Chapter Twenty-One
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Starting Over
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Sokka ran (read: stumped as quickly as possible) through the many halls of the Bei Fong residence, checking room after room, searching for Toph, but finding her nowhere.
"This is ridiculous!" he cried to himself in the massive emptiness of a cellar-type room with naught but bottled wines and cheeses and the like. "Who needs this much space?"
He helped himself to a hunk of cheese, though, and munched on it as he ran off again.
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"Katara?" Aang said tentatively, just as tentatively knocking on the door.
He waited a moment, but no response came. Steeling himself for the worst, he prepared to enter the room.
"So you're really doing this," came a voice behind him.
Aang dropped the doorknob and turned around to see Meng watching him intently. He swallowed audibly.
"Meng, I care about you, I really do. But…"
"But you care about her more," she finished for him.
He met her gaze and held it; he nodded.
She looked away from him. "But did you ever…" she started, clenching her fists and willing herself to continue. "Did you ever really think…seriously…for…that you wanted to be with me?"
She bit her lip to keep it from quivering so violently with the self-horror of her current vulnerability.
Aang reached out to her and brushed aside an unruly lock of her already unruly hair. His hand paused briefly at her cheek, cradling it affectionately, and they stared wordlessly at one another, neither able to find the right words—or any words for that matter—to express what he or she felt at that moment.
Then Aang said, "I think I could have been very happy with you, Meng."
Meng hiccupped a sob, and before he could draw his hand away, she took it in hers and kept it at her cheek. Crying against it and unable to speak, she nodded into it to show him she understood.
"I'm so sorry, Meng," he whispered chokingly, equally torn up to see her like this. "I never meant to hurt you."
He hated himself as soon as he said those five words, the five words he'd been battling with for the past months, the five words it made him sick to hear coming from his mouth.
Meng continued crying and nodding into his hand, though, and it broke his heart to feel so acutely from her the same sorrow Katara had bestowed upon him when they had had to break up.
"But I really don't mean to. I never meant to," he insisted to himself, trying to wrap his head around how this could have ever happened when he'd never had any intention of breaking someone else's heart as his had been broken.
"I'm sorry," he said again, both to her and to himself.
"I want to fix it, but I can't," he realized, and he suddenly wanted to wrench his hand away from her and out of her grasp, as if losing all physical contact with her would separate him from her pain.
But he knew it wouldn't.
Because her pain was his pain.
And for a long time he let her cry into his hand for both their broken hearts.
Because he didn't have the right to cry anymore.
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Sokka was searching nooks and crannies now and any other such places Toph could inexplicably be.
He blasted into the library and checked under all the tables and chairs. He dashed through the kitchens and opened all barrels and sacks large enough to contain a tiny Toph, but just to be thorough, he inspected the cabinets as well. He investigated closets and looked under beds, threw aside tapestries and peaked inside ornate statues of ancient warrior's armor. Finally, he found a body.
Rather, he found two bodies.
Lying behind a couch.
Passed out.
Wearing a minimal amount of clothing.
And they were both guys.
"Woah!" shouted Sokka, stumbling backward and knocking into a table with a flower-filled vase upon it. The vase fell and shattered, and the noise awoke the two young men.
"Sokka, what are you doing here?" asked one groggily as the other rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
"What are you doing here?" Sokka returned to him, gesturing to the pair of them.
"Enjoying the party," the man replied with a suggestively suave grin.
"Haru," Sokka said wearily, "the party ended hours ago. It's daylight, and you're still here with…uh…this guy."
"Sora," Haru answered, introducing the shy Firebender, who waved meekly through his sleeve as he put on his shirt.
"And if that's the case," Haru continued, referencing the daylight circumstances, "then I think we should probably leave before we're caught by anyone else."
Sora nodded mutely and gathered up their things.
"What's the quickest way out?" Haru asked, zipping up his pants.
Sokka averted his eyes and his thoughts, replying, "Uh, out through the patio off the banquet hall, but they're still cleaning up in there, so you should probably try going out the window in this hallway and running through the gardens—"
"Wait! The gardens!" he realized. "I haven't looked there!"
