"In a few months, I'll be as big as Sokka should be, with the amount of food he eats".
Katara had to blink several times before she understood the cryptic message her sister in law had just given her. How could she have missed it? Suki had been eating more than Appa after a long flight, she had even fought Sokka for food once. If that hadn't been a dead give away…
Of course Katara pretended to be happy for them, because deep down, she was happy. For them that is. But the fact that her brother was having his first child, with someone he dearly loved a lot, stung Katara as she placed her hand on her still childless womb. The only child she would ever have was Aang, her husband…
She was supposed to be a mother, should have been a mother, but fate could be such a cruel thing.
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"I think it's better if you move to another bedroom"
The had been married for four years now. Four long years had she been devoid of love, four long years had she feared the next day. Four long years she had been pretending that she loved him the way he loved her, but it was obvious she didn't.
You can't really fake love, no matter how hard you tried.
Even he had noticed it. Perhaps it had been that time when she had smiled at him when he woke up, her mind still foggy, her thoughts not with him. Perhaps he had noticed that they were missing something essential in their marriage, something she would never give him. Or perhaps he had simply gotten tired of him, the same way she had gotten tired of him.
Speculate as she might, she would never know unless she asked him, but her pride wouldn't allow it.
And hence Katara spent her first night alone, for the first time in four years, crying herself to sleep. What had her life, once so promising become? She would end up as a bitter old childless woman, who died the way she lived.
Alone, and cold, like the ice that bore her.
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"I'm getting married" His deep amber eyes bored into her icy blue ones, looking for a reaction, but they found none.
How could they? She was dead inside, cold inside. She simply couldn't take anymore. The only man she had ever loved was getting married, to another women, and it was all her fault. If she hadn't married Aang, if she hadn't been so afraid of hurting his emotions, she would have been the one having a baby in a few months. She would have been the one ruling the fire nation side by side with the very man who saved her life. She would have been the happy one.
She should have been the one, but fate simply didn't work that way.
She barely heard him call call her name, she didn't feel his hands trying to get a hold of her. All she felt was the cold, artic cold, that took control over her body. The feeling was overwhelming, it was almost as she was drowning and freezing at the same couldn't think anymore, her emotions were overwhelming her senses. She simply couldn't take it anymore.
Home, she was going home.
No one needed her. No one loved her. Not Zuko, not Aang, not Suki nor Sokka. They wouldn't even miss her, she was sure of it. The world would be just fine without should be just fine without her.
She didn't feel the sand between her toes as she walked over the beach, she didn't feel the soft wind graze her hair. She barely felt the water before it consumed her. All she could think of was home.
Home, she was going home…
Later, the fishermen would say that they saw the ocean freeze when her body hit its surface.
