A/N: Welcome. Just a little Toph/Aang fic that kept nagging at me. Starts off Toph/OC but evolves quickly. I hope you guys enjoy, and as always, I don't own Avatar or any of its characters. This story is rated M for language and mature situations romantic or otherwise so please be advised.

Left, right, up, down. Over and over and over again. Toph felt as much as heard her students outside her walls repeating the same motions, drilling until they collapsed or gave in. She sipped her tea delicately and frowned hearing yet another student falter and fall silent. Tomorrow was rest day, but every student who fell short of their quota today in drills would be forced to finish it tomorrow. She hated when her rest was disturbed by too many students catching up on their drills at sunrise on rest day. She heard Chen bellow to pick it up an d smiled a little into her steaming tea cup.

"Ah and what, or should I say who, bring such a coy smile to my daughter's face?" Iroh asked from across the elegant stone table. They were in the states room where she received important guests and the parents of noble born earthbenders when they brought their children to train at Be Fong institute of earth and metalbending.

"Its not like that Pops" Toph said shaking her head and taking another sip of tea. She could feel Chen's strong footsteps as he moved in and amongst her students drilling them endlessly and bellowing at them when they slipped.

"I do believe I saw master Chen drilling the students this morning, is that correct?" Iroh pressed, "He seems to be thoroughly competent."

Toph snorted, Chen was more than competent and in more ways than one, but Iroh didn't need to know that. "So Pops, how was it getting to play Firelord while Sparky and Sugarqueen were of honeymooning around the world?"

Iroh sighed, "I am too old for all that nonsense, but I am glad they had a good trip. They deserved a break."

"Ya well they never came and saw me." She protested only a little sour.

Iroh laughed, "I said break didn't I child? You would have had them training with your children all day so you could teach them what a real waterbending master is like. Not that the lovely Kikumi isn't more than capable herself. Not to mention a firebender who isn't old enough to be their grandpa."

Toph snorted and punched the older man playfully on the arm careful not to bruise him. Kikumi was a decent water bender although she lacked in both healing and combat when compared to Katara, but not everyone could be princess perfect so she figured she'd have to let it slide just this once. Besides, she was half certain that the only reason Iroh stayed at the school so much was to be in her company. Kikumi was younger than Iroh, but not by much with four grown children of her own and was in charge of the healer's wing at the school. She liked her students to be well prepared when fighting other benders and so having the both Kikumi and Iroh on sight most of the year worked just fine for her.

"Chen is still the only one apart from me that can beat you one on one Pops. You're doing just fine." She assured him smirking a little when she heard Chen bend one of the older kids into next week for messing with a newcomer by making his rocks do different things then they were supposed to.

Iroh looked out the small window down at the training ground and smiled, his attention seemingly re-focused on Chen once more. "I do hope that boy has been treating you the way your dear old father would want." He needled once more.

Toph rolled her sightless eyes and stomped her foot on the ground twisting it 90 degrees to the right and causing a student who had been playing around instead of drilling to fall into what was likely quite a painful split. Chen bellowed once more and Toph felt him smack a rock up against the kid's behind simultaneously raising him out of the splits and likely bruising his tail bone. "You're interrupting the Master's tea." Chen reminded the teen, "Get back to work before she comes out herself."

Toph felt the teen turn back to his work and even a few terrified students who had collapsed in exhaustion had jumped back up to continue their drills. The teen muttered something about tea that Toph couldn't quite make out, and was about the put the kid back in his splits, but Chen did it for her and this time didn't bother to help the kid up. Toph's smile grew. It was true, she and Chen worked well together, very well, but that was all it ever really was between them. They worked will together in the practice yards, they worked well together in teaching the students, and they worked well together in the bedroom, but outside of that there wasn't much else to say.

"He's fine Pops, don't worry about him." Toph assured her father figure.

Iroh let out an mhm that didn't sound very convinced, but she changed the subject before he could continue, "So how did the love birds like visiting all of their love nests? I hear Suki is about to pop with those twins and I'm sure Katara enjoyed being home with her father an the tribe for a bit."

