So this was supposed to be a oneshot about a good that I thought was way cooler than the fandom gave him credit for. But then I started writing and it exploded inside my head into this multi-chapter story that I thought I just had to write because it sounded very cool. But this can also end as a oneshot, so let me know what suits it best. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters shown below or the settings of the story.
The Kind God
"You're never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true."
― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Chiron took Sally's hands.
"No," she said shaking her head. "No don't you dare tell me that he's dead…"
She'd talked with Melissa Mason two days ago. She knew that letters, IMs, everything and anything had been done right when the War with Gaia had ended so that the parents of demigods heard news from their kids the day of. She also knew that she hadn't gotten any news from Percy at all.
That was the strangest thing for Sally. She knew Percy- he was glad to be home after a summer of camp, so after all these months… all this time… How hadn't he even said a word?
She'd driven to camp after waiting two days, overly anxious. She hadn't been able to cross the border, but Peleus hadn't bothered her. He'd snuggled up to her ankles – which wasn't the oddest thing ever to happen to her, and so she'd been able to cope. A demigod had gotten Chiron for her when she'd asked nicely, sprawl-eyed and nervous.
"He isn't dead," Chiron said. His face was so grave that whatever was going on couldn't be good. But 'not dead' was one of Sally's big dreams for Percy as far as future goals went, so it felt good to hear anyways.
"Oh thank God," Sally said sighing. "Where is he then? In his cabin? The Infirmary? The Roman Camp? Can I see him?"
Chiron took a deep breath. "I'm sure it could be arranged."
"Arrange? No, this is too strange. Something's going on. Tell me."
He didn't.
"Oh gods, it's bad isn't it?" Once again she didn't get an answer from the centaur. "Chiron, I was downright honest with you when you approached me about Percy five years ago. You were a total stranger and it took an awful lot of trust. I told you more about his father than I thought I should have because I trusted you, and so had he. I deserve the answer from you."
Chiron looked at her, his broken heart shining in his eyes.
"I'm not the best one to explain. In fact I… I wouldn't know how. I'll get Clarisse and Will to take you to him."
"Take me where?" Sally asked.
"To Olympus."
"Take a right," Will said.
Sally didn't even bother mentioning that she'd lived in New York all her life and knew how to get to the Empire State Building.
When they entered the lobby, the doorman was reading another one of his grocery store paperbacks, as per usual. Clarisse went and put in a word with him. She gave him an envelope that Chiron had given her back at camp. The doorman started reading whatever was inside.
Will was standing right next to her.
"Will, do you know what happened?" Sally asked anxiously pulling at her sleeves.
He didn't say anything for a while. He swallowed like it hurt. "It's complicated."
"Is he hurt?"
"Sort of…"
Sort of? How could you be sort-of hurt? Especially as a demigod.
Clarisse came back waving a little card in the air. She had a new scar on her face. It looked deeper and more painful than the others. The others looked like they were a part of Clarisse, but this one looked alien on her face.
This whole war had taken so many devastating turns...
Sally twisted her hands together on the whole elevator ride up. Will was humming the song that played under his breath and tapping its rhythm on his knees. It was a horrible 'hit' from the eighties, only played and appreciated for nostalgic purposes in this century. Clarisse eventually snarled at him to shut up, Will said that it wasn't his fault and Sally got scared that she'd have to separate two quarreling demigods.
Finally the doors dinged.
"We'll see you in an hour or so, Mrs. Jackson." Clarisse said.
"But… I can't go on Olympus alone. I'm completely mortal." Sally said frowning. It was a basic rule. Mortals needed demigod –or godly- escorts.
"Well, we have been informed of your arrival."
Sally looked outside the elevator and saw a god she'd never seen before. His hair was a nearly grey white and it was shaggy. He had a short beard, and his eyes were an unnatural disturbingly blue shade. He was wrapped in a heavy black cloak that seemed too much for the sun that shined down on Olympus. She noticed that he had no shadow before she noticed that he was a mirage.
She stepped out of the elevator.
"Mrs. Jackson," he said. "It is a pleasure."
"Lord Morpheus," she said quietly, with a tiny nod of her head.
"Have we met?" Morpheus asked when she used his name.
"No. Recognising gods is simply a skill of mine."
"That explains more than enough."
"Excuse you," Sally cut. She heard Will and Clarisse hold their breath behind her.
He grinned at her.
"Was that indelicate?"
"Very."
"Then I apologise. You two can go wait in the lobby," he said to Clarisse and Will.
Sally turned around.
"Please don't," she said. "I'd feel much better if you went back to Camp right away."
Brave as they were, they seemed relieved. Out of camp's safety only two days after the bloodiest conflict in New History… It would make anyone nervous.
"Mrs. Jackson?" Will asked.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"I'm sorry," he said.
