Disclaimer: Rick Riordan owns it all!
oooOOOooo
"Have you decided yet?"
Clarisse looked up at Chris, meeting his brown eyes that for once weren't warm and compassionate. They were cold and detached and she hated that, hated it more than anything.
She didn't need this right now. Not when she was one of the people in charge of getting the Camp Half-Blood camper's packed up and shipped out to Greece. Not when her muscles screamed at her every time she so much as shifted because she had been busy every day, all day training the kids. Not when she was so tired of people, and worrying. At the moment she just wanted to be alone with her blades. To relax and think and remember back to when times were happy and simple and everything was as good as it could get for demigods here.
Right now she was in the training arena, sitting on one of the spectators' bleachers sharpening her spare sword with Maimer lying beside her. She was resting. She was planning. And despite being alone she had not been able to relax. She was, instead, fretting.
She always came here, and she supposed Chris knew that. Maybe if she had really been trying to get away she would have chosen somewhere else. Like the campfire, although he knew that was somewhere Clarisse liked to go too so maybe not.
She loved the arena. Clarisse had a lot of great memories here. In the last few summers the older campers had started holding sparring competitions, just them. The Hermes kids started up bets and campers could choose their opponents.
Last summer Clarisse had sparred against Annabeth, Percy, Beckendorf, her own cabin mates and Chris.
It had been the best day of her life.
She had had fun. She had felt included and comfortable and she had joked around with everyone else, laughing and teasing and telling old stories… She had felt like the people around her were her friends. Which, she supposed, they were. But she had never felt more comfortable with them all than on that day. Clarisse wasn't good with friends. She was good with fighting.
Fighting… she understood fighting. Fighting was easy, fighting was something that, with enough practice, you could learn and be a master of. Physical fighting was simple and straightforward and uncomplicated.
People were harder. A lot harder. There was so many different types of people and you couldn't act the same around them all. Some were weak, some strong, some pathetic and some frightening. Fighting was the same with everyone- either you were good and you lived, or you sucked and you died. End of story.
Interacting with people, being friends… being a girlfriend? That was hard. And something Clarisse wasn't really good at. Or used to.
She had been friends with Beckendorf and things had ended badly for him. She had felt closer to Silena than anybody else and look how Silena's life had ended. And now Percy was abducted and part of another prophecy, Annabeth was off with Silena and Beckendorf's replacements and the Roman, probably involved in the new Great Prophecy as well.
Clarisse's friends, it seemed, kept dying.
And then there was Chris.
oooOOOooo
Chris Rodriguez had arrived at camp when Clarisse was 12 years old, one year before Percy came and changed everything.
Clarisse was the one who had met him and his satyr, Billy, at the camp border. She had been moping at the time, she remembered and had figured she may as well join the border patrol. (A drakon had been spotted around camp and Chiron had posted sentries for the week to make sure nothing happened.) It had been a stupid comment, one she didn't even remember now. Something Michael Yew had said to her. She had gotten to camp the year before and from the moment she met the child of Apollo she knew they weren't going to get along. A few months later she had been claimed as a child of Ares and then things had only gotten worse between the two demigods. But that was a different story.
She had met Chris and he had been relatively unharmed, something that was almost an anomaly for demigods arriving at camp. Usually there was at least one monster scratch, some sort of head wound and lots of confusion because, Clarisse had to admit it, the satyrs sucked at explaining things to their charges before they got to camp. Kids usually had no idea what was going on, lots of them just assumed they were kidnapped by some sort of goat before the first monster showed up and made them start questioning things.
Chris wasn't like that.
He knew exactly what was going on, he had some sort of golden knife thing that didn't kill monsters but was good for slowing them down. He walked into camp, as calm as could be with Billy at his side, and seemed to know exactly what was going on.
Clarisse had walked right up to him, stopping both the satyr and the boy in their tracks. Even as a 12 year old she had been rough around the edges and unafraid of most things.
Chris, she found out later, was only a couple of months older than her.
She had stomped right up to them, still made at Michael, and had decided to take her anger out on the new guy.
"Hey Billy," she had greeted before stopping right in front of the dirty, bored looking kid.
He had curly hair and a mischievous smile and instead of acting afraid or even annoyed at Clarisse's move he had just raised an eyebrow as if waiting for something.
"What's your name, punk?" Clarisse demanded.
"Chris Rodriguez," he greeted, outstretching a hand that Clarisse ignored. "Yours?"
Clarisse looked at the hand until it dropped, meeting his eyes, ignoring the weird feeling in her gut at the depth of them. He was a boy, a stupid newbie who needed to know how things worked around here. Even if he did seem… different than most of the idiots who came over the border.
"Clarisse La Rue," she said proudly. "Listen up, we need to get something straight. If you listen to me, you'll be fine here. If you don't do what I say… we'll have some trouble."
"Clarisse-" Billy tried to cut in but Chris shook his head to stop the satyr. He was watching her, just as closely as she was watching him.
Chris rubbed his jaw, not moving his eyes even a little bit. "So I take it you're not someone the camp sent to greet me."
