A/N: Sorry again for the late update. Just got real busy and unfortunately extremely uninspired for awhile. Anyway I'll let you get on with it, kind of short but I rewrote this chapter like five times.
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Do reasons matter when nothing can be done to change the outcome? [Will. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. Read it, it's wonderful!]
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"Mel?"
Her breath is light, barely strong enough to shake the tendrils of his hair that tickle against her lips. The barely imperceptible rise and fall of her chest, the feel of her warm skin on his. These simple, natural things about her, seem to be the only things keeping him sane as he lies awake at her side, afraid to fall asleep.
He lifts a hand to her brow, gently pushing back the dark strands that have gone astray. "Mel?" He says again softly. She stirs but doesn't wake and so he gives up.
Perhaps, it would be best to simply leave as she slept. Avoid the conversation he knows is coming. He didn't even know what he would have said anyhow. That he loved her, maybe. That now, he wanted so badly to live in these moments with her for the rest of his life, and if there was something after that- he'd wish the same.
When she says she won't marry him, he knows it isn't simply that she would regret taking him from a life of perilous adventures, it's that he couldn't marry her. Or at least, someone like him, couldn't.
It didn't matter what he'd done on his home planet, what being a highly-trained galactic ship captain meant in that world. Here it didn't mean squat. He had no money. He had no title. A king would never approve of such an unfavorable match for his daughter. For his kingdom...
Jim had to admit that was the only part of his dream that he just couldn't picture, being a king someday. Melody was their only daughter, the only possible heir to the throne would be her husband and no other. If he stayed with her, and by some miracle, allowed to marry her- he would become king to the land. And if she left with him... once her father died there would be no one to take his place. His kingdom could fall to ruin, a whole legacy spent for nothing in the end.
But leaving her behind... to marry someone else. Possibly even love someone else... have children and grandchildren... all of whom would hold no part of him. It was a thought that twisted his insides. Made tears prickle behind his eyes and his stomach turn.
He watches the way she shifts beside him, seemingly still in sleep. Her lashes are as dark as her hair, thick so that they seem more like a butterfly's wings resting against her cheeks. He let's the tip of his finger trace her lips, that odd curve unlike any he'd seen before. So that she seemed permanently shy.
He should go.
Jim knows he should, his skin can already sense the dawn leering ever closer on them. He sits up in the bed, already pulling on his clothes when he feels something, or someone, grasp his wrist. He looks down to see her long delicate fingers wrapped around his skin and blood and bones.
"Don't go." She says, still a bit cloaked by sleep.
He laughs and slides closer to her so that he can whisper, for an irrational fear of waking anyone. The play of his flexing muscles beneath his golden skin is heartbreakingly beautiful, for a second she feels like crying. I hate that I have to give him up...
"I'll be back." He pushes back a lock of her silk black hair, she lets herself fall into the sensation- basking in it. "I'll always come back for you..." His voice is so low, she isn't a hundred percent sure she heard him right.
Melody opens her eyes slowly to look at him a little remorsefully, sad that it would be over too soon. Sad that she'd allowed it to happen at all. She'd practically invaded his life and now she was ripping his heart in pieces by sending him away, like a dirty secret. She wants to tell him that if she could she'd tell everyone how much she loved him, scream it from the skies. Marry him even...
Instead she turns to the side of the bed, reaching down to the floor, hands scrambling around until her fingers grasp around his familiar thick leather jacket. She swings her legs out from under the covers, feet pressing into the cold floor, she stands. He lets himself fall back onto the bed, waiting. Wrapping herself in the jacket, in him, delicately. He keeps his gaze trained on her, for a moment confused and worried that he's said too much.
She walks over to her vanity, long legs almost shimmering in the moonlight- like water. Her fingers wrap around the gold necklace he'd seen and touched the first time he came to her. The memory flashing in the forefront of his mind like a movie. She eases back onto the bed beside him, long limbs disappearing beneath the sheets once more, necklace cradled in her palms and face contorted in thought.
"There's something I haven't told you." Her thumb caressing the shell-shaped locket and he waits quietly for her to continue- figuring that what she's saying is somehow important. "There's a story among fishermen around here... " her voice becomes distant, focused solely on the object in her hand and the story from her memories- as if very far away from her now. "About a King, a merman, who rules the seven seas. Calm waves are his caprice and the tsunamis his rage. He was graced with the most beautiful wife, and the most exquisite daughters... but no sons. His youngest was said to be the most free-spirited, his favored, with a voice that could rival the angels in heaven... They used to say you could see her sometimes, and if you were especially lucky you might hear her voice being carried on the waves as she sings to them for luck. She was so enamored with landsmen she often came to the surface to admire them and envy them."
