Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar or anything associate with it except my fanfiction

Wrote this in two hours. I just had an idea and had to get it out. Admittedly very sloppy and unrefined, but hopefully the idea is still there.

Edit: Not sure what to make of that first review, but... um... interesting. Apparently it's part of a larger thing about a troll going around and just attacking people's stories and framing other authors for doing it, but I don't know what to believe, and I honestly don't care. I think it's amusing that people are this insane and are not ashamed to publicly display - not to mention it's the very first review of this story! Seriously, how does someone manage such impeccable timing? I'm just going to leave that review up for kicks when I revisit this story a long time later.

Katara looked astounded at the towering figure before her.

Okay, not towering, but still, half a head taller than her at the age of fifteen! Two years younger than her! Was this supposed to happen? She knew about how boys hit their strides in growth later than girls did, and that boys had much more growth than girls did during their times, but she was absolutely certain that Aang shouldn't be so infuriatingly tall. She could accept it when she could no longer stand up on tiptoe and lean her head atop his. She could even accept the day that she found out that she no longer looked down at sweet, young Aang, and instead had to stare straight across at his eyes. Not that that last part was bad, as it didn't take any effort to get lost in his two stormy orbs any longer, but it was still a painful reminder that Aang was growing up - too fast for Katara's liking.

"Are you alright, sweetie?" Aang asked, perplexed look begging askance from his girlfriend. He seemed unfazed by the fact that it was he that started looking down at Katara instead of the other way around, and Katara envied him for his cool nonchalance.

She managed to conjure a smile for Aang. "I'm... I'm okay. Thanks for asking," she said, hugging her arms and shrinking within herself.

Aang didn't miss that gesture. It was an annoying quirk of Katara's, a defense mechanism that triggered whenever she felt too much emotion, such as an overwhelming sense of shyness or grief. It had originated with her mother's death, when she was still reeling from the grief and struggling under the burden to be the domestic caretaker of her household, but it had seemed to dissipate until Aang had come into the picture. Her habit of shrinking inward had returned in earnest, except instead of happening because of grief, she found it was more of flusteredness, of caution, of a shyness that seemed to take ahold of her whenever she saw the carefree airbending spirit - a shyness that did not recede even years later whenever she gazed down at her boyfriend.

Or rather, gazed up.

"What's the matter?" Aang asked, eyebrows scrunched in concern. Darn. She was hoping he'd gloss over her glumness.

"How are you always able to tell when I have something on my mind?" sighed Katara, although she already knew the answer. "It's like you've aquired some sort of new bending technique that can read minds."

"I wish," he said, hosting her waste up in an exaggerated effort to raise her up to kiss her. "Then I'd be able to glean the thoughts racing through your head at how ridiculously handsome I am." he smirked smugly as Katara flushed with indignation. Her conceited, self-assured, egotistical, unbearable, insufferable boyfriend! Never mind the fact that he was right about his handsomeness - he knew that he annoyed Katara to no end, and yet exploited the fact mercilessly.

Although for all of her boyfriend's cruelty, she found that she didn't especially care, melting into his arms as he gave her a kiss that completely and thoroughly disarmed and charmed her. Spirits, he was such a good kisser. He always was, even from their first kiss at the Day of the Black Sun, but she found that for some reason, his lips were so soft, so supple, so warm, so inviting, that whatever she wanted to say died in her throat as she greedily thrust her tongue into his mouth.

Aang backed off a little, and Katara pouted. That was it? That was all he'd give her? He'd start kissing her to mollify her, and then, just when things wer eabout to get good, he backs off? She let out an involuntary growl, and Aang let out a small chuckle at seeing his girlfriend so incensed.

"You're a very feisty little woman, aren't you, Katara?" Aang joked, leaning in to kiss her again. But this time, she didn't reciprocate, glaring him down with an anger justified by his treatment of her physical disadvantage. When Aang drew back from the kiss, disappointed, she simply turned her nose up, and turned her face away from him in a huff.

Big mistake.

Immediately, he attacked her neck, kissing her and pleasuring her until she had no choice but to change her haughty, affronted face into one of blank bliss as she desperately tried to pry his needy lips off her tingling body, but couldn't. Curse his strong, sexy arms! Curse his ridiculous height and perfect lips and handsome face and beautiful smile and -!

