I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender, including its characters.

This is set in between seasons two and three, after Zuko's betrayal in The Crossroads of Destiny but before he sees Fire Lord Ozai for the first time.

The two guards made sure to treat him roughly as they manacled his wrists, forced a bitter liquid down his throat to weaken his bending and dragged him to the doors of the Fire Lord's chamber, but Iroh did not let a single emotion cross his face. If he wanted his plan to work they had to think he was a crazy old man.

It was difficult, though – he had to admit it was tough to keep his mind blank while so many emotions were waiting at the edge of his thoughts, demanding to be let in. But Iroh had a disciplined mind thanks to his army years and he managed it.

"Hurry up," hissed one of the guards. "The Fire Lord doesn't want us to be late."

"I'm tired," said Iroh with a vacant stare in her direction. "I'm not as young as I used to be."

At this the guard grabbed Iroh's wrists and yanked him along the passageway, almost toppling him over in the process – but Iroh gave a loud groan of pain and the other guard put his hand on his colleague's shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

"Leave him alone. The Fire Lord said he wants him unharmed for this meeting. I don't want to have to give him the news that we knocked him out."

Iroh's eyes narrowed. So Ozai told the guards not to hurt him? That wasn't like his brother.

The first guard snorted. "Whatever. He's tougher than he looks."

"He doesn't look very tough. He looks fat and old." The guards made no attempt to hide their words or the disgust in their voices, and despite himself Iroh was annoyed. Youth these days! They had no respect for their elders, or themselves. When Zuko –

Iroh shut his eyes tight and allowed the guards to drag him through the corridors of his childhood home. They were still discussing his many faults in brash tones, as though they wanted to prove that they were no longer afraid of the once-formidable general.

"Do you remember when he was next in line for the throne?"

"He was preparing from his coronation before he left for Ba Sing Se."

"What a disaster that would have been…"

But Iroh did not listen. He concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other and refused to think of anything, especially the events of the last two weeks. Even if it had not been vital to his plan to pretend to be senile, he would have tried to block them from his mind. Every time his nephew entered his thoughts a fresh stab of lightning sliced through his chest.

"Get your eyes off the floor, old man. We're here."

Iroh raised his head as though it weighed a thousand tonnes, and before him stood a pair of doors he had known almost since birth. They marked the entranceway to the Fire Lord's chamber.

As a child, he had found them fascinating and frightening in equal measure, tracing small fingers across the wood until somebody told him to leave them alone. As a teenager, he had looked at them with his chin high and longed for the day when he would own those doors and everything that came with them. As a tired general – a childless father – he had turned away from them and wished to never see them again, and now – as a wiser man, as a failure and a prisoner – they just made him sick to his stomach, especially the large Fire Nation symbol.

Somebody had given it a fresh lick of paint since Iroh last stood before these doors. Somehow that was worse than it being there in the first place.

The guard pushed open the doors and threw Iroh inside. He stumbled over the threshold, his bound hands making it harder to balance – but he had trained for years in the art of staying grounded and the wind cannot topple a boulder. He stood in front of the Fire Lord with his feet apart and steady and his face towards the floor.

"The traitor Iroh, My Lord," said one of the guards.

"Very good. Now leave us alone. The traitor and I have some matters we need to attend to."

Iroh's blood, his heart and the marrow in his bones all froze when he heard his brother speak.

Ozai sounded every bit as ruthless as the day he had scarred and banished his son. His voice was like lightning – he calculated each word to strike its target, and every syllable crackled with power. Iroh kept his eyes downturned, focussing on his bare feet and on the tiled floor beneath him. He did not want to look at Ozai's face for fear that he would not be able to control his emotions. Zuko had always resembled Ozai, and if Iroh looked up and saw Zuko's golden eyes staring back at him there was no telling what he would do.

The doors closed behind him, trapping him like a beast in a cage.

"Hello, big brother. It's a long time since your face has graced these hallways."

