Yes, I did change my name - you like? (Btw I think someone stole my old name and used it on Wattpad - identity theft much?)

This will probably be the last of this collection - any other oneshots I'll probably post individually. Hope you like the possible finale!

I know I haven't been the best with replying to reviews - sorry about that. But there is one I want to acknowledge in particular : nightcat53 -Whoop whoop, you got it! I'm surprised no one else did, but hey, you did! Nice one!

Yeah I forgot to mention after Troubled Dreams and Reality - the ship name was Percabeth. Hydropercabethylamine. That's what you get when you cross a chemistry student with a fangirl! :)

Anyway, hope you enjoy, and if you liked Colours of You check out First Words if you haven't already - it's not finished yet but yk...I'm getting there (eek!)


For some people, falling in love is like sleeping.

Hard at first - hard to trust, hard to let yourself be you - but then gradually it gets easier, and you fall more and more until suddenly you're in and you can't pinpoint where it happened or what the time was but you're here now.

For some people, falling in love is like being struck by lightning. You're just minding your own business, doing what you normally do, and then BAM! You see someone and that's it. You know it's meant to be, no matter what.

It wasn't that way for Fontaine Nekton. To her, falling in love felt like being carried by a riptide, an unseen force pulling you beneath the surface with no way out. It seems innocent at fist, just a harmless, playful push nudging you one way, and then high tide strikes and suddenly you're under. Suddenly you don't know up from down and you can't breathe and everything is overwhelming and then -

You drown.

But she wouldn't. She was not going to give in. She wasn't going to drown.

She didn't believe in predestined soulmates or finding your other half or in a perfect match. She believed love was what you made it, what you worked at, what you chose.

And she would not choose him. No matter what tried to convince her to otherwise.

She shouldn't have asked him. Asking him was like taking off her life jacket - the one slip, the one mistake you couldn't come back from. It was like not securing your grappling hooks before you climb or that one misstep that sends you tumbling off the mountain or that one drink that ends up ruining your career.

"Part of the treasure hunt is the hunt. My dad loves this stuff."

"And you...don't?"

It was the first step to drowning.

Sometimes she likes to convince herself that it would've happened anyway. That eventually she'd have asked him or he'd have told her and it just happened to be the first time she met him.

But a lot of the time, she curses herself for giving him the chance. For not just writing him off as a pirate. For letting herself think of him as different to his family.

He was different. She was right to give him the chance, she knows that. Everybody deserves a chance.

But she shouldn't have let it affect her so much. She should've given him the chance but not trusted him. And even though she doesn't trust him now, there's still the residual pieces of broken trust within her, reminding her what it would be like if she could still trust him.

But she makes herself bury them down. She doesn't trust him. She doesn't.

Even if she wishes she could. But you can't trust the sea, no matter how alluring it seems, and how safe it appears to be. The sea was volatile. It could show you the most breath-taking scenes, then the next moment try and claim your life. She knew that better than anyone. The ocean had tried to claim her life countless times before.

She felt he was like that. So far she's seen both his good and his bad, but she's seen much more of his good side, and she doesn't trust that. She can't be pulled in by his beauty if he was only going to drown her. She couldn't let herself be swayed, both for her and her family, because what they're a part of is so much bigger than just him and her. So even through he shows her his goodness, trusts her to keep his secret, she can't trust him.

She's not going to be pulled in by gorgeous blues and dark browns and white sand.

She's not going to fall for it. She's not.

She's strong and fierce like the ocean and no one is going to tell her who she was going to fall for. The fates could shut up and die for all she cared, because she was not going to let the current take her. She wasn't going to do it.

Even if his flirtations make her blush sometimes and he makes her smile. Even if he lets his guard down around her and lets her get the better of him and his crew. Even if she feels like she understands him, can connect to him.

She's learned time and time again not to trust him.

But it doesn't change the fact that she wishes she could. That every time he betrays them, or disappears, or fails to mention something important, she looks at him and wishes he wouldn't. That every time she sees him she hopes this time will be different.

She'd had a couple of lucky interactions when he didn't have to break her trust. But it hurts, despite how happy it made her, because she knows it can't last. Because there's a sort of agony in trying to convince yourself to be realistic and hoping anyway.

She can't stop hoping, every time, that he'll prove himself enough to trust him. That he'll renounce his family, prove himself.

She really shouldn't be surprised he keeps returning to them.

Even though he doesn't want to. And his apologies every time just serve to raise her hopes that he'll realise he can be better than what he is. He looks so sincere, so repentant.

