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Katara glares at the stupid vines and their stubborn refusal to listen.

They hang there, slack and dripping, as if they are mocking her.

Huu is a surprisingly demanding waterbending teacher. She had misread him years ago, when she had been fourteen and single-minded in her need to end the war. Back then, he had seemed strange but simple, a man content to drift and hum and let the swamp do as it pleased.

Now she knows better.

Two years into peace and rebuilding, Katara has come here to learn. Not for survival or battle, but for herself. To understand waterbending in ways no master in the North had ever taught her.

And spirits, it is exhausting.

Day after day, while Aang and the acolytes who have joined them meditate somewhere quiet beneath the banyan grove, Katara stands knee-deep in murky, lukewarm water, trying to force life into something that refuses to move the way she understands it.

The vines twitch when she pulls. They stretch when she pushes. But they never flow.

If she lets up for even a second, they collapse back into the water with a wet, pathetic slap.

“Damn it!” she snaps, as one vine slips from her grasp, then another, both splashing down hard enough to send swamp water surging toward the shore.

Huu flicks his wrist, and the water parts neatly before it can touch him.

“You’re overthinkin’ it, cuz.”

“I’m losing my mind,” Katara groans. She lets herself fall backward into the water with a heavy splash, no longer caring about the mud soaking into her clothes. They had been ruined days ago anyway. “Can you just show me again?”

Huu does not laugh, but something shifts in his shoulders, a quiet hint of amusement.

“I can show ya all day long,” he says, easy as the breeze through the reeds. “But bendin’ the vines ain’t about makin’ ’em listen. It’s about knowin’ why they would.”

Katara drags a hand down her face, pushing damp hair back, though it sticks anyway, frizzing and curling in the thick heat.

She understands the words.

They just are not clicking.

Maybe it is the swamp, the way the air clings to her skin and nothing ever feels fully dry. Maybe it is the constant hum of life around her, loud and endless and impossible to shut out.

Or maybe it is something else.

Katara tips her head back, staring up through the tangled canopy. For a moment, she considers screaming, just to hear something that feels like her.

If she did, maybe the people back in the village would hear it and think it was one of those tiny birds that sound like a woman crying.

“Ya can’t bend ’em like they’re just water,” Huu continues, patient as ever. “There’s water in ’em, sure. But there’s vines too. Life an’ memory. You gotta see all of it.”

Katara squeezes her eyes shut.

“I’m trying,” she says, though it comes out weaker than she intends.

They have had this conversation before.

More than once.

Every time, Huu reminds her that bending the vines is not about control, but connection.

And every time, she comes up short.

“I know ya are,” Huu says, softer now. “But I think it’s time ya tried somethin’ else.”

She cracks an eye open. “Like what?”

“Meditatin’.”

Katara wrinkles her nose immediately.

She has tried meditation before, mostly with Aang. It never gave her answers, only a fleeting sense of calm, like the quiet after a long day. Sometimes it left her feeling lighter.

Mostly, just sleepy.

And the last time she had connected with the swamp…

The memory is enough to make her hesitate. The visions she had seen here two years ago had been overwhelming, too vivid and far too real.

She is not sure she wants to open herself up to that again.

Still, standing here and failing over and over is not much better.

“I don’t want to disturb Aang,” she says after a moment, settling on the safest excuse she can find.

She pushes herself up onto her elbows and glances toward the distant rise where the banyan grove stretches its roots across the water.

Huu shifts beside her, pressing his palm flat against the bark of the tree he leans on, his eyes unfocusing slightly, as if listening to something far away.

“Shouldn’t be no problem,” he says. “Boy left the tree a while back. Can’t feel his feet no more.”

Katara blinks. “What?”

Huu tilts his head, tracking something invisible.

“Up in the sky now, I reckon.”

Katara follows his gaze, scanning the stretch of blue above the canopy for her fiancé. Clouds drift lazily, thick and white, but there is no sign of Appa.

“Okay,” she says finally, the word leaving her on a slow breath.

She takes a slow breath and settles into her meditation pose, trying to hold onto Huu’s instructions as he lumbers away through the water.

The swamp does not make it easy.

It is too alive.

Everywhere she turns her attention, something answers back. The low hum of insects, the distant croak of badger frogs, the steady drip of water slipping from leaf to leaf. The air clings to her skin, thick and damp, and even the roots beneath her seem to shift, subtle and slow, as if the entire place is breathing.

More than once, her eyes snap open, her head turning sharply at a sudden chirp or rustle, certain something is approaching.

Each time, there is nothing.

Only the tree behind her, steady and ancient, and the wide stretch of swamp beyond.

Katara exhales slowly and closes her eyes again.

Vines.

Not just water.

Vines and water, together.

She repeats it in her head like a mantra, trying to push the understanding deeper than words, into something instinctive, something she can actually use.

She has no sense of how long she sits there.

Time in the swamp feels strange, stretched thin and heavy all at once, slipping through her grasp even as it lingers. Long enough for her legs to ache and her feet to go numb beneath her, long enough that the discomfort begins to fade into the background, no longer sharp enough to demand her attention.

Still, she stays.

Aang believes in this. The acolytes swear by it. The swamp is a place where everything is connected, where the world speaks if you are willing to listen.

So she listens.

Or at least, she tries.

Behind her closed eyes, she begins to picture it. Vines suspended in the air, twisting and coiling at her command, not forced or dragged, but guided. Alive in her hands, responsive in a way she has not been able to achieve before.

Her brow tightens slightly as she concentrates.

Then something shifts.

Warmth spreads through her, slow and gradual at first, like sunlight breaking through clouds. It settles across her shoulders, her chest, her hands, sinking deeper with each breath.

Katara tenses instinctively.

But it does not feel wrong.

It does not feel like anything she’s felt before, but it’s not wrong.

If anything, it feels… inviting.

Her breath eases.

And before she can stop herself, she lets go.

She lets the warmth pull her under.

She lets it take her.

She is standing.

At least, she thinks she is.

The sensation is strange. Her body feels solid and present, but distant at the same time, as if she is only partially inside it.

Her first clear thought is that she is dry.

Completely dry.

There is no damp fabric clinging to her skin, no mud between her toes, no heavy air pressing down on her lungs. Instead, there is warmth, steady and comfortable, settling easily over her.

Her eyes snap open.

The swamp is gone.

In its place is a room with solid walls, polished floors, and soft light filtering in from somewhere just out of view. It is unfamiliar, but not entirely. Something about it feels lived in and settled.

Katara inhales sharply, her gaze darting around as her pulse begins to quicken.

A vision.

The realization comes quickly this time, settling into place with surprising calm.

But this is different.

Stronger.

Not the distant echo of her mother disappearing into the mist, but something immediate and fully formed.

Before she can take a step, the sound of a door opening pulls her attention.

“I’m so happy!”

Aang’s voice.

Katara turns sharply, her pulse jumping as she watches him step into the room and shut the door behind him.

He looks older.

Not drastically, but enough.

His robes draw her attention first. They are more elaborate than anything she has seen him wear in years, layered and formal in a way that feels ceremonial rather than practical. Not the simple clothing he wears to peacekeeping meetings, but something meant to be seen.

Something important.

“About what?” she asks, the question slipping out before she can stop it.

Aang pauses.

For a brief moment, he looks at her as though she has said something strange.

Then he smiles.

“You, of course.”

She finds herself smiling back, the response familiar and easy despite the unease threading through everything else.

“I’m happy too,” she says, though she cannot quite place why.

The words sound right, but the feeling beneath them is thin, just out of reach.

A flicker of movement catches her attention.

Katara turns toward a polished surface along the wall and freezes when she catches sight of her reflection.

She does a double take.

She is dressed like Aang.

Not exactly the same, but close enough to make her suddenly self-conscious. Layers of orange and yellow fabric drape over her frame, long and formal, far more ceremonial than anything she would choose for herself. Beneath it, a soft blue shift peeks through, subtle and nearly hidden.

She stares at herself, momentarily speechless.

Whenever they attend meetings with the other nations’ leaders, she makes a point to wear blue. She represents the Southern Water Tribe, and she wants people to see that.

Here, she looks like she is playing at being an Air Nomad.

“I’m glad you’re happy,” Aang continues, stepping closer. “You seemed kind of nervous earlier. But that’s all over now, and we can just focus on us.”

Katara turns back to him, her brow knitting.

“What’s all over?”

She does not get an answer.

Before she can press further, he reaches for her, spinning her easily and dipping her back the way they used to when they danced.

The familiarity of the motion catches her off guard.

So does the way he kisses her.

It is not gentle.

There is urgency in it, a kind of certainty that makes her eyes widen as she struggles to keep up with the sudden intensity. His hands move quickly, already working at the ties of her robe as if this is expected, as if this moment has been waiting.

It takes her a second to understand what is happening.

By the time she does, the outer layer of fabric has already slipped loose from her shoulders.

Katara presses her hands against his chest and pushes him back, stumbling a step away, her pulse racing.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice sharper now as her gaze flicks between him and the discarded fabric on the floor.

Aang immediately pulls back, his expression shifting.

“Sorry,” he says, letting out a small, awkward laugh as his hand comes up to scratch behind his head. A faint flush creeps across his cheeks. “I’ve just been thinking about this all day.”

He moves to sit on the edge of the bed, his posture softening as he looks up at her.

“We can go at your pace, if you want.”

Katara blinks at him.

“My pace?” she repeats, her confusion deepening. “What are you talking about?”

A knot settles low in her stomach, uneasy and familiar.

She knows.

Some part of her understands exactly what he means.

She just does not want to say it out loud.

“Maybe it’s time you go back to your room,” she adds quickly. “Or I go to mine.”

The words feel safer.

Aang’s expression shifts again, this time to disbelief.

“You want to keep separate rooms?” he asks, standing again. His arms open slightly, as if trying to bridge a gap she does not remember creating. “I thought we’d share now.”

Katara crosses her arms tightly over her chest, her gaze drifting around the room as if she might find an answer hidden somewhere in its unfamiliar details.

“Why would we share a room?” she asks. “That’s inappropriate.”

Aang hesitates.

“Is this what you and your dad were talking about today?”

She looks back at him intensely.

“My dad?”

“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “He kept pulling you aside before everything started. I thought…” He trails off, searching. “He just seemed angry all night.”

“I don’t understand,” Katara says slowly. “Why would my dad be angry?”

Aang lets out another small, uneasy laugh.

“Well, the vegetarian menu probably didn’t help,” he admits. “I know Sokka wasn’t thrilled. But your dad kept coming to your room this morning too. What was he saying?”

His awkwardness fades into curiosity.

She is curious too, but she cannot give him an answer. Her last clear memory of her father is still back at the Southern Water Tribe, where he had been fine.

“I’m not sure why he was upset,” she says carefully. “Did he say anything to you?”

Aang pauses, thinking, but something in his expression shifts and he looks away instead of meeting her eyes.

“Well, I wasn’t able to complete the engagement customs,” he admits. “But your dad knew I couldn’t participate in a hunt beforehand. He said he’d think of something else, and that’s the last I heard of it.” He glances back at her, more tentative now. “Did he say anything to you?”

“Um… no,” Katara says, the uncertainty slipping through despite her effort to steady it. “I guess he hasn’t.”

Aang nods, though he already seems to be moving past it.

“How about we stop talking about your dad,” he says, his tone brightening again as he steps toward her. “Come on, it’s our wedding night. I think we should share a room now that we’re married.”

Katara takes a step back, her stomach dropping as the words land exactly where she feared they would.

She was right.

“It’s our wedding night?” she asks, her voice tight, her gaze flicking to the discarded robe on the floor.

But Aang seems to take her question differently.

Before she can react, he closes the distance again, his hands settling at her back as he pulls her into another kiss, deeper this time, more insistent.

They have kissed before.

Those moments had been soft, patient, full of warmth and quiet affection.

This is not that.

There is no hesitation here, no pause to breath, no uncertainty. His lips press firmly against hers, his body following, solid and certain in a way that feels unfamiliar.

It unsettles her.

She does not soften into it.

She tenses.

That alone feels wrong.

Maybe that is why she pushes him away again, her foot catching slightly in her slipper as she stumbles back, a startled laugh slipping out before she can stop it.

