Zuko had never felt such panic.
It made him breathless. It made him beg.
That was his ultimate downfall. In his household, in his world, any sign of weakness was snuffed out like one of the ceremonial candles.
He was on his hands and knees and he suddenly knew what it felt like to be betrayed and burned at the same time. The pain seared his skin and made him think that perhaps he would die. Dying seemed pleasant to him, but he could feel nothing but agony.
Zuko passed out.
When he woke, he reached to the side of his face and felt bandages and a twinge of pain. He felt sick to his stomach and his head hurt. Maybe painkillers? Of course, Zuko did not know why his father would ever give those to him after his very small transgression.
Ozai wanted to get rid of him like he got rid of everything that reminded him of his runaway wife. He was not surprised that he faced such punishment.
He sat up and looked around his room. It was decorated with solely sun symbols and scarlet paint. That was how every single building he had ever been in looked like. The color of blood and burned skin was the color of his world.
Zuko knew one thing when his head stopped spinning.
His mother escaped this place. He could do that too.
At least, he thought he could.
Ten years later, Zuko stood in the hallway of a Los Angeles apartment building, juggling grocery bags as he tried to get his key out of his pocket. It was a very specific list of Katara's, and he thought he probably got it right. His knowledge of the outside world went out of the window when he fell in love, and now he was slowly being introduced to the idea of fatherhood like a steak on a pan.
The door opened just as he found his key.
"I thought you were at work," Zuko said as Katara grabbed one of the bags from him. The relief of the burden felt incredible.
"I came home after one of my patients cancelled her appointment," she said. She looked and sounded odd; she looked like she had seen a ghost. "Zuko, I can't explain this to you on a doorstep. Will you come inside?"
"Are you being held hostage?" he whispered, unable to ignore that she was sweating, shaking slightly and still in scrubs. He meant it as a joke, but then adrenaline surged inside of his veins; he remembered that she very well could be killed at any moment because of his past, his family, his...
Sister.
"You are about to try to smile at me. You will not mean it. Don't bother," said Azula, who might as well have been dead for ten years.
Azula sat on his futon. She looked worse than Katara did, and much older than she was when he last saw her. His sister must be in her twenties now, and she looked it. He almost dropped dead just seeing her; he knew that the Rising Sun would catch up to him, but he had hoped he would have more time.
Zuko stopped Katara from shutting the door by gently seizing her wrist, whispering to her, "We might need to escape quickly."
"She seems harmless, and really traumatized," Katara said, which was clearly her diagnosis as a doctor. He wanted to trust his brilliant fiancée, but Azula's famed dishonesty overrode that part of his brain.
"She's not," he hissed, taking an involuntary step backwards when she met his gaze.
"He has reason to be afraid," Azula said to Katara. She then turned back to Zuko, giving him that surge of nerves again. "But if I wanted to kill you or tattle to daddy I would have a week ago, when I found you. I have been watching you since and you have not been harmed."
"That's creepy," he snarled, aghast that she was stalking him, and disgusted at himself for not being more careful. Katara was pregnant; he should be protecting her from his past.
"That's necessary," Azula coldly said, speaking like the psychopath he knew she was. "Don't act like we trust each other. I didn't know anything about you yet."
"Okay, so why did you find and stalk me?" he demanded, wishing he had a weapon. Armed creeps were probably about to burst in at any moment.
"I ran away," Azula answered, her tone now distant and slightly dreamy. "You are the only person I know who has ever done it successfully. Other than our mother, of course, but you can understand why I would seek you out instead of her."
Zuko snapped, "Look—"
"Give her a chance," Katara interrupted, stepping towards Azula. He tried to stop her, but the bags of food prevented him from doing it.
"You don't know her," Zuko said harshly. "You don't know my sister."
Katara studied him for a silent moment and then shook her head. "You might not either. It's been ten years."
Azula smirked and said, "Your fiancée is clearly smarter than you. Oh, don't pat yourself on the back. That's not much of a contest."
Zuko thought it through as quickly as he could and made his decision. "Okay, I'll help you if you answer one question. Why did you run away?"
"I met someone," said Azula without hesitation. He wondered if that was good or bad.
"And you're not staying with them because…?" he inquired.
Azula scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Because they found us, and we had to make a very risky escape. I decided to track you down because you left and stayed gone and stayed alive."
"You tracked me down, leading anyone following you directly to me and my pregnant fiancée." Zuko clenched his jaw and briefly fantasized about pushing her out of his apartment window.
"No one is following us," Azula said crisply, not relieving him of eye contact. "I assure you."
"Because you killed them." Zuko turned his head away so that her gaze could not follow him.
"Zuko!" exclaimed Katara, slapping his shoulder. He laughed mirthlessly.
"Close," Azula said in a sugary sweet voice that made him feel sick. "It was a slightly lesser crime. Arson."
"Where is he, Azula?" brutally demanded Zuko. "The person you were willing to leave your perfect life for."
"She is waiting in her car," said Azula.
Zuko smiled at her and she looked puzzled. "You have a car you can sleep in. Good. Glad to know you're safe. It has been so great catching up and—"
"This isn't about crashing on my brother's couch," Azula spat, her golden eyes flashing with that wickedness he knew she could never fully erase. "This is about needing to disappear like you did."
"Oh, this is actually kind of nice." Zuko laughed again as the two women remained silent. "Am I better than you at something?"
Katara cleared her throat. "Why don't we all four go get dinner? This conversation is not going so well."
