Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Annabeth. August 1st, 2010.

They'll talk about Percy Jackson like a legend, spoken in the language of the centuries.

  Annabeth sees him at a glance, and she makes a silent oath to tell only his truth. 

She sits beside him. the ocean in front tumbles and flushes green, then hisses white, water nearly touching her toes. She digs them further into the sand, and Percy doesn’t even glance her way. he only lets out a breath, curled into himself like a lock of hair beneath an ear.

“I didn't see you at dinner.”

He shrugs. 

After everything they’d been through, a shrug is the last thing he has. She doesn’t comment on that. What she does instead is focus on the remains of a seashell that lies on the wet sand. Half of it is gone. The other half is pink and vulnerable against the scorching, merciless sun. 

“You’re not hungry, then?” 

The tide takes the remnants of the shell for itself. Water is greedy, she finds. It swallows anything it can. 

“No,” he responds. “I’m not.”

He had been like this since the sun rose into the sky, welcoming a new day. Ever since they got to camp, won the Giant War, laid to rest the remaining ashes—he’d slowly turned to this. A shadow of himself. First it was all fine and good; everyone was glad to have them both back, the two camp heroes returning for another victory, Percy laughing and hugging old friends whom he hadn’t seen in months. But then the whispers came. The Romans and the Greeks alike. People talk, and no one can do much to stop it. She studies his profile. His hair has finally grown to the length it used to be, at least. Dark curls flutter slightly, like butterflies in the breeze, and Annabeth gives a silent thank you to Time. They’ll fight this—Percy and she, no matter the silence and hidden scars and gossip that surrounds them. They always do.

And, well, there’s something else about Time. Today is August 1st, she realizes, and it hits her like a splash of water, really . The first day of peace. She’s not used to that, but she can be. 

The first day of peace. We should do something about that.

“Come on,” she says. 

“What?”

“I said ‘come on,’ Seaweed Brain.” She stands, brushes sand off her shorts, and holds out her hand. “So. Are you coming or not?”

“Where?”

“Argus will take us to New York, and we’re going to see your mom. Get the hell away from here.”

A slow smile begins to creep up to his face. There he is. There’s the old Percy I love. He bolts to his feet, his fingers threaded with her own.

  “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Perseus. Exactly two months before.

Side note: getting speared is, under no circumstances, fun. Perseus spluttered when he caught sight of the sharp tip protruding out of his stomach, then stumbled like a marionette as someone yanked it out from behind. The world tilted and the world blurred and the world turned red. He was vaguely aware of other stabs—one to the stomach, one to the chest, even an arrow to the thigh. He could almost hear the cheers, the Roman cry for bloodlust and victory.

Almost. 

He was too busy thinking about how not fun this all was to take notice of his audience. His insides were on fire and the urge to collapse grew stronger by the second and his sword was long gone and he was dying and Perseus couldn’t die. No. Never. Not in a million years. I was invincible and then I wasn't and then… he didn’t even know who he was. 

Just a kid, he thought. 

Just a kid.

An amnesiac kid. The son of Neptune, as they said. An amnesiac kid who fought as if he rose from the trenches, carved out of bones and sand. As if war breathed his hot breath down his back so he could come to life. But just a kid, nonetheless.

War .

He fell to his knees as a shadow formed out of the red. The figure walked up to him with leisure, as if they had all the time in the world. Wide shoulders and a broadsword strapped to their hip and the smell of rusted metal. Scarlet bright eyes gleamed back at Perseus. He blinked the sweat and blood away and found Ares—no, Mars—grinning down at him. 

“I told you fighting me was a mistake,” he sneered.

Perseus spit on the ground as a reply. He would’ve said something—done something—fought more—

Killed him again.

But he felt too weak. Too small. The dust turned golden in the last rays of sunlight as everything tilted on its axis. His knees could no longer support him. 

“I’d kill you, but…” Mars’ voice sounded distant, like an echo from a mountainside… “they already did it for me,” he finished, and then…

Quiet. 

No sound. Just a ringing in his ears—maybe the ocean waves, too. The snowflake salt on his lips and a girl saying his name with a smile on her face, brighter than the sun in his eyes. This girl was almost scrutinizable, Peresus thought, in his death-ridden mind. She had a whirl of blonde cornrow braids swept over her shoulder, he was sure of it. Skin turning golden brown against that same, big fat afternoon sun that blinded him. How she was reflected in the sea, like a thousand mirrors, and how her laugh seemed to tease the waves. A splash of white hurtled to her back, and she laughed again, calling to him.  

Percy.

Not Perseus. 

But Percy.

Somehow that name fit better, like the way the rays of light fit better in the sky than in a landscape painting hung on a wall. He could almost see her in full quality, this girl. But now she was just a warm glow. 

He could almost reach for her, too…index finger curled on another index finger, eyelashes fluttering in peacefulness…until everything went dark for good.

;

Another sidenote: Perseus was having a decent week, before any of the getting-speared-and-dying thing happened.

Well, decent by demigod standards. He was chased by revenge seeking gorgons on his search for Rome (found it, by the way), crossed a river called The Little Tiber that may or may not have taken his invulnerable iron skin in the churning, icy waters as he carried a hippie goddess on his back who turned out to be Juno, and on a final note, saved Frank—who he’d met at the entrance to camp—with his powers, freeing him from the clutches of said revenge seeking gorgons. All a piece of cake (not).

Oh, and he found Rome. Camp Jupiter, to be precise. 

After days of starving and washing his faded orange shirt in fountains and being chased by monsters and traversing the land on foot or, in one case, a police cruiser, he was more than happy about the change. 

Here is Perseus Jackson, son of Neptune, Juno had said, in all her divine glory. The Romans had kneeled for her, while Percy stood at the forefront, incredulous. 

The echo of her words bounced across his head as Reyna, the girl in charge, led him past silent Romans.

;

“Your hair,” Hazel told him, ducking her head.

“What about it?”

“Octavian said—well…”

“Did that bastard threaten you again?” 

Hazel’s eyes widened. “No! No, it wasn’t about that!”

Perseus paused, the cobbled road ahead winding into the shadows of cabins that were familiar but then again not. They were on their way to the Fifth Cohort, right after a meeting with Octavian the Worthless Augur at the Temple of Jupiter—and Octavian had admitted that the gods deemed the Graecus (Perseus, yeah, he’s the Graecus) good enough to stay at Camp. This “message” he got from disemboweling Perseus’ pillow panda, probably one of the few possessions he had left. Bad enough already on his book, but Octavian also kinda blackmailed Hazel with “secrets only he knew about” so the fucker would force her hand into voting for him in the next praetor elections. 1) Hazel had been nothing but kind to Perseus since the beginning, 2) he’d immediately pegged her as the little sister he never had, and 3) if there’s one thing Perseus detests more than authority figures is an authority figure pushing their power around like puppeteers. 

“Well, fuck him anyway.”

“Yeah,” Hazel agreed. “Fuck him.”

“You’re not allowed to say that.”

“ Well—”

“No. Okay, you’re right.” Percy grinned. Hazel laughed into her hand. “You may be fourteen, but you have every right to say that. After what he said to you.”

“Obviously.”

Percy nudged her with his shoulder, and she laughed—until she tripped on something that lay on the ground. Something shiny. It looked like a gemstone.

“Whoah, is that a—”

“Don’t touch it!” she shrieked. 

His fingers froze, a breath’s distance away from the jewel, shining like a thousand mirrors in the afternoon sunlight. 

“…Okay? Is it some creepy cursed jewel, or…”

“C’mon, Perce.” She tugged him by the arm, leading him down the road. “We’ve got to get to the Fifth Cohort on time—oh, sorry, can I call you ‘Perce’? It sounds nicer than Perseus. No offense .”

“None taken.” He smiled to himself. “And yeah—you can. Sounds nice.”

He may not have gotten his answer about the gemstone, but it was alright. Hazel’s cloud of curls and defiance directed him forward. 

“So what’s wrong with my hair?” he asked her, recalling what Octavian had presumably told her. 

Her hand dropped from his arm like a dead weight. She glanced back at him…with pity? Yeah, maybe. Pity. She stopped walking.

“Your, um, hair—I’m sorry, this is a stupid Roman rule—but, uh.” Her eyes strayed from his face, landing on his thick dark locks that reached his shoulders after weeks and weeks on the run. He swept his fingers through them, self-conscious. “Your hair, it’s…too long.”

“Yeah, I gathered,” he laughed nervously. “Need a haircut. You can do the honors, if you want.”

“Well, you don’t—it’s more than that. Octavian says you need the Roman haircut, and um…you ever gotten a buzz cut before?”

;

Hazel didn’t do the honors. Reyna did.

Her eyes said sorry but her hands didn’t. He wasn’t sure why he’d bothered. From the second he’d met Reyna, he’d understood she was here to lead. To go the Roman Way, because there was no other way.

We really have met before, he thought as he kneeled upon stone, but any last vestige of his past had been wiped clean like the sand in the morning tide. That didn’t change the fact that they had met, and that he’d hurt her. That he’d taken something precious and she would never get it back. Maybe that’s why he didn’t protest when they stopped at the Temple of Mars Ultor, with the Fifth Cohort and all the Centurions and Legionnaires watching, all perfectly in place like the foreboding clouds above. Maybe that’s why he said nothing when she excused her next action as tradition, Octavian smiling smugly. Maybe that’s why he let her push him down, let her say her speech, let it happen, one of her hands pressed to his shoulder, the other wrapped around the hair clipper.

It whirred and whirred, inches from his hair, whispering in his ear.

The words she’d used to address the crowd blended with its buzzing sound, in his mind. 

In honor of Mars Ultor, she’d said, all proper, hands clasped together, her metal dogs standing proudly by her sides, we gather here to officially invite Perseus Jackson, son of Neptune, into Rome. And as Mars leads us forward into the future, so does tradition. 

She’d swallowed there. A crack in her armor. Like lighting cleaving the sky in two. She detested tradition. She couldn’t even say the word without wavering at the last syllable, the crack spreading further. 

And tradition has deemed that all new male recruits must have their hair cut to less than an inch above the scalp. Though we have made exceptions in the past, it’s been decided—there can be no more exceptions from now on. Perseus, step forward, please.

The stone clawed into his knees, now scraped and raw. Vulnerable, because his skin was no longer made of steel. For the first time since he could remember, he realized just how small he was, without that mysterious protection that he’d carried with throughout his journey from the Wolf House. The statue of Mars leered at him, so tall and powerful and confident against the backdrop of pillars reaching for the raven sky.

I am the might and I am the power, it seemed to say.

Perseus glared right back. He’d met this god before. He was sure of it.

Just like Reyna Ramirez, who was seconds away from hacking off his hair; just like Nico Di Angelo, Hazel’s brother, who was one more spectator amongst dozens. 

He could feel the hair clipper reaching for the skin above his neck and he could feel the Fifth Cohort’s pity raining down his back—or maybe it was just the actual pinpricks of water pouring from the sky.

“I’m sorry,” Reyna murmured at last.

When Romans followed tradition, the heavens cried in earnest. 

;

His hair was shorn off. The dark mass clogged the floor around him, while rain on his back and shoulders bristled his skin. Mars’ grin never vanished, as if the loss of his hair, of all things he could lose, had left him weaker than before. Naked. At least that’s how he felt. 

He also felt everyone’s eyes on him as Frank and Hazel flanked his sides. Frank patted his back. Hazel wouldn’t meet his eyes. That was okay. He wasn’t mad at her. 

;

He didn’t recognize himself anymore, staring at the mirror before bed. 

“You get used to it,” Frank had told him. He had his own military haircut, after all. “It’s really comfortable; you don’t have to style it or brush it or anything.”

Frank meant well. They all did. But that mirror said everything he needed to know. It was like—well, he couldn’t put it into words. For one, nothing about his past made sense. Why he was a son of Neptune, if he had a mortal, living parent, where he was really from, why he’d woken in such a strange place like the Wolf House…but he was sure of one thing. And it was that girl he saw, in his dreams. Annabeth. He remembered nothing, but he remembered her. 

And somehow, when he witnessed his hair littering the ground and when his head went cold in the rain, he realized. Losing that part of him was a threat—that they could just as easily erase her too, from his mind, if they so wished. 

In his dreams he saw her again. 

Are you real? he’d asked, touching her, but she vanished like a mirage and he woke in a sweat. 

;

Annabeth. August 1st, 2010.

She remembers how she cried when she first saw him. Maybe it had a bit to do with the hair. He was like a spotlight then, shining yet so surreal and different from what she’d known. She didn’t want to get close but at the same time she wanted to crush him in an embrace and never let go, not even if the Earth itself died. 

He had blocked out the sunlight, and the dust turned golden in her blinded eyes. The crowds had murmured around her, shadow-like spirits. 

Graecus.

Jason.

Yes, Jason Grace had been there. And Piper and Leo and Annabeth.

And Percy.

He’s here.

Graecus, they whispered.

So these are the Romans, she’d thought. These are my opposites.

Jason, they murmured.

Their missing piece. Their leader.

Annabeth remembers this part so well that it’s as if someone pressed a needle between her eyes and tattooed the image into her brain. She will admit that she didn’t care about anything. Not the diplomatic potential of two camps joining to defeat a common enemy. Not the fact that this is real. There are always two sides to every story. 

No. All she wanted was her missing piece. Their leader. Her gaze had roved for him. While the Romans parted for them, because here they were, the Greeks, with a gift, she was a searchlight honed in on two shadows coming her way. 

One of them had been her missing piece. One of them is their leader.

He had been the spotlight then, but today is the day when the door to his apartment is that spotlight. His mother, too. 

Percy cries when he first sees her. Sally Jackson opens the door and then there’s no barrier blocking him, nothing holding him back. 

Sally Jackson opens the door carrying a ceramic plate and she’s smiling, as if exasperated, “Gods, how many times have I told you to stop knocking—” And this is it. She sees him, Annabeth thinks. She sees them . 

She lets out a strangled scream. The plate slips from her hands, splattering ceramic and its contents on the floor. Her eyes crack him open, too.

“Mom,” Percy gasps. 

Such a simple word. One syllable. Three letters. They clash, and he breaks again, all the pent up emotions turned into uncontrollable sobs. 

Annabeth watches all of this, tears in her eyes. Why didn’t we come sooner? Why didn’t we—

“Oh my gods, you’re real,” Sally breathes into his shoulder, her arms firmly wrapped around him. 

He’s taller than her now. But Annabeth sees it: the way he shrinks like the little boy his mother once knew, the way he apologizes and seems so small and Annabeth’s heart breaks in half all over again. 

“My baby,” Sally repeats, over and over again between sobs of her own. “My baby, my baby, my baby.” 

“Ma, I swear, I didn’t mean to—”

Sally isn’t listening. “Where have you been?”

Where have you been?

Where have you been?

.

.

.

Two years before.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

Where have you been?

Where have you been .

Annabeth’s heart leapt away from her chest. Fresh, hot tears arrived and her hands shook so hard she balled them into fists. Here she was, unable to form words on his behalf, on his memory, and here he was. 

The dumbest of idiots, crashing his own funeral.

And what did said idiot do? He had the nerve to break into that awfully annoying half-smile (that may have been endearing some time in the distant past, but right now was not it) and all he did was stand there as if, as if—he’d never been dead at all.

Dead or not…

Her feet stomped to the rhythm of her stupid heart; her mouth had gone all dry. She shoved people away, because there was only one person she needed, one person who had truly understood her since the beginning. One person that had shared an oreo cookie with her on a stinking zoo truck because they were friends, and friends fought for one another. One person who saw her at her very worst, when she’d broken clean in half at Siren’s Bay, grieving for the life she’d never had. 

The family she would never get back. The Luke who would betray her again and again and who would make her carry the entire weight of the sky and watch, because that’s what family did. The Thalia who left her responsibilities behind, of prophecies and expectations and the love of a little sister, to lead the Hunters in an immortal race of Time and youth. The father that could never accept her. The stepmother who could never love her. The mother who could never see her. 

Because that’s what family did, that’s what family was for…right? 

And Percy? Well, he cracked his heavenly grin, and stood frozen on the spot as she seethed. He was family too, she supposed. And she’d almost thought he’d left her like everyone else in that volcano, and he may have, but he’s here. He’s alive. Never mind prophecies, never mind anything—he’s alive.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

Her words echoed in her brain when she finally reached him, just as his eyes clouded in uncertainty. 

“Annabeth, I’m so—”

She’d never hugged someone so hard in her goddamned life. Everyone fell quiet. 

(The quiet before the storm.)

(The quiet before the fallout.)

Percy’s hand was tangible. Tangible, because he’s alive… and she shuddered just thinking about it. How instead of warmth rubbing into her back it could be coldness. A heartbeat stopped. Annabeth pulled away briskly. She could feel the camper’s eyes on her. On them. She could practically hear Silena’s teasing after. The small jabs she’d have to bear. 

“I—we thought you were dead, Seaweed Brain!”

Their eyes connected for the first time. She’d forgotten how green they were. But there was something else. New scars, racing from underneath his white t-shirt like choking ivy, red as molten rock. 

Where have you been? She wanted to ask again, to beg, but he wouldn’t look at her when he said, “I’m sorry. I got lost.”

Two years later. July, 2010.

Like most reunions between Percy and Annabeth, this one wasn’t really…what she expected.

Percy stared at her, like she was a lost city, a shining diamond.

Are you real? 

Annabeth stared right back. There’s something funny that happens when you contemplate the love of your life after more than six months apart. Something like—the world could be crumbling, bent to its knees, and all that really matters is that he’s alive. He was the only one. And maybe it’s cliché, maybe a little stupid and immature, but she couldn’t give a shit about what anyone else thought.

Percy stared at her.

Annabeth stared right back.

Reyna was saying something. She didn’t care. The Romans judged with eyes and whispers. She didn’t care.

Nausea curdled into her stomach and threatened to spill the few bites of bread she’d eaten in the morning.

He was taller, now. His skin was darker. His broader shoulders had a purple toga draped over them, and his hair was the shortest she’d ever seen it. His half-smile stayed the same, however—and so did his green, green eyes.

Are you real?

The rest is a bit of a blur. She gave out a strangled cry, she’s almost sure. Her eyes bled tears at the sight of him, because how dare he be real? She lunged for him. He lunged for her. 

“Anna—” he gasped, just as they collided. 

She held him like he was the only rock amidst a storm at sea. Their lips met in a frenzy; she kissed him, repeatedly, but not because of the love, or the healing she was supposed to feel. No, it wasn’t that, because all of a sudden all she felt was rotten, selfish. 

His lips are cold, she couldn’t help thinking. Cold like a sunless lake. Like a slab of stone. 

Almost lifeless. 

She kissed him again and again to see when the warmth would come. 

For a moment she wondered if it was someone else. Some other person she was kissing. A boy with colder lips and much shorter hair and taller and more Roman.

She pulled away to look at him. Worst mistake of her life, because looking at him—the crease between his eyebrows, his delicate touch, the ocean in his eyes, the little scar on his cheek—made her realize that it truly was Percy, and somehow that made her cry harder.

What happened to him?

He opened his mouth to speak as if reading her thoughts, but then he seemed to think better of it and pulled her to his chest instead. She felt smaller against him than she ever had in her life, sobbing and shaking from adrenaline and stress and all the pent up emotions that had been simmering in her for six months and were finally breaking free at the sight of him. 

She’d broken clean in half, and she hated it. 

Because there was more to it, than just the elation and relief of finally being together again. He was there yet he wasn’t like she’d remembered and it was just…something about him. Something about his stance, and his clothes. Something about his hair, perhaps. 

Nausea. Pain. Regret.

She’d loved his hair. How she’d run her fingers through it, and how he’d fall asleep on her lap after a long day of school and how he’d duck his head and this one curl would hide his right eye and how it was so Percy. And well, there was something about him now. He didn’t smile. He didn’t duck his head. She didn’t run her fingers through his hair. 

“Where have you been?!” she said, risking a glance at him once more.

Two, three, four, five seconds.

“I’ve been to a lot of places,” he murmured, cupping her cheek. But just like his lips, his hand was colder than she remembered. She shuddered. “I’ll tell you everything, okay? Just not—I’m sorry.” It hurt to breathe. She grasped his toga, her fingers formed into a permanent fist. She couldn’t look at him. Maybe that’s why she just curled into him again, shaking her head as she sobbed and hit his chest, again and again to—she doesn’t know. Prove that he’s real? He didn’t flinch. He was still that steadiness in her, maybe. That rock amidst the storm that would always be there. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. She cried harder. “I’m sorry.”

Maybe it was just the grief.

She cried for the boy who had died, and she didn’t even know it yet. 

;

Chapter Text

Percy. August 1st, 2010.

They’ll talk about Annabeth like muses singing the legend of a hero long gone. The tragedy of how she gave up too much and wasn’t given enough—until the end, maybe. 

Percy doesn’t know when the end will be, but he hopes it’s soon. He sees her through his periphery, feels her hand wrapped in his. She squeezes his hand twice. She’s here. She’s not going anywhere.

Sally Jackson sits them down on the worn out couch that settles into his body like a long lost friend. She’s here, too. His mom . She smiles at him like he’s the most precious thing— my precious boy, she’d said, and he’d even believed her for a second—and asks him where he’s been again.

The broken ceramic near the doorway is left unattended; so is Percy’s train of thoughts. 

“A lot of places,” he says, like it’s practice, because it is.

That’s been his response to the question, ever since it was uttered out. A lot of places. Damn right he has. He plays with a loose thread from his jeans. 

“Percy.” This time, it’s Annabeth. 

Something about her voice sends chills up his spine, except for the fact that these days, all she ever is, is gentle. He looks up only to catch her wide, pleading eyes locked with his. They’re sending a message. She nods at him. 

Tell her, she says with no words.

Tell her tell her tell her.

His mom is waiting. She’s waited too long, he thinks. Made her suffer too much. And still, she wants to know. She needs to know, eyes glistening with unshed tears, lips breaking into a nervous smile. 

Where have you been?

She deserves to know. Percy opens his mouth and spills. 

;

The proud heart feels not terror nor turns to run and it is his own courage that kills him.

Homer, The Iliad

;

(But most importantly, there would be no legend without the first kill. It isn’t what you might expect.)

;

Perseus, two months before.

The fact that remains is that—Perseus Jackson did not kneel.

Anyone who knows him knows. He doesn’t kneel for anyone. Much less Mars, the God of War. 

;

He stood there amongst the Romans that day, on the Field of Mars, full battle armor on, and had no clue as to what to expect of the War Games.

Oh, if only you knew.

The Fifth Cohort centurions, Dakota and Gwen, assembled up front, ready for Reyna’s orders. 

“So, War Games,” Percy whispered to Hazel, gazing out at the fortification in the distance that the legionnaires had built, “do you guys use your free time to, like, lay siege on other cities, so you have to practice this every friday?”

Hazel smiled. “It’s more than that, you know. Teamwork. Battle strategy.”

Battle strategy. For some reason he had a feeling that the girl from his dreams—Annabeth, he knew, for some reason—would enjoy a little challenge like this. Leading a charge. The formations. Breaking through the fortification. The strategy of it all. He wanted her to be here, he realized. He wanted her to readjust his armor because it was all crooked and she’d told him so and they were supposed to catch some scorpions in another game like this and he’d let her because he just wanted to feel her closeness more—

His head started to pound; he blinked the memory away. Wait. Did I just experience a memory?

