"So you're actually gonna spend some time with your friend, huh, Johnson?" Ward clasped her on the shoulder, hard, and gave it a squeeze. Skye groaned, shrugging him off as they walked down the road towards the main pier downtown. Ward had wanted to go to the arcade for a little while to wait for his other friends, then they were all supposed to go to the other end of the island and play soccer on the beach.

Skye ran, so she wasn't worried about the soccer, she was just worried about having to spend all day with Ward and Kara and the rest of his 'gang'…but the diner had been fully staffed and Jemma wouldn't be around today so she didn't have much of a choice.

"Yeah, you said you wanted me to, so here I am," the brunette walked next to the taller man in silence, waiting for his next round of banter to begin. They were almost at the arcade. At least she could play games for a little while instead of actually having to pay attention to each other.

It wasn't that Skye disliked Ward, so to speak, it was more that she disliked his presence. Okay so maybe she did dislike Ward, but still, he was basically her only friend other than Jemma now and it did help to have him around for days like this. If he hadn't asked her to hang out she would just be stuck in her room, working on Jemma's tail, trying to get it right and inevitably getting frustrated.

"You haven't been around much lately, you know that?" Ward started and Skye's eyes practically rolled all the way right back into her head.

"I've been busy…" She could already see where this conversation was going, and she wanted to avoid it.

"Your mom says you're going to the beach a lot. You know, Johnson, for someone who is scared shitless by water, you sure have been hanging around it a lot." It sounded like a pointed knife, jabbed neatly into where she didn't want it. In her personal business.

"The art theme has been nature and since we live on an island, there's only so much nature to appreciate. Half the class is doing the beach, the other half is doing the palm forest on the east side, I picked the beach— it's closer," Skye retorted, walking behind her friend and into the Arcade. Ward had that tone of voice she recognized and knew to be his prying voice. He wasn't going to let up, which meant she was in for a very long day.

The loud music and sounds of the games was very different from the sound of Jemma's soft voice and the rolling of the waves. She much preferred Jemma, although now that she was here, she wondered what the girl would think of a videogame if she could ever see one, or even, if she could play one. It would probably blow her mind. It made Skye laugh to think it and she quickly regretted it.

"What you laughing at?" Ward's arm was around her shoulder in no time, leaning heavily against her, which Skye did not appreciate, but she was too small to shrug all his weight off this time.

Skye quickly had to think of a lie, and she found an easy one, "About how easy it is going to beat you at this racing game," She pointed to the corner of the arcade where two motorcycles were hooked up to a screen, flashing big red and blue letters 'Start Race'.

"In your fucking dreams, Skye. I'll show you how a master does it," Ward challenged back, giving her a hard slap on the back, which made her ache, and soon the two were wasting an untold number of quarters on race after race until the rest of Ward's friends came in and found them.

They hung around a while longer, playing more games and they had some pizza and a few beers. More than a few. Skye was coaxed into a couple of her own and by the time they managed to make it to the other side of the island for soccer, Skye wasn't sure that any of them should be playing, let alone having driven there.

Skye quickly forgot about the morals of it though as teams were picked and the game started. All of Ward's friends liked to play rough, especially Ward himself, so Skye had to cope. They put her as the center forward, a position she regretted immediately since she wasn't really any good at soccer. Ward of course made himself the second forward for his team and got very upset when his plays did not pan out.

By the end of the day Kara's team had won and Ward was in a mildly drunken pissy state. The rest of the afternoon went as well as Skye could have expected and by the time she got home into her own bed she just wanted it to be the next day so she could see Jemma again. She was much more excited for the morning and the new day, because Jemma would be back, and her days with Jemma were always the best ones.

Jemma and Bobbi were up bright and early, already getting ready for their plans for the day. They'd arranged it so long ago, though Jemma could hardly remember. Maybe it had only been a week, she wasn't sure. The only thing she really knew how to focus on was Skye, so her time at home with her pod seemed to drag on endlessly.

"Hurry up, if we want to get further than last time we need all day to do it." Bobbi pointed out, tying on her own pouch with a little bit of food to last them the day. It had been a habit of theirs to go exploring, it was more of a job, really, since they were meant to map out the area on the stone walls of their caves. It was a job they had finished ages ago when they first relocated here, but they still sometimes tried to travel further and expand their map. When they had planned this, Bobbi had guilted her into it, using the fact that she hadn't been around much recently.

"Yes, I know, I'm ready." Jemma laughed a little bit at Bobbi's impatience and slipped off the rocks into the water. Their caves were designed perfectly for mermaids, the entrance was underwater, but there were multitudes of ledges and small rooms of air inside. Mermaids couldn't breathe underwater, only hold their breath for a very long time, so their place of residence did need air, so that they could sleep easily. They were lucky enough this time to have found such a good shelter.

