-.-Escape-.-

They were tied up within perfect view of the oncoming battle.

With a thunderous war cry, the archers began to open fire upon the arrived attackers. The arrows harmlessly bounced off the flying machines.

The first shots from the enemy were taken: gas cannisters. This sent everyone screaming, fleeing from the unfamiliar weapons.

"Run, god damn it! Run!" Jake hollered, but no one moved. They were not going to abandon their home, or each other.

At Eytukan's orders, the Clan started circling around the other side of Hometree.

"Neytiri!" Jake tried as she rushed past, but she barely spared them a glance.

Mo'at, however, approached, brandishing a knife - which she held to Jake's throat.

"Mo'at, no!" screamed Grace.

"If you are one of us, help us," The tsahik begged, tears in her eyes, and she cut them free.

As soon as Nix was loose she ran into view of the leading gunship - if Miles was anywhere, he would be there.

"STOP! PLEASE!" She jumped up and down, waving her arms overhead. It wasn't going to do much, but she was desperate - they all were.

"Nix - get down!" Grace cried, but she was too late.

The ships changed from gas to missiles, and they blasted in, the force of the blast taking her down with it.

She awoke, stiff, but not sore. Her Avatar body had taken the force of the hit.

It took her a moment to get her bearings: she was in the medical wing, and she was locked inside.

She began pounding on the glass door, yelling at the top of her lungs. "LET ME OUT OF HERE YOU ASSHOLES! I DEMAND TO SPEAK WITH COLONEL QUARITCH!"

Eventually, her throat grew raw, and she grew discouraged. But finally, a couple of soldiers came to retrieve her.

They led her to the main bridge, she trying to squirm out of their hold on her arms the whole way.

"Let go of me! Get your dirty hands off me!"

When they finally reached their destination, she found she was facing Miles and a bunch of his soldiers.

Around them were screens from surveillance cameras that must have been from the gunships. A smoldering mass of burnt, smoking wood took up the whole screen, a scene of destruction on a mass scale: Hometree.

"Oh no-" A sob crept up from her chest and into her throat.

"YOU BASTARD!" She turned on the Colonel, lashing out at him, only to be stopped by a wall of tall, muscled soldiers. "You son of a bitch! You did this!"

"Yes, I did. Because your ways failed."

Just like it had with baby Miles, it had dawned on her, how he'd used her, used her to get the information he needed. How she'd sent her video logs to him and him only, only for him to share them, with how many she didn't know. The mocking and teasing of her friends from the lab by the soldiers, having never stopped even though she'd talked to him about it. How he insisted on keeping them a secret. And now, with the destruction of Hometree, everything was boiling deep within her, souring everything.

"You are what the Na'vi call vrrtep, a demon!"

"Careful there, sweetheart, don't you forget who got you your precious ticket here in the first place."

"Bull. Shit. I got myself here, you were an added bonus - or so I thought! I love you." Or she had been realizing she had, before all this went up in flames, literally. And she wasn't sure why she said it now. She would say the words just slipped out, but that wasn't entirely true.

Well, there was no taking them back now. "I loved you."

Silence punctured the whole bridge - even the soldiers were shocked into silence.

Miles regarded her, fixed her under his gaze. And then his features softened.

He started to laugh.

To laugh. And everyone else around them did too. Soon she was standing at the centre of a laughing crowd, all laughing at her.

"What the hell is going on?" Selfridge demanded, drawn out of his office by all her yelling and now everyone's laughter. "Can't a guy get a little peace and quiet around here? Who the hell is this? Quaritch, who is she?"

"No one," he answered without hesitation. "Get her outta here."

Everything felt fuzzy, like she was moving through water - no, molasses.

He turned away from her, and as he did, she saw the knife sheathed in the back of his belt.

She lunged for it, snatching it up and crouching low, baring her teeth and hissing at the soldiers.

"She's bat-shit crazy!" scoffed Wainfleet. "Lock her up with the others."

Flailing and snarling and screaming, they dragged her from the bridge.

"That's all I was to you: your dirty little secret! Well fuck that, and fuck you!"

She had been cheated on and used - it was clear she meant nothing to him. She was just a means to an end. This realization made it feel like all her insides had been scraped out, leaving her empty and numb. So when they threw her in the cell with Grace, Jake and Norm, she curled up in a corner and tried to make herself as small as possible.

