From the Deep

Ariel and Andersen

"But really," said Nigel, "what do we call it?"

It was just him and Nigel in the lab at that moment -- it was too early in the day for anyone else to be present. Except, of course, for Ian, who was generally there twenty four seven, but he was at the moment out around the town finding lunch. 

Nigel and Charles were both in the tank room with Andersen. They weren't doing much. What they were actually supposed to be doing was studying Andersen's behaviors and taking notes, and they were doing that, kind of. But the thing was, while it wasn't exactly a hard thing to do, it was... difficult to accomplish. That is, it was all too easy to forget they were watching something they were just supposed to be studying, and very easy to get used to Andersen just... being there. It was like trying to take notes on a sleeping dog, or on a woman with her kid. After a while it got difficult to focus on them as a scientific study, and instead they were just normal parts of life, just... there. 

In other words, they'd stopped discussing things, and begun just chatting about them. 

"Calling it the newborn just seems so impersonal, doesn't it?" Nigel asked. "And calling it Andersen's baby seems too personal somehow, not to mention too much of a mouthful."

"It needs a name," said Charles. "Like Andersen has."

"That's what I'm thinking," said Nigel. "But what?"

"It would help a whole lot if we knew what gender it was."

"Yeah, well, when our magical mermaid - speaker manages to find that out..."

Ian had tried to find out a couple of times whether Andersen's baby was a boy or a girl. But either he was asking wrong or she didn't understand or she didn't know or she didn't care or she was telling him and he just wasn't hearing right, because the answers they'd gotten from her never touched upon the subject at all. And it was impossible to ascertain the newborn's gender any other way, because, even though it had grown a huge amount -- in just a few days, it had grown from the size of Ian's thumb to big enough to require cradling from both Andersen's hands -- and even though it spent as much time near the walls of the tank as it did near the center, they had just not been able to see as many details as they needed to see. It was the same dilemma that faced researchers of giant pandas, and many other species as well. 

"And besides," Nigel went on, "it seems to me that the first mermai -- that is, merthing ever born in captivity, and born to the first mermaid ever in captivity, should definitely have the right name, you know what I mean?"

"Right." Charles nodded. "We can't just slap something on. It requires time and diligent thought."

"The problem is," said Nigel, "is that Andersen's already been taken, and it's hard to think of any other names that we can associate with mermaids and that aren't too silly, but instead... iconic."

"We could always name it Ariel," Charles suggested. "It would make sense, you know? The offspring of Andersen..."

"Sure, that'd be a great name," said Nigel wryly, "if we want to get slapped with a big huge copyright lawsuit."

"Could they do that?"

"I don't know."

"It's too girly anyway. What if that baby turns out to be a boy? And besides, if you'd heard Sara ranting about the original version versus the kids' movie version, you'd want to steer away from the name as well."

"Why, what happens in the original version?" asked Nigel, who was not an avid pursuer of classic Danish literature. 

"Well, according to Sara, the little mermaid wants to get a soul, falls in love with a human, and becomes human herself in order to marry the guy and get a soul, then watches him marry someone else and can only save herself if she kills him, but decides not to kill him and dies anyway."

"Oh," said Nigel, "I see."

They both looked over at Andersen, who was chasing in circles playfully around her still - unnamed child.

"You know, on second thought," said Nigel, "it may have been a good idea to give her a less unfortunate name."

"If you want to convince Doctor Woon that Andersen needs a name change, then first you'll have to convince him that she doesn't have a soul."

"Right," said Nigel uncomfortably. 

Ian had stuck true to his decision to not tell anybody what Andersen had told him, that she had a soul. But, as Monica had pointed out, the rest of the team had noticed his odd behavior and had spent quite some time speculating over it. They'd made jokes -- back before they themselves had become so comfortable around Andersen -- that Ian only cared so much for a thing because he was under the impression that the thing could care back. They were only, of course, jokes. But Nigel had begun to feel increasingly as if they had become just a bit too accurate for comfort. 

"That still begs the question, though," he said, trying to divert the conversation away from that little topic. "If Andersen deserves her name, then her kid definitely does too. What on earth do we call it?"

"I have to agree with what you said earlier," said Charles. "There's just no name more iconic than Hans Christian Andersen."

"And Andersen's already been taken."

"Well, we could call it Hans."

"Or Christian."

"Because there's not enough controversy about this study already."

"It'd be better than Ariel, though."

"In that case, I still stick to Hans."

"That's dumb," said Nigel, though it was obvious from his tone that he wasn't really ridiculing Charles. "First Andersen and now Hans? Come on, how much more of a lack of imagination can we get in to our naming patterns?"

Charles laughed. "Come on, though. Doesn't it look like a Hans?"

Nigel looked again at the baby, who was now engaged with his mother in a game of something very similar to tag. That's something I should definitely be writing down in my notes, he though lazily, but really his attention was just on the baby itself. It was several times bigger than it had been at birth, with eyes that were completely open and a strong tail already capable of excellent swimming. Its front limb buds had grown out into real actual limbs resembling smaller versions of Andersen's hands, while the two hind limb buds had completely faded away just as tadpoles' tended to do. But the head -- that was the part Nigel focused most on -- the tiny creature had an enormous head for its size, big and round like a newborn human baby's. They'd been trying not to call it a boy or a girl until they had actual proof to help them decide, but the shape of the head had put them all in mind of a baby boy's.

"I hate to admit it," said Nigel, "but the creepy gray - skinned dolphin - human hybrid made - up creature does look a little bit like a Hans."

Charles smiled. "So are we agreed?"

"I'm hesitating," said Nigel. "I definitely remember someone at the beginning of this conversation saying something about being diligent and responsible in our naming of things."

"You don't have to call it Hans if you don't want to."

"Right. Because I won't always have that name stuck in my head every time I look at the thing from this point on." Nigel shook his head. 

He turned again to look at the tank. Now Andersen was hovering over her child as they swam, somewhat aimlessly, around the tank. They pulled up against the wall that was closest to the two scientists and stared at them for a moment. 

And even from all the way at the other end of the room, Nigel could feel Hans's stare going right through him. 

AN: I'm assuming most people here on Wattpad are literary enough to know the original story of The Little Mermaid. But, in my never - ending effort to be helpful, I've included the link for those of you who haven't. Go click on "External Link" around the top part of this page and enjoy some good classic literature. :)