Author's Note: Toph has a rare moment of weakness when her parents are assholes, Zuko acts a little more like his old pissy self. And at first I felt that Lao and Poppy were too over the top, but when I re-read the chapter, I realized they were about as ridiculous as actual asshole parents I know in real life. Anyway, enjoy a chapter with shitty soap opera-quality writing.

Aang and Sokka, after making a few jokes that riled Zuko into shouting at them, decided to get some food in town and relax a little while they waited.

Alone, Toph finally let go of Zuko, though only to arms' length. "I missed you so much."

"Not as much as I missed you," he said, sounding rueful. "I'm glad you're not furious I interrupted your trip."

She shrugged. "I'm almost done. And this…" She sighed. "I'm really grateful that I don't have to go in alone."

He nodded, a stupid gesture when talking to a blind woman. Sure, she could feel the slight shift in his tendons that told her he was nodding, but there was no way he knew that she knew. Her vague irritation faded, though, when one of his callused hands swept her bangs away from her face gently. "What do you want out of this, Toph?" he asked softly.

I want to know it's not my fault they divorced. I want them to be back together. I want the rift I created in this family to be repaired. I want them to accept me. I want… "I want to invite them to the wedding," she said. "I guess I want their blessing. Their…I don't know." She scrubbed her hands against her face, as if washing herself clean of these confusing thoughts. It didn't work. "Pride and prestige are really important to them. I want to know that they'd come to my wedding because they care about me, not because I'm marrying the Firelord. You know?"

"So…what were you going to tell them about me?" he asked slowly.

She shrugged again, half-smiling bitterly. "Either they'll have heard of it, or they'll be too angry at me to ask about you. In the Fire Nation it's pretty normal for girls and boys to be rebellious and hotheaded and do things like disobey their parents and run away from home. And you guys don't really do arranged marriages, do you? You marry for passion. But the Earth Kingdom is different. Family is central; our people build dynasties. Running away from home is like…I don't know anything that bad in the Fire Nation."

"Speaking out of turn at your father's war meeting," said Zuko.

She punched him in the arm, almost laughing. "Shut up."

He rubbed his arm, but whens he reached up to touch his face he was smiling, just slightly. She pulled him down to her and kissed him again. He smelled like flying, and the ocean, and a little like bison.

"Are you wearing anything Firelordy?" She ran her hands down his chest. Plain cotton.

"No, just traveling clothes," he said. "I didn't bring anything formal."

"That's perfect." She smoothed a couple of loose strands of hair away from his face, but it was no use. He had disheveled post-flight hair. "Let's get this over with."

—

Half an hour later, they were escorted into Toph's parents' vast sitting room, where Lao and Poppy Beifong waited in their thronelike chairs.

There was nowhere else in the world where Toph felt so weak.

"Mom, Dad." She swallowed visibly. "I'm glad you're both doing well."

"We heard you were in the area," said Poppy. Her voice, which had always been soft and cloying, had a hardness in it like steel now.

Toph flinched. "I had to come visit you guys–"

"I expected you to be more contrite," Lao said sharply. "You come back into our home, expecting to be greeted as a daughter, after what you've done?"

"I thought we had an understanding," Toph said tightly. "You saw me prevent that collapse at the Earthen Fire Refinery, Dad. You know that I'm–"

"Enough!" he bellowed, standing up in a rage. "You were traipsing around the world when you had a duty here. To your family. Your mother and I were separated for two years because you decided to run away. We could have strangled you at birth when we saw you were blind, but we raised you instead, and this is the thanks we get for letting you live? For the shame? For the effort of hiding your flaw from the world?"

"Mom," Toph said, tears threatening to spill over.

Poppy turned away.

"I understand," Toph said. The tears were flowing now, and with great effort, she tried to keep her voice steady. "Mom, Dad, I came to tell you I'm getting married and ask you to come to the wedding." She held her hand out, and Zuko was there before she had time to think, his hand warm in hers.

"You cannot marry without my permission!" Lao fumed, ignoring Zuko's presence entirely. "Your mother and I spent years trying to find someone worthy of marrying the Beifong heir who was willing to take a blind girl as his wife. There was no one, and that was before you ran away. How will a suitor know what happened while you were gone? If you've been defiled? If you return and apologize, and make yourself presentable, maybe we can try to find someone willing. Not before."

"Who is this scarred-face Fire Nation peasant you've dug up?" Poppy asked, tears in her voice.

"My name is–" Zuko began.

"Are you pregnant?" Lao snapped. "Have you concieved some filthy half-blood–"

Toph felt Zuko's heartbeat rage, and squeezed his hand. "No, Dad! We're–"

"Remove him from the room," Lao ordered the guards.

They took a step forward, and Zuko put his hand on the hilt of his dao swords.

"Please don't," Toph pleaded. "Don't make us spill blood over this."

"You have ruined your life," Poppy cried.

"And our lives, too," Lao fumed. "The shame of having this blind whore for a daughter–"

"Don't talk to her like that!" Zuko shouted. With the sharp sound of metal on metal, he unsheathed his sword.

"How dare–" Lao began.

"No, you listen to me." The sword was pointed at her father. "Your daughter is worth ten of you!"

"Sparky, please," Toph said quietly, but he'd been pushed to the breaking point, and he was on a rampage.

