Golden eyes. Golden as if from a ripened peach, golden like the setting sun as it kisses the ocean. Golden.
Tiny fingers waving, fists forming, reaching up toward the brown beard, toward Iroh. The baby gurgles happily, and with an effort unbefitting of a child so tiny, he wraps his hand around Iroh's smallest finger, squeezing with a pressure so feather light, it breaks Iroh more than any amount of strength could.
"Sh," he soothes, smoothing out his son's cheeks. His son. His son. It's too good to be real, that after seven years of trying - a baby. A son. A little boy with eyes as golden as his father's. A tear drips onto Iroh's cheek, and he laughs - in disbelief, in joy, he's not sure - just that this child? He's here. He's Iroh's. He's alive and well, his heart beating. He's tiny and fragile and perfect.
He hears bustling behind him, the sound of movement.
"More towels!" someone barks, and Iroh turns slowly, still gazing at the bundle in his hands with the slightest of smiles on his face.
"Is everything alright?" he asks lightly. How could it not be? He has a son. He has everything, everything in the world. Iroh's never known this kind of perfection, this kind of wholeness before. He has not only a son, but a family.
"MORE TOWELS!"
His head finally tilts upwards, and he's unsure how he could've missed the array of nurses, sprinting back and forth between the pile of towels and the sickbed. He automatically pulls his son in closer. Lu Ten. Yes. That's his name. Lu Ten.
"Is my son alright?"
"Yes," a nurse manages to pant, hurriedly handing towels to another nurse. "It's your wife."
It's only after a glance that he notices something is wrong. Very wrong.
Her beautiful face - oh, how had he not noticed how beautiful it was before? Now that he can see hers in his son's, hers seems tenfold more enthralling. That same beautiful face is covered in a sheen of sweat, contorted in pain, and she moans in what he imagines must be worse than anything he's ever felt.
And blood - there's so much, soaking the sick bed, soaking the towels pressed against it, forming a puddle on the floor. He's never seen that amount of blood before. He didn't know someone could live without that much-
"Sachi?" her head turns to the side and he wonders how she managed it.
"Hold my hand," she begs, and he grasps it, balancing Lu Ten on his other forearm securely. "Please, hold my hand!"
"I am," he replies strongly, with more strength than he knew he could muster. His wife is dying. Sachi is dying.
"Hold my hand!" she insists, and he squeezes it firmly. A cruel ghost of a smile breaks out, and she looks at the bundle in his arm, and a laugh escapes. "We did okay, huh?"
"He's perfect," Iroh replies, thumb massaging in circles over her hand.
"He's got your eyes," she laughs, shivering uncontrollably.
He snorts breathily. "Yeah. He does, that's for sure. I named him Lu Ten."
"Lu Ten. It's perfect. All of it is perfect. I can't wait to decorate his nursery more. He's too early. Didn't get a chance," she says, words forced through clenching teeth.
His chest aches as he smiles again. It's strange how he smiles, when all he wants to hold her and never let her go. "Yes. We'll decorate it together. Red and gold. Maybe green curtains."
"Green curtains." Her eyes drift to the ceiling as if imagining it. "I can see that. Green curtains, gold ties. A little rocking horse in the corner."
"And we'll sit in there with him and read him stories," Iroh agrees, tightening his hold on her hand. "You, me, and little Lu Ten, alright?"
"Yeah. That sounds nice."
"Too much blood!" a nurse yells in the background, but he tunes them out.
"Doesn't it? We'll teach him how to sing songs and- no! Keep your eyes open, alright? Think of the stories we'd tell him."
Sachi smiles lightly, and the pain in her eyes is erased by a cloud of nonsensical dreaming.
"Tell him to always drink his tea, okay? Tell him…" her words fade out as her hand slumps inside of his.
"Sachi?"
Her brown eyes are empty, hauntingly so. Her jaw falls lax, and a nurse rushes over, pressing on her chest with both hands.
The bundle in his hands begins to wail, as if this little child knows the severity of the moment, as if he knows that his mother is dead.
Dead.
Dead.
Iroh kisses her sweat-slicked forehead once, and leans back up, wiping away stray tears with the back of his hand, bouncing on the balls of his feet to soothe the baby.
Lu Ten quiets, and then giggles, hands reaching up.
He won't let his son go. Never. He won't let Lu Ten go like his wife slipped away. He won't. He'll have his son until he dies.
By the time Iroh slips away in his sleep 40 years later, he still has a son.
A son with golden eyes. Golden as if from a ripened peach, golden like the setting sun as it kisses the ocean. Golden.
Golden