Disclaimer: I own none of the characters. The thumbnail for this story was drawn by Gret Lusky - you can find her and more of her (beautiful!) work on her tumblr. The link to it is on my profile.
December 23rd
Azula is no longer at the asylum, and she is no longer subject to solitary confinement. She used to dream about being placed in a room with an unlocked door, with windows, with lighters and scented candles.
Sometimes her dream-self just lights the candles and curls up, lulled into peace by the smell of lavender and apples. More often than not, however, her dream usually ends with her dream-self burning the whole contraption down around her ears.
She fingers the pack of cigarettes and lighter that she managed to filch from the man her brother has hired to be her guard. It's funny, she thinks, that they would balk at the idea of killing loudly – people killing people, people killing themselves, and yet let them quietly deposit reserves of tar and smoke into their lungs. She doesn't need to be a doctor to know that that isn't good for your health.
A succession of slamming car doors heralds a chorus of laughter out in the driveway.
Azula's eyebrow twitches and she lights a cigarette with hands that barely tremble.
The door is unlocked.
She doesn't even open the window.
Her bedroom is large and it takes a long time for the smell of cigarette smoke to permeate every corner of it.
Azula taps ash into a little mound on the parquet floor. She has finished the entire pack and the sun has set.
The house is full of people, full of noise, full of joy.
Azula does not leave her room.
December 24th
Her brother looks pretty much the same as he did six years ago – except that he's filled out a little more, and he isn't so grumpy.
At least, she's heard it said that he isn't that grumpy any more. Ten minutes of them together usually ends with one of them shouting. It's mostly him, nowadays, because when she used to shout, she'd find herself wrestled to the floor, her cheek pressed into the floor so hard that the seams between the tiles would imprint themselves upon her face.
Six years in a high security mental institution would change anybody.
"You've been out for months, Azula. Maybe it's time to, you know, integrate back into society. You were only a kid. They understand. They've moved on; you should, too."
Azula has stolen another pack of cigarettes and is silently smoking by the open window. It's thirty-seven degrees outside, and a fresh layer of snow has blanketed the cars in the driveway overnight.
Everything looks white. Everything looks clean.
"Azula, get away from there. You're going to catch pneumonia. I didn't have you discharged from a hospital just to put you back into one. And when did you start smoking?"
She tilts her head and assesses him from the corner of her eye. It's taking longer for him to get frustrated. Bleeding Heart has been good for him. Maybe it's a good thing that she hadn't killed her.
Azula grinds the end of her cigarette against the window ledge and flicks it out into the snow. Two storeys up, she can't see where it lands, but she takes satisfaction from the knowledge that it's a blot against the winter wonderland.
An ugly, burnt-out blot.
Zuko makes a sound of disgust. "You're spending the day outside. The room needs to be aired."
Azula reaches for another cigarette, but there aren't any left.
Zuko doesn't shut her door when he leaves, calling for a maid to deal with her room and the mess that the cigarettes have left.
She chucks the empty pack out of the window.
000
Azula's therapist is seated across from her in the private family living room. It's a lot brighter than it used to be – Zuko's interior designer has gotten rid of the heavy teak furniture and the dark drapes, substituting them with clean cream blinds and squashy designer leather sofas. Azula is settled into an armchair, fingers drumming against the black leather as she tries to ignore the multitude of photographs that litter the end tables and the walls.
She wants them all burned.
Dr Wong clears his throat, and Azula briefly wonders how much money her brother threw at him to get him to come on Christmas Eve.
"I understand that your room is being cleaned?"
The rising flare of irritation in her chest informs Azula that she still hates small talk.
She fixes him with a beady golden eye. Dr Wong doesn't even fidget. Maybe he is worth the money that Zuko has thrown at him.
"I heard that you've picked up smoking. Where did you get the cigarettes?"
Zuko probably doesn't realise how many servants smoke. Azula just raises an eyebrow pointedly.
Dr Wong rearranges his expression to convey disapproval. "Stealing is a crime."
Azula shrugs and produces another stick, slim and almost as paper-white as her own skin after years of incarceration.
Zuko and the papers can call it rehabilitation all they want. It was just the prison they couldn't send her to for being underage. They hadn't even published her name, when it happened, because she was a juvenile, but everyone knows who it was who burned down that block of apartments in Queens. She'd even accidentally killed people – just, unfortunately for her at the time, not the people whom she'd intended to kill.
