Author's Note
Round seven of the pro-bending circuit: Tell a story between the end of Avatar: the Last Airbender and the beginning of The Legend of Korra.
Words (excluding Author's note): 1651
Prompts: (word) connecting, (plot) Friends become enemies
Personal note: This was a damn hard story to write.
When she was young, she never thought the words "I love you," could be a lie. Her parents couldn't understand what she needed, but their love was always real. Twinkletoes, Sugar Queen, and all the others, they didn't say it much, but when they did, they meant it.
Once she learned the truth, she couldn't believe she had ever been such a sap. Some people will use anything to get what they want. Why should those three words be any different? As she grew older she met men who wanted something and thought those words could get it for them. Some hoped for influence with the Avatar or access to the Beifong fortune. Some just wanted to get laid. For the last type, sometimes she'd pretend to believe them, if they smelled nice and had pretty voices.
Kanto means the words.
They insisted on taking her and the baby out of the hospital in a wheelchair. Katara assured her that they did that for everyone, that it had nothing to do with her blindness. Reluctantly, she got in the chair and let herself be pushed along with a minimum of grumbling.
Once she was out the door, she was on her feet. She kicked off the silly slippers they made her wear. Her bare feet touched the pavement and she sighed in relief as she felt her world expand. Katara sighed too, in annoyance. She could feel the woman down on the ground, picking up the slippers. She probably handed them back to the orderly at the same time she said, "Thank you so much for your help."
Toph waved vaguely in the orderly's direction. "Yeah, yeah. You were a great pusher." The baby was already nestled in the sling Katara had brought for her. She was sleeping right now, her breathing even, her little heart racing even at rest. Toph scraped a foot along the ground to get her bearings and then started walking for home. "C'mon Sugar Queen, if you're coming."
His voice is the first thing she notices about him. Some probably make fun of his rustic accent, but the tone is so deep and rich. She talks to him just for an excuse to hear him speak. Quickly she finds herself connecting with him in a way that she never has before. He's so different from her, but it's not like that stupid "opposites attract" from trashy love stories. It's like they were made to fit together.
He lets her touch his face, and it feels as beautiful as his voice sounds.
Days and weeks pass, and they spend more and more time together. And one night, walking her home, he says the words. And he means them. And she says them back to him, knowing that they're true.
Before Kanto, with the one night stands, she was always careful. With Kanto, she's been going slow, not wanting to spoil anything. She's tired of careful and slow, and she invites him in, knowing what's going to happen. And as he sinks into her, as she enfolds him, she reaches up to feel his face and knows this is how things should always be.
"Don't you want to take a taxi or something?" Katara asked after about a block. It was the healer in her speaking, so Toph decided not to give her a hard time for it.
"I've been spending the past week mostly in bed. And when they move me around, it's in one of those damn wheelchairs. Soft mattresses and rubber wheels. I'm tired of my world feeling fuzzy. Nothing's getting between me and the ground until I get my girl home." It was a good thing Aang was away on Avatar business, or he would probably have tried to give her a ride on Appa.
"I think they were expecting you to name her at the hospital," Katara said, "not just keep on calling her 'girl' or 'baby.'"
Toph shook her head. "Can't do it Sweet Cheeks. 'There's two times you're sure to be carried through your front door: the day you get your name and the day you leave it behind.' Can't name her until she's been through the front door. It's bad luck."
When Kanto starts to lie to her, it's devastating.
It's not small lies, like people use to grease the wheels of any long term relationship. Things like 'It's fine,' or 'I don't mind,' when it actually bugs you but it's not worth causing a fuss about. He starts to lie about where he's been or where he's going.
She tries to ignore it, to pretend she doesn't notice. But the lies build and patterns start to emerge. She's sure he's going somewhere, seeing someone, he doesn't want her to know about. Someone that makes him happy.
He comes by one night after ditching her earlier in the day with yet another falsehood. He's so happy after whatever he's been doing with (to?) whoever it is, that she finally snaps. She lays it all out for him. Everything he's said that she knows to be untrue.
"I'm not one of your criminals." That beautiful voice is tight with hurt and anger.
"Well, you're sure acting like one," she snaps.
"You want to know what I've been keeping from you?" he snaps back. "It's this." There's the sound of something slamming on the table. "And now I don't really care what you do with it." She hears his footsteps make toward the door, hears it slam behind him.
She walks to the table. She has to feel for the thing he left behind. It's a box. A small, hinged, velvet box. Any woman with sight would know what was inside it the moment she saw it. Kanto got a box for a blind woman. He had the words "I love you," embossed on the top, so she could read it with her fingers.
She could go after him. Apologize, beg his forgiveness. He was lying again when he said he didn't care. A lie he had more than earned the right to utter. He's a good man, and she knows he would forgive her.
She sends him the box and its contents in the mail with a note. "I'm sorry for accusing you. But it's probably for the best. You deserve better." She never hears his voice again.
They had been walking for a while without speaking. Finally, it was too much for Toph. "You know, you have a very loud way of keeping silent," she said. "Did I every mention that?"
"Once or twice," Katara said, wryly. "I was thinking about that saying you quoted. One of the air acolytes is from the Earth Kingdom. She said that when Bumi was born."
Toph felt she could guess where this was going. "Oh?" she said neutrally.
"When Kya was born," Katara continued, "she said it differently. 'There's three times you're sure to be carried through your front door: the day you get your name, the day you change your name, and the day you leave it behind.'"
"That's traditional. Two for boys, three for girls. But it doesn't really work for you and Twinkletoes and your kids. Neither of your nations do family names."
"Yours does."
Toph sighed. "My Mother only said 'two times' when I was born. She thought a helpless blind girl would never attract a man that was worth marrying. She was wrong about that. But she was right that marriage isn't a sure thing. Not everyone who wants it gets it. And whether they want it or not, whether they get it or not, doesn't have a lot to do with whether it's actually the right thing for them.
"I could blame my Mother for prophesying my singleness, or jinxing me, but the fact is I screwed up my chance all on my own. I'm not fixing my girl's future by being honest. Birth and death are all anyone, boy or girl, is guaranteed. Everything in between is down to luck and risking."
At last Katara stopped circling around what she really wanted to ask. The question Toph had been expecting for almost nine months, but that only Katara had the courage to ask. "About the baby. Does Kanto know?"
The other signs were there, but Toph didn't realize the truth until she could hear the second heartbeat in her body. One last gift from Kanto. One she didn't realize she wanted until she knew she had it.
Toph hesitated at the doorway to her building, struck by the magnitude of everything that lay before her now that this moment had arrived. Katara seemed to guess and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. Well, Sugar Queen had been through this experience three times now.
Toph realized why, of all her friends, she was glad it was Katara here with her now. Katara was the one who would always tell Toph when she didn't agree or approve or understand. But no matter how wrong she thought Toph was, she would always be there by her side.
She took a deep breath and opened the front door. She carried her baby girl up the steps to her apartment. She carried her through her front door for the first time. Behind her, Katara turned on the lights, and Toph realized that she would have to form the habit of doing that herself, even when there was no company.
The girl had slept through the entire walk. Toph lifted her up carefully, kissed her on the forehead and said, "Welcome home, Lin."