Rating: G
Word Count: 711
Katara bent the bloody healing water away from Aang's wound back into the bowl. Her eyes stung, but there were no tears.
She had already cried herself hollow earlier.
Katara sat on the mattress, tracking the weak rise and fall of Aang's chest with her eyes. Every time his chest fell, Katara felt like her own chest was constricted, wondering if it would rise again and fearing what would happen if it didn't.
But then it would.
It always did.
Her hand reached out, skimming over the soft dark fuzz forming on the crown of Aang's head, running through it and feeling it tickle her skin. It … it didn't feel right. It felt … it felt normal. Like Aang wasn't the Avatar, nor an Air Nomad, but a normal kid.
(Maybe that was why it felt so wrong; because Aang wasn't normal. A normal kid wouldn't be fighting in a war. A normal kid wouldn't be addressed as the savior of the world. A normal kid wouldn't be the last of his kind)
(A normal kid wouldn't die for the world)
Katara's hand wandered down to one of Aang's limp (lifeless) hands, gripping it so hard she could feel his pulse bounding through her fingers. The steady thump of his vein against her skin was a comfort; it meant he was alive.
Katara took his hand into both of hers, running her fingers over his flesh. His skin was cool to the touch.
(And it was wrong, so wrong, because Aang was never cold, not even in the icy poles. He radiated warmth, he was warmth itself, he was everything kind and compassionate and living, and she could hardly fathom that this shell, this chilled body, was really Aang)
(Aang wasn't supposed to be cold)
She turned his palm up, running her fingers over it. It was rough with calluses and littered with scars, the product of countless days of earthbending practice and a testament to far more battles than he should ever have had to face. His hand spoke of endless strengths, of a resilience he shouldn't have but does, of burdens too heavy for a child to bear alone.
(but he's not a child)
(children don't give their lives for the world)
As Katara traced the scars on Aang's palm, she found herself resenting her own hands. Compared to his, hers were smooth and soft, free of scars due to her own healing ability.
And she hated them for it, hated them because her healing ability was able to fix such trivial injuries like scars on her hands, but when it came to something so incredibly important as Aang's life, it was suddenly as ineffectual as doing nothing at all. She hated them, because they didn't carry that same strength that Aang carried with his own hands (and if they did, then maybe, maybe, maybe they would be enough to bring him back to her).
She hated them, because they couldn't save her best friend.
(but she couldn't afford to think like that, couldn't afford to start doubting herself, not when Aang's life was on the line, not when he was laying there so helpless and vulnerable and unprotected, his hand limp in hers, his eyes screwed shut against the pain and his chest heaving weakly, fighting for every breath)
(she was all that stood between him and death)
(and she'd rather go down to her grave than give him up)
Katara stared down at the upturned hand in her lap. She wished, more than anything, that Aang, her best friend, the boy who took her penguin sledding and made her laugh and have fun and know freedom, would wake up. She wished, more than anything, that he would open his eyes so that she could stare into his cloud-gray irises and see that smile light up his face in that Aang way she had come to love so much. She wished, more than anything, that she could have the chance to tell him how much he meant to her.
Maybe it was futile to wish. Maybe it was naive.
But it was all she had to go on.
Katara pressed her lips against Aang's palm and whispered into it, "I wish you would come back to me."
