A/N: Hmmmmmmm...not really sure this is entire "epilogue" material, as it feels more like just another chapter but idk. It explains some loose ends left in chapter ten, that I meant to cover but never did. So here y'go.

Epilogue

How many years has it been?

They're both busy, and their affair becomes nothing but a distant memory as years come and go. Zuko distances himself from them when rebellions rear their ugly heads, and when a Water Tribe assassin tries to take his life and her unnervingly blue eyes lock with his, he feels that familiar dull ache deep in his chest. Iroh calls it heartache, but the sentiment is far too romantic for Zuko to accept. He proposes to Mai to dull the pain, but their apathetic love only serves to make him yearn for more. The nation is pleased with the idea of a royal wedding, though, so he continues to pretend he's nothing but passionate for his fiancée.

But then Katara appears at his engagement party and he forgets Mai's name during his speech. She's a vision in blue, the dress being the most formal thing he's ever seen her in but still keeping her unique style. The smooth fabric flows over her shoulders and across her bust like water trailing across her skin. His mouth feels dry as his eyes follow the cut further down to where it pulls in at her slender waist before flaring out again into a multitude of blues that flow freely around her legs. When she walks towards him, her arm intertwined with Aang's, he can catch glimpses of her legs through the shifting fabric.

"—gratulations!" Aang says, but Zuko just barely catches it, blinking rapidly. He looks back to the airbender. It had been years since they'd seen each other, having only been able to communicate via messenger hawk due to their conflicting schedules, and it seemed time effectively healed all wounds. The Avatar has nothing but kind things to sayas he congratulates Zuko on his engagement. If he'd noticed the Fire Lord's incessant staring at his wife, he wasn't leading on.

"Thank you, Aang, it means a lot that you could all make it here." Zuko responds, implying the rest of their group. Sokka and Toph, dragging Suki behind them, had quickly disappeared to buffet table shortly after they had arrived and he hadn't seen them since. He supposes it was the thought that counted.

"We wouldn't miss it for the world." Katara says. Her voice does something strange to him, his hand twitching in Mai's. His fiancée doesn't do more than press her painted lips together at the movement.

"I've heard you're all busy, you didn't have to clear out your schedule for this." Mai says, calculating eyes flicking between the three of them, "It's been how many years since you've seen each other in person? How important can this be?"

"Four years." Zuko answers too quickly. Mai's tightlipped apathy turns into an outright scowl, "And I've kept in constant contact with them. They're my friends, Mai, try not to bite their heads off." Her scowl turns into a bitter smile, and that's when he knows he's going to be sleeping alone tonight.

"Friends. Right." She more throws his hand from hers than drops it, backing away from the small group, "I'm going to go get something to drink. I'll try not to bite anyone's head off while I'm at it." She says dryly as she turns her back to them. Zuko doesn't pay her much mind as he folds his arms across his chest and returns his focus to his guests.

"I'm sorry, we didn't mean to…" Aang starts, motioning to Mai's retreating form, "If we knew this was going to cause you trouble, we wouldn't have come." The monarch shakes his head in disagreement; barely mumbling something about she'll get over it before he transitions into the usual niceties.

What have you been up to?

Any new exciting adventures to tell me about?

How is the South Pole treating you?

And after a few drinks and Aang's departure to speak with some Fire Nation dignitaries, the questions become something else entirely.

Do you love him?

Why did we do this to ourselves?

When will I be able to get you out of my head?

"Come outside with me." Zuko breaks his questioning suddenly, offering her his hand. There are new scars on both of their digits.

"It's a bad idea." Katara whispers over the clamoring of the quickly inebriating crowd. She takes his hand anyway.

"I know." He pushes through the few people who linger in his way, exiting the grandiose ballroom and entering the modest gardens. It's summer, the foliage in full bloom, and he has no trouble concealing the two of them behind some particularly full trees and bushes. He's sure the bark bites into her back when he pushes her up against it, but she doesn't complain. Her arms wrap around his neck, fumbling with the protruding shoulder pads of his traditional garb as she does so. She pulls him closer, but neither of them dares to close the distance because things are so different now.

They aren't desperate teenagers throwing caution to the wind anymore. They're engaged adults, and their betrayals have consequences now. Yet that isn't enough to stop him, he realizes, as he braces a hand over Katara's shoulder against the tree trunk and leans in to brush his lips against hers in the lightest parody of a kiss he possibly could've claimed. He expects her to pull him close like she always had, but she turns her head when he tries to kiss her. He sighs when his lips connect with her cheek.

"Why are you marrying Mai?" She asks. He lowers his head and rests it against her neck. He wonders if the smell of rain on her skin is imagined.

"I'm supposed to." So many times he'd gone against what he was supposed to do, but he doesn't know if he has enough fight left in him to fight social convention and rebellions at the same time. It feels wrong to give up so easily, but if he'd learned anything in his few years as Fire Lord, it was to only pick battles that you could win. Time and energy were precious and finite resources, after all.

"That doesn't sound like you." Maybe he's a little drunk, because his words come out more freely than he'd like.

"Why are you marrying Aang?" Katara sighs softly, pushing him away by his shoulders and arching her brows. She'd only grown more beautiful as she'd reached adulthood, he notes.

"I love him." Zuko frowns and she shakes her head in response, "As for you, I don't…we weren't even really a thing. We were—"

"Something." He takes her hands off of his shoulders but doesn't release her wrists. He's more desperate to touch her than he'd like to admit.

"Something. I can't build my whole life on something, Zuko." She says gently, and he nods. He'd come to that realization himself years ago. He was never supposed to dream about her skin long after he'd last touched it. He was never supposed to want something beyond something.

