Title: Of Sound Mind
Rating: K
Characters/Pairings: Annabeth-centric, Percy/Annabeth
Summary: Plato hypothesized that the soul was comprised of three parts. Annabeth does not understand her own soul. Three conversations Annabeth has during Percy's missing two weeks of Battle of the Labyrinth.
A/N: Oh, here we go. Spoilers for Book 4, Battle of the Labyrinth, and vague spoilers for Book 3, The Titan's Curse.
logos equates to the mind, logic, and reason, and is supposed to allow for a balanced soul
Breathing hurts.
It seems so strange to Annabeth that she should now be aware of her breathing, because she can't remember taking a breath between emerging from the Labyrinth and ending up at the Big House, sitting in front of Chiron. But now, she can feel it, how every inspiration causes her chest to rise painfully, how every exhale just makes her feel hollow inside. There is nobody in the room except for her and the centaur, but she knows that word has to be spreading through camp about how she - and only she - returned.
She hasn't spoken more than a few words, but she can tell Chiron is trying to be gentle with her despite the fact that he's desperate to know what's happened. Even someone with a head full of kelp could tell what he's thinking, about how only three were supposed to go, about how she'd insisted on four going, and how three were now lost.
Not lost, she thinks fiercely to herself. Never lost.
It never once occurs to her that the thoughts belong to her and no one else.
"Annabeth." Chiron's voice is low, and soothing. She's only heard him speak in such a tone a handful of times in her entire life: only once before to her, when she'd first arrived at camp and had lost Thalia, and another time to Luke, after he returned from his failed quest, and a third time the night that Percy had arrived at camp, that stupid boy clutching the Minotaur horn and moaning for his mother in his sleep.
"Annabeth," he calls her name again, more firmly this time, and she draws a ragged breath and makes eye contact with him. There are questions in his eyes, but even more than that, there's concern.
"Pan," she blurts out, and Chiron's eyebrows raise because that, perhaps, is not the first thing he expects out of Annabeth's mouth in such a situation. "Grover and Tyson," Annabeth goes on. "Grover thought he sensed - they went after -" and here she stops, because while fear for Grover and Tyson are there, somewhere in her heart, she knows they are still alive.
She knows this because you can't fight a prophecy, and they still have a role to play in hers.
"I see," Chiron responds slowly, absorbing this information. The resulting silence is awkward; the room fills up with questions Chiron wants to ask and answers Annabeth is afraid to give.
She drops her eyes down, and is surprised to find a glass of water in her hands. For the life of her, she cannot remember anyone handing it to her. Annabeth finds that she cannot remember much after the heat of the blast traveled down the tunnel behind her; even more than that, she can't really remember anything much after... after...
"The mountain," she finally tells him. "We were in the mountain. He sent me ahead, and he - he -" Her voice inexplicably cracks; she purses her lips and stares back down into the ripples in her glass of water.
Chiron exhales loudly, and sits back into his wheelchair. "So then Percy is..."
"Percy is what?" Annabeth asks sharply, feeling something rise up in her chest.
"Annabeth," Chiron's eyes are so sad, there is so much sorrow shining through them, and Annabeth feels so guilty for being responsible for it. "You saw the explosion. You have to realize -"
"He's not dead!" She feels so detached from her voice, it doesn't sound like her at all; she's never sounded so shrill before. "He's not - he can't -"
"Maybe you're right," Chiron soothes, "I hope you're right. But we may have to take into consideration -"
"No!" she shouts, and jumps right up from her seat. The glass of water tumbles out of her hand and shatters on the carpet, but Annabeth only notices somewhere far in the back of her mind that's racing to keep up with what her mouth is shouting. "He's not dead! He can't be dead! He can't be, I kis-"
And that's when her brain arrives to the conversation, just in time to notice how Chiron's eyes widen imperceptibly.
"He can't be dead," Annabeth finishes lamely, her voice hoarse. "Or I'll kill him."
"You need rest, Annabeth," Chiron says, but she's not even listening to him anymore. She's staring down at her feet, reassuring herself. There's no way Percy is dead, Chiron is wrong, she cannot consider the idea that Percy is dead.
She can't consider it, because you can't fight a prophecy, and if Percy has escaped hers, then why did she kiss him?
thymos equates to the masculine, emotions, and spiritedness, and is supposed to drive emotional motive
The Big House is quiet.
It's quiet because Chiron has banned first the television and then the radio, once he realized that Annabeth was keeping herself glued to the news reports. She hasn't left the Big House once in the couple of days since she's returned to camp, which she is well aware is a mark of exactly how concerned they are for her, since stays at the Big House are reserved for campers who are sick or a danger to themselves or others. The majority of the campers who pass through avoid her, which is fine with Annabeth as she doesn't really have much to say. She spends the majority of her time making plans for when Percy comes back and they can finish their quest.
