AN: I took a short break from my OCs to write this little(ish) piece. It was very fun to write and I hope you Zutara fans out there will enjoy it. It takes place post-post series over a kind of long period of time and the titles of each part (there will be four) are taken from the Blue October song, Everlasting Friend (which I adore). This was beta-ed by the amazing Zagury (go check out her fics if you're into Harry Potter) who saved this fic from nasty missing 'y's.

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar.

"A real-life script of how

Mistakes became our medicine"

--Everlasting Friend, Blue October

1. A Heart-Beat Skip

And if tomorrow was exactly like yesterday, she could easily declare this to be her happily ever after. But tomorrow wouldn't stretch past the dawn. He liked promising her happiness and he liked to believe that this wasall they would ever need. On those nights, the restless unremitting ones, she wondered where all his certainty came from. That he could just know for sure that this was the perfect fate they'd been assigned.

But he always had her trust because he would always be her first. Because of what he was, the Avatar, and because she was his everything. The loyalty just came with it. As long as the world wasn't waiting, as long as time was at their disposal, as long as there was nothing else that tied her to the earth then that endless string of moments with him would be all she ever truly desired. Oh, but she knew. She knew they weren't gods, spirits of a misty afterlife, and nothing lived up to the silly notion of 'endless.' And this temporary world away from worlds was only as long as a week, already half gone.

That boy's face simply sparkled. Every time he took her hand in his, his entire aura blazed. He thought so much of her, so much of himself. She saw it in his eyes when his sky beast, his pride and joy, broke the misty clouds and the temples, three of them as elegant as fairy tale castles, filled his desire driven gaze. When he spoke of all those noble selfless plans he had for the world… and for her, she saw it then too. She saw it even when he grew very silent and very still, close to meditation though not quite there, when she knew almost the exact words, the exact thoughts that went through his delicately certain mind. And still, she wondered where his confidence, his simple, almost archaic sureness came from. As sure as he was that the world was round was he just as sure that those moments would never end and that the round round world would always turn just the same. Unceasingly and forever. Those two words told tales of beliefs she never knew. Tales that were just tales in the end. Ones she wished she knew too but the sight wasn't hers, only his.

So the couple spent their days drifting on the beating breeze, or he did at least. She would watch him, trying to glimpse those past lives somewhere inside hazy gray hues. Avatar Yangchen towered, taller than life, over their unseasoned eyes, sitting tall and grand in one of many crumpling rooms. Her right knee was a decrepit mass of stone now, having long ago been damaged but she seemed not to notice. She looked for her inside of him but any trace of the incarnate's brand of wisdom was lost in the continuous cycle of rebirth.

And he, he was just trying to relish the gem of youthfulness. She was certain he would always be that same goofy kid but when she was near, he tried, too hard, to show how he had ripened since iceberg times. Still cute and still quirky, endearing still but with a slightly darker, more knowing edge. That was the best way she could describe him. It wasn't an insult.

At first light, they would sit for a time by the swirling chakra pools after he was finished bending the scummy pond slime, rather obsessively, out of each. Except for the last one. It was always left intact.

She asked him once, why he never gave it the same treatment. "For you," was his reply, quick like he had been hoping she would ask, "Guru Pathik helped me let go of all the things that held me back—" he smiled as he sat down next to her—"But you never held me back. I couldn't let go of you." She gazed down at the still pool of water, at how the green clumps gathered around the narrow outlet; at the water, choked and suffocated. She only nodded. The smile on her lips felt stale, detached, quite unlike his own gratified one.

The week went by slow in contrast to old times. They had moments of bliss; moments of letting the instants carry them away and others moments were spent in silent reverie as if to pay respects to the past. She thought a lot about her brother, wondering how he was doing on his own but Suki would watch over him in her stead. She was good for him. She wouldn't worry about Toph, the tenacious little warrior who didn't need concern. And then there was the Fire Lord in his crimson palace. She wondered if he was still holding up. Of everyone, his happily ever after seemed to have the most strings attached.

But Aang never let her dwell too much on them. She hoped it was just an act he put on; she hoped that he thought about their family just as much before he drifted off at night. They were all so sentimental to her and all of this was so sentimental to him. He never bragged, never boasted; she knew he never would, but as he took her to all the sites he had seen with the guru, showed her every waterfall, every tower of stone, every spiral set of stairs and archway carved, as if by nature's own hand, in the mountainside, every crumbling column, every cave and every peak, the vanity that radiated from him feasted upon her. He, who had to make no sacrifice, feel no humility; he, who never had to feel the guilt of violating his rules, his values; she only ever admitted her pride for him but she wondered if it would always work out so flawlessly for him in the hereafter. The world was still so messy.

He was elated, though, and maybe putting aside the messy world for a week was what he needed, what he deserved. The inner, but mostly just outer, child in him made her feel light on her feet. They say that's what love is supposed to feel like. At fourteen, she was nowhere near grown up, herself. A part of her longed for a childhood do-over too. They say experience counts for more than years. And he always understood. He was always on her side and she always knew what was right for him. But they say it's the differences that bring people together. He always listened to what he wanted to hear. She didn't know who to listen to all the time but always tried to hear herself.

Her heart and mind were in the midst of a visceral civil war. Her heart said there could be love where buried resentment lay. Her mind said she needed room to grow, to take in more of this scattered world. She thought the two could coexist; she was a believer that this fate was hers to choose, hers to make work.

Of the dozens and dozens of stunning sites and scenic places that made up the Eastern Air Temple, the pair always seemed to find their way back to the foamy pool beneath his favorite waterfall. It was her favorite too. Beneath its cool spray, they would bend the hours away, conducting the gushing falls, never falling out of step from one another. It was always those old familiar forms. They moved with grace and fluency as if the river itself commanded them. Perfect controlled steps and twirls, fluid streams of lucid spray twisting and splintering free of the currents, only broken with an occasional playful spar; that was what they seemed to live for. At least, for the week, they did.

It felt just right enough that she didn't toss and turn in the night and awoke with rose-colored glasses tailoring her sight just enough. There was nothing Katara wanted more than to just believe this wasn't loneliness.

AN: I should probably add, this is my first shot at romance, first shot at writing about canon characters and first shot at writing something that isn't a billion chapters long. Lots of firsts for me, there, so critique is always loved. The next three parts are already written and I'll post them over the next week or so (I'm lazy).