This turned out waaayy longer that I had planned it to be. So many big words (thank god for dictionaries). Anyway here is my first instalment of Tokka week. I was always going to have the last two parts in it but I decided I need a bit of an introduction to what was actually happening and that ended up taking up half the story. I think the characters might have gotten a bit OOC towards the end though.

I was throwing rocks. Literally.

I was tempted to throw more than just rocks, but when I did that yesterday I also accidentally interrupted a romantic picnic. Katara had not been happy about that. To think of it, Twinkle Toes wasn't very chatty either. So to save myself from the Sugar Queen's wrath, I was sticking to tiny rocks and not stone walls or fountain statues.

Katara shouldn't be ranting to me though, it's not my fault I've been mad for the past few days. I blame my parents. Two days ago a messenger came and told me that they were taking me back home in three days. Three days is now tomorrow, and I haven't even told my best friend I'm leaving yet.

I must've been concentrating hard on the rocks I was either throwing or crushing in my hands, because I didn't feel anyone else come into the garden until I accidentally hit a certain someone in the head with a rock.

He was sitting over by the pond in the Ba Sing Se garden that the earth king had given us. Had he been there the whole time? I waited for a loud complaint or a sarcastic comment but he didn't say anything. He didn't do anything.

I walked over and sat next to him, but staying as far as possible away from the water.

"Hey," I said as I sat down. Sokka finally moved a little and faced me for a second.

"Oh, hi Toph," he said and went back to staring at the water. There was something different about his vibrations, I could tell. They weren't strong and energetic like they usually are. They were, sad.

I waited again for him to say something else but got nothing. "Um, so…" I started. "Sorry about that before."

"Sorry about what?" Man, how hard did I hit him? I raised one of my eyebrows.

"Uh, me. Rock. Your head."

"Oh, yeah. Don't worry bout it." Okay this was too weird.

I sighed and pulled Sokka's gaze away from the pond. "Spill," I demanded. His heartbeat sped up a little as I pulled on his arm.

"Spill what?" he mumbled. I punched him in the arm hard to show him I was annoyed.

"What's wrong with you!"

Sokka rubbed his arm. "Nothing's wrong. I'm no different." I punched him again.

"I don't need vibrations to tell that you're lying Sokka. No offence, but you're not the kind of guy who knows how sit still and keep quiet for ages." I rolled my eyes. "I mean, why aren't you with Suki on a nice little date or something?"

Sokka turned away, and I was pretty sure that he was staring at that stupid pond again. He sighed heavily and didn't move. "Suki dumped me." I froze where I was. That explained everything. "She wasn't having any fun anymore. So, she told me it was over and walked off with another guy."

"I could have told you that she would do that." I thought, but I didn't say anything. The last thing I wanted to do was make him feel worse.

I stayed with him for a while, trying to think of what to do to make him happy. I could only remember one other time when he had been this unhappy, and to cheer him up then we took him shopping, not exactly one of my favourite things.

Wow. Sitting in silence sure helps when you're trying to come with ideas.

I stood up and moved towards the house. "Stay there," I said, "I'll be right back."

I ran into the house and the room that I was staying in. I opened the case that all my stuff was packed in ready for me to leave tomorrow, and started looking for one of the things my parents messengers had left here when they came to tell me the 'good news'. I found two thin rectangles and pulled them out of the case. As I made my way back outside, I almost ran into Katara.

"Katara! Perfect!" I held up the two cards to her face. "What are these?"

Katara stood there for a while, probably looking at them. "Well the one in your right hand is your passport and the one in you left…wait, where did you get a money card?"

I smirked and pulled the both of them back. "Just from dear old mum and dad. Thanks Sweetness!"

I made my way back outside and found Sokka exactly where I left him.

"C'mon Ponytail, we're leaving." I pulled him to his feet.

"Toph, I'm really not in the mood."

"You're always in the mood to go shopping."

"You're taking me shopping?" Sokka stood there and I could tell by his vibrations that I had completely surprised him. "We don't have any money. 'Tara hasn't let us handle money ever since we went scamming in the fire nation."

I folded my arms and faced him. "You're obviously forgetting who you're best friend is."

"No I'm not."

I groaned and started walking, making sure he followed. "You're no fun when you're sad."

"Um…sorry?"

"C'mon," I said, "I have lots of money and we are going to spend as much of it as possible."

OoOoO

It took an hour and a few purchases, but before long the old Sokka was back. He grinned excitedly as he looked at different weapons, warrior outfits, and, well everything really. We were spending ages in each shop, because most of the time Sokka couldn't make up his mind on what to get. At the counters, I just showed the shopkeepers the money card and waited for them to write out the bill to send my parents.

My dad is going to absolutely love me when he gets all these bills.

