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Zuko turned, catching sight of Azula out of the corner of his eye, and darted after her. She caught sight of him over her shoulder and sent him a panicked look, Zuko's delight at the simple chase curdling at the look in her eyes. She sped up, her feet thumping against the floor, her arms pumping, as Zuko began to close the distance, reaching out a hand to grab her shoulder, to make her stop, to ask her what-
His hand passed through her shoulder, Azula disappearing in a puff of smoke and a faint scream.
Zuko shot up, his hand clutched to his chest, his heart beating fast, a sour taste in his mouth. He sucked in a deep breath, his eyes wide in his dark room, as he scrubbed a hand over his damp and sweaty hair. Strewn about the room, his friends slept, almost all of them touching and connected in some way or another.
He paused for a moment, taking in another shaky breath before swinging his legs off his bed and stumbling from the room.
He wandered down the halls, yawning and waving away any servants that attempted to help him, until he had found his way to the roof, the cool air helping clear his head. He sat in the eaves as the sun began to peek over the horizon, its rays a welcome touch on his clammy skin.
"So this is where you get off to."
Zuko jolted from his half-dozing position, blinking his eyes open and twisting to look at Toph over his shoulder. The earth bender snorted at his surprise and sat down half a pace from him, her face turning to the sun.
The two sat in silence for a long moment, as birds began trilling in trees and the sounds of the castle awakening began to swell around them.
"I couldn't sleep," Zuko offered as the sun fully rose from the horizon, the heat filling him with courage. "I keep having these dreams."
"About your sister?" Toph asked bluntly, not moving as Zuko sharply looked at her. "Don't give me that look," she said. "I might be blind, but I'm not an idiot." She flattened her feet on the ground, leaning back on her palms, before laying back down and crossing her arms behind her head. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"There's- there isn't anything to say," Zuko muttered after a beat. He followed her motions, settling down in the sunlight and looking up at the clear blue sky. "Azula's… Azula."
Toph snorted. "Now I know you think I'm an idiot," she said. "There's no way that you aren't tearing yourself up over her." She fell silent for a moment. "For what it's worth, I think that you should talk to her." Zuko hummed, closing his eyes. "I think that she might want to hear from you," Toph continued. "After all it isn't every day that you overthrow a reign that consists of your abusive father."
Zuko flinched minutely and Toph sighed. "I won't apologize for that," she said, her voice almost sharp. "Sometimes it feels like we all forgot that she was a kid too, when this whole thing started."
"It's not-it's not judgment," Zuko said quietly, his eyes still closed, as the scar on his face began to ache softly. "I just- I can't believe that I didn't see it."
Toph sighed, her voice wearied. "Sometimes," she said, shifting so their hands were lightly brushing. "That's just how it is."
***
Zuko stared at himself in the mirror, his eyes tracing the familiar burn marring his face. He prodded at the long healed scar, memories flickering in his mind before he caught sight of Azula behind him and flinched, accidentally poking his eye. He bit back his cry of pain and turned, leaning back against the water basin, hearing someone race towards him as he blinked his watering eyes.
"Zuko?" Katara murmured, as her gentle fingertips tilted his face down. "You doing okay?"
He nodded, his eyes flickering to the doorway where Sokka and Aang stood, their worried looks subsiding at their realization that he had accidentally hurt himself. He peered over their shoulders awkwardly, as Katara hovered beside him.
Sokka cleared his throat. "You- you looking for someone else bud?"
Zuko rolled his eyes at the moniker and straightened. "Was Azula here? A moment ago?"
Aang shook his head, suddenly looking far more concerned than he had a moment ago. "It's just us here," he said slowly. "Toph and Suki went to do something and no one's come into your private rooms since mid-morning."
Sokka looked over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing. "Azula can't climb walls, can she? Or-"
"Sokka," Katara said sharply, cutting off the rest of his sentence. She turned to look back at Zuko, an awkward half-smile on her face. "It's just us here," she said. "Just us."