Fortunately, Aang had sense enough to stop, and he pulled back, holding Katara in his arms all the while, smiling that little smile that made Katara involuntarily return the gesture and blush. "Sweetie... I think with the attitude you've been displaying, we both know something's up. Spill."

And he was just oh so irresistable and ridiculously mature that Katara didn't hold back. "... and you're so tall all of a sudden and now you're lifting me up just so you can kiss me and you're making all these short jokes at my expense and -"

Aang cut her off with a kiss, and, flustered and shocked at her boyfriends audacity as it was, she gladly accepted this cue to stop talking. "Wait. That's the entire problem you're having right now?" Katara sheepishly nodded. Though it had seemed completely justifiable mere moments ago, Katara was mortified to realize her tantrum was unreasonable, unfounded, and had come out of nowhere. "Hmm, someone's jealous," Aang teased, smiling at her to show that all was forgiven.

"I... I don't know what came over me," she admitted. "I'm actually... happy that you're so tall. Like, I mean, hovering above me. Being able to put my head on yours standing up was nice, but at the same time, I couldn't wait for the day that you couldjust lift me up and... and..." she blushed furiously as she realized her not so subtle hinting. "... kiss me senseless," she muttered, certain that her entire body was blushing in pure embarassment. How she wished to melt into a puddle on the spot and disappear forever. Stupid idea, Katara, she thought savagely. Why couldn't you be more elegant? Now he won't bother touching you again for -

Her thoughts were brought to an abrupt end when Aang suddenly lifted her up, spun her around until she dizzyingly grinned at him, and then kissed her. Her senses exploded once more at the electric touch of her boyfriend. Spirits, she was the luckiest woman in the world.

Aang smiled lopsidedly. "Liked that?"

Katara nodded. "But... what I meant was... I wasn't expecting it so soon," she admitted, gazing up and down Aang's body.

Aang laughed. "To be honest, neither was I. I thought it would take about a year or two more before I was this tall. But who knows," Aang shrugged. "The world works in mysterious ways."

Katara agreed. Any world where her brother could get away with being "scientific" was a weird world. How the oaf who couldn't launder socks for the life of himself managed to become such a renowned scientist boggled her to no end. But strange though the world was, it had at least done justice to one lone individual who found something she didn't realized she needed or even wanted.

Aang kissed her again, and smiled as though he would never need to smile again. Make that two people.

"You know what?" Katara said, burying her face into his chest.

"What?"

Katara looked up at the head-taller-than-her handsome teenager. She looked at his enlarged form. She looked at his newfound strength and muscles. But most of all, she looked up at him, seeing his grey eyes and his lopsided smile and wondering at the developments of time.

Some things would stay the same. They always would.

But some things would change for the better.

"It's nice to see you catching up," she said.

Katara stared straight at her husband, eyes wide in disbelief, legs crossed to hide, to contain, to control the warm feeling blossoming within herself with little success.

She had never thought blue tattoos would be so attractive. She never thought a bald head could be so enticing. She never thought a young, immature, fun little boy could grow into something so sexy. And yet her eyes didn't lie to her. She scoured his entire body, drank his entire being, reveled in his presence as she absentedly crossed and uncrossed her legs.

With a yawn, Aang rolled around and opened his eyes. "Morning," Katara chirped. Or rather, meant to chirp. It was rather hard to speak with a high tone with such a specimen in front of her.

Aang gave her a seductive gaze that lit every one of her synapses on fire. "'Morning, 'Tara," he drawled back. "How long you been awake?"

She shrugged. "Not for long. Just enough to remember - " she snuggled up right next to him, painfully aware of the contact of his warm skin on hers. "- last night."

Aang smiled. "Did you enjoy it?"

Katara nodded. "Definitely." She settled into the bed, next to her lover and husband. "I love you, Aang," she said into his chest.

"I love you too."

Katara suddenly drew away. "But you know what surprises me?" Aang cocked his head. "You seem a bit older than me. I know we're very similar in age and that you probably should be looking older than me -"

"Ouch," muttered Aang.

Katara sniffed. "Otherwise I'd feel like I had no dignity." She leaned in towards him and nuzzled his nose affectionately. "- but I feel like you've somehow grown to be two or three years older than me! I don't know why - maybe it's a fading glow or a line here or there?"

"Gee, thanks."

