Hey everyone... please don't kill me! I know it's been years and I have no excuses to make because I won's bore you with those. I hope that you guys don't give up on this story, I will be getting back to it now, don't worry. I sincerely hope you guys can bear with me for longer and have patience for my chapters.

I thank all of those who encouraged me and motivated me to pick up where i left off with this story. Special thanks to 'Hero of Olympus in disguise', who knocked some courage back into me and made me realize people actually care for this story as did many of you who commented these last few years.

So without further ado, I give you the nest chapter, hope it's good.

Percy's Pov

Once I arrived at my cabin, I made a beeline straight towards my bunk and collapsed onto it. That immediately made searing pain flare up in my whole body, which immediately made me curse myself for forgetting that although I left Tartarus, it had definitely not left me. The pain was excruciating. I could feel every wound inflicted on my body, every pull of a scar, every bone that didn't heal correctly after being broken several times. I was extremely glad that when Hades rescued me, he had had the insight to at least give me clothes that weren't torn beyond repair and dirty, also long enough to cover up the majority of my wounds.

I heaved a sigh as I realized that I should probably get up and try to wrap and treat all the wounds that I could reach, and at least see the extent of the ones I couldn't. The memories of my time down there kept pushing at my consciousness, trying to get at me. That would have to wait until I sorted myself out properly.

As I pushed myself off the bed a sudden dizziness overcame me and I collapsed to the floor.

"Fuck!" I said. That hurt so bad, it isn't even funny. I attempted to get to my feet once more and this time I succeeded. I shuffled over to my amble bathroom and rooted through the cupboards underneath the sink for the medical kit I knew I had stashed there a long time ago.

"Aha!" Found it right where I left it, completely untouched by anyone. Guess they had the common sense to not go through my stuff at least.

I took all my clothes off with the exception of my underwear and turned towards my mirror to admire the damage done to me by none other than Kronos himself, plus a few dozen other titans and monsters trapped down there. I looked horrible. There was not an inch of my body that didn't have either a scar or a fresh wound made only a few hours ago. My torso was filled with burn marks, knife wounds, whip lashes and a couple of other things, including some writing in Greek which made it so my wounds couldn't be healed with ambrosia or my water powers. Meaning I would have long months ahead of me before I was healed up.

I gently started cleaning the wounds out with antiseptic, hissing and wincing every now and then. When everything I could reach was dealt with, and damn that took long, I began wrapping the worst ones with soft bandages, taking extra care to cover up all the wording so that someone didn't accidently see them if my shirt rode up. I miraculously had some ace bandage so that I could wrap my 3 broken ribs up, otherwise I would've had to go ask Chiron for some or even try to go out to the city, none of which I was too inclined to do, going to the city less so.

When I was finally finished wrapping up my wrists and ankles which were so badly wounded because of all the cuffs and ropes that were attached to them 24/7, I looked like a mummy. My face had some butterfly bandages on and my neck had bruising all around it from being choked, they would be the only things that everyone would see, as every other part of my body I would make sure to cover up at all times.

I threw all the bloodied gauzes away, dumped the towels in the wash basket and finally exited the bathroom, turning the lights off as I went. I went to my wardrobe to pull out a fresh pair of underwear, some soft trousers so that they didn't rub against my wounds and a long sleeved t-shirt that hung off my body. In fact, all my clothes hung off my body because of how horribly thin I was. I guess not being fed much or not at all had that effect on the body. I looked worse than Nico and he looked like one of the undead on a daily basis.

I carefully walked – limped- over to my bed and carefully lowered myself down onto it. I stretched out and laid over the covers with my head on the pillow. Gods it's been so long since I've laid on anything this soft. I fingered the bedspread and marvelled at the smoothness of it. I felt like I was floating on clouds. The harshness and unrelenting pain I had to undergo down there made me realise how much a soft bed and smooth covers could be taken for granted. I scoffed, of course there weren't any comfortable things there, it's meant to be hell, the deepest and darkest pit of hell, meant for the worst kind of monsters and for suffering. Where happiness didn't exist and even if it did it wouldn't be able to survive there for long. It had changed me, in more ways than one. I'm no longer the boy Annabeth called seaweed brain, nor the happy go lucky cousin out of all the Big Three children. I wonder if any of them could recognise me anymore, hell I wonder if any of them will even want to be near me and my broken spirit. My mom… oh gods what would my mom think if she saw me? If she saw the pain and emptiness in my eyes? She would be devastated, I couldn't do that to her, meaning she would have to stay away until I could learn to be around people again. She had Paul, she would be fine as long as she didn't actually see me.

