WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE AND GORE

In an unsure voice, Sokka asked, "You're saying we need to perform a sacrifice?"

Zuko shrugged and added. "My father used to do sacrifice's every year on his birthday. Most of the time they were animals..." He trailed off.

Unable to stop herself, Katara horrifically asked, "And the rest of the time?" She couldn't imagine what else they'd offer to the spirits.

Zuko looked away ashamed and shook his head. "It doesn't matter. In Aang's vision the sacrifice was performed on a buffalo yak. Most likely, it was eaten and skinned after. We'll just make sure nothing gets wasted."

Being the animal lover that he was, Aang felt uneasy with this conversation. Zuko's vulgar language was making his stomach turn. Nevertheless, that was the vision he saw.

"So, we have to hunt down a large buffalo yak and pour it's blood into the snow and this spirit will leave us alone?" Sokka asked Aang unaware at how uncomfortable the young Avatar was.

Aang gulped hard and answered, "I don't know."

"What don't you know?" Sokka questioned him as if he couldn't understand why the man was being hesitant.

"Sokka!" Katara scolded him once again. "Can't you see that Aang is uncomfortable with killing animals."

"Well, how was I supposed to know?"

She crossed her arms and scowled at her ignorant brother. "For Spirits sake, we've known him for seven years!"

"Okay, okay," Sokka conceded by putting up his hands to signal that he surrounded. "Sorry, Aang."

"It's okay," Aang told his friend in a quiet voice. His face was still pale, and the words didn't quite reach his eyes like they normal did. "I'm not sure if the... blood needs to be... poured into a specific place or not?" Aang struggled to voice his concern but once he did, he felt like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

Eager to help, Katara asked, "What do you remember about where they poured it?"

"Um..." he trailed off trying his best to remember. "It was a hole in the snow," was the best he could come up with. His vision didn't exactly tell him where the people where in the South Pole.

"Was it outside?" Zuko inquired also trying to help. He thought that he could jog Aang's memory of the vision.

Aang thought back to the vision and silently cursed himself for being distracted by the sight of blood. Maybe if he wasn't so squeamish, he would have noticed more details about where the vision was taking place.

Then, it hit him. It was outside! The weather was nice and calm. According to the time he had spent in the South Pole with Katara, Aang could tell that the feast was taking place outside. "Yes!" Aang told the group excitedly. "It was outside!"

"Well that's good!" Katara cheered.

"Or maybe not so good," Sokka said being a downer. "The tribe has changed a lot over the years. It went from thriving to being barely a tribe at all. Now, it's expanded into a bustling city. There's no way to tell if the special hole is covered by a hut or not."

Sokka's words were true, and it resulted in everyone's shoulders slumping a little. If the hole was covered by hut, they were doomed. Unless they could move the hut or convince the owner that they needed to pour animal blood into their floor, then it was hopeless.

"Wait!" Katara exclaimed as something she learned years before came back to her. "Aang, do you remember when we were building the palace?"

"Um..." Aang tried to rack his brain for something that would have caused this reaction from Katara.

He remembered helping build the palace. It was a few months after the war had ended, and Katara wanted to return home before traveling with Aang on official Avatar duties. Master Pakku and few other waterbends from the North Pole had arrived there weeks before and started to carve out the city. He needed Katara and Aang's help on creating a grand palace made of ice in the center of the tribe... or what was the center at the time. Since then, the tribe was constantly expanding with new arrivals.

When he didn't reply, Katara continued. "There was this hole in the foyer that was very deep. We couldn't cover it with snow because it kept melting."

After she mentioned it, Aang remembered the hole. It was strange. All the snow they put into it melted or fell down several feet. When they tried to close the hole with ice, the ice also melted. Unable to find a solution, the hole was filled with a plug and covered with a rug. "I do remember it," he told her with a smile.

"Do you think that could be the hole?"

Aang struggled to answer her. He thought back to the vision and could see that the holes were about the same size, but he couldn't tell how deep the one in his vision was. "No, I'm not certain."

"But it's a start," Sokka said with his positive attitude returning.

It was once again night time, and Katara found herself unable to sleep again. This time, she wasn't sure if it was the moon or Aang's presence that was hindering her ability to sleep. She didn't even want to waterbend, she just wanted to talk to Aang. She wished they could talk for forever.

