A/N: This first chapter is sort of a rewrite of the conversation Zuko has with his mother at the end of the comic The Search part 3. I actually liked how it was written-the style was good for a shorter comic-but I wanted to expand on it.
I really appreciate reviews! I don't want to guilt anybody into reviewing, but suggestions and feedback are really helpful.
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. This holds true for every chapter of this story.
Before Zuko knows it, the night is over. New energy coursing through his body alerts him to the rising sun. After everything that's happened these past few days, especially last night, it's strange being somewhere so…quiet. He thinks of Azula for a second, her screaming, her lightning, the echo her presence has left on this place. Zuko's mind is too full. He needs to meditate, but he knows that's only a temporary solution.
He watches the horizon for a moment before turning back to face the modest, partially destroyed house. Ikem and Kiyi—your mother's new family, he reminds himself—sit outside around a fire. Ikem's cooking breakfast. Zuko feels momentary longing before shoving it away. When he turns around, he sees Ursa, also watching the two, an indecipherable look on her face.
He doesn't know why he's been so hesitant to talk to his mother. It's been so many years: he should be so excited to see her, he should be telling her everything about his life that she's missed and listening to her own stories. But he feels all too strongly that things have changed, irreparably. His mother isn't the same woman she used to be and while he still loves her, he has to accept that he'll never be able to go back, not really. Ursa will never be his mother the same way she used to be.
Zuko doesn't want to feel bitter about her new family—he's happy, after all, to discover more family members who presumably don't want to kill him—but he can't help the slight resentment he feels when he watches Ursa playing with Kiyi or sitting beside Ikem, touching his shoulder. Thoughts come to him occasionally, completely unfair thoughts about her abandoning him, replacing him, forgetting him. He knows she saved his life, but he never expected to find her like this.
"You should go to them," Zuko says to her. He keeps his face neutral, his voice steady.
Ursa is studying him. "No," she replies. "You and I need to talk."
The way she says it, calmly but in control, reminds him so much of when he was a child that he almost cries, or laughs, or both. Instead, he just follows her.
"Mom, I—" he hesitates. That word sounds so foreign in his mouth. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly.
"Zuko, what I said to Azula…I owe you that same apology. I'm sorry I didn't love you enough."
Zuko's heart lurches painfully. He'd pictured their reunion so differently. And he'd pictured it so many times, for so many years. "Don't say that," he tells her quietly.
"But it's true." Her gaze turns to the floor. "I…I forgot you. What kind of mother forgets her son?"
Her words echo the cruel thoughts that swam unbidden through Zuko's mind only minutes ago and he feels guilty instantly. He studies his mother's face, silent for a moment. She looks a little older—slight beginnings of lines around her eyes and in the corners of her mouth—but still as beautiful as he remembers her. He realizes that he doesn't blame her for anything. He's never really blamed her.
"You saved my life," he says finally. "If it wasn't for you, he would have killed me."
Ursa's eyes meet his. "I know it was selfish of me. I should have watched over you. I wasn't there to protect you from Ozai…" she trails off, and Zuko knows she is looking at his scar as if she knows who gave it to him. He almost turns away, but instead pulls the letter from his robes, reminded by the mention of Ozai. He hands it to her wordlessly.
His mother looks impossibly sad and tired as she reads it. "What I wrote here…isn't true," she says, and she proceeds to explain it to him evenly, carefully. Zuko listens, and thinks he finally understands.
"I don't know if you remember. He was never really kind to you, Zuko, but after that…he went out of his way to hurt you. I'm so sorry. I should have known better than to provoke Ozai."
Zuko knows that's not the only reason his father hates him: Ozai's utter disdain for him runs far, far deeper. But right now it doesn't matter to him at all. He straightens up. "I'm glad you said that to him, Mom. I—I'm glad he treated me that way. It made me strong in the end, and I turned out nothing like him."
Smiling gently, Ursa studies him. "You look so handsome, Zuko. I may not have a right to be, but I'm so proud of you. You'll make a great Fire Lord."
Suddenly she looks just like a proud mother, but like someone else's proud mother. Why does she feel so distant from him? "I thought maybe you wouldn't recognize me," Zuko blurts out suddenly.
When the Mother of Faces had released his mother, she'd turned towards him, tears already in her eyes. She'd hugged him, and, helplessly, he hugged her back, thinking of how he used to feel so small, so safe in her arms. Now he's larger than her. He doesn't need her protection anymore. And when she pulled back, looking him over, he'd been waiting for her to mention his scar, to flinch away from it, anything. But she'd just laid her hand on it, gently, her eyes full of something he didn't understand, and pulled him back into the hug.
"I've missed so much," Ursa tells him. "But as long as you know who you are, I will recognize you."
"Will you tell me everything?" he asks.
She smiles at him, and she's his mother again, but at the same time, his equal. "For you," she says, "I'll start from the beginning."