Chapter Text
Sokka has never really noticed just how white and bright and clean the Republic City Medical Center was before tonight. It’s so white that the lights keeping the place illuminated bounce off everything so much, it feels almost blinding, especially when looking directly at the beams.
The smells of antiseptic and antibiotics have been plaguing him since he arrived, but he is starting to get used to it, despite still noticing the painfully familiar scent. It isn’t like he can breathe much, anyway, considering the mucus that has built up in his sinuses this evening.
The dried tear tracks on his cheeks are beginning to itch, but instead of standing and cleaning up, he reaches and scratches roughly at his face, not caring whether he ends up looking like a cat gator attacked him.
All he cares about is her. And her kid. Nothing else matters.
He takes a shaky breath before leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, allowing him to press the heels of his palms into his eyes and stay like that for a minute. His entire body is trembling again, the way it has been from the moment he found Toph. It’s uncontrollable; he can’t do anything about it except breathe through it in order to stay strong for his girls because he’d be lying to himself if he said otherwise.
When his vision becomes riddled with stars, Sokka pulls his hands away from his face and sits back, his head colliding with the wall behind him as he shuts his eyes again, trying to keep the forthcoming tears from spilling.
How did this happen? Everything was going well. The night had started off so well.
He’d been in his office, looking forward to spending his evening with Toph and Lin, listening to the night’s pro-bending match on the radio, all the while they tried to keep their shouts and expletives to a minimum for the sake of the two-year-old once she went to sleep. It was something they did every Friday—a game, some drinks, and dinner. It was a routine and it wasn’t one that he wanted to give up, not when Toph loved it as much as he did.
She would seldom admit it, but he knows it’s true even when the words don’t cross her lips.
There were about three more stacks of paperwork he had to get through—which meant about an extra hour at his desk—when his office radio came to life with some crackling and a familiar voice.
“You’re such a liar,” Toph’s voice chided through the radio in his office. “A lying liar who lies.”
He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him as he stood to retrieve the receiver and speak into it. “Look—”
“Funny you should say that.”
“Shut up,” he told her, still laughing. “I got caught up, but I’ll be over in at least an hour. And I’ll bring beer. And wine. And wonton noodles.”
Toph was silent for a few seconds in contemplation, then grudgingly said, “Fine. But hurry up. I need to talk to you about something.”
That piqued his interest—and his heart rate, considering how he felt it in his throat when he previously hadn’t. “Talk…to me. About something.”
“Mhm.”
“Is it a bad something?”
“Is there a ‘bad something’ you think I need to be addressing?”
“No—”
“Then, no,” she said simply, a smirk in her voice that he knew he would’ve wanted so badly to kiss away if he had been with her. Maybe it was better that they were at a distance. Safer for him. “But it’s kind of important. Not life or death or another baby bomb—don’t need you freaking out like when you found out about Lin.”
Sokka scoffed. “Hey—I didn’t freak out—”
“Uh-huh, no, of course; I wouldn’t call squealing it out in the middle of a full restaurant freaking out at all,” she replied with an eye roll in her voice. Before he could defend himself, she added, “So yeah, maybe you want to put some pep in your step as you do whatever bullshit paperwork you’re doing.”
“What’s it—what’s it about?” he asks, his hand gripping his pen tightly.
“That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”
He frowns at the one-liner. “You’ve been listening to a lot of movers in your free time, haven’t you?”
“Can’t help it if my kid likes them.” Toph chuckled. “Just finish your shit and get over here.”
Sokka groaned, knowing that it was better that he gave up on trying to get her to reveal anything pertaining to this talk that she was on about. Still, his nerves were mounting despite trying to sound calm and collected. “Okay, but wait.”
“Hm?”
“How is Beifong Junior doing now that you mention her?”
Toph exhaled a laugh at that. “She should be fine. I mean, she’s with Katara for the rest of the night. They’re both at the hospital right now and I’m assuming that Lin is in the daycare center with that nurse everyone loves while Katara works.”
“Oh—wait, why? Why is Lin staying with Katara?”
“Because I need to talk to you,” she replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“And you talking to me warrants the ejection of a two-year-old from her home.”
“Pretty much.”
