Authors Note:

Sorry for the delay, it's the holidays here as most of you know, and it's been crazy.

Well on with the story.

Chapter 6:

Will's Choice

For the rest of the week I avoided everyone. If I wasn't at work cleaning the tanks I was hiding out at the moon pool. I was avoiding all the idiot. I was avoiding telling the others what I'd seen. I was especially avoiding Bryon.

Not that he'd done anything bad. It was just every time I saw him I found myself blushing and confused. Both things I didn't want to deal with right now. So I made sure I was always busy when he came by the park. Which was turning out to be often.

He kept his distance, but he always smiled when he saw me. I'd blush and then find a good reason to get back in the water and back to cleaning. Karl like most guys was oblivious to it all but Amanda tried to ask me if there was something between us. I didn't answer her, not from rudeness, but from not knowing what to say.

Avoiding Cleo was both easier and harder then anything else. Hard because she worked at the part too, and easy because the schedules were open to all workers so it would be easier to find someone to cover for us if we needed a day free. I was able to get to work before her and thus be in the tank when she came to find me, and to arrange lunch breaks for when she was stuck in the middle of a show and thus unable to come looking for me.

After work I'd head back to the moon pool. I had only dropped by the apartment once to get a change of clothes and to charge my phone. That was on the one night I knew Bella would be at the cafe singing. I wasn't too worried about my clothes, I was spending almost all my time in the water, and thus didn't really wear my clothes enough to get them dirty.

This all changed on the night before the full moon. Tired of waiting for me to come out of the water the girls made me come out. The cornered me in the one tank that had no connection to the open sea, thus I had no choice but to walk to it. This allowed them to wait me out. However being a mermaid meant that was going to be quite the wait. So in the end, they cheated.

I was literally picked up by the water and dumped on dry land. Before I could even move Cleo used her new trick to dry me off, and then they all grabbed me and pulled me to my feet.

"Come on, you. Will want's to talk to us and then you are going to do some explaining." Bella said to me as they dragged me away.

"I need to clock out and get my stuff." I said planning to make a run for it as soon as I could. I should have known better.

"Taken care of already." Cleo said holding up my things. "I talked to Laurie so he'll take care of your time punch in the record."

"See there is a benefit to being organized. You don't over look the details." Emma said.

The whole way to Will's place at least two of them kept a grip on me. Three when we got close and the open water was so readily available. Once inside Emma and Rikki leaned against the door to make it next to impossible for me to get out that way, and all the windows were too small for escape so that was out too.

"Thanks for coming, guys." Will said. "There's something I want to talk to you about. I've decided I will compete this once in the dive competition."

The only one that didn't seem surprised was Bella. Obviously he'd talked with her about this for a while.

"The whole thing was postponed after the storm so I ended up with more time to think about it. I also found out that due to the large number of entrants they received the prize pool has doubled." He continued.

"Wow. That's a lot of cash." Rikki said.

"Well we're here for you." Cleo said. "We are your friends."

"Thanks. That's why I wanted to talk to all of you, especially Laura." He turned to me. "I'd like you to be my official coach for this. I have to list one to register, and you do have to admit you have unique qualifications. However if you don't want to I'll understand. I know you don't want to be anymore in the spotlight then you already have been forced to be."

I took a deep breath as I considered my answer. I didn't want to make a snap decision. Ideally I'd want to wait till after the full moon to answer him. Well it never hurt to ask how long I had to think about it. After all he'd taken almost a month to think about entering.

"I'd like some time to think about that." I said. "When do you have to finalize your entry by?"

"End of the week. So you can take a day or two. But that's all. If you don't want to do this I'll need the time to find someone else." He said.

"Forgive me for asking, but why not Bella?" I asked.

"I don't want her to coach me simply because it strained my relationship with my sister, and next to family Bella's the closest person to me. There's too many personal feelings there that I don't want to have get mixed up in this." He answered me. I had to admit it made sense from that point of view. They were dating. It would complicate things in a way that was unnecessary.

"But I'm OK?" I said.

"Yes. I think our friendship can hold up to you being my coach." He said.

I just nodded. Understanding the unspoken part in his answer. "And the others?" I asked pointing to Cleo, Rikki, and Emma.

"I know nothing about coaching." Rikki said. "So don't look at me."

