PJO FIC: Everything Ain't Everything (1/1)
Summary: Shirts in the closet, shoes in the hall, jackets on the chair, pictures on the nightstand. His home is waiting for him to come in. His family is waiting for him. Annabeth is waiting for him. Percy's been missing for 345,608 seconds, give or take another 20,000-ish. Everything ain't everything when he's missing.
Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and his pals are the brainchild of Rick Riordan. Go worship at the altar of his brilliance. I hear a bottle of rum and a rolled up dollar bill work wonders. This story israted T for mild violence and language (I've been married to the military too long) and Gen (because I don't tend to write anything else), but that's about it. Spoilers are up through The Lost Hero.
Author's Note: Welcome to my first venture into the PJO fandom. My best friend insists you won't mind one more voice in the chorus. I hope you don't mind that I listened to him. / The title and inspriation of this story come from the gorgeous You're Missing by my beloved Bruce Springsteen. Check it out to set the mood. / Other than that, thanks for taking the time to read, even if you're shy like me and don't comment. Your time alone is appreciated. Thanks and enjoy! Six
Everything Ain't Everything
by That Girl Six
In the four days (or however you want to count the 345,608 seconds, give or take another 20,000-ish) since Percy pulled a disappearing act Houdini would've admired, Annabeth had spent too many hours spun into the logic web every child of Athena fought like it might as well be Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
Which came first, darlings: the chicken or the godsforsaken egg?
A million tries and headaches later, Annabeth's only answer was a pathetic shredded chicken omelet with salsa and runny sour cream that didn't quite look right. No, really, the edges were burned, the green peppers had a seared black crust, and the crispy onions were red instead of white. It was the worst omelet she'd ever dreamed up, which was saying a lot when put in the running with the Great Denver Sandwich Debacle of 2000.
Oh, well. Everything on the menu tasted too much like the cud of heartache these days anyway. Cardboard eggs it was. They went perfectly with her blue orange juice, which was about the only thing she could get right. It looked disgusting, really (three words: seaweed-colored pulp), but Sally'd told her it was one of Percy's comfort foods when he was sick. If Percy was hurt or sick out there wherever he was …
Well, comfort was the watchword.
Even Annabeth's cabin mates seemed to have warm fuzzy blankets of comfort on their brains. Maybe they thought she wouldn't notice, but they were hard to miss. Yes, her world was a colossal cluster of This Is So Not Happening, but she could hold it together enough to notice the covert looks and sympathetic nods, thank you very much. Reminding herself that they were her siblings and meant well, she took careful notice of how they rotated being the one to sit next to her at meals, probably dictated by a lottery schedule hidden somewhere in the cabin. Not wanting to put them all out, she strategically staked her claim at the end of the table so only one person had to put up with her and her drippy eggs. Whoever got the job each meal hardly said much beyond "Pass the pepper" and "You really need to - nevermind", but they tried, tight smiles and all. She kinda liked them for that.
Today's attempt at cozy tête-à-tête with Malcolm? "Are you sure that sour cream is still good? That makes me wanna puke."
"Yeah," she said, polite as half a personality ghost could be, and let the white slide off the tines of her fork in big snotty glops. "Me, too."
Annabeth got up from her seat to scrape the eggs off her plate into the fire pit. As far as she was concerned, there wasn't a god worth dedicating them to, although, in her heart, she hoped Hera choked on them. If she had to order omelets every day for the rest of her life, Annabeth had a new mission.
For all of half a second, chicken versus egg didn't matter. Either way, Hera was toast, and there was nothing better in the world than that.
"Eat that, you bitch."
The sky grew dark, sending all the kids murmuring and looking around anxiously for the moron suicidal enough to insult a god when one of them had already abandoned Percy. Annabeth met as many sets of eyes as she could, daring them to tell her not to be angry or upset. Not a single pair stayed on hers very long, except Chiron's. His eyes, older and wiser than hers, were bloodshot with concern.
"The eggs were runny," she muttered, slightly guilty for worrying him, and ducked back to her table.
If Percy were here, he would've had something much better (and bitter) to say. She missed his mouth. But if Percy was here, well …
Chicken and egg, right?
Stupid, godsforsaken eggs.
Yes, Annabeth was perfectly aware her thoughts ran in nothing but vicious circles these days - hence omelets, which obviously came first or the gods wouldn't have bothered to keep smelly old chickens around in the first place. Any time she tried to put a stop to the incessant circling, she found herself on some tortured, twisted, tangled route that dragged her back to that place resembling the starting line of NASCAR Hell. Over and over she was defeated, almost helpless in the face of question after question, circle after circle.
This is the Song That Never Ends had even made an appearance in her dreams last night when she told Hera off (again).
Hard as it was to admit sometimes, Percy had a strange, calming effect on her. He certainly kept her from saying things she should but didn't know better than to say out loud. For all the times he said she was the only thing that got him out of trouble, the logic of needing someone to do the same for her didn't make sense, not until now. No one had ever told her what it was like, to miss someone so much, to need the comfort of his arms around her like a warm wave lazily wrapping her in the gentlest seas until her mind was clear. No one told her it could hurt so much when it was gone.
Which one of them had the mushy seaweed brain now, huh?
She honestly didn't know for sure when that happened. She'd never truly needed someone before, not when it came to all the things that made her a daughter of Athena. Thought, strategy, knowing? Those were things that sang in her blood, most nights stealing sleep she so badly needed. Her mind worked at all hours, chaos and brilliance battling for expression and life outside her wise girl brain the way a crazy person hears all her multiple personalities shouting to be heard over each other, always noise, never giving in. But when Percy was there? Thoughts had neat little folders and card catalogues to file into, and if she got around to doing something with them right away or not, it didn't matter. She didn't have to just do. When Percy was there, she had a purpose beyond being a child of Athena.
