Unfortunate Hearts

When they first met…

Tenzin clung to Aang's robes as he stared at the little girl. Aang chuckled a little and tried to pry his son away from his robes.

"Come on Tenzin, don't be shy. This is Lin. She's the daughter of a good friend of your dad's."

Toph, who was holding the hand of her daughter, let out a booming laugh.

"Wow. He really is your son, Twinkle Toes."

Aang shot Toph an annoyed look, but his eyes only held laughter. Lin was looking at Tenzin curiously. She let go of her mother's hand and walked over to Tenzin. Tenzin just stared at her. She held out her hand and smiled.

"Hi."

Tenzin blushed and hid himself further into Aang's robes.

"Hi…"

Lin still held out her hand.

"You know, It's rude to not shake someone's hand when they give it to you."

After a long while, Tenzen came from behind his father's robes. He took Lin's hand in his and shook it.

"Nice to meet you."

"Tenzin? Tenzin, wake up!"

Tenzin jerked awake. He was staring at Lin's face. He was lying down on a soft patch of grass under a tree in the park. It was a beautiful summer day in Republic City. He and Lin had been discussing the next mock trial for the social politics class he was doing a lecture about when he must have dozed off.

"Sorry, what?"

Lin gave him an exasperated smile.

"We were going over the case file for your lecture tomorrow."

Tenzin recalled the case. Something about a drug smuggler getting caught with illegal substances in international waters of an enemy nation. He yawned.

"Guilty."

Lin let out a small sigh.

"That has absolutely nothing to do with the matter at hand. The question is, do you arrest him and risk causing a war with the other Nation, or inform them about the situation and have them think he's one of your spies?"

Tenzin sat up, contemplating the problem. Either decision could spark a war with the other nation. After a long while's thought, Tenzin came up with a solution.

"Send an extraction team to commandeer the vessel and steer it back into friendly waters. That way, the arrest could be made without the threat of an international incident."

Lin blinked at him for a moment.

"Wow…you really do take these things seriously."

Tenzin shrugged.

"It's just what I would do if I actually had to make that decision."

Lin gave him a sideways look.

"You really like politics, don't you?"

Tenzin looked up at the sky and thought about that for a moment.

"I never really thought about it as politics. All that really matters to me is that everyone lives in happiness and harmony."

Lin chuckled.

"You sound like your father."

Tenzin raised an eyebrow.

"And that's a bad thing?"

Lin shook her head.

"It's just that…You're a good guy, Tenzin."

Tenzin felt heat flood his face and he knew he was blushing. Lin laughed.

"Thirty-two years old and you still blush? Really, Tenzin, I thought you would have outgrown that by-"

With a sudden movement and a gust of wind, Tenzin leapt up and cut her off by pressing his lips against hers in a deep, passionate kiss. He broke away after a long while. Lin stared at him, her mouth agape and her face beet red. Tenzin gave her a shy smile.

"Look who's talking?"

Lin seemed to snap back to reality. Feeling her face, she somehow managed to blush even harder. She turned her back to him and created a wall of earth between them.

"Ok, that was not fair! You caught me off guard!"

Chuckling, Tenzin used the air to leap easily over the wall. He landed gently on his feet. He held out his hand to Lin.

"Come on. We don't want to keep our parents waiting. Spirits know how much your mother likes to wait."

Lin took his hand and the two made their way through Republic City Park, heading towards the inner city.

Tenzin gazed out over the crowd of students before him i the lecture hall. There were a lot of them. He hadn't expected this many to turn up. He decided that he might as well get started. Pushing the number of his audience out of his mind, he cleared his throat and clapped his hands, calling for silence.

"May I have your attention, everyone?"

The lecture hall quieted almost immediately. The silence was almost palpable.

"Good afternoon. I am Tenzin and I will be your lecturer for today. Most, if not all of you, are here because you have an interest in politics. Now, politics isn't just about creating laws and rules for people to live by. It's also about maintaining those laws and doing what's right for the people. For instance; a drought has been plaguing the plains somewhere near Ba Sing Se, yet in a town not far from there, the drinking water has been polluted to the point where it has become unfit for human consumption. What do you do? Keep in mind the zoning and land ownership laws that are in place."

