Astra

Part 1: To belong

Part 2: To dream

Part 3: To gift

Part 4: To think

Part 5: To try

Part 6: To joke

Part 7: To long

Part 8: To chat

Part 9: To see

Part 10: To touch

Part 11: To ask

Part 12: To feel

Part 13: To kiss

Part 14: To sneak

Part 15: To linger

Part 16: To want

Part 17: To worship (NSFW)

Part 18: vol 1.: To remember

Part 18: vol 2: To remember (Slight NSFW)

Part 19: To carry (NSFW)

Part 20: To suffer

Part 21: To expect (NSFW)

Part 22: To lost

Part 23: To break

Part 24: To breath

Part 25: To thread

Part 26: To change

Part 27: To go home

Part 28: To love

Part 29: To protect

Part 30: To be afraid

Part 31: (Soon)

Two days later, the outpost rose out of the trees like a bad memory made of steel.

You stood at the edge of the clearing with your exo-mask sealed tight over your face, the plastic visor catching a pale slice of sky. The air inside the mask tasted faintly of recycled oxygen and antiseptic—safe, sterile, familiar. Your lungs didn’t need it anymore, not really. Not after everything. But Neteyam had made you promise.

Not asked. Promised.

They don’t deserve that piece of you, he’d said, jaw tight, eyes brighter than fire. Not after they buried you while you were still breathing.

You’d laughed then, because the fierceness in him was almost comical—your gentle Neteyam turning into a wall with teeth the moment the outpost entered the conversation. But even your amusement had tasted like tenderness. Protective didn’t even cover it. He was guarding you like a secret, like a miracle no one else was allowed to touch.

Kiri hovered beside you a moment longer than necessary, shoulders tense, eyes scanning the outpost’s perimeter with that quiet, uncanny intensity.

“I don’t like leaving you here,” she said flatly.

You bumped your shoulder against her hips through your jacket. “I know.”

Kiri’s stare cut to your mask. “And I don’t like that, either.”

You made a muffled sound behind the glass that turn into a laugh. “Tell your brother that.”

Her lips twitched, almost a smile, but it didn’t last. “If anything feels wrong,” she warned, “you leave. You don’t argue. You don’t wait. You just go.”

“I will,” you promised. “Nothing can happen to me here. It’s literally the safest place on this moon.”

Kiri’s eyes said you were an idiot, but she accepted the promise anyway. She reached out, briefly touched two fingers to your shoulder—half blessing, half grounding—and backed away.

“I’ll be back in the afternoon,” she said. “Before Neteyam returns from the hunt.”

“Go,” you urged gently. “He’ll pace a hole through the village if you’re late.”

Kiri rolled her eyes, then melted back into the green, leaving you alone with the metal bones of your old life.

You let out a long breath that fogged the inside of your mask for a moment.

Then you walked.

The airlocks opened with the same tired mechanical sigh you’d heard a thousand times. The entry corridor smelled the same too—sterile cleaner, recycled air, faint oil and dust. You expected comfort, expected your body to settle into the rhythm of fluorescent light and hum, but instead it felt like stepping into someone else’s clothes. Familiar, yes. But wrong at the seams.

You put your mask on the hook, what was under your name’s sticker.

Four years.

You’d lived here for four years. You knew every squeak in the floor panels, every stubborn door that stuck when humidity spiked, every spot in the hallway where the lights flickered. This place had been your home on Pandora long before Neteyam’s kelku ever existed.

And still, as you walked deeper, you felt… displaced. Like the forest had rewritten you while you were gone, and the outpost hadn’t gotten the update.

Two weeks in the jungle. Two weeks that felt like an entire lifetime folded into fourteen nights.

You’d already seen your team the day Neteyam found you—seen their shock, their guilt, their disbelief. But the bruise hadn’t faded.

Because you’d heard it.

Presumed dead. Missing in action. Replacement requested. Room packed.

You weren’t trying to be dramatic. You weren’t trying to be some whiny bitch about it. They had been scared. They had made decisions with incomplete information. That was how humans survived—by closing files when they had to.

But it still hurt, deep and stupid and human.

Because you hadn’t just been a name on a report. You’d been there. You’d eaten with them. Fought with them. Worked until your hands cramped, laughed until you cried, lived with them in this box of steel on an alien moon.

They are my team, you thought, as you walked past the mess area.

Or at least… they had been.

Your boots echoed down the corridor, and you could feel people noticing—heads turning, murmurs rising.

You were halfway to the xenobotanic lab when a door slammed open down the hall.

“—No way—”

Kate.

She appeared like a storm in human form, hair half pulled back, eyes already wet before she even fully registered you were real. For a fraction of a second she froze—like her brain refused to accept what her eyes were seeing.

Then she moved.

She crossed the space so fast you barely had time to brace before she collided with you, arms locking around your shoulders, squeezing like she was trying to fuse you back into the world by force.

“Oh my God—oh my God—” she choked, words breaking apart. “You’re— you’re here. You’re actually here.”

Her face pressed against your shoulder, and you felt her shaking, felt the wet heat of tears soaking into your sleeve. You stood rigid for half a heartbeat—caught in the whiplash of it—then your arms came up around her automatically, holding her back.

“Hey,” you managed. “Kate—”

She pulled back just enough to look at you, hands still clamped on your arms as if letting go might make you vanish again. Her eyes raked over you like a scan—checking for broken bones, missing pieces, a ghost’s transparency.

Kate’s face crumpled, and whatever sharpness you’d been holding inside you softened at the edges. She looked wrecked. Not performative. Not guilty in a neat, manageable way. Just… genuinely wrecked.

“I’m here,” you said, the words sounded thin.

Kate made a sound like a laugh and a sob at the same time. “I can’t—” She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand, then immediately grabbed you again, like she couldn’t stop herself. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I’m so—”

“Kate,” you interrupted gently, trying to anchor her. “Breathe.”

She did—shaky, loud, almost angry. “We searched. We did. And then the storm got worse, and the comms—” She squeezed her eyes shut, tears spilling again. “And the orders came down and the RDA— they—” Her voice broke. “They said we couldn’t risk more personnel.”

You didn’t answer immediately.

Because some part of you understood.

And some part of you still wanted to scream.

Kate looked up at you again, and her grip tightened. “When we got the replacement request approved—” she started, and then flinched like she’d been slapped. “God, I can’t believe I’m saying this to your face.”

Your stomach rolled.

You forced yourself to nod once, slow. “Yeah,” you said quietly. “I know.”

Kate’s eyes squeezed shut again. “I didn’t want it,” she whispered fiercely. “I didn’t pack your stuff because I wanted you gone. I packed it because Norm said it was protocol, and because—because it was like if I didn’t do it, I’d fall apart. Do you understand? I couldn’t—” She shook her head hard. “I couldn’t look at your bunk and think you were just… out there.”

Your throat tightened so hard it hurt.

You wanted to say: I was. You wanted to say: And you all left me there anyway.

Instead, you reached up and pressed your gloved hand over hers, grounding both of you. “I’m not gone,” you said, voice rough. “I’m here.”

Kate stared at you like she was trying to memorize the shape of you—like she didn’t trust time not to steal you again the moment she blinked.

Then her mouth wobbled into something that might’ve been a smile if it weren’t drowning in tears. “You have no idea,” she whispered, “how many times I pictured walking into the lab and seeing you at your station like nothing happened.”

You let out a shaky breath behind the mask. “Yeah,” you murmured. “Me too.”

And for the first time since you stepped through the airlock, the outpost didn’t feel entirely like a stranger’s house.

It felt—briefly—like a place where you could start putting the pieces down on the table.

Even if you didn’t yet know which ones were going to cut.

*

Kate didn’t let you take three full steps down the corridor before she grabbed your wrist like she was afraid someone would physically rip you away.

“Nope. No. Uh-uh.” Her voice was thick, half-laugh half-sob, but her grip was iron. “You are not getting snatched by Norm the second you walk in here.”

“Kate—” you tried, but she was already towing you down the hall at a pace that said best friend privileges override all protocols.

