Chapter Text
It all happened so fast.
He saw her get pulled back. He saw the webbing. The lunge was what did it - in his desperation, he swept past her, cutting the web and shoving her away from the hole.
But the floor gave way, or he just flat-out tipped over the edge.
She screamed after him. His nails broke against the stone wall, as he tried to grab onto the holds but he was moving with too much momentum.
It wasn't long before he couldn't hear her.
Then - something slammed into him, the faint smell of strawberry shampoo filling his senses as soft, curly hair smothered his face, but the smell of sweat, blood, dust, and sewer water was stronger.
Annabeth.
Her arms locked around him, his own in turn as soon as he felt her.
Together. They had promised each other.
—
Looking at Percy was hard. Of course they were happy to see him - alive. Hazel's heart had swelled three sizes as soon as he stumbled out of the Doors of Death, tumbling to his knees but catching himself with his hands on the dirt.
It wasn't a question of that at all.
It was the scars. The blood. Burns lashed over his arms, visible under the tatters of his clothes - torn from claws and even more purposefully by hands, banded tight around skin and muscle to staunch blood flow or bandage the bigger cuts. His face - well, everywhere - was covered in tar-like grime, dirt, and blood; gold dust congealing in it. There was an emptiness in his eyes. An emptiness to his side, where the lack of Annabeth jabbed them all in the gut and twisted.
He just stared straight through her. Unable to look Hazel in the eyes.
He seemed, for the most part, attentive as they regrouped with lunch on the hill. He hadn't cleaned up much, just getting most of the surface filth off his face. He was more so focused on eating - ambrosia, which Piper bribed him into eating before he could eat a sandwich, much like a mother would to her child to eat their vegetables before getting desert. He was quiet, as they spoke of what happened in the House of Hades, laying on his back and letting the sunlight settle over him.
Despite sharing stories of what had happened, from Frank leading an army of legionnaires to Reyna's journey alone across the ancient lands, nobody asked about Tartarus. Maybe it was Percy's still taunt muscles, despite the relaxed position; or maybe it was the lack of Annabeth's warm presence; or even Nico seemingly keeping vigil beside him, as if he knew something the rest of them didn't - which, in all truth, he did.
Besides Annabeth, Gods rest her soul, they were the only two mortals to walk through Tartarus. The only ones to make it out alive, at that.
"So, the two-million peso question," Leo voiced what they must've all been thinking, leading their way up to. "We got this slightly used forty-foot-tall statue of Athena. What do we do with it?"
Reyna looked up at it, her expression professional as always. "As fine as it looks on this hill, I didn't come all this way to admire it. According to Annabeth, it must be returned to Camp Half-Blood by a Roman leader." Her eyes fell on Percy, and the rest followed her gaze as she fell into a lapse of silence. It was like he couldn't even see them, or he just didn't care, as he didn't move a muscle.
They hadn't spoken much to him even in the cave. Despite trekking through Tartarus and holding the Doors closed by himself for twelve minutes, he'd quickly gathered himself and joined the fight, wielding two swords - one glowing bronze, familiar and comforting, the other an eerie, luminous bone. But the structure had been collapsing and they had to move quick, and Percy chose to lean on Hazel for support.
It had been an honor.
Reyna, brave as always, took the first inching step. "Did she mention anything else to you?"
Percy was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his rasp was still there, but the nectar and water had made an effort to heal the roughness at the edges. "'I must stand here. The Roman must bring me.'" He sat up. "Annabeth was sure about it. She said Athena spoke to her in her dream. The only way to heal the rift was to have it returned by a member of the faction who stole it."
Percy was smart. Hazel knew that. They teased him, of course, relentlessly for anything otherwise. It was just what friends - family - did. But even then, she knew many people underestimated him, saw him as a bumbling idiot even though he could easily think his way out of dangerous situations and trick their captors.
But she'd never heard him speak like that.
"It makes sense," Nico murmured. Nico didn't say a lot, especially in front of this many people. Part of Hazel thought it might've been to take the heat off Percy. "The statue is a powerful symbol. A Roman returning it to the Greeks...that could heal the historic rift, maybe even heal the gods of their split personalities."
Coach stopped gnawing on the screwdriver. "Now, hold on. I like peace as much as the next satyr -"
"You hate peace."
"The point is, Valdez, we're only - what, a few days from Athens? We got an army of giants waiting for us there. We went through all the trouble of saving this statue -"
"We did nothing," Percy snapped, sudden venom in his voice. "She did. And look where it got her." When no one said anything, not even Coach, he said, finality on his tongue, "Reyna takes it. I can call a team of pegasai, Blackjack's sure to have friends. We have to be quick with this - I'm sure Octavian's already starting a war."
