A/N: *gets pelted with rocks and pointy things* Okay, okay, I get it! I'm late! What else is new!?

But seriosly, I'm so busy these days. School is being very unforgiving in terms of work load. And it doesn't help that it takes two hours by subway to get to school and to get home. So writing was not an option for this past month. Summer seems so far away...I miss my three month vacation...

Regarding TAL: later tonight. I promise. Maybe at around 10-ish.

Thank you for all of you who have been patient this entire time. Your reviews are so incredibly nice and I love every single one of them. New reviews are also extremely welcome. Onward to Chapter 3!


It's More Than Enough


Chapter 3


Toph's eyes began to crack open slowly as she heard a knock on her door. Whoever had the nerve to come to her room while she was still asleep was pounding on the door rather loudly. And that pounding started to echo all the way to the inside of her head. She groaned as she placed the pillow over her head and tried desperately to get some more sleep. It was still summer so Toph had the excuse to keep her windows open. It was the only way she could tell if it was morning or not. Usually, the sun woke her up in the morning, its warm light slowly trickling in through the window and hitting her face. The warmth that she would feel on her face in addition to the heat in her room would tell her that it was morning and that it was time to get up. But guess what? Her room was freezing. Apparently summer nights in the Fire Nation weren't all they were cracked up to be. It was always cold before the sun came up. And right now, Toph could feel the goose bumps forming on her legs.

She heard that infernal knock again. She groaned as she punched her pillow in frustration. Whoever this idiot was better have a darn good reason to wake her up this early. She tried not to make a sound. She breathed into her sheets as she hid her head underneath the pillow. Maybe if she was quiet enough, they would go away. Her head was still fuzzy from sleep and she really just needed to be dead to the world for a few more hours. Heck, maybe if she started to relax a little she could maybe ease herself back into sleep. She sighed in deeply. She heard the knock on the other side of the door, but she ignored it. Instead she relaxed her muscles and closed her eyes again. As soon as she was sure that she was totally melted in her sheets, she started to count back from a hundred. Iroh had told her that it helped with insomnia. So it was worth a try.

Okay…relax…100…99…

Two knocks sounded from the door.

98…97…96…

Two more knocks.

Toph clutched her sheets and dug her nails into the mattress.

95…94…93…

That freaking knocking!

92…91…90…

One more knock.

"Oh, come on!" she screamed at the empty room.

Toph growled as she flung the sheets off of her. She felt around the foot of her bed for her green morning robe. She yanked the robe on over her shorts and shirt that served as her sleepwear. She grumbled to herself still while she tied the robe securely. She stomped over to the other end of the room and flung the door open with force. Her fingers were digging into the wood of the door as she gave whoever was on the other side the coldest glare that she could muster so early in the morning.

"What could you possibly want this early in the morning, Sugar Queen?" Toph said sternly.

Katara leaned back a little with wide eyes at Toph's sudden outburst. Toph's loose, long hair was tousled from being in bed and her eyes were still dreary from sleep. But somehow she still managed to throw a cold glare her way. She moved her fingers from doing any further damage to the door and had her arms crossed angrily across her chest. It was clear that Katara had woken the poor girl up when she clearly didn't want to be. And there was a rule about waking Toph up: don't do it. Toph liked to sleep in late. In fact, she sometimes slept in as late as noon before she had the nerve to get up and go on with her day. Katara noted that the sun was only peeking out from the horizon slightly. It was still cold outside so it must have been early. Katara cringed as she realized what she had just done. Toph was angry. But she needed to talk to her.

"Toph," the Fire Lady spoke. "I need your help with something serious. Can I come in and talk for a—"

SLAM!

Katara gaped at the door that had just slammed in her face. She clenched her fits by her side as she glared disbelievingly at the door. "D-did you just slam the door in my face!?"

No response came from the other side of the door as Toph ignored her.

Katara stomped her foot and growled loudly. She pounded the door with both of her fists and kicked the bottom of the door with her foot. "How can you be so infuriating!?"

Katara, lost in her rage, kept pounding on the door creating a huge amount of noise that the earth bender on the other side used all her willpower to ignore. Katara kept muttering to herself as she kept making unnecessary dents on the door when she suddenly stopped. She looked down at the door knob. She furrowed her eyebrows. Could the door be…?

She twisted the door knob. She half expected the knob not to go anywhere, showing that Toph had locked the door. But, the door had easily swung open giving her full view of the inside of Toph's room.

I probably should've tried the door first... she thought slightly embarrassed.

