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Chapter Text

Soon after he became engaged to Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, Avatar Aang was called away from Republic City by word of an earthquake in the Fire Nation. On his way to grab Toph to come along for help, he stopped briefly at Katara's hospital, but she was involved in a surgery and could not be interrupted. He left word of his plan and flew off without her.

The airbender and earthbender arrived in time to quiet the aftershocks, and pull survivors out of the rubble. The recovery took two weeks, so that the separation turned out to be the longest the couple had ever endured, except his disappearance into the spirit world. Katara considered joining her fiance, but the boats were not as fast as Appa, and she figured that by the time she arrived, Aang would be ready to return. That calculation turned out to be incorrect, and as the days passed, Katara felt increasingly torn and regretful. A skilled healer would have been helpful for the earthquake victims, but she knew the people of Republic City depended on her; leaving her post at the hospital seemed irresponsible. Air Temple Island was lonely without Aang, so she started sleeping in her old room at Sokka and Suki's townhouse again. With a shorter daily commute, she was able to spend even more time with her patients.

When he finally returned, Aang's fiancee welcomed him with hungry kisses, and they tumbled into bed before exchanging more than a few words. After they made love for the third time, Katara lay pensive, fiddling absentmindedly with their intertwined fingers. The airbender knew she was thinking about how he had left her behind, and imagining similar emergencies calling him away from her frequently in the years to come.

"You can't expect to be able to drop everything to go with me at the last minute, and keep a job of your own." He pointed out softly.

When he phrased it that way, she saw the truth of it. If she left her position to be available for all sudden crises, she would end up bored and restless, her healing talent underused. She was able to accept the choice she'd made: occasional separations when Aang had to deal with an emergency, so that she could have a career independent of him. She sighed.

"You're right."

"But I know that doesn't make it any easier," he acknowledged, shifting her closer and kissing her hair. "What can we do to make it work better for everybody? This doesn't only affect you and me, but all the people we're both trying to help. It's a matter of how and where we can use our skills to do the most good, while prioritizing each other."

"Exactly. We'll figure it out." She smiled at him, soothed by the way he had framed their dilemma. As much as she had missed him, she knew that their love was strong enough to withstand the challenge of future separations.

The first opportunity to address the issue of balancing the demands on their time came soon enough, when Aang began planning his book tour. He would travel the world to promote the publication of The Book of Peace, the first of the Lost Literature of the Air Temples series. Choosing that volume to launch the series had been easy. It described the principles of nonviolence that had characterized Air Nomad government and diplomacy, discussed interpersonal conflict resolution, and ended with a treatise on meditation and the cultivation of inner tranquility. Aang truly believed that if it became a bestseller, influencing political thought and individual practice, the world would be a better place. And his job as Avatar and peacekeeper would be much easier.

When Katara saw his itinerary, and the total length of the tour, she knew that something had to give. Four months apart would simply be too long. She proposed a compromise: "Cut this trip down to three months, and I'll go with you." The prospect of traveling for an extended period of time with his lover appealed to Aang's nomad heart so strongly that he agreed immediately, and began crossing the farthest destinations off the route.

The healer knew she couldn't walk away from the hospital capriciously, the way she'd done when Aang had disappeared. Leaving her staff in the lurch and her patients without care had been unfair to everyone, and she was still working to rebuild trust and get things back on track after she had neglected her duties for weeks while searching for her love. So she decided that whenever Aang was called away for an emergency, she would stay home. But that would only be tenable, only worth the trade, if she could accompany him on all planned travel. Diplomatic trips and ceremonial occasions would be less exciting than natural disasters and anti-insurgency missions, but peace had made her appreciate a slower pace of life. Besides, she knew she would eventually need to step back from danger anyway, when she got pregnant. She would never be just a tagalong; no matter where they went, she'd always find people in need of healing.

Accommodating this long absence required Katara to completely reorganize operations and staffing at the hospital, and hire a few new healers. But she knew it was important to set up a system now. With a whole series of books coming out over the next decade, and a tour planned for each one, as well as distant family to visit annually, Katara was looking at either prolonged separations from her fiance, or lengthy absences from work. So she made dramatic changes to the scheduling process at her hospital: now she could leave town for months and feel confident about the work being done in her absence. Her staff was happy about the new system, because it meant that they could request extended time off for vacations and family obligations as well.

The couple planned their trip with a world map. "We'll begin with the most volatile places. First the big party here in Republic City, then Yu Dao, and then the Fire Nation." Aang pointed to their route.

"Zuko and Mai will be happy to see us." His fiancee grinned at the idea of reuniting with their friends.

"If he can get some of his nobles and generals to read The Book of Peace, it will make his life a bit easier." The airbender agreed. Then he traced flights to the North Pole, ("Gran and Pakku will be up there at that time of year!") and the eastern Earth Kingdom. Their tour would finally end in Ba Sing Se.

