Chapter Five

Toph reached Zuko's side, concern evident on her face. She could tell that Sokka was deeply shaken. Something was very very wrong with him, but just what was so wrong, her earth vision simply could not see.

Zuko put his arm around her as they watched Sokka finally stand up and help Suki to her feet. Then with a half gesture, Sokka swept the ice and snow up off the ground, transforming it effortlessly into liquid form again, and deposited it neatly into the water trough.

Katara met them there in the courtyard, her eyes wide with astonishment. "I saw that, Sokka," she stated. "What was that?"

"Bending," he stated distantly. "I am apparently now a bender."

He looked down at Suki. There was question in her eyes, but he just shook his head slightly. He owed her his first explanation, but he couldn't do it, not yet.

Then he looked at all his friends gathered around him. The looks on their faces ranged from surprised to amazed. Not really much of a range, he thought to himself.

Then Toma came running up to him, his own expression one of fear and doubt. "Daddy?" he asked, unsure of what he'd just witnessed.

Sokka swept the little boy up into his arms. "Hey, little wolftail," he greeted him. "Are you hungry? I think Uncle Jet invited us all over to eat with him and Aunt Mai."

Then Sokka looked over at Jet and Mai and asked, "We still on for dinner?"

"Sure," Jet replied, taking Sokka's cue that what they'd all witnessed was no big deal—or at least not a topic for immediate conversation. "Big beachside barbecue. Everybody's invited."

"Sounds great," Sokka declared. "I'm starving." Then he put Toma on the ground again and walked Suki to the house. He picked up little Aiko, gave him a toss in the air to make him squeal with delight, then passed him to Suki. Then he picked up Hasue and kissed her on the belly until she laughed merrily.

"Come on, my Zu-girl," he said to Zutara, aware that his daughter was giving him a seriously suspicious look. He kept grinning at her, and at last she took his outstretched hand and the family headed out.

The entire group converged on the beach that faced out into the open ocean. The waves rolled in thunderously.

"Is it always this rough out here?" Mai asked.

"It's usually much calmer than this," Suki replied. "Maybe there's a storm moving in."

Sokka looked up at the sky and stated, "I don't think so. The storm that pounded us moved back out to sea. We should have pretty good weather for a while."

Aang gave him a curious look. "How do you know if the weather is going to be bad?"

"Fisherman's eye," Sokka answered with a sly grin. "Too many years on the water."

"Then how did you get caught in that storm the other night?" Katara teased. "Was your fisherman's eye closed?"

"Nope," Sokka answered as he helped Suki spread out a huge blanket for the babies to play on. "I knew it was coming. I just ignored it."

Suki gave him a hard look at that but didn't say anything. Katara said it for her, "Why on earth did you do that? You were almost killed!"

"Hey, the boat's still floating. I just caught an unlucky break," Sokka replied evenly.

"I think it was more of a lucky break since you're still here," Jet stated.

In the awkward silence that followed, Zuko spoke up. "Ever do any surfing out here?" he asked as he gazed out over the rolling waters.

"Sure," Sokka answered and within moments, Zuko, Mai, and Aang were ready to head out into the surf.

The waves came in across the beach at varying heights, the lowest being about three feet and the tallest rolling in at around seven or eight feet.

"Come on, Jet," Mai was cajoling her husband. "It's not that hard. You'll love it."

Jet eyed the water with suspicion.

"You do swim, don't you?" she asked, suddenly aware that she'd never seen him swim. The palace in Omashu didn't have a pool. That would have to be remedied soon, she decided.

"Of course," Jet answered. After all, he'd spent plenty of time swimming in rivers and lakes in his years as a freedom-fighting juvenile delinquent.

Then he looked back out over the crashing waves. This was his first trip to the beach. It was unnerving to see that much water, and very unnerving to see the white capped waves cresting over his head.

Zuko on the other hand was psyched. He hadn't been surfing since his and Toph's last trip to Tuzai Island. He and the island's governor, his friend Yung, had found a place near the now-quiet volcano where the waves sometimes crested at over ten feet. He was glad Toph didn't realize just how big the water got around there. He felt certain she wouldn't approve of his risking his neck for thrills.

Down the beach, a group of young Kyoshi Islanders headed in for the day. As the group approached, one tall redhaired young man stopped next to Zuko.

"You guys going out?" he asked, tossing the damp curls out of his eyes. "It's pretty wild out there today. It's like Ocean's got it in for us, you know what I mean?"

Zuko nodded in understanding, "I know what you're talking about."

"Cool," the young man replied with a nod of his own and slipped an arm around the waist of the darkhaired girl that stood beside him. Then the group headed back up the beach.

"What was that all about?" Aang asked as he took a board from the rack.

"I think it was a warning," Zuko answered. "The waves are pretty intense today. We might ought to stick to the easier breaks."

