Part II: Thirty-Eight

Iroh came awake slowly, groggily opening his eyes and flinching away from the sunlight streaming through the high clerestory windows. There was a caustic smell in his nose, and he could smell the faintest hint of smoke and ashes clinging on the edges of his swimming senses.

He tried to think back to how he had gotten to this place, but all was a wash of confusion. He remembered the taste of something woody and strong in his mouth and felt his dry tongue swirl against his teeth.

"General Iroh?" a voice said softly, touching his chest. He opened his eyes again and turned his head a little, staring into a pair of deep blue eyes that seemed both familiar and foreign to him. He blinked sleepily and found himself smiling.

"You have such beautiful blue eyes," he said groggily, reaching up and touching the woman's thin face. She looked taken aback for a moment, lifting her hand to his on her cheek.

"Take it easy, General. What do you remember from last night?" the woman asked, and he finally remembered her name. Chuanwei.

"I remember you. You don't like me," he said before he could stop himself. "But I've never met a more interesting woman in my life. I wish I'd met you thirty years ago."

Chuanwei looked up. "He's still out of it, doctor."

"It's the pain medication, not the drug he was given in the tea. It will pass," a man's voice said just out of Iroh's range of vision. He frowned. Tea?

Tea. He remembered drinking tea. And then...

Iroh sat bolt upright, his heart racing.

"General!"

"Azula! Zuko!" Iroh said, thrashing, trying to free himself from the bed linens, vaguely aware of the pain in his arm and the thick wrap of bandages around it. He looked around wildly, seeing alarmed faces in the room around him.

"Calm down, General," Chuanwei said, her hand on his chest, trying to push him back down onto the bed. The doctor moved up, trying to help, but he pushed the man's hands away.

"Where are they? What happened? The tea, it tasted strange and then..." He remembered seeing the others passing out at the table, but then he'd slipped unconscious. He looked around wildly, expecting to see Zuko and Azula at any moment.

Instead, he met the bleak eyes of the Kyoshi Warriors, sitting in beds of their own. They were in a wide ward in what he presumed was the hospital in Ba Sing Se. The room was lined with seven other beds, but two of them were empty. He met each of the Warrior's eyes and saw the truth written plainly in the sorrow and guilt there.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice a croak.

It was Xiuying who answered, her head bowing. Her face was smudged with the remnants of her paint, and streaks of soot. "They were taken. I saw it happen, General. I... Everyone passed out from the tea. It was drugged. Poisoned. I... I only had a sip, but it incapacitated me. I could barely move. I tried to stop them, but..."

Xiuying let out a sob and Kikki wrapped her arms around her. Iroh looked at the rest of the Warriors, and Chuanwei, noting the soot on their clothing too. Mei Lin looked the worst off, her hands wrapped up in thick bandages. She was staring at the ceiling, tears leaking down her temples. She seemed unable to do much more than that.

"They are alive?"

"We have to assume that they are. If the people who took them wanted them dead they would have left them to burn with the rest of us in the Jasmine Dragon," Chuanwei said bracingly. She flinched and looked at Iroh with regret in her blue eyes. "I'm sorry. Your shop...the Earth King... He said there wasn't much left after the explosion."

"Explosion?"

"The man who took them, he said he was the only loyal Smoke Demon left. He...he threw something at the wall before he set the place on fire. Whatever it was, it exploded when the fire reached it. I saw it. It... Spirits... Rin..."

Xiuying let out a sob and buried her face in her hands again, her shoulders shaking. Iroh's blood ran cold as he looked between the women. He looked for Rin, but his eyes came up wanting. A lump formed in his throat and he felt shivers come over him in a cold wave.

"Where is Rin?"

"She was still in the shop when it exploded. She got us all out. Her and Shirong..."

"Is she...?"

