SANITY; heroes of olympus

04.1

So Andromeda sat and wallowed in the nothingness for as long as she needed, all while everyone else went on with their day. Sally and Paul both went to work, and Percy went to school. Annabeth called at some point during lunch and she finally got that letter that she had been expecting from Grover. Pollux was in college but made sure to IM her and check in and she still hadn't heard from her dad since their fight.

Andromeda only pulled herself from her bed to make breakfast and then have a snack—a bowl of green grapes—and then lunch, only to find herself back in her bed thirty minutes later.

Percy got home sometime after three, and the first thing he did after slipping his wet converse—it had been raining all day and he had walked home—was enter her bedroom and force her to sit up, to look him in the eye and say, "Hi."

He knew not to touch her in any intimate way, only the ghostly touches along her knees. They were scared and red as they always were, bare because she had chosen to wear shorts. His fingers, nails painted a navy blue, traced several of the scars as he watched her and spoke. "You okay with taking a shower?"

All she did was nod and feel her heart flutter when he let out a small, "Okay."

He pulled her—his—hoodie from over her, pushing her messy red hair away from her eyes. Then he helped her undress and get wrapped in a towel, and he helped her start the shower and step inside because she didn't trust her body to keep her upright, to support the weight on her shoulders today.

He said nothing about her body—naked and scarred and pale and oh so fragile—as he got more than three pumps of shampoo in his hands and lathered them into her hair, his hands scrubbing gently yet with the perfect amount of pressure at her scalp and the back of her head, near her neck, and made sure all of the soap was washed out in the end. He massaged the conditioner in next, leaving it for three minutes as he turned to give her the privacy to shave. Then he washed the conditioner from her hair and washed her face as she washed her body. He said nothing as tears dripped from her eyes and fell down her cheek as though they were mimicking the slow rain outside. He said nothing as she sniffled and wiped at her face, or as she let him lean forward to press a kiss to her nose and then her forehead and then her cheeks and then her chin and then her jaw and then back to her nose again.

He was simply there, a silent crutch to hold her up should she need it. He would stand there, in the shower while remaining fully clothed, as long as it meant he was simply there. As long as he could hold her hand and kiss her nose and wipe her tears and tell her that she was beautiful in spite of her anger and scars and tears. He was there because he loved her, and he would show her silently, gently, in the best ways, in the ways he knew she understood.

He helped her out of the towel and into new, clean, dry clothes. He helped her brush her hair—a task, as it turned out, he quite enjoyed—and detangled every knot with such care that it created a new bout of tears. He kissed those away, too.

Now she lay in bed once more, though she was no longer alone. Percy lay behind her, his arms curled against his chest as he held back from wrapping them around her, from holding her in the way he needed, in the way that, in that moment, she didn't think she could handle.

So he resorted to keeping her talking in quiet, hushed words. "What do you want in life, Lea?"

It was an immediate answer as she brushed a stray, wet curl from her ear. "I want a quiet life, one away from fighting and the gods. I want a beach house-cottage, probably somewhere near the ocean, maybe Washington or Maine."

Percy smiled because she wanted to live in one of those two states, two states that just happened to be on either side of the country.

"I want a place to paint, and a big yard for dogs. And access to water, a lake or the ocean. And a room for all of my friends, with places for them to sleep. Donnie gets his own room, though. I want a space to call my own, a place for both you and I..."