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It had been a while since Zuko and Sokka had gotten the chance to talk in bed before falling asleep. Not too long ago, it had been a nightly ritual: a chance to connect despite their busy lives, but since adopting Izumi, they were in bed at the same time a lot less, and when they were, they were dead asleep.
Tonight, though, they were lying on their sides facing each other, whispering. Zuko had Sokka’s hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the back of it.
“I got a letter from Azula today,” Zuko said, careful to stay as quiet as possible with Izumi asleep in the next room.
“Yeah?” Sokka supported his husband’s endeavors to be close to his sister, even though Sokka himself would prefer her to stay far away from them. She and Zuko were actually getting along pretty well these days, though, and Zuko was happy about it, and he didn’t want to interfere with that. He didn’t have to interact with her.
Knowing that Sokka was inviting him to continue, Zuko went on, “She’s living on Roku’s home island now, the one whose volcano erupted when he was living there.”
“How did she manage that?” Sokka chuckled, scooting a little closer to tangle their legs together.
Zuko echoed his soft laughter with a snort, and said, “She didn’t give me any details, just said that’s where she is now. I’ll have to ask her.” Once she had been released from prison, Azula’s sentence had been a reverse-banishment, in which she couldn’t leave the Fire Nation. The other nations didn’t want to deal with her, and Sokka couldn’t help but agree. However, she had grown to hate Caldera and the palace, and refused to step foot in the inactive volcano ever again, so she ended up traveling around the Fire Nation incognito, hoping to find somewhere to settle. Apparently, a dead island had been her final choice.
“Although,” Zuko amended, “She said there are a lot of young plants there, starting to grow in. Something about the fertility of volcanic soil.”
“Huh,” Sokka said.
“Yeah,” Zuko tugged Sokka’s hand a little closer to his chest, then chuckled, “Oh, in my last letter I was telling her about how Izumi has been crawling—,”
“Wait,” Sokka stopped him, not believing what he was hearing, “She knows about Izumi?”
Zuko froze, his eyebrow raised in surprise, “Well, yeah.”
Pulling his hand away and shifting to sit up, Sokka said, “‘Well, yeah’? Zuko, that’s major, how could you not ask me before telling her about our daughter?”
Zuko sat up too, confused, “You know I’ve been keeping in touch with Azula.”
“I didn’t realize you were telling her about Izumi! Why didn’t you tell me?” His face felt warm, and his voice cracked on “why,” like he was a teenager again.
Zuko shook his head minutely, “I didn’t think…” his gaze on Sokka’s face sharpened, seeing how upset he truly was, and he frowned, “How could I not tell her? Izumi is everything to me, and I want—”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t tell her!” He took a deep breath through his nose, aware that he was being more reactive than he wanted to be. He needed Zuko to understand why this was a big deal and, frankly, a breach of trust. “Look: I know you and Azula have been getting along lately, and that’s great, okay? It is. But you can’t just tell her whatever, especially about our kid, and especially not without talking to me first.”
Zuko’s arm were crossed loosely over his chest, “You don’t trust her?”
Sokka huffed angrily and tilted his head back, looking at the wooden slats of ceiling above them, then closing his eyes for a moment to recenter his thoughts. “In some ways I do—” he began.
“But not completely,” Zuko pursed his lips, “Why didn’t you bring this up before? If I had known you didn’t trust Azula, then I would have known you would have wanted me to ask you,” then he added, a little softer like he knew he was going to regret it even while he said it, “Not that I think that’s necessary.”
Sokka didn’t think that last comment was necessary. “Really?” he snapped, barely remembering to keep his voice down. “I know Azula has changed in a lot of ways, but she still tried to kill both of us multiple times, and not that long ago.”
“She would never do that now! C’mon Sokka, I wouldn’t be connecting with her again if she was still like that.” He had the nerve to sound personally offended. It wasn’t as if Sokka was questioning his trustworthiness. Although, now that you bring it up…
“Regardless of what you think she would or would not do, I don’t want her anywhere near Izumi. Not now, not ever. I didn’t want her to even know that she exists yet, but that’s out of the question now, apparently.”
Zuko’s face pulled in towards his furious expression, “That’s completely unfair.”
“No it’s not! She’s a dangerous, unstable person,” He knew that was a little harsh, but certainly not unfair. He had seen her after the war was over; she was a complete mess. And according to Katara and Zuko himself, she had completely lost it during their fight. Even if she was on the path to recovery, she still had it in her. She could do that again.