"Toph! Toph! Come and look at this!" I was starting to realise why I was glad Sokka didn't get sad a lot.

I walked over to him and he held out something heavy. "Look!" he said, "Isn't it so cool?"

I rolled my eyes. "Uh…Sokka?"

"Yea? Oh right. Sorry." He put the thing in my hands for me to feel. As I ran my hands against the metal I raised my eyebrows. "It's a metal glove," I said slowly.

"No Toph, it's a gauntlet." Sokka took the metal glove, sorry, gauntlet and put it on his hand.

"Riiight." I muttered, "Well if you're going to buy it, buy it quickly. I'm hungry."

We ended up spending another half an hour in that shop.

We finally left with more than just the gauntlet. Carrying a lot of bags, we went to a restaurant that specialized in meat. When we sat down, I lifted my feet off the floor to give them a rest from constantly feeling Sokka's erratic heartbeat. He read the menu out to me and we ordered, the whole time with me thinking that this was how I always wanted it to be.

I 'watched' him stuff his mouth full of food, hardly pausing to even chew it. I know everyone is repulsed by seeing Sokka eat but not me. I found it interesting how he was able to shove so much meat in his mouth, chew for a total of three seconds, swallow, then put another huge piece in his mouth and start the pattern all over again without hiccuping or vomiting.

"So, I take it you like your mooselion steak then?" I said conversationally. Sokka nodded vigorously.

"Mmm. Issrate Toff danksh."

I didn't even try to understand that.

He managed to make room for desert, something I couldn't do, and he finally gave up with two spoonfuls to go. We then went through the process of paying and left the restaurant with very little food.

OoOoO

I was starting to feel the air get cooler after a while and knew that the end of my last day with my friends was getting severely close. We had sent all the bags back to the house but Sokka still wanted to spend time looking at the rest of the shops before they all closed.

I followed behind him silently, trying to figure out a way to tell him that I was going to be gone tomorrow. I had spent the whole day doing what I hated just to make him happy again, and now I was just going to take that all away. Why did I even bother?

'Why do I even care?' I thought, even though I knew the answer. I cared because, he was my best friend, because he had done nothing different when I was having my bad day, because I owed him.

Because I loved him.

Sokka grabbed my hand and pulled me into a shop. His heart rate changed again, like it did whenever he went into any other shop, but this time is wasn't the normal excited that it had been. There was something else in his heartbeat that I couldn't quite pick out.

As we walked in, I felt the vibrations and sniffed to try and figure out what kind of shop it was. It smelt like linen, and I picked up soft vibrations from the ground. I turned and sighed to Sokka.

"Didn't you get enough clothes today?" I asked him exasperatedly.

Sokka shook his head. "This isn't just any clothes shop," he said, "and it's not for me."

An old lady walked up to us and smiled. "Good evening son," she said to Sokka, "are you and your girlfriend here to buy a dress?"

It was then that I realized that we were still holding hands. I quickly pulled mine away and rubbed the sweat off onto my shirt. "We're not-" I began but Sokka interrupted me.

"Yes. Yes we are."

The lady's heartbeat quickened and she directed us to the racks. I took the moment to pull Sokka down to my level. "A dress shop?" I hissed. "What are you thinking?"

I felt Sokka try to loosen my grip on his shirt. "Well," he stammered, "I was thinking that maybe because we're using your parent's money we should buy something that they actually approve of." I let go of him and he fixed up his collar.

I shrugged. "Not a bad idea Meathead." And I meant it. It wasn't as stupid as most of his ideas were. "One problem though. How am I supposed to pick out a dress?"

"You don't have to. I'll pick out dresses that I think will look good on you and you decide which one depending on how they feel when you put them on."

Did Sokka actually know how to pick out dresses? I had been forced into dress shopping by Sugar Queen a lot of times (and forced into wearing them) after the war ended but I actually knew that she had some fashion sense.

Not sure whether I could say the same about Sokka.

"How do I know that you won't force me to wear some completely and utterly ridiculous?" I asked him, not exactly sure of what I was getting myself into.

"You'll just have to trust me?" Sokka tested. I groaned and turned away. "Fine," I groaned, "go ahead and start picking."

Sokka, instead of looking at every single thing in the whole shop, went straight to a single rack. He picked out a dress, studied it for a moment, then dumped it into my arms. "Try that one on." He said, and pushed me over to the change rooms. I raised my eyebrows. "What? You're not going to get me to try on the whole shop?"

"Nope," Sokka said, "that one."

I walked into one of the change rooms as Sokka sat down a chair and waited. "You know what?" he said as I started peeling off my clothes, "I don't need Suki. I was really stupid by thinking that my life was going to end without her."

