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.

17. Chapter 17

AN: The encouragement you guys offered me through reviews and PM's last chapter, I can't even really describe how much that meant to me. I've always cherished having an audience to write this for, but this time, it really couldn't have felt more like I had just the most fantastic group of people in my corner as I continue to write and share this. I really didn't think this would be something that anyone really would find value in, and this has easily become one of the best parts of my personal life, getting to write this for you guys. If I could quit my job and write full time, I would do so in a heartbeat, but as far as I'm concerned, this is a perfect experience and I'm so lucky to have it. So, as much of a broken record as I surely sound, thank you guys so much, from the bottom of my heart.

This chapter and the next will be a little longer than usual, just a heads up; I wouldn't dare shirk anything from these two, considering their content as you might guess from the chapter title.

Very much hope you guys are all having an awesome week, and very much hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 17: Reunions Part 1

Jin's eyes snapped open as the sudden hammering of her pulse sent waves of panic coursing through her veins. Swallowing, she looked up from where she had been drifting off restlessly, her breathing shallow and her eyes wide.

She was sitting in the cabin that Toph had been brought to following their rapid departure where she had placed herself since they had left. No doubt a series of very serious and intense discussions were taking place, but Jin didn't feel the urge to insert herself in any of them; there was nothing she could say that would be of worthwhile note, and she had a feeling that hearing such raised voices right about then would have been enough to push her over the edge. She wondered if Ty Lee was involved in any of the above talks, but knowing her friend, she was likely secluded from the discussions, not a word escaping her mouth, and that was assuming she hadn't just chosen to take off and was presently elsewhere on the ship on her own. Jin hoped that wherever she was, she was feeling some semblance of calm that Jin herself hadn't been able to find; she was somewhat surprised that Ty Lee hadn't been by to see Toph, but there was a part of her that understood the desire to be alone right about then. She was sitting on the bed opposite Toph, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she was completely alone just then.

As her heart slowly slammed to a somewhat less abrasive beat, taking slow breaths to help calm herself as her sudden panic brushed aside any thought of being tired. Tightening her lips, she closed her eyes, and reached over to Toph's resting form, taking her hand and squeezing it for comfort.

Why now…

Even as she asked herself though, Jin knew damn well why.

Since the last day of the war, her world had become very different even as with the defeat of the Fire Nation, the world began to enter some semblance of fractured peace. But in just a day, any naivety, any innocence that Jin had still possessed had been taken from her after what she had seen and what she had been through; in the years that had followed, she would occasionally awaken from her sleep, bolt up in bed with panic slamming her into submission as cold sweat doused her body, plastering her hair against her back and chest. She could never remember exactly what the nightmares had been about, but she remembered what brought them on. As she had grown older, they had lessened in intensity and frequency to become almost of no consequence, something she had taken as a good sign.

And yet just now, as she had been sitting by Toph's bedside, dozing off with nothing but the distant hum of the airship's engines to lull her to sleep, she had been shaken roughly awake by yet another spell, an attack the likes of which she hadn't felt in years. Even as she gripped Toph's hand, she couldn't bare to look at her friend for doing so would surely remind her of the pain and damage that had been inflicted on her. It was selfish, but Jin wanted very badly then for Toph to wake just so she could have someone she could put her arms around and feel embraced in turn. She wondered how many people aboard even were aware she was also present among them; in such a turbulent and chaotic set of circumstances, who would even pay an ounce of mind to a civilian woman whose greatest claim to fame was owning a teashop?

Her thoughts drifted to Soza who she had seen board the airship just before her, eyes downcast and bearing a wildly intense look. For all intents and purposes, Soza should have been someone that Jin didn't spare a singular thought towards with the complete disgust that Soza had treated her with over the years, but it had been as much a surprise to Jin as anyone else that she hadn't grown to hate the girl for how she treated her. Maybe it was because any dislike she could have felt was overcome by so much pity, pity that was so terribly heightened then as Jin considered what Soza must have been going through.

Raised by someone like Azula… and now she finds out that she has a father.

She had, like all the others, listened to Avatar Kyoshi's words as she had confronted Sasuke and had found herself hardly daring to believe them. Gripping Toph's hand tighter, she lowered her head.

A father like him, who completely ignored her to keep pushing on in a desire for vengeance.

Jin would have been lying to herself if she had said that seeing Toph struck down hadn't felt her with the impulsive and wild desire to do the same, but she had seen Sasuke's violence, from Gilbert's men, to the fury he had lunged at Kyoshi with. His actions couldn't steer Jin from the idea that perhaps, despite a decade having passed, maybe he was the same emotionally deadened boy who had fallen into her life at the time she had been forced to grow up all too quickly.

But even as Jin sat there, she realized that she was doing everything in her power to force hatred of Sasuke to shield her from the actual pain she was doing her best to hide from. That same hate that was no doubt still fueling Sasuke was what Jin was desperately trying to cling to and use.

No matter how she tried, however, Jin knew that she wasn't a woman given to hate; it would never come to her like it did for others, and so she couldn't bring herself to hide behind it. Because she knew that no matter how she tried to focus on the wild carnage that Sasuke seemed to wield, she had seen with her own eyes what had happened when Koh had made to kill Toph.

"Fuck…"

She pressed her knuckles against her forehead, gritting her teeth and trying to keep herself from crying.

But no matter what he did for her… it doesn't take away what he's been to Soza for her entire life… nothing.

She imagined however many nights that Soza might have been lying alone in bed, trying to convince herself that only having a mother wasn't something that bothered her. Jin had always been able to see that façade that Soza conducted herself under, and likely believed with every ounce of her abused mind; being close with Toph, Jin had been able to witness the secondhand growth of a child who was developing into a person that she knew was going to be just as damaged as the mother raising her. The only check that Soza had in her life was Toph, the only person that Azula, bizarrely, let her daughter get remotely close to, save for Mai and Ty Lee. Even Zuko seemed to somewhat blocked from seeing a good deal of his niece, and Iroh, the perhaps the most genuinely kind hearted and well meaning person that Jin had met in her entire life, was kept even further away. And on top of all that hyper protection and considerable isolation that Azula had forced on her, now her father wound up being perhaps the most seclusion-desiring individual Jin had ever known.

It's not fair to her. She needed someone else… anyone but him. He's probably already forgotten about her.

As if on cue, the door opened behind her and Jin spun to face it, the sudden noise catching her off guard. She was hoping that Ty Lee had finally come around to visit her and Toph, or if it was Aang, or Sokka, or just about anyone that could even just speak to her; she felt even just words would bring her some semblance of relief.

But as she laid eyes on Sasuke, her heart dropped back into her stomach and she stood on instinct.

His eyes bore into hers, and hers into his; Jin gazed into those black pits and found she couldn't look away.

In his eyes, she saw and felt everything that had spawned her nightmares, the things she had tried so hard to lay to rest. She felt Obito's hand on the back of her neck as she cried out to Sasuke to ignore his demands, even as she prepared herself for death, only to realize how truly frightened she was. She felt the betrayal that Sasuke had dealt to her, something she hadn't even dared rationalize at the time for, despite having known him for barely more than a day, the idea that he had used her as bait without so much as telling her struck a nerve that she hadn't even known existed. She remembered the world coming alight for a complete and blinding spell followed by a thundering roar of proportions she could never have hoped to accurately describe. She saw the bodies of so many soldiers and civilians spread out before her, gore and blood mixing with the dust cloud that had settled after the wall fell. She remembered vomiting on herself and trying to stem the flow of tears from her eyes as she tripped over the dead, trying to pull the living to safety. And Jin remembered watching Toph as the years had passed and knowing for certain that she had not once even considered the idea of truly moving on from him.

She had so much she wanted to say, but she could only stare at Sasuke as he stood in the doorway, something in his arms.

"What do you want?" Jin managed to get out in a halting tone, wishing she had the strength to put more aggression in her voice. Sasuke simply regarded her a moment before stepped in and closing the door behind him, moving from the shadow into the dim glow of the orange light that spread over the room from its single lamp.

"You shouldn't be here," Jin said, forcing herself to keep talking. "I don't think anyone should be seeing you right now, not after—"

As his body turned into the light, she saw what was in his arms and her heart gave a throbbing groan.

Held gently to his chest, Soza appeared to be asleep, her eyes closed and her breathing coming in slow and steady. Her left hand was pulled across her body, where it still gently gripped the front of Sasuke's cloak; as Jin looked at her, she couldn't remember a time where she had seen the so often vindictive, cruel and pitiable child look so at peace. Sasuke cradled her as she would have expected any parent to, but just looking at them caused Jin to swallow and take a staggered step back. Still saying nothing to her, Sasuke walked past to the bed that Jin had been sitting on just next to Toph's, and slowly sat down at its side. With a gentle and careful measure that Jin would never have guessed Sasuke to possess, he laid Soza down, pulling off her footwear before pulling the covers up to her chest. As she watched this play out, Jin found she couldn't quite fathom what she was seeing. Sasuke not only showing attentiveness for his daughter, but actually going out of his way to provide her comfort after what Jin had seen of him was nearly incomprehensible even as it was happening before her.

