Chapter Text
Zuko has a room made up for himself. He imagines that the soul family has left the palace by now, but he doesn’t want to ask after them and know for sure. And he doesn’t want to return to the room they had spent the night in, doesn’t want to feel how cold and empty it will seem once he’s alone.
Zuko is accompanied by guards to his new rooms. Uncle Iroh has replaced the palace guards, because they can’t be sure who will be loyal. Unfortunately, he made the unilateral decision when Zuko was unconscious to replace the guards with Kyoshi Warriors, at least for the time being. None of them are Suki, and Zuko isn’t sure if that’s better or worse.
Hakoda is outside his room. Zuko squares his shoulders, assuming that Hakoda is here for a purpose Zuko won’t like, but the chief simply looks Zuko over and nods. That’s when Zuko realises that Hakoda is just guarding his rooms again, like he had the night prior.
Once Zuko is through the door, he realises that Hakoda’s presence should have served as a warning.
“We need to talk,” Sokka says, arms crossed against his chest.
Toph is standing by the window, facing away from them all. Suki and Aang are both sitting on the bed, which is technically a huge breach of protocol, but they’d basically all piled into one bed last night, hadn’t they? Katara seems to have been pacing, but she’s stopped now, facing Zuko with her face drawn in and her hands fisted at her side.
“You’re here,” Zuko finds himself saying. It’s a stupid statement, completely unnecessary, and he has to keep himself from wincing.
“We have questions,” Suki says carefully, staring up at him with wide eyes.
Anger flairs. “This is an interrogation,” Zuko realises.
Suki’s eyes narrow. “We have questions ,” she repeats. “If you want us to leave afterwards, then we will. But we think you owe us some answers.”
Zuko hates this, he hates it, but he knows that she’s right. He owes them this much. He nods, and then reaches up to release his topknot and place the hairstick on the table next to him. It gives him something to look at that isn’t the soul family, but they don’t speak until he’s done and looking up again. “Okay,” he says, finally realising that they’re waiting for his assent.
“How long have you known?” Sokka asks. “You obviously already knew this morning. Have you always known?”
Zuko swallows. “No, I… I didn’t know until Aang showed me his marks.”
There’s a pause, and everyone looks to Toph, who nods once.
Great. Toph is going to be assessing his answers. This really is an interrogation.
Zuko thinks about sitting down, thinks about putting a wall behind him so that he can be sure that he can see everything that happens in the room. Ultimately, he stays in place with the door behind him. It’s not much of an escape route, because Hakoda is outside (blocking his escape - guarding him from leaving, not guarding from danger entering). But it’s something.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Aang asks, sounding small.
“I didn’t…” Zuko struggles to find the words. He doesn’t think he even really made a decision when Aang was there, and then once Aang had left the tree, it seemed so obvious that Zuko shouldn’t say anything. “I thought it was better if I didn’t.”
“You thought it was--” Sokka starts, and his arms snap from their folded position. Zuko flinches, but Sokka is apparently just flailing in confused anger. “Who does that? Who just thinks ‘well, I know I’m spending all my time with my soul family, but I probably shouldn’t tell them about that’?”
Suki clears her throat. Sokka turns to look at her, and so Zuko does, too.
Suki sits up straighter. She glances around the room. “I knew,” she says simply. When it apparently doesn’t convey what she intends it to, she adds: “Not about Zuko, I mean when we first met on Kyoshi Island. Sokka and Katara and Aang. I knew that you were my soul family, and I didn’t tell you.”
There’s a pause while Sokka splutters. Katara moves closer to Suki. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asks. For Suki, her voice is gentle. There’s none of the disappointment and bitterness she’s been projecting in Zuko’s direction.
“I saw the marks when Sokka was changing into the Kyoshi dress, and I didn’t know what to say,” she admits. “And then… the Fire Nation attacked.” Zuko attacked. Zuko winces. “And I realised that I had to stay and protect my people. I had to stay with the warriors. I was their leader, I couldn’t just leave. And so I didn’t say anything.” She ducks her head a little. “I realised this was a mistake after you were gone, but it was too late by then.”
