HI GUYS! MAKE SURE YOU READ THROUGH FROM THE BEGINNING IF YOU ARE JUST RETURNING TO THIS STORY (and haven't read in the last 48 hours) BECAUSE THERE HAVE BEEN CHANGES MADE. THANK YOU!

Enjoy!

Chapter 6

For the second time in 24 hours, Lydia sent her pack home, rather than telling the truth. It didn't feel right to be lying, though she was more withholding the truth than anything else. Which technically was not lying. Stiles was the hardest to get out the door, but she finally convinced him when she reminded him of his job at the sheriff's station and how disappointed his father would be if he were late for his first day on the job.

The minute he left, she flipped the lock on the door and sprinted up the stairs to her bedroom, immediately hightailing it to the tub, which she turned onto the highest water pressure. As the tub filled, she stripped away her wet pajamas - which still baffled her as to how they were totally intact from the previous transformation, something only magic could explain - and examined herself in the mirror. The scales that had covered her forearms the day before had now seemingly vanished, much to her relief.

When the tub was finally full, she reluctantly stepped in the scalding water and her legs began to tingle, much like they had the night before. She quickly sat down. As she was completely submerged, her legs were instantaneously transformed into a long, scaly green and silver tail which hung off over the end of the small clawfoot tub. She stared at it in awe, this had been a fantasy of hers growing up. She had always loved when her grandmother had called her Ariel, and now it was as if she very well was the little mermaid.

Taking one of her shiny silver-green scales between two fingers, she not so carefully tugs at the scale. She winces in pain, but the scale remains attached to her body. The sensation could only be compared to that of having a loose tooth pulled as a child. Shaking off the pain, she proceeded in her ordinary bathing routine of washing her hair.

When she dunked her head under the hot water to rinse away the shampoo, she had a feeling that when she resurfaced she would not be alone. She opened her eyes under the water, they stung from the soap, but she ignored the pain. Above her, she could see the silhouette of a person. A person that she was positive was Aiden.

Coming up for air, she tries to stay calm as she makes eye contact with her lost lover.

"Aiden," her voice is soft and musical. It is as if the mermaid's tail also granted her a mermaids sweet voice, Aiden thought. Or maybe it had always been like that and he had been too daft to notice.

"Hey, Lydia," he says sheepishly. Unsure if this was really real, if he had actually successfully reached her after years of trying. He could only wonder what changed - what brought this newfound connection on.

"How is this happening?" Lydia asks, breathlessly.

Aiden shrugs his shoulders, "I was hoping you could tell me. I've been trying to reach out to you since the day that demon ninja asshole turned me into a katana shish kebob."

Lydia winced at the memory.

"So… what have you been up to…? Yah know, besides growing a tail?" Aiden jokes, "By the way, this new mermaid look… totally hot." Lydia smiles at him and rests her arms on the edge of the tub, then her chin on top of them. Doing this, she continues to examine every detail of him, it makes her sad to say her memories did not do him justice.

"Well, thank you, that makes a total of one of us that actually enjoys this..." she flaps her tail, "thing…" sneering at the last word.

Finally, Lydia takes in her surroundings, acknowledging that they were still in her bathroom, rather than the white room they had been in before.

"I don't even know what to say to you, honestly, I didn't think I'd actually ever reach you."

"Well you've definitely proven that there is another side, something more to life after death. But we kinda figured that out awhile ago…"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Aiden ruffles his hair, similar to the way Stiles always does, though Lydia can't help but think that Stiles was somehow better at it - like he had mastered the technique of flirtatious nervous hair ruffling. She mentally hit herself, stay focused, Lydia, you're talking to the dead! They both sit in silence for a moment, both thinking up what they could possibly say.

"What's it like?" She finally asks.

"What?" He asks confused, "oh, you mean death?"

She nods, unsure if she really wants an answer.

"Peaceful."

She has to say she wasn't expecting that.

"I mean, yeah, it hurt at first, but most impalings do," he smiles then looks stern, "but after a few seconds of that pain, everything kind of made sense. I felt at peace with my life, and with my death."

"It was awful, I wish I could have…"

"Lydia - don't. My death wasn't your fault."

"You're a banshee, Lydia, it's your job to warn death, not stop it."

Her eyes began to water then and Aiden kneeled down, taking a seat on the tile floor next to her tub. He takes her hand and smiles sweetly, a smile he had only ever revealed to her.

"I have so many questions, Aiden," she sniffles.

"I know you do, but I need to leave soon, time happens differently on the other side, I have to let you get back to living." His smile is sad, as he cups her wet cheek with his big hands.

"What? But you just got here?" Lydia protests like a child.

"It does seem like that, doesn't it?" With that he began to fade away.

"Aiden! Wait!" But he was already gone, and suddenly Lydia's eyes seemed to go in and out of focus. And when everything became clear again; the room was lit differently than it had been just moments before, and all the water in the tub had drained. In addition to this, her legs had returned. She quickly stood and hurried over to the counter that she had left her phone on across the room.

3 pm.

She had spent 6 hours laying in her bathtub.

"What? How can that be…" Unlocking her phone she sees that she has 3 missed calls and 15 unread text messages. Most of which seemed to be from Stiles.

She quickly read through and answered all of her messages, most of which were just her friends checking up on her. She told them that she was fine and just very tired, that she would talk to them soon. One of the missed calls had been from her mother, so she decided that was the one she would respond to.

