Part IIIa -The Hunter

[ratherastory]

[Master Post]

Part IIc

Part III -The Hunter

When he opens his eyes, it's dark. The darkness isn't complete -he can make out the dim glow of instruments and monitors, which tells him he must be back in the lab, but it doesn't make sense. He should be staring up at the inside of his link bed, not the impersonal beige of the outpost ceiling. He tries to raise his head, and realises that it's throbbing mercilessly, his whole body weighted down with lead, his mouth dry. An alarm goes off somewhere to nearby, a shrill but steady beeping, and suddenly there's movement by his bedside. He turns his head a little, blinks until Grace's face comes into focus, but can't make his lips form the words all crowding to get out of his head.

"Easy, Marine," Grace says, and brushes her hand over his forehead in a gesture that's wholly uncharacteristic of her, almost motherly, fingers cool against his skin. "You back with us?"

His throat works, but he doesn't even have enough saliva in his mouth left to swallow. Grace presses a button and his bed lifts a little, then she holds a cup of water with a straw to his lips so he can sip at it slowly. It feels wonderful, cool and soothing, tastes delicious even though he knows objectively that it’s still the same distilled water they always drink. He chokes and coughs on the last mouthful, and she pulls the cup away.

"What happened?" It comes out as a croak, but he takes it as a victory anyway, given just how crappy he feels.

"I was hoping you could tell me. One minute you're in the link, the next your vital signs went haywire," Grace fusses with the empty cup on the table by his bed. "You had a seizure, which severed the link prematurely. My best guess, given the fever you’re running, is that you’ve got an infection and that something about your elevated body temperature screwed with the system."

"I thought there were safeguards?" He doesn't mean it to come out sounding like a reproach.

"There are," she says grimly. "But it won't come as a surprise when I tell you you're not exactly typical of our avatar drivers. All of the others are perfectly physically fit, no pre-existing neurological or physiological conditions. Looks like you hit the trifecta of criteria for things to go wrong with the link."

"Lucky me," Jensen mutters. The lighting is all wrong in here, he thinks muzzily, nothing like the natural sunlight outside. He thinks longingly of the bank by the waterfall, of how comfortable it was just to lie on the grass next to Jared... "Oh God, Jared!" he sits up abruptly, the monitors around him beeping harshly in protest. The last he'd seen of Jared was his startled face, eyes filled with alarm, just before everything went dark. "What happened? Did you talk to him?"

"Easy!" Grace plants both hands on his shoulders and forces him back down, and he's too tired to resist. "Everything's fine. Ìla'rey found one of our research parties and got word to us that your avatar was safe. We arranged to have it brought back here, since we don't know how long you're going to be out of the game." She fixes him with a look that's not entirely unkind. "So the million dollar question is, why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well? There’s no way we’d have let you go into the link if you weren’t physically up for it."

Jensen chews on his lip, doesn't meet her eyes. "I don’t know. Stupid, I guess. I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’ve been sick before, it never made a difference when I was working."

Grace purses her lips in disapproval. "Yeah, well, there’s a big difference between wielding a gun and making a bioneural link with a fully functional body independent of your own, moron. Why do you think we have so many damned monitors to keep track of your vital signs?"

"Sorry," he mutters, eyes closing in spite of himself. He hasn’t felt this bad in a long time. Not since his days in the VA hospital, when even raising his head was an exercise in pain and exhaustion.

"Sorry ain’t going to cut it, kid. For now you’re getting off easy because you’re sick and we need you back on your feet-metaphorically speaking-as soon as possible. But you have to be straight with me after this. You can’t screw around with this technology, it’s literally life or death. So you lie back, let the antibiotics do their work, and when this is over you and I are going to have a chat about physical limitations and trusting your team to have your back."

He snorts quietly, thinking back to the argument from this morning. "Tell that to Spellman."

"You let me worry about Norm. Trust me, he’s being handled."

Startled by her tone, Jensen opens his eyes again. "What?"

"Go back to sleep," Grace says firmly. "The sooner you're recovered, the better."

He doesn’t have the energy to argue, lets his eyes close. He never hears her leave.

Jensen lapses into a series of confused dreams of fire and flying, until he finds himself stranded in the arid stretch of scrubby desert where he spent the most terrifying few hours of his life before coming to Pandora. He knows his team has been forced to leave him there, that it's not their choice to leave him exposed in the sun, spine laid open to the elements. He knows they'll come back for him, knows they have to wait until nightfall before they'll be able to mount a rescue for him. He knows all this, but it doesn't change anything, doesn't make the fear any less raw, the pain any less vivid. He digs his fingers into the crumbling sand, tries to drag himself along until the pain becomes blinding. It's more than he can endure, forcing him simply to lie there in a broken heap, his back on fire, every nerve ending singing in pain, and scream desperately at the empty sky.

"Don't leave me here! Guys, please! Don't leave me..."

He comes awake with a start to find a hand shaking him gently by the arm. "Hey, Jensen, wake up," Norm is saying softly, his face mostly obscured in shadow. "You’re dreaming." Jensen pulls in a shaking breath, nods to show he’s awake, trying to make sense of his surroundings, and Norm pulls his hand away. "Uh, you okay now?"

"Manner of speaking," Jensen rasps. He feels like he’s being boiled alive and his head is still throbbing. "Why’re you here? Where’s Grace?"

"She’s doing a full diagnostic on your link bed, trying to figure out what went wrong, and she doesn’t want you left alone until your fever’s gone. Also," Norm ducks his head, blood suffusing his cheeks, "I, uh, wanted to apologize."

"What for?" Jensen’s confused. "Just because we fought about―"

"No, it’s not that. I mean, I was pissed, and it interfered with my job. I saw a fluctuation on the monitor before you went into the link, and I should have said something, stopped you."

He remembers now, like it's a movie he saw a long time ago. Someone else's memory. "You asked if I was okay, and I said yes, dude. Not your fault. Not like you can read my mind."

"No, but I can read vital signs, and yours were off even before you linked up. It’s my job to keep us all healthy and safe, and I dropped the ball because I was angry, and that was not only really shitty of me, but I put you in danger."

