Author's Note: Holy shit. This started off as "Who is Lin's Father" and wound up as this thing about drifting apart and coming back together and wants and oh my god, I can't believe I wrote this.
Word Count: 3,069
I own nothing.
AU: In which something happens and the Gaang drifts apart. Not canon-compliant, exactly.
The Fire Lord doesn't want much.
All he wants is to keep his family safe. He wants them to grow up and grow old, and he wants them to be happy and safe as they do so. He wants his nation to flourish and be peaceful, and he wants his nation to respect him. He wants his daughter to stay away from creeps and he wants his son to stop burning the garden down when he practices his firebending.
That doesn't seem like much.
Iroh's already scared off a lot of the turtle ducks, but a select few (whom he's let his kids name) return even after Iroh burns the garden down and turns parts of the pond into steam. Ursa has long since stopped burning things on accident, but her little brother, even after eleven years of training, isn't entirely in control of his bending. Zuko thinks it's because he doesn't want to be.
Years previous, Zuko would've called Aang or the man his son was named after to help. But Aang is the Avatar, Aang is a father, Aang is too busy for visits that aren't diplomatic, and Iroh, the Dragon of the West, is dead, buried in the small village in the Earth Kingdom that he'd retired to. Zuko had to fight to let his uncle be buried where he wished – many of the councilmen and women thought it would be idiotic to let the Dragon of the West be buried on foreign soil.
Ursa likes to sneak out, too. Zuko knows that she's safe (her mother is Mai, after all, and both of them know how to hide knives everywhere) but he doesn't like her leaving like that. She's always back in her bed by dawn and awake and ready for her firebending lesson a little later, but Zuko knows she used to leave the palace at night. He can't exactly blame her – she's seventeen, she's rebellious, she's excited and she wants to see more on her own.
Ursa's seen every inch of Republic City and parts of Ba Sing Se and both the Water Tribes, but as Mai put it, "She's gone there with us and Iroh. She wants to see things for herself."
He can't exactly come to terms that his princess is growing up.
"I want to travel with Bumi." She told him a few days previous, shocking him to no end. Bumi was a few younger than her but already taller and stronger. He couldn't bend anything – something Zuko knew the boy struggled with – and Zuko knew that he and Ursa were good friends, always sharing letters and hanging out whenever they were younger.
Of course she'd want to travel with him once Bumi left home. Republic City was a big place, but it was home to Bumi, who probably wanted to see the world. Kya still lived there as far as the royal family knew, and Tenzin was still too young to leave.
Ursa, her black hair loose and hanging at her waist – how long since she'd cut it? Zuko wasn't sure, but he felt like he should remember those things – jumped into the reasons why he should let her go. Mom said I could if you'd agree, Bumi's nice and you know it, you need to talk to Katara and Aang again, I need to see the world, don't worry I'll come home and be Fire Lord one day, don't worry, don't worry about me.
He reached forward and pulled her into a hug. He could remember hugging her when she was five after she burned her hands while fighting with her uncle Tom-Tom, her tiny arms wrapping around his neck and her tears staining his robes. He could see her when she was a toddler, reaching her hands into the air so he'd pick her up and put her on his shoulders. He remembered her at ten, blushing to her toes as her friends teased her about some boy in their class. He remembered her asking if she could go on a date when she was fifteen. He could see her sitting tall, looking regal as she sat in on meetings that she'd one day have to take over. He saw her laughing as Bumi and Kya told jokes; saw her smiling as her Uncle Sokka sparred with Toph. But that was years ago, so many years ago.
"You can go," He'd said. And she'd left, not then, but later. She'd waved goodbye from the back of Bumi's air bison, a grin on her face so clear that he could see it even after she'd left.
He wants Iroh to quit burning things. His son's a pyromaniac and doesn't take any of his duties seriously – and a small, tiny part of him reminds his father of Azula before she lost her mind. He's cocky, loud, arrogant, angry and overconfident to a fault. No matter how many times he's knocked on his backside, he still believes that he could do anything.
Iroh has his mother's eyes. Where Ursa can sit still for hours at a time and listen, her brother does nothing but fidget and interrupt. Zuko loves both of them, but he knows that Iroh would not make a good leader. Ursa will, as soon as she stops being rebellious toward any rule ever, but Iroh would need to humble himself and learn how to calm his temper.
Zuko can watch his son spar with his friends in the yard and still see the boy who tripped over his own feet so much as a toddler. Iroh once loved to read (and he still does, he just hides it better now; but books still go missing and Iroh is still very defensive about it) and he loved to draw too.
Iroh wants to become some sort of fighter. Since Agni Kais were sort of made over – becoming a harmless fighting match rather than a battle to the death – Iroh fought in as many as he could. Zuko told him no, because even though the meaning of the fights had changed, Zuko could never get any of the Agni Kais he'd fought out of his head.
