"So. you can bendmetal that is incredible. How do you do it" this was the tenth question in a row that Haru had asked her about earthbending, it was her favourite subject but she was quickly getting tired of it.

Toph took a deep breath before answering "With the way I see, I can see earth wherever it may be, like in metal" there was a little more to it than that, but that was as much detail as she was going to go into. He wouldn't really understand it anyway.

"How did you realise you could bend it" Haru had a hundred more questions he wanted to ask her. Seeing how good an earthbender she was made him what to get better. Unfortunately his enthusiasm at being able to really talk to Toph for the first time, blinded him to the fact that she wasn't really involved in the conversation. She would answer all of his question he asked, but her mind was somewhere else.

As Toph was about to answer the question she felt a heart beat starting to race so fast it seemed all most dangerous. Then a second later another heart all most hit the floor, fallowed by one stop for two beats. Toph knew whose hearts these where, and that she had to step in and do some thing now, Before it all ended in tears and the last few days that the family had together would be very uncomfortable, for everyone.

"I just gave it a try" finally she turned fully to Haru, giving him her full attention for the first time. She also gave him her best, innocent little girl look. To say that she was nothing special, it was just a bit of luck.

There where two reasons really that she didn't want to go into any more detail, about how she learned to metalbend. The first was she hadn't told anyone else how she learned it. That she had been kidnapped. That was not something she was ready to deal with yet, That her father had treated her like she was something that he owned. Secondly she had to get away, to be more accurate put herself in the way.

"Will you excuse me. I promised Aang a dance" before Haru could say anything she was already walking away from him onto the dance floor. If she had been paying attention she would have felt his heart sink a little.

Aang was dancing with katara, waiting for the right moment to guild them to a corner by a large window. Then he would get the chance to really talk to her. He had it all planed out, ever world. He was going to make it special, he wasn't going to mess it up like he did before. He wasn't blind thou he could tell that Katara had something important on her mind, that she wasn't really all there.

Katara did feel something for Aang, but she also felt a strong connection to Zuko. She didn't really know when she had started to feel this way, maybe when he helped her really deal with her mothers death for the first time. It had just come on all at once. She too wasn't blind, she knew Aang had something on his mind too, But unlike Aang she had a very good idea of what it was.

A part of her, a very large part of her wanted the something that he did, and was excited about what was going to happen, what he was going to say. There was still the other part thou, that didn't want to deal with all of that now. She still wasn't ready. There was a good chance that she would be caught up in the moment and not make the right choice.

"Mind if I cut in" her voice sounded like it had when they had first met her strong and to the point. There was no femininity to her voice either, it was as if was mocking a noble man cutting into a dance. With Toph thou at times it was hard to know if she was making fun of you or not. They where glad to hear the tone back in her voice. However after the surprise had worn off Aang was a little annoyed, and Katara glad she had a chance to think.

"Good idea, I need a rest" with that Katara walked away into the crowed, silently thanking her blind friend, for arriving at the right minute.

Toph knew what she was doing was very risky, That aang would be angry at her for taking him away from Katara at what he had planed as his big moment. But she had no idea how angry he was going to be. She could feel him clench his hand that was placed on her back. His other hand that was holding her also seemed to be clenching shut, he was only just able to stop from hurting her. His feet sounded like drums in her ears.

"Why do you what to dance all of a sudden. I thought you hated it" there was a bitter tone to his voice that she had never heard before.

Toph could let a lot of thing go, she let Katara insulting her blindness, Zuko burning her feet, Sokka nit taking her seriously as a bender, Aang blaming her for something that wasn't her fault, but this was the last strew.

A wave of anger washed over her. She knew she knew that Aang would annoy her, but she never thought she would get this anger with him. With such force, that Aang almost lost his balance Toph pushed him away, and left the ball room.

On her way out she waked past Sokka. He was about to turn to her asking if she wanted to dance. This was a trick, it was so he could get her on the dance floor, so that the Duke could step in. it was pretty clear that the little guy had a thing for Toph, Sokka found this very cute and decided he would play matchmaker. There was also a element of selfishness in it to, if Toph was in love then he hoped it would make her less violent, since he was the one that suffered the mostly from her violent strike, it would remove a lot of his pain.

When he caught a glimpse of her face as she rushed past, the words on the tip of his tough froze in the air. His eyes looked back the way she had come. Walking slowly after her, with a look of total shock on his face was the avatar.

Aang was trying to think why Toph had reacted like that. Sure he might have used a harsher tone than he had intended. He glanced around the room trying to spot Katara, she would maybe able to help, she would be able to deal with Toph, but the first person he recognised was Sokka. So he made his way to him.

Before he could say a thing Sokka shaped at him "what did you say to Toph"

Since the final battle Sokka and zuko had both become very protective towards Toph. It was mainly to with nearly losing her. But they had become like her two very overprotective older brothers, if he had been older than her Aang would have acted the same way.

"I don't know I just asked her why she wanted to dance all of a sudden that's all"

"Well she seemed upset"

Something just hit Aang, how could he have missed it "her father. She must he upset about what happened with her father, being disowned, than having someone call you by your fully name like that. No wonder she got annoyed with me. I was a…"

"she told you about that" Sokka was finding it really hard to get his head round the fact that Toph had told someone about a problem she had.

"yeah, she told me today. I don't get it thou, she seemed fine. I was the one that got worked up and annoyed about it, she had to calm me down" a faint smile appeared on the young monks face as he thought of hoe odd that was. The person that had been treated badly telling the person they told about it that it was going to be ok "she was just putting up a affront, so I would get close to the real Toph" he was now talking to himself.

"Well she is very good at that" sokka sighed he remembered how she had helped him when he had been worried about Suki "she is also good at putting up affront so people don't worry about her, or think she is weak"

"Makes it hard to get close to her thou" Aang was more surprised than sokka by what he had just said. It was a habit know, just saying what ever came to mined not knowing where it come from.

" Well I guess I'll see how she is. Can you tell…Su"

Before Sokka could finish, Aang stepped in "No I'll go talk to her" his voice had a very determined tone.

"If you're sure" Sokka wanted to make sure that Aang was ok with dealing with it, he didn't want him to go and just make things worse.

"I'm the avatar, I am meant to be good at the whole balance and peace thing" dealing with Toph in a bad mood was defiantly good practice for dealing with any kind of disagreement he would have to try and resolve, it was also much more dangerous.

Aang really if he thought about it had no idea why he had said he would go and speak to Toph. He should be looking for Katara. But all he knew was Toph was a friend, family. And she was upset and he hated to see the people he cared about upset.

I hope you are enjoying the story. No one has answered the questions that I have put at the end of each chapter, so I don't know what you think of the story. Also no said any characters they would like to see in this chapter so I kept the ones I had the last time, so sorry if you wanted a character added in this chapter you should have asked.

Ok, I don't know if there is much point, but I'll keep it up, here are the questions for this chapter. Please let me know what you think.

One. Are the characters interacting in character. Do they seem out of character in any way.

Two. I have the pairing already worked out, but what pairing do you ship. I might be able to work it in a some point in this part, in one of the other 14 parts, that I will be rewriting as well

Three. If you read this story the first time I posted it, have you noticed any changes that you like or don't like. Knowing all of the story possible do you want to change anything.