A/N: I started writing this chapter in the waiting room for my electrolysis appointment. It's never ceases to amaze me how much waiting rooms can inspire one to write.
Anyway, this chapter wrote itself, though I had planned some things beforehand. After this, there will be an epilogue!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Happy Reading!
Chapter Five—Sweet Sacrifice
Halfway down the hill, club drawn and the firm grasp of the Blind Bandit on his sleeve, Sokka tripped and fell. Toph, who had been just as unprepared for the sudden change as he, cried out in surprise as they toppled to the ground. Weapons flew from Sokka's hand and from his bag only to be scattered about the grass like bits of trash. Unfortunately for Aang, who had sort of been relying on a stealthy attack—he had already made it halfway down the hill, and still neither of the escorts had seen him—the escort called Kumni turned around at the sound of Toph's yelp.
Kumni gasped and pointed a finger towards Aang. "Lookit, Chho!"
In the split second that Chho looked away, Katara threw her elbow back as hard as she could. It came in contact with his longish nose, causing a loud, ugly sound to ring through the air. Chho yelled and clutched at his face, but he couldn't stop the blood from gushing from his nose and through his fingers. Katara ran for it.
"She's runnin' off!" shouted a baffled Kumni.
"Get her, you idiot!" Chho cried, sounding both pained and congested, and took off after Kumni.
Meanwhile, Sokka somehow managed to stop tumbling down the hill and scrambled to his feet. He snatched up his boomerang and club, slung his boomerang over his back, grabbed a still bewildered Toph by the upper arm, and pulled her roughly to her feet.
"What was that all about?" Toph gasped.
Sokka began to run once again. "Sorry, I tripped! But those two idiots know we're here now, and Katara's making a run towards us—no!" He gave a frustrated yell; the pace quickened. "The dumb-sounding one's got her again and the other one's catching up."
-
Aang didn't stop at the bottom of the hill. He flew onto the path and ran in the direction of the gates, where the escorts had begun hauling Katara once again. He shouted, but it did nothing for his cause, as it was not until he caught up with them—not a particularly difficult task, given that Katara was putting up more of a fight than ever—that they even acknowledged his presence.
"Back off, Mister," snapped Kumni. "We gotta ferry one more soul through them gates b'fore I can take mah vacatio—ah!"
Aang's body acted of its own accord. His arm rose up and brought the dull end of Sokka's machete down onto Kumni's shoulder. The escort yelled out in pain, but his grip on Katara's upper arm only tightened.
"That's a warning," Aang growled. "Release her, or my friends and I will have to hurt you."
Chho's eyes darted to Toph and Sokka, who had caught up with Aang only a moment beforehand. Aang watched as Chho observed the others for a few seconds before turning his eyes back on Aang. "You couldn't beat us—we're armed, we know how to fight. And not even the Avatar—yes, I know you're the Avatar. It's all part of the job, you know—can fight off two specialists."
Katara spoke for the first time from where she stood, still struggling, between her captors; the very sound of her outraged voice gave Aang a fright. "Four on two—it won't be much of a fight," she snarled.
Laughing, Chho gave the Waterbender's shoulder a shake and replied, "Two specialists against one man and three Benders, one of which is not even facing the right direction."
Sokka felt a hand brush the side of his leg and looked down to hear Toph's small whisper, "Am I really facing the wrong way?"
"Um…" Sokka set a hand on her shoulder and gave her a quarter turn to the left. "Not at all, Toph."
The Blind Bandit scowled, but nevertheless clenched her fists for the fight.
Chho laughed again; the sound was awful, as if some sort of animal were wheezing. "Come, Kumni, let us match our quota for safely escorted souls and be done with it."
The situation apparently resolved—at least in the eyes of Chho—the pair began hauling Katara off yet again towards the gates. Aang, Sokka, and Toph stood there for a moment, surprised at not having been taken seriously at all. The machete in Aang's hand drooped momentarily as his grip loosened; he could not, for the life of him, remember the last time he had been brushed off with so little concern. The very astonishment held them all in place for a few seconds until a loud yell from Katara brought them back. Aang started in alarm at another unfamiliar sound; the grand doors of the towering gates were opening, now that they had come so near. Sokka jumped slightly next to Aang, who shot his friend a look and spun the handle of the machete in his hand.
"Let's go, guys."
As they drew closer to the open gates, Aang made an interesting observation: standing on either side of the gate's opening were small clusters of people, their hands gripping the bars from the inside and their faces graced with a polite interest while they watched the squabble unfold. They did not appear hostile, and the colors and styles of their tunics reflected those of the four nations.
