He felt the ache before he opened his eyes. His head pounded heavily and his mouth felt like it was filled with a thick paste. It was his left leg, though, that was killing him. It felt broken. It probably was. That fall down the side of the war balloon was a nasty one.

The fall. His eyes snapped open. The battle. Sozin's Comet. The firelord. It all came rushing back. Toph. If he made it, maybe Toph did, too. He sat up, causing his headache to worsen severely and his body to cry out in pain. The ache in his leg only intensified.

"Toph!" he screamed, though his voice had a rasp to it. "Toph! Where are you! Talk to me!" His eyes quickly took in his surroundings. It was dark. There was a layer of dirt over everything. He seemed to be at the bottom of the deepest hole he'd ever seen. Rocks and chunks of overturned earth were everywhere, jutting irregularly out of the walls around him. Trees were torn up and half-buried in the dirt, peeking out almost comically from the earth.

His gaze settled on a large tree trunk a few feet from him. Its roots twisted like tentacles outward and its mass lay across the torso of a small, prone figure with black hair and a still face.

A cry ripped from his throat as he scrabbled over to her, using the sudden adrenaline rush to heave the tree away. His mind went into overdrive. Was she breathing? She had always been short, but she'd never looked so tiny and fragile as she did right now. He frantically put his head to her chest and was relieved to hear the faint thump-thump of life inside. She was breathing, thank goodness. The real problem came when he saw her limbs, splayed out around her. Her hands and feet were torn to shreds. They were bent away from her arms and legs at angles that made Sokka want to gag. Deep scratches and gashes ran up to her elbows and knees, and smaller lacerations speckled her torso and face. The pools of blood around her disfigured limbs did not suggest an immediately life-threatening injury, but he knew it was serious. She needed a healer as soon as possible.

Thankfully, Get-Stuff-Done Sokka kicked in about then. He took off his belt and ripped it in half, wrapping each piece tightly but gently around her feet. These were her eyes. If he couldn't save what sight she had given herself, what she had built her entire life upon, he didn't know if he could forgive himself. He kicked off his boots to reach the tearable fabric of his pants, then ripped strips from the bottom and similarly wrapped her hands. This would hopefully stem the bleeding somewhat.

Afterwards, as his adrenaline rush faded away, he stared up at the roundish hole that revealed the red sky. He couldn't hear the sounds of battle anymore, but that could have been because they were too far down, or that the trees around them muffled the noise. He hoped, though, that the battle was over and that someone would find them soon. He needed Katara and her waterbending more than ever.

As if to prove his point, Toph's eyes flashed open and she cried out. Sokka was by her side in an instant, holding her by the shoulders as she thrashed in pain.

"Toph, it's me!" he said loudly, trying to keep his voice calm. "I need you to stop. You're only going to hurt yourself more."

"I can't see!" she shouted, sliding her wrapped feet across the ground.

"You need to stop!" He paused, not sure what to do. Could he move her? That was always something they said you weren't supposed to do, but anything had to be better than her battering her own limbs like this. He pulled her onto his lap, holding her tightly to constrict her movement. He held her legs so that they couldn't kick the hard earth anymore.

Her jerking subsided, but her entire body was tense. She tried to breathe through gritted teeth, but it was uneven and short. About now she seemed to realize who she was with, and she managed to bark out a gravelly "'M fine."

Sokka almost laughed, but that would have shaken the girl in his arms. Instead he made do with a relieved smile. At least she was still her stubborn self. "You're gonna be fine," he confirmed. "Katara's gonna get you patched up and you'll be back to punching rocks in no time."

"I'd punch your rockhead if I could move my fists." She shifted the arm less wrapped between her body and his and hissed, reflexively digging her face into his shoulder. His stomach flipped again and he curled his fingers through her long black hair, now out of the bun and dirty and tangled.

He was reminded of a time when he was twelve and Katara was nearly eleven. She had gone fishing with him and slipped on the ice, falling down an incline and breaking her arm. She'd been in so much pain, and it hurt him to see his sister in such a state. Gran Gran held her granddaughter in her lap and ran her fingers through her hair as the tribe healer wrapped the injured arm, protecting it from further harm. He'd teased Katara later for not watching where she was stepping, but he actually felt terrible for not looking after her. He was the older brother, and she got hurt on his watch.

Now another young girl, so close and important to him, was struggling not to cry as her body howled in pain. There was absolutely nothing he could do to help. He snaked his fingers through her hair like he'd seen his grandmother do, praying it offered some small amount of comfort. Thankfully, Toph's tense body relaxed some, and her legs hung more limply from his hold.

"I got you," he heard himself whisper, and he closed his eyes, waiting for rescue.

o0o0o0o

(a/n) Chapter 2 done! Wish me luck in getting motivated to finishing this... :P Thanks!