Even Though I'm A Woman - Seeker Lover Keeper

Strangely enough, Sokka never helped her write her letters to Jin.

Dear Jin,
I'm living with Katara and Aang (the Avatar to you, buster) in a house right next to the sea, in one of the spare rooms. Every morning they practice waterbending while I content myself with the sand on the beach. Thankfully, the area is isolated enough to prevent any gawkers from hanging around.
It's barely my first week in Republic City and I'm already being put to work. Monsters. They obviously don't know how to treat a war hero. But Sokka's involved in the architecture process, so I suppose the tedium will be made bearable. He's shown me some really cool building plans that I'll be working on, which he drew out in the dirt, and what's been built already feels amazing.

And it was. Walking into the city every morning, Toph would use her seismic sense to seek out the earthen buildings scattered around the plains, old residences of the former colonies lying comfortably between them. These new structures reigned over the blossoming area, possessing the opulence of the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom's sturdy foundations and the Water Tribes' intricate designs. To the west, Toph would hear the grunts of earthbenders as they cleared a piece of barren land, then lay fertile topsoil over. Sokka had said that, in time, it'd be a majestic public garden in which the locals could pass their leisure time in.

Now, she was training the earthbenders she had deemed sufficiently skilled to metalbend. It was a laborious task; their martial arts style was completely dissimilar to her own, too unrefined for them to detect and bend the impurities in the roughest of ores. Toph had had to go back to the basics with them, like what she had done with the Dai Li. This had caused some muttering, though her student's doubts had been scattered with some deftly softened earth, trapping them in a hole which only she could break them out of. From the Blind Bandit, they learned respect and discipline, exploring new techniques warily; the pang Toph felt at the thought of another student, another city, was quickly erased as her focus sharpened on a new batch of pupils, her teaching methods as snarky and demanding as ever.

In the night, she would return home sweaty and exhausted, her tongue burning as she gulped down Katara's dishes hastily, sitting down to contemplate the evening on their front porch after. Aang would light candle stubs with his firebending, and Toph would always feel the flames flickering in the sea breeze as Katara's stomach swelled like the crest of the waves hurtling towards their home. Aang would do the dishes while his wife wrote Toph's letters for her, her strokes careful as Toph rattled on about the day's ongoings to her parents and Jin, night gradually falling around them till all was salt and sea.

When Sokka happened to be in the city, though, these routines were eagerly disrupted with the four reuniting over drinks, although Toph and Sokka were the main culprits, since Aang and Katara generally abstained from alcohol. The porch would become full of reminiscent discussions and exciting updates, the sound of the surf providing a pleasant background to their conversations. Unread letters would be tucked away into Katara's desk, patiently waiting for Toph to return from her best friend's apartment in the heart of the city during the weekdays. She'd feel guilty for leaving her correspondents hanging for more than a week as she and Sokka spent the day sparring, working and fine dining, realizing yet again the absence of her inquiry into Jin's life in her previous letter. Only when Sokka slung his arm around her shoulders, or pulled off a decent joke did these thoughts meander away, disspiating into the trails behind, leaving her skin a little more hot, the corners of her lips tilting a little more upwards.

Besides, Toph reasoned; when he was with her, Sokka never did seem to write any letters of his own.

Dear Jin,
The lily livers I taught have actually progressed a fair bit; most of them can metalbend already, so we've begun to build a bridge linking the city to the mainland. It's massive and requires so much metal, sometimes even I feel overwhelmed. It doesn't help that it's suspended over half a mile of water- we have to use boats to access the bit we're working on, or waterbenders have to help. I can't see the entire time. It's awful.
Sokka's in talks with the Mechanist to devise some other method of crossing for me. We're going to the Fire Nation to meet him. I sure hope whatever he's come up with works.
How are you?

Toph fiddled with the chains hesitantly, their loops clinking against one another as she ran her fingers through them. She wound them around her arm, hefting the coil; it felt so light and flexible, unlike the heavy, sturdy materials favored amongst the nations. She was surprised to find that it took more concentration on her part to bend this unfamiliar metal, its breadth bending reluctantly to accommodate the curve of her thumb. Toph relinquished her hold, the metal bouncing back promptly, then lifted her face towards them with her eyebrows raised in mild surprise.

'Wow. They feel so difficult and...' She struggled to find the appropriate terminology. '...Not stable.'

