#pema

“Rohan, did you forget your birthday?”

Momma!

He twisted to sit up, forgetting for a second that his dad was there. They laughed a little, but they were happy.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. His dad grabbed him by the chest and pulled him into his lap.

He leaned into his dad’s chest. Maybe he’d say something and make his chest rumble.

When he opened his eyes, Momma laid a hand on his knee and started rubbing it.

He closed his eyes, happy to go back to sleep.

“Today is a very important day,” Dad said. It made his chest rumble.

Momma’s hand squeezed his knee. “We are very happy about your birthday today. You’re getting big and strong.”

He loved Momma. He wanted Momma’s lap.

They made a lot of noise when he moved.

But Momma hugged him tight so he hugged her tight. She coughed.

“Gently, Rohan. Your mother needs to breathe.”

Momma coughed again, but patted his back.

He hugged her again, but not so hard this time.

He rubbed his face on Momma’s shoulder. He smelled Mommalin.

But she wasn’t there.

He frowned at Dad. “Where’s Mommalin?”

Momma took a deep breath. She said, “Rohan, today is a very hard day for Mommalin. Some bad things happened to her after you were born, and she couldn’t be with us for a few days.”

He didn’t know that. It made him sad.

“Would you be willing to take her a tea tray with a few treats? It might help her feel better.”

He pulled up on his knees. Momma grunted, and Dad pulled him back into his lap.

Momma rubbed her legs. Her smile looked a little funny.

“Can I help make the tea? She likes longjing.”

Momma’s smile was so pretty, he had to hug her.

Dad hugged him from behind.

He was so happy.

But then they made him get a bath and change his clothes and do a bunch of other stuff that made him mad.

He was still mad when he got to the kitchen.

Momma didn’t ask what was wrong.

That made him madder.

“Rohan, would you light the spark rocks for me? If you got some fire bending I don’t know about, that would work, too.”

He laughed.

“Momma, I’m a waterbender! I put fires out!”

She wasn’t looking at him, but she smiled. And that made him happy.

The spark rocks worked the fourth or fifth time, and Momma put the kettle on. She showed him where Mommalin’s longjing was, and how to measure it for her. She showed him all the steps, and he knew he could do everything himself next time.

Then Dad came with the tray and two cups. Momma filled the teapot and put it in the center.

He picked up the tray and nodded. He could carry it.

Dad opened the door, and showed him where Mommalin was practicing her bending.

She was stomping and punching and making a lot of noise. His clothes blew in the big breeze Dad sent out to let Mommalin know someone was coming her way. She dropped her arms. He could see her breathing hard. She didn’t turn around.

He stopped. “Mommalin! I have tea!”

She turned around. Her face was all wrong. He tried to make the same face she was, and he couldn’t tell if he was mad or sad.

And then her face changed. This time, she was just sad. She walked closer to him. He stopped walking, and she got down on the ground. She lifted her hands up for the tray, and he gave it to her so he could sit down with her.

She set the tray down on the ground and peeked into the teapot. She gave it a sniff and then smiled.

“It’s longjing! I remembered!” he told her.

She poured tea into the two cups and gave him one.

He took a sip, but he didn’t like it. Dad said he didn’t have to drink tea he didn’t like, but he had to be respectful about it. So he put his cup back down.

Mommalin drank hers. She didn’t talk for a while.

We wiggled. He thought he heard Momma say something about ants in his pants.

He got up and sat beside Mommalin.

“I wish the bad things didn’t happen to you.”

She set her cup down, and pulled him close to her.

“I could say the same.”

They sat still again.

“Will you tell me what happened?”

She squeezed him real tight, but didn’t say anything for a long time.

“Jinora and Ikki and Meelo helped me protect your mother until your dad could get back from helping Korra. You were born while it was quiet.”

She hugged him again. She picked up her tea and drank the rest of her cup and stood up. She bent down to pick up the tray.

“Let’s go back inside and find your parents.”

He ran ahead to open the door. Inside, Momma had made more tea. This time, he got some jasmine, like Momma. Dad poured some new longjing for Mommalin.

They sat quietly again.

He looked at his Dad. “Did the bad people hurt Mommalin?”

Dad looked at Mommalin. He turned and looked down at him. “Yes, they did, Rohan. She protected us as long as she could.”

“Did they hurt you? Momma? Jinora and Ikki and Meelo?”

He felt Momma tug his hand. She pulled him into her lap. “Everyone is ok now, Rohan. There’s nothing to be scared of. The bad people are gone. And everybody you love helped protect us.”

She rubbed his head and smiled.

