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Norm had grown closer to Neytiri because of many reasons, but to call himself comfortable around Jake’s mate, especially if the man wasn’t there with his wife, was a stretch. So he was now more than a little nervous that she was here, and they were alone, and he had yet to know what the reason for the unusual visit was.
Norm was not in his avatar – which made him more intimidated, the lab felt so small with her being there – not just because she was a Na’vi – it was HER. Neytiri’s golden eyes trained on his face, strangely missing their normal ferocity – ‘Or concentration,’ Norm replaced in his head.
“Norm…“
The scientist straightened his back without meaning to at the sound of his visitor’s voice. “Yes?” The Na’vi language slid from his mouth easily, though he was nervous.
“Jake has been a soldier – a marine – all his life, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And he said that he only had VE benefits when he was discharged?”
“VA benefits,” Norm corrected, “Yes, right.”
‘VA,’ Neytiri whispered to herself and took a long inhale of the Na’vi-compatible air from the mask about her neck. “He said that he had counseling, but briefly, to help with the trauma.”
Norm nodded.
“The trauma, he said it’s called post-traumatic – uhm…” she stopped, waiting for Norm to complete the medical term.
“J-Just PTSD.”
“Yes, that,” Neytiri said. She contemplated how to go on. “Jake wakes up at night, Norm, gasping for air after what I think is an evil memory, or shivering even when it’s not cold. He sometimes screams and screams, and then he cries, sobs, afterwards.”
Norm knew what that was like. He had seen it, both with Jake and with Trudy (his Trudy) when they were stationed at the Shack. He nodded for Neytiri to say more.
“I feel – I feel helpless when he is like that. I have asked Mother for the brew that we give our warriors who have troubles after battles, but nothing helped. She said Jake’s earth memories are buried so deep, her herbs cannot reach them.” She held Norm’s gaze. “I want to make it go away. It hurts me so much to see him – fall apart.”
“He came here a few days ago,” Norm said, “He was asking for Zoloft or prazosin – er, the drugs we have back on earth, but we’ve run out of those for a month now…”
“What can I do?” Neytiri reached out, taking Norm’s small hands in hers. Her eyes were pleading.
Norm could feel her desperation, and he knew that if her husband’s nightmares had a physical form, she’d have no qualms of destroying them – again and again if she had to.
“I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, Neytiri, I don’t heal minds, so I don’t know what to say or do.”
Norm heard her inhale quickly, almost shakily. She seemed much too emotional these days, he noted, maybe he needed Max or Mo’at to have a look at her. He parked the additional thoughts for now.
“But Trudy said they need grounding to get back. See, they get transported to the horrors they’d experienced so they need something to bring them back to the present to knock the moment off.”
“Did she tell you how?”
“Well, it really differs per person,” Norm said. “I sprayed cologne on my wrist, and made her smell it one time, when I didn’t find any meds in her med bag, and it worked. She was crying but she thanked me,” he smiled in recollection. “She said the scent was so awful it beat the nightmare away.”
Neytiri smiled. “I wish sometimes we were able to bring her to Vitraya Ramunong… We have a lot to thank her for. And she was a good woman.”
Norm felt a lump form in his throat. He didn’t know the beautiful Na’vi in front of him had felt so warmly for his Trudy.
“So something truly separate from the lived trauma that takes them away from it,” he said simply.
Neytiri fell silent, adjusting how she was crouched, deep in thought. She took another lungful of air from the mask, and then her eyes lit up. “A song.”
Norm blinked at her. “What do you mean? Like a lullaby?”
“No,” Neytiri said. “A song from earth. I can try to sing one to him.”
Norm perked up at the idea. “Yeah, that could work; but which song?”
“Hmm… Are there songs about love on earth?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s been so tragically AI-slop filled that I can’t say Jake would appreciate anything like – wait! Let me just message Max.” He shot up from his seat and typed noisily on the screen, tapping the table as he waited for a reply.
He could feel Neytiri move closer to his side, looking at the screen, too. He smiled at her. “He said his mom liked singing this one song that his dad used to sing to her, and she plagued him with her terrible singing every chance she got.” A message pinged on screen as he chuckled. “It became his favorite in the end.” He clicked on Max’s reply.
