Chapter Text
It was all a blur.
The only thing she could remember was waking up in bed bloody and pained and Kanto carrying her to Katara’s clinic in Republic City; nothing else until the very moment her eyes fluttered open.
Her first thought as she slipped out of unconsciousness was the baby, but at the sound of Kanto’s soft sniffles beside her, her breath caught in her throat and she felt sick to her stomach.
She knew what was wrong, she knew what had happened, but to have to face it was far too much for her to handle just yet, so she squeezed her eyes closed, pulled her hands out of Kanto’s grip, and turned painfully on her side.
“You’re awake,” Kanto said quietly, his voice sounding more anguished than she had ever heard him before. It made her chest tighten further. She didn’t have it in her to respond to him; she couldn’t. Likely knowing this, he continued, “Katara said that you’re going to be okay.”
“No, I’m not,” Toph managed. Her throat felt like sandpaper, dry and gritty. “I won’t be. Neither will you.”
“Toph—”
“Just say it.” She hugged her stomach, the very same stomach that hadn’t even begun to swell as a result of the growing being who was supposed to take residence there for another seven months.
Kanto tried to take her hand again, but they were tightly balling her hospital gown to the point where her fists were shaking from the force. “You’ve had a—the baby—” He took one shuddering breath. “We—we lost the baby.”
Despite already knowing what he was going to say, despite knowing that this was the result of her pain and her agony not long ago, she broke down. Her body became wracked with sobs and she couldn’t breathe.
She turned her head to bury her face into the pillow beneath her head, letting the sounds of her cries be muffled by the cushion and pillowcase. Kanto immediately climbed into the bed with her, pulling her into his chest, letting his own tears share of tears fall as he held her.
The minutes or hours or days that passed after that were lost on her. Kanto’s arms were still around her when she opened her eyes again and it took not much longer after for him to wake up and ask her how she was doing. All she could manage was a shrug before he told her that they were home and that Katara had given him the all-clear to bring her back.
She hadn’t even realized that they were home.
At the mention of her best friend’s name, she remembered Katara popping into the room to talk to Toph about what came next after she broke down back at the hospital, but Toph couldn’t process any of it. There was something about the miscarriage not being complete and there being a lot of blood for the next few days while it happened naturally, but that was about all she heard. She was so detached and unfocused and pained that it all sounded like gibberish no matter how simple and cut and dry it was. It all went in one ear and directly out the other, but she was sure Kanto was listening, he always did.
He would have made an amazing father.
Parents were supposed to listen to their kids, their concerns, and anything having to do with them in order for them to become even better. She had learned that much from Katara and from observing what her parents didn’t do for her.
She knew well that Kanto would have been the best parent. He was already so attentive, always doting on her and having long-winded conversations with what was barely a heartbeat in her stomach.
From the moment he found out about the baby, he showed her how much he wanted this. His excitement at every single check-up with Katara, the way he would beam whenever Toph mentioned that she could feel the baby’s heart beating more strongly one day than another, how he would tell her that he would love this baby with absolutely everything he has.
Kanto didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to have something he wanted so so much stripped away from him.
Toph found herself imagining how he would have interacted with their baby as she burrowed herself further into her bed. He was already so great with their friends’ kids, always making them laugh, always bringing them out of a funk, and always being there for them no matter what the circumstances were. He would have been a dream with their baby.
Now, she would never be able to experience that.
She wouldn’t be able to memorize each and every one of her baby’s features, drink them all in, and store them in her brain to never be forgotten. She wouldn’t be able to take in the newborn-baby smell that would be unique only to her child. She wouldn’t be able to wake up to her baby’s wailing due to their desire for a feeding, a change, or just some warmth from her.
She just… wouldn’t.
For weeks, Toph stayed in that place, lost in her own thoughts and submerged in her own denialism. She questioned why Kanto still had the nursery set up—she didn’t have to ask him to know that he still hadn’t cleaned it out—when their child had already passed away. No matter what they did, they would never be able to hug them or see them grow up, feel their smile, or hear them laugh.
Quite ironic that she felt so broken when she didn’t even think she wanted a child in the first place.
All she wanted now was to hold the kid she’d never have the chance to.
It had been twenty-four days and she couldn’t move. She had barely been eating, in fact.