"While we're traveling," Katara began, "maybe we should go back to the spirit world. You said you'd relieve Kuruk from guarding Mother Maggot." She vaguely recalled that the past Avatar had said he would keep vigil for a year, and this trip might be their only opportunity to get away from Republic City before that time limit expired.

"That's right." Aang screwed up his mouth in concentration, scratching his chin as he puzzled over how to accomplish that. "What if we go to that portal in the mountains you all used to go after me? I think that's the only way in, except the poles, and I don't know the way from the poles to the bridge, or where exactly the polar portals are in this world. They might be hard to find."

"It sounds like the mountaintop passage is our best bet." his fiancee agreed. "Iroh probably still has that map if we need it. But I remember the way from the mountain portal to the bridge. I assume Kuruk hasn't moved from there."

"That's a good start, anyway. We can figure it out once we're inside if we have to." They continued excitedly discussing the details of their trip, until it was time to go to bed.

The book launch gala in Republic City was the first big public event that Aang and Katara attended as a couple after announcing their engagement. She wore her yellow Air Nomad sari and stood behind him as he answered questions about the political implications of the republished text. The airbender responded ably to complicated challenges about the application of the ancient proverbs to a postcolonial world, and lightened it up with funny stories about growing up in the Southern Air Temple. Then the press inquiries took a more personal turn.

"Is it wise for you to tie yourself down, Avatar Aang?" asked a reporter, changing the subject from The Book of Peace. He was from The Stone Tablet, an old Earth Kingdom paper whose editorial pages had frequently criticized Aang and his Truth and Reconciliation Commission for 'taking it too easy' on the Fire Nation and its colonists. "You are the last airbender, after all. Shouldn't you have as many children as possible, with as many partners as necessary, to ensure your people's future? After all, it's my understanding that the Air Nomads did not practice marriage. Surely there are plenty of nonbender girls here in the United Republic, or in Ba Sing Se, who would be happy to help you fill the Air Temples with children."

Another journalist joined in, calling out to bring the waterbender into the discussion. "Katara, how can you justify monopolizing Avatar Aang this way? Isn't it selfish of you? What if you can't have enough children, or only waterbenders, or none at all?"

Katara gasped; her face had gone white and her body stiff. She clutched the necklace at her throat. This was surely part of her worst nightmare: that she would be seen as a jealous shrew standing in the way of the resurgence of the Air Nomads. If she failed to produce airbending children, not only would both their hearts break, but the whole world would condemn her. (Not him. Her.)

Keeping his eyes trained on the aggressive reporters, Aang reached behind him and took his fiancee's hand, both to steady her, and to make a point to his interlocutors.

"I'll answer this question once, and only once." His voice had some menace behind it, ensuring that everyone was aware that they were in the presence of the most powerful being on the planet. "Despite its insulting nature. You are aware, sir, that you're speaking about two human beings, not a pair of moo-sows?" The journalists' eyes widened, and they blanched visibly. "You would not dare to ask such a thing if you understood either me or my people. Katara is the partner I have chosen. The only woman I will ever love. The Air Nomads believed in following the dictates of one's heart in all matters of love. The idea that others would push their last surviving son to betray his own heart in a misguided scheme to bring back their civilization would have been abhorrent to them. Your suggestion is disrespectful to the memory of my murdered people, and I will not abide it. I trust that the world Katara and I worked together to save from tyranny will respect our privacy in this matter. This is a subject that concerns only me, as the last airbender, and as Avatar, and my partner, and we are in perfect agreement. Frankly, it is none of your business."

No other reporters had the guts to follow that speech with another inquiry, even a less personal one, so the question session ended there.

The couple ducked into a side room to recover privately from this interrogation before the dinner and dancing began. Katara fell into her fiance's arms. He held her tightly, understanding her desperate need for comfort. "Thank you," she murmured, breathing in the scent of his skin, letting it calm her. Now that the crisis had passed, she was embarrassed at allowing her fiance to defend her, instead of fighting her own battles. The reporters' questions had struck her deepest vulnerability, so that she froze, unable to be her usual outspoken self and answer the challenge with her own voice. When she was ready, she looked up at him, questioning. "Should we have told them that we do plan to have children? When we're ready, I mean?"

He shook his head. "That would have undermined my point, and increased scrutiny on us."

"But maybe it would help if everyone knows how badly I want to give you children, as many as I can." She fretted.

"No," he insisted. "That would be like agreeing that you owe it to me to churn out babies like some kind of airbender factory, and you don't."

Katara looked down, overcome by her gratitude and humbled by her past folly. "I'm embarrassed now that I'm the one who first made that suggestion to you, and that I held on to it for so long. You're right that it was disrespectful." She had felt some of the heat of his words directed toward her past self, and quailed.

