Disclaimer: I do not own A:tLA. I just write stuff like this to bring out the warm fuzzies that I got from the actual series.

…I also can't believe I just used the phrase "warm fuzzies" unironically. There's something about this series that just does that to me.

Iroh stood at the prow of the commandeered Fire Nation airship. The young woman Suki was beside him at the wheel, but she did not engage in idle conversation; she needed to concentrate on piloting, and aside from the occasional minor correction to their course, Iroh let her.

Behind them, select members of their small group were spread out over the bridge. The Avatar, of course; his presence was desperately needed in the Fire Nation in this time of turmoil. Iroh let his eyes drift over the tattooed boy; word was that the Avatar had not only neutralized and subdued Fire Lord Ozai, but that he had managed to do so without killing him. No easy task. Nevertheless, young Aang seemed reticent and withdrawn, sitting quietly in the shadows near the very back of the bridge, his glider leaning against the side of the ship.

A short distance away lay Sokka, his broken leg propped up against a pillow and wrapped in a crude splint. Master Pakku knelt beside him, running a steady stream of water over the injured limb. Master waterbender though he was, Pakku's healing skills were rudimentary at best—he'd always looked down on healing as "women's work," he had admitted with a touch of genuine shame in his voice, and had never bothered to do any training in the art—but what help he could give was better than nothing, at least until they could get Sokka to a proper doctor.

Former Fire Lord Ozai was chained in the hold, where he was guarded by Piandao. Iroh did not spare any further thought for the fate of his brother. No, Iroh's thoughts were not with the previous Fire Lord, but with the next.

Zuko…

"Worried?"

The voice had come from somewhere in the vicinity of his waist. Looking down, Iroh saw young Toph by his side, wearing a knowing expression.

"Yes," he said, favoring her with a smile even though he knew she couldn't see. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Well, don't be." Toph crossed her arms with an all-knowing look on her face. "I'm sure he'll be fine."

"I certainly hope you're right." This time, he could not stop the smile sliding from his face.

"Of course I'm right." She tilted her head up at him with a wide grin before reaching up as if to pat his arm, only to bestow him with a punch that would have knocked a smaller man clean off his feet.

"We're in sight of the Fire Nation." Suki's voice brought him back to the situation at hand. Rubbing his bruised arm, Iroh returned his attention to their course.

"Try to take us down over there." Even from here, he could see smoke rising from the region of the royal palace—but no new fires. The Agni Kai must have been long over.

Slowly, the buildings of the royal palace and courtyard came closer into view. That there had been a great battle there was evident; scorch marks marred the architecture in many places, and small fires still smoldered on the surviving flags and banners.

"I see Appa!"

All who were able rushed to the helm to look—all, that is, except for Sokka, who attempted to rise anyway, and Pakku, who pushed him forcefully back down. Iroh followed Suki's pointing finger.

Sure enough, there was something very large and white moving about above the surviving buildings. The finer details of its figure were obscured by smoke, as were whatever passengers it might have carried, but the identity of the drifting creature itself was beyond a shadow of a doubt.

"Appa!" For the first time since the battle with Ozai, Aang's face broke into a wide smile. Running to the back of the ship, he snatched up his glider. "Meet you on the ground!" He was out the door before anyone could respond, and a few seconds later the spread wings of his glider drifted into sight beneath the ship.

"Hang on, everyone!" Suki called. "I'm taking us down, and I don't know if this thing can manage a smooth landing."

Sokka let out a groan at her words, but Pakku responded by encasing both the young man's body and his own feet in a shroud of ice, effectively bolting them both to the floor. Toph, grinning, sank into a crouch and dug both fingers and toes deep into the metal of the ship's floor. Iroh planted his feet and grasped the railing.

The landing was, if anything, anticlimactic; vibrations coursed through the entire ship for a few seconds, producing an odd tingling sensation in Iroh's hands and causing Sokka to let out a pained cry, but everyone who was standing managed to keep their feet, and within a few seconds they had ground to a halt.

