Percy hadn't really known what to expect when he'd shown up to his own funeral, but a lightning bolt to the chest had not been on his list of probable events.
Then again, that was always a risk when Thalia was around.
The lightning sent him tumbling backwards through the air, hurtling across the amphitheater until finally he slammed bodily into the stone seating. There was no time to lick his wounds or nurse his (almost certainly broken) ribs, though, because Thalia's fist came hurtling towards where his face was laying in the sand just moments after he landed on the ground.
He rolled frantically out into the arena, ears faintly registering Chiron's exasperated pleas for peace even as he threw his hands up to ward off another blow from Thalia. The next one came before he could move to counter it, a heavy punch to the gut, and he doubled up in pain just in time for the daughter of Zeus to land an open-palmed slap across his face. The amphitheater around them was deadly silent. Nobody moved. Some of the younger campers, caught up in the terror of the fight between Camp's two most powerful demigods, had clearly forgotten to breathe.
"You motherfucker," Thalia said, her voice eerily calm, almost stony. Percy scrambled to his feet, unconsciously clutching his ribs as he fought for breath. "I told your mother you were dead, Percy. I held her hand when she cried. I buried you." She pointed with one hand to the column of inky-black smoke where his funeral shroud was quickly being overtaken by purple flame. She stepped forwards and Percy stumbled back - except she wasn't coming to hit him, only to stare him in the eyes. Those electric blues burned with lightning and fury, a high-voltage storm barely contained. "I buried you, Percy."
Percy scrambled for something to say, some way to make the situation less bad - and, of course, found nothing. "I got lost," he offered lamely.
"You have fucking teleportation magic, dipshit," Thalia said. "You literally can't get lost, if you don't want to be." Behind her, other campers had finally begun to move - the young ones were guided out by Chiron, more so they wouldn't see the conflict than out of fear for their safety, but some of the older ones moved forwards as though to intervene.
He took another step back, a shooting pain digging a hole in his chest where his sixth rib connected to the sternum - yep, definitely broken. Her words echoed in his ears. Was she right? Had he really wanted to be lost? Calypso's hazel eyes and soft voice came back to him - 'You don't really seem like you need rescuing, hero.' Maybe he hadn't. In his pocket, the tiny silver flower felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
"You'd better have a damn good explanation, Percy. I'll be waiting."
Thalia didn't wait for an answer. Instead, she spun on the heel of her combat boot and walked away, head held high and ramrod-straight. Percy stared after her retreating silhouette, a gray shock of hair surrounded by black, as he mustered up the courage to follow her - only to be stopped by a spear point leveled at his throat, courtesy of a familiar muscular brunette.
"Hey, Prissy," Clarisse said. "You might want to, uh, give her some time."
Something on his face must have betrayed his astonishment that Clarisse was being nice, because she sneered and dug the tip of her spear a little deeper into his neck. Fortunately, it wasn't her electric spear, but the message came across just the same.
"Let her go, Percy," the daughter of Ares said with surprising gentleness in her voice, despite the scowl she wore. "She made her peace, or what she could of it. And now… here you are. She's gonna need some time to figure things out again. Give her space to do it."
Annabeth, apparently, had no such compunctions. She marched up to Percy with a fire in her eyes that he hadn't seen since Polyphemus's island. "You," she said, her voice choked and strangled with tears, "are going to stop fucking dying on quests, gods damn you." That threat made, she enveloped Percy in a hug that didn't help his aching ribs any.
Clarisse stepped back a little to make room, dropped her spear's tip from his neck. "Hey, Percy," she said softly. "It's good to have you back."
Other friends cycled through, shaking hands or giving hugs - Beckendorf crushed him in a bear hug and Silena gave him a kiss on the cheek. Beckendorf had asked about Tyson, but Percy could only shrug helplessly. The giant son of Hephaestus nodded, patted Percy's shoulder once, then walked off. Chiron and Mr. D had even stopped by, briefly, to request his presence in the Big House around noon. Annabeth hadn't left his side, tears streaming down her face.
And yet, all Percy wanted to do was run away and find the one person who wasn't there.
