markofthewise | Sokka the 81st

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[action],
[voice]

Sokka the 81st

Sokka woke up in the tunnels with a sudden jolt. He was cold, extremely cold, and no matter how much he pulled on his arms, he couldn't seem to get warm. His memory was a blur, but it slowly began to occur to him how he'd just returned from a mission. Then there was the droids... He shuddered as he thought about that. Had he been kidnapped? Maybe it was why he was so cold.

He pulled himself to his feet and instantly regretted it. At first he stumbled into the wall and scraped his elbow along the side. It bled, but he paid no mind to how it hurt. At least until he realized he needed the wall to steady himself, at which point he turned along side his back and waited. When he went to cover the cut with his hand, he decided that made it altogether worse. So he continued to ignore it. Instead he strained his ears for the sound of anything. The tunnels had their usual hollow echo, though it was more thunderous and he realized that meant there was rain falling in from the entrance. Upon finding his strength, Sokka made his way towards the entrance of the tunnel, using his hand to trace the edges of the wall in case he slipped and needed to brace himself. When he reached the entrance, his guess proved to be right. There was a torrent of rain coming through the entrance of the tunnel and much more rain cascading along the edges.

If he'd had any sense, he would have waited in the tunnels. But he made his way up the ladder, keeping his grip tighter than normal due to the slick conditions. It proved to be a wise decision when his foot slipped at one point and he was left dangling by his hands. By the time he made it to the top, he felt more like himself than normal, but he was drenched to the bone and feeling miserable for it. He felt very sorry for himself and realized he was bound to get himself sick like this. He found himself worried about what Katara would think. The last thing he wanted was to see her upset. But even as he plodded on home in the rain, he found himself stuck on that line of thought. It was a bewildering realization that he was more concerned about how his troubles would impact his sister than it would him. The line of thought seemed almost foreign to him. As he stood outside the house, staring at a stony slab with his own face imprinted in it, he began to understand he was worse off than he thought. More than that, he was hesitant to face anyone.

He delayed his trip by taking the long way home, making his way behind the barracks and into a secret entrance to the house. The tunnel leading to the basement was wet and ankle deep as he trekked his way home. Earthbenders may make great tunnels, but Toph hadn't put much thought into water run off when she carved it out of the ground. By the time he made it to the basement, he was back to shivering again. While a warm July rain may not freeze a man, a cold basement did little good for a man in soggy clothes. He took the opportunity to change into some spare clothes, all the while waiting for sounds of activity upstairs. He wasn't alone, so he waited in the basement as he tried to sort out his thoughts. He nearly went to go wait on the spare bed, but found he could not even do that. He remembered the last time he had been in that bed.

Asami. His stomach lurched as he realized the seriousness of what he had done. But that was nothing compared to what had gone on with Katniss. It had been over three months since he and Katniss had begun their relationship. Of course, with a newer clarity, Sokka couldn't quite describe it as that. His memories with her felt hollow and visceral. They lacked meaning or any sense of fondness. He was able to look back at them with the same sort of distance he did with the false memories he had gained from experiments. But he knew these weren't false memories. They weren't echoes of another life. It was all things he did. Things he said. Lies that he told for his own benefit. His fists tightened as he realized the seriousness of what he had done. They were so tight that his fingernails, only slightly overgrown, pierced his palm and made him bleed. He hissed at the pain and used a roll of paper towels to clean them.

But the blood served to be reminders of things far more awful. He remembered the draft. The stinking, burnt bodies of the cultists. The carelessness as his sword split flesh and bone. The utter lack of empathy he felt for any of them. Worse yet, he recalled a great-winged man pleading for mercy. A man who claimed he was no cultist. Sokka had killed him anyway. It was with a great heaviness that Sokka understood so well why he so adamantly told Katara and Aang why he wouldn't want his heart back. It may have been broken before, but now it was so much worse. It ached with shame and guilt. It gnawed at him so hard that his thoughts turned dark and tempted him with the idea of how easy it would be to go back to not feeling again. But he only thought of his death. The horror and cold of being in space. It had only been a moment, but in his memory it felt like an eternity. As his thoughts tempted him further, he lost his temper and threw aside one of the shelves. He snatched a coat and marched back into the tunnel to lose himself in the woods. The loudness of his fit would probably attract his housemates just above him. He wasn't ready to face them.

