Archive of Our Own

A storm was brewing.

Ever since their flight from New Rome, Percy's skin had been crawling and clawing like something was buried underneath and just needed out. Despite needing to watch the horizon for the Legion's eagles and nudging the ship to keep its shit together never-mind those repairs, there was still this limbo that Percy desperately needed to not be there.

The stop for tar and celestial bronze was a relief. He'd take tar monsters over the clawing in his mind, any day.

But then they set off again, and after Percy was done helping Leo with the bigger repairs — because yes, it may be currently flying but it was still a ship, he didn't need to have been there when it was built to know every nook and cranny, not after it had already been on the water with him onboard — there was that limbo of just waiting for the next thing to happen while the Argo II flew on. And it was still there. Clawing at him.

(Empty bookshelves and furniture in all the wrong places.)

Then there was Kansas and eidolons, and Percy would really appreciate it if the Greek pantheon could stop messing with his fucking mind, thank you.

The storm continued building in the clouds and wind.

After the eidolon fiasco and Percy and Jason were both conscious again, they all gathered in the mess hall. And Percy could now decidedly report that getting knocked unconscious after having a possessed fight with Jason did not help in the slightest.

As everyone else talked and planned, he sat restless and uneasy. One leg bouncing incessantly under the table, carrying an impatient taptaptaptaptaptap through the room, and his fingers flipping and twisting and turning riptide's pen-form over and over between his hands, in a never-ending loop that clack-clack-clacked against his knuckles worse than the sound of the metal being worked in Leo's hands.

A flurry of restless unease swirled in Percy's chest and it wouldn't settle and he needed this meeting to be over so he could get the fuck out of this chair and stop thinking.
  But they just had to keep discussing everything and Percy was stuck there with his abused mind until they exhausted the topic or came up with a solution.

Knowing an evil eidolon was driving in the passenger seat in his own body, ready to hijack the steering wheel and take over at any moment did not help the painful and spiky energy coursing through him like an angry river.

And on top of everything else, every time Jason opened his mouth and talked, Percy seethed with white-hot anger that wanted to punch his perfect white teeth in. While Percy had had months stolen from him, Jason had been frolicking around his camp, joined dozens of capture the flag games and sat by camp’s hearth countless times, safely cocooned by Camp Half-blood's borders.
 While Percy had fought his way through never-ending monsters in an unkind mortal world, and Lupa's bared teeth and mocking 'Let's see how the graecus fight. Let's see this new cub defend himself against Rome,' as her wolves jumped in droves of sharp teeth and gleaming claws at him, Jason had long since been hand delivered to Camp Half-blood with sparkling new friends within hours of waking up.

And Percy was just supposed to sit here and pretend none of that bothered him.

He knew his anger was misdirected -- Jason deserved his vitriol just about as much as Percy had deserved Hera tearing him from his life and loved ones -- and trust him, he had plenty of anger correctly-directed at Hera, too. But after everything there was just so much of it, it spilled over like a dam and there was just too much to direct only at a few gods and goddesses. And so, after having heard Jason's story and how he had ended up at Camp Half-blood, some of that anger just overflowed and started streaming in his direction.

Yeah.

Fairness continued to remain in short supply, despite Percy's efforts to bring more of that from Olympus and out to the rest of the pantheon after the end of the Titan war.

But finally, their meeting concluded and, thankfully, Piper banished the eidolons from his, Jason's and Leo's bodies.

It should have been a relief.

It wasn't.

As soon as he was able to, Percy was up and out of his seat.

Before anyone had a chance to all out a ‘wait a minute’ or ‘hold on’ or anything else, he retreated to the cabin on the ship that made up his room. He told himself he would occupy himself with going through some training stances and footwork to get some of that restless energy out, but that illusion only lasted up until the moment he closed the door behind him.

He turned and, as his eyes strayed across the cabin, he immediately felt like turning back around and jump ship to find some lake to disappear into for the next while.

He didn't.

Instead, he spent some time going through this cabin Annabeth had prepared for him and tried so hard to make like cabin 3 just looking at it made a hollow spot in his chest ache.

With his mind split in two — one part roaring louder than a wide waterfall, and the other part quieter and more still than the deepest, most untouched part of the sea — he went around the cabin, touching all the photographs Annabeth had attached to the walls and upending every single drawer; searching through knick-knacks and keepsakes and everything else that had been deemed important enough to bring from his cabin or his home. Hoping that if he just found the right things and held them physically in his hands, it would help.

It didn't.

No matter how much he tore through his cabin and his should-be belongings, it still didn't soothe the foreign prickling at his skin, or make the images in his mind settle and click back into place.