"I figured Toph would be resting below deck," he said quietly. "I had a feeling wherever that was would be a fairly quiet place."

The raw anger from his voice that she had heard as he had bellowed his rage against Gilbert's men and Kyoshi was as completely absent from his voice and Jin found she could only watch as he sat at the bedside and looked at his daughter. She wondered what it was that was going through his head, what thoughts dwelled that had transformed a rage-driven beast into a somber and quiet young man, who looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

"Jin?" he asked and she felt a curse fly through her mind as her heart skipped a beat.

Not still, not after so long.

"What?" she replied, expecting any range of question from him, ones that she hoped he would ask so she would have an excuse to rant at him for his absence, and for the damage he had done. She could dismiss whatever he wanted to ask, and finally lay into him as to how she felt, how she had felt for years after knowing what it was he had done to her, to Toph, to—

"What's her name?"

The animosity was suddenly impossible to find in her mind and she blinked at him.

"What?"

He glanced at her, his eyes tired.

"What's her name?"

He doesn't know the name of his own daughter.

Jin tried to summon the part of her that was still so furiously angry at him, to jeer that he would have surely known her name if he had been around long enough to see his child born, to remark that if not for his isolationist and brooding attitude that clearly hadn't diminished, he could have been enough of a part of her life to know such a trivially simple thing.

But she couldn't manage any of that, and replied in a tone just as soft.

"Soza."

Sasuke closed his eyes and turned back to his daughter. Jin watched him for something near a minute before she finally found the ability to speak to the anger and hurt that was blistering in her gut.

"So what, now you care about her?"

He didn't so much as acknowledge that he had heard her question, eyes fixed on Soza's peaceful expression and Jin continued, feeling the words spill from her like a break in a dam. She couldn't find the hate, but that didn't mean the blame she held against him had remotely subsided.

"I can't imagine she's the reason you came back. No, that was surely for revenge or out of angry desperation or something, no doubt. But now you're sitting there next to her like you have any right to put yourself back in her life, after what you've done to her? You had the gall to sleep with Azula and then of course you would run off after that. Azula's still the same closet maniac that she's always been because Zuko can't seem to find the will to put any sort of restrictions on her, so she's had free reign to do as she pleases for the past decade and on top of that, she's been able to raise Soza entirely on her own."

Jin felt the tears coming as she remembered what she had been considering earlier, the gravity of a child being brought up almost entirely under Azula's eye and hers alone.

"Do you have any idea the damage that's going to do to her for the rest of her life? No matter what changes, you left her alone with Azula, and there's always going to be a part of her that's broken because of that, the disgust and hate she harbors for anyone not family, friend, or of royal blood, the broken sense of morality, the desensitization to violence, all of it!"

Crossing her arms, she glared at the back of his head.

"Though maybe you wouldn't have done anything more than exacerbate that if you even had been here."

It was both a relieving and agonizing thing, to berate him like this. On one hand, Jin could feel her stifled despair being slowly eased by her spiteful words, but on the other, she knew it wasn't making her feel remotely better in the long run. What was she gaining by assailing him like this, other than some deep-seeded and twisted desire to force some of the same pain on Sasuke that he surely had inflicted to so many others?

No. He deserves this. He abandoned her, he abandoned all of us. For him to do what he did and then to leave like that, I can't give him any—

"I didn't know."

His voice somehow had grown even quieter and without a doubt, Jin could hear the pain he was still trying to hide. Swallowing, she needed several seconds to rein in her anger to reply.

"Didn't know what?"

Sasuke lowered his head just slightly, and closed his eyes.

"I don't remember sleeping with Azula. I don't remember doing anything that would have led to be helping birth a child."

Jin's mind went completely blank as his words rebounded in her head.

"What are you talking about?" she asked thickly, her mind feeling almost numb.

"I don't know how this happened," he said, his voice still as quiet and still as an evening breeze. He reached out and gently place the back of his hand against Soza's cheek, opening his eyes and looking down at her with a look that was almost one of awe.

"But she's here. She's my blood, I know she is. I've seen all the proof I need to in order to know that, somehow, she's my child."

His mouth pulled as though he were holding back a furious scowl then and the gentle edge to his voice vanished.

"I didn't know."

Jin couldn't figure what to make of his admission. She hadn't considered even once that Sasuke was somehow ignorant to his role in the conception of Soza, but there wasn't an ounce of it that she found she was able to believe. Still, she couldn't discount it either.

"You don't remember sleeping with Azula?" she asked slowly. "Or… you don't remember… finishing in such a way that…"

She trailed off, letting her implication speak for her. It clearly was enough to get her meaning across to Sasuke, as he was on his feet in an instant, glaring into her eyes, his voice a low hiss; it might very well have been a shout if Soza and Toph hadn't been sleeping just there in the room with them.

"No, I never so much as laid a hand on Azula in any sort of way like that. I remember fighting her, I remember hitting her, and I remember letting her touch me in any way that I thought would ease her manic nature if even for a day, be that holding my hand or even kissing me."

There was something about even just the idea that Azula had once kissed Sasuke that caused Jin's lip to curl.

"The day before I left," he snarled quietly, "she tried to insinuate the idea on me that, with the war over, we could be together. She wanted so badly to be with me, there was no mind to the fact that her father had just died days before, it was just this focused obsession on me, the way that it had been since I had met her."

He looked away and she could see his furious eyes glazing over with thoughts of the past, thoughts that clearly hadn't simmered in his mind since they had occurred.

"You weren't there… but day after day, she grew almost possessive of me. I paid it no mind, I knew she posed no more threat to me then an infant, such were my abilities. But slowly, it got worse and worse, and I still did nothing to quell how she felt for me, even the day she almost killed you."

Jin's hand drifted over her midsection to where she still bore the scar of Azula's attack.

"I was so focused and determined on what I was after that I just pushed any thoughts I had of Azula aside," he said venomously. "I let her grow worse and worse, and on that day, when I knew I had to leave, I told her point blank that I would never love her, something I should have done long before then."

There was a very strange moment during his words as he reached the word 'love' that caused Jin to furrow her brow just a touch. Something about the look in his eyes and the way that he almost seemed to catch on the word all but told her that perhaps he hadn't believed it when he said it.

Or he doesn't mean it now.

"And yet…"

Sasuke murmured those words as he turned to stand over the bed upon which lay Soza, his eyes flickering once again with a peculiar sadness.

"And yet, she's still here.

Trying to think back to what she remembered of the roughly twenty-four hour period between when Sasuke had awoken from his sleep that had spanned multiple days and to when he had walked out of their lives; giving him the benefit of the doubt, she tried to think of time wherein he might have been…

It was at that moment she realized what that line of thought meant.

"She wouldn't," Jin whispered, her voice quaking. Sasuke flicked his gaze to meet hers, his expression flat.

"You really find that so hard to believe?" he asked darkly and Jin put a hand over her mouth.

If Sasuke was to be believed, and he had no knowledge of how Soza might have come into being, then it truly only left one feasible option for how Azula had become pregnant in the first place. And though Jin had grown very accustomed to the idea of all the malicious and selfish mindsets that Azula had potentially adopted over the years, somehow, the idea of her…

No. It really isn't that hard to believe at all.

Tears swam in her eyes again as she considered both ends of the spectrum. She thought to how, despite the streak of extreme violence that seemed to accompany him as well as his cold and seemingly uncaring demeanor, there was much more to Sasuke then that. He had lied to her, he had risked her life in the effort to defeat Obito, he had left Toph with next to no closure, he had done much that Jin didn't agree with. But she knew what he had done, what he had risked himself, for a world that wasn't his, for people she knew he cared about.

And it only took her thinking over Azula's mentality a single moment before she knew full well what must have happened.

"I… she…" Jin managed to sputter as she turned towards the door as though expecting to see Azula standing there before whipping back to Sasuke.

"And you're just going to let her...?!"

She started to shout out her indignation, fully expecting to see Sasuke fully furious, but as her eyes found him, he wasn't looking at her any longer. Sitting at Soza's side again, he was gazing down at her again as though he had forgotten why he had any reason to be angry. Jin stared at the pair of them a moment before his voice sounded out again, merely a whisper.

"How could I not have known?"

