Saving The Southern Tribe

Day 1- Searching (part 1)

Warning! Contains: Swearing,

Tuesday, June 10th, noon right now.

KATARA'S POV:

It's been 4 days. 4 days since we found Ursa. 5 days until the lunar eclipse. 5 days since Aang died again. And I'm loosing my mind. I'm going crazy. I can barely breath anymore. He can't be gone. He's not even waking up.

Everyone's yelling at me to go outside. To eat. To drink something. But I just can't. I can't leave Aang's side. I can't and I won't. I wasn't there last time he woke up. But I'll be there this time.

It's always my fault. It's always going to be my fault that he dies. I killed him. It's my fault. He's going to wake up and hate me. He's going to wish he never even met me.

We're going so fast that if the ship stops with someone on it, they'll be in the Northern Tribe in half a second. We should be at the Southern Air Temple tomorrow. Then we should be at the Southern Water Tribe in 2 days. 2 days. We only have two days until the fucking eclipse by the time we're there.

I can't live like this. If Aang isn't up by the time we reach the Southern Air Temple, I'm taking my fucking life. I'm doing what he almost did. Leave a note and go. And unless he wakes up and stops me like I stopped him, I'm not stopping.

"You can't keep living like this." I didn't even turn my head up to know who's voice it is. Team Avatar's been leaving me alone nowadays. They think I'm turning into Hama: old, not moving, creepy, somewhat evil. But I'm not.

"I can live like this for however long I need to." That's my response. He knows it's true. He raised me. He should know me. But he doesn't. He doesn't know a single fucking thing about me.

"I didn't raise this, Katara. I raised a wonderful young warrior." I scoffed, my eyes not leaving the hands on Aang's chest.

3RD PERSON:

"You raised a happy, fun, wonderful 4-year-old waterbender. And then her other body disappeared. Oh, I wonder why she went into a depressive state for so long. Then guess what? Just as she was starting to be happy again for the first time in years, her mom dies. She's left alone in the dark."

He stood there, his hands in his pockets. She was right. He raised a 4-year-old. He let her be as depressed as she wanted. He knew it would go away eventually. And it did. Then his wife died. And the entire tribe became depressed. But not Katara. She stepped up; big time.

"She would be proud of you." Katara closed her eyes and let out a breath before returning to look at her hands, moving around on her boyfriend's chest. "She'd kill me for hibernating, dad." He snorted softly. "I know she would. Why do you think I'm trying to get you out."

Katara sucked in a ragged breath. "As long as Aang's heart is pumping, his chest is moving, and there is air going in and out of his nose, I can survive." He smiled and shifted his position on the door frame.

"You're just like your mom, you know." She nodded. "I'm her daughter. Just like Sokka's your son." Hakoda scoffed. "You think Sokka's my son? Before 'The Ba Sing Se Incident,' when he found me on that island, he told me he was trying to prove to me that he's a good warrior. He thought that I thought he was a bad warrior. What kind of father does that make me, Katara?"

She scoffed. "And I would know how? You left us a year after mom died. Gran Gran came down with Ocean Fever the day after you left, and Sokka's no better with sick people than he is with newborn babies. I took care of the tribe. No one else. And I had to do it with the other half of my body missing."

Hakoda took a deep, shaky, breath, and let it out. "I'm sorry. But I couldn't stay. If I stayed, I would've been no more help than Sokka was. I would've stayed in our igloo all day and night, crying to myself. I lost my backbone. I had to get it back somehow." Katara scoffed again. "Well, you sure got it back."