#and she’s under sonstanr public scrutiny because of her job

[pulchritudinous-plants]

flood

ever think about how willa has had multiple near drowning experiences, more than any other keeper except maybe finn, while having the biggest connection to water? this is unedited and unfinished, mostly to get my thoughts on paper. willa’s such an interesting character and i think she’s been wasted throughout canon

She’s grown up in the water. Cliched, yes, but true.

They don’t travel much when she’s little, especially by the time her youngest brother is born. Two teachers' salaries doesn’t account for much, especially not with five kids needing taken care of.

Besides, they live in Orlando and shell out an alarming amount of money every year for resident passes to Disney and Universal and Bush Gardens and the dozens of other theme parks that call Orlando home. What more could they really want to do?

And then her dad is paralyzed, and suddenly vacations don’t seem that important, anyway.

So she trudges down to the community pool, holding her older brother’s hand and then later her younger’s, dollar fifty flip-flops slapping against the hot pavement, a pair of her mom’s old sunglasses slipping down her nose, smelling like SPF 70. She is eight and a half and her brothers still call her Izzy because Izzy Peterson hasn’t joined her class and made her need to pick a new nickname because now there are five Isabell/Isabellas in her small third-grade class and there can’t be two Izzys and the kids make fun of her when she goes by Isabella so she needs to think of something new, mom.

The pool is always busy; dozens of children all with varying degrees of sunburn running around, splashing and planning elaborate games with rules that change on a whim.

Willa doesn’t run. A sign says not to and that is that in her mind.

She does, however, play elaborate games. Always the ones Michael came up with because he is the oldest and he gets to pick. He usually wants to play pirates and have Willa swim around to avoid being kidnapped because “pirates kidnapped girls and you’re the only one, Izzy”.

Sometimes Michael stays home because he’s twelve now and doesn’t want to hang out with babies so Philip, being the next oldest, gets to pick the game. And sometimes she meets someone new, some other little girl who lives in the neighborhood that she’s never seen before and likely never will again who’ll play mermaids with her and thinks her blue tail and magic manatee sidekick is cool, not lame like Michale says.

They all take swim lessons too, but Willa is the only one who likes them. She’s trying to convince her parents to pay the extra money for a better school, better coach; more lessons because she’s just learned what the Olympics are and they seem so cool, to swim with all those people, but then a drunk driver slams into her dad’s Honda and well.

Hospital bills trump extracurriculars, apparently.

She spends so much time in the water that the idea of being afraid of any of it is laughable. The idea that there are people who actively avoid water, that live states away from the closest ocean, and are fine with that is so utterly baffling to her. Sure, she isn’t about to jump in the nearest lake because there are alligators and water snakes and probably some brain-eating bacteria but the actual water isn’t bad. It’s comforting, most days.

And then she almost drowns.

Like, four separate times.

The first time, on Winnie the Pooh with Charlene she’s admittedly more worried about the impending electrocution than actually drowning. It’s probably what will kill them first, and god, is she really going to die with Charlene? Some girl she hardly knows and isn’t even sure she likes because they’ve only talked, like, five times?

But they pry the doors open, they live, and she takes the bus home, wrapped in a Mickey Mouse towel that had cost way too much for how thin it was, hair damp and curling on her shoulders, and tells her mom they got caught in a rainstorm but yes, she and her new friend had fun.

Overall it isn't very frightening of an experience after all is said and done. Sure, it’s worrying to know that the Overtakers aren’t going to hold back, not even during operating hours, but she certainly isn’t having nightmares about it.

And then it goes and becomes a semi-regular thing.

She is sinking in Echo Lake, murky water rippling with bullets and fluff floating above her, thinking, once more, this is how I die.

She is treading water in the Atlantic, trying to keep Charlene calm and listen to Finn and keep Maybeck in her line of sight while knowing there are needlefish swimming under her, and god, why does she watch so much Animal Planet because she knew exactly how dangerous they can be (needle sharp jaws that can pierce skin like butter; pose a greater risk of injury than sharks) and she isn’t physically drowning but God does it feel like she is.

She has just jumped off a cruise ship, and her hand is slipping away from Finn’s, and even if she doesn’t let go the ship is moving so fast they are going to get pulled under the hull and they are going to drown.

But Ariel shows up.

But Triton helps.

And then he helps again.

And she is left wet, and cold, with damp hair and a sore throat from coughing up lungs full of water but she doesn’t die. She hardly ever has bruises.

And in between it all she still has swim team, still takes her younger brothers to the neighborhood pool, and picks the games they played because Michael and Philip are away at college and she is the oldest now.

And most times the cool blanket of water was just as it’s always been, comforting and chlorinated, the sharp scent clinging to her skin in an oh-so-familiar way.

And then other times.

Other times it feels suffocating, frigidly cold and she’s so certain it’s going to pull her down, down, deep into murky darkness and this time there will be no magical intervention, just her and the tightness of her chest, the knowledge that this time she is going to drown, this time it is really going to happen, she is going to die.

She ends up seeing a therapist in her Freshman year of college, someone found for her by Disney who has to sign a bunch of NDAs and half the time looks at Willa as if she’s crazy, but she helps, a bit.

Sometimes she wakes up cold and wet from sweat, room unfamiliar and the snores of her roommate in her ear and has to think to remember where she is (Harvard, she’s at Harvard, and she isn’t drowning). She calls Charlene or Maybeck, both on the west coast, both two hours behind her and almost always still awake, insomnia and bad habits from worse days still in effect.