beliefovermisery | S_E: First night in Eden

There were stars above him for the first time in a year.

Sokka was on the roof of the hotel, in a place called Eden, far enough from his home and the world of Four Nations that it was liable to break his heart, and he was looking at stars.

It must have been a new moon, Sokka thought, as he lay back against the concrete with his head propped up on the ledge, his eyes tracking constellations. It must be a new moon because he can't see it, just the stars, just thousands and millions of stars, each one a tiny sun, he'd learned so much about them from Wash and Harper and now, for the first time in a year, he was seeing them again and...

It must have been a new moon.

He couldn't see the moon.

Strange, he starts to think, little images worming their way into his head. Strange that the first night he's seen the stars in a year, it just happens to be the one night a month where the moon is black, where it hides itself from the light. Odd that it isn't slivered somewhere, waxing or waning, it's just-- gone. Black.

Hiding.

The moon is hiding from him.

He'd spent the night with Paige last night, as he had been starting to do more and more often. He didn't want Katara to move out of the first floor and she was still wary about him doing anything around her - looking at her. So he spent nights with Paige to keep his sister in one place, because spending the night with Paige made him forget his sister and that, sometimes, more often than he would like to admit to, made him happy. Paige made him happy, her smile and her mind and her words and her arms and her-- everything. He was happy, he was hopeful, he had a tentative engagement that would take years to fulfill and he was all right with that because Paige was and she mattered most to him.

Most.

He walked out of her room that morning with those thoughts in his head and hit a brick wall.

And now there are stars and a sky and his eyes are scanning the black, picking out all the little stars and he is looking because he suspects that maybe, just maybe, someone who gave up her happiness for the world's is angry he didn't mourn a little longer, hurt a little harder, miss a little more.

Sokka looks at the sky and the moon is hiding from him.