Chapter 5: Catching Up

"Good afternoon, everybody," said the bald, fifty-something, surpisingly fit, eccentric-looking man at the head of the class. "I am Mr. Zei, and this is World Mythology."

"Oh, boy," Katara mumbled to herself, head laying on her desk. "This class is gonna suck."

"Stink," corrected Aang from the seat next to her. "And why?"

She smiled at his sarcastic attempt to correct her bad language. "Mr. Zei's supposed to be real uptight with grades. Essays are given out all the time, and you'll be lucky if he gives you a B- on a perfect paper."

Aang cringed slightly. Katara was glad that she had a class with him, even if it was Mr. Zei's class. At least it was final period. That would give them more time to catch up.

"Now, class," Mr. Zei continued, "This year we will be learning about legends and stories of different cultures, and both mythical heroes and religious figures, such as Siddhartha Gautama and Jesus Christ. Do not mistake this for a religious class, however. These will be studied from a literary standpoint, and no further. First Amendment and all that." He cracked a smile. "We will pay great attention to the peculiar similarities between vastly different cultures and myths. You're going to get an introduction to what we will be doing this year by looking at different myths about early humanity. Specifically, the introduction of man to fire. We're going to begin with the story of Prometheus. So, let's get right into it. Open your notebooks..."

Aang paid only vague attention to the class from that point onward. He and Katara were too busy writing notes to each other.

Katara began by scribbling down something on her notebook and pointing it toward him. "How U doing?" it said.

Aang wrote down a message in his own notebook. "Fine."

Aang didn't seem fine. He hadn't smiled since the day began. "C'mon," wrote Katara.

"Prometheus," Mr. Zei began, "in a nutshell, was a god who stole the gift of fire from the other gods and gave it to man, thus planting the seeds of civilization..."

"Zuko's on my mind." Aang wrote.

"I'm sorry," Katara wrote. There was a pause, and she added, "Why did U leave?"

"Grandpa lives out of town. I had to go live w/ him."

"Why didn't U write?"

After reading that, Aang sighed. He scribbled a note. "Didn't have time."

Katara felt like he was avoiding something. "Why didn't U call?" Then she added, at the bottom, "2 years."

Aang looked down. "Forgot," he scribbled.

She knew that was a lie. "Why did U come back?"

Aang didn't look at her. He didn't answer.

Neither of them wrote anything else for a while.

"...was punished by Zeus, who tied him to a rock while an eagle ate his liver, which would regenerate and be eaten again every day..."

Finally, Aang jotted something down. "You guys are why."

Katara smiled. But Aang looked like he wasn't telling her everything. "Want to talk later?" she wrote.

"...freed by Hercules, according to Prometheus Unbound..."

Aang looked at her again. "Yes," he whispered.

An eternity later, the bell rang.

-.-.-.-

Katara had always loved the beach. Ever since she was a child, she would always come down to the shoreline whenever she needed to think long and hard about something. So when she knew that Aang had something to talk about, that was naturally the best place Katara could think of to have a conversation, and within a few hours, they found themselves walking there.

The beach was relatively empty: the sun was going down, the sky was darkening, and the tourists were beginning to go back to their hotels. So there wasn't much to distract them as they strode, bare-foot and hand in hand, across the shoreline, feeling the warm breeze on their faces and the water washing up against their ankles. Aang found it somewhat relaxing, but he couldn't take his mind off what he both did and didn't want to tell Katara. Does she really need to know? Or should I save her the worry?

He thought back to that day...

--

The police station was uninviting. The lights were too bright, there were too many people around, and the noise was unbearable. It was not the place for a fifteen-year-old boy who was just coming out of shock from the death of his family. He was sitting in a chair in an office, leaning on his grandfather, whose hand was gently rubbing his back in an attempt to calm him. The tears wouldn't stop coming.

Finally, the door of the office opened and an officer came in. He looked at Aang with an expression of pity and then sat down on the desk in front of him.

"The report came in," he said to Gyatso.

Gyatso looked up. "What caused the fire?" he asked.

The man looked down, and said very slowly, "It was a gas leak. It sparked and the whole house started."

Aang tensed up and, between sobs, sputtered, "No. That can't be right. We didn't-"

"Kid, I'm sorry," the officer said. "I know it's hard."

"No!" Aang shouted. "You don't get it! We don't-"

The police officer knelt down and looked Aang right in the eyes. Then he said, in a shaky voice that sounded both ashamed and afraid, "Kid, it was a gas leak. Do you understand?"

Seeing the fear in the man's face, Aang nodded. A voice filled his mind.

"...Heh heh heh heh..."

--

"Aang? You haven't said anything in almost an hour."

Katara's voice snapped Aang out of his trance. He let go of her hand and sat on the ground. "I was thinking... about Zuko," he lied.

She looked down. "Oh."

Aang's lie became genuine interest. "What happened to you two? I thought you would be together forever."

Katara sighed. "I did too. But after you left, he started to change. It started with little things. I noticed he was smiling less, he became quieter for a while, but then it kind of erupted. He started fighting with his sister more. He started to go to Black Sun, the place that used to be Roku's school. Then he began hanging out with... the wrong crowd."

"Who?" Aang asked.

"Jet," Katara answered.

Aang's eyes widened. "Oh."