The elevator dinged and the doors closed.
Sally took a deep breath.
"And you know where my son is?"
"I know precisely where your son is," Morpheus nodded. "Let us walk."
Olympus was beautiful. Sally had had dreams of it since she was a child. Rachel had shown her paintings and quick sketches of what she saw, before she'd become the oracle, when she and Percy used to crash at the apartment and eat all the food in the fridge after school. Annabeth had shown her blueprints and sketches and concept art of what she'd been planning on building once the task had been assigned to her.
Nothing compared.
But the fountains and the temples and the gardens didn't interest Sally, she mostly looked at the ground. The path Morpheus had brought her down had brick tiles that looked like honeycombs. She felt anxious. Anxious and scared and cold. She pulled her long coat closer to herself, daydreaming that it was someone holding her. Hoping that soon she'd be the one holding her son...
"Please," Sally said. "I can't take not knowing anymore. Is my son alright?"
"Oh yes. Perseus Jackson is fine. In perfect health, not injured at all. He got out of that war with barely a scratch."
Sally sighed in relief.
"Oh thank…" That seemed too ironic to say here.
Why had Chiron worried her so much in that case? He was an intelligent man, he knew how much his cryptic attitude had scared Sally and how much the wait had slowly killed her.
"Then why is he here?" Sally asked. Panic filled her. Had he been offered immortality again? Had he, this time scared by an even bigger feat of destruction and danger than last summer, accepted?
She didn't ask. She doubted that Morpheus would give her a straight answer anyways. Everyone seemed quite intent on her seeing whatever it was she was being sent to see.
A rough iron gate opened at Morpheus' approach and Sally followed him through and up a tiny path upwards.
The long hallway before them wasn't at all like the Grecian exterior had led her to believe. Another trick of Annabeth's, Sally assumed. It was a fantastic metaphor for the casual fronts of the all-powerful beings inhabiting this home. She really was a clever girl- Sally was glad that Percy had her.
The floors were wooden and there were plain dark brown doors on each side, in neat rows like dominos, standing out against the dark walls.
"What is your son's birth date?" Morpheus asked.
Sally stuttered. "The eighteenth," she said.
Morpheus brought her to room number eighteen and held the door for her. She walked in, the floor creaking under her feet adding an uncomfortable tone to the reigning silence.
She recognised him right away. He was lying on an old-fashioned bed with white sheets made neatly underneath him. Percy tossed and turned while he slept, but right now he was perfectly still. Oh, did it matter? He was right there. He was just there.
Her heart broke.
"Percy…" she said under her breath. She took a step forwards but Morpheus caught her arm.
"Don't touch him," he said. "You'll wake him up."
"What does it matter?" Sally asked. Gods weren't particularly considerate of human needs unless you reminded them, and sleep seemed like a tiny detail right now.
"Well, if he wakes before his time it'll be disastrous." Morpheus said. "It'll completely break the enchantment."
"What enchantment?" Sally panicked. "What did you do to him?"
"Wow, what hostility I see here."
"I have watched my son go to hell and back, get thrown in every direction and be broken in every way. If you hurt him…" Sally said.
"I'm not hurting him."
She turned to look at Percy again. He was curled up on himself, wearing an orange camp shirt and some roughed up jeans. His hair was tousled. She yearned to see his eyes again. His shoes were on the floor by the foot of the bed. His shining armour, newly polished, on a chair in the corner. Riptide was on the bedside table next to him.
"What are you doing to him then?" Sally asked. "Why is it so crucial to keep him in this… this sleep?"
"Like any god, Mrs. Jackson, I have epithets. Oneiros, for example. But never once have I been called The Kind God."
She wasn't sure she liked where this was going, but she sure as summer didn't understand it.
"However I like to consider myself to be the kindest one of all." He was pacing the room as he spoke. "During the Titan War, I devoted myself to put an entire city to sleep to keep its mortal population safe and minimise the damage. No hard feelings."
"I'm not interested in that Lord Morpheus. I just want to know why I still can't see my son."
Her voice cracked. Her frustration was coming out at long last.
The god held up his hands, as if to say 'play by my rules'.
"All in good times," he said. "I send demigods prophetic warnings to better equip them when it comes to dealing with their undoubtedly tumultuous, grueling futures. Dreams, as a matter of fact, keep some people alive and fighting. They give purpose and hope- I'm sure you'd know just as much as anybody else. When you dream, you are in a world of your own. Everything and anything is possible. What I am doing, Mrs. Jackson, is yet more of my kindness."
"I understand your importance," Sally said carefully. Now was not the time to lose her usual patience and get incinerated. "But I don't understand the link to this whole situation."
"In dreams we live in worlds that our entirely out own, yes? Our worlds? Well there you have it. I am giving Percy his own world."
