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Toph had never really liked doctors - not since she was little and her parents took her to what seemed like every one within a week’s journey of Gaoling in their attempt to find someone who could fix her eyes. And no matter how many times she’d protested that they didn’t need fixing, they just wouldn’t listen. Not the doctors or her parents. They just kept prodding her and waving things in her face and asking stupid questions.
Katara was the only healer allowed anywhere near her these days, and she was more than enough. Her hands were on Toph now, cool and wet on her belly as the water swirled and did its work. Katara was quiet, concentrating, her breaths slow and even. Toph lay there feeling nauseous and trying not to think. She’d done nothing but think for the past several weeks, and it made her brain hurt.
The water drifted away. Katara cleared her throat.
‘Well?’ Toph asked.
‘You were right,’ said Katara. ‘You’re pregnant.’
‘Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh,’ said Toph, letting all the air in her lungs gurgle its way out. It didn’t help much.
‘Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh,’ she said again.
That seemed to cover it.
‘You’re about four months along,’ Katara said, ignoring Toph's noises.
Toph sat up and started to get dressed.
‘This was not the plan,’ she said. ‘I’m too busy. This is a bad idea.’
Katara sighed. ‘Well, take some time to think about it,’ she said. ‘Let it settle in. Maybe you’ll get used to the idea. And if not, well, there are options to explore. You could think about adoption, or...’
‘NO.’
Even Toph was surprised by the instant force of her decision. It didn’t feel real yet, and she certainly couldn’t think of what was growing inside her as any sort of person or alive thing, but the idea of handing it over to anyone was... unsettling.
Katara touched her arm reassuringly. ‘Okay. In that case I’ll keep Tenzin’s clothes by as he finishes with them. He’s growing so fast, there’ll still be plenty of wear in them.’
* * *
Sokka didn’t ask any uncomfortable questions about ‘who’s the father’ or ‘I thought you didn’t want children’ or ‘what are you going to do now’. He just did things, things that she needed. Did her shopping when her feet were too swollen to walk far. (And boy did that cramp her style for a while, bending-wise). Built a crib in her back yard and then painted it - she didn’t know what colour but she could smell the paint from half a mile away. Suddenly he was at her place a lot, making her meat-filled dinners after a hard day at work, doing her laundry when it got hard for her to bend down far enough. A few times they fell asleep together at the end of the day, mouths open, snoring in blissful tandem.
‘You might as well come to bed,’ she told him one night, as they woke up in the small hours, still dressed and sitting on the porch. ‘There’s room for two.’
* * *
He and Katara were both there when the baby came. Aang had wanted to be there too, but urgent political business had taken him away. Toph’s parents had wanted to come. She’d told them no. Things had been better between them lately, but this was too much. It reminded her too strongly of the endless doctors. And she wanted to know, before they saw the baby, whether it would be blind or not. If they were going to try and do to her child what they had done to her, she had to know first, so that she could fight it.
It was a little like bending, giving birth, but more painful. The feeling of pushing so hard that you changed the shape of the world. After the first few contractions, Katara and Sokka realised that Toph was unconsciously earthbending with each one.
‘The house won’t survive when they get closer together,’ Katara said.
So the three of them walked, Katara supporting Toph and Sokka hurrying behind with the bag of equipment. They went into the woods, where there was shade, and found a wide, flat clearing. Sokka talked to her between contractions, mopped her brow, helped her to drink juice. Katara coached her when it was time to push, encouraging her to earthbend through it, applying that concentration and technique to controlling her own body.
When it was over, the clearing was a miniature mountain range, and they were all sweaty and crying. Toph held the baby in her arms for a moment before laying her naked on the ground so that she could feel the earth and get to know it.
* * *
Katara was full of advice, with the benefit of three children’s-worth of experience. But they kept her busy enough, and so it was Sokka who was there most often. Sokka was the best at convincing Lin to stop crying, and had the most creative ways to get her to tolerate bath time. (She liked splashing but screamed when anyone tried to actually get her clean. ‘I hear ya, kid,’ Toph would say, with grudging affection.) Sokka was great at inventing games, and he could play on the floor with Lin for hours on end, with a patience that Toph couldn’t hope to approach.
For Toph, her single most important duty as a parent was making sure Lin felt connected to the earth. It had been a long time now, but she still remembered how lost and alone she had felt until the badgermoles had shared their secrets with her. She didn’t want Lin to feel that way for even a second, not ever. Her parents had not known what to do with a child like Toph. Toph was sure only she knew what to do with a child like Lin.
