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Hi! I was wondering if you had any ideas of a prompt for Zutara that involves the gaang meeting their future selves or vice versa. Older Aang is still not coming to terms that Zuko and Katara are together until he sees an outside perspective of how he was. (A.K.A. Childish!) seeing how much closer Katara and Zuko got towards the end of the war and he has a realization that he was very much her child not her equal in the romance department. I’m too shy to ask as myself so I’ll be asking anonymously.

Taking zutara week as an opportunity to finally answer this ask!

I also copied it because I don't know if you realized it didn't send anonymously.

Zutara Week Day 7: Time

Aang used to think that if they'd had more time, then maybe things would have turned out differently. Katara had told him that she had been confused, that she couldn't make a decision while there was a war going on.

Which seemed true, but...had he really not noticed, back then? He can't remember.

Did he chalk it up to his imagination? He must have noticed something, because he'd confronted her about it. But then he'd felt stupid when Katara told him it was just the stage actress who'd said all those things, and he knew he'd hurt her by blaming her. He knew, because he could see it in her eyes afterwards.

And then after that, even when she kissed him, there was always the shadow of that hurt between them. And the shadow of his doubts, creeping in.

Was it his creeping doubts that had pushed her away, or was it that he'd failed to notice that she was already drifting farther from him?

Now, time is all he has. The spirits of past Avatars, the ability to view all that had come before. He can summon up a memory and see it clearly, like watching himself onstage, like watching her.

He does it sometimes, when he misses her, after she's gone.

And he finds himself looking back more and more on those days, before the end of the war, when she had been so confused.

He sees himself blush when she pecks him on the cheek. He sees her talking to Zuko, sees himself grow red with jealousy and suspicion, and hates himself for blaming her.

And yet, the sound of her voice, clear and bright, when she talks to him.

But it's true, isn't it?

She hadn't been lying when she'd told him that Zuko had never come between them, because she herself didn't know. She couldn't see herself, the way he could now. The way they both looked when they were together.

Aang had confronted Zuko about it, once, years after the war. And Zuko, of course, had denied everything. And Aang had believed him. Zuko was too honorable to have an affair with another man's wife, even if he loved her. He'd rather burn his own hands off.

But it hadn't been hands or mouths or any of the things he had imagined in his mind, when Aang tried to think of what went wrong.

It was only the sound of Katara's voice, her laughter, ringing clearly, while so much war and strife still weighed upon them.

They had all been children, then. None of them knew better. They didn't know what was happening.

They couldn't see it like he can. Not her, not Zuko.

He's already forgiven his friends, for being children. It's harder to forgive himself.

But all he has is time.