Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender

Author's Note: 20 reviews last chapter - a new record! I tried to post this last night, but the site wouldn't let me. However, it gave me the chance to add another make-out scene. Anyway, it's finally the sea of Kataang fluff everyone has been waiting for, so I won't slow you down with a long note.

The Big Date

"Are you sure it was a good idea to take off without saying goodbye to Sokka?" Aang fretted as he and Katara walked away from the tournament facility. "And what about the winners' ceremony?"

"Toph will understand," Katara assured him. "As for Sokka, well, believe me, in this situation, it's far better to ask forgiveness than permission."

"What do you mean?"

"If we'd waited around, then we'd have to explain why we were going off by ourselves. I want to give you a great birthday, and I didn't want to start with an interrogation. Besides, it's already well into the morning, and I have a lot planned."

"So, what are we doing today?"

"You're probably hungry, right?"

"Starving," Aang admitted.

"Good, because the first thing on the schedule is lunch," Katara informed him cheerfully. She took them to a nice little place along one of the main streets, where they sat at an outdoor table.

"Here's the main thing I'm trying to do today," Katara continued once their orders had been taken. "I want you to be able to forget about your duties and about being the Avatar. For the rest of the day, you're just a guy enjoying the festival with his girlfriend. Okay?"

"I'll do my best," Aang agreed. When the food came, he proceeded to eat more than he would have thought could fit in his entire body, let alone his stomach, and downed at least four cups of water.

"I'm sorry," he apologized at one point, noticing that Katara had long since finished and was basically sitting there watching him eat. "I had no idea I was this hungry." Katara just laughed and gave a dismissive wave.

"It's no problem," she replied. "You had quite a workout this morning, and Sokka's been eating like that for at least three years, with or without a reason. At least you have some manners."

"Well, I try," he said modestly. In point of fact, he'd paid special attention to his behavior ever since meeting Katara, although proper etiquette had been important back at the temple. Katara cocked her head as though listening to something.

"Anyway, I think we've been here just the right amount of time," she commented. Aang frowned and listened as well, hearing the faint sound of drums. He looked at her questioningly, but she made no answer. Instead, she turned her attention to the street.

It wasn't long before the reason for this was revealed. An impressive parade went right by them, part of the solstice celebration. There were musicians, jugglers, dancers, floats of every description, exotic animals, and even a military demonstration. There were some other people that Aang guessed must be local officials of some kind, and the Earth King himself rode along at the conclusion, heralded by fanfare trumpets and escorted by high-ranking officers in full dress uniforms.

Aang actually forgot to eat while watching this spectacle. He didn't think he'd seen a display of this caliber since…well, since his visits to the Fire Nation, back in an earlier and simpler time. He felt a brief wave of loss before pushing that thought out of his mind. Katara wanted him to be happy today, and he was more than willing to oblige her. He looked back over to Katara, and happiness and love immediately replaced any lingering regrets.

"That was amazing! How did you arrange it?" he asked.

"It's all about proper planning," she replied, smiling at him. She was clearly proud of herself. "I don't ignore everything Sokka says and does." The brilliant sparkle in Katara's bright blue eyes made Aang's breath momentarily catch in his throat and held his gaze. He couldn't break their eye contact until she did.

When he could breathe again, he grinned back at her. It was clear that Katara had gone to a lot of trouble to make this day special, and he was happy to relax and enjoy the ride.

"So, what's next?" said Aang a few minutes later, after they left the café.

"We have a couple of hours to walk around the markets and look at the attractions," Katara told him. She looked sideways at him. "Can we agree that neither of us will volunteer for any demonstrations this time?" Aang wrinkled his nose, remembering the fire festival he'd insisted on going to several months before.

"Agreed," he asserted. "I'm sorry I took us all to that festival. And I'm sorry I jumped up there to 'save' you. I know now it was all part of the act, but…I was afraid you were really going to get hurt."

"That's okay," she said. "I was scared, too. Watching that fire come at me, not being able to move…" she trailed off. Aang squeezed her hand, guessing at what she must be remembering.

