Melpomene (PJO)

14. Love, loss and longing

There was the sound of harsh footsteps again and then BANG: the cabin door slammed.

"Rude," Sean muttered.

"I don't think you're in a position call anybody rude right now, Sean," Lee said.

Mari could almost picture Lee, scowling, arms crossed and a stern expression on his face, like he was about to give the six-year-old extra KP or take away dessert privileges. "Here's what's going to happen," he said. "You're going to go back to sleep and forget this conversation, okay? Or if you don't want to do that then I'm going to give you a sleeping tonic and if you tell anybody about this, I won't let you join Capture the Flag until you're nine. How does that sound?"

"...Okay. Goodnight." Sean's voice was glum. There was another shifting sound as he shuffled into a comfortable position again, then silence. Mari was just starting to wonder if Lee had left and she hadn't realised it (he could tread very lightly) when a hand touched her shoulder.

"Mari," Lee whispered. "Mari, are you awake?"

Yes. She was. She really didn't want to be. Mari tried to keep her breathing as even as possible and didn't respond. Lee sighed. "You toss and turn like crazy when you sleep, you know. This isn't a very convincing impression."

Mari froze. Lee chuckled, but it sounded hollow. "Yeah, and neither is that. Sleeping people don't tend to freeze up in response to what's happening around them. It's okay. I'm not going to make you talk, not if you don't want to. I... I'm not angry at you, you know that, right? You kept apologising back there. You- gods, Mari, you have nothing to apologise for. Clarisse isn't going to breathe a word of what she heard, by the way. She wouldn't do that to you. Partly because I threatened to curse her to only speak in sonnets for a month if she did, but I don't think I needed to do that. These are her words, not mine, but she told me 'Like Hades I'm making things harder for the only one of you lot who's actually half-tolerable'. I took a lot of offence to that but whatever. And for the record I'm not going to blab, either."

Mari curled into herself. How could he not tell? She was a murderer. A killer, sleeping in cabin seven. Who would want to keep that kind of thing a-

"I promise I won't tell anybody what Flora told me, Mari," Lee whispered. "I swear on the River Styx."

Mari sobbed. Without a word, Lee pulled the blanket off her and gathered her into a crushing hug. "M'sorry," Mari whispered into his shoulder. "M'so... so sorry."

"Shh... Don't apologise..." Lee's voice sounded thick. Mari wondered if he was thinking about Mason. "It's okay. You're going to be okay."  Mari closed her eyes and saw Mason's face. There was blood dripping from his neck. Mari fell asleep like that. She wouldn't realise until the next morning that Lee had been crying, too.

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Mari was dreaming again.

As herself. That hadn't happened in a while. It was even one of her own memories. An old one, sure, one she barely remembered. But it was hers. Not Frankie's, or Mason's, or those dreams she used to have when she first got to camp half-blood. She wasn't sure if she even deserved to have her own dreams.

In this dream, Mari was five. She was hiding behind an old sofa. The fabric was so aged that the seams were coming apart in places to reveal the springs, but it was comfortable enough if you knew where to put the pillows. This was Mari's old foster home. It was raining at night, the droplets making a putter-patter on the glass. The room was dark but there was light coming from the cable tv in the corner, which was playing an old movie. If Mari remembered this night correctly, then it was autumn. This night was the first one she'd ever felt scared without the snakes.