Katara was glad that Aang couldn't see her face. She was sure it was bright red. What had she been thinking, letting him brush her hair for her? It was true that she was never going to let Sokka touch her hair again, and she hadn't wanted to go to Toph either. Knowing the earthbender, she was sure that not only would she have gotten a flat refusal, she would have been laughed at as well. Not a pleasant experience.
But she could have just brushed it herself. It would have taken a long time and been fairly aggravating, but eventually it would have been done. The fact was, she admitted to herself, she had wanted Aang to brush out her hair. She had not even really made that much of an attempt at doing it herself before deciding to go to him.
Now that seemed like a mistake. She had never really realized how intimate someone else brushing your hair could be. Besides that one incident with Sokka, her mother had been the only one other than Katara herself who had ever done so. This was nothing like having her mother brush her hair.
She was keenly aware of every stroke of the comb, and Aang's fingers following it. Her scalp tingled, and her breath caught in her throat each time. Occasionally, his fingers would graze across the back of her neck or the edge of her jaw, leaving a line of cool fire behind them. She fought to relax her tensed muscles, yet still found herself waiting, almost straining toward these touches.
It was ridiculous. He was only a kid! He shouldn't be having this sort of effect on her. Though, she reasoned, she was not so much older herself. Only two years, and what was that, really, in the grand scheme of things?
More and more lately she had found herself fabricating excuses to be near him. When they flew on Appa, she would lean over the saddlebow to talk to him, or slide down to sit next to him on Appa's shoulders. When they ate, she would settle down close to him, her arm brushing against his. When they sparred, she would close the distance between them, fighting hand to hand rather than waterbending from a distance. When correcting his stances, she would put her hands on his arm or back, or hook a foot around his ankle, pushing or pulling him into the correct position rather than simply demonstrating.
She couldn't think what had gotten into her, and hoped that she wasn't being too obvious. She tried not to be, and no one had called her on it yet. She was sure that if Sokka or Toph had noticed, they would be teasing her at every opportunity.
She was not even sure that she should be feeling this way. They were in the middle of a war, and now was not the best time to be distracted. And she had so little experience with this sort of thing. The only boy in their village who was anywhere near her age was Sokka, and except for her brief, disastrous crush on Jet, she had never felt anything like what she was feeling now.
It frightened her a little. She had always felt. . . something special for Aang. He was her first real friend outside of her own family, and she had always felt protective of him. But now. . . Well, it was just different, and it made her nervous.
It felt like her own happiness and peace of mind were tied up in Aang's. When he was sad, so was she, and when he was hurt, it hurt her as well. Katara had always felt that she identified with people just a little too much, enough that it affected her judgement of others when she saw them suffering, even people she didn't like. But with Aang it was much stronger. And while he was usually cheerful and easygoing, he had suffered much more than many others ever would, and that occasionally caught up to him.
There were times when the entire weight of his responsibilities and important destiny seemed to crash down on him all at once, and he seemed barely able to move beneath it. She sometimes heard him crying at night, and knew that he had been dreaming about his lost people. At those times, she would slip silently over to him and hold him as he cried. Tears would come to her own eyes. She cried for him, for the loss of his people, the loss of his too-short childhood, and for her own lost mother, wishing that she could take the hurt from him and carry it herself.
She wasn't completely sure how Aang felt about her. She knew he liked her, liked to talk to her and be around her. She liked it too. Despite the looming threat of the Fire Nation, she had fun with him, more than she could remember having in a long time. Her life in the Southern Water Tribe had seemed to be mostly work. It was difficult to survive at all in such a harsh environment, and everyone in the village was constantly busy at the task.
The last two years had been especially hard. With all of the men gone, and she and Sokka the only two children in the village who could really work, many tasks had fallen to them that would usually have been performed by others. Suddenly, she and Sokka were two of the biggest providers for their tribe. They had to hunt or fish nearly every day in order to keep their tribe fed, and they did not always have good luck. There had been many days when they had gone to bed hungry, despite their best efforts.
She worried a lot about Gran Gran. She was getting older, after all, and Katara had taken over many of the things she had used to do, in order to give the old woman a rest. The other women would look after her, she knew, but without her and Sokka there to help, she knew it would be hard. Thank goodness Master Pakku and some of the other Northern Water Tribe men had gone to the South Pole to help. Katara had been feeling terribly guilty about leaving her grandmother behind, even though she knew that she was needed here, with the Avatar. With Aang.
Some of the things Aang said or did seemed sometimes to hint at something. . . more, but she couldn't be sure. He had never said anything, after all. And he had seemed reluctant to follow her suggestion in the Cave of Two Lovers.
Katara's cheeks burned at the memory. What had she been thinking? In the dark closeness of the cave, their light going out and panic threatening to set in, kissing had seemed like a perfectly logical course of action. Now it just felt ridiculous. She kind of hoped that Aang didn't remember the incident, though she was having a difficult time forgetting. Especially the bit near the end.
Their light was beginning to waver, and there seemed nothing else to try. As the torch slowly dissolved into complete darkness, Katara had placed a hand over Aang's. She'd leaned in, her eyes drifting shut. She had felt the heat of his skin against her face, felt his soft breath wash over her mouth, but just before their lips touched, she had seen a light from behind her closed eyelids and had turned away. Since then, she had gone over and over the moment in her mind, wondering what had possessed her. And wondering, too, what it might have been like if the crystals had remained dark for only a few seconds longer.
Aargh! This was crazy. He was only twelve! It was weird. She was weird. There must be something wrong with her if she was attracted to a boy who hadn't even hit his teenage years. The real trouble was, he often didn't seem like a kid at all.
He had been through a lot more in his twelve years than most adults would in their whole lifetimes, and he had handled it with a grace and determination far beyond his age. She felt so young compared to him sometimes. Especially when he went into his Avatar state, or when he had one of his odd flashes of wisdom. These seemed to be happening more and more often recently, and he always surprised her with how deeply he had thought about a subject. She had been so used to thinking of Aang as a kind of goofy kid that when he did say something profound, she was always greatly impressed. Thinking deeply was something she did not do at all well, and she admired that quality in him.
The realization that Aang had stopped combing brought her back to herself. In fact, he wasn't moving at all. He had his hands buried in her hair, and she could feel the heat of his body as he leaned closer. Suddenly, Katara couldn't move; couldn't breathe.
His body tilted still nearer and his breath washed over the crown of her head. Then abruptly the spell seemed to break. Aang rocked backward, extricating his hands from her hair. Katara let out a long, slow breath in disappointment and relief.
"All done," Aang said, and she thought his voice sounded a little shaky.
"Right," she answered, her own voice none too steady. "Thanks."
From the corner of her eye, she saw him nod. He slid her comb across the ground to her, careful not to let his arm brush against her. Katara found she couldn't look at him directly.
"Thanks," she said again. She picked up the comb and stood, keeping her back to him. "Next time, it won't be as bad." Then she hurried away, her face burning.
Aang watched her go, then melted to the ground, his arms out-flung, feeling his heart pounding beneath his ribs. Next time!