Author's Note: Hello my loves! I am sorry about the long wait, but I am about to go on a nine-day vacation - the first vacation I've had in over ten years, so this is super exciting for me! Thank you all so much for your kind words! I hope that you continue to enjoy!

"Atokirina," Tommy says around a mouth full of toothpaste and saliva. He turns to look at his reflection in the mirror in Jake's bathroom.

Jake glances over at him, finishing up tying his shoes. "And that is..?"

"They are seeds of the Tree of Souls," Tommy says, spitting out his mouthful. He wipes off his face with a towel that was hanging on the wall behind him and turns to Jake, tossing the towel back onto the counter instead of the rail it was hanging from earlier. Jake didn't comment on it. "They are believed by the Omatikaya to be very pure spirits."

Jake rubs at the back of the neck, but he's not sure why. He doesn't feel it on his hand or his neck. The action was literally pointless. He drops his hand to his lap, letting out a sigh.

"Cool," Jake mutters, wondering what that had to do with him. Pure spirits? What did that mean? What did they want with him?

"Curious as to why they surrounded you at Hometree, don't you think?" Tommy says easily, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, stating at Jake. He looked like he expected Jake to have all the answers. Unfortunately, Jake probably - almost without a doubt at all - knew less than Tommy did about any of this. He didn't even know what the bulbus things were until two minutes ago.

Atokirina. Pure spirits from whatever this Tree of Souls is.

"I guess," Jake admits, pulling himself from his thoughts. "No idea why they did that, though."

Tommy nods slowly, looking down at his socked feet, wiggling his toes. Then, carefully, he asks the floor, "How are you feeling today?"

Jake glances over at his younger brother, frowning. "Tommy," he says quietly, "you don't have to keep asking and torturing yourself. Nothing has changed. I feel the same as I did yesterday."

Tommy sends him a withering look. "I should be asking, Jake. I'm the reason that you're like this."

Jake shakes his head. "No, Tommy, you aren't."

Tommy rubs at his forehead, like Jake, he doesn't want to have the same argument that they've had for the last week. Tommy blames himself for Jake being here and for his Avatar messing him up and Jake tells him that he had more power than literally anyone else to have prevented this from happening. But he didn't say anything because he didn't want to. He didn't want attention. He didn't want to make a big deal out of it. And now look at where he's at? Look how well that went for him.

He can blame whoever he wants, but at the end of the day, this is all Jake's fault. He could have put an end to this before it got so bad, but he didn't. It's his fault. No one else's.

"Let's agree to disagree on that," Tommy says, shaking his head.

"I don't want to," Jake says, dryly.

Tommy laughs straight from his toes, eyes sparkling. He looks to Jake, smiling a bit. There is a touch of hopeful relief in those familiar blue eyes. "A joke? From my older brother? Someone is in a good mood!"

Jake musters a smile back, but it doesn't reach his eyes. He isn't in a good mood. He just wanted his brother to smile. Jake's numb stomach is in knots when thinking about today. He has no idea what Quaritch is going to want from him but he's afraid it is going to leave them mostly trapped in the older man's office together. Alone. And Quaritch is a talker. Jake most certainly is not. Jake can barely hold a conversation with the only person in the world that he loves, how is he going to spend hours on end trying to converse with a man he hardly knows and scares him?

Jake is dreading the day. Tommy's smile and laugh might be the only thing that carries him forward through it.

"Are you hungry?" Tommy asks, looking over at Jake again. "Do you want to get some food before work?"

Jake shakes his head, stomach in knots. "No."

Tommy frowns. "Are you sure?"

Jake nods, moving to stand. "Yeah, I'm good." Tommy sighs but follows him to the door. As they make their way down the hall, Jake, carefully, asks, "Are you going to go to the school today?"

Tommy shrugs his shoulders. "I'm going to ask Grace if I can help out around here. I need to take care of my avatar, but I think I'm going to need some time around here. I don't know if I want to go back to the school yet."

