They set off from the abbey that day, walking at a significantly slower pace. Sokka suspected Toph was trying to protect his injury, but thanks to Kita and the other healers he barely felt it, and they could've been going faster. But he found himself reluctant to say anything about it. He was increasingly aware that each mile brought them closer to the end of their journey, and back into that unknown where they'd started.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it), he was also increasingly aware of Toph. Everything about her seemed distracting now, from her hair to her clothes to the quick smiles she'd give him when he made a stupid joke. He even found himself watching her as they set up camp, and all the small ways she used earthbending to go about her life.
She turned over the earth to clear the grass for a fire, and then again to put it out. Instead of bending down to reach something, she almost always tapped her heel into the ground and it flew up to her hand, propelled by a spike of earth that was gone as soon as it appeared. Unless whatever she needed was metal, in which case it would fly into her hand as she held it out. She had a shocking amount of control over metal, and he noticed embarrassingly late that instead of being bound together with string, her pack was held together with metal cables that sprung open with a flick of her hand and coiled themselves neatly to the side. Then in the morning they'd wrap around her bags just as quickly, and never come loose as they walked during the day.
"It's like when you were fighting that girl at the factory in Cranefish Town," he said one evening when he thought she'd caught him staring (although it was hard to tell– maybe she caught him every night). "Or I guess it's Republic City now. You said the metal cables could be useful." He thought back. "What was her name again?"
"Yaling," Toph said, chewing thoughtfully on a roll. "Bender-supremacist. Thought she was even better than me."
"No one's better than you," he said without thinking, then tried to cover up the sappy comment with a smirk. "Although I do seem to remember her knocking you over at one point."
"Yeah well, she was no match for your boomerang." She smiled back, and Sokka wished suddenly that they weren't sitting so far away, because he would've liked to give her arm a friendly nudge, or maybe her shoulders a squeeze, or maybe (and wasn't it strange to be wishing for this) she'd just punch his arm, Toph-speak for the same sentiment.
But he didn't move, just sat still with his eyes on the fire, watching her expression in his peripheral vision.
She was still as well, although she wasn't looking at the fire, her gaze instead trained on the line of trees to the north that marked the edge of the forest.
Of course, that didn't give him one hint as to where her focus actually was. He could only hope it wasn't on him, or at least not on his heartbeat.
/
One night, they stayed in a cave, which was cramped until Toph made it wider and more spacious, molding the ceiling in the exact right geometry to guide smoke from their fire out of the mouth.
After they ate, she lounged against a rock bent at the perfect angle for her back and tossed a stone so it bounced off the floor and the walls and back to her hand in a steady rhythm– tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap.
"How do you do that?" he said, the knife he'd been sharpening forgotten in his lap.
"Do what?" She changed the angle of her throw, so the stone bounced off the floor, the wall, and then the ceiling before falling back into her hand.
He thought about it, wondering what he was really asking. "Know where the rock is in the air."
She cocked her head, considering this, and threw the stone again, so it bounced off the walls in yet another pattern. "Practice, I guess. During Earth Rumble matches, I got pretty good at knowing where a rock was going to be based on how it was thrown, or the other earthbender's stance."
"That's amazing."
She shrugged. "But over time, and especially now that I've got this metalbending thing figured out, I can sense earth even if it's in the air. I don't need vibrations to tell how big it is, or where it is in space, or how fast it's moving."
"That's incredible," he said again, thinking about all the mental physics that involved, and how in another lifetime, Toph would've made a gifted engineer.
"I suppose." Another shrug. "It's just normal to me now."
They fell quiet again, although Sokka felt the now-familiar urge to continue complimenting her. He suppressed it, because at this point it would be weird, probably, but Toph didn't try to fill the silence either. She'd been doing that a lot– they both had.
For his part, Sokka was brooding about the true nature of their quest and his dream at the abbey, and his conversations with Zuko and Kita. He was pretty sure he was alone in those thoughts, but suspected they shared a third reason for long, thoughtful silences. The coast had begun to turn south, and they both knew that soon they'd reach the stone fingers.
