Chapter Text
Site 26 was a small mobile link station that resided high up in the Hallelujah Mountains. It was built of two cabin modules, the Link Shack and the resident cabin connected an via air-sealed walkway and held up by four hydraulic bases.
The residents inside the station had been living there for approximately 2 months. Within those two months they had quickly established a routine.
Jake was hardly seen, spending all his time in his avatar with Neytiri and learning how to be one of the People.
Trudy was often flying between Site 26 and Hell's Gate for supplies and to drop Grace off for meetings from time to time, when she wasn't she kept the Samson clean and did maintenance to it to ensure it was working correctly.
Norm spilt his time between working with Grace in their avatars, sampling leaves of plants and continuing their research to buy them time before Parker decided to force the Na'vi out of their home, and spending his time with Trudy.
Grace was everywhere and nowhere at once. At all times, Trudy or Norm knew where she was as they usually accompanied her on things.
But sometimes she just seemed to disappear, never long enough to worry them but frequent enough to be a cause suspicions amongst the two.
Sometimes she'd be in her avatar by herself, not bothering to inform Norm that she was. Trudy and Norm had asked Jake if she were with him but he had denied it and joined them in their concerns.
At times she would not be in her avatar and just be gone with an exopack and her notebook. Those were the times that caused panic within the others for a brief moment before Grace reappeared and scolded them all for not doing anything productive.
The trio knew better then to dig too far into Grace's personal business. She loved them but needed her own space.
----
Grace Augustine knew the others were getting closer to asking where she had been going.
She sat, leaning up against a tree, with her knees draw up to hold her sketchpad as she drew a Hermit Bud for her research. It was a an odd weed, one she couldn't help but quite enjoy as it reminded her of a thistle bud back on Earth.
The scribbling of her pencil and the breathing of the exopack made a good white noise as she attempted to follow along the rant in Na'vi her beloved was having.
N'deh had picked up a terrible habit of hers of being overly passionate about things that ended up in rants that only made half sense to everyone else.
Grace and him had started off as co-workers. He was the only member of the Omatikaya that was willing to guide the avatar drivers around the jungle, even if he was rather reluctant about it at first.
Over the course of many years, N'deh and Grace grew closer. Finding more excuses to spend more time learning from each other, Grace listening to N'deh speak of the culture and correct her Na'vi, and N'deh asking Grace questions about the Sky-People and the RDA. Both far too curious for their own good.
After the school shooting, Grace had been expelled from seeing the clan. She had been distraught for days at the children she had taught dying as she had failed to save them. She did not blame the Omatikaya for exiling her, she was not one of The People and she had failed to protect their children.
N'deh had blamed the clan. Spoke of how it was cruel to banish the women who had shown time and time again the care she held for the Omatikaya. The scientist who had helped find a cure of their sick children once upon a time.
He had climbed the tree after that, taking his Ikran and flew away from the clan. He had not returned since.
The Na'vi man had always been an outcast, too curious about the Sky-People then to socialise with the clan.
Grace had found him, on her first expedition out after the school incident, making himself a home in a small cave with his Ikran nearby. They had spent the rest of that day in each other arms, telling each other quiet words kept between themselves.
Currently she was regretting those quiet words. "What is your point?"
"My point? My point is it's rid..rid..<Ridiculous> for the Sky-People to think the Omatikaya would leave their home!" N'dehs' voice was rough as he spoke, his English had improved over the years but still needed work. Hence why their conversations were often in English to allow him to practise.
Grace let out a sigh, putting her sketchpad down with the pencil on top of it onto the grass below her. "I know it is." She patted the space beside her. N'deh moved from where he had been pacing and sat down next to her, the 9 feet alien loomed over her for only a moment before her lap was full of a blue man.
"N'deh.." She grumbled, shifting to a better position to support the much taller mans weight. If she were in her avatar she would have no issues with this but N'deh seemed to prefer using her as a pillow when she wasn't taller than him.
He looked up to her lazily, a smirk on his face as Grace left out a defeated chuckle at him. "What? I am comfy." earning him a flick on his forehead.
"<Hey!>"
"You're fault for deciding to become a blanket again."
N'deh scoffed, huffing slightly like a overgrown child but made no effort to move. Instead settling on just looking at Grace. "How is your friends? Eh- Jakesuli and such." He asked, his gaze not moving from Grace as she rolled her eyes at his antics.
"Norm and Trudy, they're both good. Bored but they entertain each other. Jake is fine. A lovestruck puppy for Neytiri." She answered, running her hands through his hair and began to slowly braid it.
"Entertain each other?"
"You don't want to know. I've heard far too much in the 'shack' then I'd ever like to hear."
N'deh remained silent before the realisation hit him. "Oh."
----
Grace returned to the 'shack' later that day, nearing the evening as she opened the door and stepped through the airlock while taking off her exopack.
Trudy and Norm were making dinner for the squad as Jake did a video log, all three of them turning to her as she entered their temporary home.
"What time do you call this?" Jake called out from the computer, the video still running as he turned his head over his shoulder to look at her.
The xenobotanist had a soft smile on her face, which was odd.
Grace hardly smiled, she would laugh dirtily and snark at everyone but they had never seen such a content look on her face as they did now. To say the others were confused would be an understatement.
"Do anything productive while I was gone?" She glanced around to the trio, placing a hand to her hip and cocking it. "What's happened? You're all looking at me like I've grown two heads."