"Hey, look!" he exclaimed, changing the subject. They had reached one of the main market plazas, and it was filled with artisans of every description, platforms occupied by musicians and other entertainers, and food booths. A puppet show was even in progress, watched with rapt attention by a small crowd of children.

"This is even better than I imagined!" announced Katara. The couple made their way leisurely around, examining the artwork and stopping now and then to listen to music or a portion of a comedian's routine. The gem lady was one of the merchants present, and she greeted them warmly. While Katara admired the displayed stones, the lady caught Aang's eye, tilting her head towards Katara and raising her eyebrows in a silent question. Aang smiled and nodded, and the woman gave him a wink before they moved on.

A little later, Aang and Katara sat on a bench beside a pond. Katara played idly with the water, bending small amounts into graceful figures. Aang could hear a song being played by a band on the opposite shore, and he sighed. For some reason, he suddenly felt the desire to join in. To his surprise, his flute appeared in front of him, held in Katara's hand.

"Were you missing this?" she questioned playfully. Aang looked up at her in utter shock, taking the instrument almost mechanically.

"You really did think of everything," he remarked, turning the flute over in his hands. "How did you know?"

"To bring it? I have no idea. Just an impulse, I guess. As for knowing you missed it, I noticed the way you were looking at that ensemble over there."

"So, what else have you got in that bag?" Aang asked, eyeing her large satchel.

"Not as much as it looks like, but you'll see," Katara demurred. "Well, go on, play something."

Aang complied, first practicing a few notes, and then launching into a bouncy dance tune. Feeling that he needed to pay some homage to the air nomads, though, he followed with a sad but sweet farewell song of his people. Since they traveled around a lot, the air nomads were always saying goodbye. However, they also maintained the constant hope of seeing one another again, so the song ended with a cheerful little flourish – a musical "hello."

"That was beautiful," Katara complimented softly as Aang took the flute from his lips and held it in his lap. He stared at it for a few moments, and Katara broke the silence again. "What are you thinking?"

"I never really thought about it before, but I'm the only airbender most people are ever going to see," he answered, looking up at her. "I just hope I'm representing them okay."

"Well, let's see," said Katara thoughtfully. "With only you to go on, I'd say they must have been cheerful, loving, and generous people. They might have tended to rush into things a little too quickly, but overall, they were fun and fascinating." Aang mulled this over.

"I guess that doesn't sound too bad," he decided. He gave Katara a fond smile. "You might be just the slightest bit biased, though."

"Really? You think so?" They both laughed.

"So, do you have everything planned for today?" inquired Aang curiously.

"Pretty much. Why?"

"Well, I was just thinking…hoping…that we might be able to do a little, well, you know…" Aang felt himself blushing as he floundered. He'd already been halfway through the sentence before he realized that he had no idea how to make this suggestion without sounding like a total jerk. Katara colored prettily, indicating that she had caught his drift.

"Don't worry; we'll find some time for that, too," she murmured shyly.

"I don't mean to say that's the only thing I want to do with you," Aang added hurriedly. "Of course that's not true. I'm happy to do anything with you – everything, even. It's just that we don't get much time alone, and--" He was silenced by Katara's mouth on his.

"I understand," Katara assured him when she pulled away. She checked the angle of the sun. "In fact, I think right now would be a good time, if we could just find someplace to go…" She looked at Aang expectantly. Although he wanted nothing better than to do what she seemed to be asking, he also remembered her comment about forgetting who he was, and he decided it couldn't hurt to tease her just a little.

"Gee, Katara, I'm just a simple airbender," he informed her, making his eyes as wide as they would go. "An air wall won't really give us any privacy." Katara raised her eyebrows, but she was smiling with amusement.

"Okay, Mr. Literal," she conceded. "I'll take care of it." Using water from the pond, Katara formed a dome of ice over the two of them. Thus concealed, they leaned in and mauled each other until cold drops fell on them as the ice began to melt.

"Well, that's an unpleasant interruption," Aang remarked, wiping chilly water off his head.

"Oh, well, it's about time to leave for our next activity, anyway," Katara responded, melting the ice the rest of the way and returning it to the pond.