Sokka fell into step with Aang, Toph clutching his arm. "Who do you think they are?" he asked quietly.
"They're departed souls that've come to watch the show." Aang narrowed his eyes and picked up his speed, readying his weapon as he did so.
The feeling of boomerang in hand was one that Sokka had not experienced for quite a long time. His fingers slipped over the curved object and settled into a familiar grip, driving even the stares of the dead people from his mind and leaving only the task at hand. He had not had to fight for a while now, but that didn't matter; he was in his own element, and two goons wouldn't be able to hurt him.
"May I?" he asked, already taking aim and holding his pose until Aang answered.
"Aim for the legs," said the Avatar. "I don't want to kill them if I don't have to."
"You got it."
With a very slight grunt of effort, Sokka pulled his arm back, stuck his tongue out, and threw his weapon. When it cut through the air and hit Chho just behind the knee, the escort let out a small gasp and tripped. He pulled Katara down a bit as he stumbled.
Sokka laughed and glanced momentarily down at the Earthbender. "Ready, Toph?"
Toph jerked her head to the side, letting the stray strands of her dark hair blow away from her face. She nodded once. Sokka pried her fingers from his arm, paused a brief moment to reach up and catch his boomerang as it made it's returning journey, and took Toph's hand in his.
"Follow me," he instructed.
The blind girl rolled her unseeing eyes at him, but her hand still tightened on his. "Like I have another option, Snoozles?"
At this, Sokka found himself laughing despite the seriousness of the situation. It was like a blast from the past—the notion that at least one thing was back to normal somehow helped to make him feel a little bolder. "Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time!"
Meanwhile, Aang darted ahead and grabbed Kumni around the neck with one arm, the machete in his other hand swiveling around and hitting the escort in the side. Kumni gasped and released Katara so that he could free himself. He did so by bending his knees, grabbing Aang's arm—the one with the machete—and pulling it over his shoulder, effectively flipping Aang over him and onto the ground. The escort snatched up the machete and raised it up over his head in preparation to deliver a blow to the fallen Avatar, but instead he let out a yelp as Katara came out of nowhere and knocked him over with a well-aimed kick.
Sokka began to fight Chho, one weaponry expert against another. Chho seemed to have the upper hand, though, because Sokka was both defending himself and Toph, whose hand he still held. It was not until a swipe of Chho's dao knife nearly took Toph's ear off that Sokka thought that maybe he shouldn't have her there.
He released her hand and pushed her roughly out of the fray. "Back off, Toph!" he shouted to her, dodging a blow from his opponent. "And stay away from the gate!"
Though Toph did not look happy at the prospect of being thrown out of the fight, she nodded and proceeded to stand still, listening, with Zuko's dagger at the ready in case someone should attack her.
Chho laughed and swiped his blade at Sokka's abdomen. It missed him only by a hair, and Sokka was forced to jump backwards to avoid it.
"Protecting your girl?" Chho sneered. "Isn't that sweet. Hah!" Sokka let out a gasp of pain as the dao knife slashed his forearm, sending droplets of blood down his arm; his club soared out of his hand and skittered across the dirt path. Chho swung his sword around once by its lanyard and thrust it out, but Sokka pulled out his boomerang and deflected the blow.
Sokka dropped to the ground, rolled out of harm's way, and snatched up his club again. "At least I have someone to protect," he retorted, and attacked again.
Aang wiped a stream of blood from his mouth and looked around from where he stood, fighting Kumni. During the process of their fight, they had covered a considerable amount of ground and had ended up right in front of the open gateway. The souls on the other side still watched, some muttering to one another and others merely looking on through curious eyes. Sokka was fighting the other man near the opening of the gate—a collective gasp came from all the souls as Sokka stumbled backwards, almost falling through the entry, and then managed to get his balance back by grabbing the iron bars of the gate and attack again.
"Gotcha!"
Aang spun around again to see that Katara had leapt onto the back of the escort and pulled the front of his tunic up over his own head. Kumni grabbed blindly upward, snatching for Katara's face, but he could not manage to grab hold of her. Aang took this moment as incentive to run over and kick the man's knees out from behind; Kumni fell forward with a grunt—Katara jumped off and landed less-than-gracefully on her feet—and landed on his face. Kumni scrambled for a few moments, but when he finally managed to free his face from his tunic and roll over, he found his nose barely half an inch from Aang's machete.
"Don't. Move. A muscle," growled Aang, his voice low and his expression more dangerous than ever before. Then, a shriek over to his right caused his gaze to avert from his subject, though his machete stayed by Kumni's face.
