Three (Part Two)

Feb 15, 2010 01:03

Title: Three
Author: Icy Roses
Rating: PG-13 for language
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
Summary: One life is not enough for love. Percy and Annabeth try for the Isles of the Blest, but it seems that fate is not always kind to them. Post-series.
Author's Note: More italics being ignored...

(Part Two) - The first part

“En ma fin gît mon commencement.” - Mary Queen of Scots

...

The alarm clock rings loud - once, twice, three times - until a hand comes down on it with crushing force and it falls silent abruptly. The red digits on the screen read 2:30 am. Half-asleep still, a thin figure crawls out of the crisp, bleached hotel sheets and stumbles into the shower on a typical morning. She turns the knob all the way to the right, and the water blasts freezing cold. She curses and shivers under the steady stream. She learned a long time ago that this was the only surefire way to fully wake herself up in the morning.

By the time she steps out and wraps a towel around herself, her numb fingers fumble around uselessly with the tiny bottle of lotion on the counter and goose bumps have risen on her arms and legs. She towels off quickly, efficiently, and throws her few possessions into one carpetbag. She buttons up her navy blue uniform with blue and red double “u” pin perched neatly on the left side and slips into the matching business skirt that falls just above the knee with neat slits on the side.

By 2:50, she’s checked out of the hotel, has hailed a taxi and is sitting in the backseat, applying mandatory makeup with a pocket mirror and heading to LaGuardia Airport in New York City.

There is nothing glamorous about this life, but Rose Parker was never one for glamour to begin with. That is why - she supposes - she has ended up in this dump of a job, always in limbo between day and night and between one continent and another. For Rose suspects she spends more time over the Atlantic than she does on solid ground.

It was never in her life plan to be a flight attendant. Her father wanted to be a poet and always harbored dreams of being the next T.S. Eliot. Those dreams were the ones that first attracted Rose’s mother, Marie. They had a whirlwind romance of two years that produced a trip around the world (because they had nowhere to live, so better to have adventure, right?) and a girl named Rose Florence Parker, her middle name a remembrance of their favorite city. But those dreams of her father, those fickle, teasing dreams, never put a roof over their heads or food on the table. And eventually, those dreams drove away Marie, who learned to be a practical-minded woman - she married a French millionaire and left the life of dreaming and poverty behind. She left Rose behind too. So Rose grew up with her father, who never knew quite how to be a father or a provider.

She was young and foolish, and she thought if she fell in love (like her mother) it would solve all of her problems. But all it did was leave her pregnant at twenty-three with a broken heart and no money. She hadn’t learned Marie’s most important trick, and that was not to fall in love with a man, but to fall in love with riches. Her boyfriend, Ricky, was poor anyway, and never provided any child support checks, so then it was three mouths to feed (including her father) and no one with a job to do it.

So pretty blonde Rose, who had gone to college on hefty student loans for a sophisticated double-major in Italian and French, whose dream it was to be an ambassador or a translator, shoved all of those dreams in a box along with her sophisticated degree, and trained to be a flight attendant. Those extra languages bought her a stipend and the chance to be an international stewardess instead of a domestic one. More money - all for more money. All for her five-year-old daughter Allie, who attends kindergarten in Seattle and lives in her father’s shoddy apartment. Rose pays the rent. Rose pays for school. Rose pays for shots and groceries. Her salary, at about $40,000 a year, scrapes by. She scrapes here and there and tries to save, and by and by, it gets them along. But she holds no delusions about the future. There is no government job on the horizon. This is not a rut. This is real life. And her real life involves keeping a roof over Allie and her father’s heads and food in their bellies.

As she steps into the airplane and greets her fellow flight attendants for the morning, all of them faking bright eyes and cheery smiles, she sees similar stories and knows most of them did not choose this life either. Nobody holds stupid, romantic sentiments about traveling the skies.

As for the passengers who stop her and gush about how exciting her job must be, Rose considers them half-wits. Nobody likes getting up at 2:30 am and pretending to be chipper to rude-ass customers who are too stupid to figure out what row is clearly printed on their ticket. Rose hates holding cranky babies while airsick mothers barf into the paper bags provided. She hates it when people mill about the aisles when the “please put on your seatbelts” light is clearly on, and she has a hard time believing everyone is having a bladder emergency specifically at that time. She especially hates when sleepy old men take forever to order between the menu options - dammit, there’s only two choices, chicken or beef, so just make your fucking decision already!

But what she hates the most is catering to the first-class passengers, whose lives of wealth and privilege, she can only imagine. She can’t help but wonder what her life would be like if she were in their place. She hates herself for letting her mind wander where it can never go, but she can’t help it. And besides, there are enough first-class passengers who are complete dicks that the flight attendants secretly term them “rich little shits” behind the curtain.

And today, it is Rose Parker’s (bad) luck that the senior flight attendant, Shondra, pulls her aside with cocked eyebrow, “Rotation’s come around, honey. It’s your turn with the rich little shits for the duration of the flight,” she says in her best service voice.

“Fuck,” Rose pronounces, and Shondra is too sympathetic to tell her to curb her tongue.

..o..

Eric Sorenson is running horribly late. It’s absolutely not his fault that the hotel screwed up his morning wake-up call, and he ended up arriving at the airport forty-five minutes later than he meant to.

