Chapter 25—Concrete Doorstops.

Previously: "Hey," Percy smiled up at Mr. Chase, with his familiar ruffled beard and rumpled clothes, adjusting his glasses further up his nose. "Is Annabeth here?"

.

"Percy." Mr. Chase said after a moment of standing there and gaping.

"And Nico." Percy waved behind him to indicate Nico, who continued to look as though he'd like the melt into the pavement.

"Mr. Chase." Nico acknowledged with a nod, which Annabeth's father returned.

"Is Annabeth here?" Percy asked again. Mr. Chase was still staring at him—his eyes flickered down to Percy's arm but he thankfully didn't ask questions or comment.

"Um," Mr. Chase's eyes, behind his round horn-rimmed glasses, looked large and owl-like, startled.

"No, I'm afraid she isn't." His brow knitted, concern written all over his face, and Percy's stomach clenched.

"Is she…" His voice shriveled and died in his throat—he had to swallow and try again. "Is she okay? Like, she's not hurt, is she?"

"No!" Annabeth's father said quickly. Then, he added, "at least, not to my knowledge. Why don't you come in?"

He held the door open for them and Percy stepped in, hoping Nico was following close behind and not rooted to the sidewalk outside.

Inside was a lot like Percy remembered it—far from the house of Annabeth's childhood, when Mr. Chase had been sealed off from the rest of the house, a mixed landfill of toys for her half-brothers, this one was clean, almost stringent. The boys were older and better at picking up after themselves, and gone during most of the day anyway. Mr. Chase's history obsession had infected the rest of the house in the form of books on most flat surfaces, and various maps outlining battles and strategies pinned to the wall carefully.

Inside the house, Percy sat down on a sofa tenderly. He had vivid memories of visiting Annabeth here one day, when they were still together as a couple, and sitting on a pile of thumbtacks she had been using. Nico didn't sit down at first, instead gravitating to one of the brown and orange streaked maps of Europe.

"I remember this." He muttered to no one in particular, tapping on the paper with a fingernail.

Mr. Chase, lowering himself into an oversized armchair, made a strangled noise. The map must have been from a long time ago, long before Nico would (normally) have been born.

"Nico's an old man." Percy reassured Mr. Chase, hoping he'd put two and two together and figure out that this was Nico, the Nico that his daughter had fought with.

Percy knew Annabeth had told her dad about most of the fighting, most of the wars. If he was allowed to he would have been on the frontlines, memorizing things in that mad-scientist way of his, his obsession with war and it's soldiers.

He also knew that Annabeth carefully edited her stories—she spoke with a level and impassive voice, speaking as if relaying a battle made up of tin soldiers, like she hadn't known them and cried when the died, like she hadn't stared out across a bloody battlefield and said she wanted to build something permanent to remember them by. Percy knew that there were some things she cut out altogether—including, he hoped, certain parts of Jason's and Annabeth's stories.

It was doubtless he'd have heard of Nico di Angelo, especially of the winter after the quest to save Annabeth, when she would have needed someone to talk to and she was still trying to salvage her relationship with her father. Percy didn't think they'd ever formally met, though, and he quickly introduced the two.

"Mr. Chase, Nico di Angelo." He waved his hand between the two. "Mr. Chase is Annabeth's father, and Nico is a son of Hades."

Mr. Chase's eyes darkened slightly—just a twitch that Percy would have missed had he not been scanning, searching for any signs that they wouldn't be safe here. He trusted Mr. Chase, but then he had trusted Thalia and he had trusted the gods, and while Thalia may have had good reasons she still broke his trust.

Percy glanced at Nico to see his reaction. He was staring calmly at the map again, but his back and torso where still tense, his hands carefully placed to where he could pull out his swords at a moment's notice. He had no reason to trust Mr. Chase, Percy knew, so the only reason he was still here and not running was because he trusted Percy enough to keep him out of undue danger. That, or he didn't care.

"Where is Annabeth?" Percy jumped right in to the main question, the big question.

"She got a call," Mr. Chase leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, "from Thalia. The Hunters ran into a spot of trouble, apparently, and Annabeth's consultation was needed. She rode out to Idaho this morning. I imagine she'll be back tomorrow morning."

