Disclaimer: I don't own "Doctor Who", "Twilight", or the "Princesses" series; you know the drill

Feedback: Much appreciated

AN: We're coming up to the conclusion now, but I wanted to do this chapter before the finale, as the Doctor and Bella meet another character from a popular tale, and Bella has an interesting conversation with Snow…

The Perils of Lorindar

As I stood on the ship that Beatrice had provided for our latest excursion, I tried to resist the urge to feel sick; only the fact that Danielle looked equally unsteady on her feet helped me feel less foolish about this whole thing. I was able to stay in my cabin for most of the trip to practise my sea-legs, but our new friends had assured us that the ship would be able to reach our destination in comparatively little time.

I hadn't been expecting to take a second trip, but when we had returned to Whiteshore Palace to explain that the situation had been resolved, the Doctor had taken Queen Beatrice aside to ask for something else that he wanted to do. Although Beatrice had been planning a celebration to commemorate our victory over Omega- even if the fairies apparently wouldn't acknowledge it- she had quickly agreed to the Doctor's request once he'd made the offer, and had made arrangements to send a message and have us all taken out to sea on her personal ship, the Philippa, a two-masted narrow design with rich brown wood and a swan as the figurehead. From what Danielle had told me when we boarded, the ship's captain was also the ship itself; she was a dryad who'd angered the fairy queen and had her tree cut down and sent to Lorindar. Beatrice had managed to preserve the dryad with various enchantments, but the dryad apparently still resented having to answer to the queen, which had prompted me to stay away from her; the Doctor had struck up the occasional conversation, but I wasn't comfortable

"Why are we doing this, exactly?" I asked, looking uncertainly at the Doctor as we stood on the deck of the ship, looking out at the sea before us. I'd been meaning to ask the question before, but this was the first time I'd felt comfortable enough to bring it up without focusing on not feeling ill due to the swaying of the ship.

"Nobody told you?" my friend said in surprise.

"It was all a bit quick at the start, and then I wasn't feeling well…" I said, suddenly embarrassed at this new reminder of my human frailties.

"Ah, sorry about that; thought I should just give you time to get your sea-legs together…" the Doctor said, before he shrugged and smiled at me in a hopeful manner. "Anyway, you remember how Danielle told us on the way to the chasm about a recent incident with an undine princess who tried to stab Queen Beatrice?" I nodded in response. "Good; anyway, I asked around on the way back, and it turns out that she did that after she was driven insane by a few misplaced spells, so I'm going to see if I can help her get something back together upstairs."

"You mean… we're going to see the Little Mermaid?" I said, looking at the Doctor in surprise.

"He's here to see Lirea, if that's who you mean; the rest of us are just here because he needs a guide, and you're here because he insists you come along," Talia clarified from where she had wandered up to us while we were talking, looking anxiously at the water below. "I just have to wonder what he thinks he'll accomplish with this…"

"You never know until you try," the Doctor explained, shrugging at her with a smile before he looked ahead of us once again. "Ah, there we are, right?"

Looking ahead, I smiled as I saw a large array of rocks emerging from the sea ahead of us, gathered around something that I soon tentatively identified as an old fortress. It looked like it had been the victim of some kind of powerful storm at some point in the past, or maybe some sort of war, with most of it lying in ruins around the coastline, and even the most intact towers had some holes scattered around.

"The mermaids live here?" I said in surprise.

"More out of necessity than anything else, given Lirea's current condition; don't ask them about how they feel about settling down here directly, remember to call them undine rather than mermaids, and you'll be fine," Snow corrected me, before she smiled over at the Doctor. "The last time we met with them, Lirea was staying in a tower at one side of an old fortress that's only accessible by the other undine through a tunnel that they dug to get up there after her breakdown; the only other way to access it is by climbing up the outside, and nobody's going to do that without getting past the undine."

"Understood," the Doctor said, smiling over at Snow before looking at the other princesses. "Thanks for accompanying me here."

"Well… after everything Lirea went through, I'd like to feel that we at least tried to help her," Danielle explained. "It wasn't one of our better days, really; we stopped the war, but we couldn't save Lirea and Beatrice is still dying from the injuries she sustained then…"

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, smiling sympathetically at the princess. "I wish we could do something for her, but from what you've described… well, the nature of the injury…"

"We're not expecting anything more than what you say we can do," Danielle said, smiling in understanding at the Doctor. "Just… do what you can here."

