Archive of Our Own

Perhaps he’d been a fool to assume that everything would be perfect once he made it back to Camp Half-Blood, but Percy Jackson couldn’t find it within himself to fault his past self’s optimism. He remembered leaving Camp Jupiter and knowing that he was finally on his way home, albeit through a long, roundabout detour that involved killing giants and saving the world (again). He remembered later standing on the membranous ground of Tartarus and looking up at the red, smoky air, knowing that if he and Annabeth survived, they would get to go home.

He had just wanted to go home.

He hadn’t realized that being home wouldn’t stop the nightmares or the guilt. He should have, given his past experiences, but for some reason, Percy had thought that this time would be different. He would get the sleep he needed. He would get to rest.

He had forgotten in the chaos of the final two battles that he didn’t deserve to sleep. In fact, he didn’t deserve much of anything at all.

Two nights after the Romans left for Camp Jupiter, Percy dreamed of Charles Beckendorf.

He was on fire, and his eyes were locked on Percy’s. Green flames licked up his skin possessively, melting the flesh and blackening his bones, craving everything it had not yet touched. Beckendorf didn’t react. His lips were pressed together in a grim line, brown eyes narrowed with disappointment. Percy reached for him, desperate to help, but his fingers phased right through his old friend. His hands twitched as his arms dropped to his sides, recognizing he could do nothing even though he desperately wanted to do something, anything.

Beckendorf didn’t speak until his damning eyes began melting down the ruins of his face. Bone gleamed underneath, pure, shocking white that quickly charred. “Percy,” he said, his voice a grating whisper from destroyed vocal cords, “why didn’t you save me?”

That was when his face changed into an expression of agony, mouth opened wide to scream his pain, teeth changing from ivory white to blackened crumbles in the blink of an eye.

The Greek fire exploded in a wash of green heat, and just as suddenly, the green turned to orange and deep red, and he was back in Tartarus. Annabeth was staring at him in horror, her gray eyes wide and mouth dropped open in an ‘o’. Her hands reached for him, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to grab him.

Searing pain erupted along his body, and Percy lifted his arms. As he watched, the rough, thick scar tissue along his right arm burst open, bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. He couldn’t even scream, choking on the sound as the pain overrode every ounce of his being. Annabeth guided him towards the Phlegethon River, murmuring something about the firewater having a healing quality. She told him to shove his hand into the flames, and barely even able to understand her, he did. The pain exploded across every living nerve he had left, short-circuiting his brain. His body failed him, and he hit the glass-covered ground with a dull thud, the glass slicing into his skin, impaling him, and making the bleeding worsen. He almost rolled down into the river, but Annabeth yanked him back with cries of shock and horror.

Then, he did scream, over and over again, and Annabeth was sobbing as she shoved her hand into the Phlegethon, and with the same finesse, shoved the firewater down his throat.

His nightmare changed once more. He was standing in the center of Mount St. Helen, and the telekhines were throwing lava on him. Percy screamed as he burned, clawing at his own skin, shredding it to be free of the pain his flesh kept him trapped in. A naiad’s voice whispered in his ear, “even when I’m out of water, the water is within me.”

So, he called it. He called it and called it, the sea that was his birthright, that was his. Save me, he begged the waves, even here within a volcano, far from his saving grace. Please. Not like this.

He thought he heard steam whistling, even as his body burned.

“Percy.”

The voice was familiar, out of place in this heat. It almost sounded like…

“Percy. Percy, baby, it’s me, Annabeth. Please wake up. Gently. Focus. You’re…you’re about to cause a tsunami, Percy.”

That startled him awake, and he sat up so fast he nearly smacked his head into Annabeth’s. She ducked, her forehead striking his shoulder instead, but he could barely even focus on her or on Chiron looming over them both outside of his bunkbed, because holy shit, he could feel the hundreds of thousands of gallons of water that had risen at his call, poised to strike. The water was obeying its master. It was coming to save him.

Camp Half-Blood was immune to severe weather. Percy didn’t know if that included tsunamis, particularly if said tsunami was summoned by one of its own campers.

Percy pushed himself out of bed, nearly tumbling to the floor and taking Annabeth with him. But he focused on holding the water tightly, gripping it in his fist and his mind, as he scrambled to his feet and ran to the beach.

The half-moon shone dully but cast enough light to see the 80-foot wave perched just past the beach, ready to swipe down and flood them all. Except for Percy, of course. He would live and remember killing all his friends for the rest of his life.

Gods knew he reminisced on that subject enough already.

His toes hit the sand and he stopped, holding his arms out and closing his eyes. From his panicked state within a nightmare, he had summoned the ocean to save him. Because of a fucking nightmare, he had almost killed the entire camp.

Just another thing to hate himself for later. But for now, he needed to focus.

Gently, ever so gently, Percy fed the built-up water back into the ocean. He worked slowly, feeling the water move like an extension of his own body, to ensure that nothing residual flared up and flooded even the beach. As he concentrated, he felt, rather than heard, Annabeth and Chiron appear behind him.

Mr. D, miraculously, did not deign to appear for the first time since Olympus closed at that exact moment and scold him for being so stupid. Although, honestly, Mr. D would probably be more upset that he hadn’t destroyed the camp.

When the water finally receded completely, Percy opened his eyes.

The worst part was that Percy knew he could have made the wave bigger. That wasn’t nearly the extent of his powers, not when he focused, not when he called on the water to save him in a time of desperate need.

Shame bubbled up within him. He turned to face Annabeth and Chiron, and the instant he moved, Annabeth crushed herself into him, burying her face into his chest. She was shaking.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “So sorry, Annabeth.”

“It’s okay. Gods, Percy, it’s okay. I just didn’t want-“ she trembled against him, before abruptly pulling back to study his face. The moonlight made her gray eyes appear silver, and for some reason, that made him want to cry.

Chiron cleared his throat, hooves clopping sloppily in the sand. When Percy met his gaze, he saw the sadness in the centaur’s own eyes. “Percy…”

“I-“ Percy cut himself off, chin dropping. How could he face Chiron, his mentor, after nearly destroying the camp he had worked so hard to come back to? How could he look at the other campers, his friends, without seeing their drowned and bloated bodies dragged back out to sea, a feast for sharks and all the other means of sea-life? “I’m sorry. I…it was…”

His right hand twitched involuntarily, and all three pairs of eyes tracked it. When Annabeth looked at him again, he could see the heartbreak on her face.

Percy took a deep breath. “I ran out of the salve Damaesan made for me, and I didn’t notice I was low until it was gone.” He smiled bitterly. “My scars…they were aching a bit. I think that’s what triggered it. I’ll ask Katie tomorrow for some help with the plants, and then I should have it made by afternoon. This…it shouldn’t happen again.”

Stupid. Gods, he was so stupid.

After blowing up Mount St. Helens, Percy had discovered that even ambrosia and nectar had limits, especially if they were first administered a certain amount of time after the injury occurred. Scars from the lava snaked up his right arm and across his chest, and permanent nerve damage had his ring finger and pinky constantly trembling.

In Tartarus, a pit of hell designed to hurt and maim and kill, his mostly healed scars had opened back up. He’d nearly died right on the spot from falling into Tartarus and bleeding to death when the toxic air caused his old injuries to re-open. It was only Annabeth’s quick thinking that kept him alive, and even then, depending on a river of fire to keep himself alive was something akin to torture. His scars had itched and burned, not enough to make him useless, but enough to feel it and grow paranoid about them opening again. Damaesan, after healing Percy from the curses he’d been plagued with, had also gifted him with a salve that completely removed the itching and burning, and caused the scars to fade more into silver than red. He’d also given Percy the recipe to make more.

He was sure that if he looked, now, the scars would appear more agitated.

Percy was tired. So, so tired. He didn’t even have the strength to wonder how Chiron sensed the tsunami, or how he had extrapolated Annabeth from the Athena cabin without waking or alarming her siblings. No lights gleamed in the distance – the camp was still fast asleep, unaware of how close they had all been to death.

His fault.

Chiron sighed gently and nodded. “Tell Katie I’m giving her permission to miss any lessons or activities necessary. This is…of utmost importance.”

Percy’s stomach dropped to his toes. He bowed his head, nodding, and before either Annabeth or Chiron could say anything more, he neatly stepped around them and headed back to his cabin. If he had looked, he would have seen Chiron reaching for him hesitantly. He would have seen the way Annabeth pressed her palm to her eyes, aching from her own nightmares. He would have seen the hand Chiron reached for him with dropping onto Annabeth’s shoulder, instead.

