A/N: Ha ha! I find inspiration in the weirdest places! Like, from my amazingly homosexual boss at work. Ha! Have fun!
Toph lay awake, staring at the canopy of her large four-poster. She was too shocked to sleep. What had just happened couldn't have just happened. Aang was back! Aang was here! Aang still loved her! That thought alone got her heart thumping. But what had just happened with Aang…oh, Aang. Her heart ached when she thought of him, of his name, his lips on hers, his hands in her hair…on her thigh…she clenched her eyes closed in shame and disbelief.
Somebody please jump out and yell 'Aprils Fools!' or, 'Ha, ha, you're going crazy, Toph!', SOMETHING. She wasn't the 'cheating type'. She'd been nothing but faithful to Oro, her husband of the last three years.
It hadn't mattered that it was arranged, that he was really only after her looks and her youth, and her parents' money. She had taken the vows as she was expected to. Though there was barely a smidgen of affection there, they were still vows. She hadn't expected to marry somebody she loved anyway, after all those years that Aang had been gone.
She thought about it, remembering how she'd battled with herself (how she still sometimes battled with herself) for years after he had left. It was true that the world needed him much more than she did in Gaoling. But why had she made the decision to stay in the Earth Kingdom, rather than help Aang, Zuko and Katara in the Fire Nation? The reasons were all perfectly valid. The Earth Kingdom needed her guidance and influence – a fellow Earth-Bender – the most since the Avatar was needed the most in the Fire Nation where the turmoil was the worst. Aang also feared for her life more than his own – which was stupid. There had been eight assassination attempts (that she knew of) on Aang. Probably more on Zuko and Katara – especially Katara. A Water-Tribe Fire-Nation queen didn't sit pretty with the Fire Nation.
Toph knew she was tough; she pulled her own weight and could hold her own. But it wasn't always (in fact it was very seldom) a full frontal attack. Poison was a favorite tool. If Aang had almost been killed eight times by the small Fire Nation rebellions, what would have happened if they'd found out he was in love? How many assassinations would have been lined up for her to punish Aang? She hated to admit that it scared her. It scared her so much that she agreed to stay in Ba Sing Se to redirect the Dai Li and be the King's chief advisor. That's how she'd met Oro….she knew, even now, that she should have gone with Aang.
She and Aang would have been married now. And she would have been happy to go with Aang when he decided that Zuko and Katara could handle anything that was thrown at them. He left to travel the world on Appa like they used to, helping small towns and people along the way. He went with Sokka and Suki originally, but they came home after a few months to start their family in the South Pole. After Aang left, the letters stopped. They had been steady until this, but Toph guessed that life on the road didn't provide much time for writing letters. The only news she got concerning him she got from the actual news.
She had begun to worry that something had happened to him, then that he'd met somebody else, then that he didn't love her anymore…then that it was never real at all.
But he was back now. He still loved her; he never stopped. After a decade of not hearing his voice, this was too big of a shock to handle. She didn't know what she was going to do; after making out with him, and then shame-facedly returning to her husband's forty-sixth birthday party, she didn't know if there was anything to be done. She rolled to her side, and felt Oro lying there, breathing in and out deeply. A single tear ran down her face as she lie next to the biggest mistake of her life. She rolled the other way, and tried to get some sleep.
