Daughter of Hate

by Blutus Mindpretzel

The war is over. Azula's motives remain unknowable as her child stands to shake the foundation of everything built since the fall of Fire Lord Ozai. For Toph, Mai, Aang, Katara and the rest, the world is an even more dangerous place than it was when they were children. And despite being long since gone, Sasuke's impact continues to shudder their world, perhaps more than they know.

50. Chapter 50

Chapter 50: …So Close

As he lay among the sheets, head resting on Ursa's shoulder, Sasuke looked towards where the sun was hidden out of sight behind the clouds, a faded patch of brightness. The balcony doors were wide open, allowing a soft breeze to ripple through Ursa's bedroom, gently running itself over his naked body. The warmth of the day mixed with the breeze caused Sasuke to draw a long quiet inhale through his nose, once again reminding himself that this was no dream.

Down in the entrance hall, once Ursa had finally settled down, Zuko had jerkily urged them all to head to the conference room. He ordered the guards to not interrupt them for anything less than the world being on fire and they had all sat down around a long rectangular table. Ursa hadn't released her hold on Sasuke's hand despite the fact that she now seemed much more in control of herself and Sasuke had no desire to let go of her either. In truth, he really didn't want to be there as he knew fully well why Zuko had suggested they all congregate in this room, and the reason everyone had followed with such a sense of urgency. As he had taken a seat of his own, Sasuke couldn't help but think to his visit to Konoha and remembering all the explaining he had done then. He knew there wouldn't be nearly as much to explain now, but his desire to go off somewhere alone with Ursa was enough to almost make him feel annoyed that this had to happen now.

But as he had felt this, Azula had sat down on his other side, eyes still red, and Soza had practically leapt into her mother's lap. The smile on her face as she looked over to him was enough for Sasuke to push aside that desire for the time being.

They deserve to know, and they deserve to know now.

With his daughter on his right and Ursa on his left, holding his hand tightly, Sasuke looked up to look across the table at Aang who was looking at him with an expression that looked both blank and somewhat like he was about to explode into tears himself. He waited until everyone else had settled around him, some looking towards Sasuke with tentative disbelief still on their face, others looking towards Aang as though it had been silently decided that he would initiate what was to come.

"Sasuke," he finally said, breathing out the word as though it held strange sort of power. He opened his mouth and closed it again before giving his head a small shake, triangulating his thoughts into a single word.

"How?"

Fully ready for this, Sasuke started talking without hesitation, making sure he looked around to meet everyone's eyes as he did. For the most part, the eyes of his friends were wide, still in the tight grip of shock; Yue looked like she was a blink away from breaking down in tears herself and Ty Lee kept looking towards Azula with a gaze that almost looked proud.

Sasuke didn't skip a single detail of what he was able to remember. He told them what he had already told Soza, how he had known that for his plan to defeat Madara to have the best chance of success, it would result in his own destruction. Jin and Katara had both looked ready to burst out at him angrily when he revealed that but were calmed by hands on the arms by Ty Lee and Sokka respectively. Sasuke spoke of how he had awoken seemingly in perfect condition in the void and talked about the hovering old man who had saved him, a being with great power from his own world. He told them how Hagoromo had made the decision that, for the safety of both worlds, he intended to seal them off from one another forever, to keep such tragedy from befalling either again, and how he had saved Sasuke due to the backbone and morality he had shown in the face of rather certain annihilation.

It was when he started to talk about the choice he had been offered that Sasuke felt emotion start to clog his throat.

"Hagoromo told me that I had earned the right to decide where I wanted to go and… well, spend the rest of my life. Because he was sealing off both worlds, the one that I picked would be where I would wind up forever, I wouldn't be able to go to the one I didn't choose at any point in the future. One or the other."

He could see emotions flickering even more intensely in the eyes around him as he explained this and he did his best to keep his gaze from holding on any one of them too long for fear that their emotion might catch up to him enough to halt his words.

"I knew where I had to go," he had said quietly, looking down towards the table, and the hand that didn't have its fingers locked with Ursa suddenly found itself gripped by Soza's small hand. Sasuke had looked over and seen the encouraging smile and happiness in her eyes, and that had been nearly enough to generate tears of his own right then and there.

"I wasn't born here. I wasn't raised here. My powers aren't of this world, and I know that my presence has every chance of creating conflict. I know that it might have been more responsible for me to stay in my own world… but…"

He had shrugged with a weak chuckle.

"I couldn't help myself," he had finished. "I feel this is where I belong. Here, with all of you. I'm sorry if that seems at all selfish or like the wrong thing to do, but—"

Jin had suddenly burst into tears then, burying her face in her hands as Ty Lee had looked over in mild alarm, taking her friend around the shoulder. Seeming to shake aside the tears, she released a wet laugh and looked at Sasuke with another shake of her head, a smile on her face.

"You're such an idiot."

Sasuke had smiled at that, and he could tell the sentiment was echoed by the others. Apologizing for coming back was about as stupid a thing as he could have said; even Zuko seemed to be hiding relief and happiness at seeing him again. Sasuke remembered what the Fire Lord had said to Madara in that climactic moment, and wondered how much Zuko had really meant it all, but the fact that Sasuke was sitting hand in hand with Ursa and Zuko didn't seem the slightest bit irked was a good sign.

"I convinced Hagoromo to let me return to my home village, just for a little while. I… needed to see someone again."

He told them about Naruto in plenty of detail, the one person whom Sasuke had known he would regret forever not seeing again had he passed up such an opportunity. How Naruto had understood perfectly well why it was that Sasuke would not be staying and why that had been the last time they would see one another.

"It was clearly hard on him," Sasuke had said. "To lose me for so long and then when I finally show up again, I tell him that this is going to be the last time we'll see each other. But… he was always a better friend than I deserved, the same way you guys are. He understood my decision, and…"

He had given a small shrug.

"Given that decision, I never could have picked anything different. It was better for me than I ever could have imagined to see Naruto again, but… all of you."

Sasuke had looked around at all of them then, making sure to meet each of their eyes.

"It's nothing to do with either of the worlds themselves, I know that's not it. It's you guys. It was always you guys."

He had felt his cheeks flushing at the confession, but when he saw Yue beaming at him, it had felt the slight embarrassment fade dead away. Sasuke wasn't at all used to saying things of this nature, and he knew for certain that he probably wasn't doing the moment justice. He wasn't that articulate, but for now, it would do for them to just know how he felt.

"I know things haven't been the easiest while I've been around. I know that I've caused a fair few problems on a number of issues, and I'm sure that those are going to be things that still need to be worked out between me and some of you guys. But I'm willing to do that, because… well, you guys are the best thing that ever happened to me."

It had been rather comical then when Aang, Yue, Ursa, and Jin had all given a single, wet sniff all at the same time, prompting Sokka to chuckle softly. He had seemed the most readily accepting of Sasuke's sudden return, but he and Zuko genuinely seemed to the only ones that had come to terms with it. In terms of the others, Sasuke was finding it difficult to find anyone who wasn't looking at him as though they were waiting for lobsters to start crawling out of his ears.

"That was you, then?" Yue had asked him. "What stopped the execution?"

Sasuke had looked to her with a relatively unreadable look then.

"What do you mean?" he had asked and she had given a small, disbelieving laugh.

"Come on, Sasuke. You show back up in once piece, and at the same time, Ursa's execution gets called off because of some document that just happened to be found by the lead councilperson?"

Though he had wondered if it would have been prudent to keep the role he had played in that to himself, Sasuke supposed it didn't matter much if he told the group; he certainly trusted them enough in that regard.

"I came to see Soza first," he had said. "She told me that Ursa was scheduled for execution and… I suppose my first instinct to blast over and tear apart everyone involved was a little premature."

Ursa had squeezed his hand then and he had squeezed back, wishing very badly just then that it wouldn't have been out of place to turn and kiss her for as long as she would let him.

"I knew that if I did something like that, it wouldn't help anything in the long run. I needed to clear her name, not just protect her, so I decided to forge a document and place a genjutsu on the document itself, rather than Shaeryn. I flitted over and made sure he saw the document before he made his way out onto the balcony. From there, he was able to read the supposed words written by Ozai, and the genjutsu convinced him beyond any shadow of a doubt that they were authentic."

"So… my father didn't actually write that?" Zuko asked and Sasuke gave him an amused if rather grim look.

"Maybe not, but I don't think I really misinterpreted his motives when I conjured up that document, don't you think?"

Zuko had looked both understanding of that, and also distantly hurt and Sasuke had winced internally. Accidentally reminding the Fire Lord just how little his father had thought of him might not have been all that wise.

Still, it kept his mom alive. It probably would burn Ozai to no end to know how he was used like that to protect his wife whom he had seen as such an obstacle.

From there, that hadn't been all that much more to tell. He had answered a few glancing questions about his home and Zuko had asked two separate times if there was any chance that Madara was still looming in the ether as a potential threat. But after another half hour, it became clear that everyone was exhausted enough from the combination of Ursa's near execution and Sasuke's return to the point of Katara suggesting in a strained voice that they ought to take the morning to recover.

"Good call," Jin had muttered, wiping her eyes. "I think we could all use a little time… I'll crank out dinner for everybody later."

"You don't have to worry about that," Zuko had said. "We have—"

"Oh, please," she had said, with a teasing smile and dismissive wave. "I can outdo any chefs you've got on the payroll."

With that, the group had slowly gotten to their feet, and moved towards the door. Sasuke had noted rather quickly how it had seemed like he had almost possessed his own gravitational pull just then; while Azula, Ursa, and Soza all had remained near his side, he had seen Aang, Yue, and Mai all seem like they wanted to join that number, but each of them stopped before actually going through with approaching him. Sasuke wanted to extend a hand to each of them, feeling he owed them all more on an individual scale, but right about then, he had wanted nothing more than to follow Ursa wherever and spend some private time together.

They had moved to the palace suites near where the royal bedrooms were and as they had neared the door to Ursa's room, Azula had gently pulled Soza free from Sasuke's hand. Soza had looked reluctantly to her mother then, donning the first frown Sasuke had seen on her face since he told her that Ursa had avoided death.

"Come on, honey," Azula had said quietly. "Let's get back to our room."

"But I want to stay with—" Soza had started to interject before a look from her mother had quieted her.

"You can see your dad later this afternoon," Azula said then, looking up to meet Sasuke's eyes and there came a very strange moment then that he wasn't sure he had ever felt towards her.

For the first time, it really felt to him that he was sharing a moment with Azula as Soza's parents. There wasn't any animosity or broken feelings or obsession or conflict between them as he looked back into her gorgeous eyes. For that instant, they were Soza's mother and father, sharing in a moment of silent understanding.

