When Sokka woke up, it was bright. That was the first thing he noticed. The second was the smell of delicious food.
"Sokka, come on!" Katara demanded.
Sokka quickly woke up and rushed to the small circle of his friends, all eating their breakfast. Toph, with dark circles under her eyes, was sitting with Zuko (engaged in conversation with Aang about the day's plans) to her left, and an empty spot to her right. He took the empty spot, briefly brushing against her arm as he settled down with his rice.
"Sokka? Do you have any ideas?"
"Huh?" he said around a mouth of rice, spewing it everywhere. Katara wrinkled her nose before replying.
"Toph thinks we need more protection here."
"Hey, I'm just sayin', we're like sitting ducks here! What're we gonna do if someone finds us?" Toph defended.
Sokka contemplated the situation for a moment, stuffing more rice into his mouth. "We could do guard shifts. That's what we did right after most of the men left to fight, remember?" he asked Katara, allowing more rice to spew from his mouth. "Let's see, morning shift, afternoon, evenin', and overnight. There're eight of us, so we should do groups of two."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Toph said, stretching and arching her back, which emitted a few popping noises. "Who gets what shift? I ain't doin' mornin's, though."
"Zuko and I will," Aang volunteered, surprising Sokka. He hadn't realized that his conversation with Toph and Katara had commanded the attention of the entire group. "We're up early anyways; it won't be a change for us."
"Katara and I can take the afternoon shift, right Katara?" Haru volunteered.
Sokka narrowed his eyes at his rice. "No, I don't think that would work. I think it would be better if you went with Teo, okay? And The Duke and Katara would work better together."
Haru looked down, but didn't argue. Katara, on the other hand, did. "Hey, why don't I get a say in this?"
Sokka quickly went through a list of excuses in his head before settling on, "We can't have two non-benders working together. The team would be unbalanced." Katara huffed slightly, but made no further arguments.
"That leaves you an' me, huh Meathead?" interjected Toph, either unaware or unaffected by the slight air of discomfort that had fallen across the group after the mild tiff between brother and sister. "I think we should take the overnight shift, us being up so late all the time and all."
"I think Katara and The Duke might be better with that shift. Only because waterbending is slightly stronger with the moon," he added quickly before Katara could object. "Toph and I will take the evening shift. That work for everyone?"
With no complaints, the group finished their meal in relative silence until Aang and Zuko got up to practice more firebending and Toph laid back, putting her feet close enough to the food that Katara had to chastise her, which became another bickering fit.
It was nice to have a pattern.