Besides the looming idea that it meant the end of their journey, Sokka was nervous about returning to the site of what was simultaneously the best and worst night of his entire life. Best, of course, because they'd won. Worst, because of… everything else.
Toph was still awake when he fell asleep uneasily that night, facing the mouth of the cave. He could faintly see the black line of the ocean in the night, barely distinguishable from the sky. But when he opened his eyes again the sky was red, like it was the day of the comet, and the forest below him was burning. He was standing at the mouth of the cave, frozen looking down at the inferno. And he knew he was dreaming, that it was just a nightmare, but his heart was pounding in his throat and he could feel the heat of the flames on his face. It all felt so real–
He jerked awake to the ground tilting under him, rolling him gently away from the fire that still burned between him and Toph, sitting cross-legged on the other side.
"You okay?" she said. "You rolled kind of close to the fire, and your heart was going crazy."
"Yeah." He took a shaky breath and ran a hand over his face. "Just a dream."
"Mm." Her face remained impassive, impossible to read.
He wanted to say so many things– like what it meant when she curled around him that night under the moon, and if, like Zuko said, she had any ulterior motives when she proposed they go on this quest. He wanted to ask her how she felt about returning to the scene of the proverbial crime, and if she was having nightmares too, but his mind felt sluggish, and he couldn't find the words.
So he turned over and tried to sleep again, hoping he wouldn't dream.
/
Toph looked tired the next morning, but she packed up her bags at the same time as always and they kept walking at their slower-than-usual pace. Still, by mid-morning the trail they were following rounded the base of the mountain and he saw them.
The Stone Fingers, rising like crooked soldiers over what was left of the Wulong Forest. Toph must've felt them before they came into view, but she still stopped when he did, waiting while he took it in.
"You know," she said, "they say Oma herself created these when Shu was killed and she revealed herself as an earthbender."
His lips twitched. "Wasn't that supposed to happen near Omashu?"
"It's a legend, Meathead."
"But I thought it was a real legend," he said with a grin.
She punched him for that, and he laughed. The short rush of happiness gave him the courage to keep going, putting one foot in front of the other until the pillars were towering over them. Toph kept her head down, of course, but Sokka couldn't help looking up, scanning for signs of Aang's battle with Ozai. He hadn't seen it, so he didn't really know what he was looking for, but every so often he thought he saw evidence of earthbending, or faint scorch marks too high and too concentrated to be natural.
By mutual, unspoken agreement they walked through the stone forest without stopping, not even to eat, and picked up the pace until they were walking so fast they couldn't speak even if they wanted to.
It was dark by the time they reached the trees again on the western side of the Stone Fingers. The airships hadn't made it quite this far, but Sokka knew that soon they'd reach the airship graveyard, giant metal hulls rusting among blackened stumps on an ashy plain. His limbs shook with exhaustion as he pitched his tent next to Toph's, then sat heavily just outside of it, picking at nuts from his bag. Neither of them moved to build a fire, for which Sokka was grateful. Eventually, he ran out of reasons to stay up any later, so he crawled inside his tent and curled up on his bedroll.
He'd hoped the hard day of walking would send him to sleep quickly, but even as he laid there exhausted his eyes stayed stubbornly open, staring at the patched blue fabric of his tent. Distantly, he could hear the waves crashing on the shore, and he found himself breathing in time with them, trying to push away images of charred tree trunks, and the fire that consumed them.
In, and out. In, and out.
/
He's panting, hyperventilating, but he can't stop to catch his breath. He's running along the top of an airship– he can feel the slight give beneath his feet– except it must be longer than he thought it was because he still can't see the end. The sky is glowing red above him and the air is hot, but in one hand he's got Space Sword and in the other he's got Toph. Or more accurately, her hand. He can't see her, since she's running slightly behind him, but he knows she's there by the way her fingers wrap around his. And he's got to lead her, since she's blind up here, on the fabric balloon of the airship, he's got to keep her safe. And once they reach the end, he knows, he knows, they will be. They just have to keep going. So he's running, even though his legs are weak and it feels like they're slowing, or the distance before them is increasing.
