Exposition ain't fun to write, especially when everyone already knows the story, but this is my story and I've changed a few details including two very important aspects.

Thursday, September 13, 1900

He felt a presence over him and wanted to know what it was. He didn't know how long he had been like this, and was almost afraid to inquire. The last thing he remembered was a spark, then a brilliant blue bolt going to the right of him. He's looked over and saw that the lightning was aimed at his ally. His brain had become a nearly vestigial feature of his existence, as he felt every fiber of his being pulling in the same direction, pulling him towards that most beautiful, most precise, most deadly form of his element. His strides were made more imperative as he looked into the attacker's eyes and saw the same golden tint that had greeted him in the mirror.

When he had gotten to the spot, the spot he'd never forget, he intercepted the lightning with the intention to redirect it to the sky, where lightning belonged. But, he fell down, the result of having to halt so quickly. He couldn't perform that simple, graceful technique his uncle had taught him. What he felt next was the worst pain he'd ever felt in his existence. It was worse than when his father burned and banished him, and worse than when Zhao had blown him up, worse than when he walked through that blizzard at the North Pole. It, the pain, was like someone sticking a sharp knife in every cell. His muscles spasmed, growing so tight an immovable that he felt like he was in a vice. He felt as if he would snap in half or disintegrate like a broken window.

He hit the ground and heard his ally, his friend shout his name in horror. And then blackness. He knew he was still alive, something made him aware of that, but did not enlighten him as to his condition. He didn't know how long he was out, and in that time, that was not the primary concern. His body was tingling painfully. He felt as if his blood wasn't flowing. Everything was heavy, including his eyelids. That's why he didn't bother to open them.

It was a quasi-sleep that enveloped him, zapping his ability to move and to sense, but leaving him just aware enough to know that someone of something was over him watching. He thought he heard a voice sometimes two or three. Some sounded hurried and frantic, others calm and assured. There was one voice that was always heard, but he did not and could not figure out who it was.

He didn't know how many minutes, hours or days passed and didn't have have the strength to care. Wherever he was, no one was seemed to be inflicting pain. He fell into true sleep several times, with each awakening he felt stronger and his senses grew more acute, but he kept his eyes closed. He would feel someone looking at him, studying him. He could not tell who it was, but could only deduce that it was friendly.

After an innumerable amount of passes between drowsiness and alertness, he felt no more pain. The tingling had disappeared, just as the acute stabbing where the lightning entered his body had gone away. Te ache that made all of his muscles like lead weights on his bones disappeared. He stirred, and was pleasantly surprised by the fact that there was no discomfort in the movement. On the contrary, he realized that he was on a bed, on a mattress, a good one at that. He was supine with his hands at his sides, palms down. He made a tentative fist, and was delighted to feel silky sheets under him, and quality silk, probably Fire Nation (objectively, they were the best). He took a deep breath to get take the air in the room. It was cool and crisp. He heard someone else stirring and felt the presence over him again.

"I think he's waking up," the voice, a deep voice, said into the distance.

He opened his eyes and immediately saw nothing but blue piercing orbs above him, shining like the waves on the seashore at dawn. Limpid eyes that had much passion, which in their current state pleaded for reassurance. He didn't realize how beautiful they were.

"Zuko, can you hear me?" Sokka said, his voice, the sound of concern, his minty fresh, but pleasantly warm breath washing over his senses making the him even more that he was alive.

Zuko started to sit up, "Of course, I can hear you. I'm not deaf."

"Phew. It's just that I read, well never mind what I read. Do you feel okay?" He put the book in his hand down on his bed.

Now sitting on the edge of bed, head in his hands, Zuko answered, "Yes, I feel fine. How long was I out?"

"About forty-five hours." Sokka answered, resuming his seat on the bed next to Zuko's.

Zuko took that opportunity to look around. Everything was painted in that signature, unmistakable, and illegal to replicate color of the palace. All the other building in the Caldera and in the greater parts of the Fire Nation were shades that approached but never quite matched the richness of the red in the palace. He looked around the room and he did not recognize it. It was a small room, with two small beds in it between the beds, there was a small dresser, with a couple of drawers stack on top of each other, with an oil lamp on it. The lamp wasn't lit as the sun was shining quite spectacularly into the room. On the wall behind the dresser, he saw that there was perfect rectangle on the wall, where the paint was a shade or two darker, but still the official royal hue. There was a nail in the top center of the spot.