Swallowing, Jin shook her head, unsure of what to make of this complete change of his character that she would never have imagined she would see. Her mind was spinning almost sickeningly at the idea that Soza might have been born of such twisted circumstances.

"It doesn't matter," she said through gritted teeth; her eyes landed on Toph's body and her anger was flushed back through her veins with a sickening heat. "There was a lot more you left behind then just her."

Glancing back slightly, Sasuke looked to her with those same piercing eyes. She waited for him to say something, but he followed her gaze to Toph and quietly stood to stand and look down at her. Jin watched as his hand gently pulled at the covers that were both keeping her warm and protecting her modesty; she wanted to lunge at him then and there for exposing her then like that, but his eyes and hands paid no mind to her breasts and he stopped drawing the covers before they were entirely exposed. His fingers instead moved to trace the scar on her chest, the damage that Kyoshi had dealt. Jin waited for him to mutter something about how this surely couldn't have been avoided, or how he hadn't asked her to try and protect him, that this was her own fault. She waited for anything blameless excuse so that she could tear into him for his lack of tact and care, his lack of emotion towards the girl who had spent nearly half her life without once letting him escape her mind.

But Sasuke didn't say anything remotely along those lines.

"I did this to her."

That was all he said and Jin felt her frustration rise as a pang in her heart tried to stifle her anger.

"Damn you, Sasuke!" she snapped. "Stop being so… so…"

Perhaps a very small smile then touched the edges of his mouth in a small curve even as he continued to watch Toph.

"So nonaggressive?" he asked, seeming to have picked up on the idea that Jin was looking to exchange heated words.

"So human," she growled and he gave the barest shrug.

"Sorry."

Jin put a hand up to clasp the bridge of her nose, jamming her eyes tightly shut. This wasn't at all what she had been prepared for in a one on one with Sasuke; he had exploded back into their lives with all the carnage and violence that he had possessed when they were ten or years younger. Jin had watched him decapitate, tear apart, or otherwise mutilate well over a dozen men, and she had been immediately ready to accept that this wasn't going to be any different now, that he was the same person whom she had initially crushed on and then quickly grown deeply afraid of. She would never forget that sudden change, the way her romantic interest in him and fallen apart as her innocence was crushed by the events of that day.

Am I supposed to believe that, even if he's still capable of such awful acts, that there's some part of him that's opened up enough to see what he's actually done?

"I never wanted to cause you pain. I never wanted to hurt any of you," Sasuke said and she opened her eyes to look back at him severely, crossing her arms.

"It doesn't matter what you wanted, Sasuke, you left when you knew full well that things weren't remotely close to okay."

She walked over to stand beside Toph's bedside and gently reached behind Toph's shoulder to brush her fingers against the marked pattern that she had seen on her friend's back while she was being tortured and then again when she had gotten her out of her clothes and laid her down. Jin was by no means an unobservant girl and she had seen the same mark juts above Azula's breast when she would wear slightly more revealing clothes, and while she had always just assumed it was some tattoo, an inquiry to Ty Lee told her the mark's true nature.

"When did you give her that?" she asked tensely, knowing that Sasuke knew what she was referencing. There was a pause as though he was deciding whether or not to deny it.

"The day I left. When you all came to see me off, I put everyone except me and her into suspended animation for just a couple minutes. She clearly had some things that she wanted to say and I wanted to give her a chance to say them privately."

This was something that Toph had never told Jin, and she supposed she could understand why. She had kept all talk of Sasuke completely off the table, even if Jin and Ty Lee had slowly pieced together why it was that she refused to see any boys, or even really consider romantic encounters. Even as this realization had spread to Aang, and Sokka, and Katara, Toph hadn't spoken of it once, and Jin had learned quickly to not bother trying to pry. Still, the fact that she and Sasuke had shared a moment on his last day with them in which she no doubt bore so many feelings piqued Jin's curiosity to the maximum.

"She told me that she thought she loved me," Sasuke continued without prompting. "No, no that's not true… she outright said she did. She asked to come with me, she asked me to stay, she… I know she was hurting."

Jin didn't even want to imagine how Toph must have begged him; being as young then as she was, there was no doubt quite the intense outburst that would have come from her, likely still shaking off the shock of the end of the war and then having that coupled with her feelings for Sasuke.

"I must have believed that she would have been able to move on," Sasuke said. "I thought that time would have been enough to help her shake off whatever it was that she felt for me."

"So did I," Jin said, her voice becoming strained. "Every year that passed, I hoped that it would be the one where thoughts of you would finally leave her and she could just… forget you."

They both looked down at Toph in silence for a moment before Sasuke quietly repeated,

"I never wanted to hurt her."

Jin shook her head again, wishing there was anything she could say in response to that.

"She'll hate me for leaving again."

She whipped her head around at this, but Sasuke kept his eyes turned down, almost as though he were frightened of meeting her gaze.

"What are you talking about?" she quickly shot at him. He waited a moment before replying.

"Kyoshi has decided to bring war to this world because of me. have to go back now while she's not expecting it and finish this fight before it gets any worse. Stifle the spirits where they're making their entrance and crush them before this reaches a worse point."

Jin stared at him, horrified. How had she just been silently reflecting on his emotional maturity when he was prepared to go now and do something as irrational as this?

"Have you lost your mind?!" she hissed angrily. "How do you know she's even still in Ba Sing Se?! You taking your fight there only puts more people in harm's way!"

Sasuke's face hardened.

"All the people I care about are safe aboard this ship."

Jin was somewhat surprised that the slap she delivered across Sasuke's face then didn't wake either Toph or Soza. Her palm stinging, she glared at him, her voice trembling as he looked in the direction that her strike had snapped his gaze towards.

"How dare you…" she whispered. "You talk about guilt… and you'd be willing to risk innocent lives to get your vengeance?"

"This isn't about vengeance," Sasuke said sharply, looking back to stare her dead in the eye. "This is—"

"Give me a break," she snapped, cutting him off. "I can hear it in your voice: you just want to hurt Kyoshi for what she's done, and you know what? I don't blame you."

She couldn't even bear to look at Toph as she reached down and squeezed her friend's hand.

"But don't you dare leave. Not like this."

She felt her affection for Sasuke then leap into her gut, entirely unbidden; she remembered how even as he had left them the first time, even after all he had done and forced upon her, she still remembered how badly she had wanted him to stay.

"Not again."

Sasuke raised his chin slightly, giving a long, slow inhale.

"I have to protect you all. I won't let anything happen to any of you because of the danger that I represent and the threats that come as such."

Jin closed the distance between them, her anger seeping away into desperation that this wasn't about to happen again. She reached up and put a hand to the cheek she had just struck, taking his face and hoping that the plea in her eyes was as obvious as it felt to be in her heart.

"Then stay. Stay with us. I know that this is how you feel you have to handle things, I know that you believe that doing things on your own is always how it ought to be done. But you can't…"

A lump rose in her throat then and she had to look down and swallow it down to keep her voice from breaking before she looked back to him, her heart throbbing.

"You can't keep doing this on your own. If you care about us, if you really do, you can't abandon us again."

She choked down a sob as she thought to the years that Toph had suffered through, the isolation she had forced on herself because of this man. There was very little of Jin that felt Sasuke was at all good for Toph as a whole, but if this alone would make her happy…

"You can't abandon her again."

As she said it, she knew that Sasuke took her meaning; his eyes flicked down to Toph and though his face remained impassive, she could see the emotion flickering in his dark eyes. Standing that close and touching him, Jin was hardly able to force down her own feelings of attachment for him, once a boy whom she had felt so many differing emotions for, now a man, who still caused those same feelings to become riled up in her gut.

Jin counted the seconds like hours as Sasuke said nothing in reply to her. No doubt he was weighing his options and perhaps trying to fight down his feelings the same way that she was. Then, he released a long, slow sigh from his nose and gently reached up to brush aside her hand. He left then, walking from the room without another word; Jin watched him go and continued to look at the door even after it had closed in his wake. Other than with her words, there was nothing she knew she could do to prevent Sasuke from leaving, but as she moved to sit at Toph's side again, she somehow didn't feel any worry that he still would.

---

Ty Lee moved quickly in front of her sink, hands flying about her face as she worked her makeup. There was no reason to get freshened up in that moment, but she had just received a knock at her door from Suki who had asked to see her. Spouting out something about being indecent and to wait just a minute, Ty Lee had leapt from her bed and raced to the basin where she had gotten to work as quickly as she could.

She had awoken in her own bed and in her own cabin, her heart pounding as she expected to still see Azula standing above her, fists clenched, but she had been completely alone as she had looked around. It had been about an hour since she had remembered following Azula to her room, indicating that her passing out hadn't been particularly long lived. Climbing to her feet, she had been given just enough time to look at herself in the mirror before the knock on her door had come.