Everything just remained raw and scattered and wrong. Like pieces to a puzzle just thrown all over the floor and before he could just shove everything back into place or back into its designated drawer, he had to pick it up, look at it and see the image the piece held. Maybe to make sure he put the puzzle piece where it needed to go, or to make sure he didn't end up stuffing someone else's piece into his. It didn't really matter. Only that he needed to do it.

Everything he held; every piece of photograph or once beloved object, every trophy he'd kept from monsters he had defeated; all felt foreign in his hands.

He held the minotaur's torn off horn; the paper bag filled with blue candy so lovingly packed by his mom he could almost feel her hands touching his, as his fingers grazed past the creases and folds in the bag; photographs of him at camp with Grover, Annabeth, Clarisse and so many other friends, photographs of him with mom and Paul; pieces of what he knew was his life, he held in scarred and calloused hands that he knew inside and out, and all of it felt foreign. As if he had never held it before. As if this was a shape his hands had never had to hold before, and now that they did, they didn't know what to make of it.

It was strange and new and foreign, when it should have been home.

It was like looking at his mom's bookshelf. He knew it as well as the mess in his room. But where books should be there was just empty hollows and dusty shelves. All the books just thrown from their home and left in scattered chaos across the floor. Some of the books torn and bleeding ripped pages. Some books splayed out, spine half broken and pages crushed mercilessly beneath its own weight. Some books thrown so far, it laid sagged against the wall. Others lost beneath the couch and out of reach. All of it a mess and all displayed at his feet for him to see.

It left the shelves so very empty, just looking at them felt wrong. They'd been full all of his life. A touch of his mother he had always known. He knew where each book was meant to go, just from the proximity to his mother's love to that very bookshelf. Even Gabe's attempts to desecrate the books had left the shelf mostly untouched, just filled it with his cigarette stubs, ground out ash, crumbled, empty beer cans and discarded socks. Desecrated, but still filled with his mom's second-hand books and her careful hands. Surrounded by Gabe, in those years, but as unbroken by him as Sally herself had always been.

And now. It just was empty. The books ripped from their place and splayed at his feet.

Only. It wasn't books. Just his memories. Ripped from their resting place, gutted and strung up at his feet. Like a grotesque, bloodless autopsy of all of Percy Jackson and all that had once made him. And now, he had to pick up all those memories, string them back into coherence once more and shelve them in their proper place. While nothing felt right, and he felt as foreign in his own body as he had after Circe transformed him into a guinea pig and the guinea pig remained in his psyche even after he was a human again.

It was like coming home and finding that while he had been out, a thief had stolen into his home and thrown all of his belongings onto the floor and rearranged the furniture.
It was all his own stuff; he recognised it, but all of it left a chaotic mess that looked so very wrong from the first moment he opened the door and laid eyes on it.

It was like trying countless swords and not one fit right in his hand.

It was like an empty bookshelf and books in a mess at his feet.

It was like standing in the River Styx and just watching his memories and soul slowly washing away in the water.

Looking at his room on the ship, at all his should-be belongings and only seeing an empty bookshelf just made everything hurt all the more.

He couldn't touch the empty hollows in his mind, or the memories left scattered on the floor. He couldn't look at them. And he didn't want to.

Maybe that's why he just let them scatter in pieces all over the place. Maybe that's why, dark storm clouds had slowly rolled in across the sky and spread out like a blanket across the horizon from every direction from the ship, for hours now.

Maybe that's why Percy did nothing to stop the storm.

As he trawled through his memories in search for home, noises from outside clawed at his door and windows. He ignored all of them. But every time hooves clopped down the hall, Percy had the image of Grover following him everywhere at Yancy – it wasn’t hooved footsteps then, but it was still Grover -- and images of him hopping up the steps to cabin 3 with an eager grin, and his shy clip-clop whenever he came to visit and Sally paused to check up on if he’d been eating well and taking care of his horns and hooves and not just focusing on his work to save the Wild. All tender memories stirring up with every clop of hooves on the wooden floor, making his heart twist and ache with pain that he had no place to put, because Grover wasn’t here and all of his memories were still foreign to hold and he missed him.

Eventually, Percy stopped trying to fit himself back into his room and left his belongings as scattered inside of it, as the puzzle pieces of his memory inside of his mind. And went to join the others up on deck. Storm clouds rolling in his eyes long before he could see the ones above them.

In the doorway between the barracks and the open deck, Percy greeted the others with a nod and a shrug, when they asked if he'd been okay during the winds.

"I'm good with storms," he simply said.

Piper glanced at his steady footing on the violently rocking floor that nearly tossed the rest of them about. "I can see that," she said, hair blown wild and eyes still splayed wide by the last time she had been out on deck.