Sasuke felt he almost wanted to cry then as he realized it was also the first time that he had felt genuinely grateful that Azula was Soza's mother.

Soza looked between Azula and him for a moment longer before her eyes shifted to Ursa and her gaze shifted to one of understanding. For a second, Sasuke wondered if she was going to make some embarrassing comment like she had that one night, but she only gave a small nod and moved her hand to grip Azula's. Sasuke bent down to kiss her forehead.

"I love you," he had said quietly and she had thrown her arms around his neck to kiss him on the cheek.

"I love you too," she had replied, blushing then as it seemed that such words were still somewhat foreign to her. Sasuke could have sworn he saw the ghost of a sad smile on Azula's face as she had led her daughter away then, heading back towards their rooms.

And just as he had found himself wanting from the start, Sasuke found himself alone with Ursa as they had stood in the hallway ahead of her door. Shoulder to shoulder, Sasuke had waited for her to say something now that it was just the two of them, but she hadn't even looked over to him as she pushed open the door and led him inside.

She had released his hand and started to walk towards where the main room connected to the bedroom. Sasuke had looked after her a moment before closing the door behind them and then tentatively following after her, starting to wonder if he was in some kind of trouble.

Walking into the bedroom, he looked to the left to see that the front of it possessed a set of glass-paned double doors that Ursa must have opened, allowing a warm, soothing breeze to waft through the room. Sasuke turned his eyes to edge of the bed where he saw Ursa lowering the deep maroon robes she wore over her shoulders to reveal the light grey gown she wore beneath. When Sasuke saw the look of tensed pain on her face she was trying to hide, he walked quickly up behind her.

Ursa slowly removed her fingers from the robe as she felt Sasuke behind her; he gripped the robe himself and gently pulled it past her shoulders and let it drop to the floor by her feet. As Sasuke got a better look at the gown, he felt his blood boil distantly at the thought of how transparent the cloth was; the thought of Ursa being dragged so vulnerably and openly through he streets in something like this was enough to tighten his lips in anger.

While he considered that, he caught sight of something underneath the transparency of the gown that caused his brow to furrow. His fingers moved towards it and he felt the soft bump that was the line that he saw as a slightly darker line against her back, tracking from her collarbone down to just above her rear.

"What's…" he murmured quietly and Ursa turned her head to speak over her shoulder to him.

"It's nothing, Katara fixed me up," she said in a tone that was clearly trying to placate him. Sasuke said nothing as his hand traced the scar over her clothes; he felt his arm give a small shake as he did. She might have been trying to play if off now, but that wince he had seen on her face told him fully well that she was in pain from the injury.

Bastards.

If he had just been given a few extra minutes… if he could have gotten to her just a little sooner…

"Hey."

Ursa turned to face him then, forcing his eyes off the scar on her back. He looked up into her beautiful face as she brought a hand up to gently run her fingers through his black hair.

"I'm alright."

Closing her eyes, she leaned forward and pressed her forehead against his.

"I'm alright."

And with that, Sasuke heard in her voice what else was in those two words.

I'm alright. Because you're with me again.

Feeling such an overwhelming surge of affection run through him, Sasuke tilted his head back, closing his own eyes and hoping that she understood his intent. She did, and a moment later, he finally felt her lips against his.

They stood there at the side of the bed for a long while, neither willing to break the kiss apart, arms slowly wrapping around one another as the breeze gently brushed over them both. Sasuke didn't think he had ever experienced a more tender moment in his life.

Eventually, Ursa gently pulled back from him and without a word, she pulled down the gown over her shoulders as well. Sasuke's eyes flicked down almost on instinct, and he silently removed his own clothes then as well as Ursa slid onto the bed, resting against the pillows and opening her arms in a beckoning motion to him. Sasuke climbed on after her and a moment later, they were naked in one another's arms, basking in the warmth of the midmorning, listening to the breeze gently sway the curtains.

Feeling Ursa's skin press against his body was such an immaculate feeling, but Sasuke somehow found himself kept from feeling aroused as he felt her full breasts against his chest. Perhaps it was because the moment was so much more than a sexually intimate one, but in that instant, all he wanted was to lie where he was, his head on Ursa's shoulders, her chin resting atop his head, and their arms around one another. He closed his eyes and though it took some effort, he forced his mind to blank to the world.

Though he had said it so matter-of-factly back in the meeting room, he knew that nothing he had ever said could have echoed with more truth. It hadn't been about this world, or about his own world. It didn't matter where he came from or where he ought to have remained.

It was his friends, his daughter… this perfect woman and the baby growing inside her.

Sasuke knew he was home then and as he emptied everything from his mind but that fact, he felt the first peace he could remember grace his heart.

For hours, he finally allowed himself to be happy.

---

Ursa wasn't sure if perhaps she had drifted off once or twice while lying on the sinfully comfortable bed, the sheets of which she and Sasuke were so ensnared within. What she did know was that she didn't think she could ever have imagined feeling this way again.

From the moment that she had lost Sasuke right up until the moment of when she thought that she was certainly about to be burned alive, a piece of her insides had been missing. It had been large enough to restrict so much of her other emotions to the point of near apathy towards all issues she faced. When the soldiers had come to take her away, she might very well have not batted an eye had Azula not moved to try and pulverize their number. And then when she had been sitting in that cell in the capital prison, there hadn't been much that she had found herself able to feel. Only a deep, agonized melancholy for the child that she knew would die within her when she was executed, but for her own being, it had been difficult to dredge up any true emotion. Zuko had visited her, Azula had visited her, Yue had visited her, Mai had visited her, and through that and the days that had passed leading up to the execution, that piece was still missing.

She supposed part of her believed that she could live without Sasuke. She rather knew for certain that was true, but… it hadn't happened in a way she could accept. The unfairness of it had been far too much to accept. There was no closure she had been able to obtain, no feeling that moving on was even possible. He had given her life such a sense of joy and love that she could never have equated, not even in regards to that of her children or grandchild.

Not being allowed to so much as say goodbye to him had broken her.

And seeing him again had taken those pieces and fixed them, all while replacing that piece that had been made missing.

Ursa knew that she had never cried like that in her life, earlier that morning when she had clutched Sasuke to her as a child might hold their parent's hand in a moment of fear. She had cried when she had been taken from her hometown, away from the man she had joyfully agreed to marry in order to be wed to the son of the Fire Lord. She had cried when she had left her children in the dead of night, she had cried many times alone in the cabin of her ship, wondering if Zuko and Azula were okay, if they had been able to get by without her. She had even cried by Sasuke's side prior to then.

But the tears that had rolled down her cheeks then, the sobs that had shuddered her body had been of the purest relief, the purest gratitude, the purest joy.

Sasuke was alive and he had come back to her.

And had that not been enough, he had spoken of how he had chosen their world instead of his own, because of the people he cared about.

And because of me.

Holding him in that bed was all she found she could ever have needed to feel complete.

---

Sasuke felt his eyes tracking the shaded sun's rays as it moved across the sky as the day passed into the afternoon. He felt to be in a strange sort of fugue state, the world seeming to exist in a haze before his eyes and when he heard Ursa speak for what might have been the first time since that morning when she had asked him if he was real, her words were warmly fuzzy in his ears.

"Are you sleeping?" she asked quietly and he realized that his breathing had been so deep and consistent that he very well could have been. He gave a deep inhale through his nose and adjusted himself atop the covers, nuzzling his head against her by way of a reply. Ursa drew a hand over his scalp, running her fingers through his hair with a gentle affection that he had come to know from her.

"I love you," he said, turning his head just enough that he could press his lips to her bare chest. She responded by pulling him tighter to her and he felt her nails slowly and softly run down his back, causing Sasuke to feel shivers run up and down his body.

"I love you," she crooned back to him, her voice low and silky, and bringing another warm chill up Sasuke's spine. He nuzzled his face further into her chest and brought a hand up to grope at her breast, drawing out a deep moan that he heard vibrate through her chest from where his head lay. For a moment, he considered trying to provoke her further as the sound of her moaning drew up a heat in his gut that was all too familiar. But after a moment, the hand cupping her breast moved down her torso, coming to a rest over her belly. Ursa's breathing grew deep and measured then as she spoke gently to him.

"I know you might call me crazy… but I swear I've been able to feel kicking."

Sasuke knew that it would take significantly more time before something had grown enough inside for her to feel like that, but he also didn't doubt for a second that her motherly instincts were allowing her to feel something like that.

"Someone as strong as you? No doubt you'd be working on a kid that's already able to be swinging like that," he murmured, his fingers tracing over her skin softly. Her nails softly scratched the back of his head as she made an appreciative noise.

"He's getting that from his father I would imagine," she replied which caused Sasuke's eyebrows to flick upwards in mild surprise.

"It's a he?" he inquired and he felt her shift almost pleasurably against him as he continued his soft touching over her body.

"Just a feeling I have," Ursa said, and again Sasuke didn't find it to make much sense to question her thoughts on that. Having given birth twice before, he knew that if there was anything to trust on such a matter, it would be her instinct. As he continued to ponder over the child growing within her, he felt a sudden horrible rush of guilt as he realized that while he had apologized to the group as a whole, he hadn't given Ursa the one that she more than deserved.

"Ursa…" he said quietly, and even her name quaked in his mouth as the gravity of what he had done to her drove a burning knife through his insides. She clearly was able to tell that something had upset him, and she put her arms back around him, holding him close.

"What's the matter, honey?" she asked just as quietly, her voice knowing and understanding to such a degree that Sasuke couldn't have felt more comfortable telling her what was on his mind, even if he didn't really want to bring this up now.

"I'm so sorry," he said before the words became too painful to say. "I'm so, so sorry that I went and did a thing like that without… without telling you or asking you or—"

"Shh, none of that now," she said in a voice that was just above a whisper and kissed the top of his head, but Sasuke couldn't let it sit with just that.

"I went in with the belief that I was going to die," he pressed and the hand that had been pressing against her stomach started to wrap back around her waist as he hugged her, the movement feeling as instinctual as anything. "That could have been it, I could have just died and if I had, I… I would have left you here."

He was surprised how quickly he felt the warmth of tears leak down his cheeks and he sniffed angrily at the fact he was so incapable of preventing such a show of emotion. Ursa must have been able to tell by the pitch of his voice that something was more amiss than she might have even guessed, and she gently reached down to tilt his head up to look at her. The moment Sasuke met her eyes, he watched as her expression blossomed with hurt and empathy, and he grit his teeth as he looked away.

