First off thanks to Emma Chase-Hunter of Artemis for leaving a somewhat dramatic but overall amazing review. Ur the best!
And I guess you guys need to thank AnonymousGuy (Guest) because he ended up leaving like 9 reviews which actually got me off my butt to update.
Chapter 34: To Let Go, or To Not let Go
Percy could hear the motorcycle. That's when he knew she was coming.
The gravelly roaring that shouted as she drew nearer and nearer was like a red flag. Growling through his walls boldly, pronouncing her arrival.
But he stayed glued to his bed. Staring at the ceiling hopelessly. Eyes running over the blank surface over and over as if he were searching for answers.
His shirt reeked of sweat from his visit to the death box. Clinging to his body uncomfortably and probably sinking into the sheets as the seconds slipped by.
Comforting blue walls surrounded him and reminding him that he was home. Home.
Odd how it never really felt like home. It was only a place he stayed while he remained at Washington headquarters. Like a hotel, or a cabin. A home away from home in that sense.
That didn't stop Thalia from practically knocking the door down, marching across the room again and delivering a stinging slap across his face.
"Ow!" he grumbled and glared at her irritatedly.
"What am I hearing!" she ignored the looks he was giving her and gestured about the room dramatically. "Everyone across campus has noticed your lack of appetite and your rigorous training. What's going on kelp brain!"
Percy rolled over glumly, ignoring her.
"AND THIS!" he could tell she was hysterically gesturing to his moody behavior. "Percy! I thought you dropped this phase years ago!"
"Ya, well I relapsed." he spat back bitterly, not meeting her eyes.
A stale silence cut through them. Like a pair of scissors snapping communication between two phones.
In a mellow thoughtfulness, Thalia remained silent. Percy could feel her stare on the back of his head. Burning two holes there like little worm burrows in an apple. Finally,
Thalia sighed defeatedly. The mattress dipping as she sat beside him. "What happened?" she asked quietly. She was out of ideas, disappointed, not sure really what to do with him.
He wanted to spill everything. He wanted someone to know. Anybody. But he couldn't. Gritting his teeth he tightened his grip on the little broken shell. A stab of sadness soiling again on his heart.
"Nothing much." he lied yet again through a robotic voice.
The atmosphere was silent. Thalia was thinking again. Planning. Ready to bend him over her knee if she had too.
She cracked her knuckles roughly. "Very well." she hissed.
After a bit of struggling, some riding, and a few cursing rants, Thalia shoved Percy off her motorcycle harshly.
He glowered at her unimpressed.
"Well, go on! Go see him!" she urged, gesturing to the house surrounded in a quaint picket fence.
The wooden panel blue painted house, looked like any other old school houses you would see out on the street. Buried story deep in a sea of luscious green and lavender hued lilac bushes and trees. The two white shuttered little windows barely peeping over the brambles like eyes peeking into the unknown.
Except this house was situated right outside the training field in the middle of campus. Out of place by far.
Sighing heavily, Percy pushed open the gate while a light breeze ruffled through his hair and hissed through the trees like a calming stream. Already he could feel his muscles relax and his worries start flying off his shoulders one by one.
Why hadn't he come here sooner so he could feel so relaxed? Have his worries flit off his shoulders like doves taking flight?
He didn't want to.
That's why.
He didn't want to feel relaxed when the words he had so upfrontedly spat at Annabeth with a smug mask and a wilting heart we're still ringing in his mind.
But now here he was.
Scared to take a step forward into this perfect garden. It was perfect. Too perfect.
In a place like this there shouldn't be a painted blue 1960's villa. Another training center or a modern concrete block of a building would fit in nicely. Not this place.
It was so perfect and relaxing he was terrified of taking that step. That step away from Annabeth.
But he did.
Percy stepped up onto the perfectly weeded and trimmed sparkling green grass and gazed around the bushed in yard with a ghost smile.
Orange Lilies, and large petaled flowers brimmed under the slouching lilacs while a little pond trinkled a delicate fray of water into the crystalline pool twirling with flickering kois. Starched white marble garden statues, polished from the rain, sat between the rose bushes and delicate stemmed flowers.
Hedges shaped and loved into horses, and mythological creatures bowed and reared around the lawn so majestically. Not a twig jutting out from their perfected forms.
Somehow the noise and whirrs from the facility right outside were softened to just a ache in the side of his head. Already draining his troubles away with it like it had pulled the plug on his bathtub of stressors.
A tune met his ears nostalgically. A tune he had to listen for to hear. Soft and dainty in the notes that seemed to flounce with the breeze.
Chiron was humming.
