Archive of Our Own

Sokka woke to the sound of surf, rather than the seismic presence of Appa snoring, or any of the noises that his friends made when they (always) woke up before he did, and it took him a moment to get his bearings. He was alone in his bedroll on the floor of a room richly furnished in Fire Nation colours. Sitting up, he pushed a hand back through his hair and sighed.

Fire Lord Ozai had been defeated, and yet the situation he left behind wasn't simple. Zuko was on the throne and the public face of his succession was happy and peaceful. Still, in the weeks that had followed, little brush-fire problems started popping up everywhere. They'd been handling them, but for a variety of reasons – including security – Zuko had asked (ordered more like) that Ember Island be cleared of citizens for a while and given everyone quarters there. Unlike his predecessor, Zuko was actually compensating citizens for this, which had caught public interest.

One more plan to show Zuko was not his Father.

On the other hand, the assassins weren't part of the plan.

It all made perfect sense at the time, but soon Suki had gone home when he went to help Zuko with some 'settling in' problems, and then Aang and Katara had gone back to the mainland for some public appearances. That left Iroh and Toph, and then some bright idea Sokka hadn't entirely caught meant that they hadn't come back to the island either.

He'd been alone for the first time… ever, really. It was weird. When you had a sister like Katara, part of you screamed for privacy and independence for as long as you could remember… and then when you had some actual time alone it was peaceful, but hollow.

Or at any rate, he'd become tired of it quickly.

He climbed to his feet, got dressed – he was still living like they were on the road, just with a roof to keep off the rain – and heard the noises coming from the beach. Sokka went out on to the veranda and saw a figure kicking a leather ball around the sand.

It was obviously Toph. She'd kick the ball in a direction, flinging up towers of sandstone to send it careening back at her before she hit it again; dropping the old towers and starting all over again. As he watched, she settled deeper into her horse-stance and grinned broadly enough that he could see a flash of teeth from the house. A ball of stone the same size as the leather one hurtled out of the ground and into the air. Toph shifted sideways to strike the rebounding leather ball, then rapidly sidestepped as the stone one smashed into the ground where she'd been. She hurled it skyward again, turning to strike the leather ball with her forehead – making an audible thump.

Sokka winced as the stone nearly brained her – again – and heard Toph start to laugh. He shook his head. There was no way someone her size should sound so damned evil.

He leaned forward on the balcony railing and called, "Morning Toph!"

In retrospect, he shouldn't have done that. Or at least worked on his timing. Toph startled and spun toward his voice: first, the leather ball bounced off her shoulder, then she went into a hasty forward roll to avoid her stone ball – which dutifully pulverised a tower a little too close to where she'd been.

The small girl dressed in green sat in a sprawl amid the settling dust in total silence for a count of five before a blistering shout of "Damn it, Sokka!" carried up to him on wind that smelled of salt water and (now) dust. He winced.

Okay, not his best idea ever. He'd hunt out some breakfast for the two of them and go down… later. When she didn't seem quite so murderous.

After finding a bag full of fruit and other supplies and waiting for a safe period, Sokka found Toph down by the edge of the water.

She was pacing like a caged wolf-bear he'd seen at a roadside carnival once on their travels, back and forth on the beach. He could see the channel her footprints were leaving in the sand, and from her stance, she didn't seem happy. Maybe breakfast could wait…

A flash of colour caught his eye, and he sighed when he figured out what it was. The leather ball had bounced off Toph when he distracted her and rolled out past the breakers. It was bobbing there happily, so at least it wasn't going out to sea, but Toph couldn't see it – even if she could get to it.

As he watched, a gull came in to land on a rocky outcropping that the waves lapped past as they came in. As soon as it landed, Toph barked "Ha!" and kicked down. A bridge of land shot out of the water, including a crater to cup the 'ball' so that it wouldn't roll away. Toph ran across her bridge, reached for where the ball should have been, and found a stunned gull that flapped in a panic at her hand before taking off.

For a moment, she seemed very fragile.

Then she spun on one heel and stalked back to the beach, as businesslike as ever. Sokka tossed her an apple that she caught easily and sank her teeth into with a vicious crunch.

"So," he said after a moment. "You got back okay?"

"Yep. Iroh's gone for a while, though."

"Any idea when Aang and Katara are coming back?"

"Didn't get a chance to talk to them much, it's all kind of busy."

Sokka threw himself down on the sand. "Yeah. On the surface Zuko taking over the Fire Nation was all roses, but a lot of the military higher-ups still think of Zuko the same way that Zhao guy did – as a worthless exile. No threat to anyone. So they figure they can take over as soon as the Avatar has his back turned. Zuko's been quite… uh… efficient at correcting that idea, but that just means the assassins are getting trickier. Oh yeah, and there are apparently forces gathering that want to put Ozai or, gods help us all, Azula, back on the throne."

Toph looked in his direction, her face drawn up in an exaggerated expression of surprise. She put one hand to her chin. "You mean to say that the public appearance of an event is different than what's going on behind the scenes?! Oh, you are so worldly, Sokka! Please teach this poor, innocent country girl about this thing you call 'politics'!"

She waved a hand. "Duh. Stuff like this always happens when you stop people from making money – like some have been from the war – or get in the way of their ambition. So much of the Fire Nation is invested in being all Militarily Awesome, it's not surprising. And it's not like we don't get assassins in the Earth Kingdom."

Sokka looked at her and felt an eyebrow quirk up. Huh. News to him, really…

She continued. "I've been trying to get Zuko to see if he can trick assassins into attacking him publicly so word of the spankage can spread. Doesn't matter if he can take them if nobody knows he can, it'll just get annoying. Incidentally, Katara and I are competing to see how many we can squash before it gets that far. I'm winning." She paused, reflectively. "Though in fairness, we're not counting Mei."

Toph sat up and glared out to sea, where the ball was still being tossed by the waves. Sokka eyed her and the ball.

"I could go get that for you," he said neutrally. Toph didn't respond.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, listening to the surf and the cry of gulls.

Eventually, Toph muttered, "My parents thought I was helpless ever since I was little. I hate that feeling. It doesn't happen very often," she added sharply, "but when it does it messes with my head."

Sokka sat up and considered her. She was sitting with her arms folded around her knees, and looked like a surly lump of elbows that wanted to bite somebody. He really didn't know what to do when Toph was like this. Things that would help Aang or Katara feel better would probably make Toph feel she couldn't look after herself. Or worse, make her feel that he felt sorry for her. And then she'd punch him and yell, and that would hurt.

It was a problem.

Until Toph, Sokka had never been around someone who couldn't swim before. Being part of the Water Tribe, the situation had just never come up.

Hmmm. He chewed thoughtfully at his own mouthful of apple, then cleared his throat.

"You know, if this is because you can't swim… I can probably help you with that."

Toph's head whipped around sharply, turned more toward the house he'd come from than where he was sitting, but her suspicious scowl was definitely meant for him.

"I can't swim, and I can't learn to swim! No way to know if I'm going the right way."

Sokka had noticed that when being blind actually got in Toph's way, she didn't mention it – she talked about the problems it caused instead.

He shifted around so that he was kneeling closer to her, and shrugged. "Well, you don't need to learn how to swim for it to be useful," Sokka said in what he hoped was a reasonable tone. "I can show you how to keep yourself afloat for a long time, or keep your head above the water if there are waves."

Toph's scowl had degraded to where she was thoughtful, rather than entirely dismissive of the idea. "Someone would still need to come get me."

Sokka noted she didn't say 'save.'

"Yeah," he said gently, "But you'd be in a lot more control. Remember when you got thrown into the sea at Serpent's Pass?"

Toph nodded, her expression turning pensive for a moment.

"Suki dove in after you right away because you were in serious danger. If you decide you do want me to teach you, it'd mean that if something like that happens again…"

Toph's milky green eyes blinked neutrally as she said, "Someone would still have to rescue me, but I could be doing something to give them more time. So if I fell in again, I'd be less of an emergency."

Sokka nodded. "You'd have more control. Of course, doing that at Serpent's Pass would just give the Serpent more time for breakfast, but you get the idea."

Toph grinned slowly – man, she looked feral when she wanted to – and then she gave a sharp nod. Her expression looked similar to when he'd seen her training Aang: focused, martial and intent.

"So how do we do this?" she asked.

Sokka looked thoughtful. "Welll… what you're currently wearing is probably a little heavy. Did you feel like it bound you up or dragged you down at the Serpent's Pass?"

Toph nodded.

"Yeah, find something lighter. I'd also tie your fringe back, otherwise it'll get wet and fall into your eyes."

Toph snorted. "Not like I'm using them."

"Right," Sokka countered, "But just because you're not seeing with them doesn't mean salt water won't hurt. Anything you can do to cut down on surprises or distractions is a good idea."

Toph saluted, or at least did an energetically sloppy approximation of one, and laughed.

"Yessir, Sokka sir!"

He shoved her shoulder, which had the same effect as if she'd been a tree-stump because, well… Toph.

"Aren't you glad I'm here to share my wealth of knowledge with you?"

Toph stood up and vaguely brushed herself down. "Yeah, sure. 'That Sokka,' everyone says, 'Can't bend, but doesn't sink. He's a keeper.'"