Percy saw her, saw Annabeth, not the Daughter of Athena. Not a leader, not someone to be used in a quest, not one of the handful of kids who never had a choice about who they were going to be.
Gods, she would give anything right then and there to have Percy there to see her.
Being seen had never been a priority for her. Once she'd left home and gone on the run with Thalia and Luke, she'd stopped worrying about it. She had bigger pictures to be a part of and to figure out. With Percy gone, it was a whole different kind of You're not there. Campers knew she was there. Oh, they knew. They just did everything they could not to meet her in the eye, afraid to make her break with the wrong look or something, as if she could be that fragile.
Whichever cabin mate was on Annabeth duty for lunch really should beg off. Maybe dinner, too. She felt kinda sorry for them.
Campers slowly started to break away from their tables - except Table Three, never Table Three - off to get away from the reminder she was to all of them and to find their normal lives. Because, yeah, she got it. Percy was gone, but they weren't. They still had to train, always train. There were new kids to sort, mostly to Hermes the last few weeks. There were inspections to do, arrows to nock, swords to sharpen. Nymphs still had to nymph; heroes still had to hero.
If they could just do it all away from her, that'd be awesome.
Percy's cabin - even when Tyson was around, it was hard to think of it as anyone's cabin but Percy's - was the only place people left her completely alone. It was kind of irritating, actually, like suddenly Cabin Three was the scary haunted house on the corner and Boo Radley would snatch them into darkness if they got too close. Not that she was complaining. The breeze Percy said he could feel and smell all the time had abandoned the cabin when Percy did. If the others came around, it would stop smelling like him. Annabeth didn't think she could stand it if that part of him left her, too.
She tidied the sheets, which were in the exact same condition she'd wrangled them into the day before. The Minotaur horn hung on its hook by the head of his bed, free of dust since she took care of that yesterday. The bag of blue M&Ms Sally sent back with him over the weekend sat on his dresser, the blue ribbon still cinched in a perfect bow. The extra blue microfiber blanket Sally had sent along a few years ago was folded neatly at the foot of his bed, just in case a winter stay was needed.
Percy needed her to do this. He'd never forgive himself if he came home to an eviction notice from the harpies for not keeping his quarters clean. It was the least she could do. He needed her.
Her fingers ghosted over the softness of the blanket. They'd cuddled under that blanket five nights ago, watching the constellations move across the sky until they couldn't avoid getting caught any longer. A few stray blond hairs from her ponytail still mingled with the binding from where she fell asleep with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
She wished that breeze would come back. This place was far too dusty without the air to circulate the sand around.
When the cabin was cleaned and organized and everything short of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition-ed, she closed the door with the promise she'd do it all over again tomorrow. Percy's home would be waiting for him, harpies or no.
Startled, she had to sidestep around a hunched Clarisse on the middle step, Maimer balanced over her wide-spread knees, oddly still and delicate for a child of Ares. Even a few months ago, the ADHD zip of her eyes back and forth would've made Annabeth nervous, but there was something determined about it. What she was looking for, Clarisse herself probably didn't know, but she was looking damn hard. Annabeth couldn't help hoping she found it, although how she would find it on Percy's front step, that was chicken/egg territory. Sometimes there just weren't answers to stupid questions.
Strategically putting a foot or so between herself and the tip of the spear's reach, Annabeth shielded her arms over her chest, but she didn't say anything. The balls of her feet bounced with anticipation to either A) run because it was the right thing to walk away from fighting one of their own or B) battle to the death because there would be a certain satisfaction in maimingsomething. Whichever came first, right?
Clarisse cleared her throat after a bit, wet and rather disgusting, the only sign of life other than her darting eyes. When she spoke, her already deep register sounded like a cross of her usual belligerence and that of a soldier delivering that dreaded telegram to a wife left behind while her husband is off to war. "It's been too long."
It was tempting to clip off something Percy-like back. So tempting. Maybe she should, because whatever Clarisse had to say, Annabeth didn't want to hear it. A beat down (attempted), blade on spear, skin on skin, whatever, would hurt a whole lot less than whatever verbal knife Clarisse wanted to stab through her heart. Instead, the only weapon Annabeth had on her was a crooked eyebrow, so she gave it her best effort. Rachel had taken tweezers to Annabeth's eyebrows a week ago. These suckers were sharp. Watch them put on the hurt, oh Hades, yeah.
If Clarisse noticed the challenge, she didn't bother acknowledging it. She swallowed back down whatever she'd cleared from her throat and said again, clearer, "It's been too long. You need to do something about it."
A string broke inside Annabeth, separating the logic half of her brain from the one that had any filter whatsoever. Grinding her teeth together, hard, Annabeth seethed. "You think I'm not? I have gone everywhere there is even a whisper of possibility he might've been there. I've followed every lead, every - "
"Shut up before I have to explain to Chiron how I made you shut up." When Annabeth didn't stop to take a breath - "And Jason, what do you think he was, some sort of random hitch hiker I picked up off the road?" - Clarisse stood up and hefted her weighty toy. "It'll hurt, Chase, blood and guts splurting out hurt. Shut up."
Annabeth stepped forward, her molars cracking under the strain. Obviously, she needed to give the eyebrows another shot. The cheap shot fist (cinder block) she took to the right side of her face probably wouldn't have hurt so much if she'd bothered to let her teeth go when she saw it coming. Lesson learned. That's what she got for being anywhere near a child of Ares, right?
"You listening now?"
Annabeth palmed her jaw. It made her eyeballs rattle around loose as marbles in her head, but she nodded.
