Chapter 101 – Epilogue

Thirteen years later…

Lin saw the boulder flying at her face and stood her ground, crossing her arms in front of her and then yanking them downwards, the rock cracking straight down the middle and disintegrating around her as the two disconnected pieces flew off to either side of her. Before her opponent could send another projectile – and they'd probably need half a second after heaving that giant boulder at her – she twisted her right foot and sent a rock wave striking at her attacker, who dove out of the way, landing on one palm, feet momentarily suspended in the air. As they pushed off the ground into a cartwheel, they dug their hand into the earth and threw a rock wave right back at Lin, who merely sidestepped and punched the air, chucking a smaller boulder at her opponent, who had just come up onto their feet and barely managed to knock it aside.

There was a sharp whistle, and Lin knew what was coming but it still came too fast for her to properly evade. An all metal boomerang came spiraling in, smacking off her left knee and bouncing off. Lin dropped down from the blow and immediately ducked to avoid the boomerang as it came swooping back in. Then she thrust out her right hand, and when the boomerang came back for another assault, she snatched it right out of the air, her whole body vibrating with the force of it, and it took nearly every ounce of her bending strength to forcibly snap the metal weapon in half with both hands. She tossed them to either side and didn't still in her defense, knowing the pieces could snap back together in an instant. She needed to distract her attacker, so she smacked both hands onto the ground and pulled the ground up beneath their feet. As they were flipping backwards off of the unsteady earth, Lin rose to her feet, stomped her foot into the ground, and the second they landed, kicked a rock about the size of her head at her attacker, and hit them square in the chest.

They fell onto their back with an oof, and before they could catch their breath to retaliate or go on the defensive, Lin flipped her hands over, and covered nearly their entire body in earth. They would still be able to escape, but it would take too long, and Lin was already propelling herself across the space between them and stopping just over top of them. In her right fist was one of the jagged pieces of the metal boomerang, and their eyes widened as Lin raised it over her head and brought it down into the rock over their chest.

Several loud cheers erupted around the sparring circle, and Lin raised her fist in victory.

Below her, Jeia Rai huffed and probably muttered a curse and broke out of her earthen confines. She yanked the one half of her boomerang out of where it had been imbedded in the rock, and held out her left hand to summon the other half. The two pieces snapped together, and Jeia let it slither around her wrist and forearm like a snake.

Lin stopped boasting long enough to turn and clap Jeia on the shoulder saying, "Nice moves, kid." Jeia just stared at her mother with an irritated expression, dusting off her clothes. "Hey, I told you I could still kick your ass."

"You could have at least let me win," Jeia grumbled, "instead of embarrassing me in front of the entire family."

Lin smirked. "Well where's the fun in that?"

"How's it going to look to Wan if I can get taken down by my sixty-eight year old mother?" Jeia muttered, glancing up at where her boyfriend stood outside the sparring circle. He was smirking at something Yunjin was saying to him, but seemed to sense Jeia's eyes on him and turned to look down at her, winking at her in that way that Lin hated but Jeia seemed to like.

"It'll look like you took it easy on your old mom," Lin said, "but you and I know the truth." She playfully elbowed Jeia in the ribs and the girl scowled at her, but a second later her expression brightened. "You're right, I can use that. Thanks, Mom." She slapped Lin on the shoulder and walked off to join the others, leaving her mother scowling now and rubbing her shoulder.

Though to be fair, Lin half expected Jeia had been taking it a little easy on her mother, and if there had been more metal than earth around, she might have gotten the upper hand. But mostly, Lin did have a world of experience that Jeia hadn't yet mastered, even for all her gifts, even with Lin having slowed a little in her age. At twenty-one years old, Jeia had mastered her bending and most of her temper. She had joined the metalbending police force as soon as she turned seventeen, having refused public schooling, never having been eager to try it as her siblings had been – and the three of them hadn't bothered to finish theirs after the Equalist Revolution anyways. In the four years that she had been on the force, she had been simultaneously proving herself an exceptional officer and learning how to obey orders. She was under the tutelage of Raizo, the very man that had helped her mother give birth to her and for whom she was half named for, and they were getting along pretty well now that Raizo had gotten most of the teasing out of his system.

