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Thunder rolled in with the storm sometime after midnight. It jolted Odysseus awake, gasping out loud, and Penelope woke with the sudden shift of his body under the covers, murmuring soothing things as her brain shuddered out of sleep.
It wasn’t the first storm they’d endured since he had returned home, and she knew that he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep now that it had started. He was better than he had been those first times, when he had cried incoherently for hours, unable to say a word to explain his anguish to a frightened Penelope. In recent storms, they had simply sat up together, keeping their minds off the sky and the gods above and reminding one another that they were here, and they were alright.
However, Penelope was expecting to find another body in the bed tonight, and frowned when she found Athena’s side cold and untouched.
“It’s alright, it’s alright,” she told Odysseus, stroking hair back from his forehead. When his panicked breathing evened, his hand grasping her fingers in gratitude, she asked, “Did you hear Athena come to bed?”
At this, he sat up, leaning over Penelope to see the empty space she had already noticed. Even in the dark, she knew how his dark brows furrowed.
“No,” he said. “You wake more easily than I do. I thought you’d hear her.”
Penelope had gone to bed early that night, tired for reasons she could not explain. She had also assumed the day’s rain would continue, and knew that if it brought thunder she would be up with her husband until it ceased. But no – she had half woken when Odysseus came to bed, shifting to pull him into her arms, and had been asleep since then on. Athena had not come to join them.
“Did you see her before you came to bed?” she asked. Perhaps she had just returned to Olympus – she hadn’t been back since they’d first let her into their bed, she knew, but maybe something urgent had come calling.
Lightning flashed outside, illuminating the concern growing on Odysseus’s face. “Yes. I – she was weaving this evening, I think, or perhaps it was last that I saw her reading?”
The answers were innocuous enough, but dread settled cold and curdled in the pit of Penelope’s stomach. She had weathered these storms with Odysseus before, but that had been before Athena. She had not yet been afforded the opportunity to hold the goddess through the roaring of the skies.
“I – I don’t think she should be alone,” she managed, “I don’t know what – are you okay for me to –“
“I’m coming with you,” Odysseus assured her, giving her hand a squeeze. “She is as much my wife as she is yours. Let me fetch a candle.”
The air was cold out of bed, and Penelope grabbed a light blanket, one that she had woven recently that had not seen any use yet. Odysseus managed to light a candle, cupping his hand around it as they ventured out of the room lest any stray winds blow through and plunge them into darkness.
The palace was large, and Athena was not in any of the usual places. Again, Penelope wondered if she had decided to escape the storm by returning to her own realm, but something cold and solid in her chest urged her to keep searching. Something told her that her wife was alone and she really ought to be wrapped up in her arms.
Odysseus flinched when thunder cracked around the sky, seeming to shake the very ground the palace was built upon. The lightning preceding it was hardly visible in this hallway, too far from the outer windows, and Penelope had a realisation. She tugged on Odysseus’s elbow, leading him further down the hallway.
The next time they heard the thunder, the only light around came from the candle in Odysseus’s hand, too far from the nearest windows. Matching Odysseus’s sudden tensing at the sound, they heard another sound out of the darkness – a gasp, maybe, or a sob. As they moved forward, the candlelight illuminated a crumpled figure right in the centre of the hallway, collapsed against the wall and trembling, and Penelope let go of Odysseus’s arm to fall to her knees besides her.
“Oh, my darling,” she whispered, careful not to startle her. Athena’s wings were out and her helmet was off, making her look vulnerable and out of control as Penelope stroked a hand along her feathers, along the sweat-matted hair on her forehead. Her eyes glowed bright as she looked up to meet her, frightened and ashamed. “Love, what are you doing out here?”
Athena sobbed and shook, and Penelope rubbed her thumb along her cheekbone, shushing her gently. She was vaguely aware of Odysseus crouching down at her other side, still holding the candle.
“Silly weaver,” he murmured fondly. “Don’t you know you can come hide under the covers with us?”
