Title: It Takes Some Time

Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender

Summary: The first time Zuko woke up a year earlier he didn't get it, or the second, sixth, tenth…eventually he realized the Spirits wouldn't stop until he could get things to go the way they wanted.

Characters: Zuko and everybody else.

Pairing(s): Canon.

WARNING: Groundhog Day style repetition, which leads to some depression, and suicide (but it's okay because he never actually dies and mostly does it to restart time), major character death but again none of it is permanent.

Disclaimer: Avatar does not belong to me.

AN: None of this is Betaed by anyone but me so sorry for any mistakes.

It Takes Some Time (For Zuko To Get With The Program)

The first time he captures the Avatar he locks the boy in the metal box built specifically to keep in all kinds of benders. They set sail for the Fire Nation and when the two Water Tribe peasants attempt a rescue it is next to nothing to roast both of them alive and burn the bison enough to trap it in the hold as well. He returns to his father a hero and spends the year helping destroy the Water Tribes and fending off assassination attempts (a large number of which he eventually traces back to Azula). With the arrival of the comet at the end of the summer they burn the majority of the Earth Kingdom to the ground and achieve the goal of spreading the Fire Nation across the world. He's a little uneasy with how much death he's helped deal out, he never managed to completely harden that weak caring heart of his, but he knows he has fulfilled his destiny. The day of the comet he goes to bed reasonably content.

It's very confusing to wake up the next morning and realize that it is the morning of the day the Avatar returned, almost a year ago. He thinks it is a confusing dream. But he still captures the Avatar and brings him home, because that is what he is supposed to do. It apparently isn't a dream and he has to live through the next year all over again. At least this time he's able to head off a few of the attempted assassinations before they get as far as they did. It is easy for him because he's already had each fight and knows his opponents' moves ahead of time. He knows what everyone will say and do so he doesn't make any of the fumbles he did the first time around. The day after the comet comes he tries to keep his eyes open but when the midnight gong rings in the distance he finds his eyelids suddenly too heavy to keep open. The dark rushes over and he wakes the next morning to find the same thing has happened.

He wakes the morning of the day the Avatar returns, back on his ship and exiled, his Uncle alive and not a traitor. He screams.

It happens again.

He burns everything to the ground.

And again.

He burns more things.

Again.

He tries to tell his Uncle, who has had dealings with the Spirit World before, what is happening only to find the next morning that the cycle has restarted earlier than usual.

It takes a lot of trial and error but eventually he decides that the Spirits must be forcing him to repeat these months for a greater purpose. They want events to go a certain way and will not let him free until he helps them. These things he knows; his death only re-starts the year, the Avatar's death restarts the year, the success of the Fire Nation does not end the cycle, if he kills (or causes the death of) his father the cycle does not end, Azula's death does not end the cycle, Azula's crowning as Fire Lord does not end the cycle (it doesn't matter if she inherits due to father's death or father's accession to world dictator neither time does any good), his own crowing as Fire Lord does not change anything, Uncle Iroh's crowning as Fire Lord doesn't do anything either. Eventually he gives up for a few years (decades, centuries?). He ignores the Avatar and the war and just does what he wants.

He spends a couple repeat years focusing on advancing his swordsmanship. When he can fight and defeat Master Piandao, who originally trained him as a child, with both his favorite dual bladed style and a few different styles of single blade he focuses on something else. The Spirits won't let him move on so he rebels against them by doing his own thing. They want him to help arrange the world in the way they wish? Then he will turn his back on them and not do anything but help himself, ha! But training to be a Master firebender can only take so many years (technically there's always more to learn but spending over twenty re-peat years focusing only on his bending has qualified him as a Master, it is always funny to see Uncle's face when he appears to improve so much over night). Sure he's lost track of how many times he has re-lived the same almost-a-year but at least he got the chance to explore all the things he wanted to do as a small child. If he ever sees the end of this repetitive hell he can at least say that he's fulfilled his childhood dreams of being a ninja, becoming a pirate, learning to fly (with fire, it's exhilarating), becoming a Yu Yan archer (okay technically that one wasn't official since they wouldn't officially induct royalty into their ranks, but he was trained as an unofficial member), joining a theatre troupe, and being better than Azula at bending (except he's had decades more practice at this point so it always feels a little cheap when he beats her now). He studies herbal healing and poisons for a few years just for the hell of it, because his mother was said to be one of the best herbalists of her generation, but his determination to avoid letting the Spirits manipulate him is waning.

There is nothing else left to distract himself with, or at least he's too tired of living the same year over and over to do anything else. (Something is always stopping him from finding out what happened to his mother, he eventually decided that this was one of the things the Spirits are keeping from him until he does what they want.) One man cannot have unlimited interests and he's exhausted all of his. By now he can say with certainty that he has lived longer than anyone else ever has, centuries have passed, and yet he has nothing to show it on the outside. Perhaps it has even been a thousand years he hasn't kept track of, how would he when every time he wakes in the same place with everything back as it was the first time around? So he starts trying to change the ending. Surely once he gets things arranged the right way next summer will end and life will continue as it should.

