Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

She darted over to peer out the window again, the ninth time in a two minute span.

Aang registered his daughter's erratic movements across the living from the corner of his eye. Earlier he had been driven from the kitchen by his irate wife for daring to make a last minute dinner request so he had no way of knowing that Kya's frenetic pacing had been going on for some time. But, since he had retreated to the living room following Katara's threat to whack him with a wooden spoon if he didn't "stop driving her crazy," Aang had become acutely aware of Kya's seeming inability to sit still. He watched her surreptitiously between casually reviewing a Republic City zoning ordinance and watching Bumi to make sure he didn't cheat his brother during their game of Pai Sho. However, when Kya made a tenth pass in a beeline for the window again, Aang finally set aside his work and decided to say something about it.

"Hey…you're not nervous, are you?"

Kya startled at his question, whipping away from the window with a guilty blush. "Nervous?" she snorted a little too brazenly, "Why would I be nervous? I'm not nervous! That's ridiculous!"

"You seem kind of nervous," Aang pointed out gently.

"I was thinking 'neurotic and weird,'" Bumi wisecracked, "but 'nervous' works too."

His older sister glowered at him. "You're seriously about to find yourself on the receiving end of my water whip," she warned him direly.

"Kya, please don't threaten your brother," Aang sighed in long-suffering, "Bumi, pay attention to your game."

"That's it?" Kya sputtered, "That's all you're going to say to him for being obnoxious?"

"You're 17. He's 12. I expect less from him, not from you," Aang returned in a mild tone. While Kya worked herself into a righteous froth over that, Bumi sat trying to decide if he should be smug over the fact his father had sided with him or insulted because Aang had just implied he was childish.

"But…but that's not fair at all!" Kya cried, "He started it, Dad! He's always making his little jokes and you always take his side even when he's being a brat!" She threw a glance at Tenzin who, until that point, had managed to keep his head down in an effort to mind his own business. But the instant his sister's eyes zoomed in on him, he knew that effort was fruitless. So Tenzin wasn't at all surprised when she made an attempt to rally his support for her cause. "Isn't that so? Doesn't Dad always take Bumi's side, Tenzin?"

"I don't want to be in the middle, Kya," Tenzin replied with a longsuffering sigh, "Can't I just play the game or…or pretend to be invisible or something?"

The seventeen year old crossed her arms with a derisive sniff. "Well, if you want to be a coward then…"

"Kya," Aang entreated in a reasonable tone, "stop picking at your brothers and tell me why you're being so jumpy and defensive. Are you upset because your mother and I decided to invite your friend to dinner tonight?"

Her impassioned reaction to that question explicitly confirmed that was exactly the reason she was upset. "What do you think, Dad?" she cried plaintively, "Why would you do that? Why would you ask Alignak to come here without discussing it with me first? And then, to make matters worse, you spring it on me an hour before he's supposed to be here! It's so humiliating!"

"I've tried waiting for you to do it," her father pointed out smoothly, "but you've been dragging your feet about it for months now. So, when I bumped into him unexpectedly this afternoon, I did the polite thing and invited him for dinner. What's wrong with that? If anything I should be upset with you because he was the one who approached me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to pick him out of a crowd!"

Kya threw up her hands in beleaguered exasperation. "Gah! You're impossible!"

Just as Kya finished that growling lamentation, her mother exited the kitchen with a deep frown. "Well, what else were we supposed to do, Kya?" Katara demanded, "You've been saying for a while now that you would bring him home so we could meet him, but nothing has happened. We know next to nothing about this boy and yet you've been spending all kinds of time with him. How else are we supposed to get to know him better?"

"Why do you need to meet him?" she cried, "What is this obsession you two have with knowing people? You already know hundreds! Why do you need to add one more?"

"Why are you getting so defensive?" Katara countered.

"That's what I just asked her," Aang interjected.

"Are you embarrassed to bring him here or something?" Katara quickly followed up.

"Embarrassed? Oh, Mother, why would I be embarrassed or feel any kind pressure to introduce anyone to my less than normal family?" Kya wondered in sardonic affront, "It's not like my brothers are weird and insane and take pleasure in making me miserable—,"

"I don't!" Tenzin piped in, earning a flick from Bumi for his efforts. But Kya didn't break her stride at all.

