Well, here's Part Two. Enjoy, people~ Disclaimers stand from chapter one, though I must again say that Noin isn't mine, since she's from Gundam Wing, which belongs to Bandai/Sunrise/Sotsu/etc.
It was a rainy, frigid day in December, just two weeks before end of semester finals and Christmas/New Years break, when Zuko approached her with the proposition. Well, approached would probably have implied that he walked up and asked her, but as they were in the middle of advisory… well, that wouldn't have been, no pun intended, advised. Of course, since they were in the middle of Ms. Kelsey's advisory, looking like you were doing something was just as good as actually doing it, so note-passing was a common occurrence in that class. As per usual, she and Zhuo had been keeping a running note conversation going, as they got their own homework done (hers was due in the future; Zhuo's, as always, was due the next class period), and Zuko had merely intercepted their note sheet. While Yue hadn't minded too much, the ravenette had looked miffed, and then out-right refused to participate. The shorter female put it down to PMS, and didn't think too much of it.
Sorry to barge in like this, but I wanted to ask you something.
She frowned slightly. Zuko hardly ever apologized, even to her; it was something the two Agni siblings had in common, and when one of them did… It meant they regretted their actions more than was normal, or they were nervous about something. (She ignored the little voice in her head saying that Azula had been like that, but not even Zuko knew how much she may or may not have changed since That Night.) She quickly scribbled a reply.
No need to be sorry, though I think we pissed Zhuo off… So, what was so important you couldn't wait until lunch to ask me?
Passing the note sheet back, she smiled a bit at the tingles she got when their hands brushed momentarily. Though it had been a year, she still went to goo so easily, and she got the feeling she would always stay that way. Turning back to her history homework, Yue awaited Zuko's reply. When she received it, her frown returned.
She's been pissy a lot, ever since… well, anyways, I'm going to see Azula this weekend, and I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?
Her frown deepened, as she thought this over. It would be the first time that Zuko would visit his sister, after the events which had transpired just over a year ago, and she really didn't know how she felt about that. After all, having grown up close to the Agni siblings, she (and Zhuo, along with Mai and Ty Lee) knew what both Zuko and Azula had endured; she wasn't naïve enough to believe that any of them really knew the full extent of what the two had suffered, but it would have been the understatement to end all understatements, if one had simply said that business tycoon Ozai Agni, head and CEO of Agni Industries, was merely heavy-handed when it came to disciplining his children. Especially after Ursa died, Yue noted with no small measure of bitterness, her gaze flicking to Zuko's scar. She had heard from Zhuo (even if the girl had never outright said as much) that Azula had suffered the same, if not worse, at her Father's hands. All this, added to the immense pressure she had seen firsthand on Azula's shoulders to be nothing short of perfect in everything she did, coupled with how violently her sanity had snapped… She could see why Zuko would be reluctant to go, as much as she also knew firsthand that he loved his sister, and why he would ask her to come with.
Her choice made, she set pen to paper, and responded.
Depending on how quickly I can get my homework done, I should be free all weekend. What time were you thinking of going?
At ten AM on a Saturday morning, Yue could have thought of many other things she would rather have been doing, and yet, here she was, walking down the pale blue and black-and-off-white-tile-floored halls of St. Helen's Psychiatric Hospital. From what she knew, Azula had been transferred here from the psych ward at the local hospital as soon as Ozai had learned what had happened, but that didn't mean that she disliked the man any less. Oh no, it would take a lot more than just providing his daughter the best medical care in the country for that, especially after all that he'd done to cause Azula's mental breakdown in the first place. Thinking of that made her squeeze Zuko's hand instinctively, as they followed the tall, shockingly purple-haired and purple-eyed woman who had introduced herself as, "Doctor Lucrezia Noin, Azula's psychiatrist," but mentioned that she "preferred to be called Noin," as it was an old habit from her military days. When she felt Zuko return the squeeze, she let herself relax a bit, but that also turned her mind to the reason they were here at St. Helen's at all.
While Ozai had been cruel to Zuko beyond a shadow of a doubt, even Yue would have had a hard time saying that Azula had had it easier than her brother. Even biased to side with her boyfriend as she was, the honey-tressed junior would admit that she couldn't even have begun to imagine what it must have been like for Azula to grow up thinking that her whole family hated her for one reason or another, and to have the only person who didn't simply molding her into his own personal little marionette. She'd watched – though admittedly Zhuo (and Mai and Ty Lee) had been closer in that regard – as Azula was placed under immeasurable pressure to succeed where her Father believed Zuko had failed, to be nothing less than perfect at all times, and she had watched as Azula's sanity had slowly crumbled under that pressure. Yue even remembered once, when she and Zhuo and Mai and Ty Lee had had a sleepover with Azula, that she had heard the girl crying in the bathroom, apparently worried beyond words that she would never be able to live up to what Ozai expected of her. At the time, she had thought that Azula had been sad that her Mother had died, as Ursa had passed away just months before this, and had decided to give her privacy rather than try comfort her.
Now she wondered how she could have been so blind, even if they had only been eight at the time.
As a whole, their visit to the occupant of Room Six in the Maximum Security Wing was a short, painful one. For the most part, Azula had simply gazed at them, her golden eyes dead. Her hair was still uneven from where Zuko had mentioned she had hacked at her bangs, and was worn open and haphazard. From what Noin had mentioned, she was kept mildly sedated most of the time, but that she would still react violently if her hallucinations riled her enough, hence the straight-jacket she wore, so she couldn't hurt herself. While Zuko had awkwardly talked about what had happened since That Night, Yue found herself searching those dead, yet half-crazed golden eyes, looking for the girl she had used to know. She looked for the pretty, cunning, but never really malicious little girl she had first met. She looked for the more cruel, but occasionally kind, and fast-becoming-a-beauty (in her own dark, half-Chinese way) adolescent she had survived middle school with. And then she looked for the charming, daring, sharp-tongued, unapologetic-about-her-sexuality, holier-than-thou, and so smart it was almost ridiculous teen she had braved freshman year with. She didn't find any of those girls, and she almost feared this visit had been a waste.
Yue wished that it had been, in the moment that Zuko mentioned Ursa.
It had taken a little bit, for the words to fully register with Azula, but when it had finally happened… all Hell broke loose. Later, when she and Zuko were having their bruises and bite marks attended to in the infirmary, she couldn't help wishing, selfish and cruel as it might have been, that her boyfriend didn't care about his sister as much as he did – or, at least that he hadn't mentioned his Mother. Then they wouldn't have been in this mess. But then her compassionate nature broke in and berated her; if they didn't care about Azula, then who would? Ozai obviously had only put her in here to save face, and Iroh… Yue sighed. So much as she liked the old man, with his tea and anecdotes and easy laugh, she would be the first to admit that if he had been asked to choose between his brother's children, the choice would not have been a hard one for him to make. It wasn't a cruel or snap judgment on her part; it was a fact that all of them knew, but no-one wanted to put to voice. That said, only the three (five, if Mai and Ty Lee were included) of them were left to care what happened to Azula, here in what Yue knew was probably her own personal Hell.
Azula had been tied together with a smile, but she'd come undone, and now it was up to them to put her back together, if only because no-one else would.