She sleeps for a long while and Sokka is hesitant to leave her. At the very least, her sleep look peaceful. She lays on her back, clutching lightly at the sheets in her sleep. Every now and again she utters a soft cough. He watches her roll onto her side before Zuko beckons him out of the room.

"She probably won't appreciate waking up and seeing someone staring at her." Zuko comments upon re-entering the hallway.

Sokka imagines a fistful of fire in his face and nods, "yeah, you're probably right." He decides to wander off to his own room. He has to admit that he is still rattled from almost having someone die in his arms. Someone who he is growing fond of at that.

He lays upon his own bed, one arm behind his head and the draped over his middle and stares at the ceiling. It had been too close a call for him to rest easy. And there is something else. Something he can't place that bothers him.

Though he isn't sure that bother is the right word.

He tries to put it out of his mind and think of something more pleasant. Evidently his mind doesn't leave the slumbering princess. Azula isn't exactly the sort of person who he'd have thought that he'd find pleasant. Yet, he has grown comforted by her presence and her snide remarks, accompanied by chipper comments from TyLee. Before her health had taken a sharper decline, Azula almost seemed to be in good spirits.

Perhaps it is bizarre given the circumstances, but it had been nice to hold her so close.

He hopes that she will recover soon.

.oOo.

She doesn't know what time it is but she does know that it had been early morning when she'd…

Her head is fuzzy and her thinking is still jumbled. Light streams over her face, it is warm and consoling. A tingle prickles in her belly at the thought that she might be dead. Didn't they say something about light and warmth in dying. She writes that off relatively quickly. She can't imagine that she'd be seeing the light side of the spirit world, in passing.

She sits up and tries to rid some of the haze in her head. For a moment she holds her position with her head dipping and her eyelids drooping. She thinks that she may fall asleep again.

She must have briefly nodded off because her head is against the pillow once more and the sun is hanging lower in the sky. The rays it casts on her floor have shifted some.

This time, Azula forces herself out of bed. She still feels light-headed and the room sways some. She puts her weight against the wall and waits for the spell to pass. She utters a few coughs, a residual lingering irritation in her throat.

It takes her another cough and a moment to realize that the petals had either withered and shrunken or retracted and disappeared altogether.

She doesn't feel like wandering back across the room to check the mirror, but she brings her fingers to her neck. It is smooth. Still somewhat swollen, but free of the bulging impression of the vines.

She isn't one for crippling emotions but it is a fight to keep herself from collapsing in sheer relief. Azula wanders into the hallway with the last of the fog in her brain clearing. It has cleared enough for her to put two and two together and her stomach lurches.

She had anticipated a slow and agonizing death.

She had made plans for that.

She hasn't made any regarding what she would do if her love were to be reciprocated.

.oOo.

Sokka frowns, his drawing is not going how he wants it to. His lion-turtle looks more like Appa, but if Appa was having really bad fur day. His skin prickles, at first he can't place why. He looks up and jolts, nearly toppling his chair.

Azula stands in the doorway, still in her night robe-he supposes that, at this late in the evening, there is no point in her changing out of it. She regards him with languid gold eyes. He doesn't know what she is doing here but he doesn't intend on shooing her away.

"What are you drawing?" He can hear the strain in her voice.

Before remembering that he is not satisfied with his art, he pridefully holds up his masterpiece and declares, "it's a lion-turtle."

"I hate it." Azula comments dryly and with all of the social elegance he expects of her.

"Actually, me too." He admits rubbing the back of his head.

"Can I set it on fire?" She holds her hand out.

Sokka holds it protectively to his chest. "No!"

She laughs, but this only irritates her throat and she is hunched over coughing. The fit passes. It must have depleted what little energy she had left, because the firebender sits herself on the floor.

"Here." Sokka gets up. He helps her into the chair. "How are you feeling?"

"I suppose, fine...for having almost died." She flips the lion-turtle drawing over with a matter-of-fact, "his intense stare was creeping me out. Seriously, can I burn that monstrosity?"

"Kozu didn't do anything to you."

