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1.
"I'm having a baby, Katara," Toph says. "I'm not allowed to have a baby, I'm not a grownup, I'm only thirty-two. Damn it! Fuck! I'm going to drop it on its head and it's going to hate me forever." I should have just stuck to screwing around in other ways, she doesn't say. Testing Katara's good humour over the details of her sex life is a project for another day.
Katara sighs, and makes tea, and does her best to be patient about explaining Toph's practical options while Toph sits at the kitchen table and fidgets and kicks her feet, feeling even more like a little kid in the face of Katara's calm. It pisses her off, even though Katara's saying all the things she needs to hear, and she wonders if everyone feels this much like an irrational twelve year old even when they're the chief of police and officially meant to be responsible adults. Probably, she decides, if only because the alternative reflects badly on her, and she's objectively pretty great, if she says so herself.
By the time the conversation is over she realises that she actually is going to have a baby. She's really going to go through with it, even though it was never actually an item on her to-do list.
Knowing that she doesn't have to if she doesn't want to kind of makes it feel more OK, weirdly enough, but maybe her friends would say that's just like her. Fuck them anyway, she thinks affectionately.
"I figure I can't fuck it up more than my parents did," she tells Sokka. "Or, you know, Zuko's."
Sokka considers this. "Well... sure. There's always that," he says doubtfully, "but you can probably safely aim a bit higher than that, you know."
"I don't know," Toph says. "That asshole ran off when I told him, you know. It's not like I told him I wanted to get married and live happily ever after in a big house by the sea with a lemur-cat or anything. I don't know what the fuck his problem is. I figured he might like to know."
"In that case the kid's probably better off without him, don't you think?" Suki says, "you're still not looking after it alone, you know. We're all here."
They're sitting close and warm on each side of her and just for a moment Toph lets herself be buoyed up on their encouragement and trust. "You saps," she says, stretches with her whole body and kicks them both lightly in the shins in the process. By this time it's more a running joke than an actual allergy to affection. At least with them.
"Yeah, whatever," Sokka says. "You like it."
She was worried sick about telling them and now she can't really remember why.
But there's still work and hell if she's going to fall behind. The city won't wait for her, will it? It's still growing and changing and taking shape, and she's got to watch over it, because Aang has the best ideals but he can't be trusted with absolutely everything. Sometimes he can just be way too soft, she tells herself, and doesn't particularly mean it. But still: she's got stuff here to look out for.
"Just don't work too hard," Aang says, amused. Aang always sounds like he's amused by her, maybe by the world in general. At least until he's really pissed off, and by the time you can hear that it's too late.
"Right," she says, "I should do like you do. Sneak out of meetings to play with your kids and claim it's for the sake of the balance of the universe."
"Yup," Aang says. "You should. Otherwise you leave them alone for five minutes and then suddenly you've got a teenager."
"Oh, yeah, and that's awful," Toph says, grins. She gets on pretty well with Kya, personally, but there's obviously a thing going on there.
"No," Aang says, quieter. "But it's different. They change fast. Don't forget that."
He leaves her sitting in her office among the piles of paperwork that've been waiting for her to harass someone else into reading for her, thinking about who this new person is going to be and what the hell they're going to think of her and whether she's going to lose focus for a moment and fuck the whole thing up. She kind of wants to apologise to them already, except whatever, they're going to have to deal with her just like she's going to have to deal with them.
She hates the waiting and she hates the physical inconvenience. She doesn't actually give a fuck about what the newly developed field of journalism has to say about her condition, although most of her friends are incandescent on her behalf.
"It's not even a good joke," Sokka spits. "If it wasn't unethical I'd get that guy fired."
"There there, councilman," Toph says. "Anyone'd think you were the one who was going to be a single mother. If they're trying to insult me they can try harder."
"I like this one, though," Suki says. The sound of paper rustling. "I think I'll frame it and put it on my wall." She strikes a pose, feet planted wide and firm on the floor - an impersonation of an earthbender, Toph figures, feeling after the stance. "'Toph Beifong earthbends baby from the rock itself! Is there anything she can't do?'"
"Wow," Toph says, "they've got me down! I should start telling people that one."
Although it makes her think of her younger self, too; Toph who takes care of herself and doesn't need a single person in the world. She says.
It wouldn't be as easy to laugh at without these people around her, who've learnt how to negotiate her need for space, who leave her alone for just long enough and then break their way in just right so that it doesn't seem like an intrusion at all. Who know that she'll show up sometimes and stay away sometimes and who let work be the plausible explanation but who probably don't buy it for a moment - and don't make an issue of it anyway, unless she's really being an arse. Which, OK, she sometimes is.
This is going to be my kid's family, she thinks, out of nowhere. And we're going to beat the crap out of anyone who has a problem with that.
2.
Babies have personalities. Toph is a bit weirded out by this; she'd always thought about babies as little blobs that screamed for food and slept a lot, but there Lin is, staring up at her seriously. Serious is the word; but not cautious, she wants to know all about everything. She inspects the world carefully as though trying to decide if she approves of it or not. Toph is pretty certain there's a wonderful streak of evil humour hiding in there, too, although that might just be wishful thinking.
It's even clearer when she's next to Tenzin. Though older he seems a bit uneasy about her, but then, he doesn't seem that sure about anything. Except airbending, which he does all the damn time.
Toph is never sure if she should feel sorry for him or what. The second-to-last airbender, losing a staring match with her newborn daughter.