It feels off.

This is Aang.

Sweet, gentle, patient Aang.

Not this version of him who moves as if everything has already been decided.

Her laughter fades as she sees his face.

“Why are you laughing?” he asks, quiet hurt threading through his voice.

He is frowning now, his gaze lowered, his shoulders pulling in slightly.

“I’m sorry, Aang,” she says quickly, the apology coming easily even as everything else feels tangled.

But how is she supposed to explain this?

She loves him.

She knows that.

But is that enough?

When she said yes to his proposal, they had agreed on a long engagement. How had it passed so quickly?

Katara shakes her head, trying to steady herself, only to realize she cannot remember enough to make sense of any of it.

This is not real.

It cannot be.

For a moment, panic flickers at the edges of her thoughts.

It feels like a dream.

Then she remembers.

It is not a dream.

It is a vision.

The realization settles into place with a strange clarity.

She turns away from Aang, unable to face the hurt still lingering on his expression, and as she does, she feels it again.

That warmth.

It returns slowly, wrapping around her like sunlight through water, gentle but certain.

Yes.

Just a vision.

She closes her eyes and lets it take her, allowing the warmth to pull her under as the room begins to fade.

She slowly opens her eyes, expecting the swamp to stretch out before her once more.

Instead, the world sharpens into something else.

Stone walls rise around her, pale and familiar, worn smooth with age and care. Open archways let in cool, thin mountain air. The Southern Air Temple, Aang’s favorite.

The realization settles just as footsteps echo down the hall, heavy and inelegant, so unlike the acolytes who move with quiet intention, careful not to disturb those deep in meditation.

Meditation.

The thought lingers briefly, but it slips away the moment she becomes aware of her own weight.

Katara’s hand moves instinctively downward, and she startles at what she finds. Her breath catches as her gaze drops to her stomach.

It is round.

No, more than that.

It is full, unmistakably so.

For a moment, her mind struggles to catch up, the sight so unexpected that it feels detached from her own body.

Then it clicks.

A baby.

The realization hits all at once, overwhelming and impossible to ignore.

By the spirits, she’s pregnant!

Her hands come up to cradle her stomach without thinking, fingers splaying across the stretched fabric as she feels movement beneath her skin.

Soft at first, and then stronger.

The baby shifts beneath her palm, a clear, undeniable kick that makes her gasp.

It is the strangest sensation she has ever felt.

And yet-

A laugh escapes her, light and breathless, as she taps gently against the curve of her belly, caught somewhere between disbelief and wonder.

“Hey, you seem to be feeling better.”

The door creaks open, but she barely notices at first, too focused on the movement beneath her hands.

Another kick answers her touch, and she lets out a quiet, disbelieving laugh.

Then the voice fully registers.

“Sokka!”

She turns quickly, her face lighting up as she pushes herself up, the need to move overriding everything else.

It is a mistake.

Her balance shifts immediately, her center thrown forward in a way her body understands but her mind does not. She wobbles, the room tilting for a split second before strong hands catch her.

“Whoa there, baby sister,” Sokka says, steadying her easily. “You’re carrying precious cargo now. You can’t be jumping around like that.”

Right.

She’s pregnant.

The thought still feels foreign, even as her hand drifts back to her stomach, grounding herself in it.

“You’re not upset?” she asks, her gaze flicking between Sokka’s face and the swell of her belly.

Shouldn’t he be?

Shouldn’t he be angry if she is pregnant and unmarried?

Except she’s not.

The memory returns in pieces.

Orange robes.

A ceremony.

Aang.

Of course.

There is no reason for Sokka to be disappointed.

“Yeah, I’m upset,” Sokka says, his tone more serious now, his features sharpening in a way that reminds her of their father. “Your letters made it sound so awful.”

Katara frowns.

“My letters? What are you talking about?”

Sokka gives her a look, one brow lifting slightly.

“I guess they’re not kidding about that ‘pregnancy brain’ thing,” he says. “Your letters. You told me about the cravings. Seal jerky, right? And how you couldn’t have any.”

Seal jerky.

The thought alone makes her mouth water.

“Do you have any?” she asks immediately.

Sokka hesitates.

“Yeah,” he admits, though there is reluctance in his voice. “But I don’t want to… make things worse between you and Aang.”

Katara barely processes that.

“Just give me the jerky, Sokka.”

He huffs under his breath but does not argue, turning to dig through his bag, muttering something she does not quite catch.

Her attention drifts again.

Her hand returns to her stomach, almost without thought.

The baby shifts beneath her touch, and this time she is ready for it.

She has seen pregnancies before. Women in the tribe, neighbors, friends. Little Hope, born at the Serpent’s Pass.

She knows what it looks like.

But this-

This is hers.

She traces the curve of her belly slowly, her happiness undeniable even through the discomfort. She wonders, briefly, if it is a boy or a girl.

The thought fades almost as quickly as it comes.

It does not matter.

What fills her instead is something far stronger, a sudden, overwhelming love for someone she has never seen, someone who exists only as movement beneath her skin.

Finally, Sokka produces the jerky and the moment she sees it, her mouth waters so intensely that it almost startles her.

The craving hits all at once.

She barely gives him time to react before she snatches the bundle from his hands and tears into it, biting eagerly into the strips of meat as relief floods through her.

A soft, involuntary sound escapes her, and she laughs breathlessly when the baby responds with a strong kick, as if it is just as satisfied.

“This is so weird,” she says, still chewing as she adjusts her grip on the bundle. “Do you want to feel? He’s really kicking right now.”

Sokka raises a brow but steps closer without hesitation.

“So you still think it’s a boy?”

Katara pauses, considering it more seriously than before, but in the end she only shrugs, her hand resting protectively over her stomach.

“I guess I do.”

Sokka places his hand carefully against her belly, his expression softening almost immediately when the baby kicks again beneath his palm.

Something about the look on his face makes her love him all the more.

Her baby.

The thought feels both right and unreal at the same time, and she cannot quite reconcile the two.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” Sokka says quietly, his gaze still fixed where his niece or nephew rests.

“It’s okay,” Katara replies automatically. “I’m sure you’ve been busy.”

“I’m never too busy for you, Katara,” he says, and there is a seriousness in his voice she has not heard since the war.

It only adds to her confusion.

“Sokka, I-”

She is cut off by the door opening again behind him.

Katara glances up, only half paying attention as she takes another bite, her focus still split between the taste and the steady movement inside her.

Misa stands in the doorway.

Katara recognizes her immediately as one of the acolytes who has never quite warmed to her, though never openly unkind. She looks older now, her hair longer and more controlled than Katara remembers.

For a moment, Misa simply stares.

Then her gaze drops.

She notices the jerky.

Her expression changes instantly.

Her eyes widen, her hand flying to her mouth as she gasps, stumbling back a step.

“Wait!” Sokka calls, but she is already turning, already moving, her robes sweeping behind her as she hurries down the hall.

Katara watches her go, still chewing slowly as she looks between the empty doorway and her brother.

“What was that about?” she asks, though her voice lacks its earlier lightness.

Sokka turns back to her, and the look on his face makes her pause.

He seems genuinely worried.

“Are you okay?” he asks, stepping closer. “Do you need to sit down?”

Now that he says it, she notices it.

The dull ache in her back.

The swelling in her feet.

The deep, creeping exhaustion.

She nods and makes her way back to the plush chair, lowering herself into it more carefully this time.

As she settles, her gaze drifts to the table beside her.

A stack of books and scrolls sits there, neatly arranged but clearly well-used.

She glances at the titles.

Pregnancy.

Air Nomad traditions.

Child-rearing.

Something about it twists in her stomach, though she cannot quite name why.

She looks away.

She does not feel like reading.

Right now, her world has narrowed to the taste of jerky and the steady movement in her belly.

“I’ll talk to Aang,” Sokka says after a moment, his voice quieter but firm. “I’ll tell him it was a misunderstanding. Maybe those were vegetarian strips or something.”

Katara hesitates, her thoughts slow to catch up.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she says, though it sounds weak even to her own ears.

Sokka does not seem convinced.

“Okay,” he says slowly, “but maybe you should stop eating those.”

Katara frowns, irritation flaring despite everything else.

“For goodness’ sake, Sokka,” she says, tightening her grip on the bundle, “you get seal jerky whenever you want it, so why can’t I have this stash?”

He opens his mouth to respond.

He never gets the chance.

A sudden rush of air sweeps through the room, and Aang is there.

He looks older.

More than before.

Broader, sharper, his presence filling the space in a way that feels impossible to ignore.

His eyes move quickly.

From Sokka.

To Katara.

To what she is holding.

They widen.

Then harden.

“Katara!”

The warmth she had been feeling disappears instantly.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, lowering the jerky slightly.

“What’s wrong?” Aang repeats, disbelief rising in his voice. “What’s wrong? You’re eating meat!”

“Aang, it’s not her fault,” Sokka cuts in quickly. “I brought it with me and she-”

“And she’s eating it,” Aang snaps, his gaze locking onto Katara. “Katara, you know this makes it less likely for us to have an airbender.”

The words hit all at once.

Oh.

Oh!

She stills, the jerky forgotten in her hand as something cold settles over her.

“Have you been doing this the whole time?” Aang presses, his voice tight.

Katara opens her mouth.

Nothing comes out.

“No, of course she hasn’t, Aang,” Sokka says firmly, stepping forward. “But she’s far enough along that the baby could come any day now, and Gran-Gran said she should have her full strength before delivering.”

“But all of the books say that for an airbender to be born, a strict vegetarian diet is needed throughout the entire pregnancy.”

“Well, what if he’s a waterbender?” Katara asks, and before she can stop herself, she takes another bite, because the craving is overwhelming and impossible to ignore.

Aang moves before she can react, stepping past Sokka and snatching the bundle from her hands.

“Hey!” she snaps, anger flaring as she tries to stand, only to be dragged back by the weight of her body.

“Aang, don’t take her food,” Sokka says, his tone turning cold. “If she’s craving it this badly, then she probably needs it.”

“But the scrolls say-”

“I know what the scrolls say,” Sokka cuts in, his voice heavy with frustration. “But if my sister wants seal jerky, then she should have it.”

He pulls the bundle back with only slight resistance and places it firmly back into Katara’s hands.

Relief floods through her, immediate and intense, and she clutches it a little tighter before taking another bite.

She feels overwhelmingly grateful for her brother.

Sokka always shows up when it matters.

Especially now, when Aang looks so visibly crestfallen as she continues to eat.

“I’m sorry, Aang,” she says, softer now, though she does not stop. “I can’t help it. I can’t believe I became a vegetarian.”

The last part slips out under her breath, but it lands harder than she expects.

Aang looks like he has been struck.

“I don’t believe this,” he says, his voice tightening. “Katara, we agreed we should try for an airbender first.”

She frowns, confusion cutting through everything else.

Had they?

“But how can I control that?” she asks, genuinely.

“Well, for one, you can stop eating meat,” Aang says, frustration mounting.

A small sound draws her attention.

A quiet, disapproving hum from the doorway.

Katara turns and sees Misa again, this time with several other acolytes gathered behind her, all watching with wide eyes and poorly concealed interest.

Something in Katara snaps.

“Excuse me,” she says sharply. “Do you mind?”

The girls startle slightly, but none of them leave.

They just stand there.

Watching and judging.

Aang is still glaring at her.

Sokka looks at her with something closer to pity.

And those girls-

They almost look pleased.

The entire moment tilts in her mind, something about it no longer sitting right.

It is all too strange.

Too wrong.

How did she end up here?

The thought lands, and everything clicks into place.

“Oh,” Katara says, the realization settling over her. “This is a vision.”

The words bring an unexpected pang of sadness.

Because despite everything-

She had liked this.

She had loved the feeling of the baby.

She still does.

Airbender or not.

“What do you mean this is a vision?”

The voice that answers sounds distant and warped, as if coming from underwater.

She cannot even tell who spoke.

The edges of the room begin to blur.

That warmth returns, slow and familiar, creeping up her spine.

This time, she does not resist.

She lets it take her.

There is a small, broken cry that pulls Katara from the warmth, and her eyes open immediately in response.

The air is cold.

She stands in a stone courtyard she does not recognize, the ground pale beneath her feet, the open sky above washed in muted gray that makes everything feel distant and hushed.