Jeia had a lot more to learn, but she was expected to follow in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother and become Chief of Police, assuming she wanted it that is. So far, Jeia wanted to be in on the action. She didn't want to be sidelined to a desk and bureaucracy as the chief so often was. And as much as she disliked taking orders, she didn't care much for being the one to dole them out either. She preferred to work alone, and that was something she was already striving to overcome, and would need to be far removed from if she wanted to become chief. But she was young still, and Lin had a feeling Jeia would change her mind about wanting to be in the field constantly once she was older.

Six months ago, Jeia had come home with her boyfriend Wan, and Lin hadn't warmed much to him since, but she was trying to give him a chance, as per Jeia's request. He was just so cocky and self-assured, like Jeia, to be frank, but Jeia was Lin's kid and Wan was the man she'd brought home, the man that was eight years older and had quit his job on the police force because he liked authority even less than Jeia. He'd been bouncing around to different jobs since then, which Lin found to be unreliable but Jeia found to be exciting. One good thing Lin could concede about him was that he seemed to adore Jeia. He was always grinning at her, even when they were arguing, which they did a lot, but seemed to find some odd enjoyment in. Lin supposed Jeia just liked somebody that could and would go toe-to-toe with her in an otherwise pointless debate. Jeia had been so quiet as a young girl, but hadn't shied from speaking her mind when the opportunity presented itself. Now she was a lot more outspoken and still just as brazen. And Wan wasn't afraid to test her in ways most others would simply avoid. Jeia could count on him to be honest, and he never looked at her with any real irritation beyond some playful exasperation. Lin almost liked Wan because Jeia clearly did, but until she was certain she could trust him, she was withholding her decision on the matter.

"You sure you didn't break a hip out there, Mom?" Yunjin teased Lin as she passed him.

"Watch it, kid," she warned her thirty year old son, "or you'll be next."

"He'd break his own hip out there," Amali joked from beside him, hand resting on her pregnant belly.

Yunjin laughed, leaning his weight against the cane held in his right hand. "You're not wrong."

Over the last few years, Yunjin had experienced some more issues with his spinal injury. His doctors warned that he needed to be involved in less strenuous activity, that he would worsen his condition if he continued to overexert himself past what his injured body would allow. He'd undergone a few more surgeries, one of them fairly recently, hence the cane to help him walk. His brother had made him a new set of braces a few years prior, but Yunjin was hesitant to rely on them again, and his doctor advised that it could make his condition worse. But throughout all the surgeries and uncertainty, Yunjin had not despaired. He'd been surprisingly optimistic, even when it seemed he might be returned to a wheelchair at some point in his life.

It helped that he had Amali through much of it. Around the age of twenty, Yunjin had left home to wander the earth much as his father had decades before. Yunjin wished to travel and seek enlightenment, studying the philosophies of ancient Air Nomads, as well as the philosophies of the other three nations. He traveled for several years, visiting home as often as he was able, always bringing odd little gifts home for his family. Many times his father asked him to stay, to teach the airbenders what he had learned, but Yunjin wasn't finished with his quest. One year, he came home and noticed Amali, well into adulthood herself and full of interest of his travels. She had admitted to harboring a bit of a crush on him in their younger years, but with the four year age difference and Yunjin's persistent interest in Jinora, there was never any place for something between them. Amali was simply Nira's adopted daughter and she and Yunjin hardly interacted without the rest of the family around before then.

Even after Yunjin and Jinora split ways, they never really got around to getting over each other until much later. Lin often suspected part of the reason Yunjin left home was to get away from reminders of Jinora. The girl had been traveling a lot herself, but she was at Air Temple Island most of all, as was the rest of her family, who had all integrated into Acolyte life. Some of the Air Temples had been re-inhabited over the years, freeing up some space on the Island, but it was still fuller than it had ever been. Jinora most enjoyed the teaching aspect of a leadership position in the Air Nation, and with most new benders and acolytes coming through the Island first, she spent much of her time there. She had been granted the rank of master a few years ago, and Yunjin and Sora had helped their father administer Jinora's tattoos.