Katara looked at him, aghast. "Oh, Spirits, no! That's not what I meant! I swear upon the light of Yue, you are every bit as ridiculously handsome as before -"

"You got that right."

A playful glare shut him up. "Yes, you're good looking. Now get it out of your head before your ego inflates and your expanded head ruins your looks. But... something feels... off, like you're not supposed to appear as old as you do."

Aang pouted. "And I'm supposed to take that as a bad thing?"

"Yes. I mean, no! I mean, I don't know! Something seems strange about you, like you're not supposed to be so old. I'm in this with you too, remember? It's not like I have some sort of strange edge over life and know everything it's got to offer," pleaded Katara.

Aang's face remained passive as he studied her. "You mean like that time you healed me with the Spirit Water?"

Katara blushed. How could she forget that moment? Hope when she saw Aang rising from the earth, bathed in an otherworldly light. Horror as she saw Aang's determined face change to one of shock as lightning coursed through his body, ripped through his life as though it was mere paper. The grief as she held the friend of her best friend, a friend with whom she had felt things no one else had aroused within her, and thought he was dead. The bluriness of what happened next. Getting on Appa. Fear and trepidation as she blindly fished for the Spirit Water and didn't hesitate to use all of it on Aang's angry red wound. Crying with despair when she had used the water all up and Aang hadn't responded. Pure joy when he opened his eyes and, for the briefest moment, smiled at her, a smile she would never forget. She hugged him, almost forgetting that he was hurt badly, but it didn't matter because he was unconscious and didn't feel a thing and was alive.

Alive and grown and sexy and right in front of her. "That's... that's different. I was offered something with immense power, and I used it with extreme guesswork. I didn't know what it would do, just that if it didn't work, then I wouldn't be able to save you." Impromptu tears sprang to her eyes.

"Katara..." breathed Aang. He kissed her eyelids, and they fluttered from ecstasy and contact. "Don't cry. I'm here with you."

"Yes, yes you are," she responded. She gazed heavy-lidded at his body, wanting all of it, and noticed. The well-defined chest. The arms thick with strength. The legs pressed hot against her own. And his face, filled with youth, but also an age and maturity that, for some odd reason, awakened a primal monster within her. Yes, no matter how reluctanct he was to admit it, his advancing age made him all the more desirable, all the more enchanting, to the woman he loved, to the woman who loved him.

She sighed contentedly. "You know what, Aang?"

Aang blinked. "What is it?"

She leaned in for a passionate kiss, grabbing onto his neck like a lifeline - her lifeline. "I'm glad you've caught up," she whispered under her breath in between snatches of kisses.

They were taking a walk in Republic City when things went wrong.

Aang was forty. A middle-aged man, a little past his prime but still strong and young and healthy. His legs failed him, and he took a hard fall.

It wasn't supposed to be much. Katara had expected the airbender to remain unscathed. Maybe a cut or two here or there at most, things she could easily patch.

Large, angry purple bruises. A broken fibula. A terrifying cut. It took all of Katara's composure and skill and more to heal the injuries as best she could. She shook in fear and sorrow. How could this have happened? Why did the Avatar, most powerful being in the world, receive so much injury from a simple fall? But more than that, what caused the Avatar's legs to fail him? She was desperate for answers, and would have gladly accepted any one, if only to know.

How wrong that statement was.

She kept herself tense so as not to shake in front of her husband. She needed to be strong for him. She needed to be brave, she needed to tell him without reservation or misgiving or hesitation. And Aang noticed her tension, how she seemed all coiled up and ready for action, how her steps were small and stiff as though she was a delicate, practiced antithesis of Toph, how she refused to look him in the eye.

"So, what's the diagnosis?" Aang's lame attempt at defusing the situation fell short. Katara finally looked up into his eyes, and - to his shock - the vivacious, bright blue eyes he saw every day were filled with nothing.

For a long time, they just stared at each other. Lover to lover. Friend to friend. Healer to Patient. Husband to Wife. Finally, Katara spoke, her voice dry, cracking, and small. "... you're aging faster than a normal person should."

All those times she thought he'd simply grown up faster, was simply more mature and wiser than everyone else - were horrifyingly close to the truth. Aang grew up faster, this was true - but also, due to his body being frozen in an iceberg for one hundred years while his spirit constantly aged - he had started to physically age rapidly to catch up to his spiritual age. And what with the amount of energy exhausted to maintain the Avatar Spirit so long...

