Chapter Text
She hadn’t left the bed since the services concluded, and they were only informed of the state of their friend through nannies that Poppy sent over. Apparently, Lin hadn’t stopped crying and Toph blocked out the world, unwilling to engage with anyone, including her daughter.
It hurt to hear this, but it wasn’t entirely surprising, either. After all, none of them knew how they themselves would have reacted to such a jarring change in their life.
Sokka paced her living room floor while the group decided to talk with Toph alone, one by one. He waited with everyone else while Katara attempted to coax Toph out of the bedroom. Aang sat in a lone chair, bouncing his leg incessantly and twiddling his thumbs. It was a rather odd sight to see Aang so jittery, but Sokka assumed it was because he wasn’t sure what to say.
Zuko sat on the couch upright and still, his eyes closed. Sokka could feel the Fire Lord trying to summon a reality—any reality—that was an ounce better than this one.
Suki sulked on the couch as well, resting an elbow on the arm and her head in her hand. Tears slowly made their way down his friend’s cheeks.
The turning of a doorknob had everyone jumping in their seats and staring at the doorway. Only Katara emerged, and she looked worse than when she entered the room.
It seemed that his sister’s attempts at comforting and helping Toph were futile.
And it went on like this with every member of the group. One of them would enter, prepared and determined to help Toph with their specific strategy, and they would always leave the room defeated. Even stranger, no one talked about what was said in the room.
One by one the group came and went into Toph’s room, until Sokka was the only one left. He took a deep breath, mentally preparing his intervention speech and determined to help his best friend through the hardest time of her life.
But the second he opened the door, his resolve cracked, and he wasn’t so sure he could help.
……
She lay down on the bed, clutching the side of the covers Kanto used. She felt and heard nothing in the bed they shared—used to share. All she did was replay the scene of the last time they woke up together. Over and over and over, hoping her will to change the scene would eventually become a reality…
~~
His mocking gasp and his playful baby voice woke her. “What’s this? Mama’s almost up! Should we say hi? Huh? Say hi to Mama?”
Toph heard Lin giggle in agreement, and spirits, was it hard to keep still and not smile. But she did, and pretty soon Kanto had Lin hovering over Toph’s face close enough for her little arms to touch.
Unfortunately, Lin hadn’t quite yet grasped the concept of the gentle touch, for she slapped her mother square on the cheek. Toph groaned at the sharp disturbance while Lin and Kanto continued to laugh.
“Linny says good morning,” Kanto said.
“You need to teach her how to say it without slapping,” she complained lightly, turning in the bed so she was on her back.
“Why me?”
“Because she likes you more.”
“You have a point.”
Toph scoffed at Kanto and lightly smacked his forearm. “Jerk! You’re not supposed to agree with me.”
“Hey! You know I was lying, what’s the big deal?” he asked playfully. Lin began to wiggle in his arms, and he gently placed her on Toph’s chest and in her arms. “Lin is very excited for her ladies day.”
“Why do you keep calling it that? The nanny is off today, that’s it.”
“Yes, and you get to spend the entire day with this little badgermole. I’m a little jealous.”
“Don’t be,” she reassured him. “All we’ll be doing is sitting together in silence. If anything, I’m jealous of you.” Toph turned to point a smirk in Kanto’s direction, and he grew quiet. An unusual deviance from the typical morning banter, and she wondered why.
She didn’t have to wait long to figure out what, however.
“Hey, Toph,” he began.
“Hey, Hotshot.”
“Have you ever thought about our future?” he asked.
“Like?”
“Like, what do you think our future holds, what it will be like…” his voice sounded as if he had more to say, but Kanto left the sentence lingering in the air, waiting to be answered.
Toph assumed it was an opening for more banter, so she responded with, “Our future holds coffee and baby spit up.” She kicked her feet over onto the floor and made her way to the kitchen with Lin in her arms, while Kanto quietly chuckled and followed slowly behind.
~~
He asked about their future. Their future. Together. And it all hit her when she stood over his body at the morgue, clutching to the thin, metal ring she found in his pocket what he was asking earlier in the day.
Marriage. He was going to ask her to marry him.
And so she replayed that morning in her head over and over and over, fixing the memory to make it what it was supposed to be…
~~
“What are you asking, Kanto?” she asked, sitting upright in the bed with Lin still in her arms.
“I’m wondering if you’d… um…”
Toph smirked at his erratic heart rate. It wasn’t easy to detect in the soft bed, but his heart was beating out of his chest that Toph could practically hear it.
“Croco-cat got your tongue?” she teased, Lin giggled at her antics as well.
“Spirits,” Kanto groaned, rubbing his hands through his hair. “Why is this so difficult??”
“Just ask me, Hotshot,” she replied quietly.
“Huh?”
The earthbender sighed. Sometimes Hotshot was a little dense.
“I can ‘see’ the ring,” she confessed, then chuckled when Kanto sat up stiffly in the bed. “Just ask me already,” she repeated.
Her calm and steady voice must’ve tipped the man off that he had nothing to fear. Kanto chuckled and inched his way closer to Toph and Lin. He gently placed his forehead on Toph’s and held her free hand. “Toph Beifong, will you marry me?”
A smile grew across Toph’s face. She never thought she’d be the type to settle down and get married, but with Kanto… it felt perfect. Right.
