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Percy thought he had known the antithesis of peace.
He was there, wasn’t he, when the world was ending, the lives of his loved ones hitched on unsteady time and trembling earth? He had felt rage course through his veins, crashing waves, white caps and grey water.
He was there, wasn’t he, when the mortal world was lifetimes above them, her weakening grasp in his hand, brimstone and bodies? He had felt the pull of poison, the mania of manipulation, the drive to the Doors.
He was there, wasn’t he, when the world went on and on and on without them, the earth sleeping and time passing and they had to catch up to life and living or be left behind? He had felt the slipping reality, the nightmares that shook her body, and the doubt that it might not have been worth it.
Gods, the indignation of living a forced life, Poseidon and prophecies and pain. Percy looked at his life and had seen a divine joke. He had laughed and it wasn’t funny.
Percy had known anger, looked in its face, lived and fought and almost died in its shadow. He had moved on – with her – into a future of steadiness and partnership and living. What was anger compared to the sense of belonging, the knowing and seeing and being together? He had known anger and chose peace.
But he had not yet met grief.
/
She built this for them. It started during college, a blueprint and hushed words over their pillows. It continued with intentionally broken ground, dryads and demigods and never demolition. It had finished when they moved into the small house and made it a home. They had built for others, too. Leo and Clarisse and Connor and Piper and Katie and Will and Nico and Lacy and anyone who came back to Camp Half-Blood for peace.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he whispered into the back of her neck, the desk lamp illuminating the plans and permanence of future homes and a school and a grocer’s. She leaned back in her chair, humming against him.
“We are doing this,” she had tried to correct him.
He didn’t believe her for a single second. He spent his days teaching and supporting and laughing with the younger demigods. She spent her days planning and constructing and building. They met again in their home each evening, surviving turned living.
He asked her, aged twenty-five, if she had wanted to get married, fingers tracing her face. The spring air was heavy around them, the sound of the ocean never too far, waves pulling away always to return to shore.
“We are married,” she had said in that way only she spoke.
“We are married,” he had agreed in that way he only did with her.
And they were.
/
They built and built and built in a single decade, and when a single strand of grey hair appeared at his temple, they had laughed.
“Twenty nine isn’t too young, is it?” He had asked his mother, arms wrapped around her shoulder, face pressed into her hair.
“No,” Sally lied, voice thick. “Time and pain catch up to all of us.”
“We’re in trouble then,” Annabeth chuckled from the couch, her fingers braiding Estelle’s hair.
“We’ve always been in trouble,” Percy shrugged. “What else is new?”
“What else is new?” Annabeth mused, voice quiet. He had wondered if she would ever have an answer.
She did, weeks later, hand pressing low on her abdomen. Happiness and disbelief and hope. Building and building and building. A silence and shock and something permanent.
“Gods, I’m gonna go grey,” he had finally been able to respond, thinking that the trouble was only just ahead.
Grey hair was no longer a reminder of holding the sky: life and living and building. They had laughed and cried and he had thought anger was a distant myth.
/
It was a slow and fast build after that, time playing tricks on him again. Restless waiting and then suddenly: restless loving, dimpled hands and wispy hair and a new peace.
“I think he looks like you,” she had whispered during a rare moment of silence, looking down at the source of the best kind of trouble.
“I think he looks like you,” he had disagreed in that way he only did with her. He ran his fingers over a pink cheek, over closed eyelids, where grey eyes had spent the day learning the world.
“He looks like us,” she conceded, her own finger running over soft black curls and pouty lips, and he had pulled her closer and felt whole.
/
Peaceful, he thought one day, feet in the surf watching his family build a sand castle. Annabeth had said that he was too small to understand what sandcastles were, his baby hands destructive in their curiosity. Percy had reassured her that the waves would take the sandcastle away long after they were gone, and she had looked back and smiled with her secrets, a smile ghosting at her lips.
Their son throws sand and leans against a spire and Annabeth stares over him to look at Percy. Amused, point made, daughter of Athena. And because he could – because Poseidon and pain and prophecies of years before – he had kept the surf at bay, had allowed his family to build and build and build without the threat of the sea, of the gods.
“Almost one year,” he tucked their son into a crib hours later, and had turned to look at her. Percy saw her, and that was enough alone, but he also saw a friend, an architect, a mother.
“Time for another, don’t you think?” Annabeth had pressed into him, and he saw a single grey strand at her hairline and grinned.
And it was.
/
Sixteen years after the Second Giant War and they welcome their second child, a screaming and wild daughter with translucently golden curls and grey eyes.
“This one is all you,” he had called over colicky cries, bouncing their swaddled baby in their living room. If one was tiring, two was exhausting. “She’s loud and blonde and determined to make things difficult for me.”
Annabeth had laughed from the kitchen, where their son babbled about sandcastles and Chiron and Grover and cookies.
“Your son won’t stop talking, oh my gods,” she had called back. Babble, babble, babble. The sounds of him banging on a high chair, squealing in his glee. “This one is you.”
