Wrote a chapter of my larger arc Dominion recently, in which Ozai described Mai as "A flat-chested, colorless reed of a girl. Though her hips looked adequate for childbearing at least." (She's not to Ozai's tastes. Probably for the best.) And I was, of course, eventually visited by the amusing mental image of Mai hugely pregnant and just completely done with being pregnant, so she demands Zuko have sex with her to get labor started.

Like he's going to say no? It's half his fault she's in this discomfort, and pregnancy has not diminished her aim with those throwing knives. (Besides which, Zuko loves her dearly, and finds her attractive in any mode of being.) The following one-shot resulted from my need to get this out of my system. Any readers of Dominion should consider it part of the larger continuity of my story arc, but it's also possible this could end up being canon-compliant. (Though it would obviously never be shown as such.)

I hope you enjoy my late-Easter plot bunny, and please leave a review!

Only in the Fire Nation, Mai thought bitterly, a bead of sweat dripping from the end of her nose. Summers started early here, so what would have been a mild late-spring afternoon in Omashu or on Kyoshi Island or even at their summer retreat high in the peaks of the Dragon Ridge became a sultry, suffocating humidity that made her feel three times her actual weight. As if she didn't feel enough like a tottering hippo cow already, now she had to sweat like one too. She could feel strands of her bangs starting to stick to her forehead…

Her husband's uncle was telling them some boring old story from his childhood — Zuko's or Iroh's, she hadn't attended closely enough to know. She leaned back in her chair at the dining table as the plates were cleared, hers barely touched because the humidity sapped her until now considerable appetite, closed her eyes, and laid her hands one on top of the other on the swell of her pregnant belly.

She would be two weeks past her due date tomorrow. Not that it was a particularly accurate calculation with all the sex they'd been having up to and after she conceived, but still. She was tired of her skin sticking to the silk of her robes. Of huffing like she just ran a marathon when she walked to the open-air dining room for lunch. Of hormones making her cry for no reason. Of having to get up multiple times to pee every night. Of the frequent aches in a back strained by the shift in her center of gravity. Of the baby rolling, punching, kicking every time she sat still —

And there it was again. She glanced down, and rubbed a hand over where she felt the kick as if to soothe him.

She was fairly certain it was a boy. A girl would be like her, she thought irrationally. Still and quiet. But a boy would be restless and emotional like —

"Mai?" her husband spoke gently from his place at the head of the table. She looked up just as Zuko stood from his seat, moving to stand behind her and rest his hands on her shoulders and the triangular collar that lent them a spiked profile. "Are you okay?" he asked, kneading her shoulders. "That was the third time I said your name."

She shrugged his hands off impatiently. "I wasn't listening."

And Zuko came around to crouch beside her chair. "Are you too hot?" he said solicitously, his brow furrowed with concern. Of course, being a firebender, he had effortlessly adjusted for the heat. It wasn't fair. "I could send for servants to fan you —"

"I don't want servants to fan me," she bit out, looking down on him in irritation. "I want not to be pregnant anymore."

They'd had this conversation once before, when her bloody show came and went a week ago, and still no baby. He colored visibly now, probably remembering it. And Mai felt a measure of satisfaction that he should share her discomfort in some small way. Which also wasn't fair, of course. He'd been wonderful through all this, heating his hands to give her massages, rubbing her feet when her ankles swelled. He'd also been the one to knock her up in the first place…

"I just remembered I have some letters to send!" Iroh spoke loudly across the table from her. He pushed his chair back to climb to his feet, and took his leave with a nod and a genial smile to them both. "You know where to find me if you need me."

It was a sad reflection on the state of her body that Mai had begun comparing her girth to Iroh's, and decided every time that she had him beat. The old general had quickly put the weight back on that he lost in prison plus interest, when he entered a comfortable retirement running his tea shop in Ba Sing Se. He had arrived at the palace a few weeks ago, ostensibly just for a regular visit. But it was fairly obvious from the fact he hadn't left yet that Iroh was sticking around in hopes of greeting his newest relation.

She knew from Zuko that he had offered to brew her a tea which was rumored to encourage the onset of labor. But her husband had turned him down, probably remembering the tea Iroh brewed from what turned out to be a poisonous flower, while they were fugitives in the Earth Kingdom. That story at least hadn't been boring, and the tea was starting to sound pretty damn tempting now. Though she wouldn't even need it if Zuko would just —

"We talked about this," he reminded her quietly when Iroh had left, and servants had finished clearing the table.

"And now we're talking about it again," she grumbled, while Zuko rose to his feet to stand beside her. "Our royal physician agrees it's safe. The midwife even said it's effective. So why haven't we," she demanded, eyes narrowed, "unless you don't want to?"

"Mai," he soothed, helping her up when she indicated a desire to stand. "You know I'll always want you." His arms closed around her shoulders, holding her sideways to his chest now that her big stomach got in the way of more traditional hugs. Zuko was wearing the stiff leather, triple-spiked mantle of the Fire Lord, and it was not a comfortable embrace. He laid his head against hers, their flame headpieces nearly touching when he pointed out, "But you haven't — wanted it for three months."

"Almost four now," she corrected, having counted every day. She wondered if he did too, or if Zuko was secretly relieved not to have to pretend attraction to her when Mai grew bigger and more ungainly with each passing week. She sighed and relaxed against him, reaching up to grasp his arm around her, and told herself she didn't do him credit. "And it's not that I didn't want it. It was just — uncomfortable." And I was self-conscious.

By the fourth month, she became dizzy and short of breath if she lay on her back for too long, and did not feel comfortable supporting his weight when he mounted her. They lasted a little longer while she could still ride him, but eventually, the growing curve of her belly made the experience more awkward and embarrassing than she thought it was worth, and they stopped. She still pleasured him when he wanted, but Zuko had stopped asking some time ago, and it just made her feel more unattractive.

