A Sturdy Shelter
Moles eat and dig, they do nothing else. When Toph lived with the moles, she learned to be like them. She ate and dug and did nothing else, not even sleep. Earth is unique from the other forms of bending. To move a rock, one must become the rock and control it as one controls an arm; naturally. Water benders ask the water to move for them; fire benders force the flame to move as they want it to; and air benders negotiate with the air and ask it to move, but allow it to be as it wants to be too. Earth benders are not friends or masters of their element. They are their element.
As a rock, Toph learned many things; the least of which being who she truly was.
Without sleep, the body reenergizes with meditation, and meditation reaches into the soul. Toph was not as young as she seemed, but she had always known she was an old soul. Her entire life, Toph could remember a great sadness that she didn't understand. Then as she dug with the moles again, she began to remember more of her previous life—and the ones before that. It wasn't just a sadness that she remembered. She was alone.
The Avatar arrived at the secret council without his bison. The red finned glider carried him silently and smoothly up the cliff face where he landed lightly before the Order of the White Lotus. Were it not for the iconic staff, the young man could have been mistaken as someone else. With his brown hair long enough to twist into a small knot at the back of his head, the blue arrow was less noticeable and he no longer wore the traditional yellow and red robes of a monk. Instead, he wore a tunic and pants woven from the un-dyed wool of the bison.
In the eight years since the war, Appa had sired a good-sized heard which took up what little free time the Avatar had between ambassador duties, but he proudly displayed the markings of a humble bison herder as if he did nothing else. It was all part of his effort to rebuild the air-bending nation with those who had no country.
Tonight, only four masters stood in a semi-circle, debating a course of action as the orange sun sank into the waves. Two of those who had reclaimed Ba Sing Se in the final battle were now gone, and in their place were two of the Avatar's closest friends. Sokka had replaced his sword master, and Toph had taken over for King Bumi.
Aang's wise eyes crinkled but didn't smile as he greeted his old friends.
"Good evening." He said. "Sorry I'm late, but I couldn't get away."
"No worries," the earth bending master said with a smile. For some reason, she had stopped wearing the practical cloths of a boy; her dress trailed in the grass at least a foot behind her and covered her bare feet. It made her look taller and displayed curves Aang had never noticed before.
Gulping quietly, Aang waved a hand. "Shall we get straight to business? I can't stay too long."
"Fine," Sokka agreed. "I nominate _."
"Seconded," the water master said.
"_ is a strong fire-bender and a fine soldier, but I'm not sure he is a master." Aang said. "I nominate someone who learned from the true masters and taught me all that I know: Fire Lord Zuko."
The council fell silent. Then Toph broke the silence with one strong word, "Seconded."
Aang smiled. One thing hadn't changed; she still covered her unseeing eyes with her bangs.
Sokka was the first to speak up, his voice raising half an octave as he did, betraying the fact that he was surprised. "Can a fire lord be nominated? I mean, he already has a lot to do running an entire nation."
Aang shrugged. "I am rebuilding an entire nation and I have time."
Toph and others smiled. Aang cleared his throat. "The White Lotus is about balance and strength. We are the ties of the four nations. Master Iroh taught Zuko all of this; he just doesn't know what it means yet."
Sokka nodded and crossed his arms. "All in favor of Fire Lord Zuko replacing Master Iroh as the master of fire?"
Everyone raised their hand.
"How was your stay in the country Toph?" Aang asked at dinner.
"It was great. I reunited with the moles, taught them a few things." She winked at Aang as the rest of the Order laughed. Aang choked on his soup and wiped it from his chin as he looked around. No one else seemed to have noticed that someone had taught her how to do that.
"There's something different about you." Aang said. "You've changed."
"How?"
"I'm not sure. It's like you're happy now."
Toph tilted her head. "I didn't seem happy before?"
Aang scratched the back of his neck. "Well, it was actually kind of hard to tell. You were always so guarded."
"Oh…" She blushed. "I was kind of hoping it wasn't that obvious."
"What happened to change that?"
She was quiet for a long time. Aang didn't press her and waited patiently for her to find the right words.
"I used to feel all alone." She admitted.
"But your weren't," Aang insisted. "You had a family, plus all of us; another kind of family."
"I know, I know." She said. "It was more like a memory of loneliness that I never understood."
Aang nodded with sudden understanding. "A past life…" the avatar mused. He frowned with interest. "I've always thought you seemed older than you are."
She smiled. "Well I don't feel alone anymore."
Aang smiled at her. "Good."
Toph fidgeted with the sleeve of her dress. She bit her lip, which, Aang noticed, was colored with rouge. His brow crinkled with confusion, but then something on the wind caught his attention just as Toph found the nerve to speak. "Aang there's something—"
"Hold on!" Aang said throwing a hand up to silence her. She faltered and stopped. Aang tilted his head and held up a hand. A flurry of snowflakes landed on his sleeve. A huge smile split his face.
Utterly lost and confused, Toph dug her toes deeper into the cool earth. "What's going on?"
"Sorry, Toph," Aang said. "It's Katara!"
"Katara?"
"Yes. I hate leaving her when the baby is so close to coming, so I keep an air stream between us at all times so that she can contact me if she needs to."
Toph's neatly groomed eyebrows came together behind her fall of raven colored hair. "Huh?"
Aang smiled. "It's a bend I invented. See," he took her hand and held it in a thin stream of arctic air. Goose-bumps from the cold raced down her arm and overlapped with the goose bumps his touch had raised.
"I keep a steady stream of air moving from her to me at all times." He said, noticing no change in Toph. "All Katara has to do is send a little snow in my direction and I know I need to get back to her. Toph!" Aang said excited. "The baby's coming!"
"Oh," was all she could choke out. Aang whooped loudly, calling the rest of the Order's attention. Sokka jogged over. "What's going on?"
"The baby's coming!" Aang said happily. Sokka blanched. "What are you doing here then? Go! Go!"
The red fins flapped out and a gust of warm wind carried the avatar back along the path of the snow flakes. Sokka bounced happily on his toes, also a little nervous for his sister. He could remember how hard child birth was on his own wife.
"I'm sure she's fine." Toph offered, deducing his worry from his vibrations and the unevenness of his breath. Sokka smiled and dropped an arm around her shoulders. "I know she is." He shook his head. "She is so excited to be having another one. I don't really get it. I mean, Suki and I are thrilled that Tanaka is getting a little brother or sister, but we honestly don't know where we are going to get the energy for it."
Toph patted his hand as they turned back toward the house. "Oh you'll manage fine. Stop your crying."
