The next day was awkward, to say the least. Suki had tried talking to Katara after she'd run away the night before, but Katara pretended to be asleep. She didn't come out of her room until well past breakfast, when she knew Aang would be helping Zuko with meetings and diplomacy and she would be less likely to run into him.
It didn't stop her from bumping into Sokka in the hallway, though.
He eyed her suspiciously, and opened his mouth a few times before shutting it again, maybe deciding it would be unwise to speak. Katara couldn't blame him; she probably looked a mess. She certainly felt messy. Had she even brushed her hair yet, today? Everything seemed muddled. Blurry. Finally, he settled for offering her a hug, and something broke inside of her.
She had been trying to keep up this façade for so long, to lie to herself and say everything was fine when everything was not fine. To lie to everyone else and say she didn't have these feelings for Aang, because if she admitted it then she would have to do something about it, and she couldn't risk ruining their friendship like that. But she could feel Sokka's understanding in his firm embrace, and the wall crumbled.
Katara sobbed into him in the hallway, unable to put into words any of the complicated emotions warring inside her. It took a long time to reach any sort of catharsis, but she realized she needed this. She needed to be honest with someone. And she was safe with her brother.
"Can we go talk in my room?" she asked, meekly, feeling more than a little embarrassed and keeping her face hidden in his shoulder.
"Of course," he said gently. They walked to her room and sat down on the edge of her unmade bed.
Once they were there, though, she didn't know what to say. Or how to say it. She stared at her fingers in her lap until they blurred together, kicking her feet idly like a small child.
"I messed up," she said, finally. She felt the tears start to prick at her eyes again, and blinked furiously to try to keep them at bay. "I… I don't know if I can do this anymore."
Sokka placed a warm hand on her shoulder, and she fell back into him, tears flowing freely once more. "Hey," he soothed. "It's okay. It's all going to be alright, I promise."
"How can you say that," she asked wetly, "when I just… ruined everything?!" Her voice broke on the last word. She had been holding everything in for so long.
"You didn't ruin anything," Sokka said, confused. He tilted his head and took hold of her shoulders to look into her face. "What on earth do you think you ruined, and how? Is this all just because you kissed Aang last night?"
"Yes!" she yelled. "It… Aang just wanted this to be pretend and I… I kissed him! Here !"
"You really fell hard, huh," he cooed, rubbing her shoulder. His voice was much deeper, but his tone sounded exactly like their mother in that instant. Her heart broke even more that she wasn't there to ask for help.
"I love him," she said weakly, lip trembling. "I mean, I guess I've always loved him, but… I'm in love with him, Sokka. I…"
"Katara," he started hesitantly. He pressed his lips together for a moment and breathed through his nose, as if he was trying to think of how to speak to her so she wouldn't be offended. She knit her eyebrows in annoyance. She wasn't delicate. "Katara," he said again, "are you sure Aang wouldn't be okay… happy even… if this wasn't pretend?"
"I know he loves me, but just as a friend." Katara hugged her own arms, feeling incredibly insecure, but doing her best not to close herself off from her brother again.
Sokka opened his mouth and closed it again, rubbing his chin for a moment. "How do you know it's just as a friend? Doesn't Aang share and do things with you that he doesn't do with anyone else, the same way you do with him?"
"That's just because we're best friends," she insisted. "Look, he… Back during the war, when we went into the Cave of Two Lovers, do you remember how we got separated?"
"How could I ever forget?" Sokka said, rolling his eyes.
"Well, he… we got trapped in this… room. It was the tomb of Oma and Shu, the first earthbenders, and the two lovers that the legend was about. It had a picture of them kissing, and I remembered how the legend said that 'love is brightest in the dark,' so I… I suggested we kiss. And, well, Aang actually laughed at the idea. I think his exact words were 'I'd rather kiss you than die.'"
Sokka puzzled over this new information for a moment, rubbing at his chin again as if willing his Wang Fire beard to appear. "I knew something happened in that cave!" he said, finally. "You two were acting so weird when we all came out. So when Aang said you 'let love lead the way…'"
"We… kissed. Yeah." Katara could feel her cheeks flaming as she relived—for a second time in recent weeks—her most embarrassing memory. She cringed and kept her eyes glued to a random spot on the floor.
"You guys kissed… and that led you out of the tunnels somehow… and—"
"The crystals on the ceiling of the cave lit up," she blurted.
Sokka looked like he was about to explode. "You KISSED, and made magic crystals light up, leading you out of a secret death tunnel, and you STILL don't think that maybe this is more than just friendship?!" he exclaimed.
"Not to Aang, it isn't," she said glumly.
