A/N: Sorry for the wait. I had other stuff that occupied my mind (here read Korean Drama). I'm not precisely pleased with this chapter, but nonetheless, here it is. Happy New Years people! Hopefully this year will be better than ever!

Healed and Hunted

Simpre Fidelis

Chapter Forty Four

The Cafeteria

Kat

She cannot shake the feeling that this was where she needed to be, here on the second floor. It was a laugh echoing in the hallway, a giggle disrupting the television. It was a small weed with flowers being given to her by a dirty hand and missing teeth whose hair was still growing back.

But it was also young and tired faces looking up to her, wanting someone honest. Someone who wouldn't say "It's going to be okay." Because it wasn't going to be okay, not anytime soon.

It was the seventeen year old, sobbing and holding her four year old sister's body, begging for someone, anyone to listen and help.

It was a tight hug and shared troubles but laughter in the end.

Kat knows she needs to be here, can feel it in her bones. And on days where she can't carry the burden alone, she finds Aang and Toph again. They became her lifeline, the way they always had. She had slowly begun to remember what it was to trust another person with the weight of all you carry.

Mushi volunteers at this hospital, too. She knows he's keeping an eye on her, and she doesn't mind. His face grew less grey as time passed, color and life filling back into him. Kat could only wonder if her face was undergoing a similar transformation. It felt that way.

Right now, she's eating lunch when she nearly chokes on her sandwich. Instead of using words, like a normal person would, she captured the water out of her bottle and threw it across the hospital lunch room. A young man with a - God, what was on his face? - mustache looked up at her and grinned.

"Haru!" She shouted, rising.

He wiped his face, crumbs hiding away in whatever was living on his upper lip, and answered "Kat!"

It was a complete and utter surprise, to see him here. They'd been children the last time they'd met. And here he was, in the middle of a Russian hospital during The Great Inheritor Liberation. They ran to embrace, both rather shocked.

"What are you doing here?" She wondered, trying to remember exactly when they'd last seen each other. Had it been ten years, or thirteen?

He laughed, "I joined the army."

She doesn't share his laugh. She remembers a small boy afraid to use his bending and a pushy girl getting him arrested. It disagrees with what she sees;a man who will fight and die at the whims of a higher-up.

"You aren't hurt though, are-?"

"No, Katara, I'm fine. I was visiting a friend." He said calmly, reassuring her with a ruffle of her hair. She tries not to shrink away from the contact.

"Is he alright? Where is he?" She wonders, hoping Haru had not lost someone important.

His face slackens, "Third floor. They aren't sure he's… Well, he bled a lot. And they are having trouble."

The third floor was, in Kat's observations, for the maybes. She couldn't be sure of the actual statistics, but it seemed like the third floor had a fifty-fifty survival rate. She didn't go there often, as there was rarely anyone she could help. Muscles and organs she could patch up, but not bones or blood or disease. And so often it was blood and bruising and malicious diseases that did them in.

"Maybe…" She takes a breath, not sure if she's ready for the third floor. Still, this is for Haru, "Maybe I could take a look? I can't promise I'll be much help."

At that, his eyes lighten and his smile returns, "Really? I would appreciate it."

They finish their lunch together, catching up. When they finish, they climb the stairs and she notices Haru taking shorter steps to match hers. He'd always been thoughtful like that. Staring, though, brought unbidden the memory of dancing on Lee's feet. Kat doesn't push it away. It hurts and it feels like it might kill her, but when she closes her eyes and can smell him and feel him breathe, and that was worth any pain.

The memory passes, and she smiles up at Haru, who'd grown so tall during their separation.

"Haru, your mustache is ridiculous." She blurts out, unable to contain it any longer.

Sunny Days Apartment Complex

Aaron

He's bringing in the last box, whistling while he did so. The kid had a grand total of two bins of stuff to his name, and Aaron was going to fix that. But he was going to do so calmly and at Jason's own pace. The bedroom is empty and blank, but he knows that eventually it will be alive with color.

"Aaron, how does stir fry sound for lunch?" Jason asks, calling from the kitchen.

Aaron shouts back his consent, and walks through the living room to sit on the kitchen counter. He isn't a young man, but neither was he old. He has no family of his own, no one but the young boy who moved about as if he'd grown up in this kitchen.

"Have you heard anything from your teacher?" He asks, thinking of his renters who had yet to actually move in. It'd been two years or so, and though they paid rent, he'd only seen them once or twice. The girl had been around to drop Jason off, and once to tell him that her fiancé was missing.

Jason pauses cutting the chicken, "Well, sort of. I got an email from her yesterday. She's working in a children's hospital over there."

Over there, meaning ground zero. The base point of the Great Inheritor Liberation. Russia.

