The prompt was Home, and I'm just going to leave this one here.
"I thought you said he'd be home by now?"
"His meeting must have run long," Sokka rationalized.
Katara tapped her hand on the table. She fidgeted. She played with her hair. She got up and walked to the kitchen, checking the cooling fruit pies for the hundredth time. Her brother groaned.
"He'll be here, Katara. Sit down. You're making me nervous."
She ignored him, grabbed a towel, and starting cleaning her brother's kitchen. Again. She cleaned the entire apartment the day after she and Aang arrived. She wanted to pay Sokka back for letting them live with him while the construction of Air Temple Island finished up. She had scrubbed the counters, dusted the baseboards, and decorated the house with flowers from the vendor down the road. She tried to turn it into a home, even if her stay there would be temporary.
The key turned in the latch. Katara gasped, grabbed one of the fruit pies, and rushed back to the front room. The siblings stood facing the door as it opened.
"Surprise!"
The Avatar stood dumbstruck for a moment. His newlywed wife held a pie in her hands, and his brother-in-law clapped him heartily on the back.
"Happy birthday, man!" he crowed.
Aang blinked out of his surprise and laughed with them. He kissed Katara, and she offered the pie to him. "I used the Air Nomad recipe you told me about," she said quietly. "I hope they're as good as you remember."
He hugged her tightly with one arm, careful not to jostle the pastry out of her hands. "I'm sure it will be delicious. Thank you!"
When Katara announces her plan to her children in the morning, they instantly try to talk her out of it. Worry wells up on all three faces as they sit around the breakfast table in Sokka's home in Republic City proper. Kya's blue eyes cut through her, and Bumi quickly offers to go in her stead. Katara just shakes her head.
"I know where everything is," she insists. "It would be too difficult to explain to anyone else."
"Mom," Tenzin ventures. "Are you sure about this?"
She can't look at him directly. "Uncle Sokka's coming with me. I won't be alone."
Her children exchange concerned looks that they think she doesn't notice. Katara kneels at the empty spot at the table and pours herself some tea. She prepares a plate for her brother, to thank him for letting them stay with him for the week.
Outside, the city bells woefully dole out the hour. They are still pitched lower than usual. The family eats quietly. Her children know better than to argue with her, but there are few other topics of conversation that feel appropriate so they remain silent.
After awhile, Sokka enters the front room. He eats quickly and stands up when he finishes. "Ready?" he asks her.
Katara rises from the floor. Her joints ache with the movement. She grits her teeth and pushes on.
"Ready," she replies.
The splash of water crashed in her ears. She opened her eyes, but the red headband tied gently around her head prevented her from seeing anything besides light pushing through the fabric. Aang had his arms wrapped securely around her to steady her.
"Is this really necessary?" Katara questioned, tugging at the borders of the blindfold. "I know where we're going."
"I still want it to be a surprise," Aang said. "You haven't seen the best part yet." Excitement permeated his voice as much as the salt of the sea permeated the air. She smiled, rested her head on his shoulder, and chuckled to herself.
Without her sight, Katara reached out with her bending more than ever. The waves of Yue Bay roiled underneath the ferry, gliding gracefully around the smooth contours of the boat. The wind coaxed the currents, and seagulls squawked as they swooped through the sea breeze. She could sense the droplets tossed high into the air and the secret eddies far below. She breathed deep, elated.
She felt the ferry slow down, adjust its position, and stop. The sailors shouted at each other as they tethered the vessel to the dock. Aang supported her shifting weight, then transported them both to land with a flurry of airbending. Katara laughed as her hair fluttered all around her face.
His warm hands tugged her up the path, and he helped her up each and every step. Finally, after a long hike, he stopped and untied the headband. She could feel his hands shaking.
The fabric fell away from Katara's eyes, and she gasped.
She had seen the plans and even the beginning of the construction, but she never imagined the beauty that stood before her now. To the left, blue roofed buildings with yellow trims sprouted from the ground, and to the right, a large courtyard with a sunken area for training greeted her. But straight ahead, the true centerpiece of the island, rose a huge tower, floor after floor of cream stone topped with blue roofs, the entire structure crowned by a shining golden point.
Katara turned to Aang and clasped his hands. For awhile, all she could do was grin.
"Aang, it's . . . it's beautiful."
"You like it?" he murmured. He looked out over the completed Air Temple Island. When he faced her again, his gray eyes shone.
"I love it." She hugged him as tight as she could. "I can't wait to make a home here with you."
"Are you sure about this?" Sokka asks softly. The wind almost eats his words, but Katara catches them before they fly away. The ferry cuts across the water, bringing them closer and closer to Air Temple Island. The breath knots in her chest. The waves toss the boat, and Katara bumps against her brother as the ferry jerks.