"Percy," Annabeth said, voice almost thin with relief, only a small question in her eyes as she latched onto his arm and looked intently in his eyes, as if searching for the answer to a question she had yet to ask.

Percy took her hand in his own and squeezed but said nothing.

Up on deck, a storm greeted him.

A heavy cover of grey, dark, almost black clouds followed the demigods. Swallowing the Argo II completely. It had formed somewhere between Salt Lake and Kansas and followed them from there. Lingering like a pair of storm-made hands clasped around the ship and dragging at them. Slowly stirring the clouds into a hurricane the further they sailed and the longer the day went.

Harsh rain sprayed everywhere, slashing at the sails and wooded deck. Each drop landed like a bullet and tore at everything in reach. Wind buffeted around them. Howling and screaming in their ears and tearing at the deck, as if trying to split the wood and metal apart. It threw them around, almost flattening them against the deck or outright picking them up and throwing them against the railing. Leo had to tie himself to the mast, because he still had a few things to toggle at and could not leave yet after the damage it had taken from the whole New Rome incident.

And yet, despite the hurricane winds and bruising rain, not a single strike of lightning or thunder was seen or heard.

The ship lurched and rocked, caught in the arms of a screaming wind. They were deep in the arms of a hurricane and were almost torn from the sky because of it.

Sheets of rain fell from the sky. Every inch of it fell so heavy and hard, it burned like acid against their skin. Hard and heavy and desperate. Harder than even hail. Hard enough to bruise. They were almost convinced it could have torn cuts into their skin from sheer force. Whenever they weren't running across ship for some command of Leo's as he fixed the last of repairs, they all sought shelter underneath masts and the doorway leading down to the barracks.

Hazel had already retreated to bury herself away in her cabin, surrounded by blankets, buckets and her worst sea sickness yet.

Not long after Percy joined them on deck — and the storm inexplicably seemed to somehow worsen — Annabeth nearly went overboard — saved by Frank the Gorilla — and Piper slipped and slammed into the floor with the weight of a bulldozer of winds on top of her, they all tied ropes around their waists whenever they went out on deck, too. Well, all but Percy who the winds nearly parted around and who walked the deck with ease, as if it was the steadiest ground of earth his feet had ever touched, and was quickly elected busybody for any work needed across deck that Leo couldn't fix at his console or motherboard for it. Everyone else permanently retreated to the doorway or below deck (and below deck everyone continually had to adapt to the ship lurching and rocking violently in the hurricane winds, or get pushed around like a doll, and smack into the walls with every other step they took).

In the cover of the doorway leading down to the cabins, Jason remained. He stared into the storm. Eyes worried and intense.

"Jason?" Piper asked, lingering on the steps and watching him.

"This storm," he said, slowly, considering. "It's not natural."

She bit her lip and looked out into the storm with dark eyes. "You think someone's stirring it up on purpose to try and strike us down?"

"I don't know." He shook his head, still keeping his eyes on the dark clouds. "But it's not natural."

Percy turned his head away. Jaw clenched tight and shut, as shadows fell over every inch of his face. Even a touch from Annabeth to his wrist could not unclench his muscles.

That was when Leo came stumbling and sliding to the doorway and joined them. Shaking in the cold. Windswept and wild with a crazed look in his eyes, as if it was himself and not just the battle ship made by his hands that was groaning and creaking and coming undone by the storm — the walls and metal rumbling as if threatening to break apart after their flight from New Rome and directly into a storm strong enough to have been stirred by Zeus or Poseidon's own hands.

He caught Jason's eyes and both suggested finding a large river or lake, where they could set anchor until the storm passed. But immediately Percy shook his head and shut it down immediately. Bad idea.

Even Piper tried convincing Percy that the storm-made waves on a lake would be calmer, even if they were by no means calm; that it might be less fraught in the water, and then at least they could not fall from such a height, if the ship failed them. But Percy was steadfast, his eyes hard and swirling more violent than the storm. Any sea, river or lake would not be kind, he promised.

At last, it was dropped.

The only good thing that came out of the storm that followed them was it seemed to keep any monsters at bay. No one followed them into the dark, angry swarm of clouds. Nothing reached for them to try and swat them from the sky. They were sitting ducks in the arms of a howling hurricane. It was hard enough fighting the unforgiving storm, harder if they had to fend off bloodthirsty monsters too.

So, that was one good thing, Percy told himself.

It wasn't very convincing, when it took all of Jason and Leo's willpower to keep them from being torn from the sky and flattened against the unforgiving earth below. And no absence of monsters could still the churning of guilt in his stomach from watching Jason and Leo gasp for breath as their rain and sweat soaked figures fought the storm.

