Disclaimer: All rights belong to Rick Riordan. I take no credit, and I do not mean to break any copyright rules. This is simply a work of fiction made for enjoyment. No money is being made.

Rating: T for dark themes and violence

Author's Note: I hope this long chapter makes up for my tardiness. Between school and work, I hardly have any free time. Anyways, this is one of my favorite chapters, and I hope you love it too!

Chapter 9

After the kraken attack, the mood on the ship is darker, though not as dark as Annabeth had expected it to be. The funeral had been a solemn affair, the wrapped bodies disappearing into foam as soon as they had touched the water. Percy had stood on deck watching the spot where they had disappeared for longer than anyone else. Annabeth gets the feeling that he blames himself.

All told, nine sailors were lost. Not a terrible amount, considering the size of the threat, but the Pax already had a tiny crew. All the sailors, many of whom are still sporting injuries from the attack, have to take up extra chores. Annabeth finds herself floating around even more so than usual, taking up work wherever she can. Her hands, once soft and pampered, have become tough and calloused from the hard work. In the few weeks she's been aboard ship, she's also noticed new muscle growth in her legs, arms, abs - everywhere, basically. The high society ladies from her former life would be horrified, and for some reason that brings a smile to her face.

They sail through the Alboran Sea towards Italy. Percy says they're traveling to Sardinia to meet with an old friend of his who might have information about where the pearl disappeared. He's been quiet and reclusive since the kraken attack, expending all his energy on keeping the ship running. Now that Annabeth knows his true identity, he doesn't try to hide his powers. He stands at the bow of the ship and the vessel hums under his direction. Sails spread out and ropes tie themselves and even the wheel turns at his will. He could easily sail this ship by himself if it didn't take so much effort on his part. He tries to make up as much of the work of the nine perished by himself, and he's running himself ragged.

One morning he stumbles out of his cabin, his hair tousled and his eyes rimmed with red. He staggers to the bow of the ship to do his duties, but he trips and nearly falls, just barely catching himself on the side of the mast. Will intercepts him and guides him straight back to his cabin.

When Will emerges back on deck, Annabeth can't keep her curiosity contained anymore.

"What's going on with him?" she asks, her voice low.

"He has nightmares," Will replies, looking troubled. "Not regular nightmares - his are usually visions of the future, or things happening in other places in the present. He wakes up even more tired than before. The more stressed he is, the worse they are."

Annabeth thinks of the nightmare she had a few nights ago, with Luke and the evil Percy look-alike. She desperately hopes that it was just a dream.

"What has he been seeing?" she asks.

Will shrugs. "He won't tell me. Or Frank, either. Which means it's either so horrible that he doesn't want us to carry the burden, or it's personal."

"Could he be seeing his family?"

"Since the pearl is part of his father's weapon, it wouldn't surprise me. But if that was all it was, then I don't know why he wouldn't tell us. Percy's usually pretty open about what he dreams about."

"If his dreams are so bad, then why did you send him back to his cabin?"

Will sighs, and for a moment he looks years older. "Eventually he'll get so tired that he will sleep - and he'll probably sleep for a couple days. But even if he doesn't, it's not like I had a choice. He's running himself ragged. He can't even walk right now. Frank will keep everything running while he rests."

Annabeth wishes she knew what he was having nightmares about. She has an incessant need to know if he's seeing the same thing she did. She remembers the hungry look the evil not-Percy had, and a chill goes down her spine. She can't get the image of Luke holding Percy's sword in his hands out of her mind, either. Why does he have it? What did he do to get it?

Who did the funeral pyre belong to?

She has a sneaking suspicion she knows exactly who, but she doesn't want to accept it. If Percy saw that as well, no wonder he's isolating himself.

The Pax makes an overnight stop in Málaga, where Frank takes Annabeth ashore and shows her around. She's obsessed with the architecture and design of the old Muslim fortress overlooking the harbor and could spend an entire week examining every detail of the place, but the trip comes to an unfortunately all too soon end. Percy doesn't go more than fifteen paces from the ship, sitting on the beach and speaking with strange girls who walk out of the sea (Beckendorf explains to Annabeth that they're Nereids, sea nymphs). He only looks more troubled when the ship sets sail again.