Most of the damage that Azula had inflicted on her had been dealt to her body itself, her chest, abdomen, her ribs, places that no one needed to see until the bruises that she knew had formed there had healed. She had slipped quickly into a more modest set of clothes than she normally wore, something that didn't bare her stomach and arms, but even a change like that wouldn't keep anyone from noticing her face.

There was a bruise underneath her left eye and a cut on her right cheekbone, as well as a few smaller cuts, one to the right of her eye and one just above her mouth. The inside of her lip was swollen from being split and she had blown her nose to find a mess of blood expunged from its passages. Working as swiftly as she could, she had washed the areas where the skin was split before applying foundation as much as she dared without thinking it would be too noticeable. Foundation was never something she had needed to spend much time with; as Jin had once remarked in annoyance, Ty Lee had possessed some of the most immaculate skin she had ever seen, so the hope was that she would leave her cabin without anything looking out of place.

Knowing that the longer she took, the more likely it would be that Suki might get suspicious, so after giving her face a once over in the mirror, she rushed to the cabin door, took a deep, steadying breath and stepped into the hall.

Suki was leaning against the metal frame of the wall, arms crossed. She looked up as Ty Lee exited, her brow furrowing.

"You alright? You look out of breath."

Ty Lee forced herself to offer a small, and hopefully reassuring smile.

"I was just sleeping. You waking me up startled me was all."

Suki's concerned look faded and she nodded.

"Oh. Sorry about that."

She started to walk slowly down the hallway and Ty Lee fell in beside her, trying to think of something she could say to immediately put Suki's mind onto anything other than her. The feeling was growing on Ty Lee that her fellow Kyoshi Warrior had no doubt come down to check on her, given that she had been absent from whatever proceedings had taken place above, and Ty Lee highly doubted she would be able to rely with any remotely passable consistency. The thought of trying to lie to Suki anyway was a thought she could barely stand.

"So, what went on above?" she tried, knowing full well that Suki surely still had thoughts of this on her mind, and realizing too that, despite the fact that Azula was predominantly still on her mind, she was quite curious to know what had been discussed and exchanged.

Suki's lips tightened as they made their way towards the portside balcony.

"As you might imagine, things are tense. Most everyone was there, except for Sasuke, who I don't think anyone's seen since we left, and then Azula as well. Soza ran out after just a couple minutes, I assume to go be with her mother."

She flicked a glance to Ty Lee.

"You haven't seen Azula, have you?"

Though she should have seen the question coming well in advance, Ty Lee still felt her heart jump into her throat as she managed a, "No, I haven't," without her voice getting too shaky. Suki nodded.

"Hmm. Well anyway, things were… well, I wish I could say they went better. Avatar Roku… I can't believe I'm even referencing that he's with us, I don't think anyone can. It doesn't make any sense that someone's just… back from the dead."

That's what it feels like with Sasuke, Ty Lee almost remarked, but held her tongue.

"The moment we felt like we were in open air, everyone just started hammering him with questions: why is this happening, how long has it been being planned, what can we do about it, yadda yadda. It was mostly Katara, Sokka, Ursa and Zuko…"

She trailed off then, and Ty Lee looked to see Suki rubbing her tongue almost feverishly over her lips.

"Did… did you know what Ursa is… that she's…?"

Ty Lee nodded and Suki exhaled loudly, shaking her head.

"Unbelievable. It was touched on briefly towards the end, but I'll get to that. Roku was looking tired as hell and beat to shit, but everyone was hammering him anyway. He told us that the spirits have been planning to make this invasion happen since the war ended here years ago. Just like Kyoshi said, they saw the discontent in our world, and I guess correlated and justified an invasion because of Sasuke being here. Talked about how he had tried to get some word through about what was coming, but was found out by Kyoshi that he was playing the other side. How she had him send that girl, Yue… I guess when she was alive, she had some spiritual connection? Aang and Sokka and everyone else apparently knew her when they were younger, but because of her ties to the spirits, she had to give her life to save the moon spirit?"

There was nothing that Ty Lee could do other than blink at this sudden and bizarre revelation and Suki caught her expression, giving a short laugh.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. She was acting as a guide for Sasuke, like Kyoshi said, and she was swearing on everything she could that she had no idea that she was being used that way. I don't know, to me, I don't know she could have sounded any more genuine, but Katara got really bent out of shape about it, got in her face and started hammering her with questions. Ursa had to step in and push them apart, someone might actually have swung if she didn't. Yue started to panic then, asked if they couldn't just still use her as a locator to find Sasuke again since they did it already. She looked completely ready to just jump off the ship then, but Roku said that now that they were all physical and returned to this world, Kyoshi and the other spirits had no way of using that same technique to follow us. Ursa started asking him then what needed to be done then, how to expunge the spirits and beat back this invasion, and this was where I think Roku was already sort of out it. He started mumbling about how they needed to go north, but we had to be careful to watch the skies because of some storm… I don't know, he passed out right about then and some of Ursa's people took him to one of the spare cabins."

They reached the doorway that led to the gangway and the metal path that led around the ship and Ty Lee was treated to a rush of cool night air as they stepped outside.

"I thought things might simmer down then, but they just got worse. The moment Roku was gone, Sokka starts asking Ursa a bunch of stuff like how she wound up with Yue and following Sasuke around. I… I don't think it happened quite like she wanted, but it came out then that Ursa was Zuko and Azula's mom."

Suki reached the railing and gripped it, shaking her head again.

"I never would have guessed. She looks incredible for being at least in her late thirties or early forties, though I guess she might have had the both of them when she was pretty young; something tells me Ozai wouldn't have given her a choice if he wanted her to have kids quickly."

Ty Lee, who knew for a fact that Ursa hadn't had a say in the matter, kept her mouth shut as Suki carried on.

"Got a little awkward there with her and Zuko kind of putting a damper on the whole room. Then, out of nowhere, Katara whirled on Aang like a snap. Started accusing him of knowing about a bunch of this ahead of time, and I guess she figured that by the way Roku had been talking about it. She must have been right, because Aang fires right back, not like I would have expected him to. Says that Kyoshi used Roku to trick him too in keeping his silence and how she wasn't even mad about this and this was all just her being angry that Sasuke was back, and they just started yelling at each other… I've never seen either of them like that. Ursa eventually gets between them and tells them to cool it, I… she really seems to have a way of getting a handle on situations like that. Aang actually storms off then and it gets kind of awkward again before Ursa finally just says that everybody should get some rest and that we should all meet back on the bridge in a couple hours. I could tell by the way she was looking at Zuko that she wanted to talk to him, but I got out of there before I saw anything else."

Ty Lee stood beside Suki, trying to process all of what she had heard. There was such a great deal of it, and she could only imagine how overwhelmed she might have been were she there to witness it.

"How was Mai?" she suddenly asked, as thoughts of her friend touched her mind. Suki looked down and didn't reply immediately which Ty Lee knew before she even started talking was a bad sign.

"I don't know. She didn't say a word, just left when Ursa kind of adjourned everything. I thought she'd at least say something, but she looked the whole time like she was trying not to be sick honestly. I don't know what exactly… ah, scratch that. I bet I know exactly what had her so out of sorts."

Supposing she did too, Ty Lee let out a sigh and looked back over her shoulder as though expecting to see him standing behind her, shaded under the curve of the airship's bloated air pocket. She hadn't seen him since they got on board, and if he hadn't been at the initial meeting either, then she half-wondered if he hadn't just…

She put her thoughts into a question.

"You didn't see Sasuke on the bridge, and I didn't see him below deck… do you think that he—?"

"No," Suki said, immediately and firmly, to Ty Lee's surprise.

"What makes you say that?"

Suki clasped her hands as she leaned her forearms against the railing, looking up. Ty Lee followed her gaze and as she did, the blackened clouds parted enough to let the world become awash in the moonlight. It felt almost cleansing as she saw the pale blue cast light over her and Suki.

"I just do. He wouldn't go, not after this, after Toph and… well, his daughter."

Thoughts of Soza hit Ty Lee like a ton of bricks and she winced as she remembered the beating she had just so recently taken. That had been her assumption, that Sasuke's return and what that meant for Soza and been too much for Azula's enigma of a psyche, hence the abuse she had taken. She had a fleeting thought pressing her imagination and saw Azula and Sasuke running into one another in the hallway, stopped dead and staring at one another.

I can't believe him. He breaks Toph's heart so badly that it scars her even to this day, and he sleeps with Azula before running off?

Her own thoughts and feelings felt even too complex for even her to unpack, but even after what she had just been through, she couldn't help but feel sorry for Azula.

