A/N: Okay, so you remember how I rated this story M and, thus far, there's been no real M activity? Yeah, that's about to change. If you want to avoid that, turn back now. Oh, and don't read this at work. Spare me and spare yourself.

Day Four, Part One

"Oh, wow…you shaved your head!"

Aang resisted the self-conscious impulse to smooth his hand over the crown of his head. He had spent the entire morning nervously anticipating her reaction. He was so nervous, in fact, that he didn't immediately react to the fact that Katara had answered the door with her face covered in greenish-gray goop. Although he had been preparing her for the inevitable loss of his hair since the first day they met, Aang suspected that it would still be a shock for her to see him completely bald. He waited with bated breath for her to respond.

A slow, gradual smile began to spread across Katara's masked features and she lifted her hand to skate her fingers across the prickly surface of his scalp. He shivered at her light touch, surprised by how much he enjoyed the feel of her hand against his cleanly shaven head. It was difficult to maintain his composure as she inspected him, especially when she said her next words.

"I like it," Katara decided in a pensive murmur, stepping back, "Somehow it seems very familiar."

"Oh yeah?" Aang replied with a small sigh of relief and disappointment.

Katara's blue eyes twinkled. "Yeah."

"I know what you mean," he whispered, reaching out to finger the still wet mud mask coating her face, "This seems oddly familiar too."

Just then, Katara remembered that she had failed to wash the seaweed mask off of her cheeks and forehead. She groaned aloud. "Oh, please no…" She had been so preoccupied by Aang's hairless state that she'd momentarily forgotten that she looked a complete fright. With a yelp of dismay, she slammed the door in Aang's face and made a frantic dash to the bathroom to get herself together.

Out in the hallway, Aang scratched his eyebrow and tried not to laugh over the utter ridiculousness of his situation. He rapped softly on the door. "Katara, it's okay. Don't be embarrassed," he reassured her, "Come on. Open the door. I think you look beautiful no matter what."

He heard her faint response come from somewhere within the apartment. "Stay right there! I'll be two minutes!"

Aang gamely waited out in the hallway, smiling and nodding to the neighbors who occasionally passed him while trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible. Finally, Katara yanked open the door with a breathless smile. She was still barefoot and clad in the nightshirt and shorts that she'd been wearing earlier and her hair was still coiled in a tight braid, but now her skin was glowing, polished and freshly scrubbed. She wasn't wearing a speck of makeup, but she didn't need it. Aang thought she was the most breathtaking sight he had ever seen.

"You know you didn't have to do that," he told her as she stepped aside to let him pass, "I think you look beautiful in whatever, even that hideous green stuff."

Katara fluttered her hand dismissively. "Let us not speak of the mask."

Swallowing back his chuckle, Aang tugged her into his arms and lowered his head to give her a very sweet and very thorough kiss good morning. His plan was temporarily thwarted when Momo jumped between them in a bid for attention. Aang laughed uproariously at the little rabbit-lemur's antics while Katara shooed him away. He managed to sneak in a quick pat on Momo's head before the animal scampered away.

"Crazy monkey," Katara muttered in an under-breath.

"He's harmless," Aang replied, a slow smile spreading across his face. "But we were in the middle of something a minute ago. What was it?"

"I believe you were telling me hello," Katara reminded him, already tipping back her head for his kiss.

Aang didn't disappoint her. "Hello," he whispered when they surfaced for air.

"Hello," she whispered back with a wide, infatuated smile, "What are you doing here? I thought I was supposed to meet you at the dojo around ten o'clock."

"You were. But I decided to surprise you instead. I took the subway over." He darted a cautious glance down the hall. "I didn't wake Sokka and Suki, did I?"

"They're not here," Katara said, "After I came in, I found a note from Sokka saying he had taken Suki out for an evening of pampering and that they wouldn't be back until later this afternoon."

"I didn't know you were here alone last night. I would have stayed a few minutes more."

"Aang, I was fine. You walked me to my door. That was enough. Besides, if you had come in, who knows how long poor Gyatso would have been sitting outside in the car?"

Now that they had begun kissing each other, Aang and Katara were having a difficult time stopping. And it wasn't only kissing. They found that they couldn't get enough of touching each other either. The longer they were together, the more they knew that they didn't want to be apart. Even though the day was coming when they would have to part, both teens staunchly ignored the looming date and, instead, focused completely on savoring the limited time that they had left.