Katara walked in and saw Toph quickly dive into bed, burying herself into her covers. She placed her pillow over her head and did her best to obscure herself from view under all of the silk sheets he was given. Katara had stood there tapping her foot on the ground, waiting for Toph to recognize that someone was in her room. Toph flinched each time Katara tapped her foot on the ground. It was even more annoying than the knocking if that was even possible. She had to give the water bender credit though. She was practically an expert at getting under people's skin. So it was only a matter of time until Toph had cracked.

"Ugh! Just go away! It's too early," Toph yelled, sitting up in her bed.

"Look, I'm sorry. But I needed to talk to you," Katara insisted.

Toph rolled her eyes. "If this has anything to do with you ranting about Zuko and your relationship, I am not kidding when I say I will kill you."

Katara sat on the side of Toph's bed. "No, it has nothing to do with that. This is actually important," she told her.

"What could possibly be so important that you couldn't have waited a few more hours?" Toph asked.

"Oh, Toph," Katara said, rolling her eyes, "you really should work on that whole sleeping-until-the-afternoon problem that you have."

"It's not even dawn yet," Toph ground out between her teeth.

Katara immediately ignored her and cleared her throat. "Look, I don't know if you had noticed, but the Earth King didn't show up to the wedding."

"Of course I noticed," Toph chuckled. "You can smell that bear of his from a mile away."

Katara opened her mouth to say that Toph was being a bit rude, but quickly closed it since she knew that she was absolutely right. "Well…anyway…apparently he didn't show up because, according to the hawk he sent me, he had to take care of Bosco and stay with him. He must have come down with something and didn't want to leave him behind. That, or he'd rather spend time with his bear in the Earth Kingdom than go where his bear was uninvited."

Toph shook her head from confusion as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Wait a minute. I thought you said Bosco was more than welcome to come."

"Well," Katara hesitated, biting her lip. "Zuko and the Earth King kind of have a...um…history," she finished lamely.

"What do you mean when you say history?" Toph asked, standing up from her bed. She walked over to the side of her room and flung open her closet door. She stepped inside, pushing aside copious amounts of robes, pants, tunics, dresses, skirts, and other silk garments that she couldn't decipher. Her whole wardrobe was prepared for her upon her arrival at the Fire Palace. Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation tailors had personally made Toph a full wardrobe for her to wear during her stay and even included an impressive collection of shoes that were lined on the bottom of her closet. As Toph trudged through the forest of fabric that was her closet, she kicked aside the shoes and pushed all of the impressively embroidered dresses, skirts, and robes out of the way. After all she had no intention of wearing them.

Katara peeked into the closet from her seat on the bed. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for something to wear. It's obvious that I'm not going back to sleep," she grumbled back. Her voice came out muffled from being covered in so many clothes.

"Here. Let me pick out something that matches," Katara offered, walking over to Toph's closet and joining her inside.

"You know," Toph muttered from one corner of the closet, "I'm really not into the whole monumentally-sized wardrobe you have for me. I'm not even going to wear a quarter of this stuff."

"Don't look at me," Katara answered back, sifting through the rows of clothes, trying to find a decent outfit that Toph would actually wear. "My lady-in-waiting got a little out of control. I asked her to pick a sensible wardrobe out for you. Nothing too fancy. But apparently she didn't get the message."

"Tell me about it," Toph muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Anyway, what kind of history does Sparky and that whack-job of an Earth King have?" Toph asked again.

"Oh, right. Well, it happened a few months ago actually. Zuko was going to visit the Earth King to talk about some important stuff. Kuei had suggested this whole new trade agreement between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom that he wanted to discuss with Zuko. I really don't know the details behind it since I told Zuko I wasn't going. I didn't want to have to follow any of that confusing stuff unless I had to. I wasn't Fire Lady yet. Anyway, according to what Zuko had told me, he and Kuei never got to talk about anything. Once the two of them sat down to enjoy the feast that Kuei had prepared for his arrival, he started prattling on and on about what life on the road with Bosco was like, what they ate, what they did, where they slept. And to make matters worse, Bosco was seated right next to him. Bosco was drooling and spilling his food all over Zuko's plate. And you know his short temper. He was clearly really annoyed between the constant talking and the bear."

Toph snorted. "Yeah, that would about put him over the edge, wouldn't it?"

Katara sighed, stepping out of the closet with Toph's clothes in her arms, Toph following her out. "You have no idea." Katara had laid out a long pair of dark green pants with gold embroidery on the hem of the pants with a matching green tunic and a lighter green undershirt. "Do you still wear ankle and wrist bands?" she asked.