“You saw his face two days ago,” she hissed over her shoulder, eyes wide and a little wild. “Neteyam looked like he could strangle the entire outpost with his eyes. I swear to God, if Norm or Max or—anyone—tries to corner you with a clipboard, I will bite them.”

You let out a muffled laugh. “You’ll bite Max?”

“I will bite anyone,” she snapped, like this was not a question of likelihood but principle. “Come on.”

She shoved open her quarters door so hard it banged against the frame, then practically hauled you inside and locked it behind you with a trembling hand. The room was small—utilitarian, lived-in—Kate’s boots by the wall, a stack of folded laundry on the chair, protein bar wrappers in a little shame pile on the desk like evidence of late nights. It smelled like her: coffee, antiseptic, and that citrus hand sanitizer she loved.

And then she turned, hands on your shoulders, and stared at you like she still couldn’t decide if you were real.

“Sit.” It came out like an order.

Before you could protest, she pushed you down onto her bed. Not gently. Not cruelly. Just with the frantic certainty of someone who needed you anchored to a surface to keep you from disappearing.

You bounced once on the mattress and blinked up at her. “Bossy.”

Kate pointed at you like she’d caught you committing a crime. “Why are you here?” she demanded, voice shaking. “I mean—obviously I’m glad you’re here. I’m—” she waved a hand at her face like the tears were an inconvenient malfunction. “I’m ecstatic. But why are you here—here—today? After what happened? After Neteyam—”

She broke off, swallowing hard. Her eyes flicked to your body, then back to your eyes. “He wanted to kill us.”

“He wanted to kill you two days ago,” you corrected with dry honesty. “Today he wanted to kill you slightly less. That’s progress.”

Kate stared. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” you said, and your voice wobbled with the leftover fear under the humor.

She let out a strangled laugh and then looked like she might cry again. “Okay. Okay. So. Why.” She stabbed a finger toward you again, as if pointing would keep you from slipping sideways into some alternate reality. “Why are you back here? You were basically… claimed.” Her mouth twisted like she didn’t have a better word. “And he’s—he’s hovering.”

“He did,” you confirmed. “Very politely.”

Kate’s stare sharpened. “So why are you here?”

You shrugged, and it was so absurdly normal a gesture in the middle of everything that it almost made you laugh again. Your fingers tapped once against your thigh—nervous, restless.

Then you said it, small and shy, like you were admitting to stealing cookies.

“I came back because of the plant samples.”

Kate blinked.

“…Because of the what.”

“The plant samples,” you repeated, as if that clarified anything.

Kate just looked at you. Long. Slow. Like you had switched languages mid-sentence and she was waiting for the translation to arrive.

“You were missing for two weeks,” she said carefully, each word weighted. “You were presumed dead. There were—there were reports. There was a replacement request. There was a whole—” she flailed a hand helplessly. “Trauma. And you walk in here and your reason is… plants.”

You winced. “I know how it sounds.”

Kate’s expression shifted into something holy and horrified. “No—no, I don’t think you understand. It doesn’t just sound insane. It sounds like you got dragged through actual hell and came back like, ‘Anyway, I need to run a Western blot.’”

“It’s not a Western blot,” you muttered automatically.

Kate made a sound like she was going to laugh and scream at the same time. “I swear to God, you’re—” She pressed her palm to her forehead. “You’re a saint. A psychotic saint. Only you would come back from the dead and your first thought is, ‘My samples might degrade.’”

Your cheeks warmed. “They will degrade.”

Kate stared at you like you’d personally betrayed her nervous system. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I know,” you sighed, and suddenly the humor fell away for half a beat, leaving something raw underneath. “It’s just… those samples were the reason I went out there. They mattered. And then everything happened, and I couldn’t stop thinking about them like—like they were proof I didn’t hallucinate the last two weeks.”

Kate’s face softened, just a fraction.

You picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “And I wanted to talk to you. To Norm. To everyone. I know I was… an asshole that day.” Your throat tightened on the word. “I didn’t mean to be. I just— I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to look at you all and see… that you’d already mourned me.”

Kate’s eyes shimmered instantly. She sat down hard on the edge of the bed like her knees gave out.

“Oh, honey,” she whispered.

You huffed a laugh that wasn’t funny. “And before you say it—yes, I know. It’s not fair. I get it.”

Kate shook her head sharply, eyes wet. “No. Don’t you dare do that thing where you take all the blame so no one else has to feel bad.” She reached out and caught your hand. “You’re allowed to be hurt. You’re allowed to be pissed. You’re allowed to walk in here and say ‘plants’ like a lunatic, because that’s what you do when your brain is trying to stay afloat.”

You swallowed, blinking fast.

Kate squeezed your hand like she meant it. “But… you’re really here for the samples?”

You nodded, sheepish again. “I stored them properly—well, as properly as you can when you’re bleeding and getting hunted by viperwolves. But they need real testing. I need my microscope, my reagents, the whole setup. There’s something about them that doesn’t make sense, Kate. I don’t want to lose it.”

Kate stared at you with a kind of stunned reverence. “You are insane,” she said softly.

“Mmhm.”

“And I missed you,” she added, voice breaking.

That landed harder than any accusation.

You squeezed her hand back. “I missed you too.”

Kate dragged in a shaky breath, then wiped her face roughly and stood up like she’d decided crying wasn’t allowed until later. “Okay,” she said, suddenly brisk. “Fine. We do the samples. But first—” She pointed at you again, but gentler now. “You tell me everything. Start to finish. And if Norm bangs on this door, I will body-check him into the wall.”

Your laugh came out real this time, bright and cracked at the edges.

“Deal,” you said, and for the first time since you stepped through the airlock, your chest loosened just a little—because no matter how different you felt, no matter how much your life had shifted in fourteen nights…

Kate was still Kate.

And you were still you.

A xenobotanist, back from the dead, worrying about her damn samples.

*

Kate didn’t interrupt you once.

Not when you stumbled through the first day. Not when you tried to make the storm sound “manageable.” Not when your voice went thin around the parts that still tasted like panic. She just sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on her knees, hands clasped tight, eyes fixed on you with that clinical stillness she got when something was too big to react to properly.

You talked until your throat went raw.

You told her about wandering off because you’d seen the samples—rare, bright, impossible—and you’d thought you could just grab them fast and double back. You told her about the first night, curled in a hollow trunk, praying the viperwolves wouldn’t climb. You told her about the Samson tangled in vines, the metal cutting your palm open, the heat and swelling that came after, the fear that the infection was going to take you quietly in the dark.

You told her you remembered Mo’at’s teachings even when your hands were shaking too hard to hold anything steady. You told her about water, food, and desperation. You told her—eyes lowered, embarrassed—about teylu. Raw. Like some feral woodland creature, and you could almost hear Neteyam’s smug laugh in your own confession.

Then you told her about the fall. The hole. The impact. The moment the world blinked out.

You told her about the dream—about being back home, about being a teenager again, about your parents alive like no time had ever passed. About your mother telling you it wasn’t real, and then Eywa—warm, comforting, calling you to rest. About hearing Neteyam’s voice dragging you back like a rope around your heart.

You told her about waking up someplace white and sterile, about the older man with tired eyes and a voice like dust, about the name Elias Veyren. About an underground lab near the mining zone. About him saying he found you in a thanator den, mycelia on your head.

And finally, you told her about the serum. Syeha. “Breath.” The injection you didn’t consent to. The fact that you could breathe Pandora’s air now—maskless—like it was nothing.

You told her you’d gone back to Neteyam. That you were in the village. That Neytiri knew. That you were still alive.

When you finished, the room went silent so abruptly it made your skin prickle.

Kate didn’t blink. She didn’t move. She just stared at you.

And a silent Kate was… terrifying.

It was the kind of silence that meant her brain was stacking facts into columns and deciding which ones belonged to reality and which ones belonged to a psychiatric consult.

Your mouth went dry. “Kate?” you offered, weakly.

She kept staring.

Then—slowly—Kate inhaled. Deep. Like she was about to dive underwater and needed all the air she could hold.

