A collection of one shots, song fics, and draft ideas that pop into my head from time to time. I do not own PJO/HOO, and I do not own these ideas. If you read a chapter that you like and would like to turn into your own full length story please feel free to do so, I only ask for a heads up, and even that's more of a courtesy than a hard and fast rule.

Story 1: From Tragedy, Happiness

Rating: M

T/W: Mentions of PTSD and sui**de

Summary: Perseus Jackson never thought his career would end at the hands of an IED. When the Navy SEAL loses his leg, he finds himself seeking the companionship of his physical therapist.

I

"When you go to war as a boy, you have a great illusion of immortality. Other people get killed, not you… then, when you are badly wounded for the first time, you lose that illusion, and you know it can happen to you."

Perseus Jackson read the words on the page. The same words that had been staring into his soul for the last ten minutes as he laid in his hospital bed. They tortured him. These words that seemed so simple yet struck true and hard. Someone should have told him not to read For Whom The Bell Tolls. He felt as though he had been stripped bare and had his life torn from him.

Then again, he sort of had. IEDs tended to make one feel that way. Petty Officer First Class Jackson placed the book to the side as he ran his hand over the bandages covering half his leg. He could still feel the rest of the leg, even if it wasn't there. The nurse said it'd feel like that, probably for a very long time.

He thought back to a month ago, when he had still had both his legs and his career. Of course, it wasn't a usual career. No, Percy was a Navy SEAL. He had enlisted the second he turned eighteen and had never looked back. He never thought he'd find his calling until that recruiter came to his school. But when he told Percy about the Navy SEALs, Percy knew he had found his path.

But that's in the past, for you see Percy had been struck with tragedy only two months into his most recent deployment. He and his team had been working their way through a small compound in Helmand province in Afghanistan, looking for what the Intel geniuses claimed to be a figurative gold mine of info. Percy had just made entry into the primary building before the bomb went off. Percy wasn't even sure what caused it but before he knew it he was regaining consciousness on a helicopter en route to Bagram. They flew him out on the next flight to Germany for surgery on his leg, which believe it or not he still had at this point.

Well, needless to say the surgery didn't go quite the way Percy had hoped and now he had half of his left leg and only partial function in the right. What a clusterfuck, thought Percy for what felt like the millionth time that day.

"Petty Officer Jackson? My name is Doctor Chase," Percy looked up and saw what had to be a joke his teammates or God was playing on him. She was the typical California beach girl, apart from the piercing gray eyes. Tanned skin, long curly blonde hair. You know the type. Percy did too, intimately. He'd spent enough time prowling the bars around Coronado as a fresh SEAL to have experience with them. "I've been assigned to be your physical therapist. It'll be a while yet until we start working together but I wanted to introduce myself."

"Nice to meet you, Doc. I'd get up to shake your hand but…" Percy gestured to his leg with a pained smile, "Well, you know…"

The doctor, who Percy couldn't seem to take his eyes off of no matter how hard he tried, gave him a terse smile and waved him off.

"Oh, not to worry. Like I said, just giving you a heads up before we actually had to work together." Doctor Chase nodded to herself as she assessed his injury and scribbled some notes on her clipboard. "I'll leave some information with Doctor Solace and he'll pass it along when he feels ready to release you for rehab. I look forward to working with you, Mr. Jackson."

Percy nodded silently as she left before her words hit him. Mr. Jackson. Not Petty Officer. He couldn't say he was surprised, he couldn't exactly operate with one leg, he'd be a liability to his team, the mission, and himself. It just takes a second for the reality to set in. The reality that his entire life had just been shorn from him, leaving him with a gap in his soul.

What a fucking mess, Percy thought to himself. Four deployments, hundreds of spin ups, and I get taken out by a bomb. Not a haji, a fucking IED.

II

"Hello, Mr. Jackson." Doctor Chase shot Percy a smile that was far too chipper for how early in the morning it was. Christ, he hadn't even had his morning coffee yet. "Are you ready for today's exercises?"

"As ready as I'm ever going to be, Doc. And I thought I told you to call me Percy." He cocked an eyebrow up at her as she helped wheel him over to the first torture device she had set up for the day.

"And I told you to call me Annabeth so I guess we're both not listening to the other." With those words and an accompanying eye roll, she helped him push the wheelchair brakes into position before helping him onto the complicated piece of exercise equipment.

