A/N: This chapter was originally a short one, almost too short. Then I rewrote it, and it was magically a normal length. (Being naturally gifted in the art of constantly wanting to stuff in more words is occasionally a blessing, and not the curse it normally is. I think.)

Chapter 4: Contradiction

"Katara!"

Katara froze at the sound of the cheerful voice, her foot hovering just on the threshold to the inn. For a moment she simply stared at a worn wooden beam that cut across the far inn wall, before at last she turned.

She had barely slept in days. On the ship ride from the Fire Nation to this Earth Kingdom port town, nightmares had continually driven her from sleep—in them, she chased Azula's cruel laughter on the wind from village to village, always arriving too late, finding farmland and homes burned to the ground. Worse though were the dreams in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se, where she faced Azula across motes of water lit green in the dim light of glowing crystal. She would send surges of water forward, almost winning—until Azula, smiling, raised her hands in a strange yet familiar pose, as thought manipulating invisible strings, and Katara would seize, all her strength wrenched away from her…

Katara shook herself, forcing herself back to the present. She found Aang standing behind her, smiling wide. However, as he laid eyes on her face, the smile shrank a fraction.

She could only imagine how she must look. Her hair disheveled, dark circles beneath her eyes from lack of sleep. She had worn her parka the entire way to keep the black shirt she still wore concealed, and she hadn't bothered to wipe the sweat from her face.

"Uh, hi," Aang said, suddenly awkward. "So, funny story—"

There came a heavy clumping of boots, and Sokka appeared just behind him, arms crossed and radiating grouchiness.

"There you are. Took us about a day to decide, yeah, you're totally up to something. So we caught up to the boat you said you'd be on, surprise, surprise, you weren't on it. Went on to the town you said you'd be in—no Water Tribe girl with hair loopies anywhere in sight."

Aang raised both hands in a peace-making gesture. "Um, it's okay, Sokka. She's here now, and that's all that—"

"Well?" Sokka said, cutting across him. "I don't suppose you're going to at least give us a hint where you've been."

Katara stared at them both blankly, and her exhausted mind couldn't seem to conjure any reply. She was supposed to have spent the ship ride here figuring out what she would tell them. She knew she would tell them the truth—she couldn't keep such a secret, especially not from Aang. But she still had yet to arrange the exact words.

Aang gazed at her, his eyes wide with all his own questions, concerns, and she could only imagine the worry he had gone through the past days, wondering where she might be, if she needed his help, where she could possibly have gone that she would feel she needed to lie to conceal it from him. His eyes fell slightly, to the black scarf still around her neck, just visible above the furline of her parka.

He gazed at it for a moment, before his eyes rose back to hers, and they seemed to harden with a decision. He turned his back on her.

For a second, all her exhaustion fled in the face of a fear she hadn't known until this precise moment would be so acute. For all her dread and anxiety in going with Zuko on his mission, she hadn't really thought there was a chance Aang wouldn't forgive her. But maybe forgiveness didn't mean something couldn't be broken beyond repair.

Katara's hand shot out toward him, desperate. But words wouldn't come. Her throat had closed.

Aang set his stance and, facing Sokka, declared, "Katara doesn't have to tell us where she's been. She can if she wants to, but—if she went, it was something important. That's all we need to know."

Sokka's mouth twisted in a grimace. He raised a finger, mouth open as though to argue. But then the finger fell limp like a wet noodle, and instead he blew out a long-suffering sigh.

"Whatever," he said, turning away. "I'm going to go pick up some supplies for the Tribe from the market. You know, instead of pretending that's what I'm doing. Because Dad and the Tribe actually do need supplies."

Katara shuffled guiltily, and maybe Sokka heard it because he turned his head just enough to eye her over his shoulder. "Don't do that to us again," he said. "Really, Katara."

"Sorry," she said, and she meant it.

As Sokka tromped away, grumbling under his breath, Aang turned back to her, one hand going automatically to take hers.

"It's okay," he said, smiling. "You don't… have to say anything. Just as long as you're here."

Katara hesitated, before her eyes rose to meet his. For all the time they had been together, she didn't think she had ever felt quite the tangle of emotions swarming through her now. The moment of fear and heartbreak still throbbed cold in her fingertips, like a horrific death barely averted, yet beneath it swelled something else. Something so warm and all-enveloping it seemed to chase away, for the moment, the fear and guilt and dread—

Without knowing quite what she was doing, Katara stepped forward. She wrapped her arms around him, not caring that she was hot and sticky and probably didn't smell particularly nice, pressing her face into his shoulder.

