Author's Note: I'm terribly sorry this story took so long to update. I've been trying and trying to get back into writing my Avatar fics, but it's quite hard. Now that school's in session, I've found even less time to write, but I want you to know that I haven't given up on this story. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 10: Logs (Part 2: Jake's POV)

Recap:

Norm is sitting alongside a few other lab technicians, all bent over their microscopes, completely oblivious to the pair who just walked in. Neytiri looks to Jake, who shrugs his shoulders, and then clears his throat, trying to get the anthropologist's attention. When Norm doesn't move, Jake sighs and walks up behind him, bending forward.

"Hey," Jake says, his head right next to Norm's ear.

"Woah!" Norm yells, jumping backwards, disturbing the quiet environment. The other two scientists glance up at the commotion, but quickly resume their studies. "What was that for? Jesus, you scared me," Norm says indignantly, righting the chair that fell over and fixing his slides.

"Well, Max said you were at the lab and wanted to talk to us, so here we are," Jake explains, still grinning.

"Oh, right. Kaltxì, Neytiri," Norm waves around Jake to the tall huntress.

"Kaltxì," Neytiri returns, impressed by his almost-perfect accent.

"Oh, sorry. Neytiri, this is Norm; I worked with him since I arrived here. So," Jake says, turning back to Norm, "where's your Avatar?"

"Here, I can show you," Norm says, leading the other two down the hall to the bio-lab. As they approach the room, Norm's Avatar could be see floating serenely in an amino tank, twitched every few minutes.

Having never seen an Avatar in one of their chambers, Neytiri moves to the side of the tank, looking towards the Avatar with great interest. As she continues to study it, Norm heads to the electronic panel of the tank, checking that his Avatar is recovering on schedule. Moving her face closer to the tank to study the Na'vi-like being, Neytiri flinches backwards as the Avatar's hand lashes out into the fluid.

"It's okay," Jake says, coming up behind her. "Norm has his uniltìranyu in here so that it can heal. His Avatar might have different reactions to The People's medicine, so we're just being careful. Believe it or not, this is the safest place for his body to heal," Jake finished, guessing all of her questions. Neytiri nodded, even though she know she wouldn't let her body heal in a place like this—so cold, wet, and confined…Neytiri shivered at the thought and Jake rubbed her arms in comfort. The two stood looking at Norm's avatar until they were called away by Max's voice.

"Hey, Jake, Neytiri," Max said nodding to the couple as they turned towards him. "Jake, I was wondering if I could talk to you privately for a while?"

"Sure," Jake said, wondering what he wanted to talk about that was so sensitive. "I'll see you later," Jake says to Neytiri, squeezing her hand. She smiles quickly at him and then watches him walk off with Max before turning towards the lab techs to find Norm.

Jake followed Max down the far corridor, which leads away from the link room and the bio labs. When they're out of earshot, Jake turns to Max.

"So I'm guessing you got some information off the feed from the ISV?"

"What? No, no it's not that," Max says distractedly. He looks up at Jake, barely containing his large grin. "I think," Max says, looking down and then back up. "I think I've found you guys a new home."

"Are you kidding me?" Jake asks, completely surprised.

"No, I'm completely serious. After I gave up on the transmission—it was really complicated and it would have taken hours to decode, and even then we might not—"

"Max!"

"Right, sorry. Anyway, after I gave up working on that, I was searching around, using the topographical map to assess how much damaged land we've got out there—and I found it."

Jake was just as excited as Max, but he made a point to reign it in. No use getting all worked up—especially if the area wasn't even suitable. Jake trusted Max implicitly on all things scientific…But did he know enough about the Na'vi to find them a new home?

"So…Where is it? What is it?"

"Well," Max says, deliberating. After a moment he turns and begins walking down to the hall. "It'll be easier if I show you," he calls to Jake, signaling that he should follow. Maz leads the way down the hall until they end up in the old Ops Center. Though the room was slashed in half recently, those still working on the base made sure the important aspects were still usable—things like the holographic topographical map—which was set, slightly askew, in the far left of the room. To keep out the Pandoran air, the construction guys sealed off the room to make it air-tight before sucking out all of the gases and replacing the area with oxygen.

"It's about the same distance away from the base that Hometree was, just in the opposite direction," Max explains, walking towards the hologram. "And it's big enough that it should hold the whole clan—"

"Max, you still haven't told me what it is," Jake reminds him, glancing pointedly at the map.

