A/N: *slams fist on table* it's about time i give more introspection into zuko's thoughts dammit! anyways zuko is the poster child for cognitive dissonance and it's high time i dive into that. also, i kept changing this chapter because i have so many other scenes written for the story i just don't know what order to put them in BUT i had a breakthrough while writing this chapter so that's exciting (also pls keep reviewing i love attention i can't believe 50+ people follow this story wow omg)

Zuko visits Azula for the first time, a few days before he and Katara sit together at the turtleduck pond. She's kept not too far from the palace, in a small hut that once housed a dozen or so servants some odd years ago. He knows that in her right state of mind, Azula would recognize where she is and she'd come storming down to the palace to find him. It's faith that allows him to keep her here, though whether it's faith that she's still too unstable to recognize the land she grew up on, or that she wouldn't outright attack him again, he doesn't know.

Zuko's also not sure what he expects when he gets to the hut. The outer perimeter is laden with guards, marching in pairs to make sure no one gets in (and more realistically, to make sure a certain someone doesn't get out). When he enters, he's led by one of the caretakers he tasked with looking after his sister. He doesn't remember this specific woman's name. Jie? Jing? Ju? There's far too many people on his staff for him to have memorized every name already.

Regardless, the unnamed nurse eagerly explains all the progress Azula has made in such a short space of time and Zuko listens vaguely, to all the herbs and teas Azula has been made to consume to make her more at peace, to all the socialization they've been requiring of her to help her relate to others. It's not a far walk to the room Azula is kept in, but Zuko finds himself so deep in thought that it feels like centuries before he reaches his sister.

Briefly, he imagines Mai, rolling her eyes and berating him for ever wanting to see Azula. She's crazy Zuko. She almost killed the two of us. Why on Earth would you want to go see her? He wouldn't have an answer. He knows he shouldn't be keeping secrets. The potential for this to all go horrendously sour if Mai ever discovers that he's seeing Azula is too high for Zuko's liking. He knows Mai is trying her hardest to understand all that he is, all that he wants, and all that he needs, but she doesn't. She doesn't see his vision for their nation, she doesn't understand his connection with Katara and the others, and he knows in his heart that she wouldn't understand this.

He considered asking Katara for her opinion days ago, and he imagines, in that perfect world where she creeps into his room at all hours and he's free to be himself, that he'd bring up the idea of visiting Azula and Katara would offer him some support. She's your sister, Zuko, Katara would say. No one expects you to hate her.

Except, everyone expects him to hate her, and he knows he should, but he can't bring himself to.

In any event, he can never find the strength to ask Katara what he should do, so instead, he chases the waterbender out of his room and makes their interactions shorter. The less time he spends with Katara, the less likely he'll be to give into his silly, selfish wants...

And yet, here he is now, only seconds from seeing his sister.

"Your brother is here to see you, Princess," the nurse says softly. Zuko isn't sure when they reach his sister's new room. His thoughts had him thoroughly preoccupied and he's been mindlessly moving, only to find himself in an almost barren room with a woman he barely knows and a girl he should know much better than he feels he ever will.

It occurs to Zuko how little he thought this through when the nurse approaches Azula, who is currently lying in a small bed on the far side of the room. It definitely doesn't hold a candle to her old room in the palace, not at all. This room is a perfect square. Her bed is attached to the wall opposite the doorway. There's a large window to the left, a rectangular table on the right. Zuko doesn't budge from the door. The nurse enters the room by herself, quietly addressing the younger girl as not to startle her.

Azula, for some eerie reason, does not stir.

From the moment they reach the room, Zuko tries to take notice of everything about his sister. Her face seems fuller, rounder, as though it lost some of the sharpness to it. Still, the circles under her eyes seem to have swollen, permanently darkening the crevices on either side of her nose. Her hair has been cut, almost as short as Suki's. Weeks ago, Azula's hair was down her back and now it just barely brushes her shoulders. Half of it is pulled up in a small bun with a gold ribbon while the rest hangs evenly by her face. He remembers the Agni Kai when Azula's hair was jagged and cut at all sorts of angles. She looks much less unkempt now than she did before. Different. He can't decide if he's okay with how much things have changed.

