2.
Babies have personalities. Toph is a bit weirded out by this; she'd always thought about babies as little blobs that screamed for food and slept a lot, but there Lin is, staring up at her seriously. Serious is the word; but not cautious, she wants to know all about everything. She inspects the world carefully as though trying to decide if she approves of it or not. Toph is pretty certain there's a wonderful streak of evil humour hiding in there, too, although that might just be wishful thinking.
It's even clearer when she's next to Tenzin. Though older he seems a bit uneasy about her, but then, he doesn't seem that sure about anything. Except airbending, which he does all the damn time.
Toph is never sure if she should feel sorry for him or what. The second-to-last airbender, losing a staring match with her newborn daughter.
She's pretty sure, though, that she got an easy deal having an earthbender for a daughter. She's pretty much safe from the worst excesses of uncontrolled bending when it comes to changing nappies, for example.
She's heard real horror stories about waterbender babies, none of which she's ever going to let Kya forget.
Sokka is so soft over Lin that Toph thinks she's going to be sick. "Wow, man," she says, as Sokka cuddles Lin and makes little cooing noises over her, "we're doomed. I see it now. You're never going to be able to say no to a single damn thing."
"Nope," Sokka says, in his best silly high-pitched talking-to-babies voice. "Not a single thing! That's because she's such a cutie."
"If you say so," Toph says. "I think that means it's your turn to change her nappy again, just so you know."
"I hear you've been making trouble again," Katara says, a bit too fondly. "It's only your first day back at work, honestly."
"Apparently," Toph says, with obvious satisfaction, "some morons thought motherhood would make me nicer. They must not have kids. Nicer my arse, I haven't slept in months."
She sits with Lin on her knee, same Toph as ever, same evil grin – though one arm is curled protectively around Lin, she doesn't look a bit softer. She also hasn't bothered to take her uniform off yet.
Katara's lips quirk. "Who thought that? If you need to beat them up again let me know. I'd love to help."
"I think they got the point," Toph says. "Hey, did Lin have a good day?"
"A better day than Tenzin," Katara says. "Just because she doesn't move around yet doesn't mean she won't grab things in front of her face. I think we've sorted that one out now."
Toph goes to work some days, and stays at home with Lin some days, and wonders how people who aren't the Avatar's friends actually cope. She wonders how Katara copes, too - she writes and writes and writes, and takes in healers from the hospital for training, and somehow looks after the kids too, but Toph isn't completely sure how she ever finds time to leave the house. Like fuck would she want to live out there on that island and work from home.
A few months alone with a small baby were already enough to make her feel caged. However much she loves Lin. She keeps fighting the urge to talk to everyone about babies, and that's even with a job that involves interacting with and sometimes beating the crap out of people to keep her busy.
"Maybe I should just use this as an interrogation method," she says, throws up her hands. She's been talking about nappies again. In all fairness to Sokka, he doesn't even seem to have fallen asleep in self-defence. "I can just go down there and tell them baby stories. I'll have confessions in record time, I fucking swear. Who wants to know about other people's babies."
"Aang," Sokka offers. "You know Katara was in hospital for a while after Bumi was born. I went in to visit and I swear Aang had made friends with every single baby in the place."
"OK," Toph says, "but Twinkletoes is nuts, he doesn't count."
"Anyway, I don't mind," Sokka says, and Toph is surprised to feel that he means it - cooing over a baby is kind of a different thing to actually putting up with all the baby bullshit over a longer period. He's trying really hard to sound casual, though, as though he's joking around. He should know better than to try by now. "You and Lin, you know, you're not just anyone."
"Damn right we're not," she says, though - might as well cover for him. It's Sokka, after all.
"Suki sent a message," Sokka says, tone light. He leans against the wall by the door, watching Toph and Lin as they make themselves at home in his apartment.
Toph puts Lin down on the floor, lets her sprawl into the experimental belly-flop that's probably going to be crawling soon. If she puts Lin on a chair she'll only try to flop down to the floor from it anyway. Lin likes the ground. It's probably just a baby thing, but Toph likes to think it's her good influence.
"Right? Any news?"
"You could say that," Sokka says. Still that tone. Suspicious.
"This is going to be good," Toph says. "I can tell."
"We-ell," Sokka says, "you absolutely don't know this yet, but Azula is on Kyoshi island. Try to look shocked when Aang makes the announcement, OK?"
"Ok, wait," Toph says, "back up. Azula? Shoots lightning at people for fun? War criminal? That Azula?"
"That Azula," Sokka confirms.
Toph bursts out laughing. "Man, have fun with the council over that one."
"Oh, I will," Sokka says. "Don't worry, I didn't need those years of life. I didn't need any time off from people screaming at each other. It's fine, go ahead, laugh."
"Councilman, councilman," Toph says, shakes her head. "You know you love it. Anyway, tell me the story already."
She throws herself down next to Lin, cross-legged on the floor, and waves for Sokka to join her. He rolls his eyes, but does it; joins them and lets Lin grab at his hand while he tells Toph about Fire Nation mental hospitals and the bits and pieces that have come out about Azula's life since the war. It's pretty sparse, and Toph figures they haven't got the whole story - which is pretty cheap of Zuko, though he could, she guesses, have his reasons. If she were being generous.
