The ceiling of the Pelham’s guest room was painted a lovely shade of pale green. Probably. I’d been staring at it for well over half an hour now, but it was hard to see precise colors only by the light streaming through the small gap in the curtains. It was possible that it was just my eyes playing tricks on me.

If I wanted to, I could find out easily enough. The light switch wasn’t that far away and there was a lamp close enough that I wouldn’t even need to stand up to reach it. Hades, if I was feeling particularly lazy, I could pour some water onto my eyes and check that way––a neat trick that one of my long-ago brothers had figured out. Turns out, dark vision underwater could be converted into some handy-dandy night vision goggles if you did it right.

I didn’t do any of those things, though. Instead, I just lay there. Eyes open, body motionless, and my mind racing round and round like a chariot race. I had Anaklusmos’ pen form held loosely in my hand, the pen’s familiar shape and weight a comforting anchor in a turbulent sea of emotions.

It was kind of funny. Earlier today I’d been in a life-or-death fight with a bunch of neo-nazi super villains. It sounded completely crazy and was probably having all sorts of life-changing ripple down effects all over the city right now. The Empire had been a staple of this city for years, decades even. Multiple generations of supervillains had come and gone, but the Empire had outlived them all.

And now…who knows. I’d helped the PRT capture a lot of capes. So many that it was doubtful that the remainder would be able to spring their compatriots free the way it seemed to happen over and over again. It was entirely possible that the Empire would be gone soon. There were probably tons of important people fretting over what had happened, what I’d done, and what was going to happen next.

Me though? The Empire had barely crossed my mind in the last hour-and-a-half. I also wasn’t thinking about that freaky demigod dream I’d had. I probably really needed to, but I just couldn’t muster the mental capacity to do so right now. It could probably wait for now. It didn’t feel like one of those ‘in the moment’ kind of dreams, but rather a ‘oh look, here’s something you need to know about’ dream.

Kind of like that weird, melancholy, and very worrying dream I’d had a few nights ago. That was another can of fish I still needed to unpack. I was pretty sure I understood…part of it? Dad had been here, but he’d faded. I wasn’t sure how that was possible––people around here knew who Poseidon was, knew all the old myths––but that sure was what it had looked like to me.

No, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was thinking about Crystal. About the time we’d spent together, and the ways in which we’d spent it. Walking around the city. Fighting Hookwolf. Chatting over dinner and in the kitchen. Doing things right here, in this room, in this bed.

We hadn’t even known each other for a full week. Today had been one week since I’d gotten…gotten here in some way that I was very deliberately not going to think about because, ow, just thinking about thinking about it hurt my brain.

We met for the first time on Saturday. She’d kissed me on the lips on Monday night. And then we’d done the horizontal tango together Tuesday. That was fast. That was crazy fast. That was Aphrodite girls trying to get a new car before they needed to come back to camp fast. It's a long story––don’t ask.

It was probably too fast for me.

Crystal was nice. She was beautiful. She was smart and sexy and had a good sense of humor.

She was also a veritable stranger who I barely knew.

Annabeth…What we’d had…It had been something special. Something really special. I was an idiot, but even I could see that much.

We’d been together through thick and thin, saved each other’s lives too many times to count. She was my best friend long before I knew that we could be something more than that. When it had been time to step into the River Styx, it had been her face that had anchored my mortality and stopped me from being washed away.

For the first time in what felt like hours, I moved. I pushed my back up off the bed and slid my free hand down until my fingers were just barely brushing the tiny celestial bronze plate that separated my mortality from the world. My nail tapped slowly against it, each tiny impact sending a shiver down my spine.

It felt so tiny. So fragile. Like I could just slip a nail under it and pull it free. I couldn't––it was very firmly attached. Hephaestus did good work. But it felt like I could. Like my mortality was just a touch away.

My nail slid skidded off invulnerable flesh and scraped against polished celestial bronze. I jolted and quickly pulled my hand away, shaking my head to clear it of the sudden thoughts. Bad Percy!

My mind quickly turned back to what I had been thinking of before. Crystal. Me. Our relationship. No. Whatever was going on between us.

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What we had wasn’t a relationship, it was a hookup. It had been amazing. It had felt amazing. But now that it had happened, I just felt a little empty inside. That wasn’t what I was like. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t, well, Zeus. Or Dad. Or one of the other gods.

I was Percy Jackson. I was loyal. Too loyal.

And yet…I didn’t regret it. It was fun. Nice. A necessary distraction. Crystal––

The door creaked open slightly and, as if summoned by the mere thought of her, Crystal’s head poked through the opening.

“Percy, are you awake?” she whispered softly, her voice barely more than breath.

