So, we enter the spirit world, and exit it, and enter it again. You'll see why. They basically code Azula in this chapter. Sorry again about the long wait.

Zuko was reeling with disbelief and panic. He heard the guard screaming, and then he bent the door open with a flourish only to find his sister crumpled on the floor next to the feeding trough, a collection of red fluid pooling to the side of her.

"I couldn't stop her!" the guard yelled. "The doctor didn't think she was suicidal…"

Zuko broke his chains then grappled at Azula's neck for a pulse. Finding none, he ordered the guard to go for help. When three of the King's physicians arrived and found no pulse they descended on her abdomen and the wound.

Dr. Ping was among them, and he gave rescue breaths and chest compressions, while Zuko stayed at her head and looked on, stunned…

# # # # #

"It's been such a long time, Avatar Aang. You probably don't remember me."

Aang blinked against the ethereal purple and blue mists of the spirit world that drifted aside to reveal the pale face of an airbending woman in orange robes. Behind her a giant leafless tree loomed in the distance. She smiled sadly at him.

The Avatar was about to say 'You're right, I don't remember you,' but he stopped himself and studied her for just a minute more before the memory came back. "You gave me Appa,"

Pei Chen gave a little nod. "That's right. Sister Loi and I. You're here for another reason."

"Someone or something is tormenting my…." Aang stopped himself. Just what was Azula to him? They couldn't really call themselves friends, or even enemies any more. In truth, their relationship was a forced, weird thing that existed because it had to, because Zuko was one of his best friends, and he was stuck being the Medical Power of Attorney for her.

"I know," Pei Chen didn't wait for him to finish. "I gave her bad advice, I'm afraid. When Sozin died our people took up the task of keeping him bound within the spirit world. When Azula came for the book, her energy gave him power to break free from the bonds we kept about him for the past century. "

"She stirred something up when she went for the book," Aang concluded.

Pei Chen nodded "Deep down, she really does love those bison, and they love her. Animals don't judge the way that humans do. She wants to rebuild them; I wanted to help her." Pei Chen cleared her throat. "You see she's very…"

"Impaired," Aang finished for the spirit. "I told Zuko I would face this thing. I can feel it, but I don't' know what it is. What am I looking for Pei Chen?"

The spirit sighed. "A tormented soul whose crushed ambitions are being forced upon a very troubled young woman." Suddenly Pei Chen's eyes widened, as if in shock. Her hand stayed on her chest, and stumbled, as if in shock. "She's here! I can feel her. Why is she here unless she's…" The spirit trailed off but Aang instinctively knew what she was talking about.

His eyes drifted to the left. The man in Fire Nation royal dress seemed familiar to him, though he had never really seen him. "It's been a long time Avatar."

Azula was in his arms, held and paralyzed by a head lock.

# # # #"

"You have to shock her," the surgeon repeated. He was a younger doctor, but very capable, and a trusted colleague of Dr. Ping's.

Zuko stared at him blankly. Not only was he reeling emotionally from his sister's apparent death, but he wasn't completely sure of his lightning bending skills. He'd only shot at inanimate objects, and he'd usually destroyed them in the process. He'd never thought of touching a human being with his raw and unfocused skill.

He looked down at the lower half of her body and immediately wished he hadn't. Two of the King's surgeons had slit her open, and he caught the glint of metal instrumentation as it sorted through the red glistening mass they'd exposed in order to find and stay the right artery.

"Technically, she's already dead," the doctor explained. "You can't do her any more harm." The surgeon went back to his work and barked directions to a nurse who was holding a lantern and a suction device.

The whole scene made Zuko ill, and yet he found he couldn't look away. He was paralyzed, and the only thing that rejuvenated him was Dr. Ping manipulating his fingers so that one was at the top of her chest and one to the side.

Zuko focused on the green of his eyes.

"It can start her heart again," Dr. Ping assured the FIrelord. "I've seen it done before. Use the least amount of energy you can."

"Can't someone else?" Zuko's voice cracked with the question.

