Eren's POV

Before I can kindly turn down Connie's kind offer, I hear Sasha singing. All of my muscles freeze up on me, and I find myself immediately filled with dread. The only reason that the sand-tailed mermaid would be singing is if she is trying to lure an unsuspecting human to his or her death, and the only human in sight when I came down here was Levi.

I light up my scales as bright as they go as soon as I am able to move again. I shoot out of the cave like a torpedo, leaving a temporarily blinded Connie behind me, rocketing through the water faster than I have ever gone before, and when I spot Sasha through the dark water, I see her pulling Levi down with her.

My muscles lock up again, and because of it, my scales die down. I recover more quickly this time because I see Levi snap out of the trance and start struggling. I start rocketing towards them again, only more stealthy this time. I don't let my scales glow until I am almost upon them. Levi's life might depend on it.

Just as I light up my scales, I watch in horror Levi looses his consciousness. If I could do anything with my voice other than sing, I would be shouting out a battle cry as I barrel into Sasha's back. She screams in pain, and turns around to face me, but I'm already gone. Sirens are about ten times as agile as the most flexible of the mermaids, so slipping by her without being seen as she turned around was nothing special.

I grab Levi, pulling him tight against my chest, shooting towards the surface as fast as I can swim with his extra weight. His body isn't built for underwater movement, and his clothes create a lot of drag, which slows me down a lot. As I rise to the surface, I spot the boat I had wanted him to get in a few minutes ago, and I head towards it instead of straight up.

I break through the surface of the water only seconds later, porpoising over the boat. I drop Levi into it as I sail over it, and the force of the impact causes him to cough up a bit of water. I sigh in relief as I sink below the surface again, glad that he's alive. I thought that I had lost him.

I shake the thought out of my head and I grab the front of the boat. The sooner I bet him off the water, the sooner he will be safe from the angry mer people. I see Sasha below me, glaring at me through blinded eyes. I know that if the wants to keep the ability to see, she will have to look away soon, because if a mermaid or merman stares at the glowing scales of a siren for too long, they will go permanently blind.

I start towing the boat towards the shore, and I hear Levi cough up more water. I also hear Hanji calling for him. Apparently she doesn't see the boat. But I can't worry about that right now. I have to get Levi to the safety of dry land.

When I reach the shallow water, I stop pulling the boat closer to the shore line. I reach in over the side and grab the still unconscious but still breathing Levi. I pull him out of the boat as gently as I can. I put him on my back and I drag myself as far out of the water as I can while keeping my gills submerged.

I gently shake him off of me, and I roll him over onto his back. I place my sensitive ear on his toned chest so I can hear his heartbeat. It sounds like it's beating normally, but his body temperature is very cold. He might die of hypothermia before he even wakes up if he doesn't warm up soon. Today isn't a very warm day despite the shining sun, and the depths of the lagoon are too cold for humans to survive in for long.

I pull him into my arms and I hold him close, trying to warm him. He looks so peaceful when he's sleeping. Unconsciously, he wraps his arms around me and he buries his face in my chest. When I feel my heart skip a beat, I realize the reason why I was so heartbroken when distrust was written all over his face and why I was so relieved that he hadn't been taken from me forever. After I realize the reason, I break down in tears because of how close I came to loosing him, the short little emotionless bastard he is. I hug him more tightly, burying my face in his cold, wet hair.

I can hear Hanji coming a little closer to us, but it sounds like she's still a good distance away. I let go of Levi and I start to slip back into the water, but I want him to know that it was me who saved his life. He's seen me carve stuff with the bone I use to clean my scales, so I reach down near my tail fin and I pull it out from underneath my scales. I put the small bone in his pocket for him to find when he wakes up.

I hear Hanji shout Levi's name and start running in our direction. I glance at his peacefully sleeping face one last time before slipping back into the water. I don't want Hanji to know that I was here.

Levi's POV

I hear a voice calling my name. The voice sounds familiar, but I can't remember where I've heard it before. I try to open my eyes, but they don't listen to me. Then I remember that the mermaid drowned me. The voice must be someone calling me over to the other side.

"Levi, wake up." The voice commands. I try opening my eyes again, but they won't  budge. I hear a door open and footsteps coming closer.

"Do you know what happened to him?" A second voice asks.

"No. I found him on the beach unconscious and he hasn't woken up." The first voice replies.

"We'll get his story when he wakes up. Did you find any clues as to what happened?"

"No, but there was a small bone in his pocket. It appears to be the bone of some sort of fish."

