First and foremost, Lin remembers, they were friends.
The best of friends.
The closest sense of the word friends.
She and Tenzin. Tenzin and her. They had been inseparable in their youth.
She remembers the jokes of getting married passed around by the adults.
The banters and teasing passed by Bumi and Kya.
They blushed, but never let it change their friendship.
After all, they were just friends.
She remembers they were each other's only confidant. They had created a language nearly all their own. No one understood either of them as powerfully and as deeply.
It didn't matter what anyone else thought.
She remembers trying not to cry before Tenzin's year long airbending trip- one in which he could only write letters sporadically. They pinkie swore not to let anything or anyone come between their friendship.
In his absence, she discovers other guys. She starts dating, realizing these wusses couldn't handle someone as fiercely independent, powerful, and intimidating as she. She thinks it's her fault, and asks Tenzin if she's doing something wrong. Tenzin (through his letter) assures her they don't (and could never) deserve someone as incredible as her.
She remembers that reading that particular line in the letter, realizing exactly what was wrong- it wasn't him.
She remembers his return, that puberty had done wonders on Tenzin's jawline and the year long trip had done a wonder on his physique.
She remembers him asking her to accompany her while receiving the coveted blue arrows. He said he was going to need her strength because his tolerance to pain is low and needed her by him. She remembers laughing, but agreeing that indeed he would need her to get by.
She remembers him passing out in his seat, falling out of the chair. She remembers catching him right before he fell, slowly lowering his body to the ground. It was so much taller than it had been the previous year. She remembers never letting go of his hand- keeping it in her lap while her Aunt Katara revived him. He blushed after realizing what had happened. She punches him in the arm, almost knocking him down a second time.
She remembers his presence at her mother's funeral. He said nothing, and simply held her as she sobbed in public for the first and last time of her life.
She remembers ruining everything. She remembers kissing Tenzin on a dare from Bumi, and remembers how his lips were slightly chapped that day. It would never have mattered had Kya not shouted at him for not wearing vaseline on his lips beforehand in front of their parents. As if it was something one could prepare for.
She remembers the first time he tells her he loved her. She never said it in return, afraid of the word. Her own father had used that word and wooed her mother with it. Her first memory is of her mother crying in front of her for the first and last time over him, saying over and over again that she had loved him. There had been something so temporary in the word that she had never wanted to insult Tenzin by using it. Tenzin had never quite understood, but the mention of her absentee father shut him up quickly, but temporarily.
He slowly worked the word love into more of their daily conversations. He loved their morning bending practices. He loved the way she rubbed her cheeks when it was cold outside. He loved her scowl at the Ember Island Player's rendition of "The Boy in the Iceberg". She remembers one day catching herself using it a few times. It was the only way she knew how to assure Tenzin that she felt everything he had just as powerfully.
She remembers overhearing Katara slip that he intended on marrying her someday.
She remembers going to the clinic to make sure her ovaries were in check- that should children come into the picture, she'd be able to have them. She allowed herself to toy with the idea of twin airbender boys and an earthbending girl though she had never desired children before.
She remembers them telling her she had ovarian cancer. Unless she was going to remove all her reproductive organs, she was not going to live longer than two years more. She remembers ordering them to take it out. She as Chief of Police has to survive. She remembers that it was choosing between Tenzin and all of Republic City. It was her duty to pick the latter. She promises herself she'd never tell Tenzin or anyone as long as she lived. She didn't need to burden others with her personal problems.
After this is a blur. She doesn't remember how or when or where the conversation of having children was brought up. She doesn't remember the first time she slams the door in his face in anger. She doesn't remember the first time she sees his acolyte pupils gather around him like starving puppies- noticing on how all but two were female- and of dating range. She doesn't remember her exact wording when she tries to break up with him the first time.
She does remember his. He doesn't know what the matter is with her these days. He doesn't understand how she had become so cold to him. He doesn't understand what's so wrong with children. She doesn't remember her response, but knows it was not the one he would have liked.
She remembers him asking her to reconsider. He never wanted it to end like that. They were, first and foremost, childhood friends.
She remembers giving him the final blow. She remembers telling him that they were idiotic as children. That she had grown up. That she had never loved him, and that she never could.
It was her first lie to him.
She remembers Avatar Aang's wake. She tried to talk to Tenzin. She tried to say just how sorry she was. She tried to release some sort of comfort from her lips to give him- the lips that had kissed him first. The words never came. He ignored her. She stayed silent.
Lying there in the hospital bed, Lin recognizes hat first and foremost they were friends and that she was the one who had ruined everything by kissing him. By not taking care of her body. By not going to the doctors yearly.
She drags herself out of bed, and turned the radio off. She was the one who had ruined everything in the first place.
But she had no intention of being helpless.