He was quiet for a second. “I feel like I should be fearing for my life.”
“Maybe you should, but you’ll never know if you never get here, Snoozles, so chop-chop. Promise I’ll make it worth your while.”
After that, all he heard was the static on the frequency and he threw his head back, finding it increasingly hard to focus on his work. The more he thought about what Toph wanted to talk to him about, the slower time went, and he really wanted to be able to sprint the hell out of his office, grab dinner, and know what kind of conversation awaited him.
He wasn’t stupid; he knew what she wanted to talk about if it was at all in regard to them. Or at least suspected what it could be about.
Throughout the last few months, maybe since before Lin was born and some months after Toph and Kanto broke up, things between her and Sokka had… shifted. Old feelings he’d felt for her in his youth began to resurface, and he wasn’t so clueless as to not notice that she felt something toward him, too.
But then, Kanto was killed during Toph’s pregnancy. While Kanto and Toph were no longer together for a while at that point—they’d broken things off amicably before finding out about Lin—his death affected her severely, as much as a family member’s death would. For months, Toph would go to work, get through her day, try to solve the murder, and go home. She just wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened and it took a toll on her.
Sokka’s feelings no longer mattered to him at that point; all he cared about was making sure that his best friend was okay. And she wasn’t, no matter how many times she lied about it, no matter how many times she told Sokka that she hated him for trying to make her talk about how she was feeling. Eventually, she succumbed to her grief and he found her collapsed beside her bed when he came to check in on her after he finished with work one day. She was wracked with sobs on the ground during her fourth month of pregnancy and all Sokka could do was comfort her when he really wanted to rid her of all the pain she felt.
“I don’t want my kid to not have their father,” she’d told him on the ground as she sobbed into Sokka’s clothes. “And they would’ve had him if not for that cowardly piece of shit.
“What am I going to do? I can’t—he deserved to see his kid grow up and my kid deserves to have their dad, and now—”
“Now they have you,” Sokka replied firmly. His arms were around her and his hands were rubbing her back. “And they have all of us. We’re not going to replace him, but we’ll do our best to make their life feel complete.”
She didn’t respond, but he knew that she’d heard him. A few days after Sokka had found her like that on the ground, he discovered it was Lin who saved Toph, not him.
She’d burst into his office then, a look on her face he barely ever saw: fear. He immediately dropped everything and went up to her, asking what happened.
“There’s this—this fluttering. And I’m—what if something’s wrong?”
“No, that—what is it you’re feeling?”
“I told you! It feels like something’s fluttering or flapping around and I don’t—” She paused and practically growled, “Why are you smiling? I’m telling you that I think there’s something wrong with the baby and you’re smiling?”
He was smiling, and he was trying really hard to bite it back, but he couldn’t because, after witnessing the two pregnancies his sister endured, and the third one she was experiencing at the time, he knew what the fluttering Toph was feeling meant.
He carefully placed his hands on her belly, feeling the baby’s movements, and the scowl on her face melted away only slightly as he spoke, “That’s just your baby moving. Nothing’s wrong, but if you really want to, we can go get Katara at the hospital—”
“No,” she said, her hands covering his hesitantly. He went to move them away, but she held onto them before smiling at a sudden motion that she felt. “They’re moving.”
Sokka believes that that was the day he realized that he was in love with her, actually in love, that what he felt for her no matter how much he suppressed it went far beyond attraction or just liking her that way. Seeing her so enthralled and enamored with her baby only confirmed it. But of course, he wasn’t going to do anything about it. It was too soon and she was in a vulnerable, emotional place, and he would never take advantage of her. He didn’t mind waiting for her, and even if nothing happened, he would never forget the way he felt at that moment. He’d never felt that way before.
Toph allowed him to help out with Lin; he practically lived at her place because they either ended up falling asleep after spending their evening together, or she would tell him to just stay over because why would he leave so late in the night?
Seeing her care for Lin with such tenderness, while still being the incredible person he’s always admired, stirs a warmth in him that words can't capture. Every word, every gentle touch she offers their child, adds another layer to his affection. The way she balances strength and softness, handling life's chaos with grace, draws him in even closer. Each moment with her, especially those quiet ones filled with unspoken understanding, makes his heart swell in ways he never expected.
