Chapter Text
He wakes groggy and disoriented, awareness seeping back into him in slow, unpleasant waves. For a long moment, he doesn’t understand where he is – only that something feels wrong. The light is too bright, too even. Everything around him is…white.
Sterile white walls stretch up around him, unbroken and impersonal. Reflective windows catch his distorted reflection, unfamiliar in their smooth surfaces. The silence is worse than the light – thick, oppressive, pressing in on him from all sides. It crawls under his skin, makes his chest feel tight. The absence of sound unnerves him.
There is always noise in the forest. Creatures chattering in the canopy, leaves whispering as the wind passes through them, the distant calls of birds echoing between the trees. Even at High Camp, there is sound – soft and constant. The background hum of electricity, someone moving nearby, Norm rambling under his breath. Noise means safety. And now it’s silent.
He doesn’t know where he is.
And he doesn’t know how everything went wrong so quickly. His thoughts scatter as panic begins to seep in, sharp and cold. Lo’ak. Kiri. Tuk. Are they okay? Did they make it out? His chest tightens at the thought of them hurt – or worse.
The last thing he remembers is the ground giving way beneath his feet, the sickening lurch as he slid down the slope. Pain. Then nothing. He must have been knocked out. And this definitely isn’t High Camp. Which means-
He tries to move his arms.
Nothing happens.
A spike of panic jolts through him as he tries again, harder this time – and that’s when he feels it. The unyielding bite of restraints around his wrists, bands cinched tight against his upper arms. His legs are no better, immobilised in the same cold, mechanical hold. He tries to look down, and realises he isn’t lying in a bed at all. He’s upright, standing on a narrow plinth, his back pressed flat against some kind of rigid board. It holds him in place, pinning him like a specimen on display in the centre of the room.
White surrounds him on all sides. There is nowhere to look that doesn’t remind him how trapped he is.
Instinct immediately takes over. He struggles against the restraints, muscles burning as he pulls and twists, the straps biting into his skin. But they don’t give, not even a fraction. The sound of his own breathing seems too loud in the sterile silence.
Then he freezes. Giving away the fact that he’s awake is idiotic; he needs to use this time to plan, to escape. His heart pounds as he goes still, every nerve screaming as he forces himself not to move again. He holds his breath, listens, waits.
It doesn’t matter, though, because it’s too late.
Before he can gather his thoughts, the room comes alive. Doors slide open with a sharp hiss, the sound slicing through the quiet. Boots hit the floor in quick succession, heavy and purposeful. Army personnel flood in, their presence overwhelming, filling the space he had been so painfully aware of moments before.
And then there’s the General.
She steps into his line of sight, and something cold settles in his gut as she introduces herself. There’s nothing uncertain about her – no hesitation, and definitely no softness. Her gaze is sharp, calculating, like she’s already picked him apart piece by piece. When she speaks, it isn’t loud, but it doesn’t need to be. Authority clings to every word as she demands information. About the forest. About the resistance.
About Jake.
The name lands like a blow to the chest. His jaw tightens as they ask him for information, locations to give up Jake.
He refuses.
It hurts.
Fuck, does it hurt.
The pain blooms behind his eyes, sharp and electric, like his brain is being fried in real time. Green light whirls around him, spinning faster and faster until he can’t tell where it starts or ends. It crawls through his skull, flashes bursting against the inside of his vision at lightning speed.
Questions cut through the noise, deliberate and invasive, each one tugging at his mind, dragging memories dangerously close to the surface. Every word feels like a hook, pulling, probing, trying to tear something loose. He clenches his jaw, focuses on breathing, on anything except the lights, except the pain – but it’s impossible.
He tries to shut his eyes, but he can’t.
The plastic eyemask holds them open, merciless, forcing him to watch the spinning lights as they blur and fracture. Dizziness crashes over him in waves, his stomach lurching violently. He swallows hard, throat tight, bile burning at the back of his mouth. He feels like he’s going to be sick.
There are more restraints now. He can feel them even without looking – hard plastic pressing his chest back against the board, pinning him in place until it’s hard to breathe properly. A thick plastic collar locked around his neck, holding his head immobile. White plastic armatures are fixed to his face, cold and intrusive, buzzing faintly as they do whatever it is they’re meant to do.
He wants it off.
He needs it off.
Warm liquid slips from his nose, trailing down over his upper lip. Blood. seeping into his mouth, metallic and bitter on his tongue. He chokes on it as a scream rips from his throat, raw and desperate. He tells them he doesn’t know anything. Tells them again and again, voice breaking, tears blurring the awful green light.
They’ll have to kill him instead.
Because he’ll never tell.
It hurts.
The session ends unsuccessfully. For them, anyway.
They don’t bother with ceremony after that. Hands unclip him, drag him away, and the white room disappears behind sliding doors. When they finally dump him into a cell, the cold hits immediately – sharp and deliberate, seeping straight into his bones. The air is frigid enough that his breath fogs faintly in front of his face. They must have lowered the temperature on purpose.
Assholes.
