Reborn - Pandora's Box (Book 2)

-.-Prologue - Girl's Night-.-

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The day Pandora regained her freedom was the day Nix met her ex-boyfriend's son for the first time.

He was abandoned, orphaned, and six-months old. 

After the Na'vi and loyal scientists had chased the humans out and saw to it that they were sent back to the hell from which they came, they raided the now eerily empty base for supplies and information. 

There they found baby Miles Socorro, wailing his little lungs out for someone, anyone. 

Too young for cryo, he had been abandoned here, no one to care for him, his parents both killed in the battle of hours earlier. 

So they had  just left him? It made Nix sick. 

As soon as she picked his wailing, flailing form up, his crying subsided and he gazed up at the woman with wild red hair framing her face. He already had a soft tuft of golden hair himself. His mum, Paz, was brunette, and Nix had always pictured Miles - no, Quaritch - his father, to be brunet as well before he started to go grey. But did he in fact have golden hair too? Or did this trait come from someone else in baby Miles's ancestry? 

"Poor kid," sighed Norm. "So young and all alone."

"But he isn't alone," Nix said, a declaration, a decision, all at once.  "He's got us." And so it was decided: he would grow up amongst the scientists, his found family on Pandora. 

"He's the first human to be born on Pandora." Nix came to Jake and Neytiri with the update that the humans had abandoned a baby at base. Miles Socorro, son of Captain Paz Socorro and Colonel Miles Quaritch, both K.I.A.  "The scientists have all agreed that we will share the responsibility of looking after him."

Neytiri growled, startling her.  "You said you didn't want children of your own! You told me! You said you didn't want a family!"

"He's a baby, Neytiri, he has no one. You can't expect us to just abandon him like the others so carelessly did." A child, innocent of the faults of his forebears. A child too young to have any recollection of the parents who had created him.

Nix had only met Paz briefly, and as for the father, Colonel Miles Quaritch, well, they were intimately acquainted, let's put it that way. 

"He belongs with his people," Neytiri hissed, crouching low to get in Nix's face. 

"That's me."

"You owe nothing to him!" she suddenly snapped. 

This threw Nix. "To who?"

"The demon!"

Then it hit her: Quaritch, she was talking about Quaritch.  "You're right, I don't, and this has nothing to do with that! It doesn't matter who his parents were, it doesn't change the fact that he's a baby with no one!" A baby with no one, coming up to his first birthday. "The battle took so many lives, but here is a new one, isn't that a miracle of sorts? Sister please, understand."

Neytiri gave one last growl and stormed off. Nix didn't blame her, but she also hated to see so many people discarding this baby's life like it meant nothing. It wasn't easy for her: every time she saw him came the reminder of his father, the man she thought she loved, and along with that came the reminder  that she'd been cheated on and that cut deep, but it wasn't his fault, baby Miles had no fault in any of this. 

Jake hung back.  "He cheated on you?"

There was no use in denying it, the proof was right there. "While I was on my way here."

"Shit Nix, I'm sorry."

"Thanks Jake, but what's done is done and we can't change it."

She and Neytiri didn't speak for days. Then, Neytiri and her Ikran landed outside the scientists' shack. 

"Girl's night," she said, an idea Nix had come up with. Nix wasn't about to miss out on that.

She linked up with her own Avatar and she and Neytiri embarked into the forest for a night just to themselves. They laughed and joked, and suddenly it was like no disagreement had ever taken place.

But eventually they sat in silence, and the situation had to be addressed. 

"I won't abandon him, Neytiri."

"I know. And you know how I feel."

"I know, and I understand." No matter who it was, Neytiri would always be wary where Sky People were concerned, even with Nix herself, and for good reason. Nix couldn't fault her for that. 

Neither were going to move on their stance, that much was clear to the other. And so they accepted it - what else could they do at the cost of their friendship?

The silence that followed was broken by Neytiri. "Eywa has blessed Ma Jake and I with a child."

Nix gasped. "Oh, I'm so happy for you!"

"Irayo. New life, a new start."

Like the Phoenix, her namesake. A new life, a new start, born from the ashes of the old. That sounded good to Nix. 

And then she started to feel funny. At first she just ignored it, but then it got to the point where she had to get help.

She turned to her science friends. Norm and Max seemed to hesitantly approach with the results.

"What is it? Am I dying? Am I sick? Just spit it out!" Come on, how bad could it be? Well, if she was dying that would be bad, but she highly doubted that was the case.

"Nix, you're pregnant," Max finally said.

How bad could it possibly be? Pretty bad apparently.

Suddenly, with just those words, she was sucked into a panic.

"Do you know who the father might be?" Norm asked gently.

She was crying. "That's kind of you, Norm, but you know who it is."

According to the scientists, she was several weeks along already, with no symptoms such as morning sickness, so she hadn't even realized.

Despite being surrounded by friends, she had never felt so alone. She crumbled to the floor by Grace's Avatar and wept. "What am I going to do, Doc? What am I going to do?"

She prayed to Eywa, more than she ever had before.

Great Mother, please, please give me strength.

(Hello and welcome back! :) I love The Way of Water even more than the first film, so I am very eager for this sequel! ;) Get ready for a lot of feelings!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed ! :))