Chapter Seven

"Why are you here?"

Aang winced at the way the words sounded outside of his mouth, a sharp contrast to how they'd sounded inside of it. Tarkalok glanced at him, one eyebrow raised in confusion. Aang cleared his throat, closed his eyes in a bid for strength, and tried again.

"I mean…" he coughed. "Hello, Tarkalok. What brings you by?"

"Katara invited me for dinner after our lesson tonight. I happily accepted. I hope this is okay, Avatar Aang?"

Aang gaped soundlessly like a fish out of water, desperately trying to form words when suddenly a voice chimed in behind him.

"Tarkalok, you're staying for dinner? Sweet!"

Bumi bounded around Aang to grab an apple off of the counter, taking a big, vigorous bite with a sounding crunch. "Dad, you gotta hear this guy's stories. He's been like, everywhere! It's awesome!"

Tarkalok smiled indulgently at the teen's enthusiasm. "Well, I don't know if I'd say everywhere, but –"

"Tarkalok, you know Mom and Dad have been all over the world too, right? Since they were my age. They even went to the North Pole once, when Dad was 12!"

Tarkalok laughed. "I know. I was there, actually – a very young boy at the time, of course, so I was taken away to safety with my mother when the Fire Nation arrived, but I remember all the commotion when we learned the Avatar had come to master waterbending among us. The tale of the Great Seige of the North with your parents and Yue the Moon Spirit is a very famous story among my tribe." He favored Aang with a reverent grin. "We owe your mother and father a great deal. Without them, we surely would've been eradicated from existence and had to rebuild from scratch much like our brothers and sisters in the south had to."

For the first time in a week, Aang smiled sincerely at the young man rather than forcing a grin onto his face. He bowed his head slightly. "It was an honor. And the least I could do after all that Master Pakku had done to teach myself and Katara."

"Someone mention me?"

Katara moseyed through the doorway to the kitchen, her face lighting up when she caught sight of her husband, her son and Tarkalok engaged in conversation. She leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to Aang's mouth in greeting. "Hi Sweetie. I invited Tarkalok for dinner tonight, did he tell you?"

"He did," Aang answered, smiling at her. "We were just talking about our little segue in the North Pole when we were kids."

Katara laughed. "'Segue' is putting it mildly." She reached over for the bowl of salad she'd prepared, casting Bumi an exasperated look. "Bumi, we're eating in 5 minutes. Now you've gone and spoiled your appetite with that apple."

Bumi grinned and took another loud crunch, smiling at his mother through the juices and white flesh of the fruit. "C'monmom. M'agrowing boy."

"Honestly Katara, the way this kid is eating nowadays, he'll still eat his whole plate and go back for seconds." Aang ruffled Bumi's hair playfully. "But while you're munching, do you mind making yourself useful and setting the table?"

Bumi scampered off to comply, and 10 minutes later everyone sat down together to enjoy the meal that Kya, Katara and Tenzin had prepared after she'd finished up her lesson with Tarkalok. As they ate, the younger man modestly yet passionately shared stories of his travels with the family, from his 3 years spent living in the outskirts of the Fire Nation helping rebuild refuge communities destroyed in the war to his 7-year period working on a farm in the Earth Kingdom. Bumi in particular completely relished in his stories, asking question after question and marveling at the responses. Kya stared dreamily into Tarkalok's perfectly symmetrical face, mesmerized, and Aang was certain that every single word was going in one ear and out the other.

Many places he'd seen in passing overlapped with Aang and Katara's travels when they'd been going from place to place prior to defeating Fire Lord Ozai, which resulted in a plethora of shared experiences and lots of laughter. As Tarkalok talked, Aang couldn't help but feel his (admittedly completely unjustified) dislike of the Water Tribe warrior begin to abate. Now that he was really actually getting to know the man and hear him speak, he was surprised to discover that he was, in fact, not at all just "a big, brawny bag of muscles who could toss water around." In fact, Tarkalok was a downright pleasant, nice person. Well-educated, articulate, cultured and with a good sense of humor, to boot – a trait well appreciated by any Air Nomad. He had just been too busy being petty, jealous and nursing a premature mid-life crisis to notice.

The more he listened, the more and more ashamed he felt himself growing of his behavior the past week. What had been plainly, clearly obvious from the get-go was now even more glaringly clear – the ridiculous, rabid jealousy he had been battling was totally, completely, almost laughably unfounded. Tarkalok was a nice, respectful young man who merely wanted waterbending instruction from the most talented waterbender in the world. And she wanted to share her knowledge with an eager student.

No more, no less.

He felt Katara looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see her beautiful smile examining his face, studying it for a reaction. He instantly blushed, feeling more foolish than ever for thinking – even just for one microsecond – that this woman who had always been unflaggingly by his side, his wife, his lover, his best friend, his soulmate, ever had eyes for anyone else but him.

It was impossible.

"It's been such a great honor studying with you, Katara," Tarkalok said warmly, scooping up a dumpling with his chopsticks. "I just regret it was so short-lived."

Katara murmured in agreement as Aang's eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Short-lived? What do you mean?"

Tarkalok smiled sadly. "Oh, I thought she mentioned it to you! Today was my last lesson. I was planning to stay in Republic City for a while, but I got word yesterday from my cousin who's helping with rebuilding efforts in the South Pole. They really need some extra hands and are even hoping I can start teaching some of the kids in basic waterbending forms as things get off the ground. It really seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up so I'm heading out in the morning."

"Ooooh, no! Really?" Kya lamented, sighing sorrowfully. Tenzin shuddered in typical 8-year-old disgust. Bumi responded by doing a rather spot-on impression of a googly-eyed Kya, pretending to faint with sorrow. His older sister pinned him with a wrathful glare, kicking him sharply under the table.

Aang's eyebrows rose. "…Oh! No, Katara didn't mention you were leaving." He turned to look at her. She smiled at him knowingly.

"I guess it slipped my mind. But that's why I asked him to have dinner with us tonight. I figured it'd be nice to give him one last home cooked meal before he ships off. Besides," she bit down on her smile, "I figured it'd be good for the two of you to really be able to talk and get to know each other a bit."

Aang stared at her blankly. Katara kept smiling at him knowingly. Slowly, an answering smile crept on to his face, and they grinned at each other adoringly.

"Not a bad idea."