Sully family x Eldest daughter reader
A/n: I hate you all (i don't really but at least now u can suffer with me)
Part 50 > Part 51 < Part 52
Jake ran for the edge of the platform and dove without hesitation, the ocean rising fast to meet him before his skimwing surged up beneath him. He hit the saddle hard and the creature launched skyward at once, wings spreading wide as it skimmed over the water like some great flying fish, tail swaying side to side and driving it forward as Jake urged it faster.
His stomach was in knots and his heart was hammering so hard it felt painful, because his children were many things but right now they were exposed, young and far too vulnerable against people who would use them without a second thought if it meant getting to him.
Lo’ak. Tuk. Kiri. Neteyam.
And Eywa, his chest tightened at the thought of them cornered out there with nowhere to run, with bullets and ships and soldiers closing in around them while he was still too far away to do a damn thing about it.
He reached for his com, breath tight in his throat. “(Y/n)—” he started, ready to call for his eldest, ready to ask where she was, if she had eyes on the others, if she was already helping them.
Lo’ak had never said her name.
Hadn’t said she was with them.
Because if she wasn’t with them, then maybe that was a blessing.
Maybe one of his children was safe, somewhere far from the fight.
But another part of him knew better, knew his eldest too well for that thought to last more than a second. (Y/n) had never once in her life been able to stand back when one of her siblings was in danger.
She threw herself in front of trouble., like it was instinct, like protecting them mattered more to her than breathing... like him
and the thought of her charging straight toward the RDA sent a chill racing down his spine.
The others they would take.
His grip tightened painfully on the grip.
They had almost killed her the first time her siblings were in danger.
He had thought she was dead, the memory, of kneeling beside her with nothing but dread because there had been no sign she would ever wake again—only for her survival to come as a slim, impossible miracle was burned into him like a brand.
If the RDA got their hands on her a second time Jake kew they would bother keeping her alive at all.
“Come on,” he muttered, voice rough as he leaned lower over the skimwing’s neck. “Come on, come on.”
The Metkayina warriors were at his side, riding their own skimwings in tight formation. Their calls carried over the wind, as they pushed forward with him, matching his urgency.
But it still didn’t feel fast enough.
Nothing ever felt fast enough when his children were in danger. Jake’s eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, and all he could think was that he had to get there before something happened that he couldn’t take back, before one of his kids paid the price for him being too slow, again.
He hoped to Eywa that he was not already too late.
Jake and the Metkayina came around the curve of Three Brothers Rock, skimwings cutting over the water, warriors yipping and hooting with their spears raised high, ready for blood. For one brief second it looked like they had arrived in time, like they could crash straight into the fight and tear it apart before the RDA had the chance to do anything worse.
Saw the men turning toward them.
“Stop—stop them,” Jake said sharply, his pulse kicking harder in his throat as he threw a hand toward Tonowari.
Their skimwings slowed at once, gliding over the water before pulling up a distance from the whaling ship, and Tonowari lifted his spear in a silent command. The Metkayina halted around them, still and poised, every one of them ready to surge forward if given the order.
Jake raised his rifle and looked through the scope.
His stomach dropped so hard it almost made him feel sick.
All three of them were cuffed to the railing.
Jake felt his entire body go cold at the sight. His children were on that ship. Bound. Cornered. Helpless. His grip tightened around the gun.
“They got our kids,” he said, his voice low and rough.
“Your daughter,” Tonowari snarled
Ronal let out a sharp hiss, fear and fury warring in her expression as she stared at her daughter restrained on the ship with the others.
“Tuk, Lo’ak,” Jake said under his breath, his eye going back to the scope as if saying their names might somehow make this less real.
Then the lens landed on Quaritch.
He was standing right behind Lo’ak with one hand holding the boy’s com, his sidearm in the other, and when he raised it and pressed the barrel to the back of Lo’ak’s head Jake felt his heart punch so hard against his ribs it hurt.
“Jake,” Quaritch’s voice crackled over the com, carrying across the water, “tell your friends to stand down. You want your kids back, you come out alone.”
All he could see was that gun at Lo’ak’s head, his son forced to kneel there while Quaritch stood over him like execution was nothing more than an inconvenience. Jake’s finger twitched against his own trigger before he forced it still.
“You know better than to test my resolve,” Quaritch said.
“Fuck,” Jake hissed under his breath, lowering the gun by sheer force because there was no shot he could take, no clean angle, no way to put Quaritch down before that bullet went through Lo’ak’s skull. He was searching anyway, eyes moving over the ship, over the railings, the men, the angles, the distance between himself and his son, trying to find some opening that did not exist.
“I took you under my wing, Jake. You betrayed me. You killed your own. Good men. Good women. I will not hesitate to execute your kid.”
“Just wait one,” Jake shot back, though his mouth had gone dry and his chest was so tight he could barely get the words out.
Because Quaritch was not bluffing.
He knew it the same way he knew exactly how close he had already come to losing one of his children to these people. If (Y/n) had not been lucky—if luck even was the word for surviving that—she would have been dead the first time the RDA got their hands on her.
And now Lo’ak was kneeling at Quaritch’s feet with a gun to his head and Tuk was right there and Tsireya was right there and Jake could feel panic trying to claw its way up his throat.
He forced himself to breathe.
He looked to Tonowari. To Ronal. To the warriors gathered around them. He could rush the ship. They all could. They could hit it hard and fast and maybe overwhelm them before Quaritch pulled the trigger.