"You don't have to do this, you know," he continues. "We can get the Air Acolytes—"
"No," Katara interrupts. She grips his arm tightly. "I need to do this."
He nods and falls silent. She glances up at his stern face—wrinkled now, like her own, the dark hair streaked with gray, like her own, but he still wears it proudly in a warrior's wolf tail. Katara finds herself shaken by the changes. Hadn't they just been fishing together, in a boat not so different from this ferry, arguing about gender roles and the nature of waterbending?
She reaches up and clasps her mother's necklace as they approach the dock. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes.
The Water Tribe siblings trudge up the path to Air Temple Island proper, the steps worn with use. As they approach, they hear chanting and smell incense floating through the air. No one greets them when they arrive. Katara automatically looks to the dormitories, where the Air Acolytes were usually busy with daily chores: laundry, sweeping, tending the air bison. The courtyards are empty, and she turns her gaze to the temple, where the Air Acolytes continue the vigil they had maintained for over a week.
She grips Sokka's arm again and turns him towards the dormitories. Soon enough—too soon, Katara thinks—they stand staring at the wooden door of her home on Air Temple Island. She sucks in a deep breath and puts her key in the lock.
Aang grinned at her over his shoulder as he fit the key into the lock. He turned it; she heard the mechanism click, and then he pushed the wooden door open.
Katara tried to peer inside, but suddenly his strong arms swept her up against his chest, and she clasped her arms around his neck and laughed. He carried her over the threshold, and they giggled as if they were teenagers again.
"Welcome home, Katara," he whispered in her ear.
He set her down just inside, and she kissed him happily before turning to take in the place that would be their new home. The empty space gaped in front of her, and she turned to her husband with her eyebrow quirked. He put his arm behind his head and chuckled nervously.
"Did I mention that we'll need to buy furniture?"
Sunlight slants through the wooden shutters, splaying orange-yellow light onto the floor and casting sharp shadows. Everything looks the same as it always did – the simple furniture, the minimalistic paintings on the walls, trinkets from their travels across the world, the bookcases stuffed with scrolls on medicine and diplomacy.
Katara steps over the threshold.
She feels Sokka's warm presence follow right behind her. She holds on to the half-truth she told her children that morning: she is the only one who can do this job well. In her mind, she starts going through the list of objects and activities she plans to find and accomplish today. Clean the living room. Retrieve any medical resources that she can't do without. Clean the kitchen. Pack enough cooking utensils to assist her later. Throw out the food in the pantry. Move on to the bedrooms. Clean and retrieve clothes and anything of sentimental value.
The mental checklist keeps her eyes from watering.
"Let's start with the front room," she declares. Her voice shakes a little.
Something crashed, and Bumi wailed.
Katara rushed back into the front room and found her toddler sitting on the floor surrounded by chunks of yellow clay. She picked up her son and dusted the fragments off of him and stared sadly at the broken pieces on the floor.
Aang came out of his study down the hall. "Everything okay?" he asked.
Katara snuggled Bumi against her, and he started to calm down. "He's fine. I think he bumped into the table." Her sad blue eyes met her husband's gaze from across the room. "He broke the incense censer."
Aang walked across the room and held out his arms for the toddler. Bumi reached up happily and started tugging on the collar of Aang's robes. Aang leaned over and kissed the top of Katara's head.
"It's all right. I'll try to fix it. And even if I can't, it was just a censer."
Katara started picking up the pieces. She ran her thumb over the painted clay. "But . . . it was from the Southern Air Temple."
When she looked up, Aang stared at Bumi with rapt attention as the little boy patted his father's cheeks and laughed. She smiled softly.
Katara runs her fingers over the incense censer sitting on the end table. It is riddled with cracks, but the glue has lasted this long, sealing the pieces back together. She puts it gently in the box of items to donate to the Air Temple. The Air Acolytes will find a good home for it.
Sokka sits on some cushions, sorting through scrolls and books and packing them into boxes. He has several piles in front of him: for the Air Temple, for the public library in the city proper, and for Katara to take, he explains to her. She trusts his judgment and moves on to the kitchen and dining room. She pulls plates, glasses silverware, pots, and pans onto the dining table, then kneels on the green cushions and starts sorting and packing.
Kya set down her teacup with a smack. "I'm going traveling," she announced.
The family sat on the green cushions around the dining table, finishing up their evening meal, when Kya made her declaration. All eyes instantly fell on her.
"What?" Tenzin exclaimed. He looked from his sister to his parents with round eyes. Kya, for her part, simply stared her parents down, her face set stubbornly.