Clarisse stopped her mouth from falling open at the last second. Someone sent to- who the Hades did this kid think he was?
"Excuse me?" She growled. "What-"
"I figured they'd send one of the pretty girls," Chris shrugged. "Just to make me comfortable and all. I thought that's why you came up here."
Clarisse blinked.
Billy's jaw fell open.
Chris stood there seeming unaware of the effect his words had.
"It seems I was wrong," he said, not seeming to notice that Clarisse had just turned as unresponsive as a tree.
Did this kid just call her pretty?
Clarisse shook it off at last, opting to ignore it and the weird tightening of her stomach. He was probably making her nauseous.
But she couldn't find the right words to threaten him. Or make fun of him.
"Just go to the Big House," she muttered instead. "I have to get back to border patrol."
She didn't, hadn't even made it to the campers on patrol yet, but Chris didn't need to know that.
"The Big House is-?"
"I'll show you," Billy interrupted quickly, seeming to realize this was as good an opportunity as any to escape. "Come on, Chris."
"Sure," the stupid boy agreed easily before looking back at her. "It was nice to meet you, Clarisse."
She turned her back on him to walk away.
But after she was sure he had started to follow Billy she looked back. He was talking to the satyr animatedly, seeming to be asking questions, and Clarisse wondered if he was asking about her.
It didn't matter, she thought a moment later. Forget about him, he's just some new guy. Not important. Focus on winning Capture the Flag this week.
But even as she met up with the Demeter campers on patrol she couldn't help but hope that Chris wasn't a new sibling of hers. For some reason she didn't want him to be her brother, or anything close.
oooOOOooo
"Clarisse?"
Chris's voice brought her out of her memories and she looked at him standing above her. He hadn't been claimed, she remembered. Even when one night several unclaimed campers from the Hermes cabin sat down at their dinner table with glowing winged shoes above their heads.
oooOOOooo
Somehow Chris and Clarisse had kept running into one another over the years. Camp wasn't big but Clarisse had gone years there without talking to most of the campers- a gift of hers. But Chris.. he kept popping up. He would sit beside her at campfire, would make sure to be on the enemy team and spar with her during Capture the Flag. They would tease, trade insults and banter for a few minutes every time. His face became one she saw most at camp and she couldn't pretend that she minded.
But they were never friends until the night Clarisse got the news about her mom, the year after he first came to camp.
Clarisse went home every year for school. She lived in Phoenix, Arizona and went to school. She had never been expelled from it, which was a big accomplishment.
Clarisse got straight A's.
You wouldn't expect it of her but she did. Partly because her mother pressured her to work hard but mostly because she wanted to get into a good college miles away from her home.
She hated her mom.
Her mom… how to put this delicately? She was beautiful and vain. Clarisse figured what drew Ares to her was that she was like Aphrodite that way. He was one of her mother's many one night stands but somehow they didn't use protection and Clarisse was the result.
There was no tragic love story like the other demigods had. Her mother, to put it bluntly, was a simple fuck to Ares. It was sex, nothing more. He cared about her about as much as a person cared about a wildflower on their lawn. It looked good and was nice for a few days but after that you ripped it out, making sure to get all the roots.
Then again, comparing Clarisse's mother to a flower was a little off base.
Clarisse's mother was basically a porn star.
She was a member of websites, she had an expensive laptop that Clarisse was never ever allowed to touch and a cell phone with the same restrictions. She texted constantly, multiple men were on the go and Clarisse? What was she to do?
To her mother's credit (what little she had) she sheltered her daughter from that. Clarisse was constantly sent over to the neighbour's house while her mother entertained guests and it's not like Clarisse ever saw anything. Plus her mom did have a job. She was a book editor.
Clarisse was looked after well enough. Clothed, fed and sent to a good school. She was taken care of.
But one night Clarisse did go snooping on her mom's phone and she found out everything.
She never told anybody.
Her mom would lie about going out to see a friend. She would say she was going to watch a move that just came out. Instead she would meet up with people.
Clarisse ignored it.
Her mom drank a lot, Clarisse ignored it and cleaned the mess when she could. At 10 years old she realized that none of this, their lifestyle, her mom, was normal. It was sick and twisted and weird. Clarisse realized her family was not like most families.
She stayed in her room a lot. She ignored her mom. She stayed out of her mom's life as much as possible which, sadly, was pretty easy.
Hedge spotted her at her school the next year and her mom handed Clarisse over with no hesitation, glad to be rid of the burden of her child. She had been told by Ares about camp and she figured that Clarisse would be a temporary kid. Someone to look after until she was old enough to be sent away to the place with the magical centaur and fighting.
Clarisse was claimed the moment she came through the border.
Clarisse wasn't sure why she went home for the school year. Maybe to prove to the gods and herself that she wasn't going to be one of those kids that ran away and hid from her life at camp. Maybe to prove that despite her mom, she was going to have a normal life and normal adulthood.
And to Clarisse the first step to that was to get into a good college or university.