Azula gave a slippery, serpentine smile. "She is way too good for you, ZuZu."
Katara snickered. "ZuZu?"
He dropped the grocery bags on the floor and groaned.
Zuko had to admit that his sister's girlfriend was attractive, friendly, and probably brainwashed into somehow liking Azula. No one as sweet as Ty Lee should be in love with his sister. Azula also was not the type of person to abandon her inheritance for romance.
They were at a cozy pizza parlor and Azula looked hilariously confused by it. Zuko enjoyed that part; she was as inept at the real world as he was, and he liked seeing her as something other than the deity everyone made her out to be. The paranoia in her eyes, however, made him uncomfortable. He could remember feeling that way, but it looked more disturbing on her.
"So, do you two know if you're having a boy or a girl yet?" Ty Lee asked, smiling brightly at him and Katara. Zuko continuing glaring at Azula.
And so Katara said, "We won't until it's born. My gran-gran always said that's life's greatest surprise."
She was evidently warming up to Ty Lee too fast. Zuko could not trust her if she was linked to Azula in any shape or form.
"Our turn to ask a question now. It's a game. Azula loves games," Zuko interrupted, glancing between the two women. "How did you two meet?"
Azula spoke for the first time since they arrived at the restaurant. "At the circus."
"Funny." Zuko scowled; he could not handle her.
"That wasn't a joke," snapped Azula. "I met her at the circus. She's an acrobat."
"Why were you at the circus?" Zuko asked, leaning in and staring her down.
"To release all of the animals," Azula snarled with an unhealthy level of condescending sarcasm. "I went to see the damned circus. Why else would anyone go to the circus?"
"When did you last sleep?" Katara asked, unable to shake off the doctor in her.
"I don't remember," Azula replied, her lips curled in either a mocking smile or an impatient snarl.
"How did you escape?" Zuko asked.
"I didn't technically escape," Azula explained, slightly calmer now. "I left under official business and never came home. It wasn't escaping. It was overstaying my visa."
"Official business?" Zuko demanded.
Azula sighed as if he were an idiot. "To recruit people. I am very persuasive and attractive; it suits me."
"And you went to recruit people at the circus." Zuko rubbed his temples. She stared at his scar.
"No, I went on a date to the circus," she explained as soon as she stopped impolitely gawking.
"With her?" Zuko nodded at Ty Lee, who was very focused on eating her Hawaiian personal pizza. She said something earlier about how she had not eaten anything that didn't come out of a vending machine in two weeks.
"With the guy I was actively recruiting," Azula explained. "I lost him by the end of the night. Why are you quizzing me? This food is terrible. Do you have a gun?"
Zuko's eyes flickered and flared from pure, unadulterated anger. "I'm quizzing you because you are going to ruin my new life and get me and my fiancée and my unborn child killed. It doesn't even matter if you're lying or not because this can't end well. Even if you got up and walked away and went home right now, I would be screwed. That's if you don't lie and tell father I kidnapped you."
"Don't talk to me like that in front of my girlfriend," Azula snapped, looking about to bite him.
"I'll talk to you however I want," Zuko snapped, and it felt very satisfying to say. "You don't have any power over me anymore."
"You are very frightened," Azula purred, slipping away from her paranoid appearance and fast words. "I'd consider that to be power over you, wouldn't you?"
"You are very on thin ice," growled Zuko, "and I will end you if you try to hurt me and the people I love."
Katara and Ty Lee turned to them.
"Maybe we should pay the bill and go home." Katara had never spoke wiser words.
After returning home and settling sleeping arrangements, Katara turned to her fiancé.
Concerned, she inquired, "That's Azula's second shower tonight. Is that a…?"
"It's not a cult thing. I don't know why. She hates water, so I don't know why she suddenly wants to shower so much," Zuko gruffly said as he shut the linen closet door. His arms were full of the guest sheets, and he could not believe this was happening.
"What's wrong?" Katara demanded, crossing her arms. It was awkward with the baby bump.
Sighing, "I don't trust her," Zuko said as he tossed blankets onto the futon. "I also don't approve of letting her sleep in my room."
"Our room," Katara corrected with that stubborn look in her cobalt eyes. "And if she has been through anything like what you have, I think she can stay in our bed."
"She had it all way easier," Zuko shouted, not giving a damn about neighbors or spies. "Everybody loved her and she was good at everything and no one ever burned half of her face off."
"Why don't you trust her?" Katara inquired with a quizzical expression.
"They let her out to recruit people," Zuko whispered. "I think she is recruiting people."
"Recruiting you?" Katara raised an eyebrow.
"No. Ty Lee," Zuko suggested, although he was unsure. "I think she's doing something involving me and you and our future child and it's not going to be good. She would never turn against them, not even for the hottest girl on the planet."
"Maybe you don't know everything she went through," Katara said, and he knew he was in for a ordeal. "I didn't talk to my brother for years over something so stupid."
"She locked me in two burning structures! Two!" Zuko held up his fingers. Katara sighed.
"I believe you," she said softly, calmly, "but as a doctor, I can visibly see that she's been through an ordeal, and as a black-belt, I think I can take her in a pinch. One night, then we'll find her someplace to go."
"I'm trusting you," Zuko said, touching her hand. He loved her, even if he hated Azula.
"Good." Katara smiled reassuringly.
She sat down on the futon as Zuko checked the locks yet again.
It would be a long night.