"My father has gone silent," he says to Frank when the three of them are in the navigation room. "The spirits and gods think he's in one of his moods, but that's not it. If he was in a mood, there would be hurricanes and storms everywhere. Now he's just gone quiet."

"Like the sea before a tsunami," Annabeth says, and Percy's eyebrows pull together.

"Exactly," he murmurs, fiddling with the hilt of his sword. Frank watches him with concern.

"Do you think Neptune knows who stole his pearl?"

"If he did, he would tell me something. He would want me to retrieve it. No, my dad doesn't know anything."

"That's not good. Eventually he's going to find someone to blame and he's going to lash out." Annabeth avoids both of their eyes. "He'll go for someone he doesn't trust, someone powerful. Most likely they aren't the one who stole the pearl, or else they would have used it already. Instead his actions will just cause a war, and he'll be without his most powerful weapon."

"Di immortales," Percy mutters under his breath. "He's going to blame Zeus. Zeus feels constantly threatened by him, and they haven't been on the best of terms since Ares stole the master bolt and framed my dad. They were fighting for months before I finally retrieved it."

"Ares?" Annabeth feels a jolt of recognition at the name of the pirate who had captured her back at Chester. "Is that why he doesn't like you? Because you stole a powerful weapon from him?"

"No, he doesn't like me because I insulted him and made him look weak. The god of war doesn't take kindly to being beaten in combat by mortals."

Annabeth's eyes nearly bug out of her skull. "Captain Ares is the actual god of war?"

"Yeah, but he's also pretty lazy, which is why he isn't nearly as feared as he should be. He's also not very smart, as you probably noticed. That's how I beat him - I tricked him into fighting on my turf, where I have the power of Poseidon behind me."

"You beat the god of war in combat?"

Percy lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug. "I just stabbed his leg, but that was insult enough for him to give up. Now he hates me more than anyone. I'm surprised he didn't go after me on Tortuga. Maybe he's still intimidated."

Frank is watching Percy with wide eyes. He turns to Annabeth. "Percy has a bit of a respect problem, especially when it comes to egotistical gods," he says. "It's a problem."

Percy doesn't reply. Instead he stares down at the map in deep concentration.

"Sailing along the coast of Spain to the northern part of Sardinia would be the fastest route," he says, tracing his finger along. "But then we'd be sailing closer to the Balearic Islands than I'm comfortable with. But sailing along the coast of Africa would add a few days, and we can't afford to waste any time."

"What's wrong with the Balearic Islands?" Annabeth asks. She hates that she doesn't seem to know anything about the modern mythological world. After years of being the most educated girl in the room, it's frustrating to be the ignorant one.

This time it's Frank that answers. "There are a lot of monsters in that area. A lot of them got sick of the bare pickings in the Sea of Monsters because sailors stopped going there after the Argo's story became popular, so they left and migrated to other sailing hot spots. The Balearic Islands are one of those."

Annabeth vaguely remembers stories of Jason and Argonauts. Her father used to read her bedtime stories from the Odyssey before he died. She doesn't remember any particulars, though.

"It's a risk we'll have to take," Percy finally relents. He steps back from the table. "Let the crew know the plan. Tell them they're free to disembark at the next port. I don't want anyone sailing to their possible death unwillingly."

That comment should terrify Annabeth, but somehow she feels strangely unbothered. Since her close brush with death during the kraken attack, she's felt almost invulnerable. What can't she face if she survived a giant octopus with thousands of teeth?

It's an attitude that will probably get her killed, but that also doesn't seem to bother her too much in the moment.

A few days after setting sail from Málaga (where they had lost no sailors, despite Percy's announcement to the crew about the dangers ahead in the Balearic Islands), Percy finally collapses as Will had earlier predicted. Frank takes over the running of the ship, and though they had sailed far further and faster than realistically possible due to Percy working overtime, they are still just approaching the strait between the Spanish coastline and the smallest of the Balearic Islands.

Frank paces the ship all day, his eyes darting around, constantly on watch. Although he's more than competent as captain in his own right, Annabeth can tell he's on edge with Percy gone. Beckendorf installs some new defenses and never strays too far from Frank.

