Annabeth thinks Percy gone.
Percy wants her to hear him.
Jason wishes for peace.
|Chapter 7| Shes Scared, He's Angry, and That's Home
It had been such a nice day.
Full of laughs and joy. The sky was as blue as a robin's egg, the temperature not hot or cold, just perfectly pleasant.
But then Annabeth collapsed.
She crumpled to the floor in the middle of the hallway and started screaming like there was no tomorrow. She was shaking and convulsing, screaming for Percy. She begged him to stop and cried out for him. She was asking where he went, why he had left her.
Piper knew what it was, had seen it before, but this time it was so much worse. There had been no trigger, it had been as sudden as the start of a battle.
Piper fell to her knees and started desperately praying for Percy to come, to help Annabeth. She was crying because why, why did they deserve this. Since when was it normal for Annabeth to be torn down in just a split second, without any sort of preamble?
When had this become their reality?
The doors behind her burst open and Piper whipped around to see Percy running towards them. Gasps went up and people started to bow but he had one and only one focus: getting to Annabeth.
He pushed past the people surrounding her and fell to his knees next to her. His arms ran under her, lifting her up towards him. He brushed a stray curl of her face.
"I'm here Annie, I'm here. C'mon love I'm here. It's me, Percy." He soothed, brushing more hairs off her forehead. Annabeth's hand flew up and slapped his hand away. She started to wiggle out of his grip, so Percy held her tighter.
"NO!" She screamed, with tears rushing down her face. "Percy is dead! Don't lie to me!" She flailed again and managed to escape her boyfriend's grip, landing with a thud on the solid floor.
Percy scooped her into his arms again and started pleading to her, tears now running down his face as well. "Annie, it's me! Please listen, it's me! I'm not dead, I'm right here! I'm not lying, I'm here, I'm here!"
Annabeth's eyes rolled back into her head, and her screams stopped. Percy then started to beg her to wake up, just wake up. His hands probed her neck, looking for a pulse. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found a pulse but continued his begs for her to wake up. He was shaking and crying, desperately pleading to Annabeth's unhearing ears.
Piper had been so absorbed in the entire situation she hadn't noticed two more people enter the crowded hallway. But she did notice when Percy was lifted up from the floor by a pair of strong arms.
She turned to look, and there he was-Jason Grace. Despite the situation, she felt the heat rise up to her cheeks. Meanwhile, Jason was holding Percy back, trying to keep him away from Annabeth. Piper turned back to Annabeth, and saw to her complete and utter surprise, Apollo bent over her.
The God of the Sun's eyebrows were scrunched together and he was biting his lip. He was checking her pulse, her breathing, her body for any cuts or scrapes.
He sucked in a quick breath when he saw that ichor was pooling around her body. She had somehow managed to give herself a nasty gash across her cheek that was bleeding out quickly.
All the while, Percy was flailing against Jason. He started to kick Jason's shins, and curse out his cousin in a strange mix of English, Latin, Greek, and was that horse?
Somehow Percy escaped Jason's death grip. He rushed to Annabeth, pushed Apollo aside, and cradled Annabeth yet again. He started to cry for her to wake up, to show him her pretty eyes again.
Piper turned to Jason, and he looked just like how she probably did. Tears running down his cheeks, eyes bloodshot, hair a mess, and eyes displaying a hopeless that tugged at her heart. She sighed and said "Jason, electrocute him. He's gonna hurt someone at this rate." Jason nodded his head, eyes squeezed tight trying to stop the waterworks.
Apollo made his way over to the young immortals and said, "He's either gonna hurt himself, Annabeth, or one of the mortals here." He winced when Percy started just screaming, no words, just a long scream, one that was far drawn out for anyone's liking, and just absolutely horrible.
Jason spoke up for the first time "What happened to Annabeth?"
Apollo sighed and turned away running his hand through his hair. "Annabeth's brain, for lack of a better term, shut itself down. It was so overwhelmed by the flashback it had to literally make Annabeth pass out, so it would stop. She isn't probably going to wake up for a day or two, at least."
Jason bit his lip and walked behind his sobbing cousin. "Where?" He said, electricity on his fingertips.
Apollo glanced around, taking in the number of wide-eyed mortals that surrounded them, before replying in Greek. "The small of his back. It's where his old Achilles heel was. While he doesn't have it still, his body is still hypersensitive there. It's your best bet."
Jason nodded and held his fingers about an inch from where Percy's old Achilles heel once was. He quietly whispered, "I'm so so sorry." Then sent thousands upon thousands volts of electricity up Percy Jackson's back.
Percy shuddered, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed back into Jason, out cold. Jason looked down at his cousin and upon seeing him like that, pale with tears streaming down his scarred cheeks, a choked sound found its way out of his lips.
Apollo took Percy from his lap and started checking for injuries. He cursed when he saw the ichor staining the side of Percy's once-white shirt. He gingerly lifted his shirt to see that an old scar had reopened itself. Apollo summoned a vial of nectar and poured it over the wound, successfully reclosing it.