The sound comes again.

Her head turns instinctively, and her gaze lands on a small figure standing several paces away.

A boy.

Crying.

She does not need to see his face to know.

The certainty settles into her before she can think it through.

This is her son.

“Bumi!” she calls, his name rising from her chest as if it has always been there, as if it had been carved into her the moment she first felt him move beneath her heart.

He looks so small.

Too small.

“M-mom?” the boy whimpers, his voice trembling as he turns toward her.

He cannot be more than six. He is thin for his age, his limbs slight, his shoulders narrow beneath his clothes.

Katara is already moving before she realizes it, crossing the space between them and dropping to her knees as she pulls him into her arms with sudden, fierce urgency.

She has a son.

The thought surges through her, overwhelming and immediate.

She knew it was a boy.

She gathers him close, pressing him against her chest as she breathes him in, grounding herself in the warmth and reality of him.

“Why are you crying?” she asks softly, though the question carries an edge of concern as she feels the small, shuddering sobs run through his body.

“You heard what she said, didn’t you?” he chokes out. “I’m not a bender.”

Katara pulls back just enough to cup his face, her fingers gentle against tear-wet skin as her chest tightens at the sight of him.

“What? Who said that?” she asks, confusion sharpening her voice.

“The lady,” he says, his voice breaking again. “The one who can tell bending. I’m not a waterbender. I’m not… I’m not an airbender.”

The words dissolve into sobs as he buries his face into her shoulder, his small hands clutching at her clothes.

She feels the damp warmth of his tears soak through the fabric, but she only tightens her hold, rocking him gently as she presses her cheek against his hair.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, again and again, her voice steady even as something unsettled stirs beneath the surface. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

“But dad… dad was…” he tries, though the words fall apart under another wave of crying, his grip tightening around her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Katara says firmly, even as confusion flickers through her thoughts. “None of that matters. What matters is that we’re together, and that you’re healthy.”

She pulls back slightly, studying him now, her eyes moving over his face, his arms, his frame.

The concern lingers.

He is thin.

Too thin.

He needs more than what he has been given.

The thought settles uneasily, and with it comes a memory of seal jerky.

Aang’s anger.

The sharp edge of his voice.

Something twists.

Was it her fault that he is not an airbender?

That he is not what was wanted.

The thought arrives uninvited and refuses to leave.

“Oh, Bumi,” she whispers, her voice softening as she pulls him close again, pressing a kiss to his wet cheek.

She does not stop at one.

She presses another, and another, scattering them across his face until he lets out a small, breathy laugh despite himself, squirming in her hold as he tries to pull away.

“You’re not angry?” he asks, his voice small but hopeful.

“Why would I be angry?” she replies, genuinely baffled.

“Because dad…” he begins again, hesitating.

“What about him?” Katara asks, her brow furrowing as something in his tone makes her want to pull him closer still.

“He wanted me to be like him.”

The words settle heavily between them.

“Oh,” she says quietly.

There is something more behind that.

Something she does not yet understand.

“He said this was the last hope,” Bumi continues, his voice softer now. “That if the healer from the North couldn’t do anything…”

He trails off.

Katara’s thoughts catch on that.

A healer?

The idea sits wrong with her, though she cannot yet explain why.

She exhales slowly, setting that confusion aside for now as she focuses on what matters in front of her.

“You’re perfect to me,” she says gently, brushing a hand through his hair. “And your uncle Sokka isn’t a bender either. He’s one of the strongest people I know. He’s a warrior, he’s capable, and don’t tell him I said this, but he’s also very smart.”

Bumi does not smile.

He only looks at her, his expression uncertain, searching.

He is trying to see if she is lying.

Katara meets his gaze and smiles, soft and steady, hoping that alone can carry everything she cannot fully put into words.

“But everyone thought I’d be like dad,” Bumi says quietly, his voice still fragile.

“But your mom wants you to be yourself,” she tells him, brushing her thumb beneath his eye to catch another tear. “Just you. That’s enough. Okay?”

He does not look convinced.

His chin trembles, and he glances away as a few more tears slip free, his shoulders curling inward.

“Okay,” he whispers, though it sounds like something he is trying to believe rather than something he truly feels.

“That’s my boy,” Katara says softly, pulling him close for a moment before letting him settle at her side.

Time shifts.

It does not move cleanly, but stretches and folds in ways she cannot quite follow, leaving her with only fragments as moments pass.

She is dimly aware of eating again.

Of Bumi curled beside her, his small body pressed close in quiet comfort.

Of acolytes moving through the space around them, their orange robes a constant blur at the edges of her vision.

They do not speak to her.

They do not acknowledge Bumi.

But she notices the way they look.

The whispering.

The sidelong glances.

The quiet judgment that lingers just long enough to be felt.

She does not need to hear them.

She already knows what they are saying.

She knows it the same way she knew Bumi was hers.

Fuck them.

“Can we go to bed?” Bumi murmurs, his voice small as he shifts closer to her. “They’re all watching.”

Katara’s expression softens immediately.

“Only if you’re tired,” she says, her tone gentle but firm. “Because you have nothing to be ashamed of, sweetheart.”

Time slips again.

The transition is seamless and disorienting, and suddenly she is somewhere else entirely, looking down at her son tucked into a nest of blankets.

She frowns.

It isn’t enough.

The air is too cold for this, the thin cotton doing little to keep the chill at bay, and her instincts rise in response.

He needs furs.

Something heavier.

Something that will actually keep him warm in a place like this.

With a distant awareness, she realizes they must be at the Northern Air Temple, though much of what she remembers has changed, the mechanist’s inventions stripped away and leaving something quieter, almost bare.

Katara rises quickly and slips out of the room, her steps urgent as she moves through the halls.

She knows where she is going.

She knows which room is hers.

Hers and Aang’s.

Surely she packed something.

A fur.

Her parka, at the very least.

Bumi is small enough that it would cover him.

“Katara.”

The voice is low and unexpected, and she startles, her hand flying to her chest as she takes a step back before her eyes adjust to the dim light.

Aang sits hunched in the corner, his posture folded inward in a way that immediately puts her on edge.

His gaze is fixed on the ground.

There is something hollow in it.

“Where have you been?” she asks, still moving through the room, her attention split between him and her search. “It was just Bumi and me at dinner.”

Her hands move quickly, rifling through their things, her focus pulled toward the cold, toward her son, and toward the need to fix something she can actually fix.

“Katara,” Aang says again, and this time something in his voice makes her stop. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.”

The seriousness of it cuts cleanly through everything else.

She straightens slowly, turning toward him with a faint crease in her brow.

“Okay,” she says, uncertainty slipping in despite her effort to steady her tone. “What is it?”

Aang pushes himself to his feet.

Even standing, he seems smaller somehow, his shoulders still slightly hunched, his weight uneven, as if he cannot quite hold himself upright despite the years that have passed.

“Did you cheat on me?”

The question does not land at first.

It passes over her, her mind still trying to reconcile this version of him with the one she knows, the one who would never look at her like this.

“W-what?” she stammers, the word catching as it finally registers.

“Did you cheat on me?” he asks again, and this time there is more force behind it, his head lifting as his eyes meet hers, bright with something dangerously close to tears.

“No,” Katara snaps immediately. “I would never do that.”

“Even if it was just once,” he presses, his voice tightening. “Even if it was a mistake. Did you cheat on me?”

“I just said I didn’t,” she fires back, anger rising to meet his insistence. “How could you even ask me that?”

“Because you know why,” Aang bursts out, his voice cracking as he looks away and drags in a sharp breath. “Bumi’s not an airbender. He’s not even a waterbender.”

Katara stares at him, the words settling a second too late before anger surges up to meet them.

“So what?” she demands, her voice rising as she gestures sharply. “Nonbenders exist, Aang. Just look at Sokka, or my dad, or even Gran-Gran. Most of her family were waterbenders, and she still wasn’t.”

“But almost all children of airbenders had it,” Aang insists, frustration spilling over as he runs a hand over his head. “I just don’t understand how he’s not anything.”

Something in her snaps.

The anger comes fast and sharp, and before she can stop herself, she slams her foot against the ground, the impact echoing through the room.

“How could you say that?” she demands. “About your own son. He is your son, Aang. Don’t you dare stand there and act like he’s nothing.”

“Why are you acting like this?” Aang fires back. “You’re not yourself at all.”

Katara falters, thrown by the accusation.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been different all day,” he says, words coming faster now as he begins to pace. “Last night you said you were sure he was an airbender. You were happy. And today, the acolytes said you went through dinner like nothing happened, like it didn’t matter.”

Her confusion deepens as she watches him.

Nothing he says matches what she knows or what she feels.

“He’s not an airbender, Katara,” Aang continues, his voice tightening as he drags a hand down his face. “The whole world celebrated when he was born. Don’t you remember that? And now what are we supposed to do? Tell them he’s not one?”

He exhales sharply, his pacing growing uneven.

“All children of airbenders were airbenders. I knew you being a waterbender meant he might be that instead, and I accepted that, but if he’s not either of those…” His voice falters under the weight of it. “Then what does that mean?”

“Spirits, Aang,” Katara snaps, cutting through his spiraling thoughts. “Who cares what the world thinks? Bumi was crying today, and you weren’t even there. How could you do that to him?”

“Because he doesn’t look like me.”

The words hit like a blow.

Katara recoils, her breath catching as she stares at him in shock.

She has spent the entire day studying her son’s face, finding pieces of both of them in him, though if she had to name it, she would say he resembles her father most.

“You really think I would do that to you?” she asks, her voice dropping into something quieter and far more dangerous, the sting of tears burning behind her eyes as she fights to hold them back.

“No… I don’t know,” Aang admits, though the uncertainty does nothing to soften the damage. “The acolytes said you go off, that you’re gone for long stretches and-”

“I don’t care what the acolytes said,” she cuts in sharply. “Since when do they get to define our family?”

Aang exhales harshly, but still does not meet her eyes.

“Was it Zuko?”

The question lands heavier than anything else he has said.

Katara’s eyes widen, the name striking something deep within her, something she cannot fully place, and despite her anger, she searches herself for a moment before shaking her head firmly.

“I didn’t cheat on you,” she says, each word deliberate. “Not once. Not ever.”

“He’s not an airbender,” Aang whispers, his voice hollow. “And he doesn’t look like me.”

It takes everything in her not to lash out, not to let the anger turn into something physical.

Her hands curl at her sides, her jaw tightening as she prepares to say something that will finally make him stop.

She never gets the chance.

A small, broken sound cuts through the room.

Both of them freeze.

Katara turns slowly toward the doorway, dread already rising before she even sees him.

Bumi stands there.

His eyes are wide, his face wet with tears again, and his expression crumpling as he looks between them, taking in everything he was never meant to hear.

He heard.

She knows he did.

Every word.

Something inside her drops so fast it feels like it shatters on impact.

She has never felt this helpless.

Not in the war.

Not when lightning had been racing toward her.

Nothing compares to this.

“Bumi,” Aang says, his voice breaking, but it is already too late.

The boy turns and runs.

His footsteps echo down the stone halls, uneven and frantic, his cries trailing after him and filling the space in a way that makes the entire temple feel too large and unbearably empty.

Katara cannot move.

For a moment, she is frozen, her body refusing to respond as her mind struggles to catch up.

This cannot be happening.

This is not real.

And yet the pain is far too real to ignore.

“Bumi!” she calls, her voice breaking as she forces herself forward, her legs heavy and uncooperative beneath her.

Then she feels it.

That warmth.

It creeps up her spine again, slow and inescapable, wrapping around her before she can push it away.

The realization comes too late.

This is still a vision.

Every instinct in her screams to go after him, to find him, to hold him and take back everything he just heard.

But the warmth is stronger.

It pulls at her, steady and unrelenting.

And this time, despite everything in her fighting against it, it takes her.

Katara does not want to open her eyes at first.

She cannot explain why, only that something heavy and aching lingers in her chest, a devastation that clings even as the warmth fades, something she is not ready to face.

“Sweetheart?”

The voice is familiar and gentle, steady in a way that reaches for something deep inside her.

Despite herself, she lifts her head.

Her vision clears, and she sees him.

Her father.