Then it hit him, a picture that had been up for years had been taken down and that spot was in the sunshine again. He looked over, and only noticed then that Sokka had a cast on his leg and saw the lone crutch resting against the wall. Zuko came alive when the the questions popped up and started to fly around in his head. He stood up and started to pace. It reminded Sokka of the insomnia Aang got before the eclipse. Only differences this time were that Zuko was walking back and forth with no shirt on and some pants were too tight, or maybe it was because he had just woken up. All sokka knew was that he could see a certain part of Zuko swinging through the fabric. You could say that Sokka and Zuko were seeing eye to eye in a sense. Sokka quickly suppressed the thought, but did not exactly avert his eyes.

Zuko, still patrolling the room, ran his hand through his hair as he quickly fired the questions at the other, "Did we win? Where's everybody? Where's Katara? Where's Azula?"

"Zuko sit down and I'll tell you everything," He said calmly.

"NO, Sokka what happened. Where's Ozai?"

Sokka stood up with some effort and walked into Zuko's path. When the other turned around to make yet another line in the floor, Sokka grabbed him by the shoulders.

"ZUKO. Get a grip." He commanded

"But."

Sokka jolting him firmly. "Sit down and shut up," he said half-jokingly.

The pale one complied and felt a strange stirring in doing so. If he wasn't so interested in what Sokka had to say he's have contemplated in that moment what the feeling was and why he felt it in his gut. "Okay I'm calm what happened."

Sokka walked over to the other bed and sat down, "First tell me what you remember so that I don't have to waste any time on the recap."

"Well," Zuko started, "They were just a few seconds from putting that headpiece in Azula's hair, when I challenged her to an Agni Kai. She accepted, though Katara said that I shouldn't. I took my shirt off to fight her and when I looked at her, I knew. When I looked in her eyes, those same unchanging eyes that lied to me and tormented me my whole childhood, I saw it. I knew she was slipping. The precision was gone. With the comet in the sky, we were both firebending the most ferocious fire I'd ever seen. Maybe ten times more powerful than I'd ever seen. It seems like for an eternity we fought my orange fire matching her blue, step for step. It was a stalemate and I knew that I had to break it somehow. So, I said, 'No lightning today Azula? Afraid I'll redirect it?'

"And she, she said that she'll 'show me lightning'. She created some and I readied myself to redirect it. And I saw a new glint of evil in her eyes, a spark, a flash of darkness. I watched as her eyes drifted over to the left and the lightning was not coming in my direction. Then it hit me. She aimed at Katara and I ran to intercept it before it could get to your sister. I couldn't redirect it and that's all I remember."

Sokka started, "Katara told me that she tried to get to you to heal you, but Azula started to attack her. The battle was very brief Katara noticed the water under the grates in the courtyard, and did some waterbending magic and somehow managed to chain Azula to the grate. You were alive she said, and she wished that she could have gotten to you quicker, but when she saw the way you were she went to work. She was still working on you when Aang, Toph, Suki got back. They didn't move you here for a few hours while she put your chi pack in order."

"Was I that bad?" Zuko asked.

"We were terrified."

"Where are the others? What happened?" Zuko was getting excited again.

"Well, Aang came back, he said that he spent his time with an ancient lion turtle who gave him wisdom Unfortunately, Ozai his plan into motion. The fleet of dirigibles started raining fire on the Earth Kingdom. Toph, Suki and I found our way onto one of them, but there must have been about twenty of them. We figured out that we could use one ship to disable the rest of them."

"How?"

"We figured that we could go to the bridge of one ship and steer it into the others. That's what we did and in one fell swoop we took out about half of them. Aang was incredible. He went into the Avatar State and let's just say that everybody's firebending was truly awesome that day. Of course Aang had the advantage with the other three elements on his side. After what must have been the most tense ten minutes I had ever seen, Aang had Ozai pinned down to the ground. He made these fetters out of earth and had him on his knees."

"Then what?" Zuko braced for the news. From what he knew of the Avatar State, he knew that Aang wasn't in control. He didn't know how to feel. If Aang had killed Ozai, a part of him felt sad, the type of sadness that comes from something being wasted. Another part of him felt numb, he felt nothing for the man who had burned him and had told him that he killed his mother in the night for the 'treasonous things' she 'did'. Another part of him was just as jubilant as an Earth Kingdom subject would be at hearing that the Fire Lord was dead. Yet another part of him was terrified, the world's eyes were on Zuko. The billion or so people in the world would all be fixated on every step he takes, every move he makes. They'd be watching him, judging, loving or hating, grafting their prejudices onto him and so on. The next emotion that hit him was beyond terror, an emotion that's permanence he hoped he could escape, but knew would be his shadow in the sun: doubt. What the actual fuck was he going to do when they put that headpiece in his hair? He would be the commander of the strongest army and navy, the only air force. He would be the heir to an ideological mess, the inheritor to a legacy of death with the death of a hundred million people on his head.

