A/N: I really need a life. I don't think it's normal to have so many feelings after a cartoon episode.

Disclaimer: yeah. no.

The rain hit like bullets. It hit hard enough to make her insides run cold. Thunder shook the stone ground, making the metal of her uniform vibrate. A sense of dead numbness was spreading from the place between her eyes, where she still felt Amon's touch.

Her exhaustion suddenly became so much deeper than just muscle and bone and body. A heaviness took hold of her chest and squeezed with sharp claws until it hurt to even have a pulse. Emotions that she hadn't felt in decades swarmed through her like hot, live electricity. Her bound hands clenched into fists, her jaw grounding together as realization hit harder than any blow ever had.

Lin wanted her mother back.

She'd take any part of Toph Bei Fong if she could have it. She'd go through the all-day training, with her bare feet rubbed raw and her eyes blindfolded. She'd go back to when her mother gave her a taste of fire whiskey for the first time, and try to live through the embarrassment of hurling it back up while her mother wailed with laughter and told her between tears that Aang had reacted to the taste just the same. She'd settle for the exhaustion of long nights leading into early mornings waiting for the police shift to end and rushing to back to her room and into her bed when she knew her mother was coming. She'd handle the pain clear in Toph's blind eyes when the call of bad justice took Lin's vigilante father away to another city for months at a time.

She would have done anything to have anything back.

Her throat tightened to the point where she could no longer breathe. A pitiful, pathetic sound escaped her while rain continued to pelt and lightening continued to shriek. If anyone finally found her they might think it was only rain on her face instead of tears, but she came to the point of loneliness that she no longer cared what anyone saw or thought. Her mother had been the only person she really cared about hiding her tears from, and she wasn't there to notice them.

A touch on her face dragged her from her misery.

The palm was rough like a rock warmed by the sun. The fingers were slim and short, but calloused and dry of rain. They trailed over the two scars on Lin's cheek, marvelling, before tipping her chin up.

Rain had seeped into her eyes and left them burning, but Lin managed to flutter them open and found herself unable to even blink as her vision focused.

It was a child. A girl, very young with round cheeks and skinny shoulders. She wore a green shirt beneath a yellow vest, clearly of the old nationality called Earth Kingdom. Her hair was dark, as Lin's had once been, and would have hid her pale eyes if she had not been leaning down for the ex-bender to see them.

Lin had never seen this translucent form before, but she knew who it was supposed to be.

It took every ounce of strength to crack a smile while Toph brushed tangled hair out of Lin's eyes, tracing gray brows and hairline. She stared up into the blind eyes and knew they felt her stare even before the mouth kicked up into a gentle smirk.

She felt so safe in this child's lap that her eyes slipped closed and she could no longer find a reason to fight them open. Hands continued to frame her face, and little fingers continued to trace her scars.

"It's okay," her mother assured, dipping down to press a kiss at the place between Lin's eyes. "You're okay, Linnie. I'll be here when you wake up. I'll always be there. You're stuck with me." Another kiss was placed on her forehead, and she felt her mother smile. "Always."

A/N: Well that was painful! :D

In case anybody cares, I thought of [The] Duke while writing out Lin's mentioning of her daddy-dearest, but you can change that to whoever you'd like in that spot.

Anyways. Back to crying.