But she was past thinking about her self-image now. Mai wanted this baby out of her. She didn't want to be stuck waiting, and Zuko to be stuck fretting. She wanted their lives as a family to start. "If it'll help the baby come…" She rocked against him for encouragement. "The midwife told me a way. We never tried it before —"

Zuko was an attentive lover, if not particularly adventurous. And he took direction well. Which was why when he dropped his arms and stepped back as if she'd just proposed ritual human sacrifice, Mai had had enough. "Okay, what's the deal?" she demanded with hands on hips. "Stop trying to put this on me, Zuko. Why don't you want to?"

"I just don't want to hurt you!" he burst out desperately, his mismatched eyes shining with emotion. "Or the baby!"

And Mai sighed in exasperation. "The doctor said —"

"It's not about that!" he cried and threw up his hands, turning away with his usual penchant for drama. And Mai realized. This again? You noble idiot…

This time it was Mai who approached him, tugged on his elbow so he turned toward her, and reached up to take his face in her hands. "Zuko, look at me," she said sternly, when his eyes stayed downcast. He looked up to hold her gaze, and Mai told him, not for the first time, "You're going to be a good father."

He made a quiet noise of disbelief and tried to look away, but Mai jerked his chin and held him fast. "You will," she insisted, and took one of his hands to lay it on her stomach. "You'll love this baby. This baby will know you love it. You won't be perfect," she spoke low and steadily, a sad smile touching her lips, "'cause no one is.

"But you'll be enough. For our child. For me. You'll always be enough."

"Mai…" Zuko whispered huskily, and leaning in to meet her, pressed his forehead against hers. His tears fell on the silk that swathed the curve of her belly. "I just don't —"

"You're not him." Mai felt his sudden stillness. It always came back to this, didn't it?

Zuko drew a deep breath, drew back. "I know I'm not," he finally said, not even looking at Mai anymore but at her abdomen when he laid hands gingerly on either side of it. "I just never had a good example growing up. What if —"

"What about your uncle?" Mai countered evenly. Even if she had raised this point before and began to wonder how many times they had to have this talk, before he got over his insecurities. Maybe when their son was here, when Zuko could finally hold him in his arms. "You always said he was more of a father to you."

"You're right," Zuko breathed, lifting his head to look on her in gratitude. "Of course you're right. He'll be my example…"

"I know we didn't plan this," Mai whispered. Even if I wanted it then, and so much more. She pressed as close to him as her bulk would permit, to lay her hand along the line of his jaw. "But I believe in you. I need you to believe in me, too."

He blinked once before he caught her meaning, and Mai was surprised — knowing how stubbornly he held to any course of action — to see her husband smile almost shyly. "You're right," he said again, his warm hands rubbing her sides. "And I have missed it. Missed you," he sighed. "If you think this will help, let's try it."

Mai nodded and took his hand, and they made their slow, awkward way back to the Fire Lord's chambers. She felt like an ambulatory island by this point, though Zuko was kind enough to match his pace to hers. He sent a servant they encountered on their way to tell his court chamberlain to cancel the rest of his appointments that day, and the corner of her lips quirked.

I should deny him more often, she thought amusedly. Mai couldn't recall the last time he cleared his schedule just for sex with her. Though she was sure it must have happened before.

The windowscreens in their bedroom were unshuttered on both sides in the midday heat. As the sun was still almost directly overhead, the cavernous chamber was lit softly, without the glare that would come later in the day. She sized up the priceless furnishings, trying to decide where would be best…

Zuko approached to put an arm around her spiked shoulders, after he closed the door behind them. "So how are —"

"This won't get in the way," Mai explained, running hands over the curve of her belly, "if you take me from behind."

He pursed his lips and nodded, looking a little daunted but determined. Mai sighed and crossed to her low-set blackwood dresser against the near wall, reaching up to remove the pin and clasp that held her inverted flame headpiece and topknot in place. "I need something to support myself against," she added, bumping her hip purposely against the dresser.

Zuko took his cue behind her, letting his long hair down from its half-topknot and setting the crown of the Fire Lord aside. He began to undress while Mai struggled out of her silks, thankful for the first time that the heat had prompted her to forego the knives and shuriken she usually hid beneath her clothes. Zuko wore more than her dressed in his robes of office, but would probably get naked quicker, at this rate.

When she had pulled the collar off over her tousled head, undone the clasps of her robe sufficiently to step out of it, and kicked off her silk slippers, there was still the matter of her underwear, which for some time now had required her to sit or lie down to put them on. Unwelcome tears pricked her eyes when Mai imagined having to push them off or shimmy out of them in front of her husband, when it had been so long…

"Let me," Zuko offered, bare to the waist and unusually perceptive for once. And kneeling at her feet, he peeled them off with a slowness that was not a little seductive, trailing light kisses down the inside of her thigh, while Mai leaned back against the dresser to part her legs and wished she could appreciate the view, even if she very much appreciated the thought. He let them drop when he reached her knees, and climbed to his feet again while she kicked them away.

"What about these?" Zuko thumbed her breast bindings, and Mai snorted dismissively.

"I know it's been a while, but I'm pretty sure we don't need these," she cupped her breasts in illustration, "for sex."

"So?" Zuko demanded a little petulantly, beginning to strip off his boots and pants. "I like them. And it's been awhile since I saw them…"

"Fine," Mai sighed in annoyance, muttering "you big baby" under her breath, to the amusement of Zuko. She unfastened the layers of cloth that bound her breasts and let the bindings fall in successive circles around her, feeling as she always did like a ripe fruit being peeling. An impression that only grew with her waistline.

This had been her idea in the first place. But laid bare before him for the first time since she had still been able to look down and see her feet, Mai hesitated. Not so her husband who advanced to trap her against the low dresser, stepping just aside the curve of her belly to snake his nearer arm about her waist.

