Title: Necessity Among Friends
Summary: After a long, two year separation, Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Zuko are reunited. Eventually. Kataang oneshot!
Pairings: Kataang!
Warnings: The strangeness of my inner mind
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, or anything else to which I allude, or anything else I mention by name.
A/N: Because apparently the only Avatar: The Last Airbender stories that I can write anymore are the ones that come to me in dreams. It's been altered a bit; there was no actual romance or satisfying conclusion when I dreamt this. Or Zuko, actually. Eh.
--
Aang paced nervously, looking out at the cold dark night. He had left most of the candles unlit, seeing no reason to waste them while he didn't need them. Any second now, and he'd be talking to Katara. It had been so long since they'd last seen each other, and saying he was nervous was like calling the sun warm. However, when he opened the door at the ring of the doorbell, it was not Katara standing there; it was Sokka.
"Come in?" Aang said weakly, but Sokka didn't need his invitation and was already standing inside. Aang shut the door.
"You should know," Sokka muttered, not looking at Aang, "that she had every intention of coming tonight."
Aang remained silent. This too was taken as an invitation, as Sokka continued talking.
"I talked her out of it. I really don't think that either of you are ready for this. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Aang replied immediately. Sokka smiled slightly at this, and finally allowed his eyes to rest on Aang's face.
He looked tired, Sokka thought, more so than even after the final battle against Ozai. Sokka briefly wondered what he had been doing with himself since they had all separated, although he supposed the same could be wondered about himself too.
Nothing had been right since they had gone their separate ways. Sokka had gone with his father and Bato on their missions to rebuild and restore order since the fall of the Fire Nation. Some small towns hadn't even known of this change, and were still allowing Fire Nation soldiers to boss them around. It was terribly shocking; Sokka had quite a bit of trouble dealing with some of the things he saw.
He knew that Katara had gone home to the Southern water tribe, as a protector to them, although threats were unlikely without Fire Nation interference. When Sokka had stopped at home, he inquired how much she knew about Aang's whereabouts. She froze him to a wall. Eventually, he got her to tell him that Aang had been writing letters to her, trying for conversation, but that he was too busy to come to visit her. Sokka found this immensely childish, but refrained from saying so. Instead, very maturely, he went through all of her stuff while she was gone and found one of the letters. And its return address.
He had been keeping up with some of their more casual friends throughout his journeys, happening to pass through their hometowns, learning the latest gossip and all that. But he still had yet to hear from Toph. He'd ended up in the Fire Nation, having an official visit with Fire Lord Zuko, but it was formal; they could barely act as though they were comrades.
Sokka greatly missed everybody, so he was glad to have an excuse to see Aang. But he also knew that while Katara and Aang were doing this strange awkward fight, they shouldn't immediately see each other. It would be very likely to escalate.
Sokka turned to Aang. "Really, though, I am sorry."
Aang smiled slightly. "It's alright, really. I was talking to Toph the other day and she was saying the same thing. You guys are probably right, we need to wait a little while longer."
"Wait, Toph? You know where she is? I haven't seen her in two years!"
"You haven't seen me in two years either," Aang mumbled sourly.
"Oh, right. Sorry about that too," Sokka apologized. "We'll try this again. Aang, buddy, pal, amigo, so absolutely wonderful to see you!" He threw his arms around Aang, who laughed, but hugged back.
"Toph lives a little while away from here, not too far. We could go visit her tomorrow if you want," Aang informed Sokka.
Sokka shrugged. "Sure, what's an extra day's stay with a good friend?"
Of course, after such a long time of being apart, they spend a ridiculous amount of time catching up. Luckily, all that Aang had planned tomorrow was the visit, and he didn't need to do any more "world-peace-restoration" yet. They both discussed what they had been doing for the rest of the world in this time. It seemed that they had been very productive, and that they had spent the entirety of their two years apart narrowly missing each other on their journeys.
The ride on Appa wasn't terribly long, and Sokka was thrilled to see the bison again. He barely grimaced when he was licked all the way up his front.
They flight was met with more comfortable chatter, they had almost picked up where they left off, but there was a wall between the two of them. A wall in the shape of a 16 year old waterbender they couldn't bring themselves to talk about.
They arrived at what looked like a tree surrounded by a spiral of earth. A likely reason for that appearance was the fact that it was a tree surrounded by a spiral of earth. As they came closer, Sokka stared in awe.
It was like the clubhouse of the Freedom Fighters, but a thousand times better. The spiral of earth around the tree would occasionally stop and become flat, making rooms. Somehow, impossibly, there was a waterfall running through a room that looked like it could be a kitchen. The tree twirled itself conveniently around all of the earth whenever a branch was needed for grabbing onto. At the bottom of the tree sat what Sokka could best guess was a bathroom, from what he could see. And they landed right at the top at a completely open area with a ton of space-a bison landing zone. Sokka was amazed. Toph lived here?
Apparently she did, as the earth they were standing on shifted, and Toph came in through the floor, the earth fixing itself around her once she was up. Sokka was suddenly aware that he was the only non-earthbender here, and because of that would be forced to walk everywhere while they effortlessly traveled around him.