In his lost train of thought, Perseus had nearly missed what Frank and Hazel were discussing, “You’d be surprised by what you can learn in the War Games, yeah.” 

“Like who will stab you in the back,” Frank said.

“Especially that,” Hazel agreed.

The dizziness Annabeth had planted in him wilted when he caught Hazel’s hardened voice. 

He was about to ask them about that when Reyna and her pegasus came into view, flanked by a dozen golden eagles in the sky. He gripped his sword tighter. Riptide, it read on the scabbard. Anaklusmos. A Greek name. Riptide. He glanced at all the cohorts in formation. They wouldn’t know what would come for them. Then he saw Nico, high up on a watch tower with binoculars, and frowned. The ambassador of Pluto my ass. We’ve definitely met before. He could feel Nico’s eyes burning into his helmet.

Before Reyna could give out orders, Frank handed his weapon over to Hazel and decided to check up on Perseus’s armor, just in case. Perseus let him, even as Frank made a strange sound in the back of his throat, something akin to surprise.

“Wow. You did it all right,” he said apprehensively, “almost like you’ve done this before. Have you done this before?”

A flash in his mind. A flicker of something. Armor heavy on his shoulders. Blood on his arm. His gasp of surprise that someone had wounded him.

Oops. I lost my dessert privileges, his attacker said. He was bigger than him. Stronger.

All of them were. These children of Ares. Children of war. 

A girl pushed him into the creek. 

He came to reality again, head pounding.

“I don’t know,” Perseus finally said, brows furrowed, “I think I have, but maybe—I don’t know.”

Frank shrugged at him, until his eyes swept to that bronze sword, held securely in Perseus’ right hand. Riptide.

“Uhh, we can use real weapons. Right?”

“Yeah, no yeah,” Frank replied hastily. “It’s just—your sword. I’ve never seen it before.”

Perseus held it out, making it catch the golden sunlight in the shining bronze. Frank was right. This sword was different. Special. He was sure no one possessed a weapon quite like this. Deadly, and always returning to his pocket. Always coming back. Like a riptide.

“What if I hurt somebody?”

“All taken care of by the legion medics. No one usually gets seriously hurt anyway.”

“Yeah, you shouldn’t worry, Perce,” Hazel said, “No one’s died either. Well, not usually. And if they do—”

“Just stay with us, and you’ll be alright,” Frank said.

Their words were meant to reassure, but something inside him stirred, like a monster waking from a volcano, shaking the foundations of the earth and sky. Something like dread.

;

Who ever said that the tables couldn’t turn? They fought like demons, Perseus and Frank and Hazel. They made a pretty good team. Really, they did. Somehow the three made it past the first defense (Perseus totally triggered the water cannons and Hazel led them through a maze underground and Frank used his archery skills so they could adjust a rope at the end of the fortification.) 

All good. All nice.

They even brought the elephant with them; Hazel led this one, too. She grinned like a madwoman, rampaging through the inner keep, where the banners they were meant to steal stood in plain sight. The First and Second cohorts never saw her coming. 

Kinda like that other game, Perseus thought, easily disarming one of the guards.

What other game?

That other game, he insisted.

A girl pushing him into a creek and the water healing his wounds and this huge, great cheer. A trident suspended over his head. Everyone had kneeled. He had stood there.

All hail Perseus Jackson—

“Come on, dude!” Frank yelled, already mounting onto Hannibal the elephant’s back. 

Perseus kicked his unfortunate victim in the chest, sent him flying across the wall, grabbed the last banner, and hurried along.

;

“They should totally thank us.” He couldn’t stop grinning. “D’you see Octavian’s face?” 

“Oh I see it, alright,” Hazel replied. 

They were all grinning. The three of them astride an elephant of all animals, flanked by the Fifth Cohort of all cohorts. Everyone cheered. Everyone stared.

The Fifth is the worst , they’d warned. They lose every time . Perseus wanted to give them all the finger, explode some more water cannons for good measure, but then he saw Hazel laughing with Frank and realized there were children present. 

When he slid off of Hannibal’s back, Dakota was already there, congratulating him, clapping him on the back along with other kids from the Fifth.

“Hey, great job, man! I didn’t even think we’d win—and then, all hell broke loose, and then—”

And then came the shouting. And then they all saw Gwen. And then all hell broke loose.

;

“Someone help her!”

“Oh my gods.”

She’d been struck in the back, the spear point jutted between her ribs like a golden shaft that had grown from her skin, pierced through armor, just to reach the sun. Her face had lost its rosy shade. She was just white and red. Red spilling on the grass, white spilling into her skin. Medics were working fast on her, pouring nectar into her gaping mouth, and it was all so, so silent.

Perseus glanced at Nico, for some reason. He shook his head sadly. A second later the medics looked to Reyna and made the same gesture. It was too goddamned late.

Dakota fell to his knees and grabbed Gwen’s hand, but he instantly let go, as if she’d burned him. “No,” he whispered. There were tears in his eyes. 

Their praetor surveyed them all, deathly quiet. Then she observed Gwen’s body, eyes zeroing in on the protruding tip that had claimed her life. Someone had to have thrown it from behind.

“A coward,” she said, finally. “And the spear’s inscriptions source it back to the First Cohort.”

The silence broke and there were whispers all around. Oh, they had some idea who it was, alright. He likes to think he’s discreet, but Perseus knew.

Octavian’s face was painted with polite grief. He stood slightly apart from the rest, with no spear of his own.

Reyna’s glare could’ve cut glass. “Honorable death is one thing, but this? We will get to the bottom of this, or so help me—”

She was interrupted by a gasp.

;

Yes, this was the first kill. But it was also the first resurgence.

Gwen gasped and her heart started again and no one knew what to do. Reyna turned to Nico; he shook his head for the hundredth time. That boy was gonna snap his neck one day or something.

“This…can’t be possible. Pluto never lets people return from the dead. One of the Ancient Laws and all.”

Perseus didn’t miss it, though. The way Hazel averted her gaze and the way Nico subtly turned to her. Octavian may be a murderous dick, but he was right about one thing: Hazel was keeping secrets. Something to do with death. It had to be.

“Where—where am I?” Gwen stuttered. The color returned to her cheeks. “What happened? Did I fall asleep?” She turned to Dakota, eyes wide, and whispered, “Why’s everyone staring at me?”

Dakota opened his mouth, then closed it. He took her hand in his. This time, he didn’t let go. “Gwen, you’re…you were…”

Everyone exchanged glances, asking the unsaid question of, should we tell her?

“She was dead,” one of the medics muttered, now standing with the crowd behind Perseus, “I swear to all the gods that she was dead. She has to be dead still.”

“Listen,” Gwen continued, swallowing, “there was a river, and, and a man. He had this hood, like the Grim Reaper. Asked for a coin, but I didn’t have any…so I turned around, and there was like this open door, right? Light was coming from it so I walked toward it and now…now I’m here, on my ba—”

She tried to sit up, saw the pilum sticking out of her chest, and fell over again. No one tried to help her. Not even Dakota, or Reyna. Everyone was too shocked, staring in horror at the girl who should’ve been a corpse. 

Frank was the first to come to his senses. He asked her to close her eyes; she obliged. Hazel tugged at Perseus’ armor, signaling him that they had to help. They both held Gwen steady as Frank pulled the spear out, though they didn’t need to. She didn’t even flinch. Instantly her wounds started to heal, and when Hazel finally broke the news to her that she’d been dead, and when everyone—including Gwen—wondered how the hell it had happened, Perseus got some idea.

All the monsters that wouldn’t stay dead. Juno’s warning. His lost memory. Gwen coming back. Somehow, it was all connected.

That was when Mars decided to show up.

;

Initially, everyone drew their weapons. A deep voice had rumbled over the hill, warning about Death. 

“I know that voice,” Perseus said, as everyone searched and searched for the intruder. His head started pounding again, as if it had been cleaved open with an ax, the blood squirting out like thump, thump, thump .

Why did memory loss hurt so bad, anyway?

He clutched his head. Flashes of something surged in his mind.

You can’t beat me, little cousin. Laughter. A fight. Red, fire pit eyes. The odds turned against him, until…

The ocean, the tide working with him. A muscular calf bleeding golden ichor. A bellowing so loud he could still hear it rattling in his eardrums.

“Reyna,” Perseus started, “it’s—”

“Hello, Romans,” Mars Ultor said.

;

How do you kill a god?

Well, there’s a start to everything. 

The beginning goes with Perseus standing tall, as the rest of the Romans fell to their knees at the sight of Mars. But anyone should know, really—Perseus Jackson did not kneel. That was the first sign of tribute, and all he did was look the God of War in the eye as if waiting for a challenge. He was a soldier, this god, with an unmistakable power about him. Being near him felt as if a lightning bolt had just struck the earth, searing the hairs on Perseus’ arms. But he didn’t care about that; as they regarded each other all Perseus felt was this deep, bottomless rage inside him.

“You’re Ares,” he said, “what do you want?”

The Romans gasped.

“Perce,” Hazel begged. He glanced at her; she made a frantic gesture with her hands, asking him to kneel. 

He didn’t. Perseus didn’t kneel, much less for him.

“And who might you be?” Mars’ smirk didn’t falter. It only widened.

He was amused. Perseus amused him. That had to change.

A challenge, the god of war seemed to agree, with those scorching eyes of his.

“Perseus,” he declared, “Perseus Jackson. We've met before. I—I fought you.”

Mars scratched his beard. “Hmm. Don’t remember. But if you did fight me, it was probably in my Greek form, the one you mentioned. Ares. But alas, I am Mars, patron of Rome, father of Romulus and Remulus. If you’d fought me as Mars, you’d be dead,” he said simply, like a fact of life. “Now kneel, as befits a child of Rome, before you try my patience.”

Perseus Jackson did not kneel.

“Perseus,” he heard Frank whisper.

Perseus, others whispered, too.

But no matter what, he would not kneel.

Around Mars’ feet, a circle of flame surged like a blooming, burning flower, hissing into the sky. 

“Perseus,” Frank pleaded, “ please .”

Mars’ eyes bore into him. 

“Did you listen to my command, demigod?” 

“I did,” Perseus replied, calmly, even if his insides shook with so much anger and bile, bile bitterness that he could barely contain himself. “I heard. I just decided not to obey.”

Across from him, the God of War’s face was slashed with the lights of the flames, like some kind of demonic being.

“Then you will die.”

The air turned silent, if air could even turn silent in the first place. Romans held their breath. What will he do next? They seemed to ask in unison.

You really have to be like this, huh? a voice chided inside him. It sounded like Annabeth. 

Yeah, he answered, as his skin blistered from a sudden heat wave and Mars pulled out grenades from his pockets as if he were picking apples at a festival. Yeah I can’t ever shut my mouth and I never listen and now this guy with an ego that compensates his dick size is gonna nuke me or whatever you call it when someone throws grenades at you. Is it even called nuking? 

She would’ve laughed. Perseus had this sudden feeling that Annabeth would’ve laughed by his side, or insulted Mars so badly that he’d be tempted to hide in a corner and cry; after, she’d proceed to correct Perseus that, No, it’s not ‘nuking,’ it’s ‘bombing,’ Seaweed Brain . Or maybe he was just making things up in his mind about the only person he remembered from his old life; he was trying not to go insane at the moment, okay? His windpipe was closing and it was probably all thanks to Mars, because he really was attempting to kill Perseus and was having a fun time with it and if he didn’t do something soon—

“What if—” Perseus took a deep inhale of hot, dry oxygen, remembering all the things that gave him strength. Water. The ocean. Water. Annabeth. Annabeth. Think of Annabeth. “What if you fight me again?” he choked out, and in an instant he’d realized he’d been amidst a heat wave; he shuddered when Mars let go of him, the air cool and clammy against his skin. He could breathe properly again.

“What did you just say?” Mars said through clenched teeth.

Perseus met Frank and Hazel’s eyes once more. Stop this, they seemed to implore. Beg on your knees for forgiveness. Kneel. You’ll die. You’re going to die.

Not unless he won, Perseus thought. Looking back, he can’t explain it, like—seriously, he can’t. Maybe it’s in the way the sea doesn't like to be restrained, or some bullshit like that. Or it’s just War’s general aura. He can’t. He just felt so used all the time, alright? Like a doll thrown around the room because the spoiled kids felt the need to play dirty one day. He’d been helpless and he’d been alone and he’d been used and he’d been thrown around and he just said—enough.

He said “ enough” one day, and paid the full price.

“You heard me,” Perseus said. He stood his ground. If anyone asks, he did, because dammit he’d stand his ground, always. “C’mon, if you claim I wouldn't survive in a fight with you, prove it. Prove to me that you can kill me; make me an example”—Perseus sweeped an arm around the field of scattered Romans, all on wobbly knees—”to everyone who’s watching.”

Nico was shaking his head again like a broken robot, eyes wide. So were Hazel and Frank. Reyna looked like she wanted to intervene as leader but didn’t know how. Even Octavian had his eyebrows pulled together, uncertain. 

“A duel, you say?” Mars said, after seconds of quiet contemplation.

“To the death.”

Silence. Full, utter silence. Not one word ran loose. Not one breath spilled. Until Mars laughed; head back, deep-bellied, emptying laughter.  When he was done, Perseus waited patiently, his heart in his throat. It was too late to back out, now. Too late to do anything but stand his goddamn ground.

If I die Annabeth is going to kill me for this.

“To the death, you mean?” Mars mocked, as if it was all a joke, as if Perseus was nothing more than a little pest. “Do you even know how to kill a god, mortal?”

Riptide glowed in his hand. He clenched his jaw so hard that he might’ve broken it. “I'm gonna find out.”

In one second, Mars’ expression transformed from entertained into a maddening, sharp edge that clung to the tips of his eyes. 

“Romans,” he decreed, always watching Perseus, always studying his next move, “step away. I have a duel to win.”

The cheers still echo in his mind. He didn’t have the courage to look back and see how many wanted him dead. All he did was stand his ground, bite his tongue, and taste the salty tang of blood. 

“So, mortal. D’you prefer modern, or old fashion?”

Perseus held out Riptide in response. All of this felt too familiar, too jarring. Mars had that smug smile, playing with him, surely. Knowing things about Perseus that no one else did.

Because he’s a god and that’s what gods do.

Mars’ smirk turned into a sneer. “Old-fashioned it is.”

;

How do you kill a god?

To that question, Perseus had come to the conclusion that you improvise. Then see what happens. 

Surely the killing thing will happen sooner rather than later.

(It doesn’t.)

He met Mars’ first strike with Riptide, and with that, the game began. 

It’s all a blur, but he does remember sweat streaking his eyes, the panting breaths as he realized this would be harder than he thought, now that he’d lost the one thing that gave him the tiniest chance against an immortal being like Mars Ultor: invulnerability. 

He definitely remembers the first spill of blood. Mars let out a cry so primal the ground beneath him burst into flames, and stabbed for Perseus’ heart. Perseus dodged, but managed to get nicked in his right arm, just below his shoulder. He swallowed a hiss, instantly feeling like his entire arm was melting away.

Surprise surprise, getting wounded by a god hurts more than anything humanly possible.

It throbbed, from his shoulders all the way to the tips of his toes, thump, thump, thump, his blood said—the last thing he recalls is maroon, gushing down his arm, before his vision blurred and blackened completely. 

… And from the blackness another vision came, like a creeping ghost of the past coming to haunt him. He was glad to remember some things once in a while, but now?

Really?, he wanted to scream.

Someone was laughing, shrill and ugly, it sounded. Probably Juno. Or Hera. Or whatever. She was in his mind; she’d dropped him in this crazy war camp and somehow this was all her fault.

(Perseus had the worst luck.)

Back to the vision he had:

A ship. He was on a ship. Surrounded by spectators.

You want to fight me? a raspy voice questioned, dared; it belonged to a blonde white man with a scar across his right eye. Then come fight me, demigod.

The man was tall, muscular. With a sneer and a scythe and a voice to lead that didn’t seem to be his own.

Perseus walked up to him, the monsters and the people parting in his wake. I have to do it eventually, he thought, Riptide moving like water between his hands, preparing himself, the man’s sneer getting closer and closer. Why not now?

He charged—

His eyes flew wide open, just in time to let out his last breath with a gasp, his lungs suddenly squeezing shut by an invisible force clutching his chest. He was in the air, flung back so violently that when the impact came he had the very wise thought of— oh, no— just in time for a smooth landing . He probably left a Perseus-shaped incision on the ground. 

(He also probably passed out at least twice throughout the whole ordeal, but hopefully no one noticed. If he hadn’t been a demigod, he would’ve died right then and there; fortunately, he’s sturdier than he looks.)

Probably, hopefully, fortunately.

They were fitting words, for this duel.

He would probably die, but hopefully he could get to his feet before that happened; fortunately he did just that. 

Mars strutted toward him, taking his time, calmly, playing with him since he seemed to relish that so much. This probably made Perseus hate him more. Hopefully he could kill him. Fortunately Mars underestimated him. 

His mistake.

“You can give up, you know,” Mars called out, “and your death will be quick and painless.”

Perseus must’ve busted his eardrums, because everything sounded a bit distorted. Up until now all he’d heard was the pounding of his heart, but the crowd’s roars suddenly spread like a plague, hitting him all at once. Knowing the Romans, they were likely cheering, celebrating Mars finally ridding the world of the unwanted Graecus, but to Perseus’ ears the voices sounded like thousands choking to death, shoved under piles of bodies, screaming themselves hoarse and moaning the last words of a prayer. 

Mars came closer; Perseus’ knees shook, but not from the pain. His arm may have leaked like a busted pipe— thump, thump, thump, came the reassuring call of warm, fresh blood—but it was mostly the rage of the score to settle that made him tremble. It consumed him. The buried history between him and this god and the salty scent of the sea coarsening through his veins, as if his own father was in on this, watching, giving Perseus his blessing. But then Mars was so close Perseus could smell the rot of war and sulfur coming off of him, and he forgot everything else entirely. Mars’ eyes swirled like kaleidoscopic fires. His grin split across his face like a trench. His sword pointed at Perseus with precision, but he didn’t attack. Not yet.

“I give you one last chance,” he said. “C’mon, kid. You’ve got no sword, no backup, no nothing. Surrender, and I may have mercy.”

Perseus snarled, tasting the metallic tang that coated his teeth. He spit by Mars’ feet, his saliva a mix of blood and dirt and something akin to uncontrollable hatred. Mars spared it a glance, then gazed at him again, undisturbed, as if to say, angry, are we? Well, I’ve seen worse . 

Well, he’ll give him worse, then. 

Perseus charged, as he did in his memory, as he did in countless fights, and Mars let him. Underestimating, as always.

(His mistake. His stupid, dumbass mistake. No one messes with the Earthshaker’s son, after all.)

Mars raised his sword arm to end him once and for all; at the same time, Perseus stomped on the ground, hard, a sound that riveted like a thunderclap. He reached inside him and cried out. His gut tugged loose, the feeling similar to a sigh of relief. The tremors that had nearly overtaken him spread. Spread like plagues, spread like a drop of crimson over fresh snow, spread like a gnarled old tree, digging roots deeper and deeper and deeper. The tremors spread to the ground, and the Earth shook, unforgiving. 

Mars stumbled back. Momentarily, he’d been caught off guard, and that was all Perseus needed. Riptide hadn’t returned to his pocket—no matter. The molecules around him were already moving and shifting and doing his bidding. A trident formed from visually nothing in his good hand, made purely out of water, glimmering like diamonds in the sunlight. 

(He just thought, sweet, and wasted no time.)

His gut was screaming now, as he used all his power to ram the trident into Mars’ neck. 

Bullseye. 

There was a splutter, a choking sound. Eyes widened. The second spill of blood. Golden, like molten drachmas. Honey ichor oozing from the gullet to the heaving chest. Perseus pulled the trident out, like pulling out a knife from a thick, hard steak. 

(He would never eat steak again in his life.)

Mars roared, eyes boiling red with fury. Perseus sidestepped his next attack. Sloppy work, since the god was injured and blinded by mindless anger. Easy work. Though he didn’t recall ever using a trident before in his life (not that it counted; he didn’t recall much of anything these days), the weapon felt natural, as if it was an extension of his arm. He and Mars traded blows, and with each attack and counter-attack, his confidence blossomed. This trident, this power, the earth, the very air around him, fluttering with water…It was a part of him, like the sea.

  SHLINK.

Ah, and there it was.

It was just one teensy moment, to be fair. Their eyes locked. His trident trapped the God of War’s broadsword between its prongs. Mars Ultor, patron of Rome, father of Romulus and Remus, bared his teeth out like a rabid dog. The air shriveled to dry heat. Perseus let himself smirk, just this once. Nearly laughed. In one fluid motion, he disarmed him, fair and square.

;

How do you kill a god?

To that question, there is an answer. A complicated one, at that. No god truly dies. Not like mortals do, anyway. There is no place for them to rest and dwindle. Divine blood is everywhere, a slaughterhouse stench that clogs noses. Divine blood smears messages on walls. I am here, they say, in bold, capital letters. Divine blood filters into minds, driving men insane like ants under the shadow of a lifted rock. 

So again, you cannot simply kill a god. Not unless the blood is forgotten, as part of a collective. Forgotten in those same, filtered minds, driven into sanity once and for all. Then, and only then, does the god fade away, no longer important to human nature and the like. 

(There is power here—the power mortality holds like a vice—that gods do not wish to recognize. For their sanity, of course. They exist so long as humans deem them worthy of existing. You can see why no one talks about it.)

How do you kill a god? Short answer: with Romans so easily falling to their knees before this very specific one, you can’t. Perseus tried his best. And he nearly succeeded, so we’ll give him credit where credit is due. He truly does deserve the title, in my opinion. Godkiller. Suits him well, don’t you think? 

Mars lay on the ground by now, helpless to the merciless trident stabs. Perseus no longer felt the screaming pain of his shoulder. It had healed completely, all thanks to the water, no doubt.

The instant he’d disarmed Mars, the strongest earthquake yet had crumpled everything around them like paper. His gut stretched so far he felt like he couldn't breathe, for a second. Then, the choking started—Mars spluttering with blood that clogged his throat, Perseus only watching, eyes narrowed, breath harrowed. This newfound power sent a thrill down his spine. He was flying, he was powerful, he was in control. It wasn’t long before the third spill of blood occurred. The cheers stopped and all Perseus could hear were the strangled sounds coming from a once mighty god’s mangled windpipe. How weak they really are, without their formidable power, he thought, as he went for the head again and again and again. He’d found that doing so was all it took to extinguish any threat as Mars reformed, as gods tend to do.

His body would ignite and Perseus would feel a searing heat taking aim at his heart; a growl would sweep the landscape like an invisible saw and Perseus would go for the head and Mars’ attacks would stop.

Go for the head, the water encouraged him. Go for the head, go for the head.

And even if gods could reform, there was a point in time when Mars’ features became almost unrecognizable, and Perseus felt it, truly felt it. 

The bloodlust. The crazed, sadistic gunning of a tidal wave that forgave no one.

