Work Text:
"Can you keep a secret?"
The water wasn’t moving fast, but it still hit the rocks at the shoreline and rushed ownward still and down the stream leaving a flurry of whitewater in its wake. If Sokka hadn't been listening intently for any encroaching sound of a snapped branch or tender footfall, he might have missed the question entirely.
They were huddled on the bank, shielded from view from the trail above them by the dead vines of the underbrush, the hoods of their jackets pulled up and over their heads to conceal most of their faces, like they were lying in wait for something besides the trout beneath the recently thawed slush.
The question lingered in the air for a minute; its presence instantly sent a rush of warmth through Sokka's chest in an odd way that he couldn’t quite place. It made him break his gaze from tracking the minnows by the pebbled bank to look at the bundled lump that was his sister next to him.
She wasn’t looking back, and if it wasn’t for the steam dancing away from her face, Sokka would have wondered if the quiet sounds of nature were making him hear things.
It wasn't that he wouldn't keep a secret for his sister. If Katara called him at two in the morning asking for help hiding a body, Sokka could only assume he would ask two things: "Who's" and "Where at?"
There was very little in the world that he wouldn't do for his little sister. But, his little sister also tended to involve herself with things that may not be for her best interest, too.
"Depends," he said, eventually.
"On?"
Katara still wasn't looking at him, but Sokka was still looking at her. Minnows forgotten in the stream and ear trained instead to listen to the puffs of air coming from under Katara’s hood. Her dark hair fell in ringlets at her temple and further obscured her barely visible nose. The tip of which was bright red against her dark skin, and a little damp underneath. It was cold, but they were used to the cold. The uneasy feeling crept back into Sokka’s gut and, suddenly, he wasn't sure if Katara wasn't going to ask him to help her hide a body after all.
With a great amount of trepidation and a high level of curiosity, he cautioned, "The implications of said secret, I guess..."
The huff that came from next to him wasn't reassuring, but it also wasn't a precursor to panic, either. The warm air sent steam rolling out of Katara’s nose like smoke, a little of the moisture clinging to the fur of her hood.
She didn’t immediately follow up with more information, so Sokka reeled in his fishing line, cast it back out, and settled in to go back to tracing the minnows swimming in the water.
When Katara had come to wake him up at Early-As-Shit-AM just a few hours ago, all but throwing his hunting parka at him, her's already on and zipped up to her chin, he should have known there was ulterior motive coming with them on the trip.
For one thing, they hadn't gone fishing together since they were barely teens. And, even then, Katara had only tagged along to make sure Sokka kept his hooks on the line or in the water, or, most preferred, hooked in a fish's mouth instead of his hand.
For another, they hadn't even been back in their childhood home together for twelve hours. The embers still glowing in the hearth from the fire that Gran-Gran had sat next to while she waited for Hakoda to come barreling down the dirt driveway, Sokka riding shotgun.
Katara and Aang had tried to wait up, she told him after she had finished worrying over every inch of him. But with their own jetlag and the fog that had kept Sokka's bush plane grounded for nearly ten hours past its expected departure time, sleep had won, in the end.
Not that Sokka could hold it against them, honestly. He had been pretty much dead on his feet since he had left Anchorage, and had leaned a little too heavily into his 84 year old grandma's welcoming embrace.
That's another reason why the wake-up call had been unexpected.
Katara could be cruel in that usual asshat sister kind of way, but waking Sokka up with only three hours of sleep under his tired eyes was next level monstrous.
Back in the present, Katara cleared her throat and finally turned to look at Sokka fully. He abandoned his listless watch of the water to meet her rimmed red eyes, her jaw set firmly and her nostrils flared slightly.
She looked all of fourteen again, ready to stand up to some bully. Sokka had never been on the receiving end of one of these stares, and he all of the sudden related with Bruce Turgin from high school in a way that he never thought possible.
"I'm scared," she said; voice firm and unwavering and without a hint of the apprehension that clearly was on full display in her eyes.
The breath that Sokka hadn't been aware he was holding escaped on a laugh. "I think that's expected the day before you get married?"
