━━ chapter twenty
muddy waters

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    ━━Fiona felt like her stomach had dropped down into the marsh with him.

    "Your bow!" she shouted to Frank, heart racing. He didn't ask questions, dropping his pack and slipping the bow off his shoulder. Fiona didn't realise what it was until Hazel had shouted━muskeg: marshy silt and decomposed plants that made a surface look completely solid, but was far worse than quicksand. She had read about them once, and Hazel had experienced them back when she lived here. Some could be twenty feet deep or more, and impossible to escape. She tried not to think what would happen if Percy had sunk lower than the length of the bow. "Hold on to the end!" she ordered Frank and Hazel. "Both of you━and don't let go!"

    She grabbed the other end, took a deep breath and before she could think that this might be a stupid idea, Fiona jumped straight into the bog. The earth closed over her head.

    (As the earth pushed around her like mousse, Fiona couldn't help but think, of course, Percy would fall into muskeg. Out of all of them, it would be him, wouldn't it?).

    But before she could sink further to find Percy, her vision clouded, and a voice whispered like cold wind through her ears.

    Fiona immediately knew who it was as the scene of the fountain near her home in New Rome materialised around her. Get out of my head, she growled to Gaea.

    Oh, but my dear, purred Gaea. I'm giving you a gift, you'll want to see it.

    I don't want any gift from you.

    Gaea chuckled, but said no more as the scene surrounded Fiona. She was sitting on the ground near the fountain, watching as a bunch of other kids played inside, spashing at each other, and laughing. Fiona remembered this day, she was by herself, too afraid to go into the water. She was five, and her mother had gone out to get them icecream, a very nice gesture of her considering her personality. She was a lovely person, but did take after her mother quite a lot. Fiona hoped she didn't see her as a disappointment like Victoria did.

    This was your favourite place, wasn't it? said Gaea. But you were always afraid to go into the water. Why?

    I'm not here for a therapy session, let me save my friend!

    Was it because of them? Fiona's vision seemed to just tunnel straight to the group of girls that played in the fountain, the same ones that threatened to hurt her back at the swing. Is this where your fear began? Why your grandmother calls you a coward? Because you could never beat a group of girls who bullied you?

    She was right, and Fiona hated it. Her breath hitched in the memory, and she remembered her little self when she saw those girls immediately try to get away, but they had seen her━ "Hey! Weird Filly! Go away! No one wants you here to play━you're weird!"

    They were such young girl insults, but they had hurt. They had hurt very bad for little Fiona. But she had the same temper that she had now, and immediately, she snapped back a weak, "No, I'm not!"

    They kicked water at Fiona and she held her arms up, whimpering as her whole outfit became drenched. Gaea sighed, as if in sympathy. My children were bullied by their father, some were thrown into Tartarus, others shamed, and so I had my favourite chop their father up into little pieces. I want to help you, Fiona. Your life will end once this quest is finished, don't you want to go home afterwards? Go home, and never have to face those girls again? You will be victorious in your camp; a praetor━respected, looked up to, above everyone else in rank, even that pesky girl Reyna.

    Fiona hated how that tempted her. She hated it so much. But it was her fatal flaw, ambition. She hesitated, wondering what it would be like to finally be recognised, and valued and respected instead of thrown aside. But then she stopped herself, realising that this wasn't true. If Gaea won, her camp would be destroyed. She would have no home. And Percy. She had to help Percy.

    Leave me alone! she shouted at Gaea. Go away!

    You were only brought back to life because your father had a task for you. But I have a much better task. I can save you and Percy Jackson, here, in the earth, preserve you until the future. You will be safe. He will be safe.

    No, Fiona desperately tried to get out of this place. Go away. You're just going to use me, too!

    I might use you, but the other gods hold you as nothing, as I hold you very high, Fiona Midgrass. Even Nico di Angelo doesn't see you as much. You should be glad I captured him.

    Captured? Fiona's chest began to rise with panic. She found it hard to breathe. What do you mean, captured?!

    She wondered whether she was just imagining it, but Fiona thought she saw a face smiling at her up from the brick pavenement beneath her. The boy should have known better than to search for the Doors. But no matter━it's not really your concern. Once you release Thanatos, you'll be thrown back into the Underworld to rot forever. You and the girl Hazel. Frank and Percy won't stop that from happening. Would real friends ask you to give up your life? But if you just let go, and come to my open arms, both you and Percy will be safe until you are ready for your bigger destiny. All you have to do is let go.

    Fiona tightened her grip on the bow in her hands, trying to grasp back to reality. Below her, something grabbed her ankles, but she didn't panic. It was Percy, she realised━suffocating, desperately grasping for a chance at life. She won't let him die. Never would she do that.