A tear fell down Katara's cheek. "I don't know what happened. He just started to become something I didn't recognize. The first time I saw him pull a knife on someone, I knew that he was slipping away. It's like you were his conscience or something, and he couldn't survive on his own."

Aang looked up at her despairingly. "I didn't know. I didn't know I was that important."

She wiped the tears from her face and looked him in the eyes. "You are."

And a loud silence filled the air. If not for the wind blowing through their hair and clothes, they would have seemed like statues, gazing into each other's eyes for an eternity as Katara's simple statement burned itself into their minds.

Aang finally broke the silence. "So that's it?" he asked her. "You ended it there?"

Katara broke eye contact and looked off to the side. "No," she said. "I thought I could help him. I tried everything. But nothing worked. Sokka didn't trust him. Even my father didn't trust him, and you know how he always liked Zuko." Aang nodded. She continued, "He was scaring me. I felt like I didn't know him anymore. The final straw came at the end of last year." She shut her eyes tightly. Whatever it was, Aang could see that it was painful.

Katara sat on the sand next to Aang, and buried her face in her arms. Her voice was failing her. "He tried to get me to..." She couldn't finish the sentence. She tried again. "He wanted me to..." Aang could see the pain twisted in her face. "He wanted us to..." She couldn't say it, but it didn't take Aang long to understand what she was trying to say. He put his arm around her and hugged her close.

"I told him that I wasn't ready, but that just made him angry. He started to yell at me, but not about that. It was all about how I wasn't there to help him, how he had no one to talk to, and how I didn't care anymore, how his dad was right about me. I didn't want to know what his dad thought of me. I got so mad that I hit him. Slapped him across the face. He looked shocked, and then he turned around and ran out of my house. He looked so hurt. I still worry about him every time I see him. But it's over between us. I can't be there for him anymore. There's no-" Her voice faltered, and she was overcome with tears. She buried her head in Aang's chest as she cried. "He's just so confused... And I tried so hard to help him..."

"I'm sorry," Aang whispered, rocking her back and forth to calm her.

"It's not your fault," she managed to say between sobs.

"I think it is," he replied. "Like you said, it's like I was his conscience. None of this would have happened if I hadn't left."

Unable to speak, Katara just shook her head.

Aang allowed himself to smile slightly. "Maybe things can go back to the way they were," he offered. "Maybe Zuko can come back to us."

Katara's crying slowly subsided. She sat up and looked at him with her bloodshot eyes. "That would take a miracle," she whimpered.

Then let's hope for a miracle, Aang thought.

"It's been really hard," she said. "First you left, then my mom, then Zuko..." The tears began to flow again.

"Your mom? What happened?"

But Katara couldn't tell him. She leaned on him and kept crying, and he held her there. He hated seeing Katara like this. They sat like that for half an hour longer. The sky was black, the clouds were dark, and the only glimmer of light came from the sliver of a crescent moon peeking out from behind the clouds. The sound of the rushing waves began to calm Katara down. It always had.

Suddenly, Katara remembered something. "We came here to talk about you, but we've just been talking about me. What did you want to tell me?"

Aang thought about it, but decided that now was not the time. "It doesn't matter right now," he said. Their eyes met again, and he assured her:

"You're more important."

Doctor Worm: I love writing. I really do. And writing Avatar fanfic is a hell of a lot easier when you own DVD box sets of all three seasons. I love my DVD box sets. I really do.

So something cool happened. If you've read our profile, you know that we both study Northern Shaolin, a.k.a. Firebending. Sifu Kisu is a friend of our Shifu (that's how we pronounce and spell "Sifu"), and so he came to our guan (think "dojo") to do a seminar last Friday. That was October 17, 2008. I couldn't go to the seminar because my family was leaving town for the weekend, but MspltChwdr went to go watch, and he gave Kisu one of his own shirts to be autographed to me. Chwdr, you rock.

According to Kisu, he's being screwed over by Bryke right now. They're playing down his role in the series, not giving him credit for all the stuff he's done. Don't quote me on this, but it's things like "He only did motion capture every once in a while" when, in reality, every single punch and kick for every character was captured from his filmed movements except for Aang (his son did the capture for that) and Toph (Sifu Manuel Rodriguez. Look him up on YouTube, by the way. He's awesome). Hollywood and fame is swelling Bryke's head.

Also, a bit of live action Avatar movie news: According to Kisu, they hired the guy who worked on the fights in the Bourne movies. I shit you not. I DON'T WANT TO SEE AANG STRANGLING PEOPLE WITH PHONE CORDS. For Christ's sake, hire the guy from the Matrix movies if you absolutely HAVE to use someone other than Kisu. This has me worried that they're just going to be using American Karate for the fight scenes. If they don't use Shaolin, Hung Gar, Tai Chi, and Ba Gua for the bending, I'm not going to watch the movies. Also, something about the choice tells me that the movie is just going to be one fight scene after another with, like, two lines of dialogue between each, kind of like the Jackie Chan / Jet Li movie The Forbidden Kingdom. That was god-awful shit. And it means that the world will probably never get to see a live-action Toph. (Sigh...)

Sifu Kisu, if you're reading this, the East Towne Gurus are on your side.

And last, but not least... REVIEW PLEASE!