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One. Aang.

Her eyes' manic gleam reflected the lightning between her fingers. She was going to kill him. Katara wasn't here to save him, she was still in the South Pole eating seal blubber or something equally disgusting. He'd completely forgotten the form to redirect lightning and Zuko and Iroh were stuck in a meeting with trade advisors from Ba Sing Se.

He was gonna die, and he wasn't even wearing pants.

"Aagh!" he sat up in bed, heart racing, palms sweating.

That dream, again. It got wackier every time, but the core of it terrified him still, no matter what he wore (or didn't), what she said (or screamed), where he was (or wasn't). Azula was locked up, no one else posed the threat that she did, he was the Avatar, for crying out loud. He was safe.

We were raised to be soldiers, he remembered suddenly, Sokka's words from one night, not so long ago, of group bonding and commiseration. There had been alcohol, from which he'd refrained, but he had never been so tempted. Why do they think we know how to be anything else?

He had to make it stop.

The dungeon floors were always damp, for a reason, he knew. It kept their flames sedated, waned their spirits and numbed their senses. It was chilly, but not cold; the air did not move, as there was only enough for breathing. Nothing more.

Her cell, besides, was deep underground, so far down that any flame she could conjure would be confused with the earth's inner flames. This was a truth all fire benders knew—the world's entrails burned brighter than anything on the surface. Volcanoes called to them for this reason, but they knew that any flame that met the surface would inevitably become stone.

She, he thought, had become obsidian. Dark and lovely, cold and lifeless.

In a lot of ways, Zuko had explained, the deep cells were almost a form of therapy. Sitting so close to the earth's core, even with the chill and the damp and the bleak walls encroaching on her, Azula would feel a keen sense of belonging in that space. She would never be able to transfer that feeling to the surface, and perhaps the thought of so much unharnessed power at the tip of her fingers would prove rather maddening, but… but he hoped. He hoped it would bring life back into her, too.

Aang thought it was a very nice hope to have, but he knew the ins and outs of optimism and this was just not the place for it. He had better ideas.

He knew this was a reckless move on his part, to an extent. There really was no logical reason for him to visit her, to encourage her, to push her. He didn't really need her.

But. For all that he walked this world as a god, many forgot he was also a man. It bothered him to know that there was one element that could still outsmart him, that still weakened him, and there was only one person alive today that could embrace its volatility enough to truly challenge him now. The war was over, and she, the great threat, was very clearly insane. It was the height of stupidity, Katara had argued, to try to bring such a threat back. Sure, it might be the humane thing to do, but… everyone thought the same: did she of all people deserve it?

He wasn't sure himself, to be truthful, even when all his teachings said as much. He used them as a front, of course, and his word weighed enough. He, as a public figure, was above reproach. No one had to know his reasons went deeper.

He was older now, and stronger. But he couldn't manipulate lightning or control volatile flames the way she had. She was prodigious. He had to be better.

It terrified him to think another war could break out and he wouldn't be good enough. He knew he had it in him to be better, and he wasn't. He couldn't fail again. He could no longer excuse himself saying he'd been a frightened child.

She did not frighten him. He was not a child anymore.

She would challenge him and he would win and maybe then he'd finally be able to sleep through the night.

The guards explained to him beforehand that no, she did not speak, and no, she did not move all that much either. They had never seen her conjure a flame. She didn't flinch when they approached, and only every once in a while she deigned to look them in the eye… and they never dared to hold her gaze for too long. It was intense, they said. Not unfocused, but not all there either. It was as if she saw past them, through them, into another realm that captured her full attention in a kaleidoscopic daze.

Or so he interpreted, from their jittery explanations. At least, he figured, she would appreciate his flair for the dramatic.

The door to her cell was a thick sheet of cold metal. No bars, no peepholes, just a slot that locked and unlocked with heavy mechanism that seemed far too complex for the simple purpose of providing access for nourishment. The guards said that she ate everything she was given, soundlessly. She expended no energy on anything that did not require it.

She was well-fed, they'd told him. Zuko's orders.

Thinking of Zuko made his step pause. Ultimately what he was doing would probably do her more good than harm… but some doubt remained in the back of his mind. Would this finish breaking her? He was not here to offer freedom, and Zuko knew that. She would know that. But he would dangle it in front of her and dare her to chase after it.

He felt it necessary. Zuko thought it might help. Katara thought it was the stupidest idea he'd ever had.

