AN: After multiple requests that this be continued, I obliged. I now have an entire plot line running through my head; expect this to go on for several chapters, although it will not be a very long piece. It will just be a story, not a novel.

Remember to tell me what you think, and give me advice. I love whatever you say.

Enjoy.

Zuko didn't know how long he sat on that cliff, watching the ocean. His mind had wandered, he had lost all track of time. Nothing had seemed very important. He was alone at last: alone with his thoughts.

But he wasn't at all sure if that was what he wanted.

His thoughts meandered from memory to memory. He remembered Iroh, the uncle who had always been more of a father. He remembered the last time he had seen him.

The glance of utter disappointment. Not a word was said. He stayed in the shadows, even as Zuko raised a hand towards him. A silent plea for him to stay. But the blood of the child—the last of his race, the hope of the world—stained the Prince's hands. He himself could see it. And apparently, the Dragon of the West saw it even clearer, despite the shadows.

He always did see it clearer than Zuko ever did.

-x-x-

He walked to the palace in the rain and in the dark. Night had fallen, as had the storm clouds that had been gathering all afternoon. His robe felt especially heavy as he traipsed through the courtyards, and his shaggy, unkempt ebony hair (that had since fallen out of its topknot) was now plastered to his skin. No matter. No one would see him. No one except the one person who wouldn't care.

He opened the door quietly, peering in. A single torch was lit in the corner: the only source of light. The rest of the room was nearly pitch black.

"Uncle Zuko?"

Zuko smiled and walked in. That hadn't been the voice of a child half-asleep. Aku had been waiting for him. "Hello, Aku," he said, closing the door behind him. In the faint light of the torch, he could see the child sitting up and looking at him. Then Aku smiled.

"You're late!"

"I know; I took a walk."

"You're wet, too."

"It's raining out."

"I know." The Crown Prince looked away, to another wall. "I can hear it. It sounds quiet, and you have to not say anything and not move at all or else you won't hear the sound it makes."

Zuko knelt by the bedside. "You like the rain?"

Aku turned his gaze towards him with a light, childish smile. "Of course I do! Everyone loves rain! You do, right Uncle?"

A faint, forced smile. "Yes, of course I do. Everyone loves rain."

The boy's corpse lying in the streets of the Fire Nation capital, right next to the former Fire Lord's. Zuko's outstretched fingers steamed slightly in the downpour, the remnants of the lightning still making his hand tingle. He had done it. He had killed the Avatar.

And his father wasn't even alive to see it.

The girl's scream, agonizing and heart wrenching—he could barely see her through the storm, through the driving rain, but he knew she was running toward her fallen friend—

Aku flung himself back on to his pillows, curling up on to his side. Zuko knew what was expected of him, and pulled the sheets up to tuck them under the little prince's chin. The boy smiled up at him, nothing but affection and adoration in his gaze. Zuko felt his chest begin to ache.

"Aku," he began cautiously, one hand resting on the boy's shoulder. "Do you like it here? In the palace?"

There was a silence. Aku looked up at the ceiling, a slight frown on his face as he thought. Zuko could almost hear the gears working inside the child's mind. He had proposed a difficult question…at the tender age of 6, who knew what—

"I do," Aku replied finally, and some unknown emotion tugged at Zuko's heartstrings. "But I don't want to stay here. I wanna go and see the deserts and the North Pole, and I wanna see the temples of the air people. I don't want any more lessons, and I don't want any more court. I wanna go with you to fight people and go to war, and meet strangers and have adventures. And, besides," he broke off, now burying his face a little bit in his pillow. His gaze was no longer on Zuko, or the ceiling, but on the floor. "Mommy doesn't want me."

-x-x-

Zuko shut the front door as quietly as he could, silently dripping rainwater on to the kitchen floor. At such a late hour, he couldn't find a carriage to take him home, so he had walked in the rain.

And with each squishy, cold, wet step, he had wondered what exactly the little Akulon had been thinking when he had said, 'Everyone likes rain.'

"Where have you been?"

Even before he turned around he was smiling at that familiar, flat voice. "Azula found some excuse to keep me," he replied, glancing up at her through his drenched mess of dark hair. She raised an eyebrow, her arms folded neatly across her chest.

"Next time she does that, tell her I'm pregnant."

"That'll make her send me straight home. Might give her a heart attack too."

"If she makes my husband stay at the palace on a cold, rainy night the very day he comes back from a two-month siege at the North Pole, I don't think I would mourn her all that much."

He grinned. "I'd hug you if I wasn't so wet."

A small smile tugged at the corners of Mai's mouth. "As if I care."

Thunder crashed faintly outside as the two clung to each other, made desperate by a long separation. It was too long, Zuko thought faintly as he buried his face in her neck. It was too long to stay away from her.

-x-x-

Gentle sunlight shone through the window above, showing dust floating gently through the air of the bedroom. Zuko lay sprawled across his side, softly snoring, one arm over his head. Mai touched his cheek gently. How peaceful he looked when he was sleeping… Her fingers lingering on his skin, she stood and wrapped a robe around her before going downstairs.

With Azula as the Fire Lady, she had received a very enviable place at court. Of course, Azula couldn't show too much favor to her friends, so she wasn't one of the Fire Lady's personal advisors. But she was still high up on the noble hierarchy, and her family was well-known in the region—even if she no longer spent her free time with Azula and Ty Lee.