"—or…or that my family dynamic could only be described as intimidating! I mean you're…well you and Dad is the Avatar. That's a huge deal for some people! I'm already a freak of nature just because you two are my parents. And then you throw in this…" She made a sweeping gesture towards Bumi. "Can you really blame me for not wanting to bring someone home to that?"

"Kya, is it really such a terrible thing that your mother and I would like to meet this person who apparently means so much to you?" her father asked, "Can you really not understand why we would want to know him?"

"What do you need to know? I…I told you everything," she stammered, "He's a bender and he lives in the Court district with his mom and younger brother. His father was originally from the Northern Water Tribe and he died when Alignak was thirteen. Alignak has been taking care of his mom and brother ever since. He's strong and smart and funny and…"

Bumi interrupted her glowing narration with loud kissing noises. "Oooh, smootchie, smootchie, someone's in love!"

"Shush up, Bumi!" Kya snapped before addressing her parents once more. "Basically, Alignak is a really great guy. He's the first person I've met who didn't have preconceived notions about me because I'm the Avatar's kid. He wasn't impressed by that at all. He likes my quirkiness and he doesn't judge me. He's…He's my friend…a good friend and I like him."

"Don't you mean he's your boyfriend now?" Bumi corrected behind a series of sharp coughs.

Tenzin dropped his head to the wooden Pai Sho board with a rumbling groan, knowing instinctively that the situation was about to take a disagreeable turn. He was still young, but he knew enough to know that Bumi had just broken the brother code by revealing the secret about Kya's secret boyfriend. Now things were really going to get ugly. He kept his head bowed and hoped devoutly that his parents didn't call on him as a witness.

Kya sliced Bumi with narrowed blue eyes filled with promise for swift and painful retribution. "You are so dead."

He cut a glance over to their stunned parents and then turned up his face to favor her with a smug smile. "You first."

After glaring at him one last time, Kya threw a glance over at her speechless parents and immediately wished she hadn't. Her father looked as if he'd just sustained a blow to the head. He was literally reeling. Friends he could manage. Boyfriends, however, were another matter entirely. And her mother…the dark glower that Katara was directing towards Kya right then gave the teenager shivers.

"Is this true, Kya?" Aang asked with some concern, unexpectedly inundated with a feeling that could only be described as fierce protectiveness. Suddenly, his unease with knowing so little about the boy was magnified one hundredfold. "Is Alignak your boyfriend? Are you dating him now?"

"A better question would be…who said you could date at all?" Katara fired out before Kya could answer.

Recognizing the rising flare of indignation in her mother's eyes and rightly fearing the explosion she knew was coming, Kya quickly began to babble out a string of hurried excuses. In her frenzied haste to soothe her parents, Kya chose to ignore Bumi's humming chorus of "somebody's gonna get it…" Yet, even without Kya's seething reaction to his irreverent teasing, Bumi's amusement at her expense was short-lived. Katara leveled a dangerous look towards both of her sons and uttered one single, chilling word: "Out." It was then that Kya knew that she really was "gonna get it."

Kya swallowed audibly, refusing to look over at Tenzin and Bumi as they scurried from living room. She feared that if she looked at them, she'd be compelled to beg them to stay. As much as Bumi annoyed the living daylights out of her, Kya would have gladly welcomed his continued presence right then if it didn't mean her facing her mother's wrath alone. Kya could usually finagle her dad, but her mother was immune to her sweet smiles entirely. And, if the expression on her father's face was any indication, they weren't going to make any headway with him this time either.

"So answer us, young lady," Katara demanded with crossed arms once they were alone, "Is what your brother said true? Are you dating this boy who is supposedly your friend?"

"Well, honestly…I'm not sure why it would be a big deal even if I was," Kya prevaricated a little wildly, "Why should I need permission to fall in love? It's not like I've committed a crime or something!"

Aang's head started to spin. "Wait! Are you in love?"

"I'm not saying that, Dad!" she cried.

"Then what are you saying, Kya?" Katara exacted tartly, "Are you dating this boy or not?"

