There is a small wooden box inside Tenzin's school bag that he carefully removes, sliding the lid off to examine the lunch his mother has lovingly packed for him every day for the past eleven years. The largest section, filled with rice, has a note from her written in black sesame seeds: "Love You" it proclaims and Tenzin quickly mixes the rice in order to disguise the note from any of his classmates that might see.

Bumi approaches with his latest girlfriend in tow, slides into the bench beside him and pulls an identical box from his bag.

"Eating alone I see?" he teases, "Yumi and I thought we would join you so you don't look quite so pathetic."

Tenzin doesn't dignify his comment with an answer, but with a roll of his eyes. The two brothers have been this way since day one and at seventeen, Tenzin is beginning to wonder if it will ever change.

Presently, several members of Bumi's circle descend upon them, filling nearly every section of the bench. Nobody sits directly across from Tenzin, however. That seat is reserved and it goes without saying.

Lin approaches finally, taking her usual place at the table across from her boyfriend. She has a cup of instant noodles in hand, a low-maintenance option for the unfussy children of blind mothers everywhere.

She holds it up as if to toast the others at the table, "Flameo!" she comments sardonically of the garish red lettering on the side of her cup.

Bumi slips the lid from his bento and is disheartened to realize he has a similar message from his mother adorning his rice. He picks up the chop sticks to mix it in, but Lin's eyes are quicker.

"Awww," she coos, "Did she pick out your clothes too?"

The table erupts with laughter at her joke, but Bumi is undaunted, " No, but it appears your Mom picked out yours."

Blind jokes never went over well with Lin, but Bumi is given a pass. He is practically family and for this she simply curls her lip at him in disapproval.

Lunch continues on as normal and plans for summer break dominate the conversation. The countdown is in the single digits now, only nine official days of school left to go for the year. Bumi is elated by this idea and mentions again his desire to enlist in the United Forces. Everyone has an opinion on his choice and they are freely given, but Yumi is unusually quiet.

"What about you, Beifong?" Bumi asks, ostensibly because he is curious, but actually because he is tired of the sad look in Yumi's eye.

"Well, I..." she casts a side glance at Tenzin and then one to her friend, Nima, who smiles as if she is keeping a secret, "...I don't know. Same thing we do every year at the end of school."

She shrugs and the subject is changed. Everyone knows that at the beginning of each summer, Toph and Lin travel to the Metalbending Academy. Toph gives a speech, takes a photo with the graduates, and spends three consecutive days being adored by new recruits while Lin busies herself spectating the hero-worship.

But, something about the way she glanced at Tenzin tells him there is more to it this year.

Their lunch break reaches it's end, signaled by their surly-looking calligraphy teacher banging weakly against a gong in the center of the room. Everyone stands with a dejected sigh and shuffles toward the classrooms again.

Lin is careful to stay alongside Tenzin as they walk. Nima, a fire bender and one of Lin's competitive bending teammates, gives the couple a knowing smile as she passes them.

"Okay," Tenzin sighs, "what is that about?"

It is the second time in thirty minutes he has watched his girlfriend share a cryptic look with her friend. Lin looks up at him, eyes shining with conspiracy. She grabs his robes, bunching along his bicep and pulls him to the side of the pack of students ambling in the hall.

"I'm not going with my Mom this year," she confesses in a whisper. She lifts an eyebrow at him as if they are both in on some plot together, but Tenzin is decidedly outside the circle of the informed.

"Okay..." he replies, searching.

Her shoulders slope and she lets out a sigh of frustration at his ignorant stupidity, "Which means I'm staying home..." she leads. When his eyes widen as if to urge her on she scowls and tells him factually, "I'm going to have the house to myself, you idiot."

"Oh." His response is simple, but it is clear he's gotten the point.

Their budding romance, now eight months old, has had quite a few stumbling blocks. The constant presence of his large and curious family, the ever-present acolytes, and Lin's blind mother who has an uncanny ability to see everything, left the young lovers with precious little alone time.