    So Fiona clenched her eyes shut and shouted, "I'll never cooperate with you! LET US GO!"

    New Rome around her dissolved into darkness, and Fiona was back to drowning in mud, one hand on the bow, and Percy's hands around her ankles. Mustering all her strength, she wiggled the end of the bow frantically. Frank and Hazel pulled her up with so much force it it nearly popped her arm out of the socket.

    When she opened her eyes, Fiona was lying on the grass, covered in muck and mud. Percy sprawled at her feet, coughing and spitting mud. She reached out towards him, happy he was alive. Her fingers found his hand, and she gripped onto his fingers tight. Frank and Hazel hovered over them. As Frank yelled, "Oh, gods! Oh, gods! Oh, gods!" Hazel pulled them further away from the muskeg. Frank yanked some extra clothes from his bag and started towelling off Fiona's face, but she just shoved his hand away, trying to keep an eye on Percy to see whether he was okay. He had almost drowned. The son of Neptune━Poseidon━had almost drowned.

    "You were down there for so long!" Hazel let out, hugging Fiona tightly. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

    "Yeah!" agreed Frank. "Don't ever do something like that again!"

    "Stop mothering me, Zhang," Fiona managed, but her mind was elsewear. She thought back on what Gaea had told her about Nico, about him being captured ... Fiona's chest felt heavy and she held Percy's fingers tighter. She didn't know whether he had heard what happened, too, but she knew she had to tell them. Fiona shook, but she wasn't sure whether it was from the shock or the cold. She managed to explain about the muskeg, and the vision she had seen while she was under. How Gaea had offered to keep Camp Jupiter safe if she agreed to help her. How she had bigger plans for her and Percy, and the goddesses claim that she had captured her brother, Nico. Hazel gasped, her hands flying to her lips in shock. Frank immediately squeezed her shoulder, but it didn't stop the despair both sisters suddenly felt fall onto their shoulders.

    Percy rubbed his shoulders. His lips were blue. "You━you saved me, Fiona," he said, his voice filled with gratitude. "We'll figure out what happened to Nico, I promise."

    Fiona squinted up at the sun, which was now high in the sky. The warmth felt good, but she didn't stop trembling. "It felt like Gaea let us go too easily..."

    Percy plucked a mud clod from his dark hair. "Maybe she still wants us as pawns. Maybe she was just saying things to mess with your mind."

    "She knew what to say," Fiona murmured, ashamed. "She knew how to get to me. I━I was tempted ... I'm━I'm so sorry━"

    "Hey," Percy shuffled up closer to her, "you saved my life, okay? That's all what matters. I owe you━which means I'm not going to let you die again, okay?"

    "Yeah, he's right," said Frank. "None of us will let you or Hazel die again."

    They sounded so determined. Fiona didn't want to argue, but she didn't see how they could stop Death. Even if Percy reminded her of some sort of god, even when he was covered in mud from head to toe and shivering, Death was a real god; someone who was immortal. But she had her own questions to ask him other than that, because when she told him about what Gaea had said about them, he didn't seem surprised.

    Hazel sighed her hands on her hips. "We should get going. We're losing time."

    Fiona pushed herself to stand, and then helped Percy up, too. The latter gazed down the road, his lips returning to their normal colour. "Any hotels or something where we could clean off? I mean ... hotels that accept mud people?"

    "I'm not sure," admitted Hazel. She looked down at the town below for a few seconds, then an idea hit her━one she didn't seem particularly happy about . "I might know a place we can freshen up."

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    ━━Said place was an old abandoned warehouse. It leaed over the water on barnacle-encrusted piers (Fiona managed a weak joke to Percy, saying: "Hey, it's your family,"). The roof sagged, and the walls were perforated with holes like plenty of gunshots. The door was boarded-up, and a hand-painted sign read: R̶O̶O̶M̶S̶━S̶T̶O̶R̶A̶G̶E̶━AVAILABLE.

    At the sight of it, Hazel took a deep breath, "Come on," she said.

    "Uh, you sure it's safe?" Frank asked.

   Hazel found an open window and climbed inside anyway. The rest of them soon followed, stepping into a room filled with dust swirling in buckshot beams of sunlight and mouldering carboard boxes. She stared at the interior, a ghostly look upon her face.

    "It's warmer in here, at least," murmured Frank. "Guess no running water? Maybe Hazel and I can go shopping. We're not as muddy as you guys. We could find us some clothes."

