A/N: Mwahaha cliffhanger… but the wait is over! Thank you so much to everyone who's followed/favorited/reviewed! Those emails always make my day :) :)

Consciousness returned slowly, and Sokka couldn't say it was welcome. His head was throbbing and felt three sizes too big, and his shoulder–

He groaned and squinted at the wall. Smooth white stone, faintly illuminated by light coming from behind him. Spirits, where am I? He shifted, trying to prop himself up on his good arm, but a hand on his chest forced him back down.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

He collapsed back onto the thin pillow beneath his head, the floor rocking beneath him. He moaned again, trying to make his mouth move into actual words with little success.

"Here, drink this."

Another hand cupped his face and he felt the edge of a dish pressed to his lips. He choked and coughed on the first swallow, but then began to drink greedily, breathing easier as the coolness of the water began to beat away some of the cobwebs in his head.

He blinked a few times, and stared up at the person bending over him, her hand still pressed to his face. "Toph?"

She froze and took her hand away.

For a moment, he almost whined at the loss.

"The one and only."

The corners of his mouth twitched up. The one and only, indeed. "What happened?" He glanced around the room, bare except for the cot he was lying on and a small window high on the wall. The air smelled faintly of perfume. "Where are we?"

"You got yourself shot," she said, fingers brushing lightly over bandages wrapped tightly around his chest and shoulder. "We're at the abbey outside Yu Dao."

Ah. That explained the smell. "How bad is it?" He reached up to touch the bandages himself, but she caught his wrist.

"It could've been worse." She took a deep breath. "You're lucky they have waterbenders here now. The arrow nicked an artery and you lost– you lost a lot of blood when they took it out."

That explained the dizziness.

"Also a concussion from that knock on the head."

It was slowly coming back to him. He dragged up a hand to rub his head. "Fucking bandits."

"Yeah." Toph flicked at an invisible bit of dirt on the floor. "Probably former Yu Dao Resistance fighters with a grudge, to be honest. Attacking idiot city slickers who fell asleep in the middle of the day."

Sokka groaned. That stupid Harmony Restoration Movement was just the gift that kept on giving. He remembered the blood on her ankle after the fight. "How's your leg?"

She grunted and shifted her position on the floor. She'd changed into new pants, but while one leg was tucked underneath her as she sat on the floor next to his pallet, the other was stretched out to the side.

"It hurts," she said, rubbing the place where the bandage must've been beneath her clothes. "But it's nothing compared to you." She gestured vaguely to his torso. "I can't believe I missed that archer," she muttered, her hand curled into a fist. "I was so stupid."

"Hey, hey." His hand flopped out and he reached for her wrist. "'S'okay. I'm okay."

She shook her head. "Barely. That woman with the sword got in a lucky hit." She rubbed her thigh again. "Made it hard to earthbend, hard to see."

"'S'okay," he said again, although his tongue felt thick in his mouth and he was getting dizzy again. His shoulder started to throb, a second pulse beating in time with his heart. "'M glad you're okay."

Toph smiled and took his hand, rubbing her thumb along his wrist in an uncharacteristically tender motion. "Go back to sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."

"Y'should go to sleep, too," he muttered, as his head rolled to the side and his eyes grew heavy. She looked tired too, and he wondered how long she'd been sitting up next to him. "Sleep… sleep 's good."

"Yeah, Sokka," she said. "Sleep is good."

So he slept, thinking as he drifted off how nice it sounded when she said his real name.

/

Things became a little hazy after that, as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He was pretty sure he ran a fever at some point, because once he woke up cold, which shouldn't happen at the height of summer. Then he was warm again and he thought he was back in an earth tent, lying pressed against someone who wasn't Suki. She was facing away from him, and strands of soft black hair tickled his face and it smelled like petrichor. But when he opened his eyes, she was gone and a woman in a blue gown leaned over him, her hands surrounded by a glowing layer of water. He thought it was Katara, but when he tried to ask she just shook her head and pressed her hands to his shoulder.

When the room finally came into focus again, Toph was sitting on the floor again with a bowl of bread in one hand and a pitcher of water in the other.

"Welcome back," she said, extending the pitcher.

He blinked slowly back at her. "Y're here."

She huffed and blew her bangs out of her face, but he saw her lips twitch up at the corners. "Keep up, Meathead. I said I'd be here when you woke up, didn't I?"

