Chapter Six: Tears
When Sokka doesn't show up one day Toph asks around as to what day it is, just to be sure.
Sokka observes three days of remembrance throughout the year. One is for his mother. One is for the moon.
One is for a woman named Lian.
Little Lin, now almost five years old and already more solemn than Toph expected, is playing in her room, molding the tiny bit of her space earth Toph had broken off long ago and given to her when Sokka first yelled to come quick, the little badgermole's bending. Her chubby fingers are surprisingly dexterous for such a little kid, Toph notes with pride when she passes her own hands lightly over her daughter's.
"Is Uncle Aang coming today?" Lin lisps, and Toph quirks a grin at her.
"Not today, kiddo."
"Oh." She pauses for a moment, then asks, "What about Uncle Sokka?"
"I don't think so," Toph shakes her head.
"Why?"
"Uncle Aang has official Avatar business to take care of," Toph replies, "and Sokka…" she trails off. Lin looks up from her studious earthbending.
Toph eases her space earth off her arm and starts playing with it, much like Lin. Lin watches her mother carefully, then imitates her movements almost perfectly. Toph muses to herself that it's about time Lin got some formal training.
"That's a long story, badgermole," Toph says finally. "And anyway, it's not my story to tell."
"Oh." Lin bites her lip. "Is it a sad story?"
"Sometimes," Toph nods. "It's happy, too. It doesn't have a happy ending, though."
Because Lin, for all her talent and maturity, is still a toddler, she loses interest, molding the space earth like clay in her fingers. Toph gives her small pointers here and there, her mind going back over her old lesson plans from days gone by and constructing a slightly amended plan for Lin. But only slightly; after all, Lin has Bei Fong blood and can handle anything Toph throws at her.
There's a light tap on her door after Lin goes to bed, and Toph goes to admit a much-subdued Sokka reeking of incense and the outdoors. He shows himself to the kitchen and she follows, lifting the whistling kettle from the stove and letting him rummage around for his alcohol of choice. Silently they work in tandem to load a tray with tea, shot glasses, and an assortment of jerky, and when it's complete Sokka carries it to the living room. Toph lays a hand on his arm.
"Let's go to the back room," she shrugs. "Feeling lazy." She refuses to admit that sitting on a stone floor all day is starting to take its toll on her, but Sokka, whose bad knee aches every time it rains, is hardly one to judge; he follows her to her room and sets the tray between them as Toph lays across the foot of the bed, reaching and groping for her teacup before Sokka places it in her hand.
They drink silently, working through the tea and then the sake, dipping jerky into their half-empty cups when they're sated.
"Put flowers by it this time," Sokka slurs. Toph grunts. "She woulda liked 'em."
It's strange how often they end up there, Toph reflects fuzzily. Every time something bad happened, there they were, sharing tea and booze and meat and not talking about it. It had its own healing power, she muses. Sokka gives a little choke, and sniffs.
"Ten years," he says quietly.
Her heart clenches because it's been about five since Kenji and she knocks over empty cups reaching for his hand. They say so many words with their hands that their mouths are incapable of; her fingertips worry over his knuckles and his thumb rasps over the top of her hand. They remain like that for a while, talking hand to hand, then Sokka disentangles his to clear away the tray so they aren't trying to angle over dishes.
Ten years, Toph thinks. So much had happened in ten years, not least of which was the growth of Republic City from a muddy square to a modern new city. Ten years ago she was a young and newly-appointed Chief of Police, shaping a system of law enforcement out of her old school. Sokka was much more enthusiastic and tripped over his tongue back then, when he met Her and everything changed for him.
Toph thought she was too old for jealousy back then, and she was flirting with half a dozen men herself; she was genuinely happy for Sokka when he came to visit her, raving about a beautiful Lady he'd met in the courtyard. He was—they both were—so much more innocent then, despite everything they'd been through already. They both still believed in clean, happy endings.