Sokka's palm found his forehead with a resounding slap.
"Katara, I don't know how else to explain this to you," he said slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose, "but I'm pretty sure Aang is in love with you, too. He just doesn't think you love him as more than a brother. And, you know I don't believe in spirit nonsense but I've seen some pretty amazing things happen with you two. You brought him back to life, Katara. If you kissed three years ago and it lit up a cave… that has to mean something."
"I…" Katara didn't know what to say. Did he really not think that she loved him, too? Well, that is how she'd wanted it to be, isn't it? Of course he would think that. But, she reasoned, Aang was always truthful with her. "He would have told me if he felt something more than friendship," she said, confidently.
"Have you told him?" Sokka asked, raising his eyebrow critically.
Katara faltered. Her mind raced—and failed—to form any coherent thought.
"Just… think about it," Sokka said gently, standing up. "I'm meeting Suki for lunch—do you want to join us?"
"Is Aang going to be there?" she asked meekly.
"Oh, come on, Katara," Sokka groaned. "You need to get out of this room."
"Fine," she said. She wiped away the remaining tears and salt from her face and chin with the back of her hand, still feeling a bit childish. "Just give me a couple minutes to get dressed and grab my bag."
Aang was confused. Beyond confused, even. He was positively baffled.
It had taken all of his mental energy to stay focused in the trade meeting Zuko had dragged him to that morning. His mind kept flitting back to the night before; to their heated kisses at the theater, and then Katara's sweet and unexpected kiss goodnight back at the palace.
He assumed she was just having a hard time separating their little charade from reality, the same way he was. And they had just walked inside—maybe her brain hadn't switched over, yet. It's probably just as difficult for her even without feelings involved, he thought.
Something inside him kept pushing back, though, saying, OR, maybe she loves you, too, you idiot.
The night before, when she had kissed him, it had felt so right. Like they had done this every day of their entire lives. He hadn't even realized he was still staring longingly after her until Sokka had cleared his throat uncomfortably and asked if anyone wanted tea, thankfully taking the attention off of him.
When the meetings finally broke for lunch, Aang followed Zuko to a new noodle shop near the palace. Usually Zuko was hesitant to try new places, with the still-prevalent attempts on his life, but it had come highly recommended from Yaeko, one of his young, new advisors, who claimed to know the owner, and Aang was always happy to tag along.
"So… Katara…" Zuko started awkwardly.
"Yeah," Aang sighed despondently. "Katara."
"I… kind of thought you two were already together during the war," Zuko admitted. "It wasn't until after that I realized… Well, actually I asked Toph. You can imagine how that went."
Aang chuckled, but his mouth remained a firm line.
"So… what's going on, now?" Zuko probed. "Is it still pretend? Or…"
"It's still pretend," Aang said firmly. "I don't know why she… I mean, it's been hard," he admitted, "separating fantasy from reality…"
"Oh, Agni," Zuko groaned. " Fantasy?!"
"I… that's just a phrase! I didn't know how else to put it," Aang retorted frantically.
"Sure," Zuko said, rolling his eyes.
Aang breathed out heavily through his nose, but he didn't have time to come up with anything else to say, because they'd arrived at the noodle shop. He inhaled the delicious aroma of spices and soup broths before jolting to find, sitting at a round table waiting for them, Sokka, Suki… and Katara.
Aang noticed that she couldn't quite meet his eyes when he sat down next to her. He reached for her hand instinctively under the table and squeezed. She closed her fingers around his but noticeably didn't squeeze back. His stomach lurched.
The table was silent for a minute or two, save for the customary greetings as everyone surveyed the menu and tried to ignore the camelephant in the room.
Eventually the waitress came and they all placed their orders. Things already felt off amongst the group, but Aang still struggled to shake off the foreboding air that stagnated in the tiny restaurant. He chewed his lip and stole a glance around, wondering if the other (admittedly few) patrons could sense the tension.
Aang kept half-listening to his friends' conversation, but mostly he was worried about Katara. He wanted to talk to her, alone. He ran his thumb soothingly over her hand, trying to reassure her that everything was okay between them. She had been so shaken last week from the attacks in Ba Sing Se, the last thing he wanted was for her to feel uncomfortable now because of him.
She looked up at him through her lashes, smiling sadly, and his heart floated into his throat. He swallowed hard.
Just then, the waitress brought the food. This new noodle shop supposedly specialized in noodles from all over the world. Katara and Sokka had ordered seaweed noodles somewhat apprehensively. It seemed like more and more places were trying to capitalize on post-war multiculturalism without actually doing the research or having visited the Water Tribes or even eaten Water Tribe food before, and they had often been disappointed in the results.