“Today is a good day to say thank you, I think. Will you help me make dinner?”

That night, everybody came. He sat with Mommalin and Aunt Kya and Uncle Bumi and Asami and Korra and Mako and Bolin and Opal. Everybody told stories and everybody hugged him.

Dad told him to say good night to everybody because it was time to go to bed.

He looked at everybody. There were so many stories. Naga hitting the bad guy away. Dad pushing the bad robot away with his bending. Korra helping Naga swim underwater.

And Mommalin flying through the air.

He ran over to her and jumped in her lap. He wrapped his arms around her neck, but didn’t want to hurt her.

“Thank you. I love you, Mommalin.”

"Honey, where's daddy?"

Rohan pulled again and dramatically shook his head. "No dada! Mommalin. Sleepy!"

Pema raised an eyebrow at her toddler and wiped her hands clean of the starchy mess from peeling and chopping potatoes. As far as she knew, Lin wasn't even on the island, and either Tenzin or Jinora had offered to watch Rohan so dinner could get made.

Or, she thought it was Tenzin or Jinora who had offered to take him as she climbed up the last of thousand steps with arms full of groceries and paper bags blocking her vision… Tenzin… or Jinora… or maybe even Bolin or Asami?

Whoever offered, whoever it was, the point was that the voice was familiar. Pema hadn't thought twice about it and went off to the kitchen without breaking stride.

"How sleepy?"

Rohan put his hands under his tilted head and closed his eyes to pretend like he was sleeping and made a very exaggerated honk-shoo noise that she could only assume he learned from hearing his own father snore. This tickled Pema's mood and curiosity. She smirked and ruffled the tuft of hair that grew wildly out of the top of his head. If mommalin was honk-shoo while she was supposed to be babysitting, then Pema was going to see mommalin honk-shoo, and wake her up.

"Show mommy."

Rohan beamed up at her and then promptly took off in as fast of a sprint as his little chubby legs and plump diaper could take him. He led her through the dining room and down the hall to the sitting room where she could see blue ink on a large bald head moving around over the back of the couch. She cleared her throat to make sure she wasn't interrupting anything.

Tenzin glanced over his shoulder long enough to catch her eyes and looked back down. As she came into the room and around the couch, she saw him kneeling on a mass of blankets—possibly every blanket on this side of the island—nested around a single form in black, gray, and details of gold.

The figure was on her side with one arm stretched up for her head of silver hair to rest on, with the other extending out to rest atop the blankets like it was waiting for something to hold on to. Tenzin was behind her back trying to flip the latches on her shoulders that were part of the release for her police uniform. A back brace of coiled wire sat off to the side. Rohan started giggling like a little mad man, clapping his hands together disorderly and wiggling similar to how Bumi would dance when he had a few too many drinks.

"I give blankies."

"You did," Pema praised and gave his rosy cheek a little pinch. "Can you get a pillow?"

"No!" Rohan stomped his foot. "I nap!" He pointed at Lin in the blanket nest. "Mommalin!"

Pema put her finger up over her own lips to shush him. "Naps need pillows. Will you go get mommalin her pillow?"

Rohan contemplated this request for a long moment while Lin's body idly shifted back and forth from Tenzin's struggle to get her armor off, and then he took off in another sprint down the hall towards the bedrooms. Pema watched him disappear and heard his thudding feet get farther away.

"You know you'd be able to do that easier if you didn't bite your nails," she said as she got on her knees next to her husband and reached for the little latches that he was struggling with on Lin's flank.

Tenzin sighed and leaned back to let her at it. He turned his hand around to look at his nails that hardly showed any white. "I swear I had nails a week ago…"

"And you bit them all off."

Lin's chest plate popped open with the last latch giving way under Pema's nails. She shivered and curled in on herself, taking a few blankets up into her arms with her. The smell of sweat and metal wafted up into the air. New and old bruises poking out from her white tank top made Pema click her tongue. There was a story there, a fight or a fall, that Lin hadn't shared with them yet.

Tenzin slid the back plate of her armor off her and put it by the housing of coiled of wires, and then stood to go around her front to start pulling at the disconnected arms of her uniform. Pema reached around to undo her utility belt and started tugging it out from underneath. Tenzin had gotten both sleeves and the breast plate off before she stirred.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

"Language." Tenzin turned to her lower half and started on her boots.

"Don't 'language' me," she growled halfheartedly.

"Tired?" Pema leaned forward to get her attention.

Lin looked at her from the corner of her eye. "I was just resting my eyes."