There are a few, though, who will still tell it like it is:
"What is that?" The voice is a mixture of agitation and curiosity, and Annabeth glares over her shoulder at the intruder.
"A map," she answers shortly, starting to roll the piece of paper back up. "For when we go back into the Labyrinth."
Clarisse stares at her as if she's grown a second head. "You've been in there once and you want to go back?"
"I have to," Annabeth responds calmly, because, really, it's a no-brainer. "The quest isn't over yet."
Clarisse's face wrinkles as she looks at the plans Annabeth has strewn about. "You're cr- why are you doing this? That place can't be mapped."
"How would you know?" Her voice is still serene, and even though she really has no interest in arguing with Clarisse, she can't help herself from saying it. "You've only been in there once."
"Yeah and I learned my lesson!" Oh, there was a dangerous edge to Clarisse's tone. Her and Clarisse technically got along only a little better than Percy and Clarisse did - at least, it wasn't quite as antagonistic. They both saw similarities in each other: the desire to prove oneself, the knowledge that they were better than others and the irritation they both felt when it wasn't recognized. Annabeth, at least, was well aware of her hubris. Generally, they avoided each other, which made Clarisse's sudden appearance here at the Big House something of a mystery to Annabeth.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Annabeth asks, turning in her chair to face the brunette. Clarisse's hair has been pulled back nicely, away from her face, and Annabeth wonders if this is the first time she's ever seen Clarisse's face clearly, without her hair obstructing it.
"I came to see -" Clarisse cuts herself off abruptly; she glances out the door and down the hallways, as if she expects someone to burst in on them, and then changes course. "Everyone in camp is talking about you, you know."
She says this accusingly, but Annabeth is nonplussed. "I have bigger things to worry about."
Clarisse stares at her, and then drops herself onto the bed next to Annabeth, who frowns as her papers crinkle underneath Clarisse's weight. "Why would you go back in there?" she whispers, refusing to look directly at Annabeth. Instead, she looks everywhere else; at the papers, at the floor, at her hands. "Do you know what it does to people?"
In a flash, Annabeth thinks of the boy in the basement, the boy who's afraid of both light and dark, the boy who barely knows his own name. "I have to," she answers weakly. "It's my quest."
Clarisse is silent, and finally, Annabeth begins to feel some sort of emotion, some sort of anger. Who is Clarisse, to barge in here and make her doubt her decision? "Why are you here?" Annabeth asks again.
Clarisse stands up, a disgruntled look on her face. "I wanted to see if what everyone's saying is true. Everyone's saying that Luke cursed your quest and that you're the only one alive."
Luke. Luke, this dumb daughter of Ares actually has the nerve to bring up Luke to her face, as if she knows anything about Luke - "Luke has nothing to do with this!"
She doesn't even realize that she's shouted it until she sees the surprised look on Clarisse's face, but Annabeth is long past caring at this point. It's like something breaks inside of her, this terrible, gaping wound, this horrible mixture of loss and Luke and need and Percy and and and - "This is my quest! I'll go it alone if I have to!"
She stands there and pants for a moment, watches as the expressions pass over Clarisse's face, and oh, she's so angry, she's so so mad right now, Annabeth thinks that she could withstand one of Zeus' lightning bolts; even more, she thinks she could throw it back at him, she's so angry. "I hope they're dead," she grinds out between clenched teeth. "I hope they're dead -" If they're dead then they've escaped her prophecy. She's seen the boy in the basement, and she knows death is preferable to that. "If they're dead than they're not - they're not trapped or -"
"Your prophecy huh?" The look on Clarisse's face is smug, like she's figured Annabeth out. The shock of it is enough to force Annabeth to clamp down on those emotions, to bring herself under some control.
She turns her back on Clarisse. "The prophecy was wrong,"
She is the only one suffering a fate worse than death.
eros equates to the feminine, desire, and passion, and is supposed to drive our basic bodily needs
Blinking isn't helping.
Annabeth keeps trying, rubbing her eyes hard as if it'll help, and then looks again.
There is definitely a goddess standing at the end of her bed, looking down at her with a curious expression on her face. She's wrapped up in a fur stole even despite the heat, her long hair cascading over her shoulders. When she raises a hand to one shoulder, twirling a piece of hair around one finger, Annabeth can see she's wearing elbow length gloves. She looks like she'd just arrived from the opera.
Annabeth's eyes narrow. Aphrodite smiles at her, the way a child smiles at a small dog because it's cute.
"I don't know," the goddess says slowly, "why your mother always insists on giving all her children the same cookie-cutter face and features, but you do a lot more with it than most of her children."
"Good morning Aphrodite," Annabeth responds blearily, wondering in a daze if she's wearing clothing appropriate for the goddess of love. She's half tempted to peer below the blankets to double check on what she'd worn to bed before realizing that the goddess probably did not care that much. "May I ask why I've been blessed by your presence?"