The scream had come from Toph, whose arm was twisted behind her back and whose neck the second escort held in a headlock. Zuko's knife lay, useless, at her feet. Sokka scrambled to his feet and grabbed his weapon, but he could do nothing.
Chho laughed his terrible laugh again and observed, "Well look at this! An eye for an eye, it seems; I have your fighter and you have mine. Well, that just won't do. Kumni, if you will?"
Aang's eyes widened in surprise as he turned back to Kumni, but the escort acted in a flash. He swung his foot out and knocked Aang's feet out from beneath him. Aang landed on the ground with a loud thud, while Kumni leapt to his feet, knocked Katara to the ground, grabbed Aang's machete, and pointed it at the Waterbender's face. Both escorts laughed now.
"That's better," Chho chuckled. "Now, I need one of you four to go through those gates, or I'll snap this one's neck right now."
Even as he said it, he moved his hands so that one held Toph's head and the other arm slung across her waist, rendering her body immobile while using it as a shield at the same time. Her own hands were trapped behind her back, her hair hanging in her face; her sash had loosened somewhat during the fight and hung open, revealing the white shorts and shirt she wore beneath them.
An unfamiliar voice from behind Sokka made them all turn around: "It's not bad here, really."
It was one of the souls that had come to watch the fight. Aang turned his head slightly to the side so that he could see the soul—a woman, actually, dressed in green. "It's actually rather nice, isn't it?" she continued. The other souls nodded in agreement. "No pain, no war, we get to be with our loved ones eternally, and we even get to watch people like you!"
"Shut up, you," warned Kumni to the soul. "Or I'll—"
Chho cut across his accomplice. "No, Kumni, the woman's right; The End is really a nice place. If you all go together, that could be arranged—"
"Sorry, but that's not going to happen." Now Toph spoke up. She sounded slightly strained from having her head turned to one side, but was otherwise fine. "Nobody's going anywhere."
Her captor smirked and leaned his mouth close to her ear (Sokka looked very much as if he'd like to dart forward and attack Chho, but fear of hurting Toph in the process held him back). "And why is that, blind one?" he whispered.
The stench of his rotting breath in her ear made Toph wince. And then—and it happened so quickly that it took the others a few seconds to realize what had happened—Toph pulled one of Mai's knives out of the back of her sash and drove it into her captor's abdomen. Chho gasped in surprise and let go of Toph, who took this moment to step away from him and punch him in the throat. He keeled over, hands clutching his wound and blood seeping through his fingers.
Toph took her horse stance out of habit, knife dripping scarlet that she could not see over her clenched fist, and turned her head in the general direction of the fallen escort, who stared at her in shock. "It's hard to chuck people through the gate when you're bleeding on the ground," she said, then added, "How's it feel to be beaten by a blind girl, huh? And I was aiming for your nose, by the way, but by the sound of it I got you in the neck."
Chho could say nothing at first, and then: "K…Kumni!"
Everyone, Aang included, had been so preoccupied with Toph that they had forgotten about the second escort. Aang turned his head and saw, to his utmost surprise, that Kumni was no longer standing there. The escort had used the commotion as time to make his way over to Sokka, who was the closest to the gate. Katara screamed her brother's name, and Sokka came-to in time to see his attacker run at him from the side. Kumni grabbed the club from Sokka's hand, threw it over his shoulder, and made what appeared to be an attempt to strangle Sokka.
"Sokka, no!" Katara yelled again. She, too, ran forward towards her older brother, but on her way Chho reached out and grabbed her ankle. He pulled, and Katara plummeted to the ground.
Meanwhile, as Aang clambered as quickly as he could to his feet, Sokka and Kumni struggled for a few moments. After a few moments of grunting and fighting, Kumni ducked Sokka's fist, grabbed the latter around the waist, and tackled him. The two men both fell backwards and landed in a heap just inside the gates.
A brilliant flash of light temporarily blinded everyone, and when Aang regained his sight he saw several things happening at once: Katara and Chho had both managed to get up off the ground, Chho holding Katara's arms behind her back and Katara screaming for her brother. Sokka and Kumni both got up as well, and Kumni darted back through the gate and into the Spirit World. When Sokka tried to follow, though, something happened. He struggled against what seemed to be invisible bonds around his wrists and ankles, bonds that held him back from passing through the gate.
Sokka had passed through to The End.
"Sokka, no!" Aang had cried out without realizing, and dashed forward towards the gate's opening. He was stopped, however, when a hand reached out from the side and grabbed his arm with surprising strength. Upon looking down, Aang saw a wide-eyed Toph.
