A/N: Welcome to Kataang Week 2022 Day 3! Today's prompt is Sneaking Off!
Summary: Aang's been oddly secretive lately, so a pregnant Katara finally finds out what her dear husband has been up to.
Word Count: 4.0k
Enjoy the story!
Katara had a dilemma.
It had been almost a decade since the Hundred Years' War had ended, and it would be an understatement to say that a lot had happened in that time. The world had been ushered into a new era of peace by Katara and her friends. They had all grown up a lot from the teenagers they were when they ended the war- they were older, stronger, more mature, and, as of recently, starting families of their own.
Katara and Aang had gotten married about six years ago during a week of grand celebration at the Southern Air Temple and Southern Water Tribe. Before and since, they had traveled, seen the world, and were finally beginning to settle down. The political atmosphere of the former Fire Nation colonies on the west coast of the Earth Kingdom had led to most global-level meetings being held in the heart of the colonies in Cranefish Town. As a result, the couple had decided to create a permanent settlement near the city, both for their family to grow and for the Air Nation as a whole to have a representative at world council meetings.
Which left Katara, five months pregnant, with her current dilemma.
Ever since she had found out she was pregnant, the months had passed by like a whirlwind. There was always so much happening all at once; they had to worry about the colonies, doctor appointments for the baby, her grandmother's recent health scare, working on construction on the island, making a nursery, helping with their friends' weddings, and so on. However, at the same time, Katara felt like she couldn't be happier.
She had never once wavered in her assertion that Aang would be an amazing father and husband, but even if she had had the slightest of doubts before, she certainly didn't have them now.
Somehow, despite all the chaos, Aang always managed to make her feel like the only person in the world, like she was the only thing that mattered.
The airbender would spend hours blowing off council meetings he deemed unnecessary just to be with her and the unborn baby in her tummy, much to the council's chagrin. He'd sing the baby songs before bedtime, lie next to Katara's stomach to talk to them while Katara would read or sew, and would even regale the baby with adventurous stories, more often than not telling them how amazing their mom was in addition to various tales of the Gaang's exploits before the war had ended.
Aang had done nothing but spend the last five months being attentive and caring and making Katara fall in love with him a little more each day, which is what made the events of recent so very odd.
For the last two weeks or so, Aang seemed… off. He'd get home from work, give her and her stomach a quick kiss, take Appa back to the stables for longer than Katara thought he normally did, and then say he had to help with some other area of the island that was still under construction before sneaking off for hours at a time.
Granted, it wasn't like he was completely ignoring her- he'd usually come back for a late dinner and spend the rest of the night with her being the same sweet, loving, and affectionate husband he had always been, but something still felt wrong.
But what could Katara even say? On one hand, she didn't want to come off as clingy. Of course Aang wasn't obligated to spend every free moment of his time with her! She could've been making a big deal of nothing, being well aware of how her pregnancy hormones had been making her more paranoid and worried lately.
On the other hand, Katara and Aang had always been able to tell each other everything. They weren't just husband and wife- they were each other's best friends. Rarely was there a secret that one of them would be able to keep from the other for more than a day or two. Now? It seemed like they were distant, like they were drifting apart, and it worried Katara.
"Ugh," she groaned and flopped down onto the bed.
At that moment, as if sensing her frustration, Momo flew in through the window, landing on the pillow next to her and making Katara sigh.
"What do you think I should do, Momo?" she asked the lemur while scratching the fur under his chin. "Am I overthinking it? Or am I not thinking about it enough?" The lemur chirped at her before jumping off the bed and flying away back out the window.
"Great," she said dryly. "Now there's two gravity-defying creatures on this island sneaking off away from me. How lovely."
"Master Katara?" an air acolyte spoke from the doorway, breaking her out of her thoughts. "Your brother is on the island and wishes to see you."
Katara frowned. She didn't think she was expecting a visit from anyone today. Nevertheless, she nodded to the acolyte. "Send him in."
The acolyte, Sholan she thought his name was, bowed and left to get Sokka, who poked his head through the doorway a few minutes later.
