Title: One Thing Led to Another

Author: SCWLC

Disclaimer: I don't own anything here.

Rating: NC-17 Actually, it probably comes to slightly under that, but it's smut so . . . yeah.

Summary: Zuko is informed of something unexpected in his past in an unexpected manner by unexpected people.

Notes: I think this averages out to crack, but there's some angst, some fluff, some shmoop and I don't even know what to call the genre. But crack seems to predominate, so that's where I'll declare it. I think I was manic-depressive while writing it.

It started with a fight.

Well, it all started further back than that, but the immediate cause of the upheaval-that-would-change-everything (not that those were anything new either, he'd lost count of them to the point where total game-changers should really have been routine) was the fight.

"I'm sick of it, Zuko!" Mai shouted as she threw the things of hers that had made their way into the Fire Lord's suite in advance of the wedding into a bag. "I can't do this because you don't want to either!"

"What are you talking about?" Zuko snapped back at her. "You think I've been funding a wedding because I don't want to marry you?"

"I think you want to marry somebody because you can't marry her!"

That left Zuko blinking in confusion.

There was a long pause while she scooped up some more hairpins.

Finally he asked, "Her who?"

Mai stopped dead. Straightened. Slowly turned. Her eyes were furious and she was practically trembling with rage as she picked up a blue silk scarf Zuko had gifted her with right after they'd started dating again following his coronation. "Think really hard, Zuko," she said with false calm. "Think about a girl who actually likes blue, not one who thinks it's boring. Think hard about a girl who would like to receive Water Tribe-themed accessories, not one who actually likes the way things are decorated in her home nation. Think really hard about the fact that twenty minutes ago you called me the wrong name while we were sparring!"

"I . . ."

There wasn't really any good way to get out of that.

"I should have known when you left no stone unturned after she vanished and that you're looking for her as hard as you're looking for your mother," Mai said. "She's just a friend, you told me."

"Mai-"

"I went with you on every fruitless search for your mother, didn't I?" she demanded. "I went in your place on those hunts when you couldn't get away from your duties as Fire Lord!"

At that, he balked. "I thought you said it was interesting!"

"Just because it was doesn't mean I wanted to be away from you, looking for the woman who ran off and abandoned you to your father's tender mercies!" Mai shouted. She shook her head, suddenly tired. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

"She didn't . . ." Zuko bit off the argument. He knew Mai well enough to know that it was her way of seeing things and she was being defensive of him when she spoke of his mother like that. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and recentred himself. "I'm sorry if I made you think I want Katara instead of you," he said. "But-"

"No buts," Mai interrupted. "Zuko," she stepped forward and cupped his cheek. Her fingers gently slipped over the ridges of his scar. She'd always been careful to touch it and acknowledge it. It was one of the things he loved about her. That she didn't ignore the scar, didn't pretend it wasn't there, she noted it and noted its importance to his life. "We don't fit. We tried. I know I tried and I know you tried. If we had gotten together with you as Crown Prince and your father still as Fire Lord, it would have worked."

"But?" he asked.

"But we didn't. Things aren't the way they were and we aren't the way we were." She stepped back. "It's not fair to either of us to pretend that we love each other that way when we don't." Mai smiled wryly. "And I should have figured out that we weren't right for each other a lot sooner."

"How come?" he asked. He couldn't help it. He had to know what he'd done wrong.

Mai chuckled a little darkly. "Every gift you ever got for me was meant for her," she told him. "Those 'decorative' scrolls you got because you thought I'd be interested in seeing some other fighting techniques . . . Not one of those is something other than waterbending, Zuko."

His mind raced to try to deny it, but going over all the gifts he'd ever gotten Mai, the only ones that didn't seem like they were meant for the brunette waterbender were the ones his uncle had suggested.

"I'm sorry," he said, helplessly.

Mai smiled affectionately. "Don't be. You were a really good boyfriend. You're just . . . not supposed to be my boyfriend." She picked up her bag, having removed all of her things from his quarters. "I'm going to Kyoshi for a while. I'll see Ty Lee, then decide what I want to do."

Zuko nodded and forced out the words, "Good luck. Say 'hi' to everyone for me."

She kissed his cheek and left without a backward glance.

He stood around, staring blankly at the door for a minute before he decided he needed some air. Heading out to the private gardens of the royal family, he dismissed the guards that patrolled the area and went to sit in peace by the turtle duck pond to stare at the moon's reflection in the water.

