A/N: k this is a bit long but i feel like we gotta talk about how long this update took. for a while i lost interest in writing this fic and i knew forcing myself to write it would just make this fic suck, and i went through a lot to make the set up something i was proud of, so i figured not writing for a few weeks would help. then the end of the semester came up which meant no writing + i wrote 2 other versions (as in this is the third gosh darn time i've written this chapter jfc) because i figured if i was gonna be gone for so long this chapter had to be perfect. or as perfect as a fanfic chapter can be lol. so here we are. and i know i say this all the time but a legitimate goal for the new year is to update this fic consistently, especially since i have lots of ideas now since i've had some time to think about it. also, thank you to everyone who reads, favs, recommends, and reviews this fic y'all are the real mvps

"Do you really not want me to go?" Zuko asks. Mai sits beside him in his study, and he knows this is a very unfair question. For one, Mai's opinion doesn't actually matter (or at the very least, certainly not as much as Zuko is making it sound like it does). There's been far too much planning already invested in his departure. Nothing short of divine intervention could keep him in the Fire Nation. Mai included. On top of that, no matter what Mai says, he's well within his rights to start an argument here. If she tells him no, he can chastise her for standing in the way of finding one of the most important people to him. If she says yes, he can get on her for lying. At this point, he's really only asking to be terrible. It shouldn't please him this much to be this way.

Zuko knows where Mai stands on this (she really doesn't want him to go) and he knows where he stands on this (he's still somewhere between hurt and furious that she's acting this way) and quite frankly he's not going to attempt to come to any kind of compromise. This is important. She should know why it's important. The least she can do is not make him feel guilty for his decision.

"Are you going to answer my question?" Zuko prods again. He peeks at her but she's sitting with her arms crossed over her chest, avoiding his gaze. "Do you really not want me to go find my mother?"

Provoking her. He shouldn't be this excited to play with fire.

"Depends," Mai drawls. She's picking at her nails. "Do you want me to be honest?" There's a moment of stillness where Zuko could snap. He could bark at her for still undermining the importance of him looking for his mother and for being so snarky and treat her just as she treated him when he first told her he was leaving so that maybe she'll feel the same way―

He takes a deep breath. He won't let his frustration get the best of him.

"This isn't fair," Zuko says once he's calm enough to know he won't lose his temper. Mai doesn't react. Of course she doesn't. "You don't have to agree with me on everything, but I just wish you'd try to understand."

"I'm not going to stop you from leaving," Mai says. "But what you need to understand is this: What I want is for you to want to be here with me. I want you to stop letting your past, your feelings about your mother's disappearance, your anger about your childhood, and Azula and your father go. I want to be a priority to you, not an option―"

"Where is this coming from?" Zuko asks. "Everything was fine until―"

"Until what, Zuko?" Mai demands, her voice louder than usual. "And don't you dare say until you said you were leaving because you know that's a lie. Things weren't right between us long before that happened."

Zuko concedes. She makes a good point, one that he doesn't want to acknowledge. Things haven't been good between them for a very long time now but he can't figure out why. He thought time would fix things. He thought apologies would fix things. He thought if they were meant to be, they would've figured out things between them. But this doesn't feel repairable. It feels damaged, irreconcilable, like a fire was started that's lapping up everything, and neither of them can contain it.

"What happened?" he finally asks. He doesn't know how to be more specific than that. They've had rough times before, ugly, horrible times, arguments, spats, break ups, but he doesn't remember things ever being this bad. It's never ever been like this.

"I can't be everything," Mai says. "When you were first recovering from the Agni Kai with Azula, I tried to be patient and nurturing and supportive. But that's not who I am, not really. And I'm not going to change for you, Zuko, you should know that."

"I don't want you to change."

"Then you don't want me."

It's deathly quiet. Zuko hates it. Mai is staring at him now, her eyes wide, wavering, passionate. He's never seen her emote this much before, raising her voice, eyes wet and shimmering, voice dry and cracking. He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know if there's anything he can say.

"I just don't know how to be what you need," Mai continues. She swallows thickly. "You need me to understand the things you do and how you feel but I just don't get it, Zuko. I don't understand why you care about the Earth Kingdom. I don't get why you had to join the avatar, or why right now, you're going to drop everything to chase rumors that your mother has been hiding out in Ba Sing Se for years. I keep trying to understand, I keep trying to get it, but it feels like the more time I spend with you, the more I get to know, the more of a stranger you become."

Zuko considers this for a moment. Maybe she's right. Maybe she doesn't know him. And maybe she deserves to.

When he blurts out the next thing on his mind, he justifies it with that reasoning.