Since capturing the Avatar and helping the Fire Nation win the war has never worked he decides to try the opposite for a while. After all he has eternity. Joining the Earth Kingdom never works out. The Dai Li brainwash him when he joins the Earth King, the Avatar or his sister eventually captures or kills him whenever he joins the Dai Li (willingly or not), and playing a mere soldier on their side never works any better. He's sick of fighting. He's sick of the war.

He and Uncle take a few years (not that Uncle knows this) break to live out the year quietly. They spend one cycle as farmers, one as merchants, one where they build a tea shop in a remote village, once they build a spa and he spends months giving hot rock massages and mud baths. Eventually he relents and the next time that time restarts itself he jumps back into the fray.

He can't join the Avatar too early. It's the most annoying thing. Either it is too early for the other companions to trust him, having never seen anything of the world but the Fire Nation soldiers who attacked their village, and things go wrong when they don't listen to him. Or the Avatar tries to learn firebending too early and he causes some kind of irreversible damage, to one of his friends or to a nearby village. So he follows them supposedly to capture the Avatar, who he knows by now as Aang, but secretly he smooths out the obstacles he can. They don't move on fast enough when he doesn't chase them; the Avatar takes too long to get to the North Pole and either misses the invasion completely (which sucks, who gave Zhao the idea that destroying the moon was a good idea? The world descends into chaos very quickly every single time), or he only gets a couple days of training and neither he nor his companion (Katara, but he has to pretend not to know them since no one but him remembers the years of repeat) ever masters waterbending. So he is the catalyst that keeps them moving in the beginning.

It takes a couple years of trial and error but he eventually figures out how to be in the abandoned town at the right time to distract Azula and keep her from killing Aang. Then he and Uncle join the Avatar group, until he finds out that this choice too was wrong. The Avatar clearly can't have the Prince of the Fire Nation traveling with him if he wants anyone in the Earth Kingdom to trust him. So he runs them off the next few times and figures out what he and Uncle need to do. He hates waiting and repeating months of time when he just wants to skip to the latest choice and make a different one. (And how is he supposed to tell his Uncle that he mastered lightning several decades ago when not only can he not tell anyone about the time loop he is stuck in but it also never works out all that well when he uses it, lightning is too closely associated with his father and his sister for anyone to trust him after they see him generate it.)

Eventually he figures out the specific sequence of events that lead to Long Feng's imprisonment, which is necessary because Azula needs to take Ba Sing Se otherwise she will focus too much on the Avatar and she always kills his friends and then chains Aang up and helps their father conquer the rest of the world. Which he is trying to stop because the only ending he hasn't tried that makes sense is having the Avatar win the war against the Fire Nation. It makes a lot of sense that this whole thing has something to do with the Avatar since Aang's death is the only one, besides his own, that causes the time loop to instantly begin again. He uses his knowledge of healing to save Jet, the boy has done his part and doesn't deserve to die just because he had to be brainwashed, every time the Avatar's group leaves. Hooking the three Freedom Fighters up with some of Uncle's friends in his White Lotus group to fight against the Fire Nation always seems to get them out of the way well enough.

It works well until the crystal catacombs. The first time Katara uses her spirit water on his scar it works. He's lived with it for so long he isn't sure how to feel with it gone. He joins her and Aang and with Uncle on their side they escape. But Azula is relentless in her hunt of them and every time she catches them before the Avatar has a chance to learn much firebending, most of the time she catches up even before the eclipse. So he realizes that he can't go with them, he has to join Azula to distract her from hunting them down. It works except that Azula kills Aang with lightning. When he wakes on his ship he realizes that this time Katara needs to keep the spirit water to save Aang. This time he makes sure their conversation takes just a few minutes longer so that they are interrupted before she can waste the water on him (he has lived with his scar for centuries by now, he doesn't need it gone). When he is given the option he sides with Azula, however he stays in Ba Sing Se to secretly help the rebellion.

Azula chases the Avatar's group across the Fire Nation and kills them all, but not before alienating a large chunk of their own population against the royal family. Next time he goes with her. Instead of Azula he sends an assassin to keep the group moving like they need to be. He stays long enough to find out their plans for the comet, but he already knew that since nine times out of ten his father's plan for the comet is 'burn everything to the ground' aimed at the Earth Kingdom. When the eclipse comes he heads straight for Uncle's cell to break him out. It doesn't work as planned since Uncle still thinks he is on Azula's side, maybe he should have visited Uncle and shown some sort of hint that he wasn't really against the Avatar anymore, so Uncle trying to fight him while he is trying not to hurt Uncle wastes their time and they get found and Uncle is executed. He uses the dagger Uncle gave him to end the time loop that night, even if he has gotten the rest right he doesn't want to continue if Uncle is dead. (This is not the first time he has caused his own death, he went through a period of depressed rebellion where he tried dying over and over to break the cycle.)