Up on his perfect three step wooden porch and lazily swinging in that old twine bound hammock.
One foot hanging lazily out the left side while a thread tan hat propped sloppily over his eyes. Occasionally he'd pause his tune to puff lightly on a bubble wand he brought to his lips and wouldn't even bother to watch the crystal spheres float effortlessly into the air. Then he'd stuff the little blue bubble stick back into the bottle secured in his hand and continue humming away. Free of worries.
Percy stood with a faint smile and watched the scene with his hands jammed deep into his pockets. Missing the days when Chiron would sit in his hammock and tell him to run off and fish or something.
'Go explore.' he'd say. 'Boys your age don't want to train. They want to explore.'
With a gentle nudge of his foot to the banister and a flick of his wrist, Chiron stopped the lulling sway of the hammock and cocked a questioning eyebrow at Percy expectantly.
"Well? Weren't you going to try and sneak up on me?" he questioned while letting the hat fall back onto his face. His clear british accent shining through a stubble covered smirk.
Percy chuckled and strode across the lawn in brief strides. "Naw, you're too hard to sneak up on."
Chiron smiled quickly, as if he was dislodging something from his teeth. "Well there was that one time that you beat me…. But then-"
"I became an official agent." Percy finished with a smirk. "I know. It's not like I wasn't there."
Chiron finally straightened the hat on his head and sat up, straightening wrinkles off his lime green t-shirt while simultaneously sighing humorously at Percy. "I see you're still as sassy as your father." he groaned while rubbing the back of his neck vigorously.
Percy stiffened. His heart fell to his toes and bounced back up before it gave another thump.
Rarely did Chiron ever bring up Percy's father. When he did it meant something big was about to go down. That, or he had been hit in the butt with a misfired tranquilizer and was about to flop over unconscious. But the latter was very unlikely.
"Percy, my boy, I've heard mumbles and grumbles and such, that you haven't been yourself lately. That is, after you returned from your mission in San Francisco."
Rolling his eyes Percy leaned against the base of the stairway banister sulkingly and looked up at his trainer guiltily. "You too huh?"
"I expected you to return in this state." Chiron grimaced sourly. Hoisting himself out of the teetering hammock, he lowered himself onto the first of the creaky wooden steps and patted the space beside him while squinting into the sun on Percy's back.
Percy obliged and plopped next to him while wondering exactly what was to come.
"Percy." Chiron started seriously. "Do you know exactly who assigned you that particular mission?"
Percy reminisced over this for a second. Flipping through the people on the council in his mind. But Chiron had knowing aura about him while his wisdom deep eyes calculated every centimeter of his being. Even if he wasn't trying, he was giving the answer away rather obviously.
"You?" Percy guessed, his dark eyebrows pinched together at the sudden realization.
Chiron nodded pleased, a teacher receiving the correct answer from his student.
"And do you know why?" he persisted. His callused and dirt smeared hands fresh from the garden laced together over the gap between his knees.
Why would Chiron send me on such an unusual mission? A rookie's mission?
Percy shot him a 'I'm lost help.' look while trying to dig out the answer from his brain. The answer he already knew wasn't there.
Chiron just shook his head and chuckled deeply. A chuckle that said all in itself oh Percy. A quite frequently used chuckle actually.
"Think Percy." Chiron spoke with an everlasting smile. "This mission was a lesson. What did you learn?"
Percy ran his hand through his hair and blew some air out of his mouth. Trying to think of what type of lesson Chiron had set up for him now. "A lesson?!" he breathed. "Did I mess up? Did I do the wrong thing?"
"No son." Chiron assured patiently. His british accent folding the words crisply. "You did just fine. You were brilliant in fact. Perfectly brilliant."
And then it clicked. Clicked right into place like that missing puzzle piece.
"Something to do with learning to let go?" Percy asked it as a question even though all his uncertainties had vanished.
Chiron nodded with his tutor smile perched somewhat grimly on his chin.
Percy waited for him to say something. To spill what he was leading up to. Instead, Chiron patted him twice on the shoulder and leaned back, tilting his face to the sun. Crossing his arms, he turned his body to face the older man, trying to make it painfully obvious that he was expecting an answer.
Disappointed silted in around his gut contemptuously when Chiron whipped out the little plastic blue bottle and leisurely blew bubbles.
His dark brown eyes avoiding Percy while the little twitch of his brow suggested just how amused Chiron was with his reaction.
Bubbles hovered and dipped, finding the little invisible paths of the wind. Freer in their few minutes of existence than Percy had ever been in his entire life. Winding between the statues and hedges. Coasting on the breeze until they got snagged on a branch, or blade of grass. Then they disappeared from existence. Almost as if they were never there to begin with.