A little while later, she could hear the faint sound of footsteps crunching snow outside of her tent and knew that Aang was also awake. There was no debating whether or not she wanted to join him. His presence was addictive, and she was an addict.

She quickly pulled on her coat and climbed out of her tent. There, she saw him coaxing the fire back to life with his firebending. He noticed her standing there and gave her a smile. "Couldn't sleep?" He asked, knowing the answer already.

"I've done enough sleeping for the week."

Aang's smile faded a little at what she was referring to. "Well, come join before you freeze out here." Katara eagerly obliged as the night air made her shiver. They sat there for a few minutes in silence, watching the flames dance before them. Unable to take the awkward silence anymore, Aang asked her, "How are you doing, Katara?"

She met his gaze and gave him a quizzical look. "I'm fine."

"That's not what I mean," he confessed. "Before the incident with the spirit, how were you?" He really wanted to know. Part of him didn't care if she was happy and moved on. He wanted to be a part of her life again. The other part of him wanted to know if he should or not.

She hesitated for a moment, unsure if she wanted to lie or tell the truth. Without earth, he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Finally, she decided to tell him something in the middle. "I was fine."

"That's all? Were you happy? Were you feeling more like yourself than ever?"

Katara searched his face for a clue into his mind. As a child, Aang was always easy to read. The Aang sitting before her was no longer a child. His innocence was gone, and he looked... tortured? Scared?

"I was..." she trailed off in thought. She wasn't as happy as she was when she was with Aang. It felt like she a part of her was missing. Her best friend was gone, and she hadn't actually felt like herself in three years. "I was coping."

"Coping?"

"I've had a lot of misfortune in my life, Aang. I was born into a war, and I've never known peace. My mother died to protect me. My father left me and my brother unprotected to fight in a hopeless war. A war that I made more progress in a few months than he did in two years. I saw death and fighting, and it was less than what others saw, but I still saw it. I became a famous war hero, I fell in love, and I lost that love. My Gran Gran died, and I had to scrape myself off the floor and put myself back together. So, yeah. I've been coping."

The look on his face broke her heart. "Katara, I'm-"

"Sorry?" She interrupted his apology. Her voice was bitter as she finished his sentence. She knew he was sorry. He had told her many, many times. She was tired of hearing just how sorry he was.

"Yeah, I am."

She shrugged. "The way I see it, I can sit here and feel sorry for myself, or I can do something about it." That had been her personal mantra for the past few years. It kept her going, and it got her out of bed on her worst days.

Aang looked at her with sad eyes. The girl he knew was motherly and guarded, but she wasn't like... this. "That's a very mature way to think about things."

Katara felt a flame ignite within her. "Yeah, well I had to mature at a young age, and I didn't have the option to run away when things got tough." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Katara regretted them. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."

Aang nodded at her and let out a long sigh. "It's okay, Katara. You're right though. Every time something difficult came into my life I ran. I avoided my training with the monks, I fled when they wanted to take me away from Gyatso, and I let a war go on for a hundred years in my absence. Then, I learned that I lost my entire race, I had to face a powerful man that was three or four times my age, and I ran. I ran from you and Sokka and everyone else multiple times. It's not something I'm proud of, and I know that I should have never ran away from what I did to you. I just... didn't think there was another option."

"Ton Te was another option."

Aang froze and slowly moved his eyes to meet Katara's. It was like looking into the gates of Hell. She was not happy. She was not crying. She was pissed. "Katara-"

"I know about her. I know that she went to the Fire Nation to be with you, and I know that you were together."

"We weren't together," Aang started defensively, but Katara wasn't going to let him finish whatever explanation he was about to give her.

"I never told anyone what you did to me. I was embarrassed and ashamed that I got cheated on. I was angry, and I had to be angry alone because I didn't want anyone else to be angry with you." A single tear ran down her face as she stared into his eyes, but she continued with the same fierceness. "You broke me, and you left. If you would had came back, I would have forgiven you because I felt what it was like to be without you. It was a feeling that I never wanted to feel again. But you, you moved on."

"I didn't move on-"

"You dated her."

"We didn't date."

"But you continued to see her. Tell me that you didn't have feelings for her."

Aang was quiet. What was the point in trying to argue or change Katara's mind? He had to be honest. "I did start to have feelings for her."

The gate to Hell opened, and tears flowed freely from Katara's eyes. Aang had confirmed her deepest fear. He felt something for the girl he cheated on her with. He wanted to be with her, and that hurt more than the actual cheating.

