"Those three words, I said too much. But not enough." -Snow Patrol
Lin pinches herself.
No, this can't be real. It isn't real. This man, her father... why would he come back? How dare he come back, after all he did to them... on her birthday too. She leans with her shoulder against the doorway of the guest room, hugging her arms across her chest. Lin knows that her mother is angry. Furious. It's not everyday the great earthbender becomes so enraged that she actually beats someone unconscious.
Even now, Toph stands beside Katara, venting about the douchebag that lies unmoving in front of them. Part of Lin wishes that the waterbender wouldn't heal him. She wants him to wake up with the splitting headache he deserves... or just not wake up at all.
However, the man in the guest bed stirs. Lin hopes he's too disoriented to see her. She doesn't want him to notice her. Apparently, the universe is not on Lin's side today because as his eyes blink open, she is the first person he catches sight of.
He cracks a smile at the girl before wincing when Katara moves to touch his head. After a moment, he goes back to smiling at Lin.
"Hey, love," he says.
She turns away so that her back is to the doorway now. He can see her profile, the wide dark waves of hair that flow over her shoulder as she looks blatantly towards the ground. Toph steps in front of him, blocking his view.
"Nope," she says.
Ouch. Denied.
"What time is it?"
"About nine o'clock at night," Katara informs them.
The man has been conked out for an hour. Lin's dad takes a deep breath. He decides that he's going to stand up. At this point he's either going to be with his daughter or leave. Katara protests when he throws off the covers and places his feet on the ground. Toph still stands between her husband and Lin. He sighs and makes to get out.
"Where do you think you're going?"
The man stops. Oh, now she wants him to stay.
"Away," he tells Toph. "I see this little trip proved to be pointless... All I wanted was to see her, you know."
Lin snorts, a sound not unlike one her mother would make.
"I'm right here," She interjects, annoyed. "And you just saw me."
He looks over Toph's head to his daughter. Lin is clutching her mother's hand and glaring at him.
"Right," he agrees.
That's all he can think to say. He moves to take another step towards the door but his knees buckle. Lin's frustrated, judging face betrays concern. The man feels two sturdy arms around him, stopping him from crumpling to the floor. Toph guides him back to the bed and he settles down, breathing hard.
Lin finds herself sitting beside him. Toph catches herself worrying that maybe this time she hit him too hard.
"Are you okay?" they ask in unison.
He looks at them, smiling a little.
"I'm alright," he replies. Katara's hands glow with water as she works to heal him.
"I think we're done for now," she says. "There's only so much I can do with these kind of injuries. Just rest for a while and you'll be fine."
Now he's not sure what to do. He should leave. Otherwise, he would just be overstaying his welcome. He doesn't really want to have to deal with his daughter's cold attitude towards him anyways. It might just break his heart...
These women.
He thanks Katara but makes to sit up, only to feel two pairs of hands push him back down into the pillows again.
"Didn't you hear her, jerkface?" Toph demands. "How about rest before you ditch us again."
Lin nods.
He leans back, sighing contentedly. Katara leaves after telling him to go to sleep. Lin and her mother are just about on their way out when Toph pauses at the door.
"Mom?"
"Just go ahead, kiddo," she replies, tapping the door. "I'm going to stick around for a bit."
"Okay," the teenager replies dully and begins walking away.
"Lin,"
"Yeah, Mom?"
The earthbender steps outside the door and takes her daughter in her arms.
"Love you, baby. I know this is kind of an awful time to say it but happy birthday."
Lin shudders in her mom's embrace and tightens her arms around her.
"Thanks Mom. It was amazing from the second I woke up, I swear." She replies. "Nothing is going to ruin that for me."
Toph kisses Lin's hair and releases her. She can tell that Lin is still hurt and silently curses the man who ruined her daughter's day.
"Okay, baby. Good night."
"Night."
Lin makes her way down the hall to her room but when she opens the door, Tenzin is seated on her bed, reading one of her new books.
"Feathers! What are you doing here?" She demands.
He shuts the book and fixes her with a look.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay," he replies.
Lin smiles.
"I'm fine, thanks. Actually, it's good you're here. Can you help me with something?"
