The Boxer

Percy had never really thought too much as to mortals being a threat. After fighting Giants and Titan, a guy could grow accustomed to not really batting an eye at the simple New York mugger. Mortal dangers could be described as little more than an annoying fly buzzing in his ears.

That being said, it was likely high time he got his head out of the clouds—or at least the world of mythology that he seemed to be working a full-time job in. But Percy really couldn't have thought of a worse wakeup call than getting a bullet stuck inside of him and catching a vacation ticket straight to the nearest emergency room.

Nice going, Percy.


It was one of the bitter nights of December as he mapped his ways through the streets of New York City. His city. He knew every block and alley in Manhattan like the back of his palm. And he loved how even on the most distant street, he could still hear the sound of people and cars in Times Square.

Percy could have taken the terminal back to his mom and Paul's apartment, but the exhilaration, the breath of fresh air (well, as fresh as city air could be), of walking through his city—the one he helped save—was hard to beat.

A pizza box was clenched tightly in his hand as a sharp, whipping wind rattled through the alleys. It was half cheese and half meat-lovers, straight from Barzona's—one of the best pizzerias in existence (much to Percy's understanding). Despite how good the melted mozzarella tastes on the homemade flatbread crust, though, Percy doubted the pizza was engineered to withstand the chilly weather of the Big Apple.

His hot breath fanned out in front of him, visible in the cold air as he breathed out, and an involuntary shiver shook through his body as another gust of wind blew past him. Clearly Percy wasn't made for this type of weather either. He loved every aspect of his city, including the winters, but he really was struggling to ignore his thoughts of how nice a hot, sunny day at the beach sounded.

Let it be known his mother had offered to just order Pizza Hut—who did in fact offer doorstep delivery—but Percy had refused to settle for anything less than Barzona's, even if it meant a walk through a desolate dusk in the city.

It was a mistake to ignore his mother's suggestion to wear gloves—Percy was fairly sure his fingers were close to falling off. He did, however, follow her sound advice to wear a hat; she had shoved the handknitted blue beanie over his windblown black hair and red ears sternly. After that, he had just thrown on his fleece lined windbreaker over his hoodie and beelined straight for Barzonas's.

So here he was now, freezing his sorry ass off over a box of flatbread pizza. Call him stupid, call him dedicated, but Percy really wanted his family to get the good pizza.

Percy tugged his beanie down his head further and curled in on himself as he walked in attempts to cover as much open skin as possible. He was reminded of his quest to save Artemis and Annabeth and how it had been in the middle of winter as well. He had hated the quest and the cold so much so that to this day it was one of his least favorite ones (which should be concerning considering he had gone on so many quests in his lifetime that he was able to choose favorites). It might have been an objectfully unappealing quest from the start due to the fact that it was one of the few Percy had gone on without Annabeth, but he would also like to think that the frigid temperatures had something to do with his dislike.

Percy had just crossed the street to the next block on his way home when he heard a sound out of the ordinary. The telltale sound of a loud bang from a nearby alley immediately aroused suspicion to the forefront of his mind.

Monster, Percy thought.

He began to slip his hand into his pocket to grab Riptide whilst securing his pizza box in his other hand as he crept towards the alley. His fingers struggled to completely cling to his trusty pen-sword as he felt the sharp pinpricks of his numbed nerves. The cold would certainly take an edge off his usual fighting skill.

He froze for a moment when he heard a yell. It was panicked and scratchy and very much human. A demigod in need of help?

Percy rushed forwards and into the alley; all thoughts of staying inconspicuous were out the window when someone needed his help. Later on, though, he would berate himself for being so impulsive.

He was a second away from uncapping Riptide as he turned the corner of the alley and evaluated the scene before him.

There were no monsters and no young demigods. Instead, Percy found himself watching as a man in a black coat slammed another younger man against the wall. The younger man—who Percy now realized by seeing his wide eyes was only a few years older than him—screamed for help again as the older guy began to attempt to pull up his shirt.

"Hey!" Percy yelled, quickly getting over his surprise at the unexpected scene, "Get off of him!"

Both heads snapped in his direction, one face taking in the unannounced visitor with anger and the other with relief.

The man in the black coat sneered at Percy, his dirty and straggly beard making the demigod want to step back in repulsion. "I can do whatever I want to him, boy, he's all mine."

The younger boy against the wall shivered and let out a noise that could only be described as a whimper.

Percy dropped his beautiful box of Barzona-made flatbread pizza to the side and shoved Riptide back inside his windbreaker pocket. While he was nearly shaking with rage and disgust, he knew better than to uncap his sword in front of mortal eyes. Besides, he was plenty practiced in non-weapon combative scenarios.

He began to walk forwards, giving the man his best wolf-glare, "I said, get off of him."

But the man did not seem persuaded, instead pausing with a sigh before slamming the young man onto the alley ground and pulling something out of the pocket of his coat.

The poor guy on the ground let out a groan of pain, but Percy was too busy finding himself staring down the barrel of a gun only fifteen feet away. It took him a moment to realize that he had little experience ever fighting someone with a gun. No amount of training at camp could prepare him for how to dodge a bullet.

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear the first time, boy," the man turned off the safety with a click and lifted his finger on the trigger, "I told you that this one is mine. Now if you don't turn around, pick up your little pizza box and forget you were ever here, then I'll see to it that you never leave this alley breathing."

This would probably be the moment where most people would run out of the alley with their tails between their legs—that being said that they wouldn't have ran away earlier. But Percy had never had the chance to be like most people. If someone needed his help, then they would get it.

He raised his hands pacifically and calmly. "I'm not going to do that," he said as he took a step forward.

"HEY!" the man shouted as Percy moved. His yellowish eyes were wide and the gun in his hand shook. "Don't you dare take one more step closer or I'll blow your brains out!"

Percy froze at the gun leveled in front of him. What was he supposed to do? They seemed almost stuck at a stalemate with Percy refusing to leave, but also forbidden from moving forward.

The guy on the ground let out another whimper as the men hefted him up by the collar of his flannel. The man still had one hand pointing the gun at Percy as he lifted the fearful boy almost like he was just a bag of feathers.

"I'm going to back up slowly," the bearded man warned Percy, "and I don't want to even see a single pinky on you move."

And then he would leave and expect Percy to simply ignore the whole meeting.

Percy was conflicted as he watched the young man be dragged helplessly across the alley like a lion's next meal. He had to help him. He would help him.

It was in a split-second and after one of Percy's most impulsive decision-making choices of all time that he unfroze from his spot. He bolted at the man with his fists tightened and his eyes creating a blazing fire.

Then there was a BANG! and everyone froze.

The cruel man dropped the gun to the ground with clatter before releasing the collar of the boy he was dragging. Both of his hands were shaking.

He was looking at Percy in shock for a long moment and Percy just stared back.

Then the man turned on his heel and ran out of the alleyway before Percy even registered in his head that he was leaving.

"Oh my god," the poor guy on the ground whispered.

But Percy didn't hear him. Blood was pounding through his ears and every breath he took sounded like a bomb detonation.

He looked down slowly at the hole in his windbreaker. He didn't have to be a genius like Annabeth to know that there was also a hole in his hoodie and shirt too. The feeling of warm liquid running down his chest made him annoyed.

"Fuck," he mumbled to himself, "That was my favorite hoodie."

The next thing he knew, his head was hitting the ground of the alleyway with a hard thud. His chest exploded in pain, and he was barely aware of the yell that tore its way through his lips.

He was shot in the chest and now he was bleeding out on the ground of an alleyway. He could barely think through anything else around him except that simple fact and he found that he didn't have any energy to think much past that.

A voice was calling from above him and wide blue eyes swam in his vision. The young man's face was white as he shook Percy's shoulders.

"Stop…" Percy groaned as the shaking sent jolts of pain through his body. "Are you trying to make me bleed out faster?"

"I need to do something!" the dude argued, his brown hair falling in his face as he looked helplessly down at Percy.

Percy's first aid training from Camp started to kick in slowly. "Put… pressure," he managed to get out as breathing began to become harder to do.

His companion looked nervously down at the hole in his chest, "You want me to put pressure on it? And touch your blood? What if you have HIV or something?"

If Percy were more lucid, he probably would have rolled his eyes. He was almost offended by the man's questions. "I'm seventeen," he said, coughing slightly, "What do you think I'm doing? Living in a frat house?"

"Was that a rhetorical question?"

"Yes. Now please stop the bleeding before I die a virgin."

The man hesitated for another moment before taking his flannel off and balling it up as he pressed the fabric against Percy's wound.

It was only slightly less painful than a blowtorch to his stomach and Percy let the young man know that with a few very colorful choice words.

"I need to call for help."

Percy let out a groan of agreement.

"But I don't have my phone on me."

What a surprise. Because if the man actually had a phone with him then it would just be too convenient for Percy.

"Then… get one." His voice was very scratchy.

The young man nodded both of his heads—or at least Percy was pretty sure that he was seeing two of his heads. "Okay, yeah… I can do that, yeah…" he started to stand up. "I'll—I'll be right back."

Percy was faintly aware of the young man's footsteps echoing out of the alley. After that, though, everything seemed to be silent, save for his ragged breaths.

The city around him was still. There was no sound and no movement available for him to experience as the sun dipped below the skyline. All that stayed with him was the cold. The stupid fucking cold.

For the first time in his life, Percy felt claustrophobic in his city. He couldn't move—he seemed almost paralyzed from the pain—and the tall buildings around him looked almost like walls trying to surround him and close him in.

And just like that, the full gravity of Percy's situation seemed to fall on him. It collapsed on him and weighed down harder than the weight of the Titan's Curse. Percy was on the ground in the middle of a random alley all alone while he was bleeding out with a bullet in his chest.

