Ariel knocked on the door. She looked across the hall, taking note of the light emanating from under the doorway. Hopefully that meant Melody was inside, doing her schoolwork, instead of outside trying to ride through the waves.
When there was no answer to her knock, Ariel slowly opened the door she stood in front of, and hearing no protests, she walked in, leaving the door open behind her. She felt a rush of relief at seeing the teenager laying on the stomach on the bed, watching her warily, a writing implement gripped tightly in her hand.
"Hi," Ariel said, gently, still in her clothes from the day.
Eric had suggested she leave the girl be for the evening; the important part was that she was showing up to dinner without them asking. So what if her word choice wasn't exactly princess-like? Or if Melody mentioned off-handedly at lunch that the day before, during their fitting, the girl had used a swear often heard on the docks? Eric didn't take much issue with any of it. Their daughter was back and that was all that mattered.
Ariel, however, was a different story.
"Hi?" Marcie answered, suddenly looking concerned, then excited. "Did something happen? Did you figure out the In-Between?"
"Not yet," Ariel replied, watching as the girl's innocent face fell. Could that really be the face of a girl who swore like a sailor at her fitting the day before? She hurried to say, "I wanted to see what you were up to? You were quiet at dinner."
The disappointment on the girl's face made Ariel's heart constrict. Her voice raw, the teen said, "You guys were talking about stuff."
"We asked you questions," Ariel pointed out, delicately trying to dance around what she had come in here for. "Your answers weren't very…engaging."
Marcie gave the woman a curious look, running back the conversations in her mind. "I was being honest?"
"There's a nicer way of saying you've never gone to the ballet than calling it, well, I don't want the repeat the language you used," Ariel answered, crossing her arms, her eyebrows raising in a motherly look.
Here, Marcie frowned, her voice taking on a defensive edge when she said, "I didn't cuss. Melody said yesterday you guys don't like cussing."
"No, you didn't swear," Ariel agreed, "but what you called people who attend the ballet was not polite either."
Marcie stared at her for a moment, two pairs of blue eyes facing off with one another. Eventually, the girl folded, sighing, pushing her glasses back up her face. Ariel noticed that she did that a lot; was it because the spectacles didn't fit? "So many rules in this place."
She sounded like any other petulant teenager being told what to do. Ariel found herself becoming…annoyed. Yes, she was annoyed, and the idea of it felt thrilling. For the first time, she was annoyed with her teenager, like if the past fourteen years hadn't happened, like if the girl had always been here.
She wanted to retort something in response, something like, well, there were rules for a reason, and the girl had to respect them because she was a teenager and Ariel was the parent who knew better. It was on the tip of her tongue to say it—
And then she saw the pile of gifts.
Suddenly, her annoyance turned to worry.
"I thought you'd gone through all the presents?" Ariel sounded off, her eyes flicking back and forth, between the pile that looked like it hadn't been touched, and the teenager.
A look of guilt flashed across Marcie's face, and her eyes dropped to her writings. She'd remembered her Spanish teacher mentioning a paper would be due in a few weeks describing their favorite movie. With little else to do, the teen had decided to get a head start, although she'd never been given specifics like the length of the paper, if it had to be typed…
"I tried but..." she doodled on the paper, near her name on the top right corner, "It was kind of a lot."
"I know there's too many presents to get through all at once but…" Ariel's eyes widened, and she winced, realizing what the girl meant. The tightness in her shoulders was released, and her arms dropped. "You're saying it's overwhelming emotionally, not that there's too many gifts."
"Yeah," Marcie replied, pressing the pen harder down onto her paper.
Ariel tried to look over, to see what she was doodling, but the girl's hand blocked the view. "You're left handed?"
"Uh-huh," came the reply.
"That's unique," Ariel said, struggling to find something the teen would talk about. "My mother was left handed too."
"Wish I wasn't," Marcie replied, not bothering to look up. "Would've been easier to be a righty."
Ariel studied her for a moment, reflecting upon the girl's short red hair, and resisting the urge to push back the tendrils that had fallen in her face. She longed to wrap her arms around the teenager and tell her that everything would be okay because it had to be. But the last time she tried to do that she ended up with a sprained wrist and bruised ribs. It was a constant struggle to fight against her own instincts as a parent.