Then the air around them grows even hotter, and Sokka notices with horror that the airship is burning, flames eating away at the surface and throwing cinders in his face. Beyond them, he can tell, is nothingness. A smoky abyss and certain death. He pushes himself faster, and tries to change their course, but he stumbles and his stomach drops because they're about to fall off the side. Toph's grip on his hand tightens and he feels her fingers start to slip.
"Sokka," her voice drifts faintly from behind him. "Sokka, please."
No, is all he can think. Not this time.
He holds on tighter and keeps going, staggering as the curve of the airship affects his stride, his sword limp and dragging at his side. No matter how hard he tries, Toph's hand keeps slipping, the heat making their palms slick.
"Sokka!"
The pull on his arm becomes insistent, and the thought of losing her is unbearable, so he drops his sword, barely watching as it falls into the flames beneath them, and turns around so he can hold her with both hands.
But she isn't there, and his hands are empty.
"Toph!" he tries to yell, but he's choking, and his voice is weak. "Toph." Smoke clouds his vision as he searches desperately below him, although it's clearly hopeless. His feet are slipping on the airship, and he knows he's falling, too.
I'm sorry, Toph. He closes his eyes against the heat, heart pounding as the floor begins to fall away. I'm so sorry.
/
Sokka jerked awake and sat bolt upright. He was covered in a cold sweat, breath coming in ragged gasps. For a long minute he was frozen, gripped with terror by the nightmare and his heart beating out of his chest. When he finally moved, it was to press shaking hands to his face and feel them come away wet.
Shit. Shit, shit shit. He could swear the walls of his tent were closing in, so he kicked himself free of his bedroll and scrambled clumsily outside, drawing in a shaky breath and shivering as the breeze cooled the moisture on his neck. Both palms pressed into the earth, he closed his eyes and tried to calm himself.
It was a dream, he thought, over and over. Just a dream.
He glanced over his shoulder at the earth tent. The ends were closed with solid earth walls, which bothered him a little since they'd literally cuddled together back at the abbey, but to be fair, that was an exception. Toph usually liked her space.
He shifted and sat with his knees curled into his chest, and took another deep breath to the sound of the waves. When he closed his eyes to listen more closely, he realized the night was otherwise silent, the forest too thin to support any insects or birds.
Like it's dead, he thought, shuddering. A dead forest.
The only signs of life were the sounds of his breathing and Toph moving inside her earth tent. Selfishly, he wished she was awake as well, so he wouldn't have to bear the sleeplessness alone. She was the only person in the world who could truly understand what this place did to him, and he felt so lonely, even though she was only a few feet away.
Almost as soon as he thought it, the sounds from the earth tent grew louder, more… frantic. Like she was tossing and turning in her sleep. He crawled closer and rapped gently on the walls.
"Toph?"
No answer, although the shifting grew louder
"Hey, Toph?"
Still no answer, and he thought he heard something else. Almost like… whimpering. Although he'd never heard Toph whimper in his life.
She must be having a nightmare. He knocked again, harder. "Toph, wake up. It's me, Sokka."
More whimpering.
"Toph." He was starting to feel stupid, whispering to a stone wall, but then everything went silent, and it was so quiet he could hear his heart thundering in his ears. Then suddenly the door of the earth tent opened and he almost fell in.
"What do you want, Snoozles?" She glared up at him, and it was hard to see her face in the dark, but her voice was oddly soft and he could hear a barely-detectable waver.
"Nothing, I–" He licked his lips, his throat suddenly tight again. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I'm fine."
"Okay." But he didn't move, frozen leaning over her with one hand on the roof of her tent.
He'd barely shifted his weight to move away when she caught his wrist with her hand. "Wait."
He stopped.
Her grip softened, but she didn't let go, pulling him gently toward her. "You can stay."
He didn't need to be told twice. Awkwardly, because her head was facing toward him and he had to crawl to get into the tent, he shuffled inside and laid down next to her. He pulled her into his arms before she could ask and held her close, squeezing her ribs so tightly she gasped.
"Miss me, Snoozles?" she murmured into his ear.
"Yes," he said honestly. "This place…"
"I know," she said, because of course she understood, before he even tried to explain. "I know."
