Title: "Blessed by Water"
Rating: K+
Writer: ayziks

Word Count: 2030
Summary: Approximately 8 years into his marriage with Katara, Aang reflects on the past and the unlikely set of coincidences, good luck, and miracles that allowed him to survive that would never happen again. He doesn't have to relive it. He would have never made it past the first step.

...

Aang sat atop a frozen white hill, wrapped snugly in a new winter hooded parka that Katara herself had made for him for their wedding anniversary. For a moment he set aside the fact that several animals had to give up their spirits to be part of the coat keeping him almost as warm as an embrace from his true love. There had been a lot of things Aang thought he had believed to be absolute truths for him as an Air Nomad – things he swore he would never ever compromise on - but he had set aside for the 'good of the world' as the Avatar. Because it was the right thing to do.

"Thank the spirits for all of my good fortunes," he pondered, "Yangchen was right about giving up my selfish personal interests to serve the world. She came to those conclusions centuries before me. It could only be by the spirits' design that I am still here."

He looked back on the impossible set of circumstances that allowed him to end the Hundred Year War nearly single-handedly as hardly more than a child.

"I ran from my destiny and yet prevailed in the end by confronting it," he admitted to himself sadly.

He sighed at his natural childhood tendencies as an Air Nomad to avoid conflict and heavy responsibility. But he had learned. Now only diaper changes were things that he tried to avoid.

The thought, "I didn't want to be the Avatar. I lost my friends because of it. The Elders separated me from Monk Gyatso. I had too much power in my hands so very young. There were too many expectations by the Elders. I couldn't handle it. I am the Avatar, but I am only human. I ran from my responsibilities, but couldn't escape them."

Aang pondered further, "Was running worth it? In the end was the return to world at peace a century later worth the cost of losing my entire race and so many other innocents to do so? I should have been just another victim of the genocide, fighting valiantly for my people, but just another casualty like Gyatso."

He raised his eyes skyward with a tear in his eye and whispered, "Oh my dear Monk Gyatso, if you could only see me now."

He understood that had he stayed and fought and died, the world would be utterly dominated by one Nation, the antithesis of everything he stood for. The world would have been filled with people like Zhao, and Ozai, and Azula. Zuko would have either been one of them, or dead. He shuddered thinking about his friend Zuko becoming just like them.

Aang sat in gratitude for all the miracles that had sustained him that could never be repeated again, and admitted, "Even if running saved me from being killed, I should have drowned in the water anyway. I was seconds away from being the shortest-lived Avatar of all."

"And yet it was water – not air – that saved me. Over and over again."

A huge ball of ice saved him from drowning in the water, but there was more: the Ocean Spirit in the battle of the north, the spirit water, and 'that water bender' Katara.

"That block of ice preserved me - entombed at the bottom of the polar sea - for a hundred years. And I didn't age a day."

Aang had been preserved by the power of the Avatar Spirit of the world and the combined forces of all the Avatars. That had ever been had been an astonishing miracle, and yet in some ways it was a terrible burden. The cost of living was to lose everyone he had ever loved at that time. The Avatar Spirit had chosen him – a man of peace – to bring peace to the world, and no other. He understood in wordless revelation that no one else could have done it. All the other races have a history of war against each other. Only the Air Nomads had never waged war against anyone. And yet it seemed to be an impossible task at the time. He should have died countless times in that year of conquest of world peace.

"Thank the spirits for Katara," he whispered.

He was grateful that his confession to Katara many years ago gained her forgiveness, even with the loss of her mother as a cost of his running a century before, as well as gaining the forgiveness by many others. It had really been a life-changing moment when he confessed to her, she forgave him, and encouraged him to continue on no matter what.

He knew he would have given up countless times without Katara. He'd never expected someone to be so dedicated to him and who'd sacrifice everything to stand by him. He considered that his actual responsibility to the world – unknown at the time, but by the spirits' design - had been to survive the Comet and the iceberg, and live to fight another day, and prevail. He had just never thought that day would be a hundred years later. And that someone like Katara would be waiting for him, not to just support him, but to complete him as his life partner. No air bender woman would have ever done that for him. It was not in their culture. Relationships between Air Nomad men and women were just as free spirits.

When all seemed totally hopeless, Katara's faith in him allowed him to combine with the spirit of the Ocean to save the Northern Tribe from being annihilated by the marauding Fire Nation fleet. While at age 12, he agonized weeks over the unbelievable loss of life he and the Ocean Spirit caused to destroy the Fire Nation threat, he realized now that the alternative would have been the slaughter of yet another innocent race of the Avatar World had he not done that. Meanwhile Yue – another water tribe member – sacrificed herself to save the Moon Spirit and the world by literally becoming the Moon Spirit herself. Water saved them all.

But at what cost? So many life sacrifices were made in the name of saving the world. Including his, even for a brief moment.

