"It would appear that you are all clean, Kazuo. What do you think? Shall we prepare for bed now?"

Azula lifted her son out of the bathtub, making sure to keep a tight grip on his wet and slippery body so the little guy couldn't squirm out of her grasp. She shifted him into one arm, where he dampened the fabric of her tunic, although that was okay as the cloth had already been quite wet from Kazuo's habit of enthusiastically flinging bathwater around. He was nine months old, after all, and seemingly always in motion, reveling in his newfound mobility.

He continued to wriggle and babble as Azula got him onto the changing table, toweled him off, and attempted to keep him still long enough to put a clean diaper on. At the very least, she didn't accidentally stick him with a pin this time…or get peed on. After double-checking to make sure that cloth was folded and fastened securely, she began to dress Kazuo in his warmest set of pajamas. (Even though his winter wasn't nearly as harsh as the one prior, temperatures were supposed to be below average tonight, hovering just above freezing.) They both loved this special evening time together, just the two of them. Kazuo smiled up at her, showing the two new teeth on the top of his mouth.

"Aaaaa!" he proclaimed.

Azula smiled back, but just then her son turned his face towards the lamp in just the right way to bring out the gold highlights in his eyes, and she was suddenly transported back through the decades to another pair of eyes gazing at her. However, while Kazuo's eyes were full of life, the light was rapidly fading from the other pair…

Azula let out a strangled gasp, forcing herself back to the present. She briefly contemplated calling out for help from Tom-Tom or a servant; however, she decided she wanted to try to get through this herself. She hurriedly did up the last couple of snaps on Kazuo's nightwear, and quickly picked him up again, sitting heavily in the rocking chair and taking deep breaths. Kazuo began to paw at her tunic's neckline. They were well into the process of weaning, but Azula decided to let him have his way this time, baring a breast for him.

As her baby nursed, his cheek brushing the skin over her racing heart, Azula thought. It had been months since she had a flashback to her first child's birth and death; to be honest, she had assumed they'd stop after Kazuo was born. It made no sense to her. That hole in her life was now filled, so why did her brain continue to torment her so?

Her little girl. She hadn't lived long enough to be named, but Azula had been thinking of calling the baby Zaya after Fire Lord Sozin's first wife if it was a girl. What would she have been like had she been born whole and lived? She'd be almost twenty now, and possibly even have a child of her own, although that was less likely these days due to Zuko discouraging teenage marriages at court. Could she have been as good of a mother then for Zaya as she was now for Kazuo? Probably not, the cold and realistic part of her said. Zuko and Mai would have taken custody of Zaya, after all, and she was fairly certain that the mental institution wouldn't have allowed much contact. They would have stolen the experience of her child's early years away from her, kept those precious memories for their own…

All right. This was going nowhere. Azula tried to remember her coping skills from therapy. Focus on the moment. Right. She reminded herself that she was not actually in that horrible sterile basement room bleeding out; she was in her cozy apartments with her baby in her lap. Kazuo had been large for his age since birth, and his weight was solid and reassuring. His skin was still rosy from the heat of the bathwater. He had finished with his feeding, since Azula wasn't producing that much milk anymore, and was sucking on his hand. And of course, there were the ever-present dribbles on his chin, which she absentmindedly wiped away with one finger.

"You know I love you, right?" she inquired in a hoarse whisper. A couple of tears dripped onto Kazuo's head before she could stop them. "Big lumpy head and all."

In response, Kazuo removed his now slobber-covered hand from his mouth and reached up, giving her cheek a quite slimy caress.

He knew.

Azula rubbed at her eyes, and tasted the salt as she kissed the top of his head. "I thought so." She'd tried to bury these emotions for so long, but maybe; hadn't even mentioned them to Tom-Tom since his initial attempt at proposing marriage. Maybe now she could finally let herself grieve.