He looks older. There is more gray threaded through his hair now, more lines carved into his face, but there is no mistaking him.

“Dad,” she whispers, the word breaking as it leaves her.

He is moving before she can say anything else, pulling her into his arms with firm, familiar strength, one hand coming up to rest against her back as he sways her gently.

Katara presses into him without hesitation, the comfort immediate and overwhelming.

For a moment, she just breathes.

Then she notices the shift in her body. The weight that is there, but not nearly as heavy as before.

She is pregnant again.

Not far along this time.

“You can talk to me,” Hakoda murmurs, his voice low and steady against her hair. “You’re safe here.”

Katara blinks, her gaze catching on the fur trim of his parka, the texture grounding her in a way nothing else has yet.

Her surroundings come into focus.

She is home in the Southern Water Tribe.

“Where’s Bumi?” she asks quickly, the question slipping out before she can stop it, the need to know overriding everything else.

Hakoda pulls back slightly, just enough to look at her, his expression shifting into mild confusion.

“Don’t you remember?” he asks. “He went with Sokka to try fishing.”

“Oh.” The sound leaves her in a small, uneven breath. “Where’s Aang?” she asks, quieter now.

Hakoda stills.

It is subtle, but she feels it immediately.

“I’m not sure, sweetheart,” he says after a moment. “You’d know better than I do.”

There is something careful in his tone, something measured that makes her tense.

Katara frowns, her thoughts drifting.

The devastation she had felt moments ago is already slipping away, leaving behind fragments she cannot fully grasp.

It must have been a dream.

A strange, overwhelming dream.

The urgency to find Bumi still lingers faintly, but if he is with Sokka, then he is safe.

“Well,” Hakoda says, his voice warming again as he studies her. “I’m just glad you’re home. We’ve missed you around here.”

“Yeah,” she replies softly, her gaze drifting around the space. “I’ve missed you too. I’m sorry I haven’t been around.”

She cannot remember the last time she saw him.

That realization sits strangely with her, especially when she looks at him and sees how much he has aged.

“You know,” Hakoda begins, and she immediately recognizes the tone.

It is the one he used when she was younger, when he was guiding her toward something difficult without forcing her there, gently pressing until she told the truth.

“If you wanted to, you could always come home for good. We’d all be happy to have you and the kids here.”

Katara exhales softly, her shoulders easing as she leans back into the chair behind her, her gaze sweeping over the familiar space.

Her childhood home has changed. It has expanded, filled with objects from other nations, small signs of how much the world has grown since the war ended.

It feels different, but not wrong.

“I do miss home,” she admits, the words coming easily as she lets herself settle into the feeling.

A small movement beneath her parka draws her attention, and her hand drifts down without thought, resting against her stomach.

Another baby.

Another life.

Hakoda watches her closely, something thoughtful settling behind his eyes as he takes in the shift in her expression.

“Bumi sure likes it here,” he says after a moment, his tone casual but deliberate. “Especially the buffalo yak meat.”

There is meaning in that.

She can feel it.

“And the new baby,” he continues, just as carefully, “wouldn’t have to adjust at all if they were born and raised in the village.”

Katara’s brow furrows.

There is something he is not saying.

Something just beneath the surface.

“But what about Aang?” she asks, slower this time, more uncertain.

“I think,” Hakoda says, choosing each word with care, “that it’s time you start putting yourself and your children first.”

Katara stares at him, trying to make sense of it.

Why wouldn’t she?

Hasn’t she always done that?

Hakoda reads something in her silence and continues, his tone steady but more direct now.

“I know you love Aang, and I know he loves you. But his responsibilities have been building for a long time, and that makes it hard for him to give his full attention to you and Bumi.”

Katara shifts slightly, her hand pressing more firmly against her stomach.

“And now there’s another baby on the way,” he adds. “That’s only going to make things harder.”

He pauses, then continues more gently.

“I’m not saying you need to decide anything right now. I just want you to know you have a place here. I would take care of you and the children if you wanted something more permanent. For as long as you need.”

Katara’s thoughts lag behind his words, struggling to catch up.

“And if Aang wanted to come stay for a while,” Hakoda adds, almost lightly, though it clearly is not, “he would be welcome. It might even be good for all of you.”

He trails off, watching her closely.

But Katara is still trying to understand how she got here at all.

Her hand presses more firmly against her stomach as she reaches back through her memories, searching for something solid to hold onto.

For a brief moment, she thinks of the swamp. The heavy, suffocating heat, and the sense of something vast pulling at her.

It slips away before she can grasp it.

“Dad?” she asks, her voice quieter now. “Am I… happy?”

Hakoda’s expression softens, but he does not hesitate this time.

“I think that’s something only you can answer,” he says gently. “But from where I’m standing… I don’t think you are.”

The words land heavier than she expects.

“You haven’t been yourself in a long time,” he continues. “You hardly smile anymore, my girl.”

“Oh.”

She looks away, her body tightening as something sharp pushes to the surface.

Her dream.

No.

Not a dream.

It crashes into her all at once, the memory slamming into place with enough force to make her gasp, her body reacting before her mind can fully catch up.

The baby shifts sharply in response, the movement strong enough to make her flinch.

“Katara?” Hakoda asks, concern threading through his voice.

“Aang,” she starts, her voice unsteady as anger rises just as quickly as the realization. “Aang actually said…”

The words feel impossible even now.

“He doesn’t think Bumi is his.”

Hakoda’s expression does not change the way she expects.

There is no shock.

No outrage.

“I know,” he says quietly. “Sokka told me about your fight.”

Katara stares at him, her shoulders tightening.

“You could have come to me,” he continues. “When it first happened. You didn’t have to carry it on your own.”

There is a pause.

Then, more carefully, he adds, “You didn’t have to try to prove yourself.”

Katara’s head snaps up, the words cutting through everything else.

“Prove myself?” she repeats, anger and confusion tangling into something sharp and nauseating.

Hakoda says nothing, but his gaze drops to her belly.

And Katara understands.

She understands all at once.

This is not just another child.

This is not love manifested and the continuation of their family.

This baby is meant to be her redemption for a past failure.

Katara stands abruptly, the movement so sudden that Hakoda reacts, stepping forward as if to catch her, but her grief is too much. She presses herself back against the wall, her arms wrapping tightly around herself.

“Why didn’t we have more kids right after Bumi?” she murmurs, her voice unsteady. Her skin feels clammy, her mouth dry, nausea rising sharply in her throat.

“I’m not sure,” Hakoda says after a moment, though the hesitation in his voice gives him away.

“Dad,” she presses, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “Please. Tell me the truth.”

He looks at her fully then, and the pity in his expression makes something inside her twist.

For a brief second, she wants to lash out just to make it disappear.

“I think,” he says slowly, “Aang was… skeptical very early on.”

The word lands like a blow.

“He needed time,” Hakoda continues. “You both did.”

“But Bumi is Aang’s son,” Katara insists, her voice rising despite the tremor in it. “He is.”

“I know that,” Hakoda says immediately, steady and certain, but he pauses again, choosing his next words carefully.

Katara hates it.

She hates the hesitation.

She just wants the truth.

Finally, he exhales and looks down.

“You know the acolytes are always whispering in his ear,” he says.

And she does know.

The memory rises clear and sharp.

From the moment the first acolytes arrived, gathering around Aang with wide eyes and reverence that bordered on something else, she had seen it. The way they looked at him. The way they looked at her. The quiet jealousy, the disapproval whenever he chose her over them.

She had dismissed it.

Told herself it was harmless.

Told herself it would fade.

After everything she and Aang had been through, she had never imagined doubt would take root so easily.

“Oh,” she breathes, the sound soft and broken as her hands begin to tremble, nausea rising higher now, sharp and unavoidable.

The room tilts.

Her thoughts scatter, too heavy to hold, too painful to follow.

When the warmth begins to creep up her spine again, she does not question it.

She is too tired.

She lets it take her.

“Mama!”

The small voice pulls Katara out of sleep so suddenly that her eyes snap open, her breath catching as the world rushes back into place.

Vines. The swamp.

She had been dreaming of bending again.

The thought slips away almost immediately.

Everything else falls quiet the moment she sees the child in front of her.

A little girl stands at the edge of her bed, smiling up at her with dark blue eyes and tanned skin, her unruly brown curls bouncing as she shifts from foot to foot.

Katara stares.

For a moment, she forgets how to breathe.

“Kya, leave her alone!”

Another voice cuts in, and Katara’s head turns sharply as Bumi steps into the room.

Her eyes widen further.

He is no longer the small boy she remembers, no longer the child clinging to her in the courtyard.

He is older now, teetering into adolescence, his limbs long and awkward, his height catching her off guard, the softness of childhood already fading from his face.

“It’s… it’s fine,” Katara manages, pushing herself up slightly, still trying to catch up to what she is seeing. “I’m awake.”

“Mama, I have to show you something,” Kya says, her voice bright but touched with hesitation as she glances between Katara and Bumi.

Katara barely hears her.

Her attention is still fixed on Bumi, on the way he holds himself, on the quiet distance in his posture that had not been there before.

Kya reaches for the glass on the table beside the bed, her small hands hovering over it.

The water inside trembles.

Then lifts.

It wobbles uncertainly, sloshing unevenly as it rises and falls, responding in fits and starts to her untrained focus.

“I’m a waterbender,” Kya whispers, her excitement barely contained.

Katara watches, completely transfixed.

The movement is clumsy.

Unrefined.

Full of potential and uncertainty.

It reminds her so sharply of herself at that age that it makes something deep inside her ache, that feeling of something just within reach but not yet understood.

Bumi makes a small sound behind her.

But before she can turn, before she can call out to him, he is already moving.

The door slams shut behind him with a sharp crack that makes both Katara and Kya flinch.

Katara’s gaze drifts slowly to the door, something settling into place as the pieces begin to connect.

They are back at the Southern Air Temple.

For a fleeting moment, she had been certain she would stay in the Water Tribe with her father, though she cannot remember why that certainty had felt so real.

“He’s mad,” Kya whispers, her hands dropping as the water falls back into the glass with a soft splash.

Katara exhales slowly, still staring at the door, unsure how to respond, unsure how to mend something that already feels fractured beyond her abilities to heal.

Instead, she reaches for her daughter and pulls her close, guiding her down so they are lying together.

The weight of it all settles over her.

She feels too young.

Seventeen, somewhere deep inside herself, even as everything around her insists otherwise.

Too young to have two children.

Too young to feel this worn down.

Katara closes her eyes and breathes in the scent of Kya’s hair, letting herself anchor to something good, something sweet.

“He’ll be okay,” she murmurs softly, offering the words like a promise.

She does not know if they are true.

Kya does not relax in her arms.

She stays tense, small and rigid against her.

“Dad will be sad,” Kya whispers after a moment. “He’s been trying to make me bend air. He’s going to be sad.”

A quiet chill runs through Katara, settling deep in her bones.

She has no answer for that.

No reassurance that feels honest enough to give.

She is tired.

So tired.

And there is something deeply exhausting about knowing her daughter is right.

“It will be okay,” she says anyway, her voice softer now.

The words feel thinner this time.

Less certain.

The memory of the swamp rises again, unbidden but insistent, cutting through everything else.

She wants to go back.

Desperately.

Katara closes her eyes, holding her daughter close as she lets that pull take hold once more.

She sleeps for what feels like a very long time, though time itself has long since lost any real meaning. Rest has slipped from her as well, because no matter how deeply she sleeps, she wakes still exhausted.

The distance between where she is and where she should be stretches wider than the Great Divide, leaving her suspended somewhere in between.

Some small, stubborn part of her clings to the truth.

She is seventeen. She has no children. She is only engaged to Aang.

She is sitting in the Foggy Swamp, perched on the roots of an ancient tree, trying and failing to meditate.

But the rest of her drifts elsewhere.

That part of her hears laughter.

Voices overlapping in easy conversation.

The clink of silverware against plates and the warm, rich smell of food filling the air around her.

It pulls at her.

Reluctantly, she opens her eyes.

The sight before her makes her startle.

She is surrounded.

A long table stretches out before her, crowded with people, filled with movement and warmth and noise.

The first person she notices is Bumi, seated at her side, his head bent over his plate as he eats with an intensity that borders on urgency.

