The blue team's flag weakly fluttered in the breeze, still standing, as it was, on Zeus's Fist.
Still, it was moving more than Percy was. Some game of capture the flag this was.
Percy threw another rock against a tree, his third in a single minute. Beside him, Nico, Beckendorf, and the Stoll brothers looked varying shades of bored, just as he did. Thalia, his co-captain – though, in reality, she acted more like she was the only captain, having sidelined him as she did – was off somewhere in the forest with the main force, trying to track down where the Hunters had placed their flag. Elsewhere, Silena's smaller scout force was also in the forest, running interference for Thalia's group and trying to throw the Hunters off of Percy's defensive squad.
A rustle came from the forest to their left. All five heads snapped to it immediately. Through the clearing of the woods, Percy could see a glimpse of Silena and her two scouts running through the forest as they were being chased by the Hunters. Five, by his count.
Percy felt a little smile creep onto his face. That meant that Thalia's plan was working. They were drawing the Hunters' attention and splitting their forces. His smile dropped as he noticed another group of Hunters, a little way into the forest on their right, setting up a fortified position with bows at the ready. Not good.
But if five Hunters were chasing after Silena's group, and another group of Hunters were positioned to defend against Thalia, that meant… the flag itself was relatively undefended. Percy nodded to himself. There was a real opportunity here.
"Can you guys defend the flag?"
Beckendorf snorted as the Stolls nodded. "Yeah," came a chorus of voices.
"Stay here, Nico," Percy quickly said, rushing off toward the boundary line without waiting for a reply. Leaping over the creek that demarcated each group's territory, Percy felt the wave of adrenaline rush over him, invigorating his muscles and letting him run even faster. He could see it! A silvery, silky flag that waved in the breeze, and with only one guard!
The guard turned, hearing the sound of Percy's footsteps, but he crashed into her, causing her to yelp as she fell to the ground. Her hood fell off, revealing that it was Bianca.
"Sorry," Percy yelled behind him, grabbing the flag as he did so. Without sparing a glance back, he took off into the woods.
Behind him, he could hear Bianca yelling for help, but a grin still spread on his face. He was virtually homefre-
Percy tripped on a wire and found his face in the mud.
"Percy?" Thalia's voice floated beside him. "What are you doing here?" Her voice took on a hint of incredulity.
An arrow whizzed past them, sticking itself into a nearby tree before bursting into a puff of yellow smoke. It covered Thalia and her group, causing a cacophony of coughs to emit from the nauseous cloud's area.
"No fair!" Thalia said from inside the smoke, coughing as she did so.
Ignoring the cries of his teammates, Percy gathered himself to his feet and grabbed the flag as he ran off again. The creek was right there! In the distance, he could see Beckendorf and Nico running toward him. He couldn't fathom why they had left the flag to greet him, but then he saw Zoë Nightshade, Lieutenant of Artemis and leader of the Hunters' team, weaving through campers like nobody's business while carrying their flag.
"No!" Percy yelled, drawing his sword. A Hunter tried to stop him by swinging her dagger, but he parried and knocked her to the ground as he continued forward. He was only a mere two steps away from the creek when Zoë leaped over it. She slammed into Percy as she did so, knocking him to the ground and the Hunters' flag out of his hands.
The Hunters cheered as they and the campers gathered at the creek. Out of the woods, Chiron came out with the Stoll brothers on his back, both looking like they had taken a beating and one with a nice collection of arrows sticking out of his metal helmet.
"And the winners are the Hunters," Chiron announced, and then under his breath, "for the fifty-sixth time."
"Perseus Jackson!" Thalia roared, storming from the side to come face-to-face with Percy. She smelled of rotten eggs, but between that or the blue lightning flickering off of her and her Aegis shield, everyone else backed up because of the latter two reasons. Even Percy felt its foreboding aura, and he struggled to maintain his willpower and withstand it.
