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Katara sat at her desk in their home on Air Temple Island going over the latest public health bill she would bring to the Council tomorrow. It was her day to stay home with the kids per the schedule her and Aang organized when they returned to Republic City after 5 years in the South. She had only slipped away for a few moments until there was a knock on the door. There always was.
“Come in!” She called out, not looking away from her work.
Only as the door creaked, she turned and as she expected, it was the two most precious beings of her entire world. She watched as Kya and Bumi anxiously entered the room with the workings of a plan barely hidden behind their masks of innocence.
“Excuse me, Mommy?” Kya said once she approached her desk.
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Me and Bumi just have to tell you something.” Oh dear, what’s broken now? she thought.
“What is it?”
“We were talking and we just want a baby brother.” Katara felt the air leave her lungs. That was definitely not what she expected.
“You wa- Why do you want a baby brother?” she stammered.
“Because I already have a big one!” she exclaimed with a grin. Katara looked past her at the 7-year-old boy who stayed a couple footsteps away.
“And why do you want a baby brother, mister?”
“Because I already have a baby sister,” he replied like it just made sense. Katara held in her laugh at their matching responses.
“Yeah, so just go get one, Mommy!” Kya interjected.
“Excuse me? And where exactly am I supposed to go get a baby?” she asked incredulously.
“Um, you have to go to the icy place where Grandpa is.”
“Huh?”
“That's where Bumi said I came from!”
Katara raised her eyebrows and frowned. “Bumi, you know where babies come from.”
He sighed. “They just come from Mommy’s belly,” he told the 3-year-old.
Kya's face twisted up in confusion and looked down to her mother’s midsection. “But how they get in there?” She tilted her head.
Katara groaned. She was so not having this conversation right now. “Daddy has to help me.” she said succinctly, hoping that would be enough to satisfy the toddler. She knew it wasn’t.
“Ok, so just call Daddy and tell him to bring home the baby so he can put it in there!”
“That’s not-” Katara put her hand over her face in frustration. “Sweetie, it’s not like getting a snack from the market.” She put her hands on Kya’s shoulders. “Look, when Daddy comes home, I will talk to him, okay?”
“No! Just call him now!” Kya folded her arms.
“Kya, I said no. You have to wait,” she scolded, finally putting on her stern voice. “Now go on and play with your brother. Bumi,” she signaled. He came forward and took Kya’s hand.
“Come on, let’s go before we get in trouble,” he mumbled.
The 3 year old stomped out the office after her brother, but not before turning to give her mother a mean glare for not doing her bidding.
Katara turned back to her desk shaking her head, half annoyed and half amused at the little one’s entitlement. Yet, as she tried to return her focus to her scrolls, it was hard to get the image of another newborn swaddled in her arms out of her mind.
Later that evening, the four of them sat for dinner as a family. Bumi was giving a rather dramatic recount of the day as usual, with Aang laughing intermittently. Katara drifted in and out as the pair chatted while Kya remained uncharacteristically quiet, waiting for her time to strike.
During a pause in between Bumi and Aang’s conversation about the discovery of a new critter on the island, Kya finally chimed in. “Daddy?”
“Yes, princess?” He answered as he brought a forkful of noodles to his mouth.
“Did Mommy tell you about getting a new baby?”
Katara watched as Aang entered a state of shock. His shoulders reached his ears and his fork hung in the air as he looked at his wife questioningly. After a few seconds, he set the fork down and finally replied, “No, she didn’t.”
“See? I knew you wasn’t gonna!”
“I was going to tell you later.” She put her right hand over his left to calm him down.
“Tell me what, exactly?” his eyes glanced down past her waist before looking into her own, searching for answers.
“That I just want a baby brother!” Kya interjected again.
Aang's head whipped back at the girl. “Oh, do you now?”
“Yeah, and Bumi too!”
Aang turned to Bumi who just shrugged in agreement. Aang straightened and drank from his glass, suddenly parched. “After dinner, Mommy and I will talk about it, okay?”
To a 3-year-old, that didn’t sound like a yes, so it definitely was not okay. “Mommy already told me you have to put it in her belly, so just do it!” she insisted.
Aang almost choked on his water. “Katara!” He exclaimed in shock.
She raised her two hands, “She kept asking how it works!”
“Stop talking and just TRY!” Kya shouted impatiently.
“That's enough!” He put the glass down. Katara knew he was just trying to rein their daughter in, but something inside her chipped away at the finality of his tone. Her facial muscles twitched involuntarily before settling back to her neutral expression before he could notice. Of course, he noticed. “When Mommy and I are alone we will talk about it, okay?” he repeated slower and more firmly.
“Okay,” Kya replied dejectedly under his stern gaze. His eyes softened at her before picking back up his fork. In the corner of his eye, he observed Katara and thought to himself, This is going to be a long night.
After the kids were tucked in with kisses and a special hug from Kya to her papa to make up for dinner, Aang and Katara settled in bed.
Katara hadn’t brought up the subject and Aang definitely wasn’t going to. As he made to rest his head on his pillow, thinking maybe he just imagined that particular expression on her face, she finally spoke.
“So, what do you think?”
He hesitated. “About what Kya said?”
“Mm-hmm.”
Aang sat up to face her. She refused to meet his eyes, looking at their sheets.
“Well,” he started, not really knowing what to say and really not wanting to say the wrong thing. “I think we need to, uh, seriously consider what that would mean, for our family, and for us.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Everything would change, again.”
