When they reached the Curry residence – after finding one of the only cabs in town to take them there – Arthur and April were equally in awe. Neither of them had ever seen a real lighthouse before, or really knew what a lighthouse was, but to them it looked like a castle.

"I like this mom," he said, holding her hand as they walked to the front door of the little house.

"It's just like a castle," April said, staring up at the top of the lighthouse.

"I thought you guys would like it," Lydia said with a smile as they walked onto the porch. After knocking it took a moment, but Arthur was the one to answer the door.

"Hey," he said, staring at Lydia before looking down at April the little Arthur. "What's up, little dudes?"

"Good," little Arthur said with a grin.

"I'm not a dude!" April said defiantly, making Lydia and Arthur laugh. Arthur started studying the much taller man in front of him, noticing the tattoos on his bare arms.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing to one of Arthur's arms.

"Tattoos," Arthur answered, having never been one to beat around the bush, even with children. "Kinda cool, huh?"

The boy nodded and Arthur let them into the house, brushing up against Lydia's arm as she walked through the threshold. He watched her with her kids, wondering if he would have a chance to be close to them. Something about them was drawing Arthur to them, but he thought it might just be because they had Atlantean blood in them.

"Hey guys," Tom said when Lydia, April, and little Arthur walked into the kitchen. Arthur stayed back for a moment, listening to their conversation. His dad was asking Lydia about what she'd been doing the last six years, to which she told him about her time in Boston, having little Arthur and April at the end of her sophomore year of high school, graduating high school and immediately going to work to help take care of her mom's finances because of her cancer. Little Arthur would interrupt every now and then, saying something about how old he was or how he was in Kindergarten. April would quickly follow what he said with something about their first day at school, or to tell Arthur to be quiet.

"Do you remember what I told you this place was called?" Lydia asked her kids when Arthur finally walked into the room. Little Arthur thought for a moment, and eventually shook his head. April only shrugged "This is a lighthouse. There's this really, really big light at the top of the lighthouse that tells ships out in the ocean when they're getting close to land, so they don't run into any rocks or anything."

"Cool," Arthur said, still smiling.

"Can you get to the top?" April asked, mystified by the lighthouse. Lydia nodded and April looked even more excited.

"Do you wanna go up and see it later?" Tom asked the kids conspiratorially. They both nodded madly, already excited about seeing the top of the lighthouse.

While everyone ate, little Arthur and April entertained everyone with little stories here and there, and Lydia and Arthur remembered their childhood together. But the kids were eager to see the top of the lighthouse, so as soon as everyone was finished eating, Tom offered to take them up to the top.

"You don't have to come unless you want to," he said to Lydia when she started going up with them. "Not unless you want to."

"Well, I guess I'll hang back," Lydia said with a smile. "You good, kids?"

"Yeah," they answered with a grin.

"Let's go!" Arthur exclaimed.

Tom led the kids to the back of the house, where the entrance to the lighthouse was. Which meant she was alone with Arthur.

"Cute kids," Arthur said, sitting at the cleaned off kitchen table.

"Thanks," Lydia said sheepishly, also sitting. "They keep me on my toes, too."

"Seems like it."

Arthur looked over at Lydia, studying her while she wasn't looking towards him. She hadn't changed much, if at all, in eight years. If anything, she was more beautiful at that point than she had been in high school. When he'd graduated, he thought about going to Boston and trying to find her, but his dad talked him out of it. Told him that if Lydia wanted to stay in touch, she would.

"Why did you never call or anything?" Arthur finally asked, surprised with himself that the question sounded so hostile.

"I wanted to," Lydia replied immediately, finally looking at him. "I swear I wanted to, but my mom wouldn't let me. She kept tabs on the house phone. Hell, she even checked every piece of outgoing mail we had to make sure I wasn't trying to send anything to you. If I could and get away with it, I would've. But I also had other things going on at that time. I had a kid. More than that, I had freaking twins. That isn't exactly easy when you're sixteen. And in a new school. If I'd been here-" Lydia stopped there, looking down and hoping Arthur didn't catch what she just said.

"Wait, what do you mean "if you'd been here"?" Arthur asked her, catching on to what she'd said immediately.

"Nothing."

"That's a damn lie."

"Drop it, Arthur. That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean? Why did your mom move to Boston? And I mean the truth. Yeah, you told me she got a better job or some bullshit like that, but that couldn't have been the only thing that made her wanna move."

"I said drop it. I don't wanna talk about it."

Arthur and Lydia stared at each other, both starting to get angry. Arthur's expression softened when he really looked at Lydia, realizing she felt pretty uncomfortable talking about when she moved away.

"Lydia, please," he said, trying not to sound too angry. "I know there was something else that made your mom move you to Boston. Other than that job, and other than getting away from me. Which I still don't understand that, either, but whatever."

"If I told you, I'd probably have to leave again," Lydia said after a long stretch of silence. "and I don't want to do that to my kids. They seemed to both have a really good first day at school and I don't want them to get used to being here and then just have to make them move again. They need more stability in their lives than that. So please, I would like to drop this particular conversation. It was hard enough for them to leave their friends in Boston. They've said they made friends already here, and it's only day one."

