Author's note:

Because of where this fic falls on the post-ATLA timeline, it conflicts with the events and timing of some of the comics - namely The Rift, Smoke and Shadow, and North and South. It does include some of the earlier comic elements, such as Toph's metalbending academy and the Air Acolytes. So just a heads up that this fic is a bit AU when it comes to the comics!

Also a huge THANK YOU to my beta reader, itsmoonpeaches, for her invaluable feedback and for giving me the confidence to tell this story.

Chapter 1

"I wish I had never followed you out to the balcony that day," Katara said.

Aang stopped breathing. His chest constricted, her words like shards of ice piercing his heart.

He knew this day was coming. He didn't want to believe it, but he knew.

They stood on the docks of Hai Bian, the main port city to the east of Ba Sing Se. The southbound ship that Katara was about to board creaked as it rose and fell with the gentle waves of the bay. She was looking down at her hands, twisting her fingers together, a nervous habit of hers. A brisk autumn breeze blew the braided loops of hair into her face, and she brushed them to the side just as she had done so many times before. She caught her lower lip in her teeth in that way she did when she was trying not to cry.

"I wish we had been friends from the beginning. Nothing more."

He hardly heard her words—he tried not to—he couldn't bear to hear them, lest they shatter him completely.

"It would have been better that way."

Aang silently repeated her words to himself. It would have been better that way…

Better than what?

Better than the days they had spent lingering on sun-drenched paths, lost in the bliss of new love? The whispered jokes that made her snort when they were stuck in endless meetings? The heated kisses in deserted hallways that stoked the fire in his heart?

That was it, though, wasn't it? His love for Katara had grown over the years, grown stronger and deeper with every season.

But Katara's feelings for him had not.

Aang would never forget the day she locked him out of her room. She had asked for space. But her love for him must have started to fade before that. When had she started to pull away when he gathered her in his arms? Had she sometimes held back when they kissed, when she had met his lips with abandon before?

After the morning she had closed him out, she stayed away from him. Whenever they were in the same room together, she seated herself as far away from him as possible. She avoided going anywhere with him except for meetings that they both had to attend. When he was home, she would leave the house or disappear into her room. He had kept his distance, too, giving her the space she'd asked for. Waiting for her to invite him to talk, or—he had hoped, with all his heart—to come back to him. But last week, she'd made herself so scarce that he hadn't seen her at all.

"Why?" was all he could say.

But Katara only shook her head and stared at the ground.

Dread seized his heart. He could only think of one reason.

"Is there someone else?" he said quietly.

Her head snapped up, and she met his eyes at last.

"No," she said, so softly that her answer was almost carried away by the wind. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

"Then why?" he asked again.

Why had she become so distant? Why was she leaving him?

Why had she stopped loving him?

"If we had just stayed friends, this wouldn't be so hard!" she almost shouted, stamping her foot on the wooden boards of the dock. The tears in her eyes overflowed, leaving damp trails down her cheeks.

His heart lurched with hope at her sudden outburst. Could it be…? Does she still love me after all?

But that was wishful thinking, he knew. Months of ever-growing distance between them told him otherwise.

All this time, he had thought she loved him just as much as he loved her. Aang was not one to hold back in showing how he felt, least of all with Katara. Maybe it had been too much for her. Like the impassioned kiss on the submarine. Or the ill-judged kiss in the theater on Ember Island. The backward jerk of her head, the shocked look on her face in the moonlight had been a knife to his heart. When she fled back into the theater, she'd made it clear that she needed space from him. And he had given it to her.

Then, after the war, she had followed him out to the balcony and kissed him in front of the Jasmine Dragon. He had thought she loved him, then. She'd even told him so that same night. But he saw now that their love had been mismatched. His love for her had far outshone whatever she had felt for him.

"I know how Appa likes to be scratched behind the ears," Katara said. "Give him an ear scratch for—" She stopped mid-sentence, as if catching herself saying something she shouldn't.

"Take care of Appa," she said instead. She lowered her eyes. "I know you will."

Sparrow-gulls circled above them, their strident calls echoing over the docks. The somber peals of ship bells clanged in the distance.

"Will I—" Aang began.

But he choked up, unable to finish his sentence.

Will I ever see you again?

He cleared his throat and tried for a different, less loaded question. "Will you ever come back to Ba Sing Se?"

Katara inhaled sharply.

"Not to see me," he said hurriedly. "Unless you want to. I mean—"

She shook her head. "I don't have a reason to come back. Not anymore."

That was it. That was when it all started. Not the day she had locked him out, but the day Aang had said those very same words.

No reason to come back…

Except those words hadn't been meant for her. Rather, he and Katara had been talking about Air Nomads who had chosen to marry.

He had forgotten all about it until now.