But he didn’t look. He just went back to his cabin as a sort of numbness descended upon his mind and swallowed him whole, until he was blank-eyed and barely present. Sometimes, the numbness was a gift – he didn’t have to think, or reflect, or do anything besides exist and not fall asleep so he wouldn’t dream, so he wouldn’t accidentally kill anyone. There was already such a long list of names of people he had failed; he couldn’t bear to add any more.

A few nights later, Percy jerked himself awake. He couldn’t remember what horror had terrorized him in his sleep, but his heart was racing in his chest. He tried to breathe, tried to remember the relaxation techniques Chiron had taught him mere hours ago to steady himself, but he couldn’t focus.

He needed – something. The walls of his cabin were closing in on him, and it made it difficult to get enough air into his lungs. Gasping, Percy stumbled his way outside. The light of the moon rippled over him, and his feet carried him forward. Before he could even realize he was on his way to the Athena cabin, a scream broke the silence, and then he was running.

Percy burst into the Athena cabin, ignoring the confused, sleep-deprived grey eyes of Annabeth’s siblings as he rushed towards her bed. Malcom was crouched next to it, reaching for Annabeth’s curled up and shaking form. Rage turned his vision red, and without thinking about it, Percy knocked the younger boy aside hard with an elbow to the face before collapsing to his knees in front of her bunk.

Annabeth was trapped in a nightmare.

“Annabeth,” Percy whispered, reverently placing his hands on her arms, stroking them gently. “Please, wake up. Wake up, baby. It’s okay. It’s not real.”

Percy, of course, knew what was coming next. Annabeth twitched once, and then the small knife she had tucked under her pillow was in her hand. She slashed wildly and Percy dodged before grabbing her hands firmly and disarming her. She cried out, eyes still darkened with what haunted her in her sleep, but Percy tucked her into his chest and held her tightly. She thrashed against him, but he only tightened his hold. Her struggles soon faded, and before too long, she was crying instead.

One of the Athena kids must have gotten Chiron, because a consistent clip-clop sounded outside of the cabin before the centaur ducked in through the doorway. His hair was in some sort of cap, and there were rolling curlers straight from the 1950’s in his tail. It spoke to the gravity of the situation that no one laughed at the sight. Percy wished he had the wherewithal to find it even remotely funny.

Chiron stared at the two of them and sighed.

What an inconvenience we must be, Percy thought bitterly, causing tsunamis, bodily harm, waking up other campers. He must want to get rid of us so badly.

The venom of his own thoughts startled him. Percy glanced to the side and noticed Malcom eyeing them warily, one black eye already starting to bloom. Something twisted inside of him, and Percy’s mouth opened, to try and apologize and beg forgiveness, gods he was so sorry, Malcom, he didn’t know what came over him –

“It’s fine.” Malcom interrupted his mental apologies with a one-shoulder shrug. “I know you were just…caught in the moment. I probably should have just come and gotten you in the first place.”

They both knew that Percy, when startled awake, was prone to the same violence that Annabeth was. But Percy appreciated that Malcom even put it out there as an option.

“I’m so sorry, Malcom, really…”

“Percy. Annabeth. Come with me.” Chiron, this time, interrupted Percy’s apologies. Annabeth stiffened in his arms before pushing herself up and onto her feet. She offered her hand to Percy and pulled him up as well. “Malcom, you can let yourself into the clinic. A quarter of a square of Ambrosia should have that healed up in no time.”

Percy wondered if anyone else picked up on what Chiron was hinting at – that it would be best to get the black eye healed up now, so no one outside this cabin asked any questions in the morning. It was easier that way.

For a moment, he couldn’t decide whether he hated himself or Chiron more.

Annabeth’s half-siblings never said a word about the struggles their counselor and older sister endured, never breathed a word of anything he had done or said within its walls. Percy wouldn’t have blamed them for the gossip, but they were seemingly united in their loyalty to Annabeth, and therefore in their loyalty to him.

The other campers already knew he was fucked up and broken, but they didn’t know the depths to which he was damaged. And the other children of Athena kept his internal and external injuries, his destruction, all of it, to themselves.

He didn’t think he deserved it, but Percy appreciated it anyway. It was, after all, easier that way.

Chiron left the cabin and Percy and Annabeth followed meekly, heads bowed, hands laced together.

When they arrived at the Big House, Percy blinked in surprise. He’d been so focused on staring intently at the ground that he hadn’t noticed which way Chiron had been heading, although he supposed there was nowhere else for them to go.

Chiron turned to face them. Sadness hung heavy on the centaur, made him appear more aged. Percy was sure some of the wrinkles on his face were new, and his shoulders seemed permanently bowed, as if he was holding the weight of the world upon them. As someone who knew what it was like to hold the sky up, Percy felt sympathetic, even as he also felt guilty for being the reason behind it.

“Sit on the porch.” Chiron instructed, gesturing towards the table where he and Mr. D used to play pinochle. “I’ll bring tea.”

They waited in silence under the light of the moon until Chiron came back and passed a coffee mug to each of them. Percy took a sip of the hot liquid and nearly scalded his tongue, but – earthy, with a hint of sweetness. He took another cautious sip and felt more grounded almost immediately.

Chiron settled himself and took a sip of his own drink.

“I will admit that I was, perhaps, a bit too naïve when you two came home,” Chiron said, sighing into his cup. He seemed to not be able to look at them. “Despite knowing you had gone through Tartarus itself, I thought…you would be okay. And that if you weren’t okay, one or both of you would…would come to me about it. That I could help you when you were ready for me to help you.”

Percy winced, and Chiron chuckled weakly. “I suppose I forgot that I was thinking about two of the most stubborn heroes I’ve ever taught.”

Annabeth shifted, placing her hand on the table. “Chiron, I’m sorry. I didn’t think…I thought I had it under control.”

Percy coughed quietly, unable to meet anyone else’s eyes. “So…so did I.”

They shared a look, and Percy realized what they had each done – they had each pretended that they were okay to help the other, and even though that illusion had come crumbling down within days of being home, they had stupidly clung to it, refused to admit that they were not okay. How could they be fine, after all they had been through? How could they believe it would all just go away?

He had thought that if he pushed all of it away, he would be fine, he would be able to help Annabeth when she had her own nightmares. But Annabeth never came to him about them if she could help it, and neither did he, and now they were both sitting here, hating what they had become. What they had turned into.

Percy scoffed to himself and shook his head. “I think maybe we should have communicated a bit better to each other. About this.” He said to Annabeth.

Annabeth, usually one to stiffen against such criticism, sagged into her chair instead. “I don’t disagree,” she muttered and took a sip of her tea.

And then they were laughing, unable to help it, because this was all so insane – how could this still be a problem, after everything? Communication? Really?

Before too long, the laughter turned to tears, and they were both crying into their tea. Chiron looked, if it was even possible, more concerned than he had before.

Eventually, the tears dried up and Chiron took a deep breath. “I want to work on this with you. Both of you,” he added when Annabeth twitched. “Separately and together. And…I don’t think I should necessarily be the only one. I think Grover, despite his Lord of the Wild status, will be able to help.”

“Isn’t he meant to go to California in a couple days?” Annabeth asked, a frown on her face. “I don’t want to get in the way of that.”

Percy noticed she referred only to herself in that statement, rather than both of them. As if she would be a bother to Grover, but Percy wouldn’t.

Before he could protest or chime in, Chiron did so instead. “Grover, I believe, has been looking for a reason to delay that trip. He has been worried about both of you. I think he will gladly push that trip back to help.”

Ah. So even Grover had come to Chiron with his concerns. Percy wasn’t entirely sure why that made him angry, but he hadn’t liked the two of them talking about him back when he was twelve, and he certainly didn’t care for it now. Before he could stop himself, he spoke.

“Oh, so you two compare notes on us now?” He asked, tone sharp. Annabeth looked at him, startled, but Chiron seemed to anticipate his wrath.

“Percy, you must remember your empathy link with Grover. When you were taken by Hera, you were a blank space, a gap he couldn’t fill in or track. The moment you woke in the Wolf House, Grover was alerted to the fact that you were still alive. More or less, he experienced your journey with you, from thousands of miles away. From my understanding, when you were in Tartarus, the link was dampened, somehow, so he didn’t experience everything you felt down there, only quick flickers that once again confirmed you still breathed. But since then, he has felt most of, if not all, your turmoil. He didn’t think you were ready to talk about it. Now, however, I think Grover would be excellent help to the both of you regarding processing everything that has happened.”

Percy mulled that over for a minute before nodding once, the anger dissipating almost instantly, like it had never been there in the first place. “Okay. Fine, then. You and Grover.” He could make that work. Gods, it might even be helpful.

