Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 39

After that, they decided to fly the rest of the way, Jason insisting that he was ok enough for sentry duty with Gleeson and that Percy should get some sleep while he can.

But he had trouble falling asleep.

He just felt like a fraud.

He couldn't stop thinking about his failures.

Maybe that's why he had started to fear suffocation. It wasn't so much drowning in the earth or the sea, but the feeling that he was sinking into too many expectations, literally getting in over his head.

Wow...when he started having thoughts like that, he knew he'd been spending too much time with Annabeth.

Athena had once told Percy his fatal flaw: he was supposedly too loyal to his friends. He couldn't see the big picture. He would save a friend even if it meant destroying the world. At the time, Percy had shrugged this off. How could loyalty be a bad thing? Besides, things worked out okay against the Titans. He'd saved his friends and beaten Kronos.

Now, though, he started to wonder. He would gladly throw himself at any monster, god, or giant to keep his friends from being hurt. But what if he wasn't up to the task? What if someone else had to do it? That was very hard for him to admit. He even had trouble with simple things like letting Jason take a turn at watch. He didn't want to rely on someone else to protect him, someone who could get hurt on his account.

Percy wasn't a kid anymore. He didn't want anybody he loved taking a risk for him. He had to be strong enough to be the protector himself.

And now Annabeth was supposed to go off on a quest of her own - and if it came to a choice —save Annabeth or let the quest succeed—could Percy really choose the quest?

Annabeth was his best friend, but, there was some tiny part of him that knew he could let her go and choose the quest. But Cressida...he'd never be able to let her go, he vowed as much. If there was anyone who could take care of themselves it was her but, he didn't want her to. He needed to be able to take care of her and he wasn't sure if there were any words that could change his mind.

So, Cressida didn't try. She simply held him in her arms as soft music played and she ran her fingers through his hair, letting her touch do all the talking before she brought her lips to his and sent him off to sleep.

Both of them had a lot of scars, some they didn't even know about yet. Both of them had a lot to work on and a lot to deal with. But they'd get through it together because she'd been right.

That was the prize.

A life where he didn't have to worry about things like his fatal flaw. Where the only he'd have to worry about was not annoying Cressida by leaving the toilet seat up, remembering to get groceries, and changing the lightbulb in the bathroom, kissing her every day when they came home.

But before they got there, they had to get through this war, through the so-called tragedy Aphrodite was talking about.

And he had to get through the nightmare he was currently having.

Gaia presented him with a choice.

Choose between Annabeth or Cressida to die with him, to surrender with him, and maybe, just maybe, she'll leave their home, Camp Half-Blood, alone.

And the last words she purred, telling him to enjoy Tartarus and calling him her pawn, made him shiver and made him glad for the sound of the landing gear jolting him out of it.

Cressida wasn't by his side which was the first thing he noticed, but soon the door to her cabin was being opened and she popped her head inside.

Her raven hair fell in long waves down her back, her feet in her combat boots. She wore denim shorts and one of Percy's swim team shirts from Goode High School knotted on her torso. His number was number 5. Because that had been the date that he met her. And it was also his last name printed across her back.