Katara wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed another smiling kiss to his mouth. "I'm so glad you're here," she whispered, "But what would you have done if I'd decided to come early today, hmm? You would have missed me completely."

"Why do you think I came so early?" he teased, "I figured you'd give yourself at least an hour and a half so you could get lost around the city."

"Are you trying to say that I have a poor sense of direction?"

A mischievous grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "I don't know if I'm saying that so much as I'm thinking that for your next birthday, a GPS would be an awesome gift."

Katara slapped his shoulder in mock affront, but ruined her indignant façade by smiling. "Have you eaten yet? I could make you some breakfast."

"You really don't have to do that."

"I want to do it. Besides, I'm hungry too."

The low growl of his stomach made it difficult for him to resist her offer. "Can I do anything to help?"

"Just keep Momo occupied," she told him, "That's all the help I need."

Per her instructions, Aang settled himself in the living room and set his attention towards keeping the hyper, little lemur occupied. He rolled Momo's favorite toy on a bundle of air, watching with an amused smile as the lemur tried again and again to retrieve the toy and subdue its bouncing. While he and Momo played together, Aang noticed Katara's open laptop on the coffee table and, in passing glance, noticed the topic she had typed into her search engine. He turned a surprised glance at her over his shoulder.

"You're researching my past lives?" he asked her, "Why?"

"Because obviously there's some connection between us," Katara explained as she cooked, "and I was wondering if that was the place to start."

Forgetting his game with Momo for the moment, Aang twisted around on the sofa so that he could face her. "What did you find out?"

"Well, there's a website that lists every, single past Avatar almost from the world's inception," she told him. She paused and braced her hands against the kitchen island as she regarded him dourly. "You've had a lot of past lives, Aang. A lot. It took me nearly two hours to scroll through them all."

His mouth twitched with a glimmering smile. "Did you learn anything significant?"

"I don't know if it was so much significant as it was weird," Katara considered, "There was another Avatar Aang listed in the database and guess what?"

"He was an airbender too?" Aang concluded with a marked lack of surprise, "With a name like Aang, how shocking."

Katara stuck her tongue out at him. "For your information, not only was he an airbender, he was married…to a woman named Katara."

That bit of information got his attention. "Are you serious?" he breathed.

"I've tried looking up some more information about them, but there isn't much detailed information out there," Katara said, "I don't even know what nationality Katara was, but…she had to be Water Tribe. Katara is a very traditional name among my people."

"I don't know, Katara…what are the odds?"

"Pretty good, I think, considering the things we've seen." She stepped around the island and moved to sit down beside him on the couch. "I think it's them, Aang," she whispered fiercely, "The people who we've been seeing in our visions when we kiss…the people who look like us… I think it's them."

"But they look like us. Wouldn't that make them us?" Aang wondered.

"I don't know all the details about rebirth and reincarnation. You're the one with all the past lives. You tell me how it works."

"Well, my past lives do live inside of me. I suppose I could ask…" he considered. "But the monks haven't yet taught me how to access my past lives yet or control the avatar state. That will come with my training. So, I probably won't be able to ask this Avatar Aang any details about his life for another few months or so."

"Right…" Katara mumbled with a crestfallen sigh, "Your training."

He reached over to brush his knuckles along the underside of his jaw. "Katara, we both knew that I was going to have to leave eventually, right?"

"Yeah, I know," she said thickly, "I just…I don't know what's going to happen to us when you do."

"We're going to be together," Aang replied without hesitation, only to add in sheepish addendum, "If you want to be, that is."

"How are we supposed to make it work when I'm here in school and you're on the other side of the world?"

"They do make cell phones, you know," he teased her, "And then there's always email and Skype. Surely, they have WiFi in the North Pole."

"I thought you told me that the monks said that you would have to leave behind all your earthly belongings," Katara reminded him, "So that means no cell phone, no laptop, no Nook, no Ipad…"

"…no Ipod," Aang finished grimly, "Thanks, Katara. You're really killing my buzz."

"Sorry," she giggled.

"Well, even if I don't have any of that, I still have these." Aang wiggled his ten fingers for emphasis. "As long as I do, I can write to you. No one will stop me from doing that."