Dr. Ping shook his head. "None of my associates are firebenders. Focus. It's her best chance."

So Zuko took a shaking breath, and then he did.

# # # # #

A flash went through Azula's spirit, and then she vanished.

Sozin's eyes went red with anger and she looked about for his prize. "Impossible!"

Aang wasn't sure of what was going on either. All he knew is that Azula was there one minute and gone the next. Why was anyone's guess.

# # # # #

"I have a pulse!" The declaration was a shock, more so than the one that Zuko had sent through Azula's heart.

Kuei arrived a second afterward, and he was an unparalleled emotional mess. He nearly knocked over Zuko in order to get to her. He kneeled, placing her head in his lap as she sputtered into a world of consciousness and horrible pain.

The nurse was ready with the shirshu venom the moment Azula came conscious. The pain was plain and raw in her eyes, and it caused her to writhe, making the surgeon's work impossible. Paralysis was an unwelcome, but necessary assistant to the doctors.

Her eyes fluttered open in horror after the venom was in; they were the only part of her she could move.

The King held her head in his lap. "Dearest, now, you're going to be all right! Look at me. Don't stop looking at me!"

So she didn't. She held his gaze, and truthfully she didn't want to look away from him. There was a safety and a comfort in his eyes, a feeling of acceptance that she had never received from another lhuman being. They also confirmed for her what she had to do. So Azula did as Kuei asked, looking deep into his eyes, communicating what she couldn't with words.

Then…

"We're losing her!"

"Again?"

"Where's that therapist of hers? She's a waterbender isn't she?"

"Will that even help? She's lost too much blood!"

"Aren't all waterbenders bloodbenders? She could use a transfusion.""

"That's experimental!"

Her brother is here; his blood should be a good match?"

While the three doctors argued about how best to save her, Azula darted out of the physical world.

# # # # #

When she came back into the spirit world a second time, Sozin and Aang were facing each other in a pre-confontational stance that was about to dissolve into a brawl.

But Azula intervened before that could happen. Over the past month or so she had been running from Sozin. She had been afraid because she didn't really understand what he was; but now that she did, she was ready for him, emotionally and spiritually, and she was very, very pissed.

Azula had never been a warm and cuddly person. She probably never would be, but her spirit looked so blatantly livid at that Aang couldn't believe his eyes. Her attitude was raw, it manifested in a bright orange that swirled about her like the fire she had bended in life.

Her amber eyes were absolutely livid as he grabbed Sozin and flipped his spirit through the mists before he could react to her reappearance. As he landed, she was ready with her elbow and knee, which pinned him neatly to the earth.

Aang had to catch his breath as he watched the two of them. He was also torn. Typically it was his job as the Avatar to intervene in spirit world matters, but in this case, Azula didn't seem to need any help. Regardless, he moved closer to the feuding spirits, ready to assist if they should need it.

He watched Azula jab her foot again into Sozin's back for emphasis. "It's time for you to leave me alone! You and that trashy version of myself!"

Despite his vulnerable position, Sozin chuckled victoriously. "She will never leave you alone. She is you, just as much as she is me."

Azula's eyes flamed. "Great, so you're a cross dresser in addition to a megalomaniac." But then, in spite of herself, a gentle and malicious smile graced her lips. "That means she's also not a hallucination! And you are extremely gender confused!"

And with much satisfaction and abject anger, Azula hauled Sozin above her head and hurled him unceremoniously through the ethereal purple mists a second time, like a cat tossing a mouse.

Meanwhile, Aang looked on, stunned. He came with the intention of helping. He really truly did. By nature, he was a helpful person, but he wasn't quite sure what he was doing there. Because Azula pretty much seemed to have everything under control.

Said control became especially evident when the Sozin landed a stone's throw away and Azula pinned him with her elbow.

"You can't deny what you are!" the defeated King hissed.

Azula's eyes turned hard and cold. "Have I ever? I am a schizophrenic sociopath with a nastiness and temper that rivals yours. But I've come to learn that even nastiness has its place in an imperfect world."