"Hey, Katara. Where's Aang?" he asked as he walked in.
The waterbender got up off the bed, putting her hand on her hip, her eyebrow raised questioningly. "Nice to see you too, big brother," she deadpanned. "And haha, very funny. Aang is in a meeting right now. A meeting that you're supposed to be in too…"
Sokka frowned, squinting at her. "What are you talking about? There's no meeti- ohhh."
Katara cocked her head to the side. "What do you mean 'ohhh'? If Aang isn't in a meeting with you then where is he? What's going on?"
"Nowhere! Nothing!" Sokka squeaked. "Just do me a favor? Tell Aang I stopped by and that uh… that Zuko's gonna blow a gasket if he misses the next meeting."
Katara stammered, "B-b-but why-"
"Thanks, Katara! You're the best! I think I hear Suki calling me for lunch so I'm just gonna go now. Bye!" Sokka said quickly, practically running out the door and down the hall to catch the next ferry.
"It's 4 o'candle and Suki's visiting her parents on Kyoshi island!" she yelled after him, her brother already out of earshot.
Katara huffed. If she didn't think something was up before, she definitely did now, and she was going to get to the bottom of it.
Obviously, Aang had been doing something, and her brother appeared to be in on it, but what was she to do? She couldn't very well go up to him and tell him everything she knew on the chance that maybe he did have a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.
Once again, as if sensing her energy, Momo returned flying through the window, this time with a freshly picked moon peach in his hands.
"Maybe you're right, Momo," Katara told the winged primate. "I'll just ask him if he can stay for dinner and ask him about the meeting then. He wouldn't lie to my face, right?"
He paused his eating to chirp in agreement before going back to vigorously devouring the fruit, its juice staining the fur around his mouth.
"C'mon you pampered lemur," she laughed as she grabbed him, much to Momo's displeasure if his panicked chattering was any indication. "Let's get you cleaned up and start cooking."
With that, Katara got to work. Over the next few hours, she made a plethora of Aang's favorite foods- sweet rice, steamed vegetables, and, of course, egg custard tarts, making sure everything was absolutely perfect for when Aang came home.
"He can't say no to egg custard tarts, right Momo?" she asked him. The lemur did not comment, seeming to have other plans as his grubby little hands reached for a piece of fruit in the sweet rice.
"Momo, no!" Katara scolded, moving the pot away from him. "There are plenty of fresh fruits for you outside and in the greenhouse. You know you can't eat rice!"
Momo chattered back at her angrily, hands still stretched in the direction of the vessel.
"I said no, Momo. You need to-"
"Oh come on," a voice interrupted. "He picks off the rice anyways."
Katara whipped around when she heard him, her legs unable to take her fast enough as she tackled her husband in a hug, one which he happily returned.
"You act like we haven't seen each other in years," he mumbled quietly. He sighed softly, smelling her familiar scent and relishing the feeling of her in his arms.
"Feels that way sometimes," she whispered back, her voice muffled by his chest.
"I missed you too." Aang peppered Katara's face with kisses before kneeling down to kiss her stomach. "And of course, I missed you, little one."
The waterbender chuckled, rubbing her stomach. "Baby missed you too."
Aang stood back up, his arms wrapping around Katara as he pressed kisses all around the side of her face. She smiled, melting into his touch.
"Baby saw his uncle today, you know."
"Sokka came by?" Aang replied, trying to hide his curiosity.
"Yeah. He was looking for you, actually." Katara peeked a glance at her husband, trying to gauge his reaction. "He wanted me to tell you, and I quote, 'that Zuko was going to blow a gasket if you missed the next meeting,' whatever that's supposed to mean."
Aang frowned. "Why would Zuk- ohhh."
"Why would Zuko what?"
"Nothing! Nothing at all! Just me being forgetful, you know how I am."
Katara squinted at the airbender, his arms still around her but his hands fidgety. Aang may have had a short attention span from time to time, but his memory was sharper than Sokka's space sword; it was the only way he'd been able to survive remembering all his Avatar duties and council meetings.
