Chapter 10

Glad I took a break in the end but don't believe that this signifies my full return. No, I'm only going to be updating on a relatively slow basis for a short while so that I don't exhaust myself again. Tell me what you think at the end. Oh yeah, and one more thing: I don't know how many of you have read the new PJ book but from now on, obviously I'll be using stuff from the 'House of Hades' which could result in spoilers. So read at your own risk.

Percy's POV

That morning, I woke up to a very familiar environment. I lay in the top bunk of a pacifying bed swathed in enough blankets to warm a titan who'd very inconveniently found himself in the middle of Antarctica. Seriously, there were so many that it took a large physical effort to push them all off. There were five other bunk beds in the long and low cabin, all of them empty, and a sparkling water fountain sat at the end, gently glittering as it waited to be used. The walls glowed softly like sea snails and entire building smelled like a pleasant afternoon on the beach. Peering out of the windows, corals and rare sea plants "more beautiful than the Demeter kids could whip up" (as I'd commented a few years before) decorating their sills, the only view was the nearby beach. Decorating the ceiling were intricate bronze hippocampi, the proud work of a Cyclops' delicate hands. This was home.

Energetically, I jumped from my top bunk and landed on the floor with a loud thud. That was probably the one good thing about having such a sparsely populated cabin – there were no disputes over bunks, showers, noise or whatever siblings generally argued about. I walked over to the bathroom and switched on the shower, concentrating my energy into warming up the water. The guarantee of having a warm shower every morning had to be just about the coolest power I had as a son of Poseidon and I allowed myself a smile as I stripped off the clothes that I'd been wearing for days before stepping under the powerful stream of water. My hands ran through my hair, sifting out the horrible grease which had accumulated since the last time I'd washed.

What am I doing here? I asked myself for the first time. The last time I'd be conscious I'd been hundreds of miles away with the goddess of the hunt resting her head on my shoulder. Now I was back home, a place I hadn't been in five years. I shrugged my shoulders as my hands spread shampoo around in my raven black hair; by this point in my life I'd learnt not to ask too many questions. I thoroughly rubbed all of the dirt and grime from my body, feeling as if I was washing away any remnants of my life in exile and starting again. I stepped out of the shower and automatically I was dry, another of the many showering-related assets of being Poseidon's son. Waiting for me in my chest of drawers were some neatly folded, orange camp t-shirts and sea blue jeans. As I put them on I found that they fit absolutely perfectly – somebody was looking out for me. I instinctively checked that I was looking okay before stepping outside into the day. The sky was a clear blue, a pleasant wind blew around, birds tweeted and sang. My spirits felt like they could not have been dampened. Not a soul was in sight, telling me that it was time for breakfast. I made my way towards the food pavilion.

Jason's POV

Piper was breaking the rules... again. Whilst everybody else sat with their siblings, assigned to their own tables, as usual she'd made her way over to the lonely Zeus table to eat with me. Obviously I was grateful for it, eating alone was, well, lonely, and it was actually an arrangement that suited us both pretty well. As I said, I enjoyed having some company over breakfast and her own siblings clearly got on her nerves a bit but still, she was supposed to be her cabin's counsellor so she was obviously supposed to be with the other children of Aphrodite. I wasn't a guy who naturally broke the rules just like that, my years with the stricter Romans having made sure of that, and it kind of made me feel uneasy. Still, it was nice to see her.

"Jason, seriously." Piper rolled her eyes at me as she crammed a bit of toast down her throat. "They really don't care. Annabeth says that she used to go to Percy's table all the time."

I grumbled some unheard complaint about the rules and she laughed loudly enough to attract the attention of numerous other campers. "Come on, do you really want to eat alone?"

Before I could answer, a strange silence suddenly came over the pavilion. All chatting came to a halt and the eyes of everybody focused on the door. One person shouted out, "That's Percy Jackson!"

I looked around quickly; although I had been told that he had been brought back, somehow I just couldn't believe that he could possibly be there. I mean, I hadn't seen the guy in half a decade. Percy stood frozen and awkward at the door, his eyes begging for everybody to just get back to their meals. The poor guy probably just wanted to be treated like a normal person and the fact that everybody was staring at him expectantly surely didn't help. It was as if they were expecting him to stand up and make a speech or something. Instead, he slipped down onto his exclusive table and looked down at the floor. He obviously really didn't want this attention. A certain blonde-haired girl from the Athena table walked over and whispered something in his ear; still there was silence over the pavilion.