Toph could hear the murmurs of her friends and boyfriend outside the bedroom she chose to stay in. She needed to be alone.
She had a strong, strong urge to whip off her blanket, stand up, and send them all to hell for talking about her as though she was not there. It was something she utterly despised, for people to be making assumptions and be yammering on and on about shit they knew nothing about.
She would have opened the door and shouted at everyone until they realized that they had overstayed their welcome and that they had no business trying to get her out of her room or attempting to speculate about what she felt. They had no right.
But she couldn’t find it within herself to do it.
It didn’t seem worth it, standing up and telling them off.
Nothing seemed worth it anymore.
Never in her life had she felt the way she did then. She felt alone and pained and… empty. For nine weeks, only weeks, she was so full of life and genuine happiness. This baby had given her the desire to be a mother, something that she never thought would be possible. But just like that, the desire was ripped away and she would never know the joys of motherhood.
She would never get to know her baby, she would never know whether they would have been a little boy or a little girl, she would never know if they would have been an earthbender or a firebender or a non-bender. She wouldn’t have cared, either way, but she still would never know.
Welcoming a baby of her own into the world had become such a nice idea. It terrified her to no end because she continually wondered, even before she was pregnant, whether or not she’d be a good mother or whether or not she’d treat her kids the way her parents treated her. But Kanto was there to settle her down. He always was.
Now, though, as she tried to keep the tears from falling as they had been for twenty-four straight days, she didn’t want him to settle her down. She wanted to suffer in the pain she was in because this couldn’t have been anyone’s fault but hers.
Had she not been so previously insistent on not wanting to be a mother out of fear of being a shit one, she would probably still be having silly little one-sided conversations with the little bean in her belly.
She would also not feel as empty as she did.
It was not as though she didn’t deserve to feel this way, however.
The conversation outside her bedroom ceased and she heard the front door shut quietly as soon as it did. Toph sunk deeper into her pillow and covered her head with the blanket that wrapped around her because she knew that Kanto was going to try to get her to talk to him. She didn’t much feel like talking.
As she suspected, she could hear his footsteps nearing the bedroom before the sound of the door creeping open. He stood at the entryway for a few moments, then hesitantly approached the bed and sat down just next to her.
His hand went to her head. “Baby, you’ve got to get up and eat something.”
Toph gave him no response. She didn’t even move, though a tear that she had been fighting for about an hour finally fell.
“Katara and Zuko brought you some broth. They figured it’d be easy to drink up. And Sokka brought along some of that seal jerky the two of you like eating. He said he brought it back from the Southern Water Tribe after a visit with his dad.”
Again, she didn’t reply, keeping her eyes shut tightly as the tears continued to slip out of her eyes.
“Tea and crackers aren’t going to keep you healthy—”
“I don’t care.”
Kanto must have been stunned by the fact that she had actually spoken because the only sound she heard at that moment was a sharp intake of breath. She had said only a few words to him since That Day, she could count them in a hand if asked to do so. It was also evident that she hadn’t spoken much because her voice was hoarse and gravelly and unlike her own.
“Toph, I really hate seeing you like this.”
She scoffed and harshly wiped away her tears before moving the blanket off her head, and therefore his hand. “Then look away.”
He let out a shaky breath, one that would have broken her more than what she was already if she had been paying more attention, and said, “I’m trying to help you. I’m doing what I can here, baby.”
“Then don’t.” Toph shut her eyes immediately after she said it, feeling agonized, and tears began to cascade down the sides of her face more easily.
“Toph,” Kanto said, his voice tight, “this happened to the both of us.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do—”
“You don’t,” Toph growled, sitting up abruptly. She felt like she was going insane, but the pain in her heart increased tenfold at that. All the anger, all the resentment she was feeling toward the universe and everyone around her came floating to the surface. “You really fucking don’t and you’re really fucking lucky that you never have to know the misery I’m feeling.
“You never have to go through having something, something that’s yours, growing in your body, knowing that you and the person you love made it. You’ll never have to go through loving it from the moment you knew about its existence, despite any irrational fucking fear you had of being a shit parent. You’ll—you’ll never have to go through getting all of that ripped away and suddenly feeling this—this void inside of you and not knowing how to get rid of it. You’ll never know what it is to have to blame yourself day in and day out for that all happening, for not wanting to have kids, for doing everything you could to avoid it from happening.
