Author's Note: Hello my loves! I am so sorry for the wait! Thank you all for your support and kind words! I really appreciate hearing from everyone. Let me know what you think! I hope that you continue to enjoy!

Jake turns away from Quaritch and his intense gaze, not able to respond. His silence is answer enough, though. Because no, he couldn't. Not the heat of Quaritch's hand, or even the feel of his skin. Nothing.

A moment or two of silence, then, "Now?"

Jake glances over to see Quaritch's knuckles whitened over the grip he has on Jake's leg. Nothing. Maybe he could feel a bit of pressure, but even that was slight, especially compared to how hard it appeared as though Quaritch was squeezing. Jake's chin wobbles but he looks away again, unable to say it. But his silence, once more, was enough. He closes his eyes when his vision blurs and he has to force himself to calm down.

There is no use getting upset. It's not like it's going to do anything for him anyway. It's not going to help him or make him feel better.

"God damn it," Quaritch hisses, moving to stand. Jake flinches, glancing over at the man as he walks away, making it four steps, then he stops, turning to look at Jake, rage written across his face. "She's going to fix this. She's not going to break you and then leave you on the sidelines."

Stunned, unsure of how to respond, Jake just watches as Quaritch turns to leave once more, not even waiting for Jake to say anything. Probably knowing by now that Jake won't speak if he doesn't have to.

Tommy and Quaritch meet at the doorway. Sensing the Colonel's anger, or more likely just seeing it on his face, forces Tommy to duck out of the way so that the older male can pass out into the hallway before he comes into the room. Tommy watches him go for a second before closing the door and turning to Jake, cup in hand as he walks back over to the bed. His lips part, about to say something, when he looks down at Jake's exposed right leg, blinking in confusion.

His brows furrow before a look crosses over his face and he moves to that side, pulling the cover over his leg and pulls Quaritch's chair closer to sit down in it. Hesitantly, he asks, "Did he touch you?" His blue eyes wide and scared, hands gripping the cup enough to warp its shape a bit.

Jake blinks slowly, trying to decipher that strange look on his brother's face. "Yes..." he says softly, confused more by the stricken expression that morphs into one of anger, lips curling into an almost feral snarl.

"Son of a fucking bitch," Tommy hisses, making Jake's eyes widen slightly. When was the last time Jake had heard Tommy curse like that? Probably not since that night. That night with Connor and the final nail in the coffin for them.

Connor...?

A connection is made and Jake's expression flattens. "Tommy, he didn't molest me."

Tommy blinks, confusion crossing his face. He studies Jake's expression, creases forming between his eyebrows. "But I thought... then what about your leg?"

Hardening his heart, pushing down the pain and sadness, calmly, evenly, he says, "I can't feel it. I can't feel anything." The words are like ash in his mouth, he's honestly surprised how easily it was to say.

Tommy blinks again, staring at Jake's empty expression. His anger from earlier is completely replaced with confusion. He leans forward, hands still gripping the cup resting on the bed next to Jake's arm, thankfully no longer squeezing the life out of it. "Wait, what? What do you mean?"

"He was trying to see if I could feel my leg. I can't."

Horror pulls taught lines across his face as Jake's twin looks down at the arm he's leaning near to. Impulsively, he unwinds one hand from the cup and reaches forward, pinching the skin of his arm. Both of them look down at the tiny piece of skin compressed between Tommy's fingers, for only a moment before Tommy yanks his hand back, the skin reddening as it snaps back into place.

"No," Tommy says, horrified, as he slams the cup down on the table next to him, making some of the water spill out. Neither brother care. "No no no no no!" he yells, voice raising in octave and panic at each following 'no'. He grabs Jake's hand, squeezing it hard, running his finger down Jake's palm, over his fingers, anything to illicit a natural reaction. Nothing.

Tears spill out over his cheeks as he grips Jake's hand tight enough that Jake had to wonder if it was going to break, because he wouldn't know if it did. And despite the pain his brother was in, sobbing hard and holding his hand to his forehead, Jake felt numb. He silently sat there, watching his sobbing brother, happy that it was Jake that this happened to and not him.