She fell asleep like that, curled up against him and holding on tight, and for the first time since leaving the abbey, Sokka felt something close to peaceful. Although before he fell asleep as well, he made sure to take her hand in his, so if he dreamed again he wouldn't let go.
When Sokka woke up again, at first he couldn't tell whether his eyes were open. Toph had sealed the ends of the earth tent and it was pitch dark. He took a deep breath and shifted onto his back. As his eyes adjusted, he thought he could see a thin sliver of light where two slabs of earth didn't quite meet, so the sun must be up. He supposed under normal circumstances he'd find the tent to be claustrophobic and uncomfortably warm, but this time he didn't feel inclined to move. Besides the fact that he physically couldn't remove the rock walls himself, Toph was still asleep, her cheek gently resting on his shoulder.
Unlike the night spent on the hay bale, he took a moment to notice how soft her skin felt on his, and the way her hair fell in gentle waves down her back. Unconsciously, he bent his arm so he could run his hands through it. Even in the darkness, he closed his eyes to better appreciate the sensation. The strands were smooth and cool between his fingers and if it weren't for the earthy smell around him, he could imagine he was lying by a stream.
He never knew how long he laid like that. In the darkness and the silence, the moment seemed suspended in time, entirely separate from the rest of the world pushing him relentlessly into the future. He only knew the spell was broken when his fingertip brushed her earlobe and she finally stirred.
And maybe it was the darkness, or maybe the reluctance to let go of a dream, but he didn't freeze and jerk his arm away, just continued stroking her hair as her breathing changed and she tilted her head towards his.
"Snoozles," she murmured in a sleepy tone that almost made him want to turn the nickname back on her, "are you petting me?"
"Maybe," he whispered, then felt her hand creep up to rest over his pounding heart. His cheeks flushed, but his hand didn't stop moving. "Yes."
She shifted so her face was closer to his, and for the thousandth time on this trip he wondered if he was going to kiss her. The thought made him freeze, his hand coming to rest near her waist, and hold his breath, lips slightly parted.
But she didn't close the gap, even though he could swear he felt her breath on his face.
"We'll reach the airships today," she said.
"I know."
"So we'll find out, one way or another, if this was all worth it."
"It was worth it," he said immediately. "No matter what happens, it was worth it."
She tapped her fingers thoughtfully on his chest. "Your heart's going nuts in there."
He swallowed, trying to keep his head. "Well, uh… it's pretty warm."
It was the wrong thing to say.
Toph seemed to remember where they were and with a sweep of her arm deconstructed the earth tent around them.
Sokka flinched away from the sunlight but didn't sit up, holding a hand over his face as reality sank back in.
Toph brought up her pack from where she'd folded it beneath the earth and checked the metal cables. "We'd better get moving."
He sighed and picked himself up, staring wearily at his tent like it would break itself down. "Toph?"
"What is it?" She already had her pack on her shoulders, while his stuff was still hopelessly strewn about their campsite.
"Are you scared?"
For a second, he thought she was going to toss her head and scoff, but at the last second she seemed to change her mind. "Of course I'm scared. So are you."
"I know." He hesitated. "I thought saying it out loud might make me feel better."
She was quiet for so long he wondered if she'd heard him. "Well, do you?"
He blinked. "Do I what?"
"Feel better."
"…I don't know."
Now she scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Great talk, Snoozles. Let's go."
He shook his head and began breaking down his tent. "I don't know why I try."
She glared and crossed her arms. "What do you want from me? Of course I understand what you're feeling, but we didn't come this far to pig-chicken out."
He snorted and shook his head again. Finished rolling up his tent, he sat back on his heels, the ropes for his pack hanging limp in his hands. He felt restless, unfocused. His thoughts scattered and confused between his nightmare and waking up in the earth tent that morning. "I thought I'd be… stronger," he said. "When I finally came back here. I didn't think I'd let it get to me."
He heard her shrug off her pack the rustling of her clothes as she sat down beside it. He turned to face her, and waited while she stared at the ground between her knees, picking at a loose thread in her tunic.
"I… I dreamed about falling," she finally said.