Percy laughed under his breath, made shushing sounds to the one in his arms, watching in awe as she settled against him, and he had wondered if she was dreaming.
“Us,” Percy reminded Annabeth later, his body sprawled on their living room floor, spent, toddler fast asleep in their bed. She reached her hand down from the couch, their daughter feeding in her arms. He grabbed her free hand and smiled up at her. Two children, two decades of knowing her, and they have not stopped building.
“They’re us,” Annabeth agrees in that way only she spoke.
/
The future brings exceptions. Alcohol and phones and sleepovers. Adults huddled around a couch, a board game between them, children sleeping behind walls beyond.
“You should come see New Rome,” Jason tells her, eyes wide and earnest. “It’s grown so much. Ask Percy.”
“He has,” Annabeth had laughed. It was true: he found it difficult to leave her, six months pregnant with a toddler, to go to California last year. A small quest; successful. He had a list of things to tell her by the time he had come home, crawling into their bed and tucking their son under his chin and watching her sleep. “I’d love to go.”
“Bring the babies?” Hazel pleaded, hands folded under her chin.
“No,” Percy had shaken his head. Their children rarely leave Long Island, save for the usual trips to his parents’ apartment. “My kids will come back with tattoos or speaking Latin or some shit.”
Annabeth smacked his arm and rolled her eyes.
“Should I go?” She asked him when their friends were asleep around them. Percy had looked at Frank’s twisted form on the ground and threw a blanket over him. He had imagined the discomfort Frank would feel the next day, Percy’s own back arguing against the passing years, a gift and curse of aging.
“If you want to,” he told her, wanting her to experience all that life has to offer. Percy had removed an UNO card from underneath Leo’s cheek. “Gods, they make more of a mess than our actual children.”
“That’s because our kids are perfect,” Annabeth had lifted a glass from Piper’s sleeping hand.
“Yeah,” he had nodded dreamily. “They are.”
/
They were perfect until their mother had kissed them goodbye.
“It’s just a week,” she had reminded him for the hundredth time, pressing a cell phone into his hand. “There’s breastmilk and teething toys in the freezer. Katie is babysitting Tuesday and Thursday, do you think you can take Wednesday off to stay home? I really don’t want Clarisse teaching our two year old how to use a spear.”
“We saved the world a couple times,” he rolled his eyes back at her, their daughter reaching for her mother. “I think I can handle a week alone.”
She laughed and kissed him and he felt sixteen again. She reached for their daughter, their son attached to her pant leg, rubbing his face in his distress. “I don’t even care if I’m late. Blackjack can wait.”
“Blackjack will do anything you say,” He kissed her again. “He’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“We’ve done harder things than take a trip to New Rome,” she kissed their daughter’s cheek, red-faced and crying.
“Watching you go is the hardest,” his throat was closing, and he reached for their daughter and toddler.
“Coming home is the easiest,” she argued, pressing another kiss to his mouth, and turning to leave. Her eyes were light grey, a couple more grey strands on her temple, a sign of living. He watched as she took a moment to assess their little family, screaming children and a mother leaving and a father waiting. She had met his eyes and smiled, love and a promise. “Love you.”
“Love you,” he meant it, and he had begun to wait.
/
And wait and wait and wait, but no call.
Percy had made her promise to call, he remembers. He had stood in the kitchen, he remembers, and she had nodded and used a knife to cut a tomato. He had pulled back their covers, he remembers, and she had nodded and fluffed her pillow, eyes tired. He had kissed her earlier that morning, he remembers, and she had laughed and promised for the third time.
Annabeth had promised she would call when she arrived in New Rome.
It should have been hours ago, as per the plan they had built together.
He warms a bottle and settles onto their couch, their daughter’s eyelids closing against her determination to wait for their favorite person to come home. It was a rough day for all of them, their mother and architect and friend and person having left earlier in the day. Percy had understood their toddler’s misbehavior all afternoon, and had wanted her to come back, too.
“I know,” he leans down to press a kiss to her head, wishing that she stays small in his arms forever. Grey eyes open and look at him, and he misses Annabeth. “I miss her, too.”
Minutes later, he settles their children into their beds and waits. His fingers tap against his knee, the moon rising in the sky. He’s annoyed with her and thinks that it’s unlike her to not keep a promise.
Annabeth had promised, had planned, and had pressed the phone into his hand, didn’t she? Percy was there, he tells himself, when she did it. His eyes find the cell phone on their coffee table, a promise sitting beside a diaper bag. A lifeline, Percy recognizes.
There’s a coldness that descends into his chest and it takes him hours to categorize it: fear.
It has been years since he had feared for her life. Safety, comfort, and home were all they have known since they began building. Protected borders, a warm space within their walls, hugs and baby bottles and laughter. Camp Half-Blood is a safe haven, he knows.
The rest of the world, he remembers and his heart crumbles, is not.
Just as he’s standing, fear and energy and that familiar panic filling and emptying his soul, the phone begins to ring.
And ring and ring and ring and he knows.
He knows and he answers and he thinks of their children, how small they were in their early months.
