Chapter Text
Percy was, once again, too anxious for New Rome. He had gone to sleep, woken up at 5 am to run laps around the whole city, filled out his re-naturalization papers while practically running on Frank’s old stairmaster, eaten 5 meals, and still he couldn’t calm down. When he saw Gwendolyn and Dakota while disemboweling dummies and chucking axes at moving targets, he didn’t stop pacing and jumping and wiggling while he debriefed them on the situation.
“She’s a graecus! She has Kronos’ knife! She stole a baby! She tried to kill me!” he nearly shouted.
Gwendolyn asked him when his date with the senate was. “Tomorrow morning. Ten or ten-thirty, I can’t remember.”
Dakota asked to see a picture of her. Percy pulled out his wallet, where their wedding photos were. Three pictures, Annabeth and him shoving cake into each other's mouths, Annabeth and Estelle dancing, and a family photo, of him, his mom, Paul, Estelle, Annabeth, her dad, her step-mom, and Matthew and Bobby, who were at the time valiantly trying to preserve their newfound frat boy aesthetics, even at a wedding.
“Do you have any other wedding pictures?”
“No, not on me. They’re all at the apartment or at my office.”
“Okay. Well, look at this,” Dakota points out the background of the first picture. “You should ask Reyna, she’ll know more than me, but look at this girl–her bridesmaid right? That’s Rachel, the graecus oracle”
Percy groans and sinks to the dusty floor of the sparring gym.
“You’re right. There were probably so many graecus at my f*cking New York wedding. I’ll see if Frank, Hazel, or Reyna have any pictures too. They were the only ones I invited. They might be able to figure out her… cohort. Or something” He sunk his head into his hands. Gwen rubbed his back half-heartedly, and Percy felt like throwing up.
He spent the rest of the day pacing, telling his old friends of his plight because he didn’t know what else to do. By the end of the day, it was almost a story, it was almost funny. By the end of the day, he still had not called to tell his mom, only left a message that told her where he was.
He took 7 of Hazel’s sleeping pills that night, and still stared at the ceiling until he thought the popcorn dots spelled out the name of the wife that tried to kill him.
Annabeth could not stop crying, except for when she was driven into the New Athens site and given a chain saw and noise-canceling headphones where she could reenact the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and just go at it. When she got sick of hacking and chopping and screaming and when the nymphs threatened her if she continued her rampage, Katie took her to make bread, and set Annabeth on kneading sourdough in the mess hall for hours, and when flour stained her fingers and her hands started to ache, Holly and Laurel Victor raced her around the lake again and again, until her arms and hands and legs gave out and she finally crawled to the Big House to demand a meeting.
They set the meeting for the new plot of land, where New Athens was being zoned and planned and poured over, in a small clearing in the woods. She got onto the dinky Camp Half Blood dilapidated bus they used to use for field trips with a handful of counselors and her siblings, and Chiron of course, and picked at the peeling seats and clenched and unclenched her hands for the full drive. Everyone important to her had spread out, except for Piper and Jason, the oldest people left at Camp Half Blood, and even they were only there every so often. They had a house back in Oklahoma, insisting upon peace and quiet entering their lives.
Annabeth had peace and quiet once. Annabeth had peace and quiet until last night. Percy’s face flashed in her mind, and she quietly sobbed. Piper was beside her in an instant. Jason had stayed behind to look after Titania, and she was the only one who Annabeth truly knew. With all of her friends spread out, scattered to not attract too much attention, settling down into their lives. And she was alone.
The bus parked at the New Athens forest. At the tent they had erected for project management, Annabeth and a younger counselor she barely knew the name of set up buckets to call upon the older friends who had scattered into the meeting. As everyone settled in, she paced and picked and clawed at her braids, picking at her dark skin, just to keep her mind off the matter at hand. Still, her brain, the traitorous thing, flashed images of Percy. Of their wedding. Of him almost killing the baby. Of their first date. Of his eyes as she ran the car into him.
“So, I have gathered you today because there was recently a quest I was sent upon by my mother, Lady Athena. There is a Kronos-follower uprising, and there were two rogue followers attempting to summon the demon through their baby daughter. I arrived at the scene to stop the ritual, but there was a Romaïkós there, with control over water and mist. He attempted to steal the baby from me, and while I was able to get away, he found me later that day. I need all of us to gather information on Poseidon’s–I mean, Neptune’s–son in New Rome. His name is Percy Jackson.”
