Water Tribe Represent

"They're not going to kick, you know?"
    "Aww, c'mon. Just once. For daddy." Sokka said, shifting his hand around and speaking to the children inside.
    Suki giggled. "It's too soon."
    Sokka opened his mouth and said a very stupid thing. But before the stupid thing is written, it is important to understand just why he said it.
    Suki was huge. Huge is often considered to be one simple word, but this is in fact wrong. "Huge" is simply the pronunciation of several different words which have similar meanings. She was not, for instance, "huge" as in ten feet tall, or with hands big enough to crush a grown man's skull. She was not "huge" as in enormously fat either. She was that special sort of "huge" that refers specifically to pregnant women. This might be grounds for misunderstanding, however. Because there are two words, both spelled and pronounced "huge" which refer to a very big pregnant woman. One of them is said by the pregnant woman herself. This is the sort of "huge" that Suki was. The other "huge" was the one that other people said. And while they might sound the same, and have roughly the same meaning, one of them is a huge offense.
    Sokka might have, perhaps, thought that since Suki had already said that she was "huge" several times today already that this might mean it was alright for him to do the same. It's also possible that the sheer extent of her hugeness made him think it was acceptable. A lot of pregnant women were huge, but Suki was as huge as any pregnant woman might expect to be, unless they had a 'head start' on hugeness.
    So, with all these things, it might seem like what Sokka said next wasn't very stupid. But, in fact, it was. Sokka was married to Suki, and had already had months to get used to her pregnant temperament. So it was a very stupid thing for him to say;
    "But you're huge."
    Unfortunately, being married to a woman and living in close proximity to her for years only gives a man "husband sense". Husband sense, possibly an outmoded evolutionary trait, warns a man the moment after he has done something incredibly stupid. It was an ancestral ability that his father, Aang, and even Zuko had warned him about, although in Zuko's case he said it overlapped with an already well developed sense of when he'd done or said something incredibly stupid.
    Now Sokka's was on fire.
    "Huge, am I?" Suki asked, her grin melting into a glare. "Probably so huge I take up the whole bed. So I'm sure you won't mind sleeping outside."
    Sokka's mouth bounced around like a ring of elastic that had been twanged. Eventually it settled in a long distended o. "That's not what I meant. I meant you're- no- your belly is very- wait- that's- the babies are very big."
    Suki glared at him.
    "Isn't that right, babies?" he asked.
    There was a pause, as if both were waiting for the unborn children to throw in their two coins.
    Eventually, Suki's glare broke into a grin, and then a laugh.
    Sokka sighed and joined her. While he hadn't figured how to stop saying stupid things, he had at least gotten a little better at riding the hormonal waves until they settled back into a more affable mood. Once he was quite sure that Suki wasn't angry any more, he slipped a hand over her shoulder and hugged her.
    This might have seemed like a simple gesture, but when your wife was one of the most highly trained and skilled martial artists in the world, it was a maneuver. Marriage and maternity had done little to dull the Kiyoshi Warrior's instincts, and already twice this week Sokka's surprise hugs had ended in even more surprising choke holds.
    "You're sure they won't kick?" He asked, one arm wrapped around his wife's shoulders, the other, once more, planted on her stomach.
    "I told you. It's only been fifteen weeks."
    For what must have been the billionth time, Sokka questioned this fact in his mind. There were several layers of sarcasm, cynicism, and plain old distrust that it had to work its way through before he could believe it. On the surface it just looked plain impossible. Suki looked as if she'd been pregnant for fifty weeks, not fifteen. In the privacy of his own head he admitted that she was very, very huge, and that with his eyes alone he would have to have guessed that he was going to become a father of two, minimum. But then to say that she wasn't even close to term...
    There was Toph, though. Toph had told them, clear as day, just how pregnant Suki was. Her curious earth senses gave her the unique ability to peer inside the womb. After you had listened to the minute quivering of the heart itself to find a liar, she said, spotting a handful of babies was easy.
    Toph was one thing, sure. But, he thought, could she be lying? There was scope for this being an enormous joke at his expense. And boy would his face be read next week when Suki went into labour and he hadn't been expecting it for another two seasons.
    Then there was the bare facts of how long they'd been able to tell. Sure it had only been a few months ago that her stomach started to curve out, and she had gotten morning sickness then too, but... Weren't they usually pregnant for a while without it showing, or something? Didn't the babies usually wait, in stealth or something, before they really started to grow? Sokka's knowledge of midwifery was about as extensive as a spider-centipede's knowledge of wheelchair operation. Suki had said something about women knowing and 'time of the month', but he really didn't know anything except for what he was told. Still there was some scope for wool being pulled over his eyes...
    ... but then, there was Katara.
    "Huge" is also an entirely new word invented less than a year beforehand, to describe just how big his sister became when she was pregnant. Of course, then they'd all rejoiced that the Air Nomad population had just quintupled. Err, hectu... sept- sent- it had Tupled, regardless. They had all chalked it up to nature restoring the balance, and everyone had been happy with that.
    But... when Katara had been this big, her babies had kicked. If Suki went on growing like this for that long, then they'd need a whole new "huge" just for her. They might even have to double up on "gigantic" or "enormous" too.
    Could it be a joke? His mind lived in the terrible fear that it was. His reputation, and a good portion of his life's accomplishments as a funny guy, would be completely ruined if he fell for this. Toph could be lying about how many babies there were. Suki could be lying about all this "woman's stuff". And... Katara could have tricked him with a very elaborate disguise, several borrowed babies, and a lot of lying from everyone involved. But it was possible...
    ... Nah.
    The only person in the world, the only person who could pull off a joke like that was him.
    He'd have to take some notes on that for later, actually.
    "Aww, alright. But don't you go and start kicking when I'm not around." he said, speaking straight to Suki's belly. "Not without daddy, okay?"
    Suki laughed again. "I don't think they're going to listen."
    Sokka sighed. "Anybody who kicks while I'm not around isn't getting any allowance for ten years." Sokka said, now wagging his finger at her belly.
    "Come on, silly." Suki said, "I've been luggin' these little guys around all day, I want to go to bed."
    Sokka grinned, and scooped Suki up in his arms. That is, technically, the abridged version of events. Some rather extraneous details about groaning, and martial art reflexes causing her to elbow him in the jaw, and generally arguments to the effect of what are you doing I can still walk myself were not included. But to cut a long story short, an only slightly bruised Sokka carried his wife in his arms, relishing the ability to do so- something that might vanish in coming months.
    "One thing still bugs me." Sokka said, as he paced towards their bedroom. "If Katara was hu-" he said, and then paused as the briefest whisper of husband sense told him that that was a very unwise syllable. "-hugely fertile,", he said, which seemed, narrowly, to placate Suki. "If she had a lot of babies because nature's trying to re-balance things, why are you so- expecting- so many babies?"
    Suki gave him a nervous smile. "Oh, sweetie, that's just what we told her to make her feel better."
    "... oh."
    "We're just huge because your family's messed up." Suki said, smiling and tapping Sokka lightly on the chest.
    Sokka thought about this for a moment, sighed, and nodded.
    "Yes dear."