disclaimer: I don't own avatar the last airbender or legend of korra.

Aang didn't know why he wasn't feeling very celebratory this year. His uneasiness had started a week before the war anniversary. The avatar began smiling less. His wife found him staring off into the open air more often than before. Katara would ask him what was wrong but Aang would have put on a brave face already and smiled that familiar smile telling her he was fine. As the anniversary approached, Aang felt any excitement he had at all leave his body.

Now, on the day of the thirtieth war anniversary, the heroic Avatar Aang was wandering the empty corridors of the celebration building.

His formal robes were loosened, the red cloth hanging less regally than at the beginning of the evening. Aang let his steps fall heavy, not caring if someone heard him walking.

Of course, the one person that did hear him was none other than his earthbending sifu.

Aang looked into the room and found Toph sitting with one leg up on the desk. He assumed the other is what gave him away. Her finger tips danced on the length of a dark bottle. She was facing the left wall.

"Get in here, Twinkle Toes."

The avatar did as he was told, whether it be by habit from training or his current mood. He climbed up the chair facing the desk from the opposite side. He sat on the back rest with his feet planted where he should have been sitting. "I'd ask what you were doing here, but then you would just ask me the same question."

Toph scoffed. She grabbed the bottle and began rolling the bottom atop the desk. The chief of police's hair was down from the intricate design Katara and Suki had styled it in before the celebration. She kept the loose braid running down her right side. Like Aang, her formal clothing was loosened revealing the white tank top she wore under her green silk dress. "I actually don't care why you were roaming the halls."

"Nice to know you care, Toph." Aang looked away from her.

"What I do care about," She turned her head closer to his general direction. "is if you are going to share that bottle of wine you have under your robes."

He didn't even question how she figured it out. Instead, he placed it loudly on the table. "Sake. I didn't even know how I was going to open it."

Toph easily metalbent the metal cap off. "That's why you got me, buddy." She took a sip directly from the bottle. She quickly brought it away from her mouth and swallowed hard. "That is strong sake. Someone was going to get themselves drunk silly."

"Don't even try scolding me. I'm going to get enough from Katara." Aang grabbed the bottle and took a sip, coughing hard as the liquid ran down his throat. "It's been awhile."

"Awhile? More like never." He heard her chuckle at him. "When was the last time you drank hard?"

"Never."

"That's what I thought."

The two friends lifted their respective bottles and took a sip. The alcohol did its job and relaxed their bodies. Toph slipped out of the top part of her dress letting it stay at her hips. Aang kicked his shoes off. He observed her body. Toph had no doubt grown out as a woman, but the avatar wasn't looking at her that way. His eyes were following the contour of her muscles, a symbol of her strength and success.

"What happened there again?" Aang pointed at the long streaked scar wrapping around her left arm. In a way the pink scar tissue mirrored the pattern of his arrow tattoos.

The master earthbender twisted her arm to show her friend the extent of the injury. "Idiot with a hook hand. In the end, I bent it off his arm."

"I see." He took a small sip of sake.

Toph blew her bangs upwards. "What's biting you?"

Aang was glad the chair he was occupying was wood. He'd rather not have her feel his heartbeat shoot up at her question. "What do you mean?"

She scratched behind her right ear. "Everyone thinks you're depressed. Looking off into the distance, distracted, always off somewhere by yourself. I told Katara she wasn't satisfying you like she used to."

The avatar wiped a hand over his face. "Toph-"

"Don't act like you didn't expect that kind of answer." He was staring directly at her finger. She thrusted it closer. "Now prove my theory wrong."

He sighed as he gripped the neck of his bottle tighter. Of all the people that he thought he would vent to, Toph had been the last person on his mind. She was a great friend overall. However, Aang had not been one of the first people to know that she wasn't a master at comforting people. It was nice to know she was trying though. "Around this time of year, people think that about you too, you know that?"

"I could usually blame it on womanly problems or being in a bad mood. You on the other hand had taken a complete 180 from your usual peppy self. So spill."

Aang took another swing of his sake. "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Toph sounded annoyed along with her confusion.

The avatar let his head rest on his hand. "I don't feel happy this year. I've been having dreams, imagining what would have happened if we had lost."

Toph took in a deep breath. "All of us have those dreams, Twinkle Toes."

"Even you?"

"Look, I know I put on this tough persona and all. I'd like to keep that reputation of course, but you of all people didn't actually believe I wasn't scared that day, right?"

Aang let himself laugh a little. "Actually, I thought out of everyone, you would be the one giving the pep talk. I imagined you yelling at everyone to stop trembling like little girls and telling everybody that we were going to win this war. At least I hoped that you, or at least one of you guys, was doing that. I wasn't very much help in that department at the time."

"Damn right you weren't." Toph scowled. "You left us the day before the comet."

"I didn't exactly have a choice."

"I don't care." Her voice softened. "You still left us."

"I'm sorry."

"That was thirty years ago. I let it slide after twenty."

Aang couldn't help but laugh. "Thanks, Sifu."

"But really," Toph left her hand out indicaing for Aang to pass his bottle over. He noticed her own drink was already gone. She took a drink before speaking again. "you gotta explain."

The avatar dropped into the actual seat of the chair and put his own feet on the table. "I guess I've been feeling guilty. If there was no war, I would have continued to grow up with my people, learn the whole avatar thing normally. But if there was no war, I would have never met you guys or even have my children."

