Tenzin was running late, not late late yet, but he was cutting it close as he hurriedly stepped inside the coffee shop. He groaned at the sight of the line. There was about seven people ahead of him meaning by the time he did get his much needed morning coffee he would actually be running late.

Meelo, for god knows what reason, had decided four in the morning was a great time to get up and wake everyone else up too when he knocked over his block tower. Tenzin had jumped out of bed so fast That Tenzin had almost hit his head on the ceiling. He had thought something had broken or Meelo had fallen out of bed. He had been less than thrilled finding the rambunctious five year old with the lights on and a death trap of blocks, trucks and legos everywhere. The boy had not seen a problem with the situation but Ikki, at that point, had yelled for him as she too had been woken up by the bang. Both had been hard to convince to go back to sleep at that point as Meelo was wide awake and Ikki's adrenaline had kicked in after being scared. Jinora had also woken up but thankfully she had stayed in bed and just given him a tired thumbs up when he had checked on her.

Thank god it was Friday. He had a few meetings today before the weekend. Nothing major but nothing he could miss either. It wasn't the end of the world if he was late. His presence was not 100% necessary and he already knew most of it but his mother had instilled in him punctuality and he hated to be late.

He was pulled out of these thoughts by the flash of black and gray hair in front of him. He hadn't really looked at the other people in line, too absorbed in his own self pity over his lack of sleep. But he knew that hair and figure as he studied her closer. "Lin?" he asked, surprised and hesitant.

"Tenzin… It's been a while." Lin said, turning around in line to greet him.

"Yes, 15 years." Tenzin said back awkwardly. She looked almost the same as she had all those years ago, just a line here or there on her face and gray starting to streak her hair. "How have you been?"

"Good, busy but good. How about you?" She asked much more easily than he had to his chagrin. That was par for the course with Lin Beifong though. She was always quick on her feet and could take just about anything in stride without blinking.

"Uh yeah me too." he said offering a small smile as they lapsed into an awkward silence for a beat. "I uh didn't know you were back in San Francisco." he tried, last he knew she was in LA but he hadn't heard anything about her since last year when his mother had mentioned her and Toph in passing.

"Yeah well, new job here so. Besides, I officially have to take over more of the business now." Lin shrugged. Tenzin could feel the corners of his mouth tugging upwards at the disdain for taking on even more responsibility with the Beifong conglomerate of companies and estates. She had likely already been doing most of it, after all Toph barely did anything with the family businesses. Lin stepped up to the cashregister to order.

"Oh well if that's the case we should grab lunch and catch up soon." Tenzin said on impulse. Inwardly he almost winced at the suggestion. Not that he didn't want to catch up with her, but lunch with your ex who you haven't seen outside of one funeral in the last decade wasn't exactly the funnest sounding thing in the world. And he didn't want to come off as desperate or anything.

"Yeah, sure. Just text me." Lin said with ease that Tenzin envied. She paused, giving Tenzin time to order his own coffee before they stepped aside. "I uh still have the same number if you still have." Lin said haltingly. That at least made Tenzin feel slightly more rectified in how he had acted.

"Yeah, I got it." I still remember it, is what he thought, but he didn't dare say that.

As she picked up her own coffee. "I got an interview soon. Maybe I'll see you around." She said looking at him closely.

He swallowed. "Yeah sure, I'll text you about lunch."

"Sounds good. See you." She said flashing him a brief smile before ducking out the door. He stared after her.

"Sir?" the barista called, his coffee in hand.

"Ah yes thanks." he muttered as he took the coffee. Then, he almost had a heart attack seeing the time. He was definitely going to be late now. He found that it almost didn't matter to him because Lin was back and that was already preoccupying his mind.

The weekend with the kids kept him too busy to text Lin until the following week. He eased it and rewrote it about three times before finally hitting send. He didn't know why he had all of the butterflies in his stomach after all it was Lin and it was just lunch.

Lin didn't really know why she was having lunch with Tenzin. They had broken up nearly 15 years ago now and they hadn't parted on the best of terms. At the time both had been deeply hurt by it but they both also knew by the end of it that they needed to go their separate ways. There wasn't any ill will between the pair but there was still some discomfort and maybe even pain that should have long since faded. She had thought Tenzin had lost his nerve and wasn't going to text her. She had not been expecting the mix of apprehension and relief when he did text her on Monday night. They had agreed to lunch the following day at a local burger joint. Burges were easy, they both liked them. They had gone out for burges a lot when they were teens.

