LAY ME GENTLY IN THE COLD, DARK EARTH
KATARA SIGHED, GRIPPING THE STEERING WHEEL.
“Suki and Sokka have…been hitting a rough patch lately. He’s…” She searched for the right words to describe how broken her brother’s heart was, how utterly obliterated it had been after their mothers death. How was she supposed to find the words if she couldn’t muster up the courage to look her own grief in the eye? “He hasn’t been the same for a while. He’s changed now.”
I’ve changed, was what she wanted to say, but he probably already knew. That was the scary part. It was Aang, after all. She’d given many things to him: her laugh, her care, her body. Pain was no exception to that.
“I get that.” Aang peered out the passenger seat window. The city flashed by in purple hues. “Lots of things are…changing.”
The brunette gripped the wheel. Her heart pattered in her chest. She wanted nothing more than the conversation to end, but she couldn’t deny the terrible itch his voice scratched in her head.
“I just moved into my new place today!” She blurted. They could talk in circles all night about the ways people had changed around them. Didn’t make a difference. Once something’s broken, it can’t be fixed, and she really didn’t want to be reminded of the way her mother’s car sat in the shed back home with the driver-side door lobbed completely off by the incident.
“Oh, really?” Aang turned to her, surprised by the change in subject, but otherwise welcoming.
“Yeah, my last apartment got flooded.”
He chuckled, then righted himself when Katara shot him a glare. “Oh—! I’m—I’m not laughing at you, it's just that…I’m laughing at the coincidence. Almost all the upperclassmen dorms on the east side of campus got flooded by the hurricane a few days ago. Something about pipes bursting.”
She scoffed. “Tell me about it. I was there.”
“You were there?” His brows shot up, "Oh, well, uh—” Idiot, idiot, idiot. “Sorry to hear that. I know some Universities have been opening their doors for TRU students, but they can only take so many.”
“Yeah, I was worried about not having a place to stay. I don’t want to commute and miss out on campus life. I managed to snag this nice place not too far from TRU. Two bedroom suite, actually. Posting said they needed a second person. Seemed a little sketchy. They didn’t put their name on the flyer, but I’d rather take the risk.”
“Weren’t you saying something about risks just now?”
“Hush, Aang.” She slowed at a light far before it even turned yellow. Aang grinned at the familiar caution. “That’s different. You’re contending to be the next Avatar. The city needs you.”
I need you, but he didn’t say that part out loud. He went for something quieter, precise. Factual, even.
“Sure, but I’d wager if everyone had a Katara by their side, there'd be fifty percent less homicides.”
“Try fifty percent more if they’re anything like Jet.” She jeered.
Aang snorted, shaking his head. “Speaking of Jet, what happened to him?”
“No clue. There was something in the news a while back, but I wasn’t paying attention. It was kinda unclear, really.”
Aang chuckled again. He and Katara shared a glance. The space between them reminded him of a low tide. Calming, tickling your toes and descending back into the sea. The ocean was a tease, it seemed, and the distance between them was no different. Teasing Aang. Tickling his nose with a feather, goading him to bite the carrot at the end of the stick.
His gaze slipped across the soft junction between her shoulder and neck, and he thought, briefly, of all the places he could bite. Aang halted mid-thought with a loud cough. Katara shot him a pensive look, but he waved it away.
The boy just wanted to sit in this silence—be comforted by the smell of her perfume, lilies and lilacs, tinged with sea salt and spice. He wanted the air to stifle him, choke him with all the things that reminded him of her.
But, just as the good memories came rushing in, so did the bad ones.
A bitter taste bled onto his tongue.
Was there a way to bring up Zuko without feeling his skin crawl? Zuko was a friend. A brother. Family, even. Wayward, grouchy, quiet—but his. Theirs. Aang couldn’t bear the confirmation. He gulped a wad of sickly acid down his throat. It’d destroy him, tear him to ribbons and leave him splayed for the next bout of rage to tie him to a knot. Sighing, Aang settled for a smaller truth. One he could weather and hope to pass.
“I’m happy for you. You and Zuko.” Because he always will be, wouldn’t he? Because his girl deserved the best, and that was something he simply wasn’t?
“Just know…” Aang’s eyes were glossy. His nose itched to run. “That I am happy for you, Katara. Zuko is a…” A traitor? An obstacle? Someone he trusted? “Good guy.”
The words burned when he spoke, but it was true. Dreadfully true. The man was primed and pruned to be a mayor after his father was forcefully removed from his seat on the Fire Nation Council. He was sun-touched gold, unscuffed. Refined. He knew who he was and who he wasn’t, something Aang was still figuring out from his Air Nomad studies after most of their scrolls were destroyed in the hurricane a few years back.
So much was lost, him included...