Mars’ doing or not, it was in the back of his mind. A rock, stuck there inside his skull and finally shaking free, causing blunt damage. He doesn't know what he was thinking, right then, with ichor spurting like a fountain into his arms and the agonizing cries of a god turned to a whimpering, dying mess. Or, he does know what he was thinking, but he would never admitted. It was like a supercut of images, flashes of memory, all running through his mind. Are you real? Annabeth would stare at him with wide eyes, full of longing. He'd touch her and she'd vanish. 

I love you, baby.

This was another voice, different from Annabeth's, tender as sweet bread. He remembered someone kissing his forehead every night, reading him to sleep, recounting the story of Perseus, the great hero. The one who had a happy ending. He remembered the scent of licorice and crow's feet and a smile as he talked about his day. Mom.

You'll be a hero, Percy. You'll be the greatest of all.

A great hero. But not a happy one. No hero has a happy ending,  someone mocks. This one sounds suspiciously like him, yanking him by the hair he no longer has. Reminding him that he has nothing, truly. No family to run to, no friends, no sister, or brother, no mom. Nothing about him from his old life remained. All that was left was a god at his mercy who had posed a threat to him in another life, and the calling of the sea. 

There was a point in time like many points in time, for example when Perseus (Percy?) finally spared his hands a glance. They were covered in ichor. Drip, drip, drip. From his finger a single drop landed on the cracked earth. He wondered for a second if the blood of Mars could create anything. A crooked tree, or a valley or a canyon, perhaps. Beneath him, Mars was perfectly still.

Thump, thump, thump, Perseus’ heart responded.      

He took a few, hesitant, steps back, as if he needed a better look at what he’d just done.

There was a point in time when a god died, face slashed open by a water trident, a pool of blood the color of nectar silhouetting the body. Perseus wondered again, if he could cup the ichor in his hands and drink, see what it did. If it would give him invulnerability. Or immortality.

He swallowed. His throat had gone completely dry. The trident he held in his shaking hand dissolved into mist as if it had never been there at all.

(He wasn’t paying attention then, but dark storm clouds formed in the distance; the persistent clatter of armor moving was the same clatter his brain was making. No one could blame him.)

And that is the only excuse he has—as to why a full legion of Romans could sneak up on him so easily. 

Shit, he thought, too late, as the murderous Roman screams for vengeance reached his ears, as though someone had suddenly pumped up the volume after a too-long silence. Too late, too late. The rumbling put his earthquakes to shame. Probably should’ve seen it coming. Hopefully he could hold them off. Fortunately Riptide had long returned to his pocket. He swiveled, unsheathed his sword, and barely managed to block the first strike. 

;

Killing the patron god of Rome in front of—well, Romans —is kind of like having a death wish…multiplied by a two hundred fully-armed legion.

In his defense, they totally should’ve given him some type of warning beforehand.

Death and the strong force of fate are waiting. There will come a dawn or sunset or high noon when a man will take my life in battle too—flinging a spear perhaps or whipping a deadly arrow off his bow.

 

Homer, The Iliad

Chapter Text

Help me get down

I can make it

Help me get down

If I only knew the answer

I wouldn't be bothering you, father

;

Hazel, June 2010.

When she first met Perseus, she mistook him for a god. He had come running, heaving an old woman on his back, his eyes as wild as a wolf chasing prey.

Soon, though, she realized he was the prey, the wolves being the gorgons on his tail, and he wanted refuge and Hazel and Frank just so happened to be guarding Camp Jupiter’s gates. It didn’t matter. She had been suspicious, rightfully so, that it was one of their tricks. A god’s trick, in which she had to help or else there would be consequences, especially for someone like her.

(The gorgons had been easy. They flattened under the tunnels she’d created, and after she was done, she breathed the outside air in the way one reminds themselves that they’re alive.)

When she first met Perseus, she mistook him for a god—then foolishly realized her mistake…even if he was claimed by Juno, though as a son of Neptune. No one was ever claimed by Juno. And he was the first son of Neptune to touch Camp Jupiter soil in decades.

Now, though? She wasn’t sure whether people were in the right to be afraid, that children of Neptune should be kept at a distance for their volatile nature…or, if it had been a mistake and he’d hidden the golden tint of his blood, somehow, in the war games when he’d bled scarlet. Gods could do that, she supposed. They could create illusions and they could trick mortals to do their bidding without anyone realizing the wrongness of it all. Hazel should know. But no, she chided herself. Perseus was no illusion, the same way he wasn’t a god. 

(Hazel should know.) Pluto powers, and all that. She felt it when Mars drew first blood; she could see Perseus’ life force flickering in and out like a fish jumping out of a moonlit lake. 

“Oh, gods,” Frank said, nearly groaned, “he’s gonna—”

Everyone gasped when Perseus was flown back several yards. Her hand clutched Frank’s armor so hard she probably bent the metal. Perseus crashed with a BOOM that sprang out dust in the air. 

“He’s dead for good,” Dakota remarked.

But she sensed it, the way a shadow clings to a decaying face. She glanced at Nico, her half brother. A ghost of a smile played on his lips.

“No,” Nico said. “Not yet.”

(He wasn’t, but don’t get too excited. Death would happen several minutes later.)

Miraculously, impossibly, Perseus got to his feet.

“You can give up, you know,” came Mars’ hard, rumbling voice, “and your death will be quick and painless.”

All around her Romans went wild, clapping and whooping—they went wild for their sacred, trusting patron, who had always protected them, always watching, always waiting for the good, loyal Romans to do as he said. They went wild for entertainment, hunting for the slightest hint of weakness, as packs do. (As Lupa taught them— all of them—Hazel supposed.)

“You get that Graecus bastard!” someone screamed, from the First Cohort. The other cohorts cheered in unison.

“KILL HIM!”

“SHOW THE FUCKER WHO’S IN CHARGE!”

The cheers and outcries were so loud and demanding that she covered her ears. Frank winced, clutching her tighter. This is my friend, she thought. And they want him to die.   

Perseus paid them no mind. His eyes were only on Mars—and with no weapon to call his own, just barely recovering from Mars’ previous attacks, he charged like a madman.

“Crazy son of a bitch,” someone muttered.

Maybe she’d been right about the god part, at least slightly. Either he had more balls than the average demigod or he was more insane than the average demigod or he was confident enough because he was born with more ichor than the average demigod. Or maybe a combination of all three hypotheses she’d formed in her head. At least, no one should’ve survived that crash, and no one should charge at an extremely powerful god head-on as he had. And when he made a trident out of nonexistent water and the earthquake happened, when the second draw of blood began—and it wasn’t Perseus’ blood at all—she knew. 

Hazel wanted to close her eyes. She wanted this to be over. Frank looked like he was going to puke at any moment—she noticed, especially, that everytime the air turned blisteringly hot and flames would erupt from the ground, he’d turn a shade greener—so she held him tighter, harder.

It would be alright, she told herself. (It wouldn’t.)

Everyone, everyone, fell quiet.

They all held their breath. Even the pegasi. Waiting, watching, witnessing. A sudden calm shore, before waves engulfed them again. Some had hands over their mouths. Others had wide, fearful eyes—for Perseus or for Mars, she wasn’t sure. Most of the Romans, though? They looked like they were about to explode in varying shades of red and purple. 

These people, they couldn’t stand the idea of the High And Mighty getting thrown off their thrones every once in a while. After all, everything is all fine and good for the ones rewarded by the system until said system is suddenly challenged by those who had stood in the shadows the whole time…but you definitely didn’t hear it from her.

So Hazel? She was fine with Perseus turning the tide in his favor. In fact, she was more than fine with it. She’d been taught to kneel all her life—and to see Perseus stand up? To see him fight instead of giving in? It nearly made her smile, at the sight of him cleaving Mars’ skin with his trident, as if it were paper. Nearly.

There’s the tiny detail that everything about this—from the duel to the restless air of summer and trepidation—had a smell.  

Death, death, death. The very air around them reeked of it. She was sure Nico felt it, too.  Stronger than her, even. His eyes were wide, taking in the boy that was currently stabbing one of the most important gods in all of Rome multiple times with a trident made purely out of water. 

(She wanted Perseus to win, sure—but it was kind of a whiplash.)

Her mind was sort of running around in circles, asking the question of: Seriously? That guy?

Well, yeah. It was that same guy, apparently.

The same guy who had defended Hazel against Octavian like an older brother and ruffled her hair after she’d made a joke about Hannibal the elephant’s farts just a day ago. The same guy who grew stiff—grew terrified— when she broke the news that they had to cut all his hair. That same guy had a desperate glint in his eyes as he shook the ground and as everyone grabbed for something to hold onto and as he butchered Mars as easily as slitting a sedated cow’s throat. Ichor spurted out of War, a sad, broken figure on the ground. 

The first time they met, she mistook him for a god. She thinks she was not too far off. 

He was somewhere in between. Yes, that was it. But then—

Death, death, death. 

A nasty smell, like food gone bad. 

And here comes the good question:

“How’s he even supposed to kill him?” Frank whispered next to her, transfixed. 

She swallowed, her eyes on Frank, instead of on the fight taking place. She couldn’t look. Couldn’t smell. 

I don’t know, she was about to say, but Nico appeared quietly next to her, as he tended to do, and he said, “He can’t.”

Frank briefly glanced at Nico, then at Hazel. “...What do you mean?” 

“Mars can’t die,” Nico said, a simple, solid fact, “He’s a god.”

“Then how—”

“I don’t know—Percy’s— Perseus is powerful.” And Hazel swore to have sensed a hint of admiration in there somewhere. “Just…not that powerful. I mean, not even Ze—Jupiter has that kind of power.”

She didn’t miss the other thing, however. Percy. Well. At least she wasn’t the only one keeping secrets. Nico and Perseus definitely had history. She was tempted to ask him about it, but his face froze over again, as if he was contemplating a game of chess, instead of the bloody duel taking place. 

(But Nico’s eyes gave it away. They always did.)

“But Perseus can’t die, either.”

The three of them turned. Gwen stood behind them, her expression strangely calm. 

“Mars warned us, when he arrived,” she explained. “Remember? The Doors of Death are open. I mean, I died, but I came back. And monsters have been reforming faster than usual, right? Perseus will come back, if he dies.”

Hazel couldn’t look at her, not at the cost of giving herself away. She felt the heaviness behind her eyes, the warning signs of an incoming flashback to her past, and she quickly blinked it all away. The Fields. The endlessness. A pale hand, leading her away. An open door. A new world. A new start. 

“No,” Hazel said, rather forcefully—though she hadn’t wanted to argue, not now, yet she had to, for the purpose of staying sane. She gazed at Perseus again. Mars had gone still, Perseus looming over him, the roles reversed. The Romans grew restless. Reyna threw her hand up, in a feeble attempt to stop the people already drawing weapons. Yes, Gwen was right; it was possible to return from the dead, but…“This is a duel to the death. Someone has to die.”

;

Perseus, a few minutes later.

Father, help me, he thought— prayed.

The Romans came fast and hard, a tidal wave, no longer working in his favor. For the first time, he found out what it was like to drown. Attacks came from left and right. Right and left. He disarmed most of the soldiers he encountered with Riptide, but they kept coming and coming, an endless, torturous game, and he couldn’t breathe. 

He was desperate. Thirsty. Sweating under his armor. Bloody and filthy. And choking, drowning. People he’d shared food with, whom he’d made formations with and who had even welcomed him in, if only hesitantly, were now attacking like psycho serial killers, spears and swords glaring at him and ready for the kill. 

He’d asked the wrong question from the very beginning, he realized.

How do you kill a god? 

It isn’t the killing that’s hard; rather, what comes after. He should’ve thought of that sooner—but well, he couldn’t really change the past, could he?

Metal clanged and banged, echoing in his head and vibrating down to his bones. He’d disarm and incapacitate a dozen Romans, but then more would come. More and more and more. It would never end.

Father, help me. 

Father, Father, Father. 

Look, and he may have thought himself invincible, but he was tired. And desperate. And sweaty and filthy and bloody, and he prayed and prayed but heard no reply, so he did what he did best and fought and fought but saw no sign of escape. There was no way out of this drowning hell. He wasn’t thinking. He was trapped—

A sickening crunch and a grunt pulled him out of his reverie. It had been instinct, really.  He was a centurion from the First Cohort. Jack Adams, Perseus was pretty sure. From his helmet flew out a couple of wisps of blonde hair. His blue eyes were wide as saucers. He was choking on something—just like him, really. Choking on surprise, perhaps. It was a half sob, a half cry that sounded like, no. 

Riptide was firmly stuck in his chest, cleaving through skin and armor. 

“I’m sorry,” Perseus said, maybe incoherently, maybe not, maybe deliriously, as he pulled out Riptide. 

The fight gathered to a halt, as if somebody had frozen time. 

“You…” Jack muttered, but before he could finish, he staggered and fell.

Perseus gave himself a minute to think and swallow and stare. (His biggest mistake.)

Riptide was a mix of gold and crimson wrapped around his hand. 

What if I hurt somebody? he’d asked Frank, what felt like millions of years ago.

Jack sputtered on the ground, his mouth spilling blood and blood and blood—until he became perfectly still. Eyes wide open, staring at some unknowable horror, paralyzed. Perfectly, irrevocably, still.

“I’m…I’m so sorry.”

Perseus couldn’t breathe. Jack’s mortal, red blood seeped out of him. He was pale as glass. Unmoving. Dead. 

“I’m sorry—”

The stab came from the left. Stupid, for forgetting about, well , the fact that hundreds of people wanted to kill him, maybe? Stupid stupid stupid . Perseus had time to cry out from the sudden stinging pain in his left shoulder before he swiveled and made for a grab at his attacker’s sword hilt. Gotcha. With all his might, he managed to yank the Roman’s weapon and kick them out of the way, gnashing his teeth, swallowing the rest of the pain, and blocking the next couple of strikes with two swords—one gold, the other bronze. 

“GET HIM!” someone screeched. Octavian. But he sounded far away, like he was watching from a safe distance, the coward that he was. “OVERWHELM HIM, YOU FOOLS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING JUST STANDING THERE?!”

“NO, STOP!” Reyna said, her voice coming hard and loud and demanding as a storm. She was somewhere out there, trying to stop the madness unfolding. It was no use. “TWELFTH LEGION FULMINATA! IT IS AN ORDER TO LOWER YOUR WEAPONS—”

KILL THAT GRAECUS PIECE OF SHIT! FOR MARS!”

“FOR MARS!” the Romans roared, swords and spears in the air, all as one.

More of them came. Perseus counterattacked and ducked under swooping, deadly arcs, but he could only take so much. His entire back screamed from the ugly, violent agony of the previous stab—even worse than when Mars had struck him in the arm. Maybe the golden sword had been poisoned.

“FOR JACK!” Octavian called.

An arrow to the thigh. 

“Fucking hell,” he swore, nearly crumpling to his knees. 

“FOR JACK!” they all cried, even more voices joining in.

His movements became sloppy, with no true purpose. Everything sort of became hazy and slow at this point, and he felt as if he was moving through jello, somehow. Riptide flicked sloppily at any vague blob that would come out of the blinding light, just for the naive hope that he could at the very least defend himself from something . 

Father, he prayed. Father, help me.

(There would be no such thing as help. And there would be no such thing as fathers. Not during this time, anyway.)

There were only so many strikes he could block by sheer, dumb luck before someone would eventually manage a hit. 

But I can make it, he thought.

BANG BANG BANG.

He breathed heavily. He was tired, bloody, dirty, desperate. Drowning. Drowning. Everything was hazy, but he could see more flashes of swords coming.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG.

I can, really. I can make it. I can make it. I can—

When the true, abrupt end of his life came, he was glad for it, in a way. Sure. He’ll admit that getting speared is, by no means, fun—but at least it didn’t hurt like he thought it would. There was just a sudden, numbing feeling taking root in his sternum and spreading all over his body. Perhaps this had been his father’s response all along. A kind death, in which he felt nothing at all. A stab to the stomach, to the chest, a spear sticking out of his front, an arrow to the thigh. 

And Mars…reforming like a recurring nightmare. Like a mirage in the desert, a product of thirst and delusion and the scorching heat. A phantom spurned in the horizon, flickering in the shadows of the fire. A reminder that Perseus hadn’t killed him at all. Not in the slightest. 

(He is a god. And gods don’t die. At least not in the way Perseus thought they did. Better luck next time.)

;

So yeah, this part—it isn’t very fun—but it’s crucial to the story. We must keep going. Death itself didn’t hurt. Not really. Not as much as the betrayal, anyway.  

;

“I told you fighting me was a mistake.”

His words are carved there, somewhere deep, beneath his skin. Sometimes, he wakes in a cold sweat from the nightmares. Sometimes, he remembers the feeling. Drowning, the way it consumes you from the inside out and now you can’t breathe.

“I’d kill you, but…” Mars’ voice sounded distant, like an echo from a mountainside… “they already did it for me,” he finished, and then…

Quiet.

In the silence, there were two bodies. One of them was the motionless figure of the Hero of Olympus, the savior of their world—though the Romans didn’t know it, not at the time. Perseus Jackson, a son of the Earthshaker, the Stormbringer, and his eyes were closed as if he were sleeping, finally at peace. Finally , after all this time. What gave the illusion away was the gaping wound in his stomach, the slashes all over his skin, stained with maroon and crimson and gold. He was barely recognizable. Someone kicked him on the shoulder, violently turning his body over so that he wouldn’t face the heavens. No one truly knew him here. He’d been killed fair and square, a traitor from the very beginning. He hadn’t kneeled. He hadn’t begged. A shame, really, that no one could save him from himself.

(Well, in all honesty Perseus had made friends here. Hazel fell to her knees and shed her tears and Frank looked away. Nico stared, shaking from the inside, biting his tongue so as not to scream. The three of them coping in different ways, one can assume. The three were all too familiar with death. Other people lost to war and uncontrollable higher powers.)

The other body was that of an esteemed centurion. He had been at the front line at Mount Othrys, leading the First Legion into enemy territory and then returning to New Rome in one piece, ready for his name to be written in the stars. Jack Adams, a legacy of the very same God of War Perseus had tried to kill earlier, Patron of Rome, Father of Romulus and Remus. A legacy of honor. He’d died with honor as well. That’s what they said, at least. Defending Rome until his last breath. There was only the wound in his chest that he could account for—ugly and harsh, but precise as well. Perseus was, after all, a skilled warrior until the end. And Jack, for all he had fought for, was definitely recognizable. Of course, everyone knew him well. His eyes were open, staring at the heavens. Someone laid a hand on his cheek. Someone else cried. He would be missed, never forgotten.

These were the two bodies, and their blood soaked the soil and replenished the Earth. 

“Gods above,” Reyna whispered, staring at them both. Then her eyes found Mars, the god that just a few minutes ago, had been chopped to pieces. She couldn’t think too much of it, however. She was determined, with her chin up high—and he was waiting for her to do so, of course. To gather her wits and look a god in the eye. “One of our Centurions is dead, my lord. So is the Son of Neptune. What must we do now?”

Mars grinned. He scanned the crowd, until he found what he was looking for. “Frank Zhang. Step forward, please.”

;

The last thing Perseus saw was Annabeth’s face before darkness consumed him.

Annabeth.

He didn’t know why or how that name had come to him, but it pestered him nonetheless, like a tingling sensation down the small of his back.

Are you real?

No, she wasn’t. Just a memory. A ghost. An angel.

If I only knew the answer

If I change my way of living

And if I pave my streets with good times

Will the mountain keep on giving?

And if all of our days are numbered

Then why do I keep counting?

 

 

- Why Do I Keep Counting, The Killers

Chapter Text

'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;

'They called me the hyacinth girl.'

—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,

Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not

Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,

Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

Oed’ und leer das Meer.

The Wasteland, T.S. Elliot

(Desolate and empty is the sea.)

;

Annabeth, July 2010.

“Were you gonna tell me that the Romans killed you or did I have to find out by myself?”

Percy’s back straightened, but he didn’t face her; somehow that was so, so much worse.

“Huh?” she questioned, when he didn’t reply. Her voice cracked at the end, and she hated it. How weak she felt—especially these past few months. “They killed you…yet they made you praetor, and you accepted —and you—they fucking killed you…What the fuck, Percy?”

He looked at her then, but only because she’d forced herself in front of him. His eyes did all the talking: regret and something close to fear.

“I mean, why didn’t you—” She faltered, angrily wiping tears from her eyes with her shaking hand. “I’m your girlfriend, for gods’ sake! I thought, you know, that we told each other this type of shit!”

Hazel was the one who broke the news. Everyone had walked on eggshells around her—even Piper—and maybe it was for the best. Ever since they arrived at the Roman camp and she had a mental breakdown in front of the entire legion, all she did after that was sit quietly and nod. Hold onto Percy’s cold hand, pretend everything would be alright. She’d glance at him every once in a while, trying to reassure herself again and again that he was real, perhaps—or perhaps to simply get used to this new Percy. Praetor Perseus Jackson, recounting the story of their quest to Alaska with two other demigods: Hazel Levesque and Frank Zhang. 

But Annabeth isn’t the daughter of Athena for nothing. She can sense things others don’t. She understands the unspoken, the gap between words and the uncertain glances and the closed off body language. Most of all, she understands Percy Jackson. The second she demanded to know where he’d been, and the second he hesitated and the second he talked about retrieving the Golden Eagle, she knew.  

There wasn’t any way to confront him about it, though, because then Leo attacked New Rome with the Argo II, and all her careful planning turned to shit in an instant. 

“You should ask him, then,” Piper said, after Annabeth had confessed this to her. 

“But he’s avoiding me. He’s acting all weird and I knew it the second we reunited and I just felt this dread and that’s why I cried my eyes out in front of all the stupid Romans—”

“Hey, hey. Shh.” Piper had hugged her, rubbing her hand against Annabeth’s back. “If you really think there’s something wrong, find a way to talk to him about it. He’ll come around.” Piper pulled away from her, smiling softly. “He loves you, dude. He'll tell you.”

But no, Annabeth understands Percy Jackson—and Percy Jackson, well, he’s not as simple as he appears. 

So Hazel was the one to break the news, maybe out of pity, maybe out of duty. It didn’t matter, because here Annabeth was, on an empty deck save for Percy Jackson, all sorry and regret, with the wind blowing in his hair and the sky above so vast and blue.

She was on a roll now.

“And it’s just so fucked up—that I had to ask Hazel… a girl I barely know, by the way! And, and I had to ask her what’s wrong with you because you—you’ve been acting so strange lately! And don’t you dare tell me that you weren’t avoiding me, because you have! And you know what this girl—Hazel—said? She said, ‘oh, I’m sorry to inform you, but your boyfriend killed Mars and then the Romans attacked him so he was killed too, but oh! Now he’s alive,’ and—”

“I didn’t want you to worry,” Percy said, finally. His eyebrows were pulled together, because of course he was concerned for her. 

Of course everyone was concerned for her. She was a fucking train wreck and all anyone would think was concern concern concern.

And really, Annabeth had to laugh. She really, really, really did. It was dry and cold and brittle, like the winds that rattled the ship. 

“ You didn’t want me to worry? Okay, nice. Well, here’s the thing: you not telling me made me worry more. Like, when were you actually gonna talk to me?”