The hinges on the door scraped loudly as they opened. The damp had encrusted them in a hearty layer of rust, but they were too thick to weaken over it.

She sat with her legs crossed at the center of the cell, too-long hair falling neatly down her back, body clad in soft and simple robes. No metal adorned her.

She met his gaze immediately, her stare intense and unflinching and very focused.

He knew her attention had zeroed in on him, and only him, and it might have been the most focused she'd been since… very long ago. He wondered if it'd last.

He cut to the chase. "Teach me to bend lightning," he said, serious, placing due weight on his words. "You'll remain imprisoned, this changes nothing. But you get a chance to fire at me again, and if I die, it will have been more my fault than yours."

A sick grin marred her face. She coughed a violent, scratchy thing before croaking "no" through a grin.

He… did not expect that. "Why?"

"I—" coughs wracked her chest. Air passed her lips soundlessly, and then more coughing and hacking. He passed her a skin of water he'd brought along, reinforced with some herbal remedies for weakness, muscle atrophy, things he'd figured inevitably ailed her.

She swatted his hand away with a movement far more refined than her sallow skin and lazy posture would suggest. She reached for a cup behind her, cold metal glinting against the light peering through the slit of the door he'd left open. She took a sip, cleared her throat and enunciated with her princess vowels: "I know why you want to learn," she teased. One cough. "Won't give you the satisfac—" cough, cough. She seemed pleased with herself despite her voice's failure. The grin returned, and her gaze met his again.

She knew. Of course she did. "What can I offer you in exchange?"

She cocked an eyebrow, grin in place.

"Within reason," he added, quite needlessly.

She cleared her throat again. "Everything I ever wanted is gone, Avatar, and for once this delights me, because you have nothing to offer me. I have what you want, and you cannot have it." Her grin faded and her expression narrowed into the hateful disdain she was known for. "Live with that knowledge."

He'd tried. He couldn't. He was a flawed man and… and she knew.

"Oh," she said with relish, "how it kills you."

"Wouldn't you rather have that honor?" he goaded.

"I did."

She did. Spirits, what was he getting into? She had successfully murdered him once and probably would again in the middle of a giggling fit. And here he was, signing up for it because… because he was weak and frightened, ambitious and vain, and very much a tortured man.

"I'm still standing," he countered.

"And what a pathetic stance that is for a so-called master." She coughed once more. "Leave. You bore me."

He could tell she wasn't exactly lying, either.

He tried again a month later.

She seemed much more awake, somehow, and she'd clearly expected his return. Her gaze fixed on him again as she said: "Even if I bothered to teach you, you'd never succeed."

He sat across from her on the floor of her cell, the only part inside those walls that was neither damp nor cold. He now understood why she sat in the middle of the space rather than reclined against the walls. And something about her aura exuded heat; she was her own furnace. Some years before, she had murdered him in a gust of tightly controlled power. Now, that power source was clearly subdued… yet persistent. Present.

"That's for me to find out," he said.

She hummed noncommittally. "My stance remains. Show your hand."

Sometimes he forgot she'd been trained in diplomacy and negotiation as much as she had been in combat. He untied the scroll he'd knotted to his robe and held it up for her to see. "Zuko's signature. If you agree to teach me, we would need a safe practice space. This is permission for you to leave this cell daily, for the next week, for three hours at a time. You can go as far as I can see you, but no farther, and only in broad daylight."

She didn't look impressed, but she stretched out a hand in a dainty, lazy movement.

He handed her the scroll and watched her unfurl it, scan it, her expression neutral and her body language relaxed, unflinching… controlled. She'd been down here for almost four years now. He didn't think she'd received any other visits before him. Shouldn't she have spiraled further by now?

The crack of parchment brought him out of his musings. He watched as she rolled the scroll back up and lightly rested her chin atop it. "Avatar," she said plainly, "what does my dear brother think you're doing?"

The question shouldn't have surprised him. "Helping you, ah, regain your sense of reality."

Her feral grin crept back onto her lips. "But you and I know otherwise."

Cautiously, he nodded. Anything he said here would be used against him. As she was doing now.

She extended the scroll back to him. "Unconvincing. My brother can do better." She leaned forwards, gripping the scroll as he attempted to remove it from her grasp—"and you," she added with that terrifying grin, "now need to persuade me to play along with your little ruse."

He'd expected that. "Your word over mine?" he laughed. "I'm not worried."

