Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Warnings: Character death. Slight Kataang.
Author's Note: I wanted to write an Aangst piece- Aang doesn't seem to get much love. Or maybe that's just me. I think this one is better than my first one-shot, but it doesn't make the reader feel as much as I'd like it to.Oh well.
Time has stopped for the second time in one young boy's life. He isn't incased in ice, but he might as well be. His heart lays in his chest, cold and hard and painful, lead slowly poisoning him. The avatar cannot move, his limbs frozen in place, his eyes trained on the blank face before him.
He kneels beside his fallen friend, to shocked and hurt to notice the blood. He can't tear his gaze from those eyes- Katara's eyes- that suddenly seem so unfamiliar, a stranger's. All that made those blue eyes beautiful- their hope, their love, their life- is gone, leaving them glazed and staring. Accusing.
An arm lifts, trembling and stiff, from his side. He pauses for a moment, his fingers hovering over her face. They move, independent of the mind that refuses to believe that this is happening. He closes her eyes, knowing that she is dead and those blue eyes will never open again. Never, ever again.
The sob he hadn't known was climbing up his throat breaks free, a strangled, inhuman cry of grief. He buries his face in hands that still shake and sobs, shoulders heaving. Because she is dead, because he couldn't save her, because there is nothing else he can do. He feels the surge of rage and grief as his tattoos glow, feels the world fall apart around him, feels everything else move past him- out of his control.
Time has stopped for the second time, leaving a girl who died too soon and a boy who lost too much.