His meal is piled high with meat and rice, and for some reason, that small detail brings her a flicker of relief.

He had been too thin before.

Now he looks stronger.

Her gaze shifts.

Kya sits beside him, older than the last time she saw her, though still young enough that Katara’s chest tightens at the sight of her.

Her plate is different.

Vegetarian.

She picks at it without much interest, her attention drifting as the conversation around them rises and falls.

Katara’s eyes move across the table.

Her father is there.

Sokka sits nearby, laughing loudly, with Suki at his side.

There are children she does not recognize, but somehow knows belong to them, her nieces and nephews woven seamlessly into the gathering.

Toph sits further down, completely at ease, with two small girls leaning against her, both of them comfortable in a way that speaks of familiarity and trust.

Zuko is there too.

Mai sits beside him, composed as ever, with a young girl between them who listens intently to everything being said.

Katara turns slowly, her senses overwhelmed by the sheer number of people, by the noise and the closeness of it all.

Her gaze lands on Aang.

He looks older again.

There is a beard now, neatly trimmed, giving him a gravity she does not associate with the boy she knows.

But that is not what holds her attention.

It is the baby in his arms, small and quiet.

Tenzin.

The name comes to her without effort.

Her son.

The room is full.

Too full.

Children’s voices overlap with adult laughter, plates clatter, chairs scrape, and through it all, Sokka’s voice rises above everything else.

“And then Toph lays right in front of the carriage, puts her leg up against the wheel, and the guy comes out thinking he can just run,” he says, animated and loud. “But it doesn’t matter, because Wang Fire is already waiting for him.”

“Who’s Wang Fire?” the little girl between Zuko and Mai asks, her voice somehow cutting through the noise.

Sokka lights up immediately.

“Well, I’m glad you asked,” he says, grinning wide.

When he laughs like that, he looks so much like their father that it catches Katara off guard.

He turns in his seat and then returns a minute later facing the table fully. When he does, he is suddenly wearing that ridiculous fake beard from the war.

“Wang Fire,” he declares grandly, dropping his voice into an exaggerated tone. “Pleased to meet you, fellow Fire Nation citizen.”

The children burst into laughter.

Even Bumi, who had been so serious before, lets out a reluctant smile that quickly turns into a full laugh, his shoulders loosening as he leans into the moment.

The room is alive with it.

Everything it should be.

Katara feels none of it.

The noise presses in on her.

The closeness becomes suffocating.

This should feel like happiness.

It should feel like everything she fought for.

Instead, something inside her recoils.

This is not her life.

It cannot be.

There is laughter.

There is family.

There is a future laid out before her in full.

And yet beneath it all, there is a hollow emptiness she cannot ignore, something quiet and persistent that makes her feel like she is standing in the wrong place entirely.

She rises abruptly, the movement sharp enough to draw attention from those closest to her.

Conversation falters.

A few heads turn.

Katara cannot find the words to explain herself, cannot even begin to form them, so she does not try.

She simply leaves.

The room falls away behind her as she moves quickly, her steps uneven, her breath tight as she pushes through the unfamiliar space.

She does not know where they are.

She only knows she needs distance.

Someone calls her name behind her, but the voice is cut off.

Sokka answers instead.

“She was always pretty upset with Wang Fire when we were kids,” he says lightly. “Just give her a minute.”

Katara does not stop.

Inside her mind, the words come fast and desperate.

I want to go back.

The realization settles in, clearer than anything has been so far.

I understand now.

Please.

Just let me go back.

She is not pulled back.

Katara curls into herself in an empty room somewhere deep within the temple, far removed from the noise and warmth of the others. Her back presses against the wall as she draws her knees tightly to her chest.

She cannot be around them.

It is too much.

Every laugh, every voice, every glance presses against something raw inside her, something she cannot protect if she stays out there any longer.

Part of her keeps reaching backward, tugging at the memory of the swamp, at that moment beneath the banyan tree when everything had still been hers to choose.

But every time she gets close, every time she feels like she might remember enough to break free, something drags her back into this life instead.

She wants to be alone.

She wants to go back.

It does not surprise her when Aang finds her.

He steps into the room quietly, careful not to disturb the baby cradled in his arms, his movements softer than she has ever seen them.

Katara’s gaze drops immediately.

She does not need to be told.

She knows.

This one is his.

His airbender.

His legacy.

Something sharp and bitter coils in her chest as she watches him, the way his attention narrows completely to the sleeping child, the quiet awe in his expression as if nothing else exists.

It hurts more than she expects.

Because she knows what he thinks of their other children. She does not even know if he finally believes her about Bumi, or if it matters to him anymore now that he has one that is undeniably his.

“What’s wrong?” Aang asks gently after a long moment, his voice low. “You just ran off.”

Katara exhales slowly, her gaze drifting away.

“It just became too much,” she says, and while it is true, it barely scratches the surface.

Aang nods, adjusting the baby in his arms.

“I know there’s a lot of us now,” he says, his tone softening as he glances down. “Isn’t there?”

The last part is meant for the baby, who sleeps on, unaware.

Despite herself, Katara feels a flicker of curiosity.

This child.

This airbender.

She pushes herself upright and steps closer, moving slowly as she leans in to look at him properly.

She is not sure what she expects. Some small, irrational part of her wonders if Aang somehow created this child alone, untouched by her, unaltered by anything that is hers.

But the feeling comes anyway.

That same warmth she had known with Bumi, and with Kya.

It rises easily, instinctive and undeniable.

And beneath it, something else.

He looks exactly like Aang.

There is no question.

No blending that she can detect.

No ambiguity.

She studies him for another moment, caught between love and the quiet, aching awareness that follows it.

“Isn’t he perfect?” Aang whispers, his voice hushed, as if they are sharing something sacred.

The anger rises again.

But she does not have the energy to let it explode.

It settles instead into something quieter that simmers inside of her.

“Bumi’s perfect,” she says, the words edged despite how softly they come. “So is Kya.”

Aang blinks, caught off guard, his expression shifting into something uncertain.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

Katara looks at him fully now.

He is older.

There are new lines in his face, signs of years and responsibility. There is something heavier in him, something that has settled in and taken root.

There is power there now.

Something far removed from the boy she fell in love with.

“What do you mean?” she asks, her voice carrying a quiet edge.

“I just mean… I don’t know,” Aang says, faltering slightly. “You don’t seem like yourself.”

Katara lets out a slow breath, something like resignation settling over her shoulders.

“How am I supposed to act, Aang?”

“Not like this,” he replies, a hint of frustration slipping through. “You’ve been angry for hours. What happened?”

The answer comes before she can stop it.

“You,” she says, the word cutting cleanly through the space between them. “You make me so angry.”

Aang stiffens, glancing down at the baby.

“What are you talking about?” he says, his tone sharpening. “Stop yelling, you’ll wake Tenzin.”

Katara turns away, exhaling sharply, the frustration tightening further.

Then she looks back at him, her gaze sharp and unwavering.

“You don’t love Bumi or Kya the way you love your airbender, do you?”

Aang opens his mouth, but she cuts him off before he can speak.

She does not want the explanation.

“You had the gall, the nerve, to think Bumi isn’t yours,” she continues, her voice rising. “Spirits, what is wrong with you? You doubt your own son, and then you turn around and coddle the other.”

Her hands tremble at her sides, but she does not stop.

“Do you even realize what you’re doing to them?” she presses. “To our son? To our daughter? What is wrong with you, Aang?”

He tries again, and this time she forces herself to stop, to swallow the next wave of anger just long enough to hear him.

Some part of her still wants an answer.

Something that makes sense.

Aang takes a breath, steadying himself.

But when he finally speaks, the words feel painfully small.

“Where is this coming from?”

Katara stares at him.

For a moment, she cannot even process it.

After everything.

After all of it.

That is what he says.

The frustration surges, too large to contain, too overwhelming to shape into anything controlled.

Just like that day in the snow, when she first found him in the iceberg, something inside her breaks loose.

She stomps her foot hard against the ground, the impact echoing through the room as she throws her head back and lets out a raw, wordless scream.

It tears out of her.

All of it.

The anger.

The grief.

The exhaustion.

The sound cuts through the room, sharp enough to shatter whatever fragile calm remained.

Tenzin stirs, then cries.

The thin, broken wail fills the space, and for a fleeting moment, Katara feels it echo something inside her so closely that she almost joins him.

Almost lets herself fall apart completely.

Then she feels it.

The warmth.

It spreads through her again, familiar now, curling around her like something inevitable, something she can no longer fight.

Her breath catches as it takes hold.

This time, she does not resist.

She lets it pull her under.

And she hopes, desperately, that this is the end.

The last thing she sees before she lets her eyes fall close, is Aang gently rocking his son.

“Can’t we come, Dad? Even if we stay on Appa while you’re in the temple?” Kya asks, her voice small against the wind howling around them.

Katara glances up at the sound, and only then does she realize where they are.

The walls of Ba Sing Se stretch out beneath her feet, vast and imposing, though altered in ways she does not immediately recognize.

She turns slowly, looking back toward the city, and is once again struck by its sheer size. It is no longer the closed, impenetrable place she remembers from her girlhood. Sections of the outer walls have been opened, and beyond them she can see movement, a steady stream of people coming and going, new settlements dotting the land just outside the city’s reach.

She turns back toward her family.

They are older.

All of them.

The realization settles heavily, and for a fleeting moment she wonders what she must look like now, how time has shaped her in ways she has not yet seen.

“I wish you could come too, Ky,” Aang says, his tone gentle but firm. “But you know how the Eastern Air Temple is. You wouldn’t have any fun. It’s better if you stay here with your mom until we get back.”

“You’re leaving?” Katara asks, the words slipping out as her gaze moves between them.

Bumi stands taller now, his frame broader, though that same quiet uncertainty lingers beneath it.

Kya hovers close, caught somewhere between childhood and something older, her expression carefully neutral despite the disappointment in her eyes.

And Tenzin-

He waits on Appa, small and eager, no older than seven, already mirroring his father in posture and presence in a way that makes something twist inside her.

Even Appa looks larger than she remembers.

Aang glances at her, something unreadable flickering across his expression.

“Yes,” he says. “We talked about this. Tenzin needs to see where the sky bison used to graze, and it’s difficult to get up there without airbending.”

“Of course,” Katara replies automatically.

The words come too easily.

She hears the distance in them as soon as they leave her mouth, feels the disconnect, and yet cannot seem to stop herself.

That familiar anger begins to rise again, slow and heavy, threaded now with something deeper.

Something closer to grief.

“Bye, Mom! Bye, Bumi! Bye, Kya!” Tenzin calls brightly from Appa’s saddle, his voice full of excitement.

He laughs as Aang lands beside him, taking the reins with practiced ease.

“We’ll be back soon,” Aang says lightly, as if this is nothing unusual. “Enjoy the city while we’re gone. Yip yip.”

Appa launches into the air with a powerful sweep, wind rushing past as he lifts quickly, carrying them both upward.

Katara watches, stunned, as they disappear into the sky.

The child she had barely known is already distant, reduced to a speck among the clouds.

Beside her, Kya lets out a small sniffle before quickly wiping her face. It could be blamed on the wind.

Bumi says nothing.

He stands still, his gaze fixed on the sky long after there is nothing left to see.

Katara closes her eyes.

She does not want to leave them. She does not want to abandon these children standing beside her, children who have already been left behind in ways that have nothing to do with distance.

But the feeling does not fade.

Somewhere deep inside, she is still seventeen, still standing at the edge of something unfinished, while the boy she knows is her son is already nearing that same age.

The dissonance pulls at her.

She wants to leave.

Not them.

Never them.

But this place.

This life.

This version of herself where her children carry their hurt so openly, and she can do nothing but witness it.

“Come on, you two,” she says finally, her voice unfamiliar even to her own ears. “Let’s go shopping.”

Time shifts again.

Or perhaps it rushes forward too quickly to follow, leaving only fragments behind.

If they go shopping, she does not remember it clearly.

What lingers instead are the smaller moments.

Bumi glancing up at the sky more than once, his expression caught between longing and quiet resignation.

Kya reaching for her hand whenever the wind picks up, her grip tightening just enough to betray what she does not say aloud.

There is no warmth in it.

