A Crown of Golden Leaves: A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Caput XLVII: Moving Forward

If he did, he wouldn't know what to do. It's still so hard to believe all of this happened... I knew that the gods were real, but it was more in a detached 'you don't really affect me' way... but then...

The stars winked down at him. His hand was extended toward the sky, as if he was reaching for something. Behind him, Annabeth was breathing softly, but her fingers carding through his hair and her legs intertwined with his.

He had run away. Those creatures, monsters, had surrounded him after Luke had told him to go. He'd been blinded by panic and fear, hadn't really thought through how to escape... of course Nox would have brought her kind with her, but he hadn't thought until it was too late and he had been surrounded. If Nico hadn't gotten there when he had, Percy would have been overwhelmed and slaughtered.

"I know you're awake," Annabeth whispered into his ear. "You were having another nightmare."

"Sorry." He didn't mean to wake her with the things that haunted him, not when they all needed to get as much sleep as they possibly could to keep their strength up. Even though they hadn't been attacked by Nox, Percy felt on edge—as if he was waiting for the pendulum to swing. Nox wouldn't have forgotten about him, and he knew that the others were demigods.

Apparently, even he was a demigod. Somewhat. In a removed sort of way that he didn't want to think about yet because there were a dozen more important concerns that he needed to prioritize. Neither of his parents had told him about that he was a grandchild —or something similar— of Neptune; even if they had agreed to wait until he was an adult, he was long pass that age... so maybe they had never meant to tell him.

And that was where he always cut himself off, and tried to keep his hands busy so that his mind couldn't overanalyze anything. If he continued down that train of thought...

At least he finally had an explanation for his affinity with water.

"It's not your fault. I couldn't sleep anyway." He rolled over so that they were lying face-to-face. Her lips twitched up into a half smile, and her hand fell from his hair to the back of his neck. She seemed to be studying his face; reading how he felt. "None of this is your fault."

"I know that in my head. But it doesn't make me stop wondering if I could have done something different, or maybe paid more attention to what was going on, or something."

He knew his guilt was misplaced, that it wasn't rational, that he wasn't the one to blame for any of this. Of course he wasn't; this was the work of a cruel and evil creature. They had likely set the movement for this catastrophe into place years before he had even been born. But he couldn't help but feel responsible for it. For not protecting his people.

"There's nothing you can do to change what is done. We'll just have to find a way to fix all of this."

"How? I've been thinking about this for the last several days... just the idea of seeing that creature again makes me want to drop my sword and run as fast as I possibly can in the opposite direction. We have no resources, no allies, and we're lucky to be alive."

"It's not going to be a hopeless situation forever. Something's going to give at some point." She rubbed his knuckles with her thumb. He wished he could believe her. "We'll figure out how to take them down. We just have to live long enough so that we can fight back."

"How are you so optimistic?" he asked. They had no plan and no safe places to stay. They were all sleep deprived because none of them could slumber easily when the sun went down even though they took turns at guarding each other through the night, and what little food they had wasn't enough, especially for Thalia. And yet Annabeth still hadn't given up.