I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, 'favorited', followed or just read this story. It was a certain joy to write and i'm happy you read my little speculation fic, and so...

By the time the sun reached its highest point in the sky, streaking its dark orange ribbons across the sky, Nutha and Niyok were sitting alone, front and center at the café.

Niyok prattled on about random things as she usually did when she was nervous, and she knew her sister, with her hands crossed in front of her mouth, had heard her but was not listening. Her mind was set on one particular person and when a strange shadow passed overhead only Niyok looked up in surprise.

The Avatar and Katara gently landed a few steps away from them. A small dust gathering while he helped her from the top of the blue winged glider. It was yet another thing that had changed about Katara; she would have never braved such a precarious height when they were younger.

Nutha placed her hands firmly on the table to stand, but Niyok noticed the slight hesitation, the sudden stiffness in her shoulders.

"Nice entrance you two. I like your glider Avatar Aang." Niyok politely took the lead, to which the couple seemed relieved for and smiled at her.

"Thank you, it was a gift," Aang replied with a shy scratch to the back of his head, "and just 'Aang' is fine. Any friends of Katara are friends of mine. "

"Well then Aang, as our friend, don't you think you'll eventually feel corrupted?"

Nutha was now ready, fists balancing on the table. She and Katara stared each other down while Aang traded a surprised, confused look with her younger sister.

"What are you talking about?" Aang asked.

"It was a gift from Katara, right?"

He nodded.

"Soon after you took her and Sokka away, and Niyok and I ventured out on our own, I wanted to know more about Air Nomads… those gliders are important for airbenders aren't they? You make them yourselves, with your own hands and fit the wings perfectly on them to better fit you. But now, it's tapered with designs fitting Water Tribe craftsmen… the Fire Nation destroyed your entire people—"

"Nutha!" Katara scolded her.

"Don't you want to hold any traditions you can to yourself and those non-bending Acolytes who choose to follow your ways?"

"Nutha, cut it out now." Niyok warned harshly, but Nutha paid no heed.

"Obviously given your situation you can't not be with someone; you're the last of your people, so I can't call you a selfish monk. But don't you care enough about your people to take a non-bender back with you and let Katara and Sokka live in the Water Tribe where they belong?"

"Then… it would be just the same to you if, instead of Katara, I chose to spend my life with a non-bender?"

Nutha nodded.

"Are non-benders not a part of your tribe? You, your sister, and Sokka are from the same village. Are you saying because you're not benders, you're not really Water Tribe members?"

"W-Wha-! No. No, you're twisting my—"

"The Air Acolytes aren't originally my people… The people I grew up have been gone for a long time. But I believe their love is reborn in everyone who wants to learn about them: the Acolytes, Katara, even you."

"I'm saying the only way you won't both be hurt in the end is to separate!"

Before Aang could say anymore, Katara wound her arm around his and said something Aang told her a long time ago.

" 'The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same'."

Nutha furrowed her eyebrows in irritation; her body had become hunched over and her teeth were beginning to ache with how hard she'd clenched them. Katara saw her chance: with Aang speaking so rationally Nutha's temper was bound to flare and Katara had always been better with other peoples tempers.

"You spout out wisdom now, but do you think I'm the only one who thinks like this?"

"I know you're not." Katara felt Aang's fingers lace through hers, "Even Aang thought like that… and it was Fire Lord Zuko that reminded Aang to change his way of thinking."

"You would take advice from a man currently ruling the Nation that destroyed yours?" Nutha asked him, unbelieving.

"Zuko had nothing to do with what happened and I never held him accountable for it."

"And that's why I say you'll corrupt each other! You're way of thinking…" Nutha stared Katara down, "Do you know what Katara would've done?"

Katara returned her stare with an inner sadness. She hadn't come thinking they would change Nutha's way of thinking, but for her to say something like that… was there really nothing of the little girl she remembered left inside? Nothing she could appeal toward?

"I would have killed him. If his family had taken all of you away from me, there would be no black or white about it, I would have let all my rage out on a person who had nothing to do with it. Is that the Katara you want? Do you really think the person I was is better than the person I am?"

In the end, did Nutha just want to drown in their old bitterness together?

Katara remembered the person she was, and knew that person only ever wanted someone like Aang looking out for her, looking out for them all.

Katara's sorrow appeared through her expression and any slight falter Nutha had felt was shed. She didn't need that pitiful look. Her way of thinking and living and surviving was not pitiable.

"…Vastly." Nutha replied bitterly.

A slight wind kicked up and Katara felt like somehow it had taken this friendship away with it, like she could really believe she didn't know Nutha anymore. Her eyes squinted from her tight smile and she ignored the lump in her throat.

