Title: Simple

Author: Haikoui

Disclaimer: why is this always a question? No, I don't own anything… all of it belongs to Mike and Bryan.

Summary: "Perhaps your time in here can do the same for you." Ozai reflects on Zuko's words at the end of his reign, in his lonely prison cell. He thinks back to a time when things seemed so much simpler. Completely disregards The Search and The Promise except for the method of Azulon's death. Urzai.

Simple

"Where—is—my mother."

The words ring in his ears long after the new Fire Lord has left. Even in the dark, he can still see Zuko's form kneeling in front of the bars, his face a deadly, horrifying look of fury. Once upon a time, he'd have laughed in his son's face. Now, however, all Ozai can do when he thinks about it is stare blankly at the spot where Zuko had been.

He remembers not answering Zuko's words, because his question was a stupid one—one that had no use being answered. "Where is she!" he demanded.

He remembers casting dull eyes on the figure in front of him. "I don't know," he murmured, exhaling an odd smile. "I never bothered to care where she went."

With that—he remembers this part very clearly—Zuko stood and made a furious noise with his mouth before he stomped out of his cell.

And now—and now, thinks Ozai bitterly, it has all come down to this. Every so often he's lucky if he gets a visitor. It's always Zuko. It's always Zuko.

"Why do you trouble yourself?" snarls Ozai as Zuko stands in the doorway, masked in the shrouds of the gloom in his cell. "You have nothing to gain from being here, Fire Lord."

If there's a word Ozai can pin on the look Zuko always shoots him, it's pity. "I had someone to guide me during my turmoil," says Zuko. "Eventually, I found the right path."

"And you take it upon yourself to be my savior?"

"No. Your job is to be your own savior."

Ozai doesn't move from his spot against the back wall. "I don't need any hero. Get out."

At night—sometimes during the day, too—he thinks of a life better lived, back when he excelled at his firebending lessons, back when being second meant nothing bad at all, back when he met her, back when love was still love and not a competition or a game. He thinks of his days romancing her, loving her, cherishing her, all until it slowly transformed into a horrible habit of playing a game with everyone around him. He—he was a god. And he would take his rightful place on the throne, where he would use his prodigal skills against the rest of the world that pitted against the Fire Nation.

He remembers how their wedding day was full of a promise of "'Till death do us part", and how he wished so strongly for a son. She did that for him—he remembers it like it was yesterday—and he was content with the little boy who tugged on his hair, who spat on his robes, who gnawed harmlessly on his fingers. And then he remembers more, and he thinks of little Prince Lu Ten—by that time, not so little—and how a growing sense of urgency and disgust seeded into his gut.

He remembers Azula and her introduction to the world and her first breath as a firebender, and he remembers the feeling in his gut coiling more to match his sentiments against Iroh. Iroh, the Dragon of the West. Iroh, the commander of the western forces. Crown Prince Iroh, with his slow mind and his peculiar ways.

He remembers wanting to do nothing more than twist Iroh's head around his body and take the throne all for himself. He remembers looking at Azula—who never tugged on his hair, who never spat on his robes, who never gnawed on his fingers—and thinking that it was his birthright, his claim to bring the Fire Nation glory. Because who—who?—could possibly win this war after so long other than him?

Fire Lord Ozai, Conqueror of the Four Nations.

She hadn't liked that very much, he remembers.

He remembers telling her his dreams, and at one point he made the mistake of telling her that one. He remembers the look that crossed her face that day. He remembers the masked terror, the unconscious clenching of her fists. "Ozai," she said to him one day—he remembers this. "You can't."

"I can," he remembers telling her. "I will."

"I'll never support you," she said to him, unbidden, always unbidden and ready to speak her mind. "You can't. Think of your children, Ozai."

He remembers thinking of Azula, the toddler who sat quietly, contemplatively, the picture of Fire Nation royalty. All at age three. And then he remembers thinking of Zuko, the restless child, the carbon copy of Ozai himself when he was a young boy. He remembers feeling revulsion in his stomach. He remembers turning away from her and not saying a word.

He remembers the distance that grew between them as he clearly favored Azula—how could he not? She would bring him glory and power. He remembers seeing that vision in a dream, once. He never told his wife about it. And as the distance grew, so did his children—he remembers Zuko so eager to learn, so eager to please.