Only repetition.

Only the quiet understanding that this is how things are.

Days pass like that.

Or weeks.

She cannot tell.

Her next clear memory places her somewhere else entirely.

A meeting room in Ba Sing Se.

The familiarity settles slowly, bringing with it echoes of a younger version of herself, one who had stood in this very place and believed in something bright and possible, something that might end a war and reshape the world.

Now the room has changed.

The table is covered in documents, proposals stamped with seals from different nations, discussions of trade and policy replacing the urgency of battle.

Katara looks down at them, unease flickering as she realizes she does not know where her children are.

“You okay?”

The voice comes from just behind her, familiar and rough enough to pull her from her thoughts immediately.

Katara turns.

Zuko stands there.

Time has touched him, softened some edges and sharpened others, but he is unmistakably himself.

Her gaze lingers for a moment before something lighter slips through.

“Wow,” she says, a small laugh escaping. “Your hair is longer than mine.”

He exhales something close to a laugh, a faint, private smile tugging at his mouth.

“My barber keeps telling me to grow a beard,” he says, leaning against the table with a noticeable lack of formality. “Apparently it’s tradition.”

Katara tries to picture it.

She really does.

But the only image that comes to mind is immediate and absurd, the ridiculous fake beard of Wang Fire strapped to Zuko’s face.

The laugh escapes before she can stop it.

Zuko’s brow lifts, his expression shifting into mild confusion.

“Nothing,” she says quickly, waving it off as she composes herself. “It’s nothing.”

They stand near the edge of the room, far enough from the center that the weight of the meeting does not press down on them in the same way.

The Earth King and his council are deep in discussion, voices rising and falling over trade and governance, leaving the Fire Lord and the Avatar’s wife momentarily unnoticed.

“I’m surprised you and the kids didn’t leave with Aang,” Zuko says. “Ember Island is still warm, even in the autumn.”

Katara blinks, the words taking a moment to settle as the last of her humor fades.

“I’m sure it is,” she replies slowly, her voice already distant. “But Aang went to the Eastern Air Temple.”

Zuko’s expression shifts immediately, confusion pulling at his features.

“That’s not what he told me,” he says. “He asked me to have the house prepared. I assumed it was for all of you, before he and Tenzin headed to the Western Air Temple.”

Something inside her gives way.

Not sharply.

Not all at once.

But quietly, like a structure that has been strained for too long finally beginning to crack.

The last traces of her earlier laughter disappear, replaced by something so much more painful.

She waits for anger.

She expects it.

But what comes instead is dull and familiar.

“Oh,” she says, the word barely carrying any weight.

Zuko realizes it too late.

He looks away, his posture tightening as he tries to recover.

“I’m sure it was a last minute decision,” he offers, though he does not sound convinced.

Katara does not respond.

She does not want to hear anything that might soften what has already settled so clearly in her mind.

He left.

That is the truth of it, simple and unembellished. He left her here, in this city, with their children, while he went somewhere else with the one child he wanted most.

She thinks it should hurt more than this. It should tear something open inside her the way it might have once, but instead there is only a quiet, heavy acceptance, the kind that comes from wounds that have been reopened too many times to bleed the same way.

Some part of her has already learned this pain. Already adapted to it in ways she did not notice as they were happening. What remains is not sharp or raw, but worn down, layered over with something thick and unyielding, like scar tissue that no longer reacts the way it once did.

She finds herself longing for something else entirely, something that feels impossibly far away now.

She wants to go back.

Not to this place. Not to this life.

To the version of herself that existed before any of this took root.

She wants to be seventeen again, uncertain and overwhelmed, but still free in ways she had not understood at the time.

The memory of the swamp brushes against her thoughts again, faint but close enough to almost touch, and she exhales slowly, the breath leaving her in a quiet, unsteady sigh.

“I don’t think he loves Bumi and Kya.”

The words slip out before she can stop them.

It is a cruel thing to say. A terrible thing to give voice to.

And yet it does not feel like a secret.

She has seen it too many times, in too many small moments that have built into something undeniable.

She has seen it in the way Bumi looks at him, searching for something he cannot quite find. In the way Kya hesitates, her confidence faltering before it can fully take shape. In the quiet shame that crosses her daughter’s face when she bends water instead of air, and in the memory of tears pressed into her shoulder that she once tried to soothe without fully understanding why.

It was never supposed to be like this.

For a moment, Katara forgets that Zuko is still beside her, her thoughts pulling her backward through every expression and every moment that now feels painfully clear in hindsight. Even Tenzin, whom she knows she loves just as fiercely, feels distant in a way she cannot fully explain. Not unloved, never that, but separated from her by something she cannot seem to bridge.

Zuko exhales softly beside her, the sound grounding her enough to pull her back to the present. A flicker of self-consciousness follows as she realizes what she has just said aloud. Perhaps she should not have said it. Perhaps she has crossed some line she cannot uncross.

But when he speaks, his response is not what she expects.

“Sometimes,” he says carefully, his voice quieter now, carrying something just as difficult, “I thought the same thing about Mai and Izzie.”

Katara turns to him, startled.

The words do not fit with what she thought she knew. They do not align with the assumptions she had carried about him and his life.

Her curiosity sharpens, sudden and insistent.

This strange, fragile connection becomes something she clings to without thinking, a small and unexpected lifeline in the middle of everything pressing down on her.

“Did it ever get better?” she asks, her voice quieter now, almost hesitant.

Zuko’s eyes flick toward her. For a brief second, something sharp flashes there. Anger, perhaps, but it fades quickly, leaving behind a familiar kind of weariness.

“You know how it ended.”

“No, I don’t,” Katara says, the words coming quickly. She searches her memory for something solid, but everything feels blurred and tangled, just out of reach. A dull ache builds behind her eyes, but she pushes through it, resisting the warmth that threatens to pull her away again.

This matters.

“I told you last year,” Zuko says, more subdued now. “She left us.”

The words settle heavily.

“Oh.”

“But did that make it better?” Katara asks after composing herself, because she needs to know if any version of this leads somewhere less painful.

Zuko exhales slowly, his gaze drifting across the room as if anchoring himself before stepping back into something he has not revisited in a long time.

“Sometimes,” he admits. “I knew Mai wasn’t happy, but I thought it might work out. At the beginning, at least. When Izzie was born, I thought we were happy.”

His voice tightens, though he keeps it steady.

“But when I started talking about another child, she was always distant. I told myself it just wasn’t something she wanted to go through again. Then Izzie got older, and she still wouldn’t talk about it.”

He pauses, his attention turning inward.

“We were hosting a dinner,” he continues. “Just governors and a few nobles. Nothing particularly important. Izzie found out one of them had overseen the reconstruction of Omashu, and she kept asking questions. I knew it was a sensitive subject for Mai’s family after the war, but I don’t think she understood that.”

His jaw tightens.

“Mai told her that was enough. And I saw Izzie flinch.”

Katara realizes she has been holding her breath and forces herself to inhale.

“I didn’t understand it at the time,” Zuko says quietly. “But I should have.”

He looks at her then, fully, and the room seems to fall away around them.

“I had all these ideas about what my family was when I wasn’t there. I thought I just needed more time with them to fix things, but the truth was already there. I just wasn’t seeing it.”

Katara does not move.

“I realized I was raising my daughter with an army of governesses and tutors,” he continues. “I finally asked Mai about it. It took some time, but I shouldn’t have been surprised. She never wanted children. She never wanted to raise them.”

The honesty settles heavily between them.

“We were distant after that,” he says. “But I knew something had changed. I told her that if she wasn’t happy, she didn’t have to stay. That she didn’t have to keep playing a role she didn’t want.” He exhales quietly. “I thought we could figure it out. That we could find a way to share time with Izzie.”

His mouth tightens faintly.

“Fire Lords don’t exactly divorce. And as heir, Izzie would be expected to stay with me full time. I had a plan for sharing custody anyway.” His voice drops slightly. “But she told me not to bother. Then she packed her things and left.”

He lifts one shoulder in a small, restrained shrug, though the weight behind it is unmistakable.

“When Izzie asks about her mother, I tell her it’s tradition for her to stay with me,” he says softly. “No matter how much that hurts her, I think it’s better than the truth.”

He looks away.

“We have my uncle,” he adds after a moment. “Mai’s family still visits. She came by earlier this year. But…” He pauses, then meets Katara’s gaze again. “I think I understand a little of what you’re going through.”

The words settle deeper than anything else.

Katara feels the tears rise, hot and immediate, and this time she does not hold them back. The pressure inside her loosens just enough to let them fall, her breath catching as everything she has been carrying presses forward at once.

The warmth returns.

She feels it and does not resist.

“Oh, Zuko, I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her voice breaking.

Then she lets go.

She lets the warmth take her, lets it pull her away from this life, from this version of herself that feels so distant and so unbearably sad, and she surrenders to it completely as everything begins to fade.

When she feels herself lying down and the first brush of morning light against her skin, Katara squeezes her eyes tighter, trying to hold onto the fading edges of sleep. The sadness from her dreams lingers, and she finds herself wanting nothing more than to sink back into it, to chase something softer, something better than what she has just seen.

The knock at the door breaks through that fragile space, persistent enough that she cannot ignore it, and she realizes with slow reluctance that it must be what woke her.

“What?” she groans, her voice rough with sleep as she reaches for her robe, pulling it around herself and shivering against the chill of the morning air.

“Dad and Ten are nearly home,” Kya calls through the door.

There is something different in her voice.

Older.

That alone is enough to jolt Katara fully awake.

She pushes herself out of bed quickly, crossing the room and pulling the door open without hesitation.

For a moment, she just stares.

Kya stands there, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. Her features are sharper now, her posture more assured, and yet something deeply recognizable remains beneath it all. There are traces of Aang in her, in the shape of her face and the way she carries herself, but the rest feels achingly familiar, like looking at a version of herself reflected back through time.

“Mom, are you okay?” Kya asks, her expression shifting slightly under Katara’s scrutiny.

“Fine,” Katara says, though the word comes out more like a breath than an answer as she tightens her robe and slips into her slippers. “Let’s go meet your dad.”

They walk through the temple together, the halls both recognizable and strange, altered by years of restoration in ways that make them difficult to place. She thinks it might be the Southern Air Temple, but the certainty never settles, and in the end it does not matter.

Her attention is elsewhere.

She cannot stop looking at her daughter.

Every movement. Every expression. She takes it in as if afraid it might disappear.

Then they find Bumi.

Katara’s gaze shifts immediately, darting between the two of them, trying to take in everything at once, memorizing the way they stand, the way they move, the easy tension between them that reminds her so sharply of Sokka that it makes her want to cry.

Kya has Bumi in a loose headlock, the struggle more playful than serious, though neither of them seems willing to fully give in.

“Why are you staring so much, Mom?” Kya asks lightly as she releases him.

Bumi straightens, but there is something more guarded in his posture now, his eyes flicking between Katara and the door as if he is bracing for something.

And then it hits her.

He is not a boy anymore.

He is a man.

The realization lands strangely.

Katara still feels young inside, still feels like she is standing on the edge of adulthood with endless possibilities ahead of her.

So how can this be real?

How can she have a son who has already passed that point?

“If you heard anything from the tavern,” Bumi says slowly, clearly trying to get ahead of something, “it was all a misunderstanding.”

“Idiot,” Kya mutters, elbowing him lightly.

Katara barely registers it.

The last time she had stepped into a tavern, it had been to recruit a bounty hunter and help stop the world from ending.

Whatever trouble Bumi has found himself in now feels insignificant by comparison.

None of it matters.

Not compared to this.

“I’m just looking at you,” she says softly, her voice catching despite her effort to steady it. “You’re perfect. I love you both so much.”

Kya smiles easily, warmth written across her face, but Bumi’s shoulders tighten, guilt settling more visibly into his expression.

“I love you too, Mom,” Kya says.

“I love you,” Bumi adds quickly. “And I did break a table, but I’m going to pay for it as soon as they open. I swear.”

Katara does not think.

She moves.

She pulls them both into a tight embrace, wrapping her arms around them as if she can anchor them in place, as if she can keep them from slipping any further away. Bumi is taller than she is now, solid where he had once been slight, while Kya fits more easily at her side, nearly her height, their bodies aligning in a way that feels both natural and unfamiliar.