The grandfather clock in the hall struck then, pulling him out of his thoughts. It took Sokka exactly three minutes after this to give up on his paperwork that evening, thoroughly distracted by whatever Toph wanted to tell him. As he finally packed up his paperwork and left his office to get dinner and drinks for them, Sokka figured that he’d become less discreet in the way he felt because why on earth would she want to talk about them if nothing had happened between them?
Well. Calling it nothing would be a lie if he was being entirely honest.
It wasn’t anything huge, but it was enough to make Sokka think about it for the past few weeks.
After a long night of trying to get Lin to sleep following an unprecedented sugar high, Sokka and Toph collapsed on her bed, both of them almost instantly knocking out. Or so he thought because he managed to wake up to Toph’s fingers grazing his face. He tried his best to remain still.
“You’ve been so patient with me,” she’d said so quietly. “I don’t think I’ve ever said thank you for that.”
He wanted to respond to her, but he took too long to do so, and before he could register what was happening, he felt her lips brush the corner of his mouth. Then, a few moments later, the sound of her soft snores filled his ears.
The entire interaction had been living in his head since it happened.
He wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but it didn’t matter. He knew that something had been brewing between them, but she’d gone through so much recently that he wasn’t going to be the one to push. He only cared that she was okay and that Lin was okay. Having her in any capacity made him happy. So he left his feelings at her apartment complex’s door and he made his way up to her place.
“Hey, T,” Sokka had called out as he let himself into Toph’s apartment with the key she’d given him ages ago.
It was dark and quiet, which was not very uncharacteristic of her but it somehow felt odd. The silence gave him the heebee jeebees, but he ignored his discomfort and lit up an oil lamp that brought light to the pitch-black room, then settled the bags of food and booze onto the countertop in her kitchen.
He whistled a tune to himself as he pulled all of the contents out of the bags. Then, he paused, wondering why Toph hadn’t reared her head into the kitchen or sitting room, or why she hadn’t given him some crude remark about how late he was to their very routine night in. Sokka let out a huff and hollered, “Toph Beifong, you better get your ass out here right now or I’m assuming that I get this spread of artery-clogging food all to myself!”
There was an easy smile on his face as he expected her to sneak up on him and plant a punch between his shoulder blades.
But she didn’t.
She didn’t, Sokka realized as he turned around to look into the sitting room, because she was lying on her stone floor in an unnatural position, in a pool of her own blood.
So, so much of her own blood.
Sokka dropped everything in his hands in an instant and he barely registered the shatter of one of the beer bottles he’d been holding in favor of sprinting toward her. “Toph!”
“Fuck. Fuck. Toph? Come on, T.” His fingers immediately went to the pulse point on her neck; he’d picked up enough from Katara throughout the years to know that checking for a pulse would keep him from jumping to conclusions too quickly. It was thready under his shaking fingers, but it was there. It was there.
She wasn’t dead.
The slight relief did nothing to calm his nerves, however, as he stood up as quickly as he could to reach the radio in the corner of Toph’s sitting room. He turned the frequency to the one the medical center was dialed to and he frantically shouted, along with the details of Toph’s apartment address, “I need an ambulance! Police Chief Toph Beifong has been attacked and it—she’s critical. I—please send an ambulance.”
There was some static in return for the longest few seconds until a woman replied, “ETA is five minutes. Is the patient responsive?”
“No,” he said quickly, his watery eyes scanning her unconscious figure. There was so much blood and cuts everywhere on her face, throat, and chest. Her legs were broken and bent in places they shouldn’t have been. He was somewhat thankful that she wasn’t awake to feel the pain he knew that she would’ve had to endure. “She—no, she’s not. Please, come quickly.”
“Five minutes, sir.” Then dead silence.
To Sokka at that moment, five minutes was much too long. He grabbed a throw blanket off the couch, covered his best friend in it, and scooped her up into his arms before sprinting out of the apartment and making sure to lock the door behind him as he left.
He walked as fast as he could down the stairs, through the apartment lobby, and onto the streets of Republic City. He was sweating and shaking and unsteady, but for the life of him, he was going to get Toph to the hospital if it was the last thing he did.