    Hazel looked to be barely listening. She climbed over the stack of boxes in the corner where an old sign was propped against the bare wall behind it. When she removed the sign, a flash back in time cascaded over her. At least ten pictures and drawings were pinned on the wood, protected from sunlight and the elements, having not aged a bit. Fiona stepped closer, her lips parted in awe as she saw old crayon drawings, photos of a little Hazel and her mother outside what seemed to be a business sign: QUEEN MARIE'S GRIS-GRIS━CHARMS SOLD, FORTUNES TOLD. Next to that was a photo of what Fiona could describe as a Latino Santa Elf with eflish features, black curly hair and a crazy grin. Hazel doesn't talk much about her past, but Fiona knew enough to pick out faces. The woman she was smiling with was her dead mother, and the boy in that picture, was Sammy Valdez.

    Frank's fingers hovered over the photo. "Who ...?" he saw that Hazel was crying and clamped back his quesiton. Fiona quickly squeezed her sister's shoulder, careful not to get any mud on her clothes. "Sorry, Hazel. This must be really hard. Do you want some time━?"

    "No," she croaked. "No, it's fine."

   "Is that your mother?" Percy pointed to the photo of Hazel and Marie. "She looks like you. She's beautiful," then, he studied the picture of Sammy. "Who is that?"

    Fiona didn't undersand why he looked so spooked. Hazel looked confused as well. Percy seemed as though he had seen this kid before. "That's ... that's Sammy. He was my━uh━friend from New Orleans."

    "I've seen him before."

    "You couldn't have," said Hazel. "That was in 1941. He's ... he's probably dead now."

    Percy frowned. "I guess. Still ..." he shook his head, like the thought was too uncomfortable. Fiona pursed her lips.

    Frank cleared his throat. "Look, we passed a store on the last block. We've got a little money left. Maybe I should go get you guys some food and clothes and━I don't know━a hundred boxes of wet wipes or something?"

    Hazel put the sign back over her photos, grim. "That would be great," she said. "I━I'll come with you. I think I need ... I think I need a breath of fresh air."

    (Fiona had a feeling what Hazel really meant was, I need to get away from my past). Once she and Frank were gone, Fiona and Percy made temporary camp. They took off their jackets and tried to scrape off the mud, found some old blankets in a cate and used them to clean up. They discovered that bozes of greeting cards made pretty good places to rest if you arranged them like mattresses.

    Percy set his sword on the floor, and it glowed with a faint bronze light in the dark. He stretched out on a bed of Merry Christmas 1882, watching Fiona. She sent him an awkward half-smile back, playing with the laces of her boots.

    "Thank you for saving me," he finally said. "I should've told you that earlier."

   "You did," she shrugged, trying to push it off as nothing. "You owe me, remember?"

    "I think I'm going to owe you a lot by the time this quest is over."

    "Don't worry about it, really, you would have done the same."

    "Yeah, I would've," the way Percy said it, with such feirosity, made Fiona feel like he would do a lot more than jump into a bog of muskeg if it meant saving her. She went purple, and quickly hid her blush with her hair. Since she hadn't paid much attention to it, the dark strands had gotten wavy and were returning to her natural curls. She usually straightened her hair, which was probably the only 'hair-and-makeup' thing she did. But since she's been around water, a muskeg and went snow, Fiona's loose curls were bouncing back.

    "But, when I was down in the mud," went on Percy nervously, and Fiona arched a tender brow, "I remembered that line from Ella's prophecy━about the son of Neptune drowning. I thought. 'This is what it means. I'm drowning in the earth'. I was sure I was dead."

    His voice quavered like it had his first day of Camp Jupiter, back in the shine of Neptune. Fiona felt her heart clench. She always looked up to Percy━it was hard not to. He never seemed scared, or vulnerable. But he was just as scared as the rest of them, he just hated showing it because he felt like he had to protect them all. Fiona shuffled closer to him, finding herself right by his side.

     In such a short time, Fiona felt like she's known Percy far longer than a few days. She gravitated towards him, felt comfortable with him, opened up to him ... he just would give her that smile, and she felt like everything was going to be okay. Sure, Fiona thought he was handsome the first time she saw him━a man worthy to be a Roman God. But now, she saw much more than that. She saw his humour, his loyalty, his bravery and kindess, but also his fear and vulnerability━his need for family, for love, for friendship, for comfort. And he had lost that. His memory, his life. And now he was getting it back, he was far away from them. Of course he was so alone, and so scared.

    "Percy," she said softly, "that prophecy might not have been complete. Frank thought Ella was remembering a burnt page. Maybe you'll drown someone else. Or ... or it might mean someone else entirely. There are other children of Neptune: monsters, minor-deities, and now maybe souls who were once gone."

