Title- Forever Girl
Author- Melon
Rating- K+
Genre(s)- Romance
Characters/Pairings- Kataang
Summary- Plot untwist. The daydream wasn't a daydream.

A/N- Just a nice little plot untwist for Nightmares & Daydreams, because Aang is adorably dorky sometimes (and Katara secretly loves it).

If Toph or Sokka had asked, Katara would have told them she went out to the cliffs to watch the sunset and practice her bending forms. This was technically true. Technically. She was doing both of those things but her real reason to come up here was rather different. She needed to clear her head.

She was worried about Aang. Not that that was anything new. Worrying about Aang had been a near-constant state of affairs and would continue to be so until the war ended. If she was completely honest with herself, it probably wouldn't even end then. Katara knew she tended to fret over the people she cared most about, and without her quite knowing how it had happened, Aang had wormed himself into a very prominent place in her heart.

It wasn't something she thought about all the time. She didn't spend sleepless nights pining for him or think too hard about possibilities. It was just... well, every so often, it would just hit her. He would smile that crooked smile that she swore could outshine the sun, or make some stupid joke that she couldn't help but laugh at, or do one of the million little things that made him Aang, and she would just be completely overwhelmed by this feeling. She was terrified of putting a name to it because naming it would mean things, and the run-up to the invasion was not a good time to be dealing with things. Even if she wasn't thinking about it, though, it was still there and it was getting worse. Especially since they had arrived in the Fire Nation, things had started changing between them, and it was messing with her head.

Sometimes, she wondered where this all had started. When Aang had gone from her hero and an honorary member of her family to this indefinite Something More? It frightened her that she really couldn't say. Had it been while he was unconscious, hovering between life and death, and she had spent every waking moment by his side? Or when he had given her her first kiss, a soft short meeting of lips deep underground? No, it was earlier than that. Maybe months ago, when a simple palm-reader's fortune had taken on a meaning she hadn't expected? Or had the seeds of this undeniable something been sewn in her heart even before that?

Either way, like it or not he now occupied the foremost position in her heart, and so she worried about him.

Aang had suffered from nightmares as long as she'd known him, not that it was surprising considering everything he'd been through. This latest bout of hallucinatory insomnia was different creature entirely. She had never seen him so run down and out of sorts and it scared her, not just because of what it meant for Aang, but also because what affected him affected the world profoundly.

Speaking of Aang...

She watched with sympathetic eyes as he hauled himself up the hill, muttering under his breath. She caught the word "invasion" a time or two, and her heart ached for him.

"You don't look so good," she said. "You sure you can't just lie down for a little nap?"

He shook his head. "I told you, I can't go back to sleep."

His demeanor was strange. She could see from the sluggish, un-airbender-like way he moved that he was utterly exhausted, but his eyes were glassy and lit with a slightly manic internal energy. He had clearly exhausted himself beyond what anybody should be able to manage.

"Aang, staying up can't be good for you."

He turned away, taking a few steps toward the cliff's edge. Katara followed him, half-afraid he might topple over and fall right off in his current state.

"Actually, staying up all night has given me a lot of time to think," he said, gazing across the water. "I've realized some big things, Katara."

Something in his tone rang out to warn her that this was important. He seemed so solemn, but somehow... more than that. Anticipatory, maybe. Reflective, certainly. As usual when he stood still for more than ten seconds at a time, he seemed so much older and wiser than his not-quite-thirteen years. She wasn't sure if that was an Avatar thing or just an Aang thing, but even as tired as he was it was in full force now. He might be out of sorts but whatever was on his mind was serious, and Katara felt a stirring of nervous anticipation herself.

"What big things?"

"I see everything so clearly now... what really matters. Why I'm really doing this. I'm doing it to save the world..." Abruptly, he turned to face her. "But it's more than that. I'm doing it for the people I love. I'm doing it for you, Katara."

For a second, she was transported back to the Serpent's Pass, listening to an emotional Aang tacitly confess just how much he cared about her. She had begun to suspect then that his affection for her might be more than platonic. Hearing similar words from him now...