Jensen grins, even though it feels like his skull is trying to collapse in on itself. "I take it Grace ripped you a new one?"

Norm rolls his eyes, but returns the grin. "And how. Twice in one day, it's gotta be a record. I'm amazed I still have an ass to sit on. So… we’re cool, then?"

"Totally."

"You need anything? While I’m working off my guilt here?"

"Water’d be good." His throat is closing up, giving him the slightly panic-inducing sensation of not being able to swallow or breathe.

"You got it."

Norm refills the cup, holds it for him until he can't drink anymore, then obligingly lowers the bed again partway so Jensen can lie back. Jensen can't keep his eyes open, but he does manage a small smile.

"If I'd known nearly dying would get us back on an even keel...I'd have done it weeks back," he says, and is rewarded with a light smack to the shoulder.

"You're a real asshole, you know that?"

"It's what they pay me for."

Norm's voice goes uncharacteristically soft. "Yeah, I think it's more than that."

The infection doesn't improve after that, the fever continuing to burn like fire coursing through his veins. Jensen spends most of the time half-awake and trying not to toss on the really uncomfortable bed, each breath a struggle. When he's asleep he dreams of fire and falling, and when he's awake the room spins and shifts and blurs. Most of the time he's able to tell what's happening, but every so often the fever spikes and he's barely aware of his own voice, babbling nonsense to whoever might be around to listen to it. Finally, he awakens one morning to the sound of anxious voices nearby, and after a tense-sounding conversation whose subject he can't quite decipher, Grace slips into the room to stand next to his bed.

"Hey, Marine, you feeling up to a visitor?" She looks torn between worry and amusement. "Ìla'rey has been putting up an unholy fuss about all this, wanting to see for himself that you're okay. I think you scared him half to death when you collapsed."

Jensen swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. "Jared wants to see me?"

Grace rolls her eyes. "Yes, moron. And I'm minded to let him, if it means fostering good relations between us again. Besides, with the fever you're running I'm going to have to take you back to the base for a while, get you properly treated. What limited supplies we've got up here aren't cutting it. That, and we need to get your avatar back to base so it doesn't starve to death while you're not there to feed it. So it means you're not going to be seeing Ìla'rey again for a while, and from what I've seen neither one of you is going to enjoy that."

"I can't link up like this," Jensen protests weakly, though his heart soars at the thought that Grace might actually let him go back to the body that actually works, which is still at Home Tree according to Grace's latest news. Maybe, he thinks a little dazedly, he can just stay with Jared while his body recovers from whatever this stupid infection is.

"No, of course not," Grace dashes his hopes, "but I think we can reach a compromise. Ìla'rey is going to come here, instead. He says he can climb up, so you'd damned well better appreciate the effort he's making," she teases. "It'll be a tight fit, but if he ducks low enough he can probably fit in through the back way. While it won't be comfortable for him, he can breathe our atmosphere for a little while without it harming him."

Jensen shakes his head, regrets it when it only makes his headache worse and the whole room lurches. "It won't work. But you can take me outside. With a mask."

"Jensen, you can barely sit up on your own. No way are you going to be able to handle sitting in your wheelchair for that long."

"Stretcher, if we have to. He's, like, twice as tall as the doorway. You let him in here and he'll destroy something just by twitching his tail."

Grace makes a face, but he can see by her expression that he's won. "All right. We'll kill two birds with one stone. We'll evac you out right after he's seen you."

"Sure, whatever."

Jensen's suddenly too tired to keep his eyes open, drifts back into more unpleasant dreams. The dreams have begun to develop a pattern. Every time he finds himself flying, borne aloft on the back of one of the great mountain banshees, the wind whipping past. The feeling is incredible, exhilarating, and all Jensen wants is to simply stay like this forever. Soon, though, the air grows thick with smoke, and he realizes that the forest beneath him is on fire. He urges the banshee forward, chasing its shadow on the ground hundreds of feet below, until that shadow is swallowed by one ten times its size. Jensen twists to look up and catches sight only of a flash of colour -scarlet and yellow and blue- before he finds himself hurtling toward the ground. He never feels himself hit the ground in the dreams, but every time he finds himself sprawled on his back amidst the charred and smouldering forest, staring in horror at the burning remains of Home Tree. That's when he wakens every time with a scream bubbling up from his chest and threatening to choke him.

There's a great deal of fussing in order to get him prepped for transport, with lots of barked orders from Grace and harassed scurrying about from Norm while Trudy looks on in amusement. Eventually, though, Jensen finds himself securely strapped to a plastic stretcher, re-breather mask firmly in place attached to one of the larger-capacity exopacks. The world has been swimmy and odd-looking all morning, but Jensen can't really bring himself to care. Distantly he thinks it might be because the fever's higher, but there's nothing he can do about that right now. That's why they're going in the chopper, he tells himself with a laugh. He likes choppers.

There's someone looming over him. He blinks a little trying to clear his vision, but there's something in his way, making things blurry. He tries to pull it away but a huge hand closes around his wrist-half his arm, practically-and gently keeps him from yanking off his re-breather mask. Another set of hands, smaller ones, briskly ties his arm down with another strap.

"You must keep wearing that," Jared tells him seriously, his voice like the purring of a cat underneath the whirr of chopper blades. "You cannot breathe without it, and I would not like it if you died." He's staring at Jensen like he's the most fascinating puzzle he's ever encountered, and Jensen shivers a bit.

"You came."

Jared nods. "You are still sick."

"Looks that way." Jensen's eyes close for a moment before he forces them open again. He's so damned tired, he just wants to sleep, but Jared's here and it's important because he might not see him again. "Are you disappointed?"

That gets him a confused look. "Why would I be disappointed?"

His back is aching, but he's so firmly strapped down that he can't even shift to adjust the pressure on his shoulders. "I bet I look small like this."

He can't read Jared's expression. "You are very small, yes, like all the Sky People. I had not thought you were...like the clay after it has been fired."

"Glossy?" Jensen jokes weakly, grins at the annoyed expression on Jared’s face. "You should see your face…" he murmurs.

"I mean that it is easy to break."

"Delicate."

