Short Story: Four Hundred and Twenty Seconds

Base: "I'll hold on to this, and I won't break, remembering that once, we shared the same past. Even if… Even if we won't be sharing the same future."

"Why did you do it?"

There isn't any force behind her words, all her strength being spent on trying to keep her world from falling apart.

"I had to."

"But…"

She doesn't know what to say. It's irreversible now, that she knows. She just doesn't want to accept it. She can't.

"Toph, please don't cry."

He wraps his arms around her and matches her breathing, hoping to comfort her, to comfort them both. His heart is broken too, but he takes strength in the fact that he did it for her, and now she will be safe. She, on the other hand, has nothing to take comfort from, knowing that she was the reason for all this makes everything infinitely worse. She returns the hug, but as she realizes that this is most probably the last time that she will be enveloped in his embrace, she tightens it and inevitably more tears fall from her eyes.

After a while they find themselves sitting side by side on the ground, a sad but oddly comfortable silence taking over them. He breaks it. She needs her closure.

"Koh is cruelty personified. He doesn't really want you physically. It's the pain behind the consequences, that's what he craves for. He lives solely for the mind-numbing emotional emptiness he leaves his victims as."

She stays silent, wondering if he is happy now, now that a depression unlike any other is filling her up and consuming her from within.

"He has always been especially cruel to me, well, my kind, as his nature is to believe that we, being who we are, never feel any pain, that our hearts never break. And thus he reserves his most vengeful wrath for us, thinking that we deserve the worst."

He faces her and allows himself to stare.

"I'm sorry, Toph. I'm sorry. You're in this situation because of me. I'm sorry you're suffering… because I love you."

"Never. Ever. Apologize for that. I won't allow it."

"Toph…"

"No. I love you. And to be loved by you in return is, and will always be, the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. If this is a curse, then there is surely no such thing as a blessing. Never apologize for loving me, Aang, because that's like apologizing for making me happy."

His eyes glaze over with unshed tears, not really believing how luck he is to have met a girl like her. Not really believing how unlucky he is to be losing her.

"So what was the deal? You said you sacrificed yourself, but he didn't really like the idea when you were offering yourself instead of me. What did you tell him when I was asleep?"

He looks up to the stars.

"I told him to take me to another place, another time. Where he can watch me suffer, watch me live in the knowledge that you exist, or will exist, but will still be unreachable. Still be more than impossible to hold in my arms, to grow old with. Still be in pain, with no chance to be happy."

She stifles her tears long enough to quell her curiosity, the dreadful feeling that there's more to the already devastating tale.

"He wanted more, didn't he?"

He seems resigned, peaceful even, having accepted the fate that fate itself bestowed upon him.

"Yes."

She chokes back a sob, a wail, and realizes just how awful a person she is. He's sacrificing so much, it hurts her physically just hearing it, and it's not even over.

"What…"

"Koh is a very clever opponent, it is virtually impossible to trick him in a game where he controls the rules. However… I know for a fact that he is not as well-versed in one aspect as in all others. And only because he is incapable of experiencing it himself."

"But what…?"

"He doesn't know how to love, Toph. He knows fondness, he knows attachment, loyalty, even lust. He knows attraction and obsession, he knows all about infatuation. But he doesn't know love. And that's where I knew I had him."

"So… what did you say?"

"I also know that he is very ambitious, and as long as there is an opportunity to inflict more pain, and leave bigger, more hollow shells into people's existence then he will take it, no matter the risk."

She can't take it anymore.

"Just tell me what you offered him!"

"In addition to taking me away from you, I told him that should I ever love anyone else as much as I love you, I give him permission to take whoever that is and do whatever he wants. I will not stand in his way, or else I will let the existence of my kind end with me. I told him that that will double his satisfaction, having the opportunity to take happiness from me twice."

She ignores the pang in her chest at the thought, and she is disgusted by how selfish she's feeling. She thinks of Aang, and how he's not only sacrificing his present but also his future and she opens her mouth to protest in behalf of the poor, unknowing girl somewhere, sometime whose life has now been essentially taken away from her.

"But Aang! You just put an innocent life in the line of fire! Do not involve anyone else in his twisted games, please—"

"His mistake is believing I will ever love someone the way I love you, Toph."

She falls silent once again, her body struggling to produce more tears because it is now apparent that tears alone cannot contain the emotions swimming in her eyes. He smiles, grateful for this moment, this one last moment where time seems to stop just for them.

"Toph, I love you. It might get harder for you, or it might get easier once your life recommences in a path that will never intersect with mine, I'm not quite sure. But whatever comes, even if your mind forgets, I pray that your heart will draw strength from this. That in this, right now, I love you, and this moment will live on forever, even as fate erases it from the book of time."

She has dried out every drop of moisture and she can't cry anymore, nor does she feel the need to. Though her heart is still broken beyond repair, she takes comfort in loving and being loved in return and she doesn't care if she forgets, she knows her spirit will always believe in this moment. So she smiles in partial acceptance, she'd still fight for him if she could, and reaches for his hand. She looks into his eyes and speaks confidently.

"I'll hold on to this, and I won't break, remembering that once, we shared the same past. Even if… even if we won't be sharing the same future."

They smile and he kisses her, short and chaste, and meaningful, moving his lips to her forehead. He pulls her close and tells her how proud he is of her. She response with a whispered impossible wish, I wish we could stay like this forever, and is granted with a hush.

They fall asleep on the hard earth, goodbyes having remained unspoken. After all, in a few moments they would have had never met each other, so why would there be a need for a farewell?

There is no tomorrow for them, as time resets itself and creates a faint memory of a past that history will claim to have never existed.

A blind infant is born to a rich family. Seven decades before, a gray-eyed boy learns how to fly.

-FIN-