A/N: Some Quick Facts About This Fic:
Chapters: 21
Pairing: Azula x Ty Lee.
Rated: Soft M for moderate sexual content (only Tyzula), mild coarse language, violent references, potentially scary hallucinations and mature plot points.
Notes: This is a psychological thriller romance with all the usual plot devices and themes of the genre, but of course with a Tyzula Twist on them. It's wholly in Azula's POV, when I usually write in omniscient, so I'm more than open to any critique on how I handle that. I'm hoping for a story in which Azula's insanity, paranoia and ego make the psychological thriller aspect work.

In Another Life

But if I know you, I know what you'll do
You'll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream
"Once Upon a Dream" - Sleeping Beauty

Chapter One

Azula wakes up gasping and clawing at the pitch black shadows above her.

She has to get to the surface. She has to get to the surface. Drowning; she cannot drown. She is drowning and she cannot drown.

But then she abruptly realizes that she is not underwater, although her skin is damp. Slowly, she sits up, her head splitting and her mouth tasting strongly of metal and dirt. She is in a bed, a particularly soft one, but she is not in her home.

She has to think, even though it hurts and the room around her is so dark. Moments ago, she was drowning in ice cold water. She could feel her lungs collapsing, and her desire to just give in, suddenly replaced by the need to fight. Trying to drown herself was a mistake, and she thought she had realized it too late when she blacked out.

Her eyes do not adjust fast enough, and so she lights her palm and tries to illuminate the room. She does recognize it, and she has to hold back a scream. Hospital, filled with healers and smelling of herbs and oils and ointments and blood. Not the one she was last in, thankfully. The one she has been to once or twice when training injuries as a young girl, and once when she had a horrible infection and fever.

She is trying not to panic as she knows that Zuko must have fished her out, must have saved her. But she has no memory of being taken all the way from the Forgetful Valley to Caldera. If he revived her from drowning, she would have come to at some point, wouldn't she have?

She lights up the room and sees that she is completely alone, and not restrained or locked in. Now the panic grips her, because something is very amiss about that treatment. She reaches around herself and her body gives no clue as to why she is not in chains or a straitjacket or lethargic from drugs, but she does suddenly realize that she does not feel the same as she did before. Her bones stick out less, her body has lost the signs of her time decaying and rotting in an asylum. It is as she is feeling up her own chest and trying to control her breathing that the door suddenly opens.

"Princess," a stunned voice says and Azula quickly removes her hands from her shirt. The healer lights the lamps in the room and the glow is dim enough not to hurt Azula's eyes. "You're awake. I'll inform your family right away."

"What? I..." Azula just swallows.

If her mother walks into this room, Azula is going to start burning everything and running. If Zuko walks in, she might do the same. She realizes that she is in soft cotton robes, light pink. Azula is suddenly gripped by the jarring image of her clothes becoming too heavy, the very light armor weighing her down as she tried and tried to reach the surface.

She thought she could not take it, that she could not take living a life trapped in the past with no future. Azula remembers sobbing those jumbled words to herself, gripped by unwelcome hallucinations, before aiming to crush herself on a rock and then slip into the bright blue water.

Azula is torn from her reverie when someone walks in. The figure is impossible to make out properly, since something is in their arms. Then Azula's eyebrow twitches as she sees a traitor, a traitor clutching a child. Probably got herself knocked up and didn't even bother.

Another fast and jarring memory. Looking up, bangs across her forehead. Looking up at the one person she had thought she could trust, but who clearly never was allegiant to Azula.

"You're awake," Ty Lee says with a strange sigh of relief. She looks different from when Azula last saw her. And not just the lack of the make-up and the clothes that branded her a treasonous backstabber. Older, even more attractive, Azula is loath to admit.

Ty Lee throws her arms around Azula, the little child pressing against her briefly before Azula pushes her away as hard as she can.

The expression on Ty Lee's face is rather pleasing. Stunned, hurt, just like a chi-blocked broken princess on the floor.

"What gives you any right to touch me?" Azula snarls and the healer looks concerned. Ty Lee just clutches the little peasant brat closer to her.

"I don't understand." Ty Lee is addressing the healer as Azula breathes in rattling, panicked, suffocating breaths. "What's happened?"

The healer frowns. "She's just disoriented." The stranger turns to Azula. "Would you like something to calm you down?"