“And…” Chiron paused before nodding his head. “Percy, tomorrow I want you to head back into the city. Spend the night if you like. I think it’s about time you saw your mother. You should also talk to her about what you went through. Completely, from start to finish.”

His hold on the coffee mug tightened. He hadn’t gone to see his mom yet, despite aching to. Percy had wanted to be freer from the past when he saw her. He hadn’t wanted his demons to be so visible. He hadn’t wanted to share yet another burden his existence imposed upon her. He wanted to be better.

Percy had always hidden the scarier parts of his life from his mother. She had always worked so hard to keep them both alive, clothed, fed, and housed, that he had never, ever wanted to add more to her plate. It was his way of protecting her since she did so much to protect him. It was a habit he had started when he was young, when Smelly Gabe was still in their lives.

The stinging slap across his face. His own choked gasp of pain as his entire head snapped to the side in one sharp second.

A cigarette stamped out in an ash tray, smoke still curling faintly from its edges before snuffing out. “If your mother finds out about this, I’ll do to her what I did to you, but harder. You understand me, punk? Besides, you deserved it anyway. Didn’t you?”

Percy shuddered; his mouth suddenly became very dry. “I-…Chiron, I don’t know if I can do that.”

Chiron’s steady gaze remained on him. “You can. In fact, I think you must. It is okay to ask for help, Percy, and to then receive it.”

How could he tell Chiron he didn’t want to tell his mom about all the ways he almost died because every time he did, a little piece of her died, too? Sally Jackson was a force of nature, steadfast and fierce, but she hated when he was in danger, and she hated when he was hurt. She worried about him constantly (and gods, she had worried so much when he disappeared. How could he compound onto those emotions, right when he finally came back, after nine months of being missing?).

Chiron’s gaze remained on him, and Percy felt himself shrink under it. “I’ll try. I’ll try to tell her, but Chiron, if she has a heart attack or something…”

The corner of Chiron’s mouth quirked up in a small smile. “Let us not forget, Percy, that Sally Jackson is made of sterner stuff than that.”

Percy laughed softly despite the anxiety that plagued him. “You’re right. I’ll do my best.”

Chiron nodded, and then they were all drinking their tea once more. Percy wondered if Chiron’s was spiked with whiskey, or some weird godly alcohol. He probably needed the nightcap after dealing with the two of them.

“Stay in the Big House tonight. We can discuss any other necessary sleeping arrangements when you come back, Percy. Alright?”

Recognizing the dismissal, Percy stood, tugging Annabeth up with him. “Understood. And Chiron…thank you.”

Thank you for giving us the grace to try on our own, he wanted to say. Thank you for not kicking me out. Thank you for giving me a place to still call home, even with all the problems I bring to it. Thank you for trying, whether I want it or not.

But he couldn’t make the words leave his mouth, so a simple thank you would have to suffice.

They left the centaur sitting by the pinochle table, gazing out into the night sky like he was doing his best to memorize all its shapes and curves and contours, like there may not ever be another one like it. Percy wondered, then, how many times Chiron had looked up into the night sky and seen it had changed. Wondered how the centaur had managed to bear so much sadness and grief, so much death, over so many centuries.

Annabeth chose a bedroom at random, and for the first time since they were in their cabin aboard the Argo II, they slept wrapped around each other. His arm wrapped around her waist, her arm slung over his chest, her head tucked close to his chin.

It was the best sleep he’d gotten since that final night before Athens.

The next morning, breakfast came and went without them. Percy hadn’t felt like getting up early enough to go and hadn’t wanted to sit at his lonely table while everyone whispered and talked about him like he wasn’t even there (he knew that they whispered; he knew that they stared, whether he had given them a reason to or not). Annabeth hadn’t wanted to deal with her siblings.

Sometimes, Percy thought he was luckier than Annabeth. His nightmares usually only disturbed him, and sometimes Annabeth (and, even more infrequently, Chiron). He didn’t have an entire cabin of half-siblings looking up to him, watching him be torn further and further apart by his own mind.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Annabeth asked, breaking into the silence that had permeated the bedroom since they had mutually agreed to skip breakfast.

Percy thought about it. Over the course of the night, he had found some truth in Chiron’s words – he needed to go see his mom. He probably should have days ago, but days ago he had still been convinced that this, too, would pass, and he would see her again when he was whole. Now, he knew that he wouldn’t be whole, not anytime soon.

“No,” Percy said, and winced when Annabeth’s face dropped. “Not for anything to do with you, Annabeth,” he added quickly, sitting up from where he was laying down and scooting over to her. He wrapped his arms around her, and she sank into him like she always did, even when he said something that had hurt her feelings. “I just think…it’s going to be a lot. I think I need to…decompress with her.”

Annabeth nodded. He felt the movement against his chest. “I understand,” she said thickly, and he knew that she wasn’t lying. “I shouldn’t have even asked since it’s your first time seeing each other since last year. You deserve the privacy.”

“Will you be okay without me, if I do end up spending the night?”

Annabeth smiled at him, perhaps knowing he could see right through it, perhaps not. “Of course, I will. I think…it might be good for us. Some space, you know?”

“Some space,” he agreed, returning her false smile with one of his own. “Next time, though. Come with me?”

“Always.”

He kissed her forehead, and she smiled, and they spent the rest of the morning pretending they were fine for the sake of the other. Annabeth walked him to the top of the hill ten minutes before noon, and he waved at her as he descended towards Argus and the van. When he looked back, after climbing in and saying hello to Argus and buckling, she was staring off into the distance, her hand resting on the bark of Thalia’s tree, Peleus sleepily blowing steam out of his nostrils in the branches above her.

His girl, standing on the hill and watching him leave. Percy loved her. He knew that there would never be anyone else for him, which was a strange thing to know at the age of seventeen. But he knew it in his soul, and no matter what monsters came for them, Tartarus-made or demons of their own volition, she was his and he was hers.

Percy was almost afraid he wouldn’t remember which apartment was his, but there was the door in front of him. He stared longingly at it; hand stretched out to knock on its surface. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it quite yet.

How could he bring all his pain to his mom, who had suffered so much because of him already?

Sally knew that he was safe; she had almost driven to camp on August 2^nd, but Percy had begged her not to. He wasn’t sure if there were any monsters left from Octavian’s army, and the Romans were still there, his nightmares had just started rearing their ugly heads, and…he had wondered, a tiny little thought in his brain, if she was better off without him in the long run.

But she was his mom. Percy knew that she and Annabeth had been relentless in their search for him, and that had to have been its own special kind of agony. He couldn’t leave her, even if he wanted to. He just didn’t want to hurt her, even though it seemed like he did whether he was around or not.

Percy could picture her, what she was probably doing inside the apartment. Cleaning the kitchen after breakfast, maybe, humming a little tune. Or she was getting herself situated in her office so that she could continue working on her novel.

With a start, he realized he had no idea if she had ever finished it.

That realization had his hand knocking on the door before he could think any more about it.

Percy gulped and stared, wide-eyed, as he heard footsteps approaching, too slowly but also too fast for his liking. He heard the door unlock, the slide of the deadbolt at the top (New York, baby), and as the door started to creak open, Percy thought he might puke.

Instead, he stared at Paul Blofis, who stared back in stunned silence.

Paul’s mouth popped open, his eyes watering up. “Sally…” he called, weakly, hand fluttering uselessly at his side. He looked back for his wife, but turned almost immediately back to Percy, like he was afraid he would disappear if he didn’t keep him in sight. “Sally, you need to come here.”

“Who is it, dear?” Sally’s voice called from the kitchen, and Percy’s throat constricted, his eyes beginning to burn with tears. He was frozen to the spot, unable to move, as Sally rounded the corner to come to the door. Her eyes landed on him, and the coffee cup she was holding slipped out of her grasp, shattering on the laminate floor in front of her.

“Mom!” Percy ran for her, and she met him step-for-step, ceramic shards and all, bodies colliding, arms thrown around each other. He started crying, finally, those burning tears actually slipping free. He heard her sobs, felt her shaking, was sure that she was probably bleeding from literally stepping on glass, but he knew what that felt like to an acute degree, and knew that if it was bad, she would pull away. She didn’t.

Mother and son finally reunited after nine months apart. Nine months that were stolen from them, gone, never able to be reclaimed.

Percy cried for missing her, for what they had separately gone through in these long months apart. But mostly, he cried in her arms for the time they had lost and would never get back.

Later, after the sobs had initially died down and Sally could stand to not be constantly hugging him and the coffee mug was cleaned up (and her feet bandaged where they needed to be, all glass pieces removed), they sat huddled together on the couch.