Annabeth knew what it was.

Every time Percy turned and caught her eyes, they were watching him. Heavy and sorrowful and far more understanding than he thought he deserved.

All the time he was on deck or in the ship's mess hall, he had to fight against the urge to just flee to his unfamiliar room so he could scream and fall apart in peace.

He had been so desperate to regain his memories and find out who he was, to find the blonde girl; to find Annabeth; the only one he had remembered and the only love he had been allowed to keep in his heart. But then he had been thrust out into the world and told to find his own way. Monsters had haunted his every step and they kept reforming and kept coming after him no matter how many times he slashed them to pieces. And they held names and words and accusations in their mouths that Percy did not understand, and yet they kept coming at him with hate and vengeance in their eyes and he wanted to scream at them, I don't know what you're talking about! but that did not matter to them, he knew.

Then, he had finally found a safe place; a place that felt so familiar and comforting, yet also so wrong and foreign. But it was safe and he could finally rest and breathe. Then, oh no, you can't, off you go back into the world of monsters with words in their mouth that you do not know but must still pay penance for, and do it with two other demigods, who are both scared and young and look to you as if you're the answer, in a way that brings such a sunken feeling in your chest that is so familiar and painful, but you still don't know why.
 More fights to the death with instincts and powers he hardly understood, but had no choice but to follow, and a haunting voice that held such terrifying promises he recognised, though he knew he had heard them from another voice; a voice he didn't even remember the shadow of.

And then he had started getting his memories back, but he was busy on a quest, then a battlefield, then cleaning up in the wake of the battle; tending to wounded, finding survivors and entering the duties of a new praetor on top of all that. No time to pause and look at his refound memories.

Percy had long since learned he could not drown, but it had come pretty close.

There was no time to stop and breathe and just remember between all the fighting, the wounded, the dead and the rebuilding. And then the Argo II was there, Annabeth was here, and then even more fighting, now against friendly faces and people he had saved and fought beside just days prior. And a slapdash escape and new faces and names to learn and new eyes following him around, and it was too much and still there was no time to breathe.

And now, suddenly, there was.

Percy almost wanted to be drowning in duties again.

The storm tore at him from within. Trying to find cracks it could slip inside and tear up from the seams, ripping him apart.

By dinner time — and it was a quiet and small dinner, thanks to the hurricane rocking both the ship and their stomachs — Percy’s hands were shaking. Only the lurching shocks and rocks of the ship saved him from his shaking cutlery betraying him, but it was such a hopeless thing to be grateful for with Hazel absent and her spot at the table cold.

After dinner, once they were all winding down, having a last stomach-settling snack or drink, Percy stood. Back to the dining table, nearly leant up against the kitchenette table shoved along the wall.

He kept his back turned to the others and his hands shook as he poured a cup of hot cocoa for Annabeth, who had already emptied two cups.

The cup full, he set the thermos down and the liquid inside shook. It trembled and bubbled, crashing against the sides in great clashing waves, as if trying to break down the metal that separated it from his palms. As if his very touch was magnetic to any liquid. A magnet that pulled and heaved at the liquid with the same fervour of the storm.

Quickly removing his grip from both, he put his hands on the table and hung his head. His hands curled up and clenched into tight fists. The cocoa's shaking redoubled. Pipes inside of the walls groaned. Water shook. Trembling in his grasp.

A warm body pressed up against Percy. Warm hands landed on his back and arm. Half of his tense muscles automatically relaxed, as he leaned back into Annabeth's body. Half supported by the counter; half supported by her.

He breathed out. Shakily and long. And sagged into Annabeth. One of his arms snuck out, wound around hers that wrapped around his waist and clung on. Hidden from view between him and the counter.

Nobody noticed the pipes. No one saw the way the cocoa and water in their cups and bottles rattled and shook threateningly. The mess hall had been swaying and lurching since they stepped downstairs. It was background noise at this point. What was a few more shaken bobbles in a sea of them?

Annabeth pressed her face into his spine and laid a kiss to his shoulder.

At its touch, Percy's shoulders eased up. The water calmed. The pipes shuddered one last time and gave a breathless sigh only Percy felt, and fell quiet.

Annabeth's arm gave his own a squeeze.

The two remained standing there. Leant up against the counter. Caved in and collapsed into each other. Only they could have told you which leaned more on the other. Somehow, Percy felt Annabeth knew just what he felt and that he could not sit back down by the table with the others. So, they remained there. Separated by a few meters. Held up by the counter in front of Percy and Annabeth's strength.

It wasn't long before the rest of them finally gave up braving the violently rocking ship and retreated to their own cabins.