"No. I'm not letting you people poison me," Azula says, forcing herself out of the bed. Her legs slip slightly under her, but she manages to keep herself upright. "Release me. Give me a trial before you let my brother lock me up again for my own good."

Ty Lee looks baffled, but Azula does not care. The healer's confused expression is of much more interest to the panicking princess.

"I can have you discharged immediately," the healer says slowly and Azula has to imagine Zuko would only order that if he had something nasty planned for her. "But you should really sit down."

Azula does the opposite. She stands straighter and lights both of her fists. "You both should stand down and let me out of here. I ran for a reason."

"You didn't run," Ty Lee says and Azula scoffs. It isn't as if she was there. "You came here last night after you passed out and ─ I didn't see her hit her head or anything. What do you think you last did?"

"Again, what gives you the right to even look me in the eye?" Azula snaps airily, trying to remain composed and threatening. But she just feels like she is going to be sick.

Ty Lee opens her mouth, looking like she is going to shout. But then she seems to change her mind. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Drowning," Azula says as she looks for a more efficient and unpredictable exit than the main door. "I was drowning because I threw myself into a lake in hopes of dying. Who saved me? The Avatar? My brother?"

"I'm really confused," Ty Lee says as the healer moves to touch Princess Azula.

Azula takes only a brief moment to wonder why she did not wake up in restraints, and why the door and windows are unlocked, before bolting for the window, aimlessly throwing fire behind her to slow down anyone who would pursue her.

She stops, panting, wondering when and how she got so out of shape. Is she in a coma? Please let her have just woken from a coma. Everything looks different; her home city is strange and alien. The shops are not the same, the paint has changed on two buildings, benches and trees where propaganda and ashes once stood.

"Slow down," says a man dressed in gold and red armor and Azula wields two hands of fire.

"You aren't taking me." She steps backwards and bumps into another. Azula cannot believe she let herself get cornered like some kind of novice or idiot.

"Did someone attempt to harm you?" asks the guard in front of her and Azula feels faint.

"I am the one attempting to harm everyone," Azula stammers, but she can tell from their expressions that this is not at all the world Azula is used to living in.

"She's probably just disoriented," says a confident male voice as Azula begins to notice the people staring from the sidewalks.

Zuko. Oh no. Not Zuko. But Azula does not move, in fact, she lowers her flames and lets them fade slightly. He will have answers; in fact, this is probably his doing.

"I am not disoriented. I…" Azula stares at her feet. And then she forces herself to look up at Zuko, and wonder how he looks so different. "I want a trial."

"For what?" Zuko looks so concerned and it makes her want to burn off the rest of his face. But she calms her breathing.

One, two, three, four…

One, two, three, four…

"How did you find me?"

"You passed out last night. It wasn't that hard to find you in our home." Zuko frowns and someone else strides up behind her.

"Is it the Sleazy Traitors Reunion Day at the Pale and Sullen Café?" Azula snaps and Mai squints.

"What year is it, Azula?" Mai asks calmly as Zuko is still looking worried and confused.

"102 AG."

"That was a dart in the dark," Mai remarks, looking mildly proud of herself, as Zuko grimaces. "What do you think happened to you?"

"Clearly I am being tortured by spirits in some kind of disturbing afterlife. I drowned. I drowned myself and I shouldn't be here and why is that shop a different color?" Azula says quickly, now sliding to the ground as the guard's hands are grasping at thin air.

"Please come sit down with us at the hospital, and we can sort this out," Mai states slowly, the opposite of Azula at the current moment. "You have nothing to lose in that scenario."

"When did you two even get back together?" Azula snarls as she pushes herself up, the gravel scratching against the palm of her hand. It is fresh and feels wrong. This city smells wrong and Azula has never felt so lost in her life.

She should be displaying strength and willpower right now, but she cannot. She should be looking for an escape plan, but she can only stare forward until she sits down in the waiting room painted and upholstered in warm tones and smelling of lavender incense.

"You didn't drown," Zuko says as he sits across from her, holding up a hand to stop the guard from pulling the chair out for him.

"Well, clearly I can see that."

"You have just had some kind of mental break."

"What new information! So, when are you going to lock me away like an embarrassing mistake again?" Azula spits and Zuko sighs. She cannot understand why he is not enraged yet, and why he looks concerned but calm and mature.

