Haven't you ever been starry eyed? Haven't you ever wished for something just out of your reach, and dreamed hopelessly? Theresa's desire for normal began like this. Pre-Phantom Rising, Jay x Theresa.
A/N: Originally, this was a drabble in my story Sleepless Demeanours, but it refused to be compliant and short. No matter how politely and calmly I asked, it kept growing and growing until it could no longer be considered a drabble. And, therefore, it's now a one shot.
This is sort of a prequel to the events of Phantom Rising, an explanation for Theresa's sudden desire to be 'normal' again. I don't think I'm the only one that thinks it was a little bit out of the blue, so this is my interpretation of what should have happened before the producers transformed her into a whiny, out of control, giant crab.
Anyway, enough ranting, more reading. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to let me know what you think. Every review makes me smile!
Much love,
Little Miss Illusional
Starry Eyed
Haven't you ever been starry eyed?
"Do you plan on sitting up here all night?"
Theresa lifted her head off her knees to see Jay closing the door to the roof behind him. Stepping out onto the terrace now, she could see that his hair was still matted with grime and mud, and the cut on his cheek was crusted with brown, dried blood. As he walked towards her, the way he favoured his left leg in a slight limp became apparent.
"I thought you were going to see Chiron." She called back, avoiding his question.
The boy hoisted himself onto the wall with her, keeping his feet on the roof-side, while hers dangled over the edge. "I was." He confirmed, making an offhanded gesture. "But what's Chiron going to do? Give me a band aid and an icepack? I'm fine."
She rolled her eyes at the stubborn boy. Jay's most used phrase was 'I'm fine'. It was also his biggest lie. She always knew that when Jay said 'I'm fine', he actually meant that he was, in fact, not fine at all.
But, she let it go. There was no point arguing with Jay about his physical state.
"How are the others?" She asked, mentally pushing away over-concern for her leader. "Does Herry have to stay at the school?"
Jay shook his head. "He's okay now. He didn't lose too much blood. Chiron patched him up. And Archie's wrist isn't broken, just sprained."
If the latest of their fights against Cronus hadn't been so brutal, Theresa may have laughed about the casual way Jay remarked about his injured teammates. It was all a routine now. The emotions attached to injury and death was all but lost on the seven of them. They'd all nearly died a few times in the past few years, and severe injuries were a regular occurrence. A habit, even.
Theresa often wondered if they'd ever be able to grow out of the habits. When Cronus was back in Tartarus, would they be able to be normal. Go to school regularly. Do homework. Have a bedtime. Listen to parents. Was it possible to go back to a normal, unordinary life if you've lived one that is as impossible as theirs?
She felt Jay shift slightly, and she turned back to face the Leader. "Do you think we'll be fighting Cronus forever?"
"No." He replied bluntly, without a second's hesitation.
"Oh." She had been unsure where her question had come from, but in her heart, that wasn't the answer she was looking for. She looked away, Jay's steely-eyed stare burning the back of her head.
She hadn't known why she'd even asked.
They sat in silence on the rooftop for what seemed hours, yet she knew it couldn't have been more than a few minutes of quiet before Jay broke the wordlessness with a simple, whispered statement.
"Just because I think we can beat Cronus doesn't mean I want us too."
He'd never admit it, but Theresa knew the weight of his previous words. Jay would never admit something so defeating. He was strong, brave, stubborn Jay; their Leader that never backed down, never ran away, never let Cronus win. Jay not wanting to beat Cronus was just about as impossible as returning to normal life.
"You'd rather stay in New Olympia forever, then?" She asked indifferently.
Jay shrugged. "Why not?"
"Don't you want your old life back?"
"No."
It was the second time that night he'd straight-out dismissed her questions. Jay seemed to have everything thought out; he knew exactly what he wanted, and what to do. He was the planning type. He'd meticulously think everything through a hundred times, find the best course of action and stick to it. No deviations, no detours, no rethinking. Theresa, on the other hand, wasn't a planning type. She let every day flow the way it did; anything goes.
That was the biggest difference between the two of them.
Jay shifted in his spot, unconsciously touching a finger to his cheek. She glanced over at the boy, her eyes filling with concern. If he wasn't so proud and stubborn, she'd have suggested he see Chiron.
Instead, she asked if it hurt. He nodded slightly, as if he were afraid to admit that he - bold, fearless Jay - could be hurt.
They both knew he could be.
"Theresa, look out!"
The psychic whirled around, diving out of the way of a falling giant. Barely a second later, the huge beast fell to the ground in a sickening crunch; the exact spot she'd been standing less than a second earlier.
She spotted her saviour, battling the rest of the giants further up the hill. He dashed between the rest of the team, calling out instructions and warnings. He caught her eye for a moment, giving her a slight nod, before throwing his sword at the belly of a burly blue giant that had latched onto Archie.
His sword buried itself to the hilt in the giant, and it too slumped to the ground. The rest of the giants looked at each other in momentary confusion, as if finally noticing their rapidly diminishing number. They roared, beating their chests in gorilla-like behaviour.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Cronus had clearly been training his giants. They entered a berserker-like state, thrashing and flailing at the seven heroes. There was no time now to make mistakes; no time to panic.
Jay had been the first to slip up. He'd been too busy trying to be everywhere, helping the rest of his team, that he didn't see Agnon sneak up behind him. A muscled arm caught him in the chest, and the Leader was sent flying into a nearby tree. He crumpled to the ground, and did not move.
After that, it had all been somewhat of a blur.
"Do you want me to take a look at that?" She didn't wait for a reply; leaning over before Jay and his stubborn pride could get out of her reach. He allowed her to take his face between her two slender hands. He tilted his face to the left so she had a better view of the slash across his right cheek.