"Hey," Lin said as she slid into the booth across from him.

"Hey" He returned smiling at her. "How was your weekend?"

Lin snorted. "Irritating. Had to deal with the business stuff." She said. "How about you?"

"Busy. The kids are a handful and they go from loving each other to tearing each other's hair out in the span of five minutes literally." Tenzin said.

Lin laughed. "Yeah well we did that too. How old are they now?" Lin vaguely knew about Tenzin's family but wasn't one to keep up with facebook posts and such.

"Ten, Seven and Five." Tenzin told her. Lin could see his eyes light up talking about his kids. She asked him about them for a while before Tenzin asked her about work.

"How's LA been treating you?" He said.

"Good, busy. They had me move to a different precinct with a higher crime rate. It's been a lot of long weeks this past year because of it." Lin told him. They chatted about LA for a while, they had gone to college in the area so Tenzin knew the city well. Then they exchanged a few stories about Kya and Bumi, Tenzin's sibling, who Lin was still friends with although she saw them rarely.

"I gotta ask." Lin finally said leaning back in the booth. "What happened to your hair?" The last time she had seen him at his uncle's funeral he still had a mostly full head of hair and a goatee. Now the hair was gone and he had a full beard.

Tenzin's eyes darted down and he looked like he was fighting a blush when he answered, "I figured I was going to go bald anyway..." he half mumbled.

Lin hadn't figured Tenzin to be the time to be overly self conscious about going bald. She couldn't ever remember him making a comment about it when they were together. But the opportunity it now gave her was too good not to tease him. "I know I gave you shit about having a big head but damn." She laughed.

Tenzin pulled a face. "Yes, laugh it up." The pair had alway loved to tease each other and it had turned into a bit of a game to them. Each tease was a point but they had long since lost track of the score.

"It's a shame, I liked your hair." Lin said, shrugging. He had had nice hair when they were younger.

"Yes, probably why my marriage ended." Tenzin said dryly, crossing his arms at her smirk.

Lin hadn't been aware he had gotten divorced but didn't want to go down that rabbit hole right now. But she was a little curious, "How long has it been?" She asked.

"Almost three years." Tenzin sighed. Lin wasn't really sure what to say to that but luckily Tenzin changed the subject. "So what is this new job you got?"

"I'm the next deputy police chief." She had been a captain in LA for the last 6 six years and had been looking to move back to San Francisco for the last several months when the position had opened up.

"What? Congratulations!" Tenzin said.

"Yeah, well I got to get approved by the mayor's office but as far as the departments concerned I'm hired." Lin shrugged. She didn't feel like jixing it yet, because the politics part was the most likely to fail.

"Well when you do tell me. I'll be the first to buy you a drink." Tenzin said, smiling at her across the table.

- 20 plus years ago

They sat outside at a picnic table behind a small burger and hot dog truck. The early spring weather was perfect. They had just gotten out of school and were killing time before heading home. Tenzin was fidgety today Lin noticed. she was willing to bet it was because of college acceptance letters had begun to trickle in to a lot of their friends and herself. But she hadn't told him that because she knew he was nervous about it. Not that he had a reason to worry he was in the top 10 of their class and one of the smarter people she knew.

"Whatcha thinking about?" She asked him finally. She could tell she had startled him out of his thoughts.

"Uh nothing." He sidestepped her question. "Just tired and hungry I guess."

"You'll get in everywhere you know," she told him. "Your biggest worry should be where you'll go."

"Easy for you to say." He retorted. It was true her family was rich enough college wasn't a concern, but she hated to rely on her family. "You have a plan B and C." he added, saving himself from her wrath.

"Tenzin, you are smart enough to get into Stanford and I'm rich enough to get into Stanford. We can go wherever we want, don't worry about it." She said, taking a sip of her water. "If anything, worry about long distance."

Tenzin was staring slightly past her still tapping his foot. "Nah, not worried about long distances." He said looking at her again. "Wherever you go, I'll go." Tenzin said to her, smiling at her across the table.

***So decided just to post this because i currently have an inability to finish any of the chapter I'm currently working for other fics. So let me know what you think!