XI. Third Interlude - Altruism

"TwinkleToes!" Toph said surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk." He said simply. "Where were you?" He asked again.

She shrugged.

"With Sparky." She walked to where he was. She felt warmth emanating from him. "Why are you bending fire?" She asked.

"Because there are no lamps in your room and I need to be able to see." Toph assented. She noticed by the heat that he had lit the stove in the middle of the room too. She sat next to him in the bed. She was dying to know what had happened.

"Where is Katara?" Toph asked innocently. "She told me she was going back to where you were."

"She went back to her room. She said she was tired." He said. Toph said nothing, expecting him to break the silence first.

"What's a kuku?" He asked suddenly. She didn't miss a beat.

"A fruit." Darn, was she becoming good, said the hag. Better than Katara herself. She then added, cautiously. "Where did you hear that word?"

"I decided to follow your lessons with Katara. I looked at her lips, used the deep voice and then, deep in the middle of the kiss, she said 'kuku'." He paused. "Why would she think of fruit while kissing me?" He asked, probably to himself.

"Maybe you taste like one." Reasoned Toph.

"Really? What does a kuku taste like?"

Before she could stop herself, she answered.

"Very tasty" and then, for the sake of truth, she added, "it's native of the swamp marshes, but you can also find it in the Fire Nation."

"Never heard of it." Toph played with the coverlet.

"Well, it's never been really popular until recently. A bit of an acquired taste." Choosing to change the topic, she turned the onus on him. "Why are you asking me about kukus? Why not Katara?"

"She didn't seem interested in talking." He said. "She was sort of spaced out." She felt him drop himself in the bed, a wave of frustration coming from him. "You need some lamps in here." He said.

"Don't need them and didn't plan to entertain much here. I guess I can always ask Gran-Gran for some."

"It's OK. I can see enough with the reflections from the stove." He stayed silent and she laid down on her back next to him.

"You wanted to talk." She reminded him. He sighed deeply.

"She tends to do that." He said.

"Do what?"

"She just, you know, sort of retreat within herself. I can tell by the way she looks at me sometimes that she wants to tell me things. Maybe many things. But she doesn't. And when I try to get her to talk openly, she just … retreats."

"Maybe she is afraid that you are not going to like what she has to say."

"That can't be. I'm the Avatar, I'm supposed to understand everything."

"Yep, that's the theory. Not sure if you do, though."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Lately, you keep that I'm the Avatar mantra like is going to solve everything. You are supposed to understand things, but truth is T.T. that you never do so at first. It takes you a while to reach understanding. When you do."

"When I do?"

"You're right, if you do."

"You are going to keep insulting me all night, aren't you?" He sat again, frustrated. "I think I better leave." She grabbed the back of his robes.

"Don't you go running away just because you don't like what I am saying. For once in your avatar life, stay and face what's coming head on." He tried to shake himself lose, but she was relentless on her hold. He stopped.

"OK. Finish then. You left it at 'if I do.'"

She let go of his robes.

"Things come too easy to you." She said, putting her hands under her head. He was probably looking at her intently, because she could feel a prick on her neck. She didn't move.

"You think my life is easy?" He sounded astonished. "That everything I had to face up to now has been easy?"

"Actually, yes." Before he could start she sat up and put her hand on top of his mouth. "You get away with things. You do. You get to throw a tantrum because things were getting a little rough in your temple, and then you get spared certain genocide for one hundred years. You get to refuse to open your chakras voluntarily because you don't want to let go of your crush, and you still manage to save the world because your previous lives decide to come to the rescue. You even decided that you wouldn't sacrifice your pacifist soul way before a lion-turtle bailed you out. And finally, you keep ignoring the fact that Katara may not want you the same way you do, but you always manage to get her at the end. You get away with things, and you're used to that." She removed her hand from his mouth. "So far, you've never had to sacrifice anything of yourself. Things just fall into place for you. They do. I'll bet that you haven't told your fiancée-on-hold about your festivals and your plans to restore your race. I'll bet that somewhere in the back of your head you know that even that will come easy to you."

She decided she was finished and laid again on her back on the bed. He kept silent for a while. She could hear him opening his mouth as to say something, and then closing it again like he thought better of it.

"Things come easy to you too." He said suddenly with certain level of resentment.

She shrugged.

"I know. That used to be the case, but look at me now. Turnabout, I don't recommend it." She rolled on her side and rested her head in her hand. "It's doing great things for my character development, though. I would certainly recommend it for maturity purposes."

He laid down next to her. She could tell he was facing her because she could hear his breathing.

"I thought things would be different tonight." He confided.

"With Katara?"

"Yes. There is this…" he looked for the right word "… barrier that we haven't been able to cross. Things never get … heated. Once, years ago, she sort of went very … intense and I kinda freaked out. Since then, well …" he stopped, and finally added with a sigh. "It is what it is. I thought that we should wait for marriage, to make sure everything was in place in case of any consequences. Today I had a conversation with Zuko about women. And something he said made me realize that maybe I didn't have to, you know, wait."

Toph was dying to know. Go ahead, said the hag, ask him.

"What did he say?"

"He said that girls are not dolls. That perfection is an impossible standard to hold a person to."

