Sorry to go back and add things to old chapters again, but I put in a fairly important exchange between Iroh and Ursa in chapter 27. I'll post it again here:

"All right," he agreed once he realized my mind was made up. Instead, he sought to give some last comfort. "If there's one thing I've learned about my brother, it's that he always gets what he wants eventually. And that he's not the understanding type, except when it comes to you. And I have never known him to change his mind about anything, least of all you. You bring out the best in him. You always have. You help make him… a better person."

Iroh never thought to ask whether Ozai brought out the best in me, but I couldn't blame him. He had to prioritize his brother's, and his nation's, future over mine. Still, it would've been nice to have him question what could go wrong for me, if only for a moment. It would've been nice to have anyone put my needs first.

I certainly didn't.

"Now go home! I'll watch Lu Ten. You deserve some rest after a ship ride with my son and a very pregnant woman."

Below is the real chapter.

Lee arrived before the twins, missing his right leg.

He came home in funeral white.

Kazou didn't come home at all.

Zhen couldn't move. She kept staring at the door, waiting for a second man who would never come through. I didn't know whether to rush to her side or Maylin's. With Zhao's boots and white uniform, none of us realized he had a prosthetic leg. None of us even noticed his limp.

A wave of relief washed over Maylin when she saw her husband's face, but the blinding light of his uniform sent a wave of dread. He greeted her with a shower of kisses, especially to her round belly, before turning towards Zhen.

The doorway remained empty, and she still couldn't move.

Or speak. Or think. I nearly asked, "Zhen, are you breathing," but we were still waiting for Lee to explain… something. We were still waiting for Zhen's world to never be the same.

You have to say it, Lee. You have to say it for it to be real to her.

So he said it.

Zhen sat down.

Her sister cried, screamed, whimpered, and wailed, unable to leave her bed but desperate to do just that. Lee held his wife's hand, and I held the silent, frozen Zhen as she just stared off into space.

Expressionless.

Hopeless.

Crumbling.

Tears streamed down my face for the man I'd considered a future brother. In person, I'd only spent a few weeks getting to know him, but Zhen secretly loved to share his letters with me and, from her, I felt like I'd known him for years. Kazou had been so witty and wise, discerning and patient, thoughtful and philosophical, virtuous and selfless… He was vulnerable yet full of conviction and character, and he loved Zhen for who she was, understanding her inside and out.

In a way no one else ever could.

I mourned even more for my cousin. As I held her, I felt her shut down. I felt her heart stone over in a way that could never fully heal. I heard that flame inside her doused forever, never to light her eyes as brightly again.

She would go on, of course. She would continue to serve and love. To be the best aunt and sister she could be.

But she wouldn't really live.

No matter how we tried, no matter what we did or said… She dedicated her life to the memory of one love, wearing a white ribbon for him daily and well into spinsterhood. And while I couldn't blame her, it broke my heart.

Lee explained that there'd been an accident that he and Kazou had rushed to address. When they realized a small explosion—not enough to destroy the ship so much as one room—was imminent, they fled.

Kazou had been just a few seconds too late.

We would later learn that Lee went back for him, losing both his best friend and burning half of his leg. The damage was so fierce, especially after it became infected, that amputation became necessary.

Zhen and I left the room to give the husband and wife some privacy, and Zhen's face suddenly had an expression. Not one of sorrow or pain or even shock. It was one of suppressed words, of a held-back thought that she couldn't keep in any longer.

"Zhen?" I asked softly, touching her elbow and waiting in respectful, but determined, silence.

"Ursa, in the…" Her voice cracked for a second, but she recovered without any other sign. "Last letter Kazou wrote me, he said he refused to do something that… his conscience wouldn't allow."

"Something that was asked or ordered? By a superior?" I asked in confusion.

"He didn't say anything other than that, but… I have to know, Ursa. I just have to know, or it's going to drive me—" she confessed in a rushed panic, and I took her twisting hands in mine.

"All right, all right. I'll ask Ozai to look into it, I promise, but promise me you'll focus on you. Kazou died a hero who loved you. Never doubt that. Grieve and love and live the way he would want you to. Okay?"

She nodded but left for her room. Maylin called for us to come back in, and I went to persuade her that Zhen needed rest and time alone. Lee had no more insight to offer on the accident, or on what Kaou refused, and we were interrupted by a face couldn't have been more welcome.

"Ozai!" Ursa cried with a face of relief from true, true grief.

Before I could respond or even blink, she rushed into me and threw her arms about my neck. I held her tightly and let my chest catch her tears, looking to Maylin and Lee for an explanation. His stark white uniform, in addition to Zhen's uncharacteristic absence, served well enough.

She released me eventually and ran through a rapid, barely-discernable explanation while Maylin and Lee stared at me. The couple was unaccustomed to royalty visiting their home, even a third-in-line royal who happened to be enamored with their friend.

Ursa probably didn't have time to tell them what happened now that I think about it. That could also be confusing.

I did my best to be as casual as possible, sitting next to Lee and pretending to understand what Ursa was saying. Maylin smiled, adjusting to this new reality with more ease and comfort than most women in the Fire Nation would have. She, like Ursa, understood the distinctions, walls, and masks involved with class and nobility but didn't care for or feel them one whit.

Ursa collapsed and curled up next to me at last while Maylin expressed… something. I couldn't hear over the sound of Ursa's breath.

"Where did you send Zhao?" she asked in a whisper of sudden curiosity.

"On a wild goose chase. Searching for some spirit library in the middle of the desert." The great irony was that if he hadn't gone on that "wild goose chase," he would have never convinced me to spare him. "I promise you that Zhao will never advance in the Fire Navy."

