short, but proof that i am alive. thanks to those who sent encouraging words my way. it meant the world to me, truly it did. i am feeling better. excuse any typos... you have my love. make my day by reviewing? xoxo.

She did not permit herself time to reconsider. Confiding in Suki, too, would have to wait – not to undermine the girl's wisdom (Suki, despite her dirty jokes and sideways smirks, was easily the wisest woman Katara knew), but she already had an idea of what the older girl would advise: "It's been so long for you, O Sacred Virgin Water Tribe. Too long. What's a little office fun? Besides," she'd add, "he's so damn cute."

Cute. Conveniently, Katara Kuruk could forget that Aang Yangchen was her soon-to-be supervisor. It was almost five, and she anticipated his return to her office with a childlike unease. She wondered when he would come, or if he expected her to wait for him. It was distracting enough to make her nervous. Suddenly she did not feel as though she was at work. Here, and at the university where she taught part-time, she had her bearings. Her reputation in the professional world – though still fledgling – was illustrious, fashioned in part by her publications, in part by her lecture series. She knew becoming derailed was a danger, and yet she could not shake her attraction to it. What did she want? She was afraid to ask it of herself, and instead focused on the broad array of possible answers while she awaited the company's mass exodus at five.

Only Gyatso – his teetering frame passing in front of her office with the difficulty of a rusted puppet – could snap her out of it. Was it bad luck or fate for him to turn, see her still there, and stop by? Their gazes met and he smiled before turning and opening her glass door. Out of habit, she stood to greet him and immediately ran to her coffee machine.

"Good evening, my dear," Gyatso greeted as he sat. He rested his cane against the desk and settled into the leather slowly. "Add some cream for me, will you?"

Her back to him, she mused from the machine, "You always take it black."

"Except at five." Gyatso closed his eyes and touched his temples, as if coaxing a phrase from distant memory. He quoted, "Storms build the tundra, as your soul, a splendid tragic art. In progress still. Permit me a kiss, thrill me as we part: I into the tempest, you without return into my heart. "

"Koh Kei Raak, the Water Tribe poet." She took the seat next to him instead of returning behind her desk. "I see a version of your face in each nation; I curse my stubborn memory, I curse each incarnation." She had poured herself a small cup and sipped thoughtfully. Kei Raak was one of her personal favorites. Meanwhile, the coffee was lukewarm; she winced and looked at Gyatso, who grinned and drank regardless, always able to whether whatever small dilemmas shook him. That affable Air Nomad gene.

"The Water Tribe poets are somewhat of an oddity. We have Pre-Great War era, some hundred years ago. Post-Great War era. But the ones that are coming up now, like Kei Raak. I know you've explored this already in your work, as have others. But I wonder. The question has never been explored. They are the only romantics left, it seems. They choose, invariably, to write about unrequited love. Men and women."

"A bunch of forlorn losers, Gyatso," Katara answered with a small smile. "Each nation has its vices. The New Fire Nation poets have the sex, the Earth Kingdom goers have family. Some of the most heartbreaking poetry I've read came from Gong Chu, the Earth Kingdom delegate who wrote poetic letters to the son his wife miscarried. His words are scarring… I was never the same after reading him."

"Love isn't love that doesn't alter us beyond return, it seems."

"True, true."

"You know, I met Gong Chu personally before he passed away." Gyatso stood to refill his cup himself. He did not take his cane, and Katara watched from the corner of her eye with worry. His failing health was imminent, possibly always there, but it was made more drastic since the arrival of Aang. When they stood side by side, Aang's youth and vitality greatly underscored Gyatso's numerous eras. And to pigeonhole them both as "boss" made the contrast even sharper. She was careful, now, to notice features she had overlooked before. The liver spots on Gyatso's nose that resembled freckles. The craning of his neck that began with the small bulge on his back. The hairs on his wrist – which just poked from the sleeve of his suit jacket – were white and wiry, interspersed with the occasional gray variant. Even his voice seemed more distant, as if his lungs were slouching deeper and deeper within his thin frame.

"What was he like?" Katara ventured aloud, wondering also what Gyatso was once like.

"Like any other man. Passionate. A little uncertain. He had had another son at that point. A boy named Chu Yen. Funny though," Gyatso concluded, taking his chair. "He never wrote any poetry for that one."

"That's how it always works," sighed Katara. "My parents would sooner swear by my brother than acknowledge anything I've done. But it's water under the bridge now. Spirits know where they are. I curse every incarnation." She held up her cup in offering and they tapped in cheers. "To the second child!"

"To the forgotten child," winked Gyatso. "So what do you say? Why this focus on unrequited love?"