His breath caught and he swallowed it down, closing his eyes against the images of running along the airship surface, her hand slippery in his.
"I mean, I dream about falling a lot," she continued. "That and… being trapped. In a wooden cell, or in a cage but I can't metalbend." She licked her lips. "But mostly it's falling."
He opened his mouth to respond– with an apology, maybe. Or maybe to tell her that he dreamed about her falling, as well, but she held up a hand to stop him.
"And before you say anything– yeah, I have talked to someone about this before. Aang a little bit, and Uncle last time I was in Ba Sing Se." She hugged her knees into her chest, suddenly appearing so much smaller than he was used to seeing her. "And I guess the thing is– maybe we shouldn't fight it so much."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, maybe it's okay that we're scared. It was a terrifying experience, what we went through. But–" she reached out suddenly and took his hand, "we made it, and we're still here, and I… I wouldn't do this with anyone but you."
His heart thudded in his chest, and he had to close his eyes as he squeezed her hand back. He wished he could find the right words to agree with her, say he felt exactly the same way, but none came, and his throat felt too tight to speak anyway.
Luckily, she seemed to understand.
When they finally continued, it was in silence again– but not, Sokka thought, an unpleasant one. They walked closer than usual, like they had in Republic City, although this time when their hands brushed it didn't feel so accidental. In any case, it certainly wasn't accidental the way their fingers hooked and interwove as they crested the last hill before the airship graveyard.
And maybe it was the bright light of day, or Toph's hand securely in his, but as he looked down on the blasted forest, Sokka felt surprisingly steady. He looked over at Toph to see if she felt the same, and she must've felt him turn his head because she just smiled and squeezed his hand one more time, before they started down the slope together.
They left their packs on a small outcropping of rock so close to the water he could feel the sea spray if the wind blew just right. After turning to face the airships again, Sokka looked at Toph and said, "So how do you want to do this?"
She smiled a wide, pointy-toothed grin. "I'd take a step back if I were you."
He couldn't help but smile back, but did as she said.
Cracking her knuckles in front of her, she inhaled long and slow, then on the exhale raised her right leg and brought it down hard, her arms coming into her chest.
The ground rippled beneath them and Sokka staggered to keep his balance, but Toph's feet never moved, wiggling her toes into the earth as the vibrations came back to her.
Sokka held his breath, heart racing. "Feel anything interesting?"
With another slow inhale, Toph came out of her stance. "Oh, plenty." She threw him a wry look over her shoulder. "But not that kind of interesting. Patience, cave-hopper."
Then she started towards the ships, weaving in and out of the battered, rusty shells, pausing every few meters to stomp her foot again. Sokka followed out of a sort of instinct, although he felt woefully inadequate scanning the landscape with his eyes, lifting away the occasional piece of metal and scaring away spider-snakes that had made their home inside. Toph occasionally did the same, using metalbending, but never said anything after.
They worked in near-silence for the rest of the morning, before returning to their packs for a short rest and something to eat, and then beginning again. Sokka's clothes were soon soaked in sweat, his gloves and forearm bindings streaked with rust.
To his mild surprise (but not-so-mild relief), they didn't find too many bodies during their search. The solid metal hulls, for the most part, appeared to have fallen to the ground in one piece, without buckling and crushing everyone inside. He found plenty of armor, abandoned as soon as the soldiers realized they were on the losing side, but the vast majority of it was empty. Only an unlucky few appeared to have taken a bad hit to one vital organ or another, or were caught in an unfortunate spot during the crash and pinned.
Whenever he found one of these, Sokka would call Toph over and with a stomp of her foot she buried them, sending them back into the earth with a grim nod and hardly a disturbance to the surrounding area. Sokka supposed a proper Fire Nation burial would've involved a cremation, but they hardly had the resources for that now, so he always lingered at the unmarked, impromptu graves and said a quick prayer to Yue and La, and then to Agni, although the name sounded unfamiliar in his mouth.
As the heat of the day began to wane Sokka's eyes started to glaze over, he wondered if he'd been wrong in assuming Toph would be able to say whether the sword was here or not within the first day. He had no idea how much ground they'd actually covered, as Toph seemed to be moving in a circuitous, non-sensical pattern through the airships, but he felt like they'd barely made a dent in it, and in his exhaustion began to despair of ever doing so.