"Do you mind if I sit?" She asked at length, watching as the girl stiffened in response to the request, before her shoulders relaxed. She inclined her head towards the corner of the bed, not next to her, but at least near her.
Ariel sat, saying, "I was overwhelmed when I first came here too, you know."
The doodles paused. Ariel smiled; good, she was paying attention. "My home was pretty different, and when I came up here, it seemed like I couldn't do anything right. It was a struggle to fit in, and I felt like a fish out of water a lot. It took a while to get the hang of it, but once I realized I could do things my way, everything worked out."
Marcie put the pen down, instead grabbing the charm on her wrist, twisting it between her fingers. "Why'd you leave your home?"
"In a way, I always wanted to leave, I never really felt like I belonged." Ariel answered, trying to be as honest as possible, while omitting that she had, in fact, been a mermaid. It didn't feel like the right time to bring up Atlantica. "But then I fell in love and that was the final push towards achieving my dreams of being here."
Marcie finally looked up, her features becoming serious. Ariel noted how much she looked like Eric when her face was set in that way, like she was older than her years. "…you left because you wanted to?"
Ariel blinked; what an odd question. "Yes?"
The teenager's mouth thinned into a solemn line. "Your whole life wasn't ripped away and you didn't have a choice?
"Well, I mean…" Ariel faltered, seeing the connection she had made between her own experience and the girl's disappearing.
"You didn't have to start going by a new name, have a new family, live in a new house?" Here Marcie slipped, exasperation slipping into her sarcastic leaning tone, her eyes boring holes into Ariel.
The queen winced. "When you put it like that…it's not the same, is it?"
"Nope."
"I'm sorry," Ariel said, concerned, pushing her own hair behind her ears with her good hand. She had come in here with good intentions, but saw the fallacy of her own argument drawn out. "I know it's been a difficult few days."
"Six days," Marcie corrected, her shoulders sagging under the number. The firm line of her mouth had turned into a glum frown; she didn't want to fight. "This In-Between thing is a mess."
What she didn't say hung in the air, the silent question of how far along were they in their research, how soon would they get her back? Ariel decided not to get into that issue. Eventually, when the dust settled, the girl would find that going back wasn't worth it after all. She had to.
After a quiet minute, Ariel questioned, slowly, "You know, I never asked…what was it like, going through the In-Between?"
"What?" Marcie seemed taken aback at the question, not expecting that sort of thing.
"The last it was recorded open was hundreds of years ago. Some people wonder if it was ever open at all," Ariel continued, hesitant in how she phrased this. It was something she had been secretly wondering since they had first discovered how the girl had gotten here. "Did it feel…odd, going through it? Going between one world to another?"
"I didn't feel anything," Marcie said, making a face as she thought as hard as she could. She reached back into her memories, trying to see if there was something she could add, but nothing came to her. "It was like I blinked and I landed on my back. I thought the wind knocked me over, 'til I realized I was in the woods."
"Oh." Ariel's tone said it all; she had expected something much grander. She put that aside, however, instead asking, "What are you writing?"
Marcie looked down at her paper, then back up at Ariel, pushing her glasses up once more. "Spanish essay on my favorite movie."
"What's…a movie?" Ariel wondered, puzzled by the unfamiliar word.
Marcie stared at her like she'd grown another head. Then, her features dropped, as she came to terms with the idea. She assumed that meant TV's were not a thing here either, which made sense as to why they would have never seen a creepy doll movie. "Like a…play, I guess?"
She didn't sound sure, but at least it was in the realm of what Ariel was familiar with. Instead of pausing and letting the conversation stop, she asked, "What's your favorite?"
Suddenly, Ariel noticed the girl start to fidget with her bracelet more, biting her bottom lip. She looked almost…shy, at her next statement. "Star Wars, Episode IV, A New Hope."
Ariel blinked. That didn't sound like something a girl her age would want to watch. Maybe that's why she seemed so shy about the answer. "A war story?"
"Sort of," Marcie replied, cheeks starting to glow with embarrassment. She usually kept her science fiction preferences to herself; no one wanted to be considered abnormal in high school. "It's about this poor farm kid, Luke. He ends up being a big-time hero, saving the whole galaxy from the bad guys."