"Aang, you're talking about having a long distance relationship," Katara stressed, "It will probably be a long time before we're able to see each other again. Are you sure that's what you want?"

"Is it what you want?" he countered, "I know it's not ideal but, given my circumstances, it's the best I can offer you right now, Katara."

She leaned in to feather a kiss across his lips. "Then that's good enough for me," she whispered against his mouth, "All I really want is to be with you."

"That's what I want too."

Aang started to deepen his kiss when Katara suddenly tore away from him with an alarmed yelp. "My water's going to boil over!" she cried, scurrying back to the kitchen.

Half an hour later, they were enjoying a small breakfast in front of the television, half watching the talk show program onscreen and half chatting with each other. Katara was surprised to learn that King Kuei had postponed his decision to pass the law requiring benders to register with the Earth Kingdom government. When Katara asked Aang how he had managed to accomplish such a feat, he'd merely shrugged and said, "I offered him friendship."

After that, they talked about Katara's plans for school and her possible majors. "I thought about pre-med," she told him, "since I'm so interested in healing, but then I'm also considering political science. My dad always says that I'm so mouthy I should become a lawyer."

"I know whatever you decide, you'll be amazing," Aang said, leaning over to smack a sound kiss to her lips.

"Spoken like a biased boyfriend," she laughed.

His eyes gleamed with delight. "Am I?"

"Biased? Without a doubt."

"No," he chuckled, "Am I your boyfriend?"

Katara's cheeks grew pink. "Well, I figured after yesterday it was sort of a given."

"I didn't want to assume," Aang murmured.

"I guess you have a point there," she replied rather coyly, "After all, you haven't officially asked me yet…"

Aang rubbed nervously at the back of his neck. "Oh…right." He coughed several times, suddenly overwhelmed with shyness and hesitancy as he asked, "Katara…would you like to be my girlfriend?"

"Yes…" she whispered, scooting closer for his kiss, "I would."

They kissed for a few seconds more before Katara shifted to the other side of the sofa so that they could watch an episode of "Benders and the Non-Benders Who Loved Them." The attention they paid to the program was sparse, however, because when they weren't busy making fun of the show's premise, they were making eyes at each other. They picked at the remnants of their breakfast and generally just enjoyed each other's company.

As the atmosphere between them became more relaxed, Katara draped her bare legs over Aang's lap, crossing her feet at the ankles. Aang absently smoothed his hand up and down the length of her shin, splitting his attention between her and the television. At first, his touch was brisk and innocent, simply a means of generating friction to relieve the fine gooseflesh that had risen on Katara's skin. But, what began innocently gradually became more intimate as time passed.

Katara shifted her legs in his lap, her bare heels grazing across his thighs as she responded to his touch. Aang tweaked her painted toes, his caresses growing bolder and more deliberate as he crested back up the length of her leg. There was a subtle change in their breathing when his palm glided over the narrow bump of her knee, his fingertips beating against her inner thigh as he took his exploration higher.

Their eyes locked for a split second before Katara shifted around on the sofa cushions and crawled over to him to meet his lips in an avid kiss. Despite the awkward positioning, they tasted one another thoroughly, their ragged breaths and serrated moans mingling. Aang wound Katara's thick braid around his hand, gripping her hair lightly as he deepened the kiss. With very little prompting, Katara climbed into his lap and straddled him, never once breaking contact with his mouth.

She fit herself snugly over the ridge of his erection, rocking against him in a sweet rhythm that caused Aang to groan her name out loud. Somewhere in the still functioning portion of his brain, he recognized that they were going too far, too fast. He knew he should stop them, but there wasn't a single part of his body that wanted to. The task would have been nearly impossible even if he had wanted to because every part of Katara was overwhelming his senses.

Her tongue was plumbing the interior of his mouth in tantalizing forays, which only increased his desire to taste her just as thoroughly. Her nipples, which were rigid with arousal, scraped against his chest with each rhythmic roll of her hips. Every time she crested against him, her teeth bared, her head thrown back in abandon, Aang could feel his tenuous hold on self-control growing weaker and weaker.

