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The sea calms her.
When she was on the Isle, whenever she felt upset or worried about something, Uma used to go to her favorite spot on the cliffs. Nobody knew about that place, not even Harry. She went there and sometimes, when it was warm enough and the sea wasn't rough, she swam and let her thoughts float away. Some other times she just sat there, watching the waves crushing on the rocks and listening to the familiar noise of the water.
The sea calms her.
So, after what happened with Harry at the engagement party, she really wanted to be by the sea. She was packing to go to her spot on the Isle, when Evie burst in her room without even knocking.
"Oh, I see you're already packed. Did someone else tell you?" she had asked, glancing at Uma’s bag and the swimsuit she was putting in it. "Anyways, we're leaving in 45 minutes."
Uma had frozen, completely lost, but had managed to speak before Evie had the chance to walk away, leaving her completely clueless.
“What?” she had asked.
Evie seemed confused and frowned. “We’re spending the day at the White Bay. I was supposed to come and tell you but I assume you already know it, since you’re packed.”
“I didn’t know anything” Uma had answered. “And I’m not coming anyway. I was planning on going somewhere by myself.”
The blue-haired girl had stepped into Uma’s room. “What? Nuh-uh! Literally everybody is coming, including Harry” she had said. “We deserve a day off and the weather is beautiful today! You can go wherever you want to go tomorrow.”
It looked like she had already decided for her. But Uma was not ready to give up that easily.
“Really, Evie, I appreciate the invitation but I’m not in the mood today” she had said.
Uma was sure that eventually Evie was going to give up, but then Celia and Dizzy arrived. And she had zero chances of convincing Celia Facilier to let her go everywhere else on her own.
And that’s how Uma finds herself sitting at the back of Ben’s van, staring at the trees outside the window. The others are chatting and singing and joking, but she’s really not in the mood. She glances at Audrey chatting with Harry in the row in front of hers.
She noticed Harry was trying to sit next to her, when they got on the van, but she hurried to take the window seat and basically forced Gil to sit next to her on her other side, so Harry took the row in front of her.
She just doesn’t want to talk about it in front of everyone. And she knows that, from how they left things a couple of days back, Harry does want to talk about it right away.
She has tried to ghost him, but she didn’t really manage to do it. And she has to admit that she has really missed him in the hours of the day she hadn’t spent with him.
That’s why she wanted to go to the Isle, today. To think, alone, staring at the sea and sorting out her feelings. And then go back and finally have the conversation with Harry. Things didn’t go as planned, that’s for sure, but at least she’s still going to the sea. And, with a little bit of luck and intimidating looks, she could even manage to have some alone time.
Harry turns around on his seat, drawing her attention.
“Hey, Captain” he says, with a crooked smile on his face. “You okay?”
Uma looks at him for a second, then turns again to the window. “Yeah” she replies.
“You seem silent” he goes on.
“I am” she says. “I didn’t want to come.”
The smile slowly fades away from Harry’s face.
“Are you sick or something?” he asks. Now he looks worried.
She shakes her head. “No” she answers. “I just wanted to be alone.”
He nods, a thoughtful look on his face. He leans in, at least for how much the seat between them allows him to get closer to her, and starts talking looking into her eyes.
“Hey, I thought maybe we could talk, later…?” he says, his voice lower, this time.
She has to look away. She can’t say no to those icy eyes staring directly at her soul.
“Actually, Harry, I just wanted to be on my own today” she says, not even able to articulate her words properly. “So, if we could… just not do this now.”
Harry switches positions, kneeling on his seat so he can face her more comfortably.
“Aye, not right now” he specifies. “I was just hoping we could talk about it, like, today. I don’t like how we left things and you know it.”
She lightly shakes her head. “Please, I just don’t…” she begins, but then she stops and grabs Gil’s knee. She knows he’s listening, and she has kind of talked to him about it, so he kind of knows what is going on and how she feels about the situation. So, she’s hoping he can dissuade Harry from going into this whole thing.