A minute later, Lin's on Tenzin's back and he's airbending them back down the hallway towards the guest room. They stop outside the door at the only piece of furniture in the large house without a single scrap of metal on it. It's a short antique wooden bureau. Some sort of fancy Beifong heirloom. Underneath each leg there's a small piece of cloth to keep it from scratching the floor. Lin knows that it is a fuzzy spot for her mother because the blind earthbender used to bump into it all of the time. Lin and Tenzin creep up onto the bureau, careful not to touch the wall so that Toph can't sense them. It's not nearly big enough for two people so Lin ends up in Tenzin's lap. From their perch, they can hear everything that goes on in the guest room.
Inside, Toph quickly pulls up a chair and sits in it, leaning back against the wall and crossing her arms. There is silence for a few moments when Lin's father turns his head and opens his eyes to look at her.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" she replies. "I'm waiting here until you actually fall asleep."
"So concerned for my well-being?" he asks.
She shakes her head, frowning because she knows he's teasing her.
"More like I'm more concerned for you and your funny business."
He grins.
"Why? You afraid I'm going to try to leave and make off with your daughter?"
"You know me so well."
He turns on his side and props himself up on his elbow, chin in hand.
"Well, while we're talking, why don't you come have a seat by me so I can see you better?"
Toph snorts.
"What's your point, I can't see you at all," she shoots back. "And I kinda like this corner anyways." She pats the wall fondly and puts her hands behind her head, flexing her arms.
He just rolls his eyes and sends a small tremor through the floor. Toph's chair comes shooting forward and stops by the side of the bed. The woman almost flies clear over him but he steadies her and returns her to the seat, holding her small but powerful hands in his.
"Very smooth, jerkface," Toph says with a smirk.
He turns her hands over, rubbing her palms with his thumbs. The earthbender sighs into the sensation. She remembers a time when he used to do this to her feet after a long day. He used to be one of the only people she trusted to do that. The rhythmic circles make her want to crawl into bed with him and go to sleep. But instead, Toph folds her fingers into fists. He tries to kiss her knuckles. She pulls them back.
"Don't you try anything," she says warningly.
"Wasn't planning on it."
He reaches for her wrists again.
She exhales, exasperated. The earthbender can't believe what's gone on today. She'd almost murdered her husband on an angry rampage, her reaction had totally ruined her baby girl's sixteenth birthday, and now she's sitting at his bedside, letting him hold her hands.
"I still cannot believe your nerve," she whispers. "You really are an idiot."
He grins cockily.
"Hey, I think it worked out rather nicely."
She pushes him away, disgusted.
"Are you kidding me? Are you seriously pulling my leg right now, jerkface?" her anger flares for a second. "Look at what you did! You ruined Lin's birthday, I almost killed you right in front of her and what's worse you blatantly opened up all of her old wounds. Do you even realize how much you hurt her today?"
He remembers Lin's face when she saw him appear at the house a few hours ago. It had simply fallen from something so happy and angelic, to something painfully confused.
And Lin's Dad can't help but feel selfish. He'd only come for himself, not even thinking about his own daughter's feelings. No better, he was staying the night because of his own stupidity.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"When you left us I wanted to make sure you really couldn't come back because I knew, I knew this would happen."
He sits up quickly, ignoring the stabbing pain in his head.
"Woah, wait a second, love." He replies defensively. "I don't think you realize my situation here. It wasn't completely my fault I left. You know this wasn't exactly a one-sided decision..."
She scoffs.
"What are you trying to tell me it's my fault you up and walked out?" she demands.
He looks at his wife in disbelief.
"Toph..."
"If this is about you being so jealous about nothing then really, get out of my house," she says angrily, standing and gesturing to the door.
He grabs her arm again.
"I wasn't jealous about nothing, love."
"Oh, please."
He shakes his head, some of the dizziness returning.
"Allow me to refresh your memory then." He tells her, fingers tightening against her skin. The woman can feel it crawling.
"When you agreed to marry me I felt like the happiest man alive. That was because I was in love with you..."
Toph yanks her forearm out of his grip. She does not want to hear this.
Her husband, who wouldn't take the hint, continues.
"I knew. I knew you didn't love me back. Not in the same way. And I was an imbecile, I went for it anyways because I didn't want a life without you. When you said yes I didn't know why but I was just so... elated and I didn't care about anything else as long as I had you." He exhales, closing his eyes momentarily.