She pointed towards me and Piper and I could swear that I saw him shudder, grimacing profusely. Jeez, way to make a guy feel wanted.

"He's probably just making that face because of all the attention that he's getting." Piper reassured me, a little bit of soothing charm speak in her voice.

As Annabeth returned to her table, wood nymphs came to consult Percy about his choice of food. Still he didn't make eye contact with anybody, least of all me or Piper.

My girlfriend nudged me gently. "You should go and speak to him. I bet he just needs a friend right now."

It seemed to me that a heart-to-heart at that point would be like shooting myself in the foot (with a tank), but those Aphrodite eyes and cute pout were near impossible to deny. Saying no to Piper was like telling an adorable dog ,waiting hopefully at your feet with a frisbee in its mouth, to bugger off: infeasible.
"Fine!" I grumbled frustratedly. "I'll go and talk to the guy. Happy now?"

Piper's pout turned into a victoriously smug and playful smile; she was persuasive and she knew it.

Running a hand through my soft and wispy hair nervously, I pulled myself up from the bench and forced myself over to the son of Poseidon. Still the pavilion was silent. If he noticed me coming, he certainly didn't show it as he continued to stare down at the white and purple table cloth.

"Uh, hi?" I spoke uncertainly. "You remember me, right?"

Percy didn't reply, in fact he didn't even acknowledge my presence. It was as if there was a particular spot of the table cloth which intrigued him above anything else in the entire world. Of course, as one of his friends (or ex-friends?) I knew/hoped that this was just because he didn't like the stir that his return had caused. I glanced at Piper, who gave me an encouraging thumbs up.

I sat down next to him. "Look, man. If you don't want me here then you can just say."

Suddenly, he stood up and finally looked at everybody else in the dining pavilion. He smashed his beaker of coke to the floor with a violent throw, spreading shards of glass metres in every direction. His green eyes blazed with a fury that I had never known them to possess. "Stop staring!" He bellowed at the other campers. Still he hadn't made eye contact with me. The ground shook mildly beneath our feet – not exactly a life threatening quake but strong enough to knock plates, dishes, glasses and cutlery to the floor. He truly was the Earthshaker's son.

Without another glance in our direction, he stormed from the sea-view hilltop.

Chiron's POV

I had never thought that letting Percy return to Camp Half-Blood would be a calm or uneventful process, but even I had not guessed that he would summon and earthquake just because people were looking at him. It was a real nuisance, actually, and it would be difficult to persuade critics of the poor boy's return that this would be a one-off. Maybe that was because I didn't believe it myself. The amount of valuable china that he'd destroyed, although hardly unfixable, would be enough to put him on dish cleaning duty for a couple months and then Dionysus would likely want to punish him more for ruining his breakfast.

Now don't get me wrong, Percy had been through a lot. In fact, he'd basically gone through everything there was for a demigod to go through. Artemis had told me of his more recent adventures: nearly being killed by a poisonous arrow, then fighting off Ares despite being in a weakened state, then duelling Ares again and this time losing, then jumping in the way of a lethal bullet meant for Thalia and finally somehow surviving and his wound being healed inexplicably. That just about covered the last few days of Percy Jackson's life, and in that time he'd already gone through more than many of the demigods in my camp. Artemis put the fact that his wound had healed down to assistance from a higher power and I couldn't say that I disagreed, but what interested me most was the strong connection that she and Percy seemed to have building up. Concern had been evident in her voice when she was telling the story and she'd made me promise on the River Styx to do everything in my power to keep him safe at the camp. I couldn't quite put my finger on the nature of this bonding but whatever it was, I'd never seen it before from Artemis with a boy. But anyway, that wasn't the pressing issue. The problem was that I needed to make Percy safe, because I could not see him staying at the camp for very long. Outcasts always found it difficult to re-emerse themselves in society because they grew so used to being alone that they found it difficult to live in any other way.

