Jake opened his eyes to the cool green glow of the pod, his blood singing with adrenaline. The day had passed in a blur, his mind full of images of Tsu'tey riding alongside him, pretending not to notice how many times he'd caught the Na'vi man staring.

He allowed himself a moment to appreciate the calm before pressing up against the pod, his world immediately filling with chatter and bright fluorescent light. Jake braced himself as he took in his surroundings, expecting to find Grace ready to continue her interrogation from that morning, but he saw no sign of her, not even a wisp of smoke around a doorway.

"Ah," a warm voice startled him from his search, Max walking up to his pod with a smile, "the prodigal son returns," he chuckled as he began typing away at the monitor attached to Jake's station, "how'd your first real day go?"

"It was," Jake looked at the man, taking in his scruffy beard and kind eyes, "amazing," he breathed out, something tight easing slightly in his chest, "we rode pa'li, um, ya know, direhorses, today."

"Wow," Max whistled, leaning his elbow against the wall and looked at Jake with bright eyes, "well I'll tell you what, man, I wanna hear all about it, but can you do something for me?"

"Sure, what's up?" Jake asked, lifting his legs over the side of the pod.

"Can you run this paperwork to Grace for me? She's in her office, it's down the hall, take a right, then it's the first door on your left." The pleasant feeling that had been thrumming in Jake's veins came to a freezing halt, he looked up at Max, who held out the paperwork to him with an apologetic smile, and knew he had no choice.

"Of course, man," he swallowed thickly around the words, "no problem at all."

"Oh my god, thank you so much," Max grinned at him, and Jake tried to smile back, but only managed to look slightly ill.

He lowered himself into his wheelchair before taking the paperwork from Max, hoping the other man didn't notice the tension in his limbs, "not a problem at all."

Never in his life did Jake think he had moved as slowly as he was pushing his way down the hall towards Grace's office.

"Calm down," he whispered to himself, "she doesn't know anything, she can't know anything."

He was pulled from his thoughts, however, as he neared the door Max had instructed him to, he heard the sound of crashing and yelling coming unmistakably from within the room.

All worry of his own situation left his mind as Jake pushed himself the rest of the way to the door, the sound of a heavy object hitting a wall causing him to fling open the door, unsure what or who he might find behind it.

Inside the room, which was in such a state of disarray you could have told Jake a small bomb had gone off inside it and he may have believed it, was Grace, chest heaving, her face ruddy, eyes wide as they locked into Jake as he burst through the door.

"Jesus fuck," she muttered, her voice cracking, "what the fuck do you want?"

Jake was speechless for a moment, taking in the room, papers were scattered across the floor, a tablet lay in pieces in a corner, a desk lamp crumpled on the floor beneath a dent in the plaster wall, and momentarily forgot why he had come in the first place before looking down at the stack of neat papers in his lap.

"Max asked me to bring these to you," he said softly, lifting the papers before rolling the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind him.

"I don't remember inviting you in," she muttered, but it had no bite to it as she fished a cigarette from her pocket.

"Did something happen?" Jake asked calmly, moving as little as possible, as though dealing with a wild animal. He wasn't sure why he was engaging with her, if anything he should be taking the opportunity of her obviously being distracted, but something, a quiet, calm part of himself, compelled him to stay.

Grace scoffed as she lit the cigarette between her lips, "Did something happen..." she muttered, her voice cold, "like you don't already know, I'm sure."

Jake's eyebrows drew together in confusion, he opened his mouth to speak, but she continued before he could question what she meant.

"What was that little display with Quaritch your first day here?" She asked, not looking at him, her fists clenched white knuckled at her side, "just some ploy so I'd trust you? Make you think you were on my team and not theirs?"

"What?" Jake started, his confusion mounting, but Grace cut him off again.

"Now that I'm on to you," she seethed, her muscles so tense she was nearly shaking, "since I called you out on being their little pet, now they're trying to ship me away. Get rid of me so they can pillage and fuck this planet for all it's worth," she finally looked at him, tears threatening her eyes, narrowed in a raw anger so palpable Jake felt it in his bones, "so you can be their little spy, tricking them into trusting you, like you tried to trick all of us, but I fucking saw through you... you're a damn terrible actor, you piece of shit, and I hope to god that Neytiri sees through you too before it's too late."

