[act six; chapter 1 - guide me in the dark]
Just as Hades had promised, Andromeda Storm appeared in the infirmary of Camp Half-Blood twelve hours later. Injuries and memories intact, she was covered in bruises and deep cuts and wounds that would take weeks, maybe months to heal. And some that never would.
The crew of the Argo II were all there waiting for her, waiting for the moment she came back to them. To their surprise, her return was not exactly as they thought. She had not just simply appeared or been brought back by one of Hades' people.
No, she had been brought back by Death himself.
Thanatos set her down carefully on one of the beds, his hand smoothing her hair back. She was covered in blood and dirt, mud and sweat, and her hair was hardly its natural colour. It was as if her body had been preserved. The god leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead and said, "To a long, fulfilled life, Aristos Achaion. When it is truly your time, you will be welcomed back to Elysium with the honour and pride of a god."
And then Death turned—turned and smiled at Adonis Storm, a strange look in his eye, as if he knew something he didn't, and walked away into a wall of shadow.
Together, Annabeth, Eden, Jason, Zara, Piper, Frank, Hazel, Donnie, and Percy waited, anxious for the moment that her amethyst eyes greeted them.
It would be hours later, just as the sun breached the sky, that her eyes did open. Her head fell to the side on her pillow and a smile graced her face. She looked between her friends—family—and muttered, "Why do you all look like you saw a ghost?"
Donnie couldn't help it. He burst out laughing. As wild laughter fell from his lips, he clutched his stomach, a snort falling from him. It surged fits of laughter from all of them, even little choked ones from Andromeda. She grinned at them all, and when their laughter died down a minute later, she whispered, "It's so quiet."
Jason smiled at her and clasped her hand. "Gaea's gone."
"That's not it." She shook her head and a sad, yet grateful smile crept forth. "I feel whole. For the first time."
As a repayment of all that she had done for the gods, Zeus had granted Dionysus the clearance to cleanse his daughter's mind of the division that was forced upon her during her childhood. All of the memories that she had, once belonging to two separate minds, were now stored within one whole, solid mind.
Andy and Dom were still a part of her, as they always were and always would be, but all of the conflict, all of the chaos that had been caused due to two minds being held in one body, was finally gone.
She was just...Andromeda.
But then she looked around again and part of her split, a piece of her heart. She blanched at the lack of a certain boisterous laugh and the missing head of curly hair. At that mischievous smile, little dimples in his cheeks, and a joke he would have, without doubt, cracked to lighten the mood.
She asked, "Where's Leo?" Looked around again, looked at her brother, and then at Jason. "Where is he? Is he okay?"
And when they all explained it, her heart seemed to shatter. Like a piece being dropped from a tall building.
But then Donnie grasped her hand in his and said, "But we have hope. That he's alive. Somewhere."
Andromeda nodded; she agreed. They had hope. As it turns out, that was all that she had needed.
—🌙—
Even against orders not to leave the Big House, Andromeda found herself sitting alone on Half-Blood Hill, a blanket—one that was blue and smelt like Percy—wrapped around her. It had taken her a total of fifteen minutes to get where she was currently, with lots of pain-filled steps and deep winces and cringes, but she had made it.
Her head was tipped towards the sky, her eyes shut, just simply taking in the world around her. The world that she had been given a second chance to experience. That was something no one got to have, well, barely anyone that is.
She didn't open her eyes or move when someone sat down beside her, and she didn't flinch when an arm draped itself across her shoulders.
She didn't have to look over to know that it was Jason, either. She can practically feel his eyes and hear his thoughts. She can practically feel the patter of his heart and the rumbling of his mind. She doesn't look over, not once...she just stares straight ahead.
But then she murmurs, "We did it. To whatever end."
Out of her peripheral vision she sees Jason shake his head, looking distraught. "I never—not like this. Never like this." He turns his head to her, right at her. "We were all supposed to make it."
"Well—"
He cuts her off sharply. "No. You died. Do you hear me, Andromeda? You died. We all watched your skin become pale and your eyes lose their light. Percy held you in his arms when your heart stopped. Your. Heart. Stopped."
Andromeda nods absentmindedly, picking at the skin around her nails. "Yeah. I'm aware."
"Are you?" Jason snaps. "Are you aware what effect that you dying, really dying and staying dead, would have on all of us? On all of the people who have been influenced by you, by the lives that you've changed?"
Andromeda launches to her feet, wincing as her entire body screams at her in pain. She mutters, tight lipped, "Fuck." She braces a hand on her stomach, over the wound where her own sword had pierced her straight through. "Fuck. You know what? Fuck you, Jason. Fuck you and fuck the gods and the Fates and godsdamned Gaea! Fuck you all to Hell!" She screams at the world, her voice full of fury, rage, and endless, eternal pain. She was so...so angry at the world, angry at the cards that she had been dealt, the ones that she knew she didn't deserve. She glares at Jason. "You think I don't know that it would hurt people? You think I don't understand it? I do! I fucking do! Day in and day out I remember the fucking grief of losing my brothers, my mother, my friends, my...myself! I miss who I used to be..."
Her voice broke off. She dug her hands into her hair as her chest rose and fell, laboured as ever as it worked to supply her lungs with the air they needed.
"I want to just scream at them, scream at the top of my lungs, give me back my girlhood, it was mine first. I just...fuck. Fuck." She lowered her hands and looked at Jason. Finally looked. And she whispered, "They locked me in a tomb."