By that time, Yunjin had begun his relationship with Amali. There were no hard feelings between Yunjin and Jinora, nor between Jinora and Amali. Yunjin and Jinora had remained friends, and even with Yunjin's difficulties in getting over her, they had been amicable through it all. In the end, their differences had simply not aligned. In some ways they made each other better, in some ways worse. Ultimately, they were better off apart. Jinora had been in a handful of relationships herself, but she was dedicated to focusing on her own goals. Yunjin, meanwhile, had been ready to settle down after his travels, and had found that with Amali. They both wanted a family. They both wanted that family together.

Amali herself was working two jobs. One at the library in the city where she followed her passion of history and research, and the other at the foster home, where she sought to help all the children without parents, to make them feel safe in their hopefully temporary housing, and help to find them loving homes to go to. After the fall of Kuvira, Amali had gone with Kya and Nira to the Earth Kingdom, where they had helped reunite separated families, and found new homes for those who had lost theirs. Amali had been moved by that experience, and sought to pursue it as she grew older. She had been so fortunate to be found by Nira, to inevitably end up with two adoring mothers after she had lost her own parents and her entire tribe. So many people on the Island had welcomed her, given her a new family, a new tribe, and she wanted to try and give that to all the other children without families.

Amali and Yunjin had planned to adopt after they had officially married, but Amali had gotten pregnant first. Everyone kept asking the pair of them when they were going to have a wedding, but neither of them had any major drive to make their union legal. They claimed to have "already married in spirit," whatever that meant. Some philosophical mumbo jumbo that Lin only half listened to. They knew one day that they would have an official ceremony, for their families if for no one else, but they were in no rush. They were focused instead on the baby they would have in just a few short weeks, and if the kid was anything like Yunjin they would undoubtedly have their hands full.

"Save your strength," Lin told Yunjin. "You're gonna need it when that kid is born."

"Oh, it'll be fine," Yunjin waved off without concern. And Lin snorted, because he had no idea what was coming. He may have gained some insights over the years and learned to sit still for longer than five minutes, but he was still very much like his mother, and fatherhood would be a challenge for him. She had no doubts that he would overcome those challenges, but it wouldn't come to him as easily as it had for some of his siblings.

Like it had for the ever patient Ronen, who stood next to Sora, who stood between her two brothers. Sora was holding Ronen's youngest on her hip, grinning at her three year old niece Hira, making faces at the girl as she cheerfully bounced in Sora's arms. Sora glanced up from Hira to smile at Lin, but she hadn't been half as interested in Lin and Jeia's sparring, enraptured as she was by the child in her arms. Sora had never really professed to wanting children herself, but she loved Ronen's two girls, and since she didn't live at home much anymore, she liked to spend most of her time with Hira and Roze when she was. Sora usually lived at the Eastern Air Temple with Ikki, whom she had been in a relationship with for about a year. Both women had been in their share of relationships over the years, but hadn't found exactly who they were looking for, though they seemed to think they had now. They worked together at the Eastern Temple, Ikki with the acolytes and Sora with the airbenders. According to some of the other residents there, the two women were a good team, in tune with each other. They were already planning a wedding for next month, which Lin thought was too soon, but she wasn't surprised because Sora had been engaged at least three times before. The girl loved hard, she always had. Ikki, at least, had been in Sora's life for a long time, so maybe it wouldn't end like the others. Lin hoped so anyways.

Ronen had married Asami nearly eight years ago, and since then they'd had two daughters, Hira and Roze, who was six years old. Ronen and Asami had taken their time, even though everyone had expected them to stay together long before they ever sought to legalize it. They'd eloped in the Fire Nation during a spur of the moment vacation, and had an official wedding with the whole family a few months later. They started trying for a baby not long after. They were planning to have a third sometime, but they had their hands full with the girls. Roze was a nonbender like her parents, but Hira had recently shown signs of airbending and she was keeping her parents busy. Hira had her father's features but her mother's strong will. She liked to test her parents' patience, and was trying out some of the pranks her Uncle Yunjin was teaching her. Roze, on the other hand, looked just like her mother, but reminded Lin a lot of how Ronen was at that age, quiet and sweet, though she didn't seem to have the same knack for mechanics as her parents did. She was more inclined to burying her head in a book. She liked to tell her grandparents stories when she came to visit, which was fairly often since the girls stayed on the Island when their parents were busy with work, or the occasions when Ronen and Asami would go out for the evening. Roze's Aunt Sora had tried to teach her how to draw but she hadn't picked that up very well.