She's pretty sure, though, that she got an easy deal having an earthbender for a daughter. She's pretty much safe from the worst excesses of uncontrolled bending when it comes to changing nappies, for example.
She's heard real horror stories about waterbender babies, none of which she's ever going to let Kya forget.
Sokka is so soft over Lin that Toph thinks she's going to be sick. "Wow, man," she says, as Sokka cuddles Lin and makes little cooing noises over her, "we're doomed. I see it now. You're never going to be able to say no to a single damn thing."
"Nope," Sokka says, in his best silly high-pitched talking-to-babies voice. "Not a single thing! That's because she's such a cutie."
"If you say so," Toph says. "I think that means it's your turn to change her nappy again, just so you know."
"I hear you've been making trouble again," Katara says, a bit too fondly. "It's only your first day back at work, honestly."
”Apparently,” Toph says, with obvious satisfaction, ”some morons thought motherhood would make me nicer. They must not have kids. Nicer my arse, I haven't slept in months.”
She sits with Lin on her knee, same Toph as ever, same evil grin – though one arm is curled protectively around Lin, she doesn't look a bit softer. She also hasn't bothered to take her uniform off yet.
Katara's lips quirk. ”Who thought that? If you need to beat them up again let me know. I'd love to help.”
”I think they got the point,” Toph says. "Hey, did Lin have a good day?"
"A better day than Tenzin," Katara says. "Just because she doesn't move around yet doesn't mean she won't grab things in front of her face. I think we've sorted that one out now."
Toph goes to work some days, and stays at home with Lin some days, and wonders how people who aren't the Avatar's friends actually cope. She wonders how Katara copes, too -- she writes and writes and writes, and takes in healers from the hospital for training, and somehow looks after the kids too, but Toph isn't completely sure how she ever finds time to leave the house. Like fuck would she want to live out there on that island and work from home.
A few months alone with a small baby were already enough to make her feel caged. However much she loves Lin. She keeps fighting the urge to talk to everyone about babies, and that's even with a job that involves interacting with and sometimes beating the crap out of people to keep her busy.
"Maybe I should just use this as an interrogation method," she says, throws up her hands. She's been talking about nappies again. In all fairness to Sokka, he doesn't even seem to have fallen asleep in self-defence. "I can just go down there and tell them baby stories. I'll have confessions in record time, I fucking swear. Who wants to know about other people's babies."
"Aang," Sokka offers. "You know Katara was in hospital for a while after Bumi was born. I went in to visit and I swear Aang had made friends with every single baby in the place."
"OK," Toph says, "but Twinkletoes is nuts, he doesn't count."
"Anyway, I don't mind," Sokka says, and Toph is surprised to feel that he means it -- cooing over a baby is kind of a different thing to actually putting up with all the baby bullshit over a longer period. He's trying really hard to sound casual, though, as though he's joking around. He should know better than to try by now. "You and Lin, you know, you're not just anyone."
"Damn right we're not," she says, though -- might as well cover for him. It's Sokka, after all.
"Suki sent a message," Sokka says, tone light. He leans against the wall by the door, watching Toph and Lin as they make themselves at home in his apartment.
Toph puts Lin down on the floor, lets her sprawl into the experimental belly-flop that's probably going to be crawling soon. If she puts Lin on a chair she'll only try to flop down to the floor from it anyway. Lin likes the ground. It's probably just a baby thing, but Toph likes to think it's her good influence.
"Right? Any news?"
"You could say that," Sokka says. Still that tone. Suspicious.
"This is going to be good," Toph says. "I can tell."
"We-ell," Sokka says, "you absolutely don't know this yet, but Azula is on Kyoshi island. Try to look shocked when Aang makes the announcement, OK?"
"Ok, wait," Toph says, "back up. Azula? Shoots lightning at people for fun? War criminal? That Azula?"
"That Azula," Sokka confirms.
Toph bursts out laughing. "Man, have fun with the council over that one."
"Oh, I will," Sokka says. "Don't worry, I didn't need those years of life. I didn't need any time off from people screaming at each other. It's fine, go ahead, laugh."
"Councilman, councilman," Toph says, shakes her head. "You know you love it. Anyway, tell me the story already."
She throws herself down next to Lin, cross-legged on the floor, and waves for Sokka to join her. He rolls his eyes, but does it; joins them and lets Lin grab at his hand while he tells Toph about Fire Nation mental hospitals and the bits and pieces that have come out about Azula's life since the war. It's pretty sparse, and Toph figures they haven't got the whole story -- which is pretty cheap of Zuko, though he could, she guesses, have his reasons. If she were being generous.
Suki is a part-time resident of the city. She keeps a one-room apartment in an anonymous block of flats not far from Toph's house, and sometimes she sleeps at Sokka's, and sometimes she sleeps at Toph's. Toph isn't even really sure when they became this kind of unit, somewhere under all the jokes and embarrassment and an assortment of confused teenage crushes in various directions, but there it is, the three of them. It's some kind of a thing, she knows that much, and she refuses to spend much time trying to be precise about it.
This time Suki stays with her for the first couple of days, and they walk around the city together for an afternoon, well dressed against the chill of late autumn. Suki carries Lin and Toph doesn't worry once about whether Lin will get dropped.
"Wow," Suki says, "I never thought I'd have a kid."
"You're a crap father," Toph says, grins. "Absent for months, hanging out with all those women..."
"Mm, I'm awful," Suki agrees. "I get into fights, too." Then she sighs. "Toph..."
"What?" Toph says.
"You're not working too hard?"
