Chapter Text
Katara was tossing and turning in her sleep.
“Mom?” She asked when she sees a woman in water tribe clothing from afar. She runs closer towards the woman and the woman turns around to face her.
It was her mother. She looked just as how she remembered. Her glowing blue eyes and her skin so immaculate from scars or injuries, but as Katara moved her eyes away from her mothers face and towards her chest, her mother was holding onto a baby.
“Congratulations, sweetie,” she whispers and lets out a smile. Katara stood there stunned. She hadn’t known what it meant.
She takes a step back, “What?” Her mother moved closer to her.
“Dont be afraid.”
Katara shakes her head, “Who is that?” She points her finger at the baby her mother is cradling. Her mother opens her mouth but no words come out to explain. Her lips move, but there is no sound.
Katara raises an eyebrow confused on what was happening. “I don’t understand.”
Her mother continues to try to speak but nothing happens.
Frustrated, Katara raises her voice, “Mother, I don’t understand! What does this mean?”
Her mother gets closer to Katara and closes her eyes. She leans her head towards Katara’s forehead and plants a gentle kiss.
Katara opens her eyes and her body sits up in bed. She was panting from the weird dream she was having. It had been years since she had seen her mother, and seeing her interact with her for just that moment, brought her to tears.
Aang shifts next to her in his sleep, but then he opened his eyes when he heard the soft sniffles coming from Katara. He sits up in bed knowing that she was upset.
“Katara?” He asks while rubbing his eyes. “What’s wrong?” He rests his hand on her shoulder. She looks at him from the corner of her eyes. She can tell he was concerned and stopped crying. She wiped her tears from her face and faces him.
“I had a dream and my mother was in it,” she responds still wiping her tears. Aang hugs her and strokes her hair. She hadn’t had a dream about her mother in a few years. They used to be quite frequent until it all of the sudden just stopped. Sometimes, it would cause her pain, and other times Katara was left happy when she would detail how it was like a one on one conversation as if she was still here. Other times it was a nightmare on the day the fire nation invaded the southern water tribe and murdered Kya. And times like these, where the dream would leave Katara speechless and wanting answers. All those times, Aang was there to comfort her on those dreams. Each and every single one of them.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks breaking off the hug. She lets out a sigh and looks into his eyes.
“The thing is,” she whispers lowly, “I dont know what it was about. It was strange, but seeing my mother, it broke my heart. She sounded the same.” Katara looks away from him and looks at the bed sheets. Her eyes fixated on them and stared out into space. Aang grew concerned, but hoped something could get her mind off of it.
All Katara was thinking about was her mom. The baby. What had it meant?
“Katara?” She hears Aang say and he rests his hand on top hers. She jumped at the touch and looked at him.
“Yeah?” She says dryly. She gulped but her mouth lacked moisture. Something was very off.
“I’ll go make some tea. Hopefully it helps,” he says pointing towards the exit of their bedroom. She nods her head along to his words. She watches him get up from their bed and walk out of the bedroom.
She sat there still wondering and was stuck in some sort of trance. The baby kept throwing her off. It kept popping into her mind.
It had been eleven years since the end of the war. The couple now lived in Air Temple Island near the heart of Republic City where Aang runs the place and shares the air-nomad history to the Air Acolytes. From the end of the war until now, Katara, Aang, and the rest of the gang were known by each other to have weird dreams and nightmares. It was common for them to have dreams about the war as if they were young teenagers again— but they would always wake up as grown adults and into reality. The war was over. Firelord Ozai is not ruling. The world is slowly coming into an era of peace.
Nightmares and dreams would throw them off for some certain times, but this was the first time in a while where it had left Katara pensive about it. It was all she could think about and just the weirdness of it led her to believe it was some sort of sign.
The door of the bedroom opened and Aang walked in with a circular tray with two tea cups with steaming tea.
“I made it just like how Iroh does it,” Aang says proudly. He walks across the room slowly hoping to not tilt the tray, and lays it softly in bed. He hands the tea to Katara and she takes it. She gets a whiff of the tea, and it brought her warmness, but it also left her stomach to have a weird reaction towards it.
Aang grabs his teacup and blows gently at its fumes— letting the temperature of it to cool down a little. He sits at the side of the bed and plants his feet on the floor. Katara takes a sip of the tea and ultimately regrets it. She feels the content of her stomach rise up and she hovers her hand over her mouth to stop herself from letting out the content. She shoots up out of the bed and runs out of the room startling Aang.
