That Sunday was the most miserable one of my married life.

We spent the entire day pretending that the other did not exist. Even the food I prepared for him stayed on the table outside his door, without him even touching it.

I was so desperate to do something that I took out some of my clothes that needed patching and that I had been putting off for months. I envied Aang's studio and his myriad of projects. I had none of that, all my time used to go between work and housework.

By mid-afternoon, I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to get out of there.

"I'm going to the supermarket," I yelled in the direction of my husband's study, without receiving confirmation that he had heard me.

The shopping list was more of an excuse than an actual necessity; there were still groceries bought the week before. After walking around the aisles of the store, I decided that a bottle of cider might be a good excuse to talk to Aang and celebrate the good news.

Zuko promised. He would give us the deeds without charge. That meant the rest of the money belonged to us and we could use it to renovate the building, which had been so neglected for almost a decade. Those were generous terms… and it was time to tell Aang.

Back at the house, I found him with Appa in the dining room, his gaze lost and his face sad.

"I brought something for dinner." I held up the cider bottle and got a faint smile from him.

"Let me help you." He took the bags from the grocery store and carried them into the kitchen, then grabbed the bottle and removed the cork.

"I'll get the glasses." Our party tableware wasn't too fine.

"It's been difficult this past weeks…" It was a way of apologizing, I supposed. I nodded, trying to smile at him.

"Quite. There's something I want to tell you." I took the first glass and washed it. "Last Friday when I went to dinner with Yue, I asked her if she knew anything about the Air Temple sale."

"Yes?" I heard his emotion and felt his hand on my shoulder. "Did she know something?"

"In fact, her agency was the one that processed the sale. She told me she found the paperwork" I put the second of the glasses on the rack to let it dry so I could pour the cider.

"And you know?" His voice became urgent. "Who was it, who bought it?"

"As of now, the Temple is in the name of Zu… Mr. Zuko." I dried the glasses and put them on the table. My husband gasped.

"What does that family have against me? Does he want to finish what your father started?"

I hugged him, but he stayed tense, as if he didn't feel it.

"It's not that bad, I talked to him and he said…"

"YOU SPOKE WITH HIM!?" He yelled as he shook my hug hard.

I huddled against the wall. He had never done anything to me, but his anger had never been directed at me, either.

"I spoke to him about the Air Temple, Aang. It's the only reason I'd talk to him. The reason we made the deal!" My words became frantic as his face darkened. "They're good news!"

"Nothing good can come from people like that, not from that family. What did you talk to him about? How many times have you called him? You lied to me about the card," he said, and the accusation made my throat tighten.

"That's not true! I called him last night to try to repair the mistake that was this whole million yuan deal, to get something good out of this whole horrible situation!" I lost control over the volume of my voice. "Something good about the contract I fulfilled for you!"

He gave a sarcastic laugh that I had never heard him in the 10 years that I had known him.

"Don't lie to me, Katara. You didn't do it for me, you did it for yourself! You wanted to do it!" In one swift movement he swept the table and sent everything on it to the floor, where it landed among sounds of glass breaking.

"How can you say that?" I huddled as hard as I could against the kitchen cabinet. "It was all to save the Temple, for you."

"You lie again, it was obvious from the beginning that you wanted to go with him!"

"I thought he was handsome, but I would never have gone with him if it weren't for the Temple!"

"How stupid do you think I am ?!" He punched the table. "You followed your own selfish motives!"

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.

"Selfish? Selfish? Are you listening to yourself, do you hear how unfair that is? So very unfair! Since we got married, everything we've done has been around what you wanted!" My voice cracked. "We moved here for the cheap rent to pay the mortgage, I give the money for the house and for you to do the book, I put my dreams aside to help you! And you pay me back for all that, with refusing to even listen to me!

He stared blankly at me.

"I can't be under the same roof with someone who lies to me," was all he answered, and the venom in his voice was enough to break my heart.

I did not move from the kitchen, paralyzed, and I heard some movements in the room. I saw him rush out, grab Appa's necklace, and slam the door.

Not wanting to think about what had just happened, I went for a broom to sweep up the broken glass. With the same mechanical movements, I went to lie down despite the early hour. I wouldn't be able to sleep, but there was work the next day.

At the office, Song immediately noticed that something had happened, but she did not pressure me and I thanked her silently.

Two more days of work passed in a similar way, without me hearing from Aang. Where had he gone? I kept wishing that one afternoon when I returned, he would be back, waiting for me. That afternoon, I found something different when I returned home. An absence even deeper than the deafening silence of the lonely nights in that house.