Leo, who was in his mechanic’s uniform and, as always, smudged with oil and rust, was the first to put the pieces together. “Oh gods, Annabeth–”
She cut him off. “Percy Jackson has been… posing… as my husband for the last five years. He hid himself as a mortal social worker. We do not know why, but now that his identity was revealed to me in an attempt to steal back the baby, we need all we can get on him. We… We start from nothing. I do not know anything about the son of Neptune.”
Tears once again welled in her eyes. Piper cut her off, standing in front of her so Annabeth could choke down her sobs again, and ordered for the room to gather information on the Son of Neptune and New Kronos movement. And then she took Annabeth to hammer a sword, and build a canoe, and do anything but think about the husband that betrayed her.
That night, Piper woke Annabeth up from her fitful slumber in the guest house, and brought her to New Athens again, for the second meeting. Annabeth’s head was ringing, but the minutes her hand took while her brain shattered and screeched against its circ*mstances read that there is a KOS order for the Son of Neptune–Kill on Sight.
Doug, who she supposed was her younger brother, was the new Head Counselor of the Athena cabin. He was no more than 16, but he had come in true Athena-spawn fashion–prepared with a stack of folders and a bulletin board.
The center of the bulletin board had two photos, the portrait of a younger Percy adorned in his traditional laurels and a praetor toga, and the wedding photo of him and Annabeth with their wedding party. In red, Doug had circled the three romans he could find, using red yarn to tie Percy’s best man, Frank, to reports of a son of Ares–or Mars–who could shapeshift. The current praetor of New Rome. He was tied–apparently engaged– to Hazel Levesque, the revived witch who had a key part to play in destroying the throne of Kronos by manipulating cursed gems and the mist. Off to the side was Reyna Ramirez-Arellano, another Praetor, a famed general.
“How did we not recognize these people? This is, god this might be 100 demigods in one spot in the middle of New York, what meddling happened?”
Doug shook his head. “I have some theories” he squeaked, “number one is we know that Percy can manipulate the mist–it looks like he learned it from Hazel Levesque before he became Percy Titan-Killer. That’s what they call him, you know, Perseus Occisor Deorum.”
Annabeth felt like she was going to throw up.
“Anyway. He might have shrouded his friends. Or the gods intervened and shrouded one or both parties. Or the alcohol.”
The room nodded. Yeah, it was probably the alcohol.
“Anyway. So from his wedding guests we can guess his allies. And then if we look over here–” Doug moved out of the way, where pictures and headlines about Percy Jackson lay together. “Okay so this is nowhere near complete, and I did it with the help of Donald and Maya, thanks guys–” he waved to the two other teenagers at the back of the room. This was just another research assignment to these kids, they didn’t understand that Annabeth’s whole world had been shattered, they were not taking this seriously. Annabeth’s heartbeat quickened again, and Piper once again held her hand. Steadfast. Strong.
“But uh. So what we can glean is Percy Jackson is a bastard of Neptune, that’s roman for Poseidon, but Neptune is like… way crazier than Poseidon. Poseidon is the god of the sea and horses and stuff, Neptune is more like, the god of water. There was this proto-indo-european freshwater deity that fused with Neptune during worship, and Servius–the grammarian son of Minerva from the fourth century, explicitly names Neptune as the god of rivers, springs, waters, wells, etc. He’s also the god of storms, right there with Jupiter. They’re both doing it.”
Doug stopped and drank a Tropical Vibe Celcius. Then kept going. “So, we know Percy’s powers probably are more water-based. We know from the public roman reports that he can bloodbend–like in Avatar the last Airbender–and that he has limited mist control. He seems really in-control of his powers, in addition to being a magnificent sword fighter. I mean, I watched some footage from the Roman training centers, and like, wow, Annabeth, what was it like to spar with him?”
Annabeth looked up at the eager kid. “My husband nearly killed me.”
And Doug sobered up again. “Ah. Anyway, he's been involved in the roman world since he was 12, leaving his mom in New York to train as a child soldier. He rose through the Roman ranks quickly, and became Praetor during wartime, afterwards giving his Praetorship to Frank Zhang. He famously took down Krios, and since then has been running the largest demigod trafficking program in the nation, in which demigods are kidnapped from their homes to be shipped to New Rome. That’s probably why he wanted baby Titania, to make Rome as powerful as possible. Now, here’s where we ran into a little bit of a wall.”
