(take a look at my body, look at my hands—there's so much here that i don't understand)

It has been a very long time since he has been able to sleep without fear.

The caution, the wariness, he is used to. That feeling of need to watch his back or someone might plunge a knife (or a boomerang or a spear of ice) into it—yes, he's definitely used to that. After all, he's spent the last month sleeping under the same roof as Azula. The first three nights at home, he'd hardly caught four hours a night.

He is accustomed to having to relax each part of his body separately, going over Uncle's breathing exercises, counting to unreasonably high numbers before his muscles are loose enough to allow him a semblance of rest. He starts from the feet and makes his way slowly, slowly upward, consciously coaxing the stiff muscles into pliancy.

But the fearlessness—that takes some getting used to.

Usually his nights are occupied by staring at the canopy of his bed in utter silence, slowly releasing his tensions one by one. His sleep is filled with uncomfortable visions of Uncle in his cell (you brought this on yourself) and Azula gazing into the beach bonfire with that strange, faraway expression (my own mother thought I was a monster) and Mai turning her face away from him (I was the perfect prince, but I wasn't me) and his father, his fallen idol, his false god, his failed dream, his foolish hope (for so long, all I wanted was for you to love me, to accept me).

His dreams are full of questions and fire.

He is lying now on a thin pallet on the stone floor of a bizarrely upside-down temple, somewhat uncomfortable but mostly asleep anyway. On either side of him are allies to the Avatar—to him. The smallest boy, The Duke, is snoring loudly to his left; the earthbending boy, Haru, is breathing in a quiet, easy rhythm to his right. Across the fire, the paraplegic Teo is sprawled on a cot beside his chair. That blind earthbending girl, Toph, the one he'd accidentally burned and who had still vouched for him, is curled up on the bare stone floor. Ranged around her in almost a circle are the Water Tribe boy, Sokka, the angry waterbender girl, Katara, and the Avatar himself. Aang.

Frankly, Zuko thinks in his bordering-on-unconscious state, he is surprised they, especially the angry waterbender, allowed him to sleep amongst them. A tigerwolf among koala-sheep, he muses. Only the angry girl is more like a man-eating hogmonkey.

He is very surprised that they allowed him into their circle while they are at their most vulnerable. He is also surprised that he allowed himself to be surrounded by very recently former enemies while he is at his most vulnerable.

And he is not afraid.

He is drifting on that razor edge between dreams and waking. There are warriors all around his lax form, and he is lazily contemplating (as he had suggested to Aang once) his place in the universe. Their universe.

Two different worlds, he thinks hazily. Fire Nation and everybody else. Conquerors and victims. He is as foreign to them as they are to him. And here they are, lying beside each other peacefully.

He feels no fear. In fact, he feels extremely content—something he has not been since his uncle opened his tea shop in Ba Sing Se. Certainly not since he'd betrayed his uncle and the Avatar and the angry waterbender girl in the crystal cave.

He blinks slowly, breathes deeply, still sleepily baffled by his easy acceptance of his newest betrayal (I'm going to join the Avatar, and I'm going to help him defeat you) and his new allies' easy acceptance, for the most part, of his unexpected assistance.

I wonder, he thinks just as he closes his eyes and slides slowly off that precipice into the blank world of dreams, if Uncle would be proud of me now. I wonder—as the mists of sleep embrace him lovingly and gently whisper to him—if he would forgive me now.