She hung her head then, suddenly absorbed with the tips of her moccasins when she answered in a miserable whisper, "Yes. Yes, I'm dating him." As her parents reacted to that with mutual groans of disbelief, she quickly added, "But it's new. We…we haven't done anything if that's what you're worried about."

"Okay, okay, okay," her father said in a tone that made it clear he was more unsettled by her reassurance than comforted, "So, you've got a boyfriend. Okay then. Fine. We'll deal with that."

Kya lifted her eyes towards him in entreaty. "Dad, he's a really good person and I care about him so much," she told him, "Surely you understand what I'm feeling. You started dating Mom when you were even younger than me!"

"You can't compare the situations, Kya," Katara interrupted.

"Why not?" Kya demanded, "Why was it okay for you to have a boyfriend at fourteen, but I have to get signed permission before I can date? Love can't be managed, Mom!"

"This has very little to do with you dating, young lady, and everything to do with you lying about it!" Katara snapped, "Kya, when your dad and I fell in love, we didn't keep that a secret. We went to your grandfather and told him how we felt about one another! We certainly didn't pretend that we were less than what we were and we absolutely did not sneak around!"

"Your mother's right," Aang agreed, "You've been lying to us for weeks, Kya! I've asked you about Alignak countless times and you've always maintained that it was a friendship and nothing more. You want us to respectful of your feelings for him but you're the one who's treating them like they're some shameful secret!"

Kya clamped down on her trembling lower lip. "I…I have a good reason for that!"

"Please, enlighten us! We're listening," her mother invited brusquely.

"It's because of you and Dad!" Kya flared with an angry scowl. "I didn't tell you guys about dating Alignak because…because he's a probender that's why! His team is sponsored by Yakone!"

"He works for Yakone?" Katara gaped, "A probender?"

"Kya, you know better!" Aang exploded in agitated disbelief, "Yakone is a criminal! He is under numerous investigations and you know that!"

"And you know that we would never condone you being in that kind of environment!" Katara added furiously, "Probending is linked with most of the illegal activities that go on in this city! What were you thinking? What could you possibly be thinking?"

Body rigid, fists clenched at her sides and lip trembling violently over having her judgment questioned and assailed so thoroughly, Kya bounced mutinous glares between both her parents. "You see what I mean? This is why I didn't say anything. This is why I can't talk to you! I knew you would judge Alignak before you even met him because of who he knows and what he does! But it's not fair! Aunt Toph says that right now Yakone is only under suspicion. You can't prove that he's done anything wrong!"

Because he knew that he couldn't possibly discuss with Kya the sinister allegations that had prompted the investigation into Yakone and his business dealings, Aang instead sought to appeal to his daughter's more calm and reasonable side instead. "If you truly believe that we had no real reason to find fault with Alignak, then why not bring him here to us and prove that?" he countered softly, "We have always given you the benefit of the doubt, so why all the lies, Kya? What's with all the sneaking around that you've been doing?"

"I didn't want you to judge him before you had met him," Kya whispered mournfully.

"Well, by hiding him from us and misleading us about the nature of the relationship you have with him, you've given us reason to think we should mistrust him, Kya…and you."

Her father's words while soft and calm were so filled with hurt and disappointment that Kya lost the fight to hold back her tears. They rolled down her cheeks in twin rivulets as she dropped her gaze, unable to her father's disillusioned eyes directly. Unfortunately, her whispered apology seemed to do little to appease either one of them. As she stood there, weeping quietly and mourning the loss of her parents' trust, her mother slipped into a nearby chair with a heavy groan of consternation.

"I think I know what's going on here," Katara sighed. She glanced over towards Aang. "I told you before that Yakone approached me two years ago with the idea of Kya joining one of his bending teams and that I refused him. I knew he wasn't going to take no for an answer then and I was right! Obviously, he decided to come at her from a different angle."

"Katara, I don't know if it's th—,"

Aang had barely finished voicing his neutral observation before his daughter, tears forgotten, was already drawing herself straight and launching her irate retort. "Oh, so what are you saying, Mother? Are you saying that Alignak couldn't possibly like me for me? Are you saying that his interest in me couldn't possibly be genuine? No, he only wants to be with me because Yakone told him to do it, is that right?" She waved a dismissive hand and snorted, "You don't know a thing about him!"

