Aang!
He looked up at Katara who was holding him, and smiled. He came back to life. The spirit water had healed him. As he held his dazzled gaze at Katara, and she to his, she looked deeply into his capturing, grey, mesmerizing eyes. Time stopped. Their eyes only recognized the existence of each other, and for the first time, she knew what his look meant. It wasn't just a mere thanks for saving my life; it was a look that said, "I love you."
He had given her this look countless times before but she had never construed it as Aang had wanted her to. His eyes slowly began to close. He passed out.
Katara, still holding him, looked at him with a sad but happy smile. A smile that is only given when someone has been put through something and you are glad that they are all right. A smile that says, "If something were to happen, I don't know how I could live without you."
Then, it occurred to her.
She quickly shook her current mindset and viewed him for the first time from a different angle.
No, it's not possible, how is it that I love him?! she incredulously thought.
He was two years younger than her, she fourteen, and he twelve. He was so young, so childish, and above all, irresponsible and carefree!
She loved a boy, and not a man. She sat back in disappointment. Then, she started to think. Her last boyfriend Jet was cool, relaxed, and assuring. He was a badass who had a team of fighters ready to comply with his responsible commands. But wait; he wasn't relaxed, he wasn't responsible, he wasn't a leader! He had tried destroying a Fire Nation village full of innocent people. And he succeeded. But Katara was too blind to believe her brother when he had told her. Sokka was someone who she had known all her life and should have trusted in when sensitive things such as this arose. But she didn't. Rather, she chose to believe in Jet, someone she had known for a week, in contrast to her brother, who she had known fourteen years.
After the destruction of the village, she found that Jet was a tyrant who imperiously commanded his team to do unnecessary and un-noble things. Wrong things. Bad things. He was destructive, menacing and vengeful, and Katara unfortunately found guys like this fascinating and exhilarating, especially when they had lost a parent to the Fire Nation like Jet, just as Katara had. This is the only way she ever tried to connect with people she wanted to love, and she wouldn't love them or even develop any feelings unless they had, it seemed. It was quite arbitrary. She fell in what she thought was love based on that one thing. That was the foundation, but where was the rest that the foundation supported?
Katara looked at Aang, and it hit her. What she hadn't given thought to was the whole race of people, Aang's people, that had been massacred and were now extinct, except for Aang, the last living Airbender and the only Avatar. The only one who is capable of bending all four elements: water, earth, fire, and air; the only one capable of saving the world. How stupid, how inconsiderate, how blind she was! He not only lost his master and friends, but his entire race!
Hey Katara! Is he okay? Toph and Sokka shouted.
Leave us alone!
She turned back to Aang and held him closer, questioning what had made her fall in love with Aang. My god! The cave of two lovers! Of course! How could I have neglected it the whole time! Aang had said, "Us kissing?!" excitedly. And I had said, "Yes," to which Aang dreamily restated, "Us. Kissing…"
She pounded her fist against her head.
Then we kissed! We had needed to kiss in order to light the path to get out of that labyrinth! And afterward, when we had found Sokka, Toph, and the traveling love nomads outside waiting for us, and they had asked whether we were all right and how we had gotten out, I blushed and stared down at the ground as Aang answered them. I was embarrassed, but also slightly jubilant! I justified it though. I justified why I couldn't be with him-the most powerful person in the world! And it was probably because of the illogical rationalization that he was only two years younger.
She thought to herself a little more.
When I was in trouble at the Earth Kingdom in Ba Sing Se, how did Aang know to find me? How did he know to come? How did he know I was in trouble! He was half way across the world…
Aang had been half way across the world at the Eastern Air Temple studying with Guru Pathik to master the Avatar State.
He must have mastered the Avatar State. Wait… no, that's impossible. He lied! He didn't master the Avatar State! He saved me instead! He would have been able to immediately go into it before Azula shot him down with lightening a couple of minutes ago! He risked harnessing the most stalwart power in the world, giving up the chance to end the war early.
Katara sighed a breath that almost knocked her unconscious, but quickly regained herself, thinking about more.
When I had lost my necklace after Zuko attacked us, Aang made me a new one he crafted himself, out of his love for me, and after he had given it to me, I told him he was like a brother to me. I hurt his feelings! And when we crossed paths with Zuko again, he risked his life, slipping and pivoting away from the fast, incessant fire Zuko bent just for that necklace. Now that I think about it, he saved my life back at the cave when Aang, Appa and I were separated. I almost died because I was standing in front of a cave-in that almost crushed me. Aang tackled me to the other side. Even then, he risked his life almost being crushed himself because of his love for me which I was so blind to know of. He knew he might never have a chance of being with me, but he still went to hell and back, looking death in the face knowing he might never have a chance to see his life again. For me.
She looked down at Aang, and lunged toward his lips passionately and furiously locking them with hers. She broke away after a few seconds, and a tear ran down her cheek.
"I'm so sorry Aang," she wept,holding his nearly lifeless body. I'm so sorry.