Shooting Stars | Lo'ak¹

Chapter 28: Confrontations

Neytiri's lips parted at Ja'lia's words as she looked over at her husband, and Jake put his head down in shame. The man hadn't told her that part of the argument.

"What is she talking about?" Neytiri whispered as she felt her heart clench in pain. Jake lifted his head to see the tears forming in Neytiri's eyes, and he knew that he needed to explain, although Jake didn't know how he was going to without Neytiri losing it.

"When Lo'ak and I got into that fight, I compared him to Neteyam, and he got upset. Lo'ak looked so hurt. He said that he wasn't Neteyam and that he was sorry that he couldn't be the perfect son." Jake said, swallowing the lump in his throat, "Lo'ak said he was sorry he was born and most times he wished that he wasn't," He whispered, and Neytiri looked at her mate in horror.

"You will fix this," Neytiri gritted, and Jake immediately agreed with her words. He knew that he needed to talk to his son, and while Jake had been pushing it off because he hated confronting his feelings, it was time to get it over with.

Ja'lia was right.

If he wanted any semblance of a relationship with Lo'ak when he was older, then he needed to work on their relationship and push away his worries about the Sky people. Of course, the Sky people possibly finding them was still troublesome, but even the thought of losing Lo'ak tore his heart into two.

Jake took in a deep breath before speaking, "Lia, do you know where Lo'ak's at?"

"I told him to go hang out with Neteyam or Kiri while I spoke to you," She shrugged, and Jake nodded before walking out of the pod without saying another word.

Both women watched Jake exit the pod, and a sigh of relief escaped past Ja'lia's lips because Jake was finally going to fix his wrongs. She knew that one conversation wasn't going to heal all the hurt and pain that Lo'ak had to endure, but it was a step in the right direction.

And while Lo'ak had been the one to take the first step, Ja'lia was happy that Jake was going to step up to the plate.

There had been too many times in the past when the arguments between Lo'ak and Jake were ignored or pushed to the side, and that's why the most recent one was so catastrophic.

It was because every ounce of pain that Lo'ak had felt had been pushed down from previous arguments. He bottled all of it up because he wanted to keep the peace, but when Jake essentially compared him to Neteyam, that had been the last straw.

Everything he held back from the past came rushing out in the form of the most hurtful words he could think of. Because that's what Lo'ak wanted to do. He wanted to hurt his Dad the way Jake had hurt him.

Lo'ak didn't think it was fair that he was always the only one who seemed to be suffering, aside from Ja'lia because he knew that when he was in pain, she was too because of how much she cared about him.

As Ja'lia pulled herself away from her thoughts, she saw the tears stream down Neytiri's face as she was drowning in her own guilt. Neytiri didn't know how Lo'ak truly felt. The most she could use to determine his pain was her own imagination, and even then, she hadn't been in the ballpark of how hurt he was.

It made Ja'lia's heartache for Neytiri because while Neytiri often let Jake scold Lo'ak how he saw fit, that was still her child. Ja'lia knew that Neytiri would never go against her husband in public. She would wait until they were alone before tearing him a new one, but sometimes Ja'lia wished Neytiri would do it in public.

Because maybe then Jake would understand Lo'ak's hurt.

Ja'lia slowly moved towards Neytiri and placed an arm around her shoulder to comfort her. The mother leaned into the girl's touch, "I'm so sorry, Lia. It never should have come to this. I should've said something sooner, done something sooner," Neytiri apologized.

"It's okay, Neytiri. I'm just glad that they are finally trying to work things out," Ja'lia sighed as she pressed her back up against the wall behind her.

"I hope everything goes okay," Neytiri said while closing her eyes to calm herself down.

"Me too,"

~~~~

It'd been a couple of hours since Jake left to talk with Lo'ak, and Ja'lia and Neytiri grew worried when neither of them returned. They knew the two Sully men needed to talk, but they never expected the talk to this long.

If they were even still talking at all.

Ja'lia got up on her feet and started to pace around the pod as the sun started to set, and dinner would be happening soon. Jake and Lo'ak should have been back by now, even if their talk didn't go as they had originally planned.

"I'm sure they're fine, Lia," Neteyam assured, but Ja'lia ignored his words as she continued to pace.

Maybe she had pushed both of them too hard. Maybe they should have waited a little longer before talking so that feelings could cool off. Or maybe, she was once again allowing her self-doubt to flood her mind, and Jake and Lo'ak were walking back to the pod after having an amazing conversation.

Ja'lia could only hope that their conversation was going well.

The girl looked over to see Tuk and Kiri making shell bracelets, and she walked over to plop down beside them to distract her mind.

However, it seemed that a distraction wasn't needed as Jake and Lo'ak both walked into the pod. When Ja'lia looked up at Lo'ak, he had a small smile on his face, and Ja'lia's heart swelled in anticipation.

She hopped onto her feet and made her way over to Lo'ak.

Once she was within arms reach of Lo'ak, he wrapped his around her body and pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. "Thank you," Lo'ak murmured, and Ja'lia pulled away to look at him with furrowed eyebrows.

"For what?" She whispered.

"I don't know what you said to him, but he apologized and said that he wanted to work on our relationship," He responded.

"That's good," Ja'lia smiled.

Lo'ak smiled back and pulled her in for another hug before he heard his father's voice. "We should probably head to dinner," Jake said, and when the sound of Ja'lia's stomach echoed throughout the pod, laughter was heard, all around as she flushed in embarrassment before racing off with Lo'ak to go get food.

While Ja'lia's stomach had just become her top priority, she was still extremely excited and relieved that the conversation between Jake and Lo'ak went well.

Maybe everything will be okay after all. The girl thought to herself.

Unedited. 07/16/23

Word Count: 2,530

Quick note-

I actually hate this chapter. So much.

They next chapter will be out later today, and that one will definitely be better! I promise! This one is pretty much a filler chapter.

Thank y'all so much for 2.6K reads!!