Overwhelmed by the heat which was radiating from her center, Aang framed her hips in his hands and angling into her body, meeting her thrust for thrust. His erection pulsed painfully as he plundered her neck and throat with open mouthed kisses. He pressed her breasts between his fingers, rolling and squeezing them gently in his hands. And then he turned his focus to their sensitive axis, plucking firmly at her turgid nipples with his fingertips. He started to reach for the hem of her nightshirt, needing to taste her skin like he needed air, when Katara scooted from his lap abruptly and jumped to her feet.

Panting with thwarted desire and with every part of him aching, Aang stared up at her in a mixture of frustration and confusion. "Why'd you stop?" he whispered.

Her eyes heavy with desire and anticipation, Katara extended her hand to him. "Come on," she cajoled, "Let's go to my room."

It took Aang less than a second to discern what she meant and, the instant he did, his heart slammed against his ribcage. This wasn't simply going to be an intense make out session that inevitably ended in painful frustration. Katara clearly wanted more than that.

His first reaction was utter elation and excitement, but that was primarily a manifestation of the throbbing ache happening in his jeans right then. His second reaction was disbelief and gratitude that Katara would even want to take such a serious step with him in the first place. His third and last reaction, and perhaps the most visceral of the three, was stone, cold fear. He was terrified, so paralyzed with panic that he couldn't immediately take hold of her hand. Instead, he merely stared at it dumbly before lifting his eyes to her.

"Katara…are…are you sure you want to do this?" he stammered, "I…I mean…I've never done it before. You'd be my first."

She dropped her hand at the question and had a very hard time looking at him when she replied, "Is that a problem?"

"No!" he answered quickly, "I'm just…not experienced with this…particular thing."

Katara could feel her cheeks exploding with color as she choked out, "Yeah…we have that in common."

"You don't think we're moving too fast, do you?"

Uncertain, Katara nibbled at her lower lip. "Do you think so?"

"I don't know," he whispered honestly, "Right now, my body is screaming with so much need for you that I hurt, but… I don't want you to feel pressured."

Katara pinned him with a sharp, penetrating stare. "I don't feel pressured, Aang. Do you feel pressured?"

He shook his head. "I know that you're the person I want to be with, Katara," Aang murmured, "Whether I give my body to you now or later, the commitment is still there. That's the way it is among my people. Everything I have to give is already yours."

"I feel the same," Katara whispered, "And if the next few days are the last ones that you and I are going to share together for a while to come then I want to make them special." She regarded him with a half-lidded expression. "I want to be with you, Aang."

She took a deep breath then and held her hand out to him once more. This time, he took it and allowed her to tug him to his feet. Aang offered very little protest as they stumbled their way down the corridor towards her bedroom, kissing all the while. They were within a few scant inches of her door when he hesitated. He tore his mouth from hers with a jagged inhalation of breath.

"Katara, wait…"

Hazy blue eyes dark with desire blinked up at him. "What's wrong?"

"I don't have any protection with me." He blushed upon the admission, still a little in disbelief that they were having the conversation at all.

She blushed as well, almost choking with nervousness when she replied, "Don't worry about it. Sokka and Suki keep a drawer full of condoms in their room. I doubt they would miss one."

"Two," he whispered as she started to turn away, "You should get two condoms." He ducked his head sheepishly as he added, "I have a feeling that first time is going to go really fast."

Katara bit back a giggle and nudged him into her bedroom before darting across the hall to get what they needed. When she returned, Aang was seated on the edge of her bed with his hands pressed between his knees. Now that some of his ardor had cooled while waiting for her, he appeared more nervous than ever.

Made nervous as well by his expression, Katara scooted inside and closed the door behind her. She leaned back into the wooden façade. "Are you having second thoughts?"

His gray eyes flashed with both naked yearning and boyish uncertainty. "Are you?"

Rather than answer that question verbally, Katara tossed the two foil packages onto her nightstand and then, before she completely lost her nerve, whipped her nightshirt over her head and tossed it aside. She checked the impulse to cover herself, but instead stood before Aang with her arms at her sides and her breasts bared to his feasting stare. In that instant, she captured his undivided attention and held it. Katara felt herself grow red and hot under his intense scrutiny, both self-conscious and aroused by the slight quickening in his breathing.