"I'll take you," he said to Haru and Sora. "I'll help you get out of here."
"Thanks!" they said in unison (this also the first word Sora had uttered).
"But first we need to take care of this," Sokka muttered, shoving the vase and flowers under the couch with his cast foot.
"Stupid vases always getting in my way," he grumbled audibly.
Haru and Sora headed for the door.
"And another thing," Sokka said. "Haru?"
"Yes?" the man in question replied.
"You might want to put on a shirt."
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After Meng left, still in tears, Aang slumped to the floor outside Katara's room, waiting as he pulled himself back together so he could face her completely. This took him quite some time, but when he finally stood to his feet, he knew he was ready.
This time he did not knock on the door or call to her; he simply turned the knob, pushed open the door and stood there on the threshold, waiting for her to react.
But she didn't react. Her eyes were already on him, knowing he would be there. She was reclined in the bed, propped up by pillows, her head turned to watch him as he entered. She had been waiting for him.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
Then…
"How's your fever?"
"Better."
"You scared us…me."
"I'm sorry."
"But you came back."
"I had nowhere else to go."
"Oh…"
"Aang," she said gently. "You can come in."
He had been hesitating at the threshold, but with her permission he now crossed it and the entire room to kneel beside her bed and bury his face in her hand closest to him.
"It's not like I'm dying," she said laughing, but not pulling her hand away.
"I know," he said. "But you've been gone a long time, Katara. You know, from us." He finished the last part in a mumble, uncertain how she would take it.
She reached over and placed her other hand on his head, tracing his arrow faintly with the tips of her fingers. His shoulders shivered from the sensation, and the back of his neck tingled with the buzz of his familiar desire for her.
"I know. I'm sorry," she murmured.
"I'm sorry, too."
Their apologies hung in the air.
"Can we start over?" he asked.
"Can we?"
"Can you?"
Katara hesitated.
"What about you?" she asked again.
"Meng and I aren't—" he began.
"I know," she said, tipping her head to the door. "I could hear."
Aang flushed, a mixture of shame and angry for Meng's sake.
Katara shrank back slightly, worried she had touched a nerve that did not belong to her. She tried to fix it. "What I mean is, do you think you're ready, Aang? It sounded like…and last night it looked like…you two really liked each other…and I don't want you to feel forced to—"
Aang gripped her hand tightly and looked fiercely into her eyes.
"I would never feel forced to be with you, Katara," he swore.
She blushed from his intensity. "Still…maybe we should wait," she said.
"But not—she said, cutting off his objections—for my sake."
She pulled her hand from his grasp so she could take his face in both her hands and calm his lips with the stroke of a thumb.
"For yours. We'll…or I…I'm going to wait for you this time, Aang. For when you're ready."
He nodded against her hands, then leaned forward and hugged her, reclaiming his dearest friend in the world.
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Sokka, Haru, and Sora darted across the grass and through bushes until they reached the thick wall of stone forming the perimeter of the Be Fong estate.
"Okay, now you guys just Earthbend a way under and—"
Haru landed a well-placed kick on the wall, and the stones swept to the sides to create an opening.
"Or through. Whatever," Sokka grumbled, rolling his eyes. "Just go on, already, you crazy gay lovebirds."
Haru winked at Sokka as he passed through, and Sora bowed awkwardly as he ran after his new friend, who in his opinion was now decidedly sexier than the Avatar.
"That was just way too weird," Sokka shuddered to himself as Haru Bended the wall shut. "But I've gotta find Toph."
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Meanwhile, Stonehenge found her first.
She was sitting outside under her favorite tree, a large mimosa in bloom; and even though the ground was still wet from the rain the night before and had thoroughly soiled the skirt of her dress with muddy earth—even so—under the tree's pink flowers she looked more delicate and tame than he had ever seen her.
And he hated it at that moment.
"Toph," he said when he had come to a stop before her. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what, Pixieshit?" she spat, glaring.
