Dream
It was just a dream, she'd tell herself, as she woke up with a silent scream in the middle of the night. Just a dream. It's not real, it could never be real... except for her it was.
Her mind wasn't plagued by the never-ending images of death and destruction, the sight of it all occurring. Part of her wishes it were that simple, that she could see her dreams and the horrors they possessed. Instead she was left feeling them, experiencing them, as if she were actually there. As if she were actually prancing about a battlefield full of her dying friends and comrades.
It killed her, because she knew no matter how hard she tried nobody could understand what it was like to feel somebody die. Nobody could even begin to comprehend it. She was alone.
Or so she had thought. Sure, maybe he didn't know what it was like to actually feel people die. Maybe he couldn't understand how it felt to experience the people he was closest to die.
But when he had woken up to her crying in the middle of the night, he had barely hesitated to give her a shoulder to cry on. He didn't laugh at her portrayal of weakness, or ask her what was wrong. He had simply stayed by her, crushing her in a firm embrace as she poured out all her fears and doubts, and he poured out his.
It was a well-known fact that Toph couldn't see on water, so when Toph found herself being flooded with a sudden torrent of emotions she was glad she could always count on Sokka to be her rock.
I'm pretty sure I read a fanfiction somewhere a while ago that gave me this idea, but I can't remember who wrote it... or what it was... I'll have to search. But yes, the idea of the way Toph dreams goes out to them. :D I just put my own spin on it.
Comments/crits?
-WS