Author's Note: This is actually a story I've tried to write several times. Prepare for feels; I promise that at the end of all of this, there's a happy ending.


"I gave up on the past because it's unforgiving. I misplaced my trust, I watched my word begin to rust, I'm a balloon about to bust, I need a place for reliving."

.

Golden

No matter what time of year or where she is, sunset is Ty Lee's favorite time of day. She likes the color, the warmth, and the beauty of it all. It reminds her how wonderful it is to be alive. She has seen another amazing day come to an end.

But today, as she stands on the ferry with the wind to her back, the sunset hides behind her.

"Passengers, please prepare for landing," the speakerphone crackles. "We will be reaching Hopo Island shortly."

She doesn't know what to expect. She carries a single, closed fire lily. She picked it from the garden on the side of her house this morning. She knows there is a deeper symbolism behind them, but that is not why she is here.

A man next to her clutches a dozen roses close to his heart. An Earth Kingdom couple, probably about her age, hold one another and speak in whispers. A noblewoman with pursed lips and expensive robes checks her nails.

She wonders who they are going to see, and if they will be coming home today.

.

Last week, amidst an insane afternoon lunch rush, the last person Ty Lee expects to walk into the tea shop is the Fire Lord's mother.

"It's a pleasure to see you again, Lady Ursa," Ty Lee says with a deep bow. Her coworkers behind her stare with their jaws on the floor. Ty Lee and nobility do not belong in the same sentence.

"Oh, the pleasure is all mine, Ty Lee. I apologize if this is a little impromptu."

Ty Lee's boss throws together a fresh table at the last minute. He shakes as he pours a round of tea. Ty Lee burns her tongue and pretends the tea isn't bitter.

Ursa babbles. About life in the Fire Nation, about how the village reminds her of Hira'a, how time has slipped by…

And then she mentions her name, and Ty Lee's heart plunges into her gut.

"She could use a change of pace. A change of… scenery. I don't think she'll ever be able to return to the palace. She needs help finding peace."

Ursa admires the sunset.

"I'm not sure," is all Ty Lee can say, over and over. To be honest, Ty Lee had forgotten all about it. Put it all behind her the day she picked up Kyoshi's Fan.

Ursa asks. Ursa begs. Ursa prays. She is waging an uphill battle. Ty Lee wants to run away.

And she has been running for a very, very long time.

.

Ty Lee fidgets in the waiting room. She wipes her palms on her best skirt. Sweat beads down her neck and she has the urge to jump into the artesian fountain at the center of the room, but she sits still. She is not a little girl anymore.

Her legs itch and she walks around the hospital. It doesn't even feel like a hospital. Songbirds flutter through the main atrium and flowers bloom in ornate garden beds. Colorful, abstract paintings decorate pastel walls. Lavender incense wafts alongside small, handout plates of lava cookies. If the hospital went out of business, it could easily become a getaway resort.

After all, there isn't another island around for miles.

"Ms. Ty Lee?" A nurse walks up to her as she stares at a dusty bookshelf. "Dr. Hew Len will see you now."

She isn't sick, but she wants to vomit.

Dr. Hew Len is nice, Ty Lee decides. Handsome. Not as old as she suspected, but she can see the silver in his beard.

"I'm happy you've come, Ty Lee," he says from behind his mahogany desk. "The hospital would like you to know what a great service you're doing by offering our full support. Medicine, equipment, personnel; whatever you need."

She processes his gratitude like a machine. "Thank you, doctor."

"Now, shall we get down to business?" He lays a thick, leather-bound file on his desk. The pages are singed black.

"Actually… I was wondering if I could see her, first."

Color drains from Hew Len's slim cheeks. "Well… May I advise you to look at the briefing instead? If we can start at the beginning…"

"If you want me to go through with this, I need to see her."

Hew Len pauses. Takes off his glasses. "I see. Please, follow me."

He leads her down, down, down a long, long spiraling staircase away from the sun. Ty Lee shivers in the cool air and feels like she is at the bottom of a cave. Hew Len stops at an iron door and turns a hefty key.

"This wing is rather rudimentary," he explains. "But only because our care at this level is… intense."

The corridor is cold. Red crystals jut out from the ceiling and light a path of more iron doors. She wonders if she is in the same building or on the same island. It reminds her of the bowels of a warship; clammy, dim, claustrophobic.

And eerily reminiscent of a certain war prison. Ty Lee rubs the scars on her wrists.

They stop at an iron door at a dead end. Hew Len knocks.

.

The doctor's words float around her like lazy smoke.

"Burns orderlies… Poor appetite… Avoids mirrors…"

He notes these things like they are out of the ordinary. Ty Lee has known them all her life.

She thinks of her visit with Mai. "You don't have to do this, Ty Lee."

"I know," she replied. She glanced out the window at Mai's daughter in the palace courtyard. Her firebending has a peculiar swiftness. "But I do."

"You're going to get burned again."

Again. Like when she got a better score on the math test, like when she could land a perfect backflip, or like when she could pull in any man she desired with a wink of her eye.

"That was when we were kids, Mai. We didn't know any better."

It's not an argument, but Mai makes it seem like it is.

Hew Len clears his throat. "Do you have any questions?"

"No."

He pauses, concerned for her… lack of concern. "Are you sure? In layman's terms, she's… quite far from approaching normal."

"Yes, sir," Ty Lee says now, lifting her head up and looking him in the eye. "I'm fully aware of the consequences."

Hew Len doesn't know it, but Ty Lee had made up her mind the moment they had locked eyes in the dark.

.

Zuko arrives on a private vessel for transport. He wants to have good intentions; Ty Lee knows he is also there for the insurance.

"This means a lot to me," he says, but he is better off chewing on cardboard.

"Of course," Ty Lee replies. He is the Fire Lord. She doesn't have a choice. "I'm honored you would seek me out."

Ty Lee hears a scream inside the hospital. Zuko rushes in, and Ty Lee decides she does not like the Imperial Firebenders.

.

They arrive at her sleepy, seaside village tucked between the mountains at sunset. Their shadows stretch over wheat fields and weave between olive tree orchards.

Ty Lee opens the rusty wooden gate to her house on the hill. A little girl with a long, black braid down her back stands on a stool, pinning bedsheets to an old clothesline. Silver windchimes jingle in the breeze.

Ty Lee turns to the silhouette against the sunset.

"Welcome home, Azula."