It had been nearly three weeks since Percy had started his physical therapy regimen and he hated it. The guys sure got a hell of a kick out of it though. His teammates nearly lost their minds with laughter when he told them about his new, and extremely attractive, physical therapist. At least I can still keep the morale up even if I'm out of the teams now.

"Mr. Jackson?" Percy shook his head quickly as he registered Annabeth attempting to regain his attention.

"Sorry, spaced out for a second." Percy shot Annabeth a slightly apologetic look before continuing with his exercises.

"Not a problem, as I was saying once we get you fitted for your prosthetic we'll be able to create a more exciting exercise routine for you." Annabeth smiled to herself, no doubt thinking of all the horrible acts she could make him perform under the guise of physical therapy.

"Great, can't wait." The words were what she wanted to hear, but Percy couldn't bring himself to put much heart in it. I can't seem to put much heart into anything anymore I suppose.

Annabeth, bless her heart, didn't pry at him but passed on a look he'd become very familiar with lately. Pity. It made him sick. He was a warrior for shit's sake. The pinnacle of his profession. If you looked up a picture of the word Warfighter he'd be front and center, or at least someone like him. He didn't want pity, he wanted his damn leg back. He wanted back in the fight. It was killing him to not be there for his men. His commander was depending on him, his fellow frog-men were depending on him. And here he was, lying on his ass stretching.

"Okay that's it. I can feel the self-loathing from over here." A gruff voice called from the direction of the door. Percy turned with fire in his eyes, ready to show someone, anyone, that just because he lost half a leg didn't mean he couldn't still kick some ass. That fire died the second he laid eyes on Charles Beckendorf standing at the door. Beckendorf to pretty much everyone aside from his fiance, he was Percy's best friend from high school. They'd both joined the military but while Percy joined the Navy Beckendorf joined the Army. Last time the two of them had sat down and caught up, Beck had just finished SFAS, earned his silver jump wings, and proposed to his girlfriend Silena. Describing Beck as a mountain of a man would be a compliment to the mountain. He looked as if a concrete bunker had a child with an M1 Abrams. Not a man Percy would recommend someone to tangle with if avoidable.

"You go get a leg blown off and see if you aren't pissy about it." Percy instantly regretted snapping at him as soon as the words left his mouth. To his credit though, Beckendorf didn't seem to mind as he crossed the room and pulled up a seat next to Percy. "What are you doing here Beck? Shouldn't you be off getting married to Silena?"

"She's got work today. Came to see you, grumpy bastard." Beckendorf clapped a large mitt on Percy's shoulder and nearly bowled the smaller man over. "How're you hanging in?"

"How does it look Beck? I've lost everything." Percy cast his eyes downward in an effort to avoid the shame, coincidentally missing the look of sympathy Beckendorf leveled his way.

"It'll get better, Perce. Promise. I gotta go." Beckendorf stood and just like that, he was gone as quick as he had arrived leaving Percy with his doctor and alone with his thoughts.

III

It was a rainy day in New York City when they laid him to rest. The man stood next to the oak casket in his dress blues, flinching as he was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of seven rifles. He punched the trident into the casket and stepped back before rendering a crisp salute to his friend.

"Goodbye, old friend." The man turned to the broken spouse of his best friend and knelt before her. "If you need anything at all, you call me and I'll take care of it. Promise."

The woman grasped his hand and wailed once more, crying out for her love that had been stolen. Her tears were washed away as the rain fell unbridled upon the gathered group of friends and family. The man brushed a hand across his face as he turned to the tombstone. Beautiful white granite bore his name, fresh and stark against the rows of the faded and forgotten.

Charles Beckendorf

1985-2016

Son, Husband, Friend, Warrior

Percy let out one last sob before turning to leave. His prosthetic clicked as the wet wool blend fabric of his pants caught in the titanium joint. More of an afterthought in the whirlwind of emotions that crippled him. I need a damn drink.

IV

"We're sorry, we can't let you in sir." The men held out their hands with a professional but respectful tilt to their words.

"SCREW YOU BOTH, LET ME SEE MY DAMN SON!" The man raged and thrashed against their restraining arms, fighting the way you would expect a father to fight to get to his son.

"Poseidon, calm down! Percy will be fine, these men are just doing their jobs." Sally and Paul Blofis attempted to pull Poseidon Thalassapóros from the kind police officers holding the room under guard.

"I can't believe he'd do this, not my Percy." Poseidon slumped against the wall and gripped his hair in his hands with a mixture of grief and anger.

