Chapter Text
The sand shifts under Stiles’ feet as he ambles down the beach, hands in the pockets of his red hoodie. It's dark out except for the glow of the moon hanging in the sky and in the distance, the lights from the Whittemore’s beach house set up high on a bluff to his left. He's just drunk enough to feel melancholy, and vaguely lonely, and annoyed at himself for feeling that way, a strange persistent ache throbbing under his breastbone like there's a string tied around his heart, tugging at it.
“Don't worry,” Allison had said earlier that night while sipping a beer on the back deck with him after everyone else went to bed, because when you're the only two humans around alcohol becomes a special kind of bond. “It's only the first week of summer, you’ll have plenty of time to find someone to keep you company. Besides, Danny and Isaac get here next week, that should make it easier, right?”
He'd kissed her cheek and told her he was going for a walk, and Allison had smiled ruefully before going back inside. He and Heather had still been together when they'd planned out their summer vacation, convinced all their various parents and most importantly, Allison's dad, who owns the house, to let them spend the summer here, an hour south of Beacon Hills, right on the beach. They're going to be college seniors next year, this might be their last real summer to all be together. He's still happy to be here of course but he hadn't planned on being single and he can't deny that it stings a little.
He weaves in and out of the tide as he walks, his feet sinking into damp sand. Up ahead a large piece of driftwood has washed up near the edge of the water and Stiles starts walking to the left so he can go around it but then it moves, rippling against the sand, and he stops, pressing his palms into his eyes for a moment before blinking hard because he's tipsy but he's not seriously drunk and he's seen a lot of crazy shit since the night Scott got bit but he's never seen a piece of wood spontaneously move on it's own.
He blinks again against the dark, internal alarms in his head going off like flashing warning signs. He pulls out his phone from his back pocket, turns on the flashlight and points it across the sand, almost dropping it in shock when the light hits the driftwood, because it isn't a hunk of wood at all.
It's a body.
Stiles runs down the beach, kicking up wet sand until he skids to a stop, gaping at the body at his feet: it's a girl, lying face down in the sand, completely naked, with long wet hair tangled with weeds all the way down to her legs and glimmering silvery scales stuck to the bottoms of her feet, a stray few climbing up her ankles and calves.
Scales like a fish.
A hysterical bubble of laughter works its way up his throat because of course this kind of shit would happen to him, of course he would manage to accidentally stumble upon a mermaid the first week of summer vacation.
Adrenaline kicks in when he realizes she isn't moving, her back disconcertingly still like she isn't breathing at all and he drops to his knees, drags back waterlogged clumps of hair to find her shoulder, her skin icy cold to the touch, and starts to roll her onto her side. For one awful moment he thinks she's dead but then she seizes up, her eyes rolling back in her head as she makes a horrible gagging sound, retching, and then an ocean of water floods from her mouth. Stiles holds her still as her body arches and heaves until she collapses onto her back and passes right out.
“Oh my god,” he says stupidly, under his breath. “Oh my god.”
He stares down at her, cataloging her features: closed eyes with thick curling lashes crusted over with ocean salt and rosebud lips coated in sand, her skin much too pale and yet she's the most beautiful girl he's ever seen, fine boned and ethereal, stunning him into stillness for a moment before he realizes she clearly almost just drowned and he snaps into action.
He yanks off his hoodie and wraps it around her torso before sliding his hands under her shoulders and pulling her up against him. He gets one arm under her knees and manages to stand up, hiking her up in his arms so he can hold her against his chest, her head flopping back against his shoulder. She makes a terrible quiet keening noise, her eyes still shut, and Stiles winces as he starts to walk, listening to the wet rattling sound of the girl breathing.
When he gets close to the house he calls out for Scott and by the time he makes it to the fire pit Scott is bounding out the sliding glass back doors and onto the deck. When he sees Stiles he vaults right over the railing, lands crouched in the sand and leaps back up to run over to them, arms outstretched.
“What happened?” Scott shouts frantically, reaching out to take the girl from Stiles. Scott’s nose wrinkles and he stares down at her, suddenly looking panicked. “Stiles, what, I don't - what's going on?”
“I don't know.” Stiles runs one shaking hand down his face. “I found her down on the beach. Just, just lying there.”
“By herself? Like this?!”
