Again a short chapter - which is all the more shameful, because it took me so long. The idea was there from the start but to find the right words were not. Here we go: Grace's past. A Merry Christmas. After this there will be three chapters left. You can begin guessing what will happen in the end. :D
Chapter 8 – Things Past
Rain came down in heavy drops and left its traces on the thick window. The water ran down drawing bizarre figures, ever changing faces and strange shadows. Rain on Pandora was a strange thing and Grace remembered well her first time when she had experienced it. It didn't rain often, but it rained hard. So hard in fact that it seemed every time that there would be a flood afterwards. However the ground or the planet itself were able to take in the rain with such a fast pace that the worst case scenario never happened.
It appeared like a miracle every time, no less for the fact that Hell's Gate had withstood it for so long. Rain came in regular cycles, almost like the monsoon on earth, but the periods were shorter in general. Thus the raining days came not really as a surprise.
Grace watched the raindrops on the window almost in a trancelike state. They mesmerized her. Her work for this day was done and she had retreated in her armchair under a blanket and a cup of tea. A day like this cried for tea and for some reason she didn't want coffee.
She had tried to read, but to no avail. The book lay now on the floor, unnoticed, forgotten. Instead she watched nature fight the intruder. Also to no avail it seemed.
And the shadows of the past kept returning.
Neil… Michael…
It had to be next to 15 years by now, but it hurt as it had hurt the first day. She could never forget the solemn faces of the lawkeepers when they had informed her that he would never be coming back. She must have broken down then, but it was too long ago. She only knew that somebody had torn out something out of her heart that could never be filled again.
Everything gone in the instant the flames had consumed the car. An accident. Happening daily. But always to other people. Always to other people.
That day she had not only lost a man, she had also lost her only child and the life she had known. She had died that day, too.
Neil and her had been together for ten years by then. Both of them had been scientifically interested in the alien – that was how they had met.
The discovery of Pandora was great news at that time and when the first scout ships had returned with data of the new planet they had needed researches that analyzed the data.
She was the biologist, he was the geologist – both freshly graduated from university and both equally enthusiastic about these new opportunities. When RDA gave them a job they took it and stayed.
It was totally impossible for Grace to think of leaving earth at one time. She had a job, earned good money and had an understanding partner. And when she got pregnant with Michael it seemed that their life together was complete. She had everything she wanted.
And then the life she wanted burst out in flames.
That was probably the way it went and she learned an important lesson in the weeks following: Never to underestimate the surprises a life could hold, especially her own. Still mourning she tried to get the next transport off the planet – away from everything that reminded her of the family that was denied to her. She was lucky, since scientists were badly needed in the newly established colony and they took her gladly. She even got a raise in salary as if she ever needed that. She never wanted to come back. Ever.
Six years later the ship landed and when she awoke from her cryo sleep it didn't feel as if everything was already so long ago. It felt as if it had happened yesterday. That was the moment when she realized, that she could never forget, only suppress.
Gradually she had managed to build a new live. Get in contact with the planet's native, become a diplomatic asset. She was there when they erected the school, she was there, teaching the Na'Vi children, gaining their trust. They even began to call her Mother. And she was there when they ransacked the school, taking away a family from her for the second time. And Quaritch had been one of them. He was the one who had shot her.
A blurry photograph was all she had taken with her from her old life. The first years on Pandora she had kept it locked away and it was only rather recently that she had taken it out and put it on her night table.
It was the day when Quaritch had approached her for the first time, to be precise. The photo reminded her that there had been once a man who had really loved her for what she was, but it also reminded her that she had already been deprived of her life, that her being still alive was fate mocking her and that it couldn't get any worse.
She was still unsure if it really worked, but she knew now that the colonel's question about her having children had hurt her more than she ever wanted to admit. It had brought up everything in a way worse than she anticipated, because it had combined the two most horrible things in her life.
She got up, unwrapping herself from the blanket and took the picture from her nightstand. It showed all three of them in front of a sculpture of the earth with laughing faces. It was taken in the lobby of RDA's headquarters in London two days before the accident. She stroked it lovingly and suppressed the tears that wanted to fill her eyes.
Then she put it back.