Letters from the Falling Sky
Summary: "Katara felt helpless. Aang didn't know he had a daughter." Things more complex than the war had finally torn them apart. In isolation, they take out their brushes, regret the past, and write. Kataang, Tokka. Rated M.
Author's Note: Poppy and Lao are Toph's real parents (the exact names from the show! Who would have guessed?)
I realize that this chapter is very short and—while it does answer a lot of questions—it leaves a lot about the last chapter open for discussion. We have to realize that Toph is very sick. Anemia can be serious in its more complicated forms. I happen to have a very mild condition of the disease myself, actually.
I also figured Toph wouldn't really be able to do much, besides sit in her bed and remember, but this will come in handy for better understanding, and also understanding the title "Letters from the Falling Sky."
Happy reading!
-scorpiored112
.4.
The last two years of her life had become a blur. She ate and slept and took medication and relieved herself when the need struck. There was no negotiation with the doctors—although she had tried asking—no matter what, earthbending was out of the question.
Though she knew—through the cloudy weakness and the lack of energy—that the situation was morbid, she couldn't help but laugh out loud, sometimes, when she thought of it. How ironic! How simply, purely ironic it was…for the only metalbender in the world…to have iron deficiency.
How ironic, and how realistic. Various doctors had told her that she wouldn't see her twenty third birthday. Yet, for some reason, this didn't shake her. It was morbid; but Toph thought it was also funny.
On the days that the former bender could cackle to herself, she knew she was having a good day. Good days—energetic days—came rarely and, when they did come, she tried her best to enjoy them. But laughing to herself only made her parents worry more. On quite a few occasions, her father, Lao, or her mother, Poppy, would peek in and exchange glances.
"Is that normal?" Poppy would ask in distress. "God, Lao—look at her! What's so funny?"
Her father would respond, with a heavy heart, "Perhaps she's going mad."
"Remind me to tell the doctor," her mother would mutter, looking about the room frantically, as if the joke was written on the walls.
And Toph, with the weight of the world on her chest, would continue laughing.
They fed her liver and red meat and steaks. They gave her iron supplements and made arrangements for blood transfusions. Vitamins were a must. As servants came and went, feeding her and watching her and asking her—over and over again—"what is so funny?", Toph merely sat back and observed.
Dreaming, in spite of everything, was one of the few things left that she could do.
And so she dreamt.
And she remembered.
And as she sat there—ill and sick of living—visions came and went and made their way around the shadows in her skull.
A memory.
There is some squirming and a struggle in the room next door. She knows she shouldn't be listening but she can't help it. She holds her ears to the wall and presses her hands up against the cool, earthen floorboards.
Katara mutters, stumbling on the words, "Aang…I—I don't know if we—I don't know if I…"
She hears him say, in a smooth and rolling voice, "I love you, Katara."
His lover pauses, still jittery. "I know—I know you do but—"
Toph wants to go inside and separate them. She knows Katara wants to wait. She has been complaining about Aang's behavior for the past two months.
She feels another article of light clothing float gently to the floor.
Her voice is hesitant. Toph wonders how Katara can be so helpless. She feels her try to gently pry him off, but he doesn't move. "Aang…I don't know."
"Why don't you know?"
She is still underneath him, but she has found her reasons. "Because…we have other things to worry about. Sokka's getting married tonight. We should be getting ready."
Aang doesn't answer. She hears an unsteady, impatient grunt.
"I don't know," the girl continues. "This doesn't feel like the right time."
"Do you love me?"
"…What?"
"Do you love me, Katara?" It sounds like there is only one answer. There is a series of shuffling. Toph analyzes this conversation with a strange expression over her face. If Sokka ever found out, he would kill them both.
Disgusted, she stops listening.
A dream.
Sokka asks her bitterly, feeling his lips with his forefingers, "Why did you kiss me?"
She doesn't answer because she doesn't believe there is an answer. There is no way she can reply to this while holding on to her dignity.
"Why did you kiss me?" he repeats. "You know I'm engaged to Suki. You know it."
"I know."
"Then why'd you do it?"
"Why are you getting all angry?" she inquires finally. Her hands are shaking and her face is three different shades of pink. "God! It was a mistake! It was an accident. I'll never kiss you again!"
