Chapter Text
Fire and lightning fade into a distant memory, and then into nothing at all.
Zuko opens his eyes.
Calm spreads out from his chest to his fingertips. Zuko has no idea where he is, but where this would usually leave him unbalanced and irritated, today it feels like a minor musical note in a symphony. Far more interesting are the sensations of the padded material beneath his knees, the quiet of the empty room, the cheerful words painted onto the wall opposite him:
Welcome! Everything is fine.
Zuko almost smiles.
A door creaks to his left, and Zuko is surprised to find that the vision from his left eye is perfectly intact. The whole word is in-focus. It’s almost like Zuko can see too many details. He lifts a hand to his face and feels that the scar is still present, but it doesn't ache or obscure his vision anymore.
The young man in the doorway smiles.
“Hello, Zuko,” he says, his voice as serene as everything else. “Come on in.”
Zuko follows the young man in the monk robes into a large room, and they kneel across from one another. Between them lies a tea set. Zuko has never much cared for the taste of tea, which usually represents false propriety across a table, thinly-disguised threats, and the knowledge that one misstep could cost him his life.
Today, the smell of the tea reminds him instead of Uncle Iroh.
Zuko accepts a cup from the young man. It is warm in his palms.
“I’m Aang,” the monk introduces himself. “I’m the architect.”
Zuko glances around them again. They’re in some kind of meeting room. It is minimally decorated, but every clean line and warm colour seems deliberate.
“Where am I?” Zuko asks. “I don’t remember getting here.”
In his glancing around, Zuko’s eyes catch on his own sleeves. He’s wearing muted greys and dark blues. These are colours Zuko sometimes wears when he dons his Blue Spirit mask, colours aimed at blending in with the darkness of night. Why is he wearing this in the clear light of day?
And why is Aang openly wearing the warm colours and blue tattoos of the Air Nomads? The only Air Nomads Zuko has ever met were careful to blend in with the Earth Kingdom in order to avoid being hunted down. Their identifying robes and tattoos are a thing of the deep past.
“Zuko,” says Aang, with a serene gravity in his tone, “you are dead. Your life in the physical world has come to an end, and you are now in the next phase of your existence in the universe.”
Zuko blinks. “I don’t remember dying.”
“We remove the memories, in cases of traumatic deaths,” Aang explains. “Just know that you died well and for a good cause. You can regain that memory later, should you like to.”
Zuko isn’t sure why he would want to remember dying. “I thought I would be reborn?” Zuko asks. He’s never had much interest in the spiritual, aside from the situation with Zhao and the Moon Spirit, but Zuko is certain he wasn’t taught to expect a waiting room and a monk after his death.
“That's what normally happens,” Aang explains. “Sometimes, someone steps off the wheel of rebirth. When they do that, they end up here, in the Spirit World.”
“This is the Spirit World?” Zuko asks. He lifts one hand from his cup and looks at it intently, checking his own solidity.
Aang chuckles. “These neighbourhoods are built for humans. You will still interpret yourself as solid. It turns out humans really enjoy the physicality of their existence. It’s so weird!”
“You’re not human?”
“I’m an Architect,” Aang explains. “I’m a spirit who was brought into existence for the sake of maintaining these neighbourhoods. I built this one - it’s actually my first! I’m really excited.”
Aang’s honest enthusiasm eases the faint anxiety that had bloomed in Zuko at the idea of being in the Spirit World.
“Why did I step off the wheel of rebirth?” Zuko asks.
“People leave the wheel for two reasons,” Aang explains. “Either because they reached their moral potential, and they’re ready to ascend - or because they, uh, hurt people badly enough that they can’t continue.” Zuko looks up at Aang, alarmed, and Aang continues: “Don’t worry, Zuko. You’re here for the good reason.”
The tension eases. “Oh,” Zuko says, confused.
“Welcome to the Good Place.”
Aang takes Zuko walking through the neighbourhood.
Zuko grew up in a palace of cold marble. Everything around him was expensive and deliberate and beautiful, but it always felt untouchable, and it always made Zuko feel misplaced and flawed.
