Meeting – truly meeting – Hama left Sokka with two very distinct problems.
Problem one: getting bloodbent was a terrifyingly unforgettable experience and he'd probably have nightmares of this night for years to come. As if he needed any more.
Problem two: Katara did not take the preceding series of events (learning bloodbending, then getting bloodbent, then bloodbending herself) well at all, disappearing into the forest with tears in her eyes.
One of these problems was much more pressing than the other.
Sokka only needed to follow muffled sounds of sobbing to find his sister – alone, at the river, still illuminated by the ghostly light of the full moon.
"Katara?"
The girl hadn't responded, but, at the very least, she did stop sobbing.
"Uh…how are you doing?"
"How do you think?" she choked out.
"Yep, obvious. Foot in mouth, sorry," he said, squatting down besides Katara and putting a hand on her quaking shoulder. "Talk to me."
"What is there to talk about, Sokka?" Katara responded after a few moments, "What Hama showed me…controlling blood. I can't forget it now. I can't ignore it, this power inside. Even now, I can-I can feel the blood moving inside you, every last drop of it! It's a curse, Sokka! What if I do something horrible with it? What- what if I turn into the next Hama-"
"Hey, hey, hey. Settle down," Katara turned her face to him, a lone tear already sliding down from her red-rimmed eyes; without thinking, Sokka reached out and wiped it away. "That won't happen."
"How do you know that?"
" 'cause you have us, silly!" Sokka pat himself on the chest. "Me, Toph, Aang and whatever stray we'll probably pick up on our merry way! We aren't gonna let that happen to you!"
Katara didn't look convinced, so the boy continued, "Look, I really wish I could bonk Hama on the head with my Boomerang for doing this to you, but…I kind of understand her too. What the Fire Nation did to her was beyond horrible, and worse yet – she didn't have anyone to lean on during her imprisonment. At all. Is it any wonder her head got messed up so bad?"
"I guess…"
"Exactly!" Sokka beamed. "And here you have us, the Awesome Team Avatar, ready to watch each other's backs and fight and bleed for each other!"
"But how do you know it'll be enough, Sokka?" Katara asked.
Sokka gently pulled his sister to her feet. "It was enough for me. Sort of." At Katara's questioning gaze, he sighed. "I know this is going to suck but…remember Jet?" Katara's sharp inhale said everything; the boy had still been a raw spot for her. "Back when we met him specifically. How do you think I caught onto him so quickly? We were quite alike."
"You and Jet? Alike?" Katara sniffed, not without humor.
"Think, Katara. About same age, in charge of a bunch of kids, roguishly handsome, really good with weapons…"
"Disregard the last two," Katara huffed, with beginnings of smile already on her face.
"Hey!" Sokka feigned offence, "I didn't get two sort-of-girlfriends by being ugly! And I'm the only guy in the world who knows how to throw a Boomerang perfectly, thank you! The…uhh….last Boomerangbender! Yeah!"
Despite his painfully lame joke, his sister laughed, and Sokka mentally relaxed. Turning a crying-slash-moody Katara into a smiling-slash-laughing Katara was an art form he perfected.
(Never quite worked if she was angry though, which was a shame, because angry Katara was something like 40% of her regular moods. All the time, basically.)
"I have a hard time imagining you, of all people, as anything close to Jet," Katara admitted once her laughing spell had run its course.
Sokka paused. Heart-to-hearts were really not his specialty, but this one had to happen.
"I don't."
He deliberately met Katara's shocked gaze head on.
"Sokka?"
"…We didn't even have it that bad with the Fire Nation, you know? They only took our Mom," the boy swallowed, "they could've burnt our village down. No," he corrected himself, "that's not even too bad, because we'd all still be together. They could've taken you too, on account of, y'know, water magic, if they so wanted, and we'd be able to do nothing. Then dad would leave with the men and I'd be alone and pretty much in charge of a bunch of little kids and women. Sounds familiar?"
Katara didn't hesitate in the slightest to launch herself forward in a hug. Sokka returned it.
"I'd be left home at the South Pole, stewing in my hatred for the ashmakers for taking everything dear to me to the point of willing to cross any boundaries possible to get back at them," he continued numbly, staring at the moon and blinking furiously, because his eyes had suddenly started burning and did not let up, "and you'd probably be dead, or hauled away to some forgotten prison to waste away until you'd gone nuts. We were lucky to still have each other and Dad. They were not."
Katara pressed her face into the fabric of his shirt. Sokka stopped blinking.
His sister broke the silence first. "I think, after we win the war, we should take Hama back to South Pole. Let her be tried by our tribe's laws."
"I agree."
"...I wish we could do something for Jet, too."
"The best thing we can do for him is stop this freaking war, so there won't be any more Jets at all," Sokka wiped away at the wetness on his cheeks, "or, if that's not enough, I can let my hair grow out, then kick the Fire Lord in the face once Aang defeats him while chewing on a wheat stalk."
Katara's loud exhale sounded suspiciously like a suppressed laugh.
"I still don't think I should use bloodbending," Katara admitted quietly on their way back to the village.
"It's your call," Sokka replied, "but you don't necessarily have to use it to starve and torture a bunch of helpless villagers. You can immobilize an entire squad of Fire Nation soldiers so Toph can restrain them without anyone getting hurt, for example; or force Azula on her knees and keep here there until she apologizes for almost-killing Aang, or…"
"…Or force you to do your own laundry…" Katara sighed dreamily.
"…Or force me to do my owHAT?" the boy sputtered. "Katara, no!"
"Katara, yes!"
"You were literally just afraid of turning into Hama!"
"Is making you wash your clothes for a change really worse than what she did?"
"YES!"
