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ONE. GROVER (POST THE LAST OLYMPIAN)
The years had not been easy on them, and that was being generous. The life of a demigod was not one that was happy or joyful, except for a few rare instances in the last few years. Percy hoped, now that Kronos had been dealt with, he could have some rest, that he would be allowed to enjoy a modicum of happiness after the dreadful past few years.
Sixteen and already he had seen a war… led a war.
But he was not the only one who suffered after everything. Everyone was in pain, in mourning for someone they had loved who was now gone, on their way to the Underworld.
Percy was so tired of losing people.
It was not long after the battle that he found Grover. There were no words spoken at first, there didn’t need to be between them. He held onto the back of Grover’s shirt with an ironclad grip, afraid of letting go and seeing his best friend slip away from him, vanishing like mist between his fingertips. “You’re okay?”
“I’m okay, Percy,” Grover nodded, pulling away and gently headbutting Percy. “I would ask if you’re okay but it is kind of impossible for you to get hurt now, isn’t it?”
“Not impossible,” Percy shook his head. “But close. Are – are you really okay?”
“Physically.” Grover sighed, a pained look passing across his face. Percy recognised that look as one he had seen one too many times since their quest in the Labyrinth, since Pan. Grover hadn’t been the same after that.
“Mentally?”
“I’m tired, Perce,” Grover sighed, his shoulder hunched as though he was carrying the weight of the world atop them, which after experiencing it himself, Percy vowed to never let anyone come close to bearing a weight such as that. He wrapped an arm around Grover and brought him to a piece of debris, sitting him down atop it. “I don’t remember the last time I slept peacefully or for more than a few hours a night.”
“Tell me about it,” Percy snorted but it was half-hearted at best. “You can rest now, G-man.”
“I want to see Juniper.” Grover rested his head on Percy’s shoulder, his voice wistful and a little dreamy.
“I’ll get you back to camp so you can see her,” The son of Poseidon promised. “Soon as we’re done here, we’ll go back to camp. You can see Juniper and you can rest.”
“That sounds like a dream come true.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Percy nodded. “I think we deserve a little rest.”
“More than deserve. We earned it,” Grover corrected. “We took down Kronos’ army. Alone. Without the help of the gods.”
“I’ll take this over fighting Typhon any day,” Percy chuckled. “Let them deal with that mess.”
“So… you and Annabeth…” Grover wiggled his eyebrows, sending his best friend a suggestive look.
Percy flushed, his cheeks turning a faint red and he whacked Grover’s shoulder. “Dude!”
“What?” Grover laughed. “Indulge me.”
Percy hesitated for a second but then he caved. “She… kissed me. Back when we were on the quest in the Labyrinth.”
“Finally!”
“Finally?” Percy sounded flabbergasted.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for one of you to make a move. Not surprised Annabeth was the first one to do it.”
“She’s great isn’t she?”
“Okay Loverboy,” Grover snorted. “What happened next?”
“Nothing,” Percy admitted. “I asked her to kiss me again before the battle. She didn’t. But…” He inhaled sharply, remembering the events he was about to utter aloud. “She took a knife for me. Somehow she knew where my mortal point was. If that knife hit me, I would have died. And she took it for me.”
“Perce…” Grover’s voice softened, nudging Percy’s shoulder with his own.
“It’s okay G-man. We’re both okay. We’re all okay.” He managed a small smile.
“We are okay. So you’ll ask her to be your girlfriend, yeah?”
“Maybe.”
“No, not maybe. Yes. Definitely.”
“Sure.”
TWO. HAZEL (DURING MARK OF ATHENA)
Percy was a little too scared to be sleeping right now, considering they were in a ship in the sky; Zeus’ domain, where he, as a son of Poseidon, was not welcome. He also didn’t particularly fancy demigod dreams right now. So, he left his cabin and trudged up to the main deck of the ship, figuring he might as well enjoy the view if he couldn’t sleep.