"You had deals with the Fire Nation during the first Siege of Ba Sing Se and the failed invasion that ended the war," he said, his voice carrying and echoing in the room. The guards had long since stood down; they weren't equipped to fight a firebender at close range. They also followed family gossip closely enough not to fuck with Toph. "You've built your dynasty on lies and deceit and punished the one precious child you had because she didn't turn out the way you wanted." He gestured with his sword; Toph only knew because she heard it cut the air.

"How could you possibly know that?" Poppy cried.

"I'll have her dragged back here and your marriage annulled, you impertinent bastard," Lao shouted at the top of his lungs.

"You can go ahead and try," said Zuko, "but no one's ever made Toph do something she didn't want to. You should know that better than anyone."

Toph felt her father's heart racing and wondered if he was going to collapse with sheer rage at this point.

"And one more thing," said Zuko. "I'm going to get her pregnant with my 'filthy half-blood' child as soon as I can!"

"What the fuck, Sparky?" Toph gasped.

"Why is this piece of trash still in my house?" Lao screamed at his guards.

Toph heard the telltale roar of ignition.

"That's enough!" she said, stepping forward. She wiped the tears from her face, the smoke from Zuko's fire only making it worse. "Mom, Dad…" She felt the force of their rage through the earth, swallowed, and straightened. "Lao, Poppy, if you ever change your mind about me, send word to the Firelord." She turned away and led the way out of the room, the guards parting for her and Zuko to pass.

—

Toph hated crying, but it was inevitable once in a while, even for her. For the first time, she had Zuko's arms around her and his chest to lean on while she let the pain sob its way out.

"Sorry," she finally mumbled, drawing back and wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

She didn't want to talk about it anymore, and he didn't ask her to; he just put his arm around her and kissed her temple.

"Let's go find Aang and Sokka," she said. "I want to get out of here."

—

The brothers-in-law were playing some kind of gambling card game in a restaurant when Toph and Zuko came back. Spread between them was a variety of foods, both meaty and vegetarian.

"Hey!" Sokka called out. "How'd it go?"

"Oh, you know," Toph shrugged, flopping into the nearest chair. "About how I expected."

"Fruit tart?" Aang offered.

She took one. It did make her feel a little better.

"Anyway, how have you guys been?" she asked.

"Zuko has a dragon," Sokka said quickly, as if he was afraid someone else would beat him to it.

"Fuck off, Sokka. What's really been going on?"

"No, he really has a dragon," Aang jumped in.

"His name is Druk," said Zuko.

"He hatched right in front of us," said Aang. "He imprinted on Zuko right away."

"Zuko's basically his mom," Sokka added. "So you're a dragon dad, Toph!"

"I'm not his mom," Zuko grouched, still irritated from earlier.

"Oh, sure, not at all. You just feed him and put him to bed and carry him around all day," Sokka deadpanned.

"He's still a hatchling," said Aang, "so we left him with Katara and Iroh and his new handler, Lee."

It was a lot to take in, especially when neither Aang nor Sokka knew when to shut the fuck up. "I guess we'll see him soon, then," said Toph. "How long will it take to get back to the Fire Nation?"

"Umm, maybe a week?" said Aang. "We'll probably get to the palace at the same time as Ursa and Kiyi."

Ah, the one relative who might not want to kill either of them. At this point, Toph would be grateful for a nice, ordinary, bitchy mother-in-law who thought she wasn't good enough for her son, and a nice little sister-in-law who would want to braid her hair or some dumb, time-wasting shit. "That'll be nice," she said. "Flying is awful, but it beats the hell out of boats."

"And you can throw up on Zuko this time instead of me," said Sokka. "The couple that gets airsick together, sticks together."

"If we both get airsick, maybe we should both throw up on you," Toph suggested.

"Ugh," said Sokka.

—

They slept near Appa every night, beginning in an exhausted row, though Aang often ended up on Appa's head, Sokka cocooned himself in his sleeping bag, and Zuko's arm would invariably find its way around Toph's body while they rested and pull her close.

On the third night, they rested on a beach, and Toph couldn't sleep. Zuko hadn't rolled towards her and thrown his arm over her yet, so she got up and wandered down the shore, listening to the waves.

It was a long time before she felt him follow her, and then stop beside her, close enough that she could feel his heat.

"What's wrong?" he asked softly.

She listened to the sound of their breathing, to the muffled reverberation of his heartbeat through the sand, and closed her eyes. "Tell me what everything looks like right now."

"It's foggy," he began. "I can't see the stars tonight, but I can kind of see the ocean. The moon is almost full and the waves reflect its light."

Little of that meant anything to her; but he had taken the time to describe it anyway, and it wrenched at her heart. "Zuko, did you mean what you said? About having children as soon as possible?"

"We can wait as long as you want," he said gently. "I just said that to piss off your parents."

"But what if we have a blind firebending child? Or a blind nonbender? How will…" She trailed off, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"How will she see?" Zuko guessed. "I don't know. She'll have to figure it out, like you did. Or maybe she won't be able to see at all, and we'll teach her how to get around anyway."

The waves lapped at the shore, and Toph imagined them swallowing her fear and taking them far away. "Would you be disappointed?"

"No." He exhaled against her ear, a warm breath in the cold night. "Whenever we decide to have children, whatever they're like, I will love them with all my heart."

She didn't need the earth to tell her he wasn't lying. They went back to Appa, and she slept.