It was a chance encounter. Ty Lee had taken Rei and Hiro to Omashu to get ramen. She couldn't make the noodles like Azula had, so she would take them here occasionally and do some shopping to make a day of it. She hadn't been looking where she was going when she literally walked right into Sokka.

"Oh hey!" she said as she greeted him with a hug. "What brings you here?"

"Just travelling with Hakoda."

She looked and saw Hiro poke Hakoda.

"You're it!" Hiro ran away.

Hakoda started to chase him.

As the three children played, the "parents" started talking.

"How have you been?" he asked her.

"Tired, but they are so worth it. I swear Rei sounds just like her mother, her vocabulary and her inflections. She's always trying to debate me on why she should be able to pick her own bedtime or why she needs some random gadget that I don't even know what it does. Hiro is more like his father. He likes dirt and earthbending in the house."

Just then, Rei ran up to Ty Lee. "Can we take Hakoda to the ice cream man?"

"Can he eat ice cream?"

"Sure." He eats normal food.

"Be back in 10 minutes."

Rei ran off not really listening to whatever Ty Lee just said.

"She always does that. She thinks she can outrun the sound of my voice."

"Gotta let the kid dream, right."

Sokka told Ty Lee of his travels.

"Has Suki seen him?"

"She wouldn't let me on the island. I wanted to bring him to her for a few days but I couldn't."

Ty Lee was stunned. "Did she know you had him?"

"I don't know. The people on the dock said I was banned from the island. I didn't even see her."

"Why wouldn't she want to see her son?"

Sokka shrugged. "I think she's still bitter about the divorce."

"But she filed for it." Ty Lee didn't know exactly why they divorced, but she knew it wasn't a good time for her friend.

"I know, but she still blames me for hiring a lawyer. She had to hire one too and it cost her a lot of money. I didn't mean to put her out, but she wanted Hakoda all the time and he's my son too. I understand why she wanted to leave, but it wasn't fair for her to just take him from me. The court agreed with me and I haven't seen her since."

"I hope she comes around for her own sake. Life's too short to stay angry."

Sokka cringed at the saying.

"I didn't mean to …"

"It wasn't your fault Ty Lee. I just I never got over that day. I don't think any of us have."

Rei and the others came back with ice cream. Hakoda was wearing most of his.

Sokka took out a napkin to wipe his face. "Did you eat any of it?"

"Moon peach!"

"Where are you staying?"

"In the inn. It's such a money sink."

"We have a spare room if you want."

"You don't have to."

"I think you should. It seems like Hakoda and and Hiro are two snow peas in a pod."

The two boys were running away from Rei. "Hiro, Hakoda, you two are going to pay for that!" The girl was covered in dirt, likely due to her brother's earthbending.

Sokka did decide to take up Ty Lee's offer. He checked out of the inn and went to their house.

"It's a beautiful home."

"My dad built it," Rei said as he came inside.

The masonry work was well done, as were the hand carved doors and window frames.

In the family room hung a portrait of Haru, "Mina," Rei and Hiro. Haru had been holding their daughter, Mina their son.

There wasn't a bed in "Sokka's room." There was a crib. Ty Lee had to bring in a mat. "There had been a bed, but it was supposed to be the nursery."

Somehow Sokka had forgotten Azula was pregnant when she died. Damn, this just kept getting worse and worse.

"It will be fine."

Ty Lee made some tea. Rei was a stickler for it being perfectly timed. She knew exactly when to pour it and how hot to make the water before she steeped it.

Hiro liked milk, so he'd drink tea when there was milk in it.

Hakoda liked milk too. He had never tried it with tea, but he decided it was okay.

"What are those metal racks?" Sokka asked. They were up against the wall.

"They are noodle racks," Rei told him. "Mom would make ramen and hang the noodles to dry on them."

Rei insisted on keeping them. She would learn one day, and her kids would be able to eat a bunch of ramen every week too.

Everything in the home had a memory of Azula or Haru. This was their world, the children their life.

Sokka quickly decided not to ask any more questions about the place.

Before dinner, Ty Lee called the children in to wash up. Hiro was covered in dirt.

"You look like a badger mole!"

"Badger moles are cool."

Rei took him up to get him in the bath. Hakoda needed a bath too. Rei washed her hands and face. "I didn't roll in the dirt," she told her brother when he asked why she didn't need to bathe.

Ty Lee roasted a chicken for dinner. She had cooked while she was in the warrior house, but the children had finicky palates. She quickly learned that it was better to use half as many ingredients. The more complex the dish was, the more distrustful they were.