Imagine his surprise when he spotted a head of dark curls leaned against the side of the ship, head turned up and moonlight gleaming on her skin. Percy purposely made his footsteps louder so she knew he was coming. Her head whipped around to face him; eyes slightly wide in surprise. “Percy?”
“Hi Haze,” He greeted, making his way over to her. “Can’t sleep?”
“Not particularly. Why are you awake?”
“Being in the sky makes me feel…” He pulled a face. “Weird. Off. Don’t like it.”
“Me too,” She whispered, leaning her head on his arm, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “This quest…”
“Forget about the quest for a bit, Haze. We deserve a little peace, don’t we?”
“Gods know you do,” She muttered. “You only just got your memories back and found Annabeth.”
“You do too, Hazel,” He affirmed gently. “And yeah, it does suck. I miss New York, and I miss my mother and camp. But… this quest depends on us. If I don’t finish this, everyone’s in danger, then there’s nothing to miss.”
“Percy, I shouldn’t even be alive right now. How can I deserve a little peace?” Hazel’s voice stuttered slightly, her breath hitching.
“Hazel,” He admonished. “You’re alive for a reason. Yes, Nico brought you back. He found you in the Fields of Asphodel and he brought you back to the living world, but if the Fates didn’t want you to be alive, you wouldn’t be. Your father would have intervened if it wasn’t meant to be.”
“But –”
“No buts,” He shook his head, turning his head to plant a soft kiss atop her curls. “You deserve to be here as much as every other person on this ship. You’re important to this quest and you’re important to me, even if we haven’t known each other for a very long time. Gods know you mean the world to Frank.”
Hazel didn’t reply but her cheeks flushed.
“Alright? You’re here now and that’s all that matters.”
“Okay,” Hazel nodded. “Thank you, Percy.”
“’Course.”
“Can you tell me about your mom?” Hazel asked. “Or… or anything. Can you talk? Tell me about New York, or – or camp.”
“My mother…” Percy exhaled, a smile growing on his face and his eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “Haze, she’s the most wonderful person ever. Gods – she… she went through so much to keep me safe. She’s the best person I know.”
“I’d love to meet her one day.” Hazel nudged him.
“When we’re done with this quest, I promise I’ll take you all to see her. She – she’ll make some blue cookies for us and give you the warmest hug and tell you it’ll all be okay,” Percy sniffled, wiping his tears away with his free hand. “She makes me blue food because my ex-stepdad said there was no such thing so she had to prove him wrong.”
“She sounds wonderful.”
“She is, Gods, she is.” Percy nodded fervently.
“Tell me about camp.”
“Camp Half-Blood is… it’s my home, frankly. My home away from home I suppose, because my home will always be with my mother. It – it’s got a big field of strawberries that we sell, and there’s the Big House and Chiron. I miss Chiron, he’s wonderful. And we have cabins where the campers stay in depending on your godly parent. I was alone in my cabin for a bit until Tyson came.”
“Tyson?”
“He’s my half-brother. He’s a Cyclops, so he’s a son of Poseidon. He’s not always at camp, but when he is, he stays in the Poseidon cabin with me. After the war… the one with Kronos, we had some changes and built more cabins for some minor gods and goddesses because it wasn’t fair on their children.”
“It sounds incredible,” Hazel murmured. “Way more cosy than Camp Jupiter.’
“You got that right,” Percy snorted. “It is indeed. We have a lava wall and we spar with each other sometimes. We have a forest stocked with monsters but they don’t come into the camp. And the dock… oh, the dock. I used to sit on the sand by it for hours. Just being by the water makes me feel better, it always does.”
“Does your dad have the same vendetta against children of the Big Three as Jason’s dad?” Hazel was trying to avoid saying the names of the gods.
“No. You’d be fine, especially if you’re with me, remember our quest?”
“Oh, right. I do remember,” Hazel recalled their quest not too long ago. “Thank you for telling me about your mother, and camp.”