Shadows from the flames danced at the edges of Iroh's vision and they tinged the floor beneath his feet an inconstant orange.

"What's this? Silence? Aren't you going to greet your brother after two years away?"

Iroh gritted his teeth and said nothing.

"Well, if you won't say hello to your brother, then you should at least pay your respects to your Fire Lord. Bow down to me."

Now Iroh lifted his head, and his gaze moved from the pillars that led up to the dais, to the flames that licked and leapt on it, to the figure behind the flames. Ozai was standing up, and it came as a relief to Iroh that the fire before him cast his face into silhouette so there was no need to look into his eyes.

"Well? Has your time sharing mud-holes with dirty peasants made you forget your manners? Bow down to me."

As a younger man, Iroh would have said "No" and demanded an Agni Kai for such an affront to his honour. Now he sank stiffly to his knees and bent his back until his forehead was touching the floor. The joints in his knees – already tired from the long trek out here and worn from months of travelling – groaned in protestation, but there was nothing else he could do. Previous experience told him that when Ozai spoke in that voice, it was best not to argue.

"Very good. Now, Iroh, before I banish you to the prison you and I have some things to straighten out."

"And what would they be?" said Iroh, uncurling himself from the floor and getting unsteadily to his knees. It was not easy with his arms bound.

"Firstly, you are no longer my brother. From now on you are not a member of the Royal Family and you will not be treated as such. Your very existence is a mark of shame on our glorious family tree."

Iroh nodded – he had suspected this.

"And secondly, I want you to tell me exactly what you taught Zuko during your time with him."

Ozai needed the information so that he could effectively control Prince Zuko, that much was clear.

Iroh was silent as he considered the possible answers. He could tell Ozai it was none of his business – which it wasn't – but that might lead to having the information tortured out of him if Ozai suspected it was important. He could tell Ozai that the only thing he taught Zuko was how to make good tea, but he doubted that even his brother would swallow that lie, however convenient it was to him.

He could tell Ozai the truth: that he taught Zuko about truth, honour and freedom, and that Zuko had at first resisted but had gradually begun to accept, and that Zuko had been on the healing path until five days ago when he rejoined Azula, throwing all of Iroh's lessons and his months of patience to the ground and trampling them into the dust. He could tell Ozai of how this hurt more than anything had, at least since the death of his son – but he could not bring himself to, and besides it might make Ozai question Zuko's place in the royal family. Iroh did not want Zuko to find himself banished all over again with no guidance this time, no matter how much he deserved it. So he settled for the easy answer.

"I tried to teach him that the Fire Nation is destroying the world instead of saving it, and that the only way to redemption is to join the Avatar – but you know how wilful Zuko can be. He refused to listen to me. His mind was focused on nothing but capturing the Avatar so he could return to you." Iroh heaved a sigh. "I taught him everything, but he learned nothing."

This answer seemed to satisfy Ozai because he asked no more questions. "Very well," he said, as though he was deep in thought. "It appears my son has more honour than I first thought."

Iroh expected to be dismissed now that he had answered Ozai's questions, but to his surprise his brother beckoned to him with a hand.

"Come closer, brother. I want to see your face."

Very slowly Iroh stumbled forward, and he felt that with each step he was coming closer to the edge of a deep abyss. The chamber seemed much larger than he remembered it to be and the pillars passed at an agonisingly slow rate. By the time he reached the Fire Lord's throne it was as though several years had passed – he felt wearier and much older.

"Now look at me," said Ozai. Iroh looked up but averted Ozai's gaze because the Fire Lord's eyes were the exact same shape and shade as Zuko's.

Ozai chuckled as he scrutinised Iroh's face, and Iroh knew how we must look: wrinkles etched paths deep into his forehead and around his eyes, and his skin had lost its colour. In addition to that, he was dressed in frayed prison clothes and had come barefoot. It was a far cry from the splendid General's armour that Ozai was used to seeing him in.