'We've altered the forging process,' the Mechanist explained, 'So that it's much lighter and easier for you to transport these chains. Also, most of the impurities found in the ore, bauxite, have been removed.'

Sokka took over, helping her unravel the chains around her arm. 'That means you'll find it slightly harder to bend, since a lot of the earth is gone, but it's sturdier than it looks.' Seeing her doubtful expression, he added, 'Trust me.'

Toph arched an eyebrow. 'Okay... But how is this going to help me, exactly?'

'You know how you can't earthbend yourself up to work on the deck and tower, in case the entire structure collapses?'

'And how the waterbenders have to bend me up to do the job and how I completely hate it? Yes, Captain Boomerang, I do,' she deadpanned.

Toph could feel him rolling his eyes, ignoring the nickname and explaining, 'The idea is for you to wear this harness-' she felt him shuffle over to the nearby worktable, returning to hand her what felt like stiffly woven cloth '-which has loops the chains are clipped to.'

The calluses of his fingers chafed against hers as Sokka guided her hands to the canvas loops sewed around the harness' waistband. Although it was a thoughtful gesture borne from years of friendship, it was a little too close for comfort, and she was adamant she could have done it by herself. Toph swallowed, barely catching his words as she steered her thoughts away from her discomfort. 'That way, you can use your metalbending to hoist yourself up to any height you wish, using the struts around the bridge for support.'

Despite the longing still haunting her, the idea of moving about independently, building the bridge she and Sokka envisioned, was relieving, the new invention a welcome challenge. Toph hitched on her best smile, facial muscles and perfectly nonchalant twang defying the forces of gravity. 'Sweetness. Let's try it.'

She stepped into the harness, pulling it over her pants and clipping the chains through the indicated spaces at the waistband with the help of the Mechanist. She then gathered up the remaining strand, winding some around her right wrist while giving the length between it and her waist some slack. As the inventor stepped away, giving her ample space, Toph cast around for a suitable structure- there, the wooden beam overhead. Without a moment's thought, she focused all her attention on the barely visible earth trapped between metal, drew back her right arm and aimed it towards the heavens.

Sokka, who had been watching, suddenly stepped forward. 'Wait, you might wanna-'

Too late- just as she pumped her clenched fist forward, Toph immediately sensed something was wrong. The metal shot upwards as intended, but instead of coiling around the wooden beam, pierced the slate roof beyond it violently, continuing its journey up into the morning sky.

As the other two ducked for cover, shingles and dust raining down on them, Toph felt the slack disappear. The cold, smooth ore now felt blisteringly hot against her bare wrist, taut and unforgiving around her waist. Her eyes widened as she felt the breath leave her lungs in a whoosh, the areas in contact with the chains suddenly screaming in pain as blood's path was obstructed, the heat growing and spreading as rapidly as the panic seizing her now.

Her body lurched unceremoniously, momentarily airborne before her instincts kicked in- she pulled her weight against the force of her own action, digging her heels into the tiles. Still, she was dragged along before the friction held, surrounding furniture becoming displaced in the process to create a clatter and bang. Toph twisted her feet, raising earthen shackles to hold her down, her body still being pulled in opposite directions. An opposing tug of her left arm caused the mobile chains to sharply decelerate, hurtling back down in a lifeless mass. Just before they collapsed onto her head, Toph fell back into her praying mantis stance, raising a large wedge of earth over her, the chains bouncing off harmlessly to land in an innocent pile at her feet.

When all was quiet, Toph stepped out from under her shelter gingerly, the Mechanist and Sokka emerging, too, from beneath the workbench, everyone unscathed. In silence, they surveyed the damage done: a large portion of blue sky showing through the roof, several potholes and uneven ground, besides the obvious signs of earthbending, and a thick layer of dust covering everything in sight.

She felt Sokka turn to her with a groan and matching glare. In response, she flashed him an apologetic grin, reaching up to tousle the back of her hair and wincing at the twinge of the burns on her forearm.

'Um. Oops?'

Dear Jin,
I'm sorry for the overdue letter- I've been so busy lately. Anyway, not sure if you've heard, but I've been made Chief of the Metalbending Police! It's a real honor; they had a whole ceremony and everything, and Sokka designed a uniform for us to mark the occasion. It's made of this lightweight metal they just invented and flexible, same as the chains I told you about. He says I look badass in it. I'll bet he's right.
I bet you're wondering why there's even a law enforcement squad made entirely of metalbenders (all taught by me, of course).
It all started when Sokka wanted to go shopping.