He couldn't hide forever and he didn't want to. But the thought of apologizing to each and every person he had wronged was a weight on him. Some deserved it more than others. In his mind it was obvious the two he had hurt the most. Suki and Katniss. He had broken Suki's heart and said unbearably cruel things to her. He could never take back those words and he doubted he could ever have her back at all. But he had to try. And to do that, he would have to break Katniss's heart first. They had entered their relationship on a pretense of not feeling anything for one another. But Sokka was no fool. After the three months they had been together, he knew this was going to hurt her. Much as he wanted to spare her, he couldn't simply continue where they had left off like it was fine. She was a friend, but he didn't love her. He couldn't be with someone he didn't love.

There would be others to apologize to as well. He had wronged Edward Elric by turning his teachings to horrors. He'd said cruel things to Winry, Sheena, Korra, and plenty of others. Richard Sharpe deserved a chance to deliver a blow to Sokka's face for the humiliation he'd given him at the birthday party. He mulled it all over, thinking of each encounter he had. At one point, he stopped at a tree in the woods where he emptied the contents of his stomach along its trunk. He felt weaker for it, but he was far from hungry. He wanted to settle one thing first before he found his sister.

---

His first stop was at Katniss's house, where the wet and bedraggled Sokka rapped his fists at the door and hoped she would be the one to answer. Before anything else, he had to resolve their relationship.

His second stop was looking for his sister, Katara. He searched for her at the clinic first, since it was about the time she ought to be working there. By the time he found her, he felt close to falling over. But he needed to be certain he talked to her, regardless of how he felt.

By the time he made his way back home, the rain had let up for a few hours. He didn't feel better, but he'd at least put some food in himself courtesy of the vending machines at the Battle Dome. The first person he went looking for was Asami. She deserved an apology in person.

He ended up staying in his room after that, even though it would have been better to look for the others. The journal would have to do instead.

---

[Voice]

I haven't been myself for awhile now. I really messed things up. I... [There's a long pause as he finds himself at a loss for words.] I should have done better. I will, from now on. I owe apologies to a lot of you. If you'll let me, then tomorrow I'll come find you in person.

[There should be more. But he doesn't know what else to say. It's enough that his voice is weak and miserable without saying much more than that. So he leans back against the wall and keeps his journal open in front of him. Waiting for whatever they have to say in turn.]

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"I'm sorry," she said. She actually apologized. But she couldn't seem to stop. She dropped his hands and turned around so that he wouldn't have to see, bringing one hand up to cover her mouth as her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

He was going to blame himself and everything was going to be horrible and she'd brought him back for this?

That was worse than what he wanted to see from her. So even though he was tired and even though his hands were only partially healed, he still stood up. He took her by the shoulder to turn around, that way he could pull her into a nother hug. Long, silent, and without words. If there was one benefit of having a soul again, it was that you could care more about someone else's pain than your own. And that bit of empathy, sometimes, was enough to make it okay.

Katara wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him back. After a little while, her tears calmed. "I was so worried and scared for you," she whispered. "And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for how hard it's going to be. But I'm so glad you're back."

He wiped his own eyes clean because although he tried not to cry, it was hard to stop your tears when you had four months of forgetting how to keep your emotions in check. Even with all this, he still had his masculine pride ingrained in him.

"I'm glad to be back, I really am. I don't... I don't act it, I know. But I don't want to go back to being like that. It was easier, but it wasn't worth it."

"That's good to hear," she said quietly. Her throat was sore from so much crying.

"Go ahead, sit down. I'll finish up."

Though worried about her, he did sit down and held out his hands on his knees. But after a moment, he realized something was bothering him more. He pulled at a soaked sleeve.

"Before that... do you mind? It's cold in here."

"Oh!" She should have done that immediately, what was she thinking? "Yeah, of course."

