"You don't have to go," Zephyr said. He held both of Felicity's young hands in his, eyes wide with concern and worry.

"We need supplies," he said. The group had been stranded in the shallow town for almost a full day, and after discussing, napping, and then reconvening, the hungry and desperate group had decided on the inevitable: explore the homes of atlantis. They were all fearful. Felicity's fear was heavy and almost painful in his gut, as if he had swallowed a stone and his stomach was now struggling to digest it. However aching, though, he knew he had to do something. He had to help the group. When Zephyr and Tati had first pulled him from the ocean, they fought about how he would bring nothing to the group. Well, now Felicity had a way of proving his value to the group, had a way of becoming indispensable and brave and loved.

Perhaps there were some lingering feelings from his past and his unloving family pushing him into making rash and dangerous decisions for the sake of not others and not himself, but for the sake of how others felt about him. He needed to be wanted, and this, this terrible, dangerous activity, this giant risk, was the only way that he could think of.

Felicity did not think about that. He only thought about how he could do this without dying. The adrenaline, the fear of the water, the fear of what is in the water... It all pushed him. Standing on the edge of the roof, appearing down at the dark reflective surface of the coarse liquid, he froze, trembling, cold sweating. His skin was pale, his fists clenched and white at the knuckles. Zephyr stood beside him, staring down at the black water.

"How will I see?" Felicity asked shakily.

"You'll have to keep your eyes open."

"In this mucky water?"

He sighed, "Yes."

"Don't procrastinate," Tati hissed from beside them, "I'm waiting."

"Why don't you do it instead then, Tati?" Zephyr spat.

"I'm going to get parasites," Felicity whined. It seemed that they were getting cold feet.

"Nobody is making you do this," Zephyr said calmly, placing a broad hand on Felicity's shoulder.

"I gotta," they said plainly. "I gotta."

"Take your time."

"Oh, I am. I am." Felicity had stared at the murky, stagnant water for what felt like years, although really it was only minutes. They fumbled, shuffling their feet, rubbing their hands together, preparing to jump in, preparing to die. I've never wanted to live, they thought silently. Why is it so different now?

What do I have to prove, and who for?

With that, Felicity sat down and slowly slid themselves into the water, plugging their nose, taking a deep breath, and then going under. Their eyes stung as they opened. Still, it was necessary to see. Everything under the water was greenish and blurry, fading in and out of focus like a camera with grease covering the lens. Felicity didn't have much time. They floated down, the blurred image of the underwater houses actually feeling eerie and lonesome. They circled the house, their overgrown hair getting in the way just a bit, waving around them freely without much gravity to weigh it down.

Felicity could vividly imagine these houses from before the flood. Brightly coloured and dry, with a warm, summery backdrop, with green-leafed trees towering overhead, a blue sky with gentle puffs of soft white clouds, people driving down the street, children playing in yards, music wafting in from open windows and street lights painting the street when the night got dark. Flowers in flowerbeds and windowseals, cats running across the road before a car passes, school busses picking up dirty children in the mornings. Felicity imagined how warm and alive this town once was.

And now, it was nothing but eerily empty, dark, and deathly silent.

She glided through the weight of the water like a fish or boat would, using her arms as paddles and her feet as an engine, her cheeks full as she held her breath. The cold water ran past her limbs, tickling her, as she swam to the edge of the building that her group sat atop of. Her fingers drug across the slimy surface of it, creating streaks in the algae. Then, Felicity used the slick surface as leverage to hoist herself deeper into the salty water, and then through a window on the top floor of the building. The window was closed, of course, but she managed to get the damn thing open, pulling it upwards harshly. Luckily, no screen, and Felicity was able to float right through it into the house.

She became suddenly aware of just how vulnerable she was. The ocean had her, and could crush her, suffocate her, kill her with no effort in any second it wanted to. Already, her lungs were crying out for air, and she had been underwater for no longer than a few seconds. The house around her, the roof overhead preventing her from being able to swim upwards, the walls closing in around her, preventing her from ever swimming out. It was too much, too dark, too overwhelming. The water seemed to grow heavier and heavier, crushing her, causing her lungs and stomach to ache, her head to ring, her eyes to sting worse than they already did. It felt like she was trapped, with absolutely no escape. She would never escape. Her vision blurred, she flipped around in the water, suddenly dizzy, suddenly feeling sick and aching and green all over. The building seemed to grow darker, blurrier, smaller, more suffocating than before, more dangerous than before. Felicity's eyes locked onto the open window as she spun around to face it.