In what felt like less than the five minutes it was supposed to take the ambulance to arrive at Toph’s apartment, Sokka burst through the Republic City Medical Center’s doors, screaming for any and everyone who could help. Immediately, he was crowded by healers and attendants who plucked an unconscious Toph out of his arms and set her on a gurney.
At that very moment, he heard a groan below him, and his chest tightened when she spoke. “Sokka.”
“I’m here,” he said, finding Toph’s hand and squeezing it tightly. “I’m always here. They’re going to help you and everything’s going to be okay.”
“Lin?”
“I’m going to find out, alright?” he promised, tripling the strength of his hold on her fingers. “She’s fine, T. I’ll make sure she is.”
Before she could say anything to him in response, her head lolled to the side and her breathing became faint, her hand going limp in his again.
“I need my sister to work on her,” Sokka said urgently, tears streaming down his face after his brief interaction with Toph just then. Perhaps it wasn’t the look a council chairman should don in a high-stress situation, but he didn’t care about that then. All he cared about was Toph. “Please get Katara. Now.”
His words took effect; his sister appeared within seconds. Katara’s eyes were wide and frantic when they landed on their friend and she shoved everyone out of the way as they pushed the gurney into an exam room.
“What happened to her?” she asked him, that voice of concentration and professionalism that she always put on when she was dealing with a patient. “How did this happen?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Sokka replied, trying to get a look at what they were doing to Toph to no avail as there were too many people around her. “I got to her place and I found her like this and—I don’t know. She was—she must have been assaulted.”
He received no response from Katara, but he did hear a series of murmurs from the rest of the healers in the room with them, which only served to make him more nervous and anxious.
She has no radial pulse.
Her temperature has dropped.
She’s lost a lot of blood.
Could be a TBI.
But what if it’s just a concussion? Don’t jump to conclusions yet.
So much was being said around him, so much he didn’t understand, so much he didn’t even think he wanted to understand. All he knew was that Toph wasn’t responding to anything that was being done to her and he was terrified.
Sokka called out frantically to his sister, who had glowing water hovering over Toph’s head. The tears in his eyes were clouding his vision and his voice sounded nothing like his own as he bellowed.
Katara’s eyes met his, she said something that sounded like Get him out of here, then he was trying his hardest to fight off two people attempting to haul him out of the room. He put up as much of a fight as he could until he could no longer muster the energy to, and allowed himself to be dragged out.
After a while, he tired himself out and was deposited in the intensive care waiting room where there was one other person. Sokka supposed that he lucked out, considering the fact that this other person was asleep and unavailable to force him into participating in hospitable small talk.
And that’s how he ended up where he is now; miserable and waiting for news—any news—on how Toph is doing.
For the trillionth time this evening, Sokka wonders how did this happen? He understands that, as police chief, Toph has made her fair share of enemies with all the arrests she’s made and by simply doing her job to protect Republic City, but he never thought that something like this would ever actually happen.
Some grave voice in the back of his mind reminds him that she’s not dead.
Yet.
And she won’t be. She can’t be. None of it is supposed to end this way.
He’s beginning to spiral again when a small-looking woman rushes up to the waiting area, looking out of breath and tired. His heart leaps into his throat.
“Councilman—”
“That’s me,” Sokka says, without letting her finish. He’s on his feet and following her as she quickly leads him to a hospital room he isn’t familiar with.
“Is she okay?” Sokka finds himself asking as they turn a corner and continue down a long, white corridor. “Will she be?”
“I’ll let Master Katara be the one to tell you that,” the healer says, approaching a door. Room 556. She gives him a sympathetic look, then adds, “She’s comatose right now. There’s more to it than just whether or not she will be okay. Your sister will be here shortly—she is only retrieving some paperwork.”
Before Sokka is able to question her further, she pushes the door open and lets him in. The sight in front of him makes his breath hitch and his question die on his lips.
Toph lays lifelessly in her hospital bed, a paper-like blanket covering her up to her clavicle rather than the hospital gown he knows they change patients into. For a second, he wonders if her injuries were so extensive that she needed the least amount of fabric touching her skin as possible as she was healed. That curiosity melts away when he sees a tube up one of her nostrils and several wires jutting out of her skin and into machines beside her bed.