Percy tried to weigh the options in his mind. On the one hand, it would be nice to see Annabeth again. With so long as each other's constant companion, after years of training himself to think that all was not well in the world unless Annabeth was in eyesight, it felt somehow wrong to be away from her for so long.

It was one reason that Annabeth had started living out with her dad on the West coast.

That, and she was elected an ambassador between the camps and the Hunters, so that she could keep in touch with Thalia more frequently. Both of them began to feel the sting of Luke's loss more acutely when the war was finally over, and Jason's loss had been an injury to both of them. Annabeth needed to know she could stand on her own two feet, or something like that, and needed to know she was still useful in some capacity. Percy did, too, except he was next to useless as an ambassador, what with his habit of offending officials and breaking things. Plus, the Hunter's didn't work with boys if they could help it.

Percy sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He could stay and see her again, but that would mean another day gone on the search for Oegathis. Was that something he was willing to give?

"What will you sell—what will you bargain, throw away, for this?" Reyna's voice rang through his head and he shook it to dispel the voice, making both Nico and Mr. Chase look at him funny.

"You're welcome to stay the night, Percy." Mr. Chase said, waving an ink-stained hand towards the hallway. "You know where Annabeth's room is.

"I'm afraid," he stood up with a groan and a wince, "that I need to return to work. Make yourselves at home, boys, and if you'd like to stay the sheets in her room are clean and there's food in the fridge."

Mr. Chase would likely lock himself in his office for hours at a time, possibly all night, working on whatever project had most recently caught his attention.

Percy stood after the older man in the sweater vest and hesitated. The door to the outside was right there, and if they left now they could catch the train before it left, and if Oegathis was in the middle of Washington than they may be able to make it before it got dark dark.

"This way." He muttered, turning left from the couch towards the inner hallway lined with pictures of smiling children and parents. If it weren't for Annabeth's frame dotting some of them, it would have looked like a normal, functional family with very little godly interference—they wouldn't have had to move, wouldn't have had to keep steak knives cast out of Celestial Bronze stashed in the drawer with the normal ones, wouldn't have had to double and triple lock doors to make sure the house was relatively safe.

They would never say a word to her again, but Annabeth still felt guilt like she had when she was younger. It was part of the reason she stayed away from the house when she could, jumping between camps and Olympus.

That was another reason she needed physical distance from Percy: she still had a lot of work to do on Olympus, particularly on ground support between Olympus and the war-torn areas of the world, and Percy was no longer welcome there.

"Here we go." Percy swung his backpack down onto Annabeth's quilted bed and shrugged his shoulders stiffly. Carrying the backpack was always hell on his shoulders, especially his bad shoulder. He had to keep it cocked forward to hold the strap on, regardless of snapping the sternum-strap together. After a while he would forget about having to hold his arm in place, but the shoulder was still stiff and uncomfortable when he finally released it.

Percy cast around the room for something—anything—to suggest that the room belonged to someone who had changed, had been changed, by the wars and losses. The only noticeable difference was that the pictures of him—pictures the two of them had accumulated here and there throughout their lives—had been moved to places out of the way, all except for one.

One picture, a photograph of him, her, and Tyson, was pinned on the wall with a couple of movie ticket stubs, reminders of their 'normal' life they had between quests.

Percy couldn't help noticing that the picture she kept prominent was one where his left side wasn't in the frame, where someone wouldn't have to see the reminder of what he had lost.

"How's the arm?" Nico had gravitated towards Percy, as if Percy's lack of comfort had been radiating in ways he could see.

"Not bad." Percy said. He'd wait until Nico went to sleep and then pop a couple pain pills so he could sleep, too.

"C'mon." Percy slipped off his jeans and his shirt and climbed under Annabeth's familiar blankets. Nico followed a moment later, letting Percy adjust the pillow to where he could slide his sword under the side. He turned his back to Percy but shuffled in so they were nearly touching, close enough that they could reach out to touch when they needed to.

.

In the morning, Percy de-tangled himself from the blankets and Nico's grabby hands. Nico never thought he was a grabby person, but one of them always ended up wrapped around the other and Percy was fairly sure it wasn't him.

"Oof." Percy grunted when he stumbled into the wall on his way out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Rubbing his arm, he rounded the corner just in time to find himself with an armful of t-shirt and curly hair.

