Sorry about the long span between updates! Been busy! Hope this chapter's worth the wait!

Darkest Hours

Ozai smelled fear. Delicious fear.

"Come out, come out wherever you are..." he cooed as he stalked the palace for his prey: the little blind Earthbender (it was really a shame he had to kill her, since she was such a firebrand); the Water Tribe warrior (another shame, since he was rather brilliant despite being a prick); and his lovely daughter-in-law (a really, really big shame, as she was carrying Ozai's grandchild, but you had to break a few eggs if you wanted to rule the world....)

He listened hard, discerning the patter of feet from the roar of flames and panicked cries of palace servants. Above that, he could hear the quick, gasping breaths of three frightened children being hunted.

"Ready or not," he murmured with a smile as he strolled into a seemingly empty dining room, "here I—"

He sniffed the air and frowned. That wasn't the smell of fear. Fear smelled like bad candy and beer-filled sweat. Fear smelled like that moment just before you started an exam, but realized you hadn't studied at all. Fear smelled like lightning and dead things, like Azula's room after Mai had come over for a play date.

What he smelled in that room was organic. Earthy. Familiar, but totally alien, too.

All of a sudden, he knew that smell. He couldn't forget it. He'd been with Ursa when he'd last smelled it, the day Zuko had come screaming into the world.

A nut of anxiety tightened over the bolt of dread in his stomach. It was a father's hard-earned gut reaction to a pregnant woman's distress.

The panting cries grew louder and more labored as he neared.

"Don't come any closer," Toph's disembodied voice warned.

"We have you surrounded," Sokka said, voice quavering.

Ozai glanced over her shoulder, spotting the young man behind him pointing an antique sword ripped from the wall at his neck. It wasn't sharp, but he had no doubt Sokka would try to hack his neck in two with it anyhow. Toph was probably hiding in the stonework, waiting to pop up from the earth like some kind of giant night crawler on steroids to surprise him.

"Where's Katara?" Ozai asked carefully.

At that, the Fire Lady gave a low moan. "Help me…" Katara whimpered faintly. "Oh, spirits, help me..."

A flutter of something old and tired and desperate swam through the old Fire Lord's memory like a salmon-serpent on its last legs. Ripples of a long-suppressed moment in his life fanned through his senses…

Oh, spirits, help me…

Ursa had said the exact same thing as blood gushed from between her milky thighs, the delicate flower of her womanhood torn and desecrated as she pushed their grasping son out into the cruel, harsh light.

Save my son…

His beloved Ursa, the woman he'd chosen as his life partner, hadn't cared for what happened to her. Save the boy. Save the crown prince. He would be Ozai's pride and joy. That had been all she'd cared about.

Spirits, help me…

The palace physicians had done everything they could for her. Everything, they insisted. But the hemorrhaging wouldn't stop. Ozai killed one of them in his rage, dashing him against the wall and snapping his neck. The rest had been banished in haste.

Mad and desperate, Ozai himself went to the Northern Water Tribe on the fastest skiff in the fleet. He kidnapped a Waterbending healer. And he secreted her into the palace to save his beloved.

He'd thought he'd never forget the deadly calm and those ice-blue eyes as the healer bargained for the fate of her people. He'd thought he'd never forget she'd made him swear on the tainted blood she'd pulled from between Ursa's legs, warm and sticky on his fingers. It had smelled of new life, of death, of the earth newly charred after a bushfire. But the woman who'd saved his wife and preserved the Northern Water Tribe from attack for the next sixteen years had faded from his memory like moonlight at dawn. He hadn't even asked for her name.

No one knew about his bargain—he'd made sure of that. Even Ursa didn't know she'd been healed—her fever had been too high, her body too racked from the damage her son had caused, the one who, even as she lay dying, suckled at her breast, draining her life away.

Absolutely no one knew. No one had reminded him of his travesty. And that was why, in his lust for power, in the years of growing bitterness, he'd forgotten his blood oath, his promise to a proud, strong Waterbending healer who'd foolishly turned her back on the Fire Lord before returning to the icy cold waters from whence she'd come:

"I swear never to harm to a member of the Water Tribe, the people who saved my beloved Ursa."

His reverie faded abruptly. He glanced down. "You need to get Katara to a doctor," he directed sternly. "Right now."

Sokka approached him charily, sword still aimed at the bulging sinews of his long neck. "As if we'd turn our backs on you."

"You need to get her help right now," Ozai insisted more emphatically.

And then Toph looked into the heart of the old Fire Lord. Felt the erratic beating, the fear coursing through him which he somehow kept out of his voice.

"Right now," Ozai repeated, "or she and the baby will die."

"Azula!" Jet croaked, coughing as smoke filled his lungs. "Princess!"

All around him, the fire blazed, voraciously devouring the dry wood timbers. The princess could be anywhere under this mess. And with her…the baby. Their baby.

That stupid Haru! He always had more hair than brains. Jet tried to crawl to his knees, but the acrid smoke was so thick and his head so heavy, he had to lie back down.

Despair clutched at his heart. He was going to die here in this ridiculous pyre of lies and scandal. Azula was lost. Their baby would never—

The fire shrank, dimmed, retracted into itself like clouds of orange silk being drawn into a bolt hole. And suddenly, there was nothing but the afterglow of heat and the veins of cinders tattooed into the blackened timbers. Soft, gray ash fluttered down and feathered his cheek, kisses from fiery demons going home to bed.

