Toph was mad because she had interviewed Quon Li herself, and she knew he was lying about his little side business. The guy was making a fortune from a drug ring somewhere in Republic City, and Toph couldn't get rid of him because of the stupid rules she was forced to follow. She loved being police chief, but she hated the limitations of having to work within the confines of the law, even though she understood how important it was to enforce the law, what with Republic City being as young as it was.

Another disappointing thing was how little time she got to spend with twelve-year-old Lin, who was just discovering her own bending prowess, and had developed a hunger for training that she had previously been lacking. Perhaps she wouldn't be as incensed about the lack of evidence to convict Quon Li if it weren't for Lin. Twelve was an age a lot of kids in the newly-formed city were either introduced to drugs or roped into the world of drug peddling. It was easy money, and they paid benders more because they had an easier time defending themselves.

And she was mad because she could remember the days when she and Sokka had dealt with criminals in their own way, back when Republic City was just little more than a reformed Fire Nation colony. She missed throwing walls at murderers, and not having to pay for damage out of her meagre earnings, and going to a tavern with Sokka and laughing about it afterward.

After her heated discussion with him about Quon Li, Toph had returned to police headquarters to find out if her detectives had any more information that she could throw at Sokka and the council. Quon Li's trial was set for the following week, and Toph planned to have everything she could find on the rat. Currently being held in a cell in the basement of headquarters, the defendant was being as uncooperative as he could possibly be, going on a hunger strike and refusing to speak at all unless his attorney was with him. Even in attorney-attended interrogations, Toph had been able to feel the vibrations of his numerous lies through the floor and steel table, and she'd had to employ all of her self-control to prevent herself from strangling him with the cables spooled on her hips.

Quon Li was good, and he covered his tracks so well that all she had was basic testimony from some rehabilitated drug peddlers, and her own gut feeling about him. Luckily one of the witnesses had given her a small but concrete piece of evidence, linking Quon Li to a warehouse near the new tunnel network where they had uncovered a cache of desert cacti, being brewed and produced as a potent street powder that users sniffed to get a brief but potent hallucinatory high. Just the smell of the stuff had incapacitated two of her officers for the rest of the day.

The evidence had been enough to allow Toph and her metalbenders to arrest him, but it seemed that his attorney was good enough that when the case went to trial, the council would have no way to convict him. That was why Toph had gone to speak to Sokka, to try and convince him to use his sway as chairman to get a guilty verdict. But he'd gone on and on about mistrials and losing his place on the council, and she'd lost her temper.

Now, sitting at her desk in her own office, Toph sighed and rested her chin in her hand, slumping her shoulders. It was a posture that had irritated her parents to no end, and one that as an adult, she only employed when she was completely at a loss for how to react to a situation.

She was startled by a knock at her door – she had been spacing out a little, and hadn't heard or even felt the person approaching.

"Come in," she said, knowing that she would be able to identify the visitor after a couple of steps.

She sat up straight and turned her ear to the door as the next two steps identified Sokka as her visitor.

"Hi Toph," he said. "I came to talk about our argument earlier."

"It wouldn't have been an argument if you would just agree with me!"

"I'm not going to go into it again, seeing as we've already had this discussion -"
"Fine."

" –but I hate the thought of you being angry with me. You know that if I could, I would just take care of Quon Li myself, right?"

Toph crossed her arms and sighed, leaning back in her chair.

"Yeah," she said with a hefty sigh. "I do know that. That's why it makes me so mad that you don't."

She heard him take a seat in one of the hard-backed chairs she kept in front of her desk.

"I like being angry at you just about as much as you do," Toph said, "but you know how strongly I feel about this particular criminal. And I know that your damned council is going to let him go next week."

"It's not my council, Toph. I'm the chairman, but we are all individuals, and I refuse to use the position that I worked hard to earn to try and manipulate people into making a decision that could bode badly for them."

"Ugh, I thought you came here to apologise, not to try and prove to me you're right." She stood up, pushing back her light metal chair with an impatient hand gesture. Sokka got up as well, and put a hand on her arm.

"Just stop," he said. "I didn't come here with the intention of starting another fight. I just wanted to clear the air with you."

Toph took a deep breath, and decided to concede.

"Okay, fine. Consider the air cleared."

Sokka grinned as she pulled her arm out of his grip and socked his arm with a solid punch.