Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 82

Both Percy and Cressida had had a mini panic when the group returned to the ship and Percy saw her hands and dress stained with blood. Cressida had just worried that she hadn't done enough to save Jason, just like she'd done nothing to save Percy with the gorgon's blood.

Percy remembered what Coach had told him before he left about getting Cressida to calm down. He took a minute to assure her that he was fine and that she was fine, and that Jason would be fine because she helped save him and keep him alive. There was nothing more she could've done just like there was nothing more she could've done for Percy down in Tartarus.

She'd still been trembling a little when Percy took her down to his cabin to clean Jason's blood off her hands and get her out of that ruined dress and into something more comfortable. She'd been a bit better after that.

They'd then taken Juno's advice and set course for Olympia. They were nearing their destination as they had a meeting in the mess hall for breakfast, Festus completely able to steer the ship by himself as all of them gathered below deck, Buford the Wonder table staying above as backup.

After Coach Hedge left on his shadow-travel expedition, Leo had decided that his three-legged table could do just as good a job as their 'adult chaperone'. He had laminated Buford's tabletop with a magic scroll that projected a pint-sized holographic simulation of Coach Hedge. Mini-Hedge would stomp around on Buford's top, randomly saying things like "CUT THAT OUT!' 'I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" and the ever-popular "PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!" Today, Buford was manning the helm. If Festus's flames didn't scare away the monsters, Buford's holographic Hedge definitely would.

Leo stood in the doorway of the mess hall, taking in the scene around the dining table. It wasn't often he got to see all his friends together - well almost all of them.

Frank and Hazel used their cereal bowls to flatten out a map of Greece. They looked over it, their heads close together. Every once in a while Frank's hand would cover Hazel's, just sweet and natural like they were an old married couple, and Hazel didn't even look flustered, which was real progress for a girl from the 1940s. Until recently, if somebody said gosh darn, she would nearly faint.

At the head of the table, Jason sat uncomfortably with his T-shirt rolled up to his ribcage as Nurse Piper changed his bandages. "Hold still," she said. "I know it hurts."

"It's just cold," he said. Leo could hear the pain in his voice. That stupid gladius blade had pierced him all the way through. The entrance wound on his back was an ugly shade of purple and it steamed. Probably not a good sign.

Percy was eating a huge stack of blue pancakes while Annabeth chided him for pouring on too much syrup. "You're drowning them!" she complained.

"Hey, I'm a Poseidon kid," he said. "I can't drown. And neither can my pancakes."

The seat between them where Cressida normally sat was empty and Leo just assumed that she ran out of clean clothes in Percy's cabin and had to go get some from her own. The two of them hadn't spent a night apart since they returned - not that they did so before - but considering that on their first night back, Cressida had woken screaming from her nightmare and Percy was the only one that could calm her down, they'd long since stopped trying to separate them.

Leo found it a little unfair that his friend could calm everyone except herself. At least Percy could help her.

It was a minute later when the girl herself walked into the mess hall, dressed in leggings and one of Percy's hoodies, her feet bare.

"Morning, Houston," she said as she walked past him with a small smile.

"Hey, Hollywood," he returned as he gave her a supportive smile and watched as she walked over to her empty seat.