A/N: Based on the lovely Lady_Silvamord, I made a few changes in this chapter.
"Katara. Katara, wake up!" Sokka shook his sister awake.
Katara could tell by the somewhat gentle way he touched her shoulder that this was no emergency. She rolled over in her sleeping bag, shivering slightly against the early arctic temperature. "Sokka, it's too early."
"Trust me, Katara, you'll thank me for this."
Katara was not in the mood for any surprises. She was tired and sleepless from nightmares and haunting daydreams, her eyes lined with exhaustion. She lifted her arms and then flattened her palms down against the air, waterbending the ice under Sokka's feet into a foot deep hole of slush. Sokka yelped when his boots sank into the thick mush, and he toppled over on top of her sleeping bag.
"Katara!" He yanked one boot out and slush catapulted across the tent. It hit one of the pots with a sound like a tambourine and then dribbled down onto the fur of a white bear-seal. Sokka regarded her unhappily. "Fine then, stay here." His foot came loose from his fur-lined boot, and Sokka leaned over to fish his sock and remaining boot out of the hole. "I'll just have you know that Aang's here, and he –"
"Aang?" Katara flung her sleeping bag away from her. She ignored the all too understanding look her brother gave her, and wrestled her cold toes into her own set of boots.
"Yep. He arrived just this morning."
Katara's hands were shaking as she pushed open the blue flap of the tent. Before her everything looked normal; streams of smoke like tendrils of sea weed were floating out of the nearby igloos and tents, the ice wall she and Master Pakku had worked hard to make strong and stable roped around the entire village, and blue-coated children and women were already up and hard at work, gathering materials for the day's cooking and chores. Everything was in place, except for the strange furry presence of a sky bison.
Sokka's hand gripped her shoulder protectively. The two Water tribe siblings had not seen the Avatar since the death of the Earth King. Katara had been so hurt, the fragile tendons, nerves and veins in her throat badly crushed in the final battle led by the twin rebels Cheng and Chenlu, that Aang had brought her all the way back to the Southern Water Tribe to be seen by the great Master Pakku. He had healed her, but it took far longer than the Avatar could stay, and Aang had gone off to what was beginning to look like the start of another war.
"What is he doing here?" Katara's voice was barely audible over the strong winds.
Sokka rolled his eyes. "He's here to see me, of course. I could tell Aang has missed my sarcasm tons." When Katara said nothing, Sokka squeezed her shoulder. "Why do you think? It's been six months, the last time I checked you two were uh, romantically involved," Sokka gulped awkwardly over the phrase, "and he's probably come to see if you survived being nearly choked to death. He missed you, Katara."
"But, Sokka, because of me, the Earth Kingdom fell, and the King was killed. How could he – "
"Okay, we've talked about this," Sokka said. "It wasn't your fault, you know that. There was nothing you could have done."
"Sokka, I failed! I failed those people! I failed Aang!"
Katara remembered the first day she woke up from her coma. It had been cold and dark, with a lamp glowing next to her and casting strange shaped shadows around the tent. She recognized the place, her home and her family tent.
"Where's Aang?" she had asked repeatedly.
"He'll be back soon," was the set answer from everyone.
Katara wasn't sure when exactly it dawned on her "he'll be back soon" didn't mean what she thought it meant. Her first few days of wakefulness and deep periods of sleep were filled with "he'll be back soon" and she assumed the phrase was referring to Aang's return from talking with her father, or sleeping, or eating, or even taking Appa out for a morning flight. But slowly, and ever so painfully she realized that by saying "he'll be back soon", people were avoiding the issue. They were avoiding telling her that Aang had left her in the South Pole and taken his leave of the entire continent, and "back soon" was a highly relative, and in this case, meaningless phrase. Aang had trusted her to keep King Kuei alive and help him protect the people they swore to protect, and Katara had failed on both accounts. She didn't blame him for leaving. Katara didn't want to face herself and her failure either.
But it now seemed like Aang was ready to do both.
Sokka didn't respond to Katara's outburst; instead he rotated her by the shoulders towards the main gate. There, across the snowy clearing of the community bonfire was a figure in yellow with a blue arrow tattooed on his forehead.
Their eyes seemed to lock across the distance. Katara felt like she couldn't breathe in those moments, and she was afraid. But even from afar, Katara could see the huge smile breaking out across his face.
It was a smile she could never resist and could never stop loving. Unconsciously Katara's feet moved a few steps toward him before a wave of shyness and uncertainty washed over her. Aang didn't seem to notice her hesitation. He jumped up on his trademark spinning ball of air and sped towards her.
He looked like he had finally grown into his ears. His baby fat had absorbed into a male defined jaw line, and his features had sharpened since the last time she saw him. Crouched over his air ball, he almost looked comical; all arms and legs at fifteen, more like an awkward mouse-frog than all powerful avatar.
He grabbed her around the waist and swung her around in a flurry of dark hair, water blue and air yellow. He was laughing, his eyes shining, and he didn't let her go even when he dissipated the air ball and lowered both of them onto their feet.
