3 am, New York, The Blofis-Jackson Apartment

In Percy's dream he was in Tartarus. That in itself wasn't unusual- when Annabeth was gone he found his sorry butt there most nights. Chiron was helping him to control it though, to help Percy regain control over his own subconscious and for the most part it was working. When Percy recognized that he was dreaming he could normally wake himself up- with Apollo having his 'issues' there were no prophetic dreams, no gods trying to get favors from him or asking him to save the world (although at this point if that happened he would probably just ignore it. Percy Jackson was done.) it was just Percy and his mind.

And yet tonight he stayed in his dream.

It wasn't until this failed attempt to wake up that percy realised this wasn't like his other nightmares. For one thing he wasn't himself...well he was himself, who else would he be? But he wasn't the percy in hell. That percy was asleep by a rock with Annabeth while bob kept watch. Looking by the scratch across his shoulder this was just after their trip to Damon and on their way to the doors of death. Just after his run in with the curse spirits. He shuddered at that thought. Of all the things he dreamed of they haunted him the most.

Out of body experience? Unable to wake up? Extreme self awareness. Hell. This was a vision.

Watching Bob play with small Bob he almost didn't notice something move behind a nearly stack of boulders. He moved himself closer to see a manticore. More specifically Dr Thorne the manticore, who'd been following them on their quest for Artemis.

He wanted to yell, to warn himself to wake up. But he knew he wouldn't hear- he came back alive and without fighting this. Thorne must either run away or be defeated. He must. Yet as the monster drew closer he couldn't help filling up with panic. Just as Thorne was about to pounce, something appeared ,seemingly straight out of the darkness, and barrelled into him. The figure was small and slight, but the momentum and the shock sent Thorne crashing to the ground.

Momentarily stunned Thorne lay on the ground as the figure stood watching him and panting from a couple of yards away. Having heard something, Bob rose and and looked right at the pair...then about the surroundings as if he couldn't see them. The shock of that was clear in the manticore's face as he tried to rise. Emphasis on Tried. Tendrils of shadow and darkness had wrapped themselves around his legs and neck like vines. He thrashed against them, roaring but they just kept growing, darker and thicker. Bob heard nothing.

"They can't hear, or see, or in most circumstances touch me or anything that directly acknowledges me in a way they would notice" Thorne's eyes darted to the girl (the figures voice had told him that much) and for the first time he had the decency to look scared.

"It's just you and me I'm afraid"

Her face and torso were hidden by a black hooded cape which had been torn away at her mid thigh along with a chunk of her leggings. That revealed the freakiest thing about the invisible girl wandering around hell killing things with shadows. freakiest. Her left leg was nothing but bone. And he didn't just mean it was skinny, it was bone, bleached and as bare as the skeleton in his biology classroom.

Through his chokehold Thorne managed to get out a single word

'Who?'

The girl gave a quiet humourless laugh.

"You mean you don't remember me?" She slackened the bonds around his neck and pulled down her hood as Thorne gasped for air. Her eyes were a touch too big for her face and reflected the red glow that surrounded this place. Combined with her small, smirking mouth and matted bobbed hair she looked like a silent movie star who'd gone feral. She reminded him of someone, but he just couldn't tell who.

Thorne on the other hand seemed to grasp it in an instant, his eyes widening with recognition.

"You."

The girl smiled at that and unhooked a small crooked knife from inside her thigh. she took a slow deliberate step towards the manticore.

"Me."

A look of resignation passed over Thorne's face, quickly replaced by a bitter smile.

"You could have been great you know. We could have made you that way"

The girl let out another joyless laugh and took another step towards the bound creature.

"I think I did well enough without you."

Their eyes met.

"Then what are you here for?"

"Vengeance."

He let out a wheezing laugh as the darkness at his throat tightened again.

"You know...what I mean...Not why you're here...killing...me. Why are you here...at ...all?"

Her smirk fell and her eyes grew darker still as she moved closer still with her knife.

She didn't speak until she stood right above him, the knife held aloft above his heart. Then she stopped a moment and cast a long glance over to he and Annabeth. Her eyes stopped on the scars he had been given by the curse spirits.

Suddenly this fierce wild girl looked angry and scared and guilty. The same look, percy realised, he must have worn the whole time he was down their.

"Penance."

And with that she plunged her dagger into Thorne. As he collapsed and his form began to dissolve she walked up to Percy and Annabeth, Bob remaining oblivious. She sank to her knees beside them.

