Remember Me

Chapter Eight

Percy's POV

Thank the gods Piper, Frank, and Jason got back fast enough. Leo and Hazel had done something to anger the nymphs, although Percy still wasn't sure what. Whatever the case, Percy had wasted all of his strength keeping them away from the ship (using the water from the lake), and now he was minutes away from passing out cold.

"Hey, I'm gonna go... lie down," he said, once they were safely in the air.

He stumbled down the stairs and into his room. He barely had time to take his shoes off before he blacked out on his bed.

But the fun didn't end there.

"Well, it took you long enough," said a woman's voice. After a few seconds, her body came into focus.

"Hera?" Percy realized.

"Yes," she said. "And I am only capable of holding this form for a few minutes because of my incarceration, so we'll have to make this fast."

In response, he called her enough Arion-worthy names to account for himself and Annabeth.

She made a tsk tsk sound. "Now, now, don't get testy with me, young demigod. I think you'll be very happy with what I have to say."

"Don't get testy? I can't even remember my own mother, or what my house looks like, or why the hell I like blue food so much. So what, you're just gonna take away all of my memories until you spontaneously decide: 'Hey, maybe Percy's suffered enough. Maybe I'll give him his memories back! Wouldn't that be nice.' What the Hades were you thinking? And you couldn't have at least timed it a little better so I recognized my girlfriend who came to pick me up?" Percy didn't even care that he was talking to a goddess. He despised her beyond belief and wanted to make sure she knew it.

"Ah, yes. Well that last bit... that was Aphrodite's idea." Hera said.

"Aphrodite?" Gods, he hated her, too.

Hera inclined her head. "She said that because of your... what was it? Chemistry. Because of your chemistry you would work your way around this little problem." She said that as if the "problem" was Percy forgetting his homework, not Percy forgetting his entire damn life.

"And you listened to her?" That probably shocked Percy the most. The gods rarely took Aphrodite seriously.

"Well, we had a vote, of course," the goddess said.

Percy pictured the Olympians sitting in their stupid chairs, deciding whether or not they should make his life more miserable. He thought about all the gods that hated him: Zeus, Ares, Dionysus, Hades... yeah, there would definitely be a majority vote to keep his memories a little longer.

"But that's beside the point. The Olympian council has just decided that you have earned your memories back, and-"

"That I earned them? I think I fucking earned them, woman. Let's just have a little recap, shall we? I spent months with Lupa, who trained me really harshly while also treating me like an animal. Then I went into a camp of hostile Romans, losing the blessing of Achilles which had been the only thing stopping me from getting killed. Then I went on a quest to Alaska, gods damn Alaska, where I almost drowned in the Earth, was captured by Amazons, and killed a giant with my friends. Then I came back to camp in time to kill some more giants who had an entire army of monsters on their side. So yeah, I'd say I earned my memories wayyy before this," Percy realized that he might change Hera's mind about returning his memories, and that was the only thing holding him back from saying more.

"I understand that this was frustrating for you-" Percy scoffed at that. "-but it was the only way to manage this exchange. Otherwise, the Romans would have killed you."