"Oh, no worries there," Toph says. "You know me, always a free spirit, don't know why they thought I could be responsible for anything."
"Honestly," Suki says. "You and Sokka are as bad as each other. I'll take that as a yes. I think I'll stay a little longer this time."
"Absolutely not because you're stuck with her highness?" Toph asks.
"Absolutely not," Suki says serenely, adjusts Lin against her chest and wrestles her free arm through the crook of Toph's elbow, bloody-minded in the face of Toph's squirming.
When Lin is three, Toph's parents show up in Republic City. Toph has pretty much had it with them by now; she tried, and tried again, and sent them updates on her career, sent them presents, tried to hang out with them without ending up in a screaming match -- but even if they're probably very proud that their friends know what a legend their daughter is it doesn't really translate into a workable family dynamic.
"Oh but really," her mother says, "is this an appropriate home? For you or for our grandchild? You don't have any servants, and it's so small! How do you manage? Isn't it dangerous? Lin could hurt herself and you wouldn't know! If you don't have the money we could arrange something more fitting..."
"I'd know," Toph says flatly, singling out the most infuriating point in a line of statements that all would have individually been worth a verbal smackdown. She and Lin live in a low house on the edge of the city centre, a little three room building in the growing shadow of blocks of flats. She's had the house since before there was a Republic City, and she's felt the city grow, and she'll be damned if she's going to let go of it now. "I'm blind, not stupid. Lin is my kid, I'm going to raise her myself."
Her mother doesn't miss the barb in her words, falls silent for a moment. "Toph, darling... all we've been saying is that a husband..."
Toph turns away from her, picks up Lin, lets herself vanish in their shared world for a moment, making faces at her and listening to her heartbeat. Trying to block Lin off from her mother, she realises belatedly.
"Toph," her mother tries again.
"If I have to call Avatar Aang to mediate this family dinner, don't think I won't," Toph says. "Why don't you tell me the Earth Kingdom news and we can save our bitter in-fighting about my life choices for a birthday letter."
Her mother talks to Lin for a while before they leave, and Toph hates every second of it, though it's actually a really restrained conversation. For her mother. But just because Lin misses the implied disapproval when her mother asks -- talks, really, because Lin doesn't seem all that sure about talking back -- about Toph's friends and about where Lin is going to go to school and how she trains in earthbending doesn't mean it goes to waste. It's not criticism that's for Lin, after all.
Fathers are mentioned, at which point it's about all she can do to not scream at her parents and throw them out on the street.
"So the question is," Toph asked Katara, "am I all set to just tell them to go to hell and stop messing with my life, or do I have to be all tolerant and let them spend time with their granddaughter?"
She's slumped over Katara's kitchen table, feeling very mature for managing to restrain herself from beating her head against it repeatedly.
"I can't believe you actually called Aang in," Katara says.
"I can't believe I didn't murder anyone," Toph shoots back. "They know the rules, they know I don't need them to run my life."
"Parents are allowed to worry," Katara says, although she sounds kind of tired, kind of off; it's as though she's repeating a line from another conversation. "I don't know, Toph, I don't get to see your relationship. Maybe you're overreacting or maybe they really are unbearable. You have to figure it out yourself. I know you guys have had a lot of problems, but you missed them when they weren't around too, right?"
"Aagh," Toph says, which she thinks pretty much sums everything up.
"I mean, a husband," she says. Sokka makes a supportive noise. "I don't need a husband," she adds, sour. "What would I need a husband for? What do they even do? What's the point?"
"A lot of people feel," Sokka says, tactfully, "that companionship, love and support make a very good combination and that a marriage can provide--"
"Bullshit," Toph says. "I've got all of that anyway."
"I know," he mumbles, and the moment threatens to turn awkward. Is it a Moment? Toph wonders. Are they having a Moment? Oh god, what if they are. What if this is meant to be a thing. She's thirty-four, she's too old for Moments. Or too young. Or something.
"Idiots," Suki tells them both, breaks it, or fixes it, or something. Toph breathes out.
"No, really," she mutters. Stretches, sighs. "Actually, I'm pretty sure they were thinking of a husband as a respectability-enhancing accessory, which, you know, ew."
"Ye-eah," Sokka says. "That's pretty weird. But I guess that's what they grew up with?"
"I guess," Toph says. "I never really asked them, actually. We're usually too busy fighting."
Suki catches Toph, pulls her aside, leaving Lin to bother Sokka. "You might want to talk to Lin about dads," she says. "Just a tip. She wanted to know if I was her dad, or if it was Sokka. She insists everyone has one, but I'm not sure she actually knows what a dad is..."
"Oh man," Toph says. "Wow, what did you tell her? Who's the happy father? I always thought it must be you."
"I told her she should ask you," Suki says mercilessly. "Sokka... mostly just flailed. But really, you're the one who hasn't even told us who Lin's father is."
"It's not important," Toph says, almost snaps. "Family isn't blood. You are more her dad than that guy. So's Sokka. Just 'cause I made stupid decisions about who to sleep with doesn't mean she has to have a stupid family. I'm telling you, it's not important."
Suki sighs. "Ok, I know. To be honest, I don't care either, I mean, in that way. But maybe it's important to her. She should get the choice, anyway."
"That's stupid," Toph says, stubborn. "What is it with everyone being all reasonable this week. First Katara, now you."
"Someone has to be," Suki points out.
"Like hell they do," Toph mutters.
But she talks to Lin. About family and about love and about where babies come from. She's surprised to find that it's pretty OK, as awkward conversations go.
