The kitchen of the Royal palace was empty except for the group of people sitting at the table in its center. The servants had all gone to bed. Zuko remembered how he and Azula would come down here in the middle of the night to steel sweets, until the day their father had caught them. Zuko still got sick to his stomach at the thought of eating after supper, after the punishment he had endured. Even now when the man was gone.
Katara and Aang had found a sitter for their daughter Kya for the night. The two of them were bantering with Sokka over a story they were sure he was making up. Suki was rolling her eyes. Toph interrupted with a quip that stopped them all in their tracks and caused them to burst out laughing.
Zuko's mother had also joined them. The Lady Ursa hadn't elected to go to the funeral service itself, but she knew where she was needed. Zuko needed her. The sight of her sitting next to him caused a wave of relief to wash over his body.
Zuko listened to the conversation, not quite ready to add anything of his own. He had still not taken off his formal clothes from the funeral earlier today. He still had a lot on his mind.
"You remember..." Sokka said. "You remember at the trial, where they had that one general testify for the prosecution?"
Ozai's trial, which had taken place almost ten years ago, had naturally come up in the conversation. The group shared the bits and pieces they each remembered, hoping together they could remember the whole thing, or at least the interesting parts. Zuko did not participate in this.
For Zuko, Ozai's trial had been a long and unpleasant affair. Zuko had flash backs as his friends reminisced. Protestors throwing old fruit at him. Frequent terrorist threats to the court house. The overwhelming guilt over how he, the nation's leader, had so much trouble helping the country heal. The alienation he'd faced from extended family, and their shock he had turned against his own father.
"Oh please!" Toph said. "You're not talking about the 'Spirit Water in the Pipes' guy, are you?"
Sokka slapped the table. "Yeah! Spirit Water guy. And you remember!"
Ursa asked for details. Sokka told the story of a mid-ranking general who'd agreed to testify to the details on certain war crimes. The general however, claimed total ignorance when he finally took the stand.
"He said Water Tribe infiltrators added spirit water to the pipes to make him lose his memory," Sokka said, almost chocking on his own laughter. He'd changed his mind about testifying and didn't have the balls to tell us before they called him up.
Ursa huffed. "Sounds like the whole thing was a real circus. I'm sorry I missed it."
The laughter continued. Zuko stared at the table. Suddenly he felt a hand on his cheek.
"Hey," his mother said. "Are you doing alright?"
The laughter stopped. The table went quiet. Zuko saw his friends all staring at him, except of course for Toph who had her own ways of reading him like a book. They waited for his answer.
He sighed. "I'm fine," he said. "I mean... You guys didn't really have to travel all this way for... this."
"It wasn't that big a deal," Suki said.
"I mean," Zuko rubbed his arm. "I guess it seems a little weird for us all to be gathering around and celebrating someone is dead."
They all wrinkled their eyebrows.
"That is what we're doing, right?" Zuko said, "Celebrating?"
Toph shrugged. "I'm celebrating."
"Well," Aang said. "Toph is celebrating. Toph does whatever the hell she wants."
"Damn right," Toph said.
"But really though..." Aang said. "We came for you."
Katara gave Zuko an unsure smile. "Whether you're happy about this or sad... we know your father's death is probably a lot for you to handle. We didn't want to make you deal with it alone."
Of course they had come for him. Just like his mother, they knew when they were needed. How had he been so lucky to land a group of friends like these?
"Well, this morning I had to tell Azula I couldn't share her tears," Zuko said. "And now I have to tell you I can't share your celebration. I'm sorry. I still haven't really figured out how it is I feel."
Ursa took his hand. "Now slow down for a minute, Zuko. You don't have to figure it out today. It's really okay!"
"I know," he said. "But it's so... confusing. I hate this."
Ursa continued to hold his hand. "When I left your father, I felt confused too." She turned to the group. "I hope your children don't have to experience the end of a marriage. It's really difficult being in a marriage that has to end. And it's really awful when you actually end it. It's not something I recommend."