Tommy was precious - crying for him - but Jake was okay. Sensation of the body has never done him any good anyway, he tried to mentally convince himself. Neither of his bodies ever had felt anything good. Not really, at least. In terms of pleasure, at least, his real body only felt that once, with Connor, but even that was spoiled by a harsh reality. And his Na'vi body felt things too strongly. Sensation was too much. While he was learning of ways to handle the feeling, perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. Jake learned a long time ago to hide what he feels, to keep it all to himself. To keep himself and Tommy safe he always figured it would have been better to not feel anything at all.

Jake always thought that in regard to emotions, but physically, he supposed, worked too.

A twisted, gnarled gift wrapped up by a twisted genie. So, he wished it, so it shall be.

It was the seizure. Or it was the prolonged dive time. No one can seem to agree on what exactly it was that caused it.

After two days of tests day and night, Jake was finally released back to his room. He spent those two days going through tests, talking to what goes for HR on Pandora - although he's not sure why. He's pretty sure he doesn't have any rights. It's not like anyone cares about child labor laws here - and he got to meet the head honcho at Hell's Gate. The man in charge of it all, himself. Peter Selfridge.

Jake immediately didn't like him.

It was through him that Jake realized why HR was involved now and not when it comes to literally anything else. It would be his word against the company about his work hours, he supposes, but this was indisputable. Jake was a healthy seventeen-year-old - kind of, considering all of Jake's medical records that they have were actually a duplicate of Tommy's - before coming here and now he literally can't feel his body. Jake's guessing that they are trying to build a case for a possible lawsuit. Like that would ever happen. Not only would Jake never look for a lawyer anyway, but he also wouldn't ever put himself before a massive corporation like the RDA for anything. They were the only company trying to save the world, if Jake wanted to see the following day, he would keep his mouth shut.

Like hell was he going to do anything about this. They were worried about nothing.

But Peter took his statement, with HR - or what acted as such here - present, all the while talking through his ass. He rambles, says half coherent thoughts, then moves on, rambling about humanity this and Pandora that, all the while, Quaritch and Grace stared at him from where they flanked Jake through the last two days, staring at Selfridge as if he was an idiot.

Jake had no idea what anything he had to say had to do with what happened to Jake aside from the thinly veiled threat that everything could be ruined for everyone on Earth if he, "made a big deal out of an honest mistake. Something we can fix in no time, kiddo."

Grace blatantly stared at him, her face twisted in disgust and annoyance, while Quaritch, arms crossed over his chest, legs shoulder width apart, just stared at him with angry, ice blue eyes.

Quaritch used the excuse that Jake was one of his people, and he was going to look out for him, as the reason for why he stuck around. Which made Jake squirm, but he didn't respond or otherwise react. It was sort of nice to have the man there, as people like Peter Selfridge didn't hang around long under the intensity of his blue-eyed stare. No one seemed interested in being on the receiving end of the other man's building anger.

Jake just has no idea what made the man so mad. It's not like they've known each other all that long. Only a few months at this point. But maybe it was as simple as that. He felt responsible for Jake because he was. He said so, day one. He was responsible for the lives of everyone in this facility. Jake supposes that includes him too.

Grace, obviously, felt responsible. As brilliant of a scientist as she is, this is outside of her expertise. She can offer a bit of help to the other doctors on base, but really, it's in their hands on what to do. And because no one can say with certainty which of the two caused it, it's safe to assume that it was probably a combination of both. Jake has had no history of seizures leading up to this. But there were notes in his file about his problem with his avatar. How long it takes for him to complete the link between his mind and his avatar. And how sensitive it was that first day - which Grace got him to admit never went away to her frustration and a stressed, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I don't know," Jake had said softly, looking down at his numb hands.

"Jake," Grace said, exasperated. "How can you not know? Why didn't you tell anyone that your avatar was still giving you problems?"

Maybe it was the situation, or how he went back to not sleeping after learning the news, or Quaritch's eyes on the side of his head, he's not sure. But in that moment, a flash of white-hot anger burned through him and quietly, bitterly, he said, "I didn't think it mattered to repeat. You already knew." Given, she didn't know that the sensitivity persisted, she hadn't asked, but Jake didn't offer the information either, so he didn't really blame her for that. But she knew something was wrong because on average it takes Jake six minutes to get into his avatar which takes everyone else a matter of seconds. She knew something was wrong.