"Oh, Sasuke…" she murmured and pulled him to her so that he was hugging her with his chin resting over her shoulder. He turned his head just slightly so that he could squeeze his tears out against her long, brown hair while she continued to shush him gently in his ear, rubbing his back and rocking him just slightly.

"I'm so sorry I almost put you through that," he managed to finish before the arms wrapping around her squeezed tighter still as he clung to her almost desperately.

"Please don't hate me for that," he whispered and the hand stroking his back froze for a moment before Ursa gently eased him back so that he was sitting up as she joined him. They both sat among the sheets and she reached to softly cup his face with both her hands, holding him still while she looked intently into his eyes. Her expression was severe despite the emotion raging in her own beautiful golden eyes.

"Sasuke, listen to me," she said, her voice gentle, but firm. "I will never, never hate you. Do you understand me? The day that you… left us, I was hurt badly, of course I was; how could I not have been? But I understood what you had done, that you had done it to protect us. I didn't want to accept that it had even been a possibility that you were gone, but I didn't hate you. I could never hate you."

She leaned in to kiss him, once on the forehead and once on the lips before continuing.

"You've done so much for everyone, so much for our world, so much for me. I'm not even sure if you realize how much. How many times have you saved my life now?"

Ursa asked it almost as though it were a joke and Sasuke gave a weak smile in response.

"And no matter what the circumstances were, they don't matter now. Because we're together now. You're back, the conflict is over. Everything is going to be okay."

At those words, Sasuke closed his eyes and took a long deep breath in and Ursa clearly understood the significance of the words towards him for she repeated them in a whisper a moment later.

"Everything is going to be okay."

Sasuke released the breath in a long, exhaustive exhale before bowing his head to lean against her chest and she ran her fingers over his head, kissing the top of it.

"Everything is going to be okay," he repeated quietly and even allowed himself to dare to believe those words. It seemed like things hadn't been okay in his life for so long that considering that it was even possible seemed almost like a pointless effort.

But Ursa was right. Sasuke was here now, with her, not dead, very much alive and happily in her arms. Madara was gone, the spirits were gone, the world was at a point where it could perhaps start to heal. Everyone had made it through and though Sasuke knew things couldn't be as perfect as he might have wanted them to be in terms of his relationships with everyone, he knew that he couldn't ask for a better start in mending the ones that needed it. And for the ones like this, where things had already been so good… how could he be dissatisfied? How could he even begin to sit here and be miserable for even a second? Had he really thought that Ursa would hold this against him in the slightest?

"I'm just glad you came back," she said softly as they moved from where they had briefly been sitting to lie back down in one another's arms. "Your master said that your world wasn't too pleased with you prior to when you had forcibly been put here. You might have been in for some real trouble had you returned, he seemed to think. Even after everything you had been through to get to that point, it sounded like you were in a heap of trouble."

"He was probably very right," Sasuke said with a small chuckle. "He and Naruto might have been willing to let me off the hook, but I think that things might have gone to hell pretty quickly if I had made a more public appearance."

Something occurred to him then and he furrowed his brow.

"When did he tell you that?"

As he said it, he remembered that Kakashi had told his friends all about his childhood while he had been passed out following Kyoshi knocking him out of the sky and he silently waved off the question, but Ursa's response drew him right back in.

"He and I… spoke. Briefly."

He could practically feel the slivers of tension in her tone then and he looked over to where she lay next to him to see that she was looking off towards the ceiling almost dodgingly.

"What else did you two talk about?" he asked in a voice that was pointedly casual. Though it wasn't necessarily his place to try and pry over a private conversation, if this had indeed been a conversation between just her and Kakashi, he wanted to know what was said. Especially if he had been the topic discussed.

Ursa was silent for a long while and Sasuke knew from that quiet that she was trying to figure how best to approach the subject with him. It didn't seem that she regretted having brought it up, or was angry that she had mentioned it all; rather, she seemed almost as though this was something she wanted to speak with him about, even if there was clearly something about it that was giving her pause. He nearly prodded again, but caught himself in time to remain silent for the time being.

"Sasuke, does our relationship feel… normal to you?" she asked finally and Sasuke blinked a couple times initially in reply.

Wow.

Where did he even begin answering a question like that?

"How do you mean?" he decided to ask, feeling that whatever he answered wouldn't be in regards to what Ursa actually meant by the question.

"I'm sorry," she said with a small laugh. "That wasn't a fair question."

She took a deep breath in through her nose beside him, clearly coming to terms with something.

"Kakashi told me something that I've never… I've never quite been able to get out of my head. I wanted to talk to you about it, but I never quite was able to bring it up; there was so much going on and even when I had the chance, it never felt right to ask you, there was always so much on your mind."

"Well, all that's on my mind now is what Kakashi told you," Sasuke replied, trying to add a bit of dry humor to ease the tension that was clearly eating at her. It didn't seem to do much as he looked at her continue to look at the ceiling with a very serious expression on her face.

"Do you… see me as a mother?" she said then rather abruptly and Sasuke felt a whole billowing rush of emotions run through him then.

"I… I…"

There really wasn't much else he could manage other than some stuttering and what he was assuming were some intensely reddened cheeks.

"When I was told about your childhood, I learned just how much you lost from not having a family in your life, from not having your parents there for you. Kakashi was worried that… that maybe what you felt for me was—"

For the first time since he had first laid eyes on Kakashi again, Sasuke felt genuinely angry towards his old teacher. He sat up in bed, looking ahead out towards the cloudy sky, feeling a scowl furrow his brow furiously.

"And what, he thought that I was just clinging to you because my mom died when I was a kid?" he growled. "That this love isn't… right?"

"No," Ursa said, sitting up again beside him. "No, he never doubted that what we have for one another is love. Please don't think he was against this, against us… he told me that all he wanted was for you to be happy. He saw that I made you happy, he just… he was worried that I might hurt you."

"Why would he think that?" Sasuke asked, his voice coming out much louder than he had intended and he felt Ursa tense beside him.

"Because… just like you might have been able to see me as a mother… I might have been able to see you as a son."

Sasuke had nothing to say in response to this, mostly because he wasn't sure if he had just heard an explanation or a confession.

"I won't lie to you, Sasuke," Ursa said softly, coming to her knees behind him so that he felt her pressing against his back as she pressed her lips softly to her shoulder. "I know that part of my feelings for you originated because I saw you as… a way to cope with my feelings towards being a failure as a mother. I saw a broken young man the same age as Zuko must have been, and I projected that onto you. I went to comfort you because it was helping me just as much. That was where it all began, where my true love for you spread from."

Her nails ran up and down the lengths of his arms and though Sasuke tried to resist the chill the sensation gave him, he couldn't.

"I love you, Sasuke, as a lover. Perhaps some of this spawned from my own regret and personal failures as a mother, but that has nothing to do with what my feelings became, the way they are now. I love you."

The last three words were said in an almost pleading fashion and Sasuke felt his anger towards Kakashi and the suggestion that he had made wither almost immediately. He leaned back, feeling Ursa's breasts press against him as he rested his head beneath her chin.

"I know," he said softly, realizing what it was that she had really been trying to ask him, and why it had been so difficult for her to get out. "But you're worried that even though you feel that way, you don't want to think that somehow I might only have feelings for you because I see you as a mother figure?"

The pause that she took before answering confirmed his suspicions.

"Yes," she murmured and he could practically feel the fear resonating from that single word.

She didn't want to just come out and ask it. Because she's scared that if she suggests it, I'll come to some realization that I do feel for her as a son would to a mother. And that might break what we have.

He drew an arm across his own body and found her hand; he laced his fingers with hers and closed his eyes.

As if anything could.

"Yeah, I think that was part of it for me too," he said, letting honesty guide his words, not wanting to leave anything unsaid. "Loneliness has been one of the hardest things I've had to deal with in my life, even if I might have denied that at any other point before now. I never would have wanted to admit that, that with all my power, that something like being lonely was beating me down so badly. So… when you came into my life in the way that you did… I embraced that. I didn't know how I was feeling, but some of it was that feeling a child might have for their mother, yeah."

Thinking back, Sasuke could think to plenty of times where that had applied to his feelings for Ursa, especially earlier on, before he had really been willing to consider what he had been feeling at all. It had seemed much easier to just let the warm and positive emotions he had experienced be all there was to it. But what it had become…

"But," he said, his voice much more firm then and he squeezed her hand tightly. "You need to know that my love for you is not like that. Maybe I do see you and I see a person that I can lean on, that I can lie beside and be open and vulnerable with, like a child with their mother… but you are also a beautiful, perfect woman that I love more than I ever thought I could ever love someone. You're carrying my child, you've done nothing but be there for me whenever you were able, and every time I see you, I feel the most incredible warmth and happiness."

Even as he told Ursa everything that he felt towards her, he could feel himself growing emotional, tears swelling behind his eyes as he realized just how grateful he was to have her there beside him. A small sniff behind Sasuke told him that his words weren't just affecting him in such a way.

"So, yeah, maybe this isn't how I should feel about a woman, as a lover and having also seen her as a mother sort of figure… but I don't care," he said, gritting his teeth. "That's who you are to me; I can't help that, and I wouldn't change that. You've helped me more than I ever could have deserved, and I will never be able to thank you enough for that."

"Oh, Sasuke…" Ursa whispered again, and he could tell that she was saying the words through tears. "I never meant to question how you feel about me… I only wanted to make sure that you knew that if… well, if there was anyone else, I know that what we have has all happened so quickly, what with my becoming pregnant and how we've come to feel for one another… I never wanted to feel like I was holding your emotions hostage. That wouldn't be fair."

For a reason that Sasuke couldn't quite identify, he felt a strange, almost guilty feeling run through him.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, in a voice that he knew wouldn't be able to fool even the most oblivious person. Ursa gave a soft chuckle behind him before sniffing again and he felt the warm wet feeling of a tear landing on his shoulder.

"Yes, you do, honey," she said quietly to him, and he knew that she was smiling sadly. And Sasuke bowed his head then in defeat.

Because he did know. He knew very well what it was that Ursa was talking about.

It wasn't that he had tried to keep his eyes from wandering to Toph while they had been sitting at the table earlier that morning, but he couldn't have helped it. Everyone there had been looking to him so intently, listening to his explanation and learning how it was that everything had transpired the way that it had. Sasuke would have expected that everyone would have been exhaustively interested in the lot of it, but as he had looked over at Toph, he had seen her not only seeming to not be interested, but she had almost seemed to look like she was wishing she was anywhere else. And though he had tried to ignore it, his thoughts had started to drift to her while he had spoken to the group.