In short: he was about to die alone, and nobody knew.

How many sleepless nights would his mother spend waiting for him to come home before somebody discovered his dead body in this alley? And his friends. They were all spending their winter break at Camp Half-Blood. How long would it take them to realize something was wrong when Percy wouldn't ever show up to visit Camp like he said he would?

Percy had also figured that he would go out fighting. But not like this. Maybe from a monster, but he had never thought that he would die because of a mortal. And he had never thought that he would die alone. Completely and utterly alone.

He closed his eyes, ignoring the wetness that seeped out of them. He was cold and tired and lonely. It all hurt worse than the bullet in his chest.

His last thoughts were of the box of Barzona pizza laying forgotten in the alleyway while the cold bit away at all of its warmth.


Let it be known that ERs were the busiest in the evenings. They were mostly dead in the mornings. Everyone was either too busy sleeping or getting breakfast to worry much about getting themselves injured. But after a nice long day for people to let their waters unsupervised while boiling in a pan? Well, things tended to boil over in waves.

Nicole was only a first-year resident surviving off of pure caffeine to get herself through her long twelve-hour shift. She was at the start of her shift and had just received duties to man the ER, but already she was swamped with patients. It was to be expected during a Friday night right before the holidays.

She was just about to check out the idiot that had tried to swallow five candy canes at once when she received a page for a patient about to come in on the ambulance.

"What's our status?" she asked her friend, David, who was already waiting for the ambulance outside.

"ETA is less than a minute." he answered, strapping on a pair of gloves.

David had been in the residential business two years longer than Nicole, but not much surprised her anymore after the long nights of her year spent in New York City.

The ambulance pulled in right in front of them still loud and blaring. The sun had just sunk below the massive skyscrapers, leaving the red and blue lights of the vehicle to dance alone.

The backdoors of the ambulance slammed open and immediately first responders were pouring out with a person on a gurney in tow. They lifted the gurney to the ground and began to wheel the patient towards the hospital doors as Nicole and David rushed to meet him.

"We've got ourselves a John Doe!" a woman from the responders yelled as she handed David the patient's information clipboard. She had to speak loud over the noise of the sirens. "The witness believes him to be seventeen. We found him bleeding out in an alley with a gunshot wound to the chest."

"Is the bullet still in him?" David asked the woman loudly while they took over in wheeling the patient.

"Yes. We believe it just missed the heart, but due to the extensive bleeding it may have punctured a major artery."

Nicole cursed under her breath as they pushed the poor teenager through the doors of the hospital. She had seen plenty of gruesome cases from her time in the city, but treating poor kids like this always hit a little closer to home with her when she knew she had her own little boy waiting up on her.

"Make way, people!" David shouted as they rolled the gurney through the halls of the ER bustle. He grabbed an intern by the arm as he passed them, "Get me an OR prepped pronto, Doctor Thomas!"

Nicole took a moment to look down at their John Doe as they rushed him to get prepped for surgery. He really was young. Barely even an adult. His black hair was tousled and wavy and Nicole could tell just by his sharp and refined features that he was handsome. With his looks, she doubted he had trouble finding himself a girlfriend or someone to date. What would they think now if they knew their boyfriend was covered in blood?

He's only in high school, she thought to herself sadly as she left the room in order to scrub in for the surgery. She refused to let a boy who hasn't even made it to graduation die on her hands. She refused to let a boy's last memories be of bleeding out all alone in a Manhattan alleyway.

Her John Doe would absolutely not die on her watch.


Sally Jackson sat on her stool by the window of her apartment. She held one hand against her pregnant stomach while her other hand held back the curtains of the window. Her forehead was wrinkled with concern and her usual bright blue eyes were instead flooded with worry.

"He was supposed to have been back over an hour ago." she told Paul. "What if something's wrong?"

Her husband walked over to her and massaged her shoulders lightly. "Percy's a pretty resilient kid, Sally, he knows what he's doing."

"Last time he went missing like this I didn't see him for almost a year." Her eyes gazed desperately out the window in hopes for a sign that her son was coming home.

"This isn't like last time," Paul reassured Sally. "And maybe Percy did get caught up with fighting a monster, but he's also saved the world twice and I know for a fact that he's dead set on us all having the good flatbread pizza."

His wife let out a weak laugh, "Yeah… he is."

"Maybe you should get some sleep, honey. It's not doing you or the baby any good waiting up like this and you know Percy wouldn't like you worrying. I'm sure come morning that Percy will have a box of cold pizza from Barzona's for all of us to eat."

Sally hesitated for a moment, knowing how much her weary body yearned to lie on a comfortable mattress. "One more hour," she promised.

"One more hour," Paul agreed.


Another shooting. Detective Hobb could not be any less thrilled.

"I don't get paid enough to keep missing my dinner for this shit." he grumbled as he turned the wheel of his car left onto the next street.

Beside him, sitting shotgun, his partner gave him a slightly less than elegant snort. "Surely in the Christmas spirit, aren't you, Chuck?"

Chuck Hobb gave the younger women a quick once over glare before switching his eyes back to the road. Her bright red hair was pinned in a bun and her personality was just far too jovial for a late Friday night. He never understood how the woman had even got into the detective business with her bright and bubbly personality, but he also knew better than to ask.

"I celebrate Hanukkah, Detective Green." he finally responded.

"Oh."

They sat in silence for the next few minutes as Hobb drove the two detectives to their crime scene: a trashy alley in Uptown Manhattan. It wouldn't be their first shooting rodeo by any means, not to say that at least half of their crime scenes were in alleyways, but Hobb found that the sights never stopped being gruesome.

"Do they have any names on the person that was shot?" Green asked him as they drew closer to their destination.

"Nope," Hobb shifted his car into park as their car came to a stop, "All I've heard is that we've got a twenty-three-year-old male witness being treated on site for shock."

"That's young," Green noted, unbuckling her seatbelt.

"They always are."

They stepped out of the car and closed the doors in unison. Immediately, cold air accosted them. Together, they walked towards the alleyway filled with flashing red and blue paramedic lights and bright yellow tape.

Hobb scanned the scene of the alley, taking note of the officer tying off the last piece of yellow tape to the wall of the alley and swallowing down the taste of bile in his mouth that he got from seeing the large pool of blood on the ground. In the mouth of the alley, he looked to see the ambulance. First responders surrounded a young man with brown hair that was wrapped around in a blanket. By his white face, it didn't take a genius to know that he was their witness.

An officer approached the two detectives. "None of the scene has been touched," they assured the pair, "but I can give you a clear shot to the weapon that was used right over there."

Hobb followed the officer's finger to a small firearm lying forgotten on the ground not far from the pool of blood. While they certainly might have something to tie the attack to, that still didn't give Hobb the guy they needed to catch.

"The witness say much?" he asked instead.

"Claims to have been assaulted by an older man. Graying hair and beard. Around his forties to fifties. Black coat."

"Him and the other half of New York," Green muttered to herself.

"It appears to have been an attempted sexual assault," the officer continued.

"Attempted?" Hobb questioned.

They nodded, "That when this guy comes into play." The officer gestures towards the pool of blood on the ground. Their John Doe. "According to our witness, the kid's his saving grace."

Green looked at the blood covering the scene in alarm, "Kid?"

"Witness claims the poor guy is only seventeen."

Hobb tried not to think about a highschooler probably currently lying in a hospital somewhere half-dead or already there. Sure, he hadn't expected the causality to have been so young, but that didn't change their involvement in the case. Though it was hard not to think about his own daughter who was the same age as the kid…

"You mean to say a seventeen-year-old saved this guy and stood up to someone with a gun on them?" Green was skeptical.

The officer shrugged, "Ask the witness yourself, but I don't think you'll be able to get much out of him. Paramedics say he's in shock. Poor guy. All I'm saying is he won't stop muttering about how he needs to be checked for STDs because he touched blood."

Green snorted.

Hobb ignored her. "We don't need the witness because the motive for why the kid got shot doesn't matter—it's the jackass that fired the gun that we need to find."

Hobb's partner looked hesitantly at him, "What about the kid? Don't we at least need to find a name? We need to inform his guardians that their kid could be dead or dying."

"We'll know his name when he wakes up."

Green caught his shoulder and looked him in the eyes sternly. It was moments like these that Hobb understood why she was such a great detective. Empathy was a strong skill when put to use. "Your kid is seventeen too, Hobb. How would you feel if your kid went missing for days? What if she had been shot in an alley and left to bleed out all alone on the ground?"

"I'd raise hell," Hobb admitted.

She raised an eyebrow as if to say See?

"Alright," Hobb conceded, "We'll find out who the kid is too—but only because it'll probably take the CSI department three damn days just to examine that firearm. With our luck, it's the only thing cluing us to who this goddamn asshole is."

"We do have great luck."

They snapped on a pair of plastic gloves and ducked under the yellow tape together. Another officer on the scene snapped photos of the evidence, placing a plastic yellow number next to each piece of the crime scene.

Hobb picked up the firearm next to the yellow marker labeled with a '1' and examined it for a moment before slipping it in a plastic baggie.

"We can have the CSIs confirm that the gun here matches the bullet they pull out of the victim's body," he told Green. "And I'll be the damnedest most fucking surprised man in New York if it doesn't."

"Damnedest?"

"Shut your mouth, Mary Poppins."

"I'll try my damnedest, sir."

He looked at his partner reproachingly. Damn upstaters.

"If the gun is a match," he maintained his last bit of dignity by continuing, "then we'll examine it and see if we can trace the firearm to any stores or sellers that could have something on our guy."

Green nodded in agreement, "Seems like the most reasonable approach. It's hard to get a decent hook on some of these hit and run guys."

His partner glanced around the crime scene, "What other evidence do we have?"