Jared nods. "It would be easy to hurt this body, the one which houses your soul."

"It's been broken for a while."

"Not broken," Jared lays a hand over Jensen's, the calloused skin surprisingly warm. Everyone else's hands have felt cold up until now. Jensen wonders vaguely if the Na'vi run hotter than humans and he just never paid attention, or if it's just because the fever's got him all twisted around. He feels his face pull into a smile under the mask, heart thumping uncomfortably against his ribs at the oddly tender look on Jared's face. "I will wait for your return," Jared says simply, and with that, he's gone.

Jensen can't even turn his head to see where Jared has gone, so he closes his eyes, waits for the tell-tale thump that will let him know when he's on board the chopper. He keeps his eyes closed throughout the trip back, fading in and out of consciousness, but by the time his stretcher is pulled out of the Samson he's closer to unconsciousness, barely able to make sense of what's happening to him. There are lights and voices, and he thinks he hears someone say his name, but he can’t quite figure out how to make his mouth form words anymore, let alone open his eyes. The voices get louder, a little more frantic, but it’s too tiring to try to decipher what they’re saying, so he just lets himself slip entirely into darkness.

It takes less than two days on base before Jensen's feeling more than halfway normal again. For whatever variables of 'normal' apply to him, anyway. He spends most of the time sleeping, but the dreams fade little by little and by the end of the first day he no longer feels like he's being boiled alive, at least, and sleeping feels less like falling into an endless pit of darkness. On the evening of the second day he opens his eyes to find Colonel Quaritch standing next to his bed in a position of parade rest. Jensen starts, struggles to sit up, ends up falling back onto his thin military-issue pillow. The medical staff are all conspicuously absent, though everything else in the med lab seems the same as usual. He wonders just how badly Quaritch really frightens them, finds that it's not a thought he enjoys entertaining.

"Sir?"

He can't read Quaritch's expression. "We've been missing your reports, Ackles. Last one was a ways back."

He nods, tries to swallow in spite of how dry his mouth still feels. "Got caught up, sir. I meant to, but I've never been good with that sort of thing -the recording stuff, I mean," he adds, hedging a little bit.

Quaritch's smile is grim. "Always a soldier, I guess. Never met one who enjoyed making reports or filling out forms, isn't that right?"

Jensen forces a laugh. "I guess so. I'm sorry, sir, it won't happen again."

"That’s good, especially when we’re so close to our goal. I thought you should know, I got word back from headquarters back on Earth. I got approval for your surgery: when you rotate out, you’ll be getting your legs back. Your real legs."

This should be the best news of Jensen’s life. He forces a smile. "That’s great, sir. Thank you."

"The doctors say you ought to be ready to get around tomorrow sometime, and ready to go back in the field by the end of the week. We're going to debrief you before that, see where we're at. Make sure Augustine hasn't completely melted your brain with her scientific hippy crap. Don't want you going native on us."

"No chance of that, sir," Jensen says, although his mind is flashing to Grace's face, lit up with enthusiasm during one of their conversations, holding a cigarette lightly between her fingers. To Jared, glistening with water, grinning madly at him from under the waterfall. He can feel his heart speed up just at the thought, is grateful that he's no longer hooked up to any of the monitors which might betray just what all this is doing to him. That's when it occurs to him that he might be lying to a superior officer for the first time in his life.

Mo'at interrupts Ìla'rey just as he is indulging in a very satisfying brown study. "What are you doing here, Ìla'rey?" she gestures to the broad platform of the meikran eyrie.

He doesn't answer at first, not wanting to admit to her that he prefers the company of Zeizei to that of the rest of the tribe. He's been in no mood to listen to Tsu'tey's continued lectures about how he is putting himself and his future in jeopardy by playing nursemaid to one of the Sky People, especially not while Jensen is gone. Tsu'tey had been shocked when Ìla'rey rounded on him during what he probably considered important advice and punched him as hard as he could before stalking off. He regrets it now, of course. Tsu'tey has always been his best friend, but just the thought of him being cruel about Jensen had set something off in Ìla'rey that he hadn't suspected even existed there before. So for now he is keeping busy feeding scrap of meat to the ikran, enjoying the uncomplicated affection she holds for him, butting her head against his chest whenever he slows down in his all-important task. Finally, because he knows his mother is expecting an answer, he sighs and shrugs.

"I thought Zeizei could use some attention."

He can feel Mo'at smile behind him. "Tsu'tey's swollen nose says otherwise. I am here as your mother, Ìla'rey, not as your tsahik, though if you want, I can be both." She moves forward to sit beside him a little stiffly. Like it or not, he thinks, she is growing old. "Is it the thought of Jensen that troubles you still?"

He ducks his head. "I can't hide anything from you, can I?"

"Of course not. Surely you don't still resent having to teach this man? I have seen you with him, and I have seen no anger."

"No, sa'nu, I'm not angry."

She lays a hand on his shoulder. "What, then?"

He makes a helpless gesture. "I don't know. I wanted to see him, even before he was gone. We only ever see the Dream Walkers as they want us to see them, and how am I to truly see if he will not let me? You have seen what they are really like, the warriors in their armour and their machines."

"You think that Jensen is like the other human warriors."

"No, I don't believe that, but how was I to know if my belief was true or false?" he asks, his voice rising in spite of himself. Zeizei makes a noise of protest at the disturbance and, since it appears he is done feeding her scraps for the moment, leaps into the branches of the eyrie in a leathery rustle of wings. "I wanted to see, and dok-tor Augustine allowed me to go. I think Jensen was pleased to see me, but before this he didn't want me to see him as he is."

"You think Jensen deliberately hid himself?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know what I think. But I saw, and he is... he is not what I expected. How can one soul inhabit two bodies? What am I seeing when he is here, dreamwalking? Is it him? Is it just something that seems to be him? I can't tell if it's real."

His mother is silent for a moment. "This is not really what's troubling you, is it? I have seen you with him, you have no doubts about his soul. You had no doubts until you went to see him in his human body. What is it about that which so bothers you?"

Ìla'rey sighs. He can never get anything past his mother. "He was so small, sa'nu, barely larger than a child. I could have crushed his head with my hand."