But Lo’ak was too close to that gun.
And if the attack went wrong then the children died first.
Tonowari moved his spear across Jake’s path, barring him from going any further. “They are killers of Tulkun. They must die. Here. Today.”
Jake looked at him, at the fury in his face and the grief beneath it, and he understood it. He understood every bit of it. But Quaritch’s gun was still at Lo’ak’s head.
“It’s me they want,” Jake said, keeping his voice level by sheer will. “That’s what all of this has been about. The hunting of the Tulkun. The taking of our kids.”
Tonowari’s expression shifted, fury giving way to something more conflicted, more horrified, as the truth of it settled in.
“You brought this upon us. You!” Ronal snapped, her voice like a blade.
Jake’s ears pinned back. The words hit because they were true. The Tulkun being hunted. Their children taken. The clan dragged into this bloodbath. It was all because Quaritch wanted him. Because Jake Sully had run and Quaritch had followed and now everyone around him was paying the price.
“Then it’s me that’s got to do this,” Jake said quietly.
Tonowari held his gaze for one long moment, then lowered the spear.
On the ship, Quaritch’s voice crackled over the com again. “Offer’s fixing to expire. What’s it gonna be?”
Jake swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Check your fire. I’m coming out.”
He moved his firearm behind him and nudged his skimwing forward, every beat of his heart loud in his own ears.
He needed a miracle. He needed something impossible to happen, because once he stepped onto that ship there would be no getting out of it.
“Ma Jake, what is happening?” Neytiri’s voice came over the com.
Jake shut his eyes for a second.
As surely as he knew the ocean beneath him and the gun at Lo’ak’s head and the hatred in Quaritch’s voice, he knew that if he stepped onto that ship he would never see Neytiri again. He would never see any of them again.
But for his kids it was not even a choice.
If his life bought theirs, then he was already gone.
He took a breath and steadied his heart as best he could.
Needed to be strong for his children.
Needed to sound like himself if Neytiri heard his voice one last time.
“Ma Jake?” she called again, fear creeping in now.
Couldn’t say goodbye with Quaritch listening.
Couldn’t tell his wife over an open com that he loved her and that he was sorry and that if this went wrong she needed to keep the kids safe and keep going without him.
The words sat in his chest like stones.
A Tulkun burst from beneath the surface.
Payakan hit like a living battering ram, huge and furious, the whole deck lurching beneath the impact as steel groaned in protest and men shouted in shock.
ship. The girls released their hold as Payakan reached the height of his arc and came down with him as Payakan hit like a battering ram, huge and furious, the whole deck lurching beneath the impact as steel groaned in protest and men shouted in shock.
(Y/n) hit Quaritch first.
Her fist crashed into his face with enough force to snap his head sideways and send the gun skidding from his hand. She grabbed it before it could hit the deck, kicked the back of his legs out from under him and drove him down hard, one hand shooting to his kuru as she planted a foot and yanked his head back.
“No body move!” she yelled.
“(Y/n)!” Tuk cried, her voice high with relief.
“Si’riya!” Tsireya shouted at the same time.
Beside them Si’riya landed in a tangle of violence, her hooked arm slamming into the face of one of the recoms before she turned and drove her elbow into another. Payakan was still batting men away with his fins and throwing his weight into the hull hard enough to make the entire vessel shudder, his great body crushing equipment and smashing anything that got too close.
For one heartbeat Jake simply stared.
His miracle had come in the form of his daughter launching herself onto a whaling ship.
Then Quaritch threw his head backward and caught (Y/n) square in the face. Jake saw her stagger, saw Quaritch wrench himself free and lunge up off the deck, and his heart stopped.
His eldest daughter against Quaritch.
She hit him first, fast and vicious, the stolen gun discarded as the two of them crashed into each other. She moved well—too well, Jake thought wildly, because she had no business knowing how to hold her own against someone like him and yet there she was ducking under his arm and driving her fist into his ribs before bringing her knee up toward his stomach. Quaritch took it and came back harder, bigger and heavier and with decades more experience behind every blow.
Jake’s entire body locked with dread.
Fast enough to keep slipping his first strikes, smart enough to go for joints and weak spots, vicious enough to make every hit count.
But Quaritch was still Quaritch.
He knew how to absorb a hit and turn it into leverage.
Jake watched his daughter drive a punch into his jaw only for Quaritch to catch her wrist, wrench her forward and slam his elbow into her side. Watched her hiss through the pain and still kick his knee out from under him. Watched her hold her own and knew at the same time that holding her own was not enough.
“Yah!” Jake roared, his skimwing’s wings spreading wide as he drove it forward.
Had to get to his daughter before Quaritch got his hands around her throat and snapped it.
The ship was chaos by the time (Y/n) heard her father’s cry over the water.
Everything had gone wrong and right at once.
The deck pitched under her feet as Payakan slammed the ship again, men shouting around her, gunfire cracking somewhere overhead, Si’riya still tearing through the recoms. (Y/n) barely had time to register any of it because Quaritch was in front of her again and his fist was already coming for her face.
The wind of it brushed her ear and she pivoted on instinct, driving her own fist into his cheek before slamming the heel of her palm up into his nose. It would have staggered most people. Quaritch only grunted and grabbed for her. She twisted away, planted a foot against his thigh and kicked off, sending him back a step, but the movement pulled at every bruise still healing on her body and pain lit up her ribs.
