Chapter 4: Just Eat Your Pancakes!

Clara's Age: 10

Two figures, one of them Percy, dashed through the dark forest. They weaved among the creeping moonlit shadows, trying to hold their weapons low as not to reflect the moonlight. The fleet footed duo crunched few leaves and made little noise, but still their pursuers came.

The beasts seemed to be crawling out of the woodwork of darkness, emerging from the shadows and attacking violently before giving chase. The few times one was illuminated by the moon was enough to show the two that these beasts were like nothing they had ever seen before, and enough to make them not want to see one ever again.

The duo picked up their speed, but it seemed like their pursuers were moving like apparitions. They would step out of the shadows to the left and right, and occasionally just ahead of them. And that, with the crunching of sword on beastly flesh, was the only thing that assured the two of the realism of their attackers.

"Percy!" squealed a familiar voice. He whipped around to see his companion being lifted off her feet by a pair of the beasts. A knife fell from her now ghost-white hand as the monster squeezed her wrists impossibly tight. They stood still, heads cocked like curious dogs, gauging Percy's reaction for a moment, then began to withdrawal, still holding his companion, into the trees.

"NO!" yelled Percy, readying his sword and charging toward the intimidating monsters that were dragging his companion away. A thousand emotions shot like thunderbolts through Percy's mind, overwhelming his brain with a typhoon of jumbled thoughts. But all fear had left him in that moment, all trepidation gone. It all sorted out into one, simple directive. To destroy. He felt like he could destroy the beasts with his anger alone, in a whirlwind of furious rage. He could not, would not allow them to take her from him.

But he soon found his murderous path blocked by the rest of the beasts, their claws glistening and grotesque beaks dripping in the moonlight, ready to cover the retreat of the captors of Percy's companion. Had Percy been thinking straight, he might have made a hasty retreat. But now was not a time for thinking.

Percy raised his sword and dashed fearlessly into their midst. He was going to save her. That was the one thought paralyzing and controlling his synapses. Nothing could take her from him; not even these disgusting bird-lion-men. Nothing. Not after all these years.

The beasts did not stand a chance against his raw fury. The clash of sword against claw and the sickening sound of riptide puncturing their slimy flesh was music to his ears. He lost count of how many monsters he hacked, quite literally, to dust in his rage. Fifty? Sixty?

He was surrounded now, but he could care less. Nothing could be allowed to stand in his way. Nothing!

But soon the circle of beasts surrounding him slowly began to step back, their black forms seemingly melting right back into shadows from whence they came. He lunged desperately in every direction, at every silhouette in sight, but his sword only came up against solid bark.

"Come out and fight me, you cowards!" Percy screamed. "It's me you want, not her."

But the now empty forest could only answer with the feint echoes of his own voice, and the rustling of leaves in the wind. Percy collapsed to the ground dejectedly, his sword, now useless to him, left forgotten in the brush. It would come back. But she wouldn't. She couldn't.

As the startled insects resumed their nightly ensemble, he wept into his hands.

"Dad!" someone called. "Dad!"

Percy looked around. He recognized that voice. But it didn't fit with the scene. With the memory.

Percy's eyes shot open. Clara's pretty little round face hovered above him, looking concerned. She was shaking him. "Dad? Wake up dad! You're dreaming!"

He blinked. "What time is it?"

Clara glanced at her little watch. "Ten thirty."

Percy jerked up. "What? I should be at work!"

"I turned your alarm off last night, dad," Clara said. "And I phoned Martha and told her you wouldn't be coming in today."

"Why?" Percy asked, falling back dejectedly onto his pillow. The painful nightmare had depressed him too much for him to get mad at much of anything.

"Because I looked at the calendar last night. We missed father's day! I didn't do anything for you!" Clara exclaimed. "In fact, I was just coming upstairs to wake you up when I heard you yelling in your sleep. I've made you blueberry pancakes and heated up some maple syrup. Change into these," Clara said, shoving jeans and a t-shirt at him, "and come downstairs for breakfast."

Percy stared after his disappearing daughter in astonishment. Father's day… it hadn't even occurred to him. But depressed or not, how could he refuse blueberry pancakes? So he quickly changed out of his pajamas and into the clothes she had thrown at him- his favorite, it turned out- and trudged downstairs.

When he got down there, Clara was already seated at the table, smiling proudly. There were two little plates piled high with blueberry pancakes at the table, and a steaming pitcher of maple syrup in the middle.

Out of the blue, a memory resurfaced and struck Percy. An old memory. It paralyzed him on the spot, sending another wave of icy sorrow through him.

Clara peered concernedly at him over her pile of blueberry pancakes. He knew that look all too well. The, 'what's daddy always seem so sad about' look.'

"Dad," she asked slowly. "What's wrong?"

Percy walked slowly towards the table in a half-daze and sat down, still staring at the food sadly. But, as a single tear left its sorrowful trail town his right cheek, he didn't touch his silverware.

"Dad?" Clara asked concernedly, getting out of her chair and walking over towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder."Dad?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and opened him again, trying to reinforce the quaking emotional levies that were threatening to give way and release a flood of tears."Rem…remember that woman I told you about once," Percy said shakily.

Clara looked at him thoughtfully, recalling with perfect clarity that day more than five years ago. "The one who was your best friend, who you were in love with? The one who die- oh," Clara stopped abruptly.

Percy nodded. He couldn't stop the tears now. Several more streamed down from his watery eyes.

"Sh-she, An-Annabeth, used to do th-this for me," he stammered, completely losing control. "The mo-morning after a r-really b-bad day, or wh-when I wa-wasn't f-feeling well. I'd w-wake up to the smell of blu-blueberry pancakes and ma-maple syrup."

Clara had never seen her father break down like this before. She always could tell that there were some sad, painful emotions and memories that he was constantly masking and suppressing. But she tended to make a point of not prying. Now, it seemed, she had managed to unintentionally open his emotional floodgates, which, she presumed, had been left unlocked by whatever bad dream he had been having. And frankly, she had no idea what to do.

"D-dad," she said unsurely. "Dad, I'm sorry."

Percy sucked in a breath and tried to get a hold of himself for his daughter's sake. "It's alright."

Clara saw right through that lie. "No it's not."

"Yes, Clara, it is," Percy assured. "There's no way you could have known." Percy wiped the tears off his face. "Just promise me one thing."

"Hmm?"

"That you won't be going anywhere anytime soon."

Clara threw her arms around her father. "Of course not, dad. Don't be silly. I'm a very careful person." She pulled back and looked him in the face. Father and daughter's identical green eyes locked. "Now try to forget about everything and just eat your pancakes!"

Eh, not to proud of this one. It's code red air out today, so no practice this afternoon! As such, you all might be seeing a new chapter of one story of mine or another relatively soon.

Okay! This is now the edited version. I wasn't satisfied with the beginning of this chapter, so i changed it up a bit.