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Blue Mask	By : PatPat Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > AU/AR - Alternate Universe/Alternate Reality > Het- Male/Female Views: 11106 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Blue Mask, Two Swords, and Sozin’s Comet
Catering a Meal
By Pat Squared

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Katara ducked below the counter just a man in jade green robes walked in. His face was red and he was shaking with rage as he launched a marble column clear across the room and it exploded like Fire Nation blasting powder.

“How dare he knock up my baby? I am going to kill him myself, avatar or no avatar.”

Shit, how could I miss the signs? Toph was paler than usual. She started waking up early and complained about the food.”

Katara resisted the urge to smack herself in the forehead. Her brother did that and she needed her wits right now. It seemed that Aang and Zuko switched personalities. Aang was now the one with a fiery temper and Zuko...

Katara did not want to think about the prince that stole her first kiss and her love. She had a city to save.

The angry man walked right by Katara. Thankfully he was so caught up in his anger that he did not see her.

Katara followed him. She uncorked her water flask in case it would be needed.

He walked to one of the many shoji panels. He opened it. He stepped inside and then he closed it.

“Did he rape you?” the deep voice asked.

“Dad, I had to convince him to give up his celibacy vows. I am sorry that I had to run away. I am sorry that I did not invite you to the wedding. I am sorry that you had to pay my former instructor and a sadistic creep who broke my arm just for kicks a fortune to bring me back home. However, I am not sorry that I am carrying Aang’s child.”

The man exhaled audibly.

“Dad, please let me return to my husband. He doesn’t know that I am pregnant. He doesn’t know that you had me taken. He is probably in a panic. The last time someone took something valuable from him, it was not pretty even from my point of view. Dad, if you love me, you would let me be with him.”

Katara could hear the suppressed rage in the man’s voice.

“He is not here. If he loved you, he would have approached me and asked me for your hand. If he loved you, he would have agreed to settle down and be a responsible adult and learn a trade so he can provide for your children. If he loved you, he would have not let you go with him on a suicide mission – No matter how good of an earth bender you are.”

“Father, Aang is coming. When he gets mad, he changes. He is no longer Aang, but the Avatar spirit. It was the Avatar spirit that destroyed half the Fire Nation fleet at the battle of the Northern Water Tribe. It was the Avatar spirit that destroyed a sand bender tribe. I don’t want you or mom to get hurt. Father, I love him. He loves me. If someone kidnapped mom would you not think twice about personally hunting that person down and hurting him. I don’t want you or mom to get hurt.”

The man sighed, “Toph, your mother and I have grown apart. It is not your fault, but it happened. However, I would be damned if I let you take off in the middle of the night and not use whatever I have to find you and bring you home. If Aang loves you, he can come here and ask me for permission to ask you to get married. Then I might consider it. Otherwise to me, he is just a thief, a conman who stole my only child. One day, if you have a daughter, you will understand what you did to me when you slipped away.”

“But father…”

“Your mother is not in the best of health. The fits are coming more and more and the healers tell me that she can die any time. She had only grown more and more ill with your disappearance. Her thoughts aren’t right half the time due to the medicine the healer makes her take and the fits are killing off her grip to reality. Your disappearing broke whatever strength she had left. Twice she suffered a heart fit. If the healers were not nearby, your mother would be dead already. You are killing her. Do you think that I would come right out and sunder her heart when she is on the verge of a fit?”

“Dad, I had to go. If I stayed, what would have happen to me? Mom would select a male gold digger to marry me off to. I would know that my husband married me for your money. You would know your son in law is waiting for you to die so he could get your money. I would have the mandatory heir and the spare and then silently suffer as my husband boffs some mistress. Dad, Aang does not care about money. He does not think of me as a burden like mom grew to be. Even if Aang turns out to be a jerk and he dumps me, please at least let me have my illusions for a few more years.

“Father, Aang has to face the Fire Lord by the end of this summer. I will privately admit that Aang is not ready to face Ozai alone. Aang is not mentally ready to seek out a man and personally kill him. Aang stands a good chance of dying at the end of this summer. I do not want to have to tell our child that her mother silently waited at her parent’s home while her father died in a vain attempt to save the world.”

Katara wanted to disbelieve what Toph just said. However, she knew that the words were true. Aang could not face the Fire Lord alone. He needed a team to make up for the lack of preparation.

“Toph, you might have a husband and a child on the way, but you are still a child yourself. You perceive the world is made of granite mountains instead of the shifting grains of quicksand. I doubled your mother’s dose and she will be asleep for a long time. When she wakes, she will hopefully forget this conversation or even that you are home. Please, for her sake, make peace with her. Let her believe that your disappearance was just a nightmare that she had and that her little child is safely home and that she is not going to be a grandmother yet.”

Katara ducked behind another shoji panel door just as Toph’s father walked out. She could hear Toph crying.

As Katara slid into Toph room, she noticed the fear in the blind girl’s unseeing eyes.

“You came to gloat that the boss’ mean girl has fallen so far. Go ahead. I can’t bend and my parents have fixed it so I will never bend again. Go ahead, insult me, hurt me like that Xin Fu did.”

Toph winged her broken arm in a gesture of surrender.

Katara walked up and hugged Toph.

“It’s Katara.”

Toph tried but could not suppress her tears.

