Aang was feeling more refreshed than he had in years. He had been holding a lot of emotions inside about Sokka (and the rest of the gang), and he had finally gotten some new information that completely shifted his view. After his and Sokka's screaming match, they actually spent a pretty good day together, Aang getting to spend time with his namesake and Sokka managing to catch him up on the years he had missed.
"-and that's when I said 'there's no business like snow business!'" Sokka laughed so hard that he looked as though a vein in his head would burst. "And then Katara dropped a roof on him." Aang's grin was full, the same way it had been as Sokka had been telling his stories. On the inside, his heart was pounding a little faster than average. This was the way he had been for the last couple of years whenever anyone talked about her, and it showed no sign of going away. Iroh would always say, "Time is a gentle river, enough of it can wear away even the hardest of stones." These years should have been enough for Aang to have forgotten about Katara though, but he still hadn't.
He smiled and nodded as Sokka finished up his story, his grin held imperceivably tight.
"-is gonna hang out with all of us tomorrow. She's always felt bad about whatever happened between you, she even feels like it's her fault you haven't been around as much. I always told her that you were a busy guy, and you'd come when something important happened, but she took it hard when you didn't show up to the naming. Of course now we know that you totally would have if Hawky didn't get a little confused along the way, so she should be fine." Sokka seemed very excited about whatever he was talking about, and Aang could only keep holding his smile and nodding.
"So Suki and I were thinking of hitting up the beach for dinner, if you wanted to come. Maybe bring someone special? A girl? Or a guy I guess? You must've made some new friends over the years." Sokka just kept talking.
Aang had not made many friends over the past years. He would get close to people while doing projects and in different places, but he never had the gall to keep in touch aside from responding to the occasional letter they would send him. He couldn't let Sokka know that he was so lonely though, then Sokka might, in the worst way possible, pity him. So Aang said the only thing he could think of to say.
"Yeah! I have a girl I'd like you to meet."
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It's not like Aang didn't have a plan when he told Sokka he would bring a girl to dinner. He had a plan. Unfortunately, like most of his plans involving relationships, it was pretty bad.
"What do you want me to do again!?"
Aang waved his hands calmingly, trying to lower the energy level in the room. "I just need someone to go to dinner with, to show Sokka and Suki."
"And you need that person to be me? You know how terrible that could be."
"I need your help for this, its important that I have someone there with me."
"Why?"
Aang paused for a second, wondering if his embarrassment outweighed his need for a confederate. "I need to make Sokka think that I'm not still into his sister, because she's showing up here tomorrow and it's gonna be weird otherwise. So I really need your help with this, I'll owe you one, like a big one."
"Sokka's sister, Katara? I remember her."
"So you're in?" Aang was hopeful this time, hearing the change in her voice.
"I'm in. One night. You owe me."
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Aang showed up to Sokka and Suki's room and knocked on the door. Sokka pulled it open on the first knock, almost getting beaned in the face by Aang's second knock. Aang pulled his hand back to his side, feeling anxious. He noticed his own posture. His shoulders were forward and pinched together, he was up on the balls of his feet, and his fingers didn't seem to stay still, even when he tried his hardest. Nevertheless, he smiled and tried to relax.
"Hey, I'm ready if you are."
Sokka opened the door wider, poked his head through, and looked around the hallway in confusion. "Weren't you going to bring a girl? So we could see what you've been up to in the past couple of years?"
Aang scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, about that-"
Sokka interrupted with a long string of partially connected words. "Not that you need to actually have done anything. I mean, if you don't have a girl or anything, it's not like it's that important. Like, we know you've been busy, you don't have to have someone to prove it to us. Besides, we never even asked if anything was going on. You don't have to feel shy or anything if it's not happening, there's no shame or anything at all."
Sokka's interruption was cut short by Aang' laughter. Something about Sokka's rant/apology had given Aang some confidence back, and he was no longer hunched over. When his shoulders were back and his head was up, Aang was almost as tall as Sokka, who was pretty tall himself. Suki found herself in the entryway, with Aang practically on the ground and Sokka mumbling apologies or something at double the speed of a normal conversation.
"What on earth is going on here? Let's get going. Where's your friend, Aang?"
Aang paused for breath after a particularly hearty laugh, then spoke. "She's gonna meet us there, let's get going?"
For the wedding, Zuko had kept on retainer a couple of food stores, hiring them full time for the full month. This was unfathomably expensive, which Aang managed to bring up in conversation every time the two of them spoke. Zuko would alway brush it off with some comment about how he was the most popular firelord to ever be crowned, and the most handsome human being to ever exist. Aang had tried none of the places, but for a first night with Sokka and Suki after years, he had picked out a beachside fire noodle place that had been on Ember island for a couple centuries.
Sokka grumbled the entire way there. "Why is it so far? And why couldn't we have met here at our place? Now I gotta try to talk to her while I'm eating. And I'm hungry. And why haven't you been talking about her while we've been walking?"
Aang was scanning the beach before he got interrupted by someone behind all of them.
"Certainly you wouldn't think that I'd be late to such a . . . special occasion," came from a voice so cold it could possibly freeze a snake.
Sokka wheeled around, his arm instinctually protecting Suki and little Aang. Suki herself turned her shoulder inwards, as if expecting a blow. Aang smiled and gestured her closer.
"Azula! Glad you could join us!"
Azula tilted the corner of her mouth upwards in the thinnest approximation of a smile. "Glad I could come meet your . . . friends. Sokka, I remember you. And Suki, you're looking well."
Sokka shared a glance with his wife, then another, very different, glance with Aang. "Aang, mind if we talk to you for a second?"
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"Her!?" Sokka waited until after he was out of earshot, then yelled so loud that it made the entire maneuver worthless.
"She was just a kid during the war, none of it was her fault!" Aang really should've expected the backlash, but after spending time with the new Azula, he had forgotten the fact that Azula used to be kind of evil.
"She locked me up in a prison for years!" Suki wa right on Sokka's side, they probably thought the same now after years of living together.
"Suki, it was months at most, and you were a prisoner of war, that's what happens!"
"She used to just order me to her room and tell me all of her plans and how her day was! It was weird psychological warfare! That's not just the normal prisoner things!" Suki was yelling at Sokka now, this conversation clearly being a common one in their household.
Aang was kinda confused. "That doesn't sound bad, that sounds nice actually."
Sokka and Suki wheeled back towards him and glared. "It was weird. I can handle pain, but I can't handle weird."
Aang waved his hands furiously. "Just give her a chance, alright? We all gave Zuko a chance and he kidnapped me like thirty times! In a row! Just have dinner with her or something and you'll like her I bet."
Sokka and Suki looked at each other for a couple seconds, pulling faces and pointing with their eyes at Aang. "One meal, I'm getting hungry."
"So am I," said Azula.
"Where the hell did you come from?" Azula was astonishingly quiet when she moved around, popping up from behind their backs whenever she felt like it. Aang was pretty sure she secretly enjoyed the confusion. Aang did notice that Azula was right behind him, using him as a sort of shield from Sokka and Suki.
"You people are exceptionally loud. And I was getting bored. And hungry, as I said. So are we going to go or should I start eating by myself?" She then leaned closer to Aang and whispered in his ear, "and don't worry, I haven't forgotten my end," then kissed him lightly on the cheek.