"Percy!" Annabeth, lovely, wonderful Annabeth wrapped her muscular arms around him. He hugged her back gratefully.

"Annabeth." It was perfect, her being here with him. Part of the weight on his chest eased off and he could breathe a little easier, even if her arms were constricting him.

"How have you been? What are you doing here?" She backed up a bit, still keeping her fingers on his ribs like to remind herself that he was—in fact—standing there.

"I've been…" Percy remembered suddenly that Nico was still back in her room, and he yelled for him over his shoulder. Turning back to Annabeth, "I've been good, yeah. Better. And I'm on a bit of a trip, actually; I'll tell you later."

Nico emerged from the bedroom, rubbing his eyes and peering around owl-like. "Oh." He said softly upon seeing Annabeth. His eyes cast around for something—maybe Mr. Chase, maybe a weapon—as he walked up to the two of them.

"Nico." Annabeth says warmly, if a bit aloofly. She was never as close to Nico as Percy was, only because of necessity—Nico always seemed to gravitate towards Percy, same as her, but they revolved on opposite sides.

"Annabeth." Nico still looked wary, but he moved further into the room, like he was about to move towards the kitchen for food.

"How was the, um, thing?" Percy turned back to Annabeth. She was whole, with no injuries he could see, and he could feel her right beneath his fingertips. Whole.

She raised an eyebrow.

"The thing with the Hunters. The reason you were gone." Percy clarified further. Nico, in the kitchen, snorted.

"Oh!" She left his arm span to turn back towards the couch and sit down. She always sat stretched out, like she was trying to cover more distance and make herself more immediately present. "That thing. Sit down, I'll tell you what happened."

Percy sat down obediently and Nico leaned in the kitchen doorway, munching on a slice of toast.

"So, I got a call from Thalia yesterday," She gestured with her hands to add visual to the story as she told it, "and she said they had a small town getting ripped apart by a 'monster with thick skin'. So the Hunters showed up and started tracking, and you know what they found? Lion tracks. Right down the main street. Well, they set up a stake-out type thing and were waiting for it and you know what showed up? A Nemean Lion. Like, Thalia had already had a run in with a Nemean Lion once in her life, and that was unusual for most demigods, but two is just excessive. Anyway it got free and started tearing up the local's sheep and linens, for some reason—I think it's actually because the sheets on the clothesline resemble prey, what with the motion and all—but Thalia couldn't manage it herself, and it seems like her Hunters haven't been sleeping well. So she called me in and we got it taken care of; we managed to lure it into an abandoned grain cellar and drop a pile of stuff on it from the top long enough to stun it, and then a Hunter could sneak up on it. That was my idea." She added, looking proud of her strategy.

"It was brilliant." Percy admitted. It was a much more intelligent plan than throwing astronaut food at its maw, that was for sure.

Percy though it back over and stopped, suddenly. "Hold on—you said the Hunters were having trouble sleeping."

"Yeah."

"What kind of trouble?"

"Nightmares, like you wouldn't believe!"

"Oh, I'd believe it." Percy managed to say, even though he was somewhere very far away.

Thalia had bargained away the nightmares onto him, right? He should have been having nightmares much worse than he had been—he had nightmares, horrible, cruel, mind-numbing and heartbreaking ones, but they hadn't gotten unbearable, they hadn't gotten all that much worse. But Thalia's Hunter's had.

.

Percy wished he could say that he handled everything after that easily.

Breakfast went over without complication, technically, but the entire time he had been getting and eating food Percy's mind was whirling.

He hadn't been getting the brunt of Phobos's fear, the Hunters had. But something had happened, because Phobos had needed his blood; Thalia had been guilt-stricken thinking about it, had offered an explanation that had made sense, but now…now it was moot. It hadn't followed through, Percy hadn't been having worse nightmares, only his usual terrors. Percy should have noticed, should have said something, should have tracked down Thalia and demanded more of an explanation—

"Stop." Annabeth said lowly. Percy lifted his head to stare at her, confusion. She had leaned back against the kitchen wall, still holding a half-eaten slice of toast, but her eyes were narrowed as she watched Percy. Nico, sitting on the counter near the blender, lifted an eyebrow and kept eating, keeping his eyes fixed on the both of them.