Two months ago, Katara had asked him if the Air Nomads who married someone from another nation ever returned to the temples to visit. As far as he could remember, none of them had. She had wondered why, and he'd supposed that maybe they no longer had a reason to come back. His answer had seemed to put her on edge and made her worried about their future—or so he had thought. So he had tried to reassure her. He had told her he was going to marry her. And then he had kissed her.

That, evidently, had been a mistake.

Now, it was obvious that she hadn't been worried about their future. Not in the way he had thought. He knew without a doubt that he wanted to marry her. But telling her so had been too much, too soon. Even though she was already sixteen, he was only fourteen—though he would turn fifteen soon, a few short weeks from now. Still, they were young to be making promises about marriage.

She must have been spooked. Overwhelmed. Repulsed.

No wonder her love for him had grown cold.

Katara was talking again. Aang had missed some of what she said. He struggled to focus.

"My place is in the Southern Water Tribe," she was saying, "with my family and friends. Not…"

Her voice hitched. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Not with you," she said.

Those three words struck Aang like a spear through his gut. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, as though coated with the chalky dryness of mung bean powder.

Guru Pathik's teaching at the Eastern Air Temple came to him then.

Meditate on what attaches you to this world.

Let all of those attachments go.

Aang had let go of Katara in the catacombs below Ba Sing Se, but he had done so far, far too late. He had held on to her until he was left with no choice but to abandon her at the worst possible time—surrounded by Dai Li and at the mercy of Zuko and Azula. His actions had ended in the fall of the Earth Kingdom and his death. Everyone around him—and the entire world—had suffered because of him. Because his love for Katara was too strong. Because he couldn't let Katara go.

This was his failure, his secret shame. He carried it with him wherever he went. The harder he struggled to unchain himself from the past, the tighter his guilt wound itself around his heart.

But even though he could not put his failure completely behind him, at least he had learned from the past.

Let her go, he told himself. I need to let her go this time.

He turned his focus inward, searching for the smallest shred of the peace he needed to stop clinging to Katara and to release her from his life.

When you truly love someone, you must learn to let them go.

A different voice had spoken those words to him, long ago. A kindly voice.

Gyatso.

Finally, Aang found his center.

Loving Katara had been like coming home after a long, lonely journey. She had been where his heart found rest. She had been his family.

But she was leaving. He had to stop holding on to what they used to have and let it all go. Hanging on to the love they'd shared, clutching it tightly to his chest, was as useless as grasping a fistful of water—it would run out between his fingers anyway.

Loving Katara, truly loving Katara, gave him the strength to let her go. She no longer loved him, so there was no reason for her to stay. She would leave, search for what she needed, and perhaps find love again. He would let her go, like letting water trickle from his fingers into a river to flow away until it found the open sea.

A fragile calm settled over him, cooling his fevered thoughts, though it could not banish the raw ache in his heart.

Because I love her…

"I wish I had never followed you out to the balcony," Katara said again, her voice cracking, almost as if talking to herself.

…I will let her go.

Aang braced himself as he prepared to sever what remained of the connection between them. "I wish you hadn't, either," he replied.

Her hand flew to her mouth, and she stared at him with stricken eyes. In that moment, she was vulnerable. For the first time, he saw how much she was suffering and how deeply his words had wounded her.

He hadn't meant to hurt her. His words came from a place of pain, but he shouldn't have said what he did. Even though she wasn't in love with him anymore, she still cared about what he thought of her.

And he saw, whether Katara was in love with him or not, that she still cared about him.

"Because if you hadn't," he went on, more gently this time, "neither of us would be hurting like we are now."

Her look of anguish softened into one of silent gratitude. Aang held her gaze, imprinting the blue of her eyes into his memory. She was the color of the ocean, the push to his pull, his harbor in the storm. He was staring, but he didn't care. This was his last chance to behold her with open love before he let her go out of his life completely.

If he didn't know better, he would have thought Katara was doing the same with him.

Katara was the first to look away. She hefted the pack slung over her back higher up on her shoulder. "Goodbye, Aang," she said, still averting her eyes.

Aang took a deep breath and fought against the growing lump in his throat. "Goodbye, Katara."

Katara boarded the ship. Her slender figure growing smaller as she walked up the gangplank, the hem of her fur-trimmed tunic swishing about her knees, was an image that would stay with Aang for the rest of his life. Amid the raucous shouts of sailors and the casting off of mooring ropes, he watched her go. The salt he tasted on his tongue came not from the briny mist of the ocean air, but from the tears running down his face.

Author's note:

Hi there and thanks for reading Chapter 1. Kataang is my otp, and it hurts to break them up, but I think there's a story to tell. This will probably end up being around 16 chapters, and I'll know better as I get close to the end (I'm finishing up writing Chapter 9 at the time of this posting). I plan on posting every week on Thursdays, but I may have to space it out if I end up posting faster than I can write.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please leave me a note if you can! Thanks again for reading, and see you in Chapter 2!