Archive of Our Own

Toph,

This isn't about anything. I only want to know whether this letter reaches you.

If it does, send one word back. Any word, and it doesn't have to mean anything. Have someone put it in the post for you. If nothing comes in a month, I'll take that to mean it never reached you.

That's all this is.

Zuko

Toph,

Nothing came. I gave it five weeks in the end, which is longer than I said I would.

You told me once that your officers take correspondence seriously. Nothing is simply thrown away. Anything that cannot be delivered or claimed is kept in a box until it is eventually disposed of. I have addressed this so that it cannot be delivered. I also chose the least official route available to me to send this letter.

So if I have done this correctly, you will never see them.

I know how this looks.

What I want to say is that I've been feeling

Zuko

Toph,

I'm getting married next year.

You'll find out who. You can probably guess. The official invitation will reach you in time.

That's why this started.

I didn't decide to write to you and then happen to get engaged. It went the other way around. They need me married as soon as it can be arranged, for an heir. I spent several days negotiating for more time. But they reminded me I had used the same excuse three times before. I didn't even remember doing it.

I know you didn't get the two letters I sent three months ago. You probably won't get this one either. But if there was a small chance you did, and this too, I'm sorry. Feel free to write back and call me weird for sending those cryptic letters. Or stupid. I think I'd want to hear it, even now.

Zuko

Toph,

Three weeks, and nothing came. As I expected.

I wrote this at night and it's cold right now. I watched the small fire inside a lantern flicker and it took me to a specific moment in my life.

Do you recall that night we camped out during a mission and ended up being the only two still awake? We were sitting close in front of the campfire. The fire had become smaller and you began to get cold.

But you wouldn't let me light the fire back up, because you said sitting close to me kept you warmer than the fire ever could. You said it like it was nothing. Like it didn't occur to you what that would do to me, and you didn't care either way.

I still think about it sometimes. Four years, and I still do. I love that about you

That was selfish of you.

Zuko

Toph,

I keep thinking about what I called you last time. Selfish. You're about the furthest thing from that I know. I know you'd hate hearing me say it, though. You've always hated the idea of being anyone's hero, like there's something dishonest about being seen that way. Like it makes what you do less real if people notice it. I don't fully understand how you manage to think that way. Kindness isn't something to be ashamed of.

I told myself I'd stop writing once the marriage preparations got busier. They did. And somehow that's exactly when I think of you the most. Maybe because I know exactly what you'd say about how tedious all of this is, even though the wedding itself is still six months away.

You always say the truth, when it's needed. Even when it costs you something to say it.

I used to think that made you the reckless one between us. I'm starting to think it's the opposite. I'm the one writing all of this down and making sure it never reaches you.

Zuko

Toph,

They laid out three swatches of red today. Maroon, crimson, scarlet. I was supposed to choose one for the ceremony robes.

I stood there for far too long, actually trying to decide. Then I thought about you sitting somewhere in that crowd, unable to tell one shade from another, and suddenly it didn't seem to matter which one I chose.

I picked scarlet. I don't remember why.

You'll be there. I know you will. And I know you'll probably wonder why everyone is making such a fuss over a robe you can't even see. I'll hate that I won't be able to tell you the difference between scarlet, maroon, or crimson. I don't know why that bothers me as much as it does. It's such a small thing to feel this strongly about, for someone I'm only supposed to call a friend.

Just a friend.

I don't know why those words have started sounding so much like a lie when they used to be enough.

Zuko

Toph,

I've been telling myself this is harmless. That's the truth of the last few months.

These letters don't count, I tell myself, because you'll never read them. Thinking about you isn't the same as acting on it. A man can be about to marry one woman and still write letters to another, can't he? As long as the letters go nowhere. As long as the thoughts stay in his own head.

I've been good, otherwise. I've done everything they've asked of me. I've smiled more at every ceremony rehearsal. I've gotten good at that. Being a man with nothing wrong with him.

I almost believed it when I wrote that. That there's nothing wrong with me, as long as no one can see it.

But I lied in my last letter when I said I didn't know why the word friend had started sounding like a lie.

I know.