Jet nodded, hiding his nervousness with a grin.

Out in the water, Mai held out her hand to him. "Come on," she said with a smile. "You'll love it."

Sokka watched from the beach blanket as Jet grabbed a board from the rack and headed out into the water. Zuko and Mai spent a few minutes instructing him and the trio paddled out into the waves.

Aang meanwhile caught one of the larger rollers as it came in and deftly rode the curl nearly all the way to the beach. Then with a wink at Katara, he bended the wave back into shape and rode it back out to the lineup off shore.

"Hey, no fair," shouted Mai as she rode past him on the way ashore.

Zuko just laughed, but Jet couldn't spare a glance at the avatar for attempting to keep his balance on the board beneath his feet.

The king of Omashu was doing pretty well for a first-timer in Sokka's opinion. But he really wasn't watching the surfers. The ocean took all his attention.

Sokka had spent his entire life on the water. He was watertribe. But he'd never been able to feel the water the way he did now. He wondered how Katara managed to laugh and talk and smile with Toph and Suki there beside the children and their sandcastles. How did she do anything but feel the water, he wondered.

Because that was all he could do.

As the waves moved in and out, they pulled at him insistently. He closed his eyes but he could still feel the current as it moved past the beach, drawing at his consciousness, his body—his spirit itself.

There was so much water. It took up all the room in his awareness. It was all he could see, all he could hear, all he could feel.

The afternoon wore on until the sun lay low on the horizon. Somehow Sokka had managed to make the right responses to the questions he was asked. Somehow he managed to act as if he were present with the group. But in reality he was far away. All his concentration lay in the ocean before him as it tripped up to the beach, then led out into the cool depths of the shoals.

He glanced over at Toph with her feet in the sand and at Zuko as he gazed up at the descending red globe of the sun as it filtered through the low lying clouds, and he finally understood how they felt.

He'd watched bending before. He'd thought he understood it. Grab an element, move it around a little, slam a few bad guys.

But there was so much more, he realized. The water was more than an element to be moved. He was connected to it now. It was like a missing part of him had been restored.

As the sun sank below the hill, Zuko sighed and turned back to the group. Everyone was gathered around the bonfire while Jet oversaw the arrival of tables full of food.

Everyone was gathered around the fire but Sokka.

The tall, broadshouldered watertribesman stood on the beach away from the others, the light of the setting sun fading away behind him as he faced the glow of the rising moon.

It would be a beautiful night, Zuko realized. The moon was full and bright and the sky was so clear overhead that the stars were beginning to shine steadily upon them.

"Time to eat!" Jet called to the group. Zuko looked back to see everyone begin to gather around, mothers feeding hungry children first. Toph had Rokiroh on one hip as Aang dished up food into the plate she held out to him. He turned to go help her, but a movement out of the corner of his eye stopped him.

Sokka had walked out into the edge of the surf so that the water surged around his feet, then his knees.

"Hey, Sokka!" Zuko called to him. "Come grab something to eat."

But Sokka didn't answer. He just stood there in the water, gazing up at the rising moon.

If the water had pulled on Sokka's spirit before, once the moon rose in all its glory, the pull was multiplied it seemed a hundred-fold. He could feel every ounce of water before him. He could sense the schools of little fish that darted back and forth within it. The strands of kelpweed on the ocean floor interrupted the flow of the current as they swayed in its grip.

The ocean held him as well, but more than that Sokka found himself transfixed by the moon.

It was so beautiful, so luminous, so transcendent. Its power poured into him and over him and at that moment, he felt as if he could move the entire ocean with a thought.

With barely an effort, he pushed the water beneath his feet until he stood on the surface, now as solid as earth beneath him. Then he strode off into the harbor, casually flattening the breakers as they rolled up to him.

Out there all was silent but for the roar of the waves crashing against the beach behind him. The wind whispered past, blowing his hair into his face. He pulled it free of the leather band that held it and dropped the blue cord into the water at his feet. It floated a moment, then began to sink.

Evening began to descend fully around him and the moon glimmered on the dark water, its glow making a lighted path to it across the waves.

He could almost see Yue there in the moon's shining surface, her hair streaming out around her like a halo. He could almost hear her voice.

"Sokka?" a voice called to him, but it was not Yue. Aang circled close to him on a globe of air. "Are you okay?"

Sokka looked back to the beach. He had no idea he'd walked so far out into the harbor. The rest of the group stood there at the shore, watching. Their faces were distant and pale in the moonlight. Suki held Aiko in her arms and Zutara clung to her side. His wife looked frightened. Why was Suki frightened? Sokka wondered.

"Hey," Aang said again, his globe floating on the water, "you okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Sokka managed to reply. "Why?"