"Oh I think they enjoyed their trip very much." Iroh said with a chortle.

"So how far along is our Fire Lady then?" Toph said raising an eyebrow.

"Oh well enough I should think, but not too far that anyone should be asking any questions." Iroh said laughing at Toph's correct assumption that Katara had returned from her six weeks honeymoon pregnant.

"His advisors should be happy then." Toph said dryly.

"I doubt they know. I only guessed because I know them so well. Zuko is always protective of her, but he scared their paliquin carriers into a puddle going off about how important carrying the Fire Lady was and how so much as a slip in the mud and he would do it himself."

Toph snorted imagining the accelerated heartbeats and stiff muscles of the servants as they imagined the same of the Fire Lord carrying his own paliquin. "I'm surprised Sugarqueen hasn't down him yet if he's that bad."

Iroh chuckled, "By the looks of it when I was leaving she might have tried."

Toph laughed and they sat in companionship chatting until Toph heard Chen outside her door. He never knocked. He didn't need to. She knew he was there and she would get to him when she was ready. Iroh caught the tilt of her head as if she were turning her ear towards the door and smiled.

"It would seem your training master is finished drilling your students into the ground. Perhaps I will go see if Kikumi needs help with the injured ones." Iroh said standing and stacking his tea set onto its tray to take with him.

Toph laughed, "It was only drills, what do you think he did to them? Bury them?"

"All the better then." Iroh said with a wink and a bow half of which was lost to Toph, but she knew full well what he meant.

"Hey Pops," She said to his retreating back, "Just don't sprain anything ok?" She teased.

She heard Chen chuckle outside the now open door and let out one of her wolfish grins towards the old man. "We each do our best." Iroh assured her and left.

Chen entered as Iroh left. "That nobleman's brat still giving us trouble?" She asked referring to the snarky teen from earlier.

"I'll handle him tomorrow." Chen said laying the stone tablet with the student's reports on the stone table. Toph smacked her hand down on the table and could see the spires of stone Chen had bent out of the tablet next to the etched name of each student. She liked this method of report taking, Chen had designed it, and it kept her from fumbling around blindly trying to feel things on a piece of paper or bark like her old secretary had used to make for her to read.

She nodded satisfied with the reports, and said, "Nah, I'll deal with him, it always means so much more to them with their Sifu does it herself." She grinned wickedly and Chen smiled back at her.

"I need a favor when you're free." He told her collecting the tablet to give to tomorrow's training master so he knew who to drill and for how long.

"What kind of favor, I could make myself available" She said voice dropping suggestively.

Chen snorted and said, "My armor isn't fitting quite right anymore, I think I put on a little more muscle through the shoulders."

Toph snorted and sat back interest abated, "You're a metalbender now, fix it yourself."

"And pollute a Be Fong original with my shoddy skills? Never." He said in a false aghast tone.

Toph snorted. The armor he had bent for himself, was far more intricate than the ceremonial piece she had bent for him when she gave him his masterhood, but it was a ceremonial symbol of his graduation from her school. Upon mastering earthbending Tough bent each student, meaning only Chen so far, a set of ceremonial armor emblazoned with the crest she bestowed that particular student with. Chen's was a chasm between two cliffs with a study stone bridge paving the gap between them. He was the bridge in her life, and she knew that the crest she had given him was more about they way that she saw him than who he really was, but when they had started sleeping together not long after that he had assured her that he could think of no better emblem of himself as a person or an earthbending master. Metalbending was not a requirement to graduate from her earthbending program however, and thus far Chen was her only student to have truly succeeded in the art. He as no master, but she doubted she would ever see anyone as her equal in that field. "Bring it with you tonight. I'll take a look, but I'm telling you now, if I have to add more metal to it again I'm making you wait at least a week." She said with false sternness in her voice.

Chen chuckled and bowed saying, "Sifu Toph, you honor me."

"Oh get out of here, you sound like TwinkleToes." She chastised him.

