."
"Don't what?"
"You've never been... a good liar." Aang's breaths were short, ragged, limited, loud and raspy as his bending failed him and his life left him. Sokka inhaled deeply and sat back in his chair.
"Terribly, Aang. We're all doing terribly." Aang nodded. Sokka continued, "Except for Katara, that is. But she's always been able to take care of herself, you know. You of all people know."
Aang lost his smile, and Sokka knew that he was still saving the hardest goodbye for last. "I know," he said, staring at the wall as he spoke. "She'll... take care of you all... after I'm gone. She's strong."
Sokka felt his throat constrict, felt his hot tears fight against his stubbornness. He knew Katara. "Yeah. She is."
"But Sokka... the day will come when... it hits her that I'm gone."
Their eyes met then, and Sokka knew the words that were coming. He knew them because they had slept in his dreams, had haunted his memories, had colored him and defined him. He knew the words, the ones he had heard his whole life, the words that Aang wanted to leave him with. So Sokka held his hand once more and looked at his friend and opened his ears and let the words come to him.
"Take care of your sister for me, okay?"
-
Their father's departure was a fast one.
It had been planned, but it was all so fast. It was possible that time had sped up, or that Sokka had just lost track of it because he wasn't paying attention to the way the men in his tribe said goodbye to their wives and children, he wasn't paying attention to the way his father packed his weapons, wasn't paying attention to the way that Katara watched intently from the other room, hand resting on the wall and eyes resting on him.
He had heard his father tell them both goodbye, had felt his father's lips on the top of his head and had seen Katara wave out until their father's silhouette had faded, but he wasn't paying attention to any of it. He paid attention to his own plans, to the careful application of the paint on his face, black and white and gray because he was a warrior. He was a wolf.
His sister stood in the shadows and watched him. "You need another line on your chin," she said. He jumped, smudging the makeup. "Here," she said, approaching him. Katara wiped his chin and redid the colors, being careful with her strokes as she painted the last touches on her brother's face. She set the brush down and put her hands in her lap. Her eyes were sad. "Dad won't let you go, you know."
"Shut up," he growled, standing up. He grabbed his pack and ran out into the snow and Katara watched him. She was lying. Katara was lying. He was a wolf.
"Sokka!" she cried, standing, makeup spilling to the floor, but he left her there alone and he ran, ran, ran.
His lungs were full of frozen air, each breath deeply thin, yet still he ran to catch up. He wouldn't let them leave without him. They needed him. He needed him. Sokka needed him.
"I'm coming with you!" Sokka panted out and Hakoda turned to him, strong and broken.
"You're not old enough to go to war, Sokka. You know that."
His desperation began to leak through. "I'm strong, I'm brave. I can fight! Please, Dad!"
His father laid a hand on his shoulder. "Being a man is knowing where you're needed the most. And for you right now, that's here, protecting your sister."
"I don't understand." His eyes burned. Everything was blurry. Everything was cold.
"Someday you will."
Sokka threw his pack down and threw himself into his father's arms, burying his face in his rough parka, letting the tears ruin the makeup that Katara had fixed for him. "I'm gonna miss you so much," he said, and his father held him tight.
"Take care of your sister for me, okay?"
-
Katara was so very sick.
She'd been coughing, feverish, going in and out of a daze for hours. Her skin shone with a layer of sweat; her breaths were shaky, shivery. Sokka sat at her bedside, fidgety, swearing to himself that it was his fault.
He'd seen her sniffling and ignored it, he'd ignored that she'd complained of a headache. It was snowing outside, that fluffy, wet kind of snow that tickled his nose when it melted on his skin, and Sokka had been dying to go outside. It didn't matter that she was sick. He didn't know how long this would last, and he could never let this sort of opportunity pass him by. He had to show her that his aim with snowballs was better than hers, even without any stupid waterbending.
So they went out into the cold, into the snow. They played and she laughed and he pommeled her with snowballs and they rolled around and then she fainted.
The snow fell quietly. Nobody heard him cry out for help. Sokka grabbed her by her wrists and dragged her back home, pulling her through the doorway with the apology tumbling from his mouth.
"Mom, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."
He was the one who'd convinced her to play with him, he was the one who had ignored the symptoms, and now she was sicker than ever.
The hours passed and Sokka waited and the fire crackled. Katara groaned in her sleep. A voice spoke from behind him.
"She's still sleeping?"
Sokka turned to see their mother, calm as always. "Is she... is she gonna die?"
Kya smiled at him and ran her fingers through his hair. It tickled. "No, sweetheart, she's not going to die. She'll be just fine with you here. Don't worry." His mother's smile was gentle.
He was still nervous and guilty. "Mom, I-"
"I have to leave for a few minutes to get some medicine for her, though." Kya stood and bundled up in her coat, offering a smile to her son.
He swallowed the guilt and nodded and turned back to his little sister. Katara was still, looking so small and fragile in front of him. It scared him. What would he do if she actually...
"Take care of your sister for me, okay?"
-
Her mother, her father, her husband.
