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'Aang!'
I screamed his name in my head the second I realised it was him falling, plummeting, to the ground.
Whatever occurred had been compressed into too short of a time interval for me to really contemplate what had happened, that would be a waste of time. There was no room for thinking, no time. Taking action - that's what mattered most now. I didn’t know what exactly to do, I only knew I needed to get to him as fast as my waterbending would allow. Before he hit the ground. It didn’t matter what happened to the rest of them - Zuko, Azula, Iroh, the Dai Li - it only mattered that I get to Aang before it was too late.
It was sheer instinct: mind-numbing fear pulled at every last shred of power within me, forcing me to do the impossible because the idea of losing him was too much to bear. I gathered all of my strength and bent the water to my will, forming a massive wave that took me straight to him, drowning my enemies' defences along the way though that was never my intention. All I could see was Aang - my Aang - falling head first to the ground and everything else fell to the wayside in my mind. I needed to protect him. I needed to save him. Because a life without him? Without Aang? I simply didn't see the point.
That was the moment I knew I loved him.
I thanked the spirits that I got to him in time as I reached out and grabbed onto him with all my might. There was a waterfall just ahead, the wave of water that carried us slowing on my command and crashing down around us as my feet touched solid ground, but I couldn't stand, my legs were like jelly as I collapsed to my knees.
I held him in my arms as the enemy surrounded us, with absolutely no hope of survival, and it was then that I finally began to notice myself: my stomach and how it was turning; my heart and how it was pounding; my lungs and how I was breathing - or more accurately, how I was not breathing at all.
'Breathe Katara, you have to breathe,' I thought to myself with the taste of salty tears coating my tongue, pouring down my cheeks. 'Please, Katara, for Aang!'
But as I looked down at his face, lifeless and cold and lacking the joyful smile I remembered him for, I realised why I couldn’t obey my thoughts. Why such a heavy silence surrounded me.
Aang - the most powerful being in existence - wasn’t breathing, either.