"Okay… well, our baby would also like to know if you can maybe stay for dinner?" she started. "I know you've been working a lot lately, so I made egg custard tarts and sweet rice." Katara looked up into his stormy gray eyes, desperately hoping that just this once he'd say 'yes' so that she could find out what was going on with her husband.
She only had to make eye contact for a second before she shrugged off his embrace and averted his gaze. She already knew what his answer was.
"Katara-"
"Save it," she muttered, her arms hugging her torso as she stepped away from him. "I don't really want to talk to you right now."
Aang looked on helplessly, walking up to her again and resting his arms on her belly from behind. "I know I've been preoccupied lately with the… with the construction and all, but I'm so close to being done. You have no idea."
Katara remained silent, still rigid against his embrace.
"One hour," the airbender whispered as pressed a gentle kiss to her shoulder. "Probably less if I hurry. But I promise you, in one hour, I'll be done and it'll all make sense. Please."
She sighed, turning around with a frown on her face. "Well, I guess I can't stop you."
Aang grinned and kissed her, a long and sweet kiss that almost made her forget she was ever mad at him. "I love you more than is humanly possible," he said before kissing her again. "See you in an hour?"
Katara nodded, looking at him sternly. "One hour. No more."
"Avatar promise," he winked at her. He then got out his staff, hurried out the door, and flew towards the mainland, in the direction where the dormitories happened to be.
The waterbender watched him until the blue of his staff was indistinguishable against the cerulean sky before returning to the kitchen, covering the food she had made so that it would still be warm by the time he got back. She then walked over to the sofa and lay down on her side, grabbing the book on the side table.
"Might as well catch up on some reading."
30 minutes later…
"Ugh, I don't wanna catch up on my reading," she groaned.
"What if I just brought him some snacks? A few sweet buns we have left over from the other night? I know he hasn't wanted me to help with the construction in case something happened and I or the baby got hurt, but he said it would only take him an hour! Finishing touches like that shouldn't be dangerous anyways," Katara thought aloud.
A little-known fact about Katara: more often than not, she had an iron will and a very good sense of what she was going to do.
When she didn't, however? The waterbender could justify practically anything to herself if she wasn't already set on it, leading to ages of internal debate.
"Do I do it? Or do I not? Do I go? Or do I stay? Do I be nosy? Or do I let Aang show me his work himself when he gets back? Agh!" she yelled.
"Master Katara?" Sholan, the acolyte from earlier, though this time with a few others accompanying him, interrupted. "Is everything alright?"
"What? Oh! Yes, yes, nothing to worry about." Katara paused. "Sholan, do you know if Avatar Aang has finished his work on the dormitories and is making his way back yet?"
Sholan gave her a look of confusion. "Master Katara, Avatar Aang finished the dormitories last week. No construction work at all has been done sin-"
"Shhh!" the acolytes next to Sholan hushed him.
"Would you excuse us for a moment?" one of them smiled, grabbing Sholan and talking quietly away from the doorway.
Katara wasn't about to outrightly poke her head in the hall and listen in, but she was still able to catch a few snippets of their conversation.
"Master Katara… …not supposed to tell… …secret… …Avatar's orders…"
And just like that, it was as if Katara's heart had shattered like glass. Aang had been hiding something from her, apparently, something he saw fit to tell the acolytes and Sokka about but not her. She rubbed her eyes furiously, feeling the moisture well up inside.
"Stop that, Katara!" she thought to herself. "Enough of this! Wherever Aang is, chances are he's probably still on the island. And even if he's not, you're going to find him and figure out what he's up to!"
Taking a deep breath, she got up off the sofa, now more determined than ever. She poked her head out into the hallway, the acolytes now gone for some reason, and hurried down the steps of the tower to go outside and begin her search.
And boy, was she determined.
First, she checked the airbender training arena. Nothing.
Then she checked the meditation pavilion. Still nothing.
