that summer |percabeth au| ✔︎

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - The Past

When I finally broke through, everything was calm. Everything was clear. I'd journeyed to the witch's watery realm beneath Thor's Well, but here above the water it seemed that only a moment had passed. The moon cut the same silver-white path across the Pacific, the Queen of Cups floating gently beside it. Just as it was when I'd gone under.

My mouth was whole, unbloodied.

Deeply I drank in the cool night air, but though I'd risen out of the water, I still couldn't fully breathe. Something was pressing against my lungs, squeezing. Restricting.

I felt my body, pressed my hands against my chest.

The dress.

The dress that once held the memories of the best day of my life, the promise of an entire future. Now it was only the past.

I slipped the straps from my shoulders, slid my arms out.

I hesitated only a moment, heard Amatheia's words again.

You are ready.

Sometimes life's most important moments are quiet, a decision made quick and calm. Still bathed in the sea, I slipped the dress from my torso. There was no struggle, no herculean, adrenaline-fueled tearing of fabric and lace. Just a simple shiver, a loosening, one last shimmy.

I slipped the dress.

Set myself free.

Naked, I pulled myself up the safety ladder with exhausted but triumphant limbs, floating in a state of suspended wonder. The instant my feet touched the deck, Percy emerged from the companionway, wrapped in a blanket, his eyes glossy in their half sleep. When he noticed me, they narrowed, then widened.

"Annabeth?" It was a whisper first, laced with grogginess. I waited for the fog to lift, for it was still clouding my memories too, and when it finally passed he burst through the companionway, launching himself at me, at my wet nakedness. "What are you doing? What happened? What—"

I pressed a finger to his lips, smiled to let him know I was okay.

"Okay, okay...you're okay."

He was stammering, shaking his head as if it really might've been a dream. His arms closed around me, pressing our bodies together beneath the blanket "You're freezing. God, Annabeth. I woke up and you weren't here, and...Come inside."

I turned my head then, glanced at a point in the water just beyond the stern where a slip of blue silk twisted and floated in the gentle waves. Beneath the glitter moon, it lingered only a moment longer before the sea, finally claiming the life it'd been promised all those months ago, dissolved it into foam.

The most beautiful dress in the world—all that I was and all that I could've been—was gone, the old life shed to make way for the new.

I followed Percy into the saloon, where he wrapped me up alone in the blanket, clicked on the lantern, and quickly tugged on a pair of sweatpants. He sat me on one of the benches, frantically ­rubbing heat into my arms and legs. Once I stopped shivering, he leaned me over the small sink to wring out my hair, then gently wrapped my head in a towel.

"Were you sleepwalking?" he whispered. I shook my head. "Did you fall in? What happened?"

I shrugged. Don't remember.

He narrowed his eyes, waiting for me to explain, but that was the truth. One minute I'd been counting stars, my heart heavy with the weight of our loss, of all we still had to lose.

And then I was underwater.

Weightless.

I shivered again, the whole thing fading before my eyes like a dream not quite remembered. If not for the water pooled at my feet and the chill in my bones, I might have been able to convince us both it really had been a dream.

It didn't matter.

Despite the worry in Percy's eyes and the tremble in my limbs, I was practically giddy, light with life. He didn't return my smile, though; he was still frantic, concern giving him speed and purpose. He was on his knees before I could stop him, rubbing my feet between his strong, determined hands.

"I need to get you warm," he said. "Fast."

I watched in silence as he boiled water on the hot plate, poured most of it into the bilge bucket with some fresh water from the tap. With the rest of the hot stuff, he made a mug of tea, then placed the steaming bucket on the floor and instructed me to put my feet inside. The feeling was utter heaven.

"So this was your Lieutenant Dan moment, Stowaway?" He lifted an eyebrow in question, and I realized then that I'd waited a beat too long, expecting to hear Katie's whisper at my neck. It's from a show, she'd say. Or maybe a movie or a song, some bit of American pop culture I'd clearly missed. I smiled now, thinking of her.

"Ah. You never saw Forrest Gump," Percy said sheepishly. "Remind me to show you next time you come over."

Anticipation rose in my limbs, grateful that there would even be a next time.

"Come to terms with the sea?" he asked. His voice was lower now, but insistent. Concerned.

My fingers trailed up my sternum, found the familiar star on my throat—that pale marker that had, up to now, divided my life into its befores and afters. With Percy's eyes full of worry, watching my every move, I mouthed the words I'd never before been able to find.

I'm never going to speak or sing again.

It hurt, saying it like that, but not as much as I'd expected. Feared.

I wanted to tell Rachel. To say it, as best I could, across the distance.

But there would be time for that later.

Percy's smile softened. He handed me the tea, now steeped. "Drink this. Small sips, okay?"

I wrapped my hands around the offered mug, closing my eyes as the steam enveloped me. Unbidden, unexpected tears slipped from behind my lids, warm and salty, streaming into my mouth. I'd nearly forgotten the taste of them, the feel of their soft tracks on my cheeks.

The ocean.

Tears.

Illumination.

With my eyes still shut, I found Percy's face with my free hand, pulled him close. With the strongest breath I could call forth, I said it.

"I love you."

The words flowed in a whisper without expectation, and for the first time in my life they didn't make me feel as though I was giving something up, giving away some irretrievable piece of me. Instead, my heart expanded, embers burning, and when he lifted the top edge of the blanket and pressed his lips to my bare shoulder, my heart expanded further still, and I knew, this time, it was real.

Percy was the first boy to know me after the accident, the first person I allowed to get close. His feelings weren't connected with old memories of the girl I used to be, and the pity that inevitably followed whenever someone realized I couldn't be that girl anymore. When he looked at me, I didn't see sadness reflected in his eyes, sympathy and sorrow.

I saw a boy who wanted to know my soul.

A boy who believed I still had one.

Beautiful soul...

Percy's eyes never left mine. In a ragged, barely restrained voice, he said, "You're beautiful."

I could hear it in his voice; the hope that we could save each other. Save the houses. Save the Cove.

I held my hand before him, opened my fingers to reveal the message I'd written on my palm as he slept.

We're not giving up, Captain.