Jake stares at the side of his twin's head, trying to decide if he should comment on how Tommy almost seems like he's unable to look into his eyes. Jake's not sure why he seems like he's ashamed. There is nothing wrong with how he feels. Jake's not sure if it's the avatar part, or just the school part but Jake can understand why it would be hard to go back. Jake can't imagine going back just yet - or ever, at this point.

Jake just feels bad for the fact that he's somehow responsible for all of this. He should have just told someone that something was going on with his avatar and just refused to go back. He still feels in the wrong for having yelled at Grace, made it seem like he actually blamed her when he really didn't. For what time they spent together, Jake had no problem with Grace and it wasn't fair that he made her out to be the bad guy.

Realizing he should say something to Tommy and his bunching up shoulders, Jake just nods and says, "Okay."

Tommy casts him a long look from the side, letting out a little sigh. "You are way too easy on people, Jake."

Jake shrugs. "I don't think so." Then again, maybe he is. "I just don't think it's my place to push. You'll do what you want when you're ready. That goes the same for if you want to talk about it too."

Tommy smiles a bit, bumping his shoulder into Jake's, which the latter didn't feel so much as noticed the action and had his brother hit harder, Jake might have lost his footing. "I'm just not ready to face them, not when I know that they're going to ask about you. I'll let Grace handle that mess of trying to get your avatar back. I don't want to get caught in the middle of it."

"I get that it's RDA property," Jake admits, "but do we honestly think anyone is going to use it again?"

Tommy stares at him for a long moment, leading both of them in a turn down the hallway, nodding to someone who passes by. Jake doesn't even bother pulling his eyes away from his brother's.

"I know how I feel about your avatar, but how do you feel?"

Jake raises an eyebrow. "About my avatar? Nothing."

Tommy frowns at that, stopping in the middle of the hall. Jake stops a step after turning to face his younger brother. "Nothing?" Tommy repeats, something flashing in his eyes. "You don't feel anything at all?"

Jake shrugs, casting a look down the hall, knowing there was two more turns and then they would reach a fork where they would go their separate ways. One to the science labs, and the other to Quaritch's office.

"No, please don't do that, Jake," Tommy says, the pleading in his voice pulls Jake's eyes back over to him.

"Do what?"

"Ice me out. Keep quiet about what's going on in here." Jake watches as Tommy pokes his forehead, but he still doesn't feel it. "I know that I'm the selfish brother. I get so absorbed in everything going on around me that I don't realize that you're there too. I get that - " he hesitates, a couple of people drawing near, eyeing Jake. First their stares are vacant, almost unseeing, until the realize who they are staring at, and their eyes blow wide.

Jake's shoulder pull in a bit, anxious. Tommy maneuvers them against the wall and out of the middle of the walkway, sending a glare the gawkers' way, making them try to be less obvious about it.

"You're not a selfish brother," Jake says, frowning at that. "You're excited about something that you've wanted for a long time. There isn't anything wrong with that."

Tommy heaves a heavy sigh, looking down at his shuffling feet, chewing on his lower lip. "Jake, I know that you say that, and probably believe it, but I should have realized that something was wrong with you. I'm sorry that I didn't."

Jake shakes his head. "Don't worry about it."

"But I do!" Tommy snaps, blue eyes wide. "It's my fault that we're here!"

Jake stares at him, surprised by the outburst. "Why do you say that like it's a bad thing?"

Tommy lets out a laugh, but it's strained, filled with disbelief. He rubs at the back of his neck, shaking his head. "Jake, you literally can't feel your body. The avatar completely messed up your brain in such a way that no one is sure how to fix it yet. I'm the reason that we are even here! I was the one that pushed for the scholarship. I'm the one that made dad call in favors to get us on the flight out here. Get us into the juvenile avatar program."