Aphrodite smiles at her, a slow curling of red lips to reveal perfect, white teeth. "My husband told me that you'd found your way out of the Labyrinth. I wanted to talk to you about your quest and your prophecy."
Annabeth blanches, because she still hasn't spoken a word of the final line of her prophecy to anyone. "You know my prophecy?" she asks, her voice high pitched and edged in panic. "How do you know?"
"Apollo and I have a little deal." Aphrodite looks entirely unconcerned in the face of Annabeth's discomfort. "He gives me a little heads up whenever a prophecy involves love. And yours is a good one too. I haven't seen one this good since Diego and Frida!"
"Um, if that's what you want to call it." Annabeth frowns and shifts in bed, trying not to imagine what Aphrodite gives to Apollo in return for knowledge of the prophecies. "I'm not sure what's good about it..."
"Losing a love to a fate worse than death," Aphrodite clarifies. "Do you know that there's been no greater motivation for heros in the history of mankind than love and the threat of losing it?"
The goddess sits at the end of her bed and crosses her legs daintily. "I don't understand," Annabeth says stupidly. Thinking is hard this close to Aphrodite, for some reason, and the fact that she's still only half-awake isn't helping anything. "What can I do? All I can do is finish my quest. You can't fight a prophecy."
Aphrodite looks up and across the room, out the window; Annabeth has a feeling she's not really studying the row of trees outside the house. "Has there been no word from Mr. Jackson then?"
"No," Annabeth admits, that sick feeling that comes up whenever someone mentions Percy rising in her stomach.
"What about your dreams?" Aphrodite asks sharply. "Nothing in your dreams?"
"I - no." Annabeth frowns. Despite whatever turmoil has been going on in her life lately, her dreams have been calm and serene. She's been seeing a lot of blues: the sea, the cloudless sky, and pretty flowers.
"If you knew," Aphrodite pauses, as if trying to phrase the question correctly. The faces of Janus momentarily flash in Annabeth's mind; she hates "if" questions, "that Percy could be rescued, would you drop your quest to do so?"
Before she can stop herself, hope flares up inside of Annabeth. Why would the goddess be asking if she didn't mean - "Of course!" Annabeth answers eagerly, sitting up in bed and leaning towards Aphrodite as if she'll drop Percy's coordinates then and there. "I mean," she tries, belatedly, to compose herself. "He'd do the same for me."
"He's done the same for you," Aphrodite points out, and Annabeth nods in agreement. She can still remember being amazed last winter when Percy had insisted that he'd known she was alive the whole time; almost anyone else would have given her up for dead the moment she fell off the cliff. "What if," and Annabeth tries her hardest not to snort in irritation at this game that Aphrodite is playing. "What if he did not want to be rescued?"
The question halts her entire thought process. The question doesn't even make sense. Either Percy is dead, or Percy is alive and needs help - otherwise, why wouldn't he have shown up again himself?
"I don't understand," Annabeth admits again, and this is the second time in the last five minutes that Annabeth has had to admit that she doesn't understand something, and frankly she cannot think of a worse way to start off her day. "Is - is he even alive?"
A sly look crosses Aphrodites face, and oh gods, Annabeth's already gotten her hopes back up again, it'll be like losing him all over again if the goddess says no. "But your prophecy," Aphrodite points out. "Aren't you worried about the prophecy?"
Annabeth stares down at her hands, unsure of the correct answer. She wants Percy back, and she doesn't even care what name belongs to these feelings that she has for him, but the last line of her prophecy terrifies her. She is tired of bad things happening to people she loves. "The only thing I know for sure," she finally says, "is that I need to finish my quest. You can't fight a prophecy."
"Percy isn't the only one you'd drop everything to rescue," Aphrodite says in a casual, observing manner.
Luke. There are so many people in Annabeth's life that this statement could apply to - Thalia, for one, and Grover, for another - but there's no question to whom Aphrodite is referring. She stares down at the bedspread, following the spiralling pattern with her eyes. "What am I supposed to do?" Annabeth finally asks, mentally urging herself not to break down and cry in front of this goddess. "Let him invade camp?"
The goddess smiles at her, and stands up, smoothing the front of her dress as though it had been wrinkled while she sat. From what Annabeth can tell, it's as perfect as ever. "I will leave the prophecies to mortals, Annabeth, but I will tell you two things I know for sure: your quest cannot also be a rescue mission, no matter how you may hope, and to finish your quest will be to ensure that your prophecy is fulfilled."
Annabeth closes her eyes, trying not to consider the meaning of Aphrodite's words. Behind her eyelids, Janus teasingly passes a key between his hands. "Thank you," she says, because its best to be polite even if she doesn't mean it, but she never knows if it's needed because when she opens her eyes the goddess of love is gone.
She stays in bed a long time that day, considering Aphrodite's words. Some time ago, Hera had promised her a day of choice - but it wasn't this, it wasn't now. There is no choice in a prophecy.
And if it's not about the prophecy, then what else could it be?