Title- Almost Airbenders
Author- Melon
Rating- T for teen romance
Genre(s)- Romance/Humor/Friendship/Drama
Characters/Pairings- Teo Lee, Harulee, mentions of Kataang
Summary- When Ty Lee gets dumped, things get strange...

A/N- This is gonna be three to four chapters long. The first is just a very short introduction to get the ball rolling (and I'll be super honest, the reason it's short is because I promised good ol' Shiney it would be posted tonight, but my new uni semester starts absurdly early tomorrow morning and I need sleep... look at me, being semi-responsible), but the next two or three chapters will be longish.

It takes place about two and a half years after the events chronicled in the upcoming The Search trilogy, which puts Ty Lee and Katara at age 18- with Ty Lee going on 19- Haru just shy of 20, Teo 17, and Aang is about to turn 16.

Ty Lee wasn't the type of person to get mad very often, and even when she did, it typically didn't last too long. It was characteristic of her family- of her whole nation, in fact- to have sudden hot flares of temper, but it was characteristic of Ty Lee to cool down just as fast. But standing in the wake of the last conversation she'd had with her boyfriend (or rather, her ex-boyfriend), Ty Lee was furious. The more she thought about it, the more her blood boiled.

She'd had a lot of boyfriends. Ty Lee was not oblivious to the way men watched her when she walked, or stared at her from across the room, and very early in life she had become a master at getting guys to do anything she wanted without having to work too hard. Azula had called her methods shallow, and maybe she had been right, but Ty Lee had never particularly cared. And so, yes, she had dated a lot of boys, but none of them had been serious. Not until him.

Haru had been... well, he'd been different than the other guys. Ty Lee was so used to the egotistical, thick-headed types who tended to fawn over her the loudest, that Haru had been a breath of fresh air. He was smart, and a talented bender without being all flashy and showy about it, humble and full of that warm strength so characteristic of the Earth Kingdom. They had seen each other a time or two in the time immediately following the War's end, but they hadn't really properly met until two years ago, when some work he had been doing with Avatar Aang and Katara had brought him to Kyoshi Island. They had gotten to talking one day, and Ty Lee had quickly discovered that for someone so handsome and muscular, he was surprisingly sweet.

And that had been that. She had wanted to kiss him, so she had, and they had been together ever since.

Their relationship hadn't been perfect, but it had been good. She'd honestly thought he was it. He treated her well and put up with her walking around on her hands at all hours of the day and she knew she could rely on him to be there when she needed him.

Or at least, she'd thought she could.

That was cast in some doubt now, what with him up and telling her, out of the blue, that he was leaving her. For Katara. Who, as far as Ty Lee knew, was perfectly well-ensconced in a happy relationship.

"I tried. I did. And you're great, Ty, you really are," he'd assured her. As if that weren't the most condescending thing she'd ever been told (and she'd been on the receiving end of a lot of condescension in her life)! "But the thing is... I think it's always been her, for me. I know it's a long shot, but I have to try."

Talk about adding insult to injury!

And the more she thought about it, the more hurt and angry she got. She'd given Haru everything, and all the while he'd been nursing love in his heart for another woman. When she'd whispered to him that she thought maybe she loved him, he'd been loving Katara. When she'd let him take her virginity, had he been thinking of Katara? When she had abandoned the Kyoshi Warriors, a position that had been hard-won and cherished, to move with him to the northern Earth Kingdom, had he been wishing someone taller and darker were living with him in her place? All this time, when she'd been working to build a life with him, had he just been biding his time until the moment when he couldn't stand his unrequited love any longer?

Ty Lee felt no resentment toward Katara. She had respect for the other girl and considered her a friend, and it wasn't her fault that Haru couldn't let go of someone he'd never even had. But the tall, handsome earthbender Ty Lee had been sure would be her husband when he finally got around to asking... well, to be honest, she could never remember being this furious. Ever.

Maybe it was anger. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was all those years she had spent as the closest friend and only confidante of supreme puppetmaster Princess Azula. But as her resentment and hurt crystallized, Ty Lee realized that she had no desire to be the victim in this emotional train wreck of a breakup. For her own peace of mind, she needed to show Haru that she wasn't the kind of girl to just curl up and cry when her man left her (even if that was all she really felt like doing). Even though she was in absolutely no emotional state to enter into a new relationship, she was going to prove to him that he hadn't broken her.

And she knew just the person to help her with that: Teo.