Archive of Our Own

Nowhere else felt like home quite like the way New York did. 

It feels a little too final, every day. The knowledge that each minute passed was another closer to the prophecy coming true did little to ease her nerves. It also gave her a little too much time to think. 

Percy had taken to walking the streets whenever she could. It was a habit she’d picked up growing up in the same house as Smelly Gabe , and it was one she had never been able to entirely forget. When staying at the apartment meant beer bottles getting shattered over her head and the leather of a belt digging into the skin of her back, the streets were the far better option. 

It wasn’t safe, but then again her life never was. 

It’s second nature to her now, winding through the streets she knows like the back of her hand. It was an escape, one Percy wasn’t willing to give up too easily. It was also a reprieve from the constant anxiety that followed her every step these days. Kept her from spiralling under the pressure that only seemed to grow every year. 

Percy was also keenly aware that her life had been quiet for nearly two months now, far too quiet. Now, something had to give soon, and she was holding her breath till then. Her life had never been quiet, and so the silence was suffocating. Her knuckles were scabbed over, but she had the feeling they’d be bleeding red soon enough. 

Part of having all this time, came with too much time to think, which led to having time to think about things she’d written off at the time or left in the past because there was no time to think about them. Now, it was as if the floodgates had opened. 

Thoughts about Gabe, and that maybe if her mum had told her sooner she wouldn’t have quite so many scars. How Annabeth had literally said she didn’t care if she died, as long as she could continue the quest. How Poseidon had looked her in the eye and called her “an unforgivable mistake” and “a wrongdoing”. That maybe everything really was unfair. 

That maybe Luke was right. 

Kronos and the Titans were horrible, and she’d never side with them. But Percy also knew that if they were a better option than the gods, that maybe she would’ve left camp with Luke that night. She remembered being eleven, and thinking the gods should behave better. At eleven she’d seen what so many people were ignorant to. 

Luke himself was a mess of emotions and hurt and everything she couldn’t really quantify. There were just two things she knew for sure. One, that Luke had a point with what he said. The other was that it didn’t excuse the trail of bodies he left in his wake. The blood was just as much on his hands as it was Kronos. She didn’t believe he was evil, but a lot of kids were dead, and that wasn’t something she could forgive. 

“ Shit”

Percy pauses, snapping from her thoughts at the noise to peer down at the dark alleyway she’d stopped next too. There was a silhouette outlined by the shadows, and a trail of blood leading towards the person from the entrance. Injured then, probably. 

Now, it was far from advisable to walk into an alleyway in most places, and New York was its own brand of absolutely not you’re gonna die if you walk in there. Then again, self-preservation was not one of Percy’s strengths, and this just proved it. 

Percy’s footsteps echo through the alleyway as she moves forward, and the figure that’s slowly coming into view freezes. She takes another step forward, and suddenly the face comes into view.

Ethan Nakamura stared back at her. Blood was covering most of his body that she could see, and he was favouring his left arm, which looked like the shoulder had been knocked out of its socket. It only takes her a moment to know what her decision is going to be. 

Digging into her jean pocket, she pulls out a slab of ambrosia, and holds it out to Ethan who looks like he can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. Words echo in her head. 

“I admitted my wrongdoing” “my enemy is the gods” “gods should behave better” “it would be wiser to kill her now” “someone’s gotta stop you from messing up” “i want you to come with me, Percy” 

Ethan still eyes her like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s seeing, but after a moment of hesitation, he takes the ambrosia from her hand. She can’t really see if it’s worked, due to the blood covering him, but the way his body relaxes slightly says enough. 

“I can’t say you’re who i expected to find in this dingy alleyway” Percy mutters, and surprisingly the words draw a snort of amusement from Ethan who looks just as surprised. 

“Well, what were you expecting?” Ethan manages, wincing at the croakiness of his own voice but Percy pushes on.

“I don’t know? A stray cat I guess? Or a mugger? Or a racoon? Even a cyclops maybe? There were a lot of possibilities” Percy shrugs and Ethan just looks at her like she might have a few screws loose, which fair , but still a little offensive. 

“That doesn’t-whatever” Ethan huffs “why are you helping me?” he said, looking at her like she might draw a sword on him the second he looks away. 

“I’ve been told i don’t know when to walk away” 

“Your meant to hate me”

“Well, i don’t”

“We’re on opposites of the war”

“You haven’t drawn a blade on me, not yet” It’s that, that finally silences Ethan. They’d been there for at least ten minutes now, and Ethan hadn’t made a single move against her. Huh. 

“Come on” Percy said, dusting her clothes off and jumping to her feet “let's get you some food”

“Why?” Ethan asks, looking at her outstretched hand like it’s a trick, but Percy merely sighs. 

“Because you look like you haven’t eaten in a week, I'm not gonna poison you or anything. If I wanted to kill you I would've just left you here. Now come on, you have to be able to stand on both of your feet before you can take a swing at me” Percy smirks, raising an eyebrow and holding her hand out again, only this time, Ethan very hesitantly grabs it with his own and stumbles disgracefully to his feet. 

As they walk, Percy can’t help but study the son of Nemesis. He’s still clearly injured, but the ambrosia has helped. She almost thinks they might’ve been at camp at the same time. It’s now that she remembers something else she was told when she was first introduced to camp. Kids of the minor gods were packed into the Hermes cabin because they had no cabins of their own. For gods, they’re ridiculously good at making themselves a target. Hell, she resented them and her dad was one of the better ones. It was the truth too, as the war was only happening because the gods couldn’t be bothered to do anything for the kids they brought into the world. 

Not for the first time, she wonders where she’d be now if she had taken Luke’s hand. 

Maybe that’s why she keeps walking, side by side with the boy who tried to kill her only months before. Maybe that was why she’d helped in the first place. Maybe that was why she was going to keep helping him. 

Eventually Percy leads them to a small set of shops, with a restaurant tucked right down the end of the block. She knew the place like the back of her hand. It was the only restaurant she ever went to as a kid, on the odd occasion when her mum would get a pay rise, or when Gabe was in an alright mood ( which was almost never). Now, she wonders if her Mum had only ever taken her here because it was so secluded and hidden away, it was less likely to draw attention. Probably. 

( One of those fuckers in the sky better let the mist cover them from looking like they just murdered someone. They owed her) 

Ethan silently follows her inside, shoulders tensed and hiked up, nearly touching his ears and eye darting around, trying to catalogue every way out. She very deliberately chooses a table to the side, with vision on all sides and no way to sneak up on someone. Her mum and herself still had to do the same. 

(It had taken her a long time to be okay with Paul Blofis. To stop looking for the door, to stop tracking his every movement, to stop flinching when he lifted his hands. Sometimes, she still did)

Neither of them say anything about it, but it’s clearly deliberate. Percy wouldn’t ask, not like how people had tried to ask her. But she’d accommodate, like nobody did for her, because like recognised like, they always did. She always did. And she had the feeling he did too, if the look in his eyes was any indication. 

Ethan eats like he’s never going to see food again, and it stirs up memories in her that she’d much rather stay buried. Night where she pretended she’d already eaten so her mother would. Stealing a slice of pizza from Gabe’s party, only to have a bottle shattered over the top of her head and beaten until she could barely breathe. She’d gone back to school the next day, wheezing with each breath, bitterly ignoring the concealer shoved in the bottom of her bag at eight years old. 

It’s hard to look at him, hunched over the food like it might be taken any second, because it feels a little bit too much like looking in a mirror. 

He also looks a little like a cornered animal. Percy does her best to project her movements to not startle him, but that doesn’t stop him from flinching away each time she shifts, wincing when it pulls on his shoulder. 

“Thank you” it’s quiet, so quick she barely hears it, and Ethan’s not looking at her when she turns to him, but she knows. It’s also then that she knows she isn’t going to be able to simply walk away. No matter how much easier it would be. 

Annabeth is gonna kill me. So is Grover. And Thalia. And maybe everyone else too. 

“Look, I know it’s asking a lot, but I just want to give you something fresh to wear, before you go” Percy offers, and Ethan looks at her like she’s a puzzle he can’t solve, but she just looks straight back, open and calm. 

Eventually, after looking down at his hands, he clenched them into fists and looked back up at her. 

“You won’t stop me from leaving?” He asks, though it’s really more a statement. 

“No, you can go whenever”

“Okay, but if you try anything I’ll stick a dagger in your back” he says, raising an eyebrow and she barely stops herself from laughing at the words. 

“Ok then” Percy smiles, and they walk up to the front so she can pay. Ethan stays a few steps behind her, both to survey around them and to presumably be able to stop her from trying anything. 

It’s a quiet walk back to the apartment, and Percy thanks Tyche that she’d finally taken pity on her and that her mum was out tonight on a date with Paul. She loved her mother, but she was likely to scare Ethan off, and even if Percy hadn’t been able to change his mind, she could at least make sure he wasn’t walking around half-dead. 

Percy leads him inside and hides a smile as he looks around the room, a ghost of a smile pulling at his own lips. Hoping he doesn’t run off while she’s gone, she goes to her room and finds an oversized shirt and a pair of black tracksuit pants she assumes will fit. Ethan looks a bit disbelieving when she holds them out, but takes them nonetheless.

She wordlessly hands him a cloth with water, with a pointed look at the blood still covering his arms, and leaves him to change. 

“ Fuck that hurts” she hears him grumble, and peaking round the corner she can see him holding his arm and eyeing the shirt like if he glared at it long enough it would spontaneously combust. 

Making sure he can see her enter the room, she speaks. 

“Do you want me to put your shoulder back into place, then you should be able to put your shirt on” Percy offers, keeping her distance and watching with a blank expression as he glances at her. 

She knew it was asking a lot, and she wasn’t sure if it was the opposite way around, that she’d be all that open to letting him put her shoulder back into its socket. Still, he wasn’t going to be able to fight or really move it if it was left as it was, and it was probably just causing more damage. 

(This she learnt from the Apollo cabin after she ran around fighting and didn’t realise her shoulder was out of place until hours after the battle. And still waited a few hours longer to go to the infirmary when the pain got really bad. Will Solace, a solid foot shorter than her and a few years younger, had given her the tongue lashing of her life as he’d fixed her up.)

He nods once, a sharp and quick movement, his eyes never leaving her as she approaches. She doesn’t bother with baseless platitudes, since she got the feeling he wasn’t the type, and gripped one hand under his elbow and another on his back, pausing as he tensed. After a moment she starts to gently move his shoulder, gracefully ignoring his short hisses of pain. Once she’s got it in the right spot, she forces it up and nudges it towards its socket. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck ” Ethan grumbles under his breath, before tensing as his shoulder slides back into place with a loud pop. Immediately his body sags, the tension from the pain rushing from him immediately. She holds out another slab of ambrosia, and he takes it, much less hesitant than before. 

Perhaps relocating someone’s dislocated limb is an underrated bonding exercise. 

In any case it seems to have proven something to Ethan, though she wasn’t entirely sure what. His instinctual distrust of her seemed to falter, and she could only assume she’s proved his assumptions wrong, and that’s why he was looking at her like that. It was almost the same as the expression on his face when she’d offered him her hand in the labyrinth, pulling Riptide away instead of running him through with the blade like he had very clearly expected. 

Ethan looks at her, eye soft, and manages the smallest, quickest smile she’s ever seen, and it makes her pause. He stands, and clad in his new clothes leaves out the fire escape, melting into the shadows like he’d never even been there in the first place. She stays out there long after he’s gone, and there’s only one thing she’s able to think. 

Fuck

Rachel was perhaps the best friend Percy had ever made. 

Look, she loved Grover, but it had been his job to be her friend in the beginning. Sure, now she knew that he truly was her friend, but for a while there in the beginning, it hadn’t been a true thing. 

Annabeth on the other hand, was, to put it delicately, an acquired taste. She’d been pretty harsh from the beginning, and she still felt like every time she looked at her, she was judging her to some invisible standard and finding her lacking. She also knew part of Annabeth would always blame her for not stopping Luke from leaving. For not doing more. She also saw the glances when Annabeth wasn’t watching, the way her expression would fall into that of trepidation and unease whenever she used her powers. She may have a laundry list of issues, but she wasn’t blind.

Rachel was a breath of fresh air from expectations and pressure and the constant fear of saying the wrong thing. She’d met Percy messy and sleep deprived and covered in cuts and bruises and still hadn’t walked away. She chose Percy, in a way nobody ever had before. Nobody other than her mother anyway. It healed something in her a little bit, to finally be chosen first for once. She didn’t flinch when Percy used her powers, only watched as she made the water bend to her every whim. Then sketched it out in a portrait far more elegant and washed with beauty then anything containing Percy had any right to be. 

Rachel was the only thing keeping her head above water as they waited for the war to begin. She was also fairly sure Rachel knew something happened. Percy never said anything ( because even if it was never explicitly said, she knew what a slip up on her part could cost Ethan) and Rachel never asked, but she did look at her knowingly and a bit sadly, like she already knew the ending. Then again, she’d already been giving her those looks after everything that went down with the Labyrinth. 

Still, she carried that night with her like an oath. It was the least she could do. 

“It’s okay to be angry Perce” Rachel says, eyes soft and sitting across from her in her penthouse room. Her hair cascaded down her shoulders like a fiery halo, and her gaze is translucent like the shore. It was eerie, how reminiscent of the sea they were, especially seeing as the sea was the only person she whispered her secrets to. 

“I know that. But I also know I can’t afford to be, not yet anyway” that too, is something she’d known her whole life, but she’d also learnt young just when to be angry, and when to let it simmer.

