Hello, everybody. So, as I'm sure you've all noticed, this story hasn't been updated since 2013. I took a long break from working on it, and every time I attempted to come back, I just couldn't make myself continue. I lost the spark.

Last night, alcohol-influenced me started posting things that I'd had on my computer for ages, but then never posted because I felt like I had too many unfinished stories to justify adding more. This morning, miraculously-not-hungover-me is going through my fanfiction account and folder and trying to do a little housecleaning, because frankly, sometimes uninhibited me has the right idea.

I've come to the realization that it's extremely unlikely that I will ever finish this story, however, since I had a nice, coherant outline completed for the whole thing, I have included it below, so that if y'all want to know what would have happened, here it is. I'm sorry I wasn't able to write the entirety of it as it was meant to be read, but I figured it was better to give you guys closure than to just keep letting you wait.

Rebirthing

Summary: When Azula was spirited away from the mental institution a few months after the end of the war, Zuko searched for her in vain. Years later, he runs into a girl who looks just like her, except she's only a child… Post-series.

Prologue: (Reversed) Locked away in a mental institution after her breakdown and subsequent dethroning and capture, Azula hasn't been heard from in a dozen years, and even her most vehement enemies have all but forgotten about her. If anything has happened to her, the government sure isn't saying. They haven't publicized the freakish break-in that occurred only few weeks after her incarceration. They didn't mention that she's missing, or that all they found in her cell was her clothing. Nobody's talking about the blinding light someone claimed to have seen shining under the door, or the fact that seven or eight odd people can't remember anything that happened that night and woke up disoriented on the floor between the cell and the exit. They certainly haven't told anybody that one doctor caught sight of the thief—holding what looked in the half-light of his fading torch to be a human baby…

Chapter 1: (Remembered) On a completely unrelated note, Rue An-Din (On-dean), the eleven-year-old daughter of a farmer—whose wife couldn't have children, funnily enough—is visiting the capital for the first time with her parents selling milk and cheese and produce. The city is so bright and fun and interesting! Her eyes just can't seem to take in everything there is to see! Zuko hasn't seen his sister since she was abducted twelve years ago, and no matter what lengths he goes to trying to find her, not a trace has been uncovered. Having given up in his heart if not his resources, the last place he expects to find her is wandering down the main street of the Fire Nation Capital City!

Chapter 2: (Revealed) Upon further inspection, she proves to be a great deal younger than Zuko originally thought; not only that, but he discovers that she can't fire bend, not even a little bit! Her parents insist she's theirs by natural birth but (though he may not be Toph) he finds himself sensing a dishonest note to their tone. What should he do with this totally normal, cheerful, friendly girl who has his sister's face? Too bad the council and the vigilantes and the Aang gang and who-knows-who-else all seem to want to make up his mind for him when the information is leaked…

Chapter 3: (Reanimated) On the run and desperate to find the answers to why everyone's suddenly chasing her, Rue begins to have flashbacks to what can only be described as a previous life. A life in which she is cruel and cold and powerful. She fears and hates the part of herself that begins to awaken; the part called Azula who feeds off of pain and despair. While Toph can't say for sure if Rue's words are truthful, they decide it's better to err on the side of protecting the helpless 11-year-old. They intend to have her come and stay at the palace for her protection, 'cause the rumors about her are getting around pretty quickly.

Chapter 4: (Restrained) Though Zuko is perfectly willing to give her another chance, someone on his council preempts his attempt to have her brought to him for protection, capturing her and sending her to the Boiling Rock under strict secrecy. While in prison, she asks around cautiously and hears horrible stories about the Fire Princess's terrible deeds. She also meets Long Feng, who recognizes her.

Chapter 5: (React) Resolving never to let Azula win, she begins to try to fire bend on her own. Unfortunately, the Former Fire Lord has an avid interest in what she's doing and they actually end up having conversations and lessons. Rue still neither trusts nor likes Azula, while Azula has been dormant for so long that she's really lost her edge and is half-asleep. Her fire is white, by the way.

Chapter 6: (Released) Rue is having very little progress with self-taught fire bending, but luckily someone's got the rumor to the Fire Lord about the certain little girl in prison and she is rescued and brought back to the palace. There she meets the Avatar Gang and Mai and Ty Lee for the first time—all over again. There are a lot of mixed feelings on the others' part, and at the end of the day, she can't help feeling lonely and rejected, though she hides it as well as she can. She also hides her fire bending. (Put Di'o, his great uncle, and cabbage-rolls in here.)

Chapter 7: (Relent) Zuko's popularity ratings are spiraling downward in the council, though everyone is working together to quell the rumors among the common people. Aang and the gang take some time to talk with Rue and discover that she's a very normal, very scared and confused kid.

