Disclaimer: I don't own anything, all rights belong to Rick Riordan and the publishers.
I'm sorry if I've gotten someone following this story excited, but I'm not adding anything new. I never will, for that matter. This story will stay an OS.
Nightfall in New York sees a young man sitting against a tree in the middle of Central Park.
His head is cocked back and he blows smoke up into the tree's leaves. In his right hand, there is a small round glimmering piece of paper filled with something producing the smoke.
Minutes flow by and the man doesn't move, except to take more drags from his smoke.
Another presence enters the scenery. It's a girl in silvery clothing holding an equally silver bow with a silver arrow notched, aiming at the sitting person.
"What are you doing here, male?"
The girl's voice is laced with dislike, to put it likely – outright scorn and disgust would be more fitting.
The young man doesn't respond at first. Slowly, his head moves forward and his gaze meets her eyes.
"Sitting, smoking... Enjoying the peace and quiet of the night. What are you doing here, hunter?"
His voice sounds soft, like smooth silk. Not a hint that the girl's loathing might be matched, just polite indifference with a tiny bit of curiosity.
"That is none of your concern, boy! You have no right being here! Your presence insults what little pureness this place provides in the middle of that blasted city full of filthy males like you!"
The compassionate outburst draws a small chuckle from the smoker. Apparently, neither the archer's weapon nor her obvious opinion about his sex intimidates him. He leans his skull against the tree again.
"I have no right to be here? Funny, I've been sitting here for longer than you've been standing there. And I was born here in New York, can you say the same for you?"
The hunter fumes, but has no idea how to answer this. The man doesn't let her think of something to say, though, but opts to continue.
"You know, I've wondered... I recall your lady saying that the average age for girls to join the Hunt is twelve. Does that mean you are stuck in puberty forever?"
This makes the girl sputter incoherently. Finally, she manages to form words:
"You will die for this insult, you disgusting, vile -"
"Eileen, stop."
A serene voice halts the murderous archer in her tracks.
A third person enters. It's a girl, around the same age as the one threatening the young man with a bow.
The voice, however, belongs to somebody much older.
"Milady!" The hunter called Eileen nods her head.
The newcomer moves in front of the sitting male and regards him sharply. He does a kind-of bow, as much as he is capable to in his position.
"Lady Artemis."
The same polite voice he spoke to the archer with, though the curiosity has risen.
"Leave us, Eileen. Go back to our camp."
Eileen does so without questioning.
Artemis, the moon goddess, looks at the male at her feet with a bit of curiosity herself.
It is not an unusual sight for her to see Percy Jackson smoking in a secluded place, but this time she has no idea what might have brought him out here.
It bugs her that she's in the dark about the reason behind his little ritual for once.
Time to find out.
"Why are you here, Perseus?"
"Why do you want to know?"
Typical Jackson. Of course he has to question her intentions. Well, given the fact that Artemis is known as a man-hater, it makes some sense.
The immortal points up at the white orb in the sky.
"I see much at night while guiding my chalice across the world. I have noticed you like this several times in various places.
The day after my old friend Zoe died, you sat on top of the Empire State Building.
The evening of your return from Ogygia, you isolated yourself on the coast of Long Island.
Your first night in New Rome, you climbed atop the Colosseum.
These are only a few examples. And every time so far, I knew why you sought to be alone.
Today, however, I do not know. And I am curios."
Perseus doesn't say anything for some time.
"You would have to kill me if I told you."
His statement takes the goddess of the hunt aback. So far, she had – albeit grudgingly – respected the demigod as the only male in the world who didn't fit the usual characteristics of his gender.
Had she been wrong?
She is broken out of her reverie by Percy chuckling and starting to talk again.
"I just realized that you could very well just kill me now without me satisfying your curiosity. Wouldn't be the first time, after all."
Artemis' mind tells her to take offense at that comment, but she's too busy blinking like an owl.
And here she had thought she had seen the worst of Perseus Jackson's bluntness already.
"Ah, fuck the world!" The maiden goddess hears the half-blood beside her mutter.
Percy takes a deep breath and then starts to explain.
"Back when I met Calypso, I very much wanted to stay on Ogygia forever. She loved me and I loved her. Those two weeks have been the very best of my life."
Artemis can clearly make out the longing in his voice. Perseus wishes to be on that island again.
"However, my sense of duty won out in the end. I left. And by doing so I broke her heart."
He speaks the last words like one would speak his own death sentence – which, given his current company, could be fitting.
"Calypso haunted my mind ever since. Poor Rachel Dare chose to pursue me at the worst possible time. She's a nice girl and I get along with her famously, but I didn't return her feelings in the slightest.
