Calling Ocean

i.(present)

"Mommy?" asks a quiet, familiar voice. Sally turns her head and sees her son, Percy, clutching his blanket.

"Nightmares again?" Sally asks, turning away from the window. "I'll tuck you in."

"It was so scary," Percy says. "There was a man, with a lightning bolt, and horses, and it was all too bright and so high up in the air..." Percy yawns as Sally tucks her son into bed for the second time that night. "But there was an ocean, too." His eyes close and within moments, the little three-year-old is fast asleep.

Sally smiles softly, gazing at her son for a few seconds. But there was an ocean, too,he had said. So much like his father. So many signs of him, of Poseidon, in little Percy. Already at three years old, water acted strange around Percy, and Percy loved the ocean while he was terrified of heights. It wouldn't be long before he started to smell; in fact, it was a miracle that they hadn't been caught yet.

Send him to Camp Half-Blood. That was what Poseidon had told her, along with an address, right after he had learned that she was pregnant and right before he had left. She can't blame him for leaving, she supposes. It's her fault. What was it about that god - literally - that made her lose all her sense of logic and sensibility? It had actually been lovely – perfect - at the time. But he couldn't stay. And he left her with a little half-blood, one that she can't bear to send away even if she knows it is what's safest for him.

There has to be another way.

one.(past)

From a very young age, Sally could see things others couldn't.

"What are you looking at, Sally?"

"Can't you see it? It's a large creature, kind of like a lion, and - "

"What are you talking about? There's nothing there."

Sally had learned from an early age not to tell anyone about what she saw. She oftentimes wondered if she was crazy. But it was all real - so real. But whenever she tried to get a closer look, the creatures seemed to disappear, to back up into the shadows.

She had dreams, too. Strange dreams, including a man and an ocean.

Growing up wasn't easy for Sally, her parents dying at a young age and living with an uncle who didn't really want her around. All her life, she always felt like she was missing something - someone? She thought maybe it was just natural, having lost her parents and everything. Her refuge was the beach - a place she liked best when it was cold and early and empty. Somehow, the silent, empty beach made her feel less empty inside.

When her uncle died and left her without even a high school diploma or any way to make a living, she went to the beach and screamed at it. And that was the day she had met him - Poseidon.

two.(past)

Her first instinct was to stay away from him.

Where other people saw Poseidon as a regular fisherman, Sally saw something else - a glow, a flicker, a warning symbol that this man was not what he seemed. And a trident. The man was carrying a huge glowing trident. Sally had encountered others like this before - she had never pointed it out, of course, and of course there was the possibility she was just seeing things, but in her experience, odd things happened to people with this glow, and sometimes odd things happened to people, just ordinary, no-glow people even if they just got too close. So she stays away, tries to forget about the man with the glow. But she feels drawn to him at the same time - just as the ocean beckons, so does he.

She gets a job at a sweetshop and starts taking online classes, with the help of a kind librarian. Selling candy. Studying. Trying to get a cheap apartment. Avoiding the beach.

But the beach beckons, and so do her dreams. So she goes again, and sees the man with the trident again, and he's still beckoning.

Somehow he convinces her to go on a walk with him. She is actually, goodness forbid, enjoying herself when she sees a giant dog - a Hellhound according to Greek mythology, she would think - right in the middle of their path. Oh no. Poseidon continues talking, obviously not noticing the dog. He probably sees a puppy in its place, as most people have done from her experience, and she wonders if she is just seeing things and she should just go along the path. But that dog -

"Maybe we should take another path," she suggests, because even if Poseidon has an odd glow and it's possible that the dog is just a figment of her imagination, she doesn't want him to risk him getting devoured by the giant dog.

"Why?" Poseidon asks. "Because of the hellhound?"

Sally gapes, and then quickly regains her senses and chuckles nervously. "What are you talking about? It's just a puppy." Another nervous chuckle.

"Is it?" Poseidon asks idly. And then, to Sally's amazement, he waves his hand and says something, and the hellhound whimpers and frisks off.

"How did you know - ?" she begins asking. Could this be possible? Could she not be half-crazy?

Poseidon smiles. And as if reading her mind, he says, "You're not crazy."

ii.(present)

Goodness, this customer reeks.

The sweetshop she works at - the same one she used to work at all those years ago, before Poseidon and Percy - usually smells of candy and taffy and chocolates. But the minute this customer entered, all you could smell was mold and old food and - yuck, just yuck.

Instead of gagging, like she feels like, she fakes a smile and hopes that the man will leave soon. He is driving away potential customers.