Jemma wasn't in a particularly good mood as they headed out, she would have much rather spent the day with Skye than swim out into the ocean, even further from people. This was her sister, though, and Jemma did love her. It was only fair she tried to spend time with her too.

"See, this is fun." Bobbi stated once they'd stopped for a quick break. They'd gotten fifty miles already and Jemma had to admit that she'd lost a little bit of her stamina sitting on the beach with Skye all the time, but she wasn't sure if Bobbi had noticed. "I don't get why we don't do it as often as we used to, you're always so distant now." She started to complain, and Jemma knew that tone.

"I'm sorry, I've just been busy." Jemma shrugged. She knew this wasn't a very adequate answer, and with a pod so tightly knit as hers, it was hard to keep anyone from finding out. It's not like she could give some other excuse without people realizing it was fake.

"Speaking of, what exactly have you been busy with?" Bobbi asked, eyeing her curiously as they continued to eat their lunch of shrimp. Jemma swallowed the bite currently in her mouth and wished she had still been chewing so she had longer to come up with an answer.

"You know, this and that." She waved her hand like it was no big deal, but she could already tell Bobbi wasn't buying it and she feared having to give a real answer or Bobbi investigating. It wasn't just frowned upon by the pod to come into contact with humans, it was forbidden, and she could get into serious trouble for it, if it came to that.

Knowing that Jemma wasn't going to really tell her, Bobbi let it go and finished up, grumbling something about staying out of trouble as she got ready to swim again.

They continued in mostly silence, but it was easiest to swim that way, so neither of them minded. Occasionally, when Bobbi wasn't looking, Jemma would snap a picture of a stingray or a dolphin or a coral reef. Everything had been going fine until they reached a new wrecked boat that they hadn't previously seen before, they'd made it outside of their map again as it seemed. Jemma's first choice was to take a picture of the massive sunken boat for Skye, but as she did, Bobbi finally noticed.

"What are you doing?" She asked skeptically, like she thought Jemma was being crazy. Jemma remembered feeling the same way about Skye and it made her smile fondly, but that didn't help how nosey Bobbi was being. "I'm sorry, am I missing something here?" She asked, now confused, as she approached Jemma and tried to get a good look at the object in her hands before Jemma shoved it back into her pouch.

"Oh, no, it's nothing, just something I found floating around the other day." Jemma was quick to come up with a lie, though her sounds were finicky, and Bobbi knew this was her tell. Jemma was lying, and Bobbi knew it. Thankfully, Jemma's sister didn't press her any further, only narrowed her eyes and looked at her doubtfully, and they hurried to commit the new place to memory before rushing back to the caves to make it there before dark and expand the carving on the wall.

The rest of the night went smoothly, and Jemma was up again at the crack of dawn, searching for a few things before she went to meet with Skye.

It was going to be another long day, but at least this day would be fun because she wouldn't be spending it with Ward. She wouldn't be spending another day with Ward for a very long time. As Skye climbed the rocks to get into her and Jemma's grotto, she winced, realizing she should have taken more ibuprofen, or at least brought some with her. She was sore from soccer too, but that wasn't exactly all, and she only hoped that Jemma didn't notice.

Her bag hit the ground first, as it usually did, followed by the artist who slid down the side, landing with a staggering thud compared to her usually at least a little more graceful thud. She had opted out of her bathing suit today. It was still scorching outside, so she had brought plenty of water and snacks, but she had chosen regular jean shorts and a slightly baggy plain white shirt. She also had a snap back on because she had rolled right out of bed and her hair had been a mess. She'd also remembered her sunglasses which she now took off and hung at the neckline of her shirt as she leaned over, gritting her teeth as she did, when she picked up her bag and turned to walk down towards the beach.

A familiar stack of rocks rested at the shore and it made her smile, "Jemma! I'm here now, you can come out! I've got those space pictures!"

Upon hearing Skye's voice, Jemma grinned and came out from behind her rock, swimming right up to the shore and pulling herself up a few feet like she'd done practically every day for weeks now. She was genuinely excited to see more pictures and learn new things, but all of that went away when she got a good look at her friend. Skye was wearing different clothes than usual, and the way she moved was different. Jemma paid very close attention to detail, she wouldn't be surprised if she had what humans referred to as a sixth sense, she had a knack for knowing when things were wrong.

