xxiii.

Cleo sat on her bed and cried. Her first instinct was to grab Hector the Great and squeeze his plush shape to herself as she emptied her emotions, but the fact that he was a fish sort of made everything worse. Choosing to ignore him in favour of another pillow made her feel horrid though, and she went through several phases of guilt before picking Hector back up and finishing her cry with him.

When she was able to think without a flood of tears, she tried to reason with herself about the situation.

She did not have an easy time of it. Cleo wasn't afraid of water. Not entirely. She just hated large bodies of it all in one area, or anything deeper than three feet, or the thought that the ocean was so huge and vast and dark and there were hundreds of unknown species of swimming things that would probably kill you if they had the chance. And besides, she couldn't swim, so all those killer creatures had a decided advantage over her. If Lewis was a... a water creature now, wouldn't he be part of that world? Would he want to constantly be swimming around in places Cleo was deathly afraid to even think about? And Zane and Rikki had transformed as well! Would the three of them have all sorts of underwater adventures while leaving her behind, poking around on the shore until they returned?

She wondered if Lewis had always felt some kind of special connection to the ocean; if he was destined to be part of the water all along and she was being selfish for denying it. She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it. There was nothing especially fishlike about Lewis, except his love of catching them on hooks, and his gifts of tropical fish and Hector the Great. But those were for Cleo. He got those for her.

He was always doing things for her. She certainly hadn't forgotten that time in primary school when the gangly blond boy risked the eternal mockery of all his brothers to stick up for her on the playground. Or the weeks after she'd broken her wrist and Lewis not only got their whole class to sign her cast, but painted her nails when she complained at their sorry state. And most significant to her was the dance which no one else bothered to ask her to and she let herself believe that just maybe Lewis made her his date for reasons that went deeper than mere kindness.

Could one strange transformation change all of that?

It had already changed who his friends were. He now valued Zane's company, and defended Rikki like he always had Cleo, even suggesting their friendship at the start. She wanted so badly to believe that he cared for Rikki strictly as a friend; that it was his extensive compassion and their need for secrecy that kept him so seriously concerned for her and had no greater meaning than that. It never crossed her mind that it might partially be from guilt that he took such an interest. She never imagined Lewis might blame himself for suggesting their trip to Mako Island in the first place. Her admiration for him and her keen awareness of Rikki's attractive qualities made it a difficult struggle to accept the truth of the matter.

Still, it was easier to comprehend than his new form. As she had said to him after he'd revealed his secret, it frightened her. What she hadn't been able to say, nor probably ever would, was the reason why it frightened her. The voice that tried to soothe her was exactly like Lewis's, but the elegant creature draped over the bed was most certainly not. She couldn't recall a time in their adolescence when she'd seen him quite so... shirtless before, and whether it was the effects of whatever magic transformed him into a new thing, or the fact that Cleo had simply assumed he was as scrawny now as he'd been as a child, the sudden sight of his slim but pleasing torso had shaken her considerably. She liked Lewis. She had always liked him, but the image that burned hot in her brain of him so casually unclothed just after kissing her thoroughly stirred stronger feelings of desire than she ever thought possible for her oldest and dearest friend.

Perhaps most shocking of all was how perfectly suited he seemed to his tail. She didn't take into account the months he'd had learning to accept it. To her, this was all utterly new and Lewis was far too calm about the whole thing. Even away from the ocean, outside of any aquatic environment he looked every bit the mystical merman from legends of the deep. It was so far removed from the laid back, shrug-offish, comfortable Lewis of her growing years that she struggled to see them as the same person.

She also struggled to shake the image of his glittering blue tail from her head, and especially the appalling fascination she suddenly had over finding out what it might feel like to run her fingers over the vibrant scales.

Cleo whispered a hasty apology to both Hectors for letting her thoughts run away with her in such a fashion. Her embarrassment was such that she doubted ever being able to look Lewis in the eye again.

She went to splash water on her warming cheeks, hoping desperately to have some infectious disease by the next school day.

Sadly for Cleo, she was perfectly healthy with no legitimate excuse to skip school on Monday. To her great surprise however, neither Lewis nor Rikki were there. Much too afraid to draw attention to Lewis's absence in case it had to do with the secret, and equally afraid to ask Zane about Rikki, she muddled through her classes with growing confusion and dismay. It did upset her that they seemed to be missing together, and no matter her upset over the secret of their tails, she was not pleased with the thought of Lewis spending the day with another girl—even her friend—so soon after his revelation.

But she wasn't halfway home before Rikki met her on the way and struck up a chat. "Hey," she greeted her with a careful wave, "Want to grab a quiet booth at the JuiceNet and have a talk?"