Trying to solve the issue, I headed on my way to the Poseidon cabin with Annabeth at my side. Other than Thalia, I saw her as my main weapon.

"He's just not like he was," Annabeth explained unintentionally worriedly, although she seemed to be trying to say it more matter-of-factly as if she didn't care about him. They'd obviously been arguing. "He's more hostile, grumpy, mistrusting, suspicious. I don't know whether he'll ever be the same again."

I shrugged my shoulders apologetically. "I know that you want answers, my girl, but I'm afraid that I just don't have them."

She drummed her fingers against her leg nervously. "I just don't want him ending up like..."

Halfway through her sentence, she stopped. I had a feeling that I knew who she meant. "Like who?"

The daughter of Athena glared at me for not taking the message. "Nobody. Forget that I said anything."

"You're worried that he's going to follow the same path as Luke." I nodded gently. It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

I didn't get an answer and the rest of the journey was silent as we both thought. Was it possible that Percy would be another Luke? He definitely had the resentment at the gods that I'd seen in Luke, the courage and the strong will to really believe that by going against them he'd be helping the world.

We arrived at the grey cabin, its walls covered with pebbles and sea rocks as if we were looking at a slab of the ocean floor. I spread my arm, gesturing for her to knock and she did so.

"Who is it?" Came the frustrated voice of a young adult inside.

Beside me, Annabeth was about to call out but I hushed her. Percy would be more likely to invite me in than her. "Chiron."

There was a short silence and an obvious sigh before he answered. "Come on in then."

I reached out to turn the doorknob before squeezing myself through the narrow door, which really wasn't designed for the convenience of centaurs. Most unfair if you asked me. It wasn't often that I ventured into one of the cabins but I supposed that Percy was a hardly a normal case - quite the opposite.

Poseidon's son didn't move from where he lazed on his bed. "What do you want, Chiron? If you want to talk about the whole earthquake thing then-"

He stopped talking as Annabeth walked through the door before rolling his eyes at the fact that Chiron hadn't decided to grace him with the knowledge that they'd have company. Then, he continued, "-then I want you to know that I am sorry. I know that it must have been inconvenient."

Struggling to find any space big enough for me to make myself comfortable, I shook my head. "No, that's not why I'm here although for the record, that must never happen again. Some sort of minor punishment will be in order."

He opened his mouth to protest but I raised a finger, silencing him. "But I'm really here to talk about why that happened. What made you feel so angry that you summoned an earthquake?"

He scratched his head, looking downwards awkwardly. "I guess I didn't expect everyone to recognise me. I mean, when Annabeth saw me yesterday she didn't. They all stared at me as if I was some kind of exhibit, y'know?"

At least he looked ashamed of his outburst, a good sign as far as I was concerned. "However much I'm sure that was annoying, I do think that there must be other things on your mind."

He looked up at me, a sudden insanity burning in his eyes. "Of course there are other things on my mind. I've been all the way through Tartarus! I can't even begin to describe what that place does to you! I've worked so, so hard to forget about it over the last few years but being back here, seeing Jason and Piper again, everything came back to me."

He looked like a patient from a lunatic asylum, his eyes glowing with that madness, his hair sticking up at random angles from places on his scalp, his fingers fiddling with a strand of thread from his t-shirt. It didn't take Athena to realise that the person who I was looking at was a very, very troubled young man indeed. I turned to Annabeth, "Well how did you get over it, my girl?"

Percy butted in. "I can answer that: she hasn't got over it. Her disguise is good, I'll give you that, but I know that she has been hiding the fact that she still has nightmares about that place every single time she falls asleep. It's the same with me, it's the same with Nico. You can't just put it behind you."

Answering my inquisitive look, Annabeth confirmed what the son of Poseidon had said with a slow nod. I can't deny that this hurt me; the blonde-haired demigod had come to me for advice on her problems ever since she'd arrived at this camp. The fact that she'd been hiding the biggest difficulty that she'd ever faced from me, it hurt. "Well," I stuttered terribly, the meeting having taken a turn for the worse. I didn't see how I could talk to Percy about something that I could so obviously never comprehend. "As long as you don't ever blow up like that again..."