Toph quirked an eyebrow. "So which is it? Are you thankful for the war or not?"

"I'm never thankful for war, Toph." His voice was low. "All those lives lost during those hundred years was never worth it."

"You know what I ment, Twinkle Toes." She fought back.

Aang relaxed a little. "Well, I guess in a way I am glad. No that's the wrong way of putting it. I sound like a hypocrite. I ment-"

"I think I gotcha, Airhead." She stretched out her arm with the sake in it to him. Aang took it and gulped down a good portion of the liquid.

"Shouldn't we be drunk?" Aang looked at the nearly empty bottle.

"We probably already are."

"Huh."

They sat in silence. Now, the two can notice the room spinning. Toph closed her eyes and brought her other leg up on the table to avoid such fuzzy vision from her feet. When the avatar looked over at the metalbender, he was worried that she had fallen asleep, leaving him alone. His heart beat normalized when she cut the silent air with her voice.

"I guess im 'glad' the war happened too." She acted out the air quotes. "I would have been stuck with my parents still. Don't get me wrong I'm glad we made up and everything. I just would have preferred it not being pushed by a war. But hey, now I have Suyin and Lin. I'd say that makes up slightly for that."

"Do you feel guilty? Thinking that way?"

Toph sighed. Her hands came behind her head. "Every year."

Aang frowned. "You ditch the party every year alone?"

The chief of police let her head rest back, too lazy to hold it up herself. "The first few parties, Sokka used to be my drinking buddy. Then he got married to Suki and she convinced him it was better to celebrate than to think about stuff like this. Then me of all people got married and Satoru took up the vacancy. It was...different. He just didn't get all the war stuff. I couldn't blame him. The guy was a good listener though and that was all I needed."

"I'm sorry, Toph."

"As far as I know, it wasn't anybody's fault the refinery exploded. Just unlucky I guess." Aang watched her wipe the tear that had began sliding down her cheek. Toph shook her head and continued. "Then Sokka came back when Suki and him had that weird split. Would you call that a split? It was more of a break. Yeah it was a break. But he left as soon as Suki and him reconciled."

Aang leaned towards the desk. "Are you ever going to tell him? Are you ever going to tell Suyin?"

"We were both at very low points in our lives. It shouldn't have happened. But I love Su. She was a happy accident. I'lll be the only one to know. Well that and you. Save everyone the trouble."

He didn't say anything about the decision she had made. Aang let her proceed talking.

"And now you're here. I don't know if this is going to be a one time thing, but I do have a position open."

The avatar took the bottle and drank the last of the sake. He slammed it next to Toph's bottle loudly while wiping his mouth. "I'd be glad to be your new drinking buddy."

"Sweetness."

There was a large boom in the air and even with his vision blurred, he saw Toph jump. She cursed and wrapped her arms around herself.

"Fireworks."

She growled. "I know."

Three more explosions echoed out before the chief of police had enough and fell to the floor. Aang got up and tried his best to balance on his two feet. The avatar stumbled his way around the desk and practically threw himself onto the floor where Toph was hiding under the desk. Aang clumsily grabbed her hand.

"What is it like for you?"

Toph continued to scowl but the grip tightening around his hand told Aang she appreciated his comfort. "It's like the sound the airships made when they crashed into each other. Or when the fire was burning the land and the trees would crack. The fire nation destroyed forests."

"I know. I saw it."

"And I felt it. From all the way up in the airship."

They sat together as the celebration raged on in the sky. Every explosion, every boom, Aang and Toph squeezed each others hands. He asked if Sokka or Satoru ever did this for her. She responded by saying they were either passed out or sleeping by the time the fireworks came along. What made this time different, he asked. Toph said they drank differently. Unlike Sokka who would play several drinking games with her, trying to forget about the war for the night, or Satoru who would persuade her to join him in bed in order to get her mind off the war as well, Aang drank with Toph in order to persist through the guilt and memories. After forty long years of trying to forget, her new drinking buddy showed her that it was time to face it.

"Do you know what a lot of people forget about us?"

Toph cringed at another explosion. "What is that, Twinkles?"

"People forget that we were both twelve when we fought in the war."

"Your point?"

Aang shook her slightly. "Lin and Tenzin are around the same age and the worst they have seen is us after the Yakone trial."

"Hey, that was pretty bad."

"They don't even know it was bloodbending."

"True. Very true."

Aang didn't know if the tears were coming from the alcohol he had consumed or some other source. "We were kids, Toph."

She felt something wet hit their joined hands. Toph told herself it was the sake that was causing her eyes to water. "Sokka, Suki, Katara, and Zuko were not much older than us, you know that right?"

"We were both twelve, Toph. When I was twelve, I died and then came back to life."

Toph sniffled, but her voice remained unfazed by her emotions. "When I was twelve, I was kidnapped and forced to metalbend. My hands were bruised so bad from hitting them against the metal."

"When I was twelve, I had to avoid an assasin."

"When I was twelve, I became an outlaw."

"When I was twelve, I had to fight in a war."

"Me too."

Both forty two year olds let their heads come together. They rested against each other as the fireworks raged on.

"When we were twelve, we had to win a war."

"And I'm glad we did."

Well, I hope you enjoyed that! I was inspired by the small fact that Toph and Aang were the same age. They must have really connected as friends seeing that they literally grew up together. Anyways, thank you for reading and don't forget to review!