"My dad will probably take this thing away when he hears I said so, but Percy … You and I both know he was born to be a general. He's got a way with soldiers you and I will never have. We need him here. Keep planning all the searches you want, and I will do everything I can to help you find him because I want him back, too, but … That doesn't help us here right now. Someone has to step up to take care of the day to day, too. I'd do it, but the others won't listen to me the way they would to you. As sickening as it is to watch, the two of you are a team. A gross team, but a team, and right now, half a leadership is better than no leadership at all."
Okay, that so wasn't what she was expecting at all. Not even in the same ballpark.
"You want…? Are you kidding me?"
Clarisse didn't bother to duck out of the way when Annabeth's fist totally took on a life of its own and returned the favor. They stared at each other, daughters of war both, eyes wide and hands cradling their aching jaws like the last two kids standing in a brutal deathmatch of dodgeball.
"Better?" Clarisse gave in first and smirked. Nope, she didn't hurt at all.
"Not now," Annabeth shakily managed to say and not pop any teeth. Gods, that hurt. "I appreciate what you're doing, but I can't talk about this now."
Clarisse's I told you I'd do it one day victory smirk faded into something that almost looked like sympathy if it wasn't, you know, Clarisse. "If not now, when?"
"When Percy comes home."
With that, Annabeth forgot what she'd gone to Percy's for in the first place. Pirouetting on the ball of her right foot, she took off as fast as her wobbly knees would take her. She had no idea where she was going, which was fine because her inner compass wasn't working anyway. It tried to lead her to the trees, but she didn't want to run into Juniper and her own achy heart missing Grover. The creek had too many memories. Her cabin had too many people. She could go to the Big House; Chiron would hold her and let her cry before reminding her of all the things she knew already, that she needed to pull herself together and get their boy back, but Annabeth didn't want to make Chiron any sadder than he already was.
So when she found herself just standing in the middle of the arena and Chiron's archery class, turning in a circle without a direction to go, she wasn't surprised when he tried to steer her toward the Big House.
"Annabeth?"
Her short, decisive "I'm going for a run" sounded a lot like Please, oh please, don't talk to me.
"Child?" The dressed like that and what's wrong and since when do you run hung limply on the end of his question.
"A run, Chiron. That's all, I promise."
Whatever else he meant to say, he kept it to himself. She didn't need Argus's eyes to see him shaking his head or staring longingly at Percy's cabin for someone, anyone to handle her. Mental notes to apologize later already sticky noted themselves on her brain. He'd understand. If anyone missed Percy as much as she did, it was Chiron.
And Sally. And Grover. And Tyson. Paul. Thalia. Nico. That little kid in Cabin Six who followed Percy around like a puppy his first week there. Even Clarisse.
Several campers called out to her as she blew past, but what any of them said, Annabeth couldn't say.
Beach and sand (which Rachel promised her was a fabulous natural exfoliant) was hardly where she meant to end up. Not remotely. She'd done her best to avoid water, period, actually. An hour spent laying on Percy's bed was one thing. Even with the scent of him lingering over everything in the cabin, it didn't feel as close to him as the sea itself. She could drink all the blue drinks and eat all the blue jellybeans she wanted, but they weren't the water. If she went to the water, she'd told herself, it would be like admitting she thought he wasn't coming home. Coming to the water would feel like saying goodbye. It was probably an irrational thing, and it definitely didn't make sense, but damn it, she was scared. Nothing said she had to make sense. Water was off limits if she wanted it to be.
And yet, there she was.
Waves crashed on the sand, threatening to take away a foot or two of beachhead with them. Even from up the hill, she could hear the roar, tossing in time with every turn she made in her sheets. For days now, the sea itself growled with the knowledge Percy was missing and it wanted him back right the hell now. It was desperate and not the least bit restrained, not at all unlike her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, her mother's voice provided the dictionary definition she was looking for. Anthropomorphizing: to attribute human form or personality to things not human.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Shut up.
Annabeth watched the tide smooth its way higher and higher up the beach, her eyes gone cold and hard enough that she wondered if she could break one of those waves with only a look. She wanted to. She wanted so badly to hit one, bare fisted and steel knuckled, hard enough so that the reverberation of her anger would reach all the way to the bottom of the deepest trenches.
The ocean didn't rumble any more than the sky did. It was the same old nothing she'd heard for weeks now. She couldn't tell if it was listening or not. Well, she'd make it listen. She'd makehim listen.
She slowly, deliberately took her shoes and socks off before she walked into the water's edge. She didn't feel in the least bit calm, but her mother would never forgive her if she walked into a battle, even this one, without a supreme confidence in her knowledge that she was right. And she was. He deserved to know just how right she was.
"Do you even know he's gone? Do you care?"
One good hit. That's all she wanted. One solid blast to make Poseidon feel as bad as she did.
"You were supposed to be the good one," she said, more ache than anger, which probably wouldn't help, but ... "I don't think I've met a single hero who actually loves their parent. We pay tribute to you, and we strive to make you proud, to do everything you ask of us, but love? Every single one of us had to depend on our mortal parent for that. Lucky ones got that much. You saw how Luke turned out. I … I'm not even sure I love my mother. I don't know if she'd care if I did. Love isn't logical, after all, and she'd want me to be logical over anything else. I've … "
A sharp breeze swirled around her, overwhelming her with the scent of blue, of the sea, coolly reminding her that she was there to talk about Percy and not Athena. Those family problems hadn't been sussed out in thousands of years, and there was nothing she could do about them. Panic grabbed her throat - What if he isn't answering me because of Mom? - but she gulped around it. She needed to say this, wise or not.