I guess she did. Slowly, he levered himself up on his good arm and took the pitcher of water. As the water touched his lips, he realized how thirsty he was and quickly downed half its contents. His stomach rumbled and Toph smiled, handing him a roll from the bowl. He finished it in three bites and she laughed when he eyed the second one.

"Be careful," she said, tearing it in half and handing him the smaller piece. "You've been pretty sick."

He was absolutely starving, but he nodded and tried to slow down. Although he was awake and alert, his muscles felt kitten-weak and the stubble on his chin meant he'd been out for several days. He rubbed his face and chewed thoughtfully. "How long have we been here?"

"Almost a week," she said. "Your fever broke last night but Kita, the waterbender who's been taking care of you, says it'll be a while before you're back at full strength."

He groaned, leaning back against the wall. "We were so close…"

"We still are close," Toph said. "The Wulong Forest is only a few days' walk from here, and it's not going anywhere, so we're staying until the healers says you can leave."

"Alright."

She stared at him. "Wow, I expected more of a fight."

He shrugged, then winced. "I don't know, it would be kind of a bummer for me to die when we've gotten this far."

"I'll say." She looked down at her knees, and Sokka felt the humor drain from the conversation. It was beginning to sink in– the fact that their quest was almost over. How long had it been since he left Kyoshi Island? It felt like half a lifetime ago, but it couldn't have been more than a month or two…

"Look, Toph…" he began, trailing off when he realized he had no idea what to say.

"Yeah, Sokka?" She looked up at him, and again he got a swoop-y feeling in his stomach when she said his name.

"I–" He shifted forward awkwardly, leaning towards her from the cot. "Recent events aside, you know these have been like, the best few months of my life, right?"

"Even better than traveling with the avatar?" she said, trying to deflect.

"Hands down," he said, relishing the grin she was fighting on her face. "We make a pretty great team, Beifong."

"A team that gets lost in a swamp on our first day traveling."

"And gets thrown out of two separate bars."

"And runs away from the Firelord when he offers them jobs." She was leaning forward, too.

"Then is immediately attacked by bandits." His shoulder was throbbing from the awkward position, but he didn't lean away.

"A team that gets you shot." One corner of her mouth turned down and she put a hand on his good arm. They were so close he could feel her breath on his face.

His eyes blinked slowly. It would be so easy to just…

There was a faint sound from the doorway and Toph's head whipped around.

A woman in a blue tunic and grey-streaked hair holding a bucket of water stepped back, her eyes wide. "My apologies, I didn't mean to interrupt–"

"It's okay, Kita." Toph sat back, and Sokka let out a long breath he didn't know he was holding. His heart was pounding and he felt dizzy, although not in the same, sick way as before.

"Yes, it's okay." He sat back and gestured for Kita to enter.

"I'm glad to see you're feeling better," she said, taking Toph's place by his cot.

"I am, thanks to you and the sisters," he said. "I am honored to receive such excellent care at the abbey."

"Please, the honor is ours," Kita said as she unwrapped the bandages covering his chest and shoulder.

When she reached the wound, a sharp-smelling salve made the cloth stick and pull at his skin and he gasped. He reached out for something to hold onto, and was surprised to feel Toph catch his hand. She let him squeeze it hard as Kita cleaned and examined the wound. The fever had passed, but the tissue around the stitches where the arrow had gone in was still red and swollen, meaning the infection wasn't completely gone.

Finally, Kita bent water out of the bucket and pressed it to the injury. The coolness felt like heaven on his skin and the pain started to recede. He became aware of his death grip on Toph's hand and loosened his hold, but she didn't pull away, so he found himself relaxing into it, focusing on the feel of her palm in his as Kita re-dressed the wound and they helped him lie back down.

"Good job," Kita said, like he'd done anything but sit there. "It'll be all uphill from here, I promise."

"Thank you." He felt his eyes drifting closed again as she gathered her things to leave.

Toph made to stand as well. "I'll let you get some rest–"

He felt her hand sliding out from his. "No, wait."

She paused.

"Just a minute." He adjusted his grip, bringing it closer to his side. "Wait just a minute."

She was still holding his hand when he fell asleep.

They decided to stay at the abbey while Sokka recovered his strength, and although he was up and walking around a few days after his fever broke, Toph didn't seem like she was in any particular hurry to leave. And if he was honest, Sokka wasn't either.