"You weren't happy to be free of him? I know he treated you poorly," Zuko said.
"I was ecstatic to be free of him," she told him. " I never again had to deal with being controlled or manipulated or intimidated. But it was still a loss. I had to leave a home I had built for myself, and all the friends I had made. I had to leave you and your sister, my children!" She squeezed his hand. "And I had to leave him. I was happy not to have to deal with his behavior, but I no longer had that one person who I could talk to every evening. I had to eat all my meals alone, and wake up every morning in a bed alone. At first, I was so hard on myself. How could I feel happy after I had left my children behind? How could I be so ungrateful as to feel sad when I had been given a chance at a new life? I felt like there was something wrong with me. But I had to take a step back, I had to accept that I felt several things all at once. I didn't have to feel guilty for my feelings, or pit my feelings against each other. I could just feel. And that was how I allowed myself to move forward."
Zuko took a deep breath. "Okay," he told his mother. "I'm... not sure I'm ready for that. I'm still taking this all in." His voice was quaking. He could almost feel water leaking from the corners of his eyes.
Ursa suddenly rubbed her hands together. "I just remembered!" She got up, went across the kitchen and came back with some cups and a bottle. "I bought this in Omashu last winter. My current husband and I aren't big drinkers. But it was there, and it was a good price, and it was supposedly the finest rice wine in the region. So bought it, and I thought today maybe we'd pour a couple ounces out for the old bastard, and enjoy the rest ourselves."
The cups were distributed and filled, except for Toph.
"I beg you guys to go drinking with me. And you don't go, and you're all busy. And then I get pregnant. And you all are like 'you're right, Toph, we all could use a drink!'"
"I thought cops weren't allowed to drink?" Sokka said.
"That's just when we're on the job, idiot. And only if you're not the chief like me who does whatever the hell she wants."
"A model of police ethics," Katara said.
"Hey," Toph said. "I follow all the rules, Katara. That's pretty easy to do when you're the one making them."
"So..." Ursa said. "Whatever did happen to Spirit Water guy?"
Sokka almost choked on his own laugh. "Man, I forgot the best part of the story. The day after he testifies, he gets on a boat, I kid you not, for the United Republic. And by the time he gets there the trial is over, but of course NOW he wants to talk. He finds a news reporter. And he tells them everything! He spills his guts for the guy! Most of it was stuff we already knew, though, so it didn't end up making much of a difference in the trial. But he did drop a couple bomb shells about who was sleeping with whom and who was paying off who and all that stuff."
"Well, I really wish I could remember what the bomb shells were," Aang said. "Because now I'm interested."
"I think the Fire Lord's cousin was involved in one of them," Suki suggested.
"Oh, who can remember," Katara said with a sigh.
Zuko's eyes were drawn to the kitchen doorway. He hadn't expected her to make an appearance. He wasn't sure how everyone else would react to seeing her. Azula had gone to bed earlier, but apparently had wandered downstairs when insomnia had gotten the better of her. She looked like she had been crying again, but her expression now was hard. She came into the kitchen and approached the table, with a slow and heavy step. Without a word she grabbed a cup and poured herself a glass.
Zuko's friends hadn't expected Azula to make an appearance either. And they watched her serve herself a drink in total silence. Azula had tried to kill every single person at the table at one point. Zuko's friends were all vaguely away the siblings had long since made peace, but they hadn't been a part of it.
"What?" Azula said. "Come on. Which cousin was it? Because I saw about fifty of them today, and I'm pretty sure Fat Ass Ming wasn't behind any of those scandals."
Zuko's friends didn't answer.
"She's not that fat," Zuko said, almost under his breath.
"That's what Dad called her," Azula said. She drained her cup, and poured herself another one.
It was Aang who broke the silence among Zuko's friends. "It was something really complicated." He spoke as a sign of peace. He had been the most victimized by Azula out of all of them, and only he had the right to offer it. And he did.