Tenzin waited patiently for the student's minds to work. The hall rippled with muttering as the students bounced ideas off of each other. Near the middle, a hand was raised. Tenzin nodded at the student and he stood.

"If it was at all possible, couldn't you get a few Earthbenders together and try to dig for an aquifer? If you found one, all you would need to do is create an irrigation tunnel to lead some of the water down to the town with the undrinkable water."

Tenzin nodded his approval.

"Very good. However, you need an effective way to recycle the water. How would you do it?"

The boy didn't even hesitate.

"Waterbenders."

Tenzin suppressed a smile at the boy's answer and raised an eyebrow.

"Of course, you could pay a workforce of a couple hundred Waterbenders, but that would be rather costly. It would cost almost twice as much as just building a filter."

The boy opened his mouth again, then shut it, realizing the error in his theory. He sat back down. Tenzin scanned the hall to see if anyone else had another idea. A little while later, a small hand was raised near the back on the left hand side of the hall. Tenzin pointed to the student.

"Yes?"

The student stood. She shuffled around a bit, obviously nervous.

"Umm…C-couldn't you combine both man and machine? It would be like the power plants; excess energy stored in containers by Firebender's lightning. The same would go for the filter. It would be run like an old mill, except it would be self sustaining. That way, no one would be on call constantly, yet it would open up plenty of jobs in the area."

Tenzin was pleasantly surprised. This was the exact same answer that he had come up with when he created the dilemma. He smiled at the student.

"Excellent work. Well done."

The student sat down almost instantly, her head low. Tenzin thought nothing of it. He continued on in the lecture.

"Now, let's move on to international matters. Say you have to capture a smuggler who has been spotted in international waters of a not-so-friendly Nation…"

Tenzin walked out of the lecture hall, long after the last student had left. He was deep in thought about the Criminal Justice lecture he would give next week. Apparently he was thinking too hard, because he walked right into a student. They both fell to the ground in a tangled heap. Groaning, Tenzin sat up. Then he realized what happened, and looked around for the student he knocked over. She was very pretty, with long, straight dark hair, and brown eyes. She was rubbing her back, wincing slightly.

"Oww…"

Tenzin offered her his hand.

"I'm terribly sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going. Are you alright?"

The girl waved a hand casually.

"Don't worry about me. I'm a klutz. It happens all the-"

She cut herself off as she looked at who she bumped into. Her face turned bright red and she stood up so suddenly that she almost lost her balance and fell again. She was suddenly incredibly flustered.

"Oh! I'm so sorry sir! I didn't realize who I was going-I mean, where was in front of me-I mean…"

She trailed off. Tenzin couldn't help but laugh. He knew it was rude so he tried to calm himself. The girl just became redder in the face and avoided his gaze. Tenzin managed to get himself under control.

"I'm sorry. I've just never seen anyone get so flustered because of me. My father is the one who has people stammering over him."

The girl looked up and gave him a shy smile.

"I-is that so? Well, I can get flustered easily. Oh, I'm Pema, by the way."

Tenzin smiled at her and held out his hand.

"Tenzin. It is a pleasure to meet you."

Pema gave him a radiant smile and shook his hand.

"I already know who you are, sir."

Tenzin raised an eyebrow at her. Pema blushed and became flustered again.

"No, no! I didn't mean anything like that! I mean, I was just at your lecture, which was brilliant by the way, and your father's the Avatar, so there really isn't a reason why I shouldn't know you."

It took Tenzin a while to figure out that she was the student who had given solutions to both dilemmas that he had discussed in his lecture.

"I remember you. You came up with the exact same solutions as I did for those problems. Very smart thinking."

Pema beamed at him.

"Thanks. It was pretty hard to find the answer. It was a very well thought out problem. Well, I'd expect nothing less than the son of the Avatar.

There it was. The fact that will hang over his head forever. Tenzin figured that most of his fame stemmed from his father. It wasn't that he resented his father for it, nor that he cared for fame, it just happened to be that way. That didn't mean it didn't annoy him. Some of his annoyance must have shown on his face, because Pema's face fell.

"Oh…I didn't mean…I'm sorry to have bothered you. I'll just go."

