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This is all so far out of Katara's control!

It is probably that nobody is venturing this far from the household without a reason. Katara has a reason: her face is starting to rot off, and she hasn't been able to find anyone to drain, and she's so terribly afraid that Sokka will come back any moment and find her, and she can't avoid Toph for much longer without the other girl getting suspicious, and and and it's all so hard being a deadly killer zombie and NOBODY UNDERSTANDS HER and --

Anyone who has wandered these fields over may find a small, foul-smelling, rotting lump of girl sitting on an abandoned horsetrough and wasting precious moisture by crying.

Good luck to them.

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"Katara."

He keeps saying her name like it will bring her back, though he knows it won't. But he has to get through to her, has to talk to her, make her listen. And he was always able to do that, if only for a little while.

His hands are up where she can see them, unarmed, and he keeps walking toward her.

"Katara, it's me. Toph said you need my help. I want to help you."

"I don't need help!"

She tries to hide by turning her face away, but can't move even that much, arms pinned and neck held still and even her toes encased in rock that won't let her bend in the slightest.

But from what he can see of her ... she doesn't really look that much like Katara any more, either.

"Get me out of these rocks and I'll be fine, Sokka. I can heal myself! I've been doing it!"

He-- hesitates.

He feels sixteen again (http://flyingsister.livejournal.com/3845.html), asking his sister questions he doesn't really want to know the answer to.

"Katara," his voice is a whisper, but still even, still surprisingly calm. "Have you been hurting people-- killing things... to heal yourself?"

Katara stares at him, huge tear-reddened blue eyes in a cracked, peeling, decaying face.

"No."

" -- and if I was, doesn't it - isn't it - why is it - why are they more important to you than me, Sokka?"

"No one is more important to me than you."

His calm, clear voice makes his chest ache for how true it is.

Sokka is standing beside the rocks now and it's obvious this close, what her face looks like, the scent of something rotting, what Toph had to do to protect herself.

He swallows hard and meets her gaze, afraid of what he'll see there.

"Why... why didn't you ask me to help you?"

Katara is still moving, twisting and writhing against the rocks, and the air is agitated too - but not drying out. "Let me go," she begs again, broken and ragged. "I can fix it. I can fix everything. You'll never know anything was wrong, let me fix it, Sokka, please!"

"Katara."

He hesitates but it's only for a beat, he's still sixteen in his mind and there are ugly grey apartments behind them, dead earth beneath their feet, and a sky covered by clouds up ahead.

He reaches out, slips his hand between the spaces of the rock-prison and curls his fingers around her softened, rotting ones. Sokka swallows hard and looks her in the eye, brows drawn no matter how even his voice is.

"People are dying. You're supposed to save people. You're a hero."

"I can't save them if I'm -- if I'm this!" Katara gasps, but her fingers wrap around his tight enough for him to feel flesh slipping against the bone, like holding a skeleton that's wearing mushy rubber gloves. "I need - I just need to be - to be alive, Sokka, I don't want to die again! How can we save the world if I'm not here to do it?"

It's such a change from the calm, quiet ghost - a change from the lively sister of home, too. Like she's a different person - or maybe the same person, twisted beyond recognition by crossing death twice.

"I don't like doing it, but I - I have to! You were ... you weren't supposed to find out.

It's the desperation and the desire and the glint of not right in her eyes that he remembers so well. Even better than he remembers the ghost or the girl in tribal leather and snow.

Sokka's chest aches.

"You can't kill people to save people," he whispers, close enough for her to hear, and squeezes her fingers back, ignores the squishy feeling against his skin. "No one's life is more important than yours but... but you never used to put your life before anyone else's.

"You don't have to do this, Katara. I could have helped you. I will help you."

Dean's words are echoing in the back of his head, a constant stream and mish-mash of his voice, of Mel's, of Toph's, loud and arguing but all agreeing on one single solution that his mind can't help but find the sense in.

"I could have brought them back," Katara explains, desperate and oh-so-reasonable, her grip on Sokka's fingers tight. "I was going to - I was going to find out how, I just - I just needed to keep me alive to do it, but I could have, you know I could have! Everyone would have been all right!"

It's so perfectly logical, so clear in her mind. It's what she had to do - what she still has to do!

"I could have healed them!"

"Katara."

He keeps saying her name, over and over again, every time it's his turn to speak, like he's trying to remind her of who she is so she'll just be okay and normal and right again. Right the way she hasn't been since... since a time he can barely remember anymore.

"They were dead. You can't heal dead people. You killed them."

Consequences.

(then maybe you're going to have to let her jump... and hit the ground) (http://notahick.livejournal.com/1139.html?thread=29299#t29299)

"You can't make that all right."

"So was I," Katara cries, desperate for him to understand, her bone-and-squishy fingers digging so tightly into his skin that she's cutting off his circulation, staining the linen wraps with greenish discharge.

