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...Um... can anyone tell me what day it is?
[Which might explain why she came home to an empty house after being unceremoniously dumped in the woods about ten minutes away from it. She's surprisingly okay after a Mallynap, just kind of confused as to why everyone is gone this morning. (That might have something to do with it being a school day, woo. Not that she knows that.)
After some food and a good long nap, Suki will head out for some fresh air; she might linger around the smithy or the school, depending on the time of day. Bother her?]
[Which might explain why she came home to an empty house after being unceremoniously dumped in the woods about ten minutes away from it. She's surprisingly okay after a Mallynap, just kind of confused as to why everyone is gone this morning. (That might have something to do with it being a school day, woo. Not that she knows that.)
After some food and a good long nap, Suki will head out for some fresh air; she might linger around the smithy or the school, depending on the time of day. Bother her?]
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She doesn't immediately note your presence - but when she does, she drops her bag by the door.]
Suki! You're back!
[Yaaaaaaaaay, now Sokka will stop moping!]
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Hi, Katara. I just returned a few hours ago.
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And you're all right? You still - feel like yourself?
[...you look upset.]
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Yeah, she has no idea how to explain this.]
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[Out with it, woman.]
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[But but but Kataraaaaaaa ;A;]
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And memories of those guards who'd brutalized her in the Malnosso's hands resurface, her memories of the guards on the Fire Nation ship in her alternate's world, and Katara goes very still.]
They didn't hurt you, did they?
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But you're not fine. Something happened.
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...I shouldn't talk about it.
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Katara takes a moment to sort through things. Suki's back, the Malnosso haven't hurt her, there are no obvious mallynap effects, Sokka's not here, Suki doesn't want Sokka to be here, and she feels like she 'shouldn't' talk about it...]
...did something happen between you and Sokka? [Because - yeah, she doesn't want to know about that. But what could he have done - what would he have done - oh.]
Was it the experiment?
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Katara reaches out and grabs Suki's tea with one hand, and tugs on her arm briefly with the other.]
Come on. Let's go sit down and you can talk to me about it.
[And this has nothing to do with being Sokka's sister and everything to do with being girls.]
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He... told me what happened. How he changed...
[Ohgod he turned into her whyyyy...]
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[And you know how much their dad means to Sokka, don't you?]
He was really careful to be as respectful as he could. I was the one who dressed him.
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You did? He didn't tell me that...
[Not that she gave him a chance to.]
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He kept his eyes closed the whole time, too.
[Of course, that doesn't mean that he didn't see. It just means that he wasn't looking. And Katara actually has some more to say here, but now that Suki knows the whole situation she is going to be silent and let the other girl process it and wait for her to start talking with a patient and expectant gaze she might have gotten from hanging around Ginko too much.]
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[So he didn't... see anything? Why didn't he say so? She wouldn't have been so upset if she'd known that... but how in the world did he manage to make it through days of that?]
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...the whole time I was helping him change. I know that he wouldn't have gone out of the way to look - but that doesn't mean he didn't see... and it was a few days. I don't know what he did or didn't see - I just know that he didn't try to.
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Suki knows she's trying to help, but she doesn't feel particularly good about this still.]
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...did you ever hear about my first experiment here?
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I don't think so... why?
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I'd only been here a few weeks. Everyone else - Sokka, Toph, Zuko - they were all from after the war. But me... I'm from before the invasion. And when I came here, after what had happened in Ba Sing Se [Do you KNOW what had happened, with her and Zuko, in Ba Sing Se? Katara's going to assume that Sokka may have covered some of it.] ...having Zuko here, hearing that he was our ally and friend... that was really hard for me to accept.
[Read: She hated it.]
I was angry with him and I didn't trust him and I really, really wanted to just - make him go away. I couldn't stand being in the same house with him, but we found a way to make it work, even though it wasn't pleasant...
That had been going on for - maybe three weeks before the first experiment happened. [Katara looks away, still ashamed of this.] It's the experiment that happens every year, apparently. The experiment where they make you fall in love. And...
[Her voice drops.] ...I fell in love with Zuko.
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Katara... that's... [Horrible? Beyond description? Suki doesn't even know what to say. That's sure as hell one way to put things in perspective...
She'll have to ask about that experiment later, too- though not Katara. She's never heard of anything like that before.]
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Yeah, so... for a week, we were both... [she can't say it and shakes her head.] He was my first kiss, my first - everything. And we were really happy together, we were! I felt [safe] - good. He was so sweet and I thought...
[She thought that everything they'd gone through at home for them to 'be together' had been worth it. The experiment had reoriented her entire perspective of their adventures until everything had just seemed to point to them getting together to be right. Katara takes a deep breath and looks back up at Suki.]
The night before the experiment ended, we fell asleep outside together - nothing too serious or anything like that! - just asleep. And when I woke up... his arms were around me and I wasn't in love with him anymore. And I knew everything had been fake. And I just- [OK, biting lip and not crying. Yes. It was a long time ago, after all. And this - this is the worst part, as far as she's concerned, but now that Katara's started she just can't stop.] - well, I slipped away without waking him up. I didn't know what to think or say.
When I came back to confront him, he wasn't here. He'd ran away. Like he couldn't even stand the sight of me. He was gone for days before Sokka and I started looking.
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