Percy — unmoved by the ship's movements — and Annabeth — unwilling to be moved from Percy's side — watched the others leave. Neither said a word. But Annebth met the others eyes and they both nodded goodnight to their spoken words.

Jason was the last to leave. He stood in the doorway and watched the two with eyes that knew too much and saw deeper than the rest. Maybe he had seen what the others did not.

In the end, Jason just gave him a pained smile and said nothing as he turned back and left them to themselves.

The mess hall fell quiet.

The ship kept on rocking violently in the phantom grasp of Percy's pain.

Percy could not have told how long the two of them stood there.

Beyond the ship, the frenzied wind still billowed against the ship, batting them about with only Leo's willpower and the strength of his ship keeping them on course.

Eventually, Annabeth's arm tugged on him, where it hooked onto his elbow and Percy was coaxed from his place by the counter. "Come on," she said, soft and gentle.

She led him to the ship's barracks, where their individually designed cabins awaited them. He sighed and dislodged himself from Annabeth's side. Already heavier without her to hold him up. Already shoulders up to his ears and a churning, tearing, destructive pain in his stomach. He put a hand on the doorway to his cabin and held himself against the open doorway, already knowing a sleepless, impossible night awaited him; already dreading the empty bookshelves and furniture in all the wrong places.

A hand on his shoulder stopped him.

He froze in his tracks. Hand still on the doorway, the only thing that held him upright. At least, that was what it felt like.

Annabeth tugged on him and he turned to face her, guided by her hand.

Taller than her, he stared down at her with darkened eyes that reflected the stormy, crashing clouds around and above them. A smaller tsunami sweeping through his green eyes, over and over again. Almost swallowing Annabeth's gaze in his.

A painful, heavy smile laid over Annabeth's face. Pulling and tugging her features into the heavy sorrow Percy could not voice. Water glinted in her eyes but no tears gathered or fell. Held at bay by her strength of will.

Hands lifted up through the air and landed on Percy's face. Cupping his face and cheeks in their palms.

Annabeth kept a hold of his gaze and silently shook her head.

He swallowed thickly. Wet his lips. But found no words to speak. "I—" he managed and clamped back up. Throat tight and tense.

"Do you really think I will make you be alone?" she whispered and swept a thumb out to catch the tears trailing quietly down his cheeks.

His lips shook.

Annabeth blinked. Fighting her own tears that she still did not allow to come forth.

A choked noise escaped Percy's throat and he clamped his mouth shut. Biting his lips to keep any other sound from escaping.

"Sshh," she whispered, pulled his head down and placed her lips against his head. "It's okay. I'm not leaving you. Come." And then she took his hand, pulled him away from the doorway and tugged him down the hallway.

As they walked through the ship, Percy held his hand against his face. Palm clamped over his mouth, stifling gasping breaths and barely held back sobs from sounding through the air. Hardly daring to make a sound for what it would reveal of the storm's nature.

Finally, they reached the stables.

Kneeling on the hay splattered floor, Annabeth pulled him down.

He crouched, then fell to the floor. Every muscle gave out and he curled up on himself. Immediately Annabeth's arms wound around him. They tugged and pulled on him until he was in her lap, curled completely into her. Doubled over. A hand still caught against his mouth, stifling sobs that grew louder and louder. His entire body shook. Claws raked through his chest and throat. A tsunami welled up inside of him and swept over everything, unmooring everything he had ever known, and bashing them all over the place; crushing the still unsettled newly regained memories and him to pieces against rocks at the bottom of the sea. Tearing at landfills and landmarks until nothing remained but the roaring wave of destruction and then it kept going.

It tore through him. Burning away at his heart, leaving nothing but ashes and torn, bleeding shreds behind.

It was agony.

"I remember," he choked, grasping at any part of Annabeth he could reach with his free hand, as if she was the only thing keeping him together. "They're all—" he gasped. "They— Annabeth, I can't—" he cried, clutching desperately at Annabeth, terrified he was being torn open from the inside and scared there was going to be nothing of him left once the tsunami left him. "I remember them all. It's almost been a year. They told me. It's June, but I'm still there. Just a few months after Manhattan. I'm still there. It's been a year, but it just happened. I remember them, Annabeth. They're right here. I can't— why—" a broken breath stuttered through him, breaking up his words. "I don't know what to do. I'm still there. After Manhattan. A year, Annabeth. But it's not. I haven't left them, yet. Manhattan, the labyrinth. Everyone we lost." He ground his fingers into his face, burning pain and sharp stinging into his flesh, and whispered, desperately, "I barely had time to bury them."

Their ashes weren’t even cold yet, he wanted to scream at the skies of the Queen.

