A/N: Hi wow sorry about the unannounced hiatus! Don't work in government during an election year if you want to have time to work on your fanfic. These last few chapters are probably going to be posted as I have time, so thanks for being patient with an erratic posting schedule as we finish this thing out. I missed you guys!

Last Percy POV!

Percy

"So what are you up to this weekend?" I asked.

I was on the phone with Annabeth while cleaning up from a particularly rowdy game of pinochle between me, Chiron, and a few of the dryads. She'd been really busy this week, but we were still finding time to talk almost every day, which was making me feel like we were 17 again.

"Well, I have my anniversary party for the firm tonight, and then nothing tomorrow or Sunday, hold on," I heard something crash in the background, and Annabeth barked an order to her contractors. She was trying to finish up whatever work needed to be done on her building before her party later. "Why, what are you up to?" she asked.

I took a deep breath. I didn't know why I was so nervous. It's just Annabeth, I thought to myself, but even I knew that was a ridiculous statement given our current situation.

"I'll just be here, but I was wondering if you wanted to go out to dinner tomorrow night?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and I wondered for a second if I misread every signal she had given me since last weekend. I didn't think I had, because she hadn't shied away from me at all, and some of the things she was saying since she broke up with her jerk of an ex-boyfriend were very clear. Annabeth wasn't one to mince words.

Last weekend had been pretty unexpected for both of us, but it confirmed to me what I'd been feeling since I crashed the party a few weeks back: I wasn't going to let her get away from me again.

"I'd love to," her voice finally rang out over the other end of the line, and it sounded like she was smiling. I grinned too.

"Great, I'll make a reservation somewhere and pick you up at six?"

"Sounds like a plan," I heard something else crash in the background. "I'm sorry, I have to go, but I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay, see you." I hung up the phone, and did a little victory fist pump to myself. It felt weird asking Annabeth out on a first date for the second time in our lives, but whatever gets the job done.

Despite the drama last weekend, I knew we were back after our talk at the beach. I was even going to ask if she wanted to grab a drink or something that night when we got back to her place, but her ex ruined that plan. We ate breakfast at her house the next morning, but it still felt pretty casual. I wanted to take her on a real date again.

I heard the clatter of hooves in the background, and Chiron chuckled.

"Well done, my boy," he laughed, and I felt my face get hot. Somehow, this felt worse than when Grover called me out about texting Annabeth so much.

"It's not a big deal," I mumbled, continuing to pick up the cards from the table. "There's way more important stuff happening around here."

"This is true, but we can still take time to appreciate the good things," he smiled, his eyes crinkling up at the sides. Chiron deserved to appreciate the good things, maybe more than any of us. "I've seen a lot of camp romances in my time, and I can usually tell who is destined for failure and who is in it for the long haul. Between you and me, you two breaking up was one of the more surprising things I'd witnessed in many years. And what happened with her was, ah, distressing for all of us."

"Yeah, well, surprise: it was just another godly scheme," I said and let a bit of anger drip into my voice. I had to let it out in small increments or it would consume me.

Chiron looked at me now with what I could only interpret as sadness. "It may never be easy for you. Either of you."

"I know that," I said. "And maybe we would have broken up eventually anyway, but I can't help but feel a little bitter about it…" I trailed off, my rapid fire thoughts getting the better of me.

"I don't think you would have," Chiron filled in the silence. "Which is partly why we were all so excited when you arrived with her a few weeks ago. Although, I have to admit I was a bit worried when Grover told me she was in a relationship."

A wave of anger rushed over me just thinking about her ex-boyfriend. We'd mostly Percy-proofed the plumbing around here, but I tried to let the anger go as quickly as it had come. If I ever saw that guy again I was going to lay him out immediately.

I knew Annabeth wouldn't like me thinking like that, but I just couldn't help it after seeing the way he'd upset her last weekend. When I heard the glass break in her bedroom, I'd never had a quicker reaction to anything. It had been hard enough not to interfere when they were yelling at each other, but when I heard something break I saw red. If she would have had even a single scratch on her, I don't know if I would have been able to hold myself back. I was barely able to keep myself from punching him square in the face to begin with.

She'd been a mess for a while after, and part of me felt a bit guilty about it. I knew I had complicated things for her and that I set a lot of this in motion. But, she was an adult capable of making her own decisions, and there was no way in Hades that I was going to let anything happen to her. I slept on her couch that night because I really didn't want to leave her alone, and I wasn't convinced that her ex wasn't going to come back. The night before, Kennedy came back with groceries after Annabeth fell asleep on my shoulder, and she helped me get her into bed. I'd gone back to my own apartment in the city, thought about her almost all night, and wished I could have stayed.

Checking back into the conversation with Chiron, I said, "I thought I was exempt from the rumor mill after I graduated?"

"No one is exempt from the rumor mill, Percy," he said, his smile back in place as he clapped me on the shoulder. "Speaking of which, did you hear that—"

The front door of the Big House clattered open, catching us both off guard as the rickety screen door barely stayed on its hinges. Cara ran in, yelling our names with wide eyes.

