A/N: I know, I know, this has probably been done a million and one times. I just couldn't resist writing it.
So, anyway, here it is. My take on Annabeth's POV, the days surrounding Percy's disappearance in The Lost Hero. If you haven't read The Lost Hero yet, get yourself to a bookstore or a library and read it. It's just as good as the Percy Jackson series, if not better.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Percy Jackson & The Olympians OR The Heroes of Olympus. I'm not an amazing author like Rick Riordan.
Anyway, here goes...
It was just an average Winter's day at Camp Half-Blood. Nothing particularly special. Well, not that special to most people anyway. It was a great day for me. I arrived at Camp in the morning, a few hours before Percy was supposed to arrive. He probably was meant to have caught Argus' ride into Camp, but knowing him, he slept in and his Mom would be bringing him in. Typical Percy behavior.
I spent the 'few hours' - which turned out to be four hours, by the way – wandering around Camp, greeting everyone and seeing what was happening. Everyone seemed to be glancing at the sky constantly, as if the gods were going to suddenly come out of Olympus' lock down and act as if it were a very late (Or very early, depending on your point of view) April Fool's joke.
"So you're not allowed on Olympus either?" Travis Stoll questioned.
"Why would I be?" I asked.
"Well, you are redesigning Olympus, right?"
"Yeah. Well, as soon as they let me back in. I'm just as much in the dark as you are," I told him, and I have to admit, not knowing annoyed the Hades out of me.
"Yeah, well, I'll see you 'round Annabeth. Got cabins to prank before everyone gets here," Travis said, starting to wander off.
"Better not be targeting Cabin Six again, Travis," I called after him, laughing.
"Don't worry, I still remember last time," Travis grimaced, then stumbled off to find his brother in Cabin Eleven.
"Same old Camp," I muttered, turning and looking towards Half-Blood Hill, at Peleus wrapped around Thalia's pine tree with the Golden Fleece hanging in the branches. I was just about to look away when I saw a figure walking over the hill. Percy.
I grinned, walking towards the hill, and as soon as I thought he was in earshot, I yelled, "Took you long enough!"
"It's not my fault my alarm clock spontaneously filled with water!" Percy called back, laughing.
I rolled my eyes. "Trust you, Percy."
"I'm telling you, it was an accident," Percy insisted half-heartedly.
"Of course, nothing to do with your water-related superpowers," I grinned, walking up to meet him.
"Not at all," Percy smirked.
"Well, water-clogged alarm clocks aside, it's good to see you," I told him, gripping his hand.
"Likewise," Percy said, leading me back down into camp.
We spent the rest of the day going through various camp activities, and catching up with our fellow campers. As a side note, no matter what Percy tells you, I did beat him in a little knife-on-sword sparring. Once. And for the record, he hasn't gotten any better at archery. Ask Will from Apollo Cabin. He's the one who almost got hit... While standing ten meters away from the target Percy was aiming at.
Later that night, we sat together at campfire, hand in hand, and I could sense Aphrodite Cabin's silent 'aw-ing'. I'm sure the only reason they hid it was because of the time with Clarisse and Chris... There were about eighteen broken nails total, and one of the girls even lost a tooth, which was actually rather hilarious for the rest of camp to watch.
"You do realize the Stolls are making kissy-faces at us," Percy murmured. I turned my gaze towards the brothers, and sure enough, Percy was right.
"Did you expect anything less from those two?" I asked, rolling my eyes in Travis and Connor's general direction. I knew they'd caught it when I heard their snickering from across the fire.
"And you know half of Aphrodite Cabin's cooing at us," I added.
"Only half?" Percy questioned sarcastically.
"Yes, half. Did you fail fractions again, Seaweed Brain?"
Percy shrugged, chuckling. "Probably."
I smiled back at Percy, and before I knew it campfire had ended and everybody was heading back to their cabins. Percy walked me to the front of Cabin Six.
"This is going to be a good three weeks, isn't it?" I said, turning to face Percy.
"Yeah," he breathed. "It will be."
He gave me a soft, somewhat self-conscious kiss goodnight, and began walking backward towards his cabin, holding his hand up in farewell with a small smile playing across his lips, and I'll admit, you could compare that smile to a cute puppy and have a hard time deciding which was the most adorable. I beamed back at him and stumbled into my own cabin, and I fell asleep almost as soon as I fell onto my bunk.
It wasn't until breakfast the following morning did I notice anything was wrong.
"Hey, Malcolm," I asked. "Have you seen Percy this morning?"
"Can't say that I have. You're more likely to have seen him, though," Malcolm pointed out.
"True. It's weird though. He doesn't usually miss breakfast."
