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Aang shifted in the saddle, only able to have on hand holding Appa's reins while his other was kept clamped down on his side, to somehow curb the white-hot lances constantly spiking through his muscles. They intensified; forcing a heaving moan from him as Appa landed as softly as the Sky Bison could, stilling himself so as not to hurt his friend and companion.

He felt sweat over his forehead as his muscles protested and complained, contorting themselves in the wrong ways as he lifted his leg and swung himself free of the saddle. With a grunt the pain mounted once more, and he couldn't stop his hands from shooting out and grabbing tufts of the white shaggy fur on Appa's sides in order to stop himself from slipping to the ground in a tumbled heap.

Appa didn't complain one bit. Instead he swung his gigantic head to the side to study Aang with a calm brown eye. The point of his horn glinted in the soft pink glow offered by the sun's setting over Yue Bay as he dipped his head to the side, side-stepping until the horn's crook was in front of Aang.

The man offered a weak smile as he lifted a hand, despite his trembling muscles, and scratched Appa's favourite spot behind his ears. "Thanks… buddy." He murmured his throat coarse and dry. Before his legs turned to jelly he managed to grab hold of Appa's horn, doing his best to keep from dragging the Bison down with his weight by holding on as tightly as possible.

A low throaty rumble from Appa made him lift his head, fighting through a throbbing sensation to see a pale-faced boy with a flat head of light brown hair stop at the top of the stairs. Another boy, taller than him by almost a head, shoved past before coming to a stop too. His mouth hung open in shock, showing the gap in his front teeth gotten from a headfirst encounter with one of the island's pine trees.

Aang smiled weakly at them both as a brown-skinned girl, her eyes as deep a blue as her mother's appeared, hands placed over her mouth in shock as she slowly walked forwards, almost stumbling to a stop before Appa and her brothers. "Dad?" she breathed, voice small and fearful for a few moments before she closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Honey…" Aang went to say, before he trailed off as darkness hemmed in his vision, suffocating it until all was dark. The last thing he heard was his own shuddering breath.

It felt like a thousand Ozai's were going to town on him, but he managed to open his eyes.

Soft and warm sunlight filtered in from half-covered windows on either side of the wide and spacious room, dappling large swathes of the sturdy wooden walls and floorboards in varying degrees of light and dark. He managed to lift his neck a little, enough to see the thick covers of the huge double bed he was currently laying in. Definitely his and Katara's room. No doubt about it.

Even the smallest attempt to sit up set his muscles on fire. Aang gritted his teeth, grinding them and focusing on doing that while the pain slowly subsided to a dull throb over pretty much every inch of his back and shoulders. He worked his jaw, wincing a little as he felt pins and needles in his neck muscles, for a moment blind panic took him over as Yakone appeared in front of him, the bloodbender's eyes manic and wildly desperate as he moved his fingers in a unnatural way.

But the image went away. Leaving Aang to heave a heavy sigh of relief. The criminal can't hurt anyone now. He made sure of that.

He looked down at the stark white wrappings completely covering his stomach, already guessing that it was Katara's handiwork. He needed to see her. Aang took a deep breath and swung his legs over the side of the bed, catching a glimpse of his tunic and pants folded neatly on the simple basket-weave hamper at the foot of his and Katara's bed along with his crimson cloak.

Scratching the back of his neck, he pushed himself off of the bed and to his feet. Luckily there wasn't much swaying, something he was eternally grateful for. He gingerly moved along the side of the bed, stopping next to the hamper. A slightly chilled breeze blew into the room, raising goosebumps on the man's shoulders. Aang snatched up the tunic, shrugging it on with as little movement as possible before straightening it out. He grabbed his pants, grunting at his leg muscles protesting as he stepped a foot through each hole.

He left his cloak behind and made his way to the door. Stepping out into one of the airy wooden hallways inside the Air Temple, men and women wearing orange or pale yellow robes stopped in their tracks, all of them with warm smiles. There were only a handful of them around today, which Aang chalked up to the majority currently assisting Toph's officers in the city with medical supplies or food shelters.

Aang smiled back at them all as they went out of their way to let him through without any obstruction. Coming to the end of the hallway he ducked through another door, ending up in the entry hall to his family's personal quarters on the island.

