Summary: "Tell me something you've never told anyone before." Or, the one where Aang and Katara find themselves unable to sleep.

Word Count: 2.7k

Welcome to Day 3 of Kataang Week 2023! Today's prompt is Confession/Whisper! Enjoy!

"Aang? Are you awake?"

Katara craned her neck to look up at her airbender's peaceful expression. The moonlight was shining through the windows, illuminating the bridge of his nose and the sharp line of his jaw as the crickets outside sang their lullaby. One of his hands laid on top of hers on his chest, their fingers intertwined, allowing her to feel his steady heartbeat. His other arm snaked around her side and was wrapped protectively around her shoulder, his fingertips tapping a gentle rhythm on her bare skin as his eyes fluttered open to look at her.

"Couldn't sleep either?" he whispered, tucking a few strands of her hair behind her ear.

Katara sighed in contentment and laid her head back down in the crook of his neck. "Something like that." She looked up at him as she absentmindedly traced patterns over his heart. "I blame you, you know."

"Me?" Aang murmured, mock-affonted. "What ever have I done to displease Master Waterbender Katara of the Southern Water Tribe?"

The airbender stifled a laugh in the short silence that followed, not needing to see his wife to be acutely aware of the eye roll she was giving him.

"I wouldn't say displease, per se," she said, "but I swear this baby is determined to make me nocturnal."

Aang grinned and kissed the top of Katara's head at the mention of their child. Granted, they wouldn't be born for a good seven months or so, but that didn't stop the butterflies in Aang's stomach every time the baby was brought up. Their baby.

"Oh come on," he admonished. "I'm sure our baby just wants his mother to enjoy the moonlight more often. He's my child- how could he have anything other than your best interests at heart?"

The waterbender pouted. "No being cute right now. Someone should tell her that her mother would like a good night's rest, moonlight be damned."

Aang chuckled softly as he moved his hand to play with her hair splayed out on the pillows underneath them. He turned his head to look at her, awed as always by how beautiful she looked next to him.

"Let's play a game then," he whispered. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Tell me something you've never told anyone before."

"I tell you everything," Katara replied. Aang's gaze softened as he felt flutters in his stomach at the casual admission. Would she ever know what kind of effect she had on him?

"Now who's being cute?" he murmured.

"I blame you for that too. You've rubbed off on me."

Aang blushed, acutely aware of the heat rising to his cheeks. "Come on, Katara. It doesn't have to be a big secret or anything. Just something you haven't told anyone before."

She huffed. "Fine." Katara tilted her head and hummed in thought. "Sokka thinks that he was the one who figured out I was a waterbender because he thinks he saw the first time I waterbended. I've never had the heart to tell him that that wasn't actually the first time."

The airbender looked at her incredulously. "You're joking." She shook her head as Aang snickered. "He tells that story all the time! It's all a lie?"

She nodded, the corners of her mouth upturned. "He thinks that the first time I waterbended was during one of our snowball fights where I picked up a snowball without my hands, but I had actually been practicing that move for ages for the sole purpose of annihilating him in battle. He hadn't seen it before because I knew I had to keep it secret if I was going to gain the upper hand. I didn't know it was waterbending until he ran in and told our parents."

Katara smiled fondly, reminiscing on her childhood. "When we found out what it was, he made me pinky-promise to never use it against him in a snowball fight again because it would be unfair. He had our mom and Gran Gran bear witness to the whole thing, too. Mom barely talked him out of going to the village elders to make the pact official."

Aang giggled at the thought of a tiny Sokka demanding justice. "Sokka, ever the diplomatic one. How old were you?"

"Four, maybe five," the waterbender chuckled. "I don't have a ton of memories from before Mom died, but that's one of the clearest." She looked up at him, silent for a moment. Then, "I hope our kids have memories like that. Of us. Of each other." She gave him a gentle nudge. "Your turn."

"Hmm…" The airbender pursed his lips, taking a minute to think. "Oh! I don't like papayas."

Katara gave him a blank stare. "You mean to tell me that in the decade that we have been together, you have never once thought to mention to me that you hate papayas too?"

"It never came up," Aang replied with a shrug.

She blinked at him. "You are unbelievable. All these years of being paranoid that I was depriving you of papayas, just for you to tell me this now."

Aang raised his eyebrows disbelievingly. "No way you've actually been worrying about that. Not for this long."

