gemsofformenos: Tbh typing this really reminded me of one of my older Azula fics. All in all, I enjoy working with addict characters. I feel like in Zuko's case running away from home would almost be safer in a sense. As for where that puts Azula, you're correct, it will put her directly in the line of fire-every single pun intended. I feel like them trying to help each other would end either very, very well or extremely tragically. While they could support each other, they could also enable each other or grow angry with each other and mess each other up worse. Or they could simply crash under the weight of both of their problems. His choice might lead him down an unexpected path. Right now he's in a bit of a rut but I tried to end the chapter on an optimistic note for once. Hurt is a great song! Thanks, I actually didn't plan on introducing them, it just kind of fell into place.

Toph wished she could go to school, it was always disconcerting to be home these days. At least if she were in class she could pretend that things were normal. Home sick, she was forced to hear her parents argue over what had to be sold next, would it be the higher end of her mother's wardrobe or her father's fourth car? The debate usually ended with selling one of her things and then talking about where they would move to if they had to.

The thought of losing her soccer team was more awful than losing more of her electronics and knowing that she'd be in a tiny shack of a house. She rubbed her nose with her pointer. She hadn't been feeling well since the assembly, her sinuses have been especially unforgiving. It is almost enough to keep her distracted from the quarrel down the hall.

Without thinking, she rubbed her watery and irritated eyes. Cold or allergies, she was ready for it to be over and done with. Sluggishly, she pulled herself out of bed and wandered towards the bathroom. She quickly brushed her teeth. She ought to comb her hair but her head ached and she didn't want to make that worse. One brief glance at the mirror and she could see the trouble; her eyes were pretty red. Almost instantly she made note of all of the times—including the most recent—when she rubbed her eyes without having washed the hands she coughed on and sneezed into. She cringed to herself. Maybe she should go to the doctor after all? But she was trying to avoid that for the sake of her parents' newly tight budget. It was, after all, just a little cold.

But she tried not to dwell on all of it too much, it was too late to fix things. Instead she decided to go to the dining hall. A glass of water would do her good.

"I don't have time for this!" She heard her father bursted out.

"Don't have time for this?" Poppy returned.

"Do you hear the phone ringing?" It was a rhetorical question. "It's about the law suit."

"They haven't dropped it yet?" Her mother's voice softened. "I mean I'm sorry about their boy, but that was hardly our fault…"

Toph looked over each rack in the pantry, it was growing harder to find food she liked. "Man, this is a load of ass!" She exclaimed, she has never had such a problem before, the shelves used to be teeming with food. But with every case that has come up since Mai's family first pressed charges for a faulty, exploding battery in one of their motorized scooters, the shelves grew bearer. Lawsuits have been piling up since the Kwons came out. Suddenly everyone's scooter had led to some type of injury. And suddenly Toph had less food options and more ill-will towards Mai.

Sure she felt bad for Tom-Tom, but she was inclined to agree with her mother. She had seen how the boy was riding the scooter when she went to the park for some practice with Aang. He would practically drag the battery pack along the asphalt and had neglected to use the cover designed to protect the battery. But Toph had no pictures, no proof of what she'd seen. While the Kwon's had all the evidence they needed with pictures from Tom-Tom's hospital visit and the burned battery itself.

Maybe that's how she could spend her time! She would go through all of the pictures and selfies she had taken with Aang and the rest of her soccer team. Tom-Tom was bound to be in the background of at least one! It was a nice excuse to look at that embarrassing snapshot of Smellerbee face planting into a tree.

She grabbed a bag of chips from the shelf and rushed back to her room.

.oOo.

A scream tore through the BeiFong estate, throwing it into a state of disarray. As if things weren't going poorly enough already. Toph screamed again, it was wholly unlike her but everything was so terribly dark. She couldn't seem to pry her eyes open, despite good efforts. She reached reflexively for her phone, her stomach lurching when she realized that she couldn't see the touch screen. She wanted to hear Aang's voice so bad, or Katara's, or anyones'. The next time she hollered, it was a simple and shrill, drawn out, "mom." Just like that, Poppy was in the room.

Toph brought her fingers to her eyes; she could feel the lids puffy and crusted. It felt like she had a flake of wood jammed under it. Just what was she dealing with? Pink eye, perhaps? But she had woken up with crust in her eyes before, it never had them glued shut. "Mom, help!" She couldn't come up with any witty comments to laugh her way out of this one. "Take me to the doctor!"

"Why didn't you tell me that something was wrong!" Poppy exclaimed.

"I didn't want to bother you guys."

"Oh, Toph. Oh, Toph, sweetie. We care more about you than…" She sputtered off. "Oh Toph." She called for Lao and Toph's father hustled into the room. "Don't just stand there, Lao, call an ambulance!"

He knew that it wasn't the right time but regardless and in a hushed tone said, "are you sure we shouldn't just drive, ambulances are expensive."

Poppy bit her lip.

She found herself being hustled down the hall, having to rely on her parents and their grip on her hands was jarringly terrifying. It made the hallways so endless and the itching behind her eye lids much worse. All the while she silently pleaded that it was just pink eye and she was overreacting like an idiot. She felt herself lifting up and she could only assume that she had been placed in a car seat. The buckle came around her and the car started. She only knew that it was her mother holding her hand, but the softness of her touch. For once she didn't jerk out of the coddling embrace. She took a deep breath, it was time to calm down. It was time to toughen up and power through this like she did everything else.