Annabeth bent even closer to him. Pressed her chest to his back and buried her nose into him so hard he could feel it squish. "I know, Percy," she whispered brokenly into his back. "I know."

He shook his head. Not at her or her words. Just shook his head. As violently as he could while crumbled into himself. "She took six months from me. Six months. Months I'll never—" his throat closed up and he couldn't speak. "What if I don't— my mom— what if—" his voice broke a final time and then he couldn't speak any more. Annabeth went to speak but he shook his head and lowered his gaze.

His body shook so hard and so violently it was a miracle he was not shaking apart; a miracle it had not cut through him like earthquakes, spreading cracks all over his skin and crumbled him away with the force of its unforgiving touch.

"I know. I know," she whispered and pulled a hand through his hair. "It's okay. I've got you. I've got you, Percy. It's okay."

"It won't stop," he whispered, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes shut as if that would stop the memories from burning themselves through his mind, anew and fresh, as if they stood in smoke from the newly lit fires of the many pyres they had built in the wake of Manhattan. "It won't ever stop."

Outside the storm raged. It howled and screamed and cried. Rain fell harder. Wind tore and ripped at the world below. Any lake or river within sight of the ship and storm had waves nearly the height of twenty feet crashing against each other in thunderous booms that could have been mistaken for lightning if not for the absence of flashing light.

He sobbed into Annabeth's lap, then her shoulder — when she forcibly manhandled him upright and fully into her arms — and clung to her. Clutching her so hard she would bruise, but it was all he could do to not blow away and blow to dust in the storm of all of his remembered memories and the weight of grief and devastation of four years of war, loss and prophecies. And beyond that, Gabe and all the bruises and burns and sprains he had hidden from his mother. The nights they had struggled against a cold they did not have the money to shield themselves from.

Everything.

Moments passed.

Percy cried. The storm raged at the world for him.

Slowly, with Annabeth beside him, held together by her arms and the sound of her voice, the storm released the ship. It raged evermore beyond, tearing and screaming and ripping at the world, and the lakes below did the same, tearing up, as if it was trying to rip its own streams apart. But it was as if a bubble formed around the ship. A bubble of safety and protection, shielding the Argo II and its passengers from the hurricane. Like a forcefield formed all around the ship, keeping it afloat and keeping it safe.

And in Annabeth's arms in the depths of the ship, Percy sobbed. Engulfed by hay and the familiar presence of stables around him though empty they were; drowning in the memories of a lifetime of hardship, estrangement and trauma; of years of war and loss and grief. It was devastation and destruction and despair. Heartbreak and grief and the weight of a world once again on his shoulders and the new-memories of how its weight had been the last time he had held it and finally, he let go and allowed himself to feel it all, as he broke apart in Annabeth's arms and felt the storm tearing at the world all around them in echo of it all.

In his dreams, he drowned in Gaea’s muskeg in Alaska and there was no Hazel to pull him out this time. Then, the dream shifted and the mud gave away to a big open space and two giant figures sniping words at each above a human sized jar. And in the jar, Percy found Nico di Angelo, curled up and looking like death warmed over.

It was another stab in his recently rebuilt heart and memories, but a welcome one. Now they knew with certainty he was alive.

Just before the dream pulled him back out, Percy shouted, "Well find you, Nico! I promise, just—just hold on!" unsure if he had been heard, but determined to try anyway.

In the morning, Percy woke up long before Annabeth. His dream still so vivid in his mind, but last night's storm and everything it had held so much heavier it forced the dream to fade and take a back seat, despite his worry for Nico. There just wasn't space for it. A weight on his chest sat atop and smothered all of his worry for Nico and all the thoughts that may have wanted to run.

There was no room for anything. There was barely any room for Percy. Just the weight and it's unconquerable, all-encompassing touch.

For a while, he just laid there. Staring blankly up at the ceiling. Somehow feeling everything and nothing. Like the eye of the storm had left the skies and taken up home in his chest and it seemed it did not want to leave him any time soon.

He could not have told how long he laid there with blank eyes and an empty heart, but eventually Annabeth stirred. She woke up. Holding on tighter, as she grew conscious once more. Burrowing herself closer and pressing her head against his chest, as if it might bring her closer to his heart, or as if she could burrow all the way down to it, if she just tried hard enough.

Percy just tapped his chin against the top of her head, but said and did nothing else. It was impossible to move. Impossible to speak. He could only blink blankly at the ceiling and try to keep breathing. It was as insurmountable as holding up the sky, but he must have managed it somehow.

"The storm has gone," Annabeth said at one point.

"I know," was all he managed to say.

And then it was quiet once more.

At one point, Annabeth drew gentle fingers against his chest. "We could IM your mom."

