Mother to Mother
Toph leaned back in her chair and adjusted the cushions behind her. Their soft plumpness helped with her sore back. The earthbender's belly was huge. It entered everywhere before she did and Toph joked that she needed an extra room in the house just to fit the thing. She felt good and healthy, but slightly off balance and her bending had suffered over the previous few months.
"You'd better be worth all this misery, kiddo." She spoke the words with affection and rubbed the protruding mound. "I wish your father was here to meet you."
He wasn't dead, the man who fathered her child. He was a good man and Toph had loved him, still loved him. But their relationship had ended with a tired sigh and Shan was on the other side of mountains and desert, living his own life. She would tell him about the baby eventually. He had a right. But Toph intended to raise the child in her own house and on her own terms. Shan was not the settle down type anyway. After a few weeks he would feel the urge to move on once again and the responsibility of Lin or Zemin, girl or boy, would settle in on her shoulders.
"It's better this way," she crooned. "I'll tell you lots of stories about your father and you'll know him and you'll meet him too."
The baby was still inside, sleeping perhaps or listening with care to mother's words.
"Ohhhh," Toph groaned when she finally stood. "I think it's time you came out to say hello. I can't take much more of this." She lumbered into the kitchen, clumsy and graceless. "Let's get something to eat. Do you feel like spicy noodles and picken?" This time the baby kicked in response and Toph grinned. "I like you already."
~~~~0000~~~~
"We'll stay for a few days, to help you out. It's difficult with your first baby and….." Katara thought better of adding anything else. Toph would not tolerate any mention of blindness affecting her ability to care for her brand new daughter. But the waterbender couldn't help but wonder what challenges Toph might find herself facing over the coming months and years.
"I know what you were going to say. And you don't have to stay. I've got my friends in town and my housekeeper comes twice a week. I'll be fine, Katara."
"We're staying; me and Aang and Sokka and Suki and the kids. It's not a crime to need help, Toph. I did." Katara reached out to her friend, grabbing her hand and giving it a squeeze. "Lin is beautiful. She and Tenzin will be great friends, I'll bet."
The newborn slept against Toph's chest, dark hair in stark contrast with her pale skin. She nuzzled against her mother's breast occasionally and would awaken soon, hungry for milk. Toph squirmed a bit in the bed, and sucked in her breath as the soreness down below hit her full force. Lin was a good sized baby and Toph's labour had been long. She felt more exhausted than she had after any battle. She respected every woman for enduring the birthing process. And she decided right then and there that Lin was enough.
"That would be great, Lin and Tenzin friends. Sleep wherever you want. Use anything you need. Just let me rest now." Toph wiped a hand across her still damp brow before leaning down a bit and kissing Lin's forehead. "She's healthy, right? Everything is as it should be?" The earthbender hated the fear and vulnerability that came through in her words and her voice. She'd been treated as a weak little thing for the first twelve years of her life and had spent an awful lot of time proving people otherwise. It was difficult to let go of that façade of invincibility.
"She's perfect." Katara whispered the words, knowing that Toph would hear and slipped out of the bedroom.
~~~~0000~~~~
Silence did not exist for Toph. Her room was quieter now, granted, and she felt sleep, warm and enticing, embrace her like a fur lined cloak in the depths of winter. But her own heartbeat thrummed in her ears and Lin's was like a metronome, steady and strong and comforting. With her feet up on the bed, not in direct contact with the floor, the vibrations from the others were muffled and diluted, as though they hovered, deep under water. But she could feel them still.
"Ugh," she grumbled, wishing her body's need for sleep would outweigh its awareness. "Lin, I don't think Mama can sleep quite yet. All their talking and moving is too much right now."
Toph was anxious too about the changes her life would undergo, being a good parent to her daughter, having someone so utterly dependent on her, at least for a few years.
"You'll be strong and tough like me, though. I'll make sure that you can take good care of yourself."
She eased her way out from under the light covers before swinging around and touching her feet to the floor. The 'noise' increased tenfold but Toph always felt best when some part of her touched the earth.
"Come on, Lin; I need a cold glass of water. And you might as well meet the extended family. You'll be seeing a lot of them over the years."
Stroking her baby's forehead, Toph let her hand hover over eyes she'd been told were bright green and full of intelligence. Colours were a difficult concept to grasp. But the grass was green and leaves in the spring and summer and they felt strong and flexible and like silk between her fingers. Green was good. Green was life.
~~~~0000~~~~
Her clothes needed changing and the waterbender felt like a long bath. The rest of the gang sat in the living room chatting and gurgling and throwing the occasional temper tantrum.
"How is she?" Sokka looked up, his blue eyes filled with happiness and concern. He and Toph had developed a tight, strong bond over the past twenty years. The earthbender communicated more with him than any of the others.
"You know the drill; Toph's wiped out and ecstatic and scared. She needs to sleep now."
Suki nodded sympathetically and watched her two children play; six year old Minsheng and three year old Yuan. There was nothing more joyous and nothing more terrifying than parenthood. And it took time to find your rhythm. Those first few weeks, especially with your first child really are a blur of feedings and diaper changes and crying and sleeping whenever and wherever the opportunity presented itself. But there were moments of joy and they superseded the worry and the fatigue; baby's first smile, pure and real, her first giggle, the way he snuggled close, the smell of her, fresh from the bath. Toph was in for a crazy ride.