Yeah, there was always that. Jake has no idea how Tommy ever got that man to agree to anything, let alone go out of his way to give them anything. But then again, this is Tommy that they're talking about. Tommy can do anything. Tommy is the perfect brother. Jake is flattered that he's so worried, but it really is all Jake's fault. He wasn't forced into anything. He just... made a big mistake and it cost him. It wasn't anyone's fault. No one could have known that this was going to happen - not even him, but he knew that something was wrong, and he could have just talked about it. He could have put more effort into figuring out what was wrong with this being that was attached to him via his brain.

But he didn't, so that's on him.

"Dad fucked you up so bad," Tommy whispers, casting a long look down the hall to make sure that no one was walking this way or listening in. "He got you thinking that anything bad that happens to you is somehow deserved. God, I fucking hate him."

Maybe he did, but Jake's not sure. He's always known that he was the problem. And it wasn't just that man. Many people saw him as less. Saw him as the shittier version of Tommy, but Jake can understand it being easier to just blame him. It's easier to see the devil in a single man than to realize that everyone thinks the same, they just aren't as vocal or violent about it.

"I knew we should have left on the first flight out here. Every moment more spent in that house was poison to your mind," Tommy says, voice quiet. "And then I bring you here, and you lose even more of yourself."

Jake doesn't know how to respond. Not sure how to comfort his obviously distraught brother. He wants to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder - his safe go to - but when Tommy has that miserable look on his face, Jake knows that touching him is the last thing that he would want. So, he just stands there, watching the war raging across his younger brother's face until his shoulders slump and he closes his eyes, defeated.

"Come on," Tommy mumbles. "We're going to be late."

Jake doesn't argue, already feeling bad for all the trouble he's caused his brother. He just nods and follows his sullen younger brother down the hall in silence.

Working in Colonel Quaritch's office actually wasn't all that bad.

When Jake politely knocked on his open door, waiting to be beckoned in, he thought that it was going to be a stressful day, especially with the pensive look on the older man's face, but he managed a smile to Jake that didn't reach his eyes, and it resembled enough of a human that Jake was able to feel some of the tension loosen in his shoulders. It turns out that Jake's just going to work as a secretary. He runs errands, makes stacks for paperwork and gets the Colonel whatever he needs.

The first half of their day was spent mostly in silence as Jake tries to get used to his new role. They only speak when Jake has a question - which he spends about five minutes warring with himself to ask every time, and Quaritch needing to elaborate something that he instructed him on earlier or ask for Jake to run an errand. But thankfully, most of the rest of the time is spent in silence as they both work.

Jake is separating a bunch of paperwork into neat piles to put into file folders on a desk set up in the corner of the big room that he's not sure if he remembers being there at any point the last few times that he's been here to give lackluster reports to the colonel, when Quaritch speaks up, "How are you doing over there, son?"

Thankful that his back and part of his profile is the only parts of him that the man can see, so that he doesn't notice the way that Jake closes his eyes every time Quaritch speaks up because it gives him a jolt every time. He gets so absorbed in the menial tasks before him that it's easy to forget that he's not alone in the room. And that's counting the shifting of the papers on Quaritch's desk and the scritching on paper when he's not typing and clicking away at the computer in front of him.

Jake glances at the clock on the wall to see that it's half past noon. The time sure has flown by.

He turns slightly to acknowledge the man staring at him with sharp blue eyes, tipping his head a bit. "I'm okay."

"How are you feeling?"

Jake blinks slowly, certain that the man's been keeping up on his lab tests. He should know that Jake is, as the techies say, "stagnant". He's not improving or getting worse. So, that's got to mean something, right? Probably that he's not interacting or being exposed to whatever it was that caused this in the first place - namely his avatar. But Jake wasn't going to say that.

"Fine, sir," Jake says, realizing that the older man was waiting for an answer.

