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: I apologize gravely for the wait. School has started here in my neck of the woods and thus, my readers—as well as myself—must all suffer the consequences. Ah, the educational system…
This chapter came up short but actually, it was really entertaining to write. A little bit of drama. For those of you who go back to read the reviews for chapter five, a very, VERY clever reviewer of mine skillfully stated, quite accurately, that "Sukka needs to close before Tokka can start."
I'm glad someone caught on to that line of thought I was going for. There's a reason Kya Lynn is a reincarnate! There's a reference to chapter four, when Toph remembers things. Keep an eye out.
I didn't want to rush the reunion, which will hopefully happen in the next chapter. I would say everything should amount to a maximum of ten chapters—if even—but nothing beyond that. We can thank various rambling stories that I have written that exceeded ten chapters. Extremely scary thought, people, let me tell you.
As always, I thank my wonderful reviewers and—if I'm not already responding to your feedback—please, please either sign in, or leave your e-mail address. If you take the time to review, than I feel compelled to reply to you.
Already sick of AP Calculus and Anatomy,
-scorpiored112
.6.
When he looked into the mirror—which he often did—he did not see a warrior. He saw the lean muscles of an athlete and the hairy limbs of a man. But in his eyes he saw a jealous boy who had envied his sister's happiness and loathed his own undertaking. He saw the face of a mindless, idiotic child.
When he spoke—which he didn't do as often as he used to—he heard the nasally tone of a jealous lover. The same voice that had denied Suki before their wedding. "No, Suki. We're not married yet. I love you too. Just wait. Just one more day. It's in our customs, love. Just one more day."
And when he thought of his sister—which he did everyday—he saw her tearful face when she had left the Avatar. When she had admitted to sleeping with him and told him she regretted it, though he knew she didn't. "It's tradition, Katara! I can't believe you. It's tradition. You're a disgrace—you're a shame. You're nothing but a filthy whore."
And when his own words reached his ears he often looked down and stopped whatever he was doing simply to reflect.
He was jealous. Jealous that she had found someone she loved and had given herself to him. He had waited—counted the moments to his wedding—anticipating the feel of Suki beneath his body, breathing her name.
When—suddenly, without a second thought—she had died.
And though he blamed it on the hormones, on his father's death, and on a various other arena of subjects, he knew it was wrong. It was wrong for him to separate two lovers just because he wasn't happy. To tear apart a family of three because his own life had been ruined four years ago.
In the midst of it all, when he felt like a terrible person, he would look at Toph and remember. He was going to help her. He needed to, and maybe this would be his form of redemption.
Maybe the universe would forgive him if he saved Toph's life. It was a selfish thought, but it was the truth.
But the cargo ship was big and metallic and stale and when he carried Toph there and placed her in the chamber they were supposed to share, he couldn't help but wonder if this was all a bad idea.
She was still sick. And though taking her out of the house had refreshed her memory on what the outside world was like, she was still too weak to really do anything about it. Toph Bei Fong was a manifestation of weakness. She wanted to earthbend but couldn't. Placing her on a metallic monstrosity of steel made her sigh desperately. She wanted so badly to stick her fingers into the frame of the boat and manipulate it. But she couldn't.
It would never work and—even if it did—there was a pretty good chance it would kill her.
The room they were supposed to share had two low cots and a small window in the door leading to the hallway. It smelled damp and reminded Sokka of his father's fleet of ships, which comforted him a little until he remembered that Toph had a history of seasickness. When he put her down he made a face and scratched the back of his neck, absentmindedly looking around their room for a bucket.
"Are you going to be okay?" he asked her when his search proved ineffective. "We're going to be traveling pretty fast. It's a one-way trip."
She mouthed, "Fine," and turned to her side. Her pale hands reached for the collection of blankets at the end of the cot and pulled them up to her shoulders.
Sokka began looking around the rest of their room to prevent himself from looking at her. Toph's helplessness, as sick as it sounded, was taking a toll on his morals. About six times since they had left the Bei Fong estate hours ago, he had imagined himself making love to her. It was such a stupid thing to envision and made him feel like some sort of pervert, but he couldn't help it. Toph's white skin and full chest and fragile smell, the way she had become like a damsel in distress, had abruptly awakened his appetite for the opposite sex.
He found a cracked mirror near the end of his own cot and looked into it. It was situated on the door of an empty closet. If he were to lie down he would be able to see himself through his feet—which meant that he would also be able to see Toph. He removed his jacket and pants, not noticing their landing location. He sat on the bed, resulting in a squeaking noise, and looked at his reflection.
