Chapter 4: Tears
Nightmares plagued Toph while she slept.
It started off with a petrified scream - Katara's. In the dream, it was as pitch black as it was in reality for her, but without any physical ground, Toph couldn't tell what was happening.
"Sokka!" yelled Katara, her voice strained. She kept on calling his name until she broke down, sobbing.
A flash of worry. Toph urgently said to nothing but darkness, "Where is he? What happened?"
"Y-you killed him," stuttered Aang, whose voice had suddenly appeared in the dream. "He's dead."
Panic seized Toph and she felt like all the air had been knocked out of her lungs. "No I didn't!" She searched around wildly, but she was more blind than ever. "Sokka!"
Unidentifiable voices crowded around Toph, reciting a whispered chant. Traitor, they hissed. Murderer. Traitor. Murderer.
Toph tripped over something large. Relieved to have her sense of touch back, she felt what she had stumbled on.
It was Sokka's body.
Blood bubbled up between Toph's fingers when she tried to staunch Sokka's chest wound, dripping down her fingers in warm streams. Toph felt that her eyes were raw and stinging.
Sokka grasped her arm with cold fingers. "You killed me . . ." he whispered, in obvious pain.
"I didn't, I didn't!"
But Sokka's body faded to nothing and Toph was alone once more. The voices had gone quiet, leaving her in a terrible, dark silence. Sokka's blood still dripped off her fingers . . .
Gasping like a fish out of water, Toph lurched up out of her sleeping bag. For a few seconds, she tried to get her composure back together and take in her surroundings.
Everyone was asleep. They had left the Western Air Temple about two days ago, and now it was just Toph, Sokka, Aang, Katara and - surprisingly - Zuko. The prince had come to them to apologize and had joined their side. Katara still didn't trust him, but Toph was cool with it.
But now her thoughts were focused fully on Sokka. She weaved around the sleeping bags, until she reached the snoring boy. Toph crouched down and felt his heartbeat through his clothes. It was reassuringly strong, beating against her fingertips with a vital sense of life.
Sokka was safe. He was alive. It was just a dream.
Toph shivered at the memory of Sokka's betrayed voice and his blood leaking over her hands. Trying to force all thoughts of that out of her head, she decided to take a stroll.
Toph walked in the cool night air until the glow of the campfire had nearly faded away. Then she curled up onto the ground - so comfortingly solid for her - and began to quietly sob.
She felt ashamed of herself for giving into her emotions, but it was impossible to hold back the tears. Drops ran down the sides of her face, due to her position, leaking into her ears. Toph's gulps were muffled into her tunic, and she prayed that no one could hear her.
Footsteps. Toph quickly wiped away her tears and tried to act casual.
The steps were too heavy for Aang, and too loud for either Katara or Zuko. That just left one person . . .
"Sokka," sighed Toph. The last person she wanted to see right now.
"Um, hi," came Sokka's familiar voice as he sat down next to her. "You okay?"
"I'm fine, Meathead," she snapped, fiercely wiping her eyes. "Go back to sleep."
There was an agonizing silence.
"You had a nightmare," Sokka said quietly. "Didn't you?"
The Water Tribe teen was really much smarter than Toph gave him credit for, which annoyed her.
She huffed, turning away from him. "Whatever."
"You're not still mad at me are you?"
Toph had been giving Sokka the cold shoulder recently, since he'd come back from the Boiling Rock. She was half mad because he'd ignored her advice not to go, but mostly because Sokka had come back with Suki in tow. She'd heard from Katara about his old flame, but Suki hadn't seem more real and three-dimensional than a book character. But she had been with them, exchanging moony looks with Sokka, and it had annoyed Toph to no end. It had been hard to squash down her feeling of satisfaction when Suki had gone with Hakoda and the others when they split up when the Air Temple was attacked.
Toph ignored Sokka, and he exhaled exaggeratedly. "How about this: if I tell you a secret, you have to answer me."
"Humph." Toph just grunted in affirmation, but she felt curiosity burn inside her.
She could feel Sokka's shoulders slumping. "Suki and I broke up."
"Oh." She didn't know what she was meant to say to that.
"It was after we'd got back," continued Sokka, "She just came up to me and said that she'd had a lot of time to consider it, and she didn't think we were 'a good match.'"
Toph queried, "Is that why she didn't come with us?"
"Maybe." Sokka let out a bitter half-laugh. "I think she knew that I didn't really feel the same way about her anymore."
"Why?" Now Toph was confused. Sokka adored Suki.
She intuitively knew that Sokka was smirking teasingly. "Maybe I met someone else."
"Good for you." Toph felt a little stab of disappointment. She had imagined Sokka proclaiming his undying love for her, sweeping her up in his arms and kissing her until she felt like her body was floating away. But now he had met someone else . . . was it that irritating Fire Nation gymnast? Since when did being born without bones become attractive?
Okay, maybe it was time to admit she had a little crush on Sokka.
"Your turn." Sokka nudged her. "Did you have a nightmare?"
The words seemed stuck in Toph's throat. "Yeah. I've been having the same nightmare since . . ." She took a deep breath to steel her nerves, "Since the solar eclipse."
Sokka seemed dumbstruck. "That long?"
"Yeah. Yeah." Toph's heart suddenly felt too big for her chest. Why are you saying yeah so much? she thought to herself exasperatedly. "In the dream, I - you -"
Knowing that Sokka's blue, blue eyes would be upon her gave her a burst of confidence. Toph continued, "In the dream, you died."
"Oh."
Toph felt her eyes sting with tears again. "And - and - you say that I killed you, and I -"
She burst into tears again, but this time Sokka's warm arms were around her. Toph hiccuped, embarrassed.
"S-sorry," she mumbled. "I'm just being stupid."
"You don't need to worry," whispered Sokka with surprising gentleness. "I'm here, Toph. I'm here."
Toph hugged him back, and she realized with a smirk that Sokka's heart was racing.
"That's one fast heartbeat you have, Snoozles," she chaffed.
Toph didn't need her sight to know that Sokka was blushing.
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