Theresa pursed her lip as she examined the cut. It wasn't deep, but the wound ran the entire length of his cheekbone. A thin layer of red-brown blood had formed a crust around the edges, and a few drops had accumulated on the edge of his collar.
"Jay." She murmured. "Why is it always you that gets hurt?"
Ironically, it was one of the lesser wounds that Jay had received. In the past few weeks alone, he'd broken all the bones in his left foot, had his arm sliced up and dislocated three fingers. The scars from the first fight with Cronus - a fiery encounter from the night before she'd arrived in New Olympia -were just visible below the Leader's bloodstained collar.
Another girl may have been repulsed or had to fight the urge to stare at the scarring, but Theresa found the scar to be just as much a part of Jay as his trademark polo shirts or his prolix pep-talks. They completed him, somehow; the marks and signs of his experiences through life.
Jay, for his part, was unfazed by his rapidly growing collection of battle scars. He shrugged at her question, though she'd asked for no response.
"Maybe it's because I'm the first to charge off into battle?" He teased gently. Typical Jay; Theresa snorted lightly.
"And why's that?"
"Because I've got something to fight for."
His chocolate brown eyes twinkled against his darkened skin, and he held her gaze. Theresa realized that she still had her hand pressed to his cheek, and furthermore had been gently making circles on his skin with her thumb. Her eyes widened slightly, and she made to move her hand, but Jay reached with his hand and held hers there.
Her heart skipped a beat as he continued to gaze into her eyes. As if in slow motion, or in a dream, she became aware that he was leaning towards her - no, she too was leaning in, angling her face so that her lips to press against Jay's in a way that she had only dreamed about for so long now...
"Don't you see, the gods don't care about us!"
"Let me help you!"
"I can read your mind. In your heart, this is what you wanted."
"The gods don't care about us!"
"We can go back to our old lives, Jay! We can be normal again!"
"Stop! You're hurting your friends!"
"She can't be... dead?"
"No matter how much power she has, she is not immortal."
"Theresa!"
The vision ended as abruptly as it had appeared, and Theresa found herself gasping for air as she scrambled to remember the events that had flashed before her. Sometimes her visions were clear as recent memories; other times, they fell through her fingers like remembering dreams.
Anger. She remembered anger. Hurt, betrayal, confidence and fear. The emotions attached themselves into her thoughts, while the words and pictures faded.
"Theresa?"
She opened her eyes, barely remembering having closed them. She found herself slumped over, the upper half of her body resting in Jay's toned arms. As he came into focus, his concern filtered through her lightheaded perception.
"Theresa?" He repeated, a little more loudly. She blinked several times, feeling a little woozy as she sat up. She felt Jay's arms supporting her as she moved, and made a conscious effort to remember what had happened before she'd been pulled into her vision.
At the memory of what had happened - or rather, what hadn't happened - she blushed again.
"What did you see?" Jay asked prompted, shaking her shoulders gently. "What happened?"
The gods don't care about us!
She can't be... dead?
"I don't remember," she mumbled slowly, wondering why she was lying to Jay. "It was all a bit blurry."
Silently, she pleaded with him to drop the matter, and to her relief he did. However, much to her desolation, he dropped his arms from around her. He stood, stretching his arms.
"Well, I should probably check how the other guys are." he announced, a little too quickly. "You know - see how they're coping."
She nodded in submission. "I'll come in soon," she assured, drawing her knees back to her chest.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Jay nodded, and made the walk back to the door. He paused for a moment, with his back to her and one hand on the door. She knew that he loathed not being able to be able to care for them all at the one time, but she also knew that he couldn't stay with her forever. The others needed Jay too.
With that, he was gone.
With a sigh, Theresa lowered her head onto her knees and forced herself to remember what she'd seen in her vision. Why had it been so... scary? The anger that twisted and turned its way through the fading vision ran parallel with fear and hurt, and she yearned to understand why. She was not an angry person - that was Archie's way. Neither did she doubt the love of the gods. So why was her voice resonating the angry words through the haunting vision?
Even more frightening was the disbelieving female whispers; Atlanta's questioning tone. She can't be ... dead? The words made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, more so than a maniacal-like laugh that pierced its way through her thoughts. What did the future hold for them that was this terrible? Whose life was in question?
We can be normal again. She loathed the siren-call of the voice that spoke the words, but the sudden desire that seized her and shot through her body worked faster than adrenaline. She'd never admit it to anyone - not even to Jay - but to be normal again would be like a dream come true. Normal girls didn't wake up at five in the morning for training, or battle evil gods every other day. Normal wasn't having superpowers or an unavoidable ancestry. Normal didn't mean slipping into visions seconds before kissing the person you'd been in love with since the moment you met him.
Without warning, a sob raked through her body. Theresa would have given anything, anything, to have that level of normality in her life. Normal meant that her and Jay might have a future, instead of the collection fleeting moments and could have been's that made up their non-relationship. Tonight had been one of several occurrences when she had been as sure as Hades that Jay reciprocated her feelings, but it was yet another moment she'd have to dismiss, purely because of what didn't happen.
That could all change.
She lifted her head off her knees at that thought. We can be normal again. She alone had the power to make it all change. She'd felt in coursing through her veins during the vision, and she felt it now. The strength of Theseus and the gods was hers, and applied correctly... she would be more powerful than Cronus. Powerful enough to shape the future.
Theresa smiled to herself, as she stared up to the stars. She had always been brooding on what didn't happen, rather than what could. She'd spent too long being starry eyed, and that was going to stop. No more hopeless wishing. Persephone often told her that she had the power; she just had to reach out and take it. Starting now, she would.
The future was no longer foretold.