Jason leaned closer into Piper, tapping her hip. She got the message, unsheathing Katoptris and resting the dagger on her empty plate. "Since we got back to the ship, I've been seeing bad stuff in the knife. The Roman legion is almost within striking distance of Camp-Half Blood. They're gathering reinforcements - spirits, eagles, wolves."
"I told him to wait," Reyna growled.
"He's intent on war," Percy said. "Unless we somehow beat him."
"Unfortunately, that's not the worse of it. I saw images of a possible future - the camp in flames, Roman and Greek demigods laying dead. And Gaea...Percy -" she cut herself off, as emotion cracked through his name. It was enough to make him look at her - or at least in her general direction, his gaze just barely missing the mark. Exactly as he'd done with Hazel.
"What did you see?" he asked.
"I saw you...older. Twenties, I think...Controlling blood."
His face snapped away from her, twisting around and turning back to the grass.
"Dude, what happened down there?" Frank asked, as Hazel's hands tightened around his arm. He spoke in that way that only Frank could - so heartfelt, but the weight of the question present.
Percy tried to speak, but at first he couldn't make a sound. When something did come from his throat, it was rough and barely existent. "I...I can't -" he cut off, his chest heaving up as he inhaled deeply, fast. "I can't talk about it yet."
"You can bloodbend," Reyna said, concern in her voice.
He didn't deny it.
"Percy -" Piper cut off for a moment. When she spoke again, it was a hoarse, desperate whisper, "Some things aren't meant to be controlled."
The words broke something from him, as tears suddenly rushed to his eyes. "I scared her," he admitted, voice wavering. "Down there. In Tartarus, and I scared her."
Jason suddenly reached across the circle, over Nico, resting his hand on Percy's arm. The other demigod jumped, as if he hadn't expected it. But Jason didn't let go. Resolutely, he stated, "You did what you had to do. You were in Tartarus."
Looking at him, Hazel could see that maybe Percy himself didn't even agree.
—
It was odd, not having Nico around now. Hazel had gotten used to him being there over the past eighteen days, and now it was an absence.
But she'd see him again soon. When they won. Because they had to win. For so many people.
Leo tinkered around in the engine room a bit more, she could just barely hear the clangs as she moved through the hallway. Frank and Piper were on guard duty above deck, but as far as she knew everyone else was getting rest. It just wasn't coming to her, though. Food sounded like a good idea, maybe some hot chocolate to warm her bones, but as soon as she walked in she found Percy there. Quiet, unmoving, even as a slice of pizza sat in front of him. He usually ate ravenously, especially when pancakes and pizza were involved, and now he just stared past it.
"Percy?" she whispered, inching closer.
"Hey, Hazel," he said, softly. Speaking to her in that kind, soft tone he'd also used in the House of Hades, that he used whenever she was nervous. Like an older brother to a younger sister.
She carefully sat at one of the Captain's chairs, beside him but with the corner of the table between them. She reached out slowly, gently resting her fingers over his wrist. He still hadn't looked up at her. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened, but...I'm sorry."
He didn't respond, but he did lift his left hand and rest it over her own, acknowledging her.
"Is it okay if I get the light?"
Festus, now permanently awake, seemed to sense her. Without waiting for Percy's agreement, the lights flickered on, and she was barely able to choke back her gasp.
He'd cleaned up more. His hair was longer, which had been evident earlier even despite the horrible tangles it was in. There were still knots in it, visible ones that she could see - What was horrible was the burns. His skin was completely clear of blood and grime, showing the angry red burns around his eyes. The irises still shimmered sea green, she'd seen that enough earlier.
"We ran into these...things," he started to say, voice quiet and raspy. Hazel didn't say anything or move, her hand remaining soft on Percy's wrist. "Arai. These spirits that hold curses. When you kill them...a curse for you comes to you. All the monster's we've killed since-since we were twelve, just...tumbled on us. And she -" he stuttered to a stop, like a creaky old engine puttering out. "Polyphemus cursed her with blindness. But...I stabbed it just as she tried to kill it. So it went to both of us."
Oh Gods, that made everything make so much more sense. But the ugly truth of it brought tears to Hazel's eyes. The unseeing looks, unable to meet their eyes with his own gaze...
"Then...Calypso," his voice got even more watery, "cursed her to think I abandoned her. Just like I abandoned her on that island. I was yelling for her, I had her hand, but..."