"There was nothing wrong with your making me that offer once; you had no way of knowing how I'd react until you brought it up. I admit that at the time, I wished you'd taken my first 'no' for an answer and left it at that. But now it's just another part of our story, and I wouldn't change it a bit." He touched her cheek, making her smile with relief. "When you suggested it, you were motivated by reasonable anxiety and selfless pragmatism. But when a news reporter says the same thing, it's just scandalmongering, and shouldn't be tolerated. I think I understand now some of the trepidation you felt about taking on this responsibility. Though building a family is a private matter, it's also public knowledge, especially for us: our wedding will be a widely attended and publicized event, and when children come, or don't, everyone will know it. I'm afraid no matter how forcefully I put down these busybodies' questions, they'll continue to come up, probably for the rest of our lives. You deserve my thanks for being willing to take on this public pressure. I'm sorry it has to be part of the package." He took her hands in his and kissed them.

She'd thought she was already as enamored with him as she could possibly be, but she found herself melting a little more at his words. "You make it more than worth it. I really appreciate your standing up for me. For us."

"It's because of my position that people are even asking those kinds of questions of you. And I'm the one who insisted on marriage, so it's only fair that I defend my decision." Aang explained, his smile matter-of-fact.

"But I agreed because it's what I wanted all along, too." she assured him. "You've made my dreams come true."

"You did that for me first, sweetie." Their kiss was a short, soft, sweet promise. Then he offered her his arm. "Let's go eat." Heartened by their agreement, they returned to the celebration.

The Fire Lord and Lady came out to greet the Avatar and his companion, when the sky bison landed in the pavilion. After hugs all around, servants led Appa to a comfortable stable, and the four friends went into the family dining room, where a vegetarian feast was laid out for them. Zuko's friend and assistant Joshu joined them.

"I know you got my letter, but I'm glad to have a chance to congratulate you both in person." Zuko began. "Katara, did you know Aang wanted to propose when you two were in the middle of that big fight? Your brother and I had to talk him down. I said he should wait until he knew you'd say yes, and I guess he must have taken my advice."

"Well, actually, she still took some convincing," The Avatar shot a teasing grin at his fiancee.

"He's very persuasive." Katara blushed prettily and touched her knee to Aang's under the table. The airbender pulled his necklace out from under his shirt to show the other couple. Mai's smirk said, 'I told you so.'

"Will you be making it official soon?" Zuko wondered.

"Not for at least a couple of years. We want it to be on Air Temple Island, and we have to finish building the Air Temple first." Katara explained.

"Too bad we have to wait a while. You two make marriage seem pretty great." Aang grinned, observing the other couple's happiness.

"It is. What did you call it this morning, Zuko?" Mai purred, sipping her tea.

He blushed and gulped. "Perfect bliss."

Katara changed the subject to the current political atmosphere in the Fire Nation. "Have things quieted down around here since your wedding?"

"The New Ozai Society is in shambles, and they were the most organized fire supremacist group. Their coup attempt discredited their ideology among any more moderate people who might have had some leanings in that direction, or who still don't trust me as a leader." The Fire Lord told his guests, glad to address a less personal topic.

"Is that because they revealed how violent they were willing to be, or just because they failed?" Katara asked shrewdly.

Zuko shrugged. "Both?" It honestly didn't matter to him the reason hateful ideas were becoming unpopular in his country, he was just glad it was happening.

"It goes beyond that," Joshu informed them. "Some see their kidnapping of the dragon egg as downright blasphemous."

"It was." Aang affirmed.

"Public opinion is shifting for several reasons, not just my father and his idiot friends revealing themselves to be traitors who don't even respect the source of firebending. More importantly, thanks to the grand spectacle of our wedding, and the blessing from the Lion Turtle, Zuko himself is more popular than ever." Mai put in, her tone full of pride, and a hint of smugness.

"We're more popular, you mean." Her husband corrected her, putting his hand over hers with a warm smile, before turning back to his visitors. "Anyway, I'm hoping a good number of people here might be receptive to your message, Aang. I read the advance copy and it articulated a lot of the lessons I've learned from you. And Uncle, surprisingly."

They discussed the events already planned. After the gala in the palace, Aang and Katara would be traveling to the Jang Hui River, to continue the industrial clean up and allow the healer to check in on the hospital that had been set up there. The people there had endured the byproducts of war and would be sure to understand the book's message. From there, they would go to the school where Aang had briefly enrolled as a student, so that he could teach a sample lesson on a passage from The Book of Peace to the students there. Zuko's minister of education would attend and watch from the back of the classroom, to get ideas on incorporating the text into the national curriculum.

It was on their way back to the palace after their visit to the school, that Aang surprised Katara with a stop at a place that was familiar to her.