After baggage check detains him for having an over-heavy suitcase, and he pays the required fee because he’s not about to throw any of his possessions away - not after having a bit of a spat with the smart-mouthed forty-year-old lady over the counter; entitled plebians - of course, there’s something that makes the metal detector go off. In his haste, he had forgotten about the metal plate in his skull they had just put in three months ago. He hopes the metal detector hasn’t fucked up his brain, but there’s no time for that. The security guards are skeptical, but they let him through. By that time, it’s already 5:44 am by his expensive Rolex watch, and the time for boarding is about to pass in exactly one minute.

“Shit!” he mutters as he elbows through the crowd. How can the airport possibly be so crowded this early in the morning? LaGuardia Airport - it has to be one of his least favorite in the world, and he has been to many an airport in his line of work.

He rushes up to the desk, where a middle-aged, slightly balding man is waiting to see his ticket. He pulls it out of his pocket, a bit wrinkled but otherwise undamaged and hands it over.

“I’m sorry, sir, but boarding time is over and the tunnel has closed. Now we can give you a half-refund or set you on the next flight but it will probably be in the economy cabin-”

Eric brings a crushing fist down on the desk. “No! I need to get on this flight. Now. If you will kindly let me through the door, I will be seated and the plane can be on its way.”

The ticket man adjusts his spectacles as if Eric’s outburst has disturbed his face. “I’m sorry, sir,” he repeats. “Rules are rules. I cannot open-”

“I knew it,” Eric snaps, running a hand through his disheveled black hair. “United has the worst service anywhere. Do you have any idea how much hassle I have gone through to get to this point?”

“I apologize if the airport has been of inconvenience to you, but United Airlines has nothing to do with the procedures prior to entering the terminal area.”

“Whatever. That’s not going to stop me from buying Delta next time. I’m going to drag this entire corporation to court. Seriously, if you don’t let me in right now, I’m going to hire the biggest lawyer in the country - and trust me, I can afford it - and I am going to file the biggest fucking lawsuit against your ass that-”

One of the crew cabin members from the plane emerges from the tunnel and whispers something into the ticket man’s ear. The ticket man nods, completely unfazed. “Well, it seems like the flight has been delayed for an hour due to last minute check-ups, so in this case, I will allow you to board late.” He examines the ticket and hands it back to Eric, who is slightly taken aback by this quick turn in fortunes, but snaps his mouth shut and shoves the ticket into his back pocket, marching into the plane without a second glance. Damn airport personnel. He hates every last one of them and if they get paid a quarter of what he makes, it would be way too much for the kind of service they offer.

..o..

Luckily, the first-class cabin is small this time around, so Rose only has to cater to sixteen rich little shits instead of twenty or thirty. At worst, she has wobbled through the aisles with two bottles of wine, four sandwiches, a shrimp cocktail, and a martini.

Shondra mouths I’m sorry from the front of the plane, where she is having a serious conversation with the captain. Rose helps the passengers settle and load their suitcases into the correct overhead compartments. She overhears a couple squabbling about who gets the window seats, and she discreetly rolls her eyes. It only matters if you can see the ground falling away for ten minutes if you’re under ten years old. Full grown adults can really amaze her with their childish behavior sometimes.

Since the flight is delayed for an hour, when it finally takes to the runway and lifts off, people are bitching up and down the place. So it’s snack time to appease the masses, and she wheels the cart down the spacious first-class aisles and asks the oily businessmen what they want. Nine times out of ten, it’s someone dressed to the tee, with a permanent expression of smelling something awful etched on their face. The other time, it’s the person with an ear-to-ear grin who has gotten an unexpected upgrade or spent their savings on the only time he’ll ever ride first class, and he has a billion questions to ask - how does this work? - and orders everything on the menu.

So it gives her a bit of a pause when she stops in front of a man in the second row. His black hair is sticking up in the back, and it seriously looks like he has just rolled out of bed. His suit is wrinkled and his white collar isn’t turned out properly. He doesn’t even bother to look at her when he says, “Well? What are you staring at?”

Before she can stop herself, she blurts out, “Your tie is in your shirt.” Because it is - the tail end stuck in the space between two buttons. Honestly, it’s pretty dumb-looking and completely unfitting for a person of first-class.

He turns to her, scowling. “Is that what they pay stewardesses to do these days, criticize passengers’ clothing?”

His eyes are a startling green, and for some reason, it sends a shiver down her spine. Not like she hasn’t ever met anyone with green eyes before - Ricky had green eyes, for instance - but something about these. She shakes it off. “The proper term is ‘flight attendant,’” she hears herself saying.

“Yeah, whatever you’re called.” He fixes his tie. “Say, have I seen you somewhere before?”

Privately, she thinks that people like him are a dime a dozen, and she certainly does not go out of her way to meet douchebags. Obviously, she voices none of this aloud and only shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Huh.”

“Can I get you something?” she asks him, trying not to get derailed by his attitude. It’s one of the first lessons new flight attendants learn: don’t let the passengers get to you. Nobody wants to see a flight attendant lose her cool on the plane.

“Um, yeah,” he says, checking his pager. It’s basically like talking on a cell phone while checking out, and it drives her nuts. How can he not at least have the courtesy to look at her while asking her to bring him stuff? “Can I get a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, please?”