Doug turned away from the bulletin board and looked toward Annabeth again. “We cannot figure out why he would go undercover. Presumably, to impair the New Athens construction, but we’ve only been pursuing this project for about three years now, and you two have been married for five. Any ideas?”
Her head was spinning. But she let the new information wash over her, and sharpen her mind as it was made to do, and she placed herself firmly in the mindset of the killing calm. “I do not know. But I know he is honorable. He revealed his hand to me, he gave me my knife before our fight, and he did not use these blood powers against me. I believe a formal declaration and invitation of a duel would be honored by him.”
Piper immediately stepped in. “Annabeth, no. He is a titan-killer.”
She looked up at Piper grimly. “So am I.”
Percy woke up to the sound of sparrow calls. Which he found as ironic, given the sparrow usually was the symbol of undoubting, unyielding loyalty, at least according to Annabeth. And then the world crashed down upon him, and he headed to the senate chamber, early to a meeting for the first time in his life.
He sat in Frank's office before the meeting started. He eyed Frank’s telephone, an old rotary with a Canadian flag pin in the middle, and was about to call his mom, but couldn't make himself tell her. Not… not yet. Then he just played with Newton's cradle, and prayed to his father, who, as always, did not listen.
The senate meeting was horrible, as centurions reported statistics about his wife’s work during the war. A Saturninan loyalist, they said, was romantically entangled with the host of the time lord, who, at the last moment, tried to seize power for herself, and killed Luke Castellan in cold blood. Who had since been working on reestablishing the Camp Half Blood establishments, making “New Athens,” a mockery of New Rome. Chaotic, reckless, and an expert at guerilla warfare. The Centurions reported she had stolen that baby to help the Greek camp grow stronger, as the Greeks were notorious for collecting superpowered children to carry their small numbers. The infamous DiAngelos, Thalia and Jason Grace, and now a host of the time lord.
The senate ordered him to do what he had to do, and issued an execute on sight command for her, placing a generous bounty on his wife’s head. The senate ordered him to bring an end to this Graecus extremist. And he nodded, and accepted the order, and thanked the senate for the directive to kill his wife.
Annabeth was good at her training. She knew that Doug and his two goonies couldn’t dig up everything, and she knew her husband. He told everything to his mom. So, when the meeting adjourned, she had Argus take her on the trek down to Queens, to go see her mother-in-law. She had Piper make her look presentable, Piper busting out the dyson airwrap that her mother got her as a wedding gift to tame Annabeth’s hair, and patching up her face with various blessed makeup products that made her look less horrifically disheveled than she was. Annabeth could never fit into Piper’s clothes. Piper was lithe, cross-country style. Annabeth had what Piper called “quads of steel” and “deltoids for days,” so she stopped at a Target on the way to Queens to look a little more like her normal self, dressed in a bland cardigan and black leggings.
Argus dropped her off at Sally’s. She tipped, and climbed the steep stairs up to her apartment, then knocked on the door and wiped her feet on the “Life’s A Beach” welcome mat. Gods, how had she not suspected anything?
This could go one of two ways. One, Sally knew, and would try to kill Annabeth… and Annabeth would… she would have to kill Sally. But, she told herself, that was inconceivable, and Percy probably hadn’t told Sally that his cover had been blown.
Probably, right?
Just when she was starting to think this was a bad idea, Sally opened the door, dressed in sweatpants and a bright purple sweatshirt, with her hair in a bun that had multiple pens and pencils stuck through it.
“Annabeth! How are you sweetie?” Thank the gods. Percy hadn’t told her.
Time for her to play into her looks, into the light into her eyes that had died. “Sally? I uh. I need to talk to you, and I don’t know who else to go to,”
“Oh! Sweetie of course! Come on in! Paul’s with his buddies right now, and Estelle just went to her friend’s house for a little playdate. It’s just us.
Annabeth came in after her, and cooperated when Sally led her to the big blue couch that was far too large for the apartment it was in. “It's just–I've been seeing things. Big monsters, and horrible creatures, and stuff that just… just doesn’t make sense! And no one else can see them!” She sobs. Real sobs, not fake sobs. It’s pretty easy to fake sob in front of the wedding pictures of her and the man who had likely received a kill directive too. Sally rubbed her back. “I think i’m going crazy, Sally. I think Percy’s gonna have to–” hiccup “check me in somewhere!”
