Authors Note: ARGH! OMYGOSH! I am not even going to bother to make apologies, or even speak. All that would do would be delay the long, long, LONG awaited chapter. For anyone who remembers this, I am sorry. But I did bring you Archie (FINALLY), and angst, which is always a delicious combination. –Nuuoa Eclaire
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights to Class of the Titans. But I've been plotting to kidnap Archie. Because he is angsting, and sad. And is love.
"Theresa told me about you." He sighed remembering his friend; "You're the one afraid of water."
Archie cried out in his restless sleep, causing Khalil to stumble even more. He remembered this from what Annabelle Windlow had told him. When you fall asleep in the presence of the beast your nightmares come to haunt you… the worst thing imaginable… it probably had to do with the key word. His biggest nightmare… water.
Suddenly like a ghost a new smell entered his nostrils, the smell of a spunky redhead… not the first, but the second. Atlanta raced around the corner sweating from her core, bangs melted into her forehead.
"The beast." She wheezed out. He drew over to support her weight, "I know."
"And Archie." She tried to point over to her restless friend.
"What's wrong with him?" she fell down onto the floor and placed an unsteady hand on his back, eyes downcast in worry.
"When you fall asleep in the presence of the beast you relive your nightmares… we can only hope that his dreams don't scar him…"
-Awake in a Dream, Chapter 31: Her Life or All
Awake in a Dream: From Heavens Above
Chapter 3: Sea Ghosts
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
There were few times when he remembered his family. Of days when they would travel to their old summer home farther north to go fishing and eat by the fire side. Where days stretched through nights so they became indistinguishable from the other, until your night vision wore off and you fell asleep. Where a splash in the face along the Atlantic shore was the only face wash you got. Where the long cries of the geese overhead was your alarm. Where the giggles of your sister was you lullaby. Where the ocean was the only tears.
Where water was life. And where the mornings of the red sky your delight, not warning. No, never warning.
The harsh wind bit Archie's nose and turned it red as he at last made it up to the crest of the hill that overlooked the small cabin. The bitter wind was especially fierce today, but after months… no a year, it was a year, he remembered now. A year of hopeless wandering, but he was here. He was home. Or whatever you called it.He shivered against his will and turned his downcast hard eyes from the chipped cabin and onto the stretching expanse of murky blue far ahead of him. Archie clenched his fists together beneath his gloves, and bit fiercely into his lip. It was the first time he had felt emotion, numbed so long from hunger and cold. He had taken his savings from his account, even some of the money from a pawn shop for his ankle brace.
It pained Archie to think of the shiny metal that had served him so well for all of those years being melted into some sort of contraption or pocket watch, but he'd rather live then cling. Travel than stay with his memories. Make a life with the money his parents' will had left.
With heavy steps Archie moved downwards closer to the cabin and the Atlantic that mockingly greeted him. He had put this off for too long, it was now or never. In the year since they had defeated Cronus and Archie had ventured off, he had travelled many miles by foot and train. Not bothering to hitch-hike, not along the roads he took anyway. It had only taken him with the little money he had, not enough for a plane ticket, to make it just one province away. One province… and yet.He couldn't do it, he stopped. No point to keep going, there were plenty of job opportunities, he had escaped from New Olympia and the beast, and the dreams of Scio Havarti, and he was happy. Surely he was. He tried not to think of the nameless woman in his mind, clawing to get back in.
So he had secured himself a job, and Mrs. Reynolds from across the MacDonald's he regularly visited while hesitating to reach the Atlantic, gave him a comfy dorm. But Archie should've known best he could never out run anything, he was fast, just not… like her.
So instead he had stopped, stopped running, finally looking around him, he had made it to the shore of memories, washed away only to resurface. He was finally here.The last place he would call home.
A sudden splash sounded beside him, eyes widening Archie watched in awe as a fish leapt into the air and made a swift splash into the strange blue beside him. Archie stared blankly at the spot where it had disappeared untraced.There were few times when he remembered his family. Archie supposed this time was one of the few.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
"Father!" Archie wailed helplessly into the air, the stench of the raw fish guts lying on the floor deck filling his nostrils even from the safety of his bed. It was nothing compared to his cries. He leapt from under the covers of their small boat and journeyed up the stairs in a mess of flaying limbs and slips.
