#she idolized this kid to death

Aang never asks her if she loves him.  

Not once.  Not in the forty-nine years they are married, the fifty-four years they spend together.  

For everyone who sees them, they might think it’s because it’s already so obvious how she feels about him.  It’s all but assumed.   It’s what Aang tells himself, after their kids have grown… as he meets Katara’s supportive eyes and finds her smile somewhat lacking, replaced by some unfamiliar, distant… removed grin.  

It’s nothing, he says, it’s all in his head.  

She’s always been there for him, hasn’t she? Approaching him, affirming all of her time and energy to him, comforting him even at the slightest sign of loneliness? 

In those early years, Aang would catch himself wondering if Katara is truly happy… being on his constant beck-and-call, far away from her homeland… raising their children alone in Air Temple Island while he travels with Tenzin.  But it’s ridiculous to question anything, right?  They never argue about not visiting her homeland; as she knows he cannot stomach most Southern WaterTribe cuisine, or look at dead animal skins for longer than a day.  Most of their food is meat.  Even the clothes they wear are furs.  

Katara understands without even having to bring it up, how most WaterTribe customs cannot be properly practiced by an Airbender.  And in the end… she chose him. She chose his culture over hers.  She even chose to be with him over the countless opportunities to travel home, to help rebuild her homeland after the war.  She was even agreeing to let Zuko’s self-imposed death sentence be carried out, for the sake of Aang’s principles— even after the prince almost took his own life for her.  That sacrifice meant nothing.

And it was so beautiful… seeing now nothing else mattered to her, Aang says, not in the grand scheme of things.  

Instead she was always there, paying tribute to his Airbending customs just like all the acolytes, because she knew how important these things were to him.

This has to be love, he says.  

He remembers Katara even attempting to wear orange-and-yellow acolyte garb, on one occasion… and when she said it felt more like a costume than an outfit… she apologized.  Returning to her usual blue, she apologized.  

Because she felt like she had failed him in some way, and it was a beautiful moment… Aang holding the tears on his girlfriend’s cheek, reassuring her in his own way that he still loved her.  

And their wedding was a traditional Airbending ceremony.  The first one in over a century.  Katara even reprimanded Sokka after he muttered something about wishing there were at least some seal jerky to honor the WaterTribe side of this marriage… and it was so beautiful, the way Katara defended Aang’s vegetarian diet, reciting the ancient Airbending ways.  

Sokka had been way out of line, anyway.  They wore the painted marks of the WaterTribe – the ones Bato had given them – so it wasn’t like Katara’s culture was completely written out of the ceremony, was it?  Nobody forced her into having an Airbending ceremony.  It was what she agreed on.  They shared a plate of steamed tofu together.  She liked it.  She saidshe liked it.  

So, why bother addressing her feelings?  It’s all there, in her actions.  

And it’s all …so beautiful.  

There’s no amount of spiritual enlightenment that could measure just how much he loves this woman.  Not seeing her for even the smallest moment makes him ache.  He only sees her devoted blue eyes, and nothing else.  That is enough.

Aang knows better than to invite that poisonous doubt anywhere near his own peace of mind.  

This love is real, he says.  It is.  He doesn’t have to question anything.  

Anyway, would he? He’s the Avatar.  He knows Katara; he knows what’s good for her.  And she knows…  he knows that she knows that he would be a wreck without her.  It’s a bind only true soulmates can understand.  

Aang never asks Katara if she loves him.  

Doubt cannot afford to live in such a pure, beautiful place like what they have.  It is a poison; a pinch with bite; a drop of ink… tainting, dispersing in a pool of water.  

He won’t acknowledge it, he won’t even imagine it.  

Aang chooses to remain silent, all those years, refusing to mull over the myriadof ways he might react if he heard her respond with anything other than “Yes.”