"But Percy, he loves you. He always gets this look on his face, so proud to be your son, when he says you talk to him like he's a real person, like you know he's real. You tell him hard truths, but you always tell him because he needs to know. He feels you. He knows you're there. When he prays to you, he means it. Is he right? Do you love him? Do you know he's real? That he's missing? That he's out there somewhere, maybe hurt or scared? Alone? Do you care? Do you give a damn at all?"
Scooping a pebble out of the sand, Annabeth whipped it to slap the face of the next wave coming in. She hoped it hurt like Clarisse's fist.
"You're supposed to be the good one, so where are you? Your son who loves you is missing. Why aren't you doing anything about it?" Some part of her knew she shouldn't be raising her voice, but she couldn't help it. Poseidon, whether he cared or not, needed to hear this, to hear her. "WHERE ARE YOU?"
She would've thought she'd have more energy for this than she did, but that one question - whether it was meant for Poseidon or Percy, it could go either way - defeated her. Sand scratched at her bare knees, tearing tiny strips of skin. She tucked herself in, bringing her knees to her chest. Dusting the sand off showed dots of blood. Real blood. Here at home blood. Hers.
"You're his blood. You …"
You were supposed to be better than the rest of them.
"You're breaking his mother's heart - the woman you claimed to love. How can you do this to her? What did she do to deserve this?"
The waves seemed to rear back and stutter, like a horse at a full out run being reined in stumbling to obey. By the time the white caps reached sand, they curled in on themselves, gentle and rolling, and stretched up on the beach until the foam swirled around her bare toes. The water held its breath for a moment before sighing back into the sea to make room for another wave to lap at her ankles.
And that's when she realized she'd been asking the wrong question all along.
"Why aren't you doing anything to help those of us who love him? Chiron is worried sick. Even Clarisse is worried. She'd never say it out loud, but any of us can see it. Percy means the world to this camp. To all of us. Jason was here for all of a day, and he could see it. Piper and Leo, they saw it. Please. You have to see how much we need him. Why won't you bring him home?"
Annabeth swallowed and slammed her eyes shut, afraid to let her tears be real. Not now.
Why aren't you helping me? Do you hate my mother that much?
Silence.
No, really, absolute silence.
Annabeth opened her eyes as the weight of no crashing, no tearing, no screaming waves that missed Percy maybe as much as she did hit the beach. White caps still tangoed with the storm clouds in the far distance, raging their own impotence in the search, but at her feet, the water stilled to a glassy calm with a bubble bath foam skirt. It crawled in inches around her toes as she braced herself against it, curling them into the sand. Up over her feet, up around her ankles, around her digging fingers, the water wrapped itself around every inch of her skin, even as her clothes stayed dry.
The sea couldn't get inside to heal her aching heart, but it would try. For him.
No. No way. Nuh uh. Annabeth didn't want comfort. If she wanted comfort, she'd go to Percy for it. When he came home, then she'd have comfort.
And that, kids, she knew now wasn't going to happen until she made it happen herself.
Annabeth threw herself back, crab crawling away from the sea's reach. It didn't retreat, but it didn't try to come after her either. The foaming white mouth lapped at the sand, waiting for whatever else she had to say. She hated to disappoint it, but there was only one thing left she could say.
"I hate you. Do you hear me? Fuck you!"
Whatever else the sea wanted to say, it could say it to her back.
Up that hill, there was work to do and a boy to find. No one else was going to find him but her. She had work to do.
Wrapped in that knowledge, Annabeth's heart soared, taking off ahead of her so that she had to sprint to catch up.
When she crested the hill, Clarisse stood and dusted grass off the back of her jeans, but she didn't bother to say anything. Annabeth skidded to a graceful stop, carefully out of reach but close enough to say she wouldn't take another swing (unless she asked for it), completely in control of herself. Clarisse's fists jammed into her pockets, leaving her looking like any other teenaged girl who knew she was too big for her age, too angry for her age, and too unsure of what she was supposed to say to people.
Um. It was a perfectly useful word here for them both. They were in new territory here. Good natured insults didn't exist for it yet. Maybe some day, but not today.
Clarisse scooped up and separated the clipboards she'd stacked on the ground and handed the top one to Annabeth.
There was nothing weak or unsure in her voice this time as Annabeth demanded to know, "Why are you doing this?"
"We fought a war and won. We aren't kids anymore." Clarisse nodded toward the Hermes cabin where a couple of kids sat cross-legged with a deck of cards and a pile of small weapons between them. "But they are. I wish someone would have remembered for us that we were kids, too."
Well, wasn't that a pleasant thought? Annabeth didn't want to think about it. She had enough to think about for a while, starting with getting herself to work. She took the clipboard and hugged it to her chest. Back to Square One. "Cabin Three?"
"Skip it for a while. I don't want to know what that boy keeps under his bed. I wanna see if this Jason kid is as much a slob as that sister of his."
Annabeth made sure her "Good enough" sounded an awful lot like Thank You. "You want evens or odds?"
Clarisse took the clipboard for Percy's cabin away from her with awkward, stunted gentleness and led the way toward Cabin Four. As if they could sense her coming, three Demeter kids scrambled to their feet and slammed their door shut. Annabeth wondered if one of them bodily barricaded the door. She thought about yelling down to them that they had fifteen seconds to get that dirt they always tracked in, but for some reason, she didn't want to deny Clarisse a little fun. It wasn't warm fuzzy comfort, but it was something. An apology maybe?
Reading her mind, Clarisse said, "Next time you need to pick a fight, just ask me to punch your lights out and be done with it. It'll be quicker."
"Right back atcha," Annabeth grinned, the first time she'd felt like it for real in days.
