Disclaimer: Ocean Girl and all its characters and places are the property of Jonathan M. Shiff Productions. I am a fan of the show and this is my own personal take on what could have happened if there had been a Season 5. Please also note: English is not my native language, therefore, please forgive me for any linguistic mistakes.

After school, Brett and Julie walked to the galley for lunch. Julie was unusually quiet, even during this morning's classes, which had unexpectedly been taken over by Officer Hartley.

Brett's attempts at making plans for later were not met with much enthusiasm by Julie either.

"Jules, have I said anything to upset you?" Brett finally asked, putting his arm around her shoulder.

"No."

"So how come you've been so quiet today?"

Julie hung her head and thought for a moment. She felt terribly conflicted. She wanted to do the right thing, but she worried that it would cause her family anguish, something she wanted to avoid, especially since her Mum was still in such a psychologically fragile state. She sighed.

Brett felt a little annoyed at Julie's lack of response. "Would you rather eat lunch alone?"

Julie shook her head. "I'm actually not hungry. Can we maybe go to your cabin? So we can talk?"

"Alright, but let me quickly grab a bite to take along."

Julie nodded, and put his head on Brett's shoulder in gratitude.

Dianne felt very happy, looking over to Jason diving next to her. He had finished collecting the data for his school project the day before and had offered Dianne and Winston to help them with their work on his last day. Neri wasn't far, swimming in close distance with Charley and now and then joining Dianne and Jason.

Dianne would never have admitted it, but she was a bit disappointed she didn't get to see much of her son during his break since Jason spent most of his time with Neri on her island. At first, Dianne, had no idea that something has happened between Neri and Ben, she just assumed Jason wanted to spend his entire time with Neri. On a call with Paul a few days ago, Dianne did mention with regret how little she had seen of Jason though. Paul had laughed a little and tried to cheer her up: "It's only natural for the two of them to be inseparable during his short time away from school. Be glad you still got Brett to mother."

Then, word reached Dianne through Officer Hartley that he had separated Jason and Ben a few days before when they had a tense argument near the ORCA classrooms. Dave Hartley told Dianne said he had never seen Jason so agitated. Yet when Dianne brought it up to Jason, he just shrugged it off: "He's been bothering Neri and I told him to stay away from her."

"Do I need to be worried?" Dianne asked.

"I hope not, Mum. But it won't hurt keeping your eyes open."

Thankfully, things seemed to have calmed down since then. Neri and Jason seemed pretty carefree to her. Right now, Neri had grabbed Jason's underwater writing board and wrote something on it in the top corner.

Dianne did a double take- Neri was writing!? She swam over to take a closer look. Neri smiled at her and scribbled something else on the board. Dianne looked at Jason and asked him: "Neri can write?"

Jason nodded in confirmation. His voice sounded a little distorted through the communicator: "And read as well. She asked me to teach her, and she learns very quickly."

Neri then turned around the board that read: "Hi mother."

The letters still looked still quite unsteady, but were legible. Neri exchanged a conspiring glance with Jason and smiled mischievously at Dianne.

Dianne shook her head in awe and wrote at the bottom of her board. "Great job!"

Neri looked proud as she read Dianne's note and squeezed Jason's hand before she swam back to Charley.

"She doesn't cease to amaze me." Dianne said, fondly looking after Neri.

"Same here, Mum." Jason said, smiling at the note Neri had written on the top of his board: "I luv you."

"So, what's going on?" Brett asked, as he and Julie took a seat on the sofa.

"Brett, I've not been entirely truthful to you." Julie admitted.

"Let me guess, you got a boyfriend back home." Brett said, trying to lighten the mood but at the same time hoping he was wrong.

"No, it's not about me. It's about Ben."

"Ben?"

"I'm worried about him. He's – unstable."

"What do you mean? He seemed fine to me, except for calling in sick today."

Julie shook her head.

"It's really difficult to say this, since he's my brother, and I love him, even though he and I are not as close as you are with your brother."

She took a deep breath: "I think he's secretly obsessed with Neri, and I'm really worried he may harm her, and maybe your brother as well."

Julie's eyes filled with tears, which she tried to blink away.

Brett frowned. "How do you come to think that?"

"It has happened before. Back home, during his senior year at college. There was this girl called Pam, he really liked her, and they studied together. He told us she was his girlfriend, but we later found out that it was all just in his mind."

"In his mind?"

"Yes, you see, to him, it felt true, when all they actually did was studying together."

Brett tried to follow her, wondering how Ben could have been so mistaken about the relationship.

"So what happened?" he asked.