"You sound surprised. You know that they are much smaller than we are, and weaker in body, if not in mind or spirit."

He fidgets, twisting his hands in his lap. "I was not expecting him to be so fragile. When we were coming back from the waterfall, he was perfectly well, and then suddenly he was gone. He just fell, as though an arrow had pierced cleanly through his heart, but without any blood. There was no life in the body at all. I expected...I expected to find all that life in his other body, the one which houses his soul, but he was -diminished."

"He is ill, my son. You have seen how illness affects people before."

She's right, of course she is, but he can't shake the terrible feeling of dread that overcame him for the second time as he knelt on the grass by Jensen's side. It was not difficult to see past the mask that allowed him to breathe, to see the glassy look in his eyes, to see how pale, how thin he was compared to the other humans around him. No matter how he tries to reason with himself, to tell himself that the human medicine will cure Jensen and he will come back, he can't banish the image from his mind. He's not used to seeing illness except in the very old, and the thought frightens him.

"What if he dies?"

"Then he dies," his mother says, retreating for a moment into her role as tsahik. "Death is not so terrible as you think. His energy will be reborn."

"I don't want him to die."

"You care for this man, 'evi?"

She hasn't called him child in years. "Is it possible, do you think sa'nu, to truly love someone who is not from the same world?"

Mo'at puts her hands on his shoulders. "Oh, Ìlia..." She pauses, searching for words. "I don't believe so, no. His soul is not the same, it will not be reborn here, among the People. You cannot truly love someone that you cannot truly see. But he is your charge, your pupil, and your feelings are normal. Every teacher goes through this with their first student, and when he outgrows your tutelage you will be so proud and so happy, and your feelings will become what they are meant to be."

She doesn't understand. Not that he expected her to; he barely understands it himself. "What if he doesn't return?"

"We will deal with that when the time comes. There is no hurry. I know you are worried for him, but they will send word sooner or later, and in the meantime there is no reason for you to brood on these things over which you have no control. Come," she rises stiffly, leaning on his shoulders. "Help me with tonight's supper. It will at least take your mind off things."

"Hi Mom, hi Dad -I guess it's been a while." Jensen's hand twitches as he resists fiddling with the dial for the umpteenth time. "Thing is, we shipped out a while back to this outpost way up in the Hallelujah Mountains. You remember that vid we saw all those years ago about the floating mountains? Yeah, they're the same ones. Grac e-that's my boss- she didn't like all the military brass breathing down her neck here on base, so we packed up all our shit and moved to basically a glorified trailer park up in the mountains. Except, you know, the view was fantastic and the equipment was better. Food still sucks, though. I think maybe I told you about that the last time I sent you a message, except it's been so long I don't remember what I told you and what I didn't, and I didn't keep a copy of my message. I hate listening to myself, I sound stupid. I figure you'll forgive me for sounding stupid 'cause you're my parents," Jensen grins at the camera, can imagine his mother rolling his eyes at that and snapping at the vid screen to him not to be ridiculous, that he could never sound stupid no matter what he says.

"I don't even know how to begin telling you all the stuff I've done since the last time I sent you a message. This place is a hell of a trip, you know. It kind of messes with your mind, especially when you're driving an avatar. Tommy would have loved it...Anyway. I don't know if I told you about this last time, but I'm sort of unofficially becoming kind of the liaison between the Na'vi and the humans here, which is cool, except it makes me really nervous, too. The tribe we're dealing with, the Omaticaya, decided I need to learn all about them, so this one guy is showing me the ropes. He's got a name I can barely pronounce, but it translates to Jared in English. I think you'd like him. I mean, he's really something. He's a hunter, but they're not all hunters. I don't know what I was expecting when I got here, but it wasn't this -the vids and books make the Na'vi sound like, I don't know, those old stories about the Native Americans from before they tamed the Wild West or something. You know, all warriors and hunter-gatherers or whatever, that they're all in tune with nature and all that, except it's different than that, and I can't even explain it. Hell, maybe one day I'll ask Grace to send a recording to you because she can explain it better than I can."

Jensen shifts a little in his chair, realizes what he's doing and shifts back so that he's properly centred on the screen. "Jared's been showing me everything there is to know about the forest. He's been teaching me how to hunt, how to use those huge bows, but I haven't made a kill yet because he says the forest hasn't given permission, or whatever. Sometimes I have no idea what he's talking about -he's always going on about the flow of energy, the spirits of animals, tree-huggy crap like that except that I don't think it's crap, not really. I don't know about things back home on Earth but here, I don't know, it's all different. The People actually physically connect with part of the forest, anyway, and it's weird and intense and kind of mind-bending when you do it for the first time. It's like opening up your eyes after you've been blind all your life. Mostly I just got dizzy and fell a lot, which Jared thought was hilarious. I don't really understand most of it, but I'm learning.

"It's beautiful here, especially at night, although I don't get to go out at night all that much. I have to leave the avatar behind for a few hours so I can eat and sleep and make those stupid recordings of all my 'research' and stuff. You know, for the record, so we'll have it for later. I think Grace wants to write another book, but this time she wants me to work on it too, even though I've told her I'm no good at that sort of thing. Tommy would have been perfect for that..." he stops to clear his throat, wishes he'd thought to drink a glass of water before starting to record. He doesn't want to interrupt it now.

"I wish I had a way of showing you all the stuff I'm seeing. The vids just can't do it justice, even the really high-quality ones. The forest lights up at night, like it's covered in fireflies. You remember when we were kids and all those fireflies used to swarm out back in the fields? Tommy and I used to make lanterns by shoving as many of 'em into glass jars as possible, and we'd hang them up in our room and watch the shadows dance. The forest here is just like that, except it's a hundred thousand times bigger than that.There's a word for it -bioluminescence- but it sounds kind of scientific for something that beautiful. I get that I'm not really a poet or anything -the army doesn't exactly encourage that- but sometimes I think Grace would rather take a scalpel to what she sees instead of just seeing it for what it is. Don't tell Colonel Quaritch I said that, incidentally. He doesn't exactly like Grace or anything, but I don't think he'd be on board with my waxing poetical about the bioluminescent forest, you know? He doesn't strike me as the type." Jensen grins, but something twinges at the back of his mind at the thought that, maybe, his personal correspondence isn't as private as he'd like to think.

