Lin and Tenzin took turns sitting by Huifan's bed in their home on on Air Temple Island while the girl slept for three weeks straight. Lin was beside herself with worry while Kya insisted that there was nothing wrong with Huifan physically. She must have just been exhausted to the point of paralysis. When Katara and Toph returned with Ikki Meelo, and Rohan, Katara confirmed Kya's belief. The girl had been through a lot and was simply changing. The elderly healer took water to the girl's head and moved it around, undoing some of the horrific knots and folds caused by the trauma of her more recent past, maintaining the memory, while easing the pain.
"How is she?" Lin asked entering the room with a tray with some tea for Tenzin.
"The same," he replied taking the cup she offered him.
Lin set the tray with the pot on it on the girl's bedside table while Tenzin pulled up a chair beside him for her.
"How are Rohan and the others?"
"Doing fine. It is amazing how quickly the young ones can bounce back from something like this. Even Jiexue and Xaioyu are okay. You wouldn't be able to tell what they've been through by the smiles on their faces as they play with their little siblings," Lin replied leaning on Tenzin's shoulder with her cup of tea in her hands. Tenzin set his cup down and wrapped his arms around her body.
"How are you doing?"
"I don't even know. I've been spending the last few hours frantically trying to keep up with everything on the island, AND the mainland," Lin replied with a forced smile. "I haven't had time to consider my own needs lately."
"How can you be expected to help others if you cannot help yourself? Take a day off, Lin. I am sure Kya wouldn't mind helping me with the island."
"Day off..." Lin laughed. "What is that?"
Tenzin draped an arm over her shoulders and inhaled her scent, kissing the top of her head, pulling her grey hair back, tucking it behind her ear.
"Knock knock, is everything okay?" Kya asked entering the room.
"Yeah. Just changing the guard." Lin replied with a heavy sigh.
"You guys don't need to guard her. She's stable. She'll wake up in time." Kya said with a reasuring hand on Lin's shoulder.
"I know, I just don't want her to be alone when she does. I think she's been alone enough," Lin replied looking at the young woman's sleeping form. Kya took the water from the water skin slung across her back and bent it to the girl's head.
Tenzin took his lady's hand in his and squeezed it while Kya worked patiently with Huifan's sleeping form.
"Uncle Bumi! Look! A dragon!" Kang yelled spinning around.
"There are two- three FOUR DRAGONS!" Kai exclaimed pointing up at the sky.
Jinora and Ikki craned their necks to see. Meelo swept his arms in a circle and made a funnel as high as he could go and the four dragons circled him.
"It's Fire Lord Izumi and Uncle Masaru and Princess Ursa and Prince Iroh!" Meelo said coming down to the ground again. Jiexue and Xiaoyu had an idea.
"Let's dance with them, Jinora, Opal!" Jiexue called tossing them gliders.
"Dance with dragons? Are you crazy?" Jinora asked.
"All the best people are!" Jiexue replied opening her glider, kicking off the ground. Fire Lord Izumi stopped her dragon in the air above the island and watched Jiexue fly up into the clouds to grab part of a cloud with her airbending. She came out of the clouds standing on her glider like it were a surfboard and divided the cloud into four parts giving one to Xiaoyu, one to Opal, and one to Jinora.
They danced with the dragons who twirled around them and through the tunnels of cloud vapors, twisting around and up and down. Jiexue raced Ursa's dragon for a minute and then they all landed.
"Nice flying!" Bumi said to the four girls.
"I WANNA fly too!" Ikki yelled.
"Yeah Me too!"
"We can go with you!" Iroh offered indicating himself and his sister. They turned to their mother for approval then took off again on their dragons with Ikki and Meelo tagging along on gliders.
"What brings you to Air Temple Island, Fire Lord Izumi? Prince Iroh, Prencess Ursa, Uncle," HungJian asked bowing to each of them with his siblings and everyone else present following.
"I just wanted to check on you all," Izumi replied putting an arm on Hungjian's shoulder and pulled him closer. "And your sister. Has she woken yet?"
"No," HungJian replied sadly.