"Okay, what's next?"

"We're going to see a play. Two, actually. The first is just a short fantasy tale, and the second is a longer historical drama about the founding of Ba Sing Se."

"Sounds interesting."

"Have you been to the theater before?" Katara wondered.

"A couple of times," Aang acknowledged. The productions were occurring in an outdoor amphitheater, and they found their seats. The one-act play turned out to be the very story Aang had been discussing with Toph and Iroh some weeks earlier, about an Earth Kingdom provincial princess who had fallen under a spell and slept for one hundred years. She was finally awakened by the first kiss of her true love.

"I'd sleep for another hundred years if I could wake up to you kissing me," Aang said to Katara when they got up to stretch their legs at the first intermission.

"If you hadn't woken up on your own after coming out of that iceberg, I might have considered that as an option," she responded flirtatiously.

"Ah, if I'd only known that," Aang replied with mock sorrow. Katara giggled and nudged him.

"Hey, I woke you up with a kiss this morning," she pointed out. "Besides, I don't intend to make you wait that long for the next one." To prove this, she pulled him to her and kissed him, but mindful that they were surrounded by milling audience members, neither of them took it any further.

The story of Ba Sing Se was also good, the dry history fleshed out with some romance and insights into the lives of the people involved, although, after such a time interval, it was impossible to separate for certain the truth from the fiction.

"Was that really how it happened?" Katara asked Aang when the show was over.

"I'm 113, not 8,000," he reminded her. "I have no idea. I enjoyed it, though."

"Yeah, me too."

After this was dinner at a very nice place in the Upper Ring. Aang didn't see any money exchanging hands, so he guessed that everything must have been arranged ahead of time. He marveled at the amount of planning Katara must have done – and the day wasn't over yet!

Once they had eaten again, Katara took them to a large, low building not far away. Just outside it, however, she hesitated, seeming uncertain about something for the first time today.

"What is it?" Aang asked.

"Oh, well, there's going to be dancing here soon," she started. "I brought a new dress to change into, but now I'm wondering if it would be better just to stay the way I am."

"Whatever makes you comfortable," Aang assured her, though he was having a vision of how she'd looked the last time they danced together. Whatever she had in that bag was probably not quite that exotic, but he would still like to see it. "I don't suppose you have a change of clothes for me in there?"

"Sorry, no," Katara answered. "I wasn't even sure if I was going to change, and I didn't want you to feel pressured."

"You know you're beautiful no matter what you wear," Aang felt the need to say.

Or even wearing nothing, a naughty part of his mind added.

Shut up! he chastised himself. Katara smiled warmly at him.

"Thank you. I'll stay the way I am. It's probably easier for dancing, anyway."

"Okay." Aang leaned over to whisper in her ear. "You will show me this other dress sometime, though, won't you?" She chuckled softly.

"I think I can manage that."

They entered the dance hall (well, Aang wasn't sure what it was normally used for, but it seemed a useful enough designation for the evening), and Katara checked her bag at a cloak room made available for that purpose. It wasn't very long before a small orchestra appeared and began to play. Aang led Katara to the floor and was pleased to see that she seemed much more comfortable with the situation this time around. She relaxed into his embrace and followed his movements with confidence. They flowed together like a single entity, and Aang was all too aware of the way the dancing made him think of other activities involving close contact between a man and a woman. After a few dances, Aang leaned over to whisper in Katara's ear.

"Would you be willing to try something a little more difficult?" he offered.

"Like what?"

"Let's just say I haven't shown you all the airbending tricks I know," he answered evasively. "You have to completely trust me, though, and hang on tight." Katara looked at him questioningly, but she nodded, allowing him to draw her a little closer yet. He wrapped his arm almost completely around her waist and tightened his grip on her hand. Katara shifted her own hold so that one arm was clinging to his shoulders.

Thus situated, Aang began the steps of the new dance normally at first. Once they had the rhythm, he put little bursts of air under his feet, raising them up off of the floor gradually, and Katara gasped. It wasn't long before they were continuing their formations over the heads of the other dancers.