Until the impossible happened.
"Sokka!" There was a cacophony of tearing metal as Toph attacked the hull of an airship near the waterline. "Sokka, look!"
He ran over, tripping and stumbling and swallowing the pain in his shoulder. He wanted to simultaneously sink to his knees and jump for joy when she held it up, the hilt mangled and rusty but the blade still recognizable.
"I can't believe it," he whispered. "I can't believe it." His legs were shaking but he held onto a jagged bit of metal and reached out to take it from her. Space Sword.
"Wait." She knelt down and placed it on her knees, then began running her hands over it, eyes closed in concentration.
He leaned over and realized she was repairing it. With each gentle sweep of her hand over the blade and the hilt, the scratches and dents were smoothed away, and the metal started to regain some of its shine. His lips parted in awe– he'd never thought metalbending could be so… gentle. He never realized she could be so gentle.
When she handed it back to him, his heart swelled as he took the familiar weight in his hand.
"It's lighter than I remember," he whispered.
"Maybe you're just stronger."
With shaking hands he pulled her to her feet and brought her into a tight embrace. "Thank you, Toph," he whispered. "Thank you for everything."
"No problem, Snoozles," she said gruffly into his shoulder, although her arms came around to return it.
His cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling into her hair– it felt so perfect, so right, to hold her like this, in that moment he didn't think he'd ever want to let go. Eager to see her face, he pulled back and looked down, and realized she was looking back up at him. For what had to be the millionth time on this trip he thought, has she always been this beautiful? Then, I really want to kiss her.
So he did.
They inhaled at the same time and she melted in his arms. For a moment he had a brief, terrifying thought that he'd made a horrible mistake and was about to be buried ten feet under the earth, but then he felt her arms tighten like a vice against his waist, her tongue brushing the gently against his lower lip, and his mind whited out completely so there was nothing but the feeling of her mouth on his and her hands climbing up his back.
Sokka could've stayed like that for a long time, but then a loud clang brought them back to earth and they broke apart, gasping. In the heat of the moment, he'd dropped Space Sword and the hilt had fallen against the hull of the ruined airship.
He cursed at the thought that he'd dented it again, but Toph just laughed and picked it up, smoothing out the metal with a brush of her fingers.
She tried to hand it back to him, cheeks still flushed and lips red, but he just ducked his head to kiss her again, wondering why on earth he'd waited so long to do this.
"Toph…" he whispered, holding her face in his hands. "Toph."
"Sokka," she said, and he had to bite his lip against how stupidly good it felt when she said his name.
"We did it," he said, thumbs gliding gently over her cheekbones. "I can't believe we did it."
"You mean I did it," she said, with a trademark smug little smile he had to kiss off her lips.
"Yes," he said. "You did it."
She smiled again, her face lifted towards his and filmy eyes staring slightly past his. "So," she said softly. "What now?"
"I don't know," he admitted, melancholy beginning to curl deep in his stomach. Then he shivered as she reached up and brushed a hand over the crease forming between his brows, then down over the faint shadow of stubble he'd allowed to grow over the last couple of days.
"Me neither."
/
Slowly, almost lazily, they made their way back to where they'd left their bags. The whole time, Sokka kept his Space Sword in one hand and Toph's hand in the other, until they returned to the outcropping of rock looking over the water. He paused, turning his face into the breeze coming from the west.
"The sun is setting," he said, drinking in the gentle orange color of the waves.
"Mm." Toph turned her head as well, loose strands of hair whipping around her face and nose twitching in the salty air. Before he could ask, she bent a sort of chair for them– really just a short outcropping of rock, but when they sat down in front of it molded itself perfectly to their backs and allowed her to tuck herself snugly against his side.
"What does it look like?" she said after a while, head resting on his shoulder.
Sokka was reminded of the dream he had in the abbey, when she asked him to describe the moon, and tried to think of a way to say it without using colors or light.
"It looks like… a slow fade of warmth to cool," he said. "It looks like an ending." He tilted his head. "Although I suppose it could also be a beginning."