The thought barely has any bite left in it. He’s too exhausted to summon real anger now. Every muscle aches, trembling with the aftermath of what they did to him. His head feels too heavy for his neck, his thoughts sluggish and blurred.
He doesn’t try to stay upright. Instead, he stumbles toward the centre of the room and collapses beneath the narrow table bolted to the floor, curling in on himself like an animal seeking shelter. He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his forehead against his knees.
The green lights are still there.
They spin faintly behind his eyelids, ghostly and persistent, refusing to fade no matter how hard he wills them away. His brain pulses painfully with every heartbeat, a dull, throbbing ache that makes it hard to think straight. There’s dried blood crusted on his face, sticky against his skin, smeared across his chest where it’s darkened his clothes. He’s too tired to wipe it away.
But he won’t give in. He can’t give in. No matter how much it hurts, no matter how badly his body wants to shut down, he holds onto that truth with everything he has left.
Besides, Jake will come for him.
Jake doesn’t come.
At first, Spider tells himself it’s only been a day. Maybe less. Time doesn’t work right here, where there’s no sun, no real sleep, and his brain is being turned to mush.
But then he goes back in that machine, two, three, four more times. So many times that he loses count, but he never tells them anything. Forces his mind to think about stupid facts Norm taught him when he was younger, Earth stuff, space stuff, nothing to do with Pandora, in case his mind wanders. It would only take one wrong thought for everything to go wrong.
The sessions blur together until they’re indistinguishable – white room, restraints biting into his skin, that awful green light drilling into his skull. But no matter how many times they drag him in, no matter how much it hurts, he never tells them anything.
He can’t afford to.
He has to stay strong.
They bring him back again. The restraints lock into place with familiar, horrible precision. It might be early – he doesn’t know anymore. His body feels heavy and slow, like it’s moving through water. All he knows is that it’s going to be a long day. He can feel it settling over him like a weight.
The General is there again.
She looks more irritated than before, the tight control she usually keeps slipping at the edges. Each failure has clearly worn on her, frustration bleeding into her voice, no matter how carefully she tries to mask it. Spider meets her gaze and gives her a bloodied smirk, his split lip pulling painfully at the motion.
That might have been a mistake.
Her expression hardens instantly. Without another word, she turns toward the darkened observation window and snaps, “Turn it all the way up.”
There’s no obvious response. No voice, no movement. But someone must say something into her earpiece, because she cuts them off sharply before they can finish. She turns back to him, her face severe, eyes cold and unwavering.
“You think I want to do this?” she says. “This is the consequence of your own actions, kid.” Her tone is clipped, impatient. “But I’ve got things to do and traitors to find. So let’s see if we can speed this process up a bit.”
The spinning starts to get faster. And faster. And faster.
Spider screams, as the pain slams into him all at once. It hurts, it hurts so much, and he can’t even begin to think about anything but pain, there’s no room in his head for anything else. No facts. No defenses. Just pain, white-hot and endless, like his brain is swelling, cracking, about to explode inside his skull.
There’s wetness on his face – tears, blood, he can’t tell anymore – and his vision fractures, the lights smearing into blinding streaks as his body begins to betray him and-
Everything goes black.
He wakes up, still restrained, but this time on a bed. The straps bite into his wrists and ankles differently, less cruelly, but they’re there nonetheless. A steady, incessant beeping fills the room, relentless, grating at the edges of his skull. It won’t shut up. It doesn’t stop.
When he squints his eyes open, the world is…still white.
Different walls, different floor, different shadows – but still white. Clinical. Cold.
There’s an IV in his arm. Cool liquid snakes through the tube and into him. Beside him, a monitor ticks out a steady rhythm, the beeping syncing with his rising pulse. Heart rate monitor. He knows what it is, but it doesn’t make it any less alarming.
Did he pass out?
He thought they wouldn’t care if he passed out. Figured they’d just toss him back into the cell and let him stew. So why is he here?
The beeping accelerates, sharp and insistent, and panic claws up his chest.
Then the door slides open.
A medic steps inside, eyes briefly lifting from a digipad to glance at him. Everything spikes at once: the sound, the light, the presence of someone else. Spider jerks his head, tries to speak – tries to demand, “Why am I here?”
But the words won’t form. His speech slurs, thick and useless. He can’t get it out.
The medic moves closer, voice gentle, hands lifting as if to reassure him. But Spider can’t hear properly. The words are garbled, bouncing off the edges of his mind, echoing strangely, like they’re underwater. Shapes of sound without meaning.
He blinks, trying to focus. His chest heaves, his stomach churns, his head pounds. Every sense is wrong.
What’s wrong with him?
A lot, it turns out.
It takes a while for him to come up from the muddied headspace, and he still isn’t sure if it's from the variety of drugs they pumped into him or the actual accident.
A seizure.
That’s what they tell him, anyway. That he had a seizure whilst in that awful machine, that he’d kind of…slumped down afterwards, limbs still shaking in the aftermath and expression awfully vacant.
But Spider doesn’t know all of this for a long time. No one bothers to tell him straight away. The hours stretch, quiet except for the mechanical beeping and his own uneven breathing. Everything in the room feels distant, as if he’s looking at it through thick, murky water.