"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry. It wasn't meant to be her. It wasn't meant to hurt her." With her shuddering breaths percy realised the girl was crying. Gods, what could she possibly have done that she needed redemption like this? Pulling herself to her feet she turned to squint at a dot on the horizon- a house. "I'll get him. I'll get him to come and help you. And between three of us we can do it. I swear it on the two Rivers I will get you both out of this place alive." And with that she began to walk back to the hut.

Percy woke up.

Breathing hard and deep percy pulled himself out of bed and got himself a drink. He checked around the door of his mom and Paul's room to make sure they were all ok, then IMed Annabeth to make sure she was likewise. She was sleeping, so he didn't wake her up, just watched her breath for a few seconds until he felt like a creeper. The habit had formed when the nightmares had started, and although this dream hadn't filled him with the same terror that was usually reserved for Tartarus, it still felt good to be in a routine.

No, this dream didn't scare him so much. It unsettled him, made him question...well the same as Thorne really. Who was the girl? Why was she there and why couldn't he see her and had she done this before? What had she done that made her need a "penance" like this? Above all else who was sending him this dream and why did they want him to-

NO!

He'd sworn after Tartarus. Sworn he wouldn't do this anymore. Put his ass on the line for a god and the problems they caused but wouldn't, sorry, 'couldn't' fix. Let someone else fix this one. If it even is a problem. After all this vision was of something that happened months ago, if at all.

No, let some other 'hero' get this one, he thought as he lay down to sleep.

Percy Jackson was done.

Meanwhile...

8am, North East England, Wendron woods

Trip woke up on the floor of the Coma Cabana (a name so horrifically perfect that they'd decided it would be more disrespectful not to use it)

Her head was pounding as she stood up, stepped over the boys and walked along the street to the pump for a drink, trying to remember what had happened the night before.

While she walked she passed by Paul Pandy, her weirdly beautiful ex nemesis. She could only assume how rough she looked. She wasn't that good looking on a normal day and right now she was hungover and barefoot in last night's dress. Before the quest to the wolf house last winter they would have exchanges bitchy comments and middle fingers and gone on their merry way. While Paul would be coming back from the wash huts, trip would have been on her way home from some strange boys place. My how things changed. Now she just got an awkward smile and a nod.

At the pump she took her drink and washed away her panda eyes before finding her way back home. Only three doors down from the Coma Cabana, it was a tiny yurt she had shared with Parker until...

Parker's stuff was still untouched.

She let herself in, found some clean clothes and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Casting a glance at her made bed she was half tempted to go back to freaking sleep. It was Sunday after all so she had no work or sixth form.

She shook her head. Cute idea, but she'd better wake the boys up before one of them choked on their own vomit.

Arriving back at the cabana, she couldn't help but chuckle. Lance and August lay spooning on the floor next to Parker's bed. The noise made Lancel wake up with a start. He tried to get up but August had both arms wrapped around his torso and was sleeping like the dead.

Damn- how much had that boy had to drink? His time in the legion meant that August tended to be up at 6 every morning like clockwork. Even now he was a free man, he couldn't doze past 7 without getting antsy.

The night before they had tried to get into some sense of normality by going to the Shelter- a giant iron air raid shelter left from the second world war which was now used as a bar. No one knew why it was there, since the woods' location was pretty rural and so wasn't bombed, but at least it served a purpose now. They used to spend a lot of Friday nights there, the four of them (but it was the best when there were five and Hamish was home, or when the other friends that they'd made by some miracle joined them) slightly drunk and always laughing.

Theya and Beetle had found work in London, modelling and so had gone to their lives, leaving They's home behind. It was the cabana now but the white and cream decor and the general prettiness of it meant it would always be "Theya's house". Hamish (who Trip was going to murder if she ever saw again) had gone AWOL months ago when it was clear that Parker wasn't going to...

Long story short with just three out of seven their company was kind of pathetic. A poor imitation of the old gang. No wonder they'd taken to hanging around with Rhea Grace and her crew.

And so after one drink, they'd asked Garman the bar man for a bottle of whatever was strongest and gone to back the cabana. Instead of They's immaculate mini home, it was just a single bed against the wall, three chairs and a little wood burning stove in the corner. The trio had taken their usual seats and all taken a swig from the bottle aaaaand after that it was all a bit of a blur. How were they meant to know that the "strongest thing" Garman had was something he brewed himself out back and was only a touch weaker than paint stripper.