"She will. Don't feel bad. You've done nothing wrong. In fact, I wanted to congratulate you. You've done an excellent job keeping your siblings happy and entertained."
"How can you tell if you haven't been here?" HungJian asked.
"I can see it in the eyes," Izumi replied looking over at Kang, Jinora, Ikki, and Kai racing around on air scooters.
"What if they're just faking it to make Mom happy?"
"They're not faking it!" Izumi insisted. She shook her head with a smile as she and Hungjian approached the shade of a tree by the cliffside. "You young people are hilarious. You think we don't know anything and that we can't tell what's going on. We've been children before. We've been teens and then young adults. We know what happiness looks like. Genuine happiness, sadness, fear and anticipation, elation. Your brothers and sisters are fine."
Hungjian, finally believing her let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"Thank you, Aunt Zumi," He said hugging her. She smiled and patted him in the back.
"You know, if there is ever anything you need, you can always send a letter by mail or messenger hawk or call on the radio. I know your mother has raised you to take care of yourself and your family, but I say bullshit. It's OKAY to ask for help. I know I couldn't ever tell my mother everything, but I had Aunt Katara, and even Aunt Toph believe it or not." Izumi informed him.
"Thank you, Aunt Zumi! For everything. For visiting us and teaching Jiexue and Xiaoyu knife throwing and for introducing them to Ty-Lee and chi blocking and for being a friend to my mom and for helping us defend our city!" HungJian said.
"I will always help to maintain balance in our world. And our world includes the United Republic, and the Fire Nation, the Earth Kingdom, the Water Tribes, and the Air Nomads. It takes all of us," Izumi explained putting an arm around the young man.
HungJian smiled and looked up at Avatar Aang Memorial Island off in the distance. "He was my grandfather,"
"Yes, and I am sure you have made him proud and will continue tom make him proud, Hungjian. Don't doubt yourself. Now go, your siblings need you- and Hungjian?"
"Yeah?"
"I have a gift for your family!"
"What is it?"
"A camera. It is a new camera called a polaroid. It spits out the photographs instantly. Keep it in the dark for a few minutes and then you have a picture!"
"Really?'
"Yeah, there should be a hundred blank sheets for you guys to start off with,"
"Thank you, Aunt Zumi!"
Izumi handed him the bulky contraption and returned to Masaru's side. Iroh was making different colored flames dance on a pile of leaves without burning them, making Rohan squeal with glee.
"There are only a hundred sheets so we get ten photos each, okay?! Who wants to go first?" Hungjian asked his siblings showing them the camera.
"ME"
"Me!"
"ME!"
Meelo, Ikki, and Kang all yelled with their hands in the air.
"NEVERMIND, We're taking turns, Jinora, you can go first since you weren't being greedy and annoying!"
"Yay!" Jinora exclamed.
"Hey!" Ikki shrieked. Before Ikki could attack Jinora to try to steal the camera, Hungjian reeled her in with the cable on his belt. "HEY! You can't metalbend on me!" Ikki yelled.
"I just did," Hungjian replied with a smirk. He released her and ran and Ikki chased after him. Hungjian ran over the land bridge to the empty island his mother made in a confrontation with Grandma Toph and started earth running. Ikki jumped on an air scooter and chased him furiously as he laughed giving Jinora time to take her photos undisturbed.
"Tenzin, what will we do?" Lin asked quietly still leaning on his shoulder.
"What do you mean?"
"When Huifan wakes up? When the trial is over? Pema will be sentenced to life in prison for taking up arms against the United Republic and by extension, all four nations that sanction its existence. What will happen to Rohan and Meelo and Ikki?" Lin asked thinking of the youngest children."
"You're right, I shouldn't expect you to just adopt them,"
"No, that I don't mind. They are yours and you are mine, and I have the means and energy to give them what they need, but do we want to stay here, is what I am asking," Lin replied.
"Where else would we go?"
"Well, Su and I just rebuilt the Northern Air Temple, we could help finish the restoration of the others, we could go to Gaoling, or Zaofu. I am sure Su would let us have a whole damn dome to ourselves if we wanted..." Lin suggested.
"You don't want to stay here?"