"Right. Okay, well, keep in mind that this is the only area that I've found, and I've been searching for days—"

"Can I just see it?" Jake asks impatiently, hoping to finally resolve one of the biggest problems facing his people.

"Sure," Max says, deftly tapping on a few controls to start up the map, sending the viewfinder way out into the wilderness. When the scrolling ended with a large piece of ancient coral dominating most of the screen, Jake looked up, confused.

"And what is this supposed to be?"

"You're new home!" Max answers excitedly, rounding the table to explain the coral's features to his Na'vi friend. "Look, I know it's different—"

"It's a chunk of coral, Max."

"—But it will work. It has almost all the same features as Hometree—"

"—Except that it belongs at the bottom of an ocean."

"—But it will work better," Max finishes. Jake looks at him dubiously. "Trust me," Max says, trying to reassure the disgruntled Na'vi leader. "It will work. Just wait and see, all right?"

"Fine," Jake says begrudgingly, leaning in for a closer look at what could potentially be his and his clan's new home. Max was right, the structure didn't look very different from a normal Pandoran tree…That is, until you got up close and personal with it. "Why has no one looked at this before?" Jake asks, confused as to why it's left still standing, especially when it's in rather close proximity to the RDA base of operations.

"Oh, we've looked at it, all right," Max says, zooming in on the tree-like coral. "Notice how the skeleton of the coral looks harder than usual? Kind of withered?"

"No, I was pretty much preoccupied with the fact that you want us to live inside something that should be submerged in water."

"Exactly. It should be in water…But it's not. The water was drained here when the RDA first arrived. This used to be the closest water source near the base, so they used it's water to run experiments. They wanted to see if the water was drinkable by humans and Avatar, and once they found that it wasn't detrimental to either, they siphoned off most of it to use for day-to-day use around the base. This spot's been left dry for at least ten years."

"So if this coral's so old and decrepit, will it even be able to support us without collapsing? Bringing in a whole clan to live in a hunk of coral will be pretty heavy," Jake warns, scrutinizing the tree-like structure.

"It should be fine," Max says, punching some calculations into his hand-held computer. "Because of all the moisture in this region of Pandora, the coral's hydrated on a regular basis. It's never enough to get the coral back up to one hundred percent, but it makes to coral strong enough to weather a lot of problems. It'll be able to deal with you guys moving in easily."

"Okay, so if the structure isn't a problem, how about location? Do you have any idea if it's close to fertile ground or good hunting areas? We can't be travelling all over the place for every meal…"

"It'll be perfect. It's about equal distance from the base that Hometree was, and the jungles this far out haven't been contaminated or flushed out in any way. If, for some reason, there really isn't enough game around, we could always send some over," Max says, his face turning thoughtful as he contemplates that challenge.

"Okay," Jake concedes after a moment. "If you're sure there's nothing more…?"

"Normal?" Max questions with a smile.

"Yeah," Jake says, smiling back. "If you're sure there's nothing more normal around here, then we'll take a look. But I can't make any promises," he warns.

"Hey, it's not be looking for a home for a few hundred people," Max says, putting his hands up.

"True," Jake says quietly. He glances back down the way they came. "Well, I should talk to Neytiri. She'll probably want to talk to Mo'at about all this, and if we want to check it out and get home before it gets too dark we should leave soon…"

"Of course," Max says, turning off his devices and gesturing towards the door.

"Thank you, though, Max. You have no idea how much this will help me…If it's habitable, that is."
"It will be," Max assures him, leading Jake down the hall.

When Jake comes back into the lab room, he's surprised to see that Neytiri was nowhere to be found. He glances around at the lab techs, seeing Norm among them, and knowing that she couldn't have gone far…

He walked around slowly, getting more frustrated when he still couldn't find her…How hard could it be to spot a ten-foot-tall blue-skinned huntress in a room full of humans? Apparently impossible, Jake thinks. Finally, as he looked to the rooms in the far back of the lab, he saw that one of them was occupied. Neytiri had her back to him, and was looking intently at a computer screen. What could she be staring at? Jake wondered. Does she even know how to use a computer?

As he got closer, he started hearing a male voice emanating from in the room. What was she watching? Jake thinks curiously before realizing that the voice belongs to him. Oh, shit.

Jake begins to panic, realizing that, though Neytiri knew about his deal with Quaritch and Parker, she might not know all of the gory details. And this is definitely not the way he wants her to find out. He takes a deep breath before walking forward and opening the door, slipping in behind her quietly. If he had looked back, Jake might've seen the small smirk gathering on Norm's face. He shouldn't have worried, though, since Jake can tell what she's watching from the moment he walks in.