Toph asked from behind him suddenly, her voice hard and perplexed, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," he answered. "Just sitting here. Why?"
"Did you take your clothes off?"
He said after some hesitation, "Well—sort of."
She paused and turned in the cot to face him. Toph asked bluntly, without a trace of her former raspy tone, "What, are you naked?"
Sokka blinked. And though he wasn't naked—though he still had his under garments on—he answered as impulse, "Yes," and then blushed, but didn't correct himself.
He saw Toph frown impassively and turn her face back to the wall. "Why?" she murmured blankly.
"It's just how I go to sleep," he lied, falling back on the mattress. "I hope that doesn't bother you."
"I don't care."
He raised a brow. "You don't?"
"We are on a ship," she continued. "What if someone opens the door? And these mattresses smell like rotten meat. So it's for your own sake, actually, because it's not like I can see you."
He looked into the mirror again, through his feet. He wondered briefly why all of these Toph-related sensations were rising inside of him so rapidly—after four years of not seeing her. He also wondered why he said to her now, "I'll put my clothes back on, if you want me to."
She replied with a tedious sigh, "Whatever."
"You don't mind if I'm naked?" he pressed, looking at her back. "It doesn't bother you?"
The silence afterward was noticeable. His invalid considered what she said before she said it, but came upon the utter conclusion of, "No, it doesn't."
He sat up. She heard him scoot closer to her cot. "Why not?"
"Because it's not like I can see," she repeated with a furious blush, pulling the blankets tighter. "Drop it, will you?"
He was noticeably close to her, which bothered Toph in a sense because he said he was naked, though he wasn't, but she didn't know. "So you're saying," Sokka prodded, "that even though there's a naked guy in the room with you, you don't really mind. Is that it?"
She coughed and answered honestly, "What's the worst you're going to do?" And then she faced the ceiling and sighed quietly, "It's still obvious. You still love Suki. And I'm still sick."
He didn't understand the Suki reference—either that, or he didn't hear it. Sokka's impulsiveness, as well as his relation to Toph, got the better of him. "I think you've gotten better," he teased ignorantly instead, laughing. "That rasp has nearly disappeared. And you're blushing."
She grunted and blinked into the wall. His frame was next to the cot, craning his neck to see the apparent color in her cheeks. "This is getting uncomfortable," she said, and hastily put her hand up to push him away.
But Sokka was a firm man of twenty-six years, and she was a dying girl of twenty-two. So she didn't succeed in pushing him. His bare chest met her hand midway and she just held it there, feeling his heart beat. And the blush exploded into a deeper shade.
"Your hand is cold," he said, reaching for it.
"Sokka—"
Her fingers, smooth and dry, felt like ash in his palm. But when he bent to kiss them she clenched her hand into a fist.
The outburst that erupted from her was spat with a vicious ferocity that Sokka didn't know she possessed. "Go away!" the earthbender cried, finally mustering enough strength to push him back. "Leave me alone, Snoozles! What the hell are you trying to pull?"
He was shocked, which was why he didn't say anything right away. The initial feeling was actually one of guilt and confusion. Toph had kissed him just days before, when she was having a particularly weak day—the first time she had seen him in so long. But it would be a lie to say there hadn't been any changes.
Since when had she remembered Snoozles?
He had given her time to think, obviously. And there was something about that time that had changed her mental composition on the ordeal of them being a "couple," which still hadn't quite started yet.
It was in that time alone that she had begun to remember.
His behavior towards her after Suki's death had been far from gentlemanlike. He had called her a number of things, displaced the blame of the murders, and ultimately ruined a fragile friendship with Toph, who was struggling with how to treat him, exactly, and what she was feeling towards the warrior who had refused to love her back.
And now, he thought, looking at her contorted face, his payback was returning in the same form of rejection.
All he could think to say, as he pulled his jacket back over his shoulders, was a simple, "I'm sorry," which Toph did not respond to.
"I didn't mean to…" But there was little else he could add, because the confusion was still there, and because Sokka—in the presence of pretty girls who liked to refuse him—always grew nervous.
In the silence, as night fell over the ocean and the wobbling cargo ship, they said little else.
He gave Toph her iron supplements when he needed to, a total of eight times in four hours. He timed all the other vitamins accurately, as her parents had taught him before their departure. But she didn't thank him and didn't respond to the apologies and questions. When he asked if she was okay, she would answer with an uneven grunt and face the wall.