The neighbourhood is completely different. It’s more like the towns that Zuko would travel through while in exile, but without the inevitable scars of war and poverty. The buildings are mismatched. The people are laughing. The sun is shining down on them.
It’s warm, in every sense that Zuko understands the world.
“There are other neighbourhoods in the Good Place, run by other architects,” Aang explains as they walk. “It’s possible to visit them. But I designed this neighbourhood to bring together young people who died early because of the war.”
Something squirms uncomfortably in Zuko’s stomach.
Zuko reaches up to fidget with his hair, only to find that it has been styled into a topknot. There’s more of it than before; his post-Agni Kai style has grown out. Zuko’s father never let him wear a topknot, because it was a symbol of honour that Ozai was adamant Zuko had never earned.
“I don’t understand why I’m here,” Zuko says, his discomfort twisting into genuine anxiety.
Aang collects a packet of fire flakes from a stall and passes them over to Zuko.
“People come to the Good Place when they have lived truly extraordinary lives,” Aang explains. “You lived an extraordinary life, Zuko. You brought so much good into the world, and completely against the odds. I wouldn’t be surprised if your actions and your legacy end the whole war! Though we’ll have to wait to watch that unfold, I guess.”
Zuko frowns, confused by Aang’s suggestion.
Zuko may have lived an extraordinary life, being born a prince and granted important missions in the war, but it was not extraordinary in a good way.
Something isn’t right here.
“What… What about the other place?” Zuko asks, forcing himself to continue walking down the path with Aang without stumbling. “The place souls go to when they’ve hurt too many people?”
Aang hesitates. “The Bad Place,” he says after a moment. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
“What happens there?” Zuko asks, because he definitely needs to worry about that.
Aang shrugs. “Torment,” he says, “but… it’s really only for the worst of the worst, Zuko. It’s very rare that anyone goes there at all.”
Aang hasn’t called him ‘Prince Zuko’ once.
Zuko isn’t wearing clothes that belong to him. They’re similar colours to his Blue Spirit disguise, but not the same items; this clothing is softer and more comfortable.
Zuko’s hair is in a style he has never worn before, not even once.
“Aang,” Zuko starts, the words bubbling up through his fear, “do you think there’s a chance--”
“We’re here!” Aang announces with a flourish, gesturing to the small house on the corner. “Oh, sorry, I interrupted you.”
Zuko looks up at the house. The whole thing is painted dark blue with white swirls, a pattern that seems distinctly Water Tribe.
“Are you ready to go inside?” Aang asks when Zuko doesn’t finish his sentences. “There’s someone important you need to meet.”
The someone important is a young man from the Water Tribe, with a wide smile and bright eyes, who looks at Zuko with an urgent kind of joy.
“This is Sokka,” Aang says, “your soulmate.”
“My… What?” Zuko asks, glancing between Aang and the impossibly handsome man in front of him.
“Soulmates are kind of rare; it's what happens when two souls keep finding each other through enough lives that they impress it into destiny,” Aang explains. “But sometimes things get in the way. Like early death and war. You and Sokka were supposed to meet, but…”
Sokka laughs at whatever expression has taken over Zuko’s face. “I was pretty surprised soulmates are real, too,” he admits, reaching up a hand to scratch the back of his head. The sides of his head are shaven in a Water Tribe style. “It seems crazy, right? That we really lived over and over again?”
Water Tribe. Zuko had been trying to tell the Fire Lord about the Northern Water Tribe before he died, hadn’t he?
“Sokka, this is Zuko,” Aang says. “Zuko is still getting used to everything, so…”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t tell him about the time knife,” Sokka responds.
“Don’t tell me about the what?”
“We’ll be fine, Aang. I’ll show him around,” Sokka insists. “Thanks so much for bringing him here.”
“And if you need anything…” Aang starts.
“I know, I’ll ask Momo,” Sokka finishes, all but pushing Aang out the door. “Bye, Architect Aang!”