His feet somehow carry him over to her and his hand finds the cold one at her side before he allows a fresh set of tears to fall from his eyes.
He leans down to press a long kiss onto her forehead, the moisture from his eyes falling onto her cool skin. His fingers come up to brush a few bangs away from her face. There are a few bruises adorning her skin and one nasty-looking black eye. Down her neck and collarbone and chest, he can find the same black and blue and purple bruises along with the recently healed scars that mark her flesh. Even like this, she’s beautiful, but he can’t focus on that right now.
She looks virtually fine, just looks like she’s asleep. He wonders when she’ll wake up, or if she ever will.
“Who did this to you?” he whispers gently, though his anger is evident. Whoever had the grit to do this would surely pay for it; he’ll make sure they do.
Sokka expects the flutter of her eyelids or the quirk of her mouth at his question, but neither comes no matter how hard he wishes for them to.
“We’re going to figure this out, okay? I swear.” He presses another kiss onto her skin, this time, over a recent scar on her jawline.
That’s when his eyes land on Lin.
In the commotion and trauma of the evening, he’d completely forgotten to check on her and make good on his promise to her mother the day she was born, but it seems that the little girl is undisturbed. He assumes that she was taken to the pediatrics wing while her mother was treated since Katara was meant to be taking her home from here tonight before everything happened. His heart falls into his stomach as he softly kisses his best friend’s palm, walks around Toph’s bed to reach Lin, and picks her up and out of the white cot that she’s already outgrowing.
He presses his nose against her cheek and she only hums the tiniest bit in her sleep before he readjusts her in his arms where she buries her face into his neck. He lets out a heartbroken sigh as he holds her. She’s lucky to be so young that she won’t remember this. Or at least he hopes that’s the case.
“Everything’s going to be fine, lovebug,” Sokka says, not knowing whether he’s trying to reassure himself or Lin. “She’s going to pull through and you and I are going to make out like bandits with your mama when she gets out of this. Because she will. She has to.”
The only response Lin gives him is the softest snore he’s ever heard, and it almost makes him smile. It would’ve if not for everything that’s going on. He sits down on the chair beside the cot, kisses Lin’s forehead, and looks at Toph’s motionless state. Something in his stomach clenches as he does so. He can’t stand to see her like this.
He wants her to wake up so he can let her know that he’s there, that Lin is safe, that he’s going to do his damned best to find whoever did this. But that doesn’t seem likely right now.
His eyes are beginning to water again when the door swings open to reveal Katara looking disheveled and distressed. He stands up immediately, trying his best to not disturb Lin in her sleep, then asks when Katara shuts the door, “What is—how—how is she?”
“She could be a lot worse,” Katara tells him, slumping against the wall behind her. She runs a hand down her face before straightening herself out and walking over to Toph to check her vitals with a bit of her healing water. His sister seems satisfied, her actions melting away a bit of the tension in his shoulders. Then, Katara turns to him after she drops a quick kiss onto Toph’s cheekbone, combing her hair back with her fingers on the way up. “I’m glad I was able to get to her as soon as I did. I have you to thank for that. So does she.”
“No, she doesn’t. She never has to. I’m just—I’m relieved I made it there when I did.” He shakes his head, Lin still asleep in his arms as he talks to Katara while looking at Toph. “Just—can you tell me what’s going on? Is she going to—is she—” He can’t even bring himself to finish the question, he’s choking up before he can ask it.
Katara comes up to him and carefully scoops Lin up and out of his arms and into her own. She gently brushes the girl’s thick hair back before walking her over to the cot and laying her back down.
She turns to look at her brother again. “We lost her a few times during triage but we stabilized her almost immediately. After getting her stable, we realized she was comatose—her injuries were too severe, so she needs extensive rest to recover. And this, at least, will allow her body to heal properly and it’ll minimize the swelling in her brain.
“That tube up her nose is a feeding tube. It’ll keep her fed while she’s under. And daily healing sessions multiple times a day should keep her healthy.
