Alex gasped dramatically when Nico read the new title. "Spoilers!"

"Spoiler alert," Percy waved at himself, "I'm not dead?" He couldn't help but phrase it as a question though, he still wasn't convinced now more than ever with Annabeth finally beside him feeling more real and more dreamlike than any of his adventures on the surface.

"Shh," Alex waved his hand about at Percy impatiently, "I'm talking about details man, the important stuff!"

If you want to be popular, don't come back from a mission with bad news.

"Finally, the secret to your success," Nico smirked.

"Don't go spreading that around," Percy said with a forced smile. "I might have to use that trick next time I want to sneak away."

"Some of us don't even need to lie about it," Annabeth muttered. She'd escape all the time to find a nice place in the forest to nest and be alone when she needed to collect her thoughts. She'd mapped out the place to perfection these past days with Percy gone and probably slain more monsters on record, though she doubted Clarisse would ever admit to it.

... demigods or gods or really, really lost pizza delivery guys. (It's happened, long story.)

Alex spluttered in distress he might have this story passed over.

"Okay, okay," Percy chuckled, more than happy to pass this camp wisdom along. "You know, looking back, she might have stumbled out of the Labyrinth."

"She just, appeared from the forest with three boxes," Annabeth nodded. "We probably owe Tyson an apology for that, I was convinced you had put him up to this getting her inside."

"I don't think Tysons's ever even used a phone, though I bet he'd love to try," Percy chuckled.

"But it happened, like, three times in a month," Will reminded, "that's a pattern, no way they all fell into the Labyrinth and managed to get out in one piece. Connor's convinced it's Hermes trying to prank his kids."

"And I'm still convinced the Aphrodite kids are carb-cheating and trying to hide it with their own secret backdoor they haven't shared," Percy shrugged.

"So you guys don't actually know how pizza carrying mortals get in?" Alex insisted.

"Nope," all three campers nodded.

"I'm convinced it's Mr. D.," Thalia reminded, "just because he can snap his fingers and make a pizza appear doesn't mean it has that same taste."

"I bet I can find out," Nico's voice sounded hesitant, but happy. "I can send out skeletons to patrol and find out, if it's a security risk."

"Um," Annabeth looked at him in surprise, but smiled without hesitation. "Yeah, that'd be cool."

"So does Nico get some kind of trophy for solving one of Camp's greatest mysteries, or," Jason trailed off with a smirk.

"He gets a pat on the back and one free pizza," Percy rolled his eyes. "For all we know he's going to bust Chiron."

Hey, it was more recognition than Nico had ever gotten in the past, so he wasn't going to complain.

...lookout was Connor Stoll from the Hermes cabin.

Nico glanced swiftly at Will and away. He'd said his crush on Connor had 'faded,' but he didn't know what the hell that meant. He wasn't even sure he could call his own crush on Percy as faded as he'd like.

Will didn't start gushing about him or even seem that interested in sharing some Connor Fun Fact at all, actually, his face was rather somber. It might have been Connor that told Will about the news Percy was there to deliver, which wasn't exactly a happy time.

When he spotted me, he got so excited he fell out of his tree.

"Real stealthy, ninja kid there," Thalia chuckled.

"And we're all so grateful for it," Annabeth sighed. They caused enough trouble by being as sneaky as Percy in a candy store.

...so unlike my old enemy Luke it's hard to believe they're all sons of Hermes.

Luke's scar, that he got on the quest that ruined his relationship with his father, ruining the 'family resemblance' he had with the rest of his siblings, struck Annabeth so hard her breath blasted out. When he'd come back, covered in blood-stained rags, that same look in his eye she'd seen in Percy. The way he'd given up, changed.

... "Oh, no. Poor Silena, when she finds out-" Together we climbed the sand dunes.

That was, it?! Magnus was stunned at the way Connor immediately jumped from sorrow to worrying about Silena and just walking along with Percy. There hadn't even been a full second to process that.

He glanced at Will, who similarly had barely blinked at what had happened to Beckendorf. It had been brutal to the extreme, and he was just, used to it. This kind of news that happened so much around camp.

Magnus shivered; and he'd begun to worry about himself becoming numb to the misery of others on the streets.

... Percy's back, they were probably thinking... saved the day! Maybe brought souvenirs!

"You really should get a collection going of something Perce," Thalia nodded he was slacking. "Wall of monster trophies, you've already got one started."

"Think your head would look better next to the Nemean Lion or the dragon?" Percy smirked.

"Pfft, I deserve that Princess Andromeda head or nothing," she said with her head held high.

Percy couldn't do more than force out a chuckle, that ship should never have exploded with who all was aboard, but Thalia had finally managed to wipe away that miserable look from his face. Annabeth smiled with pride their friendship had only seemed to grow stronger during this mess while she was already falling into the trick of getting lost in the past.

...No sense rushing down there to tell them what a loser I was.

"You are not a loser!" Annabeth said at once.

Percy frowned at her sharp tone, like she was calling him an idiot for thinking himself a loser.

Her fingers flexed in frustration, the urge to grab him and kiss him and love him with all her heart again until he believed it as much as she did.

"You, are, my best friend," she forced herself to choose her words carefully so as not to scare him to run behind his new friends. "And, brave, and the most impulsive idiot I will ever meet, and so stubborn it's infuriating, but none of that makes you a loser."

"The getting Beckendrof killed part didn't help," he said, still watching her intently. He still seemed so unsure of himself, so unlike her confident boyfriend who had strolled through camp these last months laughing without a care in the world, sending her constant IM's about a monster following him home and what his mom had made for dinner.

"But you didn't," her hand did take his back, holding it tight. "You did everything you could for him. Kronos did this, Percy, you were just forced into being there."

"Nobody forced me there," he said at once, head snapping up to hold her eyes steady now.

She smiled, and he sighed. "Or Beckendorf," he grumpily concluded.

"I understand you feel bad, and guilty, and responsible for him, but don't hold on to it Percy. You can let it go." She promised, words that she needed to tell herself more than once before walking the same steps Luke had over every inch of that Camp.

