When Aang woke up, the sun was just about to rise. Katara stirred in her sleep and Aang whispered to her to wake her up. She opened her eyes and looked at him.

"I'm gonna head back to my room now, before it's too late and someone finds out I'm here." He told her.

Katara smiled, as if to laugh at him, but she was still half asleep. "Ok," she said. "I'll see you later."

Aang kissed her and got out of bed and headed for the door. Katara fell back asleep instantly.

When he opened the door to walk out, he nearly jumped with fright to see Suki just a few feet away from him. She froze. Her hand was on the door knob to her door and it looked like she was about to go back into her room. Aang's face turned bright red and embarrassment was all over his face as he quietly closed the door. And Suki's as well, just not as funny looking as Aang's face. Suki would have laughed at him if she wasn't in an embarrassed situation herself.

"Um….." Aang was at a loss for words.

"Goo… good morning…" Suki said, still bright red.

"Yeah… good morning…." Aang replied. He remembered what Sokka had told him about Suki sharing a room with him. "I, uh, thought Sokka said you two shared a room."

Suki's blinked. "He did?... Well, we sorta do." She said bash"

Aang's eyes widened. "Aahh, sorry, I didn't mean to… I mean… um.." Aang had no idea what the heck he was trying to say anymore. Then he sighed. "Please don't tell him you saw me… here…"

Suki almost giggled, but she smiled instead and nodded. Aang made his way back to his room and got away from the awkward situation he was just in. Well, at least she wasn't in her room the night before to hear anything going on in Katara's room next door.

The meeting that day ended fairly early, and just as Aang had requested, Katara sat in on it.

"I don't see how you can stand being in there all day long!" Katara commented after they left the room.

"It gets really boring after a while, doesn't it?" Aang replied. "And this one wasn't that bad and it was pretty short."

"If you call that 'short'." Katara said, rolling her eyes. "At least it's all over now." She stretched out her arms above her head, releasing stress that built up in her muscles from sitting for hours. "You still want to go to the festival today?"

"Yeah! Let's go!" Aang said excitedly.

"You're not going anywhere with Katara!" Suki's voice came from a little ways down the hall. The both of them stared at her as she approached them with Toph and Mai in tow. The couple gave her questioning looks, Aang's looking a little more frightened than confused.

"She's coming with us today!" Suki announced. She took hold of Katara's wrist and dragged her towards the group of girls. "Sorry Aang, but it's girl time now." Suki finished off with a sly smile.

Aang looked slightly annoyed and was about to protest, saying they had already made plans, but he stopped himself when Katara furrowed her eye brows and smiled at him and turned and went with them.

Suki kept holding onto Katara's wrist as if she would run and fly back to Aang if she let go as they walked down the hall, leaving Aang there girlfriendless.

Suki planned out their girl party that morning before Katara was out of the meeting. They went to a natural waterfall garden just outside of the city in a forest clearing. The girls all stripped their clothes off, leaving on their under cloths and clothing, and dove into the water. Toph, of course, sat out and just lay in the sun since she didn't know how to swim. She got the occasional playful splash from Katara, who mocked her saying that they could teach her how to swim and Suki would save her from drowning again if she needed. Suki and Katara laughed at the memory. Mai laughed along too when the girls told her about what happened a while back at the Serpent's Pass.

When Toph decided that she had enough, she got up and stomped her foot on the ground, sending a tremor through the ground and under the water. A pillar rose up and shot Katara out of the water and landed her on Toph's turf.

"Ow! That hurt!" Katara complained, getting up and rubbing her sore backside that she landed on.

"That's what you get for messing with the world's greatest earthbender!" Toph said with a proud smile.

"World's greatest, huh?" Katara said with sarcasm.

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

"I think we still have a score to settle here." Katara challenged.

Suki and Mai looked irritably at each other, then looked back at the sparring water and earth benders. Their battle went on for a while until both girls were panting for air. They agreed to call a truce.

Toph went back to her spot on the ground, but this time she bended a small and shallow crater for her to lie in. She bended a moat to lead water from the lake into her crater, then bended the earth back in place to stop the water flow. She laid her back into the small pool of water and kicked back to relax. "There, now I'm in the water. No more complaints."

After a little more time passed, Mai got out of the water and laid herself out to soak up the remaining sunlight of the day.