Lady Lian was sick, very sick; she'd come to a young Republic City seeking the help of the world's greatest healer. Katara, swamped with patients, nevertheless made special arrangements when Sokka asked. She visited Lian most days after her work at the cramped hospital, examining the rapidly expanding growths inside Lian's body and doing her best to quell their spread. Sokka was always there, holding Lian's hand and telling her jokes. He had a better reaction to Katara's final diagnosis than Toph did, a few years later with Kenji.
The first thing he did was ask Lian to marry him, and the ceremony was small and beautiful, warm under the sun. Even tough old Toph's eyes weren't dry, she was happy to say. She'd liked Lian, truly. She was soft-spoken, but composed and determined. It made Toph herself hate Lian's sickness; she felt like, with some time, she and her friend's wife could have been good friends. Another opportunity fate felt compelled to deny her—but that was selfish thinking. She wasn't the only one suffering, and certainly not the first, either. She gave the bride a bejeweled brooch that had been in her family for generations, according to her mother, and gave the fragile woman a hug.
He took a break from his duties (and back then, no one could blame him), carried Lian to a waterfall spa Zuko set aside especially for them, and there lived with her for three months. Toph wasn't especially brushed-up on the details, but she could guess from Katara's descriptions of the disease, which she had thrown herself into studying late into the night until she shook from lack of sleep (Aang put his foot down eventually; between her strenuous hours at the hospital and caring for Kya, then a rambunctious toddler, Katara was doing her usual and stretching herself too thin). In her mind, Toph imagines Lian drying up like a flower in fall. The funeral was in the snow. Sokka had gripped her hand so hard she'd felt the imprints of his fingers for days afterwards.
There is some shifting, and Sokka is suddenly pressed against her side, leaning on and then off her rough-chopped hair (combination accident with Lin and frustration). The proximity alarms her, but Sokka simply holds her hand and continues stroking his thumb across her skin. She tightens her fingers, and he reciprocates, and she coughs a laugh.
"Look at us," she murmurs. "What a pair, huh?"
Sokka grunts, nodding. He clears his throat, sniffs a few more times, and grunts again.
"Toph?"
"Hmm?"
"Why did it have to happen to us?"
She releases a breath through her nose. Bleary and tired as she is, she feels philosophical.
"Suppose it's 'cuz we're the weaklings," she says solemnly.
The pressure from his hand relaxes, then pulses once.
"How'd you figure?"
"Well," she yawns, "lookit Aang and Katara. If they lost each other, they'd think of a way to bring each other back. You 'n me, we're just normal. We let the spirits take whatever they want from us."
"Aang cheats," Sokka murmurs. "Got that whole...spiritual…mumbo-jumbo junk in his favor."
"Guess the spirits don't want us having anything good," Toph sighs, her hand curling around her bedpost. "Done too many bad things."
"Maybe you have," Sokka giggles, and Toph joins him, until they're laughing so hard it hurts and they've got tears streaming down their faces and they're curled into each other. Both of their hands are entwined tight around each other's, crying into her blanket and into each other, and Toph feels something…not heal, exactly, but stitch itself together. There's an ugly scar on her heart, probably always will be, but her best friend's tears are in the threads and she knows some of hers are in the wound in his own chest. A wave of exhaustion rolls over her before she can congratulate herself on the eloquence of her drunken mind, and Sokka throws a hand around her waist. She feels warm comfort in it.
It's awkward and in the morning they have cricks in their necks, but that first night—sharing their heartaches and sleeping it off together—sets a precedent. A standard. A memory. She can't find the right word, but in the future when she introduces Sokka as her best friend, there's a strain of tenderness there that wasn't there before.
The next time Sokka knocks on her door in the middle of the night, she wordlessly lets him in.
A/N: And now, Sokka's lover. Some might think it tacky to give both Toph and Sokka lovers that die, but unluckily for all of you, I am exactly that brand of tasteless. However, I actually really love Sokka's love story, more so than Toph's; I could write an entire fic based on just this. (Ssssshhh you awful plot bunnies go awaaaaaaay.) For timeline's sake, Lady Lian comes in sometime between Parents and Duty, just so everyone knows. I am horrible and need to set up a more solid chronology, because I know when everything happens, but it might be confusing to y'all. Um. Anyway. Onward!