“Of course.” In the beginning, she used to tell people how much it would cost. Now, she realizes the first-class passengers don’t glare at her because they already know, but because they don’t care. She wonders what it would be like to order whatever the hell she wanted and get piss-drunk on a plane. Gods, she hopes he doesn’t get drunk on this flight. She hates dealing with wasted passengers.

She wheels off and finishes the aisle. Going behind the curtain, she catches Shondra, who winks at her. “How’s it going so far?”

“Well, that guy over there is a real ass,” she says, glancing over. Second thing you learn: never point at passengers while you’re talking shit about them.

“Surprise, surprise,” Shondra says. “Best of luck. At least the boy’s cute.” She nudges Rose.

“Oh, please,” Rose replies. “It’s been a long time since I’ve ever looked at some boy, and I promise you, that one is not my type. Besides, he’s probably married to some eighteen-year-old sorority girl with huge implants who asks for a new car each week. Those guys. They always have trophy wives.”

Shondra chuckles warmly. “All right, sweetie. Aren’t you Little Miss Practical? Well, I’ll leave you to your hot catch then.” She returns to the main cabins with her cart of water, orange juice, and soda pop.

Rose gets the bottle of Grey Goose with a glass and a sandwich for someone else. She gives the sandwich to an older man and puts the glass on the mini table in front of Mr. Messed-Up Tie. She unscrews the cap and pours some for him. He actually looks up this time. “Thanks, um”-he checks her nametag-“Rose.” She gets the impression that he has noticed she is kind of attractive for the first time - or that her rack is kind of attractive - and is about to hit on her in the leery way that bored, rich passengers do. She doesn’t buy this bullshit.

“You’re welcome, sir,” she says primly. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

Propping himself up in the chair and taking a sip of vodka, he puts a hand on her arm before she can go. “Actually, I do,” he says.

“Yes?” She pulls her arm away. She is not a fan of touchy-feely people.

He doesn’t seem to notice. “How long is this flight going to be?”

“Seventeen hours until we land in Venice.”

“Oh, excellent,” he grumbles, putting his feet up. “I hate these damn long flights. Maybe you can entertain me on the way there.”

She can’t help but be offended by this, and even though Rose Parker is a very sensible, tongue-biting kind of human being, she says, “Sir, I am not paid to be your fool. I am paid to give you drinks and move your luggage and get you food. You have movies for that, all right? Also, the correct way to hit on women? Not act like a whiny bitch.” Immediately after she says what she does, she regrets it. Casting a hasty glance around for supervising personnel and noticing none, she collects herself.

Luckily for her, Mr. Vodka-Drinking Messed-Up Tie cocks an eyebrow and hides a smile. “Well, then. I could have you reported for that, you know.”

He’s goading her! She attempts to hide the icy finger of fear sliding down her spine. She cannot lose her job. If he reports her for misconduct, she is done for. But she also can’t seem to keep her big, fat mouth shut against this guy. Between flirty, rude customers and getting three hours of sleep, civility is the last thing on her mind. “Fine. I hope that makes you feel better as a human being.”

“Now, see here, Rose”-and she detests that they are on a first-name basis now-“I come onto this plane minding my own business, you insult my clothes, and then you accuse me of trying to hit on you. I don’t know where all of this hostility is coming from, but it’s certainly not because I am being a, uh, ‘whiny bitch,’” he says, making air quotes. “Besides, I am entitled be that way if I so choose. I paid for a ticket.”

She stands there dumbly. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he says, finishing the glass and pouring himself another. “I’m glad we got that all settled, then.” He smiles at her. “You have to be one of the most interesting flight attendants I’ve ever met. And if I weren’t afraid of getting reported for sexual harassment - since you seem to think I’m assaulting you or something - I would tell you that you’re quite pretty.”

What a jerk. She stiffens and stands straighter. Right now, she is thinking two things. One - he’s probably not going to report her for misconduct, which is good. And two - he’s also having way too much fun with messing with her, and she’ll be damned if she spends the rest of this flight exchanging verbal spars with a tipsy, horny businessman. She decides to quit while she’s ahead.

“Well, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask,” she says formally, ending the conversation. She is tempted to do a little mock curtsy but thankfully manages to hold her snarky side back.

“Oh, I will,” he says with a grin. He keeps his word too. Throughout the seventeen-hour flight, every time he needs anything at all, he makes a point to ask for Rose and none of the other eleven flight attendants on board. She is so, so tempted to poison his second bottle of vodka but figures that would be going over the top. So instead, she settles for spitting in his steak, which makes her feel better long enough to not accidentally taser him for the entire trip.

..o..

And besides complaining endlessly to Shondra for the next few flights and laughing about what a great story it makes, that’s supposed to be the end of it.

But things rarely go according to plan in Rose’s little world, as evidenced by two months later, when she spots him boarding the same flight from LaGuardia to Marco Polo Airport and still on first-class. “Shit!” she says, hiding behind Kelly. “It’s Mr. Vodka-Drinking Messed-Up Tie!”

Shondra shambles over with her knuckles perched on her hip. “Girl, what are you doing?”

“It’s him,” she hisses. “The guy I told you about!”

“Oh, the one you secretly have a crush on?” Shondra teases.