“Okay,” she said finally, voice too calm. Too measured. Like she was about to brief a mission.

She straightened, clasping her hands tighter, and began to repeat your story back to you—word for word, but in the blunt, merciless cadence of someone who refuses to romanticize trauma.

“So,” Kate said, nodding once, as if confirming a checklist. “Let me make sure I’m hearing this correctly.”

You winced already.

“You got lost,” she continued, “because of the samples.”

You pressed your lips together. “Yes.”

“You stayed in a crashed Samson helicopter,” Kate went on, eyes still locked on yours, “and you almost died of sepsis because you cut your hand on jagged metal.”

You nodded, smaller.

“You ate raw worms,” she added, and her eyebrows lifted like she couldn’t decide whether to vomit or applaud. “Which is… honestly, impressive in the worst way.”

“Technically it’s not a worm—” you began automatically.

Kate lifted one finger. “Do not. Do not ‘technically’ me right now.”

You shut your mouth.

“Then,” she continued, “you fell, hit your head, blacked out, and had a full-on vision where you saw your long-dead parents, then Eywa—yes, the literal planetary neural deity—called you to die peacefully—”

Your face heated. “When you say it like that—”

“I’m not done,” Kate said, still terrifyingly calm.

You made a tiny, helpless noise.

“—and then you woke up,” she went on, voice gaining speed now, “in a secret underground lab belonging to a presumed-dead mad scientist who found you in a thanator den with mycelia on your head, and he injected you with a serum called Syeha—which should not exist—”

Your eyes darted away.

“—and now,” Kate concluded, leaning forward slightly, “you are alive, you can breathe Pandora’s air, and you are essentially living with Neteyam in the Omatikaya village, and Neytiri knows about your relationship with her son, and everyone in this outpost declared you MIA while the RDA started processing your replacement, and—” she paused, lips parting, eyes widening as she finally let herself feel the absurdity, “—and you are telling me this like it’s a mildly inconvenient field report.”

The silence after that hit like a wave.

You sank a little into the bed, shoulders curling in on yourself. “Now that you say it like that,” you muttered, “it sounds like a fever dream.”

Kate stared at you.

Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

“…It sounds like a fever dream,” she echoed, voice cracking on the last word like her sanity just tripped over a cable.

You gave a weak, apologetic shrug. “Yeah.”

Kate made a strangled sound—half laugh, half gasp—and shoved a hand through her hair so hard her ponytail loosened. “Oh my God,” she breathed, blinking rapidly as if she could clear the image by force. “Oh my God.”

She stood up suddenly, pacing two steps, then back, then two steps again like a trapped animal in a very small cage. “You—” she pointed at you again, but her hand shook. “You’re sitting here. In my room. Telling me you met Eywa. That you got… injected with alien Jesus serum. That you can breathe the air. That Neytiri knows. That—”

She stopped pacing and stared at you again, eyes shiny. “You’re sure you didn’t have a fever the whole time? Like, an insane, brain-melting fever?”

You huffed a small laugh, miserably fond. “I mean, I did almost die of infection.”

Kate let out a sound like she might cry again. “Jesus Christ.”

“It’s not Jesus,” you mumbled. “It’s Eywa.”

Kate slapped a palm over her face.

Then she lowered her hand slowly and looked at you with a kind of horrified affection that made your throat tighten.

“You are the most ridiculous person I have ever met,” she said, voice trembling. “Do you understand that?”

You blinked at her, helpless. “I didn’t plan it.”

“No,” Kate agreed softly. “You never plan the disasters. You just—” she gestured vaguely, “—wander into them because you found a cool leaf.”

“It was a really cool leaf,” you protested weakly.

Kate stared at you again, then exhaled hard and sat back down on the edge of the bed like her legs finally remembered gravity.

For a long moment she just looked at you—really looked—like she was checking for the seams where the story might be stitched together wrong. Like she was looking for the line between impossible and true.

Then her voice softened, the terror bleeding into something steadier.

“Okay,” she said quietly, wiping at the corner of her eye. “Okay. If this is a fever dream, then it’s the most detailed, consistent, trauma-accurate fever dream I’ve ever heard. Which means…” She swallowed. “Which means you’re telling me the truth.”

You nodded, your own eyes burning.

Kate’s jaw tightened, the protective anger starting to rise like a tide. “And there is a man,” she said, very softly now, “in a secret lab, who injected my best friend with an experimental serum without consent.”

Your stomach dropped.

Because that was the part you’d been scared of.

Kate’s gaze sharpened, not on you anymore, but somewhere distant—already assembling a plan.

And you realized, with a sudden, absurd flicker of panic, that Neteyam wasn’t the only one who might go hunting.

*

An hour later you were sitting behind the microscope like nothing in your life had ever cracked open.

The lab lights were too bright and too white, the counters too clean, the hum of the vents too steady—so familiar it bordered on obscene. You had your hair pulled back the way you always did, sleeves rolled, gloves on. Your hands moved on autopilot: slide, cover slip, adjust coarse focus, then fine. The sample under the lens came into clarity in slow, satisfying increments—veins of translucent tissue, tiny crystallized nodes, filamentous structures clinging like lace. The kind of beauty you used to live for.

You behaved like it was a normal Wednesday morning.

Like you hadn’t been missing for two weeks. Like you hadn’t slept in a hollow trunk praying viperwolves wouldn’t climb. Like you hadn’t woken up in a secret lab with your blood rewritten by a serum that should not exist. Like you hadn’t left an Omatikaya kelku this morning with Neteyam’s hands on your face and his eyes forcing a promise out of you.

You could even smell coffee from the cafeteria—faint, burnt, comforting. The scent drifted down the corridor and curled into the lab the way it always did, as if the universe was trying to hand you a normal day on a tray.

You leaned closer to the eyepiece, heart calmer than it had any right to be, and made a note in the margin of your pad with quick, efficient strokes.

Then the door slid open.

Brian stepped in, still in his morning jacket, coffee cup in hand. He was mid-yawn, head half-turned as if he’d already decided he needed more caffeine before reality could start.

His eyes landed on you.

The coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth.

For a full second his face did nothing—blank, frozen, brain refusing to compute. Then he blinked once. Twice.

“…No,” he said, like he was correcting a hallucination.

You didn’t look up from the microscope. “Morning,” you said mildly. “Try not to breathe directly over the samples.”

Brian made a sound that was half choke, half laugh. His cup trembled. “You’re—” He pointed at you like that would stabilize the world. “You’re here. In the lab. Like—like nothing happened.”

You finally leaned back, turning in your chair. Your hair was messy but contained. Your eyes were tired but clear.

“Nothing happened,” you deadpanned. “I just took a very long lunch break.”

Brian stared harder, then his face crumpled into raw relief so fast it made your chest tighten. “Holy shit,” he breathed, voice breaking. “Holy—” He took one step forward like he might hug you, then stopped himself, hands hovering awkwardly. “We thought you were dead.”

“I know,” you said quietly.

Brian swallowed, blinking wetly. His gaze flicked to your hands, your face, your shoulders—as if checking for missing pieces. “Two days ago I saw you on the ikran,” he said, like he still didn’t believe his own memory. “And then you vanished again into blue people paradise.”

“Yeah,” you murmured. “Neteyam’s version of ‘rest’ is basically ‘under surveillance.’”

Brian let out a broken laugh, then snapped his head toward the corridor, already moving. “I’m getting Norm.”

“No—Brian—” you started, but he was already gone, voice echoing down the hall like a siren.

“She’s here! She’s in the lab!”

And just like that, the outpost turned into a kicked beehive.

Footsteps. Doors. Voices rising. A ripple of disbelief that ran down the corridor like electricity. You heard someone laugh-shout, someone swear, someone say your name like it was a prayer and a curse in one.

Within minutes, Norm appeared in the doorway with Max right behind him—both moving too fast for how tired they looked. Norm’s eyes were wide, hair a mess, tablet in hand like he’d grabbed it instinctively because doctor brain. Max’s face was pale, jaw tight, already scanning you like a vital sign display.

