Author's Note: Got about 5 more of these coming for Season 2, I'll post when I can. Thank you for reading or reviewing. ATLA and characters owned by MDD and BK.
After: The Swamp
The wind whipped Katara's hair loops across her field of vision, and she huffed a frustrated puff of breath as she tucked them behind her ears for what felt like the hundredth time. Aang lounged a few feet away from her, propped up against their piled blankets and bedrolls, while Sokka rode between Appa's great horns, guiding them around the large clouds looming ahead. Behind them, the great swamp in which they'd spent their last two nights was quickly fading into a deep green smudge.
She knew Aang had benefitted from the lessons Hu and the swamp itself had shared with them, but her time there had been like removing stitches from a healing wound; uncomfortable, albeit necessary. She didn't doubt that the strange Waterbender had shown them something incredibly important. Highlighting that all peoples of all nations were really one and the same, interconnected and intertwined, was crucial for Aang to understand as the Avatar.
Aang had grasped the knowledge quickly. She allowed herself a small smile. He was so quick to grasp big, challenging concepts like that. They had encountered more than one adult in their travels who would have argued and fought against what Hu was saying, if they had listened at all. Aang had not only been able to understand it, but to apply it, allowing them to save Appa and Momo from the rest of the swamp Waterbenders before they had become dinner that night. He had used the swamp's incredible network of roots and vines to connect himself to Appa and Momo's energies. He had demonstrated how everything was connected. One people, one living, beating pulse. Everyone they knew, all interconnected.
Everyone they knew that was alive.
When Hu had explained that separation was an illusion, she had hoped, perhaps irrationally, that Hu could show Aang- and her- that they were still connected with those long departed. What was death but another kind of separation? But he hadn't, and she suspected that, unless one was the Avatar, reaching the dead was as impossible as reaching the moon.
Without warning, tears filled her eyes. She hastily wiped them away before Aang or Sokka could notice.
Her mother died years ago. And yet, moments like these still struck her as painfully as the day it happened. A sharp, hot knife, twisting deep into her heart.
She had grown up without a mother. Gran-gran filled the role as best she could; teaching her to cook, to do laundry, to manage a small household. Holding Katara when she cried, teaching her what she knew about being a woman in the Southern Water Tribe. She'd even led Katara into her earliest forays into the art of healing and medicine. But it wasn't the same as having her mother. And so, Katara had plodded along, day by day, sometimes moment by moment, surviving the burden of being the only female in a small family without a mother to guide her. She had been prepared to come of age as a young woman without a mother in the South Pole, until Aang had appeared and upended her life.
Katara had thought she would spend the rest of her life yearning for a woman who'd long since left this world.
Until yesterday morning, when she had seen her mother standing amidst the fog and vines in the swamp. She had seen her so clearly, as clearly as she could see Aang and Sokka now. There was nothing on this earth she wanted more than to be with her mother again. Not a day passed when Katara didn't wish for her, and hate the war that had separated them. So, when she had seen her mother standing there, hair falling in dark waves down her back, Katara hadn't stopped to ask questions. When life handed you a gift, only the cynical stopped and asked why. She had run to her mother, reached for her as if she were a life line, and found…
Nothing. A rotten stump.
A muffled sob escaped her. She covered her mouth to stifle it, checking the boys to see if they noticed. Sokka's back was still turned, but Aang sat up on one elbow, an aura of concern emanating from him when he noted her tears and the way her hands covered her mouth.
"Katara?" he asked. "What is it?"
"It's nothing," she gasped, waving him away. "Nothing."
He crossed the few feet that lay between them to sit next to her. His expression was carefully neutral, as if he knew she didn't want his pity.
He was right. She didn't want pity. She didn't want attention at all. Typically, when moments like these struck her, she'd take herself to a quiet, secluded place, and let herself go for a few minutes. She'd cry and fall to the floor, arms wrapped around herself. If she could only hold tight enough, she'd be able to keep herself together. Then she'd stand and go about her business. But up here, on Appa's saddle, there was no secluded place. Nowhere to hide.
"You don't have to tell me, if you're not ready," he said quietly.
She sniffed a little, unsure. "I don't know…"
A part of her did want to tell him. One side of her wanted to cry into his shoulder, to let herself fall apart and to let him pick up the pieces. But that side had learned long ago that there was a quota for most people on how many times they'd be willing to put you back together after you fell apart, and she didn't want Aang to become someone who groaned in exasperation the next time she felt this way.
She was about to tell him that she simply missed her mother, but he beat her to it. "Is it your mother?" he guessed shrewdly.
She raised her eyebrows. "Wow, good guess," she said, surprised.
"Just lucky," Aang answered, giving her a small smile.
"No," she laughed weakly. "You're just good at this stuff." She looked down at her hands. "Yea, it's about my mom."
"I know how much you miss her."
"I do. I miss her so much." She lifted her eyes to Aang's. "Sometimes it feels like it'll never get better."
"I understand," he said quietly. His eyes held a deep, aching sadness.
"I know you do. I wish neither of us had to deal with feeling this way. Or the circumstances that caused it."
"He nodded. "Whenever I was feeling down, Gyatso used to make me a fruit pie. He was a master at making pies."
"A pie sounds great, Aang" she sighed, "but I don't think we have the right ingredients to make one. Or even a kitchen, so…"
He gave her a lopsided smile. "We have fruit. And bread is kind of like a pie crust. That's pie-like."
Katara snorted. "Not sure if I agree with that, but sure. I'll take some fruit and bread."
Aang leaned over to pull their bag full of produce over to him, and pulled it open to peer inside. A look of incredulity crossed his face, and he thrust his arm into the bag, rummaging around in the bag's contents. A minute passed, and he was still rummaging.
"What is it?" Katara asked after it became apparent that no explanation was forthcoming.
Wordlessly, Aang upended the bag. Katara caught flashes of color here and there as the fruits came tumbling out. From the full bag of produce that they had picked up only three days before, all that was left were pits and cores. Tiny teeth marks scored the colorful assortment, and both Aang and Katara turned their gaze to Momo, who was trying his best to look inconspicuous.
Katara and Aang looked back at one another, eyes meeting. The look on Aang's face was one of such disbelief, it struck a chord within her. A giggle bubbled out of her, a quiet little thing. She clapped a hand over her mouth.
When Aang's look of incredulity shifted to a look of indignation at her outburst, she couldn't help it. She burst into a fit of laughter that brought her hands to her stomach, her breath coming in wheezes as she gasped for air.
"He must have eaten it all while we were separated in the swamp," Aang said wryly, finally laughing with her. "Sorry about your fruit pie."
Katara smiled, finally able to catch her breath. "It's okay. I think the laugh probably did more good than a fruit pie would have, anyway."
"That's because you've never had one of Gyatso's pies."
"True," she conceded. She leant over and pulled him into a quick hug. "Thanks, Aang."
He blushed. "Sure thing."
They sat silently for a moment, enjoying each other's company, until a sly expression came across Aang's face.
He picked up a peach pit, and gave her a sidelong look. "Think I can hit Sokka in the back of the head with this?"
She grinned at him and gestured as if to say, 'by all means'.