Apparently enough time had passed between question and answer because Sokka only started to speak after Zuko went through that colorful spectrum of feelings. "It was the most impressive thing I have ever seen. I was almost blinded by this powerful white light and glow of orange. It was so bright that you couldn't even see the comet pass. I couldn't see Aang and Ozai, just the lights. The left orange and the right, white. The orange started to take over the white, consuming it. Just when there was only a thin stripe of white light left, in that last moment the whole ball turned into a miniature sun with the most brilliant light I have ever seen."

"What happened?" He asked.

"When we got onto the the rock where Aang had defeated him we asked what the hell had happened."

"And what happened?" Zuko asked again.

"Aang took Ozai's firebending away." Sokka said with a seriousness Zuko had never heard before.

"What?" Zuko's got wide-eyed with astonishment. "How-"

"The lion turtle I suppose, but that's not it." Sokka's voice turned even darker, "We told him that his reign of terror was over. 'Justice is a fearful process' I told him. And then I saw, what did you call it before? The flash of darkness in his eyes. He looked at me and he laughed a weak, exhausted laugh. 'Do you think you'll parade me around. Providence takes more than one lifetime. My fate is not ended by some boy. The Phoenix King shall be reborn in the flames' Then he laughed again, a hollow howling like a crazed hyena. 'I'll be back' he said. And his body went limp."

"WHAT?" Zuko rose from his bed quickly, turning a bright shade of red with lividity.

"Toph said that his heart just stopped." Zuko started pacing again, "He died. It's like he killed himself. He chose when he wanted to and he just stop."

"Fuckin' coward. Yameru, he committed yameru." Zuko swore.

Sokka suppressed a thought about hearing Zuko swear. There was something he appreciated about hearing something so visceral from the usually precise (to a fault), firebender. He asked, "What is Yameru?"

Zuko sat down on his bed again. "One of the first things you learn as a firebender is how to control all your muscles and your breathing. A good firebender and take get his breathing rate down to two or three breaths a minute. Some can even make their hearts skip a beat on command. A master can yameru, or 'quit', instead of surrendering like in the old days when people wanted to keep their 'honor'. He just commanded his heart to stop, and he wouldn't face that fearful process. Death was too kind a punishment. But he was a coward and that's what they do."

Zuko was still confused about something, "Where are the others."

"Somewhere in the Earth Kingdom. They're due back tomorrow. Aang didn't want to leave you here, but he wanted to make sure that all the Fire Nation soldiers are complying with the cease-fire order that Aang issued. He also wanted to make sure that Earth Kingdom takes no prisoners."

"What?"

"I said that wrong. I mean that he wants to tell everybody that the war is truly over. Your uncle assured us that they would restore the Earth King's throne, So they left me to take care of you."

"Then, who's running this right now?"

"You are."

"How?" Zuko asked.

"No one knows that you were incapacitated. The sages and nurses who've been taking care of you have not let any information out of this place. As far as the people out there are concerned, you are organizing a government."

A few hours had passed, since his awakening. He knew that his body was back to it's normal self. He had risen with the sun, just as all firebenders did. He went and took a bath, against all insistence from Sokka that he smelled fine. He went out of the room and knew immediately that he was in the quarters of the servants. They probably didn't risk moving him too far while Katara was trying to save his life.

He felt a pang of guilt when he realized that for a large part of his life he regarded people like her as the scum that stopped his 'righteous people' from 'living free'. He snapped out of it. He didn't have time for guilt. This country was now relying on him for leadership. He quickly got into some 'regular clothes', which for the Fire Lord meant a flowing carmine robe.

The servants provided Sokka with some new attire that Sokka thought suited a courtier more than a soldier like him. He did have to admit that the clothes were much cooler than they looked, with the fabric being silky and breathable. He walked with the crutch, but felt much better at the fact that the robe accommodated for the sheath for his sword, which he was very grateful not to lose in that final battle for peace.

They met in the War Room. Zuko knew soon that the function of the room had changed but he knew that he'd have many a personal wrestle in here, in and out of the presence of his advisors. He did not sit on the 'Fire Throne' as it was called, but rather he pulled up a chair and put it at the head of the table. He felt more comfortable here closer to the one advisor he had present. Sokka sat in the chair at the end of the table, at Zuko's right hand. Zuko lit the fire of the throne for light and everything glowed in an orange ambiance.

"Sokka, I don't know what I'm going to do. How does one move forward after a century of war. This war started in 1800, it's 1900, a hundred million people are dead."

"Look, Zuko," he said, looking up to Zuko, who must have been sitting in a slightly higher chair, "I don't know, but that's good. Those people, your people don't know either. No one remembers 1800, few remember 1850, and most people block out '75. These are unprecedented times and there are people out there desperate for you to say something different. It all depends on what you want."

