Thank you all for your kind input!
Anon - I have no idea if you will ever read this, but I am uncertain what you mean by "finding out the truth".
This installment, just as the last, is unbeta'd. Forgive any glaring mistakes. Since a timeline has not been provided for the most part, I have taken the liberty of creating one. Death dates may be off, as I'm not sure if they'd provided deathdates for the other characters.
Zuko watches his wife sleep in front of the fire, stretched out on a bundle of skins and furs. She is older now than she once was, and her face is lined with wrinkles and care, but she is still beautiful. It was with some trepidation that he came here after retiring as the Fire Lord, but these have been the happiest three years of his life. It is not to say that he did not love Mai, but it was not the same kind of passion that he had discovered with Katara so long ago, the same passion that flows between the two of them still yet.
His mind slips away, to those days just after the war, and he cannot help but think about what brought things to their current state. . .
"Mai." he says, quiet and low.
"Yes, Zuko?" she says, her voice matching his in tone.
"Marry me," he breathes, holding out his gift. In the Fire Nation, it is customary to present a gift along with a proposal. His gift to Mai is an intricately made necklace (inspired by Katara's), forged from the finest gold, rubies, and topaz, along with two cuffs to match (inspired by Suki), a headband (inspired by Toph) and a ring. The entire thing has taken him two years to make, but he is proud of his hard work. Four years ago, as a banished prince, he never imagined this future.
She stares for a moment, eyes strangely huge in her face, and then her face breaks into a smile that he rarely sees. Her emotions are well-guarded, and it is like seeing a new dawn to see her so. "Oh, Zuko. . .how could I not?" she answers and turns around so that he can put the necklace on her. Once all the glimmering jewels have been arrayed on her body, she turns around and kisses him, and he lets himself fall into her bare skin, knowing now she is his until Agni takes her.
"Fire Lord Zuko, Lady Mai wishes to see you before the labor intensifies," one of the servants says, voice low and respectful.
Zuko shoots up from his seat behind his desk, eyes wild. "Before what?" he shouts, and the servant responds quickly.
"Lady Mai has gone into labor, my lord, and desires your company." Before the sentence was half-finished, the dignified, stoic Fire Lord was pushing his way out the door and running down the hall, formal dress robes flying in his own wind.
Five minutes later he found himself at the door of the birthing room, banging angrily on the wood. After the first few bangs, the door came open, and he looked down to find one of the female Fire Sages. "Ah, good. You are here, Honorable Zuko. Your wife desires you," she says and waves him into the room. He enters with some fear in his heart, and his heart is eased by the sight of Mai laying in bed. Her face is pale - paler than usual - but she looks healthy, and then he sees a flicker of something in her eyes. He knows her well enough to know that sign of pain, and Zuko is instantly at her side, gushing over her.
"Are you okay? Do you need herbs for the pain? Should I send for Katara?" He spews out question after question, and only Mai's upraised hand stops him.
"I'm fine, Zuko. I don't need herbs, and you don't need to send for Katara. The baby would be born before she got here, anyway." she says, and smiles gently at him, and his heart constricts at the sight. She is beautiful, despite laying in bed and sweating and getting ready to have a baby.
Oh, Agni, he's going to be a father. I will be nothing like my father, he vows, and so he sits by Mai's side as long as they will let him. It is late into the night when the sages and midwives finally forcibly remove him from the room, and he immediately goes to the tiny shrine of Agni in his room. There, he kneels all the night long and prays fervently for his child, prays that he will be a good father, prays that he will not make mistakes like his father did. . . It has been eighteen years since his father was vanquished, and Zuko hopes that his child will never have to see to their father's defeat.
Just before dawn, a rap comes at the door. He is off of his knees in an instant and answering the door himself, not allowing the servant that is there to open it for him (as is proper). One of the midwives stands there, and she looks tired but vaguely jubilant. There is something in her face, though, that gives him pause, and though her hands are clean, there is a streak of red on the very edge of her face. "My lord, your child is born. Come, greet your child, heir to the sun."
Zuko needs no encouragement, and this time he cares nothing for his dignity. He does not even change into more acceptable clothes: he runs through the halls in nothing but his sleeping attire, which consists of a pair of pants and a hair tie. It does not take long before he is bursting into the room, seeking his wife and child. Mai lies in bed, face wan and waxen, but shining with joy as she looks down at the bundle in her arms. "Mai," he breathes, and she looks up at him with a smile.