“Right.”
There was a pregnant pause.
He decided to broach further into that look from earlier. “What do you think about it?”
“I don’t know. I've definitely been... pondering it.” She said still not looking at him, graduating from looking at the sheets to her hands as they fiddled with the hem of her nightgown.
“Pondering,” he echoed with his eyebrows raised.
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he muttered resignedly. They weren’t going to get anywhere if the discussion carried on like this. He tried a different approach. “After Kya, I thought we said we were done,” finally voicing what he was holding in for the last hour.
She finally looked at him. “That is what we said.”
“Have you changed your mind?”
“Have you?”
Aang was taken aback at this. He liked to think he had a good memory and if his recollection of events was right, she was the one who declared, rather definitively after giving birth, that Kya would be the last one. He agreed with her, because of course he would.
He was starting to wonder whether he agreed too readily.
He cleared his throat. “To be honest with you, I haven’t thought much about it since.”
“Me neither, until this afternoon.”
“Because of Kya.”
“And Bumi,” she added.
And yourself, he wanted to say. Aang was adept at recognizing the signs of want in Katara by now. When she wanted something so badly, she was scared to admit that she even wanted it at all. When she so desperately wanted to dive headfirst into the unknown but was afraid to discover that she was falling alone. He would never let that happen.
“A newborn would mean back to morning sickness, back to midnight feedings, the dirty diapers.” She knew what he was getting at. Kya was just potty trained and Bumi would be starting school this year. They were just getting on top of things as parents and public officials.
“I'm aware.”
“Another little one to take care of, another that needs our attention,” he carried on. “You and me, we’re not getting any less busy.”
Katara looked him dead in the eye and he could tell that her mind was set. She wanted this, now he just had to get her to admit it to him and more importantly, to herself.
When she lowered her eyes again, he continued, “It would also mean a whole lot more love entering this house and our lives.” She looked up hopefully. “Just like when we had Bumi in our old apartment across the bay and Kya in your grandmother’s igloo,” he said warmly.
She looked back at him again with misty eyes. “I think I want this, Aang,” she whispered.
There it was. “Yeah?”
“But I need to know if you want this, too.”
He sucked in a deep breath. The truth was it was just as hard for Aang to admit when he wanted things. Most days he felt incredibly lucky and fortunate for everything they built together already. On the occasional ugly days, he felt rather undeserving and even selfish. He would let Katara have whatever she wanted to make up for every time he was pulled away from her, for everything he felt he lacked as a partner. She gave so much; there was nothing he wouldn’t give her in return.
Of course, Katara recognized this in him just like Aang recognized it in her and would never let him give too much.
From the deepest corners of his memory, the dregs of a drunken exchange started coming back to him. He wanted to see if she remembered it too.
“Do you remember when Zuko held that party for my 18th birthday and I got incredibly tipsy off of rice wine?” He rattled off with a lopsided grin.
Katara reeled at the sudden pivot. “What?”
“And you held me as I sobered up and asked you a million and one questions?”
“I remember... vaguely. In fact, from what I can remember, I'm surprised that you remember anything from that night at all.”
Aang chuckled. “I hardly remember much, myself. It was all a blur until things started winding down, when I realized I was in your arms and there wasn’t any question you wouldn’t answer.”
She remembered now.
They were in the back of a night parlor on Ember Island, sprawled across a plush velvet couch far away from the noise and the crowd.
Aang's head was resting on her lap, with a light blush dusting his cheeks and ears. He had definitely overdone it. She had never seen him let loose like that before. They danced; he drank. They played party games; he drank. They cut the cake and he drank some more.
Now, he was a mess in her arms, asking her sweet things and inappropriate things and ridiculous things and she answered them all, no matter how absurd because she felt like indulging him and he was adorable like this.
“And what about babies?” Aang asked softly.
She lightly traced the arrow on his head with her left index finger. “What about babies?”
“Would you have my babies?”
Her finger paused momentarily and her heartbeat with it. “Hmm, depends. How many do you want?”
“Three. Or four,” he murmured.
She returned to her tracing and giggled. “Now I don't know who’s having four babies,” she teased. “But...”
“...three doesn’t sound too bad,” she finished in the present. She shook her head with a smile, as the same giggle from 12 years ago, threatened to leave her lips.
“What?”
She rolled her eyes playfully. “You are ridiculous.”
“I'm ridiculous and we’re having another baby.” He declared, inching towards her.
“Yes, we are.” She bit her lip to stop her cheeks from bursting.
“Well, you heard the young one. It’s time to stop talking and just try,” he joked as he leaned in to kiss her.
“Aang, wait!” She put her hands up on his chest.
He pulled away instantly. “What, what?”
“We have to do this properly.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You know I told you about all those traditions I was following, when we were trying for a girl?”
“Yeah,” he replied cautiously with a raised eyebrow. “I also remember you telling me that they were just a bunch of myths and you didn’t actually believe in them.”
“And I didn’t! Don’t!”
“But...?”
“But they worked, didn’t they?” she replied sheepishly.
“Spirits, Katara.”
“I just wanna do it right this one last time.”
“You’re really adamant on not having that fourth one, huh?” he teased.
“Aang!”
He collapsed onto his pillow with a dramatic sigh. “My love, when you’re ready you just let me know, okay?”
The giggle of her 20-year-old self finally came out, as she got under the covers and snuggled into his arms, as all the candles went out at once.