Chapter Text
Percy knew he was dreaming.
Knew it just as he knew the sky was blue, as he knew that grass was green. He could tell that he was dreaming because of three things. The first was the floaty sensation rippling through his body and his head. It made him dizzy and light, made him feel like a cloud about to float away.
The second thing that clued him in was the comfort he felt in his own body. Clovis in the hypnos cabin, who he had taken to talking to more recently, had often described dreaming as being similar to being a god. And as time went on, Percy became more inclined to agree with him. He never felt burdened by his body when he was dreaming. He felt fluid, free.
The third and final reason probably should have been the first; he was on the edge of Chaos, feet dangling over the ledge. When he’d stood over Chaos before, when he was in Tartarus, it had just been a pit of inky blackness. A nothingness for miles deep. But now, as he sat against the rocky cliff, dust slipping into the void with every swing of his legs, it was an endless swirl of every color, of debris and creation, of incredible designs that crumbled to dust before he could commit them to memory.
He knew that in real life, if he tried to sit here, staring over the dangerous beauty that was Chaos, he would be destroyed near instantly. But that wouldn’t stop him from sitting here, while no one would be looking for him, where no one could see him, pleasantly leaning back on the heels of his hands in his dream.
Stirring and sitting up, Percy stretched his arms above his head, enjoying the simple sensation of his back cracking. He turned his head, not really knowing if this was a sign of him waking up soon, or if he was actually just stretching. Dreams were strange that way.
He regretted turning as soon as he did it. Behind him was the inky red and black haze that was Tarturus. The pit. The darkness that plagued him day in and day out. What a shame it was that the place where he found the most peace happened to be on the edge of the place he was trying to escape.
The jagged landscape in the distance stirred something in the back of his mind, and a few sharp images flashed before his eyes, startling him awake. Percy opened his eyes to the bright, early morning light. The sun was just barely rising, tinging the edge of the sky a baby pink and just beginning to burn off the mist that hung over camp.
Percy lay in the grass, his powers allowing his spot to be dry despite the rest of the grass being covered in dew. In the distance, he could see the Nyads splashing in the lake, and smoke beginning to rise from the direction of the dining pavilion. From his place on the slope of a hill, he could also see the strawberry fields, the blossoms just beginning to turn to fruit in the late spring, and beyond that, the ocean, waves lightly crashing on the shore.
In the direction of the cabins, most of the campers were still asleep, only a few earlier risers out of their cabins, likely getting to the bathrooms before the morning rush. “Lovely morning,” Rachel’s voice called from behind him. Percy had already felt her coming. “Did you sleep out here again?” Percy’s eyes landed on the short stone building that was his cabin and darted away.
“Yeah,” he said, turning to face the red haired girl, her hair looking bright in the sunlight that peaked over her head. “I was feeling too suffocated in there.” He’d tried to sleep in his cabin, he really had, but the heat and the walls and the lack of fresh air had just sent him hurtling outside to vomit in the grass. Chiron had yet to push it.
“Let’s go get you some breakfast.” Rachel offered. Percy nodded and he accepted her outstretched hand, dotted with freckles and spots of paint. Rachel led him down the hill, past the slowly waking cabins and to the dining pavilion, where plates were already set out. A handful of campers already sat there, eating their breakfast in varying states of alertness. One camper nearly took a bite out of their fork, causing their friend to snort, and pull their utensils out of their hands.
Percy passed the Athena table, which was occupied by a handful of campers, including one familiar looking girl, hunched over a book. She looked up at him, and he smiled with the familiarity of knowing someone for five, six years. She hesitantly smiled back, and quickly turned back to her book. Rachel patted him on the shoulder and went off to get herself a plate.
Percy’s smile melted away, being replaced with a look of reluctant acceptance that had graced it so often recently. Acceptance, acceptance, acceptance. There was no other way. Accept the pain, allow the fact that it was true and irreversible, and move on. Move on to let others grieve.
As the dining Pavilion filled up with more people, a couple of his friends shot him sympathetic looks as they caught him staring at Annabeth. Whether or not she noticed his stare, she didn’t look over to him once, remaining engaged in her book and occasionally answering a question from someone at her table. Eventually, as the peaceful quiet was replaced by light chatter, Clarisse plopped down next to him, dropping a plate filled with eggs and bacon in front of her.
Wordlessly, she pushed his untouched plate closer to him. Percy glanced at her, giving her a dead look that usually made people leave him alone. Clarisse glared right back at him. With a sigh, Percy picked up his fork and poked at the small stack of blue pancakes, drenched in syrup and topped with blueberries, just the way he liked them.
One of the pancakes slid off the plate and onto the table. “I’m not hungry.” Percy said, the tensing knot in his stomach loosening slightly in relief. He swung his legs over the bench and walked away, heading in the direction of the lake.
The Nyads had learned not to bother him anymore, after he had shot one of them fifty feet in the air when she had tried to flirt with him. As he sat down on the dock, barefoot feet hanging over the water similar to the way they had hung over Chaos in his dream, they subtly drifted over to the other side of the lake and quieted their giggling.
The sun was coming out, seeming disturbingly cheerful given his mood. Then again, most things felt too cheerful. Percy didn’t know how long he sat there, lost in thought, all he did know was that by the time he stood up, his left leg had fallen asleep. He’d gotten better at that lately, sitting still, thinking. He still couldn’t focus to save his life, still drifted off in his mind, but now it didn’t show so outwardly.
