Set very near to the end of Season 3, with minor spoilers for Jinora's storyline. I've spent a good while on this one and by now I'm pretty happy with it. I hope you all enjoy! Also posted this morning on my AO3 account (most everything else Avatar related is backdated by a few weeks..).

Colossus

"Um, excuse me, Chief Beifong?"

Lin looked up from her desk, distracted and rather annoyed at the disruption, to see who had bothered to come into her office without knocking. Jinora was standing there, a large stack of papers held tightly against her chest. Lin's lips pursed. Of all Tenzin's children, she was the only one who still called her by her title, ever polite, while the other little devils found ridiculous nicknames for her. Aunt or any variation thereof was the worst. This kid, the oldest, at least knew how to treat her elders.

"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" she asked timidly, adjusting the papers but remaining where she was. "The door was open, I wasn't sure if you were expecting someone."

Shaking her head, Lin beckoned her inside. If she were truly honest with herself, Jinora was a pretty decent girl. She'd make a vow to bend platinum into her own coffin before she admitted that to anyone, though. "What is all this?"

"Mostly things that need your signature, I think. Also some new proposals. Oh, and the most recent list of crime statistics." She handed the stack over, helping to slide them carefully to the desk so Lin wouldn't have to stand.

"You don't actually know what all these papers are, do you?" Lin shot at her, an eyebrow raised. Jinora's pinched lip was all the answer she needed. "And I'm guessing, as well, that your dad doesn't know you left City Hall?"

"It's so boring! I had to get out of there!"

"Right."

Jinora crossed her arms, taking a step back toward the door. "When he told me he was going to start showing me how the Council worked now that I'm an Airbending Master, I did not think he meant sitting around alone in his office all day while he went off and did things by himself."

Lin chortled, but her concentration was already taken by her own work and she didn't reply.

"Can I ask you something?" Jinora asked shyly, pausing in the doorway and staring down at her feet. Lin hummed her response, not really paying much attention as she reached for the new stack of papers to begin sorting through them. Taking that as a go-ahead, she barely raised her eyes to the chief's face. "Why didn't you and my dad stay together?"

Lin dropped the entire file she had picked up, forms scattering all over her desk in a confused mess, as her narrowed gaze shot up to the girl's. "Come again?"

"It's just, well, I found some photographs in the attic the other day," she explained quickly, scuffing her toe against the polished wood and looking anywhere but at Lin now. "Photographs of you and my dad when you were younger. You just looked so happy."

"You should ask your father, Jinora," Lin said with finality. She started gathering the papers back up again, taking a deep breath to sooth the red from her cheeks and hoping her youthful companion didn't notice.

"I did, though. He lied to me."

"What do you mean, he lied to you?" she retorted sharply, her eyes steely when she found Jinora's again.

It was her turn to blush. "I suppose it wasn't a complete lie," she hurried to tack on. "He just told me it was because he met Mom and fell in love with her, and I know it's true that he loves her. But I could tell that wasn't the whole truth. I hate when he does that, treats me like I'm too little to understand."

"And so you thought it would be a brilliant idea to ask me instead?"

"Well, yes."

Silence fell for a long moment before Jinora looked away and Lin started to chuckle quietly, the tension finally dispersing. "Are you sure you don't have some Earthbender in there somewhere?" she ribbed gently. "You certainly are straightforward for an Airbender." After a beat, she rose from her chair and came around her desk to lean against the front, making the atmosphere less stern. "You're right, it was much more complicated than that, and your mother had very little to do with it all even if she was the catalyst."

Rather than appearing relieved to be getting her answer, Jinora's lips quivered and her eyes began to tear. Lin straightened in surprise and worried she had said far too much. "What? What's wrong?"

Jinora shook her head, wiping at her eye with the back of one hand. "You just...in that picture, you were so beautiful. You're still really pretty!" she added quickly when Lin's expression pinched, "but I just - you're so confident and strong and powerful. Why would anyone leave someone like you?"

Lin paused, hearing something more intense under the surface of her words. She reached out to summon the girl closer, gesturing for her to sit in one of the chairs in front of her desk. She did, moving hesitantly and sliding onto the seat. Lin sat in the other, studying her forlorn face when she once again refused to look at her. "What is this about?" she asked softly. "It's not really about me, is it?"

Jinora was quiet as she pulled her legs up to her chest to rest her chin on her knees, her feet dangling off the edge of the chair. "Power scares people, doesn't it?"

"Sometimes," Lin agreed, still not sure where this conversation was going.

"I'm powerful, too. Like you."

