SAD! ATLA fanfic

A man I had never seen before broke my heart. If he had never told me to come, I would have figured that she was still floating around somewhere down there. But he knocked on the palace doors that morning. He told me, “You might want to see this.”

He gave me a disapproving look, which, unfortunately, wasn’t an occasional experience. He had a shock of white-blond hair that stood up on end, and was tall, skinny, and muscular. He didn’t give me his name, I didn’t ask. But I followed him. Yeah, call me naive. But he wasn’t seductive or forceful, and his words had a stressed and urgent tone to them. We ran through the streets of the fire nation. He was faster than me, but not by much. We arrived at a house(If you could call it that), that’s paint was chipped, and pipes were rusting. The man burst through the door, and ran to someone’s side. Someone who was lying on the ground. Someone who was bleeding heavily. Someone who was… my sister. I followed the man, unable to say anything. What had happened? Was she dead? Was it my fault? Did I… care? But I ran to her side anyway.

“Azula?” I asked, gasping for breath. Her head turned sharply in my direction.

“Zuko. Why are you here?” It almost didn’t sound like an insult. Maybe, just maybe, she really did wonder.

“What happened?” I asked her, but I already knew it didn’t matter. She was past saving. I stopped her from answering with another question. “I have to get Katara. You won’t make it otherwise.” Part of me wondered if it was too late for even that. I turned to go, but Azula grabbed my wrist, her grip as tight as ever.

“Don’t you dare,” She rasped. “I won’t let her. I’d rather die.” She winced harshly. “I actually think I might.”
“Don’t be stupid. I have to save you. You’re… you’re still family.” Almost all of me didn’t believe that. But the fact that she might die… it had gripped me.

“It’s my choice. I don’t want- I don’t want-“ She broke off, and I thought I had lost her.

“It’s going to be okay.” I told her.

“You never were a good liar.” Then she turned to me and smiled through bloody teeth. “Even in death, I’m before you, Zuzu.” Then she pressed her hands to her chest and let the last of her lightning flow through her. And then she really was gone. I felt something like a scream build inside me, but it was different. It was more of a roar. A yell of anguish and shock and a desperate desire to… to tell her I loved her. She may have not cared. But I would have given anything thing at that moment to go back it time and have those be the last words she heard. Did I love her? Yes. She was family, she was my sister. She had never given me any reason to love her. But that’s the difference between us. Or it was. I took command. Looking back, I don’t even know how I did it. The man who had fetched me had disappeared. But there were others around. I didn’t want a fire nation funeral for her, but I knew she would. They took her body. I retreated to the palace. The news spread to the others. On the day of the funeral, I almost didn’t get out of bed. But I did. I forced myself up the isle. I forced myself to listen to the man. I forced myself up the stairs and in front of the pyre. But when I lit it, my heart still broke. She was the last of the family I had grown up with. No matter how much I had hated her during that time. I tried to comfort myself by thinking of all the horrible things she had done to me over the years, but the only the few good came to mind. Azula on the beach in Ember Island, looking out at the ocean as she told me to go back inside. Azula telling me about killing Ozai on the beach. Saying she didn’t want me to have to do it. In her own, twisted way, Azula, my little sister, had been trying to protect me. Azula walking with me from our beach house, telling me not to depress myself with things that weren’t there any more. The second time walking from the house, laughing and throwing burnt wood at each other. What had almost seemed like pride as she had watched my daughter… walk…away. I fell to my knees. It had happened once before, when I had seen my mother for the first time in six years. An overload of stress and pain and regret. I heard someone shout, felt hands grab my shoulders, before I fell to the ground.

I woke in the infirmary. Faces blurred over me. I managed to focus on Katara’s.

“What…?”

“Shh.” Katara ran more water over my head. I relaxed, but only a little. “You shouldn’t move. You took a pretty hard fall.”

“I know. Azula would call me pathetic.”
“Do you care?” She asked, rolling her eyes.