So she got straight A's. And the year after her mother sent her to camp with Gleeson Hedge, the older woman had a stroke.
She couldn't speak. Could hardly move for herself. The doctors said she could barely think anymore.
Was it awful of Clarisse to be relieved?
No more complaining. No more of her mother hurting her- and the worst thing was, her mother never tried to hurt her. All of the mean things she would say, all of the cruel snide comments and criticism was never meant to hurt her. If her mother had meant them to be nasty, just to hurt her, maybe Clarisse could have believed they weren't true. But her mother mentioned them in a way you might tell someone they missed doing up a button on their shirt. She meant it, every word was the gods honest truth.
Her mother said she looked more like her father than her. She told Clarisse that she had a manly build and manly face. She said she wished Clarisse could look like her, like a girl, or at least be a little prettier.
After her stroke there was no more of that.
Later Clarisse realized that it was all tantamount to verbal abuse, but she didn't care. By the time she realized that she was too hardened off to care anymore.
Clarisse had been abused all of her life, if you thought about it. Until the Titan War was won and Percy made the gods realize what assholes they could be. Ares stopped mistreating her after that, after she killed the drakon and got his blessing.
So yes, Clarisse was a little mean. She used to push people's heads in toilets and pummel them in fight practice and whatnot.
But she was different with Chris. Somehow he never let any of her behaviour get to him, as if he knew just what made her that way in the first place. He was different and special and he seemed to know her without her ever telling or showing him a thing.
The morning Chiron called Clarisse into the Big House and told her that yes, Lynne La Rue had suffered from a stroke, she had gone right back to sit with her cabin mates at breakfast and acted like nothing was out of the usual.
She acted. She had gotten good at that over the years.
But that night, when the counsellor called lights out she snuck out to just lay in the playing fields, staring up at the stars.
She hadn't even realized she was crying until Chris said it from behind her.
She had jumped, reaching for her spear that wasn't there; ready to hurt anyone and make sure they would never tell another soul. But it was Chris and her spear wasn't there so she stared at him, eyes narrowed.
"If you ever tell-"
"I won't," he promised. And even though Clarisse was sure, absolutely positive he was a son of Hermes, and Hermes children lied like no one else, she believed him. Despite knowing him for less than a year, she believed him.
She watched him closely as he sat down, and she was surprised when he patted the spot next to him on the grass in a silent invitation.
She was even more surprised when she took it
He never demanded an answer, or even asked a question. He sat there, eventually following her example and laying down, and then, without warning he started talking.
About constellations.
He talked about Hercules, Capricorn and the Scorpion. He talked about the mother bear Callisto, about how Zeus had taken advantage of the hunter of Artemis- who had also been the goddess's best friend- and impregnated the girl. And how Artemis couldn't punish Zeus, her father and the ruler of the Heavens, so she had to punish Callisto. She turned the girl into a bear, warning her that the next time they met Artemis would be forced to hunt and kill her. Callisto gave birth to a beautiful human boy and was later made into a grown mama bear constellation- beside a cub.
Finally he talked about Orion, the hunter. He told Clarisse, who was listening with wide eyes, that Orion was the only man whom Artemis had ever loved but her twin brother Apollo grew jealous and possessive and wanted to make sure his sister kept her vow to remain a maiden. He tricked Orion, sending a huge scorpion after the man, and made him swim far out to sea to escape the creature. Then he went to his sister Artemis and told her that one of her priestesses had been raped and the man was currently trying to swim and escape her wrath. Without thinking to even doubt her brother Artemis picked up her bow and shot the speck in the far off distance water. It was obviously a human but from where she stood with her brother there wasn't a chance she would be able to make out the man's features.
It was Orion.
Apollo left.
Artemis went to her priestess and discovered the truth.
She went to the sea and recovered the body and realized who it was she had killed.
"She never broke her vow for Orion, he only strengthened it," Chris said, turning to look at Clarisse. "After that she made sure to never love another man. So she didn't."
"She made him a constellation ?" The daughter of Ares asked, genuinely interested. As far as she had known Artemis had never loved a man.
Chris nodded with his head still turned to look at her. "And the Scorpion that followed him. She killed it."
Clarisse had never been interested in Greek Mythology, despite her special circumstances, but the way Chris told the stories, with so much enthusiasm and an eager glint in his eye she couldn't help but share his love for them. Chiron never told them so well.
"So that's all true?" She asked.
He shrugged and disappointment filled her until she heard his next words. "It's the version I first heard, and I like it better than the other myths of Orion. Some say he was Artemis's best friend and the first man in the hunt. Some say it was Gaea who made the giant scorpion that killed him. People even say Apollo didn't like Orion with Artemis because he loved the male hunter. I don't know. But I think Artemis loving him makes the most sense."
Clarisse nodded. "I like that one the best. It's sad… and tragic, actually." She frowned. "But it makes her seem less godly. More human." She realized what she had just said and couldn't help but blush slightly. "Umm… you know what I mean?"
"Yeah," Chris's voice was soft and unjudging. "I do."