"It's full moon. I was going to fix it - I was going to fix everything! I'd keep them alive, like me!"

"Katara."

Now it's a whisper, his voice breaking a little, a touch of desperation countered by the waves of hers. Sokka leans closer and twists his hand to hold hers more completely.

"You're not alive," he whispers, looking right at her, breathless with admitting it, he failed, he'd never fixed her at all, and now people are dead because he was sloppy and desperate and couldn't take care of her again.

"And you're not happy. And you can't make other people like you, that's cruel."

"It's not!"

She bites her lip; a chunk of it breaks off and then peels away when she opens her mouth again, leaving her teeth and jaw exposed down nearly to her chin - dessicated, slimy-looking, ragged.

"It's going to be okay, Sokka." Now she's sincere, voice distorted by the missing section of lip. "I can fix them. It's what I do, remember? It's what I DO!"

"No, what you do now is kill people."

Sokka swallows hard and his eyes follow the slow peel of her skin. It helps, a little - his little sister never made his stomach roll with revulsion, never had that putrid smell, never made him feel --

No, actually. Katara had, on more than one occasion, made him feel sick in several different ways.

"But," he continues, soft again, meeting her eyes which are still clear, still blue, still her, "I'm going to look after you. I'll fix this."

It's what he does.

Cleans up her messes.

"There's nothing to be fixed," she says, sniffing non-existent tears. "I just need - I just need someone. To - to heal me. And then I can go and find more spirit water, there must be a spirit oasis in this world, and - and I'll bring them all back, you'll see."

Still her, complete with that twisted perception of reality - but this one is a little more twisted than ever before. But just as big, just as pleading, just as convincing when she wants something and needs him to get it for her.

"Will you let me out of here?"

Sokka's face falls, listening to her, seeing that look in her eyes.

And slowly, he nods.

"Toph?" is called over his shoulder, and he keeps gentle hold of Katara's hand while he waits for her to push the rock walls down.

"I'll help you, nukka."

A few metres behind him, Toph lets the bonds fall back into the earth, and takes another step back, leaving someone else between her and the siblings.

Mel, the children in bed, watches Sokka and his sister from a carefully measured distance, the realisation of what's been happening sitting like a spiked cannonball in her stomach.

Katara gasps, sighs, and takes a deep breath, rubbing at her sides with the hand that's not clutching Sokka's.

"Thank you. I knew you'd understand, Sokka."

Suki was in the vicinity when Toph went to get Sokka. She followed them back, and she's been watching events with growing dismay ever since then.

Now that she knows the full extent of Katara's 'problem', she feels pretty terrible for not telling anyone what she'd gathered before. Fortunately, her vantage point is a little ways from the main group, and from Mel, so her guilt shouldn't be apparent to anyone at this point... unless they can sense it through vibrations in the earth.

Once she's free, Sokka holds a little tighter to Katara's hand. He can't smile for her though, for a second, it occurs to him to try. Then he's reaching out with his free hand, gently drawing her into a hug.

She smells-- and she feels-- and it's like hugging a paper bag filled with swamp water.

He holds her tighter.

"You can always trust me."

A squishy paper bag full of swamp water, sniffing and clinging to him, smelling -- indescribable.

"I should have told you earlier," she admits, tiny and sad and dismal. "I didn't think you'd - you'd understand."

But he does, and it's - it's -

- it's maybe going to be all right.

Sokka can fix anything.

It doesn't stop him from holding her, close and tight and safe.

He closes his eyes, quiet and swallowing a lump in his throat before he answers back, a whisper just as small as hers.

He should have been watching, it's his job to take care of her. What they did was wrong and unnatural and he should never have assumed that it worked without watching her closely for a long period of time, not just a couple of days. He should have paid better attention.

He understands.

One gloved hand pets her hair and settles at the back of her neck.

She smiles a little bit, ravaged face twisting hideously.

"I didn't do anything wrong, Sokka." It's patient explanation, terribly grateful for his acceptance anyway. Perfectly calm, no trace of tears now, or of sorrow. He's forgiven her, so it's okay, so there's no need to be upset any more, and anyway emotions are a bit of a waste of precious water.

(and easier to manage when you have a working circulatory system, and glands and such.)

"But you'll help me bring them back?"

"I'm going to help you."

He'd feel better if lying to her was more difficult, if it caught in his throat. But the words come out smoothly and he holds her closer.

Adoring.

Protective.

"I know you didn't meant to do anything wrong."

She never does.

His hand slides to her shoulder, to the cluster of nerves Steph taught him to find.

Her chin is on his shoulder and he closes his eyes.

The pinch is sharp and vicious, but that doesn't matter - the effect of those particular nerves being hit is unconsciousness.