Quaritch studies his face from across the room, making Jake uncomfortable. He squirms in his seat a bit waiting for the older man to say something, but after a solid thirty seconds of him saying nothing, Jake just sort of gives his superior a little nod before slowly turning back to his work, hoping it wasn't too much of a brush off and he land himself in deeper shit. He's not sure how his situation could possibly get worse but he's sure that it can. Life most definitely finds a way. Jake's just going to have to try his best to keep his head low and get through this without tempting fate more than he already has.

Thankfully, Quaritch doesn't respond to that and after about another minute, Jake hears him go back to work.

Another half hour of them working and Quaritch speaks up again, making Jake tense up, "You hungry, Jacob? It's fine to take a lunch break."

Jake glances up at the clock again to see it's past one, but his stomach is in knots. He's not really hungry anyway. He doesn't want to go out there where more people can just gawk at him. He doesn't care about them whispering about him or looking at him, so long as he doesn't see it. So long as he can't feel it on his flesh. But even here, in Quaritch's office, he's not spared from their eyes. Anyone who comes to speak to him will look at him. He can feel their eyes burning into the back of head. And any errands that he runs for Quaritch - three just this morning - they all stare at him as he walks back. Judging him. Whispering about him. Watching him.

Yeah, no. He'll pass. He'll just eat tonight when Tommy brings their meal back to his room.

"I'm okay," Jake says. "I'm not hungry."

This particular look crosses Quaritch's face. Jake feels his stomach drop. He looks down at the sleek floor. Something shiny and marble-like, but Jake doesn't know anything about flooring.

"Are you eating, son? I do recall that you've lost a lot of weight since coming here and the good doctor told you to not be skipping meals..." Quaritch drawls out slowly, casting him a long look.

Oh right. Jake forgot about that. Still no point in arguing about the weight-thing seeing as Jake didn't want to get into the logistics of why it was that Tommy was the one that went in to the physical before they left and not him.

Jake looks down at his shoes, letting out a little sigh. "Right," he says, moving to stand.

Quaritch stares after him as he walks slowly to the door. Carefully, Quaritch says, "Be back in thirty."

Jake nods, stepping out into the hall, thankful it wasn't an hour, and makes his way towards the cafeteria, keeping his head bowed to avoid eye contact with anyone milling around in the halls on his way there.

Jake goes to the line to get food. The room is almost half full of people coming in and out as he grabs a simple sandwich, forgoing everything else aside from a water and heading back to his room to spend about ten minutes eating before coming back to have the water container cleaned out for reuse, before heading back to Quaritch's office, his eyes never leaving the floors of the hallways he's walking down.

If Quaritch noticed that he was exceptionally punctual in his return, he didn't say anything. And maybe it was because it's expected from a military man to be punctual. Either way, Jake was happy that all he got was a nod in welcome before he went back to work.

The rest of the day goes without a hitch. He runs two more errands for Quaritch before being dismissed at four, given the rest of his day to himself. Jake didn't argue, offering a salute and heading off when dismissed by Quaritch. He carefully closes the door behind him at Quaritch's request, spotting Lyle Wainfleet walking down the hall towards him. Jake drops his chin to his chest and skirts around the older man, returning the senior's nod before scurrying down the hall, hearing a faint knock on the door behind him.

Tommy got Grace to let him split his time between the labs, helping around Hell's Gate with his avatar, and going out with explorers for the foreseeable future, so that was a relief for him. Jake, though, still feels bad. It's his fault. Tommy was so happy, so excited for this. To come to Pandora and see all the beautiful sights. To live the dreams of so many people. And Jake does as he always does. He had managed to ruin something that brough Tommy so much happiness once again.

Jake twists onto his side, looking at Tommy's sleeping face, counting his breaths. The only good thing that came out of this was that Tommy is back with him. Even if for just a few weeks, Jake couldn't get used to not having Tommy at his side. He's missed his brother. He knows that Tommy needs to have a life outside of Jake, but while he's able to operate during the day without Tommy, at night is when he misses him the most.