Gil reacts right away. He swings a hand in front of Harry’s face and gives him a glance or a wince – Uma is not really looking at him, but she knows that when he has to do this kind of things he’s very discreet and does not talk, to avoid drawing unnecessary attention – and that seems enough for Harry to drop the subject and slowly turn around on his seat. Uma can feel his eyes on her until he gets back down.
She takes a deep breath and focuses back on the trees running before her eyes and the little sliver of blue poking out from behind them.
Gil gives her a quick pat on the hair.
Hopefully the sea will calm her.
Another thing that Uma likes very much is lying down on the sand, the sound of the waves lulling her and the sun warming her skin. She doesn’t even really mind the chattering around her.
What she does mind is her friends literally throwing themselves on the towel next to her and ruining her peace.
“So, what’s going on with Eyeliner-Guy?” Celia asks.
Uma slightly turns her head to the witch doctor’s daughter and opens one eye. The girl is lying on her stomach on Uma’s left and resting her weight on her elbows. Her inquisitive face is mooning over her and her red curls are partly shadowing Uma’s face.
The sea witch closes her eye again and turns back to facing the sunshine.
“Nothing” she lazily says.
“Yeah, right” Evie speaks, and Uma realizes she’s literally surrounded by the other girls. “So, you want to tell me that you’re just gonna ignore what happened at the party?”
Uma still keeps her eyes closed and tries to dismiss the conversation by waving her hand. But, of course, it doesn’t work.
“Yeah, and that awkward thing on the van?” Dizzy jumps in.
Uma sits up. “You heard that?” she huffs.
“Duh?” is Dizzy’s response.
The turquoise-haired girl crosses her legs and turns to face the rest of the girls, forming a sort of circle. She’s trapped, she might as well get comfortable to look at her friends while talking to them.
“And also” Mal adds, leaning in from over Uma’s shoulder. “You must be really blind to not notice the way he looks at you.”
Uma rolls her eyes. “I know how he looks at me.”
“Oh, so you know that if looks could eat someone, today you’d be, like, food bolus?” the future Queen goes on.
Ursula’s daughter buries her face in her hands. She just wanted to be alone.
“Stop blabbering” she blurts out, exasperated. “It’s not like it’s the first time he’s seen me wearing a swimsuit or even underwear.”
That’s actually true. She can’t count the times they’ve gone swimming together and sometimes, when their beach trips were impromptu, they’d bathe in their underwear. So, it’s nothing new.
“So, we must assume that you’re actually blind” Celia says.
Yeah, right. Like she needs somebody else to tell her that every damn time she goes swimming with Harry he looks at the like she’s the only thing in the entire world worth looking at. Actually, she corrects herself, that’s how he always looks at her.
“Aren’t you, like, twelve? Why are you talking about this stuff?” Uma tells Celia. The other girl gives her a grimace.
“Stop trying to change the subject!” Evie exclaims. “The two of you have never spent this much time apart like you had in the last two days. You’re clearly ghosting him. So, what the hell is going on?”
Uma puffs. She can’t get out of this.
“I wanted to be alone before having a talk with him, because I need to sort my things out” she explains. “Neither you nor him are making this any easier for me. Is that enough?”
She glances at where the guys are playing volleyball, in the water but near the shore. They’re too far to hear the girls’ conversation, and even if they were closer, they are shouting so loudly that it would be difficult for them to hear anything other than their own voices.
“But why are you shutting him out like that? Can’t you just tell him you need time?” Mal insists.
Uma shrugs. “I don’t know, he usually understands stuff like that… I have no idea why he’s being so stubborn and pushy on this” she admits. “Besides, I kind of have to make him pay for dancing the night away with Princess Bubblegum” she adds, in a more bitter tone.
“Hey, you know I’m right here, don’t you?” Audrey huffs.
She’s sitting with Jane and Lonnie behind Evie. Uma hadn’t really noticed her, but it doesn’t change much.
“Yeah, I do” she replies, with a wince.
Audrey leans forward.