"So how do you know all of these?" Clarisse asked. "Do you really pay that much attention when Chiron teaches us Greek History?"
Chris shook his head. "I loved Greek Mythology even before I found out I was a demigod," he told her. "I know a lot of the myths, and if they're all true then the gods… they're horrible."
His note was edged with anger and Clarisse looked over at him in surprise. "They're gods," she said quietly. "They make mistakes too."
"Yes," he agreed. "But a lot of what they've done… they weren't all mistakes."
Clarisse wasn't sure how to respond to that but she wanted to keep talking to him, didn't want him to leave. She thought back to that moment so many times years later and realized she should have said something, defended the gods and convinced him they weren't as bad as that anymore.
But she didn't want to lie to Chris.
Instead she told the truth. "My mom had a stroke today."
He looked over at her in surprise and Clarisse immediately regretted speaking but she figured now the damage was done.
"It's why I was out here," she confessed quietly, staring at the constellations above them.
"I'm sorry," Chris said after a minute. "That must be horrible. Are you going home?"
She shook her head. "Not until the end of summer," she confessed. "The hospital made arrangements and now she had somebody looking after her full time so they don't really need me."
"But she's your mom," Chris said. "You don't want to see her? You're not… worried?"
She immediately tensed at his line of questioning and he must have felt it because he immediately spoke again. "Never mind, none of my business. Sorry, I didn't mean-"
She relaxed. "It's okay," she said. "I just-" she trailed off before suddenly giving a bitter laugh. "When Chiron told me I felt relieved."
She waited. Waited for him to get away from her as fast as he could. She waited for him to spit that she really was just as cruel as her father, that what she had just said made her a monster. She would have taken it, she would have believed it and from that night on she really would have acted like it.
But he didn't.
He moved his hand and she wasn't sure what he was doing until she felt his fingers intertwine with hers.
He held her hand.
"What did she do to you to make you feel like that?" He asked her gently and suddenly Clarisse wanted to cry all over again.
Chris Rodriguez. So gentle and nurturing and understanding, the complete opposite of her. He used his words while she used brute force and she didn't understand him at all.
But he seemed to be the only one who understood her. Or at least wanted to.
So she told him. She told him everything.
She was crying again by the end of it all but Chris didn't seem to care or even notice.
"Clarisse," he breathed her name. "Oh gods, that's- awful. "
She met his eyes, hers a little red from crying (it's not like she sobbed, just let a few tears out) and she wondered if now he thought she was weak.
"Gods, you've never told anybody?" He whispered. "How- you're so strong."
She bit her lip.
"Maybe you should tell someone," he said, talking more. He was rambling, she noticed, and she wondered if he felt uncomfortable. Again she regretted telling him everything.
But he was still holding her hand and he didn't pull his away. He just squeezed hers.
"No," she objected right away. "Don't tell. It doesn't matter anymore."
Their eyes met, brown on brown, and he nodded. "Okay."
She let out a breath of relief because gods, somebody finally understood.
They didn't really speak about it again. Life went on. Clarisse and Chris got closer. She learned he had a little sister named Mary who was autistic but who he loved more than anyone else in the world. He had only told her and Luke Castellan about Mary, Clarisse learned, and it made her feel special.
The summer ended and when it was time to go Clarisse realized she didn't want to.
Chris waved goodbye to her until she had disappeared over Half-Blood Hill and past Thalia's tree, until she couldn't see him anymore.
The next year everything was different. Clarisse ditched the last week of school (exams were done anyway) to go to camp early. She wished she hadn't.
Thalia's tree was poisoned, Chiron was gone, some guy named Tantalus was there and Chris didn't even speak to her. She wondered if it was because of Luke, his betrayal, but at the end of last year Chris had seemed okay. When she had left camp it had been after everything with Luke and Chris had seemed fine.
Now he could hardly seem to look at her.
She responded by ignoring him. She was hurt, confused and angry. She had thought they were friends but, then again, what did she know about friends? About boys? Maybe she had been played for a fool. Maybe it had all been a lie.
And what Clarisse hated more than anything else was being made a fool of.
So she ignored him right back and learned to not see the broken look in his eyes.
A few days later, during a game of capture the flag, he surprised her. She was scouting ahead for her team, a group of three of her siblings were a bit behind her, waiting for her to turn around and report that the coast was clear. If it wasn't… well she'd make sure it was.
But his voice, a frantic whisper in the dark, stopped her. "Clarisse."
She turned to look at the bush beside her. She could have sworn she had heard Chris's voice coming from it.
Gritting her teeth, internally cursing herself for being foolish and what was she doing, imagining his voice now? She was not some lovesick schoolgirl. Not for him.
But then his voice reached her ears again and she knew she wasn't imagining it. "Clarisse!"
She turned and stomped over to the bush (stealth wasn't really her style) and pushed it aside with her spear. She stopped when the tip was pointing at his chest.
She didn't speak, just stared at him, and she wondered if he saw what she felt. Her anger and her hurt. Her bitterness and the way she just didn't understand. What had changed in a year? They had only ever been friends- sure there had been times… but no! Friends. Just friends. Even that was a stretch for Clarisse.