One of the support boats came around the side of the ship and she heard the launch before she saw it, a torpedo-tipped hook shooting through the air toward Payakan. Her head snapped toward it just in time to see the Tulkun dip his nose and take the hit across his plating instead of his softer underside. He sank back into the water with a sound that was almost a groan and one of his fins caught a lift machine as he went, sending it careening across the deck.
The Metkayina girl disappeared over the side.
Quaritch lunged while she was looking.
His hand caught her shoulder, spun her back around and she drove her heel into his knee before he could pin her, then kicked him square in the face hard enough to send him stumbling to the deck.
“How’d you survive?” he snarled, getting back up.
Mostly because she was busy trying not to let him cave her skull in.
He came at her again and she met him head on, the two of them crashing together in another flurry of strikes. She landed one to his jaw, another to his throat, ducked his elbow and drove her own into his ribs, but Quaritch absorbed the hits and kept coming. He caught her by the back of the neck and slammed her into the rail hard enough to rattle her teeth. She brought her knee up into his stomach, twisted out of his grip and hit him again, but he was relentless and she was starting to feel it. Every movement pulled at bruises from the crash. Her side still ached. Her shoulder screamed every time she put too much weight through it.
“Behind you!” Lo’ak yelled.
She moved without thinking.
Someone came at her from the side and she ducked under the swing, turned and punched the recom in the jaw hard enough to send her reeling. Then another body hit her from behind.
The tackle drove her to the deck.
The air punched out of her lungs as the recom pinned her, a knee slamming into her back and both arms yanked behind her. She bucked hard, trying to throw him off, but Quaritch was already getting to his feet again.
He looked past her toward the water, toward the incoming skimwings and the warriors closing in. “Sully’s inbound. I want eyes on!”
The pressure on her back increased as the recom forced her flatter against the deck. A gun pressed somewhere too close.
“Keep her there,” Quaritch snapped.
“Saddle up!” Lyle called as the remaining recoms mounted their ikrans and took to the air.
“Get up, (Y/n)!” Lo’ak shouted.
She could have laughed if there wasn’t a gun at the back of her head.
You’re such an idiot, Lo’ak.
For a few moments she lay there, chest heaving as she dragged in ragged breaths, trying to force air back into her lungs and steady the spinning world around her. Every inch of her body screamed in protest, muscles trembling as she fought to gather what little strength she had left. Slowly, she turned her head toward the chaos still raging across the deck, blinking through the haze.
“(Y/n)…” Tuk’s voice reached her, small and strained, a whine of fear cutting through the noise.
The recom above her shifted, just enough.
(Y/n) kicked backward with everything she had, catching him in the knee and twisting sharply as he lost his balance. She rolled, grabbed for the gun and fired before he could recover. He dropped.
Her footing went with it.
She stumbled, went down hard and rolled across the deck as the vessel accelerated, her shoulder slamming into steel, then her hip, then her back. Somewhere people were shouting. She got one hand under herself and tried to push up just as the ship hit the rocks.
One second she had steel under her palms.
The next she was airborne.
Then the ship dropped back into the water and she came down with it, slammed into the deck so hard it knocked every bit of air from her lungs. Pain exploded through her back and ribs and for a second she couldn’t hear anything but the ringing in her own skull.
She forced herself up anyway.
The world tilted around her.
Something exploded somewhere behind her and the force of it hit before she could turn—
Si’riya fought to keep her head above the water.
For a few seconds that was all there was. Water. Noise. Pain.
Her body did not want to listen to her, not properly, not after the lift machine had slammed into her and thrown her from the. Every breath dragged sharp through her ribs and something deep in her side burned so badly she could barely tell where one pain ended and the next began. Her head throbbed, warm blood running down the side of her face and into her eye, and each time the waves pushed over her mouth she swallowed more seawater than air.
She heard voices somewhere far away.
Then one voice cut through it.
Si’riya tried to turn toward it, but the movement made the world tilt. Her ribs pulled and she choked, coughing saltwater as her body sank lower.
“Mom,” she tried to call, but it came out wet and broken, barely a sound at all before the water closed over her head.
She kicked weakly, one arm reaching upward, and then a hand closed around her wrist and pulled hard.
Ronal dragged her up from the water with a force that made Si’riya cry out, the sound turning into a cough as she was hauled across the front of the skimwing. She collapsed over it, stomach pressed to the creature’s back, coughing water onto its hide while Ronal urged the mount away from the chaos with one hand and held onto her daughter with the other.
Si’riya tried to lift her head.
Ronal did not look back at the ship. She pushed the skimwing hard, putting distance between them and the battle. Her own heart was beating too fast, too hard, and the weight of the child still growing inside her made every movement feel heavier, every fear sharper.
When they were far enough that the water was not churning from gunfire and wreckage, Ronal slowed the skimwing and carefully rolled Si’riya onto her back. The moment she saw the blood, her breath caught.
Running from the wound at Si’riya’s head, streaking down her temple, mixing with seawater and spreading over Ronal’s fingers as she cupped her daughter’s face.
Si’riya blinked at her, unfocused.“I heard something crack,” she muttered.
Ronal’s face tightened. “You foolish girl,” she snapped, though her voice shook beneath the anger. “What were you thinking?”
Si’riya tried to breathe in and winced, her hand pressing weakly to her ribs. “(Y/n) and I needed to get them,” she mumbled, eyes slipping toward the battle as if she could still see the others through the waves and smoke. “I’m sorry… I couldn’t save them.”