Hobb looked. There were two other yellow markers. The '2' was in the pool of blood that marked a clothing item. The '3' was next to a pizza box.

Green picked up the clothing item, holding it away from her body as blood dripped from it and onto the ground. She swallowed hard.

"It's handknitted," she told Hobb as she examined what looked to be a hat, "Someone made this—there's no tags."

She handed it over to him so he could put it in a plastic bag. It's blue, he thought offhandedly as he glanced over the beanie. He agreed with Green: it was handmade. But Chuck Hobb also had a seventeen-year-old daughter, so he knew that no one that age had any interest in knitting. Someone had given this hat to their John Doe. Someone who cares.

Hobb shook his head sadly. It never gets old. He'd seen it all, from rape victims to abandoned babies to dead children, but each case he took that involved a kid always seemed to take a piece of his soul no matter what. He'd probably have a dream of knitting grannies stabbing toddlers tonight.

Green had already moved on the marker '3' and was looking at the pizza box. "This kid has good taste," the corners of her lips twisted upwards, "Barzona's has to make some of the best flatbread pizza in uptown."

She opened the box. Hobbs saw that half of the pizza was cheese while the other half contained meat.

"It's a large," his partner noted, "Nobody buys a large unless they're planning on sharing."

Which means that John Doe probably had people waiting at home for him to bring dinner. Hobb could only imagine how worried those people must be now.

He glanced back at the pizza box. "This Barzona's," Hobb started, "Do they do delivery?"

Green shook her head, "Nope, only orders on site."

"So then they would have definitely seen our John Doe?"

"For sure."

Hobb smiled. And to think a bloody blue beanie and a pizza box had almost been his undoing. "Then it sounds like we have a lead on our John Doe. We'll keep tabs on the hospital for updates, but right now I think it's time we check out for the night."

"And tomorrow?" Green asked.

"Tomorrow, we make a stop for the city's finest flatbread pizza."


"He's in Hypovolemic Shock!" a doctor called as the machines around them began to beep uncontrollably. "He's lost too much blood!"

Nicole watched as her patient's systolic rates began to drop. They were losing him.

"Set up another IV in him," she ordered the intern beside her, "We need more blood in him right now!"

They rushed out of the room and Nicole watched as her patient's blood pressure began to heighten. His heart was desperately trying to pump out more blood faster to make up for what wasn't there. He was losing oxygen quickly from his blood loss and soon his heart wouldn't have enough to beat.

"He's about to go into heart failure." David spoke quietly next to her.

She shook her head desperately in disagreement. Her John Doe wasn't allowed to die on her. He'd barely even lived his life yet—nobody was supposed to die in high school before they've even decided what they want to be. Who they want to be.

Against all of her prayers, the line on the heart monitor went flat.

A long and resounding ringing filled her ears.


Percy was swimming in the River Styx again.

But this time there was no acid burning his skin.

Only numbness. A moment without pain and suffering that he had been dealt by the Fates his whole life.

Just numbness and swimming.


Annabeth Chase was many things. A demigod. An architect. A fighter. And even a surprisingly good square dancer.

That being said, she was not, however, a morning person.

If she had been a morning person, her mind would have been far sharper and more aware. She would have observed every square inch of her surroundings. And she most certainly would have not let Connor and Travis Stoll get one over on her.

If she was a morning person, she wouldn't have walked out of her cabin door without a second thought and she wouldn't have screamed like a child when a bucket of rubber spiders fell on her head.

More than half of the camp had turned their heads to stare at her, and those who were sleeping definitely weren't anymore (well, save for Hypnos's Cabin).

"I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!" she yelled at the Stolls. They were hiding in a bush while they had watched their prank unfold, but even Annabeth could spot them through her muddled morning reflexes. Most bushes didn't shake with laughter.

The Stolls for their part knew when it was time to run the moment they had seen Annabeth pull her drakon bone sword out. Then they were reminded that the daughter of Athena had faced multiple quests and wars, not to say that the very drakon bone sword had been stolen out of Tartarus—you know, the pit of eternal damnation—by Annabeth.

"We have made a terrible mistake," Connor told his brother in a very theatrical voice filled with dread.

Travis nodded just as dramatically as he tugged his brother out of the bush. "A terrible mistake," he agreed.

Poking a sleeping bear would have likely been the safer option. Nothing screamed terrifying more than a crazy strong demigoddess chasing after you through the camp with a glare that could make hellhounds run for their mommies.

It had taken the daughter of Athena several long minutes and a cold shower to cool down, but even by the time breakfast rolled around, she was still sending the Stolls fleeting glares from under the pavilion. They just flinched and shook with fear much to Annabeth's delight.

"You're going to give them PTSD," Grover muttered next to her.

"And they would deserve it." she responded decisively.

Across the table, Piper let out a small snort, but said nothing against Annabeth's words. The daughter of Aphrodite had no lost feelings with the Stolls after she had woken up one morning to her whole wardrobe dyed pink.

"I'm still not sure that I understand this," Frank admitted, stabbing at his eggs.

"Understand what?" Piper asked, "Annabeth's current burning hatred towards Connor and Travis Stoll?"

"No, that I get—I would be afraid to even say the s-word in front of Annabeth," Frank's brown eyes were wide at the thought of ever being the recipient of the demigoddess's death glare. Nobody spoke about spiders with her if they valued their lives. "I just don't understand why everyone keeps sending us dirty looks and why we're the only ones not sitting with our siblings."

Jason frowned beside Piper, "Chiron keeps giving me this look like I ran over his favorite CD-player."

"Ignore it," Annabeth warned him, "he's trying to make you feel bad for breaking the seating rules. He gave me that same look when I broke them a few years back and sat with Percy."

Grover smiled nostalgically, "Back in the good old days when Annabeth wouldn't dare talk back to the gods."

"What changed?" Hazel cocked her head to the side, finding it hard to imagine a time when the blonde would suck up to anyone—even the gods.

"Percy." Grover, Nico, and Annabeth responded in unison.

"Ah," Hazel knew the son of Poseidon well enough to know that in any situation, no matter how impending, Percy never failed to piss people off.

"I stopped acting all sweet to them when Her Very Pain in the Ass Majesty started sending cows after me," Annabeth admitted.

Piper choked on a bit of her orange juice, "Now that's evil."

"We already knew she was that."

The seven people all joined at the Hades table all nodded their heads in agreement, thinking back to the Queen of Olympus's master plan that had occurred only months before. They all held particularly bitter opinions of the Queen that started with missing boyfriends and ended with exploding warships.

"She makes me want to commit homicide," Annabeth muttered. "Or maybe even mass murder."

"Let's not kill anyone," Grover suggested, nudging Annabeth on the shoulder comfortingly. As a satyr, he knew all too well how tied up Annabeth's emotions were right now, and how much she needed a nice winter break with her friends.

It was good for all of them to get to spend time together. Everyone had left their schools for the holidays and even Frank and Hazel had managed to get away from their Roman duties for a week to spend some time away at Camp Half-Blood. They were all still healing from the war. That was to be expected. But they found it much easier to enjoy their time with each other when they weren't facing the possible end of the world.

Now all they needed was for Percy to come to Camp from his mom and Paul's.

"When did Percy say he was coming?" Hazel asked after swallowing a bite of her waffles. Her brain must've been on nearly the same wavelength as Annabeth's.

"Later today," Annabeth told the table. She was in desperate need for later to become sooner, not that she would admit it aloud. "He said he wanted to take some time with his mom before he came to Camp."

Grover nodded empathetically, "Gods know that everyone could use a Sally Jackson in their lives."

Sounds of agreement echoed through the table. Everyone there had met Percy's mom at some point and their opinions were unanimous in saying that the woman was a saint in disguise. Anyone who could smile so warmly and bake cookies so mouthwatering could not possibly be human.

"Maybe Percy will bring a batch of her cookies with him," Frank suggested, almost dreamily.

Jason shook his head in disagreement, "They wouldn't even make it to the car before Percy would eat them all."

"Touche."

A smile brushed over Piper's lips, but she also turned to Annabeth with a more serious look to her face. "How is he doing?" she asked the blonde with a certain hesitance to her words.

Annabeth understood the underlying meaning immediately even though it had been spoken of. It was likely that all of her friends had been dancing around the topic of the couple's recovery from Tartarus, but only so much could be left unsaid before the floodgates blew open.

Nico's eyes darkened as well across the table, and he shifted in his spot next to Hazel almost like a caged animal.

The whole table seemed to become rigid for a moment with no forks scraping against plates as their whole undivided attention rested on Annabeth. They would not move until the daughter of Athena allowed it to be so.

Annabeth let out a breath.

Everyone immediately relaxed once more.

"He's doing better," she answered finally. Everyone was back to eating their breakfast, but she would be failing her own heritage if she didn't notice how they all seemed to hang on to her every word.

Grover gave her a reassuring smile and Annabeth was reminded that everyone at the table cared for her and Percy. They had all saved each other's lives at one time or another, and that trust could go a long way.

"He's doing better," she repeated, softer this time, though. "He's been trying really hard in school to pass this year and make up on what he missed, but I know he's only really trying because of me. I can tell he's worried he won't be able to pass, though."

"He'll make it," Hazel said decidedly. "If Percy Jackson can fight a group of harpies without spilling his Starbucks, then he can make it through his senior year of high school."

Piper nodded in agreement, "The guy went to hell for you—there's no way he's going to let anything stop him from going to New Rome University with you next year either."

Annabeth sighed, looking down at her plate of hash browns. "That's what I'm afraid of," she admitted. "I don't want him to put all of his feelings to the side just to make sure that the Earth and the Moon stays together for me. I can tell he's tired."