"Do you remember this spot, sweetie?" He asked, helping her down from Appa's back.

"Of course I do!" She exclaimed, delighted at the sight of the flowering trees and burbling waterfall. This hidden grove had been the scene of one of her favorite memories. More than two years ago, after their worst fight to that date, they had cemented their provisional agreement with kisses on bare skin, and felt the world affirm them. For months afterward, whenever worries about the future disturbed Katara's peace, she had recalled the hope and joy she had felt in Aang's arms under the pink shade of these trees.

Now, the stream and cherry trees welcomed their return, the issue that had troubled them on that day settled. The couple lay on the petal-strewn grass and consecrated the place again, their love both a promise and its fulfillment.

Chapter Text

The day after the last event on the book tour, a public lecture in Ba Sing Se, Aang and Katara flew to the mountain where the spirit portal was hidden. The White Lotus sentries were expecting them. The airbender left Appa in their care, with lots of detailed instructions. There was plenty of fruit and straw, and Momo stayed behind as well, to keep his much larger friend company. The couple worked together to take the saddle off the bison's back. They pulled their knapsacks out of the luggage and slung them over their shoulders.

"How do you feel? Are you nervous to face Mother Maggot again?" Aang wondered, before they mounted his glider to fly to the mountaintop.

Katara shook her head, placing her arm around his waist. "I'm fine. We beat her before. You're with me; I can't be afraid."

His insides turned to jelly at her confidence in him, and he kissed her with a contented sigh.

She pulled away before he was quite finished with the kiss, and grabbed her handle on the glider wing.

"Ready when you are," she told him.

The airbender took off straight up. They glided in wide circles around the mountain, passing through the clouds on their way to the peak. When they spotted the cave, they landed on the narrow ledge and greeted the White Lotus captain at his post. He recognized them instantly, of course, and let them pass with a bow.

The couple walked through the passage, and were surrounded by the brilliant colors of the spirit world. Aang didn't recognize the area; he hadn't been to this place in either of his previous trips.

"I have no idea where we are," he admitted.

"That's ok. I do." Katara smiled at him, glad to be able to help. "The last time I was here, the Painted Lady gave me a teapot that helped us track you. Since you're with me, I don't think that would work a second time. But I remember the route we took to get from here to the Avatar bridge. We took that path through those woods." She pointed toward a gap between the blue-bark trees.

"Do you think you could tell the way from the air?" Aang asked, opening his glider.

"Probably. We'd be able to see everything. It would certainly be quicker." She stepped close and his wind launched them into the air.

The uncanny beauty of the spirit world only increased when seen from its cerulean sky. The couple spotted herds of tiny meerkat prairie dogs on the move over the plain of purple grass, as well as a giant rock spirit making his slow way across a stream. It seemed that every spirit that could fly found them in the air to say hello. They joined a swarm of dragonfly bunnies, and did barrel rolls and loop-the-loops with a white dragon. It was so much fun they almost lost track of their route. Before twilight finished painting the horizon with its yellow-gold hues, they spotted the white bridge that disappeared into mist, and near it, a mound of ice and a lone figure in blue.

"Kuruk!" Aang called, and broke into a run as his feet hit the ground. He hugged the older man, who chuckled at his enthusiasm.

Katara lingered back a little.

"Oh! I guess I didn't get to introduce you two formally last time." Aang realized. "This is Katara, my fiancee."

Katara blushed. She was painfully aware that Kuruk knew what had happened between her and Aang to allow them to come here. But the older man didn't mention it; he only held out his hand and gripped her forearm in the traditional Water Tribe Warrior's greeting.

It was already late, so they camped for the night there. Kuruk told stories about what life was like in the Air Temples in his day, and in the South Pole, when there were just as many waterbenders there as in the North. They mostly ignored the pile of ice several yards away, but its prisoner was impossible to forget completely.

Seeing Kuruk so close, and spending time with him, was odd for Katara. Underneath his cynical humor, he had a grim, brittle attitude that aged him, made him seem as old as her father, though he wasn't, by a good decade. The tall warrior had everything Katara had been taught to find attractive in a man: bronzed skin, broad, beefy shoulders, curly, longish black hair in braids. But she found those traits no longer resonated with her at all. Instead, what appealed to her in the older man was the faint echo of the boy she loved: something in his crooked grin, the determination and competence in the set of his spine. It was like seeing what Aang might have been like if he'd been born in the Water Tribe, she decided. When she pinpointed that distinction, and named it in her own head, she gave herself permission to stare at the past Avatar a little more freely. It made her wish that Water Tribe clothing wasn't mostly leather, so she could dress her fiance like his previous incarnation. Then she looked back at her lover, his wiry, muscled arm revealed by his one-shoulder tunic, and dismissed the thought.

