"Sorry, Hawky," Sokka told the bird on his arm, "looks like I'm gonna have to do this without your help."

He walked over to join Toph where she was still pouting, "Come on. We need to talk."

Aang watched them make their way over towards an overhang over the nearby lake. Aang suspected the gist of what Sokka was going to say to her, and that he would probably manage to get Toph to understand where Katara was coming from, but...he thought there was a better chance of them all getting along again if it worked both ways. During Katara's and Toph's recent fights, there had been moments Aang had wanted to step in and tell Katara that what she was saying was just making things worse. But the possibility of redirecting Katara's wrath at himself would have been scary enough even if he wasn't pathetically in love with her.

But he knew Toph was way too stubborn and….undiplomatic to defend herself with anything but the usual insults. Katara had someone in her corner, and despite all the bruised muscles and bruised pride Toph had given him, she deserved that much.

Steeling himself (and telling Momo to remember him well if he didn't survive this), Aang stood up and started walking the opposite direction Sokka and Toph had gone, taking the long way down to the water's edge. It was time to face the music.

Besides, he would need to know how to have frank conversations with Katara for their lifelong marriage he had planned out.

Katara had put on her underclothes and was wringing out her hair on the shores of the small lake when she heard a small, intentional cough behind her. She nearly jumped out of her skin as she whirled around and saw Aang standing a few yards uphill from the edge of the water. She still hadn't gotten used to how light on his feet he was, even when he wasn't trying to be sneaky at all.

Wait, did he see me before I got dressed? She thought with a shock, no, he'd never do that.

After her exhausting exchange with Toph, she was relieved to see her sweet, uncomplicated friend.

He was wearing an expression that was kind, but resolute, "Hey. Do you mind if we practice forms?"

She saw straight through the pretense and her relief turned back to annoyance, "Look Aang, I'm really not interested in a lecture right now. Toph—"

"I just want to practice forms," he said with his palms raised in a defensive truce, "honest."

Katara pursed her lips and sighed, "Alright, but no talking."

"Whatever you say, Sifu," said Aang.

Aang removed most of his own clothes and they both waded back into the shallows. They started moving their hands and shifting their body weight in unison to pass a stream of water back and forth between them in an elliptical path. It was literally the most simple exercise they could do, but they both knew without saying it out loud that they needed to relax and center themselves more than improve their fighting.

After a few minutes in silence, Katara was feeling a bit more comfortable "What was Sokka up to when you left him?" she asked with a smile, "We shouldn't leave him unsupervised for too long, or he'll come back with more and more dangerous animals."

"He followed Toph to try to talk to her," Aang said bluntly.

Katara's small smile vanished as she realized what she walked right into, turning into a bitter frown, "Oh. Well I guess they need to go laugh and bond over how much I annoy and mother them both."

"Maybe, but I think Sokka was going to explain to her that you get your maternal instincts from when you stepped up after you lost your mother, and while Sokka acts like it annoys him he actually depends on it."

Katara was almost so shocked she almost broke her bending form and let the incoming ball of water hit her in the face. She reacted in time and split the ball into two thin streams that they started sending back and forth in a figure eight.

She managed to get angry despite the zen exercise, "Was he talking to you too? Is he just dissecting me to anyone who will listen?"

"No," said Aang, "He didn't tell me anything, but anyone can see that Sokka relies on you to be responsible. I mean, clearly, just look at what happens when you leave him alone for a few hours."

This made her smile despite herself.

"And I've known you for a while now, Katara," continued Aang, "I know that you get this way when someone you care about is in trouble. That's why I can't help but feel responsible for what's going on with you and Toph."

Katara gave him a confused look, "You, responsible for this mess? Aang, that's ridi-"

"This need of yours to be protective?" Aang interrupted, "What Toph refers to as being 'motherly?' You've been doing it more ever since I came back from the dead. It's obvious you were pretty shaken up, because I had to go and get myself zapped and put the fate of the world in jeopardy."

Katara knew he was downplaying the ordeal for her benefit, but she still felt a bit insulted, "Aang, you know darn well that I was a lot more than 'shaken up,' I was devastated. And it wasn't because we almost lost the Avatar and the fate of the world and all that, it's because I almost lost my friend Aang."

Aang's cheeks started burning so he tried to ignore that before he lost his nerve and just started telling her how amazing she was, "And even before Ba Sing Se, you really had to step up to take care of me while Appa was gone. If it wasn't for me, Toph would have spent more time with another side of you and see you absolutely can have fun. But she never saw you go penguin sledding, or slide down the chutes of Omashu, or steal from pirates, or sing with troubadours."

They both turned red and averted their eyes like they always did whenever the ordeal of that cave threatened to pop up.

"I mean," Katara began again keeping her eyes on the water, "to be fair, those times might be the exception rather than the rule. I was always bossing Sokka around before we found you." She met his eyes again, "You were the one who had to remind me that I'm a kid and teach me how to act like one."

She focused back on the water and her voice became little more than a murmur, as if she was talking to herself as much as him, "maybe that's why Toph gets under my skin so much. After I lost my mom, I was constantly judging myself on whether I was being mature enough. Strong enough. Responsible enough. I was so certain that if I acted like a kid, if I allowed myself to play, or cry, or throw a tantrum then everything would fall apart. You reminded me of the aspect of being a kid that I had been missing, but maybe Toph reminds me of the aspect that I'm scared of. Running around, playing pranks, not worrying about responsibilities…."

She pulled herself out of the hole she was falling down and looked back up at Aang with a half-hearted smile, "as usual, things would be better off if more people were like you."