Si’riya swallowed, her voice smaller now. “Sorry I’m such a disappointment.”
That broke through the fear.
Through everything Ronal had been forcing down since she saw her daughter launch onto that ship.
“You foolish girl,” she said again as she pulled Si’riya carefully into her arms.
Si’riya stiffened at first.
Ronal held her tightly, one hand cradling the back of her head, fingers pressing around the wound to slow the bleeding. “I am scared for you.”
The way her daughter tried to pull herself inward even while barely able to keep her eyes open.
Ronal caught her chin and turned her face back.
Si’riya did, though her eyes were glassy and tired.
“I have almost lost you once,” Ronal said, each word firm because if her voice softened too much she feared it would break completely. “I will not come that close again. Do you hear me?”
Si’riya’s lip trembled faintly, but she nodded.
The ship behind them suddenly launched upward against the rocks, metal shrieking as the hull lifted and slammed back down into the water hard enough that a wave rolled out from it. Ronal pulled Si’riya closer on instinct, shielding her daughter’s body with her own.
For a moment neither moved.
Si’riya’s breathing was rough against her shoulder.
“Mother?” she asked, voice weak.
“We must get away from here,” Ronal said, already turning the skimwing.
“Tsireya?” Si’riya tried to lift herself and failed. “(Y/n)?”
Ronal’s hand tightened around her.
“You are injured, you cannot help them like thus,” she said, and there was no room for argument in it, no space for her daughter to decide otherwise.
Not because she accepted it.
But because she was too tired to fight her mother.
Ronal urged the skimwing away, holding her daughter close as the battle raged behind them.
Lo’ak and Neteyam crept through the lower levels of the ship, moving as quietly as they could while everything around them groaned and shifted. T
Neteyam followed Lo’ak through the passage, eyes moving over every corner before he stepped into it. His heart was still beating too fast from the deck, from freeing Tuk, from following Lo’ak into this mess when every part of him knew they should have left, but Spider was still here and (Y/n) was somewhere here too.
So, it was a good reason to go back.
Lo’ak moved ahead, focused on the corridor in front of them, but Neteyam’s eyes kept drifting to the spaces around them, to every collapsed panel, every pile of twisted metal, every place someone could have been thrown.
A blue arm beneath a heap of bent steel and broken machinery a few levels below them
Neteyam stopped so suddenly Lo’ak nearly bumped into him.
For a moment his mind refused to make sense of it, because it was just an arm, just blue skin streaked with blood and dust, just fingers lying still against the floor. Then he saw the beads wrapped around the wrist, the familiar scratches across the forearm, the shape of her hand.
His stomach dropped. “(Y/n),” he muttered.
He moved without thinking.
Lo’ak caught his wrist and yanked him back. “What about Spider?” Lo’ak asked, voice sharp and low.
Neteyam turned on him. “What about our sister?”
The words came out harder than he meant them to, but he couldn’t help it. She was right there. She was under that metal and she was not moving, not even a little, and the sight of it made something tight and ugly rise in his throat.
Before Lo’ak could answer, shouting echoed from somewhere ahead.
Through a gap, they saw movement on the other side. Spider was being dragged through the passage by a group of humans, his arms held tight.
Lo’ak’s grip tightened around Neteyam’s wrist. “Come on, Neteyam, they’re leaving.”
Neteyam looked from Spider back to the arm under the metal.
His chest felt too tight. “Lo’ak, she isn’t moving.”
“It’s (Y/n),” Lo’ak said, and there was fear in his voice too, but he said it like that was supposed to make the decision easier, like because it was her they could trust she’d survive long enough for them to come back.
For a second he hated him for it.
Hated that Lo’ak could say her name like that when she was lying there under twisted steel. Hated that part of him was already thinking the same thing.
Because she always got up.
But what if she couldn't get up?
The thought hit hard enough that he looked back again, searching for any sign of movement, any twitch of her fingers, any shift beneath the metal, anything at all.
Lo’ak pulled at him again. “Neteyam.”
What would she want him to do?
He knew exactly what she would say if she was awake. She would tell him to get the hell out of here, to take Lo’ak with him, that she’d get Spider herself. But she wasn’t here, which meant it was up to him to keep Lo’ak from getting killed.
Neteyam swallowed hard, eyes still locked on the arm beneath the metal.
“I’m coming back,” he whispered, though he didn’t know if she could hear him.
His body wanted to go back, wanted to grab that metal and pull until his hands bled, wanted to drag her out and make sure she was breathing, but Lo’ak was already moving and Spider was being taken farther down the ship and there was no time.
Neteyam scowled and followed his brother, forcing himself not to look back again because if he did, he wasn’t sure he would be able to keep walking.
Eywa, he hoped she was okay.
Lo’ak and Neteyam dropped from the catwalk .
Neteyam hit the first man hard, driving him straight into the wall with enough force to make the human’s head snap back against the metal. Beside him Lo’ak slammed the butt of the gun into another’s face, then swung again into the third before he could properly react. Spider stumbled back as the men went down and Neteyam grabbed the first one by the front of his vest and threw him over the railing before he could recover.
One of the others groaned and pushed himself up, reaching for the gun at his side.
The shot cracked through the corridor and the man dropped.
For half a second Lo’ak just stared at him.
“Bro, come on,” Spider said urgently.
Neteyam grabbed his brother by the arm. “Let’s go.”
They jumped down onto the lower platform and Spider rushed to them at once, breathing hard. “Thanks, guys.”
