Here is the next chapter. I apologize for the formatting. The edit section of this site took out all of my borders, so all of the awesome formatting I had to separate scenes are now gone, leaving me no choice but to use the single horizontal line. If you have time, please review and tell me what you think. Thank you!


The next morning, Emma, Rikki and Cleo decided now was a good time to visit Mako Island and let Emma see firsthand what happened to their beloved sanctuary. No, the damage wasn't so bad that it couldn't be somewhat restored, but it hadn't been touched since the comet incident, so everything still looked as raw as it had that night.

When they all swam into the moon pool and dried off, Emma looked around, her concern eminent.

"Look what happened to this place. Is this blue rock the crystals you all were talking about?" Emma picked up a piece of the blue crystal, sitting next to Sophie's abandoned blue backpack.

"Yeah, these are the crystals." Cleo confirmed while walking around, her hand gliding along the destroyed rock formation.

"We know that Ryan, Sophie and Zane were here, but what happened to the rock, Cleo?" Rikki asked, turning to look at the brunette. Cleo, Bella and Rikki had gotten to the moon pool after it was blocked by boulders that night, so details of the actual events still weren't known to all of the girls.

"Ryan came over a few hours later. He said that he set off an explosion to get to the crystals. That's why the moon pool was blocked."

"Well, whatever did this, we can't leave it like this." Emma walked in front of the two girls. "Even if it's not as safe as it used to be, it's still our place. We owe it enough to clean up."

"Emma's right." Cleo picked up Sophie's empty bag. "Let's say we do this and then go get some juice?"

Rikki and Emma nodded and began the tedious task of hauling rocks and blue crystals out of the way.


(Cleo's house)

Cleo walked in to see Sam and Kim cooking dinner, Don at the dining room table, and Lewis sitting on the couch with one of her father's fishing magazines. The door closing alerted her father to her arrival, and he promptly stood to greet her.

"Welcome home, princess. How was your day with the girls?"

"Great dad. It's so good having Emma back." She said while walking over and giving Lewis a kiss on the cheek and sitting next to him.

"Now now, don't get comfortable there. Dinner is just about ready." He shooed Lewis and Cleo to the table, and both obliged. Thinking about it, Cleo realized that this was the first time that all five of them would be sharing a meal together. Now that Sam was part of the family, things were different. Very family-like.

When Sam began serving the food, she addressed Lewis's plate first.

"Here you are, Lewis. I hope you enjoy. This is a dish I picked up in South Africa when I worked there." Looking at the white, creamy substance with a piece of bread next to it, all Lewis could do was give a forced smile of thanks. He and Kim shared a look, her eyes telling him that it did indeed taste the way it looked, and he gulped before picking up his fork.

When everyone was seated, the conversations began.

"So Lewis, how has that school been going for you?" Mr. Setori asked as he scooped more of the dish onto his plate.

"It's actually been going very well, Mr. S. I passed my first year with flying colours and am now going to be working with a professor specializing in fish migration patterns and microalgae. I actually just told Cleo, but due to this professor having such close contacts here, I've been asked to stay here and complete my schooling while helping him work on his projects."

"Really? That's spectacular, Lewis!" Mr. Setori exclaimed, genuinely happy for the boy.

"Yes Lewis, that certainly is incredible. Now you and Cleo won't have to worry about distance anymore." Sam also congratulated. Seeing Cleo the day of her wedding and every day Lewis was gone was heartbreaking for her. Seeing how her eyes lit up when Lewis came back was when she knew that the two of them were truly in love.

"Is that what you were telling Cleo last night while you were both locked in her bedroom?" Kim asked, a huge smile plastered on her face. If possible, the smile widened when she saw the looks on her father and Sam's faces.

Lewis looked panicked, while Cleo's facial expression was that of pure annoyance.

"Actually yes, Kim. That was exactly what Lewis was telling me last night. And yes, dad—" She looked towards her father, whose face was turning redder and redder as the seconds passed. "Lewis did come over last night. I locked my door because someone in this house likes to snoop around!"

"I wouldn't have to snoop if there was nothing to hide!" Kim argued back.

"Now girls, that's enough! Kim, you should not have been eavesdropping on your sister."

"But dad—!"

"No 'buts'. And Cleo, you know you're not to have boys in your room after certain hours, even if it is Lewis, you understand?"

"Yes dad. I'm sorry."

"And I'm sorry too, Mr. S."

"It's alright. Now, let's just talk about something else and enjoy the beautiful meal that Sam's prepared for us."

Sam, who had been just as panicked as Lewis, smiled and the conversation then steered to Lewis's projects and how Don's fish business was doing.


(Emma's house)

"—and Kim just blurted out that Lewis was over last night!" Cleo, who had just gotten to Emma moments ago was telling her what happened at dinner. Emma smirked as she finished laying the sleeping bags on the floor in the living room before turning to the brunette.

"That's just what younger siblings do. Elliot has even tried getting me in trouble with mum and dad over Byron. He's angry because they won't let him bring girls to the house."

