9. Parents
Lao puzzled over his daughter. It had been a year and a half since he and his wife had last seen her and oh, how she had changed.
She moved around the kitchen, Lin propped up on her hip babbling happily at her. A soft smile graced Toph's lips as she spooned a small bit of jook into a bowl then crossed the kitchen and sat at the table between her parents.
"Motherhood looks good on you Dear." Poppy said with a demure smile as she reached over and placed her hand on her granddaughter's back. "And she's grown so. She was such a tiny thing the last time we were here."
"She wasn't a day old yet." Toph said quietly as she spooned the jook and held it close to the baby's face and waited for her to take the food.
Lin turned her head and batted at her mother's hand, grazing her skin "No. Kaka." she demanded.
"Well he's not here yet, so you'll have to let me do it." she whispered back at the child.
"No! Kaka!" she said again, this time batting the spoon and splattering the jook on her mother's face.
Poppy reached for the baby "let me help you Dear. I've always wanted to try this."
Toph lifted Lin and passed her "Good Luck."
Soon she heard Lin's new favorite words "No! Kaka!" and Poppy squeal.
"You may as well leave it." Toph said crossing her arms in front of her on the table "She's a stubborn one. She'll get hungry sooner or later."
"I thought your friend was acting as a nanny. Where is she?" Lao finally asked "Ty lee I believe it was."
"She went back to the Fire Nation for a couple of weeks to visit her family." Toph answered.
"So Toph, what is this 'kaka' she keeps asking for?" Poppy asked trying to wipe the food from her dress with her handkerchief "Is there any in the house? If not I can have the driver go get some."
"It's not what, Mom, it's who." she said mulling over what exactly to tell her parents, but she felt familiar footsteps running toward the house and she got up "Excuse me a moment."
Lao watched his daughter stand an walk across the sitting room to the door and open it just in time for Councilman Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe to turn the corner and run toward the door.
"Sorry I'm late." she called "Session ran long."
Lao thought to himself what truly good friends his daughter had as the man jogged across the porch.
"Hey, the neighbors have company." he said as he slowed his pace "Pretty ritzy ones too, by the looks of that carriage." he said as he glanced back , then he looked at Toph/ "She's not raising all hell, she must of eaten."
Lao smiled. How honorable it was for a busy councilman to take time out of his day to come feed a friends poor, father-less baby. He started to stand so that he could go shake the young man's hand, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the councilman, the prince and heir apparent of the Southern Water Tribe wrap a arm around his daughter and kiss her.
The man flopped back into his seat confused. This was no 'Hello my friend' peck on the cheek, this, though quick, was caring, even intimate. He barely registered his wife asking him if there was anything wrong.
"Kaka!" Lin yelled as she squirmed her way out of her grandmother's lap.
"Linny!" Sokka called back as he slid into the kitchen, bending down and scooping Lin into his arms before he noticed The Beifongs sitting at the table.
"Oh…Hello. Excuse me, I didn't know Toph had company." he turned to Toph who'd walked up beside him "I didn't know you were having company." he mumbled at Toph.
She shrugged her shoulders "They surprised me." she said back.
To be continued on Day 31, The Beifongs.
10 Southern Water Tribe
Toph hated going to the Southern Water Tribe, but when she got there it wasn't so bad because Sokka was always there to hold her hand.
11 Metal
Sokka was the only one who had a key to Toph's house. She never needed one.
12 Celebrations
During official Republic City events Toph and Sokka would always go missing for about an hour. When they came back they were in a much better mood.
17 - Colors
Although she didn't understand them, Toph always wanted to know what color something was. She equated colors with a texture; green was a blade of grass, blue was water, white was Appa's fur. Toph always said, rather proudly, that brown was her favorite color.
18 Hair (a haiku)
lips glossed with wetness
her fingers wrapped in his hair
goatee caressing her flesh
19 Boomerang
He'd given up on finding it years ago. Hakoda had made Sokka a new boomerang, but it wasn't the same. It didn't fit in his hand in the same way, didn't have the dents, the bruises, the memories. It wasn't his boomerang.
Although he'd never said it out loud, she knew how much he was still missing his weapon all these years later. Whenever she was in the area she would quietly search another section of the Wulong Forrest, but it was nowhere to be found. Even after she's informed Aang and Zuko that they would have to find a better location for Republic City, she continued to look for the boomerang.
One particular day she had to cut her searching short to survey the new location her friends had chosen. It was in a much better location, close to the water, but the land was far more suited to development and it wasn't very far from the original location. Toph walked around and listened to Aang, Zuko and Sokka talk about their ideas and hoping that Suki would be able to talk Katara into coming back from the South Pole when she felt something in the distance.
She stopped short and twisted her toes in the soil, then she smiled and took off running.
"Toph?" Aang said when he noticed her take off "What is it?"
She said nothing at first, just kept going, her friends trailing behind her. Then she stopped and dropped to her knees "It's here. It's been here all this time."
"What's her Toph?" Zuko asked as she opened a groove in the earth and reached in. "This." she answered as she triumphantly held the worn boomerang as high as she could.
"Boomerang?" Sokka gasped as he looked at his long lost weapon. He ran wrapped his arm around it as if it was a person. Aang and Zuko frowned as he kissed the filthy thing "I've missed you so much! You really do always come back!" as soon as Toph got to her feet the warrior wrapped his arms around her and swung her around then started kissing her cheek. "Thank you , thank you, thank you! You are so awesome."
"Tell me something I don't know." she said as he put her down and threw his boomerang just for old times sake, jumping to catch it and running a short distance to throw it again.
"You do know you're 10 shades of red, don't you?" Aang asked as he stepped up beside her.
"Yeah." she said dreamily as she felt the man she was hopelessly in love with play with his boomerang.
20 Departure
(I apologies in advance for any feels)
He crawled into the bed behind her and curled his body around hers. She flinched a bit.
"Is this alright?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah." she said softly.
He wrapped his hand around her shoulder and stroked it up and down her arm. He didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do to make her feel better, didn't know how to express the hurt and loss he was feeling.
"It was going to be a boy you know." she mumbled with a sniff "He was going to be strong like you, a earth bender of course."
"Of course." he said with a sad smile, trying to push back the emotion that was threatening to spill over with force.
"I was going to name him Koda, and Lin was going to spoil him rotten." Sokka wrapped his arms around her and pressed his head into her neck, his eyes resting on her shoulder "I wanted him so much, and now he's gone." she said, breaking into tears once more.
He couldn't hold it in anymore, he tightened his arms around her and sobbed into her shoulder.
Katara closed the door just as quietly as she had opened it and wiped the tears from her eyes. When she heard little Lin skipping down the hall she took a deep breath and wrapped her hands around the knob behind her back "So, do you have what you need for tonight?" she said, trying to hide the trimmer in her voice.
"Yep, I just need to tell Mommy bye." the little girl answered.
"No baby." she said as she placed both hands on the child's shoulders to stop her. Lin looked up confused "Your mom's not feeling so good and she's sleeping now. That's why I'm taking you home with me."
"Oh, okay." she answered. "is Ty Lee coming too?"
"Yeah, she's already on the island with Kya and the boys."
"Okay, lets go." Lin said as she grabbed Katara's hand.
As the two walked out of the door Katara couldn't get the image out of her head. Her brother wrapped around his love, the two of them mourning what could of been.
21 Fireworks
Toph learned to love all the different sounds fireworks made after Sokka took the time to sit down and explain then all to her.
