I really couldn't get this idea out of my head ever since I read The Last Olympian. It's been so long since I've written fanfiction, I'm not sure if it's really any good, but I hope readers enjoy!

I'm considering making this into a miniseries of one-shots, just playing the characters off on the idea.

Enjoy, and any constructive criticism would be welcomed!

In Which the Gods Have a Sense of Humor

I was working at Camp Half Blood when it happened, but I guess that's how these things usually go.

It was my thirtieth birthday—which, for a half-blood, is kind of a big deal. If you can make it that long without getting eaten by a monster or cursed by Hades or something, you know you're doing the right thing. (But I might have had help on the Hades front. Being friends with his son sort of evens the scales out.)

Chiron didn't wait long to recruit me after I turned twenty-five. He helped me and Annabeth out of a really tight spot with a couple of rogue harpies—and if anyone asks, no, I don't know how the sink pipes in Apartment Twelve just randomly combusted—and then he sprang the question on us: Did we want to be adult counselors at Camp Half-Blood?

So that was how we ended up there permanently, making us the oldest people there except for Chiron, who's over three thousand years old, and Mr. D, who's a god...and Daedelus, but he hasn't been at Camp for years anyway. We were back in our old cabins as leaders, and that was fine. It's not like we were married yet, but that ring on Annabeth's finger sure got a lot of groans from pretty much all of the boys. I guess I wasn't the only one who thought she was beautiful.

But anyway, that's beside the point. Aside from Tyson, my Cyclops half-brother who dropped by to visit once every six or seven months, no one was in the Poseidon cabin. Chiron bumped me over to the sword-fighting just so I could make myself useful, and that was the fun part.

On my thirtieth birthday, exactly fourteen years since Kronos' mini-reign of terror ended, I got the biggest shock of my life...and not because Annabeth snuck around my cabin with her invisibility cap on and grabbed me from behind. I'd call that the second biggest shock. No, the biggest god-sized whammy came when I was by myself in the training area.

I was working on some tough moves I hadn't really gotten the hang of in the last, oh, eighteen years, and next thing I knew someone was yelling my name. Or sort of bleating it:

"Perrrrrcy!"

I looked up and saw my best friend/favorite satyr, Grover, clopping over as fast as his hooves could carry him. He looked really freaked out—mega freaked-out. Like, Kronos-just-came-back-and-he's-tearing-up-the-Big-House freaked out. I was immediately on alert, ripping my helmet off and running to meet him.

"What's up, G-man?" I demanded.

"P-Percy, you'll never believe who I found!" Grover was so scared and so excited he couldn't stand still.

"Take it easy, Grover." I grabbed his shoulders and made him look at me. "What's going on? Who did you find?"

Grover glanced over his shoulder, muttering something about Islands and Fortune and a bunch of other stuff I didn't really get; then he perked up really fast.

"Oh, in the name of Pan!" He shrugged me off. "Mr. D needs something, Percy!"

"Hey, wait!" I called after him as he hurried away. "Grover, what's going on?"

"You'll see!" He hollered over his shoulder, and then he disappeared up the hill to the Big House—so I guess Kronos wasn't eating it.

My first big instinct was to find Annabeth and talk to her, but after eighteen years together I could pretty much guess what she'd say: "Grover's just pulling your rope, Seaweed Brain! It's a birthday prank, lighten up!"

And people at Camp always took my birthday seriously, since I could have ended the world on my sixteenth. It was like they were celebrating one more year of being alive, too.

I went back at it with my invisible opponent, trying to forget Grover's weird visit; I was just about to write it off when I heard someone say from behind me, "You fight like a real warrior."

I almost dropped my sword.

There was no way I'd heard that voice; maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe after all these years and all the close calls, I was losing it. Because there was just no way that was real. It had to be Tyson showing up for my birthday and throwing his voice to startle me, or something. I didn't even want to turn around and look.

Everything was dead quiet. Then, "Uh...they said I should look for you. Are you...Perseus Jackson?"

The way he said my name felt like a punch in my stomach; I turned around really slowly to face him, hoping he'd disappear before I looked.

He didn't; he was standing at the side of the arena, arms crossed, watching me. He was wearing khakis and a black t-shirt with AC/DC on the front. Everything—the way he was looking at me, the way he was standing, even pretty much the way he was dressed—it was all the same. Everything was the same except there wasn't a scar on his face. And he was younger...way younger.

