You are all so nice with your reviews guys!I've received only nice comments about this story, and I'm glad that you all like it!Seriously every time I read one of them I get all excited and start writing another chapter.Sooo I'll leave you to the story. Enjoy!
When Percy woke the morning after the battle, it wasn't because of 'the sunlight shining through the window' or 'the frivolous chirping of the birds', no, he was hungry.
He opened his eyes, expecting the familiar walls of his cabin to greet him, instead he didn't immediately recognize where he was.
Everything appeared to be withe, exept for the little golden sun's drawings on the walls.
The room wasn't very big, but it had enough space in it, to comfortably fit the bed on which he was currently lying, a cabinet full of medicines and a chair.
He soon understood that he was in the infirmary at camp half-blood, but he really couldn't remember getting there, no matter how much he tried.
He looked at the chair, which was being occupied by someone, he easily recognized Annabeth, by the mass of blond curls lying sprawled next to him. She seemed to be sleeping.
He shifted a bit to find a more comfortable position and that movement woke her immediately.
Judging by the dark bags under her eyes, she hadn't slept much, and he suddenly felt guilty for waking her up.
"Percy! You are awake!How are you feeling? Are you hurt?!"
"Hey! Hey. I'm happy to see you too.
Don't worry about me, I'm fit as a fiddle, no pun intended."
he smirked
"Now, would you mind telling me what happened? I remembrer creating a huge cyclone, then everything becames fuzzy after that."
Annabeth hugged him and told him what happened after he went ballistic on the monsters.
"Then you fainted, and while we approached you, up in the sky Jason, Piper and Leo successfully destroyed dirty-queen provoking a huge explosion that lit the whole sky on fire."
Percy nodded, listening to her words, but he had an inkling, that she wasn't telling him something, something important.
"What about the others? Are they all right? Have the romans already left camp?"
"Yes, Seaweed brain. The romans are still here, they said they wanted to see you before they left, but I think they're going to stay at least a week , before leaving.
And the others are okay, thanks to your plan no demigod was killed by the second army...well the others are okay exept for..."
she paused and her eyes teared up a bit
"Exept for who?!" asked Percy impatiently.
"Percy, Leo...he didn't make it"
she inclined her head so he couldn't see her eyes, but he knew she was crying.
"What?! Leo?! But! But he...he said he had a plan! How is... What did...
How could it happen?!"
"He was too close to the explosion Percy. He might have been fireproof but an explosion of that magnitude... it was too much. But-"
"But?" he urged her to continue.
" Well, Hazel revealed us that he had another plan, one he only told her and Frank about. He had the cure with him, and although we've been searching all night, we couldn't find his body, we couldn't even find Festus, and one would think that a giant fire-breathing bronze dragon, would be hard to miss."
Just as she was ending her explanation, someone entered the room. It was Will Solace from the cabin of Apollo, another person who appeared to not have had much sleep.
"Percy! You're awake!How are you this morning?"
"l'm fine, more than fine actually, I feel more rested than I have in months. What happened to me?"
he was curious to find out why he had passed out.
"A bit of an exhaustion, nothing to worry about, that was quite a show you put on last nigth. A show without which I would have the triple of the patients needing my attentions today. So I think I should thank you. Not only on my behalf, but on that of all the children of Apollo here at camp.Thank you."
Percy didn't know what to say, he had just done what needed to be done in order to save as many demigods as possible. He felt himself blush slightly at the thanks, and decided a change of topic was needed.
"Soo, when can I leave? You know, I'm starving, what time is it?"
"Don't worry, you can leave, just try not to overwork yourself, and promise that you aren't going to use your powers for the next day or so.
Now go it's almost lunchtime."
As he said that the horn indicating lunch-time was blown.
Percy took Annabeth's hand in his, and they both thanked Will and left the infirmary to head towards the dining pavilion, as Percy stomach emitted a low grumbling noise.
