ZW 2012 Day 4: Whimsical

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Moving On

Aang waxes eloquent on the proper care and keeping of women. Zuko does his best to keep up.

Aang marches into Zuko's private chambers with his lower lip stuck out and his jaw set, in what he hopes is a somewhat intimidating posture (although he'll be the first to admit it's probably not. Throwing open the double doors, he is greeted by the one-part disturbing and one-part amusing sight of Zuko in his underwear, slumped over a scroll in bed. His mouth is open slightly, and Aang finds himself briefly distracted by the dribble on the side of Zuko's mouth. A soft snore brings him back to reality.

"Zuko!" He exclaims, raising one hand to cover his eyes.

Zuko jerks up, his jaw clicking shut and his head smashing one of the pillars of his bed. He reels back, falling back into the scroll he had presumably been trying to read and pulling one of his swords from somewhere (Aang briefly wonders how concerned he should be that Zuko apparently sleeps with sharp objects). He rolls to the side and swings the sword out in front of his body. "What?"

"I need to talk to you."

Zuko lowers the sword. "Don't scare me like that!"

"You drool when you sleep."

"I do not! How can you say that?"

"You also snore."

Smoke begins to come out of Zuko's nose. "What. Do. You. Want."

Aang sighs heavily (admittedly a bit dramatically) and floats into a seated position at the end of Zuko's bed. "Sokka told me you and Katara have been-" he makes a face "-seeing each other."

Zuko goes purple, then white, and then redder than his garish, blood-colored bedsheets. "We were going to tell you-"

Aang rolls his eyes. "Zuko, it's fine. Katara and I broke up a long time ago, and I want her to be happy."

"You do?"

"Yeah! Which is actually why I'm here. As Katara's former boyfriend, I have a lot of ideas for keeping her happy that I wanted to tell you about." Aang flashes his friend a cheeky smile.

Zuko groans and falls, face-first, into his pillows. "Why don't you just kill me now."

As a pacifist and moral vegetarian, Aang can do no such thing, though he will admit that when he first heard the news he had somewhat seriously entertained the idea. Not for long though. After all, the monks would say that to deny his forever girl happiness just because that happiness wasn't with him would be petty and foolish. Besides, General Iroh thought it was dishonorable, and far be it from Aang to argue with a Grand Lotus.

"I know you and Mai liked to be negative, but Katara's not like that."

"Aang. I don't need your help." (That's what Aang thinks Zuko is saying. It's hard to tell when his face is still buried in pillows.)

Just in case Zuko didn't actually say that, Aang elects to ignore him. "Katara is positive, and she sees good in people and she loves the color orange-"

"How do you know about that?" Zuko has lifted his head and glares at Aang over his shoulder.

Aang draws a blank. "Know about what?"

"That Mai hated orange."

Aang flushes. "I didn't. I just know Katara likes it."

Zuko narrows his eyes, and Aang wonders what exactly he's said wrong. "Why is that important?"

"Look Zuko, the point is that you need to have some fun. Be whimsical. Take her on a sky bison ride over the city or go cannonballing at the beach or go on a random vacation to ride elephant koi. Katara's not big on riding those, but she loves to watch!"

"Thanks for the tips, Aang." Zuko's voice is dry, and if Aang didn't know any better he'd say it was decidedly unimpressed.

"Don't worry; I know you'll do great."

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Truth be told, Aang wasn't exactly expecting Zuko to take the advice. At the time he'd wanted to offer it as an expression of goodwill, a sign of his approval (forgiveness for their betrayal of his deepest, most unexpressed feelings). This is why he's not sure what to make of a frazzled, unkempt Katara marching into the little hut he's built for himself on the west coast of the Earth Kingdom. Her eyes are blazing blue, bright like they always are when she's angry, and she thrusts her hands to her hips and narrowly avoids stomping one foot as she comes to a stop in front of him. Aang, for his part, is innocently eating a bowl of noodles (and anticipating an egg custard) with Momo, and he's entirely unprepared.

"What did you tell Zuko?!" She explodes.

Aang pauses a moment, eyes wide with a hunk of slimy noodles hanging from his mouth. He slurps them up and straightens his posture nervously. "What do you mean?"

"Oooh, don't look so innocent." Aang blinks at her.

"Katara?"

"I've spent the last two weeks being dragged all over the world. We went to Kyoshi Island, where Zuko insisted on riding elephant koi, the unagi, and one of Sokka's weird inventions-and I had to ride too! And then after that we had to go skydiving out of a converted war balloon. And now he wants to take a month off of being Fire Lord so we can take a backpacking trip through the Earth Kingdom. And why does he keep giving me orange gifts? Oranges, orange jewelry, orange clothes, orange this, orange that!"

"Wow," Aang breathes.

"And when I asked him what the heck got into him, he said you told him he had to be whimsical."

"Uhhhhh…" Aang has no good response for this.

"Needless to say, we will not be taking a backpacking trip through the Earth Kingdom. We are going to the Fire Nation, and I will be spending the next month at the spas." She takes her hands off her hips and crosses her arms across her chest. "Anything you'd like to say?"

"…I thought I could help?"

Katara sighs, almost deflating, and sinks to her knees across from him. "Aang. I appreciate what you tried to do. I know our breakup was hard on you, and I'm sorry Zuko and I didn't tell you about our relationship right away."

Aang slouches and puts his chin in his hands. "It's okay. I just wanted you to be happy."

She touches his shoulder. "I know you did. And that's what I love about you, Aang. You're so full of life and energy, and all you want is for the people you love to have that too. That's what was so great about our relationship. I'm with a different person now though. I'm older, and I want different things."

"Like what?" Aang hopes that being 18 adds some dignity to the slight pout he hears in his voice, but he's not particularly confident.

"I want to settle down. I'm ready to start thinking about a family of my own, and not traveling so much. I want a home, Aang. One place and one person that's always there, waiting for me."

"I guess that's why we're not meant to be together, huh?"

She smiles at him. "I love you. I always have, and I always will. But you and I both know we haven't had the same goals for a long time."

Aang sighs heavily. "I know. And I know you'll be happy with Zuko. Even if he doesn't know the best way to ride the unagi."

She laughs, light and breezy. Happy. "Thank you, Aang."

He pushes himself up from the floor, pulling her with him, and wraps Katara in a hug. "I bet Zuko's going crazy."

"He's trying not to show it, but he does not want to walk across the Earth Kingdom. Again."

Aang chuckles and rests his chin on her head. "I'm really happy for you."

And he is. This isn't the future he wanted five years ago, but she's happy, and that's always been the most important thing.

It's just too bad Zuko probably rode the unagi all wrong.

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A/N: My favorite thing about oneshots (as opposed to multichapter fics) is that I can zero in on a moment, or a couple of moments, and let them speak for themselves. This is one of those moments that I didn't know I wanted to see until I wrote it, and I'm not upset about how it turned out. Hope y'all enjoyed it. Thanks as always for reading.