A/N: This is it...Act III! It's the ninth inning, the last minute of regulation, the final 24 Pokemon in the Pokerap, etc, etc. Things are gonna get pretty crazy from here on out.

WARNINGS: Brief mention of abortion, and traumatic childbirth.

PAST

She lost everything she'd worked so hard for. Her school expelled her for "immoral behavior". All her friends turned against her. She was completely trapped. The only thing going for her was that she had her family's support. Dad came rushing home after being granted a few days of official leave. Decades in the Navy had hardened him, so he wasn't exactly the nurturing type. But he tried his best.

"Mizuki, I need you to tell me the name of the sick fuck who did this to you," he said the night he arrived. "Tomorrow, I will go to the palace and challenge him to an Agni Kai."

They had omitted that particular detail for Dad's own safety. He had always been a man of his word, and one who was growing increasingly discontent with the way the military had been run these past five years. If Dad learned that the Fire Lord was the one responsible, Mizuki had no doubt that he would indeed challenge him to an Agni Kai. She also knew that this would immediately result in Dad's death.

"I don't know what his name is," Mizuki mumbled. She had her back turned to him; couldn't even look him in the eye because she was afraid that the look of concern on his face would cause her to spill the truth before she could stop herself.

Dad seemed like he didn't quite believe her, but there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing any of them could do about it.

In the Fire Nation, abortion was only legal under extreme circumstances, which Mizuki didn't meet. Her options were either to risk her life in some dirty back-alley establishment, or to carry to term. By her third trimester, she was beginning to wish she'd chosen the back alley. She'd gotten really big really fast, particularly for a first pregnancy. When Mom took her to the doctor for this, he'd prodded her belly with his stethoscope until he announced that he could hear two distinct fetal heartbeats.

It wasn't a total surprise; twins ran on Mom's side of the family. Her maternal grandmother had had a twin, albeit one who died as an infant, and Mizuki's aunt had had two sets of them. But that didn't stop Mizuki from flame-punching a hole in her bedroom wall when they got home. Mom had to come running in to remind her that firebending could potentially be bad for the babies. Everything was about the babies. Every time she developed a new stretch mark, or had trouble getting her shoes onto her swollen feet, or started crying over nothing, she felt that much more resentful. Was it too much to ask that her body could be hers again?!

She scarcely left home, because when she did, she felt as if everyone was watching her every move.

Look at her, she imagined them thinking. Look at that slut. Just couldn't keep her legs shut, huh?

Even after all this, the spirits still weren't done with making Mizuki's life miserable. She'd gone into labor at 35 weeks, and Mom had had to rush her to the hospital. After several hours of agony with little progress, the doctor had broken her water to try to speed things up. But instead of looking like water, it came out with a greenish color and a thick consistency. All of the medical staff in the room fell eerily silent as the doctor pushed his stethoscope into her abdomen with so much force as to cause pain. He did this over and over again, the frown on his face seeming to grow bigger with each passing second. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath. She and Mom had tried to ask what was going on, only to be sharply rebuked for talking. Then suddenly, the doctor was shouting out that they needed to operate now, and the room burst into organized chaos. The next thing Mizuki knew, she was being wheeled at top speed to the operating room while people talked above her in tense voices, continuing to ignore her panicked questions. Mom hadn't been allowed to go with her.

Stunned, Mizuki lay on the table as the doctors prepared for the procedure and scrubbed her belly with disinfectant. Then, barely fifteen minutes after since she'd been wheeled out of her room, someone was holding a mask over her face and telling her to breathe in.

When she started to come back to consciousness, she opened her eyes just wide enough to see that she was back in a hospital bed.

"…Mom?" she ventured.

She felt her hand being squeezed. "I'm here, honey." For once.

"Babies? Are they alive?"

"Yes. The doctors got them out just in time, and are working on them."

Mizuki nodded. She was still very sleepy…surely it would be all right if she dozed off for a little while…?

It ended up taking several hours before she was able to wake up enough to hear the full story. Apparently, that green stuff had been the result of her babies getting so stressed out that they shit themselves. Then the doctor had had difficulty finding either heartbeat, so they'd had to deliver the babies as quickly as possible. This had necessitated a vertical incision, which Mizuki refused to look at when they changed her bandages. She was drugged-up enough that it wasn't causing her that much pain, but she dreaded what might happen when the doctors started tapering the meds.