A gut punch went through his stomach and he fought against a rising sob. For a while, all he could do was fight a tightness in his throat that threatened to tear his voice to shreds. Finally, he got access to his voice again and all he said was, "I will never be able to leave these stables, if I see my mom and can't hug her."

"Maybe not right now. But soon," she suggested, lifting her head to set her chin on his chest and finding his eyes as she did. This kind, yet strong look in her eyes thar bore into his own, so deep she could have seen his soul.

"Annabeth—" he began helplessly and immediately ran out of words.

Instead of finishing his sentence, he just shook his head. Begging, almost pleading something from her.

Even he wasn't sure for what.

Those sharp, grey eyes studied him.

Tucking a wild curl behind his ear, Annabeth quietly hummed. "We could IM next time we land. We'd be off the ship. Have solid ground beneath our feet. Maybe find a lake to use, if there's one nearby," her voice was gentle and soft, even if her eyes kept prodding him.

But Percy still gave the smallest of shrugs and shook his head again. He did not know anything right then. It was true, he had called her in Alaska, but calling and IM'ing was different and he had not had all his memories then. He did now.

Annabeth studied him with that sharp and piercing grey gaze of hers. Searing him straight through his eyes and down to his bones. "Tomorrow, then?" she finally said and tapped his cheek with a gentle finger. Her tone no-nonsense and firm in that way that told him it was non-negotiable and she'd already calculated whatever time-zone they'd be in tomorrow and what that would mean for his mom's time zone. Not that Sally would care about either, both he and Annabeth knew that.

Chest deflating in a big puff of air, Percy sighed. His head dropped heavy against the floor and he nodded. "Yeah, okay," he acquiesced quietly. "Tomorrow."

"Good." Annabeth quickly tipped forward and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before drawing back. And then she just laid there with those deep grey eyes more pained than Percy had ever seen them, and stared at him. As if she'd never get tired of seeing him right next to her. As if she would never stop memorising his face. As if she needed to override the memories of all those months he had been gone, by drawing him over and over again in her mind — something that would take years for her to do, and she would not stop looking at him until she had.

Percy understood. He felt the same way.

Her hand swept up and buried in his hair. Fingers gently brushed through his wild curls. Eventually, her hand came to a rest at the nape of his neck and she just curled her fingers over and over through his hair. Soft, calming motions that looped over and over in a soothing pattern and sent small waves of relief and peace through his scalp and down his spine.

For a time, it was peaceful in his mind and Percy could rest with all of his memories in hand once more.

The calm didn't last long.

Coach Hedge found them.

Suddenly, he was at the door, barking words at them and swinging his bat and arms about with wild abandon. Percy did not understand a single word he said. He only cast him a quick glance, then blinked and brought his still slightly empty eyes back to the ceiling. He thought Annabeth pressed a kiss to his jaw, because the next thing he knew, she was up, grabbed onto Coach Hedge — and he might have seen the saw the flash of a dagger somewhere in the corner of his eyes, maybe — then they were gone and he was all alone. With the echoing roar of distant waves in his ears, waves tearing at his chest and a black hole that was trying to swallow him whole. Though neither were as big as they had been the night before.

And he just stayed there. Lying spread on the floor. Blankly staring. Staring blankly. Was he even still blinking? He did not know. He just laid there. On the floor. Staring. If he had been more present in mind, he would have spent the time asking himself, 'why did we bring this guy again, and not Grover?' He missed Grover. He would have been great to have on the ship. Some common sense for everyone, and some stable and familiar ground for Percy to cling to in the mess of his resurrected memories. Which was desperately needed with his mom far away in both time and space; farther by the hour.

Some time passed.

He managed to keep breathing.

He might have clenched and unclenched his hand at some point. To make sure he could still feel and move something. But that was it.

He went back to staring.

Everything was just a blur all around him.

At one point, Annabeth came back to him. "It's still early morning," she told him and knelt by his side once more.

Percy nodded. Then noticed she carried a blue fold of fabric.

Following his gaze, she smiled and held it out to him, and he realised it was his softest, most favoured sweater. The one his mom had bought for him for when he felt all tight and tense and too much like a soldier and his scars acted up with hurts and aches that worsened at anything but the softest of touches.

She had gotten it for him and brought it to him after Manhattan on one of his bad days, when he was curled up on the couch in clothes that scratched his skin and caught painfully against his scars and telling himself he deserved it for all the campers and nymphs and satyrs he had not been able to save in the battle of Manhattan, and, Hades, even in the battle the labyrinth led straight to their camp, because even then they had all looked to him to lead and save them, and why shouldn't they have? He was a big three kid. The son of Poseidon. The best swordsman camp had seen in centuries. The child of the Great Prophecy.