"So I'm supposed to be heading back out tomorrow, they just cleared me back for duty. I kind of got sick for a while there, but I'm fine now, all back to normal, so I don't want you to worry, okay? Well, as normal as I get, anyway. So I wanted to be sure that you guys are okay. I didn't hear anything back from you since the last time I sent a message, and… I don't know, maybe I'm worrying for nothing. Maybe there's a communication glitch, or something. I'm going to check with Shirley in administration to see if anything's up with that. Anyway, I hope that's what's happening. Look, if you get the chance, just send word through the relays, okay? It'll take a little time before I can get back to you, but I want to make sure you got all the credits I sent you. I don't want all this danger pay I've been accumulating to just disappear into the void, you know? I gotta go now, but...I love you, and, uh, I hope you're okay. Send me something back, would you? Even if it's just a couple of text messages. I miss you guys. Be safe."

He switches off the recording, pushes his chair away from his desk, lets his head sink into his hands with a sigh.

On the morning he's been cleared for active duty again Jensen is squirming with impatience. His wheelchair is parked next to the link bed and he can't bring himself to sit still. His whole body feels like it's crawling, like he's about to come out of his skin. He's been awake for hours, too wired to do anything except fidget, hasn't even been able to do so much as watch a vid on his own. He spent as much time as he could manage in the makeshift gym, lifting weights until his arms gave out and doing as many crunches as he could manage before he couldn't sit up anymore, then reluctantly gave up and made his way back to the lab.

He hasn't seen Jared in nearly two weeks, not properly since they shared that kiss. He remembers vaguely that Jared came to see him before he was evacuated back to base, but most of that is a blur, and every time he thinks about what Jared might have thought about that encounter his stomach threatens to empty itself of all its contents. It's not like Jared didn't know he was human, of course, but there's a whole world of difference between knowing something theoretically and knowing it for real, and he can't help but wonder if, knowing what he knows now, Jared's not going to be so disgusted that he's not going to want to have anything to do with him.

It's not like Jensen's been able to ask Grace or anyone about this, either. There aren't too many ways he can approach any of them and casually say something like, "Oh, you know how the Na'vi aren't completely heterosexual? How do you suppose they view interspecies relationships?" The whole thing feels like a disaster waiting to happen, especially given how things are between him and Grace. Or rather, how much things between them have changed. It's not like there's been that many opportunities for them to hook up since they've been back -at first Jensen was too sick, and then they all got busy trying to prep everything to go back out into the field. He gets the feeling Grace isn't really all that interested anymore, and frankly neither is he. He figures they both got it out of their systems, and if Grace doesn't want to talk about it, well, so much the better.

"Ready to get this show on the road?" Grace asks him about two seconds before he chickens out and makes a beeline for his quarters.

Jensen nods tightly, swings himself back up onto the link bed, carefully arranges his legs on the gel surface and lies back. Grace gives him a critical once-over.

"You've lost a lot of weight, Marine. We're going to have to put you on extra protein rations, or you're going to get sick again."

He makes a face. "Yuck."

"Yeah, well, beggars can't be choosers. You can't live on Na'vi food alone, you know. All right, strap in. Let's see if you've managed to forget everything in a single week."

"Funny."

"Shut up and lie still."

The lid comes down, and Jensen lets himself fall.

If he thought that the knots of anxiety twisting his stomach would magically stay behind in his human body, Jensen is sorely disappointed by the time he wakes up in his avatar. If anything, he's more nervous now, and ever sense seems to be heightened in this body. He barely looks out at the passing scenery as Trudy flies them back to the clearing where all of this started for him, clenching and unclenching his hands in his lap.

When they land, though, Jared is waiting, standing off to the side just at the tree line, and his wide, dimpled smile immediately makes the knot that had travelled up into Jensen's chest dissolve. Barely stopping to wave to Trudy, Jensen takes off at a run to go meet him, stops just short of where Jared is standing, suddenly more self-conscious than he's been in his entire life.

"Uh, hey."

Jared beams at him. "You are well?"

He nods, rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, I'm better. I'm sorry about that, I didn't mean to put a crimp in your plans like that."

And, just like that, it's like no time at all has passed. Jared's face screws up in puzzlement. "I don't know that expression. Why are you sorry?"

"Uh, well, you know," Jensen flaps a hand vaguely. "I figured that this wasn't really what you had in mind, and..." he trails off as Jared stares at him like he's lost his mind. "What?"

"I don't understand why you are apologizing. The People apologize for when they have done someone a wrong. Are humans different?"

"Uh, no. No, that's about right."

"So you believe you have done something wrong by becoming sick?"

"Uh."

Jared puts both hands on Jensen's shoulders. "The People don't think sickness is your fault," he assures Jensen seriously, his expression so earnest that Jensen doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. "You don't need to say you are sorry for this."

Jensen huffs a laugh. "Yeah, okay. Thank you."

"It's a stupid belief. Sickness is not...on purpose. It is not wrong, it just is."

"Okay, okay, I get it. No apologizing."

Jared's smile reappears instantly. "Good, I am glad. Now come. We will start again with your learning."

Jensen takes a breath. "Yeah, about that... Jared... what happened at the waterfall. Do you... I mean, should we... what about it?"

Jared's smile falters a little. "Was it not what you wanted?"

"What? No! I mean, yes. Yes, I wanted it," Jensen's babbling, wants to kick himself except that his mouth is still working in spite of his better judgement. "I just...you came up to the outpost, and, well, you saw, and I was worried that, uh, that―" he stutters to a stop, his brain shutting down about two sentences too late into the process.

Jared runs his fingers through Jensen's hair. "I wished to see you."

Jensen nods, swallows. "I thought you might not like what you saw."

"I am not sure of what I saw," Jared admits after a moment. "You are not like the humans I have known. You are so small," he says, and Jensen remembers him saying the same thing atop the mountain.

"Hey, it's not the size that counts, it's what you do with it."