"Tired?" Nico raised an eyebrow. Annabeth could tell that the son of Hades didn't like that word being described on Percy.

"Tired," Annabeth confirmed. She hated to admit it even to herself, but even when Percy wasn't drowning in schoolwork, he was still leveling an air of exhaustion with him. It worried her more than any scar could, because Percy Jackson didn't give up. Her boyfriend never got tired, and he never stopped fighting.

She was so afraid now more than ever that he would stop fighting.

"He'll be alright," Grover told her, "He just needs a nice long break and some time with his friends."

Piper agreed, "If I was as swamped in schoolwork as him, I'd be tired of everything too."

"Yeah…" Annabeth tried to ignore the bad taste in her mouth as she swallowed a hash brown. She knew her friends were right, and that Percy wasn't one to give up, but she also knew everyone had their breaking point. Despite all of his accomplishments, Percy was just as human as the rest of them.

Humans do pretty stupid things under pressure, and giving up was one of them.

Slowly, the conversation around the table began to mold into a different topic, but Annabeth couldn't quite keep her mind off Percy. She wanted him to be with her right now. She wanted to see him laugh and smile with the rest of them. She wanted both of them to be okay. To be together.

Grover leaned against Annabeth, brushing her shoulder with his. She looked at him and he smiled sadly. It had hurt him to know what the two of them had to go through without him and she could tell that he wanted to be there for them now.

Piper was snorting up her orange juice after Frank had turned into some animal, so now the whole table had developed into laughter. Most other tables in the pavilion were watching them in wonder. Some were even referring to them as the A-List Heroes. Younger campers had faces of awe.

Their breakfast was interrupted just then, though, when one of Annabeth's younger sisters came racing into the pavilion, carrying the sound of music with her.

"Annabeth!" Callie bounced, her gray eyes wide, "This thing started singing so Malcom told me to take it to you!"

Annabeth tried to ignore Chiron's chiding look as she instead focused on the fact that her phone was playing "Never Going to Give You Up," by Rick Astley for the whole pavilion to hear. Most demigods knew it was too dangerous to own a phone and most demigods that owned phones had never seen them start playing Rick Astley.

"Nice ringtone?" Piper tried, looking at Annabeth with slight confusion.

Annabeth shook her head in response to tell the daughter of Aphrodite that she had most certainly not chosen that song as her ringtone. Someone had Rick Rolled her.

Annabeth turned her head towards the Stolls with a raised eyebrow. They shook their heads so fervently that they looked like Bobble-Heads.

"Probably Percy," Annabeth decided.

She took her phone from her sister and turned on the screen to check the caller id. Annabeth had silenced any spam calls that she might receive, so it had to be someone she knew.

The table watched as the blonde's face immediately brightened at seeing her screen. "It's Sally," Annabeth explained to them, though at this point the whole pavilion was listening to the daughter of Athena. Apparently, Percy's mortal mother was calling her.

Annabeth clicked to accept the call and put the phone to her ear, "Hey, Sally, what's up?"

No one else could hear the audio of Sally Jackson speaking, but they could however watch as Annabeth's eyebrows dipped down and drew together in concern.

"No," Annabeth said slowly to the phone, "He's not here. He already told me that he wasn't coming to camp till later."

The table glanced at one another. The 'he' was obviously Percy, but why was Annabeth telling his mom that he wasn't at camp? Wasn't Percy supposed to be with his mom in New York?

Sally was talking again as Annabeth paused. The people sitting closer to the daughter of Athena were able to catch the look of horror that quickly flashed across the demigoddess's face.

Annabeth's eyes caught Grover's for a split second, but her expression was somber and unreadable. "When was the last time you saw him exactly?" she asked Sally over the phone. She spoke very calmly and collected…almost too much so.

Sally's response was short, but it only made Annabeth's forehead scrunch further.

By this time, many demigods in the pavilion were whispering amongst themselves and shooting each other worried glances. Chiron had left his seat and was already slowly progressing his way over to Annabeth.

Annabeth bit her lip. "Don't worry just yet, Sally. He probably just got held up with saving a sea creature. I'll be over there as soon as I can," she promised.

When she clicked her phone off, Annabeth immediately turned to Chiron. The whole pavilion was watching her with bated breaths. "Is there…anything I should know about?" she asked the centaur sternly.

Her boyfriend was apparently missing. Over Winter Break. Again.

She was two seconds away from storming Olympus if she needed to.

Chiron shook his head slowly, "I have neither heard nor known anything."

Annabeth narrowed her eyes at him, trying to pick out any lies or half-truths the centaur could be speaking. She trusted Chiron, but he was also bound in service to Olympus. If the gods forbid him from speaking, he will not speak.

She must've found no underlying meanings to Chiron's words, though, because her shoulders began to slowly untense as she let out a sigh. She would hold off on storming Olympus for now.

"Percy never came home last night," she admitted. She spoke mostly for Chiron and her friends sitting at Hades table, but everyone under the pavilion was sucking in breaths of surprise and widening their eyes.

"He's…missing?" Piper asked her friend tentatively. She had been with Annabeth the last winter Percy had first gone missing and the blonde had been a wreck to say the least.

Annabeth nodded solemnly, "He went out to pick up pizza for dinner in the evening, but Sally says he never came back."

"Monster?" Nico suggested, his expression grave. Everyone else at the table wore just as grim of faces. Percy was one of their closest friends.

"Maybe," Annabeth relented. Percy had spoken before of how he would occasionally have a small scrimmage with a monster on the subway or in the alley, but while he may have gotten home later than usual sporting a few new scratches, he had never gone radio silent for so long like this.

"I need to find him," Annabeth decided. She would not wait and hope that Percy got home safely while mulling over a million horrible possibilities. "Can you ask Argus if he can get a van ready for me to drive to the city?" she looked over at Chiron.

"And us," Grover intervened, motioning to the people sitting around her with expressions as equally determined as his own.

Annabeth gave them all a small nod of approval. The more help the better.

Chiron gave Annabeth a small smile, "Of course I will, my dear. We all just hope that he's okay."

And that's what Annabeth was worried about: that he wasn't. There was a small sinking feeling in her chest as she packed a small bag of cash and a knife to bring with her. She had nightmares before of receiving a call from Sally or someone else telling her that Percy was dead. It almost hurt worse than the dreams of him dying in front of her because at least then she got to say goodbye.

Now Annabeth was sure that she was living out her worst nightmare.


Hobb clicked his phone off with a sigh, rubbing his temples tiredly in the front seat of his car.

Green sipped on her coffee next to him with her feet kicked up and laying across his dashboard. "Was that the hospital?" she asked casually, forcing her voice not to sound too hopeful.

He nodded, "Our John Doe is still alive. But barely."

"Barely?"

"He went into Hypovolemic Shock." Hobb told her, "Apparently he flatlined four times."

"Hypo-what?"

"His heart didn't have enough blood to function and send oxygen to his brain."

"So, he flatlined four times?" Green kept her tone a steady level between incredulous and horror. "I didn't even know someone could survive something like that after that many times."

Hobb kept his eyes looking out the windshield, eyes focused on the bright flashing antique sign of Barzona's Pizza. "He still might not make it," he responded grimly, "We might be finding this kid's family just to tell them that he's dead."

"Listen to you, Chuck, you remind me of a bright and happy Christmas carol."

Hobb furrowed his brow at her, "You mean to compare me to those ridiculous songs that get shoved down my ear canal each December?"

Green sighed, swallowing a bit of her coffee before muttering, "You're absolutely no fun."

The other detective ignored her in favor of slipping a windbreaker over his clothing. If it was one thing he hated more than the holiday radio station, it was the goddamn cold. Hobb told his wife that the moment their kid moves out, the two of them are going south to Florida. Somewhere where the only bit of cold he'd be getting is the condensation on his beer can.

"Come on, Green," Hobb opened the door of his car, bracing himself for the cold morning air. The sun had only just arisen over the tall buildings of the city.

The woman stepped out of the car with him, shuddering in her knee length wool coat. "I'd take snow over this any day." she commented.

Hurriedly, they moved across the sidewalk by the street and pulled open the doors of Barzona's Pizza.

The bells on the door rang as a wall of warm air greeted them. There was an aroma of freshly baked dough and basil in the air. "That's more like it," Green sighed in relief.

A man at the counter of the pizzeria gave the pair of detectives a wide smile as he rolled a large ball of dough out with a rolling pin. "Welcome to Barzona's! What can I get for you?"

The store was a mostly empty antique. Pictures like white fluffy chefs' hats and men in black mustaches lined the walls. A few people sat in the red leather booths lining the wall, but it was unlikely for most pizzerias like this to be busy till later in the day.

As they strolled up to the counter, the fair-haired man pulled a pencil from his ear and a pad of paper from his pocket, prepared to take their order.

Green took a glance at the bolded menu hanging above the front counter. "Those garlic bread sticks look rather scrumptious," she spoke casually.

"We're here for questioning, Green, not for satisfying your hunger."

"Who's to say we can't do both?"

As usual, Hobb ignored her and continued to step up to the counter, "Good morning to you, sir."

The man behind the counter smiled, his light-haired beard and mustache almost hiding his bright white teeth. "And yours too, I hope!" His eyes were so warm, they could probably melt the icicles hanging outside.

"I'm Detective Hobb," he held out a hand which the man shook with his own flour-covered hand, "And beside me is my partner Detective Green." Green gave the man a warm smile.

The man looked mildly nervous at the sight of two detectives in front of him, but he still gave them both a welcoming nod, nonetheless. "John Cohen," he introduced himself, "What can I do for you two on this fine morning?"

"We're looking for a name, John," Hobb cut to the chase, "Someone we think ordered pizza from you last night."

John frowned, "Has there been trouble in the neighborhood, Detective?"