"That was… what, two papers ago? There are a number of reasons. Inferiority complex. Tribal ceremonies and traditions that value the unrequited. Childhood nursery rhymes, even. Societal constructs regarding the passage from adolescence to adulthood. So many reasons. The real question is why the Air Nomads do not have a single running theme."

"They did. When the Dante's Inferno Project is complete, it will answer that, among many other questions."

Katara fell silent remembering Gyatso's adamant preference for Aang. She had missed these meetings – talks, intellectual stimulation, hypotheticals, and sometimes – if she was lucky – love advice. The previous weeks had been burdened with the new successor, and truthfully, Katara was hurt. It was Katara who had avoided Gyatso, missed their Wednesday morning meeting on purpose, taking the train at nine and getting to work while Gyatso was meeting with authors. The jealousy was not unwarranted, he knew. Loss of the position was permissible, forgivable – but favoring another coworker (a far less qualified employee, at that) was a dagger in the back.

He removed his glasses. The sun from the window, passing in slits through the blinds, fell in a perfect slab across his lap. He blinked out the glare that reflected from his lenses. "I am wondering, Katara, what you think of the Avatar."

"The Avatar?"

"Do you believe the Avatar exists?" he pressed.

The phrase was a relic, passed around frequently in ancient texts. Some said the war started on behalf of the Avatar, but no one could cite that fact on certainty. Almost all documents from the time were destroyed by the Fire Nation. Whatever was left was heavily guarded or modified. And Katara, despite her position with the press, had yet to read any original copies of historical texts from over ninety years ago. Poetry had been salvaged, sure. But political paperwork was another story entirely.

"The Avatar is… a demigod. A fable. I think he was constructed to bring hope to the starving nations of the world. That's only what I've read, though."

"A demigod," repeated Gyatso. "A powerful bender."

"I'm sure you know more than I do," the young woman ventured. She laughed, "You've probably met the Avatar!"

Without hesitation, he answered, "I have."

She wasn't sure if Gyatso said this in jest or if he had, in fact, met the Avatar in the flesh. His confession startled her. These days, bending was all but extinct. It was a sport now, something to gawk at in an arena. The traditional meditative benefits of bending were ignored after the war. The Fire Nation made the spiritual gift seem more like a curse. The world had succumbed under fire, spit from the mouths of benders, thrown from the fists of soldiers. Entire races vanished from the face of the earth. Despite its defensive magnitude, no one found any romanticism in bending after those fifty years.

"The Avatar is alive and well today," Gyatso continued. "Magnificent changes are on the horizon for this world. For this press. So I hope you will keep your eyes and heart open, my dear."

It sounded apologetic to Katara; it was as if he was telling her to stay on board despite the change of plans. She had never imagined leaving, but if there was a way to cement her here further, he had succeeded. "Yes, sir," she whispered. "Of course. Always. It's a journalist's only responsibility."

"You are a bender yourself, are you not?"

"Yes," answered Katara, looking at her shoes. Her famed T. Lee heels, a gift to herself. They added an extra four inches but killed her back. Worth it, she thought, to get a few inches on Suki. "Well, genetically. From my mother's side. But I am not even a novice."

"Did you know," he started, "that I am an airbender?"

"I heard rumors. I didn't imagine they'd be true."

Gyatso smiled, a white gleam of mischievousness in his eyes. "I am. And I am off for now. It's almost five – I don't want to keep you." He stood up with some difficulty and reached for his cane. Instead of grabbing it, though, he sucked it towards his palm – a brief, hardly noticeable gust of air. Had he not admitted to being a bender, she probably wouldn't have noticed it. Her mouth hung open for a moment before she caught herself. She stood abruptly and hugged him as he parted.

"Is that what you wanted to see me about, Master Gyatso?"

"No," he returned over his shoulder. "I just wanted to sit with you. I missed you this week. Had I not seen you in your office," he concluded, "I would have thought you left us for good."

She had to smile at that – albeit a little sad, a little angry. She loved Gyatso in a way she could not explain. It was as if she could never harbor any grand resentment against him. His interest in the Avatar, however, was new. What had he read? When had he met the Avatar? Katara thought it might be a recent event, but if so, why hadn't she heard about it sooner?

As if on cue, as Gyatso disappeared at the end of the hall, Aang Yangchen materialized at the other end of it; she craned her neck just in time. She had written the cliché so often before without fully understanding it; but, at long last, her heart fell to her knees. He waved excitedly and smiled with all his teeth. He held his coffee cup to her as he approached her. She cursed it, but felt it long before he was close enough for her to touch. She was – undeniably, embarrassingly – wet.