Disclaimer: Don't own.

Note: Well hopefully this chapter's better. Oh yeah, DS since this is dedicated to you, if you see a part in here that you think should be rewritten, just say so, and tell me how. I'll redo it, cuz I don't feel this chapter's too good. I don't know, well read and review!

Red Love
Chapter 2: Recollections

They say that right before you die your life flashes before your eyes.

Azula wondered if she'd been dying for the past two hours. Because through this time she'd been denied sleep she lay remembering, reliving past moments in her life.

She shut her golden eyes, to keep out the darkness and gazed upon the young faces of Mai and Ty Lee. She allowed the sounds of their laughter to fill her ears ao she wouldn't have to listen to the noisy silence of the night.

Slowly however, this short memory drifted from her thoughts and an image of her beautiful young brother flashed behind her eyes. Just a hint of a smile crossed his expression as he ran up to a woman who only existed as a memory. She, of course smiled a very beautiful smile to her son and spoke his name. Zuko. Azula had made a silent promise that day to burn Zuko's arm.

She hated it. He was always with her. Always smiling at her. Always holding her. And she was always with him. She was always kind to him.

But she wasn't kind to Azula. Everything Azula said, her mother disagreed with. With everything Azula did, her mother became angered. Just everything about Azula her mother seemed to find wrong.

And everything about Zuko, or Zuzu, seemed to be right.

Even though he wasn't the prodigy. Even though he was the weaker one. She still seemed to find him better.

And Azula hated it.

Her soul hungered for that love, that gentleness. Her soul hungered for that woman's attention, for her protection. Not that she needed protecting, she only desired the promise of it. She helplessly craved the sound of her mother's kind words directed towards her and not always toward Zuko. She just wanted to know her mother loved her. To know that she wasn't really considered the "bad child".

But she was never allowed to have what she so helplessly desired. She was forever denied the only thing she truly wanted.

And so Zuko had to pay.

Because he was the only one she dared touch while the palm of her hand held a bright, bloodthirsty flame. Because he was the one who took, who stole their mother's affection. And throughout the years, Azula forgot the love she had had for her older brother. She lost it somewhere in the farthest corner of her mind, where it lay to grow cobwebs, never to be found again.

Suddenly Azula gave a powerful cough, one that forced her to sit upright. Immidiatly it was followed by so many others, each one feeling like a punch to the inside of her chest. Once she was finished, the ebony-haired teenager shook her head gently- as to not give herself another headache -and layed herself back down.

Another memory then made itself into her thoughts. The day her mother vanished. As Azula remembered, she awoke very early that moroning, maybe at three or four. And she just knew something was wrong. A feeling of change, of difference settled in the darkness surounding her.

Azula remembered pulling the blood red covers from her thin body very slowly and exiting her room. She walked through the long hallways, looking as if to find something and soon found herself in her parent's doorway.

Hesitanlty, she took a few steps inside. Something was wrong. Her parent's weren't in bed.

She continued her search, a few minutes later discovering her father in her grandfather's room.

"Father?" She had called. "What are you doing in here?"

"Azula?" He answered. "What are you doing awake? Never mind." He quickly added before she could respond.

Immidiatly she felt one of his rough hands upon her softer one. He slowly picked it up.

"Azula, I need you to do something for me."

She nodded and felt him place something in her hand. Glancing downward, she saw it was a golden cup.

"Go melt this, but not in here. If you do this I'l have it made into a prety necklace for you."

Azula nodded. "Where's mom?" She asked.

Her father put his head down. " I-I don't know. No one does. We can't find her. It doesn't matter. And your grandfather is dead."

Azula was a little surprised, but she quickly left to do what she was told. She ran over to her parent's room and sat upon the big bed, waiting.

The princess was so sure her mother would return. And so she waited.

But hours passed. So many long, long hours. And when the sun began to rise she knew it.

Her mother was never coming home.

And that confused the princess. That upset her. Her mom had left her, abandoned her. How could she? Azula figured she probably really didn't love her.

Immidiatly Azula had blinked, feeling her eyes wet. A single tear then escaped one of her eyes and ran down her soft cheek.

But this caused her to remember something. How earlier in the week Zuko had shed tears and their father had scolded him, yelling that he was weak.

Instantly Azula wiped the tears from her little eyes. She would not be called weak. She would not be weak. And she would show her father how strong she was by not crying through such a tragedy.

Immidiatly Azula took in a deep breath and raised her head up high. She was going to go and rub this in Zuko's face.