After a lull following the end of a story, Katara asked a question that she had been wondering about for quite some time: "Is it only Avatars who come here after they die?"

Both of the others knew exactly why she was asking.

"No," Kuruk said. "But it's not some realm of the dead either. Some humans end up in this place when their lives are over, but not all, not by a long shot, and nobody knows why some do and others don't. Of my companions, only Kelsang is here."

"Is there another, separate afterlife for people who don't share their body with an immortal spirit?" Aang followed up, taking his fiancee's hand.

"Perhaps. No one knows." Kuruk replied. "Maybe they're here, or in the human world, in forms we don't recognize. There are some humans in the Fog of Lost Souls, but you certainly don't want to go there. And a few, very spiritual people kind of ascend body and soul. They just show up on this side of the portal, without dying at all."

"What about the other Avatars? Did they get reunited with their partners here in the spirit world?" Aang pressed.

"A few of them. That's why I keep hunting Koh. I still believe I can save Ummi from him, and we can be together." He looked down at his clenched fist. "I couldn't….endure….if I didn't believe that."

"I'm sure you'll succeed." Aang answered, leaving the qualifiers unspoken: Eventually. Someday. There was something so primal about the warrior's quest, that it seemed destined to go on until the end of time. As if he were an archetype, a myth, instead of a person.

Nevertheless, Kuruk nodded, grateful for the younger man's confidence in him. "Well, you two probably want to turn in."

The three bustled about for a few minutes, making preparations for sleep. They put out the fire, washed up, and checked on Mother Maggot's ice prison. Finally, Aang bent an earth tent for himself and his lover, while Kuruk lay outside under the aurora.

They made love quietly, expeditiously, listening to the loud but soothing symphony of the evening spirits. Though it felt a little insensitive, so near the lonely man who had helped them, Aang knew his previous self didn't begrudge them their happiness. After they had given each other their night's pleasure, Katara lay her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

"I'll wait for you," he murmured into her hair.

His betrothed knew instantly what he meant, and it filled her with comfort and longing. "I know you will," she lifted her face and touched her forehead to his. "I just wish I could promise you that I'll be able to follow you."

"I know. There's no guarantee. But—"

"Just knowing it's possible, that's enough." She finished for him.

"Any form your spirit takes, I'll recognize you." He told her in a fervent whisper.

"And you. I'm sure I won't have any trouble identifying your successor. Even if I hadn't had that vision, I'd know you anywhere." Her palm flattened on his chest, where she imagined his everlasting spirit to reside. After one more kiss, she gave a contented sigh and fell asleep in his arms.

In the morning, Aang emerged from the earth tent he shared with Katara, stretching his spine backward with a grin.

"What's it like?" Kuruk sat sullen, on the stump where he'd kept watch. Aang knew instantly what he was talking about. He came close and sat down near his former self.

"It's a sacrament. Perfect wholeness. Finally becoming complete." He answered softly.

"I figured," The grizzled warrior blinked and sniffed. "I packed a lot of living in my 33 years, but never that. Ummi wanted to wait until our wedding, but Koh got to her first."

"What's sex like without love?" Aang wondered.

Kuruk shrugged dismissively. "Like scratching an itch. A naked hug with a full-body sneeze."

"That doesn't sound so bad. It is a physical need."

"It's not like shitting." The older man scoffed. "It is possible to simply keep your pants on."

"That's true, but if you're not committed, and the other person is happy to share their bed with you, there's nothing wrong with it." The Air Nomad argued.

"Yeah. I didn't tie myself up in moral knots about it, or anything. I just wish I could have had more, you know? It's one of my biggest regrets."

Aang squinted in confusion. "I honestly don't understand how you can do that with somebody and not fall in love in the process. Even if you don't love your partner when you get started, don't you love them by the time you're finished?"

"You don't let yourself. You hold back." Kuruk answered gruffly.

"You didn't feel anything for any of them?" Aang asked incredulously.

"Interest. Gratitude. Sometimes affection." He allowed. "With the few I saw more than once, we established a matter-of-fact kind of rapport based on a mutual goal of getting off. Not much more than that. They flattered my ego. And to a lot of them I was just a prize."

"Oh. That's sad…." Aang realized the shallowness of the encounters his previous self was describing would have been soul-destroying for him.

Kuruk was going on. "Sometimes, when sex is really bad, it's like, you know, the same as your hand, except it's a person. Or that's what it's like on their end, and you can tell. That's damn lonely."

"I'm sure it is. I don't judge you or anyone for sleeping around, but I know I never could. I'm in love with Katara, and that makes casual connections impossible for me." The airbender confided. "She was worried about whether she'll be able to have children, and was willing to 'share' me, but she finally gave up that dumb idea when she accepted my proposal."

