Title: twice ever after
Rating: T
Summary: Deep into the end of summer, they lost everything when they lost the war. But this is a second life and a second chance, even if it doesn't seem to be the right one. Sokka swears he'll find Zuko. Sokka/Zuko.

Disclaimer: A:TLA is not mine.

Notes: Technically follows the one-shot breathing patterns, but it's not like plot happens in that story so it's probably not necessary to read it. The relevant things that are established in breathing patterns: slight-AU pre-apocalyptical atmosphere and Sokka and Zuko's pseudo-relationship.

Dating system based on the Avatar Wiki's timeline (Aang is found end-of-year Winter 99 ASC and Sozin's Comet comes Summer 100 ASC), but the actual numerical value of the years matter less than the relationship between years.

This is really just a romp into my weakness for time travel/reliving fics, though I'd be happy if other people were able to enjoy it as well. At the core it's Sokka/Zuko (some strange combination of pre-established and eventual), though canon pairings will be mentioned or skirted around. Just a warning: things might not be as they initially appear.

So, let's start by killing people off.

100 ASC (Sokka)

Summer

In the end it wasn't enough.

He hadn't thought it would be.

By the time Phoenix King Ozai is defeated the Fire Nation capital has been razed to the ground.

So has the rest of the world.

Katara is the one to strike the fatal blow, and she has never looked colder than that moment she spears the Phoenix King through the heart, has never looked more like a girl made of polar ice. Katara has never forgiven the Fire Nation for what they've done to their home, and when the ice in her eyes does not thaw even a bit upon killing the Phoenix King, Sokka knows she never will.

Never would have, but she dies, trying to bring Aang back to life.

Aang died, trying to bring back the world.

Earth to the ground Ozai had burnt into ashes, Water to the oceans Ozai had dissolved into steam, Air to the lungs Ozai had seared of breath. Fire, fire, life to everyone who had died.

It still wasn't enough to save them.

This world, Ozai had yelled, and his voice had grate like ashes. This world is not fitting to be my world.

This world is not good enough.

Any world without her is not good enough.

Azula laughs when Ozai dies, and it cries of broken things.

See, see Mother? What sort of family is this, who would kill the other? You chose the wrong child to love.

She laughs and laughs and glares at Zuko, she sneers, You never loved Father at all.

Sokka wonders how she can fight like that, how she can see through all her tears. Before today, he never would have thought her capable of crying.

Zuko fights her with dry eyes, but for the gashes on his cheekbones which bleed like bloody tears.

She shatters Zuko's arm in five places, breaks his leg in three, and her laugh crackles like lightning when she aims it at his chest. Only she misses, or she never wanted to hit, and a part of Sokka wonders how much she cares about family after all before it strikes Sokka right above his heart.

It doesn't matter, really. Sokka was dying before it hit, so it really changes nothing at all.

Zuko kills her as a mercy, to become the Lord of ashes.

Toph, at least, is still alive, though entirely worse than blind. A good thing, Sokka thinks, as far as good things go. There has been too much burning already, and they'll need someone to bury the corpses.

Please- Sokka hears, Please, Please.

Zuko isn't crying, but it might sound better if he did. He has never heard Zuko beg.

It is a horrible thing to listen to, and Sokka doesn't want it to be the last thing he hears, so he listens to his heartbeat instead. It's a listing thing- he can almost pretend it's the waves, and they're still diving by the sea.

(ba-thump ba-thump ba-thump ba- …)

…

…

…

…

(-thump)

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

95 ASC (Sokka)

Spring - Winter
.

The first night Sokka remembers, he dreams of Zuko.

It is spooky and spirit-y and completely not perverted at all. He swears. And even if it were, he hasn't even reached puberty to properly try and appreciate it.

Zuko's almost shirtless, but that's only because Azula missed when she shot fire at his arm and he had to rip off his sleeve to keep from burning. It's still smoldering, even after she's dead. In the dream Aang's dead, and so is Katara, and Sokka himself. At least, Sokka is getting there.

