Just a little one-shot... Basically, Zula having a string of the rapid cycling that comes with Bipolar Personality Disorder, followed by a tender moment between herself and Zuko, painted in an AU, modern setting. Basically just my running thoughts with some things changed/added to fit Zula and her situation as I see it. So, don't be too harsh, alright?

Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. Though I do wish I owned Azula at times.


In all truth, she didn't know if she'd ever really had a manic episode, but she did know she'd had plenty of depressive ones. Mostly when she skipped school for days on end, wanting nothing more than to curl into a ball in bed and die… or when her family had dragged her out to dinner, pretending they were a normal family, and like the world wasn't crashing down around their ears… But sometimes… sometimes she'd just laugh and laugh and scream and cry… all in her own head… and then she'd take a razor to her wrists – no, she didn't care about hygiene just then, or if they got infected – and watch as the blood streamed into her hands, and then wait for the sting that told her she was still alive… Then there were the times she'd just wander through the halls of the mansion… She'd cry, scream, hate, rage… curse her mother, her father, her brother, her friends, her uncle, her cousin…

She hated them all they should all die they meant nothing to her… no, she loved them, she never wanted them to leave, they were all she had… then she'd simply sink to the floor and sob and sob and sob… And sometimes, sometimes she would just sit there… just sit there and stare into the blackness that was the house when she was having an insomniac spell… and just think. She would wonder at the point of any of this… why she was still here… why she hadn't just died yet… And then the sun would come up on her thoughts and disjointed mental ramblings… and she would find a pair of eyes the exact same color of her own staring back at her, a hand in each of her own, gently leading her to bed, and helping her to take her medication – a sleeping pill, an anti-psychotic, and an anti-depressant. Then she would be tucked in, a kiss placed to her forehead.

"I love you, Zuzu," she'd whisper, as she watched him leave her room.

"I love you, too, Zula," he'd murmur in reply, and then close the door to her room gently but firmly.

And then she would sleep, the medication and exhaustion combining to sweep her away to place where she need not think, or worry, or dream, or care, for one short span of time, her big brother's words comforting her as she slept.