A/N: I know, long wait. Just go ahead and read XP

Swimming Lesson

"We're lost, Twinkle toes."

"No, we're not! I'm sure it was around here somewhere!"

Aang and Toph were wandering around the forest near the Western Air Temple. The young monk was looking around almost frantically, trying to remember where he had found a lake a few days ago, while she was simply following him lazily.

"Give it up, Twinkle toes. You're never gonna find that lake."

"No! Maybe if we just go a bit further..."

"You've been saying that for hours already. Let's just go back."

Aang was reluctantly about to agree with her when he realized something. "Hang on... You know where it is, don't you?"

"Yep." It wasn't exactly hard for her since her skills in sensing were a lot better than Aang's.

"Then why don't you tell me where it is?"

"Because I don't need to learn how to swim."

"It's for waterbending!"

"No, it's not! I know I don't need to learn swimming to waterbend!"

"But Toph!" he whined. "I told you! Any self respecting waterbender would know how to swim!"

"Fine, I'm not a self respecting waterbender. Can we go now?"

"Toph!" Apparently, poking at her pride wasn't working as well as it used to. He'd have to find some other way.

"What? I told you there's no reason or me to learn how to swim."

"What if you fall off a boat in the middle of the lake?" Aang challenged.

"Someone would rescue me."

"What if you were alone?"

"I wouldn't ride a boat without someone I trust."

"What if you need to cross a river?"

"I'll just bend something to stand on."

"What if it was at the South Pole?"

"I'd never go there anyway."

"What if you get stuck in an underwater prison?"

"Swimming wouldn't help, Twinkle toes."

Aang groaned. He was starting to run out of reasons to get Toph to learn swimming. Well, he was done trying to convince her. It was time for Plan B.

"Is the lake that way?" he asked, pointing ina random direction.

"I'm not going to tell you. Besides, I can just lie."

"Just answer," he said firmly.

"No."

He pointed in another direction. "Is it that way?"

It was a good thing his feet were firmly planted on the ground, or else he wouldn't have been able to pick up the slight spike in her heartbeat.

"No."

Aang smirked. He rushed over to Toph and quickly hoisted her over his shoulder and before she could react, jumped high into the air, landing on a tree branch.

"Twinkle toes! Put me down or I will hurt you!"

"No!" he laughed, jumping to the next tree. "You'd hurt me anyway!"

Toph growled. Since when could Twinkle toes sense lying? She hadn't taught him that. He must've figured it out himself. She definitely should have limited his time experimenting with earthbending.

Aang carried her across the forest, jumping from tree to tree. It looked like he knew that as long as he kept a certain distance from the ground, he was safe from her earthbending. Now there was absolutely nothing stopping him from getting her to the lake. But that didn't mean she was going to make it easy for him.

"Ow! Quit pinching me!"

"No."

-x-

"Woohoo!"

A loud splash was heard throughout the forest as Aang jumped into the crystal clear water of the lake. Toph, on the other hand, still wasn't showing any amount of enthusiasm and opted to stand at the shore.

"You're way too excited Twinkle toes. You didn't even take your clothes off."

Aang shrugged in response. "I'll just waterbend them dry. What are doing standing there?"

"Not swimming."

"But why? We already came here."

"You dragged me here, Twinkle toes. That doesn't count."

"Fine, but since we're here, you should make it worth the trip and learn how to swim," he said, smiling broadly.

"I'm saving myself the trouble of learning how to swim." She started walking away, waving a hand over her shoulder. "See you back at camp, Twinkle toes."

Aang puffed his cheeks out, slightly annoyed. All she had to do was get into the water, what was the big deal? Well, she was going to learn how to swim, whether she wanted to or not.

With a small push of his hands, an enormous wave erupted from the lake's placid surface, stretching out over the shore. A loud watery splash later, Toph was pulled into the lake.

"Twinkle toes!"

"I'm right here- ow! Would you stop flailing already? I've got you!"

Aang managed to grab Toph around the waist despite her wild movements, wrapping his arms around her waist, keeping them both afloat. Finally noticing that she was no longer in danger she stopped flailing and gave Aang a good hard punch.

"Ow! What was that for? You gave Suki a kiss for rescuing you and I get a punch?"

She blushed at the memory. The thought still embarrassed her to no end, and just for mentioning it, she gave him another good punch.

"Shut up! It's your fault I was drowning just now!"

Aang remained silent a moment other than a little grumbling, until a smirk formed on his face. "Are you really sure you want to talk to me like that?"

"I'll talk to you however I want, Twinkle toes," she huffed, crossing her arms.

"Okay then." He promptly released her from his grasp and pushed away from her, leaving her to flail once more in the water.

"Twinkle toes!" She struggled, kicking and thrashing, trying to keep her head above water. She managed to inch through the water towards Aang, and as soon as he was in reach, clung to him.

She growled as she felt a little chuckle rumble through Aang's chest. Her face was burning bright red. She couldn't believe she had to cling to someone, to Twinkle toes of all people! This was almost as embarrassing as the time Katara had caught them dancing.

"So, are you gonna let me teach you how to swim now?" Aang asked.

Toph considered her options a moment. If she said no, he would just leave her struggling in the water again. And even if she did manage to get back to the shore, he would just airbend, waterbend, or earthbend her back in the lake. She sighed, seeing that she didn't have much of a choice.

"Fine..."

Aang grinned triumphantly. "Alright, first things first. We've gotta get our clothes off."

"WHAT?" she yelled, her face burning an even brighter red.