Sokka returned from the house he'd been staying in to find Toph unearthing her gear from a pyramidal earth-tent she'd thrown up above the dunes. She'd changed into her Fire Nation gear, lighter fabric for a warmer climate and which would (theoretically) be easier to swim in: loose red trousers that would be the colour of wine if they weren't dusty and sun-bleached, a wrap shirt around her torso of the same colour, and a rust-red sash around her waist.

Sokka had collected his bedroll and gear from inside, slinging the bags over one shoulder. He might wind up returning to the house, but this way he'd have easier access to anything he might need.

"When did you get back to the island?" he asked, dropping his bags close to where Toph had set herself up.

She shrugged. "Sometime yesterday evening, I guess. Had a roam around for a bit for fun, couldn't figure out where you or anyone else was staying, so just set myself up here. I figured we'd run into each other sooner or later if anyone else was still around."

"I think I must have been in the house by then."

"Ooh, must be a well built house… I was looking for the snoring."

"I DON'T SN-" Sokka cut himself off and sighed as he saw blind eyes laughing over Toph's shoulder above her grin. He continued, as if he hadn't said a thing. "What if nobody had been here?"

Toph shrugged again. "I'd have stayed overnight, wandered back to the mainland during the day, then gone up to the palace and harassed Zuko till he spilled about where everybody was.

She looked at him and grinned incredulously as she remembered something. "Hey, did you know that when I was at the palace yesterday, I ducked under this curtain because I wasn't sure where everyone was and these old guys were all like 'No girls in the war-room!' and I said that, firstly, you're not AT war anymore, so this can't be a war-room, and secondly..." she cut herself off and waved a hand dismissively. "Anyway, then some of them were going to start shouting but then Zuko made one of them apologise and said I should get some food."

Sokka took a deep breath, and felt sorry for Zuko. The poor bastard had enough problems at the moment without the people he theoretically needed to help run the country picking a fight with Toph. Admittedly, Toph would be picking the fight right back at them, but they didn't know any better.

Looking thoughtful as another idea occurred to her, Toph asked, "Any idea why Iroh would be going back to Ba Sing Se, anyway?"

Sighing again, Sokka looked out to sea. "I overheard some of that myself. It sounds like Long Feng is making himself the centre of power there again, and nobody's found the Earth King and Bosco yet, so he's going to be harder to get rid of this time. Most people there still don't know the king ever left, or what he even looks like."

Toph looked in his direction and snorted. "What we do then is, see," she rose, gesturing as the ground beneath her unfolded, carrying her up and wrapping her in stone.

"We go up to Long Feng and say," she was a behemoth now, a five meter humanoid rock creature with a small gap for an air-hole at the top, which crouched down with imposing slowness until its head – and Toph's airhole – came close to Sokka's face. "' Please stop making trouble,'" the giant chanted in a sing-song little-girl voice, dripping with raw insincerity in its purest form.

The rumbling stopped and so did the giant. Her voice slightly muffled and distant, Toph said, "The 'please' is very important."

Sokka eyed her. "Come down from there, we have training to do! And you're not going to swim in that thing."

There was a muffled rude noise as Toph let the giant begin to collapse back into the ground. "Not going to drown in a little bay like this, either."

"Yeah, but nobody's letting you on their boat like that, so it's moot."

"Wusses."

"Anyway, if you do that, there'll be trouble."

The giant stopped shrinking. "That's what the earth-bending is for!"

"Not that kind of trouble! Long Feng will say that your family are trying to overthrow the monarchy in a coup."

"He damned well better not!" Toph snapped hotly.

"I didn't say he'd survive, I said it'd be trouble. He'd do the same thing if Bumi tried ousting him, and a lot of the rest of the White Lotus are Fire Nation. That won't fly either. Nobody's suggesting Master Pakku go; he's not the diplomatic type."

Toph jumped down from a final chunk of the giant and dusted herself off. "Pakku? Never heard of him."

"Yeah, well. Current theory is that Long Feng is expecting Aang to go back, since the Avatar is supposed to be neutral, and that Long Feng has had the whole occupation to figure out what to do when Aang gets there. So instead, Iroh is going up to figure out what's going on. He'll be incognito, and Long Feng can try to out-think him."

"Do I get to step on the guy afterwards?"

"Talk to Iroh."

"Done. Are we going to do this or what?"

"Hey, you're the one playing Captain Stampy, I'm ready when you are."

Toph laughed at him and ran down toward the shoreline. Sokka shucked off his shirt and boots, made sure that some towels were in easy reach, and strode out to where Toph was standing up to her ankles in the water. He waded past her until the water was just below his waist.

"Don't forget about your fringe!" he said on the way past.

Toph blew a length of hair out of her face and muttered something under her breath. She took off her tiara and did something to what Sokka had always thought of as her hair-helmet, then shook her head.

Sokka did a complete double-take. Whatever the helmet was, it was complicated, and as it came apart dark tangled hair fell down Toph's back. It was at least down past her shoulders, or possibly seemed longer because it was at least as… poofy… as Katara's hair was. Toph grabbed something that could have been ribbon, growled something unintelligible, and scraped back her long bangs so she could tie it into something approximating a ponytail with the rest of her hair. As he looked closer, he could see where being tied up for a long time, along with Toph's general combat-grubbiness, meant that there were a lot of tangles and knots. Her hair looked a bit like a ostrich-horse's tail, and probably wasn't comfortable. Sea-water wasn't going to help, but he supposed that was a problem for later.

"Wow, Toph."

"Mock and die, Sokka."

"No, seriously, that looks really different."

Toph looked uncomfortable. "The other way means I don't have to mess with it, or cut it, or anything. Except like when it gets down to my chin. It's reliable."

"But if you tie it back, we can see more of your face."

She glanced past him as if he'd startled her, and started stepping tentatively into deeper water. Sokka focused back on what they were doing.

He'd been surprised at the extent to which Toph could look different while still being essentially… Toph. It wasn't that she wasn't a pretty girl normally, but he guessed the change made him pay more attention to her. Aang had said that something similar had happened when Katara dressed in Fire Nation clothes – she didn't look better, but he paid more attention because of the change.

Anyway.

Toph looked pretty. Still feral and grubby, but pretty.

"Okay, the idea here is for you to lie down in the water," he said, holding his hands out toward Toph.

She stepped tentatively towards him, deeply dubious. "I'm not loving this plan," she said. Toph had remembered hearing something about the waters of Ember Island wearing-down stone. That sounded extremely suspicious, as far as she was concerned.

"This will make sense," he said cheerfully. "Trust me."

Toph sighed, and took more careful steps out towards his voice. If the sand in the desert had muddied her sense of everything, this was much… weirder. When they'd gone underwater at the Serpent's Pass, before the Serpent made its entrance, she'd squashed her nervousness and just tried to breathe evenly. The sea on the seabed beneath her then had felt like there was some huge creature lying on top of it breathing, in and out. This was sand, so it was blurry and confused, and it was moving in the water. What she could see was through earth and sand with waves rolling over it. It was like the ground was being licked endlessly, just like the time someone visiting her parents had brought a big slobbery dog when she was little. It had licked her face and she couldn't get her bearings before it licked her again. This was a lot like that, except that it wasn't funny this time.

Plus, it felt like weird earth-dough underfoot, cooled by the sea.

Sokka's hand found one of hers as the cool water went past her waist. He was still further out, but he was a lot taller, too – ridiculously overgrown Water Tribe man that he was… But his hand gave her something to focus on.

Toph took another step, and found herself on something cold, and scaly. She got a snapshot of all its bones and organs from being sandwiched between her and the seabed before it shot out from under her foot. She shrieked, threw out the arm that wasn't already holding Sokka's hand towards him, and fell.

Her butt hit the sea-floor, and although the water didn't close over her head, it did hit her in the face. Roaring in her ears, sightless eyes clenched shut against the stinging water, choking with water in her mouth, she lifted her face to the surface and spluttered as Sokka dragged her toward him.

She was still panicking. Toph seized Sokka's hand in a crushing grip with the hand that had never quite managed to lose contact with his, and caught his wrist in her other hand. She hauled herself toward him, and hit a leg. She climbed it, working her hands up his arm in a mad, splashing scramble. Anything to get out of the water for a moment and clear her head.

Sokka, for his part, was entirely surprised. Toph was making good progress, he was about to kneel down so that the water would be up to his chest, and then she lost her balance and went berserk. Toph nearly pulled him over, then nearly pulled one of his arms off, and then she was all over him like a hog-monkey climbing a tree. He caught a knee to the jaw on her way up, and she used his head and shoulders as handles to get out of the water. He nearly fell over, but managed not to completely lose his balance. For one thing the water was buoying him, and for another he did not want to freak Toph out like that again, certainly not while she was attached to him.

They wound up in a bizarre tableau: Sokka barely balanced in a broad stance, Toph with her legs wrapped around his torso – one leg over a shoulder and the other in an armpit, pinning that arm between Sokka's head and her body. His head was pushed into Toph's side with her arms wrapped around it, and she was panting in the aftermath of panic.

"I don't like the sea!" she hissed eventually.

"I got that impression," Sokka said, voice muffled by Toph's abdomen. "Are you getting down?"

"Give me a moment. There was a thing, that I stood on! I think it must have been a fish, like a flat one. And then I started choking."

There was a moment of silence while Toph breathed deeply. In a small voice she said, "Okay. So I got a fright."

"Yeah, but you're okay now."

"I guess."

