Writer's Note: This is one of those fics that sort of appeared into my brain fully-formed and would not leave until I wrote it all down. I have no idea where it came from or why. Basically, it's a Toph/Sokka fic, with one-sided Suki/Sokka, and unlike most Toph/Sokka fics, it's not very happy ;.;. Sorry.

Warning: Occurs post-series and contains spoilers.

It was colder in the south.

Suki didn't realise how much colder it was until she got there. She had always thought that Kyoshi Island was cold, but the South Pole...it was far colder.

"Suki," Sokka said softly, his eyes wide, his face paling at the sight of her. Beside him stood Toph, her small body wrapped in blue layers of soft material, her eyes wide and sightless but her face drawn. Between them, their hands were clenched, their gloved fingers intertwined.

She felt like a fool, standing there, her arms held out, her face a mask of happiness, her heart still racing at the thought of seeing Sokka again, after so long. Months of silence, of confusion and worry, she was here, finally here...

And now her heart had felt like it stopped, and wouldn't beat again.

"Sokka, I..." she began, then stopped. She what? She had chased him to the south? She hadn't heard from him and thought he had been hurt? She hadn't realised that Toph was here, that Toph was always here, that it was always Toph...

She bit back that stream of thinking. She wouldn't submit to that. She still wasn't sure.

So she tried again. She plastered on that fake smile. She kept her hands open. "I was just around, and..." A lie. She wasn't just around. She barely had time to herself on the Island, let alone time for a pleasure cruise in icy waters. "I was just wondering..." Another lie. She wasn't just wondering; she was worried sick. "I mean, I hadn't heard from you in a while and I thought..." Thought what? That he was hurt? That he was in trouble? Not the obvious, the easiest, that he had forgotten about her?

Sokka stared at her. Right into her eyes. She stared back, thinking of days and weeks spent staring into those eyes, finding so much there - such warmth and love and joy - only to look into them now and see only regret and dread and shame.

It happened almost a year ago. Sokka was called back home in order to help with rebuilding at his father's side. "It's only for a few weeks," he had said, his arm thrown over his eyes, his other hand holding hers. They lay side-by-side together, naked and slick with fast-drying sweat, but content. Suki felt her heart do a little flip, but she bit it back. She would miss him, but understood that duty sometimes had to come first. "Once Dad and I have everything worked out I should be able to go home, no sweat."

She nodded. "Really, it's okay," she said, smiling. She squeezed his hand, and he lowered his arm, looking over at her with worried eyes. "I know you'll come back."

He smiled at her then, a promise of sorts. It was one he was bound to break eventually. She should have known that.

A few weeks became a month. A month became a season. Suki kept writing, kept trying to keep the communication going, unable to accept that perhaps things had changed. Her letters never ceased, but his trickled to a stop a few months later.

But then she heard that Toph had gone to the south a few months ago, had stayed so long that she was considered a member of the Tribe. And then she felt fear - real fear - flash through her.

I have to know for sure.

Her Warriors - her friends, her family, really - had tried to convince her to stay home. "We need you here, Suki," Sakana said, her voice hard. The other girls nodded, their faces showing various degrees of pity and sadness. "Sokka should be fine. The Long Nights are coming and we need you here. You can't just leave."

She knew. She knew how logical it was. She knew that Sakana was right, and that she was overreacting.

But inside, her heart was blind. Inside, all she could feel was pain.

And now she knew.

Sokka stood several feet away from her, but he could have been inches from her and it would still feel like miles of land stood between them.

"I kept trying to write to you," he said softly, his back to her, his head lowered and his hands clenched behind his back. Toph wasn't there - Suki didn't know where she was. "But everything I wrote sounded so...lame. It sounded so wrong. I kept tearing them up, promising I would write you later, but..."

Suki's words snapped out before she even thought of it. "Like you promised you would come back?"

He winced. Didn't deny it. Didn't protest or defend himself.

Suki hated herself for feeling so vindictively pleased in causing him that moment of discomfort.

"It just sort of happened..."

Suki wanted to sigh, but she held it in. Toph's words were probably honest, but she knew that things like this never just happened. Toph and Sokka had always had the chemistry - it was probably only a matter of time before something like this would happen.

So, then, why does it hurt so much?

Toph lowered her head, biting her lip. Her hair was plaited and woven with blue. Her feet were shod in light leather boots. She looked at home. She looked loved.

I want to hate her. I want to hate them both...but I can't.

She reached down and placed her hand on the top of Toph's head. The younger girl blinked, raising it. She looked scared, sad, and her eyes were actually full...Suki sighed now, unable to hold it in. There was nothing she could do about it.

Carefully, she stroked Toph's bangs with a gentle touch. The tears in those milky eyes fell free.

She left in the morning. She had no choice; the ship was docked and she had to wait for the traders to finish. She had to sleep alone, in the communal house. She had to endure a day and a half of watching Sokka and Toph in love, unable to do anything about it. She couldn't even look away.

They were so happy. She knew that. The bigger part of her, the one that she wished had control of her heart, could see it and couldn't fault them of this.

But that selfish part had always thought that perhaps Sokka would always be hers...

From the deck of the ship, she watched the two blue figures standing together on the shore bid her farewell. Within her breast, her frozen heart finally shattered.

She didn't go back to Kyoshi. She stayed on the ship. Her feet wouldn't move. She knew she was needed. She just couldn't move.

"Suki," Azaki's voice was soft, but Suki couldn't see her through the blur of tears, the curtain of pain. "What happened? Why won't you come off the ship?"

Suki's mouth opened, but no sound came out. All she could see was plaited black hair and clasped gloved hands. All she could feel was cold.

Eventually they let her go. "You can't stay on the ship," Mikku said, her voice hard. "You have to come home."

Those words woke her a bit. She looked up slowly, then shook her head. "I don't know where home is now," she admitted helplessly.

Zayi pushed past Mikku and cupped Suki's face into her hands. "Then you need to find it," she said softly.

Suki nodded.

She left with the traders that very night.

For a while, Suki walked aimlessly through the Earth Kingdom. She abandoned her robes and paints, leaving them on the ship to be returned back to the Island. She walked the word without much money and no plan, nothing on her person signifying that she was from Kyoshi.

She should have been an easy target. A lone woman, looking dazed and hurt, alone and walking pathways not travelled by most.

The only time she woke was when someone tried to hurt her. Then she was like fire, the element she hated for most of her life. She blazed to life, her body moving of its own will. Her blood sang hot in her veins, her mouth split into a grin of joy. Her heart mended just a bit, her rage and pain taken out on people who deserved it but had no real connection to it nonetheless.

She was like a hurricane; a force of nature with no bias, alive only to destroy.

During the day, she was fire. During the night, she was dying embers.

She hurt. It was inevitable, unavoidable. Sokka had been her first love, her first real love. He had taught her so much - not just romantically, but about life as well. He had shown her another way to live, one outside of Kyoshi. He had freed her from prison without once looking back. He had fought with her, bled with her, watched death and chaos with her - and even caused some of it while laughing. She had thought he always would be there. She had thought they were partners for life.

Now, he was partners with someone else. And the worst part? She actually could see it working out well. She knew she didn't have a place there.

Curled up beneath trees and covered in dirt, Suki's eyes stayed open. Her vision prismed with the tears of her loss.