And then Sokka - Zuko’s soulmate, who is from the Water Tribe, and died young because of the war that Zuko’s family raged on the world - turns to look at Zuko with the most dazzling smile Zuko thinks he’s ever seen.
“Um,” Zuko starts, unsure of how to handle any of this whatsoever.
“You’re here!” Sokka bursts. “You-- I’ve been waiting for you for… not that long, actually. Aang said it might be lifetimes before you stepped off the wheel, but I only died a few months ago, and here you are! Wow.”
Zuko asks as it occurs to him: “Am I here because of you?”
“What? No, you’re here because you were obviously awesome,” Sokka explains. “Sorry, I guess I interrupted Aang’s welcome speech. He came by earlier to tell me you were on your way in, and I annoyed Katara so much she actually just left me here.” He laughs, then, and Zuko realises that Sokka is nervous. Nervous to meet Zuko.
Zuko, who is beginning to suspect that something has gone horribly wrong here.
“Can I…?” Sokka asks. “I know this must be a lot to process right now, and I don’t want to overwhelm you or anything. But can I give you a hug?”
There’s no real reason to decline, with the sole exception of the fact that everything here is wrong, so Zuko nods once and allows himself to be embraced.
Sokka’s arms fold around him gently, and some tension deep in Zuko relaxes incrementally.
It’s somehow the best thing Zuko has ever felt.
Soulmates, he thinks, sinking into the embrace. Sokka feels right against him, strong and warm and comfortable, and Zuko feels like he’s home. Not ‘home’ the way he had known it in life, with its cold marble and strict discipline, but ‘home’ in the way that he saw in families on his journeys. It’s like… It’s like the way Sokka smells is from a kind memory, but there’s no such memory in Zuko’s mind; it’s buried instead in his heart.
Soulmates are meant to find one another in life.
Sokka’s life ended early because of Zuko, in a roundabout way.
Zuko pulls back eventually, guilt gnawing at him for how much he’d allowed himself to enjoy the moments of being close to Sokka. And when Sokka smiles at him now, it’s different; Sokka’s eyes are a little misty. He looks like his happiness cannot be contained by his body. (Though Zuko is unclear on the details of whether they really have bodies here at all.)
“Can you tell me about your life?” Zuko asks, grasping for anything to hold onto that isn’t Sokka.
Sokka sits down and gestures for Zuko to follow.
“Yeah, of course,” Sokka says, and clears his throat. “We’ve got a lot of time for that, and for anything else you want to know about this place. You must have a lot of questions.”
Zuko’s arms come up around himself before he can remind them to stay still. “That’s kind of a lot,” he admits. “Can we just start with you?”
Sokka starts talking, and Zuko lets himself lean back and breathe as he listens.
Sokka and his sister Katara were born in the Southern Water Tribe.
(Zuko never travelled that far south. Nothing was politically important to him down there. But Zuko knows about the Southern Water Tribe, knows that it was kept crippled to stop the southerners from ever rebelling against Zuko's family.)
Katara was the last of the Southern waterbenders, but her craft was lost to years of murder and pillaging. Katara eventually decided that she needed to learn, and that she needed to use her powers to fight against the Fire Nation, so she and Sokka had attempted to travel north.
(Zuko got closer to the Northern Water Tribe than Sokka and Katara ever did.)
On their way north, they found themselves in many smaller struggles against the war. And in their last days, they had even found their father - but they had been forced to choose between going to their father and fighting for an Earth Kingdom village. They had chosen the village, even knowing that they were likely forsaking ever seeing their only living parent again. And Sokka and Katara had both died in the process.
“I don’t actually know exactly how we died,” Sokka admits, lowering his voice as his story comes to a close. “I know the basics, and Momo could show me if I asked, but… I don’t want to see Katara die, even knowing that we both ended up here.”
Zuko nods. “You lived a very good life,” he says, and means it.
Zuko understands how Sokka and Katara stepped off the wheel of rebirth. Their every decision was to protect other people. Even when they had been given the opportunity to make one selfish decision, a choice that nobody would have faulted them for choosing, they still decided to give up their happiness to protect other people. And then they gave up their lives for it, too.
