a/n: It's been a year since I started these things? God, I'm really not on ball.

If any of you have read my story Take Me Up, this is a nice little side one-shot to that, although you don't have to read it to understand this.

OOO

Day 19: Sorrow

…

Canon Universe

OOO

Toph had absolutely no reason to go to Aang. Really, none of this was her business.

Katara, on the other hand, had always confided in Toph. Despite the fact that Toph had always made it clear that emotions and relationships weren't her forte, Katara still saw Toph as a precious female friend, and sometimes that was all she needed. So Toph became rather well versed when it came to dealing with Katara's anxieties about Aang. She was grounded and realistic, and she was always able to see clearly into Katara's worries and be able to pull truth and reason out of them. It's what made the Water Tribe warrior keep coming back to Toph in order to sort out her feelings.

Toph didn't really mind. It became less of a chore and more of a problem to be solved as time went on: a riddle or puzzle of sorts that Katara couldn't solve on her own. Plus, while she would never outwardly admit it, Katara was one of the few people that Toph was willing to put down everything for so that she could sit down and talk about love and affection and a plethora of other subjects that sometimes Toph wished she had more practical experience in.

So when Katara forlornly told Toph over dinner that she had a long conversation with Aang a few minutes ago, Toph knew exactly why Katara sounded so guilty, and why Aang wasn't present for the meal.

Honestly, Toph saw it coming and didn't blame Katara for the decision. While she may have never personally experienced it, Toph knew enough about love to confidently say that it came in many complicated forms, and sometimes the love that someone feels for you isn't necessarily the kind of love you want from them. Katara couldn't deliver a romantic love, and Toph had been convincing her for weeks that this wasn't her fault.

But the deed had been done, the relationship had been broken, and Toph had a sneaking suspicion that one of them was taking it better than the other.

She immediately stood from her seat and ran from the dining hall, not bothering to excuse herself in front of the important dignitaries and the Earth King himself for the rude departure.

The halls of the Earth Palace were a blessing—all made of stone and perfect for seeing. She knew exactly where to go and how to get there quickly. Her bare feet kept padding along the thin-carpeted floors of the palace until she skidded to a stop in front of Aang's room, already able to feel him inside.

She pounded on the door. "Aang?" she shouted through the door, not bothering with cute nicknames. Maybe she was overreacting or maybe Aang didn't even want to see her, but everything about this felt off. Toph knew how much Aang admired Katara and how much he idolized her. There was no way he was okay.

For many quiet, tortuous seconds, there was no response. Toph huffed in frustration and tried again. "It's me, Twinkle Toes," Toph said. "You weren't at dinner, and…" she trailed off lamely. She shook her head.

Why was she here? Why did she care?

After five minutes of no response, Toph nodded. "Okay. I'll just…I'll just go, then."

She had turned on her heel and intended to make her way back to the dinner and come up with some clever excuse for why she had sped out. But she got very little warning before she felt Aang speed to the door and heard it flung open behind her. She turned around suddenly when she felt Aang grab at her hand and pull her into the room.

Toph was never usually taken by surprise, but Aang being insistent and almost frantic was cause for enough alarm that Toph found herself not thinking to say anything while Aang finished pulling her completely into his room and shutting the door behind her with a definitive slam.

Aang remained in front of her, still holding her wrist and bracing his right arm above her shoulder and on the door he had just closed. He wasn't moving, but she could feel that his forehead was only a few inches away from her own. She didn't have to be able to see in order to tell that his muscles were tense and he was thrumming with energy that she wasn't used to feeling from him. Toph swallowed the lump in her throat. He was acting so strangely…

"Twinkle Toes, you're freaking me out, say something," Toph finally said.

Aang pushed himself off the door and wiped at his eyes, sniffling once as he straightened up and squeezed her hand. "Would you like to learn how to write?"

Toph's brows furrowed in honest confusion. "Wait…wait, what?"

"Come, come," Aang insisted, pulling her further into the room by her hand and over to the desk table he had in the corner of his room by his window. "You don't know how, right?"

Teaching her to write? Now? Toph was still trying to fashion a response. "N-No, but…hey, listen to me!"

