Avatar : Echoes of the Heart

Chapter 5: Reckoning With Emotions Part 3

Amidst the chaos Hakoda sat in his office window and looked out into the distance of his destroyed village. All the warriors set out into groups to help find anyone that was lost and bring the large debris to the water benders. Within his room, Sokka sat down, clutching at the bandages around his midsection. Zuko, Toph, and  Aang were being held within the inn, healers from the clinic unit tending to their wounds. Katara sat in her room and just awaited the statement of whether or not Aang was okay. Her past trauma had been running through her head since bringing him back. The sight of Azula striking Aang with lightning and nearly ending his life, her mother being taken away from her so that she could grow up as a Southern Water Tribe waterbender, those weeks of Aang being in a coma, the times where he'd stop breathing or his body would go into static shock, their last argument before he left for ten years. So many emotions were running through her head, the main one being fear that Aang wouldn't survive. He had shattered ribs, multiple large open wounds and small ones, and his scar had apparently opened up again. As she sat there, lying down and feeling hopeless, the door to her room opened, revealing Aang's tall figure taking up the entire door space.

"Are you ready to talk?" Aang asked.

"Can you walk properly?" Katara asked, standing up and walking over to him.

"I don't know, you tell me." Aang said sarcastically, throwing an arm around Katara.

"Asshole. Why are you out of bed?" Katara asked as she helped him to her bed.

"I walked out." Aang said, receiving a glare from Katara. "Okay okay, I'll explain."

{Ten Minutes Ago}

Aang layes unconscious in his bed. The healers within the room were having a hard time trying to realign his ribcage with simple waterbending. They'd need a blood bender for that. Whilst doing so, however, Aang's tattoos began to glow, and they began seeing shifts within his abdomen. After a minute or two, his tattoos stopped glowing, and he opened his eyes.

"Avatar Aang, you're awake!" One of the healers said, rushing to his side as he tried to sit up.

"Where's, Katara?" Aang asked, rubbing his head.

"She's down the hall in her room. We tried to get her to come see you but she wouldn't budge. She said she wanted to be left alone." A healer named, Aya, explained.

"Move. I need to go see her." Aang ordered, getting up and falling to the floor.

"Avatar Aang, you must rest. Your ribcage is broken and we need to realign it." Aya said, trying to help him up.

"Move." Aang said, his voice laced with thousands of others.

Intimidated, Aya and the other healers slowly backed away as Aang picked himself up and carefully walked out of the room and into the hall. Aang placed his hand on the wall to hold him up, slowly walking down the hall. He knew why she didn't want to be bothered, and he also knew why she didn't stay and heal him. Their talk was cut short by the attack on the village, and she was very upset about it. As he got close to her room, he stumbled down and felt his legs nearly give out. However, needing to get his feelings out, Aang gathered whatever energy he had left and raised up, opening her room door and leaning on the door frame.

{Present}

"So you just decided to disobey the people taking care of you to come and have a little chat. And with little ole me of all people." Katara said, adding more water to help close his scar.

"Better me then that woman." Aang joked.

"Okay to be fair, she had it coming. Because she shouldn't have been talking to you in the first place and you shouldn't have been helping her." Katara said, a smug look coming across her face.

"Yeah well, I help everyone in need. It's part of me as a whole. Making the world a better place and what not." Aang said, looking back with his usual crooked smile.

"Aang, what happened in those ten years you were away?" Katara asked as she ended the healing session.

"I uh, fell. Yep, I fell down a mountain." Aang said.

"You can fly. And Appa would've caught you." Katara said in a stern tone.

Aang stayed silent, not wanting to tell her the truth. However, he did promise to tell her everything and he promised himself he would make amends between them, and hiding things from her wouldn't make it any better.

"After I left, I tried forgetting about you. I thought that if I forgot about you, then I'd be able to come back and start fresh, but that didn't happen. It got worse actually. The more I tried forgetting about you, I ended up remembering you more. And it all came crashing down when I lost control of my emotions during a meeting." Aang said, the memory playing through his mind.

{6 Years Ago}

In the meeting, the generals of each nation were arguing with each other about territory claim. There were still villages with a mix of fire benders and earth benders and the generals wanted to end it. Aang wanted to keep everyone together for peace and peace alone, but everyone seemed to forget he has a say in this. Zuko and King Kuei were going back and forth, and Aang was simply a shadow in the corner. Arguing, the main cause of his pain now. And there she was again, Katara standing in all her glory as the argument replayed in his mind again. Growing irritated, Aang stomped on the ground and sent every soldier into the wall with earth pillars. The soldiers all clutched their midsection, a few of them claiming their ribs were broken and others saying they couldn't move. Aang quietly got up, looked at Zuko, shook his head, and without a trace, he vanished. That was the last time Zuko had seen Aang in person, he only ever heard from him through letters. And from that moment, Aang decided to just stick to being the Avatar, and thought that if he forgot about himself, it would be better.

{Present}

"So you thought that if you, the Avatar, and Aang, decided that if you just simply pushed Aang away and focused on being the Avatar, you would heal?" Katara asked, one of her eyebrows raised and her arms crossed.

"Well, to be fair..."

"Aang."

"Yeah, that's the basics of it." Aang said, scratching the back of his neck.

"And also, just an FYI, you don't break the ribs of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom generals as a goodbye gift." Katara said, grabbing the small hair on his chin.

This was a mistake, however, as now that she had made the distance between them a couple inches. Aang took notice of this and swallowed hard. Katara smiled and decided to play with him a little bit, pulling on the small hairs on his chin. Wincing in pain, Aang decided to pinch her waist, causing her to let go of his chin. Aang layed down and pulled Katara down onto the bed, wrapping his arm around her waist and dragging her back to him. Katara turned around and stared up into his eyes, his storm cloud colored eyes narrowing as he stared into her ocean colored orbs.

"I know there's still so much I have to tell you." Aang thought to himself.

"But there's so much at stake right now." Katara thought to herself.

"So for now, let's savor this moment together." The two of them thought at the same time, both closing their eyes and enjoying the warmth they brought to one another in this moment.