He thought about the almost aggressive relationship they had first shared when they were young, how she had reacted to him when he had returned, how utterly enraged he had felt to see her being tortured before everyone, the moment they had shared alone where he had buckled to his own emotions and kissed her. He thought about everything that had passed between the both of them from the very beginning, from how she had seemed so much like she had hated him when they were children, to the way she had practically clung to him before the first war with Ozai was all said and done. He remembered how she asked him for a mark like Azula's, how she had admitted so suddenly to him that she believed she loved him. He thought to how angry she had been when he had confronted her on the island, the way he could feel the pain and resentment in her voice. That moment when he admitted to her that of everyone, he had missed her most of all and how she had admitted to him that she had denied every chance made available to her to move on, and how she knew no one else could ever fill the hole that he had left in her. He thought to sitting beside her with Soza as they joked back and forth at one another, a brief moment of lightness in a time that was so stressful for them all.

Sasuke remembered the look on her face when he had pressed his fingers to her forehead in the moment before he fully believed he would never see her again.

And he knew that no matter what he tried to say, he would never be able to deny his way though Ursa's intuition. How could he dream of managing something like that?

"It was that obvious, huh?" he asked dully, and she gave another small laugh behind him before kissing the back of his neck.

"Sasuke, I love you so, so, much, but you are anything but subtle."

He sighed and bowed his head, taking the hand that wasn't holding Ursa's and putting his face in it.

What the hell do I even say to this? That I haven't been dealing with feelings for some of the others? Toph most of all? If Ursa knows, there's no point in denying it… but I don't know the first thing about approaching something like this; after Ty Lee, I was worried to even mention another girl to Ursa, let alone talk about how I—

"Hey."

At Ursa's word, Sasuke straightened his back and looked around to meet Ursa's eyes. She was smiling at him, but he couldn't have missed the sadness in her gaze.

"It's alright," she said gently, and Sasuke looked back at her for several long seconds before shaking his head.

"How can you say that?" he finally asked quietly. "After Ty Lee—"

"Ty Lee taught me something very important that night," Ursa said. "I remember how hurt I felt that the both of you had gone and done something like that…"

Sasuke felt his insides squirm with nauseating guilt. Ursa must have sensed this because she leaned forward to press her forehead assuredly against his.

"It's okay," she said. "It's not fair to hold that entirely against you, not when your experience with something like that isn't anywhere near what many people your age understand it to be. Ty Lee was furious with you over the situation with Azula, and you were about as lost as could be that night; I had seen it in your eyes earlier when I had gone looking for you after you returned from the palace, and I was stupid to just let you be, assuming that was best. Like you just said, loneliness is something you've struggled badly with, but you likely didn't know how else to handle how you were feeling that night. I should have stayed with you, even though you had brushed me off, maybe that would have—"

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"It doesn't matter," she said curtly. "I've come to terms with that, and I've forgiven you, and I've forgiven Ty Lee. I have no place in my heart for resentment like that anymore regardless."

"So what did you learn?" Sasuke asked, almost tripping over the words as he realized he didn't know if he wanted to be told.

"I learned…" Ursa started, but she managed no more than those two words before trailing off, her eyes casting down. Sasuke waited silently, wishing he could do more for her then sit there and expectantly await an explanation. And when he saw tears suddenly bloom strongly in Ursa's eyes, dropping down to create dark spots on the sheets between them, his heart throbbed horribly.

"I learned that what I've done to you isn't fair," she said wetly, bringing her finger up briefly wipe at the corners of her eyes. "Being pregnant, becoming so attached to you… I know what I've done by taking you like this."

"What are you talking about?" Sasuke asked, feeling an almost nervous chuckle building behind his words. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me, I don't—"

"Sasuke, I know how you look at Toph," Ursa said with a soft sniff. "And I know how long she's waited for you to come back to her."

"That's not… you can't… she…" Sasuke said, trying to come up with anything to say to try and alleviate the clear pain that he could see Ursa was struggling through, but what she had just said bore nothing but truth. Sasuke did look at Toph. And he knew too what she had put herself through in the time since he had left, waiting for him as she had.

Stupid girl… what if I had never come back?

He thought this even as he felt another rushing surge of emotion pass through him, and his mind was suddenly filled with an image of Toph on the island, holding her after they had kissed, feeling her crying and hating himself for what he had done to her.

"I never meant to hold you back from going to her," Ursa said quietly as Sasuke's mind raced with thoughts of Toph. "If I hadn't come along, if you had come back here without me, you'd probably be with her right now, wouldn't you? I know you would have at least tried."

Sasuke shook his head with a sudden sort of desperate bitterness.

"Ursa, please stop," he said, his voice brittle and pitched. "Don't ask me to think about this, Toph, she…"

He gave a quiet noise of pain and brought his head down to press against his palms.

"I can't think about her, she… she means so much to me, but I… you're here, you're here and I don't want anything to come between that because… because…"

"Sasuke, you can't go burying something like this," Ursa pleaded with him, putting a hand on his thigh. He could hear the agony in her voice as he knew just how hard it was for her to say any of this at all.

If she could, she'd bury help bury it right along with me. But she won't. Because she's a good person, and even if she's risking this now, she's trying to do what's best for me, even if… if it hurts her.

"If it were Yue, or Mai, or Aang, maybe… maybe I wouldn't approach this," she softly admitted. "I feel the tension there, the way that it differs between you and some of them, but none of them, none of them are anything like what I see between you and Toph."

He heard the gentle sound of her crying then and it was enough to bring the tears free from his own eyes then.

"Do you know how much this hurts her? Have you seen the look on her face over the past several weeks?"

"Stop it," Sasuke growled, feeling his voice grow more angry then. Did Ursa really expect him to be able to seriously consider this right now? Did she even understand what it was that she was asking him?

Of course she does. It's why she's crying right now.

"You're going to have to deal with this, Sasuke, you know you are," she said despite his protests, her voice straining.

"Do you understand what you're doing?!" he said then, his voice raising in volume. He didn't dare look at her for fear that seeing her tears would weaken him even more. "I go to Toph and what then?! What happens to us?!"

He immediately regretted raising his voice and he swallowed down his anger, giving Ursa's hand a squeeze by way of apology. She waited a very long time before replying to him then.

"Our relationship has been anything but normal," came her response. Her voice was still very quiet, but Sasuke could hear the acceptance of it in her words. "I suppose we'll have to deal with things as they come, whatever that means for us. If something were to happen between you and—"

"Then nothing," Sasuke snapped. "If something were to happen between me and anyone, then that would mean nothing for us."

Turning where he sat, he let himself look into Ursa's face and felt his heart melt as she saw her red eyes, the wet tracks on her cheeks, and the small, sad smile she was looking at him with.

"I need you to understand something," he continued. "And I'm not leaving this room until you do. Yes, there is something between Toph and I. Yes, it's been there for a long time. But whatever comes of us, it will never, never, change how I feel about you."

Her eyes turned sadly down, and Sasuke grit his teeth; before he could stop himself, he moved forward quickly and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a deep hug.

"I love you. Forever, you hear me? I'll go… I'll go and do what you ask. But I'm not going anywhere until you know that this changes nothing between us, and that I love you no matter what."

He couldn't even begin to think what might come of their relationship if he was to oblige Ursa and actually attempt to try and sort things out with Toph, whatever that might mean.

I shouldn't even try.

Just remembering how hurt she had seemed after what had happened with Ty Lee caused him to swallow bile as he held Ursa all the closer to him.

I did that to her. I hurt her.

"I know you do," she whispered back to him and he felt her give a small shake that no doubt indicated she was still fighting through tears. In a moment that Sasuke would never have expected between her and him, he scooted back against the pillows and pulled her close to him, something she had done for him often times before. So often she was the one to comfort him, to hold him that way, but now, Sasuke was the one who held her to him, her head resting against his chest as she cried softly.

Why do you have to be such a good person?

And for a good while longer, all Sasuke could even consider thinking about was holding tight to Ursa and silently thanking the universe for deeming him worthy of someone like her.

---

A half hour or so passed before Sasuke even thought to try moving. Ursa had grown still against him, her body slowly rising and falling in a clear indication of sleep. It was a good sign to Sasuke that she was resting; after days of believing she had very little time to live leading up until that morning where she was led to a near execution only to be spared at the last moment… and then to find that the father of the child growing within her was still alive? Sasuke couldn't quite imagine how she had managed to stay awake as long as she had, so heightened her exhaustion must have been.

Somehow, her sleeping made Sasuke want to stay with her even more; holding her the way that he was made it feel like he was protecting her, that no harm could possibly come to her while she rested. It took a deep breath to allow him to remind himself that here in the most secure location in the Fire Nation, surrounded by soldiers that Zuko no doubt had ordered into full mobilization around the palace walls, Ursa was about as safe as she could be.

Sasuke slowly lowered Ursa down to the pillows as he slipped from the bed, lying her down to rest gently on her back. As he left the bed, he moved to look for his clothes, but when his eyes fell upon her again, he stopped.

She looked so peaceful and beautiful then that Sasuke couldn't help but stand perfectly still over the bed and look down at her.

I love her so much.

He slowly got to his knees and pressed his lips against her bare stomach, closing his eyes and imagining a child growing inside her. The mere thought made him want to leap back into bed and cuddle with her all over again, but he restrained himself.

She's exhausted… probably will sleep clear through till tomorrow if she's allowed to.

Finding his clothes, Sasuke dressed himself, taking extreme care as to not make any noise and disturb her.

Hell, that's probably why she said all that, about Toph and everything. Delirious because of being tired and stressed. Yeah, that must have been it.

It was a weak attempt to try and convince himself otherwise, but he clung to it anyways. It was so much easier to lie to himself than to believe what he knew to be true.

He made his way to the door of the bedroom and spared a last glance back towards Ursa and let a wonderfully warm feeling of affection hold him aloft before he moved towards the hall, easing the door open and stepping out into the hall.

Fortunately, he managed to close the door before a rather sudden thing happened. As he turned away from Ursa's room, his hand leaving the handle, he collided with Aang who had been coming the opposite direction, looking distractedly down at some papers he was carrying. Both of them went staggering backwards, Aang releasing a yelp before righting himself and flushing in the cheeks almost immediately.

"Oh gosh, Sasuke, I'm so sorry!"

Righting himself, Sasuke gave a small smile and a wave.

"Don't worry about it," he said. Aang looked him up and down for a moment as a silence fell between them and Sasuke could tell that the Avatar was still struggling with the fact that he was even looking at Sasuke in the first place.

"I can't believe you're here," he finally said quietly, affirming what Sasuke had imagined was running through his head.