Percy seemed to believe her though, slowly nodding and taking a long time to look away.

It should have been awkward and embarrassing as hell for the two to look away and realize they had a whole audience watching this, but frankly, after Percy's life had been on display for them for days now it didn't even phase him. Annabeth blushed, but not by that much, she was used to being the center of gossip for Camp as Nico kept reading like nothing had happened.

... tried to remember how Camp Half-Blood looked the first time I ever saw it.

It was a weirdly similar feeling, Percy agreed with his past self. How much had changed, how much had stayed the same. The melancholy detachment of how everything was one shade off of normal from a 'regular' camp, how everything should be raining, dreary, covered in black for another death he'd been involved in.

Where had Beckendorf been standing, his last moments here? Had he waved goodbye to his siblings and called Blackjack from his cabin door without looking back? Had he been holding Silena close and promising her he'd come home? Had he stood by Thalia's tree, looking out rather than in, excited for his future?

That seemed like a bajillion years ago.

Annabeth chuckled in agreement. She still remembered the first time she'd laid eyes on him, only seeing a prize to get out of camp. Convinced he was another child of Zeus to rescue her again, the scrawny kid who drooled. She never knew he was the someone for her she'd always needed.

...curled around the tree trunk, lending up smoke signals as he snored.

"Who is he contacting?" Alex asked seriously.

"Laydon, I'm still convinced they're best buds," Jason snorted.

In some ways, the camp hadn't changed... see it in the faces of all coming up hill.

Jason tried to relax back into his seat and focus on this a little better. Grover should be about to pop up again, that was always distracting...though he gave a traitorous glance to Thalia as he wondered for the millionth time why that could be. Did she know about his camp too and never let on like Nico had come out and said he did? There had to be satyrs wandering his camp as well, maybe he had a best friend there like Percy did and that's why he always wanted to hear more about him.

The idea didn't track with how his first instinct to hear of satyrs and naiads being so, useful. It always surprised him to hear they were doing anything around camp other than just being the decorative plants they manifested from.

... It's hard to enjoy practical jokes when your whole life feels like one.

Annabeth and Will exchanged a look heavier than Atlas could bear. Percy had no clue just how hard that hit. The place was so different from when they'd first come it was almost a different world. These past months after the Titan war, with kids stumbling over the line every few days now and the thrill of being alive had almost felt like a dream rather than how the place always should have been.

... MY OTHER CAR IS A CENTAUR and a bow slung over his back.

They got a pretty good laugh out of that shirt at least, Alex of course having to ask, "please tell me he also has one saying horses are wheelchair accessible?"

"I'm sure you can make him one Alex," Annabeth chuckled, then she turned to Percy and said, "I saw one in the store the other day that reminded me of you." No need for him to know she'd broken down sobbing in a changing room because of it. "It said, dyslexics are teople poo."

"That's completely hurtful and not at all accurate," Percy sniffed, "obviously to a real dyslexic those words would be just gibberish."

She laughed, trying to hide a slight hiccup at how fuzzy her head felt to be sitting next to him still, to just be having fun again.

... I'll admit my heart did a little relay race in my chest when I saw her.

Annabeth couldn't help a smile, it was almost a smirk. It was certainly a confidence boost she'd sorely needed at that time to hear. As blunt as Percy could be with his words, he rarely paid her a compliment, and it was nice to hear. She hadn't gotten to the point where he met Rachel or Calypso yet, so she tried to store this in her head now for comparison's sake later, especially after she'd just read how impressive he'd found Circe.

. . . well, that we might get past the strangle-each-other phase.

Annabeth watched those around the room laugh, outright, not even trying to hide it. She blushed, just a bit, at how unsubtle she'd been in here about how they clearly had moved past that, even if Percy couldn't remember, but it was a very uncomfortable feeling too, to know they'd all heard witness to the first time she'd kissed him. Like looking back on the memory and now seeing six people laughing at one of her most confusing memories. She really didn't know how Percy had been doing this for so long.

"What happened?" She grabbed my arm. "Is Luke—"

Percy felt like he'd been stabbed. He flinched away from her and quickly went to studying his shoelaces intently and wondering why he'd never bothered to buy blue ones.

Annabeth watched with a heavy wince of her own. She scrambled in her mind to say something, anything to make that sound better but came up blank. "I'm sorry," was all that came out, eyes miles above his head, absolutely useless after the way he'd just made her feel.

Percy glanced back at her wearily. She'd never apologized before for anything about Luke. "It's, um, it's okay," he promised. "It was, the point of the mission, you've always been, um, very focused." One of the many things he admired about her, she had a way better attention span than he ever would.

She wished she could say more, but she'd never really been able to talk to Percy about Luke...she'd never been able to talk to anyone about Luke really except for Chiron, and he wasn't here right now to nod or shake his head on how to approach this.

Not that she needed Chiron's advice on how to talk to Percy...it just would have been nice right now with her stomach churning up a storm.

...Silena Beauregard pushed through the crowd.

Oh, and the one person to make this all ten times worse, Percy ducked his head and took a painful breath, like his lungs were filled with ice. He'd rather Kronos or Luke or Grover show up right about now to try and kill him than this!

..."Where's Charlie?" she demanded, looking around like he might be hiding.

They didn't even know if he liked surprises. They'd only heard about him in passing as often as Clarisse, but the pain rippling through every line of Percy's face, the way Nico read with such soft respect made them all feel as if they'd lost a good friend, made the tragedy they were apart from still somehow hit home.

... felt like someone had stolen the anchor for the entire camp.

A rough smile flickered across Alex's face, he opened his mouth with a clear callous comment before closing it again just as fast. Magnus understood that, the defiance against your feelings and your first thought being something nobody else was going to relate to. He nudged Alex gently, just with the back of his fingers on his arm so he could ignore it easily, but he glanced over with his two toned eyes to see Magnus sign 'same.'