"We're gonna find him, you know. You and me."
Annabeth nodded toward the quivering door of the Demeter cabin. "Then let's get to work."
(December 2012)
Disclaimer: Percy Jackson and his pals are the brainchild of Rick Riordan. Go worship at the altar of his brilliance. I hear a bottle of rum and a rolled up dollar bill work wonders. This story israted T for mild violence and language (I've been married to the military too long) and Gen (because I don't tend to write anything else), but that's about it. Spoilers are up through The Lost Hero.
Author's Note: Welcome to my first venture into the PJO fandom. My best friend insists you won't mind one more voice in the chorus. I hope you don't mind that I listened to him. / The title and inspriation of this story come from the gorgeous You're Missing by my beloved Bruce Springsteen. Check it out to set the mood. / Other than that, thanks for taking the time to read, even if you're shy like me and don't comment. Your time alone is appreciated. Thanks and enjoy! Six
Everything Ain't Everything
by That Girl Six
In the four days (or however you want to count the 345,608 seconds, give or take another 20,000-ish) since Percy pulled a disappearing act Houdini would've admired, Annabeth had spent too many hours spun into the logic web every child of Athena fought like it might as well be Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
Which came first, darlings: the chicken or the godsforsaken egg?
A million tries and headaches later, Annabeth's only answer was a pathetic shredded chicken omelet with salsa and runny sour cream that didn't quite look right. No, really, the edges were burned, the green peppers had a seared black crust, and the crispy onions were red instead of white. It was the worst omelet she'd ever dreamed up, which was saying a lot when put in the running with the Great Denver Sandwich Debacle of 2000.
Oh, well. Everything on the menu tasted too much like the cud of heartache these days anyway. Cardboard eggs it was. They went perfectly with her blue orange juice, which was about the only thing she could get right. It looked disgusting, really (three words: seaweed-colored pulp), but Sally'd told her it was one of Percy's comfort foods when he was sick. If Percy was hurt or sick out there wherever he was …
Well, comfort was the watchword.
Even Annabeth's cabin mates seemed to have warm fuzzy blankets of comfort on their brains. Maybe they thought she wouldn't notice, but they were hard to miss. Yes, her world was a colossal cluster of This Is So Not Happening, but she could hold it together enough to notice the covert looks and sympathetic nods, thank you very much. Reminding herself that they were her siblings and meant well, she took careful notice of how they rotated being the one to sit next to her at meals, probably dictated by a lottery schedule hidden somewhere in the cabin. Not wanting to put them all out, she strategically staked her claim at the end of the table so only one person had to put up with her and her drippy eggs. Whoever got the job each meal hardly said much beyond "Pass the pepper" and "You really need to - nevermind", but they tried, tight smiles and all. She kinda liked them for that.
Today's attempt at cozy tête-à-tête with Malcolm? "Are you sure that sour cream is still good? That makes me wanna puke."
"Yeah," she said, polite as half a personality ghost could be, and let the white slide off the tines of her fork in big snotty glops. "Me, too."
Annabeth got up from her seat to scrape the eggs off her plate into the fire pit. As far as she was concerned, there wasn't a god worth dedicating them to, although, in her heart, she hoped Hera choked on them. If she had to order omelets every day for the rest of her life, Annabeth had a new mission.
For all of half a second, chicken versus egg didn't matter. Either way, Hera was toast, and there was nothing better in the world than that.
"Eat that, you bitch."
The sky grew dark, sending all the kids murmuring and looking around anxiously for the moron suicidal enough to insult a god when one of them had already abandoned Percy. Annabeth met as many sets of eyes as she could, daring them to tell her not to be angry or upset. Not a single pair stayed on hers very long, except Chiron's. His eyes, older and wiser than hers, were bloodshot with concern.
"The eggs were runny," she muttered, slightly guilty for worrying him, and ducked back to her table.
If Percy were here, he would've had something much better (and bitter) to say. She missed his mouth. But if Percy was here, well …
Chicken and egg, right?
Stupid, godsforsaken eggs.
Yes, Annabeth was perfectly aware her thoughts ran in nothing but vicious circles these days - hence omelets, which obviously came first or the gods wouldn't have bothered to keep smelly old chickens around in the first place. Any time she tried to put a stop to the incessant circling, she found herself on some tortured, twisted, tangled route that dragged her back to that place resembling the starting line of NASCAR Hell. Over and over she was defeated, almost helpless in the face of question after question, circle after circle.
This is the Song That Never Ends had even made an appearance in her dreams last night when she told Hera off (again).
Hard as it was to admit sometimes, Percy had a strange, calming effect on her. He certainly kept her from saying things she should but didn't know better than to say out loud. For all the times he said she was the only thing that got him out of trouble, the logic of needing someone to do the same for her didn't make sense, not until now. No one had ever told her what it was like, to miss someone so much, to need the comfort of his arms around her like a warm wave lazily wrapping her in the gentlest seas until her mind was clear. No one told her it could hurt so much when it was gone.
Which one of them had the mushy seaweed brain now, huh?
She honestly didn't know for sure when that happened. She'd never truly needed someone before, not when it came to all the things that made her a daughter of Athena. Thought, strategy, knowing? Those were things that sang in her blood, most nights stealing sleep she so badly needed. Her mind worked at all hours, chaos and brilliance battling for expression and life outside her wise girl brain the way a crazy person hears all her multiple personalities shouting to be heard over each other, always noise, never giving in. But when Percy was there? Thoughts had neat little folders and card catalogues to file into, and if she got around to doing something with them right away or not, it didn't matter. She didn't have to just do. When Percy was there, she had a purpose beyond being a child of Athena.