Jake just can't sleep comfortably alone. He can collapse into bed exhausted and fall asleep for a few hours - if he's lucky - but it's never restful enough without Tommy. Without his brother's breath on his shoulder or back of his neck, snoring softly. To feel the heat of his body close to Jake, so that he knows that he's not alone. That someone was at his side.

But now Jake can't feel either of those things. He can't feel his breath or the heat of his body. But he can still hear the light snoring, so one out of three is going to have to be okay, he guesses. Tommy is here. That means something.

Jake pulls closer to Tommy, eyes drooping closed as a familiar exhaustion pulls at his mind. At least he's going to get some sleep tonight.

Miraculously, Jake wakes up only once to blearily stare at the wall across from his window. Steady, bobbing motion distorting the light as it filters into his room, making him blink rapidly, wondering if he was actually seeing that or if his sleep addled - and deprived - brain was conjuring that shifting shadows. He roughly rubs at his eyes, pulling himself up into a sitting position. Tommy rolls onto his other side, back facing Jake as the older twin carefully stands up, watching his feet to make sure his toes don't roll before quietly making his way across the room.

Jake opens up the single blind, blinking rapidly at the ray of light from the floodlights pointed toward the forest still managing to burn a hole through his retinas. He turns away, cursing his stupidity before squinting through his lashes at the bobbing jellyfish thing. The atokirina. It twirls and bounces as if realizing it had an audience again. Jake immediately remembered the one from the night before, once more feeling stupid for having forgotten about it. Well, that's what he gets for letting his sleep deprived brain do any of the thinking for him. He's just lucky that Quaritch didn't ask him to do anything other than mind numbingly simple tasks.

The atokirina spins around, swimming in the air on its invisible breeze before doing and flip and then gently floating off towards that same section of fence again between the two floodlights. Jake watches it go, yawning again, before dropping the blind and heading back to bed, unable to keep his mind operational and his eyes open for a moment longer.

He sinks back into bed, curling up against Tommy, back-to-back, as his drooping eyes watch the light on the wall distort again, almost as if the atokirina was back. But before a full thought could be formed, his eyelids flutter shut, his body demanding rest.

Jake slept for too long, he thinks. Longer than his body is used to now. Tommy actually was the one who woke up about ten minutes after the alarm went off without Jake having so much as twitched, so he had to wake him up with a few hard shakes and calling his name. Now Jake feels like a zombie, and based on the way that Quaritch has kept sneaking glances at him, he feels that it's safe to assume that he looks like one too.

When Jake's not reanimated by lunch halfway through the day, Quaritch decides to ask, "You doing alright, son?"

"I'm okay."

Jake can feel the weight of that stare at the back of his neck. Probably the only sensation that he can feel. Great.

"Okay, now tell me something I'll believe."

Jake hesitates, blinking blearily at the papers he was sorting seeing the words blurring together. He mentally sighs, not wanting to show any sort of exasperation towards the man for showing what Jake hopes is harmless interest in him.

Turning in his chair to face the colonel, with his eyes locked on the space over his shoulder, Jake says, "I think I slept too much. I didn't wake up to my alarm this morning."

Quaritch steeples his hands, studying the dark circles under Jake's eyes. "Heavy sleeper?"

"No, sir."

A moment's pause, then, "A very light sleeper?"

Jake nods.

"My ex-wife was like that," Quaritch says, voice quiet. "She woke up at the slightest of sounds. I couldn't so much as get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water without waking her."

Jake lowers his gaze to his feet, looking at the scuffs on the toe of his right boot. At least this is better than talking about himself. Or if he's feeling okay for the millionth time. This he can do. "He says my mom was like that too. Says I'm too much like her."

A moment of pause, then Quaritch asks, "Who?"

Jake blinks, glancing up through his lashes. "What?"

"Who says that?" Jake tilts his chin up a bit more, perplexed by the question so Quaritch elaborates, "You said, 'he' but you didn't say who that is."