Chen was still for a second before approaching her and placing a comforting and on her hair, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"I said get." She said pushing him towards the door by rearranging the stone tiles such that the ones he stood on were now in the doorway. Chen looked back over his shoulder worriedly and her heart sank. He was only trying to look after her she reminded herself and stood from behind the low table and made her way towards him. He waited patiently in the doorway until she raised herself on tip toes and kissed the side of his jaw. "Tonight" she promised, voice softer now and pushed off of him lightly with the hand resting on his chest before making her way towards her office.

It had been years since she had seen Aang. Well not years since she had seen him, he had come to give his blessing at Zuko and Katara's wedding, but years since they had seen each other face to face. When he and Katara had broken off their relationship more than three tears ago, he left to spend his time meditating in the avatar temples in each kingdom in an attempt to find himself and to bring himself back to his culture and his past lives. Sokka and Suki had been married for more than a year and were expecting their first child and Katara had been heading back to the southern water tribe to be with her people and help them re-build in the aftermath of having ended her six year relationship with Aang. Zuko was Fire Lord and recently singe after Mai had acquiesced that Ty Lee was perhaps more her type, but that she had been concealing her interests due to the rigid traditionally of the fire nation before the war. Both girls were grateful to Zuko for creating a world in which they could be themselves, and Zuko was happy to see his friends happy and hadn't taken the fall of his relationship too hard.

Toph was different though. She had her school yes, and she had Iroh by her side, but Aang had been her best friend. He was the only one her age in Team Avatar, and loosing him out of the blue like that had affected her in a way she hadn't expected. Mostly she had been pissed. She hadn't expected to loose her best friend at 18 due to a breakup, but in the last three years she had only seen him once and that from a far. He hadn't ever sought her out or tried to connect with her despite the level of freedom that she maintained to travel and leave the school when ever she wanted. She could since him at the wedding, she heard his voice, too deep and smooth for the boy she had last known, but unmistakably his. The ceremony had been coming to a close and she stood on a terrace beside Iroh and Ursa watching as an adopted member of their family as two of her best friends were married. She had felt him hug each of them and stepped behind Iroh out of his direct line of sight, but she needn't have bothered. He never so much as looked her way.

Every time she thought about him it made her want to kick something. So she did. Frequently… mostly rocks… at Chen. He was always there though and never asked too many questions when they were done. She and Chen worked well together. He was just as solid as she and she knew that they could stand side by side shoulder to shoulder and nothing could ever bring them down. They worked well together, but that's all they would ever be. She and Chen were like two boulders slamming into each other, they would never quite fit together but they made quite the impact when they made contact. It wasn't a good basis for a lasting romantic relationship, but they looked after one another and kept each other sane in a school full of earthbending children. He was older than she, by almost ten years, but neither one of them really cared. In the beginning he had resisted her advances, saying that he was far too old for her and that she should find someone who hadn't already been married even if his wife was taken from him several years before they met by illness.

Toph almost laughed allowed remembering the moment. She had all but pinned him to the wall with steel daggers and taken advantage of him then and there to prove her point, but eventually she had let him go and returned to her room only to have him knock down the door fifteen minutes later. Toph sat at her desk summoning one stone tablet after another with reports from her different secretaries and instructors on everything from transcribed letters from friends to the details on student's progress. It was growing late and her stomach was telling her that she had missed dinner when a strange noise from outside attracted her attention.

A gargled moan of protest from a large beast made her pick her head up from her work. She was concentrating so hard on the noises outside, that she jumped when Chen bent her door open and walked in. "Toph?" He asked concerned crossing the few steps around her desk and kneeling in front of her to get a better look at her face.

"That son of a bitch" she yelled jumping up and completely ignoring the shocked Chen still kneeling by her empty chair as she ran out the office door towards the front of the school. She could feel the currents of air disturbing the still night air and the strong rhythmic footsteps of Chen dashing after her summoning his armor to him as he followed. She couldn't quite pinpoint the epicenter of the disturbance in the air currents as they brushed by her skin, nor had the grounds been disturbed, but she knew that mournful protest and knew that wherever that fuzzy beast went his good for nothing owner followed.