If he hadn't dismissed the guards, they wouldn't have been able to sneak into the garden, because they would have been caught and bundled off quietly to be dealt with in the morning. By then, the elder of the two would have convinced his daughter that she was wrong and everything would be different.

But Zuko had dismissed the guards so he was effectively alone in the garden when he heard a male voice hissing, "Tien! Get back here!"

"No!"

"I cannot believe you are doing this!"

These were not assassins, that much was clear, Zuko thought with some amusement. Wondering what was happening, he forgot all about Mai and quickly scaled one of the trees, settling himself to watch the drama unseen.

"Well I can't believe she kept this from everyone for so long!"

"Tien," said the man as he came into the small courtyard, "If she wanted to tell him, she would have. You should respect her choice."

From his perch, Zuko suddenly recognised the two. It was a man from one of the villages on the island of Zhizou. He had come with his daughter, the determined Tien, to petition him for additional support from the navy to defend their village from the depredations of pirates. He was still contemplating whether to agree or not.

After the war, many of the soldiers had come home and promptly quit the army. It had made the process of dealing with the masses of soldiers far easier, but it meant that the increased traffic of pirates, who had suddenly sprouted up everywhere with the lack of Fire Nation ships patrolling everywhere, couldn't be staved off because there were only so many soldiers to be stationed along the shores of his nation. Bao's village had not asked for assistance, so he had been forced to assume they didn't need the help in order to meet the needs of those who had asked for help.

Now that they were petitioning, he was torn. His resources were already distributed, but they had indicated that there had been some recent, unexpected disaster that had changed their circumstances.

Tien turned to her father and shook a finger at him. "You're just saying that because of who he is."

"Partly," her father acknowledged. "Can we have this discussion somewhere we are not in danger of being arrested for trespassing?"

"You didn't have to come," insisted the young woman.

Her father snorted. "I had to try to talk you out of writing a warrant for your own arrest."

"Look," she said. "You saw that he's a very reasonable person and-"

"And what?" interrupted Bao. "Telling him means a lot of changes and perhaps she doesn't want to make those for everyone concerned."

"I don't care," Tien said. "What happens when he goes on procession through the islands? What happens when the governor sees them right before going to court? Everyone will see then and it will be the worst possible way for the news to get out."

Bao protested, but it was a lot weaker this time. "It won't happen like that."

"Won't it?" she said. "In any event, we both know he's a good man, and a good man deserves to know. So I'm going to tell the Fire Lord about his children whether you want me to or not!"

It was only habit and trained reflexes that kept Zuko from falling out of the tree in a graceless heap. When he straightened up, just barely keeping his face impassive at the pair, they panicked and both hit the ground in abject bows.

"It wasn't supposed to come out like that," she muttered.

Her father said, "Shut up, Tien."

Zuko sat down on one of the benches, shaking his head and biting back hysterical laughter. It wasn't that funny, he was just close to hysterics. "Sit up," he said. "And you, Tien, tell me about these children."

They both sat up, nervously, and the young woman bit her lip a moment, then took a deep breath and said, "Not long after the announcement reached us that the war had ended, a girl came to our village." She smiled a little. "She told us that she was a healer, a waterbender, her name was Kya-"

He interrupted, "That was Katara's mother's name."

"I don't know about that," Tien said. "But she admitted after a couple months that she was pregnant. She told everyone some story about having married a firebender and eloped because no one approved of the match, and that he'd died in the war." She shrugged and said, "But I got her to tell me part of the truth. That she'd had a brief affair with a firebender and he was too important in the Fire Nation for her to get him involved in a scandal, especially when he already had someone."

"You said 'children'," Zuko reminded her.

"They were twins," Tien said. She smiled fondly. "A boy, Lu Ten, and a girl, Yue."

"Lu Ten," Zuko repeated softly. "For my cousin."

"Lu Ten and Yue were born eight months after the solstice. She never told me that their father was the Fire Lord, but anyone can see the resemblance."

Bao finally spoke up. "I knew. She asked me whether she was right. She was very conflicted as she felt you should know your children, but she was worried of the scandal that would dog your early years as Fire Lord if you were known to have had bastard children with a waterbender when you were to be married to Lady Mai."

The timing made sense.