This is my chance, Suki thought to herself. She dragged Katara out of earshot of the other girls, swimming closer to the waterfall.

"What's up?" Katara asked.

"I just had to talk to you privately about this." Suki said excitedly.

"What is it?" Katara asked, now also getting excited.

"Well… how was it?" Suki asked.

Katara furrowed her eye brows and looked confused. "Um… how was what?"

"Oh, come on Katara! You know what I mean! I saw Aang walk out of your room really early this morning."

Katara dropped her jaw and her face went full on red. "What?... what are you… that.. that wasn't..." Katara had no words.

"You guys did it right?" Suki asked persistently.

"No! We… no we didn't do... that! No!" Katara was looking more and more embarrassed with each word she spat out.

"Katara, you don't need to hide it from me, it's not like I'm gonna go run off and tell Sokka or anyone else. It's only fair you talk about it with me since I gave you advice!" Suki said with a sly smile.

"No, but… we didn't. I mean, we did… stuff… but we didn't do everything." Katara said, calming down a little but still extremely embarrassed with her little confession .

"Oh." Suki said, a little disappointed. "Well, give me the details anyway! I want to know what happened!"

"No way! I can't do that! It's… private stuff."

"Well that may be, but you are still undereducated and you might still need my help." Suki protested.

Katara furrowed her eye brows and looked away. She didn't want to admit it, but she was right. "Well…. He sorta… did stuff to me again…" Katara explained to her in some detail about what happened. Afterward, Suki just stared at her in disbelief.

"Dang…" Suki said. "I can't believe he can hold himself back so well! He must reeeaally love you! I wish Sokka… eh, um, I mean… this guy I used to date… was like that."

Katara gave her an irritated look. "Yeah, thanks for correcting yourself there."

Suki took into consideration what Katara had told her. Aang held himself back, saying he was waiting for the right time. And she knew that he had a betrothal necklace for Katara, because Sokka has a big mouth. Was Aang gonna propose on Katara's birthday? And is that when he thought would be the right time? After they were married? Or maybe just when they were engaged?

"Suki, are you listening?" Katara asked, annoyed.

"Huh?" She looked up, snapping out of her thoughts. "Hey Katara, I think I should talk to you about something important… something that may help you."

Katara looked worried.

"Well, it's your… cycle, actually." Suki said.

"What about my cycle?"

"Do you know about when you are most fertile? And when you're the least fertile?"

"Uh…. No…" Katara replied, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Well, I don't know what Aang means by 'when the time is right', but you too have a time that is the 'right time'. You're gonna be traveling around with him for a while, you don't want to be having babies while you're on the go."

Katara's cheeks flushed again.

"The best time for you to… well, not get pregnant, is within a week after your monthly time." Suki instructed her. "Worst time is a couple of weeks after! Don't do it then!" Suki thought for a moment. "You do know there are also herbs you can use, right?"

"Well, yeah, I've heard…" Katara shrugged her shoulders.

"I think I'll lend you some of mine. You know, just in case. Just put it in your tea within a day after and it should prevent you from getting pregnant."

"You know, this talk is very uncomfortable for me." Katara said, averting her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Well, you need to have this talk with someone." Suki said.

Katara thought for a moment, then looked up at her friend and smiled. "Yeah, I know. But… I don't know, I'm just scared still. And I don't know what it is about it that frightens me. I love Aang, and I know very well that he loves me back and wouldn't do anything to hurt me. I feel safe and comfortable with him. It's just… I can't seem to understand why I… I'm just…"

"You're a virgin, Katara. No matter how strong you think you are, all girls are like this when it comes to love and intimacy."

"Even Mai?" Katara asked with a grin.

Suki stared at Katara with surprise, then laughed. "I've gotten her to open up a bit, but not that far." She said. Katara laughed with her, and they eventually made it back to the other girls.

As the sun began to set, they packed up their day camp and went back to the palace.

"Where's Haru been?" Suki asked Toph as they were just coming up to the city gates.

"Oh… well…" Toph blushed a little, but tried her best to hide it. "I guess there's no need to keep it secret, everyone's gonna find out soon anyway. He went to see my parents."

Katara and Suki both looked at her with shocked expressions. "You mean…?" Katara asked.