They were in of Qing Yan, one of the first revamped colonies on the outskirts of Republic City. Sokka had just returned by land from a trip to Ba Sing Se, and Toph had gone to meet him, planning to indulge in some Earth Kingdom fare and shopping.

Over steaming bamboo baskets in a tiny restaurant, they gorged themselves on assorted dim sum and jasmine tea only second to Iroh's, deep in their discussion over current state affairs. Sokka had only stopped stuffing his face long enough to delve into his green satchel, now scuffed and faded, to withdraw a crushed piece of parchment, which he hastily smoothed out before handing it to his companion.

'By the way, I saw Jin. He asked me to give you this.'

Her fingers folding around the crumpled note, Toph frowned at the strange reluctance and abruptness coloring his tone, not to mention the growing apprehension she felt. 'Oh. Uh, thanks.'

She lifted the hem her long tunic, quickly stuffing the paper into the pocket of her harness before letting the fabric fall. It felt bulky in the space she had sewn on herself, struggling with a bone needle as Katara's attentions fell to her newborn child. The letter bumped against the various nuts and bolts residing patiently inside, a reminder of what she had left behind, of what had nearly gotten the better of her. Taking advantage of the brimming tension rising like an invisible wall between them, Toph reached for the last prawn dumpling and splashed it around in some soy sauce, popping it whole into her mouth.

Even when incapacitated, Toph could feel the weight of Sokka's gaze on her and the unusual stillness of his cutlery. 'What?' she managed to squawk out, bits of shrimp splattering the wooden table.

Sokka continued his steady, thoughtful look. 'You know, this is the third time I've been to Ba Sing Se.'

'So I've heard, Mister Obvious.'

'Coincidentally,' he continued over her flippant response, 'It's also the third time you've claimed to have an illness that prevented you from travelling.'

Toph reached for her tea, choking down her half-chewed savoury. 'It was just a twenty-four hour virus this time,' she replied airily with a wave of her chopsticks, then setting them down. 'Nothing to worry about.'

'Right,' Sokka shot back sarcastically. Toph heard the soft clink of metal on wood and rose accordingly; ever the gentleman, he had insisted on paying whenever they went out, and her efforts to treat or go Dutch were always futile. 'Nothing to worry about. Just like last time. And the time before that.'

The floor beneath changed from polished wood to rough asphalt. Toph shoved her hand into her pocket, fingering the corner of the letter grumpily. 'I really was sick,' she insisted. She convinced herself that she hadn't been lying; the words 'Ba Sing Se' and 'Jin' were sufficient in making her queasy as her stomach twisted up into uncomfortable knots, thus making Toph unfit for the long-haul trip to the heart of the Earth Kingdom.

'Well, next time you're coming with me,' Sokka declared as they manoeuvred their way through the crowded district, twirling his coin pouch around a finger by its drawstrings lazily. 'I don't care how sick you'll be, I'm fed up with being your courier- Hey!'

Absorbed in her own thoughts, Toph had failed to notice the mass of fervent heartbeats and stomping footsteps hurtling towards them. So it was with a belated cry of warning that escaped her mouth as Sokka was crashed into, his coin pouch snatched away from him in the process. Toph struggled to catch her imbalanced companion while flattening her feet into the street, hoping to trip up the thief with her earthbending; however, his booty secured, he had wasted no time in pounding the pavement, skipping nimbly over the low wall she had raised. His movements were soon lost in the surging crowd, his heartbeat growing fainter by the second.

'Snoozles! Are you okay?' Toph shook Sokka, who winced at her grip.

'Just peachy- oh crap, where's my purse?'

If she could have rolled her eyes, she would have. Already reverting back to her search for the bandit, Toph shoved him down onto a nearby stool with a commanding, 'Stay there, and don't move till I get back.'

She dove into the masses on the street just as Sokka found his feet being attended to by a cobbler. Her feet were forceful in their steps, creating tremors illuminating her surroundings, aiding her search of her quarry. He was quite a distance away by now, and no matter how hard Toph elbowed her way through, her small frame was at a disadvantage here, larger bodies stubbornly pushing her back, and her pace failed to speed up.

