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argentum_lsTitle: Price of a Tail
Characters: Emma Gilbert
Rating: G
Word Count: 1100
Notes/Warnings: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
angst_bingo prompt: the last time. Revised from an earlier version posted to fan_flashworks for the challenge: secrets.
Summary: Post season 2, Emma contemplates the cost of telling her family about mermaids.
Rikki had been right when she’d called their secret the worst kept one in the world. Rikki had also been joking. Mostly. That was minutes before Emma revealed their secret to Ash, bringing one more person into the fold. One more of a long list, many of whom weren’t trustworthy.
There were exceptions, people it never occurred to her to doubt. Lewis had proven his trust endlessly over the last year. She didn’t worry about him. Ash was a gamble, but she had good feelings about him. Mrs. C had been a mermaid and Max had spent fifty years keeping that secret, so they were fine.
Then there were Charlotte and Zane: Charlotte who had nothing to lose now that she no longer had fins and Zane whose only interest was in his own betterment. How long until he found a way to exploit his knowledge? How long until she grew so jealous of what she’d lost that she sought to destroy Emma, Cleo, and Rikki’s privacy? How long until they realized what damage they could do if they teamed up?
Mr. Bennett, Dr. Denman, and Dr. Denman’s research assistants. They believed that the girls had lost their powers, were no longer mermaids. Would they continue to believe that? Would they accept that the girls had been the only three mermaids in the world and move on, direct the power of their obsession to a different target? Or would they continue to study Mako island in hopes of finding new mermaids?
Emma folded her arms over the stone lip of the moon pool and brought her chin to rest on them with a long sigh. So many people, and each time, each one put the girls more at risk. Even the worst kept secret in the world had to have its boundaries. The problem was figuring out where to draw them. Of the all the people who had learned about the mermaids, none were the people closest to them: their family members. It was such a contradiction, Emma thought, and such a cliché.
Her family used to be the people who supported her the most. When she could still pursue her dream of being a competitive swimmer, her parents cheered her on at every race and built the pool in the backyard so that she could practice on her own time. And when she had abruptly quit swimming, they had accepted her decision and supported that, too. Later, Elliott, her pesky little brother, had come up with the idea for the family to take its vacation to the desert instead of the seaside so that Emma would be able to join them, despite the limits of her newly concocted (and totally fake) hydrophobia.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had to tell her family. She had to bring three more people into the world’s worst kept secret: the three people whose potential rejection or betrayal she would least be able to accept. After a lifetime of living in the same town, the Gilbert family was going to be uprooting and traveling the world. A secret that Emma struggled to keep from them at home would be impossible to keep on the road.
All it would take was a single spilled glass of water during an airplane trip or a sudden downpour in a place where she couldn’t retreat indoors. She wouldn’t have Cleo and Rikki there to help provide cover. She wouldn’t have Lewis to spin an explanation. She wouldn’t have Ash who considered his new knowledge of mermaids to be the ticket to a secret club.
Elliot was more likely to see the secret as his ticket to greater popularity, and her parents? Emma knew they would continue to support her, but would they take Cleo’s and Rikki’s too? Would they keep silent about Mako Island? Once she told them, she wouldn’t be able to take it back, and that scared her more than anything. With as many people as already knew, what was a few more? And yet. The fight with Dr. Denman had proven that all it took for the wrong person to find out was a stray word or unguarded transformation. How many other mermaid hunters were out there waiting for their chance, their proof?
Emma’s tail gave an involuntary flick, splashing the water. The moon pool was her sanctuary, part of her secret world; telling her parents about mermaids meant telling them how she had become one. She would not be able to stay away from it. Would her parents understand her need to return? Would they accept her taking off for the days or weeks it might take to swim? The dangers of the ocean were numerous, and Emma knew her mother would fear all of them and more. She would understand if her parents tried to protect her and forbid her from swimming across the world, but would she be able to obey? Having them know about mermaids—having them understand how much bigger her world was now that it had expanded into the ocean where they couldn’t follow—would strain their relationship beyond its already taut lines.
She wanted to travel with them. The opportunity to see the world was too wonderful to pass up. But telling them about mermaids, that she was a mermaid, meant that how they saw her would change. Only with her family did she get to put the dangers of her mermaid world behind her and be the careful, if now somewhat unpredictable, Emma she had always been.
Emma let go of the rock and slipped under the water, twisting toward the tunnel that led to the ocean. A flip of her tail propelled her down the passage. She was a mermaid now. Her friends and boyfriend all accepted her dual nature, and she knew her family would too.
With a burst of speed, she propelled herself toward the mainland. Her decision was made, no matter how much she wanted to pretend it wasn’t. Though she didn’t want to, she had to tell her family so that she could be with her family. Everyone else knew. But, everyone else didn’t have so much invested in her. She knew how to balance being a girl and a mermaid with her friends, her boyfriend, even her enemies. Her family was different. She had to tell them, but how they saw her would change, and she didn’t know if she was ready to see them—and to have them see her—for the last time as Emma Gilbert, daughter, sister, and normal teenage girl.