Hakoda was a little too little for his chair. He had to sit on a book. "Chick'n."

"I can see he has your appetite," Rei said dryly, watching the boy devour his food like his father.

"Rei," Ty Lee chided.

"It was just an observation."

"Why are your observations always sound like thinly veiled insults?"

"I don't know. I like that shirt on you, even though it's pink." Rei would never like pink.

After dinner, Sokka got the dishes.

"You don't have to do that."

"It's the least I can do."

Hakoda was ready to go to sleep.

Hiro wanted a story read to him. His favorite was Karo Finds A Dragon. His mother and father would always do the different voices for him.

Ty Lee came to tuck him in and read him the story. "When Karo turned three, his father gave him a stuffed dragon toy."

When Rei closed her eyes, she could imagine her parents on either side, Hiro in her bed because somehow he always ended up in there, and her reading Karo Finds A Dragon. Ty Lee does a decent job with it, but it's not the same when Mom isn't the dragon and Dad isn't the scared villagers. Sometimes, she mad at her father for jumping and other times she hopes they found each other in the afterlife. She couldn't picture one without the other. They were like ying and yang, too intertwined to separate again.

When Ty Lee came to check on her, Rei was already asleep. Ty Lee hoped she was doing a good job with her. Sometimes, it was hard to tell. She still couldn't believe Azula picked her out of all of the people she could have picked, but she thought again.

She wouldn't have asked her mother or Iroh and Zuko was out of the question. That did just leave Ty Lee and Haru's father, but almost anyone else would have picked him instead. She didn't even know them three months ago, but she wished she had. Would it have been different if Azula had told her she was here?

Ty Lee didn't know. She couldn't know. She just had to move forward with what she had. Sokka had seen her reading to Hiro. He was an adorable boy. Sokka went to sleep in his "bed" for the night. He was exhausted.

Rei wondered why Sokka had come here. Surely, he had somewhere else to be than visiting the kids he helped orphan, but maybe he didn't. Now that she thought about it, there had been no mention of the Avatar or his friends in the area since her parents died. There was plenty of talk about them, and her mother specifically, but not what happened to them after.

She looked at him and his eyes revealed a lot of sadness, some darkness too, but mostly anguish. She had learned to read faces after seeing her mother do it to everyone and listening to the comments she would make.

Eventually, she just asked him, "what are you so depressed about?"

"What?"

"You've looked like you have been in mourning since you got here."

"How much do you know about the end of the war?"

"I know my Mom went crazy, got locked up, ran away and then ended up here where she met my dad, but that's about it."

"Well, on the day your mother lost it, on Sozin's Comet, your grandfather tried to torch the Earth Kingdom, take down every city that wouldn't surrender. I helped sink the sky ships that he was using to do it and at the time, it was awesome. I saved the Earth Kingdom. I won the war, but then I learned about how many of those men were fathers or brothers or sons. Not all of them wanted to join the war. Many of them had been drafted. In some ways, they were just as much victims as the people below that I was saving.

I knew I never wanted to be the reason that a family was broken up again. I didn't want to be in another war. I didn't want any of it. Then, my wife left me, and I broke up another family, my own. I thought that was really it and then I was told that your mother was trying to start a coup. We tried to stop her, not wanting another war to break out, but then she died and the letter turned out to be fake. I wish I could say otherwise, but she died for no reason at all. It seems that no matter what I do, I leave broken lives in my wake."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but you need to get over yourself."

"What?"

"You didn't kill the men who died in the Comet. If Ozai made them enlist, then Ozai caused their death. They could have just as easily died on the ground and it wouldn't have been your fault.

I have no idea if it's your own fault that your wife left you. Only you can know that.

I have no idea who set up my mother, and I probably never will, but someone wanted her to die. She knew she was going to die. Why else would she stop to write a will while she was on the run?

You can't undo any of the things that happened, but you have a son who needs a father who has his life together. If you feel bad, that's too bad. At least you have a son to go home too. Just pretend to feel better until you do. At least then your son will have a father who seems like he's all there even if he's not.

Look at it this way, if you spend all your time depressed about the deaths you might have caused and not living your life, you're doing even more of a disservice to those people because you're squandering the life you have. Maybe you deserve to be miserable. Maybe you don't, but being miserable isn't fair to that two year old boy who tries to eat his weight in meat every day."