Besides, there's bone sticking out from Zuko's arm and he's bloody where he isn't bruised, so he really doesn't make much of an appealing picture at all.

Toph is gazing at Zuko with a blankness that isn't entirely from being blind, her limbs burnt to husks and Sokka wonders if she can still see.

Maybe, because when Zuko leans on the earth Toph rasps, What are you doing, Sparky? and even dreaming Sokka loves her for not calling Zuko anything else, for being steady even when the world falls apart.

What are you doing?

Hands posed in a flame kept painfully steady, Zuko kneels low on a broken arm and broken leg, touching his head to the ground.

…declare myself, Zuko says, voice fading like static, before Agni… before… Yue… the Fire Throne… blood oaths and blood debts… asking for… another chance.

Please, Zuko whispers, stuttering, and he has never been one for eloquence, please, please, please.

Sokka wakes up to his heartbeat, wondering why there are tear-tracks on his face.

At first he thinks it'll be enough to wait.

Don't mess with fate too much in case you accidentally mess it up, let tigerdillos lay lest they rouse to eat you for a snack. Something like that, anyway.

But he's too impatient for that to last, and pragmatism wins out in the end. Really, how is he doing anyone any favors by letting Aang freeze his butt off in an iceberg for the next few years? There's also Appa to think about.

And Aang deserves a few years of peace before fighting in any wars.

If Sokka was really truthful with himself it's also because he wants proof. Any proof, really, that he isn't just insane.

Aang is, somehow, even more hyperactive than Sokka remembers him being.

The first thing he does after Aang thaws is pin him to the iceberg with a knife made of whale-bone.

The second thing he does is say, "Don't fly away. I know you're the Avatar."

The third thing he does is tell Aang that the airbenders are dead.

Which, okay, he'll admit, isn't the most considerate way to put it, but he's had worse news broken to him in worse ways during the war, and he is so damn relieved to be able to do something again.

(Icebergs flow, and it'd taken a while to find the right one, especially since he had to sneak out all the time to search for it. He's eleven and apparently Gran-Gran doesn't think that's old enough to save the world.)

Aang looks all of panicked and disbelieving all at once, rambling, "What – I don't know what you're talking about – you're joking – you're lying – what? – what? – they can't be dead, I was with them just a day ago."

Katara looks all pinched and concerned, first at Sokka, because he's her big brother who's been acting kind of strange, then at Aang because he's the older kid they've found who really is strange. He's an airbender. He's the last of his kind.

"It's true," she says, fierce and raw as a hurting wound, "the Fire Nation wiped them out a hundred years ago."

Their mother is dead. It aches deeply that Sokka did not remember soon enough to change it, if there was a soon enough in the first place. Maybe some things are meant to be while others are made to be, and the look in Aang's eyes would have been there regardless.

Aang's eyes go large and welling like he still doesn't believe them, but doesn't know how to doubt them entirely. Even when she's skirting ten Katara doesn't know how to not feel compassion, so she gathers Aang up awkwardly in her arms and pats him on the back, like he's a polar-dog.

"It's a whippy thing. You whip it," Sokka says, making a swishing gesture through the air. "I don't know how else to describe it."

Katara scowls at him which just makes him scowl back, except he kind of remembers a time when her scowl meant something was about to be drowned.

Memories of the past life are an iffy thing for him. They come and they go and sometimes they stay for a visit, but everything's more déjà-vu than not, except for when he dreams.

When he dreams, it's always about Zuko.

But by the time he's awake the dreams are nothing but cloud wisps floating away, their vibrancy lost to reality.

"Argh, look, I don't know how you did any of your freaky magic stuff except that it was done with freaky magic powers which I don't have. Being a non-freaky non-bender," he huffs, with both more and less heat than he would have at this age, in another lifetime.

