Work Text:
Suki is a smart girl. And even though Sokka is clever himself – more so than he or anyone else gives him credit for – he is a terrible, terrible liar.
She is a smart girl, she knows this, but she also knows that she should have figured out what was wrong much sooner.
Peace, as it turned out, was not immediate. For the first year after the defeat of the Fire Nation, they didn’t have time to enjoy any of the fruits of their labor. War hung heavy on them all, and its weight was greedy – too greedy to allow problems such as thinking weigh on them.
Just as well for Suki. She is a warrior – made for war, not peace. The same is true for Sokka; he had long ago told her his hilariously inadequate defensive efforts for his village. Even though they didn’t serve their purpose, Sokka’s ice barricades and watchtowers kept his mind focused on the fight in the same way that Suki’s warrior training did, even before the two had actually experienced that fight. They built themselves for it.
But eventually, nearly a year and a half after Ozai had been defeated, Sokka and Suki had a chance to breathe.
(They were alone in this, however. Avatars do not get breaks, nor do Fire Lords, nor do healers. Sokka and Suki, for all their talents – and Suki knew that they were talented – dedicated themselves to a war. Now that it was over, all they had was what remained of themselves)
They were headed toward the Southern Water Tribe to see Sokka’s father, with a pit stop on Kyoshi Island. While most of the Kyoshi Warriors were scattered in small groups across the four nations assisting in keeping the newly discovered peace, some relocated back to their home. Suki was looking forward to seeing them.
“I hope Ty Lee didn’t take over the town,” Sokka had said, inexplicably sullen about the newest Kyoshi Warrior.
The train was not nearly as quiet as Appa could be, but there wasn’t much to do about that. They did have a private car, though (which Suki had strongly argued against – she and Sokka may be celebrated heroes now, but there were plenty of refugees headed back home who could use the extra space they were wasting).
“She’s really not that bad,” Suki said to Sokka, reaching over the space between them to rub in between Sokka’s furrowed eyebrows.
“You don’t understand,” Sokka said, reaching up to grab Suki’s hand. His voice lowered to a whisper. “She flirted with me.”
Suki had gasped, mock-scandalized. “You should’ve told me sooner,” Suki said, eyes darting around the train car. “I have to kill her, now.”
It probably wasn’t the first time it happened, but it was the first time Suki caught him. That night on the train, Suki had startled awake when they moved over a particular jarring stretch of track. Noticing a distinct lack of Sokka in the car, she got up cautiously, reaching for the fans she had clumsily stuck under her pillow.
Suki found Sokka in a connecting car. It was a cold-to-the-bone kind of night, but Sokka had the window propped open. The wind whipped at her face.
Even squinting, she didn’t have any trouble seeing Sokka as the light from the full moon poured into the small car. When Suki closed the door behind her, Sokka’s shoulder muscles tightened.
“Are you okay?” Suki asked. She was going for soft, but she nearly had to yell in order to be heard over the howling wind.
Sokka turned his head but not his body, only half-facing her. He wasn’t wearing much more than Suki, but goosebumps were nowhere to be found on his bare arms.
Through and through, he still belonged to the Water Tribe.
“Yeah,” Sokka responded, managing an upturn of the lips, but not much more.
Suki hesitated.
(They had never been good at this – but was anybody?)
After a moment, she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Sokka reached to squeeze Suki’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in soon,” he said, then turned back to the window.
It wasn’t an answer, but Suki was cold and tired. She left him alone.
Two weeks into their stay on Kyoshi Island and about a month since the incident on the train, it happened again.
All day Sokka had been quiet and reserved, and his somber mood only grew as the day slipped into night. At dinner, they were alone – Sokka insisted that he wasn’t in the mood to dine with the other Kyoshi Warriors tonight – and he ate slowly, distractedly.
Worry worked its way into Suki’s insides. If Sokka wasn’t endangering himself by shoveling horrifying amounts of food into his mouth, then something was wrong.
The room was nice and cozy as they sat crisscross beside each other. Even still, Sokka kept looking to the window and then the door, like he wanted to escape.
Suki put down her food and sighed. “Are we okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” Sokka murmured, still staring out the window.
Suki frowned. “No, Sokka,” she said, tugging on his earlobe until he met her eyes. “Are we okay?”
Sokka’s face, pensive before, grew a bit restless. “I thought so,” he said. He searched Suki’s face as he asked, “Are we?”