"By the mother." Chen breathed under his breath, "Toph."

"Sht" she snapped. She almost had him. There circulating air was getting closer and closer to the ground creating waves and patterns of dust as it was swept up off of her beautiful grounds and into the invisible air. "There" she said triumphantly and heard a indignant bellow as she spent a rock spike up directly into the air before Appa's face.

"Hey!" Aang yelled in his friend's defense and Toph chuckled mincingly. She heard Aang leap off of Appa directing him to the stables with Momo and felt the air whoosh up to fill his robes bringing him to a slow and elegant descent.

Toph's grin split even wider. The second Aang's foot touched her precious earth he was sucked down into it until only the top of his blue head was visible. Aang easily bent himself back out, but Toph was far from finished with him. She felt Chen's stance turn to a guard stance indicating he was only there to watch and she thought "good boy Chen" as she charged her once friend with all the pain and ferocity built up over three years of absence.

Aang was clearly on the defensive, but he never made so much as an attempt to fight back, "Stupid fucking pacifist" she swore at him tossing rock after rock in his direction. She had made it all but impossible for him to land and he floated through the air dodging her attacks while simultaneously redirecting them away from her school. Toph snorted, as if Chen would allow anything to happen to the school. He had more than enough experience protecting her precious school from her own temper. He didn't need the mother blessed Avatar and neither did she. "Fight me" she screamed at him, but still he danced through the air dodging her attacks and never once returning them.

She continued to rain hell on him, but even in her anger she noticed that his silence and his lack of pleading with her to calm down was a sign that he had grown in the three years since she had last spoken to her. He was sad, she could tell that much from the few times he had touched down, but not hurt or angry as he might have been as a child. If anything he felt guilty. Well damn right he should feel guilting. Fucking air-headed flake. Toph ground her teeth and dove, tunneling into the ground to come up under him wrapped in a virtual tornado of stone.

It took barley a sweep of his hand to push the rocks aside and she realized that he had gathered water form the air or the nearby stream when she hit a thin wet wall of water before she could reach him. Suddenly there was the crack of electricity and the water became a net of electricity causing he muscles to seize as she began falling out of the air. The arms that caught her were thin, but strong, and the chest they collected her to was firm and well muscled, but definitely lacked Chen's shear bulk. Aang drifted to the ground softly still holding her to him as her body recovered from the literal shock of a few moments before. "Toph?" He said almost as a question, "Can we talk now?"

"Put me down." She demanded absolutely refusing to admit that her voice had broken or that it was more of a weak croak then her usual strong tenor.

"Come on Toph, I came to apologize, just talk to me." He said with a sigh that made hims sound older than she knew he was. Still he placed her carefully on her feet ensuring that she could stand on her own when they landed.

Re-connected with the earth again she felt significantly more stable and her expression hardened. Both men in the clearing saw the set of her jaw and the way she turned up her nose and knew there was no talking with her tonight. "I'm busy." She insisted turning her back on the avatar and heading directly towards Chen instead.

Chen waited for her by the entrance and she grabbed him by the front of his armor bending it a little in her forcefulness as she dragged him behind her towards her quarters. Chen grimaced a little seeing the crestfallen expression on the Avatar's face but followed his Sifu inside without protest. She stomped through the halls of the school as if she wanted the avatar to feel each step from where he stood outside and he was sure that more than one of the older students would be teasing him tomorrow about the force of her temper as they made their way to her bedroom. She let go of him at the entrance of her room and he took that as permission to stick his head in the maid's room and request a room for the avatar.

"Of course master Chen, one by the Sifu's I'm sure."

Chen winced, "Um, no, perhaps a more… peaceful location."

The maid smiled at him knowingly as Toph let out a frustrated growl from her nearby room. The maid bowed to him and he followed his enraged Sifu into her rooms.