Chuanwei touched his shoulder. "She's alive, but she was gravely injured. The fire brigade pulled her out. She's been in surgery since before we all awoke. We don't know her condition yet, only that they found her alive in the wreckage. She had a sword in her shoulder and other wounds. The Earth King's men, they said that there were bodies in the courtyard of the shop. She killed six of them."

"Spirits..."

"She'll make it. Rin is strong. She's a Kyoshi Warrior," Chuanwei said softly, but firmly. He looked at her and saw the fear in her eyes. He thought of Rin, but his heart turned back to his niece and nephew. Fear filled him like a hot pool of lava, burning through the groggy effects of the pain medication they'd filled him with. He suspected that he'd been burned in the fire, but the pain seemed very far away in the face of the crisis he was in. He needed to focus.

Something nagged at him. Something he didn't want to face.

"There were more men in the shop," Xiuying said. "The Smoke Demon, he was in charge. He was a Firebender. He was masked. I didn't see his face."

"Did you hear his name?" he asked her.

"No," Xiuying said, lifting her head and staring at him with sorrow, and growing like a fire in the heart of her, anger. It shocked him. "Shirong knew him. It was him. He did this. He was working for the Smoke Demon. I heard him. He knew that they were going to take Zuko."

"He told me he wasn't going to hurt him. He promised that he would leave Azula alone if I cooperated, I swear," a broken voice said from the doorway. All eyes turned on the blood-covered young man sagging against the door frame. His face was bruised, his eyes blackened, and his lips split. A white plaster spanned the smashed bridge of his nose. His vest was open, showing tight bandages wrapped around what Iroh assumed were broken ribs.

Shirong turned bleak eyes on him, and something in Iroh reared up, an anger he hadn't felt in years, not since he'd found his son's body on a battlefield. It filled him, burning through the pain and sorrow and every question that had formed on his tongue. He felt the fire in him, felt the lava burst out from the depths of his belly.

He was out of the bed faster than he'd thought possible at his age, shoving past Chuanwei, who cried out in surprise, her hands failing to grasp him. Shirong started, seeing the rage on his face. He didn't get more than two steps away from him before Iroh grasped him by the back of his neck shoved him into the hallway.

Shirong landed against the wall, but before he could slide down it, Iroh grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off of his feet. Shirong choked, his legs flailing. Smoke rolled out of Iroh's mouth as his teeth bared, flames sparking in the depths of his mouth.

"You did this," Iroh said, his voice low and dangerous. His vision was red. Shirong choked, clawing at his hand, his feet flailing against the wall. "I trusted you. I trusted you with the most precious thing in my life and now she's in danger. Because of you."

"General! Let him go!" Xiuying said behind him, but he ignored her. He felt Chuanwei's hands on the arm he was holding Shirong up by. He tightened his hold on the boy and slammed him against the wall again, hard enough to break bones.

"GENERAL! You're killing him!"

"He deserves it," Iroh snarled. "Do you know what Azula went through? What she's come back from? You little worm!"

"I...love...her..." Shirong choked, his eyes rolling up in his head.

Chuanwei's elbow smashed down into the crook of Iroh's arm, breaking the iron grip he had on Shirong's throat. The boy crashed to the floor at his feet, as Chuanwei got between them, shoving him back with a rough thrust. Fire sparked out of Iroh's mouth as he met Chuanwei's burning gaze.

"I understand your anger, General, but killing the boy won't get us answers. It won't get your niece back. It won't bring the Fire Lord back. It won't save Rin. We need to think and this boy may be our only clue as to where they went."

Iroh rubbed his knuckle against the spit flecking his bottom lip and then backed up a step. He knew Chuanwei was speaking the truth, but he didn't want to hear it. The rage in his belly was a bubbling thing, filling him as it hadn't filled him in years. That anger had been forged in the fires of war. He'd thought himself incapable of that kind of rage now, having turned to a path of peace years ago. He lied to himself, he realized. How quickly the thin veil of peace was ripped away from him in the face of losing everything he held dear.

Peace was nothing without the ones he loved.