"Of course," the Doctor smiled, nodding at the princess before he turned and walked off, prompting me to go over and join him as he stood and stared out at the approaching rocks.

"So… you're seriously going to try and save the mentally-damaged Little Mermaid?" I asked, looking uncertainly at the Doctor; so long as I didn't pay too much attention to the sea around us, my usually chaotic balance wasn't that much of a problem. "Is that even possible?"

"Well, considering what Snow's told me about what her grandmother did to her, it might not be possible- the mind and the soul are complex but delicate things, and the line between them can be difficult- but I have to try," the Doctor explained, his expression briefly solemn before he smiled at me. "After all, what fan turns down the chance to save their favourite character?"

"You liked the Little Mermaid?" I said, unable to stop myself from smiling at that notion; when dealing with a centuries-old Time Lord, it was fascinating to see his more human traits, but the image of the Doctor singing along to Under the Sea- actually, he'd probably enjoy the themes of Part of Your World more when I thought about it- just suddenly struck me as the most amusing thing I'd ever imagined…

"What can I say?" the Doctor said, smiling back at me. "It had its ups and downs, but I always rather identified with the character's appreciation for humanity where none of her people shared that interest… although I did prefer the Disney musical version."

"They did a musical?" I asked in surprise.

"It comes out next year for you; I can recommend taking a trip to see it," the Doctor explained with a smile. "Anyway, it added a few other details to the plot of the Disney movie- included some extra songs, expanded on that octopus woman's connection to the royal family, things like that- but the main thing it changed was that the antagonist's powers were personified by this enchanted seashell, and she was defeated when the mermaid smashed the shell rather than because the prince drove his ship into her."

"Ah," I said, nodding in understanding; it had been a while since I'd seen the Disney version, but I thought I remembered what the Doctor was talking about. "And you liked that?"

"Well, I don't approve of violence, but I much prefer stories where characters can stand on their own two feet… even if it was metaphorical in that instance, since she had her tail back by that point in the story," the Doctor explained, before he shrugged and indicated his cabin. "Anyway, back in a moment; right now, I have to change."

As the Doctor hurried back into the cabin, I turned around to stare at the sea, glancing around to see if I could spot any of the undine. I saw a few figures weaving around underneath the ship that looked vaguely human, but at this distance they could have been dolphins or some other sea creature…

"You have a very… interesting friend there," Snow said, smiling thoughtfully at me as she settled into place beside me.

"That's the Doctor for you," I said, smiling back at her, abandoning my search for the undine at the moment; I'd see them soon enough after all. "You don't always know what he's going to do, but you can be sure it's going to be interesting."

"I gathered," Snow said, before she looked more thoughtfully at me. "So… Danielle told me some things, but how did you meet the Doctor?"

"I… well, someone left me," I said, deciding to avoid mentioning the vampire angle of Edward's history; we might be in a word of fairy-tales, but just because vampires were real back on Earth didn't mean that there might not be some Dracula-style vampires here. "I was feeling depressed about the loss, ended up trying some… well, I did some reckless things to try and get over what had happened to me, and the Doctor saved my life when… one of those things went wrong."

"And you travelled with him to pay off a debt?" Snow asked.

"He invited me to travel with him to get away from the memory of what I'd lost," I explained. "I wasn't getting anywhere stuck in the same place, constantly dealing with my memories of Edward while my best friend wanted to start something new that I wasn't even sure I wanted myself, so when he offered me the chance to see things beyond anything I'd experienced before…"

"You went travelling to get over your lover?" Snow said in surprise.

"Well… we never really got that far…" I said, suddenly embarrassed as Snow looked at me in surprise. "He was… we had the potential, but he was always worried about hurting me… and then he left because he decided I wasn't enough… he realised that he didn't love me…"

I swallowed and turned my attention back to the wooden rail I was leaning on, trying to stop the tears I felt in the corner of my eyes; even if I'd recognised that my relationship with Edward had encouraged far too many personal problems, I could still mourn what I thought we'd shared…

"Talia's in love with me."

I had no idea how to respond to Snow's statement.

Sleeping Beauty was in love with Snow White? If that didn't put a new twist on fairy tales, I didn't know what did…

"I only found out a while back, but ever since…" Snow began, shaking her head as she looked out once again. "I mean, she's never pushed me for anything, and she's never shown any sign that she resents me for not feeling the same way, but it… I mean, what do I do?"