"Why not?" Iroh had crossed his arms over his chest and glared. "There's no harm in it! Spirits!"
"Because we're your parents, and we say so." Mai butted in. "There is harm in it. Burns and fights that get out of hand. It's possible to get hurt and…"
"I'm not going to get hurt! I'm better than that!"
oOoOoOo
"Daddy, Daddy, look at the picture I painted!" Iroh held up the picture. Zuko stared at it for a moment, before reaching for it and holding each edge carefully. The pictures were small and a little crude, but you could tell who everyone was. There Iroh was, his hair puffed out and smiling, holding hands with Ursa and his father. He'd drawn in the scar and the fancy robes. Holding onto Ursa's hand was Mai, and standing beside her was Katara and Aang. Sokka, Suki, Ty Lee and Azula stood next to them. Everyone, in a nice little line, all smiles and happiness.
Zuko was reminded of the drawing Sokka drew after the war ended, when they were all drinking tea in Uncle's tea shop. At half Sokka's age, Iroh was already a better drawer and painter. Not that he'd tell Sokka that.
"I'll frame it." Zuko told him. Iroh beamed.
oOoOoOo
"Iroh, no. I'm all for practicing and bending but no fighting for money."
Iroh glared at them for a moment, waiting for an answer to change. When he was a kid, a younger kid, he would ask three or four times in a row, as if that would change their minds. He'd long since learned that it would never work. The teenager turned around and stomped off, steam literally trailing from his ears.
Once upon a time, he'd had a crush on Kya, who was so much older than him but she'd been nice to him where Bumi, Ursa and Sokka's children had picked on him. Tenzin was nice to him too – they'd been friends once. And Lin, too, Lin had been nice.
Once, all of them had been friends.
Lin and Tenzin had gotten along wonderfully, since the two of them were so much more serious than the rest of them. Kya and Bumi and Ursa got along, always sparring or playing Pai Sho or dancing or sneaking away during the Peace Festivals. Little Hakoda and Tsuki, the twins, played with and picked on everyone.
Once.
But something had happened – something Zuko still wonders about – that made everyone else all but stop speaking. Katara, Aang and Toph live in Republic City, Sokka and Suki are in the South Pole with Sokka as its chief, and Zuko and Mai live in the Fire Nation Palace, as it's always been.
He still shares letters with Toph sometimes, but all other letters started to be returned less and less and less until the Fire Lord gave up trying to send them. He hadn't seen Bumi in years, not until he showed up with his bison to get Ursa.
He was what? Fourteen? Fifteen? Zuko felt bad for not remembering, even as Bumi swept him into a hug with a cry of "Uncle Zuko!". His hair was messy and he was unshaven, but he looked so much like Katara and Aang both. He looked like a perfect mix of the two of them, and the realization struck Zuko so hard that for hours after Ursa and him left, Zuko couldn't stop thinking about Aang and Katara and everyone else, wondering why they'd stopped talking to him, why he'd stopped going to the Peace Festivals in Republic City, why, why, why.
oOoOoOo
Mai is still her old self, though she's opened up in the past years. She's still easily bored and annoyed and a little knife-happy, but she smiles more and laughs louder than she ever did as a teenager. Iroh looks just like her, but she says Iroh looks just like him. She's beautiful and amazing; all he could ever ask for or ever want, but sometimes he feels like he'll lose her, too.
Katara, Aang, Sokka, Suki, Toph. Kya, Bumi, Tenzin, Hakoda, Tsuki, Lin. Ty Lee, Azula. Iroh, too, he thinks. Iroh doesn't like him much, but maybe it's the teenage rebellion.
Azula lives in her own little room in the ground floor of the palace. She wanders sometimes, her eyes dazed and confused. She can't bend – anyone and everyone Zuko's asked about it has told him that it's a psychological block and only she can remove it. Her mind is gone, or at least the mind that she had when she was crowned Fire Lord. She acts like she did as a child, all words and no action, all threat and no following through.
She still lies all the time, lies about where she was or what she ate. She claims she can still bend. She says that she hates Ozai (she can't hate him – not even Zuko hates him. Zuko hates who his father was and hates what he did and what happened, but he can't bring himself to hate the man who raised him, even if he was an abusive, horrible father.) Azula says that she hates Ursa, too, Ursa as in their mother, and Azula still refers to both of them as if they're still here and breathing.
Once, Ty Lee would visit every summer, traveling up from Kiyoshi Island to see Azula and Mai. But she'd stopped that years ago, though she still sent letters back and forth with Mai.
Zuko walks through the palace, thinking of his daughter and his mother. He thinks about his sister and his wife. He wonders if things could've been different – if Mai had said no when he slipped the ring on her finger, if he'd kept sending letters even though they weren't replied to, if they'd gone to the Peace Festival in Republic City the last few years.
