Surprises and Visitor

It had been about three months since Elodie and Hakoda had made their relationship official (And no. Nothing happened in the boat that night, you nasties). Everything had been going great for them too. All of the men were accepting of them being together, although they were very shocked when the two first announced it.

Those three months had been pretty uneventful, except for the occasional Fire Nation ship passing by that the men had to go defeat. Elodie never joined in on the fighting because 1) she really had no fight skills and 2) she really didn't want to fight and possibly take someone else's life. Konoye and Petak had been teaching her some self-defense tactics, but she was definitely not anywhere ready to face trained soldiers. Though, she hadn't been lounging around and slacking off. She helped Zokkik and the other healers with the injured crew members and she did lots of chores like fishing and fixing weapons. The crew had tried to just give her the chores of cooking, sewing, and cleaning up, but she had called that misogynistic crap out as soon as they said it. She did help out with those things, but she made it clear that she wasn't going to do only those things because she was a woman and that she could help with many other things.

Other than that little hiccup, things had been going smoothly. But alas, things never stay easy.

Elodie was out with Konoye, Petak, and two other middle-aged men named Natan and Norlem. They were having a good day and were catching more fish than normal, so the youngsters were goofing off a bit. Konoye had a bucket that was used to get water out of the boat if it got in it, and was playing as if he was going to pour water on Elodie. Elodie growled at him, "If you get me wet Konoye, I'm pushing you in the ocean."

Konoye decided he had messed with Elodie enough, so he went to toss the water from the bucket back into the ocean. As luck would have it, he slipped and the water came right towards Elodie. Said female let out a shriek and held up her arms to shield her face from the salty water, but none of the liquid fell on her. She opened her eyes when she heard gasps and a shocked noise came from her when she saw a blob of water floating in front of her. She dropped her hands out of surprise and the water came crashing down onto her lap.

Elodie faced the men and asked shakily, "Was that perhaps one of y'all?" Petak was the one to break the silence, "You're a-" Konoye butted in as Petak froze, "You're a waterbender!" Elodie stuttered out, "Wha- That was me?" Natan and Norlem made the executive decision to immediately head back to camp to share the news as Konoye and Petak bombarded Elodie with questions. Norlem put a halt to that, "Let her think, boys. This is probably a lot to take in." That was an understatement. Elodie knew the bare minimum about waterbenders, so she didn't even know where to start thinking.

When they made it back to the camp, Elodie was practically carried out of the boat and to the tents from how fast Konoye and Petak were moving her. No one was out doing stuff, which was strange, but they were moving too fast to notice. Konoye called out for Zokkik, Hakoda, and Bato, and the three men ran out of the tent in a panicked state. Hakoda saw Elodie being moved by the men and his heart dropped, "What is it? Is someone hurt?" Zokkik immediately snatched Elodie from Konoye and Petak, thinking that she was injured, and the shocked look on her face didn't help their suspicions that there was something wrong. Elodie was obviously not talking, so Konoye spoke for her, "She's a waterbender!" The three men huddled around them, plus the ones that had come out of the main tent because of the commotion, froze and Bato asked, "What?" Petak nodded, "She is! She stopped water mid-air when we were fishing!" Norlem and Natan backed them up.

Everyone was quiet and still for a couple of seconds before Zokkik hugged Elodie tightly, "That's amazing!" The others soon joined him in congratulating her and she just smiled at them weakly. This was very overwhelming for her. Hakoda noticed how she was feeling, so he calmed the men down and made them give her some space. She smiled at him gratefully and was about to go over to him for a little affection, when an obviously teen boy's voice called out, "Dad?"

Elodie's eyebrows furrowed at the voice and Konoye and Petak smiled widely when they heard the voice, "Sokka?" A boy stepped from the tent and the two men rushed to attack him playfully, saying things like, "You're so big now!" Elodie knew that name sounded familiar and it suddenly hit her. Sokka was Hakoda's son. Her eyes snapped towards her boyfriend's and he smiled at her nervously before mouthing, 'We'll talk later.' Which made her know that Sokka definitely did not know about their relationship.

Elodie, still feeling overwhelmed from her newfound ability plus her significant other's son randomly showing up, happily escaped from the commotion to go get the fish she helped catch for dinner. She was very thankful that Natan and Norlem didn't bring anything up or talk to her at all. They simply just grabbed the fish silently and walked back to camp.

It wasn't until Elodie was just relaxing by the fire as some of the men cooked that she saw Hakoda and his son again. She secretly glanced at them as saw that some of the men were taking Sokka somewhere, and then Hakoda headed her way. He sat beside her but kept a good distance from her as if they weren't together. She looked over at him, "So, I'm guessing he doesn't know." Hakoda sighed and shook his head, "He doesn't. I didn't even know he was coming. He just randomly showed up today, but I will tell him soon. I promise." Elodie gave him a reassuring smile, "Don't sweat it Hakoda. I know it's probably difficult to tell your child that you're with someone who's not their parent." He gently held her hand, "Thank you, Elodie."

She really wanted to kiss him right now, but the sound of a herd of men headed towards them made them separate. Hakoda gave her a subtle smile before getting up to go to his son. This was going to be interesting.

Elodie didn't actually talk to Sokka until after dinner. She was cleaning some bandages when she heard someone clear their throat behind her, and an awkward, "Hi." The voice was not deep enough to be one of the men, so she already knew who it was. She stopped what she was doing and stood up, facing the teen, "Hey." Sokka seemed embarrassed as he held out his hand for a greeting, "I'm Sokka. I am, um, Hakoda's son." Elodie smiled at him and returned the standard Water Tribe greeting, "I'm Elodie."

There was a brief, awkward silence before Sokka said, "My dad told me about you." Elodie's heart stopped. She didn't think Hakoda would tell Sokka so soon about their relationship. She was about to say something when Sokka continued, "He told me that you weren't from here. Like, that you're not from this world." She let out a sigh of relief and nodded gently, "Yeah. I guess you could say that I'm not from this world." He said, "I've been traveling with the avatar, so I know all about other-worldly stuff." Elodie smiled at him, "Really?" He nodded, "Yeah. I was even stuck in the spirit world for a day."

The poor boy was obviously just starting to ramble because he was nervous, so Hakoda (who had been watching them from afar) swooped in to save his son from embarrassment. Hakoda asked them, "Talking about anything interesting?" Sokka smiled at his dad, "I was just going to tell Elodie that if she ever wanted to try to get back to her world that maybe Aang could help her." Elodie thanked him, "That's really sweet of you to think about that. Thank you, and I'll let you know if I decide to do that."

The rest of the night was basically just all of the crew sitting around a fire, listening to all of Sokka's stories from his travels. He made them sound amusing, but it was honestly terrifying how much he and the other children that traveled with him went through. It was obvious that the others thought the same, but Sokka would just laugh everything off. However, Elodie had a feeling that was Sokka defensive mechanism.

One-by-one everyone started leaving towards their tents. When she was tired enough, Elodie went to go to her and Hakoda's shared tent since they recently started to share a bed, but stopped herself. That would definitely give their relationship away. So, she ended up going into Zokkik's tent and sleeping in one of the empty beds for patients. As she fell asleep, she realized how sucky it was to sleep alone again.

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