Zuko swam slowly upwards out of darkness. It sucked at him like mud, reluctant to relinquish him, and because it fought him Zuko struggled all the more.

He woke with a gasp into a strange white world. For a moment, he felt as though he were floating, in a world with no edges, just soft, blurry whiteness all around him. It was a strange, detached feeling, or lack of feeling, because there wasn't anything. He was hardly even certain where his body ended and his surroundings began.

People were murmuring all around him, but that was fuzzy too, and indistinguishable, as though they were speaking another language. He even thought he could hear an argument somewhere slightly more distant, in which he kept hearing his own name in between incoherent buzzings that might as well have been insects for all the mind he paid them.

There was something it was vital he remember, but he couldn't think. He closed his eyes and let the darkness suck him back down, the mumble of the voices quickly fading from his awareness.

~.~

"Prince Zuko? Are you thirsty? Nod yes or no."

Zuko nodded, barely, and tried to move his hands to take the glass he hoped would be coming, but they were restrained. "What," he started to ask, voice parched and cracked. Whoever it was helping him pressed the cool glass to his lips.

"Shh. No questions right now." They tilted the glass, spilling liquid into his mouth. "When you're better."

Better from what? He wanted to ask, but whoever it was had already gone. Something was missing. He'd forgotten something…but what would he have forgotten, and why? He felt frustratingly confused and muddled, and it made him feel distantly angry, but his reflexes were too slow and confused to do anything about that anger.

He felt empty and hollow.

Unable to do much else, Zuko went back to sleep.

~.~

The roar of flames. Someone screaming, howling really, with agony. "Father, please-"

Zuko started awake, sweating. Breathing rapidly. My father. Did something happen to my father?

His tongue poked out between his lips, ran over cracked skin. He frowned, feeling strangely panicky, and tried to turn his head. Finally, he realized for the first time that there was something covering his face, rubbing against his jawline. Confused, he reached up and touched it, rough muslin under his fingers. Like a bandage.

Did something happen to me?

He tried to sort through his memories, but his head still felt vague and full of fluff. The war meeting, he'd gone to the war meeting, and then-

I am your loyal son! Please-

You will learn respect, and suffering will be your teacher!

For a moment, Zuko hung in limbo. He was remembering wrong, it hadn't happened, it was all a bad dream and that was why he felt so confused – perhaps he'd been sick – but he knew what had happened, he knew the price.

There was no pain, he thought feverishly. They must have been giving him something in the water, to keep him passive and confused and not suffering, they probably thought he was weak.

He was weak.

What now, he wondered, despairing. What now?

~.~

The next time someone came with the water, Zuko refused it. "No," he said, voice raspy. "I don't want it. I don't want anything." I will endure. He had some vague thought that if he refused help his father would come and explain to him, but he knew it was false.

Whoever it was tried to convince him, but he turned his head away and ignored them.

Within an hour of that incident, Zuko began to feel the pain. It spidered at first, creeping over the skin until he gritted his teeth against it, closing his eyes and breathing shallowly in order to endure. He would not be weak again.

Who are you trying to prove that to? A snide voice in the back of his mind murmured. Everyone already knows you're a weakling. The pain intensified until he was almost biting his tongue to keep from whimpering, and the tears welled in his eyes. He wanted to scream (scream as he must have screamed when it first burned, that moment that he was grateful not to remember) and fought it, keeping the sound locked behind his teeth.

Zuko's hands clenched and unclenched. I will not give in. It is only pain.

He didn't sleep, sweating and straining as the harsh light of day gave way to the purple-orange of sunset, and then to darkness. He could feel eyes on him, sometimes, pitying eyes, but he stared straight up at the ceiling. He would speak to no one until his father came. He felt sick and parched, but there was nothing to be done.

He had to endure.

~.~

His father didn't come.

Slowly, he began to realize that his father wouldn't come. The Fire Lord had probably already forgotten that his son existed at all. He was more utterly alone than he had ever been before. What now? He wondered faintly. What is going to happen to me now? His thoughts went in endless circles, useless circles.

No one was going to come. He was going to be forgotten here forever.

Despair threatened to consume him, and he fought it, feeling his breathing quicken at the thought that he might be left to rot here. His mother would - no, his mother was dead or as good as – Azula would only come to gloat; perhaps she had already, while he was still drooling and unconscious. His father would have no further interest in the son that had failed him. Shame stabbed through his heart, and he considered trying to get up and hobble his way to find his father and plead again…

But that would only be useless self-abasement, and Zuko knew it. No; he had to accept that he was on his own now. Anything he wanted he would have to get for himself. But that was struggle, right? And struggle was what made the Fire Nation strong. It would make Zuko strong, too, and he would prove his worth-

But how? Your father never changes his mind. He never forgives anything, especially not embarrassment.

His heart sank again.