He looked past the Governor, and glared down at Shirong, coughing on the floor, one soot-streaked hand to his bruising throat. Shirong looked up at Iroh, tears rolling down his dirty cheeks.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for any of this to happen, I swear! I was trying to protect her!" he said between ragged coughs.

Iroh looked around, noting that they weren't alone in the hallway. He was surrounded by hospital staff and men wearing the uniform of the Earth King's private guard. They all looked alarmed, some of them still poised in Earthbending stances, ready to stop him if it came to that.

"Where is the Earth King? We need to find my niece and nephew before it is too late," Iroh said, addressing the most senior officer before him.

"His Majesty is overseeing the search as we speak," the man said, bowing to him. "We've already interviewed the boy. He didn't know much."

"The man killed Huy, my roommate. He came to me a week ago, he told me that he'd kill Azula just like Huy if I didn't do what he asked. He said that he had orders to kill her, that he'd been watching her for weeks."

"What did he promise you?"

"That he'd leave Azula alone if I helped him get the Fire Lord. He said he wouldn't hurt him, that he only wanted to talk to him. I..."

"And you believed him?" Chuanwei said in a voice that could have cut glass. The jagged edges made Shirong flinch.

Shirong hung his head. "No. But... But I wanted to. I wanted to keep her safe."

"You could have told us. Told the police. The Earth King's men... Anyone," Iroh snarled, and then backed off when Chuanwei put her hand on his chest.

"I'm sorry. I made a mistake."

"Did you see his face? Did you hear his name?" Chuanwei asked sharply.

"No."

"Then you are useless to me," Iroh said and then glared at Shirong. "You had better pray to your ancestors that we find my niece and nephew before something happens to them. If they die... I was not always a jolly fat man who makes tea and honey cakes, Shirong. I am capable of terrible deeds, and I will do each of them to you. One by one. Until there's nothing left of you but ashes. Do you understand me, boy?"

Shirong's blackened green eyes widened and he nodded. "General..."

"Get him out of my sight," Iroh said, turning on his heel and walking back into the ward. Xiuying was the only Warrior who had followed him out into the hallway. The others were sitting in their beds, looking as miserable and helpless in their rage and sorrow as he felt.

"Shirong saved our lives, General," Xuiying said softly. "He pulled me out of the fire himself. He and Rin. They saved us. He carried Mei Lin out of the fire just before the explosion."

He didn't reply, sitting heavily on his bed and hanging his head. He heard the Earth King's men come into the room. He looked up and met the officer's eyes. "Take me to the Earth King. We have to find my children."

"Azula... Azula, are awake?"

Azula's eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks, as she felt herself clawing out of a deep and bottomless hole of darkness that wanted to suck her back down. She felt groggy and there was a tingle in her limbs, pins and needles that stabbed at her feet and hands. There was a name on her lips, familiar, a whispered ghost as she reached out, desperate for sense in the darkness.

"Wake up, my Princess," she thought she heard him say, but his voice was drowned out by someone saying her name.

"Azula?"

She recognized the voice saying her name softly in a damp-smelling room, a slight echo to his voice. He sounded calm but groggy. And he was close.

"Zuko?" she said, opening her eyes all of the way. She found herself staring into her brother's scarred face, his eyes gleaming in the dim light. He was facing her, his head strapped to some kind of metal apparatus that was keeping his head in place. Their knees were touching.

She tried to move her own head and found that she couldn't. She jerked in place, feeling panic rise up in her instantly.

"Azula! Calm down! It's okay!" Zuko said, but she jerked against the restraints keeping her in place, She couldn't move her arms or her legs. She tried to spread her fingers but they were encased in something hard. Her rolling eyes glanced down at the arms of the chair she was strapped to by metal bands and saw that both her arms and her hands were encased in what looked like metal mittens.

She could feel another set around her legs and feet. She jerked forward against the bands across her chest and stomach, but there was nowhere to go. Even the chair, she suspected, was bolted to the floor.

