29. Lost and Found Alternate Ending

Before I get to this one-shot, this is a spoiler for season 3, so if you haven't yet watched season 3 episode 11, skip this for the time being. That being said, what netflix has called season 3 is really the second half of season 2, and what they called season 4 is really season 3, thus, I will refer to season 3 as season season 2 and season 4 as season 3.

Summary: While Mimmi and Chris are searching for Amaris on Mako, Amaris goes down the land entrance to the moon pool, so Chris and Mimmi follow her. What if there was no way to get through the land entrance.

In H2O, they mentioned that it was too steep to climb up, though they must have found a way since Lewis was down there several times as were other characters and things that couldn't go out through the moon pool, so here goes nothing. [Also, I'm not sure Chris and Mimmi were actually dating due to the events of the episode following, but I'm going to pretend they were.]

Word Count: 1572

Chris and Karl had been tasked with going out to Mako Island to check on the turtles that were tagged in the West Lagoon. Being land-boys, they had no idea of the magic, wonders, and secrets that the island helped hide. They didn't expect to see anything other than turtles, sand, sea, and the normal island things when they got to Mako.

They were working on getting some things set up when a little girl came out of the woods. Chris stood to greet her, but she ran off into the forest. He tried to call for her to come back, but she continued on back into the forest. He shared a confused look with Karl. Why would a little girl run away like that?

The two best friends contemplated why the little girl would have run off and why she would have been on her own before Chris decided to go look for her. He went a little ways into the forest and then back tracked to the beach where he found his girlfriend, Mimmi, and two of her friends, Ondina and Weilan.

After a few minutes of talking and finding out that Mimmi, Ondina, and Weilan had taken the little girl, Amaris, to Mako and that she was now lost. Chris suggested that he and Karl help the girls look for Amaris to be able to find her faster. Though Mimmi tried to get Chris and Karl to stay on the beach and take care of the turtles, it was no use. Both boys agreed that they'd find Amaris faster with more people looking. They split up into groups; Ondina went on her own, Chris with Mimmi, and Karl with Weilan.

In the midst of wandering around and trying to find Amaris, Chris and Mimmi eventually reached a dead end. Mimmi pointed it out to suggest they go a different way, and as Chris turned to do so, he saw Amaris. When they made eye contact, she took off into the forest, Chris took off right after she did and Mimmi only a few paces behind him.

Eventually, Amaris came to a small outcrop of rocks. She ducked down to hide behind them, but ended up falling down a hole that had been mostly hidden by vines.

When Amaris got to the end, she realized she was in the moon pool cavern. She looked around trying to find an escape other than going into the water. There wasn't any, so as she heard Chris starting down, she jumped into the moon pool and swam out before he could see her or her tail.

"She must have swum out," Chris spoke, turning to Mimmi once they were down in the moon pool cavern.

Mimmi looked to the water. She couldn't see Amaris, which thankfully meant Chris hadn't been able to see her either. She hoped that swimming out wouldn't be the only way to get out of the cavern.

"Why was she so scared of me?" Chris asked, bringing Mimmi out of her thoughts.

Mimmi shook her head and shrugged. They both looked back down to the water. Chris wondering how Amaris had gotten out of there so quickly, Mimmi again hoping that it wasn't the only way out.

"Since she's not in here, we should head back out to find the others," Chris spoke after a few moments of looking down at the water.

Mimmi nodded in agreement. "You can climb back out first," she offered, letting him past her.

"You sure?" he asked, hesitating after he had put one foot up on the rock.

"Yeah, go ahead."

"All right." Chris worked to get a better grip on the edges around the small part he and Mimmi had gone down. He brought his other foot up and tried to take a step but it was no use. The slope was too steep and too slippery for his shoes to be able to get enough traction to allow him to climb back out. "We can't get back out that way," Chris reported, slowly getting back out. "We're going to have to swim out like Amaris did."

"We have to be able to get back out that way," Mimmi spoke. There had to be a way, she couldn't swim out, couldn't let Chris know she was a mermaid.

"I don't think so. We're going to have to swim," Chris repeated, walking to the edge of the water and looking down to it.

There has to be a way, Mimmi thought as she looked back and forth between the moon pool, the land entrance – which she thought was closed off – and Chris standing next to the water. How was she going to get herself out of this one?

