The Two Of Us - An ALTA X Reader Fanfiction

Chapter Eleven ~ The Painful Truth

(Y/Ns POV)

When I woke, a stabbing pain was causing me to curl into a ball. My chest felt like it was being torn apart, and I started to scream. Aang jerked to consciousness next to me, and grabbed his chest as well.

"A... aaaaaang!" I cried, tears streaking down my cheeks. "It hurts." I began hiccuping in pain, shaking uncontrollably.

Aang dragged himself off the bed, crossing to the door and earthbending it open. As he stepped outside, the pain lessened, and Aang turned back to me, taking a step. With every step he took it was like knives shredded their way through my body, and I whimpered.

Reaching the bed he was panting and sweating, and he reached an arm to touch me. The second our skin made contact I screamed in pain, and he yelled, yanking his arm back and subconsciously air bending himself across the room. The pain lessened once more as distance came between us.

"What..." he started, and I started crying again, this time out of fear.

"Aang... what's happening?" I sobbed and I could feel a wave of burning anger wash over me. Spinning to face the wall, he slammed his fists into it, yelling incoherently in rage.

"I don't know!!" He hollered, and I grew silent, rocking back and forth to try and help calm down. His fists kept slamming against the wall, shaking the entire hideaway, and I stared with wide eyes, my messy black hair falling into my face as I shook uncontrollably.

"Aang.." I whispered, trying to calm him, and he grew still, breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry." He muttered, and I could FEEL him grow calm, his frustration replaced with concern.

Sitting up, I leaned against the wall and took a deep breath, closing my eyes and trying to relax. With every passing minute the pain lessened, and after a while it vanished altogether. I opened my eyes again and was startled to see Aang sitting on the floor by the door, meditating in the Avatar state.

Hesitantly I rose from the bed, crossing the room to kneel by him. The pain didn't return so I rested on my knees next to him, patiently waiting for him to return from the spirit world. After an hour I grew weary, leftover exhaustion from the night before and the ordeal this morning taking a toll on my body and my eyes fluttered shut. I leaned forward and lay down, my torso in his lap, arms wrapped securely around his midsection and head snuggled into his hip. Within moments I feel asleep.

(AANG'S POV)

Y/N leaned back against the wall on the bed, curled up in the blankets as she took a deep breath. I could feel her trying to relax, and it ripped through me with startling clarity; the pure fear running through her. What was happening?

I pressed my back to the wall on the opposite side of the room, the cold centering me as I sunk to sit on the cool floor. Winding my legs into my meditation pose, I did the only thing I could think of: pushed through the sharp pain into the Avatar state to seek out Roku. Maybe he would know something.

The world around me shifted and I opened my eyes, seeing the familiar and ever comforting bluish tint to the spirit world cover my surroundings, and I called out quietly.

"Avatar Roku, I need your help."

It only took a moment for the breeze behind me in the open doorway to blow in lightly, signaling Roku's arrival.

"Aang."

His one word said everything, the greeting, the acknowledgment of what was happening between myself and Y/N right now. It held a pitch of grief to it as well, one I didn't like.

"Can you tell me what's happening? Why are we in pain this morning, why can't I touch her?"

Roku sighed sadly, taking a seat in front of me.

"Your soul is trying to reform itself, Aang. The piece that has melded with hers is beginning to try and pull itself back to you. But this is a very dangerous thing. That piece of your soul has become so deeply intertwined with her own that to rip it free would surely destroy her own beyond repair, hence the pain you both feel. Hers is from two parts of her soul trying to tear apart, yours is the resonance of the pain from your fragment of the soul."

With every word Roku spoke a deep dread grew inside me, until all I could feel was an all consuming fear.

"Is there any way to stop it? There has to be something I can do!" If I hadn't been in the spirit world I knew I would be crying, as it was I was certain when I woke up I would find tear stains on my cheeks.

"There is only one way for this separating to complete itself. You must both be in the Avatar state, and have some form of contact. Once this happens, the connection to the spirit world will loosen the grip her soul has on yours, and it will break and immediately meld back to yours."

Roku's grown deepened, knowingly.

"But the consequences will be dire, young Avatar Aang. There's no telling what will happen once her soul is split. She may die."

I closed my eyes, hollowness echoing in me.

"Then I need to leave, Roku. I won't be able to come back again."

Roku shook his head disapprovingly.

"I understand your pain and fear, Aang. But how do you expect to be the Avatar if you never use the Avatar state again?"

Shrugging, I lifted my gaze to Roku once more, for what I hoped now would be the last time.

"I'll find a way. Goodbye Roku."

With that I ended my meditation, coming back to the physical world to find Y/N curled up in my lap, sound asleep. A few tears dampened her shirt from me, and I wiped my eyes gently before putting my arms around her and scooting her into my lap to face me. She didn't wake, just sighed and rested her head on my shoulder, burrowing her nose into my skin and breathing warmly against me. Once I was sure she wouldn't be able to see my face when she woke, I held her tightly to me and began to cry, hot tears rolling down my cheeks to wet her dark hair. I didn't know what we were going to do but I knew one thing; I didn't want to let her go. If I told her what Roku told me she would want to leave so she couldn't hurt me, I knew it. I knew her too well. So as I clung to her in the growing sum of evening, I vowed to never tell her what had happened between Roku and I, and to never enter the Avatar state again.