Everyone knows. The guard that Zuko, paranoid as he is, has assigned her is not for show.
Her therapist leans forward, elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers. "Those things are very bad for you, you know."
Azula shrugs again. "I'm twenty. I'm allowed to smoke if I want to. Adults are allowed to make decisions that would kill them."
"You're not an adult yet."
Azula smiles with all her teeth.
Dr Wong changes tack. "What do you think about your brother's visitors? There's quite a party here for Christmas."
Her lip curls upwards in a sneer. "My brother places too much stock in friendship. And feelings. Friends leave you. People leave you." Mothers leave you.
Dr Wong shifts in his seat, and she knows that he has a clear view of a photograph of a preteen Azula with her arms around two other girls. All three are beaming against the backdrop of a bright blue ocean and a brighter blue sky.
"Your brother has not," he points out.
That's true. Zuko has visited her faithfully twice a week for the past six years, and pushed for her to come home as soon as the psychiatrists said that her illness could be controlled. He has since dropped in on her every day, and houses her in a suite of rooms that provide for her every need. She even has a treadmill that helps to mitigate the weight gain from the anti-psychotics.
Running still calms her, even though she ends up nowhere.
Dr Wong is still waiting for a response to her brother's sense of familial duty, but she doesn't give him one. She is looking at a family portrait that hangs above the piano – it's one of those massive studio affairs with a cloudy black backdrop and enough photoshop to make up for that extra helping of chicken at lunch.
Her father pretty much dominates the photograph, his features stern and imposing. He's got his hand on Zuko's shoulder, and her brother looks like he's trying his best not to break into a sweat. Her mother is serenely beautiful, like she is in every picture that she's in. Azula figures that Ursa auto-switches to that one expression whenever she senses a camera on her, much like fourteen-year-olds and duckfaces. Azula herself is seated on her mother's lap, eyes wide, but not quite smiling.
It's not a cheerful portrait.
There's another photograph under that one that Zuko's in, with his arm slung around Bleeding Heart. The photographer has caught him in a candid moment, and he's laughing, face turned slightly towards his girlfriend.
His scar is caught in profile.
Azula looks from the picture of him as an unblemished, nervous eight-year-old to that of a disfigured, happy eighteen-year-old.
Her lips tighten as her focus zeroes in on her mother's protective grip on her knee.
Not all of our scars are on our faces.
Not all of our scars heal so easily.
000
The dining room falls abruptly silent as she enters, flanked by her bodyguard and Zuko. She pretends not to notice the stares as she makes her way to her seat – marked by the small pillbox sitting innocently beside her water glass – with her head held high.
They're all there – Bald Kid, Blind Girl, Black-Hole-Belly, Suki, and Bleeding Heart. Bleeding Heart is in medical school, now, and she recognises the medication that Azula dry-swallows before starting on her lunch. She hates that anyone can read her history by just looking at a bunch of pills.
She hates that Bleeding Heart's eyes soften with something that looks suspiciously like pity.
000
Zuko has dragged her outside and sat her down on a bench in their garden. She knows that he's hoping that she'll join in the snowball fight that will happen once opposing snow forts are built, but she knows that he knows that it's probably not going to happen. Azula also notices that Bleeding Heart is working on the side of the fort closest to them, and that she's surreptitiously sending them concerned looks from under her lashes. Azula would tell her that she's got nothing to worry about, and that she wouldn't kill her brother out here in broad daylight with her bare hands – not now, maybe not ever – but she cannot be bothered to go through the trouble of shouting it across the pond that separates them.
Zuko chooses that moment to start a conversation. "Remember when we were kids, and Mom used to let us feed the ducks? Mm. Those were pretty good times."
Azula grinds her teeth. Zuko is a big fan of small talk.
Zuko sighs, and rubs at his face with a mitten-encased hand. "Azula," finally says, softly, gently. "You need to accept that when it comes to blood family, we only have each other, now. Well, and Uncle." He doesn't mention that their father is in prison. For life. Neither of them does, but it hangs heavy in the air between them. Azula has to hand it to Zuko – it must have taken a herculean effort to rebuild their business empire after the PR disasters that were Ozai's trial and Azula's breakdown. Perhaps it is a good thing that it is well-known that Zuko and his father are irrevocably estranged. A knife twists in Azula's heart. It is also well-known that she was a daddy's girl, and when he'd gone down, she'd gone down with him.
