Chapter 1: Home's Memories-

Toph's POV:

The war was finally over, and I thought the joyful days of fighting the Fire Nation, sitting around a campfire, and seeing my friends everyday would never fade away. I was wrong. If that were true, Appa would not be heading to Gaoling, my birthplace, my prison. I didn't want to go there, not for anything. But Katara said it would be better if I gathered all of my personal items, and said goodbye to my parents. Somehow, as Appa landed on the ground with a thud, I knew that wasn't going to happen.

3rd Person:

Appa landed just outside the large Bei Fong estate, which looked like not even a blade of grass had changed. Katara glanced at Toph knowing she didn't want to be here, but she had to be here. If she was never going to come back to her home, she should at least say goodbye, in person. "It will be real quick Toph, I'll be with you the whole time. It's just to say goodbye." Toph sat there with her head hung low, and shook her head. "I wanna go in there on my own. You're right, it'll be real quick." She said, her voice just above a whisper. Then without another word she stood and climbed off the giant bison, before trudging her way to the mansion.

As Toph climbed through the window of her old room, the only thing she noticed that was different was the thick layer of dust that hung about the room. She couldn't help but feel angry, she had been gone from home over half a year, and her parents hadn't even bothered to go in her room. There were no footprints in the dust. No one had been in here since she had left. They had sent a bounty hunter after her and after they had failed they must have given up. "Shows how much they really cared about me." She said. If they had cared they would have kept the room like she would climb into bed at any minute. Her mother hated dirt. Her father was even more picky.

She spent a moment just standing there, remembering times when her mother had tucked her in at night. Singing a soft lullaby and stroking her hair. Her mother. Toph looked down, knowing how much she must have hurt her mother. She didn't care about her father, he had hardly seen him when she was little. He was always at these big important meetings that he had to be at. She had been very clingy to her mother and the female servants. Her mother taught her to walk as she held her hands. Toph remembered clinging onto her mothers hands as she squeezed her eyes shut. "Just move your foot forward sweety. You can do it Toph." Her mother's encouragements resounded in her head. Toph took a small step forward and felt around the house, looking for every body. Sadly, her mother was at her father's side once again. After Toph was ten her father told her mother to leave her alone. To let her live her own life. Have the guards escort her. Little did her father know that Toph had been sneaking out every other night for the past two years previously to train with the badgermoles. She wiped her cheek, remembering the feeling of the badgermoles tongue running across it. Once she was ten she had started to explore town at night. Her mother only consented to leaving her alone knowing that she could walk on her own. Without her mother's touch to guide her. Little did her mother know how much Toph was still attached to her.

But her father took away everything Toph had ever liked. Every toy dissappeared, every stuffed badgermole or platypus bear that she had received disappeared within a year. Toph was afraid that once he told her mother to leave her on her own, that if Toph tried to be clingy to her again her father would take her mother from her like every other thing she had ever cherished. Toph walked over to the nightstand that stood beside her bed. The bed was the only thing not covered in dust. It was freshly made. Toph could smell the soap that the servants washed the sheets in. Lavender. Toph opened the single drawer the nightstand had to offer, and reached in. Slowly she pulled out a small chain that held a single crystal, a necklace. She had found the crystal in the cave that her masters lived in, and had asked her mother to buy her the chain so she could wear it around her neck when she was little. By the time she left with Aang, she had stopped wearing it, afraid her father would take it away. Slowly she strung it over her head, letting the crystal rest over her heart.

Almost twenty moments had passed, and Toph had done nothing but remember the memories her room had to offer. She stood, almost in a trance as all the happy and the sad memories filled her mind. Leaving this place would be like leaving part of herself behind. But was that really herself? No, it was a shell that she had put on to please her father, to hold onto her sanity. She moved over to the closet and moved away the slab of rock that hid the clothes that she had loved to wear. Her mother would go out to the market and buy her large amounts of dresses to please her father, but hide in the bottom of the bags pants and t-shirts and tunics made of silk or cotton, things she could wear when she went out to practice. The clothes she had worn for the past six months were the only thing her father had given her that she had liked. An outfit that she could wear when she had lessons with Master Yu. The lessons were terrible seeing as she was much stronger than Master Yu allowed her to show. But she had showed him when she fought him after he tried to drag her back home. He and Xin Fu had probably rotted to death in the metal box she had trapped them in. Every moment she spent in this house brought a new memory. She had to get out before she decided to stay. Quickly she opened her bag and started to pack her clothes into it, hoping they would still fit.

Quietly the door to the room from the hallway entered as Toph was busy with her memories. Normally the earthbending master would feel the movements of a dozen guards moving into her room, slowly moving closer and closer towards her. But this time she was too caught up in the past to tell the vibrations of the past to those of the present. All at once the guards pounced on her from behind, pinning down the blind girl so she could not move a muscle to bend. Quickly they tied thick ropes around Toph to bind her arms behind her back and her knees to her chest. The only thing she could move was her neck with great discomfort. The guards stepped back and filed against the walls as Lao Bei Fong moved into the room, quickly followed by his wife Poppi. Toph glared at her father, knowing that he was planning this. As soon as she came home he was going to trap her here.

"I knew you were going to come home Toph. You promised you would in the letter you sent us a few months ago." Her father said, his voice too calm for this situation. "You had your mother and I worried sick. But now you're home, and your not leaving again." He said then glanced at his wife and nodded. Poppi looked at the ground then left the room. "You can't trap me here dad, I'll just leave, and you know I can." Toph snarled. But her father snowed no change in emotion. He was calm because he knew that she would not leave this house. He had plans for her future to teach her to behave. "On the contrary Toph, your never leaving this house again. And your 'friends' won't come to get out." Toph went wide-eyed, unable to show the fear that her father's words invoked.

The whole time Toph had been inside the house her friends had been just outside the gates to the Bei Fong estate, waiting for her to come out. Katara was a little worried that something had happened. Sokka was antsy to see her come back out, to see her again. Aang just sat on Appa's head playing with Momo. Suddenly everyone's eyes bolted to the gates seeing them open, but their smiles fell as they saw that it was not Toph coming out of the gates, but a teary eyed woman. Katara recognized the woman as Toph's mother from when they had visited Toph's house all those months ago. "Mrs. Bei Fong? Where is Toph?" Katara asked wondering why she was crying. Poppi dabbed at her wet face with a piece of cloth and looked at everyone near the bison. "Toph, sent me to tell you that she wants to stay here for the time being. She will send a letter when she wants to be picked up to join the rest of you." She said before reapplying the cloth to her wet and tear-stained face. The three looked at each other, then Sokka gave Katara a desperate look, not wanting to leave Toph behind. But Katara shook her head and looked back at Mrs. Bei Fong. "Thank you. Tell her goodbye for us and we hope to hear from her soon." She said and climbed back up into Appa's saddle. Sokka looked at the house, begging Toph to walk out of it and join them on Appa. But after a few minutes he knew it wasn't going to happen and sat down in the saddle, leaning on the side of it. Aang nodded at Poppi before shouting "Yip yip!" and guiding Appa up into the sky, heading to the Southern Water Tribe. His new home.

Katara looked at Sokka, before placing her hand on his shoulder. Sokka glanced back at his younger sister before shrugging her hand off. "It'll be okay Sokka, we'll hear from her soon. There's no way she'll want to stay there for very long." But Sokka didn't reply. His mind knew that this was not Toph's doing. She wouldn't want to stay there at all. She had told him all those times that he had found her crying while everyone else slept at camp that she never wanted to go home again. That she wanted to find a new home somewhere else. Even if it was on her own. Little did he know that he would not seen her face for a long time, and how much that face would change.