Sally ordered takeout from his favorite restaurant in the city, ignoring Percy’s protests, and then proceeded to order even more when he complained that it was surely too early in the day to be ordering so much food. When she did that, he had burst out laughing, unable to stop himself. She wanted to feed him but had no desire to leave his side long enough to cook.

But when the laughter ceased and the food was ordered, Sally pinned him in place with a stare that only mothers could possess. “Tell me everything.”

His mouth went dry. Slowly, he looked at the coffee table in front of him. He knew his mother was watching, that Paul, sitting in the armchair next to the couch, was debating whether he should stay or leave. Percy couldn’t decide whether he wanted his stepfather there or not, but Paul decided for them and excused himself to the kitchen with a teary “call for me if you need me”.

It was a relief. One day, he would tell Paul about this – but today, he needed to tell his mom, and that was hard enough.

Percy cleared his throat and met Sally’s gaze. “I…don’t know how to.” He said and stilled when she grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight.

“You’ve never been particularly honest with me about all your quests. All the danger you were in.”

Shame made him squeeze her hand. “No, I haven’t. I hid…many things from you, for a very long time.”

This time, when Percy looked at her, he saw the tears in her eyes. She knew what, or rather who, he was talking about in that moment – Gabe. He rose like a ghost between them, and he watched the dots connect in her mind and didn’t even care when she squeezed his hand again hard enough to hurt.

“He…he hurt you.” She breathed out, and all Percy could see was how fragile she was, his mortal parent.

“He hurt you, too.”

Sally shook her head, not in denial, but something different, harder to express. “I…I thought that I was keeping you safe,” she said quietly, eyes shifting to look at their hands locked together. “I thought that…I could just take it, because no matter what, he was keeping you safe from the monsters who wanted to kill you, and if I could take most of his attention off of you, you’d be safe from him, too.” Her free hand wiped at her eyes as the tears leaked out. “Of course, there were times that I suspected that it wasn’t going that way, but I thought I was just making things up. I failed you, Percy. I’m so sorry.”

Percy shook his head fervently. “You didn’t fail me. You married that loser to keep me safe, subjected yourself to abuseto keep me safe. You-…you did everything for me. I didn’t want to give you something else to worry about.”

She sighed deeply, and then took in a deep breath and straightened. That fragility, that mortality, he had noticed only a few moments prior seemed to vanish entirely. This time, when he looked at her, he only saw steel. Unbreaking, unyielding.

“Percy, I am your mother. That is my job, to worry about you, to keep you safe, to do everything in my power to give you a good life. I am so, so sorry that I failed you. I don’t want you to think it’s your fault, either. You didn’t deserve it, and I can understand there was likely a lot of pressure to keep it hidden from me. You didn’t do anything wrong, baby. We just…missed connections at certain times in our lives that we should have gotten right. That I should have gotten right.”

Percy exhaled slowly, thinking over her words. “Okay. I just don’t want you to blame yourself for not seeing it. It wasn’t often.” A half-smile crept up his lips. “You kept me away from him, for the most part. And I think, in the end, we ended up winning.”

A decapitated head covered in hair made of snakes, eyes that would turn any living being into stone, sent to Olympus as a message and ultimately repurposed.

A poker game, frozen in time.

Worth a decent amount of money, too.

They shared a knowing smile. Percy knew that they would need to discuss this again at some point, this trauma they shared. Abuse was not something that left light effects on a person, and he knew that his anger issues stemmed at least partially from Gabe. But they had made progress so far, and they still had other topics to cover.

After taking a deep breath, Percy began to tell his mom what had happened. All of it.

He started with the night before he went missing, the previous November. He talked about walking Annabeth to her cabin, kissing her goodnight and then going to sleep. He didn’t wake up until June, on the grounds of the Wolf House. He talked about not remembering anything besides his own name and a faint recollection of Annabeth, about training with Lupa and her wolves, and his trek to Camp Jupiter. He told her about Frank and Hazel and their quest to Alaska, where he had finally regained his memories and called her.

Sally stopped him at that point. She got up and went to the phone, and after hitting buttons a couple times, Percy heard his own voice play back to him. Sally, who had been steadily crying throughout his story so far, cried a bit harder. He teared up, too – months had passed, and yet she had kept his voicemail.

Percy cried for longer than he would ever admit after it finished playing.

They took a food break since their takeout had arrived, and Percy stuffed himself silly, having an appetite for the first time since being on the Argo II. Even after the three of them ate, there were tons leftover, so he helped Paul package it back up and put it in the fridge. Then, Paul excused himself once more, and Percy knew he had to keep telling his mom his story.

They sat on the couch together again, and Percy described watching the Argo II descend from the sky, how the Romans and the Greeks had met, his and Annabeth’s reunification – then, how it all went wrong. He did tell Sally that Leo had been possessed when he fired upon New Rome, mostly because he had seen the shock in her eyes that things had gone so badly so fast.

Percy told her about his own possession, his horror at the aquarium, Charleston – and finally admitted his newfound fear of drowning, something that still came to him in nightmares. She just squeezed his hand and listened, never interrupting.

When it came to falling into Tartarus, he didn’t know how to tell her. He didn’t know how to tell his mother that her son had fallen into hell and suffered far greater than even he had ever expected and somehow lived to tell the tale.

Sally’s eyes darkened as he described the pit Annabeth had been in, how Arachne had covered it in spider silk.

“And then…something yanked on Annabeth’s ankle, and Mom, I –“ His voice cracked, his body beginning to shake. “Arachne shot spider silk around her ankle, Mom, and was pulling Annabeth down into the hole she had fallen into. The hole that led straight to Tartarus.”

“Percy,” Sally held up a trembling finger to stop him. “You…you didn’t, you both…”

“We fell, Mom. Nine entire days, we fell.”

Sally cried, then. Percy did too.

Tartarus was…difficult to talk about, to say the least. He couldn’t look at her while he spoke, and instead, he stared at the wall. As he spoke, his body trembled uncontrollably, remembering the pain and the absolute terror he had felt. When he talked about his scars opening back up, Sally gasped, unable to stop herself, but he couldn’t bear to look at her. Instead, Percy momentarily grew very far from himself, his consciousness seeming to float away into the room. He watched himself describe his burn scars and how they had opened again, the Phlegethon and its firewater, Kelly and the other empousai, Bob coming to save them, from what felt like very far away. He didn’t fully come back to himself until he was describing the peaceful giant Damaesan, who had nursed him back to health.

He felt more clear-headed at that point, and after a short break for water (he hadn’t talked for so long in forever; his throat was growing scratchy), he continued. Percy told her about Akhyls, Nyx, what it felt like to stare into the depths of Chaos. He didn’t hold back, even when he told her about finding the Doors of Death. About facing Tartarus, himself. He hadn’t intended to share everything in such detail, but Percy found that once he started, he couldn’t stop. It all poured out of him like a waterspout, with no end in sight.

Sally had been holding him for quite some time at that point, and finally he noticed that she was shaking as bad as he was.

“Mom, I can stop. You don’t need to know –“

“You listen up, and you listen up good, Perseus Jackson. You are going to tell me everything you can…you can bear to, at this time, okay? I can handle it. If you lived through it, then I can handle listening to you tell me about it.”

That ended his protests.

He described Tartarus to the best of his ability, fully aware that his mother would likely have nightmares, and that his might even get worse for a time after essentially re-experiencing so much of what he had gone through. But he owed it to her, and he owed it to himself, too.

Talking about leaving Bob behind had him in tears again. What dominated his mind, though, was how he had abandoned the Titan after his memory had been wiped.

“Mom, I said I would help him, and I just left him in the Underworld to be used by Hades like he was nothing. I can’t…a good person would have helped him, like I promised to.”

“Percy, baby, no.” Her voice was so, so gentle, the hand she pressed against his cheek soft and comforting. “You did everything you could to help Bob. You’re a good person, sweetheart. When would you have had time to visit him? You were busy readying to fight a war. And, regardless of time, how would you have gotten into the Underworld again in the first place? Hades never rolled the red carpet out for you, now did he? You had Nico, that last time before the fight with Kronos.”

Percy hadn’t ever thought about it in that way before. But…his mom was right. What could he have really done to help Bob afterwards? It wasn’t really a fair thing for Bob to hold against him. Percy knew, though, that the arai were meant to seed doubt and hopelessness, and that’s what they had done to Bob. He couldn’t blame the big guy for being upset, especially since Bob had ultimately sacrificed himself to give Percy and Annabeth the chance to live. To see the sun and the stars again.

He squeezed his mom’s hand in thanks, and then told her that Bob and Damaesan sacrificed themselves in order for him and Annabeth to escape. He told her about the agonizing twelve minutes it took to ride the Doors of Death to the surface, the struggle to hold them shut so they would live.

