Chapter Text
Jenny didn’t make a habit of helping pirates. Last time she’d tried was when she was a semi-rebellious, mostly curious teenager, and they’d returned her help by trying to catch her in a net and sell her off for gold to a zoo. They only narrowly missed the rocky cliff Jenny led them into. Most pirates seemed like that kind of type, honestly, so Jenny mostly tried to stay out of their way.
But there was this one really annoying ship that kept on passing by her grotto at weird hours, and she couldn’t complain about them to the Sirens anymore because Darla’s response to a problem was always “just kill them all,” Drusilla would ask very seriously if Jenny was in love with her pirate yet (she always said that when Jenny complained about pirates; Jenny was getting sick of it), and Lilah would look at Jenny with supreme disinterest and then ask if Jenny wanted to stay the night.
And one night, Jenny decided to investigate, mostly because she was really annoyed and wanted to see if the pirates were evil enough that sinking their ship would be justified and not just petty. She got up at midnight when she heard the sound of crashing waves and someone shouting orders, and swum out to the entrance of her grotto, watching with irritation.
To Jenny’s surprise, she saw that one of the men on the deck was holding a little girl, who was wearing a pirate’s hat and waving a small wooden cutlass.
“Aww,” said Jenny, reluctantly charmed. If not for the whole mermaid thing, she’d have really liked the idea of being a teacher. She swum closer, enough to just barely hear the noises on deck.
The man holding the girl took the hat off her head, smoothing down her hair and putting her very gently on the deck. The girl uttered a loud battle cry and started running around the deck, jabbing at various pirates with her cutlass.
“Dear lord,” said the man in a way that didn’t at all sound like a pirate, and replaced his hat, straightening it more times than strictly necessary before donning a pair of spectacles.
Another man came to the deck. Both of them were dressed much more neatly than the rest of their crew; Jenny surmised that they were higher up in the chain of pirate command. “Rupert,” he said, sounding a mixture of affectionate and exasperated, “when are we going to drop the girl off on land?”
“She has a name,” said Rupert. “It’s Buffy. And I am not dropping her at some random port and sailing off without making sure she’s safely settled. We still don’t know where she snuck on.”
“God Almighty, Rupert, keeping children safe is not part of the pirate lifestyle!” said the other man, who now just sounded exasperated. “I’m still of the mind that we send her off on a lifeboat and let her steer her way home, if she’s so hell-bent on adventure. She’ll probably end up sneaking off anyway. She’s more trouble than she’s worth.”
“Ethan,” said Rupert, “if you were cordial to Buffy for all of five seconds, you would understand why I care so much about her.”
“Doubtful,” said Ethan.
The little girl ran up, blonde hair streaming out behind her, and hugged Rupert around the knees. At Rupert’s smile, Jenny swum closer still. She’d heard a lot of horror stories about pirates and children, but absolutely no stories at all where they looked that fatherly and acted that protective. She didn’t trust him.
(That, or she liked him.)
Shut it, subconscious, thought Jenny, studying Rupert as he picked Buffy up.
“Had a good adventure?” Rupert inquired.
“Yes, ready to go back to land now?” Ethan added.
Rupert gave Ethan a very annoyed look and then kissed him lightly. “I’m going to put Buffy to bed,” he said. “I hope you’ll stop acting childish about all this.”
“Me—childish—she’s the child!” Ethan sputtered.
“Am not,” said Buffy. “I’m a brave pirate. Giles says.”
“Does he now,” said Ethan in a dangerous sort of voice. Jenny didn’t like that tone at all, and she especially didn’t like that neither Rupert nor Buffy didn’t seem to notice the quietly angry way he was looking at the latter. “Well.” He gave Rupert a surprisingly innocent smile. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said. “Would it be all right if I took Buffy to her quarters instead? It might be a bonding experience for the both of us.”
“NO,” said Buffy, and held onto Rupert.