Azula crinkles her nose. "Did you really name that thing after my brother?"

He realizes that she has just changed the subject.

"Any more petals?"

Azula shakes her head.

Perhaps he is absently putting the pieces together because it dawns on him that he is probably the first person she visited after waking. And she is in his room, she has sought him out in particular. She has her head down, face buried in her arms.

If the petals are gone then that means…

Does he really love her?

He peers at her, meeting her gaze when she turns her head up.

He thinks that he does.

.oOo.

Azula supposes that she has her victory.

The flowers are gone and she hasn't had to utter a word of confession.

She is under the impression that Sokka will coax a vocalization out of her anyways. Likely after she has recovered. That is if he can put two and two together. She believes that he already has, he is giving her the stupid lopsided grin.

"Stop that." She murmurs.

"You like me don't you?"

Foolish of her to assume that he would wait. "Less and less every time you speak."

He wasn't supposed to smile more. But he does. He isn't making things any less awkward for her. She longs to avert her gaze, but she holds it. He loses the shit-eating grin and pulls up a chair for himself. "Why didn't you say something?"

Azula shrugs.

"You said that you would if he was single. I have a whole folder of heartbreak art to prove it."

Azula shrugs a second time. "Didn't want to make things weird."

Sokka blinks. "Spontaneously dying in the middle of the floor kind of makes any situation weird."

"Yes, well, I'd be dead so I wouldn't have to deal with any of the awkwardness."

He laughs. "You're incredible." She can't tell if he means so endearingly or incredulously or some hybrid of the two.

"Yes." She agrees. Truth be told she also didn't fancy the idea of rejection. Not after having received it from her father and at one point her uncle, mother, and ex-friends. It still clings to her even with most relationships decently patched up.

But he hasn't rejected her. She feels her neck again. The vines would still twitch there if he had. Still, she has no idea what to do with that.

He sighs, "you really aren't good at this romance thing, are you?"

She shakes her head.

"Well good thing that you have found yourself a professional."

"Zuko told me that he walked in on you with a rose in your mouth and…"

Sokka's face grows red. "Well that makes two of us!"

She blinks twice. He isn't wrong. "I didn't put mine there." Technically she had though, in some sense.

He knows it too. He stops laughing again. "It's not as hard as you think." He flashes her a reassuring grin.

"You'll find that I'm not the cuddly, clingy sort."

"That's the beauty of love!" Sokka sweeps his arms out in a grand arc. "You don't have to be. For some reason, I like...I love you anyways. I'm kind of tired of clingy anyways. Suki is great, but sometimes a man needs his man time."

"As long as I never find out exactly what that entails, have at it." She comments with a wave of her hand. She puts her head back against the table, feeling drowsy all over again.

"Besides," Sokka continues, "I think that this is rather romantic don't you think."

She cocks her head.

"Stumbling upon a heartbroken man doing art."

Azula rolls her eyes. At this he grows serious again. "What I mean is, I don't need you to be a Suki. I don't need you to be fluffy or cuddly. I think that I'd probably hate that actually, it would be a little creepy. I just need you to be…"

"Alive?" Azula fills in.

"That too." Sokka chuckles. "I just need you to be Azula. Just do what you usually do. I fell in love with that, so...uh...keep doing it I guess."

She hides her face in her arms, under the guise of not feeling well. At least the fading disease has given her a subtle means of hiding an absurdly flushed face. She can't recall a time when anyone has said something like that to her.

"Do you want to go back to your room?" He asks. "Your bed is probably more comfy than this desk."

Azula picks her head back up and then stands up, simultaneously pushing her chair out. She motions for him to follow.

"Do you want me to get you something to eat or drink? You missed lunch."

Azula nods. "Let Zuzu know that he's not safe from me yet. I'm still going to kick his ass at kuai ball this summer."

"I'll deliver the message." Sokka promises once they reach her bedroom. He leaves her in the doorway with a parting kiss. She brings her fingers to her lips. She supposes that she hadn't entirely hated it.

No, she rather liked it.