til death do them apart.
"throughout your life you will meet one person who is unlike any other.
you could talk to this person for hours and never get bored, you could tell them things and they won't judge you.
this person is your soulmate.
don't ever let them go."
by clarabella wandering.
When he meets her for the first time, he doesn't know.
He doesn't know what she will come to mean to him.
He doesn't know that this girl with blind eyes and small, rough hands will one day own his heart. Doesn't know that she will hold his soul in her ever-capable palms, doesn't know that her very laugh will cause him to see the stars.
All he knows the first time he sees her is that she's a pretty little thing who could tear him to bits.
For right then, it's enough.
When he names her his best friend, he's come closer to realisation, but hasn't quite reached it yet, hasn't quite connected the dots.
He's given her pieces of himself (she's given him pieces, too, albeit much smaller ones; the girl is a guarded thing), and she keeps them tucked under her sleeve, ready to protect them, to go to her death to keep them safe. He doesn't know.
What he does know is that she is strong, and she is capable, and that he couldn't have chosen a better best friend is he tried.
All he knows is that she is his and he is hers.
Still, there is something off about how they own each other; in the "best friend" way doesn't quite fit, but he doesn't know what does. There's another girl under his arm, and his best friend by his side, and he thinks that for right now, this is enough.
When she cries in front of him, for the first time, he still doesn't know, but he has come a little further, come a little closer.
He doesn't know what she'll come to mean to him (what she already means to him), but as he takes her into his arms, something inside him lights up, igniting, and from then on it never really leaves him alone.
"Come on, girl," he says gently. He wishes he could call her something sweeter, like baby, or sweetheart, but there's still another girl on his arm, and he owes her his loyalty. "We've gotta soldier on."
She looks up at him with her large, unseeing green eyes, and he breathes in sharply. There's a lone tear making its solitary journey down her cheek. Absentmindedly, he takes his thumb and wipes it away, entranced by the look she's giving him. Not for the first time, he thinks that maybe she's not really blind. Sometimes it seems she can see more than them all combined.
Standing and dusting herself off, she is silent for a long time, before looking at him again. Their eyes lock, and he wonders if she knows this. "Yeah," She murmurs, "Soldier on."
She hands him another piece of her, and he stores it deep in his chest, vowing to protect it til death does them apart.
For now, it's enough.
Her words echo in his chest as they hang half-dead from a balloon he helped invent. She said them so long ago, but they have stuck with him throughout all their adventures. Now they rise to his head and stay there, repeated like a mantra.
"You guys get to go wherever you want. No one telling you what to do. That's the life. It's just not my life."
It's a strange thought to be having while hanging from a war balloon with her -his best friend- clutching to his hand for her life, but he realizes then that maybe it is the life, but it wouldn't be his life if she wasn't in it. It wouldn't be fun, it wouldn't be true, if the blind girl who hangs by a thread from his hand wasn't here alongside him.
He almost tells her this, but there's still another girl who he owes all his loyalty, and it's still too early. He doesn't know yet. He doesn't know.
So instead, as the flaming criminals of his world take a menacing step closer to him, he says, "Oh, Toph, I don't think we're getting out of this one. Not this time."
It's the second time he's seen her cry, and it almost kills him prematurely. But their hands are still clasped, her beautiful face and her large, milky eyes staring up at him with a painful understanding in her eyes. Til death do them apart. There are words that lie on her lips, but they are left unsaid as, suddenly, the grip on their hands is weakened. Suddenly, she's hanging on to life -on to him- by only her fingers, and his heart sinks to his stomach.
His grip on the metal ledge falters. Tears spill from his eyes. This is it. This is their death. She doesn't deserve this. He doesn't either.
But it fits them, this death; dying together like this has always been how he'd imagined them going.
It's a morbid thought, but it's enough.
They survive.
Sometimes, even two years later, it still hits him hard, and he will get a faraway look in his eyes. Still, he doesn't know.
But she does.
She has always known, since the moment she heard him chastise her pupil ("Don't answer to twinkle toes, it's not manly."), that he will hold her entire being in his palms and guard her with his life, and she the same.
So, when he does get that faraway look in his eyes, she always knows, even if she herself can't see it. Her hand comes up to rest on his shoulder, firmly clasping it. His head snaps towards hers, and a solemn look lies upon her face, before she gives him a knowing one. In her hand lies another piece of her, given to him with the knowledge that he knows exactly why this occasion is special.
It is the anniversary of their almost-death, after all.
With a look to rival hers, he takes her hand in his and entwines their fingers in a rare acknowledgement of what is -to him- their best friendship. A piece of him lies there, and when he looks at her again, and then at the sunset, something clicks.
He is hers and she is his, and that is the way it has always been.
The grip on her fingers tightens, because there's no longer another girl to block the way, and while he's not ready to do anything about it, yet, the promise of tomorrow is enough.
Many years later, he knows.
He knows exactly what she means to him.
He knows that this woman with blind eyes and small, rough hands owns his heart. Knows that she holds his soul in her ever-capable palms, knows that her very laugh causes him to see the stars.
And he knows, without a doubt, that she's a pretty little thing that could tear him to bits.
When her lips come forward to meet him, closing the last of the distance between them, promising herself to him -and himself to her- for the rest of their lives, he thinks that this is just a formality. They belonged to themselves long before this marriage of theirs. It was "til death do them apart" basically since they met.
Still, the kiss is strong and sweet and everything he loves about her. When she pulls away, now his wife, and he now her husband, he smiles at her. She smiles back.
He gives her the very last piece of him, and she gives him hers. They tuck the parts away, completing the puzzle, ready to defend it until their last breaths.
Til death do them apart.
It's more than enough.