"Yeah, can't get rid of me too easily it would seem," Sasuke remarked as he started to walk down the hallway in the direction Aang had been heading, the Avatar following at his side. "Attempts have certainly been made, but the universe doesn't seem ready to let me go."

"I'm glad for that," Aang said with a smile. He glanced back over his shoulder then at the door Sasuke had emerged from. "How's Ursa?"

Sasuke sighed.

"Exhausted. Definitely struggling with everything that's happened to her. Kind of hope she sleeps a week to give herself a chance to recover."

Aang nodded.

"Pregnant, almost killed, and then the run you gave her over being dead and then you turn up fine a week later? Yeah, that might do it."

Sasuke winced slightly and Aang caught sight of him, his face paling.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it like that, I just—"

"You're fine," Sasuke said tightly, offering another dismissive wave. In truth, he didn't want to talk about that any more than he had to; there was enough guilt over what he had put Ursa through running through him that having someone else affirm it to him was the last thing he wanted to hear. Aang could clearly tell that what he had said was not something Sasuke wanted to go into and quickly changed the subject, for which Sasuke was grateful.

"Good news: Zuko got documents from the council over what's to be done going forward about prosecuting her. Based on what they've learned from 'Ozai's' document, all they can do legally is place Ursa under what is essentially house arrest."

Sasuke nodded slowly, supposing that he could allow that. He didn't like the idea of a single punishment being levied against her period, but if that was the worst they were planning to do, he would accept that.

"For how long?" he asked and Aang shrugged.

"Not sure yet. Zuko thinks maybe a year, but it might take a week before we know for sure."

They continued to walk and it didn't take long for Sasuke to realize that there was very clearly something on the tip of Aang's tongue that wasn't quite coming out. As they neared a long set of stairs, Sasuke smirked.

"I'm all ears, Aang."

Stopping at the rail just ahead of the steps, he turned to look at Aang who had adopted a wide-eyed look as he gazed back at Sasuke before breaking into a sheepish smile.

"It was that obvious?"

"I don't know about obvious… but I think I've gotten to know you well enough to figure when you're sitting on something you want pretty badly to say."

Aang leaned against the railing, looking down towards his feet as he clearly deliberated over whether he wanted to come out and say what it was that was clearly eating at him. He finally gave his head a small shake and sighed.

"I just wanted to apologize. For… for making things weird."

"You didn't—" Sasuke started, but the moment Aang started to talk, the words couldn't be stopped.

"I know that it caused so many problems," the Avatar said quietly. "With Katara especially. We've… spoken since everything happened. She explained to me why she did what she did back north, cried a bunch while doing it. Said she was fine going to prison for it if any of us wanted to make the charges known, but she was just…"

As he trailed off, Sasuke finished the thought for him.

"Just worried about you."

Aang smiled sadly.

"Yeah. All of that… because she was worried about what might happen if I kept pursuing you… the way that I was."

Sasuke was left in a place again where he felt that he perhaps ought to feel uncomfortable over what was being implied, but just as he had before, Aang making mention of this wasn't something that he found bothered him all that badly.

"I'm sorry that things became as complicated as they did," he replied. "I… wish that I could have been better about—"

"No," Aang said quite sharply then. "Don't even with that. You were juggling so much with that alone. Ursa, Toph, Mai, Yue, Azula and then you had to worry about me crushing after you too?"

He let out a tired laugh and rubbed his forehead wearily for a moment. Sasuke found himself impressed by how much more in control Aang seemed; during their time on the run from the spirits, things had seemed to have overwhelmed him quite badly, but now with that all behind them, Sasuke could see that Aang seemed to be in a much better place.

"I'm the one who gets to be sorry here," he said with a smile. "I hope this doesn't change things between us."

"Of course not," Sasuke said, returning the smile. "But if you ever have the urge to get close enough to try and kiss me…"

The red that Aang's cheeks took made the previous blush look pale by comparison. He blustered something in an indignant sputter which drew a laugh from Sasuke.

"Kidding."

At the foot of the stairs, he saw Zuko pass by a floor down. He jerked his head in the Fire Lord's direction.

"I'm going to go have a word with Zuko," he said and Aang, seeming to be doing his best to shake off Sasuke's joke, gave a short jerking nod.

For a moment, Sasuke looked back at the Avatar as the two young men regarded one another with small smiles on their face. Feeling then as though it were the right thing to do, Sasuke extended a hand towards Aang. The Avatar looked down at the appendage reaching towards him for a few seconds before making a small noise of derision and stepping forward to wrap Sasuke in a fiercely tight hug. Blinking in surprise a couple times, Sasuke slowly reciprocated the embrace, feeling a very warm feeling come over him then, surprising him with its intensity.

They broke apart after several long seconds and Aang gave Sasuke a small nod and a last smile before walking off down the hallway without a word. Sasuke looked after him, smiling to himself.

He's grown a lot.

With that, he made his way down the stairs after Zuko.

The Fire Lord didn't take long to find as Sasuke saw him a couple rooms over, several documents strewn out over a large table. Sasuke almost didn't want to interrupt him as he approached, but he knew that this meeting was going to have to happen one way or another.

"Hey, Zuko."

Looking up with a clearly startled look in his eyes, the Fire Lord took a quick step away from the table as though he were expecting Sasuke to attack him for some reason.

"Hey," he managed, in a rather high and unyielding tone. Sasuke sighed as he stopped near the edge of the table and leaned against it.

"Sorry to bother you," he said quietly. "Saw you though, wanted to have a quick word."

Seeming to shake off his almost defensively surprised stance, Zuko crossed his arms and gave a slow nod.

"Sure thing," he said. "I was just reviewing some of the documents regarding mom's… well, current position."

"House arrest, I heard?" Sasuke asked and Zuko nodded, his expression growing annoyed then, a dark look passing over his eyes as Sasuke could feel anger emanating from him that was surely cast towards individuals not presently in the room.

"Yeah… it's bullshit, but I don't think they can legally make things any worse than that. So, that's a blessing on its own I suppose. Not going to have to deal with any more political headhunts trying to burn my mom at the stake."

"That's good," Sasuke said with a dark chuckle. "I'd rather not have to gut the lot of those council members, but if they try and come after her again…"

Zuko matched his gaze and though he didn't laugh or smile back, Sasuke saw his own gaze reflected in the Fire Lord's.

"And I'd be right there beside you…" he growled.

For a moment, the two of them were united in a feeling of protectiveness over Ursa and Sasuke imagined this might have been as much on the same page as he and Zuko had ever been. At least since they had seen one another again after his absence.

"So…" Zuko said, leaning against the back of one of the chairs around the table. "You said you wanted to talk about something?"

Sasuke slowly nodded, feeling as though he wanted to wince just thinking about it. There really was no easy way to say what he was about to, so, with a pained feeling in his heart, he looked up and met Zuko's eyes.

"I'm really, really sorry I had a kid with your sister and am in a relationship with your mom."

Zuko blinked at him a couple times in surprise, his mouth dropping slightly agape. Clearly, this had not been what he had expected to be that Sasuke wanted to talk to him about.

"I remember what you said to Madara," Sasuke continued, not wanting to lose momentum now that he had already said the hardest part. "But I know that you've probably been dealing with some really lousy feelings towards me, even if you meant all of what you said then. I can't even imagine how you probably see me, but you need to know that I really am sorry. I never intended for any of this to happen the way it did, but…"

He shrugged rather pathetically.

"But that was where we wound up. And I'm sorry for that."

It was over a minute that passed then as Zuko continued to stare at him and Sasuke remained where he was, half-expecting the Fire Lord to yell at him, asking if an apology was really the best he had to offer. But, after what felt like an agonizingly long wait, Zuko released a long sigh; his shoulders slumped, and he leaned against the back of the chair as a rather tired smile slid onto his face.

"You're right," he said rather weakly. "It's been really difficult having to be around you, knowing that you're Soza's father and knowing that you and my mom are…"

His face tightened and Sasuke tried not to flinch as a rather uncomfortable thought surely passed through Zuko's mind then. He took a deep breath and blew it out intently then. When he spoke, his voice sounded far warmer, much to Sasuke's surprise.

"Yeah, Soza's your kid… but I can't hold that against you, not after what my sister did. In that sense, I know you've suffered way more than I have."

His mind unwillingly turning to how he had lost so much time with his daughter, Sasuke felt his insides twist painfully; that particular agony was just as fresh as it had been when he had first been made aware of his relationship to Soza, but Sasuke imagined the worst of it was knowing that pain would likely never become any easier to bear.

"And as for my mom…" Zuko said, his voice rising in a crescendo as his lips tightened into a line then before he sighed, his mouth forming a resigned smile.

"I meant every word of it. Yeah, I've hated you for it. But more than that, I'm grateful to you for how you've helped my mom."

He looked at Sasuke with a knowing glow in his eyes.

"You make her really, really happy, you know."

To hear this from Zuko was far more relieving than Sasuke could ever have imagined. He had experienced several moments wherein he had wanted to approach Zuko privately and talk things over, but to actually be doing it now and hear that the Fire Lord didn't hold him quite in the contempt that he might have imagined he would be held in. It felt to Sasuke that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, an ease that he wouldn't have even imagined he might have felt over such a thing.

"I do what I can for her… she's an incredible woman. Beyond incredible. You know I'd do anything for her."

Zuko nodded, looking unsure if he should be pleased that Sasuke was as invested as he was in taking such good care of his mother, or nonplussed over hearing someone talk with about his mom with such intimacy.

"Well… you did kill all of us including yourself to keep her from being killed back then… so I guess if I have to leave her in anyone's hands…"

Sasuke smiled at Zuko's unstated implication, but he knew there was a last matter between them that had to be addressed.

"And Zuko… a last thing."

The brief peace that seemed to have rested on Zuko vanished quickly and the Fire Lord looked at him with fresh trepidation.

"Yeah?"

Just as it had been with Ursa and Azula, Sasuke knew that the only way to address something like this was doing it as straightforward as possible.

"Mai," he said firmly and, to his surprise, he saw the last thing he had expected cross over Zuko's face.

…relief?

"She… she actually came to see me this morning," Zuko said, slowly pulling the chair out from the table and dropping into it, his forearms coming to rest on his knees. He was looking at Sasuke with the corner of his mouth turned upwards in a small smile.

"She…" Zuko chuckled then, his eyebrows flicking up in a gesture of tired disbelief. "She apologized. She told me everything I'm thinking she could think of. Said that she was sorry for not being there for me through all of this with mom, through the last month when things were as bad as they were, and before when… well, when we broke up."