"Okay, yeah, I haven't," she admitted. "But imagine if I had!"

"Then I would be apologizing profusely and begging your forgiveness," he replied, eliciting a short laugh from her. "Your turn."

"Well, while we're on the subject of fruits…" Aang gave her a curious look. "I never actually knew the names of any of the fruits the first few times we went to the Earth Kingdom markets," she revealed with a blush. "I just waited for you or Toph or one of the vendors to say the name aloud and pretended I knew all along. I had a little notebook with sketches and everything to remember."

The airbender pressed his lips together, stifling a smile. "My turn?" She nodded. "I knew," he whispered. "Not from the start, of course, but I found that notebook one day when I was packing up camp. I didn't want to make you feel dumb for not knowing so I just tried to subtly mention the names or describe the taste of the fruits every time we passed something that I wasn't sure you'd seen before."

Katara's eyes widened. "Really?" Aang nodded, and Katara felt her heart melt. Even at 12 years old, he had always been doing the sweet, little things for her. She gave his cheek a quick kiss and moved her hand to cup the side of his face, sighing softly as she did so. "There's a lot of things I want to say right now, but we'd probably be here till morning," she murmured. "'You're sweet' will have to suffice for now."

Aang chuckled. "I think I can deal with that for the time being. Your turn."

"Mmm… I used to hate the color gray."

"Really? Why?"

"It never meant good things in the South Pole. Grey was the color the snow was stained after a raid. The color of the pebbles on the beach that we put over the graves of our fallen soldiers. The color of our warpaint. I didn't have enough good experiences with the color back then."

He looked at her quizzically. "What changed?"

Katara smiled softly. "You. Your eyes. When I think of gray, I think of you. The look you give me when you tell me that you love me. The way your eyes widen every time you see an egg custard tart. How the color matches the clouds outside when you let me take you outside to dance in the rain. Everything. It's hard to think of it negatively now."

Aang blushed furiously, unable to meet her gaze. "And you were calling me the sweet one?"

She laughed. "Your turn."

"Hmm… One of the things I was known for at the Air Temple, before everyone found out I was the Avatar, was making friendship bracelets."

"Friendship bracelets?"

"Monk Gyatso taught me how to braid," Aang said with a distant smile. "He'd take me to the garden to collect lemongrass every week or so. We'd dry it in the sun, make a powder from it, and then roll it up in rice paper. Once we braided the rice paper, the monks would burn them as incense. Something about how lemongrass was good for clarity of mind."

"How did braiding incense turn into bracelets?"

"Shhh, I'm getting there," the airbender laughed. "When I was at the Eastern Air Temple, before I met and bonded with Appa, I saw a bunch of nuns with their hair braided. It hadn't really occurred to me before then that you could braid anything else, so I had to try it. I started braiding anything I could get my hands on. Monk Gyatso even let me braid his mustache once!" Aang's expression turned sheepish. "I, uh, also got in trouble later for braiding Monk Tashi's beard while he was meditating." Katara chuckled.

"Anyways. I eventually decided to, ahem, borrow thread from the sewing room and make bracelets for people. After that ran out, people would bring me whatever string or thread they could find, even the monks. Gyatso would show me new ways to braid them together or I'd come up with new ideas on my own. I made bracelets for all the other airbending kids at the Southern Air Temple, Bumi, Kuzon, you, although I suppose that was more of a friendship necklace than a bracelet…"

"That's so cute," the waterbender smiled. "I can see it so clearly. Little 12-year-old Aang running around giving everyone bracelets because everyone was his friend." She turned to him. "Teach me some time. How to make the bracelets."

Aang grinned at her. "We'll make them together," he whispered, putting his hand on her stomach. "For the baby. Your turn."

Katara shifted around her body weight and frowned. "Everyone always says how much I look like my mom, even Sokka," she sighed. "But I don't think any of them really remember her clearly. If they did, they'd remember that Sokka's the one that looks like her, not me."

The airbender's eyes widened slightly in surprise. He had never seen any photos or paintings of Kya from when she had been alive, just sketches of her that Sokka had tossed in the garbage that Aang had barely been able to distinguish from Katara. The warrior had even admitted to him once that the only thing he could remember clearly about their mother was her laugh, that whenever he tried to picture her face, all he saw was Katara's.

