Author's note: The title's characters are first « 4 », which is the unlucky number because it sounds like « death », and « air ».
As a companion to my LoK fic I posted yesterday, four sad moments with Tenzin or as I like to put it, Tenzin/depression. Get the tissues out and forget any thoughts that this was a kids' show.
四/气
1.
"So, what? Some little girl comes into your life, flips her hair around, and that's that?"
"Lin," Tenzin warns, pinching the bridge of his nose, "this isn't about–"
"Like hell it isn't Tenzin." Two strong hands grab the front of his robe. "She's half your age, she's nothing compared to me. What is it about her? Huh?"
His larger but admittedly weaker hands pry hers from his clothes, lacing their fingers together. "We're different people now, you and I. How many days have we spent discussing our future? And how many days have we let the future slip by instead of doing something? We want different things out of life, Lin, that's all I'm saying."
There's something in her eyes that Tenzin hates to see: a vulnerability, something feminine, a quiet outrage, things so un-Lin that they hurt. The tears he can sense coming only make matters worst.
"All because I wouldn't be the little housewife–"
"Stop it Lin, that's not–"
"–who'd sit at home waiting for you–"
"–it, you're so much more than me–"
"–and helping you repopulate the Air Nomads?"
"–and I don't want to hold you back anymore, damn it!"
The wind blows, rattling tree leaves, before Lin yanks her hands from his. "Maybe the old proverbs are right, maybe airbenders and earthbenders can never work out in the end." And she stalks away, not letting him say anything; Lin had always had to have the last word.
To the passing air Tenzin whispers, "I just can't love you the way you should be loved, Lin."
2.
There should be tears. There should be tears that never end, never stop, flowing into the great body of water lapping against the cliff beneath him. Everyone should cry tears for days, not because they have to, but because they too should feel this emptiness in their hearts.
He was their Avatar.
He was his father.
There should be tears and yet Tenzin finds none, his head coming up to stare at the city across the bay. All he feels is empty like he's never felt before, like all the air has been taken out of him, like he is alone, surrounded by the other three elements but completely out of his own.
He's the last airbender now; was this what his father had felt for so long? What his mother had meant when she'd said his father'd changed after Tenzin's airbending showed itself? To know he wasn't so alone after so long?
Someone calls his name in the distance but Tenzin doesn't move, standing on the cliff stiffly. The woman slows as she nears him, speaking quietly.
"Tenzin?" When he says nothing she steps behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle. "Tenzin, tell me what to do and I'll do it. Anything. Please, just– please, say something."
He grips her hands tightly, those damned tears finally coming as he pulls Pema to his chest, kissing her over and over. "Don't ever leave me," he breathes. "Don't ever leave me."
Her fingers gingerly stroke his cheek, the woman smiling sadly. "I'm not going anywhere Tenzin; I love you and nothing will ever change that."
There should be tears, and in her eyes there are.
3.
Pema won't get out of bed. His mother and sister try to coax her out but nothing will work, the women sitting on either side of Tenzin and sighing. Bumi, thankfully, is silent across from him.
He can't crawl into that bed beside her, not when she's so… empty? The thought still wrenches at his innards, pulling him a thousand different directions. Instead Tenzin lays on the floor, kept awake by the thought that their baby could have been an airbender. Could have been like him.
Could have been theirs.
And when his mother and sister retire to hide their tears, Tenzin and his brother sit on the back deck and watch Air Acolytes bustle about the island.
A hand claps his shoulder. "This isn't the end," Bumi whispers. "You're stronger than this, and Pema is stronger than everyone else put together."
"It all rests on us," Tenzin says quietly, turning to his brother with eyes pleading for him to understand this desperation he feels. The way his brother's skin wrinkles makes him think that maybe he does.
"That's not a fair burden, for anyone to carry. Pops– Pops had to wait for you. And you and Pema will have to wait too. But this isn't the end Tenzin. It's not."
After, feeling only marginally better, Tenzin drags himself to his room. He's barely done laying his back on the floor when he hears the shifting sound of his wife, Pema reaching out a hand. He takes it, meeting her sad eyes.
"Tell me I'm not a failure," she whispers and Tenzin finds himself crawling onto the bed to lay beside her. "Tell me you still love me and need me." He holds her close and they cry together as he kisses her hair.
"I love you," he moans, over and over. "I love you and nothing will ever change that." Pema sobs into his chest.
4.
The emptiness he feels inside, the clenching of his heart and the screaming in his head, are like nothing, nothing, Tenzin has ever felt. Those are his children, his babies. He watched Pema carry those children, their children, for months. He would get up in the middle of the night to hold them. He watched them grow. And now… and now?
Jinora was suppose to find a nice respectable man. Tenzin always felt deep down she would, someone serious, someone more like her father. Jinora would have a neat little wedding and a few neat little kids. They would all become calm airbenders; they wouldn't give their grandfather any headaches.
Ikki would find someone more like Pema: trouble. Maybe he'd be a bender too, someone from the Earth Kingdom, so different from her but still so able to love her the way she should be loved. They would have manic children like Ikki always was but they would make his father, somewhere, proud.
Meelo, Pema's always joked, would grow up like his father and grandfather, incredibly handsome and irresistible to all women. While Tenzin very much doubts that he was ever like that, he could see Meelo becoming that man. Carrying on the family burden that Tenzin inherited from his father, that Meelo would inherit from him. He'd probably marry some beautiful girl and have beautiful children. Probably name his eldest son Aang.
It's not like they're going to die, Tenzin keeps reminding himself. There are worst fates than losing your bending but… this was everything. They were everything. They were the last of the airbenders.
How could he protect them if he couldn't airbend?
Would he still be the same man Pema fell in love with?
Could he look his babies in the eyes ever again?
Tenzin would rather give his life than watch any harm fall on his children. That he can't save them is the worst feeling he's ever known.