"Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule." ~Charles Dickens

It’s not like he never imagined the moment, the reunion. He had. The shaky fantasy was something to pet and cherish, and then cement in a box a thousand leagues beyond smoke and time. It was a watercolor transparency overlying a fairy tale maybe. It was a dream. It was hope.

Admittedly, Introductory Spanish had never figured much into the design.

Still, he followed the script, saying: “Katara.” And: “It’s been a long time.” (Too long for his voice to crack over the words. He had to be calm, cool, strong.)

“Zuko...” (She would say his name first, she had to.) “I can’t—wow, it’s you. It’s really, really you.”

She stared at him, not flinching (not Katara, not the girl who could stare down mountains and chaperones) and not scared. Biting her lip just a little, as if testing out the density of her next words.

And then she smiled.

“I can’t tell you what it means to be able to see you again,” Katara said, still smiling, sincerity like iron backing up the hard shine of it. “I’ve been waiting forever for this.”

“Katara…”

—and she punched him square on the jaw.

Admittedly, Zuko never figured that into the fantasy either.