Sup guys? I am oober excited to be participating in Taang Week this year! My first Taang Week ever was last year (it was actually Taang Thursdays, but same difference), but last year I didn't participate in every single day. This year, I plan to write a oneshot for each of the seven days! Are you ready?!

I hope you enjoy my oneshots! And happy Taang Week!

Day One: Regret

Beneath her smooth sloped nose, Toph grins her usual grin, the one that's full of snark but still kind in some distant way. Her teeth are straight and white - as they always have been – as she feigns nonchalance, but Aang notices the way they grind together when she shifts her weight on the small hospital bed. The room she'd been assigned in the hospital wing of Bumi's castle is rather small, but still larger than most of the others. Aang had been surprised to find out that Bumi has a whole hospital in his castle, but he eventually reasoned that with all the bending practice Bumi does, using his much less experienced guards as sparring partners during such practice sessions, a hospital must have become necessary.

"I'm telling you," Toph insists for the umpteenth time, her cheek twitching and revealing her discomfort again. "It doesn't even hurt that much."

Standing a few feet away, Aang closes his eyes tightly and runs a hand over his fuzzy hair that now covers his head like a peach. He hasn't given himself ample time to shave recently, not that he would have been able to anyway, being that he hasn't left the hospital wing since Toph checked into it.

"You're ankle is shattered," he reminds her. "Thanks to me," he mumbles into the collar of his tunic, ashamed. He peaks up to look from Toph's impassive expression to her hospital robe-covered torso. Her legs disappear under a plain beige blanket, but he knows what is hidden beneath: her left ankle, barely sprained and wrapped in a simple bandage, and her right ankle, broken and tied securely into a splint. Aang had spoken to the doctor earlier that morning and confirmed what he had already guessed: Toph won't be able to put weight on her right ankle for weeks, which will leave her dependent on other people for just about everything, and he knows firsthand how much she hates that. Not to mention that fact that earthbending will be totally out of the question until her ankle is fully healed.

It's his fault she's hurt. He'd do anything to go back in time and prevent her injuries.

Toph snorts suddenly and Aang jumps, pulling his head up from its hiding spot beneath his collar. "Quit the self-pity, Aang," she almost barks, his real name resounding through the room as she spats it out. "So you got a little crazy during our spar? So what? I'm the one that wasn't paying attention."

"You can't see Toph!" He argues forcefully.

"You know what I mean!" She fires back. "And I can probably 'see' better than anyone with working eyes can; you know that!"

"I know!" He yells back, now with his head lowered so he can glower into her cloudy eyes. Toph scowls at him, her lips curled. Aang holds her gaze for as long as he can, but eventually sighs, releasing a lot of hot air. "I know," he repeats much more calmly. His shoulders lose their tension and he releases opens his hands, not even having noticed that he'd balled his hands into fists. "But it is my fault."

Aang thinks back to their most recent bending battle. It was supposed to be earthbending only, but Aang had been becoming frustrated. He had thought that he'd trained enough to at least stand a chance against Toph, but in the past few months they'd spent apart it had appeared that Toph had gotten even better whilst Aang's skilled had regressed. He remembers lying on the ground, bruised and close to being beaten, when something in him snapped. Toph had raised a perch for herself, nearly thirty feet high, so she could smash a barrage of stone down at him and finish the match. Before she could, though, Aang rose himself up even higher and swung his leg around, kicking nearly gale-force winds her way. She couldn't see him, so she had no idea. Aang didn't realize he'd gone too far until he heard her bones crack upon contact with the ground. The worst thing, though, was flying down to her after the fact and seeing her teeth gritted as she tried not to move her awkwardly bent ankle, all the while telling him that it she was fine, that it barely even hurt. He remembers the lines of clean skin running from her eyes to her jaw where silent tears had washed the dust away.

The two of them sit in silence for what couldn't have been two minutes but felt like two hours. Toph considers his words and purses her lips; perhaps she's reliving the event in her head as well. Aang opens his mouth to speak again, but she's faster.

"Maybe it is," Toph says emotionlessly, making Aang flinch. "But," she adds quickly. "The only one angry with you is you," she reminds him. "Have I yelled at you about it once since then? Hit you because of it?"

Well, she had yelled at him, but not pertaining to the incident. As for the hitting, Aang hasn't stood close enough to her bed for her to get a good whack at him, so he supposes she's right. "…No," he admits. "You haven't."

Her lips form an off-center smirk. "That's what I thought," she says. "Besides, I've come back from worse than this. You remember that time Zuko burnt both my feet?"

The memory loosens Aang's tight frown. "Yeah. You weren't angry with him either." He smiles at her, but his lips are still closed. Maybe he does regret what he did, but there's nothing he can do to change the past. Besides, if Toph isn't angry at him for what happened, what use is it to sit around and hate himself while he could be making up for his actions?

Toph smiles wider at his understanding. "Good." She wiggles her shoulders to sink deeper into the collection of pillows stacked behind her back. Sighing, she rests her hands behind her head after shooing him away with one bent palm. "Now go be a good slave and get me something to eat; if I'm going to be stuck in bed for a couple weeks I'm sure as hell going to enjoy myself." Eyes closed, she allows her smirk to burst into a grin. "And if you're worrying about how you'll make this up to me, don't; you'll pay your dues, trust me."

This time Aang smiles with all of his teeth bared. As usual, Toph is one step ahead of him.

Let me know what you think of my writing!

-Katiebunchesofoats