Yet years later, even before I wanted to do everything I could to spite Ursa, Zhao won my support in promotion after promotion. The fool's groveling, knowledge, and total dedication/fear of me worked. Zhao was smart enough to be useful but not enough to be a threat. Someone I could always control, often without him being fully aware of it. He would tirelessly and without fail to please me and to avoid a recurrence of my wrath. Of course, he still would hate Ursa and me enough to torment our son.

"On the bright side," Ozai tried to be optimistic for once with rather disastrous results as he spoke to Lee. "You'll be with Maylin to raise and see your children grow up every day. Is there a position in particular you'd like now that you can't return to active duty? There are many teaching positions that I'm sure you'll thrive in even with your leg, and they have homes for—

He'd observed the way Lee sat and erroneously assumed that everyone else had too.

"WHAT?" Maylin asked, trying to bolt out of her bed while I felt like an idiot for not seeing.

We spent the next few minutes trying to calm her down. She didn't try to get up again, but she did burst into tears on at least five separate occasions.

"This is all my fault… I wanted you to be home in time so desperately, and I wished you could be home always for the kids, but the spirits have punished me for it! Oh the cost of my selfishness… Kazou's life and your leg—"

"Your water just broke!" I exclaimed as Maylin realized it too.

"My water just broke!"

"Her water just broke!" Lee repeated with glee.

"Lee, midwives," I reminded him as he grinned and stood there in shock.

"Right! I'll get the midwives!"

"And I'll get Zhen," I said, forgetting Ozai as I left the room.

"And I'll… um…" I trailed off as Maylin giggled and practiced breathing.

"Boil some water?" she suggested. "We have plenty of clean sheets."

"Boiling! Yes. Fire I can do," I agreed with a sigh, retrieving some water until Ursa and Zhen came back in a minute later.

"Prince Ozai?" her cousin stuttered.

Ursa left that detail out.

"I'm going to… Come back later?" I offered and Ursa agreed by kissing me goodbye and sending me off with that flawless smile of hers.

Zhen and I never left the room during Maylin's labor, hours long though it was, and we watched her deliver two beautiful, health baby girls.

"Zi Lee and Yi Lee," Maylin declared with all the joy in the world.

She was covered in sweat, but her reddened, worn face glowed even in her total exhaustion.

From the way Lee looked at her, she'd never been more beautiful.

Zhen beamed as much as she could in her total grief, rocking and kissing her nieces, loving them as if they were her own.

I gooed over, kissed, and instantly fell in love with them also, but fatigue crashed over us soon enough.

I didn't know what to say once the basic compliments were covered over and over again so I let the new family with, "Iroh would say, 'If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that is all you will ever see.' And that hope… Well, I forget what he says about hope, but I'm sure it's very inspirational."

The laughed, and I gave everyone else a last kiss goodbye. It'd been a long day for everyone, and I longed to sleep for a week.

But when I got home, the other prince of the Fire Nation stood there waiting.

With a face so grim I thought his wife had died again.

"You heard about Kazou?" I guessed until I saw he held a letter addressed to me.

"Lady Ursa…"

He never calls me Lady.

"Iroh, what is it?"

He walked over to me without breaking his gaze and without removing that horrible expression.

Ice filled my stomach and then spread slowly through my every limb.

"Your father," he said simply, slipping the scroll into my hand and trying to comfort me with a look.

I sat down.

He held my hand.

I couldn't unfurl the scroll.

"You have to say it," I whispered, thrusting the letter back at him and running out of tears to cry. "You have to say it to make it real."

So he said it.

And I found more tears.

When I finally made it to bed, my recurring nightmare didn't go away. It just changed.

In this dream, I still stood on a bedroom balcony, my hair up and my back bared. He walked towards me with cruelty in his eyes. My heart felt impossibly heavy and impossibly empty all at once, crushed and threatening to explode. I longed to collapse into ashes, I longed to burst into flame.

Then he would kiss my neck with an icy hand on the small of back. His slimy skin on mine. My spine had never felt so cold, nor my body so frail. I felt like broken glass.

But then the came the very fire I craved. White-hot heat, and the he changed shape. Zhao's face was replaced by Ozai's, but the wicked, ear-to-ear grins remained. And the way he laughed…

The way he cackled.

Alien. Foreign. Totally unrecognizable as my Ozai.

Yet it came from his lips.

And it filled his golden eyes with a lightning that made me weep.

He said something, but I could never make out the words.

I barely registered his voice. It was unmistakably his and yet… Darker and deeper than I'd believed it possible. Coated in oil.

As if he were a stranger.

A villain.

I didn't know it, but it would recur again and again, at least once a week for the next few months.

And it finally made me think.

It made me think about how familiar so many of the things Zhao said and did were. It forced me acknowledge that, in our short time together, Zhao had reminded me of Ozai. My Ozai.

And it made me think about the way Kazou had loved Zhen and Iroh had loved Lu Sen. The way Lee loved Maylin. The way my father had loved my mother.

I didn't want to compare. I knew every love was unique, but I couldn't shake the feeling that my prince… had a lot to learn about love in any form. And sacrifice. And in understanding me.

I'd always believed that we understood each other completely, that we knew every corner of one another's souls, but what if we didn't?

I'm being insane, I told myself. I've loved Ozai since I was five years old. He's my best friend. He knows me better than anyone else. I know him better than anyone else. Better than he knows himself!

Yet there was still small voice that asked, Is that enough? Will I be enough when his darkness threatens to swallow him again?

I refused to listen. I refused to be like everyone else who knew him. I refused to let him fulfill his own prophecy.

I refused to see every red flag.

Until everything fell out from under me.

Don't forget to review if you want an update! ;)