Athena choked on a noise, letting Penelope wipe tears from her cheeks and leaving her whole face shiny and wet. “I – I didn’t want to –“
“You could never disturb us, sweetheart,” Penelope whispered. Athena shivered and she shifted back on her heels to unfold the blanket she’d brought, draping it carefully over her wings and around her shoulders. “You’re our wife. We’re here to take care of you.”
“We never sleep when the thunder comes,” Odysseus assured her. “You wouldn’t have woken us. But instead, you made us get up from our cosy bed and trek all over the palace looking for you.”
Athena curled into the blanket as Penelope stroked her hair, still murmuring comforting things.
“You are silly to think we would rather sleep without you than lie awake with you,” she told her softly. “How much you still have to learn about love, my darling.”
She held Athena close as she doubled over against her shoulder, still trembling through tears, and planted kisses into her hair. She felt Odysseus move in closer on her other side, placing the candle on the floor to wrap his arms around her as well. Thunder bounced across the sky again, and Athena wailed as the two of them held her.
“He won’t hurt you again,” Odysseus murmured into her hair. His voice was dark, the same it was when he reassured Penelope that the suitors were no longer around to lay a hand on her. “We won’t let him.”
Athena sobbed again. “I can’t – it just keeps –“
“Shh. Save your breath, sweetheart.” Penelope continued stroking her hair, letting her fingers trail down to reach the feathers of her wings as well. Athena shook like a leaf, but quieted in their arms. “Just breathe for us. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you here.”
For a while they stayed there, splayed out on the cold floor while Athena sniffled her way to match Penelope’s breathing. Odysseus grew sore first, making a quiet grunt as he shifted his knees on the floor.
Penelope stroked Athena’s hair again. “What do you say to coming to bed with us, goddess?”
Athena hesitated a minute, then nodded mutely into her shoulder. Penelope kissed her scalp again before shifting, rising to her feet and offering a hand to each of her husbands. Odysseus kissed her cheek as he rose, then Athena’s, careful not to burn either of them with the candle. Athena remained curled into Penelope’s side as she stood, hunching her frame until Penelope could have kissed her face without standing on tiptoes.
“Easy does it, darling,” she whispered, arm around her waist. “We’ve got you.”
The three of them clung together as they made their way back through the palace, shuffling footsteps on cold winter floors. Penelope didn’t know how to kill the guilt in either of them – how to make them understand that twenty years of falling apart in the darkness and silence on her own was infinitely worse than wiping away their tears would ever be. How she had, in fact, longed for it every day – knowing intimately the weight of the burdens both of them were carrying, so far away from her, and wishing desperately they were here so that she could help them carry it. And now here they were, at her side, guilty, not letting her. It drove her mad.
Lightning flashed as they entered the bedroom, and Athena stumbled, half collapsing. Penelope held her up, shushing her as she moved to hold her with both arms, careful not to let her hit the floor. She was trembling, head bowed as the thunder echoed.
“It’s getting further away,” Penelope murmured, helping her back to her feet. She held her close, kept her mouth just over her ear as she spoke. “It can’t touch us, love. It’s on its way out.”
They trembled their way into the bed, all shuddering limbs and whispered comforts, and Athena curled up into Odysseus’s chest while Penelope arranged the blankets over the three of them. She was glad for this; as much as she wanted to take care of their goddess, Odysseus still needed to be held, too. This way she could wrap around both of them.
Odysseus was murmuring something that it took Penelope a moment to recognise as a hymn, and when she managed to parse where he was up to she quietly joined in. Athena’s breaths came in sniffs and sobs, slowly evening out only to be redisturbed by another round of thunder and lightning. Odysseus and Penelope gently sang her back down every time, until her sobbing had ebbed out, leaving her with sharp flinches and heavy breathing like she was merely pissed off with her body’s reaction.
“How – how long does it last?” she croaked out eventually.
“A couple of hours,” Penelope told her softly, quickly followed with, “sometimes less. You can tell from the time between light and sound that the storm is getting further away, though. It won’t be long now.”
Athena continued to tremble and press herself into Odysseus’s chest, though her leg moved back between Penelope’s in silent affection. Penelope kissed the back of her head, then on the side under her ear, then just above and in front. She rubbed her nose against the edge of her cheekbone affectionately.