Roze hung from her father's arm as she beamed up at Lin and praised, "Gramma, you did really good. Daddy was worried 'bout you but I told him you would be okay."

"Thanks, kid," Lin said, ruffling Roze's hair. "Your dad just thinks I'm old."

"I would never say such a thing," Ronen denied while attempting to suppress a smirk.

"Not to her face," Sora muttered next to him.

"Where's Asami?" Lin asked Ronen, who was shooting Sora a glare.

"Working," Ronen answered, "but she'll be here in time for dinner. "She had to –"

"Pay up," a voice interjected on Ronen's other side, and a fourteen year old boy knocked into Ronen's shoulder.

Ronen feigned offence. "I didn't agree to any bets."

"I told you Aunt Lin would beat Jeia, no problem," the boy persisted. "I put ten yuans on it."

"Sokka," an exasperated Nira chimed in, "I told you to stop trying to scam your family out of money."

"Aw, Mama, I'm just havin' fun," Sokka defended. "Tell her, Mom."

Kya held up her hands and shook her head. "No way. You're not draggin' me into this one. I already got in trouble for supposedly encouraging you the last time."

"You certainly weren't trying to dissuade him," Nira mildly scorned.

"Kid's gotta make money somehow," Kya teased.

"Gambling is a serious addiction," Nira argued.

"You're a serious addiction," Kya murmured, wrapping her arms tight around Nira's waist and trying to lean in to kiss her cheek, while Nira swatted her away with annoyance and amusement before inevitably giving in.

"Yuck," Sokka complained. "You guys are so gross. Why do I have the grossest mothers in the world?"

Ronen snorted. "Believe me, bud, my parents aren't much better."

Lin scoffed. "Excuse me. I never act like that."

"Sure ya don't," Sora snickered, jostling Hira in her arms and telling the girl, "Gramma is silly."

Hira giggled and exclaimed, "Gramma is silly!"

Lin rolled her eyes, and so did Sokka when his mothers both reached for him making kissy faces, and the boy made a hasty retreat.

When Kya, Nira, and Amali had gone to the Earth Kingdom to help out all those years ago, they had found a baby boy with no parents and no known name, and they had only taken him in temporarily until they could find a good home for him, but all three of them had grown attached quickly. When they returned to Air Temple Island, Kya and Nira came back with a son named Sokka, much to the surprise of the rest of the family. Kya thought it was absurd because she was far too old to become a mother again, but she had been smitten with the little boy and Nira had wanted him so badly, and she hadn't been able to say no. He looked nothing like his name sake, but Kya was making sure he developed a very similar attitude.

Sokka was a good kid, but a handful much like Yunjin had been, with a mouth on him that he'd certainly gotten from Kya, though Lin was often blamed for it too. The boy had started earthbending around the age of four, and since Lin and Jeia were the only two earthbenders on the island, it had been mostly up to Lin to teach him control. She had actually come to look forward to the lessons, not least because she didn't have a job and she was finally teaching someone that wasn't an airbender. Sokka's gifts were a lot different from Jeia's too, so it had been a bit of a challenge to rework her training to his. Plus, with the way her life had been before, so consumed by work and her own family, and with all of them living outside the city, she had never really had the time to dedicate to any one of her nieces or nephews, not since she'd babysat Kya's older kids way back in the day. It was kind of nice to be a part of Sokka's upbringing in a meaningful way.

It seemed though, that Sokka spent most of his time with his grandmother.