"Dead," she announced when he didn't say anything.
"Clarisse-"
"Our jails back a ways," she continued, now focusing on his shoulder. "Lara and Melvin are close. They can take you."
"I need to talk to you," he said, urgent and somehow sounding almost scared. "It's- important."
Now she met his eyes and was surprised at the pleading in them. But she was angry and she was Clarisse; known for holding a grudge.
"Now you want to talk to me?" She asked, surprised when he flinched. "Too bad. Go to jail. I have stuff to do."
She turned, not even bothering if he ran away and escaped. She just needed to get away from him. She was the one who needed to escape.
But her caught her upper arm and turned her around, a noteworthy feat considering who he was dealing with. He turned and grabbed both of her shoulders, a hold that should have been easy to get out of but one Clarisse couldn't seem to escape.
"I really need to talk to you," he said earnestly, eyes still wide.
She looked around, wondering if her siblings were anywhere near. But no, she had gone a long way from them. If they were close she probably would have heard them, Ares wasn't the quietest cabin.
"Fine."
He breathed out and relaxed and yet she still didn't move.
Maybe because his next words completely stunned her. "I'm leaving."
"What?"
"I'm leaving camp," he told her. "For a while… maybe forever."
She felt like a little girl again, something she hadn't felt in years. Chris, leaving? What was he talking about?
"You're lying," she said. "You- you're trying to trick me. Play some sort of joke with the Hermes kids-"
"Clarisse," he murmured, somehow cutting her off completely. "You know I wouldn't do that."
"I don't know anything about you anymore."
His hands slid from her shoulders and he cleared his throat. "Well… I just wanted you to know. That I'm leaving."
She wondered if he was telling the truth. He seemed like he was. And what sort of trick was this, anyway?
But no, he wouldn't leave. Not him. Not Chris, who loved Greek Mythology and kept hoping every day he would get claimed by whoever his father was. Not Chris who loved his little sister Mary and protected her like she was the most precious thing in the world.
"When?" She asked, swallowing a sudden lump in her throat. It was nothing, but at the same time it was everything.
"Tonight. Right now, actually. You- you could-" He faltered before shaking his head.
Clarisse was 14 but even she could tell something serious was going on now. "Chris? I could what? Chris?"
"Never mind," he said. "It's a bad idea." He met her eyes, something steeling in his and something breaking down in hers. "I'll miss you."
"Chris-"
He kissed her.
Clarisse had never kissed a boy. She had never so much as been out on a date or held hands with a guy. She had nothing to compare this to, no way of knowing whether this was a good kiss or not.
But when Chris kissed her… she suddenly knew what all those Aphrodite girls were talking about all the time. She finally understood what drove people to write those crazy romance novels and she could see what the big fuss about finding boyfriends and girlfriends was.
She felt weird. Graceful, as she slid her arms around his neck. She kissed him back, opening her lips, and her eyes fluttered shut against her will.
She got it now, what the big deal about kissing was. Even she had to admit it, when Chris kissed her she felt… tingly.
But when he pulled away all of that was gone.
"Bye, Clarisse."
And he left her, still half dazed, standing alone with her spear having clattered to the ground unbeknownst to her.
He left her alone.
Story of her life.
That night everyone found out Chris had left.
The answer apparent to everybody was that he had deserted to join Luke's side.
Funny, Clarisse had never even thought of that. Maybe that's why it hurt so much.
oooOOOooo
"Well, have you? Decided, I mean." He asked, sitting on the bleachers in the arena next to her. She met his eyes, feeling herself get that feeling she always had around him. Around him she was careful. She didn't act too harsh or blunt. He knew who she was, and he loved her for it, but she figured she could at least try and act a bit more like a girl sometimes. For his sake.
She loved him so, so much.
oooOOOooo
That winter things were bad.
At home they were fine. Grace, her mother's caretaker, was now pretty much a part of their messed up family. Clarisse stuck to herself and took care of herself. She was still a good student at school and things were normal.
Until Chris showed up at her house one day.
Okay, correction. Clarisse caught him hanging around her house acting like a creepy stalker.
He looked different. Longer hair, dirty, bruised and his shoulders were slumped. But he was Chris and she recognized him right away.
First she considered stabbing him, but then she figured she wouldn't be able to yell at him and hurt him if he was dead. Then she considered just walking right past him and slamming her door behind her.
But he was Chris and someone who had betrayed camp. If anything she should chain him, gag him and bring him back to be dealt with by Mr. D or something.
She didn't do that either.
Instead, she stopped like an idiot in the middle of the sidewalk beside her house. Then she got angry.
She marched right up to him and, ignoring his look of surprise, shoved him right in the chest.
"What the hell do you think you're doing here?!" She demanded, anger her driving force at the moment.
She didn't give him a chance to answer. She couldn't help it, she punched him; and then she did it again, and pushed him some more.