"We can look him up if you want," she offers, once they've been through what she thinks of as all the boring details. "But family can be other stuff too."
Lin considers this.
"A dad is meant to look after you," she says, flatly. "Loads of people look after me, but he doesn't."
"Sure," Toph says, because she really doesn't see the point of a narrow view of family structures anyway, talk about unimaginative. "I guess you have a lot of dads then."
And Suki thought she'd got herself out of that one so nicely.
In the end Toph puts off cutting ties with her parents, again.
Hell if she knows if she really wants to or not. She even gets Sokka to write down a letter for her, and sends it to them as a kind of peace offering that she doesn't even know if they deserve.
Family. Wow.
She just hopes she doesn't mess things up for Lin too badly, she thinks, again, and feels kind of uneasy.
But so far Lin is pretty carefree.
"Daddy," she shrieks, the next time she sees Suki; throws herself into Suki's arms and lets herself be spun around."
When Kya shows up on her doorstep, a bag of clothes slung over her shoulder, though, it doesn't exactly help steer Toph's thoughts in positive directions.
"They don't get it," she tells Toph, sobs really, huddled on Toph's bed. "They're so unfair, why are you the only cool grown-up."
"Ok," Toph says, "you're going to give me a minute and then tell me what's up. Drink something. I don't know, remember to breathe."
Lin, now unreasonably good at walking around by herself, is peering curiously around the doorway, so Toph hurries over to her, picks her up; "I think it's bedtime for you, little badgermole."
She goes back in to Kya once Lin is settled.
"So what's up," she says, sits herself down cross-legged on the part of the bed not full of angry teenager. "I'm assuming your parents don't know you're here."
"No," Kya says. "And I'm not going home, they think they can control my whole life."
Toph thinks about how tired Katara sounded the other day, and her comment, the one that sounded kind of off. Things fall into place.
"You can stay here tonight," she says, "and you can bitch to me all you like. But I'm going to call your parents, don't think they're not worried stupid right now." Apparently there is some point to telephones after all. Aang insisted she get one installed, and she hasn't used it much; she can't always tell what people mean without the cues from their posture, their pulse. But still.
She refuses to back down when Kya wants her to leave Aang and Katara to worry, and then refuses to back down again when Aang wants to come and fetch Kya straight away, although she probably only wins because Katara is also in favour of a time out. "I'm just glad she came to you," she tells Toph down the crackling line, and Toph wonders what that's supposed to mean, apart from I'm glad she didn't just vanish.
"I don't get to go to parties," Kya says. "Or I mean I do, but only the really rubbish ones. And I have a curfew. None of my friends have a curfew."
"Uh-huh," Toph says, "and what goes on at these parties, right, it's totally nothing your parents might find worrying."
"I'm not stupid," Kya protests, which pretty much answers that question, if only by omission. "I can totally take care of myself."
"And I may be old, but I'm not stupid either," Toph says. "I know what you lot get up to, I've picked half your friends' drunk arses off the street and made sure they get home."
"I know," Kya says, muffled against a pillow. "That's why you're the cool one. Even though you're police and police are meant to suck."
"Are we, now," Toph says, and jabs Kya affectionately in the side, because wow, she could absolutely have been this much of an idiot teenager if she hadn't had a world to save. Maybe she was anyway. In her way. "Who the hell are these little friends of yours, anyway. Or maybe I don't want to know?"
Eventually she leaves Kya to sleep in her bed and curls herself up on the floor in Lin's room. She has stone floors, so she just adjusts the spot she's on until she's comfy and drifts off to sleep, feeling the rumble of the city all through her body, like the purring of some giant creature.
3.
Teaching Lin to earthbend is one of Toph's favourite things to do, following her progress, guiding her movements, teaching her to stand her ground and anchor herself to the ground, to feel it and know it.
Most of all she loves that Lin loves it, that she pesters Toph for more lessons and shows her things she's worked out. They train in the mountains, high above the city. Spring has come now, even all the way up here, and they stand barefoot on cold rock, pushing and pulling and forming. Lin has impressive raw power. Eventually she'll get the hang of refining it. Then she'll be able to move mountains, Toph is pretty sure. Just like her mamma.
"But how do you metalbend?" Lin asks.
"Learn to earthbend first," Toph tells her. "Master it. Then I'll show you."
But Lin doesn't really seem satisfied. Toph pushes her harder in response, and wonders if it's the right thing to do.
Lin learns Republic City from Toph's shoulders, and from Sokka's -- and sometimes from Suki's. Katara holds her hand instead, or sits Lin in a pouch on her back, even though she's really too big now. Everyone shows her their own favourite places, and she watches it all, curious.
They're building new houses by the harbour, and Lin insists on going back to see what's happening, over and over again.
She tries to build houses of her own in the street outside their home, little misformed pillars of earth sprouting up in a rough grid, an attempt at streets.
"OK," Toph says, "cool, but what kind of house is that?"
Lin stares at it. "Market."
Toph can never resist, she has to fix it; twists the earth, compacts it, pulls it into place until every one of the fishmarket's pillars are in place, in perfect miniature. "There," she says. "Like that!"
Lin looks at it, and up at Toph, who's grinning, impressed with herself. "How do you even know?" she demands. "You've never even seen it!"
She's raising her voice a bit, but Toph doesn't even react to that, just shrugs. "Your mamma just knows stuff."