I just wanted to be out of the cabin, away from Percy, who was just a pale imitation of what he had once been. I remembered when he used to crack jokes and have a regular smile on his face; sure, anger management had never been his speciality but today's incident took everything to a new level. I just didn't know where I was with him.

Percy's POV

I managed to keep myself cooped up alone in my cabin for most of the day, only briefly emerging once to stretch my legs, but there was no denying that I was going to have to return to the pavilion for dinner. I splashed my face with ice cold water, I breathed in and out slowly. Anything to calm myself down and ensure that I could handle whatever was thrown at my self control. Arriving at the dining pavilion a few minutes early this time, I sat down on my bench and waited.

I heard an unbearably squeaky, pre-adolescent voice behind me. "Oh. My. Gods. Are you actually Percy Jackson? The Percy Jackson?"

The boy came and stood by my table, so short that his eyes were barely peeking over the eating surface. He had short brown hair and excitable eyes as wide as dinner plates.

"Erm, yeah?" I replied uncertainly, raising my eyebrows.

His grin grew even wider, something that I hadn't thought humanly possible. "I've wanted to meet you for sooo long, everyone told me that I never would but here you are and here I am and we're talking and please can I have your autograph?"

My brain blanked on me, the kid's words too fast to be discernible. "Sorry, I don't speak Azerbaijan."

His smiling face blushed slightly and he repeated himself this time painfully slowly. If it had been anyone else then I would have assumed them to be taking the piss but this kid just seemed so clueless, incapable of intentionally annoying someone and yet managing to do it excessively anyway.

"Is this a joke?" I half smiled at him blankly. Other people were beginning to file onto their tables and a fair few of them pointed at us, laughing; it was relatively obvious that the kid was the subject of a lot of gags.

"What do you mean?" The child asked, "You're the guy who found Zeus his master bolt, saved the camp by finding the golden fleece, held the sky whilst Artemis fought Atlas, navigated the Labyrinth, lead the Battle of Manhattan, closed the Doors of Death. And more!"

Jeez, the guy knew more about me than I did. At least he wasn't wearing a 'Percy Jackson Fan Club' t-shirt. "Dude, I didn't do any of that single-handedly. You see Annabeth, the one with the blonde hair on the Athena table? She was there for all of the quests. Go get her autograph."

He gave me a pout. "Can't I have yours?"

I shook my head. "I don't want to feel like some movie star, handing out pieces of paper with my name on them but seriously man, you're welcome to come and speak to me whenever. What's your name by the way?"

"Felix, son of Tyche." He extended his hand.

I took it warmly. "Tyche, Goddess of... Luck?" I strained my brain to remember who his mother was. Definitely one of the ones who had been given a cabin at camp after the Battle of Manhattan.

Felix patted me on the back as if I'd just answered a million dollar question. "Well done, Percy!"

Again, with anyone else I would have found this condescending and annoying but I just couldn't with this boy – all social skills seemed to just pass him by. His voice was horribly high pitched, his character sickeningly enthusiastic and he annoyingly seemed to view me as some kind of minor god but somehow, I didn't mind him. He just had such ridiculous innocence that I simply couldn't dislike him.

"Well anyway," Felix told me regretfully. "I've gotta go and sit at my table, but I'll see you around, right?"

Okay, I said that I liked him but that didn't mean that I wanted to spend any time with him. Okay, I told myself. You're going to tell him that you don't want to see him around. "Of course I'll see you around!" I found myself answering. He held out his hand and I high fived it with an internal grimace. Clutching his hand as if it had just been blessed by all of the Olympians at once, he staggered off.
"Damn!" I heard him say a few metres away. "I should have worn that t-shirt."

Scratch what I said earlier about the fact that he didn't have a 'Percy Jackson Fan Club' t-shirt.

I found myself ignoring everything else that was happening as dinner went on, something that was much easier when they weren't all staring at me. Chiron appeared to have had a word with them about that, and although I was still getting frequent glances from certain campers I could generally sit in peace. My stomach rumbled greedily as my dinner landed on the table and I began to did in ferociously.

Jason walked past me on his way to the brazier. "Aren't you going to make an offering to your dad?"

I shook my head, my mouth too full of hamburger to reply verbally. If I was entering into the 'understatement of the century' award, I would've told him that the Olympians weren't my favourite people at that moment. That included my dad.