Mai barely caught sight of his evil smirk before Zuko bent her dizzyingly back over the dresser, his warm hands at the small of her back and behind her shoulder blades her only practical support. Her cry of surprise was cut off when he pressed his lips to hers, his tongue darting into her mouth in the kind of kiss that made her want to wrap her legs around his waist and let him fuck her standing up, the way they did once or twice when getting to the bed was too much trouble…

Zuko pulled her upright again when Mai sighed against him, apparently remembering the same thing when his hands drifted to her ass for a gentle squeeze. Her pulse quickened when she felt him pressed against the cleft of her thigh, a promise of what was to come. "A little eager, are we?" Mai whispered, more breathless than coy when he resumed kissing at her neck, with an ardor she knew from experience would leave a mark.

"For you?" he breathed into her skin, and surprised Mai by lifting beneath her legs to set her on top of the dresser with silent ease. "Always."

Her feet dangled above the cool stone floor, while his familiar hands traced back to her knees. But while her low perch was a relief from the strain of standing and a welcome reminder of the times they had tried it upon any of various flat surfaces besides their bed, it occurred to Mai she was facing the wrong direction. "Were my instructions unclear?" she demanded lightly, grasping his chin when Zuko moved to kiss her again.

But when he met her challenge, it wasn't with wounded pride but a tenderness in his warm gold gaze that made her ache. "I want to look in your eyes to start," Zuko spoke earnestly, his fingers still gripping the insides of her knees as if he would number the beats of her heart. "How we've always done."

Tears started to her eyes then how much she loved him but Mai didn't bother even to blink them away, just darted forward to meet his kiss with equal passion. She found in the course of their increasingly frantic petting that if she spread her knees when she leaned into him, they were almost on a level, and Mai could loop her arms about his neck and twist fingers in his hair, while Zuko pressed against the curve of her belly. He made to grip beneath her arms as if to help her down, but stopped at her breasts instead, kneading them so expertly she moaned into the next kiss he broke.

"Zuko…" Mai whispered low. And knowing that tone, he lowered her down and took himself in hand, while she turned to bend with her disheveled head held in her hands and elbows propped on the dresser top.

"Zuko?" she said again and glanced back, when the awkward stance and his clumsy attempts began to cool her lust. She immediately regretted rushing him.

"Ow! That's not —"

"I'm sorry! I've never done this!"

"Like you ever had trouble finding it before…"

"It's been a while, okay?"

She stood abruptly from her bend, dislodging him with little trouble, and turned on her husband. "This isn't working," Mai grit out, frustrated. "I feel like I have to support my own weight." She lifted her pregnant belly in both hands and let it drop to the discomfiture of her husband. "You can't get the right angle, and my back is killing me."

Zuko obligingly appeared at her side to put an arm around her. He heated his hand to rub circles on the small of her back, while Mai leaned into him with an understated sigh of pleasure. She didn't miss the little smirk that played at the corners of his mouth when he managed to elicit these signs from her, and vowed to pay him back twofold in no short order.

"We'll try the bed," she decided, when Mai realized she wasn't going feel any more ready than she did now. She turned to him to flick the bottom of his chin with one finger, trying to reestablish control. "Maybe that'll be more comfortable."

"But how —?" Zuko started, and Mai leaned close to whisper huskily, "You kneel, I'll bend."

The barest of directions, but it was enough for her husband. His smirk was positively indecent, his eyes dark with desire when he followed her to the oversized canopy bed set upon shallow steps against the paneled wall. Mai felt completely ridiculous clambering up to crawl on all fours to the center of their bed, with her belly hanging exposed as it was, but at least Zuko didn't seem to notice. He crawled in behind her and stopped when she stopped, kneeling at her back while Mai sat on her heels, huffing a little from the exertion.

Zuko gave her a moment to catch her breath before he shifted closer, pressing against her back to loop an arm about her waist, his callused hand coming to rest under the curve of her belly. "So…" he said hoarsely.

Mai turned her head to capture his mouth with hers.

He needed no encouragement to deepen the kiss, but her hand still flashed up to grip his hair, her neck angled and her lips parted to grant him better access. Mai heard him groan deep in his throat when she pressed back against him, practically sitting in his lap. While one hand supported her weight, and his fingertips brushed tantalizingly close to her sex, his other cupped her left breast.

Mai arched her shoulders and ground against him in appreciation, when he stimulated her nipple with a practiced motion of his thumb. This had the unfortunate side effect of causing Zuko to break the kiss and exhale a ragged breath, but it hardly mattered when he kissed her again a split-second later, and again and again, so fiercely that Mai felt dizzy.

But his fingers dug almost painfully into her skin, and she remembered to keep grinding against him, her hands falling to cover his at her breast and belly. It wouldn't be long now. She could feel him growing hard against her.

Zuko must have realized the same thing because, after trailing a few impatient kisses down her neck, he instinctively grabbed her hips and turned Mai on her back, spreading her legs to him. "No —" Mai spoke breathlessly, pushing herself with some difficulty back into a sitting position to plant a hand on his chest when Zuko moved to take her, her legs still hopelessly splayed. "My way."

He stopped, remembering himself, and Mai did not imagine his look of embarrassed disappointment when Zuko sat back. "But Mai, I need —"

"I know what you need," she whispered harshly. I always know.

She shifted to kneel opposite him, facing her husband this time when she rose up on her knees to kiss him passionately. Zuko took his cue from her eagerly enough, trusting her to direct him to both their gain, as she often did. When his tongue brushed hers and Zuko braced himself against her with a hand on her hip, Mai reached down to grasp him.

Zuko broke the kiss with a shuddering breath, understanding written in the slight dilation of his pupils. "Mai…" he moaned her name when she began to stroke him, and rested his forehead against hers, breathing deeply.

"I told you," she reminded, wishing she were still flexible enough to take him in her mouth, knowing she had a limited window of opportunity and that always brought him off faster. But she wasn't leaving this bed until he fucked her as promised. "I know what you need."

His breath quickened with her strokes, and Mai thought she had done this enough times to accomplish it by hand anyway. "Tell me when," she demanded, her chin down and forehead pressed against his, as she tried to ignore the bulk of her stomach between them and the growing ache in her back from kneeling even this long.

"Oh gods, Mai —" he gasped, "that —" Zuko made to grasp her hips, but couldn't reach that far, and instead laid warm hands on either side of her belly. "Yes, yes —" he panted, but even without his vocalizations, Mai could feel that he was ready. She'd been ready.