Quite a ways away from this place. Aaron could hardly imagine the two gentle people he met fighting in a war. They seemed sweet, but it made since to Aaron that the girl would go looking for her fiancé. She didn't seem the sort to sit around and wait.

According to Jason, though, she'd done just that, only having left six months ago for the frontlines. Aaron didn't even get so much as a good-bye, not that he much expected one. Still, he'd like to know if his renters were going to run off and leave. Even if they paid the rent, he still wanted them here, if only for Jason's sake.

It was easy to see his child-crush on his teacher, but it was more than that. He was genuinely worried for the woman. Therefore, Aaron adopted this worry.

"Did she say if she had found him yet?" Aaron asked.

The boy shook his head, "No, I don't think she has. But… She sounded better. I mean, the email felt warmer. Like maybe she was getting back to her old self."

"That's good. Maybe she'll be home soon." Aaron offered, hopeful, though he doubted it.

If it was at all possible, Jason's face fell further, "No, no probably not. Even if…Even if she gets better… She'll just stay there. She will look for him, probably for the rest of her life. Even if she never finds him."

While he knew it saddened Jason, the thought was poetic. They had only met a few times, but he had been able to see the love between the two of them. It was story book, fairy tale. It had been real. And to know that one half was without the other was Shakespeare.

"You miss her?"

"Of course. She was the first person to ever… To ever look at me and say that there was nothing wrong with me. She taught me so much, and I never really got to say thank you. There was nothing I could say to help her when she was hurting." Jason had matured so much in the past two years.

"I owe her, too, you know. She introduced us."

Jason nodded, "And there's really nothing we can do to say thanks, huh?"

Aaron thought about it for a moment before saying, "Maybe all we can do is hold on to hope, even if she doesn't. Okay?"

They sat, listening to the sizzle and sounds of lunch being made. It is the sound of normalcy, and Aaron realizes how grateful he is for it. He has never prayed a day in his life, and he isn't about to start now. But he sends a thought- not a prayer- to whoever felt like listening, asking that those two would find one another, and that they would return unharmed. He had a lot to say thanks for, and he couldn't do that if they were both still in Russia.

The Gardens

Haru

He can't help but stare at her. She's beautiful, of course, she always was, but there was something more than that. It was the smiles she tried to fight, when she thought he wasn't looking. To him, it looked like she felt guilty for smiling. And then he realized why that must be.

"You've lost someone, haven't you?"

Her head jerks to him.

"I'm right, aren't I?" He could see that he was. By the look on her face, it was someone important.

Kat cleared her throat, "He's been…misplaced, is all. I'll find him."

"You've literally lost someone? They aren't dead?"

Silence, hesitation. Then, "No. He's not dead. He's out there somewhere."

But he can see she doesn't know, doesn't trust her own statement. It is hope, if only infantile and tiny. He watches her fingers twitch and worry the edges of her shirt. He sees the way she chews on her lip, how her eyes simply seemed far off. The weight of her loss seemed to drag her shoulders down. He had been this way, once.

"Who is he?" Haru wondered.

Her eyes met his, and they seemed bluer somehow, "My fiancé. He vanished the day of the invasion."

So, that's why she was here. It wasn't so surprising that she was engaged. Someone was eventually going to realize what a good woman Katara was. He remembers her bravery and courage and kindness, and Haru hopes that whoever he is, he is enough to supplement that.

Haru turns his head, hairs on the back of his neck prickling. Someone was staring at him. He follows his senses to a nearby window, to find a thin, scarred man staring directly at him. Or..? No, perhaps the man was staring at Katara. Haru decides to move between them, protecting her from the gaze.

Moments pass and the man moves on. He can't shake the feeling that somehow or another, the gaze was too intense for a passerby. He wonders if the man poses any threat to Katara. He makes his mind up to stay next to her for a while longer to make sure she's safe.

"It's been almost two years." She was saying, looking at the plants. She seemed to come often in order to take care of the garden here, and Haru figured she was responsible for the thriving greenery.

He gave her a cheeky grin, "Is he better looking than me?"

She scoffs, "Of course. He doesn't have a ridiculous mustache. He's all muscles and tattoos and attitude."

"Always knew you had a soft spot for bad boys, Kat. Should have known." He nudged her with his elbow, "Got a picture? Maybe I'll run into him."

Kat nodded, though she hardly seemed convinced, "You just want to see what you're up against."

It felt like they were flirting. It probably would have been, if they hadn't been talking about her fiancé. He spared the man a thought and a prayer, hoping that perhaps he could repay Kat's kindness in this way. That maybe chance would smile upon him.

She held her phone out to him, a photograph of herself and a young man displayed on the screen. They looked happy, and the photo showed him the warm Katara he remembered. Warmer, even. He studied the face of the young man.

"His name is Lee." She said.

