Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 36

Once Leo had anchored the Argo II between the pillars, Jason summoned the wind to carry him and Piper ashore, and the rest of them were simply left waiting. And while they did that, Percy and Cressida finally got to have that conversation about what happened at the aquarium.

They'd been sitting on the deck, out in the sunlight, Percy leaning against the rail while Cressida sat between his legs.

He had been a bit ashamed to admit to her that he'd been afraid of drowning, but as much as she made fun of him, she knew when to draw the line. And this was something that he trusted her with that she'd never use against him.

He'd described every bit of the feeling of being drowned in that bog and while it made him choke up, she'd simply held him as she began to hum, turning around to play with pieces of his hair that had grown out in the last eight months. She'd been twisting a tiny plait into his hair when he finally found the courage to go on. To go on and explain that seeing her almost drown in Frank's koi fish fins, had been enough to scare the fear out of him. That he was thinking of her words when he summoned all the water to make the tank break.

They sat like that for a time longer before they heard an unfamiliar voice they could only assume to be Hercules, bellow, "KILL!" and they were jumping up to their feet.

Jason touched down on the deck of the Argo II. Leo already had the oars switched to aerial mode and the anchor up. Jason summoned a gale so strong, it pushed them into the sky, while Percy sent a ten-foot-tall wave against the shore, knocking Hercules down a second time, in a cascade of seawater and pineapples. By the time the god regained his feet and started lobbing coconuts at them from far below, the Argo II was already sailing through the clouds above the Mediterranean and Jason turned to Percy.

"Ok," he panted. "You were right about half-brothers."

"Told you so," Cressida smirked.

But then after that, when Cressida went to send her brother an Iris message, was when everything started to sink in.

He just wasn't feeling the love.

Bad enough he'd been run out of Atlanta by evil sea gods. Then he failed to stop a giant shrimp attack on the Argo II. Then the ichthyocentaurs, Chiron's brothers, hadn't even wanted to meet him. After all that, they had arrived at the Pillars of Hercules, and Percy had to stay aboard the ship while Jason the Big Shot visited his half-brother. Hercules, the most famous demigod of all time, and Percy didn't get to meet him either.

Okay, sure, from what Piper said afterwards, Hercules was a jerk, but still...Percy was getting kind of tired of staying aboard ship and pacing the deck. The open sea was supposed to be his territory. Percy was supposed to step up, take charge, and keep everybody safe. Instead, all the way across the Atlantic, he'd done pretty much nothing except make small talk with sharks and listen to Coach Hedge sing TV theme songs.

He supposed that the only good thing, his only flicker of hope in all that hopelessness was Cressida. Annabeth had been distant since Charleston, spending most of her time in her cabin studying the bronze map. He'd tried to go in a couple of times to see if she was ok or if she'd eaten something, he never really got an answer.

As usual though, Cressida reassured him. She, Piper and Hazel had come up with a system to get Annabeth to tear herself away from her map and her laptop for five minutes to eat something.

He just felt really useless as Cressida came into his cabin that night, even Coach not caring about it anymore, except he still gave Percy scathing glares every time he saw him. It was his way of saying hello he supposed.

"Ok," she said, as she closed his door behind her. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong," Percy said as he sat on his bed, sweatpants on his hips as he simply twirled his pen through his fingers.