It doesn't do the trick. Lin jumps up, stamps her feet. "It's not fair," she shouts; sweeps the whole dirt town away with a gesture and runs up into the house. Toph sits, unmoving, on the edge of the road.
"Huh," she says.
After a moment she lets the earth kick her back onto her feet and walks deliberately after her daughter.
"Hey," Toph says. "Hey, Lin, can I come in?"
"No," Lin says, voice muffled. "I'm going to wait until you're at work and then I'm going to run away and live with Tenzin."
"It's not such a great plan if you tell me, little badgermole," Toph says. "Hey, I'm sorry."
"No you're not," Lin says. "Go away."
Sokka comes over once he's done with meetings. "I hear you've been having a little trouble here," he says.
Lin lets him in without protest, and it only takes about ten minutes before he's got her to agree to come out. "To hear your mum's apology properly."
Under Lin's full attention she feels like she does a really bad job. But Lin lets her hug her anyway, snuggles up to her and says, as though Toph was the one who needed comforting, "I wasn't really going to run away."
Sokka cooks them dinner, which Toph has a sneaking suspicion was probably a part of the bargain. She doesn't really care. It's good to know that her daughter has her negotiation priorities straight.
It doesn't take her long after that to decide. There are other teachers that are better than her, after all. Not many. But a few.
She learnt from the best.
"We're going on holiday," Toph says. "Or like, training camp. It's going to be the best."
Lin looks up at her. She's sleep-ruffled and still kind of suspicious. "Training camp. But we train all the time, mum. And," she adds, a sour little mutter that's really the heart of the recent tension, "I still can't metalbend."
"We don't train like this," Toph says. "I'm not going to be the one training you. And I have some new tricks to show some friends. I bet they have a bunch of things to show you."
The badgermoles still know her, open the mountain for her. Beside her, Lin makes a little squeaking noise. Toph squeezes her hand encouragingly.
"This is my daughter, Lin," she says. "If I show you my metalbending, will you help her earthbend?"
"Mum," Lin says in a tiny voice. "Mum, did you just lick its nose?"
4.
The surprising thing about Yakone getting the drop on all of them was probably that he was the first person to pull it off since the war. Not that Toph had never been hurt in a fight, but the casual display of power he'd treated them to had been something else. It had shut her down, the extra senses she used to feel the shape of the world; when she released him from his cuffs she'd been completely blacked out, trying frantically to find where Sokka was, and Aang, and her officers.
"I fucked up," she says angrily, standing in Aang's office. Sokka hovers in the doorway, not sure if he should stay or go. "You know I did! I suspected he was special and I still had the stupid keys with me. Go on, shout at me!"
"No," Aang says, infuriatingly calm. "We all underestimated him. I refuse to blame on you. Rather, you did an excellent job with the evidence. Stand down, Toph. Go to the hospital and let them see if the bloodbending did any damage. No-one here is interested in punishing you."
”We're going to go stay with Suki,” Toph says, ”Uncle Twinkletoes says your mamma has to take a holiday. And Twinkletoes never gives up about anything, does he?”
Aang, she just knows, is smiling benevolently right now, being the annoyingly serene monk. ”No, he doesn't,” he says. ”Republic City will still be here when you get home.”
Toph hopes that Lin misses all the tension and undertones behind the exchange, but kids are so smart that she doesn't have that much hope. "We'll see about that," she says, laughs.
"You should have fun," Aang tells them -- tells Toph. "Forget work for a while."
"I thought no-one was interesting in punishing me," Toph mutters.
"I'm not sure I understand your definition of punishment," Aang says, still completely unruffled.
Sokka follows them to the ferry – to wave them off, he says.
”But why aren't you coming too?” Lin asks.
Sokka drops down to a crouch, ruffles Lin's hair. She tolerates it from Sokka. Zuko tried once and she smacked his hand away. ”I have to work,” he says, pulls one of his best bo-ring faces. ”But say hi to Suki for me,” he orders. ”And make sure your mamma doesn't fall off the boat.”
”Yes!” Lin says, and runs off after Toph, waving as she goes.
Sokka watches until the ferry is almost out of sight, sliding away toward the southern horizon.
Kyoshi Island is apparently doing well, but Toph doesn't really know what to make of it. There's more people, more buildings; her feet can't really recognise it. The Kyoshi Warriors still live in the same cluster of buildings, but finding their way there would've been a bitch without Suki. Just as well she insisted.
”So,” she says, ”tourists, huh?”
”Yup,” Suki says. ”And pilgrims. I'm afraid you've hit peak season. Apparently we're living history.”
”Aren't we all,” Toph says. ”Legends in our time. Pretty sweet, really.”
”Hmm,” Suki offers, clearly sceptical. ”I don't know, not all of us invented metalbending. We're mostly just sort of quaint, I think. And I'll tell you about the fetishists some other time," she adds, darkly.
She leads them up down the corridor, not up the stairs to her own apartment. ”I thought you guys would like to sleep on the ground floor,” she offers.
This is basically why Suki is the best, Toph thinks. It's one thing with the high-rise public buildings in Republic City, which have skeletons of concrete and metal and stone, but high buildings made only of wood kind of annoy her. Or, OK, freak her out. Just a bit. It's like boats; the dead wood doesn't carry that good a connection to the ground, everything gets fuzzy. The higher, the worse. Not that she'd mind making a scene about it, but ok, it's kind of nice not to have to.
It takes Lin hours to fall asleep, surrounded by the quiet whispering of the old building, beams creaking and the breeze from the sea murmuring around the eves. Toph sits on the corner of the bed, and Suki sits cross-legged on the floor and tells her stories about the island until she almost thinks she knows it. And suddenly it's the next morning.