Neteyam barely had time to nod before movement at the far end of the corridor caught his eye.
A recom stepped into view.
“Move!” Neteyam barked, but the first burst was already ripping toward them.
Lo’ak jerked his stolen weapon up to return fire and Neteyam grabbed him by the arm, shoving him forward so hard he nearly lost his footing. “No. Go! Go!”
Bullets whizzed past them, slamming into the walls, the railings, the pipes overhead. Spider ducked low and bolted, Lo’ak right beside him, and Neteyam stayed at their backs, half pushing Lo’ak ahead of him as they ran .
They skidded behind the corner and Neteyam snatched the gun straight from Lo’ak’s hands. “Give me that.”
He leaned out and fired backm not really aiming at anything, just trying to keep them from repositioning..
“Go! Go! Go!” Neteyam shouted, firing again to keep the bastard pinned down.
“This way!” Spider yelled.
He and Lo’ak broke from cover and sprinted for the open pool ahead, diving into it without hesitation. Neteyam fired a few more rounds, trying to buy them another second, another two, enough time for them to get clear.
Then the gun clicked empty.
The first bullet hit before he reached the edge.
It punched into his upper chest.
It felt less like being struck and more like something had driven straight through him with blunt force, hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs as he threw himself into the pool
A sharp, hot pain tore across his chest a split second later, followed by a wet warmth spreading fast beneath his hand as his body caught up with the fact that he had been shot.
The water slammed into him and the shock of it nearly finished the job the bullet had started.
Neteyam jerked under the surface, mouth opening on instinct and taking in nothing but salt before he forced it shut again.
His chest was on fire. His whole body felt wrong. The pain was sharp and deep and every movement dragged at it, sending another awful burst through him.
He pressed a hand over the wound.
He could see Spider and Lo’ak ahead through the water, their shapes blurred and moving fast, and Neteyam pushed after them. The blood slipping through his fingers made the water around his chest feel warm, far too warm, and his arm was already starting to weaken with the effort of keeping pressure over the wound while swimming one-handed.
He surfaced hard, coughing, dragging in air that didn’t feel like air at all.
Lo’ak whooped somewhere beside him. “We made it!”
Neteyam tried to answer and couldn’t.
His chest tightened violently.
Each breath came shallow like his body had forgotten how to do it properly.
“Skawng,” he spluttered, voice rough and wet as he fought to keep himself above water. “I’m shot.”
The words barely made it out.
Lo’ak turned so fast it sent water flying and all the triumph vanished from his face. Spider swore. Tsireya’s ilu surged closer and hands grabbed at Neteyam, hauling him up onto the creature’s back while he clutched his chest and tried not to panic.
His sister had told him they were making it out of this.
She had said it like it was fact.
Neteyam looked back toward the ship, breath hitching again as pain tore through his chest.
What about his big sister?
The harder he tried to breathe, the worse it got. His chest felt tight and wet and wrong, every inhale catching short before it could fill his lungs, and the panic that came with it was worse than the pain. It gripped at him hard, turning his hands cold, making the edges of the world feel strange and far away.
He pressed harder against the wound, but the blood kept coming between his fingers and he couldn’t stop shaking. He wanted to be brave. Wanted to keep it together because Lo’ak was staring at him and Spider was staring at him and somebody had to keep their head.
Wanted his big sister there telling him he would be fine.
The ilu sped away from the ship, Lo'ak guiding it as fast as she could, but Neteyam barely felt it. He was too busy fighting for every breath, too busy staring at the burning wreck behind them and wondering if his sister was still in there.
He wondered if he would be joining his big sister within Eywa soon, and a tear slid down his face.
Eclipse was nearing by the time Jake spotted the ilu cutting toward the rocks.
At first all he saw was movement in the water, one ilu, too many bodies crowded onto its back, and then Lo’ak’s voice tore across the shoreline.
He raced across the rocks so fast he nearly slipped, water spraying beneath his feet as he jumped the last gap and hit the lower ledge hard enough to jar his knees. Lo’ak was half in the water, half over the ilu’s back, and Neteyam—
Jake felt himself shudder.
Neteyam was gasping, his breaths short and quick. His face had gone pale beneath the blue of his skin and his eyes were wide, frightened, fixed somewhere between Jake and the sky like he was trying to hold onto both at once.
“Help, it’s Neteyam!” Lo’ak shouted, panic breaking his voice apart.
Jake dropped to his knees at the edge of the rock and reached for Spider first, using the boy’s arm to pull them in closer while Tsireya tried to keep Neteyam from slipping back into the water.
“Come on, come on,” Jake muttered, though he did not know whether he was talking to them or to himself.
They got close enough for him to grab his son.
Neteyam cried out weakly as Jake caught him beneath the arms and Lo’ak immediately moved to help, Spider on the other side, Tsireya using the push of the waves to keep lifting him toward them.
“Bro, watch his head, watch his head,” Lo’ak said desperately.
Together all four of them hauled Neteyam onto the rocks, Jake taking most of his weight once his son was high enough, lowering him carefully onto the stone as another broken gasp tore from him.
“Just watch his head,” Jake said, his own voice shaking now as he eased Neteyam down.
His son’s chest was moving too fast.
Every breath looked painful.
Every breath looked like work.
Lo’ak dropped beside him immediately. “It’s okay, bro, we got you,” he said, and his voice cracked so badly on the last word that Jake’s heart nearly gave out then and there.