He fell down onto her lawn, hands behind him, he fell on his butt and sat up quickly, watching her with his mouth open.
"Go away," she ordered before stopping.
"No."
"Go. Away."
"No!"
"Get out of here, Chris," she warned. "Before I come to my senses and bind you, and drag your sorry ass back to camp."
"Clarisse-"
"What the hell are you thinking, huh?" She demanded, now standing over him. "Joining Luke? Joining Kronos? Chris, how stupid- why would you-?"
"I was claimed," he interrupted her.
She faltered. "You were?"
"Yup." He stood up slowly, afraid she would push him down again. But she just stood there. "You were right," he said, trying to get her to soften up. "About my dad, I mean. It's Hermes."
Clarisse took a deep breath. "I told you," she said.
He nodded. "You did."
She blinked, breathing again. "But that still doesn't answer my questions. Kronos, Chris? What happened? Why-"
Chris looked down but then met her eyes with determination. "Luke's right," he told her. "The gods… they need to be taken down. Replaced. They're horrible, Clarisse, the things they do…" He shook his head in disgust. "Luke told me the story, about Zeus and Thalia. And Hades, sending hundreds of monsters after her just because she's a child of Zeus."
"She's on a quest right now," Clarisse told him, trying not to listen to what he was saying. "With Percy and Grover and a couple of Artemis's hunters."
"No way," Chris looked up with interest. "Hunters of Artemis? Did you meet them?"
She didn't answer.
"Clarisse-"
"You could have met them," she said. "If you'd stayed."
His face darkened. "I couldn't stay there."
"Then go away," Clarisse said, stepping back. "Get away from here. Get away from me. Why did you even come here in the first place?"
"I wanted- no, I needed to see you. I miss you-"
"No." Clarisse shook her head, denying it. "No, if you'd wanted to see me you wouldn't have left. If you cared, even a little, you wouldn't have left camp and everyone we love, our family-"
"It's the only way to bring down the gods-"
"You're a coward," she said, watching him flinch away from her once more. "A coward to the core. I hate you."
"Clarisse-"
"Get away from me Chris," she said. "Don't come back. If- If I ever see you again I'll stab you."
"You don't mean that."
She met his eyes, narrowing hers. She hated both of them because his words were true. "I was made head of Ares cabin," she said suddenly. "I went on a quest last summer and you weren't even there. What have you been off doing, Chris?"
"I can't tell you that," he said.
"Then you don't care," she said. "What were you trying to do, trick me to join Luke's side? Did you think, hey, that girl looks tough. She'd be a good fighter. Don't worry Luke, I can convince her."
"What? No!"
"You lied to me and you betrayed me and we're not friends anymore. I don't care about you." Clarisse said, wondering if he believed her. "Leave. Now. And don't come back."
She turned and walked into her house, slamming the door behind her and not letting anybody see tears streaming down her face.
oooOOOooo
"No," she answered him. "I haven't decided yet."
She felt him tense beside her and wondered once more why their lives couldn't be as easy as everybody else's.
oooOOOooo
The next summer was the worst of her life. It was the summer she realized she was in love with the son of Hermes.
But it was also the summer she found Chris wandering around near her place once more; he was completely insane from being sent into the Labyrinth.
That summer was the worst of her life.
She helped Annabeth, barely, gather details of Daedalus' creation. She researched the maze, tried getting rid of the entrance close to her place but nothing worked. Everything she found out was bad news.
When she found Chris she actually felt her heart stop.
She could tell, from 50 feet away, that something was wrong. He was wandering in circles, looking side to side, twitching, jumping. He was muttering to himself and Clarisse heard Mary's name more often than not.
Somehow, she hardly remembered what she did, she got him to camp.
He was still just as crazy but at least now she had Chiron. And, when Mr. D got back from whatever he was doing, Mr. D who was the expert on madness.
It crushed her to think that, that Chris was mad. But it was the truth, easy to see, and that crushed her as well.
While Mr. D was gone Clarisse took care of him. She was the best at it, but that didn't say much. All she got out of Chris was ramblings about Mary and the maze and how Luke had sent him in there looking for something.
She wanted to punch Luke in the face.
Getting him to eat made him scream and cry. He thought she was poisoning him. He cried a lot, when she went to the Big House basement to visit him. He thought she was Mary and Clarisse wondered what would have to happen to the little sister to make the big brother cry every time he thought he saw her.
She stopped wondering.
Chris screamed, he thought she was trying to kill him. Sometimes, on the worst days, he recognized that she look like Clarisse but he thought she was some sort of trick sent to hurt him.
Why somebody would use her to hurt Chris, Clarisse didn't know. She wasn't aware that she had ever had that sort of power over him.
But most of the time Chris didn't recognize her. He didn't know who she was, he didn't remember anything she told him- or, if he did, he would scream at her, saying she wasn't the real Clarisse, that she must have tortured her to get that information.
He scared her. She had nightmares, she cried, she pleaded, she begged and she prayed to the gods.
Nothing worked.
And then, after the Battle of the Labyrinth, Dionysus showed up, saw Chris, touched his forehead and made him sane again.
