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Flames. Smoke. Screaming. Screeching metal on metal.
“It looks like this is the end!”
Sweaty hands. Welled-up eyes. Wet cheeks. Burning flesh.
The fingers slip away, and she falls into the unfeeling void.
She falls and she falls and she falls and she falls and she falls and she-
Toph woke up with a gasp, sweat pouring down her face. She immediately took hold of the pillow under her head and pressed it into her face, muffling her screams of frustration.
It had been more than a month since the war ended, and the nightmares refused to go away. Why wouldn’t they stop? Would they ever stop? How much longer could she keep doing this?
Running a hand through her hair with a shuddering sigh, she hopped off the bed. The lack of activity she felt outside her quarters indicated that it was still late at night. However, going back to sleep was the last thing she wanted to do right now.
So, she started walking.
She had grown quite accustomed to the seemingly endless halls of the palace in her time living there, and had used her bending to mentally map it all out. She could go literally anywhere she wanted, but nothing came to mind. Maybe she could slip out of the palace and go bending outside again? For once, that felt like too much work. She was tired, and all she wanted to do was clear her head. In a daze, she began to wander aimlessly.
Eventually, after an indeterminate amount of time, she felt dew-covered grass under her feet and found herself in front of the turtleduck pond. She never went to this place without Zuko, and had no clue why she was there now. Nevertheless, she sat down and stuck her feet in the cool dirt, resisting the urge to earthbend her surroundings into oblivion. This place was important to Zuko; she could never do that to him. And, seeing as she was there right now, she supposed it was a little important to her as well.
It provided little respite. No matter how much she tried, the nightmare refused to leave her alone. Sokka’s anguished voice, the tears falling down her cheeks, her nails digging into his fingertips as their grip began to falter, the falling… Her feet tap tap tapped on the ground with increasing fervor, and her breathing became faster and shallower. With each repetition of the intrusive memory, she became increasingly convinced it would be seared into her mind for the rest of her life. The nightmares would never end, and that realization only caused her panic to grow.
With a start, she felt someone approaching from behind, internally panicking even more upon realizing who it was. Stiffening, her face went from an anguished grimace to neutral in a second. The feet tapping stopped, and the breathing slowed to almost nothing. Masks came naturally to her. She had years of practice, after all.
“…Toph?”
“Sparky? What are you doing up?”
“I was about to ask you the same thing.”
She shrugged. “Wasn’t tired, I guess.”
“Hm.” He sat down next to her. “Well, I always come here when my nightmares get bad.”
She had to fight to hold back from showing any negative emotions. She had been around Zuko for quite a while now and knew how bad his nightmares could get. During their days at the Western Air Temple and Ember Island, she'd often stay with him and calm him down when they got too intense. The screams, the violent tossing and turning, the pure and utter fear in his voice, she would never forget any of it. Turning her head, she forced a comforting smile and attempted to make eye contact, not knowing if she succeeded. “Nightmares, huh? Wanna talk about it?”
Whenever she would ask that before, he always said no. That had only worried her more, but now she understood why. She understood all too well. This time, though, he steeled himself and nodded.
“I get nightmares almost every night now,” he said with a sigh. “Sometimes it’s my father. Sometimes it’s Azula. Sometimes it’s the pressure of being Fire Lord. Sometimes it’s nothing but an all-consuming fire that burns me and feels so real. And... sometimes it's my friends.”
"Us?"
"Yeah. Either I hurt you, or you suddenly hate me."
“That... That sucks,” she said, voice slightly wavering. “What was it tonight?”
He briefly hesitated. “…It was the Western Air Temple. You guys were all yelling at me for something I did, and I couldn’t move or speak. It just kept intensifying until you all started using your bending to hurt me. You buried my legs in the ground and broke them. Katara kept whipping me with her water. Eventually, Aang blew me off the cliff. Right before I hit the ground, I woke up.”
