Azula stood at the foot of his bed as she always did, murmuring softly about how it hurt. How they were hurting her. How she wanted him to dull the pain. And how she wanted him, so badly, to make them stop.

Her voice was soft and pleading. The way "Zu-Zu" slid through her parted lips driving throbs of pain through his heart.

The girl was something of a mess; her body shaking, face gaunt and twisted into an expression of agony and fear, sleep dulled eyes fixed on him. What little moonlight spilled through the window landed on her paining her already pale skin as sickly…dead white. Her eyes reflected none of the light.

She dropped her sickly skinny body onto the foot of his bed. He felt nothing, not even a dip of the mattress. He watched her legs swing back and forth limply as she muttered something else. Azula then moved her hands to her head and let out a sharp scream. She let her head loll forward and her body fall to where it rested on the bed post. A curtain of dark, unwashed, tangled hair fell over her face.

It was a scene that replayed over and over every night. It always followed the same script.

He knew what was coming. Azula would move her hands to pull the hair aside and out of her face. She'd turn to him with the most desperate look in her eyes. She'd look at her hands, they'd tremble more violently than before.

She'd shriek again. Louder than the first time.

And beg him to make the bleeding stop. Make the pain go away.

Her bloody hands would grip the blankets and scream for him not to let them hurt her anymore. To please not let them hurt her. She'd then fall upon his bed—upon him—face first, at this he'd finally feel her weight. What little she had. That alone pained him.

He would pick up her musky, unclean scent as she sobbed, face pressed against his belly. It was a hysteric sort of sob, the kind that had her choking on her tears. The kind that each intake of breath was sharp and had a sort of pitch of its own.

This would continue for an hour or so—he hadn't the heart to tell her to leave. But he also didn't know what to tell her where words of comfort were concerned.

And then Azula would leave. In her wake a wicked silence ensued. A silence that was almost worse than her wailing.

At this point they were at the part where she had just fallen onto him. He had to end this cycle. Something had to change. He had to say something…anything.

But how could Zuko tell her…how could he tell anyone? How could he tell his own sister that he couldn't help her? That he couldn't help her because she was already dead.

Had been dead for about two months now.

How could he tell her that they—her nurses—so belligerently neglected her…starved her to the point she had died?

So Zuko lie there again, feeling her phantom body pressed against his and let the scene replay itself. He didn't know how much more of this he could take, he hadn't had good sleep since she first 'visited' him. Maybe he deserved it for letting her die…for not caring enough when the bags started to form under her eyes.

A half an hour in, Azula's crying stopped. Any minute now he'd feel her weight fade away. But it didn't. She looked up at him, her expression now lax and void of emotion. "Why won't you help me?"

Zuko opened his mouth to answer. No sound came. She had never asked him anything before, not in any of her other worldly visits.

"You enjoy this don't you?" She accused. "You like seeing them hurt me, you want them to do it."

"No. No, that's not it." Zuko tried to sit up. She seemed keen on holding him down. Her grip on his wrists bruisingly tight. Azula fixed him with an angry look, angrier than any face she had mustered when she was alive.

"Why. Won't. You. Help. Me?" Every word was loud and concise. "Why won't you bring me home?"

"You are home." His teeth gritted as she dug her nails into his skin.

"Then why do I feel like I'm…there." He grip loosened, lower lip trembling. The look of terror slowly sliding back into her eyes.

Zuko took a deep breath and pressed his lips tightly together.

"Azula…I. I can't help you because it's too late."

Azula went silent for a moment, shifting her weight off of him. "Too late?"

"Look around you Azula? It doesn't make much sense does it? You're here in my room but you claim you're still in the institution. You're asking me to bring you home and yet you're already here."

"W-what are you trying to say?" Her body began to quiver again…ever so slightly.

"I think you already know…"

Her arms wrapped around her knees. "Why did you let them do this to me?" The question was posed in such a way that Zuko didn't know what to make of it. Couldn't tell what she was feeling. Could spirits feel? Stupid question. He answered himself. Of course they could, Aang said they could.

"I didn't know. I thought they were helping you." Zuko replied. "I wish I could help you now…but I don't know how."

"Does everyone know? That I'm dead." Her voice cracked at the mention of death.

"Not yet…I'm…"

"Tell them. Tell them and punish the staff." Azula growled. And then her expression changed, darkened further. She faded away.

Zuko woke up that morning with news of a wild fire.

A fire that had burst to life, out of nowhere, in the asylum. No harm seemed to have come to the patients, but some of the staff seemed to have attained some considerable burns. Zuko kept his mouth shut at that meeting as he pondered upon how to handle the situation. He couldn't yell at her—aside from being unable to defend himself against her—he couldn't really blame her for being pissed about the situation. And yet Zuko couldn't let her slaughter and torment them all either.

Zuko made his way down the hall.

She was there. Following one of the servants.

"What are you doing!?" He blurted out.

Azula rolled her eyes.

