shatterverse | (no subject)

There's a shout and the radio is grabbed fast.

"'Lo?"

- it's not Mel.

A pause.

A cautious, but somehow mysteriously delighted voice asks,

"Now, is this my tiny niece or my niece?"

"Tiny," says Hana, who can't really tell the difference. She sits right back down and shakes the radio happily.

"'Cle Ska?"

"What other uncles are calling you?"

Though there's a tiny tinge of guilt to that question, like he knows he hasn't called in weeks.

"Hey, Han, is Mom there?"

"Cle Ska!" Hana says, and giggles.

Perhaps letting the toddler answer the radio wasn't the best plan.

Obviously. The voice on the other side sighs patiently, but there's a hint of a smile there, too.

"Hana! Are you being good?"

He pretty much knows the answer to this question already.

"Yes!"

It's the only answer that question gets, really.

"Hmmmm, I don't know about that. Only good girls get presents from Uncle Sokka's trip, you know."

"I know," Hana says, without the slightest idea what she's supposed to be knowing.

She's not all that certain how she's talking to a Sokka who isn't here.

It's a lot harder to have a conversation with a two year old when there's no possibility of tickling. Which is really the best sort of conversation Sokka ever has with his nieces.

"Hana?" he asks, sounding amused and slightly exasperated. "Do you see Mom?"

"Yes."

It's a lie. But there's a faint, indistinct footfall and the sounds of someone saying, "hey, why aren't you in bed, young... what are you playing with? Hey, what've I told you about playing with Mommy's things?"

"Mel?"

There's no more humor or teasing in the voice. If anything, it's apprehensive. Because... well, it's been weeks and this is the first time he's heard his sister's voice since he left.

"Sokka?"

Pause while Mel juggles child and radio. Her tone is at first nothnig but surprise.

"You jake?"

Then a little worry.

"Fine," he says quickly, assuring. "Hana was just telling me how good she's been while I'm gone."

Which-- has nothing to do with why he called. Still, it was nice to hear her voice, even lying to him.

"Wouldn't believe anything she says," Mel tells him.

She breaks away from the radio long enough to say "You. Back to bed." Which does actually work.

Then, Mel falls back on to her own bed, and snaps into the radio.

"Where have you been?"

There is some hesitation.

"...I don't actually know. I mean, north, obviously. But the landmass or country or something, I have no idea. You'd have to ask Zinda.

"Which... I just kind of assumed you did. Since Steph showed up yesterday."

"Yeah," Mel says, briefly, because she didn't mean to be taken literally.

"Your radio break?"

Huh, Sokka?

The following silence is almost-- confused.

"I called in every night," he points out.

By code, of course, or a series of tones. He never actually called and said anything.

"Yeah."

It's quiet, giving him that.

Mel adds, "You know Loo's stopped asking for you at bedtime?"

The silence is a little bit longer this time.

"I called because Steph showed up without warning." He sounds testy. Angry. Guilty. "Not to get a lecture."

"Right."

And because more than anything else, Mel's relieved to hear his voice, she doesn't follow up the argument. Which probably shows how much she's grown.

Or maybe not, as her first thought is to ask why he didn't call up just to talk to them.

"She get there OK?"

"That she got here at all is what I'm worried about - but yeah, she's fine."

He's already explained to her why he left, what he needed. He won't do it again - not when he's never left before, when he's always been there for her and their family.

When he knows she can't say the same.

"Did you know she was coming? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Haven't spoken to you since she left," Mel says simply.

And she figged that Steph had a better chance of getting him to come back than she would.

"Yeah, exactly. You didn't call and tell me Steph was going to be dropping in. Why, Mel?"

He could have used the warning, apparently.

"Because."

Mel rolls out of the bed and heads away from the twins' beds struggling to keep her voice down.

"'Cause she said she wanted the time out. 'Cause you didn't wanna talk to me, I figged you'd be better off with her."

Because she didn't trust herself to talk to him without yelling. She still doesn't.

Silence, heavy and still.

"Waaaaaaaaaaah, my name's Melaka Fray and I can't deal with my brother taking a vacation after his sister murdered people and died, despite being injured and unconscious for most of the time I've known my brother in the first place, waaaaaaaaaah."