He looked down towards the floor with shame seeping onto his features.

"I don't know if she told you, but before everything happened, before you came back, we had a fight. We've been struggling for years, on and off, but a couple months ago, it got as bad as it's ever been. She accused me of not giving her enough of my time, told me that I was using my position as Fire Lord as an outlet to avoid spending more time with her. I… I knew at the time she was right, but there still had been so much going on with my duties and responsibilities, I just blew up right back at her. Told her that she was being selfish for trying to pull me away from that and that she didn't understand what I was having to deal with."

Sasuke slowly nodded without saying a word; he had no place to speak on who was in the right on this since it genuinely sounded to him that neither of them had been.

"So… when she came to me after you talked to us this morning, we kind of just… opened up to each other."

He looked up to Sasuke with a gaze that was very nearly accusatory, but not quite.

"She told me about Koh, how he had come to her that night after we had heard that you were back in the Four Nations. She told me that… that she let him be intimate with her, thinking it was you. That was supposedly how they had been able to initially track us, something that he had put inside…"

As his own stomach roiled at the thought, Sasuke watched as the muscles in Zuko's jaw tightened before he shook his head rather swiftly, looking like he was trying to clear his mind of such thoughts.

"But she admitted to me the attraction she's had for you."

Sasuke was suddenly finding himself feeling quite uncomfortable. He realized he didn't know whether or not he wanted to know any more about what Mai might have told Zuko regarding her feelings for him.

"I'd have been a fool not to see how she's looked at you, but to hear it from her… that was definitely something different."

He trailed off and left Sasuke with a question on the tip of his tongue, one that released itself almost beyond his control seconds later.

"Did she suggest that there was something between us?"

Sasuke was almost impressed with himself and how calm he sounded, despite how much this line of dialogue was getting to him. Zuko smiled then, a little wider, though he still looked just as tired.

"No, Sasuke. Just that she knew you were as out of her reach as anything could be."

This was enough to drop Sasuke into silence. Such words from Mai were exceptionally vague in a way, but he had a fairly strong feeling that he understood exactly what they meant.

"I don't know if things will ever be able to be mended between her and I again, but… if there's a chance, this was a good start."

He looked closely at Sasuke.

"You should talk to her too."

I know… I need to talk with everyone honestly, one on one, just like this… Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Sokka, Jin, Yue… oh man, Yue…

It all seemed rather overwhelming to him just then, but he managed to nod in response to what Zuko said as a thought he had caused him to smile inwardly.

And then I have to find that June woman as well… I did promise Kakashi…

"I know. I promise you I'm not trying to… you know, make a move on her as well. I wasn't when I came back, and I'm not now."

Zuko waited a moment before nodding himself.

"I believe you."

Sasuke left the room shortly thereafter. It rather bothered him that things still seemed rather uncomfortable between him and Zuko, but that was something he supposed that he would just have to accept. Perhaps time would be able to make their relationship less painful, but for now, he knew that he had done as much as he could. In the back of his head, he wondered if Mai and Zuko would be able to work on mending their own relationship; he genuinely believed that the both of them would benefit strongly from being in a relationship, but if they had been struggling for years as he had heard…

I need to let it be, though. This isn't like the spirits, or Kyoshi, or Madara, this isn't something I can just fix on my own. They have to figure things out for themselves, whatever comes of that.

As he continued to walk slowly through the palace, he fell at war with his mind as his thoughts once again retreated to Ursa and what she had told him.

Crazy… that would just be crazy…

He tried to fall back on the same excuse he had been thinking of making previously, that Ursa's words had been nothing more than the thoughts of a delirious woman who was dealing with some level of guilt. She was just exhausted, he told himself, that was all there was to it. When she awoke, she might very well not even remember what she had said to him. For her to be thinking such things then was understandable when a person had been through as much as she had.

But with every stop Sasuke took, meandering aimlessly through the palace, he knew that he was doing no more than lying to himself.

She meant it. Every word.

He knew her well enough to know that.

As he approached a turn in the hall, he found himself walking down, he heard voices around the corner, echoing just out of sight.

"…now, just make sure he gets them, alright? I'm going to see Ty Lee if you're looking for me afterwards."

"Sure thing, mom."

The voices stopped Sasuke dead in his tracks. His fingers felt a warm and fuzzy feeling that almost seemed to numb them and he smiled as he closed his eyes. A week ago, the sound of Azula's voice would have given him reason to turn on his heel and walk in the complete opposite direction, but two distinct things stood out to him about the few words he had just overheard.

Firstly, Azula actually sounded like a mother, a good parent; there was a caring edge to her words, something that Sasuke couldn't help but draw the comparison to how Ursa often spoke. The prideful edge that he had heard early on after reentering the lives of the group when Azula had been talking about or addressing her daughter was completely absent and it sounded so much to Sasuke like there might have been a smile on her face. Just another reminder to him that she might truly have been changing.

And secondly, Soza had called Azula 'mom'. Not 'mother', spoken in a stiffly respectful manner.

Mom.

Uttered in the exact same inflection she had used when she addressed Sasuke as 'dad'.

He found it likely wouldn't have been all that difficult to feel tears in his eyes had he allowed them. The smile still resting gently on his face, he walked around the corner.

Azula had just seemed to have finished handing Soza a roll of papers and the girl looked ready to bound down the hall in the opposite direction before she caught sight of Sasuke.

"Dad!"

She ran up to him and threw her free arm around his waist, closing her eyes as she gave a smile that could have lit up the damn world. Pulling away from him, she looked up at him affectionately and he reached to tousle her hair. There wasn't even a sign that it bothered or annoyed her this time; in fact, she seemed more so to enjoy it, rubbing her head slightly against his hand as a cat might.

"Off to run an errand for your mom?" he asked, looking up at Azula. She was watching him and Soza with a hesitant, almost perturbed look that she was trying to hide behind a smile of her own.

"Yep!" Soza announced, beaming up at him. "She's been spending the day digging through some old records, thinks she might have found some stuff we can use to make the council call for an even lighter sentence for grandma."

Her youthful face softened with concern then as she cocked her head.

"How is she?"

Had Sasuke been taken back a matter of weeks, he never would have guessed that his daughter would ask such a question, but now, he felt such a rush of warmth at her care for her grandmother.

"She's fine," he replied. "She's sleeping now. I'm thinking she'll need a good bit of rest over the next couple days, it's been hard for her."

Soza's face darkened.

"Yeah, I know," she muttered. "Those bastards… as if they knew what really happened, screaming in the streets like she deserved any of that…"

The distinct, bitter hate that Sasuke could hear in her voice caused him to feel a chill run up his spine, but just as quickly, Soza's face brightened, and the darkness passed in the blink of an eye.

"Maybe I can ask Jin if I can take her dinner up to her room for her tonight! I'll bet she probably just wants to be in bed, that might help, right?"

She looked between him and back over her shoulder towards Azula as they both smiled back at her with affection on their faces.

"I think that's a fine idea," Azula replied and Soza seemed to hop a little where she stood.

"Great!" she said with an energy that Sasuke only could wish that he possessed just then. "I'll go get these to Uncle Zuko and then go talk to Jin!"

She made to jog off before catching herself, turning abruptly, and leaping up to wrap an arm around Sasuke's neck. He chuckled and bent his head compliantly so that she could give him a kiss on the cheek.

"Love you, dad!"

She turned back the way she had been headed and stopped beside Azula, looking up at her mother expectantly. Azula blinked at her daughter in what might have been mild bemusement for a moment before clearly realizing what Soza was indirectly asking. With a slight flush to her cheeks, she bent down as well, and Soza repeated what she had done with Sasuke. She gave them both a wave over her shoulder as she ran off down the hall, and they both gave a small one in return, looking after their daughter with distant amusement.

After she had vanished from sight, Azula spoke softly.

"She's so… different."

Sasuke turned his eyes towards her as she continued to look in the direction Soza had run off in.

"So are you."

As though she had just remembered he was there, she looked quickly to him and then turned her eyes down. Sasuke could see the shame and guilt still festering deeply in her eyes and took a step towards her.

"Are you alright?" he asked in a low voice. She started to nod before stopping and turning away from him. Crossing her arms, Azula took slow and deep breaths as Sasuke waited patiently behind her.

"If I hadn't done what I had done… could this have been us?"

Azula's question might not have been entirely clear, but Sasuke needed only a moment to discern her meaning. He too joined her in looking after where Soza had gone, perceiving the void that he knew Azula was presently staring into.

"Maybe," he said. "It's hard to say."

Slowly shaking her head, Azula's lower lip quivered briefly.

"If I had only… been different. If I only hadn't been the way that I was… maybe it could have been the three of us. Together. Happy."

Sasuke looked down towards the floor then. The longing and regret had suddenly grown quite powerful in Azula's voice, and he realized it was hurting him quite badly to hear.

"Maybe," he said again, softer this time. Azula brought a hand up and put her face in it and her body shook with a single, silent sob. She sniffed and cleared her throat before turning to face him. Sasuke looked into her red eyes, and for a fleeting, brief instant, he found himself wishing the exact same thing that she was.

She really is so beautiful.

And broken, Sasuke knew.

Just like I had been.

"Do you think you'll ever be able to forgive me?" she asked him then and Sasuke felt as though he had just been delivered a blow to his gut.

How had he never even considered such a thing?

That morning, when Azula had approached him and Soza before hugging him and apologizing repeatedly, forgiveness hadn't even been something Sasuke had thought about. It had never been something that he had put into his mind in the same thought alongside Azula, it just seemed such a strange and foreign thing to him.

But he supposed he knew why.

How could I forgive her for what she did to me?

"I don't know."

It was the truth, and that was all he could give her. Azula surely was a different person than she had been, whatever breakthrough he had forced upon her mentality had clearly done something to her. But time would tell what that would truly mean for her, and her relationship with her daughter, her brother, her mother, Ty Lee especially, and the others. Sasuke would give her a chance just as he knew everyone else would come to do, but for now, the pain of what she had done to him was far too great to let him consider forgiveness.

Azula nodded slowly, her lower lip trembling again. She started walking then, making to move past him; she stopped at his shoulder and they both stood there for a moment. Sasuke very nearly opened his mouth to say something else, but after a brief pause, Azula passed him and was gone back the way Sasuke had come.

When her footsteps had left his ears, Sasuke leaned against the wall, feeling suddenly quite miserable.

Forgiveness.

Wasn't that what he had been hoping he would receive from all the others when he went to go see them? When he listed their names silently in his head, wasn't that a piece of what he wanted deep down? For them all to forgive him? Such a strange and distant thought it was, yet so powerful…

And then, as Sasuke spared a moment more of thought to Azula, he knew what he needed to do.