"How long do I have?"

Katara shrugged. She didn't have the heart to tell him that with her healing power, she knew down to the month when Aang was going to die. "Not... not long. A decade or two at most. I'm... I'm so sorry."

Aang saw the beginnings of the dam cracks, and, weak though he was, he shakily stood up on one leg and held out his arms.

Katara stumbled towards him, buried her face into his chest, and completely shattered. Heaving with grief for her naive wishes, wailing in sorrow for Aang's unfair life span, Katara cried her heart out to the frail man she had loved for so long a time, had grown with, had lived with, laughed with. Loved. All drawing to a close.

"Shhhh... shhhh..." consoled Aang as Katara gave in to weakness and fear and misgiving and sadness and loss. How unfair was it to find her best friend and lover, and just have him torn away from her, just like that? She felt so small, so powerless in the world. The most accomplished healer in the world, reduced to a mess of tears. How ironic.

Aang hugged her tightly, tears on his own face, and pressed his lips to the top of her head. He didn't say anything.

He didn't need to.

Katara sadly watched her husband's demise.

Once a powerful, imposing figure, Aang had become a decrepit old man who could only walk with assistance on the days when he could get out of bed. His stormy grey eyes, once full of energy and life, had dimmed to deadened orbs that broke Katara's heart every time she looked into them. She didn't let it show, though. She had lost so much before, that even though this new loss had torn her asunder, she was able to quickly mask her pain and return to her old routines. Work. Tend to family. Hide herself and shut everyone away.

Except Aang.

She cared for him, never left his side. She fed him, clothed him, administered to his elderly condition as though he was her Gran-Gran. She didn't mind. She wanted to spend as much time with him before the end, no matter what she had to do in order to make that happen.

But his mind...

He began forgetting little snippets. Not knowing where his glider-staff went. Misnaming his daughter and his wife. Forgetting about Tenzin altogether. Thinking his oldest son was the long-deceased king of Omashu. And sometimes... sometimes he would forget everything that happened after his escape from the Southern Air Temple, and would absentmindedly hold long, meaningful talks with his old mentors and friends.

It pained Katara, to see him like this. Deteriorating with seemingly no end in sight. But she kept going, stayed strong. Everyone else moved on, had already said their goodbyes to Aang, when he had a lucid relapse and could properly receive everyone. But after that - no one came back to visit the Avatar, even just to say hello or check in on him.

It was him and Katara.

And though she liked it being the two of them, sometimes she wished others would care more about the sweet old soul that still lived in Aang's failing body.

But the end had came. She could literally feel him slipping away, could tell through her accursed bloodbending that his pulse was fading away. She lay her hand atop his as he hazily gazed up at the ceiling.

"Please, Gyatso, please forgive me..." he whispered, and Katara felt the tears threatening to spill. How his old regrets came to haunt him, even in his final moments. If only she could help him... but he was too far gone. He wouldn't respond to her. He was on his own.

Katara had never felt so alone, so helpless.

"Hey, Kuzon. Sorry about that little incident. I'm ready to go on another dragon expedition! If there's any still around anymore, heh-heh." It took all of Katara's will not to clutch at Aang's tender hand, how unrelenting her grief was. Must Aang relive all his past and present sins in his final moments, and never again get to relive the moments of joy that he worked for and so richly deserved? Katara's heart clenched, and she bowed her head.

But she quickly raised it up when Aang started talking to her brother. "Hey, Sokka... sorry we never found your boomerang. Hey, at least you managed to get your Space Sword back. That find was out of this world! Heh-heh, get it?" Katara felt a kaleidoscope of conflicting emotions, from tentative amusement to moroseness to grief, at how her husband always tried to find the light within the dark and had brought joy and peace and safety to countless lives - and to hers as well. She bowed her head, apologizing to Aang for everything malignant she ever did to him, no matter how benign or benevolent she intended to be. Her vision swam. How she wished she could tell him for real, how she really felt about him, that she was sorry, that she was thankful, that she was happy and not happy and sad and not sad and angry and not angry and every emotion and no emotion - all at once - and that he was the one who was able to have such an effect on her - such a powerful and wonderful influence. And so she held in her tears, silently waiting for the end in respect and love.

