"So, does anybody want to explain what's going on?" With an air of caution, Katara stepped into the randomly transforming house that she, her brother, and apparently a few others, now called home. The brother in question, along with Aang and Suki, soon followed.

"Well see, it all started when Pakku and Gran-Gran were talking about finding a place to spend their honeymoon and Gran-Gran mentioned that she owned a house in Ba Sing Se but that it was really old and hadn't been lived in for 60 years so I was like "hey, can I live there?" and she said yes so then -"

Katara turned around and put a hand up to halt her brother.

"We got that part already. How about you skip to the part where we leave for two days and come back to find you shacking up with these girls?"

"Hey! I'm only technically shacking up with Suki!"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Okay, that sounded a lot better in my head."

Shaking her head, Suki sighed and decided to answer Katara's question before Sokka could dig himself into an even deeper hole. "Me and a few of my warriors decided to accept the Earth King's invitation to be a part of his Royal Guard. I'm staying here with Sokka while the other girls are staying in the palace. Well, except for Ty Lee. She sorta got kicked out."

"I did not get kicked out!" The Gaang looked up to see Ty Lee glaring down at them from a small hole in the roof. When she noticed everyone staring at her quizzically, she blushed under her makeup – how does she do that, anyway? – and went back to work.

Suki blinked as all the attention suddenly turned back to her. "...Right, so um, it was sort of recommended that she find someplace else to stay for the moment."

Katara frowned slightly but otherwise seemed to accept the explanation. "And Toph?"

Suki shrugged. "From what Sokka tells me, she's been living in Ba Sing Se for a while, now. Apparently she wants to stay here because it'd be...'fun'."

Aang raised an eyebrow at this. "Wait, I thought she'd worked things out with her parents? And where's she been staying all this time?"

As if on cue, a section of the wall behind them suddenly retracted into the ground, revealing Toph on the other side. "I was staying at Iroh's place," Toph replied as she stepped through the makeshift doorway and gave a quick stomp to close it back up again.

Sokka eyed the interior walls of the house as they swayed slightly as a result of the sudden disturbance. "We have doors, you know."

Toph waved him off. "Doors are overrated. Anyways, no offense to the old man, but staying there was kinda boring. I can appreciate a little peace and quiet as much as the next person, but all he ever wanted to do was play Pai Sho and drink tea. I need to be where all the action is!"

Katara's eyes narrowed as she looked towards Sokka and his girlfriend-slash-roommate. "Right. The action. I get the feeling there'll be plenty of 'action' around here, isn't that right, Sokka?"

"Well yeah I guess with all these people here there's bound to be - wait, what's that supposed to mean?"

Katara rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, Sokka. You're not that dense."

Toph smirked at this. "Debatable."

"Gee, thanks Toph."

"You're welcome, Sokka."

Katara rolled her eyes again. "Still, Aang and I have only been gone for two days and you've already moved three girls into our house!? What are you going to do if we leave for a week, start your own harem here?"

Suki in particular took offense to that. "Excuse me?"

Toph gave an irritated 'hmph' as she crossed her arms over her chest. "And what would you have done, Sugar Queen? Told us 'no'? It's not like you guys don't have the extra space."

"That's not the point, Toph!"

"You're right! That's not the point. The point is that YOU," Toph paused just long enough to point a finger right in front of Katara's face, "are being a big, stinkin' control freak who can't stand not having her say! Honestly, if I felt like dealing with that, I would've stayed at home. But since I don't, I'm gonna stay here and you're gonna like it! Got that?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be in my room."

The others watched silently as the young earthbender stormed down the hallway and through (yes, through) a wall.

Sokka was the first to break the silence. "Uh, Toph? That's a bathroom."

"Yeah? Well now it's MY bathroom. Deal with it!" With one last stomp, Toph closed the wall up behind her.

All Sokka could do was look around at his dumbfounded housemates.

"Well, that went better than I'd expected."

"So Sokka, how's the house coming along?" Iroh asked as he sat a cup of tea down in front of the young man in question.