Percy saw her, saw Annabeth, not the Daughter of Athena. Not a leader, not someone to be used in a quest, not one of the handful of kids who never had a choice about who they were going to be.
Gods, she would give anything right then and there to have Percy there to see her.
Being seen had never been a priority for her. Once she'd left home and gone on the run with Thalia and Luke, she'd stopped worrying about it. She had bigger pictures to be a part of and to figure out. With Percy gone, it was a whole different kind of You're not there. Campers knew she was there. Oh, they knew. They just did everything they could not to meet her in the eye, afraid to make her break with the wrong look or something, as if she could be that fragile.
Whichever cabin mate was on Annabeth duty for lunch really should beg off. Maybe dinner, too. She felt kinda sorry for them.
Campers slowly started to break away from their tables - except Table Three, never Table Three - off to get away from the reminder she was to all of them and to find their normal lives. Because, yeah, she got it. Percy was gone, but they weren't. They still had to train, always train. There were new kids to sort, mostly to Hermes the last few weeks. There were inspections to do, arrows to nock, swords to sharpen. Nymphs still had to nymph; heroes still had to hero.
If they could just do it all away from her, that'd be awesome.
Percy's cabin - even when Tyson was around, it was hard to think of it as anyone's cabin but Percy's - was the only place people left her completely alone. It was kind of irritating, actually, like suddenly Cabin Three was the scary haunted house on the corner and Boo Radley would snatch them into darkness if they got too close. Not that she was complaining. The breeze Percy said he could feel and smell all the time had abandoned the cabin when Percy did. If the others came around, it would stop smelling like him. Annabeth didn't think she could stand it if that part of him left her, too.
She tidied the sheets, which were in the exact same condition she'd wrangled them into the day before. The Minotaur horn hung on its hook by the head of his bed, free of dust since she took care of that yesterday. The bag of blue M&Ms Sally sent back with him over the weekend sat on his dresser, the blue ribbon still cinched in a perfect bow. The extra blue microfiber blanket Sally had sent along a few years ago was folded neatly at the foot of his bed, just in case a winter stay was needed.
Percy needed her to do this. He'd never forgive himself if he came home to an eviction notice from the harpies for not keeping his quarters clean. It was the least she could do. He needed her.
Her fingers ghosted over the softness of the blanket. They'd cuddled under that blanket five nights ago, watching the constellations move across the sky until they couldn't avoid getting caught any longer. A few stray blond hairs from her ponytail still mingled with the binding from where she fell asleep with the blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
She wished that breeze would come back. This place was far too dusty without the air to circulate the sand around.
When the cabin was cleaned and organized and everything short of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition-ed, she closed the door with the promise she'd do it all over again tomorrow. Percy's home would be waiting for him, harpies or no.
Startled, she had to sidestep around a hunched Clarisse on the middle step, Maimer balanced over her wide-spread knees, oddly still and delicate for a child of Ares. Even a few months ago, the ADHD zip of her eyes back and forth would've made Annabeth nervous, but there was something determined about it. What she was looking for, Clarisse herself probably didn't know, but she was looking damn hard. Annabeth couldn't help hoping she found it, although how she would find it on Percy's front step, that was chicken/egg territory. Sometimes there just weren't answers to stupid questions.
Strategically putting a foot or so between herself and the tip of the spear's reach, Annabeth shielded her arms over her chest, but she didn't say anything. The balls of her feet bounced with anticipation to either A) run because it was the right thing to walk away from fighting one of their own or B) battle to the death because there would be a certain satisfaction in maimingsomething. Whichever came first, right?
Clarisse cleared her throat after a bit, wet and rather disgusting, the only sign of life other than her darting eyes. When she spoke, her already deep register sounded like a cross of her usual belligerence and that of a soldier delivering that dreaded telegram to a wife left behind while her husband is off to war. "It's been too long."
It was tempting to clip off something Percy-like back. So tempting. Maybe she should, because whatever Clarisse had to say, Annabeth didn't want to hear it. A beat down (attempted), blade on spear, skin on skin, whatever, would hurt a whole lot less than whatever verbal knife Clarisse wanted to stab through her heart. Instead, the only weapon Annabeth had on her was a crooked eyebrow, so she gave it her best effort. Rachel had taken tweezers to Annabeth's eyebrows a week ago. These suckers were sharp. Watch them put on the hurt, oh Hades, yeah.
If Clarisse noticed the challenge, she didn't bother acknowledging it. She swallowed back down whatever she'd cleared from her throat and said again, clearer, "It's been too long. You need to do something about it."
A string broke inside Annabeth, separating the logic half of her brain from the one that had any filter whatsoever. Grinding her teeth together, hard, Annabeth seethed. "You think I'm not? I have gone everywhere there is even a whisper of possibility he might've been there. I've followed every lead, every - "
"Shut up before I have to explain to Chiron how I made you shut up." When Annabeth didn't stop to take a breath - "And Jason, what do you think he was, some sort of random hitch hiker I picked up off the road?" - Clarisse stood up and hefted her weighty toy. "It'll hurt, Chase, blood and guts splurting out hurt. Shut up."
Annabeth stepped forward, her molars cracking under the strain. Obviously, she needed to give the eyebrows another shot. The cheap shot fist (cinder block) she took to the right side of her face probably wouldn't have hurt so much if she'd bothered to let her teeth go when she saw it coming. Lesson learned. That's what she got for being anywhere near a child of Ares, right?
"You listening now?"
Annabeth palmed her jaw. It made her eyeballs rattle around loose as marbles in her head, but she nodded.