"And whose fault is that?" Katara challenged sharply, "Are you saying that he's never made the suggestion to become a probender to you before?"

"Actually, he has," Kya admitted haughtily, "And do you know what I said? I told him no…that wasn't interested and he totally accepted that."

"Oh really?" her mother snorted.

"He respects my abilities!" Kya argued, "He doesn't want me to waste my potential, but I know that he supports my decision to use my bending in the way I see fit!"

"Okay enough," Aang intervened before the argument could degenerate into a full-fledged shouting match, "There's no point in arguing anymore. What's done is done." He glanced down at Katara, reaching over to give her shoulder a brief squeeze of commiseration and understanding. "She's dating him, Katara. We can't make her un-feel what she feels for him. This is too far gone and I think we need to find a way to accept it…even if we don't necessarily like how it happened."

And then he glanced over to his daughter, his expression stern but compassionate as he regarded her. "I can't say that I agree with the way you've handled this matter. I honestly believed you had more maturity than this, Kya, but it is what it is. We can't change the past," he told her, "but, from this point onward, there will be no more lies. Your mother and I don't deserve that. Am I understood?"

Kya jerked her head in terse nod. "Understood."

As expected, Dinner proved to be, unavoidably, a tense affair. The table was permeated by taut silence. To his credit, Bumi had made an effort to make amends with his sister prior to Alignak's arrival but he had been coldly rebuffed. As a result, not only was Kya not speaking to her mother and Bumi and Katara not speaking to Kya, but Bumi had also joined in on the silent treatment. At the dinner table, poor Tenzin was crotched down deep into his chair, apparently still trying to become invisible. As a result of the cold war waging within his family, Aang was left with the monumental task of carrying the majority of the dinner conversation which, unfortunately, wasn't very much.

In the long stretches of silence, however, Aang afforded himself with the opportunity to study the profile of the teenage boy who was the object of his only daughter's affections. From his vantage point, it was easy to do that furtively since Alignak sat directly to the left of him. Aang noted that he was a tall young man with dark skin and dark hair which were a stunning contrast to his bright, blue eyes. He was an astonishingly pretty boy, a fact Aang found surprising because he had never expected Kya to go for that type. Then again, he hadn't expected her to lie to them for weeks either.

Still, he made an effort not to pre-judge the young man based on Kya's less than trustworthy actions. And, Aang had to admit, on the surface Alignak seemed polished and respectful. Aang carefully noted how the young man spoke to Kya, how he touched her, how he smiled… He seemed to adore her and was inarguably protective. First impressions told Aang that the young man was genuine in his feelings for Kya, but as a father he still wanted to know more.

"So Kya tells us you're a probender…"

Almost the instant Aang made that opening statement all activity at the dinner table ceased. Kya choked back a horrified yelp while Katara laid her eating utensil back down beside her plate and fixed Alignak with an expectant look. Not a word was said as all eyes at the table meandered over to Alignak's face. The nineteen year old cleared his throat several times before answering, unable to keep himself from squirming under the penetrating stares he was receiving.

"Yes," he confirmed after a massive gulp of water, "I am. I've been doing it since I was sixteen. My team…the Water Wombats…we're the reigning champions right now."

"Is that so?" Katara asked.

Alignak nodded. "Yakone recruited me shortly after he started making plans to organize the sport."

"And are you aware that Yakone is under suspicion for having ties to the underworld in Republic City?" Katara demanded flatly, "That there's evidence that links probending to underworld crime?"

"MOM!" Kya's horrified exclamation easily drowned out her father's plaintive sigh as well as Alignak's foundering reaction to Katara's blunt query. Tenzin suddenly found his plate the most fascinating thing in the world and Bumi snickered, though he wisely did so behind the cover of his napkin.

"Well?" Katara pressed again, "Are you?"

Something fierce ignited in Alignak's eyes as he carefully wiped his mouth with his napkin, clearly making a bid for patience, and placed it back down alongside his plate. "With all due respect, Master Katara, I don't believe those stories about Yakone and I never have," he said, "Admittedly, he's a bit rough around the edges and sometimes that intimidates people, but he's a good, caring man. I would expect that the Avatar's wife and a respected bender such as yourself would refrain from spreading unfounded rumors."