The twins were now doing reasonably well, given the circumstances. They'd need to stay in incubators for a while, but they were breathing on their own. The firstborn was a girl, weighing four pounds and twelve ounces. Her brother, born three minutes after her, was five pounds even. They were both small even considering their gestational age and the fact that they were twins; the doctor had said with a hint of judgment in his voice that this was likely because Mizuki was so young.

Once Mizuki was completely alert, they wheeled her down to the intensive care unit to see her children and hold them briefly. Well...they were certainly babies. They weren't quite developed enough to breastfeed, so a nurse showed her how to express her milk and feed it to them with a dropper. All Mizuki could think about during this entire process was how much she wanted to go back to sleep.

The next morning, Mizuki was almost done with choking down her breakfast when she heard a commotion in the hallway.

"What's going on?" she asked Mom.

"I don't know, but I'll find out," Mom replied. She went out of the room, and Mizuki heard her speaking with someone outside. When Mom returned, her face was pale and her mouth set grimly.

"The Fire Lord's here. He's visiting the babies right now," she said. "You told me he didn't know!"

"That's what I thought!" Mizuki protested; she felt like she was about to vomit all that awful hospital food back up. "I don't know how…"

But she did.

Ayosa. Mizuki thought back to how concerned she'd been over the durian incident. She'd known what had really been going on, and had reported it to the Fire Lord. And…and…she'd also known when Mizuki was having her period, which meant…

The Fire Lord had been intending for her to get pregnant the whole time. And she hadn't just been paranoid; people were watching her. But instead of judging her, they had been spying on her.

How long? How far back had this plan gone? Had he only thought of it after her knife demonstration? Or did it go back even farther? She'd been so proud of winning that internship, but what if it had all been rigged? Had everything she thought she'd ever accomplished just been a lie?

She was still reeling when the Fire Lord clomped into her room in those heavy boots of his, pushing a concerned nurse aside with one hand.

"I hadn't been planning to visit in-person," he said to her in lieu of any sort of greeting. "If your child proved to be a promising firebender, I would have arranged for it to live in the palace dormitory, but would not have publicly acknowledged it until and if that happened. But no woman has ever given me twins before. I was intrigued, and had to see them for myself. From the moment I saw you, I knew that you could give me strong children, and you have exceeded even my expectations. Even born as early as they were, they have the spark. Their names will be Akane and Akemi."

Yeah, two child soldiers for the price of one. No wonder he was "intrigued." And he wasn't even going to let her name her own kids. Had he named Beehive Lady's and Sad Lady's children, too? Did he do that with all of them, or just the special ones?

Mizuki said nothing, only looking blankly at him. After all the heartache he'd put her through, she was completely done with him for all eternity.

Unfortunately, the Fire Lord was not done with her.

He continued, "I have heard that your father has had a distinguished career in the Navy. I could promote him to Captain or even higher, and give him an assignment closer to home. All that you would have to do…would be to move into the palace permanently."

Again, the important part wasn't what he'd said…but what he hadn't said. If Mizuki refused to comply with his request, he could just as easily arrange for someone to kill Dad and make it look like an accident. Even the commoners had heard the rumors that the Fire Lord had done this sort of thing before…

At her silence, the Fire Lord said, "Of course, I would not expect you to make a decision right now. You need some time to heal. But do think about it."

He was gone as abruptly as he had arrived. Mom got up from where she'd been bowing this whole time, and her eyes were big; even she could detect the implications. Mizuki had no mental energy left to do anything except bang her head against the metal bedframe, over and over again, as she let out a low keening of grief and frustration.

PRESENT

Mom blinked. "Don't be ridiculous. You have children to care for."

"It'll be better for them this way," Mizuki muttered, while still keeping her back turned to Mom.

"You're still breastfeeding."

"Baby formula exists. They won't starve."

Right then, the sounds of battle faded, and the dust began to clear.

"Now look. You made me miss my chance," Mizuki protested.

Mom tugged on her arm. "That's enough of that. Now come back down to the basement. It's not fair for Daichi to have to take care of the babies all by himself."

Mizuki whirled around to face her sorry excuse for a mother. Even with the sun covered, tiny wisps of smoke were arising from her balled-up fists. Years of suppressed resentment came flooding to the surface all at once.