Sokka laughed. "I hope so." He noted the silence in his old friend as they walked and he looked down at her. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," She said shrugging Sokka's arm away. He didn't buy it, but knew better than to press her. He didn't want a rock punch to the kidney. He left Toph alone.
Disregarding the welfare of her dress, she sat in the dirt and listened, but Aang was off her radar, up in the air. She shook her head. Of all the people in all worlds that she could have been reincarnated as, why did it have to be a blind earth bender when he could fly?
Katara woke Aang as she got up in the middle of the night to nurse the baby, but he fell like a feather back into his dream. It was the most delicious dream he had had in a long time. He was floating in the cool water of a lake, letting the sun's warm rays soak into his skin.
Suddenly the air twitched and he opened his eyes in time to see a beautiful young woman hovering above him. Her long eyelashes tickled his cheek as her soft lips slipped over his. He tried to grab her, but with another gust of wind, she pulled herself out of reach. He let his hands drop back beneath the cold surface as he relaxed once again. "Fine," he teased the air bender, who was sticking her tongue out at him from just out of reach. "Fly away. See if I care."
She stuck out her lower lip. "You don't love me anymore?"
He met her eyes. They were green this time, and the life that shone out of them took his breath away, as they always would. He pulled a bit of the lake bed closer in order to stand. The water was just above his navel now. She dared to hover a little closer for another kiss.
"Never," he said, sweeping the hair out of her eyes and kissing her sweetly. His wet hands trailed down her face, then her neck and traced the blue arrow tattoo on her arms. She realized too late that it was all a trap. She tried to fly away, but he smiled against her lips and pulled her under the freezing water for more kisses.
Aang jerked awake as the baby started wailing again just before dawn. Disoriented, the avatar blinked and looked around the room for a clue as to what year it was. He found the answer in the wooden staff leaning against the wall. It came back to him slowly. He was the air bender. There had been a war. It was over. The air nation was beginning to thrive.
Aang sat up and touched his bare feet to the cool rugs covering the ice floor. The baby continued to cry. Katara's smooth, warm hand rested on Aang's back. "I'll get him." Her lips replaced her hand. "Sleep."
Aang obeyed the order and lay back against the warm pillows. Katara fanned the blankets as she got out of the bed. She disappeared into the next room and in a moment, the baby stopped crying, and she began to sing a lullaby. Aang listened to it as he recalled his dream.
He could still feel the sun renewing his fire bending strength, how the air he breathed had stirred something deep in his chest, and he could remember the temporary separation from the earth in his earth bending abilities as he swam, but the most prominent presence had been the power of the water caressing him. He had been a water-bending Avatar.
Aang had known, in that way that one knows things in a dream, that his name was not Aang, but something else, which made this a three hundred year old memory of a past life lived as the Avatar before Kiyoshi. The corner of Aang's mouth lifted. The air bender girl had to have left some kind of impression for it to follow the soul of the avatar into another cycle.
Then Aang recalled something. He had seen those eyes before…in the spirit world, on Koh. The face-stealer had mentioned in their brief conversation that he had met the avatar before, when he came to take revenge on Koh for stealing a woman's face.
Her face.
It was a different girl, this one had blue eyes, but they had the same familiar life in them as the air bender girl. Chills crawled up Aang's arms as he felt the echo once again. The echo was something Aang had gotten used to very early in his life; a side effect of having thousands of past lives. Everything felt like déjà-vu, or it stirred to life a powerful emotion that he didn't actually feel.
As Aang lay under the fur covers of his bed, he felt nothing but sleepiness and happiness and unconditional love for the new member of his family, but he could remember an intoxicating love, an alarming fear, a sadness and a consuming need for revenge all at once; everything _ had felt when his bride lost her face to the evil Koh.
The feeling of intoxicating love had been the exact feeling of the dream, which meant only one thing. If the brides had the same eyes and the same effect on the avatar, then she was the same person reincarnated, just like him.
It was all so suddenly clear to Aang.
She never had the same name twice, but the Avatar knew her for her eyes every time; the love of his souls. As he was born in a cycle through the nations, so was she; not always in the same nation, but always in his path in life. There was no day when they first found one another, for they were made as one but divided when he descended unto the four nations. They knew one another explicitly and loved unconditionally.
Aang was smiling when Katara returned to bed. She noticed as she settled under her covers and tucked her wild hair back behind an ear. "What is it?"
"I just had a dream about you." Aang said, rolling closer to kiss her. Katara smiled the way she did whenever he doted on her and kissed him back.
It wasn't really like the air-bender's kiss at all. For all his love for his wife, Aang felt like he was kissing the wrong person. He stopped kissing Katara rather suddenly, a knee jerk reaction to the feeling that he was cheating on someone.
"What?" Katara asked, opening her eyes.
Aang peered closer, but couldn't see, so he lit a small flame at the end of his finger to better see her eyes. Katara looked at him in the flickering light of his candle-like flame. Her eyebrows were bunched over big blue eyes that, for all their knowledge, were laughably innocent and naive compared to what he looked for; that spark, the light that shone through a couple of thousand lives with him.
"Is something wrong?"
Aang felt like he couldn't breathe. "I just need a glass of water."
He got out of bed quickly, before Katara could remember that they both had the power to summon one without getting up. The thought left Aang with an annoying suspicion that what he and Katara had wasn't love but an act of spoiling and mild affection—at least compared to what he had once felt in the water with the air bender, and later on the mountain with his bride the night before she lost her face, or to begin with among the first herd of the flying bison—
Aang splashed cold water on his face and looked in the mirror. His eyes were wide, his loose hair was now plastered to his head and his tattoo stood out on his pale skin above his dripping eyebrows.
He was in trouble and he knew it.
Guilty pleasures.
Aang had always heard of them, mostly from Zuko who made a comment here or there about them in their years of friendship. "They swallow you whole." Zuko had explained, adding, "—If you let them."
Aang had always considered himself above that. What with his monk upbringing and the required self-control that comes with his job description, he only ever knew what it was to want something, not what satisfaction came from giving into it. Never that.
Ever since waking up from his 100 year sleep in that iceberg, he'd had the stresses of war distracting him from wanting much of anything other than a little peace and tranquility—which he found in Katara. Then, when the war was over, he married Katara and had since lived a beautiful life with her—no reason to secretly want anything else, let alone give into it.
Until now.
Now he found himself wanting more than Katara's smiles and her gentle touch. Try as he might, he couldn't shake the soul-invading intoxication of the love he felt for the bright-eyed girl of his past lives. He ached to feel it again. He wanted it like nothing before.