“If it helps clearing out your mind, you have to know that he was distracted for the entire evening, looking over at you the whole time, and when I asked him what the hell was wrong with him he started blabbering on about how he thought he’d messed things up with you” Audrey confesses. All the sudden, it looks like every single living creature in the Bay has stopped making any noise, so when Audrey goes on, she has to come closer to Uma and lower her voice, so that she doesn’t risk the guys hearing her. “And, if I have to be honest, he also told me a bunch of other things that it’s not my place to tell you.”
Uma’s heart jumps at hearing Audrey’s last sentence. She thinks she knows what the blonde means, but she doesn’t even want to think about that.
“I really think you should talk to him” Evie says, placing a comforting hand on Uma’s shoulder.
The sea witch stares at the blue towel underneath her.
“It’s not just about the party. It’s… everything. I’m not used to all of this relationship stuff and I honestly have no idea how you – Evie and Mal – got used to it so quickly” she admits. “I never thought about all of this and I don’t know how to handle it or even if I want to handle it. That’s why I needed to be alone.”
The other girls remain silent. It’s probably the first time any of them had such a serious conversation with Uma, who usually doesn’t open up with anybody about anything. She thinks they might be starting to get where she’s coming from, but then Jane literally almost shouts “Everybody, go away” and they all just bolt out in a matter of seconds. And then Uma looks up and sees why.
Harry is trotting towards her, with a big smile on his face and a hand sliding through his wet hair. The sunshine is making every single drop of water on his skin shine like he’s made of actual diamonds.
“Hiya” he greets her, coming to sit next to her. “Feeling better?”
She makes a vague gesture with her head, making her turquoise ponytail swing over her shoulders. “I get nobody is willing to let me have some alone time, today” she says, not really answering his question.
He leans back, raising his chin and closing his eyes, to enjoy a little bit of sunshine. She finds herself staring at a drop of water sliding down from his chin to his neck to the hollow between his clavicles. Then she forces herself to look away.
He steadies himself on his arms, resting his hands behind his back. He places his left hand near Uma’s left side, as if he was surrounding her waist, but he’s not actually touching her. She just feels his presence around her.
“Yeah, we’re not really good at leaving people alone” he jokes. He turns his face to her and winks. “We’re very intrusive.”
She can’t hold back a smirk and shakes her head to try to conceal it.
“So, ready to talk, yet?” he asks. He takes away his arms from behind her back, but only to adjust a braid in Uma’s ponytail.
She sighs and leans down on her back, placing her hands on her face.
“Can’t you just play volleyball and let it go for today?” she asks in reply to his question.
He puts on a crooked smile and leans down too but on his left side, resting his weight on his elbow. He uses his free hand to take Uma’s hands away from her face.
“And casually look over here to see my Uma all alone with a sad face on?” he adds. He smacks his tongue a couple of times. “Not gonna happen.”
“Don’t be so touchy in front of everybody” she warns him, and he just takes his hand away but doesn’t take the hint to move away. “I’m not sad, I just want to think” she corrects him.
“One would say that you’ve avoided me for long enough to do your nice amount of thinking” he provokes her, but she can feel a little bit of resentment in his voice.
She folds and arm behind her head, using it as a pillow, and squints. “Don’t snipe at me!”
He makes his eyes dance around but then goes back to look at Uma. “Okay, I’ll be crystal clear: I tried to kiss you, you dodged me and whispered a ‘Not now’ in my ear so low that not even Evie heard it, then ran away and stopped talking to me” he reminds her. “So yeah, I really need to talk to you.”
She huffs and sits back up. “I said, not here” she repeats. She’s starting to lose her patience.
“How ‘bout a swim?” he proposes.
She grimaces. “Not quite feeling it.”
An evil smile appears on his face as he sits back up himself. “And what if you get all dirty with sand and have to rinse it off?” he casually says, as if it is not exactly his intention to do that.
Uma’s eyes widen and she gets defensive, trying to warn him not to do it. But it’s already too late. She sees a flashy movement and then feels a splash of sand going everywhere on her skin and her white bikini.