After a protracted battle with many casualties on both sides, Percy finally managed to extricate himself from what seemed to be an endless stream of well-wishers and relieved friends. By that point, however, there was no trace of Thalia. Percy felt that he should somehow explain himself, that if he could find Thalia there was some combination of words and things to say and do that would make her understand that he wasn't in the wrong. And then, all at once, he realized that there was nothing of the sort to be done. Thalia needed to come to her own conclusions, and like Clarisse said, he needed to let her do that.
He knew how it felt, to a certain extent. He could remember what it had been like to wake up and hear Annabeth was missing - and even then, they'd been relatively confident that she was alive, on the word of a goddess no less. Thalia had had no such reassurance for two whole weeks. She'd felt hundreds of thousands of tons of earth collapse into the hole where he used to be. Of course she would need a minute to come to terms with that. He would have, too.
Hard as it was to give her that space, Percy knew he had to. So he decided to catch up a little bit with Annabeth. Or really, she decided it for him. After their miraculous escape from the crowded amphitheater, she'd cornered him on the canoe lake pier and had begun peppering him with questions - where did he go, why did it take him so long to come back, what were they going to do about the Labyrinth. Percy somehow couldn't bring himself to admit that he'd basically spent two weeks healing in paradise with a beautiful woman while everybody else thought he was dead.
Shocker, that.
So instead, he told her a set of half-truths. The sea had caught him, healed him, swaddled him in its depths. Eventually it had spat him up on a beautiful Pacific island, where he'd struggled to survive for a week or so until Hephaestus had found him and told him how to leave. He'd built a wooden raft and had set sail for home - and magically it had borne him there.
His palms were sweaty, and Annabeth's gray eyes bore into him intensely, but she nodded a begrudging acceptance. "I won't pretend to be happy with you, Seaweed Brain," she said, "but I'm glad you're okay." She sat down on the pier edge, and after a moment, Percy sat down with her. She leaned against him.
"Are you… feeling any better?" he began awkwardly.
Annabeth shrugged. "Physically, yeah?" She said, though it sounded like she wasn't particularly certain herself. "I've been training a lot with Clarisse, and Thalia, now that she's back. Getting back in shape. But… I've been having a really, really hard time with everything else. I just…"
Tears threatened to return to her eyes, and she drew a deep, shuddering breath.
"We all gave up on you," she admitted. It was barely more than a whisper, at the very limit of Percy's hearing, and it took his mind a few seconds to parse the sounds back into a comprehensible sentence. He opened his mouth but no reply came. His brain simply halted at the realization that the people he loved - people he'd spent years with, people he counted on to have his back and people he couldn't have lived without - had believed he was really, truly dead. For them, it hadn't been a wild, wacky adventure with an immortal nymph on a cursed paradise island.
It had been two weeks of accepting the death of their close friend. Two weeks of gradually losing hope that he could pull off another miracle. Two weeks of looking for fancy purple portals or Deinos the fire-breathing mare, of clinging to whatever chances existed that a hundred and eighty pounds of demigod could have survived what five hundred and forty million tons of stone could not.
The realization hit him like a bullet.
"I'm sorry," was all he could muster. "I… I didn't know what else to do."
Annabeth shook her head. "I know," she said softly. "I just… I wish things were different. I wish they were fair, I wish we were normal. Thalia and I had a fight, when we told your mom… anyways." She smiled gingerly, through the slow tears. "I know it's not easy. I know it's our life, and especially yours."
"Yeah," Percy said. "It sucks, I know. But somebody's gotta do it, right? And there's nobody else I'd want by my side, Wise Girl. You and Thalia, Tyson and Grover… we all make a great team."
"When I was… out of it. In my coma," Annabeth began hesitantly. "Luke showed up in my dreams. He told me he was scared. He wanted me to run away with him, bring Thalia if I could. Like the old days, he said."
Percy waited without breathing. His heart burst through his chest into his esophagus and begin crawling its way up to his mouth, intent on screaming aloud. He felt like he was drowning in his own blood, and it was all that he could hear, pounding in his ears.
"He said he'd wait for an answer until I woke up," she continued. "But… I don't think he could wait that long. He seemed like he was losing control, almost."