"Wow." Kuruk blinked, taken aback. "Water Tribe courtship and marriage customs emphasize a couple's exclusivity. And a certain amount of jealousy is natural for anyone, man or woman. For her to offer to give that up, to repress that feeling….."

"It was a sign of her love, just like my refusal was a sign of mine. The only way I'm having any children is if Katara is the mother."

"Fatherhood is another thing I never got to experience. I'm sure you're looking forward to it."

"It's going to be so much fun to have a little kid to play with!" Aang enthused, then blushed and looked down. "I mean, we're still really young, and we can't get married until the new Air Temple is finished anyway….

"Well, you do need to have at least one kid." Kuruk pointed out practically. "Otherwise, how's the next one of us going to learn airbending? Obviously you won't be around to teach him."

"Her," Aang corrected softly. The older man cocked his head with a quizzical look, and his current incarnation explained. "Katara had a vision of the Avatar after me. It will be a girl." When he imagined his next self, he couldn't help giving her a face like that of his fiancee, or like the daughter he dreamed of having someday, and that made him already feel incredibly tender and protective toward her.

Kuruk shrugged. "About time, I guess."

"I want to leave things better for her, if I can." Aang's eyes were earnest. "I don't want her to have to end a world war at age 12."

"I sure left a mess behind for Kyoshi, but you got dealt an even shittier hand."

"The world was, not just me." Aang shook his head. Though his trial had been intense, it had also set the stage for his current happiness, so he could not regret it. "At least I had friends to help me through it."

"And you let them. That's just as important."

"What happened with your first love? Hei-Ran, was it?" Aang wondered.

Kuruk sighed. "In a moment of vulnerability, I was just desperate for some kind of anchor, so I grabbed the first person that was there, and it wasn't her. She wrote me off after that. She was friendly, but not open to me the way she had been. We never even kissed again. The really sad thing is that I didn't even know I loved her until after I lost her. I realized much later that my real mistake was going off alone without my friends, trying to be the big hero all by myself. I thought I was saving them-"

"But they didn't want to be saved?" Aang guessed.

"Sure didn't." The grizzled warrior shook his head ruefully. "If they'd all been with me, I wouldn't have been hurt so bad, and Hei-Ran would have been there when I needed someone. Just a kiss from her would have been so much more satisfying than sex with a random waitress."

"That's understandable. I made a similar mistake when I came here the first time on my own. It almost cost me Katara."

"Really?" Kuruk's face was screwed up in disbelief. "That girl adores you."

Aang blushed and looked down. "She had a really hard time with my disappearance. And I'd promised never to leave her like that. So she dumped me."

"Huh." Kuruk made an impressed face. "She's got a spine, then, and a mind of her own. An interesting combination of my two favorite girls, Hei-Ran and Ummi. Fiery temper, warrior's skills, the moon's loveliness, and the sweet soul of the ocean. I think you know how lucky you are?"

"Sure do!"

"Seems like you two are fine now. You're engaged."

"Yep." Aang grinned, and pulled out her father's necklace to show him.

The older man praised the workmanship of the shell pendant. "It does me good to see the two of you together. There's a part of me with you, happy in love. I'm glad I got to meet Katara."

Just then the girl came out of the tent as well. Kuruk handed her a roll for breakfast, and she sat down beside her fiance.

"I was thinking I'd go along as far as the North portal, then let the two of you take her over to the other side." Kuruk suggested. "I can't cross over, but you can."

"We really appreciate your help, Kuruk." Katara told him with a light touch on his arm. "The time you let us have was….really important."

"Seems like it was. You two had a lot to work through."

Katara glanced at Aang, and he explained. "I was just telling Kuruk about everything we learned since the first time we were here. How much we've grown." She returned his smile.

The three finished eating and began to pack up. Aang flattened the earth tent to the grassy ground, and Kuruk did the same to the campfire, while Katara put their blankets back in her knapsack.

Before they left the clearing with the Avatar Bridge, a question occurred to Aang. "What would happen if Katara and I went over the bridge together? It couldn't take me back to her if she's with me."

Kururk shrugged. "I never got to figure out the finer points of how the thing works. If you two share a home already, my best guess is it would take you back there."

"That would be convenient…." Aang began.

"If we hadn't left Appa behind on the other side of the continent." Katara finished, reading his mind. "You can always meditate in, can't you?"

"That's true. Good thing, because the mountain portal and the polar portals aren't exactly close to Republic City."

"Republic City?" Kuruk asked.

"That's the new name for Cranefish Town. It would have been just a fishing village in your day. It's near where the Air Nomads used to celebrate Yanchen's Festival." Aang explained enthusiastically. The three worked together, using their bending to lift the ice pillar that imprisoned their enemy. As they carried it over the hills and through the rainbow-leaved woods, Aang and his fiance told the older man how they had helped to found a new fifth nation, the United Republic, and filled him in on the history he'd missed: the Fire Nation's imperialism, the war, the peace, as well as their own decision to settle in the new capital.