"Chiron! Percy!"

We rushed over, and I quickly inspected her for any surface injuries. No blood. Nothing unusual. She looked fine. Phillip stumbled in behind her and quickly collapsed on the couch. He was sweating, and I could see the veins pulsing quickly under his skin that was just a litt. He clutched at his chest and clawed at his t-shirt before Cara pulled it up all the way revealing red streaks climbing down his chest. The marks had previously only reached his elbow, but now they were approaching his heart.

"Can't breathe," he gasped. "But don't worry, still kicking," he said this last part to Cara, who let out a choked sob.

Chiron left immediately to call for medical aid.

"We're out of time," I said, trying to make a plan in my head as well as I could with the pieces we were still missing. "Is your trap done?"

"Kind of. I bound Maple to her tree again yesterday, but that was after a few tries. It doesn't always work," she explained.

"We're going to have to figure it out in the moment or find another solution. We'll have to just go into the city and see if we can find them. Go grab your machine, and we'll have someone from Cabin 7 assess him one more time. He needs to be in good enough shape to ride a pegasus, or at least hold on," I instructed Cara and she ran out of the Big House.

I didn't know if this plan was going to work. I didn't know how we were going to find them in the city, if that's even where they were hiding out. Cara's machine apparently now had a radius that it would work without being directly touched, but from what I understood it was spotty and the radius was small.

I looked at Phillip who was trying to catch his breath on the couch.

"This goes without saying, but don't die on her."

He nodded, understanding the gravity of the situation, and I went outside to call the pegusi.

/\

Annabeth

Drywall and plaster shattered on the floor, and I held a respirator up to my face as I navigated through the mess in the heels I was wearing. I was already dressed because I wasn't going to have time to go home, so I wore my favorite pair of dress shoes (that I finally found) and a burnt orange ruched dress.

My contractors were here at the same time as the event set up people, so I was bouncing between both rooms. I really wanted to have the demolition on the first floor done by the time of the party, but we were running behind this week and they were cutting it close.

There were cocktail tables and speakers being set up in the front room, and I pushed past the plastic that was sectioning off the back, looking for my site manager.

"This needs to be done in the next hour so you can get everything cleaned up," I said to him from behind my respirator.

"We will be, sorry about the delay. This last part of the wall is giving us trouble," he gestured toward his people, who were using crowbars to try and pry the plaster off the giant archway cresting the back of the room. This was truly the architectural centerpiece of the whole building, so I wanted it done today to be shown off later this evening.

Without warning, the final piece of the wall clattered to the floor. I blinked behind my safety glasses as the dust cleared.

The arch had a giant keystone at the pinnacle, just like I was expecting. The stone was painted blue, and there were intricate designs branded into the brick on either side.

My blood ran cold as I looked at the keystone.

"You know what, I think I want to keep this section closed off for tonight after all," I said with as much confidence as I could muster to my site manager. "We can finish it when we start on the second floor."

"Are you sure, Ms. Chase? It will really only be another hour or two."

"Yes, I'm sure. It's Friday, you guys go home early. This can wait,"

My contractor agreed, and they began to pack up their things. I didn't leave the room, or really take my eyes off the arch until they were gone.

After everyone left, I peaked around the plastic barrier to make sure the event people were still setting up. Everything looked good, And no one was paying attention to the commotion back here, so I pulled a ladder over to the arch and climbed up carefully.

I ran my hand over the stone, which may have been a mistake, but I had to confirm what my eyes were seeing.

"Oh, this is so bad," I muttered to myself before clambering down the ladder as quickly as I could in heels.

I looked around frantically, assessing my options. There was a pile of tools in the corner that were left by the contractors, so I grabbed a hammer and crowbar before sprinting out of the room and up the stairs.

/\

I was an architect, not a contractor, but it turned out I was pretty good at this demolition stuff. Maybe I missed my calling.

As fast as I could, I'd moved through the second and third floor of the building to find the matching arches that I knew existed on each level. As though my life depended on it (and maybe it did) I pried the plaster off as fast as I could to confirm what I'd found on the first floor. When I entered the large back room on the fourth level, I was finally able to make sense of my nightmare from a few days back. The layout of the room matched the scene in my dream, and I kicked myself for not realizing it sooner.

I pulled some boxes over to the arch and jumped up, hitting the wall with the hammer and watching the plaster fall off the keystone.

A blue keystone. An etching of a snake in the brick, the most elaborate of all four. It was clear at this point, I was standing in their hideout.

When I hopped back down, I started to pull my phone out to call Percy, but was cut off by a familiar voice across the room.

"Annabeth," a man's voice, one that I had heard before, echoed through the empty space. The man from the coffee shop down the street, who I was now assuming was Dolus, stood across from me.