Sokka sighed as he slumped down into his chair. "At this point, I don't think it's the house I should be worried about. I mean, the repairs and everything are coming along fine, but right now the tension in the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife. In fact, I'm not even sure if you could do that. I think if anybody tried, the knife would get stuck, and then you'd have a random knife floating around along with all the other stuff. For the past few days, Toph's not speaking to Katara, Katara's not speaking to me, Ty Lee isn't speaking to anybody - which I really don't understand - Suki's still upset over the whole 'shacking up' thing, and poor Aang is stuck in the middle of it all, relaying messages back and forth to everyone. And now here I am, drowning my sorrows in tea."

Iroh smiled knowingly. "Ah, sounds like having a house full of headstrong women is beginning to catch up to you."

Sokka took the cup of tea and, tilting his head back, downed almost the whole thing in one gulp. It was kind of painful to watch when you considered that the tea was still steaming hot. After a brief fit of coughing and gagging, Sokka returned to his previous slumped state.

"I guess you could put it that way. I'm just starting to wonder if this all wasn't a big mistake. How are we supposed to live together if we can't even talk to each other without getting mad?"

Iroh took a seat in the chair opposite Sokka and poured himself a cup of tea.

"You know, I remember a time when my wife and my sister-in-law – Zuko's mother – could barely stand being in the same room together, much less sharing a home."

"Really?"

"Yes. You see, my twelve year old son had wanted to teach young Zuko a new firebending technique he had just learned from me." Iroh smiled with a distant look in his eye, as if recalling a fond memory. The smile soon faded just as quickly as it appeared.

"Zuko couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 years old at the time, and the technique my son showed him was far too advanced for such a young bender. Ever the persistent one, Zuko tried to learn it, but ended up burning himself in the process. Granted, no firebender makes it through childhood without a few self-inflicted burns along the way, but nonetheless, Zuko's mother was mortified. She scolded my son for his carelessness, but my wife came to his defense, accusing my sister-in-law of coddling Zuko too much. My wife claimed that treating him like a baby would make him weak. Zuko's mother believed that it was this callous line of thought that had raised Fire Nation children up to become cold-blooded monsters. Of course, my wife took offense to that, and to this day, I thank Agni that the two of them weren't firebenders, otherwise they might've managed to burn down half the palace."

Sokka held out his cup as Iroh offered to pour him some more tea. "So what did you do?"

Iroh set the teapot back down and took a sip from his own cup. "Nothing. I wasn't sure there was anything I could do, really. I understood my sister-in-law's concern for her son's safety, and it was not our place to tell her how to raise her child, but at the time I also agreed with my wife's point of view. After all, Zuko would have to learn the hardships of bending sooner or later, and his injuries had been minor. Of course, neither of them wanted to hear any of this, so I did what I thought was in all of our best interests and stayed out of it."

"So what happened? How'd they end up working it out?"

"They didn't. Sure, they may have learned to tolerate one another, but they never did see eye to eye after that."

"Wait, so how is anything from this story supposed to help me?"

"You must realize that, with women, there are no right answers – only varying degrees of wrong ones. You see, those scrolls I mentioned to you before are nothing more than men's outlandish fantasies. Real life tends to work less favorably. Given your situation, my best advice to you is to lay low, speak sparingly, and hope it all blows over eventually."

"But- but that's horrible advice! That's not going to solve anything!"

"When concerning the ire of many scorn women, a man's advice rarely ever does." Iroh took one last sip of tea before setting it on the serving tray and heading for the kitchen. It was then that Sokka's forehead became closely acquainted with the table.

"What do you mean we can't all stay here?"

Sokka took a look around at the stunned group of friends and housemates that he'd finally managed to gather up into one room.

"Look Suki, everybody, as much as I hate to do this, we can't all live together if we're going to be walking on eggshells around each other all the time. It's just not going to work."

Toph raised an eyebrow as she spoke up next. "So what are you gonna do, kick us all out?"

"No. I'm kicking myself out. And Aang too."

"…Huh?" the girls asked.

"Hey, what did I do?" Aang's question was ignored.

"I can already tell that living with a bunch of women is going to bring up a lot of issues. A LOT of issues. So I've decided it would be in everyone's best interests for me to remove myself from the situation."

This time, Ty Lee spoke up. "But isn't this your house?"