Stabs of pain lanced through his lower chest, Aang cupped his hand over his stomach as he reached for the door, the hinges groaned a little as he sprayed a blast of air from his palm into the surface of the door, throwing it open with a loud crash. He stepped through into a covered walkway, a large pond of completely still water silently sitting astride. Lily pads floated on its surface, providing platforms for the gang of orange-eyed lemurs currently relaxing or playing around it. One of them looked completely different to the others, his fur being a stark white instead of a collection of dark and pale greys. His face was brown, and rather than a blazing orange, his eyes were a mischievous green.

Momo chittered excitedly as his long ears pricked up, before screeching a greeting and bounding across the lily pads, bouncing on some of the other lemur's heads in the process before lunging towards Aang.

"Hey, buddy!" Aang nearly stumbled back with the force of the lemur crashing into him as it chittered constantly, clambering all over his chest and shoulders and nuzzling him mercilessly before perching on his shoulder and staring at him with his head cocked, still chittering.

Aang sighed as Momo kept on a lemur's version of a stern look. He lifted his hand and extended one finger, hooking it as he scratched the tip on Momo's right ear. "Forgive me?"

Momo chittered pleasantly, purring his agreement.

The man shook his head as he left the walkway in the direction of the flight of stairs leading down to the island's main courtyard, going slowly down the steps once he started feeling the throbs and aches again. They all over, making his arms feel stiff, his legs slightly wobbly, and his chest a little constricted. The last time he felt something like this was... way back, when he was just a kid up against the Fire Nation, under the grips of a demented old woman fueled by hate and vengeance. Katara saved him and Sokka from her.

He needed to find her-

"Dad!" The air rushed out of his lungs as something slammed into his chest, nearly taking him off his feet and jostling Momo around. He smiled down at the messy mop of spiky brown hair, on a boy with brown skin and grey eyes. The boy had a toothy grin on him. "You're alive! THAT'S COOL! Did you get the evil bloodbender? Is Sokka alright? What about Aunt Toph? Huh? Dad?"

"Slow down, Bumi-" Aang lowered himself down on one knee, ignoring the burning sensation on the backs of his legs as he pulled his middle child into close. "-I'm glad you're safe. Where's your mother?"

Aang hid a smile as his son stepped back, looking at his own feet with a very out of place sombre expression on him. "She's down at the beach."

"Okay. Where's your brother and sister?" Bumi pointed over his shoulder to a quiet boy sitting on a nearby rock, legs crossed and head stuck in a small orange-covered book. "Ten's there."

He clapped Bumi's shoulder. "Let's go over there, huh?" the boy nodded, turning and walking towards Tenzin as Aang followed. Bumi stopped near him, staring at his feet while occasionally looking up at Aang as he clasped his hands behind his back and stopped behind the boy's back. "Your old man makes for some good reading, right? Where you up to?"

"Koh the Facestealer." Tenzin said, in a low voice, not even turning his head.

"Oh. Right. Him. He was spooky."

Tenzin extended his arm, pointing a finger in the direction of the island's eastern edge. "Mom's at the beach. Kya as well." Tenzin dropped his arm, his nose still stuck in the pages.

Aang suppressed a sigh as he nodded. He clapped his youngest's shoulder. "Sorry for the scare, Tenzin." he murmured, his voice thick as Yakone came up again. He straightened, ruffing Bumi's and doing the impossible by making it messier than before. He put a finger to his lips and pointed at Tenzin, winking.

Bumi nodded eagerly, going ram-rod straight and saluting with a big grin on him and a wicked gleam in his eyes. "Go get him."

Aang turned around to look at Tenzin, before moving further across the courtyard, he stopped when Mom started chittering. Again he turned around to see the lemur pointing back in the direction his two boys were in. He caught his meaning. Aang scratched Momo and watched as he flew from his shoulder in their direction, just as Tenzin yelped when Bumi had spear-tackled him off the rock.

Up ahead a simple dirt path wounded away from the edge of the courtyard, going past the thick clusters of bamboo stalks hiding the training relics he had managed to find at the Southern Air Temple during his trip with Tenzin, and the sparring circle Toph had personally sculpted, including a little bit of artistic flair. On the other side was the range of steep cliffs lining the southern edge of the island, overlooking the pier below built for travel to and from Republic City.