"Maybe he overslept," Malcolm shrugged.
"That sounds about right," I chuckled. "I'll go wake him up."
I stood and walked across the pavilion, making my way towards Cabin Three. I reached the door and knocked.
"Percy?"
No answer. I knocked again, louder this time.
"Percy?"
Still no answer. I opened the door, prepared to have to throw Percy off his bunk to wake him up (It wouldn't be the first time...)
The cabin was a pigsty, as usual when Tyson wasn't around. Percy's bunk looked as though it had been slept in, but there was no sign of Percy.
"Percy?" I called again, just to be sure he wasn't hiding.
Okay, I thought. I probably missed him on the way over here.
I jogged back to the mess, hoping to find him there.
I didn't.
"Did you find Percy?" Malcolm asked.
I shook my head. "He's probably on the beach or something. I'll find him."
"Lose Percy, Annabeth?" Connor Stoll called out from Hermes table.
"He's probably hiding from her," Travis stage-whispered
"You could help me find him," I glared pointedly at the pair.
"Fine, we'll ask around," Connor agreed, standing up and heading off in one direction.
"You're probably worrying over nothing, Annabeth," Travis reassured me, running off after his brother.
"I hope you're right," I muttered to myself.
"Malcolm, can you talk to Chiron?" I asked. "I'm going to go search the beach."
"Sure," Malcolm agreed, and a second later, I was running across camp.
I ran the length of the beach twice, with no sign of Percy, although I did run into a rather frazzled looking pizza guy.
After that, I sprinted towards the Big House, glancing around every now and then to check if Percy wasn't coming up from behind me and asking me what I looked so worried about. If that had actually happened, I'm not sure if I would have hugged Percy or punched him.
Chiron stood in centaur form on the porch of the Big House.
"Any luck?" he asked.
I shook my head. "Where haven't we looked?"
"We haven't searched the woods fully yet. And no-one's been past Half-Blood Hill."
"Have we tried Iris Messaging him?" I asked.
"Not yet. You may want to go down to Cabin Fourteen."
"Thanks, Chiron," I said, barreling down the steps back towards the Cabins.
I arrived at the doorstep of Cabin Fourteen, breathless. Butch opened the door.
"Butch... Hi. I was wondering-" I began.
"Come in. I know what you need," Butch said, stepping aside to let me in.
I walked inside. I'd always been proud of my work designing Iris Cabin, especially the stained-glass window at the back, with a prism embedded in the centre of it, designed to create a rainbow in the sunlight. On either side of the window were two marble fountains with a mist of water coming from them.
"You got your own drachmas?" Butch asked. "Because I'm getting sick of the guys who come in here and ask to borrow one. You have no idea how much money I'm owed."
"It's okay, I'm good, Butch," I said, drawing out four drachmas of my own. "Iris is still delivering messages?"
"Last we checked," Butch shrugged.
I stepped towards the fountain on the left. "O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering," I said, throw the drachma into the mist. "Show me Percy Jackson."
Nothing happened, until a voice came from within the fountain.
"Percy Jackson is unavailable at this time. Please try again later."
I sighed, pulling out a second drachma. "It's never easy."
"Who else are you gonna call?" Butch asked.
"Ghostbusters. Or, rather, the son of Hades. Nico," I said, throwing the second drachma into the mist.
It took a second, but Nico showed up in the mist.
"Annabeth? Uh, hi," Nico said, startled. He appeared to be somewhere in the Underworld.
"Hi Nico," I started. "Have you seen Percy?"
"Percy? No. Shouldn't he be at camp?" Nico asked.
"He should," I said uncertainly. "He was here last night, but this morning he just vanished."
"Well, he's not dead, I know that much. I'll keep an eye out for him," Nico promised.
"In the Underworld? That's reassuring."
"You know what I mean."
"Okay, thanks Nico," I moved to break the connection.
"Wait, Annabeth!" Nico called. "Something weird is going on down here. Souls are disappearing from the Fields of Punishment."
"What?"
"I don't know, but I don't like it. I just thought it could be-"
"-linked to Percy's disappearance," I finished.
"Yeah."
"Well, anyway, thanks Nico. I'll see you 'round," I said distractedly, breaking the connection.
Souls disappearing from the Fields of Punishment? I thought. Is that something to do with the 'Doors of Death' in the prophecy? No. It can't be. Can it?
"Uh, Annabeth?" Butch asked. "You okay? You look dazed."
"Huh?" I shook my head, trying to lose my train of thought.
"You got any more calls to make?"
"Yeah," I said, throwing yet another coin into the fountain.
"Thalia Grace, lieutenant of Artemis."