"Just… ignore it?" I said, trying not to panic at the thought of what was happening here; Snow White was basically asking me for romantic advice?

"I've been doing that, believe me, but sometimes… even if I don't want her, I don't want to lose what we do have," Snow explained, shaking her head in frustration. "I thought about trying to give her what she wanted, but-"

"No."

"Pardon?" Snow said, looking at me in surprise.

"Don't try that," I said firmly, amazed at my new confidence as I discussed something I'd never even really shared with the Doctor yet. "My lover left me because he realised that he didn't actually… care about me… that way, and even though it hurt at the time, travelling with the Doctor, I've… well, even if it hurt to lose him, I wouldn't have wanted him to stay if he didn't want to."

"I wouldn't even change anything else, I'd just-"

"Whatever you were thinking of, it wouldn't be worth it," I continued, thinking of love potions and other possibilities that might exist in this world. "If Edward had stayed because he cared about me even if he knew he could never love me, he would have been miserable eventually; if Talia loves you, she wants you to do what makes you happy, not what would make her happy."

Edward might have made the wrong call when he'd left me in the woods that night if he wanted me to get over him, but after everything I'd seen travelling with the Doctor, I could at least admit that his intentions had been good.

He'd chosen the worst possible method of trying to protect me imaginable, but in the end, for all that he was just over a century old, he was also stuck in the body of a seventeen-year-old; he could make immature and stupid decisions at times. He might have been older chronologically, but I was already more mature than him even before I'd started travelling with the Doctor; what I'd learned about myself since then just reinforced that fact.

The intentions behind what Snow was thinking of doing were good, but she would have been making them for the wrong reasons; no matter how much Talia and I might love her and Edward, we wouldn't want them to make themselves stay with us…

"Thanks," Snow said, smiling at me before she looked down at the water with a smile. "Lannadae!"

Looking down, I was surprised to see that a small group of three undine had swum up while Snow and I had been talking. Two of them were bare-chested men holding long fishing spears, but the third was a female with reddish scales, red hair and an oyster-like necklace, her hair hanging down just enough to conceal things.

"Hello, Snow White," the mermaid- undine, I reminded myself- said, smiling at the princess before looking curiously at me. "Are you a princess too?"

"No, I'm just a friend," I said, fighting down my initial amusement at the question. "My name's Bella Swan; I'm a friend of the Doctor."

"The man who's here to help Lirea?" Lannadae asked.

"He'll… see what he can do, anyway," I said, suddenly reluctant to say more and get this young girl's hopes up. "I'll just go and get him-"

"No need; already here," the Doctor said from behind us, Snow and I turning to see him standing on the deck in a dark blue wetsuit the same colour as the TARDIS, smiling casually at us before he looked over the . "I nipped into the TARDIS before boarding and grabbed this; just get me to your sister and I can take it from there."

"Where did you get that?" Captain Hephyra asked, looking incredulously at the Doctor.

"I have pockets that are bigger on the inside," the Doctor explained with a smile as he studied the tower before us. "I thought about bringing an oxygen tank as well, but it looks like it's easy enough to swim there; it's getting up that's the problem."

"It's not exactly a short swim-" Snow began.

"The Doctor's very good at holding his breath," I said, smiling as my friend walked to the edge of the ship and prepared to jump into the water. "He'll be fine."

"Exactly; no need to fret," the Doctor said, smiling back at me before he snapped the mask on over his eyes and looked down at the sea. "Take me to your sister, Lannadae; allons-y!"

With those words, my friend stepped forward and jumped off the ship, hitting the ocean and quickly being grabbed by one of the nearest undine as the small group swam back towards the tower. I briefly noted that Lannadae seemed to have two leg-like tails rather than the one I'd been expecting, but I didn't feel that there was any point in asking; it was probably just some royal family thing.

"'Allons-y'?" Talia repeated, looking inquiringly at me.

"It's… a thing he says," I replied. "He likes the sound of it."

"Your friend is very strange," Snow noted with a smile.

"He gets that a lot," I conceded. "But he's also the best man I've ever encountered; he gave up everything he'd been born into because he wanted to really experience what was out in the world, and he's always willing to help others, even if it doesn't always work out the way he wanted."