Stiles shrugs, exasperated. “No Scott, I went fishing and caught her with my bare hands, yes I found her by herself, I thought - Jesus, I thought she was dead!”
“Um, Stiles… don't freak out but um.” Scott's nose wrinkles up again, like he's smelling something Stiles can't. “I don't think she's human.”
“Yeah no shit Scott, look at her feet!”
Scott's mouth drops open as he examines the girl’s legs, where metallic silvery scales are peeling off her shins and falling into the sand like flakes of snow, leaving raw red skin behind. “No way. No way!”
“I know,” Stiles says, unable to keep the hysteria out of his voice. “I found a freaking mermaid!”
“But - but she has legs! If she's a mermaid then where's her tail? Where’d you find her?”
“She was just lying there on the sand down by the Whittemore’s.” Stiles scrubs a hand over his face. “I think she almost drowned, she coughed up a lot of water.”
“How could she drown if she's a mermaid?”
“How should I know? It's not like I'm a freaking expert!”
“Okay, okay.” Scott stares down at the girl and looks back at the house. “We can't take her inside like this, she's covered in sand.”
They take the cobblestone path across the sand and walk around the side of the porch where there's an outdoor shower. Stiles unlatches the wooden door and kicks it open lightly with his foot. “One of us is going to have to hold her up.”
“Stiles - she's naked,” Scott says in a hushed voice.
Stiles rolls his eyes and whips off his shirt before shucking off his jeans. “Grow up dude, emergency circumstances, here, I'll do it.”
Scott sighs and carefully transfers the girl back into Stiles’ arms, unwinding the sweatshirt and folding it up so her naked body is cradled against Stiles’ chest. He looks down at her face, grains of sand are clumped around her hairline and her skin is icy cold against his. He walks into the shower with her in his arms while Scott runs back inside the house to get towels. Stiles shifts the girl so she's upright, trying very hard to ignore the fact that her bare chest is pressed right up against his, her toes dangling above the rough concrete floor, and reaches back to turn the water on.
It comes out cold and Stiles yelps as he turns the dial; the girl's face gets hit by the spray and she coughs, her eyes flying open before they widen dramatically. She makes an airless shrieking sound and shoves at him, his hands are slick on her wet skin and they slip enough for her to slide backwards out of his grasp. Her feet touch the floor and Stiles watches in horror as her face contorts, she lets out a raspy scream and falls to the ground, reaching down to clutch at her feet.
Stiles sinks to his knees and reaches for her but she slides back on the floor to cower against one wall, curling her arms across her chest, her legs prone and bent at the knees, mouth open as she weeps silently, so vulnerably naked and small that it makes his chest hurt. He crouches down low next to her, boxing her in against the wall of the shower, and holds his hands out to her like he would a wounded animal.
“It's okay,” he says in a low voice. “You're okay. I'm not going to hurt you.”
She blinks heavily at him, her small body shivering on the wet floor. He gets a little closer and when she doesn't panic he reaches out and touches her shoulder. She crumples under his hand, her eyes squeeze shut and he can't tell if the beads of water scattered across her face are from the shower or her tears but her whole body shakes, he makes low shushing noises and when she doesn't shy away he pulls her up so she's sitting against the wall next to him.
Stiles wraps his arms around her, turning her slightly so she's facing the spray of the water and she makes that strange noise again, a high pitched keening sound that makes his teeth clench, but then she relaxes into him, shivering, legs kicked out in front of her, her crazy-long hair tangled around her thighs as the water beats down on her. He rubs his hands up and down her arms in an attempt to generate some heat as she turns her head into his chest, eyes half open, looking dazed but slightly less terrified.
“There you go,” he says quietly, watching water sluice off sand and bits of moss and weeds from her skin, not caring that his boxers are getting soaked. “It's okay, everything's going to be okay.”
Stiles glances down at her face again and realizes in surprise that she's staring at him, big eyes that in the dim light look dark and stormy like the ocean at night.
“What happened to you?” he murmurs, but she either doesn't understand him or she can't speak because she just blinks glassy eyes at him.
“Stiles.” Scott knocks on the door. “Are you okay? I thought I heard a scream.”
“Yeah, we're fine, you got towels?”
“Yeah.” Scott swings the door open and crouches down in front of the entrance of the shower, looking concerned. “Is she bleeding? I smell blood, I think she's bleeding.”