Annabeth knows from spending weeks with them that although Frank is the first mate, Beckendorf is Percy's right hand man. For one, Beckendorf has been with Percy for several more years. And although Beckendorf isn't a tactical or strategic leader like Percy or Frank, he's just as intelligent. He also possesses an easy-going and friendly personality that makes it impossible not to like him. Beckendorf doesn't just hold the ship together physically; he also holds the crew together.

While Beckendorf and Frank keep the ship protected from monsters and keep it moving towards Sardinia, Will works tirelessly from the infirmary. A minor stomach flu breaks out among the crew, and every day a couple sailors spend the night puking up their guts belowdecks. Luckily it's a fast-moving and relatively harmless virus that runs its course in twenty four hours and then disappears, but it's still yet another hindrance to their already understaffed crew.

Annabeth is just thinking that the virus has run its course when she begins to feel stomach pains and nausea one evening. She excuses herself before dinner to her cabin and lies in her hammock, sweating even though the outside temperature isn't as hot as it has been the last few days. She doesn't get it as bad as the other sailors have - she doesn't throw up, just feels poorly - so she counts herself as fortunate, but she still forces herself to sleep before she hears the dinner bells.

She wakes up early in the morning, feeling much better than the night before. She's considering trying to go back to sleep for a few hours when she hears a voice in the distance. She strains her ears and when she focuses, she can vaguely hear singing.

Her gut tells her to stay in the cabin, but there's a pull that grows stronger every second she listens. Before she realizes it, she's already climbing the ladder onto the top deck.

As her head pops up into the air, the voice becomes much clearer. She hears several voices, all singing in beautiful harmony. At first she doesn't understand the words, but slowly her ears adjust, and she begins walking across the deck of the ship, the story they're singing calling to her.

The words speak of her future. In her mind, she can see all her dreams coming true. They also sing of her, unraveling truths about herself that she had only known on a subconscious level.

Annabeth doesn't realize she's jumped off the ship until she hits the water. The water dampens the sound for a brief moment before her head breaks the surface and she begins paddling furiously towards the source of the music. She has to find these mysterious singers. They know everything; she has so many questions for them.

In the distance, she hears yelling, but she ignores it and focuses on her goal.

The dreams the singers speak of coming true aren't necessarily the dreams Annabeth had thought of, but when they suggest them, she finds her heart racing. She realizes that there are several paths her life might take - and she would be happy with how any of them turn out. She has options - but with those options come choices.

There's the safe path - the life she had known. The life she prepared herself for. Settling down, raising a family, living in luxury. There's the dangerous path - the life she's in now. One big adventure, never stopping in one place for longer than a few days, fighting for survival and reveling in the mystical. And there's a middle path: forging her own destiny, with pieces of both lives. But with whatever path she chooses, she'll have to make a decision; she'll have to sacrifice something.

No, Annabeth wants to argue. I don't want to sacrifice anything. There's a way to have it all. I can make a way to have it all.

She has to find these singers, to reason with them, to have them sing the song the way she wants it written. And she also needs more information than what they're giving her; these glimpses of the future aren't enough. If she's going to make a rational decision, then she needs all the facts and details. She has to find them and ask exactly what's going to happen.

As she gets closer, they reveal more. She begins to see her life if she takes the path her past has prepared her for. They're weaving a new beginning when suddenly Annabeth feels something clamp down around her ankle. She's pulled underwater, her connection to the singers dampened.

No! she wants to scream. Not yet! I haven't learned enough!

She thrashes and kicks, trying to fight off the force pulling her under. The voices are dimmed, the pull on her lessened but not broken. They've stopped singing about her future, but are now urging her to come. We'll tell you everything you want to know, they sing.

Her lungs contract and she has to take a breath. She sucks up water and pain like nothing she's ever felt before seizes her chest. She begins thrashing again, but now it's not to find the singers; it's to claw her way back up to the surface so that she can breathe again.

Black spots cover her vision, and she feels the fight begin to drain out of her.

Percy is the biggest, most incompetent idiot in the world.