"He has her eyes, her nose, even her face shape. I remember her so clearly, but half of that is because Sokka looks just like her, right down to the chin." Katara paused for a moment, smiling as she was reminded of a memory. "She loved drawing, you know? She sucked at it, but Dad would always bring her scrap pieces of seal skin they couldn't use for clothes for her to carve her stick figures into. He'd hang them up on the wall of our igloo and show them off to anyone who would come in."

Katara groaned, suddenly growing very self-conscious at Aang's silence. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to talk about my mom so much," she whispered. "This was meant to be a silly little game to help us sleep, and I ruined it. I'll stop talking about her if you wa-"

Aang grabbed her hands and looked at her seriously. "Don't you dare apologize for talking about her," he scolded. "You didn't ruin anything, sweetie. I love hearing all the stories about her and your childhood, really. I know I never met her, but it makes me feel like I knew her, and it makes me feel closer to you. She's been on your mind a lot lately." He nudged her belly. "I can imagine why. I've been thinking a lot about Gyatso and the monks lately too. But you would never in a million years tell me to stop talking about them, so please don't think I ever want you to stop talking about her."

He kissed the top of her head and pulled back, giving her a softer look. "It's how we keep them, their stories, their memories alive, even if they aren't. We'll tell each other, and then we'll tell our kids. And then they'll tell their kids, and they'll tell their kids. That way, they'll never really be gone."

"Yeah." Katara wiped the tears rising up in her eyes. "Yeah, you're right. All that Avatar wisdom being put to good use," she whispered, making Aang chuckle. "Your turn. Something happy, please. Or else I'll start bawling, and then we'll never go to sleep."

"I have something happy, but it's really cheesy. Would that please m'lady?" Katara smiled and nodded, the wet trails on her cheeks drying as she listened eagerly. "Well, the monks used to tell me that when someone dies, the spirits greet them in the form of whatever that person considers to be most beautiful."

The waterbender raised an eyebrow, skeptical of how this would be happy but letting him continue nevertheless.

Aang's voice quieted, his gaze refusing to break away from hers. He whispered, "When you woke me up from that iceberg, I honestly thought I had died. I mean, there was this angel with eyes the color of the sky on a warm summer day holding me in her arms." He gave her a cheeky grin. "It wasn't until I saw Sokka that I started to think that the spirits probably wouldn't have sent me to a cold, icy glacier in the middle of the ocean with an angry guy holding a spear if I had actually died. I hoped so anyways."

Katara burst into laughter. "Leave it to Sokka to always ruin a good dream."

"Tell me about it," Aang groaned. "I swear he has some kind of sixth sense about them. Every time I dream about you when we're traveling, he'll wake me up extra early and make me do chores."

The waterbender grinned devilishly. "I can probably tell you why, but it'll-" She was interrupted by a yawn, the lack of sleep finally getting to her. "It'll have to count as my next turn," she finished.

"Deal," Aang replied. "But this round is the last one before-" He too yawned. "Before we go to bed. Please, tell me why every time I dream of our wedding day, your face morphs into Sokka's trying to wake me up right as we're about to kiss. I'm desperate."

Katara pressed her lips together, trying hard to stifle a laugh.

"You talk in your sleep," she finally confessed. "Even your daydreams. Remember that time, the day before the invasion, when you told me you had some sort of dream about living underwater?"

The airbender's eyes widened as he felt heat rise to his cheeks.

"I heard something about a 'forever girl' in there. Hope I'm not stealing you from her," she whispered with a teasing smile.

Aang chuckled softly and pulled her closer to him, his arm's hold around her waist a little firmer. "My turn, right?"

She nodded, giving him a curious look.

"I was daydreaming about you," he whispered. "About confessing to you and then kissing you, if you want to get into specifics. Even at 12, I knew-" He yawned. "I knew I wanted to be with you for the rest of my life." Aang cupped the side of her face with his hand and rubbed his thumb over her cheek.

"You're my forever girl. Always have been. Always will be."

Katara wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to meet her lips, and kissed him, long and deep.

"I love you so much," he whispered, their foreheads still touching.

"I love you more," she yawned. Her eyes finally began to close as she settled back into the crook of his neck and lay her hand against his chest, their fingers intertwined. "Sweet dreams, Aang. No Sokka to wake you up this time," she murmured sleepily.

Aang smiled as he buried his face into her hair, giving her one last kiss on the top of her head.

"Sweet dreams, Katara. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."