"Stop—?" Percy repeated back. 'Stop' wasn't enough for him to work with, and he was done with jumping on simple commands, rankling under a chafing collar of authority. He knew Annabeth, and he wasn't going to let his stupid, struggling mind throw his trust for her under the bus.

That trust had been around longer than his issues, and this was one person he wouldn't let be tainted.

"Stop doing that." She gestured towards him, slouching against the far shelves, with her hand holding toast. "Stop blaming yourself for whatever you are."

"I wasn't—"

'You know what?' the voice in his head—that supremely unhelpful voice that somehow sounded of both Jason and Rachel, the two biggest voices of emotional reason in his life—whispered between his ears, "we're done."

"No we're not!" Percy furiously thought back. "We are not done!"

"We're done lying." The voices insisted.

"Uh, no," Percy was not done lying right now, was he? Could he just shove away something that useful?

Apparently he could, because he was speaking before he actually thought it through.

"Yeah," He looked down at the scuffed tile floor so he didn't have to meet her—either of their—eyes, "I'm worried about Thalia, and her Hunters. I think they're having nightmares, and it's my fault, if they are."

The air was still, as if shocked into silence.

Percy raised his eyes, slowly, fearing what he'd see there. Pity, refusal to accept that it was probably his fault?

Instead, he found pride in Annabeth's gaze, which wasn't unusual for her and her fatal flaw, but rare when pointed at him, for something he'd said rather than something he'd done. She nodded at him tightly and took another bite of her jelly-slathered toast; Percy's admission accepted and moved on. Nico didn't look proud like she did, but pleased, with a slight smirk playing at the edges of his mouth and eyes, like he knew all along that Percy wasn't going to deny feeling guilt, like he'd placed a bet on it and now he got to cash in.

"You know it's not your fault, right?" Annabeth added after a moment. "Even if you had a hand in it, nightmares are beyond your control, and it's not your fault."

Percy shook his head; Annabeth couldn't know that, because she hadn't been there. She hadn't had been tied up and had a blade slick her stomach up with blood, been betrayed by a person she loved like a sister, woken up in the middle of the night by terrors that made her want to throw up, break something, break herself.

She couldn't be right in that he was faultless, blameless.

But, as he thought about the wicked-cruel gleam in Phobos's eye, of the nightmares that still plagued him that he wished to Zeus he could get rid of, maybe she was right this time.

.

"So," Annabeth was standing in the doorway of the bathroom as Percy sat on the bathtub rim, Nico holding a bottle of some medical-grade wound cleanser and a rag, painfully washing off Percy's shoulder, "what brought you boys into town, anyway?"

Nico set the bottle to the side and looked at Percy before going back to his work, carefully pulling out stitches.

Percy took another swig of whatever bitter alcohol Nico had passed him—not for drinking's sake, the temptation of which passed up most demigods not related to Dionysus, but for pain that Percy's pills were no longer covering.

"I'm looking for Oegathis." Percy said, wincing as Nico slowly drew one of the sleek threads out of his resisting body.

"You're kidding." Annabeth pushed off the wall to stand up straight and look at Percy incredulously. "Of all the plans you've come up with, this? This is the most foolhardy."

Nico yanked a thread out with particular force and Percy yelped, turning to glare before responding. "I know, Annabeth. Believe me, I know."

"Then why?" Annabeth's words were soaked in concern and disbelief, the same as they always were when Percy formed a plan, because he was a leader at heart and not a strategist and they all knew it.

"Because I can't go on like this." Percy pointedly looked at the bottle of clear alcohol in his hand and the bloody stiches lying on the porcelain side of the sink.

Nico brushed a thumb along Percy's wound seam, in a move that might have been calming—soothing even—if it weren't for the fact that it sent a tingle of pain coursing along his nerves. Annabeth knitted her brow and tightened her lips, but nodded, hair falling back over her shoulder in a cascade.

Percy took another swig of the alcohol to calm his nerves back down.

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A/N: Next chapter goes up tomorrow! Sorry again about the break, but now that my laptop is fixed there is no chance of me being electrocuted for doing what I love.

What did you think of the chapter? Let me know.

Tobi.