She jumps to her feet, trying to brush the sand away from her skin, with little success. Harry gets up too, a pleased grin on his face.
“Ready to go for a swim?” he says, making a little bow.
She raises an index at him. “Try to follow me and you’re dead” she says, furious, then she storms out towards the sea.
Yet another thing that makes Uma relax – probably the one thing she likes the most – is being underwater. During all her life on she Isle, where she could not use her magic, she couldn’t stay beneath the surface for long. Sure, she’d won every single breath-holding contest she’d ever done with the rest of the crew, but she’d eventually had to go back up to breathe.
When she crossed the barrier and turned into a cecaelia for the first time, she found out that, with the help of magic, she could be underwater for very long periods of time even in her human form and that it required a very low amount of power.
It seems like, right now, sitting cross-legged on the bottom of the Bay is her only opportunity to be alone. She feels her hair – now untied – fluctuate around her, just like the tentacles of an octopus. She enjoys seeing the corals and the urchins on the rocks, the blue surrounding her and the shadows of her friends swimming over her and unaware that she’s down here. Even their voices and noises are nicer down here, muffled and lightly distorted by the water.
Yet again, it doesn’t last for long. Her eyes catch a shadow swimming down to the bottom of the sea and, before she can elaborate it, Harry is sitting down a few feet in front of her. He gives her a tender smile and waves.
She bursts out laughing. His smile widens and he mouths something to her. His lips are partially covered by all the bubbles that come out of his mouth, but she knows he’s saying “Sorry”.
Uma points to the surface to tell him to get out, then pushes herself up from the ground and swims towards the surface.
She emerges first, her breathing completely normal, then he does, panting a little bit.
“I saw a place where we could be alone” she says. Then she puts on a little grin. “That is, if you think you can swim for that long” she teases him, seeing him still trying to catch his breath.
Harry squints. “Is that a challenge?”
She just grins again and starts swimming, leading the way.
When they got off the van, this morning, she spotted a small cave, right where the bay turns into open sea.
It takes her a few minutes to get there and she arrives first, Harry still several feet behind her. She scouts the area and finds out that the water is much shallower in there and she can easily stand on the rocks. There are some holes in the ceiling, so the cave is well illuminated and the water shines reflecting the sunshine.
“You’re a fast swimmer” Harry’s voice interrupts her scouting.
She turns around and winks at him. “Hell, yeah I am” she says.
He reaches the entrance of the cave and gets up, then he jumps from rock to rock until he gets near where she is.
“Hey” he says, with a more serious voice.
She smiles. “Hey” she repeats. “I’m sorry I ghosted you.”
He smiles, too. “I’m sorry I invaded your privacy” he says. “It’s just that I’m not really myself when you’re not around.”
“I missed you” she admits.
Harry frowns. “Then why did you run away?” he asks. “You know you can talk to me. About everything.”
She can’t bear his gaze and has to look away. He will probably get upset when she confesses this one, but she has to say it.
“I was kind of pissed that you spent all the evening with Audrey, at the party” she says, all at once. “And I know that it’s silly, because I pushed you away, but still… I wanted to be the one who danced with you all night long.”
He stays silent for a couple of seconds and Uma is really afraid that he might be angry at her.
But then, “I understand you” he says.
She opens her mouth, surprised. “You do?”
“Yes” he answers. “It’s how I felt when I saw you appearing at Cotillion with Ben on tv. I knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t help it. I almost broke a hand punching the wall” he confesses.
Uma steps closer and grabs his hand. “Harry, I-… I’m sorry. I had no idea” she whispers.
She has never thought about the time after the battle on the Lost Revenge. She had bolted out, following Mal and her friends, without even giving a heads up to Harry or Gil. The rest of the plan was very improvised but then she failed and got stuck in the ocean around Auradon, trying to find a hole in the barrier. She never really thought about how her crew was doing and now that thought breaks her heart. She and Harry have so much to talk about. How could she have not seen it?