"Tell me, Fire Lord." Mai says, coming up behind him. She doesn't finish her thought as she loops her arm with his and they walk toward the turtle-duck pond together. They're silent, only letting the wind make a sound. Iroh is off with some girl that Mai mentioned ("She's not that pretty, but he's in love with her and it's both adorable and gross to watch him swoon.")
They should go to the next Peace Festival. The thought rises, unbidden, and Zuko considers voicing it but doesn't. The silent feels too absolute to break and he knows it, and it feels like it's been too long, far too long and far too late to try and break those walls down.
They traveled together. They saved the world together. But they drifted. They stopped. Zuko wonders, every day right as he wakes up and every night before he falls asleep, what happened between everyone else. It seems like it would have to be something big to make the rest of them stop talking. For a long time, Zuko wondered and wondered, but now he tries to bottle it up and lock the thoughts away.
Thinking won't fix it, wondering won't change things.
Zuko stands there with his wife and wonders if he should try. They were the ones who stopped sending letters back, they stopped trying with him. But he gave up, too. "What should I do?" He whispers. Mai grabs his hand and squeezes.
"Whatever you want to do." She tells him.
oOoOoOo
Zuko does try. He sends letters again, to every one of them, and he hopes they all live in the same areas. He feels better instantly, but when he goes to Republic City for the Peace Festival, he runs into no one. He is confronted by metal-benders and thinks, Toph. He sees orange and yellow everywhere and thinks, Aang. Iroh hits on a poor waterbending girl, some pick-up line involving pirates, and he realizes that she's a bender too late when a whip of water slaps him in the face. He thinks Katara, though the girl really didn't look like her. He sees a boomerang and fan shop and thinks of Sokka and Suki.
He buys a fan to bring back to his sister.
He doesn't see anyone he knows.
oOoOoOo
Zuko is an old man by the time everyone meets up again. He's seventy years old, and though everyone began sending letters again, no one has seen any of the others in so, so many years. Many many years.
Katara sends him a letter with only a few sentences on it, and by the time he's done, Zuko is already planning the trip, thinking of taking the dragon Ursa found. "His name's Roku," She'd told him. "Roku the dragon." Zuko finds it fitting. Mai hates the thing, though, saying that it's not a pet and it's not to be treated as one. But Roku the Dragon reminds Zuko of Appa.
Come to Republic City. Aang's dead. The funeral's next week.
- Katara
oOoOoOo
When Zuko arrives, he finds everyone sitting in Katara and Aang's house. There's no tears, but no laughter, either. Everyone is old and sad, sitting here, and the air feels suffocating. Zuko sits next to Toph, who is still shorter than the rest of them but she's probably still tougher.
Katara sits completely still, staring at her hands. Mai and Iroh stand awkwardly to the side and no one says anything for a long time. Then Iroh starts bawling, the sobs wracking his body and Mai ushers him from the room.
It feels as if a dam has broken, because everyone is crying in some way or another. Toph speaks first, and her speech is wonderful and painful and Zuko hates her and loves her for it. She straight-up tells everyone how idiotic they all are, including herself. We miss him but we miss each other, too. It's like all of us have died. And who the hell wants that? She's shouting by the end of it, her nails digging into her palms and tears streaming down her face.
No more, I say! No more avoiding each other!
Katara hugs her first, then Sokka, and that's when Zuko realizes that Suki isn't here. He gets up and hugs all of them, and everyone is crying, sharing the sadness and the pain that they can't hide. And he knows that all of them are idiots, idiots for not talking, for not living, they're all idiots for all the lost years.
"Air Nomad funerals involved cremation and the ashes are spread to the wind." Katara tells them later. She carries a small urn with her and a small smile on her face. "He wanted his ashes to be spread everywhere. The ocean, Republic City and the field north of here."
They all get into an air bison's saddle, Katara at the reigns and Zuko holding the urn – it feels odd, knowing that this was once his friend, the man who restored peace with them and laughed and shared stories and then somehow got too caught up in Avatar and father duties to talk to anyone anymore.
The sorrow twists through him, and it's apparent on everyone's face. Zuko wonders how the kids are doing – If Ursa's heard, if Iroh's okay, how Kya, Bumi and Tenzin are doing. He wonders if Hakoda and Tsuki know yet.
They go home sharing stories about Aang, about their Avatar, their friend. They share the same stories over and over again, even after they return to his and Katara's house. Kya is there and she joins in on the stories, laughing and crying with everyone else. They all sit around, talking for hours, telling tale and legends and jokes, talking about what Aang liked and what Aang did.
They keep talking, even after Kya falls asleep, even after the sun sets and the stars come out. Even after all of it, every story and word and hope.
Zuko passes in his sleep, content and happy. He got to meet his friends again. They all became friends again, vowing to always keep in touch and visit more, even though they're all old and traveling is more difficult. They made up. Team Avatar was together again.
And that's all the Fire Lord ever wanted.