"You are very safe right now. No one has even thought about that in years since you recovered of your own volition. I mean, you're well respected and an advisor to the Fire Lord..." Zuko trails off when he watches her expression contort. Azula is grateful for that, because she feels as if she is going to vomit, and she can also see that, at last, Zuko looks reasonably frightened.

They are interrupted by light footsteps entering. Ty Lee again, and Azula stares at her, noticing the child is still pressed against her. She flaunts her betrayal and it makes Azula reconsider polite conversation with Zuko and Mai.

"Is she okay? I haven't seen her do something so reckless since that time she jumped off of the balcony to stop that assassin…" Ty Lee inquires softly, her light pink lips barely moving with her words.

"When did that happen?" Azula demands, still refusing to look at Ty Lee.

"Zuko's Solstice Speech before Kazumi was ─ She has no idea what I'm talking about," Ty Lee says, her casual tone turning into one of great concern. "Did she hit her head? I didn't see her hit her head."

Azula is too shocked to even breathe. This is surreal, much more surreal than the definite feeling of water encasing her. She knew she was drowning, and the only way this could be remotely real is if it is some kind of Spirit World joke.

"What year is it really?" Azula asks quietly, still struggling to maintain her breathing pattern.

"114 AG," Mai says easily, clearly the only person in this room not terrified and alarmed by what is happening. "And maybe we should take this slowly, so as not to give you a heart attack."

Azula nods. Despite hating the idea of agreeing with Mai so strongly, she thinks she will need to play by the rules of this reality if she is going to survive. If it is Spirit World magic, which it likely is, there is probably some way to get back to her own world.

As unsavory and dreadful as it was to be locked in an asylum and disgraced eternally, she somehow prefers the inferno she knows.

"How long have I been your prisoner?" Azula whispers and her former friends all look at each other with uncertain expressions. "How long?"

"Never," Mai suggests and Azula inhales sharply. Perhaps this is an alternate reality, one in which things went differently.

"But I ran away," Azula says sharply. "And then drowned myself."

"We found you two weeks later," Zuko replies, clearly neglecting the fact that he is wrong and Azula knows much better what happened to her. "You were a mess, but you were never a prisoner."

"That's what they always said in the asylum. Lies. You are all liars, clearly, because I would never come willingly, and I would certainly never let myself waste away for twelve years! I am better than that…" Azula is feeling extremely fuzzy now.

Azula breathes in very slowly as Zuko decides to take action. "So long as you promise not to murder anyone, you can see if going home and looking at your current, errr, future, life, makes you feel any more comfortable."

Slowly, Azula nods. She is too tired to protest much.

[X]

The palace is different as well, and Azula has yet to figure out if this is an alternate world or simply time travel or a test of character. Surely something must explain it eventually, if she cannot figure it out herself.

"So, do you remember the palace?" Zuko asks after becoming too uncomfortable with Azula's bitter silence.

"I don't have amnesia," Azula snaps. "But the new paint is… tolerable."

Zuko looks disconcerted by Azula calling things new when evidently he has been living in this world for a very long time. Perhaps it would be wise if Azula pretends that she just had a mental break ─ or did she never go crazy in this life? She needs more information, but her insistence that this is Spirit World meddling is met with concerned looks on the faces of traitors.

"Did I go crazy? In the past?"

"That's a harsh phrasing…"

"It is not. Did you lock me in an asylum? Which of course drove me to drown myself."

"Yes. That happened. Should I reiterate our history? From when? I'm really confused right now."

"The feeling is mutual. We should discuss things ─"

She is interrupted by something colliding with her gut. In response, she screams and lights her hand, the blue flame bursting bright red and toasting the wall beside her. But it was not an attack; it is a small child.

"Let go, little child creature," Azula says quietly, trying to pry it off of her. "Is that real?"

Probably not real because this alternate reality is absolutely a hallucination.

Azula ignores Zuko's worried expression, and takes a deep breath. She imagines that of course spirits would force her to confront a daughter. Given the fact that one of the many reasons she was trying to drown herself was because of her mother. And, therefore, to play along with this sick game, Azula kneels down and looks at her eyes.

Oh, spirits, what is wrong with her eyes? They look like mine.