Finally Clarisse from the Ares cabin came forward.

Jason braced himself, for what even he wasn't sure. A declaration of war to come out of her mouth, like they weren't already in the thick of that? Some well-meaning advice that would fall on deaf ears until Chris showed up to tow her away? He hoped that Silena at least heard that she was trying, that Clarisse did care about all of the campers.

She put her arm around Silena. They had one of the strangest friendships ever,

"Uh," Nico stuttered in surprise.

"When did that happen?" Jason agreed blankly.

"Started hanging out last summer," Percy shrugged, "I only heard bits and pieces as to why."

"I'm just proud you noticed at all," Annabeth chuckled.

"Annabeth, I'd be surprised if Zeus didn't notice this," Percy told her.

... Clarisse had decided she was Silena's personal bodyguard.

"Aw," Magnus said with the biggest smile.

Annabeth smiled with him, still completely confused as to why he was here. Even a Titan couldn't be so out of touch he'd pull in a mortal, no matter how similar they looked. He still had that same big ol' grin from when he was a kid and could weasel extra cookies out of anybody, but there was something in his eyes, the gray they shared...maybe something a little too similar in their dark depths that shouldn't be there in him.

..."Come on, let's get to the Big House. I'll make you some hot chocolate."

Hot chocolate was not going to fix that hurt, Nico winced. Still, he kept playing in his mind how these kids would have reacted if Percy had just announced the news to camp about Bianca's death, if Nico had his world ripped apart and taken it out in front of everyone. Would he have been offered hot chocolate and a friend?

He had a feeling he'd get something closer to what was coming for Percy, an interrogation of events and a war council meeting.

... Nobody was excited to see me now. Nobody wanted to hear about the blown-up ship.

Will had been in the infirmary at the time with Jason Campbell, who had a bad burn from the lava wall. He'd heard the news fast enough that night. It had been surreal, to hear another year around camper gone like that. There were so few of them left...

Only Annabeth and Chiron stayed behind.

"Where's Grover?" Jason asked in surprise.

"He," Percy halted like his best friend had just headbutted him. "He's been, missing," he whispered in horror, rubbing the side of his head as the memory swept back into him. Not being able to contact him, Grover just falling off the grid. It wasn't like him, not at all. Even with all his recent travlings to spread the word of Pan, he'd still always made contact with Camp and Percy. There had just been silence, for two months.

Jason couldn't help his mind immediately twisting off into the worst case scenario. Of Luke kidnapping him and holding him captive better than Polyphemus had managed. Grover was dead and the empathy link had worn off enough Percy never got wind of it.

He didn't say any of it, not out loud, not with Beckendorf's death still so heavily inlaid in those who knew him, but it was a horrifying feeling to start the day the task of winning already seemed hopeless when all of Percy's most trusted allies were already falling left and right.

Annabeth wiped a tear from her cheek. "I'm glad you're not dead, Seaweed Brain."

"The highest compliment I've ever been given," Percy grinned at her.

"Stick around, I might even say glad you're still alive at some point," she rolled her eyes.

He leaned close, to whisper just to her, "I'm not going anywhere again."

"Good," she whispered back, eyes still straight ahead on the book, but their hands easily finding each other again.

...the plan was so scary I didn't mind keeping it a secret.

"I can't believe you actually managed to keep something like that from me," Annabeth sounded grudgingly impressed. "The details of your first prophecy I understood, we hadn't known each other that well yet, but this?" She smacked his arm with a knowing smirk. He looked blankly at his arm and back at her, his skin and stomach at battle who would cause him the most distress while his brain rebelled in his head like an earthquake. The answer felt like it was sitting right in front of him, but it was really distracting to have Annabeth between his eyes instead while smiling at him.

...they exchanged looks, like they knew something I didn't. I hated when they did that.

"By the way," Alex began in a level voice that still sounded a little ominous. "We owe you a hell of a headache for all the times you've done that!" It was no guess who he was addressing even if his two-toned eyes hadn't been piercing Annabeth. "I recall Jason mentioning chair straps to put you through what we did!"

"I, um, said it nicer," Jason said with a very pale face as he shrank into his seat.

"He did not," Percy sniffed, "and I'd help. You have no clue how often you drove all of us nuts with that!"

Annabeth didn't even look guilty, just exasperated, while Thalia waved on Nico to keep going before that escalated further. Nico was tempted not to though, it would have felt like great retribution...but then Will tightened his arm around him just slightly. Enough he could feel the intent, Will was not aching for a real squabble to break out right now. Frankly, he'd like to be able to exit the continent at his leisure too if they did more than joke about it.

... Annabeth, we will show Percy the truth, all of it. Let's go to the attic."

Percy ground his teeth in frustration that's all it had taken to convince them, but it eased out with his next breath anyways. There was a part of him that never wanted to hear the whole thing, it's not like it had ever done him a lick of good in the past to hear a full prophecy before a quest. If he never knew, he'd never have to face the reality that his choice, the thing the whole world hinged on, might not have anything to do with him at all and maybe, for once, Annabeth and Chiron had the whole thing way out of proportion.

Yeah, and Zeus was going to send him a birthday gift.

...been to the attic three times, which was three times more than I wanted to.

"Ah, come on, you know you wanted to go at least once," Alex insisted. "Curiosity and all that, you would have snuck up there the first day someone told you it was off-limits."

Percy sighed and muttered a bit because he knew he wasn't wrong.

... wondered how Chiron was going to get up there, but he didn't try.

"The house wouldn't just, expand for him?" Jason asked in surprise. His wheelchair did, he figured Mr. D had lost enough pinochle games that he'd been bribed into modifying everything around there for him.

Thalia didn't really think he'd put the Oracle up there as a place of honor though. While she usually dwelled in caves, they were supposed to be her home. This felt shameful, something Chiron didn't want to sit around looking at for any length of time, nor have the other kids question it to much.

...STOLEN FROM CHRYSAOR'S HONDA CIVIC, BY GUS, SON OF HERMES, 1988.