"A shooting," he told the man, "We're trying to identify the young man that was shot. A pizza box of yours was nearby him, so we're hoping you could look in your orders from last night to give us a name."

"A shooting you say?" John looked rightfully spooked, "Lord, that's horrible."

"Yes," Green agreed impatiently, "But is there any way we could look in your books from last night for a name?"

John frowned, "I'm sorry ma'am, but our business doesn't deal with names. Orders are by number and we're plastic free so everything I get is cash."

Hobb cursed under his breath. "Of course you do. Is there any chance at all you might remember him from last night?"

The pizza man looked doubtful, "Maybe…"

"He probably ordered it late in the evening. A large half pepperoni and half meat-lovers. He's around seventeen years old and has black hair."

John looked lost as he scanned through his own memories as he thought of anyone that could've matched the detective's description from the night before. "Black hair…" he muttered to himself, desperately trying to think of any teenagers with dark hair that he could remember ordering from last night.

"I'm sorry," the man told the two detectives with a sigh, sensing their disappointment, "It's just so busy in the evening with rush hour…I don't think I even remember half of the people's faces I take orders for, and his order isn't exactly anything rare."

Hobb nodded, disappointed but unsurprised, "Thank you for your time, John. If you learn anything new, just be sure to call or take a trip down to the precinct. Just ask for either Detective Hobb or Green."

John nodded, eyes shone with sympathy, "I'm sorry I couldn't be more of a help."

Green waved her hand, "Just keep making that pizza, John, god knows it does wonders for my stomach."

For his part, Hobb huffed, half dragging Green away from the fair-haired man and the stupid dough aroma pizzeria.

"That was useless," he grumbled to her, slamming the doors of the shut to get away from the cold biting his ass. "What kind of pizza place doesn't take plastic in this day and age? We could've at least found a way to track the cards used."

"He's a teenager," Green pointed out, "Likeliness is that he would use cash anyways."

"Why'd this damn kid have to be brave enough to get shot?" Hobb grumbled to himself. He was annoyed at the kid, though, and increasingly more annoyed at the bastard who shot him.

The witness had been interviewed earlier in the morning and Hobb had watched the tape. The young man was still rightfully traumatized, but he'd claimed without a doubt that the kid was his saving grace.

But Hobb had a kid of his own and she was supposed to be at home right now enjoying her winter break. Just since when did these kids think that they could go running around and saving the world?


He was tired of fighting against the currents. What was the point when all they were going to do is drag him down?

He was just so tired of everything.

Of every fight. Of every war. Of every person he had let down.

He was a boxer by trade. He had fought in the ring his entire life. It seemed to be written in his very DNA that he was a fighter.

But he was also just so tired.


Nicole watched as a nurse fixed the IVs on her John Doe from the doorway. She had other patients besides him, but the resident couldn't bring herself to stop thinking of the poor teenager that was clinging onto a pulse.

When he first went into heart failure during the surgery, the surgical team was quick to shock his heart back into movement. After that, they added more and more blood and liquids to his body in attempts to save all of what he had lost. Still, though, his heart failed three more times, and after each time, Nicole feared that the line on his heart monitor would fail to rise.

But the surgery was successful. Her John Doe's valve had been pierced by the bullet, so the doctors quickly worked to crack open his sternum and repair the valve by his heart before the leakage proved fatal. It was a risky move since he had already lost so much blood. Perform open heart surgery while her patient was already going into hypovolemic shock or let her John Doe go and chance him dying from internal bleeding.

John Doe's vital signs were now low, but thankfully stable.

Nicole wasn't worried about the teen flatlining again, though.

His heart was safe, but the resident was afraid she had only stalled the inevitable. She left her patient suspended in the air, frozen in time, during his imminent freefall. His valve was fixed, but had the damage already been done?

With the loss of blood he had during surgery, the teenager's body naturally focused on pumping blood through his heart and to his brain to continue to feed it the oxygen it needs to work and keep his body alive. John Doe had also gone into heart failure multiple times when the brain wasn't receiving that oxygen.

David knocked on the doorframe next to Nicole, bringing her out of her reverie to notice that the nurse had left the room. The only sounds in the room were the beeps of machines and the clicking of the ventilator as the tube pushed oxygen into their John Doe's lungs.

"We talked to the detective on the shooting case earlier," the older doctor mentioned casually, watching Nicole curiously.

"Anything new?" she found herself asking.

He shook his head, "No clues on the shooter. They're trying to identify our guy's name, but thus far they've had no luck."

"He could have a family out there worried about him and we don't even know if he'll live."

David crossed his arms, "This isn't the first nameless patient you've treated."

Nicole turned to him. His face was mostly unreadable, but she could sense his judgment. How he was looking for her weakness.

She moved away from him and into the room. "This is the first nameless kid I've had to treat," she spoke sharply.

He followed her as she went to watch the unconscious boy. His creamy white bed covers were halfway over his chest, his arms above them with IVs sticking into them at either side of his body. Liquids and medicines had been pumped into his body, causing the teen's swollen face to almost melt into the pillows like pouring water on clay. A large tube went in his open mouth, traveling down his throat and there were two large scars on his chest covered in white bandages.

Despite how unattractive and vulnerable the kid looked now, though, Nicole could just tell from the boy's defined muscle and jawline that he was a complete heartstopper.

"He has a lot of scar tissue," David broke the silence, "Some doctors are speculating that the kid's in a gang."

"And you?"

The older doctor shrugged, "I think there's a number of reasons he could have that much scar tissue. Maybe this isn't his first trip to the hospital, perhaps. Car crashes aren't uncommon. Either way some of those had definitely hurt like hell. This kid's a fighter alright."

Nicole hadn't really known what to think of the scars she saw on the teens body when they had prepped him for surgery. She didn't have time to truly process the trails of white lines that fissured through his torso. Now, she was just left sick knowing those lines she had seen were on a kid.

"Do you think he'll make it?" she asked, staring at her John Doe's face.

Somewhere in this lifeless body she had cut open, there was a person.

"He's been through the ringer," David responded empathetically, "Right now, the kid's running on machines. If his brain activity doesn't pick up soon…"

"Then he might never wake up."


The Styx waters crested over his head.

He found that he wasn't afraid of drowning for once.

Because he was ready to leave. He was leaving.


"Are we sure that we shouldn't just call the police?"

"No!" Most of the demigods responded in unison.

Paul quickly dropped his hand that was in the air, prepared to dial 9-1-1 on his phone. "Nevermind, then," he said as all of the half-bloods stared at him with wide eyes.

"Sorry, Paul," Annabeth said, leaning against the kitchen counter agitatedly, "But chances are, Percy has himself involved in something mythology related, and we don't want the police investigating that."

He swallowed hesitantly, putting down his phone and glancing at the door down the hall from the living room and kitchen. When Annabeth and the other demigods (and satyrs) had gotten to their apartment, the daughter of Athena had taken Sally Jackson by the arm and half-dragged her back to bed.

Despite Paul's best efforts, his wife had gotten little to no sleep the night before from waiting up on her son to return home. Luckily, Annabeth had immediately taken notice of Sally's ragged appearance, and performed her daughter of Athena magic to convince Sally that getting sleep would be the best option for both Percy and her unborn child.

"So what should we do, then?" Paul asked his stepson's girlfriend.

Annabeth pursed her lips, wheels of her brain turning. She tapped her fingers on the marble kitchen counter, glancing at the group of demigods and satyr strewn across the Jackson's living room couches. "You need to stay with Sally, Paul," the demigods told him, "And make sure she doesn't stress herself too much."

Annabeth turned to her audience in the living room and addressed them, "We need to travel the exact same way Percy went to Barzona's Pizza and look for any clues of monster attacks or something out of the ordinary. It's possible he got jumped and needs aid in defeating a monster.

"Grover," the satyr perked up from his cushions at the sound of his name, "I'll need your nose so that we can trail Percy's scent."

He gave Annabeth a thumbs up.

"And Piper," the daughter of Aphrodite waved her hand at Annabeth in response, "We could use your charmspeak."

"Think there might've been someone watching?" Piper smirked, splaying her head across one of the couch's armrests. Annabeth wanted her to question a mortal.

The daughter of Athena shrugged, "With Percy's luck, there always is."

"Words have never sung truer," Nico muttered, "Percy's luck is about as helpful as a dog whistle."

The others nodded in agreement.

Frank looked over at Annabeth, "I don't suppose turning into an iguana will be useful?"

She shook her head, looking to the other demigods as well, "Sorry, guys, but four's a crowd; we don't need to bring any attention to ourselves by leading a whole montage of teenagers down the streets of New York."

Piper and Grover began to move to slip their coats on as Annabeth zipped her own up her chest.

"So what do you want us to do?" Jason asked, indicating to himself and the others left behind on the couches.

"Watch over the apartment just in case," Annabeth responded, "And be ready to answer the call if we need help."

"You'll IM us?"

She nodded.

Annabeth's eyes shifted over to Paul's just before she left the apartment with Piper and Grover. Her gray eyes were hard and fierce as they met his own. "I'll find him," she promised, and Paul was suddenly struck with a severe case of deja vu as he remembered hearing those same words last winter. They filled him with both hope and agony.

"I know you will," he told her, watching as the three friends left the apartment.

Annabeth led the way down the hall and out of the small building, only allowing Grover to come in front of her when they came on the streets and needed to know which way Percy went.

"His smell is definitely old," Grover commented, needing to stop every minute or so to check to see that Percy's demigod scent was still there, "It's for sure from yesterday. Most of the time I would have already lost after a few hours, but luckily, Percy has one of the strongest and most distinct scents coming from a half-blood."

"I always tell him he needs to shower more often," Annabeth commented casually.