"I've been visiting Azula," he says. "She's not in prison, either. She's under the care of physicians for her mental issues. And I didn't tell you because I knew you wouldn't like it. But the past few weeks, between meetings, late at night, whenever I had the time... I've gone to see her. To talk to her. To make sure she's okay." Zuko's first instinct is to look down. He waits for an angry verbal attack that's sure to follow a confession of that caliber. Mai risked her life to save him from his sister. He can't imagine the assault that's sure to ensue.

Instead, Zuko is met with silence. He has no choice but to look at Mai. The expression on her face, the anger, the betrayal is something Zuko wishes he hadn't seen. He'll be lucky if he ever forgets it. She seethes, balling her hands into fists in her lap as her expression towards him sours.

"I really don't understand you, Zuko." She forces the words out between barred teeth. She stands to leave his study, but before she reaches the door, she pauses to add, "And I don't think I ever will."

.

.

.

There's a very small stack of unfinished letters on Katara's desk that she fears she may never get to complete.

It's barely been a week since Zuko made his declaration to leave for Ba Sing Se, and with that, came an onslaught of responsibilities that needed to be taken care of. One is attending dozens upon dozens of meetings to get caught up on the situation as it unfolds in the Earth Kingdom. Katara had made it abundantly clear that if Zuko was going on a mission to find his mother, she would be there to accompany him and he was surprisingly complicit. It crosses her mind that maybe his intentions were never to send her home per se, just to get her out of the toxic palace environment. Ba Sing Se might not be the ideal substitute, but it's better than the Fire Nation, and at least now, Zuko is accepting of her presence.

The only downside to this is that Katara is all but required to go to these meetings with Zuko (after all, it's the easiest way to get her up to speed on everything she needs to know about what they're about to dive into) and she barely has time to process anything. The meetings are fast paced and back to back, impossible to distinguish from one another. Her days bleed into a constant stream of mental stimulation, trying to narrow down where the lost princess might be, figuring out what needs to be done before Zuko leaves and who will cater to what tasks while he's gone.

There's also reading, lots and lots of reading from these meetings, and occasionally, Zuko will hand Katara a couple of scrolls and ask her to look them over. That night is no exception. She's in bed, half dressed, scanning over another scroll while pacing around her room. It's a compilation of incident reports, rather mundane and boring, but she forces her eyes to skim over the reading on the parchment. There's no telling what might be useful. She can't afford to get distracted.

It could be worse after all. There's been plenty of scrolls that Zuko has tasked her with reading that went straight over her head. Even if she's not particularly intrigued by this reading, she'll at least understand it.

She tucks her hair, which is now loose and in long tousled waves on her shoulders, behind her ears, mumbling while she reads. Assault. Larceny. Theft. Arson. Theft. Theft. Battery. Theft. She struggles to make it through the list before she notices something different. Disturbing the peace. There's more crimes listed, but she notices as she goes on a pattern is forming; there's more and more incidents marked as 'disturbing the peace' with few if any suspects listed.

The details are what really catch her attention. A handful of the incidents seem like average behavior, loud, disorderly conduct, or lewd public acts, but a few of them, too many to be coincidental list the destruction of property around Ba Sing Se. No weapon was found at the scene of the crime. It is likely that the property was destroyed through use of bending, though there is little evidence that this was the result of either earth or firebending. No suspects were brought into questioning.

Another three incidents have an almost identical summary. Katara tries not to get ahead of herself and let her mind wander to what she knows is a dangerous place, but she finds herself rushing to her desk anyway, scroll in hand, searching for the letters that were addressed to her not too long ago. The letters she started writing lay on top, half finished and smudged and she tosses them lazily to the side. Aang's letters are both folded neatly, and she winces, only slightly, when she touches them. She still hasn't read them yet, and now she's worried it's far too late to.

At the very least, now is not the time.

She rests his letters elsewhere and grabs the ones written by Hakoda and Sokka. Hakoda's is short and quaint, but not what she's looking for. Her heart starts thumping and she wonders if maybe she made this up in her head, maybe she's not going to find what she's looking for in Sokka's letter.

It's too late to deny the hope bubbling up in her chest. There's a possibility she won't find what she's looking for, sure. But there's a chance that maybe she will.

She pries Sokka's letter open with shaking fingers, trying not to drop it as she reads. She can practically hear her brother's voice, but she can't be distracted by how much she misses him. She needs to know if she's right in her assumptions. She needs some confirmation.

When she finds the line she's looking for, she can't help but shriek in response.

I haven't heard much from Aang, but there's rumors going around that he's not the last airbender. People in the Earth Kingdom say there are airbenders scattered around the world, still in hiding until they can all regroup and find each other.