He tells himself this will be the last cycle as he carefully times everything and does each and every move he has figured out so far. It is so much more effort to keep the Avatar alive, moving, and (hopefully) winning than it is to just help the Fire Nation, he would know. When it comes down to the day of the eclipse he goes instead to his father. Not only will this distract his father from the news of his Uncle escaping but he just needs this closure. Hopefully he will never see his father again, the Avatar will defeat him and win the war this time. When his father mentions his mother he doesn't turn back, the Spirits must be mocking him since they never let him find her before, besides he doesn't want to be here when the sun comes back. Everything seems to fall in place this time, except that Katara never does trust him again. Then on the day of the comet he and Katara go to face Azula. Katara comes because she just refuses to believe that he isn't going to join Azula and take over leadership of the Fire Nation with his father out of the way (or something).

Lightning is an almost instantaneous thing once directed. It literally splits the air. So he isn't ready when Azula directs her blow at Katara. He would have needed to jump between them before her attack even left her fingers. The duel ends shortly after that; he has beaten Azula before and this time it is almost nothing to shoot his own lightning at her in return, she doesn't know how to redirect it. Yes, she is his little sister and he loves her still but she just killed one of the Avatar's friends. He doesn't think that Aang will be okay with Katara dead, everyone can tell the boy is in love with her, and that sort of rage fueled Avatar power could wipe the Fire Nation off the earth. Then he kneels in the courtyard with the bodies of two dead fourteen year old girls and feels despair that he might never get this right. Still, one last try. He can't afford to let this be the time that continues on. So he goes to find Appa and calmly unpacks his swords from the sky bison's saddle. Once more, he tells himself as he turns his blade against himself yet again.

This time has to be it, he's too tired to do this again. Please let this be the right path, he begs the Spirits to free him each night. Everything goes as it has for innumerable repetitions before. Although this time he allows himself to try dating Mai, if this is the end he can start thinking of after and perhaps instead of just standing by and letting him escape at Boiling Rock Prison she might help. If he can get her and Ty Lee on his side maybe he can avoid the whole battle with Azula and save Katara.

When the time comes he lets his father talk him into staying a few moments more, he was right he doesn't learn much about what happened to his mother but at least he really can hope that she lives, and at the last moment he remembers to direct the lightning down instead of directly at his father. It never goes well when he kills his father himself. Mai does help them escape Boiling Rock but he doesn't see her or Ty Lee at the end like last time. This time he found a way to get Katara to trust him (don't ask how creepy he finds the whole bloodbending concept, it gives him (bad) ideas about manipulating other people's inner flame). Even trusting him the group decides they must send Katara with him as back-up.

Azula is far more unhinged than she ever has been before. But this time he is ready and leaps between the two girls in time. He isn't quite fast enough to direct the whole bolt. When he catches it with his hands it rages and tries to escape, some of it he manages to release into the ground as he falls but the rest is just absorbed into his lungs (fire comes from the breath, and so the lightning naturally heads there too). As he spasms in pain and tries to force his lungs to work again he thinks that this is it, he's going to have to live through the whole thing again and somehow convince Katara not to come with him next time. How can he, even when she trusts him she comes to watch his back and everyone else in the group supports her choice.

Somehow Katara is there healing him. She's chained Azula up and he's not dead. Neither of them is dead. He can only pray that none of the rest of their friends has died. He can only hope that this time was good enough. They send a hawk to Uncle in Ba Sing Se and another to Sokka, Suki, and Toph wherever they ended up. They've taken back the caldera, now they just need to know if they rest of their side succeeded. As hard as it is he falls asleep.

He wakes the morning of the day after the comet and weeps when he realizes what that means. Finally. He may be the oldest sixteen year old ever but at least it was actually the next day this time. This is the farthest time has ever continued. He must have done things right this time. Katara is clearly not ready to deal with an ecstatic boy waking her up with the dawn. She doesn't really get why he is so happy; they won yesterday and there hasn't been any more good news since then. She doesn't understand but he still can't tell her, what if it restarts the cycle again like last time if he tells, so he just lets her go back to sleep and celebrates a new day by himself. It's a great day to live.

AN: Old fics? What old fics? You haven't seen old yet. Wait 'till I dig out the High School Musical fic, that stuff is truly ancient (I never even saw the third one (because really I only saw the first two due to babysitting) and wrote all my fics when the second one came out). Besides Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the best cartoons to ever exist, so what if I own all three seasons on DVD and still recommend them to people all the time. Adults can love A:TLA too! The problem here is I've got hundreds of fics I've never posted and going through them to finish the ones I have started posting is making me want to just post everything that was completed but not posted. (Well this was supposed to have another chapter where the spirits finally let Zuko know that yeah he did figure out what they wanted him to do and yes it is okay to tell everyone else now. But I may never finish that part so I'm calling it complete here.)

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