Chapter Text
The late evening air at Camp Half-Blood usually carried the sounds of cicadas, the gentle lapping of the canoe lake, and the distant laughter of campers winding down for the night. But tonight, the camp felt different. There was a strange, tense electricity humming beneath the surface, a ripple of whispered conversations that died out the moment Percy Jackson walked past.
Percy noticed it, but his mind was elsewhere. He had spent the afternoon in the underwater forge by the lake, working on a new celestial bronze shield he was trying to master. He’d lost track of time, which was normal for him. Now, he was looking for his girlfriend. He and Annabeth had planned to study together after dinner—well, she was going to study, and he was going to mostly doodle in the margins of his notebook while pretending to study.
When he didn’t find her at the Pavilion or the pavilion steps, he figured she must have retreated to the Athena cabin to organize her architectural blueprints.
Percy jogged up the steps of Cabin Six and pushed open the door without knocking. It was a habit he’d developed over the years, one that usually earned him a swat on the arm and a lecture about boundaries, followed by a soft smile.
"Hey, Wise Girl, I lost track of—"
Percy stopped dead in his tracks.
The cabin, usually a pristine monument to order, looked like a crime scene. A plate of food was sitting abandoned on the table, surrounded by a scattering of green peas that had rolled onto the polished wood. Two of the perfectly aligned chairs were shoved out of place.
And sitting on the floor, tucked into the corner between the wall and a bunk bed, was Connor Stoll.
Connor wasn’t known for being still. He was a Hermes kid—constantly moving, plotting, joking, stealing. But right now, he was terrifyingly motionless. He had Malcolm Pace pulled tightly into his lap and chest. Malcolm was asleep, or at least unconscious, his face buried in Connor’s neck. Connor’s arms were wrapped around Malcolm like a steel cage, and his chin was resting protectively on the top of Malcolm’s head.
Percy’s brain struggled to process the scene. "Connor? What... what happened? Where's Annabeth?"
Connor slowly lifted his head. When his eyes met Percy's, Percy felt a cold bucket of ice water dump over his head. Connor’s eyes were furious, and entirely devoid of their usual mischievous sparkle. He looked like a soldier who had just returned from a brutal battlefield.
"Get out, Jackson," Connor whispered. His voice was hoarse, like he had been screaming for a very long time.
"What?" Percy asked, taking a tentative step inside. "Is Malcolm okay? Did a monster get in—"
"No monster did this," Connor said, his voice dropping to a lethal, guttural growl. He carefully shifted Malcolm’s weight, ensuring the sleeping boy didn't wake up, but the movement made it clear that Connor was coiled to strike if Percy came any closer. "I said get out. She's not here. And if you know what's good for you, you'll turn around, walk out that door, and go back to your cabin."
Percy frowned, his stomach twisting into a knot of dread. Connor was scared. Underneath all that rage, Percy—who had a preternatural ability to sense fear in others—could feel it radiating off the Hermes counselor in waves. "Connor, tell me what happened. Is Annabeth hurt?"
Connor let out a harsh, bitter laugh that held absolutely no humor. It was the sound of shattered glass. "Hurt? No, Jackson. Your girlfriend isn't the one who got hurt. Malcolm is. Annabeth did this."
The words hung in the air, heavy and incomprehensible. Percy looked at the scattered food on the table. He looked at Malcolm’s pale, tear-stained face, even in sleep. He looked at the way Connor was shielding him.
"What are you talking about?" Percy asked, his voice hardening.
"Don't play dumb with me," Connor snapped, his eyes flashing. "I don't have the energy to spell it out for a Seaweed Brain. Will is in the infirmary getting Malcolm's safe foods. When he gets back, we're moving Malcolm to the Hermes cabin. He's not staying here another night."
"Connor, you're not making any sense," Percy said, taking another step forward, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. "Just tell me what she did."
Connor stared at him for a long, measuring moment. Then, his jaw tightened. "She tried to force-feed him."
Percy froze. "What?"
"Malcolm has ARFID," Connor said, spitting the acronym out like a curse. "Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. His brain literally misfires when he tries to eat certain textures or smells. It sends him into survival mode. Chiron told her. She knew. And her brilliant, 'logical' Athena solution was to grab him by the chin and shove a fork of chicken into his face."
Percy felt the ground tilt beneath his feet. A roaring sound started in his ears. "She... she grabbed his chin?"
"She physically restrained him," Connor confirmed, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "When he panicked and pushed her away, she yelled at him for overreacting. He had a full-blown panic attack on the floor, gasping for air, and she stood over him and told him he was being dramatic. If Will hadn't gotten there when he did, I don't know what would have happened."
