Five: Seeking Solace.

"Miss Bei Fong, you have a visitor."

Toph scowled as one of her assistants dragged red lip paint across her lower lip. "Tell them to go away."

The servant who had informed her of her visitor bowed slightly as he backed out of her room. "Yes, Miss Bei Fong."

"Call me Toph!" she yelled after him, but by then he was already scurrying down the hall towards the waiting room.

She sighed. She hated living back at her parent's house. It wasn't as high security as it had been before, when she had been the Blind Bandit and Toph Bei Fong. But her parents still insisted that she got dressed up every day. In case of visitors, they had told her. Now, even when she had a visitor, she turned them away.

There was only a handful of people she wanted to talk to. They were all hundreds of miles away from her. The closest was Sokka, who had been living in Kyoshi as far as she knew. She had no idea if he was still there. Nobody wrote to her anymore… mostly because it took her a long time to write back. Aang had made them believe that they would all stay friends forever. She guessed they were still friends. But seven years after Sozin's Comet, it was hard to believe that they were.

Everyone had been busy. They had all split up, gone to take care of business and set things right in their home nations. Although the friendships were still there, they had faded into gray.

"Miss Bei Fong?" the servant asked, reappearing in her doorway.

She licked her lips, earning her a humph from the servant who had just spent five minutes meticulously applying her lip paint. "Yes?"

"The visitor… he will not leave. He insists on seeing you."

She hopped down from the stool she had been standing on as her servants had been tying various parts of her robes. "When I want someone to leave, I want them to leave."

The black haired teenager marched down the hallway, her hair falling into her face like it used to do when she had been travelling with the Gaang. Suddenly, she stopped. She recognized those footsteps that were pacing in her waiting room. She recognized the meteorite sword. But, most of all, she recognized the…

"Ponytail!" she gasped, running into the waiting room and promptly crashing into the visitor in a very un-Toph liked gesture. She hadn't seen him in… what? Six years? Since the reunion at Omashu, probably.

He patted the top of her head awkwardly. "Hi, uh, Toph…" he muttered. She pulled away from him, smoothing down her hair and robes.

The Water Tribe man looked different than she remembered. The first thing that she noticed was his lack of smile. His face was sober and strained. He looked… haggard and tired. More tired than a 23-year-old should look.

"Are you alright?" she demanded, her face boring into his chest. Even after all of those years, she was still shorter than he was. Sure, she had grown. But not by much. He was still taller than she was. "You're… different."

"So are you," he muttered, pulling away to look at her. "I'm… I thought I'd stop by on my way to the South Pole… I didn't know if you'd be here or not, but I thought… you know, worth a shot."

"Yeah," she muttered, trying to keep the bitterness from her voice. "I'm still here. I traveled for a while, but it's hard to travel when you don't have any money."

He half-smiled at that, though it was a shadow of the old Sokka smile. "The Runaway? Not having any money? I thought you were good at tricking people."

She scowled, sitting down on one of the wooden benches that adorned their waiting room. She was pleased to notice that Sokka dropped down next to her with a sigh. "Yeah, I am good at it. That's the problem. Word got around about the tricky blind girl… I kind of got banned from ever doing it."

"Why didn't you just get a job? Even Zuko worked in a tea shop, once."

"Nobody hires a blind girl, Sokka."

He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest as silence fell over the two.

This was strange. They were friends. They shouldn't have been so awkward. Normally the conversation was great between her and Sokka. Today it was flat and stale from not seeing each other for seven years. Maybe that wasn't it, though. He seemed sad… Though Toph had no idea why. "Is – " she began to say, wanting to ask him if everything was all right between him and Suki.

"My dad died." He said suddenly, his voice a monotone, except near the end of his sentence. It cracked, as though his throat had a lump in it. She imagined it probably did… he had been close to his dad after the Comet.

Toph stayed silent for a moment, before she wondered what she should do. Katara would have touched him. Maybe hugged him or just touched his shoulder to know that she was there. Some kind of contact. The Earthbender hesitated, before placing her hand on his. "I'm sorry."

"Me too, Toph… me too…" he muttered, his voice still flat.

She paused, pressing her lips together. "How?"

"He was sick."

"Katara couldn't – "

"No. She tried to. Couldn't. Didn't help much. Kept him alive longer, but… in the end, didn't matter much…" he whispered, pressing the palm that wasn't covered by hers against his blue eye to absorb the moisture.

"I'm sorry." She said after a moment. She didn't know what else to say.

He nodded, understanding that this was her way of comforting him. He appreciated it. They sat in silence for a long while.

Eventually, Toph got to thinking. He said he had been visiting her on her way to the South Pole… but Kyoshi Island was south of Gaoling. It was an out-of-the-way visit. Why would he do that? Her heart leapt at the idea that maybe he just did it to see her, but she wasn't so sure.

"Kyoshi Island is south of here," she said quietly.

Sokka pressed his lips together, curling his fingers tightly around hers. "Yeah, it is. I wasn't at Kyoshi Island."

Wait, wait. That made no sense. "I thought you were living there."

"I was." He said, pointedly using the past tense.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Did you…? Or did she…?" She trailed off, not wanting to directly ask him the question that was on her mind.

He paused. "She did. But it felt right. Us… breaking up, I mean. I feel like a jerk saying that, but it's true."

Toph let her fingers trail over the top of his hand. "If it's true, you shouldn't feel like a jerk saying it, Sokka."

"I guess so," he said with a sigh. "I was heading to see you anyway, when the letter came… I felt bad about not writing to you for so long."

Toph nodded, before she stood. Since her hand was connected with Sokka's (and he hadn't dropped it when she stood) he was pulled up as well. She silently moved down the hallway and into her room. "Where's everybody else at?"

"Mai, Ty Lee, and Zuko are in the Fire Nation. Even though Ty Lee and Mai only met my dad briefly at the reunion all those years back… they're still coming."

Toph started pulling clothes into a bag. "Aang?"

"He's already at the South Pole."

"Oh."

"No. Not like that. He was at the Southern Air Temple. He got there fast with Appa." Sokka said it with a clenched jaw, as though he wasn't willing to believe that his sister and the Avatar were… living together.

"Oh."

"Mmm-hmm. What are you doing?" he asked finally, peering over her shoulder to look at the almost full bag.

"Packing."

He surveyed the huge amount of clothing that she was bringing. "You're only going to be there for a couple days."

"Someone needs to stick around to make sure you don't jump off a glacier." She explained. That brought a real smile to his face as he shook his head.

"You don't have to do that."

"I… want to." She said, almost sounding surprised.

She was surprised as he pulled her into a tight hug. "Suki's coming, too… But she won't be there with me…" Toph felt something soft press into the top of her head. His lips.

"I'll be there with you, though, Sokka."

He smiled against her hair, tightening his grip around her. "You always are."

Whew, that was a long one. But I liked writing it. Older!Sokka is sad cause his dad died and Suki broke up with him. But he'll get better, because Toph's there for him. xD