Jim breaks the following silence and asks- albeit a little teasingly, as if he is certain this is only a fairytale. "Used to? What happened to her?"
At that moment, Melody slides her fingers over either side of the locket- easing the tiny treasure open. Before his very eyes is something like his holographic story books, but somehow very different. Not a flicker of technology... "No one's seen her in seventeen years." She hands him the locket, allowing him to examine the image.
Inside the bubble an opulent and glittering castle, odd angles and curved. Like nothing he'd ever come across before. It glinted in thousands of different colors each way he urned it like a mirage of sorts. Swirling around it were beautiful creatures, half-human half-fish... he'd heard such tales before but never actually believed... "What is this?"
"It's called Atlantica, kingdom of the merpeople. Where King Triton lives and rules... where my mother's father lives..." She says carefully. His eyes fall to her, examining the insinuation there.
"They're mermaids?" She nods cautiously keeping her gaze focused on Jim, gauging his reaction. "Your... a mermaid?" She nods again, shaking that pesky lock of hair back over her eyes. For awhile he doesn't say anything, doesn't even look at her. With every second, Melody's nerves are fraying closer and closer to nothingness.
"I'm actually only half mermaid." Melody amends, trying to diffuse the awkward silence. "My mother fell in love with my father, she chose a human life. I was born human, I only go to Atlantica during special occasions- sometimes years apart..."
He lets it all sink in. The things she'd been hiding from him, her single adventure, had been this the entire time. Something he'd have never guessed. He sees her in the edge of his vision, knees curled to her chest- bare form wrapped in his jacket. The fear bubbling to the surface, that her confession might have changed things between them. Changed his feelings for her.
No, he doesn't love her any less. If anything, her honesty is only tying them tighter together, like a woven blanket. Where it ended and where it began become unrecognizable to him, and when it is undone and picked apart its not nearly as remarkable. "So where is... how do you become-"
"A mermaid?" She laughs, the light in his eyes telling her everything is okay- her worst fears dashed away by his smile and acceptance. "Magic I guess," though she feels a little silly calling it that, "Only King Triton could change me now."
"Your grandfather?"
"Yes."
"This... explains a lot, you know." He curls his fist, effectively closing the locket- silencing the image for now. Thinking absently about her mother, the day they went swimming, everything that suddenly clicked together...
"You're not mad?"
"I'm surprised too." He admits, pressing the locket back into her hand. She smiles folding herself into the safety of his embrace. "What's it like there?"
"It's beautiful. I'd go there every summer if I could."
"Why don't you?"
She tells him the story of Ursula, as it was told her. And of Morgana, as she had experienced it. "I did something stupid and selfish. It's difficult for my mother to forget. She's made her concessions I suppose, but I feel guilty asking for more. I feel like I hurt her sometimes, when I leave. She looks at me like I hate it here- like I hate them both..."
"But you don't." She can't explain the relief that sweeps through her every limb that he knows that, without her even having to say it aloud.
"I love them so much." His hand strokes her side, pulling the covers back around them.
"Even if I asked you to come with me, you wouldn't would you." She doesn't speak but her silence is answer enough for him. How had she become so entangled, trapped and tied by a hundred different things.
So obliged to her parents that she could never leave them.
To her heritage, she had a kingdom waiting for her- the only child to a king.
And to Jim, how would she feel when he left? Would she care?
He feels her arms tighten around his torso and realizes how stupid the question is. "I should go." He says after a few moments, the sky becoming brighter with each passing moment. She doesn't say anything at first until he stands to leave, detangling himself from her grasp gently.
"Meet me at the cave at noon." He looks back and nods silently. Even now he knows that he will do anything she asks, because he's feeling something indescribable when he thinks of her. It's more than love, more than desire or need. It changed into something beautiful and terrifying all at the same time...
She watches him go, the sun slowly rising to chase him away. She doesn't want him to go, she doesn't want this world to go away even for a second. This world where all that matters is what they feel for each other and that everything now is enough.
As she watches him leave in his glider from her balcony she wonders, what it is she's done to deserve this. To want so many things she can never have.
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Disclaimer: i always forget to put this because i think it's kind of obvious that I am not the creator of these fandoms. anyway i own nothing but the plot. k thnx bye :)
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter, hope to have the next one up sooner!