"I love you, Aang," she whispered, and she didn't think she had ever felt it quite so much as she did in this moment. As his arms came around her in return, she closed her eyes and, though she still had much to explain, which she would explain, for the moment she let herself sink into the warmth. Embracing the strange contradiction—the guilt of her lies and betrayal, all the more acute in the face of his kindness and understanding. Yet knowing, deep down, she couldn't fully regret it, either. She couldn't regret anything that would keep him from danger.

She let the strange swirl of emotions rise and spill over, trailing in tears down her face.

"Hey, sweetie."

It was nearing early evening in the South Pole, and Katara paused, turning from where she had just been drawing the moisture from a pile of recently washed clothing. When she saw the figure standing in the snow behind her, her mouth split into a wide smile.

"Aang!"

He opened his arms as she ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck like she hadn't just seen him a week ago.

Aang swooped in for a quick kiss before laughing and pulling back, though he had managed to grab her hand.

"I didn't expect you for at least another week," she said. While she continued to help with the rebuilding in the South, Aang had been traveling more and more, both helping Earth Kingdom villages on some of the nearby islands with spiritual disturbances and also spending more time at the Southern Air Temple to the north. The Air Acolytes had been working to restore it, make it liveable as a kind of sanctuary for this growing society of people who wanted to help Aang bring back Air Nomad culture.

"How's the temple work coming along?" Katara asked, as she started back in the direction of the forsaken laundry basket, towing Aang along behind her. "When do I get to see it? Siku and Sura will be so happy to see you, you should take them for a ride on Appa again, they loved that. I bet they'll want to see the temple too when it's done. How's Jingbo? Yee-Li? I bet they're so excited—"

Katara glanced back over her shoulder, and the look on Aang's face made her stop walking. His eyebrows were pulled together in a kind of uneasiness, his free hand fidgeting with his Air Nomad winter cloak. And the moment her eyes found his, he glanced away nervously, before forcing himself to look back.

Katara sometimes forgot that the restoration of the Air Temple wasn't all excitement and joy. She'd gone with him the first time he'd gone back since their first visit on their journey to the North Pole which felt like an age ago now, and they'd simply stood together quietly for a moment, staring out over the rubble between the winding pathways and soaring spires. Aang was excited to see the place come back to life—but it would never be the same as he once knew. Her own home had changed so much in the past months, the traditional igloos replaced by larger, more impressive buildings like they had in the North, leadership going from many small chiefs to being overseen by one Head Chieftan, and she'd been rather cantankerous about it. However, the same people she cared about were all still here. Aang was rebuilding from having lost everything.

Katara placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Sorry," she said. "I guess this isn't all so easy for you."

Aang blinked, and shook his head quickly. "No, it's been—great, actually. I mean, when Jingbo first suggested they needed to add walkways to all the places we originally only got to by airbending, I did get a little bit—" He shrugged and grinned sheepishly. "Well, it's going to be different, but I think they would have been happy this way. Making it a real home again, welcome to everyone." He sighed, eyes sliding off toward the horizon, still smiling. "You know, Jingbo, Yee-Li, Xing Ying—they've given up so much for this, to help the legacy of my people stays alive. People are amazing, aren't they?"

Katara pulled him into another hug. "They are. That's wonderful, Aang."

He relaxed into her for a moment, and she felt his warmth even through her thick parka. Then, once again, he tensed.

"Um," he said, pulling back to give her an apologetic look. "That's not it. Actually, just, the reason why I'm here…"

Katara gazed up at him, trying to quash her sudden anxiety. "Yeah?"

"I'm sure it's nothing," he said. "Nothing immediately urgent, he didn't say it was. Just, you know, planning ahead. It's good he's doing that."

Katara gave him a look. "Aang."

He sighed, reaching inside his Air Nomad robe. "I got a message from Zuko. He wants us all to go see him in the Fire Nation, Sokka and Toph, too." His hand had emerged, gripping a scroll, and he offered it to her. "This message was for you, it was attached to mine. I'm supposed to give it to you, I guess it probably says about the same thing mine did." He hesitated. "He wants us to go see him… before the next full moon."