"One night, when we thought Ben was out for a party , we received a phone call from the police station. He, he –" Julie started sobbing, "tried to assault Pam that night. She was lucky, another person came by and overpowered Ben, and the police was called. That's when we found out that he had secretly been following Pam around for months, he was obsessed with her, and he wouldn't take no for an answer. The night he ambushed her, she was on her way home from a date with a guy she had started seeing, and Ben had been following them the entire evening, to dinner, a movie, a bar. He was so consumed with the desire to make her love him. He really believed he could force her to fall in love with him. After he was arrested, he was convicted for attempted assault. Given his mental evaluation, he was sentenced to do community service, and he had to see therapist. That's four years ago, we all thought that he has been doing better, until I realized last week that he's started following Neri and Jason around. I noticed that the last few nights, he's been signing out a boat. So last night I stowed away, and it was true, he was going to Neri's island where he was watching them. I confronted him about it, telling him I was worried he may be starting the same vicious cycle as with Pam back home. He flat out denied it, saying that things were different with Pam, that he never loved her the way he loves Neri, and that he knew Neri would love him once Jason was gone."

Brett shook his head in disbelief. "So Jace was right, he's a creep. We gotta report this right away!"

"Please, Brett, don't. He's my brother, after all, and I don't want to burden my mother with it right now while she's so fragile."

Brett got angry. "What do you suggest we do? Wait for him to attack Neri? Or my brother? I can't believe you waited so long to tell me!"

Brett was furious, and Julie's sobs couldn't soften his heart at this point.

He got up. "I gotta go and find Jason."

"I'll come with you!" Julie said quickly and followed him to the door.

"No, you should go find your father and talk to him."

"Please, Brett. I'd like to explain it to your family."

Brett was still angry, but he gave in, since he didn't want to lose any more time in finding Neri and his brother. "OK, let's go then."

Thanks to Cass, who had set up her study area at the lab, Brett and Julie confirmed the location for Dianne and Winston's boat and headed there. Brett was so angry with Julie for not talking to him about Ben earlier he couldn't even look at her, and Julie fought hard to stop crying. When they reached the other boat, they only saw Winston, since Dianne, Jason and Neri were still underwater. Winston looked back and forth between Julie and Brett.

"Are you two alright?" Winston asked, looking at Brett's stony face and Julie red eyes.

"We got a situation. Can you communicate with Mum and Jason to come up? We need to talk."

Shortly after, Dianne, Jason and Neri climbed into the boat.

"This better be important," Dianne said in a stern voice, clearly not happy with the interruption.

Brett and Julie didn't waste any time explaining why they had come to talk to them

Jason raised his eyebrows in disbelief: "He's watched Neri and me on the island? How come we didn't notice him coming? I'm sure Charley would have warned Neri."

"He came from the other side of the island." Julie said with a small voice.

"Through Badlands," Neri said. She looked at Julie with big eyes, trying to make sense of the words obsession and stalking.

"Ben needs professional help, Julie," Dianne said, as kindly as she could muster upon the shock of hearing Julie and Brett's revelation. "It's very good of you to think of your mother, but there's no easy resolution to this situation. It sounds like Ben needs therapy. Other people may get hurt if we delay filling in your parents."

Julie hung her head in defeat. She knew it was the right thing to do, but she still vividly remembered the grief her family went through four years ago. The Murrays had hoped that moving to Australia would allow for them to get a new start, begin somewhere new with a clean slate, but Ben's problems caught up with them. She wiped the tears from her face and looked firmly at Dianne:

"I'll go back to ORCA to talk to my Dad now, to figure out what to do. For now I'm just glad that Neri is safe."

Dianne hugged the girl: "You are doing the right thing. If you like, I'll come along to talk to your father."

Julie nodded in silent acceptance of this offer.

"What about Neri?" Brett asked.

"Was Ben on ORCA when you left?" Jason asked,

"No, he called in sick this morning. Helen said he signed out a boat this morning, which is why we think he may be on Neri's island."

"So you maybe come with us to ORCA first, until we can make sure that you're safe." Jason said to Neri.

Neri nodded, and reached out to touch Julie's arm.

"Thank you for warning, Julie."

Julie swallowed the new tears she felt coming up and quietly said: "You're welcome."

Commander Murray's face drained of color when Julie and Dianne came to the bridge, asking to urgently speak to them.

"Has anything happened to June?" he asked.

"It's about Ben, Dad. It's urgent."

Commander Murray asked First Officer Danton to take over for him and followed Julie and Dianne to a quiet place where they filled him in. He listened, then asked: "Where's Ben now?"

"He signed out a boat. We think he may be at Neri's island, waiting for her there."

"Let's go there. Now!" He beckoned for both of them to follow him as he rushed off.

Dianne joined Neri, Jason, Brett and Winston in her cabin later that night, Brett had fallen asleep on the sofa already, but woke up and was immediately alert when Dianne entered.

"Did you find Ben on the island?" he asked.

Dianne, who looked tired, shook her head. "The Commander thinks that after being confronted by Julie about stalking Neri, Ben may have panicked and taken off this morning."

"So we got no idea where Ben is right now?" Jason asked.

"None." Dianne said. She looked at Neri. "I think it's safer for you to sleep here tonight. Just in case Ben turns up at the island at some point. I'll make up a bed for you."