Katara had settled in just fine when she moved back to Air Temple Island for good. Ronen and Asami had begun building their own place in the city, and left the smaller house on the Island they'd been residing in open to Katara. Tenzin loved having his mother around, and frankly so did everyone else. A lot of the airbenders living on the Island were in awe of her, and would gather around her some nights to listen to her stories from long ago. But she seemed more interested in observing everyone else. Bumi and Kya had shown no intentions of moving away, and Katara was delighted to be surrounded by all three of her children once more, not to mention nearly all of her grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. She was pushing close to a hundred years old now, so she was a lot less active and Tenzin worried for her health, but she was always around as much as she was able, always with a bright smile and warm hugs.

When Kya had first introduced her mother to baby Sokka, Katara had wept even as she beamed with joy. She had been just as taken by him as his mothers had when they'd decided to adopt him, and the pair had bonded early on. When Sokka was old enough to talk he was often requesting to see his Gran-Gran, and when he was old enough to be upset with his mothers he would run across the Island to find Katara. He wasn't a boy that was prone to sit still, but he liked to talk his grandmother's ear off while pacing around the room with animated gestures, and Katara liked to sit and listen. It was the opposite relationship she had with Jeia, who liked to sit with her grandmother in silence, and more often than not both of them ended up napping.

Currently, Katara was sitting at the edge of the sparring circle in the wheelchair Ronen had built for her, for the days when she just felt too weary to walk. Sokka went straight over to her, to where she was talking with Su and Opal.

Su and her family had gone through a rough period of time after Kuvira and Bataar Jr's betrayals. Su and her husband especially had been tormented by Junior's actions, by their own potential fault in it and having to see their son imprisoned. For the first year or so after Kuvira's attack on Republic City, Su had barely been home to the liberated Zaofu. She and Bataar Sr didn't seem able to talk it all out and Su didn't know how to handle it all. When Junior was sentenced to several years in prison, she had gone a bit off the deep end, but eventually Lin was able to pull her back, with some help from Opal. Su and Bataar were eventually able to reconcile and move forward, to heal rather than run from their distress. In an effort to make amends and perhaps one day make peace with their son, Su requested that she be allowed to have Kuvira and Junior transferred to Zaofu to remain in her custody, and serve out the rest of their sentences there, with the hope that both of them could be rehabilitated and serve the community they had harmed in more productive ways.

Su's request was denied three times before the courts finally relented. Since then, Kuvira and Junior had both been residing in Zaofu, separate and with restrictions, but supposedly on the mend. During his time in prison, Junior's anger towards his family and Kuvira had mellowed. His parents had visited him enough times until he relented to see them, and it seemed then that he was willing to apologize and seek forgiveness. His siblings were not so willing to see him for a long time, but once he was in Zaofu again, each of them eventually went to hear him out, to attempt to put the past behind them as well as they could. Even Sora had gone to see her cousin, even with the great hurt she still felt years later over Zara's loss. Sora had always been about peace and forgiveness, and it was healing for her to go and see Junior, to hear his apologies, even if she wasn't ready to forgive him, even if she never would. She could at least accept his attempts, and put aside her anger for him.

Lin, on the other hand, was not so accepting. She could not simply set aside the rage she still felt every time she thought about what he had done, what he had almost done. He had killed a girl that was barely an adult, had hurt Sora so deeply, had nearly killed Jeia. Lin would not tell her sister what to do about her own son, but she would not consent to be around Junior at any time either. When Lin visited Zaofu, she never went to see Junior, and she made certain that she'd never run into him.

Kuvira, though, Lin had seen quite a lot, but only for Jeia. It was apparent that Kuvira had tried, in some small way, to turn it around in the end, for Jeia's sake, because she loved the girl and wanted to see no harm come to her. Lin thought Kuvira could have stopped long before she had, was still pissed that Kuvira had kidnapped Jeia at least twice, had brought destruction on the city and harmed so many of the people Lin cared about. But she didn't want Jeia going to see Kuvira on her own, so she had little choice but to accompany the girl on the occasions when Tenzin could not, and even sometimes when he could, just because she was paranoid for a while. Eventually, she had stopped assuming Kuvira was going to break free and snatch Jeia away. Kuvira, at least, was repentant early on. She hadn't been trying to reestablish her place in the self-appointed Earth Empire as Junior had. Lin hadn't trusted it, of course, but after a few years she had relaxed. Now, Jeia had long since been going to visit Kuvira in Zaofu on her own, but avoided any sort of confrontation with Junior the same as her mother. She had been so young when it all happened that much of her feelings for that time had numbed, but she still remembered it with great detail, and she was no more inclined to seek out difficult, emotionally charged situations than her mother.

