A one-shot requested of me. Sorry if it seems rushed but I wanted to be quick and get back to all of my other writing projects. Enjoy! :)
"Uh, what are you doing?" Zuko asks, puzzled at the quiet earthbender whom he'd found lying on the floor of her room, hands folded over her stomach with her eyes closed. If he didn't know better he would have thought her asleep, though the fact that her left foot was planted on the stone floor, suggested she'd sensed him coming from a long way and he knew for a fact she'd been waiting up for him.
She'd been the one to find him in his office that morning and ask him to come to her room later. Not for that, Sparky, she said, Get your head out of the gutter. He'd immediately flushed at his assumption and she'd given him a roll of the eyes and a heartfelt jab to the ribs before running off, leaving him to his paperwork. It had been a bit of a whirlwind, her showing up so suddenly after not having seen or heard from her for three months. He'd been in too much shock at the time to even remember how upset he'd been during all that time she was gone.
"Nothing," she says with a mild disgruntlement as she opens her eyes. "Just can't stand your beds. Too soft." He can't help the small upward tug of his lips as he remembers how she had once impaled a spike through one of her beds simply for the act of being too comfortable. But then he's reminded of how she had led him away from his office once, taken him to a private part of the garden, kissing him and mumbling about how much she hated that bed, how much she prefered it here, on the grass and open air, seeking warmth and finding it.
For a moment he's bewildered as to what to do, too caught up in memories until Toph gives a quick pat to a the spot next to her and breaks up his reverie. "Come on, Sparky, I don't bite."
He lets out a huff of air and a smile she can't see and lays down beside her, moving until he's comfortable on his back. His eyes strain not look at her, though he longed to, had wanted to ever since she had left the palace, citing that the earth kingdom needed their ambassador back and no it wasn't because of anything having to do with him, she just had to go home.
He couldn't tell if she'd been lying then. But how could he ask her to stay? Why would she even want to? To be secret mistress to the Fire Lord? He hadn't the right and he'd known that then, no matter how he detested it.
She'd left him then, with an ache and a longing he hadn't been able to stifle, no matter how many times he told himself he was a married man and a father, and that he should have been better than succumbing to whatever lust he had for his best friend.
It'd been a hard three months.
"Is there something you want to talk about?" Zuko wonders aloud after having laid in silence for a time, him staring up at the ceiling and it's ornate moldings, her staring at nothing.
"I'm quitting the whole ambassador to the earth kingdom thing," she blurts out all at once and suddenly his heart sinks like a stone and he doesn't know what to say. But Toph keeps barrelling through, impatient as always to get to the point. "I can't keep going back and forth between countries like this anymore. Not with how things are."
Because of how things are with us? he wants to ask but doesn't, doesn't know if he's allowed or that she even feels the same way as she did three months ago. Part of him is still wounded and afraid he might only see her sparingly, or even worse not at all. So he tries for patience, doesn't succumb to looking at her no matter how much he wants.
And he so very much wants.
"I'm going to Yu Dao," she continues, keeping towards more neutral ground. "Aang and Sokka, they're trying to see if their idea to unite all the nations in one city will work. Seems like they could use the help."
He'd heard of the idea, had even given his nation's support in the endeavor. He knew it'd only be a matter of time before she'd be roped into Aang and Sokka's plan for the city. He'd be happier about it if it didn't mean she'd be going further away from him.
"What'll you do there?" he asks, choosing to focus on that instead.
"Law enforcement. The irony just kills doesn't it?"
Zuko shrugs. "Maybe a little. But… It suits you I think."
"How's that?" she raises an incredulous brow.
"Well, I'm assuming you're gonna help make the laws right? So criminals either play by your rules or they get knocked out of the game. Fits you just fine."
Toph grins brilliantly at that, he sees it out of the corner of his eye. "I like the way you think, Sparky. I knew there was a reason I liked you."
"Do you?" he can't help but ask.
"What?" Toph asks, seemingly startled. "What are you talking about?"
He shuts his eyes, runs a hand down his face as he struggles with words. "You left, Toph. For three months. After two weeks of us being together-" his throat closes up as he remembers the nights of closeness, the long talks and the feel of her soft curves against him, the teasing secret smiles and caresses of lovers. He swallows down his emotions, refuses to give in. "After all that... you ran."
He expects her deny it. To say she would never be so cowardly. That it went against everything she was and ever strove to be.
Instead she sighs in an almost exhausted way, rubbing a pale hand to her forehead like it'll ease her troubles. "How's the wife and kid?" she asks and it stops him cold.
"What?"