"Kneel," she ordered shortly, and Zuko rose up on his knees while she turned her back to him. Mai quickly positioned her feet to either side of him, and spread her knees to invite him and accommodate her bulk. She bent forward to lift her hips, arched her back and laid her head against folded arms, supporting the curve of her belly with her thighs.

"Take me," she breathed low. "Don't hold back."

She worried when he didn't immediately enter that Zuko might be having second thoughts. But Mai realized when he eased his length inside her that he was proceeding gently despite her wishes, and she was glad of it. She hadn't guessed how much deeper he would penetrate from this position, and couldn't stem a gasp that wasn't entirely of pleasure.

He held her hips securely against his when he asked permission, "Mai?"

She blinked tears from her eyes to whisper, "Yes."

He started off slowly at first, almost experimental, appropriate to a position they'd never tried before. But even when he found his rhythm and began to thrust harder, Zuko remembered her. He shifted his grip on her legs and closed the little distance between them until he found her angle, gasping her name and breathless endearments.

Mai gripped the cool silk sheets and pressed her burning face to them to muffle it, when she cried out in kind and began to move with him. She rocked her hips faster in time with his thrusts, her breath hitching and heart hammering as she grew tighter, as he touched that place in her that made the dreary world around explode with light, until she forgot about being tired and aching and big with child and all the discomfort and embarrassment of the last few months.

Yes. This was what she wanted, what she needed. To have him inside her. To be united in a way so much more tangible and immediate than the joining of their lives in marriage, their minds in friendship, their fingers intertwined when he would hold her hand…

They found release at the same moment, as a swift series of contractions more welcome than the false ones she suffered the last few weeks rippled through her. Mai held him snugly when he spilled into her, screaming his name once then almost sobbing it, while he groaned. He would never know how much she needed this. The delicious ache between her legs was like their first time in her parents' empty house, that first time when she bled for him.

When her strength failed, Zuko was there to ease her onto her left side and lie down behind her, still breathing hard when he spooned her, as was his post-coital custom. He propped his head up with one hand to look down at her, put his arm around her waist as far as it would go to hug her. He couldn't even reach her belly button, which began to look increasingly like an actual button since it had inverted.

"My gods, Mai," he breathed in appreciation, brushing her sweat-damp hair back from her face to press a kiss to the narrow line of her jaw, while she panted. "Can we keep doing that? Even after the baby?" His hand crept down to stroke the curve of her belly again, and Mai felt the baby move, as if it already recognized its father's touch.

She smiled slightly and turned on her back to look at him properly, her breath still quick from their effort when she laid a white hand along the unscarred side of his face. "I could — get used to it," she whispered breathlessly, but then barked a throaty laugh when Zuko seemed to take this for encouragement, reaching for her breast again.

She slapped his hand away and then rolled and scooted her awkward way to the edge of the great bed, to let her feet down on the cool stone floor. "Not now, you idiot," she chided over her shoulder, smirking at his almost comically crestfallen look, where her poor abandoned husband lay naked on his side.

"If I sweat anymore, I'm going to start sticking to the sheets," she joked, but it wasn't far from the truth. She wasn't in the same peak physical condition as her fit young firebending Master anymore, that was for sure.

Mai climbed to her feet with some difficulty to walk — who was she kidding? more like waddle — to their luxurious bath, not bothering to look back when she told him in parting, "Have the servants draw me a lukewarm bath. Then mayb— Aah!"

She stumbled and had to grab hold of the arm of a couch with one hand and her stomach with the other, when a sharp pain ripped up the inside of her thigh and through her abdomen.

"Mai!" Zuko cried in alarm, scrambling off the bed to appear at her side in record time, his callused hand laid on the one that gripped her stomach while he threw an arm around her back, supporting her. "What happened?"

But Mai couldn't help laughing again, as before he even finished speaking she felt a small pop and a warm rush of fluid streaked ticklish rivulets down her legs. "I'm not sure," she spoke with a flatness that belied her sarcasm, swinging the obstruction of her belly out of the way to glimpse the lightly red-tinged puddle forming at her feet. "But I think my water just broke."

All Zuko could do was stare at first.

He didn't think it would work, to be honest. Or at least not this quickly. He knew Mai was frustrated by more than just the false alarms and the continued discomforts of pregnancy, and gods knew he missed having her too, so he said yes, but this…

It was really happening this time. She was really having the baby. She was really in labor. She was … laughing? To be fair, she might have said something after, but he kind of missed it in his mind-numbing shock.

"You're — Why are you laughing?" he demanded a little hotly. "This is serious!"

"I'm sorry," Mai chuckled low — Mai. Chuckled. — and let go of the couch to pat his hand affectionately. "You just don't know how long —"

She stopped and sighed briskly, stepping out of his protective hold to start toward her dresser and pile of abandoned clothes, still trailing … water? gods, whatever that was, as she crossed the gray stone floor. "I guess we should send for the midwife —" she started to say, before Zuko got around her and she raised a brow at the spectacle of him running naked.

"Where are you going? What are you doing?" Zuko cried in disbelief, first barring her way with arms outstretched then steering her back toward the sofa. "You have to sit down! You're having a baby!"

Mai stopped stubbornly with hands on hips when he urged her to sit though. "It's not going to fall out, Zuko," she said rather obviously, then muttered under her breath, "even it felt that way for two weeks.

"C'mon, I think we have some time," Mai chided gently, elbowing him in the ribs when he tried to lay hands on her shoulders and force her to sit. "If it was that easy, why'd we hire a midwife?"

He took a deep breath and tried to come off a little more rationally to Mai. "I'd just feel a lot better if you sat down." He whined. Even he could admit that.

"We need to send for the doctor —" she sighed.

"I'll take care of it, Mai," Zuko insisted, urging her to the couch. "Just sit down."

"I'm still leaking. I'm going to ruin the sofa —"

"I don't care about the goddamn sofa, ALRIGHT!" he finally snapped. "Just sit down! You're scaring me!"