It rang only two times before there was an answer.

"Hi, honey," Natalie Martin's voice filled the speaker.

"Hi, Mom, what's up?"

"I just wanted to see if you were planning on coming home anytime soon? You've been spending a lot of time at that lake house."

Lydia thought for a moment, and suddenly an idea popped into her head.

"You know, Mom, I was thinking that maybe this summer I would just live out here. I spend most of my weekends here anyways, and I'll be moving out to school in a few months, it would be good practice."

"I don't know, Lydia," her mother says unsurely.

"Of course I'll still be around the main house, but I just really love being on the water. Can we at least give it a trial period? One week?"

Her mother sighs, "okay. One week, then we will talk."

"Thank you, Mom. I'll come home for dinner tonight, I promise."

"Some legends tell of Banshees residing in the bogs of Ireland," Deaton explained. Lydia had taken a trip to the vet's clinic soon after hanging up with her mother, in hopes that he held some kind of clarity on the craziness that had ensued in the past few days.

"Right, I think I read that somewhere," Lydia agrees.

"So, perhaps you have unknowingly selected your 'bog' in the lake behind your house. We know that your grandmother spent a lot of time in the boathouse, perhaps it was her's as well?" Deaton suggested.

"But lakes and bogs are totally different things. Bogs aren't even necessarily bodies of water, they're the result of poor drainage and excessive rainfall."

"Well, it could be a misnomer, like how werewolves are scared of argent as in the family, not the metal," Deaton points out.

Lydia continues, as if dismissing the man's suggestion. "Besides, my grandmother was in Eichen House, wouldn't they have known if she sprouted a tail every night?" Lydia asked skeptically. Though she kept her demeanor calm, inside her mind was racing a mile a minute. How could she not have known? Was this why her grandmother had always read her the story of the little mermaid? Had her grandmother known this would happen to her? Had she foretold it like she did the Deadpool?

"Well, if what I'm thinking is right, you must be submerged in water for the tail to materialize," Deaton hypothesizes.

"But why now? Why is this… symptom… just now presenting itself? And what's with this suddenly strong connection to Aiden? Why can I speak to him? Do you think I can reach… others?" Her mind immediately flowed to Allison. She couldn't even imagine what it would be like to speak to her best friend again. She would have so much to tell her.

Deaton's eyebrows scrunch together as he looks deep in thought. "I'm really not sure, Lydia, I wish I could tell you a simple answer. Give me a few days… I'll let you know if I find anything of substance."

Lydia nods, "thank you."

It only took 24 hours for Deaton to text her. Parking her car in the lot next to the veterinary clinic, Lydia quickly scuffles to the front door, her heels clicking loudly with each step. Deaton had said he had some new information to tell her. Inside, she finds the vet sitting at his desk with a laptop open in front of him. He looks up at Lydia as she enters and smiles, gesturing for her to come over.

Deaton reads aloud from the email he had received from a fellow druid he had met in his travels through Europe, "banshees - wailing women whose cries signal death in Irish folklore - have sometimes been known to exhibit tails, especially on a full moon. Due to this phenomenon, they are often mistaken for mermaids… It goes on to explain situations similar to your own, with the heightened senses - even the ability to speak to the dead directly and clearly, like what happened between you and Aiden."

"But did it say why?" Lydia asks, still not seeing much of an answer to her questions.

"Well, there wasn't a direct answer, but there was a legend that was attached to this particular lore. It told the story of a banshee woman named Niamh. Legend has it that this Niamh would sit in her home on the edge of a small lake, and watch a fisherman and his handsome son from her window. Overtime, she saw as the son took care of the quickly aging father, and she slowly began to fall in love with his compassion and kindness. One day the father was too sick to go out and fish, so the son - his name was Ciarán - went out alone. Since he had to do the work of two men alone, it took him much longer, and it was dark by the time he began to pack up his gear to return to shore. Though late, Niamh still watched, and as she watched she began to feel a horrible sense of dread pass over her. A sensation she knew all too well, one that told her that someone was going to die.

She could feel the scream growing in her throat as she rushed out of her house and to the water's edge where she could see Ciarán dangerously leaning over the edge of his fishermans boat. And just as she saw him falling, she propelled herself into the dark black water, under the bright full moon. As she did, her body transformed, a tail replaced her legs. With this she was able to rescue her love. When she pulled him to shore, she felt her tail transform back into legs and she lay next to Ciarán, no longer feeling the horrible dread which always foreshadowed a banshee's wail.

It is said that any banshee who falls in true love is gifted with the ability to transform her legs into the tail of a fish, so that if need be, she too can save her love."

Lydia just stared at him, in awe at the story.

"So… what I should be asking is, have you found true love recently, Lydia?"

Though she wanted to say no, that this didn't make any sense, she knew that would be a lie. She had found love. True love.

She doesn't answer the question, but Deaton gives her a knowing smile.

In an effort to change the subject Lydia asks, "so that's it? I just sprout a tail every time I want to take a shower or go swimming now?"

"Well, you'll have to put it to the test, but I'm thinking that because your grandmother was never mentioned as having a tail, I can only assume that you will be able to control it eventually."

Lydia looked relieved, "thank you, again, for all of this…"

"Of course, Lydia, what is a pack druid for anyway?"

Lydia smiled and thanked the vet once again before returning to her car and driving back to the lake house where she planned to perform a couple of scientific experiments... on herself.