This is what Grover was talking about. "It's...Percy." I managed. "Percy Jackson."

He looked me over with those weird blue eyes; the last time I'd seen them, they'd been almost gray. Gray and dead.

"I've heard about you." He said quietly. "My mother told me stories. She's always told me stories...about the gods. About this place. But I guess I never thought it was real." He looked me up and down, and I felt weird, because he was half my age and it still made me feel like a twelve year old when he looked at me that way.

"Neither did I, at first." I capped Riptide and slipped it into my pocket. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"Okay..." It was hard to have a conversation with him. "You should...um, talk to Chiron. He'll put you in the Hermes cabin..." I stopped. That was just wrong. There was no way we could do it, and Chiron would know why. "Nevermind. We'll figure something out."

He laughed, and that sounded weird. "It's alright. I'm used to getting shuttled around. I've never been able to stay in more than one school every year."

"ADHD?" I already knew I was right.

"And dyslexia." He rubbed the back of his neck. "And weird stuff keeps happening. The crime in our city went way up after my mom and I moved in—literally, right after. I know I'm giving her a hard time, but she doesn't get mad about it. I'm almost glad to get away for the summer. She deserves better."

I thought about my mom, all the blue food over the years and the way she put up with me, loved me even though I was the son of a Sea God—and how she and my stepdad Paul had let me and Annabeth crash with them whenever we needed to, and still invited us over for dinner sometimes.

"Hey, the fact that she accepts you for who you are, man...you can't find that everywhere." I told him.

"I guess." He shrugged, then he straightened up. "Oh, yeah, I'm being kind of rude, right? I should introduce myself." He stepped toward me and stuck out his hand. "I'm Luke. Luke Backlund."

I swallowed hard before I shook his hand. "Have you studied Greek mythology in school, Luke?"

He nodded. "My mom was always buying my books."

"Ever heard of the Islands of the Blest?"

He tilted his head. "I guess, maybe. Why?"

For one second, I wasn't there; I was back in the throne room on Olympus, beside a dying friend: Think...rebirth. Try for three times. Islands of the Blest.

"Nothing." I shook my head. "Come on, we should find Chiron. And Annabeth...she'll love you."

"Annabeth...?"

"Annabeth Chase. My fiancé."

"Oh." He got quiet for a second. "I think I knew an Annabeth. Maybe at my old school."

My throat felt tight. "Yeah, well...I guess that's not surprising, right?"

He looked at me really hard, like he was trying to figure something out. "I think I can find Chiron on my own. He's the big centaur, right? The one who trained Jason?"

"Yeah, that's him."

"I'll go find him. I don't want to interrupt your training." Luke turned around and headed toward the Big House. That was when I remembered something...a promise I'd made.

"Luke!" He stopped. "Have you been claimed yet?"

"Of course." He didn't look at me. "Why else would I be here?"

"Great. Um...who's your dad?"

"Poseidon."

I would have sat down hard right there in the arena if I hadn't put my hand on the back of the dummy chair to steady myself. I looked out in the direction of the Sound. I should have known, dad. I should have known. I didn't think about the fact that this meant my dad had been out with some mortal girl while we were fighting for Olympus fourteen years ago. Honestly, it didn't matter.

"Same here." My throat was totally dry. "I guess that makes us half-brothers."

"I've...never had a brother before." He sounded a little nervous.

I shook my head. "The gods must have a crazy sense of humor."

Luke looked at me over his shoulder and I could see him grinning. "I don't know why, Percy, but I think I know what you mean."

I swallowed. "I thought...Lethe's stream...souls are supposed to forget."

"Forget what?"

"Everything."

He was really quiet for a few seconds. "If souls forget...then can you tell me why I have a scar under my left arm that's been there since I was born? Or why I always have dreams about a golden sarcophagus and a girl with blond hair?"

I walked over to him and put my arm around his shoulders. "Come on. We'll let Chiron explain. But I can tell you one thing, Luke: the gods make the rules, and they break them. Half-bloods...we're in between. Sometimes, we break the rules too."

"That's how you defeated Kronos."

"No." I admitted. "I didn't. A friend of mine did."

The gods may be crazy, I decided as Luke and I walked toward the Big House, But I think they know what they're doing.

Even if they didn't, this was going to be an interesting year.