They had stopped for rest after leaving the Yon Rha behind. The whole venture had been stressful and crazy. He and Katara were both exhausted. Some firewood was hastily collected, he'd set it ablaze and then they'd both curled up on opposite sides of the fire and slept.

He'd woken to the sound of her stifling sobs. Unable to listen to her crying, wanting to help her the way she'd tried to help him under Ba Sing Se, he knelt beside her, "Katara?"

For a moment, when she sat up, he thought she was going to yell at him or accuse him of something. Instead she threw herself at him. "I'm sorry. I've been horrible to you."

"It's okay," he said. "I know I'm on my third chance with you." He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, letting her cry herself out against his chest.

When her tears finally stopped, she pulled away. For a long moment they just stared at each other, then it was like something had suddenly boiled over inside them both. Neither moved first, because they were in perfect synch as they kissed. There was nothing tentative about it and lips, teeth and tongues clashed.

All the pent up emotions they both felt needed to find some sort of expression and this was going to be it.

All her anger at how he'd chased them, betrayed them and then had the gall to just show up like they should accept him went into her hands ripping the sash of his shirt open so she could kiss the planes of his chest.

His fury at the unfairness of life and the constant escape of the Avatar, then at her for refusing to believe him no matter what he did until this idiotic grand gesture had him pulling her bindings out of his way so he could suckle at her dark brown nipples.

The suppressed attraction she'd felt for him that had left her confused for so long and so sure it was just because he was the first boy her age she'd seen in years who wasn't her brother went into the fascinated way she'd pulled his leggings down to expose his manhood, fondling, cupping and squeezing it, watching the way his head fell back with his mouth open in pleasure, hearing his moans and feeling the soft-hard sense of him in her hands.

All the want he'd felt over and over for the pretty waterbender who didn't yawn over everything, fought back and had as strong a sense of honour as he did prompted him to roll her onto her back and slip his fingers, one after another inside her, twisting and turning them as he watched her arch and writhe, her whimpers filling the air.

Both their grief over their mothers and what the Fire Nation had taken from them with a senseless war was allowed to purge as he slipped into her, feeling a tight warmth around himself and lost himself and his sadness inside her, while she welcomed the way every time he slid into her, it was as though a little of the grief was forced out of her, as though there was no room for it when he was inside her.

Then there was no anger, no confusion and no grief, just each other.

Lying together on the beach afterward, she'd said, "I'll have to properly forgive you in front of Aang. Just so he's seen it. Otherwise he won't be sure. I can hold a grudge, you know." Then she'd smiled and kissed him.

"I'm shocked," he'd joked back.

She'd become very serious after that. "Zuko this can't . . . I mean, while the war's still on . . ."

"I know," he told her. "I'm not asking for promises, and I know you and Aang have an . . . understanding." Then he'd fixed her with a stern look. "I am asking you to think about it. That's all."

Between one thing and another, there had been no chance. Mai had shown up and he'd been waiting for Katara to deal with Aang's prior claim anyhow. Not to mention that it was very easy to put that night down to the stress of everything they had both just gone through.

A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Was Katara the reason why you haven't needed military assistance until now?"

Bao nodded. "Our harbour is quite defensible and she was able to deal with any pirates from a distance with minimal help from the garrison nearby." His lips compressed a little. "It was my fault, I didn't listen to the commander when he wanted her to change tactics, and I didn't inform her. She was hurt and-"

Zuko didn't bother listening to the rest of the man's story. He was already on his feet and within moments he'd summoned various servants, ordering messages to be sent informing Katara's family and friends she'd been found and that he'd be bringing her back to the palace come hell or high water, hastily penning a message to his uncle himself, and demanding preparations be made for him and a large retinue of soldiers to head for the village where Bao and Tien lived.

For the first time in four years the palace staff found themselves trying to deal with the unreasoning demands of royalty that wanted results without caring that those results were virtually impossible.

As they always did, they found a way to deal with the problems caused by a Fire Lord's importunate demands, and the next morning Bao and Tien had been practically manhandled into an airship and the Fire Lord was on his way to a tiny backwater village practically no one had heard of having actually moved faster than the speed of rumour.

This is not to say that rumours weren't rife by the time he got back, but the orders to put the nursery to rights and air out the Fire Lady's rooms hadn't been mentioned to those bearing messages for the messenger hawks outbound to the South Pole, Kyoshi Island, Gaoling Province and the Southern Air Temple.