"My dad will probably take this thing away when he hears I said so, but Percy … You and I both know he was born to be a general. He's got a way with soldiers you and I will never have. We need him here. Keep planning all the searches you want, and I will do everything I can to help you find him because I want him back, too, but … That doesn't help us here right now. Someone has to step up to take care of the day to day, too. I'd do it, but the others won't listen to me the way they would to you. As sickening as it is to watch, the two of you are a team. A gross team, but a team, and right now, half a leadership is better than no leadership at all."
Okay, that so wasn't what she was expecting at all. Not even in the same ballpark.
"You want…? Are you kidding me?"
Clarisse didn't bother to duck out of the way when Annabeth's fist totally took on a life of its own and returned the favor. They stared at each other, daughters of war both, eyes wide and hands cradling their aching jaws like the last two kids standing in a brutal deathmatch of dodgeball.
"Better?" Clarisse gave in first and smirked. Nope, she didn't hurt at all.
"Not now," Annabeth shakily managed to say and not pop any teeth. Gods, that hurt. "I appreciate what you're doing, but I can't talk about this now."
Clarisse's I told you I'd do it one day victory smirk faded into something that almost looked like sympathy if it wasn't, you know, Clarisse. "If not now, when?"
"When Percy comes home."
With that, Annabeth forgot what she'd gone to Percy's for in the first place. Pirouetting on the ball of her right foot, she took off as fast as her wobbly knees would take her. She had no idea where she was going, which was fine because her inner compass wasn't working anyway. It tried to lead her to the trees, but she didn't want to run into Juniper and her own achy heart missing Grover. The creek had too many memories. Her cabin had too many people. She could go to the Big House; Chiron would hold her and let her cry before reminding her of all the things she knew already, that she needed to pull herself together and get their boy back, but Annabeth didn't want to make Chiron any sadder than he already was.
So when she found herself just standing in the middle of the arena and Chiron's archery class, turning in a circle without a direction to go, she wasn't surprised when he tried to steer her toward the Big House.
"Annabeth?"
Her short, decisive "I'm going for a run" sounded a lot like Please, oh please, don't talk to me.
"Child?" The dressed like that and what's wrong and since when do you run hung limply on the end of his question.
"A run, Chiron. That's all, I promise."
Whatever else he meant to say, he kept it to himself. She didn't need Argus's eyes to see him shaking his head or staring longingly at Percy's cabin for someone, anyone to handle her. Mental notes to apologize later already sticky noted themselves on her brain. He'd understand. If anyone missed Percy as much as she did, it was Chiron.
And Sally. And Grover. And Tyson. Paul. Thalia. Nico. That little kid in Cabin Six who followed Percy around like a puppy his first week there. Even Clarisse.
Several campers called out to her as she blew past, but what any of them said, Annabeth couldn't say.
Beach and sand (which Rachel promised her was a fabulous natural exfoliant) was hardly where she meant to end up. Not remotely. She'd done her best to avoid water, period, actually. An hour spent laying on Percy's bed was one thing. Even with the scent of him lingering over everything in the cabin, it didn't feel as close to him as the sea itself. She could drink all the blue drinks and eat all the blue jellybeans she wanted, but they weren't the water. If she went to the water, she'd told herself, it would be like admitting she thought he wasn't coming home. Coming to the water would feel like saying goodbye. It was probably an irrational thing, and it definitely didn't make sense, but damn it, she was scared. Nothing said she had to make sense. Water was off limits if she wanted it to be.
And yet, there she was.
Waves crashed on the sand, threatening to take away a foot or two of beachhead with them. Even from up the hill, she could hear the roar, tossing in time with every turn she made in her sheets. For days now, the sea itself growled with the knowledge Percy was missing and it wanted him back right the hell now. It was desperate and not the least bit restrained, not at all unlike her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, her mother's voice provided the dictionary definition she was looking for. Anthropomorphizing: to attribute human form or personality to things not human.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Shut up.
Annabeth watched the tide smooth its way higher and higher up the beach, her eyes gone cold and hard enough that she wondered if she could break one of those waves with only a look. She wanted to. She wanted so badly to hit one, bare fisted and steel knuckled, hard enough so that the reverberation of her anger would reach all the way to the bottom of the deepest trenches.
The ocean didn't rumble any more than the sky did. It was the same old nothing she'd heard for weeks now. She couldn't tell if it was listening or not. Well, she'd make it listen. She'd makehim listen.
She slowly, deliberately took her shoes and socks off before she walked into the water's edge. She didn't feel in the least bit calm, but her mother would never forgive her if she walked into a battle, even this one, without a supreme confidence in her knowledge that she was right. And she was. He deserved to know just how right she was.
"Do you even know he's gone? Do you care?"
One good hit. That's all she wanted. One solid blast to make Poseidon feel as bad as she did.
"You were supposed to be the good one," she said, more ache than anger, which probably wouldn't help, but ... "I don't think I've met a single hero who actually loves their parent. We pay tribute to you, and we strive to make you proud, to do everything you ask of us, but love? Every single one of us had to depend on our mortal parent for that. Lucky ones got that much. You saw how Luke turned out. I … I'm not even sure I love my mother. I don't know if she'd care if I did. Love isn't logical, after all, and she'd want me to be logical over anything else. I've … "
A sharp breeze swirled around her, overwhelming her with the scent of blue, of the sea, coolly reminding her that she was there to talk about Percy and not Athena. Those family problems hadn't been sussed out in thousands of years, and there was nothing she could do about them. Panic grabbed her throat - What if he isn't answering me because of Mom? - but she gulped around it. She needed to say this, wise or not.