Alex still leered at the book, a sense of longing to get his hands on every bit of that. It sounded like the kind of junkyard he spent his regular hours in, pouring through mounds of objects every day and always managing to find something worth taking back to his nest.

I picked up a curved bronze sword so badly bent it looked like the letter M.

"Cool," Magnus chuckled.

"It's a good thing we don't all get weapons that are just our name," Percy snorted. "I can't imagine swinging a P around would intimidate as many monsters."

..."You remember Briares throwing those boulders?" I asked.

"Vividly," Jason savored. "Though I'm offended on Briares' part his name isn't on that tag."

"It's possible whoever recovered it didn't know," Will shrugged. "Plenty of kids went back to that field after the fact."

"Or didn't know how to spell it," Nico chuckled.

...when she thought I was going to die and she kissed me. She cleared her throat and looked away.

Annabeth swallowed and poorly hid her blush by brushing her hair into her face. To ashamed to admit that, though that memory came to mind too, it rivaled with Luke shouting in a voice not his own, trying to topple a mountain on her. The two were so tangled together in her mind. Even now, months later, she still couldn't seem to find a way to separate the two without Luke and Kronos looming in every page of Percy's life with her.

"Prophecy." "Right." I put down the scimitar. "Prophecy."

"Prophecy!" Jason yipped like he had the hiccups, clearly to gloss over that awkward silence.

"He's had this weird habit of freaking out over the number three," Percy explained to Annabeth in a tired voice.

"Seems reasonable," she smiled as if nothing had happened.

... Glassy eyes stared out of her leathery face. Just looking at her made my skin crawl.

Annabeth hadn't been surprised, upon Percy first meeting her, that he'd felt her presence, knew it for what it was. She used to sneak up there, her first few weeks at Camp, asking her questions and so fascinated by the feeling of being watched. She'd grown frustrated her quest was never given and once chucked a Collectors Hercules Waterbottle at her though, so, it was probably a good thing she wasn't as sentient as Rachel.

...used to be, you had to come up here to get a quest. This summer that rule had been tossed... had no choice if we wanted to stop Kronos.

Magnus swallowed the question of how many had come back. He didn't need to see the heartbreak in their eyes to know the number wasn't zero.

... for the "Great Prophecy" I half expected her to start tap dancing or something.

"I want fireworks!" Alex grinned, "no, wait, you guys do that every summer. Um, collective mass telling, the whole camp gets to see the illusion! Or, or," he was waving his hand frantically for something to top that at himself.

"She's already told the property once Alex," Annabeth reminded with a smile for him. "I'm sorry, but there was no grand retelling."

"Buzzkill!" He groaned.

Annabeth hoped he meant the Oracle and not her, she'd been called that plenty and it didn't feel great.

But she just sat there like she was dead, which she was.

"Thank you for reminding that's a literal animated corpse," Magnus shivered. "I know where I'm going to avoid when the zombie apocalypse happens."

"Good instincts," Nico nodded fairly, "considering that place would likely be ground zero with all the other cursed items up there."

"Our home isn't cursed," Will pouted.

"It's not feeling very blessed lately," Percy muttered. Thalia's tree had felt like the only thing holding it all together some days.

"I never understood this," I whispered...

Annabeth started to say something, then changed her mind. "Let's just get out of here."

Nico tried to suppress a relieved sigh she hadn't just said, 'oh, Hades cursed her,' and moved on, because that's all his dad was ever known for or cared about around there, what he'd done wrong. The story in detail wasn't any more pleasant, but a part of him still expected everyone else to just focus on that.

...Annabeth took out a roll of parchment no bigger than her pinky.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Percy blurted with capital offense at Annabeth. "All these years I could have gone up there and grabbed it!"

"You didn't give the secret passcode," Thalia mildly patted his shoulder while Annabeth just smiled at him. "She might have chucked you out the window."

"Annabeth, or the Oracle?" Jason frowned.

"Probably both," Magnus said with a raised brow as he studied her. The look on her face was strange, almost like she was having fun with this trip down memory lane. It took him a moment to realize why he found it so odd.

She'd so rarely smiled like that in their youth.

... I read this when I was ten years old, and I still have nightmares about it."

"Hey!" Percy spluttered, again. "When we were in the sea of monsters you said you didn't know the whole thing!"

"The time wasn't right," Annabeth repeated stubbornly while Percy kept scowling at her.

"Great," I said. "Can I read it now?"

"All those nightmares to catch up on," Magnus frowned.

"They need some variety," Percy answered with a scowl still on her.

...I didn't know it then, but it would be the last time I ever visited the attic.

"Ominous!" Jason tried to splutter around a deprecating laugh.

"Oooeeoo," Alex tried to make strange alien noises, because this wasn't the first 'feeling' of Percy's that had come true.

Annabeth had a pretty good poker face to give nothing away, along with the others who knew as usual, so they couldn't even get any better of a guess out of that.

The senior counselors had gathered around the Ping-Pong table. Don't ask me why,

"First rule of the war council," Thalia smirked, "nobody ever asks Percy why anything's going on."

"He's usually the cause of it," Annabeth nodded.

"I feel the need to move," Percy groaned in betrayal of the girl on either side.

"You're exactly where you always sit in a war council so it's nothing new," Thalia sniffed.

...When we came in, it looked more like a shouting match.

"Isn't that what war rooms are supposed to be used for?" Alex shrugged.

"No," Jason frowned. He always hated when these meetings were shown, it caused an itch in his brain he'd probably gouge his skull out before getting to.

...She called the spear "Maimer." Behind her back, everybody else called it "Lamer.")

"We do not," Will tried to say with dignity.

"Travis told me someone from the Apollo cabin came up with that," Annabeth looked around at him suspiciously.

"And you believed him?" Will gave her a wounded look.

Annabeth chuckled and turned back away, but Nico smiled to himself as Will's studious expression started to get cracks in it.

