Neytiri doesn't know a lot about Jake when it comes to his past. It's time for him to tell her... and explain the ways of earth the best he can.
I'm not sure whether this will stay a one-shot or become an actual story, depends on whether I get an idea for a bigger plot.
Jake's Past
It wasn't the same anymore. It was better, but not the same. Well, it was better in the sense that they weren't going to get attacked again, the damage that was done was still there though.
Hometree was still laying there, lost of its pride. It had fallen. When I asked what Neytiri was thinking, looking at their former home she answered me this:
"This is sad, but she will feed the earth around her now, this place will grow faster than ever… she is strong, even now. And she will makes this place strong."
That made me smile, even though I still felt the guilt. It'd told them where to hit, I had told them exactly how to bring Hometree down.
It had been a week now since we'd last gone to Hometree. Neither I nor Neytiri had wanted to go back. I look over at the water where we'd decided to pause for a few minutes, sitting down against some of the trees.
"I'm sorry," I tell her, even though he hadn't been talking about Hometree. Neytiri looks at me, sitting down as well.
"Sorry what for?" she asks.
"Hometree…" I replied. It'd been thinking about it ever since we went there. She smiled a little, now also looking at the lake, it wasn't a happy smile, but it wasn't accusing either and that meant a lot.
"You should not feel sorry," she said. "In the end it was you who saved us." It'd told her the entire story. I had told her exactly what bad I'd done… and still she wanted to be with me. I never came across a girl so generous. I smiled to myself, then looked over at her; she was beautiful as ever, her eyes reflecting the sparkling water. I was just about to tell her how pretty she was when she turned to me and said:
"Can I ask you something, Jake?" There was a shimmer of doubt in her eyes and I knew this was where our cultures collided. I understood the Omaticaya's way quite well, I came to love it more than anything. I know I could not go back to earth and truly be happy like I am here.
"You can ask me anything," I grinned, looking at her. She smiled a little.
"You have not told me much about where you come from," she said, looking at me, still a little questioned. I know she's not sure whether she can ask this. We've not talked about things like this yet… I look at the water for a moment, before turning back to her.
"What would you like to know?" I ask her. I know I'm willing to tell her everything. I get a stone from the ground and throw it into the lake, looking at the circles it leaves behind on the surface.
"Everything," she said, suddenly getting excited. "Where you lived? Your family?"
"My family is right here," I smiled, looking up at her. She hit me playfully.
"You know what I mean, Jake," she said and I nodded.
"I'm not sure how to explain to you where I lived," I told her seriously, turning my gaze back to the water, trying to think. "I lived in a city… it's nothing like here. It's filled with people that don't know each other. It's busy… there are cars and houses everywhere. It stinks."
"Why you live there if it stinks?" she asks me. I laughed softly.
"That's a good question," I replied.
"Your planet not have live?"
"I suppose it does," I replied, smiling a little at the way she asked the question, although it's quite sad to think about all those people that are still locked up on earth who would want to be free. "I just never went to look for it. We have forests and mountains…"
"Why you not live there?" she asks. "Why you live in city?"
"I don't know…" I told her, feeling strange suddenly. I'd not been thinking about live back on earth in so long that I was starting to forget. The differences between earth and Pandora were too grand and I couldn't seem to fill up the gab. I had to let one go, and it wasn't a difficult choice to make. "It wasn't something city-people did," I then told her. "They stay in the city, they live there and work there and send their children to school there. No-one thinks about the mountains."
"How come?" she asked, a little sadness visible in her eyes.
"They just don't," I told her. A warm feeling started to spread through me as she was asking me all of these questions. She'd not dared to ask them before, but it seems her curiosity out-ruled her sense of respect at the moment, because I think that's why she didn't ask me before. We grew closer every day… she had the right to know everything about me.
"I do not understand your planet," she said. I grinned.
"This is my planet now," I told her. She smiled.
"Were you ever lonely?" she then asked me, her smile disappearing again, her eyes filling with a certain sense of sadness, fear even. Everything that happened on earth must sound strange to her.
"Lonely…" I thought for a while. "I think I might have been, but I didn't know it at the time." I was never alone anymore nowadays, only when I went for a walk somewhere myself. But there was always someone there when I came back, usually that someone was Neytiri. I smiled at the thought. I liked not having to be alone, especially when it meant having Neytiri close by. She didn't seem to like the thought of me being alone much, for her eyes met mine with a certain worry that I'd not seen in them in a long time. I moved a little closer to her and gently moved my hand over the side of her face, resting it against her cheek. "Earth's alright, it's not that bad," I grinned.