Sokka was pretty much pinned. He restrained an imp of the perverse that made him want to press his lips into Toph's side and blow into her belly – since that was one of the few things he could do – mainly because he didn't think it'd help her calm down. And also because in their current position she might pull off his head. There was nothing he could do to make her let go; this was Toph and her legs were a band of steel around him.

"I'm going to kneel down now," Sokka said in what he hoped was an even tone, "So just slide off me into the water. I'll catch you, and you can stand on the bottom."

He felt her nod in silence, and so lowered himself slowly into the sea. He felt Toph's weight come off his shoulders, although she didn't let go of him; she just wasn't wrapped around his head. Sokka turned gently, so she knew he wasn't trying to break her grip, and put his hands on her hips – taking her weight in the water. Toph relaxed slightly, her hands resting on (rather than seizing) his shoulders.

"Okay," Sokka said, stretching his neck with an audible crick. "That could have gone better. Sorry."

"Is your head okay?" Toph asked in a small voice.

"It's fine. What the plan is here, is that I'm kneeling on the seabed, okay? So we're not going anywhere. It's just deep enough for you that can lie down without your feet touching anything."

Toph's expression was tense but thoughtful as her sightless eyes faced past him to the horizon. "Okay."

"Right. The plan is that we shift you around so that you're lying flat in the water like you're on a bed. I'll have one arm under your back, and one under your legs, so you're not going to sink. Even without me, you can just put your feet down and stand up. Okay?"

Toph nodded. Turning around in the water was awkward; she had to go by second-guessing what Sokka was guiding her to do. She was getting nothing sensible from the seabed; it was sandy and underwater. She wound up using her legs to guide herself around, bracing against or hooking around Sokka's legs and hips until she was at right-angles to him, with his arms taking her weight in the water.

She'd been quiet for a while now, lost in thought. Sokka was giving her peace, some time to calm down in, she supposed, but she was thinking of something else now. She had just climbed all over Sokka, and then done it again in getting leverage to shift around with in the water. She generally wasn't embarrassed, but it was surprising at how… natural, this all felt. She couldn't think of anyone else she'd feel safe doing this with than Sokka, let alone still feel safe when she realised she already had done something embarrassing, undignified, and… well… vulnerable.

At the same time, she couldn't think of anyone else she'd want to do this with than Sokka – and that (heh) included climbing all over him. She liked the contact, the way his hands on her hips took her weight in the water – firm but gentle, which didn't make any sense but was the only way she could describe it: firm in that she felt secure he wasn't going to drop her, or was treating her like she was glass, but gentle in the way he held her. She liked the feel of his arms against her, the heat of his skin, both when she cast her mind back to using him like a ladder, and when she had braced her legs against him in the water to turn herself around. And she liked it now, when one of his hands was in the small of her back, with the other under her knees.

Toph felt warm, and safe, and speculative. She liked Sokka. She'd liked him for a while. Initially it had just been a crush, because he was funny and didn't hide behind all of the masks she was used to hearing and feeling on people in 'Proper Earth Kingdom Society.' Brave, even though he was bravest when he wasn't thinking about being brave, as if he wasn't even noticing what he was doing. And she trusted him.

She had to admit, the idea he wanted to see more of her face was something she didn't mind.

Still, he was with Suki. Toph wished that she didn't like Suki. It would make the world much simpler. As it was, she couldn't discount the fact that Suki had saved her life twice, and – in some ways more importantly – hadn't told anyone about what she'd said at the Serpent's Pass. Toph exhaled evenly. That was that.

"Right," Sokka said, breaking Toph out of her reverie. "The idea here is to take big, even breaths, with your arms out to your sides like they were at shoulder-height. Your legs will sink a bit, but you should float. It's normal to feel like you're going up and down; that's because of your breathing, as well as the waves."

His hands were still there – she could feel them warm in the water – but there was less pressure now. They were there in case something went wrong, but she could feel herself starting to float, stably, in the sea. Toph started to laugh.

"You're good at this, you know," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Most teachers make me want to slug them for talking down to me, or because they think I can't handle stuff."

Sokka snorted. "Do you think that towing a blind girl out into the sea is something I'd do if I didn't think she could handle it?"

Toph grinned. "Hah! Fair point."

But then the rest of what he said sank home. She felt herself tense, and as she did, her legs sank down. Sokka caught her and stabilised her against him as she barked, "What do you mean? Have you moved me?!"

She could feel that the water was higher on him now, up to his neck at least, and he wasn't kneeling.

"You did!" Toph poked him sharply in the ribs, the most restrained form of the punch she wanted to give him that wouldn't make him drop her. "What the hell, Sokka?!"

"Ow, hey! You're fine! If you can float like that, it doesn't matter how deep the water is."

"Yeah, well, why did you move me?" she growled. Her arms were back around his shoulders. He was the only solid thing in her world; all she could sense was what she could feel through his body, with the vast muscular nothing of the sea shifting all around them.

"I figured you were ready for the next part. Sorry."

Toph considered him darkly in silence for a moment, finding herself holding tightly to the person who'd pissed her off.

"What is it," she growled as a flat statement.

Sokka thought about moving Toph into the right position, but decided that he shouldn't do anything without explaining first.

"Well, you hold your arms at your sides like when you were floating, but you're more upright in the water."

Toph considered this, then nodded in silence.

"The different part is that you're moving your legs in circles under the water, each leg moving in a different direction. It's a way to keep your head above water if there are waves. You can normally do it for a while and go back to floating if you need to, so you can rest. Theoretically you can do it for days. Of course, ideally you'd be wearing something warm, like a sealskin, if you were in cold water."

Toph seemed willing to entertain the concept, the focused expression she wore when training coming back.

"You're not going to let me go, right?"

"Not until you ask me to."

She nodded, and gradually relinquished hold of his shoulders. Sokka took her by the waist again, and held her out in front of him. Toph held out her arms and started breathing like she had been when floating earlier. She could feel the point of this, which was encouraging her. This was like floating, but keeping herself still in the water with her legs. And she knew she had good legs. It was a little weird, though; she knew how much endurance she normally had when using her legs, but Toph thought she could feel the exercise already. It was as if she was exercising different muscles than normal, or doing so in a different way than she usually did.

"There you go!" Sokka said. "You don't even need to kick that much, so you can save energy and not rock around."

Toph also felt less pressure from Sokka's hands again, like when she'd been floating.

She barked, "Don't let me go!"

"I'm not!" Sokka said, sounding defensive. "You're lifting yourself up in the water and I'm trying not to get kicked. It might actually be easier without me holding you. You could make larger, slower circles with your legs to keep yourself stable."

Toph inhaled slowly, worried at her lower lip with her teeth, and then nodded to herself.

"Okay, you can let go. But don't go far away!"

Sokka snorted. "You're the only reason I'm still here, Toph. Where would I go?"

Toph grumbled something. "Well, don't."

"I won't."

Toph kept kicking for a moment and her expression became calm. Sokka studied her for a moment, shaking his head slightly. She could be incredibly… resolute? Resolved? Anyway, Toph was tougher than he was by a long shot, and it was kind of cool to watch.

Toph's milky eyes flicked sharply in his direction. "Now."

Sokka gently released Toph's hips and backed further away with his arms at the ready to catch her if she lost balance or anything unexpected happened. Toph's focused expression remained for a long count, and then Sokka started to relax.

"See? You're there. Technique perfected!"

Toph's mask of concentration faded to a slightly embarrassed smile.

"Thanks."

"What's the matter?"

"Don't know… I guess I feel silly for freaking out on you again."

"Hey, you're doing a lot better than I would be."

Toph still seemed a little subdued, but holding it together, so Sokka changed the subject.

"Now that, you know, the world isn't going to end in fire or anything, do you have any plans?"

Toph kept her breathing even while treading water and responded without looking in Sokka's direction. "Well, there was a guy with Iroh who said I should go to somewhere called Omashu and see if I could teach him metal bending…"

Sokka's heart sank. "Old swarthy guy who laughs a lot?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Know him?"

"Yeah, he's the king there."

Toph looked startled, before her eyes and grin widened. "A king wants me to teach him how to wreck stuff! How cool am I?!"

Chuckling, Sokka thought to himself that as much as Bumi was a lunatic, Toph heading to Omashu could be really cool, overall. She'd never had someone to really talk to about Earthbending until Aang, and he'd been a novice. If she was playing with Bumi, she might not notice if his metalbending lessons were more of a dialogue.

Of course, he could also imagine them demolishing the city by gleefully hurling mountains at each other for kicks.

"It is pretty neat. You're alright there?"

"Yeah, still good. I can feel this exercising my legs, so I want to do more of it."

He wasn't surprised; of course Toph was going to tackle any new challenge head-on when she found it.

"Anything else on the travel plan once you're done being Sifu Toph?"

She looked more serious then, and was quiet for a moment.

"I'm going to go visit my parents. We need to have a long talk."

Sokka inhaled slowly. In some ways, he was glad. Toph really did need this. On the other hand, he couldn't stop being slightly wary about the whole situation.

"I think that's a good idea," he said. "Any contingency plans for how you want things to go?"

Toph grinned again, but he could see tension underneath it that she was trying to brush away. "You know, the usual. 'Take me as I am because I'm a damned war hero now, and incidentally I love you guys – but I need you to know who I am. And I hope you're okay with that.' The bit I don't tell them is that if they try locking me up again I just bend myself out of there and hit the road. Which would be sad, but I need to try talking things out."