“You put a lot of pressure on yourself”

“ Everyone put pressure on me first, I just, don’t fight it”

“But you could”

“Rach” Percy whispers tiredly “we both know the prophecy is about me, and even without fully knowing it, it’s a pretty fucking clear death sentence” 

“You can still be upset about it, scared” Rachel said, tracing the paint stains on her jeans lazily, though her expression is still pulled taut.

“I don’t care about dying, not really. I care about every little kid who had walked through the boarders to camp, thinking they were safe. I care about the fact that Lee and Castor and everybody fucking else we lost at the end of summer is dead. I care about every other death that’s gonna come if I don’t do something. And I hate it, but it’s not about me anymore, it never really was” Percy rants, and Rachel relents unable to find a response after that. Instead, her pencil moves as she sketches out a scene on the canvas in front of her. 

It’s two girls, one with flaming red locks cascading in beautiful curls down her back, and another girl, arms stained red, with dark black hair. A golden string swirls around them, intertwining them as they look out upon the sea. She doesn’t look at Rachel, but she does squeeze her hand, smiling when she feels her squeeze it back. 

It’s easier, leaving Rachel’s after that, as if she can see the golden string that’ll always lead her back to Rachel, and the smell of paint and smiles brighter than any other. It soothes her, a little, in the way so few things do these days. It gave her hope, and maybe that was the most dangerous part of it all, the hope .

Inevitably, her mind falls to Ethan, as she follows the familiar streets back to her apartment. She’d spent a lot of time thinking, since that night, for better and worse. His hope had been burnt out long ago. He was almost a reflection of who she could’ve been, maybe, in another life, without her mother. And wasn’t that interesting. The idea that maybe her Mum had saved her, just by being her mother. That was its own rabbit hole in and of itself.

A part of her, one Percy rarely acknowledged let alone showed, was conflicted when it came to her mum. She loved her, always had and always would, that was never a question. However, she was beginning to learn that love and resentment could co-exist to some extent. To the extent that she couldn’t forget sitting in the low light of the bathroom, picking pieces of glass out of her hair from the bottle he had smashed over her head, while her mum pulled another double shift. Couldn’t forget always locking her door at seven, because poker and alcohol and whatever else he had, made grown men a little more liable to let their hands wander. She remembered covering the bruises with concealer she’d stolen at eight, because she thought she was saving her mum by doing it. She had the scars, lost in the constellation of all the others now, but still there, as jagged and unhealed as the day they were made. 

 It had taken her a while to see it, but now that she had, she couldn’t ignore it. Couldn’t pretend the what ifs don’t exist, because they do, because her mum made a choice. A choice that led to the scars and the bleeding and the compulsive need to know where every exit is to a room. They didn’t talk about it, they never did. Just like how she’d spin some story about her quest and her mother would listen, playing into the ignorance and not asking all the questions she could, all the questions she should . Because now Percy woke up screaming, and yet they still tiptoed around it all like they had when she was eight. Because her mother had let one monster in to avoid others. She could’ve left her at camp, but she didn’t. She made a choice, it was always a choice. Maybe that’s the hardest part. 

She didn’t blame her mum, she loved her, and she also resented her at the same time. Maybe one day they’d finally talk it all out, and that swirl of hurt and blood and betrayal and everything else that followed her like a shadow in the shape of an eight year old girl with blood on her hands would finally fade. But her mum would have to acknowledge what they both already knew for that to happen. 

She’s not even sure she’ll live long enough to have the conversation. Still, she knew that sometimes it was easier to live with what you didn’t know, then live with what you did.

Percy sighed as she finally reached her apartment, dropping her bag to the floor. It’s weird, coming back here each day, knowing her friends were at camp, planning and spying and preparing for a war that had already started. Pollux had been giving her updates, but it wasn’t the same. 

It hadn’t been easy, for either of them. When she’d gone to speak to him, just days after the battle, he’d screamed and cried and threw punches until he exhausted himself. She hadn’t tried to speak to him again. They only ran into each other because Pollux found her covering the infirmary. She’d been a mess, covered in injuries and new unhealed scars and red-rimmed eyes. Silently, he’d come in and helped her for the rest of the night. Something shifted, and he started to seek her out and it only made her feel worse for not talking to him sooner, but it was good. She thought maybe it had helped them both. 

Percy falters just as she’s about to enter the kitchen, snapping out of her spiral at the very quiet sound of scuffling feet on the fire escape. Slipping riptide from her pocket, she slowly inches towards her room. The lights off but the dagger on the floor is a dead giveaway, and she knows who the shadowy figure is before she’s even seen their face. 

“Hey Ethan” Percy sighs, stepping forward and flicking the light on. 

The sight that greets her almost makes her wish she hadn’t. Half of his face is a mess of bruises and blood and swelling. There’s a jagged looking wound that leads from his jaw down beneath his jumper, but she knows from experience that it can’t be the only wound with so much blood. She tries not to notice how it’s dripping a puddle onto the floor, or how shallow his breathing is.

(she doesn’t think about Zoe, the blood that had stained her arms as she held her up. She certainly doesn’t think of Lee, who took an hour to identify underneath all the dirt and blood.) 

“Percy” he manages to mumble, but she’s already moving, grabbing out her first aid kit from under her bed and her emergency stash of ambrosia. 

Without giving him a chance to protest she shoves a slab of ambrosia in his mouth. Trusting that to do its job, she starts to clean up his face, gently dabbing to get rid of the dried blood. He stays completely still as she does, his eye trained on her, but it’s not as accusatory as it had been. Then again he had come here, and that had to count for something.

“You should rest for a while, the ambrosia is gonna take a while to kick in, and I don’t wanna risk giving you too much” Percy whispers, wiping the last of the blood from his face. He’s looking at her intently, and she’s not entirely sure what he’s looking for, but she also doesn’t try to stop him. Maybe that’s all he needed, if the way he relaxes slightly is anything to go off. 

“I’m going to bring you some food” 

It’s easy enough to put something small together. He looks only slightly less skinny than he had last time, and that doesn’t exactly promote a lot of confidence in his accessibility to food. The soup she makes is one she taught herself long ago, between her mothers constant double shifts and Gabe’s harsh fists, well, she’d become a pretty decent cook somewhere along the way. 

She gives him space to eat, fiddling with Riptide and watching from the corner. Not for the first she wonders what pushed him over the edge. She wasn’t blind, she knew he’d chosen to join Kronos. But he looked so small and defensive and hurt that she couldn’t make herself do anything. She knew that she should, but he trusted her, and somehow that meant more. 

“Thank you” he mumbles, voice scratchy and rough, like just saying that one word was a battle in itself. 

“Y’know, I always resented my dad” Percy begins after a moment of silence, weighing her words carefully “mum worked three jobs and my stepfather was, well , life wasn’t exactly easy. Then when I meet the man, he calls me a wrong-doing and an unforgivable mistake. I still don’t really like him” she admits, candid in a way she hadn’t ever been before, not about this at least. 

The story does what she’d hoped, Ethan watching her with thinly veiled intrigue and the look in his eye that says he knows in a way they’ll never have to say. 

The way he could only know, if he’d had the bruises himself. 

“How old were you?” Percy asks, and Ethan freezes, before forcing himself to react. 

“As long as I can remember, you?” He asks, so quietly, that it almost disappears into the wind. 

“Four” she admits, and there’s something healing about saying it out loud. Maybe because she’d always known, she’d just never been able to say it until now.

Ethan doesn’t speak again, but something shifts in the way he looks at her. Not pity, but something that more closely resembles empathy. Looking at him, she can almost remember him from camp. They’d never met before the Labyrinth, but she’d known he’d gone to camp. Still, knowing and realising are two very different things.

They aren’t friends. They can’t be. But there’s something about meeting him, someone she hardly knew, understanding this so intrinsically. There’s something vindicating in how well he can see her, and something a little terrifying about it too. 

It’s a delicate trust, a hair trigger, one false move and it would all go up in flames. 

Neither of them try to break the silence, they don’t need to. The dagger is still on the floor, blood painting the hilt. It’s in the middle of the floor, a quick movement and either of them could grab it, but they both just stay there, sitting in the dark like they’re not expected to kill each other. The silence is more comforting than anything ever seemed to be these days. Even the constant countdown weighing on the back of her mind is muffled, as if she’d dived under the water and the only sound was the sea. The dagger is obscured by the darkness, but she doesn’t try to find the light. She doesn’t need to. If he was going to take it, he already had. They both knew he could. His breathing is the only sound, even the constant traffic of the city felt like it had gone quiet. Like the only thing important enough to hear was the sound of their beating hearts. 

Percy knew . Gods did she fucking know. The dagger was already in her hand, it had been put there long ago. It was rusted and broken down and weathered as a mark of the years gone by. It had coated her hand in blood more times than she could count. She knew. She’d known since she’d seen that string get cut. Her life had already been decided, her fate was woven and it directed her like a marionette doll. She knew she’d have to make a choice. She knew someone was going to die. Someone always dies in the end. She knew, like the scars on her hands and the ridges of her fingertips, she knew. 

This tragedy had already been written.

Ethan doesn’t move. He sits in the darkness, and offers her a silent trust she’s not sure she deserves. He doesn’t seem sure either. 

So they sit, just existing in the space as time passes by like a countdown. They both knew. Knew they’d have to stand against each other one day, but for now she’s too tired to fight a battle she’d never wanted to. To fight someone she didn’t want to. Someone, who, she would guess, didn't really want to fight her either. At least not anymore. It’s odd, sitting in this apartment now. It didn’t really feel like home. Gabe’s never had, and Camp was close, but there were too many issues for it to truly be home. Too many expectations and prying eyes to feel truly home. This apartment, cold and only a few little things littering the place. Nice, but not lived in, not really. It was as close as she had though. More than most had. More than Ethan seemed to, if the fact he was choosing to stay with the titan army said anything. 

It’s just pushing on sunrise when Ethan finally moves, the low light drifting over his face, still pale but not quite as sickly as it had been. He’s not okay, but he’s alright enough for now. She knew the Ambrosia would’ve only done so much. But, it was better than nothing. 

“Thank you, Percy” Ethan whispers, before darting out the fire escape quicker than she’d ever be able to respond, yet she doesn’t need to. 

He’d said enough for both of them. 

There’s a knife sticking out of him, and somehow that isn’t as alarming as she feels it probably should be.

Gently, Percy wraps a teatowel around his bicep, above where the knife is embedded. Tying it enough that it would actually work, she moves her hands towards the knife. Ethan gives a brief nod, and without waiting she yanks the knife out. 

“Fuck!”

The makeshift tourniquet does its job, kinda . Well, it isn’t gushing blood so she counts that as a win. She shoves a slice of ambrosia at him, tossing the knife across the floor and grabbing the needle she’d already threaded. There wasn’t enough ambrosia to close it up, so she’d have to go a more traditional route. He hisses as the needle enters his skin, but otherwise doesn’t react as she slowly stitches his arm back together. After that, she places a bandage on top before untying the tourniquet. 

Ethan grunts, lying back as she steps away, ignoring the blood on the floor and the bandages covering the living room. His breathing still laboured, his hands shaking as he scans the room like the moment he let himself relax, he’d be attacked. Sad thing is, he probably wasn’t even wrong. The war was only getting worse, and would only be worse still. 

She’d gotten an IM from Annabeth earlier, and it just proved that everything was worse than what they were saying. 

“Things are okay Percy” Annabeth tries to say, just as Travis Stoll limps behind her. 

“They’re not Annabeth, they haven’t been for a long time. When are you guys going to let me help?” 

“We don’t, we’re managing Percy, and really, having you here would only make things worse” Annabeth tells her, and it’s only years of hearing the same that keeps Percy from pulling a face. 

“I want to help, Annie-“

“I think you’ve done enough Percy, wait for Chiron to contact you” Annabeth snarls, swiping a hand through the message making it dissipate before she can even begin to find the words. 

“Luke said he’d asked you to join him, before he left” Ethan says, and it brings it all back like it had happened a moment ago. She could still remember the look on his face, when he’d held out his hand. Years on she still always wonders what would’ve happened if she’d just taken his fucking hand. 

“He did” Percy confirms, throwing the bloodied tea towel into the bin “he offered me his hand, asked me if I hadn’t realised how useless it was, being a pawn to the gods. I never wanted to be” she confesses, voice low and shaky and it’s more than she’s ever said before on the subject. 

She’d never spoken about it, because she still didn’t know if she made the right choice. She’d never agree with Kronos, but she was beginning to realise Luke had a point. Luke had always had a point. 

“It’s all just one bad choice, no matter which one you choose” Ethan grunts, holding his shoulder and not making eye contact, but he doesn’t have to. She knows. She knows. 

“If only we could leave” Percy whispers. 

“If only,” Ethan agrees. 

They both know they’d never leave. 

“Yknow, you're not so bad Nakamura” Percy chuckles, shaking her head as she gently pushes around the wound and begins to put gauze over it. Ethan catches her eye, and it makes her breath catch. 

She’d never seen eyes so breathtakingly sliver.

“You’re not so bad yourself Jackson” he taunts, a gentle smirk pulling at his lips, his eye a light with more fire than she’d ever seen and suddenly she’s aware of just how little distance there is between them. It’s a terrible fucking idea, but no one ever accused her of having good ones. 

Suddenly he reels back, grabbing at his shoulder and face twisted in pain. The ambrosia hadn’t done enough. A few of the stitches are torn, and she once again grabs the needle and thread. Ethan doesn’t look at her as she stitches his shoulder back together once again. Neither of them look at her hands covered in far too much blood. He shows his relief, which is a testament to just how much pain he’s in. 