Grace bulks, blinking. She stares at Jake's face, but he's staring down at his hands still. His anger melted away in an instant and he immediately regretted his words. The silence is heavy in the otherwise empty room aside from Jake and the two adults that apparently took guardianship over him. Stunned at the realization, Grace rubs at her forehead, considering, while Quaritch stared at her in silence, lips pressed together tight. Nothing more was said on that.

Tommy spent as much time as he could there. With Norm. And Fike came a lot too after having heard. They were a weird group, but Fike was friendly enough to try and get along with everyone. Norm seemed uncomfortable with him, but Tommy was too sullen to care.

Tommy blames himself. He was the one that managed to get them into this program. He was the one that convinced that man to use his connections to get our feet in the door. He was the one who worked his ass off to prove that both of them were good enough for this role. Jake didn't blame him one bit, Tommy didn't care. Jake just wanted Tommy to be happy, and coming to Pandora did that. That seemed to make Tommy feel worse.

Jake's body was numb, but also felt like he was on auto pilot. Trying to sleep was a nightmare, now that all he was doing was lying around, his body wasn't collapsing in exhaustion anymore, so it was only a matter of time before it started getting bad again.

Walking and interacting with things is a challenge, one he's going to have to learn how to deal with. He can walk, using muscle memory and being careful with his balance, he can move around relatively easily. It's grabbing things. It's running into things. He doesn't realize that he's knocked his knee into something until he finds the bruise later or he falls to the ground because he hit it hard enough that it should have just thrown his balance, but without him knowing that he just falls over.

And Jake can't idly reach for things anymore. He has to be paying attention to what he's reaching for to make sure that when it shifts, that's when he's touching it, and he can close his hand around it. He also has to watch to make sure that he's not squeezing the life out of whatever he's holding. He did that with a cup and Tommy has since been terrified that it could have been a glass cup and not a plastic one that he crumbled.

Jake didn't have any more seizures and they weren't sure what brought on the first one. They believe it might have been extreme over stimulation from the avatar body, from Jake's retelling of the moments leading up to his black out. Unfortunately, they can't replicate it because Jake doesn't feel anything anymore and no one wants to put Jake back into the link bed.

Quaritch's glare turned the room to ice when someone off-handedly mentioned it.

But after two days, Jake is given strict instructions and send on his way back to his room. He was under weight and malnourished, so he had to follow a meal plan after lying to the doctor's face that he was still trying to learn how to adjust to life on Pandora so he skipped meals sometimes. The doctor wasn't happy to hear that and insisted that in the last two months Jake had lost a staggering thirty pounds, which Jake didn't believe, as they had Tommy's weight on file not his own. But he wasn't going to point that out in front of the three adults staring at him. He wasn't going to get Tommy in trouble for anything.

And Jake needed to get a handle on his stress. Because according to the doctor, he's looked after men and women who just came back from battle against Na'vi clans that weren't as stressed out as he was. Jake's sure that's an exaggeration, but the point is clear. He had made mention of the note in Jake's file about how he came to visit the medical wing for not being able to sleep and pointedly asked, now seemingly realizing that Jake would offer nothing for free, if he was able to sleep better now. But Jake had a feeling they were monitoring him closer than he thought. That they probably had a night of video of Jake just stare at the ceiling unmoving for hours.

"I sleep more than I did," apparently wasn't the right answer and he was prescribed more pills. Those pills didn't help either. They just made his throat dry, and his body feel weird even without sensation, so he stopped taking them after two nights. He just pretended to sleep and no on questioned him.

He has to keep going in for testing and they have to find something else for him to do seeing as he can't do either of the two departments that he's part of but before Grace could even part her lips for whatever she was going to say, Quaritch cut in with a simple, "I'll have stuff around my office for him to do. He'll be fine." But his eyes were sharp, challenging.

Something about that look made even Grace swallow in fear. Jake wanted to beg her to help him, but he couldn't open his mouth. Especially when he had snapped at her about his avatar, he didn't deserve her help. It wasn't her fault, and it was wrong of him to have been angry. He shouldn't be angry. He could have said something but didn't. He's not her responsibility and it was wrong of him to have said anything at all. He might be in her department, but he really isn't her responsibility. He could have said something on his own. He's at fault here, not her.