Stiles looks down at the water, his stomach tightening when he sees the dark swirls in the water around her legs. “It must be her feet, she screamed when they touched the ground. Maybe they're not totally... feet yet.”
The girl looks back and forth between Stiles and Scott, apprehension crossing over her face. Scott sighs and folds a towel over the wet floor before kneeling down on it in front of her. “I'm gonna check them out. Has she said anything yet?”
“Nothing. I'm not sure she speaks, or maybe she has that thing, you know, when people go through a trauma and stop talking, selective mutism. Or maybe she just doesn't understand us, maybe she only speaks mermaid. Mermish. Mer - anyway, no, nothing.”
“I don't think that's a thing,” Scott says doubtfully. “She's basically human, wouldn't she speak English? Like, if she can even speak?”
“How would we know?” Stiles points out. “Up until fifteen minutes ago I didn't even know mermaids were a thing.”
“Well, we don't really know she's a mermaid.”
“Well if she's not a mermaid, what is she? Were-fish?”
“I don't think that's a thing either.” Scott tilts his head. “Is she gonna freak out if I touch her?”
Stiles looks down at the girl's legs, there are nasty red patches on her skin where her scales have peeled off. “Maybe try to be quick about it.”
“Okay.” Scott leans forward and reaches out to grasp the girl's ankle. She goes rigid in Stiles’ arms, twisting away from Scott but he doesn't let her go as Scott examines the bottom of her foot. “Oh no, her - scales or, or tail, I don't know, it's all peeling off and the skin underneath is really raw, it's all bloody, no wonder she screamed. This is bad, I'm gonna have to wash her feet and wrap them or something, she could get an infection. I don't… we don't know if she can heal.”
Stiles leans over to grab the biodegradable liquid soap and passes the bottle to Scott, who takes a clean towel and gets it wet before pouring soap onto it and glancing up at Stiles. “Ready?”
Stiles tightens his arms around the girl. “Yeah.”
Scott picks up the girl's foot and pulls it towards him, ignoring her sharp inhale. “I'm going to clean your feet now,” he announces in a soft voice, and presses the towel to her heel.
She jerks in Stiles’ hold, her mouth opening in a silent scream. He tightens his arms around her, holding her twisting body against him as she tries to escapes Scott's hands. She slaps uselessly at Stiles’ arms and he winces, watching as Scott quickly scrubs her feet, dark blood and sparkly scales sticking to the towel.
“I'm sorry,” Stiles apologizes to her as she fights weakly against him, hoping she'll understand his tone if not his words. “We're just trying to help you, I'm sorry.”
“Finished!” Scott announces, holding the towel up before tossing it out of the shower. “I can bandage them inside.”
She goes limp when Scott moves away, Stiles manages to awkwardly drag her up his body so he can pick her up. She's shivering again, her body soaking wet and cold against his own bare skin; Stiles carries her out of the shower while Scott scoops up the towels, glancing back worriedly at them before stepping onto the cobblestones to go inside the house.
He follows Scott down the walkway, leaving wet footprints across the stairs and the deck as they go in through the sliding glass doors into the huge open concept living room and kitchen. Scott spreads a towel over one corner of the large cream colored sectional couch and Stiles sets the girl down on it, takes another dry towel from the stack Scott brought in and spreads it over her like a blanket.
She looks at him with huge eyes shimmering with tears and he can see now in the soft light from the lamp sitting on the side table that they're actually a deep green. Her skin is ivory colored, so luminous it seems lit from within, and her drenched hair is a deep auburn, stark against the lightness of her skin and the couch.
Scott clears his throat. “I'm going to get the first aid kit.”
Stiles nods, rubbing his wet feet off with a towel so he doesn't track water all over the floor. “Okay, uh, can you keep an eye on her for a minute though? I'm gonna change real quick, not really a fan of sitting in wet boxers.”
Scott glances up from across the room, where he's digging through the bottom drawer of the kitchen island, and then at the girl, who's shivering under the towel while taking in the house, her eyes darting around frenetically. “Hurry up,” Scott says tightly.