For a moment, all was still. Then, the Avatar dropped down directly in front of them, folding his glider; not long after, the bison's feet came into view above his head.

Iroh couldn't wait anymore. As quickly as he could without running, he stepped over the dents Toph had made in the floor, made his way around Sokka's prone form, and hastened from the bridge to exit the ship, his heart pounding in his chest.

What he saw was not what he had hoped. The bison had now landed fully, but the young woman, Katara, was the one at the reins, looking exhausted and battle-worn. She was speaking solemnly with the Avatar, whose smile had fallen once again from his face, and though their voices were low, Iroh was sure that he heard Zuko's name.

Slowly, his eyes drifted to the spot behind her, to the other object which occupied the saddle but which Iroh dreaded to look at in detail… a limp form, a single hand hanging down, unmoving in the saddle behind her…

They had brought Lu Ten back on a stretcher…

All at once dread flooded his heart, at the sight of all of his worst fears laid out once again before his eyes. He had forgotten not to run. He had forgotten everything but lurching forward, praying desperately for what he saw before him to be untrue. No, not him too… not this again… I can't lose another son… "ZUKO!"

"Uncle!?" At the sound of his name the figure on the back of the saddle bolted upright, only to immediately double over with a gasp of pain as he pressed a hand to his chest. Zuko's clothing bore numerous scorch marks, and patches of angry red skin showed through the holes that had been burned into his shirt.

He had been wounded, then, and from the looks of it, badly. But not fatally.

Thank Agni.

"Zuko, I told you to stay still!" Katara scolded, turning from her conversation with Aang to give him an exasperated look, but her voice—laced with worry and fatigue—gave away her concern. "You'll only make it worse if you try to get up and start jumping around."

"Yeah, I think I've figured that out now, thanks," he managed to grit out through clenched teeth. With a shake of her head, Katara scrambled to the back of the saddle and helped ease him back down.

"Well, that was at least partially my fault." It was impossible for Iroh to hide the relief that permeated his voice as he reached up to pat Appa's neck. "But I will say, I am very glad to see you in one piece."

"Well… mostly," Zuko groaned, wincing as Katara secured his position. Azula must have fought dirty, for him to be hurt that badly.

"Yeah, Katara was just telling me how bad you got hit." Aang had floated up to Appa's head level, and was looking down at Zuko with concern. He turned to Iroh. "Katara did what she could, but he needs to get to a doctor."

"Water healing can only go so far," Katara elaborated, resuming her position at the front of the saddle. "Especially for injuries as bad as this. I was just trying to find him some help when I saw you land." Biting her lip, she looked back at the ship in which they had landed, and from which Toph—but no one else—was now disembarking. "Is everyone—"

"Nobody's died." Toph, who had picked her way over to the group, spoke before she could even finish the question, and Katara sighed in relief. "Your brother won't stop moaning about his leg, though."

"Sokka…" Continuing to worry her lip, she looked back at Zuko, and then once again at the ship.

"Don't worry," Aang said with a grin as he patted Appa's neck. "We'll take care of Zuko."

Shooting them both a smile of gratitude and relief, Katara slid from Appa's back; Toph immediately took her hand and pulled her forward. Just before being dragged back into the ship, however, she turned around again. "Don't let him try to move around," she shouted. Iroh answered her with a smile and a wave.

"Just how stupid does she think I am?" Zuko grumbled as Aang settled as lightly as air itself behind Appa's reins and Iroh scrambled into the bison's saddle. "This really hurts, you know."

Iroh couldn't help but grin. "Well I, for one, could share some recollections of a most stubborn young man. One who attempted to firebend while he was severely ill, and refused to lie down until he fell over in a dead faint—"

"Uncle!"

Aang, meanwhile, was laughing. Turning around in the saddle, he grinned back at Zuko. "You really did that, Zuko? It's a good thing you're not an airbender; otherwise you'd have fallen right out of the sky!"