“She’s a bit clingy, lately,” said Rupert a little apologetically. “I suppose she’s gotten accustomed to me tucking her in.”
Ethan nodded. “Well,” he said. “Come to bed when you’re done, then.” He turned, striding down the deck, and headed over to a small group of men on deck.
Jenny was about to swim down and follow Ethan when she heard Buffy say, “I don’t think he likes me.”
“He’s a bit jealous when I pay attention to anyone but him,” said Rupert in a way that somehow managed to be both amused and resigned. “He wouldn’t like you if you were a carbon copy of me.”
“Does he like you?” Buffy inquired. “He seems crabby. Like a crab.”
Rupert chuckled. “He is,” he said. “But crabs are soft inside.”
“Doubtful,” said Jenny before she could stop herself.
Rupert turned, Buffy in his arms. Hastily, Jenny ducked under the water, waiting for him to lose interest. When she came back up, he and Buffy were gone, and the ship was well past her grotto.
Jenny could have let the ship run its course, wait for it to come back, and see if Buffy and Rupert were both all right then. But something about the way Ethan had looked at Buffy that last time didn’t sit well with her, and as nice as Rupert seemed, a pirate ship definitely wasn’t a good place for a little kid. She couldn’t sleep on the fact that she might be leaving a girl in danger.
“Ugh,” said Jenny, who was very accustomed to being asleep at this time of night, and started swimming.
Keeping pace with the ship wasn’t too difficult, but staying awake was. The ship stopped moving at midnight, and Jenny watched it without much trouble until five in the morning. At that point, the water started feeling cozy and warm, and she almost started to doze when she heard the splash of a boat hitting the water.
“An adventure?” Buffy was saying warily, bundled up in a blanket on the lifeboat.
Shit. Jenny swum around to the other side of the ship, watching from behind the hull.
“Yes, quite,” Ethan agreed from the deck of the ship. “Giles will be so proud of you when he learns where you’ve gone. Off on your own, exploring the waters at only six years old? Why, you’re the first pirate ever to try anything like that so young.”
Buffy still didn’t look convinced. “I want to wait for Giles,” she said.
“Hmm,” said Ethan. “Shame that you’re not getting much choice in the matter, then.” He stepped away from the rail as the ship began to move, very nearly running Jenny over. Quickly, she swam to the other side, staying out of Buffy’s line of sight.
Buffy frowned. Looking out at the open ocean, a slow, excited smile spread over her face. “Youngest explorer ever,” she said, trying out the words, and started to row in the opposite direction of the ship.
“Oh no,” said Jenny softly. There wasn’t any land for miles, and a six-year-old girl definitely wouldn’t last very long without supplies even in calm waters. The situation had moved past the point of watching. Carefully, Jenny swam up to the boat.
Buffy shrieked, nearly falling over. At first, Jenny was about to apologize for startling her, but then she saw how widely Buffy was beaming. “Hi!” she said. “I’m Buffy Anne Summers and I’m six years old and my Giles is a pirate and why are you in the water?”
“Mermaid,” said Jenny, glancing worriedly over at the ship. Ethan seemed to be really moving it along; she was starting to think he was using magical means, because ships really weren’t supposed to go that fast.
“No,” said Buffy with wide, amazed eyes. “My Giles said mermaids all went extinct a billion years ago!”
“Your Giles?” Jenny repeated.
“He won’t let me call him Father or Papa or anything because he says I already have a father and I told him I don’t because I ran away and once you run away you don’t have parents anymore so I just have to call him Giles until he admits he’s my new father,” Buffy said in one breath. “He’s really smart. He has a nice hat and he lets me wear it.”
Jenny thought back to Rupert on the ship, holding Buffy carefully in his arms. “I bet he’s worried about you,” she said softly. “Hey—can you stay here, sweetie? I’m going to see if I can catch up with that ship so Giles knows where you are.”
Buffy blinked. “What ship?”
