Any Other Way
The war is over, and Sokka is grateful for it.
No more wandering around the world on a ten-ton bison with his sister, the Avatar, a blind Earthbender, and a winged lemur, trying to escape a psychotic prince and his even more psychotic sister, trying to end a war that has been going on for a century. No more living off the land and getting settled, only to leave in a few more days. No more meeting countless girls who he may or may not love, or might or might not love him back.
He still thinks of Yue (oh yes, every day) and Suki (he wishes dearly he had gotten revenge on the trio of "dangerous ladies" who murdered her and her warriors). He thinks of his father, chief of the Southern Water Tribe again, and his mother, and all his friends back home. He thinks of everyone who ever helped them along on their journey. Azula and her friends die a painful death in his mind every now and then. But now he has something new to protect.
He has Toph, and he loves her with all his heart.
She is nineteen now (a far cry from the twelve-year-old he first saw as a tough warrior and later a seemingly helpless girl), he is twenty-two. His sister and Aang have just gotten married and he and Toph themselves are traveling, wanderlust. The last time they had seen the new couple—well, it was a couple days ago at their wedding. But before then they had contacted each other infrequently, since Toph and Sokka were constantly on the move. They had never settled down. Stay a day at an inn, gone before sunrise and spend the night a hundred miles away, somewhere at a camp in the middle of nowhere.
And then comes the day, while they are staying in a warm grove of lilacs on their never-ending quest for adventure, when he makes up his mind and proposes. He has been working on the necklace for a while—nothing fancy, a band of green ribbon with a carved blue stone. It is simple, and yet she loves it, feeling over the smooth rock with her fingertips and throwing her arms around his neck in a hug, then a kiss.
Why did they, of all people, stay together? They don't need each other and yet they do…
Sokka needs to protect someone. Toph… well, she doesn't need a guard, but she feels a lot safer for some reason when she's by the boomerang-wielding warrior's side. They complete each other, opposing and attracting equally as much. They are similar and yet, different.
And Sokka decides he wouldn't have it any other way.