She finally tugged back and pulled her hand out of Aang's grasp. He stopped in his tracks and looked back at her, and for some reason she was thankful she couldn't see the expression on his face. Something was telling her it wasn't something she really wanted to see on someone like Aang. His erratic behavior and general unease were already unsettling enough. Toph lifted her chin and spoke firmly. "What the hell is going on? You're acting more bizarre than you usually do, and that's saying something."

Aang didn't answer right away, but he filled the silence with a breathless chuckle that didn't sound at all like he found any of this humorous. She could sense him rubbing the back of his neck. "I…I'm sorry…I just…"

Spirits, he sounded pitiful—like she had just hurt his feelings and he didn't know what else to do other than to scurry away and apologize. Normally, she'd taunt him for it since it was a source of amusement for her, and Aang would usually just accept it out of exasperation and tend to laugh it off. But something told her that her usual brand of sarcasm wasn't going to be well-appreciated or well-received. She had never felt the desire to be careful around someone or to tread lightly on their feelings, but now she not only found herself needing to, but also wanting to do that very thing with Aang for fear of hurting him worse than he already was.

Toph frowned. "Why the sudden desire to teach me of all people how to write? Seems kinda useless, you know?" she joked, trying to lighten the mood by directing the teasing in her own direction.

"Not useless," Aang shook his head. "You never know when it might come in handy. Besides," Aang added. "I never knew you to back down from a challenge."

Toph raised a brow and smiled. "Is this you challenging me?"

Aang shrugged and sat down at the table by the window. "Sort of. I was just…I dunno…bored I guess. And just not hungry," Aang admitted. Toph could literally feel the lie vibrating through her feet. "Plus, you came by in the first place, so I figured why not?"

In reality, Toph was pretty sure Aang had absolutely no intentions of letting her in or speaking to her in the first place. That much was apparent by how long she was left standing in front of the door. But for some reason, when she arrived and then suddenly decided to leave him be, Aang suddenly didn't want her to leave. The best excuse he could come up with was because he wanted to teach her how to write. It was a little ridiculous and Toph was pretty sure they were both aware that the logic wasn't really sound. But Toph was also fully aware of Aang frequently reaching up to rub away his tears from his cheeks and the thick quality to his voice like he was swallowing back more tears. Aang didn't want her to leave, and she really didn't feel like leaving Aang alone.

Toph made the decision by sitting on the chair right next to Aang's. She pulled her chair in closer. "Fair point," she conceded. "Though, I don't think I'm really going to appreciate this too much."

"I wouldn't say that," Aang offered, reaching around on the cluttered desk for some brushes and parchment. "The characters in your name are rather pretty, plus they're not that hard to write."

Toph had never really taken time to ask her mother what her name meant, mainly because she had never thought that that sort of thing was important to know. But it turns out that Aang was right—her name could also apparently be read as "expanding lotus." He explained that symbols had more than one meaning and you created people's names by placing together characters and giving them different pronunciations. Looking back, she supposed that made sense. Her mother was always fond of lotus flowers and always liked to embroider her clothing with them if Toph heard correctly over the years. She didn't think so much thought went into her name, and decided that her mother deserved some credit for that. She supposed it did sound nice.

Writing it was a chore. Aang had to teach Toph how to hold the brush, where to dip the ink, and how to make the strokes. He had to guide her hand for a lot of the first trial runs, and oftentimes it simply led to Toph going over the page and onto the table by accident, or completely missing the paper to begin with. It was annoying and infuriating at first, but Aang seemed to find her failures funny and endearing. It was when Toph turned suddenly with the brush in her hand and accidently slathered a stripe of ink across Aang's cheek that Toph started to realize how much fun she was actually having.

They wound up spending hours practicing brush strokes, playing games, and playing around with all the ink and paper. Aang eventually took to trying to make brush paintings while Toph practiced, and they got into a very brief fight where ink was flung across the room. The Earth King probably wasn't going to appreciate that. It took many sheets of parchment and many stones of ink before Toph finally managed to make a shaky but somewhat legible replication of her name. Some of the lines were too far apart, and some were shorter or longer than they were supposed to be, but Aang deemed the effort to be pretty passable considering that she was blind.

"Shut up, it probably looks terrible," Toph smirked as she tried to rub off some ink that was still on her cheek.

Aang laughed and picked up her latest attempt. "No, it honestly looks pretty good! It only took two hours…"

"At least I did it!" Toph argued back. "Besides, maybe it's just cause you're a sucky teacher!"

"Or just that you can't follow directions."