His silence said it all. His mouth was a thin, straight line. Hands in his pockets. Head down. 

If I’d never found out, would you ever? Tell me, I mean?

Would you ever tell me?

“Great,” she breathed, “that’s all I wanted to know.” 

She stormed away, reeking of shameful salt and tears and not wanting him to see, just leaving him there, until—

Something tugged her back. His hand. She whirled, and some of her braids slapped against her chin with the motion.

He said something, but then he stopped, midthought. 

“What is it?”

“Annabeth—”

“You know what? No. I can’t do this right now.”

Her arm broke free from his grip.

“Look, I can explain.” 

And there it was, that hint, that desperation …that somewhere in there, the old Percy still dwelled, begging for someone to break his chains. No, praying. He might as well be on his knees, praying for his freedom. He might as well have been dead. He might as well be someone else.  

“Well, I don’t really want to see you right now, so…” her voice trailed off. She threw her arms in the air, as if sarcastically saying, what can you do? and let the tears fall.

With that, she stormed away. She didn’t look back. She didn’t wait. The door slammed shut behind her.

;

Perseus, weeks before.

Death didn’t feel like much. Or maybe it felt like everything.

Like the bitter aftertaste of betrayal in his dead, dead mouth and the flashes of life he was yet to live wrapped tightly in his dead, dead hands. At the same time he forgot why he was there in the first place.

I just am. 

You just are, the darkness reassured. 

He was drawn to it, too. 

People slipped past his line of sight. They looked at him, maybe to ask for directions, because then they said something to him. Something he couldn’t quite make out. It sounded a bit like chatter far away. He gazed at them back, lost just as well, and they got the message that he didn’t know shit and moved on. Everything sounded off. Like falling asleep at a family party on the living room couch and listening to the laughter and the voices but not really. Not like my mom ever threw a party. We had no family.

My mom.

Death was making him remember. But then again not. Why was he here, anyway? He ignored the sudden gnawing headache as the ferryman boarded in more passengers that flickered like torchlight; they were made of nothing but mist, these chattering spirits.

“Drachma?” the hooded ferryman rumbled, once Perseus stepped in line for his turn.

Right. He was dead. The Romans had gotten him good. They’d speared him and he’d bled out on the ground, drowning as he experienced the little of his life he remembered flash before his eyes. Was that how Mars felt? He was drowning in blood. He was listening to the clock tick at the hours. He was blinded by the sun; dust and sweat and maybe rust had gotten in his eyes.

Percy.

Perseus.

No, Percy.

He was dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

After everything he’d done, all the monsters he’d killed, people and gods and creatures that he’d saved—and yet, he was dead, all thanks to vengeful Romans who hadn’t liked what he’d done to their favorite god. Dead as a doornail. Deader than dead.

That was funny somehow. He laughed.

“Why are you laughing?” the hooded man demanded; people were waiting, people were dead, and he was clogging the line.

“Because Mars was right. That fucker. He was right; fighting him was a mistake—”

“Drachma,” the man insisted this time, instead of asking.

Percy fell quiet. Percy. Not Perseus. And he fell quiet, because he was dead and he needed a drachma. He thumbed through his pockets. A pen, then something that felt like a chicken wing bone, a dollar, or maybe it was just a piece of paper, a penny—and, he sighed with relief—the coarse thickness of a bigger coin. A drachma. 

“Here.”

The second the golden coin landed on the man’s hand, it disappeared, sucked into a void of blackness. 

“Thank you. Now watch your step and enjoy your passage.”

The boat floated lazily on a river bank. Everything was black here. Black or gray—the river's waters were no exception.

This must be the River Styx.

It was murky, and it must’ve smelled awful, but Percy’s senses weren’t working the way they were supposed to be working, so he didn’t know. But yeah, it was definitely polluted and gross. As he stepped into the creaky boat with the rest of the Dead, a plopping sound made him turn toward the river. He nearly jumped when a doll’s head floated near him. It was missing an eye and the other was half-closed, almost as if leering.

Crushed dreams.

Faded photographs and college diplomas and wedding rings and broken trophies and tattered gowns and dinosaur toys and doll’s heads. Crushed dreams, he thought, because for some reason the information had come to him despite no one giving it to him, like a doll’s head plopping out of the water.

Or maybe someone had, and he was just trying to remember again. 

Before he could dwell too much on it, the hooded man boarded in and took an oar that had definitely not been there a moment ago. Percy studied him for a couple of seconds. Everything about this—from the ferryman to the boat to the Styx—was oddly familiar.

Annoyingly (and as always), he couldn’t pinpoint the why.

“I’ve seen you before,” he told the man, “I just—I’m trying to remember.”

The ferryman didn’t look at him, not even as he spoke in a hollow tone, “If you want to get your memories back, you will have to await judgment. For now, you’re just like the rest.”

But he felt something there. That same tingling in the small of his back. The water swished pleasantly from the movement of the oars. He glanced at the Styx, briefly—and then something made him want to look up. 

There it was. That something. Death felt like nothing, but he felt something, he was sure of it. 

He blinked in surprise.

He hadn’t imagined it. There.

In the distance, from the other side of the river…far away…was a light . 

How had he not seen it before?

Percy squinted. The spark was the size of a penny, honestly—and yet, in this bleak world, it might as well have been a star swallowing the Earth in its brightness. He could almost hear the Romans, Hazel's crying and Reyna's tight voice. The boat rowed on, further and further away from the light, and the voices. If he could just cross—

He had, he realized. His gaze landed again on the turbid waters, polluted with lost dreams. He’d crossed before.

“If you jump, your essence will scatter and you will be no more," said the ferryman, as if he’d been reading Percy’s thoughts all along. Maybe he had. Under his hood his eyes were empty, the color of shadow under a tunnel. 

“But I've done it before,” Percy found himself saying, out loud. “Swam in the styx, I swear—”

Even in death, the splitting headache arrived; he could see a hand, golden light filtering through water. Come on, Seaweed Brain. Take my hand

Yes, take her hand.

He remembered pain, but then revival. He remembered feeling indestructible. Yeah, he’d swam here before, alright. And he’d survived. No, not only survived. He'd been invincible. He’d crushed an army on the banks of this very river. He’d held the god of the Underworld at sword point, and his eyes had shown fear. A thrill ran through Percy’s spine. 

“No one simply goes for a swim into the Styx,” said the ferryman as he calmly oared the boat. With each movement, the light grew farther and farther away. “It is a meticulous process that few can pull off. Now sit quiet, Godling. I am in no mood for chatter.”

Percy obeyed, for once. He mulled them over. The ferryman’s words. 

It is a meticulous process that few can pull off.

But I did. I came here, into the Underworld, and I pulled it off. Somehow. 

There were so many questions he wanted to ask. So many mysteries he needed to solve about his old life—if he could only remember.

Oh, and there it was again. That something . Darkness consumed everything, but the light was still there, like an open door into the crack of dawn. And though he could hear the Romans and taste the betrayal and the stupidity of his choices all he could think about was this one, simple thing: Annabeth. 

She’s out there, somewhere. Looking for me. And she’s something special.  I love her, and I’m dead and she’s not and there’s nothing I can do.

Love. What did he know about love? He barely remembered who he was. 

What had the ferryman said? 

If you want to get your memories back, you will have to await judgment. For now, you’re just like the rest.

So in theory, he would remember her fully—this Annabeth—if he stayed dead. 

But what if I don’t? What if I can go back?

 If he could just jump…cross the river…finish what he started. See Annabeth again.

Annabeth, the angel who had come to him once he let his final breath. But she wasn’t just an angel; she was real, and he’d see her again.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Without turning around the ferryman sensed that Percy had already stood up. 

“I’ll see you again,” Percy said. He studied the spirits acompanying him on this journey. They paid him no mind, so he looked at the river once more, and found that he wasn’t afraid. Not like the last time. “Just…I have to do some things first.”

He felt the ferryman’s gaze on him. They locked eyes, just for a moment, but it was enough for Percy to pinpoint exactly who he was. 

“Until next time, Charon.”

Charon made a sound of protest, but Percy didn’t hear. 

He took a leap of faith; he dove straight into the water.

“There he goes,” Charon muttered to himself. The son of Poseidon had already dissapeared into the depths. “Let's see if he escapes the Underworld. Again.” He shook his head, chuckling to himself. “I don't get paid enough for this.”

;

Annabeth, July 2010.

Where have you been?

That was a good question. One that she’d asked and asked until she got an answer. 

“Hey, Annabeth, we need reparations—”

“Not now, Leo,” she snapped. 

She was good at that, though she’d feel bad and apologize later. But for now, Leo took a step back, let her pass, giving Piper his signature silent look of, she’s in one of those moods again. Then there was Piper herself—who looked up from her lunch with Jason and sighed at the sight of Annabeth but said nothing about it. No one bothered her. More specifically, no one searched for her when she hid in her room. She didn’t even make it to the bed. She just leaned against the doorframe, barely able to stand from the sobs that rolled off her like the waves of a stormy sea. 

Where have you been?

I’ve been to a lot of places.

Damn right he had, apparently. Gods. Who did he think he was? Some untouchable being? Who was he to keep something like that from her and expect her to be okay with it? After everything they’d been through?

A knock on the door.

“Go away,” she groused, wiping snot from her mouth.

A pause. She could practically see him choosing his words, breathing evenly. 

(She knew it was him, even when she couldn’t see him, just like she knows that her shadow is there, following. After they started dating Annabeth used to joke about how, if Percy were to die, she’d pull an Orpheus and she’d succeed in breaking him out of the Underworld because she would never look back. 

“Not even once?”

“Not even once,” she’d agreed, confidently. Because I’d be able to tell that you’d be there, behind me, she’d thought then, but had instead said, “ Because I have this special talent where I can sense your annoying ass even without looking.”

“Glad to know you still find me annoying”, he replied, earning him a shove. He shoved her harder and she fell awkwardly on the grass and they had a laughing fit for thirty minutes straight afterward.

Though he knew what she’d meant, deep down. 

I would let you follow me, and I’d know you’d be there, because you’re my best friend. Because I know you, just as the sea knows the shore. Because I love you.)

She squeezed her eyes shut. Damn her tears. She refused to let him hear her cry.

“Annabeth,” Percy said, his voice so quiet she nearly had to stop breathing to hear. The door handle jiggled and moved, but didn’t budge. After all, she'd locked her room for a reason. “Can I come in?” 

Hopefully her lack of reply was a good enough answer for him.

“Look, I’m—I’m sorry, okay? I was dumb and should’ve talked to you about all this, but—” She could hear him swallow. “You couldn’t possibly…gods, you have no idea—”

Annabeth pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes, willing the tears to stop, for once. 

“You couldn’t possibly understand,” he finished, softly.

Her body shifted, until her forehead pressed heavily against the door’s brown wood. 

“I would’ve tried to, though. At the very least. I want to understand. Please.”

Reconciliation. It’s a funny thing. They danced around a divide. More specifically, a door. And they weren’t really dancing. More like standing and breathing and waiting. Afraid to let him in, Annabeth’s hands shook. But then she finally relented and she unlocked the door and burst into sobs again at the sight of him, with barely any hair and barely any strength but still willing . She threw her arms around him; he cried with her, rocking in place, back and forth and Annabeth felt his warmth for the first time in six months. 

;

The sun faded as he talked. Annabeth sat him down on her bed and let him talk, and talk, and talk. He began with Lupa, and how he’d woken up at the Wolf House, recounting things she’d already heard in New Rome but with greater detail, with confessions that stole the breath from her lungs.

“I didn’t remember anything about myself—except my full name, I guess—and, um, you.”

“What?”

“You,” he repeated, their eyes locking. His thumb traced the back of her hand, drawing soft circles there. “The only thing Hera couldn’t take from my memory was you.”

She nearly started crying, for the hundredth time. Gods almighty. What was it about Percy Jackson and his words that either made her knees weak or made her die of laughter or give her the urge to aim her fist at his head?

Regardless, he talked and talked and talked. About his treck to Camp Jupiter, all the monsters that couldn’t be sent to Tartarus for long no matter what, stealing police cruisers, meeting Hazel and Frank, the close call with the gorgons, Juno, until he stumbled unto the bit about Reyna and the Romans and how they cut all his hair and she squeezed his hand when his voice broke.

She’d been holding his hand through it all, really, squeezing it every once in a while as a reassurance that she was here, that they were together. 

You’re not getting away from me. Not now.

“I just—I thought I’d forget you then, you know? My memory was shady at best, and, and I just thought: if they can shave my head, if I forget you…” He looked at her, his eyes searching for the words he needed to use, and quietly, he said, “I felt like I lost everything that day.”

Annabeth understood what he meant, somehow. 

Percy. Weeks before.

If Percy could make a list of his life’s most awkward moments, this one would make it to the top five for sure. Imagine: ruthlessly killing the treasonous Greek only to realize that the inconvenience of the whole Doors-of-Death-being-open thing is more serious than it looks when the current enemy of the Empire resurrects like Jesus on the third day—much worse still, for the fact that Perseus Jackson didn’t have the decency to resurrect on the third day. He resurrected after a couple of minutes, and bam, decided to make that everyone’s problem, especially for the vengeful Romans who had killed him.

Yeah…Awkward.

Anyway, as it’s been mentioned, Percy came to life minutes after he’d let out his final breath. And coming to life? It’s not too fun, either. Percy himself has described it as if waking from a dream, one where he’s drowning until suddenly his eyes fly open and he gasps for air, clawing his way up into the surface. 

He woke up from a terrible dream, really. Too bad it wasn’t a dream at all. His gaze swept over everything and anything he could find, heart pumping blood into his veins with renewed force. For the first time ever, Percy Jackson understood what it was like to be alive. 

Blood rushing through his ears all the way to his fingertips, humming with energy. The warm wind stroking his cheeks. The stench of something burning, sharp under his nose. And most importantly, the strange, awkward feeling of having an entire legion of Romans stare incredulously at you, without shame—as if saying— damn, why can’t you stay dead? and making Percy almost regret his decision of swimming towards the light. Almost. 

Because most importantly, and pushing these intrusive feelings aside, Percy Jackson found this whole thing hilarious. Coming to life isn’t very fun until you realize it is because, well, you’re alive; the haters can’t do much about that, so they’re left seething like murderous little gremlins. He found it so hilarious, in fact, that he nearly burst out laughing right then and there. However, he wasn’t an animal. He could contain himself. His mouth did spread into a grin, though—especially at the sight of Octavian so purple in the face. 

Quickly, he dusted himself off, wiped blood off his chin, and stood. (To everyone else but him, this action might as well have come straight out of a horror movie, what with Perseus, as they called him, wearing the smirk of the devil, his teeth glinting crimson red, staggering to his feet like Frankenstein’s monster—which, might not be too far from the truth.) 

In other words, he looked terrible. Oh well. They were the ones to blame for Percy’s physical state, so…in other words, their funeral.  

The Romans took a step back, even Reyna. Percy noted absently that Hazel and Frank and Nico were nowhere to be found. That pretty much left him alone with hundreds of kids who weren’t really on friendly terms with him, let alone speaking terms. In fact, he may like to add (as a margin note) that a lot of these kids had taken part in his untimely death, and might have gotten away with it had Percy not been so terribly bad at presumably dying…and staying dead. 

How very awkward, that he was more than alive and well. His composure nearly broke, and that laughter he’d been holding back was bubbling up to the surface, sitting right there, in the back of his throat. This time, he didn’t reign himself in. He laughed. A crazy laugh. A manic laugh. It was freeing nontheless. He met Octavian’s narrowed, raging eyes.

“Hey, Romans. Missed me?”

;

Frank. A few minutes later.

Frank was good at packing. He considered himself a master of this particular art after plenty of practice—before his mom’s passing he’d done so many trips to China, him and his mom and grandmother, that it was second nature to him at this point. And of course, the hassled packing he’d had to make to get here, to Camp Jupiter, having lost the one person who truly understood him. But hey, at least he packed everything, efficiently fast. 

Practice does make perfect, was what everyone around him loved to say, as if they were the wisest people on Earth for speaking such wise words. Hah. Too bad they were right, in some way. Practice did make perfect, like with his archery (the only thing he was actually decent at), and his Mandarin, which was passable after so many prompted and unprompted lessons from his grandmother. 

Oh, and packing. Right. He was good at packing. Good at being diligent. Good at following orders. A good son. A son of war—

“What are you doing?” 

He jumped, his hand frozen midair, grasping a pair of pants between his fingers.

“Hazel! Oh my gods, you need to stop doing that!”

If Frank was a master at packing, Hazel was a master at staying so silent that if she made herself known and you weren’t paying attention, it would seem like she’d come out of inexplicably nowhere . Maybe it was a daughter of Pluto thing, but regardless, she’d scared the lights out of him more times than he could count. 

Today, though, she didn’t laugh herself to tears at his reaction, as she usually would. She smiled a bit, leaning against Fifth Cohort’s doorway, but it didn’t really reach her eyes. He tried not to think too much of it, about why that was, or else the image of Perseus, dead in the cold, lifeless dirt would come to him and he’d make himself sick and he wouldn’t pack everything correctly.

“Sorry about that, um…”

“No, no! It’s okay! I was just so focused packing that I didn’t see you—”

“Why’re you packing already, though?” Hazel fumbled with her hands a little bit, still standing by the doorway. “The quest hasn’t even been approved by the Senate.”

His eyes momentarily flicked to the pants he still held in his hand. “Oh. Well.” He cleared his throat. “I just thought—it’s always good to be prepared, right?”

A shadow passed across her face. “Right. I suppose so.”

Watching her now, Frank realized there were still so many things he didn’t know about her. He obviously doubted that any of the rumors about her were true, but still…there were so many odd things about her…

In the extended silence, the clock on the wall sounded loud and clear. 

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

“Um.” She took a step forward, like she wanted to get close to him, but at the last minute she faltered, and stayed there, suspended. “I just wanted to…check in on you, since you ran off right after…everything. See if you are alright, but…”

But I see that you aren’t so I’ll leave you be, because obviously the action of packing was a nice distractor from everything else, that is, until I barged in and accidentally reminded you that you have a father now and he was the last person you expected; for the icing on the cake he tried to kill one of the few friends you’ve ever had and even if he didn’t succeed, your friend did die anyway, at the hands of people you’ve known for months and you even saw the body and everything, which was another reminder of your dead mom. You remember her, right? Your dead mom? She probably died in a similar manner but at least when you saw her body it had already been cleaned and perfectly packed like you wanted to do with your own clothes, but—

“No, I’m alright.”

“Are you sure?”

He swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yeah.”

Hazel’s forehead creased. The seconds ticked by. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

“Mars giving you a quest, the Centurion promotion, Perseus—” Here, her voice caught. “Its, it’s a lot. I get it if…you don’t want to go, or, it’s alright to feel angry, even.”

The first time he ever met Hazel, he thought there was no possible way for him to hate her in the slightest—but right now, he kinda did. Just a little bit. All the things that had happened today, he’d carefully packed them in his brain, and Hazel had just…She’d just seen right through him in an instant and reached, plucking all these things out and assembling them on a tray so that he could gawk at them properly. 

But did he hate her for that, truly?

Ugh. Actually, he hated himself for thinking such things, when she was just being a good friend and checking in on him. 

Suddenly he was there, all over again. Perseus’ body left to the sidelines, everyone digging holes into his back with their eyes while Mars beamed at him. They’d given him a medal. He was to go on a quest, to lead a quest when he’d never led anything in his life, to free Thanatos. Save Rome. He was given a medal for his feats in the War Games— Hazel deserved the recognition, too, and Perseus… Perseus, with a pilum stuck to his chest, whom he’d just watched die, and Mars beamed and called him son , and Reyna couldn’t meet his eyes as she promoted him to centurion and he looked at Hazel then, and her tears had made tracks across her cheeks where the dirt on her skin had been cleansed, and Mars had left. 

He’d given Frank a little star, stuck it to his forehead, a good job, and that was it. No apology. No recognition of all the years lost, of asking and praying to know who his father was and never earning a straight answer. Just like that, he’d…left. So Frank had left as well, slipped from the crowd the second they let him be, and now here he was, packing. 

He glared at his duffel bag. He hadn’t even been thinking about any of the things he’d potentially need. His grandmother would’ve scolded him, for not making a proper list. He could already envision her, grabbing all the necessities he was forgetting and making a big fuss about it…

“I just want to finish packing, if that’s okay.”

“Oh.” Already he felt the twinge of guilt for pushing away his dearest friend, but he didn’t care, not when the reminder of everything made his stomach churn and give him the strongest urge to cry and never see the light of day. “Alright, then. I’ll just be—”

“Haze!” a voice cut in. 

Frank looked up, expecting Dakota or Gwen but instead found Nico stomping into the Fifth, his eyes wild with something Frank couldn’t quite place. His cheeks were slightly rosy, his hair was a wind blown mess, and he was breathing hard.

“What is it?” Hazel demanded.

“It’s Percy—Perseus,” Nico breathed. “He’s alive. And he’s fighting Mars. Again.”

;

Percy, a few minutes earlier.

Percy yanked the arrow out of his thigh first. It didn’t even hurt, just made a dull thud as it hit the ground. He struggled with the pilum, though. It was embedded in his back, like a tree root that wouldn’t come out. He somehow managed to grab it with both hands from behind, and pull. Everyone watched with horrified curiosity. The satisfying sensation of the tip finally, finally coming out was nothing compared to the Romans’ reaction when he threw the spear aside. They jumped as it clattered by their feet, nearly impaling someone in the process.  

“What?” Percy challenged. “Scared, now?” 

Octavian seemed to come to his senses, because he took a step toward Percy, his glare ready to send him six feet under. Too bad Percy had already been there, done that. So he just let Octavian come. He could have some fun with this. For now. 

“Leave now, Graecus,” he snarled, “or your second death will be more brutal than the first.”

Some kids unsheathed their weapons again. Their eyes stayed on Octavian, ready for whatever order he was to give. Until Reyna made herself known, that is. 

“Everyone, remain calm. I have had enough of this…bloodshed.” She looked pointedly at Octavian, who scowled but didn’t bother with a response. That would likely come later. He was, after all, no fool. “We will settle things in a civilized manner.” 

Then her gaze snapped to Percy. She gave him a once-over, her expression pained. He didn’t blame her. It had probably made her life ten times more difficult, having Percy come to life again. His bad. 

“Perseus. If you’d accompany me, please.” It wasn’t really a suggestion. “Everyone else, back to your cohorts with the exception of Amelia, Chris, and Bryan—you three know what to do. Take Jack’s body. His funeral rite will take place before dinner.”

He hadn’t noticed until now, but Jack Adams was still there…just not as alive as Percy. His head lolled to the side as they carried him away. 

Meanwhile, Percy was bursting with energy. He looked at Jack Adams—dead and gone for good, perhaps, if he’d already boarded Charon’s ferry—and remembered that this boy had tried to kill him…but Percy had killed him instead. And though once upon a time the guilt would have weighed him down until everything in him had shattered, there was none of that anymore. 

No guilt. No remorse. No sympathy.

He felt nothing.