"There are just, so many memories here, that are... so painful, not just for me, but," Lin looked up from Tenzin's lap to the unconscious girl in the bed.
Tenzin remembered, watching his seven year old daughter running out into the night, crying, screaming, chucking every rock and statue she could at the white lotus members who made the decision to send her and her mother and siblings away. He remembered her face when he hurt her the most "...the world is bigger than our family..."
"But YOUR world shouldn't be..." Huifan replied in a weak, defeated whisper as she looked up at her father's eyes with devastation.
He remembered how she looked fifteen years later, how angry and hurt she was as she lifted him into the air by the neck and cast him out of her home just as he had done to her. He remembered how Lin came to him, demanding he burn the photos so that they wouldn't have the potential to hurt her again. He remembered how she asked Korra to take away her bending because she had only "hurt" family with it in the past. He remembered as she raised the metal blades against herself and nearly sliced off her own head to escape. He remembered how they managed to reunite. He remembered how Pema tried to kill them all on the airship, and he remembered how Pema abandoned her own children to raise an army against Lin.
"You're right, it couldn't be easy for Jinora, Ikki, and Meelo either, to just lose Pema like that,"
"Or Rohan! He may only be four, but he can still tell something's going on, I know it," Lin said. "I don't want to just replace their mother as she replaced me fifteen years ago,"
"I understand." Tenzin held her in the crook of his right arm and placed his left arm on her face, tracing the lines of her scars as she closed her eyes, resting on his shoulder.
"Do you really?" Lin asked.
"Yes."
"Will you ask the courts for her freedom, or visitation rights for her children?"
"Three months ago, I would have, but with the recent turn of events, no. She's crazy for going to such extremes over something so trivial. We could have established some sort of agreement to allow me to see my children with you again. I know you would never intentionally hurt anybody. But I didn't realize she would. She tried to destroy a whole city just because our parents made it and we were the ones who maintained it. I don't want her to have the chance to negatively influence our children ever again. When they are older, I'll let them choose if they want to give her a second chance," Tenzin said.
Lin didn't reply. She just looked down at her daughter's smooth face, and closed eyes. Her small nose and her flawless features. She was such a lucky girl. Lucky and unlucky at the same time. She looked perfect, beautiful but had been hurt too many times.
"Do you remember when she was born?" Tenzin asked Lin.
"How could I forget laboring like that for a week and a half to bring forth into the world a creature the size of my hand, so sickly and weak whilst trying to also care for a one year old boy who too needed me?" Lin replied lazily closing her eyes, reliving the frightening memories. "Her first breath infected her with a fever. She almost died," Lin's voice cracked.
"But she didn't. She inherited your will to survive, and thrived. She smiled. She laughed. She grew into a little shadow of you. Energetic, somewhat cynical, but so full of life. Remember when she was old enough to join in Hungjian's antics around the house? Remember when Aunt Ty Lee taught her how to braid and she wouldn't let you go to bed until she had your hair in dreds? Remember when she began to beat HungJian in all of their little mud fights? Don't think of the dark times, remember the light," Tenzin said turning her chin up so she would face him as he looked down into her green eyes.
Lin let a tear escape her eye as she looked up. It seemed so natural to be like this, in Tenzin's arms. She missed their togetherness, but definitely not the circumstances that brought them so close. Pain, fear, worry, and a need for comfort. She looked down at HuiFan. Remember the light.
"...May these words, be the first to reach your ears... the world is brighter than the sun, now that you're here..." Lin began to sing with tears in her eyes. She reached forward and took her daughter's cool hand with Tenzin's resting on her back. "...though your eyes will need some time to adjust... to the overwhelming light surrounding us..."
Tenzin remembered. They'd struggled so much early in their marriage. Lin would come off the moon tea then something would happen at work and she'd start drinking it again. "Now is not a good time. If such and so gang leaders get wind I'm pregnant or weak in any way, even if we make it to the birth, if they get their hands on our baby—" she was never able to finish the sentence before breaking down in tears, shaking from the fear. She loved her children long before they were born. She love him.
