Disclaimer: Not mine.

First, I became aware of the dark. I was floating, drifting. Lost. I tried to remember how I got here, but couldn't. I focused, and memories came to me. Strawberry fields. Seas. Satyrs. Grey eyes, blonde hair. Annabeth. She's Annabeth, and I'm Percy. Percy Jackson.

The name - my name - triggered the rest of my memories, and they flooded through me, all at once. Suddenly I was falling from the St Louis Arch, holding up the world, blowing up Mount St Helens, on Calypso's island, meeting Dad for the first time, talking to mom, seeing the Roman camp and travelling on the Argo II all at once.

And walking through Tartarus. The memory made me shudder as Annabeth's escape and my death came back to me in vivid detail, as though it was still happening, as though it would never stop happening. As the pain and trauma of the memory became too much, though, it disappeared. I felt a pulling sensation and suddenly, I wasn't in the dark anymore, but on a cold stone floor.

I felt my entire being reform on that floor, the agony of all my cells slotting back into their correct places making me writhe, my body automatically trying to scream but having no breath to do so. I'd never been in this amount of pain, never. I'd been hurt before, but only in one area, and I'd always healed quickly enough.

After an indeterminable amount of time, the torture stopped and I lay still for a moment, allowing my heartbeat to calm and my breathing to slow, relishing the cold air on my fevered skin.

Wait, heartbeat? I bolted upright, and flinched slightly as I remembered my last moments in Tartarus. I definitely didn't dream that. I studied myself a moment. I was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. My feet were bare, and I was reminded of my predicament when the chilly floor sent a shiver up my legs.

I looked around me wildly, fairly sure that something had gone wrong with my death; one, because come on, this was me we were talking about and if my life hadn't been easy then my death probably wouldn't either, and two, from what I remembered of the underworld, dead people could barely remember their lives, whereas I could remember parts of my life with far more detail than I was comfortable with. Also, I was pretty sure dead people didn't have heartbeats. But maybe I'm just being stereotypical?

"Percy Jackson." My name rung out in the small room, and I leaped to my feet to see three old ladies. They weren't sitting at a fruit stand this time, but they were still very recognisable. "Fates." I greeted as respectfully as I could manage. I really, really, really did not want to get on the bad side of these old ladies.

"Do you know why you are here?" They asked in unison in that creepy-lady way of theirs.

"Um ... no?" I tried.

"Do you know what your fate was to be?" Was to be? This wasn't good. If someone had changed fate without their permission then they would be very, very pissed off. I really don't want to insult them right now, I doubt they'd take it well.

I shook my head in answer to their question.

"Akhlys wasn't supposed to be in possession of the poison which no titan, giant or god could heal, and she most definitely wasn't supposed to use it on you. Bob and Damasen were meant to sacrifice themselves so that you and Annabeth could escape. You were supposed to live."

I snorted. "I guess that didn't quite go as planned."

"Quite." The lead fate deadpanned. "Which is quite problematic for us, given as you are still one of the seven."

"What?" I asked, disbelief colouring my tone. "How can I still be a part of it, when I'm dead? I thought someone else would just take my place or something?"

"Stupid boy, you cannot escape your fate so easily." The fate on the right snapped.

The fate on the left silenced the one on the right with a sharp look, and the middle fate spoke. "Normally, you would be replaced. Had you been any other of the Seven, that is exactly what we would have done."

"So ... why didn't you do that?" I had a really, really bad feeling about this.

"Because you alone in the Seven are irreplaceable. You actions alone decide the war. Without you, the center cannot hold."

I sighed. "What must I do?"

"Do you remember the last two lines of your first great prophecy?" The fate on the right started smirking, and given the fact that she's the one who seems to hate me, I wasn't going to like this conversation at all.

"A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze." I recited.

Amusement glinted in the fates eyes. "Yes, you would remember, wouldn't you? The choice mentioned in the prophecy was, in fact, two choices."

"Then why didn't the prophecy say so?" I questioned. Did I screw up the second choice and that's why I'm here?

"Since when have prophecies been clear?" I nodded once, in acknowledgement of that fact. "Also, it sounds better that way." The middle fate admitted. I snorted in amusement.

"So what was the second choice?" I asked.

