The soft pitter patter of the rain on the black umbrella he held was the only sound that Lance could hear. He could see the drops entering the almost still water of the ocean before him, but their sound couldn't reach his ears. His mind had all but shut down after the events of that day.

It hurt, to say the least.

Looking out over the grey water, reflecting the sky above it as the heavens seemed to cry for what had been lost, Lance stepped a little closer to the pier. A part of him was afraid to go any farther, the memories that the rickety wood held being almost too much for his heartbroken mind to comprehend.

The funeral had been that day. He still wore the dark suit that his mother had picked out. It had to be returned in a few days, since he had only been renting it. There was a light breeze, and it picked up the hem of the jacket, sending a wave of cold up his back.

What am I even doing here…? Its not gonna bring her back. That thought send a stab of guilt through Lance's chest. No, she wasn't coming back. Not anymore. Not after he...Lance shook his head. Placing the guilt on himself and going down that road wasn't going to help anything.

He fiddled with the key-chain in his pants pocket, thumb sliding over the slick surface of the metal backing.

Sighing, the brunet took another few steps forward. He had come to the docks, to the lagoon that was nearby, for a reason. He wasn't going to give up on the one thing they has asked of him before they died. No, he was going to accomplish this one thing, even if it meant tearing his heart to pieces.

As he got closer to the splintered wood of the pier, Lance kept his eyes on the ground, on the rain that turned the normally well packed dirt into muddy puddles.

"Some days, I wish I could die."

The words were spoken so softly, Lance almost didn't hear them. Eyes rising slowly, Lance caught sight of someone already standing at the ends of the docs. The umbrella the person held at their shoulder obscured most of their back, and the brunet could really only see the long, white shirt and dark slacks they wore. They had no shoes.

What are they doing? Why did they say that?

These questions were not answered.

A sudden large gust of wind blew towards them, knocking the umbrella from the stranger's hands and sending his hair flying about. His, because Lance was able to tell from his vantage point that the person was male, or at least that he appeared to be.

As the umbrella tumbled off into the waves, the man picked up a hand to tuck some of those wild, raven tresses behind his ear.

"I hear you; I'm coming."

Again the voice was so soft, almost musical. It seemed to draw Lance in, one word at a time, a step for every utterance. He could hear the soft cadence of sadness in the man's voice. But who was he talking to? It couldn't have been Lance; he hadn't even said anything, and he was fairly certain that the raven-haired man didn't even know he was there.

And then, out of nowhere, the man was diving into the water.

"Wait!" Lance yelled as he stumbled into a run, trying to get to the edge of the pier. He dropped his umbrella and it tumbled off the edge to sit with the other that had been abandoned only moments before. He can't just jump in there right now! It's too dangerous. But as the brunet fell to his knees on the edge of the pier and looked over, the man was nowhere to be found.

Lance's eyes might have been deceiving him, but something caught his attention. A glow, and then shimmering red, like scales. As whatever it was rose further towards the surface, Lance saw the shimmering morph into a shape, an outline. The outline of a person, but only half of it looked...human.

What...is that…? Lance's thoughts stuttered. He couldn't comprehend what he was seeing.

Because right in front of him, swimming further out to sea, was a mermaid, tail and all.

The man...was a mermaid.

"I'm telling you, man! It was a mermaid!" Lance paused with his hands out in front of him, equidistant to each other, and squinted one eye. "Mer...man?" When all his friends did was exchange a look, the brunet threw up his hands and plunked back down into his seat. "Whatever you wanna call it, it was there. I saw the guy turn into a fish person when he jumped into the water."

Sighing, Hunk gave Lance a sad look. "Are you sure you weren't just drunk?"

Lance leaned back in the chair, an incredulous look on his face. "Why would I have been drunk?"

"You did go to a funeral yesterday," the small blonde next to Hunk piped in, turning a page in the instruction manual they were reading.

Lance forcibly closed the manual on them and argued, "You don't drink at funerals, Pidge. You're thinking of wakes." When Pidge adjusted their glasses and settled a bored look on Lance, the brunet took his hands away and crossed his arms over his chest. "I know what I saw. And I wasn't drunk. Why would you even think that I would show up drunk at her funeral?"

Ah, shit. Lance could feel the corners of his eyes prick at the thought of the funeral. Turning his gaze away from his friends and their twin looks of concern, the tall brunet swiped a thumb at the corner of one eye.

"Lance, you know-"

"Yeah, like, that's not what I meant," Pidge finished, cutting off Hunk's answer. The darker-skinned teen glanced at his partner.

"We were just trying to joke around with you."

"Sure doesn't seem like it," Lance muttered out, blue eyes resting on a spot near his feet, which were tucked underneath Hunk's desk. At that last comment, his friends went silent.