She let go of the scroll, grin intact. "Then you haven't changed at all."

"So really," Aang finished his succinct speech, "since the Air Nation has suffered the most grievances at the hands of the Fire Nation, the Air Nation should have custody over Princess Azula's punishment."

Zuko kept staring at him like he'd grown a third eye, and Katara, like the rest of the advisors, simply looked horrified.

He'd completely sprung this on them, disguised as an update on his progress (or lack thereof) with the princess. And, technically, it was an update. Of a sort.

"By your logic," Zuko said, with an expression that underpinned his surprise at the turn this discussion had taken, "shouldn't custody of Ozai be more appropriate? Or of my grandfather's remains? Aang, Azula didn't technically commit direct crimes against the Air Nation. She antagonized you particularly, sure—"

"She did kill me once," Aang supplied helpfully.

Katara held up a hand before Zuko tried to continue his line of thought. "She killed many others," she said simply. "Multiple nationalities. But you don't see the Earth Kingdom claiming custody."

"Lucky me, I made first dibs."

Zuko's gaze hardened. "She's a prisoner, Aang. And my sister. Speak plainly—what do you want?"

Good question. What did he want, exactly? "I think she should live out her sentence in a different kind of seclusion. The Southern Air Temple is isolated, abandoned, and the environment is conducive to a different kind of reflection from the insanity—sorry, Zuko, but it's true—that she engages in down in the cells. I get that it's the kind of punishment the Fire Nation deems appropriate for fire benders, but I genuinely believe she can get better elsewhere."

"And why does she," Katara said thinly, "deserve to 'get better' when other prisoners do not? This is special treatment. She arguably deserves it least."

"Because of the weight of her crimes, you mean," Aang said.

"Naturally," Katara said.

Zuko's silence belied his thoughts. Aang sent a satisfied smile his way. "Zuko catches my drift. Katara, why did Azula commit those heinous crimes?"

Katara pursed her lips.

"She was a child! Like us!" Aang tried to rein in his enthusiasm, knowing Zuko's advisors would not quite understand his mannerisms the way Katara and Zuko did. "Zuko, you got to become your own person under Iroh's tutelage, away from this palace, from Ozai and his side of the war. Look who you are today! If you and Azula had switched places—"

"She would have caught you quickly," Zuko said, "brought you back efficiently, and murdered you without a second thought the moment my father commanded it. You're right, she was corrupted by our environment, but do not misrepresent her willingness and enthusiasm to embrace power, destruction, and murder."

Aang allowed himself a deep breath before he tried to respond. At this point, the advisors' lips were tightly shut and their eyes blown wide from the discussion. "I think," he said more quietly, watching Zuko begin to deflate, "she craved power, which is a much more human thing, and only had her father's example as to how she could obtain it. And I think that she'll never change her views if she stays in that cell. She'll die there someday."

In the end, Katara said what no one else dared to say. "And with your solution, you expect her to die at the Southern Air Temple instead?"

He knew she didn't mean that literally, but rather only said it to prompt his frank response: "No, I expect her to die after a long, sane life, wherever that life has taken her."

"A life in your custody," Zuko added.

"A life released from my custody," Aang countered, "after she atones for her crimes as I see fit, according to Air Nation law, which she has above all others offended most."

Zuko's jaw tensed up before he told his advisors: "If you've nothing to add, leave us. This has become a private matter."

They all scurried out.

Zuko sighed. "Aang, just, out with it."

"She doesn't deserve to be down there paying for your father's mistakes," he said. "We were kids fighting adults' battles, and she was no different. She deserves a second chance and I'm willing to give it to her. How hard is that to understand?"

Zuko looked pained, and Aang wished he hadn't asked that. It wasn't hard at all, it was just… political.

Katara gave him a hard look before turning to Zuko. "He's given you the political reasoning to release her custody to him, however flawed. I'm sure one of your lawyers can modify it into an airtight public statement. So forget them; the decision is yours alone."

Zuko took Katara's hand and gripped it tightly. "I shouldn't be asking this," he said, looking up to meet Aang's gaze, "but you won't… hurt her, right?"

Aang saw how it pained him to ask that. This was so messed up. A brother should be able to defend his sister without questioning whether she deserves that protection. "Of course I won't," Aang said. "I have to call it punishment because of politics, but you know I've always meant to help her."

