Work Text:
Katara sighed. The second-to-last day of school was always mostly movies instead of actual learning. It was the last period of the day, and Katara just wanted to get the hell out of her seat. The class was Social Studies, and her teacher had put on The Boy in the Iceberg, a movie based on a musical. Since there had been multiple room changes that year(thanks to Sokka and Aang fighting over a pencil), Suki decided to rally the Gaang to sit in their original seats; Katara, Aang, Sokka, Jet, and Suki.
"Hey!" Aang said, pointing to a shelf behind Jet, which had multiple boxes of puzzles. "How about a puzzle?"
Murmurs of agreement came from everyone except Katara, who was trying to get a jump on her summer assignment.
"Katara?" Aang asked, studying her face.
"Better than watching The Boy in the Iceberg," she replied, succumbing to her fate.
--
Yue joined their table. Always organized, she poured out chunks of pieces from the box at a time, until Aang turned the box upside down and that idea went down the drain.
Katara looked up from her work, almost hearing Yue's inner voice trying to keep calm. Still, the puzzle continued.
Everyone took on little roles in the puzzle, with Yue flipping pieces over, Suki and Sokka connecting them, and Jet making clusters of similar pieces, and Aang studying the box. Eventually, even Katara joined in, tossing a piece to her brother that appeared similar to the section he was working on. They worked in peace for a while.
"Love, there are some pieces on the floor. Could you get them?" Yue asked absentmindedly, trying to connect two large sections together.
"Of course, Yue." Jet, trying to make room to crawl under the table, accidentally slammed into the radiator while pushing his chair back, creating a huge slam, resulting in peals of laughter.
"Shush, guys. The teacher is gonna get annoyed," Katara said, anxious to keep out of trouble.
Yue, with her boyfriend still under the table, quietly slid a few puzzle pieces down the crevice between the pushed-together desks.
"Not funny, 'darlin." But Jet still picked them up.
"GUYS!" Sokka yelled, getting a glare from the teacher. "I ACTUALLY CONNECTED SOME!" he said in a scream-whisper, holding up the two pieces he connected.
"GREAT job, Sokka," Katara said with an eye roll.
"Thanks!" Sokka said genuinely.
"Guys, let's focus! The bell is going to ring in three minutes!" Yue said, wringing out her fingers before rapidly connecting a section.
The next two-and-a-half minutes were silent, with the movie finishing up and the puzzle almost complete.
--
The last puzzle piece was in Sokka's hand, as he triumphantly held up the piece before lowering it - just as the bell rang.
The Gaang abandoned Sokka to clean up the puzzle himself, while their teacher gave a short speech on the year.
"It's been a great year with you all-" she said.
Sokka, who finally had all of the pieces in the box, stood up in a hurry, flipping the box onto the floor, just as the late bell rang. WITHOUT the lid.
"Mostly."