Her tone was wistful, almost as though…"You…admire Luke?"
"Yeah," Marcie's smile was faint, and her eyes were faraway. "I guess I like the idea that this nobody-farm-kid takes on all the bad guys and wins."
"Do you like hero stories?" Ariel followed up, now wanting to see where this conversation would lead.
"Superheroes?" Marcie clarified, and after a moment, Ariel nodded. It wasn't what she had meant, but it seemed to be what the girl was referring to. "Uh-huh. It's always nobodies who take on the bad guys. It's cool. Makes me feel like…"
"Like?"
"Never mind," the guard was back up, and Marcie closed in on herself again, shaking her head. She rested her face in her hands, squinting at Ariel now. "It's all make believe, only dreamy stories. Can't do much with that in the real world."
"I suppose," Ariel answered, sighing, but deciding not to press the girl for more information. She was so practical, always with her feet firmly planted on the ground. Melody had mentioned how she had even argued against getting new clothes the day before because what she had been borrowing was fine. "Curfew is in an hour, alright?"
Marcie blinked, watching as Ariel got up. "Curfew?"
"The time you need to be in bed, asleep," Ariel explained, her eyes trailing back towards the gifts, before settling on Marcie, who looked at her incredulously.
"No, I know what a curfew is," the teenager said, sitting up herself. "I've just like, never had one."
Ariel startled at the idea. "Your parents never set a bedtime?"
"Not my parents," Marcie reminded, not angrily like she had the first day. This time it was more casual, as though she had said it a dozen times before.
"Right, sorry," Ariel winced at her faux pas, grimacing. Quickly, while her window of opportunity was still open, and while her curiosity gave her courage, she nearly tripped over her own tongue blurting out, "What do you call them, then, if they're not your parents?"
"You don't have a real family," Kristen Danvers said, a sneering edge to her voice
"I do too have a real family!" Marcie stubbornly declared, putting her hands on her hips in defiance.
"My Mommy told me that you got 'dopted because your real family didn't love you," Kristen said in response, louder, so that the other students surrounding them on the playground could hear. "She said you got brought here and no one even knows where you're really from."
"I—" she seethed with anger, but was unable to come with a better retort. Nothing was untrue, she knew, but it still hurt to hear it aloud from the other schoolchildren.
"Marcie got chosen to be in a family!" Matt came to her defense, and the redhead swiveled upon hearing his voice, relief and annoyance touching her face. She could fight her own battles, but she didn't deny that he had a point. "Your mom and dad got stuck with you, Kristen!"
Marcie shrugged; it wasn't the first time someone asked her this question. "I call him the old man, mostly. Sometimes Jeff. Never Dad."
Ariel heard her heartbeat in her ears, and she steeled herself to ask, almost fearful, "And…her?"
"Emily died when I was a year and a half old," Marcie recounted, matter-of-factly. She didn't sound sorrowful at the notion, like if she had lived her entire life with the knowledge. "Adam still calls her Mom, but I never knew her like that, so it's different, you know?"
"I…see," Ariel answered, letting out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. She'd been terrified that she didn't have a fighting chance. It was one thing for the girl to recall her friend Emma being like a mother, but another thing entirely if the girl had someone she called Mother. "Well, goodnight.
"'Night," Marcie replied, picking up her pen once more, and pulling her focus to the paper.
It was Ariel's turn to bite her lip now, wanting to say more, wanting to stay, wanting to crush the girl against her until neither of them could breath. A faint pain still in her ribs reminded her why that wasn't such a good idea, and she sighed once again. Every day was getting a little bit further with the girl. In due time she would adjust.
Softly, she closed the door behind her, seeing now that across the hall, the light had gone out in Melody's room. She walked across the hall, opening the other door quietly, and could see the shape of the other girl in bed. Good, both her daughters were exactly where they were supposed to be.
Disclaimer: Ariel, Eric, Melody, etc. and the setting for this story are from The Little Mermaid, which is property of Disney. I own nothing; everything represented from the film(s), tv series, etc. is/are the property of Disney. Other characters are from my own imagination and are not associated with Disney.