Aang's expression was serious, "Toph is like me, Katara, that's why I'm trying to get the two of you on the same page."

That was certainly a comparison that Katara never thought she'd hear. She couldn't help but laugh, "Really, Aang? Yeah, I can see why you have so much in common with the angry and violent career criminal Runaway from the richest family in the Earth Kingdom."

Aang silently kept his eyes on the water for a few seconds before saying, "Katara….in case you've forgotten….I'm a Runaway too."

Katara was so shocked and furious at herself that her concentration shattered and the water forms they were bending splashed down into the lake's surface. She had forgotten.

"Oh my goodness, Aang, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"

"Don't worry about it, Katara. I'm just saying Toph and I have a lot in common, and it's not as straightforward as you think."

"I wouldn't think that flying around the world on a bison has a lot in common with being guarded in a mansion."

Aang sighed thoughtfully and began wading through the water to close the distance between them, "For most Air Nomad kids, yeah, but after they told me I was the Avatar, every hour of my day was planned out. I was training in bending, learning history, learning strategy and philosophy, meditating. I started to feel like I was a weapon instead of a person. The only person who didn't change how they treated me was Gyatso, and they eventually decided to take me away from him and move me to another temple, and….well…."

His voice trailed off as he caught up to the part of the story she already knew. Katara started nervously fiddling with some reeds in the water.

"You know, I never wanted to say anything since I knew it was painful for you, but I have wondered, if you were so scared of being separated from Gyatso, why did you—"

"Run away from Gyatso?" he finished for her, "Seems to kind of the defeat the purpose, right?" There was no bitterness in his voice, but Katara flinched a bit anyway.

Aang gave an exhausted-looking shrug, "I know it doesn't make sense. Heck, I knew that it didn't make sense even as I was doing it. I don't even think I had an actual goal apart from just escape. I felt like walls were closing in. I knew that after they moved me to the Eastern Temple, I'd never be able to leave. So I guess I thought I was salvaging what little freedom I could, even though what I actually wanted was to just go back to the way things were. I didn't want to run away from Gyatso and my friends, just like Toph didn't want to cut her parents out of her life, she was simply suffocating and needed air."

Katara felt a pang of guilt for how she had acted with Toph, before then getting angry again when she remembered what she had actually been upset with Toph about in the first place.

"Okay, I get that. I have my own complicated feelings toward my dad. But what does this have to do with her becoming so obsessed with these reckless scams? We don't need any more money, she's being selfish by putting all of us at risk for no other reason than some cheap thrills!"

Aang was silent for several seconds as he thoughtfully looked at his reflection in the water, "Do you remember after you rescued me from Zuko's ship, and we decided to head to the North Pole? I've just learned that the world has been at war and no one has seen an airbender for a hundred years, and the first thing I do is whip out a map and point to all the places I wanted to travel to. Fate of the world in the balance, and I just wanted to show you the hopping llamas, and take you to surf on the giant koi fish, and show you how to ride the hogmonkeys, and just goof off at every spot I remembered."

Katara was surprised by guilt in his voice, "You had just been through a lot, Aang, don't be so hard on yourself. I thought it was cute."

Somehow, that comment didn't throw Aang off topic, "I think…..it's like I was trying to justify running away to myself, by doing what I'd never be able to do if I stayed. It's like you said to Toph, she feels guilty, but it's more than that. Now, she not only resents them for locking her up, but also for making her feel guilty. They were wrong when they were so controlling of her, it's their fault that she couldn't stay, so why is she feeling so bad? That's not fair. So she gets even more angry at them, but that makes her feel more guilty, and it just goes around in circles. She's throwing herself into being the most parent-less a kid could possibly be to constantly remind herself why she left in the first place, so the guilt doesn't catch up with her."

Katara wasn't sure how much of this was an accurate assessment of Toph or Aang assessing himself, but she still was starting to see the past few days differently.

Without saying it out loud, they both agreed they were clearly done with the pretense of training. They made their way back onto the grassy shore of the lake and sat down next to each other. Katara wrapped her arms around her knees and frowned, "I guess I just made things worse by trying to tackle all this stuff so directly with her."

"Maybe," Aang admitted, "You know, for all the talk she gave me about facing things head on, she really can't take her own advice sometimes."

He looked her in her eyes again as he tried to wrap this all up.

"Ever since we met you've been unbelievably patient with me, Katara. You've always let me work through things at my own pace, just waiting for me at the finish line. Maybe try something like that with her, try to engage with her on her own terms for a bit."

"Maybe I'm just patient with you because you're my favorite," she said, lightly nudging him in the arm, "but yeah…..I guess it wouldn't be so bad to speak the language of the juvenile delinquent for once," she said, already forming a plan.

"Great," said Aang, letting out a breath and relaxing for the first time in several minutes.

Feeling a bit bolder after he successfully navigated this minefield with no arguing, he leaned over sideways and whispered out of the corner of his mouth into her ear, "And for the record, she's right. You do mother the rest of us."

She laughed and ruffled her hand through his growing hair (she really did like his hair) and gave him a light shove. The comment didn't really bother her anymore.

"I know," she said, and leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek, which still always managed to turn his face a bright pink, "It's how I know affection."

In case you couldn't tell by now, I strongly identify with Garth Marenghi, "I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards."

Two things I wanted to accomplish here:

1) Try to make sense of Aang's backstory, where he becomes so scared by the idea of them taking him away from Gyatso that he...runs away from Gyatso. I've been trying to actually articulate what his goal was for 15 years.

2) Give Aang a reason to exist in "The Runaway." Because seriously, he's given NOTHING to do in this episode.