The tension grew unbearable when, in the morning of their near arrival, Sokka left the room to get breakfast and returned to find Toph sitting up straight as a bolt, crossing her arms and legs on her cot.
He stated unsurely, "You're awake."
"No thanks to you."
He made a face and put the tray of food in front of her, using a small table that fit nicely over the bed. "Rice and tea," he murmured flatly. "You need a vitamin, so when you're done eating, let me know."
"I can take it myself," she hissed, feeling for the set of chopsticks. Sokka watched, captivated and a little unconvinced, as she stabbed blindly at the plate of rice. Her movements were precise and experienced.
"I'd rather give it to you," he said pathetically. "That way I know you're taking it."
"You don't need to know anything," she returned bitterly. "I can take care of myself."
It was the sureness that shocked him to admittance. Just a day ago Toph was dying, and now she seemed to have returned to her former self. But it was also the disrespect she was blatantly displaying.
"What's your problem?" he finally exclaimed, pounding his cot with his fists. "What did I do to you?"
Without warning—and rather quickly—she threw the table off and the tea and rice went flying. "You know damn well what you did!" she screeched, pointing in his general direction. "You jerk! If I wasn't as weak as I am now, I'd pound the shit out of you!"
"What are you talking about?" Sokka asked desperately, reaching for the broken plates and cups. "I'm trying to help you, for God's sake! The least you can do is be thankful."
The earthbender cried miserably, swaying a little with the effort of screaming, "Leave me alone! You don't give a damn about me! All you care about is redeeming yourself—you jerk! I hate you! I don't even know why I kissed you in the first place. Don't you think I remember what you said? What you did?" The words came out forcefully and hatefully and then they didn't sound like words at all. They sounded like howls. "I hate you, Sokka!" Toph shrieked, punching the wall with her fist. "I hate you!"
And she was crying, which confused Sokka even further. But when he came closer to comfort her she pushed him away with the same brute force and suddenly, the ship's floor bent in a single direction, forcing Sokka to slide into her body, against the wall.
The metal made a clashing sound and Sokka broke out into a cold sweat.
"We better not be sinking," he said after a noticeable pause, forgetting the argument. Her body was light and soft against his and still smelled of used matches, of earth and ash and female. He was trying hard not to crush her, and put his hands up to either side. The fear was noticeable in Toph's eyes and it scared him in the slightest way because he knew—without a trace of hesitation—that this would end badly.
She said softly, wiping her cheek with her ashen fingers, "We're not." He heard her sniffle into his chest and then turn so that her back was facing him. The metallic slabs of steel bent back into position and the ship seemed level again. Toph feel wordlessly into the cot with a detached moan of effort.
He watched her fall—gracefully, almost—on the mattress she had claimed smelled like rotten meat. It took a second for the vision to process. For the turn of events to actually come together and take a shape and form.
But it was too obvious.
"No," Sokka stated, more to himself. "No—Toph—no!" He grabbed her shoulders. "Please tell me you didn't just metalbend! Toph! Toph—wake up!" He began shaking her. Toph's useless eyes were half open and so was her paled mouth, crafted to look like a perfect circle, a mocking smile. "Toph! You know you're not supposed to! Toph—you can't…you can't do this to me. Please!" And then he said, without realizing that the same thing had been said to his sister four years ago, "You don't have to do this…you don't have to leave me, Toph."
But she didn't respond to him. The images of him making love to her helpless body vanished when he realized that she was unconscious. Her pulse was slow and milky and he could barely hear it through her skin. But it was there. It couldn't have been more perfect timing, he thought, when he felt the ship come to a hefty halt, and recognized the dialect of Southern Water Tribe men yelling directions at the ship's nonchalant crew.
She was supposed to take a vitamin, Sokka mused. How useless!
"This is great," he admitted to the lifeless figure. "Katara's going to think I've killed you."
Toph didn't answer because she couldn't hear him and even if she could, he felt she no longer cared.
When he took her into his arms and held her, cradle style, over the stairs and through the narrow hallways of the boat, he could hear her mumble something indecipherable.
It was an unmentionable feeling of guilt and stupidity. Sokka knew his line of mistakes. He also knew that Toph had said something about Suki earlier, but he could barely remember it.
For reasons that remained a mystery to him, as he carried his invalid over the dunes of his childhood, he felt as if something near to his heart—a small, throbbing vein of life—awaited him, held nobly on the side of his youngest sister.