Once they were free of the House of Hades, he felt his mother shudder in relief. He, too, was relieved to be done with that part of the story. The rest of it felt like a breeze – he summarized what his crewmates had done while he and Annabeth were in the pit, and carried on with the story, breathing just a little easier.

The only difficult part once Tartarus was over was the fight with Kymopoleia under the sea, and how he had let himself be poisoned. He couldn’t look at his mother when he told her about it, could barely describe why he had behaved that way. How, sometimes, suffering felt like his burden to bear – he deserved it.

When she tried to speak, Percy shook his head, looking her in the eyes as he did. He couldn’t…couldn’t delve into those emotions, not yet. Not on top of everything he was already sharing, all the trauma he was reliving through this conversation. He felt so scraped up and raw that he just couldn’t. Upon seeing the look in his eyes, she didn’t push him on it any further.

The fight with Gaea seemed almost anticlimactic compared to the horrors of Tartarus, but he told his mom everything that happened, up to the present day. He spoke about his nightmares, the feelings of guilt that plagued him constantly, the tsunami he had almost caused and how he had hit Malcom. By the time he was finished, his throat was fully hurting, and his voice was raspy.

Despite the pain from talking so much, Percy felt oddly lighter than he had in days, months really. He had just confessed all his sins, and his mother still loved him enough to hold him in her arms. Sally squeezed him close, absorbing everything he had thrown her way. She didn’t try to tell him that he was okay, or that he was holding on to things he shouldn’t. She didn’t try to solve his problems.

She just held him, and that, for the moment, was all he needed.

Percy knew that she was likely thinking through everything he had told her, at a loss for words. What did you say to someone who walked through hell, nearly died a thousand times in horrible ways, and almost had his soul sucked out and vaporized by a primordial being? He didn’t envy her.

Eventually, Sally pulled back from the hug she had wrapped him in and cupped his cheek. Her hand was warm, and Percy leaned into it as she stroked his cheek with her thumb. “My brave, brave boy,” she said, eyes tearing up once again. “You have done enough. It’s time for you to rest now.”

Percy nodded, feeling the exhaustion slam into him all at once. He excused himself to use the bathroom and Iris Message Annabeth, but he felt his mother’s worried gaze on him even as he left the room. His IM with Annabeth was short, but she looked happy and a bit relieved when he told her that he had told Sally everything. For a brief second, he felt sad for her – Percy knew, without a doubt, that his mom would do anything for him. Annabeth didn’t have that close of a relationship with her own father. Who would she go to, to speak her mind and absolve her own guilt?

After he swiped away the mist from the shower, Percy listened to the low murmur of his mother’s voice, talking to Paul in the living room. He gave them a moment, wondering who Annabeth could possibly talk to that would help. He wondered if it were possible for Thalia to visit, or if she would be able to open up completely to Grover. They’d known each other longer than Percy had known either of them, but he knew that she sometimes felt like Grover was more his friend than hers. He’d have to do something to make sure she could have the same space, love, and acceptance that he had just experienced.

Percy left the bathroom and walked into the bedroom, clearing his throat. “I think I’m going to hit the sheets, if you don’t mind, guys.”

Sally shook her head, standing up from the couch. “Not at all. Your room is clean.” She headed towards it, and Percy followed, leaving Paul alone in the living room.

His bedroom was the same as he had left it, but cleaner. He didn’t even feel guilty about that – it’s not like he could have cleaned his room from whatever interdimensional pocket Hera had stored him in while he slept.

The blue walls shone in the warm, yellow light coming from a lamp his mom had purchased as a silly birthday gift last year. The shade was decorated with aquatic life, and probably meant for little kids, but he loved it.

Percy sat on the bed; his very bones were weary. Sally sat down next to him, and he leaned into her, resting his head on her shoulder. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so safe and at ease, so light. The guilt that weighed him down had temporarily evaporated, instead replaced with a bone-arching urge to sleep.

“Percy, do you want me to stay?” The question was quiet and held no judgement. She wouldn’t be upset either way.

Even though he was seventeen years old and had no business asking his mom to stay with him, Percy nodded. He could allow himself this comfort, this ease.

“Let me go change into pajamas and tell Paul. I’ll be right back, sweetheart.”

She left the room, the door snicking shut quietly behind her. Percy sighed before standing up, padding over to his dresser. He changed into a t-shirt and shorts before crawling into bed, too exhausted to wait up. He left the light on, though, but was half-asleep before too long.

Sally came in as quietly as she had left. She turned the light off and slipped under the covers. The mattress was a full-size, so it was a tight fit, but Percy didn’t mind at all. He felt the brush of her lips on his forehead before he drifted off to sleep fully.

With his mother so close, Percy slept even better than he had the previous night, despite reliving so much of his trauma; he knew he was protected and safe. He didn’t have a single nightmare.

When Percy woke up late the next morning, he was alone in bed. He had heard his mom get up hours earlier despite her clear attempts to avoid waking him, but he had decided that he’d take every moment to sleep in that he could.

Once he was fully awake, though, he didn’t see the point in delaying the inevitable. He got up, took a shower, brushed his hair, his usual morning routine. Through all of it…he ached inside. It was like there was a raw, gaping wound in his chest that was healing, but throbbing and sore and grabbing at his attention, nonetheless.

Talking so much about everything he’d gone through during the past few months had been hard, and now the memories felt a little too close to the surface. But Percy also remembered the relief he’d felt after baring his soul to his mother – that relief was still present, too, just hidden beneath that ache.

He was glad he had done it.

Percy left the bedroom once he was dressed and padded into the kitchen, wincing when he saw Paul and Sally sitting together at the dining room table, clearly waiting for him. His mom smiled at him, as did Paul, but he was still wary as he sat down across from them.

“Percy…I spoke to Paul this morning after waking up.”

Rage ignited so quickly in his chest that for a second, Percy struggled to breathe. She’d – she’d talked to Paul? What did that mean? Had she told Paul his story? An abbreviated version of it, perhaps, but still his story to tell?

Paul leaned forward, bracing his arms on the table, clearly seeing the expressions on his face. “Percy, your mother just told me that you were dealing with some hardships after your most recent…quest. No details beyond that you’re struggling. I have experience working with kids struggling mentally, and I was wondering if you would be open to talking to me about anything you feel comfortable enough to share. Even just some of your day-to-day experiences. I think it’s very possible you might have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

His anger left him with his next exhalation, even as the word ‘PTSD’ clanged around in his head. It startled him, how quickly that rage had appeared and then vanished. “I...I think…Chiron wants me to talk to him about it, and Grover. It’s possible I do…have that, I guess.”

Paul nodded. “If you’re talking with Chiron and Grover about what happened, then maybe I can help you manage your symptoms.”

Symptoms. Like he was sick.

Paul noticed his error and backtracked quickly, “I’m sorry, Percy, that’s not the right word. Would you mind sharing with me what you do feel, what you’re struggling with?”

Percy gripped the table, nails digging into the wood. He could feel Sally’s eyes on him, noticing every movement, watching and waiting to stop the conversation if he needed it. But she didn’t stop it, which meant she thought he could talk about it, that he would be okay.

“I have…nightmares.” His jaw was clenched, and he stared down at the table rather than look at Paul. “All the time. Sometimes, when I wake up, I can’t tell where I am and my first thought is that being back, being at camp, has been the dream. I dreamed the end of the war and I’m still stuck in hell, and it’ll be worse. Even in the daylight, it’s like my brain shifts and throws me back into a memory that feels so real. I’m terrified to go to sleep, that I’ll hurt someone. I’ve already almost hurt people, I did hurt Malcom in my panic to get to Annabeth the other night. He didn’t do anything wrong, but I hurt him anyway.”

Paul listened intently, nodding as Percy spoke.

“I’m so…angry, all the time. And I feel…” This was the hardest for him to admit. “I feel like I deserve to be so messed up. It’s my punishment. People died because of me, for me. Not just people, but kids. Why shouldn’t I suffer when they died, and I lived?”

Percy felt Sally’s hand over his and looked up at her. Her eyes, usually so warm and kind, felt like a shot to his soul – she was so sad because of what he had said. He had made her sad.

He regretted saying those words aloud, for the pain they caused his mother, but they were true. He felt that way all the time, and he knew that guilt was the reason he saw Beckendorf so often in his dreams. Percy had failed him, and then he had died because of it.

Paul sighed quietly and then leaned forward, looking Percy directly in the eyes. “Percy, first, I want to say something that I think deep down, you already know: you are not responsible for those deaths. Those deaths are because of bad people – bad gods, titans, whatever they were. Those losses are their responsibility; the blood stains those hands, not yours. But I also want you to know that these feelings you’re having are normal. Completely normal. Your circumstances may be extraordinary, but the anger and the guilt and every emotion in between that you’re experiencing, those are normal.”