She had the most twisted childhood you could force on someone… and Sasuke pulls that, especially when he had gotten a good look firsthand on what she was like? And… inside her, really?! What was he thinking?!

That Soza was of Sasuke's blood made her head spin and she felt a nauseous edge to her stomach. Quickly, she tried to force down her feelings, knowing deep down how emotionally vulnerable she was right about then. She did not need Suki to see her break down and start crying.

"But that's not what I wanted to see you about. How are you, Ty?"

Shit.

Despite having told herself the moment that she had started to walk with Suki that she needed to be on guard of her emotions, Ty Lee found herself slammed immediately by this question to the point of not having a single word she could think to say. Thoughts of Azula, Soza and Sasuke had taken hold and being forced back into this line of questioning, she could only flick her eyes over at her friend, doing all she could to make it look like she was as fine as could be expected.

Suki was looking at her, eyes full of concern and emotion. It was something of a curious sight since most of the time that Ty Lee had spent with her, they were doing drills, training or sparring in their full Kyoshi Warrior garb, and Suki had never spared so much as a single look that had anything other than cold steel in her eyes when that was the setting. So rarely was there a time they were able to just socialize and actually look at one another as friends, which Ty Lee knew they were; she had spent years wondering how someone as outwardly tough and dutiful as Suki had managed to even entertain the thought of marriage, especially to someone in a completely different military outfit, but as she looked at the worry written in those eyes, it was almost as though she was someone else entirely.

"Yeah, fine," Ty Lee finally managed, feeling a thudding in her heart that she almost wondered if it was audible. "Just a little exhausted is all."

Turning away and looking back into the night sky once more, she let those words sit and hoped they would be at least somewhat satiable for Suki. There came a stretch of silence in which she didn't dare try and get a glimpse of her friend's face, hoping it was just one of quiet pity.

"Ty, look at me."

Ty Lee obliged Suki as she quietly made the demand, expecting to see perhaps a small encouraging smile, matching the concern she had just exhibited. But as she locked eyes, Ty Lee saw nothing of the sort. The softer touch of Suki's eyes was gone, replaced by that steel that was so much more familiar. For a wild moment, she wondered if Suki was about to lunge at her before she reached out and gently put a hand against her cheek. Submitting to the small amount of pressure exerted, Ty Lee let her head be tilted slightly upwards, her heart starting to hammer faster and she knew that Suki would have been able to feel her pulse against her neck at that point.

"Where did you get these?" Suki asked, her voice both breathless and furious at the same time. Fingers coming to life on their own, Ty Lee's hand shot up to feel along her neck, and she realized that the skin was rather tender in certain stretches, right up until it reached a stinging pain of being touched, where she could feel small, curved incisions. Her heart dropped into her stomach as she desperately grasped for an excuse.

"Nothing, I must have just… I don't know, maybe in my sleep I was scratching myself, or—"

"Give me a break," Suki practically growled. "You don't grow your nails out like this, and this is more than just nails pressing, I can see… are those bruises from fingers?"

Ty Lee looked up in agony and realized that the light of the moon must have been what had thrown her injuries into relief, enough so that they could be seen.

"I don't… I don't…" she managed to stammer and as she looked into Suki's eyes, she saw them widen as they flooded with realization. They furrowed then at the brow, forming a furious mask, her teeth baring.

"That… evil bitch," she hissed and turned towards the door without another word.

"No, no, no, Suki, wait!" Ty Lee cried out, grabbing her friend's shoulder, panic causing the paralysis instilled by her fear to dissipate. Suki spun, a snarl on her face as she knocked her hand away.

"What the fuck do you mean 'wait'?! Are you kidding me, Ty?!"

While fury ruled her tone, it was impossible to miss the pain that shook the air as Suki yelled back at her.

"I had suspicions that she was using you, that she was…" she faltered and let out a frustrated cry. "But if I had known that she was doing this to you?!"

She straightened her back and inhaled sharply. "Don't try and stop me, Ty. I'm going to put a stop to this."

It didn't take any more discerning than that what Suki meant, and as she turned again to leave, Ty Lee caught her arm.

"Suki, listen to me!"

Making to shake her away again, Suki couldn't manage as Ty Lee managed a much tighter grip and she spun around again making to yank away, but the pair of them wound up being only a foot from each other as Ty Lee refused to let her go.

"And hear what?" Suki hissed; her eyes showed no sign of tears, but the break in her voice had all the makings of a sob, though it was quickly swallowed by fury again. "Listen to you try and defend that freak? That sociopathic monster who's been doing who knows what to you over the years? Now I know, now I know, that she's hurting you and I am not going to sit here and let this happen any longer."

"I can't let you do this!" Ty Lee shouted, and Suki let out a short, humorless laugh.

"Well then, why don't I go and let Mai know what I've found? Or Jin? Or Toph when she wakes up? I'm sure they'd all just be tickled to know what you've been subjected to, what you've been letting that vile bitch do to you for how long now?"

She reached up to wipe at Ty Lee's cheek who yelled out and pulled her head back even as her heart hammered even harder at the idea of Mai, Jin or Toph finding out about any of this.

"You using this makeup to hide the rest of it?" Suki snapped. "What else did she do other than throttle you, huh? Punch you? Kick you? Let go of me right fucking now, or so help me, I'll—"

It might have been her fear misguiding her, it might have been nothing more than a spur of the moment stab of impulse, but in that moment, as Ty Lee looked into the almost crazed eyes of her friend, the most sensible thing to do right then to her snapped her into action. She released Suki's arm just long enough to throw herself forward and wrap her friend in a hug. Even as she did, tears leaked from her eyes and she spoke quietly, her voice coming out with a surprising amount of control.

"Suki, please listen. I know that this is… wrong. In plenty of ways. But you need to trust me when I say that this is how it has to be for now. I'm… I'm the only one who can take this. I know you don't believe that there's any good in Azula, but… but I do. I know there's something there and I'm going to get to it. And if I turn away from her now… Suki, when this started, I didn't know what to think. But I didn't want to imagine what would happen if I stopped going to her and she turned to… to…"

Ty Lee could still remember the day she had intended to cut Azula off and free herself of the princess's deadly hold, and the awful, sudden thought that had crossed her mind then. Fortunately, Suki was able to manage to finish the sentence accurately for her, her voice just above a whisper in Ty Lee's ear.

"To her daughter."

Swallowing, Ty Lee nodded into Suki's shoulder. It hurt to say this, partly because of how hidden it had all been for so long, and even more so because, though she would never dare admit this to Suki, her feelings for Azula were a lot more than just a desire to shield her wrath from others.

I wonder if anyone will ever know how I feel for her… even Azula herself.

"And no matter what, we don't have time for this. Our world's falling apart again, and we need to stay focused," she managed to get out in a fairly calm tone. "I'm begging you Suki, for now, let me deal with Azula. I can take this. I need to take this."

With all having been said that she could think of to ask, she could do nothing more than continue resting her face against Suki's shoulder, silently hoping with all her might that this was not about to break out, not now, not when things were the way they were. If Suki tried to go after Azula, or tell anyone, Ty Lee didn't want to imagine the fallout that might come from such an event. But she knew as she hugged her friend and remembered the pain she had seen in her eyes, that Suki was nothing short of a fighter, and that meant that she was going to protect Ty Lee if she needed protecting, and avenging if she needed avenging. And there was little that could stand in her way.

Ty Lee felt her eyes widen with surprise then as she felt Suki's hands on her back and her arms wrapping around her.

"This is far from being a finished discussion," Suki's voice came, low and still hinting at the anger she was feeling. "You stay away from her until we… sort things out. I mean it, I won't go after her or tell anyone yet, but you have to promise me that you're not going to let her hurt you anymore."

This wasn't something that Ty Lee could promise but she felt herself nodding. Suki let out a sigh and her body seemed to slump; Ty Lee had to wonder just how exhausted she was too.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Ty."

Closing her eyes, Ty Lee squeezed Suki tightly and they hugged each other for a long while under the moon. And though she hoped that she had been able to at least appease Suki well enough for the time being, the events that she knew had been set in motion by the fact that she hadn't noticed the marks on her neck herself caused Ty Lee's gut to writhe in anxiety. Because Suki, no matter what she was told, would never understand what Azula meant to her. And why, if it came to it, Ty Lee would find herself protecting her should Suki's, or anyone's, wrath be instigated. Her insides churned with a burning agony and she looked towards the heavens in desperation.

Azula… what are you doing to me?

---

Ursa closed the door to the bridge behind her, leaving Siado with her last set of orders for the time being. It had been such a long time since she had spent time on an airship, but the rudimentary basics of it had come back to her like a long forgotten dream. They had been forced to learn to pilot it quickly when it was discovered that Sasuke had quietly left in the middle of the night, and Ursa had been stunned to find that he had somehow gotten to Ba Sing Se in just about the same period of time on foot as they had while being airborne.