“It’s nice to be able to talk about it to someone.” He admitted, letting out a heavy sigh. It sounded weary, and Hazel remembered then that this was not the first big prophecy he was a part of. That he had been the forefront of one not long ago, and he had seen and fought a war… led a war. He was a veteran and here he was now, going back into another war but this time it was not against a Titan… it was against the primordial of the Earth.
Frankly, Hazel thought he deserved a break.
THREE. NICO (POST BLOOD OF OLYMPUS)
Percy loved sitting here in front of the water, legs hanging off the edge of the boardwalk and barely skimming the surface of the water, the stars twinkling above him. He gazed up, spotting his favourite constellation. The Huntress.
Quiet footsteps behind him alerted him that someone was approaching but he didn’t let it show. “You don’t have to lurk in the shadows.”
“Sorry,” Nico’s exhausted voice replied. “Didn’t want to interrupt you.”
“You’re not. Come sit,” Percy patted the wood beside him, letting Nico take his time in approaching and sitting beside the older. “What’s up?”
“Dunno,” Nico shrugged, his jacket completely swallowing him up from how big it was. “’S not easy to sleep.”
“It isn’t.” Percy agreed.
“Especially not after…” Nico trailed off. “You know…”
“I know.” Came the quiet reply.
“Do you think it’ll get easier?” Nico asked after a pause.
“Gods, I wish I could give you an answer,” Percy replied. “I’m sure it does… it has to. Everything gets easier to deal with in time, Neeks. And people. People help too.”
“I haven’t really got a surplus of those.”
“You do,” Percy insisted, turning his head to face Nico, who also turned, meeting a pair of sea-green eyes. “You’ve got Jason, Frank, Leo, Pipes, Haze, Thalia, Annabeth… and you’ve got Will. And you have me. You’ve always got me.”
“Do I?”
“Of course you do. I won’t leave you, not unless you want me to. Do you –”
“No,” Nico’s eyes widened, shaking his head quickly. “I don’t. I just thought – I thought after I told you…” He trailed off, his cheeks flushing a pale pink.
“You telling me you had a crush on me would not stop me from being there for you, Nico,” Percy deadpanned, turning his gaze to the water, and wrapping an arm around Nico, tugging him closer so his head rested on Percy’s shoulder. “It’ll take a lot more than that to keep me away.”
“Thank you.” Nico choked out but Percy didn’t comment on how close to tears the younger sounded.
“What for, ghost king?” Only Percy could make that nickname sound appealing.
“For – for being there for me… haven’t had someone like that in a while.” Nico’s voice was quiet but Percy heard it.
“You don’t have to thank me for that,” Percy dropped his head against Nico’s. “But you’re welcome. You know, I’ve always wanted a younger sibling.”
“Oh. Oh.”
“I’m not trying to be a replacement for Bianca. I would never. And it might be weird on your end for me to say this, but I’ve considered you a little brother for a while.”
“Thank you. Thank you for caring so much.”
“You make it easy to.”
FOUR. THALIA (POST BLOOD OF OLYMPUS)
“Did I ever apologise?” Percy stopped in his tracks from where he had been approaching Thalia. The Huntress of Artemis was sitting near the camp entrance, leaned against a tree as the sun slowly rose in the sky, painting their surroundings in faint pink and gold, and warming them up.
“Apologise for what?” Percy asked, sitting beside her and leaning his head back against the trunk of the tree.
“For shoving all the responsibility of the prophecy on you and becoming a Huntress the day before I turned sixteen. Just because I couldn’t have the prophecy be about me.” Thalia exhaled heavily.
“Oh.”
“I did that to you. And – and I never apologised.”
“You didn’t have to apologise. I understood why you did it.” Percy replied softly.
“That didn’t make it okay.” Thalia’s voice was getting louder and she sounded distressed.
“That’s exactly what makes it okay. Your fatal flaw… I saw what it did to you, I saw how close you got to –” He stopped, not wanting to remember that quest. “Maybe it’s my fatal flaw that makes me say it’s okay. It’s the same reason I never thought of pushing this onto Nico. He’s too young, and he lost Bianca, because of me. Least I could do was shoulder the prophecy.”