"Come meet your daughter, Zuko." she says, and he perches on the bed beside her after the midwives reassure him that it is okay. The baby is tiny - so tiny! - and he fancies that he can see Mai's mouth on the little girl. For a second her eyes flicker half open and he can see the gold of the royal family, and then the realization I'm a father now washes over him. He sits there, silent, for a moment and then he reaches out to place one (comparatively) huge hand on the baby's blankets.
"She's beautiful." and he means it, even though he has never been a fan of babies.
Zuko is utterly enamored of his daughter, and some of the smaller points in legislation are ignored in favor of sitting and watching her sleep, or feeding her, or just holding her. Mai repeatedly tells him that if he is not careful, she will end up spoiled. He doesn't pay attention to her warnings, and pampers the baby in every way possible.
He pampers her not because he wants to spoil her, but because he cannot pamper her mother. After two weeks of extreme lethargy, inability to walk without help, and almost non-stop bleeding, some of the finest doctors in the Fire Nation are called in to check on the Fire Lady. They prescribe bed rest until improvement occurs. Months pass, and on their daughter's six month anniversary, Zuko writes a letter to Katara because the Fire Nation's doctors are useless to him. She comes alone on Appa's back and checks over Mai with glowing water, and there is a grim set to her mouth when she pulls him aside later.
"Zuko. . ." she starts, and then pauses. "I don't - there's no easy way to say this. Something is wrong with Mai inside. I've healed what I can, but there's nothing I can do for most of it."
"What does that mean?" he says after a moment of absorbing this information.
Katara takes a deep breath and says, "Mai. . .Mai is dying, Zuko. If she lives to see the baby's second birthday, it'll be a miracle."
The world swims in front of Zuko's eyes, and a buzzing fills his ears, and a lump fills his throat. He manages to ask, "Really?" and gets a, "Yes. I'm sorry." in response, and then everything goes black. The next thing he sees is the canopy of his bed. Katara sits beside the bed, face somber, and he only has to look at her for it all to come rushing back. Tears pour down his face, and he hides them in the rich red blanket that covers him.
Mai lives to see her daughter's third birthday. Four days later, she passes into the Spirit World, and both father and child are inconsolable. She cries out for her mother every day for several months, until the image becomes a faint memory of a sweet smell and a soft body. Then the cries slow, and eventually cease, and she is a serious child, but she plays with the same vigor.
Zuko suffers more silently. Some nights he lays awake and thinks of Mai, and other nights he cries himself to sleep. Eight and a half months after her death, construction on Nation City (he likes the name, but Aang prefers Republic Temple or something) begins, and all of the motley crew that saved the world joins together again.
Being with them nearly rips him apart. Simple gestures between Katara and Aang, Sokka and Suki, Toph and. . .whatever his name was, nearly sent him into fits of tears on the spot. Every time Suki kissed Sokka on the cheek, it brought back a flash of memory of Mai doing the same thing to him before he left for the office. Seeing Katara make Tenzin eat his vegetables did the same thing, and all the small things nobody thought about made him cry himself to sleep again.
Republic City (he and Aang compromised on the name) is built relatively quickly. By the end of five years, it is slowly growing into the metropolis they envisioned, and work on Aang's statue has begun. Three years later, he is flabbergasted when the council they chose to rule the city approaches him with a request for statues of all of their gang. Katara's statue by the bay, Toph's inside the metalbending department, Sokka's close to the training academies. . .they all get their own statues. And yet, as he stares down at the plans, all he can think of is how Mai would have been so happy for him. He cries that night, and the next morning the plans are on the council's desks, approved by Fire Lord Zuko.
Years pass, faster than he thought they would, and before he knows it his daughter is a beautiful young woman, twenty years old. Marriage requests come in thick and fast from all over the Nation and from outside it, but he thinks about how miserable he would have been if he had not been allowed to choose his partner. So Zuko gives his daughter a choice, and she ends up marrying a boy from the Northern Water Tribe.