The crunch of snow beneath her seemed to wake Katara up from her dreamlike reality. She tumbled back, bowing deeply before him. "We are honored by your visit to our humble village, Avatar," she said. Sokka made a sound like he was choking on his tongue. Tears began to well up in her eyes. "If there is anything –" She couldn't finish. She couldn't stand there, her honor in shambles from her failure, and address the man who would have to pick of the pieces of her defeat. With tears burning her cheeks, she bowed again and hurried away.
"Katara! Katara, wait!" Aang called. She could hear him riding the wind after her. His fingers clutched at her wrist. "Katara, please! Talk to me."
It was the slight catch of his voice that completely destroyed her stubbornness. With a sob, she fell against him, and cried for what seemed like the first time in months. He led her into his borrowed tent, holding her against him as she blubbered miserably. She knew she wasn't making any sense but she was beyond caring. She was able to touch him again. The moment she realized this, she knew she didn't deserve his touch, and she shuffled away from him and hugged her knees to herself on a bear-seal's pelt.
Aang's mouth was slightly ajar. "What is wrong with you?" he blurted before slapping his hand over his mouth. "I mean, uh, why are you acting like this?"
"Aang, don't you remember that day? The day the Earth Kingdom fell?"
Aang's face darkened. "Yeah, I remember." He turned away from her. "So you found out, huh? Who told you? Sokka? Or does everyone in the entire world know?"
"Of course everyone knows the Earth Kingdom fell, Aang." She bit her lip as tears threatened to fall again. "Fell because of me."
"What? No, it didn't. Not because of you, Katara. You were outnumbered." Aang laughed bitterly. "And don't tell me you didn't try enough. Katara, I watched you get strangled nearly to death. And I couldn't do anything. I was stuck, and then I watched you fall to the floor, and Kuei bleeding to death beside you, blood everywhere –"
Katara reached out for him then. He shrugged her away. "I killed a man."
"Aang, what happened to Kuei wasn't your fault. Cheng killed him, not you."
"No." His voice turned as cold as the ice beneath them. "I killed Cheng."
The wind began to pick up outside. Katara went to the doorway to secure the tent flap, digesting the information that Aang had just told her. His pain was so much worse than hers, and she felt selfish for the way she had felt. She sat next to him and took his hand, and this time he did not shrug her away.
"I lost control of the Avatar State. I saw you and the king fall and I thought both of you were dead. And I lost control, Katara, I lost control!" He sobbed and leaned into her, and Katara climbed into his lap and held his head against her breast.
"But you've lost control of the Avatar State before, Aang," she said quietly. "It's not your fault. The Avatar State is out of your hands. You can't feel guilty for what happened."
"You don't understand. It's… it's getting worse. At least before I had some concept of me, something or someone to pull me back, but this time I was locked in it. It's getting stronger, Katara. What if I can't get back next time? What if I –"
She kissed the tears from his eyes. "Shh. I won't fail you again, Aang. I promise, from now until forever, that I will always be there to bring you back. I'm so sorry that I wasn't there."
"It's not your fault," he protested, but she shushed him again and continued kissing his dear face.
He stopped her, catching her lips with his own. The heat from his kiss warmed her down to her toes. "I've missed you so much," he said between kisses. "I needed you."
"Not as much as I missed and needed you," Katara giggled when he kissed her nose. She stared up – yes, up – at him, her eyes growing slightly sad. "And look at you now. You've changed so much."
"I have not," Aang protested. "Look." he pulled out a couple of stones out of his pocket and airbended then into a spinning circled between his palms. "See? Haven't changed."
Katara laughed and snuggled closer. "You have changed. Six months ago we couldn't do this comfortably," she teased.
"I know, it's weird. Three years ago I used to fit in your lap. We can try it again, if you like," he said wickedly. Aang tried to lift her from his lap, but Katara squealed and held on. They ended up wrestling on a sleeping bag, with Aang half-heartedly trying to pull Katara from him and Katara clinging to him and threatening to tickle him.
"All right! All right, I surrender!" Aang cried out finally. The two of them paused for breath and stared at each other, Aang's hands played with her hair loops, and Katara caressed his pale cheek.
An idea was growing inside of Katara, something that seemed to grow stronger and unyielding with every touch. She wanted him. She wanted him to be completely hers. And maybe, maybe if he became completely hers he would never have to leave her again. Her tongue stuck to the top of her suddenly dry mouth. "Aang…"
"Stay with me tonight," Aang said. His tone was flippant but his eyes were serious. "Not for anything but sleep, of course," he added when she didn't reply right away. "Please, Katara? We've been apart for two long. I want you near me."
Katara's heart began to pound. She wanted this. She wanted to love him with every part of her and he needed her too. They had been dating for about two years anyway. It was time. He could never leave her again if she belonged to him like this.
Katara stood up. She paused at the tent flap and regarded him seriously. "Yes, I want to stay with you tonight," she said. "But not for sleep." She bit back a smile when his jaw dropped.
"Wait, do you mean?"
Biting back a smile, she said, "I can see that I'm going to have to spell it out for you. You'd better get some rest, because you're not going to get any later. See you tonight, Avatar Aang." She untied the flap of the tent and sauntered away, fully aware that his eyes were on her hips. She couldn't resist bending over to pick up a broken piece of flint off the ground, and when she glanced over her shoulder, he was still staring slack jawed. Judging by his expression, Aang had understood.