“Okay, really, Shondra? The only reason I would ever sleep with him is so I can smother him with a pillow when he’s asleep. Please, please don’t make me do first-class this time. I swear, if he sees me again, he’s going to be just as much of an ass as he was last time, and this time I might actually hurt him. And get fired.” She’s still hiding behind Kelly, who gives her a bemused look and sweeps off, leaving her naked to the world and completely open to Mr. Vodka-Tie, as she has abbreviated him in her head.

“Be an adult, Rose,” Shondra says, emphasizing the first syllable. “He probably doesn’t remember what you look like anyway. You’re just some blonde flight attendant he tried to get a chance with. He probably does it with every waitress and every cashier.”

“Please?”

Shondra gives her a lingering, considering look. “All right. You can do the back cabins today, but you owe me. I hate dealing with those rich little shits too.”

Rose is so relieved that she almost kisses the ground where Shondra stands. “Thank you,” she says, rushing off breathlessly toward the back. “I won’t forget this!”

“Yeah, you better not,” Shondra says after her.

This plan works fairly well for half of the flight. After the first meal, most of the passengers pass out for a couple of hours because there’s nothing better to do on a plane besides sleep - Rose wishes at times that she were allowed to crash in the aisles, but she does her check-ups like a walking zombie because she can’t. Merely because the main booth is up front near the cockpit, she is forced to walk through first-class. Except, it seems as if Mr. Vodka-Tie is asleep, so she snatches this opportunity to whip through.

No such luck, though. “Hey, you!” he whispers. The lights are dimmed, and everyone else is slumbering. Why can’t he slumber too?

With dread, she turns around. “Yes, sir?” she says blandly, trying not to betray any hint of familiarity, but he obviously remembers her. It’s not that strange. Some of the more frequent fliers between the US and Italy know her, but most of them are not that obnoxious about it.

“You’re here. Rose, right?”

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s kind of my job to be here. On this flight.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says. “Never thought I’d see you again.”

“Ditto,” she replies, and not entirely in a nice way.

He beckons her closer, and she considers telling him that he should ask another flight attendant if he wants a bottle of Grey Goose again. But she approaches him anyway. It’s her job. He extends his hand. “Eric Sorenson,” he says. “I feel weird with you calling me ‘sir’ all of the time. It sounds like a derogatory term coming out of your mouth anyway.”

Slowly, resentfully, she shakes his hand. She really couldn’t give a damn what his name is.

“And of course, you are Rose Parker, the flight attendant. Look, you can calm down. I’m not going to report you for misconduct, seriously. I just want to get to know you better.”

“Why?”

“You seem like a nice girl.”

“I called you a whiny bitch!”

He wrinkles his nose. “Do we really want to revisit that? Come on, let’s start over.”

Okay, she thinks at this point, you’re not my ex-boyfriend, so there is absolutely no need to use those three words, “Let’s start over.” She sighs. “Really, sir - Eric - it’s not part of my job description to be friends with you.”

“Can’t we be friends for the sake of being friends?”

She can’t understand him, and she really can’t understand why he’s so hell-bent on being her friend. Well, she has an inkling, and it has something to do with the fact that he wants to ask her out on a date, but she decides to give him the benefit of the doubt for the time being, if only for the sake of her own sanity. “Yeah, sure,” she mutters.

He kicks back in his seat, settling into a more comfortable position. “So, Rose, why don’t you tell me why you decided to become a flight attendant?”

“Um, why don’t you tell me why you’re on this flight again? Are you stalking me?”

He laughs, and it actually doesn’t sound horrible. He has a pretty nice laugh. So maybe he’s improved since he stomped onto the plane with a tucked-in collar and bed head. “No,” he says emphatically, “I work for the communications department of an auto company, so I have to fly to Italy a lot for meetings with the Italian branch. And I have frequent flier miles. They always pay for me to fly first-class. We made the switch to United Airlines for cost reasons, I think.”

“Oh,” she says. She was right about him being a businessman.

“You haven’t answered my question. I answered yours.”

“It’s a job,” she shrugs. “It pays the bills. And I am fluent in Italian and French, so I get a stipend for doing international European flights,” she can’t help but add. She has few things in her life to be proud of, and she feels crass for boasting, but she is pretty proud of this aspect. She is not some bimbo without an education.

“Impressive.” He scratches his head. “See, that wasn’t so painful, was it?”

She doesn’t answer.

“You’ve only worked for United, am I right?”

She nods, wondering where this is going.

“Yeah, so I guess I can’t have met you before then,” he says, sounding puzzled. “You must have one of those faces.”

“Excuse me?”

He holds up his hands. “Relax. I meant one of those faces that are common. Wait, no, that still didn’t come out right.”

She bristles. “Goodbye, Eric. Nice to meet you,” she says, without meaning a word of it. “I’m not catering to first-class this time, so please talk to Shondra if you need anything.”

As she walks off angrily, he says, “I still think you’re pretty. I think you would look nice with long hair!”

It’s a comment that strikes her oddly even as he goes out of sight. She did have long hair once, back when she was young and dating Ricky. But then, when he left, she decided to cut all of it off, so it now hangs in short pin curls around her face. When she got hired as a flight attendant, they told her they preferred her to grow it out. Rose refused. She had control over her hair like she had control over nothing else in her life. Besides, having short hair makes her look more professional and less like a college kid. Having short hair causes fewer guys to whistle at her when she walked down the street, something that irritates her to no end. She’s a young mother and hasn’t thought about dating for years - it’s just weird.