Katara bites her tongue when she reads the line.

It might not relate to his mother, but it something she knows she'll have to tell Zuko in the morning.

.

.

.

There's no reason for Zuko to tell Azula as much as he does about his plans to go to the Earth Kingdom. For one, she's not very responsive. He's starting to realize now that for most visits, she's perfectly alright. She understands when people talk to her and she follows directions; she just chooses to be silent. Which is fine. He'd rather sit in silence than have to sit through a dozen of her taunts.

And sometimes she actually will say things and interject here and there. Probably not enough to make this an actual conversation, but enough to prevent Zuko from monologuing. So long as they're civil, and Azula responds occasionally, there's no harm in him coming to her, even if there's nothing to gain from these interactions.

Still, it's a nice break to be here, to vent to someone so he's not constantly dumping on Katara or dealing with Mai's criticism. It's a getaway almost. A hideaway.

The irony doesn't go unnoticed.

For just a minute, Zuko wants to look at his sister and engrave her face to his brain. Her hair is just about touching her shoulders now, and he's noticed, even if she still looks distant and uninterested, she looks better. Her cheeks have color, her eyes are brighter, even if the difference is minimal from when she was first placed in this hut. He looks at her and feels hope.

"Will mother want to see me when she comes back?" Azula asks. She's staring off to the side, not at Zuko, and it's one of the first things she's said this visit. Not that there was much of a chance for her to say anything. Zuko had briefly explained places in Ba Sing Se where they were likely to start looking and Azula only seemed to be paying a minimal amount of attention.

"Yes," he says, and after a pause he adds, "You've always been so hard on yourself when it comes to her."

"You were always her favorite." Azula finally faces her brother. This stings him. The focus of most of their interactions over the years had always been Ozai's affection. For years after their mother's disappearance and Zuko's banishment, Azula prided herself on being favored by their father.

It all means little now that their father is imprisoned.

"You're not a monster," Zuko finally says. "I know you think that's how our mother saw you, but it's not." Azula puckers her lips.

"You're a fool if you believe that," she says. She plucks at the loose thread of her clothes.

"I mean it," Zuko says. "I think, considering everything we've been through, she'd be proud of how you ended up."

"Proud," Azula snorts. "If she's going to patronize me as much as you do, I might not want to see her after all."

"If I find her," Zuko adds. Azula raises her eyebrows.

"You will," she says. There's something about her tone he can't describe. Something certain, something a bit too logical for him to call it hope.

Or maybe, this is as close as she comes to hoping.

Azula stops talking, and Zuko thinks that maybe this is as close as they'll come to camaraderie.

.

.

.

Zuko's sitting on his bed while Katara sits crosslegged on the floor, refusing to look away from the boy across from her. It's too early to tell if it's going to rain today; the sky is still a faded periwinkle as the sun hasn't fully risen, but the air feels thick and humid. She prays the clouds will finally have mercy and allow it to rain, if for no other reason than to have a piece of her element.

"I'm just saying," Zuko begins, his tone a bit defensive. "I really think you could do a lot of good if you were in the South Pole." It takes a lot of self control for Katara not to groan. They should be over this already. There's only so many ways Katara can say she's not going home if she feels like Zuko still needs help, and venturing to find his mother is something she knows will open old wounds and leave him more vulnerable than he can even predict. If he thinks she'd let him suffer through that alone, he's leagues out of his damn mind.

But she knows, even if he won't admit it, something must've happened to bring him back to this point. Between the extra meetings and planning and added stressors, something had to have happened to reset his opinion, if only for this small sliver of time, on her going with him to Ba Sing Se. It's written in the dark circles under his golden eyes, the tenseness of his body, the somberness of his voice. Something happened and she's not sure what it was.

"I know I could," she eventually retorts. The first raindrops begin to fall outside the grand window of Zuko's chamber and when Katara sighs, it feels as though the Earth is sighing with her. "And I will, after we find your mother."

"I really mean it, Katara. Once the military is redistributed and some of my people are there to help rebuild the Water Tribes, it might do some good if you were there to oversee things."

"I'm not letting you go to the Earth Kingdom by yourself," Katara says. Her eyes land on his for a definite moment before she smiles. "You can't get rid of me, you know that? Nothing you do will make me leave you alone, Zuko."

He chuckles quietly. "So it would seem."

It's quiet, except for the faint pitter patter of raindrops finally pelting the Earth and Zuko finally speaks again. "I'm not trying to get rid of you, you know. I'm glad you're coming with me." The warmth that swells up in Katara's belly at Zuko's remark manifests itself as a smile.