So she let her play in the dirt, almost every day. They made mud pies together, and when Lin got a little bigger they threw them at passers-by. Toph was a respected member of the community now, so having a baby to blame was terrific. All she had to do was shrug apologetically, motion towards the helplessly giggling Lin, and whoever had just gotten a mud pie to the face would just melt. Lin was a cute kid, apparently. Cute, and with surprisingly accurate aim for a toddler.
Some nights Toph made a little bed out of the earth for Lin, curled herself around it, and they slept under the stars. She felt the vibrations of Lin’s movements through the earth, small but distinct.
Lin’s first word was Sokka. Toph didn’t mind, or care particularly. When babies got older they talked, it was no big deal. And Sokka was a big part of their lives. She wasn’t all that excited when Lin took her first steps, either, although it did mean more work chasing her around.
When Lin, in the middle of a tantrum, flung scattered bits of dirt at her mother without using her hands, Toph almost burst into tears.
‘Did you see that?’ Sokka asked, excited. ‘I mean... did you catch that? Could you tell?’
‘She’s an earthbender,’ Toph breathed, and Lin had no idea why her mother would pick her up and hug her and kiss her so hard when she was being deliberately naughty.
* * *
Toph was crying when Sokka came in.
‘Toph...’ he said, and hurried to her, putting a hand on her shoulder that she shrugged off.
‘I’m not crying,’ she said thickly. ‘I have allergies.’
Sokka snorted. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you can tell me. Is it work? I know you’ve been really busy lately...’
She shook her head. ‘It’s Lin.’
She felt him turn towards the garden, where four-year-old Lin was playing one of her inscrutable private games.
‘Is she okay?’ he asked. ‘Is anything wrong? Can I do anything to...’
‘No, no, it’s nothing like that,’ Toph said. ‘She’s fine. It’s me, really.’
She sank to the floor and leaned back against the wall. Sokka joined her, their thighs and shoulders touching. He took her hand. She rubbed her thumb absently across his knuckles, wondering if she could put it into words.
‘Lin bent metal this morning,’ she said, as a beginning.
‘What?’ Sokka said. ‘But that’s great! Isn’t it... great...?’
‘Yeah. It’s great,’ Toph sniffed. ‘Four years old, and she’s bending my helmet like it was a piece of paper. I wasn’t even going to start her on metalbending until she was at least six or seven. And here she is doing it by herself, without any help.’
Sokka’s silence managed to convey that he didn’t see why this was a problem but that he certainly wasn’t going to actually say so.
‘I didn’t bend metal until I was twelve,’ she said, ‘and it was the most difficult thing I’d ever done. It took every scrap of strength I had. Even now it’s harder than regular bending. It doesn’t come naturally to me. But it does to her. I’m the greatest earthbender in the world. But I won’t be, soon.’
Sokka laughed. Toph punched him in the side.
‘That’s why you’re crying?’ he asked, wheezing a little. ‘Because Lin’s going to be a better bender than you?’
‘It’s not funny, Sokka!’ she said. ‘You just don’t get it - that’s who I am. I’m the greatest earthbender in the world. When Lin gets better than me, what am I then?’
‘Well, hmmm, let me see...’ she was fairly sure he was stroking his beard at this point, that was pretty much why he’d grown it, ‘you’re the person who invented metalbending, and trained others to use it, you lead an awesome police force, you’re a respected and influential member of the community, you’re someone I happen to care about... a lot...’
She squeezed his hand.
‘... and you’re the person who taught the greatest earthbender in the world,’ Sokka finished.
‘Huh...’ said Toph. ‘I guess so.’
‘I mean, look at how you grew up,’ Sokka said. ‘You didn’t even get a chance to bend for years. And your parents never supported you. You did it all by yourself...’
‘Except for the badgermoles.’
‘... except for the badgermoles, and you still managed to be the most incredible earthbender the world has ever seen, by the time you were twelve years old. And look how you’ve helped Lin. The minute she was born you let her feel the earth. You’ve given her everything possible. You would be disappointed if she didn’t surpass you eventually.’
‘You know, Sokka, it’s not an everyday thing, but, just every now and then you make a lot of sense.’
She leaned into him, letting her head rest against his chest, and sighed deeply.
‘I think that was meant to be a compliment,’ he said, ‘but I’m not sure - aren’t they usually more, y’know, complimentary?’
‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘We’re having a moment.’
‘Ah. I see.’
He wrapped his arms around her, and they had their moment, and it was a good one - at least until the soon-to-be-greatest-earthbender-in-the-world came back in from the garden.