A/N: This oneshot is a result of: A) Intense sleep deprivation. B) My obsession with Death Cab For Cutie's amazing music. This one is based off of "Brothers on a Hotel Bed". If you haven't listened to it, do it. C) My need to write down any random idea that plagues me at 2 A.M when I should probably be sleeping. D) A sonnet I wrote for my language arts turned writing class. E) Did I mention something about my sleep insomnia? No? Well, sleep insomnia. F) My ridiculous reaction to OTC cold medication (Seriously, me+ cold meds= EXPLOSION of hyperactive mayhem.) G) Gratuitous amounts of free time due to the fact I've been home from school due to a killer cold. Ugh. H) A feeling I've gone through personally.

Song- Brothers on a Hotel Bed- Death Cab for Cutie (I'll need to make a playlist of all the songs I use. I'm so ridiculous.) The last line of the story is from the song, by the way.

Note- If Katara seems slightly OOC, blame the Abridged Series. She's so prissy and hormonal in the episodes that it's carried over into my writing. I watch them too much for my own good. DAMN YOU, OH GLORIOUS ABRIDGED SERIES.

Disclaimer- I don't own Avatar or any of the other epic components in the show. I also don't own DCFC's musical and lyrical talents. Shoot. I do own my ipod though, which has all of the episodes of Avatar, all DCFC songs and all the Avatar Abridged Series. Teehee.

The Storm Would Pass Over

"You're just not the same anymore, Aang." These words cut me deeper than any weapon ever could.

Ever since she uttered these words to me a few weeks ago, I had been not so casually avoiding her. We were still "together" but sure didn't act that way. The house the four of us (Toph, Sokka, Katara and I) shared had become a silent nightmare. The fact that it was the dead of winter didn't help either. The sky was a constant pearl grey and it snowed practically everyday. Our quaint house on the coast had become dark and uninviting. I spent most of my time wandering around the back streets of the South Pole. One could say I was curious, but the people who knew me knew I was avoiding her. And she stayed on the coast line, avoiding me as well.

And to think this all started with that one trip to the Fire Nation. I was packing, leaving our home on business. Upon return, Katara was strangely cold to me. No longer did she run into my embrace or run her fingers through my hair now growing back. Had she met someone else? Had I angered her?

Her silence drove me insane.

After a few days, enough was enough. She was washing her clothes and I approached her to help dry them off. She brushed me off and told me she could handle it.

"I know you're perfectly capable of doing laundry, Katara. I was just offering to help."

She rolled her eyes and laughed mirthlessly. "Always trying to help..."

"Katara. Talk to me. What did I do?"

She spun around to face me head on. "You really want to know? It's what you didn't do Aang. You never invite me to go with you to meetings or anywhere. And when you come back, you expect me to be excited to see you. It's so selfish and exhausting."

I shook my head vigorously. "I would never expect you to go ballistic. Why waste your energy on something like that? It's just silly. I don't need a fanfare when I return. Just a simple greeting is all I ask. I never ask you to come with me to the meetings because I know you would find them boring. I sure do."

Dropping the clothes in her hands, she returned fire. "That's not all! We just aren't working out. Something's changed between us."

Whoa, that was from left field. I searched for an answer as quickly as possible. "Maybe it's because we're older, wiser. Our views have shifted."

"Our views? Ha, that's hysterical. I haven't changed at all! You've changed! You're just not the same person anymore, Aang."

I staggered out of the room and fled to Appa's stable. I debated leaving right then and there, but I just couldn't. Katara wasn't herself, I told myself. Everyone becomes doubtful in relationships at some point. I just have to wait it out.

In our weeks of silence, we circled around each other constantly. I came in no closer than an arm's length of her. The bed we normally shared was invisibly divided. The worst part was that her final words rang through my head repeatedly. You're just not the same person anymore, Aang. I was haunted by them every minute.

"We aren't fighting," Katara would say whenever Sokka, Toph, or I would ask what our status was. We weren't fighting in any verbal or physical way, at least. If anything, we were fighting mentally with ourselves and each other. It was so unhealthy all of this. I found myself not wanting to talk to other people, only craving to converse with her even more. Ask her what move she was working on in her waterbending training, or if she wanted me to pick something up at the market. Anything. But I knew better; the storm would pass over faster if I just moved through it.

One night, as I was blowing out the candle next to my side of the bed, she came in. Normally, one of us would wait until the other was asleep before entering to avoid awkward conversations.

"Hey," she whispered meekly.

"Hey yourself," I replied just as quietly.

We both laid down in the dark silence for a long while. She broke it suddenly.

"I'm sorry. So very sorry," she said, voice breaking as she rolled over to face me. I turned my head in her direction.

"Don't be."

"No, no, no, no! You don't understand! I'm practically insane. I can't control my temper and why I get so mad. Someone as good as you doesn't deserve to be in such a crazy relationship."

"You're insane for thinking that. So what? You've got a short fuse. Maybe I'm too patient. You belong here, and I belong with you. Everyone has their quirks and yours don't change the way I feel about you."

She pondered this quietly.

"Maybe you were bored with me," I mused. "Winter is so bleak and uneventful that it probably got to you."

"Perhaps," she replied and rolled back over again. I listened to her breathing slow down and doze off.

Everything could only go up from there. Like everything else, we would work through this. Nothing would ever be perfect, or change over night, but it would get better. It had to. We had to.

"Goodnight, Katara."

"...Goodnight, Aang."

"And now we say goodnight from our own separate sides, like brothers on a hotel bed."