"You were lonely…" she whispered in responds.
"I didn't know I was lonely, until I realized what it was like to live like you do. I would be lonely now, if I went back to earth, not then. I was fine back then. Why did you ask that anyway?"
"Earth people always look on their own… even when they're together. They don't stand together," she spoke softly, almost afraid of what she was saying. I gave her a reassuring look, letting her know she could tell me anything.
"You might be right," I replied. "Earth people don't live together like the Omaticaya-people do. They live for themselves or for their children."
"We live for our children," Neytiri spoke.
"Yes, we live for all our children, all the children of the Omaticaya-people. Earth people only live for their own children, mostly." She tried to understand this, but it was hard for her, I could see that. "People on earth don't live together like we do here. They live in houses, on their own. They don't even speak to their neighbours most of the time."
"How can you live like that?" she asks. It was going to be hard to explain her everything and I didn't even know if I wanted to do so. I didn't want to spoil the thoughts she had with earth-behaviour. It was pathetic thinking back at the time I spend on earth. Some things seemed so important at the time, things I wouldn't even want to have anymore. Money being one of them. It was the reason I came here… the pay was good and the Avatar was too expensive, so I had to go. It was all about money. The entire mission… I've not seen a single dollar for over two weeks now and it does not make me less happy. On the contrary.
"There are good things about earth too," I said, wanting to bring the subject to something a little brighter.
"What good things?" she asks me, wanting to know them. She probably didn't want to think about the planet I'd just described, people that didn't know each other and lived alone, it was too abstract for her to grasp. She wanted something brighter to add to the story, I knew she did.
"There are beautiful places on earth too," I smiled. "When the mist hangs low on the mountains in the North of England."
"England?" she asks. I smiled at her and nodded.
"And we have Alps, snowy-mountains."
"Snow?" she asks.
"Yes, white stuff that falls out of the air when it's really cold," I replied, laughing softly at my own description. She nodded slowly, then looked at me fully again.
"I do not understand," she spoke in her soft voice, making me smile. For some reason I suddenly felt a little sad though, she didn't know snow and she would never know snow. And I'd never see it again… I'd never throw a snowball at anyone ever again. That was a strange idea. I looked around at the lake, realizing that this planet had so much more to offer, even though it excluded snow. That thought didn't stop me from feeling sad though.
"It rains on our planet too," she understood that. "And if it gets really cold, I don't think it gets that cold around here, the rain drops turn into snow… it's like ice, only crushed…" I didn't know if that made much sense. "It's white and very soft… and it can cover streets and rooftops and everything becomes white." I knew she still didn't understand, but it was hard explaining what snow was, especially when you mentions streets and rooftops, which didn't exist on Pandora. "It's like a white sheet covering everything…" This thoughts seemed to scare her a little. "No, it's not something bad… it's rather beautiful." She was thoroughly confused now. I laughed. I got a stick and walked over to a piece of ground which had become soggy from the lake. I started to draw mountain tops with snow and all of these dots above them. She sat next to me and looked at what I was doing. "This," I pointed to the mountains. "Well, you know what these are..."
"Mountains," she replied. I nodded, proud of the fact she could recognize my poor attempt at drawing mountains in the mud.
"And this," I pointed to all the dots. "This is snow. It's falling down from the sky, like rain, only it's not water. Well it is, it's just a different form of water. Water can be ice when it's really cold, or it can be damp when it's really hot." She nodded, understanding it so far. "And when it falls down," I pointed to the tops of the mountains. "It doesn't disappear into the ground like water, it forms some sort of blanket."
"What does snow feel like?" she asks.
"It's really cold," I told her. "But I think it'd feel like this wet sand really…" I smiled, poking into the earth with the stick. "And the fun thing about snow is, you can make snowman out of it, sculptures of snow." I added the last part quickly, before she'd start to think strange things about snow again. "Or have a snowball fight," I said.
"What's that?" she asked.
