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XXI. Ephemeral Yet Everlasting

Fear not the flame of my love's candle
Give unto me your troubles
Fear not the flame of my love's candle
I'll endure your suffering
Let it be the sun in your world of darkness
Place onto me your burden
Give unto me all that frightens you
I'll drink your deadly poison
I'll have your nightmares for you if you sleep soundly

~ Evanescence, Give Unto Me

Dawn had painted the canvas of sky with shades of morning, but for a certain group of people, the beauty meant nothing. Sokka stood in the house that suddenly looked forlorn and listened closely to the healer. Rays of sunlight were streaming into the room through the window, but despite all the warmth, Sokka just felt numb.

"There's not much time. I'd say a few days."

"How many days exactly?"

"Three to five at best."

Sokka buried his face in his hands. "You're absolutely sure?"

The healer nodded. "It's a little too late. I'm really very sorry, but there's nothing anyone can do." he said, giving Sokka an apologetic look and exiting the house.

He found Suki, Toph, and Aang waiting for him in another room. Suki was sitting huddled in a chair, her dull blue green eyes focused on the patch of sunlight on the floor. There were circles under her eyes and she looked tired. She didn't smile or greet him when he entered, just asked him what the healer had said. And when he replied, her eyes became glazed with tears.

"Sokka," she began in a choked voice. "Does… does your father know?"

Sokka gave a bitter laugh. "He'll know when it's too late. I sent a letter to him at the South Pole, but I don't know when he'll get it."

"And Katara?"

"She doesn't know."

"She doesn't know yet," Toph corrected. "She has a right to know. We should tell her."

They found her sitting on her bed, brushing her long, brown hair like she had every morning for the past two weeks. She looked slightly thinner and her cerulean eyes had lost their sparkle, but her smile more than made up for that.

"Hi," she said, cheerfully and the sound of laughter in her voice nearly made Sokka burst into tears. He didn't know why she was so happy.

"We've…um… got some news for you," Sokka said, hastily.

"What news?" She wondered, plaiting her hair. "And why are you all so depressed?"

"Well…" He began, fiddling with his collar. He cleared his throat and began again. "It's…"

Katara sighed, finished braiding her hair and turned to face the others. "What's wrong?"

"I talked to the healer and…"

Katara rolled her eyes, a gesture which didn't go unnoticed by her older brother.

"Katara, this is serious," he cried, noticing how coolly the waterbender was acting.

"Sokka…" she began, but Suki stopped her.

"You should hear what he has to say, Katara," the Kyoshi Warrior said. "It's important."

"Fine," Katara muttered. "What is it?"

"The healer says you have five days to… to live."

"Oh," she said, her eyes widening a little as she finally understood why the others looked so dejected. "Sokka…"

"Five days," the warrior repeated, glancing out the window where the sun was just slipping over the horizon. "That's not enough time to…"

"Sokka, don't you dare feel sorry for me," Katara interrupted, staring at her brother.

"But you're dying," Sokka said, sadly. "That's not enough time to get help."

"Yeah, well, that's life. Do you think Mai, or General Iroh, or any of the others deserved it? Do you know how many people already died?"

"Mai and Iroh aren't dead though," Suki pointed out, reminding them that the two were one of the few that had escaped paralysis and death.

"I know," she consented. "But these things happen. It's not anyone's fault."

"I'm still waiting to know exactly how this happened," Toph muttered.

Sokka shrugged. "Do I look like a healer to you? All I know is that the healers are calling it an epidemic and there's not much they know about it."

"But where did it come from?"

Sokka shrugged again. "They don't know. But it's done a lot of damage already. There are already so many people dying, and the ones that survive are pretty bad off. Most of them are paralyzed, according to the healers, and a few of them can't bend at all."

"Then it's a good thing Mai and Iroh recovered then," Suki said. "But if this is affecting the entire world, what are they going to do?"

"I don't know," Sokka consented. "But there's some good that comes out of this. Apparently a bunch of anarchists are sick and according to what I heard, most if not all of them, can't bend. I know it's an unpleasant thing, but they kind of deserved it after they tried burning down the Earth King's palace last month."

"No one deserves it," Katara said, quietly.

Sokka nodded vigorously. "That's why I'm going to find a healer who can actually help."

"Sokka, you can't…"

But Sokka had already gone out the door, leaving a flustered Suki and slightly annoyed Toph to chase after him. Katara watched them from her window, completely oblivious to Aang's presence, until he called her name.

"Katara…"

"Don't apologize, Aang," she said. "It's not going to fix anything. I'm not going to get any better that way."

"I know," he consented, wishing it wasn't true. "I was going to ask if you wanted to do anything."

"What?"

"Don't you want to do something before…?"

Katara shook her head. "I've done everything I've wanted to do."

"Well, then, don't you want anything?"

She thought for a moment before answering. "No."

"But…"

"I'll get better," she said, brightly and smiling a little as she did so.