Maybe that should’ve scared him, more than what he’d done to Mars. More than the action of killing. But it didn’t. It just made sense, somehow. In this rebirth, he had bled and he had drowned and he had fought and he had struggled beforehand, and now all he felt was nothing and alive, all at once . He was cleansed, with a new coat of skin, raw as fresh meat, a taste that lingered like the hesitant bite of a dream, first lost but then found. 

It was overwhelming, to say the least.

Well. Might as well put his energy to good use.

“Where is Mars?” he said, his words coming out in one breath.

Reyna had already reached him as everyone dispersed to their respective cohorts. Some lingered, though. He hadn’t seen Nico before, but he saw him now, in his periphery. He stood apart from the rest, and Percy could tell that the Ambassador of Pluto wanted to question him about something, but he watched Percy instead, as if he were biding his time. 

Reyna’s dark eyes bored into his own. “He left.”

“But it’s not over.”

“Come again?”

“My duel with Mars,” he insisted. “It’s not

over. I killed him—”

“You can’t kill a god,” she interrupted, in a tone that clearly said, if you don’t stop arguing right now I can’t guarantee your safety.

“He reformed,” he said, ignoring her. “And I died, but he didn’t kill me. And I came back anyway. The duel isn’t done yet.”

Reyna whipped her head this way and that, taking notice of all the prying eyes and ears. 

She leaned closer to him, her eyes sharp as swords, and whispered furtively, “Do you have a second death wish?” When he didn’t respond, she glanced briefly at Octavian; he was indulging a couple of Centurions a few feet away, but was obviously listening to Reyna and Percy’s conversation. “We’ll discuss what happened— in the privacy of the Praetor Headquarters.”

“No. This isn’t over.”

“Perseus—”

“It’s Percy, actually. And I came back because I have a score to settle.”

Reyna regarded him like she would a foreign text, not knowing what he was exactly, not knowing how to feel. Eventually, she settled on something. “You are a fool.” She pointed a threatening finger to his chest. “Do what you want with your precious duel, but don’t expect any support from me.”

“As if you ever gave me any,” he muttered.

“I’m a leader, not a zealot,” she replied, coolly and unfazed. 

To be fair, not surprised. He didn’t expect any less from her.

But his blood sang. The ground beneath him was a canvas of possibility, the sky above the witness to his next deeds, and most important of all, his skin was raw, but armored, like iron.

Invulnerable.

Percy was no fool, but his fatal flaw might as well have been Hubris at this point; he could’ve let go of the stick he was using to beat the horse, but no—it had to die.

He had to die. Mars.

And this time, Perseus Jackson—son of the Earthshaker, Stormbringer; the Destroyer, the Godkiller— knew that he would succeed. 

“HEY, MARS!” he shouted into the great, open field, desolate save for the startled looks of the people who were yet to leave. “FORGOT SOMETHING? I’M STILL ALIVE!”

The air flickered around him, and the familiar rush of electric rage and violence swept over the faraway battlement and into his lungs. He unsheathed Riptide. 

Reyna appraised him, one last time; “I’ll leave you to your funeral, then.” She turned to leave, as she promised—probably just to watch him from a distance, as others were already doing.

“Not again,” someone groaned. 

Octavian smirked at him. Percy smirked right back, and with it the augur’s expression changed. For the first time, he looked scared of Percy. Genuinely scared. 

A hiss rattled by his ear. The Earth cracked slightly. Unfiltered rage scraped across that invulnerable skin of his like nails over a chalkboard.

“SHOW YOURSELF, YOU COWARD! SCARED I’ll KILL YOU FOR REAL THIS TIME?” 

“Well, this is an inconvenience,” a voice rumbled behind him. 

He barely had time to whirl and meet Mars’ first strike with Riptide, the ground stumbling into itself with the impact, but he still managed to be a little shit. He always did.

“I’m usually an inconvenience.”

(And he was. But not in the ways he thought. Not how he wanted. How do you kill a god? He still had no answer to that…he was getting there, though…but maybe it wasn’t enough. Maybe, they don’t call the Curse of Achilles a “curse” for nothing.)

Chapter Text

No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,

From thee to nothing. On superior powers

Were we to press, inferior might on ours:

Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale’s destroyed:

From Nature’s chain whatever link you strike,

Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And, if each system in gradation roll

Alike essential to the amazing whole,

The least confusion but in one, not all

That system only, but the whole must fall.

- Excerpt from "The Great Chain of Being," by Alexander Pope

Annabeth, July 2010.

“So let me get this straight. When you arrived at Camp Jupiter, the Little Tiber washed off the Curse.”

“Pretty much.”

“Yet when you…died…you bathed in the Styx. And you survived it. Again.”

“I did.”

“And your Achilles heel—” 

“Is the same one as before,” he said, voice quiet. 

There was barely any light left in his room, yet his eyes shone, directed at her, trusting. 

“You…challenged Mars. Again.”

He lowered his gaze, probably because he thought she’d blow up on him again if he replied—so Annabeth took his hand. It was warmer, now. Kissed by the sun. She squeezed it once, twice. 

“…And you actually killed him?”

His eyes were bored on a loose thread in the bedspread. “Yeah. I did.”

“Gods, Percy.”

“He hasn’t reformed since.”

He might have been expecting something else from her, some other response. But Annabeth, for once, didn’t know what to make of it. Didn’t know what to make of him. It should’ve scared her, not knowing—and that fear would come soon, like tiny spiders trickling into her bed at night; in the meantime, she couldn’t get over one burning question that blazed through her mind:

“How did you even do it?”

Finally, he lifted his eyes to meet hers. “I don’t know.”

;

Percy. Weeks before.

Percy wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know; seriously, he didn’t. It all happened so fast. One second Reyna was talking to him and the next he was back at it again, fighting the same god, repeating the cycle, like a storm coming to wash off his newest sins. 

There was rain. And thunder. And there was the God of War and the wicked gleam of his sword as lightning struck the land. This duel lasted much longer. Percy had summoned Mars’ full fledged wrath, after all. Combine that with the fact that Percy bore the Curse of Achilles again, plus the obvious part about Mars being an all powerful—pissed off god—meant that the fight was bound to last a couple more minutes.

They were a whirlwind of movements, of clashes and rasping of metal against metal. Mars managed to land a couple of blows—too bad he couldn’t draw blood. It only added fuel to the fire. His nostrils would flare, and in his blinding anger, Percy would slash Riptide in a swooping arc and he’d manage to nick a chunk of the god’s skin. Mars would use his powers to throw Percy this way and that, with the force of a bullet train, yet he’d always get back up, coming back for more… 

An hour later.

“So this is the Senate?” he muttered to himself, though it was loud enough for the First Cohort Centurion, Michael, to hear.

He pushed Percy forward (with more force than necessary, in his humble opinion). Percy stumbled, but managed to right himself before he became an even bigger public humiliation. 

“Shut up and keep walking,” Michael growled. 

Keep walking. Just keep walking. 

But as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t truly bring it in himself to panic. 

The shackles they’d given him were tight around his wrists; tight enough to draw blood, if he hadn’t been bearing the Curse, of course.

It still buzzed in his mind. The Styx, the drowning, the dying and the rebirth. It buzzed and buzzed, like a hive of wasps, like the crowds that were forming in his wake. Percy guessed that New Rome civilians weren’t used to so much excitement happening in one day. They should thank him, really. 

The Senate itself was a square building with tall, maroon pillars and swooping arcs that housed a human-sized statue in each one—probably famous senators of the past or emperors or whatnot. What? It’s not like Percy was an expert in Roman history and culture or something. But he had to admit: it was pretty imposing. Beautiful, even. The marble shone in the sunlight, and every carving and statue was polished to perfection.

Annabeth would love it here, he thought—putting the thought of him literally being shackled like a prisoner aside, and also the fact that they were leading him into the Senate so a bunch of people could decide his fate—she’d most definitely appreciate the architecture.

Eventually, they made it to the steps, Michael from the First and Hank from the Third flanking his sides. He could hear Reyna’s voice, echoing from the inside. 

Stand your ground, he thought.

Stand your ground.

Stand your ground…

;

Stepping inside the Senate was like stepping into an entirely different world. 

(One where you remembered that a community of people hated you so much that they’d killed you. And the ones in charge were sending glares hotter than a thousand suns your way. It wasn’t a very fun world to be in.)

Reyna quieted when he walked in. 

Hazel was there. And Frank. They sat at the highest pew, solely as observers, even if this was also a Senate meeting about approving the quest they were meant to partake in. Hazel waved at him; Frank smiled encouragingly, but even from far away Percy could tell he was scared out of his mind. They both were. 

There was also Octavian, standing next to Reyna at the very center of the room. Percy’s fists clenched when their eyes locked. Octavian smirked, eyes twinkling. Gods, there was nothing he wanted more than to wipe that smugness off his face with a punch or two. Hank wrapped his hand around Percy’s right arm and Michael grabbed his other arm, forcing him to sit, as if he couldn’t just do that himself. 

I’m tired, he thought, because more than anything, he was just tired. 

He cast a weary glance at Reyna. Get on with it.

Reyna gave the Centurions who had escorted him a curt nod. “Thank you, Michael Kahale and Henry Smith, for coming. Perseus Jackson, thank you as well.”

Psh. As if he hadn’t been captured the second he’d killed Mars (for the second time) and consequently bound by enchanted cuffs (Octavian, apparently, didn’t want to take any chances). As if he hadn’t been practically dragged here. These Romans and their formality. 

Then, she addressed the expectant senators—the Centurions and the Lares and the New Rome veterans;

“As we have discussed, I’ll let Perseus tell his version of the previous events—”

Furtive murmurs resounded across the Senate, growing louder and louder by the second. This time, Octavian took over. He held both hands up.

“Senators,” he said. “I ask you to remain quiet.” To Percy’s surprise, the murmurs receded. Reyna smiled tightly, but Percy could tell, even if she was good at hiding it: she didn’t appreciate Octavian taking command. Her mouth opened, but Octavian beat her to it. “Thank you, everyone. Now, Perseus—if you may answer these questions, and answer them truthfully: did you kill Mars?”

Percy glared in return, letting the silence speak. Octavian blinked. Someone coughed. 

He sighed. Fine. If they wanted him to say it, he’d say it. What more did he have to lose? 

Whispers and ghosts of memories flashed in his mind. He stood over Mars’ body, panting. Glass shards pressed against his gut; something inside him had broken, yet he still stood his ground, he was still alive. Something started boiling. Golden ichor. Had Percy done that? Had he boiled Mars’ blood? It didn’t matter. In seconds, the God of War was gone. All that was left was a wasteland, and a scattering of golden dust, swept by the winds.

Mars Ultor was dead for good. He’d been sure of it.

Back in the Senate, Percy looked directly into Octavian’s eyes and said, “I did.”

Again, more murmurs. Again, Octavian signaled for everyone to quiet down. 

“And did you, by any chance, kill First Cohort Centurion Jack Adams?”

Jack Adams. They’d carried his body. Percy hadn’t seen it since. The sound Jack had made as he took his last breaths would stay with Percy forever, though. Like a reminder. 

“Yes,” Percy said. 

The voices grew so loud that Octavian didn’t even try to ask for silence, opting to raise his voice instead;

“Thank you, Perseus. That is all the information we need. Don’t you think so, Praetor?”

Reyna didn’t say anything, for a moment. She was still looking at Octavian, eyes narrowed. She cleared her throat. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

Octavian gave Michael a nod, and suddenly Percy was being dragged away before he could even react. 

;

“Am I in trouble?”

Reyna raised an eyebrow, her mouth a thin line. Apparently, she didn’t have much of a sense of humor. Or maybe she just didn’t find him funny. 

“Perseus—”

“Percy.”

“Right. Percy. I summoned you into my office to let you know what the Senate decided, keeping in mind the fact that technically you didn't kill a god, plus your invulnerability, it’s hard to apply the…traditional forms of punishment.”

Aurum and Argentum, her two metal dogs, stared blankly at him. He suddenly missed Mrs. O’Leary and her bright, playful spark. Before he could reminisce about the new memory he’d just casually plucked out of the depths of his mind, Reyna continued speaking. 

“It took some convincing, but I managed to make it reasonable enough. I’m sure you know that Hazel and Frank are going on a quest, assigned by…Mars.” 

“To free Death?”

“That’s the one.”

It started to sink in. He’d never thought of quests as being punishments, but then again, that was likely the hero in him talking. He scoffed. 

“I know you can do it. Besides, Frank needs a third person. What better candidate than his newest friend?”

“And if I don’t do it?”

“There are worse punishments for killing a god.”

“But you just said I didn’t kill him—”

“I said not technically. The auguries claim he won’t be able to reform for a while, not in the state you put him in. By god standards, that is the closest you can get to being dead—apart from fading. You should be thanking me, actually.”

“Gee, thanks,” he mumbled.

“You're welcome.”

 (She was right, though. A quest didn’t sound too bad. Didn’t he go on quests like, once or twice a year? Besides, Hazel and Frank, apart from being his friends, needed all the help they could get…) 

“And if you survive—“

“If,” he groused.

“Exactly. If you survive, the Senate had a lot of…mixed opinions about what they wanted to do with you.”

“Mixed as in, the majority wanted me executed? Good luck trying.”

She ignored him. “Again, you have a Greek blessing, that makes you invincible. It’s very difficult to find a suitable punishment for someone like that.”

“Wonder why.”

“So, it was decided—as a second punishment, you’ll be made Praetor.”

It took him a couple of seconds to realize what she’d just said. “Woah, woah, woah—hold on, uh…how exactly is that a punishment?”

“You are Greek, with a Greek curse.”

“You mentioned that already.”

“Let me finish. You have a Greek sword. You are not conventionally Roman, Percy. Being Praetor, you’d have to lead an entire legion of conventional Romans who, once upon a time, killed you. Besides, you might learn a thing or two. Think of it as a…restorative punishment.”

He understood the undertones well enough: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. 

But there was still…there was something else, hidden deep in her words. She seemed to read his mind, because her lips pursed.

“I know you may find it strange, how…light, these punishments feel, but—” She shook her head. “I may not agree with what you did, but I understand, somewhat. If I found the men—the people—that had wronged me and my loved ones, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill them. And with Jack Adams, well.” She shrugged. “Anyone in your situation would have acted the same way. The point is: I trust my judgment on people, and you seem like a good person, Percy, despite everything.” 

“Thanks…I guess.” He found that he meant it, this time. She may not have helped him publicly, like when he was being attacked in the battlefield, but she was doing it now. That had to count for something. Yet, he still had so much to say, so many things to ask. “How did you even manage to do that? You know, convince everyone when Octavian was just there?”

Her lips stretched into a wry smile. “I appreciate your faith in me.”

“Is that sarcasm I hear?”

She rolled her eyes. “Octavian may be a good speaker, but I’m not too bad myself. Why do you think I’m Praetor? Just ‘cause I’m good with a sword?”

“Um…”

“I have my ways of getting people to listen, believe it or not,” she said, then frowned a little. “He's not happy. But he’s taken care of. Look, I…I know we started off at the wrong foot, and you don’t actually remember what happened at Circe’s Island—”

“Maybe I do.”

He did. Or at least, now that he was talking to her, he was starting to. He remembered very well the pain and humiliation he’d felt about turning into a guinea pig—then Annabeth had rescued him—but he could also recall a girl, uncannily similar to Reyna, welcoming them…they really had met before. And he’d destroyed her home. Her and her sister’s. He was about to apologize, say something, anything.

Reyna waved him off. “The point is, fate brought us together for a reason, and I know you’re a skilled fighter, and you’re loyal. I can see that. I can work with that—”

“You want me to free Thanatos, you need me to be Praetor because Octavian is already a candidate, and with the way he can manipulate a crowd, it’s easy to see him winning. He was probably the one who killed Gwen, you know.”

A flash of irritation crossed her face for being interrupted once more. But then she sighed. In a matter of seconds, she looked her age. A scared seventeen-year-old girl who carried too much on her shoulders. 

“You’re smarter than you look.”

He decided to take that as a compliment. “I get that a lot.”

“New Rome—and the world in general—is in more danger than you think.” she pursed her lips. “Gaea is awakening, and I've…well. There’s going to be an organized attack coming from her forces, to my camp, to the city. We’re talking about an attack where your enemy can’t even die—unless this quest succeeds. The auguries said so.”

“And why me? How are you so sure that I'll help? What if I just jump into the ocean and don’t come back?”

“From what I can piece together about you, is that you wouldn’t do that when your friends clearly need you. Frank is skilled with a bow and arrow and he has more determination than he’s willing to admit, and Hazel…well, she’s very powerful, very cunning, but…”

“But?”

“They’re new at this. This quest needs more. Someone who knows the rules. Knows his way around tricky situations, or impossible odds. I'm sure you’ve faced them more than once.”

He swallowed. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

She gave him a deadpanned look. “I've seen what you can do. You are my best choice, if I want this to succeed. If I want our little haven to survive.”

She cared about this place. She was a good leader, really. Clever. Strategic. always choosing what was best for Camp Jupiter. Sure, he respected that, but most of all, her way of doing things reminded him of Annabeth. Pragmatic yet passionate, caring until the end. It was in these moments that he missed her so much it hurt, like he was running through a tunnel, empty and dark and she was there at the end of it, her hand reaching for him but always moving, always getting farther and farther away. 

“And on the topic of Octavian…I have my suspicions as well. But without evidence, I can't do much. However, you’re right. I need you. Anyone else but Octavian as Praetor would be great, really. It just so happens that you need a punishment and I managed to convince the Senate that having you as Praetor would put you a bit…a bit more in line, you know? But honestly? I think you’d be well suited for it. You did shake things up a bit at the War Games.”

“By killing the god of war?”

“No,” she said, rolling her eyes. “By leading the Fifth Cohort into victory. Don’t think I forgot about that.”

“That was more of a group effort.”

“You’re modest, too,” she observed. “Good qualities for a leader.”

“Well, anyway, what’s done is done, right? there’s no point in me arguing with you about it.”

“No.” She took a jellybean from her desk and popped it in her mouth, chewing it thoughtfully, eyes gleaming with something Percy could only pinpoint as mischief until she said, “There isn’t. Go and pack your bags; you have a quest to fulfill.”

;

Annabeth, July 2010.

“It just happened so fast, that second time,” Percy said. “I didn’t know—but it felt…it felt good. I fought that asshole when I was twelve, and when I saw him again—something inside me said, ‘I’m gonna win this’ even if every single logical thought screamed at me that I wouldn’t. Reyna said that his presence is still there, like, he technically still exists, but…”

“But he can’t take a physical form,” Annabeth surmised, brows knitted together. “Not for a while, at least.”

His lips formed into the smallest of smiles. “Right. Something like that.”

She sat there, just thinking. Her hand was still wrapped around Percy’s. His skin was golden, from the setting sun. She brought his knuckles to her lips. 

Then she scooted back, laying on his bed. She made room for him, patting down the comforter. “C’mon,” she said. 

Percy’s smile widened, and he squished in next to her. It was a somewhat tight fit, but they made it work. His head was buried between her neck and shoulder. She ran her fingers through his scalp, through the dark hair that was stubbornly growing back. One of his hands was wrapped around her waist, his thumb making soothing circles beneath her shirt. It was so deeply domestic and intimate that she felt like crying again. It’s a feeling that you can’t quite place: as if someone had drawn your face and you realize that, all these years, you’d interpreted your reflection all wrong.   

“So.” His breath was warm and soft against her skin. “You’re not freaked out?”

“Why would I be freaked out?”

She stared at the ceiling. He wouldn’t look up. It was alright, though. They’d be alright.

“I was scared you’d be—I don't know, disgusted? I guess?”

“Because you were brave enough to face a god? Because you killed someone in self defense? I know as well as you that we’re always the ones to clean up their messes. We’re on another quest, for gods’ sake.”

He nodded. She sighed.

“But hey.” He lifted his head, smirking slightly. “You should’ve seen the Roman’s faces when I came back from the dead. Even better when I killed their favorite god.”

Annabeth snorted. “I would’ve paid a handful of drachmas to see their reactions.”

“Pretty much scared the shit out of them,” he said, laughing.

“You tend to do that, but I don’t know”—she leaned over and kissed his nose—“that may or may not be one of the many things I admire about you.”

This time, he was the one who pulled her to his chest, and they said nothing for a while. Just listened to his beating heart. Thump thump. Thump thump. It gave her time to picture it all in her head. What must’ve he felt, in those supposed final moments of his life? What had been like? Had it been sudden? Had he known it was happening? That he was going to die? 

He must’ve been scared, at least. He must’ve prayed. He must’ve given it his all, in that battle against an entire legion, even when his strength inevitably ebbed, and his heart stopped. The pain came crashing into her so hard that she bunched up his T-shirt, just to feel. Just to make sure. He’s real. He’s alive.

“The more that’s happened this year,” she said in a sudden gasp of realization, “the more…the more I think about it—sometimes…sometimes I think, well, I come to the conclusion that Luke was right.” 

It was a whisper, really. A confession taken straight out of her soul, so small, like a speck of golden dust blowing across the horizon. She was jealous of Percy—at least a little bit. He’d been abducted and plucked into a strange place, a doll playing inside a dollhouse, but he’d had no memory. No scars of the past that would itch until they bled again.  

But she’d remembered everything. Every day. She’d wake up and go to Cabin Three and find his bed empty, and every day she’d remember it. Luke’s words. His promises. Him, begging her to see. She was too young to understand then, but in the moments when Percy went missing she felt it: Luke’s anguish, so raw it was like fresh blood beneath her fingernails. His bitterness, always there, on the roof of her mouth. His anger, his sadness. 

“I do too,” Percy said. His eyes met hers. “Sometimes I feel like it would’ve been easier, y’know? Going along with him. But then I remember.”

“Remember what?”

She waited for him to elaborate. 

“Luke’s reasons,” Percy said, “for listening to Kronos.”

“All he wanted was justice.”

“Yeah, but…he wanted justice for himself. Because he thought Hermes had wronged him. That’s why he didn’t hesitate to try to kill me, or others who stood in his way.”

Annabeth was silent, digesting this. The topic of Luke was a complicated one. It always had been. One could argue against Percy’s accusations. A year ago, she did. Even after carrying the sky. Even after he’d poisoned Thalia’s tree. “You didn’t know him like I do,” she’d say. 

“It doesn’t mean,” Percy started. He looked down, his eyes finding her camp necklace. “It doesn’t mean he didn’t care. It just means he didn’t care enough. I don’t think he did, you know? But at the same time, I sort of get how Luke felt. About not caring. I felt the same way when I faced Mars, and the Romans. The scariest part is that…if Kronos had appeared in my dreams at this point, instead of when I was twelve, I might’ve listened. As long as you and everyone I love is safe, I wouldn’t care. I’d just want the gods to burn.”

“And if Kronos broke his promise?”

His eyes were a dark green, like a stormy sea, when he said, “Then I’d make him regret it for the rest of his miserable, immortal life.” 

“Maybe that’s why he gave up on convincing you to join him.” 

When he smiled it was slow. Soft. The smile he got whenever she spoke the thoughts out of his mind. “Maybe.”

“He couldn’t control you like he could with Luke. He couldn’t control Thalia either.”

“Luke had always been angry,” Thalia had told her once. “Not just after I was turned into a pine tree or after whatever happened on his quest—he was angry on the run with me, before we even met you, Beth. He was supposed to have everything he wanted: he was a white boy, living in a nice town, a nice neighborhood, a nice house…yet he didn’t have everything. Luke and I, we share that in common.”