Circles. That was all he had, circles. For the first time since he'd refused the stuff that took away his pain, he wanted nothing more than the dreamless sleep it offered; or even the waking haze that blurred all the outlines of thought and memory.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but even when it came the insistent pain of his burn made his dreams strange and troubling, and he slept restlessly when he slept at all.

~.~

Zuko smelled jasmine. Jasmine and tea and a very faint odor of spice, and he opened his eyes, feeling woozy and sick with lack of sleep and pain. "…Uncle?"

Iroh reached out and patted his hand, his expression as peaceable as ever. "My nephew. They've finally let me see you. You know how it is." He shook his head in apparent despair. "Healers."

Zuko's heart leapt, and just as quickly sunk. If no one had been allowed to see him – but of course the Fire Lord could do anything he wanted. No, no one was coming. I don't feel any better, he could have said, but glanced away instead. "What's-" He heard his voice break. No point avoiding the subject. "What's going on?"

"Going on? Nothing interesting. You're not missing anything. Although," and his Uncle leaned in conspiratorially, "Young Mai asked-"

"Uncle," Zuko said, fiercely, and then broke into a coughing fit. When he recovered, before Iroh could try to distract him again, he forced out, "I mean, about me. What's –" My father? "The Fire Lord doing?"

Iroh sighed, and this time it was audible. "You shouldn't be thinking about such things yet."

"I have to," Zuko said, stunned. "I can't just lie around when I-"

For a moment, Iroh's expression flashed mutinously enough that Zuko stopped talking, wondering what he'd said wrong this time. But his uncle only shook his head and said, frowning, "It's not lying around. Your wound wasn't minor, Prince Zuko. It's a miracle you didn't lose your eye. A miracle an infection didn't set in."

Hearing it put baldly like that made Zuko want to shiver. He'd known it was bad, but not… he didn't back down, though, just looked up with his uncovered eye and asked the question he'd been circling since he'd remembered.

"Uncle, answer the question. What's going to happen to me?"

Iroh stood suddenly, walked over to the window. Zuko's stomach clenched, imagining the worst, realizing that he was no longer certain what his father was and wasn't capable of. No. It was just…a mistake. That's all. A mistake.

In his heart he knew that to his father it was far worse than that.

The heavy single word from Iroh's lips fell like a blow.

"Exile."

For a moment, Zuko didn't understand what was being said. Then the roaring in his ears set in. "Exile?" He repeated faintly. His uncle turned back and looked at him, his face solemn.

"Yes, my prince. You've been banished from the Fire Nation.'

Banished. Forever? Probably. The Fire Lord doesn't forgive. Leave everything behind? Mai, Iroh, the memories of his mother, the palace (Azula) – for what? For where? He stared at nothing, the despair passed, giving way to numbness that was anything but a relief.

He closed his eyes. "Leave me."

"Prince Zuko-"

"Leave me!" He could feel his body trying to shudder with unshed tears, and held himself stiff and steady. No weakness. If he had nothing, he would make something out of nothing. Would prove… would prove…

Prove what? His father had already decided. There was no petitioning the Fire Lord's decisions.

"I will return," Iroh said, after a few moments, "Soon. I am speaking to your father, trying to-"

"Get out now!" Zuko roared, fire bursting from his lips, and he flinched at the heat on his face. He heard his uncle hesitate. The door opened and shut softly, and Zuko turned his head so that his tears soaked into the pillow, leaving no trace.

He'd never been so alone in his entire life.

~.~

The official message came two days later, a red-ribboned parchment rolled and placed beside his head. His hand restraints had been removed – there, he learned, to prevent 'further injury' though no one would look at him when they said it, apparently unwilling to mention suicide.

He unrolled the paper and read through it. Simple and impersonal, it cut through and through him, reducing what was left of Zuko's pride and self to ribbons until he set it on fire and dropped it on the floor to curl and wither.

The pain had become such a constant that he no longer paid it any mind. He didn't want to stay. There was no point to it anymore, just a useless dragging out of the inevitable. He didn't want to see anyone; there was no one who would care to see him. Mai – but no, it was better he leave things like Mai behind. She was a part of his life before. Not part of this uncertain new life of nothing – no home, no place, no family, no future.

Better if he just cut ties cleanly and quickly.

The next time a healer wandered in, he opened his mouth and rasped, "When can I leave?"

They stared at him. "I beg your pardon, prince?"

He cut them off. "When can I leave here, the infirmary?"

They exchanged looks that were clearly perplexed, and only after some time did one of them volunteer a tentative, "Perhaps a week?"

"Three days, then," Zuko said, wondering if his voice would have that harsh note to it forever, or if it would fade with time. "And I will leave this place." And he closed his eyes, to show that he wouldn't take any argument.

Zuko wouldn't let anyone think he was hiding in here to escape his fate. He would walk to his exile on his own, and embarrass his father no further with his weaknesses. He could almost hear Azula's voice:

Zuzu, it's time to grow up.

Yes, it was. He had no other choice.