Sally gently cooed, and hugged Annabeth, before taking Annabeth's hand and silently leading her into Percy’s childhood bedroom, with all the punk rock posters that had been semi-turned into Sally’s study where she did her writing. She went into the closet and got a big basket off the top shelf, and sat Annabeth down once more.
Slowly, lovingly, Sally explained to Annabeth while holding her hand, that the world is so much wonderfully bigger than she thought it was. She showed pictures of her posing with a blurred man by the ocean, and said she met him when she lost her uncle in the hospital, losing the last family she had left, in her senior year.
“Neptune was wise, and mature, and I thought those were the only two things I wasn’t. So we had this little summer together, while I was trying to figure out my life. I was 19, I was a baby, but I had… I had never felt so alive. He revealed what he actually was to me before he left, but I think somehow, deep down, I knew. Next thing I knew, Percy was born. He… I don’t want to tell you his story. I want him to break this to you, I know he’s been wanting to reveal this side of his life forever. But he’s been through quite a lot, these Gods, they haven’t been kind to my son, and he had to escape that world. So he came back here, to me, in New York, and he met you! And he told me… he told me that you didn’t look at him and saw what he had done, the things he had sacrificed, the power he wielded. I know he has only not told you to keep you safe. But I'm sorry, Annabeth. I really am. If he had known you could see—”
Annabeth simmered in the new information.
There was no way, right? That Percy couldn’t have known who she was. That he hadn’t seen her half-drunk in that dingy bar and clocked her immediately as Annabeth Titan-Killer, as Annabeth Chase, the champion of his Minerva.
She struck down the thought from her mind. She could not underestimate her enemy.
“So Percy’s a part of this… Percy’s been part of this for years and he’s… he’s lied to me?!” She said–she should have an oscar, really, this is a great show.
Sally shushed her, like Annabeth was a particularly startled horse, “No, no! Annabeth, he… Percy is on a tight leash from New Rome, even though Frank and Reyna are the praetors, you remember them from the wedding? Frank was Percy’s best man. He is ordered to stay undercover, no matter how much it kills him. When you two got engaged, when you went down to see your parents before the wedding, he stayed the extra day not because his flight was canceled, but to petition the New Rome court to allow him to break the secrecy clause and tell you. But, for reasons they didn’t tell Percy, they denied him. He was devastated, Annabeth, truly. But his hands were tied. He didn’t want to put you in danger,”
Annabeth tried to press more, but Sally shut her down. And then, before Annabeth could react, she brought out a glass of water and a prism, and threw a gold coin into the rainbow. sh*t.
“Wait wait wait!” Annabeth protested.
“O Arcus, Goddess of the Rainbow, show me Percy Jackson”
“No! Sally!”
“It’s better if he tells you himself. This is a fascinating method of communication facilitated by the Goddess of the Rainbow…”
Annabeth looked around. “No, Sally, I’m not ready to talk to him.” He couldn’t see her here. He couldn’t know what she was doing. She looked around for a way to escape, until the message connected.
And she saw her husband with his hands on the throat of her sick father.
Percy wasn’t a spy. He was muscle, he was intimidating, he was a Bad Cop. But he was a demigod. So anything he had to do, he would do. And, just because he was in San Francisco already, and was dreading the flight home to go kill his wife–to go kill the threat that had been posing as his wife–he decided to give Mr. and Mrs. Chase a visit.
He had to dig into Annabeth’s file for the information on where they lived now. He could remember the street started with an H and was at the top of a hill and the house had blue shutters, but he couldn’t really tell the taxi driver that. The revelation that Annabeth had a file was strange. And stranger was the amount that the senate blacked out beforehand. He learned that the chases are on 1128 Herrera Blvd. And he learned the vastness of what the senate wasn’t telling him.
“Frank what the hell?!” Percy marched into Frank’s office, where he was wearing the tiny foldable reading glasses that made him look ridiculous and who just sighed and glanced up.
“Percy, you know it’s not my choice. These are the necessary precautions–”
“Necessary precautions my ass! I’m on a kill order here Frank, she is–she was–my wife! I need all of the information we have!”
“The information is classified because Annabeth worked very closely with the Saturnist army”
“Why would that need to be classified? The war is done! We won, Frank, so why are we still keeping information under wraps?”
“It contains detailed information about the Saturnist movement that would be dangerous for the public eye. So yes, much of her file is classified. We don’t want to inspire a second wave of supporters.” Frank folded up the ridiculous reading glasses and laid his hands open on his desk. He was trying to appear empathetic but firm. It made Percy more angry, seeing Frank talk to him like Frank talks to prisoners and children.