Azula continues to lie on the bed, eyes half open until she recognizes Zuko's face. She looks away immediately and it almost seems ridiculous to Zuko when she flinches in surprise. All at once, she seems to panic; she gasps loudly and shuts her eyes so tightly he thinks she might burst into tears at any second.

"I don't understand," Azula says. Her eyes shift from Zuko to her caretaker and she looks scared. Betrayed. She swallows hard and her voice matches the emotion in her golden eyes. "You told me I would stop seeing things. You lied to me!"

"Is she alright?" Zuko asks. He takes a step forward but the nurse quickly whips her head around and throws her hand out protectively.

"Princess Azula has never had visitors since she's been under our care," the nurse says. "Sometimes she struggles with understanding reality; she has very bad delusions and she can't always tell when she's hallucinating or not. She's been much less violent but I fear that she may be having an episode right now."

"Because I'm here?" Zuko asks. The nurse ignores him. Despite Azula's sudden outburst, and the nurse's prompting, Zuko doesn't falter. He came all the way to see his sister. He'd be damned to have to back off so easily.

"Don't be like this, Princess," the nurse says, kneeling before Azula. There's something oddly motherly about the nurse and Zuko wonders if she fears for her safety, on her knees beside the bed of his unstable sister. The nurse never flinches, never hesitates, and he wonders how long it took for her to establish this relationship with his sister, if every day the nurse can speak to Azula without fear or if she has to push her cowardice behind a smile and a lie.

Azula still doesn't budge or even bother to offer a look in Zuko's direction.

"This isn't real," Azula says. She's frowning and beginning to cry, despite the nurse's attempts at calming her. Azula's eyes close and open several times as she stares at her older brother, as if she expects that she'll eventually open her eyes and find that he was never there at all.

"You're safe, Princess," the nurse promises, but Azula is already spiraling too far and too quickly for words alone to pull her back to the present moment.

"It won't disappear!" Azula screams, and for the first time in fourteen years, Zuko sees his sister, scared, hurt, and vulnerable.

"This is real, Princess," the nurse coos, but Azula is already desperate to make her thoughts quiet down. She sits up quickly, her eyes frantically wavering as she makes eye contact with her brother before she finally loses what little control the nurse swore she had and she begins to scream out at her brother.

"Leave me alone!" Azula yells. "You're not real!" She doesn't hesitate; she throws her arms out and the nurse ducks her head immediately, as if this has happened enough times for her to know how to act in this situation. Blue flames lick at Zuko's hands when he moves to defend himself. Azula clutches her head in her shaky hands and the nurse immediately holds Azula's wrists, rubbing soothing circles with her thumbs.

"I'm sorry, Fire Lord Zuko," the nurse says, sparing him a quick glance as she continues to comfort the now crying Azula, who continues to shake and sob on her bed. Zuko doesn't have to be told to leave. He gives the nurse an apologetic look, for asking her to care for his sister, for causing so much turmoil and commotion in such a short space of time. He's sorry for it all, but he leaves all the same, knowing that there's no way for him to fix this kind of damage.

He thinks of the sound of Azula's cries the entire walk back to the palace.

.

.

.

"What did you do to that man?" Zuko asks. It's been silent between them since he suggested they stop for the night before continuing their search for Yon Rha in the morning. According to Zuko's calculations, they're going to arrive in Yon Rha's village the next day. In his humble opinion, there's no need to go from the ship they'd just ambushed an hour ago straight to Yon Rha. They'd have more than enough time to confront him once they rested for the night.

There's a small fire in between them. Appa is sleeping off to the side, his snores as gentle as the summer breeze. Katara stares at Zuko, and he wants to ask if she's okay, but he still doesn't know if it's his place to. Her eyes are tired, dark circles hang beneath them. He can't tell if she's angry, or confused, or if the glare from the campfire is just painting intimidating shadows on her face. When he's certain she won't respond without further prompting, Zuko elaborates. "On the ship. You were... Controlling him somehow."

After a long while, she replies, "It's called bloodbending."