"That's all I am to you, isn't it?!" she shouted, words spilling out with her barely even having to think of them. "For my whole fucking life, I have done everything in my power to make sure that you and Daichi would be taken care of if Dad got injured or killed. I got into Ilah for you. I won that internship for you. I LET THE FUCKING FIRE LORD HAVE HIS FUCKING WAY WITH ME FOR YOU. Now I have two babies, and their sole purpose in life appears to be to make me as miserable as possible. And…and I have this awful lumpy scar and I can't even hold my pee in anymore half the time! Did you ever stop and think about any of that?! No, all you ever think is 'Woe is me, my husband is away, I'll just stay in bed the entire day.' But when I do that, I'm a bad person?! I guess…I guess you don't even care about me anymore, now that I'm just a nuisance."

There was much, much more she wanted to say, but she could hold off the angry tears no longer. She collapsed in a heap on the floor. She, who never cried, was a sobbing mess.

"Mizuki…" her mother tried. Mizuki ignored her.

Footsteps came up the stairs. Daichi.

"I can take care of the babies for a while if you want," he said. "I know how to change their diapers and give bottles and all that. Maybe I can even fit their crib into my room if I give away some of my stuff."

This only made Mizuki cry harder. Great, now she'd made her sweet younger brother feel guilty. He'd never been the problem, and had had to take on a lot of responsibility in his own right; she needed to remember that.

"…That won't be necessary, Daichi." That was Mom, with an unusually steady voice. "Let's just go back down to the basement and get this all sorted out."

Mizuki had no choice but to allow them to lead her back down the stairs. She continued crying while her mom and brother sat across the room with the babies to give her space. The eclipse finally ended, which made her feel at least physically a little better. Finally, as her sobs died down to the occasional tear, Mom walked back over and offered a cloth, which Mizuki used to wipe her face and blow her nose.

"Are you ready to talk about this now?" Mom asked.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

"Well, honey..."–Mom took a breath–"I…well, of course, it's not at all true that I don't care about you. But, after I thought about it, I realized you were right about something else."

Mizuki looked up in surprise. "I was?"

"You were. I should have been paying closer attention, and not so wrapped up in my own problems. We…well, I'm sure you would agree that we've never been able to communicate very effectively. I thought that you were pursuing a career in cooking because it was what made you happiest, and I wanted to give you some freedom to achieve your dreams. I had no idea that you'd shouldered yourself with such a burden, because you never indicated anything like that. I messed up, and for that I am deeply sorry."

"I thought I could handle everything. I thought I was strong," Mizuki mumbled. "Turns out it was all a lie."

"You are strong," Mom insisted. "But even strong people need help every now and then. And I realize now that you probably need more than your brother and I can give you. I'll have you sleep in my room tonight, and I'll take you to the hospital first thing in the morning."

"And tomorrow I'm going to go to the palace and kill the Fire Lord for you!" Daichi exclaimed while flexing his biceps.

"No," Mizuki and Mom told him simultaneously. Mizuki laughed a little in spite of herself.

"I think Akemi wants you to hold him," Mom said. "See how he's reaching his arms out? He loves you and needs you. So does Akane. Neither of them are intentionally trying to complicate things for you."

Indeed, he was extending his arms in her direction, and once he got situated in her arms, he actually smiled at her. He always had been the slightly less irritating of the two. For the first time, Mizuki didn't see just his baby, but her baby as well. She wasn't going to be able to fully bond with her kids today, and probably not tomorrow, either. But maybe someday in the indefinite future, she would manage it.

A couple of hours later, the all-clear signal sounded. The five of them went outside to bask in the sunlight, which now didn't have so much as a cloud covering it.

Mizuki still felt like utter shit, but the urge to kill herself right this instant was ebbing a bit. Yes, it would be rough getting back on track, but maybe she should just swallow her pride and start over from the beginning. Now that she could think more clearly, she remembered that Ilah was not the only culinary institution on Capital Island. There were other schools she could apply to that could serve as a stepping stone; less renowned ones with less stringent morality clauses. She still wanted to be a chef, and resolved that she would be one, no matter what. And she'd keep putting off the Fire Lord until…until what? She wasn't sure, but she'd find a way. Somehow.