Day 4 Family

"Hey Toph"

"Yea Twinkle toes?"

"Do you miss your family?"

Toph felt her body tense at the question. She knew what the boy lying beside her was going to do and she didn't like it. She wasn't one for emotional talks and there was no way she was going through this one again.

"Nope" She tried to sound casual to make him believe that nothing was wrong and so there was no need for this conversation.

"Are you sure?" He didn't buy it.

"Yep"

Aang became silent, almost long enough for her to believe that he had given up on the subject. It seemed he was thinking of a different approach.

"I miss the Air Nomads, I think about them every day" he spoke with tenderness.

Toph didn't say anything but she was listening with interest.

"Our life style was simple: we'd go from place to place, meeting new people and different cultures. I've even had friends in every nation like Bumi and Kuzon."

"The crazy earth king Bumi?" Toph interrupted curious.

"Yep" he answered with mirth.

With that Toph decided to remain quiet; interested in hearing more of his life.

"Every Air Nomad would always return to a temple, it didn't matter which, we were all one people. The kids like me never got to travel alone, we were always accompanied by an older Nomad to guide us through the nations. Whenever I got back to the Southern Air Temple, I would be bombarded with lessons from the older monks. Most of it was boring, reading the history of the Air Nomads, learning basic math, and learning the customs. The only things I really enjoyed were reading and the air bending lessons when I first took them." She couldn't see, but she knew he was smiling the whole time.

"The monks were very strict with the lessons, expecting everyone to be on time and to do their huge amount of homework all before it was due the next day!" His voice had adopted a whine to it and she could "see" that he was moving his hands in front of him, almost asking "why!" with them.

"After out lessons were done, me and friends would always play a game or do a contest about who could pull the best prank on the older monks. We'd always get into trouble in the end, usually by breaking a vase or something with a ball or by getting caught by the monks in the middle of our pranks. Then we'd run, run as fast as we could, laughing and teasing whoever was following us if we pranked them."

Her friend became very quiet, she could just feel the sadness coming off of him.

"I miss those guys." His voice held the deepest grief Toph ever heard from anyone and for some reason she felt a little pang in her heart, it hurt...?

But then he continued.

"I miss Monk Gyatso especially; he was my guardian in the Southern Air Temple but he was more like a father to me. He taught me air bending, gave me lesson about the world, and he was always fun to be around with!" Aang yelled with a happy gleam in his eye. She almost smiled at the change in Twinkle toes' mood.

"I have so many memories about him, all of them good." Aang then gave a laugh. "I'll always treasure the time when he was making pies while listening to me about my day. It was a very frustrating day, I had a lot of things on my mind and I looked to Gyatso to somehow make things better. And he did, he set down the last pie asking me to help him with them. He had this smile on that told me we weren't going to be eating them, instead we air bended them one by one on a couple of monks on the ground below us. You should've seen them Toph, they looked so funny yelling at us with cherry pie cream for a wig and banana dotting their mustaches." The air bender chuckled remembering that time.

"He really was the best though. The best guardian, best teacher, air bender, pranker, friend, and dad I could ever hope for." His eyes glistened with unshed tears.

Monk Gyatso sounded like a really cool person she would've liked to meet. He sounded almost like Uncle.

"I could only imagine what he must've felt when I left the Air Temple. I don't want him feel hurt or betrayed by me. And you know what, I never got to tell him good bye. " Finally one slipped through, tracing the side of his face as it fell.

"He was the only person in the Temple to actually see me as more than just the Avatar, the one who was to stop the Fire Lord from taking over the world, he saw me for who I am, a kid. Kind of like you Toph."

The earth bender who had remained silent for the time being, felt flattered for being compared to one of the closest, if not THE closest person, to Aang. Toph had also wanted to yell at the kid for thinking that Gyatso would feel betrayed. She may not be a hundred and twelve years old like Aang here, but from what she could tell from his descriptions of his guardian is that he would've understood why he ran. What sensible parent would think that their kid is ready to take on a fire-breathing tyrant when he's only twelve years old!? But she said nothing, feeling a bit awkward at him showing his emotions so painfully clear. She was never good at these kinds of things, but she didn't think hitting the kid would lift his mood.

She opted to place a hand on his shoulder, even if she refused to look at him. Just how did this get from him trying to get her to talk about her parents to him talking about his family?

Twinkle toes turned his head to stare at her and she didn't know it but he smiled.

"I'm okay Toph" he placed his hand over hers.

The blind earth bender quickly took back her hand as if she was touched by fire. "Alright then.." she could feel heat rushing to her cheeks.

They were silent underneath the sun's gaze as he looked at her for a few minutes before returning to look at the cloud, still waiting to see if she would talk. Toph on the other hand still kept her face away from his, dealing with something strange going on with her. Her heart was racing slightly faster and she didn't know why it was doing that. Was she sick?

Aang's voice cut in the middle of her thoughts.

"What about having a family, you know finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with raising a child with?"

That quickly brought Toph back to her element.

"No, I plan on kicking butt and taking names," she snorted "besides I doubt there'd be a guy that I'd be interested in."

"Really?" Aang asked incredulously. "You doubt want to be in love with anyone?"

"No, why? You thinking about wooing me?" She turned her head to flash a grin at him.

Aang sputtered "Wha, What!"

"Relax Twinkle Toes I know you got a thing for Sugar Queen" Toph laughed.

He took a bit to calm down from her previous joke before answering her.

"I don't anymore."

The earth bender sat up in surprise.

"What do you mean you don't anymore!"

"Just like I said, I don't have a crush on Katara anymore." He shrugged.

"Your heart raced like million times per second when she walked by you, how can you not have a crush on her anymore!" She exclaimed, her arms spread out in the air in disbelief of the information presented to her.

"I just moved on from her I guess."

"Hmm" she studied the boy in front of her, realizing he was telling the truth when she checked his heart as he said that. So Twinkle toes fell out of his crush with Sweetness? She didn't know how to feel about that… Wait what did she just think?!

Toph decided not to pursue the subject anymore not liking where it was headed and went back to lying on the grass. There was an uneasy silence in the air for Toph, like there was something left unsaid. She didn't like it.

"If I did have a kid" she began, "It would have to be a girl and she'd grow up to be tough and the second best earth bender in the world. And just so you know Twinkle toes she'd be able to beat your wimpy kid in a second."

Uncharacteristically Aang snorted. "I think you're wrong there Toph, my kid would be able to beat your daughter."

"You wish! My kid would be able to bend circles around yours."

"Yea cause that all she'd be able to do with earth bending when my son air bends her in a tornado!"

Here Toph now rested on her elbows, looking down on her foolish companion. "Oh yeah! My daughter would drop a mountain on your kid while he's running away like the scared air bender he is!"

"Oh yeah!" He's risen to his elbows now.

"Yeah!" her head inches closer to his.

"Yeah!" his head moves closer too.

"You want to bet on it!"

"Sure but don't try to pull out when you see my kid beat yours!"

"As if a little breeze could beat a boulder!"

Their heads are touching as they glare at one another, her sightless gray-jade eyes meeting his gray eyes. They eye each other for a few seconds before falling to the laughing.

Eventually they stop laughing and resume looking up at the sky.

"You're lucky that I'm never having kids or you'd be paying up thirty years from now Twinkle toes."