Then, Quaritch shows up.
He ducks into the medbay like he owns the place, voice low but forceful. He spins his story, a blend of gruff fake reassurance and performance: how he supposedly ‘saved’ Spider, how strong Spider is, how he hated seeing him in that contraption, how they ‘pushed too hard.’ Every word presses against Spider’s clouded mind, but he doesn’t have the energy to respond. Not with anger, with fear, not even with recognition.
He can barely process anything. The words tumble over each other in his brain, half-understood fragments he can’t fully piece together. His chest feels tight with the weight of incomprehension.
He can barely compute that this blue Na’vi, this fake avatar, acts like he’s some kind of saviour to him. Not his father, of that Quaritch is certain, and Spider is even more so. It makes it even more confusing as to why the man is here.
Spider doesn’t see Quaritch’s reaction when his own lack of response becomes obvious, but he’s fairly certain it isn’t good. Not that it matters. He’s too tired. Too out of it.
For now, all he can do is lie there and feel the pulse of his own body, weak and uncertain, and let the world keep moving around him.
He spends a lot of time asleep.
When he’s asleep, no one can ask him about Jake. When he’s asleep, nothing hurts. Not the machine, not the restraints, not the pounding ache that radiates through his limbs even when he barely moves.
It’s safer in his head.
Asleep, he can hide. Asleep, he can’t be dragged back into that contraption, strapped down, forced to feel the green light drilling into his brain, his mind scrambling to keep secrets it barely understands. Sleep is the only control left to him.
He doesn’t know how long he stays there. Days? Weeks? Time has no meaning anymore. The sterile white walls bleed into each other, the beeping monitors and the distant shuffle of boots a vague, unanchored background hum. It doesn’t matter. Sleep is safe.
Occasionally, the world intrudes. Quaritch visits sometimes, his presence gruff, uneven, intrusive, like a shadow crossing the room. Once, he brings another of the fake avatars with him. The medics come and go, always hovering, always moving, speaking in clipped tones that Spider can barely register.
The General appears once. She strides in with all her usual authority, words sharp and deliberate. Spider remembers only the very start of her speech before the fog swallows it all, consciousness slipping back into the protective haze of sleep.
He thinks he hears someone talking about a “trauma response.”
The words drift in, disconnected, as meaningless and distant as a whisper on the wind. He doesn’t have the energy to care. He barely has the energy to exist.
And for now, that’s enough.
Eventually, he recovers.
Not fully, but enough. Enough that more of his thoughts belong to him again. Enough that he’s lucid more often than not, and the fog doesn’t swallow him whole. Enough that he can argue back with Quaritch without immediately crumpling under the weight of exhaustion or fear.
And Quaritch keeps coming.
He doesn’t know why. Doesn’t know what the man wants from him now. He’ll never give up the Sullys. That much has to be clear by now. Yet Quaritch doesn’t stop visiting, doesn’t back off, doesn’t leave him alone in this sterile cage.
And Spider hates it.
Hates that the man remembers things about him. Small things. Tiny, stupid things that feel like betrayals of his control. He remembers how the meds make Spider nauseous, how the fluorescent lights force his eyes to water. He tells the medics to dim them, to adjust the IV, without even being asked.
He hates that it’s him. Hates that someone sees these fractures in him, sees the edges where Spider isn’t strong, isn’t defiant, isn’t invincible. Hates the vulnerability he can’t hide, hates that it exists in the first place.
Every time Quaritch steps into the room, every time his gaze lingers, every time he adjusts something Spider hadn’t even realised was wrong – Spider feels it. The sharp, cold twist of being known.
He hates it.
And he hates that part of him wants it anyway.
During his hospital stay, he’d had a total of five seizures.
He doesn’t remember a single one.
They tell him there’s no direct cause. That it can happen anytime, anywhere. That he needs to be careful now.
Bullshit.
No direct cause? He’d never had seizures before that awful machine, before the white walls, before the green light drilled into his skull. Every tremor, every blackout, every violent jerk of his body – they were caused by them. By Quaritch. By the RDA.
It’s all their fault.
All Quaritch’s fault.
He screams it one evening. Screams it at the man kneeling beside him, leaning in with that fake concern Spider doesn’t trust, doesn’t want. He doesn’t know why Quaritch keeps bothering. What does he want from him? Redemption? Control? Attention? He can’t figure it out.
And yes, Quaritch gets annoyed, irritated at Spider’s outburst. But he also explains. And no one’s really done that yet.
Epilepsy.
That’s Spider’s diagnosis.
That at any time, he could seize. That his mind could go blank. That his body could twist violently, his limbs jerking, his legs kicking out, his mouth drooling with no control, no warning. That the ground could lurch beneath him, and he would be helpless.
He’s glad he can’t remember them. The seizures. That his brain blocks it out, protects him by taking him away. But it’s so, so, scary. Because what is he meant to do now?
How can he escape Bridgehead when his body could betray him at any second? How can he climb a tree in the forest, swing from vines, or fight when a seizure could knock him down in an instant?
