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At the wall where the farmhouse is afforded the least possible visibility from the more crowded areas of the farm, a quarter-lump of brick falls pointlessly to the ground. Mel, nursing her knuckles, glares at it.

She's familiar with the practice, when you're so pent up with frustration and anger and hatred that you have to punch something, of finding an innocent wall and taking it out on that, and is annoyed to fins out that a) it's not nearly as satisfying as common wisdom holds, and b) it's much much less of a good idea when there's a possibility you might actually win a fight with a building.

She nudges the brick against the base of the house, deciding she'd better get Toph to reattach it later, and turns her attention back to her hand.

Frustration not satisfied, hand hardly injured, house probably not hurting that much from its loss. All in all, a completely no-win situation.

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When she does, she slides instantly and effortlessly into ignoring the wall again as if she'd never done that. If she'd any idea he was anywhere near, she'd never have let herself crack even that little bit.

Sokka gets a smile just for being him, and she tucks her thumbs into her pants pockets.

"Hey."

"What'd the wall do to you?"

There's no point in pretending it didn't happen, Mel. Not when it gives Sokka an opportunity to tease.

Which he does now, leaning away from the wall to glare at it suspiciously. "Do I have to fight it, too?"

"If you want," Mel says easily, shrugging and keeping her smirk fixed.

"You prob couldn't take it."

"Probably. I mean, you took it down, no doubt I could finish it up."

He might be smirking at her a little, too.

"Yeah, We've got it running scared."

Mel forgets her fight with the wall and turns her back on it, using it as a place to park her rear.

"All the walls."

"Think Lucy will be pissed when the roof falls down?" Sokka asks, considering the wall almost threateningly.

Sokka has put his finger on why Mel stopped.

"Should've thought oft that before she built the house of such crappy brick."

Sokka nods slowly, taking this explanation quite seriously.

Even if he glances at Mel with the hint of a smirk still on his face.

"...I want to talk to you about something," he says after a moment, sobering but not much. It's still just a normal conversation, to him.

Either way, it's cause for Mel to relax. The last thing she wants to talk about is how she's taking things.

Her fixed smirk relaxes slightly, and there's concern in her eyes but you'd have to know her to see it when she glances at her brother.

"What?"

"I think I want to go away for a while."

He leans up against the wall, hands slipping into his pockets. "Not forever. A few weeks. Maybe a month."

Mel nods. She can totally understand that; would've done the same herself; did the same herself.

"Take a comm device. You know where you want to go?"

"I have to talk to Lucy about that. I have an idea."

Somewhere cold, frigidly cold, with snow and ice everywhere and on the coast of water you could fall into without a chance of ever surviving.

"I want to know," Mel says simply. "Maybe O can stick a locator in the device.

"Call us every day, alright?"

Sokka blinks and then grins a little at her worry, head ducked. "I'm not leaving forever, Mel, or going off hunting. You're here, the girls and Steph are here. I'm coming back.

"I'm just... thinking I should leave some of the tech stuff behind for a while."

"Yeah," Mel agrees, and repeats, "but take it. Call us."

Her smile's gone.

So is Sokka's, after a moment.

And his nod comes after just enough hesitation for it to be awkward.

Once she has the nod, Mel blinks and turns her head away, breaking some of the awkward.

There's no need to talk about why this has to happen, but it looms there anyway; the two people they're not talking about.

"And bring something back for the twins. They've nearly burned up half their toys already."

That helps break up the awkward. Especially when Sokka sighs and rolls his eyes. "I'm going to have to stop making them things out of wood. It's so much easier to carve, though."

"I dunno, I think it's teaching them."

Mel's the only Mom ni the world who thinks letting her kids set fires around the place is a valuable learning experience.

"Loo doesn't do it for fun anymore, and Hana's control is really good, according to Iroh."

"That's something. I guess using glass or metal would be great, until they burned themselves on it."

"Or cut themselves on it," Mel points out, her mouth falling open.

Sokka winces and nods.

"Yeah, I'll stick with wood."

"Thanks," Mel tells him, her smirk returning. "No need to give them ways to inflict pain that doesn't come from their own fingers."

"Well, maybe they haven't figured out that fire equals hurt," Sokka replies with a shrug. "Iroh'll take care of that, though."

He has to, right? It's not like the Fire Nation is a country filled with people who abuse their own power at the expense of others.

...

"Loo knows," Mel points out, proud and defensive all at once. "Hana... only cares when it actually happens. They're doing well, Iroh's impressed."