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The two lines did not disappear.
Sally had dropped the little white stick that held her fate, once she had stared enough for the truth to sink in, and yet she was still staring at it from where she was crouched on the floor, cheek pressed against her bent knees, back to the wall. She was still staring, however long later, desperately hoping that it was a mistake – and the two lines did not disappear.
There was a knock on the bathroom door.
“Sally?”
The sound of Poseidon’s voice, low and concerned, had a lump swell up in Sally’s throat. She tried to swallow and released a shuddering breath. He must have heard it, or took her silence as a cause for alarm, because the bathroom door creaked open. She did not look.
She was still staring at the two lines that had not disappeared.
“Sally.”
His voice was soft as he crouched in front of her, one hand stroking down her leg in comfort. He must see the pregnancy test – it was right there – but he didn’t bring any attention to it.
Sally didn’t even know what she was expecting of his reaction, except that it couldn’t be good. She knew of the oath, of the prophecy; Poseidon had explained it briefly when she had asked, shyly curious, if he had any demigod children alive at the moment. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t secretly pleased to know that she was the only mortal to have his attention just now, that he hadn’t simply been flattering her when he said he hadn’t loved a mortal in so long. She’d been pleased, then, and he hadn’t seemed to care much about the fact loving her was forbidden – except now it wasn’t just a fleeting affair, there was a forbidden product.
Lifting her head, she found herself staring straight into his eyes. She had always loved his eyes, so vividly green, a shade that she’d never seen on anyone else before, and likely never would. They were too green to be human. She wondered, now, if their child would have them.
“I’m pregnant,” she choked out.
Poseidon’s expression didn’t change. “I know.”
That was not what she had been expecting.
“W-what?”
Sally’s brow furrowed slightly, back straightening up a little. Her eyes flickered down to the pregnancy test on the floor – maybe he meant he could see it? Poseidon sighed. The concern in his face melted away into something weary, like a heavy weight had been dropped on him.
“He is of the sea,” he murmured in a low tone.
“He?” Sally echoed, more caught on the pronoun than the explanation.
He merely tipped his head. She had long given up understanding how he knew some things. Sometimes Poseidon seemed so human; other times it was obvious that he was not.
“Oh.” The noise was a breath as her hands found their way to her abdomen, curling around it like she could feel the child in her womb. “Oh.”
He. A boy. A son.
“Why –” Her voice cracked, quiet as it was. She cleared her throat, swallowing the fresh lump as she stared down at her thin hands pressed to his vividly bright blue and pink Hawaiian shirt she had pulled on to go to the bathroom. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
It wasn’t an accusation, really, it was – she didn’t know what it was. Just a question.
Poseidon only sighed louder, heavier, before shifting out of his crouch in front of her, shuffling so that he could sit beside her, pressed together, pressed against the wall. Sally stared at the wooden panelling. Poseidon took her arm gently in his hands, calloused fingers brushing up her forearm, as soft as a feather, as tender as he often was when he touched her.
“I am selfish.” The words were pressed into skin as he bent to kiss her wrist, along the veins that crawled up her arm. “I wanted to hold onto this – onto you – for as long as I could.”
Because this was the end now.
Sally had known it was going to end. She had known that she would go to New York at the end of the summer, start as ordinary a life as she could have, and Poseidon would go back to his kingdom and his wife and the rest of his eternity, and it would be a wonderful summer to remember, but it would only be a summer in each of their memories. And maybe, just maybe, she’d see him some other time; he could visit her in her shitty apartment in New York when he wanted to, or she could come to Montauk for a small vacation, or –
It would never happen again now. It couldn’t. Gods could not be involved in their mortal children’s lives; he had told her of the laws. It could only be Sally and the baby now.
Oh god, the baby. The baby that wasn’t supposed to exist.
“Your oath.” Sally’s voice was quiet. “The prophecy.”
Poseidon’s head thudded dully against the wall. He didn’t speak.
