Pregnancy

Chapter summary: Sokka receives some unexpected news from Azula that changes his life forever.

Chapter rating: T

Chapter genres: Romance, Humor

Author's Note: I have a very special entry for this one. Please see "Unplanned", a collaborative Sokkla fic by PurplePlatypusBear21, SeyaryMinamoto, DeadDirector, and Fanwright written for Gemsofformenos to welcome him into fatherhood. Congratulations, dear friend! Chapter 1 is printed below.

Sundown. My room.

Sokka smirked as he read the note Azula covertly handed him in passing. The Fire Nation princess was insatiable, and he loved it. And he loved how no one knew about their little… whatever it was.

It started about a month ago, the weekend of Zuko and Suki's wedding. As for how it happened, Sokka still wasn't sure. It happened so spontaneously and unexpectedly. And it happened again and again and again, all over the palace… and even once outside in the royal gardens. And it was hot.

They never talked about it or what it meant. Not only were their encounters quick and dirty, but Azula was also not one to talk about her feelings - he had no idea what was going on inside her head. Maybe… maybe it didn't mean anything to her.

After the wedding was over, he returned to the Southern Water Tribe to resume his normal responsibilities. He didn't expect to be back in the Fire Nation so soon, but he had received a cryptic letter via messenger hawk with intel regarding the whereabouts of his long lost space sword, which had allegedly ended up somewhere in the Fire Nation Capital. Needless to say, he flew back posthaste.

And now Azula wanted to meet with him in her bedroom, which could only mean one thing…

He was greeted with a blue fireball zipping right by his face.

"What the hell was that for?!"

She hurled another one at him.

"H-Hey if this is foreplay, I'm not sure I'm into this sort of thing!"

"You're a dead man, Sokka," she growled. She looked pissed.

"Why?! What did I do?!"

She hissed through her teeth, "You got me pregnant, you fucking asshole!"

"I wha…?" he trailed off, frozen in place. Was she serious? Yeah, probably. Oh spirits. What should he do? What did this mean? Was he really going to be a father? Was he ready for this?!

The way she was glaring, her yellow eyes could have burned a hole straight through him.

He didn't know what to do or say. So naturally, he made a joke. "Are you sure it's yours?"

She stood there, glaring, for another long, tense moment. Sokka's stomach sank at her reaction, reflecting only too late that perhaps he'd chosen the very worst moment to crack a joke. Oh, she'd try to set him on fire again, and he wasn't sure he'd resist if she did…

"You just…" Azula said at last… and she raised a hand in his direction. Her index and middle fingers were pointed in Sokka's direction, and all he could do was smile in utter panic. "Did you just…?"

She couldn't seem to compose a full sentence. Had the emotional damage of his absolutely wrong choice been that severe? It seemed so, for the dangerous glint in her eyes only seemed to shine more brightly with each passing moment…

"Azula…?" his voice was small and weak, for he felt small and weak, more and more so as time ticked by.

He let himself think, wistfully, that if this was how he'd die… well, at least he would die looking at a beautiful woman, even if she was akin to a beautiful storm right now. Oh, what they had, it truly could have been incredible, the greatest romance their world ever saw, but perhaps no one was allowed to shine so brightly, to outdo the sun and stars with such brilliance…

A snort.

He blinked blankly as she slapped her free hand over her mouth.

Then a giggle.

Sokka's jaw dropped, and, a mere instant later, Azula cackled with laughter she couldn't possibly contain.

"O… kay?" Sokka shot her another awkward smile, though slightly less panicked than his earlier one. So his jokes were still funny? Well, then! At least he made her laugh before she killed him! That was even better than before, yes, now Azula would send him off to the next life with a smile, if nothing else…

"You're…! You're seriously…!" he could tell she was trying to speak her mind, she really was, but no coherent sentences could spill from her lips.

Sokka grimaced now, unsure if this was good news: Was this merely stress laughter? Was she having a nervous breakdown? If so, he'd have to ease her up and help somehow, all concerns about his impending death forgotten…

But a baby. A baby? No, not just any baby. Their baby.

What a concept that was.

