"If you ever find yourself stuck in the middle of the sea,
I'll sail the world to find you!
If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you can't see,
I'll be the light to guide you,"
Epilogue
Ships sink.
The thing is, spirits and optimism most often do not. It is more likely, sometime after a tragedy such as a ship's demise, that people rally together and bond in the aftermath of a misfortune. More ships will be made after one ship is lost to the sea, because that is the daring, perhaps foolish tendency of human nature. One sank, and well, we must build it again. Better this time. We keep moving forward, and we look back only to marvel at how far we've come.
In the wake of the kraken battle, Amity Island went back to its usual slow, hazy afternoon self within a week or two. It didn't take long for the stories to spread, either. Some said Danny tamed a merman and ordered it to attack. Some said Danny was swallowed by the kraken before he broke free. Other still said the monster never existed at all, in perhaps a rather dogged attempt at keeping themselves from being too scared to go back out into the water.
Whatever 'they' were saying, Danny didn't much care. He knew what had happened that day, and he knew how and why he did what he did. And that was all that mattered, really. He didn't mind what others thought, because he had more important things to deal with.
Right now he was walking to the cove, with Jazz on his heels.
He'd told his parents about the cove, about the reef, and all of Phantom's friends. Every bit of it, and hadn't spared a drop of detail. The relief off his shoulders was huge, even if it left him with duties of helping them get more information concerning the merpeople of Amity Reef. Sam had jokingly called it The Ghost's Zone and Danny had flicked a bit of Phantom's anchovy pizza at her. (To the merman's great dismay.)
Currently though, his parents were working, Jazz was being a worry wart, and Danny was happily setting his bag down and moving into the lapping water.
"Shouldn't you be resting?" Jazz asked as she watched Danny wade into the cove toward the tied down Jet Ski.
"Nah, I promised him we'd go today."
"This is the fifth time you've gone out this week!" She reminded him with a look. Her little brother gave a sheepish smile, even as he threw a leg over the Ski and tossed some pebbles from his pocket into the middle of the water. They hit the water with a plip! Plip! And soon there was a familiar sea green tail dipping over and under the water as something swam toward them.
"Aw, I'll be careful. Besides, you know what they say, Jazz." Danny grinned faintly as he plonked down on the seat of the Jet Ski.
"What's that, little brother?"
"The cure for anything. It's salt water." Danny said with a little shrug of his shoulders. He winked and gunned the water surfer, coasting out into the water, pointing the noise toward the horizon.
Beside him, Phantom reared out of the water and roared, out of sheer joy and excitement it seemed, because a second later the merman plunged after Danny, tail flashing in the sunlight.
"Sweat. Tears..." Jazz rolled her eyes, but she was smiling fondly as she recited to old saying. They'd heard it many a time growing up on an Island, of course.
"And the sea." Danny finished with a laugh. He threw over his shoulder,
"We'll be careful, don't worry!"
She was going to anyway, and they both knew that. She lifted her hand and waved anyway, calling out,
"Bye! Have fun! Phantom—you better take care of him!"
The merman yapped back in agreement as he flung out of the water, diving back beneath the waves a second later.
"Doesn't he always?!" Those were the last words she heard from her little brother as he headed farther away. Jazz smiled as she watched Danny and Phantom headed out into the vast open waters.
When does it end?
Not for a while. There's a bit more growing to be done, of course, just how nature intended. For the moment it ends between the day and the night. Where the sky meets the sea, and with the affirmation that you are never really alone after you have met your other half. It ends with the twinkling of sunlight in a bright blue sky and the shimmering of fins, the end of summer and the creeping of Fall. Those fins are as the sound of laughter that can be heard on the waves as two figures race on another.
It ends with the surface of the water being sprayed and tossed in the wake of a human and his merman, as they head for freedom, adventure and the thrilling unknown of what lay before them.
"You'll be there,
'Cause that's what friends are supposed to do, oh yeah!
Ooooooh, oooohhh
You can count on me 'cause I can count on you."
-Bruno Mars 'Count on Me'