/Author's Note - Trigger Warning: Loss and General Sad Stuff

Chapter 11 - I See Dead People

After Percy and I cleaned up the breakfast picnic, I took a shower and put on some clean clothes - making sure to wash my hair for the first time since the fight on Ithaca. My neck wound hurt, so I went down to sick bay to check on Jason and let Piper rebandage my neck. She did a good job, even though her hands trembled as she worked. Then I found Hazel near the rear of the ship. She was leaning against the railing, the sea breeze blowing through her brown curls. I joined her at the railing.

"So, the magic. I guess it's from my mom, or something." Hazel began. "We were trying to cross Italy, and Arion showed up. I thought he had a message from my dad. So I went with him. He took me to Hecate." Hazel continued, explaining how the goddess had made her choose which path to take, and she had chosen the one that showed Percy and I, hoping that it would give us a chance to survive. I wanted to thank her right then, but I could tell from her expression that she didn't want to be interrupted. She explained how she had tried to learn how to use the Mist under the guidance of Hecate's farting weasel, and it hadn't worked. Then she explained about the bandit, Sciron, and how she had managed to figure out the trick to it. Since then she had been practicing with Piper and she was able to make it work just in time for the challenges at the House of Hades.

When she was done I looked at her in awe. "Thank you. For, well, everything. You chose to save Percy and I, then you learned to use a new power all on your own, and -" I was stunned just thinking about everything she had accomplished. "If you ever need help or another practice partner, I'm here, ok?"

Hazel smiled at me. "Actually, I'd like to do that now, if you don't mind. I've been working with Piper but you have the most experience on the ship with seeing through the Mist - you've been fighting monsters since you were seven. I'd like to see how well I can trick you."

I must've looked scared so Hazel held out a hand. "I promise, I won't use Tartarus." She said it quietly so no one else could hear. "I'm not going to be mean. But I need to learn how to do this."

I took a deep breath. "Ok. I get it. But let's start small, ok? Try… try not to make me relive anything too dark, ok?"

Hazel nodded solemnly. "Deal." Mist poured over the scene, coating everything in a light grey fog. When it cleared, I didn't see Hazel or the deck of the Argo II. I saw a valley with twelve cabins and a fire pit in the middle.

There are more cabins, I thought. The scene shifted and I saw the other cabins start to appear. I smiled and started to walk down the hill. When I got to the bottom and looked around, it looked like an ordinary summer day at camp. Chiron and Mr. D were on the porch of the Big House, playing cards together with some less-willing satyrs. The Apollo cabin was playing basketball, the Ares and Hephaestus cabin were having a volleyball match. As I headed towards my cabin, I could smell the strawberry fields and heard the sound of satyrs playing pipes in the woods, encouraging the berries to grow.

"Hey Annabeth!" A sweet voice called to me. I turned, and, sitting with her cabin, watching the volleyball match, was Silena Beauregard. For a moment, I was stunned. Silena couldn't be here. But she was - healthy and as beautiful as ever. I looked more closely at the volleyball match. Beckendorf was playing, looking perfectly fine and occasionally smiling at Silena. My mind whirled. Neither of them could be here. They were dead. There was no way….

I walked over to Silena, confused. "Silena? You… you died. I… I held you. We burned your shroud, you're -" my voice faltered.

Silena looked at me curiously. "I'm not sure what you are talking about." She looked genuinely confused. "I'm fine, Annabeth. Promise."

I looked at the volleyball match. "And Beckendorf? He exploded, he -"

"What?" Silena looked shocked. "Annabeth, I think you must've had a bad dream. Everyone's fine, I promise."

I looked around cautiously. "And the Titan War?" I asked in a small voice.

Silena smiled at me. "We won, of course. There were some injuries, but the Apollo cabin saved everyone. We're fine. I think you're just a little stressed. Why don't you go see Percy? He said he wanted to take you on a canoe ride."

I nodded. Maybe it had all been a dream. Silena and Beckendorf were right in front of me, Percy was alive as well, waiting for me. We were together. The Argo II, the months he was missing, Tartarus, the terrifying quest under Rome… could they all really just be dreams? Suddenly, I wanted nothing more. I wanted everything this past year to have been a dream. Everyone I loved would be here, alive and well. I grinned, hoping that it was really true. I had just woken up from the worst dream of my life, that was all. I decided to go find a swimsuit and meet Percy by the lake. I headed to my cabin, smiling as I saw Lee Fletcher and Michael Yew challenge each other to a one-on-one on the basketball court.

I walked over to the cabins, admiring the new ones that were being added. They were all my designs. As I passed the original first set of cabins I heard a voice call out,

"Annabeth! Where've you been?" I turned towards the voice and my heart jumped into my throat. Luke was standing on the porch of the Hermes cabin, calm and happy.

"Luke?" I whispered it. "You're… you're dead."

He grinned at me and shook his head, then walked towards me. "You have another bad dream? You've been having a lot of those recently. Maybe you should talk to Chiron about it."

I looked into his eyes. They were blue. They were Luke's eyes. "You… you turned into Kronos." I stammered. "You turned evil. You betrayed -"

He gently pulled me into a hug. "Hey, I'm sorry about whatever I did in the dream. But none of that's real, you know? I'm here, same as ever."

I wrapped my arms around him. He was solid and real. I could smell the cotton of his shirt, the weapon polish he used on his sword. He was alive, everyone I loved was alive and ok.