"What are you saying?" she asked breathlessly.

He took a step toward her, bringing them face to face. "I'm saying..." He hesitated only a moment, then plunged on recklessly: "I love you."

Katara's stomach dropped in panic, her heart fluttered in inexplicable joy, and she couldn't think of a single thing to say. Before she even had a chance to collect her thoughts, Aang had leaned up and pressed the sweetest kiss to her lips.

It was only her second kiss and it was over far too quickly. Before Katara's rational mind had a chance to catch up to her, she chased after him and kissed him right back. Her eyes slid closed, her arms went around his neck, and she felt his hands on her waist as he returned her kiss enthusiastically. Maybe later she would remember to be worried about the war and the Firelord and all the reasons this was a bad idea, but for now it just didn't seem important. She was kissing Aang, or maybe he was kissing her, or maybe it didn't matter. Every single place their bodies were touching was sparking with tiny fireworks and it was hard to think...

After much too short a time they ended the kiss, and Katara's eyes slid open dazedly. Aang's face was still only inches away, his moon-grey eyes gazing into her own with a joyful intensity that kept the butterflies in her insides more than active.

"What are we doing?" she asked in wonderment, struggling to wrap her head around what had just happened.

"What our hearts have been telling us to do for a long, long time!" he proclaimed enthusiastically. Then, with a dramatic flourish she hadn't anticipated, he literally swept her off her feet into a low dip. "Baby, you're my forever girl," he said, and it was so silly and so sincere that she couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Aang frowned, straightening up and setting her back on her feet. "Why are you laughing?"

"That was really cheesy," she informed him.

"I was trying to be romantic," he said with a pronounced pout.

In her current state of delighted bewilderment, the temptation of his protruding lower lip was too much for Katara to resist, so she leaned forward and kissed him gently. When she pulled back, she was rewarded to see the sweetly bemused expression on his face.

"I never said I didn't like cheesy," she informed him.

Aang's face lit up in a brilliant grin, and when her heart absolutely melted at the sight, Katara had just enough presence of mind enough to think: Oh boy, I'm in trouble...

It was a sobering thought. Despite her best efforts to ignore it, she'd gone and fallen for her best friend who also happened to be the Avatar. And in less than two days' time, he was going to fly away from her to go fight the most dangerous man alive. She sighed.

"Aang, can we... I mean, could we just table this stuff for now?"

His joyful expression slipped. "What do you mean?"

"It's just... the invasion's only a few days away. We're both under enough stress, you especially. You've hardly slept for days as it is. It's not that I don't want to, um, explore this-" She gestured to the space between them, and was gratified to see Aang's expression lift a little. "-But now really isn't the best time."

He frowned thoughtfully. "But if you like me, too... doesn't putting it off until later seem kind of silly?"

Katara shook her head. "Please, Aang. I just can't deal with this right now. Things are so crazy, and we're both going out of our minds worrying about the invasion as it is."

He nodded, shoulders drooping and with an utterly dejected look on his face. "Okay," he said a little sullenly.

"Thank you." She leaned forward and hugged him tightly, holding on until she felt his arms go tentatively around her waist as well. She was abruptly hyper-aware of the fact that he was not wearing a shirt, and felt herself flush. Strangely, this emboldened her, and she turned her head a little to whisper, "For the record, I a lot more than like you, Aang."

She released him from the hug, but he wasn't done with her yet. One hand came up to caress her cheek and his lips found hers again in a kiss more fiery and intense than the previous ones they had shared. It was very brief, but it lasted long enough for Katara to know that she was going to get addicted to the taste of his lips very quickly.

When he pulled back, he was blushing adorably. "I just wanted to do that one more time."

"Until the invasion," she reminded him.

"Until the invasion," he agreed.

The devilish little grin on his face and the way he slipped his hand into hers as they walked together down the hill, however, made Katara think that maybe he had no intention whatsoever of sticking to that agreement. And she was pretty sure she wasn't going to protest very much at all.