Elisa has always been at home in the water. Now she has come to the water to stay.
She relishes how the waves slip over her skin, leaving her glistening and weightless. Beneath the surface, the pressure that settles around her is a comfort, an invisible, ever-present blanket. Vaguely she questions whether the parents she could not remember left her by the river because they knew she could wrap herself in it, or if she finds comfort in the water because it is all that remained when her parents were gone. She enjoys the low hum that encapsulates her ears when they are completely submerged, constant and gentle and more soothing than any sound from her life before.
Except music. Her thoughts leave the water for a moment, drifting to her record player and Giles's television set and the lively tip tap of black, polished shoes. What is playing, she sometimes wonders, up there? And will she ever hear any of it again?
As if in answer to her longing, a series of clicks permeates the hum of the water. It is soft, a faint trill that seems to twine playfully in the swaying dark cloud of her hair. She twists, seeking the source of the sound.
She spies a flash of a fin, feels the rush of a current soaring over her head and then plummeting beneath her. She looks in the direction the water pulls her.
He is there, coasting under her on his back, appearing to be suspended in place as he pauses to check in on her. He is so fast, so adept in the water that his frequent disappearances and reappearances seem truly seamless to Elisa. He is so much more than beautiful. Down here, freed from every barrier and chain, the sight of him sucks the air straight from her lungs.
Which is perfectly fine, since she has no use for air anymore regardless. The scars on her neck are all open now. The old wounds have become the mechanism through which she breathes. The old wounds are what make it possible for her to remain with the one she loves.
He is intimidating in his element. They have not encountered much other sea life in their journey to the ocean so far, and Elisa suspects his speed and agility scare the fish away long before she has a chance to notice them.
She traces the motion of his full lips and the strong line of his jaw with her eyes as he continues to play the part of a solitary percussionist. The soft clicks become louder and more distinct, building to something powerfully rhythmic. The suggestion of music is doubly enticing now that she knows it is emanating from him. She swims deeper. She kicks in time to the clicks until her outstretched hands meet the lean musculature of his arms.
The blue patterns spanning across the dark outside of his bicep glow invitingly beneath her touch. He pulls her to him, his webbed, clawed fingers coming to rest very carefully against her back as he draws her into his chest.
The water felt chilly a moment ago. Now, if someone asked her, Elisa would sign that it was pleasantly warm.
His clicking is amplified with her ear pressed against him. He carries on, and she discerns a pattern, a definite and rather catchy beat. At length, she recognizes it—the drum line from one of the records she put on for him during a lunch break at the facility.
He has brought more of her with him than she thought.
She grins, exhaling out of old habit and relief. A tiny bubble of air is jostled loose from the folds of her dress and vanishes from sight as it ascends to the surface.