Percy's palm twitched. The star-shaped scar on his hand, pink and fleshy, ached with the memory of pit scorpion venom, the thought of the last time he'd trusted someone so implicitly and it had gone wrong.
"I said no," Annabeth said, finally, a moment later than Percy would have liked. "But it was the hardest choice I've ever made. He offered me the chance to build the world in my image, to make monuments that would last into eternity. To leave a mark like that… Gods, Percy, you have no idea what that does to my brain."
She trailed off for a moment, watching as a flirty naiad drifted past beneath the lake's surface.
"He promised we'd be a family again." Her voice broke. "He was the first family I ever had. But somehow I knew we'd never be what we were. What could have been, if Luke were still here. He'll never be the same person I used to know, never be the man I used to trust."
Percy waited for her to finish her thought. Internally, he scrambled for something to say, some way to respond or interpret this stream-of-consciousness confession from an almost-spy best friend. Nothing came. No words, no fear, no anger or sorrow. All he could do was wonder whether there was anything, anyone on earth that would not be touched by the rage and corruption of war.
"This place, Camp, Thalia, you, my cabin… This has to be my monument. This has to be my family. Without it…" her breath hitched, she swallowed. "When the cabin was making your shr-" she choked. After a moment, she managed to suck down a shuddering breath and continue. "When we made your shroud… I realized that. That this is all I have. That I may not build a dynasty or an empire or even a building. But that maybe I can build a family. Engineer a better future."
When she turned back to face Percy, her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, but the gray storm of her iris swirled with furious winds.
"What I'm saying is… we're going to get through this. Our little family. I'm going to make sure of it. Because I refuse to be weak and alone and… seduced, by evil, like I was in my coma. We are going to get out of this and we will survive."
Percy nodded.
"I know, Wise Girl."
And, somehow, he did.
It wasn't until the meeting at the Big House that Percy finally got to see Thalia. He'd shown up early to an empty rec room, sat down, and kicked his feet up onto the table - but after just a minute, his nerves overtook him and he stood up to pace restlessly. After doing a few laps of the rec room he gave up and racked a game of pool to play against himself.
Even that frustrated him - memories of dragging a very nervous Grover into the bars near Yancy to hustle drunk adults for five or twenty dollars a piece just made him miss his friend all the more, and whenever he lined up for a shot Thalia's betrayed eyes hovered in his imagination, blocking all his shots. In pretty short order he resorted to simply using magic to teleport the pool balls through trapdoors which opened in the table, dropping them directly into the pockets until only the eight ball remained.
Fortunately, before he could cheat to sink that one too and lose all his dignity, Chiron rolled in in wheelchair form and clapped a hand on Percy's shoulder. "Ah, Percy, my boy," he said. "It is good to have you back." The centaur rolled around the pool table to his traditional spot at the head of the room, but his eyes never left Percy's. "I must confess, I am curious about the circumstances which bring you home… but mostly, I am glad that they have."
"Not everybody is," Percy said bitterly, then blushed - it was a childish thing to say, really. But Chiron simply nodded sagely.
"Death is not an easy thing, my child. Life is… not easy, either." Chiron awkwardly patter down the blanket on his fake legs. "When she believed you dead, Thalia blamed herself, but also she found a reason to change things. For instance, she reconciled somewhat with Rachel, as the reason for their conflict was no longer around. So consider how much change she has had to endure of late, my boy, and perhaps it will become clear why she does not seem as happy as you might like."
Percy nodded and mulled it over for a moment. "I guess," he admitted, "but still. It's not like I wanted to make you think I was dead, or anything. It just happened."
Chiron stroked his beard. "And yet," he began, "It happened. It cannot be helped, of course, but it has repercussions all the same. Something to think about, I hope."
The son of Poseidon shrugged.
"One more bit of unfortunate news, though I do hate to burden a weary soul any more," the centaur began slowly, "but Quintus has left us. It appears that he was working for the Titans. It is… regrettable, that I did not realize sooner."