It seemed that Katara was at least mildly impressed, however, because she glanced at Sokka with excitement and eagerly slurped down another bite. Sokka had been absorbed in a heated conversation with Zuko and Suki about organized crime in the city and shockingly hadn't even acknowledged the food's arrival. Aang hesitantly took a bite of his curried noodles, still feeling uneasy as his friends chatted animatedly across from him.
Suddenly, Katara's grip on his hand tightened. He looked over to see her gasping, pale in the face. Her eyes were wide with fear and he could see sweat forming on her brow. Aang felt cold sweat begin to prick on his own neck in response. Something terrible was happening to Katara.
"My bag," she managed to force out. "The Fu Zi root." She started coughing and that finally drew the attention of their companions, who looked startled at her appearance.
"What happened?!" Sokka demanded, almost upending the table as he stood to run over to her. She started to shake, whether from cold or muscle spasms, Aang wasn't sure, and collapsed into Sokka's arms. Aang finally snapped into action and grabbed the root she had demanded from her bag.
"I… I don't know," he said as he fumbled with it. "I don't know what to do with this! Katara…?" Aang had never felt so helpless.
"Use… your bending," she said weakly. "Extract some of the liquid from the root. Just a few drops…" another big, labored breath, "and mix with some ginger and water."
Aang tried his best, knowing how the root could prove deadly in the wrong dose. Suki ran for help, while Sokka dipped a napkin in ice water and held it on her forehead.
"She's burning up," he said, before checking her pulse. "Shit, her heart is beating so fast—Aang, do something!" Aang glanced at Katara once he had extracted the Fu Zi liquid and noticed with horror that her lips were turning blue. Her breathing was ragged as he held the liquid aloft in the air with shaking hands. He had to act fast.
He looked around frantically for some ginger, but there wasn't any on the table. Then he remembered that Katara usually kept some in her medical bag. He silently thanked every spirit he could think of that she had brought this bag with her to the restaurant.
In the short time it took for Aang to find the ginger in her bag, Katara had lost consciousness. Sokka looked up at Aang, pleading in his eyes. Her jaw was slack and she was completely limp in his arms, yet her heart continued to race.
He felt himself dissolving into a panic. If he got this wrong, she would die. If he didn't do anything, she would die anyway. He began to feel his tattoos flickering again, and this time, he gave himself over, knowing that there had to be a past life who knew about healing and could help him.
Suddenly there was a flash of blinding light and Avatar Kuruk was standing where Aang had been a moment before. He still held the Fu Zi extract through waterbending, careful not to touch the potent liquid. Without saying a word to Sokka or Zuko, who both gaped at his sudden appearance, he quickly began to prepare the mixture Katara had described.
Once he had it ready, he sat down beside Sokka. Gently, with utmost care, the former Avatar took Katara's head into his lap. "You may wish to avert your eyes," he told the other men at the table as he quickly and expertly bent the recently ingested food out of Katara's stomach through her slack mouth. Then, just as quickly, he bent the Fu Zi solution down her throat.
After several agonizing seconds, her pulse began to slow. She was still sweating and unconscious, but she was stabilizing. Kuruk took some water from her bending pouch and coated his hands, lighting them up with healing powers as he did and running them soothingly over her stomach, chest, neck, and head.
"I thought Northern men weren't allowed to learn healing," Sokka blurted as Katara's breathing returned to normal.
"The Avatar can be permitted special privileges," Kuruk explained, as he finished up his healing and examination. His voice seemed so big for such a cramped space. "I wasn't able to prevent my Ummi from being stolen by Koh, so I tried to learn healing just in case I could ever save her. I couldn't, but I can still use that knowledge to save the Avatar's Love in this lifetime."
And with those words, he vanished.
When Aang returned to himself, he clutched Katara more fully to him in his lap, then looked anxiously at Sokka and Zuko.
"Katara was poisoned," Aang said, grimly, stroking his fingers up and down her arm as he spoke and breathing a sigh of relief. He could feel that she was stable again; she looked so relaxed, but she still wasn't waking up. That alone caused the pit in his stomach to remain, even though he was confident in his past life's actions. "I wouldn't eat your noodles either, Sokka. They might be poisoned, too."
Sokka glared at his noodles as if they had poisoned themselves. "Who do we think did this?" he demanded, looking around. "And where did everybody go?!"
Aang looked up. The shop was conspicuously empty of everyone except them. The bad feeling in his stomach intensified. He brushed a sweaty strand of Katara's hair away from her face tenderly. He had almost lost her.