Once the sting of his own anger at himself has lessened enough, he'll find some way to apologize to her.

He was promised a few days more of reprieve which he's not sure makes the anticipation for what lies ahead worse or not. But he will just do as he always does. He'll find a way to just live with it.

Tommy is staying in his room, curled up in bed with him, like they had been their whole lives. He didn't go to work for a week, staying with Jake, which Grace approved without question, and it was nice to have his brother back. To have something occupy his time while he laid in the darkness, counting his twin's breaths beside him, like he used to do back on Earth when he couldn't sleep because of the shifting shadows and too loud feet stomping outside their door, pacing, prowling.

Day four since he woke up, two days after he got sent back to his room, Norm came to visit after work with Tommy, both of them carrying food for the three of them from the cafeteria. Jake couldn't go. Everyone in Hell's Gate knew about him, knew what happened. He couldn't go out there. He couldn't face them. All Jake ever wanted was to vanish into nothing, but now everyone could see him as if a beacon was shining at the top of his head. He couldn't do it. He couldn't go out there and just let them stare at him.

As they were sitting around eating, Norm, carefully, says to Jake, "Grace is fighting with the Omatikaya."

Tommy and Jake both glance at him. Even though Norm spoke to Jake, Tommy is the one to ask, "Why?"

"They won't turn over your avatar."

Just as perplexed as Jake, Tommy, face scrunched, asks again, "Why?"

Norm shrugs his shoulders, chewing on a bite of an apple. "I don't know. The Tsahik won't turn it over. She said that Jake needs to go back."

"Jake's not going back," Tommy says, frowning. "Who knows what another dive could do?" What else it could take away from him, no one dared to say aloud.

Instead, though, Jake asks, "What did Grace say to that?"

He hadn't spoken to anyone outside of Tommy, Norm and Fike since he left the medical wing. Fike came to check on him a few times over the last few days, to keep him company despite Tommy also being there. He brought some games over the night before for them all to play for a few hours, which was awkward for Jake, but Tommy and Fike seemed to get along just fine after a few minutes, even though their time together while Jake was in medical was tense and awkward.

But Tommy was like that. Radiant. Lovable. Wonderful.

"Well, Grace was Grace," Norm says in a way of answer. When neither Sully twin was able to properly decipher that, he elaborates, "She tried to explain that the body was RDA property and that she needed it back because it would die without a driver consistently returning to care for it. Tsahik didn't seem to be phased, I guess. She said that it would be fine. That they were caring for the body. She's been asking for you to return to it, Jake."

Tommy's eyes join Norm's in looking at Jake, who was staring down at his picked at meal. Jake didn't know what to say to that. He's not sure who Tsahik is, but he's guessing she's the woman that spoke to Jake that night. That told him to go to Tommy and make sure that he was okay but told him to come back. It's been five days since then. He has no idea how the Omatikaya are going to keep his avatar alive without Jake there to pilot it. Especially without the help of technology.

The avatar is definitely going to die.

His first instinct was to be relieved. He would no longer have to worry about bouncing back and forth between the two bodies. About the exhaustion and the over stimulation and just the stress of it all, but now he's stuck in a body that doesn't feel anything at all, and in a position with a man that scares the hell out of him. Now Jake literally has nowhere to run and while he didn't like his avatar body, there were perks to being an avatar that he liked. He liked being able to go to the school. He liked to see the forest. He liked the Pa'li. And... well...

He's probably never going to see Tsu'tey again.

And while he hasn't been really feeling a lot of emotions since waking up, and his body is completely numb, the feeling of pain spreading across his chest is a surprise. But he doesn't say anything. He doesn't acknowledge it. He knew that he was going to have to say goodbye. He knew right from the beginning. When it was time to say goodbye to Tsu'tey, he was going to do it. And he was going to be okay with it. He was going to have to be.

And he was right.

He doesn't know if whatever was happening between him and Tsu'tey was ever going to get a word for it, but just because he didn't know what it was, didn't mean that it wasn't... special. Yes, special. But now it's over.

