Resurrected

Charlie's POV

My heart has never raced as fast as it was racing now. Between how I feel now, walking up to the line of defense guarding the cabins, and how I felt while fighting Kronos, I definitely prefer fighting Kronos. Sure, there’s the fear, but when a demigod fights, his heart rate increases while his mind thinks it’s slowing down. I never feel hyper in battle. I only feel hyper when I’m doing things that get me nervous.

Like right now. I checked, for the hundredth time, whether the small silver cube was still tucked under my chestplate, and, for the hundredth time, it was there. I tried to breath in slowly as I reached the cabins, and I felt like I was going to puke.

Then I saw her.

Silena had found a perch for herself on top of the Aphrodite cabin, and when she saw me, she sprinted down a flight of stairs and was out the door within three seconds. She sprinted towards me, and I found myself picking up speed.

I needed to be with her.

She crashed into me, and somehow I caught her. Her lips crashed onto mine, and all the butterflies temporarily stopped flapping their wings. In my arms, she felt so good. She felt comfortable. She didn’t feel beautiful, like the actress you can only peck on the cheek and smile at. Silena was attainable. She was mine, but I was hers even more.

We didn’t belong with each other, we belonged to each other.

Finally, she broke away, and with tears in her eyes smiled at me. We didn’t need to say anything. Words would have made our feelings in that moment less powerful. She just smiled, her beautiful blue eyes shining like sapphires in the dirt of this world.

Finally, she spoke, saying, in her sweet voice,

“Thank you for coming back to me, Charlie Beckendorf.”

“Thank you for staying,” I replied.

We laughed, and I put Silena back onto her feet. We both sat against the wall of the Aphrodite Cabin porch, just happy to be alive. I started to tell her what had happened in my fight against Kronos, and she stood up and slapped me.

“I saw the entire thing!” She started to scream at me, her eyes filled with anger and her voice filled with fear, “What were you thinking? Going off to fight Kronos alone?”

I stood up and started to say, “Silena I’m sorr—”

“Sorry?” She yelled, “Charlie, you could have been killed! Do you know what that would have done to us? I had to watch you get your chest sliced open and…OH GODS!”

She ripped off my chest plate and opened my now blood-stained orange camp shirt. Upon seeing the blood-stains, she whimpered and turned pale with fear, feeling my skin frantically and trying to find the source of the bleeding.

She must have looked away when I was getting healed, I thought, because there’s no bleeding to find.

“Silena,” I told her calmly, “I’m fine. Calypso healed me. Leo brought her and the Hunters to help!”

But she wouldn’t stop whimpering, trying to find where I was cut. I could feel the trmble in her cold fingers and it saddened me to see her so panicked.

“Silena,” I said, grabbing her arms, trying to hug her, “I’m fine. Everything’s fine now!”

But she just sobbed, gripping my forearms tight and crying. Then, she slapped me again.

“You—you could’ve—could’ve—could’ve…”

She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“But I didn’t,” I told her soothingly, “I’m here for you. I would never leave you alone, not in Tartarus, not on Olympus, not here. I will never leave you.”

She looked into my eyes, and I could see the shell-shock in hers. But then, she grabbed my face and pulled me into another kiss. I could feel her hot tears on my skin as she pressed me to her, and I pressed back, shutting my eyes tight.

A chorus of ‘Aww’s came from the surrounding crowd, and then we both realized that there was a surrounding crowd. We released, and I found myself standing in front of all of my friends with no armor on and my shirt ripped open like a button-down. I must have looked like some zombie with a fashion sense.

This is it, I thought to myself, it has to be now.

In all the other moments in my life, the moments where I’ve made decisions, I’ve always hesitated. Hades, I even hesitated on the Princess Andromeda by looking at a picture of Silena for too long. But this time, I didn’t.

I took a deep breath, all the adrenaline from my fight with Kronos coming back, and got on one knee. I produced the silver cube, and opened it. The hinge on the box worked perfectly, as I had freaked out from the nervousness of imagining myself proposing to Silena, forcing me to oil the hinge a thousand times.

I looked up at her face, and everyone in the crowd breathed in a gasp. They all knew what was going to happen. They probably should have known, should have expected it. But they all now held their breaths.

“Silena,” I told her, “you are everything to me. You complete me in every way, shape and form and you refuse to leave me. I love you more than anything in this world, and I know we’ve been through a lot. We’ve been through more than most couples have. So I want to make this thing permanent. So, Silena Beauregard, will you marry me?”

I didn’t even blink. I hadn’t even contemplated the option of he refusing my proposal, and now I paled in fear as I wondered whether or not she would actually say ‘yes’ and—

“YES!” She screamed, and instinct took over. I got back up and hugged her tight, smiling wider than I have ever smiled. We released and she kissed me, crying tears of joy. The entire camp cheered louder than I had ever heard them and I heard personal whoops and shouts of joy from Tommy, Percy and Leo. Annabeth, Thalia, Calypso and Piper whooped for Silena.

I then took the ring out of its holder and placed onto her fourth finger on her left hand.

The ring was gorgeous, the diamond from Calypso’s cave, the gift she had given to me, shining bright along with two other stones, one pink sapphire, representing her cabin, and one imperial topaz, brown as bronze, representing mine.

It had looked amazing in the box, but it looked even better on her finger. Then, she kissed me again, and I just laughed. Partly to get the nervousness out, partly from joy.

“Well!” said a booming, father-like voice, “let’s let the newly engaged have their time to enjoy their new state of affairs! Three cheers for Silena Beauregard and Charlie Beckendorf, the first couple to be engaged at Camp Half-Blood!”

I looked up at Chiron’s face as the camp exploded in cheers again, and I mouthed,

“Thank you.”

He just smiled, a twinkle in his eyes. I realized that over 3000 years, constantly training campers that die in painful ways, that these were some of the moments he lived for.

Then, I picked up Silena, and without anyone objecting, I carried her into the Aphrodite cabin, both of us laughing the entire way.

Notes

So finally, I got this chapter off my chest. I had been planning it forever, and I knew that this would be the way I would start to end this story. I hope you like it. Also: Yes, I did just have Charlie propose to Silena. I fanboyed at the idea, so you guys better fangirl at the chapter. :D

Enjoy,
Grafon