He nodded. "Sounds reasonable. Any plans for how you're going to bend your way out if it comes to that?"

"Easy, I either go out through the walls or floor if they're earth, or take out the locks and bars, depending on where they put me. Nobody there knows about the outstanding glory that is Metalbending!" Toph grinned with a flourish.

Sokka wasn't entirely convinced. "I still think this is something you need to do, but your parents certainly know about the Earthbending, so they might have planned for that."

Toph's smile fell slightly.

He continued. "If those two guys they sent after you ever got back after you stuck them at the side of the road, they know about Metalbending too. And wasn't your parent's house wood?"

Toph scowled, expression darkening as she chewed the scenario over in her mind. "You can be a real buzz-kill sometimes. I mean it's not as if this is a big deal for me already or anything. Thanks."

Sokka looked skyward for a moment before shutting his eyes. Yeah, it sucked, but there was no way he was letting her risk getting locked up without a decent plan.

"Well, you'll have the meteor bracelet to help you whatever happens, and we can come up with some ideas before then."

Toph nodded shortly and said, "Thanks."

Toph was rotating in the water slightly now, so Sokka kept close enough that he could catch her if there were problems. He swam around to face her again. It made a difference to him at least, even if not for her.

"I'm not sure what my plans are," he said thoughtfully. "It'd be neat to go back to the South Pole and see Gran-Gran and everyone else."

"What's it like?" Toph asked. "The Water Tribe people I've met have been neat, but, you know, there was a war on. They weren't really relaxed and at home."

"Oh, it's great. I think you might like it. Aang invented all sorts of sports where you ride animals down-hill…"

Sokka started describing the people in his family and how everything worked, and Toph was listening… she was just a little detached. Mainly she felt overshadowed by an awareness that in a world of ice and layers of warm clothing… She wouldn't really fit in. Not that the people would be a problem, but it'd be even harder to be her than it was when she was still living with her parents.

From what she remembered of Serpent's Pass, she couldn't see through ice. This would at least mean that having to wear warm boots so her toes wouldn't drop off wasn't a trade-off between vision or frostbite… but only because she'd be guaranteeably blind. It wasn't even a safety thing, since she trusted she'd be okay with her friends... but it did mean that there were big chunks of the world that Weren't For Her. And half of her friends were from there.

It wasn't like she'd been planning to stay at the South Pole for a while. But it was weirdly disappointing to find that the option wasn't really available.

She clenched her jaw. Screw it. She'd smash that bridge when she came to it.

"It sounds neat," she said carefully, although meaning it. "I wouldn't be able to see, though, so meeting people would be fun but it'd be… harder for me."

Sokka's voice sounded cheerful. "I had an idea about that. We could take along some gravel and toss it along the ice wherever we were! I mean, the ice is solid like stone (mostly) and with gravel it would have impurities you could see – just like in metal!"

Toph blinked and felt her legs slow. That was… a very interesting idea.

"We have no idea if that'd work, though…" she said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, but when we find Katara she can whip us up some earthy-ice and you can have a stamp around as a test. It'll be for science!"

She laughed, and said, "Of course, keeping my feet from dropping off might be tricky."

He sounded thoughtful now, but optimistic. "It could be an issue in some seasons. Well, most of them. Other parts of the year you might actually be okay. Not comfortable, but okay. The soles of your feet are tough as hell anyway."

Toph preened. "That is true…"

She was relieved in many ways that Sokka had thought about the same things she had from a different angle: the assumption that aside from specific side-trips, the group would stick together. He'd just applied his weirdly creative Sokka-brain to the problem without really noticing he was doing it.

She was feeling a good warmth in her legs now, proof that the exercise was doing something new. Her breathing was still even, but was coming a little harder.

Sokka said, "I think you've got it, and you've got the floating. You feel more confident about this?"

"Yes," she said, then added quickly, "But don't go anywhere!"

"No chance of that. I was just thinking we could head back in if you wanted."

Toph's kicking slowed and she looked in the direction of his voice.

"What? We're not done yet!"

He sounded bewildered. "No?"

"Hell no! I've been thinking about this while you've been teaching me, and there's all sorts of things I need to know."

Yep, he definitely sounded bewildered. "Okay…?"

"The way I figure it, I'm most likely to wind up in the water after something goes wrong on a boat. Serpent's Pass isn't going to be too common, I hope. How do I fall into water safely, so I can start doing all the floating stuff you've been showing me?"

"Huh," Sokka said slowly. "Good question. Best advice I can give is to hit the water relaxed, with your arms and legs mostly at your sides, then throw your arms and legs wide to slow you down. Only trouble is that you're not going to know where the water is to time your landing. You could just throw everything wide and hit the water, but depending on how high you're falling from, the impact might knock you out, or hurt you so that you have a harder time floating."

Toph nodded decisively. "Right. That would be bad. Anything else?"

"Errr… One trick is to hold your breath before you hit the water, so you're not going to inhale anything and start coughing. Again, you won't know where the water is."

Toph felt his hands gently take her hips again, and slowed down her kicking – letting herself be carried by Sokka and the sea.

"The more I think about it," Sokka said, "The more I'm in favour of you not falling off anything into the water."

She laughed. "This was all your idea, genius! If I'm going to learn how to do this, I want to learn everything just in case! How about holding your breath? I mean, when I stepped on the fish before and fell over, could I have just sealed myself up and waited to be above water again?"

"Absolutely."

"Great! I need to learn that, then, because if I start panicking I'll forget everything else. Can we practice that?"

Sokka stammered, "Practice? How do we 'practice' you holding your breath?"

Toph completely stopped kicking, letting Sokka take all of her weight, then followed his arms up to his shoulders with her hands. She felt him stabilise her and pull her closer automatically.

"The water's up to your neck, right?"

She felt Sokka nod.

"So you hold me," she said, pulling herself closer into his body, with her face in the gap between his neck and shoulder, "And then lower us both into the water, so the water goes over my head."

She felt Sokka's heartbeat get faster as she spoke; he really wasn't loving this plan. Toph backed away to where she presumed he could see her and said, "I'll be okay, Sokka. Trust me. You're not holding me under the water tightly or anything, I'm not going anywhere because I'm holding onto you, and if I poke you or anything you just lift us back to where we are now."

There was a long moment of silence in which she could feel his heart pounding before Sokka said, "I'm going to do this slowly," in his tone of voice that said all fooling was over. "So if there are any problems then we stop. You don't push yourself on this one."

She nodded, and felt the warmth of his arms close around her back.

"When we do this," he said, "The trick is to be relaxed. Don't scrunch your eyes shut, just shut them – it'll hold out the water better. Don't take a huge uncomfortable breath, just a deep one. If you want, you can take a few deep breaths first, then hold one and we'll go. Oh, and when we're under water, one tap means we come up. That's all it'll take."

She did as he suggested, feeling the nervousness building behind the walls of her control. "Go," she said.

And Sokka slowly sank into the sea. She could feel the cool water climb up her head, filling her ears with deep drumming and then silence.

Toph's face was in the gap between Sokka's neck and shoulder, and her arms were around his neck. She was held gently against his chest in the water with a firm pressure. She felt the skin of his chest and neck against her face, against her lips… warm smooth skin over wiry muscle.

There was nothing for her but her connection to Sokka's body where they held each other, and the feel of his heartbeat against her, alone in the womb of the sea.

The intimacy was shocking.

She didn't know how to feel, but the one thing she was sure of was that she felt safe. And also that feeling safe when she was under water was crazy, but it was true anyway.

For his part, Sokka's mind had worked quickly through everything that had could go wrong. The concept of holding Toph under the water made him freak the hell out – but she was right, she could handle it. He remembered her firing them onto the airships at the end of the war. She hadn't even been able to see them, she just threw herself at their enemies with him and Suki at her side.

It wouldn't be fair to stop her from doing this, but he really wasn't comfortable with it.

Down into the warmth of the late-summer sea he went with her, just so that the water brushed the top of his head. One arm was around Toph's back, with the other at her hip. The first sign of trouble and all he had to do was straighten his arms to get her into the air. He had to be content with that.

The water stripped all sound away, leaving him nothing but the warmth of Toph's body against him, the feel of her long hair made molten and fluid by the water drifting over his arm at her back... Her face against his shoulder… The way her lips brushed his skin…

He was suddenly aware that holding Toph like this mattered. It was like the world stopped dead, a subtle difference that drew all attention to this moment.

Sokka felt a gentle poke on the back of his neck after what felt like an endless space but what had to have been seconds, and lifted the two of them to the surface with Toph in the lead.

Toph flicked her head back and ran a hand down her face to wipe away water still running across it. After a moment she opened her opaque eyes and smiled broadly.

"See! That wasn't so bad!" she crowed.

He laughed and said, "You did great, but can we not do that again?"

Sokka wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been so close to her, but her smile dropped a tiny notch. He noticed a pang of loss at the idea himself, a gap where Toph had held him that seemed emptier than it should have been.

"Can you think of any other terrifying things you want to learn at the moment?" Sokka asked.

He found himself only partly relieved when Toph said, "Can't think of anything for now!"

"Yeah, the 'for now' is very reassuring," Sokka laughed as he carried them through the surf back towards the beach, but on the inside he felt serene.

"How about some lunch?" He asked.