"That's when you get a hand full of snow and make it into a ball and throw it," I said. "It's fun." I saw her looking at the soggy sand and laughed softly, knowing what she was thinking about. "I don't think it'd be half as fun with – " but before I'd finished the sentence a hand full of sand had collided with the side of my face. Neytiri's laughter filled the air, while I wiped the sand out of my face, leaping forward towards her. She yelped softly and jumped out of the way just in time. I ducked down, getting some of the sand myself and throwing it in her direction. She laughed loudly as I hit her against her shoulder and got some sand herself again, aiming it at me. I moved my hands in front of my face, moving out of the way as she threw again. She missed and I grinned. I got two hands full this time and threw. She tried to move out of the way of both, but only managed to escape one. She laughed again, ducking towards me. I took hold of one of her arms and turned around so that I was suddenly the one moving towards her. I let us fall over and landed on top of her in all the soggy sand.
"Jake!" she said, laughing as she was suddenly covered in mud. I laughed loudly.
"It's a good things there's a lake near by," I told her, grinning.
She hit me playfully and I grinned even more.
"You want to walk around dirty all day?" I looked down at her.
"Jake…" she laughed, then reached up to kiss me suddenly. A thrill went through me like always as she kissed me. My eyes fell shut as I leaned in more, loving the feelings that send my brain to shut down. It wasn't a kiss that lasted long, but that was alright. Every moment I spend with her was perfect, I loved her more than I ever imagined loving anyone. I put my arms around her, gently getting up of the ground, pulling her along with me. She looked into my eyes as we stood there, still covered in mud and started laughing again.
"Come on," she took my hand and started to walk towards the lake. I smiled and walked along with her.
We got into the water, I was still holding her hand, I pulled her closer, into my arms, while the water was running around us, gently carrying us along.
"You got it in your face," she said accusingly, starting to wipe it away.
"It's your fault," I smiled. She looked at me, then smiled as well. We started to swim along the stream of water, which felt nice as you had the feeling you swam quite quick without having to do much for it. The water was slightly cold, but it wasn't bad at all, it was actually quite nice; refreshing.
It was silent for a while, I think we were both lost in our own thoughts. It was a perfect silence though, only disturbed by the sounds of nature around us. I liked those sounds. I liked the absence of cars and trains and other industrial noises.
"Jake?" Neytiri asked and I turned to look at her, a questioned look in my eyes. "You came here because your brother died, is that right?" I nodded, not sure what she was getting at. "Your twin brother?" she looked at me.
"Yes," I replied.
"That be difficult," she said, looking a little absent, clearly not sure what she could say about this.
"A bit," I replied. "But I wasn't really in a good place at that time, and the opportunity they gave me, the opportunity to come here sort of put my mind off of everything. I hardly had the time to think about him to be honest… which I feel guilty about, because he deserves all the thoughts he got."
"Do you miss him?"
"Not anymore," I told her honestly. "But it does feel strange sometimes. We grew up together and never left each other's sides. We did everything together. Of course I didn't see him that often anymore when we grew up, but still." She nodded, keeping silent. I hadn't thought about my brother in quite a long time that it was strange to suddenly do so again. It was strange because I was here now and I had my live. I knew what I wanted and I had got it. I was with Neytiri. I was on Pandora. So much had happened to me in the last months and there was no-one back on Earth to await my stories. Which was a good thing really, because it meant that I could stay here without feeling guilt.
"And what about your mother and father?" she then asked me.
"Ah," I said, looking around to face her.
"You never told me anything about them," she said. I smiled a little, although I didn't know what kind of smile it was. "You don't have to," she then said and I realized it'd probably been a somewhat unhappy smile.
"No, I want you to know," I quickly said, before she would change the subject. I actually didn't want to talk about this, but I had the feeling I owed her. I had to tell her, for I wanted her to know everything about me. I would like to think she had a better understanding of who I was than I had myself.
She didn't look at me as she knew I was having a hard time coming up with the right words, as I tended to have. She usually laughed when I didn't come up with the words, but this time she didn't and that didn't make it easier really. I looked at her, sighing a little.
"We shouldn't be this tense about it," I said, trying to smile a little. She nodded slowly.
"You are right," she said. "But I don't know…" she didn't finish the sentence which wasn't at all like her. She was known for stating the bold truth, even when it was hurtful or shameful. She didn't want to dance around the point.
"What is it?" I asked her after a while of silence. I wanted to know what she was going to say and I wanted to know why she didn't finish that sentence, as it was completely uncharacteristic.
"I don't know how you feel about your parents, I don't know anything about your past live. That's why I never asked you… because I didn't know what it meant for you to answer those questions."
I smiled a little, reassuring her, letting her know that it was alright. Her thoughts and feelings meant a lot to me and I didn't want her to keep them hidden because she thought it would be better not to tell me. I wanted to hear everything, because it was very important indeed.