It was sort of weird, he reflected. The last time he'd been to the abbey was in the days following Sozin's Comet, where he, Suki, and Toph were treated for their various injuries and they waited for transportation to Caldera City. Back then, he'd been chomping at the bit to get moving again as soon as he was mobile, tearing open every hawk from the Fire Nation for news and generally making a nuisance of himself until Aang arrived on Appa, having gone ahead on a warship supervise the transport and proper imprisonment of the former Phoenix King.

Part of it was impatience to see his father and Katara alive and well, but he could admit that most of it was that he hated being in between places. Even after spending the better part of a year traveling the world, he still thought best part was reaching the destination. He supposed he'd never been particularly patient, and he liked the small amount of certainty it granted, and the sense of security.

So it was weird that he now felt almost no inclination to reach the end of this journey. Or maybe it wouldn't be weird if he actually stopped to examine it… but that seemed like a sticky train of thought, so he didn't follow it.

So he tried to live in the moment, focusing on more immediate concerns like keeping up with his swordsmanship and getting his arm back in shape. He spent most of his waking hours in the abbey's courtyard, practicing forms and throwing his boomerang in smooth arcs over the low buildings.

"I guess it's lucky you're not left-handed," Toph said, lounging in a chair she'd bent out of the flagstones.

"Eh." Sokka shrugged, catching the boomerang as it came back to his right hand. "I wouldn't say I'm either-handed."

She laughed. "What?"

"I mean for most things, one hand's as good as the other."

Toph stared. "You mean you can write with your left hand as well as your right?"

"Yeah." He shrugged again, suddenly self-conscious. "It's not that weird, right?"

"It's pretty weird."

"What would you know about writing, anyway?" He frowned and held up the boomerang with his left hand. Breathing through the pain, he tried to throw it in the same arc as the last time, but it fell short and he had to run forward to catch it.

"Hey, I know how to write," Toph said.

"Ha ha." He realized she was serious. "Wait, really?"

She nodded casually. "Ho Tun taught me a few years ago. He was convinced I'd never be able to get through life without it."

"Toph, that's amazing!"

She grunted and crossed her arms. "Yeah, whatever. I finally learned how to do something everyone else learned when they were babies."

He stepped forward. "Come on, you know this is a big deal. How did he do it?"

She gave him a half-smile. "By drawing characters in the dirt, at first. But eventually he taught me how to scratch them into sheets of metal. Which is how I know it's way harder to write with my left hand."

"That's still really cool."

She shrugged. "If you ask me, writing's not all it's cracked up to be. Talking is so much better."

"Hey, it's helpful for remembering stuff," he said. "Not everyone has a memory like a steel trap."

"A lifetime of practice."

"Oh, yeah." He started to laugh and make another lighthearted comment, then caught himself and wondered if that was okay. Even less than he thought about the fact that Toph was blind did he stop to consider how that shaped the way she went about everything. Perhaps he should think about that more… or maybe less. He never knew when it came to this stuff.

"I mean–" He cleared his throat and decided to change the subject. "Are you hungry? I'm starving."

She hesitated and cocked her head, like she'd been jerked out of another chain of thought. "Sorry, what?"

She'd been doing that a lot– spacing out when she was talking to him and going quiet for long periods of time. It was weird, and he kept meaning to ask her about it, if he could figure out how to bring it up. But then again, hadn't he been doing the same thing?

"I said I'm hungry," he said eventually. "Let's go see if the sisters have anything that isn't vegetable root stew."

"Oh, I'm in." She hopped to her feet, bending her chair back into the earth. "If not maybe we could try our luck in the woods with your club."

"Sounds like fun," he said. "It might be nice to get out for a bit." But not too long, he thought. He wasn't ready to leave just yet.

/

That night, Sokka took the blankets from his bed and tossed them over a haystack in the corner of the courtyard. The night air was warm, and the sounds of the forest trickled faintly over the roof of the abbey, mixing with the smell of perfumes sealed in barrels along the opposite wall. Everything around him was still, barely a breeze disturbing the trees and not an elephant rat in sight. But most importantly, there wasn't a cloud in sight and the moon was full, shining so brightly he almost had to squint to look at it. Look at her.

"Hey, Yue," he said, relaxing on the haystack with his good arm tucked behind his head. "How's it going?"

A badger frog croaked in the distance.

"I know I haven't… taken the time to talk to you in a while, but I still think about you all the time. Although–" he shifted a little bit, "not quite as much as I used to, if I'm completely honest. I hope you understand, there's been a lot going on."

