Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 51

She could sink to the bottom and drown, let the river carry her body away. That would be easier. So much easier. She could just close her eyes....

Something grabbed her hand though as it pulled her up to the surface, but even though air filled her lungs again, despair still ate away at her.

"Cress?! Cressida! Grape Girl, can you hear me?" Percy's voice pleaded and it was a nice sound to hear before she died.

"I'm tired," she murmured. "It's ok. You can let me go."

"Cress, you can't quit on me. I had plans, dammit! I wanted you to move in. To be there every day when I got home. You could get a GED. And then college in New Rome. You can show those Romans what Dionysus is really like. You have to get up so you can make fun of me when I pass out trying to ask your father permission to marry you."

"Percy?" she whispered, not daring to believe it. "Are you real?"

"I'm real. As real as my mom's blue cookies."

It was like a fire ignited in her as her eyes opened wider and she shot up. She realised that Percy was actually there - he wasn't her imagination after all. And he was creating a whirlpool to buoy them up.

"You Barnacle Brain! What the hell are you doing here?" she shouted, her voice raw and broken.

"Can you yell at me when we're not swimming in literal misery?" he wheezed before she realised how pale he was, and that the river was getting to him. Though she couldn't make out their surroundings, she knew this was a river. Rivers had shores.

"Land," she croaked. "Go sideways."

Percy looked near dead with exhaustion. Usually, water reinvigorated him, but not this water. Controlling it must have taken every bit of his strength. The whirlpool began to dissipate. Cressida reached for him, hooking an arm around his waist as she fought the current, the river fighting her.

But she fought back. She fought back with the single thought that the beautifully stupid man she loved had jumped into the literal bowels of hell for her. That was all the hope she needed against the thousands of voices whispering in her head and telling her it was hopeless.

Life is despair, they said. Everything is pointless, and then you die.

"Pointless," Percy murmured. His teeth chattered from the cold. He stopped swimming and began to sink. "Nothing but misery."

"No, it's not!" she shrieked.

Percy had saved her from drowning time and time again, now it was her turn. She wasn't going to lose him. He jumped into Tartarus for her and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that was going to take him away from her.

She hugged Percy to her tighter as she brought her lips to his, remembering what he always said about her kisses being magical. "The first time I kissed you, what did you think?"

"Nothing..."

"What do you mean nothing?"

"You melted my brain," he said, the memory starting to clear the fog from his eyes. "I was so stunned, I couldn't move. Artemis had to move me."

Cressida started making progress against the current, but her limbs were like lead, growing stiffer and more painful with each movement but at least Percy was helping her now... She could see the dark line of the shore about a stone's throw away.

"And - and when you met me for the first time, what did you think then?" she asked.

"Your eyes..." he panted. "They were the first thing I noticed. They were the only other thing I remembered when Hera took my memories. They were the first thing I fell in love with."