"Hell yes. Good plan!"

Toph knew that he'd noticed the moment of connection too, which was neat. Mainly, she was glad Sokka had talked her into doing all this. She hadn't realised how much being afraid of deep water had chewed on her at times – she'd pushed it away rather than thinking about it, but the effort had been draining her anyway. For much of her travels with everyone, how she felt about sea travel, or air travel, hadn't mattered: it had been necessary. But now she had more tools to deal with some of it, and that was a relief.

Right then. She felt focused and sharp again. Lunch was a must, and after that they'd have to see. But she could feel her mind turning to other ways of testing herself against the sea…

Toph sat on a towel by where she'd set up her earth-tent and Sokka had stored their gear. The relief of being able to see was huge – she felt powerful and in control, and she wanted to do something. She'd convinced Sokka to raid the house he'd slept in for food to supplement their supplies – slightly evil, but the lure of potential dried meat had tipped the discussion in her favour. For now, she turned her meteor bracelet over in her hands, shifting it into different shapes, and feeling how it stayed cool in defiance of her hands and the heat of the day.

She was having some ideas.

The bracelet was much stronger than it had any right to be, which made sense to her given what the meteor had done for Sokka's space-sword. She flexed the material and shifted it into some shapes she hadn't tried before, long, thin ones that kept the substance densely compressed. It was almost metal itself, in many ways…

Toph could feel the edges of a plan forming, and systematically considered the steps of what she would need in order for it to work. If any of the steps flubbed, then no biggie – she'd just have lunch with Sokka.

She didn't expect to find rope – in part because she wasn't sure how she'd find some on her own, but she found a pier and had a roam around. Sure enough, rope. Strong rope. Toph grabbed a rock, tied it to the end of the rope and fired it out from the pier, roughly parallel to the beach. She figured the water would be a foot or so deep there, maybe a little more.

Now, the next part was going to be trickier, but she needed to practice…

Sokka had scavenged through the house he'd originally stayed in, but there hadn't been too great a haul. Some salted nuts were something that never went astray, but Toph had tempted him with dried meat and so dried meat was what he was going to keep looking for. It took him a few houses, but some nice supplemental jerky for the two of them was available to scrounge. He even left some Fire Nation money around the place – although he wasn't sure how much these things cost. Zuko would sort out the rest, although he thought pointing at the problem and declaring "Fix it!" was probably not the best approach.

He headed back to the beach with his haul in his arms, and found that Toph had moved. Sokka scanned the beach. Her footprints said she'd been roaming around a fair bit, actually… There was a rope tied to a rock, and a section of sand she'd been crossing repeatedly, and…

Why was she staring out to sea again?

Toph crouched, and somehow he was already running, pulse thumping in his ears, before the impact hit. A pillar of rock burst from the ground, firing Toph out into the bay like a stone from a sling.

For Toph, flying through the air was never the issue. It was the total lack of information about when she might stop. She did what she could with the information she had, and mentally timed how long she could feel herself moving upwards. As soon as that stopped, she inhaled deeply, held her breath, and shut her eyes.

The sea hit her with more force than she expected, tumbling her around. Toph did what Sokka suggested and threw out her limbs as she hit the water, so hopefully she wasn't carried too far down…

Except then she realised she didn't know which way was up. She'd been spun around when she hit the water and the world was nothing but a distant roaring in her ears. They hadn't covered this! Toph clenched her jaw. Screw it, she'd go on anyway.

She gripped the meteor bracelet, extending it into as long a pole as she thought would have some strength to it, and poked forward. There was a scrape before it hit something solid. Perfect! She was facing roughly the right way. Toph shifted the end of her pole into something like a spear, jabbing it into the seabed. It lodged, and so she started climbing down the length of the shaft at the same time as she contracted the thing – the probe becoming thicker and more manageable even as it helped haul her towards the bottom.

It worked better than she'd expected. Toph hit the seabottom harder than she'd been prepared for. She thumped into the jagged edges of some rocks, what felt like the branches of a sunken tree tore at her, and she could feel unknown things moving down in the darkness. There was sharp pain from the impact, and without thinking, she opened her eyes.

Sokka dove under a breaker and burst to the surface, powering forward as fast as he could towards where Toph had hit the water and vanished. Not just where she'd hit the water; part of his mind was observantly detached and noted that she was just gone.

He was about to dive under the surface and see if he could find her there when a shockwave went through the sea. A detonation of spray burst from the depths ahead of him. Sokka kept swimming – he didn't know what it was, but it had to be Toph.

Water sheeted of it and agitated waves slopped back over its edges, but there was a pillar of rock protruding from the sea. It had sharp edges, rocks that could rip out the bottom of a boat in shallow water, and by the looks of things some old branches that had been pulled up when the thing rose. Sokka threw his arms over the edge of the rocky platform and exhaled sharply, his breath throwing up a burst of spray.

In the middle of the tower was Toph, in what looked like an uncomfortable position on her stomach amid all the rocks. She was covered in occasional drifts of weed, coughing violently, wiping at streaming eyes, and… laughing.

Sokka pulled himself up onto the pillar of stone. "You maniac! "

Toph rolled over and started laughing harder in between bouts of coughing.

Torn between relief, incredulity and outrage, Sokka paced back and forth with his arms in front of him like gesticulating mantis-legs. "What! The hell! I mean, what were you thinking?! "

Toph finally managed to stop laughing and coughing long enough to get some air, and patted the tower affectionately. Sokka could see blood oozing from grazes on her elbows and knees, and some pretty spectacular bruises on one shin. This did nothing to calm him down.

"I figured out a way to extend what you'd shown me!" she said, with tired delight. "If I can touch the bottom with my meteor-bracelet, I can get down there and make some land. And if I can't reach the bottom, I just float!"

Sokka could practically feel his heart stop for a moment. "There could be anything down there!" He cried. "Beds of seaweed, old fishing nets! Big hungry fish! You might have got caught in something before you ever reached the bottom, or what if the seabed was really sandy?! Could you have raised a tower then?!"

Toph gradually stopped grinning. "That," she said, "is a good question."

Sokka made a shrill noise, flung up his arms and sat down on the edge of the stone pillar. After a few moments, Toph picked herself up with a muffled 'ow,' and sat next to him.

"Sorry if I freaked you out," she said quietly. "I didn't think about it. There was an idea that I had, and then I just… did it. It was supposed to be a test, but… yeah."

Sighing, Sokka leaned against Toph's shoulder. If he thought about it, he wasn't really surprised. Toph had seen an obstacle, and decided to crush it with a head-on attack. He wasn't sure if the fact he wasn't surprised was the scariest thing of all.

"It's just…" he started, "If you had needed help, I wouldn't have been close enough to do anything. That scares the crap out of me."

"Sorry."

He sighed. "Ahhh, I dragged you out to sea without warning you, either." He spun and punched her on the shoulder. "But my plan wouldn't have killed anybody if it went wrong!"

Toph started laughing and threw up her hands in defence. "Why don't we agree to make sure we talk more about what we're planning before we do it, deal?"

"Deal."

The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes on the cold rock, while the sun warmed them and dried the salt onto their skins. The wind carried the raucous song of gulls to them and the surf lapped at this new obstacle blocking the waves.

Eventually, Sokka said, "You realise that getting us back to the shore from here is going to suck, right?"

"Ah." Toph said. "I hadn't thought of that."

Sokka sat bolt upright and declared theatrically, "Really?"

Toph started laughing again. "Okay, fine! Not so clever."

"I think we'll be okay though. I can take us back in another few minutes."

"Thanks."

"Lunch should still be where I dropped it when you threw yourself into the sea. "

"You're not going to let that go, are you."

"Do you think I should?"

Toph snorted, then leaned against his shoulder again. "Thanks for coming to get me."

"Oh, what else was I going to do?"

"I appreciate it anyway."

"S'okay." Sokka considered the pillar for a moment. It was not a subtle change to the Ember Island beach.

"Hey, when we're done, are you going to put the beach back the way the nice people who leant it to us when Zuko ordered them to leave were keeping it?"

Patting the pillar, Toph said, "Huh. Good point."

She turned her face more towards him and grinned. "Guess we have some work to do, huh."

"Pfft. What do you mean 'we,' bender-girl?"

"I guess you should take us back then."

"Yeahhh." Sokka stretched. He turned to Toph and said in a more serious tone, "This probably isn't going to be very fun for you, and I'm not sure what I can do to stop that."

Toph grimaced. "I suppose it's punishment for getting us out here in the first place."

"Well, I wasn't going to say anything… but you're not wrong."

She punched him in the shoulder.

"What I'm going to need to do is carry you under one arm, so we're both on our backs. Do what you can to float, like we started with – it'll make life easier. Kicking would also help, but don't go nuts or we'll go in circles because you're probably stronger at it than me. My arm will be across under your body and one of your arms, so just try to relax. The problem is that you're probably going to be getting water in your face, and we're not going to be fast. It could take a little while."

Toph nodded, getting a feel for what he was describing. "I think I get what you mean. I guess I just shut my eyes and try to learn the timing of when the water comes in."

"Sadly, I don't have a better idea."

Toph stood up gingerly. "The faster we get it done, the faster it's over."

Sokka considered the situation. "Probably the simplest way to do this without bashing you up further would be for you to climb into the water and hang on to this rock, and then I'll collect you from there."