"Didn't understand a word you said."

"Zuko said that I treat Katara like a perfect doll, literally. That she is not 'all sugar and spice, and everything nice'." He stopped for a moment. "So I tried to, you know, treat her like a girl today. And then she called me fruit."

Toph thought about Sparky alone in his room with all that fire whiskey and the fact that he wasn't drinking any. Moreover, the fact that he had managed to keep his composure all day. You had to give it to the guy, he was almost too good to be true.

"Sparky is a very loyal friend." Toph said slowly. "I sincerely hope that one day you realize how loyal."

Aang was at loss.

"Well, things didn't really go far." He said. "They never do. She's not … she wasn't there. She was somewhere else. And then you just said that I've never paid attention that she may not want me the same way. Why would she be with me if she doesn't love me?"

"Oh, she loves you, there's no doubt."

"We already went through this. I know she loves me, but now I'm not sure if she wants me."

"And do you want her?"

"You know I do. I've loved her since the first time I saw her."

"And exactly how many girls had you seen before being awaken from your one hundred year old slumber by charming Sugar Queen?"

"Some. I traveled, I had friends in many places."

"All boys?"

"All boys." He accepted. "But I'd seen girls before. She was the prettiest."

"And that is a very good reason to love someone for the rest of your life. Because she is the prettiest. Good thing about being blind, I don't get distracted by people's looks."

She did not intended to sound sardonic, but there was no way around it.

"It's not only her looks." He said defensively. "She is noble, good, sweet, always thinking about others, and patient. She is not capable of harboring ill will. I've seen her forgive and I know that she will always choose to do the right thing in the end."

Toph was speechless. Sparky was right. Perfection was a very tough standard to keep up to.

"You have it sort out then." She said dismissively. "She will do the right thing at the end and love you back. And you will keep loving her because she is so good, pretty and perfect."

Aang turned and laid on his back.

"You make things sound so …" he looked for the right word " … so different. Like they are not what you say they are."

"It's called sarcasm."

"No. It's called honesty." She raised an eyebrow. Maybe in the dark he couldn't see her, but she could feel him in the bed. His graceful shape under the robes. She felt good that for once he wasn't about to run away whimpering because she had been cruel to him. "Why are you smiling, Sifu T?"

She did not realize that she was in effect smiling until he mentioned it.

"Because there may be hope for you yet. First time that you don't run for cover just because I'm in your face."

"I would like you to be more in my face, actually." He said. She thought she heard wrong.

"Really? You were about to run crying to Appa five minutes ago just because I was telling you some uncomfortable stuff, I can't believe you're actually asking for more."

"That's not what I meant."

"What did you mea…" before she could finish the phrase he was kissing her. Deeply. Unashamedly. Definitively, unashamedly. And then she was kissing him back. The way her mind was working right now was simple: If I am going to be penalized for being a bad girl, I may as well earn it. "Yep", said the hag in her head, "that's the attitude. Tarts' United. That should be yours and Katara's logo. Who is the tramp now?"Toph could even hear the hag filing her nails while talking to her. She did what she had to do right now, she kicked her out of her head and went back to the kissing. Which started to shift from eager to tender to intense to caring to hungry. Really hungry. Like if they were two teenagers full of hormones and unbridled curiosity. Wait. They were two teenagers full of hormones and, probably, pent up frustration. He moved and suddenly it felt like he was all over. He was grabbing her waist, and her face, and kissing her neck and then kissing her again. What did he say about things never getting heated? The way he was kissing her right now felt like the South Pole was about to melt. Her first conscience started knocking on some door on the back of her brain. Her first conscience was the sober, sane conscience, prone to quote wise sayings and incapable of calling her disparaging names. Well, this conscience started to tell her that certain things tend to go south pretty quickly and that this was after all her friend's fiancé-on-hold.

When he went back to kissing her ears and her neck she said,

"What are you doing?"

"Research." He answered simply, breathing heavily. Her own hands were lost in his robes. She just couldn't find them. She did find other things, though, like his chest and arms.

"What are you studying?" She asked, wondering how many hands he did have, they just felt like too many.

"If it's me." She stopped and he did too when she did. She felt straddling that line between compassion and anger that sometimes came too easily to her. Compassion for all the internal doubts he must be facing, and anger at the fact that she indeed cared.

"It's not you." She assured him cupping his face. "Believe me, it's not. You're great TT, for a vegetarian monk with tiny feet, you're pretty amazing."

He must have realized what he had just said.

"I'm not using you." He said eagerly. "Believe me, I'm not."

She shrugged.

"I'm about to be auctioned in a primitive contest designed as a chastisement for naughty girls. If I'm lucky, I get to die. Actually, I may be using you. At least, here I decide what I do and with whom. You may be doing me a favor."

"So, this is you doing tartly things?" She thought it was funny that he remembered what she had said earlier.

"It's customary to commit the crime first, but in this case I am already bearing the punishment so there are no boundaries for my new life as a criminal."

He started kissing her again.

"I'm the Avatar. I can save you."

"No you can't. You can keep trying to help me, though." He laughed his old childish laugh, but his voice was deep and soft as velvet.

"We both can help each other. You can start by telling me about all those colors that you can't see."