That was less of a surprise than it should have been, perhaps - Quintus had never felt quite right to Percy, and the connection to the Triple G Ranch was more than a little suspicious. Percy had even had dreams to that effect, or at least a few dreams which had suggested the existence of a spy at Camp. Honestly, Percy was relieved to hear that it was Quintus.
"Well, shit," was all he could muster. Fortunately, Chiron seemed to find some humor in that.
"Indeed," he said with a sad smile. "I felt much the same way when I was informed." The centaur gestured to the pool cue in Percy's hands. "May I?"
Wordlessly, Percy handed him the cue. "Corner pocket," Chiron said, then lined up - and sunk what was easily the most impressive trickshot Percy had ever seen, ricochets and spins and perfect geometries as the ball rocketed around the table until slowly, perfectly placing itself in the corner pocket. While Percy sat, slack-jawed and staring in awe, Chiron wordlessly set the cue back in the rack and returned to his place at the head of the table. The trainer of heroes smiled slyly when he saw Percy's astonished gaze. "Remember, Percy," he said, "that chaos and conflict does not mean there is no destination."
Before Percy could come up with a response to that, other cabin counselors began trickling into the rec room.
Eventually, everyone had arrived - all the cabin heads, as well as Rachel and a few assorted Ares and Athena campers. At the head of the table, Chiron and Dionysus sat, quietly talking about something Percy couldn't hear. The wine god was drinking a cherry coke like it was a fine wine, swirling it around the glass and watching for sediment, taking a deep whiff of the smell. It was weird.
And then Thalia arrived.
She looked good. Nervous counselors quickly moved out of her way as she strode through the rec room to the front, all eyes tracking her slow progress. She'd done a little bit of makeup, black eyeliner with pastel blue eyeshadow bringing out the electric blue of her eyes which still swirled with stormy anger. Her hair was in a low ponytail and she wore a cropped white T-shirt for some obscure English punk band, with her traditional black jeans and combat boots completing the look. When she reached the chair she usually sat in, she slouched down and kicked her feet up onto the pool table. Chiron cleared his throat but she just rolled her eyes.
She wouldn't even look at him.
Percy did his best to ignore just how badly that hurt. In some ways, it was worse than the physical fighting from earlier - as though she didn't even care enough now to be angry at him, as though he was no longer worth her time. He shook himself slightly, doing his best to tear his eyes away and be useful, and started the story. He gave the assembled campers a quick run down of the rough events, just like he had for Annabeth before - big boom, big splash, little island, big Hephaestus, little raft, big funeral. Thalia picked her nails and pretended not to listen.
"I'm sorry," he finished. "I didn't mean to take so long."
"Yes, Perry," Dionysus said disinterestedly. "Lovely story. Do feel free to never tell it again."
In spite of themselves, the counselors laughed. It was a nervous chorus of laughter, birthed of grief and sorrow as much as from the humor of the statement. Even Thalia snorted a little bit.
"Unfortunately, the Labyrinth is still a threat," Chiron said after a moment. "And, my boy, you and Thalia now have the most experience with it of anyone we have. I hate to ask this of either of you, but…"
"I'll do it," Percy said immediately. "And Hephaestus even gave me an idea for how to navigate."
Thalia's head shot up, and those blue eyes locked onto Percy for the first time since he'd returned from the dead (again).
"We need Rachel."
Thalia stood up and stormed out of the room. Percy watched her go helplessly.
Chiron and the rest discussed the merits of Percy's idea, once he had explained it slightly better. Percy wasn't listening. His ears buzzed with static, his heart pounded. Chiron asked whether Rachel would be willing to go on the quest, and the redhead shrugged nonchalantly. "I'm in," she said. Percy couldn't tell if she was looking at him, and he didn't really care.
The second the meeting ended, he raced out of the Big House.
The daughter of Zeus was nowhere to be found. Not at the pavilion or amphitheater. She wasn't at the forge or in the strawberry fields. Not on the volleyball courts - even Percy had to admit that was a bit of a stretch. He even checked the top of the climbing wall, though her fear of heights made that unlikely - but no dice.