"This is Percy's world," Sally said. "He likes its good and its bad and he fights for him time and time again."
"Maybe so. But I am giving him a chance to live in a world where he has not lost Annabeth Chase." Morpheus said gravely.
Sally couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could barely register what she'd just heard.
"How is that for kindness?"
"Annabeth is... You're just going to keep Percy... No... No it... it..."
Sally heard a door slam.
"Morpheus?" A familiar voice called. Poseidon emerged in Room 18. His black hair was tousled and he wore one of his less obnoxious shirts.
"I thought I'd missed you," he said. "You better have told her the truth and nothing else about..."
"About this," Sally asked waving her hand towards Percy. Uncontrollable fury mounted inside of Sally. She'd played by the rules of the gods for eight months. She'd been patient and accepting about the fact that her son had a greater destiny or part to play than being at home with her, where she knew he was safe. But this was the last straw. Sally, as a mother, had her own rules to play by too. "You're involved in this? How could you let this happen to him?"
She was basically screaming at Poseidon now. He closed his eyes and sighed.
"It wasn't my choice to make..."
"Then who in the world made this choice? Who had the right? I am his mother! At the very least, you're his father. This isn't the way Percy should spend the rest of his existence. Comatose in this little room, not knowing, not laughing not being with real people- he would hate the very thought..." Sally felt her eyes prickle.
"I don't know who is responsible for the plan..." Poseidon said.
"The plan? The plan? Oh, brilliant, there's a plan for him now. Where were these brilliant plans for him last summer? Last winter? When he was a baby? Since when do any of you even have an interest in keeping him safe and alive and happy? Since when do the gods make plans?" Sally said. She was screaming, and she knew it. She had to stop herself. Calm herself. Nothing was going to get done this way. Percy hadn't even stirred with the noise.
She closed her eyes and regulated her breathing.
"What plan?" Sally asked her voice closed. Her voice sounded strained. She wasn't used to screaming.
"Annabeth's eventually going to be reborn," Poseidon said. "When that happens we -the gods- will wake Percy. We will do our best to reunite them. They'll have to make the connection they made at Camp Half-Blood again, wherever they may be. Once they do, technically Annabeth won't be dead if we push the rules of nature as much as we're ready to do. We'll reestablish Annabeth as the person she was before she died."
"She's really dead, then." Sally said. Her heart broke thrice at the news- one time for her, one time for Percy, one time for Frederic. The clever girl who'd managed to boost Percy's grades, who'd made him happy, who'd given him something to smile and be around for... The girl Sally had basically relied on for news during his absence, who smiled, that she'd taught how to make gingerbread from scratch to, that never once Sally had had a disappointing conversation with... She'd had the most interesting and fresh perspective on at least a dozen books.
"Yes," Poseidon said.
"And you're just going to let Percy be a vegetable until she isn't?" Sally said.
"It's not my plan." Poseidon said quickly.
"Clearly," Sally said breathing. She took another deep breath. "But... It'll take some time before Annabeth is reborn again. Until she reaches Percy's age again."
"Yes," Poseidon said. "It's why there's a deadline to Percy's sleep. He'll have to find her in the next one hundred years, or else his sleep will just turn into death."
"One hundred years?" Sally choked. "Will it take that long?"
"It might," Poseidon said.
She swallowed. "I'll be dead in a hundred years. Grover, the Seven, Paul, Will, Jake, Nico, Clarisse, his school friends- we're all going to be dead. The people he cares about... He could wake up in a world where nothing's the same."
Poseidon exhaled deeply. "Not my plan."
She looked at Percy. It wasn't like she had a choice, and nor had he. He was sleeping now, and who knew for how much longer he'd sleep.
His face was peaceful. She imagined the hurt and shock and horror and sorrow that would rip through it if he found out that Annabeth was dead. She imagined the way he'd hate the entire world if he had no chance to get her back. Well here he had one. There was a way to give him a chance, it'd be selfish to take it from him.
"Do you really think that there's a chance that he'll find Annabeth again?" Sally asked looking up at the two gods.
"I think if he found her once he'll find her twice," Poseidon said. "I mean, a daughter of Athena... That's never happened before. There's something there that seems to be very hard to break."
"I bet," Sally said.
And Sally knew that if Percy had one chance, one chance for Annabeth... Well, he wouldn't blow it. That was for sure. Still, her heart broke. She hadn't even gotten to touch him again.
She looked up to Morpheus. "And will he be safe sleeping this long? Will it hurt him somehow?"
"I don't know," Morpheus said. "We've never done this before. Although right now he's having some very nice dreams, I can promise you that."
"He might not even make it out of this sleep?" Sally choked. "This might kill him!"
Morpheus shook his head. "Not my plan."