"But Percy, he loves you. He always gets this look on his face, so proud to be your son, when he says you talk to him like he's a real person, like you know he's real. You tell him hard truths, but you always tell him because he needs to know. He feels you. He knows you're there. When he prays to you, he means it. Is he right? Do you love him? Do you know he's real? That he's missing? That he's out there somewhere, maybe hurt or scared? Alone? Do you care? Do you give a damn at all?"
Scooping a pebble out of the sand, Annabeth whipped it to slap the face of the next wave coming in. She hoped it hurt like Clarisse's fist.
"You're supposed to be the good one, so where are you? Your son who loves you is missing. Why aren't you doing anything about it?" Some part of her knew she shouldn't be raising her voice, but she couldn't help it. Poseidon, whether he cared or not, needed to hear this, to hear her. "WHERE ARE YOU?"
She would've thought she'd have more energy for this than she did, but that one question - whether it was meant for Poseidon or Percy, it could go either way - defeated her. Sand scratched at her bare knees, tearing tiny strips of skin. She tucked herself in, bringing her knees to her chest. Dusting the sand off showed dots of blood. Real blood. Here at home blood. Hers.
"You're his blood. You …"
You were supposed to be better than the rest of them.
"You're breaking his mother's heart - the woman you claimed to love. How can you do this to her? What did she do to deserve this?"
The waves seemed to rear back and stutter, like a horse at a full out run being reined in stumbling to obey. By the time the white caps reached sand, they curled in on themselves, gentle and rolling, and stretched up on the beach until the foam swirled around her bare toes. The water held its breath for a moment before sighing back into the sea to make room for another wave to lap at her ankles.
And that's when she realized she'd been asking the wrong question all along.
"Why aren't you doing anything to help those of us who love him? Chiron is worried sick. Even Clarisse is worried. She'd never say it out loud, but any of us can see it. Percy means the world to this camp. To all of us. Jason was here for all of a day, and he could see it. Piper and Leo, they saw it. Please. You have to see how much we need him. Why won't you bring him home?"
Annabeth swallowed and slammed her eyes shut, afraid to let her tears be real. Not now.
Why aren't you helping me? Do you hate my mother that much?
Silence.
No, really, absolute silence.
Annabeth opened her eyes as the weight of no crashing, no tearing, no screaming waves that missed Percy maybe as much as she did hit the beach. White caps still tangoed with the storm clouds in the far distance, raging their own impotence in the search, but at her feet, the water stilled to a glassy calm with a bubble bath foam skirt. It crawled in inches around her toes as she braced herself against it, curling them into the sand. Up over her feet, up around her ankles, around her digging fingers, the water wrapped itself around every inch of her skin, even as her clothes stayed dry.
The sea couldn't get inside to heal her aching heart, but it would try. For him.
No. No way. Nuh uh. Annabeth didn't want comfort. If she wanted comfort, she'd go to Percy for it. When he came home, then she'd have comfort.
And that, kids, she knew now wasn't going to happen until she made it happen herself.
Annabeth threw herself back, crab crawling away from the sea's reach. It didn't retreat, but it didn't try to come after her either. The foaming white mouth lapped at the sand, waiting for whatever else she had to say. She hated to disappoint it, but there was only one thing left she could say.
"I hate you. Do you hear me? Fuck you!"
Whatever else the sea wanted to say, it could say it to her back.
Up that hill, there was work to do and a boy to find. No one else was going to find him but her. She had work to do.
Wrapped in that knowledge, Annabeth's heart soared, taking off ahead of her so that she had to sprint to catch up.
When she crested the hill, Clarisse stood and dusted grass off the back of her jeans, but she didn't bother to say anything. Annabeth skidded to a graceful stop, carefully out of reach but close enough to say she wouldn't take another swing (unless she asked for it), completely in control of herself. Clarisse's fists jammed into her pockets, leaving her looking like any other teenaged girl who knew she was too big for her age, too angry for her age, and too unsure of what she was supposed to say to people.
Um. It was a perfectly useful word here for them both. They were in new territory here. Good natured insults didn't exist for it yet. Maybe some day, but not today.
Clarisse scooped up and separated the clipboards she'd stacked on the ground and handed the top one to Annabeth.
There was nothing weak or unsure in her voice this time as Annabeth demanded to know, "Why are you doing this?"
"We fought a war and won. We aren't kids anymore." Clarisse nodded toward the Hermes cabin where a couple of kids sat cross-legged with a deck of cards and a pile of small weapons between them. "But they are. I wish someone would have remembered for us that we were kids, too."
Well, wasn't that a pleasant thought? Annabeth didn't want to think about it. She had enough to think about for a while, starting with getting herself to work. She took the clipboard and hugged it to her chest. Back to Square One. "Cabin Three?"
"Skip it for a while. I don't want to know what that boy keeps under his bed. I wanna see if this Jason kid is as much a slob as that sister of his."
Annabeth made sure her "Good enough" sounded an awful lot like Thank You. "You want evens or odds?"
Clarisse took the clipboard for Percy's cabin away from her with awkward, stunted gentleness and led the way toward Cabin Four. As if they could sense her coming, three Demeter kids scrambled to their feet and slammed their door shut. Annabeth wondered if one of them bodily barricaded the door. She thought about yelling down to them that they had fifteen seconds to get that dirt they always tracked in, but for some reason, she didn't want to deny Clarisse a little fun. It wasn't warm fuzzy comfort, but it was something. An apology maybe?
Reading her mind, Clarisse said, "Next time you need to pick a fight, just ask me to punch your lights out and be done with it. It'll be quicker."
"Right back atcha," Annabeth grinned, the first time she'd felt like it for real in days.
"We're gonna find him, you know. You and me."
Annabeth nodded toward the quivering door of the Demeter cabin. "Then let's get to work."
(December 2012)