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Katara watched them.
From where she sat on the porch of her home, her and Aang’s newborn cuddled into her chest, she watched them. She watched the way they spoke to each other, the way they acted around each other, the way they transformed when they were together. It was truly a sight for sore eyes, in her opinion.
When they had arrived at Air Temple Island that afternoon, Toph threw around nicknames that were affectionate – by her standards – and derogatory by others, Sokka playfully annoyed her, and she gave him a punch on the shoulder. According to them, Sokka and Toph hadn’t seen each other in a few days, both their jobs as demanding as ever. But Katara would have guessed that they’d seen each other no less than an hour prior as it took no time for them to fall back into their routine. It was always as if they’d seen each other moments before. Nothing ever changed with them.
Katara thought about it some more as she continued watching them fool around. They usually never acted around other people the way they acted around each other. And she knew both of them well enough to be able to make this assertion. She knew Sokka like the back of her hand and she knew Toph as if she was her blood-bound sister. The pair got along the way no one else she knew did.
The funniest thing to Katara, though, was that regardless of how old Sokka and Toph became, the two of them would often heckle and tease her and Aang for being so explicitly in love, but if they took one look at themselves from an outsider’s perspective, they would realize that the four of them were not so different after all.
Two of the people she cared about most in the world were falling in love with each other before her own two eyes and they were too oblivious to realize it.
Or maybe they were cautionary. Maybe they were treading lightly.
They had both been hurt before, they had both suffered losses, and they had both been through the impossible, so it was likely that they were afraid of getting into something without a guarantee of how their standing friendship would take it if anything went awry. But Katara knew that if they gave what they had a chance, they would be legendary.
Not that they already weren’t, but even more so than before.
Tenzin stirred in her arms and she softly readjusted herself as she listened in on their conversation. Sokka was very enthusiastic and oddly charming whenever he spoke with Toph, Katara noted. As his sister, it was only slightly unsettling to see him so obviously flirting with their mutual friend right in front of her. Though during moments like these, when she was silently watching them fall deeper in love from a distance, she found it amusing, both because he didn’t appear to know that he was flirting and how painfully obvious it was to anyone on the outside looking in that he was. And when she would see Toph try to act aloof as he spoke and found ways to touch her when he didn’t have to – the way they had been that day – it put the icing on the cake for Katara.
She laughed and shook her head to herself as she saw Toph’s cheeks tint slightly and heard her call him “Meathead.” Katara could see right through Toph’s little nicknames; all of them. The ones she had for Aang, for Zuko, for her – Sweetness, Lady Twinkletoes, and her personal favorite: Sugar Queen – and the ones she had for Sokka. But the ones she had for Sokka had a certain tone to them and she always said them to him with a particular look on her face – a particular fondness.
Before she could further pick apart what was happening between Sokka and Toph, she felt Kya tap her shoulder.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Daddy wanted to know if you wanted me to bring Tenzin in for his nap,” said her daughter quietly, being careful to not wake her brother.
Katara nodded and gently placed her son in Kya’s capable arms. “Watch his head.”
“I know, Ma,’” Kya quietly said, an eye roll following as she walked back into the house.
She took a very deep breath. Teenagers , she thought.
With that, it seemed that her afternoon of observing two dumbly lovestruck adults came to an end because they were both quickly approaching her with loud laughs. A smile was threatening to appear on Katara’s face, but she suppressed the urge as she said, “Will you two keep it down? We just got Tenzin down.”
“Apologies, Sugar Queen,” Toph said with a sarcastic bow in her direction. “We’ll be quiet if you put your fun vacuum away.”
Sokka snorted, nudging at Toph’s ribs. “That wasn’t as funny as you thought it was.”
“Right, okay,” Toph rolled her eyes. “Then I wonder why you’re laughing.”
Katara was still reeling from the ‘fun vacuum’ joke with a slight scowl on her face. “Hey! I’m fun! I’m just- I’m trying to be a good mother. I want my child to sleep.”
“I’m only kidding. You know I’m kidding,” Toph said genuinely. Then, she cocked her head to the side. “How’s Lin doing? Still asleep?”
Katara smiled at Toph’s concern for her daughter, but her smile widened when she saw Sokka leaning in to hear her answer. Since Lin’s birth and her and Kanto’s separation, Sokka had been there for Toph for every little thing. In fact, there wasn’t a step that she took that he wasn’t there for. They were quite literally acting like a married couple in all ways but one and it was driving Katara absolutely mad.
