xi.
The first order of business seemed to be piecing together what had happened between their walk on the beach and the predicament Lewis found them both in. Although with heightened emotions and volatile tempers the need to know was not put in such specific terms. Instead, Lewis was barraged with a flurry of questions; angry, demanding ones from Zane, and frantic, bewildered ones from Rikki. Lewis did his best to deflect until he could sort out the best way to unravel the mystery behind their gaps in memory, but unfortunately they took his wish to wait until they'd settled down as a refusal to help. At one point, Rikki began to cry which only intensified the incensed nature of Zane's questions.
"Look, I don't know!" Lewis finally shouted over the fray, "I'm really, really sorry, but I don't have the answers, yet! Everyone needs to calm down so we can do some backtracking and figure this out."
Zane was still seething, but managed to keep a steady voice as he said, "First thing's first. You need to apologise to Rikki."
"Wait," she sniffled, "I don't understand. Apologise for what?"
Lewis reluctantly handed her his phone.
Once she saw the images of her... intimacy with Zane, Rikki tossed the phone aside in frightened disbelief. Zane reached out a hand intended to comfort, but she instinctively shied away from his touch, bewildered, and almost ill-looking. She swallowed thickly, and after a moment of stunned silence dove into the moon pool without another word.
"Rikki-!" Zane called after her in vain. But if Zane knew anything about what powers he possessed, it was that he was nowhere near as fast as Rikki when it came to swimming. If Rikki wanted to disappear she wouldn't be found until she was good and ready to come out of hiding.
Zane turned his wrath onto Lewis. "If I thought I had a chance of getting away with it, I would kill you."
"I don't doubt that for a minute," Lewis blanched. "But before you work out the details of your premeditated homicide, let me help you fix this."
"Help?" he said in a mocking tone. "How on earth do you expect to help?"
"I might know how to prevent this from happening again."
"If it involves shackling you to the bottom of the ocean without a breathing apparatus, I'm all for it."
"I can see you don't forgive easily. Okay. That's fine. Maybe you'd be better off without my help. Maybe I won't offer my insight as to what got you here, naked in a volcano with no memories of the past twelve hours." Lewis could understand Zane's frustration, but he didn't appreciate his good intentions being discredited.
Zane exhaled sharply. "What's your theory?"
Lewis pointed up towards the patch of sky seen through the maw of the volcano. "The moon. A full moon, to be precise. It was a full moon on the night that we first came here, and last night was a full moon when you two... uh... you know."
"No, I don't know, which is why I'm angry. What did it do to us?"
"I can't say for sure, exactly. But exposure to the full moon definitely has an effect on the water from the moon pool and apparently those of us who were transformed by it, too. It's likely you and Rikki were hypnotised by the moon and were taken over by more... uh, primal instincts rather than rational thought. But I'd have to observe someone like us under the same conditions to really understand."
"Yeah, 'someone like us.' It's not gonna be me, and I can guarantee Rikki won't be up to being used as an experiment for a good stretch. So good luck with finding a test subject."
Lewis was about to make a sharp retort but he thought better of it and bit his tongue. He wasn't able to console Zane with the discovery of his new powers, either. With Rikki gone, an essential factor in their dynamics was missing. Her lively sass both amused Zane and kept his attention solely on her, rather than berating Lewis or dwelling too intently on his disappointments.
He said his powers were stupid, and unless he was going to go into the ice cream business, completely useless. Lewis didn't even bother to try persuading him otherwise. They spent another awkward hour trying their powers against each other half-heartedly before they agreed there was no real point anymore and they went their separate ways.
-x-
Rikki sat in her private cove, listless and unhappy. She wasn't in pain. She wasn't even uncomfortable. In fact, she didn't feel the least bit different except for a slight crick in her neck that wasn't there before.
She hated it. If she was going to have her first with Zane Bennett, she sure as hell wanted to remember it. She didn't know how she could ever look him in the eye again. She dreaded the thought of going to school, of meeting him by chance at Mako, or worse, somewhere more public. Not that there was much likeliness of that happening. The benefit of them coming from such two distinct social circles was that they had very few places in common.
Except all the haunts they'd discovered on their date, Rikki realised with a longing sigh. Life was cruel. Just as she was learning to let someone in; learning to like him, even... a catastrophe had to hit. She supposed she wasn't the girlfriend type after all. She could be chummy, but adding romance into the mix never turned out well. She was too scared. Too unprepared. Especially when she took leaps and bounds in a relationship that she couldn't bloody remember the next morning.
Without warning, she thought of Cleo and her romantic confusion, almost wishing they were friends so she could spill her guts to someone likeminded. Lewis wasn't exactly the worst listener in the world, but being of the male species he was dense as a rock. She'd never found herself longing for female companionship before, but she had a feeling Cleo would be the type to sympathise and listen to her problems without judgement. If she could ever get past her jealousy over Lewis, that is.
And that was the thing. As long as there were expectations between people that went beyond friendship, Rikki was screwed. She snorted at the thought.
Nope. So long as there were those troublesome things called feelings, there'd be heartache and trouble and Rikki wasn't willing to go through any of it just to try making a new friend.
She was resigned to being alone. She'd been alone pretty much all her life, anyway.
But why did it suddenly feel so lonely?
A/N: Aw, pooor Rikki! She needs a friend! Of the non-male variety. I wonder where she could come by one of those?
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