Against what was probably her better judgement, Percy kept an eye on Isaac after the attack. Watched his careful eyes change in the light while he absorbed what had happened, and clearly saw his belief and acceptance. It frightened her a bit, if she was being honest, how well he was taking it, almost like he knew.
It made her wonder what Kleio had told them.
She drank a glass of nectar, immediately feeling better afterwards, and got some mildly- musty blankets set up so that Isaac could crash on her couch. She sat up watching TV with him for a while, adrenaline rushing through her and warning her that until she crashed from the high, there would be no sleep. He didn't even seem tired, gaze flicking between her and the screen every so often, and obviously much more captivated by her than the show she'd turned on for background noise to tune her thoughts to.
She finally went to bed when the high began to fall, and dropped into unconsciousness soon after she threw herself back onto the mattress.
Percy slept violently with a scream trapped in her throat. She thrashed around the bed, suffocating on nothing, trying to throw off unseen foes, and Isaac only watched for five seconds before he took her by the shoulders and held her still. "Percy! Wake up!" He knew nightmares. He knew what it felt like to wake up completely terrified, striving for a freedom you were unable to reach.
This was something worse.
As she began to wake, she grabbed him hard and rolled, using her momentum to throw him rather impressively. He hit the ground hard and rolled to see her sitting up, her sea green eyes nearly glowing in the dark, sitting rigid and panting with one hand clasped around her throat, and the other reaching toward him. She looked shocked at her own actions.
He wondered how many nightmares she'd woken from on her own without help.
Her hair was mussed and her lips swollen, and he spent the time that they sat in near- silence while he stood to study her. The godly food had definitely healed her before she went to sleep, which meant that the bruising around her ribs was self inflicted, and there were dark, dark rings beneath her eyes. When he offered her his hand, she froze, stopped breathing while her heart rate sped even more.
"Do you want to talk?" He offered. She coughed, forced out more heaving lungfuls of air and replaced them, spent a few minutes focusing on that before she kicked off the blankets and pulled her knees up. Her tanned legs were bare under the covers, long and muscled and scarred.
"Nobody's asked me that before," she said with a bitter laugh, raking a hand through her messy dark curls, plastered to her head with buckets of cold sweat. She shivered in the cool air. Isaac was mesmerized by her every move. She still smelled like sea salt.
"Never?"
"Not for a long time. I'm the hero," she sighed, not meeting his eyes. "I guess it's expected that I just... cope without help."
Isaac tried to reach out to her, but the front door slamming distracted the both of them. Their heads whipped toward it in near unison, and through the open doorway of Percy's bedroom, Isaac could see a tall, broad form moving around. "Perce? Annabeth wanted me to check up on you."
"Jason," Percy breathed in relief. Isaac glanced at her and told himself that the happy expression this guy's presence put on her face didn't make him jealous. At all. Not in this lifetime. "In here! Can you get the lights?"
With the lights on, Jason was blond. He was well- muscled and handsome as well, and once again, Isaac had to tell himself that he wasn't jealous. At all. He gave the werewolf a suspicious glare, sky- blue eyes narrowing. "Who's this?"
"Isaac, Jason. Jason, Isaac. Isaac is my first friend in Beacon Hills. He's really sweet and he's taking me to lunch tomorrow. Or, well, today. Jason is my younger cousin. He's been hit in the head a few too many times, so don't worry because he's harmless," she smiled over at Isaac. "His brain cells have taken a hard loss."
"Right." Jason's scrutinizing glare never left Isaac for a second even as he sat down on Percy's bed and guided her chin so that she was looking at him. "You alright? Was it another nightmare?"
"How do you know about them?" She asked, clearly startled.
"Sally likes me," Jason retorted. He turned halfway around to face the werewolf. "You should go now. I'll be around for the weekend to keep an eye on Perce." It wasn't a suggestion, that much was clear, and Percy rolled her eyes, pulling her choppy dark hair into a messy ponytail. Her sea- green eyes, still bright even in the harsh artificial light, had a haunted look to them, like the half- smile that stretched her lips was fake, a mask.
It probably was.
Isaac only nodded and stood awkwardly, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. "Call me later and let me know if you're still up for that lunch," he offered her a smile. "You're going to be okay?"
"Yeah," Percy nodded, and the smile was now tinged genuine. "Thanks, Isaac. For everything."
Jason blocked his view, once again looming over his older cousin, and Isaac just sighed quietly before turning for the door. He'd head back to Derek's for the rest of the night, now that Percy had somebody better suited to take care of her.
"Wait, Isaac!" He turned, doorknob in hand as he was trying to leave the apartment, to see Percy standing in her bedroom door, the rather obvious shadow of her broad cousin just behind her. "Take the spare key, okay? You can come and go as you like." It was obviously an impulse decision, and part of him wanted to just take the key and leave, but his consciousness wouldn't let him.
"Are you sure?"
"You just saved me a lot of trouble," she shrugged, a blush coloring her tan cheeks. He noticed the implication that even without his help, she'd have lived. He didn't doubt that it was true. "I want to trust you."
His head throbbed like she was talking in riddles, but he smiled and took the spare key where it hung next to the door regardless, and exited swiftly before she could stop him again.
"What is this girl doing to me?" He asked himself breathlessly as he leaned back against the seemingly innocent door to her apartment. The teeth of the key dug into his palm, fist curled against it so hard that his knuckles were white. It took him a minute to collect himself enough to leave, running through the brisk night air to clear his head.
Derek was waiting up for him, the lamp in the living room illuminating the open space. The alpha was sprawled against one of the dark couches, a book held open and half finished above his face. It sometimes startled Isaac how domestic Derek really could be, now that he had a finished house and a pack to properly look after.