"This isn't the way to avoid attracting attention," Katara remarked when she recovered some of her composure.

"You didn't tell me to forget I was an airbender," he quipped. He actually had two reasons for showing her these techniques. First of all, naturally, he wanted to impress her, especially after all the thoughtfulness she was showing him. Nearly as important, however, it took a great deal of concentration to keep them airborne, successfully distracting him from some of the less pure thoughts he'd been having while still allowing them to be physically close.

"I love you," Katara murmured in awe.

"I love you, too."

Two songs were as much as Aang could manage in this manner, since it required extraordinary mental and physical effort, and he brought them back down to the ground.

"Any other tricks up your sleeve?" Katara asked playfully.

"I wouldn't want to give everything away too soon," he returned noncommittally. They decided to take a break, and Aang led Katara outside and try to find a quiet place to be alone. It wasn't easy, as other couples had apparently had the same idea. After stumbling across a few of them, Aang was becoming quite frustrated. Finally, he found an unoccupied alley and leaned Katara against one of the walls, kissing her intensely in a method similar to the way she had greeted him after his first round of competition that morning.

Katara responded just as hungrily. Aang broke away from her mouth and trailed kisses along her jaw and down her neck. Reaching the base, he ran his tongue across her skin, and then took a small amount into his mouth, sucking gently. Katara began making little moans of pleasure in the back of her throat, which Aang thoroughly enjoyed but which did nothing for his self control. He moved his mouth back up her neck to her ear and nipped lightly at the lobe as she tilted to give him better access.

Katara's will broke first, and she grabbed Aang's head, moving his mouth back to hers and giving him a deep, satisfying kiss. She opened his mouth with her tongue and explored him, and he did the same to her. After they had been at this for a while, they separated to catch their breath, and Aang held her close, burying his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder. As they both calmed down a little, he sensed that Katara was becoming preoccupied with her thoughts.

"You want to ask me something," he stated, pulling back. "What is it?"

"Well, I was just thinking…did you really mean what you said when we arrived at the city? About handing this necklace down to our first daughter?"

"Of course I did," he said, a little confused. "Why would I say it otherwise?"

"No, I mean, you really see yourself having a family with me?" she blurted out as though wanting to be absolutely certain of this point.

"Well, yeah. Katara, I love you. I can't imagine life without you, and the natural conclusion of that would be, um, well, I guess, that, you know?" Aang could feel himself blushing furiously. "I'm sorry if it seemed a little…presumptuous."

"That's okay, but I was a little surprised," she admitted. "It's not very common for someone your age to be thinking about things like that, especially a boy."

"Well, my situation is a little different," he pointed out, hesitating. If she hadn't yet figured out what Sokka had, he wasn't sure if this was the best time to bring it up. For good or ill, however, she beat him to it.

"Oh, so earlier, when you said you were the only airbender most people were going to see, you were thinking that, um, there could eventually be more?" She was blushing, too.

"Kind of, yes." He paused, racking his brains for a way to reduce the awkwardness of this conversation. "You know, this isn't something we really need to be worrying about right now." He couldn't avoid the pressure of being the last airbender, but the last he wanted to do was push that onto her as well, especially at this stage of their relationship.

"You're right," Katara agreed. "It's just…most men want boys, but you've only mentioned a daughter so far."

"To be honest, when I've thought about it, I've envisioned mostly girls," he admitted. "After spending most of my life surrounded by boys, having a lot of girls around sounds sort of fun. Especially if they look like you."

"You're definitely different from Sokka," she laughed.

"Thank goodness!" he exclaimed. "I like him a lot, but I definitely don't want to be your brother!" Katara laughed in agreement, and they moved on to safer subjects.

"Oh, it's getting dark," Katara remarked a little while later. "Now it's time for the event I've been looking forward to all day. Come on." She retrieved her bag and led the way up some stairs and onto the roof of the building. Aang realized that it was one of the few structures in the area with a flat roof. Katara gazed around for a few seconds, occasionally glancing at the sky. Finally, she seemed to arrive at some kind of decision.