"Right," Zuko said after a beat. "I knew that." Sokka snorted, and Zuko knew without looking that Katara had immediately sent him a withering glare, as he raised his hands and backed out of the room, Aang following after a quick look exchanged with Katara. Zuko glanced away from them, his eyes sweeping across his bathroom, the tiles gleaming in the sun from the window, the tiny flames etched into the rim of the tub, the red that was splashed everywhere until he almost felt he was drowning in it.
"Hey," Katara said softly, doing her best to not spook him. He turned to look at her, slightly stunned, as always at how she had helped save the world as a teen. Just like Azula, his brain whispered before he shoved the thought away. "Are you sure you're okay?" Katara asked, her hands almost hovering like she was about to start waterbending.
Zuko shook his head once to clear his mind of thoughts before smiling. "Yeah," he said, roughly. "I'm fine. I just - I don't want to have to speak in front of everyone again."
Katara watched him for a beat before she smiled back at him, letting him have his lie for once. "Yeah," she said, reaching out to gently tug him from the bathroom. "Public speaking can be the worst."
Zuko nodded, letting himself be pulled from the bathroom, and shoving all his worries to the side as he re-focused on his duties for the afternoon.
***
Zuko sat cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed and his mind focused on the tiny flame spitting from the single candle in the dark meditation room. He breathed in and out, focusing on the cycle of the flame, his hands laid flat on his legs with his palms facing the sky.
As he breathed, the flame breathed with him, the light growing with each intake and shrinking with each exhale. He kept his eyes closed and his jaw unclenched and focused on sifting through his thoughts, settling himself as was his custom at the end of a long week.
He let his mind wander, following the threads of tightly bound worry and spiraling anxiety, as he sought to find peace. He rolled his shoulders back, having tensed instinctively as Azula rolled through his thoughts. He just- he simply had no idea what to do in regards to her.
What he wanted - what he ached for - was a gentle relationship full of fondness and annoyed exasperation but unending love and minimal pain. He wanted safety and he wanted her to trust him.
He followed the path of his thoughts, pushing through the self-recrimination and guilt that threatened him, and realized that he still had no idea what Azula wanted. He swallowed hard, his throat bobbing, as he began to realize he had never heard Azula actually ask for anything.
She had demanded, yes, demanded as though the sky was going to fall and the world was going to burn unless she received exactly what she wanted, but she had never asked. And Zuko realized, suddenly certain of it, that she had never truly wanted what she had demanded. She had only sought to appear the way she was.
He slumped slightly, pulling out of his meditation to scrub at his eyes. He just - he didn't know what to do. And normally, he'd reach out to Uncle, but as blind as he was, he wasn't enough of an idiot to miss the tension that was clear between the two of them - a tension that had been visible since childhood.
Zuko blew out a breath, ignoring the way the candle's flame almost spluttered out, and laid down across the floor, fixing his eyes on the ceiling.
He knew that things had been wrong between them for years, had thought that either Azula would destroy herself with the terrible evil of their Father was cultivating in her or that she would be forced to be contained for the rest of her life. He thought that Uncle was going to help him, was going to guide him into better things - and he had - but there was a small twinge in his mind, a tiny voice piping up, at the most inconvenient times, that said, what about Azula.
He hated what had become of them, what they had been forced to endure, that he might've won the war and saved the world, but lost his little sister in the remaking. He felted knotted up, tight in his chest, when he tried to understand what had gone wrong.
He sighed, reaching out to pinch out the flame on the candle, before pushing himself up from the floor. He would be there for Azula, he promised in his mind. He'd be there, for as long or as little as she wanted. But, he noted, pushing through the doorway into the hallways of the Fire Palace, it would be on her terms, and her terms only, because clearly, he wasn't the best at understanding quite where they stood.
He sighed again, shutting the door behind him with a quiet snick, before heading down the hallways to find his friends, sending up a final quiet prayer to Agni, that Azula also felt peace for the night.