Toph's face was pure furry as she slammed the hidden metal walls up behind him. The intent of the metal walls was to protect the Sifu should she be attacked in her sleep, but she had activated them a few times before in some of their less careful rendezvous to prevent damage to her room and from too much noise from what they were doing from getting out. Chen knew what she needed right now as well as she did and lifted her bodily up against the metal wall kissing her fiercely.

It was well after lights out when Toph lifted her head from Chen's muscled chest and said, "Let's fix that armor should we?" Chen chuckled and ran a hand down her bare back, but new better than to argue with his Sifu when she got an idea in her head. "I noticed you grabbed this set instead of yours when you thought we had a fight. It can't fit that poorly."

"It was closer" he explained raising his arms as she bent the armor buckles open and clamped it around his bare torso.

"Just the chest piece?" She asked checking the fit through his shoulders. He nodded and smiled as she stood on the bed to reach the tops of his shoulders.

"I moved it to your rooms after we spoke before lunch so that we could work on it tonight." He explained.

"You grew." She grumped at him.

"I am an adult man, we do not grow. Perhaps I just have more muscle from lifting my Sifu too often." He teased reaching around to pinch her bare hip.

"Are you saying I'm heavy?" She asked wrenching the chest piece a little tighter than necessary.

Chen turned to face her earning himself a disapproving look and placed his hands on her full hips saying, "Sifu Toph, I will never insult you by suggesting you are some dainty flower of a woman. You have real substance and what is it you're always telling your students?"

"Everything with substance has weight." She said concealing a soft smile as she smooth the dent she had put in the front of his armor back down.

Chen nodded, "Besides," he said leaning forward to nibble on the sensitive skin between her breasts as she stretched the metal between his shoulder blades over the top of his head, "substance is far more interesting than some airy twat."

Toph snorted and Chen resisted the urge to wince realizing exactly what he had said "Is that so?" She asked.

"I didn't mean it like that." He said with a sigh.

"I know" She said softly reshaping the the metal to better fit his shoulder-blades.

Chen rolled his shoulders as his armor began to fit as it should once more. "You should,"

"Neit" she shushed him flicking the metal armor with a finger so that it made a resounding dinging sound to drown out his comment.

Chen sighed and picked her up off the foot of the bed placing her back on the floor. "You're armor is getting a little thin in the back. I should add more metal to it, but I don't have any purified right now. Korn is about to undergo his mastery ceremony in a few months. Try not to get shot in it until then and I'll add some back in to thicken it back up." She unbent the clasps and he pulled the armor off of his shoulders hanging it on the open armor rack in her room and leading her back to bed.

Toph was quiet for several minutes as he stroked his broad hand through her long hair and just waited. Chen was good at that. He was patient and knew she would come to him when she was ready. "Who does he think he is?" She grumbled.

Chen laughed, "The most powerful man in the world perhaps?" He asked teasingly earning a disgruntled mumble from the woman sprawled across him. "Are you going to talk to him then?"

Toph hurumphed, "Of course I am, he's the avatar."

"I didn't mean the avatar." Chen said drawing soothing circles on her back.

She was quiet for so long he wasn't sure she would answer, but finally a sleepy voice said, "Ya, I'll talk to TwinkleToes too."

Toph took her time getting up and dressed in the morning and Chen purposefully lounged in her bed longer than he normally would have giving her time to make her own decisions without pressuring her by making an appearance and altering everyone that they were out of bed for their rest day. The rest day was the one day a week that neither Toph nor Chen woke before the sun and everyone knew not to disturb them before at least one of them was seen to have surfaced for the day.

"Hungry?" Chen asked sarcastically as her stomach gurgled at the late hour having skipped dinner the night before.

"Princess airhead is eating in the mess hall right now." Toph said crinkling her nose and glaring in the direction where Chen knew the avatar must me.