Pema resisted the urge to laugh. 'Resting my eyes' was the same old man excuse Tenzin gave to take naps in the middle of the day while sitting upright in his office chair. "You fell asleep."

A small grunt came from Lin's closed mouth. She closed her eyes and let Tenzin take her armored boots off manually instead of assisting him with her bending. "Where's the kid?"

"Getting you a pillow."

Another grunt. "I'll get up."

"Don't bother." Pema reached forward to push some wayward hair off Lin's face, which was tangled and a little greasy. "Dinner will be a while."

Lin's nose scrunched up. "I smell potatoes."

Pema quickly retracted her hand. Tenzin snickered off to the side.

"Rohan wants to nap with you. I'm not missing this opportunity to get him down for a little while."

"Fine. Bring him in." Lin wiggled her toes once they were freed from her boots and arched her back to stretch like some kind of feline.

"I was only gone for ten minutes and this is what I get," Tenzin grumbled as he picked up the boots and started carting the heavy-duty armor away from the cyclone of blankets.

Little footsteps thudded in their direction down the hall, this time slower.

"Should I pat you down for knives, or are you disarmed now?" Tenzin asked.

Lin hummed and moved around a little in the blankets like she was trying to remember where all her limbs were. "I'm clean, but you can pat me down anyway."

Tenzin's cheeks and ears turned an adorable shade of pink as Rohan came barreling back into the room dragging two pillows that were roughly the size of him.

"Piwwows!" He stormed up into the mess of blankets.

Pema and Tenzin stopped him from stomping all over Lin and managed to get a pillow under each of their heads and a few blankets resting over them. Lin wrapped Rohan up in her arms and pulled him close. He giggled and wiggled and turned his bright face up at his parents.

"Nap!"

They nodded and agreed, "nap."

Chubby hands and fingers reached for the nearer parent, Tenzin. "Dadda nap!"

Tenzin shook his head. "Nap with mommalin."

Rohan's face turned down like he was about to cry. "Dadda nap!!"

"Its okay, honey." Pema caught Tenzin's slightly guilty expression. "I was planning on making dinner myself anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Dadda! Dadda nap!"

"I'm sure." Pema leaned across Lin and Rohan to pull Tenzin in for a brief kiss, but Rohan's hand caught her sash.

"Mommy nap!"

Pema uncurled Rohan's little grip on her clothes and pressed his hand to her mouth to blow raspberries into his palm. This made him cackle and scream in delight. She kept doing it until he tried to escape, then Tenzin went for his bare belly and blew raspberries there. Everyone devolved into a shaking fit of laughter with Rohan squeeing in the middle. Even Lin couldn't pretend to be asleep after it went on for a few minutes. She watched with exhaustion in her eyes as Rohan was thoroughly attacked with wet and airy raspberry kisses. Tenzin slowly lowered himself onto the blanket nest and laid on his side so Rohan was sandwiched between himself and Lin. Rohan looked as content as Pema had ever seen him.

She leaned down to give him a kiss on the forehead. "Nap with daddy and mommalin."

Rohan turned into Tenzin's chest and looked like he was trying to burrow into him. Tenzin pulled a blanket up to cover most of his little body. The burrowing stopped.

Tenzin's clear blue eyes looked up at her. "I'll do the dishes."

Pema patted his face. "Dishes and bedtime."

He nodded. "Dishes and bedtime."

Lin turned her head a little to get a better look at Pema. There was mischief in her stony jade eyes. "Can I do your bedtime?"

Now it was Pema's turn to get a blush to the cheeks, but she wouldn't let Lin get away with comments like that so easily. "If your retirement home lets you stay out that late."

Lin rolled her eyes and groaned. There was some shifting under the blankets. Pema could only assume Lin was trying to get a better grip on Rohan, Tenzin, or both of them. Her head inclined so that her forehead was resting on Tenzin's shoulder. "Just because you were in preschool when I was a junior detective doesn't mean you get to talk to me like that."

"I know." Pema leaned down to give Lin a kiss on the cheek. "Its elder abuse."

Tenzin snorted.

"I'll let you know when dinner is ready, meemaw."

Lin's shoulders rolled. She turned her face into Tenzin's chest much like Rohan had. "That's mommalin to you."

Content to let them cuddle a little longer, he stepped into the other room to find the travel bags, hoping to find his swimwear in the dark. The plan had been to head to the beach early to enjoy the quiet before most of the other vacationers descended with their children, pets, and alcoholic beverages in tow.

Much as he loved his children, having a day without them was something he had been looking forward to for two weeks.

