starbuck151: Yeah that one was a hard chapter. And thank you so much, I think that it was one of the strongest ones in this fic. I was hoping for something heart stopping and emotional. Something heavy but with a touch of hope at the end. She has been through so much but as you said, she has people to help her go through everything and that means the world.

Aww, glad to hear it! This fandom can get so wild sometimes (especially on tumblr) so pleasant interactions are always treasures. I turned to the ATLA and fic writing during the pandemic as well. A lot of really personal and bad stuff happened at that time so fics and reading reviews just helped make it more bearable. The Sokkla community has just been amazingly friendly. Of all of the facets of the fandom I've interacted with I feel like the Sokkla fandom has just been the most welcoming to me. I agree that it's been a treat for sure!

And thanks again! It's definitely been interesting managing four fics and an original. I went and tossed femslash February on top of it lol. But like I'm not doing all of the dates like I did the last two years.

When she wakes she isn't truly so. She is mostly dazed. Dazed with pain and numbness. There is a physical emptiness to accompany it. She can't feel the baby's kick. She already knows that she won't be feeling it again.

She could cry out for help. Could stumble her way out of the house, clutching her bleeding belly. But she doesn't have a reason to. Instead she crawls over to Atsu and cradles him in her arms. He is so still. She can't handle it. She carries him over to Hajime and lays him atop the man's chest.

She still can't find Caihong.

She doesn't think that she wants to.

She nuzzles herself up against Hajime to the best of her ability with those loathsome boulders in the way. And she stays there. For a very long time she stays there.

She stays there until an army from Chin comes to survey the wreckage, recover bodies, and rescue survivors.

They rescue her but she wouldn't call herself a survivor.

She thinks that most of her is dead.

All of the parts that matter anyhow.

Yet they lift her away from Hajime and Atsu anyways with a promise to help her give them a proper and honorable burial. She wants them to pitch her into the hole and bury her with them.

She is mostly delirious. She doesn't quite remember much of the trip to Chin. She doesn't think that there is anything to recollect she was too far away for it to have meant anything. And now she is tired.

Tired and as alone as she has ever been.

No one comes to hold her hand and make her sickbed more tolerable. No one is left to come for her.

She thinks of Min-Min, of her small medicine tent and she wonders if the woman has perished as well. She flexes her ankle. She didn't think that she would be seeing Min-Min much after than but then Atsu had a fever. And then she...she…

She holds her hand to her belly, freshly stitched and bathed.

Freshly and suddenly vacated.

She screams.

Anger. Terror. Rage.

Mostly rage.

She had been okay. She had been better. She was fixing herself. She had plans; perhaps it was going to be years, decades maybe, after the birth of her baby, but she was going to go home. She was going to go home and resolve things left unfinished. She was going to be okay.

Why can't she be okay?

She thinks that maybe it is because she isn't allowed.

She has done too much wrong...killing the Avatar doesn't make for good karma, even if he ended up living.

She can't do it. She doesn't want to. Her fingers graze the stitch work. It would only take one hard yank and...her screams have drawn attention. She feels a hand come around her wrist. "Don't mess with that." The woman says. "In fact we should get this bandaged, I don't know why it hasn't been already."

The woman is kind to her. They are all kind and tentative. They tell her their names as they tend to her wounds and make promises that she will be fine in time. They tell her their names, yes, but she makes a point to not remember them. She doesn't want to get attached. One way or another the things she gets attached to leave her.

The stress and the sorrow make her sick. Physically so, her head hurts constantly and her stomach is always upset. Though that can be the product of losing her baby. She isn't sure. She doesn't care. She is ready to be lost too.

On most nights Azula screams. She cries. She has fits until the doctors sedate her, she welcomes it, it is the only peace she can get. And it is a false serenity. A numb serenity. On most nights she relives it all again. On most nights she sees their faces.

Hajime's, Atsu's, Caihong's, and Seukhyun's. Mostly she sees the face of the half-blind soldier and the woman.

She will find them both.

She will find them and pick them apart in ways that only the throes of grief-induced insanity can show her. She will kill the both of them and then she will show herself out-let Vaatu tangle her in his coil his dark, spirit tendrils around her and drag her off to his domain.

She grips her face in her hands, nails biting into her hairline. She can't take it, truly she can handle no more. And just like the first time, there is no one to take her through it. No one to make it better.

And it is her own fault.

They would still be alive if she had just kept wandering.

She is a beacon for misfortune.

But she was born lucky, she remembers.

That day she learns...what's the point in learning anything at all if all roads lead to the same dead end?

.oOo.

If she listens hard enough she can still hear them. Mostly they remind her that they love her. Sometimes they blame her. They ask her why she didn't save them. Deep down, even on the surface, she is aware that they would never say anything of the sort. But sometimes she can't help but agree with them anyhow.

Lately she can't get them to stop and so she goes through most of her days quietly, hazily. Exhausted.

"Hi, Azula!" TyLee greets.

Azula goes tense, she isn't in the mood or place to power through another awkward, stumbling conversation however well meant it is.

"Are you feeling any better?"

She isn't at all. She starts to nod that she is, but she has hesitated for too long.

"What's wrong."

"You can read the journal when Zuko is done with it." She replies simply. She doesn't need TyLee to know that she still hears things. She doesn't need any of them to know that.

"Mai and I were thinking of going to the hot springs today, do you want to come with?"

