"Do you believe in destiny?"
They had been sitting in silence — a soft kind of silence, amicable rather than awkward, the kind to watch the sunlight pour through the gap in the top of the cave and fail in their tries to think of a place they would rather be — long enough that her tail has dried into legs again when she asks.
"No, not at all." He pauses, twisting his mouth. "What makes you say that? In the interest of honesty, of course."
Rikki smiles to herself as he nudges her in the ribs. "It's nothing," she says. It would be so easy, she thinks, to reach out and take his hand and pretend they could ever be anything more than friends. Too easy.
"You're not as good of a liar as you think. At least, not with me," Zane adds under his breath.
She reaches for the locket on her neck. "Did I ever tell you about the former mermaids?" she asks.
"Ms. Chatham and her friends, right?" He skims a stone into the water. It creates ripples on its still surface. "You have Julia's locket."
Rikki nods, remembering. "Julia was meant to be a lot like me," she explains. "Hot-headed, passionate, stubborn. She used to date this guy named Karl."
"Karl?"
"He was a real hot shot, rich and kinda snobby," says Rikki. "But Julia adored him."
He narrows his eyes, lost in thought. "What's that got to do with destiny?" Zane asks.
"Forget it."
"No, Rikki…" He reaches out, abruptly, to take her hand. She starts at the way he holds her gaze, his expression filled with sincerity and confusion as his stare remains transfixed on her. With a gulp, he squeezes her hand. "I want to know."
When she finds herself weaving her fingers through his, she knows she is done for. "He wanted to catch a mermaid," she mumbles. "When she told him the truth about her he almost exposed her, if the other girls hadn't gotten there in time."
For once, Zane is rendered silent. It is a while before he can bring himself to reply.
"Oh."
Rikki draws her hand away tentatively. "Julia was heartbroken. She was never the same after that."
He stares into his lap and nods in understanding. "You think…I'm like Karl," Zane realises. "That I can't keep the secret."
"I want things to be different with us, Zane." What she really wants is to dive into the water just feet away and pretend that this isn't happening, but he does not deserve that. He deserves the truth, or at least a diluted version of it. "Max and Ms Chatham are only just getting back in touch. The others died and she didn't even get to say goodbye! I can't imagine that happening to me and the girls."
"It doesn't have to!" he argues. "You have a choice here, you know."
There is a past that Rikki refuses to repeat, she thinks. If only she could understand it. "Gracie and Max were crazy about each other, just like Lewis and Cleo. But Emma…"
She trails off, and Zane can't help but smirk at the way she pouts her lip. "You think she and Ms Chatham have something more in common?" he asks.
"Maybe," she sighs. Rikki opens the locket. Julia never thought to putting anything in it, clearly not the sentimental type, so Rikki catches her key to the café when it falls into her lap. "All I know is, if we're destined to go down the same path as them, I'm ready to jump in the moon pool during the next planetary alignment."
"What?"
Rikki smiles. "That's how a mermaid gives up her powers, for good."
"Oh," Zane says. "You'd give it all up, just so you could stay friends forever? So Lewis and Cleo could be happy, and...?"
His sentence hangs in the air between them, unspoken, directionless.
"Yeah, I would. Becoming a mermaid is the best thing to ever happen to me, but it's not worth it if…" Rikki can understand, now, how Julia felt. The secrets and the lies and the betrayal all accumulated, and she was never the same again after Karl. Still she bites her tongue against what she is about to say, something she should not let herself even think, and decides to change her tone instead. "What am I talking about? The best thing to ever happen to me is Will. I'm so glad we're having this torrid love affair behind Bella's back."
Zane tries to hide the smile that plays on his lips. "I'm gonna get you for that."
"Come get it." She dives into the water before he can move, her tail stretching about behind her as she leans against the rocks. "Did you really believe there was something going on between us?"
"Yes!" he insists.
"I thought you had more respect for me than that," she says. "Will's nice and all, but…"
Zane runs a hand through his hair. "He's too nice."
"He's like a labrador," she agrees.
"Or a golden retriever."
"Definitely a puppy, anyway." Her expression is warm and affable as she gazes up at him from the water. "I like 'em with a bit more bite."
He grins mischievously. "Fish bite."
"You want me to set you on fire?" she asks with a matching smile. "I can do that, you know."