Though after what he had displayed then, that stunned feeling had shifted and worsened, with Ursa finding herself suspended between a vast array of emotions. She wanted to find him and at least attempt to speak with him, she knew that much.

But this… this has been too long in coming. And they will always be more important to me.

On the front catwalk that curved above the bridge, she walked slowly about, until she saw him. It wasn't the first time she had laid eyes on him, but seeing her son standing there caused her legs to freeze up and she needed a moment to close her eyes. She hadn't been able to shake the feeling that, just for a second, his tall and powerful silhouette was reminiscent of his father.

When she opened them, that illusion was gone and she only saw Zuko. Ursa had forbade herself from crying immediately, but the burning behind her eyes was a telling sign that she might only be able to keep her word for a little while before breaking.

And how couldn't she?

It had been fifteen years since she had last seen her son or her daughter. She had long since given up hope that seeing them again might even be a possibility. But when Sasuke had found her in that tavern so many miles away, that chance had been reignited and she had bet everything that it could be possible. In a sense, it was terribly selfish, putting the lives of so many men at stake for a chance at this very moment, but as she stood not a dozen feet from him, she knew she would have done it a hundred times over.

Ursa believed that he didn't know she was there and she allowed herself a moment to try and think of how she might even approach this. She didn't know how he had felt seeing her again; she had seen how he had looked at her back in Ba Sing Se, and it had been only with extreme self-control that she hadn't rushed to her son then and there. What could he possibly feel towards his own mother who, for all intents and purposes to his young mind, had abandoned him to the care of his father when he was only a child? It became such that Ursa's choice was made for her as Zuko spoke, indicating that he had indeed been well aware of her presence.

"I've thought about this moment for a long time."

She snapped her head up to look at him. He hadn't turned to face her, only stared out at the clouds before them, mostly concealing the bright moon above as the airship cuts its way through the night sky.

"I thought about what I could say. I wanted to imagine exactly what would be necessary for me to explain exactly what you did when you left me and Azula."

His words were angry, but his tone was quiet, just audible over the wind whipping gently around them.

"Do you know, mother? Do you have any idea what we had to go through because the only good person in our lives left us?"

Feeling her throat tighten, Ursa took a step forward, even as she still couldn't quite manage a single word in response. Zuko seemed more than content to keep talking anyways.

"I wound up having Iroh and it's no understatement to suggest that he saved my life. But that didn't happen until years had passed, well long enough for father to… I'm sure you know what he did."

Ursa found her voice then; she had seen what her former husband had done and it had nearly been enough to take her breath away then and there during the time she had spent questioning Roku on the bridge.

"Zuko… look at me."

For a moment, he only inclined his head slightly before turning to face her. The light shining through the clouds was just enough to throw his face into relief and Ursa felt her stomach twist violently. From the day she had met him, she had known Ozai had been devoid of a real heart, or any semblance of true compassion, but the idea that he would do this to his own son…

"It's funny that you thought I meant this," Zuko said and Ursa blinked briefly before shaking her head.

"Son, I know that—"

"I spent every day of my childhood living in fear of him, and wishing I could live up to him," he said over her through gritted teeth. "Finally, there came a moment where I thought I could show him some leadership, some individuality, some… something to make him proud of me as a son. And all he saw it as was insubordination."

As a young man, Zuko's form was impressive to say the least, but the posture that his body adopted then was that of a frightened child as he no doubt struggled to get through his stream of painful memories.

"He challenged me to a public Agni Kai. He humiliated me and did this to me," he said, bringing a finger up to gesture to the scarred area around his eye. "But this is not the worst of what he did to me."

As she met his eyes, Ursa could see a lifetime of hurt spilling from them.

"Do you know how long it took me to realize what was truly important in life? Not honor, not power, not victory… it took Uncle, the Avatar, Katara, Toph, Sokka and so many others to show me that life was more than just something to hate and rage at."

Sounds almost exactly like someone I know.

Ursa realized then that Zuko was crying, despite how even his tone remained and how passive his expression was. She stared at him, stunned as he whispered to her.

"Do you know how much I needed you?"

There had been an entire speech that Ursa had been mustering up the courage to give, to talk to her son about how proud she was that he was able to fight through such an abusive childhood, how he had reached this point, and how sorry she was that she hadn't been able to be there for him. But as her son stood in front of her, all essence of the Fire Lord gone as she looked and saw nothing but a boy who missed and resented his mother, she knew immediately that words would never be enough. By the time she had reached him, he was already bowing his head forward to drop into her shoulder as she caught Zuko and held him tightly. She let herself cry then, not even willing to attempt stopping the tears from coming.

"I missed you, mother," he said in a broken tone and Ursa let out a gentle groan, hugging him tighter.

"I'm so, so sorry, Zuko," she whispered, wishing she could hold him forever. The way he had his arms wrapped around her just like she remembered holding him after he had woken from a nightmare as a child was tearing her heart to pieces.

"You look exactly the same as I remember you, like you haven't aged a day," he murmured and Ursa felt herself forced to smile by his words; still so good to his mother, flattering her like that.

"Why did you leave?" he asked and Ursa had never felt so motivated to be truthful. As concisely as she could, without leaving a single pertinent detail to the side, she told Zuko exactly what had led to her needing to take her leave after the ultimatum that she had been presented with by her husband and what it was that she had done to be placed in such a situation. She told him how hard it had been to leave without being able to tell him why, and especially when she knew just how much of a monster Ozai was. Now that her former husband was long passed and Zuko was no longer a child, she allowed herself to be exceptionally honest as well about how she felt about that man. Throughout the entire tale, she never released him, nor did he make any move to leave her arms.

"…I made it to the coast near my home town and I almost considered trying to make my life over under a new name… but I knew I would spend the rest of life feeling nothing but guilt for what I had done if I stayed in the Fire Nation and knew that… knew that my children were living under Ozai's hand. I felt… oh, Zuko it was so wrong, but I felt that if I just got as far away as I could then that guilt would subside."

She told him then about her attempted voyage east stowing away amongst a merchant vessel trying to strike it rich by making it across the sea, and how they came under attack from a monstrous sea serpent. She told him how she had been rescued by a mercenary vessel, though she left out what the captain had used her for as 'payment' for saving her, but instead suggested that she acquired the ship and its crew through much less… violent means. Zuko seemed surprised and impressed that she had been able to not only whip a crew of mercenaries into proper seaworthy men, but also that she had thrived as a pirate captain of sorts until he finally pushed gently away from her and looked into her eyes with a look that melted Ursa's heart all over again.

"Why didn't you try and come back?"

He didn't sound angry, he sounded just entirely and completely woeful, enough so that Ursa took his cheeks and planted a long kiss on his forehead before replying; she knew no matter what she said, it would never be enough to explain her absence from his life, but she said what she knew to be true regardless.

"My sweet boy, I promise you, a day didn't go by that I didn't think of such a thing, dream of it. But I knew that a crossing back over to the Elemental Nations from the islands I had found myself in would be as near a suicide trip as my initial one had been, only some extreme sense of chance managed to bring me to the other side safely the first time after all."

She could see that the idea of there really being other lands was intriguing to him, but now didn't seem to be the time for anyone to be dwelling on such things.

"And there came the matter of your father. Should I return, he would have not hesitated to put me to death, and I suppose… I suppose I thought that would be the last thing my children needed to see was my public execution."

Wringing her hands in a gesture of helplessness, Ursa shook her head.

"I felt truly and completely stuck, that's the best way I can put it."

Zuko considered this, eyes misting over briefly as he surely tried to decide whether or not this frame of mind was something he wanted to resent her for.

"So, what led to this?" he asked, gesturing to her. "Despite that, you came back. How? Why?"

And now here it was. Ursa felt the feeling of complete relief and tender joy in seeing her son again slowly being pushed aside by a wave of unease as she remembered the one thing that seemed to be connected to all aboard that airship to one extent or another.

"I met Sasuke," she said, and as she might have expected, Zuko's mouth tightened into a firm line, his back stiffening at the mention of the name as any sense of the emotional state he had been put into as a result of seeing his mother again was swallowed up with a very bitter edge to his expression. Ursa found that she couldn't blame him.

What she felt for Sasuke right about then was such a cluster of raging emotions that it almost brought on a headache to even think about it. When Yue had come sprinting back to her, screaming that Sasuke was missing, it hadn't taken a great deal of analysis to figure what he had done. She knew that she had been angry with him for doing something so rash, but it was so completely in character for what she knew of him that she was mostly just angry at herself for not seeing it coming. But they had been able to catch up to him and arrive right on time for Ursa's world to be shaken by a great many things.