"Calm down, okay? We're okay. We're alive. Are you hurt?"

Zuko's voice calm, but it couldn't touch her, couldn't soothe her. She jerked forward, feeling a metal band around her neck. She couldn't move her body, couldn't even move her head.

A memory slammed into her, hard and terrifying, of being held immobile, unable to move her head, her mouth filling with dirt as she tried to scream. Her hands and feet had been trapped in the earth, as hard as metal around her hands. No matter how she had struggled, they had taken what they'd wanted from her, hurting her, taking what they had no right to take.

A sob left her and she shook in the chair, trapped in memories, in the sensations she had wanted so terribly to be free of. The memories, the fear, she found, had never really gone away. They were still inside of her, a part of her, spiraling up through her body like thorns, pricking a million wounds in her that would never heal.

"Azula, Azula, I'm here... Look at me," Zuko said softly, soothingly, trying to penetrate the fear tearing out of her and the scream that was bubbling out of her mouth. "Look at me, Azula. Just look at me, please. It's going to be okay. We're together, okay? I won't let anyone hurt you."

But she knew that was a lie. He was as trapped as she was, trapped in the earth in the Green Heart...

Tears scorched her face as she took in heaving breaths that made her head spin. She jerked her arms, tried to summon the fire in her, the lightning, anything...

"Breathe, Azula," Zuko said. "Please..."

She opened her eyes stared at Zuko. She noticed that he had a bruise on his face. Someone had hit him, hard. His eyes were swimming, but not from pain. The tears were for her, and she knew it. Her brother was afraid.

"I can't do this without you, Azula. Please," he said, his voice breaking. "Please, I need you."

Azula stopped breathing, feeling it catch in her throat. She tried to breathe in, but she couldn't make her lungs work. Her head spun.

"Breathe, Azula. I need you to breathe."

Her mouth worked like a fish, sucking desperately at the air in the bottom of a boat, trapped and knowing it was dead already. She closed her eyes, listening to Zuko's voice trying to penetrate her fear. But it wasn't Zuko's voice she was hearing.

It was his.

"Breathe, my Princess," he whispered in her ear, the scent of him filling her senses. It was warmth and comfort, the scent of the ocean, and salt, of meat and fur and masculinity. Of desire and love, of safety and the beautiful starkness of the ice, but not cold. Never cold. His memory was of heat, of a warm bathtub made out of wood and canvas in the middle of an abandoned mill, a sleepy muscular arm wrapping around her in the darkness when nightmares awoke them both. Of a warm mouth chasing hers in the darkness. A soft voice that rumbled in her ear, the love in his voice so tempting, so damned tempting...

His voice reached out to her, a memory, but so real that she could almost feel him there with her.

"Breathe, my Princess."

Azula sucked in a breath, oxygen flooding her aching lungs. With air came sense. She gasped, her eyes still closed. She concentrated on sucking in air, trying to make her head stop spinning in the darkness.

"What's real, my Princess?"

"You're real," Azula whispered aloud.

"Where are we?"

"Alone on our island," she whispered, her breathing slowing.

"Nothing can hurt us here. Come back to me."

Little by little she came back to herself, the panic attack receding like a nightmare in the light of dawn. She knew that it wasn't gone, that it could come back at any moment. She kept his voice in her head, the memory warm and comforting. That was all it was, just a memory, but it was enough to let her gain control for a moment.

She opened her eyes and stared into Zuko's worried face. He was watching her with tears in his eyes. He was straining forward against his bonds, as if he'd been desperately trying to reach her.

"Azula...?"

She took a tremulous breath. "I'm okay, Zuzu."

"You scared me."

"We're strapped to chairs in some kind of torture dungeon and I scared you?" Azula said, but the joke fell flat. "Please tell me this isn't actually a torture dungeon."

"I don't know. I woke up about ten minutes before you did," Zuko said. "I haven't seen anyone. Do you remember how we got here?"

