Late Night P2 | Rough Draft | Fin

Dreams and Hopes

"So.. Lia asked me the other day why I never moved on."
Norm is sitting criss-crossed below the tree of souls, with his braid attach to one of the vines.
If one looked hard enough, they'd see a faint outline of Trudy sitting beside him in the grass.

"Well?" She asks as he leans over to place a hand on his knee. "Why haven't you?"

He ponders for a small moment, not entirely sure how to word what he feels.
"I never felt like I needed to."
And he places a hand on top of hers.
"I'm fine where I am."

"There's nothing wrong with moving on." She says, trying to comfort his thoughts she knows he won't voice. "I'm not there, Norm. You deserve happiness, not staying tied up here all the time like Tsu'tey did."

His fingers play around with hers as he hesitates to answer.

"It's been hard since the Sully's left, Trudy. You know how hard it is losing everyone I.. we started this with.
I don't care if I spend every day I can here, I'm happier with you."

"I don't want you to feel like you can't ever move on. I'm here, you're there. You're my best friend, I support you."

"Trudy." He turns to her after sharply saying her name.
"Your last transmission could have been anything, to your parents, to our friends, a fuck you to Quaritch, it could have actually been a 'I'm sorry, Jake.' message.
But it wasn't.
You said 'I love you, Norm' as clear as day, and just as I turned to find you in the air and say it back — hoping you were able to abandon ship or something, anything..
— that's when I saw the aircraft give out."

And she can barely look in his eyes.

"—That has stuck with me ever since, you know that. Despite whatever we've become to one another. I will always love you, too."

She stands to meet his gaze, perhaps a little too well as they both lean in to one another.

Although there's a phantom sense to those who project themselves outward from Eywa, he can still feel a soft touch against his lips as they meet.

Trudy hurriedly pulls herself away, and he's visibly confused as to why.

"No, no. I'm not doing that."

"Doing... what?" He asks, needing some sort of clarification.

"I'm sorry. Im not freaky like our little miss sully is. I'm not having sex with you in this form."

She realizes a little too late that maybe he hadn't known about that... the way his ears drop and brows raise in concern definitely giving that away.

"What?" Trudy looks between his eyes as he still holds a hand around her waist.
"You really didn't know?"

He still looks at her in horror.
Only shaking his head side to side as he tries to process it.
"They... they didn't." He outright denies.
"How?
Wait, never-mind, I don't want to know.
But... how does it- how did that-"

He seems to look back and forth between his own avatar, and her body. To which she shoves at him lightheartedly for it.

"You're gross. Don't even look at me like that. Also, yeah.
Unfortunately, they did.
Many times."

And now he just looks completely disgusted.
"Please don't tell grace when you see her, she would have their heads for this."

"Oh don't worry." She scoffs. "— I never did and never will."

"Dad? Are you out here?"
Lia calls out to Norm as he works her way through all the different vines.

He's been stalling his time with Trudy, nervously waiting for Lia to make her way out of the last part of her ceremony. Only the village elders, Neytiri, and Mo'at were typically around for the actual hallucinative part of things.