She swears that the next time Eric Sorenson shows up in her life, she will have nothing to do with him. If he talks to her, she’ll ignore him. How many times can he take the flight to Italy anyway? Perhaps the thing that bothers her most about him is how he thinks she looks familiar. Because if she were to be honest with herself - which she is not going to be - she would admit that he looks familiar too. It leaves an unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if they had this whole history together that she can’t remember. Even alone in her hotel room, she thinks about it, tries to recall something, even scraps, but there’s just nothing there.

She’s just deluding herself. She lays her cheek gently against the pillow and shuts her eyes. He’s just a crazy man, and she’s just being crazy with him.

..o..

The next time she sees him on the plane - because of course there’s a next time - it’s four months later, and she’s almost forgotten about him. Almost, but not quite. There he is, sitting smugly in his first-class seat, talking on his cell-phone before the plane takes off. While checking the overhead bins, she passes him, and he hangs up just in time to say conversationally, “My wife, Nigella.” He points on the phone.

“That’s nice,” she says. It only makes her think he is even sleazier than she thought, because he’s got a wife. What’s he doing flirting with her? His wife would probably not be happy about it. Then again, his wife’s probably the busty fake platinum blonde she imagined, so she - Nigella - is most likely in it for the money anyway. Not to say that Eric isn’t attractive, but - gods, she’s going to stop that thought in its tracks right now before it meanders somewhere she doesn’t want it to go. “Nigella,” she says instead. “That’s an interesting name.”

“She’s British. Met her on one of my business trips.”

So now he’s looking for a new collection to his harem on his trips to Italy, she thinks snidely. She’s not going to fall for this trap. “Okay, Eric?”

“Yeah?”

“We can’t talk anymore.”

He sets his computer bag down by his customary seat. “Why not? I thought we were having a grand old time.”

“You’re married. You’re annoying beyond all reason. You’re totally intrusive. And this is not my job. Now, if you need another bottle of vodka or a sandwich or something, I’m completely happy”-and obligated, she thinks-“to get it for you. I’ll get you an extra pillow. I’ll sing you a fucking lullaby if you need it to fall asleep, but please, please, do not pretend like we are anything more than that. Just to make this clear.”

Surprisingly, he looks way more downcast than he should have a right to. “Okay. If that’s what you want, I’ll leave you alone.”

It is much less painful than she expected. She is pleasantly happy about this. “Thank you. Really. You’re a nice guy, Eric”-lie-“but I would rather maintain a strictly professional relationship.”

“I understand,” he says rather coldly as he opens a newspaper and begins to read.

As if trying to make a point, he doesn’t talk to her or even look at her again. Which is fine with her, really. She should have set him straight a long time ago.

The flight goes seamlessly, except halfway through, she notices a strange hissing that goes on in the fourth row of the second economy cabin. She can’t shake it off. There’s a slim woman in loose track pants and a sweatshirt with her frizzy red hair tied up. She looks like any other passenger, except Rose is fairly sure that the hissing is coming from her. Either her or her purse, and she is wildly tempted to ask the woman to display the contents of her Gucci bag. As a flight attendant, she is technically allowed to do that. But how stupid would it be if the red-haired woman opens the bag and nothing is in it? Rose is allowed to check suspicious items, but she’s not allowed to harass passengers. After just getting disentangled from the whole Eric business, she decides it would be better if she keeps her curiosity to herself.

Of course, she tells herself this, and then goes on to stare at the woman every time she walks by. On the seventh run, the woman gives Rose the evil eye back. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Rose says, embarrassed. “Sorry, ma’am.” The woman goes back to reading her novel - The Time Traveler’s Wife. Still, she can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. It curls inside of her and gives her insides a squeeze every time she hears the hissing. She gets the impression the woman knows she can hear something but chooses to pretend like nothing is going on.

There is a slight ripple of unease in her head. Could it be - no. It can’t. She hasn’t seen a peep of the mythological world since she saw a Hyperborean giant on her sixth grade trip to Vancouver with her father. She and the Greek gods have cohabited peacefully for the most part, and she likes to ignore them. It’s not like they have any reason to attack her - she’s not even a real demigod. Her mother is a daughter of Aphrodite, whose only real power manifested in her idiotic romance with her father, a son of Apollo. Her father, on the other hand, only inherited the power of horrible poetry and false belief in his poetic skill. Rose hasn’t inherited a single thing, not one little thing. And she likes it that way. It’s not like the Greek gods ever helped her out, so why should she even pretend like she owes them anything?

The hissing is muted throughout the landing, and Rose thinks she might be in the clear. Eric is ignoring her skillfully, either burying his head in the New York Times or his pager. She thinks maybe she went overboard when she vocalized the “annoying beyond all reason” part. She could’ve gone easier. But it’s a bit late for that now.

Between a woman who has an extreme phobia of plane descents - why is she on a plane without some kind of medication? - and a non-English-speaking man getting the lock stuck in the bathroom, Rose is kept busy, so she doesn’t have time to worry about pouting first-class passengers.

She is frazzled by the time the plane finally rolls onto the unloading dock in Marco Polo Airport. Venice, at last. She could use a nap.