“We got one of our earthbending healers to get her legs straightened out. They were clean breaks, nothing to worry about. Whoever attacked her probably—” Katara purses her lips. “They probably stomped on them with the intention of causing the breaks. But she should be up and walking in no time with nothing more than a limp for a few weeks when or, um, if she wakes up.
“Her contusions were the least of it all, but she did get a bad gash on her neck, near her carotid artery, and she lost a lot of blood because of that and the rest of the slashes and stab wounds she got, but it’s—it’s all under control now. But we won’t know just how well she’s doing until she’s awake and responsive.”
Sokka takes a minute to absorb what’s just been told to him. What Katara said seems to be generally positive save for the fact that Toph’s heart stopped more than once upon arrival at the hospital. It seems like it’s just a waiting game, but that’s not enough for Sokka. He can’t lose her.
“And when is she—” Sokka stops for a second to rephrase his question. “Is she going to wake up?”
Katara’s hesitation scares him, but when she opens her mouth, he knows that she won’t lie to him. “She lost a lot of blood, and that’s essentially what put her in a coma. We don’t know how long it’ll take for her to wake up. It’s up to her body when she does; that means days, weeks, or months. But considering the swelling in her brain, I can’t—I don’t know, Sokka. If we’re talking odds… I’d say about seventy/thirty in favor of her waking up. But I am expecting her to wake up with continuous treatment, so let’s focus on that.”
Sokka nods, jaw working, chest constricted. He doesn’t know what to think or say, but all he knows is that he’s terrified of what might happen. He’s not ready to lose Toph, he’s not ready to live in a world without her because of someone who couldn’t help but hurt her when her guard was down. When he doesn’t respond, Katara comes up to him wordlessly, hands rubbing soothing circles on his back before he lets himself be embraced. He feels absolutely defeated; the mere idea of his best friend being so close to death and in the state she’s currently in is breaking him. And there’s nothing he can do about it.
He doesn’t know how long they stay like this, her holding him and him trying to keep himself from breaking with Lin in the room, but they eventually find themselves sitting across from each other, Lin’s cot beside Katara.
“There are a few things we need to talk about,” Katara tells him when he’s calmed down and has some water. She pulls out a bag full of familiar items, all clearly belonging to Toph. “But I figured you should take this first, for safekeeping.”
Sokka takes the bag and looks through it. He finds a few things that Toph must’ve had on her person when she was attacked. He moves the contents of the sack around to find some money, her identification, a rock or two that he knows she always carries around, and her meteorite, which is currently in the form of a bracelet with a few specks of blood on it from what he can tell. His jaw tightens as he keeps a strong hold on the bag. None of this should be happening.
Finally, he clears his throat, nodding at Katara. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” she says softly. Then, she grows more serious. “The next part is a bit more complicated. I can have the medical center attorney come by to give you the details if you would rather, but I know my way around this type of thing, so just let me know.”
“Attorney? Wh—no. Of course I'd rather you talk to me,” Sokka says firmly, suddenly becoming more anxious. “What’s this about? Why would I need an attorney?”
She stands up and grabs a folder off a table on wheels; he hadn’t noticed it before now. As she sits, she says, “According to these forms, you are legally Toph’s healthcare proxy. So you’re assigned to make decisions for her if she ends up, um, incapable of doing so, like she is now. I know you’re aware of this already but we just needed to remind you.”
He’s never been one to make decisions for anyone, let alone his stubborn and self-assured best friend. He knew about this, they’d talked about it; about her making him her person to contact if anything goes wrong, especially considering her line of work. He didn’t even have to think about it. But the fact that it’s all becoming real is freaking him out.
He swallows, trying to find the right words to ask. “That means that I have to decide if she lives or—or dies, right?”
“Yes,” she replies, then quickly adds, “but only if it comes down to it. It might not. It involves a lot of other things, like deciding what procedures are done on her and such.”
Sokka knows Toph enough to know that she wouldn’t want extreme measures to be taken if there were to be any to take, but does he trust himself to make that decision when or if the time comes? The last thing he wants is for her to suffer, but he knows that he’s selfish enough to want to keep her alive and hold out hope for her waking up.