He remembers the trips to Ember Island. He remembers the days on the beach. He remembers building castles with his son in the sand. He remembers being prince… not Fire Lord.

And he remembers the concubines. Oh, he remembers them. Not as individuals—they are all one collective entity in his mind, faceless, distinguished only by how often he was with them and not with his wife.

More importantly, he remembers the last night with his wife after all of the concubines, after years of not having her, not feeling her, not loving her.

"You will leave tomorrow," he remembers whispering to her. He remembers taking a lock of hair into his hands as they lie in bed together. He remembers her fingers clenching the sheets between them as her eyes stared up unseeingly past him and into the wall.

"Yes." He remembers that word as a quiet promise.

"And you will never come back."

"Yes."

He remembers pulling her head toward his with his fingers as he laid a kiss on her lips for a long while. He remembers a wet spot on the cushion as his look trailed to her glazed eyes. He remembers staying like that for an awfully long while, late into the hot night.

He remembers her last words to him, before she got up to leave. "Ozai," he remembers her saying in a choked whisper, "do you love me?"

He remembers watching her for minutes on end, only silence answering her as he kept a lock of hair between his fingers. He remembers her confusion. He remembers not knowing quite how to respond to her. He remembers thinking how he could have possibly been speechless, when all his life he had known exactly what to say.

He remembers her getting up—nude—and gathering her robes. He remembers sitting up and watching her. He remembers her taking a glance at the vial on the stand beside the bed. He remembers the way her eyes linger on his. He remembers her opening her mouth and then closing it again, unsure.

He remembers his own words. "Go, Ursa. And don't come back."

And now, he wishes, he wishes he'd told her something—something other than the silence he'd left her with that day. He doesn't regret anything. Nothing. Not a single thing from his time as Fire Lord, or as Phoenix King, or as a simple prince… except for one thing, and that is the fact that he let her leave without an answer.

He regrets that. He regrets that so much that it's the only thing that keeps him from rotting in that cell. Perhaps, in any other life—had he had no regrets, not even that one—he would be rotting in the pitiful body of a nonbender. But he finds that he can still dream, can still have visions of a day when maybe he'll be out of his own prison, when—perhaps, perhaps—he can settle his mind. And then, he thinks, it'll be easy for him to rot. But he can't go now, not when his mind is still fresh and smart and so, so tormented with thoughts of her.

Sometimes, when Zuko comes down to bring him tea (he doesn't bother asking why because he frankly doesn't care, a visitor is a visitor), he looks at him long enough to see the paternal resemblance fade into maternal resemblance. His children have always looked more like him. It takes a special set of eyes to see their mother in the two children. But Zuko—always Zuko—is easier to pin to his mother.

He thinks it's because of those eyes.

Rather, because of the one good eye. His eyes have always been larger than his own—and those of Azula's. They resemble hers, and even though Zuko inherited the trademark dragonscale gold iris color of the royal family bloodline, the depth of Zuko's good eye is a dead ringer for Ursa.

The bad eye—

No, Ozai doesn't regret that, either. He remembers that day, too. He remembers feeling the rage boil inside him at his cowardly son. He remembers hating the eyes that stared up at him, much like hers had when she was in bed with him that final night, and he remembers wanting to never see those eyes again because it made everything that much more difficult. He remembers pressing the palm of his hand to Zuko's eye and he remembers the skin welting under his touch. He remembers the scream, and he remembers the flames licking flesh from between his fingers, eating up at his son's face. He remembers the brief glimpse of an eye forever distorted from hers and he remembers feeling relief at the unrecognizable sight. He remembers walking away and brushing the blood off on his robes as Zuko lay whimpering behind him, as the crowd watched.

And he looks at Zuko now, even as the boy brings him tea, even as the boy pours it for him, even as the boy hands it to him from between the bars, even as the boy sits politely and even undoes the formal topknot from his head, his hair unraveling until it falls just past his shoulders. His hair is growing longer, Ozai thinks, and much of his scar is hidden, and suddenly Ozai hates that eye, too, because it only reminds him that this kid is his as much as he is hers and he hates it he hates it he hates it because the regret only bubbles inside of him even more.