Of course he did, Zuko thought.
"If Katara hadn't been taking notes through the whole affair, I don't think I would have followed any of it," Aang said. "I think it was something about paying these terrorists for false flag operations in the old Colonies, and there was something about-"
"Akio Acne Scars," Azula said "Well, his name is just Akio, but Dad used to call him... Ugh. Idiot wouldn't stop talking about it in meetings right up until the Comet. For Fuck's sake. You guys should have had me testify."
"That would have been hilarious," Zuko said.
Azula shrugged. "I'd have done it."
"You would have testified for the prosecution?" Katara said.
"You guys never asked," Azula said with a shrug. "Oh, whatever, you're right I probably wouldn't have. I was too young and caught up in his brain washing. By my dad, that is. But..." she shrugged again. "I don't know, I might have jumped at the chance to get away from all those shrinks for a few days."
There was another pause.
Zuko thought about what Azula had told him this morning. Azula had been hospitalized during the trial. He had made a point not to let any of the chaos going on in the Fire Nation affect her. But knowing what he knew now, about how their father had treated her, maybe he could have convinced her after all to turn.
The decision to testify was similar to the decision to mourn a person's death, Zuko thought. Both required offering an interpretation of the past. Both required interpreting another person as something good or evil, worthy of love or hate, worthy of persecuting or defending. That was really hard to do when the subject was the person who had raised you from birth and taught you most of what you knew.
The conversation moved on, absentmindedly, like a herd of sheep to greener grass. It was peace time now. They didn't have to worry about all of the turmoil of the past. Katara and Aang were talking about Kya, and giving advice to Toph about baby-proofing the house and handling sleepless nights.
Azula found herself avoiding her mother's gaze. But Mother knew best. She offered the same question to Azula she had offered to her son. "Are you doing alright?"
Azula gave a very slight nod, which Zuko knew to be a lie. She had nearly burned down the garden earlier that morning. She wasn't alright. In fact, Zuko wondered if her old symptoms were coming back. But he didn't say anything. He'd let Azula speak for herself.
"Okay," Ursa said. She knew it was a lie to. "If... you... need to talk."
Azula's eyebrows creased. Anger and pain flashed across her face. "Actually, Mother, I do."
Ursa was surprised by that answer. Azula was anything but open.
"Tomorrow," Azula said. "When no one is else is around, and we're sober, and we've all gotten some sleep. There's actually something I should have told you about a long time ago. All of this has brought up... memories."
The color left Ursa's face, as if she had a feeling what it was about. But she nodded. "We'll do that then."
The sober moment between mother and daughter contrasted with a roar of laughter that burst from the rest of the table over something Suki had said.
It was at that point that Sokka pointed out that no one had done a toast.
"Do we need one?" Aang said.
"Of course we don't," Sokka said. "But we're all here."
"To what?" Katara said.
Zuko raised his cup. "Well, I think I have an idea."
Zuko at this point, suffered a scattering of ideas, none of which fit together or made any sense. He still was plagued with self doubt. Had he done everything he could to keep his family together? Had he even done the right thing by trying? He didn't understand Azula's tears or his friend's celebration, though perhaps he could empathize. It was overwhelming, because Zuko hadn't the slightest idea of how he felt, or how he would feel tomorrow.
But his mother was right. It didn't matter that he didn't know. He had time to figure it out. It was okay that he felt anger toward the man who'd scarred his face, and okay that he felt love toward the man who had raised him. He'd allow himself to feel joy he'd never have to hear his father's voice again, and sadness that someone who had shaped his past, a piece of himself, was gone. He'd could feel anger at what Azula had suffered, sadness his family would never be at peace the way he'd hoped for as a small child, relief he no longer felt pressure to fix what was wrong. He could feel all of that.
And he could have a little compassion for himself in the mean time.
And he knew exactly what they should toast to.
He took one of the cups and held it up. "To... the end of an era. A rotten one, but we wouldn't be where we are today without it."
They all could drink to that.