So there was no hesitation in her answer. “I’ve got no plans today.”
“Wait, you wanna get married right now?”
“Why not?” she asked. “Work will be there tomorrow, and Lin and I have the day to ourselves. I think we can make room for Baba.”
He grinned into her cheek like he always did, then kissed her. “Sounds like we’ve got ourselves a date.”
Toph laughed. “That, we do.”
~~
But no matter how many times Toph replayed the memory, it wouldn’t change. She didn’t stop him from going into work, she didn’t give him the opportunity to ask her, and she couldn’t even remember if she told him she loved him.
Now all she had were his lingering scent, the memory of his voice and his laugh, his clothes now rendered useless in her house, and the little bits of his personality she found in Lin.
It wasn’t enough.
She wanted her happy ending or whatever the fuck people called it. She wanted him. She wanted to hear of the future he thought for them, for the question that he meant to ask her for weeks, she wanted life with him.
And now that was impossible.
……
His entire speech seemed to fall on deaf ears, because Toph didn’t move. Sokka watched as her grip on the covers tightened and loosened every so often, as if a thought of Kanto appeared before her and the thought alone was too much to bear.
“Toph?” he called out after 5 minutes of talking to himself. “Can you hear me?”
No response.
He crouched down and reached across the bed to grab her hand. When his hand made contact, Toph immediately sprung to life and snapped at him as she sat up on the bed.
“Get off his side!” she hissed.
Sokka quickly took his hands off the covers. “Toph, I just—”
“No,” she interrupted.
“Toph,” he repeated, standing up. “You can’t lay here forever. You need to take care of yourself. Take care of Lin.”
“Didn’t know I was competing against you for ‘Mother of the year,’” Toph snapped. “Leave me the fuck alone, Sokka.” Toph stood up and turned away from the warrior, her hands crossed over her chest. He didn’t recall anyone else getting such a reaction from Toph, so he took this as a sign of progress.
“You’re lashing out because you’re upset.”
“Upset doesn’t even begin to describe what I’m feeling.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” he agreed. “But staying in here won’t bring him back. And he wouldn’t want—”
“Fuck that, Sokka!” she yelled, spinning around to face him once again. “Fuck what Kanto would’ve wanted! He’s dead! What he wants is impossible.”
“But he wouldn’t want you to waste your life away for him, Toph!” he argued.
Toph scoffed. “What would you know? None of you know what this feels like.”
“We’ve all experienced loss—”
“Oh? Have any of you lost the love of your life to some crazy murderer on the day they were planning to propose?!”
“Toph—”
The earthbender waved a hand at him. “I don’t want to hear it, Sokka.” Toph fell back onto the bed, all of her fight suddenly spent on those bitter and hurtful words. “Just leave me alone. All of you.”
Sokka didn’t move. He just wracked his brain for something, anything that would bring Toph some semblance of peace. She was so heartbroken, and he wanted to fix it for her. Because that was what they did for each other. He protected her, and she protected him.
But how could he protect Toph from a broken heart?
She was snow on a mountain. Stuck in place until just the right tremor sent her down the elevated earth and back in motion, back to some semblance of life.
And he knew what had to be done.
His entire friendship hung in the balance of his next move, but he had to risk it. Toph was worth it, even if she remained furious with him for the rest of her life.
Sokka walked over to Toph’s side where she lay, and he wrapped his arms around her, picking her up and leading her to the door. His small but mighty friend lashed out, throwing her arms and legs in every which way and screamed for him to let go, but Sokka didn’t.
Thankfully, Toph didn’t earthbend at him, but she slammed her fists into his arms in an attempt to break free. The warrior wouldn’t budge; his friend needed to leave the prison she made for herself.
They made their way out of the bedroom, eventually, and Toph Beifong was still furious at him. She pushed, shoved, and punched Sokka, hoping to escape his iron grip. But she couldn’t break free, and the fight she had within her was slowly withering away.
She didn’t want to stay in that room forever. But it was the thought of losing Kanto completely that kept her holed up. What if Toph forgot what he smelled like? What about his voice? His heartbeat was strong and soothing and helped her fall asleep each night, now it ceased to exist. Would she forget all that made Kanto Kanto?
The fear of the unknown ate away at Toph, and now that she was out of their bedroom, she couldn’t go back. Being in the room, especially now, caused her to succumb to thoughts of Kanto again, allowing them to consume her completely with no fight to stop it from happening. She crossed the doorway, taking the first painful steps of moving on... and she had to be dragged to the starting line.
In the back of her mind, she hated herself for pointing all her pain and anger and sadness on Sokka, her best friend. But he absorbed and shouldered every hurtful comment and shove she aimed at him, and years down the line, she would be grateful for his boldness. Still, in the moment all Toph could do was cry and beat at his chest until all the anger left her, and all that was left was the grief. Her fight slowly but surely withered away.
Kanto was gone, and now she had to spend the rest of her life filled with regret and pain and Toph Beifong wasn’t sure how she was going to get through it all.
But the arms of Sokka were strong and warm and soothing all at the same time, and Toph cried in the comfort of them. She sobbed and let the tears fall as she thought of what her life could have been, what it was supposed to be, and how sad her reality would soon become.