She was about to throw him a third time when Azula felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Pei Chen holding a stream of threads that shone gold in the mists of the spirit world. She bent over and tied Sozin's hands neatly with them.

"Since you have chosen a more admirable path, he will no longer have the energy to cross over and torment you," Pei Chen explained. "In his weakened state, and with the Avatar's help, I will bind and imprison him here. He will no longer be able to enter the physical world." She nodded toward the tree in the distance, under which, legend said, another evil spirit lay imprisoned.

Azula's face fell; Aang thought she even looked..sad, which for Azula was extremely weird. Even stranger, her whole spirit paled from the flaming human to a pale ruby spirit who seemed a shadow of what she had been only moments before. "I don't think that makes a difference now. I'm dead," her voice was like a whisper.

At that instant another shimmer ran through Azula. She vanished, only to reappear a second later.

Azula looked at her hands. "What…what's going on?!"

"You're dead, " Aang stated, "But you won't be for long."

And she wasn't.

# # # #

By the time Aang got back from the spirit world Azula was halfway done with her surgery. It took two and half hours of excruciating pain before they could make her whole again.

They had a good paralytic, Shirshu venom. It kept her still, so the doctors could work. But there were really no anesthetics that could keep someone sedated through that kind of surgery. So she was awake through the entire procedure.

So she felt every cut.

Every stitch.

Every twist of her insides as they battled to make her whole again, but as terrible as it was, the pain did something to her. It cleansed her, it forced her to confront herself, it served as a purgatory of sorts, a remodeling of her soul.

The forlorn King stayed at the head of her and held her hand through the whole thing. The only thing Azula could move was her eyes, which teared up repeatedly. Every once in a while, she let out a little moan of pain. He dabbed them again and again even while ignoring his tears, for the King cried with her.

At long last her body couldn't' take the torture anymore and she passed out, but by that time they were closing her up. Kuei put his hand at her neck, and there was a pulse. He let out a breath of relief.

How she has survived a two liter blood loss and an excruciating surgery was anyone's guess. But she did. Kuei stayed with her through most of the night until Zuko suggested they stay with her in shifts.

The King was reluctant, but saw the sense in Zuko's suggestion and let her brother stand watch for a while.

When she woke up, she woke up sobbing. "I'm supposed to be dead!" she said through her tears and to no one in particular "Why aren't I?"

"Because something has happened to you Azula. You have undergone a transformation."

Azula gasped. She wasn't expecting an answer, or for her brother to be sitting there beside her. "How can you be so sure?"

Zuko looked at her, his eyes dark with memory. "Because I went through it once myself."

For a while, there was silence, then: "It hurt didn't it?"

Azula looked at her brother. There was another beat of silence between them and a strange, but welcoming feeling of connection, of affection that both of them felt. It was a rare feeling for Azula; really she'd only just begun to feel romantic feelings for the King. This was the first time she had felt anything truly deep at all for her brother. She nodded.

Zuko let out a sigh. "You're coming back with me to the Fire Nation. You and I need to work with Unarqa so you can understand what this means. The temple has been nice, but Aang thinks that it's a spiritual hotbed and you'll be in danger if you go back."

Azula nodded in agreement.

A second later there was a scuffling at the window and a giant fluffy head poked through the opening. The bison flashed her wide toothy grin and panted affectionately.

"Dominatia, you seem unusually proud of yourself," Azula purred, forgetting the pain an trauma she'd just endured. "You must tell me why."

The bison's eyes focused on Azula for a minute and her lips pursed together in consideration. She opened her mouth to offer Aula her normal chorus of chortles and mewls that Azula had decided were equal to words over the past few years. Then, the female bison froze and closed her mouth. Without warning, her pupils dilated and a giant growl emanated from her lower half.

Zuko looked at Azula in question, and the Princess looked back at her brother, equally puzzled.

Mere seconds later Dominatia opened her mouth and a huge wave of bison vomit covered them both.

# # # # #

Promise the wait for the next chapter won't be so long. Its practically written. I had some trouble with this one.