Author's Notes: 3/24/14. Uh. Wow. So. Yeah. First update in almost three years? Not... terrible.

couple of things:
- I'm alive! (My trip to Peru was hella awesome, by the way. I can remember most of it. Since my last update I've also, ohlet'ssee—climbed Machu Picchu, gone to Spain [the following summer], graduated from college, got a job, started a career, started grad school, etc. Just a frame of reference, I guess.) Yep. Alive. Whoops.
- Not a whole lot actually happens in this chapter, believe it or not. Consider this update a reminder to myself that this fic is in existence, and that I need to finish it.
- I've learned that I write best when I write in small spurts and post often. After managing to complete two other multi-chapter pieces, I've learned that I am capable of finishing a story! I just need to do it. (Never mind the fact that I've also started more than twice as many fics as I finish, nope, don't mind that.) Nope.
- The biggest hang-ups I've faced with this story include the details and logistics of the battle, which, I realized—I don't actually really care about. So I'm going to skip over it. Mostly. I'm just going to push forward and move onto the parts that I've been waiting to write, or that I've started writing, the ones that are actually important to me. Strangely enough, this notion only occurred to me recently. (Who knew that authors had the authority to make those decisions? Bizarre.)
- Trying to read over the previous chapters is too painful. My writing has changed so drastically—so much, so gradually that I didn't even realize just how much until I cringed my way through Chapter 1. Thus, there might be some inconsistencies, both in plot and style, and I ask that you bear with me, yo, because I ain't even gonna care anymore, I just need to get this done, in whatever form that takes.
- This will not ever be considered amongst my best work, and I'm totally okay with that.

This is really just about the conclusion a story that I feel deserves to be written.

With the ending I've always envisioned.

— So. Thanks for sticking around. :)

The voices were gone.

But Zuko knew it was only the beginning.

3.

+ aware +

Funny, how one's entire existence could change in the breath of a single moment.

Prone on the cold ground, with the echo of Fate lingering in his ears. This was They were still calling his name... over and over...

"Zuko!"

Leave me, Zuko's broken mind rasped. Leave me here, he demanded, old and cracked and empty, for he was never picking himself up off the ground.

"Zuko!"

Slowly, light began to filter behind the battered shield of his eyelids. The sound of his name was growing louder, as if stretching closer, and fire curled through his heart, spreading silver-hot tendrils through his chest. Come back, then, he challenged the darkness, then shuddered at the sounds of his own broken breaths. Come back and finish what you started.

He became aware of the hard ground beneath his cheek, as if it had risen up to meet him. He could suddenly feel the distinct press of earth on his skin, texture and sound and space. Everything about him seem labored—his breathing, his thoughts, each beat of his thick, heavy heart—and it was then, Zuko realized that it was not them he heard at all.

"Zuko! Get up!"

The distant noise of the world crowded together in his mind, and the pieces of a puzzle from a long-forgotten past shifted into place, one-by-one, by one...

Get up.

Zuko stumbled to his feet, but not before crashing back onto the soil twice, unable to keep from falling forward with the weight his heavy, heavy head. The pain was a dull ache, warm and aching, but it was becoming easier to ignore with every passing minute. When something gently dusted along his brow, his twitched uncomfortably, and it was a moment before he realized that it was his own hand slipping away from the sweat that had gathered there; for a moment he stared at it gazing at the fingertips as if they were not his own.

He reminded himself that this was real.

"Zuko!" someone cried from across the clearing. It was Toph.

He could see that now.

"Zuko!" she called again, closer, running. "What the hell—? Are you all right?"

A breath filled him, sharp and jagged, and with it came all of the realizations of just how right he wasn't. Ignoring the pain that shot down his side, Zuko took a step certain, stumbling step forward. He did his best to jog back towards the direction of camp, swaying with dizziness, but Toph met him halfway. She was shouting breathless explanations before he even had a chance to ask.

"Zuko, what the hell happened? When the rest of us came to and we realized that you were gone, we feared the worst. I couldn't even find you at first!"

He blinked, trying to remain stable and upright, but nothing—nothing, and yet everything—was making sense.

"Came to?" he rasped, as he came to a halt before her. The change in momentum made his stomach churn, and he pitched forward, his hands on his knees. He swallowed bile, but all he tasted was blood.

"We passed out from the pain," Toph said slowly, and he watched the crease between her brow deepen with growing unease. "All of us. We can't figure out what it was—some sort of mass chakra attack, perhaps? I felt like my head was literally going to explode. Aang has already consulted Avatar Roku, but none of the other Avatars have ever experienced something quite like this before—it's not looking good. Didn't you feel it?"

"Of course," Zuko muttered, his eyes not quite able to stop blinking against the sudden harshness of the grayish morning light. "Of course."

"So are you all right?" she asked. "Your heartbeat is out of control."