With a smooth movement of her hands, Katara waterbended the garment dry. She turned the gathered water into vapor and sent it towards the door before turning back to Sokka. Reaching out, she took one of his hands again.

"So... have you seen anyone else?"

He felt relieved to be dry again and it helped him relax a little. He held out his hands so she could do her work. Even so, he was hesitant to answer her question. He wasn't sure what she would think of the answer. He swallowed the lump forming in his throat.

"... I went to see Katniss. I had to end things."

"Oh," Katara said quietly, processing that.

She took his hand and began to heal it, her brow furrowed.

"I had to," he insisted. "I wanted to see you and everyone else first, but... after everything I did to her, I couldn't let it wait."

He had to do it while he had the nerve. The shame and guilt to motivate him. He feared if he waited, he would have tried to keep playing the part.

"I'm not upset about that," she said quietly. She wasn't upset about him seeing Katniss first. "But I thought... Katniss knew what she was getting into."

There was a question there, one she wasn't sure how to ask. Did she? Wasn't it a mutual thing?

"It was three months. She thought she knew what she was getting into, but..."

Katniss was a person. A person with a heart and soul. She could care about people in a way he couldn't. Of course it had come to mean something to her.

She looked up at him then, her eyes wide and shadowed, "And you don't feel that way about her at all? It's not that you just feel... upset about what happened, you're sure?"

"She was my friend before this, but I didn't... I wasn't in love with her." He lowered his head and shook his head. "I kept thinking, maybe I could learn to. That it would be easier for her if I just... pretended things were okay with us. But I tried that with Suki already."

He tried it and it led here.

"Okay," she said quietly. "If you don't feel that way about her, then that's for the best."

Katara set down one healed hand and reached for the other.

She had been hoping some of that was real for him. As much as she wanted Sokka and Suki to be together, it was good to see him making progress towards something that seemed positive. It felt like robbery all over again to learn that it hadn't been real at all.

"I hope so."

He still could see Katniss's pained eyes. Her anger that he used her like that. The only good thing he'd done for her was let himself be the bad guy to be hated.

"It really hurt her. And I've hurt Suki so much already..."

"We can't always protect the people we care about," Katara said in a small voice. She was thinking about Masaomi's face when she'd told him that they would never be more than friends. They still weren't even really friends anymore.

"But you're wrong if you keep blaming just yourself, Sokka. You're just... wrong."

With his hands feeling better now, he pulled them away a little, running his thumbs over his palms that he had cut with his own fingers. That had been his own doing, too. Even if unintentional.

"Even if it isn't, I feel it inside me. You don't know the things I did, Katara." I'm not sure I can bear if it you did. "It's not like looking at what another me did. It's not just... memories that were made up by the Malnosso. It was real and I remember every choice I made. I remember thinking that they made perfect sense when I did them."

"Of course they did," she insisted, trying to meet his gaze. "You were missing your heart! And I'm not going to tell you that it's okay, because we both know that will be a lie, but if you keep blaming just yourself then you're wrong. You have to believe me, Sokka. You know you'd tell me the same thing."

He looked up at her. "If I did, would you believe me?"

"I don't know," she said honestly, meeting his gaze without wavering. "I hope so. Eventually. And I'll say it as many times as I need to until you do. Because it's true. And there's not much else to hang on to here besides the few things that are true."

And because it would help her, at least, to be able to blame what death had taken from her. It would help her to get rightfully angry and weep.

"I'll try." He meant it, even if he didn't yet believe he would succeed. Not when the damage was still so raw and the memories so fresh. "I can't be mopey forever. That's Zuko's job."

It was a joke, but it wasn't one he smiled at. But it was an effort to regain some sense of normalcy. He failed.

Katara, on the other hand, did smile for him, at least briefly. "That's all I can ask, that you try."

She knew that meant something.

It made him feel better, at least, that she was able to smile. Maybe he'd get there too. He did lean forward a it, so she could reach his shoulder easier.

"I slipped in the tunnels. My legs didn't want to move."

She moved forward to attend to his shoulder, her face sobering again. "Did it hurt? What John did to you. Do you remember any of it?"

Is that my fault too?

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