“Wise men say?” Neytiri read. “But Jake said wisemen are those that came because of a bright star. How can that be a song about love?”
“Ah, no, wise men, not wisemen,” Norm said and Neytiri nodded. “He sent me the song lyrics,” Norm explained, grinning. I just need to look for the song here in the archives.” He typed a reply to Max, thanking him and saying he’ll talk to him later why he was asking for the song.
“So there’s Elvis’ take and there’s this actual tune they said the song came from called Plaisir d’ Amour,” Norm said, showing Neytiri the two videos, playing the French one first. She looked very intrigued, her mouth working out how the short-haired singer playing a guitar said the words.
“This second one is Elvis.”
He hit play and the legendary singer’s deep, soulful voice filled the lab. Neytiri was silent beside him, Norm noted, reading the lyrics and listening to the melody. Her golden eyes were deep and tearful with understanding of the words.
“Can’t Help Falling in Love,” Neytiri said as the song ended, her voice just above a whisper.
Norm thought how the lyrics resonated with her. It made so much sense; it made his own heart ache.
“I’ll send a copy to your computer,” he told her, his eyes tearing up.
“Thank you, Norm.”
///
Neytiri came back to Norm after two hours, asking him to listen to her sing her version of the song and if it would be enough should she see the need to try and get Jake back from the grip of his terrible night terrors. Norm had heard Neytiri sing several times before, her voice pure and strong, and though he was no singer himself, he knew she had a way to tug at the heartstrings of whoever could hear.
He wiped his eyes, sniffling, after she was done.
“It’s beautiful,” he managed, and Neytiri smiled at him, giving his hand a short squeezed before she left the lab. Norm was just happy, and he knew it would work.
It did.
Jake told him so not even a week after his and Neytiri’s musical exploration. His friend had one of the orphaned Na’vi children with him, saying that his wife had taken the bigger kids out to replenish their food and water supply. Plus Mo’at, their tsahik, had gone with her to gather the best herbs and roots for making certain medicaments. She said they were using up all the stocks because of the consistent raids their olo’eyktan, Jake, was launching.
Norm shook his head, knowing that the tsahik of the Omatikaya was thankful of her son-in-law’s taking up the reigns of leadership after Tsu’tey’s passing.
The smallest child Jake brought with him was enjoying a very rare and super secret cup of chocolate as they talked, and it was enough to distract her as she sat on Norm’s knee. He was in his avatar then, having just returned from picking up a cartload of unspent AR ammos that had gotten washed onshore downriver after the heavy rains two days ago.
“She told me you helped her find the song,” Jake’s smile was warm. “I had to thank you personally so here we are.”
Norm waved that away. “Come on, Jake. There’s no need for that. I’m just glad it did what we’d hoped it would do for you.”
Jake was suddenly silent, and Norm peered at him above the girl’s head, watching several emotions cross his face one after the other – sadness, fear, trepidation, anger and resignation, which eventually ended with a small, grateful smile.
“Healing, Norm,” he said, looking at his upturned palms on his lap. “I didn’t know it was even possible – until she sang to me. Pulled me out of there, where it was so dark…”
///
It was different from his other episodes. Neytiri had but a split second to slip away from her mate’s grasping hands; otherwise he would have done her violence that she was sure he had no intent on visiting on her. Her chest rose and fell fast as if she had run through the forest instead of having awoken from deep slumber.
Jake’s eyes were open but unseeing, lips folding over teeth and sharp fangs as he hissed at an invisible villain. He was crouched on their sleeping mat, tense, attack-ready as only a predator would be. Neytiri circled him, quiet and careful, hardly making a din on the floor.
She watched as her mate’s eyes focused on his enemy, his tail whipping behind him. Sweat trickled from his temples, rolling down his chin, his breath ragged.
“Ma Jake…” she whispered. “It is me, and you are safe.”
Jake hissed, spit flying, nostrils flaring.
“Vrrtep!” he shouted, knife in hand, ready to strike.
Neytiri watched his eyes, his pupils as small as dots as they followed a phantom shadow, not her.
“You are home and I am here with you, Ma Jake…”
“Stop! I’ll kill you!” Jake spat, his ears pinned onto his head as he flipped the knife so its blade was now positioned perfectly to slash at whoever or whatever that came at him.
