Sunday 2nd(HA!) - Stress Relief

He was just in his pants, tied off at the knees, and she was in slacks and her undershirt. Not quite appropriate for sparring, but Aang can't be bothered to care and Katara hadn't been bothered enough to change.

In Aang's defence, Katara had rdragged him out of bed and had him down the streets of Republic City before he was fully awake, and even now as they walked through the doors of some training centre he was blinking, following dutifully as Katara tugs him along by his hand. The sun had not even shown signs of rising, and Aang points this out to Katara and says that he wants to be like the sun, but Katara just rolls her eyes and bounces into the waterbending section. Aang stumbles in after her.

The section they were in was nice, with windows facing the harbour and drains circling the room, flowing with water. Katara whirls to face him as he nears the centre of the floor. 'Waterbending only,' she whispers. 'None of your fancy Avatar tricks here. Just have fun, okay?'

'Okay,' Aang whispers back, and doesn't expect Katara to launch into action straight away.

She keeps Aang on his toes, and quickly he fully wakes up. The sun has now barely cleared the horizon, and Aang can barely make out Katara in the dim light. She moves too quick, slinks in and out of the shadows too fast for him to keep track of. He could easily use earthbending to sense where she was, what she was about to do, but that would be cheating, and he doesn't want to face the consequences – she'll probably have him eat sea prunes for a week.

Besides, he had kind of hit a mental wall with earthbending at the moment. Water, though, has always been fair to him, and he bends it to his will with ease, lashing out and parrying and striking Katara's ever moving shadow without even having to think about what he's doing. But there's something wrong with the way he's moving, he can feel it. It's not the water; the water's doing what he's telling it to do… but it's like he's a beat too slow, too far off balance. For the past few days he's been like this. Like there's rope around his chest, pulling tighter and tighter with every breath he takes.

He can't figure out why he's like this, and in his frustration he lets Katara slip around behind him, and far too late does he gather himself up to defend himself, and the next thing he knows is that he's on his back on the opposite side of the room, coughing up water.

Katara's still standing from where she struck him, still holding water by her hip like she expects Aang to haul himself up and keep going. He doesn't haul himself up; he's exhausted already. It was barely even day but all he wants to do is go back to bed and curl into a ball.

He coughs again, and pushes himself into a sitting position. 'I'm done,' he calls, even though they've barely been going for fifteen minutes. He hears the edge in his voice and grits his teeth against it. Katara relaxes her stance, returning the water back into the drains. Her head's tilted and she's looking at him a little too carefully, so he looks away. The tattoos on his hands look almost grey in this light.

'Aang,' Katara says, and he hears her coming towards him. 'Hey. What's wrong?'

He glances at her again, opening his mouth to say Roku-knows-what – most likely a half-assed joke of some kind – but it's at that moment the sun finally breaks the horizon.

With his back to the windows, the light completely misses him and hits Katara instead, and the light paints her hair aflame, golden red and shimmering. Water droplets still glisten on her skin, and the shadows are dragged away from her face. He meets her stare, and has to swallow before he can answer her.

'I'm fine,' he manages, and the funny thing is, he does feel a bit lighter, more grounded.

Katara smiles at him then, and any air he had in his lungs deserts him.

She steps forward and pulls him to his feet, chuckling. 'I power slapped you good, huh? Haven't even caught your breath yet.'

He coughs again and gives a smile. 'Yeah, well,' is all that he can think to say, and reaches to ruffle her damp hair, wanting to see the blue against the red. 'I suppose I am getting old.' She slaps his hand away playfully and he grins, and feels something inside of him settle, and just like that, all tension drains away, and he breathes a little easier.

A/N: So, after a year, I have successfully completed Kataang Week! Thanks to those who stuck with me and read these – you're the best!

In a couple of weeks, make sure you tune in for 2016 KW! I'll try to keep up this time, heh…