That fateful fight in the catacombs and later the Day of the Black Sun had taught him much, and gave him the internal conviction to prevail against Ozai on the day of Sozin's Comet's return. At his core he was still Air Nomad, and though he had learned to embrace rather than run from his responsibilities, his innate combat ability to remain patient, dodge and flex, and look for the one opportunity to take the advantage against his foe probably saved his life a third time in that final battle against Ozai.

As Aang continued to contemplate, he had a lighter thought. Not everything over the past eight or so years was all serious and sobering. 'That water bender' was the source of so many of his wonderful happy distracted thoughts. Gyatso would have scolded him for lack of discipline around 'a mere girl', but then would have praised him with a smile for being the luckiest man in the world in his choice of 'spiritual partner' with Katara, even if it was unprecedented in the world of Air Nomads to choose – and be accepted – by someone outside his race and to be partners for a lifetime.

He shook his head in amazement with the blessing that Katara was to him, and returned to his more serious thoughts about her.

There were so many obstacles. So many challenges in the way. So many things that were different from his own time. So many remembrances of things gone that should have crippled him in grief and loneliness. He might as well have been gone a thousand years.

And yet he succeeded, supported by the strength of a single teenage girl, who believed first, and then a few people, and then many.

Not even death could hold him back from the Avatar Spirit's plans for him through her. The spirit water given to Katara by Master Pakku had saved him when all was lost in the caverns of Ba Sing Se, combined with the power of the steadfast faith and healing ability of that one young woman.

At exactly the right time in history, Katara was there waiting for him, even though she never even knew what to expect in an Avatar, and was even ridiculed for her beliefs by her own tribesmen. While she envisioned helping a wise old man, she actually helped a boy even younger than herself, and never wavered.

At this thought, he was most in awe of the Avatar Spirit within in him who matched him with her across the years, "How could the Avatar Spirit know of Katara, living so distantly in the future from my time? How could the Spirit know of one young girl with a belief so strong in me that it would pull me out of my deep slumber, give me courage time and time again, and then be there for me the rest of my life? And now choose willingly to be the Mother of the new nation?"

None of this would have happened, nor could any of it ever be repeated without the spirits' plan and interventions. 'That water bender' saved him and his race.

He muttered softly to himself, "Look at me now. Family man. Leader of the Air Acolytes and the entire Air Nation. Designer of Air Temple Island and Republic City. There is plenty to run from even now, but here I am – a man of great responsibility to the world and to the people in it that I love. Yangchen: you were right – you taught me my role in the world, not just how to defeat Ozai."

While the two children he and Katara were raising were not air benders, his renewed patience told him that the spirits would find a way to save him again through water not to be the last-ever air bender. While there were many in this world terribly worried that he would remain the last, Aang knew 'that water bender' would save not only him, but she would save the world and the Avatar cycle by bearing an air bending child - or more - yet to be.

He saw a figure approaching, and her familiar slender but beautiful shape. Flowing in the breeze was her incredible non-stop waist length wavy hair. He could see her hourglass figure still showing through the bulky winter clothing, showing no sign of the body-changing ravages of two pregnancies. She was holding the hand of a cute little girl so much like her, stumbling in the snow as she climbed, and an infant strapped in a sling closely to her bosom.

He saw in Katara one more miracle that would never have happened had he stayed in his own time, "Look at the life she gave me. I should have only had a spiritual partner a century ago and merely sired children, not have a wife and children in a real family now – something I never had as a child."

Katara smiled broadly at her husband sitting cross-legged atop the snow-covered hill, and regrettably interrupted Aang's meditation, "Sorry, sweetie. We're here, but we're early. Kya just couldn't wait. Are you done meditating? Did we interrupt you?"

Aang returned her smile, and hugged them all as he answered, "Naw, I'm fine. I kinda needed the distraction. And especially if that distraction is you and the kids."

She smiled and laughed contentedly.

"What were you thinking about?" she inquired.

"I was thinking about what might have been a century ago, and grateful for what is now."

She kissed him lightly, and agreed, "You know I always believed in you, even when…"

He interrupted, "I know, and that's why I'm here alive with you. I believe that it was never the spirit water that spared me from death. It was your own spirit and healing power that really saved me."

She blushed.

He changed the subject, "The flock is over the next hill; let's find the perfect penguin otter for each of us and go sledding!"

As they walked, he allowed himself one final thought. He wondered when he finally passed from this world, whenever the spirits determined that might be, that the water-bending Avatar after him might again save the world again by her very own water-bending. And he wondered what Katara might do to teach one of her own kind as his life energy passed on to the next Avatar. He didn't really want to think about the end of life, but he felt like every day was a gift now.

Reality pulled him from that sobering thought, as a little mocha-skinned girl giggled, "C'mon daddy! I see the birdie I want to ride."