Sokka looked up and saw his son chasing Hiro around the backyard. Hakoda did deserve a father who was fully there and if he wasn't, he'd just have to suck it up and pretend until he was there. Suki wasn't going to be there for him, that much he knew. He wouldd have to be enough of a parent for both of them.

Ty Lee noticed Rei's aura getting brighter as Sokka and Hakoda stayed at the house. She had been hesitant when the man appeared, which wasn't surprising given the reason she knew him at all, but the child seemed to be less defensive and bitter. The young girl realized she had to make the most of her life too. Her mother was gone. She had to live enough for both of them.

Rei insisted on seeing the shooting stars. "Mother said if I got close enough to them, I could firebend them."

"How close do you have to be?" Sokka asked her.

"I don't know, but I'll measure each step until I get there."

Hakoda had taken quite a liking to Ty Lee. He hadn't had a "mother" in some time. Gran Gran was an awesome great-grandmother, but she was getting old and she had chores. She couldn't run around with him all day like Ty Lee could.

"Does anyone come to visit?" Sokka had asked the warrior.

"Other than you and Haru's father, no. Mai sends letters. I haven't heard from anyone else."

She had hoped that Iroh and Ursa would reach out to the children, but it seemed that neither of them could look Rei in the eye since the funeral.

Ty Lee knew that for the most part, she was alone. Even her friends didn't keep her in the loop anymore. It was like she had never been a warrior.

It was almost two weeks in Sokka's stay when Ty Lee finally asked, "why did you and Suki divorce?"

Sokka gulped. He hadn't told anyone, other than his lawyer. "When she was pregnant, I was the happiest man in the world. I was doing flips. I was ready to get a tattoo of our child's name on my chest, but when she reached her seventh month, she told me that the baby might not be mine.

She had been getting fevers, and apparently that happens when nonbenders carry firebenders. She was afraid that it might be a firebender and then it would be obvious." Sokka didn't know whom she had cheated with. It could have been one of the guards or even Zuko. There were lots of firebenders in the palace and she wouldn't tell him.

"I spent the next two months panicked, unsure if I would be able to stay if it wasn't my child, unsure if I should. When he was born, he was clearly mine, my eyes, my skin, my hair, but even then, I still didn't trust her. She lied to me for seven months. She said she was working late when she was sleeping with another man that she was too tired for me because she had given it away to someone else.

I tried to move past it and focus on Hakoda, but I just didn't love her like I once had. She got sick of our "unhappy and sexless" marriage and called it quits. I let her walk. It wasn't until she tried to take Hakoda that we started arguing, and we never saw eye to eye again."

Ty Lee rubbed his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. That must have been miserable."

"It was. It still is, knowing that Hakoda hasn't seen her in over six months. He stopped asking about her. It's like he's already given up."

"I really hope she turns it around."

"Me too, for his sake. He needs a mother."

Ty Lee had always been a beautiful woman, but she became gorgeous when she got Azula's kids. Gone was her childlike innocence and replacing it was the maturity and refinement that comes with being a matriarch. She was truly exquisite.

The two looked at each other, unsure of what would happen next. They were on the edge of kissing or not kissing and it seemed like they were about to make an excuse and bail when they heard two voices go … "Would you just kiss her already?"

They snapped their heads to see an impatient Rei and Hiro waiting at the staircase. "Seriously, my bedtime was a while ago, and I need my beauty sleep," she told them.

"Up to bed, now!" Ty Lee pointed. The kids made off quickly.

Ty Lee laughed. "Those two are so ridic…" Sokka pulled her towards him, kissing a woman for the first time since Suki had left him. Her lips were soft and fruity and just a little spicy and he relished the taste as he held her close. Her arms wrapped around him and she felt a longing that had been long forgotten. Their lips stayed close for sometime before she gently opened her mouth. He responded and eventually their tongues got involved, and they clashed a few times before they got it right, but once it was right, it was so right. They needed each other.

The kiss lasted for hours. It had been broken a few times, but those breaks were easily forgotten. They fell asleep on the couch and when they woke up, it was morning.

Rei was looking at them. "Are you two going to give us a pseudo-sibling?"

Ty Lee turned pomegranate beet red.

Sokka laughed awkwardly. "Not anytime soon!"

"That's too bad."

Rei made off, having embarrassed Ty Lee enough for the morning.

"We should talk," Sokka told her.

"We should, but I got to get breakfast ready for the kids."

They sent smiles to each other all day. It was at night when it got difficult.