He gave into the temptations.
Every time he lay down for sleep, he couldn't fight the urge to conjure images of her, the feeling of her, that wonderful heart-racing, world-erasing feeling of her.
Had he known such a thing existed before, he wouldn't have assumed that the warm feeling in his chest when Katara smiled at him, or the way it hurt to even think about anything happening to her, was love, not that kind of love anyway. A different love existed, a more powerful one, and he found it in his dreams.
He told himself he wasn't betraying Katara. All he was doing was dreaming.
A man was allowed to dream, wasn't he?
Katara expertly snatched the toddling Lee up before he toppled into the frigid water through an ice-fishing hole. She could have sealed the hole with her bending, but that would have broken her brother's fishing line, who was complaining about his growling stomach as he gripped his fishing pole.
"Have you noticed anything strange about Aang?" Katara asked. Sokka shrugged, "Nothing more than the usual—you know, too happy all the time and—" A realization hit Sokka and made him cut off abruptly. He blinked and looked at his sister wide-eyed, "hey, wait. He isn't happy all the time!"
"Welcome to what I was talking about." Katara said, holding her squirming son in just one arm as she somehow managed to tie his boot laces with one hand. Sokka had seen Suki manage the same thing with their children and Sokka often wondered if there was some kind of class for mothers that he didn't know about in which they learned how to do this among other things, like touching gross things and knowing when a kid has something in their mouth even when they aren't chewing.
"Well, have you asked him about it?" Sokka asked.
"He shrugged it off, said it was nothing."
"Maybe it is just nothing."
"Maybe."
Sokka didn't miss the melancholy in his sister's voice, nor the way her eyes swept across the ice camp in a tired way. Same old, same old. They said. He decided to call it quits for the day and pulled up his line. Getting up with mock difficulty—he fancied he was getting old in all of his thirty years—he said,
"I have an idea. Why don't you get out of here for the summer?"
"What?" She asked in that way she always did when she didn't hear the question and wasn't going to hear the answer very well either. Sokka waved a hand in front of her face to get her full attention,
"Come with us to the Fire Nation this summer." He said. She'd missed last summer; Lee had only been three months old and neither had been up for the trip. Sokka knew better than anyone that two straight years on a block of ice would drive any world-traveling soul crazy.
"I know Suki will enjoy your company—Mae isn't much for conversation."
Katara sighed, a world weary sigh that broke Sokka's heart.
"I can't." She said. Sokka blinked, "Sure you can—in fact you probably have too. Zuko will be expecting to meet the Avatar's son, and you know as well as I that you aren't ready to let him out of your sight for a whole—"
"No. Lee's not going." She said.
"But—"
"I have too much to do around here, Sokka. And Kiki isn't going, either. She's starting her bending lessons! She told me last week she wanted to stay home with me."
"Oh, okay, but I don't get why—"
"In fact, I have somewhere to be right now." Katara said, marching off with a still squirming Lee under one arm. Sokka watched her go, frowning. He was supposed to know what in the hell that was about. It was the way of the water tribe to have no secrets from one another, even though no secrets were ever spoken out loud. It worked like this: Everyone Just Knew. Things were implied mostly with the eyes, sometimes with a vague word or two, and always with an all-knowing nod.
But for some reason, Sokka just couldn't recall any one of those things that might explain his sister's violent aversion to leaving her home. It must have something to do with Aang's strange behavior. Where they having problems? Had that been what Katara was trying to tell him?
Sokka sighed and turned to the moon, up already though it was far from night. "Oh, Yue." He mumbled, "Help her find happiness again…"
It was nearly Lee's first birthday when Aang realized that he was actually looking for the bright-eyed girl. He hadn't even realized he was doing it, checking the eyes of every girl he came across, and occasionally staring intently at the promising-looking ones until they became physically uncomfortable.
She probably died in the war. Aang thought in an attempt to berate himself and push back all thoughts of her. All he succeeded in doing was making his heart twist painfully as his breath escaped him.
It's a strange thing, when an air-bender loses his breath. He loses his bending for a minute too.
So it was unlucky that Aang had been flying his glider at the time.
With his control of the wind-currents gone, a blast of air slammed into him from the right, knocking him into a tail-spinning dive. He regained his breath and control of the wind before he got into any real danger, but the lesson was learned; don't ever think thoughts like that again.
Finding a secluded place atop a hill, Aang decided he had better delay the meeting he was flying to and pop into the spirit world, just to check things out. He knew he would never be able to focus if he didn't find out what had become of her in this lifetime.
"What is your question?"
"Is there another that is reincarnated with me every lifetime?"
"Yes."
"Who is it?"
Images bombarded him, memories of lifetimes gone by. They were all similar to the dream about the air-bender girl, scenes of romance. Every time she was different, as was he. In fact, as often as not, he was a girl and it was a bright-eyed man holding him tight.
A few times they failed to meet in their lifetimes, dying sad and alone, or with family but greatly unsatisfied (like the way Aang found himself now.) He was astonished to find that sometimes, both were the same sex and it was only a deep and everlasting bond of friendship between the two as it was with Roku and his earth bending teacher. A few times they were brothers, once they were twin sisters, another time they were first cousins.
But there was never a life without the bright-eyed one.
His memories stopped at Roku, the lifetime before this one. It was the lifetime before he was born as an air bender who would trap himself in an iceberg for 100 years. Aang wasn't shown even a single memory from his early life, before the iceberg, which felt to Aang like a past life these days.
"But who is the bright-eyed one now?" Aang asked, desperately.
"I don't know."
"But you must!"
"Why must I? I am not all-knowing!"
"Is she dead? Can you at least tell me that? Was she killed in war?"
"Yes, many times."
"I meant, was she killed in this war, the one against the fire nation?"
"Oh, no, you will not find your other half here in the spirit world, the bright-eyed one lives as a mortal."
"But who?"
"You must find that out yourself, Avatar Aang."
Aang arrived an hour late to the meeting. Everyone was milling around in boredom. Zuko was laying reclined on a windowsill that wasn't meant for sitting in, twirling his thumbs and humming something to himself. Sokka was flinging his boomerang into a thick wooden beam, yanking it out, and flinging it back in. Toph was sitting as still as the mountains that rose outside the window behind her, staring with her blank eyes at the beam that Sokka flung his blade into—the strongest source of vibration around. However, when Aang's feet touched down ever-so-lightly on the mat right outside the door, her head snapped his way and she smiled, "He's here!"
