Trigger Warning: Some depressing themes. (I wrote the M version first and I hope I censored out enough of the graphic descriptions of shit that happens when a woman gives birth and other dark things.) If you're a mother, you probably won't want to read this.
Chapter 4: Darkness
Lin was at work six months pregnant, barely showing her hard abdominal muscles resisted her expanding uterus resulting in a relatively unnoticeable bump that could pass for basic bloating. Unfortunately, this meant Lin's uterus pushed more on her bladder, stomach, lungs, and kidney, and really, everything else in her torso making breathing, and even standing up straight sometimes rather arduous activities.
Like the first time, she had told no one about the pregnancy, not wanting to give the gangs any notion of weakness or vulnerability. She did however appear much less on calls and on the streets.
She was just returning from the break room with a cup of tea when she felt a sharp pain piece her lower abdomen. Maybe it was just cramping. That was normal enough…
A second pain hit a few steps later.
Her office was close. Once inside, she could lock the door and remove her armor. Maybe it was pinching or something.
The third pain sent the chief to the floor on all fours, dropping and shattering her tea cup, spilling its contents on the floor.
"Chief!" the secretary seated at the desk beside her gasped jumping up.
"Call Councilman Tenzin! Bring him here now!" Lin ordered.
"CHIEF!"
"Tell him to bring Oogi!" Lin added.
"But chief!"
"NOW!" Lin yelled bringing herself to one knee, snapping a cable at the secretary's desk, cutting it cleanly in half to emphasize the urgency.
"What is it?" Tenzin asked once they were en route to Air Temple Island.
"I don't know—" Lin gasped through the pain.
"The baby—,"
"Tenzin, I SAID I DON'T KNOW!" Lin yelled holding back sobs as she felt the tiny heart in her lower body beating rapidly under as much stress as she. It too was fighting to stay alive.
"Mom! Help! It is Lin! She's—I don't know what is happening! The station called and said I had to come immediately and-,"
"The baby is coming!" Lin said finally.
"It is too soon!" Katara said ushering Lin and Tenzin into the delivery room.
"I know," Lin whispered faintly.
Tenzin unsnapped the clasps of his lady's armor and pulled it away.
Tenzin's face paled in panic when he pulled down her waistband. Lin's water had broken.
"TENZIN! Just get her pants off and get out! Go find your father and tell him that the baby is coming!" Katara ordered bringing her son back to his senses.
Lin was crying and panting through the contractions.
"Calm down, sweetie! Everything is going to be okay… Shhhhh… You need to get a hold of your breathing if we are going to do this safely," Katara said swirling healing water around Lin's head and belly.
Tenzin left the room and closed the door slowly.
"Aunt Katara," Lin whimpered. "I can feel her heart fading …"
"I know, Lin but we are going to do everything we can to save her," Katara replied.
"Tenzin will be so angry with me if I lose her!" Lin whimpered weakly.
"He won't, Linny. This isn't your fault! Maybe her spirit just wasn't ready to join us in the material world. Give her a chance and she can teach you SO many things,"
"Aunt Katara… I am afraid!"
"Don't be," Katara replied.
Lin's words ripped through Tenzin's heart. He had explained to her numerous times how it didn't matter if they had an earthbender or an airbender. He never thought he would need to say it didn't matter to him if their child lived or died. Well, it DID matter—but he understood she did everything to keep the baby safe. Katara was right. Maybe the child's spirit wasn't just ready. Maybe Lin's body just wasn't ready
Tenzin told her he would wait he could as long as they needed. Lin didn't need to rush into trying again, but wanted to, for him. Everything she did was for him. He just wanted her to be happy, but she also only wanted to make him happy. It was a vicious cycle indeed.
Tenzin ran to find his father meditating in the gazebo with his ten month old grandson asleep in his lap.
"The new baby is coming early," Tenzin announced breathlessly.
"I know," Avatar Aang replied perfectly at ease with his eyes still closed softly. "I felt the bison land and then your hurried feet disappear into the main house a while ago. How are you feeling?"
"Afraid." Tenzin confessed.
"Naturally. Being born three months early will not be easy for the babe. The child's lungs are not yet developed. Its heart is weak, its brain tiny, and its eyes incomplete… but it is not just that that's bothering you. I can feel it in your energy."