Toph stuck out her tongue, but couldn't put her normal amount of annoyance into it. Hearing Aang laugh and enjoy himself was a relief. When they had run out of room on the table, they had moved to the floor in front of the chaise, and Aang was laid out spread eagle like he was lounging in the sun and enjoying the day. He certainly sounded better, and he wasn't quite so tense and at ill ease as he was before.

She scooted backwards until her back hit the edge of the chaise. She leaned her head back and allowed the back of it to rest on the cushions above her. A thought suddenly came to her. "You never told me what your name means."

Aang turned his head towards her. "It's two characters, just like yours. It means 'peaceful soaring.'"

Toph hummed in thought. She really thought that suited him. "It's pretty," she commented.

Aang laughed. "I always thought it was kind of corny. Everyone I knew had names that had to do with the sky and the wind and whatnot. It's kind of hard to write out though," Aang commented for her benefit. "Lots of lines and boxes all over the place. Your name is much simpler."

"I don't even want to imagine what writing your name would be like," Toph warned, already turned off to the idea. "If mine took two hours, yours will take all day. We'll get nowhere."

Aang lay there on the floor, his face still turned towards her. Toph felt a slight prick on her neck, and could somehow tell that Aang was looking at her intently. She didn't comment and instead pretended like she hadn't noticed. She was blowing her bangs away from her eyes when she heard Aang speak up. "Did you have fun?"

Toph immediately nodded and allowed herself a small smile. "Surprisingly, yeah." Toph paused for a moment, bit her lip with worry, and decided that she was just going to go ahead and say exactly what she was thinking. "It's a really good way to get your mind off of things, don't you think?"

The prick on her neck got worse, and she heard Aang sigh deeply before he sat up properly and moved next to her against the chaise. Aang brought his knees up to his chest and rested his arms on top of them. "Yeah…I do."

Toph suddenly found her picking up the loose, tasseled end of her belt and playing with it to keep her hands busy and to make the silence less awkward. Dealing with Aang was never awkward and she didn't really know what to do in the situation. Comforting Katara was easy. She was the type that spoke about all of her feelings the minute she entered the room and really didn't need too much prodding before she really got down to what bothered her. But this was a side of Aang she wasn't used to dealing with—the quiet one who suffered in silence and was holding in mounds of sadness and anxiety that she was sure he didn't know what to do with.

They sat there together for a few silent minutes before Aang muttered softly to her, "Did you know?"

Toph knew exactly what he meant by the question. She nodded reluctantly and muttered back to him just as quietly. "Yeah."

Aang heard her response and laughed humorlessly into the quiet room, bracing his fingers behind his neck and ducking his head into his knees. Aang had never worried Toph quite like this in the entire time that she knew him. There were always moment where she showed dubious concern over his strange behavior, but never a worry that made her feel like she was helpless and made her feel a horrible tightness in her chest that made her want to reach out to him or say something or do anything really to help. Aang suddenly sighed out again, but this time is was shaky and filled with tears and Toph thanked the Spirits that she came here and didn't leave him alone.

Before she could do anything, Aang did something strange—he lay down on the floor next to the chaise and rested his head in her lap. Toph's hands remained up in the air, and she was unsure of what to do with them. She usually never let anyone get this close to her, mainly because she didn't like people invading on her personal space or trying to assume they could gain any affection from her. She was sure Aang knew that, but her turned his face into her lap anyway, silently crying into her clothing and clutching the fabric. But Toph didn't move him, and she didn't say a word. She finally settled on laying one hand on his shoulder, and one on the top of his head.

Toph remembered what her nanny used to do to her when she had nightmares and prayed that the same thing applied here. She rubbed her thumb in slow, calming circles around his temples until his cries lowered in volume. She felt one of Aang's hands reach up and grab the hand that was resting on her shoulder and squeezed it. She didn't hesitate to squeeze back, as if to say that she understood.

She felt him shaking his head in her lap. "You must think I look really pathetic now, huh?"

Toph frowned and lightly jostled their joined hands. "I wouldn't spend my time comforting someone who I thought was being pathetic. It's fine. Be upset. Get it out. You need it."

She felt him smile and laugh in relief. "…thank you."

Toph threaded her fingers in between Aang's and found herself feeling a great fondness for her friend that she hadn't expected to feel. "Anytime, Twinkle Toes."