She is about to down a couple of pills on the sly before everyone gets off so she can fall asleep when she gets to the hotel when the hissing gets louder again. This time, there’s no mistaking it. Nobody else seems to notice, or if they do, they’re too polite to bring it up. The woman in the track pants has gotten up, tucked her earphones into the side pocket of her Gucci bag, and begun to meander down the aisle toward the aisle. The other disembarking passengers have a kind of weary, dulled out look in their eyes. But her gold irises are sharp and bright, as if she is searching for something. Her knuckles are white around the bag. If she didn’t know better, Rose would think the woman has the expression of a terrorist.

Quickly, she pushes past a couple with three children and a cantankerous old man who gives her the finger, trying to press closer to the hissing woman. She’s getting closer and closer to the front. Rose pushes aside the curtain frantically and sees that the woman has paused in first-class. Eric straightens, grabbing his computer bag from under the seat. The woman offers him a sharp smile and in a throaty Italian voice begins to introduce herself. He looks confused but shakes her hand. His lips form his name. And right then, the woman catches Rose’s eye from the corner. There is a glint of red.

And even though Rose has almost zero experience with Greek monsters, she knows solidly in her gut that this woman is a monster. No question about it. For some reason, she’s going after Eric, which means he is a demigod. She hears herself whispering the word like it is foreign.

Right before her eyes, the woman and Eric get off the plane together, disappearing from the plane. Eric is talking animatedly, and Rose knows he hasn’t got a clue who - or what - this woman is. If she doesn’t do anything, he’s going to die. He won’t ever get on a plane back to the US. And his stinking British wife, Nigella, will get a phone call about how her husband has mysteriously been the victim of a random vicious crime spree in Italy, if she even gets a call at all. This is how these kinds of things happen. She may have never attended Camp Half-Blood, but her demigod father taught her enough to keep up her guard. She fingers the bronze dagger she has strapped inside her arm, underneath her uniform. She keeps it there, just in case. Never in her life has she had to use it. Nobody knows she carries it. It is her secret.

And now, she is faced with this horrible dilemma as Eric descends the steps of the plane. She watches through the small, oval window as the woman touches his arm. Rose shivers. She is watching a man walking to his death. She shakes her head. This isn’t her concern. She should mind her own business. If he’s a demigod, then he knows how to take care of himself.

Right?

Right.

She turns away and fiddles with the cuff of her sleeve - for about three seconds - before sprinting down the aisle and running down the steps of the plane in pumps. Shondra is calling after her, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” but her voice blurred in the background. She is rushing through the crowd, brushing aside the strange looks cast in her direction, searching only for a man with mussed up black hair. For a fearful moment, she thinks she has lost him, but then he is there, several feet in front of her, and still conversing with the woman.

From behind, she grabs his arm. She should probably count herself lucky that he doesn’t yell or elbow her in the face. He turns, startled. “Rose?” he asks, amazed. “Uh, what are you doing?”

The red-haired woman is glaring, and her features become distinctly more snakelike for a split second before reverting back to normal. Eric has missed it, of course, but Rose doesn’t need any more confirmation that this woman is bad news. Thinking fast on her feet, she says, “I - you forgot something on the plane.”

He fishes around in his pockets and checks his bags. “Are you sure? Because I don’t think-”

She pulls insistently. “I’m sure. You need to come with me right now.” She is praying, for the first time in her life, to any god she can think of - Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite, anyone - to keep the monster at bay and keep them from making a scene in the main terminal of the airport. “Please,” she says, looking straight into his strange green eyes, trying to send him a silent message.

He considers her for a moment. “All right.”

“I’m sorry, Carmella. It was nice meeting you.”

She bares her teeth in a scary smile. “Oh, yes. I agree.” The tip of a shockingly red tongue darts out of her mouth and licks her lips lightly. She holds the “s” in her words for just a moment too long.

Rose drags Eric to a more private area - as private as is possible in a bustling international airport. It’s where the vending machines are, and it’s under a staircase, so the reception is bad. There is no one here and only few people walking by. Unfortunately, it’s also rather cramped. She pushes off a wave of claustrophobia and lets out a pent up sigh of relief. “Good. This is good.”

“Hey, there,” he says. “Are you okay? Because just, I don’t know, ten hours ago, you said I was obnoxious and you never wanted to talk to me again. Then, you chase after me in an airport and drag me away from a girl I was about to get a number from? You are seriously starting to get annoying.”

“Are you an idiot?” she snaps, angry that this is what she gets for saving his life. “That Italian woman you were about to have a one-night stand with - by the way, you’re married, douchebag - is a monster.”

For a full minute, he stares at her. “Do you know her?”

“Never seen her before in my life.”

“Then how do you know she’s a horrible person?”

When he says this, it gives her a bit of pause, and it’s her turn to be confused. He doesn’t know? It’s clear that not only did not know the woman is a monster, but he doesn’t know about his heritage either. Well, how is she supposed to explain that? “No,” she says slowly. “Like a bonafide, eat-your-heart-out monster. Greek mythology? Heard of it?”

“Yes,” he says, bemused. “That stuff they force us to learn in high school, about Zeus and Juno and stuff.”

“Zeus and Hera,” she corrects, even more irritated that he has mixed up the Greek and Roman names.

“Whatever. Is this supposed to be important?”

“Yeah, I would say so,” she says.