Piper snorted before turning to Grover, "What does his scent smell like?" she asked curiously.

"Like the ocean. A strong breeze of salty air whipping you in the face. Sometimes I think I'm on a beach when I just stand next to him."

Piper whistled appreciatively, "That's a lot for just one nose. What about us? What do Annabeth and I smell like?"

Grover looked thoughtful, though he kept his attention on the street ahead of him. "Well, Annabeth's changes sometimes, I suppose," he said, "Sometimes she gives off that musky scent of old books or fresh ink, but other times, she smells like sparks of metal scratching against metal."

"The different aspects of Athena," Piper guessed, "Both the strategy and the war."

Grover nodded, "There was one time when she was weaving that I was positive Annabeth smelled distinctly like a Micheal's Arts and Craft Store."

Piper snickered and Annabeth rolled her eyes.

Grover turned left at the corner of the street; they must've already walked nearly fifteen blocks.

"And me? What do I smell like?" Piper asked him again.

The satyr tapped the wisps of red hair hanging off his chin. "Rose petals, I think," he answered.

Piper wrinkled her nose, "Rose petals?"

"It's way better than what most daughters of Aphrodite smell like," Grover added quickly, "Most of their scents smell horrendous and clog up my nose with strong perfume fragrances and soap. Yours is different. More natural like a field of wildflowers. Less domestic."

The daughter of Aphrodite frowned, thinking over Grover's words. "I suppose that's not so bad," she said finally.

"Don't worry, Piper," Annabeth spoke. She had been mostly busy scanning each alley and street they passed for any sign of Percy, but decided to add her own two-sense to the conversation. "I've heard that most children of Ares either smell like sweat or warthogs, so you could do far worse."

"I'm not sure if it's even their demigod scent or if that's just what they smell like," Grover admitted, shaking his head sadly. "It's a wonder everyone in a mile radius of their cabin doesn't pass out dead from the smell."

"I refuse to die as dishonorably as that." Annabeth spoke adamantly.

"Oh, really?" Piper turned to her blonde friend, "So how would you prefer to—Grover?!"

The satyr had come to a dead stop in front of Piper, causing the daughter of Aphrodite to nearly trip over his hoofs.

Annabeth and Piper both turned to see what had caught their friend's attention.

The flashing lights of Barzona's Pizza were lit up across the street.


John was busy during lunchtime. There was a long line of orders to take and pizza's fresh out of the oven ready to be handed out to impatient customers.

"Seventy-eight!" he called out, setting a large pineapple pizza and a box of garlic bread on the counter. A frizzy haired woman dragging two children along with her went to grab it.

He returned to the front counter, dodging another employee heading from the kitchens. "Welcome to Barzona's! What can I get for you?" he spoke almost automatically towards his next customers.

"We're actually here to ask you a question or two." a sweet feminine voice responded, stopping John from grabbing his paper pad from his pocket. The voice almost hypnotized him, enthralling his mind before he even looked at the woman.

"What?" John looked at the source of the voice, seeing a young girl with bright eyes watching him.

The girl leaned over the counter, closer to him, her choppy brown hair falling over her shoulders. Behind her, a blonde haired girl and boy in a rasta hat watched. "Did you see anything suspicious happen here last night?" the girl asked him.

Something about the girl's voice compelled John to answer, even though he was sure he should be alarmed by such a strange question. "No," John told her, "I never saw anything suspicious happen last night."

The girl frowned. She didn't like his answer. "Are you sure?" she folded her arms, "What about a boy my age? Did you see anyone ordering from you with black hair and green eyes? He's seventeen years old."

"I don't know," John wanted to be confused, but he felt as if he had to answer this girl truthfully. "It was very busy last night; it's hard to remember anyone's face during rush hour."

"Are you sure? His name's Percy Jackson."

John shook his head, almost disappointed at himself that he couldn't answer the girl's questions. "We do orders by number. No names. If he was here, I wouldn't have taken his name."

There was a line behind the three teenagers growing. Everyone was hungry for pizza for lunch.

The three teens turned to leave, but the blonde girl pushed forward, her gray eyes seeming to look into John's soul, "Please, do you know anything?"

"I…" John was so confused, and he was about to tell this girl that she was backing up his line. They were teenagers; they were probably trying to track down someone's cheating boyfriend. "This isn't the first time I've been asked these questions…" John realized, no longer ready to turn the teenagers away.

"What?" the blonde girl looked ready to interrogate him with a knife, "Someone else is looking for Percy?"

"I, uh, two detectives from this morning were looking for a seventeen-year-old with black hair. They, well, I don't think they seemed to know his name, though."

Her gray eyes flashed, "What were their names? Why are they looking for him?"

John scoped his memory from this morning desperately. This was more than a teenager problem; this was a missing person problem. "Detectives Hobb and Green," he recalled, "The man, Hobb, told me to call or go down to the precinct if I found a name…"

"Why do they need a name? Did they mention the case?"

Her eyes made him nervous. "There was a, uh, shooting, ma'am."

The blonde haired girl froze. Her friends turned to each other with wide eyes.

"What?"

John could only imagine how horrible it would be to hear someone you cared about being involved in something as despicable as a shooting. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he apologized, "they didn't give me many details, but it seemed like they were looking for his name. I'm sure the police will be able to tell you what happened."

The gray eyed girl glanced at John, barely seeming to register his words as she gave him one last once-over look before rushing out of the pizzeria with her friends in tow.

The bell at the door rang loudly in their absence.


There was nothing.

Nothing.

He was floating.

He could stay here forever and sleep, only a single strand of sting keeping him from drowning.


Everything around Annabeth was white noise. One moment, she was calling for a taxi, the next she, Piper, and Grover were standing outside of a police station.

A shooting.

Was Percy hurt? Was he in trouble?

While Annabeth had automatically assumed the worst when she had first heard that Percy was missing, she had completely disregarded any mortal variables. A monster attack or a godly intervention were her first assumptions, but never in her wildest thoughts had she even considered that the mythological world might have nothing to do with Percy's disappearance.

A wrench had been thrown at Annabeth's gears, completely interrupting her coping process. A monster attack she had been ready for. Not this. Never this.

She shoved past people, her glare mostly parting any crowds as she walked across the street and into the precinct, Piper and Grover worriedly trailing her.

Part of her brain registered the officers trying to stop her as she marched up to the precinct's front desk, but she ignored them.

"Where the hell are Detective Hobb and Green?" she demanded to a man at the front desk.

He spluttered, "I—uh…"

"Listen," Annabeth aggressively grabbed his collar, "My boyfriend is missing, and I want to know why the fuck they want his name!"

"Ma'am!"

There were people pulling her away from the man she was interrogating. Someone was grabbing her by the arm, so she threw an elbow at their face.

"Annabeth!" Piper called using charmspeak, "Calm down!"

The daughter of Athena froze momentarily, long enough for the officers in the station to pull her off of the man she was holding by the collar.

"You alright, Green?" a man's voice asked from beside Annabeth.

The woman she had elbowed in the face had her nose pinched in attempts to staunch the bleeding. "I'll be fine," the woman told him.

Annabeth whipped her head to face the woman, ignoring the officers attempting to restrain her. "You," she addressed the woman, "You're Green. What do you want with my boyfriend?"

The woman looked taken aback, "What?"

"The pizza guy said you were asking about him. That you said he was involved in a shooting."

Green's face immediately morphed into understanding as she realized why Annabeth was so upset. Her boyfriend. Their John Doe. "My partner and I wanted your boyfriend's name so that we could contact his family," she explained.

"Do you know where he is?" Annabeth asked the redhead desperately, "What happened?"

Green motioned for the officers around them to let Annabeth go. "Maybe it's best we discuss this somewhere private," the detective spoke grimly.


Everything after that was numb.

Grover was hugging Annabeth and Piper had gone to the precinct's restroom to Iris Message Jason.

It just didn't make sense. They were demigods. They got injured because of fighting monsters and went to the camp infirmary. They didn't get wounded from random mortals and go to hospitals.

How could Percy, the two-time Savior of Olympus, get hurt by the hands of a mortal?

Chiron warned them multiple times that godly weapons didn't work on mortals, but that both mortal and godly metals could injure demigods. There were multiple times Annabeth had seen their swords and metals phase right through mortals, but after all the quests and life-dangering adventures she's been put through, she had forgotten that mortals were even a threat to them.

And yet it seemed that it was a mortal who had left Percy in an alleyway to die alone.

Annabeth was torn between worry and rage. All she wanted was to know that Percy would be okay, but there was a small part of her boiling as strong as water over a fire at the thought of the disgusting disgrace of a human that shot him. How dare he? How dare he shoot Percy and leave her boyfriend to bleed out in the middle of the night in an abandoned alley?

Grover was taking her somewhere. Her feet were dragging underneath herself as they stepped down a staircase. He held onto her arm tightly, pulling her into the daylight and leading her across the street and into a car.

There were voices and murmurs around her, but none of them seemed important enough to listen to.

There was only one person important to Annabeth right now.

She rested her head against the window, trusting Grover to get her to Percy. He would understand that the only person she needed to see right now was Percy. And he was Percy's best friend as well.

Annabeth looked over at the satyr for a moment. His eyes were glassy, and a few tears trailed down his cheeks.

She touched her own cheeks. Dry.

A part of her barely even understood what was going on. Had she been detached from the mortal world for so long that she had no idea how to react to these sorts of situations? She was sure it wasn't a common occurrence for someone you know to get shot, but maybe these kinds of things weren't as unthinkable to mortals as they were for Annabeth.

He flatlined multiple times, Detective Green had informed them, He's in a coma now.