It didn’t quite sink in, those words, but something loosened in Percy’s chest just a tiny bit.

Paul looked at Sally, then back at Percy. “I have an idea, perhaps, about what might help you get through these emotions enough to feel more stable and maybe even help you sleep. But I need to talk to your mother about it, first.”

Sally looked back at Paul, intrigued, and then looked at Percy. “Is that okay, sweetie?”

Percy nodded, standing up and pushing back from the table. “Yeah, I’ll just be in my room. Let me know when you’re done.”

Percy stayed in his room for about twenty minutes before his mom came back and got him, eyeing him in a rather appraising fashion. He didn’t get why until Paul brought up his idea – then, beyond anything, he found it to be hilarious.

“Paul suggested what?”

Percy grinned at the incredulous look on Annabeth’s face. Honestly, the awkwardness of that entire conversation he’d had with Paul and his mom was worth it, just to see the look on his girlfriend’s face. “You heard me.”

“And…Sally was okay with it?” Annabeth’s voice hit a higher note than usual at the end of her question. He knew it wasn’t anything personal, that morally, Annabeth likely didn’t have an issue with it. She was just surprised, as he had been, that this has been something Paul had suggested, and that his mom had then not only approved of, but agreed with.

“Yep. She actually gave me this,” Percy pulled out the small glass pipe from his pocket and showed it to Annabeth. It was small, only about four inches long. It was mostly a tube with a big bowl at the end of it. The bowl tightened into the tube, and there was one hole on the side of the bowl and one at the end of the tube. The bowl already had a screen affixed into it, so he wouldn’t inhale anything too treacherous. “Get this – she said it was hers from when she was younger.”

Annabeth, if anything, looked envious. “Your mom is so cool,” she said, echoing her far younger self.

“She is.”

Percy put the pipe back into his pocket and then pulled out the small Ziploc bag his mom had also sent him back to camp with. Inside were small, rather dense nuggets of a plant – marijuana, as it so happened to be.

Weed. His mother had sent him to camp with weed.

And now he had to talk to Chiron about it and make sure it was okay to smoke herbal substances within the campgrounds.

Annabeth, who had likely already pierced together his predicament, looked positively delighted. Her eyes shone with glee as she took the baggie from him, opening it up to take a whiff. Her face contorted into a scrunched-up look of disgust almost immediately. “Ugh. It’s terrible. Take it back. Gods.”

Percy had had the same response when he had taken a sniff upon receiving the baggie. He pocketed it once more, before turning to look at Annabeth more fully.

She seemed…lighter. Not in all ways, but that smile she had given him a few moments ago had seemed far more genuine than any of the others she’d gifted him with since coming back to camp.

As always, she read where his head was at easily and grew serious. “I talked to Grover yesterday. And again, this morning. It…was a lot more helpful than I thought it would be.”

Percy nodded, grabbing her hand, intertwining their fingers without a second thought. “Talking with my mom was good for me, too. It made me feel raw, all scraped up inside, but it helped.”

Annabeth’s gray eyes glazed over, likely from recalling what she and Grover had discussed. “I get what you mean. I cried more than I planned on, and it hurt, some of those memories, but I felt like I could breathe a little easier afterwards.”

He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “I cried, too.” He offered, so they could share that vulnerability together. Grow comfortable in it.

Her answering smile was slow, small, and private – just for him. It sent a thrill through him, a zip of electricity and heat that reminded him again how lucky he was to have her. He hoped that she felt the same way still, despite how difficult the last year had been.

“How about we go chat with Chiron about this new therapy?”

Percy rolled his eyes, grinning even as he grumbled, “you just want to watch his reaction.”

“Gods above, I do. Let’s do this.”

Chiron and Grover both wholeheartedly approved.

Chiron, thoughtfully ignoring Percy’s red face and stutter, had merely said, “This Paul fellow is quite smart. Herbal remedies can sometimes be preferable to manufactured medicines, although not always, and are known to aid mortals with their mental health. I approve, you can even ask Katie for some discrete assistance in this matter.” His face grew grave suddenly. “Please do not advertise that you’re smoking marijuana to the other campers, Percy. If the Apollo cabin got ahold of this, well…I fear we would have significant problems. I dread to think about what that cabin would be like under the influence.” He shuddered.

Grover snorted even as his fingers fluttered over his reed pipes. “It should help you, Percy, to smoke. Let me know if you need any help getting set up with it.”

At that, Percy narrowed his eyes suspiciously at his old friend. “Oh? You happen to know a lot about this, G-Man?”

“I’m one with nature and all that, man. It’s practically my job to be up to speed with hippie culture, regardless of the fact that it started to die shortly after the Manson Family murders. So, yeah, I can help you with this. It would give us the time to talk a bit, too.”

Percy did not follow most of what Grover said, but he nodded anyway. He would ask Annabeth about it later, since judging by her understanding nod, she seemed to know exactly what he was referring to.

“Okay, Grover. We can meet in my cabin after the campfire is done for the night.”

Grover agreed, clapped Percy on the shoulder before giving Annabeth a hug and trotting off to resume his duties around the camp. Percy and Annabeth followed after him, Annabeth slightly put out that the conversation hadn’t been as embarrassing as she had hoped.

After catching her eyeing him for the third time, Percy stopped walking, tugging Annabeth to a halt, too. “What is it?” he asked, eyes locked onto hers.

Annabeth fidgeted, uncharacteristically uncomfortable. She gazed past him, towards the Big House, an anxious twist to her mouth. “Well, it’s just…if it works for you, do you think it’ll work for me? We could do it together, maybe.” Her brows furrowed into a glower instantly upon seeing the look on his face. “Stop laughing at me, Seaweed Brain.”

He did not, for quite some time afterwards.

Later that evening, Percy waited alone in his cabin for Grover to come by. The campfire had ended fifteen minutes previously, and he’d kissed Annabeth goodnight after walking her to her cabin right after. She’d said goodnight with a gleam in her eyes that informed him that she would be asking for precise details of everything tomorrow.

He had nervously laid everything out on his bed – the little baggie with the marijuana, the pipe his mom had given him, along with a circular instrument called a grinder and a poking stick of some sort.

Percy had always been a troubled kid, yes – but he’d never done drugs, and it felt like crossing a line he hadn’t ever considered toeing before. Even though it was with his mom’s express permission, it was weird, and he felt a little uncomfortable in his own skin every time he glanced at the illicit items.

Having Sally’s permission made it weird in a different way, too. It wasn’t every day that your mom said to you, hey, I think it would be a good idea for you to go smoke some weed.

At least he didn’t have to hide anything from any siblings in his cabin. Being the only demigod son of Poseidon had its perks.

A knock sounded from the door. “Come in,” Percy called, and Grover strode inside in a manner that expressed how comfortable he was. Percy, on the other hand, was a bit anxious.

When he expressed as much to Grover, he chuckled and said, “not for much longer.”

That did not help his anxiety, actually, thank you so much.

Grover remained calm and sat down next to Percy on the floor beside his bunk. Percy wasn’t sure why the floor felt correct, but it felt like the right place for this activity. Grover reached atop the bunk and grabbed the Ziploc bag and the grinder and brought them down to the floor with them. He showed Percy each chamber of the grinder and explained its use and how it worked, and then demonstrated.

Percy’s nose scrunched as the scent of weed permeated the cabin. It grew stronger as it was ground up, but Grover didn’t react to it. Instead, he opened the third slot and showed Percy the ground-up product before showing him how to pack it tightly into the bowl. “Now, if you didn’t have a screen attached, we would have to put one in ourselves. You only want to inhale the smoke, not the actual plant. But luckily, that’s already done for us.”

Percy was in awe. “Lord of the Wild’s been good to you, huh, Grover?”

Grover bleated a laugh, although his cheeks had pinkened. “You learn some things, focusing on saving nature.” He grew serious, then, looking down at the pipe in his hand. “Humans…a majority of them, anyway, only care about the planet in the way that it benefits them. So, you find what they do care about and try and show how their own actions are destroying what they like.”

It sounded, to Percy, like Grover was intending to get mortals to care about the planet and climate change through marijuana, at least in part. It didn’t seem like a bad idea, honestly, so Percy told him as much.

Grover smiled. “Thanks, Perce. Now, are you ready? I’ll help you take your first hit.”

He showed Percy how to light the bowl, how to cover that hole by it with his thumb, how to inhale. He did all of this without lighting it or inhaling anything himself, and then offered Percy the pipe and said he would light it for him, if he would like.