Harry raises a hand to caress her damp cheek. “Look, that’s not the important thing right now” he says. “I just really want to talk to you and take things back from where we left it at the party.”
She sighs, trying to get her words out right.
“I didn’t want to do it at the party. Not in front of everybody, when I’m not even sure I know how to handle everything” she explains.
“But you don’t have to handle anything!” he exclaims. “What changed? We’ve always been this close, ever since I can remember. What’s the difference between the way we look at each other and a kiss? Don’t you think the others notice the looks?”
Uma now knows very well that everyone else is aware of what’s between them. Still, she feels weird displaying in the open air. She can’t stop glancing at the entrance of the cave.
“Stop looking there, no one’s going to be bothering us” he calls her out.
“Yeah, and how do you know that? They’ve been sticking their noses in our conversations ever since we got here” she snaps.
Harry raises his eyebrows.
“Harry, what did you do?” she asks, a sudden realization coming onto her. “Did you tell them we were gonna have this conversation?”
He shrugs. “You talk to Gil. I talk to him, too” he admits. “It’s not like he shouted it to the rest of the world… He just gave them a heads up.”
“Harry!” she yells. “Clearly, we’re not talking about the same Gil!” she points out, raising her hands in the air.
She cannot believe he just gave away what they were going to do. For what she knows, the rest of the VKs and AKs could be standing right outside the cave, eavesdropping their conversation.
Harry takes her hands into his and tries to calm her down.
“Uma, please. I just want to be open and honest with you, like we used to be” he says, with a sweet tone in his voice. “I can’t stand being so distant.”
“I get it” she answers. She thinks she’s hearing some screams and wonders if the others are coming close, ruining their plans once again, or if she’s just imagining it. “But why do you insist on doing this right now and right here?” Uma asks, exasperated, the volume of her voice a little bit higher that she intended it to be.
Out of all the reactions that she expects from Harry, the one that he gives her is one of the few she hasn’t thought about.
He leans in, bringing his lips near her ear.
“Because it’s been all day that seeing you in that swimsuit is making me want to kiss you everywhere, and I don’t know how long I will resist without doing it” he says, his voice low and deep.
He pulls away a little, just so that their eyes can meet. Uma sees his Adam’s apple go up and down while he swallows thickly.
She finds herself curving her lips in a smirk. She stands still on her decision: she categorically does not want to do anything cheesy in front of the others. She doesn’t want them to look at her and Harry the way they look at Mal and Ben, like they’re in some sort of fairytale.
But… She sees where Harry is coming from. She has been wanting some time alone with him for a while now. And she doesn’t think she can resist for long, either.
“I have an idea” she almost whispers.
Now Harry’s smiling, too. “What?”
She says nothing and quickly points at her shell necklace. Harry frowns.
“You want to use magic?” he says. He steps closer, even though there isn’t much more space between the two of them for him to fill in. “Are you sure? Are you gonna be okay?” he asks, with a worried look on his face.
She remembers how, a few days ago, he was right there to hold her when she was feeling worn out by using her magic to help Mal.
She closes her eyes for a moment and when she reopens them, she sees a splash of golden glow lighting up Harry’s face.
She takes his hands, lacing their fingers together, and looks at the entrance of the cave. As she thought, the others are coming closer and closer, hanging out in the water – there’s Carlos, Jay and Gil splashing water at each other, and Lonnie and Jane swimming offshore, and Mal hugging Ben and Evie giggling with Audrey, Dizzy and Celia –, but nobody seems to notice the sea witch and the pirate standing in each other’s personal space holding hands, nor the golden glow coming from Uma’s necklace.
“They can’t see us?” Harry says, wanting it to be an assumption, but it ends up sounding more like a question.
“No” Uma answers. “Looking this way, they only see an empty, small cave” she explains.
Harry turns his face back to her. He lets go of her hands.
“So, now you won’t push me away if I do this…” he whispers, sliding the points of his index fingers on her sides, from the thighs up to the ribcage, giving her goosebumps.
She shakes her head lightly. “No” she says.