The air cleared as miraculously, and dimly, Jet heard his name being called. Hands grabbed, hauled, dragged him up, carried him up and out, and he became gradually aware that he was outside and among his fellow soldiers. A violent fit of coughing cleared his lungs of poisonous air, and then, nothing.

"Azula..." he rasped. He opened sticky eyes to see the very unwelcoming lined face of Pakku hovering over him, frowning. The shadows outside were long—how much time had passed?

"Easy, there, son." The Waterbender pushed him back down gently. "Give me a little more time to heal these burns."

"Where's the princess?" Jet asked through cracked lips. "And Haru…?"

"They're in another tent."

The tightening around Pakku's mouth made Jet sit up. "What happened? The baby—?"

A distant scream of agony pierced the air. It was Azula's.

Jet leapt off the pallet, bowling Pakku over as he stumblingly made his way across the camp where the headquarters had been established on the beach by the Unagi's Bay. The stunned, half-dressed state of many of the other soldiers didn't register with Jet as he arrowed toward the second infirmary tent.

He punched through the canvas flaps. "Azula!" he cried as soon as he spotted her. Relief swamped him at seeing her alive, but it quickly evaporated as he took in her panting, sweating state, her mother gripping her hand, her legs spread, a dark-haired head crowning wetly from—

Jet fainted.

"Lightweight." Ursa snorted.

"OHHHHHHRRRRGGHHHHHH!" Azula moaned. "WHY DIDN'T I SHAVE MY LEGS FIRST?"

"I told you so, dear," Ursa murmured as her daughter bore down again. "Breathe, Azula."

"I CAN'T BREATHE."

"Just breathe."

"ARRRRRHHHHHHGGGHHH!" She inhaled as though she were pulling a heated spike through her chest. "WHY IS THIS SO HARD?"

"Princess!" Haru burst into the tent, a badly wrapped bandage dangling from his bared torso. Half-healed burns mottled his sexily sculpted chest. Two female Waterbending healers fluttered after him like angry butterflies in smitten protest, demanding he lie back down and take off his pants.

"GET THE HELL OUT." Azula bellowed at him in an unearthly deep voice, making everyone in the tent shudder. "YOU DID THIS TO ME."

Undaunted, Haru went to her side and grabbed her hand. "I did. I'm sorry."

"WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME ALONE?" she roared. A sob broke through, lifting her cry about five octaves when she screamed, "WHY DID YOU MAKE ME MISS YOU?"

"I'm sorry," Haru repeated softly as the Firebender crushed his fingers. "I'm so sorry..."

"I HATE YOU," she sobbed as a fresh flood of tears tracked clean little rivers over her blotchy, sooty cheeks. "I HATE YOU SO MUCH."

"I know." Haru kissed her sweetly on the sweaty forehead. "I know."

Azula's anguished cries washed over them as she pushed again, screaming and gnashing her teeth and begging Agni for the ordeal to end. The Waterbending healer came in with a pair of scissors, slit her open wider to help the baby. It felt like an eternity as the child's head squeezed out, followed by tiny collapsed shoulders. Everything below her waist was on fire, being torn apart with a million fish hooks. And through it all, Azula could only think that somehow, she deserved every second of agony as punishment, deserved every moment of sweet torture as reward.

Aang slipped into the tent as the healer attending the business end of the birth supported the baby's head, its body still lodged within the princess, and cleaned its nostrils and mouth of goo. The Avatar watched in wonder as Azula, the fearsome Fire Princess of perfection who'd conquered Ba Seng Se and ruthlessly terrorized friends and family alike gave bloody, messy, stinky, painful-looking birth.

And he fell in love with her. Just a little.

"One more push!" the healer said.

Azula heaved. She felt as though every muscle and vein and blood vessel would burst with the effort, the pain so intense she thought she'd pass out or die. Her mind was a blur of colors and sensations, her heart so full and her eyes running a continuous liquid stream of anger and sorrow and joy and fear. She was vaguely aware she was babbling things in that guttural voice that was not hers, but some monster's who'd risen from her womb. At some point in her delusional state, she believed she'd promised never to eat watermelon again.

All of a sudden, the pressure was gone, the pain dulled, and Azula felt everything in her body let go.

She breathed. Sweet, glorious air filled her lungs.

And then another sharp pain lanced through her, making her spine go rigid. She moaned in surprise.

"Whoa!"

Something passed through her, heavy like a stone. It landed wetly on the ground, and the Waterbender dove to pick it up.

Aang went a little green.

"A little eager to pass the afterbirth, I guess," the healer chuckled. "So, who's hungry?"

But Azula hadn't heard her. She'd passed out.

Katara didn't know what was going on. The pain had rushed upon her so quickly, she'd fallen to her knees and clutched her stomach. And though she'd never given birth, she knew something was wrong.

The pain was astounding. She didn't realize her tightly gripped fists were carving bloody crescents into her palms, didn't realize she'd soiled herself because of the intensity of the agony that seemed to rip through every muscle as though she were made of tissue. Her throat was raw from screaming. Dimly, she knew Ozai was close, and if he would just get on with it and end her, maybe the pain would stop.

She moaned, calling to him, begging him to make it stop.

Oh, there he was. Thank the spirits. He would take care of her.

So she let go.