"...I promise, I'll do better... with every heartbeat I have left... I will defend your every breath..." Tenzin finished with her.
Lin touched her head to her daughter's hand in hers and cried while Tenzin rubbed her back soothingly as they sat in silence.
Lin felt a light squeeze around her fingers. She looked up and saw her daughter begin to stir.
"Ma, Dad?" HuiFan open her eyes.
"My love!" Lin jumped out of her chair to pour water from the bedside for the girl.
"Lin, slow down! You don't want to overwhelm her, she must be tired—," Tenzin said putting his hands up as if he were begging.
"Dad, I feel like I've been sleeping forever. I can't possibly be tired!" HuiFan insisted sitting herself up in bed with great effort.
"Let me be a mom, you slow down at least," Lin said sitting on the bed beside her girl with an arm supporting the back of the girl's head and the other lifting a cup of water to her mouth.
"I don't need to slow down. I don't need rest. I need to know what is going on," HuiFan replied before emptying the cup of water.
"You're just like your aunt and mom!" Tenzin said with a happy shake of his head.
Lin smirked proudly.
"Gee, I wonder why!" HuiFan replied sarcastically. "So is the battle over? We're back home, I see,"
"We are back home," Lin confirmed with a smile.
"And the battle is over," Tenzin added.
HuiFan let out a sigh of relief.
"Are Raiko and Pema-"
"They're in prison. Their trial will be today. We are not going."
"Have Raiko and his brother-"
"Seen healers? Yes. Don't you worry about them," Lin cupped her daughter's chin and kissed her head and rubbed her back while she drank her tea.
"Did I hear my favorite little niece stirring?" Kya asked coming in.
"Thank you for healing me, Aunt Kya," Huifan said looking up with a smile.
"Anything for my favorite little niece. "Sh! Don't tell Jiexue, Xiaoyu, Jinora or Ikki!"
"My lips are sealed!" Huifan replied with a smirk.
She managed to shoo both parents from her room and dressed herself in new clothes. She pulled on a lighter shade of Earth Kingdom Green over beige caprees instead of brown and wore gold instead of silver. She tied her hair up in a bun leaving ten inches of her long black hair free so she could weave it into two braids then went downstairs.
"Huifan! Welcome back to the land of the living! You had us all so worried!" Izumi exclaimed embracing the prodigious metalbender.
Just then, a bright flash went off making Huifan winced.
"Huifan look! Aunt Zumi brought us a new present!" Kang said excitedly. "It is called a polaroid! It spits out the photograph instantly and then you put it in the dark for a few minutes while it develops AND imprints it on a roll of film so we can get it printed bigger or make copies later!"
"We have already photographed Uncle Bumi and Uncle 'Saru and Aunt Izumi's family!" Ikki added rapidly.
"We wanted to do portraits and family photos," Jinora explained clearly.
"So we can always remember the happy memories together!" Meelo yelled jumping up and down to compensate for his lacking height.
"Children, let her breathe!" Lin reminded them.
"She can breathe later! Come on!" Kang yelled taking one of Huifan's hands as Ikki took the other dragging their big sister outside.
"Dad! Aunt Lin! You have to come too for the family photo!" Jinora said taking Lin's hand while Meelo took hold of Tenzin's. Izumi laughed as they went, remaining to share a cup of tea with Kya in the Beifong Residence on Air Temple Island.
Kang and Ikki dragged Huifan to her siblings.
"EVERYONE GET IN POSITION!" Kang yelled.
"I'll take the photo! Give me the camera, Kang!" Jinora yelled reaching for it.
"No but you have to be IN the photo!" Kang replied. "Ursa can take the photo!"
"We can take two photos! There should be one of just your family!" Jinora explained.
"That makes sense, okay!" Kang replied.
"Mom, Dad, you guys sit!" Hungjian ordered bending two chairs out of the ground for his parents with the city sky line across the bay as their background.
The two adults sat down eyeing their children suspiciously. In a blur, Kang moved Huifan to stand behind her mother's left shoulder, Jiexue next to her and Xiaoyu kneeling in front. Hungjian stood behind Tenzin's right shoulder, Jinkun stood directly beside his father, and Kang kneeled in front.