Their trek to the Tree of Time took the whole day. Finally they came to a barren, circular clearing, a place devoid of the spirit world's usual riot of color and life. In its center stood a gnarled, bare tree that pulsed with menace. When Aang looked directly at it, his head ached.

"What is that?" he asked, repulsed.

"Vatu. Raava's opposite and nemesis. Stay away." Kuruk said shortly. Katara noticed he had maneuvered his grip on the ice so that he could turn his back to the tree.

"Raava?" Aang asked. The name felt familiar, though he didn't remember hearing it before.

"The Avatar spirit. No one ever told you her name?" The warrior looked astonished at such a gaping hole in the younger man's education.

"No. My….training got cut short. I'm glad to know it." It felt right to Aang to have something he could call that part of himself. He had wished Raava away, considered her a burden, even a curse, but now her presence gave him a sense of peace. She had helped him through all his trials, and though he had feared that she would demand he abandon his principles, the opposite had happened: she had lent him the strength to stick to them. Raava. Thank you, he prayed to himself, and a warmth in his chest told him she'd heard.

Kuruk, who had been leading the way, directed the other two to set down Mother Maggot. For a moment they all regarded their prisoner, her red mouth frozen wide open in a wail of fury. She no longer looked fearsome, but pathetic and ridiculous.

"That's the North Pole portal. And this is as far as I can go with you," Kuruk said, preparing to say goodbye.

"I think I want to talk to her," Aang blurted out, surprising the other two.

"Is that a good idea?" Katara asked tentatively.

"With the three of us here, she won't be able to do much." Kuruk assured her. "If we leave her bottom half stuck in the ice, and keep our distance, we'd be safe."

"But she's…manipulative." Katara reminded them, uneasy. "We can't trust anything she says."

"And we know that. We're prepared for it." Aang answered. "But I just don't feel right leaving her imprisoned forever without making sure it's necessary. What if she's repentant?"

"That seems unlikely, but I'm willing to stick around for backup while you follow your conscience." Kuruk crossed his arms.

Aang looked to Katara, and she nodded, trusting him.

The Avatar raised the temperature of the ice around Mother Maggot's head, so that water fell to the ground in a sheet. Katara controlled it so that it didn't splash them, and kept hold of it, ready to cover the spirit's head and trap her at the first sign of danger.

"Um, how are you doing?" Aang asked, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.

"My babies are gone!" wailed the distraught spirit. She was obviously still upset over her humiliating defeat and freezing confinement. That made sense: for her it had happened only minutes ago. She tried to wriggle her body at the place where the ice trapped her lower half. "And I'm so cold and stiff!"

"I was frozen a hundred years, and I was fine." Aang replied. "It doesn't hurt. You don't even feel the time going by. In a way, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. When I finally thawed, it turned out I was in exactly the time and place I needed to be."

The trapped spirit noticed the Avatar and the girl looking at each other with loving eyes, and it enraged her. "You killed my mate!" She sobbed.

Kuruk interrupted her blubbering. "That wasn't Kyoshi's fault at all. Her teacher, my corrupted old companion Jianzhou, brought her and her friend Yun, who had been misidentified as the Avatar because he was good at pai sho, to Father Glowworm. Jianzhao was going to let the spirit eat the boy as reward for identifying the true Avatar, but he fought back. Kyoshi wasn't even there when Yun triumphed. And when my successor encountered her old friend in the end, he gave her no choice but to end his reign of terror."

"And my mate with him!" shrieked Mother Maggot.

"I'm sure you had some good times together, and it's hard for you that he's gone, but you can't continue to cause misery for others just because you want revenge." Aang rebuked her. "Yun is the one who killed Father Glowworm in self-defense, and he paid the price for that centuries ago."

The spirit continued blubbering incoherently, not really accepting the truth she'd been told.

"You're afraid that if you stop this quest for revenge, you'll have to just be sad." Aang intuited. "You have lost a lot. That grief can be hard to withstand. You'd do anything to escape it."

The giant lip quivered, "I'm all alone….."

"You don't have to be alone forever." Aang promised. "Just until you can handle being free without hurting anyone."

Suddenly, Katara surprised them all by speaking up. "I would like to thank you, Mother Maggot," she said boldly to the crying spirit.

"I never did anything for you," The worm was startled out of her weeping fit.

"When you took Aang, I suffered terrible panic attacks and anxiety. Worse, I blamed him for the choice you forced on him," she explained. "Now I realize if I had never lost him, I wouldn't have understood what it means to accept love. Because of the lesson you taught me, I was finally able to say yes to his proposal. It's thanks to you that we're engaged now, and so incredibly happy. I forgive you."