For a moment, she just holds them.

Then the air shifts.

A low rumble rolls through the courtyard, and she feels it before she fully registers it, the subtle change in her children’s posture, the shared exasperation that flickers between them.

Their father is home.

Katara pulls back, her hands lingering for a moment before she lets them go, following as they move toward the courtyard.

Appa has landed.

The sight of him draws something softer from her, a quiet love for the sky bison who once carried her across the world, who had been as constant as anything in those uncertain days.

The man stepping down from the saddle is older.

Much older.

The change is undeniable now, and for a brief second Katara wonders again what she must look like, what time has done to her in ways she has yet to see.

Behind him, Tenzin dismounts.

Her baby.

She knows that.

But what she sees is something else entirely, something closer to the boy Aang once was- bright, eager, full of life.

“You’re home,” she says, the words steady even as her thoughts are not.

“It’s good to be back,” Aang replies, smiling easily as he rubs Appa’s snout before stepping forward and pulling her into an embrace.

She lets him.

She does not return it with the same warmth, but she does not resist.

She allows it.

“The elephant koi were amazing,” Tenzin calls, his excitement spilling over. “I stayed on one for a few minutes before it bucked me, but Dad stayed on twice as long, and even when it threw him, he used an air scooter all the way back to shore.”

The bitterness settles in quietly.

It threads through her as she listens, as she watches the easy excitement, the shared experience she had not been part of.

Kya and Bumi must feel it too.

“That’s great, Ten,” Kya says after a moment, filling the silence just as Tenzin’s expression begins to falter.

“How would you know?” Bumi mutters to her, just loud enough to be heard.

The words land.

Katara pulls away from Aang, the moment breaking as quickly as it formed.

She does not know what to say.

Maybe she should correct Bumi. Maybe she should soften Tenzin’s excitement, make him understand that while he has been off with his father, his siblings have been left behind.

But it does not matter.

The courtyard fills quickly, acolytes spilling out to greet Aang and Tenzin, their voices rising as they crowd around them, their attention fixed entirely on the two of them.

Katara, along with Kya and Bumi, are pushed back.

They are no longer part of it at all.

No one notices.

No one stops it.

Eventually, without a word, they turn and head back inside.

Katara pauses once, glancing over her shoulder at the scene she has been edged out of. Her husband and her youngest son surrounded by admiration and attention. The son she can’t recall ever holding.

Her hands curl into fists at her sides.

She wants it to stop.

All of it.

The weight.

The hurt.

The understanding that has come far too late to change anything here.

I get it.

The thought comes sharp and desperate, echoing through her mind.

I get it. I get it. I get it. Please stop.

She does not know who she is praying to.

She does not know if anyone is listening.

But something answers.

The warmth returns, gentler this time, almost merciful as it moves through her, pulling her away before the moment can stretch any further.

She has the faintest sense that there is more to see, more to understand, something waiting just beyond this.

But she is spared.

It is a vision.

She knows that now, somewhere deep in her bones, even if she no longer knows where her real body rests.

And this time, she lets herself be taken.

Her bones ache, deep and unrelenting, and every small movement sends a dull protest through joints that no longer move the way they once did. Katara knows before she even opens her eyes that time has passed in great, sweeping stretches, that years- no, decades have settled over her like snow.

The understanding unsettles her, but fear has never been enough to stop her before.

She opens her eyes slowly, her vision struggling to adjust, the world blurred at the edges and softened by age. Even so, she can make out enough to understand where she is. The shape of the walls, the low ceiling, the familiar placement of objects worn smooth by years of use.

A simple, worn hut.

Like the one she grew up in, in the South Pole.

Of course.

With effort, she pushes herself upright, the furs slipping from her shoulders as she swings her legs over the side of the bed. The cold bites immediately, sharp and unforgiving, and she reaches for her parka and boots with slow, practiced movements.

Something lingers in her mind.

A whisper she almost understands.

Vines falling into murky water.

The memory flickers just out of reach, brushing against her thoughts like something alive, something waiting.

She is close.

She can feel it.

Even here, surrounded by ice and snow, she feels nearer to that truth than she has in a long time.

“Hello?” she calls, her voice rough and unfamiliar in her own ears, the sound startling her more than the silence that follows.

No one answers.

The quiet presses in from all sides.

Curiosity carries her forward. She moves carefully, each step deliberate, until she reaches a smooth surface of ice along the wall. With a small motion of her hand, she bends it flatter, clearer, shaping it into something reflective.

For a moment, she simply stares.

Then she laughs.

The sound is soft and uneven as she takes in the face staring back at her. Lined, aged, and so achingly familiar.

Gran-Gran.

That is who she sees.

But the humor fades quickly, replaced by something heavier as the truth settles in.

If she has lived this long…

Then Gran-Gran is gone.

Her father is gone.

So many others must be gone.

The weight of it presses down on her, and she turns away from her reflection, letting the ice fall back into its natural shape.

The hut is empty.

There are no signs of anyone else living here. There is no extra bedding, no scattered belongings, nothing to suggest company.

Only her.

She makes her way to the small table and lowers herself into a chair, the motion slow but familiar, her body settling into it with a quiet finality.

She waits.

She is not entirely sure what for.

Maybe Bumi.

Maybe Kya.

Perhaps even Tenzin.

The thought of them lingers.

Aang does not come to mind the same way.

Somewhere deep down, she already understands.

He would never choose this place.

He would never stay here.

Time stretches.

She sits long enough that the silence dulls into something constant, long enough that she eventually rises again, moving through the motions of making tea and a small breakfast, though the effort leaves her tired far more quickly than she expects.

Standing is difficult.

Everything is.

So she returns to her seat, her hands curling around the warmth of the cup as she stares at nothing in particular.

Then-

Footsteps.

Faint, but unmistakable.

The crunch of snow just outside.

A knock follows, tentative and polite.

“Come in,” she calls, her voice catching slightly, still strange to her own ears.

The door opens, and a young boy steps inside, bundled against the cold, his presence bringing with it the slightest shift in the stillness.

“Master Katara,” he greets respectfully.

He looks like so many from the South Pole. Strong and capable, but instead of weapons, he carries scrolls and letters tucked carefully under his arm and in his bag.

“Today’s deliveries,” he says, placing them on the table before her.

Katara watches him.

She wants to speak.

To ask his name. To ask about his family, his life, the people who shaped him. She wants to offer him tea, to keep him there just a little longer, to hold onto the brief warmth of another presence.

But the moment passes too quickly.

He straightens, offers a polite farewell, and excuses himself, already moving toward the door to continue his work.

And then he is gone.

The silence returns just as quickly as it had been broken.

Katara sits alone at the table, the letters untouched before her.

She does not reach for them.

Whatever they contain, news, updates, formalities, they cannot compare to a voice in the room, to another person’s presence, to the simple comfort of not being alone.

Her fingers tighten slightly around her cup.

The warmth comes again.

Stronger this time.

Faster.

It wraps around her before she can fully process it, pulling her away from the quiet emptiness of the hut, from the weight of years she does not want to carry.

Katara wakes with a sharp cry, the sound tearing from her as everything falls away.

It is sunset in the Foggy Swamp when Katara comes back to herself.

The sky burns low and gold beyond the tangled canopy, the sun hovering just above the distant tree line, casting long, wavering shadows across the water. The air is thick and damp, buzzing faintly with insects, the scent of earth and rot and life pressing in from all sides.

Katara does not take any of it in.

She is already leaning over the edge of the tree, her body convulsing as she retches violently, the force of it tearing through her throat as she empties everything she has. Her hands grip the bark hard enough to hurt, knuckles whitening as she chokes and gasps, tears blurring her vision while she watches the mess fall below, swallowed instantly by the murky, shifting water.

It disappears.

Like it was never there.

Like the life she just lived.

Her stomach twists again, and she heaves once more, though there is nothing left. Only hollow, painful spasms that wrack through her as she dry heaves again and again. She does not try to stop it or steady herself. She lets it happen, because it is the only thing anchoring her to the present.

Because it happened.

The thought crashes into her with horrifying clarity.

It was not a dream.

It was not some distant, meaningless vision.

She remembers it all.

Every moment.

Every word.

Every look.

The weight of it settles deep, so vivid that for a split second she swears she can still feel the ache of age in her joints, the stiffness, the exhaustion, the hollow loneliness that followed her to the very end.

Her breath stutters.

Her stomach lurches again, though nothing comes this time.

“No,” she whispers hoarsely, her voice breaking as she drags herself back from the edge. Her body trembles as she collapses onto the thick, gnarled roots of the tree.

Reality comes back in fragments.

She forces herself to think.

To place herself.

Is she married?

No.

The answer comes quickly, cutting clean through the haze.

Has she given birth?

Bumi.

Kya.

Tenzin.

Her lungs seize at their names, but she shakes her head hard.

No.

None of them exist.

Not yet.

The war-

When did it end?

Her thoughts scramble, searching, until she latches onto the answer with desperate certainty.

Only a few years ago.

She is barely seventeen.

Seventeen.

The number feels wrong now, after everything she has just lived through.

Slowly, shakily, she leans back, pressing her hands against the rough bark beneath her, grounding herself in it- in the strength that hums through her body.

Because it is there.

Strength.

Her limbs do not ache.

Her joints do not protest.

Her breath comes easier, fuller, her body light in a way that feels almost unnatural after the weight she had carried for so long.

She is young.

The realization strikes again, sharper this time.

She is young, and the world is still open to her.

Nothing has been decided.

Nothing is set.

She does not have to become that woman.

That sad, tired, lonely woman sitting in the cold, waiting for something good to happen.

“I get it,” she breathes, the words slipping out before she can stop them.

Her hand curls into a fist.

“I get it!” she shouts, slamming it against the tree, the impact sending a sharp jolt up her arm.

Her voice echoes through the swamp, swallowed almost immediately by its vastness.

Despite the strength in her body, she feels weak.

Exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with age.

Tears stream down her face, hot and relentless, as everything she has seen crashes over her all at once.

“How do I change it?” she whispers, her voice trembling as she folds in on herself. “How do I… how do I be happy? How do I avoid all of that?”

The questions spill into the air, directionless and desperate, meant for no one and everyone at once.

The swamp answers.

The world shifts.

Katara gasps as something pulls at her again, that now familiar sensation wrapping around her before she can brace for it, the edges of the world beginning to blur.

“No,” she cries immediately, panic flaring as she scrambles to hold onto the present, to anchor herself to this moment. “No, I didn’t mean-”

The pull does not stop.

It takes.

It will be quick.

The voice is not hers.

It is not Huu’s.

It is something older.

Something that does not need to explain itself.

Katara’s breath comes fast, her heart pounding as fear and understanding twist together inside her.

And then, despite everything…

she lets go.

She lets it take her.

There is laughter.

It surrounds her before anything else does, warm and loud and layered, the kind that fills a room so completely it presses against her skin. Katara feels it before she understands it, her sides aching faintly as though she had been laughing just moments ago, as though she had been part of whatever story or joke brought the room to life.

The shift is jarring.

Katara, who had been meditating in the swamp, who had just clawed her way out of something bleak and suffocating, is suddenly present in a completely different place. As she opens her eyes, she feels the familiar sting of tears at their corners, but there is no grief behind them this time, no confusion or dread. These tears are lighter, born of laughter.

Her vision adjusts gradually to the dimness of the room, so different from the burning reds and oranges of the swamp’s sunset. The air is cooler here, and the ice walls, lined with fur tapestries, feel welcoming.

The first person she notices is her father.

Hakoda sits across from her, still chuckling under his breath, the remnants of laughter clinging to him as he tries and fails to compose himself. The sight of him alone makes something in her ache for his embrace, but there is no time to linger on it, not when everything else is shifting so quickly around her.

She takes in the rest.

They are in the South Pole.

In her father’s hut.

The familiarity settles into her bones even as the details feel softened by time and life lived within these walls.

Sokka sits beside Hakoda, relaxed and animated, and in his lap is a small girl, no more than a toddler. Her brown hair is pulled into a tiny tail that bounces as she shifts, drool dampening the front of her parka. Her dark blue eyes are bright and curious as she looks between the adults, soaking in the energy of the room.