And he seems to genuinely like her. She doesn't know why, but even after she's snapped at him and made fun of him and rejected him, he still likes her. Even after he's seen the worst parts of her, he still likes her. He still pays attention to her, and lets her get away with things they both know his family would disapprove of.

She'll be damned if she lets it get to her. So she keeps pushing him away, keeps him at arms length for both his and her sake, even though he keeps trying to get closer.

And he keeps trying. Over and over and over and over.

Maybe he's just stupid. Maybe he doesn't care about the effect it has on her or how hard he has to try. Maybe he's fruitlessly annoying her. Maybe he can't take no for an answer.

It could be any number of things. But she knows it's not.

He's not the type to chase someone who doesn't want him. He's lost enough to know how to let go.

He's not the type to not take no for an answer. He's told 'no' all the time, and he accepts it.

She knows, if she really, genuinely told him to stop - he would.

But she couldn't make herself do it, even though it would make everything so much easier in the long run.

At least, she can't tell him outright.

So she tells him with eye rolls and groans and scoffs at his flirtations instead.

But he never stops.

Maybe he can tell she wishes this would work as much as he does.

The thing about being trapped is that eventually you run out of fight. Eventually you get tired.

Eventually you drown.

But she wasn't going to. And she would fight for as long as it took for someone to come in a lifeboat.

Maybe it wasn't the smartest choice to go for Carter Hector, but she was desperate not to drown and it didn't matter who saved her. It didn't matter that he was older, that he'd had older, prettier girlfriends before her. It didn't matter if he was kind of shady. All that mattered was that she wasn't drowning anymore, and she was going to keep it that way.

She was distracted from Finn, she didn't need to feel that hope and then have it crushed, because there was nothing to look forward to anymore - she's got a boyfriend and she doesn't feel anything for anyone else.

That lie completely shatters when they all run into the pirates again. But when she makes it clear that she's not drowning, that she's defied the fates and chosen her own path, she marvels at how much being saved can feel like actually drowning.

The hurt she sees in Finn blue eyes makes her victory feel meaningless, and it feels like she's been pulled ten feet under from where she was before. It's like she's been pulled into a whirlpool. Like waves are slamming into her and making it harder to breathe, especially when he turns away from her and disappears into his ship.

And guilt curls heavily in her chest, a Monumential awakening to make her regret defying the fates.

But she'd told him. She'd warned him. She'd let him know (even if she was lying).

She wonders if this is it. If maybe she'll see him one day on the Black Market or somewhere else, and all she'll get is a nod for all this - the hope and the pain they've been through. If even that.

Maybe she'll hold her children's hands and point him out, and tell them I knew that pirate once.

Maybe that's a bit dramatic. But it feels like the end of what could've been.

Because Finn stops.

He stops flirting with her. He stops teasing her. He stops annoying her.

But he's still her friend, and she hasn't lost him as completely as she thought she had. Because he more than likes her - he might love her.

He still talks to her. Still confides in her. Still tries to be there.

And the fact that he still tries makes her heart ache.

It twists a knife in her heart to see his tight smiles. To see him about to tease her, then stop himself.

And after a while, she can't take this crushing feeling anymore. So she lets go of her lifeboat and slips back into the water, and it's not like Carter's upset about it - he'd not much cared for her, she could see now.

She lets the current carry her again, and the light comes back to Finn's eyes. He's different now though, he's grown up, and maybe it was good for both of them to be saved for a little while.

But he doesn't do what he used to - he doesn't flirt with her. He just teases her in a friendly way, still looking unsure when he does.

So she decides to tell him how she feels instead, to explain what was going through her mind when she chose someone else. That it wasn't because he wasn't enough - it's because she thought she had to get him out of her mind.

It's a bittersweet confession, because she's never been good at giving up control and she hates how embarrassed and vulnerable she's feeling and how much power she's giving him - she hates it, she hates drowning-

But his kiss his sweeter than anything else she's ever had. The happiness in his eyes is brighter than any pearl she's ever seen, and she's amazed that she could do that. That she could make him so happy, as happy as he makes her.

But she was right. He doesn't save her.

He pulls her under, with kisses and teasing flirtations and touches that linger on her skin, reminding her she was loved even when he's not near.

And she drowns.

But drowning's sweeter than she imagined. She's free, she doesn't have to fight anymore.

She doesn't resist the riptide anymore. She lets it pull her under.

And she drowns, over and over again in his kisses and his touch and his love.

But it's freedom. It's worth it.

It's love.


A/N: So I hope you enjoyed this little drabble thing. Thanks for reading this collection - love y'all!

-Vanessa