Standing felt strange after sitting for so long, but sitting more felt exhausting. So sliding his shoes back on, Percy meandered around camp, eventually reaching the sword arena and thinking about sparring a bit with whichever Ares or Athena kids were undoubtedly in there judging by the level of excitement he could head as he approached. He regretted this decision when he saw it was just any Athena kid. It was Annabeth.
Her blonde curls practically glowed in the sunlight, tied back in a bun as she fought, whirling and slashing, against a child of Demeter. Off to the side, a small crowd, mostly composed of younger campers, cheered them on. It was strange. How some things could change so much, and others…
He knew her. Knew her style. He could predict her next three moves five seconds before she did it. Doge, swipe, duck, jab, pause, feint, slam. Her opponent went to the ground. In seconds, her blade was at their throat. There was the typical moment of silence that happened after one person is defeated, then they both smiled and she helped them off the ground.
The smile threw him off. That was the smile she wore among friends. With him and Grover and the seven. And yes, of course she was allowed to make friends, why shouldn’t she be. But why did they get to be on the receiving end of that grin he’d missed so much, when he wasn’t?
Annabeth turned briefly to the entrance where he stood. Her wild, victorious grin faltered for a moment before someone called her name and she jogged off, smiling back in full force. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” Chiron somehow approached from behind him silently, making Percy jump. The old mentor’s eyes followed Annabeth’s path sadly as she ran off. “Poor girl.”
“Yeah,” Percy agreed. He sympathized with her, he really did. He wanted to talk to her, to help her, to relate with her, but she just pushed him away, away, away. She didn’t talk to him, she didn’t even try. Sometimes it seemed like she talked to everyone but him.
“Then again,” Chiron added, looking at Percy as if he knew something Percy didn’t. “Maybe she has it better.”
Maybe she did. Chiron trotted off, leaving Percy staring at the grass where Annabeth had run off.
~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
Percy stood at the top of Half Blood hill, watching as a group of campers said goodbye to their friends and got into the camp van. Annabeth was one of them. Unlike Percy, she was no longer a full time camper, returning to school most weeks. This week had been an… exception. Why she had been at camp, no one had actually designed to tell him. She wasn’t here to see him and that’s all that mattered.
Curses were funny things. The Fates were funny creatures. No one knew exactly what had happened, but it’s not like it was completely unheard of. One morning, Annabeth had woken up, memories gone. She still knew how basic things worked, still understood everything about camp and the gods, still knew that her mother was Athena and her father was Fredrick Chase, but other than that… not so much.
Everyone from Mr. D, to the Apollo cabin, to Apollo himself said that it was a curse, that some being more powerful than the borders of the camp or the healing abilities of Apollo had cursed her with amnesia. Amnesia, meaning that she didn’t remember Percy, or any of their friends, didn’t remember their quests or their memories, nothing.
And she didn’t really seem like she wanted to. Not that Percy could blame her. Had had quite a few blocked memories himself, and he only knew that they were blocked because others told him the little they knew about them. Percy thought about what Chiron had said. “Maybe she had it better.”
He thought about the nightmares, the impossibly small appetite, the need to train and to be alert, the unconscious tension he carried with him. Thought of the way Annabeth didn’t have any of that, not anymore.
Some days he just wanted to scream and scream and scream at the sky. On those days he would walk by the lava pit by the rock climbing wall and think about jumping in. On those days he thought about diving into the mariana trench and never coming back out. On those days, he ultimately thought of everyone else.
Sometimes, he learned, it's not happy things that get you through the day. It's the very, very sad ones.
The van drove off in the direction of the city where it would drop Annabeth off at her boarding school before taking the other campers to the airport. He’d heard from Rachel or Piper or someone that Annabeth had gotten a girlfriend there. He learned from pictures in her room and rumors around camp that she had dark hair and a goofy sense of humor.
Memories or not it seemed, Annabeth had a type.
One particularly bad night, Percy had been in his cabin, tossing and turning, sweating and generally panicking, and he had gotten up, and grabbed a sewing needle.
What it had been doing in his cabin, he didn’t know. What he had planned on doing with it, he didn’t know either. Maybe poke himself with it until he bled, maybe punch it through his throat and put himself out of his misery.
Instead he rummaged around for some gray thread and a scrap of gray cloth and had sewn a small gray owl on it. Then, lighting a small fire on the floor of his cabin, he had burnt it like a funeral. Maybe it was. Because even though Annabeth technically wasn’t dead, her old self was and Percy had a feeling that she wasn’t coming back.
He should move on; he knew it was true. His mom had suggested it, sadly over an Iris message, Grover had said it, annoyed from the empathy link, Clarrisse, who he’d actually gotten a lot closer to, had said it while they were sparring one day after she beat him because he’d gotten lost in thought. Percy suspected that Chrion’s words the other day had been the centaur also prompting him to find a way to move on with his life.
Percy agreed. He could only pine after a girl who didn’t even remember him for so long. But when you’d spent so much of your life loving someone, it was hard to let go. It was difficult not to be disappointed and sad when she didn’t return your smile. It was near impossible not to look at old photos with longing, trying to corroborate the girl he saw at camp every other weekend with the smiling, stubborn girl in the pictures.
But the world had moved on. It had left the old Annabeth, her life behind in the photos, and gotten to know the new one.
The world had left him, still grieving over her old things, alone in the dark.