Teo Saikhan was what some called a original colony kid, one of those who could trace his heritage to the Colony days and beyond, but he still grew up outside of the city. His excitement at being in the city irritates Lin but he's almost as good as her in both earthbending and metalbending and so they are made partners. He meets his girlfriend a few months later, around the same time as Tenzin and Lin start going out, and she's never been happier for him. Someone else could give him tours.
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Two years later, Tenzin and Lin attend Teo's wedding. Somehow, despite her best efforts, she and Teo had bonded over criminals and overwhelming amounts of paperwork. It helps that his two years meeting the worst of the city's residents has made him just a little bit cynical, making him seem like less of a eager beaver-trout. She is wondering just how much more in love she could be with Tenzin and marriage sounds less like a death sentence.
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A year later, Saikhan had a son, followed by a daughter two years later. Around the time of Saikhan's daughter's birth, Tenzin starts talking marriage."Lin, we've been together four years, shouldn't we make it official?" "Unlike you, I have to actually work for my achievements. I wasn't handed a school to run." If she had known that one argument had been the start of the end, she would have spared them both the next six years of frustration. She might have even been able to save her heart.
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The new Avatar was found, in the Southern Water Tribe, a small girl with a rumored temple twice her size. Lin is surprised that she's not coming to the City, but Tenzin had agreed with the White Lotus. Better she learn in private, undistracted and then come to the city, a fully realized Avatar. She thinks of how much Aang was a help to the city, and she nods. "So long as she's a help, I don't care if you and the White Lotus hand her like a bat mouse to train her." Tenzin laughed, a rare sound these days. Between him taking on his father's council seat and her investigating the Triads, trying to take them down, there is barely time to squeeze in a kiss. Wedding plans will have to wait.
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Four years into the Six Year Decay,as Lin calls it in her mind, long after they broke up, and that's when she looks up and sees it for what it is. A failing relationship. It doesn't help that Saikhan is arguing with his wife all the time, two others from their class already divorced. She's not counting those who've had affairs. But Lin was never one to back down, too much Bei Fong blood in her. So her and Tenzin try to get married. They could agree on the ceremony, a simple affair on Air Temple Island, a sort honeymoon in Ba Singe Se. It's the afterwards that's giving them fits. neither wants to move from where they live, neither is willing to cut back work hours. If the relationship was metal, the past four years was the rusting period. Now, it's just falling into pieces.
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A year later, and Saikhan makes the third divorced. She covers for him when he comes in drunk, finishes his paperwork when he falls asleep. She spends a surprising amount of time keeping him together, and Tenzin grows jealous. One night it finally breaks, he accuses her of an affair. It's their loudest fight, and their last. After that, they don't speak really, not about problems, just letting it stew and he broke it off, she was more pissed about how he did then the actual break up. There hadn't been an offer to try and fix it one more time. Just cut his losses and ran. Some days she thinks she could thank Pema, after she sees Pema's body rot in a cell.
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Saikhan couldn't stop her, and so she gets suspended for arresting Pema. Two weeks without a saving grace, just thinking about him. She loves him more now, in his absence, then she ever did when they were together. Saikhan offers for her to come over for dinner, and it's better then staring at the walls drunk (she's already broke 4 shot glasses, firing them at the wall). She goes. They spend the whole night tearing apart both of their ex's new partners, blaming them for everything wrong, from the rain outside to the breakups to their stubbed toes.
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The dinners become a bi-weekly event and after tearing apart their exs's and their new partners becomes boring, they tear into their Chief, the new one after Lin's mother retired (partially by force). Somewhere between dinner twenty and dinner thirty, they stopped tearing him apart, and start investigating instead. Six months later, he's arrested for taking bribes from the Triple Threats and Lin gets a promotion. The two celebrate between sweaty sheets in her apartment.
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They never said love, never considered it love. They called it an understanding. They could go months without needing to, enjoying their dinners and going home after. But after a victory or a loss, they would stumble into a room, and meet skin on skin. It was a way to pour it out, and never think about it. When they lost that kid arriving two minutes too late, they got drunk, him pushing her against the wall, pretending the tears came from it being too rough. When they shut down one of the smaller Triads, it was a languid affair in his bed, lasting until morning. She runs into his kids, now both teenagers more often. The son is nice and unsuspecting, the daughter is compiling a case file. It was a shame that the son was the one born with earthbending and his sister couldn't bend a damn thing. Still, she encourages her to try out for one of the other police divisions. Seeing Tenzin and Pema in the market doesn't hurt any worse then some of her other scars do during the rain. It aches, but's it's easy to ignore.
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She plays doctor for Teo, as they both complain about the new Avatar. She's nothing like Aang, and for all her water tribe clothing, she's fire wrapped in dark skin. She doubts whether Tenzin could control that girl, considering he can't control his own brood. It's the first time they lay naked together without having had sex first, and it scares her. She misses the next few months of dinners and he quits inviting. Until the day they nearly lost the Avatar on Aang's memorial. Tarrlok was supposed to give a signal if anything went wrong, and she learns not to trust the snake-rat. Teo Saikhan offers her dinner, almost as timid as the first time, and she goes, desperate to see something other then her own failure. She marks him, bites him, and he doesn't protest, but he's no lying rag doll either. They're both exhausted and both run late to work, her waiting twenty minutes for him to go in first and avoid suspicion. She's the Chief, she can run an hour late if she wants.
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A night after the raid on Hiroshi Sato's Mansion, she's sitting in his apartment. She still doesn't call it love, the word is too foul to her now, but she misses him. She's drawing up plans to find him and the others of her force, when a feminine voice startles her. Teo's daughter, Ling, matches eyes with her, and a whole conversation takes place. Then Ling sits down, telling her what's she's uncovered and overheard at the police station.