A/N: Here I am, with a new chapter. Thank you all for your continued support. Please know that this story won't be finished until I post my last chapter, "The End." So if I am ever gone for an extended period of time, just know that I will return, if only to post that last chapter. Please let me know what you think of this look into Tenzin's character. Your reviews really do make my day.

Last

All his life, Tenzin had been last.

He was doomed at birth to a long line of "lasts" that would follow him far into his adult years. He was, after all, the last born child of the Avatar. He was last to go to school and last to wear the hand-me-down robes that had been passed from father to son to younger brother. He was often last to go to sleep at night, when Bumi's snores sought to wake the dead. He was last to begin a career and last to hear his father recount stories of the war. He was last in line, last in thought, and last-picked in every silly game Kya forced them all to play.

But it was not until Tenzin stood in the crowd gathered to honor the memory of his father that he truly understood the bitter loneliness of being "last."

His father had understood it, of that Tenzin was certain. Aang had known the great burden of being last and had endured it with little hope of mitigation. When Tenzin was born, Aang had already been waiting decades for someone who could ease the faint ache of isolation that Katara, Kya, and Bumi could neither understand nor take away from the Avatar.

Bumi would admit, years later, that he had been jealous of his brother ever since the very first sneeze that had revealed Tenzin for what he was: an airbender. The bond between his father and Tenzin was such that Bumi could never hope to forge for himself, having no such elemental abilities.

To his credit, Aang never displayed any outward signs of preference. All rewards, gifts, and even meals were divided equally in three parts. The siblings would squabble over whose cookie was the largest and who would sit at their father's side when he came home from work and command his attention until dinnertime. Tenzin often learned the most from his father during those periods of stolen bonding right before the table was set. Aang would take him up onto his knee and tell him all he knew of life and its many lessons.

Aang had always known how to be a proper father.

Some have it from the start; the innate qualities that propagate paternal wisdom and the saintly patience that all fathers must tap into from time to time. Aang was made to be a father long before he ever became "last."

It was a pity the man was dead. If ever Tenzin needed council, it was then, as he stood among several hundred weeping women and men mourning the death of his father.

Tenzin had known that his father, despite all that being the Avatar entailed, was still human. He could fall ill just as easily as the rest of them, and the spirits would not intervene. All great men must die.

As Tenzin listened to the orator drone on in one even, monotone voice that seemed to suit the mood of the occasion quite well, he felt something move behind him. He looked to his left, and there she was, standing by his side in her metal uniform that radiated heat from the summer sun.

The oration continued, and Tenzin felt his stomach twist sharply, winding itself into a sailor's knot. Lin reached to hold his hand, and Tenzin's mind was suddenly transported through the decades. The memory was hazy, frayed at the edges and yellowed through the passing years, but it was not something easily forgotten. It was another funeral for another father. Lin's father. A father she had never known, but still mourned, knowing that she would never have the opportunity to ask him the sorts of questions a daughter asks a father who was never there. Tenzin had reached out to hold Lin's hand. He had squeezed it, and she squeezed back.

Today, there was no comforting squeeze. Lin's hand was steady and secure in his, and that was all he needed.

It was then that Tenzin realized there was one thing in which he had been "first." One precious thing, one exceedingly beautiful and lovely thing. Of both his siblings, of all his friends, of every acolyte he had grown up with…

He had been the first in love.

With his father gone, Tenzin was now last of his kind, the last airbender.

He would become a father, whether he was suited for the role or not. He would have children, many if he could, in the hope that there would never be another person to bear the honorific "last."

Lin's hand slipped out of his.

She was on duty.

Tenzin did not speak as he watched her go, because of all the "lasts" he had to bear, he knew the worst was yet to come. It would come, and he would break. And when he broke, he would fall. And when he fell he would rise with another woman at his side.

He did not speak, because the only last that mattered now was the one he thought would never come.

The last, and final, goodbye.