Stiles rolls his eyes as he walks away, taking the hallway off the living room that leads to all the bedrooms. His room is the first one on the right, alongside the back wall of the house, facing the ocean. He peels off his wet boxer briefs and tosses them in the hamper, walks over to the dresser that's pushed against the wall opposite the full sized bed and pulls out a dry pair of boxers, sweatpants, and an old Beacon Hills Cyclones tee shirt. He jumps into the clean clothes and rushes back to the living room, shaking water out of his hair.
The girl is sitting on the couch right where he left her, her eyes following him and Scott as they approach. Stiles sits down next to her on the couch, careful to leave a bit of space between them, and Scott perches on the edge of the oak carved coffee table. He pops open the white and red first aid kit and pulls out gauze, antibacterial ointment, and medical tape. He lays everything out on the table and looks at the girl, who's staring down at the bandages and shivering under the towel.
“I need to wrap your feet,” Scott tells her gently, gesturing to them.
The girl shakes her head wildly, curling up tighter into herself, her legs pulled in towards her chest with her feet dangling off the edge of the couch, and Stiles can't tell if she's afraid because she understands what Scott means or if she's just plain scared, period. He slides closer to her and touches her bare shoulder, wincing when she flinches and shies away.
“It won't hurt,” Stiles tells her, and raises a pointed eyebrow at Scott.
Scott's eyes widen and then he nods profusely, reaching his hands out so they're hovering above the tops of her feet. “Right. It won't hurt.”
Before she can pull away Scott snatches her by the ankles. She gasps and flails but then the breath gets punched out of her as thin black lines snake around from the bottoms of her feet up into Scott's hands. She slumps sideways into Stiles, a distant look of shocked awe on her face before her eyelashes flutter shut.
Scott exhales harshly as black lines crawl up his arms and disappear under the sleeves of his tee shirt. “She pass out?”
Stiles looks down at her face, lips chalky and parted, her head tipped back against his shoulder. “Yeah.”
“Probably for the best,” Scott says grimly, and stacks her feet on top of his quads.
Stiles watches Scott bandage up the girl's feet while she sleeps against him, making a strange wet rattling sound every time she exhales. When Scott's finished Stiles reaches behind himself and grabs a soft knit blanket folded over the back of the couch and carefully lays the girl down on the cushions, spreads the blanket over her body to cover her nakedness as he pulls the wet towels away and tosses them onto the pile on the floor. She coughs a little but doesn't wake, burrowing her face into a pale blue throw pillow.
Scott sighs and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I'll call Deaton in the morning.”
“Okay.” Stiles yawns and stretches out on the other side of the couch. “You can go to bed if you want, I'll stay up with her.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, yeah, it's cool, hey, can you grab my laptop?”
Scott goes back to the kitchen to put the first aid kit away and picks up Stiles’ laptop where he left it charging on the kitchen island. He glances at the sleeping girl one more time and hands the computer to Stiles, who sets it in his lap and powers it on. Scott scoops up all the wet towels and locks the sliding glass door, turns off all the lights except for the seashell lamp on the end table.
“Don't stay up all night researching,” Scott advises.
Stiles already has Google open. “Uh huh.”
Scott sighs. “Seriously Stiles.”
“Shh. Sleeping mermaid here, Scott.”
“Okay, whatever then. See you in the morning.”
“Mmhm.” Stiles clicks on the Wikipedia link to the Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid. “Night.”
He stays up for hours reading stories about mermaids, girls who trade their voices for human legs, girls who sell their souls for love, girls who live in agony every time they take a step because they've fallen in love with human men they've never even spoken to. He reads myths about sirens, sea creatures, gets lost in conspiracy theory rabbit holes about scientists in Atlantis who created half-breeds with alien technology, secret black ops groups doing experiments on humans, mixing their genes with fish DNA so they can breath underwater, rabbit DNA for super hearing.
He finally sets his laptop on the coffee table when he starts to nod off while researching Russian folklore about rusalka, spirits of girls who died violently and lure men to watery deaths. He curls up into a corner of the couch, head on a throw pillow, falling asleep almost immediately only to jerk awake at the high pitched tortured sound of someone choking. The girl is thrashing around on the opposite end of the couch, her face very white, but before Stiles can lunge across the cushions to her she exhales loudly through her mouth and goes still again, asleep, the color flooding back into her face. He stretches over to her and holds his hand up to her face, relaxing when he feels a reassuring puff of air hit his palm. She doesn't make that sound again but it keeps him awake, afraid she'd going to stop breathing and suffocate in her sleep, which leads him to open his laptop back up and research dry drowning, just in case.