"Hey, babe, do you have any of that famous taffy I keep hearing about?" he asks. Oh goodness. He reeks even more up close. She tries to breathe through her mouth.

"Yes," she answers, hoping her voice doesn't sound as disgusted as she feels. "I recommend the blue taffy."

"Blue? Blue food doesn't exist," says the customer.

Speaking through her teeth, she answers, "Yes it does, sir, we here at Sweet On America have taffy in every color imaginable." Sweet Hermes, just leave already so that I can escape this torture.

Finally, the customer does select some taffy (red) and leaves. She sighs and lets out her breath. Then sniffs. It still reeks. It's as if the smell is contagious; the man was here for five minutes, and the scent seems to permanently be clinging on the store, the candy, on her, on her uniform (which she decides she will have to burn or something). Gosh, that man reeked so much he could probably mask the scent of a demigod.

Of a demigod.

There's a plan in that, she's sure, but she'll have to think up the rest of it after she picks up some air freshener. Lots of it.

three.(past)

She learns more about Poseidon, and Greek mythology, and everything as time passes. About how all this time, she has not been crazy at all; she can just see more than other people can. She starts learning the names of all the odd things she sees around, and begins to recognize gods. Like that insanely beautiful woman shopping at the mall? Aphrodite. The man on the phone with the snakes twirling around? Hermes.

Poseidon himself is, well, difficult to describe. He's so mysterious sometimes. Sometimes he will mutter something about Prophecies, but he never further elaborates – ever, no matter how often she asks. And she has to learn through a borrowed library book of Greek myths that the sea god Poseidon is technically already married – not through Poseidon telling her himself. It makes her wonder what else Poseidon is keeping from her.

And Poseidon can get angry - incredibly angry and scary and overprotective, times where Poseidon snaps even at her, like the time she almost got struck with lightning.

"I'm sure it was a coincidence," says Sally. "Besides, I didn't get struck and everything's fine. So why are you so upset?"

"Quiet, Sally," grumbles Poseidon. "You don't understand this sort of stuff. It's my stupid brother." There is a rumbling up ahead. "Yeah, you heard me, Zeus! I can take care of my own affairs, so stop meddling! Besides, wasn't there a certain Miss Grace for you?"

More rumbling. And the sea started to rush and churn.

That night, there had been a terrible thunderstorm.

iii.(present)

Time passes. She marries the reeking man - Gabe, Gabe Ugliano, the man who insists blue food does not exist, smells disgusting, squanders money on gambles and card games, and calls her babe in that incredibly annoying, arrogant, and slightly creepy voice.

It's a huge sacrifice, for sure. But when the alternative is sending little tiny Percy to Camp Half-Blood at only three years old, what else can she do? In reality she's just being selfish, because if she really cared about Percy's safety, she would have just sent him off to the camp. Selfish, wanting to keep Percy all to herself, and very risky, keeping him in New York. But surely this will keep him safe. Gabe could probably mask the smell of Poseidon himself.

Could he?

four.(past)

But other times Poseidon is ridiculously sweet.

For her birthday, which had come on the same day as her high school second semester Finals and been so busy even she had forgotten, Poseidon had surprised her with an outing on the beach after her classes. Just the two of them, celebrating the fact that she has taken all her Finals and is less than a month away from a high school diploma, and her swimming in the water and Poseidon trying to teach her how to surf (she's pretty sure Poseidon is controlling the ocean to make sure she doesn't fall, because there's no way she's riding this surfboard correctly).

They'd finished off the night with these crazy firecrackers that Sally is pretty sure Poseidon using illegally because technically you are supposed to ask the beach permission, but it's nice that he went through the trouble to obtain them.

They'd also eaten nothing but blue saltwater taffy for pretty much the entire day.

"Blue food is the best, isn't it?" Poseidon had asked, his head towards her. With his tongue and lips blue, his sea-green eyes look even bluer than usual.

Yes. It was. Especially with a sea god.

iv.(present)

Time passes. And as Percy grows, so does his scent. He gets involved in strange incidents - incidents involving strange creatures and impossible events that are somehow always blamed on him. It's not his fault, she knows. It's hers, if anything else. He gets kicked out of school after school, and they can never quite stay in one place for long.

"I'm sorry, Mom," says Percy.

"It's not your fault." She means it. It isn't. She sighs and looks up and wonders how much longer she can stay with Percy, how much longer Gabe's scent will work and even how much longer she might be able to endure Gabe. She knows that her plan is going to collapse soon, very soon, and Percy will soon be going off to a camp he has never heard of, far away. She wonders when everything got so complicated.