Zuko could have dried up and shriveled under the look she turned on him then. At least Mai finally sat down, but not without commenting, "You do know it's going to be me and not you pushing a little person out an even smaller hole, right? You could at least act like it."

But he was too relieved she was finally listening to be abashed, and ducked to give her a grateful peck on the lips before he started for the door —

"Where are you going, Naked Guy?"

It was never too late for abashment, apparently. Zuko made a beeline for the clothes they shed in haste, struggling back into his discarded gray pants. Mai watched in amusement as he first put them on backward then searched for the sash that belted them, reclining on her left hip on the couch with her arm propped on the rest and her head propped on her hand, looking for all the world as if she were posing for a nude portrait. Maybe after —

Now was not the time to be thinking about this, he chided himself. "I'll be right back," Zuko promised, walking quickly out the door while Mai observed him in silence.

He emerged into the paneled hall to find the rotation of the guard had left it empty of imperial firebenders for the moment; he could only imagine the servants had made themselves scarce at the sounds of their lovemaking, when Zuko found the way deserted well past the royal apartments. Fortunately for his frazzled nerves, he ran into his uncle carrying a Pai Sho board under one arm and bag of tiles in the other hand, strolling leisurely down another wing.

Iroh smirked a little when he sighted a barefoot and half-dressed Zuko hailing him from down the hall, but sobered when his nephew reached him, and Iroh caught the look on his face. "That time already?"

Zuko nodded worriedly. "I have to find the royal physician and the midwife —"

"Let me," Iroh reassured him solidly. "You want to enjoy these last few moments of quiet together. There will be little enough of that soon, with a baby crying at all hours of the night," he joked. But the smile didn't reach his eyes, grown just a shade sadder at recalling the son he lost almost ten —

And Zuko stopped in shame at his oversight, that he had been too preoccupied to offer a word of comfort. It had been ten years to the day since Lu Ten died, he realized. And this would be the first anniversary since his uncle moved to Ba Sing Se that Iroh would not spend at his graveside…

Because his uncle wanted to stay here, to help, and now he was helping again. "Thank you, Uncle," Zuko spoke gratefully, squeezing his beefy shoulder in thanks. Iroh nodded kindly, turning to do as he offered when Zuko ran back the way he came.

But Mai was nowhere in sight when he threw open the door of their shared suite. Zuko felt an icy shard of fear pierce his heart before she ambled naked still out of the bathroom, with her stomach pushed out and both hands braced against the small of her back. If her expression was anything to go by — and it usually wasn't — she felt decidedly more annoyed than amused right now.

"What are you doing up?" he cried in alarm, rushing to her side.

"I was going to the bathroom," Mai bit out in definite annoyance, even if she allowed Zuko to steer her back to the sofa and sat down without any complaint besides, "Maybe you noticed I do that a lot?"

"Okay, but I want you to stay put until help arrives. The baby —" His words cut off in an undignified squawk of pain, when Mai grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked him down to eye-level.

"I swear to gods, Zuko," his wife spoke fast through clenched teeth, "if you start with that shit again, I'm going to make them give you the drugs —" But her anger crumpled when Mai released him with a low moan, to hold the curve of her belly in both hands. She leaned forward into almost a sitting crouch with her knees bent, chin down, and eyes tightly closed, sucked in a deep breath, and let it out again.

"Contraction?" Zuko whispered, threading fingers through her hair and too worried to take offense at her assault of a moment ago. Mai nodded with lips pressed tightly together, and glanced up just long enough to bite out, "Feel it."

Zuko hesitated the space of a blink before he sat down beside her to rub circles on her back — he didn't know if it hurt right now, but it had been a lot lately — then laid his other hand cautiously on her stomach. He stopped rubbing when he felt how hard it was, clenched even.

"Like a fist," he said wonderingly. But besides the stretch marks he started noticing around five months in, her taut alabaster skin betrayed no outward sign of the change. Zuko scoot closer and hugged her until she unfolded again, his chin laid on her shoulder. When they parted, he caught a sheen of sweat on her brows and a glint of concern in her gray-gold eyes.

"Was this your first …?" he asked slowly and gripped her elbow, a sudden thought occurring to him. But Mai shook her head.

"It happened on the way to the bathroom," she admitted flatly, holding his arm. "I had to lean against the counter 'til it passed."

"You shouldn't be having them this close together, sh-should you?" he asked uncertainly. It talked about this in one of those parenting books he pored over, Zuko was sure. But honestly, he might as well have read it upside down for all he could recall of it now.

"I don't know," Mai replied without emotion. "The midwife should, when she gets here. Did you send —"

"Uncle's gone to find them," Zuko reassured her and reached up to brush her bangs aside. His wife nodded.

"I should put something on before they come," she said distractedly, but then shook her head when Zuko started toward the robes she let fall in a crumpled heap beside the dresser. "Whatever I wear to childbed's going to get ruined anyway," she sighed. "Might as well pick something old and ratty."

"You're the Fire Lady," Zuko reminded, helping her up when she moved to stand and biting his tongue against the urge to tell her stay seated, he would do it for her. "You don't have anything like that."

She rewarded his restraint by letting Zuko walk her over to the armoire and stand beside her, while she browsed the multitude of bed robes and sleeping silks hung there in shades of crimson, scarlet, gold, gray, and black… "Well, at least something ugly," Mai amended, finally picking out a frilly rose-pink nightgown embellished with scalloped lace at the hem and capped sleeves and bodice. Zuko almost choked just looking at it.

"Where the hell did you get that?" he asked, realizing as soon as the words left his mouth what a stupid question it was. But Mai must have been in an indulgent mood again, because she only smirked.

"Good old Ty Lee. Always comes in handy when you least expect her," she said fondly, throwing the nightgown on over her head and holding her arms out for Zuko to pull the springy fabric down the length of her. It was a tight fit at her breasts and belly even so, but he guessed that wouldn't be a problem much longer.