The rest of Su's children were doing well though. Huan was still ever focused on his art, Wei had moved to Republic City to be on a probending team, and Wing had married a man from the Fire Nation and was living there. Opal was a master airbender now, and split her time between living in Zaofu and at the Eastern Air Temple. Even Bataar was collaborating on some new technology with Ronen and Asami at Future Industries. All of them had come to the Island by Tenzin's and Lin's invitation, leaving Junior and Kuvira behind in Zaofu under guard still.

Pretty much everyone had come out for the event. Pema and Anil and their kids: Jinora, Ikki, Meelo, and baby Ji-Ji who wasn't really a baby anymore at sixteen. Bolin with his current girlfriend, a quiet, sweet girl that loved food as much as he did. Bolin had joined the police force years back and seemed to be thriving there, as Chief Tosuki had told Lin. Mako had eventually left the police force, a few years after a fateful meeting with Princess Ursa. He had met her years before, but when they ran into each other outside City Hall, both of them frustrated by the results of their own separate dealings with some of the lawmakers inside, they had something to discuss. In venting over their mutual frustrations, they found other similar interests over dinner, and one dinner turned to several, turned to a relationship that had been going on almost three years now. Mako had moved to the Fire Nation in the midst of it and was working with the royal police there. He and Ursa had arrived on the Island that morning.

The only people that hadn't yet arrived were Korra and Akira, who were on their way but had sent word ahead to say they'd be late, probably after dinner, but in time for the following day's celebration. Korra and Akira had a place in Republic City where they spent much of their time, but they traveled a lot, of course, and had a home in the Earth Kingdom as well. Before they had children, Ronen and Asami would often travel with Korra and Akira, and Mako and Bolin still did at times, each of them trying to help Korra whenever possible. Akira was not always thrilled with the Avatar work, but it never seemed to come between her and Korra. Some of their journeys they went on together, others apart, but they had a solid, trusting relationship, in that they could separate for weeks at a time to follow their own paths, and come back together again.

The event in question that they had all been invited to was Lin and Tenzin's fortieth wedding anniversary, which they would be celebrating by finally having their vows renewed, as Tenzin had requested years ago, with all their friends and family there to bear witness. Each of them had traveled – or simply took a trip across the Island or the bay – to spend a few days together and attend the vowel renewal. A surprising amount of them were looking forward to it, seeing as how most of them hadn't been there for the first wedding, including Su, since she and Lin hadn't been on speaking terms then. The majority of the rest of them, of course, had not yet even been born.

But the one person that had been with Lin through it all, every critical moment of her life, including her own birth and the births of most of the people around the circle, every milestone with bending and work and family, all of it she had experienced with the man she was going to walk down the aisle with for the second time tomorrow evening. He was the one she found herself drawn to as she made her way around the circle of people. He was standing next to Saikhan, who's hairline had receded so far at that point that he just shaved the hair on his head completely bald now. His wife Minya was there too, with their granddaughter Yumi, now just about sixteen and smirking at the looks Sokka was giving her from across the sparring circle. Lin had stayed true to her word and, once Jeia had been found, sent word to Saikhan to let him know, and to thank him for helping her even when she had been going in the wrong direction. After that, they had been better about staying in touch, exchanging letters almost monthly, mostly talking about their families more so than themselves, occasionally reminiscing some of the good times in the old days. He and his wife and Yumi had been to the Island a few times over the years too, and Lin always tried to visit them when she was in the Fire Nation.

At Lin's approach, Saikhan tipped his head in her direction with a smirk, a silent acknowledgement of her victory, and then told Tenzin that he was going to go threaten Sokka about possibly hitting on his granddaughter before he wandered off. Minya went after him in exasperation, telling him to leave the boy alone, and Yumi just rolled her eyes and went to talk to Ji-Ji, the only person there that really was her age.

