Avatar The Last Airbender Fan Fiction ❯ Avatar: The Wind on the Waves ❯ Chapter 5

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

She was supposed to have a comeback. Katara always had a comeback for anything Sokka could spit out. It had always been her way of shoving back when her brother's antics pushed her too far.

And yet, as Aang's belt was dangled before her, she had no words to explain why she had been wearing it.

“Go ahead, Katara…” Sokka glared. “Explain to me WHY you're wearing Aang's belt and why HE'S wearing YOURS! What reason could either of you POSSIBLY have had to switch belts, hm?”

“We were playing a game, Sokka!” Katara blurted out.

“Toph, is she lying?”

The blind girl sat where she was, her hands and feet to the earth the entire time. A strange expression of fear and…neutrality, graced her gazeless eyes. She seemed to `look' up at Katara, then at Sokka before curling her lips into an angry snarl.

“Is she lying or not, Toph?” Sokka demanded.

“I'm staying out of this!” Toph retorted. As if to emphasize her point, she got up and started walking away.

“Toph!” Sokka pleaded.

“I'm not having any part in this until you calm down!” Toph barked.

Inside, Katara was breathing a huge sigh of relief, but realized that this might only be temporary. Somehow she had to warn Aang that Sokka was onto them, but she doubted her brother would dare let her out of his sight now.

“Unless… Toph warns him…” Katara thought, “but will she?”

“Sokka, you're overreacting!” she found her voice at last.

“Am I?” he glared at her, and for the first time since he had come back, behind his angry, ice-blue eyes, Katara could see something more: hurt. “Katara, I know Aang's the avatar and all, but... why…?”

“Just to set the record straight,” she crossed her arms. “What exactly do you think we did?”

“You… and him… consummated this little relationship you've been having for quite a while now… I thought you two were still just flirting with each other!”

“We were!”

“And then what happened? Katara,… did he force you?”

“WHAT? AANG???”

“Did he or didn't he??”

“No!”

“Then what happened out there?”

“We washed Appa, started splashing in the water, and things went from there.”

“So you just let yourself get carried away, didn't you!”

“OH! You've got some nerve saying I'M getting carried away when YOU'RE the one falling for a girl THREE DAYS after she kicks your butt!”

Katara might as well have just stabbed her brother in the chest with those words, because they shut him right up. Azula had taunted him about Suki, but Katara's outburst just opened the wound anew. She regretted it as soon as she had said it, but, she realized she could've done a lot worse; she could have mentioned Yue. She covered her mouth, shocked by her own coldness.

Sokka's face was turning red from being so upset, but Katara could tell the words had stung him by the slightest glint of sunlight on barely restrained tears.

“At least YOU'VE never lost someone you've fallen in love with!” Sokka barked once he'd regained his voice.

“I almost did!” Katara's eyes were now watering up. “He almost DIED!”

“Yue did! And for all we know, so did Suki!”

“You don't know that! Azula was baiting you!”

“I know that Suki isn't here! I know that Suki's in a stinking Fire Nation prison!”

“You don't—we're getting off topic here. Sokka, why are you so upset about me and Aang? Really?”

“I made a promise to Dad to protect you, and I failed!”

“Protect me from what?” she counted off on her fingers. “From danger, the fire nation, wild animals,…”

“From getting hurt.”

“I'm not hurt!”

“Katara, you realize you can't marry anyone else now!”

“I don't want anyone else!”

“Katara, if you carry from this, you're going nowhere near a battlefield again! Do you understand what I mean? No fighting, no bending, no nothing! Did you even think of the consequences beforehand? Did you?”

Idly rubbing her arm, she knew full and well that Sokka was right. If something did come of last night, she'd be putting a huge dent in the next invasion plan.

“No,” she looked back up at her brother. “I didn't. Not in terms of children anyway. But I don't regret what happened, and I won't.” She paused and put a hand to her stomach pensively. “Even if something does come of it, it's not that much longer until the comet arrives, and we have to stop the Fire Nation before then. It won't show, I'll still fight alongside everyone else, and not you, Aang, or anyone else is going to stop me!”

She had been expecting Sokka to go on another tangent, but he didn't. Looking up, she saw his steadfast shoulders slump, defeated, and his gaze was to the ground before him. When he finally lifted his head back up, the fury was gone from his eyes, replaced with deep hurt and disappointment.

“You could've asked me.” his voice reflected what his eyes did.