"I get that, but I think I do deserve an explanation. I never even got to tell you goodbye. Your mom and you just up and left. You don't do that to your best friend."

Lydia took a deep breath, finally looking back at Arthur. She could tell it had really hurt him when she left, since she never said a word to him about it until the day before she moved to Boston. But she couldn't tell him her mom's reason for wanting her out of there so quickly. At least, she was terrified to do that.

"Lydia, please," Arthur said when she was still silent. "I need to know why your mom made you leave. And I know you know who your kids' dad is, so you can't try to tell me you don't. And I know how to do the math. So why, what made your mom want to leave so bad?"

Lydia looked away from Arthur before stating, "My mom wanted me out of here because I was already pregnant when we moved."

The silence between them after Lydia said that was the most awkward they'd ever felt around each other. Even though she didn't say it, Arthur knew what she meant.

"Why would your mom want to keep her own grandchildren from their dad?" Arthur finally asked.

"You know she never liked me hanging around you," Lydia answered, avoiding eye contact with Arthur. They were both silent again, neither very sure of what to say. Lydia jumped at the sound of Arthur's chair scraping against the floor when he stood abruptly and watched him as he walked out of the room, jumping again when the front door slammed shut behind him.

Lydia sighed, having known that was probably how Arthur was going to react. Back when she was sixteen and found out she was pregnant, she remembered thinking how true the cliché "it only takes once" really was. They never even really dated, they were just friends. But all it took was one dumb high school party where someone snuck in alcohol.

After several minutes where Tom hadn't brought the twins back down from the lighthouse yet, Lydia decided to go look for Arthur. She knew he probably hadn't gone far; if he did, he'd have to make up some explanation to his dad why he was arguing with his used-to-be best friend. After opening the front door to the house, she looked out and saw him at the top of the pier, looking towards the ocean. She figured he would've been down at the dock where he would be closer to the ocean but was kind of glad he wasn't.

"Arthur…" Lydia trailed off when she approached him, touching his arm gently. "Please talk to me."

"I didn't know," he started, still staring out at sea. "I didn't know that night would've resulted in this."

"I wasn't exactly expecting it, either," Lydia pointed out. "But what was I supposed to do?"

Arthur looked at her then, and she knew what he was thinking about. He knew there could've been a way to prevent what happened once it had, but he also had to know that she wouldn't do something so stupid. Eventually she leaned against the pier railing next to him, also staring out into the dark ocean.

"I would've told you about it you know," she said when Arthur seemed to have nothing else to say. "If I had been a little older, I would've told my mom to stuff it and let me do what I want. But I was freaking sixteen. My mom still basically controlled my entire life at that point. Going against her would've meant I was out on the streets. You know how strict she was with me."

"And you know if you'd just stuck up for yourself, we would've let you stay here if she ever even thought of kicking you out," Arthur stated bluntly.

"Listen, you can't be mad at me for something that happened almost a decade ago. We were both still basically kids then. Especially me."

Arthur said nothing to this, and they fell into a mildly comfortable silence for a while, just watching the ocean with what little light the half-moon provided.

"So, you said they're both like us?" he finally asked, glancing over to Lydia.

"It's a little complicated," Lydia answered with a sigh. "April can do everything I can, but she's a bit more human than Atlantean. Things from this world can hurt her. She can still breathe underwater, but that's about it. Arthur, on the other hand, is a lot like you. He can talk to the sea creatures."

"Hm."

After a moment Arthur looked to Lydia again, truly looking at her. She hadn't noticed yet so was just staring out at the ocean. It was oddly comforting for her to be back, even with so many changes over the years.

"You plan on telling my dad about this?" Arthur asked. "'Cause he'd be thrilled to have grandkids."

"I've been thinking about how I would tell him," Lydia answered honestly. "But I was wondering if maybe you wanted to talk to him about that?"

"He'd kill me," Arthur said with a chuckle. "Then he'd call both of us stupid."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Lydia said with a fond smile.

"Mom!" little Arthur said from behind them, running towards them with April close behind. "This place is awesome!"

"Can we come here every day?" April asked eagerly, a huge grin on her face. Lydia raised an eyebrow at her twins and smiled at them.

"I'm not sure about that," she answered once both kids were in front of her, "but I'm sure we'll be over here sometimes."

"Can we go to the end of the dock?" April asked, eyeing the dark ocean.

"Only if you promise not to go into the water."

Both kids ran to the end of the dock while Tom approached his son and Lydia, smiling as he watched the children.

"Those two are something else," he said to Lydia when he was right in front of them.

"Yeah that's one way to describe them," Lydia said as she watched them. "They don't usually get along like this often. Kinda nice really."

"I think I'll go make sure they don't try to swim away to explore or anything," Tom said when he noticed his son looking at Lydia. It looked to him like Arthur needed to talk to her about something in private, so he walked to the end of the dock to play with the twins.