Katara thought she was suspicious when Sokka showed up with Mika, when he showed up with Azula of all people two days later she thought he had lost his mind. It was dark out, Aang was working late and she had put the kids to bed over an hour ago when there was a knock at the front door. She had been hoping it was Sokka, since when he asked her to take Mika overnight she hadn't thought he meant more than one night. But her relief to see him died immediately when she laid eyes on the woman he had with him.

"What are you doing here?" She coldly demanded, instinctively taking up a fighting stance.

"Relax, I'm just here to pick up my daughter. Boomerang boy told me he left her with you." Azula explained, casually pointing to Sokka with her thumb. Sokka looked slightly irritated by the nickname, but was too afraid of his sister to let it get to him.

Katara dropped her fighting stance, though her expression was still far from relaxed.

"Wait, you're Mika's mother?" She questioned and Azula nodded in confirmation.

Katara was dumbstruck; Mika's such a sweet girl. How could Azula be her mother? Not to mention that Sokka had told her that Mika was the child of his friend, how could he be friends with Azula? Never mind that he lied about his 'friend's' name.

"Wait right here" Katara finally spit out before disappearing back into the house.

"You know, I thought that was going to go a lot worse." Sokka remarked but Azula didn't respond. The next few moments were silent between the two and the silence was interrupted when Katara returned, dragging a practically sleep walking Mika by the hand.

Mika perked up when she saw her mother, "mommy!" She exclaimed, shaking out of Katara's grip and rushing to hug her mother. Azula crouched down and returned the embrace gratefully, and admittedly was slightly smug about her daughter being happy to see her in front of the very woman who probably thought she was incapable of love.

Rising to her feet Azula took Mika's hand so they could leave but Katara approached them before they could.

"I have friends all over this city, and if I hear about Mika being in ANY type of danger I will personally see to it that you never see her again." She whispered the threat to Azula so that Mika wouldn't hear.

Azula wanted more than anything to shove the Water Tribe woman away from her. She wanted to ball her fists and punch her square in the jaw, to use her bending for the first time in twelve years and burn her so badly Zuko's scar would look like a paper cut. How dare she talk to her like that! How dare she, after all these years, act like she knows anything about her former enemy! But Azula knew that she wouldn't want Mika around her fifteen-year-old self either, and she still has to prove she's changed to Katara. So she gritted her teeth and nodded.

"Thank you," she said, albeit bitterly as she was only thanking Katara for babysitting. Then she and Mika left Air Temple Island.

Sokka turned to follow Azula as she walked away but Katara stopped him

"Not you" her deadly voice ordered.

Never in his life had Sokka found himself more grateful that his sister had two sleeping children than in this moment right now. He was sitting on a chair in the living room with Katara standing in front of him, venting her anger. He felt like a child being scolded for not washing his dirty laundry, times ten.

"I mean where even were you?" She demanded and Sokka opened his mouth to answer but he wasn't given the chance. "You know what I don't want to know! Obviously you went willingly!" Katara continued to rant, and she would've kept going for another few hours if it weren't right then that Aang entered the room.

"Why is it that the first thing I hear when I walk through the door is yelling?" He questioned, probably believing that Bumi was in trouble again. But instead he walked into the living room to see his brother-in-law patiently waiting out his younger sister's wrath, and Katara didn't look like she was anywhere near finished. "Uh… what's going on in here?" The avatar asked awkwardly, it wasn't unlike Katara to lecture Sokka but she usually didn't do it late at night.

"Sokka made a new friend" she deadpanned, the anger in her eyes extremely visible.

"And this is a bad thing?" Aang asked confused

"Remember that little girl Mika?" Katara asked

"Katara she was here when I left this morning, I couldn't forget her in a day." Aang answered, still trying to figure out what about this new friend had Katara so angry, and what it had to do with Mika.

"Well her mother came to get her tonight and guess what, her name isn't Yori!" Katara exclaimed, Aang almost cringed when his wife spit the word 'mother' as if it were a curse.

"Well then what is her name?" Aang asked and Katara's eyes narrowed.

"Azula" she answered.

Azula had hoped that Mika would lose any energy she had before they left the island, but that proved to be false. The entire walk back to the apartment Mika was telling her all about what she had done in the past two days. Of course Azula knew she would have to hear it eventually, and it's not that she didn't want to, but it was late and after what she had done in the past two days she just wanted to go home and go to sleep. However it was nice for Mika to be awake and walking on the walk home, the distance back to the apartment was definitely longer than the distance from Lao's and Azula got tired carrying her daughter that far. It comforted her to hear that Mika knew Katara's son Bumi from school, at least she hadn't felt like her mother left her in the care of total strangers.