So it actually took a whole day for everyone to put their heads together and also recall a certain play put on by a certain third-rate play troupe, which prompted some delightfully outrageous rumours, including that Lady Mai had run off to assassinated Master Katara and do away with the Fire Lord's illegitimate children and Fire Lord Zuko had gone running off to save the love of his life.

There were also some rumours about him saving Mai from Katara, and a few really enterprising souls attempted to suggest there was a third party involved, something about a leather-clad bounty hunter, but most people scoffed at that third one. Surely any tattoos involved were on the Water Tribe girl, who knew what strange and exotic traditions people from the South Pole had?

Not that Zuko was aware of any of this. Or rather, he was aware, in a peripheral I'm-ignoring-it-to-make-it-go-away sort of way, that rumours were going to happen. He had just chosen to pretend they weren't. So of course, he wasn't aware of it. Plausible deniability is a very important thing for a national leader, you know.

They arrived in the small village at noon the next day. Everyone had headed inside as the few defenders along the harbour were braced for the onslaught of the pirate ship without Katara there to defend them. The village's inhabitants were naturally quite shocked when a large contingent of soldiers and the Fire Lord himself came striding into town, accompanied by an airship.

Said airship bombarded the pirates from above, then all the pirates who made it to shore were massacred by the soldiers, led by the Fire Lord who made a very dynamic, dramatic and personal picture as he used two swords and some pretty flashy bending to do away with the attackers.

Katara had made her way outside during the fight, determined, in spite of her lingering injuries, to defend her home. In the end, she didn't have to do anything, instead watching the clash of swords and the flash of firebending on the shoreline.

Zuko came striding up from the harbour, his swords casually cleaned on the cloak of a fallen pirate. He walked across the village square and up to Katara, ignoring the whispers of all the people who muttered about the resemblance he held to her two children. Everyone waited with bated breath to hear the words from the Fire Lord to his waterbender.

"You went with me to face my sister while you were pregnant?"

Something in the back of his mind said this wasn't the right way to go, but it was a little late now.

"I couldn't let you go alone!"

"Did you know? Tell me you didn't know until after," he pleaded.

She looked away from him, very deliberately and said, "No. I did not know."

"Don't lie to me!"

"You said to tell you I didn't know."

"Ha. Ha."

"I'm sorry. I was going to tell you . . . then Mai . . . and . . ."

"I'm sorry," Zuko said.

She looked at him for a very long moment, then said, "Do you . . . do you want to meet them?"

Zuko felt his hands shaking a little as he told her, "Yes."

Katara led him into the building she'd just come from, up the stairs, and then he was looking into a small room where two small children were playing with blocks. "Lu Ten, Yue, I want you both to meet someone," Katara told them as she knelt next to the pair.

Both children turned and fixed him with wide-eyed looks. He was suddenly, unreasoningly terrified and wondered whether he was always going to feel this way. He joined Katara in kneeling down to the children's eye level.

"This is your father," she told them.

Their stared intensified, and then Yue said, "Daddy?" He swallowed and nodded.

Quite suddenly, both children were hugging him and Lu Ten was declaring something to the effect that he'd told the other kids he had a daddy and now he could prove it. "You're gonna stay here, right?" Lu Ten demanded.

"Actually," Zuko told him, flicking meaningful glances at Katara the whole while. "I was wondering if your mother was willing to bring you two to come live with me."

"What about Mai?" Katara asked. "I don't really see her taking this well."

"She didn't," Zuko said dryly. "Actually, before I even knew about you three she'd left. Last night, in fact. She told me she was tired of getting presents meant for you, and being called your name while we were sparring."

"You . . . I . . ." Katara seemed suddenly close to tears. "Oh Zuko, yes!" Then she was kissing him and he forgot about everything else.

That was until a chorus of "Eeeewwww!"s erupted from the two short people on the floor. There was an odd whoosh noise, and Katara pulled sharply away saying, "What have I told you about firebending in the house?"

"But Mama! Lu Ten was covering my turtle duck in ice!"

"No bending in the house!" Katara told them both.

"One of each?" Zuko asked her grinning. "It's perfect."

So they went back to the palace and the rumourmongers either pouted or demanded everyone pay up depending on how right they were.

So you can see how everything goes back to that one fight.

Well . . . okay, so there's the thing with the Southern Raiders . . . but it's only part of the story in flashback, so it totally doesn't count. Right?