“What about you?” Sokka asks. “How did you end up here?”
And isn’t that the million gold coin question?
Zuko knows exactly what kind of life he led, and it was one of dishonour and failure. He stood up dishonourably against his father’s general in a war room, and as a result, an entire division was sacrificed and Zuko was burned and exiled. And then Zuko spent years travelling the half-destroyed world on his father’s demands, breaking into the bases of enemies of the Fire Nation in order to report back, and eventually giving over information about the Northern Water Tribe that--
Information that would anger the spirits, Zuko realises, as the truth dawns on him.
Zuko had solidified his own fate when he had realised what the koi fish were and taken that information to Zhao. And his fate wasn’t supposed to be here, sitting with Sokka from the Southern Water Tribe in a cozy home in the Good Place.
Zuko had stepped off the wheel of rebirth. And for some reason, he went in the wrong direction.
“I don’t know exactly how I died, either,” Zuko says, feeling wooden and empty and suddenly very tired. “The last thing I remember is…”
Zuko remembers walking into the throne room for the first time in years, holding his shoulders straight and his head high, ready to tell the Fire Lord exactly what Admiral Zhao was planning to do with Zuko’s information in the north.
Azula was there, watching Zuko with faint amusement and the headpiece of the crown princess.
Fire Lord Ozai seemed to loom above Zuko, and Zuko thinks he remembers the smile slipping from Azula’s features…
And that’s all Zuko remembers.
“I tried to tell my father something he didn’t want to hear,” Zuko admits. He shrugs. “I guess I should have seen that coming.”
“Did you say your father?” Sokka asks, alarmed, and Zuko immediately looks to change the subject.
“Who is Momo?”
Sokka looks at him for a long moment, and then shifts so that they’re sitting closer together. Zuko can feel the warm line of Sokka’s bicep against his own. It feels soothing. And Zuko feels awful for taking comfort in that.
“You haven’t met my buddy Momo yet!” Sokka says, and then calls: “Momo?”
A flying lemur drops down onto Sokka’s shoulder.
Zuko jerks away, surprised, and Sokka chuckles and scratches Momo’s head.
“Momo is the spirit who keeps the whole neighbourhood running,” Sokka explains. “There’s a Momo in every neighbourhood. You can ask him for anything at all and he’ll get it for you, and he knows everything there is to know. Here, let’s try - what do you want to know?”
Zuko shouldn’t ask anything personal from his own life, or this flying lemur might realise that Zuko has stepped off the wheel in the wrong direction.
(Stepping off the wheel of rebirth is weird.)
But Zuko also can’t help himself.
“Is my mother alive? Is she… in the Good Place?” Zuko asks a flying lemur, and is surprised to find himself expecting an answer.
Momo tilts his head, and then there’s suddenly a book in Zuko’s arms.
The book is old and dusty, and opened to a middle page.
Zuko draws in a deep breath.
On one page, laid out in the kind of careful characters that Zuko’s mother used to write in, are details about Ursa. She’s alive, living in the Earth Kingdom, raising a daughter.
On the other page, a picture of Ursa works in a garden. The lines are simple and crisp. They’re also moving. Zuko watches her pull a vegetable out of the ground, watches a little girl stumble toward her with a flower clutched in a chubby fist.
Zuko has another sister.
He closes the book.
This is too much.
“I think I need to…” Zuko says, scrambling to stand up. Momo blinks, and the book disappears from Zuko’s hands. “I’m just going to…”
“Sure,” Sokka says, unfazed. “I know it’s hard to adjust. Why don’t you take a nap? I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
Somehow, Sokka knows exactly how much space to give Zuko. Because he’s Zuko’s soulmate, maybe, or because he’s actually the kind of person who was fated to end up in the Good Place.
Zuko disappears into the next room and curls up in the blankets.
Zuko lies there for hours.
This is a bed, which implies that people can sleep here, but apparently Zuko can’t. It doesn’t surprise him. Clearly, something is broken.