"Neytiri, I love you."

Jake could hear his own voice coming across the room, and he breathed a sigh of relief. This wasn't anything horrible or subversive…Just embarrassing.

"All I have to do now is say it to her face," video-Jake was saying. Well, better get all my humiliation done in one fell swoop, Jake thinks, hoping this is the last of it, and that she hasn't seen too much of what is meant to be private. He waits a beat to see if the video will continue, but when it doesn't he takes a step closer to his mate, placing his five-fingered hands lightly on her shoulders.

"I love you," he whispers quietly in her ear before she jumps up, startled by the intrusion. She turns towards him, all her love and acceptance shining through her golden-green eyes. She immediately places her hands on his cheeks and kisses him passionately. After a minute, they each pull back, resting their heads against each other, sharing a small moment of perfection within their hectic lives.

"I think Max found a home for us," Jake speaks quietly after a moment, watching her face.

"Really?" Neytiri asks, pulling away from him to look out and see if Max is around. When she doesn't see him, her eyes return to her mate's. Jake nods, smiling.

"Yeah. He showed me what it looked like, but it might be good for us to fly out there before we head back to the Tree of Souls. It's not very far from here."

"That sounds fine. I want to speak to Mahx about this new home myself—do you know where he is?"

"He should be down that way," Jake says, gesturing down a far hallway. "I'm sure he'll be happy to explain everything to you. I've got to speak to Norm about something anyway," he says, a frown appearing on his face. Neytiri smiles, trying not to laugh. She can tell what this conversation is going to be about, and she doesn't want to get Norm into any more trouble by laughing at the invasion of her mate's privacy. She simply nods, squeezing his hand lightly before leaving the room to search for Max.

Jake follows her out, but crosses the room to where his friend is sitting, studying samples under a very large microscope. Jake walks up behind him, standing a bit to his right.

"Hey," Norm calls out, feeling an uncomfortable pressure on his shoulder. He turns around to see Jake standing behind him, one hand clenched rather hard on his right shoulder.

"Thanks a lot man," Jake mutters to Norm quietly. Norm just smirks at him, not even bothering to contain his amusement. "How'd you even get them, anyway? They were supposed to be private," Jake emphasizes, glaring down at him.

"Nothing's private on a computer, my friend," Norm answers with a chuckle.

"You know I hate you, right?" Jake asks, only half-joking.

"Right back at ya," Norm answers, turning back to his samples. Jake pauses a minute before speaking again.

"How'd you know anyway?" Jake asks hesitantly, not sure if he wants the answer to this question.

"August 5th, 2154," Norm recites, looking up. "I was awake, if you look in the background."

"Are you kidding me?" Jake asks, hoping so much that Norm is messing with him. That would be, of course, the time that Jake was arguing with himself (out loud, sadly) over what to say to Neytiri. Or if he should even say something at all.

"Nope, sorry. I was there; you woke me up. You get loud when you get frustrated."

"Thanks." Jake pauses, scrutinizing Norm's face. "And you felt the need to show her these why?"

"Well, it's not what I set out to do today, if that's what you're asking. It just kind of…came up."

"How do private videologs come up in casual conversation? Especially with someone who doesn't even know what a videolog is?"

"Oh, I'm sure Neytiri knows what they are," Norm says confidently. "I mean, at the school, Grace probably—"

"Norm!" Jake interrupts, exasperated.

"Right," he says, gathering his thoughts. "Well, I was saying how you were an ass when I first met you, and I mentioned how you had a lot to deal with and you didn't always talk to us about it, and she asked me what I meant, so I—"

"You just thought you'd show her my logs?"

"Well, no, I didn't think that. I would've explained that, but it'd be complicated and confusing, and not to mention awkward…So I thought letting you tell her would be simpler."
"Hm. Awkward," Jake states, his voice even. "Well I'm sure I won the awkward Olympics today, so you don't need to worry about that," Jake says sarcastically.

"Oh, cheer up," Norm says. "It's not like I showed her what you sent to Quaritch." Jake nodded. He did have a point there. "This stuff was cute. I'm guessing she appreciated it," Norm said with a knowing grin.

"Shut it, Spellman," Jake retorts, taking his leave.

"See ya later," Norm calls over his shoulder before turning back to his samples. Jake rolls his eyes before heading down the deserted halls to find Neytiri and head out to their possible coral home.

Fucking coral, Jake thinks, shaking his head. Is there nothing normal left around?