GREEK TRAGEDY [PERCY JACKSON A.U] ✓

EPILOGUE (PART TWO)

AUGUST, 2022

Althea sat up straight in bed, sweat making her blonde hair cling to her forehead and the back of her neck, and she brought one hand to touch the scar on her throat while the other grabbed at the bedsheets for purchase and stability.

"Woah, woah, you okay, Thea?" Percy asked from next to her in their bed, rubbing her back reassuringly even though he had been startled awake.

She tried to shake off the odd sense of foreboding the dream had given her, and allowed herself to sink into her fiance's touch.

"Yeah. I'm fine. Just a bad dream." She replied.

He already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask, but he did anyway: "Wanna talk about it?"

Althea shook her head and laid back down, resting her head on his chest and curling up to get closer to him.

Her mind was far away, thinking of the sirens from the Sea of Monsters and the Battle for Manhattan. Both events were so long ago that they were simply distant memories, but the dream she'd had brought the images back in such vivid color.

She remembered the two words that had stuck out the most from the sirens' vision—self-sacrificing—for those were the words that described her fatal flaw and that repeated themselves in her mind for the better part of six years. But what she hadn't remembered was that the sirens had shown her what was to come during the battle.

Maybe their vision was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe, because they'd put that image in her head, she'd jumped in front of the knife for Lizzie. Maybe it wasn't a vision of the future at all.

Althea looked over Percy's chest, at the clock mounted on the wall of their bedroom in the apartment they shared. The digital face read 8:39, and she sighed, sitting back up.

"Where are you going?" Percy said with a pout, attempting to pull her back into his embrace.

She looked at him with a loving smile. "I told Mads and Clarisse that I'd be at Maddie's apartment by nine thirty, and she's all the way in Harlem." She told him, even though he already knew.

He groaned childishly. "Can't we just get married, like, another day? Maybe tomorrow?" He pleaded.

"Shut up. I'll see you in a few hours. Besides, Grover and Tyson will be here in two hours to get you ready."

🍇

Althea sat on a chair in Maddie's bathroom, her sister sitting opposite to her with an eyeshadow brush in her hands.

"Gods, Knight, can you stop moving for one second?" Clarisse, who was sitting cross-legged on the bathroom counter, barked, annoyed and impatient. She had already gotten her makeup done, before the bride-to-be, and she was growing antsy as the time of the wedding grew nearer.

Maddie dropped the brush back into her makeup bag, and with a grin, she said, "Alright! Done."

Clarisse huffed. "Finally. You took forever." She grumbled.

Althea rolled her eyes. "I didn't think you'd complain this much when I asked you to be a bridesmaid." She joked, teasing her friend.

"Well, you only asked me because Lizzie's not here to do it instead!"

Maddie's violet eyes widened, and she hurried to pack up her things and vacate the bathroom as quickly as she could, just in case a screaming match or fist fight broke out among the two older girls.

"Clarisse, do you really think that?" Althea asked softly, standing up from her chair to get closer.

The dark-haired girl didn't meet her eyes. "I mean, yeah. I know you'd rather have Lizzie here, but since she's, y'know, dead...we've never been as close as you and Lizzie were—honestly, Knight, I was surprised you even asked me." She admitted.

Althea had to laugh. "Gods, you're so dumb sometimes! Yes, I would kill for Lizzie to be here with me right now, but I wouldn't have her here instead of you. You are one of my very best friends, Clarisse. Even though you act like you hate me ninety percent of the time." She told her friend.

"I feel like you're about to hug me, so please don't."

"Wouldn't dream of it."
🍇
Althea gripped Pollux's arm tightly as they stood in front of the doors that would lead to where everyone was gathered, and she was starting to get nervous.

"It's not too late to run if you change your mind, Ally. I'll drive the getaway car." Her older brother said lowly, barely above a whisper.

She looked up at him with wide, panicked eyes. "Don't say that—I might actually do it."

He just grinned. "No, you won't. You've been waiting for this day for ten years." He said, squeezing her arm.

She took a deep breath and listened as the music inside the room began to play. "I think that's our cue."

If it weren't for Pollux's strong hold on her arm, Althea was sure she would have tripped walking down the aisle.

As she took slow, careful steps with her brother at her side, she took a moment to observe the venue's setup; she'd seen it earlier, when they'd arrived, but she had yet to see it filled with her and Percy's friends and family.

Just like she had requested, there were two seats, right at the front, next to where the bride and groom's mothers were sitting, left empty.

One for Lizzie Sloan, and on for Castor.

She'd promised that she would save Lizzie a seat. It was only fair that she extended the same privilege to Castor.

The weather that day in New York had been raining, much to her dismay. The sky was clogged with clouds, and it was so overcast that the sun didn't shine on the city the entire morning.

But as she walked down the aisle, walking towards Percy, the skylights in the ceiling of the venue allowed just the tiniest sliver of sunlight to peek through, and in a perfect coincidental miracle, the sun shone down on the two empty seats.

Althea held back a sob. They were here.

She finally reached the altar, where Maddie, Clarisse, Henry, Tyson, and Grover stood on either side of Percy.

Maddie, her maid of honor, was eighteen now, and she was studying molecular physics at NYU. She had been Althea's right hand man for the past four years, dragging her to therapy and helping her track down Lizzie's father in Chicago to bring all of them peace. Althea couldn't have done any of this, anything at all, really, without her. And watching her smile at her gleefully as she took her place at the altar made everything that much brighter.

Henry was the ring bearer that day. He had turned eleven that spring, and he still loved his sister with everything in him. He was one of the smartest kids Althea had ever met, and he was so gifted with his powers that she knew he'd be far more dangerous than she ever could be.

So as Althea took Percy's hands and watched him look down at her with the utmost love in his eyes, she wondered, did this one day make the past fourteen years of pain, trauma, and loss worth it?

She thought back to all those years ago, the image of her father claiming her as his own so vivid in her mind. She remembered the first monster she ever killed, and the most recent one with the same amount of clarity.

It had been four years since she'd lost Lizzie, and she still sometimes had nightmares because of it; and seven since Castor had died in front of her.

As she said her 'I do's', she realized that marrying Percy didn't make everything she'd gone through worth it.

But it certainly made this day so much more special. She was alive, breathing, and happy. The losses had only made her stronger and kinder, unlike Luke, whose losses had made him bitter and mean. She came out on the other side.

She had survived.