Percy stared down at the acrid-smelling plant material, the worn pipe in Grover’s hand. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry (and he hadn’t smoked anything yet).

An odd realization struck him then, the feeling somewhat like having a cold egg broken on top of his head (he had been bullied, after all). A cold, trickling feeling down his head, a shiver down his spine.

“You know…I’ve been so focused on this,” Percy started, gesturing towards the pipe, “and how ridiculous it all is, that I haven’t even…I haven’t even had really bad thoughts, since it was brought up.” He couldn’t help but laugh, shaking his head as he chuckled.

Grover smiled, kindly. “Good. I think it should be something you experience for the first time with a positive mindset, even if you’re nervous.”

Percy stared at his friend for a moment, the laughter gone. “You really…think this will help? Just getting high all the time? Even the anger, the rage, the fear…this tiny little plant that smells awful will help?” His voice cracked on the last question, and he ducked his head as his eyes burned with the sudden onslaught of tears. He had cried so much recently; it was a wonder he wasn’t dehydrated. Maybe it wasn’t possible for the son of the sea god to dehydrate like that. Or maybe he actually was dehydrated and hadn’t noticed.

The question Percy had really been asking was, what if this doesn’t work?

Warm hands encapsulated his own fisted ones and squeezed. “Percy. Breathe.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and did as commanded, letting the sadness, the fear and the tears ease themselves away. It was quiet besides his breathing, their breathing, for several minutes.

When he opened his eyes, Grover smiled at him, squeezed his hands once more, and released him.

“From my research,” Grover said, acting as if nothing had happened, “you don’t necessarily have to get super high for this to help. What medical marijuana can do when you’re struggling mentally is sort of…numb it, in a way. You’ll still have your thoughts, but you’ll be able to pick them apart. Analyze them, detached from the emotions. The struggle is finding the balance between using it too much, too often, and just letting yourself become numb, and using it to help your mind recover. It’s not exactly marijuana itself that’s addictive: it’s the separation you get from using it properly, that numbness it can cause.”

Numb. It sounded spectacular to Percy. He was so, so tired of aching all the time. He was tired of the carnage of his mind shredding itself to pieces.

That’s what worried him.

“What if I do abuse it?”

Grover looked thoughtful, pursing his lips. “I’ll tell you what: how about I hold on to this for you, until I go to California? When you feel those strong emotions, when you’re panicked, you come find me, and we’ll see if we can talk it out or if you do need to smoke to help sort through it.”

“That would be great. One of the problems is sleeping, though. My nightmares wake me up, and then I…I hurt other people accidentally. Or cause problems.” Percy’s scars, along his arm and torso, throbbed painfully in reminder.

“Then I’ll come see you every night and we’ll talk, see if you feel like you need it, and go from there. But during the day, same protocol: when you’re overwhelmed, come find me. Okay?”

Percy nodded. This time, when Grover offered the pipe to him, Percy took it.

Grover told him that most mortals didn’t feel much their first time smoking. Their neurons were forming new connections, and so they didn’t get that strong of an effect until they tried it again. Sometimes it took multiple attempts. Demigods, of course, were half-mortal and half-god. And gods, Grover explained, were often in search of pleasure for themselves in whatever way they could achieve, whatever form it could take. The gods soaked it in through offerings, nectar, ambrosia, sex (obviously, considering how many demigods existed) …and apparently drugs. Whatever godly versions of them existed.

Percy took approximately four hits from the pipe and coughed horribly after each one, and then abruptly became so high, he was sure Zeus would smite him.

When he mentioned this fear to Grover, though, the only response he got was a bleat of laughter.

The cabin, with its warm, dim, lighting, took on a magical quality. Everything felt a bit fuzzy at first, almost like he’d just woken from a nap before he was ready. Percy leaned back against his bed, eyes wide and glazed over as he gazed around the room and then at Grover, who was grinning for some reason. His brain felt like it was shutting down and restarting every few moments, shuttering and then opening back up.

“Are you…laughing at me?” Percy asked, before immediately wondering if he had actually said those five words aloud. Had he thought it instead, inside his head? That was where thoughts did occur, after all. Hmmm. He really wasn’t sure. If he thought back to it…

“Yes, Percy, I’m laughing at you.”

Interestingly, that made him laugh, and once he had started, Percy found that it was difficult to stop. He didn’t even know what was funny, except that it was, and what did it matter anyway?

Eventually, he did manage to stop his laughter enough to realize that even though he’d had approximately five s’mores less than an hour ago, he was rather hungry.

Grover, who must have read his mind (or perhaps he had commented about his hunger aloud…?) supplied a bag of pistachios from nowhere. They were still shelled, and they were not the unhealthy snack Percy usually went for, but upon seeing them, Percy felt deeply grateful and moved by his friend’s thoughtfulness.

Percy cracked open a nut and left the shell remains on his lap, popping it into his mouth. His eyes closed at the salty flavor. “Grover,” he groaned as he chewed while simultaneously grabbing and de-shelling another pistachio, “these are great. Best pistachios I have ever had.”

Grover looked very smug. “I provided a snack and an activity with them. You’ll learn that’s best, eventually.”

A snack and an activity. That did, oddly, make sense.

So, Percy sat with his best friend and ate pistachios on the floor of his cabin, and when he grew tired enough to sleep, Grover helped him clean up and then get into bed.

“Grover…” Percy started, watching as he made his way to the door, his eyes so heavy it was honestly a miracle he hadn’t fallen asleep the instant his head hit the pillow.

“Yeah, Perce?”

“Thank you. For everything.”

It was quiet for a moment. Grover had turned the lights off in the cabin only seconds prior, and the cabin was lit only by the moonlight streaming in through the windows.

“Percy,” Grover said, his voice thick, “anytime. Really.”

When the door closed, Percy’s eyes closed, too.

And he didn’t have a single damn nightmare the entire night.

Annabeth, of course, expected to hear all about it that next day, but due to seating rules and his own inability to wake up earlier than strictly necessary, Percy was at least able to mull it over to himself at breakfast. And mull it over, he did.

He’d woken that morning with cottonmouth, which was not typical, but he hadn’t had any other adverse feelings. It was strange. He felt oddly guilty for a reason he couldn’t quite pinpoint; maybe it was because he hadn’t had any nightmares for the second night in a row, or because he had smoked marijuana of all things to achieve it.

Percy knew his friends and his mom had told him that he did deserve a happy life, a life without nightmares running constantly through his head, but he honestly was just not that sure. No matter how he tried to spin it in his head, he had hurt people both accidentally and intentionally. He had watched his friends die around him, had watched their lives end while his own had carried on, and for what?

For what purpose?

Percy looked around the pavilion at his fellow demigods as they laughed and ate breakfast; as they tossed food at each other, or napkins, or various other little baubles they had accumulated; as Chiron watched them all while eating on his own at the front; at Annabeth, and how she smiled tentatively at him when her eye caught his. Most of the demigods here had been through the Titan War, although there were several new faces that Percy didn’t recognize from his missing nine months. There were a few more summer campers who had already gone home to start school, some he knew, some he didn’t. He wondered how many of these other kids felt like he and Annabeth did, and how many of them would end up feeling like they did in their lifetimes. Nightmares weren’t uncommon for demigods, but how many of those nightmares were their own memories rather than the real-life events they also tended to see in their sleep? And why couldn’t those nightmares become less common?

Some of his friends were here at Camp Half-Blood. Some were back in California at Camp Jupiter. And some, he would never see again, not until his own dying breath. But there were a lot of demigods here now, with more to come, and while he couldn’t keep them all alive in fights with monsters or in wars, maybe he could do something else to help them.

For what purpose was he, Perseus Jackson, still alive?

An idea popped into his head, one that made him flinch but also gave him a strange sense of relief. He could see it so clearly, a picture of a future that not only gave him purpose but made him happy. It would take so much work and (ugh) probably a decent amount of schooling, but maybe…maybe he could make it work. As soon as he could get himself to work.

Percy knew then in that moment what he wanted to do. He just needed to work on himself, first.

“So how was it?”

“How was what?” Percy grunted as he let the arrow fly, watching hopelessly as it shot wide and missed the target entirely, embedding itself in the grass beyond the range. Chiron, their ever-faithful archery instructor, cringed. Some things never changed.

He decided it was best to not bother finishing his volley, setting his bow down to face his girlfriend instead. Annabeth looked particularly pretty today in her shorts and orange Camp Half-Blood shirt. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, and her gray eyes sparkled. Percy realized that she, too, looked better rested; the bags under her eyes were less prominent.