He's still up when the sun starts to rise, light flooding into the east-facing kitchen. He yawns and stretches, rubs at his eyes with his fingertips. The girl is still sleeping and now he can see that her hair is actually lighter than it looked last night, strawberry blond, tangled with knots all the way down to her knees. Her bandaged feet poke out from underneath the blanket, the gauze stained dark with blood, raw pink peeling skin crawling up her ankles and shins when she shifts and rolls over, face pressed into the back of the couch.
He gets up and stumbles across the living room to the kitchen, gets a pot of coffee going and pours himself a bowl of cereal. He eats standing up, leaning against the kitchen island so he can watch the mystery girl on the couch, too tired to think beyond vaguely wondering what the hell they're going to do with her. Things calmed down after they all went off to college and he can't really say he's missed the drama of dealing with a new supernatural creature every week, but there's something about this one that has him completely enthralled.
When he's finished eating he puts his bowl in the sink and pours himself a mug of coffee, the only way he's going to make it a few more hours on no sleep is to caffeinate the hell up. He sips it black as he wanders back towards the living room and sinks down on the edge of the couch just as the girl starts waking up.
He sets his mug down on the coffee table, watching as she shifts over onto her back, eyelashes fluttering a few times before her eyes open. She scrambles up to sit, her breath coming in short sharp gasps as she looks wildly around the room and then down at herself, her hands clutching the blanket over her chest.
“Hey, hey, it's okay.” Stiles slides a little closer, trying to keep his voice low and calm. “You're okay, well, you hurt your feet but we took care of them, you were kind of passed out by then so you probably don't remember and waking up on a stranger’s couch is stressful in any situation, and this is kind of a unique situation, given how I found you and everything and that you're apparently, possibly, not totally human?”
She stares at him, wide-eyed, and if she didn't look so afraid she'd be beautiful - porcelain skin, full lips, hair a shimmering fiery red-gold.
“Can you talk?” he asks her. “Can you understand me?”
She blinks, once, and looks down at her feet, pulls her legs underneath the blanket so they're hidden before looking back at him. She blinks again and her hand go to her throat, fingers pressing under her jaw, but doesn't make any real discernible attempt to communicate.
“Okay.” Stiles pats his hand firmly over his chest. “I'm Stiles. Stiles. Last night I found you” - he points to her, and then behind himself at the sliding glass doors, where the ocean is distantly visible - “out on the beach. You were…” he tries to figure out how to mime ‘unconscious and almost drowned’ and then has to swallow a hysterical giggle when he realizes he's trying to play charades with a possible mermaid.
She's still looking at him, pretty green eyes hyper focused but he can't tell if she actually understands anything he's saying.
“You,” he says, and points to her again. “Who are you?”
She makes a strange breathy noise, almost like a whistle, and peels the edge of the blanket back to uncover her legs. All her scales are gone, some of the raw patches of skin are starting to scab over; in the morning light her pale skin is decorated with bruises and scratches like she got banged around pretty good and maybe she did, he thinks, remembering how much water had come out of her mouth last night when he found her, imaging someone as small as her getting pummeled by an ocean wave and spit up onto the shore.
If she was a mermaid wouldn't she be able to swim?
When she looks back up at Stiles she's crying, silent tears sliding down her cheeks, bent forward a little so her hands rest on her shins, clutching at them so hard her knuckles turn white. Stiles reaches out and when she doesn't move away he spreads his hands over hers.
“Hey,” he says, gently stroking his fingers over the back of her hands in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. “It's okay.”
“Hey guys.” Scott’s hovering at the edge of the living room, Allison standing behind him wearing one of Scott's old lacrosse jerseys like a dress. “How's she doing?”
Next to him the girl curls her legs up to her chest, glancing at Scott and Allison with wide suspicious eyes.
“Still not talking,” Stiles says. “Cause yet to be determined.”
“Deaton’s on his way,” Scott says, and squints his eyes at Stiles. “You totally stayed up all night, didn't you?”
Stiles leans his head back against the couch. “Maybe.”
“Dude.” Scott shakes his head and ambles into the kitchen.
