Now she walked arm in arm with Katara at her right and Aang at her left. It was mortifying to be in this position. She had spent so much time being independent of her friends, that now that she was being forced to depend on them so fully was ... Indescribably uncomfortable.

Sokka led the way with his endless chatter. He continued to blather on about how much had changed, how the village had grown into a city. He talked of how he'd resumed training the boys of the tribe when he'd returned, and mentioned something about a star pupil. It wasn't until he said something about two of the youngest of his recruits who had begun to show promise of bending that Katara had started to take over the conversation.

Toph had been polite through her half listening. Luckily the only conversational contributions required of her was the occasional nod, with a frequent "Hmmm," "Nice" or, "Wow, you guys have been busy."

As interesting as Sokka's armed training regiment (or Katara's two potential pupils) was to the young Earth-bender. What she was really concentrating on was counting steps. She'd spent her first six years of life having to cope without any form of sight, even from Earth-bending. Even after Toph met the Badger-moles it had taken her months to learn to see anything through her Earth-bending. Now she drew upon the experience in her earliest childhood to attempt some form of self sufficiency.

But like all worthwhile endeavors, it would take time.

Now they made it to the clothing shop, and Toph felt the temperature of the room increase dramatically. She heard a fire crackling somewhere on the far side of the room. Toph also felt the 'Thunk' of her boots on the first hardwood floor she'd been on since she'd come to the south. The group stopped and Aang unhooked his arm from Toph's hand.

Toph lightly squeezed Katara's arm with anticipation

"Toph, if you want to you can-"

Toph, not needing any more prompt, immediately flopped down on the floor and began tugging at the bootstraps in an attempt to get the boots off. Katara giggled, partly at Toph's eagerness to get the boots off, and partly at her inability to complete the task. "Toph, slow down," she prompted. "You're making them tighter by pulling like that."

The Earth-bender threw up her arms in surrender and frustration. "Well it's your fault," she complained. "You'rethe one who didn't show me how to take them off."

Katara knelt down and took Toph's boot in her hands. "I'm sorry Toph, i didn't think about it." Katara began working at the straps to one of the boots. It felt to Toph like the Water-bender wasn't making much progress either.
Sokka knelt down and placed a hand on her sister's shoulder. "Here, let me do it. We'll be here all day if you keep going like that."

Toph's heart skipped a beat at the thought of this. It was foolish she knew, Sokka was only taking her boots off. But why was it that she had to put all of her effort into controlling her breathing? Katara's head turned to scowl at her brother, not noticing Toph's reaction. "It doesn't matter, this is a shopping day."

"Yeah, but it doesn't count if we never even enter the store."

Katara sighed and rolled her eyes, but relinquished Toph's leg to her brother. Sokka put both knees on the floor and clamped Toph's foot between them. Toph's body froze to a rocklike state as Sokka concentrated on loosening the straps that kept Toph's foot contained. He started at the bottom, the strap just above the bridge of her foot. Once he managed to loosen it a little and get his finger under the strap it came undone rather quickly. He then repeated this process on the second strap at mid-shin. Then the third up by Toph's knee.

After the straps were undone Sokka placed his left hand under Toph's knee and the other down by her ankle. Toph felt a shiver travel up her thigh to somewhere in her chest as he did this and pulled her boot down her leg. Once the boot was off he released his firm but gentle grip on her leg and Toph released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.

Without prompt Sokka began to repeat the process and Toph let out a faint whimper as she was still recovering from the residual tingling from the first shiver. This whimper caught Katara's attention and she placed a hand on Sokka's wrist stopping him, "Are you alright Toph?"

This interruption shook Toph back into reality and her brain spun trying to catch up with Katara's question and spit out an answer without turning into a pile of babbling goo on the floor. "No ... yeah ... I'm fine," she stammered. "It just feels good to have my feet free again is all."

Sokka gave Katara a suspicious look. "Can i finish now?"