Their sexual encounters were often in extremely uncomfortable settings and generally fleeting. They always seemed to end with a frantic scrambling of fabric, inside-out tunics and buttons that had been led through the wrong holes. These encounters had also been limited, neither of them were willing to remove all the clothes necessary for more enjoyable moments- constantly fearing an aimless family member wandering in to ruin it all.

Now, it appeared they would have complete solitude in which to explore each other. It was perfect, except for one thing.

"Our parents are friends," Tenzin reminds Lin with a defeated expression, "Your Mom will tell my parents that she's going without you. There is no way they are going to let the two of us be alone in your house."

She rolls her eyes because, apparently, she's already thought of that.

"She will tell them that I'm going to a bending tournament in New Taku," Lin explains, lifting one eyebrow at her cleverness. He smiles at that, satisfied.

"It's just going to take some strategy, Airhead," she tells him, knocking against his head with a curled fist jokingly.

He nods, "And then we will..."

"Oh, we will," Lin affirms.

Lin, for her part, has been strategizing for some time.

It dawned on her several weeks ago that she was becoming properly frustrated. She couldn't pinpoint what was bothering her until she was sitting beside Tenzin at dinner on Air Temple Island one night and her conversational skills suffered at the hand of her imagination. She put one hand on his leg under the table, feeling the definition in his thigh through the fabric of his robes and suddenly she could think of nothing but running her hands across every inch of him.

Aang's eyes settled on her, while her own appeared transfixed by the grain of wood in the table.

"How are your classes going, Lin?" he asked, trying to get her attention.

Please don't interrupt me while I daydream about riding your son on this table, she thought, Oh spirits. Can the Avatar read minds...?

Luckily, he couldn't and the moment passed. But ever since that night, Lin had been developing a strategy.

Strategizing had led her to this moment with her own mother, the human lie detector.

Lin watches her mother carefully, waiting for the right moment to unleash her untruths. She has figured long ago that the best way to lie to her mother is to do so while simultaneously engaging in a rigorous activity. That is why they are currently practicing tunneling.

Toph loves tunneling, it affects her less than her sighted daughter who always takes a millisecond more to adjust to the small, darkened space she creates.

They make this activity into a game of underground tag and when Lin finally punches through a layer of limestone and clutches her mother's tunic in the blackness of the earth, the two emerge.

Lin's chest heaves, begging for air. Her heart races and she takes one look at her mother, hunched over and exhausted, before deciding the time is right.

"All this earthbending reminds me," she begins in a shortened breath, "I can't go to the Academy with you."

Toph straightens, apparently already recovering from the lack of oxygen and looks vaguely past her, "Why not?"

In this moment, people tend to look over their shoulder, following Toph's gaze, but Lin is used to the off-centered focus of her mother by now and continues on as quickly as possible so as not to lose the racing of her heart.

"I have a tournament," she explains and Toph seems to take this information at face value.

"Well," she begins, rolling her neck, "I don't have to go to the graduation..."

"Of course you do," Lin corrects, suspiciously quick.

"I don't want to miss your tournament. Who would chaperone you girls?"

She panics when she hears her mother's follow-up, but it is at the right time because it covers the fact that exertion is wearing off. Her heart continues to pump rapidly as she fibs, "Nima's Mom already offered. I'm going to take the train with them."

There is a moment that Lin regrets her decision to abstain from their yearly holiday when a forlorn expression crosses her mother's face.

But then it passes, "Okay."

Everything is set. Lin smiles and lets herself wonder how things are going on Tenzin's end.

Strategy has never been his strong suit, Tenzin decides as he watches himself in the mirror. Strike that, it is lying that gives him trouble, not strategy. He lets out a slow breath and opens his eyes to face himself again.

"Oh me? I'm going to visit Khen for the weekend. Yes, my friend from grade-school that moved to Mapaku. Yes, he invited me. How? He sent me a letter. Oh yes, I am completely aware that I am a horrible liar," he sighs, crestfallen when he can't even seem to lie to himself in a mirror.