As if she were thinking the same thing, Mai looked down, suddenly pensive, and ran a hand up the length of her bare arm. "Let me get some towels," Zuko offered, thinking she could sit on one while they waited and maybe feel more comfortable, and the midwife was bound to need some — Where in Agni's name were they anyway?

He came out of the bathroom to find Mai standing beside the arm of the couch, studying the spot on the floor where her water broke. The permeable stone had soaked up most of the fluid already, a dark stain on the tiles. When she sat heavily on the folded towel he laid over her wet seat, Zuko knelt facing her and wrapped his hand in another towel to rub the insides of her legs dry, pushing the frilled hem of the pink nightgown up to her knees.

The quiet intimacy soothed both their nerves, but despite his care, Mai still flinched and twisted in her seat when he stroked too close to the joining of her legs. And his murmured apology died on his lips when Zuko withdrew his hand, to find the towel stained pink where her blood and water mingled, and with the bright, angry red of fresh loss.

"Mai, did —?" he couldn't quite ask when his eyes sought her face, but she smiled close-lipped at Zuko with a tenderness that reassured him this wasn't his fault. Tenderness of a sort she only ever showed to him.

"I told you not to hold back," she reminded evenly, leaning forward to lay a hand along the line of his jaw. "And you delivered." He dropped the towel and reached up to grasp her wrist when Mai drew a sharp breath, and spoke in a choked whisper, "Now it's my turn."

He knelt between her legs and hugged Mai while she huddled through most of the next contraction, before a knock finally sounded at the door of their antechamber. Zuko climbed to his feet at the royal physician's greeting, "My Lord, my Lady, you sent for us?" but did not move to answer the the door until Mai nodded curtly, sitting up straight.

"Where have you been?" Zuko demanded hotly when he admitted their doctor and the graying midwife who consulted with Mai throughout her pregnancy. His uncle, he noticed, stayed out in the hall, his Pai Sho equipment still in hand. "She's had three contractions already!"

Clad in the gold robes of his rank, the royal physician blinked mildly at Zuko's reproach before crossing the anteroom to their bedchamber, where Mai sat on the low-slung sofa behind him. "My Lady, how long have you been in labor?" the stout doctor asked politely, ignoring Zuko in favor of his actual patient.

"I don't know," she glanced to her husband in confirmation, "maybe fifteen minutes?" Zuko just spread his hands and shook his head when they glanced his way; time had lost all practical meaning for him once this happened.

But the physician's round face creased in a frown. "It took us not five minutes to get here," he spoke doubtfully. "But we will know more once we examine you."

He set his dun leather bag upon the nightstand beside their canopy bed and nodded to the plump midwife, who snapped her fingers to usher in servants bearing fresh linens and basin, her chest of supplies, and various other articles. These immediately began to strip the bed for lining, Mai having insisted on laboring in the comfort of her own bed, though a birthing couch was a more common choice for women of her rank.

"My Lady should lie down," the midwife advised Mai, turning to direct the servants in setting up. "We'll prepare everything that's needed."

"And I must ask my Lord to wait outside," the white-haired physician reminded Zuko, not unkindly. "As was our prior arrangement."

"Help me to bed?" Mai spoke up abruptly, and though surprised, Zuko moved quickly to assist her to her feet. She did not lean on him or seem to need any support, just held his hand tightly while they padded across the cool stone floor to the freshly fortified bed. Just having completed the task, her crimson-smocked maidservants moved out of their way with swift bows and murmured greetings.

Zuko helped Mai scoot back to the headboard and arranged several pillows behind her back while she leaned up, so she could recline comfortably when she wanted to. He probably spent longer than he needed plumping the pillows, before Zuko stepped back to take reluctant leave of her. "I guess —" he started, but was cut off when Mai grabbed him about the neck to kiss him, so fiercely he took an awkward seat beside her to avoid tripping.

He hugged her instead when Mai broke the kiss early with a sharply indrawn breath, tensing with her next contraction. "I love you," she spoke in a pained whisper while he rocked her and stroked her hair. His heart grew tight in his chest and his arms grew tight around her, when Zuko echoed, "I love you."

He drew back after a minute, feeling the eyes of her medical staff upon them, took her narrow face in his hands, and kissed her damp bangs in parting. "I'll see you soon," he promised, and Mai nodded bravely when he stood.

"Thank you for your diligent care," he told the royal physician and the midwife on his way out, and the middle-aged woman bowed to him with hands held fist-to-palm.

"It's my honor to serve you and the royal family, Fire Lord," she politely replied, while the doctor bowed similarly and affirmed, "Always."

His uncle had not been idle while Zuko took his leave. The young Fire Lord emerged into the lamplit hall to find Iroh had commandeered a couple of servants to fetch him a delicately carved table and chairs, where he had set up his Pai Sho board across the hall from the reinforced iron door to the anteroom, and the Fire Lord's chambers beyond.

"We will probably be a while, I thought we shouldn't lack for entertainment," his uncle explained, gesturing for Zuko to take a seat across the board from him, where he had already arranged the pieces. "Why don't you join me for a game of Pai Sho?"

Zuko tried to summon up a grateful smile, but it probably came out looking more like a grimace. He took the chair Iroh indicated though, and made a token effort to engage him, losing badly despite that Iroh tried to let him win. He couldn't bring himself to pay attention to the game, and conversation was spare when all Zuko could think of was his wife in pain, when all Zuko could concentrate on was straining to hear what was going on inside…

Servants came and went to gather up his robes of state and Mai's discarded dress for laundering. One brought him a fresh shirt that Zuko just had time to shrug on, before the doctor and midwife came to update him, leaving Mai for the moment in the care of her maidservants, some of whom remained behind to assist in the more mundane aspects of her delivery.

He hadn't been wrong about the contractions. Her delivery was proceeding unusually quickly, and Mai was past the point where painkillers would prove either safe or effective. Acupuncture might have provided some relief, if his knife-wielding wife hadn't shown an ironic aversion to needles when they first explored that option. As it was, her options were short now, and so was her time.

