Broken heart

Summary: "A person can die from a broken heart. After suffering deep emotional trauma the human heart sometimes cannot recover. The tendons in the heart can actually break, causing the heart to lose form, its capacity to pump blood effectively."

Calypso missed Percy. Outwardly she still functioned normally – tended the animals which inhabited her island with the same care and consideration she always had. She still cared for her garden in the same methodical way. But inside... inside she was dying.

She longed for him. Though it had been a year, to her it felt like yesterday that he had disappeared into the mist. Still felt like only yesterday he had broken her heart. Broken it beyond repair.

She saw him sometimes. He'd be walking along the shoreline, emerging from the water, or coming out of her cave. Always smiling... but whenever she rushed over to him, he faded away. Like a memory.

One day, while she was collecting shells on the beach, something washed up onto the shore. Upon further investigation the mystery item turned to be a pen. She swore her heart skipped a beat when she read the ancient scrawling carved into the cap. Anaklusmos.

She always kept his pen with her. It offered a small amount of solace whenever she threw her arms round what she thought was Percy, but in fact was thin air. In her eyes it was part of him. When she was strong enough to leave her cave without 'Riptide' she found a special place for it on her bedside table.

The next week a dog-eared trainer washed ashore. She knew it was his for the simple fact it was dry when it was obvious, by the condition of the trainer, that it'd been floating at sea for days.

Her heart-ache, for the first time in a year, was momentarily quelled with serenity. Her hallucinations had dissipated into nothing more than mere memories. But she still yearned for him.

Three weeks later...

On a particular stormy night, quite a rare occurrence on Ogygia, Calypso tossed and turned, Percy leaving her plaguing her dreams. She awoke to the sight of a shadowy figure stumbling into her cave. She reached to her bedside table and searched for Riptide. But it wasn't there. She looked up at the person who had finally stepped into the light. He couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. He had raven black hair, eyes as green then the ocean, wore a crooked grin, and was twirling 'Riptide' between his fingers.

"I believe you have my shoe," he said.