Title:And Then They Lived
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Parody, bad jokes, no beta, Zuko-abuse.
Summary: A short series of connected humor drabbles on Toph and Iroh's happily married life.

Comments, criticism, and overripe fruit thrown at high velocity always appreciated.

"Isn't he like five hundred years older than you?" Sokka asked. He had his hand on his chin as he worked his way through some serious mental calculations, but by the look on his face, the answers he was coming up with were deeply disturbing.

"I think it's only about a hundred or so," Toph corrected him as she messily pinned her hair back, "But he is at least twice as old as my father. Hey," she said, waving in Katara's direction, "Make sure you mention that in the letter to my parents."

Katara winced and dipped the brush she was writing with back into the ink pot. "Don't you think you should break it to them a little more gently?"

"I wanted to drop in on them, but Iroh said a letter was better. I don't see why," Toph said and held out her hands in a parody of an introduction, "'Hello mother, hello father, here is my new husband. The most infamously known general in all of the Earth Kingdom. The baby is due in November.' I think it would go over well."

"September," Katara said automatically, bending over to write another line.

Toph paused to consider that. Sokka started counting months on his fingers, muttering; "You've only been married two weeks".

"Tell them November," Toph said firmly, "Break it to them gently."

"Now, now Fire Lord Zuko," Iroh said over the rim of his cup, in the same humorously indulgent tone he'd used when his nephew was a teenager, "Surely you can see that true love over comes all boundaries."

"She's barely an adult!" Zuko raged, his arms flailing dramatically about his head as he paced the length of the royal chambers. Mai was reading a book on the lounge near-by and seemed untouched by her husband's fit of horror. "You were married with a child before she was even born!"

"Ah, but what she lacks in years, she makes up for in maturity," Iroh said and broke into hardy laughter, "Not to mention spirit! Why, I feel decades younger just trying to keep up with her. Just the other day –"

"Uncle! I will not be lulled by your meandering stories! This is a disgrace to all Fire Nation!"

Iroh hummed disapprovingly and shook his head, taking another sip of tea. "It seems you still do not understand –"

"I REFUSE TO UNDERSTAND CRADDLE ROBBING!" Around the room, small candles flames suddenly flared up to three foot tall torches.

"Temper," Mai droned. Almost instantly, Zuko deflated; his anger draining away into a weary suffering.

"I had hoped to get your blessings as my Fire Lord, nephew," Iroh said calmly, his eyes closed as he meditated over his tea, "After all, we already expecting a new addition to the royal family."

The sudden cracking of Zuko's brain was almost audible in the ensuing silence.

"Huh," Mai said, a subdued but decidedly sly gleam in her eye as she put down her book for the first time, "I see time hadn't damped the old fires after all."

Iroh gave a very small, very smug smile.

He eventually got the blessing he'd wanted from his Fire Lord, but it was great many weeks before Zuko could look either of them in the eye again.

"Listen, Toph -- "

"Auntie," Toph corrected automatically, picking up an apple from one of the stalls and feeling it for ripeness.

Zuko made an audible gagging noise, either in reaction to the request or in an honest effort to force the title out. Toph smiled contentedly and flung the apple in his general direction, forcing him to scramble to catch it before it hit the ground. Her aim was normally much better, but she'd learned early on that he overestimate her disability and quietly submitted to having heavy objects thrown at his head under the misguided belief that she didn't know any better. She felt it was her duty to take advantage of this before he wised up.

He tried to speak again while Toph paid the stall owner and waddled her way on to the next stall, her great pregnant belly swinging before her.

"Well, Dearest Nephew?" Toph prompted loudly. She found his heart always seemed to miss a beat when she called him that. The next stall had squash, cabbage, and radishes. She picked up a squash and considered its aerodynamic properties for a moment.

"Why don't we have the servants do this?" he said finally, desperately.

Toph turned on him as fast as she could, given her gravid condition. "You would suggest that I leave the quality of my husband's dinner to the hands of servants?!"

"You can't cook!" he yelled back.

END