“You’re cold,” she murmured. “Were you outside tonight?”
For a minute, Athena didn’t answer. A few weeks ago, maybe, that would have been the end of it – she’d pushed too far and now she was shutting down, shutting them out for the night. But tonight, she just took her time, counting breaths evenly before speaking.
“Yes.”
Odysseus pulled her closer, drawing Penelope in over her too as his hands ran soothing lines up her back. “Goddess…”
“I knew there was nothing to be afraid of,” she insisted stubbornly, even when she had to sniffle through the words, “not here. I thought I could just… make the fear go away. But it was like –“
She choked on another sob, trying to force the words out, and was strangled into silence by her own reaction to the memory. Odysseus and Penelope shushed her, resting their heads against hers.
“It was like I couldn’t think,” she managed to say. “I always think. It’s what I do. But every time I saw it strike, everything stopped, there was nothing, it was just screaming. I don’t even remember coming inside – I didn’t choose to. I was so afraid. I was so afraid that I couldn’t even see what was happening.”
Penelope pressed her face into Athena’s neck – soft skin, but so cold. She could feel Odysseus’s breaths on the top of her head, reached out to find his hand, squeeze it in encouragement. He knew this fear more intimately than she did. All she knew was how to love someone through it the best she could.
“That’s how you know you’re not in danger here, love,” he said eventually, as if this was something he told himself just as uncertainly. “I’ve seen your quick thinking save lives in a fraction of a second. If there was trouble, you would know how to escape. It’s only when there’s nothing to escape that your beautiful mind doesn’t know what to do.”
“I’ve never not known what to do before,” she mumbled into his collarbone.
Penelope brushed the hair from the nape of her neck, leaning over her to try and catch a glimpse of her face in the dim light. “Except for when we told you we loved you and wanted you to be our wife?”
She was satisfied to feel that stony cheek heat under her fingertips.
“That’s different,” Athena muttered.
Penelope leaned in and kissed her cheek, holding her face lovingly. “It’s okay not to know. Just come to us. We won’t have any answers, but we can hold you and love you through it and I promise, it will all be okay again.”
“He won’t hurt you here,” Odysseus promised her. “I know he won’t, because I know he saw the mess I made of his brother, and he’ll stay damn well away from you if he doesn’t want to taste that himself.”
“Must you fight every god in the pantheon?” Penelope asked wearily. “I only just got you back.”
“For my wives,” Odysseus declared. He turned his head to kiss Athena’s scalp. “For my wives, anything.”
Indeed, the storm continued to move further away, the lightning strikes becoming less frequent and less closely followed by the thunder. Athena’s breathing evened out, matching the calm breaths that Penelope demonstrated for the two of them, yet she knew all three of them remained awake. Sleep was hard to come by during a storm, but they would make it up tomorrow. A few more hours wrapped up in bed with her lovers was not so much a curse.
“I am – sorry,” Athena said suddenly, some hours later. “For prompting you to search for me.”
Penelope nuzzled into the back of her neck, feeling Odysseus move on her other side to kiss her forehead.
“We just want you here with us, darling,” she assured her, planting soft kisses along the top of her spine. “For the good nights and the bad.”
“You’re hardly the worst of us,” Odysseus added, and she tried to manoeuvre around Athena’s legs to kick him a little. Honestly, it was double wielding glass blades trying to keep them both from self-deprecation sometimes.
Athena held them both a little closer, holding Penelope’s arm to her chest with her head pressed against Odysseus’s shoulder.
“I love you,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse, likely from the crying, but also from the rarity with which she spoke those words. Penelope held them like the treasure that they were, leaning into her neck and feeling her eyes slide closed.
“We love you too,” Odysseus said, stroking her hair, his hand brushing Penelope’s as well on the way down. “Get some sleep, weaver.”
“We’ll all be here in the morning,” Penelope whispered. She said those words aloud almost every night, like a prayer or an invocation, and they had not failed her yet. Her lovers’ arms pulled her close, all of them leaning in on each other, as the rain outside finally calmed enough to lull them all slowly off to sleep.