Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar but I use the characters for my own entertainment. O_0

Aang's pov

She closed her eyes softly and tilted her head to the ceiling with a sigh. I waited until she was ready to speak despite how anxious I was feeling. No, anxiousness wasn't the only feeling broiling in my body. My heart felt like it was drowning in a pool of uncertainty with a chain of thick lead keeping it from reaching the top. I wanted nothing more than to force her to tell me so that I could stop shaking from her silence. Another part of me held me back. Because I was uncertain, I was on the fence about knowing and just staying ignorant.

However, I had asked the question so I had to deal with the consequences. I looked down at my hands and I noticed that they were shaking like little Chihuahuas.

"Hand me the pie," she said at last.

I gaped at her, hoping that that wasn't the extent of her answer to my question. Then I shook my head and put the pie plate in her waiting hands.

"Fork is sticking out of the pie," I informed her.

She nodded and raised her legs up on the couch to sit crisscross-applesauce. Her hand hovered over the pie in search for the fork. When she bumped the side of her hand against it she picked it up and began dipping it in and out of the lemon meringue pie methodically.

She sighed, "Gosh…I haven't thought about him for a while."

A shard of hope cut through part of the lead chain drowning my heart and breathing became a little easier.

"Well…what specifically do you want to know?"

That question caught me off guard. "Um…. How about what happened between…between you two after the party."

She pursed her lips as if tasting something sour. "My parents forced me to go on dates with the guy. He tried to put the moves on me more than once but threatening his life proved to be an effective way of killing whatever mood he thought he had created." She laughed lightly and decided to try the pie. Toph of course had no use of manners when it involved just us so she continued talking as she chewed. "After that night he tried to present me with a ring. I told him he could hold on to it because I wouldn't marry him even if pigs could willingly grow wings and fly. I mean, anyone can glue wings on a pig and catapult it, you know."

I smiled. "I try to actually be nice to animals. I mean, if I did start chucking animals in the air I think my popularity in the polls would go down significantly."

"Oh, right. Gosh, I just can't get used to the idea of you being the Governor."

"To tell you the truth–me neither."

"The other guy must have really sucked for you to get elected."

I slapped her shoulder. "Thanks for the vote of confidence after all these years."

She punched me back harder than my light slap. "Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?"

"Ow…." I rubbed my sore forearm. I could not believe she was blind for a second when she still managed to hit me square in the arm. "Go on."

"Well, after a while I just got fed up with it. My parents weren't listening to me when I told them I really hated going to the dates so I finally told them what I thought of them. They were self-centered, egotistical ignorant people who obviously didn't care about me. After that I ran away. And then I got kidnapped. Well, when the whole ordeal was over my parents actually came around and while we are not buddy-buddy, we listen to each other more."

I scratched my eyebrow. "Okay, but that still does not tell me where Jory comes in the picture."

"I'm getting to that," she snapped as she ate some more pie in silence. "Well…do you see a ring?" she held up her left hand and no, I did not see a ring on her hand, but that didn't mean that they still weren't engaged or something.

"Are you two…do you still keep in touch?"

She snorted. "Hell no." she stabbed the pie with a little more force than necessary. "Or rather, I try to stay out of his way. Jory came to visit me one day after my tutor had gone home and told me all this crap about how he was still in love with me even though I was wearing an eye patch and possibly going blind. He told me of this grandiose vision of him taking care of me in my time of need till death do us part. I told him not to give me any ideas because I sure wasn't opposed to the idea of killing him. He told me that he'd visit me everyday to regale me with flowers and chocolates.

"That day I went over to his house to visit his father–without Jory's knowledge of course. I informed the guy very eloquently that I did not wish to marry his son because I was not in love with him and I would not be able to perform my marital duties to the guy. I told him that while I would not marry his son, I hoped that this would not mean a rift would come between his company and my dad's. Of course, we were pretty evenly matched but my dad's companies were more…diversified and could hit him from every angle possible until he was left with nothing but a husk of what he once was. I made damn sure to remind him of that.