He glared, too. "Letting your parents walk on you and tell you what to do. I thought you were stronger than that—no, I know you are—so why are you just rolling over to those snobs who share nothing with you but a name?"
"Because those snobs," she growled through gritted teeth, "are my family. For better or for worse. And they love me as much as they know how."
"You call it love? Trying to marry you off, so they don't have to take care of you anymore? Refusing to see that you can take care of yourself? What kind of love is that?" Stonehenge argued furiously.
"Look!" Toph shouted, enraged and jumping to her feet to shove him in the chest as she continued to shout at him. "Whoever made you the Family Love Police? Whoever made you Professional Ultimate Critic of my life? No one! You're just some guy who showed up and started acting like you know exactly how I think and how I feel, but you don't. You're just some sorry ass kid coming from a bad home life thinking I'm just like you and some kind of answer to all your problems or something, but guess what?"
She jabbed him hard just below his collarbone, making him stagger slightly.
"You think I made you into the so-called 'man' you are today, but I didn't. You did it all on your own."
She was shorter than he, and completely blind, but anyone would swear she was staring him down throughout this heated speech.
"You think you need me, but you don't. You think you love me, but you don't. You have no idea what it means to really love someone. You're just in love with some idea of me that you cooked up to suit your needs. But outside your imagination and outside the ring, you have no connection to me, whatsoever."
Stonehenge's glare wavered, and he shook with anger.
"None of that is true," he snarled. "I do love you, Toph. Just because I don't treat you like shit like that loser does—"
"If you say another word about him, I swear to the gods you'll regret it," she hissed dangerously.
Stonehenge continued on anyway. "Has he ever told you he cares about you? Has he ever made you feel like you're the only girl that matters? Judging by your death glare, I'd say not. And what if he never comes around, huh? What if you just pine away for him all your life because he'll never get it and never do anything about it? What if you waste your life away waiting on some asshole when there's someone right in front of you who loves you more than anything else in the world?"
"Then I'd say, 'Get the hell out of my spot!' " Sokka shouted as he ran up and tackled Stonehenge to the ground.
"You pathetic piece of—!"
"Shut up already and eat dirt!" Sokka yelled and shoved a fistful of loose wet soil into Stonehenge's open mouth.
Glaring viciously at him, Stonehenge seemed strangely victorious with the dirt in his mouth; but it became clear why as he spat a wad of dirt out of his mouth that zoomed like a bullet over Sokka's shoulder, missing him by inches.
"Woah!" Sokka shouted, realizing the potentially lethal (or at least very, very painful) mistake he had made. He quickly shoved Stonehenge's face sideways into the mud, and struggled against the Earthbender's mightier strength as his brick-like fists came up to grab Sokka's arms and twist them painfully.
Sokka cried out, but doggedly held down the Earthbender's face, refusing to release him.
"Sokka, let go of him now!" Toph shouted.
"Huh?"
Sokka started to object, but glanced over at her and her threateningly raised foot.
"Do it!" she snarled.
"Okay!" he cried and flung himself backward, wrenching free of Stonehenge's grip.
Toph slammed her foot down with an audible squishy stomp that the entire grounds would have heard if not for the punch of earth exploding up from beneath Stonehenge, sending him flying off across the gardens and over the wall to land in a tree outside the Bei Fong property.
"Yes!" wooped Sokka. "You should have done that ages ago!"
"I only did it because he was going to kick your ass," Toph retorted, jerking away from his hand on her shoulder and turning her back.
"No way! I could have totally held my own!" Sokka protested.
"Yeah, right," Toph muttered.
"No, seriously! I totally brought that jerk to his knees when I decked him in front of your parents! You should have seen it!" he cried, jumping in front of her excitedly, trying to break through her angry exterior.
"Should have, but didn't, and couldn't have anyway even if I had been there," she said, turning away from him again.