“Perce –” Thalia turned to face him; her electric eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “You do so much for other people. How – how do you not get mad? How did you not hate me immediately after I did that to you.”
“Well… I guess I had already accepted I would be the one the prophecy talked about. I didn’t expect you to come back, so in my head it wasn’t anything crazy,” He shrugged. “It’s okay, Thals.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is. It happened. It’s over. I’m over it. There’s nothing more to do. We can’t go back in time and change how things happened and even if we could, I wouldn’t want you to. Everything that happened, happened for a reason and it prepared me for the future,” Percy insisted. “I forgive you, is that what you want to hear?”
“I want you to be mad. I want you to be upset.” She murmured.
“I was mad. For a moment when you did it. I felt betrayed, okay? I thought we had finally become good friends and – and I thought I was free from the burden of that stupid fucking prophecy but no. it all came back to me,” He sighed. “And then I wasn’t mad anymore. I was happy for you. I know how they can be and if you were free from that burden, then I didn’t really care that it came down to me. I had and still have people to help me, and they did help me. You helped me too,” He nudged her shoulder. “So yeah, I was mad. But not anymore. Forget about it.”
“Easier said than done.”
“You have an eternity to forget.” Percy shrugged.
“You… don’t.”
“I don’t want an eternity. I’ve already had enough. I want to live a mortal life and die a mortal death. I don’t want to stay alive forever. My mother’s mortal and most of my friends, bar you, are mortal. I don’t want to see them die.”
“I’ll have to see you die.” Thalia looked down.
“Not for a long time, Thals. Not if I have anything to say about it.”
FIVE. ANNABETH (POST BLOOD OF OLYMPUS)
Percy flickered between being asleep and being awake, his eyelids heavy and his body sinking into the mattress but his was mind racing, thinking about everything good and bad. He’d always been like this, but since the wars, the bad had increased and he had even more trouble sleeping.
A door creaking snapped him out of the sleepy state and woke him up a little more. He lifted his head from the pillow and leaned on his elbow, squinting in the darkness to see a familiar figure approaching him, clutching a Yankees hat in her hand.
“Beth?” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his free hand, and trying (and failing) to stifle a yawn.
“Were you asleep?” Annabeth’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper as she stood beside his bed, dressed in a pair of old pyjamas.
“No. Not quite there yet. C’mere,” He shook his head as he lifted the blanket and patted the space beside him. The daughter of Athena wasted no time in sitting beside him, back leaned against the headboard. Once she was settled, Percy laid back down, his head by her hip and wrapped one of his arms around her waist loosely. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” She shook her head, golden curls bouncing as she did. Percy gave her an unimpressed look and she sighed. “Same as always. Nightmares.”
“That bad?” They both usually had nightmares but because of the cabins, they weren’t allowed to spend the night beside each other. Sometimes, when it got really bad, Annabeth would sneak into Percy’s cabin with her Yankee’s hat, but usually they just dealt with it.
She merely hummed in response, letting one of her hands card through his dark locks. “You need a haircut.”
“’s fine. I like it long,” He mumbled. “Does it look bad?”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s different but not a bad different,” She explained. “Sorry for… barging in here.”
“Annabeth,” He admonished. “Barging in? Are you insane?”
“I mean… I did kind of barge in. Let myself in and everything.” Annabeth shrugged.
“You’re welcome here anytime, especially if you’re having nightmares,” He assured her. “I’d never turn you away, you know that right?”
“I do. I just – I worry I’m making you lose sleep.”
“Lose what sleep? I don’t sleep that well either,” He scoffed. “I never have to be honest, and it’s only gotten worse.”
“Gods, we – can’t we just have a break? The war’s over and still I’m not at peace. We are not at peace,” Annabeth exhaled shakily, bringing her free hand up and wiping her cheeks free of tears. Percy furrowed his brows in concern and sat up, cupping her cheek, and swiping his thumb under her eye. “I’m tired, Perce.”