"Over here," she indicated a spot in a relatively sheltered corner. Setting down her bag, she withdrew two blankets from it. She spread one of them out on the roof and patted it, inviting Aang to sit beside her.

"What's the second blanket for?" he asked.

"I thought it might get a little cold up here," she explained.

"I don't know about you, but I don't think that's going to be a problem," he replied, putting his arms around her. He caught a flash of light out of the corner of his eye, and he turned in time to hear a bang and to see a firework explosion fading in the sky.

"It's starting!" Katara whispered. "Here, lie down." Aang complied, lying down on his back. Katara lay beside him, resting her head on his shoulder and laying an arm across his chest. Aang brought his hand down to absently rub her back.

They watched the display like that in near silence, only occasionally making small noises of appreciation at the brilliant lights. When the grand finale had completed, a rapid succession of a dozen or so fireworks, the couple remained for a long moment, listening to the applause and cheering of other spectators. Aang believed they were both reluctant for this day to come to an end. He knew he was.

"Thank you, Katara," Aang murmured, kissing the top of her head and breathing in the sweet scent of her hair. "This has probably been the best day of my life."

"That was the idea," she said happily, snuggling closer to him. Aang responded by squeezing her a little tighter. Of course, he was still hoping to have an even better day at some point in the future. He sighed contentedly and wondered what Water Tribe women wore to weddings these days.

--

Member of the Boomeraang Squad: charleegirl, Jesus.Lives, Liselle129, Strix Moonwing, Avatarwolf, MormonMaiden, libowiekitty, Snows of Yester-Year, La Vixen de Amor, chocolatecoveredbananacheese, and honorary member SnakeEyes16

Author's Note: Credits – I got Mr. Literal from an episode of Fairly Oddparents, and my husband thought I should mention that he actually originated the critter on a stick (I hadn't been sure of that). Other people have done the air dancing idea, but I'm not certain I wouldn't have come up with a version of it on my own. I think I will touch on what the other characters were doing on this day in the next chapter, so I'm taking suggestions of things you would like to see. No promises because I don't really want to spend too much time on it.

Review responses:

Thank you to Amira Elizabeth, Snows Of Yester-Year, misskiki28, LordZark, Billeh, ElicityFay, and kimfoo for reviewing Chapter 24.

chocolatecoveredbananacheese: Wow, I'm looking forward to that new oneshot.

La Vixen de Amor: I have read your story, but I haven't gotten around to reviewing yet. I think this answered your question about what Katara had planned.

LiveInThaskyE: chocolatecoveredbananacheese is a guy, according to his profile, and so is SnakeEyes16, but I believe the rest are all female.

Kumori Doragon: Well, there might be some slight Tokka hints going on, but I'm not going to go very far with it.

TTAvatarfan: Yes, I did more fluff, and I'm glad you enjoyed the critter on a stick.

Kimbalynn616: The quarterfinals aren't all that early to lose, really. Besides, it allowed me to spend more time on Toph's battles and didn't have Aang and Toph facing each other, which I'd already done as practice in a previous chapter.

MyOtherName: Yeah, I know. I guess as I've become more comfortable with my characters and my audience, I've been getting a little sexier with the writing. In my defense, I never said how far I would go in this story.

TheKataangKing: Thank you, but I honestly don't know what pwn means. Could you clue me in so that I understand your compliment? Thank you.

SnakeEyes16: Well, others wanted me to devote a chapter to the tournament, and the action plus the fluff in between seemed to deserve that. And like you said, this allowed me to devote an entire chapter to the birthday activities, which I think worked out well.

libowiekitty: Thanks for picking out that portion; I kind of wondered who would catch it.

Aangs fangirl1214: I made up Yun's name. Since they wear Korean clothing, I found an authentic Korean name to use. And yeah, Katara was supposed to be horny. That was the point.

Justcallmewolfy: Unless by research you mean thinking back on all the earthbending I've seen in the show, no, I didn't do any. I didn't study the Kung Fu moves from those styles or anything.

kataangfan22: My husband says being in Paris shouldn't be an excuse, but I'll accept it. I love Kataang passion!