"I had so many plans for us, love. We were going to travel. We were gonna have adventures and I had this ridiculous idea that you would somehow grow to love me like I loved—love you."
She turns away from him. There he goes with the present tense again. Even with all that had happened between them. All that hadn't worked. All that Toph had done to him... He says it again. Those three words and he says way too much.
Her husband thinks that she's got her arms crossed defiantly when she's actually crossing her arms to keep herself from falling apart, or letting herself lose it or any combination of the two.
And she really doesn't want to hear this.
"But a few months turned into two years and you just couldn't get over it, could you? You barely gave me the time of day. You and that desperate little schoolgirl crush you had on what's-his-name? That watertribe stiff. He was married with kids and you still couldn't just grow up."
Toph shakes her head numbly.
"No... I—" she chokes all too quietly.
He's lying right behind her but for the first time since they met, he's afraid to touch her. He's not sure how she'd react. So he speaks to her softly, arms resting at his sides.
"And then there was me. You know, I was patient. I wanted to go all over the world with you. But you had this new job and you didn't want to leave. I remember, you were just so set on staying. I tried to ask you why. I couldn't understand what tied you to this damned city!"
Toph whirls around.
"I had a job to do! You can't just ask me to leave that new responsibility. And you couldn't ask me to leave my friends either. They were my family!"
"Since when did you ever care about responsibility? Oh no, love." he counters with a sarcastic laugh. "On the contrary; I couldn't ask you to leave this city because you just couldn't leave him. You didn't want to. Isn't that right?"
"Fine," Toph says. "Fine, if that's what you want to believe."
"I did believe it, love." He replies. "You were just so... so obsessed."
The earth under Toph's feet rumbles defiantly to match her emotions.
"I have never been obsessed with anybody in my life, jerkface. Are you sure you're in the right house?"
The man isn't fazed by the rumbling or the sound of his wife in denial."
"Oh no, you were definitely obsessed... It went on for too long, love. Finally I'd just had enough, fed up with this relationship where I got hurt every time you blushed at him and not at me. That's why I left. I tried to spare myself the humiliation..." He shudders. She can feel the genuine apprehension. "Every day with you was like some kind of night terror. I was always losing something with you. I was always the one left in the dark. So I was done, and I told you I was leaving and you didn't care. So I left and didn't look back... until I heard you had a baby. My baby."
"She will never be your baby," Toph hisses.
The woman charges towards the door with every intention of opening it and getting out of this sickening situation. But she pauses with her hand on the doorknob.
"And for the record, I didn't want you to leave." She says in a voice so thick that the man is afraid that she's going to start chucking boulders again. "I had been realizing something those last few weeks... it hadn't made sense for a while but came rushing at me the second you shut that door. I—"
She stops midsentence. No, she doesn't want to talk about this, not her own feelings. Not about the fact that the second he had closed that door, it had hit her like a rock wall. She didn't really love Sokka. Was never in love with him. He was her best friend, yes. But not anything more. Never.
And she had just sat there and had let her husband walk down the steps because she was too proud to call him back. Too proud. And the space he left in the house, in her life still lingered in the air. Toph hated that space. It only brought the hurt when she realized that her heart had gone out the door with the man who had occupied that space.
Her heart.
She loved the asshole. She was so in love with that asshole.
Toph chokes down hot tears and pulls open the door, escaping into the hallway.
She sucks in cool air. Tries to breathe. Standing against the closed door momentarily, Toph closes her eyes and screws up her face, not allowing a single drop to fall. She was done. She had been done for sixteen years. The time for crying had passed. Swallowing, the earthbender exhales slowly and begins to make her way to bed.
From the bureau across from his room comes a sniff.
Toph freezes.
Lin sits in Tenzin's lap, face buried in his robes while he holds her as tightly as he can.
"Lin."
The girl raises her tear-stained face.
"Yes?"
"Go to bed."
"Okay."
Toph sighs.
"Tenzin should stay the night also."
"Okay."
The earthbender continues on her way to bed. In the morning, she'd going to smash that bureau to pieces.
Lin buries her face back in Tenzin's robes.
"This is why I'm never getting married."