Norm stopped short. “You are…” He inhaled sharply. “…you are sitting at your station.”

You lifted a gloved hand in a small wave. “Hi.”

Max swore under his breath—quiet, stunned. “Jesus.”

Norm’s stare flicked to the microscope, the samples, the notes. Then back to you. “Are you—are you working?”

You shrugged. “The samples aren’t going to analyze themselves.”

Norm made a strangled noise. “You were missing for fourteen days.”

“And I’m trying to be productive about it,” you said, completely straight-faced.

Max stepped forward, eyes hard now, the initial shock sharpening into something more practical. “No. Absolutely not. You’re coming with us.”

You turned back to the microscope like you hadn’t heard him. “I’m in the middle of—”

Norm reached out and gently—firmly—took your chair by the back and rolled it away from the bench. “No, no, no.” His voice went into that coaxing-but-nonnegotiable doctor tone. “You are not doing lab work. Not until we examine you.”

You grabbed the edge of the bench, resisting like a stubborn child. “Norm—”

You opened your mouth to argue, but the lab had filled—half a dozen faces hovering in the doorway now, heads peeking in, eyes wide. The buzz of the outpost pressed against the walls. People were already talking, already asking, already trying to piece you back into the shape of their reality.

“How is she alive?” “Where was she?” “I thought—she was declared—” “Is it true she was found by the Na’vi?” “Did she get attacked?” “Are those her samples?”

It was a swarm.

And somehow, despite the ache behind your ribs, you felt a spark of amusement flicker in you—watching your friends spiral like this, watching Norm’s hands flutter in frantic medical logic, watching Max try to look calm and failing.

You let yourself smile, small and private.

Then the sting hit right after.

Because you were looking at the outpost—your outpost—and it didn’t feel like home. Not the way it had yesterday, or the way it had for four years. Something had shifted. Maybe you had shifted. Maybe the idea of you had already been filed away and boxed up and replaced.

Norm tugged at your elbow again. “Come on.”

“Wait,” you said quickly, voice muffled through the mask. “Norm—just—one second.”

He paused, impatient but listening.

You looked around at the buzzing beehive of the corridor, then back at him. “I need to know what’s in the system,” you said quietly. “About me. Officially. Am I still… MIA? Presumed dead? Because if the RDA thinks I’m dead and then finds out I’m walking around—”

Max’s expression darkened immediately. Norm’s face tightened, eyes flicking away for half a second.

That half-second told you everything.

Your stomach sank.

“So there’s no place for me,” you said, blunt because you couldn’t afford softness. “Not really. Not on paper. If they flag me as alive again—if someone files a report—”

“They’ll ask questions,” Max said tightly.

“And if they ask questions,” you continued, voice dropping, “and if they notice anything different—”

You didn’t say it. You didn’t say breathing. You didn’t say maskless. You didn’t say serum.

Your gaze slid past Norm’s shoulder to where Kate stood in the corridor with Brian. Kate’s arms were crossed, jaw tight, eyes locked on you like she was trying to transmit don’t and be careful directly into your skull. Brian hovered at her side, still shaken, still watching like he might blink and lose you again.

Neteyam’s voice echoed in your head—low, certain. They don’t deserve that part of you.

You swallowed and forced your tone back into something light, something safe. “I’m just saying…” you shrugged, small and careful. “I need to know what you told them. What’s logged.”

Norm’s eyes softened—too late. “We filed what protocol required,” he said quietly. “Missing in action, presumed deceased after search failure. Corporate started replacement procedures.”

There it was. The bruise you couldn’t stop touching.

Max stepped closer, lowering his voice. “We can keep this contained,” he said, like he was already calculating damage control. “But you need to be smart. No big announcements. No attention. You get examined, we stabilize your status, and we figure out what we tell Admin.”

You nodded slowly, mind racing.

Because contained here meant temporary. They could send you back to the Earth. Everything in this place ended up in a report eventually. Everything got logged, forwarded, audited.

And if anyone in the chain caught even a whiff that you were breathing Pandora’s air without assistance…

You felt suddenly cold under your skin.

Norm’s hand settled on your shoulder, gentle. “Come on,” he said again, softer now. “Just a quick check. Then you can go back to your plants. I promise.”

You let them guide you away from your microscope, away from the slides and the familiar comfort of magnified certainty. As you stood, you glanced back at your station—your old desk—where the samples sat waiting like little green secrets.

Four years of your life had lived in that corner.

Now it felt like you were walking away from it with a borrowed ID badge and a countdown in your blood.

As you passed Kate, her hand brushed your arm—brief, grounding. Her eyes met yours over the edge of your mask, sharp and steady.

We’ll handle this, her look said.

You hoped she was right.

And somewhere far away, beyond metal walls and fluorescent hum, you could almost feel Neteyam’s presence like a thread tied around your waist—tugging you gently back toward the forest, back toward home that wasn’t made of steel.

*

You sat on the exam table with your boots dangling a few centimeters above the floor, hands folded neatly in your lap like you were waiting for a routine annual check-up—not like you’d been missing for two weeks and dragged half the outpost into a collective nervous breakdown.

The fluorescent lights made everything too sharp. Too honest. White walls, white cabinets, the faint antiseptic sting in the air. The only warmth came from the mug of coffee someone had shoved into your hands the moment you’d been herded in, and even that tasted like the cafeteria’s idea of comfort: burnt, bitter, familiar.

Norm hovered with a tablet. Max moved with brisk, efficient quiet—cuffs, stethoscope, penlight. The door kept opening every few minutes with someone trying to “just check” and being shooed away like a fly.

“Okay,” Max said, tone professional but eyes still slightly wide. “Blood pressure.”

The cuff tightened around your arm. You stared at the far wall and listened to the soft hiss as it released.

“Pulse,” Norm added automatically, as if he didn’t trust the machine. His fingers found your wrist, gentle and practiced. You could feel the calluses on his thumb, the warmth of him. He held on a beat longer than necessary, like the rhythm under your skin might disappear if he let go too soon.

“Heart and lungs,” Max said.

The stethoscope was cold when it touched your chest through your shirt. You kept your face neutral, breathing in and out as he directed. You could see the effort in Max’s jaw—not fear, exactly. Something closer to disbelief held on a tight leash.

“How do you feel?” Norm asked, eyes locked on your face, as if “fine” was the wrong answer and he already knew it.

“I feel fine,” you said calmly.

Max’s brows rose. Norm’s mouth flattened.

“Any dizziness?” Max asked, checking off boxes.

“No.”

“Nausea?”

“No.”

“Headache?”

You paused, considering your own body like it belonged to someone else. “Not really. Just… tired.”

“That’s not ‘fine,’” Norm muttered.

“It’s the closest I’ve got,” you replied, and it earned you a reluctant huff from Max that could’ve been almost a laugh.

Max shone the penlight in your eyes. “Follow my finger.”

You tracked it, blinking slowly. The light stabbed your retinas; your pupils contracted obediently. Max looked satisfied in that very Max way—like your nervous system had passed a small quiz and he wanted to give it a gold star.

“Any memory gaps?” Norm asked. “Confusion? Disorientation?”

You swallowed. “I remember everything. I think.”

Norm didn’t look convinced.

When they finally asked about injuries—when they got to the part where they expected bruising and swelling and the kind of damage that should still be visible—you felt your composure wobble. Not because you were afraid of the questions, but because you genuinely didn’t know how to answer them without opening a door you weren’t ready to walk through.

Max peeled back the collar of your shirt to examine the back of your neck where you’d hit your head.

You braced for tenderness. For the old ache to flare.

But his fingers paused, then stilled.

“There’s… barely anything here,” he said quietly, as if he didn’t trust his own eyes.

Norm leaned in. “Let me see.”

You twisted slightly, cooperative. The room went silent in the way it did when science encountered something that didn’t behave.

Max angled a small light. “There’s a faint scar. Pinkish. No swelling. No bruising.”

Norm’s gaze flicked to you, then back to your neck. “How long ago did you hit your head?”