"I don't want to be like my father," Zuko said bitterly, "I don't want to be anything like him."

"You're not, you'll never be," Sokka answered sincerely. He grabbed Zuko's shaky hand and held it in his hands in a brotherly way. He pat Zuko's hand with every important syllable, "You are not the Fire Lord's son. Zuko you are the Fire Lord."

"I was."

"But you are the… the master of your fate, the captain of your soul. You have complete control of this. If you continue to beat yourself up, I might have to do it for you," he chuckled.

Zuko found it immensely funny and laughed to the point where he snorted a little. "I'd like to see you try hobbling around like that." He kept laughing, causing Sokka to laugh more, in a sort of jovial positive feedback. It died down after a while and Sokka realized that he was still holding Zuko's hand, in a brotherly way. He let it go and apologized.

"Don't worry about it. In fact I have a very big favor to ask you. Well since that thing will be on your foot for at least some weeks, can you stay here and be an advisor? It'll keep you here with the best medical care in the world, a room in the palace, all the food you want-"

"You don't have to sell me on helping you. I'll help in any way I can."

"Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate you."

"It's nothing, you had me at the food. So what do you have to do."

"First, I have to prove that I'm alive and that the Crown is moving to make peace. I cannot say that we lost only that the world has found peace. I have to bring my soldiers home. I have to tell them that Ozai is dead. I have to tell them that Azula is insane. I have to tell them. It's never been done before but I'll have to give a speech after they put that crown in my hair."

"Well they're supposed to get back tonight, so you can do it tomorrow, or as soon as you can."

"No, the quicker, the better. The Fire people are excitable and hat uncertainty. If they didn't see someone steering the ship, there's no telling what they can do."

Zuko grabbed a piece of paper from the drawer in the table and got one of those wonder they made during the war, the ballpoint pen, and started to draft a speech. Sokka acted as a sounding board. They only broke once to tell the servants to announce that Zuko would speak at 10AM the next day

They didn't know how many hours passed and it made very little difference to them. By the time they emerged, the sun was setting. The clouds that evening were wispy and caught the hues of red, and orange as the sky mellowed out into shades of blue and violet and indigo. The sun itself was the same shade of gold that Sokka saw in Zuko's eyes. They went out into the garden and sat in the grass, enjoying the silence.

"You have a big day tomorrow," Sokka said, "And I know you're ready."

"I hope I am. Opening these gates to the people. I can only wonder what they feel about me. Most of them don't know why I have this scar. Most of them thought I went into the Navy by choice, a boy, a prince doing his duty for his country. My return was heralded in the newspapers, "The Prince Returns". And now I don't know what the people think of me."

"Whatever they think of you," Sokka said staring at the light show above him, "They will judge you by what you say and do. Goodness, every sunset I've seen in this country has been beautiful. It looks like sorbet."

"There's the proof you've been eating me out of house and home, taking advantage of our refrigeration system to eat all the sorbet. I bet you've been eating all the ice cream too."

"Of course, I'd never had it before. I tried every flavor, the strawberry was the best."

"That reminds me of the time- SHIT, SHIT, SHIT!" Zuko sprung up like a bat out of hell. "Shit, shit, shit! How did I forget?!"

"What? What did you forget."

"Not what? Who?" Zuko responded

"Who?" Sokka asked, not putting it together.

"Mai, where's Mai?

"The Boiling Rock, I guess." Sokka felt a searing culpability for forgetting about her while thinking about Suki during those quiet nights keeping vigil over Zuko.

"I left her to Azula's mercy. Mercy? She doesn't know what that is."

"Her uncle is the warden, I am sure that she is quite safe and as comfortable as one can be in a prison. Ty Lee too, if they're tough enough to work for Azula and defy her, they're stronger than anything she could throw at them.

Zuko was about to respond when he heard a low rumble in the distance. It was like a gentle roaring, a hum from a great beast. "Thank goodness, they're back."

And in a few seconds Appa appeared, coming from the east. When the bison landed, Zuko looked at the group that got off, Aang, Katara, Toph, and Suki, and was filled with a sense of dread. They were his friends, but he was terrified of them. The people who saved the world, two thirteen year-olds, a fourteen year old, and sixteen year old. Then he looked at Sokka and then at himself, two seventeen year olds. A bunch of people who when they added the years of the lives was still shorter than the length of the war.

These humble upstarts would be the people running the world, and his true tenure started in the morning.

"Aang, it's good t-"

"Zuko," the fully realized Avatar interrupted him, "We have a problem."

TO BE CONTINUED...

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