Annabeth had been speechless then, listening to Thalia rant, fists clenched and chest burning, because no, Luke could see. He’d make the right choice when the time came. He had to. She understood now, after the ashes had settled and she’d cried herself to sleep enough times for there to be nothing left but a strange, numb feeling, that humans are a complicated mess. Demigods are no better.

“What makes Luke and me different is how we handled the pain, the anger. The system needs to be changed? It sure does; I agree with him on that.”  Thalia had shaken her head, stared at her with eyes filled with something akin to grief. “But I’m not gonna turn on my family. I’m not gonna go to someone who promises me everything I was denied, on the condition that I do as I’m told. Only if we all do as we’re told. Kronos is no better. And Luke? Luke is too far gone to save.”

And yet, Thalia had been wrong. They’d all been wrong.

“Yet even if…even if Kronos thought he was controlling everything about Luke, he failed,” Annabeth said. “He failed because the man he was controlling did care, in the end.” 

Percy gave the smallest of nods, brushing a tear she hadn’t noticed had slipped from her eye, wetting her cheek.

The image flashed in her mind. The bright red pool of blood. Her knife. She’d given it to Percy, because she trusted him and he trusted her right back. Cursed blade shall reap. Luke had smiled at her, all wobbly and weak, in those last few minutes that his heart still beat. He'd been blinded by rage, bitterness, regret, self righteousness…but he’d also seen her. She’d been his anchor—his family, really. He’d cared, right then and there. In those moments, he’d cared so much he paid the ultimate sacrifice.

“But yeah.” Annabeth swallowed. “I know what you mean. The Titans were no better than the Gods. They used children. They sent them to die.”

After all, Kronos had built Luke up only to burn him out. Sacrifice or no sacrifice, cursed blade or no cursed blade, he would’ve still been killed. His body would’ve combusted, turned to golden flame, golden dust, that would fly over New York City like a sigh and disperse and forever be forgotten. The thing is that, if he hadn’t broken her trust, if he hadn’t poisoned Thalia or trick her into carrying the sky or nearly kill Percy time and time again, she would’ve gone with it. Because the thing is, she believed him. Annabeth could make it better. She knows she could.

“Hmm, you’ve got your thinking face on.”

She could hear the cheeky grin in his voice, and she rolled her eyes. “Shut up, I don’t have a thinking face.”

“You so do.” 

She couldn’t find it in herself to respond, so she just lay there, her hand supporting her head, thinking, as Percy said. He tucked a small braid under her ear—the one that had most of the gray streak mixed in with her natural, dark hair. 

“Hey,” he whispered, “what’s on your mind?”

“What if we could do it better? What if…we could just rebuild the world, as it should be? Start from scratch? Get rid of all the evil?”

Percy was still smiling somewhat. “I would definitely put you in charge.”

She let out a small chuckle. “Yeah, I don’t think they’d let you do that, Seaweed Brain.”

“Who says they won’t? The vote will be unanimous.”

“Hm, maybe. Maybe not, Sunshine.”

“What would be your first order of business, in this hypothetical new world?”

His thumb was drawing circles on her waist again, and if she had to admit, it was kind of distracting. Too distracting. 

“I don’t know,” she said, because at that point, she didn't much care about the conversation. About treasonous acts like dethroning the gods and taking over and following Luke’s footsteps. “I think I’d just want a moment of peace with my boyfriend.”

“Oh?” And that crooked smile…that damn trouble maker grin that had once been annoying but now all it did was turn her knees to jello. “And who is this boyfriend?”

“I don’t think you know him.”

“Enlighten me.”

“For starters, he’s sweet. He’s funny, and kind, and despite what he says, he does care. He also gets me.” 

“Sounds like the perfect guy.”

“Mmm, not really. He can be an annoying ass, like when he does impertinent shit and nearly dies time and time again because of it and then nearly scares me to death, but hey.” She shrugged; Percy’s eyes twinkled, and she suddenly wanted forever to feel like this. “He may be an annoying ass, but he’s my annoying ass.”

“Damn right he is.”

Her finger traced his eyebrows, gently, and she watched when his dark lashes fluttered, like butterfly wings. She traced his cheekbone, then his jaw, then his bottom lip. Then She kissed him. They stayed there for a few seconds, or perhaps for hours, the fading light suspended above them.

Chapter Text

I dreamed I forgot you

but to dream you was remembering.

I have words for you

only, a linguistic fidelity.

Cherish and anguish and fool.

I look for you, I am finding

out if I am brave. Last

I saw you, it was the same disruptive

season: robins trilling in the young 

flush, trees shivering

pink all down the street.

I thought the ache

would ruin me, and maybe it did.

Here I am in the beatific after

still calling back to you.

- I Dreamed I Forgot, Leila Chatti

Hazel. June, 2010.

They were on the boat, heading to Portland, when he asked her. 

No, not asked . That wasn’t quite right. Stated, more like. 

Frank was snoring, dead to the world, and she was trying her best not to throw up from the constant waves and Percy just looked at her, green eyes alight under the moonlight with something, and stated;

“You were dead before, weren’t you?”

His words jostled her, with such force that she had to gulp down air.

“I’m sorry?”

Percy’s gaze softened. “This isn’t your first chance at life, is it? That’s your secret. That’s why Octavian was trying to blackmail you.”

Hazel averted her gaze. She wrung her hands together, playing with her fingers. She supposed it was only natural, that he’d be one of the first, apart from Octavian, to figure it out. Her mind went to the last blackout, right before the Karpoi had come for her and Frank. Sammy. His smile. His hands. Her diamonds. Her curse. She glanced at Percy again. If there’s anyone I can trust, it’s him.

He’d done so much for her and Frank already. She owed him too much.

When Hazel finally spoke, her voice came out hoarse, as if she’d forgotten how to speak. “How’d you know?”

He smiled softly at her. “Ever since I met you, I knew there was something…different about you. And now I’m an ex-dead person, and things are just… kinda weird? I guess? Like, there’s this weird aura around you. I felt it with Gwen, too.”

“It’s…a long story,” she said quietly. “My old life—it was a mess. A long time ago, too.” Percy waited patiently for her to elaborate. “I get these blackouts, and it’s like—I’m there all over again and they’re so strong that I pass out. Which is what happened earlier.”

“I get how you feel,” he said, after a pause. “Well. I don’t get blackouts, but my memories are slowly coming back to me. Remembering your old life is all fine and good until something like seeing those centaurs happens and I…” He let out a shaky breath.

She stood, tentatively, because the boat was still swaying too much and she hadn’t miraculously gotten over her seasickness, and sat next to him. There had been something so terrifying at seeing Percy of all people go gray at the sight of centaurs of all creatures. Percy Jackson, the demigod who had challenged Mars and won. Brought down by a mere memory. 

“It happens to the best of us. Trust me.”

His smile was weak. Sickly.

She squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers right back.

That night, they both confessed to many things, under the guise of the stars and the moon, the wind covering their words like a blanket. 

Percy went first. He spoke of the whiplash he got every time he experienced a memory. How alive he felt recently. The curse of the Styx. How he couldn’t comprehend why he wasn’t able to contact Annabeth or his mom back at Iris’ place, despite their faces being as fresh as a new painting. He remembered his old life, each day more and more. And yet still. Everything felt so out of reach lately, he said. Everything was still so far away. 

(He didn’t speak of Mars. But he did speak of his death. What it was like to reach the other side, where the light streamed through. How good it had felt. She told him she’d felt the same way, and maybe that should’ve scared her a little, how alike they were. It didn’t.)

Then it was her turn. Some of the things she spoke of came out in a rush. Others in a slow, tortuous manner, as if she were punishing herself for everything that had happened, in her old life. By this point Percy had shifted his position so that he had an arm around her shoulders. 

(“I was born on December 17, 1928. It’s been a while.”

“That’s an understatement.”)

She talked about the nuns’ school she’d gone to, the friends she had, Sammy, her mom…Gaea. Moving to Alaska and how she’d been forced to do Gaea’s bidding through her own mother’s face, her mother’s voice. Making her work day and night to bring back a giant who would help destroy the world. She talked about Pluto’s curse, what it felt like to possess the shiniest jewels only for them to backfire so quickly at the simplest of touches. 

Her inevitable end came when she’d controlled the precious rocks in that awful cave. Letting the crystals of luxury bury her and her mom alive. Then her judgment. Elysium was never meant for her. The endlessness of the fields of Asphodel were more like it. Her voice nearly ran out of strength, until she mentioned Nico appearing straight out of her wildest dreams, holding out a hand, leading her into the light. 

Percy was quiet. 

Please, no.

She hated quiet. She hated it so much she wanted to scream. It felt like ages until he spoke; all that was between them was the haunting whistle of the wind and Frank’s rhythmic snores.

“You have to know that none of that was your fault.”

Their eyes met. He was so earnest that she almost believed his words, eating them, digesting them one by one. Almost.

Her gaze shifted to the ground. “I still did a lot of bad things, Perce. I still—”

“And you were a kid. You still are.”

No, she wanted to say. I stopped being a kid a long time ago. 

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t know right from wrong. It’s my fault Alcyoneus will rise—probably soon. If I hadn’t done what I’d done, we probably wouldn’t even need to go on this quest in the first place.  I should’ve done something before. I should’ve done…I don’t know. Something.”

“Thinking like that only makes it worse,” Percy said grimly. “It’ll just drive you insane. Trust me.”

She stared at him. It’ll just drive you insane. It was too late for her; she’d already lost her mind. It was a giggle, at first. Just a small, blossoming breath of air that escaped her lips. She hadn’t meant it to—really, she hadn’t—but staring at his face, drinking up his words… 

Her laughter felt like the most natural thing, like a bird taking flight. Free. Percy’s brows furrowed in confusion, but it must’ve been contagious, because suddenly he was laughing, too. They tried to muffle the sound, for Frank’s sake, but he didn’t so much as stir, which in and of itself made the situation even funnier.

“What’s—what’s so funny?” Percy wheezed. 

He clenched his hand, pressing it to his mouth, and the simple action of looking at her and made her snort out another laugh. There were tears in both of their eyes.

She shook her head. “Just…” 

They laughed again, and it wasn’t sweet and innocent. It was more like—well. In blunter words, like a donkey giving birth, as Sammy would’ve called it. 

“We trust…” She gasped, shoulders still shaking. “We trust each other too much.”

The laughing fit had seemed to reign itself in, for now. 

“You’re like the little sister I never had.” He ruffled her curls. “‘Course I trust you. Hopefully you trust me, too.”

She wiped the tears off her eyes. “Honestly, Percy. You come here, telling me how I think like an insane person—”

He opened his mouth indignantly. “I did not say—”

She just talked over him; “As if you aren’t insane enough! Give me one reason why I should take your word for it. One. ” 

“Because I think the way you were thinking and I’m insane! I don’t want you to have the same fate as me!”

“You don’t say, mister-I-challenged-the-God-of-War-to-a-duel!”

Maybe in other circumstances she would’ve felt bad for bringing it up, but tonight…tonight Percy looked at her and burst into cackles, and then they were at it again and they couldn’t stop. It got hard to breathe and she cried on his shoulder, but for all the good reasons.

Definitely already insane. 

;

(In truth, Hazel might have worried about nothing. Telling Percy about her secret? It was like she’d been unshackled all of a sudden, a bird uncaged. And eventually telling Frank? Well, it was the easiest thing in the world.)

;

Percy, August 1st 2010.

Percy meets God through Sally Jackson. 

It’s in the way she’d always look at him, like he’s something special, like he’s perfect. He’s met God in her golden hands that crack eggs and measure dough, hands that have seen and touched and loved. In her warm, brown eyes, wrinkling as she smiles at him, showing off her crow’s feet. 

They were never particularly religious, him and his mom, but he thinks—if God could have any form, it would be her.

He tells her what he can the second she sits him down on the couch, his trembling hands pressed between his legs. Sally stops him before he could stumble through the last bit of him and Annabeth’s journey. 

“You can tell me later,” she says, softly.

By the look of concern and sadness in her eyes he knows that she knows. About everything, honestly. The smoothed-out pages, the sugar-coated details, the things left unsaid, the things left to unpack. Mothers always do. 

Like God, she cries for the son who had left, and forgives him, even if he left without a trace and never once called or tried to send something . She forgives him, even if he may have wasted everything from her. She takes him by the hand and leads him to the light in the kitchen. It’s dusty and cramped and has the mosaic plates on the wall, plus the chipped floor where he accidentally dropped his skateboard. In other words, just as he remembered. Maybe heaven, if it existed, is a little bit like this, too.

Sally has to reach up on her tippy toes to ruffle his curls, but she does it anyway because she’s still his mama and he’s still that little boy she knew, deep down, and God could be here, in her touch, but he blinks the tears away because he may have thought he’d never see her again but she still needs help with the cookie dough she was making and he’s in the way, as she jokingly adds. 

Annabeth helps, too. They fall into a sort of comfortable rhythm. Annabeth pours the ingredients and Percy mixes them. Sally takes out the lasagna she’d made a few days ago from the fridge and preheats the oven. She doesn’t stop there, though. She takes out more food, like tortilla chips and beans and cheese and salsa. 

Percy gasps. “Seven layer dip? Are you for real?”

“We’re gonna need all the food we can get,” she explains to the pair, “now that this boy here is back home, I’m gonna feed him like he’s never eaten in his life.”

Annabeth laughs at this. Percy calls her the Best-Mom-Ever and Sally beams. But deep down she must notice that, too. The way his skin clings more to his bones than it used to.

After a while, Sally leaves the kitchen to set up the dining table, her famous Seven Layer Dip bubbling in the making and the lasagna in the oven.

“She took it well,” he murmurs. 

Annabeth glances at him. Just looks. Her mind is probably a million miles away, but then she says, “Yeah. I think she did.”

There’s a smudge of flour on her cheek. He brushes it away, but his hand stays there, cupping her cheek. She leans into his touch, her hand covering his. There is something he loves so much about her eyes in this light. Something he loves so much about being in the kitchen with her, just like old times. 

“And how are you?” she asks him.

“‘M better.”

“Good.” Her hand drifts to his face, grinning all of a sudden. “You’ve got flour, too.”

His grin mirrors hers as her fingers brush over his nose, his chin. “That’s ‘cause you threw it at me five minutes ago.”

She gasps dramatically. “ Me? And why would I do that?”

“Because you can’t cook for shi—”

“Percy!” his mom suddenly calls. “Can you come here and help me real quick?”

Annabeth sends him a message with her eyes. Go. 

; 

“There’s something I need to tell you.” 

Percy pauses, the flower vase she’d asked him to grab from the counter clutched between his hands. 

“What is it?”

Her eyes search his. There’s something there. Something that stiffens his body, sets his blood on edge. 

“When you…” Sally clears her throat, and speaks slowly, in control, “When you knocked, I thought it would be someone else.” 

She laughs, nervously. Her hand goes to her curls. There’s more gray there than there used to be. Gently, he places the vase on the dining table.

“Gods I, I didn’t think it would come to—I didn’t think—” She zeroes in on Percy, as if suddenly remembering he’s here. “Percy. I know this may sound strange, or crazy, or, or just—look, the point is: someone’s been…visiting me, these last few months. And he comes every night and maybe he won’t tonight, but—”

His voice levels over hers, “Mom, Mom, I swear, you’re kind of freaking me out. Do you have a boyfriend? Is it Paul? Look, you know I support your choices and you don’t have to worry—”

“No, sweetie.” She grabs his hands, cupping them in hers; finally, he can pinpoint exactly what that something, in her eyes, is. Hope. But also fear. “I haven’t seen Paul since a year ago. I’m talking about—”

And suddenly there’s a knock. Two knocks. Sally jumps. 

“I’ll get it!” Annabeth says.

Cursing under her breath, she squeezes Percy’s hands. “All I want you to know it that you need to let me explain before you see—”

“Perseus.” 

Oh. Oh, no.

Slowly, very slowly, his heart in his throat, he turns. Annabeth hovers near the kitchen, fixing her wide eyes on Percy, silently shaking her head. And there, in front of the doorway, stands his father. He’s just as he remembered; untucked Hawaiian shirt, worn down bermuda shorts, brown sandals, the same face, the same shifting, hypnotic eyes. He smiles, and Percy just about loses it.

“Welcome home, son.”

;

Frank, June, 2010.

Father was a strange word. It had always left a bad taste in his mouth. It left a bad taste as they stumbled into his grandmother’s home— his home, his mother’s home, their home—and everything was cluttered and out of place and not at all as his grandmother had left it and the image of a father long gone struck his mind.

The fireplace was dark and cold, and he recalled a time when Father had left a particularly bad taste, in this very living room, where his grandmother took out a wooden stick with shaking hands and explained his curse. The fire had crackled in the fireplace, raged in his heart, nearly burned him out. His mother’s funeral came in like a rain check and he took that stick and that curse, his bow and arrow, hugged his grandmother one last time and left home without looking back, following the pack of wolves, following the road that led to Rome. Just thinking. Father. Where are you? Who are you? He’d shaken his head. Fathers didn’t do much. He’d left Frank with a dead mom, and a curse, and later, a spear.  

For all the talk of Roman gods and legacy and being “special”, Frank never found out who his father was. Until now.

They went up the stairs. 

“Grandmother!” he called. 

No shuffling. No rushing footsteps. No scolding or demanding why he was home. Nothing.

“I’m home!” 

Hazel and Percy shared a look. 

“Maybe she’s asleep?” Hazel suggested.

“She never sleeps in the afternoon,” Frank said; he walked faster, opened his grandmother’s room. 

It creaked. They stumbled inside.

She lay among pillows, breathing heavily, her eyes closed and the bedsheets nearly engulfing her. 

“Grandmother?” he said, in mandarin.

She was so frail. Pale and wrinkled, she’d aged twenty years during the six weeks he’d left. Was this recent? If it wasn’t, why hadn’t he been notified? She could’ve sent a letter, or…did her condition have to do with the monsters outside? Gaea? His mind ran a million miles an hour, jumping from one conclusion to the next. 

He felt a weight on his shoulder and found Percy’s hand there. It did steady him, somewhat. Hazel crossed the room to the bed, touching his grandmother’s forehead. She shook her head.

“She’s not feverish, at least,” she said.

He moved toward her. “Grandmother?” 

Someone made a sound, a small moan. It wasn’t Percy or Hazel. In fact, they both quietly left, and all of a sudden it was just him and his grandmother. He shook her slightly, then harder, feeling like a terrible person but doing it just the same. Her eyelids fluttered open. She blinked blearily, and frowned.

“Fai.”

~

To be fair, that word—Father—was still strange, like it didn’t quite fit in his tongue. Still tasted bad, especially as his grandmother said it, telling him the truth, with whatever strength she had left, about his ancestry, why he had been cursed, why Juno had taken a special interest in him. Why there were monsters outside, waiting for him to come, keeping his grandmother alive, if only as bait.

“So you knew it was Mars all along?”

She regarded him, a strange clarity in her eyes. “Your mother never spoke of him by name. But I had my suspicions. Your mother…of course she would attract his attention.”

“He’s a terrible god.”

His grandmother looked away, out at the window. “War is terrible. But that is just the way it is.”

His mom’s laughter came to him, like a rush of wind so harsh it was hard to breathe. He recalled her smile, the lines that etched the corners of her eyes. She’d be sent away for months and then come back with a creak to the door, a thudding of footsteps, a question in the air. Where is my baby? And he’d come running and she’d grab him by the waist and lift him over her shoulder and tickle him senseless and pepper him with kisses—

“It killed her,” he said. “War. How could—I mean, why is he my father?”

Sometimes, Frank envied his grandmother. She’d stay still, like a stone, even in the harshest of weather. 

“Your father is a part of you, whether you like it or not. We are all at war with ourselves; it is our choice to overcome it.”

But then again, he didn’t know what was worse. To stay still forever or to let the wind move you. To fly, to change. Maybe she had been that way, once upon a time. Maybe her grief had finally worn her down, crippled her until she could barely stay awake. 

She’s trying to be strong . The thought was a reminder, a footnote. She’s yet to rest because I’m still here. 

To his surprise, she grabbed his hand. It was deathly white, her bones jutting out. 

(Another reminder. That to succeed in his quest he would have to see her go, and she wouldn’t come back. Not like Percy.)

“Remember this, Fai: Life is only precious because it ends, and in life you can be anything. Remember your gift.”

Oh, right. The gift that, in all his life, he had never known how to use. How did shapeshifting work, anyway?

“But I still don’t know exactly how to—”

“You will know when the time comes. And I love you very much, but I have to go soon.” She smiled wryly, giving his hand a squeeze . “I’m not like the gods. I can’t live forever.” Her usual scowl of distaste appeared, and Frank nearly sighed in relief at seeing such a familiar gesture on her face. “I don’t think it’s very nice, anyway; if I had to live forever, I’d go insane.”

“Immortality is weird,” he admitted, and he felt a smile spreading, despite his best efforts. 

Father. That word came again, so out of place yet so fitting at the same time. An image flashed in his mind, one that he couldn’t forget, no matter how hard he tried. Golden dust settled on the battlefield and Percy had stood there, panting, gazing up at the heavens. So this is it, Frank had thought. This is how you kill a god.

“Not even gods can live forever,” he found himself saying. “At least, not how they imagine.”

His grandmother hummed. Her hand slackened in his, and she began to close her eyes. No, he thought. His grip on her hand tightened, his heart stumbling in his chest. 

“Do you know he’s dead?” he blurted.

His grandmother stirred. She pulled her brows together, her forehead wrinkling, and blinked at him again.

“Mars is dead?”

Quickly, he explained the rest of the story. Up until now, he hadn’t bothered to tell her much about Percy. 

For the first time, he’d left her speechless, yet her hand never left his, not even when his palm started to sweat. Her eyes were steady, searching him. 

Finally, she spoke, breathing harder than usual, as if even that took effort; “Whatever Mars’ fate is, know that you are not just his son. You are your mother’s son, and she is my daughter. Make her proud—make me proud.”

“I will, grandmother.”

She grunted and left it at that, left Frank reeling, wondering if he’d imagined the whole conversation to begin with. 

;

Percy, two days later. 

Staring at a glacier bigger than an entire fleet of ships with room to spare—right in the face, might he add—is a very humbling experience, to say the least. Knowing that Death happened to be tied there, somewhere, didn’t help matters. For sure. 

Percy looked at Hazel. Hazel looked at Frank. Frank looked at Percy. In fact, both of them were suddenly looking at Percy.

“What’re you staring at me for? I don’t really have a plan.”

“Right,” Frank said. 

They all gazed ahead, the boat they were in rocking back and forth, back and forth. A cold wind picked up, swirling, ruffling their clothes. A seagull let out a screech as it dove into the frigid water, breaking through like a knife. A wave thundered into muddy ice, and Percy was reminded once again that this was beyond the gods’ reach. The wild was free of anyone’s control but Gaea’s. 

Percy decided to voice the one thought he was more or less comfortable with: “Well. It was nice knowing you guys.” 

“Yup,” Hazel said.

Frank let out a sigh. “We made it this far.”