They settle back into an easy quiet. It's natural now, and Percy would even dare to say it almost relaxed Ethan now. There had to be irony somewhere in there, she supposed.

He grabs her wrist at some point, and by some stretch Percy manages not to flinch at the sudden contact. His fingers  are ice cold as they dance along the inside of her wrist. It only takes a moment for her to realise he’s let his fingers come to rest directly on her pulse point, an expression almost like relief flittering over his face quicker than she can register it. 

“You, are like the Dead Sea, Jackson, you know that?” He throws his head back, huffs of something pushing on the cusp of laughter breaking through his chest. His smile is sharp and mean and his teeth are stained with blood and he’s just a little bit pretty. 

His fingers don’t move from her pulse point. It makes her face warm more than it should. 

“I” Percy sighs, using the hand not in his hold to form a dolphin made of water from the tap, and Ethan looks almost in awe of it “think that is the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me” she decides to say, heart in her throat, but he doesn’t pull away. 

His hand stays around her wrist, and she thinks maybe she could stay like this. Maybe they both could. If only they could freeze time, stay in this moment for just a little while longer. 

It doesn’t quite work like that however, and soon enough they’re both pushing away, and getting ready to leave once again. 

Even though they didn’t sleep, Ethan looks more rested than she’d seen him look before. He looks relaxed, for the first time since she’d met him. 

“You need to be careful, what I gave you wasn’t enough to fully heal it and if you put too much pressure on it you’ll pull your stitches out” she tells him, fingers twitching in an aborted movement as she fights the urge to check the wound once again. Ethan just huffs amusedly, a small, vulnerable smile pulling at his lips. 

“Thank you, Percy” he says, quiet and soft but true all the same. 

“Be careful” is all she can manage to whisper back, even though she knows it’s nothing he can promise, nothing more than an empty sentence but he still nods, and perhaps that means more than any pretty words ever would. 

Percy can’t help but wonder if it’ll always be this empty, watching him go. 

“Annabeth” Percy tries, even as the blonde keeps ranting as if she hadn’t even spoken.

“Look, things are crazy here Percy, I don't have time to listen to your complaints about not being informed” Annabeth sighs, like the whole conversation is beneath her, and it feels a little bit like a slap to the face. 

“I was only asking if anyone else had been hurt” 

“Just two from Demeter and one from Ares, they failed a scouting mission. Can I get back to doing something productive now, or do you have more stupid questions, Seaweed Brain?” it stings, but Percy continues trying to ask questions.

“Have you guys pinned down what Luke’s planning?” she asks, not really expecting an answer and true to form Annabeth scowls, looking more pissed off than before.

“Seriously Percy? You know I'm not allowed to tell you, Chiron told you that. We’ll call when we need you” Annabeth lectures, before swiping a hand through the IM and cutting it off before she can even respond. 

Percy sighs, grabbing her bag and heading out of her apartment, Annabeth’s words ringing like an omen in her mind. It’s hard, it’s terrifying, not knowing. The waiting and hoping. It stirs her anger, the avoidance. She’d been forced into all this, she’d been made to fight for them for years, and now they didn’t want her involved? Now they wanted her out of the loop? She wants to scream. 

It was her, who spent hours digging through sand until her hands bled trying to find Bianca’s body. It was her, who told Nico what happened, while everyone stood back and let her. Like she wasn’t traumatised, like it wasn’t the first person she’d seen die, like it hadn’t almost been her, like she wasn’t fourteen. She had spent hours upon hours doing body retrieval with Clarisse after Kronos’ forces invaded camp. She’d found Lee Fletcher with his skull caved in. She’d seen Castor, his face trampled over and blood in a pool underneath him to the point he was barely recognisable. Five unclaimed kids had died too, in the name of parents who couldn’t even acknowledge them. Axel from Hephaestus had gone down. Seven Apollo kids, including Lee, had gone too. Two girls from Demeter. She’d found Silena crying over the body of one of her younger sisters. 

Will Solace had lost it after she put Lee down in the infirmary. Michael wouldn’t let any of the younger Apollo campers in, and Will went nuts. He’d spotted her, covered in blood and dirt and had screamed himself hoarse. She couldn’t really even remember what he’d said, but she remembered how much it had hurt. Pollux had been worse, by the gods, running into Pollux had been disastrous. He had thrown whatever was in reach at her, screaming that it was her fault Castor was dead. She’d hadn’t even argued, because it was true. She hadn’t broken down then, hadn’t felt it was her place to. But in the quiet of her cabin with the fountain reflecting on the roof she had let herself cry. Because these deaths were on The gods and they were on Luke, but they were on her too. All this, simply because she existed. 

Percy would always blame herself for everyone they’d lost in that fight, that would never change. But now she was letting herself feel angry about it too. Angry that they’d let all that happen, watched as people blamed her and hadn’t said a word, and now they wanted her removed. Like suddenly it wasn’t her fight anymore, and that wasn’t fair. 

“Percy” a voice whispers from next to her, and it’s only from practice that she doesn’t startle and continues to walk into the nearest cafe. 

Nico trails behind her, the bags under his eyes deeper and she knew they were both too far spent to continue having this same conversation over and over. 

“There’s been three more attacks that we know about, and at least five more campers were killed. They’re narrowing down the location of the princess andromeda” Nico informs her in quiet tones over his coffee, a bit unnervingly casual as he does. 

“Things are only going to get worse” Percy agrees, siping her own coffee and pretending not to notice the familiar black hair sticking out at a table nearby. 

“You know it’s a matter of when not if Percy” 

“I know”

“You know it’s gonna be sooner than later”

“I know”

“We don’t have a lot of time” 

“I know, Nico, but doing this too early could be just as bad. We need to make a hit on the army first”

“Well it’s only a matter of weeks now” 

“If that”

They both go silent, because funnily enough discussing an incoming war is easier than dealing with their problems. Then again, Nico and her had never exactly been conventional. A little part of her wonders if they’d had a little more time, would they be different now? Or did it always come back to them sitting over coffee and only exchanging stilted conversation. Funny how they could barely manage a little talk, and yet she still trusted him nearly completely. 

In saying that, she still tenses when she can see him spot Ethan. 

Ethan who looked pale and was probably hiding an injury. 

He’d probably been heading for her apartment, since they were only two blocks away. 

“Percy, the demigod from the maze, he’s four tables away, towards the back” Nico whispers, his posture a forced calm, and she decides to extend him a bit of the trust he seemed to always give her. 

“I know, he’s been here since we walked in” Percy says, taking a sip of her coffee and to Nico’s credit, he doesn’t outwardly react. 

“Percy…” he trails off, his voice wary.

“He’s okay Nico, he’s not looking to start trouble, and he won’t spy” she tried to assure him, but he looks far from convinced. 

“How do you know?” He asks, eyebrow raised, and he looks a little more like Hades, making a face like that. 

“Because if he was going to, Luke would already have me. I promise to explain it later, but I trust him, Nico” Percy shrugs, and she thinks it makes a point to Nico, who doesn’t look happy but doesn’t argue with her about it. 

“I’m going to see if I can get some more information, I’ll let you know if I do. And I’ll check in, but I think it won’t be long before we’re making a move. Stay safe” Nico says, standing up and downing the last of his coffee in one swift movement. She’d almost think him completely unbothered if he didn’t stumble slightly as he did and she couldn’t see his hands shaking. 

“Look after yourself Nico” she tells him, and his face spasms slightly, like he’s not sure what to do with sentiment, and then he’s gone, out the door and down the street with little preamble. 

No matter how put together he seemed, he was still as awkward as he had been at ten. 

( And fuck if she didn’t feel bad about how involved he now was too)

It doesn’t take her long to finish her coffee after that, and soon enough she’s leaving the cafe, dread weighing down her every step and an extra shadow dancing in the corner of her vision.

Just to be cautious, Percy walks two blocks before ducking off into a side alleyway and waiting. It doesn’t take long for him to catch up, and close up she can see he looks much worse than what she’d observed. His face is sunken in and completely void of colour, and there’s a concerningly large stain growing under his hand holding his ribs. 

“Fuck Ethan” Percy mutters, tugging his shirt up in and attempt to see the wound, but she doesn’t even manage a glance. 

Her ears are ringing as she slams into the concrete. Three fairly big Telkhines are standing at the mouth of the alleyway, ugly snarls on their faces and jagged tridents in their hands, the tips of one already stained and her heart sinks. Riptide slips into her hand instinctively, and she’s swinging just as the closest Telekhine lunges at her. She missed, and the tip of his trident makes a shallow gash on her arm. Not pausing she forces her blade up, and under his armpit, spitting out the gold dust that flies into her face as he disintegrates. 

“Ugly bastard” she spits, wiping blood from her lip.

Momentarily distracted, a second Telekhine manages a much heavier hit, sending her reeling back and her head hits the brick wall with a sickening crack. She can feel something warm dripping down the side of her head, but she doesn’t stop, still moving quicker than them and stabbing Riptide straight through his throat. 

“You guys are seriously predictable, where’s the suspense?” Percy goads towards the final hulking figure standing menacingly at the mouth of the alley. 

The third Telekhine is the largest one, because of course it is. She lifts Riptide, just as the monster snarls and swings his trident in an arc towards her. She didn’t see Ethan move, but she does see him limp in front of her, blade out, and she doesn’t even think before moving. 

Turns out, a trident going through her stomach is not a pleasant experience. Thankfully for small mercies, she’d been able to manoeuvre Riptide into the right spot to stab the stupid beast and turn him to dust. So distracted by the trident through her stomach, she doesn’t feel her arm, doesn’t even notice, at least not until  after Ethan does. 

“What, shit, Percy, holy shit” Ethan hisses, and it’s then she realises his sword had stabbed pretty deeply into her bicep. 

“Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have egged them on” Percy coughs, keeping herself upright only by clinging to Ethan.

“You think?” Ethan grumbles, hooking his arm around her waist and forces her up in a very sudden, aborted motion that manages to pull on all her wounds. She digs her nails into his shirt, trying to force her feet underneath herself by using him as a support, ignoring as her vision goes momentarily white. 

“Go, my apartment, got, ambrosia” Percy manages to get out, and Ethan nods. 

Distantly, she registers this is the most emotion she’d ever seen on his face. 

It’s a slow and very painful trek back to her apartment. Once again, luck strikes in some form considering her mum is once again out with Paul. Then again, her Ambrosia stock was running a bit low, so maybe it balances out. The stairs are perhaps the worst form of torture and after much swearing and bleeding, they’re at her apartment door. 

They stumble inside like they’re drunk, and almost immediately her legs give out. 

“Fuck, Percy!” Ethan shouts, though it sounds further away then she thinks it should, as he trips under her sudden extra weight. Gently he lowers her onto the ground, and then his arm around her is gone, and it’s then she notices how her hands are shaking underneath all the blood covering them. 

Gentle hands pry her mouth open, and she hums as the taste of ambrosia fills her senses. Warmth pulses through her and the sharp pain dulls ever so slightly, to the point that her head isn’t quite so clouded at least. Still, it’s not an unfamiliar feeling and she can work with it.

“I’m gonna need to stitch this Ethan, can you get the thread?” Percy asks as he helps into a more upright sitting position and she gets a good look at the three jagged wounds tearing through her stomach. At least the Ambrosia would handle the internal stuff.

While he’s gone she feels where the blood is coming from on her head, and deciding it’s not an immediate worry, she just gently cleans it up so the blood stops, fairly confident that the ambrosia will handle the rest. 

Ethan is subdued when he reappears, and quietly hands her the thread. He sits in front of her, his eyes following her hands as she begins to stitch herself back together. It’s the closest they’ve ever been to each other, but she can’t dwell on it, not how she wishes she could when her stomach screams in agony every time the tip of the needle slides through it. 

“Why?” Ethan asks finally, long after Percy’s done the last stitch and completely shatters the delicate silence of the room. 

“”Why what?”

“Why did you jump in front of me?” Ethan says, a little bit of desperation seeping into his voice and really, there’s not much left to lose now. 

“Because if you had fought them, the Titans would know you protected me. You can’t risk that, Luke might not care, but one of the others definitely will” Percy explains, a little bit exasperated but Ethan just stares at her, stunned , like he still can’t understand. 

Maybe he can’t. 

“What was it you said the other day?” Percy poses out loud, which turns into more of a groan as she shifts and it pulls on her still very new and unhealed stitches “ Dead Sea ?” 

It works because Ethan laughs, perhaps the first real laugh she’d ever heard from him. 

“You really are Jackson, you really fucking are” he jokes, and something seems to have clicked in his mind, because he reaches forward and very hesitantly intertwines their hands. 

They sit just like that for a while, opposite each other and hands intertwined and hanging between them. It’s more than Percy had hoped for, and she’s just a little bit glad that she's too injured to have the energy to blush. And yeah, he really is pretty . 

Eventually, her eyes start to get heavy and with that goes her very minimal impulse control. Shifting slightly, she tugs on Ethan’s hand, meeting his eyes when he looks up and tugging again until realisation spreads over his face. Very hesitantly Ethan moves to sit next to her, against the wall, their bodies touching and it makes her smile unconsciously. For a moment he tenses up, and she wonders if maybe she’d pushed too far, but then he relaxes, letting himself lean into her slightly. Still tired and sore, she lets her head rest on her shoulder, and there’s no stopping the blush flooding her cheeks when he lets his head rest on hers too. 

Maybe this wasn’t such a stupid idea after all.