He kept going, soon coming to a line of weather rocks, big and small, perched near the edge of a sheer drop the path stopped a few meters from, on the largest of the rocks Kya was perched, the oldest of his children's legs drawn up close with her arms held around them. She stared down at the sheltered tidal pool below. "I'm up." She peered over her shoulder, long brown hair nearly tangling itself up in the process to stare at him for a few moments.

Aang stopped a short distance from the boulder.

Kya hopped off the rock, wringing her wrists for a few moments before running towards him and burying her face into his chest. Aang's smile was warm, but tinged with sadness as he looked down at his daughter, very much hating the trouble he had put her and everyone else through by chasing Yakone. He didn't want to say anything, but he knew he had to. "Honey, is your mother down there?"

She stepped back, looking up at him as she nodded.

He directed a thought at the sphere of rapidly spinning wind he was perched on, the rush of released air filling his ears as the sphere dispersed and letting him step onto the sand. Behind him the cliffs holding the upper portions of the island loomed, while in front of him... in front of him was her.

She sat at the edge of the water with her back to him, her long blackish brown hair falling on either side of her head over the front of her shoulders, leaving her back entirely exposed. The deep blue robes she wore were simple and made of thin fabric, not doing much at all to hinder the shape of her body.

Aang rolled his pants up a bit to stop sand from lodging in them, and moved across the sand towards her, knowing how mad she was going to be. Birds squawked overhead while the waves slowly lapped the shoreline in front of her as he stopped. "Tenzin's gotten further into my journals. Reading them very fast."

His face fell a little as he saw the woman clench her shoulders a little. "I'm okay, Katara, please-" the brown-skinned woman looked up at him, hair falling around her tear-stained cheeks and her wet blue eyes.

Immediately every other kind of thought just went. Aang knelt down, ignoring his muscle's protest as he placed a hand on her shoulder and grabbed her hand, resting nearby on the sand. He gently squeezed her hand to show here he was there, but she didn't squeeze back like she usually did.

She sniffed once as she let go of his hand, and went back to staring at the water, beginning to get a golden sheen to it courtesy of the setting sun past the tangle of rocks on the beach's western edge. "I didn't think there would be anyone like her in the world. Well. Except for me, I guess." she whispered.

He said nothing for a few moments, paralyzed at the fact that she was putting herself on the same level as two people who had both used bending for domination and greed. Aang hung his head. "I- neither did I."

Katara continued to fixate on the waves. "I refused to believe it when I first heard the news. But there he was. Where I should have been. Spirits, its just like Hama all over again."

Nothing came to mind. Nothing at all. No idea what to say or what to do apart from the obvious. He sighed. "You were right were you needed to be. The kids needed you more than I did, Katara."

The woman's toes flexed up and down as she dug them into the cool sand, hanging her head with a defeated nod. "Doesn't make it any easier." she murmured in a barely level voice. "I nearly lost you, Aang."

Something came to mind like it usually did. He shifted forwards on his knees, moving in front of her with a apologetic smile and taking hold of her hands. "Won't happen again. Promise."

Katara looked away from him, her eyes narrowed and her teeth gritted. "I need more than that-" the man leaned forwards, gently gripping her shoulders as he touched his forehead against hers where his arrow tattoo was. Only a eternal second passed between them as he looked into her deep blue eyes, before their lips brushed together, the two of them feeling the familiar spark.

She closed her eyes and lost herself in him, and he the same- a giggle snapped them out of it. Aang sighed as he caught a mop of wild spiky hair poking out from behind a boulder near the foot of the cliff, exchanging whispers with the troublesome little girl next to him. Between the two of them a quiet voice occasionally piped up, only to yelp when Bumi decided to rub his knuckles through his younger brother's hair.

"They're here, aren't they?" Katara murmured while cupping Aang's chin.

With a almost disappointed sigh, Aang inclined his head. "Yep."

A gladness filled the Avatar as Katara straightened and pulled a thick glob of water out of the tidal pool, and dumped it over the heads of the three children while calling their names.

He smiled at his family. Glad that he was safely home.

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