Severance

Chapter 19 -Sokka

It had been a week since the invasion of the earth kingdom. I had never imagined that things would turn out as badly as they did, yet here we were now. I was alive, Katara and her family are alive, Lin was alive, Suyin was alive, but Toph was not. She was the only one of us that didn't make it, and I couldn't forgive myself for that. It wasn't as if we hadn't tried to bring her back, we all flew to the North Pole in order to get spirit water. We laid Toph in the water of Tui and La, and Katara healed her in it, but it was no use.
There was too much death inside of her.
So here I was now, staying with Lin in her hospital room as she still recovered. Aang and Zuko had caught Yami and Anri, and they were sentenced to death (though Aang wasn't too happy about that). It didn't matter much to me.
Though the Black Lotus is still running strong, I've decided to do my part in order to get rid of them. I was going through the ropes to become chief of police, and though I could never live up to Toph's expectations, I could try. I needed revenge on these people.
I looked at Lin as she lay there, fragile, and held her hand gently. Katara had Su, as I didn't want to distract myself from Lin. She may not have been my blood, but she was definitely my family. In fact, after getting together to talk, we had all decided that I would be taking in the two girls. I wouldn't mind having them around, and besides, one was biologically my daughter.
I started thinking about how the funeral was going to be. Toph's mother and father wanted it to be just them, which I could understand, but I could never really get to say goodbye to the only woman I truly loved. Instead she was going in a hole to rot. I closed my eyes at the thought of this and tried to think of something happy instead.
I had my daughter, and I'd be able to raise her however I wanted to. She'd be a meat lover just like me, and feisty just like her mother.
I was going to give them every piece of her that she had left in me, and though they wouldn't be able to be there with her personally, she would always be in them.
"Sir?"
I looked at the doctor and stood up. "Hey... any good news?"
"Yes, actually. Lin is stable enough to go home, you can get her out of here"
"Thank you" I nodded, looking down at her.
The night of the attack, Toph died doing what she did best; protecting her family. See, we think that she was targeted for working so closely on the case of the Black Lotus. They ambushed her, and she got Su locked away, but must not have been able to do the same thing. In order to protect Lin, she made herself a human body shield in the heat of the moment. They thought they were both dead, so they fled. How could it have been so easy to kill a mother and her daughter?
It made me sick.
I packed the few things I had brought to the hospital with me, and helped Lin off the bed. We walked out of the hospital hand in hand, and made our way to Katara and Aang's house.
"Sokka, hey," started Katara, looking at Lin. "Oh, she was released. I guess you're here for Su"
"Yeah... I want to get settled in at my house"
"Alright..."
She walked to get her, and came back to give her to me. We didn't want to speak more than we had to.
She couldn't bring Toph back, and she blamed herself.
I couldn't say that I wasn't a little upset with her, though I knew it wasn't her fault.
None of this was our faults.
Lin, Su, and I walked out of there together as a family. What started out to be casual interactions with these kids turned into me taking them in for a better life.
From now on, it would be just us, and I would do anything to make sure the girls were happy and healthy.
We would start our life together, and I swore that these girls would never get hurt, hoping that somewhere, somehow, Toph was hearing.