Three weeks later, Lin comes home from work to find her mother laying down on her couch.
"Mom, not that I'm not happy to see you, but what are you doing here, again?"
"What, can't I check up on my daughter and future grandchildren?"
She eyes her mother as she walks over to turn the kettle on, "No. You only come here when you want to mess with my life."
She shrugs, "Fair point. I just thought you should know, Su invited me for a visit this weekend and she'll probably be calling you soon too."
"Ok…" Lin said as she poured her tea, wondering where her mother was going with this.
"Well...you're almost three months. Shouldn't you, I don't know, start telling people?"
Lin's eyebrows rose at that, "You want me to tell Su about the babies?"
"I'm just saying, it's a good opportunity. Plus, we all would love to meet Zari."
"You mean you would like to meet Zari. You and Katara are the only ones who currently know he exists."
"What did you two plan to do, keep the twins a secret forever?"
"Um...no. We just haven't talked about it yet."
"So, you see him several times a week and you two haven't talked about it?"
She shrugs, "Hasn't come up. We pretty much just talk, while he finishes work."
Toph rolls her eyes at Lin, "So what, you're just friends?"
"Yep."
Toph shakes her head knowing they wouldn't stay that way for long, but decided to stay quiet about it, "Well either way, he's going to be apart of the family. He might as well meet them."
"Fine, I'll ask him when I see him later."
Toph grins as she walks toward the door, "Great. Opal will be here Friday morning. Don't forget to take the day off," the door closes behind her.
Lin shakes her head as she sips her tea, wondering if she preferred it when her mother wasn't messing with her life or not.
Lin walks into Zari's shop to find it dark inside with a light on in the back. She walks into the back to find him intensely working on a painting.
"Hey," she calls.
He turns around and smiles, "Hey. How was your day?"
"Good. My mother stopped by."
"I thought she lived in the swamp?"
"She does but she came by to tell me that my sister was going to invite me up for the weekend."
"Oh, that's nice. Are you going to go?"
She nods, "Yeah probably. My mother...uh...she brought up a good point about telling my sister about the babies."
He freezes and turns back to her, "Do you want to tell her?"
She shrugs, "I don't know. It seems like a good opportunity. I mean, we're going to have to tell people eventually."
"True. So um...what are you going to tell her?"
"The truth, probably. But, like I told you, I don't really want to tell everyone the truth, like the press and Tenzin's family."
"Ok," he says fulling turning to her now, "I don't particularly want to tell my family the whole truth anyways. Um...no offense."
"None taken."
"So where telling them we've been dating?"
She nods.
"If we're going to do that, we're going to establish a backstory."
"Ok. What do you have in mind?"
He shrugs, "I bet you at one of Bumi's parties a few years back?"
"A few years ago, I probably wouldn't have been caught dead at one of Bumi's parties. Scratch that, I wouldn't be caught there now. When I met you, it was the one exception."
"Fine. The tirads robbed the shop like five years ago. We could say we met while you were following up a lead. I asked you out for a drink and you said yes."
"I probably wouldn't have said yes."
He glares at her slightly, "Ok, I asked you out, you said no, but we ran into each other at a bar later. I hit on you again, you rejected me, and then you challenged me to a drinking contest. I managed to impress you and we've been seeing each other ever since."
She nods, "That works."
Zari grinned in victory as Lin looked up, "So how do you feel about saying that this weekend to my niece and nephews?"
"Like you mean go with you to Zhao Fu?"
She nods, surprised at how nervous she was about asking him, "Yeah. It'll make the story a little more convincing. Plus, it might be fun."
He smiles, "Did you just say the word fun?"
She rolls her eyes, "Are you coming or not?"
"I'm in. If you just said the word fun, I'm totally in."
She gives him a half of smile, "Great. Be at my place Friday morning around ten."
"Will do," he says as Lin walks out of the shop.
As soon as the door closes it suddenly dawned on him that he was going to the entire Beifong Family. What have I gotten myself into?