At the end of the Second Titan War, though, Annabeth tried her utmost to convince me to give a relationship between us a try.
Typical Annabeth, she brought p logical reasons. And they sounded appealing. I thought that, maybe, I could get over Calypso with her help while falling for Annabeth in the process."
Poseidon's son snorts. "Of course, our relationship was doomed from the start."
The immortal can't argue with that statement.
"First I disappear for eight months, just to wake up with no memories and a whole different set of impressions. After we reunite, we have to make our way to Europe while being pressured for time. Once there, we fall into Tartarus.
Wise Girl wanted to try again after we had finished off Gaea, but I knew it wouldn't work.
I became estranged from her while in the Legion, and with my returning memories came the longing for Calypso yet again.
I broke it off. And that was heart number three on my head."
He pauses, lost in the past.
Artemis is unsure what to think of it. On the one hand, she always tells female demigods how they shouldn't fall for heroes, because they would only use them and break their hearts.
Perseus has broken the hearts of three girls, and yet he did not use them the way she loathes.
One he loved (loves?) deeply and he only left to save to world – something Artemis is grateful for.
One he never saw as anything else than a friend, and the moon goddess doesn't take the hero sitting against the tree she is leaning on for somebody who leads a girl on.
And with the last one he hoped to build something up, and when he realized it wouldn't work, he told her so. Of course the break up hurt the daughter of Athena, but it better be this way than having to see how the person you love doesn't reciprocate your feelings and instead stays with you out of a sense of obligation.
Meanwhile, the son of the sea god has ordered his thoughts.
"In New Rome, I met Reyna. She really got a shitty deal from Aphrodite.
My guess is that she and Jason were an inch away from becoming a real couple when Hera decided to do her little exchange game. The uncertainty about his well-being must have killed her inside.
I'm not sure what made her approach me with the possibility of getting together if I was elected praetor after the quest. Whatever her reasons were, I still had Annabeth then. Can't be a nice feeling, though, to get turned down for a girl the guy only knows the name of and nothing else.
Naturally, when Jason came back with Piper on his arm... Well, let's just say that while I did not break her heart all by myself, I certainly took a part in it.
And this leads us to the reason I'm out here, the reason I don't care enough about my life that I'm telling Artemis, the man-hating virgin goddess of all people, all of this.
You see, I met someone else shortly after Zoe's death.
This someone helped me through the roughest part of dealing with my own heartbreak after Ogygia.
She comforted me when friends of mine died, when the whole pressure of being the prophecy child just got too much. And she also supported me in times like these, when I reminisced about the people I have hurt in my life.
You want to guess who I'm talking about?"
The woman the hero is talking to simply cocks an eyebrow. She is not in the mood for guessing games.
"Alright, alright. It's Hestia, your aunt."
The goddess of the hunt supposes that she can't be entirely surprised by this. The goddess of hearth and home has this way about her that makes everybody feel better. What's more surprising is that Percy has noticed her.
"I met her on New Year's Eve. Actually, I've seen her on my very first day in Camp – a small girl, tending to the flame of the hearth. I did not pay her any mind, though. I was... preoccupied.
Anyway, I saw the same girl sitting at the fire like two years before – she hadn't aged a day.
Naturally, I concluded that the girl had to be a goddess. Feeling curios, and not caring about possible consequences of offending a deity at that time - "
Artemis surprises herself by laughing. "Do you ever care about that?"
Percy grins. "Actually, yes. Just not very often."
Artemis shakes her head and motions for him to go on.
"Well, I approached her and learned who she was. My curiosity satisfied and having nothing better to do, I stayed at the hearth, gazing into the fire.
Hestia probably could sense that something was bothering me. She inquired – gently, mind you – what I had on my mind and after some probing, I told her the whole story of my life.
When all was said and done, I felt better. Not well, not by a long shot, but better.
The next day, I started to sacrifice to her. Have ever since.
From then on, I would go to Hestia if I needed somebody to talk to or just to keep her company. She says it doesn't bother her, but I bet she feels lonely quite often when everybody passes her without even sparing a glance.
She comforted me through reliving the time spent with Calypso and the pain of leaving her.
The day of the Battle for Manhattan, Prometheus tried to convince me that our cause was doomed.
He presented me the pithos of Pandora, saying that if I wanted to surrender, I would just have to open it and let hope free."
The goddess' eyes go wide like saucers. If humanity had lost hope... She doesn't want to imagine that scenario.
"I sacrificed it to Hestia instead. In a way, I trust her more than any other god or goddess, even my father.
I think that day, we connected in some way. I would say that we have been friends since that day - if you can speak of being friends with a goddess.