"What's your name?" Azula asks softly, hating how no one ever taught her how to talk to children.

The little girl looks nervous, glancing up at Zuko.

Azula's heart pounds. Maybe this is a trap; that is even more frightening. Yes, he and his cronies fished her out of the water and are now trying to trick her into thinking she is on their side. But, Agni, the little girl does look just like Azula.

Zuko says hesitantly, "She lost some of her memories when she fainted, and she's still figuring it out."

The little girl does seem to accept that, and she looks up at Azula. The princess has to avert her eyes, because it looks like peering into a mirror of her faults, failings and fears.

"I'm Azusami," she says sweetly, and she takes Azula's hand. Their skin is so similar, the lusted after royal ivory. Azula only now notices that her nails look different, and so do her hands. No, trick of her mind, of course.

"Right. Who's your father?" So help her if someone says Avatar Aang…

"Uhm…"

"So I don't know."

Zuko makes a groaning noise, and to his good fortune, Mai maneuvers her way into the situation.

"Azula, you married Ty Lee. I'm sorry," she says bluntly and Azula hates just how believable that is. "Zuko, I know you've spent a long time unlearning speaking without thinking through consequences, but you're probably making this worse by overthinking it."

"ZuZu, overthinking," Azula attempts feebly, and then her heart starts to pound. That did not come off right.

"Come see my toys," orders Azusami, who now wears a scowl that Azula can tell is because the attention is off of her now. Azula is frozen, yet again, and so Azusami tugs more forcefully. "Mother."

Azula recoils abruptly and then realizes she has clearly hurt and upset the child which immediately leads to her hyperventilating. Zuko grabs her arm and she pushes him away forcefully. Mai reaches out and Azula dodges her, backing away as quickly as she can.

"I can't do this. I can't do this," she keeps repeating, although she thinks she is only mouthing the words by the time she reaches the end of the shadowy corridor.

"It's not your fault," Zuko says quietly to the wide-eyed and horrified little girl. And then he turns to the equally horrified young woman. "Azula, please, don't run away; you don't have to do anything you don't want to do."

She has no words. And all Azula has left are words. Even her violent acts are meaningless without her silver tongue, and she feels her knees becoming weak.

"Somebody catch her," Mai says without moving, and Azula thinks she feels Zuko's arms before blacking out.

[X]

Azula looks up into the haze above her. She begins to hope that perhaps it was a nightmare, or a strong hallucination. Her skin is quite cold, but she is in a bed and can smell herbs. They saved her from the water, and now she is recovering.

And honestly, if that dream was to teach her some spirit lesson about how she needs to control her own life and not just resign to fate, she learned it. She opens her eyes and looks around her bedroom.

It is slightly different, but she imagines things were changed once she was tossed into an asylum. Again, like in her dream, she does not have any restraints on her. Perhaps they thought sedatives would last longer, and Azula has lucked out.

Or maybe it is a trap. It very well might be.

Warily, and with her fingers poised for attack, she walks towards the bathroom, finding an odd array of toiletries that unnerve her. No one should be living in her bedroom after she was forced into a fancy cell that they denied being a cage to attempt to make her feel better.

She runs the water, cold against her hands. Her mind flashes again to how vivid drowning was, and she quickly shuts it off and yanks a towel from the wall to dry her hands. It will do her no good to think about that now, but she tends to have no control over her thoughts, even before she lost everything.

Azula lights the lanterns with smooth cerulean flames that lick the air. She has control with her bending, and then she grits her teeth. Marrying Ty Lee was a very sick addition to her hallucination; she is the only person who can steal everything about Azula.

Her ability to manipulate. Because, Agni, was their flirting a mess.

Her mind. Because, Agni, Azula was holding herself together perfectly fine until that girl betrayed her.

Her bending. Because, Agni, Azula's most permanent and forceful memories of Ty Lee are not pleasant ones of kisses and electrifying touches; they are of being broken by her.

She then makes the horrific mistake of looking into the mirror. Not anything worth panicking over at all… Azula tries to remember how to slow her breath and circumvent tachycardia but she cannot when she is looking at blatant evidence of her nightmare not being over.

Her fingers brush across her face. She is even more beautiful, and Azula supposes she would be angrier if she was hideous or scarred like Zuko, but she is definitely not barely pushing sixteen. And she does not have the perpetual dark circles, or the signs of forced starvation. She does however, still have scars, but they have faded.