“But you did tell us,” Sokka says, and his voice has gentled, too. “When we saw each other again. You didn’t just keep hiding it from us,” he adds, turning a frown on Zuko.
Suki looks up at Zuko. “I understand that it’s not easy to say something when only you know,” she says. “I do understand that. What I don’t understand is why you let us think you were dead.”
“And how,” Aang intercepts. “How did you manage that?”
Zuko doesn’t know how to express why he didn’t tell them, mostly because he thinks it should be obvious. The disappointment at finding him should be the answer in itself. But at least he knows how to answer Aang’s question, so he nods.
“I didn’t have marks,” he explains. “Or I did, when I was born, but they were burned off me.”
He’s looking at Aang as he says this, and so he sees very specifically when Aang goes from looking puzzled to looking like he’s going to be sick.
Zuko used to read anything he could get his hands on about soulmates, and so he knows that there are slightly different visions of the marks in different cultures. Even in the Fire Nation, the idea of burning off the marks is not something that Zuko has come across elsewhere. The Air Nomads were particularly reverent, and considered them to be holy.
“That’s-- They couldn’t, that’s,” Aang says, looking around at the others as if someone could contradict Zuko’s story.
Eventually, Aang looks to Toph. Toph nods. Zuko isn’t lying.
Aang looks like he’s going to cry.
There’s a pause in the room, and Zuko wonders if this is the end of the interrogation. They know how this situation came to be now. Suki had said that they’ll leave when their questions have been answered.
“You’re not lying,” Toph says, still not facing them, “but that also doesn’t make sense. If they burned them off when you were little, how did you know that they matched Aang’s marks?”
Zuko draws in a breath. His chest doesn’t feel as tight anymore. He’s moved from animal panic at the idea of this happening to acceptance. Zuko just has to move through this conversation. That’s all he has to do.
“My mother drew them,” he explains. “She gave me the drawing before she… before she left.”
Katara shakes her head. She starts pacing again. “No,” she states, and Zuko frowns at her denial. “It came back last night, Zuko. That’s because I was healing you, right? But I can’t heal scars. I can’t even heal the scar on your face, let alone something you’ve had since you were a kid.”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” Zuko presses a hand to his scar again, fingers pressing down and not feeling the usual pain. “Marks can’t be burned away for long. They keep coming back, I-- I don’t know why, exactly. So they would need to be burned away again every few weeks for maintenance. I think you just healed the latest burn and they started coming back, that’s all.”
Katara has stopped pacing. She stares at Zuko with wide, wide eyes.
“That’s all?” she asks, incredulous. “You-- They burned you over and over again to-- Why did they even do that? Why would they do it in the first place?”
Zuko frowns, confused by her confusion. “Because I was a Fire Prince. I had to be loyal to my blood family and the nation. They couldn’t… They said that I couldn’t be loyal to them and also to a soul family.”
And ultimately they were right about that. Zuko chose to be a traitor. He chose to be loyal to his soul family instead of his blood family without even needing the marks to lead him there. And he doesn’t regret that, not for a moment. He wouldn’t have regretted it if they’d lost, either.
Katara presses a hand to her mouth, and just stares and stares at him. Zuko looks away, uncomfortable, but there isn’t much better to be found on the faces of the soul family.
“That’s why you were injured,” Toph says suddenly. She sounds small, more like a twelve-year-old girl than she’s ever sounded. “That night you got hurt and didn’t tell anyone, but Momo knew. You’d just been hopping around in that tree, so you weren’t hurt before. I figured you just didn’t want to say anything, that maybe you’d caught yourself on the way down, but.” She shrugs. “But you were burning yourself.”
Aang draws in a shaking breath. It occurs to Zuko that there are two kids here, and even though they’d saved the world and fought a war, they still maybe shouldn’t be talking about this. “You kept burning yourself?” Aang asks.
“If I didn’t, they would come back,” Zuko explains.
