A/N: Kayso here we go: The fruits of my summer toiling, a Toph Aang story, and my first Avatar story to boot! I hope you like it; it's a little rough, but the inspiration hit, and it wouldn't leave me alone. Read and review, please?
Disclaimed: I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, or any of the related characters mentioned in this story. I only own the idea. Or at least, I hope I am the idea owner.
He had dreamed about her.
Sure, it was a very long time ago, and it wasn't as though she had kept plaguing his dreams every night since then.
But almost right after that dream, he had met her. And there was no need to dream of her while he was sleeping if he could see her and joke with her and train with her every day, right?
"Chill out, Twinkle Toes," Suki said, trying to calm Aang down by using her nickname for him.
The frosty glare she received was enough to shut her up. "No one calls me Twinkle Toes except for Toph," he corrected, his voice straining as he tried not to snap at her.
He had dreamed about her, he had known her, and now she was gone.
She had left. Without saying a word to any of the people sitting currently in a cozy Fire Nation Palace room. She had just decided that she needed to go.
"Aang, it's not like we'll never see Toph again," Katara murmured in a soothing tone, placing her hand on his arm. He twisted out of her reach, preferring to pace around.
"Why did she have to go?" he said to no one in particular. He wasn't looking for an answer, but that didn't matter.
Sokka gave one anyway. "She wanted to see her parents."
"It's only been a few weeks since Ozai was defeated! It's only been a few, short weeks of peace, and she left us!" Aang threw his hands in the air for added drama, and Katara just shook her head with a sigh.
"It's been months since she's been home, Aang. You have to understand, it's been hard on Toph, even if she didn't let on, that she hadn't been home. Her parents will probably be happy."
This, however logical, didn't reassure the young Avatar. "We're a team!" he said. "We're supposed to stick together! We're not supposed to disappear into the Earth Kingdom, without a word!"
Just a few short days ago, Toph had announced to the four remaining Team Avatar members that she wanted to go home, just as Zuko had. She wanted to see her parents, and she wanted to stop flying around from place to place for peacekeeping missions.
"Keeping the peace just isn't my thing, Twinkle Toes. You guys can continue to save the world, but I want to go home. I want to relax for a bit, and then maybe my parents will let me go visit Iroh in Ba Sing Se."
They found out she left yesterday on a ship provided for her by the Fire Nation. Zuko had assumed they had known when she was leaving, but when he found out she kept them in the dark, he felt bad about giving the ship the okay.
"The war is over, Aang. Toph was right; we don't need her to stay with us when she needs to go home." Katara's voice was losing its calm and soothing tone, and instead it became apparent she was getting annoyed with him.
Aang slumped onto a seat, crossing his arms over his chest. Katara moved next to him, and pulled him into a hug. "Hey, we're still here, right? You still have us."
He made an intelligible noise, not returning the hug, but not shying away.
"You still have me," she whispered into his ear.
That's right; he still had Katara. She was the girl of his destiny. The girl that he had loved since he first saw her face after the iceburg. She was the girl that had stuck with him and had saved his life.
Then why did he feel like he was missing something? Why did he feel that part of him had climbed onto a boat and made its way to the Earth Kingdom?
He tried to reassure himself, saying that he was angry and hurt because Toph, Sokka, Katara, and everyone else had become like a makeshift family for him. When she left, it was like the family was falling apart.
"I'm worried about her," he muttered, pulling away from Katara. "She just left… who knows if the ship will reach its destination?"
"Zuko said he'll keep us informed, because the ship's crew is supposed to send a messenger hawk once she arrives home."
Aang turned away from the three of them, choosing to face a wall instead. "I still miss her. It's weird, not having Toph here."
"It's probably for the best, though," Suki said. Aang looked up, confusion coloring his face. To answer his unasked question, Suki continued. "Look around at us, Aang. We've all got someone to lean on, someone that means more to us than just a normal friend." Suki blushed as she leaned into Sokka, who stretched his arm over her shoulder. "It was probably wearing her down to be here with us."
"But we were her friends," Aang said, distressed. "Why would she feel the need to have a… a boy…" He couldn't get the right word to come out of his mouth. Toph and boyfriend didn't do together. It didn't feel right. It wasn't right for her to be in the arms of some guy, happy and smiling.
Toph was too independent for something like that. She didn't need to have someone to lean on and depend on. She was self-sufficient. That was why he felt angry at the image of her in some other guy's arms, smiling. Or at least, that's what he told himself.
"I don't know. Maybe she felt left out, or maybe she had a crush on someone here, and she couldn't take it anymore," Sokka added, snuggling closer to Suki, who giggled.
"And we may be her friends, but they are her parents," Katara added. "It's hard to resist going home if you have a chance."
"Then why haven't you guys left already?" he asked. "Why are you three still here?"
Suki shifted uncomfortably, and Sokka cleared his throat as he diverted his eyes to the floor.
"Actually, Aang, Suki and I have been meaning to talk to you about that… She needs to go back to Kyoshi Island, and I think I'm going to accompany her," Sokka said, still not looking him in the eye. "I mean, I don't have to, if you'd rather…"
"No, that's fine," Aang said, regaining his calm, monk upbringing. And he knew it was true. Despite the lies he told himself about family, having Sokka and Suki leave was nothing. "You guys need to go back to the island and take care of things."
Aang felt Katara scoot closer to him. "See, admitting that people need to break away isn't hard. Toph had to do the same thing, so-"
"It's different with Toph," Aang yelled, forgetting himself for a moment as he stood up and spun around to face her. "Toph shouldn't have left! Toph shouldn't have left me here!"
He stormed out of the room, leaving a stunned Sokka, a surprised Suki, and a devastated Katara. He slipped through the hallways, finding his way to where Appa was, and lay down next to his oldest friend.
"I miss her, boy," Aang said, his eyelids drooping. "I really… miss her."
Aang soon fell asleep, his dreams coming slowly. He dreamt of her smile, her laugh, and her eyes. He had imagined her in some boy's arms, smiling. And he dreamed of himself taking the place of the nameless boy.
Katara found him snuggled up next to Appa later that night, and a sad smile passed over her face as she heard him murmur Toph's name. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she had known it wasn't going to work out. She had known that she was not meant to stay in love with the world's most powerful bender.
The brown haired girl threw a blanket over her sleeping friend, and bent down to give him a kiss on the cheek.
In his sleep, Aang could only see the kiss as coming from the girl he truly loved.
"Toph," he muttered once again.
Not for the first time, and definitely not for the last, the Avatar dreamt of her.
A/N: There you go! I might write a sequel to this sometime, but right now, I hope it will stand as a one-shot. Sorry for any spelling or grammatical mistakes; I tried to comb through the story, but I'm kindoftired. Anyway, I have to say, I adore Taang. I can't help it, it's just too adorable, and I always feel sorry for Toph because she ends up alone at the end, while everyone else is happy and in love. Bleh. I apologize for the mini-rant.