"Do you have a death wish?" Jason asked me incredulously. "Don't be so stubborn and just come and throw some food into the flames. Gods, you don't need any more enemies on the council."

I knew that I was being obstinate but I held my ground, showing this by putting another large chunk of hamburger into my mouth.

Jason sighed frustratedly. "Fine, be a stubborn idiot."

People had overheard our conversion and quickly, mutterings began to spread like an infectious disease across the tables. "Percy's not giving any offerings!" "Is he trying to get us all cursed?" "I wonder what happened between him and the gods."

The last thing I needed was more attention on me so with a giant sigh, I got up and made my way to the bath tub sized flaming brazier. Taking a chunk of my hamburger, I pushed it into the flames and enjoyed the smell that resulted. It seemed to satisfy the gossip grapevine but secretly, I hadn't offered it to my dad at all. My food had been sent towards Artemis.

"Happy now?" I mouthed towards Jason, who was watching me carefully from his table and he rolled his eyes; to be fair, I was being obviously unpleasant.

Quickly, I gobbled up the rest of my food and took a big swig of my coke before taking my leave from the pavilion. As far as I was concerned, the less time I spent around other people the less likely I was to cause more problems for Chiron. Away from the ring of bright, glowing flames which encircled the pavilion the night was dark and it was only my perfect memory of the camp which put me on the right course back to my cabin. My stroll was a slow one, after all, there was no hurry to get anywhere when I'd left everybody else back at the pavilion.

A meaty, thick and very colloquial voice shouted behind me. "Hey, Jackson. We heard that you insulted our dad."

Why did people always feel the need to prove me wrong? With a titanic sigh, I turned round ready for a brawl with the enemies, who were obviously Ares' boys. I'd already put in my candidate for the 'biggest understatement of the century award', but in saying that I'd had one or two feuds with Ares' kids in my past would be another contender for the prize.

Before I could make some kind of witty remark, I felt a swift punch to my stomach and ignoring the pain in my gut, I whistled appreciatively. "Good punch! Been working on that for a long time, haven't you? Well, what's your next move?"

The skinhead who'd punched me scratched his head confusedly. "To be honest most people kind of fall to the floor retching after the first punch. I hadn't planned that far ahead."

It was clear that I wasn't dealing with any intellectuals. "Well, maybe I should make my move?"

The skinhead shrugged his shoulders. "Seems fair enough to me."

"You idiot!" One of the other skinheads rebuked him, "You're not supposed to let him hit you, you're supposed to keep on hitting him."

Too late. All of the moves that I'd perfected over the billions of fights that I'd contested came back to me as I directed a blow at his face. A resonating crack sounded as my fist met his nose, the familiar noise of a breakage. Before he could react, I kicked out at his legs and took his footing from under him, sending him tumbling to the floor in an undignified heap. Another kick to the ribs ensured that he'd be out of action for the next couple of weeks. I had very little time to appreciate my handiwork, however, as two punches came at me from opposite directions, one for each of the other two skinheads. Relying on their lack of brain cells, I simply ducked and grinned as their knuckles met in mid-air. They stopped to shake their fists in pain and I took full advantage, flipping the smaller of the two over with a pull on his arm and finishing the other with a classic, full on punch to the stomach. The end result? Three children of Ares lying in a pile at my feet. Cheerfully rubbing my hands together in the aftermath of the thrill of the fight, I made to return to my cabin for the night.

From a tall tree came a slow, appreciative clap. I turned to see Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, jump down from a thin branch.

"Very impressive." She nodded her congratulations. "Would you like to walk with me?"

My answer, of course, was yes.

Hope that I was worth the wait, I personally am very happy with the way that it went. It's amazing what you can do once the idea springs into your head. I've also decided that I won't be consistently updating every other day any more, that will only happen when the opportunity arises. If I have two days in a row where I can write then you can expect a new chapter, but I don't want to feel the pressure of having to update that quickly any more. Never fear though, I will still be putting them out hopefully at least once every three days. This was a five and a half page chapter. 20 reviews for a hard working author? The next chapter is almost ready and with the right incentive, I could be persuaded to put it up within the next 24 hours...

Happy to be back in the business,

Charlie.