“Hopefully, we won’t have to worry about life-saving measures,” Katara says as if reading his thoughts. She looks so worried about him and he wishes that any and all of her concern would be reserved for Toph. “The wish is that you just consent to any healing procedures that might help with her recovery; what’s really important, though, is this next part.”
His eyes fall to the documents in his sister’s lap as she riffles through them until she finds the one she wants and pulls it to the top of the small, organized pile. “You know you’re responsible for taking care of Lin when and if Toph is unable to as Lin’s guardian, correct?”
“I know she wants me to look after Lin if anything were to happen to her,” he replies quickly, and with something tugging at his stomach, he asks, “but wouldn’t her parents be in charge since they’re, you know, blood relation? And they’ve got their, uh, family title thing going on?”
“Uh, well,” Katara looks down at the documents in her hand with some confusion. “Not exactly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She keeps her eyes on the document as if trying to see if there’s anything she’s missing, which makes him increasingly nervous. “It means that you are the one who’s supposed to be in charge of Lin, even above her parents, because that’s how Toph wants it; it’s what you consented to.”
Sokka blinks once, twice, five times, attempting to understand the words that just came out of his sister’s mouth. “I did what now?”
“To avoid Lin’s guardianship being taken over by Mr. and Mrs. Beifong or her being thrown into the foster system, Toph drew up documents to show that it would be you who takes Lin, who legally becomes her guardian in the event of, well, a—a coma or death.” Katara shakes her head, looking down at the folder in her lap before handing them over to him. “I thought you knew this; your signature is right there.”
Again, he blinks at Katara then looks down at the documents, and sure enough, right on the dotted line, was his signature.
Only, it wasn’t.
Sokka instantly sighs, knowing full well that he didn’t sign anything having to do with being Lin’s legal guardian. Sure, there had been a conversation one night when she and Kanto asked him to care for Lin, keep an eye on her if anything happened to them. And after Kanto’s death, Sokka somehow slipped into a more active role in the girl’s life, not only to help Toph but to also be there for Lin, who he adores. But he never thought he would be The Person for the job, that she would trust him more than her own family.
He supposes that it shouldn’t really surprise him; she’s never fully trusted or depended on her parents after she ran away during the war, or even when she halfway reconciled with them sometime after, but he reserves the right to be shocked about the gravity of it, doesn’t he?
Regardless, Toph must have had someone forge the signature; he wouldn’t put that past her.
He shouldn’t be surprised at it, either. But he would’ve said yes had she asked him directly. Or at least, he likes to think he would have.
Shaking his head to try to rid himself of the shock, Sokka watches Toph’s unconscious figure, wishing for something he can do to wake her, to make her okay again, but he knows that this is going to be a waiting game. He casts a gentle glance at Lin, who is still asleep in the cot. She has no idea what’s going on.
The last thing he wants is to get in the middle of family affairs. Of course, he wants what Toph wants, and he wants to be the one to care for Lin more than anything because he doesn’t really fancy the girl living in Gaoling, so far from him and everyone she’s familiar with, on a permanent basis, but the idea of Lao and Poppy making his guardianship of her impossible is already daunting.
When he doesn’t reply, Katara’s hand falls on his, which rests on Toph’s ankle. “I can get you out of this if you need me to, but you should know that if she went to what seems like illegal lengths to get this signed, she trusts that you’ll know what to do. And you know that she would do the same for you.”
Of course, his sister is right. But it’s not making him feel any better.
If Toph trusts him, though, he has to trust her call.
He has to do this. For Toph.
For Lin.
“You don’t—you don’t have to get me out of it,” he says to Katara, who nods in return, scribbling something down on the face of the folder before setting it on her lap.
“You won’t be doing this alone, you know,” Katara says, looking at him tenderly. “We’re all going to be here for you: Zuko, Suki, Aang, and me. We’re all here for you. And for Toph and Lin.”
Taking a shuddering breath and holding back the tears that threaten to fall as he nods at his sister in acknowledgment, Sokka stands up and leans over to Toph, takes her hand in his, and squeezes with conviction. He leans down to brush the warm shell of her ear as he whispers, “You better wake up, T.”
His only response is the sound of her slow inhales and exhales beside him.