"So we're staying, right?" Aang smiled happily and glanced at the pile of brightly coloured sleeping rolls.
"We're staying for a couple of days." Katara lowered her voice, worried that Toph might somehow be able to sense her words even though she was deep in slumber. "I want to make sure that she can take care of Lin." She shook her head. That came out differently than she had intended. "I mean, I want to help Toph with the basics, make sure she can change a diaper….oh…" She slapped a hand against her forehead. Her eldest child, a daughter, Kya, stared at her mother with concern, her little mouth hanging open. "You guys know what I mean."
"It's all right, sweetie; we understand." Aang wrapped an arm about Katara, his fingers playing with the tendrils of wavy brown hair that reached her waist. "Toph's smart and able and adaptable but she's never looked after a child for more than an hour or two. You just want to give her a bit of guidance, right?"
"She's alone here," Katara added. "And a baby is, well….what if there's a problem or…"
"How's a woman supposed to get any sleep with all of you yammering out here?" Toph braced herself with one hand against the wall and cradled Lin with her free arm.
Katara looked aghast and instinctively drew even closer to her husband. "I thought you were asleep!"
"Yeah, well, you thought wrong. And I'm thirsty."
"So you heard what we were saying?"
"Enough; I can take care of Lin just as well as you take care of Kya and Bumi and Tenzin. I'm blind, Katara, not brain dead. And you know as well as anyone that I can see more than most people. Thanks for making me feel like a bad mother less than a day in." Her words dripped sarcasm now and her expression was a combination of disdain and hurt.
"Oh great, here we go." Sokka shook his head recalling countless arguments, some vicious, that Katara and Toph had over the years.
They loved each other but didn't always like each other and they were as different as summer in the South Pole was from summer in the Earth Kingdom.
Katara put her hands on her hips but chewed and swallowed her nasty retort before it had a chance to leave her mouth. She had to remember that Toph was tired beyond any kind of tired she had ever felt. The waterbender had given birth to her youngest a year earlier and that bone deep fatigue was still etched into her memory, like scratches on glass.
"I didn't mean to make you feel like that. You're already a good mother, Toph. I just want to help with the transition. Don't be so damned stubborn."
The earthbender made her way to an empty chair, each step a monumental effort. The padding called to her like cheerful window displays called to greedy shoppers. She let out a great gust of air when she sat. Lin continued to sleep, though miniature feet jerked as though she were in the midst of a dream. Toph wondered what a newborn could possibly dream of. Did she long for the warmth and velvety softness of the womb, the snug space, protected, providing for all her needs?
"Stubborn like the earth, remember; it's in my blood." She grinned but her friend's words still stung a bit. Fighting just wasn't an option now. "Three days, all right; then you can get back to your own homes. And I'll make sure that someone's nearby if I need help." She fixed her white filmed eyes on Katara. "Is that enough to satisfy you?"
"I guess," the older woman conceded.
"Good, can we maybe get something to eat now? All that waiting around made me hungry." Sokka made a goofy face for the kids and they burst into raucous giggles. "What?" he asked the rest of the adults before joining the laughter.
~~~~0000~~~~
Katara fretted and hovered like an old woman. Her behavior annoyed Toph but she appreciated her friend's efforts as well. The waterbender's heart was good and she wanted the best for everyone. Sometimes that was hard to argue with.
"Now you try." Katara nudged her friend. "Toph, Lin needs a clean diaper."
Toph picked up the soft cotton before grabbing hold of Lin's feet and lifting her upward, tiny bottom in the air. Deftly, she guided the cloth underneath before setting the infant down again. In five quick motions, Lin's diaper was folded and pinned. Toph shot Katara a smug look.
"See, not a problem."
She picked up her daughter and held her close, rocking a bit as if in time to some rhythm deep within the earth.
"Better than my diapering," Katara grinned. She rested a hand on Toph's shoulder and squeezed. "I shouldn't worry so much, but I do. You and now Lin, well, you both mean so much to me."
"I know." Toph was rarely moved to tears, but now she blinked them back, furious at her lack of control. "Damned hormones."
"We've covered everything, I think." Katara pretended not to notice. "We can leave if you like. I mean, you're clearly more than capable of handling anything that might come up."
"Of course I am." Toph's voice was defiant. "But, I wouldn't mind if all of you stayed on a bit longer. I mean, Lin had better get used to all that damned racket you people make. And Sokka, well he's a sucker for her already. I don't think he's had enough."
Katara laughed. Her brother was quite taken with Toph's daughter. Whenever Toph wasn't feeding or just holding the baby, he scooped her up and regaled her with tales of life on the road, his voice animated and her eyes focused on his face with a scary intensity.
"I'll go start dinner then. Are you okay here?"
Nodding, Toph sat in the nursery's comfortable chair. "Well, kiddo. I think we're off to a good start. What do you think?"
Lin's answering gurgle made Toph's heart soar.
~~~~0000~~~~
A/N: Random sort of one-shot, but the idea of Toph as a mother intrigues me.