Work Text:
"Where’s Luke?” She’d asked, looking around, while still holding tight to Annabeth. Percy’s throat had closed up, and he braced himself for the impact of another lightning bolt—there was no way this conversation would go well.
It took a moment for him to process everything that had just happened. Learning what Zeus had done to his daughter. How angry she could be. The idea that she could be the weapon the Great Prophecy had talked about after all. How she had walked out of his nightmares. How likely it was she would choose Luke over Annabeth.
Percy closed his eyes for a second. Overwhelmed. “You’re British?” It was the first question he could think of.
Annabeth’s eyes narrowed from where she stood at Thalia’s side. The girl herself, looked bewildered, eyes wide with offense and shock, “Percy—”
“How did you even get here?” He continued, unable to let it go in his head. “Shouldn’t they have a camp for British demigods?”
“Percy, what are you doing?” Annabeth snapped. Brown eyes wide and pleading, edged with anger.
“Annabeth, you know this freak?” Thalia asked her, leaning slightly away but still keeping a grip on her bicep.
He locked eyes with Annabeth, who all of a sudden looked like there was a part of her that maybe wished she didn’t. It made him wish again they kept Thalia in that stupid tree.
“This is Percy,” she answered, looking up toward Thalia, “son of Poseidon."
Thalia’s brow furrowed angrily. There seemed to be some sort of recognition in her eyes that Poseidon was no friend of hers. Guess the apple didn't fall far from that tree. “Have you done something with him then?”
It took Percy a moment to remember what ‘him’ she could be talking about, his mind already wandering about fifteen steps ahead to how annoying it was that Annabeth hadn’t even mentioned to Thalia that they were friends.
“What?” Then it all clicked. He pointed toward the door, toward the battlefield he’d nearly died on. “You mean Luke? No! He basically just tried to kill me.”
Thalia righted to attention so quickly he almost stumbled backward in anticipation. “He probably had good reason then,” she retorted, stepping forward, her grip loosening on Annabeth’s shoulder. She reached for something on her wrist.
“Wait wait—” Grover said, leaping between the two of them, hands outstretched to stop Thalia from advancing. Which was just fine with him, Percy didn’t know how recovered he actually was from his three day snooze and he’d rather not find out right now. “I know you’re probably really confused right now—”
“Grover?” She asked in bewilderment. Her eyes narrowed, not out of anger, but more out of confusion. She looked woozy. “You have horns…”
“Luke is not here right now,” Grover explained quickly, “but he’s…” he seemed to struggle for words. Percy didn’t blame him. “He’s alive. He’s okay.”
Who’s side are you on? He almost exclaimed at his friend, but smartly thought better of it. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer right now anyway.
“He wanted you back as much as I did,” Annabeth told her assuringly. Percy could not have rolled his eyes back further. Thalia, who thankfully didn’t see him do that, only looked more confused. He wondered if Thalia was even aware that she’d been gone.
“Back?” She echoed, shaking her head. “Where…” She looked down at Annabeth, at how young she’d been and how much older she’d gotten, and tears welled in her eyes. “Where was I?”
Okay, maybe he felt a little bad for her. Actually, he felt a lot bad for her. The gods had betrayed her in every sense of the word. Her father had betrayed her. Let her down worse than Posiden ever had for him. But him knowing that also terrified him.
“Thalia Grace,” Chiron interjected, sensing a breaking point. Thalia flinched at the sound of Chiron’s voice, and pulled Annabeth closer to her once again, backing up in the direction of Grover as Chiron clopped forward. “Please,” he began, and gestured to his desk, “we have much to discuss. Your friends will be waiting for you just outside.”
Thalia was still making a storm outside. Lightning flashed through the windows. No way Percy was about to go out there.
“I’m not leaving Annabeth,” Thalia said.
“I’ll stay with you,” Annabeth quickly offered, smiling tryingly at Thalia, and then to Chiron, nodding her consent. Chiron didn’t look too happy about that, but he nodded and then cast his gaze to Percy.
“Grover, perhaps you and Percy would like to recuperate in Cabin three for now?”
Percy wanted to tell him that he wasn’t about to leave Annabeth or Chiron with someone who was as potentially dangerous as Thalia, but Grover grabbed Percy’s elbow and pulled him toward the door before he could open his mouth and get himself fried again.
When they stepped outside, lightning flashed in the air every couple seconds. Percy was pretty sure if he stepped out from under the awning of the porch somehow the far above strikes would land square on his head.
Percy and Grover sat on some of the chairs leftover from what looked to be an interrupted poker game with several half-empty cans of diet coke scattered amongst the leftover cards and chips. Aside from the storm over the Big House, camp looked normal—fully recovered from the battle. He allowed himself, barely, to relax into the seat. It was the first time he’d gotten to just sit with Grover in relative calm since last summer. He wished he could’ve properly enjoyed it.
Percy reached up to his face and felt over the bridge of his nose. There was a fissure there, different from before. Nectar and ambrosia be damned. It couldn’t fix everything.
“The Apollo kids did the best they could to set it back,” Grover said, looking apologetic. His hands clutching on his bouncing knees.