Finally dislodging himself from August's arms Lancel stood up, straightened his glasses and gave Tripta a wincing smile and a muttered good morning before ducking out the door.

And vomiting on the front doorstep.

Without turning around Tripta called over her shoulder, "You're cleaning that up." and immediately regretted it. It felt like someone was driving a knife between her eyes.

"Fair enough" Was the weak cry back.

She knelt by the stove, lighting it and putting the kettle on to boil. She was fishing around for the box of tea bags when she heard a voice behind her.

"This isn't fair."

August had propped himself up against the wall and was sat with his eyes fixed on the bed. Sighing Trip walked over to the bed and sat on the edge.

"Nothing about this is. But I get a feeling that you're talking about something specific."

He pulled himself to his knees and shuffled up beside her.

"What happened to her."

What can you say to that? Rather than answer she looked down and studied Parker. Her dark hair had grown longer while she'd been sleeping. It was almost at her shoulders now, and was sprawled around her head like a dark halo. Sustained by the earth magic, she looked almost peaceful. When this had first happened to her she'd been willing to die for them all. The way that her eyes had looked before the battle she'd been ready, hell maybe she'd even wanted to, as much as it pained Tripta to admit. She'd known that. How tired and broken that Parker was. That someone had to make the sacrifice so why not her? She was so bloody sick of fighting. But then they'd gone to the asclepion and she couldn't help but ask for that one impossible favour. If the god could bring a boy back from the dead then he could stop a girl from fading away. So when her brother and company left and she could be seen she did the only self respecting thing and begged him, and he'd agreed.

Parker always said that all she ever wanted was to live her own life and die her own death. She'd asked the world, the "gods" for so little. Thanks to Tripta she hadn't even gotten that.

She was doomed to live, trapped in her own body. Lance always assured her that she'd done the right thing. Dead was dead. At least this way she might come back. But Lance was Lance, and although he was sweet and chivalrous she could never quite shake the feeling that these were pretty lies to hide a dreadful truth.

'She was ready to go...she'd done so much, followed so many quests, done so much good. And now she's stuck here. Yeah, 'Gusty it's pretty shit." she wiped the tears out of her eyes before they could fall. "But at least she got to live first."

But I lived...the last words Angelica Parker spoke before she closed her eyes for that last time. She'd looked so young, so wistful when it happened. No-one had ever seen her like that before. They sat there for a little while longer. While she slept she looked like any other 16 year old, with freckles on her nose, growing out her hair and without those big black eyes, too big for face and too old for her bones. She was wearing a white t shirt about four sizes too big and some pyjama bottoms. Her prosthetic leg was lying at the foot of the bed like it always was when she was in resting. The only sign that anything was wrong was how still she lay (Trip knew from living with her that Parker was a fitful sleeper.) And the crown of flowers she wore in her hair as sign of the earth magic keeping her alive. Poppies and forget me nots, like Parker always wore for ceremonies and meetings. Flowers for remembrance.

They sank back into their quiet compilation until August broke the silence.

"I know. That's what makes this so...so crap." Damn. August didn't normally swear so he must be feeling some feelings. He pulled himself onto the side of the bed as well. "Percy Jackson, Jason Grace. Neither of them went willingly on those quests. She went-we went- because we knew it was right to help them. No hostage friends or memories or commands from the legion or a god. Just...it was just...what we did."

What we could say that. Over two thousand years ago the romans and their gods found Britain. The pagan witches who already lived there (not druids. Those guys could suck it) who had their connection with the earth, knew that the romans wouldn't like them. Would ask for compliance. Would try to take power from what they didn't understand. And so they cast the Great Spell. They shielded a great area of woods and a clearing with a great, undying tree in it's centre, so that none of those gods, or their children or their men would ever find them. Over millennia the camp had grown and grown and grown. Different people seeking asylum from different gods ( a lot of nordics, seeing as their gods only provided for them after they died, and as sick as valhalla is some would rather...not die painfully). The earth magic had faded since then. Now all it did was screw up the witchs' aging and whatever happened when they walked into the dark.

And then Luke's quest went horrendously wrong and they were banned and a witch had a bright idea. And here they fucking were. Following quests, invisibly and making sure there were no fuck ups.

