A/N: written: summer 2012; I lost the exact date.
edited: August 11, 2013
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters from the series. The title comes from a poem by Rilke.
At the Titan camp, there's an inquisitive little girl who reminds him so much of Annabeth that it's almost uncanny. She's got honey-blonde hair and blue eyes, but if he squints hard enough they could be gray. She comes up to him often, never put off by the scar on his face and the gauntness of his body and the way his ribs show through his shirt because of Kronos, and often asks him questions he can't answer, but he tries to, anyway.
One day he's sharpening a few knives against a flat piece of stone, sprawled out away from the chatter of the camp and basking in the sunlight without feeling its warmth, and this girl comes up to him and looks him in the eye and says, "You need protection from the gods, Luke."
Why? he wonders. He is not frightened of the gods. What can they do to him now? He pauses in his sharpening to contemplate this.
How long has it been since he felt fear?
Immediately he knows the answer—all he has to do is close his eyes and he's locked himself in the shoe closet again, hiding under the jackets and curling into a ball. There's a seething, shrieking beast outside, a beast that wails forlornly like it's lost something, a monster with his mother's face that is all glowing green eyes and snarling words. He'd visited his home just days before, and reflected in the moldy sandwiches on the table and the musty smell of the closet are the memories of those long childhood hours when he'd been so afraid.
But no longer. He's not afraid of anything anymore.
He opens his eyes and there's no color in the world except the golden fabric of time tearing before him, bending to his will. There's no green in the grass, no blue in the sky, no sunlight illuminating anything at all. He can't even see the gray of her eyes anymore.
He looks up at her and says, "No. The gods need protection from me."
He continues to sharpen his knives. The girl doesn't come back to him again.