“It’s fine,” he replied, folding his arms against his chest, forcing himself to stop thinking about it. Forced himself to forget the the sound of the ringing in his ears, the blood in his mouth, the feeling of Luke’s fist hitting him again, again, again. “I’m glad to still have my nose at all,” he declared, mostly just to say something. “I wouldn’t—not if Luke had anything to say about it.”
“Thalia won’t join Luke,” Grover said, already knowing where Percy was going with this. But the statement had way too much certainty for Percy’s liking.
“You don’t know that. She has every reason to hate Zeus. Every reason to want to see them all burn.”
“That doesn’t mean she wants war,” he said. “When I knew her. She just wanted to protect her friends, and she would’ve done anything to do that. Not unlike someone else I know.”
Percy turned his head to look at Grover, who at least had stopped vibrating with anxiety. He was looking at him with a classic earnest Grover expression, which made him kind of nauseous. “If you say I’m that someone, I’m not the only one who’s gonna be recovering from getting punched.”
Grover smiled despite himself. There was a particularly loud boom of thunder, and rain began to pour despite the weather barrier meant to keep out this exact phenomenon. He glanced to the doors of the house, guessing that Thalia had just learned some particularly bad news inside.
Campers started to yell in alarm across camp, running toward the cabins and stables to escape the rain. Even the training ground cleared out. None of them came toward the Big House. They all knew better.
Percy exhaled in exasperation, and then reached forward to the deck of cards, the various hands laid out across the table. Some of the cards were definitely lost to the storm, but he gathered them all up anyway.
“You think there’s enough of these for a game?” He asked, looking at Grover, trying for as normal a smile as he could manage.
Thankfully, he let out a small relieved laugh. “Yeah, man, I think we can manage.”
Sometime, anywhere from five minutes to half an hour—he was never good at time—Annabeth emerged from the Big House onto the porch. The storming had largely stopped, reduced to ominous dark clouds that hung over camp like they would in a cartoon. She looked positively miserable, and came and collapsed into one of the chairs at the table.
“How’d it go?” Percy asked, putting his cards down. Grover’s lips thinned out. “Did you tell her about Luke?”
“Percy,” Grover hissed.
“She didn’t believe it,” Annabeth said, and gripped the bottom of the chair she sat on like it was about to be tipped over. “It wasn’t until I told her about him tying me up on the Princess Andromeda that she seemed to understand the reality of Kronos’ control over him.”
Percy would forever have an issue with how Annabeth refused to acknowledge that Luke had made his own decisions. It wasn’t Kronos who tied her up and left her there. He wondered if she'd mentioned that Percy had been the one to cut her loose. Maybe it would show that not all other demigods were terrible. But he doubted Annabeth would appreciate a question like that.
“And?” He asked impatiently. “What did she think?”
Grover nudged him with his hoof under the table, but Percy all but curb stomped him back. Annabeth let out an overwhelmed breath, and crossed her arms against her chest.
“I don’t know. Chiron made me leave." Her next words darkened her expression even more "And Thalia didn’t stop him.”
“This is a lot for her,” Grover said, “but once she’s caught up to speed. I’m sure things will be a lot easier.”
Annabeth shot him a disbelieving look. Percy was glad he wasn’t the only one at least a little annoyed at Grover’s relentless optimism. Then she turned her eyes on him, and looked a whole other kind of annoyed.
“You should be back in your cabin,” she told him. “Or at least helping Clarisse.”
Leave it to Annabeth to have some issue with him relaxing and playing cards. “Well, it was storming and I didn’t want to get struck. Clarisse and her team are still hiding out from the rain in the stables anyway,” he said, “plus, we were playing poker, and I was winning.”
“No, you were not,” Grover interjected, brow furrowed.
Annabeth raised a single eyebrow, leaning forward and loosening her arms a little bit. A hint of a smile appeared on her face. Which made Percy feel about sixty times better. “Those are Mr. D’s cards you’re playing with.”
Grover froze, like he’d been able to conveniently push that out of his mind until Annabeth said something. Percy on the other hand, just shrugged, and picked up his hand again. “They were all messed up anyway.”
She rolled her eyes, and then leaned back easily in her chair. “Sure, Seaweed Brain.”
The nickname made him grin. Made him think for a moment that maybe things would actually be okay, as Annabeth was commonly able to do. And maybe his good mood would’ve lasted if the doors hadn’t burst open again. Thalia stumbled out, cheeks were streaked with tears, messing up the heavy make up around her eyes, shoulders heaving as she held back proper cries. Annabeth scrambled out of her chair to her side, to ask her what was wrong, and even Grover stood up, unsure if he should go to her or not. Only Percy stayed seated.
But even as Annabeth stood in front of her, holding her forearms delicately, it was Percy Thalia was staring at. In an odd way it reminded him of bullies he had growing up that were, rarely, forced by a teacher to stop. The look Thalia gave him reminded him of them, the look in their eyes like as much as they hated him, they hated that the teachers had stepped up for him even more. They hated that he had something they wanted.
Thalia made a strangled sound in her throat, and ran off the porch, Annabeth at her heels, toward Cabin One. Chiron came out onto the porch, and looked at him solemnly. Percy set the cards back down again for good, defeated. Not because he was scared of getting caught, but because he knew, try as he might, that the time for games was over.