Toph slowly lowered herself into the sea, Sokka beside her in case she slipped.

She gestured at her injuries. "If you think this is bad, you should have seen me when I was little."

"Yeah?"

"Blind kid who can see with Earthbending but people still want her to wear shoes because it's proper, and the blind kid likes to run. You figure it out."

"Ouch."

"And then you should have seen me when I started the wrestling. Innate talent for Earthbending is one thing, and I did learn fast because of my frankly ridiculous talent, but that period where I was figuring out how to time a dodge? That was an interesting month. Well, closer to a few weeks."

He couldn't help it; Sokka started to laugh.

Sokka braced himself against the stone pillar and looped an arm around Toph's body, feeling her warmth against him again. He didn't envy her the trip.

"Ready when you are."

Toph took several slow, steadying breaths. "Go," she said.

The swim was a long, tough slog. Sokka felt wiped by the time they got back to the beach. He'd done what he could to avoid dunking Toph on the way, but he had no idea how successful he'd been.

He reached a depth where he could put his feet down without submerging her face, and thought it'd be a good time to both take a breather and check on his passenger.

Toph could feel Sokka stopping, and it was an incredible relief. Water in her face hadn't been a regular problem, but when it had hit her it was horrible – and she'd had no way of knowing when it was going to happen again. Sokka set his feet down, from the feel of it, while holding her higher in the water. He started turning her around, so she went with the movement.

"You alright?" he asked.

Toph exhaled, feeling the tension start to ebb from her shoulders, started to respond – and then felt Sokka's warm, bare hand close on her leg through a large hole torn in the back of her trousers.

She stiffened in his arms, and said "Erk!"

Sokka froze with a "Guh?!"

Time stretched out in slow motion.

Sokka's mind spun into overdrive, expecting Toph to deck him, confused when she didn't – and then aware that his hand was on soft skin covering a profoundly muscular thigh, just able to feel the curve of her firm ass from underneath.

He swallowed and felt very warm.

For her part, Toph was holding her breath. She'd had no idea the tree-branches had ripped her clothes, let alone there, and she was still processing the initial shock. As soon as she started to mentally unfreeze, a whole series of things came to her at once. Sokka hadn't moved his hand, and had locked up the same as she had. She could feel his heartbeat thrumming as fast as or faster than it had when she'd asked him to help her practice holding her breath, and his skin was getting warmer to her touch. Her legs were down against the front of Sokka's body and felt movement, heat and pressure growing from his crotch.

Toph couldn't help it: she started to laugh. The sound was a delighted, wicked chuckle at the back of her throat. Part of her had always wondered if there was a reason that Sokka had been attracted to – and noticed! – Suki but not her. And she had her answer now! He definitely didn't think she was unattractive, and she had the evidence of an entire organ as proof for her self-esteem.

She felt a nervous electric thrill, torn between the impulse to pull away from contact with Sokka's hand and the breathless possibility of pushing back into it and exploring herself through him. Toph twisted in his grasp, sliding herself down his body even as her arms went around his shoulders, noticing with hungry laughter that he couldn't quite bring himself to let go of her leg through the hole in the cloth as it slid slowly around his hips to where she could support some of her own weight on him.

She heard Sokka babble something, but wasn't really listening. Toph could feel the pressure of his body against her breasts and stiffening nipples, which had woken up and were sparkling from the contact in a way that spoke of more to come. She felt an itchy heat building, a skin hunger – and she had skin right in front of her. Toph nuzzled her face down into the gap between Sokka's shoulder and chin, into the space she fit so well into when he'd held her under the water earlier. His skin against her cheek, her lips... The smell of his skin, the sea-salt drips on the smooth heat of him. Mmm.

Toph felt herself make a noise partway between a laugh and a growl. She pressed her lips into the skin of Sokka's shoulder, kissing and tasting a trail somewhere, it didn't really matter. She felt him inhale sharply and stiffen against her, breath caught in his throat. This whole body that was a climbing frame to her was covered in delightfully wiry muscle responding to her touch, heart a drum held against her. His hands moved in ways she lost the details of except they made everything feel stronger. Lips weren't enough anymore. Toph opened her mouth and bit gently down on the side of Sokka's neck, feeling him gasp against her shoulder and stagger slightly.

Moments beforehand in the Land of Sokka, he'd been startled, confused, and couldn't quite stop himself from drinking in the sensation of Toph's thigh and ass through his hand – with a small part of his mind squealing that he shouldn't keep his hand there just because she hadn't stopped him yet. And then Toph had started to laugh. The sound was predatory and pleased. She'd shifted in his arms – oh wow the feel of her thigh and ass cheek flexing against his hand was unforgettable – which had distracted him further.

He could feel himself responding in ways that made his conscious mind shrill and panicky – they really had to talk about this and oh crap he was sorry yet really not sorry and I mean wow um – and then she began running her lips over his skin. Thrilling sensations shocked down to where he needed them not to in order to think: strong hands running themselves over his back and neck, and all of this hungry contact from a girl in his arms shifting and pressing herself against him. Sokka felt himself run a hand up her back even as the other one squeezed Toph's thigh.

He said Toph's name, fighting to get some mental balance against himself as much as anything, and then teeth ran down the skin of his neck and it made him so hungry. He was tempted to crush Toph against him and explore the tempting skin of her neck, so close to where he could get at it now – but he stopped himself.

"Toph-!" he said again, then felt her face slide luxuriantly back up his neck.

She laughed gently, breath hot in his ear: "Tell me you don't like it, and I'll tell you you're lying."

Sokka held himself still; if she decided to nibble on his ears or pressed herself against his cock, he'd be lost.

"Toph, please-"

He could feel her force herself to relax in his arms – feel her breathing deeply and evenly, till she was just holding him as she had under the water. He felt her face against his shoulder again, relaxed against his skin. Gradually – very gradually – he felt his own heartbeat lose some tempo and the lusty roar of blood in his ears fade.

They held each other.

After an eternity, he asked, "Out of curiosity, of all the times I've asked you to stop doing something, why is this the time you actually stopped?"

He felt her smile against his neck. "You sound disappointed."

"Part of me? Yeah. But… thanks."

He felt Toph take a deep breath as the surf washed around his legs. She positioned herself in front of his face, her expression both calm and solemn, and then leaned forward from where he held her: her forehead touched his, and the tips of their noses met.

"I trust you," she said simply. "I feel safe with you. And if I want to protect that, then you need to be able to trust me. "

Sokka swallowed, and for a moment he could think of absolutely nothing to say. When he did get to it the answer was obvious.

"I trust you too."

Toph smiled at him in a way he hadn't often seen her do, then her opaque green eyes darted to the right and she bit her lip. Sokka felt her shift in his arms slightly, as if the movement was restrained.

Slightly pink, Toph said, "Um, I think you need to move your hand, Sokka…"

Yelping, Sokka jerked his hand away and lowered Toph so she was standing beside him in the surf, babbling that he was sorry.

Toph started wading towards the beach and grinned at him over her shoulder.

"Nothing to be sorry about, but we're having a conversation and it was kinda… distracting."

Sokka felt himself flush, and sternly kept his eyes away from the glimpses of Toph's nude, wet legs through the tears in her trousers. He picked up the pace so he wasn't following her anymore without saying a word, and started to figure out where he'd dropped lunch earlier.

As he passed her, Toph froze for a moment with an involuntary "oh!" before a rapid but subtle retying of her wet rusty-red waist sash so that it went around the back of her pants.

Sokka smacked his forehead with his palm, running his hand down his face. Damnit, she knew! How did she know?! He felt flushed and his heartbeat was up again. Sokka sagged. Of course she knew!

He spun towards Toph and said "Sorry," at the same time as she apologised to him.

Then Toph snorted and started laughing: "If I'd known that I could have shut you up with pantslessness before now, it would have been really useful. Aang and Katara would probably have thanked me!"

Sokka felt heat climbing up his head, past his ears to his scalp.

"I am going to find lunch," he announced with as much dignity as he could manage and waded off, leaving Toph sniggering at him in his wake.

The two of them sat on the grass at the edge of the beach, wrapped in towels. They let the sun warm them, along with the warm ground and sand under their feet, and it was overall a big improvement on Toph's cold uncomfortable stone tower. Sokka had retrieved their scrounged lunch, and they'd been eating in mostly silence for a while now.

Sokka was mainly bewildered that this didn't feel more awkward. Instead, he was silent mainly because he wasn't sure where to begin.

Toph flopped down on her back in the sun, and began: "It's not an accident I tended to stick with you while we were travelling with Aang, Sokka, or that I let you talk me into taking me into the sea. I trust you. I mean, I trust Aang and Katara, and even Zuko, too… but it felt most natural with you. Not sure why."

She started reflectively chewing on a grass-stem, reminding Sokka briefly of Jet – except that she lacked the smirk and was looking almost directly into the sun without flinching.

Toph continued, her tone thoughtful. "I really didn't think we were going to survive the attack on the airships."

Sokka looked at her, startled.

"I was okay with that, though," she continued. "We were going to stop them, and everything else was just details. I was there with you, and that made it better. It meant that I could ignore the uncertainty because if there was a way for us to survive, you'd find it. Maybe by accident while screaming, but you would. It's what you do. And if we wound up dying anyway, then a way out just wasn't there to be found."

Sokka spluttered before laughing incredulously. "You got this from me? Are you sure you were paying attention?"