"Don't," she whispered, sounding as if she had gone numb.
Kumni continued to run until he reached Chho. He grabbed Katara and thrust her towards Aang; she collided with him and Aang automatically grabbed her around the waist, though his eyes had not left Sokka as the warrior struggled to break free ("Don't bother, you're stuck now," informed one of the souls).
"Come on Chho, we done matched the quota," rasped Kumni. He grabbed the arm of his accomplice. They both ran—Chho limped, actually, clutching his side all the way—through the gates and disappeared just beyond them.
Silence now. Sokka stopped struggling and stood there, gasping for breath from his efforts. Katara, whose face was streaked with tears, could only stare in shock as Aang had done.
"It's no use," Sokka murmured, looking down at his hands and then out at his friends. "I'm… dead."
Katara clapped a hand over her mouth as if to stifle a scream, but Aang released her and ran up to the gates, being careful to avoid the entrance. He reached out and grasped the bars in his shaking hands, fighting the urge to scream. Sokka couldn't be dead, not when he was standing right there, right in front of him. How many times had they fought together, side by side, and won? They had won this time, too! And yet…
"Sokka." Aang felt the word leave his mouth and felt his breath catch in his throat and felt a piece of his heart crumble in his chest. A whimper from beside him told him that Katara had come up next to him, but he could not even bring himself to acknowledge her.
"It's okay, Aang, really," Sokka replied. He approached the bars of the gate—the other souls all moved over to make way for him—and stared at his friends and sister. "Y-you two need to… to live." He tried to smile, but the end result was a pained expression. "Go home and have a zillion babies, like Roku said you had to."
Katara gave what was between a sob and a laugh, and gripped the bars in front of her. She and Aang both reached out and rested a hand on either one of Sokka's shoulders. This time, Sokka did manage the smallest of smiles. His eyes moved over his sister and Aang's faces, and then moved past to rest on a hunched figure behind them.
"Toph?" he whispered.
Toph said nothing, her head bent low.
"Tell the workers at my shop that I've gone away and left Aang in charge, would you?"
When Toph finally looked up, shaking her head slowly from side to side as she did so, Aang saw that she too bore the tearstains that streaked Katara's face. "I can't do that, Sokka," she replied.
"What? Why not?" he asked. Katara and Aang turned around to face the blind Earthbender as she began to walk towards the gate.
Toph sighed. "I turned my back on you and left for all those years because I was afraid. I didn't want to feel committed, to be attached or have to worry like I did that one time when you were hurt. And it took me five years, but I came to realize that maybe I wanted it after all. Maybe I wanted to let myself feel the way Twinkletoes and Sugar Queen about each other. That's why I came back to Ba Sing Se: to try again. I'm not afraid anymore. And if I have to go through those gates to do it, then… then I guess that's what I'm going to do."
Sokka's jaw dropped in surprise. "But, but Toph! What about your family and—and your Earthbending tournaments?"
For the first time, Toph let a smile rise to her face. "It's worth it, trust me."
Before anybody could say a word and before Sokka had the time to reply, Toph reached out her hands and began to walk. She moved forward, slowly, feeling around in front of her for the gate, and when she finally gripped it in her hands she walked along until she found the opening. A second flash of blinding light told them all that Toph had just willingly walked through.
Sokka stood there, as if rooted to the spot. Toph stopped just beyond the gates and stared down at her hands for a few moments, as if baffled by some stunning equation. After a few moments, she slowly brought her chin up and set her eyes on a nonplussed Sokka.
"What's wrong?" he asked, confused. Katara seemed to be a beat ahead of the men; she gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth.
"I…" Toph broke off, looking down at her hands again briefly before moving them to each of her friends in turn. "I can see."
"You can what?" Aang gaped.
One of the souls piped up from behind Sokka. "Although there is no Bending in The End, there are no ills. Physical handicaps mean nothing here; the deaf hear, the broken walk, and the blind see."
Sokka laughed aloud for the first time since arriving in The End and ran towards Toph. He bent his knees, picked her up—she gasped in surprise and grabbed his shoulders for fear of falling—and spun her around in a circle. After a few seconds, Toph too laughed and threw her arms around Sokka's neck. When he set her down, they turned to Katara and Aang, both of whom watched with the saddest of smiles.
"You guys go on," said Toph, her smile fading slightly. She sought Sokka's hand and grasped it in her own. "I'm going to miss you guys and I'm going to miss Earthbending, but Sokka and I… well, we've got a lot of catching up to do."
Katara nodded and wiped a tear from her cheek. "Tell mom and dad that I love them, Sokka," she said.