The smile dropped off her face as Skye came closer and awkwardly sat down, using a different range of motion than usual and doing it slowly, adjusting a few times before she finally settled. Even her face looked different somehow. She was undoubtedly happy, but there was something else lingering that she hadn't seen before except maybe the first day they'd spoken when Skye still had a killer headache.

"You're in pain." Jemma stated bluntly, scooting closer to her friend and grasping Skye's hand in her own. Her eyes searched Skye's with deep concern, waiting for an explanation.

Wow, that was fast…Skye grinned, but only one side of her face turned up into a smile. She really wasn't going to be able to get away with it, but she was going to try. She didn't need Jemma worrying about her, Skye was the one who needed to worry about Jemma. She was the rare creature here who was a secret.

"It's nothing…I played soccer yesterday. It's a game where a bunch of people kick a ball around and try to get it into each other's uh…goals. You get points if you get it and the team with the most points wins," She tried explaining, using something new to distract Jemma. "It's intense is all, I'm just a little sore. I don't normally play sports. Sports is what we call games like soccer," She squeezed the mermaid's hand to assure her that she was alright, and then wiggled out of it, turning to her back, trying to do so as normally as possible so her friend would stop worrying.

She pulled out some folded up printed images of galaxies she had found that were similar colors to Jemma's tail. She thought the mermaid would like them and hopefully again, seeing something new would make her more curious about life and less curious about Skye.

Skye was wrong, though. Jemma could not be distracted from Skye, not when there was a possibility that she was injured. She completely disregarded the images in favor of trying to figure out exactly what was wrong with Skye, her eyes first scanning over her legs and quickly ruling them out as what was hurting. All of her visible skin looked normal, but Jemma supposed that was why she'd decided to wear a shirt today when it was even hotter than normal.

Any other time Jemma would have been embarrassed about it, but once she situated herself in an upright position right next to Skye, she went about sliding her hand across her stomach and around her side with a look of concentration on her face, trying to find out what exactly was wrong. It didn't take long for Skye to wince, and Jemma's hand froze against the spot on her ribcage, under her chest. Before Skye could say anything else, Jemma tugged her shirt up and gasped when she saw the ugly, purple bruise there.

"This... is from soccer?" Jemma asked skeptically, though it was obvious she knew the real answer. She knew Skye well enough at this point to know she had been lying before, and there was only one other reason she could think of. "Who did you play soccer with?" She asked, her question giving away that she already thought she knew the answer. Jemma's fingers lightly traced the skin around her bruise, and she suddenly wished there was more she could do.

"Friends, I played soccer with friends," Skye hissed when Jemma traced her hand over the bruise and she grabbed her shirt away from her and shoved it back down, "I got hit by the ball. It hits hard when you kick it around—I'm fine!" Her voice raised some, but clearly she wasn't fine. Skye knew she she wasn't fine. She hadn't so much as been hit when someone kicked the ball but had been hit when someone kicked her. That someone had been Ward.

She had missed the scoring goal. They could have won but then Kara took it away and ran all the way down the field with it while Ward was busy being angry and taking it out on her. He was just…rough, and passionate about winning. She didn't understand why she was so hesitant, so vehemently denying that something had happened. Perhaps it was because she was used to it. That's just how Ward was and she had to deal with it.

She had gotten snippy, and she hadn't yet done that with Jemma and although she immediately regretted it, Skye wasn't sure how else to be. She'd been in defense mode about this sort of thing before, with her mother. It was obvious Ward was a terrible friend and a terrible influence and a terrible person, but other than Jemma, Ward was her only person to be around. She didn't have many friends and Ward's friends weren't exactly her friends but she had made it work all these years.

"I'm sorry…I'm just, it hurts. I'm fine, drop it…" Skye pulled her knees up to her chest, even though it hurt, and she wrapped her arms around her legs so Jemma couldn't keep staring at it. Out of sight, out of mind…she hoped.

Jemma couldn't help but feel hurt when Skye snipped at her, she'd never had anyone even remotely act this way towards her. Mermaids didn't do that and Jemma was new to this feeling, she didn't like it.

"You said that first day that you knew bad people." Jemma said quietly, almost under her breath. She remembered it very clearly, along with other stories and complaints she'd heard about the man over the last few weeks she'd known Skye. It was obvious that it hadn't just been the ball, or if it had, it had been intentional.

"He shouldn't be your friend." Jemma sighed, guessing Skye hadn't really meant it as an offense to her. Jemma couldn't really understand why Skye would continue to spend time with someone who did things like this, but there were a lot of things about people she didn't understand.

Jemma let out a sad exhale and readjusted to lean into her friend, resting her chin on Skye's shoulder. She didn't know what else to say, so she thought about all the things Skye had taught her for an answer. "Ward sucks." She settled on this, remembering Skye teaching her the word two days ago.