In less than a minute.
After that things got tough.
oooOOOooo
"It's still between Notre Dame and Duke?" He asked her. "You're not even leaning towards one over the other?"
"Chris," she warned. "Don't do this again. Not now."
He met her eyes, his full of disappointment. "Not even the fact that I'm going to Duke can influence you, even a little bit?"
She looked back down at her sword.
oooOOOooo
It was Silena who helped them get together. Silena who convinced Clarisse that no, her stupid feelings would not go away. She had to go and see Chris,' at least talk to him,' and hear what he had to say. Hear his apologies and explanations.
Clarisse went. She listened to him.
He told her that he loved her.
She ran away, like the coward she had once said he was.
Silena talked her through it. Silena coached her, gave her advice. Eventually Clarisse grit her teeth and did something.
She petitioned for Chris to Chiron and Mr. D. She vouched for him, told them she would keep an eye on him and that they could trust the once rogue son of Hermes. Chiron was convinced easily. Mr. D not so much but in the end he claimed he didn't care.
"As long as we can kill you as well as him when he screws it up," the god told her. "If he betrays us again, it's on you Claire."
Despite the misnomer Clarisse took the words to heart. She got Chris out of his prison in the Big House basement and told him everything, made him understand just how serious everything was.
He didn't screw up. He supported the gods now. Dionysus had healed him, while Kronos had used him as a guinea pig. Chris had realized now that even if the gods were bad, Kronos was much, much worse.
Besides. Kronos had used his innocent sister to get Chris into the labyrinth. Mary had been tortured in front of his eyes to get him in there.
Clarisse had held his hand while Chiron told Chris that his sister had been taken and was missing. Nobody knew where she was.
Chris knew. He told Clarisse Kronos had taken her as blackmail, or leverage, against him. And now that Chris was back here… she was probably dead.
Clarisse was there for him. With Silena's general advice and guidance she and Chris got closer again. They began to need one another for support and advice and just to talk to. Finally he asked her out and Clarisse said yes.
Then it was the war and everything changed.
oooOOOooo
"Even if I go to Notre Dame we'll see each other," Clarisse murmured, still staring resolutely at her sword. "We'll make it work."
As quick as she could blink her sword was gone, stolen, out of her hands by her boyfriend who put it behind him. "Long distance relationships don't work. Not when it will last 4 years." He told her.
Clarisse knew he was right.
oooOOOooo
First it was Beckendorf and then it was Silena. No matter the order, that summer Clarisse lost 2 people she cared about deeply.
And Chris was there for her. Through it all. He stayed and helped her try to comfort Silena after Beckendorf's mission with Percy. He stayed when Clarisse refused to fight in the war. He stayed and he comforted her and even though he told her, again and again that they should help their family, the other campers, he stayed with her.
Even when she was being stupid and stubborn he stayed.
And then Silena, gods, Silena came back and tried to convince her as well. Chris helped the daughter of Aphrodite and against the two of them Clarisse almost backed down. She heard about everything the demigods had fought, she heard how bad they were doing. And she saw her own campers, the Ares cabin, getting tired, desperate for a fight. They were starting to feel bad for sitting out while their fellow demigods died and Clarisse wasn't fool enough to deny that she was feeling that way too.
But still, she said no.
Until Silena stole her armor one morning and led her siblings into the battle.
Whatever else she had been thinking, Clarisse had never, ever wanted what happened next to happen. It was like she was watching in slow motion, as if some sick person wanted to drag the moment out as long as possible. She stood and she watched as Silena- because she knew it was Silena, who else would it be?- tried to stab the drakon but ended up getting a face full of poison.
Clarisse had let out a choked sob, stumbling forward a bit as Silena stumbled backwards, a cruel backwards mirror of one another. They were opposites in everything, Clarisse knew, it made sense that even in her final moments it would be the same.
She had felt Chris, a ghost of his touch across her wrist, trying to hold her back, stabilize her or something. But she had just strode forward, past Silena's fallen body, not looking at her. She had grabbed up her spear from where it lay, forgotten, on the ground and after that things were crystal clear.
She remembered Percy, shouting at her and then, when Clarisse ignored him completely, at the drakon to try and help. But she didn't need his help. Not then. She was going to do this by herself or die trying- and in that moment she didn't really care which one.
She didn't know how she ended up standing on the back of the beast, but she saw her shot and she took it without hesitation. She stabbed down, with all of her strength, sending half of her spear into the monster's eyeball.
She jumped off as electricity crackled across the beast, and ran to Silena, meeting Chris's eyes quickly as she sank to her knees beside everybody else around the daughter of Aphrodite.
Through it all Chris was there. Clarisse didn't know how to grieve, she had never really gone through the process before. Grief didn't make her shut down, she discovered in the next few days, but it did make her restless and angry. She picked fights, nagged at anybody who came near her and tried her hardest to forget Silena.
She never should have cared.
But she did. And she hated to admit this, her weakness, but she missed the beautiful daughter of Aphrodite. Now she only had Chris. But even he was slipping away.