I considered staying silent. Just lying back, closing my eyes, and pretending I didn’t hear anything. Seeing Crystal now, talking to her…And if she’d decided to come ‘talk’ again like she had last time, I didn’t know what I would do. I didn’t know what I would want to do.

But what if it was something important? Some kind of monster attack. Another breakout attempt by the Empire. A natural disaster.

Or even just something small that she needed my help with.

I turned my head towards the doorway. “I’m awake,” I whispered back. “What’s wrong?”

Crystal slipped into the room and shut the door behind her. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt that covered her from the neck to the middle of her thighs and slippers, and her hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail that made my heart ache just looking at it.

I stared at her for several seconds, then looked away. I could see the lines of her body beneath the thin fabric of the shirt, imagining exactly how she’d looked standing in nearly that same spot yesterday. I mentally cursed myself when I couldn’t decide if this was better or worse than her just coming in wearing nothing but her birthday suit again.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched Crystal look down at her feet and take a deep breath. Then she looked up at me. “I…I wanted to apologize. For yesterday, I mean.” She looked back down at the floor. “I’ve been doing some thinking, and what I did…it wasn’t right. I pushed you into doing something you probably didn’t want to do and I’m really sorry about it.”

I sat up. “Crystal––” I began, but she quickly cut me off.

“Let me finish, please, Percy?” She waited for a second and I stayed silent so she quickly soldier on. “Consent and boundaries. It's something we talked about in college, but I never really thought about it that way. I mean, like, about me. It was always guys pressuring girls in the examples and I didn’t even think about what it might look like in the other direction.”

She took another deep, slightly shaky breath. “I should have talked to you. Like, actually talked to you. I regret what I did, but I don’t regret what happened afterwards. You’re pretty amazing, Percy, and I hope we can still be friends after this. But I’d understand if––”

I sighed heavily and opened my arms. “It's alright Crystal. It's…maybe it's not what I would have done, but I don’t regret what happened either. And stewing over it isn’t going to help anybody.”

Crystal looked surprised. “Even though…” she trailed off, but I understood what she was asking.

“Annabeth…” I sighed again and remembered what Thalia had said. “Annabeth would have wanted me to be happy.”

“Annabeth,” Crystal whispered, “Was that her name?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to say her name a third time.

Crystal lay down on the edge of the bed, her head resting lightly beside my hand. I tilted my head towards her and huffed softly. My hand snaked out and slipped around her shoulders, allowing me to pull her in to lie by my side. “It's warmer under the covers,” I explained, “You’ll get cold.”

Crystal laughed and rubbed her cold nose against my bare shoulder. “You’re plenty warm.” She slowly relaxed, some of the tension I could feel in her muscles easing. “Tell me about her?” she asked suddenly. Realizing what she’d said, she quickly followed it up with, “I mean, if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t want to––”

“It's alright. I…I think I’d like that.” I remembered the advertisements. All the capes in the news, in TV shows, on billboards, just everywhere. People knew their names, learned about their exploits, and studied their deeds. Not as myths and legends, but as current events. “She was pretty amazing. I wish more people knew that. I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about with how you two met?” Crystal suggested.

I closed my eyes, looking back to my very first day at Camp Half-Blood. It had only been a few years, but it felt like a lifetime ago. I’d been a completely different person back then. It was a wonder how much could change in what felt like just a single blink of an eye. I’d only known Chiron as my substitute teacher, Luke had still been at Camp, and I thought the biggest baddie in Greek Myth was Hades and I had nothing to worry about because it was all just musty old stories.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s probably a good place to start. So there I was, lying half-dead in bed after nearly dying fighting this big stupid cow. I didn’t know anything about anything yet and I thought I was just having some crazy dreams. So I open my eyes and she’s right there, scrapping little bits of uh, medicine pudding, off my chin with a spoon. She asked me a question, I stared at her like an idiot, and then she shoved some more pudding in my mouth. Next thing I know it's like two days later and I still had no idea what was going on.”

I sighed and scratched the back of my head. “Actually, that’s probably like half the story. Me not knowing what’s going on and Annabeth bailing me out.”

“It sounds like you really cared about her,” Crystal said softly.

“I did. I still do. I don’t think I ever won’t. Anyway, so the next time I saw her after that…”

We lay there together for what must have been an hour or two. Maybe longer. I spoke softly, often pausing to reminisce between stories. Crystal mostly just lay beside me and listened, her warmth a comforting reassurance that, even though I was so far from home, I wasn’t alone. Her few questions helped me keep going when my throat felt like it was going to close up and she laughed at all the right moments.

It was nice. Crystal was right. It did help.

Eventually, my words slowed to a crawl and my eyelids drooped. Crystal nuzzled her face into the crook of my neck and I pulled her close against my chest. I felt light as I drifted off into Hypnos’ realm, lighter than I had in many, many nights.