Toph winced. “You know we’d never do that to you, right?” she said softly.
“Yeah, I know. But you can’t always control your dreams, can you?”
“No... you can’t.”
Neither of them said anything for a minute, the only sound their breathing. Her face remained impassive the whole time, refusing to let the mask slip. Zuko needed her now, and how could she help him if she burdened him with her own problems?
She could feel his eyes studying her. “Do you get nightmares, Toph?”
The first thing she wanted to say was No. Toph Beifong, suffering from nightmares, afraid of anything? For so long, she thought the idea was ridiculous. She was tough, she was strong, she was unfettered. She would show no weakness, for, if she did, it would just confirm everything her parents said about her. And, for a while, it was true. In the rare moments she felt any fear, she never let it consume her, and she certainly didn’t get any nightmares. But ever since her near-death experience on that airship, they had been occurring with increasing regularity. It was an issue that could be ignored no longer.
Plus, if getting nightmares was weak, then that would be calling Zuko weak. Zuko wasn’t weak, he was one of the strongest people she knew. If she couldn’t admit to something as simple as a nightmare, then she was the weak one.
Mask slipping off, the passive expression morphed into one of utter distress and sorrow. Eyes clenched shut, mouth a thin line. “I do,” she muttered. “That’s the real reason I’m here.”
Zuko nodded, clearly unsurprised. “Wanna talk about it?” he echoed her own words.
“No!” she exclaimed immediately, and felt Zuko wince at the volume. “…I mean, I don’t know. I don’t want to even think about it, but it never leaves me alone and maybe talking about it would just make that worse!”
Zuko hummed in thought. “I’ve had nightmares since I was a kid, and I never wanted to talk about them either."
"Yeah, I've got plenty of experience with that," she said, the ghost of a fond smile on her face.
Zuko groaned. "Hey, trying to say something here!"
"Sorry, sorry," she said, holding up her hands.
"Well, when my mom, and later Uncle, would ask me about them, I almost never gave a straight answer. They both dealt with it differently. Mom would get into my bed and hug me as if to protect me, running her fingers through my hair. Uncle would put a hand on my shoulder or my arm and sing to me. And don't think I forgot about what you would do. You weren't as touchy-feely, but you would sit there, unwilling to leave, simply breathing with me and reminding me that I was safe. What's similar about all these methods, though, was that the nightmares would never come back on those nights.”
She blew at the bangs falling over her eyes. “So, you’re saying we should cuddle and sing and everything will be A-OK?”
“No. What I’m saying is something that I didn’t truly learn until recently. That it’s OK to receive help and support from others, to open up to others. Because it can often be the solution you’re looking for, or, at the very least, can help you find one.”
Toph didn’t respond.
“…I learned that from many people. Uncle, Aang, Sokka, Katara, Suki… and you, of course. You once said I could talk to you anytime so I wouldn’t have to deal with my issues alone. I hope you understand that offer goes both ways.”
“But… you’ve had so much to deal with, and I don’t want to give you a hard time.”
He seemed genuinely taken aback by that. “Are you hearing yourself right now, Toph? Are you seriously trying to compare our issues like that? What you’ve gone through doesn’t deserve to be ignored. If it’s bothering you, then it matters. You won’t be giving me a ‘hard time’ because I want to help you just as much as you want to help me.”
A tear trailed down her cheek. “You’re right. I knew that, deep down. It’s just that it can be hard for me to open up sometimes...”
“You and me both. But you know who got me to open up? You. Let me return the favor.”
She couldn’t argue with that. “I-It was the airship. The nightmares, that’s what they are always about.” The words came out surprisingly easily.
Zuko nodded, but didn’t interrupt her.