Time passed in a blur after that. Katara and Aang spent every waking minute together and oddly enough, Katara couldn't remember a happier time. Even if there wasn't much to do (much she was capable of doing and that Sokka or Aang would let her do) they managed to have fun together. Nighttime was the only time neither of them looked forward to because for Katara, whatever little fun she was having stopped and the others were always awake. They never told Katara that they hardly slept at night, that Sokka (who hadn't really found any help) spent all night outside her door, that they were all worried, or that even Toph had taken to pacing in circles to distract herself. Katara, for her part, never found out, and steadfastly clung to the theory that she would get better. It wasn't until Aang found her in her room the following morning that she began to doubt that she would ever get better.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't waterbend anymore," she said dully.

"Are you sure?" he asked quietly. She nodded and a few tears fell from her eyes.

"I'm nothing without my waterbending," she said, hollowly.

He didn't know how to tell her that she was everything to him even without her bending. There didn't seem to be any words to express the idea that he didn't love her just because she was a waterbender or that if she went, the world wasn't just losing another waterbender, but a sister, a friend, a soul mate. He couldn't explain this to her, so he just closed whatever little distance remained between them and kissed her.

Time is said to be constant, that feelings and moods dictate the perception of time. For all of them, it was so fast yet so slow. Each agonizing minute brought them one step closer to pain and separation. None of them wanted any of it, but they understood enough to know that certain things in life seldom worked the way people intended it to. Aang knew he'd gladly switch places with Katara to take her burden. It wasn't something that required any thought; he would have done it in the blink of an eye if it made any difference. He would have died a thousand deaths even if only to save her once.

The stars that night seemed brighter than ever that night, as they lay among the tall, green grasses that waved in the spring wind. Sokka, Suki, and Toph had resumed their search for a healer and Aang knew he should have been helping them, but he couldn't bring himself to leave Katara. There was almost something mocking about the life around them. The air was heavy with the scent of blossoming flowers and every now and then, the musical melody of the crickets was punctuated by the sound of baby animals crying for their mothers. It didn't seem fair that life was growing all around them, while Katara was slowly dying.

"I wouldn't mind dying right now," she said in a tone that nearly broke his heart.

"Don't say that."

"Why not? I've got and done everything I wanted."

Aang frowned. "We didn't do anything, Katara. Five days isn't enough. A lifetime isn't enough."

Katara shrugged. "It doesn't matter. If someone gave me the choice between meeting you and dying or living a normal life and never meeting you, I'd choose the first one every time," she said, glancing at him.

"You're not going to die."

He knew even as he said those words that they weren't true, but he didn't want to admit to himself that she really was dying.

Katara just giggled. "So, what are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Aang admitted. "But we've got forever to figure out."

Katara fell into a thoughtful silence and it was a long time before she spoke.

"Do you really think we'll all spend forever like this and grow old together?"

Aang nodded. "I do."

She smiled and laced her fingers with his. "Forever really isn't long enough," she whispered, curling up beside him and drifting off to sleep, a smile on her lips.

She never woke up after that.

Aang awoke to the sound of muffled footsteps padding across the wood floor. He heard the front door open and shut before poking his head out of his room to see who it was. Katara's room was empty as usual and sighing, Aang made his way outside. You know you've got it bad when you have nightmare about the people you love, he thought, shuffling out the door. Was that a quote someone had once said or was it something he had just come up with?

The air outside was heavy with the scent of jasmine and cherry blossoms. It didn't take long for Aang to find Katara sitting amid the tall grasses, gazing at the stars and he wordlessly made his way over to her and sat down beside her.

"Shouldn't you be asleep?" he wondered.

"Bad dream," she replied. "I couldn't sleep. What about you?"

"Bad dream," he answered, trying not to hint just how bad of a dream it had been.

"What about?"

That question caught him off guard. He didn't know what to say. Oh, I just had a bad dream that you got sick and died because there was nothing I, or anyone else, could do.

"Um…"

"Do you love me?" Katara asked, suddenly.

"Wh-what?" he stammered, thoroughly confused.

"Do you love me?" She repeated.

"Of course I do. Why would you even ask a silly question like that?"

She shrugged. "Maybe I'm just paranoid, but in my dream, you said that you didn't for a number of reasons and they were all true."

"Well it's not true," he said. "I dreamed about you and nothing in my dreams came true."

"Why don't you want any of them to come true? How bad could it be?"

"Pretty bad."

"Oh."

"There was one good thing that might have come out of it though," Aang said.

"And what's that?" she wondered.

"Getting to spend forever with you."

"You really think we'll grow old together?"

"Sure, why not? We can watch out grandkids run around while we sit in chairs and grumble about our joints or something."

Katara laughed. "I don't know, Aang. I don't think I'd make a very good mother.

Aang just rolled his eyes. "I think you will."

"Well, we'll just have to see."

By the time the two returned to the house and fell asleep, their nightmares subsided and were replaced with much pleasanter dreams, of starting a family together and watching their children run around and play together in childhood bliss.