He murmurs, with a spiteful air, "Good. I don't want to kiss you and I don't want you to kiss me. I'm engaged to Suki, Toph. You're like a sister to me."
A nightmare.
There are two bodies in the reception room. They have the shape of bodies and the air smells of blood and rot. They don't have a heartbeat. They have nothing but shape. Toph thinks to herself, what is this world coming to?
She doesn't remember when Sokka appeared in the arched doorway. He has his club. His fists are tight and he is looking over at the corpses. Of all the deaths they had seen in the Great War, these two hold a new significance.
His fiancé in her white kimono.
His father in his tribal wear.
Butchered hours before the wedding.
It seems that no matter how many times he looks at them, the vision will not process.
"This is all your fault," he is repeating, spitting the words out loudly. "This is all your fault, you fucking bastard!"
Aang is holding the letter they had found attached to Hakoda's forehead. Later she would find out what it said—
The sky falls in pieces. But when the world ends, it happens all at once.
"The resistance was after you, you damn bastard! You're nothing but a waste! They were here for you. Damn it! They were here for you!" He is swinging the club, dancing to the words. Toph recesses into the corner. She wants to stop him, but she doesn't want to hurt him. Sokka can be described perfectly with the term "ferocious."
The Avatar is spilling out excuses. Apologies. But Sokka is older and more agile and with his club, he is a killing machine. The balled end of the weapon hits Aang squarely in the back.
Toph hears him cough out a stream of blood and double over.
Katara, thus far sitting in the doorway, stops crying and stands up and grabs her brother's arms. The tears mix in with the words and her voice isn't helpless. It's a deadly hiss that escapes through clenched teeth.
"Stop it, Sokka! Stop it!" He throws her off of him and makes his way to Aang. She calls, "It's not his fault! Leave him alone—he didn't mean for this to happen. Please, Sokka, please. Stop! Please leave him alone."
She has grabbed his ankles. Her brother turns his face down to her. Toph hears his heartbeat skip around in his chest. It is as if he has realized something larger than the universe.
He looks at Aang and then at Katara and then the club drops and he grabs his sister's hair.
"Why are you protecting him?" he asks crossly. "Our father is dead! Why are you protecting him, Katara? Answer me!"
"Because it's not his fault," she exclaims madly. Only Toph knows that this is the second man she is wrestling against this afternoon.
"You filthy whore!" he spits into her face, casting out the realization. "You've slept with him, haven't you?"
Katara doesn't say anything. She's crying again. Toph assumes it is the shock—because how can Sokka know, possibly? And how can he ask her so clearly, to her face?
Her brother repeats, "Answer me!"
"No—no! We haven't. That's not the point. Who told you? Let go of me!"
Even though he throws her, Toph knows it's not with all of his strength. He looks at Aang and the puddle of blood that has accumulated under him. He turns aggressively to Toph.
"Toph!" he bellows, approaching her with heavy steps. "Did they sleep together or not?"
The world is suddenly covered with a film of haze.
"Is my sister lying?" he asks the earthbender, grabbing her arm. "Tell me the truth, Toph. Tell me, now!"
She doesn't know what to do. She wants to please Sokka but she wants the fight to end. The truth will make everyone in the room only hate each other more than they already do. Katara will hate her. Aang will hate her. Sokka will despise both of them and probably finish off Aang's beating.
And she wants to please Sokka so much. And perhaps it is the jealousy. Perhaps it is the heat of the moment. Toph doesn't know anymore.
Why? Why did she say anything at all? Why couldn't she have left?
The coat of haze turns into a whirlwind. She can't remember what happens next.
A flare.
"You planned to have her killed, didn't you?"
"No. No, I didn't."
"You were jealous, weren't you?"
"No, Sokka. I wasn't."
"You're just as much of a whore as Katara is!"
"Sokka, stop."
"You killed her! You planned to have her killed and now she's dead! I hate you!"
"Sokka, please."
"I hate you! I can't stand any of you! It was Aang—and it was you! She's gone! Suki's gone forever."
"Stop, Sokka. Calm down…please. Please, Sokka. Think about what you're saying. Think about what you're doing, for once."
A goodbye.
Two figures at the hotel balcony. Toph, behind another wall, sobbing as quietly as she can, thinks to herself bitterly, Everything is coming in twos today.
The man touches the woman's waist and she shies away from him. When he kisses her exposed shoulder she complains that now isn't the right time.