Chapter 8: (Rejected) Now that the Avatar gang has grown warmer to "Little Azula," Mai feels alienated, like everyone's making her the bad guy. Her own husband is Rue's strongest defender, while she has no desire to expose herself or her children to someone so poisonous. One evening she's taking a bath when who should wander down but the very object of her trepidation. Being a reasonable adult, she concludes that getting up an leaving would be immature, so she sits in the water in stony silence until Rue murmurs, "I don't know if you care, but I don't like her very much either." Mai loses it after a few comments and unleashes a hate-filled tirade. When she's quite yelled herself out, she looks and realizes that Rue is barely holding back tears. She's not much older than Mai's nine-year-old son. The Fire Lady goes to bed that night hating herself for turning into the very thing she thought she was lashing out against.

Chapter 9: (Rebound) Azula tries her level best to use Rue's ensuing depression to take hold of her mind completely, now that she's fully awakened. Bombarded by flashbacks and thoughts not her own, the little girl becomes dangerously ill with the same sort of sickness that claimed Zuko in Ba Sing Se. Whereas his metamorphosis led towards something better, it's all Rue can do to remain herself. Mai comes in to the sick room one day, wanting to make amends, just in time for Rue to scream for everyone to get away from her. Erupting in flame, she stares in horrified fascination at her blistering hands until someone reaches into the inferno and smothers the blaze with cloth and hand (the water for her forehead is out being refilled) "What are you doing?" Mai demanded in a cracked scream. "I'm…not." Rue replied woozily, and passed out on the older woman's shoulder.

Chapter 10: (Revolution) Quelled by Mai's acceptance, Azula lies dormant again rather moodily, and things get a little better around the palace. Mai sends for Ty Lee—who took her kids to Ember Island when this whole thing began so they wouldn't be exposed—to return. There are some peaceful days of hanging out and swimming… until a vigilante group demands the young princess Azula be handed over to them on pain of the capital being burned to the ground.

Chapter 11: (Resist) Struggling desperately against an ever more powerful Azula, Rue makes a run for it, letting the vigilantes see her, of course, so they won't burn the city down. Riding as far and as fast as she can, she reaches the coast. A Lion Turtle tells her to seek the city of exiles. She just happens to accidentally take the Blue Spirit mask with her.

Chapter 12: (Reinventing) Rue journeys aboard a trading ship bound for the Shimanagashi Ruzai; the fabled city of exiles far to the east. It is a strange place where everyone goes masked and false names are as common as real ones. (She wears Zuko's Blue Spirit mask) She meets a shopkeeper and is hired as a clerk/assistant in exchange for a small wage and a room above the shop. Azula comments that she always did look older than she was. Rue begins to settle into a daily pattern of life in the Ruzai, but a chance meeting (read: collision) with an older herbalist woman sticks in her mind and even the Fire Princess is entranced. She also makes a friend; another girl around her age named Natsumi Kurihara who is apprenticed to a merchant.

Chapter 13: (Reunited) The herbalist confesses that she was once called Ursa of the Fire Nation, and tells her story of banishment and flight. She says she knows she could return, but she has been gone for so long and she fears her son will reject her, never mind the fact that her daughter is sure to hate her. They must both feel abandoned… Azula is listening with bated breath, but she'll never admit it. Rue does not reveal her identity, but determines that she has a duty to tell Zuko, who is so desperate, where his mother is. She writes a letter to him and sends it.

Chapter 14: (Return) Rue discovers that the fire nation has become torn by an escalating conflict between the zealots and the loyalists; who all together make up about ten percent of the population. The other unfortunate ninety are suffering from the violence and unrest. Rue prepares for what will be a dangerous and harrowing journey back to a place where she is hunted, knowing that she has a duty, not only to Zuko now, but to the Fire Nation. Azula cannot understand why she bothers, and Rue says she wouldn't understand even if it was explained. She takes another merchant ship back, but she changes her appearance as best she can in case there are wanted posters. Upon reaching her destination, she finds her hunch about the posters—and a reward—is correct.

Chapter 15: (Repercussion) Meanwhile, things are not going so well at the royal palace. Besieged and heavily outnumbered, deserted by three quarters of his army, Zuko can't seem to convince anyone that Little Azula is gone, and he doesn't have her stashed somewhere. The loyalists are convinced she's divine since she seems to have reincarnated. The Zealots think she's a demon, since she hasn't aged. The Fire Lord and the Avatar Gang strive gallantly to end the bloodshed, but when Zuko realizes that his army is being needlessly slaughtered, he surrenders to the invading Zealots—who have by this time rather beaten the loyalists.

Chapter 16: (Resolve) Zuko is interrogated by the Zealots and is still unable to tell them Little Azula's whereabouts, since he really doesn't know. Rue sneaks into the palace and tries to rescue him as the Blue Spirit, but in the end she is cornered and outnumbered and captured. Zuko and the others ask her why she came back, and she tells them the story about Ursa. Zuko in turn tells her what her parents confessed after she went missing, and about the events of twelve years ago in which Azula vanished. Upon being confronted by her captors, she thinks how she wishes that whoever transformed her was still around, that she could ask them for help—for surely they must be powerful—and she suddenly blurts out, "Then kill me!"