"You can ask me about anything," I told her. "It doesn't matter what. And it doesn't matter if it's a good or bad thing from my past. I want you to feel free to ask me anything," I looked at her, wanting her to know that I meant what I said. She nodded slowly, but I knew she didn't fully agree with me. "I don't want you to feel afraid because you don't know what subjects are difficult for me to talk about. That's just not right. You should know about them then avoid them." I smiled a little. "Not avoid them because you don't know them." She nodded again, but this time she seemed to agree with me more. I smiled a little.
"Your parents…?" she then said, and I realized just how curious she was. I smiled brighter, even though I still didn't feel like talking about the subject. The fact that she wanted to hear meant a lot to me indeed.
"My parents were alright," I started. "Of course it must've been difficult for them to raise twins. Especially me and my brother, because we really weren't easy." I sighed a little, then smiled at all the memories. "School was always a bit of a problem for us," I grinned. "We didn't usually go…"
"But don't you have to go to school on Earth?" she asked. "That's what Grace taught us."
"Yes, and that's the problem, because we still didn't go a lot," I replied. "So, we got in a lot of trouble and our parents really didn't like that. I feel bad about it now though, because they deserved to have better sons…"
"You are a beautiful person Jake, your parents must've been proud of you," she said, looking at me.
"They weren't exactly proud of anything," I replied. "But they did love us, of course they did. But they simply hated everything we did. They didn't want me to become a marine… they didn't want any of this to happen…"
"Where are they now? You talk about them as if they have died," Neytiri said and I suddenly felt guilty because I realized she was right, I had been talking about them in the past tense.
"My mother died about six years ago," I said. "Which is a good thing really, because not long after that my brother died and she really would not have been able to handle that. Especially not with me coming here."
"And your father?" she asked.
"You should know that my father was always working," I said. "He wasn't ever there really to care for the family. He brought in the money and mom did the rest. So, I never really grew close to him…"
"You didn't speak to him often?" Neytiri asked, finding this incredibly strange.
"Hardly ever… We didn't talk long when my brother passed away. We simply discussed all the things that needed to be done and that was it. He went home and so did I."
"How can that be?" she asked.
"We're just completely different people," I replied.
"But he's your father," she then said, almost angrily.
"Yes, I know, but things are different back on Earth."
"Things are not right on Earth," she said.
"That's a way of putting it," I said. She suddenly seemed to feel guilty for saying that about Earth, because she turned her face away from me a little, not saying anything. "It's okay," I told her. "You're right of course."
"But I shouldn't say things like that about a place I've not been to," she said.
"I'm telling you all about it, so you can have your opinion about the place. And besides I've been there and I agree with you," I told her.
"It's just not right that I say that," she said.
"You can say whatever you like," I smiled a little. She turned her head to look at me again, which I was thankful for.
"I just don't know what to think about you not seeing your father…" she said. "I can't imagine…"
"I know, and that's good," I smiled a little. "That's why I'm not sure whether I should tell you these things, because I don't want to spoil anything."
"You're not," she said quickly, "I want to hear your stories, Jake."
"I know, but I don't want to confuse you with them."
"You won't," she said. "I've already accepted that there are things back on your planet that I simple can't understand. Things that are too strange to me. I just can't believe you are the person you are now."
"Neither can I," I grinned. "It's all because of you… and because I was trying to see the forest through your eyes. And I realized just how beautiful it is… and how beautiful you are." She smiled brightly, almost mischievously and I wanted to ask her if she had been planning it from the beginning, but my mind wondered back to Earth and my father, the subject at hand.
I realized just how hard it was going to be to explain to her what exactly the relationship between me and my father was. How was I going to make her understand something so strange. It had always been strange to me… I couldn't even begin to imagine what must be going through her head right now.
"What did you talk about with him?" she then asked.
"We never really talked about personal things," I replied. "We kept it sort of formal at all costs, because that was alright. As long as we kept each other at distance in a friendly way everything was fine. When Tom and I were growing up, dad used to buy us a little something every once in a while to keep us happy and that was sort of the commitment he made to reach out to us. It was never with words though, he didn't talk to us."
"That must've been difficult, for both of you," she said. "He must've been lonely, not talking to his own kids."
We'd come to quite an undeep area on the lake and she walked towards the edge, taking my hand. We sat down on the grass, our legs in the water.