But before she can explain further, Carmella appears in front of them, her red hair let down and moving on its own. Then, her face pales as if she is about to faint (except she keeps smiling like she is pleased about it) and two-inch long fangs extend past her lip like a vampire. Her eyes turn from gold to red. And she takes a step toward them, all the time with her arms out. “Oh, Eric,” she sighs with her pretty accent, “we didn’t get a chance to really know each other. This estupida girl got in our way. Why don’t we try again, after I finish her off?”

“Uhhh,” Rose says, pushing Eric behind her and taking a step back herself. Her brain goes crazy trying to figure out scenarios in which she might not die.

Meanwhile, the empousa - she recognizes it for what it is now - purrs. “Eric,” she lulls softly. “Come with me.”

Behind her, Eric makes some kind of weird gurgling noise. “You just stay back there,” she says cautiously. “Do not - I repeat - do not listen to her. She’s going to suck your blood.”

“Like a vampire?” he asks faintly.

“Yeah, like that,” she whispers back. “Don’t make eye contact. Just shut up and do what I say.”

He doesn’t have a problem complying with the “shut up” part. The empousa hisses at her, red hair flaming like a live fire, and lunges forward. With a scream, Rose kicks her in the gut - she is honestly surprised that her foot makes contact at all - and grabbing Eric, they slide away. Eric bangs his head on the wall and makes a groaning sound. Luckily, Rose only bangs her head on his chest, so she is okay. Knife, knife, she thinks desperately, grasping for it under her uniform. The sleeve is too tight and her clumsy, frenzied fingers can’t unbutton, so she grabs the cuff and rips as hard as she can. The fabric tears easily, and the first thing that comes to mind is how much she’s going to have to pay for the ruined uniform. Maybe she can stitch it together later.

The dagger gleams against her pale underside of her arm.

Eric notices it and makes it adamantly known to the world. “Holy shit, woman! What the fucking hell is that? You carry concealed weapons all over the place? On a plane? How do you even get past a metal detector? Isn’t that illegal in like, five billion ways?” He scoots away from her nervously. “You’re off your goddamn rocker.”

She pulls it out from the sheath without nicking the delicate skin of her wrist. “Okay, focus! If I didn’t have this on me, I’d be dead and you’d be vampire food,” she snarls at him.

Brandishing the dagger in front of her, she waves it as a warning. “Don’t come closer,” she tells the empousa. “I will slice your mother-fucking head off, and don’t think I won’t.”

The empousa laughs and the sound makes Rose’s skin crawl. She doesn’t know what the mortals in the airport are seeing, but for once, she wishes the Mist wasn’t doing such a damn good job of keeping everything hidden. A police force attacking with guns blazing would be really nice right about now. Her fingers grip the hilt tighter. She will not lose. Eric has fallen silent behind her, and she doesn’t have time to look back and see if he’s died of fright or simply lost his voice.

“Don’t,” she warns again, her voice strangled.

The empousa - whose name may or may not actually be Carmella - sniffs the air like a dog. “You,” she says, pointing one perfectly sharp, red-painted fingernail at Rose. “You are not a god’s brat. Or if you are, something is covering your scent.” She cocks her head to one side, considering. “No, you are something different altogether. But,” she says with an elegant pause, “that will not prevent me from gutting you like a fish. It’ll teach you not to get in the way of my projects.”

She is not, not going to die at the hands of a demon with a donkey’s leg. She’s not going to get killed because she felt like being a Good Samaritan to a useless, womanizing, clueless demigod. No, she’s not going to let Eric be the reason she dies alone in Marco Polo Airport. Her determination courses through her veins like new fire and in a savage voice, she spits, “Yeah, I’m the daughter of two demigods. But my genetic makeup isn’t going to be your primary concern when you find my dagger shoved through your intestines.”

Leaning forward, she takes a step, lunges, and the golden blade is sure in its target, disappearing cleanly, perfectly into the empousa’s midsection. Rose is put off-balance by the ease of which the blade cuts through flesh. Her feet lose contact with the ground, and her forehead barrels into the demon’s shoulder, sending the blade even deeper. There is no blood, nothing. Only warm body and beating heart and licks of hair rubbing against Rose’s cheek, and all of a sudden, she feels sick. The empousa screams - Rose is sure the entire airport, maybe the entire world, hears it - and disintegrates. Without the support, she falls hard on her knees and pain shoots up her entire body. Her muscles give out, and she collapses onto the cold, tile floor - the hilt of the dagger sliding against her sweaty palm.

It’s about half a minute later when she realizes what an awkward position she’s in. She’s lying on her stomach, legs slightly bent, and her cheek is pressed into the ground. Dimly, she wonders where Eric has gone, but he answers the question for her when he coughs in the background. Footsteps, and then, he’s helping her up and brushing the disheveled curls away from her face. He is pale, almost paler than the empousa, and she can’t help but feel indignant about this - isn’t she the one who almost got, what was it, “gutted like a fish?” At least, the empousa was only going to suck his blood. Then, she realizes how irrational her thinking is at this moment, and she blinks - once, twice - to return herself to reality.

He smiles shakily and a little bit of color goes back into his ivory cheeks. “There’s a tile-mark on your face,” he says.