“True.”

“Three cursed demigods…” Frank went on, “about to free Death…” 

“Funny, isn’t it?” Hazel said. From Percy’s periphery, he saw her mouth spread into a wry smile. “I can summon jewels that only bring bad luck to anyone who touches them, Percy has the Greek curse of Achilles, and Frank’s life depends on a wooden stick. Two of us rose from the dead. All three of us, cursed. And we’re about to free Thanatos, god of Death.”

“It’s kinda nice if you look at it that way, yeah,” Percy admitted. “Poetic.”

“Nice for you,” Frank grouched. “I don’t even know why the Curse of Achilles even counts as a curse. You’re practically invincible in the face of death.”

Percy thought about it. He supposed that, compared to the other two curses, his was pretty light. The only downside was that he got tired all the time. You’re practically invincible to death. A cold, cold finger ran down his spine, reaching the small of his back. He shivered. 

“Well,” Percy said. “Maybe I’m invincible to death. Unless…”

Hazel suddenly blurted out,  “You don’t think that the second we free him he’ll—”

“Don’t try to think about the cheating-death-thing too much,” Percy told her. Hazel bit her lip, nodding. “Look on the bright side. If we free Thanatos and people can’t come back from the dead, we can kill Octavian properly when we get back!”

Hazel snorted. “Like that could happen.”

“Hey, you never know.”

Frank glanced at each of his friends with a strange sparkle in his eye. “Whatever happens to us, I just want you to know how grateful I am that you even decided to come with me on this suicide mission.”

“Are you kidding?” Hazel said. “We’re your friends! Of course we wanted to come and help. It’s what friends are for.”

Then Frank met Percy’s eyes. “Look, I know Reyna was the one who told you to come, but still, thank you—”

“I would’ve done it even if no one had punished me for killing a god,” Percy said, and gave Frank a clap on the back. “Hey, we’re the cursed trio. Nobody could do it like us.”

“Cursed trio,” Hazel said, a slow grin forming. “I like it.”

Frank chuckled. “Come here, guys.”

;

(It is fair to say, as a side note—for the reader—that friendship is integral in the face of Death. Most importantly, it is integral for three unlikely people to come together and rejoice in their, quite tragic and maybe a bit delusional, common ground. But it is common ground, and thus, a special bond just the same. It builds morale, at the very least.)

;

There was probably more than one tear shed once they decided for a group hug. At least there was, until the three collectively decided to forget their imminent doom.

“I’m sorry I killed your dad, by the way,” Percy said. “You know, sometimes I forget Mars is your dad in the first place.”

Frank just shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. He was an asshole.” 

Percy pulled him in by the shoulders, grinning. “See, this is why I like you so much.”

“Maybe it’s also got to do with me being Poseidon’s descendant.”

That made Percy laugh. “Yeah, that definitely cancels the Mars thing out.” 

“Gods,” Hazel said. Then went quiet. They all were, really. Contemplating, all of a sudden. Thinking. “We’re pretty fucked, aren’t we?”

Frank’s eyes flared wide. “ Hazel! Did you just—”

“Trust me, man,” Percy said. “She can curse like a horse when she wants to.”

She, in response, gave Percy a light punch. He winced and doubled over and she just stood there, clutching the boat’s edge, laughing at his antics.

“Ow! Do you see what I mean?” Percy complained to a slightly bewildered Frank. “She’s crazy!”

“Alright, guys…” Frank said, and all of a sudden Hazel stopped laughing. 

They regarded the glacier again.

“Guess we’re all doomed,” Percy noted.

“Guess so.”

A wave rocked the boat, and the small of his back still tingled. Still burned.

;

Percy, August 1’st, 2010.

There are storms in his eyes. He approaches Percy slowly, like he’s cornering a wild, injured animal. It’s not very far from the truth. 

There are storms in his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re home, son,” Poseidon says, and he lays a hand on Percy’s shoulder. The small of his back tingles and there’s a father who’s the sea and his son is an anchor and there are storms in both their eyes.

Percy recalls the last time he saw his father. It hadn’t been too long ago. It had been in Greece, right after the last giant had been defeated. They’d had a moment together, just one small moment where he’d seen the storms in Poseidon’s eyes even though the sun was too bright for anyone to look directly at anything in particular. 

And before that…

;

Percy, June.

More and more soldiers came for him, but he wouldn’t stop. Not until he got rid of everything that stood in his way. They weren’t really soldiers, either—more like ghosts. Some bared their teeth out and others cried as he struck them, one by one. He was a storm. He was the wind. He was the rain. The ice. The sea. Nothing could stop him. 

At some point, he didn’t know where anyone was. Well. Hazel had probably called for her horse, Arion. (He could sort of hear his very perversive, on brand horse thoughts). And Frank was probably still with Thanatos, hopefully having found a way to free him. Hopefully. Or did Percy want Frank to free Thanatos? In the midst of a fight, he was a whirlwind. A storm. But maybe, just maybe, his heart could stop beating. His blood could stop boiling. His eyes could close, and his breath could stutter. Death could claim him, as it rightfully should, and he’d be no more. 

Percy shook the thought away just as another strike came for him. I might die, but at least I’ll bring all these Romans down with me. They snarled at him, called him Graecus and they’d stab and cry and bare their teeth out and more would come but he wouldn’t stop. (More like he couldn’t stop.)

That thought relished in him, and all of a sudden he had the urge to laugh. One by one they fell, disappeared into smoke. Gods, this was too easy, with the curse and all. So he laughed and took down more and more and more, until—

Until…

He felt it first.

It was a jab of pain. The first real pain he’d felt in a while. And it came from the small of his back. First it was a jab, a small ember, and suddenly it was a raging fire . 

A dull, red sting crossed through one ear and flew through the other and that was all he could hear. He didn’t know how else to describe the sound—just dull red. He might have screamed. Might have.

(All he could hear was the dull red.)

This is it, he thought. He was finally going to die. Thanatos would finish him off, now that he’d been freed, because somewhere, deep in Percy’s bones, he knew this to be a certainty. 

Then he fell. 

He must have—he must have been lying on his back, paralyzed, because he could see the blurry sky, all gray with clouds. The ice that made up the glacier startled him into reality; he gasped through the pain and the cold, piercing his back like a thousand blades stabbing him over and over. 

Remember your lifeline, dummy. Annabeth was there, in the back of his mind, but her voice grew clearer and he wondered if he was already dead. 

No, another voice insisted. It sounded, strangely…like his father. 

Remember your lifeline. 

(Remember your lifeline.)

Someone found it. Someone found his lifeline. His anchor. His Achilles heel. Went for it like a lion jumping on prey.

How?

Come on. Annabeth appeared again, clearer this time, like those two instances he plunged into the Styx. He looked up and her face was there, with her invisibility cap and her mischievous smile and an offer. For him to take her hand. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.

But it wasn’t Annabeth anymore. Her face morphed into someone else. Percy blinked a couple of times and found himself gazing up at a boy around his age, with piercing eyes and a sword held high above the sky. It was drenched in blood. Percy’s blood. From the small of his back. A couple of seconds went by, or maybe minutes or hours, when he finally realized who the guy was. He knew those eyes anywhere; they would be stuck in his head forever, perhaps, as the eyes of the only person he’s ever directly killed in all his life. 

Percy could remember the look of shock that fateful day, as he rammed Riptide into him and he’d fallen. It had been too easy, too quick. Now, he wasn’t looking at Percy with shock. Now, Jack Adams, First Cohort Centurion, looked at him with something close to disgust—and triumph. He’d been brought back to life as a phantom, coming to haunt him not only in his dreams but in real life.  

(Someone found his Achilles heel. Jack Adams found his Achilles Heel.)

“You wonder how I know about your little secret?” Jack hissed, and moved closer until Percy could smell the stench—of death, of a rotten, decomposing corpse. 

The worst part? He wasn’t sure to whom that smell belonged to. 

“Ghosts,” Jack continued, grinning, “ohh, they know just about everything. They whisper…and do you know what they whisper about you?”

Percy tried to talk, to say something— anything—but he soon realized his lungs refused to cooperate and his back screamed in agony and he was drowning again and he was about to die. Second time must be the charm. Or was it the third? 

“Let’s just say it doesn’t take long for everyone to find out. Too bad you won’t live to see it happen, huh?” 

I can’t believe you’re performing the typical evil-monologue-speech right as I’m about to die, I mean, couldn’t you have thought of something more original? That was what Percy wanted to reply with, just to have a last laugh, but all that came out was a weak grunt.

What?

His soul was shattering; it’s not like he could do a lot of things at the moment.

Jack’s face disappeared for a second into a void of darkness, and it took all of Percy’s willpower to stay alive, to remember his lifeline. Annabeth. Remember Annabeth.  

Then he saw Jack again, high above him, looking every part the Roman. “As I like to say, fight like a Greek, die like a Greek. Just as Achilles, the curse is your undoing.”

No.

He could practically feel the glares of all these bitter, Roman ghosts, looming over him, relishing the sight of a dying Percy Jackson, finally brought down by a mere little stab in a special place—just one little stab and it had all been over. 

(They don’t call the Curse of Achilles a curse for nothing.)

( Now he could boast to Frank that his curse did count as a curse, actually—because, well, it did suck, thank you very much.)

Annabeth. 

Her name jolted him, granted him a few relishing breaths into his lungs. Yet his soul kept splintering, shattering.

“You saved me. Thanks.”

“You would’ve done the same for me,” she’d said, right after he’d revealed his deepest secret, right after she’d saved his life. She’d protected the most vulnerable place in his body. She was his anchor, his tether to humanity, and he could feel that part of her break apart, tear away from him. Slipping right out of his hands like water, or like ice crumbling.

Percy felt it again. The stinging coldness of the ice, encasing his back. A small part of him wondered if that was why this second death was taking so long, because the ice was made up of frozen water—

That’s it. Water.

Like a tidal wave, noise washed over him again. He could see the sky. Hear the sounds of a fight, and maybe Hazel, screaming his name. 

“He’s still breathing,” one of the ghosts remarked, though it sounded far, far away. 

I’ll never see Annabeth again, he thought. 

No. I can’t die. Not today. 

Or else had he crossed that river in the first place?

Again, there came a dull red sting, reaching one ear just to cross the other. Only it wasn’t a sting—it was a sound. A piercing war cry. Swords clashed in the air. He could feel the water, frozen in ice. He could hear Hazel, nearby, scream out;

“PERCY!”

He could hear Hazel. Hear her horse, Arion. Hear the fight. Hear the spirits. Hear Jack Adams, taunting Percy as he died. Hear someone else. 

His father. 

I am the Earthshaker, and you are my son, and you will break the ice. 

Break the ice. Break the ice. 

Come home.

Yes, home. To the sea, where he belonged. 

His gut clenched, then tugged. With a cry of his own, he pounded a fist into the ice. The last thing he saw was Jack’s shocked face before he fell, down, down into the waters that called him. 

;

Percy, August 1’st, 2010.

Poseidon lays a hand on Percy’s shoulder, as if that’s enough. (Maybe it is, but Percy won’t ever admit it.)

“What are you doing here?” he asks. He’s almost afraid of the way his voice sounds. Deathly calm. 

Poseidon regards him, then at Sally.

“I’ll explain.”

Sally breaks the stare. “No. Let me.”

;

Percy, June.

He was so far gone that he didn’t feel the impact his body made with the water. He could sink to the bottom, let the darkness embrace him. Percy could imagine it, wrapping its arms around him. Telling him it would all be alright. 

But no. 

Something made him gasp for breath, before he could lose himself to unconsciousness. He opened his eyes wide and blinked a few times. The small of his back pulsed, yet he could already sense his vitality pulling itself together, healing with the water. Surrounding him were chunks of ice. And a few fish. The sea was a turbid, dark, dark green. The color of a storm. But far away, Percy could make out something. 

He squinted, and he reached out with a tentative hand. 

It was a shadow. A silhouette, swimming towards him. Meanwhile, a conchorn blew in the far, far distance, and suddenly, something in Percy just… clicked. The shadow loomed over him, but he wasn’t afraid. Poseidon didn’t show his face, but Percy could still see the storms in his eyes.

“Son,” he rumbled. That voice…it was off. Not really how Percy remembered Poseidon sounding like. This voice was deeper, more serious. Neptune. Somehow, in his gut, Percy knew. “You’ve done well,” Neptune said.

 Percy swallowed, not really sure as to what he was supposed to say.

“Um. Thanks.”

“Make me proud.” 

And then he was gone. As quick as he’d come. 

Before Percy could cry out— where have you been all this time? he wanted to ask, to demand. But, Neptune was gone. The conch horn became dimmer, and the encounter turned into a blurry memory. He was ready to fling himself up to the surface when he heard that voice again. It echoed through the sea like whale song. 

They’ll know my wrath soon enough, Neptune declared. He was everywhere and nowhere all at once. 

I am the Stormbringer, Neptunus Victor, Neptunus Dominator, Neptunus Pater. You, Perseus Jackson, are my son. The son of the Sea. And the Sea doesn't forgive. 

The small of his back tingled, and slowly, Percy let himself grin. He’d be alright, he realized.

Those Romans…let’s just say they’d messed with the wrong deity.

;

Percy, August 1’st, 2010.

They’re all sat in the living room, all looking at Percy. The air tastes of awkwardness and sympathy. He’s staring at the ground, though. Percy can’t bring himself to make eye contact with him. With anyone, really.

“He was just there, Percy,” Sally is saying. “With you missing, I don’t know what I would’ve done with—”

Alright. He’d had it. He lifted his head and met the matching storms in his father’s eyes.

“If you could so easily go see my mom then why didn’t you visit me? Why didn’t you…?” Percy rips his gaze away. He can’t do it. Can’t face him, even with Annabeth next to him. He shakes his head, blinking the tears away.

Why couldn’t you save me? he wanted to ask. Poseidon must’ve known what he’d meant. 

“I did everything I could.”

“Well, it wasn’t enough,” Percy snaps.

Poseidon is silent.

“Look, Percy, sweetheart…” His mom’s voice lowers to a whisper, “Gods, I don’t know how to tell you this.” 

Annabeth squeezes Percy's hand and he squeezes hers right back, grateful that she’s there for him even with just her presence. She gives him a little smile.

His mom is rambling now; “It’s—it’s a lot, I know. Knowing that I’ve been seeing your father and that he kept me company all this time, but…what I’m trying to say is—” Percy glances at her, and it’s like his heart stops, or like it’s a chunk of ice breaking away. She’s smiling shakily, tucking a string of hair behind her ear. Poseidon looks at her, almost tenderly. Stop. Percy wants to scream. Stop, stop stop! You can’t look at her that way, anymore! “Gods. This is hard,” she mutters, “what I’m trying to say, sweetheart, is that…I’m pregnant.”

There’s silence. And then some. A bomb. 

Sally sighs. Annabeth gasps. 

“You’re going to be a big brother,” she says.

Poseidon stands, as if to go to Percy. Percy stands as well, eyes burning. 

“I need to go.”

Chapter Text

Camp Jupiter. June, 2010.

They felt the earthquake first. The initial tremor was small, barely noticeable. The windows rattled, perhaps as if a strong wind had blasted through. A wall crackled, like an egg, but only slightly. The animals grew restless, unicorns swishing their tails back and forth like they were batting off flies. Nothing too strange. Few actually felt it. Most excused it as only their imagination. Nico, however, knew better.

He watched the setting sun from Reyna’s window, a molten flame spreading through the evening sky. 

“What are you thinking?” Reyna asked him. 

His body still felt the tremor, deep in his bones. Hades (or Pluto, as the Romans called him) controlled the ground, after all. Nico understood its mechanisms better than most. But there was also another deity with similar power, one whose name wrapped around every Roman’s neck, like a threat, ready to tighten its hold. They’d killed his son, after all. Sent him off to a suicide mission to free Death—and Nico knew damn well that Thanatos had no mercy. Success or no, Percy would most likely die. So would Hazel. 

And Poseidon? Neptune? Let’s just say the Sea was even less forgiving. 

Reyna was perceptive, too. Skippy, her pegasus, had been acting strange that day. He wouldn’t let her ride him, or touch him. He wouldn’t even eat the little sugar cubes she’d offered him. She’d thought that perhaps he was just in a bad mood, so she let him roam free for a bit—and later found him sniffing at a large crack, near Mars’ Temple. It hadn’t been there before. He’d whinnied when she’d reached him, obsidian eyes wide with fear and wings spread out as if ready to fly at any moment. Reyna had never seen him like this. So she summoned the first person she could think of that wasn’t Octavian. 

“I’m thinking that we need to evacuate this place,” Nico said. His gaze snapped away from her window, opting to look at her instead. “Immediately.”

“But—“

Her voice was cut off by the sound of a banging crash. A hiss resounded, coming from the pillars and the ceiling, and powdered dirt fell over their heads. The ground shook with such force that the floor tiles broke apart; Reyna stumbled and fell. So did Nico. He knew now, with certainty: the second tremor had begun. 

Walls broke apart. The building groaned like it was a living, breathing being, woken up from a long sleep. Reyna placed both hands on the splintered floor, hoping for some balance, but the shaking was too strong. Everything shook and shook and shook, as if they were inside a jar and a god had just picked it up to—

Of course. A god. 

“LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!” Nico.

She realized she couldn’t see properly. Dust was raining everywhere. She was breathing it, choking on it.

Oh, gods. Aurum and Argentum. They’d been by her side seconds before, but now…? She could only hope they’d managed to run. 

“RUN! COME ON, REYNA! COME ON, LET’S GO!”

Seconds before, across camp—in the Temple of Apollo—a boy sat cross-legged. His eyes were closed, hands pressed to his thighs. Octavian was the descendent of Apollo, and he was calling for his ancestor in search of answers. When the second tremor began, his eyes flew wide open. 

He gasped, “No.”

Too late. The pillars crumbled. The roof caved in. Solid marble fell on top of him before he could even blink. 

Near the marina was where everything truly went to hell. Waves pounded against the docks, growing larger by the second. A soldier on duty watched, horrified, as water-like hands nearly reached her station. She bolted out to camp, heart pounding, ready to warn the others. She ran and ran. She could hear the sea, hear the booming roar and the boats splintering, taste the salt in the air, frenzied and free. A shadow suddenly enveloped her like a cloak. She turned, looked up. A dark, green mass of water loomed over her, blocking out the sun. As it was about to swallow her whole, she closed her eyes.

I'm only honest when it rains

If I time it right, the thunder breaks

When I open my mouth

I wanna tell you, but I don't know how

I'm only honest when it rains

An open book, with a torn out page

And my inks run out

I wanna love you but I don't know how

Neptune, Sleeping at last

Percy. August 2010.

He calls for Blackjack the first chance he gets. They fly across the New York skyline, the wind slapping Percy’s face and hardening his cheeks, making it impossible for the angry tears to fall. 

You good back there, boss?

Fine. Just need to cool off.

Blackjack doesn’t pry. He knows Percy too well. In fact, Percy doesn’t even have to specify where he wants to go. They land on an empty beach, near Montauk. Black, barnacled rocks jut out of the restless tide, pine trees flailing around with the wind picking up, and the clouds darken in mood. He’d discovered this spot a couple of years ago, ever since he’d started flying with Blackjack. Since then, it’s been his favorite place to just…let it all out. 

And so he does. Blackjack flies off, searching for some field to graze, probably—and Percy? He lets everything out in one powerful, gut-wrenching scream. 

The thoughts flood his mind until he can’t take them anymore and the ground trembles beneath his feet and he runs for the sea, reaching it, hurtling gallons of water above the sky and relishing the sound it makes as it crashes and pounds. Wind flies across his cheeks, piercing his eyes. He’s standing in the middle of it all, eyes blazing with the storm he’s creating. Rain falls like jagged diamonds. Lightning flashes, a crooked knife about to pierce the flesh, and in response, thunder booms. Something explodes. He doesn’t know what. He doesn’t care. 

How dare he? 

How dare he? 

How dare he?

All the hardships…all the things Percy had seen…what he had to face…and his father had ignored it all like he would ignore a fly—Poseidon even smiled when Sally announced the baby. 

Another life. Another life in this fucked up world and he’ll leave it to the wolves. And he has the nerve to visit her like nothing happened? Like he doesn’t just leave when it suits him?

Percy’s fist clenches. He raises it high, feeling that tug in his gut intensify. Another identical fist forms near—except it’s ten times the size and made entirely of salt water and it bubbles out like a monster from the depths. He pounds it against the sea, again and again and again. 

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! 

How dare he how dare he how dare he—

“Perseus.”

That voice… how dare that voice come to him again?

He keeps going. The storm intensifies. He loves the feeling, really. It’s power in its highest of expressions; primordial nature doing his bidding. It’s addicting, freeing—I want more. 

His name comes like a hissing wind, “PERSEUS.” 

(But the sound also comes with a voice; he knows it too well.)

The sea parts for another person, or rather, a deity. Poseidon walks toward him, his calm demeanor a contrast to the storm. 

“Stop this at once,” he says, and his voice echoes, on and on and on. 

“Make me,” Percy spits out.

“I don’t want to make you do it. In the end it is your choice.”

“THEN GO AWAY!”

“That, I can’t do, my son. This is my domain; I am everywhere.”

Percy screams. The sea had parted for Poseidon, but not for long. Two waves on opposite sides clash together, and his father disappears in its turmoil. The logical, still sane part of Percy, knows that this is like signing a death wish. But most of him just wants Poseidon gone. He couldn’t— wouldn’t— even stand to look at him. 

Of course, Poseidon reappears. The sea parts again, and between the green walls stands the Lord of the Sea. The difference is that now, he carries his trident, gleaming with rain and lighting. He doesn’t seem the least bit fazed by what Percy had done. 

“That was it, wasn’t it?” Percy demands. “What you wanted to tell me back in Athens. That you and mom were…seeing each other.”

He remembers that day too well. They’d killed Polybotes together, and afterwards Poseidon patted him on the back and said, “You did well, son.” And he’d regarded Percy so oddly, not so different to how he was looking at Percy now—a trident in hand and a question in his eyes. Zeus had interrupted the moment before Poseidon could utter whatever it was he wanted to tell him. Then they were at camp and Gaea had appeared and everything had gone to hell again.

“How could you get my mom pregnant?” He can barely control his words, and the sea notices that. Water funnels around him, about to explode as he’s about to break. “ HOW COULD YOU? THAT KID IS FUCKING DOOMED, YOU GET THAT?”

“It might’ve been, if not for everything you’ve done,” Poseidon easily replies. “It will carry your scent. No one will touch it.”

“How do you know that it won’t be the exact opposite?” 

The rain pounds faster, harder than before. The water around Percy keeps building, thousands of gallons hanging in the air. Poseidon’s nearly a stone’s throw away from him by now.

“Because I know how our world works—much better than you, I should think. And because the rules have changed, Percy. You have played a part in that change. My future child will not face what you did. I won’t allow it.”

“So you allowed it with me.”

“Your circumstances were different.”

“So when I was dying, and I prayed for your help, that was different?” He’s trembling now—his knees buckle, and he’s not sure if it’s because of his inner turmoil or from the sheer force that he’s holding back, or maybe both. 

“You know I couldn’t do much. I was unstable at best—”

“Not unstable enough to visit Mom, apparently!”