When Zuko visits, he is the only one who says anything. Ozai only sits and listens. He has nothing to say to him, he thinks—especially not about the "peace" and the "harmony" that Zuko talks about trying to achieve. He has nothing to say to him when Zuko talks of his friends visiting—especially not about the Avatar, the Southern Water Tribe chief's son, the greatest earthbender in the world, and "Master Katara". Ozai doesn't care, he thinks, and all he wants is for his son to just stop talking about all of them, about how there is a new blueprint for a city off the coast of the Earth Kingdom, how he is raising a baby dragon named "Druk", how the Avatar is traveling across the world, how "Master Katara" is the most popular ambassador in all the nations—Ozai just wants him to shut up.

But sometimes—sometimes, Ozai is okay with it, because sometimes Zuko talks about his mother and how he's found some clues to finding her and how he's going to retract the banishment imposed on her to bring her back. And those times, Ozai's okay with the words that come out from Zuko's mouth, because he thinks he can do with seeing her one last time. It's been years, he thinks.

Sometimes Zuko brings scrolls to share with him, the rare times that Zuko comes to him at all. Sometimes the scrolls are letters; sometimes they are paintings of the royal family. "This is us," says Zuko, handing him a scroll through the bars of the cell, "back at Ember Island. I found it in the attic of our house. How old am I here? It doesn't look like Azula's been born yet."

He stares at the scroll in his hands, at the delicate strokes of ink making up the fabric and the hair and the face and the eyes, and looks at the rather informal way he and Ursa are holding their son, at how their son smiles so gently up at both of them, at how his hand is cradling the left side of Zuko's face—how ironic, he thinks—at how Ozai has the ever so slightest upturned mouth, at how candid the whole portrait is. "You were two," he says.

"Were you happy?" Zuko's voice is a harsh rasp against the memories Ozai has at Ember Island.

Ozai says nothing and folds the scroll up and places it beside him. He casts his eyes on Zuko and stares, stares, stares, until finally he says, "As happy as a royal family can be."

The way Zuko's eye hardens tells him that his son thinks that isn't much at all, but Ozai doesn't care. He leaves without taking the scroll with him, and something turns in Ozai's stomach, something he can't exactly pinpoint.

It takes him about a month to recognize that the feeling he has when he opens the scroll every day is some peculiar feeling of gratefulness, and he wonders why the emotion is so confusing.

After a while, Ozai forgets how long he's been sitting in that cell. Occasionally he thinks he sees a silver hair on his head. He's always been younger than Iroh—twenty years, thereabouts—he's long forgotten how old his forsaken brother is. But the years have caught up to him, he thinks, because his muscle mass has deteriorated and he's lank and skinny and weak. And when Zuko shows up just outside his cell, looking through the slit of the door, he thinks this might be the last time.

"Are you awake?" says Zuko from beyond the door.

What's the harm in responding? Ozai doesn't care anymore. He doesn't care about anything, really.

He looks over at the wrinkled scroll beside him. Perhaps he cares about something.

"Yes," he says finally. There's a noise at the door and soon it creaks open. The light from the torches outside filters around his son's silhouette, and he doesn't quite want to look at him.

"I didn't bring tea today," says Zuko.

Ozai says nothing. Despite the fact that he doesn't want to look at Zuko, he raises his head to look at him anyway. The years have passed faster than he's realized. Every hour, day, week, year has blended together into a stretch of time that has rendered Ozai weak, and Zuko mature and strong.

His son looks just like him. Just like her. His cheekbones are well defined and his hair is pulled back into a traditional partial topknot, and his eye is narrower, older. He's tall—perhaps even taller than him—and he seems like he's emerged from a battle with the number of belts and weapons wrapped around his form.

Zuko exhales. "Are you listening?"

"Go on," says Ozai, faintly wondering how this coward of a child turned into him. Or at least, a version of him far more… more…

"It's been a while," says Zuko. A corner of his mouth turns up slightly. He looks… sad. "You don't look very good."