Zuko must have guessed her thoughts, because he lays his hand on her knee – trying to be comforting, trying to be a big brother.
Azula stiffens, remembering the family portrait, recalling the day that she'd sat for it and her mother had held her in place to stop her wriggling. "You're my sister. No matter what you've done, nothing will change that."
Golden eyes meet golden eyes. Azula's gaze drops first.
"If you don't mind, Zuzu," she says, eyes on the end of the cigarette that she's got tucked into her gloves, "I'd like to have a smoke."
000
As expected, Bleeding Heart comes by half an hour later, when the snowball fight is at its peak and she's managed to excuse herself without being too missed. Azula has burned through two cigarettes and is starting on her third. She reckons that she should conserve her pack, because the servants are smart enough to realise that they're being pickpocketed and will probably stop carrying their cigarettes around, but she can't bring herself to stop.
Bleeding Heart plunks down beside her and glances at her gloves, which lie forgotten on the bench. "Aren't your hands cold?"
Azula cannot tell if the concern in Bleeding Heart's voice is sincere or not, and she's not in the mood to dance around the issue. "Spit it out."
Bleeding Heart leans back, eyes on Zuko as he ducks a clump of snow thrown by Black-Hole-Belly and retaliates with his own. "He loves you, you know."
Azula exhales a puff of smoke and watches it disperse in the brisk air. "I know."
"We're getting married next summer."
"I know."
"We're going to be sisters-in-law."
"Are you just going to tell me things that I already know? I'm a schizophrenic with a narcissistic personality disorder, not an idiot."
Bleeding Heart looks like she's ready to smack her before deciding that it's bad form to hit a girl who's mentally ill. Taking a deep breath, she folds her hands primly in her lap. "I just want you to know that I'm here. And that if you ever want anyone to talk to, my door is open."
"I wedged your door shut and tried to burn your building down while you were in it."
Azula does not miss the way Bleeding Heart's hands clench at the memory. She wonders if Bleeding Heart can still taste the smoke, poisonous and acrid, coating the inside of her throat, or feel her skin blistering as the fire draws close enough to consume.
Because Azula can.
When Bleeding Heart replies, her voice is even and strong. "It's not your fault that your father pitted you and Zuko against each other in his own games."
Seven years ago – hell, a year ago, Azula would have put her cigarette out in Bleeding Heart's eye for daring to speak of her father. But, they wouldn't have let her out if she'd still been homicidal, so Azula merely inhales another lungful of toxins laced with nicotine. She wonders how long it will take before the addiction is more chemical than it is psychological.
Bleeding Heart is still talking. "I've forgiven you for that, Azula. I think it's time for you to start your own journey to recovery."
Azula is incredulous, and she can't help but laugh. "Do you think that those years in the mental institution were for fun? Do you think that the pills that make me gain weight and raise my blood sugar are nothing more than candy?"
Bleeding Heart's blue eyes are clearer than the winter sky. "You and I both know that recovery extends beyond a doctor's diagnosis." She stands, rolling her shoulders, and rejoins her friends, leaving Azula to her own devices.
Azula looks at her hands, lily pale, and remembers what she has done with them. She remembers framing Mai for shoplifting and drafting the vicious, anonymous forum posts that sparked the online bullying of Ty Lee for being a lesbian. She wasn't even homophobic – she'd just wanted to get back at them for abandoning her for being "a terrible excuse for a human being". And Ty Lee, all of fourteen years old, had run away.
The charges against Mai were dropped, and Ty Lee eventually turned up as an acrobat in the Cirque de Soleil, but she knows that she could have put them on very different paths.
Azula remembers Bleeding Heart's frantic screams as she beat against her door. She remembers holding a scented candle to a kerosene-soaked bookshelf.
She knows exactly why she did it. She'd heard of her father's arrest, and had wanted to make Zuko pay for his role in exposing him. For robbing her of the only parent she had left. Azula smiles, but there isn't any humour in it: years of being dissected by doctors has left her with a wealth of psychiatric-speak, and she is aware that therapy has worked so well that she's transferred her blame of the world for her shitty life to herself.