First, he worked himself to the point of collapse. Every time he tried to sleep, he was plagued by terrible dreams of the world being covered in violent, raging storms and floods. He saw terrible sea monsters, ones who make the kraken look like a puppy, waking from thousand year slumbers and emerging from the darkest depths of the ocean. He saw entire countries wiped out by massive tsunamis. He saw the ocean floor covered in shipwrecks. He saw his father's palace in ruins - his father's palace, which he's never been invited to visit before. He saw Poseidon's trident snapped in half, floating among the wreckage.

As disturbing as those images are, he knows those are only nightmares, possible outcomes that are not yet decided. The worst dreams are the ones that he can feel are visions, like the kind Rachel sees.

He saw the Pax exploding in a wave of tell-tale green Greek fire. He saw Annabeth on a beach in a flowing dress, standing in front of a funeral pyre. He saw a dark ship emerging from behind the cover of a storm with a ghastly and cruel turtle figurehead, snapping jaws wide open. He saw the blond-haired man with a scar down his face that Annabeth had pointed out in Rachel's cave as her fiancé.

In between those terrible dreams, he saw images of the past - of his mother being strangled to death by the Minotaur; his best friend Grover tied up by his legs and dangling over a fire outside Polyphemus' cave in the Sea of Monsters; his brother Tyson fighting Polyphemus; a dark-haired girl with caramel skin and a silver circlet exhale for the last time before dissolving into the stars; and his crew members disappearing into the gaping maw of the kraken.

Percy has seen many people die. In this life of magic and myths, death is more common than old age and retirement. He doesn't forget any of them, though. Especially not the ones who he feels responsible for.

So Percy spent the last few days wearing himself out, not wanting to sleep but eventually having to close his eyes, even just for a few minutes. The nightmares tore through his unconsciousness and left him even more exhausted when he woke up, but he had to keep pushing forward. What else could he do? He used his powers to the max, speeding the Pax along her way. He made up for the slack of the nine crew members who died during the kraken attack - an attack he should have saw coming, he should have prevented - and more.

He had been hoping to get his crew safely past the Balearic Islands, but of course he had collapsed a couple days before. When he finally collapses, it's usually a few days before he wakes up. His mind just shuts down - no dreams, no nightmares, no visions, nothing. When he wakes up, his body has reset itself until the cycle eventually repeats.

Normally his crew lets him sleep until he wakes up himself, but today he's woken roughly by large hands grabbing his shoulders and shaking. Percy's eyes blearily open, and he struggles to sit up. Oddly, he can't hear anything. The person who had woken him - Frank - is trying to tell him something, but Percy is slow on the uptake. His mind is still fuzzy, and he reaches up his hand to his ears to try and find why he's deaf.

Frank grabs at his hands, and Percy realizes that Frank is wearing wax earplugs. Percy clenches his jaw and feels earplugs in his own ears. Realization dawns on him and he mouths, Sirens?

Frank nods, then urgently points to the door. He mouths something that Percy doesn't get at first. He tries a few more times, gesturing wildly, and then it clicks in Percy's mind.

Annabeth.

Percy doesn't think. He just jumps up and barges out of his cabin, sprinting across the deck and diving off the side. As soon as he's surrounded by salt water, his senses clear up and energy fills him. He uses the current to shoot himself towards the distant rocky shore, where the Sirens like to nest.

He can sense all the vibrations in the water, so he focuses on the biggest one. Annabeth is swimming quickly towards the shore, making much faster progress than Percy would have expected. To be honest, he wasn't even sure that she could swim in the first place.

She's already weaving in between the rocks, dangerously close to the shore. Percy has to be careful, and he still bumps against some boulders as he maneuvers quickly over to her. She's about to squeeze through a narrow opening between two rocks, so he reaches out and grabs her ankle, pulling her back towards him.

As soon as his fingers close around her, an image burns itself into his mind. He realizes he's seeing what she is.

Annabeth is sitting in a perfectly manicured garden in a beautiful gray and blue dress with lots of frills and a matching earrings and necklace set. Behind her is a sprawling mansion with stunning Greek columns, a Victorian door, and artfully designed windows. Two blond-haired children play with a middle-aged woman with brown hair and gray eyes who sits properly with her chin lifted, though her eyes shine brightly. At her side is a man with brown hair who smiles easily and lifts one of the children up, swinging him through the air like some sort of flying contraption. Annabeth herself watches the scene with a serene smile, holding hands with the blond-haired man with the scar. His bright blue eyes have crinkles around the edges as he smiles widely.