Eventually she felt a presence beside her. "I'm so sorry, Grace."

"Hey, you don't need to apologize, not for anything."

"I feel so used."

"I know, Kid, I know. Come here-" And Grace wrapped her up and held her close.

"You were sleeping with him?" Jake asked softly.

"It was more than that. At least to me, I thought it was."

"Trudy!"

The pilot had come in, smashing the guard over the head with her gun.

"Max!" their rescuer called.

From around the corner, Max emerged, coming forward and tapping out the cell lock code on the keypad. The door hissed open, and they were free.

Moments later they were jogging through the base, on their way to the hangar.

"Masks on!"

They each grabbed a mask and hurried out to Trudy's scorpion. Once aboard, it wasn't long before they had been noticed.

"I'm taking fire, let's go!" Trudy shouted.

Trudy had some weapons stocked in the back. Nix took up a rifle, and started firing back.

Jake cheered. "Nice shot!"

"Former Private Vallencourt, at your service!" She gave a little salute.

Everyone was barely aboard before Trudy started taking off. Jake was whooping as they flew away, the base disappearing steadily from view.

"Everybody all right back there?"

"Yeah baby!" Jake confirmed. "Nix?"

"Brilliant!"

"Norm?"

"Yeah!"

"Grace?"

When she didn't reply, everyone turned to her, and their eyes quickly fell to her abdomen, covered in blood.

"This is gonna ruin my whole day," she groaned.

"Oh no-" Nix was immediately at her side. "Grace is hit!"

"Get the trauma kit!"

Once back at the shack site, Norm and Nix, in their Avatar bodies, hitched up one of the shack buildings to Trudy's ship so that they could fly it close to the Tree of Souls, where it seemed the Clan had relocated for now.

"Jake, Tsu'tey is Olo'eyktan now, he won't let you near that place," Norm warned as Jake prepared to link up.

"I have to try."

The Tree of Souls - a sacred site, outsiders strictly forbidden. But on this night, an exception was made.

Norm carried in Grace's Avatar while Jake, both in their Avatar forms as well, and Nix too, carried Grace's body - her quickly weakening body.

"Look where we are Grace."

The glowing tendrils of the Tree reflected off of Grace's breathing mask. "I need to get some samples..."

"They'll be plenty of time for that, Doc," Nix said, as much to reassure Grace as to do so for everyone else too. "I promise. But we've got to do something else first."

A consciousness transfer, that was what Mo'at called it.

They placed Grace's bodies at the base of the tree, heads together.

"The Great Mother may choose to save all that she is in this body," the tsahik explained, gesturing to Grace's Avatar.

"Is that possible?" Jake breathed.

"She must pass through the eye of Eywa and return. But Jakesully, she is very weak."

"Hang on Grace, they're gonna fix you up."

The entire Clan connected to the Tree via the roots in the ground. Everything began to hum and glow and pulse as Moat began a call and answer chant to their goddess.

"Hear us please, All Mother!"

"Eywa, help her!"

"Take this spirit into you-"

"Eywa help her!"

"And breathe her back to us!"

"Eywa help her!"

"Let her walk among us as one of The People!"

"As one of The People!"

Nix, Norm and Jake could only watch. It was the most breathtaking thing she had ever witnessed.

Suddenly, Mo'at stopped and silenced the others. Grace was stirring.

"Grace!"

"I'm with her," Grace told them softly as they knelt by her side. "She's real..."

"Grace! Grace, please, Grace! What's happening?"

"Did it work?" cried Nix.

"Her wounds were too great, it was not enough time," Mo'at explained. "She is with Eywa now."

Back at the shack, where they had brought Grace's Avatar, Nix came in carrying a jar of a glowing specimen. She knelt before Grace's body.

"Hey Doc, I got you your samples." She set the jar on the floor next to Grace.

Then she crumbled to the floor, a sob overtaking her. "Goodbye Grace. Thank you, for everything."

Aw Grace :( So glad we still have Sigourney in the movies!

Speaking of - yay, The Way of Water is now available! :D Just in time to start the second book... ;) Then I'm planning on doing a Terra Nova story which will hopefully satisfy my love for Slang until Avatar 3 ;) We can hope!

I think the next chapter will be the last... But don't worry, I'm jumping right into the second book!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed ! :) See you for the battle!