She thinks that it's all very well that people have forgiven her for her transgressions, but it doesn't make her want to talk to them. Or partake in group hugs like the one that's currently underway.
Azula mashes the remains of her third cigarette beneath her boot while reaching for a fourth one. Everyone she's ever had has left. Her therapist will tell her that she needs to forgive herself for thinking that she's driven them away, because it's not her fault, but she knows that it's her fault for being mean and making her mother hate her. She knows it's her fault for being careless enough to let Zuko find evidence of their father's double murder of his wife and his own father. She knows it's her fault that people have died because of her desire for vengeance.
Azula knows that she is a monster, and she doesn't trust herself around anyone but Zuko.
She knows that Zuko is strong enough to handle her. They're siblings. They're more alike than Zuko thinks. It's everybody else that needs to back the fuck off.
But still, she thinks with an edge of wistfulness that disgusts her, it must be nice to be loved by many.
000
They're lounging in the big sitting room, waiting for dinner to be served. Everyone else is holding flutes of champagne except for Azula, who's scowling at her glass of apple juice. Alcohol interferes with her medication, and there's only so much strain that she should put her liver through.
Zuko has also confiscated her cigarettes.
"Merry Christmas!"
Great merciful Agni.
Bald Kid falls into the space beside her without so much as a by-your-leave – Azula mentally kicks herself for choosing to sit on a loveseat instead of an armchair – and smiles up at her, grey eyes wide and innocent.
Azula growls in response and buries her nose in her apple juice.
Undeterred, Bald Kid barrels on. "Why are you sitting here all alone? You should join us. Spread some Christmas cheer!"
Azula fixes Bald Kid with a look that clearly questions his sanity before jerking her head in her brother's direction. He and Bleeding Heart are so entwined that it's difficult to see how they could possibly be two separate entities. Bald Kid smirks. "Does PDA make you uncomfortable?"
She'd thought that PDA makes everyone uncomfortable. Apparently not. She swore that she wouldn't ask, but the question pops out of her mouth anyways. "What's with them, by the way? I always thought you and her had a thing."
Bald Kid shrugs. "Puberty. Zuko and Katara were in the throes of it, and I hadn't hit it, yet."
Ah. Meaning that Bleeding Heart wanted to fuck and Bald Kid wanted to play Monopoly. Azula sniffs and looks away from the four-armed monster, swirling her juice in its glass. She wishes she had a cigarette, just so that she'd have something to do.
"So, what are you going to do now that you're out? You're Suki's age, right? Are you going back to school? Or University?"
Azula is bored, but not bored enough to listen to Bald Kid's prattling. She knows that she should hate Bald Kid on principle, because his testimony was apparently the final nail in Ozai's coffin, but she can no longer be bothered. She turns her attention to the others, and she feels her fingertips go numb.
Suki has heard her name being said, and the look in her eyes can only be described as complete and utter loathing. Black-Hole-Belly notices that his girlfriend's attention has wavered – score for him – and levels Azula a glare that he probably believes can fell a tiger at a hundred paces. It pales in the light of Suki's hate.
She feels a weight settle in her stomach – is this what guilt feels like? Because she knows that Suki does not forgive her for what she has done. She doesn't even know why her brother allows them both to be in the same room. Suki's family had lived in the apartment block that she'd set fire to.
Bleeding Heart had gotten out in time. Suki's parents had not.
Azula knows that Zuko means well when he says that all is forgiven now that her time has been served, but that is simply not true.
The room is suddenly stifling. Uncharacteristically, Azula nearly trips over the hem of her dress in her haste to get outside. Zuko watches her go with some worry in his eyes, but he leaves her be.
No one follows.
Her bodyguard finds her sitting alone, small and fragile under her parka, on the bench overlooking the duck pond.
Maybe he feels sorry for her, or he's just doing his job, but he joins her and doesn't say a word.
Azula barely registers his presence. She is lost in a memory where the sun was hot and her mother was close enough to hold.
If she tries really hard, she can ignore the part where her mother is scolding her for scaring the ducks and just pretend that Ursa is merely being soothing and motherly as she ushers her daughter into the house.
000
Azula cannot stand that Zuko woke up when their mother kissed him goodbye.