With a suspended groan, Aang rose up on unsteady legs and closed the distance between them. He lowered his head to kiss her mouth first, sweetly and tenderly. He deliberately took his time, savoring his deep exploration of her mouth before sliding his hands up her midriff in faltering inches to cup and caress her breasts. At the first touch of his fingers on her naked skin, both Katara and Aang moaned loudly. Their need for each other heightened to aching degrees.

Aang nibbled a path across Katara's chin, kissing lower to sample the fragile skin of her throat before sliding lower still to feather his tongue across her collarbone. Katara's breath caught in her throat as he descended lower, his mouth on a meandering trek towards the slope of her breast. He peppered kisses across her satiny skin, nuzzling her gently before finally darting the tip of his tongue across her sensitive nipple. He tasted her in languid laps before finally drawing her nipple into his mouth to suck.

Katara cradled his head against her body, the light beat of her fingers against his skin stoking his hunger for her. He moved to shower her other breast with the same ardent attention, causing Katara to groan his name in satisfaction. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the sensations he was evoking just as a vision suddenly opened between them…

She gripped him firmly between her thighs, her nails digging into the sleek flesh of his back as he pounded inside of her. The beat of his thrusts were rhythmic and unfocused, gaining speed as he neared his climax. He buried his face into the damp crook of her throat, whimpering her name again and again.

"Aang…Aang…!" she cried out hoarsely, "Don't stop…please…"

"…With me, Katara…" he gasped as he stroked harder, his body shuddering, "Come with me…come with me…"

The tumbling flicker of memory ended just as abruptly as it had begun, leaving Katara and Aang more inflamed than ever. He took her lips in another torrid kiss, hooking his arms around her tiny waist and walking her back against the door. Aang pinned her there with his body, lifting her against him so that she could wrap her legs around his waist, leaving no space between them as they sampled each other's lips again and again.

In an avaricious need to be skin to skin, Aang and Katara grappled to free him from his t-shirt. She bunched the material up his lean back, tugging and pulling until he was finally free. After they threw it aside, Katara took a breathless and eager moment to explore Aang's bare chest. She skimmed her hands over the lean ridge of muscle. His skin was smooth and soft to the touch. There was a sparse smattering of dark hair in the center of his chest that tapered into a thin line down the flat plain of his abdomen. Katara followed that stripe of hair with her eyes and then scraped her fingernails across his nipples and further down to trace the path with her fingertips. She trailed lower, delighting in the way his muscles leapt in response to her caresses. When her hands finally came to rest at the waistband of his jeans they emitted a simultaneous gasp.

Their eyes met briefly. Aang yielded to the silent command he read in her eyes. He reached down between them to clumsily flip open his jeans and slide his zipper open. After a bit of awkward maneuvering, he managed to push down his jeans and underwear enough to reveal the weeping tip of his erection. Aang leaned back then in order to give Katara room to explore, his entire body jackknifing and his breath congealing in his lungs when her timid fingers feathered across his swollen flesh.

As she slicked the sticky drops of moisture she found there across his skin, Aang shuddered and buried his face against her shoulder. He thrust against her lightly, a low groan rumbling from his throat. "Please…please, Katara…" he gasped, "I need you… I can't wait anymore…"

Katara couldn't wait anymore either. They kissed again and, with Katara's nimble limbs still wrapped around his waist, Aang took the last stumbling steps to reach her bed. They fell down onto the mattress together, groaning and grasping, beyond eager to divest each other of their remaining clothing. Aang hooked his fingers into the loosened waist of Katara's shorts and started to drag them down over her hips along with her panties when her bedroom door suddenly yawned open. The young lovers scrambled apart with lightning speed as Suki came into view.

"Katara, is there any reason why you left…?" Suki trailed off into silence as she was greeted with an eyeful of the blushing, nearly naked couple. They made a belated attempt to scurry beneath the covers in an attempt to conceal their nudity but Suki had already seen more than enough. "And I can see this is a bad time for you," she uttered with as much dignity as she could manage, "By the way, nice haircut, Aang. Carry on then."

She said nothing further, but simply backed from the room and shut the door firmly behind her. Unfortunately, she had no time to digest the reality that she had just walked in on her boyfriend's little sister having sex with the Avatar. She had more pertinent issues on her mind, namely making sure that Sokka didn't receive the same eyeful she had just received.