"Zuko!" Suki yelled as she ran back in, with a team of Kyoshi Warriors. Suddenly there was a flurry of action. Several of the warriors searched the premises while the others interviewed Sokka, Suki, Aang, and Zuko. They offered a stretcher to carry Katara back to the palace, but Aang refused to let her go.
"I got her," he said. Sokka had the presence of mind to grab the soup as evidence as Aang scooped up Katara in his arms and all but raced on an airball back to the palace hospital wing.
Aang couldn't think straight the whole way there. He knew he needed to stay alert and on guard, and he needed to be present, but he had almost lost Katara. It was only a few minutes of peril thanks to Katara's forethought and planning and Avatar Kuruk's intervention, but he never wanted to feel that helpless again.
When they finally arrived, and he handed Katara over to the staff in the hospital wing, he kept fidgeting with the fringe on her medical bag, just to keep his hands busy. It seemed like it took an eternity for them to finish checking her over.
"She was definitely poisoned," the physician said after examining her. She was a kind, older woman, but very proper. She looked as though she was struggling to remain patient with Aang's panicked energy as he paced like a caged animal around the small hospital room.
"You can see that metal inserted into this soup turns black," she explained, demonstrating with a metal scalpel. "That is a telltale sign of this type of poison. You were wise to remove the contents of her stomach, as they could have caused further damage. The Fu Zi root that she had you administer is not an antidote, per se, but treated the symptoms she was experiencing: rapid heart rate, increased temperature, and so on."
"Thank you for your care, Doctor Li," Aang said, bowing deeply to the woman. She frowned. "How long do you think until she… I mean… will Katara be okay?" Sokka approached Aang and put a firm hand on his shoulder, eyeing the doctor expectantly.
"Without Master Katara's ability to see the internal damage with waterbending, it is difficult to say," she admitted. "But I think she will make a full recovery, thanks to your quick actions."
Aang released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It seemed like Sokka was doing the same thing beside him.
"We will just have to watch her for any more signs of distress. There may still be traces of poison in her body. We will keep her under constant supervision…"
"I'd like to stay here as well," Aang interjected. "Me or Representative Sokka, or Kyoshi Warrior Suki. The noodle shop came under recommendation from someone in the Palace, and it's possible that they had ulterior motives."
"Yes…" Doctor Li replied hesitantly. "Yes, Firelord Zuko is looking into that already." Aang only then realized that Zuko was no longer with them. "Alright, one of you may stay with the patient at all times but only one! I do not want this wing to become a center of political activity," she said sternly.
Aang and Sokka both bowed in thanks. Then, Doctor Li left the room to continue her work, taking the poisoned soup with her. They moved to the curtained doorway to discuss who would take the first shift, while still being able to keep an eye on Katara.
"Monkeyfeathers," Aang swore, feeling weak as the adrenaline finally seemed to be draining from his body. He could feel his hands shaking and his knees were wobbling dangerously.
"Yeah, no kidding," Sokka agreed. He ran his fingers through his wolftail. "Listen, Aang. You take the first shift, okay? I want to follow up with Zuko and Suki and see what they found. Katara needs you."
Aang looked at Sokka, whose young face was already beginning to show worry lines. The war was long over but it felt like they were still always fighting something. And Aang knew that Sokka wouldn't be able to rest until he'd figured out who'd done this to Katara and why. He nodded solemnly.
"And Aang… Thank you." Sokka's voice was wet and thick with emotion. "Thank you for saving Katara. I don't know what I would've done if we'd lost her, I…" Aang reached out, embracing Sokka tightly.
"She's going to be okay," Aang said, willing them both to believe it. He looked over Sokka's shoulder at her still form in the hospital bed, longing to see the love and life in her blue eyes again.
Sokka pulled away, patting Aang on the back as he wiped at his face with his sleeve, then he walked out into the hallway, leaving Aang alone with Katara and his thoughts. He collapsed into a chair beside her bed, clutching her hand and resting his head on his arm.
"Please be okay, Katara," he pleaded to the empty room. He thought darkly of when Azula had shot him with lighting; how Katara had brought him back, and how their roles were reversed, now. He knew how hard his time in a coma had been on Katara during the war. He only hoped he could be as strong as she was.
Author's note: Apologies for the rushed quality of this chapter. I really needed to get it done and got caught up researching various poisons and antidotes and ancient Chinese medicines... HUGE thanks to CoyoteLemon for doing a quick turnaround on edits for this chapter and for suggesting some pretty major improvements. This chapter would not have been nearly as good (or even ready) without her help. The next chapter will be posted in two weeks, on Monday. I have a couple other pieces I'm working on for a kataang event this weekend before I resume work on this, but we are nearing the end, now! Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and thank you as always for reading!