"Elliot getting you into trouble? Now this I'll have to see to believe." Emma and Cleo turned to see Rikki walking into the living room, a duffel bag in hand.

'Well, believe it. He's not as sweet as he used to be. Don't be surprised if we have a little eavesdropper of our own tonight."

"Well, luckily we'll be talking about your adventures and not ours." Cleo reminded, thankful that Emma's stories more than likely wouldn't contain very much "mermaid action".

"What's been going on?" Rikki asked, having missed Cleo's recap of dinner.

"I invited Lewis over last night and Kim was just being…Kim."

Rikki nodded in understanding before unpacking her sleeping bag and spreading it next to the others on the floor. Since they'd already eaten with their own families, they immediately changed into sleepwear and spread out onto their sleeping bags. All three were facing one another, and in the middle of the circle was a bowl of potato chips and dip, courtesy of Emma's mother.

"So, let's have it. How was the trip?" Rikki began, taking the opportunity to grab a chip.

"Alright, so we first started out visiting the Philippines. One of my dad's business partners owns a home there, so we stayed for a few days. Then it was off to China for two months. Oh, it was so beautiful there. I feel like I've traveled all around it. While there, I had a tutor, and she even taught Elliot and I a fair bit of Cantonese."

Emma paused and rose to get a package that was sitting on one of the tables in the living room. When she got back, Cleo and Rikki saw that they were photos. Emma took out an isolated stack and handed them to the two.

"These were a few of the pictures I took while there."

"Wow, these are really beautiful, Em." Cleo admired one picture in particular that showed a very unique building in the background.

"Yeah, it looks like you had a great time there." Rikki chimed in, surfing through pictures as Cleo passed them to her.

"Nothing eventful really happened there, but after the two months we left again. Our next stop was Russia, and then immediately Poland. We stayed in Poland during the remaining winter months. Poland is absolutely breathtaking in the winter."

She brought out a new stack of pictures, and these were more interesting to the girls for one particular reason.

"Oh, no way. You got to see snow!" Rikki exclaimed. Being that they lived in Australia all of their lives, snow was not something that was experienced very much unless you traveled up to the mountains.

"More than saw it. It was so much colder than it has ever been here. Temperatures reached below -17 Celsius with wind chill. Mum and dad had to buy Elliot and I new winter jackets and everything while we were there. It was so much fun to actually play in, though."

Emma pulled out more pictures, and told them all about Egypt and Finland, which were the next two places she and her family traveled. When she got to Sweden, that's when she went into details.

"That's where you and Byron met up, right?" Cleo asked while giving the last pictures from Finland to Rikki.

"Yes, that's where we met up. It was so strange. It almost seemed so much like a fairy-tale. I was walking through a field. By this time it was Spring, and I remember I had on one of my new dresses. Elliot had met some friends and I was just enjoying the early morning. I bent over to pick some flowers, but before my hand reached them, someone had already grabbed one. When I looked up, there he was."

"Wow." Rikki's face was a mixture between amusement and nausea. "That is too sickening for my taste."

"Like I said, I was completely surprised. We sat in that field for a long time just catching up, and then we parted to see our own families. We met up again the next day, and then every day after that until it was time for him to leave. By then our families had spent a lot of time together and it all just felt right. And the night before he was leaving, he told me how he felt, and that he always thought there was something magical about me."

"Ah, and that's when you showed him your tail, right?" Cleo smirked.

Emma blushed and look down. "It seemed like the right time."

Rikki and Cleo laughed at Emma's shyness before the conversation began again.

"But wait, what happened to Ash?" Rikki inquired, and Emma shrugged.

"We both decided that we weren't meant to be with one another. We broke it off around the time I was in Poland. Have you all not seen him around? I thought he would have told you."

"No, we haven't seen him at all." Rikki answered.

"Well, we're still friends regardless. No worries." Emma smiled.

"So, after Sweden where were you headed next?" Cleo asked while handing back more pictures. Their family must have literally taken over 500 photos from the entire trip.

"After that, we headed to America and stayed there for the remaining spring months, and then briefly visited Chile before coming back home."

Emma then went into some of the deeper details of her trip, starting with the few troubling moments where she'd accidently changed while in public, to moments where she'd met people that, though they weren't mermaids, we still magical in their own rights. From everything she'd seen and been through the year of her travels, she didn't think she could put into words everything emotion she'd had and every good and bad feeling she'd come across. Perhaps more would come to her as time went on, but for now she just wanted to share the good with them.

"That sounds like it was an amazing trip." Cleo smiled.

"It was. The funny part was that—from what you said, Lewis and I would have been in America at the same time. I wish I'd known; we could have maybe called one another."

Cleo laughed. "Oh, you don't know how excited Lewis would have been if he were able to use his mobile with you."

Rikki rolled her eyes. "It's the little things in life, I suppose."

The rest of the night was filled with Cleo and Emma talking about their significant others, and Rikki filling Emma in on why she and Zane were no longer together. Later, after watching television and eating the last of the chips, they fell asleep.