His expression shattered, and so did his heart. Shattered as he watched her break open the wounds that she had stitched closed herself, and watched as that always brave, soldier girl turned into a fragile, breaking piece of glass.
"Whenever she crawled into my mind, she locked me in a tomb and forced me to watch through a metal mask. I was locked in the dark, Jay, and I couldn't find a way out."
She could still remember it...the darkness that had enveloped her in the coldest embrace. She remembers hearing her own voice, Gaea's voice. The Giants, she could hear them, too. She could feel the goddess of the earth's claws against her mind, scraping, trying to find a way to the very centre. She remembers the chains that would wrap around her body, the gauntlets on her hands, and the mask over her face. How she had been forced into a kneel before Gaea in the chambers of her mind. How she had been forced to watch as her body was controlled and toyed with as if she were a puppet, as she was forced to raise a weapon against the people she loved.
She remembers feeling something rumble against the walls of her mind, like an army attempting to breach castle walls. Her head had snapped away from Gaea, looking towards the door, watching, waiting...
Dom had burst through, breathing heavily, eyes wide and feral with rage. And one look in Gaea's direction was all it took for the goddess to release her mind for the final time as the earth shook with a final release of madness.
Andy had stumbled to her feet, dragging her body and those chains that kept her bolted to the ground. She had stumbled into Dom, into her other half, and allowed herself to feel weak. With their foreheads dropped together, the two looked into their identical eyes.
Andy had whispered, "You found me."
"Always." Was Dom's reply. "But now we have to go, you need to wake up."
But she knew then that when her amethyst eyes opened, it would be only Andy...no Dom. She shook her head furiously. She mumbled, "No." Then she said it stronger. "No. I don't want to go back without you."
"You have to. It's time, Andy. You'll be okay."
But she had no say, not really. Not as their world went dark and all she could feel was blood on her face, a hole in her gut, a fractured mind, and a shattered heart.
—🌙—
Percy found her in the infirmary later that night. Found her perched on the end of her bed in one of his t-shirts and a pair of shorts, her hair clean and free of blood. She looked up when he walked in, a small smile on her face, though he knew it was forced to some extent. Her face was bruised in several places—her right eye, both sides of her jaw, her forehead, etc.—and her eyes were still bloodshot.
"Hi." She said, her voice nothing more than a croak. He hadn't asked her about the ring of bruises around her neck, either, but assumed it had something to do with her lack of voice.
He smiled. "Hey." He approached her, his hands immediately reaching for her face, pushing her hair back. When her lips tugged upward, the bloody cut on her bottom lip pulled. "Can't sleep?"
She shook her head. "No. It's too sterile here. It feels...cold, you know?"
He nodded. Just by looking around, he could tell why. There were so many other people asleep in beds, many of those still healing from the battle and some even fighting for their lives. Just like her. Even though it was still a homey place, the infirmary, it held the reminder of why they were all there, something that, without a doubt, Andromeda was trying to escape.
"How about we go back to my cabin, hm?"
She set her forehead against his chest and mumbled, "Sure. We should leave a note though, so when Will comes he doesn't have a heart attack."
Percy let out a quiet laugh and wrote out a note, setting it on the bed that she had been occupying. With careful, gentle moments, he helped her stand, his hands on her hips. Her hands rested on his shoulders as he slipped on her sandals that she had been wearing since she got back.
When he stood up, he looked right at her, right at those amethyst eyes and those freckles and those wispy, stray curls that always fell over her eyes. He leaned in and whispered, "Gods. I can't believe you're here. You're real."
She laughed lightly. "Yeah, I am. I'm real, Perc."
"Good," he murmured, nippy playfully at her nose before pressing a kiss to it. "I need my Glowstick or else I think I'd lose my way in the dark."
As he helped guide her out of the Big House, she let out another laugh, wincing when she grumbled, "So cheesy."
"Yeah, but you love me too much to care."
She leaned her head against his shoulder. "Eh. You're okay."
They teased and bickered their whole way to his cabin, not caring about anything else around them. Chiron had put a pause on all curfews for the time being, so there was no need to worry about harpies. But Percy wasn't stupid—he could feel eyes on them, most likely because, like them, their friends and other people at Camp simply couldn't sleep.
When they finally reached Cabin 3, Percy pulled one of his hoodies over her head, tucking her hair behind her ears, the hood over her head. She grinned up at him, just like she had months ago, as she always did. And then they were crawling into his bed, allowing the quietness of it all to surround them.
But there was something there, something in between them. Percy was afraid to touch her, afraid to scare her or hurt her. He didn't want to worry her or make her think that he believed she was fragile, because Andromeda Storm was anything but fragile. But the truth was, her body was. It was fragile and healing and stitching itself slowly together, which complicated things.
But Percy's arms had felt so empty without her, so heavy. He said into the dark, "Can I—can I hold you?"
"Yes," her response was immediate. "Yes, please."
And carefully, oh so carefully, he slid his arms around her body. One reached under her neck, curving over the top of her chest, while the other gently, carefully settled against her stomach, on top of the bandages he knew were there. He heard her let out a deep sigh, one of satisfaction, and smiled, pressing a kiss to the back of her head.
It was okay. Everything was okay, everything was better now that she was in his arms.
Hehe. . .this is so exciting!
The first little ✨bonus chapter✨ and even though it's short, I really liked it. Andy and Percy are my favorite cheesy couple.
Anywho, I hope you enjoyed this little baby of a chapter. BYE!