Azula's eyes closed, squeezing tightly. Pain spidered across her aching heart, digging little wounds that she'd have to deal with later. If there was a later. "The tea...it was poisoned or something. Everyone at the table... Uncle... They all passed out. I couldn't move, and then... Then everything was darkness."

"I remember," Zuko said carefully. "Shirong, he made the tea."

Azula breathed in, feeling a wound in her break open. "I know."

"He betrayed us."

"I know," she said, and the pain turned into anger. It grew in her like poison and she hardened herself against it. She could still remember Shirong catching her as she fell out of her chair, unable to move, darkness trying to swallow her whole.

"I had no other choice," he'd said before she'd fallen into the blackness. She didn't know what that meant, and she didn't care. She could still remember seeing Iroh falling off of his chair. Fear spiked in her chest and she took a breath, trying to push back the panic again. She'd deal with Shirong later. If later ever came.

"Uncle...do you know if he's okay?"

Zuko's eyes closed and then he winced. "I don't know. The Warriors...the Governor... They could be... They're not here. Azula, what if they're dead?"

Azula felt her throat close. "Don't say that. Shirong... We all drank the same tea. We didn't die, so we have to assume they lived too."

"But we don't know who took us. What if they..." Zuko's voice stopped, breaking. "Uncle, if something happened to Uncle, I..."

"We can't think about that right now, okay?" Azula said evenly, as the same fear rose in her too. If something had happened to Iroh, she'd find Shirong and make him pay for what he'd done. She'd make everyone who was responsible for this pay. "We have to focus."

Zuko breathed. "Okay. Let's focus on the room we're in. Maybe we can get some clues as to where we are. There's nothing but a blank wall behind you. What's behind me?"

Azula peered through the dim light streaming in through a small hole in the ceiling. She could see a door just behind Zuko's shoulder.

"There's a door behind you. It's made of metal. There's a skylight. Too small to get out of even if we could get out of these restraints. No windows."

"Okay," Zuko said calmly. "At least we know there's an exit. And we know it's daylight."

"That doesn't tell us much. We could have been out for days."

Zuko frowned, and then lifted his eyebrow. "My facial hair, what's it look like?"

"A little stubbly. Not much, but more than a five o'clock shadow, I think."

He let out a breath. "Good, good, that means we were poisoned and taken last night. Any longer than a day between shaving and I've got a full on beard."

"Look at you, growing a beard like a big boy," she joked.

Zuko let out a little laugh, the sound high-pitched and nervous. "Spirits, I missed you."

"I missed you too, you big idiot," she said and felt tears in her eyes. "I'm sorry my boyfriend poisoned us."

"I'm sorry I'm going to have to kill him when we get out of here."

"Not if I beat you to it," she said and glanced up at the ceiling, feeling more tears in her eyes. "Zuko, I'm...I'm scared. I'm actually scared..."

"Me too," he admitted and then let out another laugh. She knew it was his fear. "Spirits, remember when we were teenagers? Remember how hard we tried to kill each other back then?"

"You never tried to kill me. I tried to kill you a lot though."

"That's just how siblings are," Zuko laughed. She let out a soft giggle, a little hysterical.

"I'm sorry. I was such a bitch."

"I was a jerk. I never blamed you, though. It was all dad's doing. He fucked the both of us up."

"I hope he's rotting in that prison cell you put him in."

"He is. Last report I got said he'd started painting the walls with his own shit," Zuko said.

"I didn't know he could paint."

"He can't. All his art is shit." They both laughed, the sound as high pitched as before, hysterical with their nerves and fear. Zuko's smile fell instantly. "You know, Ozai actually made me believe that being miserable and unhappy was normal. I was afraid to be happy for so long, like it could be taken away from me if I let myself be happy. I actually felt guilty when things were going well. It wasn't until Suki..." His voice choked off and he closed his eyes. "Spirits, Suki..."

"We're going to get out of this, Zuzu. And you're going to go back to that little peasant Kyoshi Warrior and marry her and have a thousand annoying, ankle-biting brats. I promise."