The others, though capable of sight, hadn't noticed. They looked sheepish in the way that one does when a blind person notices something first. Zuko sat up without putting his hands on the sill and then hoped down to stand respectfully. He smiled hugely at his friend, greeted him.
"Sorry I'm late. I got caught up." Aang said. He liked that no one asked for details. He had so much to do, it was entirely likely that one thing or another would steal away his time.
"Can we start this thing?" Sokka asked, "I'm getting hungry."
The meeting was a short one; all plans previously in place were running smoothly, and no occasion warranted the need for further plans to be made. When the meeting was adjourned, Sokka and several others hurried away in search of nourishment, Zuko held back and took a seat opposite his tattooed friend at the table,
"The word is something's bothering you." He said. Aang double looked the Fire Lord, who looked at him with understanding eyes, one healthy and one badly scarred. He had a beard now, something Aang tried a few years ago, but it irritated Katara's skin when he kissed her so he'd shaved it off. (Aang didn't realize this, but Zuko had begun growing his beard shortly after Aang told him why he'd saved his off.)
"Who told you that?" Aang asked.
"Several people." Zuko said, stroking his beard in a way he used to see his uncle do a lot; the way of a wise man. But it wasn't an act; Zuko really had become incredibly wise while no one was looking. "You're surrounded by people who care for you, you know."
Aang lifted one side of his mouth, "Why is it that you never fail to remind me of that?"
"Because it's true." The fire lord said. "You're lucky. Don't take it for granted."
"I just have a lot of things on my mind." Aang said. Zuko sighed and stood with a shrug. "Okay, I guess I have no right to demand secrets from you."
Aang was too distracted to even care what that implied.
The Avatar closed his eyes and sought the serenity of meditation—even though he was on a tight schedule and had somewhere to be. He needed quiet. He needed no thoughts. He needed rest.
He was beginning to wish he'd never remembered his soul mate—the feeling of being complete or not, it so-far only brought more stress into his life.
"My turn."
Aang jumped, lifting a foot or so more into the air than normal. As he did, Toph lost sight of him, but he was back in his chair soon enough and turned in her direction where she sat on a bench against the wall beneath the window. She smiled, "Spare a minute for an old friend?" She asked.
Aang's laugh was soft, boyish. "Toph. I didn't know you were still here."
"Zuko didn't, either." Toph laughed. "He had a super-secret tone when he spoke, the kind of tone people get when they think they are alone in someone's confidence."
"Eves dropping is a well-developed practice or yours, then?" Aang laughed. He stood, took exactly five steps to cross the room and took the place on the bench beside her. She laughed, "Maybe. It has served me well."
"Oh, yeah? Have any kind of juicy details to share about our friends?"
"Plenty." She laughed. Aang shifted in his seat. Toph wished she knew if he was looking right at her or not. He lay back against the wall, sighed. Toph imagined his eyes were closed.
"Uh-oh." Toph turned to look at him. She used to not even bother doing this—what was the point?—but someone advised her that people liked being looked at when spoken to, and that it was that simple act alone that helped spawn trust. Since then she'd put effort into it, even practicing leveling hers eyes at the height of the eyes of whomever she spoke too; a sort of blind target practice. "That sigh sounded like a spans-lifetimes-kind-of-trouble."
"It is!" Aang declared, his surprise evident. "But, then, why am I surprised?" He sat up straight again as he spoke, turning her way. "You're an old soul."
"It takes one to recognize one." She said, trying to do a kind of playful jut with her chin. She didn't like doing things like this, usually, but they were the things, she was told, that people liked to see.
"Yeah—" Aang's voice broke off very suddenly and in the same moment he was gone from her radar. She couldn't see him—he must have lifted himself up into the air.
She felt his fingers on her forehead first, and then she could see him again, he was standing on his feet in front of her.
He was brushing her hair from her eyes. She could feel his blood pulsing in his feet on the ground and in the touch of his finger tips on her skin—his heart was racing. He tilted her face up, he stopped breathing. He closed the distance between them and gasped. "It's you!"
Aang had been so used to the idea that Toph had no eyes. She had always kept them hidden behind her bangs, but when she spoke, the way she moved her head and made her bangs part, he'd seen because of his close proximity, the thing he'd missed all along: a spark, a brightness that shone in the filmy white veil that covered her faintly-green irises.
Bright eyes.
Old soul.
Best friend.
In his surprise, he wafted himself upright, straight to his feet, landing in front of her. He brushed away the hair that hid his treasure and tilted her face upwards for a better look, for conformation. She sat silent the whole time, bewildered by his actions.
"It's you!" He breathed. He didn't even realize that he closed the space between them as he said it. He thought of all the times they'd shared a laugh, or a fear, or a meal over the years. He'd been drawn to her from the moment he met her. She had always been something of a challenge for him—not just because of the blind thing, but because of the way she wouldn't allow weakness or doubt in him, as if she knew he was capable of what she asked. As if she just knew.
He opened his mouth to explain but she said, "It's about time you remembered. I was getting worried."
Aang's thoughts ground to a halt, the space opened between them again. He blinked at her, "You knew?"
She nodded, "For a little over a year now—it's why I was suddenly happy all the time. You noticed once, and asked me. I was going to tell you but then Katara…" She didn't need to finish her sentence. She didn't have too, Aang could recall the occasion.
Something was happening inside of him—stress was crumbling away. Aang suddenly made a loud exclamation and wafted up into the air again, twirling around in his exuberance. "Do you know what this means?" He asked.
"What?" Her voice was the breathiest it had ever been in this lifetime. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Surely it was causing an earth quake?
"I'm saved!" He said. He embraced her tightly, exciting a landslide inside of her. "It's you!" He released her and danced through the room for a minute. "A friend, a friend." He was saying, the relief inside of him oozing in his every word, "Thank the spirits they just made you my friend this time." He was relieved beyond words. He'd been so afraid he'd have to break his family apart, but no.
This time, the spirits sent the bright eyed one as a trusty friend!
Aang explained to Toph that he'd remembered her shortly after Lee was born and spent since then trying to, as he said, "figure it all out." When he explained what he'd learned in the spirit world, that sometimes the two of them spent entire lifetimes as dear friends, Toph finally realized what he was going on about.
It may have taken her longer than others would have needed, but she'd been carried away by the hammering heart in her chest that sang to her, telling her she wouldn't be alone this time—not this time. The weight of the loneliness from her last two lives—the lives in which she would have met Aang had he not become frozen beneath the sea—had been blowing away and it wasn't until Aang explain it to her that she understood him.