“Yes!” I snapped, sitting up hard despite her protests. “She was my sister, Katara! She… I felt like she had changed before… before…”

Katara didn’t say anything.

“I felt like she was sorry.” I finished with a sigh. “But she never got a chance to say so.” I lay back down and closed my eyes.

“She had plenty of chances. Maybe…” I could tell Katara was searching for the right words to make me feel better. Like she always did, she found them. “Maybe in her own, Azula-ish way, she did say sorry. As much as she could.”
“I felt the same way.” I told her, though I knew she hadn’t believed her own words. Katara sighed.

“Zuko, you have an easier time forgiving people than me. It’s a good thing, but sometimes… Azula shot you through with lightning. She was aiming for me. She mentally abused you throughout your childhood. She killed Aang!” Katara’s voice rose for a minute before dropping back down to it’s normal level. “I just don’t understand how you can forgive that.”

“I haven’t.” I told her. “I just haven’t let them bother me. You shouldn’t either. But she is-was-my sister, and I should have protected her from Ozai from the beginning.”

“Zuko.” Katara’s voice was impossibly soft. “You can’t blame yourself. Ozai was a creepy jerk. A creepy, powerful, jerk. There was no way you could have stopped that. And Azula made her own choice. If she was truly smart, she would have known to stay away.”
“Oh, I’m sorry! Your right! Three year old Azula should have known better!” I pushed her apologies and hands away, and pushed myself off the bed. I left the infirmary before I could cry.

It was hot outside. That’s how I knew where I would find her. Sure enough, Mai was sitting on a bench, soaking in the sun, but as soon as she heard my footsteps, she turned and ran to hug me.

“Oh, Zuko.” She said as she pulled away. “Why are you such an idiot?” Then she hugged me again. She pulled me over to the bench she had been sitting. “How did you-“
“It’s your favorite place in summer.”

She looked down, but I could see her blush. “Glad you’ve finally been paying attention.”

“So am I.” I said as I kissed her.

“Seriously, though.” She asked when we had finished. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I think it was just a stress thing.” Just being with Mai made me forget most of last night’s stress. But as soon as I thought of the funeral, my stomach plunged again. I forced myself not to throw up, and might’ve leaned on Mai a little to much. We both fell off the bench.

“Zuko!” Her anger seeped away, though, when she saw my face. “Zuko?! What’s wrong?! Your face is all pale.”

I shook my head. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

She frowned, but didn’t press the subject. “Katara’s upset.” She said instead.

“Yeah, I know. I know she’s just trying to help. I’m just frustrated. And… guilty.”

Mai gripped my shoulders. “Don’t do that, Zuko. Don’t go there. I’ve done it before. I know Azula. I think she really was sorry… for some of the things she did. But that doesn’t change the fact that she did them. It doesn’t mean we can’t forgive her. It just means we have something to forgiver her for. A lot of the thing she did weren’t a hundred percent her fault. More like… fifty seven percent.”
I even laughed a little. She turned serious again.

“A lot of that was Ozai’s fault, and there is nothing we can say or do to change that. We were… and still are, living very, very complicated lives. But the point is, there is no time machine, Zuko. There never will be. So don’t waste your time wonder what could have been, because it couldn’t. Things happened the way they happened. But you still have Ursa. And…” She blushed again. 
“You.” I supplied. “I still have you.” She smiled.

“Not just me! Fire nation citizens, Aang and everyone else. People are looking out for you Zuko. And so am I.”

“Thanks, Mai.” More doubts swirled around me, but my head had started to clear. Azula wasn’t hardly even not mean, not to mention kind. And suddenly I realized why she had done it. Azula had killed whatever was left of her because she didn’t want me to end her. She didn’t want it to be her enemies. She didn’t want to die knowing the limit of her powers, or die knowing there was someone out there who was more powerful than her. Azula had ended herself, because, in her eyes, there was no one more more worthy to finish it than her. I wasn’t at all happy that she was… gone, but I had people who were actually watching my back. People who actually cared about me. At right then, that was all that mattered.