“And by the public eye you mean me?”
Frank just looked at Percy, wincing a little.
“Gods–I did everything! I raised the storm that broke Krios, I took down the throne, I learned the mist, I lost my vision and my body and I very nearly lost my mother, and New Rome still does not treat me like a human being! They treat me like—like a dog that needs to be f*cking leashed. Gods. I’m astounded by the f*cking arrogance and assholery of you all.”
Percy was getting closer to Frank. Frank was unphased. The only person in the world–maybe other than his mom–who could look at Percy in this state and not be afraid. This made Percy angrier. “No, I'm not astounded! This is not some great surprise for me! I’m just disgusted.”
“Percy.”
“Shut up! Jesus, Frank, I’ll kill you too!” Percy sat down, his head in his hands.
“Percy.” Frank said, firmer. “There is nothing you can do about how they see you. They will always see you as a threat to their power. They will always see you as a ticking time bomb. So you can either suck it up and carry out the mission with the information you have, and be their good little puppy. Or they can put you down. And I and Reyna will try everything to protect you, but it will not be enough, especially if you let your emotions get the best of you, and you come into a senator's office, and threaten to kill him.
Percy finally looked up. “Sorry. Sorry. You know I didn’t mean that I just–it’s been so long since I've come back. And…”
“And?” Frank prompted.
“I uh. I really love her. I really loved her. Sorry. And she’s my wife, and she’s just so smart and so kind–”
“Percy, stop. There is no use feeling these feelings. They will only make your job harder to do.” That’s what Percy used to tell Frank, when Frank was struggling with the killing and the death. He said you must overcome it. You must operate. Make yourself into a tool. “Make yourself into a tool, man,” Frank said.
“I can’t, Frank!” He launched up out of the chair and started pacing again. The glass of water Frank made started to swirl and try to escape his cup on his desk. “I used to be able to! But I’ve left this world, I’ve been so happy and so normal and I thought I would get to be happy and normal forever! And for the first time in my life I loved being alive. I didn’t have the nightmares, I woke up happy, and I loved my little apartment and my dinners with my family and decorating a christmas tree every year and I had everything I never thought I would have! And I love Annabeth. And I can’t stop doing that even though she tried to kill me, and I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love her.”
Frank held his breath as Percy yelled. Percy grabbed him by both shoulders. “I’m soft now,” he said. “I can’t shut it out and become a tool. Not with… not with her. If I kill her… when I kill her… everything I worked for is gone. I’ll never be an individual again. I’ll be the right hand of Rome,”
Frank embraced Percy.
“I’ll work on getting you the uncensored files.”
Percy nodded. And broke away to go pursue his mission.
Percy carefully applied the mist on Mr. and Mrs. Chase’s front porch. He erased the scars, and the tattoo, and made himself more unremarkable. And he put on his black-framed glasses. And he knocked.
Mrs. Chase answered the door. She was short, and pale, and had thin, wiry hair, and was wearing the beaded Hmong bracelets that she had given Annabeth that Annabeth had never worn. “I don’t mess with the Hmong mythology. I have enough mythology.” She had said once. It struck Percy again, the depth of his obliviousness about her. How he had never thought twice about that comment. How stupid he had been.
“Percy? What are you doing here? I mean, what a lovely surprise!”
“Hello Mrs. Chase, I’m just in San Francisco for work and I wanted to stop by and see my in-laws!”
Mrs. Chase let him in. “He’s having a good day today. He’ll want to talk to you.” She said, curtly, then she whisked back to the kitchen.
Mr. Chase was short, his hair graying now, his dark skin getting more wrinkled. He had warm, dark eyes. Like Annabeths. He looked just like his daughter. Percy moved past it.
“Fred, it’s me, Percy, Annabeth’s husband.”
Frederick grinned. “Percy! Good boy! Where’s Annabeth?”
Percy grasped his hand. “She’s out of town right now, she’s such a hard worker, right?”
“Annabeth isn’t here?”
Frederick, two years ago, had been diagnosed with dementia. Percy, reflecting on who Annabeth’s mom was, saw it as a particularly cruel twist of fate. To have his mind taken from him.
“No, Annabeth isn’t here. She’s an architect, she’s at her firm.”
“Yes… yes I know that. Annabeth the architect. My smart daughter. She lives on Long Island, New York, with her mother.”