"He was kind of angry and told me that I had to tell Jory myself if I did not wish to marry him in order for his dad to be okay with it. Well…that wasn't a pretty talk." She inhaled a couple more bites of the pie and said conversationally, "Good pie."

"Mrs. Rubisco made it."

Toph pumped her fist in the air. "Props to her."

"I'll tell her."

Half the pie was already gone and I had almost forgotten just how much this little woman could eat.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hands. "I didn't bother beating around the bush. When Jory came over the next day with flowers and chocolates I flatly turned them down. 'I'm not in love with you and I never will be so stop this delusional fantasy you've created in your mind because I will not come around to the idea of you and me,' are exactly the words I told him. I remember because I was rather pleased with myself that I could sum up my feelings in slightly sophisticated words without cussing. He got angry because he said I'd never given him a chance. Well…that was probably true but you can't learn to love with the same depth and emotion I could probably feel had this arrangement not been forced.

"While I'd always thought Jory as dumber than a plant, he actually managed to act mature about the whole thing. I mean after the crying and begging me to reconsider. When he'd calmed down enough…I swear his voice was so strange that day." She sat in silence, thinking back. "It was just so…dejected after my refusal. When he'd calmed down, he asked me about you."

She fell silent and I worried. Did he tell her about…?

"What about me?" I asked carefully, quietly.

"He asked me if I was in love with you. He asked me if you were the reason I would not accept him," she said easily.

My throat grew dry and I opened the can of soda and took a swig. It offered momentary relief but as soon as it went away the thirst came back. Toph held out her hand.

"Hand it over," she ordered lightly. I held onto it until I was sure she had a good grip on it. When she was done I put it back on the table.

She continued eating for about ten minutes while I waited with an anxious heart as to what her answer was.

"And?" I asked, prompting her to give me an answer before I went mad.

"And what?" she asked as if she didn't know, only appearing to be slightly defensive.

"Well," I stumbled to say as a heavy blush no doubt appeared on my face. I began to work my tie back off and opened my shirt up a bit to relieve the constricted feeling crawling all over my skin. "What did you tell him?"

She smirked and I swear my heart exploded. I had no idea how much I had missed that smirk followed by that mischievous glint in her eyes that no doubt would end up in some sort of trouble.

"I told him he was a frickin' lunatic and to get the hell out of my house."

And all the little pieces left behind after my heart exploded were suddenly burned into smoldering ash.

"Oh," I said. I didn't mean to sound so dejected but I couldn't help the way I felt.

I had no idea what I had wanted her to say. Maybe I had wanted her to say that yes, she did feel that way about me and it was because of me that she so adamantly refused to marry Jory. I would have definitely been agreeable to that. If she had said that no, it wasn't because of me because I was just friend would have probably not been my favorite response but I would not ask for more. To know that she didn't even answer it…what did it mean?

She paused midway the fork from her mouth and turned to look in my general direction.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

I didn't answer her. Instead I shrugged off my coat and put my hands on my bald head. The lava in my stomach flowed steadily upwards, rising towards my heart and heating the pool of confusion to scalding temperatures. My heart burned and ached. Breathing was becoming harder and harder to do.

"Twinkle Toes?" she asked, putting the pie plate in her lap. "Did you want me to tell him that I was head over heels for you?"

I sighed, willing the lava to quell. Unfortunately it had other ideas. Suddenly, the lava burned my throat and heated my words so as they left my mouth they left a burning taste.

"What am I to you Toph? All this time you have been the only thing on my mind that's driven me to the very near point of obsession. I've missed you so much that when all contact between us was severed a piece of my heart was too. I mean, even back then I had no idea if I loved you or not but I sure as hell cared about you."

She blinked at me for several seconds. "I think…that's the first time I've ever heard you cuss."

I groaned. "You make me crazy Toph," I finished lamely but truthfully.

When I looked at her she was smiling truthfully. "And I think I liked it," she said.

Suddenly, as quickly as the lava rose it dissipated. Toph was probably the only person alive that could make me feel like a burning volcano one second and calm as the seas the next.

I couldn't help but laugh at her response.

