A Part of Your World.

She crawled up the side of the ship, her arms holding nearly all of her weight as she peaked over the side of the deck. Aboard were the crew she'd thought of as family for years. They looked the same, all of them hard at work to keep the ship in shape, working a bit harder now that there was a storm coming in. At the helm was the man she'd been hoping to see up on deck, a man with sarcasm and life in his smile, a man with a hook.

Her captain.

He looked the same. Busy shouting orders to his men to try to steer them away from the storm that was fast approaching. It wouldn't do any good. It was the kind of storm that even the mermaids fail to escape deep under the sea. However, she wasn't going to try to escape it. As she'd been doing since she'd first found the Jolly Rodger again, she would stand guard, making sure that nothing she could save them from befell them. She'd already kept one of the crew from falling to their death, kept many of the darker creatures from the ship, sabotaged enemies for them. It was all she could do to keep herself from falling into her sorrow.

"Ready men!" her captain shouted as the first of the rain began to drench them.

It was a fight to stay with them. The waves tossed her violently and kept her at a fair distance most of the time. One moment she'd be able to touch the hull and then the next she would be carried a mile away by a wave. She continued at it, listening to the shouts of the crew and the piercing sound of her captain's voice over the tempest.

"Captain!"

That was when she heard the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the ocean. She dived down and searched the water until she saw the body being tossed about beneath the waves. There was no use in them fighting the ocean at this point; the waves would pull them below without them tiring themselves with a fight. However, that didn't keep her from swimming to them, wrapping her arms under their armpits and pulling them to the surface. They sagged against her, coughing up water as another wave crashed down on them, forcing them under again. She fought it hard, using her tail to pull them back to the surface again as fast as she could.

When she came back up she was met by yelling.

"Captain?!"

"Get me a rope!" she shouted in his voice (a new mermaid gift), grunting as she tried to pull her captain farther out of the water. "Hurry!"

"Hold on, Captain!"

A rope that nearly hit her him the head as her captain began to fuss and cough. She ignored the movement, trying to get him tied into a loop of the rope so that the crew could pull him aboard. He couldn't see her the way she was. She could only a ghost, a phantom of the water, never something of flesh and blood. She just had to get him safe and aboard before he could see her.

"… M-meg?"

Her eyes met his blurry ones just as she got him tied in securely, ready to be pulled aboard. He looked like a drowned rat, not unlike what she'd probably looked like when he first saw her. He was loopy and tired but she could see the recognition in his eyes.

"Pull me up!" she shouted to the men, not taking her eyes from him.

"Meg?!" he asked again, reaching for her.

He was suddenly lifted from the water, being pulled aboard. She watched him as his eyes widened in realization. She was real. She was in the water. He was being pulled aboard. She was not. She was leaving him again.

"Meg! Meg!"

She felt tears in her eyes but didn't bother to wipe them away. She simply turned and dived into the ocean, away from the world above, away from him.

She could never be a part of his world again.

Author's Note: Review? Maybe? Please?