She turned and hurried away. Tenzin opened his mouth to call out to her but she disappeared around the corner before he could. Tenzin glanced downward, feeling guilty. He spotted a notebook lying on the ground. He picked it up and turned it around in his hands. It was just a simple, brown notebook. He flipped it to the first page. It read, Property of Pema. It didn't take much investigation past the drawings of hearts to find out it was a diary. Tenzin closed it quickly, not wanting to pry. He was about to hurry after Pema when an angry voice stopped him.

"Tenzin!"

He turned to see Lin, still in her Metalbender Corps squad armor, stalking toward him, an annoyed look on her face.

Oh no…

She walked right up to him and jabbed an angry finger in his chest. With the metal armor on, it was quite painful and Tenzin winced.

"Where were you? We were going to have lunch and discuss your next lecture."

Tenzin clasped his hands together in apology. A few passing by students were looking on, whispering.

"I'm sorry, Lin. My class just got out and I got caught up talking to a few students, then I bumped into this girl-"

Lin's eyes narrowed as she cut him off.

"Girl? What girl?"

"I mean, it was a student..."

More students were staring now. It made Tenzin feel more than a little uncomfortable.

"Lin, can we talk about this in a more private area?"

Lin opened her mouth to argue more, but then looked around at their audience. With an annoyed sigh, she nodded.

"Fine. You still owe me lunch, anyway."

"Fair enough."

Lin sat back and sipped on her tea.

"That's it? You just fell over each other?"

Tenzin tried hard not to let out an exasperated sigh.

"Yes. That's all. I'd never seen her in my life before today. I didn't even realize that she was in my lecture before she told me."

Lin leaned forward and eyed Tenzin suspiciously for a long moment. Then she sat back and shrugged, seeming to buy his story.

"I see."

Tenzin shook his head, smiling.

"You can get so jealous sometimes, Lin."

Lin narrowed her eyes.

"I have to be. I can't have you being swept off your feet by some other woman."

She set down her tea cup a little harder than necessary, and jabbed a finger at him.

"You're mine, Tenzin. And I'm not about to let anyone else forget it. Especially you."

Tenzin chuckled and placed his hand on hers.

"Alright. I'll make sure that I never forget. I'm yours. Exclusively yours."

All of the fight seemed to leave Lin. She blushed and suddenly became timid.

"Tenzin…"

The two finished their tea in peace, stealing glances at each other now and then.

A week had gone by, and Tenzin had finished his second lecture for the week. When Tenzin left his Criminal Justice lecture, he was alert as he scanned the area, looking for Pema. He hadn't forgotten that he still had her diary. After about an hour of searching, he spotted her. She walking briskly and muttering to herself, a worried look on her face. He pulled her diary out of his pocket and started after her.

"Pema!"

She jumped and looked around when he called her name. When she saw Tenzin walking towards her, her face paled and she immediately turned tail and almost ran the other way. Confused, Tenzin went after her.

"Pema, wait!"

Jogging, Tenzin went after her, but he lost her after she turned a corner. Tenzin frowned. Using Airbending, he launched himself into the air, and held himself aloft, scanning the faces below. He finally spotted her heading along a street, leading towards the park. He lowered himself onto the ground in front of her, landing gracefully. She started back, a surprised and shocked look on her face. He gave her a polite smile.

"You left this when we last met. I thought you might want it back."

Her eyes became wide and fearful as he held up her diary. She snatched it back. Tenzin felt a stab of dread when he saw that there were tears in her eyes.

"…Did you read it?"

Tenzin put his hands up in a peaceful gesture.

"I only opened the first page to see who it belonged to. That's all."

Blinking away her tears, Pema avoided his gaze.

"Thank you."

Tenzin nodded. Now that he stood there, looking at the miserable teenager, an overwhelming sense of guilt washed over him and he had this sudden urge to comfort her.

"Listen…I'm really sorry for laughing at you last time. It was cruel of me. And, if I seemed annoyed, it had nothing to do with you. I promise."

Pema gave him a small smile and looked him in the face, her eyes shining.

"It's ok. Like I said, I get flustered easily. It's no big deal."

For some reason, Tenzin felt some kind of responsibility to make it up to her.

"I know that this may seem rather sudden and…well…might I buy you some tea as an apology?"

Pema looked shocked, as if Tenzin had just offered her a hundred million Yuan. Then her face split into a warm smile, and Tenzin felt a strange tightness in his chest.

"Yeah…I'd like that."

End

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