"If he faces things like Omega without magic, I'm surprised he's lasted this long," Snow noted. "I mean, I know you don't need magic on a daily basis, but against someone that insane-"

"Compared to some of the things I've seen, Omega was almost tame," I noted, smiling at Snow reassuringly. "Besides, the Doctor's smart enough to always find a weakness; he once told me about a time he encountered a race of beings who were believed to be gods who shaped themselves based on the faith others had in them, and he survived being hit by a fireball larger than him despite being in front of a field full of people who worshipped those beings because his belief in himself outweighed the worshippers' belief in their gods."

"Creatures shaped by belief?" Talia said sceptically.

"Hey, we all adapt according to what others expect of us; those things just… took that to the next level," Snow suggested, shrugging thoughtfully at Talia before she looked back at me. "Can I ask… why does he do it?"

"Help people?" I asked, wanting to be sure what Snow was asking before I continued. "Well, originally he started out just wanting to travel; after Omega's work gave his people their powers, they basically dedicated themselves to observing everything from isolation, never taking action or going out to see anything for themselves…"

"And the Doctor couldn't do that, I assume?" Snow asked.

"He was bored even when he was at school, from what I've heard," I said, smiling as I remembered some of the stories the Doctor had told me about his past while we'd been trapped on Hurala. "Anyway, eventually he took… the blue box… and left his home because he wanted the chance to really see everything; others of his people just stayed inside their ships and watched everything in hiding even if they did leave their home, but the Doctor wanted to get out there and spend time talking with everyone, instead of just acting like he was… reading all about us or watching a play or something."

"Forsaking comfort for excitement?" Talia noted, looking at me in a manner that I couldn't quite read. "I can't decide if that's admirable or foolish."

"I don't know if he wanted his people to copy him, but I don't think he's ever regretted the decision," I said, wanting to focus on the positives of the Doctor's past rather than discuss his darker moments.

The four of us settled into conversation as we waited, idly discussing some of our past experiences- with me taking care to edit my stories to accommodate a world that couldn't understand space travel or aliens- until the sound of something large swimming towards prompted me to turn around and look over the edge of the ship, smiling as I saw the Doctor being carried back towards us on the back of one of the undine. As I watched, the Doctor waved at the ship before the undine carrying him dived down and then leapt up into the air, allowing the Doctor to jump off his back and grab on to the edge of the ship. After hauling himself over the edge of the ship, the Doctor removed his mask to smile at us, but it wasn't the enthusiastic grin I was used to seeing from my friend after he had accomplished the seemingly impossible.

"You couldn't do it?" I asked anxiously.

"Yes and no," the Doctor replied, shaking his head. "What's wrong with Lirea goes into a spiritual level that I can't really assess in this manner- like I told Bella earlier, the mind and the soul are very distinct in a manner that's hard to explain- but I was able to… reconstruct some parts of her mind that had been damaged by the spells used to control her."

"What does that mean?" Talia asked.

"Well, her voice will never have the power it should have if what I read from her memories is accurate, but I managed to use my own abilities to put the pieces back together to a certain degree," the Doctor explained. "If you assume that her mind was a window that was broken, what I just did allowed me to put some of the pieces back together; it'll be the equivalent of frosted glass rather than the clear pane it was before, but it's still workable."

"So she can lead us again?" Lannadae asked, leaping up to the side of the Philippa, holding on to the edge as she looked curiously at us.

"Give her time, and I'd recommend having someone there to help her make the really big decisions for a while, but she should be thinking more clearly now," the Doctor explained. "I hoped that I could do more, but I didn't know enough about magic-"

"If you've done what you said, that's more than we could have ever expected," Lannadae said, smiling warmly at the Doctor. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Thank you," the Doctor said, nodding back at Lannadae. "Very nice to meet you all."

With that, Lannadae turned around and dived back underwater, leaving the Philippa bobbing alone in the ocean once again.

"They… don't stick around much," Danielle said, shrugging as she looked over at me, noticing my bemused expression. "They're very direct that way."

"Ah," I said, nodding in acknowledgement out of a lack of anything else to say.

It said a great deal about my life with the Doctor that I was now only slightly disappointed that I didn't have a chance to spend more time with real mermaids when so many other possibilities awaited me out there…


AN 2: Maybe this was more of a bonus chapter, but I stand by my belief that the Doctor would have liked the tale of The Little Mermaid for the reasons listed, and I wanted to give Snow and Bella a chance to have this talk.

Just the epilogue left; hope you enjoy it.