“I know. I am too.” He sighed.
“I – I can’t stop thinking about – about Tar –” She couldn’t finish the word, more tears prickling her eyes and slipping down her tanned cheeks. Percy brought his other hand up and wiped both her cheeks free of tears. “It haunts me every time I close my eyes.”
“I know,” He wrapped his arms around her and tugged her closer, resting his chin on her head, one hand cupping the back of her head and the other rubbing her back soothingly. “I know.”
“I want to be at peace, Percy,” She sobbed into his chest, her hands fisting the material of his shirt. He didn’t care that she was getting it wet with her tears. She could ruin every piece of his clothing and he wouldn’t care, just as long as she was safe with him, he didn’t care. “Is that too much to ask for?”
“Never,” He shook his head vehemently. “It’s never too much to ask for. Annabeth, you deserve the world and if I could give it to you, I would. I – you deserve more than what you’ve been given. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I – I don’t know what I’d do if I had to deal with this alone.” She shook her head, still leaning her entire weight against him, trusting him to hold her. And he would.
“You’ll never have to deal with it alone, not if I have anything to do with it,” Percy promised. “I’ve got you.”
“You know I’ve got you too, right?”
“’Course. No one else I’d rather have.” He planted a kiss on top of her head, tightening his hold on her just slightly.
PLUS ONE. SALLY (POST BLOOD OF OLYMPUS)
Percy hadn’t meant to leave seeing his mother this long. He wanted to go to her the second Gaea was dealt with but he couldn’t. There was so much to do, so many people to help and things to rebuild. And he didn’t even have a phone to contact her. Iris messages were an option of course, but he didn’t think he could see her face through one and then not immediately tear out of camp to go see her.
But now that everything was dealt with and camp was slowly returning back to how it was, here he was now, stood outside of his mother and Paul’s apartment, his hands clenched in fists by his sides and his entire body tensed.
Annabeth offered to come with him but he wanted to do this on his own, see his mother on his own before he brought anyone else with him. He didn’t really want all his friends (and girlfriend) to see him sobbing against his mother.
Percy was working up the courage to knock on the door. He hadn’t seen his mother in so fucking long and now he was just supposed to knock on the door nonchalantly? No way. But then he heard her voice, presumably talking with someone on the phone and the urge to see her took over. He raised his first and knocked on the door softly.
“I’ll call you back later! Someone’s at the door.” He heard his mother’s muffled voice and faint footsteps approaching the door. Unconsciously, he took a step back and his heart beat picked up. The sound of the door unlocking sounded incredibly loud to him and then it began to open slowly and… there she was.
His mother.
There she was. Standing within arm’s reach with wide eyes and a look of shock on her face, swirls of grey in her hair. “Percy?” Her voice, now closer and no longer muffled, shook Percy out of his stupor.
“Mom,” He said, his voice choked. “Mom.” He repeated, holding back tears.
“Oh, Percy, my baby,” She surged forward and wrapped her arms around him, tugging his head down so it rested on her shoulder. Percy didn’t care that he had to bend down to hug her, wrapping his own arms around her just as tight. “Oh, you’re okay. You’re here.”
“I’m okay,” He affirmed, tears running down his cheeks, fisting the back of her shirt with a white-knuckled grip. “Mom – Mom, I’m so sorry.”
She pulled away and cupped his face with her hands, wiping the tears away and gave him a loving look. “Why are you sorry, my darling?”
“I – I – I left you and – there was another war. And I didn’t come home quick enough, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He heaved out, more tears rushing down his cheeks.
“Oh, sweetheart,” She sighed, bringing his head down and kissing his forehead. “Don’t apologise, Percy. It was out of your control, Annabeth told me what happened. I – I know who was behind it. I’m just happy you’re safe. That’s all I care about.”
“Mom, so much happened. I –” He shook his head. “I’m not the same.”
“Oh baby,” Her lip quivered. “You’ve been through so much; I’d be surprised if you were the same. I don’t care how different you are, you’ll always be my Perseus.”