...in the midst of yelling at Michael Yew,

Will tried hard to suppress his flinch. He had no reason for that to hit him so hard, he'd known this was coming, and he hadn't been guiltless in this coming squabble.

...Michael had taken over the Apollo cabin after Lee Fletcher died in battle last summer.

Annabeth still wasn't sure who this narration was for. She'd toyed with ideas in her head last night, everywhere from an alternate reality, to Percy writing these and Apollo pulling this entire stunt to get all this on record and then wiping Percy's memory of it, but her ultimate conclusion was just being kind of sad at how distant some of it felt. Like Percy needed to remind himself coming back every summer from when he was out in the real world. She'd been having to do that staying with her dad a few times, run down the list of all the people at camp to make sure she wouldn't forget them.

Michael stood four feet six, with another two feet of attitude. He reminded me of a ferret, with a pointy nose and scrunched-up features, either because he scowled so much or because he spent too much time looking down the shaft of an arrow.

Will giggled. It was a rough, uncomfortable feeling in the back of his throat, but a bubbling up from his heart he didn't try to fight. It really had been to long since he'd heard anyone make such jokes about his brother, and Percy just doing it out of the blue now caused a warmth at what he knew Micheal would have responded with. Thalia had nothing on what he could do with those arrows.

..."It's our loot! If you don't like it, you can kiss my quiver!"

"What did Clarisse do now?" Magnus asked in fond exasperation.

"Hey, don't assume all those Apollo kids are innocent rays of sunshine," Jason said with a smirk at Will.

"Muah?" Will pressed his hand to his heart with a look that really would have fooled anyone he had no clue what Jason could be talking about. Percy was a bit jealous how he'd perfected such an act.

...arguing about something as stupid as loot, when she'd just lost Beckendorf.

Will could only imagine it starting as some innocent throwaway line Clarisse had made to try and distract her. Silena had always been a good mediator, Clarisse might have been fishing for a solution before it all went to hell, and the distraught girl hadn't even noticed a thing.

"STOP IT!" I yelled. "What are you guys doing?"

Annabeth tried to cover her mouth to hide the smile on her face, the exact same reaction she'd had back then. Magnus watched in mild amusement not knowing that but guessing it all the same for how her eyes darted around guiltily, passing over everyone before landing back on Percy as she tried to straighten her face out.

He wasn't sure if she was laughing at the oh so usual, 'Percy has no clue what's going on,' like Nico blatantly was, or if she found his usual inability to stay out of a problem charming. He'd guess the second.

... She hasn't spoken for three days." "It's been wonderful," Travis Stoll said wistfully.

"That boy is achin' for a breakin'," Will groaned.

"The real question is where Clarisse would start. I'd bet with his jaw," Alex nodded.

...Clarisse turned to Chiron. "You're in charge, right?

"Exactly how long has she been there again?" Jason shook his head. "I honestly want to know how long before she's decided to ask that question."

"She showed up a few months after we-" Annabeth paused before moving on as if nothing had happened, "I did. I'm pretty sure she dumped whoever was head of Ares into the toilet the next day and thought she was running the place until this moment."

"That would not surprise me," Jason nodded his head in thanks.

... We're just supposed to show up and fight when you need us, and not complain!"

This had quickly gone from mildly entertaining to deeply uncomfortable. Clarisse had let it be known plenty in the past she thought she deserved more respect for her father's name, but it hadn't come up again since Percy let her take credit for the Fleece.

It did not feel great this was bursting out now, of all times, when the camp should be banding together. What could be so important Clarisse was risking that?

...Are any of you going to side with me?" None of them met Clarisse's eyes.

Nico was stunned at the words out of his mouth. He'd always seen the Camp as a Him vs Them, all of the cabins having at least one unified goal in disliking his dad. Here Clarisse was, having the same feelings of isolation, that they were only good for a fight on a very tight leash.

Percy winced with particular guilt for his past self. He knew that feeling intimately when not one of the head counselors had told Zoe he was the one who needed to go on that quest.

...Clarisse turned to Silena. "...I apologize. To you. Nobody else."

It was the way she'd felt the need to clarify that, that had forced Annabeth to swallow another laugh. For as long as she'd known Clriasse, she'd never known her to apologize to anyone. She had to make very sure people knew who it was meant for.

Silena didn't seem to register her words.

Which had made the entire room go from awkward embarrassment to depressing, Percy sighed. Whoever thought he'd miss the meetings with cheez-whiz and Dionysus looking at wine magazines.

... Until I get satisfaction, no one in my cabin is lifting a finger to help. Have fun dying."

That Clarisse cared about her home hadn't been in question since the Bad Cow incident, but the slowly trickling idea that she cared about people hadn't really been shown much except for the few, spotty moments with Percy, and occasionally Will's observation. This moment should have felt selfish, but there was a part of Jason that completely understood why she was doing this. Everyone had their breaking point, and she was sick of being everyone's tool, just used over and over again without a single care for how she might need a change.

The counselors were all too stunned to say anything as Clarisse stormed out of the room.

"Nobody went after her?" Jason demanded.

Annabeth held her head high. "We had more important matters to discuss."

"Then half your war force stalking out?" He scowled.

"You-" Annabeth began hotly, but stopped with such a wince, Percy looked around to make sure nobody had thrown something at her. His heart began to race, his breath blasted out with the force of a dragon stepping on his chest. Annabeth regretted this, she wasn't even going to fight back, and he needed to remember why-

"Sorry Percy," she whispered, pulling his hand into her lap, rubbing the back of it gently until Riptide fell from his clenched hand onto the floor.

He shook his head slowly from side to side, not as if ignoring her, just concentrating on something very hard.

When she squeezed again and Percy's eyes fluttered open, Nico decided to keep reading before they started making out, or Jason's distasteful look got a full recharge, neither of which would evolve well.

Finally Michael Yew said, "Good riddance."

Magnus winced like he expected Clarisse to come smashing through the wall to gut him. Will winced with him because he wouldn't have been surprised.

... "Her pride has been wounded. She'll calm down." But he didn't sound convinced.

