A/N – Are you happy now, Moe?! xD As usual, I tried my best, and though I'm not completely satisfied with the title, and the ending is a bit abrupt, I'm pretty proud of this little oneshot.
I've been dying to write a Kataang oneshot FOREVER, and after seeing that NYCC trailer, I knew I had to. Speaking of the trailer, you all saw Katara pull away from that kiss. She was surprised, I tell you! She liked it! I don't own Avatar!
I miss her. Miss her too much. Even though we train and eat and acknowledge each others' presence, I don't really see her. Don't talk to her. Don't laugh or joke with her. There is too much to do. It's almost as if ever since the eclipse, she had disappeared from my mind.
Do I still love her?
Of course. But it hurts to know that she doesn't love me back.
Day after day we all train intensely, while Sokka works on the new invasion plan. At dinner, we're all too exhausted to talk, so we eat in a quick silence.
After that?
More training. Then bed. Then we wake up and do it all over again.
But tonight is different. I can't sleep. She had been on my mind the whole day, and whenever I tried to focus on my training, well, I just couldn't!
Yawning, I drag myself to one of the many ledges of the Western Air Temple and swing my legs over the edge. Funny, I never knew how much I missed being in an Air Temple until we got here. It makes me feel connected to the other nomads, even if I wasn't born here.
Memories and thoughts churning inside my head, I almost don't hear a twig snap behind me. Almost. My head shoots around, but then I just smile and pat the area next to me.
"Hey Katara," I whisper. "Can't sleep either?" She nods and settles down a few inches away. It's a cold night. I wish she would sit closer.
For a while we just stay there, staring out ahead of us. Tall grasses sway in the late summer breeze, which seem to protect the rolling hills they stand on until day comes. The moon is high in the clear, starry sky, and turns her eyes the most remarkable shade of silver, which is almost as beautiful as the deep sea blue they usually are.
I take glances at her in quick, greedy turns of my head. She doesn't seem to notice, but breaks the silence.
"It looks like it could just go on forever, doesn't it?" she breathes, her eyes never leaving the fairy tale scenery in front of us. I murmur an agreement and uncomfortably shift my position on the cold, stony ledge. I don't like this silence.
"So, Katara…how is…uh…" I stutter, trying to start a conversation. She finally tears her eyes away from the hypnotically beautiful night sky and smiles sadly at me.
"Aang, I need to tell you something." I'd be grateful to hear her say something like that, something usual, if it weren't for the desolate tone to her voice.
I try to read her eyes, but they're too clouded and stressed. For a moment I lose myself in their starry depths, then unwillingly shake back to reality.
"What is it?" Each syllable hurts more than the one before it.
Katara takes a deep breath. "I heard you…the other night…and I couldn't…I…" Tears well up in her eyes and suddenly, she throws herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and burying her face in my chest.
"When you were sleeping, you must've transferred over to the Spirit World, and I could hear you talking to Avatar Roku. I knew it was him, because of what you said," she cried. Then I knew.
"You were asking him questions about the Avatar State, and then you said you had to give me up!"
I rub her back with one hand and run my fingers through her hair with the other. "Shh," I soothed. "I'm sorry. I was going to tell you, but-"
"No, Aang," she breaks away from my embrace and wipes her eyes delicately. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry it has to be like this. I've tried to forget about us, forget about you, but I can't."
I must have an extremely bewildered look on my face, because at this point, she laughs sarcastically and throws her arms up in the air and, just loud enough to get her point across without waking anyone up, begins to shout.
"I love you, Aang! I love you more than anything, and knowing that I can't have you is too much pain to bear. Haven't you noticed I've been ignoring you?"
I nod, too dumbfounded to speak. But I don't need to, because Katara has more to say.
"I thought that maybe I could try and forget about you, and we could just be friends. But it's not working. It never will!" she takes a few deep breaths and then starts up again. "I was happy to hear that you love me too, but you have to give me up, Aang. It's the only way to master the Avatar State, and we both know it."
Then she just stares at me expectantly, the stress in her once joyful eyes pouring out in tears and gasps. What is it about her eyes that puts me in such a trance?
I notice she's moved closer, so I swing my arm around her shoulder, and she does the same to me. Then she sighs and puts her hand to her forehead.
"This is too much," she breathes, her voice barely above a whisper. A few minutes pass by and I feel her shift beside me.
"It's late. I'm going back to bed," she sighs. Then I realize I haven't said more than one sentence through her entire confession.
"Wait!" I keep her planted on the stony ledge with my arm. She turns to me, and I see a flicker of hope in her eyes.
"So, you know I love you now, and you know that I can't love you if I want the Avatar State mastered," I started, "but there's something you don't know." She blinks anxiously.
"Yes?"
"Avatar Roku was in love with some girl named Ta Min. He even married her. They had children. But he still mastered the Avatar State no problem. So I was asking him about it that night that you heard me, and he told me the answer would reveal itself in time, that if I trusted my heart, I'd just know what to do."
I wait for her to say something, but she doesn't. She stares at me, right into my eyes, and the look on her face sends icy claws gripping at my heart. In other words, she's not satisfied.
Then she opens her mouth to speak and her eyes look back to her knees. "But if the answered will 'be revealed in time,' then what about now?" she turns to me again. "What about the invasion? What if you don't figure it out in time?"
My thoughts drift back to Ba Sing Se, before the battle when I almost got myself killed. Where Iroh and I were walking in the tunnel. I hear the wise old man's voice inside my head:
"I don't know the answer. Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel. You can't always see the light at the end of the tunnel. But if you just keep moving, you will come to a better place."
I look back to Katara, and can tell she didn't find my little glassy-eyed detour amusing.
"I don't know," I whisper. "But there's nothing we can do about it, so let's just act like nothing happened, because I can't do this on my own. The answer has to find me."
There is a long pause before she starts to speak. "So…what are we going to do? About us?" she asks. I sigh. "Your thoughts can't be all wrapped up in me while we're training," she adds, each word dripping with loving empathy.
I slide my hand from her shoulder to her waist, and she shivers. The cold is getting to the both of us.
"I don't know about that, either. Let's just keep doing what we were doing before, and see what happens."
She smiles and nods her approval. Then she yawns and rests her head on my shoulder. She looks like she's about to fall asleep, but I can't let her do that before…
"Katara, there's something else you don't know."
"And what is that?" she asks sleepily.
"There's something I've always wanted to do, and I think I should tell you now, because I know we kissed right before the invasion, but it wasn't really-"
"Well, now, Avatar Aang," she interrupts playfully. She lifts her head from my shoulder and looks at me, all smiles and mischief in those glittery silver-blue eyes. "How the tables have turned. There's something you don't know."
Then she gingerly takes my head in her hands, the space between our lips descending until there is no more.
After a few seconds we break apart, and she whispers into the paper-thin space between us, "I've wanted to kiss you too."
By then I can't hold it in any longer, and I lock my arms around her waist and prepare to kiss her until I can't think straight.
But she puts her hand up. "Wait." My head slowly tips to one side as I obey her suggestive command. Her face grows sterner. "You have to promise me that when you master the Avatar State, you'll still love me. Because I'll still love you, and unrequited is not how I want to feel for the rest of my life."
I look at her full in the face and tell her softly, "Katara, I will always love you."
Deliria, temperature, relief, and fatigue come crashing down on us both all at once, and again our lips begin to draw closer.
"Promise?" she mutters.
"Promise," I answer back, and as I whisper the last syllable I feel my lips brush hers.
And everything I had felt, all the feelings I had bottled up inside, all of my doubts and worries vanish into the night like magic.