"Perceptive," replies Ozai. He waits a small while, and then adds, "You have always been so perceptive…"

Zuko immediately tenses, obviously shaken. But he moves closer still, coming to a halt in front of the bars that separate them. The words that come out from his mouth, however, are not directed toward Ozai.

"You can come in," says Zuko gently, his eyes locked on Ozai's. The words are definitely not for him.

There's a small patter of feet that sounds from the cell door, which is blocked by Zuko's figure immediately in front of him. Ozai hasn't heard that sound for years. Over a decade.

Zuko smiles slightly to himself, as though reminiscing something. His eyes turn to the floor. "I'll leave you two alone."

With that, his son moves to the side and escapes from the room, leaving him with the woman he's dreamt about since she left, since he forced her to leave. And for once, he knows what it feels like to cry.

The metal bars are what keep his hands relatively at bay. He's managed to find strength in him to push his body to the bars, to grasp at them like a child. She gets on her knees tentatively and keeps her hands on her lap. She's so beautiful, he thinks. It's the only coherent thought in his mind. She's so beautiful. She's so beautiful.

Her face is framed with delicate brown hair adorned with slivers of silver; her hands are more aged, skinnier; her dimples are permanently embedded into her cheeks; her eyes, oh, her eyes are more vivid and vibrant than he's ever known.

"Look at you, Ozai," she whispers to him, nearly inaudible. There is no smile on her face, only tightly knitted brows which show years of anxiety.

"Ursa," he murmurs, over and over again. "Ursa. Ursa. Ursa."

She only watches him with bright gold eyes, bright even in the dim light of the cell. Her mouth trembles.

"Ursa." His voice is hoarse with disuse. "Ursa." He extends his arm through the bars. He can barely hold it up. "Ursa. Ursa."

"Oh, Ozai." She clenches her robes tightly, her knuckles turning white with the effort. She looks past his arm and straight at him. "How did things turn out like this?"

He only says her name, repeats it like a lifeline, reaching for her.

"I watched you, you know," she continues, and vaguely he notices that her cheeks have become wet. "From my days traveling. I saw everything you did."

"Ursa," he says. "Ursa."

"We were happy, Ozai."

He pleads with her, drawing her name out of his mouth like a prayer. She shuts her eyes tight and he watches tears leak from the corners and drip down to her fists.

"I loved you, you know," she tells him, her voice breaking. "Even when I left, I loved you. And I hated it."

He lets his hand drop. His voice can no longer keep up with his lips; he mouths her name, bowing his forehead to the bars, staring at his arm, which is hanging just barely outside of his confined space.

Minutes pass with him staring at his hand and her not saying a word. He wants to die. It is then he realizes why some people demand for death instead of torture.

And then it becomes too much for him.

"I never answered your question," he mutters, watching his fingers twitch through the bars.

When he looks up, she's staring at him in incredulity. As though she's surprised he remembered.

But he still doesn't answer that question, can't answer it, can't bring himself to say the words because he wants to die and save himself from this feeling of failure and remorse. That's when—finally—his hand feels hers curl around his fingers.

"Do you love me?" she asks bravely.

"I don't know what love is," he says to her, finally having gathered the words after so long, "but I presume… I presume how I feel is the closest I will ever get to what you call 'love'."

The small smile on her lips will be his downfall, he thinks.

"Zuko," she says, louder.

The door to his cell opens and his son steps in, almost timid. "Yes, Mother."

"Open the door," she says. "I want to be with my husband."

And Zuko, despite the look he casts over Ozai, despite the hesitance in his gait, despite all the obvious hairs that stand on the back of his neck, opens Ozai's confinement and watches as she steps inside.

"When shall I come back for you, mother?"

But she doesn't reply, instead sitting with Ozai on the floor. He remembers his days as prince again. He remembers long winding nights, sitting with her as teenagers. He remembers when life was simple, as simple as it could be for someone like him, who reached so high and fell so low.

His son leaves them.

And he, Ozai… no, he has no regrets. Not anymore.

Oh gosh. Oh gosh oh gosh. Oh gosh oh gosh oh gosh!

I don't know! I'm just such a big fan of tragic pairings and Urzai was so interesting (until they completely dismantled it with the comics).

I just. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Urzai. Everything ATLA is so important.

Please review!