The RDA did this to him. Wanted answers so badly that they fucked up his brain, and now he’s broken.
He screams this at Quartich too, spits the words in sharp shuddering bursts, his chest heaving. Hisses his anger at the man's feet after another seizure steals hours from him, as he’s lying there strapped back into the stupid bed, with those stupid white walls and he hates it he hates it he hates it-
The medication they put him on is trial and error.
He has no idea what’s in any of it. Weird liquids shoved down his throat, pills so large they scrape as he swallows them. Morning, midday, evening, and it’s sad, really, that the only way he can mark the hours in this endless maze of concrete and sterile white walls is by the taste and texture of these drugs.
Is he ever going to see the sky again?
Despite everything, despite the indignity and the nausea and the constant reminder of control, the medication works. Slowly, it claws back the edges of his mind. The seizures come less often. The fog lifts just enough that he can think, can feel his thoughts move instead of flailing through sludge.
But he’s waiting.
Waiting for the army grunts, the General, Quaritch, someone, to drag him back into that machine. Because now he’s ‘better,’ right? Because now he’s lucid and defiant and thinking.
So why wouldn’t they put him back in?
The thought curls in his stomach, tight and cold, a constant ache. He flinches at footsteps outside the door, at every click of the monitors.
But it doesn’t happen.
Instead, he’s taken in by the Recoms. It’s a choice that isn’t a choice, really. Go with Quaritch, or stay in the medbay where his luck will probably run out one way or another.
It’s a trial by fire; both options terrible.
He picks Quaritch.
The Recom’s barracks are bare necessities. Quaritch takes him around, introduces him to everyone properly. Wainfleet, Z-Dog, Mansk – all people he already knows from that day in the forest. He doesn’t mention it.
He has to wear his mask in the barracks. Spider’s not bothered by it at all – he’s spent more time in a mask than out of it at this point, even with the exception of the last couple of months.
But Quaritch still makes him practice putting it on correctly. Making sure the rubber seal is secure against his face. He ignores the slight tremble his fingers make when he performs the action, tiny betrayals running along his skin.
Once Quaritch is satisfied that Spider isn’t going to asphyxiate in the middle of the night, he’s binned off to an early bed, on the grounds of him ‘still recovering.’
He tries to eavesdrop on the conversations they have outside, but to no avail. He spends a week like that, purposeless, following Quartich around like a little lap dog, hissing at everyone and hiding with his back against walls, all outward anger and aggressiveness.
Eventually, Quaritch must get fed up with it, scruffing him around the neck and dragging him out from his hiding spots. He hisses and kicks fruitlessly at the Recom’s legs, and it’s so annoying that they are all so much taller, that Quaritch can just lift him up and move him around, keep him from escaping out of that restrctive grip. If he didn’t have a mask on, he’d bite the fucker.
But now, even this change becomes monotonous. There’s nothing for him to do here, just sit and take his pills, follow the Recoms around and try to toe the line between inconveniencing them and not getting his head taken off.
(don’t put him back in that cell-)
No one tells him anything. They don’t ask about Jake. They don’t ask about the forest. About High Camp. He drifts along, a ghost in their ranks. Z-Dog teaches him to shoot one day, and Spider swears he’s never seen Quaritch so pissed off. Even eating in the cafeteria becomes mundane, just another task.
It’s all…going fine.
And then he seizes again.
It happens in the hallway on the way to the barracks. Wainfleet and Ja are nearby, babysitting. Before he even hits the floor, they catch him, arms bracing his body as his mind blacks out. His limbs jerk and spasm violently, convulsing like water thrown against rocks. Ja keeps silent, timing the seizure as it creeps into the second minute.
His head rests against Wainfleet’s chest, his body lying against them as they hold him steady. The medics had warned him: a person having a seizure shouldn’t be restrained, that it could cause injury. But the Recoms are twice his size, and they can keep him safe.
(when did they become safe-)
He doesn’t remember any of this. Doesn’t remember being carried back to medical, the iv being inserted, Quaritch turning up, face tight and voice low as he interrogates the medics.
He doesn’t remember, eyes blank and expression vacant.
Things change after that. They change his medication (again), and Spider’s stuck in medical for a week before they let him out. When they finally discharge him, his first steps are shaky. Each movement feels foreign, untrustworthy. His legs wobble beneath him, and for a moment, he can’t tell if it’s fear or weakness that makes him stagger. And Quaritch isn’t there.
(Why isn’t he here? Spider needs him-)
Turns out it’s because Quartich is trying to convince the General to let Spider join them on training excursions. Under the guise of getting him to talk.
It’s stupid. Even Spider can admit that he’s a liability right now. No one wants a kid in a forest that could need medical extraction at any second. No amount of important information will prevent that.
But that’s what happens. Quartich wants him to teach them Na’vi stuff: food, climbing, the language. And in return, Spider gets to go outside, gets to see the sky.
He sits through the mission briefing with the rest of them, confusion rearing its head when Quartich hands out little cylinder tubes to each member.