"Oh," Jake says, looking back down. Jake shrinks under Quaritch's gaze burrowing holes through the top of his head. Jake sort of wished that he would just drop it. He's not sure why the man was speaking to him but now he's kind of wishing that he would go back to asking if he was okay. Go figure.

Too much time passes without Jake responding. He can't seem to put the word to the face of the man in his mind's eye. He knows what to call him. The correct thing to call him. But the word won't form on his lips. It's what the man should be called, but it's not what he is.

"Your daddy?" Quaritch finally guesses, ice blue eyes staring through him.

Jake shrugs. Sure. Close enough to the word, but not the truth. At least not to Jake.

Another pause, then, "I take it that you aren't close to your old man, then?" Jake nods his affirmation, twisting slightly in his chair to try and gently express that he was done with this conversation. He didn't want to be downright disrespectful, not brave enough or suicidal enough for that, but Quaritch still continues with, "I wasn't all that close to my old man either."

Tentatively, carefully, Jake says, "Oh?" For the life of him, Jake couldn't figure out why Quaritch was telling him any of this. Why he even cared enough to share? Maybe it was just that. Maybe it was more about Quaritch wanting to talk rather than wanting to talk to Jake, which was perfectly fine with him. Jake was much better at listening anyway.

"He wanted me to stay and work on the farm, as it had been in our family for generations. One of the last surviving natural farms in rural Kentucky. But I didn't want to live like that. I wanted to go out, see the world," Quaritch says, appearing at Jake's side. Jake glances up at him, but his eyes go no higher than Quaritch's chin.

After a few beats of silence, Jake realizes that Quaritch is waiting for him to say something. Carefully, he guesses, "So you joined the military?"

Quaritch nods, crossing his arms over his chest. "I did. I was seventeen. Not much older than you are now. What about you, Jacob?" Quaritch sure does call him 'Jacob' a lot, he's noticed. "Where do you see your life going? What do you want to do when you grow up?"

Survival doesn't seem like the right answer, so Jake just shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know."

Quaritch, finding something amusing in his honest answer, smiles faintly, tilting his head down at him. "What do you like to do for fun?"

Nothing. Jake didn't do anything for fun. He did ROTC back in school so that he wouldn't have to go home right after school ended. But he wasn't part of any clubs or sports, and he wasn't all that good academically either. He had no particular skills or talents. And any sort of interests that he might have had were beaten out of him a long time ago, and not just physically.

"I don't know," Jake says, feeling like Quaritch won't stop staring at him until he says something.

"Do you play video games?" Jake shakes his head. "How about reading?"

"That's... more of Tommy's thing..."

"You did ROTC in school, right?" Jake nods. "Did you like that?"

"It was fine."

Quaritch stares at him for a long moment, blue eyes studying his face, making Jake feel even more uncomfortable than he already is. "Comics?"

Jake stares at him, blinking. "I... don't think I've ever read one..."

"Never?" Quaritch asks, quirking an eyebrow. "They were all the rage when I was a kid. Never could fully get into them, myself. We got quite a bit here on base, though. I'll get you some to look at. See if you like them."

Jake stares at him, perplexed. "I... uh... okay."

"Just to see if you like them," Quaritch says simply, pushing off the desk and heading back to his own. "If you don't like them, we'll find something else."

Jake nods slowly, looking down at his lap. "Okay..."

As they settle back into silence, Jake's mind, now far more alert than it has been all day, is spinning, trying to understand. He doesn't know what prompted this from Quaritch but he's hoping that the older man gets bored of him soon so that they can go back to their normal. He misses the monotony of yesterday. But on the other hand... well, Jake is going to be able to read comics if Quaritch keeps his word. Which might be cool, he supposes.

And if he doesn't, then it'll be okay. Even if Quaritch doesn't, maybe Jake could look into that. He's never been able to explore things he might enjoy, so maybe he'll like comics. Maybe not, but at least he'll have the chance to try it.