Then she felt the neat loops of her metal chains through her sleeve and felt the spark of an idea. It had been six months since that unfortunate incident at the Mechanist's laboratory, which had given her plenty of time to practice and master the unwieldy mechanisms.

Unclipping them from one of the loops at her waistband, Toph held the slack chains in her right hand while she swung her other arm forward in a gentle but deliberate motion. The perfected move made the shackles come to life, whizzing upwards through the palm of her free hand to latch themselves onto the side of a nearby building. Once the chain had tautened, Toph caught it, allowing the momentum to lift her off of her feet, repeating the action with alternating strands of metal.

Blocking out the gasps of the people below, Toph focused on the thief's weight through the chains that connected her to the buildings, and thus to the earth; his heart sped up as he caught sight of her, and proceeded to plunge even more earnestly into the crowd. She, too, quickened her pace, swinging wildly from the waist of her harness, her breath hitching as she fell and was carried aloft again as her hemline danced in the accompanying wind. Pieces of brick fell away as the chains were retracted, and Toph heard the reproachful shouts of her unintended victims below. But only when she was in prime position did she rapidly withdraw her mode of mobility, pouncing on her prey from twenty feet in the air.

Apparently, he was just as quick as she was, leaping out of the way in the nick of time; Toph felt the hard earth hit her feet instead of soft flesh, and was forced to use her earthbending, molding the ground into soft sand to absorb the shock. She rolled out of the dent she had created, spreading her arms to raise a wall that blocked the thief's chances of escape. Smug now, Toph strode towards him with every intent of using him as a defenseless sparring partner.

To her surprise, he ran towards her conjured wall, flipping over and using it as a springboard for his attack, a knife slicing through her tunic as she fell back. Growling at the burning feeling slashing at her stomach, Toph gathered her trailing chains around her, using their sharp ends to drive the rogue back, wrapping them around his torso and lifting him into the air. With a cry, she swung him around before quickly releasing her binds on him, the force slamming him into the wall of a building behind. She was satisfied to note the large dent left in the stone side, the criminal sliding down to its foot to rest in an unconscious heap.

Once the dust had settled, Toph turned his body over with a bare foot, managing to extract Sokka's pouch from one of the inner pockets of his overcoat. The thing, however, that dampened her triumph was not the fact that her stomach was now stinging with the impact of a blade's tip, her tunic steadily becoming soaked in her own blood. Neither was it the angry swarm gathering around the commotion, ready to tear her head off for destroying their town, nor a disobedient Sokka who had followed her and practically fainted upon taking in her current state.

Instead, it was the absence of a clumsily sewn outer pocket on her harness as Toph returned her chains to their usual spot, only loose threads giving evidence to its alleged existence. Turning to face the path she had taken, Toph heard the nuts and bolts skitter beneath the wheels of ostrich horse-drawn carriages all across town, a close-knit family separating through different alleys and lanes. The breeze pursuing her was picking up now, and she could have sworn that it was giggling in delight as it unfurled the pages of a letter, Jin's words carried away by the breath before a storm. She'd lost something of his, something of hers, and the fact that his ink was being swallowed whole by clouds and bleached into oblivion by the sun was far worse than the fury palpable around her now.

'Shit,' Toph whispered.

Dear Jin,
I'll be honest now. I'm tired of lying and covering things up. The last time I was sick, I was sixteen. I didn't read your last letter. I lost it. I haven't been busy. Well, I have, but not enough to give you those excuses.
Forgive me. I don't want to see you because I'm scared of having such strong emotions for someone who isn't... My best friend, basically. I don't know how to deal with them, and I think it's better to bury them deep inside, or only let you have a glimpse of what I'm stupid enough to let seep out in the letters. I'd hate to complicate matters; I have a life here, and you, there, and it's not fair to either of us to stir things up.
There's a danger in the distance I'm putting between us; I understand that. But maybe it's for the best; we're both strong individuals who don't need each other, and maybe we've come to create a romanticized idea of each other after all these months. If we see each other, we'd probably be disappointed. I'm as crass as ever, and you're probably smarming it up with those noodlebrains. Actually, I don't really believe that. But still. I'd rather live with my last memory of you, winter rain and the frangipanis your last gift, than come to find that I'm bitterly disappointed in you, just like Sokka.
I don't know. I'm incoherent. I'm much more used to wanting and longing than having- and I have you, I know I do. I feel it in the way you write your salutations, the smudges of dirt on your letter reminding me of our time together, and the way you wait and listen before speaking, just like I taught you. And when I held your hand, there was this fierce realization of what could be, of how alive you were and I was. I have you. I'm sure of it.
But I can't let you have me.