Am I really giving up so soon?

Her head was pounding. She just needed a breathe of air, and then she could come back.

But Felicity knew herself all too well. If she breached the surface of the water to breathe, she would be too terrified to ever let herself dive below it again. She had taken the burden of being the submarine onto her own shoulders, and if she came up for a breathe that she didn't truly need yet, then it would undoubtedly fall to someone else. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if that happened.

And so, against all of her instincts and better judgement, Felicity turned away from the open window, and swam through the dark kitchen in search of materials and provisions. Her hair seemed to get in the way as the water moved it all around her, and she found herself constantly pulling the hair back. Usually, her hair was short, occasionally buzzed on the sides, but by now, it had grown out to a rather ugly and shaggy length that was just barely long enough to get in the way constantly. She opened all of the cabinets, not struggling to reach them as she normally would since the water held her suspended. The cabinets were painted a deep sage green, and would have been rather pretty had they not been coated in green slime. Felicity pocketed some canned goods and loose bags of chips, unsure if they'd still be viable to eat, a pair of scissors, a pocket knife, and a keychain can opener. Having been dreading the underwater adventure so extently, she was rather disappointed with the small haul of items. Though, Felicity's sour mood seemed erradicated as she found something actually useful in a wide drawer below the marble countertop: Pots and pans. She grabbed as many as would stack inside each other, which actually just turned out to be three, and then she put all of her loose collected items inside of it.

At this point, her lungs truly were screaming for air, her head pounding, eyes burning like they were on fire. She had collected her loot, and now, was on her way out of the house and to the surface above. With adrenaline in play, it took her no time at all to fly out of the window and swim straight up, breaching the top just a few feet away from the ledge where her friends sat. She gasped, the air feeling freezing and fresh and heavenly on her soaked skin and in her constrained lungs. The air flowed through her body and across her face and hair, and suddenly, no thoughts circled her mind; just empty bliss, the aftermath of a near-death experience to the exhausted body. Huan and Zephyr were the first ones to stand and help her, eyes wide with both excitement and disbelief, as if they couldn't believe that she had made it out alive. Zephyr sunk into the water and helped her to the edge of the roof, where Huan stood, and took her haul from her so that she could pick herself up and onto the ledge. The dry, gritty, solid ground beneath her just felt way too good to be true, and she coughed and then sighed, laying back on the slanted floor as the sun warmed her with its direct rays.

Huan held up her loot, showing it to Tati, Marina, and Kiui. Tati only huffed, visibly jealous of Felicity's fruits, though Marina and Kiui and even the dog seemed all overly excited, standing and dancing and yapping. The atmosphere, for the first time in Felicity's life that she could remember, was warm and heartfelt and calm. Peaceful.

Zephyr sat beside her, admiring her with pride and something sparkling in his eyes.

"Your eyes are red," he remarked.

"Oh, undoubtedly, captain obvious. Happens I had my eyes open in salt water for a minute."

"It felt like so much longer than just a minute or two, I was beginning to worry."

"Worry? About me? Don't lie."

He chuckled, "No lies, no lies." And then he sighed and laid down beside her, his eyes closed just as Felicity's were, the sun warming their skins.

"You've changed since we met."

"We haven't been around each other that long," Felicity said, curious.

"But even then. When we found you, you were timid and quiet, careful to slip up. Then, today, doing this, earlier yelling at Tati? It was a powerful side of you that I never would have guessed you had."

Felicity thought in silence for a moment, unsure of a response, and then finally said, "I just needed to make my place. My whole life, my family has forced me to be quiet. I had to be quiet to survive. Even now, doing this, diving down there when I didn't want to... Well, I guess it was to prove to you guys that I was worth keeping around. I guess it was to make up for everything that I've done."

"Felicity, that's been a mystery to me as of late. We found you, exhausted and alone and armed. You're a mystery... So tell me. What's your history? Your past?"

"Same as most, just darker, I suppose."