"Bumi left home to see the world," she argued. "I want to do the same."
"Bumi joined the United Forces," Katara amended. "That's different."
"No, it isn't!" Kya gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white. "Bumi's off helping people. And you and Dad help people all the time—as the Avatar and at the clinic. But I can't help anyone cooped up here on this island all the time!"
Katara opened her mouth to argue with her daughter again, a deep-seated instinct telling her to not allow such a dangerous request, but Aang raised his hand, and after a moment, Katara swallowed her anger and fear and sat back on her heels.
"Kya." Aang spoke quietly, measured. His daughter jerked her chin up as she faced him across the table.
"Have you thought this through?" he asked calmly. "How will you care for yourself? Earn money? Buy food and supplies?"
"Healing," she answered instantly. "I've learned every skill Mom taught me, and I can earn money or room and board by healing. By helping people."
Her daughter's passion to help people touched Katara, but nerves still fluttered in her chest. Her teenage daughter, leaving home, alone in the world?
Aang sighed heavily. "Your mother and I will consider it. We'll have another conversation about this later in the week."
Hope flared in Kya's blue eyes, and she nodded sharply.
After an hour or two, the kitchen cupboards are mostly bare, and they have the cooking utensils Katara selected to take with her in a marked box.
"I'll go sort some things in the study," Sokka says. "You take a break." She nods as he heads down the hall.
She slides open the sliding door to the courtyard. She needs some fresh air.
Katara often sat on the bench in the courtyard outside their home and watched her husband and son move through bending regimens. Tenzin bowed in front of his father and sifu, and they started their training.
They raised their arms, keeping their elbows close to their bodies, and circled each other. After a moment, the air currents swirled around them as they mirrored each other's motions. Aang advanced, and Tenzin spun away. Tenzin advanced, and Aang spun away. Sinuous, swift, and unbelievably similar. The only difference was the blue stripe running down her husband's back. But Tenzin would earn his tattoos soon enough.
She watched them until they finished and bowed, and then she watched after Aang went back inside and her son continued to practice, bending the wind to his will, the leaves spiraling upwards into the evening.
Sokka places his hand on her shoulder as they start down the hall. Katara pauses in front of the bedroom door. Sokka squeezes her shoulder in encouragement.
Katara swings open the bedroom door and braces herself.
The Air Acolytes had cleaned the room since she had last been here. Before—the sheets damp with sweat, the covers twisted around his legs, her clothes tossed carelessly into the corner as she maintained her constant vigil beside the bed. Now the bed is made with fresh white sheets, and clothes and towels no longer litter the floor. Now the room looks more like it always had—when he first laid her down on their new bed; when they whispered softly to each other in the dark; when he spent long periods brushing her hair; when she perched on the bed and ran healing water over the knots in his muscles; when the children piled into bed with them during a thunderstorm; when she leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder, and he nuzzled against her; when he kissed her with such passion and tenderness she thought she might melt—
Katara trembles. She takes a deep, shuddering breath.
"Hey," Sokka murmurs, pulling her to him. "Hey, you don't have to do this. Just tell me the things you need to make the trip down south, and I'll come back with the Air Acolytes, and we'll pack up the rest of the house."
Katara swipes at her eyes and lets out a breathy laugh. "Yeah, right, like I'm going to let you do housework, Sokka."
He smiles at her and squeezes her hand. "All right, then."
They set to work, and that distracts her from the memories pressing at her from all sides. So many memories here, in the house that once was theirs. They claw at her, and she fights them off, but she is getting tired.
"Katara," her brother says. He pulls something from a drawer and hands it to her. She takes the piece of paper from him automatically.
In the photograph, she holds baby Tenzin in her arms, and Kya and Bumi smile softly. And Aang smiles at her, the pride and happiness beaming from his face. She greedily soaks up the planes of his face, the curve of his arrow, his smile, the softness around his eyes, the strength in his posture, the kindness in his hands.
She breaks.
Aang's hand ghosted over her cheek as they lay in their bed, quiet in the dark. She drew her fingers over his graying beard. Even after so many years, he still looked at her in a way that made her feel like she was fourteen again.
"I love you," he whispered. She smiled and brushed her lips against his.
"I love you too."
That night, laying in her bed in Sokka's apartment, Katara listens. In the other room, she hears her children talking quietly, but she can't make out their words. She sits up and pushes herself up. In the dark, she fumbles through one of the boxes of scrolls and paper. She finds the photograph and sits back down on the bed.
Katara draws her fingertips over his face as her throat closes with tears.
"Aang," she whispers. "I miss you."
Please read and review? Please don't hate me.