Toph shrugged. "Sure."

Katara nodded and went back into Toph's closet, now off to search for accessories. Toph walked over to the drawer set near the closet and opened it up, looking for her bindings. "So did Sparky finally blow his fuse or what?" she called.

"Apparently, he had lost it about halfway through the dinner. He stood up on his feet and kindly asked Kuei to get his bear out of the room so that he and his officials could eat in peace. Now he told me he did it nicely, but I'm not so sure he did as nicely as he said. Kuei got extremely offended. He started defending Bosco saying that it wasn't his fault if his table manners were in need of a little improvement. As long as Bosco was in the Earth Palace, he was welcome at the table without any hesitation. So Kuei refused to talk to anyone but his bear throughout the rest of the meal and Zuko found it a waste of time to continue staying there. So he left and went back to the Fire Nation, practically bending fire because he was so annoyed and angry." Katara sighed. "I wish he would just control that temper of his."

Toph laughed. "Yeah, keep wishing. Let me know when it starts working."

Katara emerged from the closet with a set of gold bands that were kept in a large case that contained all of Toph's jewelry (half of which was sure to be unused once she left.) She threw Toph's bands on her bed and sat back down on the bed while Toph climbed on the bed and started to wrap her bindings. Katara propped her feet up onto the bed and leaned against the bed pot at the foot of the bed. "Well, that was a fascinating story," Toph started. "But I would just like to know what the point was at waking me up so early," she asked, annoyance lacing her voice.

"Well, I felt bad that Kuei didn't come. He didn't tell me why exactly he had to stay behind with Bosco, but still. So I told him that I would personally bring him an escort of his choice so that he could come to the palace as my invited guest. I had to keep Zuko out of the loop on this one. I just hope he doesn't get too upset that I brought him here," Katara wondered.

"So how is he getting here?" Toph asked, pulling on her undershirt and her tunic.

Katara bit her lip and looked away. "Well, I may have told him he could have any escort of his choice…"

Toph slowly turned her head towards Katara. "You didn't," she said in a dangerously low voice.

Katara just shrugged and looked away with a guilty look on her face as she sat on the bed. She stiffened, waiting for the impending explosion from Toph. But instead, the earthbender quickly pulled on her pants and her jewelry. She pulled her hair up into a very messy bun, not even bothering to comb her hair and started to make her way over to the door. Katara stood up off of the bed and followed her. "Where are you going?"

Toph opened the door and started walking down the hallway, Katara quickly following. "I'm going to go hide," Toph replied. "There is no way I'm sitting on the same bison as that Earth King. I might just jump off simply to get some peace and quiet." Toph kept walking through the hallways, thinking of a decent room to hide in until Appa was long gone and realized that Katara was still following. She stopped and turned her head towards her.

"You really shouldn't be following. That defeats the purpose of me hiding."

Katara brought her hands up in defense. "Look, I kind of figured you didn't want to go. That's not why I woke you." Toph raised an eyebrow in confusion, and Katara quickly explained.

"I can't find Aang. He's usually up by now and no one in the palace seems to know where he is… again. I just wanted you to find him and tell him all of this for me. You always seem to know what he's up to lately," Katara elaborated.

Toph shrugged. "That monk could be anywhere. He tends to go places where he knows no one will find him," she told her. It was true. Aang really liked to be alone. She didn't know if it was he liked the solitude or maybe he just need some time to think lately, but she was really the only other person who could ever find him. The same thing worked the other way. He was the only one that was ever able to find her. It was strange, but they knew more about each other than everyone else did. Not even Katara, who used to be so caught up in making sure Aang was safe, could really tell where the monk was hiding anymore. She never gave much thought to it before. It was just something that she grew to get used to over the years. After spending so much time with one person, you tend to get know all of their habits extremely well.

"Well," Katara asked, "when you do find him, can you tell him to leave as soon as possible? Preferably today? I kind of want to get this whole thing over with. I'm going to have to prepare for his arrival to," she ended with a sigh.

"Sure thing, Sweetness," Toph assured. She turned and started to find her way out of the guest quarters of the palace.

"Of course, if you want to go with because you're dying to see the Earth King I wouldn't mind," Katara said in a joking tone.

Toph turned and glared at her, though she was still smiling. "Yeah, and then when I'm done, I'll go have a tea party with the Sand Benders."

