Silva had no idea how long the kiss lasted, but he had enjoyed every second of it. After all this time, the only thing that was holding him back from moving forward with his relationship with Rachel was the fact that she was destined to be the Oracle of Delphi, who was not allowed to fall in love at all.
He remembered reading the books where it was clearly shown that Rachel was in love with Percy before she became the Oracle. But the moment she did become the Oracle, her emotions were chalked up to fate making sure that Rachel became the Oracle through Percy, as he was the centre of the Greek pantheon due to the Great Prophecy.
Silva didn't want to fall in love with Rachel only for him to lose her when she took her place as the Oracle of the Greek pantheon. And that had led him to reject her advances that day.
But Apollo's words gave him confidence to move forward and fight for the future he desired.
After a long time, in Silva's perspective, both of them stopped their kiss as Rachel got a call from the rest of her group, as she had been gone for some time.
And at the same time, one of her group members, Cassie, had come to the top of the dam while searching for Rachel. But the moment she saw both Rachel and Silva together, she paused. Then she narrowed her eyes and looked closely at them to find out that they both looked a bit dishevelled and were breathing slightly hard.
A smile filled with gossip and understanding came to her face.
"Rachel, don't worry, we are only leaving after two hours. I'll tell them you're safe!!!" She shouted and began running like she was in a marathon towards the stairs.
Rachel just looked at her running back to her friends and just sighed with a red face. She knew she wouldn't escape the talk she would have with her friends later.
But right now, she needed to have an entirely different kind of talk.
"Alright, fess up. You are not leaving without explaining everything this time."
So Silva did. He began by saying how he knew about the future and how she was destined to be the Oracle of Delphi, a job description which required her not to have any sort of romantic relationship the moment she took the mantle.
"Wait, why can you look at the future again?"
"I am the son of Artemis and Diana."
"Huh," Rachel replied, but her expression showed that she had even more questions going on in her head right now.
"...We Greeks and Romans have a history of weird births," Silva said after thinking about it for a moment.
Rachel, at the time, was processing the fact that she was destined to be an Oracle, a job description that included visions and nightmares of the future, along with the fact that the entry reward included the complete renunciation of any chance of having a relationship at all.
"Wait, you said I renounced my relationship when I got it in the future. You mean to tell me you saw me break up with you when I got it?" She asked, with a bit of worry in her eyes.
"No... my personal future prediction is kind of like looking at an alternate reality. All the facts are similar to our own world, with just one difference. The reality I look into does not include myself. But it is extremely close enough to this reality that I can use the information to predict the future, and in extremely rare cases, my predictions surpass even those who can directly predict the future of this reality."
"Wait, that means I fell in love with someone else in the future you saw, and then I fell out of love... Wait, I don't want to know who that alternate Rachel fell in love with. Right now, I need to know why you felt confident enough to let me kiss you if you knew that you would lose me in the future."
"Well, I met with my uncle Apollo a few days ago, and I put forward this info and asked his advice, and he told me to follow my heart no matter what future I see with my powers.
And seeing that he is in charge of the Oracle, I figured he might do something or he might have seen something that might lead to a different outcome," Silva said slowly as he looked into Rachel's eyes.
"And... what if there... what if there's no hope and the future is going to be the same as in the other dimension?" Rachel asked with doubt in her mind.
"Then I'll fight. Turning away from you was one of the hardest things I have ever done." He then gently took her hands in his own. "Even if the future is fixed, I'm going to fight to the end and see whether I can change the future or not."
"You have to know how corny that line was, right?" Rachel asked while chuckling a bit.
"Well, I have never done anything similar to this before," Silva said as he scratched his head. Looking back at his words a few seconds ago, he couldn't deny that his words were too corny for their own good.
Both of them laughed at the way the serious conversation ended. But it helped alleviate the seriousness of the situation they would have to face in the future.
"By the way, a few of your friends came here some time ago. The monsters came after me because I helped them escape."
"Yeah, don't worry about them. I'll catch up with them in a few hours. But for now..." Silva looked at the nearest store. "Want to have some ice cream?"
"Oh, first date at the Hoover Dam. I hope you brought some cash. I'm not stopping at a single scoop," she said as she began walking towards the shop.
Silva just smiled and began walking right after her.
A/N: Hope you like it.