"Dad!" This time his wail cracked, and Archie forgot of the deep mirth of the ocean around him and leapt over to where he had last heard his father's footprints above him. Almost immediately Archie saw the crack at the rim of the old boat and the thick red ooze of something at the splint where it had cracked. He trembled and cried desperately into the hazy red sky. "DAD! Don't leave me! COME BACK!" His steel-blue eyes were misted as he trembled on his hands and knees, almost not able to breathe with his sobs, nor move with his half responding body. This was a joke, this was not real…
Without thought, or with all thought, the small pale child leaned over to face his worst fear, and the salt licked his face and stung him. "D-dad… I need you to come out now… you know I hate it when you---" Even as a child Archie knew that his dad should have gotten out of the water and laughed like he used to when he showed him water could do no harm. That the death of his sister and mother down at their lake had been no more than fate and accident. Then he saw him, like he was supposed to.
The dead cold grin from his father's face was fading away under the murky black waters, leaving a trail of blood in its path. It was almost untraceable in the never-ending lifeless deep. The grin that now haunted his nightmares and eerily awoke his fears and the made the monsters under his bed come to life. Made the water feast with rancid tongues.
A young Archie could only stare at the spot where the last glimpse of his dad sunk to the unforgiving ocean floor, and hopelessly listen to the waves hungry cries as they grew fiercer and laughed as his tears joined their salty waters. For in the briefest moment of stillness beneath him, he had seen his face, and it was stained in blood.He should've been there… He should've been there to help. It was his fault.Water had killed his mom, sister… and his father too. No, he had. And he wept long past the day, and into the night, drifting forever out into endless sea. Vowing to never let anything get close to him again, for if he did.They would surely die.
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo
Archie struck the water with his hand sharply, clearing away the quivering image of his face over the surface. He quickly regretted coming here again, and found himself knee deep in sand and leaning against the dry cabin walls. Breathless. Thoughtless. Weeping.
He wondered why he had left New Olympia once more; the nightmare with the beast had not been that terrible. Then he stopped himself short of 'I'm returning.' He killed everyone he loved. He could not go back, especially after what he'd… done to her.
Archie's still purple hair matted his face, and he fiddled for his whip long enough to find and grab it tightly to his chest. Pathetic, be a man, Archie. You're pathetic, a helpless fool.
But where would he stay? He doubted Mrs. Reynolds would let him back to the old dorm near the MacDonald's, and that was almost a whole province back now. He did not have the courage or resources to get back there, least of all think of the resting place before that. Or the first. The brownstone.
"Then this will be my home. I'll get a job nearby, and I'll wither out of existence. No one needs a hero anymore anyway."It was technically his, left to him by his father in the will. Now, as Archie thought, he realized that he was going to come here in the first place, before New Olympia had come around. Not much else for a slum in the streets.
No one needed a hero.
Archie sighed and involuntarily let out another tear, he could no longer mistake it for sea spray. The last painful moments of his father remained etched in his mind as he closed his eyes, and his mother and sister danced under his lashes. But not for long. "Idiot child," he hissed, "thinking love could stay."
But as Archie lay down his head against the side of the old cabin door and wrestled with his memories, he dared once to look up at the sky. On this exact day the normal faded black had been cleared. Cleared with hues of silver and translucent figurines stacked forever in a long row. And yet he had not seen them, and though by the light of this night he travelled, he had been unable to see through a coat of tears. His image of sky ghosts was vague, because the picture of her face was in his mind. Torn broken and pleading beneath him. Whispering unsteady love and devotion, and tickling fire along his neck.
Another ghost of the past joined in haunting his dreams, but this one was softer, and closer, and breathing. This one had the eyes of the twilight moon, and not of the ocean. Pulling the tides to guide him through the safety of the storm. This one had hair of a bright red autumn, kissing him gently as he ran through the foliage. This one…
Was Atlanta. There were few times that Archie did not think about love.He supposed this was one of the many.But for the first time in his life, he had out-run her.