"Three! Two!... ONE!" Jinora counted down loudly snapping the photo with a blinding flash.
"Did it come out? DID IT COME OUT?!" Ikki asked snatching the Polaroid out of the camera.
"Hey! Be careful with it! You have to put it in the dark to develop!" Jinora said snatching the photo back and pressing the photo side against her clothes waiting. She looked at it and smiled running over to her new extended family and handed it directly to Huifan.
"For you!" she said smiling sweetly. Jinora looked at the photo of her siblings, her mother, and father, all together again and... happy.
Huifan sunk herself into the ground and reemerged in front of her mother. She pulled Jinora into a hug.
"Thank you, little sister," Huifan said squeezing the fourteen year old against her.
"Here, you sit with Jiexue. And Ikki, get over here!" Huifan called arranging their hands and hair.
"Meelo! You can sit where I sat!" Kang called.
"Bring Rohan!" Lin added while Tenzin laughed.
Meelo glanced around, grabbed his little brother and ran over.
"Stand up," Jiexue said tugging on Xiaoyu's arm. The sixteen year old stood up and stood by her older sister.
"Ready?" Fire Princess Ursa asked holding the Polaroid camera.
"Almost!" Lin ran a finger through her hair parting it to the side, tucking it behind her ear. "Tenzin," She turned to him. He licked his fingers and smoothed it over while the younger children grimmaced and the older ones laughed.
"Ready!" Tenzin called, this time, putting an arm around Lin who reached out and placed a hand on Jinora's shoulder subconsciously.
"Three!... Two!... One!..." Ursa counted down before snapping the photo.
"Yay!" Ikki leaped thirty feet in the air and spun around before touching down on ground again.
"Jinora, if possible, may I get a copy of that photograph? As much as I love my family, it feels incomplete without you and your siblings," Huifan told her.
"I'd be glad to make you a copy!" Jinora replied hugging her.
"Pema," a metalbending officer said banging on the bars of the cell in one of the most high-security wards in Republic City's Police Headquarters. "You have a visitor-" He said leading a girl in yellow robes and a red cloak with the hood up to her cell.
"I should count myself lucky. An Airbending Master has graced me with her presence in my lowly prison cell," the disgraced former air acolyte said slumped against the far wall of the cell in a roughspun prison garb that appeared to be no more than a large pillow case with holes cut in it.
"You should count yourself lucky that you birthed four airbenders and for that the four nations have granted you mercy, for their sake."
"Hmph,"
"Alienating us was the best thing you could do for us, Ikki, Meelo, Rohan and Me. However much it hurt, it opened our hearts to the possibilities. It was almost liberating." the girl laughed. "Only now do I feel like a true airbender. Free from pointless earthly attachments. Free from you-"
"Why are you really here, Jinora?" the woman asked, her matted hair covering most of her rather young face.
"Because you are going to tell me something. Who are the boys in this photograph?" the girl asked pulling a faded black and white photograph bending down and reaching between the bars to slide it towards the prisoner. The woman in the photo looked remarkably like a heavily pregnant Pema standing beside a man in water tribe clothes with two young boys who stood posed looking rather impatient with the ideal.
"They are none of your concern!" Pema said making a move to swipe it away.
"You had another husband, and other children before my dad and all of us?"
"That photo was not yours to see!"
"Confess!"
"Why?"
"Because I have a right to know my family! What do you have to be afraid of? That he may have moved on? That if you see him again, you'll fall back in love? That his current wife may start a war to bring him home again?" the girl asked becoming enraged, creating a controlled tornado in the space enclosing the hall and the prison cell, lifting the photograph to her mother's face, and pulling down her hood.
"I thought Airbenders were non-violent people."
"Well like the swamp benders are to the southern watertribe, we are not traditional!" Jinora replied echoing her older half sister, Jiexue. She spun around once circling her hands then lifted her mother to her feet using only the air around her and brought her towards the bars.
Pema looked away.
"Where are my brothers?" Jinora demanded with her eyes narrowing dangerously.
Ugh! The last chapter is the next. I promise! Please tell me what you think!