Scars

"Aang!"

A familiar figure ran toward Aang through the dim haze of smoke. He didn't need to wait until the fitful light from the burning building illuminated her face to know that it was his girlfriend who was looking for him.

Katara flew to him, and he reached out to sweep her into his arms. But instead of throwing her arms around him like she usually did, she slowed to a stop, just out of reach.

"Aang, are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, but she was already leading him by the hand to a pile of crates stacked against the wall of a florist's shop.

"Sit here," she said, pointing at a long crate that had toppled onto its side.

He did as she instructed. Katara sat down next to him and drew out just enough water from her bending skin to cover her hands.

Aang watched her, bemused, as she ordered him to slip off his shoulder drape and started to examine his bare torso with her bending water. When she came close enough for him to catch her scent through the smoke—she was partial to jasmine flower soap—he wanted to give her a playful peck on the cheek. But he caught the look in her eye and thought better of it. He had seen that face before. It was the face of a healer devoting her full concentration to the problem in front of her.

"Sweetie?" He watched as she methodically passed her hands over every exposed inch of his skin, which was smooth and unmarred. "I'm fine. I'm pretty sure I would know if I wasn't."

Katara's only response was a sharp intake of breath. "Your back. It got burned," she muttered.

Under the cool salve of her bending water, heat flared in a line down his shoulder blade as she wove his chi to knit the injured tissue whole again. As the tightening sensation in his back faded, she sat back, her shoulders drooping, as if the tension was leaving her body along with the water she released from her hands.

"Sweetie?" Aang said again. He curled an arm around her waist. "Is everything okay?"

She looked up at him, surprised. "Yeah, everything's fine. Why do you ask?"

"It's just that…you seem worried, lately."

"Worried?"

"Yeah. Like you're worried that I'm going to be injured."

"It's natural to worry about something like that, isn't it?"

"It is, but…"

They had arrived in the Fire Nation four days ago to help Zuko quell outbursts of violence in the capital that were likely instigated by the New Ozai Society. Fighting in the streets had erupted almost every night, but the small, ragtag groups of rebel firebenders were no match for the combined forces of the Fire Nation police, a master waterbender, and the Avatar.

Which made Katara's anxiety about Aang's safety all the more puzzling.

"I've come out of these fights with barely a scratch. But you still seem so concerned."

Katara frowned. Her eyes were unfocused, not looking at him, as if she had turned her gaze inward. "But you still got burned."

Why did his getting burned bother her so much? She didn't act this way when they battled the dissidents in the Southern Water Tribe several months ago. He had gotten plenty banged up back then, and she had waited until things settled down before turning her attention to healing him.

There was something about the way she said it, though. Something about what she said.

You still got burned.

"Katara…" Aang wove his fingers through her hair and stroked her cheek with his thumb. "Why are you so worried about me getting burned?"

She blinked, coming back to the present. "If I don't heal your burns in time, they'll leave a scar," she said in matter-of-fact tone, as if stating the obvious.

"Okay, but I'm sure that waiting a few minutes won't hurt anything. Or even an hour."

Katara shook her head. "If I don't get to it in time…" She trailed off.

"If you don't get to it in time…?" Aang said, gently prompting her.

He felt her fingers at the base of his spine. They slowly drifted up his back until her touch disappeared altogether. Even though he couldn't feel her anymore, he knew exactly what she was doing. The scarred flesh on his back was hardened and numb, an area of nothingness, a void. When he first woke up after falling unconscious, the complete lack of sensation in the middle of his back took some getting used to. He would fidget in his robes, which never seemed to hang quite right, and he avoided leaning his back against chairs and walls. The peculiar combination of knowing something was touching his back while not feeling anything at all bothered him at first, but he hardly noticed it now.

But the one place on his body where he felt nothing was where Katara felt everything.

"I couldn't get to you in time," she murmured, and he knew she wasn't talking about burns anymore. Not the kind of burns from firebending, anyway.

Aang gathered her in, his hand on the back of her head, her cheek resting against his chest. "Katara…it wasn't your fault."

"I trusted him. I should have known better, but I trusted him. I almost used the spirit water to heal his scar. Then he betrayed us." She sniffled and buried her face in his shoulder. "I know he's our friend now. But sometimes, when I see his scar, and when I see your scar, all I can see are my mistakes."

Her body trembled in his arms, and his shoulder grew hot with her tears. "What if I did try to heal his scar?" she whispered. "That would have been the worst mistake of all. You wouldn't be here right now if I did."

Aang rubbed her back in slow, soothing motions. He didn't stop until the shaking of her shoulders quieted.

"Do you remember when we first met Jeong Jeong?" he said eventually. "I'll never forget the time I burned you. I still see them sometimes, in my mind. Your burned hands. They were so red and angry. Even though you don't have any scars, the memory of that time is like a scar on my conscience."

Katara shifted in his arms and held up her hands, turning them over, back and forth. The skin was smooth and unblemished. "But if you hadn't burned me back then, I wouldn't have discovered how to heal with waterbending. I wouldn't have been able to heal the burn you got after your fight with Zhao."

Aang enveloped her hands in his own. His fingers moved over her palm, then over the back of her hand, tracing the lines where he imagined the burns had been. "Hurting you like that was the reason why I couldn't firebend for so long. It was one of the reasons why Zuko and I had to find the dragons, so they could teach us how to firebend the right way."

She pressed one of his hands to her cheek. "And you learned more than just firebending, didn't you? The dragons taught you that fire is energy and life, not just destruction. You told me so yourself. So even though you did something that you regret, a lot of good came out of it in the end."

Aang let out a breath. "You're right." Her words healed his memory of her burned hands in a way that no bending water ever could.

But then a shadow crossed her face. She looked away from him. "I learned how to heal on my own, and from Yagoda. But it wasn't enough.

"I tried to heal the wound on your back, but I couldn't. Not all the way." A tear trickled out of the corner of her eye. "I'm so sorry, Aang."

"Katara…" He brushed her tears away with his thumb. "Scars don't just remind us of our mistakes, or the things we wish we had done differently. They also remind us of what we've learned."

She bit her lip, and her eyes were bright with fresh tears. "I learned that I was a fool. And that I couldn't be the healer you needed."

Aang grasped her hands and held them to his chest. "Listen to me, Katara. You did learn. You learned to trust. You learned to see our enemy as human."

"But…how is that a good thing?"

"If you hadn't trusted Zuko back then, he may not have seen the consequences of betraying trust as clearly as he did. And if you hadn't seen the human side of him in Ba Sing Se, you probably would have iced him out when he tried to join us at the Western Air Temple."

"And I very nearly did, you know," she said with a small smirk.

"And I got a smile out of you." He grinned and bent his head to rest his forehead on hers. "Mission accomplished."

"Did you say all that just to make me feel better?" Katara said, twisting her mouth into a mock pout.

"No. I meant every word." Then he leaned in and kissed her.

"Mmmm," she said as they pulled apart. "That does make me feel better."

Aang draped his arms around her shoulders and gave her a mischievous smile. "You know, if you hadn't been in such a hurry to heal me, we could have been doing this a lot earlier."

"Shush, you," she said, and silenced him with a kiss.