So why could he not save more of them? Why did so many have to die? There were even a few demigods they had never found. They were just lost to the streets of Manhattan and the rivers that cut through it. Never to be found and buried.

Those kinds of days always brought Percy to subconsciously (or consciously) punish himself in some way. He had to sit or lie in some kind of physical pain. To relieve himself of that felt as if he was abandoning them all over again. Or something. He did not know. Paul had had some words to say about it. Percy had only heard half of them.

On those days, it just felt impossible that he should be in comfort, when he had been the cause for so many others painful and lonely deaths.

It had been such a day, when his mom had sat on the couch by his head. She had pulled a gentle, comforting hand through his hair, and then eventually spoken to him about her hunt for the softest sweater the world had ever made, even though it had taken her several days and part of the savings she had sat aside from Gabe's statue. "Because the time we spend and the things we give to the people we care about, is not an exchange, Percy. We give because we care and we love. Not because we expect in return. Your friends. Your campers. They gave to camp, and to you, as their leader. Because they trusted you and because they loved camp. You do not have to give them your pain in exchange for their deaths. That is not what it was about. And I know you know that, even if it's hard to remember sometimes."

And she had waited a few minutes until he had been ready to let her help him out of his suddenly scratchy clothes and into fluffy pants and the soft sweater that did not pull on his aching scars, fewer though they were than if he had never taken on Achilles' curse.

The sight of that sweater now made a lump in his throat appear.

Annabeth held it out to him. "Your mother sends her love and to tell you, she wants that sweater back in one piece. She wants you to know she'll mend all the rips and tears, and everything else you throw at it, but you better bring it back in one piece, or so help her gods, she'll have words with the entire Olympian council."

"For a sweater?" he croaked, voice soft and cracking.

She gave him a look. But he already knew it was not about a sweater. He understood. It brought prickling tears to his eyes.

He blinked them away before they could truly form.

After a moment, he nodded and accepted it.

It took a bit of a struggle against invisible shackles and the massive weight sat atop his chest that was chaining him to the floor as well as if he had been glued to the glass and buried under a mountain of rocks, but he managed to put it on.

Once it settled on his shoulders, he held the fabric up to his face and was immediately swept up in a mixed, familiar scents. The blue fabric held the smell of home and Annabeth and his mom. It washed over him like the touch of his mother's hand sweeping through his hair and her voice in his ear after a hard day.

It was almost the same effect as ambrosia and nectar.

That lump still in his throat, he thought about the months he had been gone and imagined how his mom and Annabeth might have pinballed his sweater between them, as they searched for traces of him in the folds and seams and threads; seeking a ghost in the echoes he had left behind himself, when Hera ripped him from home — the same way he was now searching for his mom.

It took a bit longer after that before he emerged again, and then some more to blink the tears from his eyes and look at Annabeth again. But eventually he did, and by then, the weight all around him eased enough for him to discuss his dream with her. Worry quickly bloomed in her eyes, as he told her about Nico in the jar and how he had looked, but it gave away to that beautiful determination he had always known from her.

After that, Annabeth held out her hand and Percy noticed that, aside from his sweater, she had also brought him breakfast. She held it out with a wordless offer in her eyes, but with a few words, she managed to peel him off the ground and he followed her through the ship, back to the mess hall quickly filling up with the other's as they, too, woke up.

Nobody said anything to the shadows under his eyes or the blank look he carried and he wondered what they saw in him, but did not care to look for it in their eyes.

Shame curled low in his stomach at how people he should have been strong in front of, now saw him when he was just a shadow of himself. People who might look to him for the same strength and steadiness and unwieldiness that had carried him through years of war at Camp. They might have, and all of that was just swept away within twenty-four hours.

Not that he cared to be leader again, actually he would rather not. But it was what he knew; all he had known. They were seven, so it was hardly the Legion of the romans and far still from Camp Half-Blood's dozens and dozens of campers he'd led in the war. But what if they looked to him the same way Camp had? Had he ruined all of their faith in him by crumbling so quickly? Had they noticed? Did they care?

He was scared of the answer and took care not to find any of them by keeping his eyes averted, and his head down.

Before he and Annabeth could open up the topic of Percy's dream, Coach Hedge tried to make a comment about finding anyone in the stables ever again and Leo picked it up, a joke on his tongue, but Annabeth stabbed her dagger into the table — Frank jumped a foot in the air at the sudden movement and Hazel's eyes widened and she clutched a hand to her chest — her eyes dark grey and full of murder, and then there were no more comments about that.

So yes.

The stables thing? Not what everyone thought it was.