I pulled away from him, studying the scar on his face. He smelled like Luke - that couldn't be fake, could it? Not if I could touch him, hold him, smell him.

"Y-you tried to betray the Camp, you went to the other side and you -"

He gently smoothed my hair, the way he used to when we were on the run. "I know. And I said I was sorry. But you changed my mind, remember? You and Thalia reminded me that I was a good person. I helped you, gave you Kronos's plans so Camp Half-Blood could win."

My mind was spinning. Luke had….. Come back? I'd saved him? I'd found a way to win the war without his death? "T-Thalia?" I stammered.

He pointed behind me. "Over there. She's repainting the inside of Cabin One - again." He shook his head in amusement. "Apparently she found an even darker black paint."

I turned to go find Thalia. I looked back at Luke. "W-will you still be here? Later?"

"Definitely! I meant what I said - i'm taking a gap year to sort things out, make things right. I won't go to college until next year, promise."

Luke was going to be here, for a whole year. And Silena and Beckendorf and Thalia were here. Could it really be true?

I found Thalia adding black lights to the inside of Cabin One. "Thalia? Y-you joined the Hunters, right?"

She looked at me, confused. "Did you have another bad dream, Annabeth? You should really talk to someone about that. Yes, I joined the Hunters." She climbed off the ladder and came so she could face me. "But Artemis let me leave once the War was over, as part of my gift. I get to grow up with you and Luke." She looked concerned as she added, "We're still going to that boarding school together, right? We're about the same age, now, so we'll be in the same grade. And I'll need your help to pass, since I kinda spent a lot of time on the run, or as a tree, or -" I hugged her, tears filling my eyes.

"You're really here? You're not leaving me?"

"I mean, someday you'll probably get into a better college than I will." She joked. "So we might need to split up then. But not forever, right?"

"Annabeth?" A voice called from the doorway. I turned to find Percy standing there, looking happier than I had seen him in weeks. The grey stripe was still in his hair. I wondered if I had mine too. "Hey! I've been looking for you." He said, coming to give me a hug.

"She had another one of those bad dreams." Thalia explained.

Percy wrapped an arm around me. "Come on - let's go for a canoe ride. You always feel better after that."

I walked out with Percy, noticing more and more of the details around me. The smell of the strawberries in the sun, the sea breeze coming in from the shore, the wood of the cabins around me. I could feel the heat of the sun on my back and the sword calluses on Percy's hand. I could hear the birds, the laughter of my friends enjoying a normal Camp day, one like we hadn't had since…. Wow. The summer Percy arrived? It felt good. Really good. More and more, I was sure this was real. Everything really had been a dream. It was the worst dream of my life, but it was over. Everything was ok. No one had left me, not forever.

I sat in the canoe as Percy pushed us out to the lake and hopped in. He grinned, tossing the paddle back to shore. "Don't need that."

I traced my hand in the water, watching the ripples spread away from me.

"Want to tell me about the dream?"

I looked back into his sea green eyes. "Alright. It's a long one. We didn't manage to convince Luke to come back. He turned in Kronos and we had to kill him to win the war."

Percy's eyes filled with tears. "Annabeth, I'm so sorry. That must've been -"

I shook my head. "That's not all. Silena, Beckendorf, so many of our friends were killed. And you -"

"I was killed?"

"N-no, Hera took you. She wiped your memories and sent you to this Roman Camp in California. For months. I looked everywhere for you, there were so many monsters and -"

I didn't realize it but I was shaking. Percy held out his hand and I took it. He pulled me into his lap and wrapped his arms around me.

"And my mom turned against me and sent me on this solo suicide quest in Rome and there were spiders, Percy. So many spiders."

He gently stroked my back and kissed the top of my head. "None of that was real, ok?"

"And we fell - Percy, we fell into Tartarus. W-we SAW Tartarus. And it was the most frightening thing, I've never felt so powerless -"

I started to cry then and Percy's arms wrapped around me, pulling me tightly against him, where I'd be safe from all the nightmares.

The Mist vision dissolved. I was kneeling on the deck of the Argo II. Tears were running down my face and dripping onto the wood planks. Someone's arms were wrapped around me, but it wasn't Percy.

"I'm… I'm so sorry, Annabeth." I turned my head. Hazel was the one holding me. She looked horrified. "I… I was trying not to do something bad, or scary, you know? I asked my powers to give you something good, something that -" Her voice faltered.

"Did you…" I took a shaky breath. "Did you see it?"

She nodded, slowly. "Who's Luke?" She asked me. I started to sob silently, not wanting to alert the others. "I am so, so sorry Annabeth. I promise, I was trying to do something nice. I asked my powers to give you something good, something you wouldn't be able to have in real life, but might make you feel better for a minute. I didn't know…." Her voice faltered again.

I sat on the deck, tears silently coursing down my face. Something good, something that I couldn't have in real life. Luke, back to normal, happy and alive after the Titan War. Silena, Beckendorf, all my friends who had died - alive and well at camp. No one had ever abandoned me. Everyone was there, happy to see me, spending time with me. Yeah. That was definitely something I'd never be able to have. After a few minutes I cleared my throat.

"Well, I guess we have our answer. The magic works just fine on me. But if you'll excuse me, I don't really want to play with this power anymore."

Hazel helped me get up and I walked to the stairs. As I was about to enter the stairwell I heard Hazel call back out to me, "I'm really sorry Annabeth."

I wrapped my arms around myself and found my cabin. I crashed out onto my bunk and cried myself to sleep.