She chuckled and smacked his chest. "I didn't think you'd get all poetic on me."
"What can I say?" His head dipped to kiss her forehead. "I'm in a poetic sort of mood."
"Really?" Her lips twitched against his skin. "I bet you don't know any poetry."
"No," he admitted. "Probably more Aang's area. Or Zuko's. Did you know Love Amongst the Dragons was written in iambic pentameter?"
She laughed. "What a nerd."
He laughed, too, although it faded quickly as he remembered their night in Republic City. He wondered if Toph was thinking the same thing.
"Hey Sokka?" she said when the sun was barely a speck over the waves.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I'd make a good Chief of Police?"
He grinned. "I think it would be hilarious, you going around arresting little earthbending con artists doing the same shit you pulled when you were twelve."
"You mean the shit we pulled," she said.
"Nope." He pulled her closer. "I may've been there, but I was an innocent bystander. That was all you, you Runaway."
"Hey, you were definitely an accomplice."
"If I was, so was Aang," he said. He cocked his head. "Now that I think about it, I don't think it's fair that we were left off that wanted poster. We could've been plural– the Runaways."
Toph nodded, her face strangely serious. "It would've been fitting."
Sokka licked his lips, staring hard at the last streaks of light on the horizon. "It still is."
She sighed and pressed her face harder into his chest, and he didn't have to look to see the sadness in her eyes.
"Yes," he said, his voice low and sincere. "I think you'd make an amazing Chief of Police."
"Why?" Her voice was small.
"Because you're amazing at whatever you do," he said.
She scoffed.
"And because I know how much you care about people," he pressed on. "And about protecting those who need it. Because you have a strong sense of justice, and of what's right."
She didn't deny it, but she also didn't agree, just sat perfectly still against his side, breathing in time with the waves.
He took a deep breath. "Because you know what it's like to be in a cage– whether gilded, or metal, or wood– and you'll think four times before doing that to anyone who doesn't deserve it."
She gave another quiet sigh. "It just feels so… final, you know? Like it'll be the end of something."
Sokka nodded, a lump forming in his throat as he thought of the Republic City Council position. It would be nice to live so near Aang and Katara, who he'd missed terribly while he was living on Kyoshi. And Zuko was right– he probably could do a lot of good, representing the Southern Water Tribe and non-benders. Using his notoriety to help build something that would last, a new system that would serve people the way a government should. But it did feel like an ending– the end of a certain kind of freedom, the end of an era in his life.
"Maybe…" he faltered as the last bit of sunlight disappeared and the brightest stars began winking over their heads. "Maybe it's like the sunset, and it could be a beginning if we looked at it a different way."
"No," Toph gave a watery chuckle, drops of moisture brushing from her eyelashes onto his shirt. "That's too easy, Snoozles. Think of a different metaphor."
"Okay." He tried to laugh as well, and tightened his grip on her hand. "You know someone once told me not to let the destination get in the way of the journey."
"Yeah, I've heard that one before," she said. "One of my favorites, actually."
"Really?"
"Really." She gently nudged his ribs. "But I still don't know where you're going with this."
"Well, I didn't really get it at the time," Sokka glanced at Space Sword lying on the ground to his left, barely a shadow in the dim light, "but after this– quest, I think I finally understand."
"Well that makes one of us."
He cleared his throat, trying to organize his thoughts into something resembling a point. "I mean, these last couple of days I've kind of been dreading reaching the end," he said. "Not just because of, you know, the obvious but also because it was the end. And I guess that made me realize… how valuable the journey really was."
Spirits, he still wasn't making that much sense, but this time Toph was patient, and waited in silence.
"I guess what I'm saying is– maybe it could all be a journey, you know?"
She frowned, a faint line between her eyebrows visible in the dark.
"Like, maybe this isn't really an ending. Maybe Republic City, and 'settling down,' is just the next part of the quest."
"Mm," Toph said after a long few minutes. "I guess I could get behind that." She shifted against him and stretched out her legs. "Pretty deep stuff, Boomerang Guy. You could almost be Uncle Iroh."