A hard knot was forming in the pit of her stomach, but Katara forced herself to break the seal, and unfurled the message.

Katara,

If you can, I need you to come before the next full moon. We need to talk.

Zuko had signed his name at the bottom, as well as marked it with his official seal.

Aang was watching her face. "It's okay," he said. "I'm sure it's okay. It's just like Sokka said before—Azula can't do anything with what she knows. She's a firebender, not a waterbender."

Katara had, in the end, told Aang and Sokka both everything about where she had gone, and why. Not just about what Zuko had intended to do, but how Zuko had asked her to—and she had done it, and the dangerous knowledge Azula had escaped with. They had both treated her far better than she deserved, neither saying even a single condemning word. Sokka, while he didn't like the idea of Azula being out there free, didn't see how she would use what she knew. She could tell more waterbenders about it, but he didn't see why would she do that—it would just give waterbenders more weapons to use against the Fire Nation.

However, Katara had never believed it wouldn't come back somehow. That she wouldn't be punished for what she had done—or for her failure.

Aang was still watching her with concerned eyes, and she forced herself to take a steadying breath.

"I guess we better be ready to go. I'll get packed, and we can leave in the morning." She added with forced cheer as she picked up the laundry basket, "It will be nice to see Toph again, it's been forever. Sokka too, now that Dad's given him an official title, Ambassador or whatever, he's so busy I feel like I never see him either, especially since he spends so much time on Kyoshi Island making up for Suki and her Warriors not being there."

Katara turned for the thick door flap of her home, one she had built herself with some help of the waterbender builders from the North, drawing it back. "Come on," she said, "I'll put on some carrot-tuber stew for us for supper. You have to be hungry."

Aang didn't immediately move, face earnest. As though wanting to wind the conversation back a step, and ask her if she wanted to talk, to explain what she was feeling so he could make her feel better. However, before he could form the thought, at the word hungry something squirmed in the collar of his shirt, and a moment later Momo's head popped out to stare unblinkingly at her with hopeful, demanding eyes.

Katara laughed. "Yes, I'll make something for you too, Momo. You've both come a long way."

Aang hesitated a moment longer. However, at her smile and gesture, he reluctantly went on in. As he did, Katara watched him for a moment, staring at the familiar blue line of his arrow tattoo. Knowing his awareness of the anxiety she felt, wanting to help, but also not wanting to press her too hard. Kinder than she could ever deserve, as always.

Katara had not always known exactly what her feelings for Aang were. In the beginning, when they'd first discovered him in the iceberg, it had been like having a new little brother, and she had doted on him like she had many of the kids in the village, encouraging him, enjoying watching his carefree spirit. Later, there had been occasional glimmers of—something. But it had been so different from what she had felt with the likes of Jet, and trying to sort out what was just familial affection, and other feelings, had been—confusing.

Now, looking back, it all felt so inevitable she couldn't imagine it any other way. Just being around Aang, ever excited by all the joys in life, who chose to look for the good even in the worst people and chose kindness and understanding over hate, even in the face of all he had lost—it really did make her feel like she was truly home again, in a way she hadn't quite felt since she had lost her mother. She felt warm and safe, and capable of being a better person than she ever had before.

For a moment his face flashed in her mind again—at the inn, as she stood just on the threshold, her hair in disarray, dark circles beneath her eyes, as he looked at her. He knowing she had lied to him, perhaps guessing that she had done it because she was betraying what he believed in. The hurt he must have felt, yet in the end choosing instead to focus on what he felt she needed most.

She breathed. She shouldn't have hurt him the way she had. She wished she hadn't. However, she would still fight Azula again when the time came. To protect all the things and people she loved.

After a long moment, standing out in the snow, the sky beginning to tinge orange-red in twilight, she followed him inside.

A/N: Kataang! A little, anyway. Shipping in the romantic sense probably won't be a huge focus in this series, but various kinds of relationships important to the characters will always play a significant role in their actions and motivations.

This chapter kept getting quite a few heavy rewrites, which usually leaves the writing more raw than I'd like, so will probably eventually circle back for more edits on this chapter later. This chapter and the next have often been the sticking points on edits for this project, but we'll move on for now.

Thanks for reading! If you have a moment, let me know what you thought, and hope to see you in the next one!

Posted 5/12/23