Then Lin and Tenzin were alone – well, alone as they could be with all their family so close by – and he smiled down at her with a shake of his head. "Do you feel better now that you've proven yourself right?" he teased, curling his arm around her waist and pulling her against him.

"I do actually," Lin murmured, tugging lightly on his lengthening beard. It was gray now – finally. She had lamented for years about how her hair had long gone gray while his looked just as brown as ever. "You want a turn? Remember what it's like to have me kick you around?"

"Oh I remember it just fine," Tenzin snorted. "I prefer to engage with you in other, less painful exploits."

"Well that's good, because you'll probably need to be giving me a back massage every day for the rest of the week," she admitted, grimacing and rubbing her sore muscles now that nobody was looking. After all her years of police work and various injuries, her body wasn't quite as forgiving as it used to be in her youth.

"I told you that you wouldn't be happy with yourself when it was over."

"Hey, I still won," Lin defended.

Tenzin chuckled, running his fingers up and down her spine and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Yes, dear. Yes, you did."

That night, they all gathered for dinner in the dining hall, and again the following morning for breakfast. That afternoon, preparations began, everyone scrambling to set up some chairs and a few decorations – Lin didn't want anything over the top so they weren't doing a whole lot on that front. Then they were all dressing up in their best clothes and excitedly joining together for the ceremony.

Forty years ago, Lin's mother had walked with her down the aisle. Today, Su was there to take Lin's arm, a bright smile on her face and tears already brimming in her eyes. Su had been tearful ever since Lin had put on her old wedding dress, the very same one she'd worn on her wedding day, with some alterations by Sora to make it look and fit better than when she'd pulled it out of storage. Lin rolled her eyes at Su's emotional state, but smiled fondly and squeezed Su's wrist. Su sniffled and looped her arm through Lin's, and they walked together between the rows of chairs, to the front platform where Tenzin waited, along with Ronen, both of them all dressed up and beaming matching smiles.

Once they reached the platform, Su pressed a kiss to Lin's cheek and, with one last tearful grin, went to take her seat. Tenzin reached out to take Lin's hand as she took a step up onto the platform, and as they turned to face each other, Lin's eyes fell on their joined hands. It wasn't the same as when they'd first married, their hands now bony and wrinkled with age, no longer the smooth, youthful skin of old. But when she looked up into his eyes, those loving, familiar gray eyes, it was as if they hadn't aged a day. Even with the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the laugh lines around his mouth and the furrows in his brow. He was all the same to her, his hands still soft and warm, his gaze still bright, his smile infectious. Her love for him had not waned over the many years they'd been together. It had changed, of course, as they had changed, from friends to lovers, from lovers to man and wife, to parents of four children. They had been through so many things together, so many trials and triumphs, grief and joy. They had seen each other at their worst and their best. They had aged together, just as he'd promised her, with hopefully many more years to come, with their children and the rest of their family, to see their grandchildren grow. They had been experiencing a period of peace in the past few years, with no jobs or villains to weigh on them, and though Lin had once thought she would always be chief, that she would die before she ever quit, she had never been happier to be wrong.

She could see all of that reflected in Tenzin's eyes as he lifted her hands up to kiss the backs of them, as Ronen spoke to the assembled group of his parents' love. Lin heard the words but she didn't really take them in, centered as she was in the moment, in remembering the little details, the feelings, the way Tenzin never took his eyes off of her.

When it was their turn to speak, Lin could not find the words to express to him everything that she felt, her gratitude and love. It had never been something she had conveyed with words, more by actions, and even with weeks to prepare she was at a loss. But she squeezed Tenzin's hands and she smiled, and he nodded in understanding. She held his hands against her chest and said only, "I love you." He could read the rest in her eyes.