"You never know," he said. "Maybe in fifty years I'll have my own tea shop, too."
"No you won't," Toph said. "You make a horrible cup of tea."
He laughed, then leaned down to kiss her because he realized it had been too long.
/
They didn't speak for a long time after that. Toph earrthbent their makeshift chair away and made the ground softer beneath them so they could just lie under the stars, lazily making out in between munching on berries and hippo-beef jerky from their packs.
Sokka didn't know what prompted him to break the very pleasurable silence in the end– but once the question occurred to him, he couldn't not ask it. "Toph?"
"Yeah?" At some point she'd discarded her tunic, and was stretched out on the softened earth beside him in only her bindings. Her pale skin seemed glow in the moonlight, and Sokka had to curl his fingers into a fist to keep from running his hand over it again and distracting them both.
"Do you think we're in love?"
To her credit, she barely reacted. "I don't know."
"Do you think we could be in love, in the future?"
"I don't know," she said again, although her tone wasn't defensive, just thoughtful. "What if you break my heart?"
"What if you break mine?" he countered.
"Ha ha." She rolled her eyes and didn't bother to explain why she thought that was unlikely.
"Hey, don't laugh. It could happen," Sokka said, his heart thudding against his ribs, feeling open and exposed.
Toph smiled and shook her head. "You're not in love with me, Snoozles."
"Maybe not." But I could be. I definitely feel… something. Or the beginning of something. "Are you in love with me?"
"I don't know." She raised her arms above her head in a slow, languid stretch. "I don't think I really know what love is." She paused. "It's weird. Ten years ago, I thought I knew everything. But now I just wonder if I know anything at all."
"Me, too," he said.
"Really?"
"Yeah, I never know what I'm doing. No idea." He looked up at the stars, all of them visible now, and remembered the meteor shower they'd watched the night before he met Piandao, and how small he'd felt, how insignificant.
"Too bad we kinda have to know, at this point," she said.
"Nah, we don't really have to know," he said. "People just expect us too."
She licked her lips. "Is it bad that I sometimes wish for the old days again? Not the war, just–"
"The freedom?"
"Yeah." She smiled. "The freedom of being a kid and doing dumb shit just for fun." She gave a wistful sigh and tucked her arms behind her head. "Sometimes I just want to be young and stupid again."
"Don't worry, Toph." He smiled back, even though she couldn't see. "We're still plenty young and stupid."
She tilted her head, so he could see her expression was a little sad. "But it can't be like this forever."
"Well, we have the grave misfortune of knowing the Avatar, so I have a feeling associated 'responsibilities' are going to find us eventually." He tried to keep his tone light, but the words still felt heavy in the air.
She rolled softly towards him, lying on her side. "How about we pretend they won't. At least just for a little while."
"Excellent idea." He did the same, so their faces were close again, their noses almost touching. "One of your finest."
One corner of her mouth turned up. "I learned from a master idea guy."
He leaned forward and kissed her again, although the melancholy was rising again in chest. His eyes were burning, and he brought an arm around her waist to pull her closer, a little desperation leaking into the kiss.
Just like that morning, he wanted so badly for this moment not to end. He didn't want the sun to rise and make them face their real lives again, now that the quest was completed. He didn't want things to change, to be complicated by new lives in the city. He had a feeling nothing would be simple anymore after tonight, even if he couldn't bring himself to regret anything.
Of course, Toph always seemed to know what he was thinking. She broke the kiss gently, their foreheads still touching while they caught their breaths.
"Do you think it could ever work out between us?" she whispered. "Do you think there's even a chance?"
He swallowed and and closed his eyes again. He thought, strangely, of Aunt Wu's prediction, but then of the girl he'd seen in the swamp– the earthbender playing with a meteorite who looked a little like him and a little like her.
"I don't know what's going to happen," he said. Maybe it was foolish to believe in such an idea, or to hope for it, with all the uncertainties before them. But that didn't stop him from bringing his hand behind her head, holding it gently to his. "But yeah, I think we have a chance."
The end! I hope you enjoyed it :) Thank you so much to everyone who's favorited/followed/reviewed! Your support means the world :D