The changes she begins to notice are subtle ones, and for someone who didn’t know him as well as she did they would have been completely unremarkable. But she had known him for several years now, and the process of watching him gradually come out of his shell and change into someone she really didn’t know (but had always suspected lurked beneath the withdrawn, often times sullen, scarred and depressed visage he presented to the world) was a bittersweet process.

Song had first noticed the beginning changes when he began to smile more, because even though she treasured in her heart the first time he had genuinely smiled at her, his smiles had always been few and far between. She had always known that the fire had weighed heavily on his mind and heart, and while she had wanted to reach out and draw him to her, he had always kept a distance between them. If she were honest with herself (and Song believed in honesty) even after he had begun to open up to her, he still maintained that distance. Not so much with words, but with his actions. One of the most telling was his reluctance to face her full on, preferring instead to turn his head in such a way that the scar on his face was mostly hidden from her view. At first it had bothered her that he refused to look her completely in the eye when talking to her, but gradually she had gotten used to it.

With Katara, though, it was a different story. Zuko always faced her head-on, unflinchingly looking into her eyes as they talked about the “old days” and caught up on the goings on with their mutual friends. Song noticed that his eyes would lose that hard, bitter gleam to them and would turn soft with memories, or some other emotion that wasn’t ready to be put into words.

I really should have seen this coming, she mused, more sad than angry, more resigned than hopeful. How many times over the last four years had she heard Zuko talk about his old home prior to the fire that exiled him from all he knew and loved? And during those stories, how often did the blue eyed girl with the mischievous streak, the short temper, and a core of pride that ran deep feature in those stories? Even then, Song had known deep down that Katara would be the only one to truly heal his inner wounds, even though she had held out a secret hope that she would be the one to actually soothe the pain.

Still, she thought, watching as Zuko burst into laughter (true, genuine laughter, the type she’d only heard once, and yet Katara managed to coax out of him everyday), Perhaps things are as they should be.