"I really like you," Ty Lee told him.

"I like you too."

"But I belong here, and you belong at the tribe."

"I know."

"How would we make it work?"

"I don't know. Maybe you could come visit in the summer and I could come here before the winter. It would work for a little while."

"Until you became chief."

"Yeah, there is that. That's a few years away at least. Maybe we could just see what happens."

She put her head on his shoulder. "As scary as that sounds, I like the sound of it."

"It's going to be a lonely winter," he said.

"I know, but we can write letters and in the spring, the Earth Kingdom is just wonderful."

"I'll come back, and maybe you can bring the kids to the tribe before next winter."

"They don't get much snow here. There is some, but it is kind of just a tease."

Sokka stayed as long as he could, but he wanted to visit Aang and Katara before the winter. "I haven't seen my nephew in months."

"I'm sure he misses you." Ty Lee gave him a kiss goodbye.

Hiro was sad to see his friend leaving. "Bye Hakoda! Bye Sokka!"

Rei was sad to see them go, not that she would admit it out loud. "Don't hurt yourself," was what she said as they left.

When Sokka did make it to the Air Nation, he was surprised at how big Bumi had gotten. "He's practically grown!"

"He can walk and talk, although he mostly just says mama and hungry."

"The only words he needs to know." Sokka scooped him up. "Who's my favorite nephew?"

"Were you in Omashu the whole time?" Katara asked him.

"No. We ended up staying with Ty Lee and the kids nearby."

"What?"

"She invited me to stay with them, so I didn't have to pay for an inn and Hakoda liked playing with Hiro and Rei so we went there. "

"How are they doing?" Aang asked tentatively.

"About as well as can be expected." It must be hard living in the house their parents built themselves. Everything in it has something to do with them, some story attached to it.

"How's Ty Lee?"

"Tired but happy. She took to being a mother figure quite well. Hakoda adored her after like the first day."

"I could see that. She's very sweet."

"Albeit a bit goofy," Katara added.

"I think her goofiness is mostly gone." Not completely, because that would be depressing, but she grew up fast.

It was his second night there when Katara asked him how he did it.

"How did I do what?"

"Stay at their house. I don't think I could face her kids again."

"It wasn't easy at all, but Toph suggested it. I had to find closure somehow and I couldn't think of another way. Every time I said something was nice or asked about what something was, it was something that was theirs. It was hard to believe they had the perfect family, but they did. The only thing I can do now is become the best father to Hakoda that I can. He deserves more than a dad who mopes all day."

"Aang and I fought a lot after everything. I know I pushed him too hard but if I didn't get upset about something, I would just start thinking about that explosion. I was too stubborn. I didn't even think about backing down to avoid disaster. I just had to stop her, and all I did was take two children's mother from them."

Sokka hugged his sister. "It will get easier. I know it will."

After a week, Sokka and Hakoda headed home. They had been gone long enough and it was time to return to the tribe.

Katara promised herself that she would make things right with her husband. She watched him play with their little boy. He's so amazing.

Sokka made it back to the tribe and Gran Gran could see the difference. "You're back. You're finally back."

"I am and I have so many stories to tell." Hakoda went to play with his namesake while Sokka explained what happened when he was away.

"I'm glad you met someone," Gran Gran told him at the end of the story.

"I have no idea how it's going to work, but I feel really good about this," like maybe all of the kids could have a two parent home again.

"Well, I look forward to meeting Ty Lee, and these two kids."

Pakku was surprised when he heard that Sokka had visited Ty Lee and the children, but he knew to always expect the unexpected when it came to his "grandson."

Sokka sent letters back and forth to Ty Lee. Most of them were just overviews of his days at the tribe. The days were short and the nights were long. He spent much of his time around a fire. The elders would often read stories aloud and Sokka would sit there with his son, holding him to keep him warm as he listened.

Ty Lee would tell him about her days in the kingdom. It was easier to stay warm with a firebender in the house. She didn't get cold. She could heatbend anyone else to warmth and the fireplace was always at the right temperature.

"We spend a lot of time drinking tea and hot chocolate," she told him.

That sounds really good right now, he thought to himself as he sat with warm water. He drank his water warm in the winters since it was so cold outside.

In the Fire Nation, Mai just received a letter from Ty Lee.

Dear Mai,

I hope all is well with you, Zuko and little Ursa. Things are going pretty well at the house. Sokka and Hakoda II came for a visit and the children got along well. Rei is still quite a handful, but I think she's beginning to soften around the edges. She and Sokka seemed to get along pretty well before he left, not that she would admit it to me. She just said, "I suppose he's alright for a simple tribesman." Sound like anyone?