There is a knock on the door, a pause, and then Bumi's voice, "You talking to yourself in there, T?"

A jolt of nerves undulate through him and for a moment, he says nothing.

"Tenzin?"

"Yes?"

The door slides open and Tenzin is mildly horrified that his brother would be so brazen as to walk in on someone in what could be a very delicate situation.

"What the hell, dude?" he wonders when he observes Tenzin leaning on the sink, anxiety ridden.

"You can't just walk in on people, Bumi," Tenzin scolds, attempting with one hand to shove him back out into the hall.

A year of preparing for the United Forces physical exam has left Bumi a mass of solid muscle and he easily presses inside as if Tenzin's arm were nothing but a limp soba noodle. The door slides closed behind him.

"Did the nothingness of meditation finally drive you to madness?" He asks. He is joking, but he is also not.

Five long fingers come up to press against Tenzin's own face in embarrassment and frustration when he realizes he can't even lie about what he is doing in here.

"I am a horrible liar," he sighs into the palm that covers his mouth.

"And I'm the best looking person you've ever met," Bumi responds, "Now, stop listing facts and tell me why you are creepily talking to yourself in our bathroom."

Tenzin shoots him a look of annoyance, but it is ineffective and Bumi simply stands there, arms folded and waiting.

"I need to lie," Tenzin admits and the grin that spreads across his older brother's face is record-breakingly big.

Bumi takes a long breath, puffs out his chest and settles one condescending hand on Tenzin's shoulder, "Rest my son," he says, invoking his best guru impression, "for you have found all that you seek in your elder brother. The one with the amazing abs."

Tenzin's eyes roll, but he's done attempting to kick Bumi out of the room.

And he is listening.

"He can lie for you," Bumi continues in his fake accent, "for he has ascended to a higher plane in which pansies like you do not exist. He has reached liar's enlightenment."

"You will be reincarnated as a worm," Tenzin deadpans of his brother's sacrilege, "And I highly doubt you have it inside you to do something for me out of the kindness of your heart."

Bumi lifts one finger and ticks it back and forth, "Not out of the kindness of my heart," he agrees, using his normal voice again, "but in exchange for help convincing Mom and Dad to let me enlist."

He is quiet for a moment, considering that it isn't really a subject Bumi needs help with, "Okay..." he agrees, dubiously.

"Now what do you need to lie about?"

Tenzin looks at his brother and then away, "I just need Mom and Dad to think I'm going out of town for the weekend."

A look of realization takes hold of Bumi's features, skewing them in his excitement. He jumps up and down as quietly as possible as he punches Tenzin's shoulder repeatedly, "Ohhh Yeah. You get that, little bro."

Tenzin waves him off with disgust, though the corner of his mouth is having trouble staying straight.

There is another knock at the door and the brothers pale at the sound of it sliding open. On the other side, Katara stands, eyes wide and mouth open, "What are you boys doing in here?"

Tenzin immediately stutters, his most graceful form of evasion.

"Planning a camping trip," Bumi replies confidently, not missing a beat.

"In the bathroom?" she asks, shifting her weight skeptically.

Bumi shakes his head and laughs, "Yeah, making sure T knows that he has to pack a toothbrush," he tells her, lifting one from the sink for dramatic effect.

"Uh-huh," Katara follows, "and when is this camping trip?"

"This weekend," Bumi tells her.

Tenzin coughs awkwardly, "Next weekend."

"Next weekend," Bumi agrees, "I meant next weekend."

There is a reluctant nod from their mother, who decides it is better to just appreciate that they seem to be getting along and move on. She closes the door again, leaving them inside.

"Thank you," Tenzin sighs.

"Just tell her to say my name," Bumi jokes and Tenzin grunts, shoving his brother finally back out into the hall.

The weeks pass quickly and before he knows it, Tenzin is standing on the familiar doorstep of the Beifong residence. His usual robes were not fit in his opinion for such an occasion so he switched them out for a more formal pair, a deep crimson outfit that matches the blush in his face as he knocks against the door.