Heartily, Chiron sighed and twirled the bubble wand between his two fingers.
"You know I was close to your parents my boy. Very close indeed."
Percy nodded somberly, yet attentive at every word.
"I wanted you to learn how to let go of the people you meet before you learned it the hard way. Like I did." he spoke sadly. Obviously memories of a time before Percy's was playing over in his head.
"I think I can let go of people pretty well." Percy muttered, remembering how that was the second time he had to leave to Annabeth. Faces of people lost on missions also dwindled in the back of his mind, but those were people he was never particularly close to.
"I used to think I was pretty good at it too." Chiron shrugged while puffing out another dozen lazy bubbles. "And then your parents got in trouble with the council for having you. And just like that my two best friends were gone." There was no bitterness in his voice. Or hostility towards Percy. Only regret on the million what-if's he could've done to prevent it.
"It's not like they died though." Percy tried to shed some light on the mellowness in hand. But somehow the words tasted sour in his throat.
Chiron shook his head. His watery blue eyes transfixed on the wooden board of the step below. Ache and hurt thrumming in his eyes. "No." he breathed. "They were forced to forget. Somehow it's worse that they're still in the world but don't remember me at all. Or you for that matter."
I know. Percy was dying to say. I know what you feel now. Annabeth forgot me.
A breeze whisked most of the floating bubbles shimmering in the sun directly into a bush.
Percy watched as the last of them vanished. His wild green eyes trailing after them while they were destroyed. Wishing that they wouldn't get caught just so he could watch them a little longer and enjoy the way they glittered with different hues.
Chiron took a heavy breath and fumbled with the cap to the soapy bubble bottle. The grey hairs fringing the sides of his head and the crinkles around his eyes seemed new to Percy. Like they had crept up and leapt onto the poor guy in a matter of days.
"Percy. I don't want you to feel the pain I felt when I lost the dearest people to me." Chiron started again. "You have to know that even your own colleagues could one day disappear from your life in a matter of seconds."
Percy delicately rubbed the back of his neck. "What did the mission have to do with that?"
"You made friends. You had to leave them. That's why you're so glum. You have to learn to not be glum. To let go."
"How did you know?" the green eyed agent looked at his mentor with a sort of admiration. Again, surprised at his wisdom.
"Because you reacted this way before." Chiron shrugged like it was no big deal. "That little girl back in Indonesia. The one with the golden curls. When she left you had the same reaction as today. Training hard, barely eating, looking depressed."
A sweeping emotion of jarring shock and erect tenseness shivered over him in one movement.
"You knew?!" Was all Percy could say.
Much to Percy's dismay, Chiron sat back and gave a hearty full laugh to the sky. "Of course I knew! I was as curious as bloody hell on where you disappeared to every mornin. I was in charge of ye, wasn't I?"
Percy nodded slowly. Thinking. Wondering if Chiron knew that he had told Annabeth that he needed to train. That he had betrayed his biggest secret to a seven year old girl.
If Chiron knew that….
He would've told the agency! They would've wiped Annabeth's memory!
In one second Percy's heart was simultaneously thumping in his throat while laying out cold on the ground. His mind was wheeling faster than Thalia's motorcycle and his skin shivered in anxiety.
Should I ask if he knew that? No no, if he didn't than I'd now be in trouble.
"Wow, and this whole time I thought it was some great big secret." Percy tried to sound nonchalant. "How many times did you follow me?" the wary question was posed as a simple curious endorsement.
"Oh just two or three times. I had my work cut out for me at the hut with paperwork and nonsense. Speaking of which, why didn't you ever tell me about her huh? I was expecting you to babble on and on when you came home but you never did."
Percy stood up and stretched. Shrugging his shoulders he simply said. "She promised me to never tell anyone. Being seven I obviously listened."
Chiron uncapped the bubble bottle again and sighed dreamily. "Those were the days my boy. Indonesia is the place to be."
Bubbles hung in the air again. Orbs of clarity and liquid skins.
"Well, It was nice seeing you Chiron." Percy decided to cut things short.
The computers. His mind still planning, plotting. Trying to figure out everything that happened to Annabeth. If her memory was wiped here than it would've been logged in on the computer. I need to check them.
Chiron gave him a decent hug goodbye before situating himself back on the porch and blowing away at those bubbles.
As Percy walked toward the gate he twisted around to get one last glimpse at his mentor.
At his father figure.
Heaven's forbid, that I'll ever lose Chiron.