Katara removed her hand. "Yeah, sorry."

Sokka mumbled something about 'being such a mom' but Katara wasn't paying attention. She watched Toph carefully this time as Sokka worked his way up the boot. It was when he pulled Toph's boot off that she saw it, the slight (nearly imperceptible) quiver she'd missed the first time.

"There we go," Sokka declared with a grin, totally unaware of Toph's reactions. "Free as a sparrow-keet. Now for some shopping."
Toph pressed her lips together and nodded, not trusting herself to speak just yet. Sokka's grin grew ear-to-ear and he rose to dash off into the store without so much as a second glance at the blind girl, with Aang only a half step behind. Katara grabbed Toph's arm and helped her friend up, but as Toph came to a standing position Katara whispered. "I saw that"

Toph felt her heart freeze. Even though there could have potentialy been any number of things Katara saw that she could be refering to, Toph knew exactly what she meant. And no matter how much Toph wanted to make it not true, to try and play it off that Katara's foolish eyes were playing games, she couldn't. Toph's usualy sharp and quick mind refused to work fast enough for that sort of non-chalance. Instead, Toph felt her mouth go dry and she tried clenching her stomach to keep it from doing flip-flops.

Katara hadn't meant anything by what she said, in fact she felt kind of happy for her friend. Toph had always been something of a loner, even after the group started getting along, and Katara figured it would do the girl some good to have a crush. Not to mention the world of good the relationship could do for Sokka once he figured it out. But now Katara could see Toph's distress. "Look, Toph, it's okay," she said, turning her friend so Aang and Sokka couldn't see the anxiety in Toph's demeanor. "There's nothing wrong with it."

Toph couldn't believe what was happening. One moment of weakness and she'd let Aang convince her to come down here. Now that moment of weakness had set her up for another and the secret she'd kept for so many years had now gone public. Toph wanted to say something, but the words couldn't get past her throat. She began to shake her head, fast and hard.

This quick and violent motion threw Katara off guard so she wasn't ready to grab Toph's arm before she'd slipped away. Toph was out the door and running down the street they'd just came. Yet for all her need to get away Toph's legs only got her about ten-feet from the door.

Her legs went weak and she fell to her knees. The cold stung her feet but she didn't care. She went to her hands to try and feel her way along the ground and continue her escape. But that position made it more than her poor overstressed body could handle and she threw up. The contents of that morning's sea-food breakfast spilled out in front of her. She felt the puddle spread to her hands, and though she wanted to move them she couldn't, not without falling face first into the sludge.

Then, Katara was at her side. She used her waterbending to whisk away the vomit to the side of the path. Her brother's voice called back to her from the doorway, "What happened? Is she okay?"

Aang's voice was also there too. "Toph, what's wrong?"

Katara turned to glare at them. "Go away," she commanded. The boy's recoiled slightly at Katara's sudden and insistent near-wrath. Katara misspercieved this hesitation as disobediance. "I said, GO." This time the boys ducked back into the store without so much as considering to eavesdrop, for fear of Katara's temper.

Toph hocked out as much of the vomit taste as she could and Katara whisked that away too. Her body began to shudder uncontrolably, partialy in response to throwing up and partialy in response to the cold shooting up through her hands and feet.

Katara, also barefoot, placed a hand on Toph's back and began rubbing, trying to calm her friend. "Shhhhh ... Toph it's okay."

Toph mumbled something that Katara couldn't understand. "Huh?"

Toph spoke again trying to speak as clearly as possible, though it only came out as a faint half groan. "I wanna go home."

Katara put her arm under the girl and helped her up to her knees. "Here, let me take you." Toph wrapped her arms around Katara's neck and allowed herself to be picked up. The earthbender was quite heavy in her arms but Katara was determined to get her friend back to the house without help.

"Katara?" Toph asked, the strain in her voice obvious.

Katara's responding, "Hmmm," came out as more of a groan than a response.

"Don't tell anyone i let you carry me."