Katara’s gaze moves-

And then she feels it.

Warmth.

It radiates from beside her, steady and unmistakable, drawing her attention before she can prepare for it.

Zuko.

He sits at her side as though he has always been there, as though this is the most natural thing in the world. The scar along his face creases with his laughter, familiar and grounding in a way that steadies her.

On his lap is a boy.

Slightly older than the girl in Sokka’s arms, sturdy and warm and alive, his small form tucked easily against his father.

Katara knows him instantly.

Vaelor.

The name settles into her mind without hesitation.

Her son.

Her baby.

Something twists inside her as she looks at him, something overwhelming and impossible to untangle, because in some strange way she recognizes him twice. There is something of Bumi in him too, an echo of the boy she had held in another life, another path shaped by a different kind of pain.

Prince Vaelor.

The title brushes against her thoughts, foreign and ill-fitting, and she lets it go just as quickly, unable to reconcile it with the warmth in front of her.

She shifts slightly, and the movement brings another realization with it.

She is pregnant.

Again.

Her hands move instinctively to her stomach, and though she is not far along, though there is little to feel, the name rises just as easily as the last.

Izumi.

The certainty steals her breath.

Her reaction must show, because Zuko turns toward her, his expression sharpening as he studies her more closely.

“You okay?” he asks, his voice quieter now, the warmth still there but edged with concern.

Across the table, Hakoda and Sokka both straighten, their attention snapping toward her.

Katara feels it all at once. Their focus, their presence, the weight of being seen.

Before she can answer, movement draws her gaze.

Gran-Gran and Pakku pass through the room, and Katara realizes with distant clarity that they must have been in the sitting room just beyond.

“Keep it down, would you?” Pakku grumbles, his tone gruff but not unkind. “We’d like to sleep without listening to your war stories.”

“And we love you,” Gran-Gran adds easily, her voice warm as she follows him toward their room.

The moment passes.

The room settles again.

“I’m okay,” Katara says finally, her voice steady enough, though her hand remains resting over her stomach.

Her eyes drift back to the boy in Zuko’s lap.

She cannot look away.

His eyes are gold, bright and unmistakable, but his hair is softer, darker, touched with a slight curl she knows intimately.

“Can I hold him?” she asks, her voice quieter now, almost hesitant, as though she is asking for something more than just the child.

Zuko doesn’t question it.

He passes the boy to her easily, with a trust that feels unspoken and complete.

Katara gathers him into her arms, adjusting him without thought, pulling his small parka into place to keep him warm now that he is no longer pressed against his father’s heat. He does not fuss. He settles against her immediately, his body fitting against the curve of her belly and her chest as though he belongs there.

She studies his face.

Commits every detail to memory.

He is Zuko.

There is no denying it.

But there are pieces of her scattered throughout him, subtle and unmistakable, and they make something inside her tremble.

Love floods her, sudden and overwhelming, so full it almost hurts, threatening to bring tears to her eyes all over again.

“Anyway, speaking of prison breaks,” Sokka continues, picking up his story as though nothing has changed, his voice light and animated, “Suki probably wants this one home before it gets too late.”

He lifts the little girl in his lap slightly for emphasis.

“After what she did to take the warden prisoner, I’d say you better go,” Zuko adds dryly beside her.

Katara barely hears him.

Her world has narrowed to the child in her arms, to the warmth of him, to the impossible reality of what she is holding.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Katara?” Hakoda asks, his voice softer now, more careful.

She blinks, pulling herself back just enough to meet his gaze, and nods slowly.

“I think I’m just a little hungry,” she admits.

It’s true. She can feel the emptiness that comes from hours spent meditating without food.

“Sea prunes?” Hakoda offers.

“That would be great.”

“Hold on,” Sokka cuts in, shifting with a grin. “If Katara gets sea prunes, I want some for the road.”

Katara holds her baby a little closer, drawing him nearer as if she can anchor herself in the warmth of his small body.

This time, she lets herself feel it.

The steady hum of love in the room.

The easy laughter.

The presence of family all around her.

It is so different from the last vision, so painfully, beautifully different from the quiet, empty hut where she had sat alone with nothing but silence and memory.

Here, there is life.

Here, there is warmth.

Here, for a fleeting moment…

everything feels whole.

Katara feels awkward retiring for the night with Zuko.

The feeling settles over her the moment they step into the room, subtle but persistent, like something she cannot quite shake no matter how much she tries to reason through it. In her memories, he is her friend. Her ally. Her battle companion. The boy who stood beside her when the world was ending, who took lightning for her without hesitation.

But here…

Here, he is something else entirely.

Her husband.

The father of her children.

The weight of that presses in as she moves through the familiar space of her childhood room, now altered just enough to reflect a shared life instead of a solitary one. Small changes mark the space. Signs of time, intimacy, and years she has not lived but somehow understands.

They had slept back-to-back before, in the final days of the war, when exhaustion had outweighed discomfort, when survival had been the only thing that mattered. But this is different. To lie beside him now, to face him in the quiet of night, feels like crossing some invisible boundary she is not ready for.

So she focuses on the baby.

She settles him gently into the small cot beside the bed, adjusting the blankets with careful precision, making sure he is warm in the furs, and that he will not stir in the cold. It gives her something to hold onto, something simple and real.

She tries not to think as Zuko moves behind her, as he extinguishes the candles with a practiced flick of his wrist. The room falls into darkness as he settles into the bed.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks, his voice quieter now, softened by the stillness and his own tiredness.

Katara slips into bed stiffly, staring into the dark.

Waiting for the warmth and for the pull.

Waiting to be taken back to the swamp, and to something that makes sense.

“Katara?”

She does not answer.

The silence stretches until a soft flicker breaks it.

One candle reignites and she turns slightly, startled, and finds him watching her, his expression more open now, more careful.

“Is it the baby?” he asks.

The question grounds her just enough to respond.

“The baby is fine,” she says quickly, knowing it to be true enough.

Zuko nods once, but his gaze does not leave her.

“Okay,” he says. “What about you?”

She hesitates, her teeth catching lightly against her lower lip as she tries to settle into the space beside him, to quiet the noise in her head long enough to answer.

There are too many things.

Too many truths.

Too many lives layered over one another.

Slowly, she rolls onto her side to face him.

He looks concerned but familiar enough.

And then, belatedly, she notices he has removed his shirt. The detail catches her off guard in a way that feels almost absurd given everything else she has just experienced. His hair brushes past his shoulders now, longer than she remembers, but otherwise…

He is still Zuko.

“Did I ever tell you about the Foggy Swamp?” she asks, the question more tentative than she intends.

His expression shifts. Confusion flickers, then smooths into something quieter, something knowing and then, strangely, amused.

“Are you there now?” he asks.

The question freezes her.

Outside, the wind howls against the walls of her father’s home, rattling the structure with sharp insistence, but inside the room feels contained, insulated, as if the moment belongs only to them.

“Where now?” she asks shyly.

Zuko studies her for a moment, then answers evenly.

“Are you meditating in the swamp?” he says. “And this feels like a vision?”

Her breath catches.

“Yeah,” she admits softly, pulling the blankets higher, half hiding her face in the pillow.

“You told me about it before,” he says. “Not much. But enough.”

She watches him, unable to respond and too frightened of what he might know.

“I wanted to understand,” he continues. “So I went there too. Meditated at the banyan-grove tree.”

“You did?” she asks, pushing herself up slightly, the shift making her pregnancy more apparent now that she is no longer bundled in her parka.

“I did,” Zuko confirms, watching her with quiet attentiveness. “I saw a life with Mai. And then… I saw myself alone for decades after that.”

Katara stills.

“You told me you saw something similar,” he adds. “And I didn’t like what I saw. So I asked for something else. Something better.”

He pauses, choosing his words.

“You might not remember this,” he says, a faint thread of humor slipping in, “but when you were far along with your first pregnancy, I was acting a little strange for a few hours.”

Katara lets out a soft huff of laughter despite herself, easing back down into the bed, adjusting carefully until she is comfortable.

“So this is real?” she asks, her voice smaller now despite everything she has seen. “This really happens?”

She feels seventeen again. Uncertain and searching, even as one child sleeps beside her and another grows within her. The contradiction leaves her unsteady, caught between who she is and who she might become.

Zuko hums softly, pulling the covers to his chin as he watches her.

“I think it’s real in one version of things,” he says. “Huu told me the future is what we make of it. The swamp shows possibilities, not certainties. Some moments might be harder to avoid, but not everything is set in stone.”

His voice is calm, grounding. She realizes he’s already made peace with that.

“In this version… yes. We’re married. We have a son, and another child on the way. I’m happy, and I do everything I can to make sure you are too. The Fire Nation is stable enough now that we can come here, to the South Pole, just because we want to.”

He smiles at her then, and something deep inside of her warms.

It’s so open and sincere.

So different from the tired, worn version of him she had seen in Ba Sing Se.

This Zuko is not burdened the same way.

This Zuko is not alone.

“You told me just last week that you were happier than you ever thought you could be,” he adds quietly. “So when you wake up in the swamp… try to remember that.”

A small pause.

“And remember,” he continues, just a touch lighter, “I can be a little slow when it comes to love and matters of the heart. Have patience with me.”

Katara lets out a soft laugh, muffling it into her pillow as something lighter breaks through the heaviness she has been carrying. Her face feels warm.

“Okay,” she whispers.

“Okay?” he echoes.

“Yeah,” she replies, her voice softer now. “I don’t think I could forget this even if I tried.”

“Good,” he murmurs.

A beat.

Then, more quietly-

“I’ve had feelings for you for a long time, Katara. I held back after the war… the world was still in pieces. But if I’d thought you might feel the same…”

He lets it trail off.

“Anyway. Goodnight, Katara.”

He does not move closer or reach for her.

Just lets the space between them remain.

Her eyes slip closed.

For a moment, she lets herself believe the warmth surrounding her is him, that it is simply the quiet comfort of his presence beside her, the steady reality of this life.

Her eyes slip shut. She’s not sure if the warmth is Zuko, or the swamp pulling her away. She’s sad, to realize it’s the latter.

The sun has long since dipped below the horizon, leaving only the faintest trace of twilight clinging to the edges of the sky.

Katara wakes with a sharp inhale, her body still seated on the thick roots of the banyan-grove tree, the world of the swamp settling back into place around her with almost jarring clarity. For a moment, she does not move, her mind catching up to her body, to the present and to a reality that feels both distant and immediate all at once.

Her body aches in small, youthful-elder ways.

Her legs are numb from sitting too long, her skin prickling as feeling slowly returns, and the damp heat of the swamp clings to her in a way that is, at last, grounding.

Hours have passed.

The swamp remains undisturbed.

Katara shifts, leaning back against the base of the tree as she lifts her gaze upward, watching the first stars emerge through the canopy, faint at first and then sharper as the darkness deepens.

It is night.

She is here.

She is seventeen.

This time, the truth settles without panic or confusion, without the crushing weight that had followed it before.

There is only certainty.

Aang is back in the village by now, likely surrounded by the acolytes who look to him with reverence and expectation, and who will only grow in number as time goes on.

Zuko is in the Fire Nation.

And Katara-

Katara exhales slowly, steady and sure, as she lifts her hand toward the thick cluster of vines beside the tree.

She does not overthink.

She moves.

The water within the vines answers instantly, bending to her with a smoothness that feels almost instinctive now. They twist and coil together, weaving into one another as she guides them, shaping them with quiet precision.

They form a sphere.

Perfect.

Alive with motion as it expands and contracts at her command.

Katara watches it, something resolute settling deep within her.

She understands.

The vines pulse once more in her grasp before she stills them completely.

Then she releases.

They fall back into place, the motion dissolving as if it had never been.

Katara rises to her feet and shakes the numbness from her limbs. Her strength returns fully.

She does not look back.

Katara has an engagement to end-

and a journey to the Fire Nation to begin.

Well there you go. 

Yes, in the alternative reality, the one Katara picks, she has her 'original' children + Zuko's while they live in bliss. 

Consider this story complete, although I do have a few scenes I might write for Zuko's visions in the swamp. IDK if I'll publish, but I wouldn't dismiss a second chapter from Zuko's POV in the future, and his visions in the swamp. 

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