Percy just smiled and nodded. “Frederick, let’s go outside. The weather is so pretty.”
“What?”
“Let’s go to the porch.”
“Oh… okay.” and Percy led Frederick to the small sitting area that Annabeth’s little brothers had gifted their parents a few years back as an anniversary present. They both sat in big Adirondack chairs and faced the unlit bonfire pit.
“Fred, can you tell me about Annabeth’s mother?”
“Annabeth’s mother? No I… I can’t… she says it’s a secret.”
“Who? Annabeth, or Annabeth’s mother?” Percy pressed, then backtracked. He had to take this slow. “I mean. I know about Athena. I’ve met her. How did you meet?”
Frederick grumbled something nonsensical. “What did you say?” Percy asked. But Frederick stayed silent. “Annabeth and I met on the subway. We had the same commute every day, and I had the biggest crush on the girl with the biggest brown eyes I’d ever seen, and who was always reading a smart book.”
“Annabeth’s mother, Athena, has gray eyes. Annabeth doesn’t look like Athena, except... except when she’s proud. Then she looks just like her. Just like her. Proud.”
“How did you meet Athena?” Percy asked.
Frederick waited a bit. Percy could be patient.
Finally, he opened his mouth. And words started spilling out. “So, I think I was 18, yeah, 18 years old. We were rich, but, uh, I had to pay for college myself, needed help. Harvard, yeah, Harvard and scholarships, too. She... she came, and I was so tired, so sleep deprived, thought she was a goddess. We joked about it, her being the goddess of wisdom. She went along with it, our little joke. Great friends, we were. She got me into college, can you believe that?” He laughed.
Percy tried to smile at him. “I can. She’s a smart woman.”
“No… no woman. She’s never been a woman. Graduated, and she sent me a card and... a baby, Annabeth. Suddenly, it hit me, not a game, she wasn’t joking. She demanded I worship her. Had this... kid. No idea what to do, no clue how to support her. Wasn’t ready, wasn’t good at it, not at all.”
Percy nodded. He felt the stare of Mrs. Chase, watching through the kitchen window. Annabeth’s dad was fragile. He had to be careful.
“No, I'm sure you were a great dad. Annabeth loves you, Frederick.”
“No, no! No…” Frederick looked off, his gaze foggy. “No, she didn’t love me. Annabeth didn’t love me. Kia, yes, Kia, married her. Confusion, both of us, clueless. Step mom, Annabeth hated her, hated her so. Ran away, yes, she did. Annabeth ran away. She was a baby. The spiders… at night. They attacked her. The spider's were in her closet. There were monsters in her closet… she ran away. She fought the monster. She came back… years. Years… she came back and we gave her braces… she still didn’t love me. Annabeth didn’t love anyone. She trained… She was at war. Athena is the goddess of war strategy. Athena… no love. No love in Annabeth’s heart. Only war… war and Luke.”
Frederick trailed off. Percy pressed.
“Luke Castellan?” He knew the name. Host of Kronos. The great traitor.
“She... she never... never saw me as her father, no, no. Thalia, Luke... uh, Chiron, they... they weren't... training her for love, no, no, for war, yes, war. Regret... always... always regret my... my lack of, um, experience, yes, experience raising her. Nearly broke her, I think, yes, yes. Didn't even know. Thalia, Luke... Camp kids... family... not me, not me. Luke, that... that creep, he told her to come, and she... she went, yes, she went. Just a kid, just a kid. Never left Long Island since... since she ran away. Didn't know anything, thought she... thought she knew everything. So driven, so angry, at her mom for... for trapping me, yes, trapping me, at me for being bad at my job. And in the end, she... she had to break her own world, yes, break it. Held Luke as he... as he died, yes, yes. Never got over that, I don't... don't think, never... never got over it. What was I saying? Ah, yes... No... No, I lost it. Where... where am I?”
Percy placed an arm on Annabeth’s father’s shoulder. He was agitated, distressed, he could see Mrs. Chase glaring at him through the window. “Frederick, it's me, Percy. Take deep breaths. Thank you for talking to me.” he said. “See, feel your heartbeat, listen to it. Listening to my heartbeat always calms me.” He reached out to show Mr. Chase where to put his hand on his neck to feel his pulse.
But then, in the corner of his eye, he saw the bird fountain light up with a rainbow. And then, quicker than he could sever a connection, his mother.
And his wife.
