Disclaimer: nope, don't own a thing (though I probably should own up to the inevitable errors).
Notes: so I've seen Beifong written as both that and Bei Fong. Nick's website has it as Beifong, so that's what I'm going with buuuut yeah. I always thought it was separated. anyway. written as a general look at Lin after today's episode, has a corny ending because I really, really suck at them. :D
New Born
For a time, she entertained the idea that Aang was her father.
Toph heard about it - Toph heard everything - but it was Aang who sat her down on the path leading to the air temple's shrine. The wind blew a pretty pattern through her hair, and the ring of flowers around waved, their leaves brushing the ground.
Aang sat cross-legged, easy and relaxed, hands clasped in his lap. He was watching her the way he watched all of his children, and for a while she looked back. Lin liked to look; she liked to look at the grey of Aang's eyes, how they matched Tenzin's but not Bumi's or Kya's, and she liked to look at her mother because speaking to her was never really an option.
"Do you want to know about your dad?" he asked eventually, rolling a pebble between his fingers. She would have enjoyed making the pebble dance, but Aang was still watching so Lin nodded slowly.
"There honestly isn't much I can tell you about him, just that he was a good man, a brave man. Your mother..." He smiled, half rueful, half fond. "Your mother is a private person, you know. Tenses up the second you mention something that can't be dealt with by throwing rocks at it. But I like to think she loved him, for a while at least."
The pebble was smooth in some places, grainy and colored in others. Lin squinted, and it fumbled into the air, wavering before landing in her palms. Green and blue mixed into black. "Is he dead?" she said, running her thumb over the pebble's grooves. "My dad, I mean. Is he dead?"
"Don't know," said Aang. "I never asked."
"Oh." She fiddled with the pebble. "How come I never got his name?"
He paused - hesitated, more like - and Lin shrugged before Aang had a chance to gather his words.
"Never mind," she said, letting the pebble slip from her fingers, "it's mom, she likes her name more than anyone else's."
Aang laughed; Lin could recognize his laughter in a crowd filled with a hundred people. She couldn't say the same for her mom. "I think," he said as he reached over to ruffle her hair, "that you have Toph's name because you're Toph's daughter. Makes sense, right?"
"I guess so."
She wished she could say - to him and not just a silent tree - that she wanted him to be her father. That would be nice. Lin already pulled Kya's hair and kicked Bumi and pushed Tenzin, she'd fit right into their dysfunctional family, and besides, Aunt Katara and mom fought like sisters anyway, it wouldn't be a stretch, though Lin vaguely remembered someone telling her relationships were often less complicated with just two people.
Her brow was scrunched up, a mess of wrinkles and lines, and Aang poked it dead in the center. Lin winced, raising her eyes to see him smiling faintly.
"I should have told you before," he said, scratching his nose, "but I guess I thought it was obvious. You are my family, Lin. Doesn't matter about the technicalities of blood or any of that."
"But not my dad," she said. "You aren't my dad."
"No," he agreed. "I'm not. But I will always be very proud to call you my daughter."
"Even though I'm not?"
"You're just like Toph," he complained, laughing. "Rock-headed and all of that. You're not mine in blood, but you're a part of my family in everything else, right? The insanity and the fights and the jokes and the turtleduck attacks. That makes up our family."
Lin glanced at him, avatar Aang, the man who wasn't her father but still managed to be. She felt the corner of her mouth kick up in a half-smile. "Can we find more turtleducks? I haven't seen one since we went to visit Uncle Zuko."
She watched her mother take down some thugs in the city the next day, and while Chief Beifong was wrapping metal around the men, Lin sort of began to understand.
She would never meet her biological father - though she was sure some part of her would yearn to know - and while she had a father in Aang, she had something else, too: a name. Her name, her mother's name, the metalbending name. Lin would always have Beifong to call her own.