He resumed walking, aimless no longer.

---

Toph concentrated as hard as she possibly could, doing everything in her power to keep her mind focused on what she was doing and nothing else.

She was sitting on a balcony that jutted slightly from the rear of the palace several floors up; it was as private a spot as she had been able to find, well out of the way from the rest of the palace and with only the grounds far below her, the city being on the other side of the palace. Here, she thought, she would be able to perform some of her self-conceptualized exercises to try and clear her mind. If her body was aching and exhausted, she had found this was often the best way to get free of her head.

She was cross-legged, hands on her knees as she reached to the very lengths of her bending. Through it, she was able to perceive the balcony, the entire floor she was on, the palace itself, the grounds around the palace, the wall that surrounded it, the streets, and the nearby buildings. Toph continued to stretch, reaching with an extreme effort, her teeth gritted and sweat beading down her temples. Very slowly, she found herself able to perceive more and more of the city around the palace, putting forth as much effort as she was able in doing so; at this rate, she would either extend her bending senses all the way to the ocean, or pass out.

The reason for her aggressive practicing was as simple as it was frustrating.

Toph had left the impromptu meeting that morning, eager to get away from the others for a bit, Sasuke and Ursa in particular. She was struggling badly all throughout his explanation; while she had done her best to focus on what he was saying, to grapple with the fact that he had in fact returned to them by some miracle, somehow, all Toph could focus on was how she could feel him and Ursa sitting so near to one another, holding hands so tightly, so intimately. Had it gone on for much longer, she might have needed to force herself to her feet and leave the room on her own, as much a scene as that would have made.

But she couldn't stand it.

She had thought that it would get easier. But slowly, Toph had begun to understand why it was hurting as badly as it was.

It always was hurting that badly. I just didn't have the time to think about it.

Endless days of being on the run, of constantly waiting to be attacked by spirits or otherwise, not knowing what would be coming next, as painful as it had all been, it had prevented Toph from really thinking about how she was feeling. And then when it had all ended, Sasuke had been gone. It had been Toph's misery and grief that had taken her over then.

But then he came back. And he slipped right back into Ursa's arms and Toph could no longer prevent the horrible and painful jealousy from swarming her.

I shouldn't be jealous. I should be happy. He loves her. He's going to have a kid with her. They're both happy. Everyone's okay. It's all over.

Every single one of those thoughts didn't make a dent on her storming emotions. They were all beaten back by another thought, a single, solitary collection of four words that brought Toph a little lower each time she thought them.

Why isn't it me?

Releasing a noise of exertion, Toph redoubled her efforts on focusing on her exercise. She realized she had fallen right back into agonizing over her situation just as quickly and resisted shaking her head. Was she really so weak that just the mere hint of a thought would send her spiraling back down into a sea of—

"Toph."

Her entire body seized as she fell from her bending mentality. The city, the streets, the palace, the floor, all of it faded away as Toph's returned her perception to normal. Having been so focused on the actual structure of what was all around her, she had completely shut herself off from detecting any people, including those who were able to walk right up behind her and scare the daylights out of her.

And, of course, who else could it have been?

"What do you want?"

She fired the words the moment she got her breath back, an automatic and defensive response to the person that always had made her heart rate leap and now was no different.

Why is he here? Why? Why me, why now?

Her mind started buzzing immediately as she got shakily and quickly to her feet.

Sasuke was standing just at the doorway that led out to the balcony, his arms crossed as he leaned against the frame, but as she rose unsteadily, she felt him raise his hands in a placating gesture.

"Hey, take it easy. Whatever you were doing, looked like it was taking a lot out of you."

Toph ignored this. She was suddenly feeling sick to her stomach as she thought to the time they had been alone together on that island, that moment they had shared, the anger, the frustration, the pain, the emotion. She couldn't handle that, not again, not after what had happened then…

"What do you want?" she repeated, slightly more forcefully. There was a piece of her mind that was distantly screaming at her to talk to him, to not push him away, but she forced it down.

What would that get me? Disappointment? A reminder that I'm not good enough for him, that he doesn't have eyes for me?

Sasuke shifted where he stood, clearly slightly hurt by her words, but he didn't back down.

"I… wanted to talk to you."

"Oh yeah?" Toph asked. Her voice was high and strained; it sounded far too much like she was trying to sound unaffected by his presence. "And why would that be?"

"Toph, please," he said, and she heard the pain in his voice. "Please just hear me out."

"I'm listening," she said, her voice automatic and void of emotion as its pitch continued to emanate nothing short of falsity. "Go right ahead, Sasuke, I'm listening."

She stepped back and leaned against the rail of the balcony, trying to look casual. Sasuke sighed.

"You can step away from that," he said quietly and she gave a shrug.

"Why?"

"Because you still hate heights, and you only stepped back to get further away from me. You're not relaxed like I know you're trying to look."

Toph didn't move, but she knew her silence was a confirmation to Sasuke that everything he had just said had been true.

"What do you want to talk about?" she said, pulling her pitch down, but it still sounded brittle and forced.

Ahead of her, Sasuke was quiet for a long while. Toph knew silences like this, she had heard them before from Jin, when her friend had come to talk to her about maybe trying the dating scene, from Ty Lee, when her friend had come to her to ask how she was doing. Sasuke was deciding whether or not if this was a step he even wanted to take, or if he was just going to give her a 'never mind' and be on his way.

Good. I hope that's what he does.

It wasn't what she hoped. And it wasn't what Sasuke said either.

"I want to talk about us."

Jaws that burned icy hot clamped down on her heart and Toph felt her body quiver. She dug deep, trying to find the will to keep trying to sound overall apathetic in her voice.

I want to talk about us.

She couldn't, not after that.

"What's to say?" she blurted out, and her voice crashed apart, her façade fading entirely. "No, really, Sasuke, what's to say?"

Toph took an angry step forward and jabbed a finger past him.

"You love Ursa. You love her so much. I can feel it, you know, your heart rate when you're near her, the way you stand, the way you hold each other, you think I've missed that?!"

He said nothing, but she knew that even if he had tried to, she would have carried on over him anyway.

"You're going to live the rest of your life with her, loving her and she'll love you back, because I know she feels the exact fucking same way about you! No one's missed that, Sasuke!"

Her voice had risen from a snarl to a shout in a matter of words.

"I know that…"

She grit her teeth and a sob forced its way from her throat; hating herself for showing that kind of weakness, Toph released a short, frustrated cry through her clenched teeth.

"I know that you only kissed me that night because you were pitying me! You felt bad for me! You knew then that I had been waiting, for years and years and years, since I was that stupid little girl who fell in love with you! You probably thought it was gone, right?! That I would have grown out of it!"

The tears began to flow then, rolling hotly down her cheeks and reminding her again how weak she was letting herself appear, feeling even more hate for herself surge against her insides.

"WELL, GUESS WHAT, SASUKE?! I'M THAT SAME STUPID LITTLE GIRL! I NEVER CHANGED, I NEVER GAVE UP ON YOU! I WANTED YOU! I WAS READY TO WAIT FOR AS LONG AS I HAD TO, BECAUSE MY BLIND, STUPID, IDIOTIC HEART WOULDN'T LET YOU GO! I LOVED YOU THEN, SASUKE, AND I STILL—"

Her words broke off then and as the confession finished actualizing itself in her mind, she bowed her head and let the tears drop to her feet, feeling completely and utterly miserable.

"I still love you."

She turned her back on him and stepped to the balcony's railing. Putting her hands on it, she gripped it tight and felt a brief, insane curiosity as she wondered what it would be like to throw herself over the side of it. Stupid, she knew, but that would end this awful pain, wouldn't it?

"You love Ursa. You're back now, and you're going to be with her. I know that…"

The muscles in her face clenched as another quiet sob pulled itself from her throat.

"I know that you're going to make the most perfect, beautiful child together. You'll be happy and that's the way it has to be. Because you don't love me. You've come back, just like I spent countless nights dreaming about, but I let myself get my hopes up. I let them build me so high, and now that I've been knocked down, I just have to deal with that."

Having said her peace, Toph took deep breaths to steady herself. She hoped then that Sasuke would leave; it was hard to imagine that she had said anything that hadn't covered what he had been about to say.

He would have just told me that he was sorry for kissing me and putting that thought in my head that we could maybe… be together. That he loves Ursa and there's no one else he has eyes for.

She closed her eyes and turned her head down.

"Just go," she said.

For a moment, she felt certain that she would feel his steps turn away from her and leave then, giving her a chance to wallow totally and completely in her misery. She was sure that Sasuke wasn't going to have anything more to add to what she had said.

But she was wrong.

Sasuke didn't move for a long while. But when he did, it wasn't away from her.

Slowly, he strode right up to the railing as well, standing shoulder to shoulder with Toph. Despite the overwhelming misery that seemed to be overriding every bit of sense she had in her body, she felt her heart swell and hated herself for it.

"No," he said quietly. "I don't think I will just yet."

"Why?" she spat bitterly. "Want to hurt me more than you already have?"

Even as she said it, she knew it wasn't fair. After everything he had suffered through, everything he had done for them, Sasuke didn't deserve her to guilt trip him over this. She was the one who had waited for him; Toph knew that this pain was nothing short of her own fault.

"Because you got one part of that wrong," he said and with that, Toph turned her head towards him, listening as closely as she had ever listened to anyone in her life. For a moment, Sasuke only bowed his head before he started to speak, quietly and tenderly.

"You've probably noticed that I'm a pretty different person from when you met me at that Air Temple all those years ago," he said and Toph nodded.

"I suppose some people change when they get older. They grow up. They get wiser, smarter, better. But sometimes they don't. I've seen plenty of examples of when growing older only makes a person worse, as they fall more into their bad tendencies. I saw that with Azula when I laid eyes on her again after all these years."

He sighed.

"I would have wound up the same. An angry, spiteful, vengeful kid turns into a hateful, wrathful monster as a man."

No, no you wouldn't have, no…

"But something set me on the path to change," he said. "I didn't stay on that path, I started to change."

Toph felt him turn towards her then.

"Because of you."

Her heart shuddered as he sighed again and continued.

"When I met you… hell, I don't think I could have been more annoyed. Damn little stowaway running her mouth and spouting off about this and that."

Sasuke paused and Toph was nearly certain that he was smiling.

