Understanding

"I want her arrested."

"Who?"

"That bitch Pema, of course."

"Lin…"

"It's not right, Mother! That conniving Acolyte skank stole him from me, and theft is a crime." Lin stalked back and forth across the Chief's office, her fury making her unconsciously bend the flagstones, and they bent and rippled under her feet.

"He wasn't kidnapped, Lin. You can't just go around arresting people who piss you off. You've known that since you were three and I wanted to lock up Sokka for some dipstick thing or other." Lin was thirty-two, and Toph was still not sure she was a good mother. Situations like these only served to deepen her uncertainty.

"This isn't some dipstick thing or other!" Lin exclaimed. "She seduced him, and he's a full sixteen years younger! Tenzin had his tattoos before she was born!"

"Age is a relative thing. Aang was younger than Katara, and that struck plenty of people as strange."

"Yes, but only by two years. Sixteen years, no matter which way, is just…. It's just… And she doesn't even know him! She only joined the Temple two years ago, and… I mean, she wasn't there when Tenzin and Bumi and I raided Uncle Sokka's Super-Secret Sake Stash and got hammered and Bumi broke his wrist. She wasn't there when he flew for the first time, or when I learned metalbending. She wasn't there when his father died. Does none of that count anymore?"

"Of course it counts," Toph soothed. "But Lin, just because Aang wanted the woman who wrote his biography — freed him from the iceberg and taught him Waterbending and helped him save the world — doesn't mean that goes for all Airbenders."

"I bet it's because I told him I don't want children. He's been very distant since then." Lin wasn't even listening.

"Heh. I said the same thing at your age."

"Mother, I was six when you were my age."

"Your terrible twos didn't end when you turned three, hon," Toph said wryly.

"And her timing was vicious. She struck just when he was so stressed about taking the Council position, and with my face like it is right now… I told him it would heal, but…" She touched the two long gashes on her face gingerly. The yelling was not doing anything good for the stitches, and they had begun to ache dully.

"Hush, your face is beautiful."

"You can't know that!" Lin shouted, angry and exasperated. "I just… is twelve years that easy for him to throw away? I… I love him!"

At this Toph got up and came around her desk to put her arms about her daughter's shoulders. Lin was trembling so violently that she had felt it through the legs of her chair. She guided her to a bench along the wall and they sat together.

"I love him, Mother, and he loves her, and it's not a thing that I can fix…. It has nothing to do with what's fair or rational… I hate him! I hate her! Don't I deserve to be happy too?"

And for the first time in a long time, Lin cried. And for the first time in a long time, there was nothing her mother could do but hold her… hold her and understand better than her daughter knew.

A/N: This thing. This THING. I love Toph and Lin so much! And I used to really like Tenzin too (I was always a little lukewarm about Pema, I admit). But the more I think about it, the more of a jerk Tenzin looks like too! Graashhghjsds, IDK.

Also, take that last bit however thou wilt. Maybe Toph was a widow, maybe she was spurned after becoming pregnant/having Lin... The point is, we don't know.

All characters are owned by Bryke, Nick, and Viacom.

E.I. signing out