Ozai seemed to be contemplating this fact too, and he seemed delighted.

"You're getting old, brother. How many more years does that tired heart of yours have left? Ten? Maybe five. And you will spend them all behind bars. A fitting end to a tragic life."

Iroh said nothing, because Ozai was right. His heart was tired. One by one, the people he loved had deserted him. His wife had been the first to visit the Spirit World, followed a few years later by Lu Ten. After that Ozai had betrayed him. Sometimes it felt as though his heart was beating ten times slower under the weight of all the lost souls it had accumulated.

Mostly he focused on living life to the full: tea, good food and fighting were all excellent reasons to live. Zuko had been possibly the most important reason, but eventually he had abandoned Iroh too.

"How could you have sunk so low," breathed Ozai. He seemed purely disgusted, and his footsteps echoed as he parted the flames and stepped down from the dais.

"Kneel," he said. Iroh bent to his knees once more, although he could hear his bones creaking. He made a mental note: If his escape plan was going to work he had to build his strength up.

Ozai began to circle him, the sound of his footfalls unnaturally loud in the silent chamber. Even the flames made no sound.

"So tell me, Iroh. How does it feel to be betrayed by those you thought were your closest allies? Does it sting? Does it burn? Can you sleep?" Ozai ceased his pacing and came to stand behind Iroh's right shoulder. "But I know the answer. You can't. You lie awake at night and feel anger – anger that you try to bite down, but you can't… quite… manage it.

"And you start to believe it's your own fault – that if you had done things differently, you would never have been betrayed. You feel guilty because you are angry with the traitor. Doesn't it hurt, Iroh? Do you understand now what you did to me?"

"I never betrayed you, Ozai."

"You're a bad liar. You've been trying to turn people against me since we were children… ever since –" Stopping abruptly, Ozai began to pace again. "But I won't dig up the buried past. You know what you did."

"Ozai, it's you who has been turning people against you."

There was a pause, and the words hung in the air like a thick choking mist. "Lies."

"You never wanted allies, you wanted servants, and the people who could see that turned away from you. And then you felt justified in your belief that you could trust nobody, so you continued to distance yourself from people."

"Silence yourself. Remember, brother, that you are a traitor and a prisoner, and you are in the presence of royalty –"

"When Zuko showed love for you, you treated him badly so he ran to his mother." Iroh knew that he would be ill-advised to continue, but the words continued to pour from his lips – and even he was surprised at how viciously true they were. "When Azula became too devoted to you, you sent her away to the Royal Fire Academy for Girls."

"I said silence –"

"Ursa refused to stay away, and in the end you banished her –"

"I will not have that name mentioned in my palace!"

Silence.

Iroh regretted every word he had just spoken – all these years of training, and he still had no self-control when it came to his brother. But Ozai seemed to regret his outburst too, and the long paused that followed told Iroh that his words had cut deep. Ursa's name still seemed to echo around the chamber, reverberating off the pillars long after it had escaped Iroh's mouth.

Iroh knew that Ozai, too, still heard her name ringing in his ears because he briefly covered them as though trying to block it from his mind. Then he stepped back onto the dais, parting the flames with so much violence this time that they flared angrily towards the ceiling with the sound of rushing water. For a second, the heat in the room was so intense that Iroh had to shut his eyes against it.

When he opened them again, Ozai had returned to his throne and he was standing strongly, shoulders squared as though he was preparing for a fight. He seemed to have recovered from the blow of hearing Ursa's name, although his expression was murderous and his voice was filled with barely-suppressed anger.

"Look at me, Iroh. Look at me."

Or maybe it was pride.

"I am stronger than you. You are a failure, and I am the Fire Lord in your place because you were too weak."

Iroh bowed his head in concession. "That's true."

"You had to watch your wife die, but I banished mine before she got the chance to become ill. Your son is dead, and mine is returning to me as we speak. You have failed at every turn of your life. I am the ruler of the world. How could your words possibly have any effect on me?"