“I hope so,” Suki said. That had Sokka putting down his food as well. “I just feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Sokka hesitated – looking guilty, Suki had thought – but it wasn’t long before his mouth thinned into a straight line. “Don’t worry about me,” he said.
Don’t worry me, then, Suki had thought. Instead, she asked, “Did I do something wrong?”
“Not everything is about you,” Sokka said, and though his tone was not unkind, his words certainly were. He started up and toward the door.
It was like a switch had been flipped. Suki stared after him, exasperated.
“Sokka!” she called, unable and unwilling to stop the anger from slipping into her voice.
He only waved over his shoulder. “I’ll be back later,” he said, dismissive – of her, of her feelings.
Suki watched him go, thinking about how she hasn’t been this mad at him since he insulted the Kyoshi Warriors over two years ago, before she knew him, before she loved him.
“I’m sorry,” Sokka said when he came back later that night. It had been hours, but Suki was still awake.
Suki let him kiss the corner of her mouth after a few more obviously sincere apologies, but he still didn’t tell her what had him snapping at her so easily.
The third time it happens, Suki is not as clueless. Again – she’s clever. When there is a pattern – especially when she is looking for one – she notices.
It’s been another month since that night on Kyoshi Island. The Southern Water Tribe is being rebuilt – and so much progress has been made in such little time, Suki thinks, if Sokka’s uneasiness at the unfamiliar sights around him is anything to go by.
Still, among all the progress, private heating beyond a fireplace is low on the list of things that Sokka’s father and the village elders are working to put in place. Though, to be fair, it’s not much of a priority to begin with. They all walk around wrapped in animal furs and live in ice houses, after all.
Suki, however, only has borrowed animal furs, and does not usually live in houses made of ice. The cold rattles her to her bones, and she spends much of her time wrapped in as many extra blankets as she can find. Sokka has been laughing at her for it ever since they got here. But today, he’s spent much less time teasing her than usual.
As the sun dips lower, the temperature does as well.
Suki watches Sokka carefully. They sit outside their temporary home together, and though Sokka has a clear view of the setting sun in the west, he keeps turning around, watching the eastern horizon intently.
“Do you want to go on a walk?” Suki asks.
Sokka faces her, eyeing her mountain of blankets with mild amusement. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
Suki raises an eyebrow. “Be careful,” she warns. “I haven’t lost a sparring match with you yet.”
That seems to do the trick. The tips of Sokka’s ears grow red, and he stands up.
Suki leaves her blankets behind mournfully. She takes Sokka’s gloved hand in hers, leading him toward the east, drawing him away from what passes as civilization in this frozen wasteland. As the buildings melt away to the snow and the sky, Sokka stares straight ahead, not searching, but fixed. Suki still watches him.
“What have you found?” she asks eventually. She tries not to sound impatient.
Sokka turns toward her, frowning in confusion. “What do you mean?” he asks, but his eyes do not stay on her for long – they stray to the horizon, to the moon.
That’s when it hits her, the memory like a sparked match – Ember Island.
It was a vacation of sorts, but danger had not left their minds. Suki didn’t have the time and the space to consider Sokka’s emotionality when faced with the sight of actress-Yue floating toward the ceiling, leaving actor-Sokka behind.
Suki had laughed. She feels callous.
(Then she remembers another thing. Her and Sokka’s first real kiss on the Serpent’s Pass – how he had been hesitant, infuriatingly overprotective, somber and sullen on that moonlit night. He mentioned loss, but who wasn’t worried about loss when there was a war going on, costing minds and lives every single day?)
Now, Sokka looks to the moon. Suki looks to Sokka.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” Suki says.
Sokka startles at this. “What wasn’t my fault?” he asks, his voice doing that squeaky thing it does when he’s embarrassed.
“You know what,” Suki says, and it stings that he’s still trying to lie to her about it. “But we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
For a long several minutes, Suki thinks that Sokka is going to take her offer of silence. A pit settles in her stomach, growing and sinking. She feels jealous of a dead girl, and she hates it.
“I miss her a lot,” Sokka admits eventually. He stops in his tracks and plops down in the snow. Suki follows suit, wincing at the cold.
He says, “She died in my arms, you know.”
“The Moon Spirit?” Suki asks.
Sokka keeps his eyes planted on the ground. “She wasn’t the Moon Spirit when I met her. She was a girl trying to do right by her people.”
Suki allows the silence that follows. Soon, Sokka adds, “I was tasked to protect her. I failed – she sacrificed herself to save the Moon Spirit.”