Hiro has been teaching himself to earth bend. I'm not sure how he does it, but he seems to retain everything his grandfather teaches him when he visits and then makes up his own variations.

Rei has been reading her mother's firebending scrolls. Apparently, she wrote a how to fire bend guide. Sometimes I have to coax Rei inside. She trains so much, but she says she has to live up to her family name. Like Azula, she is very proud.

The winter is approaching. I'm going to have to get Hiro and Rei new coats because they outgrew their old ones. I swear Hiro outgrows his clothes every time I turn around. I would say he eats too much, but he's growing taller and staying really skinny, like his Dad.

Send everyone my love, and maybe we could visit you this summer.

Ty Lee

Mai felt like she was in a nightmare that she couldn't escape. She would go on about her day like normal and something would just bring her back to that funeral and seeing those two small kids, their world burning away in front of them.

Mai kept asking herself why didn't Azula just come home? She wrote her will. She prepared to die instead of coming back. Why? Did she really think a reconciliation was impossible?

She spent much of her time alone. Ursa spent a lot of time with her granddaughter and Zuko was going to make those loyalist bastards pay.

Mai knew she needed to spend more time with her daughter, but it just seemed too unfair. She would get to see Ursa grow up. Azula was denied that chance.

Ursa played dress up with little Ursa. The girl was adorable. She had her mother's eyes and her father's hair. She was happy to have this granddaughter, but sad that there was another one who she didn't know. Who knows if she even wants anything to do with me? She felt like she had failed as a mother, not once, but twice.

When Iroh came to visit, his first time in the palace since the funeral, he had a long conversation with the former Princess about her daughter.

"I never understood the girl, not when she was a child, not when she angrily showed up at my house, and not until the day she died. Somewhere along the way, she fell in love, got married, had two beautiful children, and I missed all of it."

Iroh had no words to comfort her. "I gave up on her a long time ago," he said. "I never thought she would be anything more than her father's pawn. She had so much more to give, and I missed it too."

"Do you think her kids will ever give us a chance?"

"I don't know. Rei is certainly her mother's daughter, but I'd like to think that someday, we could get it right where we failed with her mother."

"They haven't come to visit. I don't know if they plan on it."

"Ty Lee's probably having enough trouble getting them situated where they are. Have you heard from her?"

"Not directly. She writes to Mai periodically, but I only know what Mai tells me."

Iroh wondered if he should visit. Maybe he should write to Ty Lee and see how she's doing.

Dear Ty Lee,

I hope all is well with you. I know you must have your hands full with two kids and I wish I had been more supportive of you when you first took custody of them, but I was too shell shocked to do much of anything. It just felt so unreal, like it was a bad dream and I would wake up and everything would be normal again.

My reasons, however, are not excuses, and if it would be appropriate, I would like to pay a visit and lend a helping hand.

Iroh

It took four days for the letter to reach Ty Lee. She was happy to have received it but she was surprised that Iroh had written at all. She wasn't sure if he was still at the palace, but she tried there anyway, figuring they would forward it home if he left.

Dear Iroh,

Things are going well at the house. It is difficult dealing with two active benders, both of whom like to bend in the middle of the living room, but they are great kids.

Rei's vocabulary is much too adult for her age. Hiro is convinced that he can become a badger mole if he rolls in the dirt long enough. I think Rei might have spoon-fed him this fib.

I would like it if you came to visit. I will warn you now that Hiro will likely be welcoming. Rei will probably not be so welcoming at first. She is quite protective of her mother, and it hasn't been easy given the things that people still say about her when we go out in public.

She does, eventually, warm up to people, so I hope you give her a chance.

Ty Lee

Two weeks later, Iroh was in Omashu making his way to the cottage that Azula had once called home.

Rei was not exactly thrilled when Ty Lee told her that he would be visiting. He never bothered with her mother. Why should she bother with him? Ty Lee tried to encourage her to be forgiving, but it was not a concept that came easily to the young princess. She opted to go to her room and stay there for the time being.

Hiro on the other hand understood much less of the family dynamics. He saw an old man and heard uncle and that was all he needed to hear.

"Uncle Iroh!" he said with a childish squeal.

The older Prince picked up his nephew. "Look how big you've grown."

"I'm almost 4!"

"What do you want for your birthday?"