“Don’t talk about her like that! She’s my sister. How would you like it if I tried to lock Katara out of our family?
That did it. “You know what, hon, I have been extremely understanding about this whole thing before tonight. When you first started reaching out to her, you were putting yourself at risk, and I stayed out of the way because my sister has been incredibly important to me over the years, so I could sympathize. But here’s the thing: they aren’t the same. Not remotely. So don’t compare them, because Katara would never do anything that Azula has done.”
Zuko dragged a hand through his hair, his anger still mounting, “Fine. She wouldn’t. But I want to get to a place where I can rely on my sister, and she can do the same with me, and I can’t do that without trusting her. Because I do trust her! To a reasonable extent. It’s not like I’ve invited her over here to visit and meet Izumi. That’s a long ways off.”
“No, it’s not ‘a long ways off,’ it’s not happening!” Ever, if Sokka had any say in it. And he would have a say, even though Zuko had gone ahead and told Azula on his own this time.
“I know that’s too much to ask of you right now; I’m not asking you for that!” Zuko cried. Not right now he wasn’t, true, but this could spiral very quickly. Before he knew it, Azula could be asking to meet Izumi, and Zuko would agree because she’s his sister, and he’s seen some growth in her. But Sokka didn’t see it, and he couldn’t just take Zuko’s word for it, trust him though he did.
Just then, Izumi started crying. Zuko cursed, then fell silent. Sokka scrubbed a hand over the lower half of his face, trying to calm down enough to get up and check on her.
He scooted to the edge of the bed, and Zuko held up a hand, the beginnings of an apology written on his face, “I can get her,” his voice was soft.
“No,” Sokka replied, throwing the sheet aside and getting to his feet, “I’m already up.”
He heard Zuko sigh softly as he walked out, either due to Sokka’s rejection of his olive branch, or because he was regretting his actions. Either way, Sokka couldn’t deal with it right now.
In Izumi’s room, he slid the door shut, and crossed the floor to lean over the edge of her crib. She was red in the face, her mouth open in a wail revealing her tiny lower two teeth. He cooed, reaching down and lifting her out of the crib.
“Hi Izumi,” he murmured, “You’re alright, I’m here.” She kept crying, as she usually did soon after waking up. He wondered if the transition from sleeping to waking was especially disorienting as a baby, before you were used to it. He supposed it must be, otherwise they wouldn’t cry when they returned to the real world. Or perhaps, it was simply because it was harder to be alone when you were young, because you haven’t learned how to cope with loneliness yet. Although, in fairness, Sokka wasn’t sure if he had figured out how to cope with loneliness yet, either.
He bounced Izumi up and down in his arms, swaying slowly, humming and singing snatches of an old Water Tribe lullaby. He couldn’t remember most of it, but he didn’t think Izumi minded, considering the lengthening pauses between her sobs. They would be in the South Pole in a few weeks, so he could ask Gran Gran or Dad to remind him how the song went.
Izumi squirmed in his arms, her hands settling on her chest instead of swinging around in agitation. He smiled as he sang, stroking her cheek with a knuckle. She turned and caught his finger in her mouth, holding it there with one of her tiny hands. Sokka was struck by how little she was, and how fragile. He had been too scared to hold her at first, terrified of hurting her, until Zuko had sat him down and just set her in his lap. After that, he didn’t let go of her for four hours. Zuko had teased him, but was happy to hover nearby.
Slowly, Izumi dropped back into sleep, her grip on Sokka’s hand slackening. As Sokka kept humming, his mind turned to his fight with Zuko. He didn’t understand how Zuko could have come to trust Azula so much that he wouldn’t think twice about telling her about Izumi. Their daughter was still so helpless, and it was their job to protect her. It was Sokka’s job to make sure she was safe, and she wouldn’t be safe if Azula got anywhere near her; he knew that. His family had always been the most important thing in his life, and when Izumi joined it, she very quickly became the center. So, he wasn’t going to—he couldn’t—screw this up. If anything happened to Izumi… No, he wasn’t going think about that right now.