"It's you," I said, trying to formulate a plan in my head. There were mortals downstairs, and my phone was in my pocket. I had my knife, but probably not enough time to text Percy. He could kill me before I even hit send.

"Yes, we need to stop meeting like this," he took a step forward, and I instinctively jerked back. Noticing my movement, he put one hand up toward me. "I just want to talk with you, for now. We can work this out without any need for bloodshed."

"What is there to work out, and why are you here?" I asked, gesturing to the space around me. I was trying to buy myself some more time to come up with a plan, but also curious.

"The real question is, why are you here? This whole thing is quite the coincidence, actually. And one that's been incredibly annoying at that, so much so that I'm starting to believe the Fates are working against us," Dolus explained, lowering his hand as I accepted his invitation for conversation. "Who could have guessed you would start renovating this building? It was our original base when Olympus first moved to this city. And on top of that, it was purely due to chance that you started dating Rebecca's son, and that she figured out who you were. That poor, broken girl. It didn't take much to make her sympathetic to our cause, after the other Olympians abandoned her. My point is, you shouldn't be here, but something willed it to be."

"The gods and their meddling, huh? I can relate," I responded, sarcasm dripping in my voice. Whether he didn't pick up on it or just ignored my quip, I wasn't sure.

"I know you can, which is why I wanted to talk with you first. I want to end this without any unnecessary bloodshed, and perhaps the reason you've ended up here is so I can give you a choice. My sister isn't so kind, but I convinced her to let me speak with you first."

"Then speak."

"I'm going to give you one more chance to walk away from this. I tried to warn you, before, but apparently I need to be more direct. I'm surprised my original warning didn't stick. Athena would be disappointed in your decision making."

"Do not speak my mother's name," I spat, but a small part of me, one that had been there since I was seven years old, wondered if he was right.

"Yes, well," he continued, clearly unimpressed, and I wanted to puff my chest out at him like a threatened animal. "I tried to warn you about what happens when people get involved in things they shouldn't. There are always consequences. Now, there will be extra bloodshed. But you can still avoid that, if you choose. You can go back to your easy life, to your job you've worked so hard to cultivate, and even your new little boyfriend."

"Go back to my easy life?" I was almost insulted at the notion. "None of that was real. You took my life from me. And even if I wanted to go back, I couldn't, now that I know the truth."

"Ah, but we can fix that easily. I don't offer this for everyone, but I can alter the memories. It will feel just like it did before this all started. You'll not only remember your heartbreak, but you'll revel in it. It will make you powerful. You built your own personal empire from what we gave you. I can even fix your little boyfriend's memories too. Everything will be like it was."

Like it was.

Easy. Fake. Powerful. Too many words to dance around the truth: miserable.

There were good things that came out of the past ten years. I loved my job. I had great friends. I had a nice home. But none of those things had to be mutually exclusive with my real life. Percy had figured it out, and now he had both. Why couldn't I?

Maybe I had been reveling in my heartbreak for ten years, but I realized last weekend it was only so I could keep hiding. I kept telling myself that things were the way they were because of what happened with Percy. I was in a bad relationship because my last relationship failed. I couldn't take risks because look where that got me before. The easy path was the safe path, and you couldn't get hurt on the safe path. And it didn't help that there was a little magic keeping me trapped in that cycle.

I had truly lost myself over the past decade. It was time to be Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, architect of Olympus, hero, again.

"No," I answered. "You can keep your fake life and fake memories. I'm taking my real life back."

Dolus tsk'd as if I was a child breaking a parental command, and it finally hit me why he was making this offer. There was a catch, of course. The gods didn't do selfless things.

"Oh," I said aloud. "I understand now. You weren't counting on me and Percy getting involved or figuring out your deception. It fractured the curse, the original curse. You and Apate don't have enough power to fully reform. The curse you put on Phillip was supposed to be the final deceit— a false exchange ending in death. But because Percy and I found each other again it's not enough."

He gave me a look that was supposed to intimidate me, and I knew I got it right by the murderous expression in his eyes.

"What happens to Percy if I choose to go back to my old life?" I asked.

Surprisingly, Dolus gave me what seemed like an honest answer, perhaps sensing I wasn't going to take him up on his offer. "He will grieve, true grief, and the renewed heartbreak will be enough."

Suddenly, there was a second figure in the room. The woman in the red dress from my dream. She had a sword hanging at her side, too. I was suddenly outnumbered.

"This is taking too long, brother," she said as if she was a bored child.

"So what's the other option, if I don't accept?" I asked, knowing the answer. My hand reaching for my dagger, sensing this conversation was coming to an end.

"Your death."

With instant speed, Dolus was in front of me, sword in hand. When he raised it, I lifted my dagger to block, and it stopped the blade in a deadlock as he brought his sword down. He pushed down, I pushed back, we were trapped in a dead heat.

Dolus muttered something, and the edges of my vision started to grow fuzzy. My dagger started to feel weak in my hand as I tried to focus on countering his blow. I slowly sank to the floor as everything went black.