That last part was kinda ironic because if it weren't for her, both Sokka and my lives would have ended if she wasn't around when we took out the airships.

"What do you mean?" I asked as I tried to figure out how the dress went on.

"I thought that I was going to be completely worthless without a girlfriend but today's told me that I don't need one. I've got you instead."

I froze where I was as Sokka continued. "You're always going to be around to be my best friend. You're always going to be here to put up with my stupid jokes and prank the others with me. You're always going to be here to take me on shopping trips when I'm sad and let me buy whatever I want, even if it's just going to go to waste somewhere."

I felt a tear slip out from underneath my closed eyelids. "Idiot, idiot." I thought, "Why did I make this harder than it already is?"

I quickly brushed the tears away and moved towards the door. As I stepped out I felt both Sokka's and the dressmaker's heartbeats get faster and my cheeks started to heat up. "Umm…" I started.

"Oh my," the dressmaker breathed. Sokka didn't say anything. My cheeks felt really hot now and I didn't wait for them to try and say anything else. "What?" I asked, "Do I really look that bad?"

"Oh no, no," The dressmaker came over and studied me closely, "You look…"

"Amazing." My head moved towards Sokka's voice. "How does it feel?" he asked.

The material of the dress was a fine silk, really soft on my skin, and the skirt length was long enough to cover my bare feet, but short enough so I would trip over it. On top of the shoulders were little marble brackets.

I nodded slowly. "Good," I said, "It feels really good." I ran my hands along the material for a while, then faced Sokka. "What colour is it?"

Sokka shrugged, and said simply, "Light green, my favourite colour." He paused for a moment. "The same colour as your eyes."

I felt the dressmaker shake her head. "Well, if you don't buy this then I'm going to have to force you to." she gasped. "If this dress was made for one particular person, it was you."

"We're getting it," Sokka said. "You can wear to the earth king's party in two weeks. Actually talking about that, I though of a great plan that we can pull off while we're there…"

I walked slowly back to the change room. After closing the door, I sank down to the floor. "You see, I was thinking that we could do the Momo-ghost plan I had thought of ages ago. Aang didn't want to use it back then because all we were doing was trying to sneak into the party but this time we're invited and I though that we could use the plan this time to liven up the party a bit. What do you reckon? Cos' everyone is just going to talking and dancing or in Aang and Katara's case, making lovey eyes at each other. By the way I need you to help me think of ways to get them away from each other. I really don't like them being with each other all the time." Tears streamed out from my eyes, and this time I didn't try to stop them. Sokka moved towards the change room door.

"Toph? You didn't fall asleep on me did you?" I sniffed and buried my head in my arms. Sokka must have heard me because I heard his voice soften. "Hey Toph? I'm coming in, alright?" He walked into the change room and sat down next to me. "What's wrong? Don't you like the dress, because we don't have to get it if you don't want to." He put his arm around my shoulders. "Did I say something bad? Because I often do that sometimes and I don't even know it. Just," he breathed in, "let me know what's wrong."

I lifted my head up from my arms. "I'm not going to be here for the earth king's party," I said softly, "I'm not going to be here to prank other people with you or taking you on shopping trips and let you get whatever you want anymore."

I felt Sokka stiffen next to me as I continued. "My parents are taking me home tomorrow for good. I'm not going to be with you guys anymore."

"But we're still going to see each other, right?" Sokka murmured. "It's not for good, we'll still see each other, well I will anyway."

I shook my head. "Once I get home my parents are going to lock me up in the house and marry me off the first suitor that comes around. There's no way that they're going to let me see you guys and I can't run away again."

"You're still coming to the party."

I sighed, "Weren't you listening to what I just said? My parents won't let me go and I can't run away again. How am I supposed to come to the party?"

Sokka rubbed my arm, "You can't run away again, I know that, but what if you were instead just 'kidnapped' again? Or your family could get a request from the earth king or fire lord that says that you 'have' to come to the party."

"You're a war hero, you're the bind bandit, you're the greatest earthbender in the world. No-one can tell you what to do, remember?" The edges of my mouth tilted up. I did remember.

Sokka leaned closer to me and whispered the last bit in my ear. "Besides, you have to come." He said softly. "Because if you don't, then I'm going to be very, very sad again."

"Idiot," I murmured, "Now I have to come."

"Exactly." Sokka gave me one last hug then took his arm away from my shoulders. "Now you should probably get out of that dress so we can buy it, hey?" He leaned in again and planted a soft kiss on my cheek. I bushed and he stood up and walked towards the door. "Don't take too long, okay?" he said and walked outside.

My stomach did flip flops inside me and I touched my cheek where he had kissed me.

I spent another half hour sitting on the floor of that change room, still in my dress.

Hope you like! XD