-{:oOo:}-
As Chiron watched him go he felt a heavy sigh build up in his throat.
Already it had been close to eighteen years. Eighteen years since Percy had been born.
Eighteen years since he last saw his closest friends. And Percy, the wonderful but painful reminder of said friends.
Yes siree.
Percy had the best traits of both his parents. Besides the obvious features and looks, he had seemed to inherit some of his parents other traits.
The easy crooked smirk of Poseidon, the fierce fighting instinct of Sally. And yet he had Poseidon's loyalty and Sally's gentle nature. To Chiron, Percy Jackson was both these people combined.
Strong yet fair.
Humorous yet serious at all the right times.
Harsh with the enemy but gentle with the victim.
Stubborn but with an open heart.
He was his parents child.
And yet.
And yet he had something inside that was all of his own. Something that hadn't come from Sally or Poseidon or even Chiron.
Pure wit perhaps. Chiron contemplated. Pure wit or Self sacrifice. Or maybe even it's even just Percy in general.
Shaking his head and running a hand over the grizzly grey stubble he started mumbling to himself. Remembering those days. The days even before eighteen years ago.
When he was offered to become an agent.
The serious look in the shady mans eyes. The warning that came with it.
'You can't turn back if you take it up. You can't marry or become attached to anyone. Your family will think you're dead. And if you make the wrong choice, you'll wish you're dead.'
But he had taken the offer.
He had met Sally and Poseidon on the first day of class. The three nobodies who had no idea what to do. Who, as of that day, had no connection to family or anything.
And somehow they had pacted together. Worked together.
They became the three amigos. The Mission impossible team. The two hits and a Miss.
They were the best and everyone knew it. They reached the top with every mission they did.
'As long as we're all together.' Sally used to say with a huge smile. 'I think this is all alright. I think we're alright.'
Then they'd all go out to train together. Making fun of Posa's faces when he lifted a weight too heavy or laugh when Sally belly flopped into the pool. Such a whiner when it came to swimming she was.
And then…. And then…
And then the concern. The shushing and whispers Sally and Posa started. The upset faces and the fewer outings to train. The constant bathroom stops and the weary regretful face on Posa.
Chiron had figured it out before they told him. He was mad. Furious that they did something like that. And because of it… they were torn apart. But they were so young, reliant on each other in ways they didn't realize until their circle was in jeopardy.
Even before Percy was born, the secret was out. Flailing in the air like a red flag begging for the bull to come and shred it to bits.
The rule had been shattered. They had to pay. Sally and Poseidon had to pay the highest price.
The courtroom, the judge's face, the disapproving looks from the council. Chiron remembered it all. He remembered it as the spectator. The smell of fresh ink on paper, the yellow lights beaming heavily.
The harsh sound of the gavel when the judge announced Sally and Poseidon to have their memory wiped and to be dropped on opposite sides of the country. The feeling of uselessness, of confusion and loss.
The distraught look on Sally's face when the court announced Percy would be put into foster care. The baby, already condemned to a life of being flopped around, never fitting in, always wondering why. The baby sleeping so soundly in a carrier. Looking so innocent.
And before Chiron's heart could be broken anymore. Before the judge left, before the onlookers grew bored, he had stood up so suddenly and shouted on the top of his lungs.
Proposing a new future to the baby boy. A future as an agent trained from the time he could walk. An agent who would be the best of the best.
Pleased the court had resumed. Sally staring at him with thankful tears in her eyes and Poseidon clasping his hands together harshly in what looked like a hurried attempt at prayer.
But who would spend so much time training the boy? Who would look after him?
'I will.' His voice didn't feel the same when he said it so softly. His eyes felt as they were going to overflow when the child was plopped into his hands and his two best friends led away teary eyed and waving for the last time. Gowned in white cloth as they were readied for the procedure.
In that moment, Chiron had looked at Percy and wished he could feel contempt, hatred even towards the little being that made him lose what he loved most.
But he didn't.
He looked at Percy, and he saw the last remnants of Sally and Poseidon burning strong. Bundled into a little human entirely dependant on him. Percy staring back up at him strongly, fiercely. Alrighty a fight burning in his baby green eyes as he waved his chubby fists and made a mewl of protest.
So alike to Sally and Poseidon.
Nostalgically, Chiron capped the bubble bottle a final time. He looked to the sun, leaned back and set his hands behind his head.
Sally and Poseidon would've been proud of their boy. They would've been so bloody proud.
Last weeks Trivia Answer: Chocolate Shop
This weeks Trivia: The name of the cyclops who guarded the golden fleece was?