They reached the dining pavilion and he was happy to see that people were sitting freely wherever they wanted, without making distinctions based on their divine parents. Greek and Romans were happly chatting together, eating and laughing.
But he wasn't expecting the sudden silence that fell on the pavilion as people noticed him.
"What are they staring at?"
he asked Annabeth, who was visibly amused.
"You, mean 'Who' Seaweed brain.
And they are staring at you."
"Well...Why?"
"Why don't you ask them?" then she laughed,and it had been so much time since he had last seen her laughing, that he didn't care if the whole world was staring at him, as long as she continued.
*
Frank was glad the war had finally ended, he may be a child of Mars, but he didn't like conflicts.
He was currently seated at a table with Hazel,Reyna, Dakota andGwen on his left and some greek campers, including his half sister Clarisse, in front of him. They were all talking about the previous war, with happy smiles on their faces, tomorrow they will be buring the deads, but today wasn't about mourning, today was about celebratinh, they had just won a war after all, and dead people could wait.
One second they were all talking and laughing, and the one after all he could hear was silence.
He turned his head to understand why everyone had shut up.
Then he saw who had arrived and understood.
Percy stood near the end of the pavilion, one of his arms was circling Annabeth, and he seemed confused at why everyone was looking at him.
What he probably didn't undertand was that the campers weren't only staring, no, they were starstruck.
You could see it in their faces, personally Frank already knew what his friend was capable of, having been on more than one quest with him, but all the new greek campers, the ones that hadn't been there during the war against Kronos and also the majority of the romans, they had only heard stories about the demigod Percy Jackson.
So when yesterday, he had put his powers to good use, and had destroyed an entire army of mosters in a few minutes, well let's say he had gotten himself a new fanclub. Surely the romans now remembered why they had named him praetor.
Something they had almost forgotten with Octavian and all his talks about traitors and graecus.
"Hmm...Er...Hi?" it sounded almost like a question and Frank smiled at his friend shyness.
"Percy!"
He didn't know who had talked, he just knew that after that his friend vanished under a pile of bodies.
All his friends wanted to hug him, relieved, as he had given them all quite a scare, when he had fainted the day before.
Frank too was relieved his friend was okay, he had been the one to take him in his arms and escort him to the infirmary, he hadn't expected him to be so light when he had taken him. After Tartarus his friend had looked like the slightest breeze could blow him away, but he had been putting on some weight after that. So had Annabeth, Piper and Hazel had made sure about that.
'Apparently not enough' tought Frank as he recalled collecting his friend from the ground and the stupor he had felt when he had made almost no effort, walking with him.
Finally he watched as Percy and Annabeth sat down too, and he made sure to seat near them, as it had now become his personal mission to make sure that they ate enough.
If only his Grandma could be here to watch him now, she would laugh and tease him that he was becoming a mommy bear.
*
That afternoon all activactivities were suspended in occasion of a party being celebrated in the amphitheatre.
Demigods occupated the stone seats as a big colourful fire shone in the heart.
They were happly munching on marshmallow and smoores as different quests were being recounted.
Hazel, Piper and Jason, held the attention of all the presents, as they took turns describing the seven's quest.
They started from the attack on New Rome, at which the romans made sore faces, explaining that it had all been the fault of an eidolon, that had possessed Leo, and later Percy and Jason.
Piper's voice craked as she mentioned Leo but she kept going on with the story.
Jason described their arrival in the real Rome and their fight against the twin giants, with the help of Bacchus.
"Well, in the meantime Annabeth left for a solitary quest under Rome, the quest that led her to the statue of Athena, you can now see shining on the hill, we don't know what happened down there, as only Annabeth can tell you that, but we know that the guardian of the Athena Pantheon was the orrible Aracne that-"
They were interrupted in their story as some of the Athena campers actually shrieked at the name of the monster and confronted Annabeth.
"You fought Aracne? The Aracne?
The Big Hairy Huge Spidery Spider, Aracne?