She'd slept right through the process of abandonment.
000
Not that she'd ever admit it, but Azula damn near has a heart attack when she flicks the light on to find Blind Girl casually drinking a glass of water at the kitchen island.
"Relax, Crazy Face. Everyone else went to bed. Your plate's waiting in the microwave. Zuko made it up himself."
Warmth washes over Azula as she strides over to the microwave and sets the timer. Zuko cares. The feeling worries her a little, but she's too hungry to analyse it.
She hears Blind Girl moving around a little behind her, but doesn't look. What's she doing down here in the dark anyways?
Oh, yeah. Blind.
"There's a mug of warm water for you if you want it. I can hear you shivering from here."
Azula looks down at her fingers and observes, in a detached kind of way, that they are slightly blue. She turns to find Blind Girl hunched over her own glass, a pink mug of steaming water beside her. Her cane rests on the table. Azula opens her mouth to say something about it being grossly unhygienic before deciding that she doesn't want to get into a conversation about this right now. She swipes the mug from the island and warms her hands in silence.
"You used to talk a lot more," Blind Girl says conversationally. "A lot of it was blah blah melodramatic shit blah blah blah BOW TO ME, but you were definitely chattier then than you are now."
Azula rolls her eyes. "I used to do a lot of things then that I don't do now."
"Mhmm. Are you still crazy?"
Azula realises that she hasn't taken a second dose of her medication and panics a little before remembering that the doctors reduced her prescription to one dosage a day. "Less so. Although I might be provoked into attempted murder again if you continue talking."
She's only half joking. This surprises her a little, because she never jokes. Blind Girl chuckles a little before falling silent, staring into her glass. Or not. Either way, her head is down. Whatever.
The microwave beeps and Azula removes her dinner from it, settling down at the island to eat.
Blind Girl tosses back her last gulp of water with a flourish and shoves it in Azula's direction. "Help me put this in the sink? Thanks."
The old Azula would have huffed at being treated like a servant. Now, all she does is grunt in acknowledgment.
Blind Girl taps her way out of the kitchen. But before she leaves, she swivels and fixes Azula with those milky eyes of hers, expression inscrutable. "It's good that you aren't crazy any more."
Azula doesn't know what to make of that.
December 25th
Azula does not plan on leaving her room. It has been aired, and all servants are prohibited from carrying cigarettes on their person. She's a little depressed at how quickly Zuko caught on to her supply chain, but she knows that she isn't addicted. Not after just two days of chain smoking. Right? She can live without them.
She's deciding if she should exercise now or later when Zuko barges into her room, followed closely by someone who makes her blood freeze.
Uncle.
Zuko fumbles through the good mornings and explanations as a maid carries in a tea service and sets it down on her little dining table – for when she refused to leave her room for meals in the past four months. "Uncle flew in from San Francisco early this morning. You remember Uncle, right?" Zuko's tone is light and airy, but the warning in his eyes is clear. Behave.
Iroh smiles benevolently and gestures to the table as the maid nods at Zuko and leaves, shutting the door quietly behind her. "It is good to see you, Azula. You are looking much better than you did when I saw you last."
Azula doesn't remind him that the last time he saw her was when she was in a straitjacket, screaming bloody murder.
Admittedly, it hadn't been one of her finest moments.
Azula says nothing but continues to eye her uncle. He left her too. Not that she'd ever really even liked him in the first place – he'd always preferred Zuko – but it still rankles. Iroh has lost weight since she last saw him six years ago, and his hair is now completely white. There are more wrinkles in his face than she remembers, and he moves a little slower than he did.
Iroh looks old. But then again, he is.
"Azula." Zuko is exasperated and she can tell that he's this close to physically hauling her away from the window seat. Iroh has settled himself at the table and is watching her in turn, expression placid.
There have been many times that Azula has wished that she could slap the smile off her uncle's face. This is one of those times.
Zuko half rises from his seat.
Seeing no profit in being dragged across the room to the dining table, Azula swings her feet off the window seat reluctantly and pads over, seating herself with as much dignity and grace as she can muster.
Iroh beams and pours her a cup of tea.
Azula recognises the aroma immediately. It's tiěguānyīn. Iron Goddess. She doesn't drink much tea, but this is her favourite.
She's only moderately surprised that Uncle remembers.