And then there's a beach to explore.
”Reproduction,” Azula snaps, ”sickens me. The system is ridiculous and the results... well.”
She's staring out of the window, down towards the beach. Ty Lee crosses the room and looks around Azula's shoulder, tries to guess her line of sight.
On the beach is the unmistakable figure of Toph, barefoot and still boyish after all these years; she's running back and forth with a child, both of them screaching with laughter; throwing up sand at each other, building walls to trip each other and tearing them down again.
”--to the Unagi,” she can hear Toph shouting, and the child tears away; but it's hard to say who's chasing who, they're running in such complicated loops.
It looks pretty fun, Ty Lee thinks.
”Ridiculous,” Azula repeats.
Ty Lee ignores her, strategically. ”I'm going down,” she says brightly, and by the time she's made it to the door Azula has turned and is trailing after her, expression determinedly bored, as though it was all the same to her.
”Lin,” Azula repeats. ”And you're clearly a Beifong.”
”Uh-huh,” Lin says, narrows her eyes at Azula. ”And you're Azula. Apparently you're meant to be really scary.”
”Am I not?”
”Nope,” Lin says. Of course not; she's a Beifong and she's nine years old. She probably doesn't have the sense to be scared of an active volcano. Azula would like to think she doesn't find this particular Beifong trait in the least bit charming, but she finds she does have something of an appreciation for it. Cowering is all well and good but she has to admit, it actually does get old eventually. The thought amuses her, in an idle sort of way. How times change.
Toph, she notices, is keeping track of them; keeping her distance, standing with her back against a tree at the edge of the forest, arms crossed firmly over her chest.
”If I'm not scary, why was I locked up for years?” Azula asks, ignoring her.
”If you're scary, why did they let you out?”
Toph laughs. ”She's got you there.”
Azula has aged, more than the rest of them. If she seemed how Toph remembered she'd probably pick a fight, but there's something off about her now. Toph really doesn't fucking want to know what the Fire Nation thinks a mental hospital is meant to do; probably something messed up. Azula seems like it's messed her up, anyway; she never used to be ill, as far as Toph could tell. Mostly she was just an arsehole. Now she keeps herself out of the way, turns up on the edge of things and leaves as soon as more than one person has noticed her. She doesn't feel very dangerous, either – that'd be another instant fight, especially with Lin here.
”You're a mother,” Azula says. Accuses, really.
”Yup,” Toph says.
”And she's your perfect little metalbender daughter. How very sweet.”
And that's all; Azula turns on her heel and leaves.
Toph shrugs, rolls her eyes at Azula's retreating back.
Ty Lee, though, greets her as though they'd always been friends. Toph struggles out of an over-enthusiastic hug, and doesn't pay attention to more than a quarter of what Ty Lee actually says.
"Don't mind Azula, though," Ty Lee is saying when she tunes back in. "She's just... you know, it hasn't been that easy!"
Ty Lee still tends to exclaim, Toph notes. She wondered, back then, if the Kyoshi Warriors would calm her down. Apparently, the answer was no.
"You're still her keeper," Toph says.
"No way," Ty Lee says. "We're, um. Friends. And friends help friends. And I totally don't blame her for back then, it was a really difficult time..."
"The war," Toph says, breaks into the flow of words. "No shit." Ty Lee's use of the word 'friends' isn't really convincing Toph either. She wonders if Ty Lee is flustered about the idea of people knowing she and Azula have a relationship, or about the relationship itself. She wonders if their relationship is really obvious to everyone or if she's just being a freak again, too.
"Mm," Ty Lee says, vaguely.
"Look," Toph says, because there's one thing she really is curious about, that she never got the full story on. "How the fuck did you get Azula out?"
"Oh," Ty Lee says. "That was't me! I mean I totally put in a good word for her. But um. Mostly it was her mother."
"You don't need to tell everyone who asks," Azula says sourly from behind Ty Lee's shoulder.
Ty Lee jumps. "Azula!"
"Since we're sharing, though, yes, my mother saved me," Azula says. "There was a tearful reunion, it was very touching, you would have cried at the sight. If you could see."
She still can't read Azula all that well, but Ty Lee's reaction suggests that this might be an oversimplification of the truth. Since common sense would also suggest that, Toph runs with it as a theory. "Right," she says, "you were totally delighted to see the mother who you say never loved you. I bet it was great. Almost makes me wish I could have been there. Did anything explode?"
She wonders if Zuko would give her a straight answer, if she asked. Although she isn't sure why she should actually care.
Azula snorts. "Do you think they would have let me out if it had? I'm reformed. Just a regular horrible person, not a homicidal maniac at all."
And with that she drifts away again; the Kyoshi Warriors have started to gather in the hall for lunch. Ty Lee hesitates.
"Go on, get lost," Toph says, and Ty Lee bobs in gratitude, runs off after Azula.
"I think," Lin says, "she just seems kind of sad." She's been thinking carefully about something all afternoon, but Toph doesn't make the connection straight away.
"Who?"
"Azula. She's meant to be scary, I remember all the stories. Katara told me. She's really good at stories. But, I mean. She doesn't scare me, I think she's just sad. And she doesn't know how to be sad, so she's mean."
"You think?" Toph says. "Why's that?"
"What?"
"Why's she like that?"
Lin hums thoughtfully. "I guess no-one told her it's OK to be sad."