“…or this…” he continues, pulling a strand of her wet, turquoise hair away from her neck and moving closer to kiss the soft and damp skin right above her clavicle.
“No” she repeats, her voice is a little lower and shakier this time. His hands circle her waist.
“…or this” he says again, leaning in and letting their lips lightly touch.
He doesn’t do much else, waiting for her approval. She slides her hands upwards on his waist, her thumbs slightly touching the curves on his abs. She doesn’t remember exactly when she started holding his sides.
She wants to say that no, she will not push him away. She opens her mouth but the simple word struggles to come out. Instead, she glances at his lips and, all at once, she loops her hands around his necks and throws herself on his lips, in a movement that is so sudden that they almost lose their balance. He grabs ahold of her, surrounding her torso with his muscled arms and steadying them on the rock they’re standing on, and kisses her back. She is suddenly aware of how big his hands are against her back.
Uma slides her fingers through his wet hair, alternating caressing it with lightly pulling it. She half-opens her mouth and fees his tongue meeting hers, sliding through her teeth.
Now more than ever she’s not regretting pushing him away at the party, because there was no way she was gonna let him do this in front of all those people. Here, only the rocks and the sea are witnesses of their love. Having Harry’s mouth on hers, his hands all around her body and the noise of the waves as a background to all of this feels like perfection.
Harry takes Uma’s lower lip between his teeth, sucking it in his mouth as he pulls away the tiniest bit. It’s crazy how one little thing can turn someone’s stomach upside down, but it’s exactly what Uma is experiencing right now. That small gesture makes her heart jump and her stomach flutter in a way that she thinks it could explode.
When, a second later, he lets go and Uma opens her eyes, she sees his lips half-open and slightly red and swollen for all the kissing and she thinks hers look exactly the same.
“I love you” she says, and kisses him again, because now that she has tasted him once, she’s not sure she ever wants to be apart from him.
“I love you, too” he says, between kisses.
The she hears someone else’s voice and with a shiver she understands what just happened.
“They finally jumped on each other!”
It sounds like Celia. Uma wonders if she should know the meaning of ‘jumping on someone’, but that’s not really the important thing here.
Harry and Uma pull away from each other abruptly and they look at the entrance of the cave: literally everybody is there and staring at them. When they see the lovebirds have noticed their presence, they start shouting all together, so that it’s practically impossible to tell words or voices apart. The golden light is gone, Uma’s magic clearly stopped working.
The sea witch covers her face with her hands and buries her head in Harry’s chest. This is so embarrassing and it is exactly what she was trying to avoid at the party.
“I thought we were covered by your magic” Harry says.
“We were, but then you did that lip thing and I got distracted” she whines.
He bursts out laughing while he hugs her and rests his cheek on her hair.
“Okay, guys, showtime’s over. Everybody get the hell out of here and leave us alone, before I come out there and kick your asses” Harry says, wanting to sound serous but, really, he just can’t stop smiling.
“Are you out of your mind? I’m gonna stay right here and tease you guys for the rest of my life!” Gil exclaims, swimming over to a rock on the side of the entrance and sitting on it.
Uma takes her hands away from her face and turns to her side to give Gil a deadly look, but still keeping her head on Harry’s damp chest.
“Go away or I swear I’m gonna punch you in the face and break your nose” she threatens. She sounds so dead serious that her second mate jumps right back into the water and swims away, and so do the others – still giggling and chatting and someone still glancing back at them, but they all leave.
Harry tightens his hold of her.
“You’re so hot when you threaten people” he says.
She turns back to him and raises an eyebrow. “Only when I threaten people?” she asks.
He smirks. “You’re always hot” he corrects himself.
He leans in to kiss her. They lose their balance again and this time they actually fall from their rock into the water.
They still haven’t talked about almost anything they wanted to talk about, but Uma doesn’t mind it too much. They have time. All the time of the world.
Besides, right now she really doesn’t feel like ruining all of this with words. With his hair fluctuating around and a blueish glow lighting up his face, Harry is even more handsome underwater.