beliefovermisery | Winding down

She had taken a shower. A long, much-needed shower, with hot water--courtesy of her 'bending--and gotten into a change of clothes. Jeans and a t-shirt with a sweatshirt over top. If not for the hair loopies, she would have looked like some modern tomboy teen with a bad scene haircut, trying to hide it under it under a garish hat with a feather.

Her bloody and ragged clothes she left soaking in the tub--she still wanted them, wanted to patch them up. They were from home after all, and now she had lost both her necklace and her waterskin.

Sitting on the pile of blankets she called her bed, barefoot, she was staring at the wall for the moment, just thinking.

He's nowhere near as clean, but he's been busy - and Paige hardly cared if he kept his bloody, bullet-torn t-shirt on.

He watches her for a long moment from the doorway, just reliving it all. Krauser's words that they'd lost her, the argument with Mel, help from Meng, the discussion with Paige, the days they'd worked, going in, finding her, the soreness in his shoulder that means he saved her and she's here, right in front of him.

Safe and sound.

"Nukka..."

She jumped at the sound--wasn't that sad? So jumpy even Sokka's voice, startled her, but then she was up on her feet, and she went over and threw her arms around his neck. Blood be damned, he was her brother.

"Are you okay?" she said quietly.

No, it wasn't sad. Nothing was sad because she was here and she was safe and in a second, she's in his arm and he's lifted her off her feet in a tight hug, his arms around her waist, eyes closed with his head bowed against her shoulder.

"I'm great," he whispers, voice trembling slightly, simply-- overwhelmed.

She hugged him even tighter.

"You're an idiot for getting shot for me," she said lovingly.

Aside from the hurting? That was the best part.

"You're an idiot for listening when I said you could go scouting," he replies, fond and teasing. He knows she would have gone whether he permitted it or not.

He just holds onto her more tightly.

"I'm sorry we-- didn't come sooner." He tried, but...

"I'm really crap at sewing."

She actually laughed, although Sokka would probably be surprised to learn that it hadn't been very long since she'd laughed last.

"I wasn't exactly expecting him to..."

She took a deep breath. "In the morning, you have to meet my friends."

Yes, even in a horrible hellhole of doom and despair, she made friends.

Like he's surprised?

"I will," he said softly, smiling that she laughed, really laughed and finally sets her on her feet, stepping away to look and smile, hold his palm against her cheek.

And cock a brow.

"...Should I be worried about the flying-kid?"

"Worried?" she asked, eyebrow raising. "Jim? No. Nooo."

Read: Yes.

But in an entirely different way this time.

There was slight blushing. Only slight!

"He was...he was really nice to me. Our cages were next to each other and when we were both upset, we'd just...talk and try not to think about it. He's...good."

He could go out in sunlight and actually had a pulse! That meant he wasn't a threat!

"So no, you don't have to worry. You've done enough of it anyway."

"This is true," he agrees, mouth twisting in exaggerated consideration as he brings a hand up to tap his chin. "Still, I've hassled all the other boys that played nice with you. I really shouldn't make exceptions, Katara - it'll ruin my reputation completely."

Isn't it nice to know you can never really scare the sarcasm out of him?

"You jerk," Katara said irritably, and then she hugged him again. "I missed you so much."

He grins, before and during that hug, and tugs her close again. "Missed you, too," he said quietly, going for rib-bruising huggage for a moment, just because he can. "No more near-death experiences, okay? Not for either of us."

"No more or somebody else is going to have a death experience that isn't 'near'," Katara said, somewhat darkly.

"Weird, that's what I was going to say," he replies, mock surprise in his tone as he reaches to pull her braid--

And comes back empty.

He blinks and then tips that hat - Hamel's hat? - back from her brow. So he can poke it with a finger.

And smile.

"You want me to try and even it?" He has a good, sharp knife! And... a decent eye for even stuff!

Katara didn't really want anymore sharp things around her face, but if there was anyone in the world she trusted more than Sokka...

Actually there wasn't.

She nodded, looking a little sad.

That was another thing from home she'd lost. Her braid. So the curretn tally was at three, that, her necklace, and her waterskin.

"Just don't make me look like a hedgehog-weasel.

"Jeez, you make one mistake when you're little and you never hear the end of it..."