"Well, you are just standing on the water out here a hundred yards from shore. It's a little unexpected," came Aang's gentle answer. "I tried to do it myself, but I don't have that kind of waterbending ability."

Sokka grinned a little at that. "You just haven't tried," he countered.

"Come on back to shore," Aang suggested in a kindly voice.

"Okay," Sokka replied and headed in.

As they approached the beach, Sokka's smooth path toward the moon gave way behind him to the rolling ocean and the waves crashed against the beach with renewed strength.

"It's getting pretty rough out there," Sokka commented as they walked back along the sand to the others.

Aang nodded, then turned back as he caught a movement in the harbor out of the corner of his eye. A rogue wave headed to shore, growing as the swell of water ran upon the shallow shelf of the beach. He called to Katara and set a water bending stance, the tattoos on his forehead and arms beginning to glow in the onset of the avatar state.

The wave grew rapidly to over thirty feet, tall enough to engulf everyone on the beach and a good number of houses set close to the shoreline. Then the wave suddenly stopped moving. The top curl turned frosty and white. The wind blew across it, carrying a cloud of snowflakes onto the beach. The tsunami itself had become a solid block of ice.

Aang looked at Katara, but she stood there as confused as he was. Then he noticed Sokka as he stood there, one hand stretched out toward the wave. Another gust of wind blew even more snow from the top. The children began to squeal with delight as the huge flakes danced around them.

With a grin, Sokka pulled even more snow from the frozen tsunami until the beach lay covered in a glistening coat of white, the green branches of the orangepalm trees weighed down by an unexpected touch of winter.

Then he dismissed the wave.

Aang could only watch in amazement as Sokka simply gestured at the wave and dismissed it back to the deep.

"What is going on with you?" Katara fairly yelled at her brother, unable to contain her frustrated curiosity any longer. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Bending," he answered simply, then turned to take Hasue from Jet's arms. "I'm tired," he said to Suki. "Let's go home."

Suki gave him an unfathomable look and nodded. Then she called to Zutara and Toma, but they were enthralled with the snow as they rolled in it with Bumi.

"We'll bring them home in a little while," Aang offered. He figured maybe Sokka and Suki had some things to discuss. He knew he had a lot of questions for his watertribe brother-in-law, but from the look in Sokka's eyes, he didn't think he'd get too many answers right then.

Sokka took Suki's hand as they walked back to their house. They put the two babies to bed. Hasue had fallen asleep on his shoulder as they walked, and Aiko was yawning heavily. It had been a big afternoon for them, he thought. They ought to be exhausted.

Then he walked Suki into their bedroom and shut the door. She still had snowflakes in her hair, he realized as he kissed her.

"What are you doing?" she asked between kisses. "What is going on with you?"

"I have no idea," Sokka declared as he pulled on the knot of her belt. It slipped free in his fingers and he ran his hand into her tunic, feeling the warm softness of her skin.

He held her close to him and breathed in the scent of her hair. She always smelled like jasminclover.

But as the snowflakes melted, all he could smell was the ocean. As he stood there in the moonlight filtering through the window, he could still feel the pull of the ocean. He knew the waves had grown even rougher since they left the beach. The tide was coming in, answering the call of the moon, the first waterbender.

The moon called to him as well, pulling on him like the water of the sea.

Yue, he almost said aloud.

Then he felt Suki's hands run beneath his tunic and over his chest and he remembered the woman in his arms. She was real. This was his wife. This was no spirit.

He needed to touch her, to anchor himself to her. He had to push the moonlight out of his head.

He kissed her again and as she pressed closer, he could feel need rising inside him like the rising tide. He kissed her and clung to her, pulling at her clothing and his own until he lay beside her, his skin pressed against hers. Outside, the waves moved onto the beach and inside other waves moved around him and through him and the tide continued to rise.

As Suki's hands pulled him closer to her, he tried to be with her entirely. He wanted his entire spirit to be present with his wife, with the woman who'd loved him and stood by him no matter what.

But as waves of physical pleasure began to roll through him, memory rolled through him as well. Yue's gift had felt so incredible. The water chakra lay fully open inside him and pleasure coursed through his system.

Wave after wave of pleasure surged through his body in perfect time with the breaking of the waves of water now hammering the deserted beach. The moon was full and heavy overhead, the tide cresting against the breakwater of the harbor. The boats at anchor strained against the chains that held them and he could feel it all.

At last the crashing waves of pleasure broke inside him as well and he fell exhausted beside the woman who loved him, the woman who'd given him this incredible gift of herself.

"I love you so much," he whispered to her. "Thank you."

Suki lay there next to him, stroking his shoulder, his back, his hair, deep in thought. Finally she asked the question that burned inside her. "Sokka, what happened to you out there?"

There was silence for a moment, then he breathed a single word.

"Yue."

She waited for elaboration, but it did not come. He had fallen asleep.