Jake rolled Neteyam carefully.
The bullet had gone through.
For a second he just stared at it.
At the hole torn through his son’s chest.
And now he was lying here in Jake’s hands with blood all over him and Jake could not think. Could not breathe. Could not make sense of a world where his son was the one on the rocks gasping for air.
Jake grabbed Lo’ak’s wrist and shoved his hand over the wound. “Pressure. Keep pressure on it.”
Lo’ak obeyed instantly, both hands shaking as he pressed down.
Neteyam spluttered, his breathing hitching hard, and the look in his eyes when he turned them on Jake nearly broke him. Pain. Fear. Confusion. And something else too, something that looked too much like his son beggin for his father to help him.
“Dad, I...” Neteyam rasped.
Jake cupped the side of his face at once, thumb brushing over his cheekbone. “It’s okay. I’m here.” The words came out rough.
Neteyam tried to drag in another breath and choked on it, his whole body tightening with the effort.
Please not one of his kids.
He could not lose his son like this
. Not while Neteyam was still reaching for him with his eyes like Jake could make it stop hurting.
Sa’ata’s wings beat hard overhead and then Neytiri was there, leaping from her ikran and hitting the rocks in a rush of limbs and panic.
“No, no, no, no, no, no,” she was saying before she even reached them, dropping to her knees opposite Jake and reaching for Neteyam with both hands.
His whole world had narrowed to his son’s face.
To the way Neteyam kept trying to breathe and couldn’t seem to get enough air.
To the blood beneath Lo’ak’s hands.
Jake had no idea what to do.
He had seen gunshots before.
He had treated wounds before.
He had watched people die before.
Jake cradled Neteyam’s cheek more firmly, remembering in one horrible flash when that whole side of his face had fit in Jake’s palm because he had been so small, just a baby with bright eyes and too much curiosity, and now here he was, grown and bleeding out in front of him.
“It’s okay,” Jake said, fighting back the tears already stinging his eyes. “I’ve got you.”
Neteyam’s gaze shifted between him and Neytiri. He looked terrified.
Not pretending to be brave.
“I want to go home,” he begged.
Jake felt something in his chest seize so hard it hurt.
Home as in please make this stop.
Home as in Dad, I’m scared and I need you, please.
Neteyam’s breathing turned quicker, shallower, his chest barely lifting now, and Jake could feel the panic rising in him.
His son dying under his hands, looking at him for help, and there was nothing—nothing—Jake could do to stop it.
“I know,” Jake said, and his voice quivered despite everything he did to steady it. “I know. It’s okay. We’re going home.”
Neteyam looked so frightened.
“We’re going home,” he repeated, stroking his cheek, trying to keep his own voice calm for him. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Because all that fear and hope and denial that had been building inside him hit at once and for one terrible heartbeat he could not hear anything at all.
Then Neytiri made a sound he had never heard from her before.
She grabbed Neteyam’s shoulders and shook him once as if she could wake him, as if this was some nightmare he could still be pulled out of.
Her scream tore through the rocks and the water and straight through Jake’s chest.
He reached for her, pulling her into him on instinct, but she pushed him off with a desperate jerk of her shoulder and gathered Neteyam’s face in both hands, leaning over him like she could shield him from the truth if she covered enough of him with her own body.
“Great Mother, no,” she sobbed.
Jake’s hands hovered at her shoulders before finally settling there, useless and trembling while she cradled their son to her chest, pressing his ear against her as if she might still hear something if she held him close enough.
A raw, shattered sound that made Lo’ak flinch and Tsireya begin to cry somewhere behind them and Jake—
Jake sat back on his heels and felt nothing at all for a moment.
His wife was bent over his body sobbing.
And Jake could not make his own mind catch up to what his eyes were seeing.
Then Quaritch’s voice crackled over the com. “Can you hear me, corporal?”
Jake’s head lifted slowly.
“Yeah, I think you can. I got your daughters.”
And Quaritch had his daughters.
“Same deal as before,” Quaritch continued. “You for them.”
Jake turned to Lo’ak so fast it made the boy flinch.
“Where are your sisters?”
Lo’ak looked up at him, guilt all over his face.
Jake’s heart started pounding again, hard and ugly and furious now. “Your sisters. Where are they?!” This wasn’t the time for the boy to be silent now.
“I—I don’t know,” Lo’ak said quietly, and Jake could see it all over him, the fear, the guilt, the fact that he did know something and just didn’t want to say it.
“Where are they?!” Jake shouted.
Tsireya was crying as she answered. “They’re on the ship. They’re tied up on the ship.”
Spider grabbed Jake’s wrist. “They’re at the moon pool,” he said quickly. “At the well deck.”
Jake stared at him. “What?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.” Spider pulled at him, trying to drag him up.
Quaritch’s voice came over the com again. “Talk to me, corporal. I need something, Jake, or there’s gonna be consequences.”
“Yeah,” Jake breathed, not even sure how he got the word out. “I hear you.”
He turned back to Neytiri.
She was still bent over Neteyam, holding him like if she let go this would become real, that if she held him she could keep their son here.
Jake knelt beside her and put his hands on her shoulders as gently as he could. “We gotta go. Come on, we gotta go.”
“Listen. Listen to me.” His own heart was breaking looking at her like this, because it matched the way his felt inside, split clean down the middle and bleeding out where nobody could stop it. But Kiri was still out there. Tuk was still out there. And (Y/n)—
If Quaritch had her after that stunt on the ship, Jake did not even want to let his mind go where it was trying to go. Not again. Not after Neteyam.