"Okay, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have made a silly joke when, well… heh. I just… can't really process this so fast, alright?" He tried to explain himself, but he expected it would be to no avail.

Against his better judgment, he stepped closer to his still-cackling lover, who had bent over herself, arms wrapped around her belly, the area where the baby was surely growing already… the baby. Their baby. Goodness, their baby. His head nearly spun as he pondered that again.

"Azula?" he called her again, placing a hand on her back gently, as Azula finally seemed to ease up on the laughter, if just slightly.

"You… are the worst…" she let a few laughs out still, even as she scolded him for his nonsensical question. "Is it mine, you ask…? You're… oh, you have to be the smartest idiot in the world…"

"I think the general term for this is 'smartmouth', if that helps at all?" Sokka smiled, helping her rise back to a proper standing position. "Though I'll say, I'd rather be the smartest idiot in the world than the dumbest genius, eh?"

"Might be you're both, have you thought of that?" Azula asked, raising her eyebrows and smirking at him. Sokka gasped in feigned horror.

"No! Anything but that!" he exclaimed dramatically… again, hiding and deflecting with humor.

He knew he shouldn't do this. They should talk things over, properly, seriously, and yet it was precisely because of their similar senses of humor that they'd drifted together in the first place. It started at the wedding, when they'd judged every outfit and makeup choice so ruthlessly Azula had even deemed him an honorary firebender for the quality of his burns - he had taken offense to that, or feigned to, and she had only been more amused for it. Then, in bed together… their trysts were incredible, passionate and satisfactory in every way that counted, but Sokka had found one of his favorite parts was how easy it was for them to poke fun at each other, both during their lovemaking and afterwards, too. Maybe they hadn't really gotten to know each other that deeply just yet, but the connection between them was still tangible, real and unique in its own way.

So he had joked, and to his relief, she had responded to it even if he wasn't sure he'd made the right choice. Yet, now that the tension had deflated and he had even wrapped his arm around her shoulders, it was entirely possible they'd have a good chance to talk things over and figure out what this would mean for them in the long run...

Sokka was shaken from his thoughts as Azula entwined her fingers in his own. The princess hummed contentedly as they strolled slowly over to her enormous four poster bed. Sokka was contemplating what to say next when she broke the silence with yet another, most un-Azula like giggle.

"What now?!" Sokka exclaimed in a manner somewhere between exasperation and laughter.

"I just realized that I am going to make you tell everyone. First my brother, then your sister… Oh this will be splendid."

Sokka massaged his temples in worry as Azula looked at him with mirth in her eyes.

"Oh no. Oh no." Sokka kept repeating.

"It'll be fine you overgrown baby. The Avatar has always approved of our friendship. And the mud eater likes me well enough because I'm the only bender as ruthless as her… It's just our-"

"Siblings. Yeah I know. Oh Spirits…." He moaned pitifully.

"Don't think they are going to be helping you anytime soon. Should have thought about that before knocking me up." Azula couldn't keep the smile off her face.

"Well, Zuko and Katara will put me in the grave before the spirits decide to help me." Sokka let go of Azula's hand and sat at the foot of the bed, sinking into the plush mattress. "That's one thing I can count on."

"Forget the grave. If you choose your words poorly of course, you'll be nothing but ash." Her smirk curved into a deceptively sweet smile as Azula folded her arms behind her. "Unlike me, my brother doesn't possess a great sense of humor. Do keep that in mind."

"Uh-huh…" A nervous finger scratched at his cheek. "And if I tell Katara first, she'll likely freeze my feet in a block of ice and toss me over the side of a boat. That, or feed me to a giant Unagi, after cutting me into pieces."

"You have a vivid imagination when it comes to your sister killing you."

"You've met my sister. You don't think that's out of the realm of possibility?"

Azula was about to speak, then paused, pondering the idea of what the waterbender was capable of in a fit of rage. She smiled at all the possibilities, a deliberate gesture that made Sokka a little uncomfortable. He knew her well enough to know she was just teasing him, but...

"O-Okay, you can stop thinking of the millions of ways I can die now," he stammered.

