Chapter Text
“What are you doing here?”
Hakoda chuckled and stood up, making his way over to his son with outstretched arms. “Visiting my family. It’s not often we’re all on the same continent, let alone in the same room.”
As he drew closer, Sokka took a step back from him and held out his hand. Hakoda stopped and looked down at it.
Sokka gave him a tight smile. “Good to see you, Dad.”
After a moment, his father mirrored his gesture and they gripped each other’s forearms cordially. On their way back to the breakfast table, Hakoda patted Sokka’s back.
“You too, son.”
Aang and Katara exchanged a glance, and Katara smiled at her husband. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
They gripped the skillet together and flicked their wrists—most of the cakes flipped without issue, but a few plopped on the floor and were swiftly pounced on by Bumi. Aang chuckled, leaned into Katara blissfully and kissed her cheek, then stooped down to help their son.
Hakoda watched his grandson stuff the half-raw cakes into his mouth and smiled fondly. “He reminds me of you,” he told Sokka.
Sokka glanced at his father and a million thoughts piled up behind his lips, so many that he couldn’t speak at all. He took a sip of tamarind juice, thankful for Katara and her family—they filled the silence nicely.
“So, how are things down South?” Hakoda asked.
“They’re fine,” Sokka answered curtly.
“Anyone causing trouble?”
“Nope.” His eyes flitted to Hakoda. “But I could handle it if they were,” he added.
“Of course you could,” Hakoda replied pleasantly, but he watched his son with knit eyebrows.
Toph trudged down the stairs with Lin in her arms just as Aang was placing the cakes on the table.
“You’re just in time, Toph!”
She grunted in response, then paused. “There’s an extra person in here. Is that… Hakoda?”
He smiled. “Boy, you’re good. And who’s this?”
Sokka suddenly felt the urge to stand in front of Toph and Lin, to block them from his father’s view, but he stayed where he was. He bit into a sticky cake and burned the roof of his mouth. He didn’t make a sound.
“This is my daughter, Lin,” Toph said, sitting down a short distance away from Sokka.
“I didn’t know you got married,” Hakoda told her happily, but she shook her head.
“I skipped that step. Katara forgot to give me the manual.”
Hakoda smiled down at the pudgy bundle in Toph’s arms. “She’s beautiful. Can I hold her?”
“No,” Sokka murmured—then he blinked. Hakoda frowned at him.
Katara and Aang tilted their heads.
Toph’s face remained blank.
“I mean—you should eat first,” Sokka rushed. “Before breakfast gets cold.”
“It’ll only be a second,” Hakoda tried, and Toph nodded.
“Of course you can hold her, Hakoda.”
She placed her daughter carefully in Hakoda’s arms, and he beamed down at her. He booped her nose gently and tickled her cheek. “She looks about Kya’s age.”
“A couple weeks younger,” Katara said.
Sokka watched his father hold his daughter and felt a distant ache in his stomach.
“Who’s her dad?” Hakoda asked, pulling a silly face and laughing with the baby. “She’s a sharp one,” he added.
Toph smiled and shrugged. “Just some guy.”
The ache in his stomach deepened.
“Well, he’s missing out,” Hakoda told her. “If you ever need anything, just ask. Okay, Toph? You’ve been a part of this family for a long time.”
Sokka paused his chewing; he felt a little sick now, actually. He waited for it to pass while Toph spoke.
“Thanks, Hakoda. That’s really nice.”
He placed Lin back into Toph’s arms and tucked into his meal, and Sokka took another careful bite. He chewed it delicately.
“So, Hakoda, what are you doing in town?” Toph asked, settling Lin into the crib next to Kya’s.
“Well, on top of visiting all of you, I’m here as an advisor to Hahn for the conference.”
“Since when does he listen to you?” Sokka asked. “Or anyone?”
“Rarely,” his father admitted. “But he likes to have me around in case anyone claims he doesn’t care about the South.”
“He doesn’t.”
“It’s a lot of land,” Hakoda said. “He cares about that.”
Sokka shook his head and speared another cake, which he ate in one bite. “He’s never even seen it.”
