Disclaimer: I do not own ATLA or its characters.

54

Aang disentangled himself from Katara, who slept peacefully beside him, though it was late in the morning and the sun streamed brightly between the curtains. Little alerts from his phone were going off repeatedly, ringing in his ears from across the room where it sat on his desk. He'd dropped it there the night before on the way to the bed with Katara. His mind had definitely been on other things.

He picked it up, flipping it over, and raised his eyebrows in surprise at the multitude of texts he'd received from Toph.

'Get your ass up, Twinkle-Toes. Something's happened', was the most recent, but there at least ten more with varying degrees of urgency and colorful language. As he quickly scanned through them, another one pinged through. 'Fine; it's your relationship'.

That didn't bode well. He dialed Toph's number, waiting two rings before the short-tempered girl answered.

"Where the fuck have you been?" she demanded immediately. "We need to talk."

He almost groaned. "I've been asleep... What did I do?"

"You're an idiot is what you did."

"You can't do being an idiot."

Toph scoffed through the phone. "Ordinarily, I'd agree with you, but somehow, you've managed it."

"Okay, fine," he sighed. "What did I do, then?"

"You dated a real bitch, that's what."

At first, he grew outraged, his mind immediately racing to both imagine what Katara could possibly have done to Toph, and then very quickly to defend her from whatever this mystery accusation was. Then he noticed Toph's phrasing; she'd said dated, not dating.

"What's happened?" he asked suspiciously.

"A few days ago, while I was working, I bumped into an old friend; Jet, and he had a tag-along. And then again yesterday, but this time, she came alone."

Aang groaned. "Jun." But suddenly, the pieces were falling into place. They had all wondered how Jet had discovered his homelessness. This was as good as a closed case, to Aang.

"Jun," came Toph's grim confirmation. "What are you going to do?"

"Talk to her, obviously. Ask her if she told Jet... and possibly ask her what the heck she's doing with Jet. Not that it's really any of my business, I suppose," he mused.

"Well, I wouldn't tell your girlfriend about it. Girlfriends tend to get sort of touchy about these sort of things."

Aang snorted. "Yea, they do, but not as touchy as when they find out about it afterward. I learned that the hard way, and you weren't even actually my girlfriend."

"I would never make a mistake like that," Toph said airily, but even through the phone, Aang could hear a note of embarrassment and guilt in her voice.

He ignored that. "What's been going on with you, lately? You used to be pretty good at giving advice. Now, it seems like you're specifically seeking out bad ideas."

"I'll take it from your backhanded comment that you're going to tell Katara about your talk with Jun?"

"Tell her?" Aang repeated. "I'm going to take her with me."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Speaking of bad ideas."

"Sad to go?" Sokka asked quietly as he packed his overnight bag.

"Not really," Suki answered truthfully. "This place is beautiful, and a little lavish luxury is never out of place, but sharing a bathroom between just you and I... I just don't know what to do with all that space and cleanliness. Give me a filthy common-use bathroom any day."

"You don't actually think that."

"Not even a little bit," she laughed. "But, if I keep telling myself that, maybe it won't hit so hard when I go back to our apartment today."

He shot her a quick grin, before zipping up his bag. He slung it over his shoulder, grabbing up hers from out of her hands, too, and strode from the room.

"Wow," Suki gushed sarcastically as she followed him out of the room. "What a big, strong man you are. Two overnight bags? I swoon."

She could almost hear him roll his eyes. "I've been working out. Only the best for the woman I love."

Her heart skipped a beat, and a little smile crept across her face. Get a grip, she scolded herself. You're like a little smitten schoolgirl. "Does this valet service come with coffee?"

"Sure, let me just manifest one into reality for you."

"Whatever works for you, Sokka. Just make it a latte, if you don't mind."

Katara yawned widely over her coffee, then frowned. "Ew, my breath smells terrible," she muttered to herself.

"I think it's cute," Aang said, smiling sweetly at her.

But there was something strange about it, as if it were almost forced. A sort of strange tenseness in his lips, and the creases in the corners of his eyes, the ones normally wrinkled endearingly with his smile, weren't present. "What's up?" she asked suspiciously.

The smile facade dropped immediately. "How do you do that?" he sighed.

"Do what?"

"Just... know that stuff is wrong," he said.

"We can get to that in a moment. What's wrong?" she asked.

His eyes dropped to his hands, and one of his fingertips traced the blue line of the tattoo that raced down arm to end at the back of his hand. "Toph called. And... I guess a few days ago, Jet came by, just being a dick, but this time, he had a friend with him." His eyes looked up to hers, pleading, a touch of desperation weaving throughout the gray. "It was my ex. Her name is Jun... she must have told Jet about my former living situation."

"Oh," she said softly. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "So far, yea. Are you?"

"I am. What are you going to do?" She frowned, disliking the way that sentence sounded out loud. Reaching her hand across the table top, she enveloped her hand over his, and gave him a warm, encouraging smile. "I mean... what are we going to do?"

A/N: hey guys. Thank you beyond words for your support. I honestly can't thank you guys enough, and everything I say will fall short. There are so many people that I'd like to thank individually; hilmontanhamhigh, aanglovergirl, wil02, Sam, and so many more. I'd actually also like to thank guest reviewer 'Zuko sucks' for being a perfectly reasonable person with feedback I can understand and appreciate. The trouble is, just as with my former anonymous friend, that I can only respond here in A/Ns. I'd love to hear what made you feel the way you did about a possible Katara-Zuko set up because I can assure that I was not trying to imply that in any way shape or form.. but I'd prefer we discuss it privately, if that's possible.

And welcome leonebrion. You're making an impressive trajectory through this story, and I really appreciate your dedication to reviewing. Your feedback is super helpful!