Percy has never heard the Sirens' song. He's heard that it reveals your greatest desires and also the deepest truths about yourself. He wonders if this is what Annabeth is hearing the Sirens sing about. For some reason, he feels disappointed. He can't picture the girl who has gotten her hands dirty with manual labor on his ship or who manipulated Ares into a bar fight so that she could escape or who can expertly wield a deadly dagger settling down and living a quiet, normal life as a proper high society lady.

That's when he makes his second huge mistake: he gets so caught up in what he sees that he forgets that Annabeth can't breathe underwater like he can. She continues thrashing against his hold, but he assumes it's her fighting him to get to the Sirens. It's only when she stops fighting that he realizes something is wrong.

He frantically creates an air bubble around them, pushing away the water. She chokes and her body goes limp. He frantically turns her around and touches his hand to her forehead, willing the water in her lungs to come out. Her mouth opens and she coughs, a small stream of water pouring out.

She coughs a few more times, sucking up deep breaths in between hacking. When she can finally breathe again, Percy realizes she's crying. At first he thinks it's just from all the coughing, but then she looks him in the eyes and almost looks pained. She sinks to the bottom of the bubble, buries her face in her knees, and sobs.

He's not sure what to do then. He can't exactly talk to her - he knows that even though they're underwater, she can still hear the Sirens. The water dampens their sound, takes the edge off their power, but their voices are still audible. Maybe that's why she's crying - whatever they're telling her, it's hitting straight to her soul.

Percy's suddenly glad the others had put earplugs in his ears. He already beats himself up enough; he doesn't need some Sirens reading his soul and laying it bare for him. If Annabeth, who's strong and unapologetic, is this affected, he doesn't want to imagine what it would be like for him.

He slowly moves the bubble away from the shore and towards the ship, which is slowly moving away from the island. The farther they move, the better Annabeth seems - at least, she stops sobbing and simply sits with her head buried in her legs. After about an hour, Annabeth raises a puffy face and nods at him. She wipes at her eyes while Percy moves their air bubble to the surface. Then he wraps an arm around her waist and uses a stream of water to rocket them back up onto the deck.

Frank, Beckendorf, and Will are all waiting anxiously on deck. They run over as soon as the water recedes, leaving a perfectly dry Percy and a soaking wet Annabeth. Percy removes his earplugs, and the others follow suit.

Annabeth keeps her face lowered, but her red-rimmed eyes are still apparent. Will grabs a blanket and wraps it around her shoulders while Frank and Beckendorf ask about what happened. Percy gives them an abridged version while Annabeth pulls the blanket tightly around her shoulders and then walks away, finding an abandoned part of the deck to sit down at and lean against the railing. Percy feels like he needs to talk to her, but he has no idea what to say.

Everyone always looks to him as a leader, but the truth is that he rarely ever knows what to do or say. His confidence comes in bursts of emotion - when he's high on adrenaline, he becomes cocky and witty and suave. Once that adrenaline rush fades, he's just an awkward guy who never had a normal life and doesn't know how to react to most things.

Luckily, Will saves him. "She's in shock," he says. "She'll be okay, but she probably needs some time alone to process what happened. Give her a few hours."

It's still early in the morning, the sun having risen while Percy and Annabeth were underwater. As much as Percy desperately wants to go over and talk to her, he defers to Will's judgement. The way Annabeth is staring blankly at the deck, occasionally wiping at her eyes, he can tell that the last thing she wants is someone to try and talk to her about it.

"What happened?" Percy asks Frank when they're well underway again, the crew out and working.

"She was feeling sick the night before - there was a stomach sickness going around the crew, and she must have gotten it - so she went to bed before dinner. We passed a ship coming the other direction who warned us about the Sirens up ahead, so we all got earplugs. We remembered to put some in your ears, but we forgot about Annabeth." Frank's ears turn red. "I'm really sorry, Percy. As soon as I saw her jump overboard, I realized I had made a huge mistake. It was my fault."