“Still asleep,” she replied finally, inviting them to sit on the swing she was occupying with a pat to her side.
“I can go check on her,” Sokka offered, a hand on Toph’s shoulder. Katara smirked into her lap, earning a weird look from her brother.
Toph shook her head, patting his hand, and heading into the house. “That’s alright, Snoozles. I need my Lin fix right about now.”
Katara watched as Sokka’s lips twitched as his eyes followed her figure into the house until she disappeared into the room Lin was in. She wasn’t even trying to bite back her smile when he turned back to look at her.
“What.”
She shrugged, jutting out her bottom lip in mock indifference, still with a smile adorning her face. “Nothing.”
“Bullshit if I’ve ever heard any,” he retorted, throwing himself onto the swing next to her. “Why are you so smiley? For having recently given birth, you’re awfully chipper. I remember how grumpy Toph was when she had Lin, it was nothing compared to how you- You’re doing it again.”
Katara had a full-on grin on her face. He could not go a second without thinking or talking about Toph, could he? She attempted to drop her smile and cleared her throat as she readjusted herself in her seat. “Doing what again, big brother?”
“No, no,” Sokka said, turning his body to face her completely. “Don’t do that. Don’t act all innocent when you know what you’re doing here right now.”
“I haven’t done anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He childishly groaned. “ Katara .”
“Sokka,” she started calmly. “You’re thirty-five. It’s not very appropriate for you to behave this way.”
“Then tell me why you’re being so weird.”
“I’m not being weird. You’re being weird.”
“I’m always weird. You’re the normal one out of this siblingship.”
Katara knitted her eyebrows together. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not, but thanks, I guess?”
He groaned again and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her like a ragdoll, then accusingly asked, “Why are you being so smirkey?”
She swatted his hands off her shoulders and gave him a playful shove. “I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Fine,” she said exasperatedly. “You really want to know?”
“Please.”
“You’re in love with Toph.”
“What?”
“You’re in love-”
His hands clapped over her mouth and her eyes widened as they muffled her words. “I didn’t mean for you to repeat it. Geez. Keep it down, would you?”
There was a half-full cup of water on the ground by her feet, so with a quick wiggle of her fingers, she bent the water onto his face. He let go and huffed, wiping at his now wet face with his hands. She chuckled. “So it’s true, then?”
“What? NO. I- no. Why would- No . You’re crazy.”
The way his cheeks flushed and the way he reacted to the revelation of her conclusion made her believe that she was, indeed, not crazy. But she nodded once and said, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Sokka asked, his face still dripping. She could have bent it away, but she decided to let him get pruney as a punishment for being in denial about his feelings. “You- why are you dropping this so quickly? You never drop anything so quickly.”
Katara shrugged, feigning indifference again. She knew that he would be driven crazy by her relaxation, so she let him. “You said you’re not, then you’re not. I could be wrong sometimes.”
She could see the gears turning in his head and she had to try really hard to keep from bursting into a laughing fit.
He huffed. “You never say you’re wrong.”
“But there’s a first time for everything.”
“Oh Spirits,” Sokka said, abruptly standing up and beginning to pace. His voice was quiet but urgent as he spoke. “You’re going to tell her, aren’t you? Oh. No, no. Please, don’t do that. I mean, it’s-it’s not true. At all . I mean- I- No . Not true.”
She decided to stand up as well but walked up to enter her home with another smirk on her lips. “I won’t tell her. Don’t worry.”
“Tell who what?” Toph said joining them again and plopping herself on the swing.
“Oh, Sokka will catch you up,” Katara said smugly. “I’m going to go check on the kids. Have fun out here.”
The smirk on her face widened into a grin as she walked back into her house, relishing in the fact that Sokka was probably out there trying to curse her name as he tried to dig himself out of the hole she had helped him make. She knew that Toph was going to ask him what was going on, and she knew that Sokka was going to lie to her about it, and she knew that Toph would pick up on the lie.
Her matchmaking skills, she thought, were impeccable.
“That’s your scheming look,” Aang pointed out amusedly when she joined him in the kitchen. He was preparing a bowl of grapes to eat. “What’d you do now?”
“I don’t know,” Katara said and turned to look out the porch window. Sokka’s hand was on his neck as it usually was when he was nervous, his lips moving rather quickly, and Toph’s attention was fully on him.
She snickered, popping a grape into her mouth. “Might be another Beifong on the horizon within the next year.”