They were going to remain just friends.
And Aang was relieved at the thought.
The earth would have cracked open along with Toph's heart if at that moment Aang hadn't realized the time and, laughing said, "Listen, soul-buddy, I really need to get to Ba Sing Se, but we should definitely set aside some time to reminisce." The happiness in his voice, the freedom, the relief, buried Toph.
She could only nod. And then, in a waft of air that she felt push her bangs back, he was off her radar and she could hear him laughing on the wind as he blew away.
So it was to be three lives of loneliness for the bright-eyed one.
She wasn't planning on stealing Aang from Katara, Toph might have been a home wrecker in one or two past lives, but she couldn't be in this one. Katara was too wonderful; and Sokka was too vengeful. He knew Toph was a girl, but to hell if he would treat her like one for ruining his sister's perfect life, and Toph knew it.
However, she also knew a thing or two about how the Fire Lord used to spend his summers, which helped with the guilt side of things whenever Toph caught herself thinking about Aang in that way. Was it really home wrecking if the wife wrecked it first?
Not that any of it matter. It was all a wild fantasy for Toph. Aang honestly thought they were meant to be friends. He was his old self again; always a little too happy, always doting on Katara; always ready to have a laugh with friends, and Toph was invisible to him in that way again.
The change in Aang was noted by everyone close to him.
Zuko congratulated himself for keeping it together and not confessing everything in a guilt-ridden minute, convinced as he was that Aang had discovered the affair. (Though it was a number of years behind them now, Zuko still unconsciously thought of it in the present tense.)
Katara didn't know what to make of it, and feared the worst. In her wildest imagination, she believed Aang had confronted Zuko about everything. Zuko had of course told all the secrets to regain Aang's trust, and perhaps convinced the avatar that he has long been out-of-love with the water bender, thus allowing Aang to find forgiveness and become his old self again.
That was probably what happened, Katara was ninety eight percent sure of it, but she didn't dare bring it up, and she couldn't ask Zuko. That would mean reestablishing contact. She knew her own weakness. If she spoke to or saw Zuko again she would lose control, hurt someone; Aang, her children. She could never do that. She let Aang visit the Fire nation alone every year, and to keep it from being obvious, she also stayed home for spring as well and missed the Earth kingdom festivals.
It wasn't a meeting for the Order, but they were all in Ba Sing Se for the earth kingdom festivals. The group of friends relaxed in the palace gardens. This was the Fire Lord's only vacation, so Zuko was asleep in the shade. Sokka and Suki were playing some chasing game through the hedges. Toph sat with her chin on her knees as she followed the vibrations of the happy couple. She didn't allow herself to feel jealousy or longing.
Toph had closed off once more, but the change was not as evident as Aang's recent recovery from his depression. Zuko didn't notice, and Aang believed she was only being herself again, his good ol' soul-buddy, but Sokka did notice (he was becoming more receptive of these things lately), which was why he and his wife came giggling out of the hedges with a plan and dropped down beside little Toph.
"Have you ever met my brother?" Suki asked her.
Surprised, Toph sat up straight and turned her head in Suki's direction. "No. Why?"
"I think you'll like him."
"What's he like?"
"He's got Sokka's build," Suki began.
"Well, he's shorter," Sokka interjected.
"Yes, dark hair,"
"—and his neck is thicker too, I think,"
"Anyway," Suki said, "looks don't matter, but I think you two will be adorable together!"
It took a few seconds for what Suki was saying to register. Toph's soft chin fell. "What?"
"Come on," Suki said. "We're all girls here."
Strangely her husband didn't respond to that, but kept tapping his foot in a passing-time- kind of way. Toph bit back a chuckle and shook her head. "If you say so."
"Listen, I know, okay?" Suki said, putting an arm around her. "I've been there. As one earth fighter to another, it is scary. You go your whole life convinced that you don't need a man to take care of you but then one day, something changes."
Sokka's tapping stopped and he moved closer to his wife to give her a very wet sounding kiss. Toph rolled her eyes behind her bangs and sighed. "Listen, it's not really like that okay?"
"Sure it is!" Suki said brightly. "We noticed that little phase where you dressed for the boys—hey, it's perfectly all right!" she insisted when Toph began to deny it, "It's natural. It's right. It's what I'm trying to tell you, Toph. You shouldn't give up so quickly. Just because a man didn't come out of the wood work doesn't mean you should stop trying."
Toph couldn't really see them anymore. They were both setting super still like people do when they are pitching a slightly ridiculous idea. Toph shook her bangs and rested her chin on her knee again.
"There's someone out there for you." Sokka promised.
"I know there is." She said rather wearily.
"So do you want to meet my brother?"
Toph really didn't see the point. "I don't know…there's kind of someone else…"
"Really?" Suki asked, not bothering to hide her surprise.
Toph considered explaining how she was Aang's soul-mate and they were meant to be together, but Aang had married the wrong person. She knew in that moment a hundred lives where she had betrayed the Avatar; and a handful were for selfish reasons like this, but she also knew that he would get over it. He always did. She opened her mouth to speak, but something stopped her; the question of why it would be a betrayal in the first place.
Because it was a secret.
Suki was waiting for an answer. Toph shrugged. "Never mind, it doesn't really count."
There was the kind of silence that meant the seeing-folk were trading weird looks, talking with their eyes. Toph had to say something since she opened her mouth, so she shrugged. "I'll meet your brother. I might as well."
"Excellent! He will be here in the summer for work." Suki kept talking, explaining whatever it was that her brother did, but Toph stopped listening. Aang's light footsteps were coming down the path.
Aang was in ear shot when Suki said something about how excited her brother was to meet the best earth bender in the world. Aang's footsteps stopped and then moved away, down a different path, out of ear shot again.
Toph excused herself at her very next opportunity, her heart racing like it does when someone makes a small mistake that will have much greater consequences than anticipated. She didn't want to meet Suki's brother, or date him or do any of that stuff, but she couldn't say that to Suki and have people wonder why. Her agreement was meant to get Suki to shut up, but suddenly it was like she was already dating the guy.
She walked with determination down a curving path toward the meditation garden. Mo Mo was chasing a butterfly from rock to rock in the middle of a sand pit raked to resemble waves in the ocean. There were no footprints in the waves to prove someone had been there, but Toph stopped on the edge of the sand and spoke to the man who was never too far from the lemur.
Aang had just returned from a small crisis in another part of the capital. Now that it was settled, the others would expect him back in the garden, but Aang needed more and more meditation lately. He sat on the biggest boulder, trying not to think of anything in particular, but as usual ended up thinking about the bright-eyed one in general.
