Prompt: Sympathy (May 4)

Rating: K

Warning: none

Notes: The natural consequence of yesterday's prompt fill.

Sympathy

"I just wish there was something more I could do."

"I could stick a few knives in your gut—see if that evens things out."

Zuko laughs, bringing their twined hands to his lips for a kiss.

"You're mean when you're in pain."

"And whose fault is that, again?"

She pulls him to a stop, bent nearly double.

"Remember, the physician said to focus on breathing."

"Oh, well, thanks so much for the reminder. Here I was, focusing on the crippling pain."

He laughs again, and had she any breath to spare, she'd join.

"Besides," she says, as the contraction passes, and she takes a few steps forward, "I think I'll ignore the advice of anyone who mistakes quickening for some sort of parasite."

"He corrected the diagnosis."

"Yes. To the assumption that I'd just gotten fat."

"He means well," Zuko says, and dodges Mai's glare. "He's very good with burns."

"Still, in the future, I think I will defer to one who understands the process on a personal level and who herself contains the apparatus of delivery."

"The midwife is waiting, my lady," the attendant says at this, from a few steps behind. "She's arranged things in the Lady's suite."

"Not in our room?"

Mai smirks.

"I forget—you're not acquainted with the indelicacies of birth."

"Indelicacies?" Zuko repeats hesitantly.

"Blood, gore, screaming, tears, rent flesh and broken bones..."

"Bones?"

He glances quickly to her pelvis and back up.

"Oh, not me," Mai assures him. "Just you."

"Don't tease him so, my lady," the attendant laughs. "I'll hardly have the strength to carry him back should my lord faint."

"I don't think it'll come to that, Yuki. We could always stop and have the baby right here."

"Heir to the Fire Nation born in a turtleduck pond—I can hear the bards already."

"It would make for a lovely portrait."

Mai stops again, stifling a groan in the fist of her free hand.

"Maybe we could wait to mess up her life until she's born," she says, as Zuko rubs gently between her shoulders.

"You're so set on it being a girl?"

"Sometimes you just know."

"We did a needle test," says Yuki helpfully. "Circle means a girl."

"The universe is always on my side," Mai says, nodding. "Soon enough the children will be as well."

"Children?" Zuko says.

"I could be persuaded. All pain is temporary. Although your best chance probably rests with the poppy tea."

"Unless I end up needing some myself."

"In due time."

He pauses this time, and as she turns back in question, he cups her cheek and leans down for a kiss.

"I love you so very, very much."

"You'd better," Mai says, fighting down her smile. "I am having your baby."

"What d'you think? Should we head back, and get this whole thing started?"

"This whole thing started twelve hours ago, Zuko," Mai says. "And no. I want to stay here. I like it."

"Didn't we just have this discussion? I don't think the turtleducks will appreciate—"

"I'm not having the baby out here."

"Well, then let's—"

"And I'm not going inside."

She shakes off his hands and walks—waddles, he thinks, but would never be stupid enough to say aloud—over to the cypress tree and the bench set beneath it.

"I am not going inside, because once I do, that's it—then this is happening, and there's no chance to go back or start over. We made a person, and she's almost here, and I don't think I'm ready for that."

Her words come faster and faster, and suddenly the reserve, the stoicism, the perfect calm he's always known is crumbling away and Mai's eyes are wide with fear, real fear, the kind he's felt himself so often, late at night, lying awake and wondering at the mystery of what they'd made together. She reaches out for him, and he holds her tight.

"What if we mess this up? What if we turn out just like our parents, or she's difficult, or she gets sick, or you do? What if we're bad at this? What if I'm bad at this?"

"Then we'll be bad at this together."

"Zuko—"

He leans back to meet her eyes and is shocked. He can't recall seeing her cry, ever, not even when they were children and she broke her arm falling from a tree.

"We're going to be bad at this," he says, gently wiping the single tear which escapes her control. "We're going to make huge mistakes and small ones, and she'll probably hate us when she's fourteen, and she will be difficult, because she's my daughter and yours and we were never easy."

A laugh escapes her.

"But we'll figure it out. We're going to do this, because she's coming and no matter if we stay out here or go inside this is happening, and there's no changing that. We'll figure this out. We helped save the world. We escaped the Boiling Rock."

"You escaped."

"Until you were released and I saw you again, there was always a part of me still there."

She leans into his chest with a sigh.

"You practiced that, didn't you?"

"Only a little. I've gotten better at improvising."

Another contraction hits—he can feel, where her belly presses against him, the stiffening of muscles and her sharp intake of breath.

"I'm sorry so much of this rests on you. I wish there was more I could do."

"Didn't we just have this discussion?" Mai says wryly. "Yuki, my knives."

"Of course, my lady," Yuki says with a smile. "Shall I fetch the launchers?"

"No, a few stilettos will do, I think."

"You're mean," Zuko says, taking her hand. "Shall we?"

"Alright," Mai replies, smiling back. "Let's go. I'm ready to meet her."