Percy smiles as she approaches her apartment, the scuffling on the other side indicating another visit from Ethan. She hadn’t seen him since the other day. Her stomach had healed up mostly, three jagged, raised angry lines now marked her torso, but she wasn’t dead yet and they didn’t really hurt all that much anymore, so she’d count it as a win. She’d even managed to make up a batch of blue cookies yesterday, which still made her feel absurdly better just like it had when she was a kid. 

She opens the door, ready to greet Ethan like she normally did when her eyes land on the trail of red leading through the apartment. It leads her to the bathroom, and she doesn’t waste any time throwing the door open. 

He looks dead . 

The majority of his body is covered in blood, to the point that she can’t see where any of it is coming from and his chest is only very lightly rising. She’s moving for the ambrosia, the last piece she has, before she can even think about it. Skidding to her knees next to his head, she sighs in relief as he manages to open his eye. 

“Hey, come on, you’ve got to have the Ambrosia Ethan” Percy whispers, gently moving his mouth open and placing it inside for him since he can barely move. His body sags, and for the briefest moment she thinks it worked, that maybe the blood just looks bad, but the injury isn’t. 

She sits back, and she can see the exact moment his chest stops rising .

“ NO! ETHAN!” Percy screams, diving towards him frantically. 

Panicked, she does the only thing she can think to do, and starts pushing down on his chest as hard as she can. After doing that for about thirty times, she pinches his nose, tilts his head up and blows a breath into his mouth, and then she goes back to pushing down on his chest once again. Tears sting her eyes, she can barely see and she’s not even sure if she’s doing the right thing. 

After a minute sobs start to shake her body as she continues trying to keep his heart pumping. She’s shaking after three. 

She does scream when after four minutes, after she blows another breath into his mouth, his chest starts to move on it’s own

For a moment all she can do is sob, blood coating everything in sight and Ethan’s chest rising and falling very shallowly. She stays kneeled next to him, making aborted movements every time she thinks his chest is taking just a little too long to rise again.

 He’s breathing, but not well. She doesn’t have any ambrosia left, and with how her hands are shaking she’s not sure she’ll be able to keep up CPR for a second time. Then, a tap explodes.

Percy tries to calm herself down, as she can feel her powers thrumming under her fingers, itching to be released, when she looks at the water again. Twirling it around, she looks at Ethan again, whose breathing has gotten worse once again. 

“Please work” Percy whispers to herself, and directs the water over Ethan so it’s covering his torso. 

For a moment she doesn’t think it’s worked, she’d never tried it on anybody but herself, but then a small cut knits itself back together. She directs it over another, larger, wound and it does take a moment, but it works. She does this all over his torso, and his breathing gets deeper. She does his arms, and his face isn’t quite so pale anymore. She does his legs, and finally, he seems okay.

His face is last, and in her panic she hadn’t noticed, but his eye patch had come off at some point. There’s jagged scarring all around the socket where his eye should be, like someone had used two knives to try and dig it out. She knew the gods were able to just remove the eye, and had heard stories of it, but this was much more cruel .

Ever so gently, she guides the water to the scratches on his face and watches as each one is knitted back together like it had never even been there in the first place. It’s only then, reassured that she had put Ethan back together in every way that she currently could, that she crashes. She falls back, white dots painting her vision and she can barely move her limbs. Seems the healing with water took more out of her when it was other people, since even back when the hellhound attacked her at twelve, she hadn’t felt like this after the water healed her. 

For now, she was just glad it had worked and that Ethan now looked as though he was simply asleep, and not at all like his heart stopped less than an hour ago. 

Percy has to sit for a while, letting the strength come back to her body and her breathing settle. Her hands still shake, and she can’t stop herself from looking at Ethan at every slight noise or hitch in his breath. Even then, she barely looks away. Tears sting her eyes, and she doesn’t even attempt to fight them as they roll down her cheeks. She can still feel the way Ethan’s ribs had cracked under her hands, she’s not sure it’s something she’d ever forget. Blood drips from her hands, and for a moment she can’t tell whose it is, memories blending together like some horrific highlight reel of her biggest failures. 

“If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him…tell him i’m sorry”

“Stars” she whispered “I can see the stars again, my lady”.

“I wish you were dead!”

“The dionysus shroud lit the sky, i hadn’t even known his name before today”

“Lee Fletcher had gone down to a giants club, and the shroud covered his entire body from view, they hadn’t been able to clean him up enough to make him viewable”

Ethan though, Ethan’s still breathing despite what her worst fears would have her believe. It’s not easy breaths either, there’s a whistle every time he breathes in and his chest rattles. He looked far from peaceful, but every ragged breath is just proof that he hadn’t faded, that she hadn’t failed this time. But even that isn’t enough to silence the hollow ticking of the clock counting down her time. 

Percy can’t help but think, not the first time, about leaving it all behind. Yet she knew she’d never make it out the door, no matter how much she wished she could. She had a terrible feeling that the next time Nico came to find her would be last. 

Mechanically, she forces herself to her feet. Her legs shake beneath her, and every step she takes feels like one closer to her grave. Hysterically, her mind goes back to how she’d thought Grover looked like he was planning her funeral all those years ago, after the Fates had snipped that string. Her string . The cold she’d felt that day has settled itself into her bones, but somehow it feels much more lonesome , than it had back then. The water is a reprieve against her skin, washing the blood off her in waves of maroon, staining the sink under its gentle touch. 

Despite the tiredness weighing down her every step, Percy begins the process of cleaning the bathroom from looking like a murder scene. It’s easy enough to mop up the blood, and remove the stains with a bit of bleach. The worst part is the smell, something just a little too metallic, like rust. A bit of room spray wouldn’t get rid of it fully, but it’d do enough. She could already see the tight smile her mother would have when she noticed, because she would, and the way her eyes would follow her without ever actually uttering a word to try and work out the truth. 

Just as she goes to turn out the light, she makes the mistake of looking in the mirror. Her cheeks are more hollowed out than usual, her hair is a mess and her face is just a little too pale to be normal. The worst part is her eyes, because they could so easily be his. 

Percy can’t help but wonder if Luke knows where Ethan is now. Does he care? She thinks he’d have to. Even when he’d stood opposite her, backbiter levelled at her throat, he had cared . He’d been honest , he’d been truthful in his intentions, while every one else had skated around every question she’d asked. So it’s easy to believe he’d care about Ethan, because he’d cared about her .

She wasn’t sure that she’d ever tell anyone just how close she’d been to Luke, at the start. She wasn’t sure she’d ever find the strength to talk about how he’d braid her hair, how he taught her how to use a sword, how in the week after she’d been claimed before she’d been sent on her first suicide mission, he’d done everything he could to help her with her powers while everyone else avoided her. 

She’d wondered, more times than she’d ever admit, if she should’ve taken his hand.

Ethan is still out cold when she walks back into the room, and looking at him, she thinks he’d been through enough without sleeping on the floor. All the training pays off when she manages to pull him and support his weight without much difficulty. It is slightly concerning that he doesn’t even stir, but she’d almost prefer him staying out for as long as possible, let the worst of the pain pass. She knew how excruciating it could be to be awake for every minute of it, how impossible it was to fall asleep once aware of the pain. 

She knew it wouldn’t be the memory of pain keeping her up tonight. 

Ethan’s chest rising up and down was the only thing keeping her upright. He doesn’t look quite so hardened and cold in sleep, even if Percy hadn’t been aware that it was a front from the first time they met. It’s jarring in a way she hadn’t really let herself think about, being confronted with what his war was taking from all of them .

Percy’s life was not her own, it was never her own. 

From the first breath any of them took, their lives were promised to something more. Something with knives for hands and pain as it is only language. They were promised to something meant to give faith , something to believe , but she wasn’t sure it ever had. Not when all it had ever gotten her was blood stained hands that no amount of washing would ever clean and promises that hung around her neck like a noose, waiting for her to take that one step and condemn herself to the death sentence they had written for her. Luke knew, because he’d been standing on that podium long before she had, but he’d decided to cut the noose, only to tie one of a different colour around his neck. Now they were both poised to be impaled on the sword of their own promises. Just two martyrs who’d been dead long before their bodies went cold. 

A hand extended in front of her, kind blue eyes flickering to gold in the dark. She pushed away the hand. 

The dagger is a grounding weight in her hand, and it’s quiet. Untainted by memories and history. There’s a scale engraved into the hilt, and she feels like throwing up. She sits vigil in the window frame, viewing the world from her perch on the fire escape. A sentry. There was already too much blood on her hands, it stained everything she touched. It didn’t matter if he was clawing and screaming, she wasn’t letting Ethan die. Not when she’d already had to restart his heart. She wished she could scream, but somehow the silence is more deafening than any words could hope to be. The world hadn’t stopped, and that felt like the biggest betrayal of all.

The clocks ticked on, but the blood stained her hands all the same.

Death is promised to the bee,

Whose sting protects the colony, 

Was it’s life worth nothing more

Than honey for the queen?

Percy knows times running out, she knows . Just like she knows what the caduceus drawn in blood on paper means when it’s slipped under her door. She holds onto the dagger. It’s been a week, but the blood is still crusted underneath her fingernails. She’d found Ethan’s eyepatch, and now it was carefully tucked away in one of the little hidey-holes in her room, one thing that she’d never been quite able to give up. Even though the reason for them was long dead.  

Her mum was staying out longer now, staying over at Paul’s. The engagement ring sparkled on her finger. She hadn’t gone to the party, couldn’t face the idea of having to meet a new family . Not when her mum’s smile seemed real for the first time she could ever remember. Not when every day just had the rope around her neck growing tighter. She’d told Grover, in the inbetween of the Minotaur and the start of her first quest, what flowers she’d like best. She thought he’d make it nice, even if he was the only one who went. 

She’d written letters, around the tears blurring her vision and the dyslexia wreaking havoc, she’d written them. She thought they reflected her pretty well, jagged and rough and stained and bent . There wasn’t that many to write. Six too white envelopes sit neatly stacked on her desk, easy to find, because even at the end of the world, she wasn’t heartless. And she owed it to some of them.

He’s on the fire-escape. She can hear the change in footsteps and shuffle of the window being opened from the outside. It’s been a long fucking week, and her death day count down was getting closer and she could still feel the blood, and so she doesn’t even bother with the pretense of composure. 

“Perce” Ethan whispers, voice gravelly as she barrels into him as much as she dares to with the injuries he had last time. His arms are almost painfully tight around her back, and his face is pressed against her head and she thinks they’ve danced around this for far too long. 

His lips are chapped yet soft against her own. She can feel him jerk in surprise and it was a little awkward around the tears but after a second he leans forward, leans into her and she thinks maybe it was all worth it if she got this at the end of it. 

“Dead-fucking-sea” he huffs as he pulls away, but he’s smiling and he lets his forehead bend to press against her own.

She lets her hand come up to cup his jaw, her thumb lightly brushing against one of the longest scars from his eye, the one that stretches down to his jaw. He looks almost mesmerised as she traces them, like he can’t believe she isn’t flinching away from him but she had no plans to. He’d almost died on her, he had died on her, he wasn’t scaring her off that easily. 

To prove it, she leans up and ever so gently lets her lips brush under his eye and over the scarring. HIs breathing shudders, his grip around her tightens, and this , this is enough. This is where she wants to stay.  

“We could go?” Ethan offers, voice barely above a whisper and she thinks of the Caduceus drawn in blood again, and she knows he’s telling the truth. Knows he’s fighting his fatal flaw to offer her a way. Knows Luke is offering her a way out. 

She thinks of kind blue eyes. She thinks that with one tiny gesture, one little note with a scribble on it proved that the Luke she’d met all those years ago wasn’t gone. Not entirely. And something she thought would never happen again, was now right here in front of her. Luke was offering her a hand once again, another way out. Different than before, but an escape all the same. 

“I really, really want to” Percy breathes, because it’s the truth and it hurts so much because she never thought she’d get to make this choice again, and again she has to push away the hand. Because promises in the shape of a noose still hung around her neck, and any step to leave would be the final push off the pedestal, and somehow she didn’t think she’d be able to survive it this time. 

Ethan doesn’t respond, he just holds her tighter and she doesn’t have to say anything else. They’d both made their promises and even if they did leave, they’d come back. Percy didn’t believe in the gods, she hadn’t for a long time ( maybe she never had ) but she wasn’t about to leave this on everyone. She wasn’t going to leave when she’d already claimed the prophecy just so it wouldn’t be Nico. Because Thalia had already left it to her, and she got it, she knew , but that didn’t stop the resentment. She thought she was allowed that much, since it meant her walking to her death. She’d already let Nico down enough, and she knew it was for the better.

“We’d go somewhere far, somewhere you can see the ocean” Percy suggests, and Ethan sags against her like they could just stay wrapped up here forever “and we’d get a dog, or well, we’d have to take Mrs O’leary with us” 

“We could get a house on the beach, and get a target range” Ethan mumbles, his fingers intertwining with hers and fuck is it painful to imagine them standing in front of that house the way they’re standing now, to imagine that they’d make it to their twenties and the beach and the dogs and the home . 

The noose around her neck was pulled taut. 

“We’d have to give the dog a name” Ethan comments, like he hadn’t realised she’d gone completely tense, like he wasn’t gripping her so tightly it seemed like he was terrified to let go. 

“I’m not good with names” Percy snorts, memories of Bessie pushing their way to the front of her mind and Ethan chuckles, a raspy, comforting sort of thing that vibrates through her. 

