Indigo Eyes

Chapter 107

But when Cressida's birthday rolled around in August, not much had changed. She and Pollux had barely come out of their cabins for the last month. Not to eat, not to train, not for anything. And when her birthday finally arrived on August first, she'd never wanted to not celebrate it more.

Pollux wasn't in any good shape after losing his other half to do more than kiss her cheek and say everything he usually did. "Happy birthday Cress. You may be a year older but you're still my baby sister."

She tried to get him to stop, knowing that it would kill him to say that because he and Castor always said it together, but he insisted. He'd also been a big help the few times she'd woken from a nightmare about watching her brother die. She'd only fallen asleep out of complete exhaustion because she'd been too scared to fall asleep before. So, she'd spend her nights with her father, dancing.

It was probably the only time she actually felt calm in the last month.

Clarisse had scrawled a quick message into the card Annabeth slid under Cressida's door seeing as Cressida didn't want visitors and Annabeth was nose-deep in Daedalus' laptop.

But Percy? Percy was determined to give her a good day. She deserved it. She needed it.

So, with Clarisse's help to get Cressida out of bed and dressed, breaking down the door and not taking no for an answer as she coaxed her out of bed and into the bathroom.

Clarisse had then walked her over to the road at the bottom of Half-Blood Hill where Dionysus was waiting outside of the white van where Argus was sitting in the driver's seat.

"Papa? What's going on?" she'd asked, tucking the hair Clarisse had brushed behind her ears.

"A birthday present for you, Jewel," he answered, a Diet Coke can in his hand despite it barely being ten in the morning.

"But, Papa, I-"

"Just this once," he interrupted. "I am forced to deny you want you want, in favour of what you need."

"Papa, that makes no sense."

"But it will," he said as he stepped closer to her. "Enjoy your day, my Jewel, and I pray you come back to life."

Her father kissed her cheek as he pulled open the sliding door of the van and held out a hand to help her inside. And she was surprised to find Percy inside.

"What's going on?" she asked, confused, looking between the two.

"Hey, Grape Girl," Percy called and her gaze settled on him. "Do you trust me?"

She bit her lips as she remembered how happy she'd been the last time he'd asked her that question. How quickly things had changed since then.

"Do you ask stupid questions?" she sighed, and he grinned.

"Then buckle up."

And her father guided her into a seat as she put her seatbelt on, giving her a final kiss before he slid the door of the van shut and Argus began to drive.

Cressida realised that he was taking them into Manhattan pretty quickly, but Percy said nothing the entire drive.

He was fulfilling a promise he made months ago and never got the chance to follow through on. His idea to cheer her up what to give her a day full of completely normal teenage things and not a single demigod problem in sight.

He started their day off slowly with a movie.

It was some action-adventure comedy that Percy would never remember the name of or what happened in it because the second they sat down and the movie started, Cressida hugged his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. And she didn't move for the next 157 minutes. He thought she'd fallen asleep at one point but when he dared glance at her, he watched her eyelashes flutter as she blinked, awake and watching. And while she enjoyed the film, the arm that she was sleeping on was slack and relaxed, but the other arm was about to break the armrest with how nervous he was.