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“Do you remember how we met?” Aang asks as they lie in bed, her head resting on his chest as he runs slender fingers through her hair.
“Mmph,” she mumbles against his chest, “that was like fifteen years ago.”
He sighs, looking down at his wife who looks so peaceful and cute resting half on top of him.
“It doesn’t feel like fifteen years ago,” he admits, wondering how those years went by so quickly. “I remember when-”
“You need to shhh,” Toph interrupts him with a finger pressed against his lips. “I am trying to sleep.”
Aang lets out a low chuckle, amused by his wife’s crankiness and the adorable pout on her lips.
“Sorry,” he whispers, still threading his fingers through her hair in a soothing motion.
She grumbles something under her breath but it really comes off as more adorable rather than intimidating with the way she’s practically curled on top of him like a kitten. Plus, he feels a little guilty because it’s kind of his fault that she’s not been able to get much sleep the past few nights. Gently, he places a hand on the enlarged swell of her abdomen, feeling their unborn child kick in response. His wife lets out a grunt at being kicked from the inside.
“You had to wake the kid,” she all but whines.
Despite her protests, she makes no move to shift his hand away, instead burrowing her head into his chest. Aang can’t help but reminisce as he thinks about how far they’ve come and how their lives have turned out. Thinking back, he recalls the first time he ever saw Toph, before he knew what she would mean to him. He remembers visions of a girl in a pretty dress, flitting between the trees as he chased after her through the swamp, her laughter ringing in his ears. Even days after the visions, he could still hear the sound of her laughter. A smile pulls at his lips at the rumbling little snores escaping his small and heavily pregnant earthbender now.
Continuing to sweep his thumb against the skin of her abdomen, he thinks about the first time they met. He enjoys laughing about the old memory, his wife however, still holds it against him that he illegally won the Earth Rumble match and disrupted her clean winning streak. Of course after the war she returned to the Earth Rumble competition to reclaim her title, and her championship belt sits proudly on a shelf in their living room. Pressing a small kiss to the top of her head while she sleeps, he marvels at the life they’ve made together. Aang is pretty sure that if someone had told him that he would be married to his earthbending Sifu and expecting his first child with her, he probably would have asked them if they’d drunken cactus juice. In some ways, the idea of he and Toph together seemed almost preposterous, yet in other ways it seemed like perfect sense. After all, opposites do attract.
He is distracted from his thoughts by the feeling of a strong kick against his hand.
“There there little one,” he whispers to his unborn child, “lets not wake your mum up hey.”
His words and soothing voice seem to do the trick because the baby settles and Aang is maybe just a little proud of himself at being able to calm their child without disturbing Toph. Closing his eyes, he tunes into his seismic sense and can feel the tiny pulsing heartbeat in his wife’s womb, along with the strong and slower rhythm of his sleeping wife’s heartbeat. Feeling the vibrations of the life force of the two most important people to him brings him a deep sense of comfort and he allows himself to drift off to sleep feeling the steady vibrations of their hearts beating.
Years later, when they are expecting the birth of their third child, Aang remembers how anxious and excited they had been experiencing the pregnancy and birth of their first child. His wife is far more nonchalant about the whole process now, though she does tell him from time to time how much she does not wish to go through labour again. Holding his first born daughter in his lap, he tells her stories of how she used to kick her mother in her sleep, much like her youngest sibling often does these days, and how he would soothe her in her mother’s womb. She giggles at his story, the sound reminding him so much of the laughter of a young girl he chased through a swamp so many years ago.
“You’re so silly daddy,” she tells him with a devilish grin that makes her look so much like her mother.
He feigns hurt at her words before launching a tickle attack, her arms and legs flailing as she fails to fend off the mighty Avatar’s attack. Her giggles grow louder, turning into shrieks of laughter as she almost falls off his lap, tumbling towards the ground before she is caught by a puff of air that sends her right back into her father’s lap. She quiets as she realises her father has stopped the tickles and is looking at her with an expression she has never seen before, tears threatening to fall from his grey eyes.
“You airbended,” he whispers as a tear leaks down his cheek. “You airbended!” He cries louder, picking her up and twirling her around.
She smiles and laughs at her father’s excitement, thrilled by the way he swings her around in the air, but the significance of the moment is lost on her young mind.
Tears continue to fall from his eyes as he hugs his daughter close, running his hands over the back of her head soothingly. He is overwhelmed with emotions, elation, sadness, relief. For the first time in years he is not the last airbender, and his heart is filled with hope that his culture and his airbending legacy will no longer be lost to the past.