Today, I kept her company at Camp again. We talked, and then, I suddenly noticed something.
An expression in her eyes... That of someone who has been alone for far too long, but has found hope that this is going to end soon.
I know that look. Calypso had it, too."
Artemis gasps. "You mean..."
Perseus nods.
"Yes, Artemis. I fear Hestia has fallen for me.", he whispers, sounding broken, his face looking crestfallen.
The goddess is thunderstruck. Hestia, her virgin aunt, has fallen for a man?
Several minutes, neither of them says anything. Artemis needs time to think about what the man has just revealed and Perseus is staring into space, occasionally taking a drag from his smoke.
What the black-haired young man told her makes sense in a way.
Artemis' grudging respect for him is partly based on the way her oldest aunt speaks of him. And she has noticed changes in Hestia's behavior, too.
The moon goddess had been shocked once to find the other deity sitting by the fire in the throne room looking like a girl in her late teens instead of the child in elementary school.
At seeing Artemis in her twelve-years-old-form, the goddess of hearth and home had reverted back to the eight-years-old everybody is accustomed to.
And that part about being lonely... With a jolt the immortal maiden realizes how true this assessment must be.
There are very few people who talk to Kronos' oldest daughter. The goddess of the hunt is one of them. Other than her, she only knows of Athena, Persephone (when she doesn't stay in the Underworld) and occasionally Poseidon.
Artemis can count on one hand how many times she has spoken to her aunt in the twenty-first century.
Demigods tend to ignore Hestia entirely. Very rarely one of them notices her. The goddess is okay with it, but Artemis can only imagine how she has to feel most of the time.
One more thing to be grateful to Perseus.
But why, why is he looking like someone died?
"Why does this affect you so badly, Perseus?"
"Because I can't stand the thought of hurting her." His voice is only a tiny whisper and would Artemis not be a goddess, she would have trouble understanding.
"She has done so much for me, helped me so much... I'll be damned if I do the same to her as Calypso!"
The immortal huntress isn't sure if the hero besides her realizes that he just used the name of his first love.
"But at the same time, I don't see a way out.
If I stay clear of her, she will hurt. If I don't, she will hurt. And I can't do a freaking thing to prevent it."
Perseus is desperate, more so than Artemis has ever seen him, even on the battlefield at the feet of the original Mount Olympus.
The demigod is on his feet now, leaning against a different tree. He breathes heavily.
Artemis can see clearly that Percy cares for Hestia. He doesn't love her, though.
Or does he...?
"Perseus, I fail to see what has you so down. Why do you not want to be with Hestia?"
The young man laughs humorlessly.
"It's not going to work, that's why. It never has. Didn't you listen? Every girl that came to love me only got a broken heart. I don't want to do that to her, but I don't know how."
The moon goddess thinks he only is too scared to try. Well, encouraging someone into a relationship is not exactly her domain, but she will not have her aunt hurting.
"Let me ask you a few questions, Perseus.
If my aunt asked the impossible of you, would you try anyway?"
He nods.
"Would you do anything to make her happy?"
Another nod.
"Would you take the sky for her?"
"Yes." The hero doesn't seem to understand where the questioning is heading, if the confusion in his voice is anything to go by.
"If you saw her falling into Tartarus, would you jump after her?"
If he answers yes, Artemis knows she has won. Back when Percy and Annabeth had made it out of the pit, he swore on the Styx to never go back willingly.
Given the imagined circumstances, though, Styx may be convinced to let up on the oath.
"In a heartbeat."
Apparently, Percy gets at least the meaning of that one. So much conviction has Artemis seldom seen in someone.
"So, you will die for her, but you will not live for her?" The unspoken words "with her" are practically screaming at him.
It comes out harsher than she expected. Doesn't matter, she almost has him where she wants him.
Perseus stays silent for a long time.
The goddess gently tells him, "Go, Perseus. Do not be foolish. Speak with Hestia. Give the two of you a chance."
The savior of Olympus locks eyes with the immortal maiden. She sees immense gratefulness in his sea-green orbs.
A smile grows on her lips. She has been successful.
"Thank you, Artemis. I owe you."
With those words, Percy hurries away, leaving the goddess of the hunt under the tree.
Two days later, Artemis seeks out Hestia on Olympus.
As she moves through the door of the mostly empty throne room, she sees two persons sitting by the fire.
One she knows is the goddess of hearth and home, even though no eight-year-old girl sits there, but a young woman in her late teens.
Said woman is snuggled against the chest of a young man with black hair and green eyes.
His arms are circled around her waist, holding her against him. Her hands lie on his, drawing small patterns on them.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Artemis has been indeed successful.