Katara, for her part, has mostly come to believe him about knowing things he shouldn't, though that's probably because he's managed to unearth (un-ice?) a living fossil, who is now sleeping in their hut. She was even excited about the possibility of learning more advanced waterbending. It doesn't mean she's always supportive of it.

"Right. Sure. I just don't see the point of remembering a past life if you can't even remember the important parts of it."

Repeat life rather than past life, and Sokka scowls fiercer because Katara doesn't understand. "I do remember the important parts!"

Like Katara's determination in getting Pakku to teach her how to fight. Like Aang's eyes glowing in the Avatar state. Like Toph seeing without eyes. Like Suki. Like Yue. Like taking Zuko diving.

"I do remember the important parts. The details are just harder."

Katara frowns, but it's a softer thing, because she knows he wakes up with his breaths come too fast, with lightning still singing in his chest.

He wonders how Zuko died, in that lifetime.

"Fine. Show me again," Katara says, and he goes through the motion more deliberately this time, remembering how she looked when fighting.

Cold, beautiful, fierce. Like she could murder anyone who threatened those she cherished in the world.

Defense, he thinks, he is teaching her defense. But he knows he is teaching her to kill.

His own training goes only slightly better, because he doesn't quite have the muscles to swing a sword and there are no meteorites to forge one anyway. His mind remembers what his body does not, so he trains until the motions are habit. He ends up practicing with his boomerang before he adds a machete, with the determination he always had but an urgency that's new.

He remembers another life, and it matches up to his own, except for little bits and pieces which probably don't mean a thing. The snow piles up a little thicker this year. The ice thaws a little slower.

There isn't enough vegetation in the South Pole to feed Aang, let alone Appa, so they make trips to the tip of the Earth Kingdom under the cover of night. They never fly any further, because they have to be back before morning, before Dad realizes they're missing or Gran-Gran tries to rouse them from their beds.

They go to the Southern Air Temple once and Aang walks in them for hours, long enough that they end up taking Appa back themselves to prevent an influx of questions. When they come Aang has cried himself to sleep amongst the skeletons, and tiny ball of fur is curled up on his shoulder.

Aang has never asked to go to the other air temples and Sokka doesn't want to suggest it. He's almost afraid to leave. He doesn't know who else remembers, doesn't know what other little things might change. Sokka doesn't want to miss it, to miss him.

Sokka trains, and he tells Katara about waterbending, and Katara shows it to Aang like a game, and he waits, and he waits.

He is waiting for Zuko to come.

.

95 ASC (Zuko)

Spring - Summer

.

After the fact, the first person he goes to see is his uncle.

He traveled the world at thirteen and he tells himself eleven isn't much different, he isn't really eleven, anyway. Boats are an inconvenient method of travel and he finds himself wishing instead for airships and sky bison, or perhaps a path through the Spirit World. But one hasn't been invented and one is thought to be extinct and one he isn't allowed to use in any case. So he sails.

It is entirely too similar to his first trip at sea, and entirely too foreign all at once. The crew doesn't give him a passing glance, doesn't even seem to see him, and he reminds himself that even if they did there'd be no banished prince of the Fire Nation to see. The thing he is now…it's not banished, really. He can go home anytime he wants. He is just going to get Uncle to come back with him.

He's styled his hair differently from its usual ponytail. Has cut it short and shaggy with a slash of a hand, and fashioned a portion of it into some approximation of sideburns. He looks nothing like his cousin did when he was eleven years old, but with some balance of luck and his lack of it, his uncle will be too grief-stricken to care.

He wonders, briefly, if his hair will ever grow back.

The men in front of the war camp don't notice him as he passes them. There is no flicker of recognition in their eyes, not even a twitch of acknowledgement. He is getting used to it, barely. He thinks, he will have a long time to get used to it.

The camp has broken down since the ending of the siege. Over half of the men have already sailed home. The ship he was on is coming to get the stragglers.

He feels sick with the knowledge that he's practically left his cousin for dead, but what could the words and actions of an eleven year old boy do in a time of war, especially a boy not yet the Fire Nation heir?

