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She knows Aang is different, right from the beginning.
He is young, it’s true, but he is filled with all kinds of levity and light that she hasn’t seen before. Everything about him is fascinating. Katara knows, deep in her bones, that Aang is special, but she can’t quite figure out why. She likes him right away, and in between penguin sledding and flying on Appa and freeing him from the prince with the ponytail and the scar, a fast friendship blossoms.
And then they go to the Southern Air Temple.
She learns that he’s the Avatar. He’s the last airbender. He’s the world’s greatest hope.
Katara swears, then, with everything she has in her, that nothing is going to ever hurt Aang like that again. He’s family now, and Katara looks out for her family. When she loves, she does it with all her heart, with all her soul, with every fiber in her body. That’s just how she does things; that’s just how she is.
They make their way to the North Pole, slowly but surely. Katara knew she was right to trust this funny little boy, because he exudes goodness from every pore of his body. He- he’s fun , and happy, and exciting, and he understands her better than anyone else has since her mother died.
They talk about everything and nothing, and when Katara looks at him, she gets the oddest feeling of being seen. Of being known , deep down in her bones. It’s nice.
They travel through the Earth Kingdom, they meet Toph, and Katara watches as Aang grows up, and comes into his own. As the Avatar, he is a boy god, a divine being in his own right, but he is also Aang. And Aang makes jewelry and tells silly jokes and reaches out to strangers he doesn’t even know to make their days better. Aang is kind and thoughtful and over the months they spend together, he becomes her very best friend.
She wants to keep being there for him, in the way that he’s there for her, in the way that he’s there for everyone. He’s wormed his way into the cracks and corners of her heart with his usual charm and good cheer. Aang is so special, in the way that he lives and loves and laughs, in the way that he saves the world and brings hope back, one hundred years’ after its disappearance.
She sees the way he looks at her. She knows the fortuneteller’s prophecy. And while she doesn’t want that, not yet, wouldn’t even know what to with it if she tried, she thinks that maybe, one day, she will. Maybe, one day, it will be what she chooses.
In the crystal caverns under Ba Sing Se, everything goes so wrong, so quickly.
She’d trusted Zuko. She’d trusted him, she’d let her guard down, she’d let all of Aang’s talk of forgiveness and peace and hope get to her head. And then he’d turned around and stabbed her in the back.
And Aang died. He’d died, and she almost couldn’t save him, she’d almost used the spirit water for something else, Tui and La-
It’s her fault. It’s all her fault. He could’ve been another person she didn’t save. She’d almost broken her promise to him.
Never again, she thinks. The moments in between Azula’s lightning and when Aang wakes up are torture. Katara can feel all the hurt and anger inside of her solidify and snap, creating a thousand glass shards. Cutting her up from the inside. It doesn’t matter. She can’t let her guard down again. Never, never, never again.
They don’t talk about it for a while, afterwards. Not until Hama, and everything that comes after.
Katara is exhausted, all the way down to her very bones. It stings, to know that she’d been so close to learning something, anything, about her people and culture. Hama had been from the South, and Katara was so eager to learn something from an elder. She’d thought she was the only one. And then Hama had turned out to be- what she was, and now her bending feels perverted. Foul.
Something that used to bring her so much joy feels now feels tainted. She feels brittle and bone-weary with it, and she’d almost hurt Sokka. She’d almost hurt Aang, again.
She wants to sink into the sea and float away. She wants to go back to her childhood on the ice and snow.
As much as the past year has reminded her that she’s still young, that it’s okay for her to be fourteen, sometimes she doesn’t feel it. Right now, she feels ancient, a million years old. War does that to people, she thinks bitterly, recalling cold grey eyes glinting in the light of the full moon. The feeling of wrongness, of her body not being her own. The weight of war and being alive.
She could not reach fourteen right now if she tried.
They set up camp in the forest somewhere. Toph and Sokka are asleep, but Katara can’t lie down and quiet her thoughts. Aang finds her sitting in front of the fire by herself, staring at nothing. He’s quiet when he settles down next to her.
She smiles at him, and he smiles back.
“Hi, Aang,” she says eventually, resting her head on his shoulder.
“Hi, Katara,” Aang responds. Soft and open and good, like he always is.
“I’m so sorry,” Katara chokes out suddenly, because the guilt has been eating her alive. She can’t keep it in anymore. Every time she closes her eyes she sees him, falling from the sky, him, stuck in Hama’s clutches (her mother’s body unnaturally still on a bearskin rug). The visions blend together sometimes, suffocate her until she feels like she might pass out. She might slip away into nothingness. Even worse, she might stay.
More guilt to carry, more burdens to bear.
And this is hard for her, still, to open up about the things she keeps close to her chest, tucked away and out of sight. For all she blusters in righteous anger, or cries in sadness and fear, she still has trouble sharing the most intimate parts of herself. Even around Aang. The feeling of wrongness from Hama and bloodbending still linger, and she thinks that she could scrub at her hands for years and still never feel clean.
“Don’t be sorry,” Aang says fiercely, one of his hands squeezing her own. “What happened with Hama- that wasn’t your fault. At all. Don’t ever think for a second it was.”
Katara closes her eyes, because he still doesn’t understand. Aang falling from the sky Aang in Hama’s clutches her mother’s body unnaturally still on a bearskin rug Aang falling Aang stuck her mother her mother her mother her mother
“It was my fault, though,” she chokes out, and she feels the panic crawling up her throat. Squeezing. Not letting go. “It was my fault- I’m the one who wanted to learn from her, I was so excited to finally find a Southern bender- I’m the one who trusted her, I trusted her just like I trusted- and then you and Sokka- it was just like in Ba Sing Se. I let my guard down, and you almost- ” and then she’s sobbing. She can’t even say it.
