alwaysroomforhope | (no subject)

Stpeh has never seen a snowstorm like this; reading textbooks with lines like "Precipitation is dangerous and severe in coastal areas of Greenland" really didn't do much to explain the sheer fury of the weather.

"So there was this one time all Gotham was covered in snow," she remarks, finally crawling back inside the igloo and replacing the blocks at the end of the tunnel to keep the wind out, turning to grin at Sokka in the darkness. "Totally, totally not as cool as this."

There's a small candle used for light, settled into a shelf carved into one of the blocks of the igloo specifically for that purpose. From that, they can see shadows and planes of light over each other's faces. Sokka grins when Steph crawls back in, lifting one edge of the blanket he's under for her to get back in.

Beneath that blanket, he's fully dressed. Not in parka or boots, but thick pants and leather tunic, fur and animal hide keeping his feet warm. The farm would be stunned to see them now, not all over each other, touching, kissing. It's just-- it doesn't feel right.

Not yet.

"It used to storm like this all the time back in the village," he comments, soft but clear. Sokka's voice is getting stronger, but only very very slowly. "We had bigger igloos, though, and a wall around the whole village, so the wind wasn't so bad."

Steph wriggles in with him, her own parka and ski pants making her twice the size she usually is, and tucks the blanket back down around them.

"Way cool," she confirms, leaning against his side close enough to steal his body heat, thoughtful.

He says back in the village, not back home. Maybe he always has, Steph just hadn't paid attention before.

"How old were you? When you left, I mean?"

Sokka smiles a little, pleased at this response. The next set of questions just get a shrug and a small shake of his head. "I don't know. We didn't keep track of that like you guys did. I guess maybe... fourteen, fifteen? Something like that."

"That's old," Steph says, thoughtful. "I mean, relatively. Especially for you, right? I remember you saying once something like you would have been an adult at sixteen?"

Her hair is flyaway and sparking occasionally with static electricity from her nylon parka. She pulls it out of his face, trying to smooth it down.

He blinks and scrunches his nose a little, patiently putting up with the pampering. It's the only thing that keeps him grinning when she's finished, blinking up at her again.

"Technically, yeah. We're supposed to be married at sixteen. It probably wasn't going to happen that way for me anyway, but that's how the tribe worked."

He thought he was 'old.'

"I think that'd be kinda cool too," Steph says thoughtfully, hands still in her hair, trying to tug it into neatness. She starts braiding, because it seems easiest.

"Knowing what you were supposed to be, what you were supposed to do. I mean, neither of us have that now, I guess, but it would have made things easier when you were a kid."

He's watching her fingers, small and quick and knowledgable, braiding efficiently. Cleverly. Not that it's hard to braid (not when Sokka can do it himself) but he's still watching.

"I didn't have it then," he points out gently, still watching her hands. "There were rules and traditions for how things were supposed to be but none of it had worked like that in a long time."

"It'd be pretty rude and thoughtless to say I'm glad things worked out for you this way, wouldn't it?"

Sitting in a tiny igloo in a ferocious storm, in a world neither of them ever imagined.

"I am anyway."

Because if it hadn't, she wouldn't be here either.

He smiles a little, for 'rude and thoughtless.' Slowly, his hand finds hers beneath the blankets.

"I'm glad you're here."

Here with him, knowing him, choosing him.

The rest... he's not exactly glad for. But it happened and they can't take it back.

That interrupts the braiding, because it takes a while to braid this much hair - but Steph can forgive him for that, sliding her fingers around his and squeezing, soft-eyed and smiling.

"Yeah ... me too."

She shakes her head, grinning a little. "When I was a kid I always wanted to be a superhero. I'd wrap a towel around my shoulders and play it was a cape."

Sokka's smile twists into a grin, sliding his hand away from her so she can continue.

"So you got your wish."

But she liked the hand. She nods, though, thoughtful.

"Yeah ... but now I've finished being that, I don't really know what to be next. I knew more about what I was doing when I was fourteen than I do now."

And another quick, flashing grin, but it fades very fast. This is something they haven't talked about, not ever except for that once on a hill overlooking Gotham.