Lance knew that he was being extra defensive, that he was hurting them unnecessarily, but it hurt him, okay? Their lack of understanding when it came to her was always something that Lance couldn't get over. They hadn't known her like Lance had, and it destroyed him to think that she was gone. All because of…

His thoughts were cut short as a bell rang above them, signaling they end of their study period. As the brunet attempted to shove his belongings in his bag, mostly his abandoned homework for his next class, he kept his eyes glued to the floor. He didn't want to see the looks of pity he was sure Hunk and Pidge were giving him.

Letting out a breath, Lance finally looked up at his friends. It was a little shocking to find that they had not been looking at him in pity. Instead, they wore matching looks of amusement. Drawing his brows together, Lance straightened. "What?" When they said nothing, preferring to just glance at each other, the brunet rolled his eyes. "Okay, then don't tell me."

"Just...just wait for it." Pidge snorted lightly, turned their head and shoving their face into Hunk's arm. The larger man, in turn, said nothing.

Rolling his eyes at them again, Lance turned. Whatever it was they were trying to do wasn't gonna work on him. However, just as he thought those words and took a step forward, something yanked him back and he was flying backwards to land right back into his chair. Yelping as he fell, Lance threw his hands out, hoping to catch onto something, anything, and found nothing. Tailbone striking the hard plastic of the chair forcibly, Lance groaned.

The brunet looked down and found that, somehow, the strap of his backpack had gotten wrapped around the leg of his chair, and when he had tried to stand up, it had caught and forced him to sit once more.

His friends burst out into frenzied laughter. It wasn't long before Lance joined in, because how the hell hadn't he noticed that? True, the brunet could be rather...unobservant when his emotions were high, but this was a bit much.

"Jesus, did you see how fast I went down!?" he blurted out, swiping a hand through his hair and leaning his head over the back of the chair, grinning up at his friends.

Helping the brunet to stand, Hunk snorted lightly and Pidge lifted the chair so that Lance could disengage his backpack from it.

Once everything was back in its rightful place, the three headed off towards their next classes. If the exchange seemed odd, in Lance's mind, it was pretty normal. It had always been like that between them. One of them would get upset about something, and then something funny would happen and it would be like they were never upset in the first place. It might not have been the best way to deal with his own emotions, but Lance figured it was easier than rehashing all the things that upset him. At this point in his life, that list was getting mighty long.

As he passed the window in the hallway that led to his chemistry lab, Lance glanced out over the houses and streets below that all led to the beach and the piers. Eyes locking on the one pier way out past where all the boats and beach goers normally frequented, the pier that had so many memories for him, Lance wondered if the mermaid he had seen had been real, or if it really was just his imagination.

A part of him wanted it to be just his mind playing tricks on him.

But his heart wanted it to be real.

The rest of the school day had been fairly uneventful. Lance had decided to keep the whole mermaid thing in the back of his mind, needing to focus on his last few classes. He was already falling behind because of the few days he took off after...well, he needed to catch up regardless.

As soon as the last bell of the day rang, Lance was packed up and ready to book it out of there. He felt like he needed to get back to the pier, to see if what he had witnessed had actually happened.

"Lance!"

Spinning around, the brunet looked back at Hunk, who was still standing at his locker. "Where you goin'? Weren't we gonna head out for something to eat?" Pidge popped their head out from behind Hunk and nodded in agreement.

"Uh..I've got some stuff to take care of, okay? Raincheck?"

He didn't wait for their response. There was something nagging at him, some hope that he wasn't imagining things. It nagged at him the entire way to his jeep, the entire way down to the docks. He needed to make sure that it was real.

But what if it wasn't real? Lance asked himself as he slammed the door to his jeep and shoved his keys in his pocket. What if it had only been his grief stricken mind making things up? Maybe I should just go back and hang out with Hunk and Pidge. But he shook his head to disengage that thought. He wasn't going to give up on this. If it was real, it was real. If it was just his imagination, he would be disappointed, but he would move on. Simple as that.

Taking a breath, the brunet stomped forward. All the rain from the day previous had dried up, as was normal. Lance could still remember the way the rain had fallen against the ground, the way the entire sky seemed to be overwhelmed in sadness. Or maybe it had just been his own mind.

His footsteps were loud against the ancient wood of the pier, the hard soles of his shoes slamming into the boards at every deliberate stride.

When Lance reached the end, there was nothing; nothing but the open ocean and the fish that glided around just below the surface. There was nothing but the sound of the waves gently lapping at the sandy beach. There wasn't a single other soul around, and there was no glowing orb or shimmering scales.

Sighing, the brunet sat down on the edge of the pier and crossed his arms. What had he expected? Honestly? That a mythical creature would just be there waiting for him?