"But I wouldn't have been able to save Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai without you. Then we got back, and you started sticking closer to me over the days. It was hard at first, I remember how much of a nightmare I was to be around. But you started before anyone other than Aang. You were willing to get close to me. I was so… confused at the time. Why anyone would want that, I was such a self-absorbed, introverted monster. But you… you tried so hard. To get to know me, to be close to me."

He gave a small noise of amusement.

"And I grew close to you too. Maybe I never even knew it was happening, but it did."

As her heart hammered in her chest, Toph felt Sasuke give a small shake.

"You talk about falling in love… and maybe I tried to hide it away myself, because I was so scared of what feelings like that could do to me. I let myself get close to you, but never even thought about what that meant. Told myself you were a kid, it was just a connection we had, it wasn't anything… but when I remember the day I left… when I remember walking out towards that sunset… I know that the only reason I kept looking over my shoulder was because I had fallen in love right back with you."

It was a shock to Toph that she didn't burst into tears. Her hands were numb and her feet were shaking, and her breathing was so light, she couldn't believe she hadn't gone and passed out.

"When I came back, I knew it would be hard to see you all again. But it was the hardest to see you. Because I saw what you had done to yourself, because of me."

Toph found her voice then; it croaked from her weakly as she raised a hand but found she didn't have the strength to touch him.

"No… no, it's not you—"

"It is," he said, firmly then. "I planted the seed and left it. I didn't even think as to what might happen if you didn't move on. So, when I saw that you hadn't… it hurt. It felt like Soza, like I had abandoned someone whose side I should have been at for years."

He gripped the railing tightly and Toph felt his breathing as it swelled in and out; she could tell how difficult this was for him all to admit.

"Yes, I love Ursa. I will love her until the day I die, and I will love the child that she bears just as much."

Toph bowed her head again, feeling the tears still running down her face.

And then, Sasuke's hand slid under her chin and lifted her head.

She imagined, with every ounce of her being, what his face might look like.

"But I told you that you got one thing wrong while you were talking."

She felt his warmth, his being draw closer and she realized how badly she was shaking. It was a mystery to her that her legs hadn't given out as she kept her face directed towards where she knew Sasuke's was, just ahead of her.

"I didn't kiss you because I pitied you."

Toph felt the brush of his skin and she felt a tear from Sasuke pass down his cheek and touch her own.

"I kissed you because I still love you too."

It wasn't the same as the island. That had been something incredible, but there had been such pain beneath it, pain that Toph had felt and pain that she knew that Sasuke was feeling too. There was pain now as well, but it was leaking from her, leaking from them both. It wasn't an inevitability anymore.

The only inevitability now was the beauty of the moment, that one perfect moment.

Toph put her arms around Sasuke's neck as they kissed, steadying herself. Her knees had given out, but he seemed to have been ready for that as he put a hand around her waist and held her to him, supporting her as his other hand brushed stray hair from her face before stroking over her cheek. She released a quivering, soft moan against him and tried so hard to keep herself from sobbing.

If there was a moment that Toph wanted to last an eternity, it was this one.

She tried to put everything she could into the kiss, everything that she had ever felt towards Sasuke, the good and the bad. She wanted him to feel everything that she felt for him, to know how much this meant to her, how much he meant to her. Toph could feel him doing the same as she took his face in her hands and whimpered again, a sound of complete surrender.

When they finally broke apart, Toph found that she wouldn't have been able to let him go if she tried. She threw her arms back around his back and hugged him tight, feeling fresh tears squeezed from her eyes as he reciprocated the embrace.

"I'm so sorry… that I did this to you."

Toph shook her head over his shoulder but knew that there was nothing she could say to convince him of her blame in this, not just then. She could feel the tears coming from his eyes as well and knew full well that this hurt wasn't something that he could avoid.

"It's okay," she said instead, trying to sound as assuring as she could. "You're here now, you're here…"

She pulled in a shaking breath and knew what she needed to say.

"I forgive you."

His whole body seemed to tense against her and then relaxed as though all the stress in his body had just been released. Toph smiled.

There you go...

A thought occurred to her as she held onto him and she cursed it; it wasn't enough to deflect the utter bliss that was roaring through her, but it was a snag, the only snag she could think of. Gently pulling back with her hands still holding his shoulders, she brought one of them up to stroke his face.

"Ursa…?"

It was a fear as much as it was a question, but she was surprised then as Sasuke gave a small, wet chuckle.

"She was the one who convinced me I should come and see you about this," he said. "She knows how you feel about me and she knew… she knew how I felt about you too."

It was utterly stunning enough to Toph that such a thing had happened, and she could only remain there for a moment in his arms, her mouth agape stupidly.

"I… I don't understand," she finally whispered. "What does that mean? For you two? For us?"

Sasuke slowly leaned forward and gently pressed his head to hers as he gave it a soft shake.

"I don't know yet. I don't know. I guess we'll have to figure that out, but…"

His shoulders slumped and he gave a more warm chuckle.

"I can't help the fact that I'm madly in love with both of you. I was able to be open about it with Ursa, in front of everyone and with myself, but… I hid my love for you so deep, because.. damn it, Toph, I thought maybe I could beat it. I was terrified of what it could do, but I was never going to win against that, against this."

He leaned in and kissed her, and Toph felt herself melt all over again.

"I'm just sorry it took this long. That I had to put you through what I did."

Toph blinked at him and thought for a split second on it.

But in that moment, twelve years of silent misery didn't feel like a fucking thing to her.

"I don't care," she whispered against his lips. "Not now. None of that matters."

She made it her turn to lean forward and kiss him, holding him as tightly as she dared.

"This is all I ever wanted."

It must have been a dream, that was the only explanation. For how the pain that had felt so indomitable and relentless had just been cast from her body to be nothing but a memory to her now. No other reason why the touch of another person could possibly feel this heavenly.

After a time, they separated just slightly and remained closely against one another, their foreheads pressing. Toph could feel the relief that had spilled from Sasuke after he had forced himself to confess as he had, but there was still trepidation in him as well, she could feel it in his tenseness.

"Are you okay?" she whispered, and he nodded against her.

"Yeah… more than okay. Just a little… worried is all."

She nodded back, more than able to understand where this was coming from.

"This is probably going to get a little messy one way or another, huh?"

Sasuke didn't reply, but she knew that he agreed. If not with Ursa, then Toph had no doubt someone else would see Sasuke and her and struggle badly to accept it.

Won't they?

Or maybe things would be just fine. Maybe not a single other member of the group would begrudge her for being at Sasuke's side now. Maybe they could somehow get that lucky.

"Should we… go inside?" she murmured, drawing her lips forward to give him another small kiss. At that moment, she felt too elevated to be overly concerned about the reaction of anyone else to see her hand in hand with Sasuke and she realized that a very large part of her wanted to go speak with Ursa herself, as much as she found that the thought terrified her a bit. She knew there was nothing to fear from Ursa, but... a conversation like that wore heavy on her.

But with the ecstasy flowing in her veins now, it could wear as heavily as it wanted. Toph couldn't have imagined feeling burdened just then.

"Not just yet," Sasuke replied softly. His arms pulled her back into a hug, and she felt him release a shaking breath. "Just let me have this… for a little longer."

As he held her, Toph slowly wrapped him in her own embrace, relishing the feeling of his heartbeat against her chest. There were things she still wanted to say, words she had wanted to give to him since the moment he came back, from all those years of lying alone in bed and wishing he was with her. Toph had so much she wanted to tell him still, but as they held one another in the afternoon sun out on that lonely balcony, she knew that any word she spoke just then would be meaningless just then. In time, they would have to move back into the palace where they could begin the process of unwrapping just what their relationship would mean in the eyes of everyone else. Toph nearly laughed aloud as she thought of having to explain this to Soza.

But for now, everything was perfect.

It was all as it should have been.

Toph dug her fingers into Sasuke's back, releasing a contented sigh.

And, for the first time in over twelve years, she let herself believe that she could be happy.

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The End

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AN: And there we go. Two-part story done and done (for the moment, anyway, more on that further down). Can't believe how far we've come, honestly.

Firstly, and most importantly, thank you. Thank you to everyone who took the time to pick up my work and give it a shot, thank you to everyone who reached out through reviews and messages, and thank you so much for making it through to the end with me. I cannot begin to describe how that means the world to me.

This really was quite the process. Writing this now, I'm actually getting rather emotional XD but I suppose that will happen when you finish a project you've spent so much time on. This has been wildly fulfilling and I wouldn't trade it for anything, but I would be lying if I didn't also admit that I'm pretty spent. I genuinely have no idea how I was able to crank out as long of chapters as I was every week, I think I might have been in a trance for some of them, or a fever dream or something. So much writing, and yet knowing there were people reading it made any exhaustion or drained evenings so worth it.

Having reached the end, I'll go ahead and openly say that I'd love to hear what you guys thought, be it of the ending, the story itself, or both parts back to back. This is the last time I'll get to ask for this story, so figured I would; would mean so, so, so much to hear what you guys thought after sticking with me for over eighty chapters. (Eighty chapters, good gosh…)

I'll give a little update as to moving forward for those interested. While this is the story that I initially wanted to tell in two parts, a third and final part has sprung up in my storyboarding, a final wrap to the story of Sasuke in this universe. That being said, it takes place a fair bit later during the Korra timeline specifically, and I know that LoK isn't exactly the most uniting thing among fans. The story focuses a lot on the impact that Sasuke had on the world overall, how things might change years later because of him, and has a focus on his children and a general reaction from the canon characters over him and his legacy. I initially hadn't planned on posting it purely because I didn't know how interested people would be, not after this two-parter ends pretty how much how I always intended. But there is a last part to all this, just wasn't sure if I ought to move forward with uploading it. Would probably be the darkest and angstiest piece of Sasuke's story and I imagine I'll write it regardless, definitely curious if anyone would actually have an interest in reading it.

Other than that, I've toyed with a couple other ideas for future fics, more Naruto, more Avatar, and then some other universes I really like such as Attack on Titan and Tokyo Ghoul :re. I've also gotten several requests and suggestions from some of you guys and that's definitely given me food for thought as well. And then I've been giving thought to working on a novel of my own, so that's definitely been in the back of my head too haha; plenty of stuff going through my head still in terms of writing. So, I guess as a tag on to the review bit, I'd certainly always be interested in hearing what you guys might like to see in the future, be it the third piece to Sasuke's story, or anything else.

Well, I suppose I'll wrap it up here. I think I might have rambled a bit much, purely because as I'm writing this, part of me doesn't want this to end haha. But, it is what it is, and I couldn't be more grateful for it, and for each and every one of you reading this, and I truly mean that. One last time, thank you guys so much for coming along and making this the best hobby a person could ask for. Hope to see you next time :)