“You heard it all. You heard the truth that I never wanted to face let utter. Aang is just too good, too pure to crawl into the pits of hell and fight the Fire Lord. Ozai’s brat, Zuko, the angry one with the pony tail, I would place a wager of being to kill Ozai, but even he would come out of it alive. Aang couldn’t even hurt a monkey squirrel. I want to come with you. Unless we help him, my child would be an orphan. I want to hold Aang and lie to him so that he would not have to live with the truth. Aang’s child may be the only part of Aang left after this summer.”

“I am here to take you back.”

“I can’t. I’m useless. I can’t see with the earth anymore. I am sick all the time and became a liability. I can’t bend too much – it’s bad for the baby. I have tried and pushed Aang, but I don’t have enough time to train him in the basics of earth bending. It took me eight years of nothing but practice. It took you how long to master water. Zuko spent how many years and he is not even a master. And now there is only three months left to train him in the use of fire. Now my mother...she is not well. I wanted to believe that dad was just using the guilt trip but I saw mom’s fits. It’s scares me that I might be responsible for her dying. I don’t what to do or even how to feel right now. Everything is so jumbled up.”

Katara held her little sister a little tighter until the girl cried herself to sleep. She had to fix things. Katara had lost her chance at true love. She would be damned if she let Toph suffer the same fate.
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“Who are you?”, the man snapped at the intruder.

“You can call me the sister-in-law. Toph is dying inside. She wants to run away and yet can not without ruining everything. If we don’t patch things up, your child is going to suffer. I am a healer and in the state Toph’s in – she will die of a broken heart. She won’t live long enough to hold her own child.”

The man’s face turn white and anger infused his being.

“Who are you to tell me what or what is not best for my child? Did you spend the months I spent wondering if Toph is dead, alive, or forced to slave in a brothel to survive? Did you ever have to face down a decision, both outcomes taste like vinegar in your mouth, and yet you must chose.”

Katara visibly relaxed.

“Let me prepare some tea and let us talk calmly. We both want what is best for Toph. Maybe together, we can find a solution that will allow her a chance to be happy again.”

Katara kept her face impassive as Toph’s father went along.

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“So water girl. Do you know what the moon said to the sun on the night of the new moon…? Nothing, ha, ha, ha.”

Toph’s father was laughing.

“So it is agreed. I drag our reluctant groom to the alter, you drag the bride, we hold a wedding, and everyone is happy.”

“Yeah, as long as I get to kiss the pretty bridesmaid.”

Katara cringed. “On the cheek. I am kind of like Toph’s older sister, kind of engaged, and your wife might get the wrong idea if we kissed.”

Katara could not imagine some old guy trying to tweak her nipple like Zuko did in his drugged stupor.

“Drats. But you are so cute.”

Katara poured an extra serving of tea. She feigned drinking her tea as he drank his. Then she quickly switched the cups.

“Let me go out and drag in the unlucky boy. You get the servants to prepare Toph and get an earth priest. We got a wedding to perform.”

Katara raced to the inn were everyone was hiding. There was no time left to waste.

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The wedding went well. Thanks to Sokka’s need to drown his troubles, he had a couple bladders of juice hidden among his gear. Katara liberated it from her drug-addler sibling and most of the guests would not be able to remember what happened tomorrow.

She was busy in the kitchen cooking two sets of meals. One for Toph’s family and the guests. One of the crew. Sokka decided to sample both and was being his usual jerk self. The party was lively. The guest were having the time of their lives and looking at the way some of them acted, the midwives would be quite busy in nine months or so.

Aang looked at Katara, “It’s two weddings for me. I just wish that you and he could have one of your...I mean you gave Toph away and then you gave me away for this one. I wish that I could return the favor. Also you sock me harder this time than Sokka did last time. I have to return that favor.”

Katara could not believe what Aang was saying. He wanted her to marry Zuko.

“What? But it’s Zuko?”

Aang smiled, “You are in love with him. If he returns it, then you have my blessing. I will even hold back Sokka. Freeze him to a tree if necessary. Zuko saved my life once. He could have killed me and yet he did not. I felt sorry for him. It’s like I know him in a way. He reminds of me of an old friend in the Fire Nation that I use to have. His name was Kozun and he was a healer’s apprentice. But he was a good thief. Taught me how to run on roofs and pick locks, even though I am really rusty on it.

“Showed me how to use bending tactics in a way that the monks would not even think of considering. Kozun loved to hotfoot unsuspecting victims. He helped me master the trick of airbending coins out of pockets and off the ground. You don’t believe how many coins you can find on the street if you look carefully.”

Katara looked at Aang in shock. For among the other nations, Kozun the Air Nomad Slayer was the most hated name among the Fire Kingdom outside of the names of the Fire Lords.

“Aang, Kozun is the general who personally conducted the genocidal campaign against the Air Nomads. He and his mute girlfriend went and killed…”

“Don’t say that. Kozun would never do that. He was my friend. He might have been a pick pocket. He might have had to rob a grave or two so he could study anatomy. But to go out and kill an entire people. He was a healer. Killing in self-defense, yes. Going out and killing just because...”

Aang was shaking in rage.

Katara cursed herself for destroying another of Aang’s memories.

“I am sorry Aang. Maybe it’s another Kozun. It’s was a popular name in the Fire Kingdom.”

Aang visably relaxed.

“It was another Kozun.”

Aang turned around and went off to his wife.

Why was I so stupid? I should have known better. I am becoming such a bitch just like that bully back at the South Pole. Aang knew those people.

Katara poured in the remaining juice into the punch bowl and left the wedding banquet. She was falling apart and had too many secrets to keep to risk falling apart in front of the group. She went to the room set aside for her and cried herself asleep for the wedding that she would never have.
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Blue Mask