"Sifu, catch" Chen said bouncing a thick skinned fruit off the floor in her direction. Toph felt the fruit bounce and easily caught it smiling over her shoulder at him. Pulling one of the metal knives off the wall beside her she began pealing it slipping wedges into her mouth crunching happily. "Rolls are on the window sill. They were too hot to wrap when I filched them from cook."

Toph smiled knowing he must have snuck out in the pre-dawn hours while she was still asleep and snagged some food from the cook for her. "What would I do without you?" She asked sitting next to him in bed and leaning into the crook of his arm as they sat and munched.

He let her munch for a while before saying, "Why don't you go find out Sifu T." Toph froze at the familiar nickname given to her by her first student almost a decade ago and strictly outlawed for the last three years.

With a growl she stood and wrapped the metal studded belt around her silk master's robes and snapped the ankle ands shut with her bending securing her pants around her ankles with bread roll half out of her mouth. She tugged her hair up into its customary bun and pinned it in using a headband to keep her thick bangs out of her sightless eyes to prevent the nagging tickling sensation they caused on her nose and cheek bones. With a final stomp and flick of her foot she launched Chen out of bed causing him to flounder a little in the air before landing landing next to her in surprise. She huffed at him, but stood on her tip toes and kissed his jaw softly before turning and making her way out of her rooms and towards the stables where she knew Aang would return after breakfasting with the students.

Chen smiled after her, but it was a sad smile. He knew when he told her to go that he was likely letting the best part of his life walk out never to come back. Chen smiled ruefully at himself, he had always known that a 30 year old coal worker like him had no future with the likes of Toph Be Fong, but it didn't make it any easier to watch her leave.

Toph had forgotten how soft Appa was and how snuggly Momo could be especially then he was sulking over having being left behind by Aang. She snuggled into Appa's side and fed Momo grapes, but kept her two feet firmly planted on the ground. His presence was like an itch that she couldn't reach. There were over a hundred students and staff members at the school, but one set of footsteps seemed to sear themselves in her mind as he flitted around the dining area helping the maids pick up from breakfast and stood before Chen talking about something that made his heart race. "What's he like?" She asked her two companions. Appa huffed sadly and Momo chittered in her ear. "That different hu?" She asked sadly.

"Not so much Sifu T." Aang's voice came from the wooden rafters above her and she wondered how long he had been there. She assumed a quarter of an hour ago that he had taken off on his glider, but she never heard him land above her.

"You sure about that?" She asked and heard him float down beside her sitting against Appa a few feet way from her.

"Not like you Sifu T."

Toph snorted, "I haven't changed that much."

"You can't see yourself." He reminded her.

She let her head fall back against Appa's side and considered his words. She was different then she had been at the end of the war, 9 years would do that to a 12 year old, but since he had left? Maybe. She knew she wasn't built like any of their friends. Katara had kept her willowy beauty which only refined and accentuated over the years, but she was lean graceful. Suki was only an inch or two taller than Toph, but she had a petite frame with wrists like a child's and nimble capable hands. Ty Lee was built like Suki and even Mai had grown into her tall imperious frame. Toph was short and stocky with heavy breasts and hips and a toned narrow waist. Her legs and arms were to dense with muscle to be delicate and her hands and feet while small were solid and more used to brute force than delicate maneuvering. Her hair was longer now falling well past the waist when she left it unbound, which she never did in public. Her face was harder for her to judge, but she figured if the rest of her had changed that probably had too, but really it hadn't been that long. Had she really changed that much since she last saw him when they were 18?

"It's been three years." She reminded him unsure whether she meant to impress upon him that she wasn't that different at 21 then she had been then or if she was accusing him of his absence.

Aang sighed, "I know." His voice was quiet and told of the unknown sorrows of a man twice his age.

"Where have you been" She asked voice small.

"Everywhere" he said with a note of sorrow and awe in his voice, "I've been to every major city in every major era. I've seen every conflict, and loss. Every injustice and imbalance in the world."

"Alone?" She asked.

"I'm never truly alone, but yes."

"You couldn't take damn break to come say hi to a few old friends? The western earth temple is only a few miles from here you know. I could feel Appa land and take off."