"I'd like to see you try." Rikki holds her first in front of him, unfolding her fingers like the petals of a flower. Flames flicker steadily in the palm of her hand. "Woah! You're getting good at that."
She closes her fist with a shrug. "Who knew the fish could get fire to do her bidding?"
"You're full of surprises," he chuckles. Zane wrings his hands together, suddenly anxious, casting his eyes around the cave as he speaks. "Hey, do you remember when we first found this place?"
Rikki rolls her eyes at the memory. "You dragged me out here even though it was like, raining diagonally."
"I kept you dry, didn't I?" He shakes his head. "It was pouring down outside, but…"
"But no rain got through," she finishes. "There's something magical going on here, Zane."
"I know."
His watch glints and catches her eye, and she reaches out to tilt its face towards her. "Shoot, we gotta get to the moon pool."
Zane balances precariously on the rocks, climbing toward the darkness falling outside. "Alright," he calls, voice echoing around the cave. "Don't let destiny catch you on your way out."
"Real funny!" she says as she swims away.
"I'm considering a career as a comedian."
"Don't quit the day job!"
"Well look who finally decided to show up."
When Rikki reaches the surface of the moon pool, everything has changed so rapidly that she gasps before finding her voice. She is now free to stretch her tail out in its waters, all of the rocks and debris that once littered the cave collected in wheelbarrows. While Cleo and Lewis sit by the edge of the pool, Emma and Bella recline close together in the water. Pulling herself from the pool to avoid their questioning glances, she smiles at Zane as he enters the cave, steaming her tail dry while she leans against the rock wall.
"Sorry guys, been busy…" she mumbles in response to Bella's remark.
"Oh?" Lewis asks. "Trouble in paradise?"
Rikki purses her lips. "Drop it, Lewis."
When she turns to the others, though, they hide their laughter behind their folded hands. Even Zane is snickering to himself, a twinkle like a secret in his brown eyes. Rikki rolls her eyes and succumbs to the smile playing on her lips.
"The place looks great," she says, and is grateful when Cleo replies, distracted from the apparent hilarity.
"Yeah, I reckon we're about halfway done."
"Easily," Bella agrees.
Emma beams at her unabashedly. "We'll definitely have this place back to normal by the end of the summer," she says.
"And it's all thanks to this guy right here," Lewis says with a nod toward Zane.
When Zane turns to her Rikki is struck by his earnest expression, how he wrings his hands together in that nervous way that seems reserved only for her. He is almost sheepish when he finally speaks. "Hey, if it weren't for my meddling the moon pool wouldn't have gotten so messed up in the first place," he says, meeting her eyes now, a tsunami crossing a sandstorm. "I think we have Rikki to thank."
"Me?" she asks with a frown. "Why?"
Zane shrugs with one shoulder noncommittally, looking into the water again. "Because even after everything you still let me help this place."
Her smile is as instantaneous as it is inevitable. "What can I say, all the hard work and grovelling suits you."
"I'm serious!" says Zane. "I'm lucky you even considered—"
Emma interrupts them with a roll of her eyes. "Okay, you guys are in love, we get it!" she exclaims. "Me and Bella actually have something to tell you."
"I think," Rikki says, her smile unwavering, "we can all guess what that is."
Emma merely sticks her nose up in the air at the jibe. She lifts herself from the water and beckons Rikki to help her dry her tail. As Rikki steams the moisture away, Emma looks at her with a quizzical expression, a smirk on her lips. A silent exchange takes place between the pair, but by the time Emma makes her way to the wheelbarrow at the edge of the caves, she is none the wiser about what took place between Rikki and the boy whose dark eyes lingered on her a little too long.
"I noticed that, actually," says Lewis. "What is it?"
Emma holds out her hand as the others stare in silence. The crystal fits neatly in the centre of her palm, the colours reflecting in the waning sun, golds and peaches and pinks like a dazzling sunrise. It is clear and irregular but beautiful, emanating a kind of magic that mesmerises the group as they gather around the stone.
"Bella found it when we were clearing out the debris at the bottom of the moon pool," says Emma.
Cleo, agape, reaches out to touch the crystal. "But it's nothing like the moonstone," she murmurs. "It's like the opposite…"
"That's what I was thinking." Bella shakes her head in wonderment. "I've never seen anything like it."
"It's beautiful," says Rikki as Cleo hands the stone to her.
"Can I've a look?"