Neytiri’s tail swished off the floor as she rose, steadily, slowly. She knew it was not her that her husband was seeing and she had no reason to be afraid.
“You will do no such thing,” she said, side-stepping to the wide arc around him, another predator herself, stalking. She kept her arms chest-level, a shield, just in case of her mate’s sudden attack, but Jake’s eyes remained trained to the front.
Jake growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating in the small space. Neytiri hissed at him, testing his senses, but seeing his ears stay flat against the sides of his head, her thoughts were confirmed – he wasn’t seeing or hearing her, so deep was he in his waking nightmare.
“Mawey,” Neytiri said softly. She kept her stance low to the ground, crowding Jake from behind, her breath slow and controlled. She took another step so that she was exactly shadowing his form.
Just then, Jake started to rise to his full height, aiming the knife at something to his left. He hissed sharply as he stabbed at it, and then ducked as if his attacker had retaliated. From his position, he wasn’t able to evade Neytiri as she leapt effortlessly atop him from the back, her long, strong legs and arms wrapping about him. Jake’s legs buckled, the fall bringing inertia enough for Neytiri to roll them forward.
Jake growled as they grappled, grunting as he slammed his elbow again and again at the demon’s side to throw it off his back, but he failed. His enemy was stronger now and it was constricting his breathing with its arms locked about his head and neck. Shaking his head, he took gasping breaths, his lungs burning from the futility of his efforts.
No no no no… He mumbled as his face slackened and his arms fell. Now he was going to die, was his last thought before unending darkness overtook his body.
Like a river flows, surely to the sea... There was a voice, sweet and peaceful, drawing the cloying hands of death away from his lungs.
Darling, so it goes, some things are meant to be… Jake remembered it, his mother standing by the stove, a wooden spoon in her hand as she sang to him.
Take my hand, take my whole life, too... He could see her – his beloved mate – Neytiri, her warm, welcome smile; She, choosing him as her bonded soul before the Great Mother…
For I can't help falling in love with you… Jake knew the voice, he was sure of it – My Love – his only happiness, the only meaning in his life…
“For I can’t help falling in love with you,” Neytiri’s heart swelled in her love for him, more so as he opened his golden eyes to look into hers, his hand reaching up to touch her face. “Ma Jake, you are with me…”
“Baby…” Jake smiled, his heart echoing the song she was singing in hers.
Neytiri chuckled as she placed her own hand on top of his cupping her cheek and lifting it to kiss his fingertips and palm.
“Another one of your Sky People words?” she teased.
“It means you’re precious to me, and I’ll take care of you,” he replied, grinning like an idiot. “Uhm, it’s prrnen in Na’vi,” he explained, hoping she’d get it.
“Skxawng,” she giggled; annoyed and amused.
“Your skxawng…”
“Yes, mine only.”
///
Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can’t help falling in love with you…
The night sky was glowing, as the forest was, the breeze soft. They took the path to Hometree where small plants, flowers and young trees were now growing, luminescent, bright in their new abundance, their feet taking them to where they first met – where she had been destined to be.
Shall I stay? Would it be a sin if I can’t help falling in love with you?
Jake’s firm hand was warm in hers – her beloved – her most important choice, a deviance, a defiance that she still did not regret.
Like a river flows surely to the sea, Darling, so it goes some things are meant to be…
The Great Mother had guided her hand, then her heart, seeing him for who he was, beyond the skin, deep into his soul – yes, it had been written in the stars.
Take my hand. Take my whole life, too, for I can’t help falling in love with you…
Without hesitation she had given him herself, her life, the chartered plan, gone – because it was what she had known was right, what her happiness was – a lifetime with him.
For I can’t help falling in love with you…
///
Neytiri smiled. Jake paused, and brushed his thumb on her cheek.
“My light,” he said, kissing her hair.
“Ma Jake…” she closed her eyes.
He brought his arms around her, his heartbeat strong against her cheek, his scent filling her senses. Then he sat them down on the soft mossy ground, letting her head lean on his chest as their eyes met, his hand laid protectively on her still-flat belly, cradling the new, precious life blooming in her.
“Sing to me again, Neytiri,” he said, “Keep me safe.”
“I will, my marine…” she said, placing her hand on top of his.
“Wise men say only fools rush in, but I can’t help falling in love with you…”
///
<3