He sat up straighter and shook his head. "I guess I'm just confused, and I can't stop thinking about what Zuko said, about why I really agreed to this quest in the first place– not that I regret it! I'd never… it's actually kind of the opposite problem."

He laid back again, and took a deep breath, preparing himself to speak the truth aloud. "Now that we're almost there, I kind of… don't want it to end.

"It's weird– Space Sword was once my favorite thing in the world, but now I hardly care if we look for it at all, if we could just keep going forever. Sometimes I think we should turn north at the Stone Fingers and take a boat to the Western Air Temple, just for the heck of it. It's kind of funny, but I'd give up a chance to find that sword to spend a little more time together."

A gust of warm wind blew through the courtyard.

Sokka chuckled. "Come to think of it– I already have. I guess that's how I lost it in the first place." He pressed his lips together, considering it. "I'd do it again, though. In a heartbeat. I'd do it again."

He fell silent, staring up at the moon as it glowed silently back at him. Sometimes, in his pettier moments, he resented the fact that she never appeared to him and talked back. He remembered Aang saying once she appeared to him, soon after he woke up from being blasted with lightning, and told him not to give up. He'd be lying if he said it didn't bother him a little bit, but he could concede that being the Great Bridge Between the Worlds maybe made Aang more important to talk to than some guy she sort-of-but-not-really dated for the few weeks before she died.

That was the strange thing about Yue, he reflected. He knew Suki for many times longer, and their relationship dynamic was dramatically different, but all these years later he could still say for sure that Yue was the first time he'd been in love- that kind of heart-pounding, can't-stop-thinking-about-her love he heard about in stories.

Arranged marriage be damned– in his youthful naïveté, he'd allowed himself to imagine a life with her. Returning to the North Pole in triumph after saving the world with Aang, giving her the betrothal necklace she deserved, at her side when she inherited the leadership of her tribe from her father. (Because she would have– no matter what those stuffy old waterbenders said. She deserved it. She would've made a perfect chief.) He'd become chief in the South Pole, and it would've been like the two tribes were united again. Admittedly, he never thought clearly about the logistics of such an arrangement, but in his mind it worked out perfectly. In his mind, they were perfect.

Although, he thought, maybe that's because it was all imaginary, in the end. Real life, real love, was much messier. It was fighting separately in a war, not knowing when or if they would see each other again. It was fumbling, awkward sex in a tent hoping to the Spirits their friends couldn't hear. It was going long distance for years after the war, then arguing over where to settle down, and how to move their relationship forward. It was falling out of love again, and wondering what the hell to do next.

I miss her, he thought, swallowing a sudden lump in his throat. I miss Suki. Even if they weren't in love, she was one of his oldest and closest friends, and one of his favorite people in the world. And he missed what they had together, now that it was over and he could never get it back. Their relationship had dictated the direction in his life for so long he wasn't sure what he would've done without this quest. Without Toph.

Why did you agree to go on this trip?

"Well…"

"Oh wow, you're awake."

"What the–" He jerked upright and peered into the shadows over the doorway to the dormitories. "Toph?"

She stepped forward, in a casual saunter no one else could replicate in so late at night. "You were so quiet I thought you were asleep."

He reddened, remembering what he'd said out loud when he first settled down. "Did you… hear what I was saying earlier?"

She laughed. "You were actually talking before?" Without waiting for an invitation, she crossed the courtyard and sat on the blankets next to him. Not close enough to touch him, but it wouldn't take too much to close the distance. "No, I was just getting up for some water when I felt you out here. Like I said, I thought you'd fallen asleep."

He laughed nervously, careful not to accidentally shift towards her. "Nope. Just… y'know, out here talking to the moon."

She nodded. "Does she ever talk back?"

"No," he admitted. "But… I think she listens."

"I see." She leaned back on the hay. "Figuratively, of course." Her hair, gathered in a thick, loose braid, came to rest over her shoulder.

Sokka couldn't help but stare at it, just a little. It was so dark it looked like an inky void in the night, like if he tried to touch it his hand would go right through. Except where the moonlight caught it at the very end, and made it look like it was glowing.

"Want me to introduce you?" he said suddenly, not sure what had possessed him. He braced himself for her to laugh, call him Meathead for asking if she wanted to talk to a spirit she couldn't see.