"Well, I've done a lot of coming to my senses since then," Zuko muttered disgruntledly. He craned his neck back, so that he was looking at Iroh eye to eye. "In more ways than one."

"I know, my nephew." Iroh reached out to touch him on the shoulder—lightly, so as to avoid hurting him. "And I am very, very glad that you have found your way."

In spite of the position he was in, Zuko managed a real smile through his grimace of pain.

There were hardly any people in this region in the city—according to Zuko, Azula had banished nearly everyone prior to his and Katara's arrival at the palace, and all the rest had fled when they had started their Agni Kai. Just as well, Iroh decided, since it meant that no one else had gotten hurt.

It also meant, however, that they were hard-pressed to locate another person at all, let alone someone who could see to Zuko's injuries. It took several minutes, and a few trips to the ground on Aang's part, before they even had a direction to travel.

"The last guy said there's a working infirmary over that way," the airbender informed them as he settled once again behind the reins, cocking his head to indicate the direction. "Of course, it helped when I told him that I was the Avatar—and that it was the new Fire Lord who needed help."

At the use of his new title, Zuko pursed his lips slightly, but otherwise said nothing. Iroh squeezed his shoulder.

The last leg of their short journey was completed in silence. Shortly before they landed Aang jumped from the saddle and rushed inside, presumably to get help. By the time Appa's feet touched the ground, he was already making his way back outside, followed by two Fire Nation doctors with a stretcher.

Iroh, who had slid from the saddle as soon as they had landed, took a moment to step back, rubbing his beard. "Well, now I suppose our next order of business is figuring out how to get you down." Clever as always, Appa knelt, but even with that, getting Zuko out of the saddle was likely to involve a lot more jostling than Iroh would have liked.

"Katara made an ice bridge, the first time," Zuko admitted. "I don't know if that's an option here, though." They might have had Aang, but water did not seem to be a thing that was readily available.

"Hey, no problem!" Cheerful as always, Aang began to move his hands, his tongue sticking out slightly as he concentrated. Slowly, Zuko was lifted off the saddle by a puff of whirling air, before being deposited gently on the stretcher.

"Thanks, Aang." Zuko's voice was now more of a groan, but he managed to get the words out nonetheless.

"Well, I'd better go get Sokka." With a single bound, Aang was back in the saddle. "Katara's probably fixed him up enough that it's okay to move him now. Appa, yip-yip!" With a powerful swipe of his tail, the bison was airborne once again. Iroh waved at his retreating figure.

Of course, he accompanied his nephew inside. Thankfully, it did not take long to get Zuko to a bed, where the healers started by cutting away his shirt to get a look at his injuries. Iroh pulled up a chair, settling as nearby as he could get without being in the way, and watched.

It was indeed nasty. Most of Zuko's chest all the way up to his shoulder was covered with burns—the kind of burns that were caused by lightning. Clearly, this was Azula's work. Zuko was extraordinarily lucky to have survived at all—lucky, that the strike had missed his heart; lucky, that Katara had been with him, that she was trained in healing, that she had been able to get to him in time…

No matter what was done, however, luck or not, the wound would scar. Zuko's second permanent scar, at the age of seventeen—and both of them had been given to him by members of his family.

There also wasn't much that could be done to spare him the pain.

The burns needed cleaning and dressing, and before that, the stray scraps of cloth from Zuko's ruined shirt needed to be pulled away from where they'd melded to his skin. Throughout the process, his nephew kept his eyes squeezed shut, biting his lip. Zuko had never screamed or cried when he was hurt, not since the day he had received his first permanent scar—but at least he had learned not to be ashamed of his pain.

"Hold on, Zuko," Iroh murmured to him repeatedly from the side of the bed. "I'm right here."

There was no verbal answer, but Zuko did give a slight nod. He knew.