The beach beckons to her. But she can't even go anymore; they don't have the funds, and there's no way Gabe will supply them.

five.(past)

They spend the entire summer together. They never officially begin dating. He never officially asks her out. The transition from friends to something more is just so seamless. It feels right, it feels complete, it makes her feel whole. It makes her feel like she's the only girl in the world and it's cheesy but he makes her feel perfect. Like she's flying and nothing will ever bring her down. And even though her logical and sensible brain is telling her that dating a god will never, ever work out, he makes her forget logic and sensibility. He makes her feel like this thing they have will last for eternity. He loves her. Right?

He offered to build her a castle under the sea.

Then she got pregnant and it all came crashing down, oh-so-fast, because what was she thinking? Even if she loves him and maybe he loves her, they can't get married like a normal couple because who ever heard of that happening, and oh-my-goodness what in the world had possessed her to do this?

She tells Poseidon. He gives her an address and tells her to send the child to Camp Half-Blood. He says goodbye. An I love you.

And he never comes back again.

v.(present)

The day comes when Percy is yanked away from her, with or without her consent. It's blurry, really, her insanely worrying for her son but still trusting him, still trusting that maybe Percy would come and get her safely, and that he would make the wrong choice, and maybe, just maybe, his father would help him a little. Poseidon cared, right? Did he really? It was difficult to tell, when she hadn't heard from Poseidon since that day so long ago.

But Percy does rescue her, and then it's decided he must return to the camp every summer. She's proud of how much he's grown up, but at the same time, regretful. Because Percy shouldn't have to grow up this way; she could have prevented this, all of this, if she had just decided to do with Poseidon had said and send her baby boy over to the camp. And couldn't the same thing have happened, Percy growing up, without all this other danger?

One good thing does come out of all this, though. She gets rid of Gabe, thank goodness - she wasn't sure how much longer she could have lasted.

six.(past)

The first few months are the most difficult - her, alone, with a baby on the way, struggling to pay all her bills on time. It had been so… abrupt. Poseidon hadn't even told her that he was leaving, just a goodbye and an I love you. He said that every time they parted. And poof, Poseidon had just disappeared – not only from her life but also from the memories of everyone else she asked.

Had he ever even cared?

She copes the only way she can - by regaining her sensible mind and doing what logical people would do. She takes two jobs, one at the usual sweetshop for weekdays and then working the graveyard shift at a popular fast food restaurant on weekends. And she continues taking online courses. And she tries to ignore the baby. There cannot possibly be a little demigod growing inside of her - possibly.

But when her stomach begins to swell and coworkers begin to ask, she can't deny it anymore. And although the logical, sensible woman would get rid of the baby - a baby is not good for a woman without a husband struggling to keep a roof over her head - she can't bring herself to go to the doctor. Besides, demigods are harder to get rid of than normal babies. And some strange part of her wants to keep him, wants to keep the little baby, because this baby is a part of her and a part of him, and it's her child.

She puts off for maternity leave and when the baby is born, a boy with Poseidon's eyes she names Perseus in the hopes that he will have a happy ending, she raises him well. And she loves Percy, so much that she can't bear to do what she knows is really best for him. And well, life is hard.

vi.(present)

One night she meets Paul Blofis at a night writing seminar, and it's like it was meant to be.

They sit right next to each other. Paul is having trouble with creative style but has structure down pat, and Sally is having trouble with structure but can help with style, no problem. And since they sit next to each other, they help each other. And then it escalates from there, and at the end of the day, they've already planned their first tutoring session at the library.

Paul is humorous, and kind with brown eyes, and well, he makes her happy. He's charming and perfect, and gets along with Percy. He even knows about Percy, and he isn't running away from them like they're crazy. He almost never gets angry - even when Poseidon came over for a surprise visit on Percy's fifteenth birthday, he was civil and polite. He doesn't keep secrets or get moody. And even though he can't swim or surf or do anything near water, really, he was always willing to take her to the beach, for her. For her birthday he had gotten her a novel and a small birthday cupcake with blue icing.

It's not quite what she felt with Poseidon, but Paul was safe, and good, good for her.

And that's enough.

So when he asks her to marry him, she says yes.

(But she's really seeing sea-green Poseidon eyes and hearing the ocean.)

For Voldy! (cirquedumockingjay) Thanks for reading. Review? And if you see any ways I can improve this or any grammar errors, please let me know.