Cracks 6: Bleeding

"Hahahahaha! Got you, Dad!" Hungjian said bending a pebble at his father. Tenzin fell to the ground with a soft thud as his son jumped on top of him and cackled with laughter. Huifan ran over from where she sat beside her mother and jumped on him too.

"That's the third time today, Daddy!" Hungjian exclaimed in victory throwing his hands up in the air with victory accidentally hitting Huifan in the face.

Lin gasped and held her breath. Tenzin was closer to the children. Huifan looked more stunned than actually hurt as blood began to flow from her tiny nose. She touched the throbbing place on her face and looked at the red on her hand, then turned to her brother.

"I'm sorry!" Hungjian said on the verge of tears reaching for his little sister.

Huifan looked at her hand again and then balled it into a fist and punched her older brother in the face with as much strength as the thirteen-month-old could muster.

"Ow! DADDY! I SAID I WAS SORRY! WHY'D SHE DO THAT?" Hungjian cried as Tenzin picked them each up by their waistbands and separated them.

"Huifan!" Tenzin began in a reprimanding tone.

Huifan looked up at Tenzin with the most quizzical expression on her face. She shook her head and motioned at Hungjian and then to herself and then pressed her own palms together.

"Huifan, you need to know that—" Tenzin began to say again.

"Bu- Ba ba! Mi-wa!" Huiifan replies.

"I don't know what mi-wa is, Huifan. You must also understand it has been quite a while since your mom or I spoke baby," Tenzin reminded the little girl.

"Buh- Ba-Ba!" Huifan yelled. "Hun-jian e Hui-fan miwa!" She said pressing her hands together on the verge of tears.

"Huifan, I can't—"

"Papa! I think I get it!" Hungjian exclaimed suddenly. "I think miwa is mirror! She says now we match. I think she thought it was part of the game!" Hungjian suggested.

Huifan nodded. "Mirraw?"

Tenzin looked at her, "so you punched your brother back so that you could match?" Tenzin asked his daughter. She nodded with blood still pouring from her tiny nose, letting it fall onto her clothes, completely unfazed.

Tenzin sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Lin, a little help here,"

"Come over here, you two," Lin said opening her arms and spreading her legs so each of her children could climb up and sit on one thigh. They did.

"Even if someone hits you first, if it is an accident and they didn't mean to, you do NOT hit them back, ESPECIALLY if they say sorry, alright?" Lin said.

"Buh- Ma- hit Ba Ba a lot," Huifan replied innocently. "Even Ba say sowy."

Tenzin shot a glance at Tenzin. This girl was definitely living up to her name, she was such a clever little thing.

"But I don't make this red stuff spew from his body," Lin added pulling out a handkerchief, dabbing at the girl's bloodied noses and showing them the red.

Both children slumped a little before nodding with understanding.

Then Huifan looked up again with a puzzled frown on her face. "Mama why you no ret now?"

"Sorry?" Lin asked.

Huifan threw her hands up with frustration and flipped her side swept bangs back.

"She asks why you are not red now?" Hungjian translated.

"Why would she ask such a thing?" Lin asked.

Huifan turned and flicked her wrist making a somewhat jagged toilet looking form come out of the earth and then a small waste bin beside it and then flicked a lump of rock out of the earth and into the waste bin.

"What?" Lin asked a little taken aback by such a strange question coming from someone so young.

"Is she asking why you're not tossing red napkins in the trash bin anymore..." Tenzin asked. "Is she asking why you're not... bleeding?"

Lin turned to her daughter. "Why were you even looking in the trash bin?"

Huifan shrugged looking at Lin's stomach.

"Ma ma, eat baby?" Huifan old asked putting a hand on her mother's lower abdomen with a rather curious and somewhat frustrated expression.

Lin gasped. She tuned into her seismic sense and located every heartbeat on the island. Her daughter, her son, her husband, her own, and... she looked up at Tenzin with shock and realization.