When I entered the living room, instead of finding the couch, there was only emptiness. Possessed by the terrible presentiment it carried, I ran to his study: empty, too. He had taken all his belongings, there was only a table left, the filing cabinet and a bookcase still with some books and sketchbooks from his career.

To my own surprise, I didn't feel anything. Or maybe the devastation was too overwhelming to react. I wished someone was here with me. I didn't feel capable of facing such an empty house by myself… When my father had gone abroad to work, at least I had Sokka and Grandma to make up for the worst part of the empty space he left behind.

The sound of the doorbell forced me to close the door to the terrible sight of the vacated study, and I went to open.

"Suki!" I was surprised to find her on the porch. "What are you doing here?"

Was this an answer to my prayers?

"It's Thursday, do you remember? I said it was coming on Thursday?" Suki looked at me a little disconcerted, but still smiling. I didn't remember anything about it. It was probably written in a letter that I did not open the week before. The instant she noticed my gesture, I saw her smile turn to concern. "What's the matter?"

"Aang's gone," I said without emotion.

"What?"

"We fought on Sunday and he left, I just came back and I saw that he took all his things ..." Without noticing, I had started to cry.

"What? " Suki took me by the shoulders. "You guys never fought before!"

I was unable to respond when sobs drowned out my voice.

"What happened? Come on, tell me inside." We both walked into the living room, where Suki dragged two chairs from the dining room to sit.

I tried to calm the emotions that were preventing me from speaking, and for the second time I told someone everything. Everything, down to Aang's jealousy and his stormy outbursts, to the call to Zuko, the fight with Aang, and the days I spent alone.

"He is behaving like a child," she commented angrily when I finished, and hugged me. "He must have done this in a fit. Wait for him to calm down and he will look for you himself…"

"I'm tired of waiting for him to do things" to take me into account, to notice the effort I was making. I was sick of waiting for things that never came.

Suki sighed, dropping the topic.

"Oh, before I forget to tell you… I guess you didn't read the letter. Sokka commissioned me to tell you that her father will be able to come until the end of the year parties. The family reunion is postponed."

"Ah, I think it's for the better." I smiled weakly.

Tactfully, Suki embarked on a lively narration of my brother's latest work projects and the paperwork that brought her to Chin City, effectively distracting me for the rest of the afternoon.

The next day, I woke up with as little spirits as the days before. It did represent a slight improvement though, to find Suki putting on makeup instead of the depressing lonely atmosphere where I missed Appa's sounds.

"Don't you have some green concealer to lend me? I have dark circles and I think I forgot mine" I saw her out of the corner of my eye, looking at herself in the bedroom mirror.

"Yeah, it must be with my other makeup." I hardly used it, and in fact she herself had given me the one I currently had. "Take anything you need."

I started to get dressed. I was putting my shoes on when Suki gasped in surprise.

"What? What happened?" I whirled around, thinking of some insect or other vermin that somehow passed into the house, now that there was no surveillance from Appa.

"How did you get this lipstick? It's a limited edition, they only made 100 pieces and it came out a month ago" she was holding in her hands one of the pieces of makeup that were on the yacht that night.

I'm not going to use them. And from what I know, they can't be shared. Better take them with you, he said at dawn, when we were both dressed and I returned to the room where I had changed to retrieve my handbag. He tried to give me the eyeshadow palette too, but it didn't fit in my bag and I didn't want to explain. I accepted the lipstick because it was small and I found the color beautiful... although I had not used it since that night.

"It was a… gift." I would have preferred not to respond. Fortunately, she did not insist and while I went to the office, she went to take care of the paperwork she needed and perhaps to go around the city.

My working day passed like the other days and in the afternoon I felt Suki watching me with concern. The next morning, already Saturday (in the afternoon she was returning to Kyoshi), she got tired of trying to get me up.

"I know exactly what you need," Suki declared with a triumphant gesture, after the third time she tried to get the covers off me, without success.

"No, you don't," I replied, burying my face in my pillow.

"You'll see. Get dressed, we're leaving in an hour."

I growled. An hour was an eternity, and at the same time, barely enough time to gather my spirits and get to my feet.

When the time was up, I went out to find Yue with Suki in the dining room, with a slightly awkward gesture. It was understandable, after all Suki was her ex-boyfriend's wife. The muttering they exchanged stopped the moment I entered.

