Complications: Nightmares
A/N: Honestly, I didn't really have any ideas about this one so I just sorta built off one of the suggestions. This is set on the Fire Nation ship the Gaang captured before Aang woke up.
Enjoy!
She bolted into an upright position, panting feverishly. Her arms supported her weight as her hands desperately clutched the sheets beneath her. It took a few seconds before she could process reality into her dream filled skull.
So starts the nightly routine...
"Nightmares?" Toph groaned from the other side of small room she and Katara had been sharing for the past two weeks. She covered her head with her pillow in frustration. It had to be at least three in the morning.
"Um... yea." Katara mumbled a response as she came down from her panic attack. "Sorry I woke you again."
"Even if it wasn't for all the tossing, and turning, and mumbling, and sometimes even screaming, I would still be able to hear your heart pounding a mile a minute." She growled from under the pillow.
Katara couldn't understand what the younger girl was saying, but instead of asking, and very possibly being offended by her answer, she just said good night, and snuggled back up against her pallet.
Toph sighed in relief that Katara didn't want to talk out every detail of her dream for once.
Until...
thump, thump.
thump, thump.
thump, thump.
thump, thump.
thump, thump.
Ugh! Stupid loud heartbeat. Stupid nightmares. Stupid Katara.
Toph removed the pillow from her face, and blew her bangs out of her eyes in defeat. "Do you want to talk about it?" She asked monotonously.
"If you wouldn't mind?" Katara echoed timidly from her adjacent pallet.
"Shoot."
"Well, you know how the beginning goes..." Katara crossed her arms over her waist to hug herself in the darkness. "We are in the crystal catacombs fighting Zuko and Azula. For a while everything is going ok, and we are actually holding our own against them... But then the Dai Li show up, and we are so out numbered it's hopeless."
"Emmhmm." Toph replied as if saying 'get on with it.'
"Anyways, all the normal stuff happens, like Aang going into the avatar state, and Azula shooting him down, Aang..." She gulped a bit. "Dying."
Every time she acknowledged the hard truth out loud it was like diving into ice cold water. Each time was just as painfully unpleasant as the last.
She continued. "It usually ends right there, but this time it didn't. I lifted Aang out of the catacombs, and then you and Sokka picked both of us up on Appa. Then, I took out the water from the spirit oasis, and began to heal Aang, but..."
She paused, frozen in fear of the words that were about to come out of her mouth. "The second the water touched his skin it turned the fire, and his entire body burnt to ashes..."
Tears welled in her eyes, and she hugged herself even tighter. She turned to look at Toph, who usually would of been asleep at this point, but to her dismay, she could vaguely see that the earthbender had her head turned towards Katara's general direction, and had a worried look on her face. "It's just a nightmare, Katara." She whispered. "That didn't really happen."
"I know," Katara said, finally wiping her tear streaked face with the back of her hand. "but it could of."
"You're not a firebender." Toph laughed a little in attempt to lighten the heavy mood. A few minutes of seriousness was all Toph could take with Katara.
"I know I'm not," Katara attempted to match her laugh, but instead hers came out like strangled cry. "but Aang still could of died." She ended solemnly.
She couldn't take all these nightmares, and sleepless nights anymore. Toph finally embraced her bluntness. "Yea, we all could of, and we knew from the very start that it was a possibility."
Katara knew better than anyone that the possibility of death was very real, but it had never hung over her until what happened in Ba Sing Se. She couldn't help that she was terrified over the fact that her, or Aang, or any of the other people she loved could die at any moment, because of this war. It was a lot for her to handle at such an age, considering most girls would be sitting at home doing house chores, while she was traveling the world, trying to help end a hundred year war...
When silence was all that greeted her ears Toph continued on softer. "I just mean that... Just because there is a chance that Aang could die, that we could all die, doesn't mean that we should waste our time thinking about it every second of everyday. You can't let fear rule your life, Sugar Queen."
She was right. About everything. Katara had to stop letting this fear control her life, and try to accept it instead.
Toph rolled her head to face the celling once more before hearing Katara respond softly. "Thanks for listening Toph. I think you really helped." She informed the girl before shifting back into a sleeping position.
She told Toph this every night, and Toph could always sense that it was a lie, but for once... it wasn't.
Toph smiled to herself as her eyes drifted closed. Soon she fell into a peaceful slumber, and for the first time in weeks, Katara did the same.
A/N: Yay for friendship! Sorry that Aang wasn't in this one. There wasn't much I could do with him being asleep, and all...
Review! Constructive criticism encouraged :)