"I said how's the wife and kid?"
"You're bringing this up now?" he says, feeling a flushing red creep over his skin as his heart thundered in his ears. They never brought up Mai or Izumi when they were together in their quiet moments like this.
"I can't say your wife would like the fact that you've been so hung up on another woman," Toph dead pans, "What better time than now?"
Zuko seethes.
"Maybe three months ago? Three months ago when you upended my entire life and left me with barely a note of explanation?" His voice rises with his anger as he growls at her through clenched teeth. "Or better yet how about when we were running around the palace screwing every chance we could get? How about then Toph?" he'd turned his head to snap at her, sees her flinch but his anger overpowers his guilt right now so much so he doesn't want to let himself think about how much he may have hurt her.
"Well, three months ago was three months ago!" Toph spits, "And if you really want someone to screw you on the side go find some other dumbell floozy and we don't ever have to speak about this again."
She turns away then and Zuko stares at her, her body vibrating with whatever emotion she's trying to hide by turning her back towards him. Her shoulders hunch as she curls in on herself, and the sight of her shrinking her body as though to protect it, it stops his anger in his tracks and leaves him regretful of how harshly he'd spoken to her.
"You're not being fair, Toph," Zuko trains his eyes back up to the ceiling in attempts to calm himself. "You don't get to come back after all this time and throw my family in my face like that. Like I don't already know how much I'm betraying them by being here with you? By loving you?"
He hears a hitch of breath from her side of the floor as he speaks and for a moment he wonders if he'd made her cry. He'd never made her cry, not once. Even when he'd accidentally burned her feet the first day they'd met she'd refused to succumb to such things as tears and sobs.
"Loving me shouldn't have been a betrayal, Zuko," her words were devoid of tears, of any emotion really and it shocks him. "Before your wife, your child or me, you betrayed yourself first. Sleeping with me may have been a mistake but it wasn't the worst one you made."
It's how lifeless she seems as she says it that makes him reach out, fingers grazing her shoulder as he calls out to her. She allows the touch but keeps her back turned. He edges closer to her, begging her to face him again. "Let me see you," he asks quietly. "Please."
It's several seconds before she finally rolls back over, lets him smooth a thumb over her shoulder, presses his forehead to hers and closes his eyes. "I don't regret the time we had together. Those weeks with you were the happiest of my life. I missed you every day you were gone." His voice breaks for a moment but breathes before continuing. "I've made many mistakes, Toph, but loving you has never been one of them."
They never talked. About this, about anything. Years and years of dancing around this, through his marriage, their work. They'd somehow made an agreement between them to not bring up outside factors, to keep themselves secluded in whatever makeshift bubble they had created in those two weeks they'd had spent together. But now it was coming out and he knows they should have done this sooner.
"I shouldn't have married Mai," Zuko voices. "I didn't love her," he reveals, guilt pressing against his chest. "Not like this."
It's something he'd speculated ever since his wedding day, when he'd accidentally seen Mai before the wedding. She'd been dressed in formal wedding robes, beautiful reds and golds, ornate and with her hair done up, splendid and a sight in all her wedding glory. Any man would have felt lucky and in love to have such a bride.
And all he could think when he saw her was that she was pretty. An objective observation. That was all. No joy, no feeling.
It had terrified him.
"Of course you didn't love her," Toph says no surprise in her voice and knocks his forehead against his once, "The way you freaked out at your wedding? Spirits, Zuko, you sounded like you were dying."
He had freaked out. Immediately after encountering Mai he'd stammered his apologies and rushed off to lock himself in his room in attempts to hide his sudden feeling of panic. Everything inside him had seemed to be screaming at him that this was wrong, all wrong. A mistake.
Toph had been the one to kick down his door complaining of him being late to his own wedding. Spirits, you better be having a heart attack in here or I'm gonna kick your ass, Princess. She'd been the one to find him in a disheveled mess on the floor of his room, trembling and running his hands hurriedly through his hair. She'd been the one to kneel beside him and calm him down, her hand placed over his racing heart as she instructed him to breath. Fuck, Zuko, you faced the freaking father lord. You're not gonna let some wedding jitters do you in, are you? Just breath. He'd seen her then, clutched at her hand where it laid splayed over the front of his robes, used it to ground himself as he sucked in air like it'd burned out of his lungs. The only reason he even made it through it was because Toph had been there to talk him down. Toph had been the one to hold his hand and cover for him while he attempted to put himself together.
"You okay now, Sparky?" Toph asks, having just shut the door on Sokka who had come looking for the groom.
