HI all! Here's chapter two! This one is a little bit shorter and can possibly go together with the last chapter. The next chapters after this will probably be stand-alones. Hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Officer Hino yawned widely, trying to cover it with his hand lest the Chief feel that he was anything but bright-eyed, sharp-minded, and bushy-tailed this morning. Things were rarely lost on her and there'd be hell to pay if she figured out that he'd been so irresponsible last night as to go to bed two hours before he was supposed to report. He knew that the Chief herself used to do the same. Not that it mattered. She was the chief, she could do whatever she wanted, she'd assert. When he was the Chief of Police and the inventor of metalbending he, too, could go drinking all night and turn around to report to work. Until then, he'd better straighten up before he got in real trouble. Hino blinked rapidly, trying to clear his head. They were in the midst of their morning briefing and it would not do to miss anything that the Chief was telling them. She'd know. Sometimes she all but tested them on it. He had to stay vigilant.

He knew he had missed something already as the officers around him started and looked below their chairs. She had told them to retrieve something. She'd notice his delayed reaction. He heard a little squeak. It sounded alive. A rat problem? Was she telling them to take care of it? Officer Hino was searching for rats when he finally saw the source of the commotion. It wasn't an animal, although it was very small and a little wriggly. It was a small child, head fuzzy with soft, downy black hair like duckling feathers. The child had one white tooth sticking out of its lower gum, drool all down its chin, smiling widely. It wore dark green. Earth kingdom colors, of course. And there were pale, bright green eyes twinkling above chubby cheeks. Hino smiled. He had never seen her before, but he knew this must be Chief Bei Fong's daughter, Lin. He wondered what she was doing clambering around under the officers' chairs. She crawled, wriggling and scooting, over to his foot, resting a tiny, pudgy hand on his shoe. As if she had read his mind the Chief smirked and said, "If anyone hasn't noticed, we have a new officer in our ranks today. Officer Hino, if you could stand up with Officer Bei Fong, please."

"What?"

"Yeah, just pick her up. Quit dawdling."

Officer Hino panicked as he hooked his hands under the baby's arms. If he harmed so much of a hair on her head, he was dead. What if he dropped her? What if he upset her and she started crying? He nervously picked her up, gingerly resting her on the side of his hip. Lin seemed unperturbed and merely gurgled and drooled a little more.

"This is Lin, your future chief of police. She's a little sick, so she's joining the ranks for the day. She'll be with me mostly, but keep an eye out for her, don't step on her, and if she earthbends at you, bend back a little, but not too hard. Thank you, officer Hino, you can put her back down."

"She can earthbend already?" the officer beside him whispered to his friend. As if to prove it, little Lin, as soon as she was back on all fours, smacked her pudgy, tiny hand flat against the ground and a not-so-tiny tremor vibrated under everyone's feet.

"Of course she can, she's the Chief's kid," the friend muttered back, eyeing his fellow officer as if he were clearly mentally deficient. Everyone in the vicinity looked at Lin with a mixture of shock, fear, and admiration. Only Chief Bei Fong's kid would be able to bend before she could walk. Officer Hino, per the Chief's orders, sent a little tremor back. Lin squealed, giggling and the Chief quirked a rare smile from the front of the room. Lin continued her journey under the seats of the officers in the room. Officer Hino smiled watching her crawl around in the wriggly, jerky movements that all babies make. She tried a few times to scoot over the threshold, but the Chief would invariably spin her around, creating an earthen disc in the floor right under the child, redirecting her wordlessly as she briefed her officers, as if nothing had happened. She really was "watching" her all the time.

It wasn't long before the baby had had enough of crawling around under everyone's seat. She then promptly sat back and started wailing, clear and loud, and the Chief sighed.

"Can someone get her and bring her up here?"

No one moved.

"Sometime today?"

Again, no one reacted at all. Everyone was afraid of hurting the child. Because if anyone did, they all knew that the unlucky culprit would be reduced to a dusty pile of rubble in seconds. The Chief growled.

"For Spirits sake, it's a baby, not a saber toothed moose-lion!"

With that, the Chief shot a cable towards the child, snaked it around her midsection, and gently pulled her across the floor, still wailing, up to the front of the room. Everyone watched, wide-eyed, as the Chief pulled the baby up by the cable. Only she would use her cables to handle a baby. Officer Hino shook his head. He knew that her friend, the waterbending master, Katara, would choke if she saw the Chief gently dragging the child along with the cables. But Chief Bei Fong was unperturbed and so was Lin. Lin was clearly used to it. The chief settled the child on an armored hip and the baby pressed her cheek against the cool, hard metal, clearly accustomed to the armor and taking comfort in the familiar feeling. The Chief wrapped a length of cable around herself a few times, gently binding the baby to her in something a little like the sling Hino's own mother had carried him in. Except that this one was made of unyielding metal cable, and that child was perfectly comfortable and at home with it. The Chief stretched her arms, happy that her hands were free, and kept going as if nothing were different. The baby sniffled and whimpered a bit, but eventually quieted, a tiny hand clenched around the top of her mother's metal collar. The chief kept a protective hand resting softly on her small back.

Officer Hino didn't see much of Lin after that. Once he found her scooting about the hallway near the break room, the Chief nowhere in sight. He questioned her parenting skills for a moment before realizing that she could probably still sense the child's every move with her bending. He shrugged and walked on, leaving the baby to her own devices.

Officer Hino's shift was almost over and he was walking down the hallway near the offices in headquarters. He heard the baby crying as she had done this morning. He grimaced. He had a lot of little brothers and sisters and knew what it was like when his mother had to take care of a sick infant. They were more than a handful. More than that, it was clear from her cries that the little girl didn't feel well. It wasn't her crying that made Officer Hino stop short. It was the kind murmur after it.

"No more tears, my little badgermole. It's alright. Mama's got you, it's alright," he heard a low, soothing voice. He couldn't even place it immediately it was so unlike anything he had ever heard her say. But he realized with a start that of course it was the Chief. She was usually barking orders or cackling her way through a joke. It was the gentlest, kindest thing he thought he'd ever heard her say. The baby's whimpers quieted a little, but continued.

"Shh, it's alright Linny-bear, it's alright."

Just before he turned the corner, out of ear-shot, Officer Hino stopped short when he heard the Chief start singing. He had never heard her do that. He speculated that very few had, other than her daughter. But Officer Hino couldn't help but grin when he heard her start her song. She had a beautiful voice, which he was sure she made a point to keep from as many people as possible considering her usual cocky exterior. It was higher than he would've guessed; he would've expected a low voice with something of a rasp. But hers was a sweet mid-tone that spoke of classical training, of extravagant parlors and refinement, but that also had something simple and unadulterated separate from all of that. It had rich lows and spinning highs. She sang the little girl a lullaby he had never heard, that he knew couldn't be earth kingdom. He wasn't sure where it was from or where the Chief had learned it, but it had a sweet, melancholy beauty to it. He listened to Lin's whimpers cease as the Chief began her song.

Leaves from the vine

Falling so slow

Like fragile tiny shells

Drifting in the foam

Little soldier girl

Come marching home

Brave soldier girl

Comes marching home

Hope you all enjoyed! As always, it probably won't be very long before I update again since these are all just sitting in a folder on my desktop. As always, I'd love it if you'd leave a review and tell me what you thought! Thanks for reading! Until next time!

~Belmione