He stood and addressed Piper and Jason. "I need you two to get them to Camp as quickly as possible. When you get there, put them both on some painkillers, and sedate them if they wake up at all. I will join you two at camp soon, I just need to tell Athena and Poseidon what happened, if they don't already know."
"Wait!" Piper said. Apollo turned to her. "Who's going to tell Sally?" The three immortals shared an uneasy glance.
"I will." Apollo finally said. He walked out the door and disappeared in a brilliant flash of gold.
Jason moved to Percy the same time Piper did. He picked him up and walked out with Piper who was carrying Annabeth. Together they flashed away to Camp Half-Blood.
Jason paced, and paced, and paced. He was sure that if he continued for at least another minute the wood he stood on would become permanently dented. But he wasn't worried about that.
He ran his hand through his sweat-soaked hair and wiped the stubborn tears that threatened to spill.
A sudden inferno of anger overcame him and he turned around quickly. He punched the wall denting it. He put his forehead against the dent and let out a growl.
He stalked out of the overly sterile infirmary sending a glance to the door that behind it he knows his two friends lay motionless. He picked up his pace eventually entering the arena.
The young demigods in the arena gaped openly at the god. Jason made no acknowledgement of them, choosing to instead pull Ivlivs and attacking a straw dummy. The dummy was no longer a dummy, but it was all the things that dared attack these two perfect people. These two people who had been torn down so fast.
It was monsters.
It was rouge demigods.
It was the gods and goddesses.
It was the titans.
It was the primordials.
They had attacked his friends, dared to hurt them. And Jason Grace found that with every slash of his sword, something started to burn in him.
His tears blurred his vision. The world became a bloody red that burned and crackled, spread into every corner of his vision blinding him. This was rage, this was pain, this was anger. It throbbed in every joint, every muscle, every bone, every part of him.
He was so angry, so angry that these two people who deserved only peace had been given what they had.
Red.
Red streaks.
An inhuman growl.
He turned, he slashed.
He lost his footing. The red flew away, like a startled bird, and he saw everything again. He was on his back on the dust and gravel. The demigods around him looked at him with half horrified half awed looks.
The dummy was split into thousands of pieces. For a brief second he saw blood, so much blood, it was everywhere- but he shook his head and it was gone. Ivlivs was four feet away half-submerged in the dirt. His stomach hurt like hell, and he looked down to see it was badly cut.
He put his hand on his wound and got up. As soon as he got up to his feet, he collapsed back to his knees. He let out a groan and his vision swam with so many colours.
Red, blue, brown.
Blood, tears, dirt.
Hate, grief, and the ugly truth of the world.
He managed to stumble to his cabin, slammed the door, and cried.
The world was fuzzy, dull. Annabeth felt like a thousand weights were on her. She couldn't move, couldn't think. Her mind was like a muddled swirl of colours, movement, and sounds.
But soon, yet not soon enough for her impatient brain, awareness took over Annabeth Chase.
The first thing that came was feeling. She felt someone sit at her bedside for a moment, smoothing out her blankets and brushing hair off her forehead.
Then smell. She could smell many things. Ozone, the faint smell of a good perfume, the smell of hay. Sometimes it was grass, other times she would smell a strange mix of caramel and burnt embers. But the most prominent, the smell that stayed was salt. The sea.
The sea stayed by her side unfailingly, a strong and sure anchor. It was like the warm embrace of home.
Then she could hear. It came slowly, but it still was returned to her. She heard muttered conversations. She could hear the sea, who at this point she was certain was a person, singing softly to her, an unfamiliar lullaby.
She could hear him while he waited by her bedside. He spoke of stories, adventures. They seemed familiar. He spoke of monsters and explosions. Kisses and sparring matches.
He spoke of his love for her.
Then the sea left.
Her eyes flew open. She glanced wildly around, confused by the fuzzy shapes and bright lights. But the lights dulled, and the fuzzy shadows became shapes until she could tell that she was in the infirmary.
Memories slammed into her, one after another, a hail storm. She remembered collapsing, the violent flashback that had held her and refused to let go. She remembered a voice screaming for her.
Percy.
It was Percy.
The sea was Percy.
She looked around, he wasn't here. She whispered his name. Then spoke it, then again a little louder. She got louder and louder until she was screaming for him. Hot, sticky, tears streamed down her face.
Heavy and frantic footsteps could be heard outside her door until it was slammed open. There he stood, face white, hand gripping Riptides hilt. When his eyes landed on her though, he relaxed and rushed over to her.
He took her in his arms, lightly rocking her back and forth to subdue her crying. He rubbed circles on her back, and her tears subsided. He held her close to him, and she listened to the steady beat of his heart.
A whimper escaped her lips, and she started to shake in Percy's warm embrace. "Shhh, I got you. I'm here. It's okay." He whispered, clutching her that much tighter.
Slowly the cries shaking and whimpers stopped. Annabeth and Percy stayed there, wrapped in the other's arms until the sun started to set. After Will had cleared for her exit, the two set off on a lethargic pace towards the Poseidon Cabin.
Brilliant streaks of gold and red were painted in the sky as they walked. It was like a painting from Rachel, one that's impossibly peaceful while still having a hint of danger.
It was home.