Pema had arrived back in their chambers one evening just as he was about to bring Lin to a climax. Rather than strip and join them, Pema had vanished into the washroom and returned in her normal bedclothes. She had given his wet face a gentle, not invigorating, kiss. She then gave Lin a similarly soft kiss on her scars, rolled over, and would not respond to them. They had cleaned up, returned to bed, and braced her between themselves.

The next morning, she asked for a vacation. Just one nice day away from everything.

It had taken two weeks to make it happen, and even then, they could only get as far as Zigan City.

The weather on their route had been uncooperative, costing them several hours while Lin groused about what use an airbender even was, if he couldn’t divert an entire storm system.

Tenzin diplomatically had not pointed out that even his parents, working together, would not dare to interfere in a natural process unless human lives were at risk.

She had continued to grumble, wrapping herself in several more blankets than usual. Pema looked rather put out at being left by herself, so came and joined him to ride on Oogi’s head.

Unfortunately, the nap seemed not to help Lin’s mood. Once they finally arrived, she growled at everyone on the hotel’s staff, sounding more like her old self than they had heard in the past year.

The fact that they had to settle for paying for adjoining rooms instead of one room with only one bed had been the final irritation before they adjourned to the rooms and made their own arrangements.

On the way up, Lin had let out a sneeze that shook the elevator and made the operator hand him a card with the contact information for a healer around the corner.

It had taken them an hour to arrange the rooms to their liking. The smaller bed in the single room was stripped of its blankets, and then served as a platform for the travelling case they shared. Rotating through the shared bathroom down the hallway had extended the time needed to finally lay down together.

They were all asleep within minutes.

Tenzin was vaguely aware of Lin getting up more than once in the night, but she just crawled back into bed, curled into herself, and ignored them.

He pulled the light robe around his shoulders, giving passing thought to how uncomfortable his clothes were. Before Bumi’s jokes about having forgotten what ‘Vacation Tenzin’ was like could overwhelm him, he opened the balcony doors and stepped out into the cool morning.

This far north, it was still chilly and dark, though he could see the beginnings of dawn creeping westward. With an inward smile, he settled on the edge of the patio to meditate.

The scrape of the doors behind him alerted him that he was no longer alone. Real sunshine was beginning to illuminate the shoreline below them. A deep inhale suggested to him that…

“Awake already on vacation, Tenzin?” Pema asked.

He allowed himself a small smirk. “My bladder does not understand ‘vacation.’”

She chuckled and gave him a playful brush with her hand. “Old man.”

“Be glad Lin and I are around to show you what you can expect when you get to be our age.”

Her face stilled.

His heart dropped. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She pursed her lips and walked a little to one side to get a better look at the sunrise, hidden behind a bank of clouds.

“Clouds in the sunrise. At least we shouldn’t see rain today, I suppose. We should let Lin sleep. She sounded terrible all night.”

Tenzin blinked.

“Are those my swim trunks?”

Pema turned to look at him over her shoulder.

“I couldn’t find mine before I gave up.” He frowned when her eyes combed him up and down. When she met his eyes again, there was an odd amusement in her face. “Lin’s trunks look quite fetching on you, though.”

She smirked, turned away, and climbed down the stairs toward the beach.

He looked down and shook his head. Hopefully, Lin would wake up in a good enough mood to laugh about it.

She hadn’t been ‘awake’ more than about thirty minutes before he began having flashbacks to the illness she had about a week before her final examinations at the academy. Once again, she proved to have three states: asleep, awake and angry, or awake and pathetic.

To keep Pema from having to shoulder the burden of care, he shooed her down to the hotel’s restaurant to have whatever she liked. He swore to her that he would be joining her, and they could bring something back for Lin.

So, of course, Lin woke up angry not ten minutes later. She insisted on getting a hot shower, then flailed around in the extra room, exiting in a mix of Pema’s wrappings, his trousers, and her own sleeveless shirt.

Another airbender sneeze, and she vanished out into the hallway, storming down the stairs.

By the time he’d caught up to her in the dining room, she and Pema were arguing with one of the kitchen staff.

He pardoned himself for being grateful that they were not arguing with each other.

The tug at his elbow was rather insistent.

“Master Tenzin, please remove your wife and friend. They have been trying to have the chef removed. And your friend appears to be too ill to be in public. We have already called a healer over to examine her, if you’ll please take her back to her room.”

The chef was so grateful for him to take Lin away that he pressed a box of apple dumplings into his hands with a relieved “Happy Kyoshi Day.”

Back upstairs, he found the two of them sitting back to back, holding each other’s hands.

They never did explain what had happened in the dining room.

He shrugged, took a dumpling, and retreated to the balcony.