Her fault, her fault, her fault. All of it.
She can’t breathe.
Aang understands, because he always understands. “Katara,” he says, and he sounds so shocked, like he can’t quite believe what she’s saying. “Katara, you can’t possibly be apologizing for what happened with Hama. That wasn’t your fault. Hama wasn’t well.”
Katara only cries harder. “I almost didn’t get to you in time,” she sobs. “You nearly died.”
They both know, then, that she’s not talking about Hama or bloodbending anymore.
“Katara, no,” Aang says, and then he’s hugging her tightly. He feels solid, and warm, and real. “Katara, you saved me. You’re the one who saved my life. You brought me back.”
“I almost didn’t,” Katara whispers. “I almost used the spirit water on something else. I almost didn’t.”
“But you did,” Aang says fiercely. “You did, and that’s all that matters. You did, and I’m still alive. I’m still here.”
I’m still here. I’m still here. I’m still here.
Katara only cries harder. How is it that this boy knows her so well? He just- he understands, and he cares, so deeply, with every cell of his body. And she loves him so much, with a depth and a strength that surprises her, sometimes. It’s a part of her being, at this point. Was there ever a time where she didn’t know him, where she didn’t want to look out for him, where she didn’t want to see him and be seen in turn? She doesn’t think so. She can’t remember.
He’s her best, most treasured friend. He’s her person. That’s all there is to it.
Aang whispers into her hair, a steady stream of I’m still here, I’m still here, I’m still here. Eventually, Katara stops crying, and sleep overtakes her, blurs her world at the edges. Sokka and Toph find them like that in the morning, Katara’s head on his shoulder, their fingers intertwined.
Aang ends the war, just like she’d always known he would. She stops Azula with Zuko’s help, and that is surprising in and of itself, that a bitter enemy could become one of her closest friends. Another person she would do anything for, when only months before she had wished him dead. Sokka and Toph and Suki take down an entire fleet of airships, and she feels a surge of love and affection for all three of them when she finds out, even as she’s scolding Sokka for being careless with his leg.
They all come back together at the Fire Nation palace.
The war is over. But the hard part is what comes next, Katara thinks. Rebuilding, and learning to live without it all.
In Ba Sing Se, surrounded by the people she’s come to call her family, Katara makes a decision. Katara makes a choice.
She follows Aang out to the balcony when he goes. The sky above them is pink and purple, breathtaking in its glory, soothing in its quiet strength.
She hugs Aang tightly, and they just exist like that for a moment. Katara lets the feeling of rightness wash over her, lets it sink into her bones and settle there.
They have time, now. They have all the time in the world to learn about a world at peace, to learn about themselves and each other. Katara has time to relish in the love of her family, the one back in the South Pole and the one here that she’s built from the ground up. She has time to be fourteen going on fifteen, to savor the little things, to simply exist and be alive.
She has time to find the person she’s chosen to be, and she has time to love the boy next to her, with all her heart and soul. She has time. This past year, she has learned so much. But the future is coming, the future is here, and she has so much to learn about that, too.
She presses her forehead to Aang’s and smiles, and Aang smiles back. Bright and brilliant and beautiful, this boy-god. Made of sunshine and stars and everything right in the universe.
He saved the world. They all did.
They stand in silence, for what feels like a million moments, watching the sun set. Their arms are slung around each other’s shoulders, soft and grounding and real.
“I want to go home,” Katara says eventually, turning back towards him. “I want to help rebuild my tribe.”
“Okay,” says Aang, and there’s nothing in his voice but the understanding and patience that comes from the truest form of love.
Katara takes a deep breath. Here’s the part she’s unsure of. But if he loves her the way she thinks he does (pure, unselfish, unyielding, true , her person, her Aang), then he will agree.
She wants, so desperately, for him to agree.
“Will you…” she starts, and it gets stuck in her throat, so she clears it and tries again. “Will you wait for me?” she asks him. Because they have time, and she knows that he knows that.
Aang has always understood.
“Of course I will, Katara,” Aang says, quiet and sure. Like there was never any other answer. “Whatever you end up choosing. Will you wait for me?”
Katara closes her eyes, and she knows deep down what he’s asking. She knows what answer she wants giving him. “ Of course I will, Aang,” she murmurs. “Whatever you end up choosing.”
There was never any other answer.
She rests her chin on his shoulder. Aang combs his hands through her hair. The future sprawls before them endlessly, bright and full of hope and healing. They have the freedom to be a part of it.
It’s a victory.
Much, much later, after her home is rebuilt, after Katara has started a bending school and spent years on the tribal council and finally, finally been elected as chief of the Southern Water Tribe, Aang will come to visit. He will have spent the last few years rebuilding the Air Temples, establishing the Acolytes, helping create Republic City.
They will be ready for each other, then. They will have seen other people, tried new things. They will know, fully, who they are and who they want to be, and when they come back to each other, their hearts will be full and their minds will be ready.
Their love has shifted; it has grown. It is something that transcends all words known to man.
They will not be a traditional couple. Katara will not wish to leave the South Pole, and Aang will have duties to Republic City, so they will compromise, meet in the middle. They won’t have a single home with a polar dog and an ice picket fence. But who says that is the only way to have a life with the one you love? They will kiss under the Southern Lights. They will dance on the cliffs of Air Temple Island. They will write each other letters and tell each other stories and they will know and understand each other better than anyone else on the planet. They will raise three children together, with the help of their extended family and friends.
They will live. Together, they will live. It will not be perfect, it will not be a dream. But it will be hard-won, and it will be theirs, and really, that’s all Katara could have ever asked for.