At that, Jared throws back his head and laughs.

"So, you and Ìla'rey?" Grace asks one evening.

They're both still linked up to their avatars, Jensen having returned for a day or so in order for the techs to run a bunch more tests on him and his avatar to make sure nothing was permanently damaged when he was sick. Now, though, the tests are over and he and Grace are taking advantage of a rare moment of peace and quiet to just sit and enjoy the outdoors before severing the link and going back to their duties.

Jensen twitches a bit at her question. He has the distinct and uncomfortable impression that he's blushing. "Me and Jared what?"

She sighs. "You should really try to pronounce his name properly."

"I am. He likes it when I call him Jared. He said so. I can say his name in Na'vi just fine, too."

"I'll leave it to Norm to teach you about the perils of cultural appropriation and whitewashing."

"I already got that lecture. Multiple times. He's very fond of it, I think he practises it in front of the mirror in the morning."

She laughs. "Poor Spellman. You should go easier on him."

"I like to think we bring out the best in each other."

"Don't think I haven't noticed you trying to deflect the question. We never exactly talked about this except that one time, and we were sort of busy with other things," she gives him a coy smile, "but I figure I should bring it up now. I'll admit that when we first met I didn't peg you for swinging both ways, Marine. You're definitely full of surprises."

He shrugs. "I don't exactly advertise it. The armed forces aren't nearly as tolerant as the recruitment officers lead you to believe. I didn't really want to spend all my time watching my back and checking my sheets and the insides of my boots while we were out on tour, you know? And that's just scratching the surface."

Grace nods, her expression a little sad. "What about your brother?"

"Like the proverbial arrow. Liked his women small, brunette and curvy in all the right places," Jensen grins at the memory. "He kept trying to set me up with guys until we had a drop-down drag-out fight about it because I didn't want to out myself to the military. Are you...okay with this?"

"What, that you bat for both teams?"

"No, I mean, about..." he makes an abortive gesture that halfway encompasses the both of them and most of the rainforest at the same time.

She laughs. "Would it hurt your feelings if I told you that it was fun but I wasn't looking for attachments?"

Jensen matches her laugh. "I think you know the answer to that. I...was just a little worried."

"No offence, Marine, but you're not exactly the kind of guy with whom I want to form a long-lasting, meaningful relationship. Nobody here is, and that's fine by me. That doesn't mean we can't engage in some kind of recreation in the meantime."

"None taken. But... I'm not really like that," he says, feeling his cheeks grow warm. "I mean, not if I'm, uh..."

"You're a one-horse kind of a guy, I get it. Which brings me back to my original point: you and Ìla'rey?"

Jensen sighs. "I don't know. It’s not like anything is really happening, except just the once, and that was right before I collapsed. We haven’t really discussed it since then. Not much, anyway. I don't think he knows what to do about this either. And if this is over-sharing, I'm going to point out that you're the one who insisted on my spilling my guts, here. For the record."

"Duly noted."

"First off, I don't even know if Jared feels the same way. I mean, yeah, he...there's obviously something. But how am I supposed to know if, you know, it's the same for the Na'vi as it is for us?"

"You think they don't know how to love?"

"Don't put words in my mouth!" Jensen snaps. "I never said that. I just...what if their way of loving someone isn't the same as ours? I'm in way over my head, here."

"Look, if this were anyone else, I'd have come down on you like a ton of bricks and told you to break this off. You're right: the Na'vi aren't like us in a lot of ways that count. For one thing, they tend to bond for life once they've made their choice. So either you're an experimentation for Ìla'rey, like with his friend Tsu'tey―"

"Jared slept with Tsu'tey?"

"When they were teenagers, sure," Grace confirms easily. "They're bonded friends. If Ìla'rey had been born a girl, they would be expected to bond as a couple, since Tsu'tey is going to be chief of the clan and Ìla'rey is going to be the tsahik. But since they can't reproduce together, they'll each be expected to marry and have children of their own, separately."

"So Jared has to marry a girl and father children." None of which he can do with Jensen, who's the wrong gender and, more importantly, the wrong species.

Grace's expression is an annoying mixture of compassion and knowingness. "Try not to fall too hard, either of you."

He snorts. "It's fine. He just likes the look of this body," he gestures to himself. "He keeps telling me I'm not real, anyway, that he can't see what I'm really like. Besides, there's like an expiry date on this whole thing anyway. I turn into a pumpkin at midnight, as last month's little adventure demonstrated so well."

"Not that you're bitter about any of this. You want out of this project, all you have to do is say so."

"Right. I think I've bonded with you enough," Jensen gets up, makes a show of brushing himself off. "I'm heading back in."

"You go on ahead," Grace tells him. "I'm going to stay out here a while longer. It's not every day you get to see stars like this."

Jensen pauses in the doorway. She's sitting with her back to him, silhouetted by the glow of the evening sky, head tilted back. She's beautiful like this, young and vibrant, her clothes making her look more like a college student than the veteran scientist Jensen has come to know over the past few months. He stays where he is for a long time, just leaning against the door frame, watching her, until finally he turns away and heads inside without a backward glance.

The forest is quiet when Jensen makes his first kill. He and Jared have been crouched, utterly still, for what feels like hours. Not for the first time Jensen is grateful for the military training that taught him how to stay in one position for endless stretches of time without giving himself away. The Na’vi have elevated it to an art form, but at least he’s got the basics down. That doesn’t make the waiting any easier, of course. The only good part is that this body has been built for endurance. He expected his legs or his ass to go numb, at the very least, but so far his muscles haven’t even begun to tire.

Just when he thinks he’s about to go nuts from boredom, a rustling in the undergrowth attracts his attention. He sees Jared’s ears perk up, suspects his own are doing the same thing, which is still kind of a trippy thought. The noise, so quiet he might not have heard it had he not been doing his very best impression of a statue for the past couple of hours, comes from a purple-skinned hexapede whose name he’s pretty sure both Jared and Grace have told him repeatedly but which he can’t help thinking of as an antelope. It steps into a clearing bathed in light, apparently unaware or unconcerned by his presence. It’s a very young buck, its antlers newly-formed, and it drops its head to nip at some low-growing leaves.

