The wind whipped past them, pushing forcefully without a care to any will besides its own. It threaded through their hair, rapidly guiding each strand into a frenzy that framed their flushed faces. It scraped against their eyes, stinging little pinpricks of dryness that brought tears to the corners of their eyes, one pair a blazing blue against the fiery red backdrop of the comet's arc, and the other a pale unseeing jade, in an attempt to soothe the burn.
"Hang on, Toph."
The tone of his voice was a prayer to every spirit and deity he could recall in his adrenaline-addled brain. A desperate plea to spare their lives in the face of a complete and certain end. His voice struggled against the roar of the wind around them to reach her, assuring her that they would make it.
"Aye, aye, Captain."
She could feel the moisture gathering between their palms and fingers, a gradual aggrandizement that would seal their fate. The clasp of their hands grew weaker with each passing second.
"It looks like this is the end."
The clatter of boots on the metal platform pounded at the same rate of their heartbeats. It was over. This is the end.
Fate changed her mind; at the last second, they were rescued by Suki. That was the beginning.
It was then that Toph realized that their chances of survival had solidified into a surety, becoming fact that what had recently been impossible was now reality.
It was then that she began theorizing and doubting and realizing that things could have gone differently.
He could have let go.
He could have saved himself. Somehow.
If he had let go, then he definitely would have found a way to survive.
Maybe he wouldn't have let go on purpose, maybe fate could have decided to break them apart and slipped in between them with just a slightly different gust of wind and he would be forced to let go.
Maybe she wouldn't be here.
If she weren't here, his remorse and guilt would eat at him for a long time.
But maybe not forever.
Maybe he would find solace in Suki and their possibilities together, their future. Maybe he would get so entrenched in the past, that he would throw it all away the first chance that he could.
Maybe he would forget.
Maybe he would forget their friendship, the easy laughter they shared, the fluidity with which they shared their thoughts, the peace that came in the presence of each other.
Maybe he would forget her.
As time passed and seasons changed, maybe he would forget her, and not mind that he had forgotten her.
These were the fears that kept her up at night, not the pulse-pounding memory of what she had already been through. Yes, the terror that she lived through during those moments was justified, but she had survived it all.
What scared her most was the thought that maybe, just maybe, Sokka could survive without her, and the absolute fact she held in her heart that she could not survive without him.
A/N: Hey, I was recently inspired to write again, and this came out. I wrote it in thirty minutes and posted it the minute I finished, so apologies if it isn't up to my normal standard (or any standard really). I needed to write and my favorite characters rescued me from the cesspool of uninspired writer's block muck I've been sitting in for months now. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.