Percy turned around and looked at the table. The scattered peas. The abandoned fork. In his mind's eye, the scene played out with horrifying clarity. Annabeth’s stubbornness. Her absolute conviction that she was always right. Her inability to understand that some things couldn't be fixed with logic and blueprints. But this... this was a line he never thought she would cross.
"I dragged her out to the Pavilion," Connor continued, his eyes boring into Percy’s back. "I told her in front of half the camp that if she ever touches him again, I will go to the mortal police and have her charged with assault and child abuse. I meant it, Percy. I will destroy her life if she goes near him."
Percy turned back to face Connor. His sea-green eyes were dark, churning storms of anger and disbelief. "Where is she now?"
"I don't care," Connor spat. "And neither should you. Get out."
Percy didn't move. He stood there, the son of Poseidon, the hero of Olympus, feeling entirely powerless. He thought about Annabeth. He thought about how she always had to be in control. He thought about how she viewed people as chess pieces sometimes, as variables in an equation. He had always forgiven her for it because he loved her, because he thought her brilliance made up for her coldness.
But this wasn't coldness. This was cruelty.
"I'm going to find her," Percy said quietly.
"If you do, you tell her I meant every word," Connor said, resting his cheek back against Malcolm’s head. "Now get out of this cabin. You're stressing him out, even in his sleep."
Percy walked out of the Athena cabin. The cool night air hit his face, but it did nothing to quell the fire burning in his chest. He didn't run. He walked with a slow, deliberate, terrifying calmness toward the beach. He knew Annabeth. When she was cornered, when she was wrong, she didn't go to the Pavilion or the infirmary. She went to the water. She went to the one place that usually grounded her.
He found her sitting on the sand near the dock, her knees drawn up to her chest, staring out at the dark, churning surface of the Long Island Sound. She didn't turn around when he approached, but he saw her shoulders tense.
"Connor found me," she said, her voice hollow.
Percy stopped a few feet behind her. He didn't sit down. "I know what you did, Annabeth."
Annabeth let out a shaky breath. "It wasn't... I didn't mean for it to go that far, Percy. He wasn't eating. He was going to be weak for the war games. I was just trying to—"
"Don't," Percy said. The single word cut through the air like a blade.
Annabeth finally turned her head to look at him. In the moonlight, her grey eyes were red, her face blotchy. She looked scared. "Percy, please. You have to understand. In my mind, it was simple mechanics. Food is fuel. He was refusing fuel, and I—"
"He has a disorder, Annabeth," Percy said, his voice dangerously low. "A neurological disorder. You knew that."
"It's an excuse!" Annabeth cried, scrambling to her feet and turning to face him fully. The desperation in her voice was palpable. "It's a mental block! If he just applied some discipline, if he just pushed through the discomfort—"
"Pushed through the discomfort?" Percy echoed, a dark, humorless laugh escaping his lips. "Is that what you call having a panic attack so severe you forget how to breathe? Is that what you call being so terrified of a piece of chicken that your brain tells you you're dying?"
Annabeth flinched. "You're taking his side."
"There are no sides!" Percy yelled, the volume finally snapping, his hands gesturing wildly in the dark. "This isn't a debate! This isn't a strategic disagreement! You physically grabbed a terrified kid and tried to shove food down his throat! What is wrong with you?!"
The words struck Annabeth like a physical blow. She took a step back, her eyes wide. "Don't yell at me."
"No, Annabeth, I am going to yell at you!" Percy roared, stepping closer, the ocean behind him beginning to rise and fall in sync with his turbulent emotions. "Because you're standing here trying to justify assault! You think because you're a daughter of Athena, because you have a high IQ, you can just bypass basic human empathy? You treated him like a malfunctioning machine!"
"He IS malfunctioning!" Annabeth shouted back, tears spilling down her cheeks. "And I am the one who has to deal with it! Do you think it's easy for me? Do you think I wanted to do that? I am under so much pressure to keep that cabin running, to keep everyone alive, and he just sits there and refuses to eat, and I just... I snapped. I broke. Is that what you want to hear?"
Percy stared at her. The waves behind him crashed heavily against the shore, spraying mist over the dock. He looked at her—the girl he had fallen in love with when they were twelve, the girl he had fallen into Tartarus for, the girl who was supposed to be the wisest of them all. And all he felt was a profound, aching disappointment.
"I hear that you're broken, Annabeth," Percy said, his voice dropping back to that terrifying, quiet calm. "I hear that you are so obsessed with control and perfection that when you encountered a problem you couldn't logic away, you resorted to abuse."
"It wasn't abuse," Annabeth whispered, though her voice lacked conviction.
"Connor is right," Percy said, ignoring her plea. "You could go to prison for this. Five years, Annabeth. Minimum. Because you are his legal guardian. You hold all the power, and you used it to hurt him."