"I don't know."

"Well, make sure to tell me when you figure it out."

"How have you been?" Ty Lee hugged him.

"I've seen better days, but I can't complain. He looks just like his father."

"I know. He acts like him too. Would you like some tea?"

"I'll never turn it down."

"Even if I make it. Rei insists I over steep it. She says her internal clock tells her when the tea is ready."

"Well isn't she a sophisticated five year old."

"Don't remind me. She's also a food critic, a wine connoisseur even though she doesn't drink it and she's a fashion expert. She keeps telling me I'm at least ten years too old to wear pink."

"Ouch!"

Just then Rei came and poured the tea. "You were going to over steep it again."

"You didn't even see me brew it."

"I just know okay, and I could hear you gabbing from a km away."

"I'm am not that loud!"

"Keep telling yourself that. Hiro, stop climbing on that before you bust your head."

He had climbed up the bookshelf." Ty Lee went and got him down.

"What are you doing?"

"I wanted to show Iroh how high I can climb."

"Well you are a good climber," Iroh told him, "but let's stay on the ground for today."

"Okay. Can I climb tomorrow?"

"He struggles with core concepts," Rei said dryly.

"Rei," Ty Lee chided.

"What? He is three. You have to tell him the same thing every day." Rei sipped her tea. "Where did you get this?"

"Aunt Wu's."

"I could tell. Her tea blends are funky."

"It's just fine."

Rei looked at her but said no more. Her mother would never buy this stuff, but as far as parenting goes, Ty Lee isn't so bad at it. She was actually pretty good at it.

"Why don't you show Iroh the new trick you learned?"

Rei glared at her but then she went outside. She made two flames, each of them blue and managed to spin her arms off beat, making two ribbons of fire that were in a half phase with each other. After making a three beat weaving pattern, she managed to make a five beat. She tried for seven but her arms got tangled up. "I'm not quick enough for the last part yet."

Iroh had never seen anything like it. "That was very impressive; how long have you been firebending?"

"Since I was two. My first word was agni. I'm pretty sure Mom taught me to channel him before she taught me to walk."

Not wanting to be left out, Hiro ran outside. "I can do stuff too." He stomped his foot, making a giant Earth clod. Rei ducked for cover, but Hiro stomped two more times, breaking it into tiny pieces that bounced around on the ground.

"When did you learn that?"

"Last week. I teach myself when grandpa's not here."

Iroh knew very little about earthbending other than what he had learned to fight them during the war, but he knew that Hiro had very good control for a boy his age. Most three year olds would be just picking up dirt if they could do that. Many benders couldn't do it until they were five or maybe even seven. Ursa appeared to be a late bloomer like her father.

Iroh offered to teach Rei in the mornings. She looked like she wanted to say, "Piss off," but when Ty Lee gave her that look, she "graciously accepted."

He knew it wouldn't be easy earning the firebender's trust, but he was determined not to give up. Rei was the closest to redemption he was ever going to get.

Ty Lee would watch their practices every morning, hoping that this would be a chance for them to get to know each other. She thought Iroh was a good man, a seriously flawed man, but who in the Fire Nation royalty hadn't been. No one makes it through the treachery of Azulon and Ozai unscathed. Everyone came out with scars. She hoped that the healing could finally begin.

Hiro loved watching their practices, trying to copy the forms even though they didn't go with his element. He thought his sister was so cool. Everything came naturally to her.

Rei had to admit that her great uncle was a very talented bender. There was a reason he had been called Dragon of the West. One day, she asked him why he and her mother had never gotten along.

"She was a very difficult person to reach when she was growing up. She knew what was expected of her from her father, to best her brother, to win battles to be fierce and anyone who wanted something else from her became an obstacle." Iroh had eventually decided she was incapable of having a different life.

"What about what she wanted for herself?" It didn't seem fair. Ozai caused so many problems, but he lived. She was the child, and she died.

He had always assumed that she wanted what Ozai wanted for her, but he had never asked. "I never knew what she wanted for herself, what kind of person she would be without Ozai there. You and Hiro probably knew her better than anyone else, other than your father."

Of course he didn't know; he never asked. No one did.

After two weeks, Iroh headed back to his teashop. The winter was almost over. When the spring came, his clientele would be bigger again and he had to get ready. Hiro told Iroh to visit again soon. Rei hugged her uncle, but she didn't have any parting words for him. Iroh thought that was a success in itself.

"Take care Ty Lee."

"You too Iroh."