"What in the name of the gods were you thinking?" Thalia yelled. Percy balled up his fists, feeling himself become agitated as well.
"I saw an opening and I took it, Thalia!" He grabbed the Hunters' flag, which was soiled by the mud after falling out of Percy's grip. Closing the gap between them until their faces were inches apart, he yelled, "I got the flag!"
"I was already at their base! If you hadn't butted in, we would've won!"
"They were already ready for you!"
"So now this all my fault?"
"It's not like you would've made it."
"Agh!" Thalia yelled in frustration, pushing Percy as she did so. Her hands sparked and she blew him backwards into the creek. Around them, all of the campers had wide eyes, while some of the Hunters laughed.
"I'm sorry," Thalia gasped, her mouth agape. "I didn't mean to do that."
Percy slowly rose out of the water, feeling his heart rate double in raw anger even though he knew it was an accident. Summoning his powers, he pushed a deluge of water at the daughter of Zeus, drenching her from head to toe.
"Yeah," he spat, "I didn't mean that either."
Thalia stood there, breathing deeply in silence for a few seconds, before flicking some of her wet locks out of her face. Looking up at Percy, he could see her electric blue eyes dangerous flickering with lightning.
Chiron galloped forward, though still making sure to keep his distance from the two angry demigods. "Please, calm down, the both of you!"
They both ignored him.
"Do you want to go, Seaweed Brain?"
"Yeah, let's go, Pinecone Face!"
She raised her spear, which buzzed with electricity, just as Percy raised an arm and, accordingly, a column of water. Then Percy saw something past Thalia's shoulder that caused him to lose focus. Surprised, Thalia also lowered her own spear, turning to see what Percy was staring at before she gasped.
Hunters, campers, and Chiron alike all stared in shock as the Oracle of Delphi walked towards them, the mummy coming to a stop in front of Zoë.
In that moment, Percy knew whatever was coming next was going to be fundamentally important. For everything, and everyone.
Later
Percy sighed, his fist inches away from knocking on the wooden cabin door – his pride stopped his fist from moving those few, precious inches. Sure, he knew that he was mostly in the wrong during that game of capture the flag. He probably shouldn't have thrown their joint plan out of whack by going after the flag so brazenly, but even so, it felt uncomfortable for him to be the first to apologize. Still, if he didn't do it now, he knew he would regret it. There was no guarantee that they would see each other again. Such was a demigod's life in a dangerous world.
His fist tilted back for the n-th time, and he closed his eyes as he slowly rapped his knuckles against the polished bronze of the door to Zeus's cabin, deeply breathing as he mentally tried to prepare exactly what he was going to say.
The door swung open naught two seconds after he knocked, and he was greeted by the sight of Thalia, toothbrush in hand, dressed in nothing more than her pajamas, which, in this case, consisted of a pair of shorts and a loose t-shirt. Percy gaped for a few moments before regaining his mental faculties, blushing slightly as he viewed his friend's state of relative undress. He cleared his throat to begin speaking, but before he could utter the first syllable of his hastily prepared apology, his friend raised a single finger.
"Wait," Thalia mumbled, still holding her toothbrush near her mouth, "lemme swish this out." She motioned, with her free hand, for Percy to step in, quickly closing the bronze door after him and speed-walking to the adjacent bathroom. Percy glanced around the spacious cabin, specifically eyeing the traveling bag that was nearly packed to the brim with the essential demigod traveling materials.
He could hear her gargle out her mouth with water before she came back out, wiping her mouth with a towel. Tossing that aside onto her couch, she placed both of her hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at the son of Poseidon that was now standing in her de facto living room.
"So?" she questioned, her electric blue eyes staring straight at him.
"Well, uh," Percy began sheepishly, one hand instinctively going to scratch the back of his head as he withered under her intense look, "you know, about the game today…"
"I'm sorry," Percy finally said, deciding to cut to the punch of his apology rather than toeing around the topic. Thalia's eyebrow remained raised, but she shifted to cross her arms across her chest.