Next, she checked the dormitories. Nothing, though they did look recently completed like the acolyte had said.
The greenhouse? Nothing. The temple? Nothing. The plaza? Nothing. The stables? Nothing, not that she was even surprised at this point.
Katara huffed, feet aching from her trek as she finally sat down on a stone bench in the garden, stoically bending some water from the stream running beside her. It just felt like lie after lie at this point, and she was getting tired of it. Where could Aang have gone? Why was he going anywhere at all? What was he even doi-
Suddenly, she was broken out of her thoughts by an all-too-familiar flash of orange robes landing in a small clearing next to the garden. She waited for a moment- the only way to get to the main building from there would be to go through the garden as it was right in front of the entrance. Lo and behold, there was her husband, jogging towards her and carrying a small bundle in his hands.
"Katara?" he said, out-of-breath. "What are you doing outside?"
"Nothing much. Just thinking."
"About?" he quirked an eyebrow up at her, his steps slower as he got closer.
"Let's see," she said dryly. "First, I was thinking about why my husband seemed to be disappearing so much. Then I got to wonder why he said he was in a meeting with Sokka and Zuko when it appeared that Sokka seemed to have no memory of any such meeting," her voice began to rise.
"After that, I started questioning why he refused to have dinner with me after I spent hours making-" Her voice broke, tears threatening to escape her eyes.
"After I spent hours making his favorite foods and making sure everything would be perfect. To top it all off!" Katara knew there was no stopping the flooding of her eyes spilling onto her cheeks. "I found out that the dormitories he's been building, the ones he's been telling me so much about for how excited he was gonna be when they were done, were actually finished a week ago! And that there's been no construction since! So yeah! You could say I've been doing a little bit of thinking!"
She sniffled, tears falling freely as she shook and curled up into a ball, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Oh, love," Aang whispered, sitting down next to her on the bench with a thump and holding her in his arms. "I'm so sorry."
"I don't want you to be sorry," she choked out, accepting his embrace regardless. "I want you to tell me what's going on, Aang. We always tell each other everything."
"I know. I know I've been secretive and dodgy lately, I know. I'm an idiot. I should've been thinking about how it would affect you. I'm sorry."
Keeping one hand around her shoulders, Aang reached down into his bag and grabbed a soft wrapped bundle.
"For you."
Katara scoffed, pushing it and him away. "I don't want any of your apology gifts. I want you to talk to me."
"I know. Just, please open it? I am going to talk to you, right now in fact, but it'll make a lot more sense if you open it."
The waterbender squinted at him, trying to read his eyes.
"Fine."
With nimble fingers, she carefully undid the ribbons and wrapping to not harm whatever was inside. Slowly, she pulled the lump out of its thin, papery cage and sucked in a breath.
"Aang…"
The airbender rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Do you like it? I tried my best to make it accurately."
"You- you made this?" Katara marveled at the gift, running her hands slowly over the soft fabric and fur lining. She almost couldn't believe it was real.
"How- why- what- huh?!" she stammered.
Aang chuckled, pulling her close to him as she stared dumbfoundedly at the coat.
"Remember when we went to the Southern Water Tribe to announce your pregnancy to your dad and Gran Gran?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, when we went there, I asked them, plus Sokka, if there were any Southern Water Tribe pregnancy or baby traditions that I should know about. They mentioned this, an amauti- I hope I said that right- that special coat that they use in the Water Tribe to carry babies inside a coat and protect them from the cold?"
"Anyways, your dad and Kanna, um," Aang hesitated and continued shyly. "They mentioned that your mother used to carry you in one when you were a baby. Your Gran Gran even gave me the pattern for the one your mom wore."
Katara pressed her hand to her mouth, heart melting for the airbender next to her. "This? This is what you've been working on?"
Aang nodded, blushing. "I'm not exactly the best seamstress, which you already know, so it took me a few tries to match the pattern correctly."
"And Sokka knew? He was in on it the whole time?"
"All our friends were," he grinned. "Sokka, Zuko, and Toph covered for me during a couple meetings so that I could work on it."
