(SEE INTRODUCTION FOR DISCLAIMER)

A/N:

Ok, guess who wrote outlines all the way to Chapter 20? XD

That's where I have been by the way… I hadn't abandoned you. I have been REALLY having trouble with keeping this my own… I am sorry, but I think I have FINALLY broken away from cannon enough in my outline to continue this happily.

I was just working on the story in a different way…. Well here we go New Chapter! :D

This was UNPLANNED and well it's kind of a reflections chapter : )

Listened to "I Miss You" by Blink 182 On repeat as I wrote this…

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Chapter Eleven: In Fever Of Dreams

Waking up, Zuko found himself feeling much better than he had in a couple days and the small pull of spirits between him and Aang seemed stronger than he remembered. Remembering that the boy had been with him the night before he, looked around and found him sitting in the chair near his night stand that had a kettle and cup placed on atop.

Seeing Aang again made him a little more comfortable to be waking up in a strange place. He was sure they would explain everything to him eventually, so he just sat and looked at the boy who had only recently become his friend. In reality they had seen quite a few things, but it somehow felt like they had many greater challenges to face.

When he had been closed off, into the deepest recesses of his mind, he remembered fighting, fighting against falling and just giving up.

Fighting his two dragons.

Fighting was what he had done his entire life; the Prince had fought for himself for so long that part of him had wanted to just to give in. Zuko felt that maybe he could just give up; maybe fighting had never been the answer.

So he had begun to allow himself sleep. But something woke him, they were like whispers in a language he couldn't understand, they filled his senses, and he had clung to them. Because they were familiar, they sounded like the whispers in his vision he had dreamt.

The whispers drowned out both Dragon's voices, it seemed only he could hear the whispers, and even then he couldn't understand them.

Zuko had strained himself to listen, trying to understand even the smallest word.

And he focused on them, and he heard "for me, promise, right here,you and me"

All broken up, as if the words in between were jumbled and spoken in an unknown language. They were they only words he could understand.

So he focused on them, he could fight the coldness of sleep if it someone outside of his mind wanted him to, and something told him that these words came from the outside. Perhaps it was because the dragons could not hear them, or perhaps because he just knew…

There were times when the voice would go away, and his concentration on the silence it had filled would fade, causing the confusion of the Dragons Voices to fill his ears once more, and they would seep into his mind and he would panic.

Because his anchor had disappeared, and he didn't want to deal with these monsters, he didn't want to deal with the darkness or with purity.

He knew that he had too many demons to seek the light, that path would never want him. And that his heart would always be too soft to be swallowed up whole by the demons that haunted it.

He could never truly accept either Dragon's offer, and that Voice seemed to be the only thing that he wanted, it seemed to be everything he ever desired, a place comfortable away from the darkness, and perhaps a cool enough so that he wouldn't be burned alive by the light.

It would return, the voice, and he could feel his mind come to it, as if called and it would save him from having to decide to kill a part of himself.

The words seemed as if they were on repeat, and he wished he knew what the voice was saying, that perhaps it was offering something he could go on for, without having to deny any part of what made him who he was.

And then as if whishing hard enough had granted him understanding, he heard it in clear words.

"It's just you and me ok? I won't let anything happen to you."

And when He had finally grabbed onto that one full sentence he held on and let it ring throughout his soul, He let it penetrate his heart like the dragons had been trying so hard to do. Letting those words pierce him, and flow into him, they became a part of him.

It was the voice that demanded nothing. The voice longed for nothing more than his safety, it desired only his presence, it would take the hellfire and the Angelic light. It wanted him.

The dragons looked at him as if he was insane, but then realized what was happening; both seemed to be waiting to see whose words he had swallowed as he felt their gazes on him.

He could feel his body burning, and his mind being flung towards that voice flung towards that soul, it seemed to him that he was stuck in the fiery gaze of the dragons. But even though the voice was now silent, he held on to the words, and focused on them. Rejecting both Dragons, and the white noise that came from their presence, he refused to be swallowed up by either of them.

And suddenly he was no longer in that place, and there was only one choice to be made as he suddenly found himself at the familiar spirit Oasis.

Aang Standing in the water with a bright smile on his face, making Zuko's heart warm, and the instead of speaking, giving conditions he just thrust out his hand to be taken.

And Zuko understood, he knew that this was not the choice he needed to make, he had plenty of choices, he could join his father, or he could perhaps join the Avatar. But his heart had chosen, he would not choose to join a divine spirit, but he would choose the all too human boy before him.

Because he wanted to, for so many reasons, because he knew what he was, he knew what he could be, and knew what he wasn't.

So in a heartbeat he took that hand that offered him everything and asked nothing in return.

As he had opened his eyes, asleep unaware that it had been him that had saved the Prince, but now Zuko knew that he himself had chosen the path he now followed, and that all he had been doing was fighting his own choice.