Author's Note 2/26/10: Alright, so I've decided to end this story here, at Chapter 9. The title wouldn't make sense in later chapters, anyway. I'll be taking chapters 10 and 11 and reworking them to be the beginning of a new story, as soon as I figure out an engaging plot. There are also some one-shots I want to try in the meantime. Thanks for reading!
Authror's Note: Thanks to everyone who has read this far! This will be the last chapter of this phase of the story. I'm glad so many people seem to have liked it. I hope this last chapter resolves things in a satisfactory way - but after all, only so much can happen in two days! I do intent to expand this and explore more of what could have happened in that vague, 3-month period among the Na'vi, but there are some other stories I might like to do first. Thanks for reading!
Neytiri was lying in her hammock, and the other Na'vi seemed to be deliberately avoiding the area out of respect for her need to rest. Watching her as he approached, Jake was struck by how strange it looked, seeing her in her Na'vi loincloth and jewelry, but also crisscrossed with human bandages, wrapped from her waist to her shoulders.
Her large eyes were still closed, but this was a different quality of sleep than her earlier, half-delirious dips into unconsciousness. Some of her healthy color was already coming back, and the dried blood and grime had already been cleaned from her skin. He found himself just looking, smiling – and when the quiet voice of reason stirred again in his head, it only gave him a sleepy nudge that he easily brushed away. The damage to Jake was already done, though it would take a few months for him to fully realize just how deeply over the past day Neytiri had sunk her own claws into him.
He noticed her eyes were open now, alert and discerning as a falcon.
Jake ducked his head, though he was helpless to banish the smile on his face. He halfway raised a hand, and she nodded her own greeting.
"Palulukan has both of our scents now," she said by means of greeting. She turned her head to look down through the hammock and branches to the clearing below. "It will be dangerous for us to leave Hometree at night, until he forgets us."
Jake laughed a little. "Yeah, he's one bad kitty."
She would not smile, and gave him her too-solemn eyes. "Thank you, Jake," she said quietly.
He shook his head. "No, if you hadn't come looking for me - "
"Do not make excuses for me!" The flash of temper was the most fire he'd seen out of her today, more like the Na'vi huntress he'd met in the forest, who had knocked him on his ass before even speaking to him.
Jake stood in awkward silence for a moment, watching Neytiri sit up with painful hitching breaths, knowing better than to offer his help. She frowned down at her bandages.
"Will you tell me what happened? I do not remember many things after the night."
"Yeah," he said, "I'll fill you in. Here, let me - " he stepped out onto the branch from which his own hammock was hanging and swung down into it, already much more graceful in his Na'vi body than before. He managed to fold himself into a sitting position without swinging around too much. "There. Alright, where do you want me to start?"
"Palulukan," Neytiri said, glancing perhaps involuntarily out at the darkness beyond the branches. The monster was out there somewhere, huge and terrible among the shining flora.
Jake told her everything he could remember of the day, from waking up in her pooling blood, to his desperate plan to get help from Grace and the other scientists. Neytiri listened in silence, nodding occasionally when some detail jumped out from her muddled memories.
"Grace says you're lucky you survived the attack," Jake said.
"Yes. Few have ever managed to escape palulukan after he has struck them."
"Has it happened to many Na'vi?" Jake asked, intrigued.
Neytiri looked up. "Us, only," she said. "Since before the Sky People came."
The silence around them gave the exchange a curious gravity and sense of significance. And it was hard to tell in the swaying shadows of the branches – was Neytiri blushing at the implied bond involved in that?
"All Na'vi know the signs of palulukan, how to avoid him," she added quickly.
"Not all Na'vi," Jake said, grinning in a way calculated to annoy.
Neytri muttered something, a guttural, unpleasant sound.
"Wait, what was that there?" Jake asked. "Did you just swear at – "
"Skxawng," Neytiri repeated loudly, glaring. When he only raised his eyebrows at her, she made a frustrated sound. "It means one who is – not wise. Someone who is a -"
"Moron," Jake said.
"- Fool," Neytiri said at the same time.
Jake grinned at her. "Doctor Augustine would probably agree with you."
Neytiri looked surprised at his casual deference, and when she looked down again, he thought it was to hide a small smile of her own.
"Hey, can I sit with you for a second?" Jake asked. "There's something I wanted to show you." The photo's sharp bottom edge was digging into his hip, tucked into the waistband of his loincloth.
Neytiri nodded and shifted over in her hammock, watching him curiously as he jumped up the branch again. He lowered himself into Neytiri's hammock, moving carefully from the branch to keep from jostling the Na'vi huntress. When they were seated facing each other at opposite ends, he pulled the photo out from behind his back and reached out to her with it.
Neytiri looked from his face to the small rectangle in his hand, then carefully seized it by one corner, as he had. She glanced again at Jake before examining the photo more closely, and then a disbelieving, gasping smile transported her face.
"Sylwanin," she whispered, reaching down to touch her sister's face with one fingertip. "That is my sister!" she said, looking up at Jake, now finally with a genuine smile. "Grace made this! I have seen it before, but after all Sky People were banned from the village - "
"I'm glad you like it," Jake said.
Neytiri was nodding, looking down at the picture, searching it with wide eyes. Her smile trembled at the corners and she wiped at a tear.
In that small, comfortable silence, something had been built to connect them. Neither knew anything about the other, but they could no longer be strangers.
"Jakesully!" a whooping voice floated up from below, startling him. "Jakesully!"
"Hey, what's going on?" Jake said, peering down through the loose weave of the hammock.
"They want you to eat with them," Neytiri said, surprised. "They must have heard the story of what happened already. They will want you to tell them of it."
Mo'at suddenly came into view around the winding staircase. "They are very gratefully, Jakesully, that you brought Neytiri back to The People," she said. "Tsu'tey has even made a space for you next to him at the fire. He would like to hear about your own escape from palulukan also." She smiled. "It is a good way to make friends among the Na'vi. Go, eat with them. I will stay and speak with Neytiri."
"Ma'am," Jake said automatically. He glanced down at Neytiri as he climbed out of the hammock, but she had bowed her head deferentially to her mother. The friendly calls of the other hunters preceded him down into the tree's warm heart.
During dinner, Jake had to stop himself from frequently glancing up at the sleeping hammocks. When he excused himself, the other Na'vi men teased him about retiring early, but let him go gracefully.
As he was hoping, Neytiri was still awake, lying down again. He felt her eyes as he claimed his own hammock.
"You should get some shuteye," Jake said. "You know, Doctor Augustine would be mad if I let you stay up too long after everything that happened."
"I will sleep soon," Neytiri said simply, staring up at the sky.
Jake could tell he wasn't going to draw her out this time, and he felt his own exhaustion as soon as he lay down on his back. The hammocks were much more comfortable than the plank that they called a bed back at the remote lab.
He closed his eyes to the shadows and cyan of the branches, breathing slowly as he prepared to unlink. Eighty seven days to go, Jake.
Just before he fled down the neural link to his other body, he heard the rustling shift of Neytiri's hammock, followed by a stiffer sound, like the brush of heavy paper. He smiled in the dark, knowing without seeing – Neytiri, on her back, holding the photo up in front of her eyes, the flickering fire below making her sister's face seem alive.
When he woke up in the link unit, in his ears was the echo of her quiet, delighted laugh.