“Sokka, nobody wants him to. Us, or you. Imagine him spending a week at Wolf Cove.”
He listened to his father—and frowned when he lumped himself in with the Northerners.
“He would see how little influence he has down there, and it would only fuel him to take more control and put you under more sanctions.”
Sokka nodded reluctantly… then shook his head with a huff. “He shouldn’t have that power.”
“It’s his tribe, Sokka.”
He met his father’s gaze. “Dad, c’mon. You know that’s a load of—”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Aang said brightly. “No politics at the table. Save it for the conference.”
An awkward silence settled over the group; out of the corner of his eye, Sokka watched his father eat breakfast. He listened to Lin coo in her crib. Next to him, Toph ate her meal calmly and quietly.
“These cakes are delicious, Katara,” Hakoda said finally.
She smiled. “They’re Aang’s recipe. He’s been trying to recreate the desserts the monks used to make.”
“These aren’t as crispy as the ones when I was a kid,” Aang said with a distant frown. “They’re almost there, just… not quite.”
Katara patted his leg gently under the table. “You’ll figure it out, honey.”
Aang blinked. “Honey might be what’s missing—I need to write that down.” He hurried over to the kitchen counter, opened a tattered notebook, and began to scribble. Katara watched him sadly.
“Suliva, tainnaunii?” Hakoda asked Sokka under his breath; Katara looked at him.
“He’s fine,” she replied quietly. At the looks on their faces, she rolled her eyes. “I understand some of it, I just can’t speak it.”
“The monks kept bees!” Aang burst from the other side of the kitchen, unaware of the conversation at the table.… Then his voice grew quieter, and his gray eyes grew cloudy. He gazed down, unseeing, at his notebook. “How could I forget that?”
“I bet the next ones will be perfect, Aang,” Katara said gently, making her way over to him and kissing him on the cheek.
“Hm,” he agreed, absently placing a hand on her hip and pulling her closer. He murmured something to her that Sokka couldn’t hear; she shook her head and hugged him, whispering something in return.
Hakoda shoveled some scrambled eggs onto his plate and began to wolf them down; Sokka looked at Toph, who was frowning in the direction of Aang and Katara.
“How’s everything going on the police force, Toph?” Hakoda asked thickly.
Toph blinked, and her attention was torn from her friends. “It’s going alright. We’re starting to crack down on organized crime, hopefully, but the council is being stingy with our funding. We need to hire more bodies.”
“Well, I know Nerik, the Water Tribe delegate,” Hakoda said. “I could talk to him, see if I can work something out.”
Sokka tried not to scoff, but failed. He stared at his breakfast and felt the eyes of everyone in the room land on him. Even Aang and Katara paused their whispered conversation.
“Something you want to say, Sokka?” Hakoda asked.
He shrugged. “Nah. I’m good.”
In her crib, Lin began to fuss; without thinking, Sokka tensed to get up—but Toph made it to the baby first. “I think she’s hungry,” she said, her mouth slanted. “We’ll be back.”
He could feel his father’s eyes on him as Toph took their daughter back upstairs.
“Cute kid,” Hakoda tried; Sokka nodded absently.
“Yeah. I bet she’ll be an earthbender.”
“With that woman as her mother? Absolutely.”
Sokka suddenly felt uncomfortably full and pushed his plate away; Hakoda glanced at it.
“You feeling alright, son? You hardly touched your food.”
Sokka slid his fingers through his hair and nodded. “Aang, when does the meeting start?”
“Um…” Aang glanced out the window at the small sundial in the garden. “Two hours.”
“Hahn wants me there early, so I should leave soon,” Hakoda said. He shoveled a few more bites of egg into his mouth and swallowed with some difficulty. “Sokka, can I talk to you outside before I go?”
Sokka paused, then nodded. He followed his father into the verdant garden; a small songbird whistled from a bush nearby, and the smell of fresh vegetables met his nose. He nearly ran into Hakoda when the older man stopped walking—they stood there in the crisp sunlight, and Sokka waited.
To his surprise, his father began to speak in their native language. “I didn’t just come over for breakfast,” he said, glancing around them.
Sokka frowned.