The visually impaired residents of the city taught her their language, tiny raised dots transmitting their innermost thoughts to people far away. It was a universal form of communication, capable of being understood by even those with working eyes. Trailing her fingers over the stubborn bumps, Toph experienced the beauty of words and language for the first time, delicate in their physical state but powerful in what they delivered.

She would sit on the porch long after Aang, Katara and Kya had gone to bed, replicating the words learned onto a malleable sheet taken from one of her chains' various loops. Her fingers were careful in their execution, metal rising painstakingly as she probed her heart, contemplating its depths like the ocean stretching out before her. It took her a while to memorize the alphabet, and even longer to carve her thoughts delicately onto the sheet. Toph would rip it accidentally with too vigorous a movement, then sigh and pick up the pieces in resignation, forced to begin her task yet again.

He never received that letter. The morning after its completion, Toph shredded the epistle into even strips of grey luster. Unwilling to carry her burden with her, she molded them into screws that she eventually hammered into the bridge she was building, her silent words holding the massive structure together with the strength of their longing. Though she was desperately tired of pretending, she knew it would, in all probability, break both of them. It was easier to continue the charade, churning out letters of polite correspondence concealing the desires she was stubbornly ignoring, the end of a lit cigar being stubbed out into blackened burns on the street.

The day of the bridge's opening ceremony, Toph refused to set foot on it, fearing her cowardly, selfish words would contaminate the rest of the construction. Watching the city's people stroll across its deck, she groped for Sokka's hand and, upon finding it, held on firmly, convinced the bridge would topple and sink into the murky waters in place of her pride and heart.

Instead, it held, and the shame eating at her became more pronounced than ever when, with his friendly tugs, Toph took her maiden walk down the deck with Sokka. He laughed at her for stepping gingerly, pulling her over to the side to partake in a view of the horizon consisting of the former colonies. They looked up at Aang's statue, Sokka later leaving her to greet his sister and her family. Toph would join them later, but remained immobile for now, listening to the cries of crocogulls on the pier, the salt of the sea grating with her dry, stinging throat.

And Toph swore that when she strained her ears, she could hear all of those letters whispering right back to her.

A/N: I'm not dead, despite the last update being more than a month ago (welp, don't kill me)! I've been crazy busy with driving lessons, arranging my internship, Tokka Week and catching up with friends, so I haven't been on the internet for a while.

Now to the (filler-like) chapter where time is added- this is one of those rare ones where I molded my entire plot on the song, which is about long-distance relationships. Her letters span about twelve to eighteen months, and aim to show the deliberate distance Toph is putting between herself and Jin, due to work commitments, their personal lives and also Sokka, who's now constantly beside her. It isn't fair to keep 'leading' Jin on when Toph still has fragments of feelings for Sokka, but that is what she does, despite her growing guilt about it. At the end, she tries to stop, but backs out at the last minute because of her own reciprocating feelings and buries her emotions. I hoped I showed her as inwardly confused despite being adamant that things cannot and will not work out between the two of them- Toph has hit rock bottom once because of love, and she refuses to put herself in such a vulnerable position again. The fact that the bridge holds hints at the strength of Toph and Jin's relationship- hope you guys got that!

Oh, and for those of you who're wondering, I intended Toph's harness thing to be similar to those worn while rock-climbing, with the chains forming a belt around her waist. She has to thread the strands by hand, giving her even more calluses and blisters. It's meant to be slightly uncomfortable, since technology is still on its uphill climb, and is the predecessor of the metalbending cops' uniform in LoK.

Phew, okay, now that that's off my chest, I want to thank all you lovely people: aangismyhomie, Immortal Bubblewrap, Jaziswhatyouwant, Daisy312, mrsmonkeyxx, fukaimoriMidori, FallenStarx3, guyw1tn0nam3, Invaderk, 13designershoes, Justice333, Blanc Expression, limegreenwordmachine, tomboy_26, CrazyDyslexicNerd,Sokka's Fan-Lawyer, and D3stiny-Smasher. Your feedback has been so generous and helpful in improving my writing.

As always, please R&R, with all comments, critiques and suggestions very welcome! :)