Here

It never really occurred to him that he's never had friends.

"Do you think... in another life, we could have been friends?"

Zuko lay awake, hands crossed behind his head, staring up at the night sky, eyes tracing the stars. Aang's old words playing in his head like a forgotten melody.

A slight shift of his head and tilt of his gaze showed the group he's managed to make himself a part of; Aang, Katara, and Suki asleep soundly in their bedrolls. Sokka and Toph in the middle of a snoring match. Momo asleep on the edge of Aang's pillow and Appa curled up behind them both.

How could he have spent a year hunting them down?

Zuko felt his gaze turn troubled, that furrow in his brow that always seemed to make itself at home snuggling between his brows. He felt familiar guilt weigh in his veins, watching the kids around them—because that's all they were, kids, teenagers, just like him—quiet and peaceful.

His apologies have been accepted—even more surprisingly, by Katara, after they returned from their trip. Zuko felt a slight grin lift the corners of his lips. It was she who trusted him first, that fateful day back in Ba Sing Se. With no reason to trust him at all, she did. She offered him a kindness he didn't deserve.

Zuko watched them all sleep, feeling something unfamiliar settle into his gut. Seeing the way his sleeping bag was set perfectly in between Suki and Toph, one with their circle. One with them.

His friends.

He smiled involuntarily at the word.

Friends.

Other than Ty Lee and Mai, Zuko had never had any… friends. But Ty Lee was never his friend, she was Azula's, and Mai and he developed a relationship… but, and he could see it and admit it now, not a friendship. They didn't confide in one another. They didn't have fun together. Well, thought Zuko, both of us are pretty incapable of having fun. And all through his childhood, any time Zuko found someone to befriend, it wasn't long before they were introduced to Azula and quickly scared off by her as well. Not that he could blame them. So, eventually, he stopped trying.

But this… this group of people, there's something… different about this. It filled him with something heavy, something deep in his stomach. Zuko blinked at the stars, trying to put a name to it. And when he found one, he smiled just a little bit more.

Belonging.

He was finally in a place where he felt he belonged.

He didn't have to constantly battle an inner war to maintain a relationship. Back home, any interaction with Azula warranted constant worry over what was a lie and what wasn't, and whether or not she might kill him. With his father, it was a constant uphill battle for the man's approval of him, and it wasn't a battle Zuko ever got an upper hand. And more than that, to get any sort of approval from him meant going against everything Zuko himself believed to be good and right. Keeping those relationships meant tearing himself apart, just to fit in.

But here?

Here, he could be good without fear that he'd be sent away or challenged to an Agni Kai or worse.

Here, he could release the tightness in his chest and shoulders, the rigidity in his body without needing such strong, high walls to protect himself from feeling.

Here, he could smile. Could laugh. And it was okay.

Here...

He belonged.

Zuko smiled at the stars, remembering the day he'd spoken to them last.

"Please," whispered Zuko, lying on his back in the grassy field. He was alone; he left Iroh behind not three days ago, and had nowhere to go, no purpose in sight. He stared up at the stars, and begged them, pleaded with them. "I don't know who I am. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I'm looking for. Please," he felt a burning behind his eyes, letting a tear fall. "Help me find it."

Zuko felt the same burning behind his eyes, but for a different reason now. A better reason. He gazed at the stars as their light reflected in his eyes. "Thank you," he whispered to them.

He turned away from the sky, onto his side, seeing Katara, Suki and Aang still fast asleep. Zuko closed his eyes, then cracked them back open, almost as if wondering if the sight of them before him would just disappear, and all have been a dream.

But they were still here.

Zuko smiled to himself, eyes heavy with tiredness; a special kind of tiredness.

Relief.

He shut his eyes, letting go of years of stress, years of fear, and years of trying to find something he thought did not exist.

Because it did, and it was here.

And, now, he was too.