Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 84

An hour later the three of them stood on a hill overlooking the ruins of Ancient Sparta. And Cressida's separation anxiety was eased a little when Annabeth insisted on checking the archaeology museum. She loved how excited Annabeth got and it was really pretty inside. The excitement died a little though when Annabeth then insisted that they should see the giant metal statue of the Spartan warrior in the public square and then the National Museum of Olives and Olive Oil.

Both Annabeth and Cressida seemed reluctant to check the ruins on the edge of town, but finally, they ran out of other places to look. There wasn't much to see. According to Annabeth, the hill they stood on had once been Sparta's acropolis – its highest point and main fortress – but it was nothing like the massive Athenian acropolis Piper had seen in her dreams.

Piper wiped the sweat from her face. "You'd think if there was a thirty-foot-tall giant around we'd see him."

Cressida was playing with her charm bracelet when Annabeth said, "You're thinking about Percy."

She bit her lips as she nodded.

If Cressida had it her way, she'd love nothing more than to never talk about Tartarus again. But Annabeth knew her best friend and she knew that she needed to talk about it to someone who wasn't Percy.

So, she and Piper had hijacked her one night after dinner and asked her to spill. And she spilled.

It ended with a lot of tears. No matter how hard she tried though, she couldn't bring up Bob and Damasen or even her brother. But she did tell them about some of the things down there that terrified her. At the top of her list: Percy controlling a tide of poison and suffocating the goddess Akhlys.

Annabeth, however, had gotten the information about Damasen and Bob and Castor from Percy himself. He also needed someone to talk to.

"He seems to be adjusting," Piper said. "He's smiling more often. You know he cares about you more than ever."

Cressida sat down, her breathing getting faster as she squeezed some of the charms on her bracelet. "I just...I've been so attached to him because I never want to see him like that again. The way he looked at the edge of Chaos...I -"

"Hey," Annabeth said as she sat next to her and Piper on her other side. "You have to give him time. And you know how completely crazy Percy is for you. He knows that what he did hurt you and you know that he would never hurt you intentionally."

"Yeah," Piper agreed. "You've been through so much together."

Cressida's eyes were sparkling like crystals as tears lined them. "I know, but...I was warned that there would be more sacrifices and I can't lose anymore," she cried. "When we were in Tartarus, Percy kept talking about the future and a normal life and I want that because I can't keep doing this anymore. But I had hope for that last summer after Kronos and after I lost my brother, and then Percy disappeared for months and we fell into..."

Both Annabeth and Piper hugged her as she cried.

"I've never felt so helpless. In front of Nyx, in front of Tartarus...and I can't stop thinking about it."

Piper remembered how kind Cressida had been in those six months before they went to Camp Jupiter, despite how much Percy's disappearance worried her. She thought about how much Cressida had been through. The glossed-over story that Annabeth told her about Cressida's life before camp, about everything she lost during the Titan war and now everything she'd been through.

Piper didn't know how she'd kept going. Cressida Lynn was the strongest person Piper had ever had the pleasure of meeting.

"Cress," Annabeth said. "Don't bottle how you feel up again. You know it doesn't end well."