Suki is a part-time resident of the city. She keeps a one-room apartment in an anonymous block of flats not far from Toph's house, and sometimes she sleeps at Sokka's, and sometimes she sleeps at Toph's. Toph isn't even really sure when they became this kind of unit, somewhere under all the jokes and embarrassment and an assortment of confused teenage crushes in various directions, but there it is, the three of them. It's some kind of a thing, she knows that much, and she refuses to spend much time trying to be precise about it.
This time Suki stays with her for the first couple of days, and they walk around the city together for an afternoon, well dressed against the chill of late autumn. Suki carries Lin and Toph doesn't worry once about whether Lin will get dropped.
"Wow," Suki says, "I never thought I'd have a kid."
"You're a crap father," Toph says, grins. "Absent for months, hanging out with all those women..."
"Mm, I'm awful," Suki agrees. "I get into fights, too." Then she sighs. "Toph..."
"What?" Toph says.
"You're not working too hard?"
"Oh, no worries there," Toph says. "You know me, always a free spirit, don't know why they thought I could be responsible for anything."
"Honestly," Suki says. "You and Sokka are as bad as each other. I'll take that as a yes. I think I'll stay a little longer this time."
"Absolutely not because you're stuck with her highness?" Toph asks.
"Absolutely not," Suki says serenely, adjusts Lin against her chest and wrestles her free arm through the crook of Toph's elbow, bloody-minded in the face of Toph's squirming.
When Lin is three, Toph's parents show up in Republic City. Toph has pretty much had it with them by now; she tried, and tried again, and sent them updates on her career, sent them presents, tried to hang out with them without ending up in a screaming match - but even if they're probably very proud that their friends know what a legend their daughter is it doesn't really translate into a workable family dynamic.
"Oh but really," her mother says, "is this an appropriate home? For you or for our grandchild? You don't have any servants, and it's so small! How do you manage? Isn't it dangerous? Lin could hurt herself and you wouldn't know! If you don't have the money we could arrange something more fitting..."
"I'd know," Toph says flatly, singling out the most infuriating point in a line of statements that all would have individually been worth a verbal smackdown. She and Lin live in a low house on the edge of the city centre, a little three room building in the growing shadow of blocks of flats. She's had the house since before there was a Republic City, and she's felt the city grow, and she'll be damned if she's going to let go of it now. "I'm blind, not stupid. Lin is my kid, I'm going to raise her myself."
Her mother doesn't miss the barb in her words, falls silent for a moment. "Toph, darling... all we've been saying is that a husband..."
Toph turns away from her, picks up Lin, lets herself vanish in their shared world for a moment, making faces at her and listening to her heartbeat. Trying to block Lin off from her mother, she realises belatedly.
"Toph," her mother tries again.
"If I have to call Avatar Aang to mediate this family dinner, don't think I won't," Toph says. "Why don't you tell me the Earth Kingdom news and we can save our bitter in-fighting about my life choices for a birthday letter."
Her mother talks to Lin for a while before they leave, and Toph hates every second of it, though it's actually a really restrained conversation. For her mother. But just because Lin misses the implied disapproval when her mother asks - talks, really, because Lin doesn't seem all that sure about talking back - about Toph's friends and about where Lin is going to go to school and how she trains in earthbending doesn't mean it goes to waste. It's not criticism that's for Lin, after all.
Fathers are mentioned, at which point it's about all she can do to not scream at her parents and throw them out on the street.
"So the question is," Toph asked Katara, "am I all set to just tell them to go to hell and stop messing with my life, or do I have to be all tolerant and let them spend time with their granddaughter?"
She's slumped over Katara's kitchen table, feeling very mature for managing to restrain herself from beating her head against it repeatedly.
"I can't believe you actually called Aang in," Katara says.
"I can't believe I didn't murder anyone," Toph shoots back. "They know the rules, they know I don't need them to run my life."
"Parents are allowed to worry," Katara says, although she sounds kind of tired, kind of off; it's as though she's repeating a line from another conversation. "I don't know, Toph, I don't get to see your relationship. Maybe you're overreacting or maybe they really are unbearable. You have to figure it out yourself. I know you guys have had a lot of problems, but you missed them when they weren't around too, right?"
"Aagh," Toph says, which she thinks pretty much sums everything up.
"I mean, a husband," she says. Sokka makes a supportive noise. "I don't need a husband," she adds, sour. "What would I need a husband for? What do they even do? What's the point?"
"A lot of people feel," Sokka says, tactfully, "that companionship, love and support make a very good combination and that a marriage can provide-"
"Bullshit," Toph says. "I've got all of that anyway."
"I know," he mumbles, and the moment threatens to turn awkward. Is it a Moment? Toph wonders. Are they having a Moment? Oh god, what if they are. What if this is meant to be a thing. She's thirty-four, she's too old for Moments. Or too young. Or something.
"Idiots," Suki tells them both, breaks it, or fixes it, or something. Toph breathes out.