"You've become so hesitant," the man says brashly, finally getting the message and keeping his distance.
The woman sighs in an agitated way and looks over the rails and buries her face in her hands. Toph senses a swell inside both of them—rising, making its way to the surface.
The man asks, touching her back against her will, "What is it?"
"Nothing."
"What's wrong?"
"Leave me alone, Aang. Please."
"Tell me what's bothering you. We can work it out together."
The swell erupts like crashing glass. So delicate. So fine. And yet, shattered into so many fibers. Exposed. The swell has reached the surface and comes out without any more initiation.
She screeches, pulling at her face, "I wanted to marry you first, Aang—I wanted to marry you."
Toph feels the looming vacancy. She doesn't want to listen any more. Their world is crashing. Two deaths, two lovers, two siblings. She doesn't have a place here. This is their fight, but she's here as well, listening. Observing. Wondering what the world is coming to, and—simply because she is an idiot—telling the truth.
Katara grabs his collar. "While the resistance was inside killing my father," she jeered loudly, "you were in my hotel room, doing me."
"Katara—I—"
She repeats angrily, "I wanted to marry you first," and releases her grip on his clothes and turns back and looks at the moon.
The desperation is almost too noticeable. "Katara, I want to marry you. I'm going to marry you."
She returns without hesitation, "No, you're not."
"What do you mean?"
Toph sits and listens because she is afraid. She doesn't want the delicate web of things to be further disrupted. But she has never understood this waterbender. She doesn't understand why she grabs Aang's collar again and kisses him as deeply as she can.
Maybe it's because she still loves him. Maybe it's because Toph can feel another small thing inside Katara, growing rapidly, like a wave. Another delicate web of life.
Katara murmurs against his lips, "I can't handle this anymore. I can't handle you or the resistance. You're possessive. You're scaring me." She adds confidently, because Sokka is no longer speaking to her, "I'm leaving you."
"What?" He pulls away to look her in the eyes. There is a tremor in his voice. "But—but you can't—"
"You've ruined everything," she mutters. "Sokka is leaving tomorrow morning. Toph is heading for Gao Ling. Thanks to you. Thanks to the resistance. I have to leave."
"But Katara!" He is such a stubborn boy. But nothing can make him out to be a bad person. He moans, "I love you! Doesn't that mean anything? We were going to do it anyway!"
She answers with a shaky pitch, "It's not about that. It's for the best."
"Katara," he begs, "please! You don't have to leave me. You don't!"
She doesn't say anything. Her head is low. She turns to go inside and doesn't look back once.
Toph hears a fully realized Avatar sobbing. She hears Katara silence the noises that threaten to release themselves as she packs her things.
Two deaths, two lovers, two siblings, one earthbender.
One memory, one dream, one nightmare, one flare, one goodbye.
One little child born in the South Pole nine months later.
One Avatar looking for his place in an unsettled universe.
One warrior who couldn't find the courage in his own heart to forgive.
A reality.
Things more complex than war had finally torn them apart. So when Sokka came to Toph's room the next day with two scrolls and a head full of worries, they both knew what they had to do.
He pulled out a brush and a small bottle of ink. No tearful confessions, no apologies. But a letter. Toph told him what to write. He added a few things of his own, scribbling them down in the handwriting he had never grown comfortable with. He couldn't get over the fact that his grandmother was gone forever, but his sister had a daughter. He had a niece.
There was a string of hope in a girl named Kya Lynn. Kya, who was also dead. Lynn, because it was a common name—because Katara hadn't felt very special when she had given birth to her—because she felt that the girl was a mistake.
Sokka wrote,
I think we need each other now, Katara. I don't know if Aang has sent anything back to you. It hardly matters. My news isn't nearly as shocking as yours but here it is: Toph has a severe case of anemia. I brought her stewed sea prunes because I remember that's what Mom gave you when you were sick. She needs your help. I can barely do anything.
They made arrangements to go to the South Pole. Sokka told his sister that it would be hard. Toph could barely walk and they didn't have a flying bison like Aang did. But it was still a must. He inquired about his niece's health and told Katara to give her twenty kisses, an old tribal saying they had grown up with.
He wrote later, because Toph told him to, You're still my sister. You'll always be, no matter how upset I am. No matter what this world is coming to.