"You coming, Mimmi?" Chris asked, looking back over to her. "If you're not a good swimmer, I'll help you." he offered.

"Uh, yeah. Just a minute," Mimmi spoke, trying to delay the moment where she'd have to get into the water, or prevent it from happening altogether. Chris nodded and dove into the water. He surfaced several seconds later and looked to where Mimmi had been standing before he dove in. She wasn't there but had instead put aside all logic to try and climb back out.

"Mimmi, you're not going to be able to get back out that way. It's too steep," Chris spoke, swimming over to the ledge and using it to climb out. Dripping water all over, he walked over to the mouth of the opening Mimmi had climbed in.

"No. There has to be a way to get back out through here," she spoke. Mimmi reached for a rock to get further out but it didn't hold. Mimmi slipped and fell backwards down the slope. She let out a scream as she considered for a split second how badly this could go if she landed wrong.

As Mimmi came down, Chris caught her hips, preventing her from falling and breaking something. His hands had made the material of her shirt slip up so his wet hands touched her bare skin. Her back fell against his chest. She felt the water soaking through and onto her skin seconds later.

Mimmi gasped; it was only a matter of seconds before she transformed; before she transformed in front of Chris. "Chris, please don't be mad, and please don't freak out."

"What? Why would I freak out?" he asked, still holding onto her hips. He looked down to her as he spoke, brow furrowed. She looked back up to him. Her eyes were soft, willing him not to be mad at her, but she also looked like a deer caught in the headlights; this wasn't supposed to happen this way. An apologetic look flashed across her features as she shimmered for a second. Chris blinked, and a split second later, a long golden, pink tail had replaced Mimmi's legs. "You're a mermaid?" he seemed to ask rather than state several seconds later.

"Yes."

It took a couple more seconds for the shock to wear off. When it did, Chris spoke, "How should I set you down?" he asked softly.

"Just slowly, I guess."

Chris nodded and went down almost into a squat to set Mimmi down. Once he had, he sat down on the ground next to her as she propped herself up on her elbows. "How is this possible? When did you become a mermaid?"

"I've been a mermaid my whole life," Mimmi explained. "I actually only got legs recently," she continued, a half smile on her face.

"Cool," Chris spoke. Mermaids. Mermaids were real. The seas had so much more to it than he'd ever imagined. He'd never actually thought mermaids could be real.

"Chris," Mimmi spoke his name softly, pulling him out of his thoughts that raced at a thousand miles an hour. "You can't tell anyone."

"I figured." Even though he was completely amazed by the fact that Mimmi was a real life mermaid, he knew telling anyone else could put her in serious danger. He really liked her. "You know what people would do to you if they found out that you're a mermaid?" he asked rhetorically as his mind imagined the tests evil doctors and scientist would try to perform on her and any other mermaids they could get their slimy hands on. "I really do like you and care about you, Mimmi," he spoke, moving a touch closer to her. "You can trust me," he spoke sincerely.

Mimmi let out a sigh of relief, a small smile playing at her lips. "I really like you too; and I know I can trust you." The two leaned in to share a kiss. They smiled as they broke apart a few seconds later. "How about we get out of here."

Chris nodded in agreement and helped Mimmi to the water. They swam out to a hidden part of the beach where Mimmi dried herself and then gave Chris a steam dry.

They met up with the others on the beach where Ondina brought out Amaris, safe and sound.

CHCHCH

A short while later, Chris and Karl left on their boat. Mimmi, Ondina, Weilan, and Amaris stood on the beach waving to them as they left.

Mimmi knew she's have to tell Ondina and Weilan that Chris knew she was a mermaid at some point in the relatively near future, but for now, Ondina had enough to deal with.

A/N: So I guess this technically makes two one-shots in a row where Chris finds out about Mimmi. I started writing this the day after Mako aired on Netflix because I had watched all the episodes within 18 hours (from when I started watching) (sorry, not sorry). I thought there was a lot of potential for something like this to have happened so I got to writing and this is the results.

As always, I hope you enjoyed and I'd love to hear what you thought. If you have any request, feel free to send them to me and I will try my best to do something with it though I can't make any promises on that. I have a couple request that I'm trying to work out now so who knows what might come next. (it should actually be the thing I need to write that I was going to do 2 chapters ago.) This was written and the last one became a two-shot so it had to be done. Thanks for reading,

-CrazyHayniac