"That was when I was pregnant."

No, they-- really haven't talked about this at all. Sokka's grin fades and he looks at her, quiet and waiting.

It takes several moment before he realizes he needs to speak.

"Do you blame yourself for that?"

That's not the encouraging thing he meant to say, really.

"Mmmmm... not any more." She leans back on her elbows, thinking, abandoning the untied braid. "I did the best thing I could for her. But I always wished it could be different - I still wish that. I just don't think I hate myself for it any more.

"She'd be nearly - wow, nearly five by now."

Sokka is quiet, watching her. Watching her face, her eyes. Listening to the tone of her voice. Her words. What she's saying, but more importantly how she's saying it.

Trying to hear what she isn't saying. What it's like to have kids.

What it's like to abandon them for their own good.

They've all done in that in some way or another, haven't they?

"I really wanted to keep her," she says, glancing over at him, serious. "I mean ... you should know that. I wanted her more than anything else, ever. But my dad and my mom ... I couldn't."

She probably could have, if she'd just tried a little bit harder. If she'd just ...

Sokka's looking at her, listening, and there's something - he understands. He really does. He isn't saying any stupid reassuring stuff, isn't trying to tell her that it's okay and that she shouldn't feel bad. Because it isn't okay; the best choice, yes, but still not a good thing.

But he's looking at her. So she smiles, a small, serious sort of smile.

"I know we don't really talk about our pasts, either of us. So if you don't wanna hear, that's OK, too. I just don't want you to think I don't want you to know."

"I wanna hear," Sokka replies, surprisingly himself with his own earnestness. His honesty.

"If you want to tell me, I want to hear it."

All of it, any of it.

Talk.

Steph looks at him a minute longer, and then grins, reassured by his expression, even in the dim light of the candle, the shadows flickering.

The wind is howling outside, loud even through the thick walls of ice, but they're warm under the blankets and they're not going anywhere.

"I was fourteen when I ... Dean wasn't my first boyfriend or anything. I mean, I thought I knew what we were doing." It's all such a long time ago. Her face is thoughtful, not sad. "Obviously, not so much. Does that - does it ever happen in your tribe? Stupid little girls, getting into trouble like that?"

Sokka listens, lying comfortably and quietly on his side, watching her. He blinks at the question and frowns.

"I don't know," he answers softly, honestly, and his hand slides under the blankets to cover hers again. "The only girl near my age in our tribe was my sister. I guess... maybe, before the raids. Maybe in the North. But there was..."

He smirks a little, darkly amused, and shrugs beneath the blankets. "There was no one to really get into stupid trouble with."

"That would've sucked," Steph remarks, squeezing his hand and smiling, sleepy. "It wasn't exactly unusual for us. Honestly, I think everyone was more shocked that I didn't - you know, didn't do anything about it - than they were that I was pregnant in the first place."

She wasn't exactly from the Heights.

"But I didn't. That's me. Stubborn and angry and overprotective." Her other hand is on her stomach, fingers running along her parka where there's a long vertical scar beneath.

Do anything about it conjures images of herbs and tea and Mel curled up in the hospital and Azula's smug face.

Sokka's hands tighten into fists, even the one on Steph's fingers, until he forces them to relax. His thumb strokes her fingers apologetically.

"S'why you're a good hero," he points out quietly.

Stubborn. Angry. Overprotective.

She glances up at him, hand crushed and then petted, and turns it over to stroke his too.

"You ... are you OK?"

He shrugs, still petting. How is he supposed to answer that question?

"I'm glad you didn't."

She wouldn't be Steph if she had.

"I couldn't," she admits, and glances over at him, still worried. "It just ... it wasn't an option."

(What are you going to do?

Do? I'm not going to DO anything about my baby!)

"Tim didn't even try to ask me to do that. He did convince me it was the right thing to do, to give her up, though. And I guess he was right."

She grins, slipping down to lie flat on her back, watching the shadows dancing on the roof. "Not that I knew his name then. I think that was the first time I saw him without the mask, when he turned up in the hospital during the - when things didn't go well."