SLEEPING AT LAST – "SATURN"

I think I was at an airport or something when I was thinking of Percy and his most likely PTSD after Tartarus, and this is what came out. I didn't finished it then, but now it gave me an excuse to not do my lab report, so here we are.

"I'd give anything to hear, you say it one more time, that the universe was made, just to be seen by my eyes"

He couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the darkness reminded him of that pit and the agony of having to live through it. Sometimes Annabeth's presence next to him helped, but tonight, she wasn't with him. The sad truth was that as much as they helped each other heal their wounds, they also reminded each other of what they had been through. For the better part of eight days now, Percy was faced with the heartbreaking pain of choosing between seeing her and either being comforted or being triggered into a panic attack.

As much as he loved her, it hurt to be around her. He was being unfair he knew, expecting her to be the same as before, when he himself was only a shell of a man. But watching Annabeth shiver or snip and snarl at everything, only pushed him deeper still.

The argument that had resulted from that was vicious, and had left more than just the participants shaken.

Sitting up after an unsuccessful attempt at sleeping, he got out of bed and reached for Riptide. The weight of his loyal blade grounded him, pulling him towards the arenas.

…

THWACK!

There rolled the head, cleanly sliced off from the body.

Another strike. There were the disemboweled guts of a straw man.

It wasn't enough. No matter how much he stabbed and slashed, it never helped abate the darkness. Riptide would cut through the clouds for a second, a shining streak of bronze. But then they would gather back faster than before.

It wasn't long until Percy was panting, harder than he should have been. Taking shorter breaths than he should have been.

He tried blinking back the images. But the arena began to transform. He attacked a dummy viciously, face screwing up in determination, trying to fight back, but in vain.

Akhlys was laughing. Annabeth was crying his name. Bob was yelling for him, while Damasen tried to pull his sword out of the dragon's mouth.

And Percy? He was on the floor. Staring at them from behind an impenetrable curtain. It took him some time to realize he was under water. He was looking at them from the bottom of a lake. He pounded the surface, trying desperately to break free. Even under water, he could taste the sulphurous air on his tongue as it burned his mouth, along with something more metallic. Every breath he took his poisoned his lungs, as if the water itself had turned into acid.

He heard Akhlys whispering as if she were next to him, "You killed me using your father's powers. Here. See if they protect you now."

His lungs began to fill. He was drowning. No, he couldn't drown, he was the son of Poseidon. He choked and sputtered. But that only made it worse.

In front of him, Annabeth had gone blind again, and was desperately trying to call out to him through horrible coughing fits. She had her back turned to Damasen, and through his fading view, Percy saw Damasen yank his sword out from the Dragon and raise it against Annabeth.

Percy fought like a demon against the water then. He tried to control his breathing, but the water wouldn't let go of him. He had to get to Annabeth. He had to. He swung his sword left and right, trying to fight the element that had protected him all his life. His eyes streamed, and he cried his voice hoarse. He swung his sword with all his might against the water –

CLANG!

His sword hit metal. But he couldn't see where it came from.

The scene in front of him stilled. Annabeth had her face away from him, and Damasen still had his sword raised, so he hadn't stabbed her yet.

A low voice from somewhere near him said, "Percy it's not real. Look at me. It's not real."

Slowly, the mist from his eyes cleared, and he realized he was on his haunches. His throat was raw. Riptide was still gripped under his white knuckles, as if the blade could cure his visions.

"Get up." She ordered him. She didn't hold out a hand, so Percy braced himself against the ground and heaved himself to a standing position. He regarded her cautiously, still trying to figure out if she was actually there or not.

"Do you still have the energy to fight? Because we need those dummies for practice tomorrow."

Percy was weak, he needed a good night's rest. His face still stung under the tear tracks. He wiped his nose, and glimpsed a streak of red on the blue of his shirt.

He nodded.

Clarisse raised her sword and swung at him.

Percy parried the strike, and his senses sharpened. He experimentally stabbed at her stomach. She easily dodged that, and returned with a blow of her own.