But to his surprise, her lips quirked up in a genuine smile, and she said, "It would be an honor."

"Al- alright."

"Where is she?" Toph raised her hand and pointed straight up. "Just so I know where to 'look.'"

Sokka chuckled and took her wrist, gently guiding it until she was pointing at the moon. "Right there."

"Got it." She let her arm drop and settled deeper onto the hay, face trained in the direction he'd shown her.

"I guess I'll start." He cleared his throat and leaned back, looking away from her and back at the moon, wondering how to begin. "Yue, I'd like you to meet Toph. I didn't know her yet when I met you, but she's my best friend, and one of the best people I know. You would've… I think you'll really like her."

Toph was silent, and he gave her a gentle nudge with his elbow. "Now you go."

She blushed faintly and took a nervous breath. "Hi, Yue. I've heard a lot about you. Mostly from Meathead here–" she punched him, and he groaned dramatically, "but also from Aang and Katara and Iroh. And from what they say, you must've been a pretty awesome person. Even more awesome if this one–" again, a thumb in his direction "– managed to fall in love with you."

Sokka nodded. "That's good."

"Should I keep going?"

"If you want."

"I heard you also loved him," she said softly. "So you must've had great taste."

Unconsciously, Sokka felt his heart speed up and he had to take a deep breath, willing it to slow down and turn his mind away from odd, intrusive questions like What does she mean by that? and Why does it feel like it matters so much?

If Toph felt the change, she ignored it and plowed on. "I promise… I'll protect him. Although I don't think I could ever top what you did." Her lips turned down. "But I promise to do better than I have so far."

Sokka frowned, pushing himself up on one elbow to get a better look at her face. "What do you mean?"

She looked sharply at him. "You got shot on my watch. You could've died."

"It wasn't on your watch." He tried to smile. "Technically, you can't ever watch me."

But her frown only deepened and she crossed her arms. "You're right, I can't. I can only see you and protect you with earthbending, and wood or water or a sword through my leg is enough to take that away."

"Hey, hey. No." He reached out, placing a hand gently on her arm. "Toph, don't think that. Please don't think like that. You're the best protection I could ask for, definitely more than I deserve."

She started to shake her head, but he barreled on.

"And on the extremely rare occasions that you need protecting, like in the case of wood or water or swords, you know I'll be there too, even though I've only got my weapons." He paused. "We… we complement each other, Toph. That's what makes this whole thing work."

She was silent for a while, but her expression softened. "Alright, Meathead."

"Good." He relaxed. "How is your leg, anyway?" She hadn't been limping lately, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.

"It's fine." She waved him off. "Anyway," she crossed her arms again, "it's still my fault we're in this mess."

"How?"

"If I hadn't gotten into that stupid fight with Firelord Sparky and made us run away at a ridiculously early hour we wouldn't have fallen asleep in the middle of the day and we wouldn't have been caught by surprise and you wouldn't've gotten hurt."

"Toph–" He almost laughed, but caught himself when he sensed she wouldn't appreciate it. "You know that's ridiculous, right? Completely insane."

She blew her bangs out of her face. "Well, it's true."

"Still ridiculous." He leaned back on the hay again, head pillowed on one arm. "Yue, don't worry about a thing. There's no one I'd trust to have my back more than Toph." He paused for effect, then turned back to her. "She says she has complete faith in you."

But Toph only rolled her eyes. "She shouldn't."

"Come on." He reached for her shoulder but she caught his wrist.

"Sokka, Zuko was right."

"About what?" For a second, all his insides froze before he realized she must be referring to their conversation at dinner.

"He– that's why I got so mad. I am tired of running the academy."

That brought him up short. "You are?"

She turned her head to him, expression unusually open. "Does that make me a terrible person? That I'm just… done with something I put my heart and soul and years of my life into?"

Again, Sokka almost laughed, although this time at the irony. "You know, I've been asking myself that a lot lately."

She reddened and dropped her gaze. "Shit."

He went on, "And someone very wise once told me that everyone grows up, and sometimes you grow up in a different direction."

She sighed, looking back up at Yue. "What if I don't want to grow up?"

He relaxed, sinking deeper into the well of hay created by their bodies. Some part of him noticed that her head was almost close enough to touch his arm, but he ignored it and tried to focus. "Unfortunately, it seems to happen to all of us."

"Gross."

He laughed. "I couldn't agree more."