"Why?" Azula leaned forward, resting both of her hands on Sokka's broad shoulders. Her lips curled into a playfully sadistic smile. "I love seeing you squirm like this." She chuckled again.

"And what makes you think you'll get off scot-free?"

"Oh please, Sokka," she scoffed. "You really think either of our siblings would dare hurt a pregnant woman?"

"You really have this all figured out, don't you?" he laughed. "Guess I'm a dead man no matter what."

"I know. I told you that when you walked in here - "

"And you threw a fireball at my head."

"Mmhmm. It's a shame, really. I could probably use some help with this spawn growing inside me in eight months."

He smiled. "Well, maybe…" He crossed an arm over his chest and placed a hand on hers. "...maybe our siblings would take more kindly to the news if we were, well… together."

"'Together'?", she repeated, an eyebrow arched. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"You know, like… boyfriend and girlfriend - we could even get married - "

"Really?" She pulled away from him. "Is that what you want?"

"Is it really that absurd of an idea?"

"You wouldn't even be asking me any of this if I weren't having your child, if you weren't… stuck with me." She turned her back toward him.

"Azula, no, that's not true!"

"Yes, it is," she seethed. "You left after the wedding. If I hadn't lured you here under false pretenses, you would have been gone and out of my life forever."

It was just then that he realized she had sent the note regarding the location of his space sword, which he was clearly never going to find, but none of that mattered. Not with Azula so upset. "I would have never left if I had known how you felt. Spirits, Azula, I… I fell for you so hard and fast, so deeply and madly, I've never felt anything like it before, and I-I didn't want to ruin everything by spilling my heart out to you and potentially making a giant ass of myself." He laughed softly under his breath. "But I can see now that I've already succeeded in making a giant ass of myself. I'm such an idiot."

"Yes. Yes you are."

He released a breath, letting silence settle between them: Azula didn't meet his eyes and Sokka wasn't quite sure of what to say next. He had tried a silly joke earlier and it had worked… but it definitely didn't seem to be the right choice right now. No matter how much he enjoyed making her laugh, how beautiful she was with that proud smile on her face, it was time they had a serious conversation.

"Okay, so…" he reached for her hand again, and Azula flinched slightly over the gesture. "This wasn't part of either of our plans. I don't know if you had any hopes of being a mother, but you probably wouldn't have pictured me as the father, I figure…? Well, not like that matters anymore, heh. Still… I want to know where you stand with this, first of all. Might be, once we both know what we want, we can decide on how to go forward."

"That sounds a bit too reasonable and serious to be coming from you," Azula pointed out, crooking an eyebrow. "What happened with 'you sure it's yours'?"

"I'll keep that one saved for later if I need it again," Sokka smiled - to his delight, she mirrored his grin. "So… any ideas on what you'd do with a kid of your own?"

Azula frowned, lowering her gaze. Her fingers tensed in his hand, but she didn't yank her hand out of his, though Sokka suspected she was tempted to do just that.

"I… never really thought about it," Azula confessed, at last. "As you may have been able to tell, family is not my forte. I can't even pretend I've dreamt of having a family of my own, a do-over to make sure I can make things work, I… I just assumed I'd be alone in the end. Nothing good ever seems to last."

"Well, few things are forever," Sokka admitted, nodding. "Who knows, maybe we raise this tyke of ours together, and once they reach a certain age they decide to go live in Ba Sing Se, write us a letter once every ten years, something like that…?"

"Ungrateful little brat," Azula said, making a playfully displeased face, directed at her still-flat abdomen. Sokka laughed softly, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb.

"Or maybe they'll be clingy and refuse to move out of our house because the outside world is nasty and scary, and we'll be their only safe harbor… even when we don't want to be. Think about it, how would we have raunchy sex with our kid lurking about all the time, huh?" he wiggled his eyebrows teasingly at her, and Azula was the one laughing now, covering her face with her free hand.

"You're… taking for granted we'll do this together, then? You really don't have to, you know," she said, biting her lip. "Yes, we were great in bed…"

"And outside it," Sokka pointed out. Azula smirked.