The royal physician said her labor was "precipitous", while the midwife explained that Mai was already partly dilated, so only active labor and the delivery were left to her. Her contractions would only get worse, and with no pain relief and less time to adjust available to her, Mai might react badly. Most first-time mothers averaged about twelve hours in labor, but Mai would end up delivering in "only" five.

It was the longest five hours of his life.

The royal physician remembered to close the door behind him, but the next servant into the room forgot. Zuko barked at his uncle to sit down when Iroh moved to close it, and similarly ordered anyone coming or going who made the same mistake. If Zuko had to sit here uselessly slumped in a chair when she needed him most, he would at least hear what she was going through.

Mai weathered the contractions stoically at first, with short, sharp cries, harsh breaths, and even grunts. The underlying note was always one of grim determination and maybe some anger. But the closer and more intensely they came, the more her composure began to slip.

She wailed, and moaned piteously, and screamed curses that Zuko had not heard from veteran sailors before, let alone his well-bred lady wife. But Iroh only had to physically restrain him when her pains had grown less than a minute apart, and Mai started crying out for Zuko.

It was done this way for a reason, his uncle hastily explained while Zuko unheeding struggled against his hold, and the Pai Sho tiles from the board he upset rolled across the polished floor. Her attendants had to devote their full attention to Mai. They couldn't be distracted by a desperate husband. They knew what they were doing. They would deliver her safely. Until then, he had to wait.

Iroh had repeated this more than once by the time he stopped fighting the surprisingly spry old general. But Zuko only stilled and gave off arguing when her desperate pleas gave way to panting, low groans, and long, drawn out screams, while the midwife repeatedly urged her to push.

He wouldn't remember later how long Mai pushed, except that the royal physician had barely announced the baby was crowning before a moment of tense, expectant silence preceded its first shrill cries on entering the world. Zuko never guessed before that moment that he would account such an ugly sound so beautiful, or that it would fill him with such sweet relief.

He was a father. Mai was a mother, they were a family…

Overcome with emotion, Zuko laughed and cried at once and hugged his uncle fiercely, while a beaming Iroh stood from his chair to clap Zuko on the back in congratulations. Enough time passed in their exchange that he noticed someone had picked up and packed away the Pai Sho board and tiles he upset, before one of the younger maidservants stepped out the door left ajar and through which the the baby's cries sounded haltingly, as it was cleaned and dried.

The maid bowed to uncle and nephew and murmured their titles in greeting. She stood straight and smiling shyly, announced to Zuko, "My Lord, you have a healthy son."

"And Mai?" he asked eagerly, grabbing hold of her elbows in preparation to hug her too. The maid stared taken aback at her usually reserved Lord's outburst of affection.

"R-resting comfortably, my Lord," she managed, blushing and recalling Zuko to himself. "She asked you be admitted."

He squeezed her arms and let go with a fervent "Thank you," before Zuko hurried inside. "New fathers," he barely heard Iroh explaining to the maid behind him. "It does that to you…"

Mai was sitting up in bed with her knees slightly bent when he entered, her modesty preserved by fresh sheets and coverlet pulled up past her waist, propped against several pillows, and looking much as he had left her, except for the color in her cheeks in the golden light of afternoon. And the roundness of her abdomen, which had become a bundle in her arms instead. The doctor let Zuko pass without comment, knowing he would not have ears to hear it right now, while the midwife was instructing Mai in how to breastfeed. She broke off at his approach though, and bowing, descended the shallow steps to the bed.

The pink nightgown Mai still wore, a wedding gift from Ty Lee, he vaguely recalled, turned out to be a fortunate choice for its lowcut neckline. As he watched, she drew one white finger down their son's round, red cheek, and smiled slightly when the little head of black hair at her breast began to suckle. She looked up at Zuko with a new light in her narrow eyes to invite him, "Come meet your son."

He sat beside Mai on the edge of the bed again, to peer at the tiny face turned in to her breast, the little mouth working and nose wrinkling and eyes squeezed tightly shut, the small hand with five delicate and perfectly formed fingers that poked out the top of his swaddling blanket…

"He's beautiful," Zuko breathed, tears starting to his eye when he laid a careful hand on their baby's head. His son. And he darted in to press a grateful kiss to her forehead, his words spilling forth, "You're beautiful, I love you so much…"

His wife smiled a little wryly when he sat back, shifting her hold on their nursing son when she observed, "He'll be prettier in a few days, when he's not all squeezed and pinched. The doctor says his head'll get rounder, now he's out of the birth canal."

He noticed for the first time that she was right, the baby's head was narrower than he expected, almost elongated. But running his fingers over the crown of his head, Zuko could feel the soft spots, and recalled reading that infants' skulls were more malleable than adults' in the first few months of life. Zuko tried not to imagine what might happen if he dropped him.

"His eyes have your color," Mai spoke quietly, when he withdrew his hand after a few moment's silence, broken only by servants assisting the midwife in packing up supplies and carrying towels and bed linens soiled by blood and other fluids away to be laundered. And the soft sound of their little boy breathing between swallows. "He'll open them again when he's done feeding," she promised, but had to lay a hand on Zuko's arm before he stopped watching the baby long enough to nod absently in reply.

That moment came sooner than expected, when Mai lifted the baby to her shoulder and patted him gently on the back, until he made a small sound that was still unmistakably a burp. "Would you hold him a minute so I can switch sides?" she offered their son to him abruptly, and all Zuko could think of was all the ways he could screw this up, not just this, but everything he'd ever be expected to do for their son, this perfect and innocent and fragile little life put into his hands…

And he froze. "Are you sure?" Zuko waffled and bit his lip, and stood from the bed to avoid her handing their son off to him. "I mean — he's so small."

"Funny," Mai said flatly, holding the baby in her lap, "that's exactly what I kept thinking when it took five hours to expel him from my body."

Zuko blinked at her sarcasm, but Mai just sighed and spoke over his shoulder to the royal physician and midwife still waiting behind him when the servants had cleared out. "Could you guys give us a minute?"