“This is Midazol-A,” Quaritch says, his tone clipped and no-nonsense. “The most recent development from the medic department. If the kid starts seizing, you inject it into his thigh and wait for it to work. Keep his head steady and prevent any limbs from breaking. Everyone gets one, and I don’t want to hear any complaints.”
Spider’s face flushes red. The word kid feels like it’s branded across his forehead. His pulse spikes, embarrassment and a little fury twisting in his chest.
They all nod, slip the cylinders into their front pockets, but Spider can barely focus. He feels exposed, tiny, fragile. Yet…there’s a thrill underneath that, too. He’ll be outside. He’ll be moving, climbing, tasting air that isn’t recycled through hospital vents.
It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating.
He can’t tell if it’s the sky calling him or the rebellion in his own chest, but he knows one thing for sure: he’s alive, and for once, he’s moving forward.
The first time he seizes outside is terrifying, but also comforting. This time, he can feel the ground beneath his hands as he shakes, and he can hear the creatures in the air. Can feel Eywa’s presence all around him. Although Quaritch disregards his explanation for the increase in lucidness, snorting at the idea of Eywa interfering with modern medicine.
Spider punches him for it. Quartich doesn’t even flinch. Stupid stronger body.
It could have also been due to the new Auto-Injector they all had. He doesn’t remember Ja stabbing him in the thigh with it, but the seizure had lasted only half the time as his previous ones, so whatever was in it must have been effective.
His leg aches, though, so he’ll side with Eywa.
When the Recom’s get their Ikrans, he’s almost not allowed to go with them. Quaritch tells him it's too ‘dangerous’, even though Spider’s scrambled up that rock face hundreds of times to watch Omatikaya Warriors complete their Iknimaya.
It’s annoying. He argues that they’ll never make it up there without him, even with gps mapping, but Quaritch stands firm on the decision.
He has one seizure whilst they’re away. After that, there’s always one Recom left behind with him. And now it really does feel like babysitting duty.
Whatever they put in that Auto-Injector is good stuff. It stops his seizures in record time and leaves him less tired than before, but there’s a side effect.
He doesn’t notice until Z-Dog points it out. “You always jerk your head to the side like that?” She asks him one day, as a bunch of them are eating in the cafeteria.
He pauses, spoon brought up towards his mouth as he stares at her in confusion, “What?”
Z-Dog leans back slightly, tilting her head, “Every so often, your head jerks to the right. It’s the same motion every time, like a tic or something.”
His face heats instantly. His spoon shakes slightly in his hand, and he laughs awkwardly, trying to downplay it, forcing the motion into something casual. He doesn’t want anyone to notice. Doesn’t want them to see him like this—fragile, marked, not fully in control of his own body.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Quaritch watching the conversation. Quiet, calculating, eyes narrowing. Spider’s stomach tightens.
Before he can even finish his forced laugh, before he can shove the embarrassment down into a manageable corner of his mind, Quaritch appears at his side.
“We’re going to medbay,” he says, tone clipped, final.
“I’m seriously fine,” Spider protests, voice rising despite himself. “There’s no need to be this dramatic-”
Quaritch ignores him. Grabs his arm, firm but not cruel, and guides him toward the medbay. Spider’s legs feel lighter, almost flighty, but the tension coils tight in his chest. Every step reminds him that he’s not just dealing with scars in his head, he’s being watched all the time.
Even this small, strange movement, this minor side effect of the medication, has put him back under scrutiny.
He hates it.
They change his meds. Switch up the pills and the drugs in the Auto-Injector, new concoctions, and Spider still doesn’t know what they are made of.
The tic goes away, though. But the new pills…they make him feel weird. Like his senses are dulled, his emotions flattened. Sometimes his thoughts and actions are delayed by the tiniest amount.
Quaritch tells him he just needs to get used to the new ones.
In the meantime, he gets used to the forest again. If he pretends hard enough, he can ignore the sounds of the Recombatants stumbling around in the forest like a baby Pali taking its first steps. Can pretend that Kiri and Lo’ak are just up ahead and that everything's fine.
It’s nice to pretend.
But it doesn’t last.
Reports of a Samsung Carrier heading out towards the Weston Sea Front are reported, and Spider’s heart drops straight into his stomach.
Norm.
It has to be. And if Norm is flying out there, then Jake is out there. And the Recom’s know it as well, he can see it in the way they stiffen, the way the air in the room shifts from bored readiness to sharp focus.
“Gear up! We’re flying out in twenty!” Quaritch shouts, and everything explodes into motion.
Weapons are pulled from racks. Tech is handed off in brisk, efficient movements. The airstrip fills with the metallic clatter of equipment and raised voices barking confirmations. Spider watches it all from the edge, heart hammering, pulse thudding too loud in his ears.
Someone grabs a large bag packed with human meds – his meds – and slings it over their shoulder like it’s just another piece of equipment. The sight makes something cold settle in his chest.
Then Quaritch is in front of him.