"Lin thinks I will be disappointed in her if she loses the baby," Tenzin added.
"Lin has her own reasons for insecurity. I think it's her way of expressing this fear that she's let the world down. She too must learn to detach herself from those fears. I will talk to her when I see she is ready, after this whole ordeal is over," Aang promised his son.
"Thank you, Father, for everything," Tenzin said sitting down beside Aang, putting his hand on ten-month-old son's belly. The baby wrapped his little hand around Tenzin's finger. His grip was strong and sturdy.
Tenzin smiled looking down at his son lovingly.
"Where is she, Twinkle Toes? I can't see into all of these wooden structures of yours," a gruff, familiar voice asked the Avatar.
"Aunt Toph?" Tenzin asked turning around with shock.
"The birthing room in the main house. It is the same one you used thirty one years ago to bring Little Linny into the world," Aang answered, still with his eyes closed.
"It is the fifth door from the main entrance, on the left," Tenzin added.
"Thanks Junior Airhead, Aang," Toph said nodding before heading towards the main house.
"I don't understand. Toph has been gone for nine years. NOBODY has seen her. Even Lin said they never communicate. How did she know Lin was having the baby early?" Tenzin asked.
"Toph has her own way of seeing everything. You'll understand when you're older, and can feel everything," Aang replied still unmoving.
The baby was so tiny. Her first breath was a sneeze. Katara wouldn't slap her baby's bottom because she was so delicate and fragile. Her skin was so thin that you could see all of her little organs fighting for life.
"Tenzin," Lin reached out with tears in her eyes as if she were holding a corpse already.
"I'm here," Tenzin said grabbing her arm, interlacing their limbs so he could hold her shoulder and set their son down between them.
"She cannot even suck. If she doesn't starve from lung or heart complications, she will die from starvation," Lin said with a stone cold face.
"Oh don't be so pessimistic, Linny!" Toph grumbled sitting in a chair against the far wall with her feet kicked up on the railing at the foot of the bed.
Just then the tiny creature sneezed violently and Lin's heart skipped a beat.
"Take her!" Lin said pushing the tiny bundle into Tenzin's arms. His heart broke looking down at the baby with webbed feet and fingers, still unable to see, hear, or breathe normally.
"Ma—ba—ma—ba—pa-," their ten-month-old babbled reaching for Lin. Lin didn't respond. Dark thoughts clouded her consciousness, as she could not stop thinking about the death that awaited her newborn baby. Toph took initiative and scooped up the ten-month-old into her lap, distracting her with a couple of floating rocks in her hand so that he would cease his childish babbling.
The premie sneezed again frightening Tenzin too.
Katara lifted up a small bit of water over the premature baby's tiny head. "Now she has a fever," Katara announced, healing the burst blood vessels and calming the fever slightly.
"How long will she last?" Lin asked.
"A week maybe," Katara replied. "At most…"
Every time the premature baby sneezed, she bruised herself internally.
"Katara! What are you—Lin gasped holding her chest as Katara waterbent milk right out of her breasts.
"We simply cannot just give up on her! Even if she is going to die, at least give her the chance to live before she goes, Linny," Katara said feeding the child with her waterbending.
Lin thought for a moment. The clouds cleared up slightly, but were still there, distorting everything. She reached for the new baby.
The baby took a few labored breaths and fell still again for a few moments. Lin felt the baby's heart still beating though. Still fighting…
After Lin and the new baby were completely cleaned up, they were moved into Lin and Tenzin's bedroom.
"You need to eat too," Tenzin said bringing Lin a bowl of soup. The Police Chief hadn't moved from her chair by the window in two whole days.
"Thank you," Lin said faintly accepting the bowl, letting Tenzin take the frail little girl from her lap for a few moments.
"Our son is confused. He doesn't understand what is happening to you,"
"He is young. He will forget soon."
"He won't, Lin. He needs you too. You need to go to him," Tenzin stressed.
"Fine, I'll go to him… after I eat," Lin replied lifting the soup to her lips, and draining the bowl, with her eyes unmoving, unblinking, still clouded with darkness as she considered possible ways to put herself and her daughter out of their shared misery.
Lin found her son playing with his grandparents, all three of them. He was chasing a pebble that Toph and Aang were flicking back and forth. Sometimes Katara would steal the pebble away with a tiny stream of water, confusing the boy greatly.