Will he be okay? Annabeth had asked, because that was all that really mattered to her. The idea of her boyfriend having been clinically dead for that many times without Annabeth knowing was disturbing. It stirred unease deep inside of her, but she felt comfort in knowing that this was hardly Percy's first close brush with death. All she needed to know was that he would be okay.

The older man, Detective Hobb, had responded with a somber face. The doctors aren't sure if he'll ever wake up.

That was when Annabeth's brain officially broke. Had Percy been with her, he would probably laugh about how he was the reason why she couldn't even think.

It wasn't that Annabeth was surprised that Percy was injured. When Sally had called her this morning to tell her that he was missing, Annabeth knew there was a high chance that her boyfriend was probably hurt. But Annabeth had been imagining maybe a painful cut down his leg that left him unable to walk for help. She was not expecting to hear that her boyfriend was unconscious lying in a hospital bed. And she was definitely not expecting to hear someone tell her that Percy might die.

It didn't make any sense. Even her nightmares of Percy dying didn't happen like this.

Annabeth hated how little she had mentally prepared for mortal situations like this. She hated how she wasn't even sure she was ready to see Percy lying defenselessly on a hospital bed.

Grover clung to her arm with a tighter grip as he began to pull her out of the car again.

Annabeth had only just registered that the buildings around her were no longer moving as she tripped over the curb of a sidewalk.

Somewhere inside the building with white tiled floor she was walking on, more people joined her. Sally joined Annabeth at her other side, clinging to her arm harder than Grover.

Someone was asking for her ID and another person was handing her a sticker to put on her chest.

A woman in green scrubs took them to an elevator, talking to the group of people with her by using her warm and comforting voice. Her voice went over Annabeth's head like white noise, though.

The nurse took them through halls with white walls and beautiful pictures and paintings displaying the city. Only one other person in scrubs passed them through the hall. Everything was quiet.

Sally and Grover pulled Annabeth along with them to a pair of doors requesting identification.

Briefly, over all of the white noise surrounding her, Annabeth could hear raised voices of an argument that the nurse shushed. Later, Annabeth would learn that her friends were unhappy that only three people were allowed to visit an ICU patient at a time.

"Come on, dear," Sally murmured to Annabeth as Grover drew his arm from her.

The nurse opened the door with a key card and Sally, Paul, and Annabeth all walked forwards.

"Only family members are allowed." the nurse stopped them with a look at Annabeth.

Sally looked at the nurse sharply, "She is family."

After a moment of hesitation, the nurse stepped back and a warmth flared in Annabeth's chest for Sally Jackson.

The hall down the ICU was quiet, with only the small mutterings of patients and doctors. There were few people sitting along a counter in an open room they passed, clicking at their computers, but everything around them was very dialed down. Just small beeps of machinery and the squeak of a chair swiveling.

"Here he is," the nurse said, pushing open a door of a hospital room.

Annabeth saw a pair of feet on the hospital bed wearing bright yellow socks. Barely aware of her movements or the ones of those around her, Annabeth slowly treaded towards the person.

He was in a blue hospital gown—Percy's favorite color—and lightweight white sheets were halfway up his chest, which was wrapped in white bandages. It seemed that IVs sprouted from every inch of his body, connecting to different machines and bags of liquid. His face was pudgy and swollen, as if he had been stung by a bee on the head. He was all white and pale, looking unhealthy with a lining of sweat covering his skin. He looked nothing like Percy Jackson.

There was a choked sob, and a weight from Annabeth's arm left her as Sally rushed across the room to her son. Immediately, the estranged mother grabbed her son's hand.

Annabeth watched, wondering if this were all just some strange hallucination or dream as Paul walked over to his wife and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

She stared at her boyfriend. There was a tube shoved down his throat by the doctors to help him breathe—no, to make him breathe. Was he still alive somewhere in there, or was all she was looking at just a shell of a person being kept alive by machines?

This wasn't her boyfriend, the love of her life. It couldn't be.

Annabeth turned away from the scene and ran.

She wasn't sure where she was going or if she had even told her feet to move, but she only knew that she just had to get out of that room. Her legs took her dashing through the halls of the ICU and past a closed door. She shoved past a random doctor and didn't stop running till she reached the light of the outside sun.

Annabeth sunk against the window, briefly warmed by the light of the sun before everything turned cold again. She was several floors up above the busy streets of New York. People down there couldn't see her, couldn't know that—

She tried to catch her breath, but she couldn't breathe.

It was too much. All of it.

The world around her seemed to spin as Annabeth sunk to the floor, weighted by all of her thoughts. She couldn't breathe. Why couldn't she breathe?

She couldn't think, she couldn't breathe, and everything around her seemed to tilt and swirl like one mad nightmare.

Annabeth banged head into her hands, covering her eyes to push away the light around her. Too bright. She needed to wake up. She had to. It would all stop if she woke up from this nightmare.

She kept swallowing breaths of air that couldn't seem to come. None of it seemed to be enough and her chest ached from each strained heave her lungs pushed to make.

It hurt. It all hurt so much.

She wished it would leave.

She wished she could wake up.


"Did you ever think about how nice it would be to go to sleep and never wake up again?"

Gray eyes watched him softly, wrapping a blanket around them as a movie played in the background. "Maybe once."

Percy sighed, "Sometimes… I just, I don't know, I guess I just feel tired."

Her eyes flashed silver. "Tired?"

"Yeah," he shrugged hopelessly in her embrace, "I don't know 'Beth. I'm not sad… Just tired."

She held the blankets closer, enveloping him in her warm embrace. "You're a fighter, Perce," she whispered, "Don't you forget that."

But as the warmth of Annabeth faded and he was back in the Styx, he found it hard to remember anything she had said.


Someone was tapping her on the shoulder.

Annabeth looked up from the darkness of her knees, blinking through the blurriness of her vision. A woman with black hair and warm brown eyes smiled down at her.

"Are you okay, honey?" she asked, her soothing voice comforting Annabeth.

She nodded pathetically in response, not owning quite enough energy to care just how sad she must look. "I'm fine," Annabeth croaked.

The woman sat down on the floor of the hospital next to Annabeth. She seemed to watch the daughter of Athena almost curiously, as if she couldn't quite make out what to think of her. "Most people crying on the floor of a hospital aren't usually okay, you know." the woman pointed out.

The woman's scrubs told Annabeth that the doctor probably had a million other things to be doing right now.

"What am I supposed to say?" Annabeth found herself asking the doctor, "That I'm not okay? That if my best friend dies, I'll probably never be okay again?"

The doctor nodded, "That's exactly what you're supposed to say."

"It's not like it makes any difference. It's not like my feelings are going to change the fact that Percy is in a coma."

"Maybe they won't change that, but I think you deserve to be in the room with someone you care for so much."

Annabeth squeezed her eyes shut; her boyfriend could be dying, and she couldn't even stand to be in the same room as him. "It…hurts."

The doctor wrapped her arms around Annabeth, enveloping the daughter of Athena in the smell of her sterile scrubs, "I'm so sorry, honey."

"It just…doesn't feel real. Why can't this all be a dream? Why is my life so unfair?"

The doctor pulled back and studied Annabeth with sincere brown eyes, "I find myself asking questions like that every day, you know," she said softly. "So many people, I've lost over the years…so many kind, heartfelt patients. I ask myself what made them deserve what life handed. I ask myself now as I see you like this what made you deserve to be dealt such a hand."

I don't know how you could ever have a job like this," Annabeth murmured.

"It's hard most days," the doctor admitted, "But if I am to move on with my job and save the lives that I can, I must learn to accept their deaths. I'm not saying that it's easy to do or inhumane, but that in accepting my feelings of sadness, I am able to move forward to continue to connect with many more people."

Annabeth felt a spike of anger towards the woman, leaning away from her, "So what are you saying? That I should just accept that Percy's going to probably die?"

"No," the doctor disagreed heartfully, "I told you to accept your feelings. If you are sad at the thought of him dying, then let it be so."

"And that's supposed to help me?"

"What does ignoring your feelings help? I think that right now, I see someone hiding from their problems. I see someone afraid to see the one person they are so scared of losing. You're supposed to be upset, honey, but you can't hide away from what hurts. It only makes it hurt so much longer as time passes."

Annabeth wiped her cheeks with the hem of her sweatshirt. She hated how what the doctor was saying actually made sense. "Are you a psych doctor?" she asked the woman accusingly.

"I've dabbled," the woman shrugged, "Right now I'm just a surgical resident. Doctor Nicole Rigby."

The woman held out her hand for Annabeth to shake.

The blonde obliged, "Annabeth Chase. I haven't received my PhD just yet though."

Nicole smiled warmly at her, slowly standing up and brushing off her scrubs, "I don't think I've met a person quite as young as you who would have."

She helped Annabeth to her feet, "Is there somewhere you need to be, honey?" she asked, giving the daughter of Athena a knowing look.

"Yes," Annabeth set her voice decidedly, "Yes, there is."


He swore he saw flickers of light reflecting around him. They reached out to him, begging him to join them in their caper.

He was tired, though.

He would have once danced with them, those shining lights above the boxing ring. Crowds roaring around him, all watching the light directed on him. Those beams of brightness would move just as fluidly as him in a fight. In a dance.

Percy admitted to himself that he would miss those light strands of hope.


In the days that followed, Annabeth heard whispers from doctors speaking of permission forms for organ harvesting.

She'd almost punched the doctors in question for that one.

The demigods kept sneaking nectar in Percy's IVs and praying to the gods. Nico even shadow traveled Will Solace to the hospital room to see if there was anything the son of Apollo could do to help.

Will just shook his head sadly in defeat.

Annabeth ignored their disappointment in favor of clinging to Percy's limp, freezing cold hand.

He was alive. He was going to wake up.