He doesn’t ask. He just moves Spider, guiding him toward one of the carriers and seating him inside, dropping down onto one knee so they’re eye level. His hand grips Spider’s shoulder, firm and grounding and entirely unwanted.
“I want you on your best behaviour,” Quaritch says, voice low but sharp. “You got that? No funny business, kid.”
Spider slaps his hand away without thinking, anger flaring hot and fast. “Don’t touch me.”
Quaritch doesn’t rise to it. He just straightens and turns away as the engines begin to whine, the sound vibrating through Spider’s bones.
It’s only once they lift off – only once the ground drops away beneath them – that Spider’s thoughts finally catch up.
How did Quaritch even get approval for this?
Spider’s never been out to the ocean before. He doesn’t know the clans there, doesn’t know their customs, their language variations, their rules. And Quaritch is almost fluent in Na’vi now. The Recoms don’t need Spider for translation. They don’t need him for knowledge.
So why bring him at all?
The thought gnaws at him as the carrier roars through the sky, as the horizon stretches out endlessly ahead.
They don’t need him.
But they want him.
And that realisation is somehow worse.
They land on a tulkun hunting ship. Spider feels nauseous at the thought, and it’s clear that the captain, Scoresby, doesn’t want them there either; he looks them over like an infestation. His lip curls as Quaritch steps forward, and the two men square off in a brief, sharp standoff – human arrogance clashing with military authority. It ends the way Spider expects: with tension still thick in the air and neither of them satisfied.
They make their way inside the ship, and it’s obvious that it’s not built for the Recoms taller statures, all of them having to duck through doorways.
“And what's up with this one? I don’t need some half-naked feral kid on my ship,” Scoresby says snidely, and Spider hisses at him in response. Scoresby looks unimpressed.
“Leave the kid be, Scoresby,” Quaritch snaps. “It’s above your paygrade.”
Spider turns away immediately, intent find somewhere else on this ship that he can hole up in, but a large blue hand catches his arm and stops him.
“Alright, kid,” Quaritch says, firm and immovable, “Let’s set down some ground rules.”
Spider groans, “Again? I already told you that I can swim.”
“Yeah, and I ain’t buying that. Your definition of swimming is playing around in a knee-deep river, so forgive me if I don’t have faith in you being able to keep your head above water if you fall overboard,” Quaritch snipes back at him, then reaches into a nearby crate and pulls out some type of army flack jacket.
It’s small, human-sized. But it still doesn’t look like the ones the Recoms are wearing – still green, with pockets and shoulder straps, but definitely different. It’s made of the same fabric, but there's something almost plastic-like sitting within the fabric strips. Spider stares at it quizzically. For all of Quartich’s controlling tendencies, he’s never forced Spider into human clothing before. So why now?
Quartich must see his visible confusion, “It self-inflates – you pull this tab, and the slits at the sides and top will inflate and keep you afloat in the water until one of us can get to you.”
He goes to argue immediately, when his eyes catch on one more thing. On the top of one of the breast pockets, a bright red patch is sewn on.
Medical Alert – Epilepsy
Seizure Medication Inside
“What.”
“Whilst we’re out on the water, you’ll wear this. It’s non-negotiable.”
“But-”
“Ah! Zip it – there will be times when I can’t be with you, and I don’t trust any of the incompetent researchers on this ship to know what to do in case of an emergency. In that pocket is an Auto-Injector – the one for your thigh, you remember?”
How can he not, he’s only had that injection about five fucking times, but he can’t even make a snarky comment because Quartich is still talking.
“There’s also a waterproof container with duplicates of your pills. These are emergency back-ups only – got it? In case you end up stranded or away from the ship, which ain’t gonna happen, but it's good to have contingency plans. I’ve got the same stuff in my vest, and you already know that all the recoms have an Auto-Injector on them.”
“But I don’t want to wear this,” he protests, and yeah – it comes out whinier than he means it to.
“I don’t care. You wanna stay out here? Or do you wanna get shipped back to Bridgehead? Because those are your options, and if you wanna stay here, you gotta wear the vest.”
He wears the vest.
The first village they visit, Spider wasn’t ready. In hindsight, he doesn’t know what he’d been expecting – but it wasn’t this.
Fire, and screams, and Quartich holding a Na’vi at gunpoint and threatening to kill her and Spider begging for their lives. Translating desperately that these people don’t know anything, pleading to Quartich to have mercy.
It’s an awful nightmare.
And Spider had thought, he’d thought that Quaritch had changed. Just a little – he’d been different these last few months. And now Spider feels like an iditot. Because he hasn’t changed at all. Still the same evil man that doesn’t care about people's lives, doesn’t care about the casualties that are made in the process of completing his mission.
Spider feels like a fool.
It happens again. And again.
It’s never ending.
Their on their way back to the ship when Spider has a seizure. He tips sideways off of Cupcake, only saved by Quaritch’s arms around him. And then he’s jerking, head hitting Quartich’s chest as his leg kicks out and he accidentally kicks the Ikrans ear.
He doesn’t fall into the water, but it’s a close shave. And afterwards, Quaritch is…careful. They don’t invade anymore villages for a week, and when whispers of it start up again, Spider has a plan.