"She couldn't hear or see you," Hazel whispered.
"Yeah. And I couldn't see her. She...I didn't make it to her in time."
"How many curses did you take on?"
"I don't know. I killed all of them in the swarm. Most of it was able to be healed, stuff like gorgon's blood. But...the blindness and the scars all stayed."
Percy wasn't ever going to be able to see again.
"How did you make it out?"
"Everything...almost every living thing has water in it. It's in the air. It's in poison, which was in the air in Tartarus. If I focus hard enough...I can sense where things are in space. Because of the moisture. Then after a bit, it didn't take much focusing at all. It kinda became, like...echolocation? Like dolphins and whales. Just - second nature. Sixth sense."
One thing's for sure.
Hazel would never even joke about underestimating Percy Jackson ever again.
She didn't ask him anything else about Tartarus. Instead, keeping her hand on his wrist, she stood up and moved close beside his chair, looping her arms around his shoulders and gently squeezing him, her hair smothering him and falling over his face. After a moment, he leaned into her, inhaling jaggedly. They stayed like that for about a minute, before she asked, "Can I finish brushing your hair?" She figured it was the least she could do, before it got even worse.
He laughed, which then turned into a fit of coughing. He'd mentioned that the air in Tartarus was filled with poison, so Hazel figured that's where his rasp came from. She reached across the table for a glass of water, setting it beside his hand. He didn't pick it up, though, first saying, "Yeah. You can brush my hair."
"I'll be right back with a brush," she reported, before stepping away. She quickly moved back out into the hall, the lanterns swaying where they hung on the ceiling. She was so focused on them, and her task, that she jumped when a cabin door opened - Jason and Piper stood in the doorway of Jason's room, looking at her with concerned expressions.
"Did you talk to him?" he whispered, speaking under his breath.
She nodded, looping her arms around herself in a sort of pseudo-hug. "...It's worse than we thought."
"What did he say?" Piper murmured.
Hazel almost couldn't bring herself to say it. It was too much, and part of her felt like she was betraying Percy's trust in her. Maybe he wouldn't have told them as much as he told her, but he would still have to tell them he was blind. So she brought herself to confess; "He's blind."
Piper's gasp and Jason's stunned silence told her all she needed to know.
"How the hell did he get through Tartarus blind?" Jason asked what they both must've been thinking, and honestly Hazel wasn't sure herself - Percy told her, of course, but it was still processing.
"He said it's kind of like echolocation. Water's in or on everything. It's in the air. He can sense where things and people are based on moisture in the air, what it touches."
"We always knew he was powerful, but..." Piper's hand ran down her left arm, stopping at her wrist before pushing back up, as if to soothe goosebumps. "That's so...specific. Intense, even."
"I have to get back to him. I was just getting a brush, he has some knots in his hair."
"Come get me if you guys need anything," Jason offered. "Frank's up on deck, Piper was about to join him. I'm gonna get some sleep and then hit next watch."
She nodded. "Okay. I just...I don't know if he needs someone or not right now, so I'm trying to be there for him. I just want him to know that he doesn't have to be alone right now."
He nodded in agreement.
Piper broke away from Jason with a squeeze to his shoulder, stepping out into the hallway to walk the rest of the way with Hazel. His door closed as they left, and Piper whispered, "I miss her."
Hazel's arms tightened around herself even more. She couldn't let herself think about Annabeth for too long, instead focusing on the current most important thing - Percy. There wasn't anything she could do about Annabeth dying, she couldn't fix it, but she could be there for him. Percy, who'd known her the longest out of all of them, since he was twelve. Who planned to have a life with her, ending with them having children of their own to regale all their ridiculous stories to.
Percy deserved that happy ending so, so much. And now he just...didn't have it. She was taken away from him as quickly as his sight, almost at the same time.
When she returned to the dining hall, a brush and a fine-tooth comb to hook at the little tangles, she found Percy folded in on himself, head against the table, sobbing. She didn't say anything, just rushed to his side and set down the brushes, wrapping him back into a tight hug that he quickly returned, pressing his face into her shoulder. "I need to talk to my mom," came from him, wrecked by his tears and muffled in her shirt, and Hazel's heart cracked even further down the center as he said it more than once, like a mantra. They had no phones, the Iris messages weren't working, and they were half a world away from Sally Jackson - who Percy hadn't seen in almost a year.
She just tightened her arms around him, rocking him like Sammy used to do to her when she would cry. He clung to her like a child, begging for his mom, and that reminded Hazel that, as adult he seemed at times, the oldest member of the crew, Percy Jackson was still a kid.