"Yeah," he rasps weakly standing and staring at himself in the mirror. He'd smoothed out his robes the best he could but there were still some wrinkling from his earlier panic. He hoped it wouldn't be too noticeable once he was up there at the altar, a hundred eyes staring at him.
His gut twists painfully and he shudders. Futily, he hopes Toph doesn't notice it.
Of course she does.
"What happened?" Toph asks stepping next to him and incidentally becoming reflected in the mirror. She was dressed in an array of greens, dark forest colors with pale teal highlights, her hair pinned up with golds and emeralds, all Katara's doing if he had to guess.
His heart started to race again, cheeks flushing further.
"Nothing," he says averting his eyes from the woman and her reflection.
"I don't believe you," she says, and he doesn't know what to say to that. Knows he can't lie to her to save his life so he shouldn't even try. He feels like a scolded child, feels bad for trying to shut her out. But how could he explain having such a horrifying and visceral reaction just by seeing his future wife? A warmth crosses his cheeks at how he'd broken down like that. Even worse Toph had caught him in his near frenzied state. He'd seen the look on her face, fear and worry overtaking her features as she'd helped him through it all.
Now he doesn't know what to say.
"Zuko," He feels the warmth of her hands on his arm and he instinctively turns to her, his body automatically giving her his attention. "I know everyone made this huge ruckus about this wedding stuff and I know Mai will be pissed at you and so will a lot of other people but-"
"I'm not backing out," Zuko says, stomach churning at the thought.
"Zuko, something's wrong!" she says voicing the thoughts he doesn't want to hear. "This is wrong! Fuck, just think for a second! Is this really what you want? I mean this is really shit timing to be asking this but do you even love her?"
He doesn't want to answer that question. He's afraid of what he'll say. "I'm fine! I just- I panicked. It happens."
"Panicked? If you can't even make it through your own wedding how the fuck are you supposed to make it through the rest of marriage?"
His mind races and his heart begins thudding in his ears again. Toph's touch on his hands stop him. She stands in front of him now.
"If you love her, marry her. If you don't, don't. You're a shit liar and you shouldn't make her bet her whole life on you if you can't even pretend to do the same."
He sees Toph before him. Feels the beating of his heart that no longer screams wrongness to him but instead comfort and warmth and happiness. It was everything he'd hoped to feel when he saw Mai, and instead it was Toph who made him feel this way.
Toph who was his best friend.
Toph who isn't the one he's supposed to marry today.
"If you're going through this then say it, Zuko." Toph's eyes are hard and piercing though she doesn't train them on his face. Her hands clutch at his. "Tell me you love her and I'll go out there and give Sugar Queen the okay. The rest of your life'll be set and I won't fight you on this anymore."
She sounded so desperate in that moment, so close to pleading. It wasn't like Toph, but here she was begging him anyway. Seeing her like this sent a tremble of fear up his spine and he struggled to not let the room spin away.
"Tell me you love her, Zuko."
He feels like his heart is going to explode out of his chest.
"I-" he starts and gulps once. "I love Mai."
Toph is so still he's afraid she stopped breathing. Then she laughs, hollow and grim.
"Still a shit liar," she spits, and he can't find the words to refute it. She flings his hands away from her like she can't bare to touch him and it hurts him so much he thinks he'll die from the pain of it.
"She won't forgive you," Toph says just before opening the door.
He wonders if Toph will forgive him.
I'm sorry, he wants to say but the words won't come out.
And Toph is already gone.
He remembers how he'd strained through the wedding, how he'd tried not to glance at Toph in the crowd of people but ultimately failed. She'd sat beside their friends, her face impassive and cool as the vows were exchanged. He remembers trying to seek her out at the reception, not knowing what he would say to her but wanting to see her anyways. She had dodged him through the entirety of the party before cutting out early with a bottle of wine and another noble's son who had taken a liking to her. He remembers having to bite down the jealousy and despair as he sat next to his new wife.
He'd hoped he'd see her again. Hoped she would come back, that she'd forgive him someday.
He didn't see mint green eyes for four years. Not until Toph had been made Earth Kingdom ambassador and forced to be in the same room with him to discuss politics and diplomacy. Even then he'd had to struggle just to get her to even speak with him with little more than civility.
"You loved me then," Zuko says, also voicing the second revelation he'd had on his wedding day so long ago.
"Yeah, I fucking did," she says the crass words so endearingly he feels the slightest flutter in his stomach and doesn't understand how he got this so wrong.
