Petrichor

Star

Jake lay gazing at the stars, Ilhia tucked into his side. It had been one of those nights where they'd been able to get away from the kids, and stay away from their kids for a few hours.

To be fair, they were able to do a lot more now that the kids were growing. Leypa was nineteen now, Neteyam and Kiri fourteen, Lo'ak thirteen and Tuk six. Tuk still liked to be read to sleep, but that was nearly the only thing that Jake and Ilhia needed to do. They were all growing up too fast, becoming independant.

Leypa had passed his iknimaya years ago, when he was fourteen, and had named his ikran Meyke. He was skilled with a bow, with a spear, and with a fishing spear too. Many times Jake had been asked if Leypa would consider a pairing for a mate, but Jake had always declined. Leypa would make that decision for himself, some day. Who would he be to stand in the way of love?

Neteyam had completed his iknimaya mere weeks ago, his ikran Päpavi. Both of his sons were considered to be great hunters, and Neteyam expected to follow in his brother's footsteps.

It was scary to Jake to see him grow. To see all of them grow. Tuk had been the length of his forearm when she was first born and now she stood several inches taller than Trudy.

"Do you ever think about them?" Jake asked, his voice soft in the night. Ilhia breathed in deeply, and sighed, her breath tickling his nipple.

"The humans?" she said, equally soft.

"Yeah."

She readjusted her head, rubbing her forehead against his side. "I cannot say, ma Jake. I only ever think about humans when I see Spider, or the scientists."

"Hmm."

She lifted her head slightly so she could look at him. "Do you?"

His gaze stayed focused on the sky. "Sometimes. I think about my brother, and my parents." Ilhia began to play with his songcord on his waistband. "I can barely remember my old life. I just remember how shit the world was going."

Shit was an understatement. In the fifteen years that the humans had left, he imagined it had got a whole lot worse.

His mate was silent. He didn't expect a response.

But she touched the small urn on his chest. He'd made it all those years ago, fashioned it out of wood when she'd first shown him how to whittle. "He is with you, Jake. He may not be within Eywa, but he is with you. You carry him every day."

Sometimes Jake forgets that his body was meant for Tommy. That this life, before the battle, was supposed to be for Tommy. He would have never met Ilhia, never had kids, if his brother hadn't died in some stupid robbery gone wrong.

He often thought in some twisted way, that it was fate. That Eywa had already reached him, six years into space, and knew that he had to come to Pandora. He dreaded to think what would have happened to the Na'vi if he hadn't came to the planet. There would have been no way that Tommy could have pulled off what he did, and he didn't say that to boast. Tommy didn't have a fighting bone in his body. There had been a reason that the twins had totally different jobs, totally different lifestyles.

Jake's hand slipped over Ilhia's, holding it to his chest. "Just as you carry Sylwanin."

His mate sighed again, for a totally different reason. "Sylwanin will always be in my heart, as Tommy is in yours. The demons were sent back to their planet. There is no need to think of them, to stress over what may or may not be, Jake. We are happy, our sons and daughters are happy. That is all that matters."

But you didn't hear what Selfridge had said.

Ilhia had slipped away by the time that Selfridge had spoken to him and Norm, when he had said that it wasn't over. She had went to explore the base, and Jake had been more than happy to let her go. There had been no threat after all.