tushanshu_logs | Katara's January Catch-All

Shocked and emotion riddled as it was, Katara could only watch as her brother greeted them both, and only reacted as Wan stepped in front of her with his arms open. For a moment, she only stared at his chest as if she could see through it in the path her gaze had previously travelled, then gave in and wrapped her arms tightly around the man's torso. "It's good to see you, too," she returned, looking up at him, though her tone was, admittedly, distracted. "You...you're back. I didn't think I would ever see you again..."

Edited 2015-01-03 05:06 (UTC)

And for the moment, there's several reasons Sokka has to be happy. The first and foremost is that two of his best friends are back on the turtle. Several weeks ago, he would have considered this place a cursed place that no one should ever come to; he still in some way considers it that way now, but friends certainly make those moments slightly easier. Secondly, Wan finally seems to have made up with Katara, and that is hugely good news. He was totally over the intense drama between Aang, Zuko, Katara, and Wan over the past few months (by his reckoning, natch). And thirdly, well...

Two out of three ain't bad, right?

For the most part, Sokka gets distracted by Zuko's question, and Sokka crosses his hands over his chest and shifts his weight to the side. "That's a surprisingly hard question to ask," he says. "And there's a pretty amazing story to go with it too, since I bet you're not familiar with it. You see, back after we defeated the Creep Lord, we got kind of stuck in that Dreaming thing. But they got us out not more than, what, a week? Two weeks ago? Time really just seems to timey-wimey here; it's hard to keep track of it!"

Wan's arms settled around Katara loosely, but without any hesitation. It felt good to be welcomed back so readily. To have friends around him again. It was something he'd missed greatly over the last several years.

"I didn't either," he said to her quietly so their conversation didn't go past the two of them. "As far as I've been able to learn, we weren't brought back on purpose. But it is good to be here."

When he released Katara, he lifted a hand to brush a hair-loopy to the side as an excuse to touch her face and make sure she was real. He was still having trouble believing it all.

Then the turned to look at Sokka and raised his voice, "Valdis visited me just after we were brought back here. About a week or so ago. Maybe two? No... no. A week. It's fuzzy. But it's not more than a week, right Zuko?"

Zuko blinked at Sokka in surprise at his response.

"Wait what? You mean you guys never actually left?"

That was... shocking. Especially from his point of view. But then Wan's voice redirected his attention and Zuko looked that way.

"Uh, yeah. About a week, right."

"It really does seem like there's not much around to do..." she told him, her tone disappointed but her expression surprised as he brushed her hair back and pulled a slight pink tint to her dusky cheeks. "I thought maybe we'd be able to help more, but... I'm still trying to figure out what all has happened." A small smile. "I'm really, really glad you're back, though." Maybe this time, they could start over. Maybe this time, things would go much better between them.

When he turned his attention to Zuko, she paused, taking a deep breath and bristling a little at the sound of Zuko's voice. "You guys have been here a whole week?" she asked, quietly again, just so Wan could hear. "Why didn't you come find us?"

Sokka shakes his head to Zuko. "Nope, we've been here the past year... even if it doesn't feel like a year. I couldn't find Katara in the Dreaming before the call to go back home ended, and so we just ended up... sticking around?" It's not like he was going to leave Katara behind, even if so many others had ended up leaving Tu Shanshu. "I mean, someone needed to look after her," he adds with a whisper that hopefully Katara can't hear.

But that said, he can tell that Katara is getting a little testy. Granted, she's been practically a mixture between depressed and upset at him since they got back to the plane of Life, but he can already tell that this isn't going to go well. "Look," he says to his sister, "it's not like we could just nail signs on our former homes saying where we'd be. Do you know how large the city is?"

Wan cringed a little as Sokka answered Katara. That actually was one of the reasons, but he would have put it nicer. So he nodded and replied with no effort to keep his voice down, "There's that, but also, we didn't know you were still here. We thought you went home. We've only seen a couple people we knew from before and neither of them mentioned you. If we knew you were around, we would have come looking for you right away."

He paused, then added, "I'm sorry. I promise we would have."

Zuko looks... floored at Sokka's confirmation. That was not at all what he had expected would happen.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know."

Remorse now filled him, as well as confusion, as he looked over at Katara as well. His words loud enough for everyone to hear.

"I thought everyone went home."

As much as she hates to admit it, Sokka has a point, and she sighs, shaking her head and keeping her attention mostly on the avatar. "But I told you I wasn't going back," she told Wan, disappointment in her eyes. They had spoken before he had left; she had seen the world as he had known it, before her time. "When we said goodbye."

The clarification might seem a little spiteful and heavier, but her frustration is not directed at Wan. Maybe he's just forgotten. But at least he had made an effort.

Zuko's comment and gaze went entirely--and pointedly-- ignored. This is nothing like their last reunion.

What did you really expect, Wan? Sokka is not the master of sugar-coating anything. In fact, if there's a way to say something, Sokka is usually going to be the one to find the worst possible way of phrasing something.

"Well, for what it's worth, I think everyone else from our world did go home," Sokka tells Zuko, trying at least to keep the peace. Really, this is just restarting the drama all over again where Sokka's caught in the centre of so much drama just trying to keep people getting along. "Though if you'd like to visit us now, we've got a room at the Midnight Hotel, since... well, we're still trying to find a more permanent roof as it is."

And then, almost as if to cause a distraction from what seems to be Katara being put out, Sokka jumps up onto a rock and holds his boomerang high, as if to strike a pose. "The Midnight Hotel! Five entrances from all over town. The most convenient hotel there is! It's the convenientest!"

This is bound to make things happy again, right?