This doesn't just… happen. Azula has seen stranger things, she knows, but this does not feel like her invention.

But what is real? She does not know anymore and she has not known for a long time.

"Are you okay?" says a girlish voice behind Azula and she screams, gripping the sink so tightly she thinks either the basin or her hands will break.

"You can't just walk in uninvited," Azula snarls, her heart pounding as she manages to peel her eyes away from the mirror and look at Ty Lee.

"I… I'm guessing you still are having side-effects," Ty Lee says and Azula closes her eyes and pretends to accept what they are telling her. "It will work out. We have been through way worse."

"I need to be alone for a few more minutes," Azula states regally and she feels relief in her chest. She still does have power, if she can manage to acknowledge it.

"Of course. Just let me grab my toothbrush and a hair ribbon," Ty Lee says brightly, as if there is no poison between them.

Azula does, however, not need to make any enemies in this, at least until she figures out the purpose of this frightening reality. She thought it just was shock, or maybe it even was a vision of the future due to the spirit water. But this is so real. So real.

Ty Lee leaves once she has collected her belongings and Azula closes the door before stripping off the fresh, soft robes that someone put on her. She pulls up her hair, which is longer. Her bangs are no longer in existence, and she has to run her hands through her hair multiple times to even fathom the loss.

She then examines her body. Burn marks are still there in the shape of a hand, but Azula has never expected that to fade. Her breasts look vaguely different but she has not intently studied herself since during the war. During the only time she was happy.

If the spirits wanted to send her somewhere to right her wrongs, why would they choose the future instead of the past? It seems ridiculous and goes against all convention.

She turns, and is relieved to see muscle in both her arms and abdomen. Azula can hold herself up in a fight if this turns sour. But her hands immediately fly to new markings.

Faint stretch marks. Azula hears the child calling her mother and takes a fast, rattling breath through her mouth. She neglects the water, even though she longs for it, and puts her clothes back on.

When Azula leaves the bathroom, she decides to think of it as entering a strategic and covert mission. They are her enemies, after all, and Azula is trained in this, in case she would be captured or lost. She runs her hands through her hair again, again shocked by what is missing. But, no, she has to focus.

The Spirits put her here, presumably to make her face a demon, or to test her worthiness. There are a plethora of legends about such things. Azula does not think, however, that she will make much progress in the dead of the night without arousing suspicion, and so she walks to the bed and decides to play the weak and complacent prisoner.

It is not her style, but she thinks it will be for the best this time.

[X]

Azula is trying to fall asleep, despite her surging pulse, when Ty Lee reenters as if she owns the room. Ty Lee gives Azula a brief glance before moving towards the armoire.

"You don't mind if I get undressed in front of you?" Ty Lee looks puzzled by the situation. "Well I guess you have… I guess you've… uhm…"

"We have had sex," Azula says sharply and immediately regrets it. But Ty Lee looks like she was about to keep making those noises.

"I have no idea how far you remember. Is it just fuzzy?" Ty Lee asks and Azula shifts her gaze away from the tarnished golden vents on the lower wall.

She regrets that, because her eyes briefly fixate on places she should have forgotten, or vilified.

"I am fine," Azula says slowly, leaning back and noticing that Ty Lee does not care about Azula's eyes not leaving her body as she changes.

Ty Lee sits down. "I'll give you space. But, Azula, this is real."

"W-what?" Azula turns to her, and rips her mind from the quiet examination of the sheer robe over very bare skin. "Why would this…?"

"It's been a long time, but I just thought maybe you think this is not real. But it's real. I promise," Ty Lee says softly before entering Azula's sheets uninvited.

The promises of a traitor mean nothing, and the phrasing of real makes Azula concerned that this is sinister. That perhaps she is right, and these are not the people she once knew, but are ghosts of them that her mind has created.

Azula does not want to fall asleep, but she is much too tired to remain awake. She wraps herself in blankets that are unfamiliar and do not have the scent of her old perfume. And she stares at the ceiling, hoping for some kind of answer.

She will get out of this life and back into her real one.

Although, Azula cannot help but think, it can't hurt to try this world out for a while. Perhaps it is not punishment, but providence.

No, no, it is a trick or trap.

Her wife, however, is extremely distracting.