Of course, seeing her children again had been almost enough to completely render her useless then and there, but seeing that her daughter had a child of her own? The fact that she might have missed the most important time of Azula's life had nearly brought her to her knees, but then… then Kyoshi had said those words.

Ursa had entered that building with the mental preparation being done that no matter what she saw or heard, she would keep herself from faltering. That was how she had kept herself from rushing to Zuko or Azula, or acting rashly in any way, keeping full control of herself in the case that she needed to act quickly and without hesitation.

And still…

Sasuke is that girl's father.

Despite all of the pure insanity that had occurred within that short time span within the hall, this was the devastating morsel of information that Ursa found herself coming back to over and over.

I slept with the father of my grandchild. I developed such curious and intense feelings for the young man who slept with my daughter.

A hundred variations of these thoughts twisted their way through her mind over and over again, but they somehow didn't manage to be the most unsettling thing to her. Because no matter how often she thought to it, no matter how many times she considered the reality of it, the only disgust she could bring herself to muster was the disgust that she felt not a single inkling of regret for doing what she had done. She had witnessed the carnage that Sasuke had wrought with his bare hands, and see the hidden power that he had kept secret, the power she had guessed he might have when he had brought that enormous sea serpent to a halt, and known him then to be much more than of their world. And on top of that understanding, she now knew that he had conceived a child with Ursa's own daughter.

So why couldn't she feel disgust for the curiosity, interest and lust she had felt for him?

Because she felt disgust. Ursa felt disgust that, despite everything she now knew, she felt all of these feelings for Sasuke completely unchanged. If anything, while being joined by distrust and anger, these feelings had only intensified.

You can't. You can't keep wanting to know him better, to understand him. There's too much you don't know. You can't… you can't keep wanting him like this.

If anything, she knew now that she would never be able to truly love him, something that, while denying it to Sasuke, she had wondered if there might be more to it than just lust and interest. But even with this acceptance…

No, not now. This isn't about him.

"Where? How?" Zuko asked, and Ursa could sense by the thickening of his tone that he perhaps possessed his own reservations with Sasuke. Though Ursa supposed that if this was just coming out now that he and Azula had sired a child together, she didn't imagine that his brotherly instincts exactly placed Sasuke in any of his good books.

There came another stab of betrayal that she felt twisting its way into her gut on behalf of her daughter and her daughter's child.

Sasuke… why did you abandon them? Why didn't you tell me that you were a father?

She told her son of her encounter with Sasuke and Yue, their arrangement and the passage over the eastern part of the realm she had lived in for well over a decade. She spoke of the serpent and their arrival to the western Fire Nation, as well as their discovery of Sasuke's fugitive state and his disappearance in the night. The story collided with everyone else's as she talked of the airship they had stolen in an effort to get to Ba Sing Se as quickly as they could and how they had arrived just in time for the encounter between Sasuke and Kyoshi. She was sure to omit the fact that she and Sasuke had been more than just travel partners; that was perhaps the last thing Zuko needed to hear.

"…Sasuke had said that he needed to speak with you, and only stressed the urgency of it," she said as her story came to a close. "But if what Kyoshi said is any indication, then his needing to get to you was nothing but a ploy those spirits set in place."

Zuko seemed to listen to her every word without interruption, absorbing what she said, even as his eyes flickered with distant anger. It took him several long moments before he thought to reply, and when he did, it was nothing to question what she said, to inquire about what it was that she had told him of. He turned away from her for the first time since they had looked at one another and looked out into the night broodingly.

"Did you know?" he asked, both bitterly and in a tone that almost sounded like he was scared to ask. Ursa didn't need him to clarify what he was asking.

"No, I didn't. I made an… effort to get to know him well enough to try and understand his motivations but he never spoke of a child, or a… lover."

It was the most bizarre thing to refer to her daughter like that and Zuko seemed to think similarly. He turned to her, his face scrunching up in derision as he did.

"Mother, do you know just exactly what it is Azula has become since you left our lives?"

It didn't sound like he meant the end of his question to be accusatory, but it was impossible for Ursa not to take it as such. Still, she fought down the hurt and shook her head.

"I know that it must have been hard on her with just Ozai as her parent, just as it was with you, but—"

Zuko shook his head violently, pain written on his face.

"Don't you remember what she was like as a child? Even before you left?"

Ursa immediately dove into her memories, even as Zuko continued to elaborate.

"She was a sadist! She was heartless! Any chance she could embarrass or humiliate me, or Ty Lee, or Mai in front of any the others was a chance she took! She loved seeing people angry or mad or hurt, and you think… you think she got any better after you left?"

There was a very cold feeling of dread starting to drip its way into Ursa's stomach as she looked at the almost pleading look on her son's face.

"Well, she didn't! She did everything father asked and loved doing it! And he gave her all the free reign she could ask for! She murdered almost an entire village just to convince them to tell her where a precious artifact of theirs was so she could bring it home and frame it on her wall! And just before the end of the war, she was chasing me, the Avatar and all our friends across the Four Nations trying to kill us! It wasn't until father decided to murder her that—"

"What?!" Ursa couldn't help but interrupt loudly. The idea that Ozai had been indulgent in her daughter's mean streak didn't surprise her, but the idea that he had decided to kill her… it made her want to vomit even as it made absolutely no sense to her. She assumed that Zuko's revelation of just how depraved her daughter had become would also take its toll on her, but hadn't sunk in yet. All she could picture was an eight year old Azula running up to her and pouting that Zuko wasn't sharing his toys.

I know she was… different. But she would never… she could never…

"Father found out about some ritual," Zuko's frustrated voice said almost hurriedly as though he felt a deeply pressing need to get this out in the open. "He believed that by killing Azula, he could tap into some unknown power of Sozin's Comet, to make it orbit the planet endlessly. He was going to use that to end the war, but… but Sasuke saved her, got Azula, Mai and Ty Lee out of the palace and to us."

It seemed a rather stunning feat that someone could storm the royal palace itself and shoulder past who knew how many guards to defy the Fire Lord himself, but after what Ursa had seen from Sasuke, it didn't seem quite that unbelievable.

"The three of them grouped up with Aang, myself, and everyone else, but immediately, Azula was just… mother, you should have seen her. She was obsessed with him. Only a day after he had saved her, she challenged him to an Agni Kai, and then a week later after he subdues her in that without killing her, she's trying to be as close to him as possible all hours of the day."

He grit his teeth and looked away.

"The whole time I just assumed that Sasuke was humoring her to keep focused on the war, since he left as soon as it was over. But the fact that he would… that he did that with Azula. And then left. I knew he was cold and distant, but that… I still can't wrap my head around the idea that he would sleep with her and leave after knowing what he had done."

Ursa was finding it difficult to accept as well, but she had already committed to confronting Sasuke about a great many things when she got the chance next, and that was certainly something that was on her list. But for now, she still needed several things ironed out from one of the people she knew she could trust.

"The end of the war," she said, finding herself almost desperately eager to change the subject. "Did Sasuke participate in that?"

Leaning over the railing, Zuko was quiet for several seconds before shaking his head almost dejectedly.

"Participate? He about won the whole damn thing by himself."

He straightened his back and let out a long sigh, preparing himself for yet another story that needed to be shared between them.

"It turns out that another person from Sasuke's world had crossed over and was trying to use the war to completely devastate the people of all nations so that he could subjugate those remaining and use them for his own purposes. Another man as well of Sasuke's kind was pressed into service by father and Sasuke wound up having to deal with him as well, they had… quite the fight as you might imagine. But Sasuke, he… the day of the comet, we all stood atop the wall of Ba Sing Se and watched father's army approach. I don't know how much hope anyone there really had, but then again, none of us really knew what Sasuke was entirely at that point either."

"What did he do?" Ursa asked and her son gave a weary chuckle of disbelief.

"Everything. Jumped down by himself and ran full sprint right into the army, taking on them all at once, summoned a snake the size of the serpent you described, created a thunderstorm and vented that into a single lightning strike that killed thousands and then fought off the other of his kind after that person blew open the wall of Ba Sing Se itself."

He paused a moment before adding, "Oh, and then Sasuke blew up Sozin's Comet."

Ursa's mind reeled. She truly had allowed herself to think that she might have some vague grasp on the abilities Sasuke had access too, but this was even so far beyond that. Everything Zuko had just told her sounded like something out of the most zany and farfetched fairy tale she could have told her children growing up, but this was supposedly as real as the wind that blew around her face.