He'd done what he could already, and the memory of it makes him feel even sicker.

"Uncle?" he calls, as he enters the biggest tent, wondering if his uncle has already begun trying to reach the Spirit World. He remembers himself and starts calling "Father" instead.

He can play the part of another boy's ghost. He'll be more loved for it than he'd been by his father.

His uncle doesn't respond at first, just stares blankly into the distance, his posture a study in grieving. He almost thinks his uncle won't respond at all.

A mistake, he thinks, sickly. He's made another mistake. Maybe even after everything he's managed to solve nothing.

(It would be better if that boy were here.)

But Uncle blinks and turns to him, tears filling his eyes. The torches cast shadows in his wrinkles. Uncle has grown old where he has grown young, and he hopes that at least one of them won't be permanent.

"Lu Ten," Uncle says, "oh, Lu Ten," and he answers, "Father, please come home."

His father is crowned Fire Lord by the time they return, and his uncle doesn't raise a word of protest.

It's okay, really, because he doesn't think he could ask that of Uncle, and he doesn't think the Fire Nation has the right. (He loves his country, truly, but sometimes the memory of it hurts.)

There's more than one way to fix a wrong and his mother is by Ozai's side.

(Ozai, he repeats, Ozai. He shouldn't call him Father anymore.

But he still wants to call her his mother.)

His mother is compassionate where Ozai is not, will temper him so maybe this time it'll be different. And Uncle is here, Uncle is here, Uncle calls him Lu Ten but Uncle will be alright. He has to be.

Everything will be alright.

He doesn't know, anymore, if what he's wishing for is for another's sake, or the nation's sake, or the sake of the entire world. Maybe all of them, because he doesn't want to be selfish anymore. His selfishness is what caused the world to end in the first place.

The servants don't see him and he has to be careful when traveling down the halls, because otherwise they might run into him.

He doesn't go to see his mother because he doesn't know what he'd say. Ozai, he's sure, wouldn't want to know he's still around.

But Azula is an accident. He doesn't mean for her to see him.

"What are you doing here, Zuzu?" she scowls, when she catches him watching her practice. She should be more surprised than this, he thinks. She shouldn't call him Zuzu anymore.

But back in the past where she was fourteen and the world was burning she called Mother like Mother had been there. Maybe she just needs things like this. Maybe she's insane.

She's to be the Fire Nation's next Fire Lord.

"Am I not allowed to be here?" he snaps back, and it's an entirely foreign thing, to be speaking to a living person again. (Uncle doesn't count because Uncle always speaks at him, and he's always afraid to say the wrong thing so he doesn't say anything at all.)

"I can make you leave," Azula snarls, forming a fireball that flickers red and blue. But he's seen blue fire before and he's seen lightning before and he's had them both flung at him, so he isn't afraid.

She's nine years old, and he thinks he has no reason to be afraid of her.

"It's not like you could hurt me," he scoffs, and she actually flinches into extinguishing her flame.

"It's not like I could kill you," she says, and for once the truth seems to hurt her more than him.

He thinks of that boy and how he'd want to see him, if he could, and why it's best if he didn't.

If the war can end in the Fire Nation, he thinks, then let it.

A/N: So yes, it shall take some time before the two storylines converge (though I suppose that was self-evident from the summary). I was bit iffy about how to split up the chapters, and the title, so we'll see how this goes.

Also, I get nitpicky about ages- not that it's terribly important. I'm unaware of any of the cast having official birthdays, so I've just assigned them seasonal birthdays based on their bending (or non-bending as it were in Sokka's case). Just in case anyone's curious:

Ages

95 ASC [Toph: 6/7, Azula: 9/10, Katara: 9/10, Sokka: 10/11, Zuko: 11/12, Aang: 12]

Birthdays

Spring - Toph (early)

Summer - Zuko (early), Azula (middle), Sokka (late)

Autumn - Aang (late)

Winter - Katara (end of year)