“What does that mean? For …” she trailed off, the question obvious.
“He will be cursed,” Poseidon answered, his voice heavy with regret. She wasn’t used to seeing this side of him, so solemn and grave. He was usually full of laughter, quick to tease and lighten the mood. It made her feel even more unsettled. “Breakage of an oath on the Styx is no light matter. There will be consequences, Sally, and he will be the one to suffer them. It is my wrongdoing, but his existence is the broken oath. He …” A deep exhale, then silence.
He will be cursed. They had cursed a child that hadn’t even been born yet.
The bathroom was quiet, only the sound of their breathing and the gentle swish of late night wind outside the window and sporadic creak of the pipes. They were louder than they used to be, back when she had first come to the cabin; Poseidon had burst them one night when they had been showering together, and though he had immediately fixed it, amidst Sally’s laughter, the pipes had never been quite the same. The memory almost made her smile.
Sally turned her head to look at him, finding him already staring back at her. He wasn’t smiling either, though there was something about the set of his mouth that had her think he might if she did, if not genuinely. Mostly he looked tired, in a way that she would have thought impossible for him. Sad, too. His face wasn’t supposed to look sad. It didn’t suit him. Sally reached out to brush her fingers over the corner of his lips. He kissed them.
“You want me to abort, don’t you?” she whispered.
“Do you not?” Poseidon replied in the same hushed tone.
It made sense. The child was prophesized to possibly be the downfall of Olympus. The child would be cursed. It made sense to spare him that kind of fate. She had never intended to have a child at the age of twenty-one, homeless and penniless, least of all a demigod. And yet …
Poseidon reached out to cup her cheeks, warm calloused palms familiar on her softer skin. His thumbs stroked gently just below her eyes. He looked so sad. Sally clasped his wrists.
“I will not force you to do anything you don’t want to do.” His voice was still so quiet, but there was a firm sincerity. Sally believed him, despite the stories of his disregard of consent. She knew Poseidon was no innocent, but he was kind to her. He loved her. She believed that, as unbelievable as it was. “But … I do believe that would be the best solution for everyone.”
Her hands dropped to her stomach. “Except him.”
“Including him,” Poseidon replied immediately, though his tone hadn’t changed much. “A hero’s fate is never happy. It is never anything but tragic.” He stared at her beseechingly. “Sally, I have damned him – with the breakage of the oath, with the prophecy looming in his future, with the fear and mistrust of my family …” He shook his head, closed his eyes briefly, grimacing as though the thought of what his family may do physically pained him. “He will be hunted all his life. He will hold the fate of the world in his hands, and that is a very heavy burden indeed. Sally …” Her name sounded like a prayer. “It would be merciful.”
He could see where he was coming from. It would be merciful to spare a child of such a hard life. But at the cost of life at all? Sally stared down at her hands pressed to her stomach. Could she do it? Swallowing thickly, she realized she would regret it for the rest of her days.
“I can’t end his life before he’s even had a chance,” she said finally, without looking up.
The exhale that escaped Poseidon almost made her want to take the words back – almost, but not quite. This was her child, and though she hadn’t planned this, and though she didn’t even want this, really, this was her child, and her responsibility. She had done the things that led to this. The child – her son, their son – was innocent. She had to give him a chance.
Poseidon was still cupping her face, though his hands had moved down so that he was almost cradling her neck instead. Thick fingers sunk into the hair at her nape and tightened, almost to the point of pain, before he abruptly let go and pulled back, leaving her blinking at him.
“Then I must ask you to reconsider my offer.” There was a desperation in the words, something abruptly feverish in his eyes as they swept over her face – memorizing, pleading. “Once our son is born, I cannot remain with you here in the mortal world. It’s too dangerous, and the laws forbid it. But if you come with me to the sea –”
“Poseidon –” she started on a soft exhale.