Thalia wasn't in her cabin, either. She wasn't in the arena, where a lonely-looking enormous hellhound moped around with her absolutely ruined, slobber-covered toy yak. Despite himself, Percy couldn't help but stop and play a little bit of fetch with the enormous dog, though her heart didn't seem to be in it. "What's wrong, girl?" he asked, but all she did was whine. Having your friend abandon you would do that, he supposed, and ignored the twinge of guilt the thought brought him.
He even tried, in desperation, the pegasus stables.
Hey boss! Blackjack nickered when Percy poked his head into the pegasus's run. You smell like lady horse.
Despite himself, Percy smiled. "They're called mares, Blackjack," he said, absently scratching the spot between the black horse's shoulders. "And I think she's too much of a handful, even for you, bud."
Blackjack tossed his mane violently. No such thing, I say! He nudged Percy with his nose. We both like them feisty and a little goth, eh boss man? He kept pushing with his nose, like an overly insistent comedian waiting for the audience to get the joke. I mean, you and that girl…
"Yes, I got it, Blackjack," Percy cut him off before he could go too far. "It's not… like that. Besides, I'm pretty sure she wants to kill me right now."
That's even better, the pegasus snorted. This one time, me and this philly from Baltimore… anyways. She's not here, if that's why you're poking around. Also notably absent is a big box of donuts in my stall. I could've sworn it was just here.
"Maybe if you ask nice, I'll bring you one in a bit, big man," Percy said. "If I survive long enough, anyways."
With that, he set off, though not before sneaking Blackjack a couple carrots - Use protection! the pegasus chastised as Percy left the stables - but his search was still not bearing any fruit. Eventually, he gave up and went to the place he usually went when things went wrong - and there, he found her, at the boulder on the beach where they'd once spoken about dreams.
Much like he had been then, she was leaning with her back against the boulder. Today, though, the tide was higher, and the waves peaked by her feet, splashing her with seawater as she stared off to the horizon. She'd had the sense to cuff her pants and pull off her boots, at least, and she didn't notice as he approached. She'd remarked a few times on how silently he could move, but this wasn't that - she was just so distracted, so disinterested in the world, that she probably wouldn't have noticed a drakon's approach.
"Thals," he said, once he was close enough, "we should talk."
He half expected her to run away again, but miraculously, she simply sighed and nodded. Now that he was close enough, he could see that she had been crying too, and again Percy was struck by just how much damage his supposed death had wrought. The woman before him may have been strong beyond belief, capable of incredible feats, but at the end of the day she was still a human being with human emotions and victim to human sorrows.
"What?"
Her voice was hollow, empty. She sounded like she was trapped in a tall porcelain vase, or maybe she was one - fragile, pale, cracked and scarred by the careless bumps and accidental scratches of time, inches from tipping over the edge of a table and plummeting to a hard floor where she would shatter into a thousand irreparable pieces. Percy was reminded of the time he'd once knocked over the china cabinet of a friend's mother, and found a single crystal glass left intact, with a single harsh crack running up from its base to the rim.
His friend's mother had been pissed off, of course, but what Percy really remembered was when she picked the glass up, gingerly, careful not to touch the crack or damage the glass further.
And then, once the woman held it in her hands, it exploded into debris.
Percy opened his mouth to respond, apologize, exhort her to forgive him, and no words came.
Thalia didn't even look up at him. A wave's surf rose particularly high onto the beach, splashing over her, but the demigod didn't even flinch. With a start, Percy noticed that it had splashed against him, too - his socks were soaked with seawater now, the water having infiltrated past his jeans and combat boots. His next step squelched wetly as he tentatively moved towards Thalia a little further.
"Spit it out," Thalia said. She still wasn't looking at him - still wasn't moving - still wasn't okay. Percy scrambled for words, came up with a shepherd's pie recipe, discarded it and went looking again. This was becoming a problem.
"I liked your eulogy," Percy said, wincing as soon as he said it. Probably not the best idea to bring up the reason Thalia was currently crying on the beach. Good job, Kelp Head. "But, uh," he floundered, "that's not what I wanted to talk about. I'm just… an idiot. I'm bad at this."
"I can tell." Her voice was flat, brittle, and Percy couldn't tell if she was joking.