Chapter 17: (Resign) "Publicly execute me at high noon and all that," she demands, "but then you must restore control of the state to its leaders. I will be the last casualty in this ridiculous war, in which you have taken at least as many lives as I." The Zealots agree that this is a good plan, and they promise to do so. Rue doesn't respond to the others' pleas to explain herself. Azula is panicking, and it's all she can do to keep from erupting in flames. She is a little bit glad of this though; it prevents her from realizing just how frightened she is herself. She had wagered her life that whoever saved her still wants her alive and will come and rescue her—and the others as well.

Chapter 18: (Reflect) The next morning, unaware of the crisis hanging over her—she thinks missing—daughter's head, Rue's mother has a flashback about how a stranger came to her house in the middle of the night and gave her the child, on the condition that she swear it was hers. She remembers how Rue has always been a follower with no grand ambition, and how she fears fire. Rue is taken from her cell and she is terrified, but she hides it. Zuko and the others are freaking out, but Toph says she felt like Rue had the undercurrent of a plan when she made her big statement. Former Fire Lord Ozai speaks up for the first time from his removed cell, saying they're all imbeciles and explaining "Azula's" plan; her wager with fate that the person who changed her will come.

Chapter 19: (Requiem) The Gang (including Zuko and Mai and Ty Lee and the little royal kids) all manage to escape and try to rescue Rue, but when they are within a few meters of her, a Zealot realizes their intent and rather than let her be rescued, he slashes both of her wrists while still within the palace walls, hoping to pass her sudden death off as suicide. Unfortunately, the citizens are already pissed, and they all attack at once, pouring in as a horde of destruction. There should be some water, which mixes with the blood.

Chapter 20: (Respire) While the battle rages around her, Rue struggles for survival against the torrent of blood flowing from her slit wrists. Surrounded by Zealots, no one can get to her to help her. Azula knows how to cauterize the wounds, but Rue is too afraid and her fire bending won't work. She realizes that everyone around her is fighting for her sake, and that she is not alone. She tells Azula, "Hey, they're fighting for you too," which galvanizes the former princess into action. She closes the wounds in a blazing inferno that flings the zealots around her to the ground and gets everyone's attention. She passes out in a haze of pain and has a dream about the masked intruder who offered her a "reset."

Chapter 21: (Reborn) A few days later, Zuko is sitting by Rue's bedside when she finally wakes up. She glances down at her hands—scarred for life—and then looks at him and asks to see Ozai. He doesn't get it until she says, "Zuzu, I want to see dad." Azula knows her time is short—the next time she goes dormant she will most likely never awaken again. She hasn't spoken to her father since he made her fire lord twelve years ago, and if she's dying, she needs to see him again, to say what, exactly, she doesn't know. She enters his cell and stares at him for a long moment. Then she kneels down and hugs him. "I was your favorite," she says, "but you never hugged me or showed affection." They have a strained conversation, and then she suddenly blurts out, "What do you say to being rescued?" She tells Zuko that she'll take him to Rue's parents' house; that it won't be a palace, but it'll be better than a cell, and he'll be able to move around and be free and breathe the clean mountain air. He doesn't answer, but she tells him her offer will continue to stand before she leaves.

Chapter 22: (Resonance) That night, Azula and Rue meet with the person who changed them. As it turns out, it was Yue. She felt compassion for the girl who grew up with the values and expectations of an entire nation on her shoulders, just as she did when she was human. Yue had a new chance at life as the spirit of the moon, and so she offered the same rebirth to Azula, giving her the opportunity to start fresh. Rue and Azula melt into each other, the barriers between their two selves ceasing to exist. While their combined personality has a lot more Rue in it than Azula, it is clear to those who really know her that she is both of them combined. She is no longer afraid of fire, and while she never returns to Azula's skill level, she is fairly competent.

Epilogue: (Recreated) Time passes and Rue grows and matures, hitting fourteen with dread from the memories she still bears, but reaching sixteen with a steady boyfriend, and preparations underway to get herself apprenticed to a textile merchant in Ba Sing Se, like Natsumi. Ursa returns from the Ruzai and is reinstated in the palace as queen mother. Ozai disappears one night and a note is found in his cell that says mountain scenery is mighty fine this time of year. No one goes after him, and he is never heard of again to anyone's knowledge. Rue worried at first that someone would recognize her, but surprisingly enough, the only people who seem to remember the rebellion at all since she and Azula melted together are the Gang. Everyone else has apparently forgotten, just like how her mother describes the foggy memories the villagers had of a pregnancy she never experienced.