Paul wordlessly handed Annabeth a newspaper one day as she sat on the couch in Percy's room, surrounded by the tormenting of beeping machines.

There was an article on page two about the shooting. Percy was referred to as an anonymous "hero."

Angrily, Annabeth crumpled the paper and threw it at the nearest trash can that held a myriad of empty medicine bottles.

He wasn't supposed to be a hero anymore.


The police requested Sally and Paul's own statements on Percy to ensure that he wasn't involved in any gang activity. While due to the witness's own interview, Detective's Hobb and Green doubt Percy was engaging in any foul behavior, he also didn't have the best record.

A nationwide manhunt was naturally something of investigation.

The witness that Percy had saved from sexual assault actually came to Percy's room one day after Sally approved it from the police.

He was young and shy, peeking his head into Percy's room like a turtle would peek its own head out of a shell.

Annabeth was the only one in the room at the time, so she watched the young man with narrowed eyes of a predator. He skittishly walked to her boyfriend's bedside and looked over him for a long moment before connecting gazes with Annabeth.

"He wasn't afraid of anything," the man told Annabeth, "Not when there was a gun pointing at him or even when there was blood everywhere… he was a hero."

She stared at Percy's closed eyelids. The irises beneath them always shined such a startlingly bright green. "That's because he has no regard for his own life," she said almost bitterly.

The man furrowed his eyebrows, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

The younger man looked back at Percy silently, watching the teenager who saved him lie unconscious in a hospital bed unfairly while he, the coward, stood unharmed.

He fled the room like a coward, too, quickly without a second look back, but Annabeth stopped him before he had fully crossed the doorframe.

"Don't call him a hero," she requested softly from her seat.

The young man turned and frowned. "But he saved me," he disagreed, "He is a hero."

"No," the blonde said simply, "He's a fighter."


Annabeth switched off the TV that night the moment she saw the regional news make a story on the shooting and the anonymous teenage hero.

People getting shot in New York City was normal. But a person getting shot from protecting another random person?

Saving strangers was not normal, it seemed.

Annabeth couldn't begin to imagine how the mortal world would react if they truly knew just how much Percy has done for them over the years.


Sally cried in Paul's arms on Christmas Eve when the doctors told her that they saw a spike in her son's vitals.


Annabeth thought she was hallucinating at first when the cold, motionless hand she held tightened its grip around her own.


The fighter still remains.


Percy will tell you with full authority that waking up from comas was nothing like the movies made it to be. You weren't immediately able to talk and you didn't have flawless hair and you most certainly did not smell like flowers.

Waking up from a coma was in fact rather traumatic and Percy would let anyone know that he in fact smelt like shit.

Everything hurt the more he became aware, he couldn't move and the possibility of even breathing on his own seemed mountainous. He was in pain and confused and, quite frankly, absolutely terrified.

(He would also like to add that becoming aware of how the bed sheets he was lying in were covered by his own sweat was not pleasant.)

He had no idea where he was, at first, surrounded by strange people rushing about him and saying things that confused him. Percy had no sense of familiarity and was left almost feeling as if he were watching a movie go on around him. They kept touching things on him and speaking to him, though, in a way that was so very overwhelming and overstimulating, combined with how the harder he tried to understand and respond, the more pain he seemed to feel.

For reiteration: waking up from comas is traumatic.

The world only seemed to right itself once the doctors allowed his mom into the room with him. Her warm, careworn face alone created immediate comfort, along with her soft, soothing words to him as his pain glazed eyes looked upon her in a call for help.

Annabeth was allowed in a few hours later, much to her own dismay, and Percy could mostly only remember how she seemed to instantaneously begin to cry as their eyes connected. She had held back her tears in favor of creating a one-sided conversation to calm him, but Percy had been struck with a deep sense of guilt, knowing the rarity of those tears he saw.

Later, he would tell his friends that the only thing that kept him sane was Annabeth (and obviously Sally). Being stuck in your own head was bad enough, but coupled with his ADHD and claustrophobia? His ADHD had his mind aware and hyper fixed on everything around him and his claustrophobia made him feel as if he were shoved in a tight room where he could barely move or breathe. Percy was going mad.

It was a relief when Percy began to find his brain and muscles reconnecting with their ability to move his body.


One earlier afternoon as the lights of daylight poured into his hospital room, a man named Detective Hobb came to visit Percy.

The older man sat in a chair by his window respectfully, watching Percy as the son of Poseidon relaxed on his inclined hospital bed, the TV playing soundlessly in the background.

"I have a daughter your age, you know," the detective told Percy, almost nearly seeming to frown at the teenager.

Percy hummed noncommittally.

"She would have ran the moment she saw a gun pulled out, though," the man continued, "And not have tried to reason with a man milliseconds from shooting her."

Percy stared at an IV stuck in his wrist, "She sounds pretty intelligent, then."

The detective didn't respond, in favor of shuffling multiple papers around in front of himself first. The gleam of the sun peeking through Percy's window blinds shined off of the man's silvery gray hairs peppered across his head.

"We caught the man who shot you a couple days before you woke up," Hobb informed him. "Once we matched the bullet the hospital pulled out of your chest to the gun left on the scene, we were able to connect the weapon to a supplier that led us to our man."

As he spoke, Hobb stood up heavily from his chair and pulled out a small rectangular cardstock paper from his stack of papers. "The young man you saved was already able to confirm that this is our guy," he detailed, lifting up the photo in front of Percy's eyes for him to see.

Percy's eyes flickered over the picture of the man, scanning his features for a moment with a grim expression before nodding without a single remark.

"We're currently detaining him at the station right now," the detective told him, "He'll soon face charges of attempted first degree murder and sexual assault, though, and you see that his injuries to you face justice."

The way Hobb spoke with such conviction struck a chord deep within Percy. It was strange, he realized, to have a random person care so deeply about him knowing that his wrongdoer was being punished for the extent of his actions. For letting him know that justice was being served.

Percy shared a long gaze with the old detective. "Thank you," he told the man heartfully.


Percy and Annabeth laid lazily together across the couch of Percy's living room, sharing a soft and warm threaded blanket. Even inside the warmth of the New York apartment, the cold of January still snuck through the cracks of doors and window seals to taunt them.

Annabeth shivered and twisted her hand to fix next to Percy's, entwining her fingers with his own. They were cold to touch, unlike the usual warmth they used to hold before his coma. It seemed that ever since those freezing, motionless hands she used to hold, Percy's original circulation would never return to what it had once been.

"I've missed this," she whispered to him, nearly inaudible for fear of breaking their pleasant silence.

"I'm sure this wasn't the first time we've sat with each other while watching TV." Percy pointed out in amusement.

"Yes, " she agreed, however not eager to reminisce just yet over the many dreadful weeks spent in the hospital, "But this is the first time we've been anywhere else."

Percy stared out the window, quiet enough to hear the noises of the city as cars passed by on the streets below them. "I'm sorry," he croaked mournfully to her, "We were supposed to have fun and celebrate at camp for the holidays, but instead I completely missed everything."

Annabeth disagreed, "Don't be sorry, you Seaweed Brain, I'd happily spend my holidays stuck eating that horrible hospital food as long as that means we're together."

He picked at the threads of their soft blanket, refusing to meet her gaze.

"Hey," she squeezed his hand lightly, "What is it? You know I can't possibly blame you for getting shot; unlucky stuff just happens and there's nothing we can do about it. I'm okay as long as you're okay."

Percy sighed and leaned against her, "I was so stupid for underestimating that mortal. I almost died because I had forgotten that there's a world outside of Olympus."

"I think we had all forgotten that we're still half-mortal," Annabeth murmured, splaying a hand in Percy's hair as she combed comfortingly through his messy black curls. She herself would never forget the levels of shock she had barren when she had first learned that her boyfriend had been in an alleyway shooting, so she could only imagine how Percy had felt as he had been injured and then again when he woke up in the hospital.

"I hated the thought of dying like that," he whispered to her, not daring to speak his thoughts any louder, "It was so lonely, lying pathetically on the ground of an alleyway only blocks away from your own home. Nobody knew where I was and everyone thought I was fine, but all I wanted was for someone to be there, to not die alone."

He shivered, struck with the cold memories he was reliving, and Annabeth held him closer. "You won't die alone," she promised, conviction clear in her voice. "Whatever trouble you get yourself into next time, the only reason we would die is if I don't figure out how to get us out of your trouble."

"Are you indicating that I'm the only one capable of getting into trouble?" he asked with a hint of amusement.

"The evidence isn't necessarily stacked up on your side of the case," she said drily.

"Stop trying to be so smart," he grumbled.

"Well one of us has to have some sort of intelligence, Seaweed Brain."

He smiled fondly as she laughed at him, relieved to be home and with her now. It was hard to believe that he had even considered leaving her and running away from the fight. He knew now that there was so much that he was not ready to lose just yet.

"Hey, Annabeth," he rubbed his thumb across her knuckles, and she looked at him, "I'm not tired anymore."

For a moment, she just stared at him blankly, before an expression of pure relief and joy began to slowly her face. Annabeth grinned, "Well I should hope not, you just took a nap for almost two weeks straight."


"In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the reminders

Of every glove that laid him down

And cut him 'til he cried out

In his anger and his shame

'I am leaving, I am leaving'

But the fighter still remains"

~"The Boxer" by Jerry Douglas, Mumford & Sons, and Paul Simon


Author's Note: I planned to make this 15,000 words, but 17,000 works too. I've barely had time to write since I've been drowning in schoolwork and soccer games, so it's nice to see this through finally. I named this after the song "The Boxer" and if you haven't ever listened to it before, please do; it is a beautiful song. I'm honestly not sure what the main purpose of this fic was-it kinda got away from me a few times there-but we're gonna go with it. I hope you liked my long ass one-shot.