“About… one week?” you said, voice careful. “I don’t know.”

Norm stared at the tablet in his hand like it might explain the universe. “You should still have residual inflammation.”

You gave a helpless shrug. “Maybe Mo’at’s herbs are just… that good.”

Max’s eyes narrowed. “Herbs don’t erase tissue damage in seven days.”

You lifted your shoulders again, the shrug turning into a shield. “Then I don’t know.”

They moved on to your palm next. You held your hand out, turning it over under the light. The cut that had once been jagged and angry was now a neat seam—thin scar tissue, clean and closed.

Max’s mouth pressed into a hard line. Norm’s eyes softened, but not with relief—more with worry.

“This is… impressive healing,” Norm said carefully.

You forced a small smile. “I’m very resilient.”

Max gave you a look that said don’t make jokes. You stopped.

When they finished the basic checks, you sat quietly while Max stepped out to pull up results—blood panel, inflammatory markers, basic metabolic screen. Norm stayed behind, tapping at his tablet with nervous energy that didn’t quite disguise how much he was watching you.

For the first time since you’d walked into the outpost, you let the silence sit.

It made room for the thoughts you’d been outrunning.

Veyren.

Elias Veyren wasn’t just a name. Not anymore. He was a place. A door in your life that had opened and refused to close. And he was someone Norm should have heard of—at least in stories, in Grace’s old notes, in books, in half-joking anecdotes from the early days on Pandora.

He worked under Augustine decades ago. He had been part of that first wave of people who looked at this moon and didn’t just see profit or danger—they saw science, wonder, possibility.

Norm must know something.

Or Max. Or both.

And yet—what happened if you started talking about a man who was supposed to be dead? About an underground lab near the mining zone? About a serum named Syeha? About mycelia on your skull and Eywa in your dreams?

Would they look at you like Kate had—like your story was a fever dream stitched together by trauma?

You didn’t know if you could handle that look again.

But you needed help.

Not just emotional help. Practical help. Answers. A plan. Because you had promised Veyren you’d return if you lived. And because even if you didn’t want to go back, you had to understand what he did to you. What was in your blood. What the timeline really meant.

And Neteyam…

Your chest tightened at the thought of telling Neteyam you needed to go back to the man who’d treated you like a test case. Neteyam would rather cut his own heart out than walk you into that place willingly. He’d already almost gone feral at the mere idea of the outpost. Veyren’s lab would be a thousand times worse.

You sat with your hands braced on the table, staring at the floor tiles like they had secrets. You felt like a rope pulled tight between two worlds: the outpost’s sterile certainty and the village’s living breath. Between science that demanded truth and love that demanded safety.

Norm cleared his throat softly. “You’re quiet.”

You blinked and looked up. His expression was gentle, but his eyes were sharp—still the same Norm who could smell when a dataset didn’t add up.

“I’m thinking,” you said.

“That’s what scares me,” he murmured, attempting humor, but it landed heavy.

You hesitated—then decided you needed a smaller question first. A test balloon. Something that could lead into the larger truth without detonating the room.

Max was gone. The door was closed. The moment was as private as you were going to get.

You kept your voice casual on purpose. Almost idle.

“Norm,” you said, watching his face carefully, “do you think… a human could ever breathe on Pandora?”

The tapping on his tablet stopped.

Norm’s head lifted slowly. His eyes narrowed, not suspicious of you—suspicious of the question itself.

“Define ‘ever,’” he said, cautious.

You swallowed, keeping your expression neutral. “Just… hypothetically. Could a human body adapt? With… enough time. Or enough help.”

Norm stared at you for a long beat, and in that silence you could hear your own heartbeat like a drum.

Finally he exhaled. “Naturally?” he said. “No. Not in any meaningful timeframe. Pandora’s atmosphere is too hostile—high CO₂, different partial pressures, trace compounds humans don’t tolerate. You can acclimate to some things, but not that.” His gaze sharpened. “Unless you mean with engineered adaptation.”

You tried to keep your face steady. “Engineered how?”

Norm’s eyes flicked away for a second, like he was sorting what he could safely say. “You know the history,” he said quietly. “Avatars were the solution. A biological interface. Designed to thrive here. That’s why the program existed in the first place.”

You nodded slowly, as if that was all you meant. As if your lungs weren’t sitting in your chest right now like a secret you couldn’t stop carrying.

Norm studied you harder. “Why are you asking me that?”

You opened your mouth—then stopped, because Max’s footsteps approached in the hall. The handle shifted. The door clicked.

You forced your face into something mild and blank just as Max walked back in with a printout and a look that said we have a problem.

He shut the door behind him and glanced between you and Norm like he could feel the tension.

Not a slam. Not a click meant to be dramatic. Just… a deliberate, controlled close, like he didn’t want the noise to travel. Like he didn’t want the outpost to hear whatever was sitting on that holopad.

He didn’t sit right away. He stood for a beat at the foot of the exam table, eyes on you—not the quick scan of a medic checking if you’re upright, but the longer kind of look that tries to read what your mouth won’t say.

“Do you really feel fine?” he asked.

The question was so normal—so routine—that for a second neither you nor Norm reacted properly. Norm blinked, still holding his tablet. You shifted your shoulders, half a shrug, half irritation.

“I told you,” you said, voice even. “I’m tired. But I’m fine.”

Max’s jaw flexed once. “No,” he said quietly. “Answer again.”

Norm’s brows pulled together. “Max—”

Max didn’t look at him. He stepped forward and placed the holopad down on the counter, then turned it so both of you could see. His hand stayed on the edge of it, fingers splayed, as if the numbers might try to crawl away.

“Look,” he said.

You leaned forward automatically, the scientist in you responding before the fear could catch up. Lines. Charts. Ranges. Colored flags. A column of values that meant nothing emotionally until they did.

You stared.

For a second, your brain did what it always did—pattern recognition, search for anomalies, contextualize. You weren’t a physician, but you weren’t blind. You’d worked around enough med panels to know the language of the body when it was screaming.

And the holopad was screaming.

You swallowed, eyes moving quickly down the list, picking out what you understood: markers that should be calm and weren’t. Values that should sit in green and were bleeding into yellow and red. The kind of scattered, ugly imbalance you’d expect in someone septic and spiraling, not someone sitting upright on an exam table making jokes about coffee.

Your stomach dipped.

Because you’d seen bloodwork like this once already—just not like this.

Veyren’s lab. The white room. The first panel he’d shown you after the injection, when your body had been crashing. You remembered the numbers because they had mattered in a way nothing else had. You remembered how they’d stabilized—how, for the first time after days of fever and shaking, the data had looked… good. Better than good. Like the serum had grabbed your throat and dragged you back from the edge.

Veyren hadn’t taken another sample later. Not that you’d seen. He’d watched you. Measured your breathing. Studied you like a miracle under glass. But that first readout—those “miraculous” values—had lodged in your mind as proof: It saved me.

Now you stared at Max’s holopad and felt that proof fracture.

“These… can’t be mine,” you said, and your voice sounded too thin for the room.

Max didn’t answer. His silence was answer enough.

Norm leaned closer, eyes scanning fast, then slower. The color drained from his face in increments, like someone was dimming him.

“Inflammatory markers are through the roof,” Norm muttered, mostly to himself. “Electrolytes are off… kidney function—Max, when was the last time you ran this panel? Is this from—”

“Ten minutes ago,” Max cut in.

You forced a laugh—small, lame, instinctive. “Okay,” you said, trying for lightness and failing. “So… what, I’m secretly eighty?”

Neither of them smiled.

Max’s gaze lifted to your face, sharp and almost angry. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do that.”

Norm’s voice was quieter, but it hit harder. “You shouldn’t be sitting up.”

You blinked. “But I am.”

“You shouldn’t be speaking normally,” Max continued, the words clipped now, controlled. “Your vitals are deceptively stable, but this?” He tapped the holopad with two fingers. “This looks like someone whose body is losing the fight.”

Your throat tightened. You stared at the red flags until they blurred.

