A/N: Just a little fluffy oneshot that wanted to get out. :)
Pandora was beautiful at nighttime. Regardless of the months he had been living on this moon-planet, Jake Sully's wonder at the lush habitat come dark never diminished. He hoped that it never would. Leafy ferns blanketed where he lay, quite hidden, between brush and trees and rock outcroppings. The Tree of All Souls was near, and perhaps he would have gone to it, but Mo'At, for all the trust she had given him during the war, remained unhappy with the fact that her daughter had mated with him. As uncomfortable as that could be sometimes, her disgruntled looks always made him feel a little more at home. Mothers – whether on Pandora or Earth – were the same. It was comforting, to know this.
Earth... The thought of his home planet was like a festering wound. It hurt, but he had to keep picking at it. As much as he did not want to and did not regret his decisions, he missed Earth. No matter how flawed it was, or how destroyed, home was home, and some things were just burned into someone, whether they be human or Na'vi. He had had a dog, he remembered suddenly, ashamed at how belated this memory came to him. What was its name? Though he searched his mind, the answer did not come, and he sighed.
"Why do you do this?" a voice said from somewhere to the left. Jake sat up quickly, scanning the brush for the speaker, startled and slightly embarrassed at having been caught brooding. "I did not think you would spend what little resting time we have making such a strange noise," Neytiri continued, fluidly rising from behind a fallen tree trunk to perch beside him on the forest floor, her tail flicking his and then away as she sat.
His heart, as always, fluttered slightly as she moved to sit near him. From the beginning, his lungs expanded quicker, brain clouded, and extremities shook slightly whenever she was around him. He rather thought they always would. "I was thinking," he explained in her language. It was true, he had come to this secluded spot, away from the rest of the clans and people, to think, though he did not think she would be particularly pleased if she knew what his mind was so heavily rested upon.
"One is always thinking," Neytiri said by way of answering, then paused as she searched his face. "Your heart is not easy this night. Why?"
Damn, he had forgotten her ability to read him like a book, and this made him smile slightly as he answered. "I was just thinking abut Earth, is all," he admitted, tail wrapping gently around her slender ankle as he spoke, and he immediately felt the tensing in her muscles as she processed this.
"Do you wish that--" she began timidly after a moment, but, with a mental smack for being so stupid, he cut her off.
"Neytiri. Look at me." One of his long fingers tipped her chin up so her eyes could make contact with his. Green met yellow as she looked him full in the face. "I'm glad I'm here," he said seriously. "I told you I wouldn't leave. I don't want to."
Though her muscles visibly relaxed, she was still staring at him as if trying to figure out just by looking what was going on in his brain. Was missing something that you didn't really miss something he could explain? He was silent for a few moments as he struggled for a way to make her understand what he was feeling. Then- of course. He was an idiot for not seeing how to do it before. He quickly held up the end of his ponytail, clearly indicating what he wanted to do, and with only a slight look of apprehension, she complied and attached hers.
Being bonded to another being was incredibly strange; having a foreign entity for all intents and purposes reading one's thoughts was slightly disconcerting, though it was getting easier for Jake. He felt Neytiri's mind make contact with his and a small thrumming somehow indicated her curiosity, empathy, and love. He was still and silent as she explored his mind, willing all mental blocks away so she had unobstructed access to everything.
Minutes crept by with no words as he listened to the noises of the forest: animal shrieks, hooting, rustling, cawing, howling, chirping, and finally the distinct sounds of the Na'vi making their ways home, cooking, conversing, living. They didn't sound as humans did in the forests of Earth: unnatural and enemy. No, the people of Pandora lived in complete harmony with nature, accepted by and accepting in kind the plants and animals they lived side by side with. The whole thing was peaceful and calming, and Jake almost felt himself lulled into a shallow sleep until he was jerked back by the sudden exit of Neytiri's mind from his.
She was silent, too, for a moment, as she apparently organized her thoughts, and Jake complied similarly, content to lay quietly until she was ready to talk.
When she finally did speak, it was hesitant and unsure. "You miss Earth but you do not?" she finally asked, looking completely baffled by the contradictory nature of his feelings.
He shrugged in response, and pulled her down to lie next to him, fingers intertwined. "More like I miss the idea of Earth. All my family, my history, my... my roots are in Earth. I was born there, and it will always be a part of me. Do you understand?"
She sat up to look at him. "Yes. I feel the same about here."
"I do too, now," he said quietly.
They said nothing again for several moments, then: "Why did you decide to come here in the first place?"
It was a fair question, one that nobody had asked him before, assuming it was due to some sense of obligation to finish his brother's work, or that he was simply a wanderer, or still that he did not want to talk about it. All three were untrue, and he found himself trying to explain the real story to his mate.
Jake honestly hadn't asked himself why he actually decided to come to Pandora – and if he did he would have lied – but now he searched for the real reason, and when it popped into his consciousness the idea was both new and familiar. Slowly, he began, "I always felt like I was different. Not really better or worse, just... different. Like, the people around me were exactly like me but they weren't. Like my brain was on a different plane than theirs, and though they were similar, I couldn't reach theirs and they couldn't reach mine.
"People always bugged me. I couldn't connect to them. I mean," he paused to look earnestly at Neytiri, "you saw how they are: destructive, power hungry, and greedy. I didn't get it, still don't."
She smiled at him then, a sweet, understanding smile. "I know how you feel." The statement was nothing more than a simple acknowledgement of comprehension, but it felt good to Jake. Someone was listening – actually listening – and, better yet, what he was saying made sense. It was uplifting, and eased his strange mood.
"I just," he went on, inspired, "I wanted something else. Something more. Like I was meant for a different fate. You know?" Neytiri wanted to laugh – Jake was looking up at her with almost a ridiculously hopeful look on his face – but it was too endearing.
"I think you were probably meant to be here," she told him, watching closely for his reaction. Jake's eyes crinkled a little at the edges after she spoke, his tail bumped against hers in a way that could only be called affectionate, and he tightened the grip he had on her. When he spoke, his voice was a little huskier, throaty.
"I think so too."
End A/N: Just saw the movie, sat down, and wrote this.
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