"But it wasn't like that," he quickly added. "Yes, I continued to see her and I felt something for her, but it was nothing like what I felt for you. I thought about you everyday, and I waited for the consequences of my actions to come out, but no one knew what happened between us. No one hated me because of what I did because they didn't know- well, no one but you, but I tried to make you hate me so you would move on."

"I could never hate you," she whispered. Her voice sounded as broken as she felt. "I was upset when Mai wrote to me that a girl had come to the palace and that you were moving on so quickly. I told her what happened, and I made her promise no to tell Zuko."

"I noticed that Mai was colder to me than normal..." Aang trailed off as he recalled Mai avoiding him multiple times. She used to joke with him, but she was different all of a sudden. He should've known Katara told her.

"I heard she didn't last for very long."

Her statement took his mind to an inappropriate place. His eyes went wide. "W-What? W-We never-"

Katara narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance, but she made a mental note to come back to that. "I meant that you two weren't together very long."

"Oh, yeah," Aang nervously rubbed the back of his neck. It was a nervous tick that he always had, but this time it was out of embarrassment. "She cheated on me."

The irony made Katara scoff. "Well, there's your karma."

"I guess so, " Aang said while sneaking a glance at the girl in front of him. Without a doubt, she was sad and hurt. He wanted nothing more than to take it all back and never hurt her. "I know it doesn't make any sense, but I thought that she was all I had. I thought that you and everyone else would hate me. I thought that I would have no one, really have no one. So, I tried to make it work with her.

"But when I found out that she had cheated on me, I hated her. I don't know how you don't hate me. She... She meant nothing to me. I realized it then, and I know it more than ever now. I wasn't me that night, and I wasn't me for months after. Its not an excuse, and I'm so sorry, Katara. So sorry." His eyes and voice pleaded with her.

Katara could see how much pain and regret he was carrying, but she could hold a grudge for many, many years. She wanted to kill her mother's murder, but that didn't make her any better. In that moment, she choose forgiveness. In this moment, she wanted to choose forgiveness. She wanted to forgive Aang and run into his arms. She wanted to be with him for forever.

But she couldn't do that. She was hurt, so hurt. She had three years to move past the day her heart was stomped on. Now, there he was answering all of the questions that had haunted her since that night. He wanted forgiveness. Deep inside of her, she knew that she would forgive him one day.

Today was not that day.

Silence filled the gap in their conversation until Katara managed the nerve to ask a question that was burning her mind. "So, you two never..." She trailed off, unable to ask the entire question. She was dreading hearing his response.

Aang gawked at her boldness for a second before regaining his composure. "No, we didn't. That first night, I was too drunk to even know my name. But I know we didn't... do it. After that, I was too nervous or I didn't want to. I grew up believing that sex was something that two people do when they are in love. I know that it's not the same now, and I know plenty of people that don't treat it that way, but I just... couldn't."

His answer put Katara a little more at ease. If they had sex, then she might've had a harder time forgiving him, but he was still her's in that sense.

When Katara didn't ask him another question, he too the opportunity asked her, "Have you?"

Her eyes snapped to meet his when she realized how invasive that question was. She didn't have a hard time asking it, but she felt a little awkward being asked it. "No," she replied coolly as she wiped the rest of the tears from her cheeks.

"Not even with all those men that have proposed to you?" There was a hint of teasing in his voice.

For the first time that night, Katara laughed. Aang had always had a way of putting her at ease and making her feel like herself again. "No, especially not with them."

"How many proposals do you think you've gotten?"

She arched an eyebrow in his direction at that question and thought that's an odd question to ask. Then, she started to count in her head. "I'd say about fifteen without a betrothal necklace, and about another ten with one."

Aang's jaw dropped at her response. He knew that Katara had many desirable traits and any guy would be lucky to marry her, but he couldn't believe that she had turned down twenty- five proposals. How was she still single. "That's a lot," he finally managed to reply without sounding like an idiot.

"It really is," she said in agreement. "Sokka and my father wish I'd just pick someone since I'm well past the marrying age, but I'm not convinced I need a man in my life. I'm a war hero and a master waterbender... maybe I'm the powerful bender I'm supposed to marry." It felt good to finally share that idea with someone.

Aang laughed at her honestly, and he could almost agree with her... almost. "Maybe," he told her.