“I was dangling hundreds of feet off the ground, and Sokka was the only thing I could feel. His leg was broken, and his weapons were gone. He admitted that this was the end, that we were going to die. I started crying. Suki saved us in reality, but, in my nightmares, our hands slip away and I’m always falling and falling and it never stops, and I can’t feel a single thing. I hear a bunch of terrible noises that make my ears want to bleed. I suffocate on smoke every time I breathe, and it fills my nose until it’s the only thing I smell. All the senses I can use are turned against me, and I hate it! I hate it more than anything!”
She ran the back of her hand over her face, wiping away tears she barely noticed were there.
Zuko’s hand was on her back. “Shit, Toph. How often do you get these?”
“At first it was like once a week. Now it feels like every night…”
The hand rubbed her back, moving itself up and down, up and down, up and down. “And how have you dealt with them before?”
“At first, by ignoring them. Then, when they kept coming, I’d sometimes sneak out and earthbend to calm myself. Other times, I scream into a pillow. What about you?”
“Screaming into a pillow? That’s genius,” he said, and she could sense with confusion that he was entirely sincere. “I always ignored them. There were times I’d wake up screaming or hyperventilating and then go back to bed moments later as if nothing had happened. It was unhealthy for sure, but I wasn’t always concerned with my own well-being. Now, I come here.”
“That's an improvement. But, by yourself? What about that ‘support from others’ stuff you were talking about?”
She felt him shrug. “I’m not like Uncle, I don’t always practice what I preach. I didn’t want to keep waking you up night after night.”
“Well, now I’m giving you an open invitation to do just that. There’s a strong chance I’d already be awake anyway.”
“Thanks, Toph,” he said, patting her back. “Same goes for you. Wake me up whenever you want.”
She punched his arm, smirking at the yelp he released.
“That should really stop surprising me…” he muttered under his breath, rubbing his arm.
After that, the two of them went silent for a while, simply enjoying the environment and each other’s company. Toph became lost in her thoughts. She wondered about the others. Whether Sokka decided to stay with Suki on Kyoshi Island like he implied in his last letter or returned to the Southern Water Tribe. How the Kyoshi Warriors were doing and what they were doing. If Aang and Katara were traveling the world, helping keep the peace. When they would send their next letters, because it felt like a while since the last ones. At a certain point, she realized that she hadn’t thought of the nightmares in a while. Of course, that just meant it all began to invade her mind again, and she couldn’t stop herself from shaking.
Zuko stood up and held out a hand. “Come with me.”
Willing the shaking to stop, she tilted her head towards him. “You think you can tell me what to do?” she asked weakly as she took the hand and did what he told her to do.
“Certainly not,” he said in faux-horror. “But I think you’ll like this.”
They went back into the palace. They were alone, except for the occasional patrolling guard, and Toph tried her best to act like she wasn’t fighting to stop herself from having a panic attack.
“What are you planning, Sparky?” she said in an effort to keep her mind elsewhere.
“You’ll see.”
“No, I won’t. I’m blind.”
Their laughter echoed through the nearly empty halls as they kept moving. With every passing second she gradually calmed down. Whenever bad memories attempted to cloud her mind, whenever she shook or breathed funny, Zuko's hand would squeeze hers and they would go away. She was so thankful he was here with her.
Soon enough, they were in front of Zuko’s room. He opened the doors with a flourish, walking across the uneven marble floor.
“You want to have a sleepover?” she asked.
“I figured since we both have the same issue, we may as well be the solution to each other's problems,” he said, laying on his bed and patting the space next to him in invitation. “Get up here!”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Scrambling into the bed, she cuddled into Zuko’s side. His arms wrapped around her. Spirits, he was so warm.
“Comfy?” he asked with a slight chuckle.
“Very.”
Holding each other tight, they both fell asleep in record time.
That night, Toph dreamed of all her friends, her family, reuniting. They hugged and laughed and sparred and joked around and, sure, the sudden appearance of a 400 foot tall platypus bear with pink horns and silver wings was weird, but it was still all so perfect.
Yes, she thought as they all readied to take the creature down, this is perfect.