Katara laughed and waved to Toph as the two walked in the opposite direction. Toph walked on, a small smile on her face. Even though the conversation she had with Katara over tea still hung in her mind, she couldn't deny that during moments like this, they were still best friends. And, though it was extremely hard to admit it, it was kind of hard to stay mad at your best friend for too long

----------

Because of her less-than-desired-for wake up call, when Toph walked outside of the palace, the sun was only just coming up. The birds had just started waking up and stretching out their voices and the grass was getting warmer under her feet. She walked through the garden that was located at the back of the palace and started to walk along the path the led through all of the bushes, trees, and ponds that were filling the area. Toph passed a large pond that had stones bordering the edges as well as trees surrounding it. She could only guess that this was Katara's Koi pond. As she walked forward a little more, the path branched off towards a large area that was separated by the rest f the garden by large stone walls and one wooden door. She smiled as she passed by her training arena. Memories of the fight she had with Aang yesterday started flooding back as she made her way to the grounds.

It was early in the morning, which meant that Aang was most likely watching the sunset right about now. He had told her that he used to do it back at the temple all of the time and it seemed the perfect way to start off a new day. Of course she could never really understand the appreciation behind watching the sun rise, but she took Aang's word for it. She passed the valley they had spent yesterday in and started making her way up the hill that Katara had said had an amazing view of the Eastern horizon. The wind started blowing through her clothes and through her hair as she climbed up to the top of the hill. Sure enough, just as she expected, Aang was sitting on his stomach, facing the horizon.

Without a word, Toph lied down on her back next to Aang and let her head hang of the edge of the hill. She closed her eyes as she felt the sun hit her face. Aang didn't seem to protest, he just kept staring out towards the sun with her. Toph turned to Aang and laid her hands on her stomach. She crossed one leg over the other and sighed.

"What is it about a sunrise that calms you down so much?" she asked.

She felt Aang shrug. "I dunno. I guess it was just a habit that I got used to when I was younger. I liked watching the sun all of a sudden come up from the hills like magic and I guess I just never stopped doing it. Besides, it's nice to see something so beautiful once in a while."

Toph nodded. "Makes sense I guess. Though I wouldn't really know."

Aang turned his head towards Toph. "Not that I don't enjoy your company, but did you need something?"

Toph stretched her arms over her head and let them hang over her head off the edge. "Yeah, actually. Katara needs a favor."

Aang's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "With what?"

"Did you remember that the Earth King didn't show up to the wedding?"

Aang nodded and laughed a little. "I figured as much. You can tell when Bosco walks into the room." Toph laughed at the fact that they both happened to think the same thing. Or maybe it was partially because that was how everyone knew of the Earth King's arrival.

"Anyway," Toph continued, "he didn't show because apparently Zuko and Kuei had some spat a few months back."

"You mean that whole thing with the dinner?" Aang asked.

Toph nodded. "Yeah, how did you know?"

"Zuko had talked to me about it yesterday. I asked why the Earth King didn't show up and he said that the two of them were on bad terms after he insulted Bosco. Apparently Kuei is really sensitive about him," Aang reasoned.

Toph assented. "Well yeah. He threw an entire birthday bash for him. If that's not obsession I don't know what is."

"Well I wouldn't call it obsession," Aang answered back. "I guess it's more of…an unhealthy attachment."

Toph rolled her eyes. "They're practically the same thing," she muttered.

Aang flipped over on his back and brought his arms behind his head. "Whatever. So what do I have to do?"

"Well, Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes decided to be all nice and sweet and invited him over. She's going to have this big party when he comes over to hopefully make up for the fact that Sparky acted like an insensitive jerk. And to top it all off, she gave Kuei an escort of his own choice."

Aang turned his head towards Toph, obviously not needing any further elaborating on what she meant. "He wants to ride on Appa again?"

Toph shook her head. "Yeah, I'm not sure about him."

Aang sighed. "So she's sending me all the way to the Earth Kingdom to take Kuei and Bosco over to the Fire Nation palace, because she feels bad for Zuko insulting them?"

Toph nodded.

"I can understand that. I guess she does kind of owe him. So when does she want him over?" he asked.

"I think she said that you should probably leave today. She said the sooner the better," Toph told him.

Aang nodded but didn't say anything after that for awhile. Aang looked over at Toph laying down next to him. She still had her legs crossed and her arms were hanging over the edge as well as her head. But she had her eyes closed, her face looking towards the sunrise that she couldn't see. Aang noticed that she did that a lot. She liked to feel the sun on her face. He had questioned her about once before, and she simply responded that it felt nice on her face. He supposed it compensated for the fact that she couldn't see it. Aang never paid much attention to how the sun felt on his face, if he was being honest. He just liked to stare at it and watch the colors mix together to show a wonderful display of beauty. But maybe there was more to it than that. Not only looking at a sunrise, but feeling it. Aang nudged Toph lightly.