Aang sighed, "You've gotten better at seeing great distances then."

"So its my fault then."

Aang let his head drop into his hands and buried his face between his knees in frustration, "I let so many responsibilities fall to the wayside trying to keep Katara happy in the years after the war. We spent more time on Kyosi Island and with the southern water tribe than the rest of the world combined. I neglected my avatar training and my own people for too long. Just because I mastered the elements and ended the war didn't mean I wasn't the avatar anymore and I spent years ignoring myself."

"So everyone else around you should suffer to make up for it?" Toph asked flicking stones at the barn wall by flicking her big toe.

She felt the air buffet against the ground as he bent himself up and came down kneeling in front of her. He reached out cupping her cheek with a long warm hand, "Toph, you have to know, that was never my intent."

Turning her cheek from him she punched him in the arm rather harder than she had done to Iroh or even Chen. It knocked him back on his haunches and he watcher her sadly as she said, "I was alone to you know."

It was Aang's turn to snort, "Not for long from what I hear."

"Chen's none of your business" She said sourly, "besides, when has my sex life been so interesting to you anyway."

He considered this for a few moments surprising her by not lashing back in embarrassment. "Since I saw you at Zuko and Katara's wedding I suppose."

Toph sputtered turning back to face him, "You saw me?" Her voice was at least an octave higher than it should have been, but she honestly barely noticed.

Aang smiled, "How could I have not? You were so beautiful standing there between Uncle Iroh and Lady Ursa. Like royalty yourself. Not fire nation, or earth, or water. You were the only one there that your own entity. You were there alone so I guess I kinda assumed…" He laughed at himself wryly, "Well you know what happens when you start making assumptions. I guess I earned that one hu?"

"What were you thinking insisting to that maid that she put you in a room on my wing?" Toph asked voice half tinted with humor.

Aang winced and blushed a little, "You knew I was there?"

"I always know where you are when you're nearby. Twinkletoes remember?"

"You could have spared me a little." Aang accused her.

It was Toph's turn to blush, she had been so pissed after their non-fight last night and had taken out on Chen, or rather Chen and dragged every bit of fight out of her until they were both so exhausted they fell asleep completely spent. "You made your bed." She said sourly and Aang couldn't think of a reasonable comeback.

He sighed, "I'm happy for you T."

"Don't lie TwinkleToes."

She felt Aang shake his head and he said, "I mean it Sifu T, if you're happy then I'm happy for you."

"But you don't think I'm happy with Chen." She observed measuring his dishonesty in the first statement with the absolute truth of his second.

"He seems great Toph. He showed me around some this morning. He really seems to help you keep everything together here."

"You forgot to mention he's too old for me."

"I guess I didn't forget that you don't need anyone else to make decisions like that for you T. You never have."

Toph couldn't help but smile a little. He was right. She didn't need people to tell her Chen was too old for her. He was too old for her and frankly she didn't give a fuck.

"What did Pops say about him?" She asked knowing that the old man wouldn't have been able to help himself.

Aang considered how to respond, but seemingly decided on the truth because his heart rang true when he said, "He said that Chen was the rock to your stone; one and the same."

She snorted, "I take it you're not young enough for his wisdom to go over your head anymore are you?"

"No Sifu." Aang said almost sadly.

"He's right. Chen and I work great together, but we will never fit just right like Sokka and Suki or Katara and Zuko. We're too much alike. It's like throwing rocks at a mountain. At the end of the day, its all just a big heap of stone."

Aang was silent as she finished processing what she had said, "So you decided to be with him anyways?"

Toph stood, "What two adults do behind closed doors is no one else's business, and unless I am disrupting the balance of the wold Avatar, it is certainly none of yours. Now if we are finished talking about how much better my sex life is than yours, I have students who should be finishing up with their extra drills right about now and one of them is about to be taught a lesson by his Sifu." With that she strolled out of the barn and towards the practice field where the students who failed to finish their drills yesterday were seating in the mid-morning heat.