Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender.

Notes: The chapter in which Koh Finally Returns.

Not much else to say, really. Oh, except that I'm announcing something a little early. It looks like this story is gonna hit 100 reviews. If (when) that happens, the 100th reviewer can have a Zutara gift fic of their choosing and a shoutout in my AN. The 123rd reviewer (here's to hoping!) gets a small Zutara multi chapter fic of their choosing and a shoutout in my AN. Yep.

"Evil and good are always at war inside you. It is your nature, your legacy. But there is a bright side. What happened generations ago, can be resolved now. By you. Because of your legacy, you alone can cleanse the sins."

Intermission Two

"I don't believe this!" the Avatar screams. They are fighting words, of course. The angry sort of words closely followed by physical violence.

"Then don't," Koh says carelessly. He turns and winds his way back through the roots of the tree. He is getting old, is feeling old. He cannot move as quickly as he once did and it pains him to remember a time such as this when his listener was not a man but a girl-woman-warrior.

"What do you mean, don't?" the man screams again.

Another twist, and Koh can peer at the Avatar through a gap in the roots. "I mean," he enunciates, "don't believe me if you don't want to. I won't make you believe me. Rather, I can't make you believe me. Why shoulder I try?"

The Avatar quiets, clearly quite put out by this. Koh wonders if maybe the Avatar wants a fight. Probably.

"Koh…" the Avatar says. "I…Avatar Aang is still considered one of the greatest Avatar's ever. He saved the world."

"Saved the world, of course," Koh agrees. "He came to me for help once, you know. To save the Northern Water Tribe, in fact. They were on the brink of total annihilation. He had to find Tui and La. Do you know what I told him?"

The Avatar slumps to the ground gracelessly. His shoulders droop almost pathetically. "What?" he asks, even though his tone says he really doesn't want to know.

"I told him that they were meant. I told him. Maybe I should have told him more clearly, but still. I told him. Tui and La, Oma and Shu, Zuko and Katara..." Chief Yakoda of the Northern Water Tribe and Priestess Jiang of the Eastern Air Temple, "…their names don't matter. They are meant. They are two halves of the very same whole. The Two Lovers."

There isn't a great deal of background noise in the Spirit World. It's too empty and a little too dead to have the constant noise of the mortal world. Koh doesn't mind the lack of sound, normally. But now the Avatar's breathing seems too loud, too overpowering. It invades Koh's protective shadows.

"But Katara was married to Avatar Aang," the Avatar says. "She couldn't have been…why…Jiang isn't like that!"

Koh says nothing, simply retreats back into the shadows. Jiang may not be like that, but she is La. She is Shu. She is Katsuka. She is Li. She is Akuza. She is Katara. She is a soul that has a thousand times over chosen death rather than loosing her lover.

"She could be, though," the Avatar whispers. He sounds sick. "She could be…couldn't she? She could be Katara. She could be madly in love with Yakoda, suffering and suffering and suffering because she is so, so in love with him. And…and I could be Avatar Aang. I could pin her because…because I don't want to see. That could be us."

The unspoken:

That is us.