Not that Sokka had any way to know himself, but it was only logical that making such a big commitment to someone else in front of so many loved ones would give a person more than a little anxiety. Regardless if that someone was a tough as fucking nails.
His eyes darted to his line in the water, more relieved now than he had been a few moments ago. He reeled it in from where it had been resting against the current and cast it back out a little further away, careful not to tangle his line with Katara's.
Speaking of... Katara was still quiet, her own pole hanging loosely in her hands. When Sokka looked back over to her profile, he could just barely see her worrying her lip. She was giving the water a murderous glare.
"Not of the whole... marriage part. I'm 100% on that,” she said. "More about this weekend... of being back home. It's making me think about the future and where I'm supposed to be, if that makes sense?"
Sokka watched the line attached to Katara's pole drift opposite the current for a moment. He took the repreve from trying to study his sister to act like he was studying the way the line floated back down stream instead. The way it became taught, loosened itself, drifted back against the current, and then stopped again. Katara was watching it, too, but she didn't make a move to bait on whatever was giving her line a little interest.
Sokka knew his strengths. It took him a little while to build up his confidence; truly feel like he was valuable and not just some burden amongst people greater than him. And there were a lot of those people in his immediate circle. But, he knew he was smart. That he had a keen sense of being able to work his way into learning most trades, and an ability to dissect, evaluate, and plan in a way that he had come to be proud of.
But, by extension, Sokka also wasn't too arrogant to admit to his weakness, too.
Like, his vague emotional capacity. His inability to articulate his own feelings and to react to other people's.
Sure, he could MacGyvera a flashlight to see in the dark, but even with a map and a compass he couldn't navigate these kinds of conversations.
Tentatively, he ventured out with, "This will always be home, you know." It was true. This would always be home. But the words sat stale in his mouth and Katara's shoulders hunched closer to her ears. It felt insufficient in the scheme of things. Like leaving kindling to smolder by itself in hopes of creating a full fledged fire.
Sokka was more proud of where he came from and his heritage than anything else in the world. He loves his village. He loves his family. He loves the dark icy winters and too long summer days.
Life was hard at the literal top of the world. But, he wouldn't have given up his childhood and how and where he was raised for any cushy mansion. Zuko had proven that the comfort of a rich life wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, anyway.
With a scuff of his boot along the stones of the shore and a quick cough to knock away the lodged sentiments in his throat, he tried again. "But, I think it’s okay if it doesn't feel like home anymore." Sokka trained his eye on Katara's line again, watching it drift back towards them. He could feel her eyes on him, and he shrugged, but didn't face her. "The house still smells the same, the air still feels the same, and Gran-Gran and dad still act the same. But, you've changed, Katara. I've changed, too. And I think that's okay."
It took him a long time to realize that caring for something sometimes meant transcending time and space. He loved all the things that he claimed he missed. But, he also loved his life away from here and where he felt needed and accepted and like it was okay to be vulnerable without feeling weak. He loved both the past and the present so much that it scared him that if he started to love one more than the other, that he'd lose both.
He turned to face Katara and gave her a grimace more than a smile, but he hoped the message still came across. "I don't think we're betraying anything or anyone by not wanting to stay. It's nice to be back. It's still home. But, for me, so is Seattle and everyone there. For you, it's whatever country you and Aang are occupying for the month."
With a watery laugh, Katara gave back a mirrored look. He hoped that the message was the same."I wanted to do it right; like mom and dad." The whisper was again barely audible with the water rushing around them, but then she said, with a little more volume, "Aang said he'd ask to be reassigned to Alaska, if I wanted to stay. We'll have to settle down, eventually. So, I guess that's why I'm thinking about it so hard."
Just then, the pole lurched from Katara's waning grasp. Both siblings went for the handle at the same time, Sokka grabbing the upper pole to latch over the dragging line with his gloved hand, while Katara grabbed the leather bound handle and pulled with all her might back towards the shore.
With a quick effort, they managed to get the trout abreast of the waterline and towards their position on the shore. Sokka held the line with the dangling fish while Katara grabbed the body and released the hook from its mouth.