(Zuko’s mother is alive. She ran away and started a whole new family, and never reached out to Zuko or Azula again. She left the two of them with their dad, who ended up banishing Zuko and eventually killing him, and only Agni knows what happened to Azula in her years alone with the Fire Lord.)
Zuko pulls his hair out of the topknot. It spills across the blue pillow.
It hasn’t escaped Zuko’s notice that nothing here is in Fire Nation colours. This is Sokka’s home. Maybe it’s even a home designed for Sokka and Sokka’s actual soulmate.
Zuko’s heartbeat kicks up as he wonders about that. Maybe there’s another Zuko, someone who died at the same time and also stepped off the wheel, and they got mixed up?
Maybe someone is being tormented in the Bad Place right now in Zuko’s stead.
Queasiness spreads in Zuko’s stomach and the base of his throat at the thought. But Zuko is also too selfish to immediately do anything about it. He’s too selfish to admit that he doesn’t belong here - and isn’t that proof that he doesn’t?
Eventually, the light streaming in through the window starts to dull, and Sokka comes into the room.
“Hey,” Sokka says, voice soft even though he can clearly see that Zuko’s eyes are open. “You okay?”
Zuko nods. “I’m fine,” he lies.
Sokka sits down next to Zuko, closer than is reasonable for someone who has known Zuko for only a handful of hours, but somehow still not close enough. “You know, Katara and I were really overwhelmed when we got here, too. She cried like four times that first day.” Sokka hesitates. “That’s a lie. She cried once. The other three times were me.”
Zuko chuckles. He looks up at Sokka properly, only to find that Sokka’s expression is so painfully open that it makes the guilt crash back in.
“I need to tell you something,” Zuko says, and moves to sit up. Sokka shifts a little to let him rise, and then looks at Zuko patiently. “I…”
I don’t belong here is on the tip of Zuko’s tongue, but then he thinks about Aang casually saying torment and it’s only for the worst of the worst, and Zuko’s words die in his chest.
“I’m from the Fire Nation,” he goes with instead. It’s a part of the truth, even if it’s not the whole thing.
Sokka blinks, and then frowns. “Okay?”
“After everything we did to the Southern Water Tribe...”
“Zuko, you didn’t do those things,” Sokka insists. It would be comforting if it was true. “I’m not going to hold the actions of a whole nation against you. I promise.”
Zuko nods. He doesn’t feel even the slightest bit better, because he can’t seem to force himself to admit the truth to Sokka. Sokka, whose soulmate might be stuck in the Bad Place right now.
Sokka glances around the room. “We should probably redecorate in here, right? Katara and I designed this place, but… I mean, you don’t have to stay here if you don’t want to. Or we can get you another bedroom, easy. But we can also reorganise things, add whatever you want.”
“Red and blue don’t go well together,” Zuko points out.
“Then we’ll decorate in purple,” Sokka suggests with a grin. “Purple is obviously a superior colour, anyway.”
Zuko huffs. “I like blue,” he admits. “Does Katara live here, too?”
“Yeah. She’ll be home soon,” Sokka warns. “We were going to see our friends tonight, before… before we found out you were on your way here. So you have some options.” He holds up one finger. “I could cancel and stay here with you.” A second finger joins the first. “You could start slow and just meet Katara tonight.” A third. “We could go and meet my friends.” Sokka puts his hand down this time, landing on Zuko’s hand and squeezing slightly. “Or I could go out and give you some time to be by yourself. Whatever you want.”
Zuko’s chest aches at how understanding Sokka is being. It might disappear in an instance, once Sokka realises that Zuko isn’t really his soulmate, but for now it’s like stepping into a warm bath at the end of a long day.
“I can come meet your friends,” Zuko agrees. “Is there anything I need to know?”
From Sokka’s description, Zuko had expected Katara to be a lot more like Azula: a natural prodigy and beloved younger child. But Katara has nothing of Azula’s ruthlessness, or perhaps she has no sense of competition, because everything about her exudes affection. She hugs Zuko immediately without even a word. When she pulls away, there are tears in her eyes, like she’s as happy to see Zuko as Zuko should be to be here.