He'd known he hadn't been in love with Mai when they got married, had only asked her since they had been together so long and it was the expected thing to do. And he'd been young, a little foolish and hurried to be a family man, so much so that he'd been willing to turn an eye to the fact he had fallen out of love with the woman he was marrying. But Zuko was a confrontational man, changing his mind on a decision was hard often times especially once he was dead set on something. It would take some damning evidence to change his mind.
Toph had been that evidence. And yet he'd denied it anyway, denied it for years and at every turn until there was nothing left to do but realize it.
And he had realized it. Too many years too late for them to do little more than sneak away to secluded corners and wish and wonder what if.
He gazes at her head on, the only time he could do it was when they were alone and no one but her was there to fault him for it. Her eyes open as well, big and round, misty green and glorious. Her hand comes up between them and without thought he meets it with his own.
"Why'd you go?" he asks.
"You know why," Toph's mouth forms into a thin line, "There's nothing here, Zuko. No future, no anything."
He pulls closer to her, bodies barely touching save for their hands between them. "There could be."
She scoffs. "You wish."
"I do," he rasps quietly, "Everyday." I do I do I do…He sobers at the thought of those words. The words he'd said to the wrong person just because he thought he had to, because he needed a wife and had rushed himself into it.
He waits a beat for her to respond, to try and call him a sap or a liar, but he knows what he says is true. And she knows it as well, perhaps wished the same even they both knew it impossible.
A fruitless wish.
Toph doesn't say anything, not for a long while. That in itself is unusual. She's always so quick with her wit, the first to snark and challenge, a deadly defense he had at first found annoyingly rude but now he had come to love.
Love. How disastrous that word is. It's what brought him to this. Them curled up next to the bed, fingers entwined as they faced each other, heads bowed close. A secret hidden behind closed doors and in quiet corners of the garden, a secret they couldn't tell their friends about let alone the world.
Because if they were ever found out, of course the world would know, would condemn and slander this love without care or regret. All that would be heard is his nation's righteous fury against the Fire Lord and the blind woman who dared compare herself to their Fire Lady, who dared to covet a position so much above her.
Toph didn't care to be Fire Lady, barely cared enough for politics enough to want to do the job appointed to her. But she had accepted, as dutiful to her country as he was to hers. She'd taken the role of ambassador and helped him to keep the world at peace, all the while making sure he didn't work himself to death or drive himself insane in loneliness trying to achieve it. Mai had tried of course, had cared for him enough, loved him enough to worry for his well being. But she didn't know him as Toph did, didn't know him like they were born to meet and just be. His wife didn't know the masochistic cycle of wanting to touch, needing to touch and feel whole only to be separated and devastatingly heartsick after, wanting the ache of it if it meant being so wondrously and incandescently happy for a single moment.
Mai was not to blame. Not even Toph. Had anyone coveted it was Zuko himself.
He'd be lying if he said he regretted it, denied knowing how they'd gotten here. He knows how. He'd been the one to instigate it, eyes and hands wandering where they shouldn't be. His hand grazing hers in comfort, a lingering glance when she smiled and the betraying happiness he felt in her company. He'd tried to stop himself whenever he caught himself doing these things but oftentimes hadn't even realized what he'd done until it was too late and his feelings were out there for Toph to see.
Metaphorically speaking, of course. She was blind after all.
Though not even her blindness was enough to ignore the piled mess of feeling Zuko was. For many years they played at not knowing of this attraction even while others whispered of their closeness. Toph had stayed with them frequently, here at the Fire Nation Palace but had never made a move towards him, refused it as if to say, I won't be the one to break your vows for you.
She was always challenging him in this way. Forcing him to make the hard decisions, right or wrong, she wasn't going to be his babysitter and make it easy for him by letting herself choose for him. Neither was she going to take the blame for him loving her. That'd be like apologizing for existing and wishing she'd never been born on this earth to tempt him.
And more than anything he is thankful for every day he has loved and been loved by the fearless earthbender that is Toph Bei Fong.
"You wanna know why I left for so long?" Toph asks after a long silence. "I left because I needed to think. I don't think straight around you, Zuko, and I needed to figure out what I should do," her hands press against his for a moment. "Things aren't so simple as three months ago."
He senses she's holding something back, waits for her as she fights to say it, muttering, fuck, and gods we were stupid. She thunks her head once on the stone tiled floor, closes her eyes as though trying to reign in some strength.
Finally, she says it.
"I'm pregnant," she adds another swear under her breath at the end.
Zuko stops breathing for a moment.
"You wanna say something there, princess?"
He does. He very much does. But all he manages is a dropping of the mouth which stretches into a smile she can't see.