Annabeth’s lower lip trembled violently. "Percy... you can't let them do that. You can't let them take me away. We've saved the world. We've bled for Olympus. They can't just... I made a mistake. I'm sorry."
"You're sorry you got caught," Percy said coldly. "I can see it in your eyes. You're not sorry you did it. You're sorry it blew up in your face. You're sorry Connor humiliated you in front of the camp. You're sorry I'm standing here looking at you like you're a stranger."
"That's not true!" Annabeth sobbed, stepping forward and grabbing the front of his shirt. "Percy, I love you. I love you, and I was just trying to do my job. Please. You have to help me fix this. You always fix things. Tell Chiron it was a misunderstanding. Tell Connor to back off."
Percy reached up and gently, but firmly, detached her hands from his shirt. He held her wrists for a second, then let them drop. The action spoke louder than any shout ever could.
"I'm not going to cover for you," Percy said. "Not this time."
Annabeth’s face crumpled in sheer panic. "Percy, please. Don't do this."
"This isn't just a mistake, Annabeth," Percy said, his voice heavy with a profound sadness that went beyond anger. "This is a fundamental flaw in who you are right now. You lack empathy. You view people as objects to be managed. That is not a personality quirk. That is something deeply, deeply wrong. And it is going to destroy you if you don't get help."
"Help? What kind of help?" Annabeth asked, wiping her eyes, a hint of her usual defensive arrogance flickering through her tears. "I don't need a therapist. I'm not crazy."
"Therapy, Annabeth," Percy stated firmly. "Professional, mortal therapy. Not Chiron talking to you about wisdom. Not Athena smiling down from Olympus. You need to sit in a room with a professional who can break down this god-complex you have and teach you how to be a human being."
"You're out of your mind," Annabeth said, her eyes flashing with sudden anger, using the offense as a shield against her despair. "I am not going to sit in a room and let some mortal tell me how to think."
Percy looked at her for a long moment. The waves behind him slowly began to recede, the storm inside him passing, leaving only a cold, hard resolve. "Then we're done."
The words hung in the air between them, absolute and final.
Annabeth stared at him, her breath catching in her throat. "What?"
"You go to therapy," Percy said, enunciating every word clearly. "You find a licensed psychologist in the city, you go every week, and you do the work. You apologize to Malcolm—not a justification, not an 'I'm sorry you felt' apology, a real, unconditional apology. And you resign as his guardian, because you are in no mental state to be responsible for a vulnerable teenager."
"You can't be serious," Annabeth breathed, her entire body starting to shake. "You're breaking up with me? Over this?"
"I'm giving you a choice," Percy said, though his tone made it clear it was an ultimatum. "Therapy. Real help. You deal with whatever darkness is inside you that makes you think it's okay to torture a kid who looks up to you. If you do that—if you actually commit to it, not just to placate me, but to actually fix yourself—maybe we can talk. Maybe."
"And if I don't?" Annabeth whispered, tears streaming freely down her face, her grey eyes desperately searching his for a crack, for the Percy who would always fold, who would always forgive her.
Percy looked at her. He felt the love he had carried for her for years—the deep, unshakeable bond that had survived monsters, gods, and the literal pits of hell. But he also saw the scared, crying boy on the floor of the Athena cabin, gasping for air because the person supposed to protect him had treated him like a defective toy.
He could not be with someone capable of that. He would not be.
"Then I walk away," Percy said softly. "And I don't come back."
Annabeth let out a sound that was half-sob, half-gasp. She reached out for him again, but Percy took a step back, out of her reach. The rejection was a physical pain in her chest, sharp and paralyzing.
"You're choosing them over me," she choked out. "You're choosing Connor and Malcolm over us."
"I'm choosing basic human decency over you," Percy replied. He didn't say it with malice, but with a heartbreaking finality. "I'm choosing right over wrong. You need to hear that, Annabeth. You need to understand that your actions have consequences. You are not untouchable."
Percy turned around. He looked out at the dark water, feeling the familiar pull of his father's domain, longing to just sink beneath the waves and disappear for a few hours. But he couldn't. He had to go back to the cabins. He had to make sure Will and Connor knew they had his full support. He had to make sure Malcolm was safe.
"Percy!" Annabeth screamed behind him, her voice breaking on his name. "Percy, please! Don't leave me! I'm sorry! I'll do it! I'll go to therapy, I swear, just please don't leave!"
Percy stopped walking. He stood on the damp sand, the sea breeze ruffling his hair. He didn't turn around.
"Prove it," he said over his shoulder. "Don't tell me. Show me. Call a clinic tomorrow morning. Show me the appointment confirmation. Resign as guardian by the end of the week. Until then, don't talk to me."
And without waiting for her response, Percy Jackson walked away from the daughter of Athena, leaving her alone on the beach to drown in the consequences of her own horrific actions.