"OZAI!" Ursa exclaimed for the third time, finally rousing me from my usual deep sleep.

"What? Is it time?" I asked immediately, having anticipated such a rude awakening for some days by that point.

She calmed down the second I woke up.

"Yes. It's time," she said, allowing me to panic and leap out of our bed.

"I'll get the midwi—"

"They're sleeping."

"I mean a messeng—"

"Also sleeping. There are guards in the hallway," she reminded me softly as she got up.

Ozai threw open the door and roared at them before rushing back to my side and helping me into the next bedchamber, which would've been mine if we ever slept separately, so I could give the poor room some use for the first time in our marriage.

"What else do you need?" he demanded, frantic from idleness once I was finally settled.

"The midwives are bringing everything."

"Water? Are you thirsty?"

"Not right now, my love," I did my best to assure him, smiling with that soft, peaceful smile she always smiled with. "We just have to wait."

She grimaced at another contraction, and I half-ordered her to squeeze my hand.

Ursa chuckled but held it anyway, practicing the breathing technique she'd learned as I pretended my heart wasn't permanently scarred from pounding into my ribs so frequently in such a short period of time.

"Why aren't they here yet?"

"Ozai, it's been one minute."

"It's been an eon!" he contradicted in ferocity, glaring at the doors and waving his free arm in anger.

"Of course it has, dear. Forgive me. You're the one in labor," I stated without harshness, but he blushed and silenced himself, holding on to my hand as if he was the one in—

The life inside me, whom I loved more and more each passing day, stirred again, but this wave was much more intense than the others.

My panic began.

Should it hurt this much? It shouldn't hurt this much. It shouldn't…

I couldn't swallow back a whimper, and that little confession of pain made Ozai's light up like they hadn't in years.

By the time the midwives arrived, he was wiping the sweat off my brow with a cloth, and I could barely speak for the pain. I wanted to cry so desperately, but Ozai's eyes had no emotion. His face seemed drained of every expression it had ever conveyed. His solemnity did nothing to comfort me, but his warm, soft hand did. The midwives did their best to persuade him to leave, unaccustomed to having a man in a birthing room and more than a little appalled by the break in tradition.

Once their requests became truly persistent, my grave-faced prince finally spoke to them.

With eyes on fire.

"I'm not leaving her."

They gulped and flinched at the look he sent them. I couldn't blame them. Those flames of molten gold threatened to consume any and all who dared to disagree.

But I was in too much pain to scold him or feel much sympathy.

I didn't want him to leave.

It was a long labor where Ursa's pain doubled in me, especially when she finally began to squeeze my hand enough to cut off circulation. I couldn't stop tear my eyes away from her face, from the pain written there thanks to this parasite I'd injected in her. It didn't matter how much we'd been looking forward to the little one's arrival, how many times I'd felt those kicks or whispered songs to her belly, or how much we already loved that babe more than anything in the world… In the chaos of that room, I truly viewed our child as a parasite, an enemy that threatened the life of my world.

This child is lucky to be born at all.

The more the midwives assured me that everything was fine, that such crawling-like-a-snail-sloth hours were perfectly normal, the more convinced I became they were lying. In my frenzy, I accused them of deceit openly and growled threats against their lives if Ursa didn't make it.

When the head midwife finally said that this was almost over, I thought she'd turn to ash immediately. I squeezed my husband's hand harder, silencing him if not softening that hellish glare, and spoke for us.

And after only a few more minutes of complete agony, peace filled the world in the form of a baby's cry.

"It's a prince!" the joyful midwife announced in this universally felt triumph of mine.

Of Ozai's and mine.

I'd been so sure my wife was dying. I'd felt my heart rip as she screamed and tear herself. I'd been unable to look away from her reddened face contorting in pain after pain. I'd wanted to burn everything, even the life that had been growing in my wife for nine months.

"Told you so," I sighed, in delirium and relief, to my shocked, beautiful Ozai.

But then he was here. Then he was crying and wriggling in my arms with clenched fists. Two hands, two feet, two ears, two closed eyes, a dozen dark hairs, and one perfect, beating heart. I held the world in my hands. An angel so fragile and so alive, the embodiment of our love. He wasn't just a part of myself. He was a part of Ursa. He was her, and he was me, and loving him was loving both of us in one. I could never love myself as much as Ursa loved me, and Ursa could never love herself as much as I did, but we could both love him.

Ozai didn't say anything; he didn't have to. I just looked at him as he gazed down at our little life, and then I just looked at our little life.

When my gaze met those eyes of hers again, I realized she had never been more beautiful.

He only spoke when someone asked the name.

"Zuko," he stated, our eyes still locked. "His name is Zuko."

Tears welled up in her eyes, and she didn't have to say thank you.

"I love you," I whispered to him first.

We both leaned down to kiss the namesake of my mother, Lady Yuko.