He looked at Toph to find her facing his direction, and her expression wasn't solemn exactly but she wasn't kidding. "Okay," she asked, "What was the coolest thing that happened for you while you were travelling the world?"

"Training with Master Piandao," he responded instantly. "Learning about and making Space-Sword."

"And you threw Space-Sword away without hesitation to protect us both on that last airship. I could feel you, Sokka. You didn't even blink. No regrets, no nothing," Toph said firmly. "You lost Boomerang the same way, which you'd had since forever. How could anyone not trust you, after that?"

Sokka was silent, and squirmed a bit where he sat. In many ways he wasn't used to being praised – and she was so calmly factual about everything.

"Besides," Toph said. "If I hadn't gone with you, we'd all be dead. I definitely would be, even if you and Suki had found another way."

Sokka looked at her.

Toph shut her eyes matter-of-factly and folded her arms behind her head. "I could never have rescued us with the other airship the way Suki did. I'd have gone down with it."

She frowned, remembering what it had been like to run across the airships they were destroying. Vibrations coming at her from her feet that were the death-knells of a flying giant – and that giant being all she could see in the entire world, tearing apart under her.

And Sokka's hand, guiding and dragging her across the crumbling world.

Sokka didn't really know what to say. He hadn't thought about what the airship raid had been like for Toph – he'd just thought she was brave without realising the extent of what she'd done. He was also aware that if he had noticed and said something then, or now, she'd be angry at him for it. He snorted. Toph was simultaneously an arrogant little glory hound, and yet when she did something truly extraordinary she'd smack you if you called attention to it.

The other thing this conversation did was remind him about Suki.

Sokka groaned and flopped down on the grass beside Toph.

"I have to talk to Suki about this," he said eventually.

Toph glanced toward him and smirked. "Firstly, good idea. Secondly, if you're talking about me being interested in you? Yeah, she already knows."

Sokka found himself standing so fast he wasn't sure how that had happened. "What?! How?"

Toph grinned at him wickedly around her grass stem. "I think that the time she rescued me at Serpent's Pass but I thought she was you and kissed her was probably where she figured it out."

Sokka felt like his strings had been cut, his jaw hanging open. "Buh- wha-?"

Toph laughed at him, before she turned calm and thoughtful again. "Suki didn't tell anyone, let alone you. I always appreciated that."

Sokka sat down again, and the two of them listened to the surf.

"What do you think?" he asked, tone almost entirely neutral.

Toph shrugged where she lay on the grass. "I think if you want to be with Suki, you should be with Suki. It's not hard."

Sokka sighed – and then Toph sat up sharply and rounded on him with a scowl.

"No, Sokka!" she barked. "I can practically feel you getting tense and depressed. I'm not lying, or misdirecting, or trying to be noble."

She opened her eyes wider for emphasis and gestured at herself with a hand. "Honest question, and I'll know if you're telling the truth: do you think I'm a fundamentally noble person? Have you been paying attention?"

Sokka was silent. Toph poked him sharply in the ribs, but without much force.

"No, I'm not. Bei Fong girls know what we want, Sokka, and we're not afraid of going for it." She lay back down on the grass. "I just know that there's a difference between what I want and what I need, and I already have that."

Sokka snorted. "You sound like you've been spending too much time with Iroh."

"Hah, I definitely bounced some ideas around with him over the last few days. But don't worry," she added with grinning insincerity. "I didn't mention names, so I'm sure he won't have figured it out."

She laughed as Sokka groaned and threw himself down on the grass again, then she looked serious again.

"I've been thinking about this while we've been talking, and I'll see if I can explain it." Toph sat upright again sharply and pointed at him like her hand was a weapon. "I don't care if it sounds stupid, if you laugh and make me forget what I'm saying, I swear I'll punch you like you've never been punched before."

He couldn't help it: Sokka smirked and said, "I don't know, you've punched me an awful lot before…"

Toph smiled thinly. "It's not how I'll punch you, Sokka. It's where I'll punch you."

Sokka blinked: "I understand. I will behave."

Toph subsided, after a suspicious pause. "You think this kind of trust happens everyday? My parents don't trust each other like we seem to, Sokka. I think they love each other, but I don't have much room for comparison. Mainly, I think my folks trust each other to have goals in common, but other than that…" she shrugged. "What we have isn't a small deal. Not for me anyway."

She rolled onto her side and looked nervous.

"My Earthbending is pretty damned awesome, right? I am so cool that the Avatar wanted to train with me. So, if I hadn't learned Metalbending, would my Earthbending be any less great?"

She let the idea linger for a moment before rolling onto her back, seeming to relax now that Sokka hadn't already started laughing.

"No," she said. "Metalbending is incredibly sweet to have, but it's not necessary."

Toph looked up towards him with a searching look to her blind-eyes, and an expression of open honesty. "So, if I'd had to trade away Earthbending in order to get Metalbending…?"

Exhaling slowly, Sokka nodded. "I think I get what you mean."

"So I'm not pining for you." Toph folded one arm across her face as she lay on her back in the grass, hiding her nose in her elbow and muffling her voice against some inner embarrassment: "I wouldn't exactly complain if something between us did happen," she said in a rush, "but it's not necessary. I like us being us. And I sure as hell will not do anything at the cost of this trust." She looked fragile for a moment as she said, "I hope us… today… hasn't already done that."

Sokka rolled over and used Toph's shins as an impromptu pillow.

"You're surprisingly together about all this," he said thoughtfully.

Toph shrugged again, although she did seem relieved. "Eh. I've had a lot of time to think."

"Toph?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for talking to me about this. I appreciate it."

"No problem." She took out the grass-stem and found a new one. "I'm being essentially selfish, and I've got practice at that."

Sokka laughed, but Toph quirked an eyebrow at him.

"This is selfish?" he asked.

"Utterly." Toph said with emphasis. "I know exactly what I want, what I am willing to fight to get it, and to hell with anything else. This just means what I'm fighting is me." She looked down her body to where his head lay on her shins and grinned at him. "Mostly."

Sokka felt himself blush.

Toph put her head down again on her folded arms. "It's like Katara said, I'm a realist."

Sokka nodded. Katara's exact words had been 'mercenary little savage with no romance in your soul,' but it was close enough. Besides, Katara didn't really mean what she said once she'd been yelling for that long.

"You knnnow…" Toph said thoughtfully, "If you wanted, you could always come with me when I go to the Earth Kingdom to see my parents, and then go on to Omashu together so I can teach Metalbending. That way, you can help bust me out if there's any trouble. We could even start at the coast and see if I can find Space-Sword…"

Sokka stroked his chin, feeling a surge of excitement at the idea. He'd never even thought of that.

"The idea has merit…" he said, trying to sound mature and distant.

Toph laughed at him, shifted her legs under his head so that he knew to sit up, and then she climbed to her feet. The heat was starting to go out of the late afternoon sun by now, and the wind was picking up.

"Want to pack up our gear and set up in one of those houses?" he asked.

Toph considered the idea before replying, "Yeah, I can get into some warmer clothes now I don't have to worry about drowning."

An excellent point! Sokka dug around and climbed back into his shirt, then started to pack up their towels, clothes and bags.

After a few minutes, Toph turned as another thought occurred to her.

"Sokka, can I ask a favour?"

He kept folding a towel but turned slightly, curious. "Sure."

"If you want to be with Suki, be with Suki. Or by yourself, even, if you want. That'd work too. Do what you want. I mean, if I run into her a few months or years from now and find out that you've been mooning after me…" Toph left the statement hanging. "We'd probably yell at each other for a while, but it won't take long before we realise that the thing we agree on is that you're messing us both around." She laughed. "And at that point, your life wouldn't be worth living."

Sokka shoved the towel into one of the packs more forcefully than he expected. "Is the paperwork for this decision due at the end of the day, or do I have some time?"

The smile dropped from Toph's face, leaving her looking stricken. She reached out a hand, before stopping part way.

"Sokka, that's not –" she started, pausing awkwardly. "I'm sorry. I only meant… that I'd like you to trust me when I say I'm okay with this. However it goes."

He sighed, and felt some of the tension go out of him with it. Apparently this was a bigger deal than he'd consciously realised, and Toph had poked a sore spot. Considering her normal approach to things, she had really been being quite delicate.

Taking her hand, he said, "It's okay. I guess I'm still processing stuff."

He squeezed her fingers before returning to packing his gear.

"You know," he said, "I had some ideas that I wanted to run past you."

"Yeah?" Toph sounded relieved again, and a bit more cheerful.

"I thought about all of those scams you were running with the gambling rings in the Fire Nation, and that you could tell what the symbols were on those rod-shaped dice things. Sooo, if we used dirt or something earthy in writing, do you think you could tell what the letters were?"

Toph looked entirely startled, like Sokka had felt when he learned she'd kissed Suki.

"I have no idea!" she exclaimed, in a way that suggested she was interested.

"Want to try it? The other thing I thought was that if we came up with something… I don't know, lumpy, then blind people who aren't world-class Earthbenders could use it."

Toph looked intrigued, but then said, "Yeah, but I don't know any blind people to write to."

"People who weren't blind could use it."

"Pfft, yeah, but then you'd need to learn to read and write twice, if it wasn't normal letters. It sounded like a pain to learn just the once."

"Well," Sokka said, "It would mean that if you ever do go travelling somewhere for a while, you could stay in touch with your friends."