Jensen doesn’t look to Jared for approval on this. Jared told him he would know when the time was right, would know which of the animal spirits was calling to him. Looking at the animal now, Jensen thinks he knows what Jared was talking about. There’s a stillness in the air, a rightness to the whole moment. Slowly he brings up the bow lent to him by Jared, hands steady on the finely-carved wood, and takes aim. One breath, two, and on the third he lets fly with his arrow, watches it whistle across the clearing and catch the antelope in the breast, piercing its heart. The creature goes down with barely a sound, its legs buckling under it, blood oozing around Jensen’s arrow.

He’s on his feet in a flash, drawing his knife, lopes to the fallen animal. It’s dying, will be dead in moments, but there’s no need to prolong its suffering even that long, and so he plunges his knife into what would be the carotid artery if this was an animal on Earth, and carefully utters the phrase he learned from Jared.

"Oel ngati kameie, ma tsmukan, ulte ngaru seiyi irayo. Ngari hu eywa salew tirea, tokx 'ì'awn slu Na'viyä hapxì."

"A clean kill," Jared confirms quietly from behind him. "It means you are ready for Iknimaya."

"Iknimaya?" Jensen racks his brain for the vocabulary. "Stairway to heaven?" Jared nods, and Jensen grins. "Seriously? If you tell me there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, I’m out of here."

"I don’t understand what that means."

"It’s not important." Jensen retrieves his arrow, stands and slings the antelope over his shoulder in order to bring it back to Home Tree. "So what happens now?"

"We will prepare the yerik you have killed for the feast. You and the other young hunters will perform your last task before you are considered taronyu. "

"And that would be bonding with a banshee."

Jared flashes him a quick grin. "Yes."

Tsu’tey accompanies them on their ascent, along with two other teenagers from the tribe whose names Jensen never managed to catch. They’re obviously excited about their rite of passage, chattering to each other at a speed which takes Jensen’s breath away. He quickly gives up on trying to understand anything they say. Norm studied this language for years and still sounds stilted according to Grace and Jared, so Jensen figures that his own ability to string together a couple of sentences with a lot of effort is probably not a bad showing after only weeks of being around the Na’vi. Kind of like immersion Spanish, only way less boring, he thinks with a grin.

"Why do you smile?" Jared bumps his shoulder companionably on their way through the forest.

He shakes his head. "Just thinking of something back home. On Earth, I mean."

Something shifts in Jared’s expression. Before Jensen can so much as begin to try to identify what it might be it’s gone again, and Jared is off, leading the way along the winding path to the edge of the forest, all the way to the far side of the floating mountains. The landscape is different here than where the mobile outpost is stationed. For one thing, the mountains look far less -mountainous. These rock formations are what gave the mountains their name among the humans and the Na’vi alike -Ramlìng, the floating mountains- and are nothing but huge boulders suspended in the air, covered in moss and lichen and joined together by huge vines as thick as tree trunks close to their bases and growing narrower the higher they climb. Water pours in an endless cascade down the rocks, sending up glittering spray in enormous clouds. Rainbows hang in perpetuity over the abyss here, the coloured light projecting against the rock in places, giving it an ethereal look.

"So, uh, where do the meikran nest, exactly?" Jensen asks, although he has a sinking feeling he’s not going to like the answer.

"At the summit," Tsu’tey says curtly. He still doesn’t appear to have forgiven Jensen for intruding on Jared’s life, but he has made a few attempts to be at least civil with Jensen, which is pretty decent, all things considered. Jensen wonders, in light of Grace’s revelation, if Tsu’tey might not be a little jealous. If he and Jared were together when they were younger, it would explain why he would have a hate-on for anyone who looked like they might be taking his place. Even if it's not that, Jensen can understand being overprotective of your best friend, and he tries not to hold it against him too much, with varying levels of success.

"I was afraid you’d say that."

"Climb," Tsu’tey pokes Jensen between the shoulder blades, urging him toward the mountains.

It’s a very long climb. The ground grows further and further away, gradually disappears in a cloud of mist. After a while the whole world seems to fall away, leaving them walled in by cloud and sky, and the muscles in Jensen’s arms, legs and back burn from the strain.

"I have a friend who totally would have given us a lift," he mutters, only to get cuffed behind the head by Jared who pauses in his climb and deliberately leans down in order to do it. "Ow! Okay, jeez, I was kidding. You guys have no sense of humour."

"Latsi!" Tsu’tey snaps.

"I’m going as fast as I can!"

It takes the better part of the day before they reach the narrow causeway of vines that will lead them to their destination. Its name in Na’vi is still unpronounceable as far as Jensen is concerned, but the humans have named it Mons Veritatis, which he supposes is pretty fitting. It’s not the tallest of the mountains by any stretch of the imagination, but it boasts a sheer face that plunges down for hundreds of feet at right angles to the ground. Near its summit, on a rocky outcropping is where the largest flock of banshees have established their rookery. The banshees mate in pairs, Jared explained to Jensen when he first asked, but tend to build their nests close together and share in the hunting and raising of the young. Jensen hears them long before he catches sight of the first banshee, and all the hunters slow their ascent before they come into view of the huge creatures. Disturbing the banshees in their nesting-place is asking to get killed, and Jensen has no trouble erring on the side of caution, here.

Tsu’tey gives him another small shove to get him to move. "Jensen should go first. Better he die and have it over with so the others can concentrate on their task."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Jensen can’t bring himself to put any real heat into the words. Tsu’tey is obviously trying to get a rise out of him, and maybe it’s part of the initiation, or maybe it’s yet another demonstration of just how determined Tsu’tey is to hate him, but either way he’s not going to give him the satisfaction. Not to mention that there are about two dozen really mean-looking banshees not fifteen feet away which have a prior claim on Jensen’s attention.

"Tìyerkup skxawng." Tsu’tey laughs, earning himself a glare from Jared, who probably feels like he has the monopoly on calling Jensen names.

"Ftang nga! "

"It’s fine," Jensen waves Jared down, never taking his eyes. "I don’t need you to fight my battles for me. So which one of these bad boys-or girls-is the one I want?"