The process was a long and painful one, but eventually his wounds were properly tended. Thick bandages now wound around Zuko's chest and shoulder; it would be the better part of a week before he recovered fully, even with water healing. The doctors had finished by giving Zuko an infusion that they said would help with the pain, and then the two of them were left alone.

A few more minutes passed in silence. Zuko was worn and exhausted, no doubt replaying the events of the recent battle in his mind. For Iroh's part, it was the few minutes that he'd needed to work up the will to speak. "I was afraid that I'd sent you to your death."

"Uncle, you can stop blaming yourself for what happens to me. Life has thrown a lot at me, but I've made my own choices, and so has Azula." Slowly, he reached up a hand to touch the scar on his face. "And so did my father."

"So you did." Iroh smiled, though sadly. "But you are still mine to worry about."

Another silence passed. Maybe whatever the healers had given to Zuko was dosed with a sedative, or maybe he was just that tired, for his breathing was slowly evening out, and his eyelids began to flutter. Iroh thought that he had slipped into unconsciousness when he murmured something else.

"Katara saved my life."

"And for that, she has my eternal gratitude."

Zuko smiled slightly at that, seeming to come somewhat more awake, but the expression quickly faded. "At least Azula went down." It was evident, however, that Zuko had taken no pleasure in the task.

"I know that it was not an easy thing for you to do, my nephew." Reaching out, he placed a hand on Zuko's uninjured shoulder. "But it was necessary."

Zuko, however, shook his head. "I wasn't the one who restrained her." Puzzled, Iroh lifted his hand, and both of his eyes met Zuko's scarred one. "It was Katara."

"A waterbender?" In reality, Iroh did not care who had ultimately subdued his niece; it was enough that it had been done, and with no loss of life. He could not, however, keep the confusion from his voice; the fact that Azula was fighting under the influence of Sozin's Comet, and should not have been matched by anyone other than another firebender, was the least of his reasons. "Well, Katara is certainly gifted enough." Zuko gave a slight smile of agreement. "I am, however, surprised that you accepted help."

"I wouldn't have. I didn't want anyone else to get hurt. I asked Katara to stay out of it, and she did." Zuko's face darkened at the memory. "Azula was the one who decided to start attacking the spectators." Another pause. "I couldn't let her." By this point, his voice was almost a whisper. "I couldn't let Katara get hurt for me."

"And you kept her safe."

"Yeah," Zuko said thickly. "Yeah, I did."

All at once, the extent of Zuko's injuries made much more sense. He should have been Azula's equal. To wound him this severely, she must have either gotten extraordinarily lucky… or she had forced him to make a choice.

He had chosen not to sacrifice his companion for the sake of a tactical advantage.

Smiling, Iroh once again reached out, this time gently brushing the hair back from Zuko's forehead. "I'm proud of you… my son."

Zuko smiled back, for once not fighting the gesture of affection, and now there were tears standing in his eyes. "I couldn't have done it without you… father."

A/N: This fandom is ruining my reputation.

Seriously, this is the closest thing to fluff I've ever written that isn't straight-up humor. And anyone who doesn't think this is particularly fluffy is obviously not familiar with my writing in other fandoms, because I tend to go to some dark, dark places.

As for the ending… okay, fine. I couldn't resist.

All throughout the latter half of the series, I kept waiting for Iroh to stop saying "my nephew" and start saying "my son." That it never happened honestly doesn't bother me—it was acknowledged on both sides, beautifully, and I consider that enough—but it was still an idea that I wanted to toy with. Thus this story was born.

Minor gripe: I hate titles. I really, really hate titles. It took me awhile, but I finally came up with an idea that I thought could work. All that was left to look up the name of the Fire Nation capital, only to find that they'd named their capital city… Capital City. Seriously, Fire Nation? You couldn't be a little more creative than that? Okay, fine. I couldn't come up with anything better, so "Capital City" it is. *grumbles about messed-up titles*