"Zuko?" she sounds so worried and he can't stop the euphoria he suddenly feels. He puts his hands on either side of her face, kisses her even as he smiles huge and wide, lips finding hers over and over again as though to make up for times lost. He kisses her like a man starved, pulls her closer than ever, bodies warm at the touch as he embraces her and she tugs at the front of his robes, reciprocating the touch in that rough manner of hers. For a split second it feels like the first they kissed, both so eager to touch and feel the other, after so much time forcing themselves not to, of keeping to secret glances and sly comments just to unnerve the other, they finally got to this crowning moment in which they could find happiness in simply each other.
By the time they break apart their both ragged with hands wrapped around each other, flushed and wanting.
"Stay," he slides hand to her face, takes a lock of her hair between his fingers as he brushes her cheek. "Stay here. With me. You and the baby." It's the only thing he can think to say, the only thing he truly wants. There's the smallest of blushes as she turns into the touch, her face going pained as she listens to the words fall from his lips.
He'd do anything to stop hurting her. Anything but let her go.
Zuko is a greedy thing.
"I can't," she says still catching her breath. "You know I can't."
"You have to stay, Toph. It's our baby."
"Exactly," she says it in that voice of hers, the one she uses when he's completely missing the point. "What do you think's gonna happen when people find out about me being knocked up by the Fire Lord who already has a wife and kid? I don't want my kid to be talked about and whispered before they're even born."
"I didn't think you'd care what other people thought."
"Impending motherhood changes your thought processes," Toph deadpans.
"Toph, if it's about Mai-"
"What? You'll think she'll understand and help raise the baby alongside your daughter? What dream world are you living in?" She pulls away from him, gives herself more room to breath. "Or what you'll divorce her? Zuko, you're not that kinda guy and I'm not some woman to be kept around like a concubine or whatever. I can't stay." Suddenly she clutches at his hand tighter than ever, so tightly her knuckles go white. "I don't care that you're married, I don't care that you already have a kid. What I care about is this kid." She places his hands to her belly where she's already beginning to show. "This kid isn't going to grow up living as the bastard child of the Fire Lord. It deserves better."
Her stomach is warm, the slightest of bumps he can barely feel through the cloth of her tunic. His child. Their child.
He shakes his head. "I can't just leave you alone, Toph. You and the baby- What will you do?"
She pokes him once with a finger. "Hey, whatever happens between us, my life doesn't start and end with you, got that?"
He did. If Toph made anything clear it was that she was independant. She was strong.
"I don't want to leave you alone," he says.
"Katara knows- not who the father is but about the baby, yeah. She'll be there in Yu Dao to help out. Aang and Sokka too," she smirks, tries for some humor in the situation, however failingly. "Sokka'll probably have a conniption or something when I tell him he'll have to baby sit my kid but other than that, I don't think it'll be that hard."
"Raising a child is hard, Toph." He doesn't want her to underestimate that sort of responsibility.
She rolls her eyes and groans. "Now you sound like, Katara." She sighs, "I'm not saying it's gonna be a walk in the freakin' park, Sparky. I'm saying I'm not as clueless or alone as you think. That I can handle this so don't worry."
"It's our child," his voice goes quiet, eyes going to where he's smoothing his fingers over her stomach, imagining the life inside. His eyes go back to her face and a lump builds in his throat. "It's you, Toph."
He feels the swell of it, want to feel it grow, to be there for when the baby's born. He can't stand the thought of not being there. But he thinks about all Toph has said. Of how the child will grow up, branded as an indiscretion instead of his son or daughter. He thinks of how much hurt the child could be put through simply because he had not married it's mother, no matter how much he loved both already.
He thought the worst day of his life had been his wedding day.
"I love you," he says and he knows it's not fair to her but he has to try. Can't bear letting her slip away again. She bites her lip, reaches one hand to the back of his neck and pulls him in so their lips brush. It wasn't like the other kisses they'd shared, not rushed or heavy like they were desperate to drown.
It was like she was telling him it was time to come up for air.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, a tremble of lips against his own.
It's possibly the most heartbreaking thing she's ever said to him. The hardest thing he's ever had to accept. He feels the prick of tears at the corner of his eyes, sees the same as he looks at Toph and he wishes, spirits how he wishes- to go back, to do it all again in the hopes that they could have their ending, one so far away they felt like they had all the time in the world to enjoy the middle.
A life together.
But he knows wishing never helped anyone. And it can't save them now.
So he stops wishing, pulls her to him instead with arms wrapping gently around her as the tears fall.
In the morning he'll watch her leave again, the same as she did on his wedding day.
And this time he knows she won't come back.