Five years later, he has a grandson, and once more the fine details of legislature grow less important while he bounces a baby on his knee (but he's not allowed to make fire dragons, his daughter says, because we don't want to give the boy ideas.) Then two years later his grandson has a sibling, and three years later another one. Zuko is in heaven with all these babies, but he has to take to drinking copious amounts of tea to keep up his energy. He is vigilant about exercise, despite being sixty-five, because he distinctly does not want to be his uncle (who died a year after Mai, and made the grief all the worse).
Then, the day before he turns sixty-seven, he gets an urgent missive in the mail.
Aang is dead. Long live the Avatar, the crowds shout when they learn the news, and Zuko sequesters himself in his room for the days before the funeral. He fills half a dozen journals with his cramped shorthand, stories about Aang and Appa and the boy who saved the world. The journals go onto a private shelf, alongside fourteen journals about Mai, eight about his daughter, and nine about his uncle. There is only one journal for both his father and his sister, both long gone, the ravages of insanity too great a toll on their bodies.
He takes a (much-improved) balloon to Aang's funeral. He strides down the steps with some measure of himself in place, and then he looks up. Katara stands at the end of the ramp, features pulled tight and eyes too bright. "Zuko?" she whispers, and he rushes forward so that she can collapse in his arms and cry. Dammit, Aang.
Aang is the first to go. Three years later, Sokka goes in his sleep. Suki follows naught but a year later, and five years more see Toph laid to rest. After Toph's funeral, Zuko turns to Katara and says, "Looks like it's just us."
She smiles, a wobbly tear-filled thing, and says, "Bet I'll live longer."
"Pff, as if, woman." he retorts, and when they go back to their respective homes (she's helping train the Avatar once more), the volume of communication increases. At first, it is letters, and then they begin using the new telephones (such strange things!), and then it is occasional visits. During one of these visits, Katara falls asleep against his side and he realizes how much he missed the warmth of a woman in bed. Two weeks later, she kisses him and says, "Why not? We're old enough that nobody cares any more, and I'm lonely." He has to agree. It's a very compelling argument.
A year later sees something like their youthful "arrangement" restored to their lives, and a measure of peace and happiness returns to his life. His daughter and son-in-law remark on the change in his gaze and demeanor, and he laughs them off.
Finally, when he turns eighty-four, his daughter wrests him from the throne and tells him, "Go live with your waterbender, old man. I'll take over from here." Again, it is a very compelling argument, and he has to agree. A month later, ex-Fire Lord Zuko and Master Waterbender Katara are married in a quiet, private ceremony. He finds himself watching the impetuous young Avatar during training and marveling at how different she is from Aang, and if he gives her a few tips on things like redirecting lightning and fueling fire with things other than anger, why shouldn't he? It's for the good of the world, after all. She's the Avatar.
But despite the way he is sequestered in a tiny village, he keeps tabs on the outside world. So Zuko knows what it is that Korra is traveling into now, and he has plans of his own - plans Katara knows.
Clunkclunk comes the sound of fists on the door, and he rushes to the door with surprising spryness for an old man to open it. He yanks it wide and hisses, "Shh, she's sleeping!" and the fire in his eyes is hot enough that the two White Lotus guardsmen back down.
"We'll be back later, sir." one says, and they speed-walk away from him. "He may not be Fire Lord anymore, but he's still Lord of Being Scary with Fire." the one whispers to the other, and his partner agrees vehemently.
"Mmm, who was that?" Katara's voice comes from where she is stretched out by the fireplace, and Zuko turns from shutting the door.
"Nobody much, dear." he says, stalking over to the hides and furs. A glance at his wife gives him permission, and shortly he is devoid of his outerwear and holding Katara close to him. "I love you," a whisper escapes his mouth, and she twists around to kiss him.
"I love you too." she mumbles against his lips, and they enjoy each other slowly and carefully. They won't have long before they are unable to stay here in this safe haven, and both of them intend to make the most of it.
I have chosen the method and manner of Mai's death for a reason - not because of any feelings for her character. The only reason I can think of that the Fire Nation, which appears to be highly traditional, would allow a woman to be on the throne (other than Azula) is if it were their only choice. There is also that many court ladies did have trouble surviving child birth, and though Mai is of a stronger mettle, it still would not surprise me if she were weak in such a way, especially as medicine is not highly advanced at this point and time.