"Come on, Toph, you know what I mean," he said anxiously, leaning around her now, losing her each time he tried to put his hands on her shoulders, her back, her arm. "It was great. Really. I gave him a sweet right hook to the side of the head, and then I was like, 'I bet you didn't see that one coming. Ha ha ha.' and then I thanked your parents for breakfast, and then I left, and it was…it was amazing…c'mon, Toph…"
"Let me get this straight," she said, stepping three paces back from him and holding her hands up to keep him away. "You took advantage of a fifteen-year-old kid's blindness in what I'm guessing is his left eye since you punched him with your right fist, then you laughed in his face about it, then you tried to look all bad ass in front of my parents for beating the guy up, and then you ran away before he could get up and beat the shit out of you."
What little ego and enthusiasm Sokka had left instantly deflated.
"Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound so amazing…" he murmured.
"No, it doesn't," Toph said.
But a small smile tugged at her lips. "It is pretty funny, though," she admitted, a small laugh escaping.
Sokka felt hope again. "Toph, I—"
"Stop it," she said. "Just stop." She wasn't smiling anymore. Somehow her smile had flipped and her laughter turned to tears, all in the span of a second it seemed.
"She's so hard to read sometimes," Sokka thought, sadly, watching his best friend breaking down in front of him for a reason he couldn't quite grasp yet.
"Toph, tell me what's wrong," he pleaded. "I can't read your mind—you have to tell me." He stepped toward her again, but she violently shook her head, biting her lip.
"What's wrong?" she choked out when she could finally overcome her burgeoning sobs long enough to speak. "What's wrong…is that…Stonehenge…he was partly…right…He…about you." She slapped her hands to her face and wheeled around, not knowing what she looked like at that moment, but knowing just the same that she didn't want him to see her that way.
Sokka was deeply confused and deeply irritated by these words. "Stonehenge knows as little about me as he knows about you, Toph. He doesn't know anything about us, and even if he did, we're—" he started, balling his hands into fists in his frustration.
"What 'us'?!" Toph all but shrieked. "What 'we' are you talking about? We're just friends, and that's all we've ever been!" A series of hiccups interrupted her, and she stomped her foot so angrily that the mimosa tree shook. "All we'll…ever…be!" she forced out.
Sokka crossed the space between them before she could object. His arms were around her before she could say anything. His mouth was somewhere next to her ear—the far upper part of her cheek, maybe—before she could even breathe.
"Do you really think that?" he asked, his voice just above a whisper, sending shivers down her spine. "Are we never going to be anything but friends?"
"Why are you asking me?" she asked, telling herself to pull away but ignoring her own advice.
Sokka chuckled bitterly. "Because it seems like you have all the say with what happens here, and I'm just praying you don't beat the crap out of me."
"I have all the say?" she cried, angry and astonished and shoving herself away from him. "What makes you think I have any say with anything having to do with you?"
"Because of this!" Sokka shouted, pointing between the two of them, indicating the distance there. "Because every time I try to get closer to you, you either back away or hurt me!"
"And why do you think that is?!" Toph yelled, fresh tears springing to her eyes, though they were now unflinching, her glare in place. "You think you're the one who always gets hurt? You're not, Sokka! So you've been left a few times. Big deal! At least you had something with someone you cared about—at least you were in the game. But do you know what it's like to be the one on the sidelines, watching your favorite player having his heart torn to shreds on the field, but you can't do anything about it, and he never once turns to you and wants you for his team? Do you know that kind of pain?" She shook her heard fiercely. "Do you even get what I'm saying?" she murmured sadly.
Sokka was quiet, trying to wrap his thoughts around her metaphor, trying to see things her way. "Toph…do you like me?" he asked.
She barked a laugh, incredulous of his question. "Isn't it obvious?" she said, finally giving in and putting her feelings to some form of words.
Sokka silently shook his head, a small smile of understanding beginning to tug at the corners of his mouth. But he still had more questions. "And you've liked me since…"
"Since before Suki," Toph spat. "Or at least before I met her."
He did not expect this answer. "Since then? You mean all that time you—"
"No more questions," she said harshly. "We've stroked your ego enough."
"This isn't about my ego, Toph!" Sokka snarled back. "This is about you, and me trying to figure out how you feel."
