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The sunset was beautiful.
Calypso had never really noticed it, before. Before him.
Her life could very neatly be divided into Befores.
Before Prometheus created humans. Before Zeus caused Kronos to regurgitate his siblings. Before she decided to side with the Titans, for her father.
Before the island.
Before Odysseus, before Drake.
Before Percy Jackson.
It could not be done so in Afters.
She doubted, especially, that there would ever be an After Percy Jackson.
How long had it been for him, out there? A year? Five? Ten?
Calypso had long since learned not to track time on Ogygia, that it was incomprehensible, and yet, she couldn’t help but try to count the days immediately after he had left on the raft. A futile attempt to be with him in some way.
She’d lost count after one thousand six hundred and forty-nine.
She drew her knees up to her chest, and watched as her sister emerged and illuminated the night sky, bow in hand as always. She never felt lonelier than she did at this time.
Sometimes, she even wished the gods would send her someone else. Another hero.
And then she felt terrible for it.
Even more so because she genuinely wasn’t sure she could fall in love again. Not in tolerance – she’d thought more than once that her heart wouldn’t allow itself to be taken again, that she wouldn’t survive it and had been proven wrong.
But this time was different. She’d fallen in love for the last time.
She sent a whisper of a prayer up at the sky – the same one Percy would be seeing, wherever he was.
If he was still alive. From what she’d gathered, demigods didn’t typically have long lives in the modern world, even disregarding the fact that a thousand years could’ve passed in the mortal world and she wouldn’t know, sequestered away as she was.
Then she stood up and headed back to her cave. She had a busy day coming up.
She tried to keep her days like that, and herself occupied. It was the only way she could stand the misery.
Percy was staring at the horizon when he felt the hand on his shoulder and jerked back defensively. It was hard to be a nineteen-year-old demigod without having a healthy sense of situational awareness.
But there were always two people who could get past it.
Well. Three, once upon a time.
Annabeth frowned at him. “You need to get back before your charges decide to have another go at destroying Camp via silk and honey.”
Percy smirked up at his best friend lazily and leaned in confidingly. “You’re just mad they beat your kids last time.”
She rolled her eyes, “Duh Seaweed Brain, their pranks were definitely not a reflection of the Goddess of Strategical Warfare.”
He clicked his tongue. “They hurt your big bad pride by losing.”
“Speaking of our feelings,” Annabeth raised an eyebrow at him. “Stop mooning over an imprisoned Titaness.”
“I’m not mooning,” he muttered under his breath, turning away. He felt more than heard her sigh as she dropped next to him, dangling her feet over the water. “Says the one in a two-year-long relationship anyway.”
“Our anniversary is three and a half months out,” Annabeth said primly. Then she sighed. “You’ll find her, Percy. I promise.”
He tipped his head to the sky. “Why d’you think?”
“I’ve seen you do more impossible things than find the woman you’re in love with,” she smiled. “Even if she’s imprisoned by the gods. You’ve been looking for her for years.”
He laughed, but it felt hollow. “I miss her,” he whispered. “But – we only knew each other for a couple months. On an isolated island.”
Annabeth considered him. “You’re worried that you’ve built up something in your head that isn’t real.”
“Yeah, because how can anyone be as amazing as the Calypso in my head?” Percy smirked wryly.
“You’ll try, first,” she took his wrist gently. “Even if it doesn’t work out, even if you don’t have romantic feelings for one another, you can’t leave her trapped on Ogygia, can you?”
He tipped his head back, sighing. “I can’t.”
“So, we’ll figure it out. We’ll find her, get her out of there. Not like we’ve been very good at listening to the gods and the rules of the universe anyway.”
“Annabeth Chase, inciting rebellion. Who would’ve thought,” Percy grinned.
She nudged him playfully. “All your fault. You’re a bad influence.”
“What can I say? The sea does not like to be restrained.” He traced the path of a shooting star promised himself that one day he and Calypso would see one of those together. Someday.
“You can’t use that as an excuse for everything.” Annabeth scoffed.
“I can for this.” He exhaled, determined. “Wanna take another trip to the Sea of Monsters?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
It was an ordinary day, in the end.
The ordinary day that turned into the most extraordinary day, when the Sun in the sky was blotted out by a shadow.
For a moment she thought maybe the war Percy had told her about was ending the world. Or one of the gods was pulling a prank on another – from the stories Hermes had told her, that was definitely plausible. And Apollo tended to be good-natured these days, but she remembered the scornful, wrath filled god of the past from the rare times he’d visited her.
Then the voice she had been longing to hear for years called out tentatively. “Calypso?”
If Calypso were a mortal, she was certain her heart would have stopped at that moment. Her mouth opened and closed, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Percy?” She raised a hand to her mouth. It was trembling, which wasn’t surprising.
Percy smiled, and oh, it was exactly the same as it had been when he had first crash-landed on her beach. The shy, tentative trouble-maker’s smile.
A lot of other things had changed: he’d grown into himself. He was taller, had a sharper jawline, and longer hair that curled just above his broader than before shoulders.
But the smile was the same, and it was that that broke her out of her reverie enough to launch herself at him.
His arms came around her waist and her neck, and he made a brief choked noise.