“So let them come back,” Sokka bursts. “That’s not-- That’s not okay, Zuko, what they did to you wasn’t okay, you can’t just--”
“Please don’t do it again,” Suki interrupts, voice urgent. “Just let them grow back. We’ll leave if you want us to, you don’t have to see us again, but don’t get rid of the marks.”
Zuko nods. He’s relieved to be free of the burnings. Wherever the soul family goes in the world, Zuko will be able to look at his marks and know that they’re alive. That will be enough. That will have to be enough.
Toph stomps over from the window and throws her arms around Zuko’s middle. Zuko flinches, and then goes very still. “Uh…?”
“I wanted to punch you,” Toph says from where her face is pressed against his ribs, “but I think that hurting you might be a bad idea right now.”
That explanation doesn’t really help Zuko to understand why she’s hugging him, but he lets his arm fall across her back, and then hesitantly pats her messy hair.
Toph snorts.
“You know it doesn’t matter, right?” she asks, and before Zuko can ask, she adds: “That you have our marks. That we have yours. It doesn’t matter.”
Zuko nods, and his chest aches terribly. It shouldn’t hurt to hear things that he knows are true, he tells himself. He’s going to have to toughen up if he’s really going to run this nation.
“Yeah,” he replies, quietly. “I know.”
“I don’t think you do,” Aang says, airbending his way across the room to stand in front of Zuko and Toph. “What Toph means is that you were ours anyway. Even if you hadn’t been our sixth, you would still have been our family.”
Zuko blinks, surprised. He tries to process that statement, but it doesn’t fit into his world at all.
“We were going to stay here for you,” Suki points out. “Even before all of this. Don’t you remember? We talked about it that night by the fire. Zuko has to stay in the Fire Nation, so that’s where we’ll settle.”
“You wanted to stay in the Fire Nation because of me,” Zuko corrects her, and then shakes his head. “I mean, because of your sixth. Who you didn’t know was me. You wanted to help rebuild the Fire Nation for them, it wasn’t because of me.”
Toph somehow manages to elbow him in the side without dislodging herself. “Stop being an idiot,” she says. “Yeah, it was a nice idea to rebuild Campfire’s home. But we wanted to be here to be with you. Because you’re ours. Mark or not, destiny or not.”
Zuko nods, accepting her words. “But now you’re going.”
Katara draws in a loud, shaky breath. It’s only then that Zuko realises that she’s been quiet for a long time. He looks up at her, to find that her eyes are shining with unshed tears, and she’s looking at Zuko like Zuko has broken her heart.
It’s worse than the disappointment.
She shakes her head and turns away, lifting her hands to her face, and Sokka reaches out an arm towards her. He seems to rethink this at the last moment, letting his hand hover near her shoulder but not actually touching her. He turns a glare on Zuko.
“You’re really going to do this?” he asks. “You’re going to drop this on us and then ask us to leave?”
Zuko flounders.
“Sokka,” Toph says, face still burrowed into Zuko’s side. “I don’t think he’s asking us to leave. I think he’s expecting us to leave.” Her arms tighten around him until it’s almost painful. “This is because I can’t punch you,” she explains.
“Oof,” Zuko replies, and her arms loosen slightly.
Katara turns around again, wiping tears from her eyes. “Is Toph right?” she asks.
Zuko shrugs. Apparently it’s enough of an answer.
“Why would you expect us to leave?” Sokka asks, exasperated. “I feel like I need a translator here.”
“Oh, I’ve got it,” Toph insists. “You just come up with the worst possible interpretation you can think of, and that’s probably what he’s thinking.”
Suki clears her throat, pulling Zuko’s attention toward her. “Hi,” she says, waving in a way that should be awkward but somehow isn’t. “We’re your soul family. Until today, we thought you were two different people: our friend Zuko, who we care about a lot, and our sixth, who died when we were kids. It’s really good to know that you’re one whole, living person. We’d like to stay with you and be a soul family. If you’ll have us.”
Zuko’s heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest. He looks around to the rest of the soul family - his soul family - and sees only agreement.