Suki mostly just rolls her eyes at how Sokka won’t leave Zuko’s side, but she also offers Zuko a sweet drink and a heartfelt: “Welcome to eternal freedom. I think we deserve it.”
Suki has been here the longest, Sokka explained. There are empty spaces in this house where she’s waiting for a soulmate to join her, someone Suki had known in life but was reborn.
Toph punches Zuko in the arm, and then says: “Hey, loser. Took you long enough.”
“Didn’t Sokka only die a few months ago?” Zuko asks.
“Well yeah, but he’s known he has a soulmate for months and hasn’t shut up about it,” Toph declares. “We all figured you’d live some more lives before showing up. So thank you for putting us all out of Sokka’s misery.”
Zuko rubs his arm. “Why did you punch me if you’re thanking me?”
Toph grins. It’s only now that Zuko realises she’s blind. Her aim is nonetheless impeccable. “That’s how I show affection.”
And finally, and most worryingly of all, Architect Aang is here.
“Hey, Zuko!” Aang greets him. “How are you settling into the neighbourhood?”
“Fine,” Zuko replies, thinking that it’s best if Aang doesn’t know that he spent most of his day mildly panicking in Sokka’s bed.
Toph tilts her head. “Ah, finding it kind of a lot?” she asks.
Zuko sends her a sharp glance, which she obviously does not catch.
“Right,” Sokka interrupts. “Sorry, I forgot to explain: Toph can tell when people are lying.”
Zuko’s heart thumps in his chest.
How is it possible that this just got worse?
“What?” he asks, faintly.
“I’m the best earthbender who’s ever lived,” Toph explains. “And I’m definitely the best earthbender who’s ever died and come to the Good Place. I can see using my feet.” She wiggles her bare toes. “And I can tell when people’s heart rates pick up. Like yours is right now. Do you need to sit down?”
Zuko does, indeed, need to sit down.
He nudges the conversation away from himself and his lying by asking Toph about earthbending, and then hopes that she isn’t paying attention to Zuko’s heart, because he is struggling to force it back to normality.
Zuko is here, surrounded by laughter and friendship, in a place that he doesn’t belong. And with him are a supposed soulmate, a spiritual architect, and a human who can read lies.
This, he realises, is not going to last long.
Katara insists on spending the night at Suki’s, but it doesn’t take Toph’s skills to understand that she’s trying to give Zuko and Sokka space.
“What do you think the Bad Place is like?” Zuko asks as they approach the blue house on the corner.
Sokka throws him a curious glance. “I tried asking Momo once, but the book he gave me was pretty heavily censored,” he explains. “All I got was ‘torment’ and ‘punishment’ and something about Koh’s lair? Whatever it is, doesn’t sound fun.”
He opens the door and steps back to let Zuko in first. Zuko tries not to be charmed.
“Is there someone in particular you’re worried about?” Sokka asks.
Zuko nods. “Yeah,” he admits.
“Well, I doubt you need to,” Sokka insists. “It’s really rare for anyone to go there. They have to basically be so bad that they break the system. The whole idea is that people end up here eventually.” He offers Zuko a smile, and Zuko’s heart sinks.
How bad a life did he lead, if he broke the intended system?
“Zuko?” Sokka asks, stepping closer. He lifts his hands to Zuko’s face, familiar in a way that they aren’t and never will be, and Zuko flinches away a little. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m wrong!” Zuko admits, the words bubbling over. A stab of fear shoots through his gut, but it’s out there, now; doesn’t Sokka have a right to know? “I’m wrong, Sokka. I’m so sorry. There’s been a big mistake.”
“What?”
“Something… Something went wrong,” Zuko insists, stumbling a step backwards. “I’m not who Aang thinks I am. I’m not supposed to be here.”
Zuko finally runs out of words and looks up at Sokka, awaiting his verdict.
Sokka stares at Zuko, his mouth a little open like he was on the verge of saying something before he got distracted. A line appears between his eyebrows.
“Wait. What?”