Jenny turned, very afraid of what she was about to see. Sure enough, the only sign of the ship was a quickly fading dot on the horizon. “Oh, no,” she said weakly.
“Giles’s boyfriend has a super fast ship,” said Buffy. “He sprinkles sparkly stuff on it sometimes to make it go even faster, but Giles always gets mad.” She smiled excitedly at Jenny. “I bet he wants me to find him!” she said brightly. “To prove I’m a real pirate. They do that kind of thing a lot in stories.”
It looked like Ethan was mostly just heading in a straight line. Jenny could probably catch up with the ship, but there was no way she could take a little kid with her. “Listen, Buffy,” she said, “can you promise me you’ll stay here if I go after your ship?”
Buffy frowned, looking somewhat upset by this. “How come?”
“Because—” Jenny cast around desperately for a legitimate reason. “Because I want to get Giles and tell him how you found me,” she said finally, “and as great of a pirate as you are, I don’t think this boat can go very fast. So I’m going to go get him, and that way he can come back and give you your—um—official pirate hat.”
Buffy considered this. Then she said, “How long will I have to wait?”
Truthfully, Jenny didn’t know. “Wait until the sky gets dark,” she said. “If I don’t come back, then that means that you might have to—” She thought. Her grotto wasn’t too far away, and while Darla and Lilah weren’t too fond of children, Drusilla would probably be able to keep Buffy safe until Jenny got back. “Go that way,” she said, pointing in the direction of her grotto. “When the sky gets dark, the mystical ladies go to their magic cave, and if you’re a really brave pirate you’ll go looking for them.”
Buffy seemed satisfied with this concept. “Okay!” she said brightly. Then, “Can I give you a kiss?”
Oh, god, if something happened to this sweet, sunshiny little kid, Jenny was going to have to murder an entire pirate ship. Or—not Rupert. Maybe just everyone else. “Yeah,” she said, and pulled herself up, supporting herself carefully on the side of the boat without overbalancing it.
“One for you,” Buffy kissed her on the cheek, “and one for Giles,” she added, hastily kissing Jenny again. “Make sure you give Giles his kiss?”
Jenny smiled. “I will,” she agreed, and began swimming. She still hadn’t slept, but there was no way she could let this little girl die in the middle of the ocean. That just wasn’t right.
It took two hours of swimming for Jenny to reach her destination, which turned out to not be the ship after all. A small lifeboat much like the one Buffy had been in was floating in the middle of the ocean, and Rupert was sitting in it, looking thoroughly drained and sad.
Jenny hesitated. She wanted to go to him and tell him about Buffy, but she got the sense that whatever had happened had taken a lot out of him, and maybe a mermaid encounter wouldn’t exactly be the best or most helpful thing in the world. And—he was really cute. Really, really cute. And she didn’t like seeing him sad, and she didn’t want that sad face to be directed at her, so she swam quietly under the boat and started pushing.
She heard Rupert’s startled exclamation, but he was apparently smart enough to stay still. Good on him. Jenny was close to fainting from the lack of sleep and now the heavy boat she was pushing—mermaids were strong, sure, but Jenny was exhausted by this point. Still, she was making pretty good time.
She swam without looking for a good hour and a half until she heard Rupert exclaim again, at which point Jenny stopped the boat and surfaced behind him.
“Buffy,” said Rupert, almost sobbing, and Jenny saw the small boat in the distance. “How—” He turned, and their eyes met.
“She said to give you this,” said Jenny, and pulled herself up on the side of the boat, kissing him gently on the cheek. She tried to remember that thing Lilah had said one time—infuse your words with meaning, and the magic will stick. “You’ll make it to land alive,” she said, “and so will she.”
Rupert stared at her. “A mermaid,” he said weakly.
“Don’t simplify things,” said Jenny, giddy with a combination of relief and magic. “My name’s Jenny.” Ducking under the water, she began to swim back towards her grotto. She figured Rupert could probably figure out the rest on his own.