“I feel weird.”
It’s a gamble. Quartich knows that Spider never has prior warning to his seizures, that he could just be lying to get out of having to go. Which he is.
But whatever look Spider must have on his face, it works.
Quaritch gives him a look, then agrees to let him stay on board. He tries not to slump in relief.
It’s not a relief when the Recoms return, blood all over their bodies and someones Songcord in their hand and it's a nightmare-
“You killed them!” He screams at Quaritch, who doesn’t even look phased.
“Well, maybe if you’d been there, this need’nt of happened. There are consequences to your actions, kid. And I don’t appreciate lying. Next time you decide you wanna use your serious medical condition as a lie to get out of something, I’ll give you an ass-whoopin'.”
He’s gonna throw up.
He got those people killed, they died because of him, because he’s selfish and he lied and now they're dead and there’s blood on his hands and-
There’s a large hand cupping his head as he gags and sobs, “Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay – I know you didn’t mean it. And you’ll never do it again, will you?”
He goes on the next mission.
They start to blur together. Fires and dead animals and gunfire and Na’vi screaming. It’s all he can hear in his head when he tries to sleep.
They still don’t find Jake Sully.
Spider doesn’t bother to tell the Recoms that they never will, that the Na’vi will never give up Toruk Makto, that all of this is pointless.
He can see that Quaritch is frustrated – angry, planning something. He won’t tell Spider anything, and he hates being left in the unknown. Hates the fear that creeps in, because what is Quartich going to do?
It’s when he feels the sound of the boat picking up speed that he gets worried. Quaritch had dumped him back into one of the research rooms, told him to stay put – but he should know by now that Spider never listens.
He creeps out along the corridor, but alarmingly, there’s no personnel anywhere. By the time he gets to the bridge, the sound of other airships flying in overhead can be heard.
Whatever’s happening, it’s big.
And then something explodes.
Not their ship – but close enough that the shockwave rattles through the hull, throwing Spider off balance. Alarms scream to life. Voices erupt. The orderly quiet of the ship dissolves into chaos as crew members shout over one another, scrambling to stations. And Spider realises that this is it.
This is his one chance.
Everythings a blur after that. He thinks he smashes a fire extinguisher across the main control panel, metal slamming and sparks flying. The ship lurches violently as systems fail, and the deck tilts hard to one side. Somewhere outside, the hull scrapes against rock with a scream of tearing metal.
Shooting starts up outside as two security guards grab Spider and drag him backwards, but before they can lock him up somewhere, the side panelling of the boat cracks.
The breathable air immediately starts leaking out, and everyone panics as they try to fit exo-packs onto their faces. Spider escapes in the commotion, slipping further back as he puts his own mask on.
He needs to get out.
Something rocks the boat. Maybe. Or maybe not. He just knows that one second he was running down a corridor, and the next second everything hurts, and his eyes are blurry, and he’s on the ground.
No.
This is not the time to have a seizure.
Except he had. Everything hurts, and his limbs are still shaking in the aftermath, and his head is pounding – did he hit it against the floor?
He can’t stand up.
He heaves himself onto his side. It’s not graceful. It could have taken hours. There’s smoke coming from one of the doorways.
He needs to get out-
He’s crawling along the white flooring, practically dragging his body along, and he can’t think-
Does he need to inject himself with the Auto-Injector? But the seizure is already over. Would it even have any effect? He’d never asked what he should do if he was on his own, because he’d never been on his own. Someone had always been there, Quaritch had always been there-
He swallows a pill just in case. It won’t do any harm; he’s probably nearly due for one anyway.
He stops crawling when his hand hits something warm, something living-
Except not.
There’s a dead body in front of him.
He doesn’t know them, but he gags anyway, spit dripping down his skin, trapped in his mask, mixing with the drool no doubt drying on his face from the seizure and he desperately wants to wipe his face, but he can’t because he’s wearing his mask and-
He needs to change his mask.
The tracker – he can’t keep wearing it. Quaritch would be able to find him immediately.
He stares down at the dead body in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” he croaks out, as he takes the mask off their face. It feels unbelievably unfair to take it, but they’re already gone. And Spider needs to live.
He swaps the mask out. Wipes his face at the same time. Blood comes away on the back on his hand, and he hopes it’s just from his nose, and not anything worse.
Swapping his mask takes all his energy, and he lies there beside her dead body for minutes, trying to prepare for what's to come.
He needs to find the exit, needs to swim out, needs to find somewhere safe.
He can barely move.
Why does this hurt more than all the other times?
In the end, he doesn’t get himself out; Lo’ak and Neteyam do.
He can hear Lo’ak questioning why he’s stumbling, why he’s slurring his words slightly, and why he’s wearing human clothing.
But Spider is too busy trying to put one foot in front of the other to reply with anything coherent. They stumble along, making their way down to the moonpool, and they are so close, meters away, when gunfire lights up.
And it’s a Recom, although he can’t see who, wants to scream at them to stop firing, that it’s him – but he knows deep down that they wouldn’t care anyway. Everything was about the mission, Spider was just a tagalong their leader was keeping around as some sort of asset.
