Chapter Text
The med bay seal flexed as it closed—clear membrane snapping tight in its frame—turning the room into a lit box inside the rock.
Jake stopped on the outside of it.
He’d carried wars on his back and still found new ways to be useless.
Inside, Spider was transferred fast. Bed locked. Mask kept on. Max’s hands moved like the only language he trusted: leads, pulse ox, lines. A tech hovered at his shoulder with the bag-valve mask already unhooked, already ready.
Kiri was there at the bedside, close but not in the way. She had her hand placed near his ribs, not touching but enough to remind his body he was not alone.
Across the room, Norm in his avatar body took one sharp look at Spider’s color and chest movement, then turned and was gone down the corridor without a word.
Jake stayed where the seal put him. Lo’ak was a shadow near Jake’s shoulder, silent and rigid. Neytiri stood to Jake’s other side as a strong, unwavering presence.
Max didn’t glance up. “Naloxone.”
A tech passed it into his hand and he pushed it through th eline
For a heartbeat, nothing changed, then Spider’s body jerked like it had been yanked up from deep water. His eyes snapped open, bright and lost. A sound tore out of him—raw, half-swallowed, not a word so much as an alarm his throat didn’t know how to translate.
His hands twitched toward the mask.
Kiri caught his wrist, enough to stop him stripping his help away.
“Spider,” she said, low, steady. “It’s me.”
His gaze hit her and held like a cloth in a hook.
Jake watched the shift happen in Spider’s face—confusion flattening for a second into something almost relieved. The muscles at Spider’s mouth softened. His eyes flicked past her, toward the seal, searching the room for the shape of a person he couldn’t name cleanly in his head. Their eyes locked for a short moment.
“Jake,” he tried.
It came out ragged. More breath than syllable.
Even through the plastic, Jake could see Spider searching for him and he stepped closer to the seal without realizing he’d moved. His hand lifted, stopped against the barrier, palm hovering a centimeter from the plastic like that mattered. Their eyes locked for a short moment.
“I’m here,” Jake said, voice rough. “You’re at High Camp. You’re safe.”
Spider couldn't hear him but it didn't matter.
The naloxone had hauled him awake, but it didn’t give him strength. It gave him sensation—too much, too fast—on a body that had already been dragged raw. His chest started working like it couldn’t decide whether to fight or run. The mask fogged in quick, thin bursts that didn’t reach deep enough.
Max’s eyes narrowed. He leaned in, watching Spider’s mouth, the shallow rise under the blanket.
“Not moving air effectively,” Max said, and it was the first note of a different kind of urgency.
Spider blinked slow, and heavy—then blinked again, slower.
Kiri leaned in closer that Spider could find her without chasing.
“Stay with me,” she said. “Just stay. Max is helping. Max will help you.”
Spider’s eyes drifted toward her again like he was trying to follow a rope through fog. He held for a fraction of a second and then the fraction broke.
His breathing stuttered. The mask fogged and cleared and fogged again. His mouth parted behind it like his body was reaching for more air and couldn’t afford the effort.
Max’s fingers went to Spider’s neck.
Pressed.
Shifted.
Pressed again, harder.
“Bag.” Max said.
The room snapped into motion.
The tech sealed the bag-valve mask to Spider’s face, hands firm. The first squeeze lifted Spider’s chest with borrowed air.
Up.
Down.
Spider’s eyes rolled, not dramatic—just unfocused, sliding away from the room like a camera losing its track. His lashes fluttered. His pupils drifted, then drifted again, never quite catching.
Inside Jake’s head, something cold and old stood up.
Memory.
The sound of a monitor changing its mind.
The way a body can decide to quit without asking anyone’s permission.
“Come on,” Max muttered under his breath, not to anyone in the room.
Kiri’s thumb pressed at Spider’s wrist, searching for that small insistence of life.
For a moment it was there faint, stubborn.
Then it thinned, like it was walking away.
Kiri took a deep breath and leaned close enough that her voice could be the last clear thing Spider had.
“Spider,” she said, and the word broke slightly on the edge. “Look at me.”
Spider’s eyes shifted. Tried to comply. Failed. His gaze floated past her, past Max’s face, past the ceiling light.
Like the room was too bright to hold.
The monitor tone stretched.
Max’s jaw went hard. “He’s fading.”
Another squeeze. Another lift of the chest that should have been reassuring—because the lungs were moving, because the air was going in.
But Spider didn’t take it back on his own.
He just…let it happen to him.
Kiri felt the pulse under her thumb blink out.
Her breath caught sharp. “Max...”