"And outside it," she acknowledged. "But I doubt I'm what you were planning on, for your future. We were… a pretty good accident, I guess, but you're not really obligated to do this if you don't want to…"

"Right. Because your decision to lure me here under false pretenses says you didn't want me to be involved…" Sokka pointed out. Azula's cheeks heated up.

"I wanted you to have a choice in the matter, is all," she said. "I don't know about you, really, but I do know I'm bound to be a terrible mother."

"So, let me get this straight: You called me here in the hopes that I'd learn the truth about our upcoming baby, tried to set me on fire in retaliation so that I would run away, terrified, then a few months later I'd have the epiphany that I must save the baby from you so that, after the child was born, I'd sweep in right after you're done delivering it, and steal the little one before you had to actually parent it?"

Azula's mouth opened, as though she were about to reject his words… but she grimaced before long, rubbing her face with her hand again. Sokka could only smile compassionately at her, watching the woman withdraw into herself, hunching over once more.

"Stop being smart for ten minutes…?" she groaned. Sokka laughed and shook his head.

"No can do, princess. Can't make this handsome brain of mine stop, no matter the circumstances," he smirked, wrapping his free arm around her body and reeling her closer. "I mean it, though. The one time I was close to not thinking at all was when I pinned you to the wall before we could reach the bed, and I really think my brain fizzled out over the excitement for a second there. When it came back, all I could think was 'I want to make love to this woman for the rest of my life'..."

Azula rose back to an upright position so abruptly she nearly struck Sokka's jaw with the top of her head. Her eyes, usually so sharp, devious, and unreadable, now had all her hopeful, confused emotions on perfect display.

"You weren't," she said. Sokka huffed, stubbornly.

"You only think you know everything, princess, but the truth may yet surprise you. If you hadn't called me back for this? I would've looked for any excuse to return," Sokka smirked. "Come on, you fooled me into thinking Space Sword had been found, but the minute I got a message from you I came bursting into your room and forgot all about my sword because of how excited I was about being with you again, and even now that I know the truth, I'm not remotely upset about your deceit. Doesn't that say something, Azula?"

"It probably says a lot of things. I'm not quite sure I'm understanding all of them, though," she said, eyeing him warily. "Sokka… do you want to be a father?"

"I can't pretend I haven't thought about it before…when I was with Suki… you know? But the timing never worked out and we both wanted different things from life. I always took on a fatherly role though, in my travels with my friends and before that when I was in charge of our tribe when the warriors were away. So I think deep down, I've always wanted to have kids. And now…"

He took a breath and inched closer to her. "I know there is no one in this world who could ever be a better choice to have a child with. Your brains, my devilish good looks. What can go wrong?"

Bemused at his optimistic remarks, Azula simply stared at him. Much could go wrong if she had this child, she thought. There was so much she didn't know about being pregnant or being a mother, so many things she had to take into consideration now that a baby was growing inside her. She didn't want to openly admit how truly uncertain she felt, how the nagging little thoughts in the back of her mind kept warning her that things would inevitably go horribly wrong. How could someone like her, the dreaded princess of the country that brought a hundred years of war to the world, become a mother?

All those worries melted away in an instant. Sokka's lips were warm on her cheek as he leaned in to kiss her. His arm was draped around her shoulder and squeezed her close to him. She looked up at him in surprise, only to be greeted by a big grin on his face.

"What can go wrong," he repeated with a blissful sigh. She wondered if deep down he felt as uncertain as her. Perhaps the optimistic demeanor he sported was merely a façade.

"... many things could go wrong. Many mistakes can be made," Azula finally stated. Sokka quickly turned his head, looking quite shocked.

And then she smiled at him. "... but, I'm glad to know I won't be alone through all of this. I will hold you to your words, savage. There is no going back on them now. Consider them your oath."

Sokka's shock slowly dissipated. He smiled back at her, nodding his head enthusiastically. "I'm gonna be the best father I can be, Azula." He reached a finger up to boop her nose. "Count on it."

Author's Note: This will be a multi-chaptered story, so please follow "Unplanned" if you'd like to read more. Chapters will be released after Sokkla Saturdays is over.