Percy can't be mad at Frank. Frank's one of the most pure-hearted guys he knows. Besides, if it's anyone's fault, it's his own. Percy should have been awake to guide his ship through the monster-infested waters. Percy should have been awake to remember to give Annabeth a pair of earplugs. Frank shouldn't have had to try and remember to do Percy's job as well as his own.

Percy spends the day catching up on everything he missed and checking up on all his crew members. Beckendorf gives him a tour of all the new weapons he added to the ship in preparation for the dangerous mission ahead of them.

"It's not your fault," Beckendorf says, laying one of his giant hands on Percy's shoulder. He always seems to be able to read straight through him.

"Then who's fault is it?"

"Nobody's. Some things just happen." Beckendorf turns to face him directly. "You're powerful, Percy, but you're not a god. And even if you were, you know better than anyone else how many mistakes gods make. What's important is that you saved her. Nobody was hurt."

"She doesn't want to be here," Percy blurts out. He knows it's wrong to share the personal image he saw when he touched her, but he can't keep anything from his closest friend. "She wants to be back home, with her fiancé and her parents. I saw it through her own eyes."

Beckendorf's dark eyes don't waver. "Do you honestly believe that?" he asks. "Does she look like someone who doesn't want to be here? She could have easily found a ship back to England when we stopped in Málaga, but she didn't even glance at any other ships. She's never once mentioned wanting to leave."

Percy remembers how she's sat on deck, staring blankly ahead all day, and he definitely thinks she looks like she wants to be anywhere but here right now. Beckendorf's words don't reassure him like they usually do.

"Talk to her," Beckendorf urges him. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that girls are impossible to figure out. If you want the truth, you have to ask."

Percy waits until dusk, when most of the sailors have retreated to the lower decks to play cards or grab a bite to eat or drink. Annabeth is still sitting on deck, her arms wrapped around her shoulders.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, feeling pretty dumb himself. He has no idea how to talk to her.

"I learned what my fatal flaw is today." She smiles humorlessly.

"What is it?"

"Hubris."

"Like that Greek chickpea paste? Ew."

She cracks a tiny smile. "Hubris, not hummus, Seaweed Brain. It's pride." She looks away. "I thought that if I could make it to the Sirens, I could ask them about my future. They hinted at a few different paths I could take, and I thought that if I could speak to them I could see how each path plays out. I like to make my decisions from a logical standpoint, but in order to do that I need all the information. But that's not how life works. You don't have all the information. You don't get to weigh all the pros and cons. You just have to take a leap of faith sometimes, follow your gut instincts."

"Please don't take any more leaps of faith off the side of the ship," Percy says, and her smile reappears, this time slightly wider than before.

"I'll try not to," she promises.

"So...was it worth it? Hearing the truth about yourself?"

She shrugs one shoulder. "I don't know. Honestly, I think I'm more confused than before."

"Annabeth...I - when I grabbed your ankle to pull you back, I saw something." Percy explains what he saw. Her brows sink together as she listens, but she doesn't interrupt him.

"I just thought you should know," he finishes lamely.

"I told you the Sirens showed me a few different possible futures," Annabeth says after a long moment of silence. "That was one. But it isn't entirely possible."

"Why not?"

"The middle-aged man by my mother...that was my father. My real father."

The one who died. Percy understands exactly how she feels. The perfect future will always be out of reach for them, because there's always going to be a hole in their hearts.

Annabeth stands. She glances around, then does something that completely surprises Percy: she wraps her arms around him and hugs him. He's too stunned to react at first, and it takes him a few seconds before he realizes he's supposed to reciprocate. He awkwardly sets his hands against her back.

"Thank you for saving me," Annabeth says before stepping back. "If you hadn't, none of the futures I saw would be possible."

She wraps the blankets around her shoulders more tightly and then walks away, crossing to the hatch that leads belowdecks. Percy is left standing on the deck, feeling as though there's a message between the lines of that last sentence, but not able to figure out what it is.

He's also left with a strange twisting feeling in his stomach and a slow realization that things have suddenly become a lot more complicated.