He cupped the side of Neytiri’s neck and made her look at him. “They have our daughters.”
She let out another broken sob.
“I need you with me,” Jake said, his voice low and shaking. “I need you to be strong. Right now.”
He laid a hand over her chest. “Strong heart.”
“Strong heart,” he repeated softly.
He watched the words settle.
Watched grief harden into something else behind her eyes.
The kind that kept a mother moving when her heart had just been ripped out.
Neytiri picked up her bow.
Jake rose with her, every part of him aching, every breath still wrong with the weight of Neteyam behind him on the rocks, but there was no time to break. No time to grieve.
He looked once at his son.
Then back at the burning ship.
“Let’s go get our daughters,” Jake said.
“Dad, let me come with you. I can help,” Lo’ak said, scrambling to his feet,
Jake turned on him, something sharp flashing in his eyes.
“Stay with your brother,” he said, the words coming out harder than he meant, but he couldn’t soften them. Not now. “You’ve done enough.”
Lo’ak froze like he’d been struck.
For a second, hurt flickered across his face, mixing with the guilt already there, but Jake couldn’t take it back.
Not when Neteyam was lying behind them and the rest of his children were still out there.
Jake forced himself to look away before it broke him too.
Jake fought his way through the ship, grief sitting so heavy in his chest he thought it might crush him. Every corridor was flooding, every surface slick beneath his feet, alarms screaming overhead while metal groaned around and still part of his mind was elsewhere.
Every turn of a corridor, every open hatch, every shadowed room, his eyes were searching for a glimpse of her, for some sign that she was alive and moving and not lying somewhere broken in the belly of this ship. The last time he had seen her she had been fighting Quaritch hand to hand, and Jake knew exactly how dangerous that was because he had fought that bastard himself. The thought of his daughter alone against him, made something cold keep creeping down Jake’s spine.
He couldn’t call for her over the coms.
Couldn’t risk Quaritch hearing.
Kept trying not to think too hard about all the ways this could end.
Tomahawk in one hand, knife in the other, he rounded another corner and saw Tuk.
She was cuffed to the railing, soaked and shivering, eyes huge in the low light, and the second she saw him her face crumpled with relief.
“Dad,” she whispered, too scared to be louder. “Dad.”
Jake was at her side in a heartbeat. “Shh,” he breathed, dropping the knife to the restraints and sawing through them as quickly as he could. “It’s okay. I got you.”
The cuff snapped loose and Tuk threw herself into him before he had even finished pulling it away. Jake caught her against his side and pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head before forcing himself to focus.
“Where are your sisters?” he asked.
Tuk pointed with shaking fingers down the corridor. “That way. That way.”
“Okay. Stay behind me.” He pulled her in close and tucked her behind his body before rising again, weapons back in hand, every sense straining ahead of him.
Then Quaritch stepped around the corner.
Kiri was in front of him, one arm locked across her chest while Quaritch held her back against him, his knife pressed hard to her throat.
Jake felt his heart drop into his stomach.
For a second all he could see was the blade against his daughter’s neck.
“Kiri!” Tuk cried, trying to rush forward.
Jake threw an arm out in front of her without taking his eyes off Quaritch.
“Runnin’ outta time here, corporal,” Quaritch said, his voice calm in a way that made Jake want to tear his throat out. “You already lost one kid today. You really wanna lose another?”
Jake moved before he thought better of it, one sharp step forward, but Quaritch pressed the knife tighter against Kiri’s skin and Jake stopped so abruptly it jarred through his whole body.
“Do not test me,” Quaritch growled.
“Just kill him, dad!” Kiri shouted.
But it dragged close enough to leave a thin line of red across her throat.
Jake felt the blood drain from his face.
This was one of his worst nightmares.
Quaritch with one of his children in his hands.
Quaritch calm enough to talk while Jake stood there knowing one wrong move could cost him another kid.
Jake’s arms were shaking.
“Weapons down,” Quaritch ordered.
“Don’t,” Kiri gasped. “Don’t do it.”
Jake lowered the tomahawk first.
They hit the metal floor with a sound that seemed far too small for what it cost him.
Kiri made a small sound of panic.
Quaritch reached behind him, pulled out a set of orange cuffs and tossed them at Jake’s feet. “Cuff yourself.”
Spider appeared from the shadows then, wet and wild-eyed and terrified. “No, no, don’t hurt her, okay? Please don’t hurt her.”
“Stand there!” Quaritch snapped at him. “Don’t move. Not a step.”
Then his eyes were back on Jake. “Cuffs. On. Now.”
Jake crouched slowly and picked them up, never looking away from Kiri, never looking away from the knife at her throat. He slapped one side around his wrist and glared at Quaritch with everything he had left in him.
“Please don’t hurt her,” Spider begged again.
Then Neytiri stepped out of the shadows behind Spider.
She moved so fast Jake barely saw it happen. One second Spider was standing there, the next Neytiri had a fist in the back of his hair and her knife at his throat, dragging him back against her with a snarl.
“Release,” she breathed. “Or I cut.”
Quaritch didn’t even blink.
“You think I care about some kid?” he said with a small shake of his head. “He’s not mine. We’re not even the same species.”
Spider’s face crumpled. “Just please let her go.”
“Don’t kill him,” Kiri begged at the same time, still trapped under Quaritch’s arm.