She supposes that it is better than lingering at home. Maybe she can drown the voices out. Let them rise away with the steam. "Alright." TyLee grins and flounces off before she can change her mind. Agni, she hopes that no one will ask her about the scar. Maybe she should just bathe in her robe, it will save the serving girls the trouble of one more article in the laundry.

.oOo.

Azula leans back and exhales. The heat envelopes her body and the steam rolls off of her skin-that which is exposed anyhow. She splashes water over her face and tips her head back, back, back until only her face is on the surface. She pulls her head out of the water and lets it run in rivulets down her back.

"It feels nice, doesn't it?"

"Refreshing, yes." Azula agrees.

"Well I don't see a better way of spending the afternoon." Mai shrugs.

Azula can't disagree, the churning and bubbling of the water is rather soothing and the kaleidoscope of soap aromas is charming enough. She relaxes back against the rocks. Her hair fans out and her robe billows.

"Why are you still wearing your robe?" Mai asks.

"It's comfortable." She isn't particularly lying, the fabric drifting and shifting with the flow of the water, quite pleasantly brushes her skin. Watching it ebb and flow is almost mesmerizing. It is lulling, her weary exhaustion metamorphs into a more languid, comforting tiredness. And maybe she is due for a good nap.

She supposes that one day away from her rigid firebending regime couldn't hurt her. In fact it very well may help.

"It looks comfortable." TyLee agrees.

Azula lifts her arm out of the water and her robe clings to it.

"It might not be as comfortable when you get out." Mai points out.

Azula shrugs. "I've had worse."

For a while she listens to Mai and TyLee talk amongst themselves. There is a sense of distant normalcy in hearing them chatter. She remembers days when they would make idle conversation as she poured over schemes and plans. She supposes that they always had a sort of chemistry that she was just on the outer fringes of.

"Are you okay, Azula?" TyLee asks.

"You seem distant." Mai adds.

"Just thinking." She does that a lot. She does that too much. At least this time her thoughts are over things that she has mostly processed and forgotten. Mostly accepted. She toys with the drifting fabric. She is certain that the two of them have grown much closer in her absence. She isn't sure that she really fits into the picture anymore, she isn't sure that she ever truly had. She was a leader nothing more, nothing less. There might have been a bond, at least a small one but she hadn't known how to make anything of it. They have a bond that she can't...

"Are you sure that you're okay?" TyLee asks again.

She isn't.

"I'm alright."

Maybe she should tell them the truth. Tell them that she ought to just keep her distance.

"Sokka said that last night was rough."

"Today isn't last night. I am fine now." Maybe she just needs to give it more time. Maybe she is seeing problems where there doesn't have to be any. She misses Wu-Jing where things just happened naturally. Where they just fell into place.

"Would you even tell us if something was wrong?" Mai sighs.

Azula is quiet for a good while. "No. Not yet."

Mai nods. She doesn't like the look TyLee gives her. The concern and the hurt. Even if trust wasn't a factor she isn't sure that she'd be able to talk about it a second time. She has ruined a perfectly relaxed mood. She dunks her head under the water again. "I am going to dry off."

"Okay." TyLee smiles. "Maybe we can try this again when you're feeling better."

"That sounds nice."

.oOo.

"How did it go with Mai and TyLee?" Sokka asks.

"Well enough, I suppose." She draws her legs onto the sofa and sits upon them.

"You're soaking wet." He observes.

She ought to change her robes and ring her hair out. But she has already sat down. "We went to the springs."

"And you left your robe on?" He quirks a brow.

"TyLee would ask." She shrugs. "About the scar." She rubs her thumb against it. "I don't want to answer questions."

"Okay, no questions." He fixes her with a look, a strange one. Perhaps something mischievous. "Actually, one question. Do you like your pancakes with or without little smiley faces?"

"I like my pancakes served at breakfast time, not lunch time."

"Okay, but let's just say that some dashing, hilarious, and very charming fellow has made some pancakes. Do you want it to have a smiley face made out of fruits."

She rolls her eyes. "He can have full creative control."

"Smiley face it is!" He declares.

She clears her throat. "While you do that, I am going to…" she gestures to her robe. He gives her a thumbs up and she makes her way to her bedroom. She discards her waterlogged robe and slips into a particularly oversized shirt and baggier pants. They are comfortable enough.

She fixes her pendant around her neck and tucks it under her shirt. She picks up the stone next and rubs her thumb over its surface. She thinks that she will have it sewn into the badgermole. She thinks that she will sew it into the badgermole.

But she doesn't know how to sew. She scoops the stone and the badgermole up and places them on her bed.

.oOo.

"This would taste much better if it were breakfast time."

Sokka rolls his eyes. "It would taste just the same!"

She shakes her head, "my sense of taste is the strongest in the morning."

"That's not even possible?" But she says it with such a confidence that it might just be. "Did I do a good job?"

She looks down at the pancake. "This eye is lopsided. But it is fine. Also, this strawberry chunk isn't in line with the rest of them."

Sokka sighs and pushes that chunk slightly upwards. "Better?"

"Significantly." She replies. He watches her pour a small helping of syrup over it. "Do you know how to sew, Sokka?"

"I know enough to patch up clothes if I have to. Why?"

"I have a project that I would like to work on. A patch will do just fine."

"Finish your pancake and I can get working on it."

She shakes her head. "I want to do it. You show me how."

"Okay, I can do that." He smiles. He hadn't expected her to return the smile. She has a nice smile, a soft, pretty smile. He hopes that he can make it last.