Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar: the Last Airbender. I'm leaving it up to Mike and Bryan.

Author's Notes: I've been messing with this piece for ages and now I'm just posting it before I have the chance to add on even more. It originally started out as a story explaining Sokka's bad luck with women, but this was spawned instead, don't ask me how. I hope you like it anyway... (is going to avoid monologues from now on).

Don't forget to REVIEW.

Alisa

Bad Luck

Toph was thirteen. She was thirteen and brash and loud and determined and strong and smart and witty and everything else that made her so uniquely Toph, but mostly, she was just young and little and in love.

It seemed crazy, and she thought it was too, or maybe that was just her, but this was in love if she would ever know it, and the thought of ever knowing it had never even crossed her mind until now (after the fact), because she was thirteen and who thought about being in love when they're young and fighting a war? But she was and she knew it and that made her just a little… apprehensive was the word, it made her just a little apprehensive, because who actually knows about being in love?

People can be in love, sure, but when you ask them what it's like, their heart picks up and they just say it's the most wonderful feeling in the world, because they don't know what it's actually about, because who can define something like love? She knew that, of course, first hand all for herself, but she wasn't one of those people who would say that being in love is the most wonderful feeling in the world because to her, it wasn't that type of feeling. Dirt on her skin, Earth under her feet—that was the best feeling in the world, not love.

Being in love, it just made her mad. She was Toph Bei Fong, the Greatest Earthbender in the World, and she didn't have the time for such a trivial thing as being in love. She didn't want to be in love when there was a world that still needed saving and an Avatar that still needed training and maybe even some more growing up to do, if she had the time. But—and she knew it, and that just made her angrier—just because you don't like it doesn't change the fact, and just because Toph Bei Fong didn't want to be in love didn't stop her from loving with every bit of her and hating every minute of it.

She hated how her heart would hitch just slightly when he was near her and how she could feel the Earth around her reacting to it, and how—sometimes—they would brush hands or shoulders or arms and if she was one to blush she would have been blushing like there was no tomorrow worth blushing over. But most of all, she hated how he made her feel happy and safe and furiously hopeful all at once, because no matter how much she hated to admit it, there was still always that part of her that wanted him to like her too.

She just wanted to be the old Toph again, the one that was more concerned about what they were having for dinner rather than the ever-growing fluttery butterflies in her stomach that she vaguely knew weren't from hunger. She wanted to fight and Earthbend and live, not have the ever-present feeling of love everywhere she went, reminding her of him in the oddest of ways and at the oddest of times.

Besides—and she would smile wryly at this—he didn't have the best of luck with women anyway. First the princess of the North Pole dies for the moon, and then that Kyoshi warrior is attacked and for all they know could be dead as well. Not to mention that Fire Nation girl, who's fighting on the other side of the war.

It seemed it her that any girl unfortunate enough to like the moron ended up in a worse position than when she started out, and she was vaguely worried for herself. Would she have to give her spirit up to the Earth or have her clothes stolen or have to join the Fire Nation? Because if that's love, then Toph wanted to hate the stupid meathead and just be herself, no stupid attachments involved.

But there were times—and she hated those times, despised them for all she was worth, for all the feelings of hope and happiness and love she felt—that she liked being in love, times when she was happy to have that little glow inside her someplace, warming her up like the campfire couldn't do and making her smile when nothing was funny. Those were the times she would lean back and enjoy the feeling of his vibrations that so clearly said him, as he walked and talked and sat and thought. She would like sitting next to him at dinner and teasing him and calling him names and feeling him so close to her, feeling that little bubble of hope inside her chest that said he had to like her too.

It was during those times that she would hold his arm, or even his hand, if she felt brash enough (because it wasn't bravery she needed to do that, it was stupidity), and just marvel at the feeling of him touching her and talking to her and swinging their hands in between them like those silly young couples would do. She would be hopeful and floating on a dust cloud of warmth and those were the times she never wanted the feeling to end, because what's the point of being in love if you don't get those moments that make you feel like you're glowing from the inside out?

What she hated the most about those moments, though—and it was easy to see why—was that they were all she ever had. She never had a moment to hate him or that feeling or anything about being in love, and she wanted to hate them, she really did, and sometimes she thought she did, but when she would wake up the next morning it wouldn't matter because she'd fall in love with him all over again.

She would lie in her rock tent at night and tell herself that she hated him, that he meant nothing to her at all, that what she was feeling wasn't for him, couldn't be for him, wouldn't be for him, but it didn't matter. No matter how often she would tell herself that she couldn't like him, she would still go to bed and hear his name echoing in her dreams like the wind over the ocean and feel the heat of his touch like the dying embers of a fire.

Sometimes she pretended that he really was her boyfriend just for the sake of pretending, that he was just as fond of her as she was of him, and she would smile sweetly at him over the campfire and say his name in just that way to make him blush. She would laugh at that and be content for just a moment at the thought of him blushing because of her, and that tiny Toph inside of her that she tried not to listen to would smile knowingly at her and nod, like she'd done a good thing.

But most of the time—when she wasn't resenting being in love or enjoying it—she was just being Toph, just fighting and Earthbending and living, because who really has the time for love anyway? She was too busy fighting for her life or her dinner to think about how in love she was, too busy teaching Twinkle Toes Earthbending to worry about what he thought of her, too busy hating flying bareback to think about how he had helped her on the flying bison. After all, she was only thirteen—she would have time to worry about makeup and boys and love when she was older (though she doubted she'd ever reach that age), and right now she only wanted to concentrate on saving the world.

Sometimes, though, when they were just sitting around doing nothing, no people to save and no heads to bash, Toph would still find her mind wandering to him, and to love. After all, what's life without a little love?

Because Toph was thirteen, Toph was in love, and for the sake of her, Toph couldn't decide if that was bad luck or not.

FIN.