Lee's eyes were fixed on Kat, his whole being seemed to be concentrating on her. It pleased Haru to see the devotion in the photo. But something was bugging him. Something seemed familiar, but he knew that thinking about it would only make the fact more elusive.

"You love him?" Haru asks, wondering what kind of a person would interest Kat. She had seemed very independent as a child, but people changed.

"More than anything." She sounded like she was choking.

He put a hand on her shoulder, trying to be comforting, but he didn't know what to say. He'd lost his dad in a similar way, once, and she had had the words then, but those were child-words to a lost boy. He needed grown up words, but had none.

"You'll find him. Definitely. And you should invite me to the wedding." He gave her phone back.

There was a short silence before they went in, and Haru happened to glance back at the opposite row of windows. And then, something fuzzy clicked. The scar. The man in the window!

He kissed Kat's head and ran off without any explanation.

She had saved his friend, and perhaps he could return the favor by returning her fiancé. Odd, though, that he did not approach her. Perhaps it wasn't him.

But, then again, perhaps it was.

Fifth floor

Aang

"I saw her today. I didn't know she was working here."

Aang blinks, not sure what to say.

"She was with some guy with a terrible mustache." He continues, stretching his arms.

Lee's been moving about for two weeks now, legs finally able to support some semblance of weight. They were working on getting him back into shape, easing Lee back into being independent. It was slow progress, and Lee was frustrated. Aang imagined seeing Kat hadn't helped the frustration much.

"Haru, is his name. He's an old friend of ours." Aang explained.

"I think he saw me." Lee added.

That was worrisome. Still, he doubted anything would come of it. Haru had no way of knowing Lee from Adam, so it probably just appeared to be another hospital patient. He decided to put it out of his mind.

"She looks…tired." Lee said. That was one way to describe her, he supposed.

Aang has tried to avoid talking about Kat. Both of them found the conversations to be rather awkward and wistful. Still, he could see that Lee was growing bored with this waiting around business, so it was better to indulge him in this way.

"She works all the time. And when she's not working, well. I don't know. She's just always working."

Really, though, what did Kat do when she wasn't working? The girl probably needed a break. That was it, they were all going to have a day off. The war would be here, wouldn't it? He was going to take Toph and Kat out somewhere nice. Not anywhere in Russia, though. Somewhere else.

"I think, maybe, if you look around here, you'll find him. I remember seeing someone like that on this floor." A nurse's voice echoed over the general noise of the floor.

He happened to look up and his eyes met Haru's, and Aang knew the game was up.

The soldier was on him in moments, and Aang had no words for his emotions. Fear, of being discovered. Relief, that lies were no longer necessary. Regret, because Haru was not a man to play along with this farce and Katara was going to find out in a manner that wasn't as he'd hoped.

Haru looked between Aang and Lee, and the monk could see the words forming on his lips.

Finally, Haru said, "Why didn't you say hello to her?"

Lee said nothing, but looked to Aang for assistance. Lee was, after all, only doing so because Aang had asked. The logic had made sense earlier.

"And you're here, so you knew. How long?" Haru gave Aang a hard stare.

The monk swallowed, "Eight months."

"You've been lying to her. Both of you. Why?"

Aang had always appreciated Haru's directness, but was finding it difficult to form the words. He thought he had had more time to find them, the exact words or phrases to explain his desires.

"I… She needed to wake up. You didn't see her before, Haru. It was worse than what she is now. And-"

"You could have lifted the burden, and you chose not to."

"It was for her own-"

But Haru was done listening. He turned about face and marched away, determination and something else directing his steps. The monk felt like crying, absurdly enough. Everything was about to hit the fan, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

"We're so screwed." Lee said.

While lacking in eloquence, Aang could hardly think of a better statement to sum up the situation. He sat back in his chair, trying to guess in which way Kat would kill him. Depending on her mood today, she may simply snap his neck, or, if it was worse, she would skin him alive. And then whenever she was done, Toph was going to grind his bones into dust. And for good measure Kat would mix him up into some kind of bone-dust-water paste and grow plants out of him, then burn that plant.

Oh, God, it was going to hurt.

Two minutes later, he couldn't think much of anything. He could hear her storming across the floor, see her glaring at him, but he didn't really register it. He felt numb.

Until her hand echoed across his face. It stung, but it was mild to the punishment that was surely on its way. He waited for her to say something. Instead, she turned to Lee and raised her hand again as if to slap him as well, but stopped.

"Aang, get out. Leave. Right now." She commanded, voice blank and void emotion. He was all too familiar with the danger that tone brought.

Aang didn't need to be told twice. He jumped to his feet, quick and as light as being an Air Nomad would allow. He was out the door before he could hear what Kat was saying, praying to be spared long enough to explain to Toph.