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Sally sits on the beach and waits.
To her left is a suitcase. She had packed two pairs of Gabe’s jeans, some shirts and underwear, his shaving kit, a few files from his safe and, most importantly, his wallet. All the things he would have taken if he had run.
To her right is a lopsided, soggy box. Percy’s blocky handwriting is still visible across the label on top.
Sally takes a long deep breath and lays back in the sand. She stares up at the endless constellations and breathes again before closing her eyes. The night is cold. She has a jacket on, but the wind off the water is brisk; the brine is beginning to sting her nose.
Or maybe that’s just the tears. She has shed more of them than she is willing to admit today.
For one long moment, the air stands still. The wind silences, the salt hangs in the air, and even the waves before her pause, held at bay by the power now at her side.
“Hello, Poseidon.” Sally’s voice is hoarse. She does not sit up. She does not open her eyes.
To her left, Gabe’s ratty duffle is pushed away. Poseidon lays down beside her and gently takes her hand. Her thumb grazes the familiar, terrifyingly human callouses along his palm. Another lazy tear escapes and makes its way down her cheek.
There are so many things she wants to tell Poseidon in this moment, so many things she wants to question, wants to scream. And Sally hates herself a bit, because more than anything else, she wants to ask:
Isn’t he incredible?
But her son, her son, already is incredible. She knows that. She does not need his father’s validation to make it true.
So instead, Sally Jackson asks:
“Why did you let this happen to her?” Her right hand grazes the top of the package.
The monster. The weapon.
Her salvation.
Sally does not open her eyes. Poseidon does not sit up. He will know.
He always does.
“She served her purpose. I did not love her,” Poseidon replies evenly. His voice is low, rumbling; Sally hates how much it still comforts her.
She hates how honest he has always been.
She hates him for Medusa’s sake. For her sake, for all the women he has used and discarded, the women caught between petty arguments and wars. The women given children who died before their eyes.
She hates him.
“What does love feel like to you?” Sally opens her eyes and studies the stars.
“The same as it does for you, I would imagine. Love is love.” Poseidon answers quietly. Sally turns her head and looks at him. Her cheek scratches on the sand.
“I don’t think so,” Sally murmurs. “I don’t think it can. Love is the only thing I have that will never die.”
Poseidon’s grip tightens on her hand. They sit quietly for a long time, listening to the breeze in the trees behind them, the waves washing to shore at their feet.
“A god is the soul of the things mortals cannot fathom,” Poseidon finally breaks the dark silence of the night. Something shivers up Sally’s spine at the words. “The things mortals do not have the time to fully comprehend. I appear human to you now, but you and I both know I am not. In my purest form, I am an essence. I am the point on the horizon where the sky and sea meet, I am the reflection of the sun on the water, the waves upon the sand. I am the epitome of a concept that will live so long as mortals attempt to understand.
“I know I love you, Sally Jackson, because I want to understand you. I am not a physical being; for a god to reproduce does not mean to simply give seed. It is to give away part of my essence, part of all that I am. It is to trust a sacred piece of myself to another, to allow it to become human, to become mortal. To learn and live and love and grow.
“I know I love you, Sally, because I trusted you with the best part of myself. And he became Perseus, he is Perseus, and to know our son is to love him, Sally. I love him. And I love you.”
She hates how honest he has always been.
“Your love frightens me, sometimes.”
“You would be a fool if it didn’t.” Poseidon smiles wryly. His white teeth glint in the shadows of the stars. It reminds her, suddenly and completely, of the glint on Gabe’s gold chain from the fluorescent kitchen lights. The chain has turned to stone with the rest of him, resting forever on his once hairy chest. His watery eyes are wide in their terror. His mouth is open, perhaps in a scream, but to Sally he will forever be asking why.
Why did you do this to me?
“I killed my husband.”
“I told you his reckoning would come.” Poseidon squeezes her hand again. “Do you require assistance with his body?”
Sally shakes her head and looks back up at the stars. “There’s a collector in SoHo who appreciates uniquely ugly pieces. I think I might be able to make some money off him. I could use your help getting rid of his personal effects and the smoking gun, though.”
“You are efficient.” Sally can hear the approval in his tone. Poseidon snaps his fingers and the duffle and box disintegrate and fall into new piles of sand. A short wind blows and sweeps the piles apart across the beach.
“He served his purpose.” Poseidon sits up and looks at her. In the light of the moon, she can see the palm trees on his gauche shirt, the graying at his temples. The shine that never disappears from his eyes.
“He was cruel.”
“You don’t need to remind me, Poseidon.”
“And yet you feel guilt.”
“I didn’t love him.”
Then the dam breaks, and Sally is weeping, sobbing, and she sits up and shoves her face to her knees, trying and failing to breathe, to calm down, to clear her nose and get away, just escape from it all. She almost died, Percy almost died, and now Percy is gone, gone from her in all the living ways he can be, and she killed Gabe and she is free, she is free, but she will be chained to this, this story, this guilt for the rest of her existence and—
And Poseidon wraps his arms around her, sits her up and pulls her into his chest. She can hear a heart beating beneath her ear, feel breaths on her hair, and she wonders for a moment as everything else falls apart if love makes him real, or if he is real because of love.
Poseidon hugs her tightly and rocks a bit, rests his cheek against the top of her head while she starts to settle down, tears finally spent. He reaches around her and grips her hand, tracing the delicate lines on her palm with his index finger.
“Percy asked me if I wanted him to take care of Gabe,” Sally admits hoarsely. She sniffs then wipes her nose on her sleeve. Poseidon pulls and handkerchief out of his pocket and gives it to her wordlessly. “It’s only been two weeks and he’s already...he’s only twelve, Poseidon. He’s just a child, my--,”
My baby.
“He is incredible.” There’s a softness in the way Poseidon says the words, near reverence almost, that makes something in Sally’s heart twist painfully.
“Our son is alive because of you,” he says quietly. His voice blends seamlessly with the crashing waves. “Our son is clever and kind and good because of you. Our son will grow to be Aristos Achaion because of you. His name, his story will live on for ages to come. Perseus will hold the fate of the world in his hands, and I live without fear because of you. He will save us because Perseus had a mother who chose him above all else, who saved him every way she could.”
“Why didn’t you love Medusa?” Sally feels a kiss pressed to her hair.
“She was a means to an end.” Sally closes her eyes.
“So am I, Poseidon.” She can feel him shake his head behind her.
“You’re a beginning,” the god of the sea whispers in her ear. “You taught me hope.”
***