"We played with Bumi's sister too, her names Kya and she's a baby. She's SO cute! Mommy can have a baby sister someday?" Mika asked innocently as she babbled on.

Azula did her best to fight a groan, "I don't think so Mika," she answered.

"Awww, but why?" Mika whined

"Because it's just me and you, and that works right?" Azula said with a smile towards the end. She was trying to choose her words carefully and avoid the classic excuse of saying 'you need a mommy and a daddy' because she knew that would bring up the unwanted topic of Mika's father, something she was still trying to process the story of.

Mika shrugged with disappointment, "I guess, but why's it always got to be just us?" She asked sadly, "Bumi says that he doesn't always like his sister; that he always gets in trouble even when she started it. But sometimes he loves her. She can't play big kid games like us but she's really cute and he likes playing baby games with her, I played too and it was really fun." She explained as if trying to convince her mother. Suddenly she got this new glimmer of hope in her eyes, but it was hope mixed with sadness. "If daddy ever comes back could I have a baby sister?" She asked excitedly.

Azula sighed and stopped walking as she looked down at her daughter, who understood that something was wrong and therefor quickly spoke up again.

"Or a brother! I don't really care, I just said sister cause Bumi has a sister but I'd love a baby brother too!" She added, thinking that maybe her mother was upset because she thought she wouldn't be happy if she got a brother.

Azula couldn't help but chuckle at her daughter, as uncomfortable as this conversation was making her she had to admit that in retrospect it was kind of cute.

"I know, listen to me Mika. We're almost home and when we get there I'm going tell you all about what happened while I was away, ok?" Azula asked and Mika nodded; though she didn't understand why she had to wait until they were home to hear about where her mom had been, nor did she get why her mother didn't give her an answer. But she stayed silent and kept walking, wondering what was to come.

Aang wasn't as angry as Katara, but to be honest he really didn't have any idea what to think about the situation. First off there was the matter of everything Azula had done in the past, but that means everything. Yes she had hunted them, tried to kill them, actually killed Aang himself until Katara brought him back with the spirit water, imprisoned Mai and Ty Lee, attempted murder on her mother, and a handful of other horrible things. But Aang was still convinced that she dropped that letter on purpose when she ran away from Hira'a, not to mention that according to Sokka, although she had been a thief and murdered a young boy, she had also loved that boy and it killed her inside when he died. She had practiced medicine and cared for two young children, three counting her daughter. That's another thing; she now has a daughter. According to Sokka she is a good mother, like all parents she's not perfect but overall she would do anything to keep her daughter safe, and that was enough to convince Aang that she deserves a second chance.

Katara on the other hand wasn't so easy to convince. She was infuriated by the idea of leaving Azula alone and even more enraged when Sokka offered to check up on her every so often.

"You're the one who's been hanging around with her! You won't do anything!" Katara shouted

"Katara calm down, you're going to wake one of the kids." Aang said and thankfully she listened.
"Sorry" she said, her voice much more calm but still deadly. "But we can't trust her" she stated coldly.

"We can't or you won't?" Sokka asked boldly as he stood up, Katara narrowed her eyes at her brother.

"Sokka-" she started but he cut her off.

"Katara we're not kids anymore. The war ended eighteen years ago, that's a long time. Zuko changed in a matter of months! Toph warned me not to judge Azula the way we judged Zuko when he first showed up at the Air Temple and-" Sokka tried to say but this time Katara cut him off.

"What?" She demanded, "Toph knows about this?" She continued, her voice once again rising.

Sokka's face flushed; maybe he shouldn't have said that.

"So let me get this straight. The chief of police is aware that an escaped criminal is not only wandering around the city but is friends with one of the councilmen and she hasn't done anything?" Katara demanded.

"Technically Zuko pardoned Azula of her crimes, she wasn't mentally stable." Aang reminded and if looks could kill, well Sokka would've died twenty minutes ago and Aang would have just joined him.

"So what you think we should trust her?" Katara snapped.

"We don't have to. Sokka's right, the war's been over for years. She's not hunting us anymore so if we don't' want anything to do with her then we can just keep going about our lives." Aang explained and Katara rolled here eyes but the sound of Kya crying interrupted before she could say anything else so she left the room.

"That went well" Sokka sarcastically remarked.