Where's My Love? - Lo'ak

Chapter 32: One Life Ends, Another Begins

It's nights like these when Jake feels content with himself.

His kids sleep peacefully, Neteyam holding onto Tuk, while Lo'ak is sprawled out on top of his brother, one of his hands holding Esmyrie's. Esmyrie and Kiri sleeping close to each other, the girls heads leaning on one another.

And Neytiri, her arms wrapped around his waist, their queues bonded to feel closer to one another, to feel safer.

"Ma Jake, I can tell something is on your mind. I can feel it." Neytiri whispers out, not wanting to wake the kids.

"Mmm..." Is all Jake can mumble out, wanting to bathe in the comfort she provides him.

"Ma Jake..." Neytiri whispers, planting a kiss on his cheek and pulling him making him shift his body so they face each other.

"Just a lot on my mind." Jake tries to reassure his wife, not wanting her to worry.

"I know. Please tell me what it is."

Jake sighs out, moving a hand from where it lays on her thigh to her face, his thumb rubbing at her soft skin.

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Lo'ak won't talk to me. Neteyam is always busy training, trying to prove a point, which he doesn't need to prove. Kiri barely opens up to me, and even Tuk would rather spend time with the Metkayina kids than her own father. Not to mention I'm not the father Esmyrie needs, I'm not." Jake says, finally voicing his thoughts.

He has felt like he is losing his kids more each day they stay here and he is trying to determine if that's just his kids growing up or if he is truly doing something wrong.

"You aren't doing anything wrong." Neytiri tries to reassure but Jake shakes his head at that.

He is trying to be the best father and husband he can be. His biggest fear is losing one of his kids or his wife, but he feels like he is already slowly losing them.

"I'm trying my best but it's just engraved in me to turn my emotions off during war. That was how it was back on earth, before everything..." Jake swallows, not wanting to mention the injury to his spine that caused him to lose feeling in his legs. "And I'm trying not to do that now, but.... They're kids, our kids, and they are faced with all of this," Jake emphasis this by moving his arms to show the ocean and the home that never will truly feel like theirs, "because of my past."

"Jake, you don't have to face this alone."

"I don't want to take you and our family down with me. There has already been so much death because of my past decisions...."

"That isn't your fault." Neytiri whispers, his hand moving up and down his arm but again, Jake shakes his head in disagreement.

"This war is because of me... Because I betrayed them..."

"Ma Jake..."

"I blame myself for Nilar's death." Jake interrupts, shifting so he lays on his back, his arms going around him to cover his face.

"You didn't kill him, those demons did." There is venom on Neytiri's tongue at the word demon.

"Maybe so, but I'm the one that stuck that knife in him. I'm the one that made him have his last breath... And I made a promise to him. Protect her, that's what he said. And I agreed, immediately. He trusted me enough to protect her and I'm failing him, I'm failing her."

"You didn't know the people would want her banished. You didn't know there would be a fight she gets involved in. You didn't know that those would happen, you had no way to of known." Neytiri tries to comfort her mate but she can feel that he still holds sadness and guilt in his heart.