“No,” you whispered, more to yourself than to them. “No, I— I feel fine.”

Max exhaled through his nose like he was restraining himself from swearing. “That’s the problem,” he said. “You feel fine and you should not.”

Norm’s eyes flicked to you—searching, gentle, frightened. “Any chest tightness? Shortness of breath? Palpitations? Any pain anywhere?”

You shook your head quickly. “No. Nothing. I’m just tired, Norm.”

Max leaned his hip against the counter, arms folding tightly. “Tired how.”

You hesitated. “Like… like I could sleep for a week.”

Norm exchanged a look with Max—fast, loaded. The kind of look people share when they’ve both reached the same conclusion and neither wants to say it first.

Your hands clenched on the edge of the table. You tried to ground yourself in logic. Data before panic. That was always your rule.

But the dread slid in anyway, cold and efficient.

It wasn’t just the numbers. It was their faces.

You’d seen plenty of grim med expressions in the outpost over the years—minor injuries, fevers, allergic reactions, someone pushing themselves too hard in the field. This was different. This was the look you saw when doctors were already calculating timelines and contingency plans.

You swallowed hard. “What’s the worst-case interpretation,” you asked, forcing the words out like you were asking about a lab mishap. “Tell me plainly.”

Max stared at you for a long beat. His professionalism wavered at the edges.

“The worst case?” he repeated, voice low. “Organ stress. Systemic inflammation. Your body compensating so hard it’s masking symptoms. A crash that could happen fast.”

Norm’s mouth opened, then closed again. He looked like he was trying to choose his next words with tweezers.

“You’re telling me,” you said carefully, “that I could just… drop.”

Max didn’t deny it.

Norm stepped closer, his voice softer. “We’re not there yet. These are indicators. They tell us something is wrong. They don’t tell us exactly why.”

You stared at the holopad again, mind racing.

Syeha.

Two weeks.

Nobody survived past two weeks.

Your pulse thudded once, hard, in your throat. You felt suddenly nauseous—not the body kind, but the mind kind. Like reality had tilted.

Now the holopad was telling it for you, in red and yellow and numbers that didn’t care how much you loved someone.

You tried again to make it a joke, because you didn’t know how else to breathe. “Okay,” you said, forcing a crooked smile. “So I’m… a medical mystery. Cool. Can I put that on my CV?”

Max’s eyes flashed. “Stop.”

Norm’s voice cracked slightly when he spoke. “Why are you not panicking?”

You looked at him. Really looked. And for the first time since you’d walked into the outpost, you let a piece of the truth show on your face.

“Because if I panic,” you said quietly, “it becomes real.”

The silence that followed was thick enough to drown in.

Max’s expression shifted—something like suspicion, like he was connecting dots he didn’t have permission to connect.

Norm’s gaze sharpened too. “What aren’t you telling us,” he said softly.

Your throat went tight again. You thought of Neteyam’s hands on your face. Promise me.

You thought of the RDA. Reports. Audits. Curiosity sharpened into knives.

You thought of Veyren—an underground lab near the mining zone, a ghost with a needle, a serum named after breath.

And then you thought of Neteyam again, and the way he’d looked at you like you were the only light left in his world.

If you spoke too much here, you could set off a chain you couldn’t stop. If you spoke too little, you could die with the truth still locked in your teeth.

Max pushed off the counter. “I’m running more tests,” he said immediately, already moving, all urgency now. “Full metabolic, cardiac enzymes, toxicology screen, whatever we can do with what we have. I want continuous monitoring.”

Norm nodded, then looked back at you, eyes gentle but unyielding. “And you,” he said, voice leaving no room for argument, “are staying in med.”

You stared at him. “Norm—”

“No,” he cut in, surprising you with the firmness. “You don’t go back to the lab. You don’t go wandering. You don’t go anywhere.”

A bitter laugh almost escaped you. “Wow. Everyone’s taking turns being Neteyam.”

Norm’s face tightened at the name, but he didn’t comment. He reached out and took your hand—warm, steady, grounding the way he always did when things got too big.

“Listen to me,” he said softly. “We’re going to figure out what this is. Okay? And I need you to be honest with me.”

Your fingers curled around his. You tried to decide what honesty meant without detonating your life.

Max paused at the door, hand on the handle, and looked back at you with a stare that made your stomach drop again.

“And if you tell me you’re ‘fine’ one more time,” he said, voice flat, “I’m sedating you.”

Despite everything, a small breath of laughter slipped out of you—thin and shaky.

Then Max was gone, and the door shut, and you were left with Norm’s concerned eyes and the holopad glowing red like a warning flare.

You swallowed hard, staring at the numbers as if you could negotiate with them.

And in the quiet, you realized something terrifyingly clear:

Veyren’s two-week threshold wasn’t just a theory.

It was a clock.

*

By the time the light outside the med bay windows shifted into late orange, you were running out of excuses and out of patience.

You sat upright on the exam table, ECG leads still stuck to your chest under your shirt, a pulse-ox clipped to your finger like a shackle. Norm and Max had both made you change into a thin med shirt, and they’d parked you in that room like you were a fragile specimen that might crack if someone looked at you wrong.

You hated it.

Not because they were wrong to worry—because some part of you knew they were right, and the fear of that truth scraped at the inside of your ribs—but because every minute that passed pulled you farther from where you’d promised you’d be.

Neteyam would be back from the hunt.

Kiri would return to pick you up.

And if you weren’t there…

He’d come.

He’d come the way a storm comes—inevitable, violent in its urgency.

You tried to keep your voice steady, reasonable. “Norm, I’m telling you, I feel okay. I need to go back.”

Norm didn’t even look up from the holopad. “No.”

“Max,” you tried next, pivoting like diplomacy would work better with him. “Please. It’s getting late. Kiri is expecting—”

Max’s jaw set, eyes flicking to the readouts again. “And I’m expecting your bloodwork not to look like a dying eighty-year-old’s. We don’t always get what we want.”

“Jesus,” you muttered, rubbing your forehead. “I’m not dying.”

Max gave you a look that was all tired anger. “You don’t get to decide that based on vibes.”

You inhaled sharply, then softened your tone, because you knew pushing would only make them dig in harder. “He’s going to come looking for me.”

Norm finally looked up. His eyes were gentle, but the firmness underneath them didn’t budge. “Then we’ll explain.”

You stared. “Explain?” You gave a humorless laugh. “Norm, you can’t ‘explain’ to Neteyam. You can’t sit him down with a PowerPoint about inflammatory markers.”

Max’s lips twitched despite himself. Norm didn’t smile.

“You don’t understand,” you said, quieter now. “He thinks I’m safe when I’m in the village. He thinks… he thinks if I’m there, he can breathe again. If he gets back and I’m not—”

Norm’s gaze sharpened. “Then he’ll be upset.”

“He’ll be terrified,” you corrected, heat rising in your chest. “He already lost me once. He’s not rational about it anymore.”

Max set the holopad down slowly. “Neither are you,” he said. “You’re sitting here with numbers that look like your body is one bad hour away from a crash and you’re begging us to let you walk out the door to go soothe your boyfriend.”

You flinched at the word—boyfriend—because it was too small for what Neteyam was.

You swallowed. “Just let me go back. I’ll rest there. I’ll sleep. I’ll come in the morning. I’ll do whatever tests you want. Just—please.”

Norm’s expression tightened. Max’s eyes flicked to Norm, the silent conversation of professionals who were trying to decide how much truth to give you.

“We can’t,” Norm said finally, voice softer. “Not right now.”

Your throat burned. “You’re going to keep me here like a prisoner?”

“No,” Max said immediately, sharp. “Don’t do that.”

“What do you call it, then?” You gestured at the clipped monitor, the sticky leads, the closed door. “Because it feels a lot like I’m being held.”

Norm took a slow breath. “We’re trying to keep you alive.”

You swallowed hard. The words hit, heavy and cold. You looked down at your hands, fingers curled around the thin fabric of the med shirt like it could anchor you.