Jared steps up behind him and places both hands on Jensen’s shoulders. "Only female. You go in front and your ikran will make herself known. You must move quick, quick. Only one chance."

"How will I know which one it is?"

"She will try to kill you," Jared claps him on the shoulder.

"Outstanding," Jensen mutters, then hefts the bolo that he made himself specifically for this purpose under Jared’s tutelage and steps forward out onto the rocky ledge.

The banshees immediately turn to face the intruder, hissing and baring their fangs. For a moment it feels like he’s surrounded by hundreds of gleaming eyes and teeth, barring his escape. He can hear Tsu’tey and the other two young warriors behind him laughing and jeering, the latter two no doubt trying to cover just how nervous they are, but the words are lost amidst the roaring of blood in his ears. There’s no way he’s going to be able to do this, Jensen thinks. All these goddamn birds look like they want to eat his liver. Then he turns his head, finds himself almost face to face with an ikran with a huge wingspan, her scales mottled green and blue and yellow. She rears up on her hind legs, spreads her wings with an ear-splitting shriek, and just like that, he knows: she’s the one.

"Okay, sweetheart," Jensen clenches his teeth, adjusts his grip on the rope. "It’s you and me. Let’s dance!"

The banshee hisses at his approach, lunges at him, but Jensen is already moving, dodging to one side, the bolo whirling in his hands. He lets it fly, sees it whistle by the banshee’s snout, missing it by less than two inches. There’s a screech of frustration as the banshee’s jaws snap shut just short of slicing him clean in half, and Jensen dodges again, feints, times the next lunge. The bolo whistles through the air again, and this time the shot is clean. The leather thong catches the banshee’s snout and wraps around it, clamping its jaws together and giving him the opening he needs. It slashes at his stomach with its talons but he’s already swarming it, toppling it onto its side and wrapping both arms and then both legs around its thrashing neck as it hisses and screams and writhes.

"Tsaheylu, Jensen!" Jared yells from off to the side. "Form the bond!"

It’s easier said than done, trying to join up his tswin with the antenna-like appendage on the banshee. For one thing, it means having to let go of the banshee’s neck, staying on it using only his legs, and the next thing he knows Jensen has been ripped loose from his perch. He flails, tumbles backward, suddenly feels nothing but air beneath him, twists and scrabbles frantically at the sheer rock face. He can hear alarmed shouts from somewhere above him, manages to catch himself painfully against the rough surface of the cliff, the rock tearing at his fingers and knees. For a moment he hangs there, heart hammering against his ribs, blood singing in his ears, his whole body thrumming with terror and adrenaline. Then he finds a foothold, pulls himself back up onto the ledge and throws himself at the banshee without so much as pausing to catch his breath.

This time he takes the creature by surprise. It spreads its wings wide with an indignant shriek and tries to shake him off, but it’s too late. In one smooth movement he has joined them together, squeezes his eyes shut to ward off the first dizzying sensation of experiencing everything through the banshees senses as well as his own. In that instant, there is nothing else, nothing but him and his mount, they are one being, have only one purpose.

"The first flight seals the bond!" Jared calls out. "Do not wait!"

"You heard the man, come on!" Jensen tells the banshee.

He kicks his heels into the creature’s flanks, and there’s a flurry of wings as it throws itself headlong over the side of the cliff. For several terrifying seconds there’s nothing but shrieking and squawking in Jensen’s mind, crowding out all rational thought. It’s a whirl of images and alien sensations, of bestial anger and outrage at being dominated, and most of all the dizzying sensation of plummeting as they fall, the banshee scrabbling futilely at the rock face with wings and claws alike in its desperation to be free.

"Shut the hell up!" he yells, a little frantic at the thought of becoming nothing but a smear on the rocky ground.

To his surprise, the creature obeys, and his thoughts quieten immediately. He conjures an image of them flying, concentrates on it, digs his heels into the scaly leather, and is rewarded instantly when their freefall becomes controlled. The banshee spreads its wings with a boom of leather against air, levels out a few dozen feet further down than where they started, and gives a few steady flaps before finding a rising current of warm air upon which to glide. Jensen lets out a whoop of unabashed glee, lets go with one hand to execute a fist-pump.

"All right!"

There’s an answering scream from off to the side. When he turns his head he catches sight of Jared astride Zeizei, swooping down to meet him. Jared is grinning so wide that it looks as though his face might split in two at any moment, and Jensen can’t help but return the grin for all he’s worth. Then with another whoop of joy they both take off at top speed swooping far past the mountain range to go soar together above the treetops of Pandora.

"I keep forgetting to record on this thing," Jensen tells the camera. "I mean, other than the official grocery list reports I make when Grace makes me. She keeps telling me I need to keep up with my personal entries, but I don’t know, it feels kind of pointless. I mean, I don’t know why I would do it, it’s not like I ever come back and listen to myself blabber on about what I did three weeks ago. I’m too busy doing new stuff to go back and listen to the old stuff."

He sighs, rubs a hand over his face, the stubble on his chin rough against the skin of his palm. He doesn’t remember the last time he looked at himself properly in a mirror. "I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s like everything is backward now. Like, this life in here is the dream, and everything out there is what’s real. I know they’re both real, but it doesn’t feel like it anymore. Grace keeps telling me I have to stay grounded, that I have to remember that when I’m out there, I’m also still here, and that it’s the me that stays here that’s more important, but I’m not so sure about that anymore. In here, I’m not really living."

Jensen reaches for the button to switch off the camera. "Anyway, I gotta go. Tonight is the last step in becoming a hunter. I rode a banshee today, and that was the final test." He grins, relishing the memory of the wind rushing by as they flew, feeling the banshee’s heart beating in tandem with his. "I may not be much of a horse guy, but I was born to fly. I always knew I shoulda joined the air force, but this is way better. There’s going to be a feast for all the hunters who rode the banshees tonight. We’re going to eat our first kill and be initiated, except I’m not really sure what that means. Jared was kind of secretive about that. Guess I’ll find out soon enough."

With that, he powers down the camera and wheels himself back toward the link chamber.

Part IIIb