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The palace physician had said it so matter-of-factly three years ago.
“Given your unique physiology, Lady Beifong, conception would be highly unlikely"
that Toph had shrugged and promptly forgotten about it.
Zuko, ever the worrier, had double-checked with two more healers, but the answer never changed. So they’d stopped being careful.
Not that they’d ever been particularly careful to begin with.
Their bedroom had become something of a warzone not in the angry sense.
but in the way Zuko’s fire occasionally scorched the silk drapes when he got too enthusiastic, or how Toph’s strong grip. left faint cracks in the headboard when she gripped it too hard.
The servants had learned not to flinch at the sounds of collapsing furniture.
The first clue was the morning Toph practically threw Zuko off of her during their morning sex to go throw up.
One moment, Zuko had been tracing the curve of her hip with his tongue, the next.
WHAM!
he hit the wall with a grunt, silk sheets tangled around his legs.
By the time he'd peeled himself off the plaster, Toph was already hunched over the chamber pot in the bathroom.
cursing loudly enough to make the palace guards outside shift uncomfortably.
"Toph?"
Zuko scrambled up, bare feet slapping against the cool marble as he rushed after her.
He found her gripping the porcelain like she wanted to crush it, her usual golden complexion tinged green.
"Was it the turtle-duck eggs last night? I told the kitchens—"
"Shut up, Sparky.” Toph groaned.
She was pressing her forehead against the cool rim of the toilet.
"It wasn't the damn eggs." She inhaled sharply through her nose, fingers tightening.
the porcelain gave an ominous crack under her grip. Zuko watched a hairline fracture spiderweb across the surface like frost spreading over a pond in winter.
The next sign happened a week later.
Zuko had barely finished adjusting his ceremonial shoulder plates before Toph's bare foot connected with his ribs hard enough to send him stumbling into a guard.
The clatter of metal on marble echoed through the throne room like a gong.
"You're breathing too loud.”
Toph snapped, her usual smirk was gone, she had a scowl on her face. She was truly pissed off.
Zuko flinched and ran away. Not the dignified retreat of a Fire Lord.
But instead the panicked scramble of a man who'd just realized his entire world was about to tilt sideways because of his wife who barely came up to his shoulder.
His ceremonial headpiece clattered to the floor again as he bolted past the gaping guard, feet slapping against marble in a rhythm that sounded suspiciously like oh shit oh shit oh shit.
Zuko made it exactly three corridors before a jagged crack erupted across the floor ahead of him.
He skidded to a halt just as Toph erupted from the stone like a pissed-off badgermole, arms crossed and scowl deeper than the chasm she'd just created.
“Running from your problems, Sparky?"
she drawled, tapping one foot against the rubble. The cracks in the floor obediently stitched themselves back together.
All of a sudden, Toph doubled over in pain, her stomach aching with a sharpness that stole her breath.
She clutched her middle, fingers digging into the fabric of her tunic hard enough to tear stitches.
The marble beneath her feet rippled violently, sending cracks spiderwebbing outward in jagged lines.
Zuko was at her side before the first pebble hit the floor, his hands hovering uncertainly over her shoulders.
“Toph—?" His voice cracked mid-syllable.
"Shut up." she hissed through clenched teeth.
The pain was different, not the dull throb of training injuries or the clean burn of battle wounds.
This was deeper, twisting low in her gut like something alive and impatient.
The palace walls trembled in response to her discomfort, dust drifting from the ceiling.
As the pain got worse she fell to her knees, screaming because of the pain.
Zuko didn't ask. He didn't hesitate. One moment Toph was crumpled on the cracked marble, the next she was airborne.
swept up in arms that had carried her a hundred times before. after sparring matches, during palace escapades, across their bedroom threshold. but never like this.
Never with his heartbeat thundering against her back like a war drum.
"Put me down, you overgrown—"
Toph's snarl dissolved into a gasp as another wave of pain twisted through her.
Her fingers scrabbled against Zuko's ceremonial armor, leaving deep grooves in the gold plating.
"No." The word came out clipped, final.
Zuko's jaw was set so tight she could hear his teeth grinding. He adjusted his grip, one arm beneath her knees, the other supporting her back, and broke into a run that sent his half-loose topknot whipping behind them like a banner.
The palace corridors blurred past in a streak of crimson tapestries and startled servants as Zuko sprinted.
Toph’s weight familiar against his chest but her stillness terrifying.
Her usual litany of insults was absent just sharp, controlled breaths through her nose, her fingers now gripping his armor straps instead of tearing through them.
That scared him more than any earthquake she could’ve summoned.
"Almost there," he muttered.
more to himself than to her, as they rounded the corner to the royal infirmary.
The double doors burst open before they reached them. The Physician Rin had clearly felt the tremors.
Her gray eyebrows shot up at the sight of the Fire Lord cradling his seething wife, but she merely snapped her fingers at the aides flanking her.
“Prep the examination room. Now."
Toph thrashed as soon as Zuko laid her on the padded table.
“I don’t need a damn check-up—" Another spasm cut her off mid-sentence.
Her knee jerked up, narrowly missing Rin’s chin as the physician reached for her wrist.
Rin caught Toph's ankle mid-air with the practiced ease of someone who'd delivered half the noble babies in Caldera City.
“Yes, you do need a check-up, my Lady.” she said, pressing two fingers to the inside of Toph's wrist without missing a beat.
Her other hand hovered over Toph's abdomen, not quite touching.
“Unless you enjoy cracking palace foundations every time your womb decides to redecorate."
Zuko choked on air.
“What do you mean!?" His question died as Rin shot him a look that had terrified him since childhood.
when she'd stitched up his scraped knees after failed firebending drills.
Toph's growl vibrated through the examination table.
“Listen here, you fossil—"
Rin ignored Toph's snarl with the patience of a woman who'd handled cranky nobles for sixty years.
Her fingers pressed deeper into Toph's wrist, then suddenly froze.
The physician's nostrils flared an almost imperceptible reaction, but Zuko saw it. He'd spent too many years reading minuscule tells in war rooms not to notice when Rin's pulse jumped at her own throat.
"Well?"
Toph snapped, kicking her free leg like a trapped animal.
“Am I dying or what?"
Rin's fingers lingered a heartbeat longer than necessary before she withdrew with deliberate slowness.
She turned to Zuko with an unreadable expression, her wrinkled hands clasped behind her back.
"Congratulations," she said dryly, "you've managed the statistically impossible."
The silence that followed was the kind that made even the most chill palace guards tense up
Toph's fingers curled into the examination table's padding, tearing through the silk like rice paper.
“W-what do you mean?”
Toph asked nervously, scared she already knew the answer.
“You’re pregnant.” Rin told the two.
Zuko’s fingers dug into the padded table's edge like he was drowning.
“That's not—" His voice cracked higher than it had since he was thirteen.
“The healers all said—"
Toph’s hands trembled against her abdomen. The examination table groaned as fresh cracks splintered outward from beneath her.
"I told you we should've kept using those damn sea sponge things Katang kept sending!”
Toph snapped at Zuko.
Rin cleared her throat with the authority of someone who'd overseen three generations of royal meltdowns.
"My Lord, my Lady. I’ll give you two some time.”
That night when Toph and Zuko laid in bed, they held each other tighter.
They discussed whether they wanted to keep it a secret or not.
9 months later
Toph was shaking as she held there new born baby.
“It’s a girl!” Rin said.
Toph could hear sniffles coming from Zuko as he poked the baby’s cheek.
“We’re gonna name her… Lin.”
Toph and Zuko said in unison.