Max was already there, fingers digging at Spider’s carotid, eyes never leaving Spider’s face. “Thready,” he said. "Kiri I need you to move out of the room".
Kiri’s head lifted like she’d been struck but she understood. She swallowed hard, eyes still on Spider as if she could anchor him by sight alone.
Spider’s lashes fluttered again. His gaze lifted—vague, searching—finding Kiri like she was the last shape the fog would allow him.
For a heartbeat, he was there enough that it hurt.
Then his lids drooped half-mast, as if even holding them open cost too much.
The techs tore open the sterile pack. Plastic and metal flashed. Suction set. Scope ready. Everything moving in tight lines because there wasn’t time for anything else.
Max’s voice cut through without rising. “Kiri.”
She backed away a step, hands still open at her sides like she’d left something on the bed and didn’t know how to pick it back up. She didn’t argue. She didn’t make Max spend breath on her when Spider was spending his last.
The second she cleared, the door on Jake’s side hissed.
Norm came in.
Human, masked, moving with the kind of speed that meant he’d been sprinting before his brain finished forming the plan. He went straight to the bed and the bag.
“I’ve got ventilation.” Norm said, and it landed in the room like a brace.
Max didn’t look up. “Good.”
Norm took the bag from the tech without ceremony and started squeezing—steady, controlled, eyes on Spider’s chest and the seal of the mask.
Up.
Down.
Up.
Down.
The rhythm wasn’t mercy. It was work.
Spider’s body responded with absence. His mouth hung slack behind the mask. His eyes drifted with no focus at all now. His lashes fluttered once, then stopped.
Max’s fingers stayed at Spider’s neck like he was trying to hold the pulse there by force of will.
“Still losing him.” Max said, and for the first time his voice had a razor edge.
The occupants on the outside of the room heard him loud and clear. “Then we don’t,” Jake said, so low it was almost nothing. He didn’t realize he’d spoken until Neytiri’s shoulder brushed his—solid as ever.
Lo’ak shifted forward instinctively, then froze. He didn’t touch the seal. He didn’t move. His whole body was held breath.
Inside the room, Max made the call with a hard stillness in his face.
“Induction.”
A tech pushed the sedative—fast and clean—because no one in that room was going to let Spider be awake for what came next if there was any choice. Not after everything.
Max followed without hesitation. “Paralytic.”
Norm kept bagging through it, steady hands, jaw locked.
Spider didn’t fight. He just…let go.
And Jake—watching through the clear sheet—felt his own body respond like it had been punched, like the ground had shifted under his feet.
Because there’s a moment when a person stops being a person and becomes something you can lose in a blink.
Max lifted the jaw, slid in the scope, and passed the tube with quiet certainty. The clean, ruthless precision of someone who refused to fail.
Cuff. Secure. Connect.
The ventilator took the next breath for Spider.
Spider’s chest rose and fell to a rhythm that wasn’t his own.
The monitor tone tightened—still low but no longer drifting toward silence.
Max exhaled once, controlled. “Good placement.”
Norm eyes didn’t soften. He leaned in, eyes on Spider’s face like he could call him back with attention alone.
“Stay.” Norm said, barely audible. Not a plea. A directive.
Jake didn’t remember stepping away from the seal, but suddenly he was two paces down the corridor with Neytiri, out of Kiri and Lo'ak's sightline because some things couldn’t be shown to the kids without costing them more than they already owed.
The light here was softer. The air smelled like damp metal and antiseptic.
Neytiri’s hands were clenched so tight her fingers trembled.
Jake’s voice came low. “You okay?”
Neytiri let out a breath that wasn’t a laugh. “No.”
Jake didn’t push. He knew better.
Neytiri stared at the nearest wall like it could hold her upright. When she spoke, her voice had been stripped down.
Inside, the room held steady.
The ventilator kept its rhythm. Max checked lines, listened to the chest, adjusted with small, precise movements that meant everything and looked like nothing.
Norm stayed near the head of the bed—close enough to take over in a second, not so close he got in the way. His attention was relentless. Protective. Quiet in the way real fear gets when it refuses to spill.
Kiri stood outside the bay, hands pressed flat to the plastic. She watched Spider’s chest rise and fall with the machine and tried to make herself believe that rising meant he would be fine. Because he had to be.
And in the bed, Spider didn’t fight anymore.
He rested in the only way left to him—body surrendered to the hands that knew what to do, mind drifting in and out like a tide.
Deep under his ribs, the warmth that had been flaring and clenching all day finally pulled back, quieting into shadow.
Because for the first time in too long, nobody in this room was trying to cut it out of him.
And for now just for now that was enough.