“You never—you’re fucking lucky that you’ll never have to go through that.”
Kanto left her alone for a few days after that, only wordlessly walking in to set a cup of tea and crackers or a roll and some meat along with a kiss to her head multiple times daily without so much as a thank you from her.
Maybe she deserved what she was going through, after all.
On the thirtieth day, Toph decided that she needed to get up and do something other than pee no matter how much she didn’t want to. She wasn’t going to allow herself to wither away even if she believed with all her might that she deserved every second of hell she was living.
Toph found herself missing her life, her work, Kanto… she longed for it all, and she felt guilty for wanting things that were at arm’s length after having lost a child, but she couldn’t help it. She missed it, she missed her friends and her boyfriend—she needed them all.
Despite herself, she kicked the covers off her body, forced herself to a sitting position, and walked over to the bathroom to bathe. The water filled the tub and as soon as she could, she sunk into the water, relieved to feel the hot water envelop her body. It was the first time she found herself actually wanting to shed the thick film of sorrow that covered her; she was determined to do so, in fact.
For a while, Toph let herself sit in the water, unmoving, as the water did its job to relax her as best it could. Then, she found herself sliding down the side of the tub, submerging herself within it.
Her mind flooded with thoughts of the life she could have had with Kanto and this baby, wondering if she would have even had the opportunity to give herself a bath like this with a baby in their lives. Kanto would have probably told her that he would certainly be able to handle the baby if anything crazy happened while she took her bath. A few seconds later, she would hear the baby’s wailing and Kanto trying to coax them back to sleep. She would shake her head fondly, climb out of the tub, wrap a towel around herself, and save him from the tears, while he said, “I had it! I was handling it!” and she would reply, “Sure, you were, Hotshot.”
And they would be happy.
Toph abruptly resurfaced, breathing heavily as she let fresh tears fall from her eyes. Her hand went up to cover her mouth and muffle her sobs, mourning the life she and Kanto could have had if their baby had made it through.
She made quick work of washing herself—harshly scrubbing as if that would rid her of the pain she was in—and pushed herself out of the tub to get herself ready.
As she slipped on a zhong yi and a banbi, she realized how deteriorated she was. Her clothes were looser-fitting than she remembered them being, and Toph had never been one to lose so much weight without gaining it back in muscle. She shook her head.
No. She was not going to let herself depreciate further. She wasn’t going to keep being this shell of a woman that everyone knew. She didn’t want this for herself.
Her baby wouldn’t have wanted this for her, either. She was certain.
With a shaky, deep breath, Toph tightened her banbi around her shoulders and left the room to have a talk with Kanto.
He was in the nursery.
The room was less than halfway finished. She and Kanto had managed to paint one of the walls as they ended up in a paint war, effectively slathering themselves in paint rather than the room itself the last time she had been in here. There was an earthen cradle that was fully put together in the center of the room along with a changing table a few feet away from it up against one of the walls.
Toph wrapped her arms around herself, trying to keep her breathing even and steady as she nudged the half-open door before walking into the room. He was sitting right in front of the cradle with his legs drawn into his chest, his chin laying on his knees.
She didn’t know how to approach him after what she told him a week ago, so she was grateful that he was the one to speak first after he heard her come in.
“You’re up.”
He sounded as surprised about her being on her feet as she did, maybe even more. His voice was rougher than what she was used to and her heart sank. The realization that he had gone through the same thing she had alone brought fresh tears to her eyes. And he was on his feet within seconds, pulling her into his chest, cocooning her in his embrace as he let out his own share of sobs.
Her tears seeped into his shirt and she tugged on his clothes to bring him impossibly closer to her. She missed him, and she was an absolute fool for pushing him away when she clearly needed him. He understood what she was going through because he lost this baby, too.
It took them a few seconds to calm down, but when they did, he walked her over to the far end of the room and they sat against the wall. Kanto kept his arms around her as she curled into him.
“I’m—I’m really sorry about—I didn’t mean to say what I said. I—I would never want you to think—”
Kanto quickly kissed her, quieting her down. He tasted salty from the tears they were shedding. Then, he said, “Don’t. Don’t apologize, okay? You’re grieving—”
“Well, so are you, Kanto,” she whispered, not trusting her own voice at that point. She rested her forehead against his. “You’re grieving, too.”