"Hey," Lin said weakly approaching the family.
"LIN! How kind of you to join us!" Katara exclaimed beaming with relief.
"How are you feeling?" Aang asked compassionately.
"Evidently better than I felt an hour ago," Lin answered weakly. May I have him?" Lin asked looking down at her son. He looked up at her with his brilliantly green eyes wide with concern.
"He's your kid, kid. Do what you want with him," Toph said dropping the pebbles, sitting back on her hands.
"Thanks, Mom," Lin said picking up her first-born baby and walking outside. The little boy clutched onto the collar of Lin's robes with one tiny fist, and draped the other over her left shoulder.
She felt his warmth, his soft, smooth skin under her hand, his strong, little heart beating normally and his small lungs breathing with such strength. He was a light that chased all of the clouds away. Lin squeezed him and kissed his little cheek and then looked out on the city-scape. "How have you been, my hero?" Lin asked the baby with a smile on her face.
He reached up and touched the scar on the side of her face.
"Don't worry about that. She isn't here to hurt any of us now," Lin said stroking her son's perfectly flawless and pudgy cheeks. "And I won't let any sibling do that to you. I'll make sure it never gets that bad. I'll make sure to love you. I'll make sure you know how to love your sister and I'll make sure she knows how to love you and finally, I will make sure you will want to protect each other. But until then, I promise I will stay, to protect you." Lin swore, pushing all thoughts of 'escape' from her mind.
The week of agony turned into a month, and that first month turned into a second and the little girl lived. With Katara feeding her with Lin's milk, and Lin holding her every day she lived.
"The girl's heart is more persistent than the eternal flame in the Sun Warrior's civilization, I knew it! She will be strong!" Toph said on the first day of the baby girl's third month of life. "She will be an earthbender too, I expect. And the greatest earthbender the world has seen! She will be the one to take my place, Linny" Toph predicted punching Lin on the shoulder as she carried her baby girl over to get her diaper changed.
"Careful when she's in my arms, please mother," Lin said with a smile on her face.
"Let's not get our hopes up. The girl is still weak," Katara warmed.
"Oh come on! When did the Sugar Queen become so fucking pessimistic?!" Toph exclaimed.
"Mother!" Lin scolded. "The children!"
"It's not like the badgermole speaks yet!"
"Still!" Lin exclaimed.
"Alright. So Linny, have you and Junior come up with a name yet for the little girly?"
"No, but we have come up with a name for our son, Hunjian…" Lin replied.
"Courageous hero, I like it!" Katara exclaimed hugging Lin and kissing her on the cheek while Toph remained seated at the kitchen table with her filthy feet up. "What made you choose that name?"
"I chose it because Hungjian both me and new baby from leaving, permanently," Lin said gravely.
"Awww... Lin!" Katara cried hugging Lin and the baby.
"But the GIRL!" Toph asked again.
"Not yet. We didn't know if she was going to live so..." Lin began to say.
"Well, I KNOW her spirit is here to stay. And she's got that Beifong spite already!" Toph yelled making Lin laugh.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Katara asked turning to Toph
"It means she gets great joy out of proving the Sugar Queen wrong about something!" Toph exclaimed.
Katara snorted. "Ha ha, very funny. Lin, see if she can suck now. She should be developed enough."
Lin lifted her little girl to her breast. Instinctively, the three-month-old's tiny lips enclosed Lin's nipple and started sucking.
Lin cried tears of joy, then. Her daughter girl would live. She would live. They were both healthy.
I checked. Yes, at six months of pregnancy the baby still has translucent skin. The article I looked at didn't have pictures so I couldn't verify if it would still have webbed feet and fingers and am too tired to cross-reference at the moment. I hope this chapter wasn't too depressing. There will be light, but then again, this story is still called "Cracks in the Foundation" (which are never really a good thing). I hope you enjoy the series that is:
Cracks in the Foundation (~150AG-~158AG) [in progress]
In Isolation (~158AG-174AG) [in progress]
Lives Forgotten 174AG [complete]
Earth and Air (174AG-Onward) [in progress]
BTW, don't forget to leave a review if you have time or would like to see certain things in this story! All feedback is greatly appreciated.