Chapter Text
When Jake had walked into the lab, his daughter trailing behind him like a ghost, soaked from the rain and Spider not shining at their side, she knew.
That Something had happened- whatever the fuck, a million things, or nothing at all and she's paranoid in the way everyone always is now, fat and pliable from the decade of peace, jumping at each shadow since the RDA ripped open the sky again.
Maybe Spider had just broken something, his mask had cracked and he had suffocated, or worse, but what could be worse? Or maybe this is just another shadow and the only smell is rain and wet earth, she's just going insane, there's no motor oil or gunpowder or smoke in this lab. That Spider was a few steps behind and they’re all here just cause, a missed point in the raid summary, a reason to shoot the shit like they used to, that Kiri trailed behind her dad to say hi and Spider will walk in so the two can bother the lab guys in their work.
So Trudy waits, forces the rise and fall of her chest, pretends not to feel or see the sets of eyes looking down at her, filled with different types of breaking, lines pulled taught and ready to snap. She waits for the door to open behind them.
How many miles can she fly, sitting in the same seat, looking at the same sky.
The next sound is a voice. Not the seal of the airlock, Jake’s voice, the same in this body as it was in his last and Trudy doesn’t think the years on this planet really changed him at all.
“Trudy,”
He knows something awful, and she will have to hear it, and sign the paperwork, and the three shots will fire and fuck-, no, there’s no salute at Na’vi burials, just the remnants of the home tree and a pit, and a mourning period that will last her entire life.
“Jake, stop.”
He blinks, words caught in his throat as Kiri stares between them, the silence, like an old warped western stand off, dull and cold.
Trudy huffs out a laugh the same way she did in her Samson when it tumbled down, down, down.
“Kiri, give us a minute.”
She says, choked, and doesn't look at them through the blur clouding her vision. This kid needs to go, can't be here, not right now, before she starts crying and that she knows she’d have no idea what to do with.
Kiri looks at her father instead, pleading, tail hung low behind her. His face is shadowed by the lab’s fluorescence as he looks down at her and whispers something in Na'vi that makes Kiri slam the door as she leaves.
Jake looks back at her, jaw tight and steady.
Next of kin
No trace of him, nothing
“You brought your kid to this?”
This. He knows what this means and how it reaches beyond the lab and wraps around this entire forest.
She knows the Na’vi practices, the technicals are so different and loose but careful. But Jake was a soldier, they both are. This conversation you have, not here, not the mess hall, not the lab, they’re soldiers. A tweng cloth and her civvies and she needs him to stop, she needs to get her uniform, she needs a pen, a cigarette, she needs everything to stop
I'm so sorry for your loss
“Trudy-”
One day, one day, one day, one more day.
“Jesus, man”
“She was there-"
How many folded flags can fit on a wall?
Her breath catches and she shakes her head, puts her hand up to stop him, feels the corners of her mouth pulled straight, tight lipped. She stands up, ignores how her legs shake as she moves one foot in front of the other towards the other parts of the lab. Max, Norm, Next of Kin, don't fall don't break don't breathe breathe Breathe, Trudy, hands off the throttle.
Go into an asymmetrical lift and she’ll go into an uncontrolled roll, down the sky, into the mountains.
“Don't, don’t say anything.”
How many flags?