Disclaimer: I do not own ATLA.

Thanks to Evile Ravynne Queene of Glasse, TheRealAvatar, waterlit, and AbsolutelyAbbie for reviewing:)

America, 1865

Katara clutches the old and used rifle in her arms. Her hair has grown longer in the last few years. Her brown tresses gingerly brush her shoulders; her legs move under the familiar swish of skirts; her body is once again constrained into a corset.

She is free of her disguise. But the war will never leave her.

It scarred her in ways that will never be healed.

White crosses sparkle under the sun. Blue ribbons are tied to those few who actually tried to make a difference in the war but not for those who only added to the impressive body count. Katara's eyes flicker over the rows and rows of crosses. The writing is too blurry from this distance, but she is already mapping the route she must take in her mind, the rows she has to weave through and paths she will eventually have to leave. She must venture to two different places in the cemetery, one for officers, one for the regular soldiers.

Three graves; three bodies Katara still has not come to terms with.

The rifle she holds in her hand is rusted from being thrown into the rain five weeks ago. It had been an expulsion of her anger. The trigger is dented and broken. It will never fire again, like her heart.

She places on foot on the graveled path, sucking in a breath. Katara flinches when a bullet passes by her hair. She shivers as the metal ball inflames her skin, burning a mark into her skin; she cries out, sinking her knees to the ground in front of an unnamed grave belonging to an unknown person.

But the bullet is only in her imagination, and her blue eyes dim in recognizing it as such.

The rifle presses closer to her breasts as she finally staggers to her feet. The wind pinches her skin, and it howls the forgotten names.

She stops at her father's grave first, the last of her men to die. He fell under the command of General Grant and never rose again. She whimpers his name- "father, why?" -but will not shed any tears.

Katara hurriedly whips her head around, deciding to make a run for the regular soldiers' section, leaving the worst death for the end.

Not being able to see Sokka's final moments still pierces her heart years later. Katara keeps their last correspondence folded and tucked away in an oak desk. Sokka had been missing for quite some time- like Aang is now -but the army found his burnt body washed down a large, raging river months later, a month before the war's end.

Her fingers tingle with numbness by the time she stands from this grave marker to proceed to the final one. The lacquered wood of the rifle cuts imprints into her dark skin.

Lieutenant Zuko of the 18th Regiment

1839 to 1863

A brave soldier

The tears fall, splattering the ground and staining the grass a dark green. Katara presents the rifle to the grave, as if presenting an offering to an alter, to a deity who will never answer he back. She delicately places it in front of the grave marker. Tears dot the rifle, and Katara uses the hem of her skirt to wipe their remanence away.

"H-how are you? Wait, that was a really stupid thing to say." Her breaths are shaky; they quiver in the summer air. "I miss you so much; my heart has never stopped aching. I don't think I will ever be whole again."

Katara's cheeks are red as she hiccups. "You took a part of me when you died, but I still love you, forever and always. This is my proper goodbye to you."

She's leaving now. Leaving her country, her nationality, and her name all behind. No one will know of Katara, a young woman thrown into the line of fire, found love and died with him, yet still lives as a husk of her former self.

The history books will never remember her name and neither will she.

So I know I lied last week... but I realized a couple of days after that I needed to complete the story. Here you go; this really is the last chapter.

The 18th regiment is nothing special besides 18 being my favorite number. Basically nothing on Aang, but I really just wanted to focus on Katara for this last chapter.

Hope you all enjoyed the story:)

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