“What about Kataigida?” Ethan whispers into her hair, the word translating immediately in her mind and she can’t help but grip him tighter, like if she dug her heels in hard enough they wouldn’t be able to drag her away like an animal being torn away to slaughter. 

“I like that” 

“Me too” 

It’s daybreak, and all too soon Ethan will have to slip away once more, back to the gallows. She’d known from the start how this was going to end, and she’d jumped in all the way anyway. It’s a different kind of hurt, walking away. Even the shadows seemed to mock her as she dug her nails into his shirt, like that would do anything against the constant ticking of the clock in her mind. 

It’s not much, the promises, but it’s all she needs. All she’d ever need. Hope burns in her chest, bright and stubborn and unwavering in the face of the oncoming storm. One tiny flame against the harsh winds of a tornado. It digs in its heels and carves out a jagged spot in her heart to nestle into. It hurts, in a way her impending death never could. She’d already made her peace with that, but Ethan was a different story entirely. He was the one thing she didn’t want to give, the one thing she couldn’t. She already given everything she had, she’d given her life and promised her death to a war that wasn’t even hers to fight. She wouldn’t give Ethan too. She couldn’t. 

Percy tilts her head up once more, humming as lips meet her own in a gentle push. Ethan leans into it, into her in a way that has her gripping his shirt tighter. She’d known. Fuck she had known from the start how this would end, and she’d let herself get sucked in anyway. 

What’s worse, she couldn’t even say she regretted it. 

Dawn rises like a gentle hug and a final goodbye wrapped together. It burns bright and fiercely and is gone before she can even begin to make sense of the shadows it casts. Dawn comes, and it goes, and it takes Ethan with it out the door. He slips away like he’d never been there in the first place. Nobody would ever know he had been. That was almost worse, the idea that he’d simply never been here in the first place. Like he hadn’t bled on these floors and hugged her for the first time between the safety of these walls. Like none of it had ever happened. 

She looks at the little silver ring in her palm, and shakily slides it onto her finger. 

Maybe nobody else needed to know it happened. Maybe it was enough that she always would. 

The blue crystal shines in the sunlight and she lets a tear fall, as something entirely too mournful washes over her in devastating waves, the only waves she has no hope of ever controlling. 

They’d never stood a fucking chance. 

A half-blood of the eldest gods

Shall reach sixteen against all odds

And see the world in endless sleep

The hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap

A single choice shall end their days, 

Olympus to preserve or raze

The end of the world comes like she knew it would, harsh and fast and burning .

She may be mostly fireproof, but Percy can still feel the phantom fire curling around her arms as she crashes through the water. She could see kind brown eyes every time her eyes closed, the phantom of gentle hugs wrapping around her shoulders. The water is doing its job, even as the patch of red surrounding her keeps growing bigger, but she can’t help but wish it wouldn’t. It’s a coward's way out, but she can’t ignore the fact that her relief is as big as her guilt. 

Then she wakes up in her dad’s palace. It goes about as well as any run in with her father ever does, but her mind can’t really focus on anything but the fact that Beckendorf is gone . He’d smiled with tears running down his cheeks as he let her get away. He’d died for this stupid fucking war. He’d wanted to go to University. He wanted to move into an apartment with Silena. He wanted to live, and now she didn’t even have a body to bring back. 

That perhaps, feels like the biggest betrayal of all. 

Darkly, quietly, she wonders if Luke knows. She wonders if he’s mourning, they’d been friends before Luke left after all. She’d seen them interact. She wondered if Luke was crying too. She wondered how many more friends they’d have to cry for? How many friends would have to cry for them? How many would cry for her?

Silena breaks, and it's raw and painful and once again Percy can’t help but wish someone had’ve put her out of her misery years ago. Maybe Beck would still be alive. Maybe a lot of people would. The Head Councillors meet, and they hear the prophecy and Clarisse has to escort Silena out and Percy knows Nico is going to show up before the day is over.

She hears their whispers, as she leaves the meeting. She’d noticed the looks, and she’s not entirely surprised when she overhears what they’re saying. 

“isn‘t she like, fireproof?”

“Why didn’t she set the explosion, she could’ve survived it”

“Figures she’d let Beckendorf die for her, not like she hasn’t let people before”

“Why do we all have to fight just because she was born?”

“She killed Beckendorf”

It's a knife to her back, but it’s a familiar knife, one she’d handed them over and over again. She shouldn’t be surprised, but she is. She shouldn’t be upset, but she is. She shouldn’t be angry, but she’d always been fucking angry. She ignores Annabeth’s attempts to talk to her, and stalks off to her cabin well aware of all the eyes following her. She knew what the counsellor’s thought too, she’d seen it on their faces after the last line of the prophecy was read. Everyone knew what it meant. A nicely packaged death sentence to send her on her way. 

It’s humanising and all too harsh to be faced with the certainty of her quickly approaching death. Not that she hadn’t been certain before, but hearing it so clearly from the fates themselves, well, it gives her a bit of clarity if nothing else. It’s a bit deflating, to be reduced to a puppet on a string being strategically kept alive to die at the proper moment. 

She supposed the only upside was nobody had pretended to ever be more invested in her survival then they were. She’d been trained to survive until she could die when the gods needed her, and fuck she’s grateful she claimed the prophecy so it wouldn’t fall on Nico. 

“Percy” Nico somehow looks so much older as he appears from the shadows, purple bruises underneath his eyes that are barely concealing raw terror. It makes her want to throw up just looking at it, but she’d long since learnt how to move past her personal feelings to get a job done. 

So, she forces a smile on her lips and pushes the panic down. She holds Riptide in a white knuckled grip and ignores how heavy the ring suddenly feels on her finger. 

“Where do we go first?” she asks, and Nico just holds out his hand for her to take, and she does. 

May Castellan is something so completely devastating and yet utterly horrifying at the same time. 

Understanding washes over her as she looks at the mounds of mouldy cookies covering the surfaces in the kitchen. Suddenly Luke makes so much fucking sense. As if he hadn’t already made sense. This is just the nail in the proverbial coffin. His personal anger and hurt at the gods makes sense. She can’t help but think of Luke as a young child, coming home to a mother that was only there half the time. Coming home to a mother with unpredictable violent attacks. She can imagine a young Luke wishing for his dad to come back. She can imagine him wishing to leave, a mirror to a young girl who hid in cupboards, sitting on beer-stained carpet and wishing someone would come and whisk her away. Eventually the door would open, and things would continue on the same. 

Luke had just made the decision he wasn’t going to wait around for that door to open, and Percy really couldn’t blame him. The hurt for Zoe and Bianca was still there, it had never faded, but her understanding of Luke had grown at the same time. 

It felt like a lifetime ago he’d held out his hand to her, offered her the chance to open that door and she’d pushed it away. 

He’d offered it again, but she couldn’t take it because she’d already signed her own death warrant and she wasn’t about to let someone else fall in her place. 

Maybe the real truth of it all is they are both simply victims of the fates and the gods. 

Maybe in another life she could’ve taken his fucking hand. 

There’d only ever be the fucking maybe’s. 

“Don’t be late for dinner Luke” May Castellan says, patting Percy’s cheek and staring at her with misted-over eyes. She swallows the bile in her throat and manages a smile. 

“I won’t mum” she croaks and May beams like she’s just given her the greatest gift, and maybe she has. She lets May hand her the rotted food and send her on her way. She pointedly doesn’t look as the woman starts talking to her lights. She certainly doesn’t look at the photos of a young Luke, ones May would never have been coherent enough to take. The house isn’t in the disrepair it should be if May was the only one looking after it. 

Sucking in a sharp breath, she thinks she can understand why Luke hates Hermes so much. 

Nico doesn’t say anything as they walk away from May Castellan and her cookies that would never get eaten. It’s like her own childhood is being thrown in her face. Instead of cookies she was haunted by the smell of cigarettes and the sharp sting of belt leather. Memories of hiding in closets and sneaking out the fire escape for a few days, when her mum was too sleep deprived to notice and Gabe was getting a little too hard to weather. 

She’d known for a long time that it hadn’t been fair, but she couldn’t but wonder if anyone had told Luke the same. 

If Hermes had told Luke the same.  

Thalia talked about it sometimes, in low tones and shaky laughs. She spoke of a boy with eyes just a little bit too blue, that picked fights and followed his anger blindly. She said it was because of him, that they didn’t make it to camp sooner. Thalia held an anger for Luke that was more sorrowful than anything else, resigned like this is the only way it was ever going to go. 

Percy can’t help but wonder how long it will be until they’re all saying the same about her.

The River Styx is a unique form of torture. 

Her mother hadn’t even been able to look her in the eye, but she’d managed to utter her blessing, and that was enough. It had to be enough. Looking down at the river, she’s not sure it ever would be. The underworld curls around her arms as she approaches the river, a subdued Nico at her side. She’d made a lot of mistakes when it came to him, but there wasn’t time to spell it all out now. There isn’t time for much of anything, so she does the only thing she can think to do. 

She holds her hand out to the side, and after only a moment’s hesitation, cold fingers intertwined with her own. She’d throw up if she had anything left in her stomach. Despite all her failings, despite all the promises that she bore the scars of, that trust he’d placed in her the first time they met was still there. It wasn’t as bright and blindly faithful as it had been, warped and shaped by the years and the tears, but it wasn’t gone. It was broken and rough and a patchwork of haunting regrets and even worse memories, but it wasn’t gone. 

“Percy, I don’t know…” Nico trails off, eyes side and nervous as he stares down at the river before them. She is suddenly struck by just how young he truly is. 

Ever so gently, she squeezes his hand unable to hide her grin when after a moment he squeezes back. He clings to it like it’s the only thing keeping grounded. She knew he knew what it meant, if she died before the prophecy came to pass. He knew what it meant, and it terrified him. He didn’t know what she’d done, he couldn’t, but he knew enough. She’d never tell him what she did, but she’d never regret it either. Not when part of her resented Thalia for joining the hunters. 

Nico looks at her, eyes wide and soft and for a moment she’s back there, a wide-eyed ten year old looking at her sword in awe. A scruffy little kid, full of curiosity and caution, rattling off questions fast enough to make her head spin. A kid that she’d taught how to hold a sword, how to put on armour, how to play capture the flag. The memories have no right to feel as long ago as they do. Have no right to stain her hands like blood she can never wash off. 

“It’ll be alright Nico” Percy whispers, because it’s all she can make herself say. There’s no time for reopening old wounds, no time to make peace with her biggest regret. 

She’d always been running out of time. 

The Styx gently washes over the bank, steam billowing upwards from it gently. The pollution of it runs against her skin and sets her teeth on edge. It’s like she can suddenly feel every forgotten promise rotting under her fingernails. It’s like every discarded dream is wrapping a noose around her neck. The surface of the water flickers with broken promises and forgotten dreams. For a moment she almost thinks she can see herself, on a beach, and determinedly doesn’t let herself think about it. It’s a physical representation of everything nobody wants to acknowledge. Just another fucking curse. 

“It’s not worth its gift” a voice warns, buffering in and out like an old radio recording. 

Perhaps she should’ve expected Achilles. 

He looks softer than any depiction of him Percy has ever seen. She’s not sure what she would’ve expected, if she’d expected him at all, but the nostalgic and mournful look is far from anything she would’ve come up with. Perhaps it makes sense, or maybe it makes no sense at all. Everybody knows the story of Achilles. Maybe tragedies weren’t designed to make sense. 

“I know” 

“The power it gives, the invulnerability, it makes you believe yourself a god” 

“I don’t want the power, I just want it all to stop”

“It’ll kill you”

“I’m already dead”

“It won’t change anything”

“But it might be enough to delay it” 

“A steep price for such an uncertain victory”

“I’ve played worse odds”

“The power of the gods is a delicate balance, as is that of vulnerability”

“I want to borrow it, not conquer”

“Those two aspirations are not dissimilar”

“They’re not my aspirations” 

“What would you call it then?”

“ a promise “ 

A caduceus drawn in blood echoes in her mind, as she looks at Achilles standing across from her. Just another step along a path Luke had carved out. It was beyond her, how much of her life came back to him. Maybe it’s because he is the tipping point, had been her tipping point. It was Luke that had led her to the edge of the River Styx. She didn’t want to take that step, but she knew what it would mean if she didn’t. 

“ don’t let it command you” is what Achilles says, eventually, looking far too weary and worn for a long dead ancient demigod. She’s very suddenly hit by the memory of the fact that this choice that she’s made, is a choice Achilles was never given. Cursed as result of his birth. 

Suddenly she thinks he understands more than anyone else ever could. 

Too bad nobody ever listened to the dead. 

Percy only nods, because it’s all she can manage. Words feel jumbled and far out of reach. It’s with that, and a shaky breath, that she finally takes that step into the River Styx. She can feel it sting as she sinks deeper, and as it hits her waist the sheer force of the pain sends her crashing down to her knees.

It’s worse than lava, the burning. She can feel it washing over her skin, leaving it blistered and red and dead. She can feel it cutting through her skin and sinking its teeth into her bones. She can’t even scream, voice paralysed by the pain. She can barely think, let alone move. She just wants it to stop. All she’s ever wanted was for it to stop. For the pain to finally be put to rest. She just wants it to fade. She wants to fade along with it. The water is so hot against her it feels cold, and she can’t see anymore and she’s not sure she can even remember how the pain started. Why the pain started. Why it won’t stop. 

“ Come on Astéri mou, don’t give up on me now” a familiar voice calls, and looking up she’s met with the silver eye that always manages to sweep her off her feet. 

Ethan’s there, smile bright and expression soft in a way she’d only see so few times. He holds out his hand, and it’s the same choice she’s had to make so many times before. 