Sokka nodded. "Best of luck to you both."
"And to you," Aang responded, releasing the bars from his grasp to bow. Katara, Sokka, and Toph all followed his lead, and after many more goodbyes and a kiss on the cheek from Katara to her big brother, Katara and Aang turned away.
The pair walked in silence to the end of the path until they reached the bottom of the hill. At this point, Aang turned to Katara and placed two fingers on her forehead.
"Close your eyes and clear your mind," he whispered to her.
Katara nodded in response, closed her eyes, and sighed. Aang began to feel them both fading away, and as he did, he looked back once more to see Toph and Sokka standing together, watching them from behind the gates. Aang smiled and allowed a pair of tears to fall before he closed his eyes and turned away for the last time.
Goodbye, my friends, and good luck.
-
The very next thing he knew, Aang was standing in his own house, exactly where he had left. Only this time, when he opened his eyes, he found Katara standing there in front of him.
"How did your body get here?" he asked, more to himself than to his wife. He glanced backwards to where Toph and Sokka's now lifeless bodies should have been on the floor, and instead saw them lying side by side on a mat, their arms folded across their chests. "And how did they…?"
At this, Katara smiled and held up a tiny scroll. "This was tied to my neck," she answered.
Aang took the scroll in his hands, unfurled it, and was only slightly surprised by what he saw. A plume of flame was sketched on the surface, and underneath it two words were scrawled: Avatar Roku. Aang chuckled to himself and raised his eyes to tell Katara that the people over at Ba Sing Se hospital were probably not going to be very happy when they found her hospital bed empty, and then it hit him with the force of a ten-ton flying bison:
Katara.
The full weight of everything that had happened in the last hours was summed up in that one, three-syllable word. Roku's note slipped from Aang's shaking fingers as he gazed upon his wife, the woman that he had gone to the end of the Spirit World for. She stood before him now, a small, bittersweet smile playing on her lips and tears streaming down her face. All in all, though her hair was a mess from lying in that hospital bed, Aang couldn't help but think that he had never seen a more beautiful person in all his life.
"Katara…" The single word slipped from his mouth as if he had said it for the first time, seen her for the first time.
The Waterbender stepped forward half a pace. "Aang."
Then—and again Aang found his body acting of it's own accord without first asking permission from his mind to do so—he took a step forward, reached out, and pulled her against him in the tightest embrace that he could manage without hurting her. And before he knew it, Katara had wrapped her arms around his torso and begun sobbing into his shoulder. The bubble of emotion that he had been fighting all along finally burst and poured from within his chest, and Aang found himself weeping just as much as she. Katara's legs seemed to give out next, sending them both sinking slowly to their knees. His still-shaking fingers reached up and intertwined in her soft hair.
"Katara," he quietly gasped, closing his eyes and feeling several more tears leak from them, "I thought I was going to lose you. I thought… I thought…"
Katara pulled only far enough away so that she could look into his gray eyes and speak to him, but no words would come. Instead, Aang leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, tasting the salty wetness of their combined tears.
"Katara—" he choked back a sob. "I love you so much, Katara."
Katara reached up and placed a hand on either side of his face. She then rose up on her knees and placed a kiss on his forehead, right at the tip of his arrow. "Aang…" she sank back down to eye-level. "I love you so much, Aang."
That night would be filled with more tears and kisses that Aang would ever bother to count. They cried for life and they cried for those whose lives were lost on the way, but mostly they cried for one another. In the morning, perhaps things would be different. When the sun rose up over the world, giving the warmth that the Spirit World could not, they would take care of Toph and Sokka, and try to explain why Katara had mysteriously vanished from the hospital, but not that night. That night, it was just Aang and Katara, just husband and wife, just two lovers that, when the morning did arrive, would be able to face the world, so long as they had each other.
-
A/N: You're probably drowning in the sappiness of this chapter, and if you're not into that sort of thing, then I apologize. Please tell me if you spot any errors, as self-editing is a lot harder than getting a beta, and I tend to miss things! Also, action scenes are terribly difficult to write. I was originally planning on letting everyone go home happy, but that's not how I roll, so I waved my death stick around and poof!
Here's my logic for the whole "Toph sees" thing: It just sort of happened. I was debating whether or not Bending would be in The End, and when I decided that it wouldn't, then I was like "Well, Toph is about to give everything up for this. She has no idea of Bending is allowed, but she's still willing to be completely blind for the rest of eternity as long as she can be with Sokka. So, I call this scenario "Compensation", because good deeds are rewarded.
So I hope you liked it, and I have already begun the rough draft of the epilogue. Thanks for reading!