I sighed again. I was hungry, starving actually, the last time they gave me anything to eat was 1 week ago, and even then it was barely enough to quell the aching in my stomach, which I was sure had shrunk to such a small size I wouldn't be able to eat anything solid for a while. I turned my head towards the window and saw that it was dark already. Wow had I laid here for so long that I didn't notice the day turn to night? That meant everyone was at the camp fire or still eating. Should I risk going out? I didn't want to see anyone… come to think of it no one wanted to see me, as it had been a while since I came in here and no one had come to look for me. Huh, guess I should have expected that…

Just as I thought that I heard a knock at the door.

"Percy? Are you in there? It's dinner time and we figured you'd be hungry… can we come in?" That was Thalia, she probably had Nico with her as well.

I sat up against the headboard before I called for them to come inside. They slowly opened the door and peeked in, it was dark as I hadn't turned the lights on before and it was probably hard to make me out on the bed.

"Hey Thals, Neeks, come in I won't bite. You can turn the light on if you want" I greeted.

They immediately zeroed in to the sound of my voice and nodded their heads. I saw Nico move towards the light switch before the room was flooded in bright light, brighter that I was expecting, which made me flinch and cover my eyes with my hands.

"Jeez, way to blind a guy." I grumbled.

They just laughed at me and I could hear two pairs of feet walking towards my bunk. When they were close they stopped and after a moment of hesitation I could feel my bed dip on my left, and then more walking and the bed dipping on my right. After I felt that I wouldn't go blind if I took my hands away, I lowered them to my lap and regarded the two people sat on my bed. One of the only ones I could count on to always have my back.

Nico have a small smile and Thalia pat my thigh gently.

"So, are you coming with us to dinner or not kelp head?" Thalia asked while nudging me gently.

"Yeah by the looks of it you could use some food in you, you're thinner than me!" Exclaimed Nico.

I gave a small chuckle at that, it was exactly what I thought when I put my clothes on.

"Yeah sorry, I guess room service in hell is not exactly up to par with my standards." I shrugged and smirked at Nico.

His face fell and I could tell he thought he'd somehow insulted me.

"Percy that's not what I-"

"Hey no worries, I know it's not what you meant, I was only joking." I cut off before he could apologise fully.

"Oh… ok" He nodded his head. He looked over at Thalia who just shrugged and stood up.

"Alright then, let's get this show on the road, one gourmet meal for Mr. High Standards." She said as she offered her hand for me to get off the bed.

I just shook my head.

"I'm not sure I want to go eat with everyone else… SHE might be there and I can't honestly stand the sight of that backstabbing bitch." Yep I went there. Old Percy never swore… new Percy however… had no qualms about it.

Nico looked wide-eyed at me and then Thalia, before settling on me again. Yeah he noticed.

"Uhm… yeah uh… well we can't stand the sight of her either but Percy you have to eat man, I can't imagine you ate anything decent in the last couple of days, never mind the last couple of months." Nico stated.

That was too true. I sighed and reluctantly threw my legs off the bed and slowly stood up, my hand on the wall for support. I groaned as the motion shifted my ribs and pulled at the cuts.

"Perce are you ok?" Thalia was there right in front of me, her hands ghosting over my body as if to check for damage. Which were of course hidden from sight.

"Yeah Thals, I'm fine, don't worry about it." I slowly limped towards the door, missing the glance exchanged between her and Nico. I turned back once I reached the doorway.

"So are you guys coming or what?" With that they both started following me out the door and towards the dinning pavilion. Well here goes nothing, I sarcastically thought.

So yeah that's it for now, I'll try to post more this week and if not next week. Please bear with me as I update quite infrequently but I do promise to update within a month.

Please review and tell me what you think, if i should continue and if you have any ideas.

Thanks!