"No," he answered flatly, if only because he'd given up on lying to Toph long ago. His deep, shuddering breaths were anything but calming, but he knew that he needed to get his head straight and he needed to do it now. "What about the others? The doctors? The patients?"

Katara.

Katara.

Katara, Katara, KataraKataraKatara—

"It hit everyone, Zuko," she whispered, and for a heartbreaking moment, he saw Toph for the strong but scared child she really was.

"And she—?" Zuko croaked. "Is she—?"

"Aang is with her now," Toph explained in a steady, hollow voice. "C'mon—it's more important than ever that we find this damn cure, and pronto. The doctors have no way of knowing the effect it may have had on her—whatever it was. You don't have any idea what it could have been, do you? Some sort of firebender attack your sister cooked up?"

Bile threatened to rise once more, but Zuko had nothing left to release, and his body was already spent with exhaustion. He jerked his head to side. "None," he rasped, trying to remember how to use his tongue. He cleared his throat with a vicious cough, wet and wrenching.

"Zuko?"

"Let's go," was all he said. He took another step forward—smaller, but steadier—and ignored Toph's tentative hand for support. "We should be moving."

Toph did not often respond well to commands, regardless of the commander.

But even she made no argument against him now.

The camp was completely out of sorts and the medical tent was at the heart of the chaos; a blur of sight and sound—drab colors made bright by the swell of panic—and the air of uncertainty thick like a cloud in the air, choking off cries of confusion and dismay. The dawn was gray with shapeless clouds, and the white of the infirmary tent was stark enough to burn the eye.

Toph was right on his heels as he tore through the eastern entrance, casting aside the stiff flap of tarp, and it was through the masses of blurred bodies and indistinct voices—the rattling sounds of bed frames and healers' commands—that Zuko pushed through, edging his way through the small crowds of bodies toward—

—toward the sight of a slight, sleeping, heavily bandaged girl, whose name he once only barely remembered.

Who meant everything to him.

He ran with all the strength his legs could afford him.

Katara, his chest constricted, through the swirls of images and thoughts and stories that had returned to him. (The lost moments, the memories. The arguing and the trust, sunshine and flower petals, stupid spirit ponds and kisses in the dark, and his name in the forgiveness of morning light. The way her body moved, and the noises she made, how her hair fell into her eyes, and the way she looked at him, like—) I don't know how and I don't when, but I promise you... I promise you—

And there she was.

Zuko's feet had dragged to a stop before he'd even realized.

The terrible luster of sweat across her exposed skin reflected an eerie, unnatural glow. The hustling shadows of the rushing soldiers around her cast shadows upon her face. Three healers flanked her bedside, bathing her in bluish, loving light. She looked even more lifeless than the night before.

The healer must have noticed a worsening of the symptoms, Zuko concluded, staring blankly at the fresh sheet of bandages wrapped around her arms. A familiar voice caught his notice then, on the fringes of his awareness—The healers are doing all they can, Aang—but Zuko hadn't the mind to place the face, nor the will to look away... Zuko knew that the speaker meant well, and believed with his whole being that the Head Healer was doing all that he could... but Zuko also knew that nothing from the healers would help. This was no matter of sanitation, or antibiotics, or antidotes, or cures.

This was about Fate, and the cruel tricks it had played on them both.

Katara, Zuko's mind scolded through the screaming terrors of his mind. How could you be such a fool? How could you do something like this? He couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe.

"Bring a fresh set of bandages, please," the healer told one of the volunteers, who scurried away immediately. He sighed heavily, reaching for Katara's wrist to inspect her pulse.

"How is she?" Toph asked quietly, but the answer was obvious. Aang merely sat in his chair, with a gaze as dull as the clouds. Not one pair of eyes removed themselves from Katara, and Zuko found that he had to focus all of his energy on calming the trembling in his mind to hear the healer's speech. Had it really only been an hour before, when he had stood over her bedside, unprepared and uncertain as to how to bid her farewell?

And he hadn't, actually.

He hadn't said goodbye.

"I'm afraid the bandages can only do so much," the healer said, his voice low. "They are helping to contain the poison's ability to discover other toxins somewhat, but the method is limited." He continued about his business of checking her vitals and when he finished, he shook his head, at a loss. "We're going to need to find other means of stopping the spread. It will be very important now to avoid physical contact at all costs. The aids will wear protective gloves over their hands, to keep the natural oils and bacteria at bay." He turned to another of the volunteers, as the initial helper returned with more bandages. "Find the cleanest piece of cloth, disinfect it, and bring it back to me, so we may apply it as a mask. We'll need to try filtering the air she's breathing, as well."

Sokka covered his eyes with his hand, and Suki did all that she could to steady him.

Aang only stared.

And Zuko—

Zuko remembered.