"They can't," said Iroh. "You're right."

"Of course I'm right. And you're ashamed of yourself, aren't you? Because you are a coward, although you try to mask it. You have never had the capacity for violence."

"No, Ozai, I haven't. But I am not ashamed of it."

"Then you're angry with me. You're angry because I took away the glory and honour that was rightfully yours."

"I'm not angry," said Iroh.

"Then you're jealous. How quaint. You're envious of your younger brother."

"I am not jealous."

"Then you must be –"

Iroh got to his feet. "I'm ashamed, Ozai. You make me so ashamed." Then he turned, and began to make his way out of the Fire Lord's chamber. His gait was unsteady, but he took care not to trip or stumble, instead keeping his head level and his feet firmly planted on the floor. He did not try to rush out, although he longed to.

Iroh knew that Ozai was powerless to keep him there any longer, because what other punishments could his brother possibly dish out? Ozai had taken everything from Iroh – at least everything that was within his power to take.

Ozai called to his brother's retreating back: "Stay here. Stay here where I can see you."

Iroh walked doggedly onwards without as much as the twitch of an eyebrow.

"Guards!" cried Ozai, his voice ringing through the chamber like a bell. At the sound of his command, the two guards opened the doors, their visors lifted off their faces as though they had been taking a break.

"Yes, My Lord?"

They looked from Iroh, to Ozai, then back again, and then exchanged confused glances. Iroh tried not to smile at their expressions. They were thinking: There has been an argument, but how could that have happened? The Fire Lord does not allow his subjects to speak out against him.

"Uh… you want us to take him away, My Lord?"

"Yes," said Ozai. "Take this traitor away. You are hereby excused from my presence, traitor, and stripped of your title and rank. From now on, you will stay in jail and rot and – if I remember – I will see to it that you are fed once a day."

Iroh did not spare a glance back in Ozai's direction as he submitted to the indignity of being flanked by two teenaged guards and frogmarched from the Fire Lord's presence. Now that there were other people to witness his behaviour, he had to resume his impersonation of a crazy old man. It was not as hard this time, because he certainly felt like a crazy old man after the events of the last few minutes.

What he really needed was a cup of scalding tea to steam all his troubles away, although there was little chance of that in jail. He would have to survive without tea until he escaped.

By the end of the summer, he hoped to be free again, rejoining his allies at the Order of the White Lotus and continuing his work where he left off (although everything would be different without Zuko beside him).

By the end of the summer, Fire Lord Ozai would be dead and then Iroh would no longer feel guilty for failing as a big brother, a once-trusted friend and adviser. All of this would be behind him and he could get on with his life in a peaceful world.

But for now, he allowed himself to be led to a gloomy cell in the very centre of Fire Lord Ozai's personal prison and shut behind bars with a resounding clang. This sound, and the darkness and silence afterwards, seemed to signal the end of another phase of his life. All he could do was hope to return to the light soon.

Meanwhile, in the Fire Lord's chamber, the great man himself sink to his knees. For once the four pillars did not feel comforting as they surrounded him, but more like a cage, and he had the sudden urge to race from the chamber out into the garden and once he was there, to splash his face into the pond. Of course he did nothing of the sort – but the urge was still there.

He could almost feel the cool water sliding down his face.

Instead, he pressed two forefingers to his temple and made a small noise at the back of his throat. The flames were giving him a headache, and his own thoughts seemed to mirror the pattern of the fire – inconstant, flicking from one idea to another to another. It was enough to make the floor sway momentarily beneath him.

But then Ozai passed a hand over his face and regained his composure. His features went stiff like marble.

He was Fire Lord Ozai, soon-to-be ruler of the new world, and he would not allow a powerless old man to govern his emotions. He liked to think he had more honour than that. The fact that Iroh knew Ursa's name did not mean anything.

Just forget it, he told himself sternly. Nobody was going to render him weak.

A/N: Well! It's been a while. Thanks for reading. =]