The knife he'd brought to the hive is gone, but he has others, sharpened and waiting and a little less-- scary looking. Kitchen carving knives, not hunting ones, and he takes her hand and leads her over to her bedding so she can kneel comfortably while he removes the hat and looks at her hair. It takes some sawing, but only because he's trying to be careful.

"So, the flying kid. Who else did you meet?"

"Another flying kid. His name is Danny; he's...not very happy. I think he'd pretty much given up until I told him the rescue was going to come. He was the one that was flying around during the fight and going through walls," Katara said, as Sokka cut her hair.

"Then there's Chase, he's the one that came in the green ship-thing. He was a huge help and kind of led everyone--and I have no idea how he managed to stay that cheerful. He's also gross, but it's okay."

"Boys are all gross - you should know that by now, all that time spent with me and Aang," Sokka notes, holding her hair back so he can saw at it. The knives are sharp and it doesn't long to cut through. "Interesting guys, though.

"...I'm glad you had company." Well, sort of. Glad she wasn't alone if not glad any of them had to be there.

"I'm just glad I wasn't stuck there as long as they were."

There's a pause in the sawing of hair and he bumps the back of her head lightly with his brow. "Me, too," is said quietly before he leans back and goes back to his job.

A few moments later, he's leaning back, her ragged haircut quite a bit more even as he sets the knife aside. "There. Go look and tell me what I did wrong."

"I look like a boy," Katara said unhappily, her fingers toying with the ends of her hair. She turned away from the mirror. "But you did a good job with what I had left."

Unhappy? Sokka comes up behind her, frowning slightly at her reflection. "Oh, you do n--..."

A few pauses later and he reaches up to tug out his hair tie, letting his hair flop around his eyes.

"...Huh."

Suddenly the family resemblance is a lot more compelling.

"Don't worry - your chest will give it away." Among other things, but-- y'know. Most obvious.

Katara elbowed him in the side.

"Oof! What, you'd rather it didn't?"

"You're supposed to say I still look really girly!"

Not that there's only one feature that distinguises her from being a boy.

She fiddled with her hair beads, and then her expression changed to look very sad in the mirror.

"I miss my hair."

More fiddling.

"And my waterskin."

Even more fiddling. "And my necklace--I don't have anything left of mom's now."

Her eyes were sparkling a bit and she wiped at them.

"That must sound stupid. After all that, I'm saying I miss my hair, but..."

...Silly girl. And sillier boy, in a minute, as his eyes grow dark and sad and he gets a bit of a foolish idea...

But he's fairly certain it'll make her smile.

Carefully he reaches around to take out her little hair beads, steps behind her and draws the hair back over her ears, works for a few minutes...

And that short, shorn hair now has the top bit pulled back and braided down. Just like their mother used to wear her hair. Sliding the beads onto the end of it, he nudges her in the mirror, smiling a little-- and then pokes her in the cheek with a finger.

"Very girly. See? Look at the girl-ness. I bet if there was a mouse in here, your high-pitched screaming would break the windows."

She laughed and burst into tears at the same time.

Then...then she was just crying.

Well, she smiled for a little while.

His arms wrap around her from behind, loose enough to let her turn if she wanted to. But for now, he's perfectly content to hold onto her, rest his chin on her shoulder and hold her tight. "It's okay," he whispers, holding, rocking her a little, "it's all right now. They were just things, Katara, stuff... you still have her, you do.

"You're home now. Didn't... didn't I tell you? I promised I wouldn't leave, remember?"

This time? He kept that promise.

She didn't stop crying, just sort of plopped down onto her little bedroll, still crying.

"I'm-I'm t-tired," she stuttered out.

He let her go when she plopped but knelt beside her soon enough. If she isn't adverse to the touch, he'll start petting her hair gently, looking down at her.

He promised he wouldn't leave and-- he didn't. She left, he went after her. And now they're back together, but... maybe he should have gone sooner, gotten her out of there more quickly. But then they might have lost the rest or...

"...Sleep," he says quietly, looking down on her, eyes dark and soul heavy. "Go to sleep, nukka."

She squeezed herself down under her bundle of blankets, sniffled a few times and dropped right off to sleep shortly after.

Winding down

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