Wan's attention remained on Katara even as Sokka made his little scene, his heart falling. How could he have forgotten that? He knew the answer of course. He'd forgotten everything before waking up and the memories were difficult to trace back to their rightful place when almost a decade more had been placed between them. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath before speaking again, loud enough for Sokka to hear him, but speaking to Katara.

"I'm sorry," he started once more, "For you it's been a year lost in the dreaming and maybe feeling like it's been a month. But for me, it's been eight years. There's a lot I can't remember. I wish I could say that the entirety of our goodbye was seared into my memory. But it's not. I remember our hug and that you forgave me. And that was enough for me. I'm really sorry, Katara."

Zuko glanced over at Katara and Wan, and he knew she was ignoring him. It's not like he hasn't been the object of her ire before, and he can practically feel it now. He's messed up again, and hadn't even meant to. For now, he says nothing about it and turns his attention back to Sokka.

"But you were there. Both of you were."

He makes a frustrated sound as he tries to wrap his head around this.

"It doesn't make any sense. How can you be here and there at the same time?"

Zuko had never really understood how any of this worked.

Though Sokka's spectacle greatly amused the player who wished her character wasn't carrying such a disposition, Katara completey ignored her brother, tensing at the idea of passing time and the sound of Zuko's voice.

Almost a decade. Wan had been gone that long. How long had Zuko--? no. That didn't matter right now.

"It's fine. At least you bothered to say goodbye," she told Wan, her arms crossing over her chest and shifting her weight to one foot before she sliced a piercing glare toward Zuko around Wan's shoulder. If one looked long enough, through the building storm, they'd see the same hurt that had filled her eyes after she'd walked in on him and the avatar before she dropped her eyes to the ground again.

Well, that didn't work. Sokka suddenly feels kind of awkward and invisible suddenly because, clearly, there's a thing going on here, and it's a thing that he's more or less pieced together from all the things he's known and witnessed.

He pauses and shuffles a little oddly before looking to Zuko, trying to keep a sheepish grin on his face. "I, uh, heard we won the war? Y'know, from Korra? She said that everything's all peachy and stuff, y'know, back home?" Yet, Sokka's eyes can't help but dart back and forth between Katara and Zuko. This has got to get broken up sooner than later.

"Katara," Wan lifted a hand to put it on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. "You and I both know he didn't do that to hurt you. He thought you were going home, too. That he'd see you there. And he did. Zuko wouldn't hurt you like that on purpose."

Katara's words stung. Did she really think that little of him? After how much they'd been through? Though Zuko did have to remind himself that she was from a different time. But even then, he had thought... Well. Apparently he was wrong. He looked crestfallen, hurt even.

Zuko wasn't even sure what to say. His gaze turning towards Wan and then back to Katara.

Sokka managed to distract him a little though.

"Yeah, we did."

Won the war that is.

Her gaze stayed low, even as Wan laid a hand on her shoulder, and her voice grew soft. "Well... Then I won't be the only one with regrets."

It was too much, and while she understood Wan was only trying to comfort her, the fact that it was him doing the comforting was just enough to make her give in, and she withdrew, mentally and physically. They were back; they were together; one hadn't said goodbye-- the one that hurt most; they had been there a while without asking around for her and her brother or Aang; Aang wasn't back, but now there was a hope for him and Korra to return, along with the others. Her heart hurt, and in a rare display of helplessness, Katara was unsure of what to do.

There was too much to process, and closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she made her decision and acted, her hand reaching up to the Avatar's forearm for a gentle squeeze in return for his reassurance. The waterbender lifted her gaze to Wan for just a brief moment, her words sincere but somewhat rushed as her eyes began to sting. "I'm glad you're back," she managed, before dropping her hand and stepping away to return to the river where she would gather her things to leave.

It was kind of a shock to see her acting like this towards him. Back home things had been okay between them. He hadn't seen this open anger towards him like this in a couple years. So when she started to leave, Zuko stepped forward, his voice imploring.

"Katara... I'm sorry."

What else could he do or say? He didn't know, but she was his friend. It might not work but had to at least try.

Sokka just sighs at all of this. Why did girls have to be so complicated and cause so much drama? And why did the girl causing all this drama have to be his sister?

"Great! Everyone's happy that everyone's back!" Sokka chimes in, doing his best to just smooth things over. "And maybe we made some mistakes and maybe some things didn't go the best and maybe there was some jerkishness that happened. Who cares? We're back! And that's all that's important!"

He pauses for a moment before looking dubiously at the others.

"Right?"

The silence between the four of them stretched far too long before Wan lifted his head and forced a confident smile, "Right! We're back together and we aren't in danger from Malicant. We have all the time we want to spend together however we want."

He walked over to Katara and started to bend over so he could help her with her things, "Why don't we start by having dinner together. Zuko and I don't have a lot of food at our place, but we can do some hunting for fruits and vegetables, and maybe even some fishing, on our walk back. All four of us. Together."

She hesitates when he speaks to her directly again, just long enough to prove that she's not beyond hearing him out.

But then Sokka is trying too hard to smooth things over and Wan is next to her, offering dinner for all of them at his place. 'Zuko and I'...'Our'. His and Zuko's place.

Suddenly, she's trapped again, backed back into her the corner, this time frozen instead of attempting to trickle away. She had just patched things up with Wan, and Sokka, despite the irritation, had been supportive the entire time. But...

"Fine..." she relented, sliding her bag over her shoulder.

Zuko doesn't fully understand why this is such a big deal for her. it's confusing and a bit disheartening, but the fact that she didn't completely disregard his apology at least gave him hope.

But then Sokka and Wan jumped in and tried to smooth things out. Which he was grateful for but he could see Katara's discomfort. Making up his mind to talk to her privately later, he forced a small smile when she relented.

"That sounds great. Let's go."

Deciding to give Katara her space for now, he moved back over to Wan as he helped Katara with her things.

Katara's January Catch-All

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