"I've been to the school," Norm says, pulling Jake from his mounting, unexplainable emotions. And as if he could hear those thoughts, he says, "The girls were asking for you, Tommy. Neytiri and Sylwanin. But they, and Tsu'tey, were also asking about you, Jake. I didn't know that you knew them."

"I don't," Jake mumbles, staring at his palm on his right hand, trying to ignore the tickle blooming in his chest. Trying to force it away. "Just Tsu'tey."

Tommy stares at the side of his head for a long moment, a look crossing his features, one that Jake can't decipher because he refuses to look at it. But Tommy won't be ignored as he asks, softly, "How did you meet him, Jake?"

Jake lets out a tiny sigh, closing his hand into a fist he can't feel. "He found me during lunch one day. So, when he's there he visits me. Has me help him with his English." Not a lie. But not entirely the truth.

Because, for some reason, for the same reason that Jake didn't talk about Tsu'tey in his video logs, he doesn't want to talk about him now. He always assumed that it was because he didn't know what to say - and really, he doesn't. But it's also because, well, what Jake had with Tsu'tey in those few short weeks that they knew each other... well, it was between them. If Tsu'tey didn't care to tell the world, that was fine. Jake didn't imagine it meant much of anything to him, and he wasn't mad about that either, but Jake... he wanted to keep those memories to himself. It didn't change anything to anyone else, so it should be fine to keep it to himself.

The tiny pieces of themselves that only existed in that moment are safe in Jake's silence. Tsu'tey can say whatever he wants to everyone else, but to Jake, he won't say anything more than he has to.

Jake can't sleep, which isn't unusual. Two days after Norm's initial news about the Omatikaya being unwilling to return Jake's avatar, and even still two days later, Jake is lying in bed with Tommy lightly snoring next to him. He's got his first day back at work with Quaritch in the morning, that he's not looking forward to, but he has to earn his keep somehow. The RDA is running a business here, he can't just do nothing.

And honestly, Jake is bored to tears. He loves having Tommy around, but the week is up and the last two days he's been by himself for most of the day, just lost to his thoughts, staring at the ceiling or wall and intermittently falling asleep for an hour or two. Thankfully Jake doesn't have a sleep schedule to fuck up.

There is a massive flood light outside Jake's window, pointed at the forest but if he keeps the blinds open, it would light up the room. Jake initially didn't mind it as he couldn't sleep anyway, but Tommy needed it darker so Jake took to closing the blinds for him.

Jake's not sure how long he was staring at the beams of light peaking in through the blinds before he realized they were moving. Like something was blocking out parts of the light, distorting it. Jake tenses for a moment, before realizing that it didn't have a particular shape, and it didn't black out additional portions, almost as if it wasn't dense enough, like say, a person was. Light could still pass through it.

Suspicious, Jake carefully crawls out of bed, looking down at his feet to make sure his toes are flat because apparently if he's not careful and can step on his own toes and possibly break them - so that's cool. Tommy's breathing remains the same, even at the shift in the bed as Jake makes his way over to his desk and the window above it. Jake cuts a quick glance to his brother, who's back is to him, before pushing up one of the blinds to see the bulbus jellyfish thing dancing around outside the window.

It does a twirl at the sight of him, dancing a bit, before floating off towards a section of the forest between two flood lights. It's a faint white light that Jake's almost sure he's imagining, hovering over the fence there. It stays for a minute or two before making it's way back over to Jake, hovering outside his window, bobbing and dancing along to a tune only it can hear. Another spin, another twirl, and it floats off again to the same portion of the fence.

Weird.

Jake closes the blind, heading back over to his bed, pausing for his eyes to adjust to the darkness once more before lowering beside Tommy. He still never got around to asking what that thing was, he'll have to ask Tommy in the morning. But he does remember quite a few of them surrounding him before he passed out surrounded by the Omatikaya in Hometree. He's not sure what they are, but apparently, they're something special, if Jake's remembering the expressions of the Omatikaya right through his panicked haze.

But he'll just have to ask Tommy in the morning, lay to rest that question at last.

With his back to the window, he closes his eyes and tries desperately to get some sleep before tomorrow morning, and whatever Quaritch has planned for him.