Lin answers, hair up in a traditional style that she only wears at weddings. She looks almost bashful when she sees him, until she reaches out and grabs the front of his silk robes, pulling him inside for a forceful kiss.

She kicks the door closed behind him, without breaking their kiss and he is impressed by her ability to multi-task.

They break apart, Tenzin reluctantly. He moves his face in quick to give her small rapid-fire kisses as she speaks, "I made dinner."

He almost tells her he doesn't really care, but thinks better of it. She leads him into the kitchen by his hand and presents him with a warm bowl of vegetable chow mein. He gives her a smile, touched by the effort she is making.

Lin takes a seat across from him at the table and takes one bite before it falls out of her mouth and back into the bowl.

Her face is the picture of revulsion and she practically growls, "What the fuck?"

Tenzin's chopsticks make a swift return to the napkin beside his dish as he watches her. Quickly, she stands and makes her way to his plate, taking his chopsticks, lifting a bit of food to her mouth and sticking out her tongue to give it a barely perceptible taste.

"How much salt did I put in here?" she wonders aloud.

Tenzin watches as her expression changes from disgust to annoyance, fearing their romantic evening has just come to an end. With a grunt she grabs his bowl and then her own, tossing both into the sink.

"Well, that is fucking ruined."

"All our strategizing for nothing?" Tenzin asks, attempting to break her mood with his unassuming sweetness. He stands and closes the space between them, gripping her hand.

She looks up at him and he notices she is wearing a hint of make-up.

"I wasn't hungry anyway," he tells her softly and that seems to let the tension out of the situation. She laces her fingers between his and licks her lips as if she has something to say.

Instead, she simply moves past him, dragging him down the hallway to her bedroom. They enter, face to face. Lin is walking backward toward the bed and Tenzin can't help but think of how surreal this is. He hasn't been in her room for years, but much of it remains the same. She's cleaned, clearly, but there are still all the markings of Lin readily apparent. A dried and bushy paint brush rests along several open containers of paint on her desk, her shoes are in the middle of the floor and all of her worn clothes haven not been washed and folded, but moved to the side for this special event.

He doesn't care.

She falls back slowly when the backside of her knees make contact with her bed and Tenzin climbs over her carefully. She pushes his robes down from his shoulders, fiddling with the buttons as they become a nuisance until the entire top layer is off and he is left in his underwear.

Carefully, he moves to untie the bow that holds the top of her dress together at her left shoulder. It comes undone easily and he brushes the fabric aside, planting one soft kiss on her neck and then another on her collarbone. His hand slowly moves the fabric down to her waist, brushing along her bare skin all the way until she is nearly uncovered. It takes a little more effort to move the dress past her hips, but she angles them upward to help him in doing so and he raises an eyebrow at her. She's apparently forgone underclothes completely.

"Someone was certainly prepared," he jokes, leaning down to kiss her neck again as he runs one hand along her side, over her breast, and down to her hips, settling finally between her legs. There is a sharp breath from her when he moves his finger against her and suddenly they are kissing again.

Her hands press against his back, sliding down to urge his underwear off and he pauses, pulling back to look her in the eye.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

He asks because he needs to know, he needs to be sure this hasn't just been something silly in his mind all along.

"Aren't I the one who asked you?" she returns, snaking one leg up to his hips and catching his waistband with her toe, sliding the fabric down.

He looks nervous so she clarifies, "Yes," she tells him, "I want it to be you."

"I want it to be you too," he smiles, kissing her again.

Her hands run down his arms once, feeling the lines of his muscle as he props himself up. She slides them back down again, setting her palm flush against his stomach. He breaks away from their kiss just as she grips him, he looks at her lovingly, brushing the hair back from her shoulders, "You're beautiful," he tells her.

He says it because it seems right and because it is the truth. He says it because he's never seen all of her at once and he considers how nature could have made someone so perfect. There is only one unnatural thing bothering him now and he pulls the dragonfly pin from her hair and sets it on the nightstand.