She passes the crystal to Zane. "Do you recognise it?" Rikki asks. "You do know a lot about expensive shiny junk, after all."
He examines the stone, the cave's limited light bouncing off the crystal and making golden reflections on the walls. "It's not something I've seen before," he admits. "And it was just at the bottom of the pool, with the rest of it?"
"I say you try use your powers on it, like with the other crystals," suggests Lewis.
Rikki scoffs. "Are you crazy? We have no idea what that thing will do!" she says, appalled at the thought of experimenting with the mysterious stone. "Besides, we've just started to get the moon pool back to normal. I'm not having it wrecked again because of some crystal."
The others murmur in agreement.
"I say Bella should keep it."
Her expression is incredulous when she turns to Emma. "Me?" Bella squeaks.
"You did find it, after all," Emma says. "You could make one of those pretty necklaces with it. You are the jewellery expert around here."
Bella blushes, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, and Cleo returns the crystal to her. "So you found nothing else out of the ordinary down there?" she asks.
"Nope, just this."
With the moon pool almost back to normal, they while away the rest of the evening reminiscing on everything that had taken place here. Emma, Rikki, and Cleo remember the night everything changed for them under the full moon, and how terrified Cleo was to swim to the surface. With time and perspective they can laugh at the thought of Dr. Denman trapping them in the caves. Max had first told Lewis and Cleo of the love he and Gracie shared within these walls, and the three mermaids had tired endlessly here to learn to control their new powers. Bella peppers them with questions of Charlotte and the night she tried to take their tails away. The moon pool grows chillier when Emma, horrified, learns of the time that Rikki was kidnapped on her birthday, and the party that they threw for her afterward. The mermaids were pulled by the tentacle's waters to this place, drew moonstone from the rock, stopped a comet within its walls.
"It won't be long till this place is up and running again," Lewis says, slinging an arm over Cleo's shoulder, "and you can stop meteorological interference to your hearts' content."
Zane nods. "All we have to do is fill in the cracks in the cave floor and we'll be golden," he says. "Just how we'll do that is the problem."
"You don't know how?" asks Rikki.
"I don't want to risk filling the rock in the traditional way," he replies with a shake of his head. "We know so little about the structure of this place, I've a feeling it could make things worse."
All eyes turn to a suspicious-looking Bella, who leans against the side of the pool, a coy smile on her face.
"Hey," she says, extending her arm. "Check this out."
Bella bites her lip, her smile falling, brows narrowed in concentration. With a shaky breath she flexes her fingers, twisting her arm this way and that as she focuses on one of the cracks embedded in the rock. All of a sudden the fissure seems to knit together of its own accord. She lets out a breath at the exertion while the others stare, dumbfounded, her measured effort suddenly repairing the crack.
"Bella, that's amazing!" Emma sings.
Cleo beams, unruffled. "You bent the earth! I knew you could do it."
"When did this happen?!" Lewis sputters.
"Just after the last full moon," Bella says, ever modest as she casts her eyes away from the others. "I'm not very good but with some practise…"
Emma's grin grows wider when she turns to face her. "You're wonderful," she assures her in a fond tone. "This is just what we need to fix the moon pool."
Rikki chuckles. "We get it, you guys are in love!"
A chorus of laughter echoes around the moon pool, but his is the loudest to her.
a/n: hello all! thank you so so much for joining me today, and now its time for rambly authors notes. whomst else completely rejects mako mermaids canon re: rikki and the other mermaids eventually losing touch? another thing i reject about canon is the girls completely forgetting their ties to the former mermaids in s3. so much wasted potential. sigh
the way i say it, a mermaid's powers are tied to the elements but still mostly affect water: cleo has wind powers and manipulates/creates water, emma can freeze water and manipulate the clouds and weather, rikki can boil water and control fire/thunder, so bella should be able to turn water to a jelly/glass-like substance and manipulate/create earth. earthbenders can bend crystal, and bella can manipulate glass in canon which is basically a purified form of earth. considering she was the one who /found/ the original moon crystal in the irish sea caves (and also found the stone here)... im rambling but yeah shes an earthbender its canon sorry i dont make the rules
just a lil heads up that the next chapter is gonna be...a lil different. but i think yall will like it. its def one of my favourites anyway!
let me know what you guys thought of this chapter and i love you very very much,
A
xxxx