“I promised him,” you whispered, and your voice cracked before you could stop it. “I promised I’d be back before he returned.”

There was a beat of silence where even the hum of the machines felt too loud.

Max’s voice went quieter. “And you came back here because you wanted to talk to your team. To run tests. To fix things.”

“Yes,” you said, almost pleading. “And I didn’t think it would turn into—this.”

Norm’s eyes softened, but he stayed firm. “I know.”

You pushed off the table, standing despite Max’s immediate “Hey—” Your legs held you fine—steady, stubborn.

“I’m going,” you said, too quietly, too determined.

Max stepped in front of you. Not aggressive. Just… solid. A barrier made of human concern.

“No, you’re not.”

You glared at him. “Max—”

The words died in your throat.

Because through the wall—through the building itself—you felt it.

A heavy, unmistakable thud that vibrated the floor beneath your feet.

The sound wasn’t a door closing. It wasn’t machinery. It was too deep, too alive.

An ikran landing.

Your blood went cold and then hot, all at once.

Norm’s head snapped toward the hallway. Max’s posture stiffened.

You didn’t even have to think. You knew.

Neteyam.

You moved toward the door, but Max caught your wrist gently, instinctive. “Wait—”

A second later, voices rose in the corridor—shouts, hurried footsteps, a scramble of startled outpost personnel.

And then the door to med bay slid open so hard it bounced slightly on its track.

Neteyam filled the doorway like a force of nature.

He was still in his flight gear—leather straps crossing his chest, his legs wrapped in the protective attire he wore when riding high winds, dust and leaf bits clinging to his shin guards. His bow was still slung across his back, arrows fletched and ready. His hair was slightly wind-tossed, braids loose at the edges as if he’d dismounted and walked straight here without stopping to breathe.

His eyes—gold, wide, frantic—cut across the room.

His golden eyes were wild.

They scanned the room in a heartbeat—Norm, Max, the equipment—

—and then they locked on you.

You watched it happen in real time.

The tension drained out of him like air from a punctured skin. His shoulders dropped. His breath hitched once, hard, like he’d been holding it since the sky.

He crossed the room in three long strides and dropped into a crouch in front of you so suddenly that Norm took a reflexive step back.

At your height.

Always at your height.

His hands came up, stopping just short of touching you, as if he was afraid you might shatter if he grabbed too fast. His ears were pinned flat against his skull, tail lashing once behind him before coiling tight.

“You are here,” he said, voice low and strained. Not a question.

“I’m here,” you whispered back.

His eyes searched your face—your eyes, your mouth, your breathing—like he was cataloguing proof of life. Only when he seemed satisfied that you were solid did his hands finally land, one at your knee, one hovering at your side, grounding himself.

“Why,” he asked carefully, the effort it took to keep his voice even painfully obvious, “are you still here when you promised me you would be home before the sun touched the trees?”

You swallowed. “I tried to come back. They wouldn’t let me.”

His gaze snapped past you instantly, sharp as a blade.

Norm stepped forward, hands raised slightly, placating but firm. “Neteyam, she’s not well enough to leave.”

Neteyam rose to his full height in one smooth motion.

The room felt smaller immediately.

“What is wrong with her,” he demanded, not loudly—but with a pressure that made the words vibrate. His eyes never left Norm’s face.

Max moved to stand beside Norm, posture squared. “Her labs are bad. Worse than they should be. We’re still running tests, but—”

“You will let her come with me,” Neteyam cut in.

“No,” Max said flatly.

The air went tight.

You stood quickly before Neteyam could say something irreversible, stepping between them as much as your height allowed. You reached for his wrist, fingers curling around the familiar warmth.

“Neteyam,” you said softly. “Please.”

His head snapped down to you instantly, all the fury redirecting into worry. “You should not be here,” he said, voice breaking just a fraction. “I felt it when you did not return. I knew.”

“I know,” you whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Do not do that again,” he murmured. “I cannot—” He stopped himself, jaw tightening.

Norm cleared his throat. “She needs observation. If something happens out there—”

Neteyam straightened, tail stiff. “If something happens to her here,” he said, deadly calm, “there will be no place on this moon you can hide.”

Max’s expression hardened. “Threatening us doesn’t change her condition.”

“No,” Neteyam agreed. “But separating her from me will make it worse.”

You squeezed his wrist, anchoring him—and yourself. “Listen to me,” you said, voice trembling but steady. “I’m scared too. But I need to go home tonight. Please. I promise I’ll come back tomorrow. With you. I just— I can’t be alone here.”

Neteyam looked down at you, and whatever he saw on your face—fear, exhaustion, pleading—finally broke through.

He exhaled slowly, deeply, as if forcing his body to stand down.

“She comes with me,” he said again, quieter now. “I will watch her. I will not let her wander. I will bring her back at first light if she agrees.”

Norm hesitated, torn between science and the unmistakable truth standing in front of him.

Max glanced at the monitors, then at you, then back at Neteyam. His shoulders sagged just a little.

“…One night,” he said reluctantly. “But if anything feels off—anything—you come back immediately.”

You nodded so fast it almost hurt. “I will. I swear.”

Neteyam’s hand slid to your back, solid and possessive, as if daring the world to argue further.

“We are leaving,” he said.

And for the first time since you’d sat on that exam table staring at red numbers and worst-case scenarios, you felt like you could breathe again—not because you were safe, but because you weren’t facing it alone.

*

Tawkami’s landing always felt like the world remembering how to breathe.

The moment his ikran’s claws struck the soil outside the outpost perimeter, the vibration traveled up through your bones and settled somewhere behind your ribs like a familiar drumbeat. You didn’t even realize how tight you’d been holding yourself until you felt Neteyam’s arm band across your middle—solid, warm, unshakable—and the wind tore tears from the corners of your eyes.

You loved this.

You loved the lift, the drop, the way your stomach forgot gravity and then remembered it again. You loved the smell of sky—cold and sharp and clean compared to the outpost’s metal-and-bleach breath. On Earth, you’d sat in cramped planes with recycled air and plastic cups and the illusion of movement. Here, you rode a living predator with a mind of its own, and the world opened beneath you like a map only the brave got to read.

Neteyam didn’t say much on the flight back. He didn’t need to. His body spoke in all the ways his words didn’t: his hand on your hip, his forearm firm across your stomach, the subtle shifts of his weight to shield you from the worst of the wind. When you shivered, he adjusted the pelt behind you without breaking flight rhythm—tugged it higher around your shoulders like you were the most precious cargo on Pandora.

You were quiet too.

Part of you was still back in med bay, staring at red flags and the expression on Max’s face. Part of you was already imagining Neteyam’s reaction if you’d been forced to stay the night in a sterile room without him.

You pressed your fingers into his thigh during a particularly sharp turn, grounding yourself in the truth of him. Alive. Real. Here.

Neteyam’s chin dipped against the top of your head—an almost imperceptible nuzzle—and his voice rumbled low in your ear.

“Breathe, yawne.”

You did. For him.

By the time Tawkami glided down onto the thick branch near his kelku, the last light of day was bleeding out behind the trees, bathing everything in honey and smoke. The village was winding down—distant laughter, soft voices, the clink of bowls. Somewhere a child squealed, and you heard Tuk’s laugh like a bright birdcall before it faded into the evening.

Neteyam helped you down like you weighed nothing, hands firm at your waist, guiding your boots to the woven mats. He kept one hand on you as he walked you into the kelku, as if letting go for even a second would tempt the universe to steal you again.

Inside, the air was warm and dim. The little fire pit glowed low; the walls caught and held the last bioluminescent shimmer like a secret.

Neteyam moved with purposeful quiet, the kind of domestic competence that still startled you sometimes—this warrior who could make himself gentle and careful and precise. He grabbed a leaf broad enough to serve as a plate, laid it near the furs, and began arranging food like it mattered.

Baked roots, steam still trapped under their skins. Sturmbeest meat—dark, rich, sliced into clean pieces. A little smear of something herbal that smelled sharp and green. He even added a handful of crunchy seedpods, probably because he’d seen you steal those off Kiri once and pretend you didn’t.

