Their Little Mermaid

Chapter 15

It was a few days before the trip to Rio and for Harley, it couldn't get here soon enough. Leah hadn't got any better since the day she bought the ticket. She'd lost so much weight from the salt literally falling off of her, she lost her glowing healthy skin and it'd turned a sickly shade of green. She was constantly tired or throwing up and had fevers and night chills. They'd taken her to the dock for a few night soaks, but nothing could make her 'sea sickness' go away entirely. Nothing except the minerals and Leah's parents worried for her about making the trip. They tried everything but Leah insisted that being in the ocean was the best thing for her. She had her things packed and was sleeping peacefully when she suddenly woke up from a nightmare. She shivered and pulled her heated blankets around her and drank some of her bedtime seawater. She'd been so startled from her nightmare she decided the only way to take her mind off of it was to watch a movie. She'd probably fall asleep in the car on the way to the dock that day anyways. She put on the movie Aquamarine and watched it for a little while. Halfway through the movie she paused it because no matter how hard she tried she couldn't get her mind off the nightmare. It'd been her and her mer parents with the merman they'd wanted to give her too. She'd refused the second time and it apparently brought shame to her family. It didn't really but her parents thought it did. Leah wasn't able to shake the glares they gave her before pushing her out of he safety of the current and left her for the open ocean to swallow her up. If it hadn't been for the clear night sky, she never would've made it to the dock. But as she arrived to the dock instead of seeing her loving parents they saw her parents looking at her with evil grins as they shook hands with a sushi chef. They pulled her out of the water with a net which left her cut and bloody and she watched in horror as the knife came down to be rid her of her beloved tail. She woke up before anything too nasty could happen but it didn't stop her heart from beating non stop. She let a few tears slip down her face as she thought of her parents, both of them, betraying her in some way. Although she knew J and Harley would never do such a thing, she was still worried. I mean her birth parents cast her out, how could adopted parents feel that same love? She shook this thought from her mind as she thought back to her mer parents. They'd been so nice when she was little, but as she got older they seemed to expect too much of her too quickly. And when she couldn't meet those demands they wouldn't allow her to do things or eat some nights. And she wasn't allowed above the surface but that never stopped her from looking at the moon at night raising her head just above the water then coming back down to the bubbles she was so familiar with. Her parents caught her doing this one time and told her that she was absolutely crazy for wanting to explore anything above the ocean. They had her tested by the local doctor and he'd said nothing was wrong. Her parents didn't believe him and tried to do something themselves. They sent her to therapy and she explained what was wrong. They therapist tried to help her file for an abusive relationship with her parents but her parents just pulled her from the therapy and accused her of filling the doctors head with ideas. That was when they thought their daughter should see a 'man' to help her through this 'dark time' in her life. Leah didn't want to be married and settled down. She didn't need a man to 'help her' and when she'd refused the first, her parents backed off. But only for a little while. During the migration they'd tried to set her up with a foreign merman, but Leah wasn't having it. But neither were her parents and they did the only thing their minds could comprehend to do. They'd banished her from the pod and cast her out to fend for herself. Something merpeople never did. The pod was too far ahead for her to catch up and she never saw them again, the storm that followed ended up pushing her north until she landed in Gotham's harbor and a week after she'd been their is when she'd found the Purple Lamborghini. The rest is history.