Calypso tried to open her mouth, to ask questions, but she couldn’t. She only barely choked back her sob, pulling away and putting a hand on his cheek.
“How?” She managed to whisper finally.
He laughed, resting his forehead against hers. “A few quests. More pandering. Even more reminding them I’ve saved all their asses at least once. Lots of sailing aimlessly through the Sea of Monsters. But yeah, eventually I managed to convince them to let you out.” He swallowed. “If you want to?”
Calypso was silent for a long moment. Ogygia was all she had known for a very, very long time. As much as she had wanted to be freed from her curse and go out into the real world, the prospect was as terrifying as it was thrilling.
But this was Percy asking her. He wanted her with him. He would be by her side as she explored and adjusted.
She wanted to be with him, no matter what.
“Of course I want to,” she replied softly.
His eyes lit up. “Come on,” he stepped back and held out his hand. “I can introduce you to Annabeth. And then we can leave.”
She took his hand, and stepped forward.
Percy watched as Calypso inhaled deeply, spinning around as she took in the scenery.
It had been only two days since they’d gotten back from Ogygia, and Percy could admit that Annabeth had been right: he couldn’t know until he’d tried. And now that had, he was only falling more in love with Calypso.
As happy as she was to be out, he could tell she was missing her island and was absolutely overwhelmed by the sheer strangeness of the modern world. He’d told her when they’d first met years ago that gardens and forests had been converted into gridlocks and skyscrapers, but she clearly hadn’t understood fully what that meant because she had been incredibly scared when they’d driven into Manhattan to his apartment.
So he had decided to take her on a picnic to one of the few places where nature still prospered – Grover’s personal garden as Lord of the Wild.
“This is beautiful!” Calypso laughed with delight. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
“I thought you’d like it,” he smiled. “I’ll get the basket.”
But Calypso came over to help, taking the blanket and bottles from him while he carried the food. “Wine,” she said thoughtfully. “When you were on my island you weren’t old enough to drink it.”
Percy laughed, a little bitterly. “I’m still not, actually. But it’s been a long three years, and well. None of us really cares about breaking a few laws, especially ones about drinking age.”
“Tell me about them?” She requested as they sat down.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” he said dryly, looking at the trees in the distance. He felt a gentle hand turn his jaw and trace a thumb over his cheekbone.
“Yes, I do.” She said firmly. “If you’re fine with telling me – if you want to tell me – I want to know.”
He sighed. His face tingled where she was touching it. He explained the prophecy, how it had come to fruition on his eighteenth birthday, only a year after he’d left Ogygia. How he and his friends had saved the world. And then how barely a few months later the primordials Gaia and Tartarus had taken advantage of the instability post the Titanomachy and launched their own take-over-the-world mission.
He kept a lot of the horror and misery of it to himself, merely telling her the facts. And yet, his voice broke in the middle, and his throat closed up, unable to produce any more words.
Calypso was so close she was almost in his lap. “My hero,” she said tenderly, and kissed his cheek. He turned to her, running a hand lightly through her hair, which made her shiver. “You have suffered.”
“Yeah,” he said heavily. “But I had my friends through it all. And now I have you. If you want to be here, obviously. You can explore the world, if you like. Or – my friend is the lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis, she’d let you—”
She put a finger to his lips, and he shut up immediately, savouring the feel of it. She blushed, but didn’t remove it. “I want to be with you.”
She couldn’t make it more obvious if she tried.
“Calypso,” he leaned his forehead into hers. “Just because I was the one who got you out of there doesn’t mean you need to feel obligated or—”
“Percy,” she said exasperatedly. “I have been in love with you since you first woke up on Ogygia. I assure you, it is not obligation that makes me want to stay by your side forever.”
His breath hitched, and he stared at her. She looked uncertain. “Percy--?”
He dragged her fully into his lap and kissed her, the way he’d been wanting to since he’d seen her on the island with tears in her eyes, dropping the box of bird-food she’d been carrying. The way he’d longed for since he was seventeen and had first met her.
Calypso didn’t seem to mind either, was kissing him back just as intently, if clumsily. She followed when he pulled back, sighing contently, but he regretfully stopped her.
He needed to say this. “I love you too,” he said, swiping his thumb against and in her parted lips. “By Olympus, you have no idea how much.”
She blushed a beautiful golden, and he moved his hand to touch it, gleeful that he was now permitted to. “I suppose I should know that,” she said, voice shaky. “You did spend a year looking for me.”
“Of course I did,” he said at once. “There was no choice.”
She looked at if as though she were in awe of him. “Even when the gods had decreed that no man could ever find me a second time, you did.”
He rolled them over the blanket and onto the grass, landing on top of her and kissing her again, drinking her in. “What can I say? I could hardly be without the woman I love, whatever the gods’ opinions.”
“Most people would hesitate at the disapproval of some of the most powerful beings in the universe,” she giggled as he undid the intricately done braid and let her long caramel hair fall down her shoulders.
“Not me,” he said with a cockiness that was not genuine, but still fun. “After all, the sea does not like to be restrained.”
And then they kissed again, under the sunlight streaming in through gaps between leaves, under the same sky they had stared at hoping the other would know they were thinking about them, the same sky which would shine bright with stars in a few hours that they would at last, finally, be able to watch together.