Don't own.

He is scared.

It is not an easy things to admit, clad in the robes and headpiece of the Fire Lord, as nervous doctors and flustered nurses skitter away from him like rodents. Fire Lord Zuko the Peacemaker, Firebending Teacher of the Avatar himself; people averted their eyes in his presence, such was his aura of authority. But right now, the metal door cold beneath his hands, he was just Zuko, a twenty-year-old who had been forced to grow up too fast, who avoided this topic like it was a virulent disease. He was every bit a coward when it came to Azula.

That Agni Kai had killed him. He would never say it aloud, but every movement, every strike had violated his being straight to the core because it was wrong and this was his baby sister.

Azula had been Sozin's great-granddaughter; Zuko was Roku's great-grandson. And their legacy had been the war of Sozin and Roku's bloodlines reborn. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

He couldn't look at her, broken and screaming and crying; he had sent her away, too afraid to face the little sister in a broken body and a cracked soul that he did not even begin to know how to fix. He did not think about her every day. He did not wake up with childish laughter echoing in his ears and the taste of salt breeze in his mouth. He did not ache for the baby sister Ozai killed. He didn't

She had asked for him.

He had her locked in a cell to be tended by strangers and she had asked for him and it was wrong, wrong, wrong.

He wanted to believe that Zula was alive – he wanted to think that the little amber-eyed girl who had thought he was the greatest thing to grace the Earth had not truly been crushed underfoot by Ozai's ambitious pride. The very thought made him sick. But he had seen her face in the Agni Kai, he had felt the rage and hatred and pain that had coiled from her skin like heat from stone and Zula was gone.

She had to be gone.

Because if she wasn't, that meant it was Zula in there, his little sister, sweet, mild and gentle, not Azula, Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, Heir of Ozai, legacy of Sozin. And that might kill him.

When the door opens, he enters but he does not speak. He does not even look at her because the image of her with jagged bangs and wet eyes, breathing fire and writhing with madness is scorched so deeply into his retinas that he does not think the image will ever truly fade; to see her like that now with only burn his soul deeper.

Zuzu.

The voice is tiny and helpless and fragile and not Azula-who-would-kill-him but not his little sister – he thinks maybe a little of both – and it hurts to hope but he does anyway and looks at her face.

There are no bars between them as there are between him and Ozai; they have not even bound her with chains. The Fire Lord in him thinks this is dangerous and foolish.

The Brother in him wants to weep with gratitude.

Because Azula-his-sister stands and stumbles once, twice, and falls into his arms with a sob and clings to him as though he is her only lifeline and salvation. She is too small and too weak and before he can think he calls for a nurse to bring clothes – silk and royal armor, she is a princess – and he knows why he has not visited her for five years.

He cannot leave her here.

When the light of the sun hits her skin and she smiles and Zula looks back from her face, Zuko thinks for the first time in his life that maybe he was born lucky.