Of course, Tenzin was always better at words. He moved one of his hands to brush it over her cheek, murmuring softly, "My dearest, Lin. I am so grateful to have met you, to have grown up with you, to have watched you become the women I so adore. You are… the strongest, wittiest, most beautiful person I have ever known, and you have given me so much happiness, since the moment we first married forty years ago. As my wife, as my best friend, as the mother to our children. You are, in every way, imbedded in my very soul. You are my constant, my touchstone, that which puts a smile on my face every morning to know that I will face the day, and every ensuing day, with you by my side. I have been beyond fortunate to have so many years with you, nearly our entire lives so far, and I look forward to every year yet to come. Thank you, Lin, for marrying me, for strengthening me. I love you more than I could ever say."

He dropped her hands so that he could cup her face, thumbs lovingly caressing her cheeks as he gazed at her, and before he could lean in, she muttered, "I don't know, I think you did a pretty good job of saying it just there. Way to make me look bad."

Laughter rang out from the onlookers, their family sitting just a few feet away, and Tenzin's chest rumbled with his own chuckles just before he tilted his head down to capture her lips. He kissed her with gusto, and her own hands grasped the sides of his head to pull him all the closer, and she let herself sink further into the moment, into him.

She didn't hear the crackle of thunder somewhere above, nor did she notice their family gathering around. She didn't notice any of it until she and Tenzin's lips parted, and the world seemed to come back to her at once. Their children had surrounded them, Ronen clapping them both on the shoulder, Yunjin beaming at them, Jeia with her arms folded but smirking fondly, and Sora tearfully embracing them. And Lin let that feeling linger too, memorized the faces of her children in that moment.

Until a sharp intake of breath broke through and a tiny, "Uh oh."

And Yunjin's smile faded as he twisted around, to where Amali stood a few paces behind him, demanding, "Uh oh? What's uh oh?"

She smiled slightly in chagrin, her cheeks flushing pink as she said, "Um, I think the baby's coming."

There was a flurry of activity, raised voices of both panic and delight. Thunder rumbled above once again, this time louder, and the second that Lin tipped her head up to look, the dark clouds opened up, and a million drops of rain began to pour from the sky. A few people screamed or shouted their surprise and discontent, all of them soaked in a matter of minutes as they scrambled to find shelter.

Lin, meanwhile, stood still on the platform, ensconced in Tenzin's arms, unfettered by the rain, even as her hair and clothes clung to her skin. She looked at Tenzin, and he just shook his head with a smirk, lifting one hand from her waist to tuck a soaking strand of hair behind her ear, his palm settling on her cheek once again. He pulled her flush against him, both their eyes sliding closed as he pressed his lips against her forehead.

It was in the middle of Republic City's worst ever rainstorm when Lin Beifong decided to grace the world with her presence. And upon her birth, baby Tenzin had reached out and touched her cheek, and from that moment on, their souls had been intertwined, two halves of a whole, different but the same. If anyone had told Lin when she was young that she would one day fall in love with Tenzin, marry Tenzin, have his children and watch those children grow into adults, to have children of their own, she would not have been able to believe it. She would never have been able to anticipate the future. But as she looked back upon the memories of her life, a past that had once been her future, she knew that she would not have changed a single moment. Everything that led her to Tenzin, that gave her their four amazing children and all the other family they had acquired since. She would do it all again in a heartbeat.

-The End! Finally! Sadly! Amazingly! What a wild ride this has been, and I just want to thank each and every one of you for coming with me, for reading even when I fell off the map or took too long to post a new chapter. Whether you came here long ago or only recently discovered this story, you have been the reason I kept going, even when I wondered if I should, if I even could.

A special shout-out to a few people, to NazChick for so diligently reviewing nearly every chapter. To Constipated Genius, for helping me build some of this story, like Amali and the delightful spirit of emotion characters that you created that I had such a joy bringing to life. To jv2en3, for the incredible drawing you made for me of the Linzin children. To JenMorgan27, for all your kind words. To anyone else who took the time to leave a review.

And to all of you, if you've ever reviewed or you've enjoyed this story in silence, I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, and hope that I could at least deliver some joy and satisfaction in this long winded AU. This likely won't be the last you hear from me, if you're ever interested in reading more from me, I'll likely return at some point, because I love to write and I don't foresee myself stopping anytime soon. I hope that all of you are well and, perhaps, until next time...