They jump into the water, Spider suddenly extremely glad for his mask because everything is so chaotic and dark, and Quaritch was right, Spider wasn’t a strong swimmer.
He’s struggling in the water, trying to push his limbs through the water to get to the surface, but everything's so heavy, the water, the limbs, his head…
At the last second, he pulls on the emergency release of the tactical vest, and the half sections inflate. He doesn’t know how, because there’s no air around him to even use, but he doesn’t care. Whatever scientific bullshit they used to make it, it works.
He breaks the surface with a panicked gasp of air – completely irrelevant that he could breathe with his mask on anyway, because that was terrifying.
Lo’ak is beside him, and then Neteyam surfaces and-
“I got shot.”
No, no, no – not Neteyam. Not Neteyam, this isn’t fair-
They drag him onto an outcrop, heave him onto the soaking rocks with a Metkayina girl that Spider doesn’t recognise, and he whips the vest off to try and put pressure on the wound, but it’s not working-
And then Jake and Neytiri are there, and Neteyam’s dying, he’s dying and it’s all Spider’s fault and Quaritch is speaking into Jake’s comms, and Neytiri is screaming-
He wants to wake up now.
They have to leave him. Leave him there with Tsireya whilst they go and confront Quaritch because he’s got Kiri and Tuk and Spider will never forgive himself if anything happens to them.
Seeing Kiri being held hostage by Quaritch is Spider’s worst nightmare. He can barely hear Quaritch as the man yells at Jake, threatens to kill Kiri, and Spider is screaming at him, begging to let her go and it's the same. The same as all those villages and Spider can’t do this anymore-
“Boy, where’s your vest? I give you one goddamn rule, and you can’t even follow that?” Quaritch is yelling at him, still shaking Kiri around with a gun against her head, and the situation is simply so bizarre that Spider has to laugh. Tries not to look like he had a seizure thirty minutes ago, that he’s fine, that he can somehow convince Quaritch to let her go.
“That’s what you're worried about?” He says, incredulous.
And then he’s under Neytiri’s knife.
And he knows this is the end, because Neytiri is ruthless, and that’s her daughter. And Spider is so so scared, but he understands. His limbs are shaking, but he doesn’t know if it's from the seizure or from fear of what’s about to happen.
His head jerks to the side uncontrollably, Neytiri hissing at him for moving, and then there’s a knife coming down, and he wants to close his eyes, but he’s so scared, and all he can do is look at Quartich, eyes wide and desperate and-
Quaritch throws Kiri to the side.
Let’s go of his advantage. For Spider.
Neytiri throws Spider behind her, and the boat shifts. And then it's a case of getting out. Of fire everywhere and water flooding in, and Jake and Quaritch scrabbling on the ground trying to gain the upper hand.
He’s back in the water, and he’s so tired. He doesn’t know how much more he can do.
He’s alone for ages, losing track of everyone else, and it would be so easy to sink down. No more lifevest, no more seizures. He’s floating, limbs tredding water, but he’s got no energy left, there’s nothing left to give.
But then he sees him. Quaritch, sinking down to the bottom of the reef.
And Quaritch is a terrible, terrible man. But he cared. Cared for Spider when nobody else did. And Spider can’t let him die.
He can’t.
Dragging himself back down into the water's depths, except he can’t lift Quaritch up. The Recom is dead weight, and he’s so much bigger than Spider. He can’t lift him.
He can’t save his dad.
He’s shaking the Recoms shoulder, and he won’t wake up and he can’t do this again-
His eyes glance down at Quaritch’s tactical vest. At the pocket where Spider’s meds are kept.
‘An Auto-Injector gives a burst of adrenaline…’
It’s an insane idea, and it probably won’t even work, but it’s all he’s got. Quickly, his fingers scramble, ripping open the front pocket of Quaritch’s tactical vest, finding the Auto-Injector and slamming it into Quartich’s thigh.
He’s never used it before, never had to, he doesn’t even know what the potential consequences could be on using it on someone who doesn’t have epilepsy, so doesn’t even have a human body-
Quaritch gasps awake, water filling his lungs in panic as Spider tries to start pulling them up. It takes the man a few seconds to get him bearings, but then he’s pushing up off the sea floor, swimming when up towards the surface.
Practically carrying Spider by the end, because there’s no energy left.
They drag each other up onto an outcrop, holding onto each other and gasping air. Cupcake has already landed, a loyal Ikran to the end.
The other side effects are starting to hit Quartich, expression flat and confused as he stumbles towards Cupcake. Spider shoves him forward until the man climbs onto the back of his Ikran, and then Quaritch is holding a hand out, tipping slightly from the dizziness.
‘Come with me, son.’
Spider hisses at him, then jumps in the water.
He’s got no energy left, but he’ll always have enough to get away. And Quaritch isn’t well enough to follow.
It enters his head as he escapes that he’s got no meds with him anymore. No pills, no Auto-Injectors, no help.
It will be fine, though.
Probably.