Neytiri’s face twisted with grief and rage so raw it barely looked like her anymore. “A son for a son,” she snarled, and she dragged the knife across Spider’s chest just enough to cut skin. “I cut,” she warned.
Quaritch still did not move.
Jake could feel his own pulse in his throat.
Then Neytiri let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a wail and raised the knife, ready to drive it home, and Quaritch broke.
His knife jerked away from Kiri’s throat at last.
Neytiri kept hers raised.
Quaritch shoved Kiri forward and Jake lunged, catching her and pulling her behind him so fast she nearly stumbled. Neytiri threw Spider back toward them a second later and Jake moved in front of all three on instinct, one hand reaching for Kiri, the other going down for the knife on the floor.
“Spider, get ’em out of here,” Jake said, not taking his eyes off Quaritch.
Quaritch’s gaze shifted to Neytiri. “I owe you a death.”
“Mama,” Tuk whispered, grabbing for Neytiri’s arm as they all started backing toward the ocean. “Come. Please, mama.”
“You’re not leaving, are you Jake?” Quaritch called after him. “Knowin’ I’m out there? Knowin’ I’ll never stop? I’m comin’ for you, and when I do I’ll kill your whole family.”
Jake’s grip tightened on the knife. "Then let’s get it done." He rushed him.
The impact drove Quaritch backward and the two of them slammed into the wall hard enough to rattle the corridor. Jake brought the knife up at once, aiming for the throat, but Quaritch caught his wrist and smashed it into the metal until Jake’s fingers spasmed. The knife dropped and Quaritch answered with a brutal punch to the ribs that sent pain flashing through Jake’s side.
Jake came back with the tomahawk.
He swung for Quaritch’s head and Quaritch ducked, the blade lodging in a pipe with a shower of sparks. Quaritch drove his shoulder into Jake’s chest, ripped him away from the wall and the two of them crashed, water already sloshing around their ankles.
Jake got the tomahawk free just in time to block Quaritch’s knife hand.
Quaritch twisted, trying to drive the blade down into Jake’s stomach, and Jake planted his feet and shoved back, muscles screaming with the effort. They were evenly matched, strength against strength with neither gaining ground. Jake knew brute force alone wouldn’t win this. So he shifted, breaking the stalemate by slamming his forehead into Quaritch’s nose.
Jake chopped the tomahawk across his shoulder and Quaritch roared, then drove a knee into Jake’s gut so hard it stole the breath from him. Jake folded, Quaritch grabbed him by the throat and hurled him into the flooding wall. Jake hit hard, water splashing up around him, and Quaritch was on him before he could fully recover.
Quaritch snarled and jerked back just enough for Jake to wrench his wrist aside and send the blade skittering away into the rising water.
Then they were just fists.
Jake swung first, catching Quaritch across the jaw, and Quaritch answered with a blow that snapped Jake’s head sideways. They staggered along trading punches, slipping in the water, slamming into walls and railings and broken panels as the ship listed beneath them.
Jake caught Quaritch by the vest and drove him backward into a bulkhead, then hammered his fist into his ribs twice before Quaritch slammed an elbow into the side of his face.
Quaritch grabbed him by the throat and hauled him toward the railing, then heaved him over it, sending Jake crashing down into the lower level of the flooding wreck.
The voice hit him harder than Quaritch’s fists ever could.
Jake’s head snapped toward it.
And there was something in her voice that made his blood curdle, something terrified and desperate and wrong enough that every hair on the back of his neck stood up.
Quaritch hit him across the face before Jake could move, sending him stumbling sideways into the wall, but Jake barely felt it.
Because his daughter sounded scared.
And his daughter did not scare easy.
“(Y/n)!” he called back, but Quaritch caught his cheek in another brutal strike that snapped his head to the side. Jake staggered, vision flashing white for a split second, but he forced himself upright again, chest heaving.
He had to end this first.
“Dad—!” her voice broke this time, a terrified sob that tore straight through him.
Jake’s heart lurched violently in his chest.
Quaritch grinned; blood smeared across his teeth. “Sounds like you’re about to lose another kid.”
“Daddy,” she sobbed out, her voice echoing from somewhere. her voice breaking in a way Jake had never heard before, small and frightened and stripped of all the strength she usually carried.
It wasn’t the voice of the fierce warrior she had become, but of a little girl who needed her father, who was scared and hurting and calling for him like she used to when she was younger.
The sound cut straight through him, deeper than any blade ever could, and something inside Jake snapped.
@animegamerfox @loaf-with-jam @bynxi @whos-nin1 @liloumoreau5 @elliether @livingnotthriving @marija4674 @hannahriya @lovelyinthesunlitsky @lizzy91768 @18lkpeters @sirscampi @pitypinkabyss @merklefish @kitten-blog12 @akamenaruto14 @seawavesss @poppyw4 @frey-williams @saibaxoxo @fleeingreality @luzziii-luvv @verona-aliyah @th3realslimb1tch @nxstqlgia @nxstalgiaaa @gypsiegoop @pandaquick @user153639937 @beneaththetides @cantaloupesoda @7leo7 @any-maybe @kittsoraxx @eeorrrr @thekissoflife @the-official-disappointment @julietelysythr @crazylady20 @saltedcoffeescotch @taylor-munson @xoxojules86 @x-isha9 @valyriaa @jsp45 @buckybluebarnes @fleurlock @gvyknkj @nantii14 @pinkglittertaco