“Was it that bad?” He asks out loud and places his tea on the tray. He gets out of the bed and follows after her. Katara opens the bathroom door abruptly and kneels down to the ground quickly near the toilet. Her body couldn’t hold it much longer. She spilled bile into the toilet and kept going. Aang reached the entryway of the bathroom and grew concerned in the state she was in. Seeing that she continued to vomit, he quickly kneeled at her side and gathered her long air and pulled it away from her face.
Katara kept heaving until her body felt empty. She was so drained from having to do all of that, that she felt weak.
“I dont know what’s wrong with me,” she says shakily. Her eyebrows grew with concerned at her husband, and she felt scared about her health. Aang reaches out to stroke her hair and lets out a soft smile.
“I’m sure you’ll be okay, Katara.” He gives a reassuring nod, and Katara nods her head weakly. “Come on,” he says gently to her as he got up slowly from the ground. He grabs her hand and helps her stand up. “Can you walk?”
Katara holds onto her stomach and the queasiness of it.
She looks at Aang, “Yeah,” she lets out a breath, “I just feel shaky.” She begins to take a few steps and her legs felt like jelly. She walks near the sink of the bathroom and opens the knob of it. Water streams out of the faucet and Katara cups her hands together and slurps it into her mouth. She rinses her mouth with it and spits it back out. She felt weak and so lethargic. All she wanted to do was rest. She looks at Aang and gives a small nod— a message that she was okay and ready to get into bed. Aang holds onto her and leads her back to the bedroom. He picks her up bridal style when he realizes how tired she was and lays her gently in bed.
“Thank you,” she whispers with a weak smile. He smiles softly at her and then looks at her tea cup that she left on the tray.
“Are you going to finish your tea?” He asks. Katara’s face dropped. Just the mention of tea made her feel nauseous and Aang notices her body language. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Can you bring me water? My throat is a little dry,” she asks him. He nods his head and leaves the bedroom.
Her stomach was driving her insane. She felt as if something was in there. There had to be something causing her to throw up and it wasn’t the tea. She grew to love the way Aang makes his teas and he made sure to make her favorite one, and this feeling was new. She places her hand on her stomach and concentrates on the lingering feeling she had. She felt something and gasped as soon as she felt it. She withdrew her hand away from her stomach— afraid of what she felt.
Katara places her hand once again on her stomach and felt the sensation again. A beating heart. Her lips grew into a smile and she laughs quietly to herself.
“Is this what you meant, mother?” She asks to herself as tears grew on her waterline.
“Congratulations, sweetie.” Plays into her mind. She closes her eyes and placed her hand on her stomach once again. Tears streamed down her face. She was already in love with the child.
“I brought—“ Aang walks in and stops in his tracks when he sees Katara holding onto her stomach and crying. He grew concerned once again and was afraid he won’t be able to make her feel better. “Katara, what’s wrong?” He runs to her side and placed his hand on top of hers. She opens her eyes and looks up at him and smiles.
“Aang—“ she starts and she couldn’t stop smiling with happy tears.
His eyes widened, “What is it?” His eyes looked at her features. He noticed her smile and her tears. What could she be happy about?
“I placed my hand on my stomach and with the water inside it,” she initiates, “I felt a heart beat.” Aang’s eyes widened and he let out a breath.
“What?” He lets out a gasp and his worried lips grew into a smile. He lets out a laugh of shock.
“Aang, I felt a heartbeat,” she whispers with a smile.
“You felt a heartbeat!” He repeats louder. Aang jumps high with his air bending and he floated back down to the floor. He hugs Katara and kisses her thousands of times on her cheeks. “We’re going to be parents?”
She kisses him back, “We’re going to be parents.” As the words slipped out of her mouth, Aang fell in love with their child just as she had. He couldn’t contain his smile to the point where tears welled in his eyes. He closes his eyes and allowed his tears to flow out of him. He gently places his hand on top of her stomach. Katara rested her hand on top of his and gently squeezes it. He looks away from her stomach and into her eyes. He loved her very much. She was his guiding light and what attached him to earth. She was the love that was equal to his air-nomadic love. Tears welled in her eyes. They gone through every situation and problem together. It was always them together. Just the two of them.
“Our little family,” she says softly. He nods his head and plants a kiss again on her forehead. She smiles softly at the sensation. “You know— in my dream, my mother congratulated me and held a baby in her arms.” She pauses. “I didn’t know what it had meant then, but I do now.”
He intertwines his fingers with hers. “It was a sign.”
She nods her head with a sweet smile, “A good sign.”
The young couple hugged each other throughout the night as they rested their hand on their unborn child— feeling it growing within and waiting to meet for the next couple of months.