An image of Thalia shimmered in the mist.
"Annabeth?" Thalia asked.
"Hi, Thalia," I said.
"Uh, now isn't the best time..." she trailed off.
"Sorry. This is important."
Thalia nodded and called something to the rest of the Hunters, then turned back to the Iris Message.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Percy disappeared. Literally, he was here last night, and now no-one can find him," I explained.
"Damn," Thalia muttered. "That is really not good."
"I know," I looked down sadly.
"We'll find him," Thalia assured me. "The Hunters and I, we'll look for him."
"I get the feeling some of your Hunters won't like the fact that you're looking for a boy," I said, chuckling slightly.
Thalia shrugged. "Most of us know him. And the ones who don't, I'll tell them about you," Thalia smiled.
"Thanks, Thalia," I said, smiling back at her.
"I really should get going. More monsters are popping up at the moment. We can barely keep track," Thalia told me, looking distractedly over her shoulder. "Gotta go, bye!" She gave me a quick wave before breaking the connection.
"That it?" Butch asked.
"One more," I said.
"You know a lot of people."
"I have a lot of connections," I told him, throwing another drachma into the mist. "Tyson, in the forges of the Cyclops."
Tyson showed up almost immediately, his large figure shining a celestial bronze blade.
"Tyson!" I called.
He looked up. "Annabeth! You like my sword?"
I smiled lightly. "Yeah. But I'm not here to see your swords."
"Oh," Tyson frowned, putting down the blade. "Where's Percy?"
"That's what I was going to ask you about," I explained. "No-one seems to know where he is."
"He's... missing?" Tyson queried.
I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping my answer wasn't true, that he was just hiding in camp somewhere. "Yes."
"I will find him!" Tyson exclaimed, and I had to smile at him again.
"Yeah. Keep me updated, okay?"
"Okay!" Tyson cheered, severing the connection and he ran off to, well, find Percy I guess.
"Thanks, Butch," I said, heading towards the front door of the cabin.
"I hope you find Percy, Annabeth," Butch said as I clamped my hand on the doorknob.
"So do I, Butch," I muttered. "So do I."
I ran towards the woods where I knew I would find Grover. On the way, I pulled out my cellphone and called Percy's mom.
"Hello?" Sally Jackson answered.
"Mrs. Jackson? It's Annabeth," I said, keeping a tone of urgency in my voice.
"What happened?" she asked immediately.
"Have you seen Percy?" I questioned.
"Not since I dropped him off at camp yesterday. What's-?"
"Percy's missing. He just disappeared from camp last night, and nobody knows what happened or where he is," I told her.
"No," she muttered.
"It'll be fine, I promise we'll find him. Nico told me he's definitely alive-"
Sally sighed in relief.
"-But we need everyone looking. I'm really sorry to dump this on you."
"It's okay. I'd rather know-" she began.
"-Instead of not knowing? Believe me, I know the feeling," I interrupted.
"Of course you would," Sally laughed. "And, you'll let me know as soon as you find him, right?"
"Definitely," I smiled into the phone. "Oh, and please don't get mortal police involved in this."
"I figured it was one of those things," Sally sighed.
"Yeah. Anyway, I'd better go. Demigods and cellphones, y'know?"
"I understand. I'll keep an eye out for Percy," she promised.
"Bye," I clicked the phone off as I reached the woods. I made my way towards Juniper's, well, juniper, figuring I would find Grover there.
Luckily for me, Grover was a predictable satyr and I didn't have to look any further, because I found him there.
"Grover!" I called barreling up to him.
"Annabeth! I take it you've heard-"
"-About Percy?" I cut him off. "Yeah, you could say that."
"What are we going to do?" Grover asked, panicked.
"Uh, look for him," I pointed out.
"Oh. Oh right."
I rolled my eyes at him. "Can you sort out some other satyrs and such to scour New York? I get the feeling we've got a lot of searching ahead of us."
"Sure. We'll find him!" Grover said, dragging a silent Juniper back through the forest.
"Why does everyone keep telling me that?" I muttered, turning and sprinting towards the Big House.
Chiron was still standing on the porch of the Big House.
"Nothing?" he asked.
"Nothing," I confirmed. "I talked to Thalia and Nico as well. Nico said that souls were disappearing from the Fields of Punishment, and Thalia said something about more monsters than usual."
"That's disconcerting," Chiron muttered.
"Do you have any idea what that means?" I asked him.
Chiron frowned. "I hope my idea is incorrect."
"The prophecy?" I questioned, hoping Chiron would say something like 'Pfft. Not likely.' But Chiron nodded somewhat sadly.
"Please don't tell me this has something to do with Percy disappearing," I said.