Still. He hadn’t exactly given Azula a chance. The last time he had seen her was at his wedding. They had awkwardly interacted, trying to be friendly, and failing. Mostly, they didn’t have to be anywhere near each other, since he had been a little busy getting married at the time. Since then, Zuko had never so much as asked him to talk to her, though Sokka assumed that he wanted him to. He was waiting for Sokka to make the first step, because he knew how hard this (understandably) was for him.
He tilted his head back, slowly exhaling through his nose. Alright, so he could do better, too. It had been a long time since Azula had terrorized the world, almost as long ago as when Zuko, too, had been caught up in the imperial Fire Nation’s madness. And obviously, Zuko’s involvement was all water under the bridge. Of course, Azula had been much, much worse than Zuko, but Sokka had been waiting much longer to accept her apology after it had been given than he had waited to accept Zuko’s. For Zuko, he had accepted him into his life after only a few days. It had been years since Azula had apologized. And, truly, it had been a good apology, it just didn’t make up for what had happened. No apology could do that. That wasn’t really what they were for, though, and maybe it was time to accept that she had changed, and give her a chance to prove her trustworthiness to him.
But he absolutely wasn’t going to involve his daughter in this test of integrity, even though Zuko had already brought her into the situation.
He turned his attention back to Izumi, asleep in his arms. Satisfied that she wouldn’t wake up moments after he left, he carefully laid her back in her crib. He stayed to watch her for a moment, entranced by her perfect peacefulness and stillness. He may have stayed longer, but he needed to go back and address what had happened with his husband.
He sighed, not looking forward to the conversation, but made his way back to their room anyway.
Zuko was in exactly the same position he had left him in: sitting up against the headboard with his arms crossed and an intense expression on his face. To someone who didn’t know him, it could have easily been interpreted as anger, but Sokka knew he was just deep in thought.
“Hey,” Sokka said as he climbed into bed.
Zuko looked over at him, scraping his teeth across his lower lip, “Hey,” he whispered. He waited for Sokka to get settled, eyes resting on the sheets in between them. There seemed to be so much space between them; it might as well have been an ocean of mattress. A few moments later, Zuko said, “I’m sorry for not talking to you about how much we wanted to include Azula in Izumi’s life, or even considering that you might have a different perspective.”
Sokka twisted his lips to the side as he looked across the mattress, “I forgive you,” he took a deep breath, “I’m sorry for flying off the handle, and saying some shitty things about Azula.”
He watched as Zuko’s Adam’s apple bobbed. Zuko nodded, “Apology accepted.” But, he still looked terribly uncomfortable. “So, how do you want to go about this?”
Sokka wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, and he shot him a quizzical look. Zuko elaborated, “How much are you willing to trust Azula?”
Despite his earlier reconsideration of how he had been approaching Azula, a bit of anger still flared up in Sokka. To be fair, it was an open-ended question, and “not at all,” was a possible answer he could give, but he didn’t feel ready to admit that he had been too harsh around this situation for such a long time.
But, he wanted to fix this. “I’m not sure. I think I’ll need to meet up with her sometime soon to figure this out.”
At that, Zuko sagged with relief. Even though Sokka had meant it, saying those words had felt like pulling teeth. But now, seeing him gently smiling and relaxing at last made it worth it. Yeah. He could do this. He could spend a day with Azula and try to get to know her. Things were different now. Who knows? It might work out.
“You have no idea,” Zuko said, “How glad I am to hear that.”
Sokka smiled back at him, and shifted across the mattress to get closer, “I should have done this a long time ago,” he admitted.
Zuko just shook his head, “She’s a difficult person. A lot less difficult, now, but you knew her at her worst, so I understand.” He closed the distance between them, placing a hand on Sokka’s back and waiting for him to lean in until he wrapped his arms around him more securely. “Besides, you’re doing it now, even though you really don’t have to,” He pressed a kiss to Sokka’s ear, “Thank you.”
Sokka just hummed in reply, glad that they had come to an agreement for now. He certainly felt like he did have to give Azula a chance, both for their daughter’s sake and his own sanity, but right now, he was just worn out, and glad to be settling into his husband’s arms to go to sleep.
Zuko yawned into Sokka’s hair, “Can we figure this out tomorrow?” he mumbled.
“Yes please,” Sokka replied, glad they were on the same page. He was exhausted. There was more to discuss, and more to figure out, but it could wait. Sokka slid down onto the pillows, his back pressed against Zuko’s chest, and shut his eyes.
Yeah. He could address his problems with Azula in the morning, after getting some much needed sleep.