“I didn't think you'd approve…”

“Not to that!” he raised his voice momentarily, then calmed himself a bit. “Listen, I know Dad's not here right now, but if you had asked me if I was ok with you and Aang being together, I would've said yes. You've been together all this time that we've been traveling, and that's fine. That's the way things worked out. But Katara, seriously, that could've waited. That was not a risk worth taking right now.”

“I'm sorry, Sokka.” She whispered.

“I'm sorry too. For being a jerk about it.”

She breathed deeply, and Sokka pulled her into a comforting hug. It was always moments like these that the siblings needed one another, whether the pain came from outside forces or from each other. Both remembered how important each other's comfort was in times of extreme stress: when mother died, when father left to join the war, when she'd played the Painted Lady, when his invasion planned had failed,… and when they'd hurt one another's feelings.

Aang and Zuko had been busy doing drills for a few hours now and were taking a breather before going through more. The Avatar was checking his soles and knuckles for burn damage. Distractions galore were causing a lot of mistakes to be made, and his own body stood to pay the price of it.

Zuko was looking worried too; if Aang were to go back to camp covered in burns, he had no doubts that a certain waterbender was going to reprimand him thoroughly for it. And she was NOT going to be nice about it.

“Keep burning yourself like that and your girlfriend's going to think I'm doing it.” Zuko remarked.

Aang's cheeks tinted slightly, but he otherwise kept focus on the mild scorches he had sustained. None were even remotely life-threatening, but some of them stung, and he could only hope that Katara could heal them without much fuss. She often asked if Zuko had caused any of the burns he got from his firebending practice, and Aang got the impression she would do something very nasty to the fire prince if the answer ever came up as yes.

Realizing Zuko had referred to Katara as Aang's girlfriend, the Avatar's cheeks rosied a bit more. Flashes of last night's activities danced through his mind: the sweat on her dark skin, his name on her lips, the arch of her back, and the splay of her tussled, raven hair.

“Ok, now I KNOW something's up.” Zuko blinked.

“Huh?” Aang snapped out of his daydream. “Oh! No, it's nothing… really. Well… maybe some other time. Let's pick up where we left off.”

They got into their stance, but before they could start, a voice called out to them.

“YO! TWINKLETOES!”

Aang turned in the direction of Toph's voice, but a stone slab suddenly jutting up out of the ground and sending him on a short flight and a clumsy spill onto the ground knocked the wind out of him. Groaning, he got up, hastily dusting himself off.

“Ugh! Toph! What was that for?” he complained.

“You are in the BIGGEST pile of bison boogers ever!” the earthbender exclaimed.

“What do you mean?” Aang tried to sound sincere, but then realized that Toph could probably sense the lump in his throat loud and clear.

“Sokka is going to murder you when you get back to camp!”

“What!? Why?”

“Don't play dumb with me. I know what happened last night and so does Sokka. Look at your belt!”

Both Aang and Zuko looked down at the belt and gasped.

“This is—“ Aang started.

“—Katara's belt. I'm aware. Sokka screamed it loud enough.”

“Why are you wearing her belt?” Zuko's eyebrow twitched nervously.

“Monkey feathers!” Aang smacked his palm to his forehead. “I knew something was off when Sokka kept staring at us!”

“Yeah, you're pretty much on the menu tonight.” Toph picked languidly at her ear. “And Sokka's the cook.”

“What did you guys do? You didn't…” Zuko stared into Aang's eyes, and when the airbender gulped, the fire prince's eyes widened. “…you did!”

“Ugh!” Aang slapped his head again. “What am I going to do now?”

“If you ask me, you could do any number of things.” Toph casually flicked away what she'd picked from her ear. “You could run like an airbender, fight fire with...well, fire, try redirecting Sokka's attention to something else,… or you could stand your ground like an earthbender.”

Aang slumped to the ground, mentally weighing his options. Fighting or getting off topic with Sokka about this didn't seem right, so those two options were tossed out immediately. His airbender nature bid him to run like crazy and never look back, but the earthbending choice was the honorable one to make. Unfortunately, it was also the hardest.

With a sigh, he reluctantly got to his feet, looking ahead of him in the direction of the camp.

“You guys… might want to stay here.” Aang stuttered. “This isn't going to be pretty…”

“Oh I know it's not going to be pretty, and I can't even see!” Toph quipped.

“Thanks…” Aang rolled his eyes. And taking a deep breath, he headed back to camp.