"Lin, you're pregnant again?" Tenzin asked.

"Apparently. And our youngest child was the first to know," Lin sighed Pulling both children closer to her body to hold them.

"Daddy, what does pregnant mean?" Hungjian asked.

"It means you will both gain a new baby brother or sister."

"Each?" Hungjian asked with glee.

"No, just one to share," Lin said. "Hopefully," she added hoping to never get twins.

"Awe!" Hungjian slumped.

"Come on, you two. Do you want to spar again?" Tenzin asked trying to distract them from the topic of new baby.

"Sure!" Hungjian said sliding off his mother's knee.

"I stay by Ma," Huifan said with one tiny hand on her mother's stomach, now pressing her ear to it too. It was mesmerizing to her.

"Spirits!" Lin cursed to herself looking over st the earthen toilet and trash bin and at her daughter already hearing heartbeats and noticing trends in people's behaviors. She's clever and very powerful already.

"Jian, is there a reason you earthbent a toilet in the middle of the courtyard?" Grandpa Aang asked passing by knowing his daughter-in-law would never do such a silly thing.

"No, I didn't do it! Fa-ni did!" Hungjian replied throwing a tiny pebble his father's way.

"Fa-" Aang turned to Lin sitting on the step. She was leaning back, relaxed, propped up on her hands with Huifan laying on her with her tiny ear pressed to her abdomen.

Aang smiled. "She's powerful."

"And, she deduced that I'm pregnant again," Lin said biting her lower lip nervously.

Aang's face lit up. "You're joking!"

"Hold the groceries!" Katara ordered her husband, thrusting the bags into his arms, uncapping her water skin before rushing over to Lin. Huifan bolted upright again and watched with a jealous scowl as the water took her place on her mother's stomach.

"Honey, this is wonderful news!" Katara said happily.

"How far along is she?" Tenzin asked walking over with Hungjian again.

"Already seven months," Katara said with surprise.

"How could I have not noticed? Why didn't I grow so much like before?" Lin asked.

"Maybe it's the exercise. You trying to keep your weight down to disguise your shape after the first two babies may have altered the way your body grows now." Katara suggested.

"Is the baby healthy? I hope I didn't stunt its growth too much. Should I eat more?"

"Your baby is perfectly healthy, but it won't do it any harm to eat more. Your body needs the surplus nutrients,"

"Thank you, Katara," Lin said.

"Mama pregnant is a good thing, right?" Hungjian asked.

"Yes. It's a good thing."

"We should have a party!"

The family laughed.

"Hungjian, why don't you come help me with dinner. You can stir the stew!" Katara asked the boy.

"Yay!" He yelled flying after his grandmother.

"What's going through your mind?" Aang asked sitting beside his son and his daughter in law and his second grandchild.

"So many things," Lin said stroking her daughter's cheek subconsciously as the child lay with closed eyes listening to the fetus heartbeat in her mother's belly.

"You can tell us, we have time," Aang said.

"My daughter can already earthbend what she's seen with a flick of her hand and she's not even two yet and we haven't even started training,"

"She's powerful-"

"And she noticed I hadn't been throwing red napkins in the waste bin for a while,"

"Smart-"

"And she thought that if Hungjian punched her in the face, the proper response was to punch him back just so that they could match," Lin added.

Aang laughed. "That must be the Beifong coming through." He said warmly draping an arm over Lin's shoulder.

"Ha... ha..." Lin replied unamused. And now we have a new baby coming,"

"Are you afraid?"

"What if he's not healthy- I didn't know— what if he comes early? What if he—"

"He's already been in you longer than this little girly," Aang said tapping Huifan on the nose. She growled at him and raised her arm around her mother's torso.

MY MOMMY'S BELLY! DON'T COME CLOSER. ILL BITE! her expression screamed.

Aang laughed. "There's only one thing you know for certain that your baby will be."

"And what is that?" Tenzin asked.

"Wonderful! Truly wonderful," Aang said with a smile.