Characters: Emma Gilbert
Rating: G
Word Count: 1100
Notes/Warnings: Written for
angst_bingo prompt: the last time. Revised from an earlier version posted to fan_flashworks for the challenge: secrets.Summary: Post season 2, Emma contemplates the cost of telling her family about mermaids.
Rikki had been right when she’d called their secret the worst kept one in the world. Rikki had also been joking. Mostly. That was minutes before Emma revealed their secret to Ash, bringing one more person into the fold. One more of a long list, many of whom weren’t trustworthy.
There were exceptions, people it never occurred to her to doubt. Lewis had proven his trust endlessly over the last year. She didn’t worry about him. Ash was a gamble, but she had good feelings about him. Mrs. C had been a mermaid and Max had spent fifty years keeping that secret, so they were fine.
Then there were Charlotte and Zane: Charlotte who had nothing to lose now that she no longer had fins and Zane whose only interest was in his own betterment. How long until he found a way to exploit his knowledge? How long until she grew so jealous of what she’d lost that she sought to destroy Emma, Cleo, and Rikki’s privacy? How long until they realized what damage they could do if they teamed up?
Mr. Bennett, Dr. Denman, and Dr. Denman’s research assistants. They believed that the girls had lost their powers, were no longer mermaids. Would they continue to believe that? Would they accept that the girls had been the only three mermaids in the world and move on, direct the power of their obsession to a different target? Or would they continue to study Mako island in hopes of finding new mermaids?
Emma folded her arms over the stone lip of the moon pool and brought her chin to rest on them with a long sigh. So many people, and each time, each one put the girls more at risk. Even the worst kept secret in the world had to have its boundaries. The problem was figuring out where to draw them. Of the all the people who had learned about the mermaids, none were the people closest to them: their family members. It was such a contradiction, Emma thought, and such a cliché.
Her family used to be the people who supported her the most. When she could still pursue her dream of being a competitive swimmer, her parents cheered her on at every race and built the pool in the backyard so that she could practice on her own time. And when she had abruptly quit swimming, they had accepted her decision and supported that, too. Later, Elliott, her pesky little brother, had come up with the idea for the family to take its vacation to the desert instead of the seaside so that Emma would be able to join them, despite the limits of her newly concocted (and totally fake) hydrophobia.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had to tell her family. She had to bring three more people into the world’s worst kept secret: the three people whose potential rejection or betrayal she would least be able to accept. After a lifetime of living in the same town, the Gilbert family was going to be uprooting and traveling the world. A secret that Emma struggled to keep from them at home would be impossible to keep on the road.
All it would take was a single spilled glass of water during an airplane trip or a sudden downpour in a place where she couldn’t retreat indoors. She wouldn’t have Cleo and Rikki there to help provide cover. She wouldn’t have Lewis to spin an explanation. She wouldn’t have Ash who considered his new knowledge of mermaids to be the ticket to a secret club.
Elliot was more likely to see the secret as his ticket to greater popularity, and her parents? Emma knew they would continue to support her, but would they take Cleo’s and Rikki’s too? Would they keep silent about Mako Island? Once she told them, she wouldn’t be able to take it back, and that scared her more than anything. With as many people as already knew, what was a few more? And yet. The fight with Dr. Denman had proven that all it took for the wrong person to find out was a stray word or unguarded transformation. How many other mermaid hunters were out there waiting for their chance, their proof?
Emma’s tail gave an involuntary flick, splashing the water. The moon pool was her sanctuary, part of her secret world; telling her parents about mermaids meant telling them how she had become one. She would not be able to stay away from it. Would her parents understand her need to return? Would they accept her taking off for the days or weeks it might take to swim? The dangers of the ocean were numerous, and Emma knew her mother would fear all of them and more. She would understand if her parents tried to protect her and forbid her from swimming across the world, but would she be able to obey? Having them know about mermaids—having them understand how much bigger her world was now that it had expanded into the ocean where they couldn’t follow—would strain their relationship beyond its already taut lines.
She wanted to travel with them. The opportunity to see the world was too wonderful to pass up. But telling them about mermaids, that she was a mermaid, meant that how they saw her would change. Only with her family did she get to put the dangers of her mermaid world behind her and be the careful, if now somewhat unpredictable, Emma she had always been.
Emma let go of the rock and slipped under the water, twisting toward the tunnel that led to the ocean. A flip of her tail propelled her down the passage. She was a mermaid now. Her friends and boyfriend all accepted her dual nature, and she knew her family would too.
With a burst of speed, she propelled herself toward the mainland. Her decision was made, no matter how much she wanted to pretend it wasn’t. Though she didn’t want to, she had to tell her family so that she could be with her family. Everyone else knew. But, everyone else didn’t have so much invested in her. She knew how to balance being a girl and a mermaid with her friends, her boyfriend, even her enemies. Her family was different. She had to tell them, but how they saw her would change, and she didn’t know if she was ready to see them—and to have them see her—for the last time as Emma Gilbert, daughter, sister, and normal teenage girl.