You sat down slowly on the furs, knees drawn up beneath you, watching him. No exo-mask. No glass between your face and the world. You could feel the air in your lungs like a private miracle.

But your attention snagged on the leaf-plate and the food, and you frowned without meaning to. It wasn’t disgust. It wasn’t even fear.

It was… the sudden inability to enjoy anything normally when your body was apparently betraying you on paper.

Neteyam noticed immediately.

He always did.

He paused mid-motion, one hand hovering over the food, and studied your face with quiet intensity—gold eyes scanning your brow, the tightness at the corners of your mouth, the way your shoulders curled inward like you were trying to make yourself smaller.

“What did they do to you,” he asked softly.

Not angry. Not accusing. Just worried in a way that made your throat tighten.

You blinked. “What?”

“Your face,” he said, voice low, steady. “You look like you are biting something back.”

You tried to smile. It came out crooked.

“I’m just…” You gestured vaguely at the food. “Thinking.”

His ears angled back slightly. “Thinking is dangerous for you.”

That earned you a small, genuine huff of laughter. “Says the man who almost threatened to burn down an entire outpost.”

Neteyam’s mouth twitched, but the worry didn’t leave his eyes. He stepped closer, crouching so his height didn’t swallow you, and set the leaf plate down within your reach.

“Eat,” he said simply. “Then you can think.”

You stared at the sturmbeest meat, then at the roots. Before—before the forest, before the fall, before waking up in white walls—you would’ve devoured this like a starving creature and then complained, loudly, that the RDA fed you synthetic lies disguised as protein.

Now you just watched it, frowning.

Neteyam’s gaze tracked the movement of your eyes like he could follow your thoughts. His tail swayed once behind him, uneasy.

You swallowed. Forced yourself to reach out. Picked up a baked root, split it with your fingers, and brought it to your mouth.

It was sweet, smoky, soft.

Real.

Your shoulders sagged a fraction, and you took another bite.

Neteyam exhaled quietly, like he’d been holding his breath for that first mouthful.

Then you reached for the meat.

You chewed, slower than usual, but the taste hit you—rich and warm and grounding—and you couldn’t help it: your eyes widened.

“Okay,” you breathed, mouth still full. “Okay, that’s… that’s really good.”

Neteyam’s entire face softened. His ears perked, just a little, and his tail immediately betrayed him—swaying side to side like a happy banner.

You laughed through your mouthful.

“Stop,” you said, pointing at it again. “It’s wagging.”

“It is not—”

“It’s wagging,” you insisted, grinning.

He tried to look offended, but his eyes were too soft. “You are hungry. It makes me glad.”

“It makes you a golden retriever,” you muttered.

Neteyam blinked. “A… what?”

You froze, then burst out laughing. “Never mind.”

He watched you laugh like it was sunlight returning to the world.

He sat near you, not eating right away—just watching. Like he couldn’t quite relax until he saw you take a few more bites, until he saw color return to your face, until he saw your shoulders unclench.

You caught him staring and lifted a brow. “What?”

Neteyam hesitated.

His gaze drifted, subtle, toward the side of the kelku—toward the shelf where the unfinished pendant sat, river-stone gleaming faintly in the dim light.

Then back to you.

Neteyam’s voice softened. “You sit with your food and frown like you are about to run.”

You looked down at your hands. “Maybe I am.”

Neteyam leaned in just slightly, close enough that his warmth touched your knees. “You do not run from me.”

It wasn’t a command. It was a promise.

Your chest squeezed.

You nodded, but didn’t speak. Not yet.

Neteyam sat beside you, one knee up, forearm resting on it.

You could feel the question radiating off him.

Did they touch you?

Did they do something?

Did they hurt you?

Norm was his father’s friend—someone Neteyam had seen around his whole life, a familiar human presence. But familiarity didn’t equal trust when it came to you. Not anymore.

The silence stretched until it became too heavy.

You reached out without thinking and traced one of the wide stripes on his chest—slow, absent lines with the tip of your finger. His skin was warm under your touch, firm with muscle, alive. Your favorite kind of grounding.

He watched your finger move, then looked back into your eyes. “Talk,” he said quietly.

You swallowed.

You could have told him the truth—my labs are bad, Neteyam. You could have told him the way Max had looked at you like a clock with a crack down the center. You could have told him how your lungs felt fine but your blood might be lying.

But you couldn’t.

Not yet.

Because once you said it, you couldn’t un-say it.

So you reached for something else—something true, softer, safer.

“Can we…” you started, voice small, then cleared your throat and tried again. “Can we go to the pond again one day?”

Neteyam blinked. “The pond?”

You nodded, eyes dropping to his chest as your fingertip traced a darker stripe. “Where you showed me the Toktorayl.”

His expression shifted—surprise first, then something warmer, something almost nostalgic. He remembered. Of course he did. He remembered everything.

You could see it in the way his gaze unfocused for a heartbeat, like the memory pulled him under.

Sunlight on water like liquid gold.

Your boots sinking into damp earth.

Your gasp, unguarded and full of awe, when the flower pulsed in daylight as if it didn’t care who was watching.

And him—pretending he didn’t notice the way he couldn’t stop watching you.

You swallowed and tried to make your request sound casual. “It’s just… I want to see it again. Without the mask. I want to smell the flower without filters.”

Neteyam’s ears twitched, attention sharpening. “You want to smell it,” he repeated slowly.

You nodded quickly, forcing a smile. “Yeah. You always said it had a scent, and I could never really—” you gestured vaguely at where your exo-mask usually sat, “—actually experience it.”

He studied you.

You kept your face open, light, as if this was just a sweet idea. A romantic outing. A normal desire.

But inside, something colder curled tight.

Because the pond wasn’t just a pond.

It was a moment frozen in time—before everything got complicated. Before you got lost. Before the outpost declared you dead. Before serum thresholds and secret labs and red numbers.

It was a place where you had existed beside him without fear.

And if Max was right… if Veyren was right… if the clock inside you was real…

Then you wanted to go back there while you still could.

You made yourself a promise as you sat there under Neteyam’s gaze:

If I only have days, I will fill them with him.

With air in my lungs and his hands on my skin and his laugh in my ears.

I will not waste what I have left being afraid.

Neteyam’s hand came up slowly, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth where a bit of root had stuck. The touch was gentle, tender. He was always so careful with you—as if his strength was a weapon he kept sheathed around you.

“You want to go with me,” he said quietly, as if confirming.

“Yes,” you whispered.

His gaze softened, then sharpened again. “And that is all?”

You held his eyes. You forced the smile wider. “That’s enough, isn’t it?”

For a long beat, he didn’t answer.

Then he exhaled through his nose, a soft huff that could’ve been a laugh if it wasn’t threaded with worry.

“We will go,” he said, voice low.

Relief flared in your chest so fast it almost hurt.

Neteyam leaned in and pressed his nose to your hair, inhaling slowly like he was collecting you. His arms came around you and pulled you into his lap, blanket and all, settling you against his chest.

Your body went limp with gratitude.

This. This was what you’d wanted all day without being able to admit it.

His heart under your cheek.

His heat.

His huge palm sliding over your back in long strokes, soothing your nerves as if his touch alone could rewrite your bloodwork.

“You are quiet,” he murmured against your hair. “I do not like it.”

You swallowed, pressing your forehead into the hollow of his collarbone like you could hide there. “I’m just tired.”

His tail curled around your shin, snug and possessive.

“Tomorrow,” he said softly, but it sounded like an oath more than a plan. “I will take you to the pond. I will bring food. You will sit in the sun. You will smell the Toktorayl. And you will not think.”

You gave a tiny laugh, muffled against his skin.

You closed your eyes.

For now, you let yourself be held.

For now, you let the world wait.

And in the quiet of his kelku—roots and meat cooling on a leaf beside you, firelight breathing in low pulses—you clung to your private, desperate promise:

No matter what the numbers said…

You would love him with everything you had left.

Please let there be time to go back there.

Thank you for your patience!

Love you guys!