The hope is hesitant, waiting to be broken, but it’s there.
“You’re ours,” Sokka says, firm and true.
Zuko nods, because he doesn’t think that he can trust his voice. Aang throws himself into the hug, squashing a grumbling Toph, and only a moment passes before Sokka and Suki join them. Zuko can’t breathe, but he can’t breathe in what feels like it might be a good way.
Katara grabs his face with both of her hands, and looks him in the eye for what is an uncomfortable amount of time. “We want to be yours, too,” she tells him. “But Zuko, you have to talk to us. We can’t help if you don’t talk to us.”
Zuko nods, and Katara pulls him down to kiss him on the forehead, which should definitely be embarrassing but mostly just reminds him of his mother.
He’s home, he realises. He’s home.
Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe seems to have joined his nephew’s guards. He is standing outside Zuko’s rooms, as still and formal as the Kyoshi Warriors to either side of him, but with the ghost of a smile on his face.
“Chief,” Iroh greets him. “Should you not be getting some rest?”
Hakoda raises an eyebrow. “I believe I could say the same to you.”
“I was just checking that my nephew is sleeping,” Iroh informs him. “He has some bad habits.”
Hakoda does smile then, and nods toward the door. “Take a look.”
Iroh opens the door slowly and peers inside.
Well. Zuko is certainly resting. He appears to be in the middle of a pile of teenagers and pre-teens on the bed, entangled in a way that doesn’t look very comfortable. The smallest girl, the blind one, appears to be gripping him strongly even in her sleep.
Zuko has always been a light sleeper. He shifts and looks up from the bed, eyes bleary. He’s surprisingly relaxed. Iroh isn’t sure he’s ever seen Zuko look this relaxed. “Uncle?”
“All is well, nephew,” Iroh says in a soft voice. Zuko nods and drops his head back to his pillow. His pillow is not, in fact, one of the many comfortable pillows on the bed - it’s the bicep of the Water Tribe boy.
Iroh closes the door, and then scratches at his beard. After a moment, he looks to Hakoda and asks: “Soul family?”
“Soul family,” Hakoda agrees. “They’re complete.”
His voice sounds a little too full of wonder.
“I had always hoped that my nephew would find them,” Iroh says.
Hakoda slants a glance over to Iroh before returning to his guarding position. “He almost didn’t. My kids thought he was dead. His mark was scarred over.”
That… was not expected. In all honesty, Iroh had been counting on Zuko’s soul family finding him through whatever his mark would be, since Azulon and Ozai had forcibly removed Zuko’s. Iroh had even tried gently suggesting that Zuko let the scar rest after the banishment, hoping that banishment from his blood family might lead him to his soul family, but Zuko didn’t seem to be able to see it as an option.
But if his soul family had thought he was dead…
“Then it is a great stroke of luck that they found one another,” Iroh says.
Zuko has always been lucky. Not in the traditional sense, like Azula, for whom fortunes always seem to lie in her favour. No, Azula’s luck has always been a double-edged sword; she gets what she wants in the short term, like Ozai’s favour, but it isn’t what she really needs. Iroh feels a pang of regret at that thought. He knows that Zuko will be kind to his sister, and hopes that one day Azula will be able to internalise that kindness.
No, Zuko’s luck has been the opposite of Azula’s. He has suffered greatly in the short term, with nothing seeming to fall into place the way that he wants it. He’s lost his father’s favour and his mother’s company, lost his soul marks, been convinced that he lost his honour. He was never able to quite catch the Avatar and return home. But in the long run, it’s all been good fortune in a terrible disguise, because it has brought him here: to his place in this soul family and his place in this nation.
The reign of Fire Lord Zuko will go down in history as the best thing to happen to the Fire Nation. Iroh is sure of it.
“Go and rest, Grand Lotus,” Hakoda insists. “I will keep guard of my soul children.”
Iroh hesitates, and then laughs. Soul children. Delightful. Perhaps this family are his soul nieces and nephews. “Is that a Water Tribe concept?”
Hakoda flashes him a smile. “It is now.”