Allison walks closer to them and perches on the arm of the couch, looking curiously at the girl. “Hi,” she says quietly, holding her hands palm up in her lap, non-threatening. “I'm Allison.”
Stiles watches, fascinated, as the girl slides closer to Allison and reaches one hand up. Allison looks surprised but holds very still as the girl closes her fingers around the silver arrow charm hanging from Allison's necklace.
“Oh,” Allison says. “This is jewelry. Do you like it?”
The girl strokes her fingers over the charm before pulling away, her eyes still on Allison's face, watching her carefully. Allison offers her a tentative smile and when the girl doesn't respond she frowns. “She really doesn't talk, huh?”
“Not a word,” Stiles confirms.
Allison holds her hand out and when the girl doesn't move away she reaches out and pushes a tangled strawberry blond wave out of her face. “We're going to have to do something about all this hair.”
The girl sits very still, like she's afraid to move, and after a moment Allison pulls her hand away and shoots Stiles a weary look. “I'm gonna take the girls out to breakfast, get them out of your way while Deaton’s here.” She looks back at the girl, a tender expression coming over her face. “They're really curious, obviously, and Scott says she seems kind of - well, this is probably overwhelming enough as it is.”
Allison goes back to her room to get dressed and Scott walks in from the kitchen with a strawberry pop tart in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. He sits down on the blue and cream printed loveseat, giving the girl a friendly smile when she stares at him. She doesn't smile back, still curled up in a corner of the couch, letting Scott observe her.
Stiles reaches for his abandoned mug and takes a huge sip, cradling it in his palms. “Do you think she eats human food? She has to be hungry, right?”
Scott tilts his head and shrugs. “Probably. You think she can understand us?”
Stiles sighs. “I haven't come to a conclusion on that one.”
“If she does she's pretty good at playing dumb.” Scott takes a huge bite out of his pop tart.
“Maybe she doesn't trust us.”
“You saved her life!” Scott says indignantly. “She should at least trust you!”
The girl flinches at the change in Scott’s tone and pulls the blanket higher up on her chest. Stiles slides over to her, shooting Scott a warning glance. “It's okay,” he reassures her softly. “Everything's okay.”
The girl looks up at him, her lower lip trembling, and then very slowly leans sideways until she's close enough to rest her head against his shoulder. Stiles shoots Scott a shocked look and shifts so he can sling his arm over her shoulders, letting her turn her face in towards his chest. Something inside him clenches up, some wave of tenderness he never knew he was capable of feeling, remembering last night, sitting in the shower with her, holding her while she trembled and shook in the circle of his arms.
“Hey,” he says in a low voice. “You're okay. Everything's going to be okay.”
“We should give her some water at least,” Scott says quietly. He goes into the kitchen and fills up a glass, walks it back over to the couch and holds it out to the girl. “Here. This is for you.”
When she doesn't take it Stiles holds his mug out to Scott and they trade, Stiles takes the glass of water and holds it in front of her face. “Drink,” he says, tapping his lips and then pointing to her. “You drink.”
She gives him a hesitant look but bends her head down, darts her tongue out and laps it in the water before puckering her lips and trying to suck it into her mouth.
“Oh man,” Scott says, sinking back down on the loveseat, looking half amused and half concerned.
Stiles pulls the glass away, catching her chin with two fingers when she lifts her head up. “Like this,” he says, and brings the glass to her parted lips.
He tips her head back by gently tilting her chin and lets a little water slide into her mouth. She splutters and swallows, coughs, and then reaches up with her hands to hold the glass, drinks and drinks until she's drained it.
“Okay,” Stiles says faintly. “That's good I think.”
Scott's staring at them, his pop tart forgotten. “I still can't believe you found a mermaid.”
Stiles takes the glass out of her hands and puts it down on the coffee table. “So much for a normal summer vacation.”
“It's us,” Scott says. “When is our life ever normal?”
Stiles looks down at the girl sitting next to him, her big green eyes darting between him and Scott, insanely long tangled hair like that girl in the story, the one about the princess who got locked in a tower, her delicate fingers clutching the edge of the blanket. He gently lays a hand on her shoulder and she makes a quiet sound in the back of her throat before leaning back into him a little and there it is again, that overwhelming instinct to protect her, care for this beautiful broken creature in front of him.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Fair point.”