And suddenly Toph had screamed "Sokka!" And ran up to him, crushing his bones in a giant hug. Then without any warning at all, she was hitting him. "It's been two years. TWO YEARS! You jerk! Aang and I were worried we'd never see you again!"
Sokka just took all of the blows. Aang hadn't told him that. Had he really worried them that much? Did they spend some of their time together talking about him? Did Aang confide his Avatar life in Toph? Suddenly, Sokka was insanely jealous that they had managed to stick together through this time. But more than that, he was thrilled that he was there before it was too late.
After a reunion similar to his with Aang, Sokka had learned that Toph had built this place one day with help from the swamp benders. He had also resisted a lot of urges to start crying and hugging both Aang and Toph and professing his platonic love for the two. As if they didn't know all of that, and more. The sad, sappy tension in the air was thick; everyone could feel it. Nobody acted on it, however, until Toph rolled her eyes.
"Okay," she broke the silence, smirking, "I know we all want to."
There was loud, overlapping, immediate talk of how much they had missed being together, how much they missed everyone they hadn't gotten to see, and how jealous they were of each other's abilities to see the people they had seen.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence, sitting around in a circle on the floor like they were used to doing when they were younger. At least, until Toph brought up Katara.
"She's been sending me letters," she stated, "talking about you," she looked at Aang, "and I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before, but she specifically asked me not to. Lucky the guy at the post office who reads them to me doesn't know you. But the most recent one said she was going to come see you today, and she doesn't appear to be here." Aang shifted awkwardly where he sat.
"I told her not to come. I knew that she would be mad that Aang didn't come see her." Sokka intervened before Aang could try to explain.
"Wow," Toph exclaimed, shocked, "I guess you are smarter than I gave you credit for. Aang's going to have to go see her himself."
"Exactly!" Sokka agreed.
Aang considered this, and then broke out in a smile. "Well it has been a long time since we went on an adventure as a group… will you guys come with?"
They both grinned, and Aang could read exactly what they meant.
"Should we bring Zuko too?" Toph joked.
Even though Aang could tell she was joking, he happily proclaimed "Of course!"
--
"So, let me get this straight," Zuko said, looking at Aang, Toph, and Sokka, all of whom had gotten into his palace by merely entering through the front door (a hard earned right), "you want me to drop everything, all of my duties as fire lord, and everything else that I've been doing, just to go with all of you guys to visit Katara? Not that I haven't missed you, or anything."
"Um, yeah, pretty much!" they all screamed at the same time.
"Hm… okay! Let me tell my advisor. Uncle, I'm going on a journey for no reason whatsoever! You're in charge. And please, don't turn every building into a tea shop!"
"Okay Zuko, have fun!"
Even though Aang and Sokka had spent the past two days catching up with people, they weren't too tired of it to catch up with Zuko, who had interesting stories to tell about his escapades as fire lord. And they all gladly retold their stories for his benefit.
As they approached the southern water tribe, with Sokka steering (for his knowledge of this area was the greatest) Aang suddenly felt sick. "I can't do this." He muttered.
Sokka and Toph looked at each other. "Pep talk time!!!"
Sokka spent five straight minutes telling Aang "you can do it!" with different words. Toph spent seven telling him he was strong because he was an earthbender.
"You guys are terrible at pep talks!" Zuko yelled, pushing them aside. "Look, Aang, I know that this is going to be awkward. And I know, from experience, apologizing to girls can be harder than fighting, but if you don't do this right now you could lose her forever! I'd like to think, to hope, that she's worth a little bit of awkwardness, and discomfort, because if she isn't then what are we even doing here?"
Aang considered this. Then he sighed, admitting defeat. "You're right."
"Of course I am!"
Well then. Now or never.
The water tribe sensed a disturbance as Appa landed. Katara, as protector of the area, immediately went outside to check it out. She was stunned to see who had come there. Didn't they all have better things to do than to be coming to visit her?
And then she saw Aang. The person who was needed so many other places, but they boy who she wanted to be here the most. And there he was.
Seeing his face instantly resolved all issues and tensions that she had harbored, and she ran to him and hugged him close to herself.
"Well," Zuko whispered, "looks like the pep talks weren't needed after all. Um," he said, noticing the way that Aang and Katara looked at each other, "we're just going to be… over there!" He, Toph, and Sokka ran away, just as Aang and Katara kissed.
"I'm sorry I wanted you to come here, and that I got mad because you didn't," Katara cried.
"I'm sorry that I acted as if there was anything else more important in this world than you," Aang stated matter of factly.
"Aww!" Sokka yelled, "what a happy ending!"
Apparently, they hadn't gotten very far.
And happy their ending sure was.
--
A/N: It turns out that mindless fluff is my specialty? Oh well. Review, please, and help save a sadly dying fandom! Well actually, write stories to save it. Or, as done by my good buddy DireSphynx (twice) send me story guidelines that I'd be happy to turn into a semi-well-written-ish story for you!