Kids, Toph thinks. Think they know it all.
"She's basically the local ghost," Suki says, shrugs. Toph feels the movment of Suki's shoulder against her arm. "She really keeps out of my way as much as she can, to be honest. I wonder if she isn't uncomfortable around people now, you know, she was shut up for a long time. She leaves the island sometimes with Ty Lee, but..."
"You guys really do collect Fire Nation strays down here, huh," Toph says.
"The ones who can't cope with the city," Suki agrees. "I don't know, I suppose it isn't really a problem. Neither of them have ever been any actual trouble, although Ty Lee can be... well, you know."
Cluelessly offensive, Toph presumes.
"You know," Suki says thoughtfully, "I don't think Azula's used her bending since she came here."
"I'm sure that's just out of the goodness of her heart," Toph says. Suki laughs.
"Oh, I don't know. Thinking about her too much gives me a headache. I suppose it's good that she isn't locked up and belted down or whatever terrible things they do. But she's hardly my favourite person."
"I don't know," Toph says. "If I was going to hate everyone who went off the deep end in the war..." she grins. "Actually I do, but that's only because I hate everyone. A newspaper said it, it must be true."
"Well, I thought a holiday was a stupid idea," Toph says. Suki is helping her pack, having gotten fed up with Toph's attempts to shove all her and Lin's clothes into a case in one gigantic ball. "But it turns out it's pretty OK. I got to hang out with you and be a bitchy gossip! Katara never puts up with that shit."
"I only put up with it because I love you," Suki says, all innocence.
"Oh, I know," Toph says. "And you only love me because I'm so cute and irresistible."
Suki throws a jacket at her head.
At home again, she makes up her mind to phone Zuko. This means shouting at a lot of fire nation officials and name-dropping like hell and finally agreeing with his personal secretary that yeah, OK, maybe he can call her back when he has a free moment, as long as he really does call. But she can't be bothered with letters. She'd have to get someone to write it, and someone to read her the answer, and it's boring and slow.
"Are you angry?" Lin asks her, sleepy, and Toph feels a little bit guilty for shouting so much, but only a little bit.
"No way," she says. "I'm having fun."
Zuko calls her half an hour later. "Hello, Toph," he says, fondly. "Have you been terrorizing half of my kingdom again?"
"Not more than they deserved," Toph says.
She can hear Zuko let out a little sigh. "I suppose you wanted to ask me something."
"Yeah," Toph says. "Don't worry, nothing blew up. Just wondering. I hung out with your sister for a week or two recently. And I thought, wow, Zuko never did tell us about his mother. And now I find out she's been running around taking people out of mental hospitals. Are you all cool now or what?"
She thinks, maybe, that Zuko is holding the receiver away from his head and staring suspiciously at it, as though it was to blame for the existence of her curiosity. The idea amuses her, anyway, and it's definitely a suspiciously long time before Zuko answers.
"I suppose," he says. "I wouldn't have expected it to be you who asked first, though."
"It's OK," Toph says. "We can talk about feelings. You're on the other end of a phone line. I can't punch you."
Zuko laughs. "I miss you all," he says. "You could punch me if you wanted, I don't think I'd mind."
"Eh," Toph says, "other people might have views about that though. You didn't answer the question."
"I don't think I know the answer," Zuko says. "Ursula... mother... seems sorry. She and Azula have spent time together fairly often since Azula was released, I think. But I don't know how things are. What I saw wasn't exactly... warm."
"To be honest," Toph says, "if I was Azula I probably would've tried to set your mother on fire. No disrespect, but man."
"Mm," Zuko says. "Actually, when I heard you'd spent time with Azula I was impressed neither of you had destroyed anything. Thank you for that, by the way, the diplomatic maneuvering would have been hell."
Toph falls asleep with Lin tucked against her side, wondering how families get so fucked up and if it's possible to fix them.
Her parents haven't tried to visit her in three years now. And she's been, well. Busy. But there's her and Lin and Suki and Sokka, and there's a chance there.
And Katara and Aang and their family would give her warm fuzzy feelings, if she went for that kind of thing. They've weathered Kya's teenage years pretty well, all things considered. She's still obliged to call them sickening in public, though.
But still.
5.
Lin is fifteen and spends more time with Tenzin than with Toph, which Toph tries not to sulk about, though she pretty much fails.
"Dating," she tells Sokka. "Our daughter is dating your nephew! They call it that! They hold hands and give each other adoring looks, and don't tell me I'm blind, I just know they do." She slouches in her chair. "In my day we just made out and then went and beat people up like usual, is all I'm saying," she adds.
Sokka laughs. "I think they're pretty cute," he says. "Most people would be happy to see their daughter making such responsible life choices."
"I don't trust it," Toph says. "It's not normal. She's trying too hard to be an adult, I promise you, she'll hit twenty and something will snap."
"Toph," Sokka says, "you were inventing metalbending and fighting a war when you were twelve. I love you but I'm disqualifying you from telling anyone what normal is."
Tenzin has started being painfully polite to her, which is pretty funny considering she can remember the day he screamed so loudly about not getting sweets that he almost knocked a tree over.
"Sure, what the hell ever," she says, when he nervously asks if it matters if Lin comes home late. "Knock yourselves out, kids."
"Wow," Kya says. "I wish I'd got to wander around like that." She's in town for a few days, passing through; she travels pretty much all the time, right now, looks into local water tribe variants, writes home to Katara about how they practice healing. But she seems relaxed. That's good.