"And what do you want, Azula?" Zuko asked, staring into her eyes. "When we get out of here?"

"I want to find Uncle. I want..." She knew what she wanted, but she couldn't say it. She'd left what she wanted in the snow in the South Pole and there was no going back.

"We'll find Uncle," Zuko promised, but she felt pain in her chest, sure that he was lying to her. He looked as scared as she felt. "He's okay, Azula. I know he is. And everyone else. Rin was patrolling, I remember. She didn't drink the tea. She saved him. I know she did."

"She didn't stop whoever took us. What if she's..."

Zuko flinched. "She's alive. She has to be. They all have to be. Rin's tough. She wouldn't go down without a fight."

"Can I ask you something? What's going on between the two of you?"

Zuko's eyes popped open. "What?"

"There was tension. I could feel it."

Zuko blew out a breath. "She came onto me. Took me by surprise. I didn't see it coming."

Azula's brow arched. "You didn't?"

"No. I've been avoiding her ever since. I didn't want to hurt her. I'm not good at handling things like this. And I felt... I don't know, guilty? Like I'd encouraged her."

"Did you?"

"I don't think so," he said heavily. "But I'm pretty clueless about things like that. I was in love with Suki for at least two years before I realized it. Which was a full year before I ever told her."

"Two years? You are clueless. How did you know you were in love with her?"

Zuko's eyes seemed misty, and a little smile touched his lips. "She got the Fire Flu and I didn't leave her side for days. I was trying to warm her with my chi and it just... It just hit me. I knew it was the truth. And then I realized just how long I'd had feelings for her."

"Mai said she thought you were in love with Suki while you were still dating her."

Zuko grimaced. "She's not wrong."

"No wonder she left your ass. Sokka knew it too. He didn't want to believe it, but he knew it."

"What happened between you and Sokka?"

Azula's eyes closed for a moment. "It's complicated, Zuko."

"You're still in love with him, aren't you? You said his name while you were coming out of it," Zuko said softly. Azula licked her lips, realizing how dry her mouth felt. She also had to pee, and the pressure on her bladder was an unwelcome distraction. "You can tell me the truth."

Azula let out a sob and felt tears in her eyes again. "Of course, I'm still in love with him. I didn't leave him because I didn't love him. I left him to keep him safe. Because I was dangerous. Because I needed help. He couldn't fix me, Zuko. I was broken and I... I loved him so much and it scared me. Spirits, Zuko, I was terrified to love him. I still am. I didn't think I was worthy of him."

"Sounds like Ozai's parenting skills rearing their ugly head again," Zuko said softly.

"That wasn't his doing," Azula said, sniffing, her eyes on the ceiling, staring at the chink of light, watching dust dancing in the beam. "That was all Ursa."

Zuko was quiet for a moment, and then he said softly. "She treated us differently."

"At least you can admit it."

"She did," Zuko said heavily, "But she does love you. I know she does. And I know you love her."

"She's my mom," she said and her voice cracked. "Don't make me cry, you asshole. I'm not dying with tear stains on my face."

"We're not going to die, Azula. Not today."

"Spirits, you're worse than Doctor Song," Azula sniffed and then laughed wryly. "Who knew kidnapping was a therapy technique?"

"We need to figure out how to get free," Zuko said, as the sound of a lock being undone filled the air. Zuko stilled, his eyes flicking to the side. Azula looked past him at the door, watching as the door swung open. "Azula...?"

Her jaw tightened and her eyes hardened instantly. She watched as a man walked into the room and closed the door behind him. The door banged against the wall, and they heard the lock go again.

"Azula, who walked in?"

"Yes, tell the Fire Lord who I am, Princess Azula," the man said, stepping into the beam of light pouring down in a bright circle. Azula glared at him, watching as he smiled, meeting her eyes across the room. She recognized him, though she'd only met him once, in a Smoke Demon's hideout.

"Nobu."