Chapter One

The wind blew hard, sending hard pellets of rain down like bullets, but not as strong. Aang looked out into the dark storm and shivered. It was definately going to be a long night. Aang was standing outside on the large loft-like balcolny at the house that Fire Lord Zuko had had built specially for Aang and his friends. Aang always seemed to find peace out on the balcolny, and he spent a lot of time there. That cold, wet night he stood out there thinking about the journey he would have to take the following day.

He sighed, and was about to sit on the wooden railing when he heard the doors slide open, followed by soft footsteps. "Aang?" said a familiar voice. "You okay?" Aang smiled to himself as Katara put a hand on his shoulder. "Yeah," he replied softly. "Just..Thinking." Katara leaned against the railing, her arms crossed, trying to create some source of warmth for herself. "I'm glad I finally found you out here," she said. "I was looking all over the place for you. Although I guess this should've been the first placed I checked. You're always out here."

"I went into your room to give you some of your clean clothes, but when you weren't there, I thought you ran away. And with this weather...Lets just say I don't want you running away in a storm." Then she said quietly, hardly heard, "...Again." Aang sighed and dropped down into a cross-legged sitting position on the ground without a sound, resting his head on his hands. Katara sat down next to him with her legs stretched out.

"I'm sorry," she said, realizing what she just shot into his head. "It's okay. It's not that big of a deal." He said quietly, thinking, 'Yes it is.' Katara let out a sigh, not knowing what to say. If Aang had mentioned Katara's mother, she knew for herself that she would probably slap him or yell at him until he went into shock. But here was Aang, a twelve year old boy, telling her that it was okay that she sort of reminded him that his entire race had been wiped out when he ran away and it was his fault in a way so that she wouldn't feel bad. That made her feel pretty guilty.

"Well," Katara said. "It's getting pretty late. I'm going to head off to bed. See you in the morning." She yawned, and stood up. "See ya..." Aang replied, although he had a feeling that she probably wouldn't. With that, Katara walked across the balcolny, through the doors, which she closed, leaving Aang alone outside. He decided he should probably get some rest, too. He had a long day tomorrow and was ready for it. And ready for some rest.

By 4:00 in the morning, Aang was awake again, and preparing to leave. All of his things were packed; his glider, his clothes, a jug of water, and some food. That, along with Momo, was all he was taking. But there were three questions that were keeping him from leaving: Should he take Appa? Should he really leave the note he wrote to his friends? How were they going to take this? He put a lot of thought into these questions but finally came up with some reasonable answers.

He would leave Appa in case his friends needed to get somewhere, and because he didn't have enough food for Appa.

He decided to leave a note for them, because he knew at lease one of them would freak out and try to make a search for him, and he wanted to at least let them know he didn't run away...At least not without a good reason.

And then there was the third question, the one he couldn't find an answer to. How were they going to take it? What would they think of him running away like this? Aang just couldn't seem to even be able to guess what was going to go through their minds when he left. He didn't want to imagine it.

Just before he left, Aang gathered all of his things, and left the note he had written on the kitchen table. In perfect hand writing, it said:

Katara, Sokka, Toph, and Zuko,

I know that you probably aren't going to like this, but I have important Avatar business to adress. I am not going to give you my location, because I know that you would probably come looking for me if I did. But let me assure you that I am fine. I left Appa in case you guys needed a way to get somewhere far away, like the South Pole or something. I'm not sure how long I will be gone, but please, don't worry about me. I will be back in -at the most- three weeks. I'm sorry I had to leave, but this is pretty important. Take care of Appa for me, and guys, please, please, please take care of yourselves.

See you soon,

Aang

He put it somewhere that they would see it easily and headed out to the balcolny. The sun hadn't risen yet and it was still raining, but this was his only chance to leave without someone seeing him...Like Sokka. So he took hold of his ready-to-fly glider, made sure Momo was ready, and took off without looking back even once.