"I see," Zuko says, nodding his head. The fire crackles softly in front of them. "And this is something you've always been able to do?"

"No," she says. "Well, I guess I always could have, but... I only recently learned how to do it." For no real reason she adds, "I can only do it under a full moon." Zuko's gaze shifts to the sky and he stares a the moon, still full and glowing amongst the glittering stars. He looks at Katara and for a moment he thinks they have the same thought, that if she really wants to, she could end him right there. She has all the information she needs to get to Yon Rha without him. Zuko's worthless to her, nothing but dead weight, and all it would take was a flick of the wrist for her to bring him to his knees.

Still, he doesn't flinch. He doesn't back away, or beg her not to hurt him. It's in that moment that Katara realizes that Zuko's already accomplished something that she's still struggling with; he trusts her. He has no reason or right to, but he trusts her, and Katara doesn't know what to do about it.

"We should go to sleep," she says finally. She stands up to go fetch their blankets, and Zuko wonders to himself if Katara will be this forgiving when they finally find Yon Rha.

.

.

.

"You're burned," Mai says as she holds Zuko's hand in hers. It's not often that Zuko spends time with her alone, which he realizes is very odd considering that she is his girlfriend. It's even odder when he thinks about all the time he's spent alone with Katara, and he has found yet another reason to shorten the amount of time he spends with the Water Tribe girl. Now that he's visited Azula, he's noticed his nightmares have become worse. He thinks of what Azula would do if she ever did find her way out of the hut and back to the palace to see Katara and Mai taking up residence in her former home. The thought alone is enough to keep him on edge.

The couple is sitting in the courtyard when Mai makes the observation. Zuko suggested they walk around the palace grounds together, if for no other reason than to just be alone for a while. Mai agreed, as happily as her demeanor would allow, and they walked side by side all around the palace talking and passing the time before stopping in the courtyard to sit and enjoy the setting sun.

It's nice. Zuko isn't nearly as present as he should be in the conversation, constantly indulging in thoughts of his sister, of what she could possibly be doing right now, of the nurses currently risking their own wellbeing to look after her. He nearly misses Mai's statement until his mind replays the night before when his sister aimed at him and he wasn't quick enough to properly defend himself. He knew he'd been burned. He felt the all too familiar singe of fire on his skin at the time, but his adrenaline and fear had numbed it and blocked the moment from his memory until Mai made it resurface.

"Must be from sparring," he replies, too quickly to sound really believable. Mai quirks an eyebrow.

"How do you get burned and not even know it?" Mai asks. "Leave it to you, Zuko." He nearly gets defensive until he notices Mai's smile and he realizes she's teasing him. He's just being paranoid and reading her body language all wrong as usual. He lets the tension in his body go.

"Yeah," he chuckles, stiffly. Awkwardly. "Leave it to me." Mai doesn't have an immediate reply and he thinks that's the end of it. The conversation will be dropped and he won't have to lie anymore. He doesn't want to lie to her ever again.

"Katara can heal it, can't she?" Mai finally asks.

"She could," Zuko says. He doesn't mind though. He's suffered much worse burns, on his face and chest during battles, that he doesn't really care about the minor burn on his hands. Still, he doesn't think it's worth arguing about, and so he decides that, so long as his memory serves him, he'll ask Katara to heal him.

Zuko pauses for a moment as he considers the extent of Katara's healing ability, and thinks of Azula. "Do you think Katara could heal things that aren't physical?" he asks. It's a weird question, a longshot, and he knows there's no point in asking. He'll never be able to explain what he's truly thinking.

Mai looks at Zuko quizzically. "Like what?"

Zuko sighs. "I don't know... Never mind. I was just thinking out loud." Mai rolls her eyes, her lips still turned up in a small smile as she gives Zuko's hand a tight squeeze. He tries to find the gesture soothing. It's something sweet and innocent to comfort him in the subtle way Mai prefers to show her affection. He should feel better. He knows he should, but he can't. He's thinking of all the things he feels unable to say, all the things he's hiding from Mai. When she squeezes his hand, he's briefly reminded of the knives hiding under her sleeve.

When he feels enough time has passed, he pulls his hand away.