"Well uh-" Norm went to speak before Trudy shushed him and pointed to Grace's empty hands. "Where's your book? You always take it with you if your sticking close to the shack." The pilot frowned, eyeing up Grace as the ginger silently cursed herself.
How did you allow herself to forget that?
She'd blame N'deh later.
Grace sighed as he moved her hand from her hip to rub her face as she resigned herself to defeat. "Must have left it out there, can only hope-"
A gust of wind swept over the shack, the flapping of wings and the piercing cries of an Ikran came from outside. The thud of the Ikran landing then the much softer pair of feet walking across the roof were heard as they all looked to the roof.
Jake had a finger pointed to the roof as he looked down from the roof and to everyone else as they all began to share looks between each other. Norm gently sat down the packet of rations he had been holding onto the table as Trudy mouthed to them all. 'What was that?'
Before anyone could answer their was a blue hand, a songcord wrapped its' hand as the beads rattled against the window as it rapped on the window.
Knock knock knock
The hand disappeared before it returned waving a familiar sketchbook and pencil.
Grace closed her eyes, letting out a sigh as she realised who had landed on their roof.
Trudy, Jake and Norm all looked to her as they realised that the Na'vi on their roof had her sketchbook.
"How? What-" Norm began but couldn't figure out how to form any more words after that, while Trudy snorted. "Found your book, Doc."
Jake was already putting on his exopack and rolling out into the airlock.
They had quickly made Site 26 more accessible for Jake, flattening the nearby area and Trudy had created a makeshift ramp for the wheelchair up into the entrance.
"Marine!" Grace cursed as she headed after Jake into the airlock, grabbing her exopack on her way and quickly adjusting it onto her face. Trudy and Norm quickly following after the pair.
As they all exited their home, they looked up to the roof to find N'deh sitting crossed legged and looking down at them. The Ikran, a dark navy blue with a much brighter blue contrast to her with bright yellow eyes that stared into them all, let out a cry as she wearily looked at the four humans.
"<N'deh! What are you doing here?>" The words slipped from Grace's tongue as she frowned at her partner, who was waving her book lazily around as he watched her.
"You know him?" Norm asked, after translating for Trudy as she instinctively reached for her handgun that was not by her side.
"Yes. She does." The Na'vi man answered, then pointed to the couple. "Norm and Trudy...sitting man is Jake?" He spoke in slightly broken English, clearly not fluent but much better than most Na'vi they had heard speak.
"Grace?"
The doctor turned to her marine, nodding her head as she waved a hand to N'deh. "Yes, don't worry about him. He's just being bothersome today."
"Alright...but who is he?" Jake spoke again, he knew the Na'vi in front of him, lounging lazily, was not apart of the Omatikaya as he would have recognised him. He spent most of his time with the Clan and had leant to at least recognise who was familiar and who was not.
And N'deh was not.
"Unfortunately my partner."
"Mate."
"You know that term...fine yes. Mate."
Grace let out a heavy sigh, unwilling to deal with N'dehs' bickering right now, more concerned on how the other three were taking this and how this could be a major issue.
"Hah. Doc's got a Mate." Trudy snorted as she raised her hand to cover her mouth, Norm sending an elbow into her ribs as he frowned at her. "A very...private affair. Sacred to the Na'vi." He hissed as Trudy nodded along.
While with Jake he could only admire the relationship between Grace and N'deh.
He understood first hand how difficult it was to be away from Neytiri for only a few hours, those few hours he took to look after his human body and sleep felt like months on end.
And they weren't a mated pair.
He didn't know how, or if, it affected Grace as she gave no sign of distress of missing her partner. Though, she was always busy or ranting about the RDA so maybe she had been but masked it well?
He didn't know.
But he did knew that the pair seemed to have an understanding beyond what he currently had with Neytiri. Seeing Grace scold the Na'vi man as he huffed on the roof, arms crossed as his tail waved smoothly behind him- giving his amusement away while Grace rolled her eyes at her beloved.
"So, another thing we ain't telling the RDA?" Jake tilted his head, a smirk on his face when he saw Grace's scowl at his words.
"Absolutely not." The doctor shook her head, facing her fellow humans as they all nodded to her. A silent agreement to not speak of N'deh while with the RDA.
Grace could feel a spike on anxiety at the brief idea of what would happen to N'deh if the RDA caught wind of her relationship to him. She already felt the guilt of him exiling himself from the Omtikaya because of her. Her thoughts would have continued to spiral if it weren't for a hand gently reaching her shoulder and squeezing it.
She looked up to N'deh, the man now laying flat on his stomach and leaning over the edge to be nearly eye-to-eye with her. He slowly shook his head, the once teasing look on his face changing to a much softer one as he simply admired her.
"I love you." The words slipped fluently from his mouth, a practised saying that held so much true emotion it almost made it seem he had spoken English all his life.
"<I see you." Grace took her hand and gestured from her forehead to him, N'deh reaching for her hand and planted a kiss onto it.
Two different sayings from two very different cultures and species, but a mutual understanding of love between the human and Na'vi.
Though later they would soon regret it as Jake, Trudy and Norm make sure to tease them both for being affectionate with each other in public while begging for details on how they had met and what their years together have been like.
So it seems, Grace Augustine would never have much privacy when it came to her family of Site 26.
But she didn't mind that.