“Hello?”
“Percy,” a scratchy voice, static and Jason. “Can you hear me?”
He can and he doesn’t want to. He thinks of their children, how she had looked at them with a love he didn’t know existed.
“I can hear you,” Percy says and he is no longer in his body.
“It’s Annabeth, she – Percy, I don’t – are you alone?”
He is and he is not. He thinks of their children, how they had cried when she left that day and how he had spent the day soothing them.
Percy knows that he will spend the rest of his life soothing them.
“Yes,” his voice is not his own, and he wonders which gods are watching and if any of them are thinking about his children.
“We met her in Colorado Springs as planned,” Jason’s voice cuts out, and it is not a reception issue. “Percy – they were already there, and they knew her – empousai – Blackjack was trying and Annab– Annabeth was trying, too, fuck, but there were so many. There were so many,” he repeats. He goes on, Jason and static and Colorado Springs and empousai and revenge from the pit and not enough ambrosia, woefully unprepared and unsafe for a world that kills demigods every day.
“Percy,” Jason says again and he is crying openly. “Percy, Percy, are you listening?”
He is and he is not. He thinks of their children, how they will wake in the morning without their mother, how their son will ask for her by name – Mama, Mommy, and once, just weeks ago, he had tried, “Mom” like an older boy and she had shock written on her face – and he thinks about his daughter weaning to formula and motherless hugs.
“We were building together,” he finally responds, shaking and trembling like the earth once did, time slowing and stopping and unmerciful again. What’s the last line of the prophecy? He wants to know, wants to know where he’s supposed to go from here. What’s the last line of the prophecy? Colorado Springs and empousai and Daedalus’ collapsed labyrinth and their children.
Jason’s breaths are coming through the phone and Percy can hear Piper sobbing in the background and he wonders where her body is, if anyone was holding her when she died.
Percy hangs up, a phone call promised and cursed as are most Greek prophecies.
/
They were building and married and parents and together and then they were not.
/
Days and weeks and years pass before he sees what they have built.
There are stretches of time Percy can’t bear to think about her, his worst memory holding his confused son and leaning on his mother – the future brings exceptions, and Chiron grieves alongside Sally, the only mortal allowed into camp – and watching, watching, watching her burn in her shroud, an olive branch and their children’s initials and a million memories and a twice-saved earth.
His worst memory is watching the life they had built shatter.
They grow older, their children. She learns to accept formula and to walk and talk. He learns to write his name with crayons and to share and he stops talking when he turns three.
“He’s grieving,” Grover had told a frustrated Percy, a boiling point and miscommunication and a broken family. “He’ll talk when he’s ready.”
He had begun to talk, one day at the breakfast table, and he had said, “I miss Mom,” like a growing boy. Percy had wished she were there to hear it.
“I do, too,” Percy had managed to say, cold coffee in his hands.
“I don’t remember her,” she had said, matter-of-fact and three years old and so much like her mother.
His second worst memory is realizing their daughter doesn’t remember her.
School comes, lunch boxes and pencils. He does not bring them to Manhattan. The outside world, monsters and sons and daughters. It’s too much.
“I miss them,” his mother had told him, hair grey and eyes tired. “You can’t protect them forever, Percy.”
“I can try,” he had said before he left, disappointment and sympathy and grief suffocating him in the middle of the outside world.
She starts first grade and asks about her grandparents. He begins to tell her about the god with the bucket hat, the goddess with a sharp look.
“No, Dad,” and he wishes she were there to hear it. “The other ones.”
They used to be the only ones, he remembers.
Frederick comes to Sally’s apartment and Percy brings their children and he sobs on his childhood bed. He doesn’t think anyone knows – that they had been busy with cookies and crayons – but he looks at his mother and she knows.
Watching her leave was not the hardest task, he thinks in the middle of that night, their children safe and sound and dreaming in their beds.
Knowing that she will not come home is the hardest task.
/
Percy has an epiphany on a summer day, his hair greying while hers never will.
It is not unlike the one from all those years before, a son of Poseidon and daughter of Athena meeting and the world beginning to end. It is not unlike the one from when they woke up to a saved earth, a fallen Titan. It is not unlike the one from when they ascended back into the mortal world, Tartarus at their backs.
It is a summer day and like every day, Percy thinks of Annabeth.
He takes them to the shore, barely a mile from their home. He watches as they play, the sun warming their arms and legs. His hair is dark and wild and hers is blonde and curly. Their eyes are grey. Their eyes are grey, and that makes him smile.
He keeps the water back from their shovels and buckets, letting wet sand stay sturdy because they are their children and he can do this for them, can keep innocence in their hearts. They have known more heartbreak than he can fathom and he never wants their sandcastles to crumble.
“Look,” their son laughs and points to a tower at the corner of their castle. “Dad, look, it’s almost finished.”
Their daughter laughs and he hears her again. “Daddy,” she has begun to call him this again, “we’re gonna build the best sandcastle ever. ”
Percy believes her because he knows and remembers and loves their mother.
Annabeth, he remembers, look what we built.