Toph looked toward him, startled again.

Another idea occurred to Sokka. "Oooh! People who could see could use it to write in code inside normal letters!"

Toph couldn't help but laugh, and she felt touched again. This was a whole other way that Sokka had been absently working at ways of keeping the group together, even if the weird scheme never actually got off the ground.

That was pretty sweet. And it had to have been something he'd been thinking about before today's shenanigans, which was a relief to her.

She really, really, didn't want to lose what she already had, no matter what it might turn into.

Toph knew she was greedy. She'd rather have this level of trust and love, or stay where she was. After all, she already knew how important this was to her, and Toph liked to deal with facts.

They packed up and carried their gear into one of the houses. It wound up not being the one that Sokka had already stayed in, but was closer and had obvious chimneys.

It was getting late in the season for Ember Island, and the nights were becoming colder.

As the sun set over the sea, Sokka had a small fire going and the two of them had unshipped their bags in one of the main rooms of the house. Sokka was sacked out in one of the chairs (overstuffed and upholstered in Fire Nation colours), while Toph was on the floor using her bag as a pillow, dressed in her normal clothes. Earlier, she had explored the torn swimming pants with her hands once she was no longer wearing them. She'd gone slightly pink as she looked in Sokka's direction, then cackled for five minutes. Sokka had tried to ignore her in appropriately dignified fashion.

"I talked to Zuko about another plan for how to get people to leave him alone last week," he said thoughtfully.

"Yeah?" Toph asked from the floor. "You don't think publicly smushing assassins would work?"

"Well, it would work, but it'd be simpler if they never got sent."

"Yeah, but he can't just imprison or execute all of the nobility: he needs them to run the country."

Sokka flagged this statement. It suggested that if Zuko didn't need the nobility then... Yes, well. He resolved to remember this, so he could make fun of her later.

"What I suggested," he began emphatically, prompting a chuckle from Toph, "Was spreading stories – a little zazzed up, maybe – about the people Zuko had spent so long fighting, and then working with."

"So… us."

"Yep. Idea being that if Zuko had been fighting seriously scary people all the time of his exile, and convinced them to help him seize the throne, then the nobles might take him more seriously."

"Hah, I like it. Translate Zuko into something they'll understand, and make him frightening at the same time."

Yep, he didn't think Toph was going to have problems with the morality of the idea. Katara had initially been horrified, but the idea grew on her; Mei had mainly been concerned with how spreading the stories was going to work in a way that would be believable, and not obviously backfire on them.

"So what are the stories?" she asked, tone curious.

"It wasn't that hard," Sokka said. "We just took some tales and gossip already moving around the Fire Nation – particularly the military – and tied them together."

Toph looked in his direction. "What, there were already stories about us?"

"Absolutely. So now stories of how Zuko fought with and then befriended a pantheon are spreading. The exiled prince and his hunt for the Avatar, who was himself backed by Katara Moon-Healer and She-Who-Shapes-Metal."

Toph sat bolt upright, grinning delightedly. "She-Who-Shapes-Metal?!"

"Yep. People on those Fire Nation ships you messed up told stories, not to mention the airships. The tank guys are terrified of you, by the way."

Toph threw out her arms in full Melon-Lord routine. "Out-standing. She-Who-Shapes-Metal! YES."

"What did they call you?" she asked after a moment.

Sokka looked blank; Toph continued in a mockingly slow voice: "In these stories, who do you get to be?"

Sokka looked down at Toph lying on the floor for a moment. "Uh, I forgot about me."

He sat back into the chair, unsure whether to feel relieved or cheated. "Even thinking about it now, I don't know what I'd have called myself." He chuckled. "I don't really stand out next to 'She-Who-Shapes-Metal' when it comes to scaring the crap out of the army or nobility."

Toph reached out and tentatively patted Sokka's foot, since it was what she could reach. She knew that the fact he wasn't a Bender was sometimes a sore-point for Sokka, but even now she wasn't sure what kind of title that they could give him that would be both 'True' and 'Awesome.' Yet they couldn't survive without him. She nodded to herself and decided to put some thought into the idea, possibly getting together with Aang and Katara. Sokka deserved an awesome name too, but in some ways she was pleased that he didn't seem to mind as much as he once would have done.

Something else occurred to her while she was thinking, and Toph frowned.

"Katara healed the moon?"

Sokka paused, feeling a distant pang for Yuei. "...Not really. That was something the army guys misunderstood, but we were around when Zhao tried to murder it. The rumour attached to... the wrong girl."

Toph blinked and sat up, frowning in Sokka's rough direction. "Murder the moon? The actual one?"

"Yep."

"Huh."

Toph lay down again, looking contemplative. She'd never really thought much about the moon, but it seemed like a big deal for everyone else. The most the moon mattered to her was some nights when she'd been sneaking around the family estate to go wrestling the guards could see better than others. She'd learned to keep track.

She sat up again, with a slightly put-out scowl. "You know, nobody tells me these things."

Sokka looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Yeah?"

"Totally. The most I learned about you guys was from that theatre everyone hated. I mean we met, Aang wanted me to train him, and then every minute since we were being chased by Zuko's crazy sister and her friends."

Sokka shifted to the edge of his seat and leant on the arm of the chair.

"You, Aang and Katara didn't talk about stuff when I was training with Master Piandao?"

Toph shifted awkwardly, and Sokka noted points of colour in her cheeks. "Um, we mostly got bored, bitched at each other, and talked about you."

She said the last part quite quickly.

"Huh," Sokka thought reflectively. He had to admit that making Toph uncomfortable was fun. And he didn't get to do it often.

Toph changed the subject: "Speaking of Zuko's sister… if that girl who's now Suki's best friend comes near me with those Bending-stealer hands of hers, I'll destroy her."

"What, Ty Lee?"

"Whoever."

Sokka sat upright, alarmed. "Was she lying when she said she'd changed sides?"

Toph sighed. "No, she wasn't lying… but if she's changed sides once, she can do it again… and she can blind me with a touch, Sokka. Blind me totally. So if she looks at me funny, I'll hit her fast, hard and with no warning, apology or regrets if it turns out I was wrong."

Sokka subsided again and muttered sarcastically, "You sound like you have firm opinions there."

Toph snorted. "Ironclad. I even figured out a way of stopping her flipping about like Twinkle-Toes: drop a pit under her with unstable gravel and rocks the size of oranges before she lands. Let's see how bouncy she is with a broken ankle…"

Man. She could be bloodthirsty when she wanted to be. Sokka found he didn't really have the heart to blame her, though. He hadn't really considered how scary Ty Lee would be if you needed Bending to exist. The girl had scared Katara enough as it was.

Toph looked up at him and threw a pillow to catch his attention. (Yes, this was the only reason. Absolutely.)

Sokka threw it back and Toph rolled out of the way laughing.

Then she said, "While you're bringing me up to speed, who's this 'Zhao' guy?"

"Hmm?" Sokka asked, absently eying the nearest supply of other pillows.

"Yeah, you said before that the Fire Nation nobles take Zuko as seriously as 'Zhao' did. I've never heard of him."

"Huh, good point. Zhao was this high-ranking Fire Nation General-Admiral type guy. I can never tell with them, they've got boats and armies and nobody knows how it all works. Anyway, he chased us and Zuko for some reason. He sent the pirates who Katara stole the Water-Bending scroll from after us again, and attacked the Water Benders at the North Pole. He was the one who tried to kill the moon."

Toph rolled onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows, chin on her palms. She was enthralled, grinning, and eyes bright.

"Katara stole something from pirates?! Actual pirates?! "

He nodded.

Toph was practically fizzing now, and grabbed the pillow he'd thrown back at her.

"You can't leave me hanging like this, Sokka!"

He played innocent. "What, you'd like to know more?"

"Hell yes, I want to know more! In fact, why not start at the beginning?"

Sokka sat back into his overstuffed chair and looked at the ceiling.

"Good idea. We're in no hurry," he laughed, gesturing at the fire, food and comfortable house.

Toph grabbed the pillow and leaned onto it, so she was resting her head and torso on it with her arms wrapped around the other side.

"Absolutely," she said. Then, more thoughtfully: "Hey, you realise that this is one of the first times since we met that we're not trying to get somewhere in a hurry, or people are trying to kill us? We have all the time in the world."

Sokka sighed theatrically. Toph was right, and that felt good.

"Well, it all started when Katara and I were fishing at the South Pole. We got stranded on iceberg, Katara lost her temper-"

"-Yeah, she'll do that…"

"-And a nearby iceberg got broken up as she shouted. Then this big glowy ice-dome popped to the surface, and so she ran over and broke it open."

"Katara did something risky? Awesome!" Toph tossed some salted nuts into her mouth, legs curled up behind her at the knee, her sandy feet waving in the air.

"Yep, she did! I, being the mature elder sibling, suggested caution-"

Toph laughed at him.

"-But she ignored me. And inside the spooky glowy ice-dome we find a weird glowing kid with arrows tattooed all over his body!"

Toph looked at him expectantly.

Sokka sighed. "That was Aang."

"Huh. Aang was in an iceberg?"

"Yep."

"And has arrow tattoos? Weird. Who knew?" Toph shrugged.

Sokka grinned, and kept on with the story as the room became lit more by their fire than the fading light of the sun.

After all, they had all the time in the world.