Point in Timeline: Immediately post canon.
Level of Explicitness: Hand-holding and cuddles. Pure fluff.
He'd been dreaming of this for months on end. As a matter of fact, he'd been dreaming about it ever since the day he'd awoken from the iceberg and seen her face above him.
Of course, as Aang was quickly learning, there was a very large difference between dreaming and doing.
That kiss on the balcony of the Jasmine Dragon had felt right. In that moment, all doubts had been removed: he loved Katara, and Katara loved him back. There was no more war, no life-or-death battles to be fought, and they were finally free to just be.
It wasn't until the next day that she asked him the question: "So what now?"
"Well, Zuko and I are going to have to figure out what to do about the colonies. Toph said something about starting up a metalbending school. And I think the Southern Water Tribe still needs rebuilding…"
"I meant, what about us?" Reaching forward across the table, she laid her hand gently over his. "The war is over, but honestly… I don't think I'll even know what to do with myself anymore when we're not running around trying to save the world." She laughed a little, then, and though beautiful to his ears the sound also shot a jolt of sadness through him for a reason that Aang couldn't quite put his finger on. "I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Like you said, there's all sorts of cleanup to do, and I'm sure it'll be years before we can relax at all…"
As she spoke, Aang felt his heart wrench, and he couldn't help but remember the first time they'd met.
"I haven't done this since I was a kid!"
"You still are a kid!"
Katara had no idea how to live in a world without war. She had never even had the luxury of imagining such a life.
Pushing his chair out from the table, he stood, and held out a hand. "Come with me."
"Aang?" she asked even as he pulled her unresisting from her chair and past a startled Iroh, out the door of the Jasmine Dragon to where Appa waited. "Where are we going?"
"I'm taking you out on our first official date."
Hours later, they sat hand in hand on top of the nearest convenient roof, watching the celebratory Earth Kingdom fireworks. Below them, the fountain with the lanterns in it sparkled like so many stars.
"Aang, this… this is amazing."
He tightened his arm around her waist. "I know."
"And just think, a few days ago even the Fire Nation was celebrating with us."
He smiled then, a little sadly, thinking of time spent with Kuzon in the days when 'Fire Nation' didn't automatically mean 'the enemy.' "I know."
What was done was done, however, and there was no going back. He might never see Kuzon again, or the Air Nomads, or the days before the world had been ripped apart, but he was here with Katara now, and for once in her life she had gained the hope of putting it back together.
It was time to stop dreaming, and start living.
A/N: This collection of shorts was written for a challenge, whose goal was to write about the connections of every Gaang member with every other Gaang member. And, since I'm apparently a masochist, I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone and write every single one of those as a romance. Yes, all of them. I decided to start with something easy (read: canon).
Anyway, these shorts are unrelated by anything but a common theme and I'll clearly label what's what, so feel free to read what you like and skip what you don't. That is all.