They both nodded while Mai tucked her breast away, though the midwife warned, "Please send for us when the afterbirth comes, or if it does not come in the half-hour, we'll be back." Her doctor added with their departure, "And send word if at any time your bleeding worsens."

Afterbirth? Zuko thought, a little queasy. For while he'd read enough to know what that was, he hadn't counted on witnessing it first-hand. He should have been occupied giving their son his first bath by now, traditionally a new father's duty. If he were not too scared to hold him, anyway.

Mai snorted at the look on his face. "Seriously? If I can deal, you can deal," she casually pronounced, referring to her marked distaste for any messy act that wasn't sex. "You too, General Iroh," she called over Zuko's shoulder, and he turned back again to witness his uncle skulk shamefaced out from behind the concealment of the archway that opened on their anteroom.

"Is it safe to look?" Iroh asked worriedly, with hands held over his eyes in the meantime. Even Zuko was hard-pressed not to laugh, and Mai snickered at his sudden prudishness.

"I'm decent," she assured, and narrowed eyes at Zuko when he made to comment. "Not a word from you."

"What?" Zuko smiled softly while his uncle climbed the shallow steps to join them. "I was going to say you could never just be decent, you're too wonderful for that."

"Ugh, will you save it?" Mai sighed, the baby beginning to squirm and whimper a bit in her lap and turn his tufty head from side to side, as if seeking the breast and his mother's milk again. "You met your quota for the day, Romantic Hero. Now hold your frickin' son."

She looked to Iroh. "I'd give him another pep talk, but I feel like I just got beat with a blunt axe. Would you mind?"

"Oh, that is nothing to worry about!" Iroh exclaimed, accepting his bundled grandnephew from Mai with enthusiasm, while she settled back with a sigh against the pillows. "You just have to support his head," he barely took the time to demonstrate before stepping right up to Zuko to arrange his arms and place the baby in them, "like this."

And just like that, he was holding his son for the first time. It didn't even feel like he would drop him. Such a little weight, Zuko thought, rocking gently from side to side and making shushing sounds. He didn't know if he just thought of that or read it in one of the books, but it worked to quiet the baby's mewling cries.

Such a little warmth against his chest, and Zuko found himself wondering if his son would be a firebender, if one day he might take him to the Sun Warrior's temple to learn from the Masters. He wondered if the boy would train with blades as both he and Mai had done, and thought of all the things that he could teach him, not just of bending and swordsmanship, but justice and mercy, balance and peace, friendship and love — all hard lessons Zuko had to fight and struggle to learn on his own. Well, not quite alone…

"Put your finger in his hand," Iroh urged in a conspiratorial whisper, and Zuko tried it only to laugh with delight when the baby grasped his finger firmly and tried to draw it to his mouth. "It is a reflex," his uncle explained, grinning. "They do it with anything you put in their hand, but really, it never gets old."

His son blinked up at Zuko with Mai's sleepy eyes, the resemblance uncanny when she drowsed against the pillows as she did now. But she was right, they had his color, the gold of the royal family or just a shade lighter, pale and piercing like hers.

"We never settled on a name," Mai reminded him, her eyes half-open while she watched them contentedly. "You should name him," she decided, yawning. "I don't trust my decisions when I'm this hormonal." And Zuko looked to his uncle, who shifted restlessly as if he wanted to hold the baby again, but was too polite to ask.

"I know it's supposed to be bad luck, to name babies after still-living ancestors," Zuko spoke slowly, and tried not to think of his insane sister, named for their grandfather to curry favor and now locked away in an asylum. How wrong Ozai had been when he said she was born lucky. Would she ever even meet her nephew, could Zuko ever trust her around someone as fragile and precious as his infant son? He doubted it.

But it didn't bear thinking about Azula or his father or still-missing mother, about any of the ones who couldn't be here. So what if his family was broken? Zuko was making a new one, that was what mattered.

"But you've always been like a father to me," he plunged ahead, eliciting a warm smile from Iroh, "and I wondered if — I could name our son after you?"

His uncle surprised him and the baby both by laughing so heartily that Iroh had to wipe tears from his eyes. "My nephew, don't get me wrong, I am flattered," he held up his hands as if to placate an objection Zuko showed no signs of making, instead holding his son up to his shoulder and rubbing briskly along the little back to soothe his startled crying. "But really, I must refuse.

"I know we might look alike now," Iroh joked when the baby settled, slapping his round belly in illustration, "but you cannot burden a little one with such an old name. And besides, he is your first!" his uncle reminded, shaking a finger at Zuko in reproach while Mai just smirked at them both. "You must be more original in naming him."

And suddenly he had it, when Zuko remembered again what day this was. He had been too preoccupied to offer a word of comfort then, but now…

"If you won't let me name him for you," Zuko boldly replied, "would you let me name him — for your son?"

"Lu Ten?" his uncle spoke, almost impossibly quiet. His lined face went so still, his eyes shone so with tears that Zuko wondered if he had made a mistake, and handed the baby off to Mai.

"Uncle," he backtracked hastily, "if you don't want —"

His uncle tackled him in a bear hug before Zuko could finish. Tears soaked his chest when Iroh spoke into the fabric of his shirt with low voice muffled, "You are too kind to an old man."

Zuko hugged him back, smiling slightly when he rested his scarred cheek against Iroh's bald head. "An old man was always kind to me."

They broke apart after a moment for Zuko to discover his wife had taken advantage of their distraction to arrange the sheet over her right shoulder, so she might feed their fussing son — Lu Ten — without embarrassing his uncle. Zuko took a seat at Mai's side again to put his arm around her angular shoulders and watch the baby nurse comfortably from the hollow of the sheets, supported in his mother's arms. She favored Zuko with a sly smile, before returning her attention to their son.

"I'm glad you're here to share this day with us," he told Iroh sincerely, his heart swelling with more happiness than Zuko knew it could hold.

"So am I, Nephew," his uncle warmly replied, stepping forward to grasp Zuko's offered hand. His callused fingers gave a grateful squeeze when he added, "And many days to come."