I've known for years, if I'm honest with myself. I just kept finding a reasons not to say it. Like there was always something else to worry about. But I think I've finally run out of reasons. And that should make this easier. But it doesn't. Because I know I never gave you a reason to feel anything back. That isn't something you did to me. That's mine. I made sure of it, every time I found a reason to stay quiet, every time I decided it was better that you never knew.

I used to think that was the cruelest part of all this. Now I think it might be the only thing keeping me from making a mess of everything. Because if I had let you see it, if I had ever been honest enough to let you know what you mean to me, and you had looked back at me even once the way I look at you, I don't think I could have gone through with any of this. The wedding, or the life they've planned for me.

I don't know. Maybe that's why I write these instead. This way, it's safe. I can say what I want, and you never have to know it. You never have to answer.

Zuko

Toph,

I keep thinking about the last mission, when we dropped everyone off one by one and it ended up being just the two of us. I flew you back to Yudao myself. I don't think I've told you why I insisted on that, when Sokka offered to take the southern route instead. I just wanted the extra hour, is all.

We landed outside the village, and you swung your pack over your shoulder and said something about it being a good run, all things considered, and I agreed, and that was it. You turned to go.

I keep thinking about that stretch of road you would have walked down. I keep thinking I could have said something before you took the first few steps. Nothing large, I didn't need to say anything large. I could have just asked if I could come back sometime, or I could have said I'd like to see you again and left it at that.

I had the moment itself, you standing right in front of me, in no hurry to leave. And I said none of it. I just watched you go.

I don't know why that's the moment I keep returning to, out of everything. Maybe because nothing was actually stopping me. There was nothing to complicate it. Just you, and a very small thing I could have said, but didn't.

Zuko

Toph,

I keep doing something I shouldn't. I picture things. Not things that are going to happen. But things I know aren't going to happen.

Sometimes I picture a house that isn't the palace. Somewhere with a yard big enough for you to wreck if you felt like it. I picture our kids running around out there, and you stopping them halfway through whatever they're doing because you can feel that their stance is wrong. You'd correct them before I even finished explaining what they were supposed to do, and you'd be right, of course.

I picture mornings when the most important decision of the day is what to have for breakfast. You'd pick something ridiculous just to watch me complain about it, and I'd complain anyway, even if I secretly liked it.

I picture coming home and finding you asleep somewhere you weren't supposed to be.

I also picture you getting older. I don't think I've ever let myself imagine that before. I can see grey at your temples. You'd still be complaining about something. You'd still insist you were right, and you'd probably still be right more often than I'd like to admit. I picture growing old beside you, the woman I lo

None of that is real. I know that. I'm not writing this because I think it still could be. I'm writing it because for one night I wanted to know what I'd been giving up, in exact detail, instead of in the vague shape I've let myself feel it in until now. It's a good life, the one I pictured. It would have been a good life.

That might be the worst part.

Because I'm marrying someone else in a few weeks, and I have never once pictured a single morning with her the way I just pictured one with you. I didn't even have to try.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that.

Zuko

Toph,

I'll see you tomorrow.

You'll probably be exactly who you always are. You'll get bored within the hour and mouth something in my direction that'll make me laugh when I'm not supposed to, or Aang will shush you because you're making too much noise. And that's how I'll know none of this reached you. If it had, I don't think you could sit there tomorrow and be exactly the way you've always been with me. Not after everything I've written here.

I've spent the last year writing down everything I felt, and all the things I never said when I had the chance to say them. I kept thinking about all those moments and wondering what would have happened if now was then. If I'd had the nerve I have tonight back at any one of them, maybe tomorrow would look different.

But, honestly, I'm not sure I believe that anymore.

Because I'm still the same man I was then. I'm still the man who watched you walk away and said nothing. A year of letters hasn't changed that. I couldn't even put your real name on a single envelope. If I had all those moments back, I don't know that I'd do anything differently. I've spent most of my life trying to become an honorable man. I think I've managed it in most things. Just never where you're concerned. And I don't think tonight is going to be any different.

So tomorrow I'll marry her, and I'll see you there. You'll be my friend, just as you've always been, and I'll be exactly who I've always been with you—the man who felt too much and said too little. The man who found it easier to write letters you would never read than to say one thing to your face.

I don't think I'll write another letter after this. There isn't much left to say that I haven't already said here.

Except this.

If now was then, this is what I should have told you the first time I realized it.

I love you, Toph.

Zuko