Ivory Hill had spent the majority of her adult life running. Throughout her twenties and the first part of her thirties it was from bombs and bullets. Now, at thirty six years old Ivory was running from something that she could never truly escape fr...
Ivory let the door of Norm and Trudy's room swing shut behind her, struggling to hold back her laughter as Norm studiously avoided making eye contact.
"What's up?" Ivory asked, brushing sleep from her eyes.
"Can you do me a favour?" Norm asked, his voice hopeful.
"Sure, what do you need?"
"Can you watch Spider for me for the day? He's in the lab."
"Norm I think your spider can look after itself." Ivory said tiredly, sinking down onto the bed. "That's what they do in the wild anyway so I'm sure it'll be able to survive a few hours without you."
"Spider is a person," Norm corrected her. "He got left behind here after the... war. A baby can't go into cryo and his parents are dead so he's stuck. Max has been taking care of him but he can't today and I can't either, Grace wants me to help her with something."
"How did I manage to miss a child?" Ivory's brow creased. She genuinely couldn't comprehend that there had been a whole other person living at Hell's Gate that she had never come across.
"He's not here much. He goes out with Jake's kids first thing and only comes back when he wants food."
Ivory bit her lip. "I don't know if I'm cut out for looking after a child all day. Kids aren't exactly something I'm good with."
"He's sixteen. Please? Grace really needs my help today."
"Can't Trudy watch him?"
Norm shook his head. "Grace needs her to fly us out."
Ivory groaned. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you when you come back and Hell's Gate is on fire and the kid is missing."
"Thank you." Norm grabbed his rucksack and swung it onto his shoulders, practically running out of the room.
"And Norm? Knock next time!" Ivory yelled at his retreating back.
"You got it!"
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Ivory swallowed hard and pushed the door to the lab open.
Max looked up from his data pad, his face breaking into one of his usual easy smiles. "This is Spider." He nodded towards the grumpy looking teenager who was hunched in a chair at the other side of the lab. "Spider this is Ivy." He gestured towards the dark haired woman.
The boy turned at the mention of his name, revealing the mess of painted blue stripes that covered his arms and chest. He reached up and pushed one of his sandy blonde dreadlocks behind his ear, giving Ivory an appraising look.
"I have to go. Spider isn't allowed out of Hell's Gate today so make sure you stay in here. I should be back at about six o'clock." Max slid his data pad into his bag and tucked his chair under the desk. "Spider be good. I'll see you both later." He shot them both one last smile and then he was gone.
"Who are you then?" Spider asked grumpily.
Ivory crossed the lab and sat down next to him. "I'm part of Grace's team. I was assigned as her field medic quite a while ago."
"Grace is the pissy ginger right?"
Ivory snorted. "Yep. The pissy ginger."
"How long have you been here?"
"I was here before the war. I went back to earth afterwards for a bit but we ended up coming back here."
"We?" Spider pressed, shifting in his chair so that he could look at Ivory properly.
"You're very nosy aren't you."
"If I'm not allowed out there I've got to find something in here to entertain me," Spider shrugged his shoulders.
"We as in Grace, Trudy, Norm and I."
"What's earth like?"
"In a word? Shit. If you've been on Pandora earth is just... boring."
"Why did you go back there if it's so boring?" The boy looked at Ivory intently.
"There wasn't really much choice. The Na'vi didn't want many humans here after the war and I can't say I blame them."
A dark look flickered across Spider's face. "So why did you come back?"
"Jake asked us to," Ivory drummed her fingers against the top of the desk. "Why aren't you allowed out?"
"They're trying to do some experiment. They don't want me getting in the way of it." Spider's mouth settled into a firm line.
"What do you mean get in the way?"
"I take the Sully kids down to watch the humans. They think it's fun but Neytiri doesn't like it much, she thinks it's dangerous."
Ivory swept her hair out of her eyes. "So what do you want to do?"
A/N: It has come to my attention that this fic has been posted on some other websites. I'd just like to say that I have not posted this anywhere but Wattpad and I'm not associated in any way with the sites it's ended up on :)