"Yeah, how stupid am I?" he muttered to himself, not that anyone was there to hear him anyway. He cast his eyes out onto the matching blue of the ocean before him, taking in the sights as if it was the first time. It would always feel like the first time in Lance's mind.

He'd lived here for years, since he was still a kid, but the beauty of the ocean never ceased to amaze him. However, the depths held more than just wonder and beauty. It also held pure terror, the kind of terror Lance felt whenever he went out too far. There was so much that mankind didn't know about the ocean. Nobody knew what could be lurking out in the depths, or even just below the surface.

Lance let out a low whistle, listening to the way the sound floated out over the still water. He loved the ocean, loved the way it could nullify the sounds around him, loved the way it made him feel when he was completely surrounded by water. Sometimes, he wondered if he was meant to be a part of the ocean instead of a part of the earth.

Untying his shoes and pulled his socks off, he thought about the mermaid again. So maybe his mind had made it up because he was sad and needed a distraction, but who was to say that they didn't exist. The ocean was huge, and so much of it hadn't even been explored yet. He sunk his feet into the water and relished in the way it lapped against his ankles. He was thankful that the pier had sunk in recent years. When he was still in grade school, the water had been at least a foot or two below the edge of the pier, and no matter how hard Lance tried, he couldn't reach it with his feet.

It was a nice feeling, his feet floating in open water. The water wasn't too cold, even though summer hadn't arrived yet. The air was still a little chilly, but it wouldn't' stay that way for long. It was nearing the end of April, and school would let out in a couple of months. The tourists would flock in and Lance wouldn't have time to just sit out here anymore. He'd be forced to work at his parents' bookstore the entire summer. And she wouldn't be there to make it fun anymore.

Without realizing, Lance slipped his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around that key-chain again. It had belonged to her, and she had given it to Lance a few weeks before she died, wanting him to hold onto it for safekeeping. It's important, she'd told him, but she would never tell the brunet why.

Lance's mind darkened again as he lightly pulled the warm metal from his pocket. Resting it in his palm, he tried to look at it and not let the tears come. It was small, smaller than it had looked in her hand. It was an owl, or at least if vaguely resembled one shape-wise, the white and black crystals adorning it having fallen out years ago. Sighing, the brunet closed his eyes and wrapped the keychain in his fist. He was supposed to have thrown it into the ocean yesterday...because that's what she had asked him to do. But he couldn't. It was the only thing Lance had left of her. He couldn't just...throw it away, even if she wanted him to.

Wiping the tears from his eyes with his free hand, the brunet attempted to slide the key-chain back in his pocket, but as he went to bring his hand back, it slipped through his fingers. The entire thing seemed to happen in slow motion, and Lance watched as the small, metal owl hit the pier between his legs and bounced off into the water. He'd tried to catch it, but he was too slow. It hit the surface with a light plunking sound and sunk.

"No, no, NO!" he cried out, not even thinking before he was yanking his sweater off and his shirt over his head. He was not going to lose it at a time like this, just because he was being stupid and not paying attention. Without stopping to wonder if this was actually the right thing to do, Lance was diving into the cool water.

Lance could still see the sun glinting off the metal as it sunk, and despite the stinging of the saltwater in his eyes, he kept them open. He kept his gaze on that glittering. Kicking his legs with more force, the brunet sunk deeper and deeper, the water growing darker and darker. He absently wondered how the ocean floor could be so far down when he was still relatively close to shore.

By the time the pressure in his lungs at not taking a breath became too much, Lance realized that he would not be able to reach the ground. He couldn't. He didn't have enough air. Ceasing in his efforts, the brunet began to swim upwards, but it was already too late. He had gone too far, past the point of return. He wouldn't be able to make it.

And it was with that thought that he started to panic.

Now, Lance had always been at home in the water, whether it be a pool or the ocean, but he had never stopped to think about how terrifying it would be to be so far from the surface and out of air. He hadn't ever thought that the panic he would feel at the threat of drowning would be all consuming, overpowering. But it was.

Despite that soul-wrenching panic coursing through his veins, Lance still knew that there was no hope of him surviving. So he stopped struggling. He let his limbs relax and let the air he had held in for so long go.

His vision grew darker, his mind grew groggier, but he felt weightless, like the water was taking all of his fears and guilt go. Like he could finally be at piece.

But then something caught his eye.

Even in his darkening vision, he saw an orb of red float around him, drawing his eyes. As he followed it, another color came into view. Grey, flecked with violet; two glowing orbs of violet. They looked like eyes. And as he saw those eyes, he heard...singing. However, it wasn't in a language he knew. It was pretty, calming. As whatever it was that owned those eyes wrapped itself around Lance's almost lifeless body, he felt the burning in his chest recede, and it all faded into nothingness.