Suddenly her mind flashes through different moments of different people, memory after memory playing like a highlight reel. 

Nico bouncing on the balls of his feet as he holds up his first sword. Luke laughing as she accidentally splashed him. Silena yelling in excitement as they glide through the air. Annabeth cheering as they win the chariot race. Clarisse, holding out her hand. Thalia, talking to her in a car. Chris smiling as his prank goes off. Zoe, giving her blessing to carry Riptide. Lee, teaching her archery for the first time. Hanging with Beckendorf and Tyson in the Hephaestus forge. Playing get the greek with Mrs. O’Leary. Meeting Ethan for a he first time. Grover getting his searchers licence. Ethan smiling at her for the first time. Tyson showing her the shield he’d made her. Clarisse, saving her life. Thalia, standing by her side. Luke teaching her how to swordfight. Annabeth writing to her. Ethan holding her hand. Beckendorf ruffling her hair- 

“I’m right here Perce, my turn to be the Dead Sea now, huh?” 

It’s Ethan, and a choice had never been so simple. Without even thinking, she reaches out and lets her hand intertwine with his. Suddenly she’d roughly yanked forward, lungs burning even though she’s not sure when she started holding her breath. Her skin feels raw and vulnerable, but there’s something new humming in her veins. Further down and more dormant than her powers, but unrelenting all the same. It forces her up, and she barely even notices how the river parts for her. The small of her back tingles. 

Percy slams into the ground, groaning as her skin throbs and Nico’s face swims in and out of view. He’s saying something she can’t quite make out, her vision blurring far too much for that. The only thing she can see is the terror on his face, that only grows when he looks up at with his eyes trained on something in the distance. 

“Shit, Percy, fuck your hurt, don’t move, I didn’t mean for this to-“ Nico rambles, but even in his frantic state lets her grab his arm to pull herself up. 

It’s Hades, and his army, charging towards them and she’s certainly not delusional enough to believe they’d be able to run quick enough to get away. The ground shakes beneath them. Hades had reserved his judgement on her years ago, he’d stood behind and watched the chess pieces fall into place. His anger bends and warps and controls. There’s something ancient and melancholic and even sorrowful to the anger that knocks her off her feet. It’s an anger she can understand, even as he charges towards her, the army poised to attack. 

The only thing is, she’d been burned with the anger of others for so long, that she rarely let her own go lose, but with new power humming in her veins, she lets it fly. She’d taken the anger for years now. She’d taken it all, with a smile on her face. Now, with friends in graves and her death warrant already signed, there’s nothing left to hold her back. Now, she doesn’t want to hold it back. 

Maybe she wants to prove why Posiedon is called the father of monsters. 

The Styx rises to her call, looming and deadly and overarching and all it takes is a gentle nudge for it to go crashing forward. It follows her every demand, contorting and twirling like a deadly ribbon, decimating row after row of undead soldiers. It’s almost like a dance, the way it rises and falls and spins all to her whims. And okay, maybe she’s a little pissed now. It’s as easy breathing, the fighting. She’s self-aware enough to recognise that fighting is the one language she’d never had trouble understanding. 

Nico falls into the rhythm behind her, slicing down soldiers, back turned to her in implicit trust that she wouldn’t let Styx touch him. If she fights a little harder after noticing that, then well, no one else will ever know anyway. She manages a few brief glances at Hades as she cuts through his forces, and she’s almost surprised. His face is pale, eyes on the Styx twirling behind her looking shocked, and she’d almost dare to say a little proud. 

It ends like it started, all at once and burning. 

The Styx retreats, slowly, as if it knows it’s job is done. Percy can still feel it, dormant yet ready, waiting for its next order. Hades seems to know it too, as he stares up at her, not sparing a glance at her sword against his throat. 

“Once they take down Olympus, where do you think they’re going to turn to next?” Percy asks, almost like a taunt, but she thinks it’s warranted after everything. 

Hades just snarls before disappearing in a cloud of shadows. It’s only then she realises the entire army of Hades is laying at her feet, sliced and butchered and decimated . The Styx hums under her skin, waiting but aware and ready all the same. It’s new, but somehow it feels just like something old and dormant has woken in her soul. 

“Percy, we have to go” Nico hisses, stumbling towards her all gangly limbs and a mess of nerves. His eyes dart around erratically, lingering on the prone forms sprawled on the floor, bodies that don’t make any attempt to get back up or stitch themselves back together. 

Hades was letting them go. 

She can see the moment the realisation hits Nico, the implication of it. She’s not sure what it is, that makes him decide to let them leave. She doesn’t think it’s the show of abilities, or successful getting the Achilles curse, because for all she knows of Hades, he never put too much stock into shows of braun and brute strength. She wonders if perhaps he remembers when they’ve crossed paths before, remembers how she was targeted by the others. Perhaps it’s pay back for her clearing his name all those years ago. 

Perhaps it’s because he’s as scared as the rest of them. Perhaps it’s because he knows that immortality doesn’t mean shit in the face of the titans - in what there rule will bring if it comes. 

Maybe it has nothing to do with any of that - just the boy standing infront of her sword held high and still grasping at the tattered remains of a loyalty that had nearly seen him dead several times over. If she looked at him long enough, she could see parts of that eager ren year old that he’d work so hard to bury. She knew he wouldn’t want to do it, and she knew she’d already asked him far too much - that he’d already had to do far more, give far more than he ever should’ve. 

She feels a little like throwing up, turning to face him and once again ask too much of him.

“Nico, we need Hades to join the fight” Percy says quietly, and she can see when he realises what she’s asking. 

“How do we know he’s not going to just turn around and blast me - I’m not the kid he even wanted” Nico burst out, throwing his hands and eye glittering in a way that has the shadow morphing around them. 

“Because this is the underworld, if he didn’t want us to leave, we wouldn’t. If he wanted to stop me, he wouldn’t have let me hold a sword to his throat. I think he knows, but he’s not going to come if I ask” Percy sighs and Nico just looks resigned, another thing to know yet not accept.

“And you think he would if I did?” Nico doesn’t even try to huff his sceptical he sounds, not that she blames him, but she doesn’t think she’s wrong about this.

“I wouldn’t ask you if I thought he’d blast you. I’m asking because I’m pretty sure the only reason he’s let me get so far is you. Would you try, please? We need him there” she tries and she knows she has Nico convinced, that maybe she’d had Nico convinced the entire time. 

If she thinks about it too much it’ll make her sick. She hates that somehow he still believes her, still trusts her. It’s the type of trust that’s far too easy to break, to shatter without even realising she’d done it. It’s not something that can be repaired once broken. She doesn’t want to be the reason Nico shatters again.

Nico grips the hilt of his sword and sets his jaw, like they both knew he would. 

“Go, we don’t have a lot of time. Don’t get killed” is all Nico says, but really it says everything and then he’s off, trudging deeper into the underworld. 

Percy feels just as defeated as she had when she left the underworld for the first. She’s not sure why. Maybe it’s because it already feels like she’s lost it all. 

She can still feel it, the Styx, under her skin. She can feel the thrumming of power, like her but more somehow. She’s no hero, not like Achilles once was, but for a moment she thinks she can feel him, his approval. It follows her beyond the depths of the underworld. 

A paper stained red crinkles in her pocket. 

Every footstep she took, Luke had taken it first. 

She can’t help but wonder if he regrets it all too.

Maybe it was all just fate. 

Even if fate was just the ever-tightening noose around their necks. 

She leaves the underworld behind to sound of a funeral march as the timer ticks on, closing in on the end. It had been a long time coming, planned and explained, and she knew. She knew she wasn’t making it through the night, she’d known that for years now. Still, there’s something different about willingly walking to her own death. There’s something a little bit more confronting and a lot more terrifying than any battle or half-assed plan ever could’ve been. 

None of this had ever been designed for time.  

The end of the world comes in the form of New York burning . 

There’s something so final, in the flames. Percy had never imagined she’d ever see New York go quiet, yet here she was, about to die for the same people that had brought this upon them all. It didn’t feel real. She hadn’t seen Ethan anywhere yet, and a small part of her was revealed because she wasn’t sure what she would do when she did inevitably see him. Probably something stupid.

It’s been a long fucking year.

Something bitter burned in her chest as she stared down at Selina, sprawled out and covered in acidic burns. Selina had always been kind, always been there even if she’d never been the loudest presence. She’d loved Beck, and she knew he meant more to her than anything else ever could. Really, it’s not even all that surprising that she was the spy. She couldn’t find it in her to be angry about it. Not when it didn’t even really matter anymore, since most of them wouldn’t even see the morning. 

The noose digs into the skin of her neck as for just a moment, she sees Luke’s hand extended out in front of her. The silent offer that she’d never taken. 

“Percy” Annabeth says suddenly, staring down at Selina but not really seeing and she knows, just from the look on her face, where this is going. 

Clarisse seems to as well, from the way she lets her hold on Selina’s hand fall and she steps back, making eye contact as she gets to her feet. She doesn’t say anything, but she nods and something heavy settles in her bones as she turns to look at Selina, a t her friend , again. 

“You have the Achilles curse, and she’s in a lot of pain, you can make it stop Percy” Annabeth whispers, tears streaming down her face and for a moment she’s hit with the realisation that Annabeth is only fifteen too. That she’s too young to be dealing with all of this too.

“Make it quick” Clarisse asks, tears streaming down her face and seeming younger than Percy had ever seen her.

Maybe they’re all just too young. 

She sits behind Selina, who even though she can’t talk, still seems to know what’s happening. She doesn’t try to fight her as she positions her hands around her face and neck, careful to avoid the burns, blood seeping from them and covering her hands. Somehow, she still smells like the flower perfume she always wears. Right now she’s a mess of burns and blood and pain but she’s still Selina. Still the girl who did riding lessons with her, that painted her nails and taught her how to do makeup. She’s still eighteen, and waiting on acceptance letters. She’s still Selina , and she always will be. 

“You’re gonna go see Charlie now, ok?” Percy whispers, for a moment pretending as if she’s just giving her a hug.

“ Charlie ” it’s barely more than a puff of air, but she still hears it, and she doesn’t bother trying to stop the tears anymore. 

The snap rings out in the silence of the city. 

For a moment it’s like time has paused, and memories of Selina flood through her mind. Her blood is tattooed into the skin of her palms, and it stains the noose around her neck. All she can think to do is close her eyes, and she does. All she can hope is that Selina is seeing Charlie again now, and that she’s happy.

Then she stands, because the battle isn’t over yet. Collecting the bodies and honouring the dead will come after. For now, there’s still a battle to be fought. 

It’s just as she stumbles to her feet that Clarisse lets out a battle cry, charging after the Draekon. A red hue envelopes her as she does, like it’s aiding her. Like a blessing . 

“Cmon Percy” Annabeth says, tugging at her arm and all she can do is listen.

No one prepared her for how it would feel to leave her friend's corpse lying in the dirt. 

It’s all a blur of blood and fighting and screams after that. Body after body hitting the ground. It’s like an extension of everything that happened after the labyrinth. It’s just as bloody and brutal, but this time there’s double the amount of bodies littering the battlefield. Most of them are faces she knows, but there’s enough that she doesn’t that it makes her feel like throwing up. 

Silena was gone. Name after name races through her mind as she fights on autopilot, not even pretending to not be reckless now that the Achilles curse prevents pretty much all injuries. Annabeth stays close, and they fight side by side like they’ve been doing it their whole lives, and at this point, they kinda have. 

Thalia is a silver glowing blessing. 

“Hey Kelpie, how’s it going?” Thalia calls as lightning paints the sky and strikes down several titan soldiers at once. They don’t get back up. Neither of them point that out. 

“We’re managing, nice of you to help Pinecone Face” She calls back, a whirlpool dancing beneath her feet and flinging back enemies. 

There’s a tree now, where a Titan once stood in the middle of the park, and she’s not sure she’s ever been prouder of Grover. 

Percy smiles, and lets her storm combine with Thalia’s lightning and watches as it knocks back several rows of the army. She desperately tries not to wonder if Ethan is somewhere within the crowd. If she’d cut him down already and not even noticed. She had a terrible feeling, one she couldn’t quite place. 

There was never going to be a happy ending, she knew that, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t hope anyway.

It’s a blur, falling into a rhythm with Thalia and purposely not thinking about how her body was more red than skin colour at this point. She doesn’t look at the soldiers, and she certainly doesn’t pause at the faces younger than her own staring up at her. She definitely doesn’t think about the fact that with one change in the wind it could’ve been her on the opposite side. The divide is a shaky line most of them are halfway crossing, because this is not black and white, and it never has been. She’s always known the gods aren’t the answer, but neither are the Titans.

The gods are, somehow, the lesser of two evils. The better of two bad options. 

It doesn’t make cutting people down any easier. Nothing ever did.

Somehow she ends up on a bridge, most of the Apollo cabin gathered behind her. Most of them are too young for this, though really everyone on the battlefield is. But these kids, they’re ten to twelve. Some of them still sleep with nightlights on and have bedtime stories read to them. They come up to her and the other councillors complaining of stubbed toes and arguments over the last supplies for arts and crafts. They are children, innocent and young and it’s not fair. It’s never been fair. They shouldn’t be here, they should curled up in their cabins asleep because it’s past their curfew now. They shouldn’t be here, fighting and trying to stitch broken bodies back together.

She knows, she knows it’s the lesser of two evils, but it doesn’t really feel like it.

From the anger on Michael’s face, she can tell he feels the same.