"Yep. He's asking them permission to marry me."

"Aww, how cute! You guys will make cute earthbending babies!" Mai said in a sarcastic sweet voice. The girls all laughed.

"Hey , I didn't say I was gonna say yes!" Toph said, hiding her embarrassment.

"Well, are you?" Katara asked.

Toph couldn't continue her stern look for long. It soon melted away into a shy smile.

"Aahhh I'm so happy for you!" Katara said, throwing her arms around her friend in an embrace. Toph lightly returned the hug, just patting Katara's back. But it didn't take much for Toph to feel the emotions coming for her friend that was hugging her. Katara was shaking. And it was from holding back tears. Not tears of happiness though. Toph decided to not say anything about it or ask why Katara was feeling pain. She was happy for Toph, of course, but she held back an opposite emotion at the same time.

The four girls continued to chat while they went back to the palace and then went to the dining hall to meet with everyone. Toph said she didn't want to say anything about her engagement to Haru just yet since they were all still bathing in the joy and excitement of Suki and Sokka's engagement, and Toph didn't want to take that away from Suki yet. Everyone was there at dinner, and the group of girls all sat next to their men, except for Toph, since hers was away for the moment.

After dinner, Aang took Katara out for a walk around the outer gardens of the palace. As they walked, hand in hand, Aang avoided the topic of what happened last night. Katara talked about her day with the girls, Aang talked about sparring with Zuko earlier. They eventually made their way to a beautiful view of the city and the stars above. Aang put his arm around Katara and they just stared up at the sky. Aang hand the betrothal necklace hidden in a pocket among his clothes, and he fought hard against the urge to take it out and give it to her. It would have been perfect. The scene was beautiful and the mood was just right. But he couldn't. Not yet. He had it planned already. Though it upset him that he couldn't spend the day with Katara like he had planned, it at least gave him a chance to plan things out and prepare it all.

Prepare for tomorrow.

He was so anxious for tomorrow that he just wanted to go straight to bed and sleep so that the next day would come faster. But how could he when he had the most beautiful girl in the world standing there with him, bathed in the glorious glow of the moonlight. The sight of her, standing there and staring up at the night sky with the light of the moon spilling on her gorgeous face was enough to take the airbender's breath away. Katara turned to him and saw his heavy lidded, love struck stare at her, and she blushed.

She leaned in closer to his face, and he got the hint and leaned in as well and took her lips with his. It was a soft, gentle kiss that went on for a while without any force or urgency, but with patience.

She leaned back away from the kiss and stared into his wondrous gray eyes. She wanted to tell him about how much she loved him and about how happy she was with him and that she would brave any obstacle or hardship or pain to be with him, but she didn't say a word. Thoughts about Toph and Suki getting married and happily being with their lovers came into her mind, and she felt that jealousy coming up again. Her friends were receiving that happiness that she wanted so much, and she fought back her tears as she thought of how she wasn't anywhere close to having that ending with Aang that she wanted for a long time, if at all. She had no idea what was going on through his mind, and she wasn't brave enough to ask him. But if she did ask him, and if he did tell her, she would find that she had nothing to worry about and her doubts were all wrong.

"Come on, it's getting late. I'll walk you to your room." Aang said softly as he took her hand to lead her away.

"Yeah…" Katara replied.

She was led out of the garden and into the palace, up stairs and down the hall to her bedroom door. She thought about asking Aang to stay with her that night, and sure enough Aang though about asking her if he could stay with her that night. But neither one said anything. Aang fought with his temptation over a battle that his body did not want to win, but he knew it was for the best so he had to bear it. He kissed her and told her goodnight, and after she closed the door, he went to his own room.

Katara stripped her clothes off and put on her sleeping robe. She sat at the edge of her bed and sighed, wondering whether or not she should go to Aang's room. She was feeling emotional and didn't want to be alone with her thoughts. But would going there imply that she was wanting something to happen tonight?

After contemplating over it for another moment, she made up her mind and went for the door. But just as she reached for the door knob there was a bang sound that came from the window that made her jump with surprise.

She sighed, smiled, and started to turn around as she said. "You don't need to use the window, you know, you could just use the…"

She gasped.

"Expecting someone else?" Jet asked her as he jumped from the window frame to the floor.