"I shouldn't gone against the plan like that, and I get that I'm the one that really started that fight, so I really wanted to say sorry before you left…" Percy trailed off, but his stricken, worried expression showed what Thalia knew he meant. Just in case I never get the chance to say sorry to you again.
Thalia's own expression softened, and she let her arms hang limply by her sides. Percy fidgeted in place, unable to read Thalia's new, if kinder, look. He wasn't sure whether he had been too forward, or perhaps had been too insincere in making his apology…
Percy stiffened when he felt smooth skin touch his own body, but relaxed and loosened when he registered the slightly messy and still damp black hair that was right under his mouth and nose. He could feel her hands reaching across his back, finding places to stay and grip as Thalia tightened her embrace around him. He leaned forward into the hug and found himself wrapping his own arms around her, each of them savoring the others warmth as they provided what they both needed most from their friends: security. A consistency that could only reassure and wash away their respective fears.
"Thanks, Percy," Thalia whispered, her face still close to Percy's chest, even as she pulled back ever so slightly. "I want you to know that I'm sorry as well. I overreacted," she chuckled, "at what was supposed to be a 'friendly' game. I don't know why I let it get that far, but I want you to know that I'd never willingly attack you."
Percy listened to her words, slowly nodding his head as he leaned back himself to stare into Thalia's electric blue eyes.
This was how their friendship worked. A mutual understanding of boundaries, of things that they would never do to one another, and that they would never hurt one another. That they would always help one another, to provide security, physical and emotional, and to encourage each other in times of need. In one another, they could confide pain and fears and fully expect the other to understand.
As he stood there, he faintly noticed that Thalia was slightly shivering. Touching her bare arm's skin, he felt how cold she was, and realized that she wasn't wearing much to protect from a cool breeze.
"Uh," Percy began, backing away slightly but still holding on loosely, "you should probably get something to wear. Or, I guess, go to bed. It's a little chilly tonight." Thalia nodded, a faint smile playing on her lips.
Percy made his way towards the closed bronze door of the Zeus' Cabin. Before opening it, he turned around and looked at his soon-to-leave, and possibly best (though he didn't know why he felt closer to Thalia in the past few months than he did Annabeth in the last two years), friend, wistfully smiling at their quickly approaching separation.
"Stay safe." Two words, but that was all Thalia needed to understand that Percy cared deeply about her wellbeing.
"Will do, Seaweed Brain," she replied, but this time, there was no hostility in her tone. Rather, she looked playful as she repeated the elementary insult from earlier that night. And this time, Percy felt considerably better with her using the nickname.
"You know, I still don't like that nickname," Percy responded, opening the door. As he stepped out, he could hear Thalia's laughter ring out – a pleasant sound, Percy decided, and one that he wouldn't mind hearing more in the future. He quickly glanced backwards, making contact with those lightning eyes of hers one last time before gently closing the bronze door.
Stepping out into the night, it was only a little chilly, with the season still warm, but a light breeze blew through the air, ruffling Percy's naturally unruly dark hair. Looking up at the moon, he could only hope that some god out there was listening to him. He had already lost Annabeth this week. He couldn't bare another loss.
Keep her safe. I don't care what you need to do. Just keep Thalia safe.
A/N: As far as divergences go, there are two major ones:
1. Thalia has been de-aged somewhat here, about 2 years – she's only a few months older than Percy post-pine tree. Still means she's the Child of Prophecy, so that'll be fun to talk about… in another 2 years' worth of in-fiction time.
2. This one is more or less shown (edit: now completely shown) in the intro, but Percy was the only person to see that Thalia had come out of the tree in this universe. That means that for a good half-hour or so, Percy is the only person she sees and interacts with as he carries her to the Big House/camp infirmary, so that changes Thalia's initial relationship with Percy (more trusting, etc.) compared to canon.
Revised: 3-15-18