"No seriously, it sounded sexy," she continued. "If any of your fans heard you cuss with so much passion I think I might actually become jealous."

"Jealous?"

"Yep," she said, popping the 'p.'

"What are we Toph?" I asked.

She picked the pie back up and ate a big bite before answering. "Well, to me…you are more than a friend. What are we? I don't know, but do we have to figure that out today?"

I looked gently at her. It was true. We didn't have to find out what we would become today.

"So…do you want to start over?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No way. If we're going to start something we ought to take both the good and bad and just plain stupid. Let's just…take it from here. I mean, we don't have to date or anything. Why don't we just go out and have a good time…when our careers aren't interfering of course."

"That sounds good. Sorry for going crazy on you earlier."

She shrugged. Of course, barely anything bothered Toph, especially when it came to emotions. I hoped one day she'd tell me the long version of her tumultuous teenage years after we had gone our separate ways. I hoped one day she wouldn't get bored listening to mine. No, she wouldn't get bored. She'd listen.

We sat in silence and I couldn't help but look at her. I wanted to drink in everything of this moment from her green pants to her "I'm with stupid" t-shirt whose arrow was ironically pointing to me, all the way to the way she handled the pie like someone was about to take it any second so she had to shove it down her throat rather than savor it.

"Stop looking at me," she said, turning to glare at me.

"How can you even tell–you're blind!"

"I can feel it, idiot. You got the hairs on my neck standing up."

I laughed sheepishly. Then, as I snuck another glance at her, a strange idea popped into my head so fast that I had no time to think about what I was saying.

"Hey."

"What?"

"I can see you but you can't see me."

"That's how this whole blind thing works Captain Obvious."

"Well, do you want to?"

"Want to what?"

"Want to see me." I tugged the pie gently out of her hands only to have her grip the pan tighter. "There's no more pie," I lied.

"Lier." She pulled harder.

"How can you tell?" I pulled harder but I didn't seem to be making this game of tug-of-war any harder. She seemed completely calm as she kept a death grip on the pan.

"Sixth sense Twinkle Toes."

"Come on," I whined. "Just try this for me, please? Just give me the pie and you can have it back after you see me."

She looked calculating and eventually let it go. I set it down on the coffee table far away from us for safety reasons.

"Okay, no offense but what kind of twisted logic is going through your mind right now? Do I even want to know?"

"Here," I grabbed her wrists.

"What the heck are you doing?"

I put her hands on my cheeks and closed my eyes. "I'm letting you see me."

She roamed her hands over my face. Though Toph was a Bei Fong, she was no push over. Her callused fingers ran gently down my jawbone and back up around my head as if getting a feel for a 3D sculpture. She pulled her hands back for a second.

"You're bald."

I laughed, "Yep."

"You're bald," she said again, as if making sure she was right.

I opened my eyes. "It happened during senior year of high school. A couple of kids were throwing spit balls but one guy had a brilliant idea of chucking some gum the size of Haiti towards this group of girls. Unfortunately, I was caught in the crossfire. If I had just gotten it clipped it would have looked weird so I just decided to shave it off. Turned out to be very convenient."

Her eyebrows furrowed for a few seconds then she shrugged and put her hands tenderly back on my face as I closed my eyes again.

"This works out perfectly," I said. "I'm bald, you're blind: no hair, no sight."

She pinched my cheek as she smiled and I couldn't help the smile that spread across my face. Her palms brushed over my bald head.

"I think I may be strangely addicted to your bald head," she informed me.

"As long as you try to restrain yourself in public."

She smirked and her voice grew low, "I make no promises."

I gulped. Surely she hadn't meant to make her voice that…enticing. If she had then I was going to be in big trouble.

I put all that out of mind when her callused fingertips traced my eyebrows, the lids of my eyes down my narrow nose and across my cheekbones. I held my breath when she brushed over my lips. This might have sounded weird to say but every single spot that she touched seemed to be tingling. I had no idea that my skin could feel so…alive!

When she was done she concluded, "You look weird."

A/N:

Hope you guys enjoy these two chapters in one night.

Love: Lola of the Peaches

=]