Chapter 1: The photos and the letters

"Miss Sato, what a surprise, is everything ok?" chief Beifong greated. The young girl was holding a box in her hands and to Lins surprise she was completely alone.

"Oh yes chief, everything is fine" she answered, taking a sit in front of Lin´s desk. The older woman was getting confused, Asami was here alone, with no Korra, no Mako and no Bolin, something must be up.

"You know you can call me Lin. What brings you here?" she said Asami just smiled nervously. This reaction made Lin wondered if it had something to do with the box her hands.

"Well chief, I mean, Lin… I don't know how to say this but… I found something at home that may be of your interest" the girl started to open the box. Lin let out a sigh.

"Asami, if this has to do with your father it's okay, since he gave his life to republic city, as you know, all his charges have been removed" she saw the slight twitch on the girl's mouth at the mention of her father.

"Oh no, this has nothing to do with my father, but… more with my grandfather. You see I think he could be your…"

Asami stopped, Lin's eyebrows raised in confusion.

"My what?"

"Okay listen, I was going through some old boxes at home to clean out some space for a desk and I happened to stumbled across my grandfather's old chest where he keep his things locked"

Lin raised an eyebrow, not really understanding were this story was going.

"My father always told me to not try to open it. He respected his father so much that he never tried to open it himself. But now things are different and both of them passed away so I broke the lock and inside I found this and… I'm pretty sure they belong to you" she said pushing the box in front of Lin.

The chief of police took out the contents of the box, inside there were a handful of pictures and three letters that had a "return to sender" stamp on them. She started by looking at the first picture, it looked like a blurry portrait of Avatar Aang's statue.

"Asami, why are you showing me this?" she asked, trying to make sense of the blurry figures in front of the statue, it was a black and white picture, It really had nothing going on.

"Flip to the next one" Asami said, Lin did as instructed. That's when her heart stoped, she gasped softly at the sight of the picture.

"You see chief Beifong, I think we might be related" Asami commented.

Lin's hands started to shake. In the picture was her mother, smiling widely, with her arms around man. A man Lin had never seen before. The next picture showed a baby sleeping in a cradle, wearing a onesie with a flying board emblem, the Beifong family emblem. She flipped it to the other side and read the messy handwriting.

"Lin, 12 months old"

Her hands were shaking even more, this was shocking for her. She never ever saw a picture of herself younger than 6 years old, mostly because her mother is blind and she never felt the need to take a photo of her. The only baby picture she had seen of herself was not even of her, it was a picture of Bumi and Kya were she happens to be standing on the corner of the photo, but even then, you could only see half of her.

"You said you found this at your home?" she asked, trying to sound calm, but her nervousness was to obvious.

"Yes, Lin, this were in a box full of old photos of my grandparents that were locked in my grandfather's chest"

Asami's response felt through deaf ears as Lin keep looking a the pictures, the next photo showed a man holding the hand of a baby in a garden. She guessed it was republic city's park. This man was the same guy her mother was hugging on the other photo, he had curly black hair and wore glasses. On the back of the photo said

"Lin's first steps".

The next one was a photo of her mother with her arms crossed, by her stood a baby (witch she guessed was herself), this one had nothing written on the back. The next photo showed two babies a boy wearing an overall and a girl wearing a dress, on the back of the photo it said

"Hiro (1 year old), Lin (10 months old)"

"Hiro" she said aloud. The other photos were just blurry, just like the first one she saw, but you could tell they were taken on the same spot as the others.

"I'm pretty sure the Hiro in that photo is my father" Asami commented, then she pointed to the photo were the man was holding the baby's hand

"And this is my grandfather" then Asami reached to her purse and pulled a bunch of other photos, they were all Sato family portraits.

"Look, is the same man" she said, pointing to a wedding photo of the man and then to the photo of hin and Toph.

"I don't know if Im intruding Lin, but I think my grandfather may have been your father" Asami finished.

Lin was speechless

"I… I don't know what to say" Asami didn't knew what to said either, she looked to the side trying to ignore the awkward silence in the room. Lin reached back to the box and grabbed the tree letters. Under the return to sender stamp she could read that the three of then were addressed to the republic city police station but only one of the letters was to her mom, the other two were addressed to her.

"Lin?" Asami asked, the older woman looked up.

"Bolin told me that you never really knew your dad and that for years your mother never really told you anything about him, so when I found this I ran straight here" Lin looked down at the picture of the man holding her hand

"What was his name?"

"his name was Satoru Kantoshito Sato"

"A guy named Kanto, hu?" Lin muttered remembering the bland way her mother told her his name.

"I haven't open those, they are for you so I think you should have then, in fact you can keep everything in that box if you want" Asami said gesturing to the letters. Lin smiled not taking her eyes of the picture of the man

"Thanks Asami, I really appreciate this this is just… a lot to take in, as you said, I never knew who my father was, In fact I heard his name for the first just recently" she said

"There is one more thing I know, I can tell you If you want" the younger girl said, Lin looked up to meet Asami's eyes

"Go ahead"

"Well, my dad told me about this before, he always said that he had a sister, but he didn't knew her name or were she was. For what he told me I know that my grandfather had a relationship outside his marriage that resulted on him having a baby with another woman. Apparently that's what made my grandparents get divorce,that's why my dad always resented him. He knew about what happened and he held a grouch towards my grandfather. he always knew about his sister, he had heard his dad talk about ti a couple of times, but he knew nothing outside of that, he used to say that he wished to at least know her name… if we only had opened that chest sooner…"

"I had a brother" Lin said, looking at the picture of the two babies.

"And my mother ruined your grandparents marriage, just like she ruined her parents marriage, and our family… she seems to know a lot about shitting on people" lin muttered angrily, Asami looked down taking a deep breath.

"Lin, I know this means a lot to you, and its probably not to pleasant to find out what really happened between your mom and my grandfather but… I want you to know that this means a lot to me two" she finished, Lin looked at her in confusion, still trying to process everything that was happening

"Im sorry my mother ruined your family, I know I must had been hard to grow up dealing with older people and their conflicts"

"Oh no, I don't mean it like that, Lin, this means a lot to me because, well, since my father's passing I thought I had no family left, but today I learned I have an aunt" She finished with a sweet smile

Lin listened to her words, but she certainly paid little attention to them, she was to busy processing all this new information. She never really answered Asami, in fact, she didn't even noticed when the girl left. It all happened so fast that she felt like she needed a break and a private place to open the letters.

She got up from her desk and walked out of the office, informing her team that she would be taking the rest of the day off.

She had to know what those letters said.

To be continued

Chapter 2: the love of the father and the pride of the mother

Preview:

"My sweet little Lin, happy 8 birthday, I want you to know that daddy loves you very much and with all my heart I wish you have a great birthday. I really miss you.."

The sobs started to come back making Lin unable to continue her reading, Tenzin placed a hand on her shoulder and toke the letter from her hands

"you want me to continue?" he asked, Lin nodded and he picked up from were she had left off

"I really miss you, and I hope I can see you again one day soon.