And then, it's quiet for a bit, except for the rain. Katara looks at Zuko, and he just looks... tired. Shoulders slumped, eyes drooping, struggling, and failing to swallow his yawns. She can't blame him. If anyone had come to wake her at this early hour, she's not sure she'd be any better off than Zuko is now. But it's not just physical with him. It runs far deeper than that. When she came knocking on his door this morning, clutching a dozen scrolls and ignoring the cringes of the guards―who had strongly advised against her waking the Fire Lord―she could tell from one look that he wasn't himself. He was distant and off and... This is proof that he needs her here still, at least for a while longer.

"You know," Katara clears her throat, and Zuko looks up at her for the first time in a while. "I haven't heard anyone mention anything about Mai in this trip." If Zuko tries to hide his reaction, he does a poor job of it. Katara's never seen anyone's face change so rapidly before, from blank to enraged and hurt and back to a false look of indifference.

"She's not going," he says, jaw tight.

"Oh," Katara mumbles. The air is still. "I guess I just assumed―"

"It's just you and me," he says. His voice is definite, affirmative, and despite his averse reaction, Katara can't deny that she's glad it'll just be the two of them on this trip. Zuko, she can work with. Zuko, she can trust. Mai, gloomy, dreary, apathetic Mai... Not so much. Regardless of her justifications of it, it doesn't stop Katara from feeling guilt nip at her for being so selfish for thinking this way.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Katara's words are slow and cautious, as if she's preparing for Zuko to pull back the way he often does whenever he becomes vulnerable like this.

"I'd rather hear about what you came to tell me. You brought up Ba Sing Se and I got sidetracked, but you mentioned that you had something to say." Sidetracked is an understatement, considering the fact that Zuko had taken the conversation and completely steered it from Katara, coming to his room with the intentions of telling him about her recent revelation, and Zuko had somehow managed to regress back into shipping her to the South Pole, but Katara decides to leave well enough alone. She knows he's deflecting the attention away from what's bothering him, but she also knows that soon enough, they'll be out of the Fire Nation and it'll just be them, away from this wretched place. The change of scenery will be good for him. For both of them.

"Well, I do," Katara says. Zuko's interest is obviously piqued.

"Go on."

"Have you been able to narrow down where your mother might be?" Katara asks as she shifts through the scrolls she brought in.

"Nothing concrete," Zuko says. "It's impossible to know for sure where she would've ended up; she was banished almost seven years ago, before my father was coronated. A lot of people didn't know what she looked like, so most wouldn't be able to identify her unless they really saw her eyes." Katara looks confused and Zuko quickly points at his own face. "Gold eyes, like a lot of Fire Nation citizens." Katara nods as Zuko continues on. "There have been possible sightings in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se, understandably, from all the refugees... It's possible that any of them might be her, but I can't really confirm any of it. But most missing people found in Ba Sing Se seem to turn up in the lower ring. It's the easiest place to hide since it has the highest population."

"That's just what I was thinking," Katara says. She grabs the crime reports she'd been looking at the night before. "This won't really help us find your mother, but I was looking at crimes in Ba Sing Se and I started noticing a pattern here, with instances of vandalism and disturbing the peace, but no suspects. People were reporting property damage, but they couldn't identify it. Didn't seem like a weapon was involved, didn't seem like earthbending, couldn't be firebending."

"And what do you think?" Zuko asks. It's incredibly satisfying for Zuko to put so much importance on her opinion.

"Do you remember when I got a few letters sent to me? Sokka sent me one, and he mentioned that there's been rumors of surviving airbenders. And when I was looking at these crime reports, all in the areas where your mother seems to be, I just got to thinking... I know it's a long shot, but... I thought it was an interesting possibility." Zuko seems to be mulling this over.

"Wow," is all he manages to say.

"I mean, we don't necessarily have to do anything about it. I just thought this was something you'd like to know about, as Fire Lord."

"As Fire Lord," Zuko repeats, and he almost cringes as if the weight of these words could crush him. Now, for this brief moment, Katara can see it. She sees Zuko, young, vulnerable, and so completely human, but with a title that binds him to his land and his people, and thrusts a responsibility that no one his age should ever have to carry. She doesn't speak, she merely walks over to his bed and wraps her arms around him. From where he sits, his face is buried in the blue of her tunic, gently pressed against her abdomen, surrounded by her wavy hair. And for a while, they stay like this, Katara, gently holding him and swaying and letting her fingers curl the hairs at the back of his neck, sharing his warmth and letting him, for once, have a moment of weakness.

After a while, Zuko finally reciprocates, throwing his arms around Katara's waist. She continues to sway. Outside, the rain starts to pour.