Inside, he knew he was half-lying. But now he wondered… he was almost too invested in this project for it to be for his selfish gain. He supposed he really did care about Azula's second chance.

Comforted by the thought, however strange it was to be unsure about his own stance on the topic, he smiled at Zuko. "She's your sister," he said. "It's okay to care about her."

Zuko swallowed thickly. "Then go," he said. "Get her out of there."

He looked back before closing the door behind him, watching Katara pull her husband into her arms and stroke his hair. She met his eyes over Zuko's shoulder, and nodded, with a wan smile.

She was worried about the outcomes of this project, with good reason. He was too. But he left the office in high spirits, knowing he was about to do the right thing.

On the day of their departure, Katara asked him to have breakfast with her on her terrace. Zuko was probably already in a meeting somewhere, but Katara received him in a simple summer dress, not her usual Fire Lady garb, and her hair was the simple plait he remembered from their days on the run.

How times changed, he mused.

She served him plate of fruit and a cup of tea, and then went straight to the point. "Aang," she said from the rim of her teacup, looking as if she expected the jasmine infusion to be sour, "what if she hurts you?"

Ah. There it was.

He shrugged. "I mean, the war's over, so… I'm more expendable than I was back then. Prophecy fulfilled, you know?" It was the wrong thing to say, and he knew it, but also… it had to be said.

Katara fumed. "Aang. I won't be there if…"

"I know," he said, "and that's okay. She probably will hurt me, Katara, but that's okay. It's part of the process. I can take care of myself."

"Part of the process?" she sputtered. "Why does she get to hurt you for the sake of her own wellbeing?"

"I'm unhurt," Aang said, "and she's not. I'm sure she has a lot of evil to let out before she can begin to heal. I'm a great receptacle for evil."

"Aang, you're not invincible."

"Close enough."

"No!" she cried. "No, not close enough, Aang. She killed you! I saw you die!"

Wow, nearly ten years older yet still as thickheaded as he'd been during puberty. He had grossly miscalculated how much this was eating at her. "Oh, Katara, I'm sorry." He stood up to hug his best friend. "Katara, I'm sorry, please don't cry. That was insensitive of me. But I wouldn't be doing this if I honestly thought she posed a mortal danger to me."

That was a blatant lie and they both knew it.

"I'm taking every precaution."

Less of a lie.

"And I honestly think this can work."

There. Honesty.

She sighed, gathering her wits. She stepped out of the hug and looked him in the eye. "I can't talk you out of this. But Aang, please, remember who she is and what she has done. Do not lower your guard."

He nodded. "I promise."

She sat back down and gestured for him to do the same. "I can't understand this project of yours, so I can't really support it, but I support you. If this is important to you for some reason, then alright. But please, please be careful. She's…"

"A person," he said. "She's a person who has been hurt so many times over that she doesn't even know what it means to hurt and be hurt anymore. Mai and Ty Lee care about her, you know? I bet it hurts them to know she's like this; this is for them too. And Zuko—"

"I'll stop you right there," she said tersely. "Azula has hurt Zuko most of all, and continues to do so all the way from her prison cell. This project has only reopened an old wound for him, and if it backfires, if it hurts not only you but also him…" Aang saw her ire begin to rise again, like air into a hot air balloon, threatening to carry her far far away from him and all common sense.

"I get it," he said. "I'm sorry I hadn't seen that before. I knew Zuko was upset, but I thought he was also happy I'm doing this."

"I think he is," she said. "Along with a maelstrom of other emotions."

He nodded. "I can't make any promises, of course, but you know I intend to do my best."

She sighed. "Eat up, then," she said, gesturing to his untouched plate. "You can't rehabilitate a war criminal on an empty stomach."

AN:

First of all, a huge shout-out to the truly few authors out there who've tackled this pairing. This story's take on Azula's alternative imprisonment was inspired by sablefalls's Of Gods and Men, the first fic I ever read for this ship, and the line "for all that he walked this world as a god, many forgot he was also a man" pays a small tribute to that work. (Respect the rating! Do not read it if you're not of age to be reading that fic!)

I hope you enjoyed the first part of the result. This will be a three-shot; two parts in Aang's POV and the last in Azula's. It's all written out, but I intend to publish weekly to allow myself some time to revise. I wrote this all in a single day's frenzy, so it needs help.

With that in mind—I'd sincerely appreciate your feedback, so feel free to drop me a line or a dozen on everything this piece made you think.

M.