"Why does it matter what I feel, Sokka, when you haven't said anything about how you feel?!" she shouted. "You act like I should be doing and saying all these things and making all these moves, but what have you done? You ask me if I like you, but you've never told me anything. You don't know what it's like to be in the dark like that, always wondering if you would ever like me because you never said it!"
He unexpectedly grabbed her wrist when she wasn't paying attention, tugging it away from her side and pulling it to his lips. His breath tickled her knuckles. "I didn't know I had to, Toph," he said, placing a kiss on the bone-white skin.
When was the last time she had felt his lips on her? Had it been months now? It seemed too long, and his touch was aggravatingly unfamiliar in its familiarity, or aggravatingly familiar in its unfamiliarity—she wasn't sure which way it was. Her thoughts had temporarily lost their ability to connect.
Her fist unclenched of its own accord, and all her attention focused on the sensation traveling up her arm and into her body as his lips touched her palm.
"Do I like you, Toph?" he murmured, next kissing the delicate, relaxed veins at her wrist. "Is that your question?"
She nodded, a bright blush spreading across her cheeks. "Yes," she said quietly.
He suddenly pulled her to him, and keeping her hand in his, he leaned down to press his forehead against hers. "I thought it was obvious," he said, a hint of playfulness in his voice.
But there was nothing playful in his kiss. Toph's eyes snapped open, unsure how to respond, hesitating to move, scared she would do something wrong. Sokka knew her well enough in this way, though, to guide her through the motions and spark a response from her with his gentle yet urgent affections.
Both were quiet when they finally broke apart. Sokka found that place somewhere near her ear again, and Toph had the peace of mind to take note of and appreciate the feeling of his thick jaw against her softer one. They stood together embraced for a while before Toph breathed a silent giggle through her nostrils, blowing across the bottom of Sokka's ear and tickling it.
"What?" he asked, pulling away from her just enough to look into her face to gauge what was going on inside her head.
"Nothing," she said quickly. "It's just…"
"What?" he asked again, a little annoyed and anxious.
"It's just that you were so cool just then," she murmured happily. "Pulling me into your arms and repeating my 'isn't it obvious' line."
"Yeah, well, I guess I have my cool moments," he said indignantly with a tinge of sarcasm. "You know, every once in a while." A rather heavier amount of sarcasm.
"No," Toph said, reaching for his face and pulling it back down to her level to touch her laughing lips to his. "I loved it."
"I love you, too," he said.
Toph's giggle ceased, and Sokka's cheeks glowed brightly as he realized his error.
"Oh," he said. "You said 'it'. I thought you…uh…said something else."
"You thought I said 'you'." she said, a statement, not a question.
He nodded, and mumbled something that sounded like "kind of."
"Well, Snoozles…" she murmured with a grin, dragging it out so he would squirm a bit. "Why don't we pretend I did?"
Sokka was very much in favor of this, and showed his enthusiasm by wrapping his arms around her and kissing her again.
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About an hour and several rounds of making out later, Sokka and Toph were curled up together beneath the mimosa tree, which was now slightly tilted in a new direction after Toph's earlier fit.
"I wish," Sokka began, drawing little circles on Toph's open palm, "that I could have been your first kiss, Toph."
"You were my first kiss, you moron," she said.
"What? No, I wasn't. Last night Stonehenge ki—"
Toph reached up and pinched his nose.
"Ow! Towfu, le' go!" he managed to say despite his blocked nasal passages, backing up to the tree, trying to squirm his way out of her grip.
"You were my first kiss," she repeated.
"Wha?" he asked. "Wha do you bean?"
Toph released his nose.
"Nothing," she said. "You don't remember anyway."
She let go of him nose to grab his shirt, yanking him closer to kiss him somewhere next to his ear.
"Does that part of the face have a name?" he asked, leaning into and savoring the feel of her lips on his skin, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her closer, her muddy self to his equally muddy self.
"I dunno. Why?" she breathed into his ear, her arms around him now, her hands pressed against his back, feeling the quickening pulse of his heart as she pressed herself closer and closer to him.