“Sokka, I met with Hahn last night after the meeting. He told me what you said.”
His own response was low, quick; faster than he would speak with a member of his village, so many of whom were still learning the language. With his father, he could speak as fast as he thought. “I said a lot of things.”
“Can you just listen? For a moment?”
With great difficulty, Sokka didn’t roll his eyes. He closed his mouth. He waited.
“You need to stop it with all of this… Southern defiance,” Hakoda said finally.
He couldn’t help it—he glared at his father. “You really do sound like one of them.”
“Hahn is getting angry.”
“Oh, forgive me if I make Hahn—”
“He’s talking about removing you as chief,” Hakoda said quietly.
Sokka’s heart dropped. “What?”
“He wants someone more in line with his own politics. Someone from the North.”
His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. “He can’t just…”
“He can, Sokka. It’s within his power.”
“But our family has been leading the tribe since…” Sokka shrugged helplessly.
“The Northern chiefs have let us care for the tribe for a long time,” Hakoda agreed. “But they were kind. They never had to be.”
“Dad, this is… this is bullshit,” Sokka whispered.
“It’s our law.”
“The law should change,” Sokka argued.
Hakoda pursed his lips. “You’re not helping your case here.”
“What if I don’t give a shit?” he said, his voice rising—they both looked around, and he quieted.
“If you want the South to be ruled by a Southerner, you have to give a shit,” Hakoda told him levelly; Sokka’s eyes widened. The last time he’d heard his father swear was… never.
“Hahn will be using the conference to look for excuses to replace you. You can’t give him any.”
“What, just—agree with everything he says?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Sokka shook his head numbly. “He’ll walk all over us. Completely screw us on policy, taxes…. He’ll send more scouts, like he did at the end of the war.”
“I can help with that, counsel him otherwise. If he thinks you’ve come around to his side, there’s no reason for him to assert his power unnecessarily. Everything will be okay. You just have to listen to me, igniga.”
Hakoda nestled his warm hand on the top of Sokka’s head, and Sokka closed his eyes. Suddenly he was ten years old again, helpless and cold, and his father was the only safe thing in the world.
“Dad,” he said softly… then he wiped his eyes hastily.
Hakoda frowned at the sudden change in tone. “What’s the matter?”
All the air left his lungs and he stood there, trying to put the right words in the right order, while his father stared at him.
“She’s mine,” he murmured. “Lin is mine.”
Hakoda’s face was blank with shock. “Lin is your daughter?”
He nodded slowly. “I didn’t know, I just, um… I just found out last night. I didn’t know.”
“Sokka…”
He waited for a lecture about all the consequences he could face but, given the news he’d just received, his status as umialik seemed tenuous at best…. Even so, the lecture never came.
“Is this something serious? Between you and Toph?”
He would have preferred the lecture; he shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I was serious. But I don’t think she was.”
Hakoda nodded. He laid a firm hand on Sokka’s shoulder. “That’s something you should figure out, igniga.”
“Yeah, Dad…” Sokka sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
“Because if you have the chance to share your life with someone, you need to take it.”
Sokka closed his eyes. Shook his head. “You would say that.”
Hakoda withdrew his hand and let it hang limply at his side.
“You know if I choose Toph, I have to leave the tribe. Like you did.”
Hakoda sighed. “Sokka…”
“Except if I leave, there’s no one to clean up all the shit I left behind. If I leave, the tribe is fucked.”
“I was lucky that I had a son,” Hakoda told him quietly.
“Because that’s all a son is for,” Sokka almost laughed. “Someone to inherit all your problems when you decide to follow your new tayagnaun across the world.”
Hakoda’s mouth bent. “She’s more than that. I love her, Sokka.”
Sokka stared at the green earth under his feet. “More than Mom?”
His father gave him a tired look. “You sound like a child.”
“I know,” Sokka admitted. “But I’ve always wondered.”
It took Hakoda a long time to speak; that used to bother Sokka when he was younger, but he waited patiently now, comforted in the knowledge that every word would be true and clear.