Sokka shrugged. "Hey, most landlords don't live with their tenants, y'know. Besides, I'll still be here to help fix the place up, and I'll still cover my share of the rent – which is the majority of the rent, actually – I'll just be doing it from the comfort of...somewhere else."

Aang scratched his head in confusion. "I don't get it. How does you moving out help the situation at all? And what do I have to do with it?"

"Trust me, Aang. You don't want to be the only guy in a house full of women. But besides that, it's obvious that the reason you girls are so uptight around here is because you're all in love with me."

A silence fell over the room for what seemed like an eternity. The girls brought that silence to an end with a united, resounding, "WHAT?"

Katara guffawed. "Sokka, I'm pretty sure that nobody here is in love with you. Except maybe Suki."

One could tell by Suki's expression that she was mildly unimpressed with her boyfriend's brilliant deduction. "And at the moment, I'd emphasize the 'maybe'."

Sokka looked around at the other occupants of the room. "Ty Lee?"

"Hmm…you're not really my type," was all Ty Lee had to say.

"Toph?"

Toph simply crossed her arms and glared in Sokka's general direction. "What do you think?"

Before Sokka could even look his sister's way, Katara interrupted him. "If you ask me if I'm in love with you, I am so kicking your ass."

Sokka rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Right...So…I don't need to move out?"

"Of course not, Sokka. There's no need for anyone to move out." Katara sighed before turning toward Suki, Ty Lee, and Toph. "I'll admit, I was out of line the other day. I shouldn't have been upset about you guys moving in here…even though Sokka could've at least given me and Aang a heads-up…"

Sokka quickly interjected. "Hey, I didn't exactly get a heads-up either."

"Still, you guys are our friends – all of you, " Katara glanced at Ty Lee in particular as she said that, noticing the acrobat's expression brighten as a result. "- and it wasn't right of me to make any of you feel unwelcome here."

"Wow, Katara admitting she was wrong? I'm pretty sure that's a sign of the apocalypse."

Sokka face-palmed."Toph! You're not helping!"

"Alright, alright! I'll stop, sorry."

"So…" Sokka drawled, "we're good, then?"

Suki smiled as she snaked an arm around Sokka's waist. "Yeah, I think we're good."

Toph yawned. "Awesome. Glad that's over. I'm going to bed now, g'night!" Toph walked past Sokka on her way to her room, but was halted when Sokka pulled her and Suki into a big hug.

"Get over here, you! Hey everybody, GROUP HUG!"

Toph tried to squirm away, but was unable to do so as everybody piled in for one of the Gaang's patented group hugs. As the group separated and said their good nights, Suki lingered in the den with Sokka, watching the rest of their housemates head for their rooms. Catching the contented smile on her boyfriend's face, Suki leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. "Alright, so spill. What did you just do?"

"Hmm? I did something?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Sokka. I know better. You used some sort of reverse psychology type thing to trick us into getting along with each other, didn't you?"

"I know not of this reverse psychology of which you speak."

"Uh-huh. So I take it you really thought the other girls were in love with you, then?"

"Well, no. But mainly because my sister having the hots for me would be kinda creepy."

"And Toph?"

"Only slightly less creepy."

"And Ty Lee?"

"Ty Lee just creeps me out in general."

"I like that answer."

Sokka said nothing else, but had one thought right before his girlfriend pulled him into a kiss, 'Heh, and Iroh said there were no right answers...'"

"Told ya it would work," Toph gloated as she leaned back in her chair. Iroh simply smiled and nodded.

"I suppose you're right. Though, I'm curious as to how exactly my giving Sokka bad advice contributed to anything."

"Eh, if you'd given him some cookie-cutter wise-man's advice, he would've taken it and completely fudged it up somehow. Sokka's at his best when he does his own thing. I figured if he thought the crappy advice you gave him was the best advice he could get, he'd have to man-up and take charge on his own. Otherwise, somebody else would have to step up and be the head of the household, and I'd be Koh-damned if that somebody was Katara."

"And if you had been wrong?"

"Then I would've kicked his punk ass for being such a wuss. Of course, since I wasn't wrong, that means that somebody lost a bet." Toph casually propped her feet up on the table and wriggled her toes. "Somebody who now owes me a week's worth of foot massages."

Iroh laughed. "I suppose you're right."

"I usually am."

END CHAPTER 2