How did you do that? Spiders hate us! Where did you find the courage?
You're my hero!"
Athena campers all around where throwing questions at her, looks of worship in their eyes.
But Annabeth didn't see that, despite her hubris, that once would have made her love all the attention, she looked highly uncomfortable, now.
Piper noticed and tried to remove the attention from her but too late she realized that what happened next would only move the attention from her to her and Percy.
Searching for the right words to use, she tried to describe the part of their friends' fall into hell, asking Jason to help her with her eyes
"We were about to go back on the ship, but..."
"But the floor started to crumble so we moved to assure the statue on the ship"
"Too late we noticed that Annabeth had spiderwebs tangled around her ankle"
"She-she was... and then Percy and Nico, they-"
As tears started forming in her eyes, Piper knew she couldn't continue, she just couldn't.
"And then I was dragged to the edge of a pit that led straight into hell, and stupid Seaweed brain, knew he couldn't lift me up so he decided to fall with me instead"
Surprisingly it was Annabeth that finished the story. Her voice sharp like a blade and her eyes showing a hardness Piper had never seen from her, as if daring someone to interrupt her.
Murmurs and whispers began filling the amphitheatre, all the demigods reaching the same conclusion.
Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus and from the looks on their faces it had not been a pleasant trip.
Half-bloods all around turned their attention on the two, hoping for some details on the place, as they were almost non-existent.
"What?" asked Percy, his tone harsh
"Aren't you going to tell us about your quest down there? Of how you survived that place?"
As soon as she heard the question from one of the demigods, Piper knew whoever that was had made a huge mistake.
"What?!" repeated Percy sounding angrier.
Piper now recognized the camper, one of the new ones, a daughter of Apollo.
"Well, we are all curious to hear about Tartarus! After all-"
"DON'T SAY THAT NAME!"
Percy exploded. Water shot out of some glasses near him, some shattered from the pressure.
"If I ever hear you say that name again in my presence, an army of monsters wanting to kill you will be the last of your problems!"
Silence.
"And that goes for all of you!"
No one dared saying a word.
Piper was scared, she had never seen him so angry.
Angry Percy seemed a completely different person from the sassy, easy-going guy she knew.
He was actually scary.
If what she was seeing now was what his enemies saw during a battle, she prayed with all her heart they never found themselves on opposing sides of a conflict.
For the first time she understood why the Gods had debated if he should live or die. When she had heard the story the first time, she had been angry that the Gods had even considered the possibility.
Now she wondered if they had just been scared he would chose to fight for Kronos. They preferred to kill him while they still had the chance , rather than risking having to face him on the battlefield.
The poor daughter of Apollo seemed on the verge of crying.
Percy was breathing hard , suddenly feeling threatened.
Annabeth tried to calm him down, by putting a hand on his shoulder, but he flinched.
Piper understood that he wasn't really angry, he was just as scared as they were.
He seemed to snap out of his anger, and looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
"I- I'm sorry" he turned to look at Annabeth, she was crying.
Without saying a word he turned again and run out of the amphitheatre, and towards the woods, Annabeth following after him.
*
Wow, two thousand words all in one shot. I was feeling rather inspired.
Dun dun duuun, Percy lost it at the mention of Tartarus, bad mistake girl. You know, I read that people with PTSD have a difficult time controlling their emotions, I hope I managed to transmit that to you.I wanted it to be clear that when people started pressing him after details, he suddenly felt trapped, he does in no way want to live through that again, and so he found a way to keep people away, scare them.
Also, Scary Percy uh?
That's not something I usually see in others fanfiction, usually authors tend to ignore it only talking about
happy Percy, sassy Percy or depressed Percy.
But I think it's important to analyze all the little changes in their personality, even the darkest ones.
As Percy in no way would have ever exploded like that, to his friends nonetheless, without experiencing something so life-changing.
But enough of my chatter.
If you liked the chapter, leave a Review, I'll be waiting for your thoughts ;)