“It was my job to protect your mother, and I failed. I failed.” Hakoda’s voice broke at the end, and he cleared his throat. “And then I promised her I’d never love anyone else for as long as I lived, and I fell in love with Malina. Every moment I was with her, I was terrified that your mom would think I was forgetting her, or moving on.”
Sokka’s eyebrows drew themselves together. “You don’t think you’ve moved on?”
“Sokka, you know this. You don’t move on from that kind of pain. You just get used to it.”
Sokka swung his left knee back and forth absently. After a moment, he nodded.
“When Malina had to go back to the North, I needed to follow her and keep her safe. I needed that. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
Hakoda watched him steadily, and his voice was gentle. “To ask me whether I love one more than the other… I can’t answer that. The love is different, the guilt is different. My role is the same. I’m a husband, I’m a father, my job is to protect. It’s your job, too, igniga.”
“Dad…” Sokka trailed off. Suddenly the burning in his chest flared hotter and he crossed his arms tightly. But his blue eyes were unfocused, like a storm on the horizon. “If Hahn finds out about Lin, it won’t be my job anymore,” he murmured.
“He won’t,” Hakoda said simply. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“I just have to bend over and smile,” Sokka muttered.
Hakoda chuckled. “Exactly, son. Now, I should get going. But, Sokka…” He took a halting step forward, and Sokka didn’t move away. Then he wrapped his arms around his son and held him tight; Sokka nestled his nose into his father’s shoulder and hugged him back fiercely, again feeling like a scared child. “Lin isn’t a bad thing, igniga. No matter what happens, just remember that.”
“Yeah,” Sokka agreed. Slowly, he let go of his father and trained his eyes on the ground. “Yeah, you’re… you’re right.”
***
The guest room was silent as Toph fitted her armor over her suit; Sokka sat on the bed and strapped up his boots, but his eyes flitted over to her occasionally. She didn’t seem to notice—or she pretended not to.
“You told your dad,” she said finally, fixing her hair into a bun.
He looked at her now. Finished tying his boots. Rested his elbows on his knees and sighed. “Yeah.”
Toph turned towards him; she kept her face neutral. “You trust him?”
“I think so.”
She snorted. “Love the confidence, Sokka.”
He stood up, his eyes landing on a strand of hair that had fallen out of her bun. “Your hair’s messed up.”
He reached to help her but she flicked his hand away. “I can do it,” she muttered.
Sokka held up his hands innocently and Toph tucked the loose strand into a clip. She touched her hair delicately to make sure everything was in place and Sokka gave her a thumbs-up that she couldn’t see. “Beautiful,” he said.
She ignored the compliment. “So, you don’t think he’ll tell Hahn?”
“He said he wouldn’t.”
“Sokka,” she sighed, “you shouldn’t have told him.”
His voice was hushed, always mindful of the thin wooden door keeping them and their secret from the rest of the world, but there was anger mixed in. Anger and hurt. “Toph, I think I would have exploded if I didn’t tell anyone. I’m not like you.”
“No one is,” she smiled sardonically, then she sobered. “He works for Hahn. It’s risky. That’s all I’m saying.”
Sokka heaved a sigh, and it sounded like he could have crawled back into bed at that moment and been asleep before he hit the pillow. “He’s my dad. I have to believe that’s more important. I have to.”
“I hope you’re right,” Toph said. “So, is that all you talked about?”
Sokka froze. “What?”
“Aang said Hakoda brought you outside to talk about something,” she said. “I’m assuming it wasn’t Lin.”
“Oh,” he managed—he scooped up his bag from the floor and made his way toward the door; Toph followed close behind. “It was just Water Tribe business. Doesn’t really concern you.” Both of those sentences were true to a certain extent, and Sokka prayed that his heart wouldn’t betray him with a lie; but Toph only shrugged as they made their way down the stairs.
“Whatever. Sounds boring.”
“Yeah,” Sokka said. “Yeah, it was no big deal.”
Toph frowned at that, but she kept quiet.
She kept quiet as they loaded onto the boat that would carry them to Republic City Harbor, kept quiet when she broke from her friends to stand guard outside their conference room door. But she was certain of it—Sokka’s heart had skipped a beat.
Sokka had lied.