Azula closed her eyes as she returned from this memory. At times she still wondered where her mother was, and if she was even alive. But she told herself it didn't matter.

The next memory that came to her was the day her brother was exiled from the Fire Nation. She recalled that her Uncle Iroh had given her the news. She had turned her thirteen-year-old head away, rolling her eyes. "Leave it to Zuko to get himself exiled." Was how she replied.

She hadn't cared one bit.

Her angered father forced her to attend her brother's departure however. And of course it bored her. All Zuko did was say his goodbyes. But then there was one moment that failed to bore her.

It was the moment Zuko emerged from those brick red doors. Azula almost gasped, the sight of him without his bandages caught her off guard. She almost didn't recognize her beautiful brother underneath that hideous scar.

And then there was the moment he approached her. Azula could perfectly picture that look upon his face. How he held his newly- almost -shaved head slightly downward, his golden eyes staring straight into hers, giving a light glare. That huge red scar circling his left eye, the flame shape stretching beyond his ear.

Azula just couldn't believe that that was her little Zuzu.

When he finally stopped before her though she could see him. She could see the overwhelming despair hiding so well beneath his cold expression. And by gazing into those eyes of his she could se how lost and confused he was.

She almost pitied him. Almost.

"Well good-bye Azula, my baby sister." He finally spoke.

She laughed. Lightly.

"Well good riddance… Zuzu." She laughed again, delighted when his frown deepened. She just loved to see him suffer.

"And you know," She began, giving him a playfully evil smile, "you're throne is mine now. Because you're never gonna find the Avatar. He's dead. So I'm going to be the next Fire Lordess."

She'd laughed in his face afterwards and that was the last time she saw him in three years.

And now he looked so different. So dirty, so angry, so much older. To her, he resembled an Earth Nation peasant. And surprisingly, she didn't like that. It meant the dirty streets of the Earth Kingdom had taken, had stolen him from her and their family. He'd even cut off his topknot to prove it.

And that succeeded in angering a small part of her. She wasn't one hundred percent sure why, but just the thought that he was trying to run away from her like their mother had so many years ago angered her. She wanted to make him a part of her life again. She wanted to bring him back like she had Mai and Ty Lee.

She hated to admit it out loud, but… the smallest part of her still loved her Zuzu.

She always had, but saying it sounded so weak. Because that's just what he was. Weak. And Azula wanted everyone to know her as strong.

So the torture continued.

All the anger that would have otherwise have been locked up inside her to burn her soul was let out on him.

The anger from when she made mistakes, the anger from knowing her mother favored Zuko, from the knowledge that her mother was gone. And like empathy, he felt her anger with the burns and cuts that covered his arms and legs.

Wait, Azula thought, interrupting her memories, of course he wants to get away. She thought n realization, All I can promise him is negativity. Its my fault…

She then immediately tried to empty her mind of thought. Tried to tell herself it didn't matter. That she didn't care. That it was just Zuko, the boy she enjoyed hurting. The one she should never care about. She needed to clear her mind of such emotions.

She tried. But something, some little part of her mind was screaming. Screaming that she was a liar. Repeating the smallest three words she had spoken so long ago.

'I love you.'

It repeated them over and over like a chant. It was the smallest part of her, operating as if it were something separate from her. And Azula wished it was, because at least then she would be able to silence it with a fiery fist. But it wasn't. It was her. It was the part of her she forced to the very back of her mind so she could forget it existed. So she would be able to bend lightning and become strong.

But now it was loose. It freed itself with the memories she was reviewing. And it was taking over.

'Its my fault.' That's what it cried. Over and over. And she wanted it to stop, she couldn't be dealing with these kinds of emotions. Not if she wanted to be strong.

'Its my fault.' Again and again. And she knew it was so true, she knew how right these words were. But she didn't want to hear it. She only desired to ignore it and pretend she didn't care. To just go back to normal.

But the part of her just kept on screaming, refusing to be ignored. And the princess began to feel the unfamiliar sensation of tears fill the corners of her eyes.

She wanted to fight it, but she knew she already lost.

"I love you Zuko."

Such a tiny whisper left her blood red lips.

She immediately realized what she'd done. She knew it was her fault.

Instantly a stinging feeling of remorse filled her empty heart. She knew what she'd done. And she knew her brother would laugh at her death, that he'd spit upon her grave. And it was all her fault.

"Why did I do those things to you?" She asked. "I love you my Zuko."

Just then she closed her golden brown eyes as two thin trails of tears began to run down her light cheeks for the first time in too long.

"I love you so much."