Slowly he sat down next to her, careful not to sit too close or too far. Never in his life had he thought so hard about what he wanted to say.
"Okay, look," he forced himself to begin. Shortly, the words were tumbling out of his mouth so fast he couldn't have stopped himself if he wanted to. "I'm sorry… about everything. About going missing and not coming back faster and not having a better plan and about needing Rachel. I'm sorry for screwing up the quest so bad that Grover and Tyson are on their own now, fuck knows where. I'm sorry for being an asshole at my own funeral…"
He took a deep breath and slowed down a little. "When I was gone… I was on Ogygia."
"With Calypso." The daughter of Zeus stared out over the roiling surf. "We spent two weeks thinking you were dead… and you were frolicking on an island with a hot chick."
Percy felt like he should fight back or defend himself, explain the situation he'd been in. "Yeah, pretty much," he admitted. "And I'm sorry for that too."
"When I was out there, on the island," Percy began again, "I felt… well, not normal. But I felt like I belonged somewhere. Like I didn't owe anybody anything, like the world was going to keep turning with or without me." He drew in a breath and was surprised to notice how difficult it was to do so. "And… that was nice. It wasn't right, it wasn't good… but it was nice."
Thalia finally turned to look at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but that wasn't what scared Percy.
There was no electricity in them. Those startling blues were flat and pale, a dull shade compared to their usual pastel hues.
"Why'd you come back?" She asked finally.
"I don't know," Percy said. As he said it, he knew immediately it was a lie. He remembered the terror he'd felt on Mount Tamalpais, holding her hand when Luke had given her his speech. He saw her eyes every time he closed his own, those bright electric blues seared into his consciousness, and he remembered his dreams of returning to her even before he realized he'd left her behind. He knew exactly why he'd come back. There was no room for doubt in his mind. But he couldn't bring himself to say it out loud.
"You, Annabeth, Camp… you deserved better than to be abandoned. I couldn't live with myself if I just upped and left. What kind of person would I be if I left the world behind to be Luke's plaything?"
Thalia met his gaze flatly, her eyes boring into his as though, if she looked hard enough, she would discover his soul and know the truth. "You're lying," she said.
Percy didn't know how to answer that.
"You're lying, but I don't care," she finished. "You're back. You're alive and okay and here. In the morning we're going to take Rachel and go kick some Titan ass." Her voice quivered slightly, and Percy caught the anger in the way she said Rachel's name, but he couldn't dwell on it because suddenly he was attacked in a ferocious hug by a sobbing Thalia.
"Don't fucking leave me like that again."
Percy wrapped his arms around her and thought again of that crystal glass he'd broken so many years ago now. Was this Thalia shattering, breaking down from her carefully crafted strength to be hundreds of shards in his arms? Or was this just how things went when you came back from the dead?
"I won't," he promised.
They both knew it was a lie. But looking out across the slowly tossing waves, they could almost fool themselves into believing it.
Well, there it is. 4,952 words - not too bad for a Percy chapter, though definitely not as long as I want to be writing. Not only have I been swamped but writing Percy is getting harder and harder - I love the character but it's hard to make him interesting and different and also contribute to the plot and still be Percy. Hopefully you can forgive that on my part.
As ever, I'm not super happy with it. But sometimes you have to write things and send them on their way. If y'all really don't like it I'll take it back to the drawing board, but I trust you guys more than I trust myself at this point, so... Anyways, thanks again for all the support and reviews, they really do mean a lot and help keep me going. You all seemed to like the funeral chapter well enough, and I hope the scenes with Thalia here were a good catharsis - it was hard to balance angry, broken Thalia with strong if sad Thalia, so let me know how I did. Sorry, no kissing, felt weird with that much anger.
A few quick final notes: Annabeth is... in flux. She's pissed at the gods and herself and the Titans and she doesn't know what to do, which makes her even angrier. We'll see where she goes together. As for Thalia and Rachel, it strikes me that the only reason Annabeth ever disliked Rachel in canon was the threat of her dating Percy - so that logic kind of applies here too. Finally, as ever, the next wait will be pretty long, I'm sorry to say. See you when I see you.