"Let's get on the way, or we'll lose the reservation!" Suki stood up. I questioned Yue with a look, but she answered with a smile and nothing else.

We took a taxi to the largest shopping center in Chin City and he led us into a spa with a large sign advertising it as "Fancy Lady Day Spa."

I had no spirit to resist and followed them inside. Covered with fluffy white towels, we entered the sauna, full of steam scented with aromatic essences. A massage, a mud bath and masks followed. In the end, several employees took care of manicures, pedicures and makeup. The whole time, Suki and Yue took it upon themselves to keep the conversation focused on light topics, which effectively distracted me from my melancholic mood.

"Nothing like feeling beautiful to lift the spirits," Suki sighed in satisfaction, and I smiled almost against my will. The skin was so smooth, and every detail of my appearance received attention.

"I had never come with friends before," laughed Yue, who was almost glowing with the elaborate hairstyle the stylist made her for free, after almost fainting at the sight of her hair.

"There's still another stop." Suki took us both by the arms and we were guided to another store, this one for clothing and lingerie. "A woman feels 80% more confident if her underwear makes her look sexy."

"Suki, no one's going to see it," I blushed.

"It doesn't matter. Knowing that you are wearing it is enough. On days when I feel down, I always wear one like this." She showed me a full-body piece, made entirely of lace. Yue was already distracted, browsing through the store shelves, and Suki leaned in to whisper in my ear. "When I come back from work, your brother always reiterates to me how amazing I look."

"Suki! I didn't need those details!" I turned to try to flee.

"Oh no, you aren't escaping. Surely there are some that you like." She dragged me to browse the shelves too, talking incessantly of colors, styles and materials.

I ended up with a bag that contained three sets of lingerie in different colors, still wondering how spirits she had managed to convince me. After that, Yue and I said goodbye to Suki at the bus station.

On Monday I went to work with the blue lace suit under my clothes. I had to admit that Suki was absolutely right: it wasn't visible, but the soft fabric reminded me of my image in the mirror. That security showed in my steps.

I greeted Song in much better spirits than the week before and went to work diligently on the letters left over from the day before.

A commotion at the door made us both look up. A messenger entered, followed by what looked like all the employees in the building. The messenger approached our desks.

"Good afternoon, I was told that Miss Katara worked in this office." He was carrying a box in his hands.

"It's her," Song pointed at me before I could say anything.

"Sign here, please." He handed me a paper and a pen and I had a serious déjà vu of Omashu's hotel. "Thank you very much."

He withdrew and placed the box on my table. Below the transparent lid, rested a small bouquet of fire lilies accompanied by a note.

"Come on! Who sent it to you? Your husband? Oh, if my boyfriend were more like him," another secretary from the other office on my floor intervened almost breathlessly; I would have spoken with her two times at most. The excited chat from the rest of the visitors flooded my ears.

"Errr ..." I was pretty sure of the identity of the sender, who else? That didn't mean I wanted to announce it to the whole building.

"What are you all doing here? Is there an emergency?" I found an unexpected savior in Mr. Tong. Since the crowd couldn't give a reason, he hushed them out. "Come on, come on, get back to your work!"

He glanced at the flowers in the box with a tiny smile.

"You two, go back to work too," he told us, with much less severity than he used for the others.

"And well? What does it say?" Song leaned across my table as Mr. Tong disappeared behind his door.

I swallowed and opened the card.

Dear Katara:

Bureaucratic obstacles to paperwork have prevented me

from resolving the matter as quickly as was my intention.

With a sincere apology, rest assured that I have not

forgotten my promise and you will receive notice shortly.

My respects,

Zuko

"Oh." Song sat back, eyes wide. Surely she had also assumed that the sender was Aang, and now she didn't know what to think about it. "I can tell them it was Aang, if you want."

That wasn't going to stop the rumors, but it was preferable to spreading the truth.

"Thank you. Aang and I, we had an argument…" I wasn't quite sure why I said that, but Song nodded.

"The flowers are beautiful," was her last comment before we both returned to our respective jobs. Yes, I thought so too, and the mixture of emotion and guilt diluted in anger did not prevent me from appreciating it.

A / N: Aaaand… around here I accidentally created an extra chapter. A few times. Now the description of 21 chapters is accurate, if nothing else happens, lol.

Many thanks to those who follow the story week after week, the emails that notify me of the comments, kudos and so on feed my enthusiasm :'D

And thanks SO much to rahidas04 for her beta work!