They were battling the people Chris had joined when he switched sides. She got angry at him more than anyone after Silena's death, pushing him away and then fretting over him the best she could to make sure he was safe.
Neither of them knew what they were doing. They just got thought that time as best they could and when Clarisse finally broke down Chris was there, like he always was.
Like he still was.
oooOOOooo
"Well make it work," she looked at him evenly, refusing to back down now. "We will. And every summer we can come back here-"
"Clarisse," he murmured, taking her hand. "We'll be thousands of miles apart. We'll never be able to talk to each other."
"We'll talk on the phone," she said, knowing it was dangerous and stupid but also knowing it was the only way. "Or Skype. On computers."
"Really?" Chris asked her sadly. "You think that will be enough?"
No. "It will have to be."
He shut his eyes, running a hand through his hair in distress before opening them once more. "I understand that you worked hard to get into a good school. Really, Clarisse, you know I get that. But I'm going to Duke. It's the best place I was accepted. You know that too. And I don't want to hold you back, the gods know I don't, but I can't stand the thought of not being able to see you for months."
How was it that she and Chris had made it through everything they had, had endured so much, and now it was something as stupid and simple as a choice between colleges that could break them up?
Clarisse heard everything Chris was saying, and she agreed with him. Being away from each other would be awful. Worse than torture.
But she had worked so hard to make it into a school as good as Notre Dame, and one as far away from her home. From her mother.
And maybe, deep down, she didn't want to be one of those girls who couldn't stand to be apart from her boyfriend for a long time. Maybe she wasn't ready to forgo a better college and make the statement to everybody else that said, 'I'm staying with Chris because I love him.' She didn't want to be the girl that gave up the better school (one that was almost impossible to get into) just because her boyfriend wasn't accepted there.
It was a big deal for her.
But so was Chris.
Shouldn't that make the choice for her?
Deep down she knew she wanted to be with him. She wanted to go to Duke- she didn't need some big, fancy school where she didn't know anybody. Duke was a good school, she would do well there. And there would be Chris. That was enough, she knew it would be.
So why couldn't she just say that?
They had been going back and forth about this for weeks now. But with the Giant War, and Gaea, they hadn't really found a good time to talk.
And Chris wanted to talk now?
"Chris, I'm tired." She told him. "I don't want to deal with this right now."
He sighed and she expected him to relent, give up like he had the past few days and wait for another time to strike.
He didn't.
"I know you," he told her sincerely. "I know what you do when you're unsure about something, I know how you act. And Clarisse, I know you want to be with me just as much as I want to be with you. But you have to do something about it. This is your decision, not mine."
"I don't know what I want."
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, because they were a lie. She did know what she wanted. She wanted to beat Gaea back into a sleep, kill her giants, and be with Chris to celebrate. She wanted to stay with him, and hear him sing off tune in the shower (because he always did that) and steal his old novels to read. She wanted to watch him become a school guidance counsellor and wanted him to watch her figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
And she wanted to eat her words because she knew they would hurt him.
"You're tired," he said after an awkward pause. "And I know you want to stab me with your spear for pushing you." He tilted his head to the side- a gesture Clarisse always thought was cute. "I just want you to know that I want to be with you," he said tenderly. "But whatever you want, whatever you decide… well I'm not going to just give up on us. We can try and make it work. Phone calls occasionally and we can try to Skype; if we don't attract all of the monsters to our poor schools we can keep doing that. Plus we'll always have summers."
She looked into his eyes, seeing that he was being honest.
But she also knew, in her heart, that phone calls and Skyping and summers weren't going to be enough. Not anymore. They were adults now, or close enough. They needed to be together.
Oh gods, she really must love him. Nobody else could reduce her to acting like such a… girl. Nobody else could make her feel so vulnerable.
"Kiss me," she said.
He did the smart thing and complied.
Could she really go a full 9 months (at the least) without seeing him? Without being able to kiss him like this? Without making new memories with him and reliving old ones and just being together?
No.
Damn him for being such a good kisser.
So she said the thing she had been afraid to admit for weeks, days, minutes. "I want to go to Duke," she said, breaking off from their kiss. "I want to be with you."
He let out a breath and it took Clarisse a moment to identify it as a breath of relief. He had really been working himself up over this.
Well good. Because so had she.
"Really?" He pulled away, eyes hopeful and excited. "You're not just agreeing because I pressured you, right? You're really sure about this?"
"What are you doing, trying to get me to change my mind?" She asked, laughing. The way she felt right now… she knew she was making the right decision.
"No," he said before leaning into kiss her, again and again. "Definitely not." Another kiss. "What made you decide?"
She smiled against his lips. "Somebody needs to threaten all of the girls who are sure to throw themselves at you."
"I wouldn't want it to be anybody else," he replied.
It was their own special way of saying 'I love you.'
Clarisse wouldn't have it any other way.
oooOOOooo
Written for PJO Ship Weeks 2014, ClarissexChris. Thanks for reading!
Love you all!
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