“Sally, it’s the only way I can protect either of you. You will be safe in my realm. Otherwise …” He did not finish, swallowing thickly around the words. His eyes were closed, face turned away, like he could not bear to look at her. Sally’s heart ached. “Please. Sally, please.”
It was a soft but desperate plea. It was a hopeless prayer.
She was not supposed to be the god. She was not supposed to be the one with the power to break him. But perhaps that was what love was: giving someone the power to break you. She wondered how many times he had been broken in his very, very long existence.
“My world is here,” Sally whispered, repeating the words she had said the first time. She had rejected his offer of a palace and an eternity of his love and had not enjoyed seeing the blow as it landed. She saw it again now – though there was no shock, only a weary resignation. “And so is his,” she went on, insistent, because it wasn’t just about her anymore, about them. “He’s half you, half the sea, but he’s half me too. If his life is going to mean anything, then he has to live it. And a life hidden in the depths isn’t a life. I can’t raise our son in the ocean.”
He hadn’t looked at her, not at all since he had begged her to come with him to the sea for the last time. His shoulders were hunched, his head bowed, his face cast in the shadows of his dark hair and the tight bathroom. The silence dragged. Sally swallowed, feeling her eyes prickle.
It could never have been any other way, she told herself firmly. They knew it would end.
Slowly, almost hesitantly, Sally took his hands in her hands. It was like she had cut the strings that held him up because he sagged, tight tension released, with a long shuddering breath. He turned his hands towards his younger brother’s realm in her grasp, resting them palm to palm. They both held on.
“I can’t stay.” It was so soft, carrying an enormous load.
Sally forced herself not to cry. She would not cry. “I know,” she said instead, as steady as she could. It was steady enough that she surprised even herself.
He still hadn’t looked at her. His eyes were open – she saw his dark lashes fluttering as she gazed at their hands – but he would not look at her. He was always looking at her. Every time she turned, she found his eyes on her, vivid green and full of wonder and affection. Like she was something miraculous. It had made her shy, in the beginning, because no one had ever looked at her like that. She was nothing special. She didn’t understand what he saw in her. But in these later days, his eyes on her made her bold. She needed him to look at her now.
“Poseidon, look at me.” It was a demand. She took his face in her hands and pulled his gaze up before he had a chance to obey anyway. There was such solemnity in his gaze that she almost regretted it. “I knew who and what you were from the beginning.” She tried to smile, didn’t know if she succeeded. “I had no illusions. I knew I couldn’t keep you.”
Poseidon gazed at her like a man dying of thirst. Good thing he was the water. He'd find his way back someday.
Taking his hands, Sally brought them towards her body and placed them upon her abdomen, holding them against her clothed stomach. Against the place where their child was growing. Poseidon’s eyes flickered down before coming back up to her face.
“But now …” she tried for a smile again, and was probably a bit more success, if watery. “Now I’m always going to have you with me. And I’ll – I’ll raise him to be a hero.”
It was a promise. He must be fearing what their son would bring in sixteen years, that future that could end him and his family. But Sally swore that she would do her best to raise a child that would know right from wrong, that would make the right choices in the end.
Poseidon nodded, barely a movement, before he tightened his hands around her waist and pulled her to him. She went willingly, legs folding on either side of his thighs as she was positioned in his lap. Her hands rested of his shoulders as they stared at one another.
“I trust that you will,” he told her steadily, without breaking their gaze.
Sally swallowed. There was a weight to words. He was trusting her with the future of the world. Of being good enough to raise a child that would bear the weight of it.
Poseidon brought his hands up to her face, brushing back a strand of hair that had fallen out of her messy bun. His fingers lingered on her cheek. He leaned forward, chin tipped upwards, and his lips pressed against her forehead. Sally squeezed her eyes against their sudden burn.
“You will be as incredible a mother as you are a woman, Sally Jackson,” he whispered into her skin, searing the words there like a brand, like a truth he already knew.
Sally tightened her hands on him and hoped.