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They were on their way back home. Finally. Neither Katara nor Sokka could hide their joy. To see Gran-Gran again. The children, how they missed the children. On nights aboard when sleep would not take either of them, they’d talk about what they would arrive to. As much as they had complained about always having jerky and Gran-Gran’s sea prune stew, they both longed for the taste of home. Katara called dibs on hugging Gran-Gran first. Sokka only conceded after she agreed to let him have the last prune in the pot. The children would be bigger now, at that age they grow so quickly. The children would be happy to see their parents again. They recalled reuniting with their own father. The rest of their village would appreciate having their chief back too.
They’d talk about home so wistfully, so wishfully. As if their last sight of it weren’t only some months ago. Not years, just some months. Too much adventure for much too young people made the time seem longer.
They’d both talk about home so longingly. And yet, Sokka would see it in his sister. Just like him, she left a piece of her heart in the Fire Nation. All their friends decided to stay for the while. Aang on Avatar business. Zuko as the Fire Lord, of course. Suki with the Kiyoshi Warriors staying as his temporary security detail. Toph because she wasn’t ready to go home to her parents just yet.
All of them were their friends. So why could they not talk about the ones they left behind? They could, right?
On the night before they were set to arrive home, they did. They were out the deck tonight, with a clear sky above them. Sokka laid out a blanket and carried out another one to huddle in. The night breeze had steadily become colder the farther they went south. Huddling together with their sibling was just another reminder for Sokka and Katara that they were so close to home.
“Sokka, you miss Suki, right?” Katara asked. Close to home, but far from friends.
“I do. I miss all of our friends. But I really do miss her the most.”
Katara paused thoughtfully. “That’s… nice.”
When Sokka chuckled, his breath was visible against the cold air. Katara wanted to be distracted and waterbended the tiny ice away. Sokka chuckled again. “Nice? I miss her. I want to spend time with her. I want to take her to see our home and Gran-Gran. I want her away from danger.”
“Sokka, don’t tell me you’re back on your girls-are-weak crap.”
“No, of course not!” he answered defensively. “You know the feeling. It’s the same as when we didn’t know if Dad would ever come home… I know Suki is an excellent fighter. But I hardly know all the dangers she would be facing. So I can’t help but worry.”
“Yeah. I worry a lot, too. The last time I left any of you, I wasn’t perfectly sure if I’d ever see all of us together again.”
“But you had Zuko with you, right?”
“And when I had to look away from him so I could fight Azula, I wasn’t sure if he’d survive either.” Her voice broke.
Sokka hadn’t heard the story from Katara or Zuko yet. For so many days it had been enough to know they were both alive. “What exactly happened back there, Katara? Neither of you really wanted to talk about it.”
“I was so scared, Sokka!” she confessed. It hadn’t always been easy to seem weak to her brother. “All of a sudden Azula directed lightning at me. You know that doesn’t mix well with water. Zuko jumped and redirected it away. His stance was off, I don’t know, he didn’t do it entirely right. He was on the ground but Azula was onto me again. The whole time I was fighting her I was convincing myself that he’d be fine. That he’d be better if I could heal him. So I had to finish the fight quickly.”
“And you did exactly that.” Sokka said proudly.
“And yet those were some of the scariest moments of my life.”
Sokka hesitated to say it. He did anyway. “Like Mom’s…?”
At first Katara only nodded. “Like Mom’s.” She paused. Sokka could sense she had more to say. “Like I could easily lose someone I care about the moment I look away.”
“This time you could fight. Thanks for coming out okay, sis,” he said solemnly. After witnessing how the rest of the world fared under Fire Nation attacks, they’d both learned not to blame themselves for losing their mother. What could children and a battered village have done against the ruthlessness of conquerors?
It was her turn to chuckle. “Your little sister can do more than bend fish out of water now.”
He laughed. She was right, of course. She was the more formidable of the two of them now. “Saving the Fire Lord who would work for peace and return honor to the Fire Nation… the world owes you a lot, huh?”
“If the world could keep him safe from now on, I’d consider the debt paid.”
“You care about him a lot, don’t you, Katara.”
“Of course, he’s our friend!”
“And do you ever think of him, apart from our talks like this?”
The words were out of her mouth before her mind could catch them. “Of course, I do. I think of him every time I look up at the sun.”
When Sokka laughed teasingly, she wanted to waterbend the ice puffs he made back into his mouth. He felt the slight ire from his sister and quieted down. He decided not to tease anymore and asked seriously. “Then when the nights grow longer in the South Pole?”
Katara smiled.
“You’re the smart one of the two of us. The sun is just another star, right? There’s plenty of them in the night sky, Sokka. I’ll think of him anyway…”