She hadn't said it was Ward, but Skye supposed that all of his usual indicators were present and so it was easy for Jemma to guess, especially she continuously complained about the man. At her last exclamation though, the brunette had to laugh. It made her chest hurt to do so, but she did and she laughed hard, finally putting on a real smile.

"Yeah, I agree…Ward sucks," Skye leaned into the mermaid too and sighed, pulling over the pictures again and unfolded them, "How about we stop talking about Ward and we start talking about you, huh?" She handed Jemma the pictures of the swirling, star filled galaxies that were so close to the color combinations of her tail.

"I thought your scales looked like these the first time I saw them…and the northern lights, but I didn't bring pictures of those today, I can bring those tomorrow…" She was content to calm down now. Jemma's joke had helped, a lot, and she felt bad for having tried to lie to her. Obviously she had excellent skills of perception so when it happened again, because Skye knew it would, she would just have to tell her outright.

Jemma didn't know what Skye was laughing at, she'd just used the word like she thought it was supposed to be used, but she was glad Skye was smiling now instead of sulking. After one more glance at her face to make sure she really was alright, Jemma let herself take the papers from Skye. She smoothed them out across her lap, and the colors on the first one matched the scales behind it almost perfectly.

"These are really up there in the sky?" Jemma asked, looking upwards. It was still the afternoon so of course she didn't see anything but baby blue and white, but she was still bewildered just imagining it. She didn't know what the northern lights were, at least not yet, but she couldn't wait to find out. There were so many things she wanted to know about and she was glad she had Skye here to ask.

"Will you show me a daisy next time too?" She questioned. If Skye had been named after them, they had to have been beautiful.

"Yeah, they're really in the sky, way waaaay out there where we can't see with our eyes. Scientists have to use really powerful telescopes…uhm…like a magnifying glass, but for space. And they send people and cameras into space too to take pictures like this," Skye explained, although she figured she could have probably done it a little better. She might have to actually start reading up on things to help give Jemma a better explanation.

"And of course I can bring you a daisy," Skye chuckled at that too and finally moved, shifting away from Jemma, but only to lay down against her towel, "I can bring you whatever you want." She stuck her sunglasses back onto her face, since she was laying on her back and facing the sun, so that she didn't have to strain to look up at the mermaid.

One hand rested behind her head while the other was at her side, idly tracing a light couple of fingers over those scales that she just couldn't get right. She liked that Jemma grinned when she did this, so she wasn't apt to stop unless she was told to.

"Anyway, you heard about my awful day yesterday, how was yours? What did you and Bobbi do?"

Jemma shifted even closer when Skye's fingers began to dance over her scales, so close that her tail was lightly pressed against Skye's leg.

"Bobbi and I, it's our job to update the map carved into the cave wall, so sometimes we go make sure nothing has changed. Today we went out for fun to see if we could go further than what we've mapped and map more of the region. We got close to sixty miles out before we had to turn around with enough time to make it back. So basically I swam 120 miles." Jemma said nonchalantly, like it wasn't anything impressive. To her it wasn't, they could swim at high speeds for long periods of time, but she didn't realize how unusual this was for Skye.

"Wow, that many?! That's a lot," Skye was more than impressed. She supposed dolphins and sharks and whales and other sea creatures like that could swim a long distance, but she never really looked up how much. To hear Jemma had swam 120 miles was almost incomprehensible to her.

"I can't even swim a foot, so I'm impressed," She let her hand keep dancing around a little more, now that Jemma had gotten closer. "Take any pictures yesterday while you were traveling so far away from me, huh? Did you see anything interesting? What does the bottom of the ocean even look like?"

"Oh, I actually filled up the camera, it stopped working." Jemma giggled, finally having remembered. She'd been excited about it before, but honestly she'd forgotten when she'd seen that Skye hadn't been feeling very great.

Jemma didn't just grab the camera, she untied her whole pouch and set it down on Skye's towel. She did take the camera out then and handed it to her, but she wasn't through.

"I also brought you these." Jemma was grinning like a fool. She'd known how much Skye liked her necklace with the sea glass, so she'd gathered some more. "I thought maybe you could make art out of things from the sea, too, if you like." Jemma tilted the pouch, which had been quite a bulge before, and what looked like a few hundred colorful stones formed a small mountain on the towel.