That must have done it for him because he broke down again, becoming a mess of sobs. He was clearly trying to be strong for her, but there was also likely so much he had been holding back since everything happened, and it didn’t help that she couldn’t find it within herself to be there for him just as he had been trying to be for her.
She had been pushing away her need for her safe place, her need for him, away so much, with so much conviction that she had forgotten that he needed a safe place, that he needed her, too. So she let him cling to her, and he let him soak her shirt just as she was soaking his hair as she held him to her chest.
There was nothing left to do but let it all out.
Some weeks after that conversation and being given the all-clear from Katara—and after apologizing profusely to her and Zuko and Sokka and Aang—, Toph threw herself into training and workouts and work, leaving very little time for her to think about everything.
Every morning she would wake up, slip out of Kanto’s embrace, and go straight to work before he even awoke. She’d start by checking in with her officers, and if the day wasn’t packed with cases, she’d go straight down to the training quarters to bend until she bled, until her muscles ached, until she could barely walk straight. If she was needed for a case, she’d put her workout on hold, and she would tend to matters, insisting on doing most of the work herself and pushing anyone she deemed as incompetent out of her way.
She refused to work on any cases with Kanto for some weeks, though. She couldn’t stand him looking at her as though she was one horse stance away from breaking. She knew that he wanted to tell her to take it easy.
Toph didn’t know easy; she just needed to work, she needed something to make her feel normal.
And every night, she would return home, barely able to walk, relishing the pain she felt. It gave her something to focus on as she tried to build herself back up.
This was the only way she knew how.
She had to give Kanto props for not hovering too much during this time. He knew her enough to not question her, and she figured that he also knew what she was doing. She loved him for that and so many other things.
Kanto hadn’t pushed her to talk more than she was willing to. He gave her space but was readily there when she needed him, and it was more than she would ever ask for. He let her cry, he heard her out when she needed to talk… he was her rock.
There were times throughout the following weeks after her breakthrough when she would wake up in the middle of her night, clutching her stomach and breaking down into sobs. She would do her best to keep quiet, but Kanto would have his arms around her within seconds, embracing her and letting her feel what she was feeling. Sometimes, she would even feel him shaking with his own tears. But they would hold each other, they would be there for each other, and they went through every single emotion together.
Months passed, and those months became a year. Toph had begun to feel so much more like herself, though she still felt this vague sense of loss. Katara said that it was normal, considering the fact that she had worked with women who had lost their babies just as Toph had and that she was in a good place in her recovery. Toph agreed.
She hadn’t thought much about the night everything happened as the time passed, but one afternoon, as Kanto and Toph were sharing lunch at work, he had given her a reason to think back on it.
“Would you ever want to try again?”
The question took her by surprise. Even a year after everything had happened, Toph still felt a great deal of pain whenever she thought about the miscarriage. Since then, she hadn’t been able to give having kids any thought; she couldn’t do it.
It took her a long time to respond, her mind was blank. She felt her chest tighten and her stomach clench as she thought back to how and what she experienced, what a dark place she was in. She was certain that she didn’t want to go through that again.
But she wanted to have kids with him. She wanted to start a family with Kanto.
Still, what came out of her mouth tearfully was, “I can’t do that to myself again. I can’t—It was too much last time and I don’t want to ever put you and everyone through that again—”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Kanto told her, pulling her into his chest and kissing the top of her head as she melted against him, trying to blink away her tears, their lunch forgotten on the ground where they sat. “We don’t have to talk about it right now, and—and we don’t even have to revisit it if you don’t want to, but I still want you to know that I’ll love you no matter what it is you decide, alright? Just—all I ask is that you talk to me. Don’t push me away again because I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it.”
Toph’s hand balled his shirt into her fist and burrowed her face into his chest, basking in his warmth and scent. She took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down, but having trouble keeping her tears at bay.
Losing that baby destroyed her. It had broken her beyond repair.
But she couldn’t let that define her future, she decided. If she wanted to start a family, she was damn well going to try, no matter how scary, no matter how much it frightened her. She would try again someday for the baby they’d lost.
If it happens, it happens.