She says nothing in return, because she can't think of anything that wouldn't sound trite. Instead she pulls him into another kiss and then it hits her, "I love you," she tells him against his lips.

"I love you too," he replies.

"Are you ready?" she asks, and before he can answer she is already guiding him inside.

He's only partially in when he nearly faints at the sensation of it, he's made a sound and he has no idea where it came from, but he's too distracted to be embarrassed.

And then he hears Lin suck her teeth.

His eyes fly open to find that her expression is pained. She seems annoyed, rather than hurt, but hurt all the same.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she insists, but her gritted teeth say otherwise.

"Are you sure? We can stop," he tells her, but he prays she will decline.

"No, no. It's fine. Just a little uncomfortable. I hear that is normal the first time," she explains and Tenzin nods, suddenly aware of how conversational this event is becoming.

"Keep going," she tells him this and her hand has completely left the area. Her fist is currently twisting the sheets beside her in what he assumes is an attempt at ignoring the pain, but he wishes it were some display of bliss.

He presses in further and again he nearly blacks out. He feels her hands on his back again, slipping low to urge him in further. She gasps a little and when he looks at her, he knows she wishes she hadn't.

"I think that was the worst of it," she says, "just go slowly."

She moves her hips against his, tentative and torturously slow. He is moving back and forth and soon decides to turn his head. He looks at the wall above her wardrobe, the boomerang Sokka gave her adorns the wall and Tenzin tries to focus on it. She is becoming more comfortable now and rolls her hips with greater ease each time. She turns her head to kiss his wrist and along his arm. When he fails to look back at her, she pauses.

"Are you okay?" she asks him this time.

He nods, keeping his eyes trained on the boomerang, "Yep."

"Do you wish you were having sex with that boomerang instead?" she quips, a hint of annoyance on her tongue. This voice is familiar, it is this voice that appears on the edge of a fight and Tenzin thinks now would not be an opportune moment for one of those, so he shakes his head again, still looking away.

"Of course not. I just can't look at you right now," he explains. Out of the corner of his eye he can see her expression change, it is stone cold. "I don't mean it that way!" he corrects.

"I've just never been this close to you. I haven't seen you entirely naked and if I look too long I'll...you know."

Her expression has softened a little and her hand reaches up to touch his jaw. Firmly, but gently she turns his head back to face her. She draws him down for a kiss and when he moves, her body tenses again.

He pulls back, fixing her with the most lovingly concerned eyes she has ever seen on a person and so she smiles, "Look at me. I don't mind if you don't last that long."

"Are you sure, because-"

"No seriously, I actually don't want you to," she tells him factually.

"...Okay," he concedes, pushing into her again. He rocks against her only five more times before release. He groans, against his will. He is cognizant enough to be embarrassed of how unrefined he sounds, but euphoric enough not to care.

His head dips, resting his forehead against her chest for a moment before looking up at her. He is relieved to find her smiling. He kisses a trail from her chest, up her neck, finally ending at her mouth where he rolls off of her with a contented sigh.

A moment passes in silence as they lay beside one another watching the ceiling.

"So..." he leads.

"Did you expect that to be so mechanical?" she asks, looking rather confused. Her head turns to face him and she is slightly blurred in his vision behind the mass of hair her head rests upon.

"No," he says honestly and a wave of panic runs through him. He anticipates that she will tell him it was awful- that this will be their first and last time.

"Let me know when you're ready to do it again," she tells him instead.

His mouth falls open, surprised. Her eyebrows knit together at his expression and she rolls onto her side so that her face is just above his. She leans in to kiss him and never entirely moves away.

Their noses are touching when she says, "I think we'll have to do it a few more times before I can really enjoy it."

"Oh?"

"Oh yes," she confirms, pressing her lips together so slightly and yet they are close enough that they make contact with his own, "I've got a strategy."

The summer sun is finally setting outside the window, casting her in a honey-yellow glow and he laughs at how very Lin she is being.

"I bet you do," he grins, kissing her again.