"Now hold on one minute," Jake found himself lifting his hands, in defense or surrender or helplessness, he wasn't certain, "I think we've got some wires crossed here," he felt anger and confusion mixing quickly into nausea in his gut, "I'm not the one working with that roided out hate monger," the image of Tsu'tey trapped so many years so, surrounded by fire, choking on smoke, flashed behind his eyes and fresh anger flared in his chest, "it's you who was the spy," Jake knew he was beginning to shout, Grace's eyes widening, but he couldn't stop, "you who gained their trust under the guise of wanting to understand them, to distract them while Quaritch and his goons destroyed the ground beneath their feet."

Jake's vision tunneled, he no longer saw Grace in front of him, he saw the fire eating away everything around it, heard the screams of the Na'vi as they ran.

"It's your fault Neytiri's sister, Tsu'tey's parents, all those people died in that fire," He saw the tears fall from her eyes but he couldn't stop, "You could have warned them, you could have gotten them far away, but no, you let it happen, and I had to watch. Had to watch it all," Jake ground out the words through his teeth, "the fire and the smoke and the screaming, had to watch him nearly die, trapped beneath debris. For the grace of Eywa he didn't, because if he had, I still would have come here, if only to kill you with my own hands."

When he finally stopped, breath coming out in ragged gasps, at some point he had wheeled his way towards Grace, backing her against the wall, his finger jabbing upwards towards her.

"I didn't know," the words fell from her lips almost soundlessly, "I didn't know what they were doing, I was so excited to be here, to be a part of the project, I didn't pay attention to anything else. By the time I found out, the Omaticaya wouldn't let me within a hundred feet on their territory. Even if I had tried, they never would have believed me." Grace's eyes met his, wet with tears, and sunken from the burden of emotion or from the conversation, probably both, when suddenly the reality of everything he had just said crashed down on them, and Jake was choking on it.

"I heard Neytiri and Tsu'tey talking one day," Grace said, her voice barely above a whisper, this time it was her acting as though Jake was a frightened animal she wanted desperately not to scare into turning tail and fleeing, "about dreams..."

"No," Jake breathed out, the word falling from his lips without his permission.

"About dreams Tsu'tey had of a human man," she continued, her eyes meeting his, searching as they always did, but this time seeming to find what she was looking for, "a soldier, and the way Tsu'tey talked about him... you'd have thought he hung the stars."

"Please, stop," Jake begged, panic closing around his throat.

"And Neytiri, I remember her complaining, wondering to him if his human had a friend he bothered with endless stories about his dreams of Tsu'tey too," she said with a soft smile and Jake couldn't help the laugh that was pulled from him as though a hand reached down his throat and forced it from his lungs, the noise coming out strangled and wrong as tears burned down his face.

"No," he croaked, shame hot in his gut as he scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his fist, "I didn't," he admitted, "no one ever believed me."

Grace made a noise in the back of her throat, a pained sound that did nothing to ease the weight in his chest, dense as a collapsing star.

"Please," Jake cringed as the plea left his lips, willing himself to look up and into Grace's wide eyes, "please don't tell anyone. If someone like Quaritch found out," Jake choked on the thought, "please, don't tell anyone."

"Never," Grace breathed out, "I won't, I-" she cut herself off, staring at Jake like she was only just now seeing him for the first time, "we have to leave."

"What?" Jake blanched

"We'll take a few of us, just me, you, and Norm," she was talking quickly, barely stopping to take a breath, "if I can talk Trudy into helping us airlift a Mobile unit out to the Hallelujah Mountains... they won't be able to touch us there."

"Wait," Jake shook his head, overwhelmed, "are you serious?"

"I've never been more serious about anything in my life," Grace cracked a smile, almost manic "I'm not gonna fucking let them get rid of me, and I'm not gonna fucking let them take advantage of you." She emphasized her point with a finger jabbed in his chest, "will your boyfriend mind if I keep you for the day tomorrow?"

Jake shook his head a fraction, too taken aback to pretend to argue against the label she'd just put on his relationship.

"Good," She shot him a wide smile, "You go on to bed. We'll head out in the morning."

"I-"Jake started, meaning to offer to help in some way, but with the momentum of the conversation slowing, he found himself too exhausted to argue, "okay," he nodded weakly, turning away from Grace and heading towards the door. He reached out his hand, grasping at the handle leading out into the hallway, and found himself pausing. He didn't turn back to look at her, didn't even take his grip off the handle, but he paused in that moment and said, so quietly he wasn't sure she'd hear him, "thanks."

If he heard Grace echo the word back to him as he opened the door and deposited himself out into the hallway, he couldn't be certain.