Once their joint catch was secured and deposited into the cooler they brought with them, Sokka looked at Katara with a real smile, the tension from their earlier conversation lost in the midst of their teamwork.
"Isn't one big life event enough for you two right now?"'
Katara smiled back, fueled with a similar adrenaline. Her next words tumbled out a little breathless, but without any other fanfare.
"Three, actually."
She kept smiling at him, albeit a little more shyly now. Like this was the secret that she had been wanting to share, but that it snuck out of her all the same.
Sokka was about to ask her what she meant, hand held aloof above his own fishing pole when Katara's eyes darted down. She tugged at her own parka a little more self consciously.
Oh.
Oh .
"You're...?" he started to say, but Katara was already nodding along. With a little more concern and realization he asked, "The sudden proposal?”
She shook her head. "Aang doesn't know yet."
And this really wasn't a conversation that Sokka had prepared to have at 7 o'clock in the morning sitting by the semi-frozen stream and fighting off days worth of lost sleep.
Oddly enough, the first thing Sokka thought of was not the fact that Aang and his sister actually had sex and how much that made him want to vomit. The first thing he found himself thinking in the face of his sister's desperate gaze was how much they had grown up.
He could feel it in his own bones, even at twenty-seven. Getting up in the mornings was a little harder; he found himself more prone to heartburn from fatty foods and alcohol; and even the cold cut into his bad knee with more teeth than before.
Looking at Katara in all her twenty-six year old body gave ways to similar signs of youthful age. Her mouth was harder set, the roundness of her cheeks long gone, and even her eyes were a steeler blue than they had been as kids.
He didn't point any of this out. Instead, he just rolled his weight back on his groaning ankles and huffed. "I'm going to be a really cool uncle"
"You're not mad?" Katara asked. The tension in her shoulders sagged a little and the creases at her eyes gave way to a more relaxed uptight expression.
"Mad? You mean mad about the fact that my little sister had to wake me up at the ass crack of dawn under the guise of fishing just so she could tell me she got knocked up by her boyfriend of twelve years? Not at all, actually."
Katara turned her gaze back out towards the water, and Sokka didn't have to ask to know that their mom was somewhere floating in her mind. “A baby is going to change so much," she said. Then, with a little laugh that didn't quite reach her face. "I’m awful for feeling so selfish."
Sokka was the plan guy. He wasn’t the married guy, or the cool dad guy. This felt like a conversation that Katara should be having with someone with more of a semblance of wisdom to give. Instead, she was stuck with a severely under qualified brother and a dead fish. "A baby will change a lot. It's going to change everything," he said, sighing. Katara nodded along solemnly, and Sokka could feel the failure in his words. He scrubbed the growing hairs at the back of his shaved head and pushed on. "But, since when weren't you two ready for an adventure?"
And he meant that.
Katara and Aang were two of the best people he knew. Any kid would be lucky to have one of them as a parent, let alone both. The fact that they came together to create another human being was only by some divine design.
"No one else knows.” Not that Sokka really needed to be told, but he figured it was more of a warning out of sibling obligation than an actual threat.
Nonetheless, Sokka mimed locking his lips and tossing the imaginary key into the dark water.
They sat in silence for a while. Recasting their lines and letting the rising run bring a little bit of warmth to their skin.
It wasn’t uncomfortable, the silence. But something sat hard and fast in Sokka’s throat, so he cleared it for the hundredth time that morning. "For the record,” he began, jarring Katara from her own inner monologue. “You're going to be a great mom.” He tried to push as much sentiment as possible in the look he gave his sister. He wasn’t good at this; the emotions. But he meant it. Katara was going to be an amazing mom. "I'm a little worried about Aang's parenting skills, though."
At that, Katara gave a fully bellied laugh. It was like a water dam had been breached. The sun was fully rising now, and it was chasing away the angst she had been carrying with her.
Sokka laughed, too, and the two of them, poles forgotten, laughed until their stomachs hurt and the odds of catching another fish dwindled to nothing.
"Well, at least the sprout will have an OK uncle to make up for it," she said.
Sokka couldn’t wait to prove her right.