Ty Lee, in the last letter she had sent, had said that she was rejoining the circus under a new name to avoid the publicity she and Mai had gotten while fighting against the Avatar. Apparently she was now Kyristal. What had made her spell her name that way was anyone's guess, although Mai had smiled at the sight. It was so like her.

Azula had supported Zuko when he had proposed to Mai. She saw it as a good match, and had publicly given them her blessing. They were a celebrity couple in the Fire Nation, and often seen together in court. Mai couldn't complain. Her love for Zuko had grown even more once she had stopped her friendship with Azula. She was free to do what she wished now; she was no longer the Princess' lackey. As such, she felt at liberty to love Zuko as much as she pleased. And she was delighted to find her feelings returned.

And yet, she still found it easy and comforting to hide her feelings behind a blank mask and a toneless voice.

A noise made her turn. "Good morning, sleepyhead," she said, sipping her firet (a hot drink that was growing ever popular amongst the nobles, and had even made its way down to the commoners). "Have a good night's sleep?"

"Better than I've had in a long, long time," he said honestly, kissing her temple and making his way into the kitchen. "Any firet for me?"

"I'm sure you could bribe the chef into making you some."

"You took all of it?"

"Never knew you liked it."

A wry smile quirked at the corners of his mouth as he glanced back at her. She responded with one of her own.

He knew he would find a cup waiting for him, warming by the oven.

-x-x-

"Did you visit Aku yesterday?"

It was a Sunday; they didn't have to be in court, and they weren't obligated to be at the palace. So instead, they remained in their bedclothes, sitting at the kitchen table, sipping firet and eating chilled fruit.

Zuko looked up. Mai knew how much he cared for his nephew, but she had never expressed any interest before. "Yes I did," he replied. "Why?"

She rolled her eyes. "He was pestering me about you. Asking where you were, what you were doing…apparently no one would tell him, not even Azula."

Not even Azula.

"Yes, I did see him," he replied, his face blank as he plucked another piece of fruit from the plate. "And I said good night as usual."

Mai shook her head slowly, never taking his eyes away from him. "You really do love that boy, don't you?"

A shrug. "I'm his uncle. Iroh set the standard pretty high for me; I'm determined to reach it."

"Do you think you have?"

"I don't think I ever will."

-x-x-

"Do you like tea, Aku?"

The child looked up at him. "No. I hate it."

Zuko nodded. "So do I."

Hand-in-hand, Zuko was leading his young nephew through the trees behind the palace walls. The small forest grew in the ashes of the volcano, something that was apparently beneficial to their growth. But nothing smaller than a tree was present, so he and Aku walked on soft, springy dirt between wooden trunks.

"My uncle used to love it."

"Really? I think it tastes gross."

"It does." He gently ruffled the young boy's hair. "What do you like, then?"

"You mean, to eat?"

"No, just…in general. What do you like?"

Aku put his finger on his lip, staring straight ahead as he thought. "Well…I like playing in the gardens. I like listening to the rain at night. I like looking at pictures of Daddy. I liked playing with Kazon. And I like firebending."

The child had no idea how much he hurt Zuko.

"Daddy" was a young man called Shokai, who was one of Azula's first personal guards. He was much like Azula herself: cold, calculating, and manipulative. But when it came to Azula, something in him would melt. Something in his gaze, perhaps, or his tone. They began to spend more and more time together, although when Zuko overheard them (which was often) they never spoke in romantic terms. To him, it just seemed to be witty banter with an undertone of competition.

All it had taken was one night.

With the news that she was pregnant, Azula had banished Shokai. No one had heard from him since.

Akulon was never meant to be born.

Kazon was the son of a noble. That noble had previously (foolishly) mentioned to another how his son was better than Aku at firebending. He and his family had been banished and stripped of their titles. Aku hadn't been told where Kazon went, only that he was gone and wouldn't be coming back.

Firebending had been a passion of Aku's. Zuko knew well that the young prince would show off his newfound moves and skills to his uncle whenever he had the chance. Zuko would show him tricks and illusions that he had learned from traveling throughout the nation, and Aku would learn them with ease.

And now, no matter how much he tried, he could not summon a flame.

"Why won't the flame come?" Aku asked, stopping and pulling on Zuko's hand. Zuko noticed that his lower lip trembled as if he were holding back tears, and he leaned his weight on Zuko's hand as if he simply wished to hang there, dangling from it. "It used to. It used to come real good."

"I know, Aku, I know…" Zuko said quietly, picking the prince up and carrying him back in the direction of the palace. "I think it won't come because you're afraid."

"Afraid? I'm not afraid!"

"You aren't afraid of Mommy?"

A small silence, where Aku looked at him with indignation in his gaze lingering from his last statement. "I don't know."

"She's the one who burned you, right?"

"Yes…"

"Are you afraid she's going to do it again? She's going to burn you again if you do something wrong?"

The child bent his first finger and put it in his mouth, a habit he had broken several years past. "No…" he murmured.

"Are you sure?"

"I don't know!" he cried suddenly, with a child's whine in his voice. "I wanna go home, Uncle, I wanna go home!"

Zuko was startled by this sudden outburst, but he quickly hugged Aku to him and rubbed his back. "All right, Aku, we're going home. We're going home."

In hindsight, he should have predicted something like that would happen. A child had an intense bond to his mother. Even when the mother did something wrong, the child always thought it was his fault. The mother was blameless, in his mind.

For a father it was much the same thing. And Zuko hadn't placed blame on his father until he was 16 or 17.

Aku had many years to go before he would finally understand.

Many years of a broken childhood.

Could he last that long?