"You were gone a while," Derek mused. It wasn't a question, more an observation. Isaac closed the front door quietly.
"Things got... complicated." Isaac shook his head as he remembered the hissing snakes attached to the woman's head, her foul breath and sharp nails. He wasn't hurt badly, had healed within minutes, and was definitely in his right mind during the incident. He was in his right mind after, too, when he watched Percy down a glass of what looked like liquid gold and smelled like his mother's pot roast, had seen the blood flow from her cuts slow to a stop and the skin begin to knit itself, albeit much more slowly than his own wolf healing. "She was attacked by a monster."
That got his alpha's full attention. Derek rolled into a full sitting position, concern in his eyes as he dropped the book. "Tell me."
They ended up calling a pack meeting for seven am, after neither of them got a wink of sleep. Lydia hadn't either, evidently, as she dropped the first book into Stiles' lap promptly after arriving and grabbed the second where it lay untouched on the coffee table. "Sally Jackson isn't dead, FYI. Not so far." That was all she said to them before opening the book and beginning to read it.
"I don't think she's dead at all," Isaac put in. "Jason mentioned her last night."
"Jason?" Scott asked with a yawn, holding a half- eaten breakfast burrito. "Who?"
"Percy's protective older cousin. I met him last night."
"That makes a lot of sense," Stiles sighed sarcastically. "I seriously wish I could just know everything about these without reading them. Less time consuming."
"Sorry kid," an unfamiliar voice put in. "Doesn't work that way. Though, you could have called if you needed more copies." When they whipped around, it was a middle- aged man wearing a tracksuit and holding a fed-ex box on one hip. He beamed brightly. "Hi. I'm H and I'm a very busy God, so I'm going to leave this with you and be on my way."
He handed the box to Isaac and was gone by the time they'd all blinked.
Percy cracked her knuckles restlessly as she watched Jason pace. He was making her dizzy. "Jase," she sighed. "Stop, please. I'm okay."
"Your mother said nightmares, not this," he gestured wildly at the finger- shaped bruises around her throat, the dark shadows around her ribs. "You're losing weight, trying to strangle yourself in your sleep. You need more help than we can give you!"
"And if I go to a professional, what then?" She snapped. "I get evaluated for a psychiatric ward! I'm perfectly capable of dealing with this on my own."
"Obviously not. Jesus, Percy. You're so much thinner than you were. I could probably break you in half over my damn knee." His eyes were soft, worried and sad, and she gritted her teeth, turning her gaze away. "Why haven't you told anybody?"
"Nobody wants to know," she muttered. "Dad hasn't spoken to me since the celebrations. Everybody looks at me like I'm some sort of goddess, and for what? We beat Gaia, Jason. They haven't looked at me the same since. It's like I'm not allowed to be broken."
"You're not broken."
"I am!" She screamed. "You haven't been to Tartarus, Jason! You don't know what it's like down there! I was losing my mind! Annabeth could barely keep me grounded by the time we got out." Percy collapsed to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Jason was there in an instant, strong arm around her shoulders, swallowing hard in shock. "You don't get it. I can still hear the screaming. It was so horrible, and I was losing every bit of sanity I've ever had. A piece of my soul died in that pit, Jase."
"You're right," Jason choked out. "I don't get it. I don't know what it was like in there, you're right. But, Percy, it's been months. You- you seemed fine. You were even happy. Why are you only reacting now."
"I was happy. We were alive, my mother was safe, and I had my memories back. I was so happy." She took a shaky breath. "Now I'd bathe in the river Lethe just to forget everything that happened to us."
"Why haven't you told anybody?" Jason was whispering at that point, mind trying to wrap around this new flow of information. It felt like speaking too loud could shatter this being in front of him, somebody he'd looked up to just like the rest for her strength in the war. The ability to stay grounded. Now, he could see it. As long as she had a fight to focus on, Percy could ignore her own pain. Without something selfless to push her stress off, it had all crashed on her at once.
"Who would want to listen?"
"You have friends who care about you, Percy. Nico and Annabeth, Piper, Reyna, Leo, me, everybody else at Camp Half Blood."
"I can't- Nico and Annabeth both get it, but they cope in different ways. I'm always afraid to bring it up with them. The rest of you- I just. I'm being a burden."
"Priscilla Jackson, I know you didn't just call yourself that," Jason growled. "You aren't a burden. You will never be a burden to any of us-"
"My mother suffered for the first twelve years of my life, just because I existed." She interrupted, clenching her fists. "I've always been a problem. At least here, I'm my own problem. Not anybody else's."
"What about that kid who was here earlier?" Jason asked.
"He's technically older than you."
"So you're going to go on a date with him. Flirt with him, pretend you're okay, and then withdraw when it gets too close to emotional intimacy because you're afraid of being his problem? That's how it's going to go, isn't it? And what about when he falls in love with you? He's already head over heels! I can see that, and Piper constantly complains that I have the same level of emotional perception as a brick. You're willing to break his heart because you're afraid of yourself?"
"Stop," Percy shook her head, curling up and trying to pull away from the contact. "Just, please."
Jason sighed and pulled her in for a hug. "I'm going to stay here, Percy. For as long as you need me. You're going to sleep and eat properly, and train with me, and we'll work through this together. Just like back in the war. You have to understand for this to work, though, that you are not a problem, and I'm here because I want you to get better. I want to see you smile again. For real."
A/N: Since I'm not doing the read- through thing anymore, I figured I had to put an actual plot in here, so have a PTSD Percy. I probably won't continuously update this fast, so don't expect something new every three or four days, but this one practically wrote itself.