"It's just– I love the academy, and I enjoy being there, and I like bossing around those lily-livered earthbenders, but I realized I don't want to do that forever. And now I don't know what to do."

"I know the feeling."

She huffed. "I guess so."

"Maybe we'll know by the end," he said. "Maybe that's what this quest is really about."

She was quiet for a minute, then cocked her head and nodded. "Surprisingly deep, Meathead. And here I thought we were just looking for your fancy sword."

Her ear brushed his arm with the movement of her head, and without thinking too hard about it he released it from behind his neck and let it fall over her shoulders, closing the distance between them and tucking her into his side.

"Well, sure," he said. "But maybe that sword is actually a metaphor for what we really want out of life."

She laughed, and he felt a grin split his face.

"In that case," she murmured, "I really hope we find it." She yawned and shifted so she was curled against his side, one arm thrown casually over his chest.

And maybe it was the hour, or their conversation, but Sokka didn't find the contact strange at all. If anything, it seemed remarkably right. Her body fit against his better than he could've imagined, and the weight was so comforting he began to feel drowsy as well. Briefly, the thought crossed his mind that they should get up and go back to their rooms to sleep, but he dismissed it just as quickly.

Why bother? he thought. When it's so comfortable here?

In the distance, something Zuko said came back to him, something about acknowledging ulterior motives, but he brushed that aside as well. Zuko was always paranoid, and besides, bringing up that conversation would completely ruin the moment.

So he didn't, and just held Toph tight against his chest as they fell asleep under the moonlight.

/

It's the biggest moon Sokka's ever seen, bright and silver and taking up almost half the sky. He's trying to describe it to Toph, but it's hard without talking about colors or light.

"It looks like your eyes," he says. "Big and silver and beautiful."

She laughs, and the sound sends a thrill through his chest. All these years later she still laughs with her whole body, head thrown back and shoulders shaking. It's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard.

She presses closer against him and leans close to his ear. "You idiot. I don't know what my eyes look like, either."

He laughs, too. They're somewhere high up on a hill and he feels giddy, dizzy from the altitude or the feeling of euphoria rushing through his veins. "I guess I only know what beautiful looks like. What does beautiful feel like, Toph?"

She's leaning in close again, so close he can feel her heart beating right up against his, smell the earth in her hair, the smoothness of her skin, and it feels incredibly natural, incredibly right.

"Mountains are beautiful," she says. "And canyons are beautiful. The warmth of the sun on my face is beautiful. You feel beautiful, to me."

He laughs through the way that makes his heart speed up, and brings his other arm around her. "You feel beautiful, too," he says, and he means it. He doesn't have to look at her to know (although he likes to).

"More beautiful than I look?" she says.

"No," he says. "The same beautiful."

"That doesn't make any sense." Her face is so close he can feel the heat of her breath.

"You're right," he says, and closes his eyes. "It doesn't."

When she kisses him (or he kisses her), it's the most beautiful thing he's ever felt. Her lips are softer than he thought they would be, and she smells like the earth just after it rains.

They lean backwards, or maybe the whole earth is tilting under them, and Sokka feels a little like he's falling.

But it's okay, he thinks. Falling like this isn't so bad.

Somewhere in the distance, Toph laughs. You're not really falling. Her voice echoes right into his head. It's a metaphor, Snoozles.

For what? he tries to say. A metaphor for what?

/

Sokka woke up with a gasp, and threw out a hand to stop himself from from sliding further off the haystack. Toph was still curled against his side, and he laid still for a bewildering minute, trying to separate reality from the dream.

What does it mean? Do I really want to–? Fuck, of course he did. Why bother lying to himself? He let that realization sink in for a while before resolving to do absolutely nothing about it. It wouldn't be fair to Toph, he decided. She'd think he was just rebounding from Suki. Besides, who knew if she felt the same way? Sure, he was vaguely aware of her little crush on him when they were kids but that was a long time ago. It didn't seem possible that she would still…

No. He brought up a hand to rub his face, and became aware of the throbbing in his back and shoulder. It was too late to be contemplating this, and he was too tired. Slowly, he began disentangling himself from Toph, and ignored the way his lips twitched up at the sleepy mumbles she made as she woke up.

"Hey," he said, pulling her to her feet. "We should probably go sleep in real beds at some point."

"Oh, yeah." She stretched and yawned, straightening her clothes before ambling back towards the dormitories. "What time 's it?"