Her fiance grinned at her, his chest swollen with pride and love. Their vanquished foe stared, dumbfounded, at the girl.

"I also wondered," Katara continued. "Did one of your children bite me? When you had Aang trapped here in the spirit world?" It was a question that had bothered her for several weeks now. If she had been poisoned by that creeping gloom, like so many others, then she would find it easier to forgive herself for the way she'd acted during that time.

"How should I know?" The worm spat. Being reminded of her lost children broke the spell of understanding that the waterbender's forgiveness had cast. Her ire returned, more wicked than ever, and she viciously turned it on her interlocutor. "I love my children, but I don't track them. They're independent. But if they got to you, it was your own fault. If they tortured you, you deserved it."

Katara gasped, wounded by the cruel words. She dropped the water she had been holding ready, as her hand flew to her throat.

"That's not true." Kuruk objected. "I've seen blameless little kids full of light and happiness, destroyed from the inside out by your crawling darkness. And even if someone does have a vulnerability, an easy way for those creatures to crawl inside, that's still no excuse for your nasty things to poison them."

"I think we've heard enough," Katara put in, her voice shaky.

Aang took her hand before turning back to his prisoner. "I hope the next time I come to check on you, you'll feel better. When you're ready to live in peace with both spirits and humans, I'll release you." He took the water from the ground and covered Mother Maggot's head with it, drowning out her cries of protest. All three breathed a deep sigh of relief at the silence that remained.

The airbender recalled a long conversation he'd had with detectives about the attribution of responsibility. He turned to his companions and remarked thoughtfully, "The courts in the other world are still trying to figure out how to handle the people who committed crimes while I was stuck here and those things were running amok."

Kuruk shook his head. "People are always responsible for their actions, regardless of the lies that might have influenced them."

"But that influence is not their fault," Aang protested.

"All the more reason for mercy. Justice requires accountability, not retribution." The past Avatar ruled.

Aang relaxed. "You've read The Book of Peace, haven't you?"

"One of my old teachers was a friend of Yangchen's, and made sure I knew her favorite book backwards and forwards." Kuruk grinned, adjusting his helmet. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some hunting to do."

"I'm glad we got to talk, Kuruk. Thanks for your help." Aang gave him a warm hug, and Katara surprised the older man by hugging him as well, even placing a quick kiss on his cheek. Then the hunter walked away, his stealthy form disappearing into the distance.

"Are you ok?" Aang asked. He'd known that talking to Mother Maggot could upset Katara; he'd only decided to try because recently she had seemed strong enough to handle it, and she'd proven him right.

"I'm fine. Really." She gave him a brisk smile and a squeeze of the hand that let him know she wasn't just saying that. "I guess I'll never know if those things influenced me or not, but either way, I feel more at peace with what happened now. During the worst part of our breakup, there was a time when I would have agreed with her: by hurting you, I had ruined myself and deserved to be miserable forever. But just now, when she said that, I knew it was wrong. I can take responsibility for what I did, without feeling ashamed of who I am."

Gratified with her growth, he kissed her cheek. "I'm so proud of you, sweetie."

"I had a good teacher." She returned his smile and turned toward their task. "Let's finish this."

Aang put out his hand and opened the portal, then he and Katara worked together to lift the ice enclosing the disturbed spirit. Aang led the way through, one hand holding Katara's, and the other on the frozen pillar. They emerged from the water of Tui and La's pool, in the middle of the warm, peaceful garden. Since the portal was open, bright light shone straight up from the pool into the sky. The two paused to say a prayer of thanks to Yue and the other spirits, then put on their thick jackets, readying themselves for their trek into the windblown tundra. They carried Mother Maggot a mile into the icy wasteland, where her ice would stay frozen indefinitely. There the Avatar and his partner deposited the spirit, and turned to each other, their task accomplished.

"What now?" Katara asked.

"Appa's back at the foot of that mountain in the southern Earth Kingdom." Her fiance reminded her. "I think the shortest way back to him is through the spirit world."

"I'm glad you said that. I didn't really want to fly over this tundra on your glider!" She shivered.

"Maybe we could do a little sightseeing on our way back." He proposed with a smile. "Jump on some giant toadstools…."

"Have a picnic by a waving waterfall," Katara added enthusiastically.

"Sled down that petal-covered mountain! I think those spirit seals would be about as cooperative as the otter-penguins in the south." Aang suggested eagerly.

"We could make love inside one of those enormous flowers," the waterbender whispered, her hands on his hips drawing him a little closer.

Grinning at her with adoration and a hint of lasciviousness, Aang took her invitation and kissed her. Too eager to begin their vacation to linger in the frozen wastes or the spirit oasis, he led her back to the shining portal.

The Avatar and his lover faced each other at the place where the two worlds met, and joined hands. Then the light overtook them.