From the myriad of lifetimes that the avatar could recollect, it seemed that she was born an earth bender more than she wasn't, which explained how Toph could be so powerful now; she was only combining everything she ever knew, but it also left the avatar uneasy, for those lifetimes tended to line up with his Air bending cycle…opposites certainly did attract.
"Why don't you tell anyone?" Toph's voice broke into Aang's memory surfing. Aang fell backwards off the rock. He landed with a mighty huff that stirred the branches of the tree above him. Mo Mo stopped his wrestling with an imaginary foe and sat up to tilt his head inquiringly at his spirit-brother. Aang laughed to himself as he found a more dignified position and then climbed back onto the rock. "Whoops." He said light heartedly.
Toph had parted her bangs, something Aang noticed she did ever since he recognized her eyes. She wasn't smiling, but her left eyebrow was raised in mild amusement. "I didn't scare you did I?"
"What was the question?" Aang asked instead.
Toph didn't bother to look in his direction or do any of the stuff that made people comfortable. She looked straight on, missing Aang by several feet. "You know what."
Aang scratched his eyebrow. There was no pretending that they weren't having this conversation. His voice was soft and directed at the ground. "I think our past romances will only confuse people."
"You mean confuse Katara." Toph scathed, crossing her arms.
Aang looked at the earth bender and scoffed a little cruelly. "Yes. I don't want to hurt my wife. How is that a bad thing?"
Toph opened her mouth to speak, but caught herself just in time. That was not her secret to tell, however badly she wanted to. It would be best if he heard it from Katara, or even Zuko, but no purpose would be served in Toph telling him. If she did he wouldn't be able to think of anything else when he looked at her.
"I think she will understand," Toph hedged instead.
"Stop it." Aang said sternly. "We can only be friends in this life."
"Says who?"
Aang gulped. "It just has to be this way."
Toph walked through the deep sand pit. With her sense of sight temporarily dulled, she actually put her hands out to feel the rock before she crashed into it. It might also have been a reaction to the turmoil she felt inside that made it hard to focus on anything else, let alone the faint vibrations through sand.
The sight of the strong and beautiful little Toph feeling her way past the rocks like a blind child who couldn't trust the world twisted Aang's heart. He wafted to his knees and reached down to give her a guiding hand. Though small, she was solid, and he ended up having to use two hands to pull her onto the rock beside him.
As soon as she was steady, she jerked her hands away. "I'm fine!" she snapped, sweeping her fingers beneath her bangs to dry an eye. "I don't need your pity!"
Aang had never seen her cry before. He pushed her hair aside to see if it was truly happening. She hiccupped at his touch, her eyes swiveling slightly to meet his blindly. A fat tear drop leaked out of the corner of her eye. Aang watched it travel down her pearly skin and then caught it before it dripped from her chin.
She grabbed his hand like someone lost in the dark. In the space where the knee-jerk reaction to cheating was supposed to happen, Aang hesitated and then laced his fingers with hers. At the moment he was having trouble remembering why he couldn't have her.
"Kiss me?" she asked in a broken whisper. She would kiss him, but she had never done anything like that before, and didn't want to trust her blind aim.
There was one tantalizing moment when they both thought it was going to happen; but it didn't.
"I'm sorry." He whispered hoarsely, releasing her hand and jumping from the rock. A ripple of vibration in the sand was him landing. She listened hard but there was no further sign that he took another step.
Her walls were down. She cast everything to the wind.
"Our destinies are one." She said. Unable to judge the distance in which to pitch her voice, it was a little too loud. "They always are. Do you know what it was like for me last time? To meet my destiny and still leave my life unfulfilled? That happened twice you know! I haven't seen you since I was Roku's Sifu earth master! That's three lifetimes I haven't been loved like I should be! You didn't hold up your end. You didn't find me."
Aang turned, the staff in his hand cracking into a small boulder by accident, providing her with a target. Her eyes locked on him, disconcertingly bang-on-target with his. Aang found he couldn't look away from the spark that knew him better than he knew himself at the moment.
"I-I'm truly sorry you had to endure that." He choked.
She was openly crying. Sobs were shaking her shoulders. Aang was looking at a complete stranger and the only person he really knew at the same time.
"It changed me," she said, sniffing, "and I know it's hard for you to get past what I've become. I was guarded for too long. We've built a friendship that you can't reinterpret…but honestly, I don't know if I can do this without you three times in a row…"
The longer Aang stood there, the more fractures in his heart he detected. It had broken a long time ago and he hadn't even noticed. Like a true earth bender, she was finding the fault-lines and moving them. They were widening.
"I'm sorry," he gasped again. "I didn't mean to mess this up."
He sank onto his haunches and hugged his knees, banging his forehead softly on his knee caps. He couldn't surrender to anything now. If he did it would be the point of no return. All he could hear was Zuko's warning that he would be consumed by it.
"You're right," Aang said. "If I can't tell anyone about this then it isn't just a friendship. But I can't do what you're asking me to do; I can't leave my wife. We have children. They wouldn't understand."
"They will when they're older—" Toph insisted, cutting off just in time. It won't be the only thing they will have to accept. She thought silently.
"I can't do that to them." Aang said with finality. "And I don't think I can see you anymore."
Then the sand moved under a wind front and he was gone.
The echo was still a new thing to Toph. She lost her breath as she experienced her current anger and heart break with a memory of the same emotion from a fire-bending life. The effect was that lava boiled under her crumbling rock facade. She didn't return to the grassy lawn where everyone else lounged. She packed her bags and left the city to be with the moles again.
This time, maybe they could teach her how to forget.
Aang landed on the cliff top as the wind stirred the dust. He took a deep breath to steel himself. He didn't know if Toph would be here or not. They really needed to work out some kind of schedule. Maybe Aang could send his opinions by letter instead of actually showing up? He could put the spare time toward the Air Temple Effort. Excited about this plan of action, Aang stepped into the house.
Sokka was eating and explaining the new code system. Zuko was complaining about relearning a whole knew one. The water master was defending his newest work.
"I was just getting the hang of the last one!" Zuko said.
"Well, good for you, it only took you two years, and by the way, Sokka's three year old figured it out faster than you!"
"Maybe that's because you came up with that one too."
"If my codes are so easy then why can't you just learn this one?"
"That's it!" Zuko's chair jumped backwards as he stood too quickly, his fist ready for a punch. The water bender threw up his hands, not in a surrendering kind of way, but in a ready-for-anything way. Sokka was trying to make them stop arguing.