Sokka is, apparently, tired of her lack of support.

More silence.

Then a loud, heavy SMASH.

That's where Mel threw the radio at the wall of the bunker.

Not that the listener on the other side knows that she's thrown it.

"You're mad at me. Fine. I get that. But you know what? Every time you wanted to run off and be crazy warrior woman, I didn't like it, but I fucking supported you. Well, I'm real sorry if I can't hold it together right now and be a responsible adult at the farm but some shit happened and I'm trying to deal with it as best I can without ruining everything. And amazing as it might be, I could actually use some goddamn support from the one family member I've got left."

Edited 2009-09-27 01:22 (UTC)

It's easier, at this distance to take it. Mel slides to the floor, hugs her knees and stares at the radio, finally letting come the tears she hasn't let herself shed since Erin died.

The radio is silent for several minutes this time. Waiting, maybe. Or just giving up.

Or maybe giving the speaker a moment to think.

His voice, when it comes, is soft. Not out of calmness but to hide the strain, the break that shows in his words.

"...I just don't want to ruin anything else, Mel."

Mel stays away from the radio long enough to wipe her nose dry and clear the snot out of her voice.

Then she picks it up, and shakes her head (even though he can't see it.)

"What makes you think we're gonna give you the chance?"

Katara.

Zuko.

Harth.

"...a lot of shit has happened to us that we couldn't stop."

Well, Mel can't exactly argue with that, but...

"Where I'm standing, only we got left to lose is each other."

"I'm coming back."

"Yeah," says Mel with little to no expression. Either it means she knows, so she doesn't need reassurance, or it means she's heard it before and doesn't quite believe it.

She's not even sure which one is true. Maybe they both are.

She takes in a breath, like one does when they have something else to say, but she stops herself asking when.

Maybe he hears it anyway, with the silence that follows. It's not as if she's always been so quiet about that question.

"I'm not going to keep apologizing. I wanted to know about Steph."

If you count asking the question once then dropping it completely as not being so quiet.

"Never asked it of you.

"She's got stuff of her own to work through. Glad she got there OK."

"You should have told me she was coming. I wasn't done working stuff through."

And now his girlfriend is there with him, in the one-room tent and even smaller igloo they'll be moving into soon.

"Yes. No."

Mel covers her face with her hands for a second.

"I'm a terrible sister. This isn't news."

Many more people would be alive if she weren't.

Silence follows for several seconds.

"...stop that. I can't be mad at you and reassuring at the same time."

Mel shrugs. Not that he can see that, but she shrugs and the forced indifference can probably be heard in her tone.

"Did you wanna do some more yelling?"

"No."

He sounds defeated, tired, far older than he was than he left.

"You want to tell me more about how my nieces are forgetting me?"

"Not much to tell."

Which is the truth. Loo used to cry every night that she asked for him and he didn't come. Then she just asked for him. Now she doesn't. Hana doesn't even seem to notice he's gone.

"They're bigger."

He doesn't think she's lying. But to have stayed near them, with all that was going on in his head and his heart, what he might have said or done to them...

Better to leave.

Even when Mel's tone and her words and the thought of his nieces forgetting him just hurts.

This whole conversation is worse than Sokka expected it to be. And he expected it to be bad.

"What do you want me to say, Mel? You want me to come back tomorrow?"

Mel's hand - the one, thankfully, not holding the radio - clenches into a fist, and she bites her lip hard enough that she tastes blood, in order to choke back on snapping at him.

"No," she manages quietly. "You take all you need. I got things to keep me busy."

It's fall, now. Things need harvesting.

She doesn't need him.

The voice that answers her, when it finally comes across the radio, is tight and clipped, soft to hide the hurt - and failing miserably.

"Bye."

Mel lets the radio fall limply to the ground, and collapses backwards until she hits a wall.

She'll have to get up in a second; there's a lot to do and it feels like she's the only one doing it. She needs to check that Hana did go back to bed and that Loo's still managing without her diaper overnight.

But he didn't even ask how they were growing, and Mel seizes the opportunity to fall apart. Even for a second.