"Percy is grieving right now and we need to be there for him. If that means not being harsh over a DUI, then that's what we'll do." Sally placed a hand on Poseidon's shoulder. Once, they had shared a love stronger than any other, but that had faded quickly with the revelation that Poseidon already had a family.

"So we just let him off the hook with this?! Sally, do you hear yourself?!" Poseidon's rage was spiked once more, not a difficult task to accomplish, and a trait that had been passed on to her beloved son.

"God no, but we need to support him. His best friend just died doing a job Percy himself had been doing three measly months ago. If we aren't careful we'll end up driving our son even further into that hole of his." Sally was the voice of reason as always, observing the fight leave Poseidon's eyes as he was forced to accept that he needed to be calm if he didn't wish to lose his son forever.

"You may see him now." The detectives exited the hospital room and gestured to the parents of the broken man.

"You two go ahead, I'll talk to the detectives for a moment." Paul gave Sally a reassuring squeeze of the hand before turning to the detectives. The two parents entered the room and laid eyes on their son. Their son who wouldn't meet their eyes and held all the rage and sadness in his own.

"Percy, what's going on with you? Talk to me, sweetheart." Sally sat gently on the side of the bed, taking Percy's hand in her own. She felt the scars and calluses left behind from a lifetime of waging war with a rifle in hand. Her heart broke for her baby boy. The sweet boy that had held nothing but kindness and love in his eyes. The sweet boy that used to beg her to let him add the blue food coloring to her cookies. The sweet boy that had been left in the dirt and sand in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sweet boy that had been replaced by the hardened and angry warrior before her.

"Nothing, mom. Just working through some things." He still wouldn't meet her eyes, although the rage had left him. Now all that remained was a tiredness she knew was from all he had gone through.

"Percy, if you don't tell us what's going on with you we can't help you." Poseidon's deep voice rumbled as he laid a heavy hand on Percy's shoulder. Sally could see the pain in his eyes now. Those beautiful eyes that had first made her fall for his father. The same eyes that had dulled with the horrors of warfare.

"I just want to be left alone. Please." Sally waited a moment before squeezing her son's hand reassuringly. She rose and nodded Poseidon out of the door. Her last sight of Percy before the door clicked shut was the silent tears rolling heavy down his cheeks.

In the hallway she met her son's girlfriend. The blonde haired physical therapist that he had charmed when he was happier. The girl that had become like a daughter to Sally.

"How is he?" Annabeth looked worried and frazzled, like she had just rolled out of bed.

"He's not great. He won't tell us what's wrong. You should go see him, sweetheart." Sally gave Annabeth a quick hug before she swept into the room to be with Percy.

V

The woman's sobs resounded through the small apartment as she clutched the pieces of her heart. Around her the world seemed to move in slow motion as strangers swept around her. Muffled questions reached her ears but failed to break through the stupor she was in.

Why? Why?! WHY?! The question screamed through her mind over and over as her hand absentmindedly carded through his jet black hair. With her other hand she wiped the froth from around his lips and closed his green eyes one last time. He would never know how much she loved him. He would never know how much the world needed him.

She had begged, pleaded, and bartered with any higher power she thought might be watching but nothing had kept him from being ripped from her life. Nothing would bring him back.

VI

It was exactly a year today. A year had passed since the love of her life, the light of her world, had been ripped from her like a cruel joke. And now, she held their son in her arms.

"Hey, Perce. I brought someone to meet you." She was speaking to the man under the dirt, but was looking into the same green eyes she had closed herself a year ago. This time they peered back up at her like she held all the answers to the universe. "I want you to meet your son. Perseus Gabriel Jackson. Junior"

Annabeth knelt and brushed the leaves off of the tombstone. To her credit she held herself together well. Only a few tears made their escape this time. Her son babbled as he looked up at her, their eyes met and she let out a sad smile.

"I hope I can raise you to be the man your father would have wanted you to be." She brushed a lock of blonde hair away from his little forehead and stood once more, looking back to the gravestone. "I'll do my best, Percy. I love you, I'll see you again. Someday."

And with that, she turned and began the trek back to her car, her son cradled tightly in her arms. The wind carried soft whispers across the mildewed grass as her coat fluttered softly. She felt a warm presence from behind her. A presence she hadn't felt in a year. As she turned back to his tombstone she whispered one word, echoed by the breeze and carried with promise to the heavens.

"Someday."

A/N: Don't expect a whole lot of entries in this story I have a bad habit of going a long time without committing to writing chapters for anything. I'll add another story to this series when I get it done. Review if you enjoyed it or have constructive criticism. Thanks 3