"Oh, don't get ideas about how I'm the soft one," Toph says. "You think I'd let Lin go wandering around town however she wanted if I thought there was an risk she'd join a gang for kicks? She doesn't just say she's sensible, she actually is. You, my friend, were an Avatar public relations disaster waiting to happen."
Kya laughs. "You don't need to sound quite that proud."
"I know, right," Lin says, squeezing past them to get to the kitchen. "She's always like that."
Toph prods her affectionately and ruffles her hair. "My poor long-suffering darling."
But maybe she is the soft one. She's not actually sure she can imagine telling Lin she can't go out. It feels uncomfortable, a repetition of a pattern she hates.
Maybe that's why Lin's so sensible, out of pure self-defense.
But Lin still hugs her a lot of nights before she goes to bed, lets Toph kiss her on the forehead and call her silly names. That she's becoming intensely private about a lot of things really doesn't worry Toph, who's intensely private about pretty much everything herself; there's a reason she's never really considered living permanently with anyone, even the ones she really likes.
Some days are less great.
"Why can't you just take me seriously," Lin shouts. "I can have a real conversation with Suki! Sokka makes jokes all the time but he can still be serious! But I can never tell with you, you're just sarcastic all the time and I hate it. I keep feeling like you're laughing at us!"
"I'm not laughing at you," Toph snaps, and bites back the urge to say she's not that sarcastic either.
"Just because you're better than me at everything," Lin snarls, "that doesn't make you a better person." She slams the door behind her.
"Being a parent is basically about feeling like shit, right?" Toph says.
"Oh," Katara says, voice false, "I don't know about that. It's about magic and warm, fuzzy feelings and the beauty of a new life." She puts down a cup on the table, heavily. "No, you're right, it's about feeling like shit. I get the point of this whole thing, they're people, they've got to be all independent now. But ugh."
But she comes home to find Lin has left her a present, carefully teased out a little figurine, all textures and interesting shapes. It probably doesn't look like anything at all, but Toph sits and enjoys the contrasts and quirks of it for a good hour, alone at the kitchen table, smiling like an idiot. It's not everyone who knows her favorite textures of stone, she has to give the kid that.
"Thanks," she says, when Lin comes in later that evening. "It's the best. You're the best."
Lin just mumbles an embarrassed you're welcome, and vanishes at speed, trailing Tenzin in her wake.
But Toph still feels like they won something.
The phone rings late at night, and Toph, who is always alert, still takes a moment to process the sound. The phone hardly ever rings.
She sits up, grounds herself, and when that doesn't take enough time to make the problem of the phone go away reluctantly bends the metal casing around the cable to send the receiver flying into her hand. "Yeah?"
She expects maybe Aang, or maybe work, though they usually just come around the corner and knock on the door. "Hello," a nervous voice says. "It's me."
"Mother?"
"I've some news," her mother says, and Toph realises she already knows what it's going to be.
Her father's funeral is well-attended, and Toph forces herself to take her expected place in it instead of drawing herself to the side. She doesn't have the faintest idea what she feels about it, in honesty; grieving someone you hardly knew is difficult. Lin sticks close to her side like her awkward shadow, but she makes a good impression anyway, because she's Lin; she's so serious that adults tend to like her, and it's completely appropriate here. Toph says as little as possible herself; offers prayers and carries out the rituals. It would have helped in some ways if Sokka or Suki could have come, but she doesn't really want to inflict her parents' friends on them, and she can't think of a way of introducing them and justifying their presence that wouldn't upset her mother.
"Thank you for coming," her mother tells her quietly, after. "I know it can't be easy for you, and we haven't been the best parents..."
Her voice breaks a little, and Toph feels a completely unprecedented wave of sympathy for her.
"I haven't been the best daughter either," she mumbles, and stands awkwardly stiff while her mother sobs and throws her arms around her in an attempt at a hug.
After a few seconds, she slowly hugs her back.
Toph and Lin take the airship back together. A lot of the journey passes in silence; Lin hides her nose in a book, reads with a kind of fierce concentration.
"Hey," Toph says eventually. "Thanks for coming along."
"I probably liked him more than you," Lin says, without looking up.
"Mm..." Toph sighs. "Ok. I've been thinking. Here's the thing."
Lin closes her book carefully, puts it to one side.
"Oh?"
"I'm probably going to hate about a million of the choices you make, right?"
"Probably," Lin says, neutral. Probably Toph already hates about a million of the choices she has made, from boyfriend to reading material.
"And you'll probably think I'm an old-fashioned, embarrassing idiot basically every time I open my mouth," Toph persists.
"Mum," Lin protests. That's a bit far, even if it has some kind of truth to it. Occasionally.
"Oh, don't mum me, I know how you feel about me talking on the phone," Toph says. She's being cheeked, Lin thinks, not sure if she should be amused or annoyed.
"Fine," she says. "Have it your way."
"Don't mind if I do," Toph says. "My point is, I can have all the opinions I like, but I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, OK? If you want to get married and live happily ever after, I'm cool with that. If you want to die alone with an army of lemurcats, I'm cool with that too. Here's the rule: try hard and don't betray yourself."
Lin stares at her mother, at her determined expression. She's starting to look older, she thinks. Not old old, but older. I never really thought about that before, she was always just mum; an unstoppable force of nature.
"Whatever," she mumbles. "Sure."
"Good," Toph says, settles back comfortably into her seat. "That's all. Go on, read your book."
Lin smiles for herself, half the way back to Republic City, and doesn't even realise she's doing it.