"I never asked you to." He recalls the distance once they'd arrived on Ember Island. The tangled mess that had become their relationship had been far too much for the group to bear. It was either break apart whatever they had or risk his professional relationship with Aang. In the end, his duty to the Avatar—and subsequently the world—had been worth more than some teenage fling. He didn't regret his choice in that matter, and neither did she, but for some reason he can't stop wondering what might have been.

"Then what are we doing?" Such gentle touches caress his cheek, and when she touches his scar he lets out a heavy sigh. Even Mai was hesitant to touch him there, her fingers tactfully avoiding it when she held his face.

"I have no idea." He answers, capturing her hand on his cheek and kissing the inside of her wrist. A scar lingers there, a stark line of white on her dark skin. So many stories pattern her skin, just as they do his. He knows Aang shares that feature as well. The thought makes him drop her hand and step away. He'd been able to inhabit the gray area that had existed between Aang and her before, but now, he couldn't actively do this to either of them. She deserved to be happy with him, no matter what irrational feelings he had for her.

"But I think Aang is looking for you." Zuko continues, stepping further back from Katara before he raises his hand and ignites the air above it in a quick flash of light to draw the airbender's attention. Aang travels to them more quickly than anyone else could have, able to hop the railing on a blast of air and landing close enough to them that he's standing at Katara's side in just a few strides.

"What were you guys doing?" He asks innocently, but there's a glint of distrust in his gaze for just a moment. He'd patched their friendship up in their years apart, but he knew Aang wasn't as naïve as he pretended to be at times. He knew just as well as either of them that feelings were hard, if not impossible, to ignore. Zuko respects him for it.

"We were taking a walk. It was starting to get stuffy in the ballroom." Katara says naturally, and he supposes it wasn't a complete lie.

"Which reminds me, I should go tell the servants to open the windows." Zuko says tactfully, already starting to bow in goodbye before Aang grabs hold of his arm and makes him pause.

"I actually wanted to talk to you, Zuko, if that's okay." The Fire Lord is surprised but quickly recovers and nods. Aang gives him a good-natured smile—it's almost painful how genuine the man is—and nods towards the path extending to the rest of the gardens.

"Let's walk." Another loaded gaze is exchanged between Katara and Aang that makes Zuko fidget uncomfortably, and she turns to walk away from them without a word. As they walk, Zuko can't help but wonder when Aang had gotten tall enough to practically look him directly in the eye, if not down at him.

"I'm glad for the occasion to see you, Zuko. I know things have been…complicated, but I still consider you a friend. I wish I could see you more." Neither of them really knows what he's referring to as complicated. The whole world felt complicated, as well as their own social circle being a tangled mess of pasts and secrets that even Zuko couldn't find the beginning or end of anymore, despite being privy to most of the secrets.

"You're all always welcome here." Zuko answers with a furrowed brow, kicking aside a wayward pebble on the path, "I haven't been keeping you away."

"I know, but we tend to travel together when we can—for old time's sake, I guess—and the world has enough problems to keep us busy, and you…well, I can guess you're pretty busy." Even if Aang knew nothing of the state of the Fire Nation, he would be able to tell Zuko's workload by just looking at his face. After only six years since his crowning, his work had prematurely aged him. The constant dark circles under his eyes spoke of the sleeplessness nights that naturally accompanied the position, and at the age of twenty-two, he had already discovered a silver hair or two in his combs. He had yet to spot any wrinkles, thankfully, but he was sure those would come soon enough if stress didn't kill him first.

"Busy is an understatement." Zuko sighs out, "But it's good to take some time away from it and see friends." Much of his relationship with Aang is spoken silently, he realizes, as he turns his head to watch him. The small, sad upturn of Aang's mouth is enough to tell Zuko the rest of his own statement.

Brings us back to simpler times.

"We're not old enough to be so nostalgic." Aang huffs. Zuko is sure he sees a pout somewhere in there, but he hides his answering chuckle behind his hand.

"How many centuries old do you have to be to be nostalgic?" Zuko asks before Aang's shoulder collides with his side and shoves him off of the path. There's something so childish about it as Zuko returns the gesture and pushes him back that he can't help but let out a real, unrestrained laugh when they're running through the garden participating in something that looked somewhat like sparring, and somewhat like children playing tag.

Fun. He realizes he's having fun. He realizes how easily he can breathe when he wasn't expected to be everything the Fire Nation wanted and needed, and just be the man he is. When they return to the path, out of breath and smiling, the world feels as if it's temporarily climbed off of his shoulders. He knows Aang tended to have that effect on people, but never had he experienced it so strongly. Never before has his friendship with Aang felt so easy.

It's why guilt clutches his insides so harshly when Katara knocks on his door late that night, and he doesn't turn her away. He can never turn her away, he realizes in that moment when he embraces her like a missing piece of himself. When their lips meet properly, murmured regrets whispering between them, he knows they could never be together yet they couldn't be apart.

If they had to perpetually exist as something, that would be enough.

A/N: Goddamnit, I feel like I could make a sequel about this. I might write more about post-series Zuko in this universe? Idk. I strangely enjoy writing Fire Lord Zuko a lot. Anyway, that's it, folks.

I'd also like to state that I'd gladly take requests? I've seen other fanfic authors do it, and it always looked fun. So if you've got some Avatar fic ideas you want me to write, send me a PM or a review about it, and maybe it'll become a thing? I'm not saying I'll take every request, but if one strikes my fancy, I'll give it a shot and post it. ~ Jiggle