"Let's let him get some rest. He'll be fine once he's had some sleep." I hear two sets of footsteps leaving and a door closing behind them.

After what seems like hours, I finally manage to open my eyes. I'm in my room at the lab. On my desk I see the clothes I was wearing earlier today. They're sopping wet and beside them is the small fish bone that I've seen Ocean Eyes carve detailed pictures with back on the ship.

Wait. If the clothes I was wearing earlier are on my desk, then how did I get into the ones I'm wearing now? Someone is going to be scrubbing the floor of the bathroom with their toothbrush tonight.

I shove the thought aside and stare at the fish bone. The brat must have saved me right after I blacked out. I sit upright and I put on my shoes. I grab the bone and stuff it in my pocket. I then grab the wet clothes on my desk and I throw them in my hamper on the way out the door. I don't want the salty water soaking into my desk and ruining it.

I walk quickly and quietly through the hallways, using the back exit to slip out unnoticed. I take the shortest rout to the lagoon, cutting right through the forest. That ocean-eyed brat saved my life, and that is something that I don't take lightly. I have to at least thank him and give the bone back to him. I don't care what his reasons for saving me are, but I owe him my life, and I don't like leaving debts unpaid. One of the only things I can't give him is freedom from Hanji's lagoon, and that is probably the one thing that he would want. The thought of him wanting to leave stings a little, but I don't know the reason why.

I can hear the water after a minute or two of walking, and I see it not long after my ears pick up on the sound of the small waves gently lapping at the shore. It's surprisingly peaceful, considering how there are three mer people in the lagoon who would drown anyone who gets too close to the water's edge. But the peacefulness doesn't last long.

"Let me go!" Shouts a very hostile sounding female voice. I feel like I have heard the voice somewhere before, but I don't remember where. I look around for the source of the call, and I see a few of Hanji's assistants pulling in a net that has a very angry looking mermaid in it.

The merman with hair so short you can't tell what color it is is trying desperately to pull the net away from Hanji and her assistants, but he isn't strong enough to do anything other than slow them down slightly. I can't see Ocean Eyes anywhere, so he must be observing from somewhere below the water. I have a feeling that if he wanted to, he could get the net out of Hanji's grasp using sheer force.

I back up a few feet so I can watch what is going on from the safety of the trees. If Hanji spots me, she's going to force me to go back into the lab with her so I can explain what happened. I'm not entirely sure of what happened after I blacked out, so I would like to see if the ocean-eyed brat has any answers for me. I know he can't actually speak, but I've been able to guess what he's trying to say in the past, so I might get the answers to a few of my questions.

Why did he bother saving me if he tried to drown me before we caught him? What happened after I blacked out? Why did he want me to get into that boat in the first place? Why were he and the new mermaids built so differently? Why... Why does my heart skip a beat every time I see him smile? I have many more questions, but those are the most important ones. The others can wait for a while longer. I was so lost in thought that I hadn't noticed that the sun was starting to go down and that Hanji, her assistants, and the mermaid were long gone.

I see a small flash of light in the water, and I look towards it. I meet the gaze of those same beautiful ocean colored eyes that I've looked at every day for weeks, and only now do I realize just how beautiful they really are. The brat swims towards me slowly, almost hesitantly, with a look that I have never seen before. His beautiful eyes are filled with relief, worry, wonder, and a hint of something else that I can't put a name to. Half of a smile appears on his face, and my heart skips a beat for reasons still unknown to me. I've never felt like this before. The emotions running through me are alien to me, and I can't figure out what they are.

My brain disconnects from my body and I find myself moving slowly towards the water. The brat pokes his head above the surface, and I can finally put a name to the emotion I couldn't name a second ago: love. As I am able to name the emotion as love, I get an answer to three of my questions. He saved me because he loves me, he wanted me to get into that boat so he could show me what it's like to live in the water, and my heart skips a beat every time I see him smile because I love him, too. It's so obvious, now that I think about it, that I don't know why I hadn't realized it sooner.

I feel the cold saltwater of the lagoon seep through my socks as I start wading into the water. Soon, the water is up to my waist and the brat swims closer to me. He stares up at me for a few seconds before almost tackling me. He wraps his arms around my neck, hugging me tightly, and he buries his face in neck. His tail wraps around my legs, and I can feel each breath he takes as if it's my own.

I wrap my arms around him and I hold him tight. "Thank you." I murmur softly, burying my face in his hair. "I wouldn't be standing here right now if it weren't for you."