Annabeth jerked her chin towards the pavilion, and Percy, knowing better than to continue with his archery ‘lesson’, sent Chiron a wave before stowing his bow and quiver. He jogged after her, unconcerned with the fate of the singular arrow he had shot.

“How did it go last night with Grover?” Annabeth asked once they had a bit more privacy, secluded amongst the pillars. They didn’t sit, leaning against them instead, oh-so-casually.

“It went…better than I thought it would. I don’t know about the smell, though,” Percy admitted, nose scrunching up at the memory of it. “But uh…I slept really well. And Grover said it may help me analyze my bad feelings when they’re overwhelming me, so I’m going to go and find him if I’m having a bad moment and talk it out with him, maybe smoke if I need to. I think it’s going to help me. All of it.”

Annabeth smiled, grabbing his hand. He squeezed hers back, intertwining their fingers and studying how their hands fit together. “That’s great, Percy. I’m glad that it’s helping.”

“Yeah, me too…I just…a lot of the time, it feels like I shouldn’t bother getting help. You know? After everything, years of fighting and two wars, sometimes it feels…weak to ask for it. I lived, so why can’t I be happy when not everyone did? When our friends died and I didn’t, and then I whine about being alive? I feel ungrateful, and then other times, I feel like I should have died. It should have been me instead.” It’s not the first time he had said the latter point; they’d had a conversation about it aboard the Argo II, one in which Annabeth had begged him to not pay for surviving with his life. He could see she was about to speak, her mouth popped open to argue, so he hurried on before she could. “But I’m starting to understand that I shouldn’t feel that way. That I’m here, I’m alive, and that just because I lived doesn’t mean that I should suffer.

“I’m not there yet. It’s hard for me to even say that, actually, because I do still believe I should be paying for my life in some way. Whether it’s in nightmares or a lack of sleep, or something, I still feel like I should be struggling because it’s the least I could do after Beckendorf, after Silena, after Michael, after all of our friends lost their lives so we could keep ours. But…But I’m trying to be better, and that starts with recognizing that I shouldn’t be feeling this way. Right?”

Annabeth was crying at that point, silent tears trailing down her cheeks. But she nodded, looking pained. “Right. They wouldn’t want you to feel this way, Percy. None of them would, but especially Beckendorf. He was so proud of you, and so happy to be your friend. He wanted you to live.”

Percy knew that was true, even when the thought crossed his brain that Beckendorf should want him to suffer for leaving him to die; but he didn’t voice it, just tried his hardest to dismiss it. “I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I’m tired of being miserable even as another part of me craves it.”

“Percy…I’m so sorry that this is how you’ve felt. Really. I wish…I wish I could take it all away from you.”

He could see that yearning on her face, how much she ached for him. “I know, ‘Beth. I know. And I wish I could take it all away from you, too. What you’ve suffered, what your own brilliant brain has done to you. But I’m here now, you’re here now. And I think…I think we could make it. I think we will make it.”

Annabeth nodded, a fierce expression coming onto her face – lips pressed together, eyes slightly narrowed. Pure determination. Percy took advantage of it, adding the last piece he had been mulling over for days now, ever since they stayed that night in the Big House. “But I want you to get help, too, Annabeth. You can’t just focus on me. I think it would be a good idea for you to talk to Chiron, talk to Grover, talk to Thalia, even. Maybe the two of you could set up regular Iris Messages? I know she wants to help you, and maybe Artemis will have shared some sort of godly wisdom with her or something, I don’t know. I know that we’ve both been bottling things up for so long, baby, but it’s time to let loose and remember to live again. Live without nightmares, live without holding ourselves back. If I deserve it, Annabeth, you sure as hell do, too.”

Annabeth’s face crumpled as she grabbed ahold of his shirt and yanked him to her, hugging him tightly. She didn’t sob, but he could feel the salty wetness of her tears as they dripped onto his shirt. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly, relishing for the first time in a long while that he was alive to do so. He was alive, with his best friend, in his home away from home.

For the first time in a long while, hope sparked in his chest.

Percy Jackson once thought that if he lived long enough to make it back home to Camp Half-Blood, he would be fine. It turned out that wasn’t exactly true, at least not at first; but now, as he sat on top of Half-Blood Hill with his back against the rough bark of the pine tree and the soft snoring of a dragon ringing down from above him, he felt true contentment.

Percy put out the remaining half of his joint, pressing the lit end down against the ground to smother the fire out before tucking the half that remained into the little case his mother had gotten him. While he had learned that he preferred a bong to smoke out of, a joint every now and then worked just fine.

He was just high enough to feel it; enough to relax, to sink into his body, and look at the world around him with a rare peace warming his chest. He could see his fellow campers roaming around the ground below, carrying out their chores or activities like they did every day. There were fewer of them now since school had officially started all over the country. Only the full-time demigods remained, himself included, along with Annabeth who came on the weekends he didn’t go back into the city.

Percy had spent the last few months working on being okay. He had spent hours talking to his mother, Chiron, and Grover, along with sharing his feelings with Annabeth rather than hiding them away.

Chiron in particular was great at helping him develop better coping mechanisms. He had always been good at sword fighting and a lot of the physical aspects of being a demigod; now, when memories plagued his brain and kept him up at night, he went to the arena and trained instead of sitting silently in his cabin. It worked at night, and it worked in the day when he snapped back into the past and found himself stuck there.

Sally and Grover were his sounding board for talking through some of the deeper and trickier parts of his emotions. His guilt, his depression, his anger, it didn’t matter – Percy could always go to them to talk it out, and they never judged him for it. He had gotten to the point where most of the time, he could rationalize his way out of his darker feelings.

And Annabeth, of course, was his glue, just as much as he was hers. For as much as he could talk to everyone else about everything he had gone through, only Annabeth had the same experiences. Only Annabeth had been to Tartarus and back, had dragged herself out of hell by his side. Percy genuinely did not think he could have done any of this without her.

Then there was the marijuana, which he learned very quickly was a great way to help himself let go of the things he struggled the hardest with. When he smoked, he was able to disconnect and analyze his thoughts and emotions, even some of his nightmares. It wasn’t always perfect; he’d accidentally made himself anxious and paranoid a couple times, but that was when he called for Grover. He refused to sit with it on his own when it did happen, and luckily, Grover always came when he called.

It wasn’t perfect, and he wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. He still struggled, still reacted negatively at times he shouldn’t, and even occasionally attempted to squash his feelings back down rather than feel them more often than he cared to admit. Percy failed all the time and apologized regularly. But what he had learned that as long as he kept trying, it was better than nothing. It was better than before.

But gods, he was so lucky. So, so lucky to have made it this far, to have lived against all odds.

Percy leaned his head back against the pine tree, closing his eyes as he silently thanked the friends he had lost over the years and all the other lives that had been lost in his time at camp. He had learned to accept that war demanded casualties, that the world was not fair, and when it took away good things and good people, it meant you had to appreciate them even more.

They were gone, but Percy would not let them, or their sacrifice, be forgotten.

The early fall air was chilly, so Percy felt it when a patch of sun broke through the clouds above and shone down on him, warming his body in its rays. He smiled as he opened his eyes, shielding them from the sun beaming down. His smiled widened into a grin as he noticed Annabeth jogging up the hill towards him from the cabins, waving as she did.

Percy had worked on himself, yes, but so had Annabeth. With the same dogged determination she took on with her architecture projects, she had studied herself and learned how to fit some of her bigger pieces back together. She didn’t do it alone, of course – she relied on the same people that Percy had, including Sally Jackson, the coolest mom ever. Not only that, but she had also opened up to some of her siblings, particularly Malcom. They were closer than ever these days, and Percy was beyond grateful that she was able to enjoy the family she had made at Camp.

If anyone deserved it, Annabeth did.

She was in the same boat that Percy was regarding failing, but in many ways, she took it far better than he did. “To fail is to be human, Percy,” she’d told him once, right after picking a stupid fight with her younger half-brother. Right after she’d said it, she had gotten up and gone to apologize to Malcom for the mini meltdown she’d had.

Annabeth crested Half-Blood Hill and the patch of sunlight blanketed her the way it did him, illuminating her like a halo.

Wordlessly, she held her hand out for his, a grin on her face, those grey eyes gleaming in the sunlight.

In a flash, Percy saw his future laid out for him: the GED, a baby sister soon to arrive, college in New Rome and a degree that would help him become a therapist, setting up practice in the city and helping demigods at both camps, and Annabeth, smiling at him. Always Annabeth.

Without a moment of hesitation, Percy reached up with his scarred and trembling right hand and took Annabeth’s offered one, letting her pull him upright and onto his feet.

Then he walked toward the future and did not look back.