Nobody in here was either, not even Annabeth. If Silena hadn't pulled what she did, the Ares cabin might have been the only half-bloods left alive after that day, and not for long.

... I looked at Annabeth and she mouthed the words I'll tell you later.

"You could probably read her lips as well as Hearth from how often that happens," Magnus rolled his eyes.

"Who's Hearth?" Annabeth asked cautiously, he'd seemed very upset about that person earlier.

"My friend," Magnus said at once, his smile sad, and longing. "He's deaf," he paused, considered for a moment, then shrugged, and said, "and an elf."

"There are, elves?" Annabeth sounded more mildly surprised than anything, of course, like confirmation Grover had eaten a gold watch than really concerned at the results.

"Apparently," Magnus seemed a tad disappointed, like he'd wanted to shock his cousin with something for a change and it clearly hadn't gone to plan.

... Percy has brought something I think you should hear. The Great Prophecy."

Jason still looked like he'd been the one slighted, just leaving Clarisse out of this, not giving her problem some priority so that everyone could be involved in this. He'd never sit aside and let someone in the Senate be so ignored-

The thought burst apart like someone had popped his balloon, leaving the tatters to flutter around, useless to grasp at.

Nico felt his shiver of distress and glanced over, but by the time he did Jason's face was stoic and calm like nothing had happened.

... my fingers fumbled with the string. I uncurled the paper, trying not to rip it,

"That would be just my luck," Percy grumbled. "Would the Oracle come down and burn the message into my forehead?"

"She might be tempted," Annabeth said with twitching lips, imagining Rachel chasing him around with a tiki-torch if he ever ripped one of her paintings, "but I think you'd get a pass."

Percy grunted like he didn't believe her and the others didn't blame him.

and began to read:

"A half-blood of the eldest dogs-"

"Er, Percy?" Annabeth interrupted. "That's gods. Not dogs."

"It would have been so much cooler to figure out what that one meant though," Alex grinned. "Cerberus? Did Zeus have a dog he abandoned?"

"Zeus is the youngest," Thalia corrected mildly.

"Did Aphrodite have a dog who was once her boyfriend?" Alex continued with somehow even more energy.

"Well I'm personally glad it was about, who, it turned out to be about," Annabeth said. She sounded almost stern, like she was afraid Alex's joking around would change the course of the universe. Thalia had a feeling she was just having a few flashbacks to that day and didn't know how else to make Alex stop. Regardless, it worked.

....

"And see the world in endless sleep,

The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap."

... how could the world fall into endless sleep, unless that meant death?

Percy hated every word of that. The way his gut swirled like cotton candy ready to disintegrate on him. To much, this was to much, it was making him nauseous wanting to understand but knowing he shouldn't but the answer was burning something in him.

Annabeth shifted beside him, her blond hair tickling the side of his neck. He swatted it away, the flash image of a bronze color flickering in and out of his mind easily as he turned to grumble at her again about withholding all this from him and that she was right and he'd never admit it because he might have freaked out this whole time ever drawing his own blade. None of it made it to his lips as he just stared at her for a few moments watching Nico attentively read.

.."A single choice shall- shall end his days.

'End his days?' Alex noted with interest that Thalia couldn't have even been a contender then...but the language of most did tend to compress he/ his/ him into the human itself rather than a specific gender. It was an interesting note all the same to him how this would play out, how specific Percy's role in this would be in all this.

..."I know what it means," I grumbled. "Olympus to preserve or raze."

"Well that all sounds, not great," Magnus was now very convinced Percy must not actually be sixteen yet, because that all sounded like doomsday. Annabeth had made it sound like it came to pass moments ago though? He'd always been on the fence just how much these guys knew of the future context of this.

The room was silent. Finally Connor Stoll said, "Raise is good, isn't it?"

"Depends on which kind," Annabeth muttered, vividly remembering all the kinds that had gone on during her quest.

"Not raise," Silena said. Her voice was hollow, I was startled to hear her speak at all. "R-a-z-e means destroy."

"Did she, get a sneak peek at that to see this?" Jason asked why she'd know to clarify that any better than he would without seeing it.

"Pretty sure it was just that gloom and doom attitude she's in," Thalia said not unkindly, but considering her mindset, Silena would be assuming the worst about everything right now. Jason nodded without really looking at her.

...Everybody was looking at me—with concern, or pity, or maybe a little fear.

Percy was still amazed by how rarely that happened in here. Maybe it was because Thalia had always been in here to reign in the worst sides of him, maybe it was because all of them had a partial death wish that he could tell, but it felt nice not to have those kinds of looks so familiar to him it took a second to recognize them.

..."Without realizing I was going to die in the end anyway?" I said. "Yeah, I get it."

"Spoilery enough Alex?" Percy sighed.

"What part of details did you not get?" Alex scoffed. "Unless you spontaneously burst into dust, you're disqualified from this category Percy!"

Percy blinked for a few moments before deciding that was the first time he'd ever been happy about being disqualified for something before.

Chiron gazed at me sadly.... He probably knew better than to try to reassure me.

"Guess I've always appreciated his candor more than his platitudes," Annabeth said.

Percy just looked at her blankly, but he got the idea. She'd never gone around getting warm hugs from him either, just a good ear.

... "A single choice shall end his days. That has tons of meanings, right?"

"Maybe end your days as a hero?" Magnus offered. "You get forced into retirement by the gods after all the shit you've pulled."

"I'd be okay with that?" Percy said with an awkward smile if this was his dad's idea of helping him. It sounded like the best option by far anyway.

... As a general rule, I preferred not to have my soul reaped.

"What about reaped with rewards?" Jason offered, but his smile was lackluster. "Reaped can be a bountiful harvest."

"More than one soul, got it," Percy groaned, he was probably taking everyone he cared about down with him.

Thalia smacked his shoulder. "Stop being so depressing, you're not dead!"

"Thanks for the reminder," Percy said honestly, though it still bothered him more every time it happened how little he felt it when she did that.