"Actually it's more that unless we allow ourselves to be known as mermaids none of us really qualifies to coach in this." Cleo said more diplomatically.

"Oh." Now that made far more sense to me. I could understand that. It really left only me as the one he could ask. "I'll let you know after tomorrow."

"Thank you." He said. "And thanks for hearing me out. All of you. I wasn't sure how you all would feel about me doing this again after all the fuss I made to get out of it last year."

"It's not a problem." Bella told him. "Remember you are choosing to do this of your own free will. No one is forcing you to this time. That is what's important. Don't forget that."

He smiled at her and she kissed him. I really had to admit they made a good couple. I felt envious of them in a way. Suddenly my thoughts turned once again to Byron and I didn't know why. I'd only talked to him that once, and he'd popped up a few times but had kept his distance. I couldn't help but think it was due to politeness instead of revulsion about my being a mermaid, and as long as I didn't ask I could just pretend.

"Now where have you been all week." Rikki demanded.

"Out." I said.

"Out where? We've looked everywhere." Emma said confused.

I just stared at them. I started fiddling with some of the shells Will had collected in an effort to avoid answering.

"Careful with those." Everyone said darting over to the table to make sure things weren't damaged, and in their haste leaving the door unguarded. I didn't give them time to correct their mistake as I darted out the door and dove into the water.

I knew I had about fifteen seconds to get out of sight of the boat house. Five seconds for them to get in the water and ten seconds for the water to change them. I made that calculation due to none of them hitting the water before my own tail had formed. I took off heading to the one place I knew they still wouldn't think to look for me. Too bad Will was able to figure out what I'd been thinking.

I hadn't been in the moon pool for more then ten minutes when they came swimming in.

"So this is where you've been... hiding..." Rikki started before they all took a long look around.

"No way." Cleo said stunned.

"Impossible." Bella said her jaw hanging open.

"But the damage. How?" Rikki said.

Emma just kept blinking. After closing her eyes and rubbing them a few times she just floated in the pool looking like she'd be hit in the head with a two by four.

"Well... um... hi guys. Um... guess what. The moon pools fixed." I said lamely.

Four pairs of stunned, disbelieving eyes turned to me. I faked a laugh and groaned. I really was gonna be stuck explaining.

"So the energy from the storm fixed it?" Emma summed up my explanation.

"Not really." I said. "I've been using my power in here for most of the week, and I think it's more that it just sped it up. It was already fixing itself, but very slowly."

"Why do you think that?" Bella asked me.

"Well I think what ever power is in here is aware." I stared.

"You think it's alive?" Rikki assumed.

"No not alive, but aware all the same. Like it can sense what's going on and react to it. If I had to describe it I'd say it's like a very advanced, extremely well programed computer." I said. "I was hoping to find out more tomorrow during the full moon."

"And you were going to wait to tell us until then?" Cleo said. "Sounds like someone else we know." She was staring at Rikki.

"And I learned my lesson about not talking with you guys back then." She said then rolled her eyes. "Ugh. I should have figured it out. She did everything I did. Avoiding us. Staying away for long periods of time. The few times we did talk she said she was fine!"

"Don't blame yourself." Bella told her. "We all missed the obvious."

"How did you find me anyways? I was sure you'd all stay away from here." I asked.

"Will." They all said at once. Then Bella explained, "we knew we'd never catch up to you in time to follow you so we were about to give up. Then Will asked us if we wanted to go somewhere we could be completely alone and know the others wouldn't look for us where would we go. It was obvious after that that the answer was the moon pool."

"We felt a bit stupid that we didn't realize it sooner." Cleo admitted. The others just shot her a look that said 'speak for yourself', but they all did have a slightly sheepish look on their faces after her comment.

"Well I guess we'll all come back here tomorrow and see what we see." Bella said. "Now will you please come back home. I miss having you around. It's so nice having a roommate you know."

"One you don't have to hide from too is even better I'm sure." I said with a smile. "I guess I can do that. I mean I really would like to sleep on something other then sand with the tip of my tail in a pool of cold water."

"Really?" They all seemed shocked.

"You've been here every night?" Cleo asked.

"In your tail?" Emma followed.

"In the cold water?" Rikki added.

"With out any way to keep warm?" Bella tacked on.

"Um... Yeah!" I said weakly.