In all fairness they didn't have to act all that often, but good gods when they did.

Trip glanced at the burn scars on augusts back. They crept up the back of his neck through his shirt. He'd shielded Jackson from the blast in Mt. St Helen's as best he could with his own body. Jackson spent his time recovering on Calypso's island escape. August spent months healing in agony. And even with all the healing magic the witches knew (which was a damn ass lot) and the Nectar that they managed to steal he had been left with that permanent reminder. Or when Tanith Grey got a head of silver hair from holding up the sky alongside Luke, then Annabeth then Percy and Annabeth. Not that it mattered. She Died in the Battle of the Gulf two years later. Her girlfriend, Beetle still hadn't moved on. Or how about at the wolf house when Jason Grace was resurrected by the power of love? Maybe Rhea-Grace could have done the same for Ally, but Trip wasn't willing to take that chance. The eye was out before he could see Hera's true form.

"...And for what?"

Trip told him what she'd told herself every day since her first quest.

"To save the world and the heroes it needs."

"So Parker was expendable then. Because they didn't need her?"

If it had been anyone else, anywhere else she would have yelled at him. Her temper was legendary when it came to three things only- morons, people talking shit on her brothers and people talking shit on Parker or August. But August had no fight left in his eyes or his voice or his anything else.

"Grace, Jackson, Chase- hell even Valdez. They get to grow old, safe inside the walls of New Rome. Their stories will be told in Millenia. And I know we knew going in we wouldn't get credited. But still. How come Parker gets this."

He reached up to touch Parker's hand, and Trip realised that she'd been stroking the hair away from her temple for the better part of this conversation. She didn't stop though. Park had always liked contact. She Said it reminded her she was still there.

"Do you ever think that all of this shit that happened to her...is some kind of punishment for her?"

She wasn't sure how to answer that one either. In her eyes Parker was faultless. All of her suffering came from her believing she had to "atone" for what she deemed as being her mistakes. Still she knew she was biased. And if nothing else myths told her that gods were dicks. The only mistake that was really that was...well a mistake…

"I always thought that Tartarus was punishment enough for, well, that," they both knew what that was, but none of them ever spoke about it. Not even when it first happened. "What she did was bad, and I'm not denying it. But she never meant for it to do...what it did and she did so much to make it right."

August shook his head.

"No, not for that. For," he cast a furtive glance around the room. She would have laughed under other circumstances- who the hell would hear them here?!- but his grave expression and the situation stopped her. "How she's here…"

Trip winced a little at the memory. Only four people in the world knew that story. Two of them were in this room, one was dead and the fourth could be, for all they knew..

"I'm not sure...for a while I thought that maybe the leg was punishment for that, I mean she lost it so soon after we found her…"

The whole situation was, as per, so horrendously sad that it was funny in its irony. Trip couldn't help snorting when it dawned on her.

"At least whatever decides this shit has a sick sense of humour." August shot her his signature are you high/what the fuck is wrong with you/ just why look. "Her Nickname."

August was silent for a while as a look of understanding came across him. Then he let out a weird, barking laugh. He was a quiet bloke, and since the war he'd become even more so. Trip realised that this was the first time she had heard him laugh, like really laugh, since Parker's eyes closed. So the pair laughed, giddily and manically until the laughs faded into broken sobs. That was the first time that Tripta had cried since Parker's eyes had closed.

Angelica Parker. Wendron witch, Necromancer, Lady Lost, phenomenal shot, demigod, and Quest follower. August's surrogate sister, Triptas closest (and first proper female) friend. Preserved to live in eternal sleep, was the so called "Dead Girl Walking."

Whoever decided this stuff was a bitch.

Lancel came back after a while to find the two of them lying on the floor, with august tucked under Triptas arm,still sniffling. Without words, Trip raised her other arm and with all his usual awkwardness, Lance let her pull his long, skinny frame into the embrace. She didn't know how long they stayed there for. Hours, probably.

Tripta Singh Shaka was fucking done.

Well thank you for making it all the way to the end of that- I really appreciate it. I've had this idea in my head for a long time now and a whole elaborate world and back story to go with it, and I've only just picked up the motivation to write it. I know that this chapter, namely the second part of it was a bit of an exposition dump, but thats only for this chapter (and a little of the next) and I swear it gets going. Any comments are more than appreciated, especially criticisms, constructive or otherwise.

Thanks for reading- Robbie