"Your reward." I thought about that for a second. Yeah, I could see how them not promising to claim all their children would change things. "By choosing against immortality, you delayed the fall of the gods by several thousand years. The only reason for their fall then was their treatment of the peaceful titans."

I gritted my teeth at the reminder. Even after swearing on the river Styx, they still didn't free Calypso and the others.

"So why didn't they free Calypso and the others?" I asked.

"They swore to release them. They never swore when."

"Surely you could have made them?"

"Yes, but it was not our place. Besides, we saw no reason to force them to uphold an oath that you would have forced them to uphold after the giant war."

"Except I died."

"Yes. And that changed something else about the future had you survived."

"What?"

"If you had survived, at the end of the giant war you would have been given immortality alongside Annabeth and the rest of the Seven. Your continued existance would have reminded the gods of the price of arrogance and war, encouraging them to be kinder in general and more merciful when dishing out punishments."

"Okay. What did you mean when you said that I still am a part of the Seven? How am I supposed to help now that I'm dead?"

"We are not allowed to bring you back to life. Like the gods, we are governed by a set of rules, and that is one of them. However, there is something else we can do, something we control."

"And that is?" I got the feeling that we were finally coming to the reason that I am here.

The fates worked together, pulling up a sea-green string. I felt a shiver of apprehension as I looked at it. It was my string. I knew it in my bones.

"This," the fate on the right said sourly. "is where Tartarus put his fist through your spine." I shivered as her words brought back the memory in vivid detail. Judging by the smirk on her face - which really didn't go with all the wrinkles and grey hair - she said that on purpose.

I looked at where she was pointing and saw that my string was twisted there, twisted, frayed ... but not broken. I dragged my eyes up from the string that was hanging on by a thread to the fate on the right. "You didn't cut my string." It wasn't a question. She sneered at me.

"Forgive Atropos." The middle fate spoke. "She doesn't like you much. She came close to cutting your thread many times, but each time you escaped. And now she could cut your thread, only you weren't supposed to die, and to cut your thread would be to ruin all that we work for. Clotho, on the other hand, is quite fond of you, despite the fact that she did not spin you thread, nor I measure it."

"Huh?" I gaped at them. "How can that be?"

She - presumably Lachesis - frowned. "I do not know. Your string has existed since before we were born. Your fate was never in our control. The only thing we were to decide was your death sometime after the two wars, but the fact that you were also supposed to become immortal after the second war meant that we had no hand in your fate." The frown turned into a scowl. "Except Akhlys decided to mess with what she did not understand, and now we are stuck messing with a very, very old fate that was likely very, very old for a very, very good reason."

"Why was my fate created all that time ago?"

"I don't know. But I would guess that it was made so you could win the war. Though whoever created your fate must have know what would happen, which is ... difficult, because only a very powerful being could have known that."

"You don't know who created my thread?" I asked in disbelief.

"Unfortunately not. We did do some research but we never got any decent answers. However, there is something else you should be aware of. Over time, people's life threads touch, nothing to do with geography, and they pick up knowledge from each other. That is the cause for all those mortals harping on about reincarnation. They know things from other people, either about other people or places or skills."

"What does this have to do with me?"

"This happens to almost everyone at least once in their life. However, you don't have to be alive for this to happen, you just have to have a life thread. And your life thread has been around for a long, long time."

"So why aren't I super smart or something?"

"This gaining knowledge thing happens to almost everyone, yet very few actually notice. Most people have that knowledge, but dormant. It is likely that that is why you haven't noticed this."

"Okay, but if it's dormant then why are you telling me?"

"Because there is always a trigger. If you can find your trigger, then the knowledge that you have gained over thousands of years would be an extraordinary weapon. Now, we don't have a lot of time left. You need to go back to the mortal world and help your friends, save your camp, and win the war."

"How am I supposed to do that if I'm dead?"

"You'll figure it out. It is possible to interact with the living world, but it is different for everyone. For you, I suspect that emotion would be your friend."

"Okay, but if I'm not alive because you aren't allowed to bring me back, and I'm not dead because my string is intact, then what am I?"

"Inbetween worlds." The three Fates answered ominously and made a gesture, and suddenly, I was gone.

So, another chapter done. I hope you like the way I brought Percy back. This chapter explains a lot of what I am planning. I hope you liked it.

Till next time, Shib :)