Interning on the Aronnax

Family Ties and Rats

A/N: I became a sperm whale expert overnight. XD

Any volunteers for giving Finn hugs?

Fontaine was still reeling over Finn's knowledge of Lemurian an hour later as she wandered the halls. Will would love help translating, Fontaine knew. Of course, she also knew how opposed Finn was to showing himself to the rest of her family.

Why? Everyone knew Nektons were kind and friendly to a fault. Quite literally, as their willingness to trust and help everyone had ended with Finn asking to be allowed to join them.

In fact, when Fontaine first decided to keep Finn hidden, she had decided to blame her genes if something went wrong. She had since realized that Finn was a good guy for real, but it might not hurt if Fontaine borrowed one of Ant's cheesy speeches about helping people in need if her parents weren't quite thrilled by their newest crew member.

Fontaine was startled out of her thoughts when she almost ran into Kaiko.

"Fontaine, there you are," Kaiko said. "Can you help me with the drone?"

"Sure," Fontaine said readily.

"Thanks," Kaiko said, then continued walking toward the Moon Pool room. "We'll be crossing paths with a pod of sperm whales soon, and we will be putting a tracker on one of them."

"Tracking migrations?" Fontaine guessed.

"Mostly, yes," Kaiko said with a smile. "But also because Ant has a new plan for finding a giant squid."

"Again? Ant is obsessed."

"I seem to recall that you've had your fair share of obsessions," Kaiko said easily. "Remember the unicorn-"

"I was ten, Mum!" Fontaine interrupted, embarrassed.

"Whether or not we find evidence of Ant's giant squid, I still want to track the pod's migration." Kaiko opened the door to the Moon Pool room. "And if Ant finds a giant squid, it's even better. Just try to be encouraging, Fontaine, please."

"I'll try," Fontaine said with a sigh.

Fontaine and Kaiko worked in silence for a bit. Fontaine handed the tools under the Rover to Kaiko to attach the drone's pod on the Rover's underside. The drone would be controlled from inside the Rover by a passenger, who would likely be Ant.

While she watched, Fontaine's mind drifted back to her conversation with Finn earlier. She'd planned to approach the topic of Hammerhead's family with Will, who, frankly, would be less likely to connect any dots than Kaiko. However, Fontaine thought she knew a fairly innocent way to ask her mom about Finn.

"Whale pods are like one big family, right?" Fontaine asked.

"Somewhat," Kaiko said. "Females stick with their social unit, but mature males do leave after a time. But those who stick around are fiercely protective of their group. We'll have to keep our distance. Sperm whales have few predators, but there's no telling how they might respond to something as big as the Aronnax."

"They wouldn't attack us, would they?" Fontaine asked.

"We'll keep our distance and the water is too cold for any calves to be born soon, so it's unlikely," Kaiko assured her.

Fontaine nodded, though she wasn't really worried about the whales attacking. Kaiko knew whales as well as anyone could; she wouldn't put them in any danger. Fontaine was more distracted in trying to figure out a better way to bring up Finn.

Luckily -or, perhaps, unluckily- Kaiko could read Fontaine even better than whale behavior. As soon as she saw her mom lower her wrench from a still-loose bolt, Fontaine knew she was sunk.