The older woman watched as Jinora ran a wistful thumb over the outline of the new tattoo on the back of her opposite hand, where it grasped her knee tightly. Suddenly things started clicking into place. Acting on impulse, she wrapped those small fingers in her larger, calloused ones. "I chose to be alone after things fell apart with your father, Jinora. This life was my own doing, and my own choice. I do not regret it." Her lips pursed in a small grin. "That's what you're afraid of, I assume, being alone like me."

"No!" she replied too quickly. But then her face fell a bit with the weight of her thoughts and she nodded. "I mean, yes."

"You and I are both powerful, that's true. It's also true that power like ours can scare people away from us. I use that in my job every day, along with my winning personality." That earned her a small laugh, and she smiled again, this one reaching her eyes to bring the lines out in the corners. "This just means, though, we simply need to find that other half who compliments us. That's all."

Jinora nodded sagely, taking in every word she said. "Did you ever find that person?"

"For a time, yes."

"Your other half is my dad, isn't he." It wasn't a question, and Lin's smile faltered slightly. "It's okay," Jinora said, flipping her hand over so she could hold Lin's in return.

"Far too intuitive," Lin muttered under her breath, though she didn't break their grasp. Apparently that was the correct thing to do, because without giving it much thought the girl pulled their clasped hands against her chest and held them there. Still watching her closely, Lin asked, "Are you truly worried about not finding love? You're so young for that yet."

Jinora immediately dropped her searching gaze, and Lin knew she had hit on something else. "It's what's expected of me," she whispered.

Frowning deeply now as these new words hit home, Lin reached out with her other hand to tip up the Airbender's chin so she would meet her eyes, albeit reluctantly. "Who told you that?"

"No one. Everyone." She shrugged sadly, but didn't look away this time. "I overheard some of the acolytes talking a few months ago," she finally began to explain, tears starting afresh. "They were saying how it's my responsibility to keep the Air Nomads going – or something like that – mine and Ikki's and my brothers', just like it was Dad's. But what if – what if I don't want to? What if I don't – don't find someone who loves me? What if I don't want to have kids, like my dad did?"

Hiccups interrupted her flow of fears and she hid her face in the crook of her elbow as she began to sob in earnest. Lin stood from her chair and went to her side, crouching next her and patting her back awkwardly as she felt an odd sense of reliving her own young life. She didn't much like it, for her sake then or for Jinora's now. A frightening lump rose in her throat as the girl continued to cry.

"I don't know what to do," she mumbled into her dampening sleeve. "What am I supposed to do?"

Reaching quickly back into her memories to find the right approach to this delicate situation, Lin gently touched her smooth head to bring her attention back up. She ran the knuckles of her fingers over her cheeks, catching the new tears and brushing them away. "You look just like your grandfather," she murmured, giving her a lopsided grin. "Aang would have adored you. He also would have told you something very important – that you should live the life that makes you happiest."

"But -"

"Don't argue with me, Jinora. If you want to run off and join the circus? He would have been completely behind that. If you want to settle down and have a family? He would have been behind that, too." Lin put her hands on Jinora's quivering shoulders, looking at her firmly. "He would also have loved for you to go off on your own, explore the world, and experience the joys of life. But most of all, he would want you to create your own path, not one someone else wants for you. Aang, more than anyone, understood destiny. He also understood having to find yourself, and on that road happiness is more important than almost anything."

Jinora was silent for a long moment, absorbing everything she had just heard. "So I don't have to have kids if I don't want to?"

"Spirits, no."

"Thank you," she said, the sincerity in those two words making Lin's heart swell painfully. "Dad doesn't talk about…well, any of this. Not about having kids, not even our grandfather. I'm glad you knew him, too. Actually, I'm just glad you were willing to talk to me at all."

It was right on the tip on Lin's tongue to tell her that she was so willing because she really, truly understood, that it was the need to continue the Airbending line that had ultimately been the finish of her relationship with Tenzin once Pema had entered his life. That children had always been the one thing they had never been able to compromise on, even when every other aspect of their lives meshed so perfectly. How Tenzin had never been able to take his own father's advice, and she hoped Jinora would break away from that.

Instead of saying any of those things, though, she just stood from her crouch and smiled kindly. "You're a powerful bender, and a very brave young woman. You deserve happiness."

"So do you." Jinora slipped from her chair and wrapped her arms around Lin's waist, giving her a tight hug.

Lin put her hand on the girl's bald head as she refused to let go, not sure what else to say but content for the moment to let things be as they were.

Later, however, she had an acolyte or two to track down for a few select and very harsh words. Jinora was not her daughter by any stretch of the imagination, but she would be damned before she let this shining woman's life be changed the way hers was for the sake of something that should never have been put on either of their shoulders in the first place.