"No, really," she mutters. Stretches, sighs. "Actually, I'm pretty sure they were thinking of a husband as a respectability-enhancing accessory, which, you know, ew."
"Ye-eah," Sokka says. "That's pretty weird. But I guess that's what they grew up with?"
"I guess," Toph says. "I never really asked them, actually. We're usually too busy fighting."
Suki catches Toph, pulls her aside, leaving Lin to bother Sokka. "You might want to talk to Lin about dads," she says. "Just a tip. She wanted to know if I was her dad, or if it was Sokka. She insists everyone has one, but I'm not sure she actually knows what a dad is..."
"Oh man," Toph says. "Wow, what did you tell her? Who's the happy father? I always thought it must be you."
"I told her she should ask you," Suki says mercilessly. "Sokka... mostly just flailed. But really, you're the one who hasn't even told us who Lin's father is."
"It's not important," Toph says, almost snaps. "Family isn't blood. You are more her dad than that guy. So's Sokka. Just 'cause I made stupid decisions about who to sleep with doesn't mean she has to have a stupid family. I'm telling you, it's not important."
Suki sighs. "Ok, I know. To be honest, I don't care either, I mean, in that way. But maybe it's important to her. She should get the choice, anyway."
"That's stupid," Toph says, stubborn. "What is it with everyone being all reasonable this week. First Katara, now you."
"Someone has to be," Suki points out.
"Like hell they do," Toph mutters.
But she talks to Lin. About family and about love and about where babies come from. She's surprised to find that it's pretty OK, as awkward conversations go.
"We can look him up if you want," she offers, once they've been through what she thinks of as all the boring details. "But family can be other stuff too."
Lin considers this.
"A dad is meant to look after you," she says, flatly. "Loads of people look after me, but he doesn't."
"Sure," Toph says, because she really doesn't see the point of a narrow view of family structures anyway, talk about unimaginative. "I guess you have a lot of dads then."
And Suki thought she'd got herself out of that one so nicely.
In the end Toph puts off cutting ties with her parents, again.
Hell if she knows if she really wants to or not. She even gets Sokka to write down a letter for her, and sends it to them as a kind of peace offering that she doesn't even know if they deserve.
Family. Wow.
She just hopes she doesn't mess things up for Lin too badly, she thinks, again, and feels kind of uneasy.
But so far Lin is pretty carefree.
"Daddy," she shrieks, the next time she sees Suki; throws herself into Suki's arms and lets herself be spun around.
When Kya shows up on her doorstep, a bag of clothes slung over her shoulder, though, it doesn't exactly help steer Toph's thoughts in positive directions.
"They don't get it," she tells Toph, sobs really, huddled on Toph's bed. "They're so unfair, why are you the only cool grown-up."
"Ok," Toph says, "you're going to give me a minute and then tell me what's up. Drink something. I don't know, remember to breathe."
Lin, now unreasonably good at walking around by herself, is peering curiously around the doorway, so Toph hurries over to her, picks her up; "I think it's bedtime for you, little badgermole."
She goes back in to Kya once Lin is settled.
"So what's up," she says, sits herself down cross-legged on the part of the bed not full of angry teenager. "I'm assuming your parents don't know you're here."
"No," Kya says. "And I'm not going home, they think they can control my whole life."
Toph thinks about how tired Katara sounded the other day, and her comment, the one that sounded kind of off. Things fall into place.
"You can stay here tonight," she says, "and you can bitch to me all you like. But I'm going to call your parents, don't think they're not worried stupid right now." Apparently there is some point to telephones after all. Aang insisted she get one installed, and she hasn't used it much; she can't always tell what people mean without the cues from their posture, their pulse. But still.
She refuses to back down when Kya wants her to leave Aang and Katara to worry, and then refuses to back down again when Aang wants to come and fetch Kya straight away, although she probably only wins because Katara is also in favour of a time out. "I'm just glad she came to you," she tells Toph down the crackling line, and Toph wonders what that's supposed to mean, apart from I'm glad she didn't just vanish.
"I don't get to go to parties," Kya says. "Or I mean I do, but only the really rubbish ones. And I have a curfew. None of my friends have a curfew."
"Uh-huh," Toph says, "and what goes on at these parties, right, it's totally nothing your parents might find worrying."
"I'm not stupid," Kya protests, which pretty much answers that question, if only by omission. "I can totally take care of myself."
"And I may be old, but I'm not stupid either," Toph says. "I know what you lot get up to, I've picked half your friends' drunk arses off the street and made sure they get home."
"I know," Kya says, muffled against a pillow. "That's why you're the cool one. Even though you're police and police are meant to suck."
"Are we, now," Toph says, and jabs Kya affectionately in the side, because wow, she could absolutely have been this much of an idiot teenager if she hadn't had a world to save. Maybe she was anyway. In her way. "Who the hell are these little friends of yours, anyway. Or maybe I don't want to know?"
Eventually she leaves Kya to sleep in her bed and curls herself up on the floor in Lin's room. She has stone floors, so she just adjusts the spot she's on until she's comfy and drifts off to sleep, feeling the rumble of the city all through her body, like the purring of some giant creature.