"The comet… he destroyed it?" she asked, not doubting her son, but some part of her simply had to hear confirmation of that before she would be able to believe it. Zuko nodded and Ursa finally felt some of the shock she had been getting perpetual doses of reach her body and her knees trembled. She leaned against the railing for support and Zuko looked to her with concern spreading over his bitter expression.

"Are you alright?"

Angry that she had allowed her son to see her in a vulnerable state of any kind, Ursa played off the movement like she had been intending to relax against the railing.

"I'm fine. Just a lot to take in is all."

He matched her position, elbows resting against the rail as mother and son leaned back and tried to harness their own personal bearings. They wound up falling into relative silence for quite a stretch of time as Ursa reached out eventually to wrap an arm around Zuko's shoulder and pull him to her. She almost expected him being as old as he was to resist, but it would seem that if there had been a moody streak in him at some point, it had long since passed and even as a full grown man and Fire Lord to boot, he was more than receptive to be hugged by his mother.

Should have figured that from just minutes ago.

When Zuko did speak up, Ursa closed her eyes at his words.

"Mother… you have to speak with Azula. I know she's still… she's gotten a lot better at hiding what she's feeling, what she's really feeling, but I've heard enough stories over the years of what she's done to know that… she's dangerous, and I haven't been able to muster the courage to deal with her."

He sounded almost helpless then and Ursa could tell that whatever Azula's nature had developed into over the years, it was something that terrified her older brother.

"I think you might be the only one to get through to her. Figure out her headspace. Because it will never be Sasuke, and he's the only person I've seen her be willing to be close to other than Soza."

Though she felt she already knew the answer, Ursa asked anyway, "You? Or Mai or Ty Lee?"

Zuko gave a humored sniff.

"She hates me, though she'd never admit it. Azula and Mai… they still act at least somewhat amenable around each other, but its obvious that there's a cold shoulder vibe between them; I can't even remember the last time I've seen them talk to one another. And Azula treats Ty Lee like… I don't know how to describe it other than to say like a possession. No, the three of us wouldn't have a chance."

Hearing the possibility that Azula might hold such animosity was sufficient to strike Ursa to her core even further, but she knew that refuting this for Zuko's sake was a pointless endeavor. He had been here over the years to see her grow up, not Ursa, and he was the one who had been given such a deal of time to understand so much better than her what she might have grown into.

I've finally reunited with Zuko… now I need to go see what it is about Azula that has my son so frightened of her.

There came another twinge of disgust in her gut again, not due to her feelings towards Sasuke, but because, as she thought about coming face to face with Azula, after what she had just heard, the prospect was somehow much more daunting than seeing Zuko again.

---

Azula strode down the hall of the airship as if in a trance, which she sincerely felt like she was in. She had felt she was in a trance watching Toph being tortured, watching her daughter tap into her own hereditary nature, watching Sasuke return and the encounter they had all had with the spirits and their crossing over. She had felt as though she were in a trance as they had scurried to the Whisper and soared into the night, she had felt in a trance summoning Ty Lee into her room and watching her take her punishment as Azula used her body to try and restore feeling to her own numbed nerves. Azula had known through all that ordeal that she had been crying herself, that she had been likely a pathetic wreck standing above Ty Lee and raining blows down on her, wrapping her hands around her throat.

So why hadn't she been able to feel anything?

When Ty Lee had passed out, Azula had carried her to her own room and deposited her unceremoniously on her bed before returning to her own cabin where she had sat on the edge of her mattress, stock still for well over an hour before finding the resolve and purpose to stand. And so she found herself now, feeling almost as though she were a spirit herself, floating down the hallway of her vessel, and rather hoping she wasn't going to encounter anyone else on the way to her destination.

She reached the door after minutes of slow pacing and gently walked inside. It was one of the guest rooms, two beds within its dimly lit space, both of them occupied. Azula was surprised to see her daughter in one of them and strode over a touch quicker to examine Soza. The girl looked to be fine as far as Azula could tell, and she ran the back of her hand tenderly down Soza's face.

"My child…" she murmured and as she remembered the blood streaming from her daughter's eyes and the black fire that had burst forth from them, she leaned down, a wide smile stretching over her face.

"I'm so proud of you," she hissed and pressed a kiss to the girl's cheek before standing.

Turning away from Soza's bedside, Azula strode softly over to the room's other occupant. Looking down at the woman, she ran her tongue slowly over her upper lip before pulling in a breath and speaking in a tone that was much too loud to be used in a room laden with two sleeping individuals.

"Toph."

Her single utterance of the name resounded around the room briefly but neither the woman in question nor her daughter stirred, and the soft rising and falling of their chests indicated that they were indeed still in the deep swells of sleep. Satisfied that she was the only conscious soul in the room, Azula knelt down beside Toph's bed and reached a hand out.

Softly, she ran her fingers through Toph's black hair, pulling it behind her ear; her fingers slid further down then, past her ear, along her neck and over her bare shoulder.

You dared…

She slipped her hand between Toph's skin and the soft length of the mattress to reach far enough to feel her hands touch just barely against the skin where the mark lay, inhaling sharply as she did. She didn't need to set eyes on it to know that it was the same one that she bore on her chest, a mark she had ambiguously been so terribly fond of showing off over the years, watching countless noblemen and women flick their eyes to it when she wore more flattering clothing than her usual royal attire, no doubt believing it to be a tattoo of some kind. And Toph… Toph had bore one of the same all along.

Azula felt her lips pulling back over her teeth in what surely was a sign of savage disgust.

"How many times did you try and slip your dirt-ridden fingers between him and I?" Azula whispered to the dark of the room, withdrawing her hand from the mark on Toph's back. She felt it in its entirety, every curve and turn that she had engraved into her own memory; how many times had she lain back in bed, rubbing one hand over that mark while the other worked to pleasure herself, offering a completely different pleasure than she had ever felt with Ty Lee? How many times had she felt her hand drift lazily towards it during the day, an ever-present reminder of the victory she had achieved and as a memento of what she had lost?

Have I lost it? Have I lost… him?

There would be a reckoning to that end, no doubt. But for now, all she could do was scowl in anger that for over a decade, she had not been unique in her marking by the one person she had ever felt truly drawn to. Azula stood, looking down at Toph, feeling the utter disparity in the two women they were.

"You proved incredibly useful," she said, her voice still slithering over the room like a whisper, audible only to herself. "But if only you knew… just how much I wanted to carve the very flesh from my body every time I allowed my daughter to spend time with you. The idea of her mingling with not only a disgusting, despicable, deplorable woman like you was perhaps the most maddening thought that ever laid itself on me."

Azula remembered the words Sasuke had spoke to her, slurred and unfocused as she had slowly forced his body more into submission through the use of alcohol and drugs.

"That's what it was; that single horrible moment was what woke my eyes. That was the day my life became the travesty it now is."

He hadn't said much more than that, but just those words had been enough to plant the seed in Azula's head and the moment she had realized she was pregnant, she had started preparing herself for what she knew she had to do. Her daughter would have to suffer for her potential to truly awaken, so why wouldn't Azula allow the trigger of that awakening to be a person she would positively relish seeing hurt or killed? She allowed herself a sneer as she glared down at Toph.

"But it worked. The pain of a person I truly despise was enough to trigger that perfect storm in my daughter, and I now know that both my power and his lie within her bones."

Opening and closing her fists, Azula stretched her fingers and just then, a wild and perfect thought crossed her mind. Her heart began to thud with a swifter beat as she considered this sudden revelation.

"And now… now that you have served your purpose… perhaps its time that you… were removed from my daughter's life. I think you've inflicted quite enough damage on her as is."

It was so perfect that Azula couldn't figure how she had overlooked it. She had sought out Toph with the intention of confirming the mark she bore, but now, here she was, completely unable to resist being eliminated from the picture entirely. Azula felt her smile widening and her hands started to slip towards Toph's throat. She didn't think of how she would explain it away, how she would excuse this action; all she could see was an immediate and present solution to finally remove Toph from her life, this miserable stain of dirt who had plagued her for far too long. Azula thought to all the times she had seen Soza running off, all excited to see Toph and how she had been forced to stand there and act like there was nothing wrong with what was happening. Oh, how she had hated that.

But now… now I can end this. I can finally take this disgusting bitch and—

"I would have thought you would be at your daughter's bedside rather."

The voice should have made her jump, but Azula didn't move a muscle in response to hearing it speak up behind her. His tone was just as she remembered it from back then, smooth, low, deadly and perfect. Her hands retreating slowly away from Toph, Azula tilted her head back and closed her eyes, giving herself a brief moment to prepare for who she was about to see. Then, she opened them, and turned, meeting his eyes and realizing that she didn't feel at all numb anymore.

"Don't you think we ought to have a talk?" Sasuke asked, his eyes flickering darkly.