"It just…deserves one is all."
"It kind of does," she agreed, and welcomed his lips with her own.
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Later he spoke up again. "What did you mean when you said I was your first kiss, Toph?"
"Sokka, you do not want to get into the million and one reasons why I've been mad at you the past months, okay?"
"Okay…Can Snoozles have a cuddle?"
"Yes, Snoozles can have a cuddle."
"A million and one cuddles?"
"Stop the babytalk, and I'll cuddle you for life, big boy."
"Now that's what I'm talking about!"
"You are such a goob…"
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Until the Epilogue…
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A/N:
Edit:
I admit I felt rather rushed to write this last chapter when I originally wrote and uploaded it. I was scared I would leave all of you hanging because after an entire semester at college, I wasn't sure I would be interested in picking the story back up and finishing it. So anyway, I finished it then and was ecstatic to have done so, though I wasn't as pleased with the final chapter as I wished to be. So I've been keeping the fanfic in the back of my head for months, waiting for the end of the term and for the start of winter break to come so I could do the ending justice. And post the epilogue I've been talking about, which I wrote but with which I was also not entirely pleased. I'll get on that, though, and it will be a Christmas present of sorts to any and all who have read or will read my story because I appreciate everyone who checks it out and gives it a chance.
Really, thank you to everyone who has read my fic before now. I kept your warm and constructive comments close these past few months, and I hope you enjoy the revisions I have made. Peace.
End Edit.
Original A/N follows…
And voila! The story is almost complete! I still have some loose-ish ends to wrap up, mainly giving certain characters a bit of a happier ending //cough// Meng and Stonehenge //cough//. I know many of you haven't really liked Stonehenge very much at all, but I grew fond of him over the second two-thirds of the story (basically since I introduced him), and he might have been a big baby and thrown a huge tantrum in this final-ish chapter, but he's a hormonal guy in love. And he's in love with Toph, which is pretty ballsy. haha For the purposes of his character and the climactic finale, he became straight-up horrible for this chapter, but really, I think he's a good guy with plenty of potential at heart. Toph's right that he doesn't have a good grasp on what love is, but he'll figure it out one day, and he'll be happier for it. Because Stonehenge is a tough guy, but I don't think I'd call him altogether happy. He's a fun character I ended up creating, though, and I wish him the best, even though he might not get it in the epilogue. Hm.
As for the other characters, Aaaws all around to the Gaang! Katara and Aang didn't have a big kissy kiss scene, but that's because they've had many years of kissy kiss together, and I felt it would deepen their reconciliation to have a simple quiet one in which they work out their issues and come to terms in a gentle fashion.
Toph and Sokka? Not so much on the gentle. They were having fun and basically up to shenanigans, though emotionally charged shenanigans they were! Another reason Katara and Aang didn't make out when they made up was because I didn't want to have two huge kiss scenes. I just felt they would end up taking away from each other, and I had to give the kiss to Toph and Sokka because they deserve one, damn it! It's been a twenty-one chapter (plus one epilogue to come) Tokka fanfic, and by God, they were going to kiss, or I was going to shoot myself in the foot! And then you all might have shot me in the foot, too, so to keep my feet intact and my soles whole, Tokka got the make out scene, and it was delightfully fun and romantical! I think so, anyway. //grin//
Okay, I could gush on and on about this massive work I managed to churn out in just over a couple of weeks (while juggling another fanfic for a week along with this, mind you), even when I originally planned for this to be, like, nine chapters tops or something, but this is long enough already, and I need to take a break and listen to some tunes or something.
Thank you all so much for reading. Your reviews have meant the world to me, and your enthusiasm for and enjoyment of the story kept me going strong throughout. I'm so glad I wrote this, and I'm so glad I could share it with all of you readers.
I'm assuming that if you're reading this, you're a Tokka fan; so without fear of insulting fans of another ship, I proudly rejoice: TOKKA FOREVER!!!!
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P.S.
I didn't give birth to the world of Avatar, but by God, I gave birth to this fanfic.
And I'm proud of it, too! //wink//