"A good, caring man, huh?" Katara considered in a tone that could only be described as challenging, "It's funny…that's not the way I've heard him described at all. And as far as unfounded rumors are concerned, perhaps they wouldn't be so unfounded if the people who found them didn't keep disappearing. That's quite coincidental, don't you think?"

"They are nothing more than embellished stories told by desperate people who wish to make a quick profit," Alignak insisted, "I know Yakone. He was once my father's business partner and, after my father died, Yakone took me and my brother under his wing as if we were his own sons. He loves us. Since then he's always made sure that my mother has been taken care of financially. In fact, he's been nothing but kind and generous to my family. When he came to my brother and me about his ideas for probending, we were only too happy to help him."

"So your brother is a bender as well?" Aang asked, hoping to steer the conversation into more neutral waters.

"Yes. He's a waterbender like me," Alignak confirmed.

"How fortunate for Yakone that he had such ready recruits in you both," Katara observed dryly.

"It's evident that you've decided to buy into the horrible stories people tell about him no matter what you hear to the contrary," Alignak said, "That saddens me. I guess some people just don't like to see an underdog succeed. Attitudes like that can spark a war."

While Katara felt that verbal dig acutely as well as the unspoken threat that unaccompanied it, her daughter seemed oblivious to the silky dissonance in Alignak's tone. Her parents, however, were not. They had seen and heard enough from Alignak to send their parental instincts into warning overdrive. As Kya reached across the table then to give his fingers a reassuring squeeze and Alignak exchanged soft smiles, Aang and Katara traded worried glances of their own.

Later that night, long after Kya had bid Alignak goodnight and had gone to bed herself, Aang and Katara remained restless and awake and obsessing over the latest issue with their wayward teenage daughter. "He seemed like a nice enough boy," Aang remarked as Katara crawled into bed with him for a snuggle, "Maybe we should just give him a chance and see how it goes."

"I don't know, Aang," Katara mumbled, "He seemed a bit too polished, don't you think?"

"I guess…"

Katara shifted around against him, resting her body against Aang's upper chest to regard him in the flickering light. "Don't tell me that you didn't pick up on that…that vibe from him," she prompted, "There's almost a cold manner there beneath his cordial façade. He gives me the same unsettled feeling that I had with Yakone."

"Yeah, I did pick up on that," Aang confessed, absently fingering the coiling tendrils of Katara's unbound hair, "But what alarmed me more than that was how Kya seemed to hang onto his every word. It…it just seemed like more than affection to me. Sometimes I felt like she was…I don't know…waiting for his approval or something. I didn't like it."

"I thought the same thing," Katara agreed unhappily.

"But maybe we're overreacting," Aang considered in a bid for impartiality, "Maybe we're not seeing things as they really are because we were so blindsided tonight. If we sleep on it, we could feel differently in the morning."

"I won't feel differently at all," Katara predicted darkly, "Did you hear how he talked about Yakone? He went on and on about that man like he singlehandedly orchestrated world peace! And Kya? She knows that Yakone is a dangerous man. We've warned her, but you can easily see how Alignak has been influencing her with his opinion."

"We can't forbid her to see him, Katara. That's only going to push her deeper into his arms."

"I know," she whispered, "I just…I have a bad feeling and I can't shake it. I keep remembering that day Yakone approached me in the park. There was something about the way he looked at me…something sinister and scary… And now, with what we know about him—,"

"—Suspect, Katara," Aang corrected meaningfully, "We don't know anything for sure. The White Lotus Society's investigation into his past yielded nothing substantial. You have to admit the pieces don't all fit."

"I believe what Toph says is true, Aang. I know it in my gut. Yakone is a bloodbender."

"Katara, you don't know that for sure. We certainly don't have enough evidence to prove it either and if you go waving that in Kya's face," he prefaced softly, "…it won't end well."

"I don't need the evidence to know that it's true, Aang. I can feel it. And I'm not going to let that man get to my daughter. I don't care what I have to do."

~To Be Continued~