"Then I guess that's that."

If there was one thing Katara had learned, it was that people didn't change overnight. They were led by example, and Katara wanted to look back one day and say she and Aang were good examples.

Maybe one day in the future she and Nutha would cross paths again, with children of their own in a world shaped by the changes of Aang and Zuko, and they would laugh about how silly they were, and Katara could tell her about the things that Aang had changed in her for the better, and about forgiveness… and that thought kept the smile on her face as she bowed politely to the sisters.

She turned to Aang and nodded to his staff, signaling that it was time to go. There were other battles, other days; the world didn't stop for people like them.

Aang tightened his hold on her hand and pulled Katara close, winding it around her waist while the wings of his glider spread. This time they would fly as they usually did, side by side.

"You really have changed."

He heard Katara sigh and before he could take her away from all of this, Katara spoke her final words to Nutha.

"No I didn't… I just grew."

Since then Katara had taken up residence in the living room, spread out against the thickly cushioned window seat with the windows wide open, facing out at the gauzy moon.

Per their request, Aang had taken Sokka and Toph into the city for an all night buffet when they'd reappeared at the house, came back to collect the Air Acolytes for another meeting regarding the Refinery, though he went reluctantly when Katara declined going with him.

They returned looking very tired, obviously not used to the diplomatic lifestyle. Yet when Katara asked how it went they puffed up, proudly exclaiming it was "invigorating training for the Air Nomad aspect of peace keeping" before retiring to their room with a loud thump across the mattresses.

Aang had no resistance left when it came to cuddling opportunities, so he quickly made his way to her with a big hug. She returned it before sliding his arms from her neck to her waist and letting him flop into her lap. He settled the rest of himself comfortably between her and the wood of the window frame.

For a while, she quietly massaged any muscle her hands contacted, digging into his upper back while his appreciative moans filled the space and his smile dented her skirt.

"Toph and Sokka?" She began to rub his temples.

"When I went to pick them up they were just starting a meat-pie eating contest."

"Appa and Momo?"

"Taking a well deserved rest and sticking around the buffet for scraps."

"You?"

Aang languidly removed one arm from around her to lightly touch her hand, stopping her ministrations and causing her to look him in the eye.

He looked incredibly relaxed; his body was warm and his smile was content.

"You?" He retorted.

"Better."

He took a deep breath and rubbed his cheek against her leg one more time, then moved to switch their positions. He sat back opposite of her and spread his arms out, welcoming her immediate embrace against him. The soothing rubs on her back warranted a light kiss on his neck as she took her chance of holding him in a loose embrace while Aang pulled the remaining pins from her hair and slowly stroked through from scalp to tip.

She sighed heavily, "Much better." Katara emphasized, "I've been sitting in that position for hours, thinking of everything, who I used to be before you… realizing how much I'd rather be with you than anything else."

Aang cupped her face upwards with his free hand and dazed her with long, tender kisses everywhere until Katara was red, and she pushed slightly and sealed their lips together sooner than he could make her faint with those dark, loving gazes he caught her in while calculating his lips next target.

If Aang had even once decided to live by Nutha's thinking… To even imagine some other girl ever having this pleasure…

Her self-control began weaning again. Katara caught herself in the high, pushing away that desperate urge before it became impossible.

She pulled away slowly, savory. He pecked her once more before slouching along the throw pillow, hugging her as close as possible.

Katara stared up at the moon and when Aang drank in enough of the way her eyes had brightened he followed her example.

"Back in Yu Dao… what you said, made me realize why it was so had been so confusing up until then. It was because I never once thought of us in the same situation. That was them, this is us, and it's with you. So, back then, Nutha could have been right in calling me selfish."

"Aang—"

He shook his head, "She would've been right. Because when we weren't like this, it was always in the back of my mind, I never thought about us being together as less than my Avatar duties…" Aang took a moment, and smiled, "but along the way, because of you and everyone else, because I wanted us all to live in a better world, I didn't think about it as more important either. They became equal and constant… your love is as important to me as the world is to the Avatar."

Aang turned his head to look at her and, slowly, Katara met him halfway.

He wiped away the tears pooling in her eyes with his thumbs, but the gesture made more come anyway.

"We'll encounter people like this again, but just remember, I never think about us breaking up or growing apart because I know this is a constant."

"No matter what might happen with anyone else, if other couples from different backgrounds decide to consume themselves around one another's nation, or even if they're from the same place and decide what they had was just a moment, no matter what anyone else thinks or says,nothing with you could ever be momentary with me."

"We are a constant."

Because of this really cute reviewer believing in the power of kataang, my hands gave me no choice but to write something even I thought was incredibly cute.

The End