Katara furrowed her eyebrows. "Why'd he come looking for you today then? A-a-and the extra time in Appa's stables?"
"You know how Sokka came back from that trip down to the Southern Water Tribe a few days ago?"
The waterbender nodded, eyes wide and completely blank.
"He was mostly there to see Hakoda and Gran Gran, but he was also getting me some extra ones of these," Aang gestured to the intricate beading on the front of the fur-lined coat bearing a close resemblance to the carving on Katara's engagement necklace. "That thing he said about Zuko being mad? Zuko knew too; Sokka was just letting me know where to find him- at Zuko's house in the city."
"As for the extra time in Appa's stable- I have to say, I didn't think you'd pick up on it -but I didn't feel right killing an animal to make the coat, nor did I know if I'd have enough time to make a trip down south in the first place. I used Appa's shed fur instead to line the hood and stuff. I hope that's okay?"
Katara let out a sharp puff of air, fully sobbing as she hastily tried to wipe the tears coming out of her eyes.
"Oh." Aang's face fell as he berated himself. "Love, I'm so sorry. I can try to make another one if you don't like it? Gah, I knew I should've gone traditi-"
Aang never got the chance to finish his sentence when Katara tackled him in a hug, pressing kisses all over his face before resolving to bury her head in his chest.
"It's, it's so amazing, Aang," she choked out, smiling brightly at him through her watery eyes. "Happy tears, I promise."
Aang let out the breath he was holding. "That's a relief. You like it then?"
The waterbender nodded vigorously, holding onto him for dear life. "I love it so much. And you."
She tilted her head to look up at him, Aang gently wiping away some of her tears with his thumb as he cupped her cheek.
"Everything from m-my mom's pattern to the beading pattern to how soft it is and Appa's fur, oh, it's all amazing."
Katara paused for a moment, cupping the airbender's cheek with her hand as she pressed their foreheads together.
"It's amazing and beautiful and so sweet and amazing and you! You're amazing and beautiful and so sweet and did I mention amazing?" she rambled, making them both laugh.
"Maybe once or twice."
Katara sighed, pulling him in for a kiss. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Words can't express how much this means to me, sweetie."
Aang grinned and held her hand, pressing a kiss to it. "It was really nothing, sweetie. I'm just glad it all paid off and you liked it."
"I did," she murmured and leaned in again. "I really did."
"And I am so sorry," Katara whispered. "For getting so mad and worried and upset when I should've just talked to you and-"
"None of that, sweetie," Aang said gently, frowning. "You did try, and I should've been better about how I went about all of this, okay? If you're going to ask me to forgive you, the answer is no because there's nothing to forgive. Can you ever forgive me?"
She nodded, still sniffling a little as she hugged him tightly.
Suddenly, Katara felt a tiny flutter come from her tummy, almost like a nudge, that made her gasp.
"What is it, sweetie?"
She grinned ear to ear and leaned up to kiss her husband again.
"Looks like I'm not the only one who appreciated your gift."
Aang's eyes widened, gaze dropping to her stomach. "Did the baby-"
Katara nodded vigorously, squeezing Aang's hand in hers and guiding it to her belly. "Baby's first kick."
Aang smiled, tears now threatening to well up in his eyes too.
"I love you so much, Katara," he whispered, scooting back to press a kiss to her stomach and feeling another small kick in response. "You too, baby. So, so, so much."
The waterbender sighed contently, absentmindedly rubbing the fur on her new amauti as she pressed a kiss to the tip of the arrow on Aang's hand.
"We love you too, sweetie. Thank you."
A/N: Yeah, okay, I got way more into that prompt than I should've. Hope you all enjoyed reading as much as I did writing.
For all those wondering, the amauti is an actual thing in Inuit culture! I did my best to research the topic as thoroughly as possible to depict it accurately in my story, but if anyone reading this is more educated on the subject than I and found something inaccurate or insensitive, please let me know and I'll change it immediately!
I'll see you all tomorrow for day 4!