... I felt defiant and angry, though I wasn't sure who at.

Annabeth had always admired that about him, even when she wanted to call him an idiot for it. How he could focus that anger and achieve anything.

"The universe itself at this point," Magnus assured that was perfectly normal.

"It seems to get the job done with you," Alex agreed brightly.

"I don't need time. If I die, I die. I can't worry about that, right?"

"Sure," Thalia drew that out in painful sarcasm, before closing her eyes and rubbing her temple. Clearly wondering how he was alive, like the rest of them usually felt.

Annabeth's hands were shaking a little. She wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Let's move on," I said.

Her hands weren't shaking now, but there was still a chip of fear in her stormy eyes he was starting to worry would never vanish. He couldn't just blame that on delayed adrenaline from hearing about Beckendorf.

She'd known he was probably going to die from the moment she met him, and still gotten close to him, chose to get to know him.

He knew what she was really afraid of. That he'd leave her, for real this time, just like everybody else had to her. He'd already done it at least twice against his will. And there was nothing he could do to stop that.

His anger at this idea finally burned away the last of his guilt and fear, about Beckendorf and the unknown. He would find a way to fix this one thing, by getting all his memories back, by making sure at least that never happened to her again.

... silver scythe pendant he'd used to communicate with someone at camp. Silena started to cry again, and Annabeth put an arm around her shoulders.

Months later and Annabeth still wanted to kick herself for not guessing what had been right in front of her. How hard Silena had shook, the sobs she'd barely been suppressing. She and Beckendorf had only dated a year, if that...but she glanced at Percy and sighed at her cold, calculated train of thought. Her mother's pride just couldn't trump what she knew she really regretted, which was nearly every single choice about the day that ended all of this. The ones she hadn't been a part of, that couldn't make a difference.

... It must be somebody who knew him well."

... he glanced at Annabeth.... but Connor looked away quickly. "Um, I mean, it could be anybody."

Annabeth smiled, which was weird because she never laughed at their jokes.

She was smiling because Percy had noticed that, and Connor had probably pissed himself at the look on Percy's face now she hadn't noticed. She was smiling because she'd expected a comment like that, and hated herself for everything she couldn't tell Luke to make him be Their spy.

"Yes." Katie Gardner frowned at the Stoll brothers... "Like one of Luke's siblings."

"Apparently Katie's forgotten Luke doesn't care about them anymore than he does anyone else," Alex bitterly reminded of what had been done to Chris.

Annabeth winced, and then looked to Percy like she expected him to say something. He looked from her to Thalia in a panic what the heck was he supposed to do about that?!

Nothing, apparently, as Annabeth turned back to watching Nico like nothing had happened. All the same, the smallest part of her was angry that they'd all been saying stuff like that about Luke, and Percy had likely just been casually agreeing, or saying worse himself.

..."Stop!" Silena banged the table so hard her hot chocolate spilled.

"She didn't have to waste perfectly good chocolate to get her point across," Percy said with an awkward smile.

"You're lucky she didn't throw it in your face seaweed brain," Annabeth said at once.

...Hot chocolate trickled off the Ping-Pong table. Everybody looked ashamed.

"I hope everyone puts food on her plate tonight at dinner," Alex said with an oddly anxious smile. "You're supposed to give people food when they're grieving, right?"

"I, think she skipped dinner that night," Annabeth said awkwardly. "It, would have been a nice gesture though."

... He and Annabeth looked at each other again. Did I mention I hate it when they do that?

"Frequently," Jason promised with a stern look at Annabeth, finally in person.

"Not enough," Magnus assured as he frowned at her too.

Annabeth could only manage half a smile without an apology.

... You needed a break with your, mortal friends."

Percy felt that flash of guilt. That he got a reprieve from this, that Will suddenly seemed very busy investigating the door, that Thalia gave him a jealous look before glancing away. It still snagged in his mind how he had the closest to a normal life as Annabeth bit her lip.

... I was allowed to have friends outside camp, right? It wasn't like . . .

"Like she kissed you on the beach in her bathing suit or anything," Thalia helpfully supplied.

"Thalia!" Percy spluttered in betrayal.

"What, she already knew, I was just helping fill in the blanks," she said oh so innocently.

"For who?!" He demanded, a blush of his own still all to visible.

"For you, obviously," she insisted with a grin. "Got to make sure your poor memories aren't slipping up again!"

Annabeth was starting to snort loudly between her giggling, disrupting Percy's next groan, so he decided he wouldn't murder her...much.

... He tossed water onto the hot plate where we usually melted nacho cheese.

"Which I've noticed lacking in there!" Alex said, clearly scandalized.

"I don't think there is enough nacho cheese to fix this Alex," Magnus sighed.

"We were short on rations," Will tragically agreed, but his tone was much lighter, clearly edging for a joke. "We would have had to use cheese adjacent, it just wouldn't have set the right mood."

"Fair," he sighed.

..."O Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, show us the threat."

"That is way to vague!" Jason protested. "For all he knows it'll just show him an image of a police chase, or Kronos still trying to swim out of the ocean!"

"Or someone running with scissors!" Percy added.

He got silence.

"What, that's a really dangerous thing to do," Percy shrugged.

"And this is why you wouldn't have survived spending all your time in the mortal world," Thalia rolled her eyes.

... geologists warn that the mountain may not be done."

"Is it going to rain men, or confetti, or puppies and kittens?" But Nico's sarcasm sounded exhausted. He just said it because that's what the others kept doing, making jokes.

He'd once felt the bombardment of souls constantly leaving this plane during his first days in the Labyrinth. Minos had helped him to control that, close himself off, and usually it was demigods he felt most easily and could still ignore those if he chose to.

He remembered those days, when it had felt fresh, when he'd had to concentrate so much he got headaches anyways from the constant death roaring across the US.

...The mountain shook with a horrible rumbling, as if the monster were laughing.

