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"No," she whispered in realization as the body in her arms went limp. "Stay with me, you Meathead!"
Toph's grip tightened against his back, and she clenched his greasy hair between her fingers in the other hand. She shook his crippled form violently and screamed in anguish. Pressing her forehead into his chest, she desperately clung to the faint Th...Thum-p. Th...Th...
"Katara!" she shrieked, mortified and helpless, hanging onto a thread of hope that Katara's healing abilities could somehow help. Bent on bloodied knees against Sokka's slipping form, she felt through her scrapes and bruises for the familiar weight and shape of her water bending companion. Katara seemed to be sprawled into a broken bush twenty meters ahead, and a furiously struggling Aang was carefully pulling her out.
"It's OK, it's OK," Toph whispered in Sokka's ear, her mind too dazed to process the notion that he couldn't hear. "W-we're gonna get your sister and..." She sniffled, her face drenched with sweat, blood, and tears. "She's gonna fix you. Don't go falling asleep on me, Snoozles."
"Hurk!" Splitch. That certainly didn't sound good. Katara continued coughing, and Toph heard Aang gasp in a way she had never heard before.
"Katara," he cried in terror.
"I'm...-" Katara grunted in a squeaking, weak voice. "Ulgh...Water, Aang," she forced out.
"R-right!" Aang obediently barked, FWF-Fwf-Fwf-fwf, his tiny feet fluttering across the ground. Katara did not sound in any condition to be doing anything.
"Toph...?" It was barely a murmur, but her ears savored it.
"Sokka!" she heaved, choking on her own tears and snot.
fwf-fwf-Fwf-Fwf-FWF!
"Here!"
Toph's heart skipped a beat as it scrambled to piece together her shattered hopes. Maybe Katara could still help. Maybe Sokka would be OK! He was trying to speak again.
"I don't think...-"
"N-No, you have to hold on," she growled, presenting her face before his, hoping that he would see, with this mystical ability of sight he possessed, how much she needed him to stick with her. He laughed weakly.
"What-?" Toph panted, perplexed.
"Looks like...I was right...Huh, Toph?"
"A-about what?"
"The Universe...really was...out to get me..."
"No," Toph seethed between grit teeth, tears pouring so hard that they trickled down her lips and into her grinding ivories.
"Promise me," he sputtered, his voice becoming muffled by thick liquid. "You'll...watch over...my Sis."
"I-I'm not promising you anything," Toph wheezed, taking her hand from his bare back just long enough to wipe haphazardly at her face. "'Cuz you're gonna be OK!" She clamped her back into his shoulder blade, her scraped palms trembling across the deep gash between his shoulders.
"Toph...so stubborn..." Sokka hacked with what could be construed as a snicker. "Always...loved that...'boutcha..."
Toph's bare and beaten knees were warmed as a thick substance gradually leaked its way down from Sokka's legs along the slight incline they were collapsed upon.
"I-I always...l-loved you, S-Sokka," she bawled, her sniveling overtaking her. She pressed her mouth into his face, at first missing his lips and sucking blood that was trickling down his cheek. She jerked her head back an inch and blubbered out a laugh in spite of herself. You're fucking pathetic. You couldn't save him. You waited until it was too late to tell him. You can't even kiss him while he is dying.
She squeezed his head and back, crushing his chest into hers, and found her way to his mouth. She tenderly wedged her lips around his, drawing air from within him as if she could pull his spirit out and into her own before it was lost.
Th...Thum-p. Th...Th...mp...T...h...p..............