Slowly, they picked up the pace. Percy went from autopilot to actually focusing on the fight. He noticed that in the time he had been missing, Clarisse had gotten better at the sword. Or he had gotten worse.

He also noticed that Clarisse wasn't really trying to fight him exactly. It was more like…leading him somewhere. He saw some mistakes in his technique that she could have taken advantage of, but she still let him move to the next position without taking the chance. Almost as if she were listening to him, to what his sword had to say, to what his tired body had to say. He had never heard of swordplay that was meant to be caring, and least of all, he didn't expect Clarisse to know it.

He let his body go, slowly, but surely. Getting into the flow of their blades. They picked up the pace further, but that only calmed him more. This was sword fighting, it was something he knew. He was in control. In that moment, he was a blur of bronze, pouring his frustrations out into his weapon.

And Clarisse let him. In that moment, he had never felt so rested.

But when the deadly dance took him towards the armoury, a draught of wind transported the smell of gun powder, and with it, Sulphur. His eyes darted to the torchlight bouncing off her sword, flickering against the beams and columns, creating shadows that hadn't been there a second before.

This time, there was nothing he could do. His mental shields had been down, and he had been too focused on Clarisse to notice the signs. The visions were brutal, as they were every time he thought he had finally evaded them.

He crumpled.

…

He found himself near the stairs of the arena, sitting up with his back propped against a pillar. He didn't remember what he had seen this time, and he definitely didn't remember losing consciousness.

"It's going to take time"

He was surprised to see Clarisse still there. She was sitting on the stairs next to him.

"What?"

"Your blackouts, your hallucinations. It's going to take some time to get better."

He stayed silent. Not ready to talk yet. Not ready to accept that he was not getting better, despite Chiron's healing and Grover's magic. And not ready to acknowledge how carefully Clarisse said "some time".

As if reading his mind, "Chiron's ambrosia only works temporarily, and only on the physical pain you feel. Unfortunately, the Greeks either never thought about healing the head, or they never lived long enough to experience PTSD."

"How do you know so much about this?" he asked, curious.

He had never expected Clarisse of all people to be sympathetic to trauma, especially not like the one he was experiencing. But if he was being honest with himself, he was grateful for her presence. Her familiar scowl surprisingly reminded him of life before Tartarus, and it comforted him. And he didn't think he was ready to be alone just yet.

Clarisse just sighed. "Ares is the god of war, right? You want to go conquer a land, fight a battle, you make sacrifices to Ares and hope he favors you enough to let you win. At least that's only how the Greek civilization chose to see Ares, and it stuck."

She paused.

"But over the years, Ares has come to represent all battles, all wars."

She looked at him knowingly, "including internal ones."

They were quiet after that, watching the sun rise over the Long Island Sound. 'It makes sense', thought Percy. Although he berated himself for letting his guard down, he had to admit that dueling with her had felt good. Better than he had felt in a long time.

Finally, he asked, "that sword fighting technique, where'd you learn that?"

"What are you talking about? I didn't have to learn anything, punk. I'm a daughter of Ares, sword fighting techniques are instinct to me."

But he saw the guarded look on her face; he knew that expression. He smiled lightly and conceded. Understood.

The dew on the strawberry fields glittered in the morning light. The Apollo cabin, naturally the first to wake up, began to stir, while the dryads in the forest softly greeted the earliest songbirds. Watching the life below him, he felt like he should have had some poetic internal dialogue about permanence and the transience of life. Or at least some epiphany prompted by the sun's rays through the clouds.

But in that moment, he simply reveled in the fact that there were beautiful things still left in the world, outside his head. Like the tugging of his heart at the sight of a familiar blonde head that emerged from the cabins below, and the warmth of a friendship, reaching out from the person seated next to him.

"How rare and beautiful it is, that we exist"

Thank you to any reader out there who stumbled upon this fic. It's the second time I've ever posted on here, so thank you if you made it this far. Review and rate, please! I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I guess it's time to start that lab report now...