"Why are you here?" she asks abruptly, shoving her tea away. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Zuko hastily put his own cup down, looking slightly disgruntled. He's burned his own tongue again.
Uncle only inhales deeply and takes a measured sip. "Drink your tea, Azula. I often find myself much happier once I have had a cup of it. I brought the spring leaves – I know you prefer them to the other harvests."
Azula only glares. What does he think he's doing, waltzing in here after years of absence, with his stupid tea? Why does he care?
Iroh takes another sip, makes a pleased sound in his throat, and sets his cup down. Azula wants to knock it into his lap, but she knows that that wouldn't go down very well. She links her fingers together and fixes her uncle with the dirtiest look that she can summon.
It doesn't seem to bother him.
"It is a little ironic that you like this tea, Azula." Iroh's demeanour is relaxed, but his voice is stern. "Guan Yin is the goddess of mercy. Mercy is not exactly a virtue that you are known for."
"Tea is tea. People drink it. No one gives a fuck about the names after they've ordered."
Uncle ignores her swearing. "Zuko tells me that you have lived in isolation since your discharge from the hospital."
"I haven't lived in isolation," she snaps. "Zuko talks to me. I have my bodyguard. I spoke to other people, yesterday. My social life is thriving."
She sounds bitter. She knows that she sounds bitter.
Zuko and Iroh both look disbelieving. Azula scowls. Time was that she could say something like that and actually sound halfway convincing. She's gotten rusty.
Iroh takes another sip before turning his calm eyes to her angry ones. She's taken aback by the kindness she reads in them, but that doesn't make her less wary – or furious. Where was he when she was alone and subject to her father's cruelty and rage? Where was he when everything was dark and she only had the voices in her head for company? Where was he when she'd been right here for the past four months?
She only realises that she's said this out loud when Uncle's face crumples with regret. She doesn't even look at Zuko – there's a roaring in her ears, and it's all that she can do to keep her breathing even.
"Azula, I am sorry." Iroh doesn't look away, but his eyes are slightly glossy. "I did not know what I could have done for you then, and I am so sorry that I left you with Ozai. That was my mistake, and I am sorry that you have had to pay for it. But I am certain that I can help you now. I came to ask if you would come back with me to San Francisco. Spend some time with an old man. Learn a trade at my tea shop. Start over."
Azula turns her fury onto Zuko. He's trying to get rid of her? Again? "Do I even have a choice?"
Zuko regards her steadily. "Yes. You always have a choice."
Azula rips her gaze away and picks her tea up, gulping it down in two swallows. It's not scalding, but it heats her throat on its way down and settles in her belly. She doesn't want to leave. Not really. She's not sure if she can. There are lots of people in San Francisco, and Uncle is not the type to let her sit around in her room and mope.
But a fresh start is tempting. No one knows her name. No one knows her. She can just be Azula, instead of Azula the Murdering Psychopath.
"Azula."
She looks up into golden eyes that are just like her own. Iroh is family, too. "I will give you as much time as you need. But you need to start living again. Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
Azula remembers when Zuko's injury was fresh, and the doctors weren't even sure if he'd be able to see out of his left eye ever again. Iroh had come and whisked Zuko away – and when he'd come back, he'd been different. Conflicted at first – maybe – but stronger. Better.
"Is it my turn for a life-changing field trip, Uncle?"
Azula's sarcasm and mockery flies right over his head. "Yes."
"I'll visit," Zuko volunteers. "And we can decorate your room there so that it'll look exactly like this one. We'll move the treadmill over. Buy a new one. Anything that you want."
Azula glances out the window. It's snowing. In half an hour, all the cigarette butts that she ground into the grass yesterday will be hidden under a fresh coat of white powder. The world will be clean again.
She pushes her empty cup across to Iroh. "More tea."
Her uncle complies, watching her closely as he passes her now-steaming cup back to her.
"It doesn't snow in San Francisco, right?"
"No. Well, yes, sometimes, but it's very, very rare."
Azula takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. One thousand. Two thousand. Three thousand. Four thousand. "There's no need to buy a treadmill. I can run outside."
A/N: Azula is my favourite. I hope I did her justice. Reviews are very welcome!
I may lengthen this into an actual story, but that would have to wait until I'm done with Of Endings and Magic Tricks.