As we were eating our eggs Sokka told me, "You look a lot better than you did yesterday Katara, a little rest did you a lot of good." "Ya," I said slowly, rest… right…" At this comment, Toph smirked. She knew that truthfully I had spent the day in my room practicing my waterbending, only to scramble into my sleeping bag and pretend to cough whenever someone walked by. "You were up kinda early though, I mean for being sick yesterday," Sokka remarked.
"I guess that rest really did me a world of good and I'm back to normal." I answered lamely.
"What do you do when you get up so early anyway?" Sokka persisted.
"Well… I…uh"
"She was uh with me." Aang said, coming to the rescue.
"Ya, that's right, I get up early in the morning to be with Aang." I said.
"Why do you need to get up early to be with each other? I mean you see each other every day, and Aang's pretty much mastered waterbending…" Sokka took a few moments to process this with me and Aang shifting guiltily in our seats. "You mean you two…?" Sokka started, "But…" he began again.
"I think they've made it pretty clear they are now officially a couple, Snoozles," Toph cut in.
"I got that thank you very much," Sokka snapped, "The only thing I'm worried about is that they get up early so they can be alone… as a couple..." Sokka pondered this for a second and then said, "You know what, I really don't wanna know. Just so long as you two don't start openly displaying your emotions to the public—meaning me, I'm ok with you two getting up early to see each other. I completely trust you."
"Thanks, Sokka, but it's not like that," I explained, "Aang and I just get up early to…" I stumbled, fresh out of ideas for the moment.
"To talk!" Aang put in.
"Ya, you know, nice heart to heart before breakfast." I added.
"Sure, whatever," Sokka said, clearly uninterested, changing his focus back to his breakfast. At this point both Toph and I simultaneously decided we were going to go back to our rooms to "get a little rest" code for talking privately in my room.
"Ok, what's the deal Sugar Queen?" Toph asked as soon as she'd made sure the door was shut.
"I told Aang. He saw the blood on my hands this morning and… I had to tell him." I said.
"Figures," she scoffed, "I knew you were gonna do something like that." There was a long silence, the kind that makes your ears ring, that followed. "We have figure out why this is happening Katara, we can't go on pretending like nothing's happening," she said softly, breaking the silence, "You and Aang are together now, that's great, and he knows, but does he really know the how big of a risk he's taking being with you. I mean we don't know why you do this yet, and for all you know, you could be out there in the forest practicing on bunnies what you're going to do to Aang! This is nuts! He could be kissing an assassin for all we know!"
Toph's explosion ended as abrubtly as it had started, and she was panting heavily. I was looking down at my hands once more, examining the blood that still remained under my fingernails. Before I knew it, the lump that had been rising in my throat suddenly resulted into cascading tears. "Toph, it's not me who's doing these things! Toph I need you to believe me! I need someone to help me figure all this out! Please don't walk away! I need your help!"
Despite my efforts and the silently flowing tears, Toph just walked out the door. "I'm sorry Katara, you're just too dangerous for me to be around. I've taken some time to think about it, and I won't tell anyone, but don't expect me to stick around with you alone. I'm the one who had to stand there and watch you do what you did to the rabbits, I'm all for solving this mystery Katara, but after what you've been doing, I mean who knows, it could be me next." Another silence ensued. "I'm sorry. I really am." She said quietly, and then closed the door, leaving me to kneel in the middle of the room trying to staunch the steady stream of tears and choking sobs that were issuing from me, echoing in the silence.