"No idea," he said. "The sun isn't up, although it probably will be soon."

"Mm. Sounds like a good day to sleep in," she said.

"That's every day."

She chuckled, then turned away in the direction of her room. "G'night, Snoozles. Thanks for the introduction."

"You're welcome." He smiled and watched her for just a bit longer than necessary before retreating into his own room. He drank one of the cordials the healers had left him for the pain and laid down on his cot to sleep. It was much more comfortable than the hay, but without Toph tucked under his arm, he couldn't help but think it felt a little empty.

"Come on, I won't improve unless I work on it!" Sokka said, tossing his club from one hand to the other.

"You know, it's called over-training," Toph said, chewing on an apple. "Ask your gimp leg."

"I don't have a–" He shook his head. Focus, Sokka. "Look, are you really turning down an opportunity to kick my ass?"

She shrugged. "I hate to break it to you, but kicking your ass isn't exactly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

"What sort of standard is that? Is anyone really a challenge for you these days?"

Another shrug. "King Bumi, maybe. Did I tell you I trained with him for a bit a few years back? By the end he could almost take me."

Sokka narrowed his eyes, not sure whether or not she was kidding. Either way, she was definitely trying to distract him. "I could take you in a fight if you let me use my boomerang."

She glared and tossed the apple core aside. "Hey, it's not fair to use a ranged weapon in melee combat."

"Sure, sure." He grinned.

"Besides, I'm not afraid to fight your boomerang."

"You sure about that?" He pulled it out of its sheath and tossed it up and down a few times. "There's no way to tell where it is in the air."

"Doesn't matter," she said, crossing her arms.

"Well, alright then." He drew back his arm, spotting a course just over her head. But as he released it, the stones jerked under his feet, throwing him off balance. The throw went wide, and Sokka yelled out a warning just in time for everyone in the courtyard to duck and cover as the boomerang sailed over them in a smooth, head-level arc before smashing clean through three ceramic pots of perfume.

"Hey, watch it!" Toph screamed from her position crouching behind an earth shield.

"You watch it!" he yelled back, picking himself up off the ground and sloshing through the spilled perfume for his boomerang. "I wasn't going to actually throw it at you!"

"Well how was I supposed to know that?"

"Did you really think I would?" He picked it up and groaned. It was going to smell like orange-lavender-rosewater for weeks. He sheathed it and turned around, then stumbled backwards. "Oh hey there, Mother Superior."

She was several inches shorter than him, but her expression was enough to make his palms sweat. He knew what was coming before she said it and his heart sank.

"Perhaps it's time you two moved on."

/

"I'm sorry about the perfumes again," Sokka muttered as Kita re-dressed his shoulder one last time before they left. He must've apologized twice to everyone at the abbey since the incident, but he was still getting dirty looks when he walked down the halls.

"Oh, you don't have to apologize to me," Kita said. "I saw the whole thing, I know it was an accident." She laughed. "You two remind me of me and Narruk."

"Who's Narruk?"

"My husband." She turned away to unspool a roll of fresh bandages as Sokka tried desperately to suppress the blood rushing to his face. "He died during the Siege of the North," she went on, "but we were a lot like you two back in the day." She sighed, a sad little smile on her face. "Young and in love."

Sokka immediately gave up on not blushing and focused on suppressing nervous laughter. "Oh, Toph and I aren't–"

"I know, I know, it's complicated," Kita said in a way that made Sokka genuinely wonder if she was Katara in disguise. "But I was there when you were first brought in. She refused to leave even for a second while we worked on removing the arrow, then told us every other minute how fast your heart was beating."

He looked at her in disbelief, although when he really thought about it that sounded just like Toph.

"And when we finally got you stable, she insisted we take care of her leg in the same room, just so she wouldn't have to leave your side."

"…I didn't know that." Sokka licked his lips, not sure what to say, and suddenly doubting his resolution from the other night. Was it possible that she–

"There you go." Kita finished wrapping his shoulder and stood up, holding out his tunic and shirt. "That should hold for a few days' travel."

"Right," he said faintly, pulling his shirt over his head. "Thank you very much for all your help."

"Of course." Kita departed with her water and healing supplies, but Sokka barely noticed.

He looked out the window to the mountains in the west with a strange heaviness in his heart. A few days' travel, and they'd be at the Wulong Forest, and their quest would finally be over.

Omg one more chapter to go!