"What's going on here?" Aang asked.
Sokka turned and sighed with relief. "Aang thank gods. Make the peace will you?"
"What's the problem?"
"Nothing," Zuko said, snatching up his copy of the new code and sulking to the windowsill to study it. The water bender rolled his eyes. "You know, for a fire lord, he likes to complain a lot."
"I've never heard him complain." Aang said.
"He's trying something new. I think it's called being an a—"
"Okay," Aang interjected. "I'll find out what's bothering him."
"Nothing is bothering me," Zuko growled.
The water bender snorted lightly. Sokka sighed and smoothed his eyebrows. "Boy, where's Rock Fist when you need her, huh? She usually keeps these two in line."
"What?" Aang asked. He looked all around the room, checking the corners twice. "Toph isn't here?"
"No." Sokka said.
"Then how did you get in here? This is her house!"
"She said we could use it. She's back in the country. Didn't she tell you that?" Sokka asked.
"Huh? Oh, she must have… I guess I forgot." Aang said, trying to reinforce his composure before any cracks were seen. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He had hoped he wouldn't have to see her, but now that she was truly not here, he felt like he was stuck in some quicksand. He made a mental note of high priority to write her as soon as possible with his new idea to let her have the White Lotus Meetings; she never liked going into the city for festivals anyway.
"What does she do in the country so much that she keeps going out there?" Zuko mused aloud. "You think she has a lover?" he jumped his eyebrows. Aang wasn't amused at all.
"Come on, it's Toph." Sokka said. "She's living with the moles; she eats bugs and she digs."
"Hey, no need to ridicule." Aang said. Sokka's eyes widened innocently and he held up his palms. "Hey, I'm not judging. It's just who she is. I think she's become such a powerful earth bender that she's…I don't know…becoming the rock. Isn't that how bending rock works? You have to be the rock. She's so good at it, I think it's starting to actually happen, you know?"
Zuko was looking at Sokka through his scrunched eyebrows. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"It's not a crazy as your lover theory."
"What's so crazy about that theory?" Aang asked.
"Nothing I guess," Sokka admitted, squirming like a boy who was admitting that buggers tasted all right. "There's bound to be one person out there who's into that kind of thing, but I don't think he's here. Tell me seriously, have any of you ever thought of Toph in that way?"
Aang opened his mouth to retort that, as a matter of fact, he did think of her that way—but then he stopped himself. Sokka had worded his question very precisely without meaning to, without even understanding the full compass of his inquiry. He's asked if men thought of Toph in that way, not if men thought of the Bright Eyed One.
Aang thought back on all his time spent with his earth bending soul buddy. Even the few moments when the touch of her skin made his heart pound like a rock on a drum, he had been wrapped in the memory of all her other touches. He could think of no moment when Toph, Little Toph in all her unique wonders in this life alone, ever captivated him.
He was sorry to find that there was none, except one memory, from the last time he saw her, crying openly and begging him to look past what she had become.
Aang hadn't truly understood what she had been talking about, for in the moment, she was being all he ever remembered, Light, Strength, and Harmony—but she had been asking him in to merge the two conflicting ideas of what he felt with what he saw. He had to think of Toph as the bright eyed one, not the bright eyed one as Toph—that made all the difference.
Either he loved her eyes, or he loved Toph.
"I need some air." Aang said past a dry throat.
Mother Dig stomped her foot once and scratched the floor of the tunnel. She wanted to know what was bothering The One Who Lived in the Light. Toph took a deep breath of cold air that smelled and tasted like old earth. They were a few hundred miles under ground; this soil was created over a million years ago. It felt like home to Toph here, surrounded by the spirits of her earliest lives.
Things were simpler down here. The memories this smell provoked were trouble-free; sweet memories of a love that was undemanding. So far, all of the memories from her later lives left a heavy weight in her stomach. Maybe it was beginning to get too complicated, this thing between her and the avatar. Maybe what they were doing was a good thing. Keep away from each other for a few lifetimes. Clean the slate. Meet anew. Then maybe it wouldn't feel so much like baggage.
This wasn't something she could explain to Mother Dig.
A stomp, two scratches, a sweep, then two stomps; three scratches, and another sweep. The One Who Lived in the Light was fine, just thinking about the Age of These Spirits. She would have liked to live Back Then.
Mother Dig dug her claws deep into the earth and scratched once, then swept the lines away. Why in Earth would The One Who Lived in the Light want to live Back Then?
Toph scratched the rock twice and then stomped each foot once for emphasis. Because it was Good.
The soil turned into impenetrable diamond. No.
Mother Dig swept three times and stomped twice. Now is Good.
Toph shook her head as she swept three times and then stomped three times. Now is Bad.
Mother Dig scratched the earth. Why?
Toph stomped four times. Pain.
Three scratches, four sweeps. Pain is in All Time.
With a deep breath that made her feel one with the earth in which she burrowed, Toph found Mother's Dig's soft fur and stroked her massive foreleg. Mother Dig's tongue flicked the tip of Toph's nose. She smiled, and the diamond turned back into moveable soil.
Even though she was blind, Toph knew the moment the light was visible. It was the end of her radar; the source of the Breathe. The feeling of that endless untaken space was the color blue to Toph. When she was a small child, the teachers told her things, like that the grass was green and the sky was blue, as if she understood colors; later another tutor tried to attribute each color to something she could feel or taste. All that stuck with her from that lesson were things like Red was the smell of ripe, juicy strawberries, or yellow was the warmth of the sun, but Blue had proven too difficult to translate. It remained that great big, giant untouchable thing that lay just out of her unique sense of sight; the sky.
She had retreated underground to find a way to forget, but now she returned to the light having learned acceptance instead. She couldn't erase the bad things; all she could do was live through them. Whether she did that with a smile or a frown was up to her.
Appa flew too slowly. Usually, Aang's commute between cities was his only moment of peace and he relaxed and enjoyed the ride, but now that he wanted to get somewhere as fast a possible, he realized how slow Appa was actually becoming.
"Yip! Yip!" Aang called, flicking the reigns.
Appa groaned and growled. This was as fast as he could go. Aang grew sad at the thought and patted Appa's thick furry neck. "Oh boy. You're getting old aren't you?"
Appa rumbled as if to say, yes, very old, glad you could catch on today.
Aang laughed and scratched Appa in his favorite spot, right between the horns. "I'm sorry, buddy. I've missed a lot of obvious things lately. This will be our last trip, what do you say? There and back again, and then you can retire, be old king of the herd. Sound like fun?"
