and my voice becomes the driving force

i need you now (i need you most)

this fic is lowkey a katara character study disguised as a kataang fic. take that as you will

~*~

Katara hates the quiet.

A noisy environment is a lively environment. Children laughing as they make portraits out of snow around the central igloo in the Southern Water Tribe, her grandmother humming under her breath as she braids Katara's hair to delicately frame her face, Sokka singing off-key as their parents dance arm in arm to his makeshift tune. When babies are born, Katara thinks, they are born kicking and screaming and crying.

Noise means life.

Silence means death.

Because her mother didn't have a chance to scream before the Fire Nation struck her down.

No whisper escaped Jet's lips as he broke from the Dai Li's control, his eyes fluttering shut, never to open again.

The Avatar state flickered once, twice, and Aang fell.

All was silent but for the scream of horror that ripped from Katara's body, an electric hand plunging into her chest to tear her bleeding heart out.

Silence means death. Katara knows this, and she knows it well.

That's why she talks to him.

"Your wound is healing nicely." She musters up a smile as she carries over a bowl of cool water, placing it down next to his makeshift bedside. "Another few weeks and I might even be able to prevent major scarring."

Katara glances at her surroundings, unable to withhold a shudder. The room is so... red. No matter how long they are on this ship, she doubts she will ever become used to the omnipresent scarlet, a color so rich it might as well be hot blood trickling down the wooden walls.

"Of course, maybe you wouldn't mind a scar," Katara continues. She kneels down next to his prone figure, his body so still she can never stop herself from succumbing to anxiety and placing two fingers against his neck to catch a pulse.

So still Katara can never stop herself from fearing his pulse will no longer be there.

"Steady," she murmurs, relieved at the lack of change for the worse, disappointed at the lack of change for the better. She shakes her head to snap herself out of this contemplation before she can spiral, instead concentrating on the task at hand as she carefully pulls back his bandage.

"Sokka thinks your scar will look manly," Katara says, pulling the water from the bowl beside her. It threads through her fingers, the blue glow glittering in stark contrast to the orange lanterns that light the rest of the room. "I told him he was being ridiculous, but he said there was nothing cooler than someone surviving a lightning strike."

Katara stutters over the word survive, and maybe she's afraid she jinxed him and maybe she's terrified her lack of faith has the power to finish what Azula started. It's all too much, sometimes, but Katara is here because she's got to be and because she knows it'll hurt them both more if she isn't.

"Toph was here yesterday," Katara says, once she has regained her composure. "She pretends not to be, but... she's worried about you, too."

Katara places her hands directly above the jagged wound, exhaling slowly as she lets the water sink down into the swollen skin and feels her bending start to do its work. Healing has always been an agonizing process, at least in her experience. Waterbending can dull pain with its innate chill, yes, but little more, and she fears the day he will wake up screaming at the fiery sensation of his nerves and muscles stitching themselves back together across the rise and fall of his spine.