They were in the Fire Nation when she found out, and in hindsight Katara thanked every and all spirits that she had been. She wasn't sure why'd she been scared at first, she and Aang were married, quite a few months married already. And they were adults, no longer nervous teenagers giggling in corners or trembling to speak up in diplomatic meetings.

"My lady remember what I said," the physician said as Katara redressed herself, "No alcohol, no fish, keep sugars low—"

"Yes, thank you," Katara said, refusing to admit her tone was snappy. It was the pregnancy, no, was she really using that excuse already?

It was all very real and all very scary, even with her marriage official and her well within her rights to bear children, they had not been trying, they had simply been careless. Not, of course, that she didn't want children, of course she did. And she needed them, needed an Airbender.

But there was a difference between wishing for something and having it thrust upon you. And Aang was going to panic. He was a man child in most aspects of his life and now he was, forever and officially, a father.

"Lots of rest, as often as you can," the physician continued, "Keep bending to a minimum. Lots of parents think they can influence their child's bending potential by bending while pregnant but trust me, it doesn't work that way…"

The man was rambling but Katara didn't hear him. She needed to find somewhere to think and someone to confide who wasn't a stuffy Fire Nation doctor. She wondered, briefly, if she had to pay to keep the man quiet. But Katara was fairly certain the man wasn't paying attention enough to even know who the father of her child was, or perhaps he simply gave off an air of not bothering to care.

She mumbled a goodbye and was out of the room and moving down the halls of the Fire Nation palace. Zuko had afforded them permanent rooms in the residence wing. The first year of Zuko's reign was spent here by Aang. Katara and Sokka came intermediately, but Aang lived a full year in the capital.

Katara had always felt Aang's time during that year was his easiest and safest for both their lives. But the world caught up with them and by the time they were both of age there were far too many things keeping them apart at that moment. Aang had finally proposed at nineteen after six months away. They waited three years to get married as Aang and Zuko finally broke ground on Republic City. And now less than half a year into her marriage, she was pregnant.

Her first thought was speaking to Suki who had already had a child with her brother. Sokka had been unhinged the day he learned his wife was pregnant, she could pick Suki's brain for the secret to keeping the father calm. But Suki would tell her brother, she was no secret keeper when it came to him.

Toph was her next thought but she'd yet to have a child and she was another one who would quickly blow Katara's cover. Ty Lee…well Katara didn't know her well enough to confide in her that she was carrying the Avatar's child.

"The Fire Lady requested a change on the menu," groaned a servant, "Change the meat stew to a vegetarian option. We don't have time to cook up an entire new meal…"

Of course! Mai! She'd already had two children with Zuko and was usually too disinterested in most things to even bother telling anyone else.

"If only that damn Airbender wasn't so—"

"Excuse," Katara interjected and all the servants turned bright red.

"My lady, we were just—"

"Yes, do you know where I might find the Fire Lady? I have an urgent matter to discuss with her," Katara said.

They looked ready to faint with fear that Katara was telling on them. After they'd told her where to find Mai she considered telling them the discussion was not about them, but she'd let them fear for their jobs for a while after the near comment about Aang.

Katara found the Fire Nation queen out at the turtle-duck pond just like the servants said. She sat there with her daughter, the eldest, tossing bread crumbs to the small creatures. The few things Mai smiled for, Zuko and her children, were always a beautiful sight. She'd occasionally smiled for Katara and her friends, once confiding that they and Ty Lee were the only people she ever truly considered friends, but the brightest of all her smiles went to her husband and children.

"Your Majesty," said the nearest guard to Mai, "You have a visitor."

Mai looked up to Katara and nodded, beckoning with a hand for Katara to join her at the pond. Katara sat down nervously and pulled her knees to her chest.

"If you're coming to me with this, I imagine it's something you don't want your husband to know," Mai said, breaking off a piece of bread and handing to Katara. Mai's daughter smiled brightly calling out "Auntie Katra!" in the best way her four-year-old tongue could manage the words.

Mai whispered into her daughter's ear and the girl took off running to go play with some toys in the grass. She looked ridiculously like Zuko, which is to say, she looked quite a bit like what Azula must have looked like young. Though now that some of the pudge around her face had thinned out, it was clear she'd inherited Mai's slender face and jaw. She'd grow up to be a very pretty girl.

"I hate keeping secrets from him, we've never done that," Katara explained throwing a bread piece, "And this is the last thing I should be keeping from him."

"Your secret will be safe with me."

"I'm pregnant."

Mai's look of surprise was not the kind that came from learning the unexpected, but rather from something else.

"That's what you're keeping from him?" Mai asked.

"I know, I'm awful," Katara dropped her head into her knees.

"It's not that, it's just—why?" Mai said. "I mean we all always joke about how you two, more than any of us, kind of had to 'get down to business' as it were."

"We just, we weren't trying and at any minute Aang could be called away somewhere and then he'd have this on his consciousness and he wouldn't leave and he'd probably get into an argument with me if I tried to go with him," Katara said.

"You're not the first woman to bear the Avatar's child," Mai said, "History proves it can be done. Even the female Avatars had children without a problem."

"But this is different. This is post-war, a hundred year long war, and Aang's expected to be at every border dispute, every trade disagreement, every hint of military aggression. We were going to wait until things are more stable and—"

"Katara, the world is never going to be stable enough to feel like you can safely and comfortably bring a child into the world, Avatar or not," Mai said, "There will always be something going on, that's the gamble with children. You introduce to them to the world and hope they can be the ones to make it better."

It was surprisingly deep coming from Mai of all people, but then again, the woman was just quiet, not unintelligent. And Katara did feel slightly embarrassed watching Mai's daughter play around. Mai, like Katara, had been expected to produce offspring and her own children were in worse danger than anyone's. Katara knew about the threats, even if Mai and Zuko tried to hide them.

"I guess…I'm not the only person in the world with these problems and I should stop acting like I am," Katara mumbled out as gracefully as she could and Mai actually smiled.

"I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to," she said, "But it's okay to be scared. I won't lie, your life is about to change but not in a bad way, so stop assuming it is."

Katara nodded and smiled back to Mai. Without warning, she hugged the woman who went stiff before conceding to giving her a hug back. Their husbands were best friends, that had to make them some kind of honorary sisters-in-law right?

"One more thing," Katara said, "How should I tell him?"

Mai actually laughed.

"That one is all you."

Katara had chosen to tell Aang after dinner. Only Mai noticed that Katara refused wine with the main course and also refused desert. Aang had been too busy stuffing his face with the lemon cream pastry to even comprehend that anyone else was at the table. But once back in their room, Katara bid him sit down and kneeled in front of him.

"I need to tell you something," she said and watched panic explode over his face as she watched him mentally assume every possible worst scenario.

"Are you sick?" he blurted out, "Zuko has some of the best healers in the world, we can even get you one tonight—"

She placed her fingers lightly on his lips to silence him.

"It's nothing bad," she said softly and removed her hand from his face, using it to pull his hand down to her stomach. "I'm pregnant."

Her heart was pounding in her ears as she waited for him to respond in any way. She watched his face grow incredibly pale as the words processed in his brain and his steel eyes went wide and locked onto hers. Then, after a few moments of Aang as a statue, he burst to life in a yell, sending a gust of air around the room involuntarily and lifted Katara up off her feet.

"We're gonna have a baby?" he practically yelled and she shushed him through her giggles.

He held her tight and quickly released her in a panic that'd he hurt the baby somehow but she just smiled and kissed him. And was suddenly so very, very grateful that their child was an accident after all.