Suki dashed back into the living room, sagging with relief when Sokka seemed more preoccupied with ferreting out leftovers in the refrigerator than wondering what his baby sister was up to. On the spur of the moment, Suki made a quick grab for her purse and stuffed it behind the sofa cushion before skipping into the kitchen to stand alongside Sokka. She was careful to position herself between him and the hallway, in case Aang had the desperate notion to sneak out.

Sokka acknowledged her with a low grunt and continued his rummaging. "Good grief! Why is there so much fruit in here?" he wondered in exasperation, "Did you go to the market?"

"I haven't picked up anything recently."

He grumbled some more. "So what's up with you?" he asked when he sensed her hovering, "Was Katara awake? Did you get on her case about leaving my baby unattended?"

"You know…I could probably sympathize with your irritation if I thought you were talking about Momo," she sighed.

Sokka emerged from the refrigerator with an armful of leftovers. "Haha," he sneered dryly, "Mock me all you want, but that television is more precious to me than my entire kingdom!"

"Thanks for that."

"Don't take it personally. It took me five paychecks to save up for that beauty," he grumped, "I don't mind Katara watching it, but she needs to remember to turn it off when she's done. She's always on my case about one thing or another, so you can bet that I'm going to give her a piece of my mind about this."

"No!" Suki cried when he set down his bounty and she thought he might head for his sister's room.

Sokka looked at her as if he thought she had lost her mind. "What is with you?"

"You can't disturb her! She's resting!"

"So what?" Sokka snorted, "It's already way past noon. She needs to get up anyway." He started to step around her, but Suki stubbornly blocked his path. "Suki," he growled, "Why are you acting so weird?"

"I…I…I have an emergency!" she prevaricated.

Sokka quirked a skeptical brow. "What sort of emergency?"

"I left my purse in the car. I need you to go get it for me."

"How is that an emergency?"

"Sokka, we live in the lower ring," Suki said as if that should be explanation enough, "I don't want to entice thieves."

He cast a longing look towards the food he had liberated from the refrigerator. "Could I, at least, make myself a sandwich first?"

Suki shook her head, already ushering him towards the door. "No, you can't. You have to go now!"

"Okay, okay…stop being so pushy about it!"

"And Sokka?" she added as he started through the door, "Take the stairs."

"What for?" he balked, "It's four freaking flights!"

"I didn't want to say anything before, but…lately I've noticed you getting a little thick around the middle," she lied baldly. She smiled at him to take away the sting. "A bit of exercise couldn't hurt."

The smile did not help. Sokka stomped from the apartment, muttering under his breath, "Stupid purse! Stupid girlfriend! Stupid stairs! I'm in the best shape of my life!"

Once he was gone, Aang and Katara carefully crept from the bedroom with matching expressions of pure mortification. Katara favored Suki with a weak smile of gratitude. "Thank you for not telling."

"Don't thank me, Katara," the older girl replied sternly, "I'm not making a habit of this."

"We weren't expecting you," Katara explained, "Sokka's note said you wouldn't be back until the afternoon."

"It is the afternoon," Suki pointed out, "Maybe time got away from you while you and Aang were…er…busy."

They both slumped further, their faces practically exploding with color by this point. "I'm so sorry, Suki," Aang mumbled contritely, "The last thing we wanted was to make you feel uncomfortable."

"That's an understatement, Aang," she muttered, "I've seen more of your naked backside than I care to." Their features suffused with an even deeper shade of scarlet with that comment, looking so mortified and so miserable that Suki couldn't help but pity them a little bit. "Listen, you two, I get it. First times are always awkward." Both Aang and Katara dropped their eyes to the floor. "It…uh…was your first time, wasn't it?"

"Yes…" Katara choked.

"Okay. Good," Suki sighed in relief, "Look…I'm not judging you two. What you do together is your business. Just please promise me two things: first, you need to tell Sokka that you're a couple. It's not fair to sneak around behind his back. Second, be responsible. If you can do those two things, then I'm good."

"We will," they promised softly.

"I guess that's that then," Suki said, "I'll make myself scarce when Sokka comes back so you guys can talk." As if on cue, the door handle jiggled, signaling Sokka's return. Suki favored Aang and Katara with an ironic smile. "And it looks like that time just came."