“Your mother was the only one who could keep my mind grounded. Outside of her home I didn’t know myself.”

“Now that’s just bullshit.” He laughs—he just has to. The sound is off, tinged with a harshness he doesn’t want to admit he has, but it’s there and he can’t stop it from flaring out. Who even fucking says that? “ That’s bullshit and you know it!”

“No. It’s not. You’re not just angry with me,” Poseidon observes. He’s gotten so close that they’re face to face. “You’re angry with your mother, too.”

“You’re the most powerful of the three of us,” Percy says. “The blame is on you.”

“Most powerful according to whom?”

“YOU’RE THE LITERAL GOD OF THE SEA!”

“You see, Percy…power is tricky. Who decides our fates?” He lets the silence speak, for a few seconds; it doesn’t really work because everything around them is anything but silent. “Mortals have more power than you think. They are the ones who immortalize our stories. The ones who decide which deities are worth keeping. Without their worship and their love and their spirit…we’d be nothing. Your mother has agency where I have my limits. Your mother decided to be with me, and you can’t take that away from her. Or do you want to be like Gabe? Deciding what’s right for her, what she can and can’t control?”

“I’m not… him,” Percy snarls. “Don’t ever—”

 “By diminishing her part in all this you don’t consider her as a person capable of knowing what’s best for her—for you . But you know that already, don’t you? You’re angry . At everything. Not just me. Not just your mother. I would say that this isn’t really about the baby at all.”

The pressure becomes too much. All the water above him breaks loose in an instant, hundreds and thousands of gallons raining all around them. The sea doesn’t like to be restrained. Hah. There’ll probably be reports of a tsunami or a hurricane or something, breaking the shores of Long Island Sound, but for now it’s just him and his father. They’re anchored to the sea floor as currents swirl and move around them. 

The Sea and his offspring. 

Poseidon meets Percy in an embrace, his trident long gone—it’s just them and the sounds of broken sobs. Percy’s trembling, shaking from head to toe, and he finds that he can’t stop. His breathing picks up, like he wants to say something, gasp out a call for help, gasping like he’s drowning…

“Shh,” Poseidon says. He presses his lips to Percy’s hair, almost like a kiss, but Percy isn’t sure. “I’m here, now.”

“You, you…” he stammers, “you weren’t …there .”

“Yes I was. Believe me, even at my most unstable, I never left. Think about it. I was your guiding hand. Even killed a few Romans in your name.”

Percy chokes out a laugh. He hugs his father tighter, enveloped in the scent of the sea, of that warmth he’d been chasing for so long. 

“In my lifetime I’ve broken many rules. In your lifetime, I've broken even more,” Poseidon says. “And yet, I could never be what you truly needed, and for that…I’m sorry.”

“What?” 

Percy looks at him. His eyes, his face…they really are so alike. Percy wonders if they’d be mirrored copies if he ever grew up to be that old (as old as Poseidon appeared to be, at least). Or maybe he’d have more of his mother’s features breaching out of the surface. He’d always wished for that. To look like his mom. She always was to him—and probably always would be, in some way—that person who could do no wrong. And every time he looked in the mirror and saw his father’s face he wondered if the one wrong thing she’d actually done was to have him. 

But now he sees his father’s face differently. Now he sees Poseidon less like a god and more like a man. It sounds weird. It should be weird.

(It isn’t.)

“That’s right,” Poseidon says. He lays both hands on his shoulders. “I’m sorry. Zeus’ rules and specific circumstances are still no excuse for never truly…being there. I never was the father you deserved. We gods, we don’t do that very well. But I want to try, just once.”

“Swear it,” Percy mutters. He clears his throat, raises his voice, “Swear it on the Styx. That you’ll be there for the baby like any father would. That you’ll protect them and that they’ll feel protected. Swear it now.”

“I swear on the River Styx.”

(It’s not everything, but it’s a start.)

Hazel. Two months before.

Thanatos was not what she expected. Sure, she assumed he’d be all dark and mysterious and not exactly the talking type, but she hadn’t considered that he could be so… beautiful. She was utterly entranced by him, and maybe that was the point. To get lost in his deep, abysmal eyes. To stare at those gorgeous, looping wings and that swan-like neck and that pearly skin and immediately say yes as he asked for her to follow him. Follow Death. He’s free of his chains, after all. 

It consumed her, this desire to see the other side, where she belonged. (To hopefully see her mother again.)

“Hazel Levesque.” Thanatos regarded her. Gods, even his voice was alluring, soft as silk. “Long time since we last saw each other.”

“Yes, my lord,” she stammered. 

Next to him, Frank—still pale from the near death experience of almost burning out his wooden stick—bowed down. Hazel followed suit. 

“Frank Zhang,” Thanatos continued, “you have many sacrifices ahead of you.”

(And Percy? Perhaps Death had already claimed him. Perhaps it was too late. She wanted to give in to hope, but it had let her down too many times.)

 Hazel fell to her knees. Suddenly she couldn’t do it. Or maybe she could. She’d glimpsed life in ways she hadn’t been able to before. For the first time ever, she’d let herself be loved, truly loved. Not just living in fear. But have a second chance. Well. Maybe that had run out, too. Her heart was beating so fast she was sure Death could hear. She was sure he could sink his teeth right into its tender flesh. He could sing her a sweet lullaby and make her fall asleep as he’d cup her heart in his palm, still pulsing, until it would stop. Until she’d give into his midnight hair and to that sweet, sweet song, a hair’s breadth strummed into her ear. 

“Please,” she whispered, head down. “My time has run out long ago. I understand if you must take me. But make it quick.”

“Hazel, no!” Frank cried. He grasped her shoulder. “I can’t let you take her! I freed you—with her help, with Percy’s help. Should that not be enough for you to make an exception?”

“There are no exceptions for Death.”

“I understand.”

“No,” Frank insisted. “No, there must be another way.”

“I only follow orders,” Thanatos explained. “I have names. People I must take to rest. They are strings cut out by the very Fates.” If Death could smile, she was sure he was doing it now. His thin lips spread out in the slightest bit. It was almost jarring. “But your name, Hazel Levesque, is not among them. The Fates have other plans for you. For your friend as well.” His eyes flitted to a spot in the distance. “Ah, here he comes.”

(She was yet to process everything he’d just said. His words echoed in her head, blood circling her ears and heart beating faster, faster.)

Frank squeezed her shoulder. They both turned. Percy strided over to them, with not a single scratch on his body. Last Hazel had seen him, he’d been bleeding out on the ice; she was sure he’d died there—clearly someone had found his weak spot. It took more than that to kill Percy Jackson, apparently. He grinned.

“What did I miss?” Then he caught sight of Death, chainless, and his expression sobered a bit. “Am I gonna die? For real this time? You know, I’m kinda sick of this, man—just get it over with.”

Hazel broke out into a bubbly laugh. “No, Percy—”

“Perseus. You, like Hazel, made good use of the time I was…indisposed,” Thanatos said. “You crossed Death’s door; my duty would be to send you back where you belong. Yet it is written that there is more in store for you, and Hazel. And for that alone, you are free. For now.”

“Um…so that means…?”

“You’re not gonna die. You’ll both live. You get another chance. We all will,” Frank said, almost gushing. It was sweet. Hazel stood properly, and hugged him. 

”You’ll die one day,” Thanatos corrected him. “But not today.”

Percy’s lips slowly transformed into a grin once more.

“However, this is the last exception I shall give, out of necessity. If you die, next time, you shall simply…die. Understood?”

“Of course,” Hazel said, still bewildered. 

“And that is not all. You must head back to New Rome. You must take back what has been hoarded in this glacier. You must rally up with the Greeks. You must free the other Doors of Death. We need you, demigods. Do not disappoint me. I shall meet you back in New Rome, probably. I have souls to collect.”

Then he spread his black wings and he was gone, becoming merely a wink in the sky. 

Frank seemed to be mulling over Thanatos’ words. “Okay. We need to go. Now.”

Hazel said, “He mentioned something about collecting souls in New Rome…” 

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound good,” Frank said. 

Somewhere in the distance, she could hear Arion neighing. All the junk and treasure was nearby, and of course, she had conveniently stolen a chariot from the Amazons, on their trip to Seattle. There was also the Golden Eagle, which—alright, Percy was carrying it? Has she not noticed that…?

“Kinda found this, by the way.” He shrugged. Casually raised it above his head. “Maybe the Romans will like me more once I bring this as a peace offering.”

“It’s still messed up that they killed you,” Hazel said.

“I know, but they probably won’t do it again if I give Reyna the ultimate Roman trophy.”

“True.”

“Hold on,” Frank said, his hand in the air as if to say stop right this moment. “How are you even alive? Hazel freaked out ‘cause she saw you fall like, hundreds of meters into a frozen sea bleeding out…?”

Percy just winked. That sparkle in his eyes came back again; she loved it when that happened, to see that it wasn’t just Mysterious Powerful Percy but that there was also a fun side to him. (It was true, though; she’d always wondered how he could do it.)

“I have my ways,” he said. ”Remember, not even your daddy could kill me!”

“Don’t get too cocky,” Frank warned. “Remember what Thanatos said.”

Percy shook his head. “Man, let’s just get out of here. Fought too many ghosts. Gave me the creeps.”

“And let’s not forget the other Doors of Death,” Hazel said. “I’ll have to talk to Nico about that.”

“Gods, don’t even bring up Nico. I have beef with your brother, by the way—he totally pretended he didn’t know me.”

”So he does know you!”

“Let me tell you, it’s a long story.”

“It’s gonna be a long ride, even with Arion’s super speed.”

“Fine, then. I’ll start from the beginning.”

”Please do.”

“So Grover, Annabeth and I were on a mission to go to this private school in Maine…”

Percy. August 2010.

In every story, the son has to find his way back home, and this one is no exception. Sally cries when she sees him. There’s a new tradition there, that hopefully Percy can break soon. He doesn’t like to see her cry, every time he knocks on the door and she opens it and their eyes meet. It’s just—it’s not ideal. And he knows now that she’s pregnant, but still. He hugs her, drowning in the scent of cinnamon and something , so unique to only his mom. Then he peeks over her head and finds Annabeth with a warm mug of tea in her hands. She gives him a tight smile, eyes soft. 

She can only guess what happened.

“It’ll be alright.”

Sally nods, sniffling. “I’m sorry—”

“No,” Percy says. “ I’m sorry. I trust you, Ma. You’re the best mom in the world. You’ll be the best mom to that kid.”

She cries even more after that. But they’re happy tears. And they’ll be alright. Someday.

At some point they eat what she’d prepared for them in the first place. It’s a little cold, but Percy assures her that it’s okay— “Food is food, Ma.”

He’s munching on those heavenly blue cookies, thinking of all the good things in the world, when Sally says, “I really did think about it.” She’s staring at her plate. “I was just so lost, but then Poseidon was—he was there, and he helped. A lot. He’d give me updates on how you were doing, mostly things he could still remember and piece together, but…then this…bizarre thought came to me. I don’t know how, I mean, it’s not like I’m super young now. But the thought of another baby came to me. It just brought me joy. I always wanted a second kid, and Poseidon was there—and I don’t know. I just felt like it was right. Like it would be different.”

She looks at Percy then, and smiles; it’s so tender he almost breaks down again. “It’s not that I regret having you, not in the slightest. But I know what it’s like to be a demigod, even if you don’t want to tell me. Or at the very least I know what it’s like to be a mother, to not know… I know the dangers, and I wouldn’t…” Her voice shakes. “I wouldn’t want to place that weight on another life. I’m sure you know how that goes. I wouldn’t want to experience seeing my child grow up too fast, to face death so many times.” 

She keeps smiling, and it’s almost like she’s glowing. Through his periphery, he can see Annaberh discreetly wiping at her eyes. 

”But I felt hope for the first time in a long time, and I decided that I wanted to experience motherhood again—not just with my first baby, but with a second one, too. I think I can fit you both perfectly right here.” She places both hands on her heart, and that’s when Percy cries.

;

(He asks her what she’s gonna name the baby if it’s a boy. She tells him that she’s chosen Jim, without a second thought, because of her dad. He never met his grandfather. She says he was kind, and sweet, and she wishes that he’d met Percy. He would’ve been proud. 

Then he asks about a girl name. Again, she doesn’t hesitate. Estelle Jackson. Like her mom, Estela, but with a different ring to it. She was a Puerto Rican immigrant, and her dream was to become an actress. She sounded so interesting, and Percy wants to know more, but Sally doesn’t remember much. So then he asks her: why not name the baby exactly like his grandmother, Estela? Why Estelle? 

“Because she carried too much, Percy. Names have power, remember? I don’t want my daughter to carry the weight of someone she’s never met.”

Percy can get with that, now more than ever.)

;

Percy. Two months before.

The fight continued in Camp Jupiter; Thanatos had hinted as such. 

(It was all a blur, honestly like most of Percy’s battles. He has a theory that it’s got to do with the Curse of Achilles.) 

Romans rallied up their swords and spears, fighting off Gaea’s army. Frank and Hazel and Percy, they did what they could, arriving so late to the battle as it was. Percy slightly remembered going after Polybotes, the Giant leader. 

(He can sort of recall bashing the god Terminus’ head against its skull. That pretty much did it.)

Then it was over. Percy held up the Eagle. It was a luxurious marvel compared to the nearly destroyed camp. Now that he could truly take everything in, he realized all the damage that had been done. It appeared as though a giant, bigger than Polybotes, had come rampaging in, kicking every building in its path. 

“This is what you wanted,” he claimed, between panting breaths. “Isn’t it?”

Out of the Roman ranks, Reyna appeared. Her cheeks were covered in soot, her black hair nearly free of the usual braid she wore it in, her Praetor uniform torn and dirty, and there was a big gash on her forehead. But she was alive, commanding power and leadership like few people her age could. She walked almost cautiously toward them. Almost like they would strike her at any minute. But her face said otherwise. It was more like…confusion. Like she wasn’t sure what to do with them. 

“Everyone,” she said. “Please give a round of applause to our heroes, who have come back alive, and with something precious.”

For a few seconds, Percy definitely thought no one would applaud for them. For a few seconds, he was right. No one said a word. No one clapped. No one cheered. How could they? This place looked like it had experienced three consecutive wars in three years. All these kids looked like they’d met the devil up close and personal. 

Then someone stepped forward. Nico di Angelo. He clapped his hands together, slowly at first, then his clapping grew louder, faster—the sound such a stark contrast to the silence. Some people winced. Percy met his eyes. I’m gonna kill you. Nico just shook his head, and smiled. 

At least he was the one familiar person amongst so many strangers. 

Others soon joined in. Dakota clapped. And the fawns. Reyna as well. Finally, everyone was clapping—someone even whistled. 

(He wanted to be happy, ecstatic, even. But it came out of him halfway. He was half happy, half confused. There was too much whiplash, after all. How could the people who wanted him dead a week or so ago, be the same ones cheering for him, calling him a hero, a true Roman? He wasn’t so sure, but for now he just went with it. Followed Hazel and Frank. Let Reyna drape medals over his head. Give them smiles and waves. Talk to them like they were never enemies. But there was still that something. And he couldn’t shake it off.)

(Percy noticed, most of all, the amount of people missing. Gwen wasn’t next to Dakota anymore. He could only assume Death had come for her, once and for all. Others from his cohort had perished, as well. And then there was Octavian…)

;

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Nico said, before Reyna could reply. “Neptune killed him.”

Reyna gave him a withering look, as if to say: And now I’m gonna kill you. Nico just shrugged. She sighed, and gazed at Percy. 

“A lot happened while you were on your quest,” she said quietly. 

They were currently meeting under a fig tree, in Bachus’ garden, one of the few places that had been left nearly intact after all the attacks. Most people were busy rebuilding, and as a way to avoid the Senators and other Centurions, Reyna summoned Percy here. And Nico. But no one else. He wondered what this was about.

He stared at Nico again. He was still getting used to seeing him here; it felt weird, like an abstract painting infiltrating the Mona Lisa or something. He hadn’t been able to talk to him properly, one on one. To ask him everything he wanted to know—what happened to camp? Grover? Annabeth? Mom? The others? But Nico wouldn’t easily meet his eyes.

“I warned them beforehand,” Reyna continued. She stared out into the distance, where the campers were rebuilding temples and barracks and the like. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “I warned the Senate. I warned Octavian as you were dueling Mars. He was incentivising them all to attack you.” Her eyes zeroed in on Percy, withering and unforgivable. “I warned you. But did anyone listen?”

She shook her head. 

“In my defense, I was tired of people ordering me around.” 

“And therefore what you did is justifiable?” she snapped. “My camp is destroyed. People are dead.”  

Percy kept his mouth shut, for once. Reyna studied him for a few seconds; she took a deep breath, slowly letting it out. 

“Look, what happened, happened. No one can change that, not even the gods. We’ll rebuild, like we always do. And give everyone proper funerals tomorrow.” 

She ran a hand through her brittle hair. Her eyes didn’t match her face, he realized. They were the eyes of a person who had seen too much. Of a warrior. They didn’t fit the youthness of the rest of her features. Nico’s eyes were the same. Percy was sure that if he’d look in the mirror, he’d be met with a similar case. They’d all gone through too much.

And was it fair? He wanted to scream. Is any of this fair?

“We’re getting off topic,” Nico reminded her. 

“Right,” Reyna said. “Neptune. He was the first to attack.”

Instantly, the memory of sinking under the glacier came to him. 

I am the Stormbringer, Neptunus Victor, Neptunus Dominator, Neptunus Pater. You, Perseus Jackson, are my son. The son of the Sea. And the Sea doesn't forgive. 

Honestly, Percy never in his wildest dreams imagined that he’d meet Neptune— mostly he’d been too caught up on that tiny detail of, well, meeting him. And sure, it had felt nice to kind of be reassured that he had a Roman god as an ally, who was technically but not so technically his dad, yet…now, Percy saw the end result. 

Neptune hadn’t been joking. The Sea doesn’t forgive. 

“There was an earthquake,” Reyna was saying; her words came out slowly, like she was treading through unknown waters. “Nico and I were together. We barely made it out. Fortunately, there are many protocols for that sort of thing—this is California, after all. Most people knew what to do. But it was too strong. A lot of buildings didn’t make it. A couple of people were found dead as well. Octavian among them. Then the tsunami came. There were more casualties from that.”

“How did anyone survive it?” Percy questioned. 

A chill ran through his spine. Just like that, a Roman camp had been ripped to shreds by sheer godly will. Octavian was gone. He didn’t know how to feel about that.  

Nico and Reyna glanced at each other. Nico was the one to speak next. “New Rome didn’t suffer much. Terminus protected it from most of the destruction. So everyone at Camp Jupiter either ran for the city or up north, in this general direction; there were hopes that maybe if we reached the aqueducts, we’d be safe. And by some miracle the water retreated before it reached this area, as if Neptune had had enough—like he just wanted to make a point. He probably knew about the Gaea attack.”

“But why tell me this?” Percy insisted. “Why bring me here? Because I’m his son, and somehow responsible?”

“You kind of are,” Nico agreed.

“I brought you here to remind you of the punishment we agreed on,” Reyna said.

“It wasn’t exactly an agreement, but oh well,” Percy muttered.

Reyna, as always, decided to ignore the jab. “You need to hear it from me before I make it known to the Senate. To put it bluntly: Octavian is dead. There were no other candidates for Praetorship; apparently, no one wanted to give him competition. And then you, Perseus, the son of Neptune, came back alive, successful as ever.” She pursed her lips, and her eyebrows pulled together. She looked like she wanted to throw up. “This all depends on you, now.”

;

The ceremony was long—too long. At some point, Percy had the very tempting urge to pass out. The Senate was jam-packed with people. Apart from the usual crowd who attended, five chosen campers from each Cohort had been selected to play as witnesses. It was hard to breathe. Everything was too suffocating, too real.

Hazel and Frank—obviously—were there as well. Frank was wearing his centurion badge. Hazel her cavalry helmet. They smiled at him, but he could tell they were scared. Percy had a weird sense of deja vu, that time Octavian dragged him to the Senate so they could accuse him as an enemy of Rome. 

(Octavian’s death had been a blessing and a curse, now that he thought about it. A blessing because he didn’t have to see that skinny little freak ever again, and a curse since, well…they made Percy default Praetor because of it. How fun.)

A new Rome veteran was talking, droning on about honor and what being a Praetor meant to the people. He had probably been a Praetor a few decades ago, but then again, Percy wasn’t really paying attention.

Then there was Nico. Their gazes met. His eyes were dark, piercing. Percy used to think they were slightly unsettling, but now they were a source of comfort. After their meeting with Reyna, Percy had managed to pull him aside. Initially it had been awkward, sure, but they’d later walked off as…somewhat friends again. 

(Anyway, it’s not like their relationship as cousins was perfect in the first place.)

And they discussed a few things, too. Things still on his mind. The Greeks were coming, Annabeth among them. The other Doors of Death had to be unchained, the ones residing in Tartarus. 

“I’ll have to look for them. But the Argo II will have to meet me on the other side,” Nico had said. 

The most important thing out of the conversation, though? Percy was going to see Annabeth again.

The veteran finished talking. Reyna nodded at Percy. His cue to step forward.

He was going to see Annabeth again.

He stepped forward. Reyna said some more words. 

He was going to see Annabeth again.

A man he’d never met in his life walked toward Percy. He was old, with a balding head and droopy eyes and leathery, white skin. His toga was the same as Octavian’s. Probably the eldest Augur, by the looks of it. 

I’m going to see Annabeth again.

The things the Augur uttered was like everything else outside his head: utter gibberish. The old man grabbed Percy’s arm and held it out, front and center.

I’m going to see Annabeth again.

I’m going to see Annabeth again.

The Augur looked up to the heavens and repeated an incantation. Fire burst out—fire in his arm, curdling his skin, blistering and knife jarring. He clenched his teeth as smoke wafted to the ceiling. His eyes watered. 

I’m going to see Annabeth again I’m going to see Annabeth again I’m going to see Annabeth again.

The burning evaporated, as quickly as it had come. What was left was a tattoo. A trident, SPQR, and a Roman numeral. Had they just branded him? He didn’t have time to process it all, because soon after they were draping a purple toga on his shoulders and the ex-Praetor guy placed some itchy green laurels on top of his head that might’ve not felt so itchy if he still had his longer hair, but oh well—

Reyna grabbed his hand and lifted it along with hers. “Smile,” she ordered through gritted teeth. Her lips were spread into a smile of her own. He did as he was told. Then she raised her voice, “Ave Perseus Jackson, he who has been deemed worthy. Ave second Praetor of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata, champion of Rome!”

He was almost certain that they would all laugh. Champion of Rome? Sure, he’d retrieved the Golden Eagle and killed that giant dude, Polybotes—and a handful of other monsters, to boot. But he’d had help. And besides, hadn’t he killed their most important god, like, a week or so ago…?

The roaring of the crowd drowned out the thoughts in his head. 

“AVE!” they all cried. “AVE!”

Maybe they just didn’t have a choice. 

(He didn’t have one, either).

Percy smiled and waved. 

Perseus Jackson, son of Poseidon. Son of Neptune. Hero of Olympus. Hero of Rome.

The Godkiller.