"You're avoiding the question."

"Zephyr, what's your past?"

He hesitated, "Well, I've always lived with my sister. We lived with our grandparents for a long time, right on a dock. That's where we got the boat. My grandfather loved to fish. My parents went to jail when Tati and I were young teens. But we're doing good, and had a good childhood."

"Jail? What for?"

"Something like neglect, abuse, and molestation."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I had a therapist, and we've made lots of progress. It doesn't affect me quite so much anymore." Then, he sighed, "It's a shame this all happened. All of those people are gone, now."

"Yeah... I, I know it's stupid, but I sometimes just... Pretend they aren't. They made it out alive somewhere, you know?"

Zephyr sighed again, and it was clear he was agitated and burdened, "Maybe you can do that for your family, since I'm not sure what happened to them. But I watched my grandparents drown. My therapist... Maybe. But the people who raised me and loved me are dead, undoubtedly."

"I'm sorry, Zephyr. I know how it is-"

And his agitation blew over, and he snapped, sitting up to glare down at Felicity, "You don't! How can you! Your family is just missing or something. Mine is dead! Mine is dead! You can't imagine how it feels!"

Felicity could be a calm, rational person, and honestly, despite her thin patience, she usually was. However, that sentence, the flashback of all that had happened, of all that Felicity had risked, of all that she had done, it flooded her senses, overwhelmed her body with quaking rage. She stood up to look down at him, her eyebrows narrowed, her fists clenched painfully tight, her body heating up like a fire ignited inside of her. She growled at him, body quivering, nearly resembling a dog- no, a wolf.

Her intolerance and impulse won, and she spit fire, shouting, "You think I don't know what it's damn like? You think after the whole damn world went up in flames- no, mind me, in water- I haven't lost? I haven't risked? I haven't seen things I could have gone without seeing? Zephyr, you don't know what's happened to me, you don't know about me or my family, or my past or experiences. So don't fuckin' act like it! I haven't told you! I dodged the question, I never brought it up, I haven't told you! Have you ever stopped to think that maybe there's a reason behind that? Maybe some things are better left unsaid? Maybe I don't want you to know?! God, do you ever think?"

He said nothing, only stared up at her solemnly from where he sat. He didn't seem necessarily hurt by her onslaught; more, he seemed wide-eyed and worried for her well-being. More, he seemed to feel guilt for his previous irrational conceptions of Felicity. Felicity had no patience and was hot-headed. Well under pressure, apparently, though still temperamental and impulsive. Instinctual and real. Honest and real.

Zephyr, despite Felicity's flaws, aspired in a way to be like her.

And he knew better than most just how to extinguish a flame, how to douse the fire that he had contributed to. He stood, slowly, gently, tenderly and with distinction. And then, he leaned forward and hugged Felicity tightly. She was fiercely taken aback, pulling away from him reactively with her hands up defensively, as if he had tried to hurt her.

"Felicity," he said. "I'm sorry. I don't know what you've been through. It was stupid of me to assume and to say that. I don't know what you've done in the past. But I do know that it doesn't define you. It doesn't matter anymore. And things are going to get better, okay?" He took her hand in his. "Things are going to get better, okay?"

Although spite powered her, she nodded, understanding his intentions were true. He messed up and he knew it. And now, it was only natural for Felicity to follow suit and apologise for her own temperamental words. Still, her spite and resentment for the boy held solid, and she said nothing, only nodded, accepting his apology half-heartedly. For no matter the apology, one cannot unsay what has been said, cannot undo the damage that has been done. They can only do their best to make it up to a person afterwards. And with only a few seconds, Zephyr wasn't quite there yet.

Felicity deeply inhaled and then exhaled, sitting down and allowing her body to numb and calm, the cold from her wet clothes and the breeze causing her to quiver. She cursed herself for not searching for clothes while she was diving. Zephyr offered his shirt to her, and she gladly took it, changing with her front facing the water and her backside facing the crowd. Despite her wet pants, she felt infinitely better with a dry, comfortable, albeit way too loose shirt. She then turned her attention to the water that her feet dangled by. It rippled very gently, the sunlight reflecting off of the surface of it, shimmering and blinding white in small patches. Despite everything, the water was still beautiful.