Appa growled in the affirmative.
"Toph! What are you doing here?"
"I know I should have asked if I could come first."
"No, no, it's fine. I just—Hi."
"Hi. I know you said we can't be around each other anymore, but, well, maybe it doesn't have to be that way. I wasn't making it very easy for you to be around me before, and I just wanted you to know that I am going to work on that. I'll be the good old me again. Just Toph. I think so long as you don't look dead into my eyes we can be okay, don't you?"
"What's gotten into you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean how can you decide to just forget everything and pretend it never happened? How is it even possible?"
"It's not. You were right. We can just be soul-buddies, because maybe that's all we are meant to be. I wasn't really giving it my all last time. I was convinced I was supposed to be the one on the avatar's arm, but that's just not how you see me, and I'm okay with that now."
"Toph…"
"Really, Aang," she said, driving home her sincerity. "Why do we have to make this complicated? Maybe, if you had met me first, before I ran away and became a rock, then I would be a mother of two and traveling the world with you, but you met Katara first, and you loved her first, and I've only ever been a friend to you, right?"
Aang didn't speak at his turn.
"Right?"
"Yes." He admitted softly. "I'm sorry."
"No apologies. The mountain formed this way."
After one incredible night, and a close shave the next morning, Zuko stopped expecting Katara in the summer. Aang came alone, or with the kids-, and sometimes a member of the White Lotus hitched a ride on business. Aang said once that Katara didn't like the heat of the summers and preferred the crisp air of the poles this time of year. Zuko had wanted to send an invitation for the winter and see how she would worm out of that one, but that was only his wounded ego scheming. She had said they wouldn't deny their love, but with each passing year, her absence began to feel more and more like a write off. Maybe the separation was doing what sheer force of will couldn't. She was finally able to cut the chain. She was free of him.
Zuko took up drinking after that. It was only Uncle's Special Tea, enough to put him to sleep every night. Regrettably, as fire lord, he couldn't make it a full time hobby. Aang said nothing when he learned of this, but asked for a cup.
It had been a good day, but fate liked to deliver doozies every now and again. This one had hit the avatar at midday, when he passed a sitting room where Zuko's great aunt's harpsichord still sat polished and brand-new looking in the center of a rug. Someone was playing a lovely tune. He stepped in to have a look.
It was one of the noble's daughters, concentrating hard as she watched the keys she pressed in time to the metronome. Aang had forgotten just how sweet a harpsichord sounded, but just as soon as he thought this did it change and become nothing but a slightly clunky and annoying buzzy sound like he remembered.
The girl faltered through a new section that was just a tad out of her current skill. Then the chorus, and easiest part of the song, repeated, and the beauty returned. This time Aang was able to identify the improvement as a human voice.
Smiling politely, and softly congratulating the girl for her perseverance and growing skill, Aang went to the balcony doors to have a look at who was outside humming the words.
To his utter surprise it was Toph. He even took the extra three steps to the left to see the entire balcony. She was the only one out there. The beautiful sound that saved the song was coming from tough little Toph.
Aang had been picturing some elegant lady of the court leaning on the railing as she fluttered a hand-painted fan before her face and stared longingly into the distance, where adventures happened; not Toph, who sat cross-legged on the railing with her back to the magnificent view, unafraid that a gust of wind might blow her to her death; for not only was she too solid to tempt the wind, but the ground answered to her and would catch her if she fell.
The moment he stepped in front of the glass doors, Toph perked up and stopped her humming. "That you, twinkle-toes?"
"Yep," he said joyfully. "Was that you singing?"
"I wasn't singing." She said.
"Yes you were."
She shrugged. "I was only humming. Do you know the words?"
"Not all of them."
"Teach me what you know." She said. "Or else later this tune will drive me crazy."
Laughing, Aang pulled himself up to sit beside her, his legs dangling over the side so that he could see the city, and sitting together like that, Aang taught her the lyrics.
"Yeah, that's it. You got it." Aang said an hour later, when Toph finished singing the song. She smiled. Aang smiled to; it wasn't a friend smile. Before he knew it, his hand was lifting to touch her face-but then she spoke, oblivious to the existence of the moment. "It's a pretty good song isn't?"
Aang took a deep breath and tried to shake it off and silently reprimanded himself. He wasn't supposed to look in her eyes!
…But he hadn't. Her eyes weren't showing at all; they were safely hid behind a thick curtain of bangs.
"If I could see the keys and the music, I probably would have learned to play it," She said conversationally.
Aang had an idea about how she could learn, but at the moment it felt too much like something he wasn't supposed to do. Sitting next to her on a small bench and guiding her fingers to each key meant a lot of touching and soft voices—those two things usually led to a different way of passing the time than music. He only nodded and agreed; it would have been nice if she had been able to see.
He excused himself and returned to the errand from which he had been momentarily side-tracked. The rest of the day had been suffered with a constant berating narrative running in the background.
Tell me seriously, have any of you ever thought of Toph in that way?
The bright eyed one.
I know it's hard for you to get past what I've become
Soul buddies.
…but honestly, I don't know if I can do this without you three times in a row.
When Zuko admitted that Uncle's Special Tea wasn't just an ordinary tea, it felt like the signal to the end of a day that had gone on long enough. Aang asked for a cup. Zuko double looked him "I didn't know you drank."
"I think it's time I started. Just a taste." Aang said.
Zuko poured a generous amount and passed it to the avatar. "What's eating you?" The unintended emphasis on the word you made the avatar double look the fire lord. "You first."
Zuko emptied half his cup. "Mae hates me."
Aang's eyebrows went up. "You sound certain."
Zuko laughed.
"Well, when was the last time you were with her?"
Zuko looked up from the steaming surface of his tea into the younger man's face. "With her or, you know, with her?"
Aang chuckled. "Either. Or Both."
Zuko scratched the back of his head. "Uh…eight, nine years ago?"
Aang choked on the special tea. "What?"
Zuko laughed pathetically. "I told you."
"Wow…and I thought I had it bad." Aang said, almost to himself.
Zuko refreshed his cup. "Oh yeah? Tell me about it."
"Oh no, not until we solve yours," Aang said. This was his natural defense mechanism. FixFixFix. So long as he had work to do, he didn't have to worry about himself. "Have you tried giving her flowers?"
Zuko's face contorted in disgust, as if Aang had asked if he gave Mae a jar of slugs. "I don't think that would work."
"How do you know? Have you ever tried?"
"Well…no, but—"
"Then don't knock it until you've tried it." Aang said. "Give her flowers. It works every time."