"Woah! How much sea glass did you pick up?!" The artist's face was alight again as she pushed herself to sit up to look down at the pile Jemma had collected for her. She picked up a few at a time, examining them and rolling them over in her fingers. "I could definitely use these for something…in a sculpture maybe or I dunno…there's lots of possibilities," She turned to look at the mermaid, still smiling and noticed how proud she looked. It made her chuckle. She wasn't surprised that Jemma had already filled the camera either. She would have to get her a new one. Skye was sure she had taken pictures of nearly everything she had seen probably. She honestly couldn't wait to get the film out and develop it in the photo lab.

She took the camera and put it back into her own bag and started transferring the stones a handful at a time into her bag as well. "Thank you so much, Jems. I can't wait to use them in something. I'll have to think of an extra special way to use them, get my art juices flowing…Ah, which reminds me too, I have something else for you too."

Her hand reached into her bag past all the stones and pulled out a book, "I rented this from the campus library for you. You can't take it with you, but I can bring it every day. I uhm…I don't want to be offensive, but…can you…can you read? I know you can speak English, but can you read it too? Have you seen a book before?"

"We're only taught verbal English, and it's really only to honor our heritage from the North Sea, and how we used to communicate with humans more often a very long time ago. We don't even have our own written language." Jemma explained, though she opened up the book anyway. Her hands were dry by now, so it wasn't a problem, but she still didn't know what exactly to do.

"Will you read it?" Jemma asked, sliding the book back over towards Skye. Maybe she would pick it up quickly by watching Skye, either way it would be interesting.

"Yeah, absolutely. I've got it for a week and I can rent it anytime so there isn't a rush to finish it," Skye smiled and took the book back, flipping to the cover, "It's kind of cheesy. Uhm…cheesy is when something is…cliché? I'm not really sure how to explain it. Well, maybe it's ironic, and I don't want it to offend you, and I want you to like it…but this is basically a fairytale about mermaids. So this is basically how I thought mermaids were until I met you," Skye grinned and propped herself up, adjusting herself so that she could easily read and be close to Jemma so she could see too.

"It's called The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen…" She thought now that maybe telling Jemma about a story about a mermaid who falls in love with a human could be a little suggestive, and that in the end the mermaid is turned into sea foam because the prince didn't love her back was sort of a horrible story and a bad first impression of the human version of mermaids…but it was a classic…and maybe she could appreciate it. Either way it was too late now.

Skye turned to the first page, settling in against her own mermaid, laying a hand fondly on her hip right where her scales began as she started to read. She wasn't sure how many things she would have to stop and explain along the way. It was going to be a long process, but it was something new and Jemma always liked everything she had brought so far.

Something was up with her little sister, Bobbi just knew it. She tended to have an insight for these sort of things, and Jemma had definitely been acting strange as of late. Well, stranger than usual, since Jemma had always been a little different than most of the mermaids and mermen in the pod. She was too curious, too reckless, and it always had Bobbi worried, even more so now than when she had been little.

Jemma had been distant for weeks, Bobbi couldn't even seem to hold her attention when it had been just the two of them out on the mapping trip. Jemma used to love mapping trips, but it had looked like she would have much rather been somewhere else, probably the same place she'd been disappearing to for so long now. That had only been the beginning, Bobbi had absolutely no idea what Jemma had been doing with that strange little box. There were really only two explanations, either her sister was going crazy...or she was talking to humans.

Bobbi would have felt guilty about following and snooping before, but she was genuinely worried. What if Jemma ended up like their ancestor, with a harpoon through her gut or something equally as awful? It was her duty as a pod member to follow Jemma that morning, and she was horrified by what she found. It had just seemed like a beach trip, Jemma had just been treading water behind a rock, until a human girl suddenly slid down the boulders. Bobbi had wanted to use the highest pitch possible to warn Jemma to run away, but the human girl suddenly called out Jemma's name like she knew her.

Bobbi stayed hidden behind her own rock and watched in horror as Jemma actually beached herself and began what looked like talking to a human like they were old friends. It only got progressively worse as Bobbi continued to watch, and she was stuck between needing to look away and not being able to peel her eyes off the scene.

As if it all hadn't been bad enough already, Bobbi watched as the human's arm snaked around Jemma's waist and her hand rested on her tail. Bobbi was appalled, her blood was boiling and she was almost sickened. Jemma didn't know what she was doing, the human must have done something to her. Her little sister was breaking so many laws. Leaving the ocean, associating with a human, and...what looked like partnering with a human. Bobbi just couldn't believe it.

She didn't know what to do. She couldn't tell May, the leader of their pod, as Jemma could be severely punished. Usually mermaids were incredible peaceful, but after a quick trial Jemma would be deemed a threat to their safety because she'd exposed them. It was practically a capital crime. The only other option was to confront Jemma, the human girl, or both. She wouldn't let this stand, not when there was so much at risk.