"I'm heading to the kitchen. To fix you a meal." The man answered. "Well, actually it's done so I was about to deliver it to you."

"If I don't get to eat. Neither do you, Zu-Zu." Azula spat before swatting the platter out of the man's hands.

"I am so sorry, I…"

"Don't worry about it." Zuko dismissed the apology. "It wasn't your fault, believe it or not." He muttered more to himself.

"I'll fix you another." The servant bowed.

Azula faded away again. He didn't see her again for another few nights. And if the servants did, they made no mention of the princess.

"Why haven't you told them yet?" Azula's voice cut through the room. Zuko knew she was just waiting for him to get comfy and finally fall asleep, to wake him.

"I will, Azula. Tomorrow. If, you promise you'll go wherever it is that…" he considered his words, but there was really only one way to put it. "Wherever it is that dead people go."

"Not until I see my body out of that horrible place." Azula shuddered. "It's cold and it's dark and they won't stop crawling on me. I don't like it there."

A chill shot down his spin at the notion of his sister just laying somewhere…rotting. Untended to. Zuko tossed on his robe. "You coming with me."

Azula shook her head. "I don't want to see it…my body I mean." If he hadn't been listening he wouldn't have caught it. That soft, shaky mummer; "I don't want to be dead."

Zuko swallowed a knot in his throat before heading off, funeral arrangements spinning in his head.

Minutes turned into hours, night into day; those hours spent getting to the institution, having those who had a hand in Azula's death arrested, and figuring out how to clean and preserve her body until they could bury her properly…formally. With the dignity her last days didn't spare her.

He found his stomach knotting again as he thought of his sister laying alone in the cold…in the dark…hungry, dirty, pained, and taking her final breath.

He gave her corpse's hand a squeeze, wondering if it's spirit counterpart could feel it. "I'm sorry Azula." He didn't realize that he was crying until one of his guards pointed it out.

He put Azula's hand down.

Azula didn't let him sleep that night. Not that he really could anyways.

"What are you doing here Azula?" Zuko asked. "Are you going to be attending your own funeral…I thought you said."

"I wasn't planning on attending." Azula replied.

"Then why are you here? You were supposed to go wherever it is that…" Zuko puzzled over how to put it, but there really was only one way. "Wherever it is that dead people go?"

"I'm not finished with them." Azula answered matter-of-factly.

Zuko frowned. "Do you want to go somewhere nice…where you can be happy? Or are you trying to land yourself in a dark place?"

Azula bit her lip. "I'm already going somewhere dark."

Zuko never knew spirits could cry until he noticed the tears running down her cheeks.

"Why do you think I'm staying here?" She cocked her head. "Bothering them and talking to you…" She moved into the light. He managed something of a smile; though the moon still tinted Azula's skin a pale color, it also revealed her in her full glory. As she was before everything went downhill. Her hair a silky, inky black, falling gracefully over her shoulder. Skin untainted, eyes awake. Awake as the eyes of the dead could be.

And yet she still had a melancholy air about her.

"I don't want to go. I don't know where I'm going. And I don't want to."

"Azula you have to." Zuko insisted.

She shook her head no. "I'll stay here. I'll watch your daughter for you when you're gone. And I'll watch her daughter too."

"Azula, that's ridiculous. I don't have a daughter."

"You will." Azula declared. "And I'll take care of her. I'm not leaving." She hadn't any intentions of vocalizing her fear, but Zuko could again render it in her eyes.

The princess was just as stubborn in death as she was in life, Zuko had decided one morning. Izumi beamed happily up at Azula as the dead girl told her a story of some sort.

The palace staff breezed past talking about how cute it was that Izumi had an imaginary friend.

Azula held true to her words alright. She'd been making Izumi laugh since the baby had opened her eyes. And at four, the girl still delighted in Azula's company. Zuko had simply grown used to it. Even wh He didn't particularly approve, even when his sister had taken to comforting Izumi after she got hurt. Even when she prevented injury. He didn't approve until he heard certain news; Izumi had been messing around on the balcony when it collapsed.

Everyone called her survival a miracle. Zuko called her survival 'thanks Azula.' Izumi wouldn't stop talking about how her friend had saved her. That was when Zuko had chosen to share with the child that she had…was supposed to have an aunt.

That her aunt had passed away some time ago and decided to stick around.

After that morning he hadn't heard nor seen much from his sister. And so he bought himself to ask Izumi how 'auntie Azula' was doing.

Izumi was quite for a moment. "I miss her a lot. I told her she didn't have to stay if she didn't want to. She visited me one time after that." Izumi shrugged. "She said she likes it there. That it's nice and it's warm. She says she has tea with Iroh sometimes. Who is Iroh?"

Zuko smiled. "He was my uncle. I'm sure your aunt is doing well." That last part was more for himself.

Izumi tugged the lace wrapped around her wrist. It was Azula's at one point. Zuko didn't remember giving it to her. He wondered how many other gifts Azula had presented his daughter with. It didn't matter.

He was just glad she had found peace.