But then she heard silence. Nothing except Aang's fading heartbeat, thumping and then thudding and then tapping. Her eyes widened as she witnessed Avatar Aang's final moments, and closed her eyes in silence and love for her husband of fourty years, through thick and thin, happiness and sorrow, freedom and dependence. She loved him.

"T-th-ha-n-k- y-o-u..." Katara snapped up, experiencing whiplash. Heart leaping up to her throat, she looked at Aang, whose eyes were finally clear, for one last time. Their eyes met - the grey interlocking with blue, and for a moment, it was as though they were back at the iceberg again, waking each other up.

And he smiled. A beautiful, loving, adoring, caring, soft smile of wonder that froze Katara in time and made her heart skip a beat - the last it would ever take. "Ka...tar...a..." he whispered. The last thing he ever said. But the way he said her name, its pureness and love, nothing except her and only her, made Katara completely and utterly snap.

She had prepared herself for the moment. Anticipated the day, steeled herself for the loss, distanced herself from the pain, reconciled with the inevitable day when Aang would be taken from her. But his undying love to her, even in the end, when he had forgotten everything and lost everything, completely derailed her. And the wails that came from her seemed animal, primal, savage, like it didn't belong to her, as though her cries of grief came from someone else. But it was her mourning. Her grief. Her loss. And she collapsed over his unmoving figure, not caring that she was getting his shirt wet, not caring that she was jostling his paper-thin body. He couldn't feel it.

He was gone.

She had always regretted the day she told Aang she was glad he caught up to her.

It was a way to pin to the blame on herself, know that whatever fault caused Aang's death lay with her. The guilt was too much, the grief too overwhelming. She longed to go, to travel the world and away from the place where Aang had passed on, but she herself was too weak, too frail. Too old.

So she stayed. And the pain lessened. And she came to terms with the loss. She was still devastated. But it wasn't her fault, and she had moved on best she could.

Her growing mortality was all too clear. Her bones ached. She could no longer stand straight. She was confined to bed, barely able to move or talk. And she knew that her own time had come, that she had finished her tenure in this world that gave her everything and then took it all away.

As she stared into nothingness, strange shapes began to form. She had no idea what was going on, but neither cared nor wanted to care. Death is upon me, she thought, and calmly embraced oblivion.

But instead of the blackness overwhelming everything, the colors became more vivid. Red and orange and green and every color in between. With shock and wonder, she watched as her whole world was transformed into a rainbow, in a field of flowers of every hue, the cloudless sky a light blue.

And the grey...

Aang stood before her, smiling a great big smile. The lopsided smile of his youth. He looked as though time had never ravished him, his grief magically disappeared, lifted from his shoulders. And as Aang stood there, smiling a pure smile of happiness and love, Katara felt as though she was floating. And she smiled back.

"Hello," Aang said cheekily, grin spreading from ear to ear.

A true smile graced her lips, a gesture she had forgotten for many many years, a gesture a certain someone never failed to remind her of.

"Well, it's been a while," Aang said, striding to her. She couldn't help but notice that, despite Aang's reversal in age, he still made sure to make himself a head taller than her. The conceited prude. She felt annoyance spark, then quickly get doused when Aang's lips sought out hers in a loving embrace.

And it felt like an eternity before they broke apart. But not everything could last forever, and so, finally separating from each other, Katara spoke for the first time.

"Aang."

"Katara," he said, then shook his head. "You don't know how much I missed you," he murmured, touching his forehead to hers.

She smiled. "I think I can imagine. And more. Because I wasn't expecting -" she wave a hand around at the vibrant world she found herself in, a world full of life and color and song and shape that she expected to never cease wondering in. Aang followed her gaze and smiled. "To be honest, neither did I. And like I said, it's been a while, and I've been here for longer than you." And he leaned down, and, suddenly, lifted her above, spun her around, and kissed her relentlessly while she giggle, truly feeling as though she was floating in the air now.

But suddenly, he pulled back, and let her fall to the ground. Katara was confused. What happened? Was this all some sort of sick dream? Was this even real? Would Aang just simply disappear, a desperate figment of her grieved mind? But she needn't have worried. Aang had ran up to the top of a hill and beckoned her to follow. And as fast as she could go, she ran up to him and threw herself into his arms. And when she looked up, she gasped at the wonders she saw.

But none of them compared to the wonder that held her in his arms.

Aang leaned over and whispered into her ear. "I see there's a lot you gotta see and learn about this place."

"I can't wait for you to catch up."