She slaps his approaching hand away and his smile abruptly disappears, replaced by a look of confusion and horror. He shrinks away, shaking his head. “No, no,” he mutters. “She - she’s crazy, out of her mind.” Rose knows he’s talking about her, except the way he’s saying it makes it seem like he’s the one who’s crazy. She crawls toward him, her kneecaps protesting, and he puts his hand out. “No,” he says louder. And then, almost too quietly, “Murderer.”

She stops in her tracks. “What did you say?”

“You’re a murderer. You killed that woman - Carmella. I saw it. I saw it with my own eyes, I did, you killed her, and ohmygod you’re insane, insane,” he babbles, eyes wide. He’s terrified.

And she’s pissed. “You saw me kill her. Did you also see that she had fangs? Did you miss that detail?”

He’s still shaking his head, but she’s pretty sure it has nothing to do with her questions. He’s just in shock. In the tiny part of her head that isn’t in pain or angry or frustrated or relieved, she is amazed that any demigod could make it to the age of - twenty-eight, twenty-nine? - without having any previous contact with monsters. She’s not even a full demigod, and she’s seen them before. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Maybe he really isn’t a demigod. But then, how can he see through the Mist?

Eric gets up, his legs shaking and lips trembling, grabs his computer bag and slings it over his shoulder. “I’m going to baggage claim,” he says with a tremor. “I’m going there to get my suitcases, and I don’t ever want to see you again, get it? I’m not ever taking United, and if you try to follow me, I’m calling the authorities. You’re psycho.” He pushes past her, which isn’t hard because she’s still on the ground in disbelief.

Savagely, she wishes she had let him go and the empousa had dragged him to some off-brand motel and sucked every last drop out of his veins. She watches him walk off, and something inside her makes her shout after him, “You’re a demigod, Eric. You are.”

He doesn’t look back even though she knows he can hear her.

“Are you dyslexic?” she yells.

He stops cold and turns around. “What?”

“I asked you if you are dyslexic,” she says evenly. “And diagnosed with ADHD.”

He stares at her. “Don’t ever talk to me. Again.” He disappears into the crowd, leaving her sitting alone in a nook of Marco Polo Airport.

..o..

Eric lies in bed, eyes open. The ceiling is full of dark shadows, and he can’t sleep. He feels like he’s seven again after accidentally having watched Bride of Chucky on TV. Every little noise makes him jump. Uneasily, he pulls the covers up to his chin. How is he supposed to sleep after being attacked by a real live vampire? What was that? He may not remember much of the Greek mythology crap they shoved down his throat in high school, but he’s pretty sure that vampires are not part of mythology-canon.

Doesn’t matter. The thing was about to eat him. The red eyes haunt his memory. It’s not just that either.

How does Rose know that he has ADHD and is dyslexic? She might be strange and unhinged, but she couldn’t have gone through his medical records. It’s not very common, is it? To have both? He definitely remembers struggling through books in elementary school and being put on a special program. Who is Rose, anyway? Maybe she’s some kind of governmental secret agent, and she’s his bodyguard - no, not a girl bodyguard - or maybe she’s an assassin! But she protected him. And - his head spins in so many different directions that he actually begins to feel nauseous. He almost, almost believes what she said about the Greek gods.

It would make a heck of a lot of things that happened as a kid more reasonable. Right now, it’s too late, and he can’t decide what to think. So he gets out of bed, turns on the light, downs a couple of sleeping pills, and crawls back.

Starting from that night, the dreams - or nightmares - begin to come. They start slowly, reassuring him with their gentleness, before turning into something fierce and unknown. He dreams of the vampires and remembers from a time before memory that they are called empousai. He dreams of a camp somewhere near Manhattan where people like him use swords and other medieval-like weapons. He dreams of his mother, who disappeared long before he had consciously known people were supposed to have mothers. But he dreams of her sweet, sweet smile and her black hair that smells of midnight rain, and he sighs in his sleep. Once upon a time, she loved him. Perhaps she does not remember him now, but once, she did. He is too old to cling to regrets, so he just drinks in visions of her, imagines what to say if he ever met her - he is fairly sure he won’t.

The most recurring dream is the one of Rose. Or is it Rose? It looks like Rose, sounds like her, but something tells him that this blonde girl with the exact shade of gray eyes is not the flight attendant he knows. But he knew her once, even though he cannot recall her name. He feels a deep connection to her, and some nights, she talks to him. She tells him things that he promptly forgets in the morning, but they seem to be important at the time. She is beautiful, and she makes his heart ache. He wants to hold her, for his fingers and arms to remember her; he wants to curl up inside her bones and find the missing parts of their history, but she never lets him get that close. She is so, so far away. And some mornings, he wakes up and finds that his cheeks are damp.

The girl who is and isn’t Rose fades away by the time he slips on his clothes, and all he has left is her sad smile.

Eric is not a superstitious man. He doesn’t believe in tarot cards or palm reading or crystal balls. Dreams aren’t supposed to have a “deeper meaning.” He’s a businessman. He’s more sensible than that. But these dreams - they’re something else. He can’t ignore them, and he certainly can’t dismiss them. Whatever they mean, whatever they are, he knows two things. One, monsters are real. If they are real, then it is a natural and necessary assumption that the gods are real as well. How could one exist without the other? And two, despite the multiple times Rose has told him that she hates his guts and the times he has told Rose that he thinks she should be committed, he is going to see her again. It just depends on when he summons up the courage to step back onto the 747 of United Airlines -

fic

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