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Day 3: Regret

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Canon Universe

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Toph sometimes wished she had never left her parents.

At the time, the decision wasn't difficult to make. In fact, it was the only decision she could make. She had to leave. She had to go outside and get a taste of the freedom she had dreamed about and help her new friends where she could. Leaving her family to worry was an unfortunate side effect, but it was too late in the game to rectify it. Her problems had suddenly become larger than just figuring out how she was going to sneak out of the house that night. There were lives on the line. Nations to save. Wars to end.

It was a naïve hope that things would be just as they were before when she got home if not better. Her parents weren't angry or upset or horrified. When they opened their door to reveal her, neither of them could keep their tears at bay or could stop smoothing out her hair or clutching her shoulders, just to convince themselves that she was real. There was no yelling and no reprimanding that first night. Just a meal, together as a family, just like it was meant to be.

But things were never the same after that, and they probably weren't going to be. Her father was distant and her mother was clingy. On her father's half, it was probably because he didn't know what to think of his daughter anymore: the daughter that lied, ran away with the Avatar, Earthbended better than anyone he had ever seen in his life, and required free reign to be loose and spontaneous rather than tight and reserved. He probably wasn't going to get used to that for a while. He must have thought he was living with a stranger.

Her mother was more attached to her daughter than she had ever been in her life. She was afraid of losing her again, probably. It was why she always came to Toph's room and said goodnight, had all her meals with her including short tea breaks, and sat in the gardens to watch her daughter practice with a worried lip. One blink or one glance away, and that woman thought that Toph would vanish into thin air. Toph wondered what kind of people she left behind and came back to.

"They have to adjust to you," Aang told her later on. "They were without you for nearly a year. And you placed a bombshell on them. Not that I helped, but…"

"I understand that, but when will it end?" Toph questioned in exasperation. "There's only so much I can take when my parents either can't stand to look at me or can't stand to be without me. I don't want to say it's worse than it was before I left, but it's definitely getting to be too much."

"There's no way of knowing that for sure," Aang responded knowingly. "When people's lives are uprooted, there's a lot you have to fix and a lot that you have to become desensitized to. Otherwise you won't survive. They haven't quite gotten there yet."

When she was feeling particularly overwhelmed and lost, Toph always asked him if she should have just stayed. If she shouldn't have bothered and just kept living the comforting life her parents wanted just so that she could get to keep them and not have to readjust to them like they were an adopted family. But Aang always responded in the same way.

"There's no use regretting things that have already happened," Aang replied sagely, his eyes strangely empty. "There's only time for looking forward and making sure that the things you do in the future aren't mistakes you'll regret later on."

Aang had everything figured out. He knew exactly how to navigate the world he lived in and also knew how to make the best out of the emotional funks he always found himself in. Growing up did that to you, but Toph liked to think that Aang was especially perceptive with these matters. It's why she always came to him so much and why she valued what he had to say.

Because Aang had his own regrets that he needed to sift through, his own skeletons in the closet that he wished he could destroy and pretend weren't there. With the amount of times that Aang told her the story of how he was trapped in the iceberg, she was surprised she wasn't crushed by Aang's guilt permeating the story.

"There are so many things I could have avoided," Aang always whispered to her one night when his resolve crumbled in a frightening display. "I could have trained to become the Avatar earlier. I would have mastered all the elements and maybe stopped all of that mayhem from starting in the first place. I could have saved the world long before that war started if I had just stopped being so selfish and just did what I had to do. Sometimes, you learn your lessons too late."

Toph stopped him. "You can't keep blaming yourself for that. You made a mistake but you fixed it. Just like I made a mistake, and I'm fixing it." Surely if she was taking the time to be there for her parents, Aang could learn to forgive himself a little.

"Still," he muttered. "You can't help but wonder what things would be like if you could take it all back."

Aang tried to remain positive. He did. And she was forever thankful for that. But there were days when all the optimism was just a sheer cover that couldn't keep all the dark thoughts and insecurities from seeping through and showing. It was a hard hurdle to jump over. It was hard to help him when she couldn't even completely help herself. And she told him this when she finally left her house after two months of trying to assimilate herself back into a family she didn't recognize.

"Well, I'm no expert," Aang warned, "but the biggest difference I see between then and now is that we're not alone. That's got to count for something."

Toph turned to him and saw him smiling through all of the unsure feelings he had, and she wondered if she could have that nerve to smile through the things that bothered her most.

Instead, Toph nudged him lightly and turned her head away from him. "You're such a dorky little optimist."

Aang chuckled. "Yeah. But you're grateful for it."

She smirked into her hair so that he couldn't' see. "If you say so."

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A/N: I kinda don't like this one. I was feeling down today, and I think it affected my writing. Sorry about that ^^;