"Hi Aunt Lin!" Opal greeted her aunt as Lin opened her front door Friday morning.
"Hey kid," Lin greeted her niece. Out of all her sister's kids, Opal was by far her favorite. Lin hears a thud coming from behind Opal and sees Bolin falling off of Oogi. Lin internally groans when she realizes that she's going to have to spend an extremely long flight with Bolin pestering her about Zari.
Bolin walks over and smiles widely, "Good morning Chief! Is it too early for me to ask you about your boyfriend?"
"Yes."
"Good to know," Bolin says swaying on his heels.
He perks up when he sees Toph from behind Lin, "Oh my gosh! Toph, you're here! I mean Opal told me you were going to be here but…"
Lin tunes out the rest of his ramble as she begins to feel nauseous. She glances behind her to see Opal and Bolin occupied by her mother. She steps outside and quickly walks towards the back of her house, where most of her breakfast came up.
She had been sitting there a few minutes when she senses a someone behind her and hears, "Hey, are you alright?"
She turns to see Zari standing behind her with a look of concern on his face.
She nods, "Yep. Just some morning sickness."
He nods and offers her a hand up. She takes it, "Thanks."
"No problem. I thought your morning sickness had gotten better?"
"It has but it still happens every once in a while. Especially when I'm stressed."
"Why would you be stressed? I mean other than the fact you're about to tell your extended family about your pregnancy and fake boyfriend. And you're sister the full truth."
She gives him a slight glare and he says, "Not the time?"
She sighs and gestures for him to follow, "Nope, but might as well get this over with. My mother, my niece, and her boyfriend are inside. Are you ready?"
He nods and follows her toward the house. We they walk back inside they find Opal, Toph, and Bolin sitting on the couch. Bolin was in the middle of a long story, but he stopped when they entered the room.
Lin cleared her throat, "Um...guys. This is my boyfriend, Zari."
He waved awkwardly, "Hi. Nice to meet you all."
Not surprisingly, Opal's the first to respond, "Hi! It's so nice to meet you! Aunt Lin's barely told us anything about you."
He chuckles nervously, "Yeah well I like to keep to myself. Sorry about that. I'm sure you'll learn plenty about me within the next few days."
Opal grins, "I hope so."
Bolin also walked over to greet Zari, but before he could do anything Toph says, "Bolin, Opal, why don't you guys finish packing Oogi."
Bolin looked slightly disappointed about not getting to properly greet Zari, but he still had a whole trip. He settled for a brief handshake before following his girlfriend outside.
Toph, eerily, looked straight in the direction Zari was standing, "You've grown since the last time I saw you."
"And you've gotten old," Zari, shot back to the surprise of Lin.
"Wait. You two know each other?"
"I told you I knew his parents. I would see him on occasion. He was always quick with the insult."
Lin looked at Zari, "Why didn't you tell me you knew my mother?"
"Honestly? I didn't think she would remember me. Guess I was wrong."
"How could I forget an insanely talented bender who quit bending? All that work I put into you!"
Zari raised an eyebrow at her, "You chucked rocks at my head until I bent the rock back and learned to defend myself. That was not a lot of work. Plus, I mostly learned to bend from street fighting."
"Whatever. Speaking of which," Toph says as she throws a medium sized rock at his head.
"Ow!" Zari says while rubbing his while Lin says, "Mom!"
"What? He knocked you up with twins from a one night stand. Plus, he obviously needs to practice bending. Now let's go. I need him to keep Bolin distracted while I sleep. Also, you two should practice selling it like you're actually dating," Toph says walking out of the house.
Lin shakes her head at her mother. She then looks at him, "Are you alright?"
He nods, "I've had worse. Um...just out of curiosity your sister won't have a similar reaction, right?"
"I honestly don't know."
"I'll be on my toes then," he says walking out the door.
Lin sighs as she closes the door to her house. It was going to be a long weekend.