It looked like Aang was conscious enough of what he had said that he turned as red as Toph, and immediately corrected what he had said. "I mean we should take of our outer clothing! Not all our clothes! It can weigh you down you see, so it's better that we wear as little as possible."

"Oh." Her face was still quite red though. "Okay."

They stopped a moment at the shore to strip to their underwear, flinging their wet clothes to the dry ground. As soon as that was done, Aang pulled Toph bit by bit into the water, each of her hands in his own.

"See? This isn't so bad is it?"

"The water's only knee-deep, Twinkle toes."

"Hey, I'm taking it slow!" He took a few more steps deeper into the lake. "Careful, it gets deep already."

Toph moved forward slowly, being pulled gently by Aang. However, she froze at the point when her feet could no longer reach the sandy bottom of the lake.

"Come on, Toph," he smiled. "I've got you."

"Hold your horses, Twinkle toes. I'll go when I'm good and ready," she said stubbornly.

"Is the great Toph Bei Fong hesitating? What happened to taking things head on?"

She growled, taking the bait. She could take being called an un-self-respecting waterbender but there was no way she would let anyone say she hesitates.

"Oh yeah? Well what do you think of this Twinkle toes?" She gave the lake bed a firm stomp, getting a collumn of sand erupt beneath both of them, flinging them to the center of the lake.

Of course, Toph hadn't really thought things through when she had launched herself and Aang into the deep part of the lake. And as soon as she realized she was once again in deep water, her first thought was to start flailing her limbs wildly again. However, she noticed something was stopping her from doing so. Aang still had a firm grip on her hands, keeping the two of them afloat.

"I think that was reckless," he said. He looked at her a moment, and saw that she was really stiff, except for her legs that were kicking in the water as hard as they could. "Toph, relax would you?"

"That's easy to say Twinkle toes, but not so easy to do considering I'm kicking for my life here."

"You're going to wear yourself out if you keep that up by the way. Seriously, I would think this is a lot easier than gliding. I mean, I'm right here. You know I won't let anything happen to you."

At those words, Toph's expression softened slightly. She knew that there was no need to remind her of that. She trusted him completely. She gave in to Aang's words, letting out a big sigh and slowly relaxing herself, her wild movements slowing down to less erratic but still strong kicks.

"There, much better," Aang said, smiling.

Toph smiled as well. As usual, he was right. It was a lot easier to keep her head above the water's surface now that she wasn't so panicked.

They started moving through the water, getting Toph used to the feeling of swimming. And as they did, she noticed that Aang always kept at least one of his hands gripped firmly on her own. She gave a secret smile, appreciating the comfort that it gave her.

Unfortunately, it seemed that she had appreciated that comfort too soon. Aang suddenly let go of her hands, leaving Toph to tread water on her own.

"Twinkle toes!"

"Come on, Toph!" he said, a bit of laughter in his voice. "Swim to me! I know you can do it!"

She started paddling her limbs toward where she heard his voice, staying as calm she could, using what Aang had just been teaching her.

"That's it! You've almost reached me!"

"That's the fifth time you've said that and it doesn't sound like I'm getting any closer!" she yelled. "I know you're swimming away so would you just stay put?"

Her eyes suddenly widened. Her foot had just touched the lake bed. Was she already at the shore? They were in the middle of the lake just a few minutes ago.

She felt Aang move closer to her. "I knew you could do it," he smiled.

Unfortunately for Aang, instead of the heartfelt thanks he had been hoping to get, he got a punch in the arm. Hard too.

"That's for letting go of my hand in the middle of the lake!"

Aang smirked. "What, you need me to hold your hand?" He barely dodged the bulk of sand that Toph had sent his way.

"That's it! You're dead, Twinkle toes!" she yelled. Her face was strangely red, and no one could identify whether it was from anger or embarrassment.

Aang jumped out of the lake, laughing chilidishly. "Gotta catch me first!"

Quickly grabbing their clothes, Aang rushed off into the forest, followed by the still red faced Toph.

-x-

Katara was walking just outside the Western Air Temple, a ceramic bowl in her hand, filled with a few nuts and berries which she had picked for dinner.

"Ha! Gotcha Twinkle toes!"

She looked up from the bush she was looking through, recognizing Toph's voice. Smirking slightly, she slowly creeped over to where she had heard the earthbender's voice, hoping to catch another one of Aang and Toph's cute moments together.

A loud crash echoed through the forest as the bowl hit the ground, shattering into a hundred pieces. Katara stared wide eyed at the scene in front of her, mouth agape. Toph on top of Aang... and in their underwear.

The two looked up at the sound of the crash.

"Katara?"

"Sugar Queen?"

Finally, she was able to get over the initial shock, letting her motherly instincts kick in. Despite the fact she thought the two did look very cute together, she definitely did not approve of whatever they were doing. She marched over to the two and pulled them apart, grabbing each of them by the wrist.

"We are going to have a talk."

Ignoring Toph's look of horror and Aang's questioning look, she pulled them toward the Western Air Temple. Yes, she was definitely going to give them both a good, long talk.

A/N: Well, I've never taught anyone how to swim, and I taught myself, so I had a bit of trouble writing this. Still, I think what I did was ok. Basically a for fun chapter. Not really necessary in learning bending, but just another fun lesson. It is 'Teaching Toph' after all, which means any lesson goes :D

One more waterbending chapter to go and we're into firebending! Man, I'm seriously having trouble thinking of lessons for it, only got two vague ideas so far. Feel free to suggest lessons, ways to teach them, or both if you want. I'll be happy to consider them. Review please!