    He looked at her cautiously, "You think so?"

    Fiona felt strange reassuring him, but at the same time, it also felt natural. She reached out and took his hand, giving it a squeeze. "You're going to make it back home, okay? I made that promise that we'll find your mom, and Annabeth, and everyone else, and some stupid prophecy about a son of Neptune drowning ain't going to make us lose."

    "I think my mom would like you," Percy murmured. "When I get back to her, you're going to meet her."

    She was blushing, but managed to make a joke in the situation, "A bit early to meet the parents, don't you think?"

    Afterwards, Fiona looked up, wondering whether he took the flirt━she's never been so forward like that before, but she thought: I'm going to die tonight, and I don't want the rest of it to be wasted. I don't want to die again thinking, I should have done this.

    He gave her a small, amused smile. Fiona's chest fluttered when she saw that he began to play with her fingers. Is this a yes? Does he feel the same? What? Um━? "What I mean to say is that you'll make it back, too, Fiona," Percy insisted. "We're not going to let anything happen to you. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You're far too valuable to me, to the camp, to Hazel, and to your mother ..."

    Fiona pursed her lips, feeling her flutters die away as she thought about her impending doom. She took a deep breath and looked down at their hands, watching him rub off some mud still on her fingers. "I don't think I have a choice. The seed in my locket is still shrivelled, Percy. I'm on borrowed time. But ... but maybe it's okay. Maybe this was what I was supposed to do? Bring victory back to Camp Jupiter. Maybe I'll even get into Elysium for this."

    "No, no," Percy shook his head, looking very troubled. "You're not dying. There's more to your destiny than that." He shuffled even closer, and Fiona's breath hitched at the feeling of their knees knocking together. "We're supposed to fight Gaea together. I'm going to need you at my side way longer than just today. I━I ..." his brows furrowed, and he looked like he was trouble getting his next words out. "Fiona━I should tell you. I ... you know how━I mean━I can remember━I mean, what you said━"

    Fiona was suddenly very wary. Percy looked pale━like he had that night when they saw the army the first time. "Are you okay? Percy, you look sick━is it your memories?"

    "No━no━I just━" he took a deep breath and nodded to himself as if to say, just do it! "I remember enough. I know that Annabeth ... she isn't ... no one is━um━"

    The window creaked open. Frank climbed in with Hazel right behind him, and like they had been electrocuted, Fiona and Percy sprung away from each other. Fiona held her hands to her chest, trying to not make it show how much her heart was racing. Was he going to say what I think he was going to say?

    "Success!" Frank waved some shopping bags towards them. He showed off his and Hazel's prizes. From a hunting store, he had gotten a new quiver of arrows for himself, some rations and a coil of rope.

    "For the next time we run across muskeg," he explained.

    Then, from a local tourist shop, he and Hazel had bought four sets of fresh clothes, some towels, soap, bottled water━and, yes, a huge box of wet wipes (Fiona smiled weakly at that). It wasn't exactly a hot shower, but Fiona ducked behind a wall of greeting card boxes to clean up and change. Hazel came in to help her (look, they got the same junk, they're sisters, it isn't that weird). Soon, Fiona was feeling much better, and she couldn't stop thinking: what was Percy going to say? Why does it make me feel giddy? Was he going to say what I thought he was going to say?

    And then she remembered: This is your last day. Don't get too comfortable.

    Fiona frowned at Percy when he wasn't looking, also freshly cleaned and dressed. The Feast of Fortuna was tonight━all the luck that happened today, good or bad, was supposed to be an omen of the entire year to come. One way or another, this quest would end this evening, and despite what Percy promised, Fiona realised that maybe she shouldn't promise him anything. If she was going to die, she couldn't leave him with the ghost of feelings that could never happen. That was wrong, and it was cruel to someone whose fatal flaw was loyalty.

    She felt someone take her hand. Looking next to her, she saw Hazel. Fiona wondered what was going through her head, and how much of it was similar. She was gazing at Frank, and Fiona believed that perhaps maybe a lot of their thoughts were similar. At least they'll go together, right? They could be in Elysium together.

    "So," she said, trying to sound brave. "I'm guessing we now have to find a boat to Hubbard Glacier?"

    Fiona was a lot less brave than she sounded. She wanted to be home, to hug her mom one last time. She wished she could live for Jason to somehow return. But she wouldn't. This was it. This was it.

    Frank patted his stomach. "If we're going to battle to the death, I want lunch first. I found the perfect place."

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    a/n: there are mistakes, i'm not apologising anymore cos like ... there's no escaping it no matter how much i edit ahaha. 

    also we're getting closer to the end of son of neptune and i'm not ready.