Chapter Text
Even when you know they’re coming, there are some moments that hurt no matter what. Even when you can see them coming from miles away. Even when it all started with sunsets and eyes wet with joy. Even when you’re practiced saying the words in the mirror when he’s away.
Aang comes into our home for the last time on a warm summer evening. He folds up his glider and goes to hang it up by the door like he always does. But his hands stay there, not quite letting its frame rest on its rusted hooks.
Nothing that happened during all this time, the war or the years since, has prepared me to say this.
“Aang –”
So I’m lucky that I don’t even have to finish my sentence.
“Something’s wrong.”
He knows me that well. That somehow makes it worse. And he doesn’t turn around or ask it like it’s a question. He says it matter-of-factly, facing the wall. He places the glider on its frame. One of the hooks creaks as it bears its weight. I wince.
“Yeah.”
We sit with the silence of our admission for too long, neither of us willing to flow into the inevitable next part of this conversation. Aang lets his hands slide from the worn wood of the glider. His arms fall limply to his sides. He finally turns to face me.
I brace to see him break, to see the tears I’ve wiped away time and time again. But there’s nothing. He just looks empty.
Now I’m the one who has to turn away. I walk slowly to the kitchen nook, pull out a chair. Tilt my head towards it, asking for him to sit there. For a moment, I’m sure that he’ll turn and go out the door instead.
He moves across the room, his eyes an unchanging gray. There’s a storm there. I grip the back of the chair a little tighter. He sits, and the back of his collar brushes against my fingertips. My hands ache with the need to reach out, to close the space between them and his shoulders. But it would be too cruel to touch him now. As I’m ending it.
He bores a hole in the wall with his gaze as he speaks. “Something’s been wrong for a while. I’m glad we won and saved the world and all, but – ”
His voice breaks. Maybe he’ll be the one who ends it, then.
I can’t let the silence fester there this time. “But that fight was what kept us together. I don’t want us to start fighting trying to stay together now that it’s all over.”
Aang reaches over his shoulder and takes my wrist. He holds it so gently that I can barely feel it. He brings my hand to rest on his shoulder, the way I’d been thinking of doing.
“Katara.” His voice is soft. He turns a little in his chair and looks up at me, and this time I hold his gaze. His fingers explore the back of my palm, then he weaves his fingers between mine and holds my hand tight. “Is this it?”
I feel something well up in my throat. “I think this is it.” I place my other hand over his. “But that doesn’t mean this is goodbye.”
He stands, and our hands stay locked together even though it’s awkward. Desperate, clumsy like we are. He’s my height now – I don’t know when that happened. I must’ve missed the moment we stopped being kids, – the boy frozen in the iceberg and the girl who thawed him out – and started being whoever we are today. I don’t think either of us know who exactly that is now.
“Thank you, Katara.” He lifts his free hand to my face, cups my cheek softly. He’s so warm.
I laugh a little because I can’t help it. We’re breaking up and yet he’s still being too kind. “For what, Aang? I chose to be with you the same way you chose me.”
“I just meant – thank you for telling me. I’ve been wanting to say something, but I just didn’t want it to be true. Like saying it out loud would make it real. I thought… I thought I could hide from it.” He takes his hand from my cheek, and I can feel the cool evening air take its place as soon as it’s gone. My face falls, and before I even realize my expression is changing his eyes well up in response. “But I could never hide anything from you.”
I manage the tiniest smile. “That’s true. It’s that face of yours that gives it away.”
“What face?” He breaks out into a crooked grin, the same one I’ve seen more times than I can count. He smiles so big that his cheekbones push up against his watery eyes, and his tears threaten to fall.
“That’s the one!” I can’t help but giggle.
He’s laughing, and he’s crying, and now I’m laughing and crying at the same time too. It all blends together until I can’t tell the difference between laughter and tears, between him and me. And just when I start to lose myself, we wind down, draw away from each other like we’ve crossed into low tide. Our fingers interwoven fingers disentangle and fall reluctantly to our sides.
I take a deep breath in. Aang does the same. After a few moments, I notice that neither of us has exhaled. Before I can think twice about it, I’ve pulled him in, hugging him close.
“I hope this is still allowed,” he says, his voice is muffled by my shirt.
“I hugged you first, silly.” I do my best to hide my sadness, but I waver.
“Will I ever see you again?” He sounds so genuine.
“Just because we can’t stay like this doesn’t mean we can’t be in each other’s lives at all.” I pull away, put my hands on his shoulders as confidently as I can pretend. “You’re my best friend, Aang. Nothing will change that.”
“You’re the most important person in the world to me.” Now that he isn’t hiding his feelings, he sends a wave of emotion crashing into the room each time he speaks.
“And you are to me, too. But it looks like we can’t be each other’s worlds.”
“I think that even though we saw the whole world that summer, I never really got the chance to really see it. To live in it outside of the war.” He might as well be reading my mind.
“Me neither.” His eyes find the floor for a moment before they come back to meet mine again. “Maybe it’s about time we start to see what the new world is like.”
Now we face each other with the calm that comes after the storm. Like the worst has already happened, and now we’re looking out on what’s left as the sun peeks through the clouds. I think I just have one thing left to say.
“I’ll write to you." I bite my lip, almost scared to ask. "I hope you’ll do the same.”
“Of course, I will, Katara!” That goofy grin is back on his tearstained cheeks. “I was hoping you would ask.”
“Thank you, Aang.” I reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, but he pulls me into another hug. “I’ll be glad to hear from you again.”
And we part ways.