"Hm?" she responded, keeping her eyes closed.

"Do you like doing that?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"Appreciating things that everyone else normally wouldn't appreciate," he asked her.

Toph brought one of her hands up and started biting her thumb nail. She furrowed her eyebrows in thought as she responded. "I don't know. I've never really thought about it."

"Like what you're doing now. You don't look at the sunrise, you feel it. You don't focus on a person's looks, you focus on their personality. I'm asking if it's something that you like doing."

Toph shrugged, still biting her nail. "I guess so. You find out a lot more about something if you do more than just look at it. Like take that mountain for example," she said, pointing in front of her. Aang shifted back in order to allow his had to hang over the edge of the hill along with hers. He followed her finger towards a large mountain that was lying against the horizon about a half of a mile away.

"Alright, what about the mountain?" he asked, not sure what she was trying to prove.

"What do you see?" she asked.

Aang looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean 'what do I see'? I see a mountain."

Toph punched his upper arm hard and hard Aang yelp when her fist made contact. "Idiot. I know that you see a mountain. But when you look at the mountain what do you see?"

Aang nodded and looked back towards the horizon. "Well, there's a nice valley underneath it. It's got a lot of bushes and trees at the bottom. It starts to lead up really smoothly, but the path gets really steep at around the middle of the mountain. The sunrise makes it almost glow. If you were to look at it any other day, the rocks would only look grey. But now that the sun is just coming up, you can see that it has a golden color to it as well as the grey it normally is. And it makes the mountain glow. It's really beautiful actually."

Toph nodded. "Well, that's what your impression of the mountain is. And as you can imagine, I have no idea what you're talking about when you say it glows. But do you want to know what I see?"

"What?" he asked.

"A maze."

Aang shook his head. "A maze?"

Toph nodded. "Yup. From what I can feel, there are millions of tunnels just winding through the inside of that whole mountain. They keep criss-crossing over each other and they lead up all the way up to the top. There are even small caves that the tunnels lead into. The entrance to the tunnels is right around the bottom of the mountain and it's blocked up by this huge stone. It's really cool. I can just picture myself running through all of them and getting lost. That'd be a perfect way to spend the day. Can you feel them?"

Aang stopped a moment and closed his eyes. He let himself sink into the earth until he could feel the vibration of nature around him. He tapped the ground and felt the vibrations branch out into the ground. He was able to make out Toph, a few birds, and the palace some ways away. He tapped the ground a little harder until he was able to feel the mountain Toph was talking about. Sure enough, he was able to feel the tunnels and caves that she was talking about. They were truly amazing. They twisted in circles and curves and no one tunnel went exactly the same way. She was right. An earth bender like Toph could have a field day in there, just running through the mountain and feeling her way through all of the complicated turns.

"Yeah, I can see it," Aang answered. "You're right. It does look pretty cool."

Toph nodded. "That's my point. You wouldn't have been able to know about those tunnels by just looking at the mountain. You have to get inside things to understand them I guess."

Aang assented. "I guess you're right."

Toph turned to him. "Why the sudden question? I mean not that I mind or anything. It just seemed a little random."

Aang shrugged. "It just always sort of bugged me and I wanted to finally ask. Or maybe it was just an excuse to talk to you." He sat up from his place on the ground and got up to his feet. He brushed his pants off stretched his arms over his head.

Toph sat up and sat on her knees. "Where are you going?"

"I've got to get Appa ready if we're going to be leaving today to go get the Earth King," he responded.

Toph shook her head. "Wait a minute. We?"

Aang nodded. "Yeah. I want you to come with me."

Toph ignored the fact that this meant she would have to be on the same bison as Kuei and Bosco, something that she was trying to avoid at all costs. Aang had just asked her to come with him, when he very well could have gone alone. Her heart started pounding against her chest.

"Why?" she asked.

Aang shrugged. "It'll be way to boring without you. I could use the company," he smiled.

Toph smiled and shrugged. "Sure, why not? I've got nothing else to do. I'll go find you when you're done, I guess."

Aang nodded with a smile and raced off to the stables, leaving Toph behind sitting on the hill. She thought back to what she had just told him. He just wanted an excuse to talk to her. And now with the trip to the Earth Kingdom, it could be the perfect excuse to hang out even more. The thought caused Toph to blush a little. It was the perfect time to lighten his mood and maybe just spend time together as friends. It would be just like their days at the temple. Talking and laughing until the day was over. That thought made Toph smile even more.