Disclaimer: Avatar isn't mine because i'm not mike, bryan, or nick.

A/N: i love stories that come to me, randomly, in five minutes. do read, enjoy, and review!

Sixteen Years

Sixteen years.

Katara leaned back against the icy mound of snow with a low sigh, her eyelids sliding down heavily.

Sixteen years was a long time, she acknowledged. Long enough to age into a thirty-year-old woman who spent her days training young Waterbenders at the South Pole. Long enough to see Sokka settle down with Suki and have a large, happy family. Long enough to see Fire Lord Zuko repairing the seemingly irreparable damage to the world.

But long enough to forget?

Neither sixteen years nor sixteen hundred years were long enough to forget him and all he had done.

Sacrificed for a cause that he had tried to avoid, for a world he wanted, not just needed, to save, for the lives of the others, all the others, who now continued because he had ceased.

Long enough to forget the pain of his death?

She could live for sixteen lifetimes and still bear that raw pain that had now settled into a dull, deep ache. He had died fighting for the good of the nations, of all the people, but she had seen the determination in his gray eyes on that last day and known its true source. He had died fighting to keep her safe, to allow her to live. The rest of humanity was just a side benefit. He had done it all for her in the end, for a love so great it surely could not have died with him.

But the Avatars did not retain the memories of their past lives. She knew that; he had told her as much. Aang was dead and she was just another Waterbender, no more important than any other.

A commotion caused her to raise her head and glanced about; what could possibly be happening in this small village in the middle of an ice sheet? She rose to her feet, brushing the snow from her long, azure robes. A group of people was approaching her—it seemed to encompass the entire village. Her brow wrinkled in confusion, and she unconsciously braced herself, fearing bad news.

A youth, dressed in the style of the Northern Tribe, was at the forefront of the group, and he eagerly approached her; the others hung back, watching with palpable excitement and interest. A half-smile appeared on the teenager's face, as if he were unsure whether to be fully happy yet, and he paused a few feet from her.

"Katara?"

She blinked, now entirely bewildered. How did this strange boy know her name, anyway? "Um…yes. I'm Katara."

His half-smile erupted into a complete grin, and before she could question this further, he had embraced her quickly and drawn back, his sapphire eyes shining. "Ha! I knew you were real! I knew it, I knew it!"

She placed calming hands on his shoulders, meeting his gaze seriously. "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about."

His grin broadened, if that were possible. "I've had dreams about you for as long as I can remember…except that you were younger in them. The elders told me I was just making stuff up, but Pakku recently took to believing me, and he told me where I could find you."

She felt a strange stirring at the base of her spine, a tingling suspicion. "Alright…and you are…?"

He extended a hand happily. "I'm Daraka. The Avatar."

Katara clasped his proffered hand, shaking it warmly as a smile began to spread across her face as well.

Sixteen years was long enough for a new Avatar to mature. A new Avatar who seemed to possess more than a few of Aang's memories in total clarity.

It would seem she had made an impression after all.

Fin

A/N: Katara makes a new friend. cue the "aawwww"s.