Percy still couldn't quite believe what he'd done- how he'd done this. He studied his hands in anger, he wanted to demand of Poseidon why he'd done this to him. Given him this, so much... to much...what did that say about him that he was capable of doing something of this magnitude?

Annabeth slipped her hand into his.

She knew that look on his face, the weight of all he carried. It was the same reason they had matching gray bangs.

...like No, that's our huge friend Leroy! He's going to help us!

"Every, single, miserable day you've had deserves that answer," Magnus nodded.

"Yet the cosmos would break if you ever got that lucky," Alex muttered.

...His angry roar rolled across the plains like a nuclear blast.

Will couldn't stand the way Nico read that, with such a familiar cadence of dread. This was something he was so familiar with, the horror Will could barely wrap his mind around this monster. How often had Nico spent staring at this image, studying it? Wasn't he supposed to be down in the Underworld with Bob and his dad trying to be an advisor!

Nico smiled without looking up as Will tucked himself a little closer into his side. He didn't know if it was for his comfort or his own, but he enjoyed the warm feeling either way.

..."Are those, the gods?" I said.

"You shouldn't be seeing that!" Jason yelped. "They're, in their godly form! Can you be vaporized from a distance?!"

"It's on TV, that makes it not real," Percy said with exhaustion in every syllable.

"Besides, if it's on a news station, then the narrative's skewed somehow, in this case I think Percy's favor not to see the worst," Alex added.

... Typhon is marching toward New York. Toward Olympus." I let that sink in.

"I bet the toilets are jealous," Alex smirked.

"Dammit Alex!" Nico threw his head back laughing and the others weren't faring much better.

"We're trying to be serious over here," Annabeth tried to say, but it was a pathetic scold at best as her hand stayed linked with Percy's, enjoying the thrilling zing of his laughter racing through where they connected.

"It was a very serious threat," Alex insisted. "We don't want the plumbing getting jealous, thinking he's taking sides.

"Well they're all out of luck then because the shower's my favorite anyways," Percy rolled his eyes.

"I'll break it to them gently," Alex promised.

..."Unless the gods can stop him? Perhaps five days.

"This is not what I thought you meant when you said you'd get a volcano at my next birthday Alex," Percy groaned.

"Go big or go home?" He shrugged, but he looked mildly guilty for the prophetic joke all the same. That kind of destruction, the amount of families this behemoth was displacing, the shelters would be overrun. The chaos was the kind her mother would be proud of. It disgusted him.

... "If Typhon gets to New York, it won't matter who's guarding Olympus."

Annabeth still idly wondered how much her mother had agreed with this full frontal assault, how dangerous that war room must have been as they all fought which was the best plan before Zeus's thunder shook Olympus and he declared what they'd be doing whether they liked it or not. How terrible a strategy that must have felt to Athena as she raced off with them, how it would have split her attention during the entire ordeal.

Her stomach sunk as she realized things weren't much better now. Closing off the gods from their kids couldn't be her mother's idea, it must still be the same pattern of Zeus ruling over some coming threat-

"You still with us Wise Girl?" Percy nudged his shoulder against hers at that familiar, far away look in her eyes.

"Mmm," she agreed, waving Nico on, her mind racing and yet not missing a word.

... love to see the terror in your eyes when you realize how I will destroy Olympus.

How HE would destroy Olympus, Jason nodded to himself as he shivered. Not Typhoon. This was a ploy, somehow. Kronos intended to lead this battle himself.

..."It's a trick," I said. "We have to warn the gods. Something else is going to happen."

"What would they even do about it?" Magnus didn't care his voice shook. "If all of them can't even defeat this guy, what the hell else could they manage against some trick?"

"A warning is still better than being blindsided." Annabeth only managed to say that with confidence because she'd survived it all. She knew to them it sounded about as reassuring as if she'd recited another Oracle prophecy.

... "But you sunk his ship."...They wanted to believe I'd given them a little bit of hope.

'And here I thought that had all been blown away with Beckendorf,' Thalia shook her head at herself. The Camper's resilience was always something she admired. She'd often felt so alienated from them, and could admit being with the Hunters had given her a slight sense of ego her hope was more concrete than theirs. Of course it would be Percy to rally them into having more.

...What if Kronos let us blow up that ship?... sacrificed himself for that mission.

It was a sickening thought, floating right along with them in the air they breathed. That Kronos would sacrifice all those kids on that ship, that he thought himself so clever he could pull a stunt like this...and it probably would have worked if Percy hadn't lived through to many others performing self-sacrifice for him in the past not to work through this feeling and see it for what it was.

"Maybe you're right," I said, though I didn't believe it.

And they knew that, Annabeth nodded to herself, but they'd wanted to believe it.

... going to die when I turned sixteen, the exact time Typhon hit New York. Almost forgot.

"A minor detail, all things considered," Alex agreed.

"What lie is that?" Will scoffed. "Percy is usually the number one problem around camp! Even if he does solve his own problems, it's still never minor!"

"Percy's survived four prophecies in a row, I like his odds," Alex shrugged.

Nico just hoped he liked the way Percy survived. He had a feeling Alex would call the pair of them cheaters when they got to that.

... Chiron said, "I think that's enough for one night." ...And the war council adjourned.

"I swear this guy should write kid's novels," Nico shook his head as he handed the book to Will, who had to sadly remove his arm to manage to hold the book without squishing Nico's face. He folded his knees up a little more, sat a little more proper in his seat. It didn't suit him, Nico noticed.

"Or survivor manuals," Will offered. "I think he'd manage both, a two for one."

"Like he doesn't have enough to do in that camp without throwing out a dozen rough drafts," Annabeth looked oddly at the pair.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Hope you aren't sick of the percabething yet, because I've still got a ton to catch up on! There's a reason I left her for this book :)

Speaking of, I need some song recs for them. I have one for Fierrochase and Solangelo, but Percabeth isn't on my mind enough to connect to one and it's driving me nuts. Whenever I get in a dry patch I'll just turn on a song that makes me think of a character and it gets me in a mood. I have one for Percy, but not for him and Annabeth.