They all had told him the same words, and those words had followed Sokka his entire life. She was strong, but he was her big brother, and he refused to forget the duty that had been given to him by the three people that loved her.
Sokka did not forget, even when his time came. His death came suddenly and intensely, like a blizzard on a black, winter night.
Dark clouds loomed, pains and tingles and hunches and little telltale signs that only in hindsight were seen as omens. He didn't think anything of them at the time, but then came the storm. It was a heart attack. It was luck or fate or something that Katara had been there, and she ran to him, crashing to her old, weary knees when she saw him on the ground, face scrunched up in pain.
She tried to heal him. Oh, how she tried.
"Sokka! Sokka!" she screamed his name. "Don't close your eyes! Stay with me!"
It was strange; she'd healed so many people and saved so many lives but her hands were trembling. Perhaps it was because they knew more than she did that it was too late. Sokka grabbed her hands because he knew he was going to die and he knew that even though his mother loved Katara and his father loved Katara and Aang loved Katara, and they all had said the words and they all had meant them and they loved this girl, this woman so, so much... Even though they'd loved her...
He loved her most.
"Take care of yourself for me, okay?"
-
Katara listened.
She was the last of them, and she'd seen so much. She'd seen the world change and develop. She'd seen the new Avatar grow into a beautiful, strong, powerful woman. And she'd seen four grandchildren live and laugh and carry on the legacy that her love had so desperately desired.
When Jinora had come to her after she first got her tattoos, and as Katara's healing hands had run across the bloody arrows, her heart sighed and her tears fell, sprinkling her eldest granddaughter's back because his dream would come true.
But her eyes were the only ones that had seen these things.
Her mother, her father, her husband, her brother, her friends were gone. They were all gone and had left a silence for her when she drank her morning tea and let herself think of all the adventures they had, of all the memories that she had made with them. She was old, yes, yet still she listened to Sokka's words. She took care of herself like he'd asked her to. But Katara had seen so much death that she knew very well that it was unavoidable.
The sickness came silently, slowly.
She would bend the liquid from her lungs weekly, then daily because she had listened to her brother. She did this all in secret, for she dared not burden anyone else with something that was so natural and expected.
It was not strange that of all people to realize it, Korra was the first. She'd returned to the South Pole on a trip and had made sure that she had a few hours to spend with Katara. She'd realized it when they were alone, when they could be honest with each other, like a true master and student.
The two of them were opening their chis, stretching, and doing some relaxing waterbending moves when Korra saw that something was off. It might have been the way that Katara could no longer bend her body the right way. It might have been the way she could no longer bend water the right way. Either way, Korra noticed.
"You're dying aren't you, Master Katara?"
"Everybody is dying, Korra."
"But you're really dying... dying-dying, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"I can't help you, can I?"
"...No."
Korra's trip was supposed to be a short one. She was supposed to leave, to go back to Republic City to where her home really was, to where she was needed. Instead, she insisted on staying in the South Pole for as long as needed, making Katara comfortable.
Katara was one of the few who knew, possibly because she was one of the few who could really see the Avatar for the person that she was beneath her responsibilities, but Korra truly was a sweet young woman. It was one of the few things that she and Aang happened to share. Even when Katara tried to get her to go back, she had refused.
It was so like him.
Her last days were kind to her. Korra spent every day with her master, and Katara appreciated that. They talked for hours, both of Katara's past and of Korra's future. Korra smiled for her every day except when Katara told her how proud she was of her. Then Korra cried, and Katara wiped her tears for her.
One night, though, after Korra had left her room with a goodnight but not a goodbye, Katara just knew that it was the last. She lay in her bed with a small note she'd written for Korra pressed against her chest. Katara lay there, and she sighed, knowing that the breaths she took were numbered. It was a feeling, an intuition. These were her last moments in this world.
She was alone.
Katara had always thought that she'd spend her last moments thinking of Aang, of her best friend and lover, and if not him, then she'd be thinking of her children, the lights of her life. She was wrong, though, because it wasn't them she thought of in those last moments before her death. In those last few moments, she thought of the one who had been there longer than anyone else. She thought of her brother.
She thought of Sokka.
She remembered when she woke while she'd been sick and how he sat by her bed, wiping her face with a cold rag. She remembered when he found her crying in the snow, after she'd chased him when he'd run after their father and how he picked her up and they walked back home together. She remembered when she told him that he was going to be an uncle, and the way his grin spread from ear to ear. She remembered his jokes, his smile, his protectiveness and the team they made time and time again.
She remembered the way that he held her as she bawled, months after Aang's death, when she finally let the grief in. She remembered the way that he held her together.
And now she knew. She knew as she closed her eyes for the last time that he was waiting for her.
They were all waiting for her.
-
When Korra came in the morning to greet her master, the room was still. She knew that Katara was gone, and she was not surprised. It was expected. But as she stepped forward, she was surprised to see a small note addressed to her, a note that Katara held in death.
Korra took the note and read. There were only two words left for her:
Take care.