The fall into sync fighting easily. It’s an ease that only comes with time, and she’d known him for years now. He’d always been there, ready for every fighting and every triumph. He’d taught her how to use a bow, though she never had quite managed to work it out. He’d been here for it all, fighting and planning and doing his best to keep people alive. He was headstrong and trigger happy and a better friend then she’d ever deserved. 

They weren’t super close, not like she was with Annabeth or Grover, or even Thalia but he was still her friend. He’d been at camp when she arrived, and he’d been there for everything that happened since. He’d always stood by her, even if just from the sidelines. He’d stitched her up and cleaned her wounds countless times. Though she knew it wasn’t necessarily what he wanted to do with his life, he was certainly the best healer she’d ever met. They’d harassed Lee in the infirmary and played pranks with the Stolls. They’d sat together, by the Lake, long after the last body had been brought back to the infirmary. It was there, in the silence of the aftermath that he’d broken down, crying for the big brother he’d never get back. Crying in a way he can’t with his siblings because suddenly he’s the oldest.

Michael fights fierce and harsh and she knows. It’s an anger she feels in her bones. 

She doesn’t even see Annabeth dart infront of her.

They make eye contact, and she can see Annabeth’s eyes widen as the knife is buried into her back. They may be a far cry from what they used to be, but it’s still Annabeth .

Annabeth goes down with a knife in her back and suddenly it all blurs together. 

It’s a mess of screeching and fighting and the monster that’s haunted her since she was twelve bears down on her now. She can’t keeping watching people be cut down in front of her and expect to move on like nothings happened. The anger only grows as more people fall and the gods stay absent, like they aren’t the only thing standing in the way of them being erased. 

The Minotaur keeps moving forward, the archers barely keeping them back and Annabeth twitches on the ground. A couple Apollo campers drag her away, but with how limp she is, Percy can’t let herself think about it. They should probably retreat, but she doesn’t make the call and nobody else offers another. Not until it’s so close, that there is no time left.

“Percy, you need to drop the bridge” Michael calls, firing arrows quicker than she can track and she knows he’s making the call for a reason, that he can see more than she can.

The water swirls with barely a hint of resistance, twisting and turning in a way that makes the bridge groan and creak beneath their feet. She increases the pressure, tapping into a part of her powers she rarely ever touches. She feels a tug in her chest and the ground begins to shake. The bridge follows moments later. 

Michael’s bow is the only thing left.

“Shit” she mutters, reaching out and frantically scanning the water as she tries to feel him with her powers. 

She’s not sure how long she stands there, watching the murky dark waves crash together. There’s not even so much as a twitch. She can’t feel him. She can’t feel anyone living in the water. Her breathing stops and the battle goes quiet and she can’t feel Michael . She waits, watching every movement of the current but nobody ever rises from the water. Nothing even moves. 

She stumbles backward, head swimming and only barely functioning enough to reach down and pick up his bow.

There’s a hoard of anxious Apollo campers waiting when she rounds the corner, and she knows the moment they see the bow in her hand, that they know. It hadn’t even been a year since they’d burnt that shroud for Lee, and after this, they’d be putting together another one for Michael. All she can do is watch, as a bunch of twelve year olds realise their brother is dead. Her own eyes sting as she watches Kayla fall into Austin, who does his best to soothe her while violently sobbing himself. She bites her tongue and presses on, pretending like memories of Michael aren’t flashing infront of her eyes each time she blinks. 

Percy didn’t think she’d ever be very good at goodbyes. 

Her lungs burn and her muscles ache, but she approaches Will Solace anyway, because there’s no time for her pain. 

“Look, there’s nothing… I can’t… we both know there’s no apology i can say that will make this better and that there is no reason for you to listen to me, but, please, if you’ll come with me? I don’t think, i don’t think Annabeth has much longer” she stutters over the words, voice hitching as she speaks and Will just stares at her, for a long moment. Then he nods his head, once. 

“I’m not doing this for you” he cautions, voice scathing “i’m doing this for Annabeth” and he follows her over to a nearby motorbike, swinging himself on behind her. 

“I know” Percy whispers, lost under the rumble of the engine but it’s not like the words would’ve made a difference anyway. 

It’s the longest drive of her life. There’s something utterly terrifying in seeing New York like a war zone. The blood is dried into the cracks of her skin now, and she can’t help but feel like throwing up. Names race through her mind as she weaves through the streets. Lee. Castor. Beckendorf. Silena. Michael. She can’t help but wonder, morbidly, what other names she’ll be able to add to that list by the end of this? No answer would make it better. 

Percy doesn’t bother trying to say anything to Will, it’s not worth it. No words or pretty sentiments could make up for the amount of siblings he had that were six feet under, both indirectly and directly because of her. She’s more than aware that the only reason he got on the bike was because of Annabeth. Whatever he feels about her now doesn’t overpower the years he’d spent under Annabeth’s guidance at camp. Her hands shake, and she desperately hopes Annabeth is still breathing by the time they make it to her. 

After what feels like a lifetime of driving, the hotel they’d overtaken comes into view. Will’s off the bike and charging into the building before she even pulls into park. All she can do is follow him. 

It takes far too long to find where they’ve got Annabeth, and she nearly bursts into tears just seeing Thalia sitting there. Thalia jumps to her feet and races over to her, and she’s half convinced she’s going to punch her. It becomes much harder to bite back the tears when arms gently wrap around her. For as rough of a start as they got off to, she’s not sure what she’d do without Thalia now. 

She still doesn’t cry, because she knows if she does she won’t stop, but it’s a close thing. 

For as much as they’ve fallen apart in the last few years, she’s still not quite sure what she’d do without Annabeth. She can only imagine what it’s like for Thalia, stuck watching from the sidelines at the impending death of two friends. One friend she’d only gotten back recently, and the other that she never did. 

“I’m sorry” Percy rasps, because faced with Thalia, she has no idea what to say. Not when Annabeth jumped in front of that knife for her. Not when she’d never been able to talk Luke down, because she believed him a little too much for that. Not when she hadn’t been able to save anybody, not when it mattered. 

She hasn’t seen the Hunteress constellation in a long time. 

“You’ve been doing the best you can Percy, there’s nothing to apologize for” Thalia whispers, gripping her shoulders and staring her down with glistening eyes “Annabeth is gonna be just fine” she tries to smile, but it doesn’t really work. 

“I’m sorry about Luke, too” Percy whispers, voice thick, but she knows if she doesn’t say this now she never will “I’ve never gone into any of these fights without a doubt, and I think that some part of me has always believed Luke. Not the way he’s gone about things, but, what he's trying to do? I’m not so sure he’s wrong” she confesses, because she knows if there’s one person she can tell this to, it’s Thalia . 

Thalia studies her for a long moment before sighing, and grabbing her hand to pull her into a side room that at least gives the illusion of privacy. She leads her to the small sofa backed against a wall and gestures for her to sit down. They both this isn’t a conversation they can have standing in the middle of a hallway. 

“Luke, for as long as I knew him, he was always angry. Annabeth, she didn’t see it. She idolised him. But he was reckless and angry and led us into more than a few fights. I don’t blame him for it, I don’t think I ever have even when I tried to convince myself that I did, but gods did I hate him for delaying us getting to camp. I never blamed Luke for what happened, but I think part of me will always resent him for what could have been” Thalia says, shoulders slumping and it occurs to Percy that she probably had nobody she could tell all this to. It’s not like she’d be able to bring up his name in civil conversation, even if her relationship with him pre-dated the mess that was the last few years. 

Perhaps the real tragedy was the fact that they had all been children, at the end of the day, and the decisions they’d had to make were not ones children ever should’ve had to.

“I met May Castellan” she says, and she can see Thalia stiffen “and I could understand why Luke hates them. Sometimes I think I hate them too”

“At least your father seems to like you”

“He told me I was a wrongdoing and an unforgivable mistake when I was twelve”

“I don’t think any of them are good, really, not in a way that matters”

“Thalia, is it wrong that I’m still not sure what I’ll do when I finally face Luke?” She whispers, hands shaking though she wishes they wouldn’t. She doesn’t pull away when Thalia presses a gentle hand to her shoulder.

“No, I don’t think so. It’s clear that for whatever reason, the Fates chose you Kelpie, and I think you’ll make the right choice. There’s a lot of people here that believe in you, and that’s not nothing. You’re better than your realise Kelpie”

“Thanks Pinecone face” 

“You’re welcome Kelp-Head”

Silence falls after that, and neither of them make a move to break it. They just sit like that for a while, a lull falling in the fighting outside. Percy’s keenly aware that Will’s in the other room, working to keep Annabeth alive. It’s horrible, not being able to see for herself that she’s alright, but she knows she’d only be in the way if she was in there. That doesn’t make it any easier to sit there, waiting for news. It’s easier having Thalia by her side, at least, but it still doesn’t erase the panic entirely. 

The rope is digging into her skin now, the noose rubbing her neck raw. She can see it in her mind, the electric blue cord being cut down the middle. The screech of tires and the smell of smoke. The tighteness of burnt skin and the pain of venom spreading through her veins. The box for Luke’s converse sat under her bed in her cabin. She still has the figurine Bianca got for Nico. She was starting to grow moonlace on the balcony. Ethan’s eye patch was in a draw somewhere. 

There’s not much time left, she knows that. She can feel it, her pulse starting to race as her skin begins to tingle. It's almost like every part of her knows. Her nails carve crescent moons into her palms and she bites her lip to stop her leg from bouncing. It’s a different kind of terror, one nobody talks about, sitting in a hotel room waiting to die. There’s something more gut-wrenching about knowing, in the knowledge that this is the last time. 

For a moment there, she’d really thought her and Ethan might get that house someday. 

Maybe Ethan still would. Maybe he’d even name his dog Kataigida. 

It takes hours for Annabeth to stabilise. Hours of anxious pacing and the ever presenting feeling of sand running to the bottom of an hourglass. She bites off her nails and tries to breath through the realisation that she might’ve seen Annabeth for the last time. That she’ll most likely be dead before Annabeth wakes. She’d known this was coming, but that doesn’t stop the fear. There is some things she’s learnt, that no amount of time and pretty words can make ok. She’s startlingly aware of the fact that she’s not even sixteen, and she never will be. That most of her life hadn’t even happened yet, and it’d never even be given a chance. 

She’d hoped she’d get to speak with her Mum, at least. For as fractured and dented as their relationship had become over the years. They’d never spoken about Gabe, and all the damage he did. They never spoke of those years in between, stained with pain and haunted by everything they did, and everything they didn’t. Sally Jackson had always done the best she could, but that did not mean everything she did was for the better. The scars on her back and the cigarette burns littered over her skin are a testament to that. Though she knows there was never a good choice, not with this. No matter what her mother had done, this story was never going to have a happy ending. 

Thunder cracks and the sky's gone dark and Annabeth’s not waking up and this is it .

Percy always thought the end would look like a storm. 

Their end is on Olympus, which is poetic in a way Percy can’t even begin to think about. 

Kronos is up in the throne room, and it should be terrifying but all she can think is Luke. If he has even the slightest bit of control, then she knows he won’t draw it out. If it’s Luke, then he won’t make it hurt and it makes her feel better. It shouldn’t, but it does. There’s a part of her that will only ever remember the boy that brought her a sleeping bag. That patched her wounds and taught her to fight and was the most honest anyone’s ever been to her. He had been kind and friendly and he’d given her a chance. At one point, he was the only friend she even had. It’s not the sort of thing she forgets. 

Thalia’s by her side, holding Aegis and hiding her own tears. The look on her face, it’s one she wasn’t able to place before, but now, after Ethan, it’s all too obvious. This fight isn’t one any of them want, but they’re all here anyway. The noose is so tight now, on the precipice of going taut and she knows this is it. Memories rush by her, everything that led to this moment now. She can still remember that very first day with Grover on the bus. How stunningly blue the thread had been. How it looped around her neck, so loose she could barely tell it was there. From the day the noose was tied to the day it would finally pull, she remembered it all.

Kronos' army guards the entrance, fanned out and ready to fall. He’s already up there, and there’s no more time for waiting or plans. Skeletons swarm the streets, courtesy of Nico. Vines are weaving out of every crack in the pavement as Katie Gardener leads the Demeter cabin and she can hear the roars of the Ares Cabin, fighting in the distance. She’s got Thalia on one side and Grover on the other. It wasn’t who she thought would be with her in the end, but she wouldn’t change it. She knew they needed this just as much as she did, and if this was her last fight, then she’s glad it’s with them. 

“Hey Kelpie, ready for one last round?” Thalia smirks, her eyes glistening and something in her settles at the knowledge that if this is the last time, then it’s by her side.

“Let’s give ‘em hell” Percy grins and they fall into the fight like they’ve been doing it their entire lives. 

Lightning streaks through the sky and Percy makes an effort to worsen the storm, swinging Riptide in deadly arcs, though with the curse, it doesn’t do anything. They move like one as they trade blows, and there’s something terribly tragic in the fact that they’ve come together to fight the first true friend both of them ever had. Perhaps that’s why they fight so well together. Thalia is harsh and destructive and it’s truly been an honour to fight by her side.

Grover, fuck, he’s something else entirely. He’s grown and changed and become something else entirely from the kid she saved from being bullied all those years ago. He’s fierce and determined and he’s finally getting to be the change he always wanted to see. There’s a confidence in him now, one she’s always known was there but is only now finally getting to see. He’s gone from a terrified twelve year old to staring Titan’s down without a flinch. It’s been amazing to see Grover become who he is today and she’s only sad she won’t be there to see who he continues to be. She just knows he’ll go on to be something even greater, and she’s not sure there’s any way she could be prouder. 