Being that Cleo was never one to turn down an offer of food or drink, she readily complied.

"Are you okay?" Rikki leant in close to ask her once situated in the booth with their drinks. "I was worried about you. Did Lewis tell you everything, or did he screw up on delivery?"

"No," Cleo frowned, following a trail of condensation from her cup to the table. "He told me. I'm just coping with the idea that my best friend is a... a... you know." She shook her head and refused to look Rikki in the eye.

"Yeah, well it's even weirder when you're pregnant and a mermaid and your fiancé's a merman as well."

Cleo offered a sad smile. "I guess my problems are pretty small in comparison."

Rikki shrugged. "I'm not saying you don't have a right to be confused and unhappy. Just don't keep Lewis in agony for too long." She flicked her straw at Cleo, gaining her attention with the sudden splash of water and subsequent sputter. "It's my job to torture the two of you, and I can't have you encroaching on that particular gift of mine, okay?"

"Okay," Cleo giggled, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. "And you know; I just realised what you meant when you were warning me about kissing Lewis. It was because of the tail thing, huh? And not because he was the one that you... well..." Cleo's face turned red and she quickly changed direction. "Do you have any... other advice to give me now that I know?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you there," Rikki said with a raised eyebrow. "I don't even remember what Zane and I did together. Great big thanks to the moon for that. But I can tell you that whatever you do from now on, you have to accept him and all the craziness that comes with the tail. That's part of who he is now and if you reject that, you might as well walk away altogether. We've all tried to undo this transformation at some point and it's clear we're like this for keeps. If you love Lewis the person, you'll love Lewis the merman." Rikki rolled her eyes at her own sentimental rambling. "Yeah, I sound like an idiot, but you get my point, right?"

Cleo nodded slowly and seriously. "I can accept that. I can! It's not the tail so much, or the powers, or... all of the fish stuff as much as... you," she murmured so softly that Rikki barely understood. "Not just you. All three of you now are part of this amazing and terrifying world that I'll never really be a part of. I can accept it, but I can never completely understand. And that scares me. And," she added with a drawn out sigh, "it makes me sad."

"Cleo..." Rikki began, but she couldn't seem to find the words to make it okay. Cleo was right in a way. She would never have to run into a walk-in refrigerator to hide a sudden tail, or worry about getting caught using super powers against people that irritated her, or feel that irresistible urge to abandon everything and everyone on land to swim straight for Mako whenever the moon was full. But she was attached to someone who did have those worries, and it wasn't fair to think that her normalcy negated all her problems.

Rikki thought of how hard it must have been for Cleo to wonder so long if Lewis truly liked her or was just being nice out of their long established friendship. She knew that for months Cleo thought the guy she had an enormous crush on had impregnated her friend, and just when she found out had had not, she was forced to handle the revelation that he was a merman.

Rikki didn't know how to explain in words how thankful she was that Cleo stuck by her and helped her with the newness of her pregnancy, even when she thought that Lewis was lost to her forever. She wanted to tell her how much of a true friend she considered her, and how she hoped that she would continue to stick around and be a friend to her Guppy as well.

Unable to form the appropriate words, Rikki only thought it right to remove the locket from around her neck and hold it out to her sad little friend. "I want you to have this."

Cleo's eyes went wide, and she coughed a little on her juice. "But... this... this is your engagement locket! You can't give this to me!"

"Why not? It's mine to give and I'm choosing to give it to you."

"But... why?" Cleo pressed as her eyes grew misty.

"Because..." Rikki struggled not to sound too sappy, but figured she was about to fail miserably. "Because no matter how normal you are on the outside, you're one of us where it counts. Zane found this at the bottom of the moon pool where this whole thing started, so it's significant to all of us. You are too, Cleo," she said. "You may be totally human and annoyingly nice sometimes, but you're important to me, and I know you're important to Lewis. You'll be part of our awkward little team forever, whether you want to be or not, actually. You know way too much for us to let you go. So stop sniffling, okay? This Guppy already has me crying at the stupidest things. I don't need you making it worse."

"S—sorry," Cleo sniffed, clutching the locket tightly in her grasp. "And thank you, Rikki. This means so much to me. It's incredibly sweet of you."

"Yeah, well..." Rikki's snarky comeback was interrupted by Cleo scooting out of her seat to come across the way and envelope Rikki in a tight hug.

Rikki could have protested. She could have pushed Cleo off and pretended her filling eyes were a weird side effect from something in the new vitamin regimen Lewis had her on. Instead, she hugged Cleo back and smiled through her own sniffling.

Maybe Guppy was making her go soft.