"I don't think he was particularly lonely," I said after we'd sit down. "It was just the way things were between us. He loved us and that's what mattered back then. And we went to mom with all the problems anyway and she was good at solving them."
"I can't imagine what it must've been like for your mother," Neytiri said. "Having Tom and you and teaching you both on her own, I don't want to think about it. What if something went wrong… what if you didn't know what to do. Children shouldn't grow up on their own, they should have people around them, always. People that teach them things."
"I agree," I replied. "But that's the difference between the two planets. On Earth we think different about that. The parents care for the children until they're four, then they're send to school were a teacher teaches them stuff along with the parents. This goes on for x amount years and at the age of eighteen you either get a job or you continue to study."
"How can you grow up properly when there are so little people helping your parents?" Neytiri asked.
"I don't know," I replied. "But I think Earth's not that bad when it comes to raising children. Children have each other. I always hung out with my mates. I was never alone really. It's when you grow older that you start to get more and more alone. People start to get in this endless circle that they call live and it's almost impossible to get out of."
"Endless circle?" she asked.
"When someone does the same sort of thing day in day out for years," I replied.
"No-one can do the same thing every day, over and over again," Neytiri said.
"They do on Earth," I said. "Some people are treated like machines. Of course they get quite good pay nowadays, but still. In the end the money's hardly worth it anymore."
"Don't they feel locked up?"
"Yes," I said. "It's not a nice live, but people go somewhere during vacation and then it's alright again."
"It must be quite sad on Earth," she said.
"People do have fun, even though they hate their jobs. They find fun in things… I suppose it's human nature to do so, some sort of reflex to boring things," I said. "Colleagues have fun together." She nodded.
"They have to do, else they just collapse," she said.
"Yes, probably," I said. "But there are people that are doing exactly what they want to do. Artists, musicians, scientists. There are quite a few free people on Earth. It's just a lot of hard work to get there, but when you do, it's worth it I think. There are a lot of opportunities on Earth, a lot of different jobs and some people fight hard to get to where they want to be, and they have good lives, some have very good lives."
"I would just miss nature," Neytiri said. I nodded, agreeing with her.
"I would too," I said. "But there are forest on Earth where people live and sometimes they have jobs there. Of course one of the common jobs there is chopping all the trees down, which is not good at all of course."
"Why do they do that?" she asked.
"To make things out of the wood," I said. "Furniture or paper…"
"But why?" she asked, "how can you kill a tree for something so selfish?"
"We don't think about trees like that," I replied. I realized I used the word 'we' when I didn't want to be included in this at all actually. "They seem to think that everything on Earth belongs to them."
"Nothing belongs to the people…" Neytiri replied. "Everything's borrowed, all the energy flows through everything. And a tree has just as much rights to live as we do." I nodded.
"Human beings have forgotten to see," I said.
"It's a shame," she replied. "But I'm glad you came here…"
"And I learned to see, even though you said back then no-one could teach me to do so," I said.
"No-one did," she said. "You taught yourself." I looked up at her, then laughed softly.
"No, you did," I said. She shook her head.
"You can't teach someone to see, you can only show him what can be seen and hope one day they'll see it. And you did." That brought a smile to my face that was brighter than any of the smiles I'd had all day.
"You didn't want to show me anything back then," I said. "You were furious at your mother when she burdened you with the task of teaching me your ways."
"Well, you weren't exactly the brightest person I knew," she said, defending herself. I laughed. "But I realized quite soon that you were a very good person and you were a quick learner so I came to like having you around."
"I liked having you around as well, straight from the start," I said. She laughed softly. "I like strong women."
"Now you're flattering me," she said.
"No, I'm being serious," I told her. I turned to look at the water again, as the sun was slowly starting to set the colours of the sky changed from blue to purplish red. It was a wonderful sight. I sat a bit closer to her and took hold of her hand, caressing the back of it with my thump. She smiled, also looking at the colours of the world.
"Everything pretty is left completely in tact," I said, staring up at the sky.
"What was that?" she asked, turning to me. I smiled.
"Nothing, just a thought," I said, squeezing her hand softly.
"Does the sky on Earth turn colours?" she asked me, after a while of silence in which we were both enchanted by the sparkling water, reflecting the colours.
"Yes, sometimes," I replied. "Depends on what kind of day it is."
"Just like here," she said, smiling. I nodded.
"Yes," I smiled, then laid back down on the grass, my hands behind my head so I could look up at the sky better. She did the same, laying close next to me. "Just like here."