"It would be foolish not to make the connection."
"I know, I know, it's just – I really don't want anything bad to happen to him."
"None of us do," Chiron assured me.
"Yeah, I know. It's weird though, no-one knows anything at all about Percy. Not even his own mother. If he was going to leave by free will, he'd at least tell his mom."
"The best we can do is search for him and pray he hasn't been captured by monsters of some sort," Chiron said.
"If we don't find him soon, we're going to have to assume he's been captured," I said sadly.
"He can look after himself," Chiron said softly. "And this isn't exactly the first time this has happened."
"I think you'll agree that the circumstances were different last time. He didn't blow up a volcano this time," I said. "He just... Vanished."
"True."
"Where else is there that we haven't searched yet?" I asked.
"Well, we haven't scoured the whole forest-"
"Okay," I interjected, starting off towards the forest. "Bye!"
Chiron called something after me which I didn't hear, and I plunged into the forest.
I spent hours searching, but nothing really happened. I bumped into the Stolls who were arguing that they'd 'already searched this part of the forest.'
One good thing was I couldn't see any signs of monsters that could have somehow invaded camp. It was a start, I guess.
But soon, too soon, it seemed, night fell and everyone made their way do the dining pavillion to have dinner. I ate silently, if you can call raking a fork over my plate and only swallowing a few mouthfuls 'eating'.
After that, everyone assembled in the amphitheater for campfire, although by the state of the fire you could tell not everyone's heart was in it.
After Apollo Cabin finally set down their lyres and guitars, Chiron walked into the centre of the amphitheater.
"As you probably all know," Chiron began. "Percy Jackson is missing."
Everyone began murmuring uncomfortably and I stared down at my shoes, the statement jarring something in me. We hadn't found Percy within the course of the day, and if he wasn't dead, who knows where he was?
Be positive for once, I told myself. You know he's alive. That's better than the last time he went missing. And what happened the last time he disappeared? He washed up on Camp Half-Blood's shores two weeks later.
My subconscious did little to reassure me. For all I knew, monsters could be using him as a punching bag this very second.
There are a thousand different possibilities, I reminded myself. Which was true – a thousand different scenarios, some good, some bad. I tried to focus on the good ones for a while, but I couldn't help but worry. And when I say worry, I mean I was biting my fingernails and tapping my feet in anxiety, just wanting to do something. Every sense I had told me something bad was happening. First Olympus closing, now this? I didn't have any idea what was going on, and I hated it.
Chiron motioned for me to say something, so I stood, trying to force words out of my mouth.
"We've searched all of camp," I said, still sounding a little choked. "We've contacted everyone we can think of, Nico, Tyson, the Hunters of Artemis and even his mother. None of them know what's happened and-"
"Maybe he just ran away," A voice from Aphrodite Cabin chirped. Drew.
If I'm honest, I'd never really liked Aphrodite's new head counselor. She wasn't much after what Silena had been to the camp.
"Percy wouldn't-" I started.
"Maybe you just got a bit boring for Percy, so he left," Drew continued snarkily.
I glared at Drew in fury and almost drew my knife.
"Pick your battles," I heard Clarisse warn, which was a little odd coming from a daughter of Ares, and I couldn't tell if she was warning me or Drew.
I took a deep breath. "I doubt it, Drew," I told her. "I know Percy. He wouldn't just disappear without a legitimate reason."
"Where is he then?" Drew asked.
I sighed. "I don't know. But something is wrong here. The gods being silent, Percy vanishing – it's probably connected. We just need to find out how."
As soon as I said it aloud, I knew it was at least close to the truth. It felt good to know that I was on the right track, but it was distressing at the same time. Whatever caused Zeus to close Olympus couldn't be good, and something horrible was probably happening to Percy.
I sat down and Chiron started talking again, but I was too distraught to pay attention. All of a sudden every bad scenario that could be happening to Percy played through my head, and I had to fight back tears.
As campfire ended, I stood and wandered in the general direction of my cabin, trying to think, and, for what seemed like the first time in my life, failing. When I finally reached Cabin Six and flopped into my bed, I still had no idea what to do with myself.
I fell asleep with tears running down my cheeks and the pessimistic side of myself thinking: Will you ever see Percy again?
A/N: There you go. It was nice to write for Percy Jackson for a change.
Question: Who is excited for The Son of Neptune? Everyone? Good. Has anyone else noticed that so far, each title in the Heroes of Olympus series has been about Percy? (I read somewhere that Rick Riordan said that the Son of Neptune refers to Percy, but don't quote me on that.)
Anyway. I hope you enjoyed this. It was fun to write.
Review?