"I see you."

"I see you."

And in the avatar lab shack, time halted. The distant sounds of battle silenced. The dust motes in the air shimmered into invisibility as everything paused for love's moment. Finally, the true forms belonging to the two entwined hearts had come together, and in that instant the universe remade itself to revolve around them.

For each, the moment was new in a different way. For Jake, Neytiri was a familiar sight but seen through different eyes, a familiar feeling but felt through different fingertips. And even though the senses of his human body were dull compared to those of Zhakesu'li, they were his senses, and not mediated by any mechanical link. Towering over him was an enormous figure whose carbon fiber limbs could shatter his puny frame in an instant, but he had never felt safer. At last, there were no more secrets between them. At last, she could see who he really was.

For Neytiri, the human in her arms was both at once unfamiliar and an eternal part of her life. His features, a human rendition of his Na'vi face; his crippled body a caricature of his resilient Na'vi form, and yet she saw neither of these things in that moment.

She. Saw. Him.

Her Jake. No longer separated from her by even the most magical remote control, but now underneath her trembling fingers. And nothing, not a thousand resurrected Quaritches, could come between them, ever again.

A millennium passed before his tortured body finally interrupted Jake and a coughing spasm overtook his seared lungs. Weeks of living on thin rations while pulling nonstop driving sessions had left his health at the breaking point. Zhakesu'li had become Toruk Makto and united the Na'vi clans under his vigorous leadership. Jake Sully was a human on the verge of total breakdown.

"Might help … to find a … toktor …" he gasped, before his eyes rolled back and he fell limp. Neytiri gathered him to her chest, pivoted and bounded through the open window, spears of glass cracking against her skin as she bolted with her beloved to find help.

Two days later, after the last of the RDA invaders had walked the gauntlet of Na'vi and their few human comrades to leave Pandora forever, Jake Sully was once again at the peak of human physical conditioning, paralysis notwithstanding. The healers of the Omaticaya and Max Patel had worked together to restore his health. But mending a severed spinal column was beyond the ability of both. Quaritch's promise of restoration was inconveniently dependent on taking place on an Earth that would place a large price on Jake's head. However, that option had not even passed through Jake's mind. He was Na'vi; this was his home; these were his people.

There was, of course, only one choice. He had known it ever since he last saw Grace.

"And if it doesn't work?" asked Norm, for the twelfth time.

"It will," said Jake, for the thirteenth time. "Look" – he wheeled himself over to Norm to place an arm on his shoulder – "It's not like I'm not going to visit." He knew what was really upsetting Norm: His complement of human friends was going to shrink considerably. Since Norm's avatar was gone, Jake's was the last active link on the planet. Right now, his sleeping avatar was being carried by a Na'vi procession to the Tree of Souls, there to be anointed with sacred oils and rubbed with flower petals. The procession was moving under the guard of thirteen tsamsiyu with orders from Neytiri to never let their eyes stray from the body. They had not even blinked during the journey. Neytiri herself was guarding Jake, watching from the far corner of the room to give him some privacy with Norm. It was the illusion of privacy; she could have heard what they were saying from twice the distance. Her gaze never wandered from him, and her defensive reflexes were wound to a hair trigger, but inwardly she was composing herself for the transformation to come that night.

"It's not the same," said Norm plaintively. He looked into space for a moment, a thousand thoughts colliding in his mind. He had studied the Na'vi for years, trained as an avatar driver for hundreds of hours; and yet… he was not one of them. And he knew, as important as the Na'vi were to him, he could never be one of them. Jake sat six inches and a million miles away. Suddenly, clarity washed over him. He sucked in his breath and straightened up, looked his friend directly in the eyes. There was only one thing to say.

"Jake, you are the luckiest bastard in history. May Eywa watch over you."

There were no more words possible.

Another man might have doubted. Another man's faith might have faltered. But even after Jake had seen the transfer fail with Grace, his resolve had never wavered for a moment.

Because she believed.

And because even in his human body, he was now Na'vi, and he could feel Eywa. Feel the voices of thousands of ancestors murmuring from the luminescent strands as Neytiri carried him through the chanting crowd now deep in reverie as they bonded for the climax of the ritual. Even through the dull Plexiglas of the face mask the scene was transcendent. "You should get some samples," flashed into his mind from the last time this act was attempted. Or did that echo come from somewhere outside, in the Ayvitrayä Ramunong, the glowing tree he was passing under?

One life ends, and another begins. Neytiri laid him down on the spongy soil and he felt the thousands of cilia beneath him stir. How does this work again, he wondered? Some sort of biological form of avatar link, only instead of being like a telephone line with one end causing sympathetic vibrations at the other, he – "all that he was" – would actually travel through the link? How could that possibly –

"No more fear, only love."

Where had those words come from? He focused above him and saw his beloved's lips moving. The mask distorted the view slightly and in that instant he knew that he would tolerate no more barriers between them, not even the thinnest layer of Plexiglas. There was only one path to take, Eywa willing, and it led to his love.

He was ready.

As though sensing his decision, the cilia now intruded into his body and snaked toward his head. He felt consciousness slipping away and reflected in his final moments as a human that sometimes to gain everything you have to give up everything. He was on one side of a chasm deeper than any gorge on Pandora. But on the other side was everything he wanted, and everything he belonged to.

He leapt.