At twenty-eight, Fire Lord Zuko had grown used to reading people before they spoke. Court had taught him that—war had sharpened it—but it was with her that the skill felt quiet instead of vigilant.

He noticed the change the moment he stepped into their chambers.

His wife was curled in on herself atop the bed, not asleep, not resting—enduring. The tell was small, almost nothing at all: the faint pinch between her brows, the careful way her hand pressed low against her abdomen, as if she might hold the pain still if she kept it contained. Menstrual cramps. He had learned the signs over time, learned the rhythm of it, the way it came and went and sometimes lingered longer than it should.

Zuko did not announce himself. He crossed the room, the soft shift of his boots against the floor the only sound, and sat beside her. The mattress dipped, familiar, steady.

“Hey,” he murmured, softer than he ever spoke in council. A brief pause. “Where does it hurt?”

She shifted just enough to show him.

He nodded once, understanding settling in his expression, and without ceremony placed both hands flat against her lower stomach. There was no spark, no sudden flare—only warmth. Slow, deliberate, carefully summoned. It spread beneath his palms in a measured rise, the product of years spent mastering control over something that had once ruled him.

His jaw tightened faintly as he focused, gaze drifting somewhere past her shoulder. Not distant—just… careful.

“Is that too hot?”

A beat, then quieter, almost instinctive: “Tell me if it’s too hot.”

She answered that it was fine. Perfect.

Zuko gave a small nod, but the tension in him didn’t quite ease. It never did, not with this. Two minutes passed, and like clockwork:

“Still okay?”

The question came again and again, soft, steady, as though repetition might somehow guard against mistake. It wasn’t that he doubted his control—he had spent years proving that. It was that some part of him still remembered being told his fire was too much. That it hurt. That it destroyed.

So he asked.

And in the asking, there was something quieter, threaded beneath it. Something he could not quite say plainly.

I love you and I am terrified of hurting you...

The warmth beneath his hands wasn’t fixed. It shifted with her, adjusting without being asked. When she curled tighter, it followed. When she turned onto her side, he moved with her without thinking—one hand sliding to rest along the curve of her hip, the other repositioning with gentle precision. Always steady. Always enough.

“Still not too hot?” he murmured again after a while.

He didn’t fill the silence otherwise. He never did. With her, it wasn’t needed.

After some time, he spoke once more, almost as an afterthought. “Do you want tea?”

Her answer was quiet, half-lost in the room, but he nodded as if it had been clear. A few minutes later, he eased his hands away—slowly, so the warmth lingered in their absence—and returned with a cup already steeped, faint steam curling from its surface. He set it within her reach, careful, like it mattered.

Then he sat back down.

Close enough that she could still feel him, the steady, ambient heat that seemed to exist around him now, no longer wild or untamed but constant. Reliable.

Minutes passed. Then again, softly:

“Is it still helping?”

If she thanked him, he stilled for a fraction too long, shoulders drawing tight in a way that betrayed him.

“It’s nothing,” Zuko said, a touch too quickly, eyes flicking away toward the far wall. “I just… it seemed like it helped.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, almost self-conscious. “I can keep going, if you want.”