It’s a little terrifying, how easy this is for them now, not that it ever really is. But, the way they can all put aside their morals and cut through a crowd of kids the same age and even younger than them, forced into a fight none of them ever should’ve been in the first place. She doesn’t let herself feel it now, but she knows when given the chance, that she will. 

It lasts what feels like a lifetime, until finally, they stumble into the lobby of the Empire State Building, the fighting now a dull roar in the distance. It’s terrifying, the unknown. She doesn’t know who else is gone, and who’s safe. She doesn’t know if Annabeth joined the fight again. If Clarisse is still out there, leading the battle in the name of Silena. She doesn’t even know where Nico is, but she knows he’s out there somewhere within the chaos. She’d seen Pollux, briefly in a lull in the fighting, but she has no way of knowing if he kept his promise to not rejoin the fight. She doesn’t know where Will Solace is, if he, just like his brother’s before him, is gone because of her. She doesn’t know where Katie and Miranda are. She hasn’t seen either of the Stolls in what feels like days. She’s not sure she’ll even get the chance to know if they’ve survived. 

It’s not fair and paper crinkles in the back pocket of her jeans and she really wished Luke wasn’t always right. 

 Four years and here she is, finally walking those last few steps to the end. It was never meant to be a race, but it’s nearly midnight and things never had gone her way. 

Thalia grabs her hand as they enter the elevator without a word, but there isn’t a need to talk. Grover stands strong on her other side, covered in cuts and blood and she’s not really sure when they grew up, or when the years changed, but here they are anyway. Apollo’s shitty music plays over the speakers but she can barely even hear it, not when it feels like she’s underwater. Thalia fidgets at her side, a familiar dagger in her hand. A part of Annabeth is still there, even though she couldn’t be. She can’t help but think that perhaps while this is a closure Annabeth wanted it, it’s closure in a way that Thalia needs. She grips her hand back tightly, relishing in it for the last time. She hopes Thalia knows she never hated her, not even at the start. 

It’s almost familiar now, Mount Olympus. Percy doesn’t even have to think, instinctively moving towards the throne room. It’s as ostentatious as always, and she thinks she’ll even miss that. It’s a little insane, with how horrible they are that they can still be responsible for such beauty. There’s no hope for her, she knows that. She’s known that since that bus broke down when she was twelve and she had seen the thread be cut. Still, she thinks, if there was any hope it would be here, in Hestia’s hearth. The fire of the home. If there was ever any hope, then it lived through her home. Through Grover and Annabeth. Through Thalia and things only some people can understand. It lived in Silena and Beckendorf, and the plans they never got to finish. It lived in Lee, and in Michael after him. It lives Nico, who’s going to be better than she ever was. It lived in Zoe. It lives in her Mum, and the way she always tried. It lives in Ethan, in the light and the warmth and love he brought her, no matter how fleeting. 

It had lived in Luke, long ago, when they were just two kids on a beach learning to survive in the only way they knew how. 

“ Hope survives best at the Hearth ”

As far as gods go, she’ll always respect Hestia the most. 

It doesn’t take much for her to decide to make the call. 

“I need you to help me get up there” Percy says, standing at the base to Poisedon’s throne and both Thalia and Grover eye her like she’s insane. 

“C’mon, they’re not going to last without his help and we need more time” she begs, and Thalia caves first, though not without a backward glance at her father’s own throne. Grover just sighs, an old, tired sound before plastering on his best approximation of a smile. 

“You’ve always been insane Kelpie”

“I’m not sure why i’ve ever listened to you”

They help her up anyway. 

With a little fanfare and smoking skin, Posiedon is persuaded to join the fight. He’s not winning any father of the year awards, but he does try, that at least she can see. Thalia catches her as she stumbles off the chair and Grover helps her steady and for a moment it almost feels like they’ve won. Which of course means, it doesn’t last. 

For the end of the world, Luke looks startlingly human. 

“Percy Jackson, ready for the end?” Kronos taunts, letting out a gravelly laugh and it might be Luke’s face staring at her but it isn’t him. He doesn’t look at her however, and gestures for a figure to step forward.

Percy can’t stop the sharp inhale at seeing Ethan, and she can tell both Thalia and Grover notice, but she can’t pull her eyes away from him. He looks terrible, not as bad as the night his heart stops, but close. His eyes are hollow and he’s covered in blood and she’d give anything to crash into his arms, but they can’t. Not here and not now. 

“General, take care of this pest” Kronos motions and suddenly she’s separated from Thalia and Grover, and she can hear as they are pulled into fights. 

Ethan nods, stepping forward. Percy, for her part, doesn’t move. She can’t. Not when it’s Ethan. Ethan, who made her for once believe she could have something outside of this life. Ethan, who only ever smiled for her. Ethan, who let his walls down for her. Ethan, who she trusted more than just about anyone. So she doesn’t move, not to grab Riptide or to move away, because it’s him. It’d be a disservice to everything they’ve worked to become over the last year if she turned away now, even though she knows for both of them, she probably should. 

Ethan’s blade is long and imposing, but she knew he wouldn’t make it painful. He’d spare her what he could, at least. They both knew he needed to turn the blade on her, no matter how much he didn’t want to. He looks like a terrifying force, a true general and right hand man to Kronos, but all Percy can see is him. She can see the scars from where she’d stitched him back together. She can see the scar peeking out from under the eyepatch, one she’d lovingly traced because it was just him. He’s still him, even as he walks towards her as an executioner. There’s a softness in his eyes, love and kindness in his gaze as he meets her eyes. Soon enough, he’s close enough to touch and all she can think is that if she has to die, at least it’s him. He knows her mortal point, he’ll be precise and it’ll be over before she can blink. Except, it isn’t. 

Percy blinks and Ethan’s spun around, his blade clashing with Kronos’. 

It’s a blur, a clash of blades and flurry of yelling she can’t hope to understand. It all happens faster than she can process. What she can see is Ethan, backed to an edge and bleeding sluggishly. She starts to race forward, Riptide sliding into her grasp as the ground crumbles to ruin beneath his feet. He’s smiling when their eyes meet, and she can see the tears streaming down his face. Her breathing stops. 

“I love you” it’s barely a whisper, but she still hears it. 

Then he’s gone, like he’d never even been there in the first place. Waves roar in her ears and she just screams . 

“Ethan!”

She doesn’t notice the darkening sky or the jagged lightning that strikes at Kronos. She doesn’t notice as water crashes into him over and over again from seemingly nowhere. She doesn’t notice the fact that she started a storm on Olympus, where it never rains . She just stares at the empty space where Ethan used to be, trying to process how he can simply be gone. It doesn’t make sense. He can’t just be gone.  

It was meant to be her. Why is it never her ?

Percy falls to her knees, Riptide clattering to the floor. Everything seems miles away, like distant thunder in a rainstorm. She knows she should move, should pick up Riptide, should do something but she can’t move. Not when it felt like her whole world was rubble at her feet. Ethan was meant to live. He was meant to make it out and get the house and the dog and the fucking target range. He was meant to hold her tight and be all her days and all her nights. He might’ve thought it was her, but she’d always known that it was really him that was her dead sea. He’d kept her afloat, and now? Now she was sinking beneath the waves and she really didn’t feel like trying to keep herself above water. Not anymore. Not without him. 

She only looks up when she hears a crash, and she watches as Aegis is embedded into a wall of the throne room. Thalia faces Luke, firing arrow after arrow but he isn’t slowing down. Her lightning only stopped him for a moment. Grover tries the reed by pipes but with a slash Kronos sends him colliding with a wall. Blades ring as they slam together and she can see Thalia withering under the weight. She looks at Riptide, heart in her throat. 

“Don’t let it command you”

“You, are like the Dead Sea, Jackson, you know that?”

“It’s okay to be angry Perce”

“Come on Astéri mou, don’t give up on me now”

“Hey Kelpie, ready for one last round?”

Backbiter clashes against Riptide, barely missing hitting Thalia. 

“Still up for that last round?” Percy manages to croak out and Thalia smirks, blade already moving. 

They fall into the fight just like they have all the others, except this time, Luke’s the one staring back at them. They trade blows back and forth, with the occasional lightning strike crashing down to knock Kronos back. Grover joins the fray again at some point too, and for a moment it seems like they’re winning. It doesn’t stay that way, it can’t. They can’t do any real damage unless they manage to get Luke’s mortal point, and that would kill him. This isn’t a fight they can win, except, his eyes aren’t gold anymore. 

Kronos stumbles backwards, eyes flickering between gold and blue so fast it makes her head spin. Thalia lands a well timed strike and he hits the ground hard. When he looks up, it’s with blue eyes. 

“Percy, please” and it’s Luke that’s asking, not Kronos. His eyes flicker again.

Thalia crouches next to her, a blade in her hand. Annabeth's blade. The same one she’d fiddled with back at the hotel. There’s tears in her eyes.

“Please, I can’t, he’s so strong, I won’t be able, to fight him, for long” Luke gasps, eyes a constant flicker between gold and blue. 

“Thalia” she whispers, turning to face the other girl who’s still staring at the blade in her hands. She’s not sure why, but she knows it has to be that. It has to be Annabeth’s. Thalia seems to know too, if her shuddering breath is any indication. 

After a long moment, Thalia hands the blade over. It’s one she’s seen Annabeth wield a thousand times over, and it’s almost unassuming. It’s small, a dagger. She moves it over in her hand before looking back at Luke, because it is Luke now.

And, she offers him the blade.

“Percy! What-“ Grover gasps, and Thalia flinches forward like she’s ready to wrestle it away from him, but Percy doesn’t move. She keeps watching him, how his eyes remain blue for longer this time and suddenly the blade is in his side.

Luke lets out a howl so pained she winces away. He writhes away and his skin starts to shimmer gold. His eyes go completely gold before he wilts, collapsing back and his eyes stay blue now. He’s gone, for now at least. 

“You are not the hero”

Well maybe none of them needed to be, because they just won anyway. Funny, they never talk about how winning never feels all that much like winning.

“Hey Luke” Percy whispers, voice gentle as she cards a finger through his hair, moving it away from his sweat covered face. He manages what almost looks like a smile at the move, and something in him relaxes, a little. 

“You can’t let this happen again” he begs, voice little more than a rasp “me, all the unclaimed, Ethan” at the name she flinches and Luke looks regretful “you have to promise me Percy, you’ll help them”

“I will, I promise” she promises and that seems to be enough for him. 

There’s nothing else really left to stay. Everything’s already been said, and what hadn’t, well, it didn’t really need words. They both knew.

“Thals, I’m sorry. I know I let you down over and over” he coughs, blood dribbling down his face “but I just want you to know that I loved you. I always did, and I would’ve chosen you a hundred times. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry we never got a chance” Luke whispers, his face pale and his movement beginning to grow sluggish.

“I know, I’m sorry too” Thalia sobs, clutching his hand and her skin glowing silver under the night sky. 

“Grover, you were always the bravest Satyr and none of it was ever your fault. You were the best we ever could’ve had” he manages and Grover swallows harshly, tears streaming down his face. After a moment he nods and Luke lets himself go slack, having finally said everything he needed to. 

“Say hi to Ethan for me, please?” She can’t help but ask and Luke manages the tiniest nod. She holds his hand, and she can feel as it goes cold. After a moment he stops moving at all and she knows he's gone now.

A snip echoes through her mind, a thread being cut. 

It was blue , the noose.

Percy watches the Fates leave, ravelling up Luke’s thread as they go. The blood has dried to her hands now, making them stiff and she’s not even sure she can move. For some unexplainable reason she’s still alive, but there were a lot of people she’d lost tonight. The suns rising now, on a day she never expected to see and she’s sixteen now.  

The least she could do was honour them.

“We need two shrouds” she announces, turning to face the gods who’d only just fucking arrived “for the sons of Hermes and Nemesis” 

Never again, she’d promised, and it was one she intended to keep. 

It’s different now, being at Montauk again. It felt like her whole life had changed since the last time she’d been there. She never had gotten the chance to take Ethan. 

Mrs O’leary bounds around, tail wagging and more animated than she’d ever seen her before. There’s plastic wrap on her wrist, covering the scale etched into her wrist. A memory, and a promise. She can almost feel him, sitting next to her with that all too rare gentle smile on his face. She can imagine how he’d laugh, watching Mrs O’leary run away. She can feel his hand in her own, holding tight. She feels him everywhere now. 

Sand wacks her in the face followed by a series of barks. 

“Hey Kataigida, what are you doing? Are you behaving?” she teases softly, gently patting the puppies head as Mrs O’Leary watches on. 

She only has three legs, and she’d found her an alley, not a month after the war ended. It felt like a sign. She’d never know, but she had a feeling Ethan had something to do with it and they already had a name picked out after all. 

“Go on” Percy laughs and she off, sprinting down the beaches as her fast her legs will let her towards Mrs O’Leary. 

She watches them play, the afternoon sun beaming down and waves gently landing against the shore. It’s everything they wanted, he’s just not here to see it. She can only hope he knows. 

Percy watches the dogs play and the ocean rise and fall and for the first time in a long time, there is no shoe waiting to drop. The noose had been cut, thrown away and now the only evidence had ever been there was the scars it had left behind. It’s finally over, she can finally rest. 

“Dead Sea, huh?” she asks herself watching the waves, maybe Ethan had always had a point. 

Seems they just weren’t designed for time after all. 

Love was not designed for time,

You were never really mine,

Love was not designed for time,

You were never really mine. 

• Never Really Mine By The Lumineers