Watching the tears that cloud Sokka’s eyes, Suki swallows. She says, “She saved the world, then.”
Sokka nods, but he doesn’t look proud – only devastated. “The year after Katara and I found Aang in the iceberg seemed like the longest year of my life, but it was only a year.”
He sniffles a little, and when Suki reaches over to rub his back, he doesn’t shy away.
Sokka continues, “Less than a year after she died, the war was over. She could be alive now – happy – not having to worry about the fire nation, not having to give her life up for the moon.”
“It’s not your fault,” Suki tells him again, at a loss.
“It for sure is,” Sokka argues, shifting away from her. “I was the one who was supposed to protect her.”
“She sacrificed her own life to save countless others,” Suki tries gently. “It sounds like she didn’t want protection.”
“That’s the time people need protection most.”
After a long moment, Suki asks, “Do you remember what you said to me, when you first came to the Kyoshi Warriors’ training ground?”
Despite himself, Sokka manages a sheepish smile. “You’re all such skilled fighters?”
Suki scoffs, moving to pull the end of Sokka’s ponytail. “No,” she says. “You said, ‘Seeing as you guys are a bunch of girls, I’ll make an exception.’”
Solemn, Sokka says, “And then you beat me up.”
Suki laughs shortly. “I did not beat you up.”
“I thought you were going to break my arm!”
“Anyway,” Suki says, deftly avoiding the fact that she did indeed consider breaking his arm, “Later, when the Fire Nation attacked Kyoshi Island – you stayed and fought alongside us.”
“Poorly,” Sokka points out – and Suki smiles at him. He never would have admitted that at the time.
“Yes,” Suki agrees. “But you certainly tried. It’s in your nature to protect people, even if it can be…misguided.”
Sokka looks down, picking at some stray strand of thread on his pants. “You…humbled me. You shouldn’t have had to do that.”
“I wasn’t trying to,” Suki tells him. “I just wanted to see you get your butt kicked.”
Silence settles over them once again before Sokka speaks up. He says, “It was our fault the Fire Nation even came.” It quickly becomes apparent that he’s not just talking about Kyoshi Island. His eyes swim with tears once again, and Suki swallows down her panic.
“Yes,” Suki says, not unkindly.
“Thanks,” he says, voice breaking.
“My point is, Sokka,” Suki says, and Sokka looks at her. “You’re kind of a disaster magnet.”
Sokka snorts through his tears – Suki thinks it’s an ugly, awful sound.
“But besides that, I mean to say that sometimes we manage to protect the ones we care about,” Suki continues, “And sometimes we fail.”
She takes a deep breath before saying, “It’s going to bother you for the rest of your life. But I want you to know that there’s a reason you felt helpless.” She pauses, considering her words carefully. “No matter how much you may have wanted to, it wasn’t in your power to let the moon die so she could live.”
Sokka lets Suki’s words sink in. Eventually, he says, “I know. But I still feel like it’s my fault. I carry that guilt, and I–” he cuts himself off, choking on his words a little. “I still miss her, Suki.”
Jealousy stings her again, unwelcome. Before she can stop herself, she blurts out, “Would you choose her over me?”
Suki closes her eyes tightly. She wants to pull the words back into her mouth. But when she feels a hand under her chin, she opens her eyes to find Sokka looking at her carefully – not angrily.
“No,” he says, with only a little hesitation. “I love you, Suki. With Yue, I don’t even know if I could have loved her – she was gone too soon. And that’s what keeps me up on nights like these.” He gestures to the full moon. “The uncertainty. Who knows who she could have become if I hadn’t let her down.”
Suki draws him in close, rubbing small, soothing circles on his back. Sokka shudders as he leans into her, and it breaks her heart a little.
They sit there for what feels like an eternity, the freezing temperatures sinking deep down into Suki.
Time passes slowly for Suki, and she manages to stay mostly still as she holds Sokka. But when she fails to suppress a shiver, Sokka stirs. He murmurs a thank you into her neck before pulling away.
Sokka takes Suki’s left hand with his own before throwing his right arm around her shoulders. He rubs her arm, and it does a little to warm her up.
“I feel better telling all this to someone,” he admits, voice mostly steady. “But I don’t think I’m ever going to stop missing her.”
“I understand,” Suki tells him, because even though she doesn’t yet – not quite – she feels like she’s starting to.
Together they sit on the cold, hard ground, hand in hand, and stare at the bright, unwavering moon.