Percy would love to tell you that he had some deep revelation on his brink of death, that he came to terms with his own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera. But the truth was, he kind of rolled over and thought a series of curse words as he plummeted to his death, regretting every single decision he had made to get him to where he was, wishing nothing but safety for Aurora Miller.
So, he wasn't exactly planning on jumping. That was the whole reason he pushed Aurora off the ledge. Gods, that sounded horrible. But his last sane, coherent thought before he plummeted was: I have to save Aurora. And he was willing to do that, no matter what. And he was willing to save her (by pushing her off the ledge), even if it meant sacrificing himself, letting the Chimera rip him to shreds. As long as Aurora wasn't near the monster. She had had enough of those for a lifetime.
But, he still jumped. The Chimera forced him to, with a side of Echidna's manipulation. Fuck, he thought. If I knew I would have to do this, I would've done it with Aurora. Maybe he could've hugged her again. Who knows? He doubted he would ever get close to her after what he did.
Percy shut his eyes, blocking out the steeples and skyscrapers and bridges surrounding him, finally praying to his dad. Dad, Poseidon. Don't save me. If you have the chance, save Aurora. She's the one who should live.
He wouldn't have pushed her if he didn't know it would be safe, that she would survive. And somewhere in his gut, he knew she would be safe. If it was the gods, if it was his delusion, Aurora was safe. She had to be.
Poseidon probably didn't hear Percy's prayers very correctly, but as soon as the wind ripped open Percy's eyeballs—which were dry and brittle from, you know, falling—he saw a blur of a girl.
His heart dropped.
It was Aurora.
He wanted to open his mouth and scream, but the wind was too harsh, so he did the best he could do: reach out his hand as far as possible and hope that Aurora found him.
And she did.
Hand in hand, the two demigods splashed into the Mississippi River. There was a whiteout of bubbles, and the two settled on the river bottom soundlessly, with Percy's incessant prayers for the girl to be okay.
Percy realized quickly that Aurora could breathe underwater. She wasn't wet, despite being underwater, and her strawberry blonde hair was floating around her like a goddess.
He quickly realized after that she was fucking livid.
He didn't exactly blame her.
(And then he realized that he too could breathe and wasn't wet and the poison that he felt not even two seconds ago was completely gone. But he wasn't exactly focused on that, and instead at the fuming girl in front of him).
Percy shouldn't have been alive. The fact that he wasn't seemed like... well, a miracle.
The bubble of miraculousness popped at the enraged voice of none other than the girl he was deathly afraid of.
"Perseus fucking Jackson." Aurora was the most angry he'd ever seen her—and trust him, he had made her plenty angry before—her fists clenched so tightly that it looked like she was winding up to punch him. "You did not just push me off the motherfucking St. Louis Arch."
Hearing the words was like a punch in the gut, and hurt even more than him actually doing it. Percy swallowed thickly. He felt tears prick his eyes, but he would rather die than cry in front of Aurora. Guilt gnawed at his insides like a relentless predator, tearing away at his sanity. He could hear the whispered condemnations and feel the accusatory glances from inside of his body. No amount of apologies or remorse could ever—
"Holy hell, Percy." Aurora sighed, grabbing Percy's shoulders and pulling him into an aggressive hug. "You look like you're gonna drown yourself."
Percy remembered that that was the way he had gotten Aurora to surrender herself and save herself, the way he had pushed her. He wouldn't have blamed her if she stabbed him in the back—literally—right then and there. In fact, he wanted to encourage it.
"I... I can't even—I'm so fucking sorry, Ro." Percy choked out, his voice low and tender as he blinked hard. "I would have never done it if I didn't know you would be safe. And I... I just felt it. I just knew that you would be safe, but I'm still so sor—"
"Gods, Jackson." Aurora shook her head, pushing the boy away as fast as she brought him into the embrace. "It's honestly better than fine. When I was falling, I felt it too. I think you put a blessing over me or something. Best free fall of my life. I actually felt safe, even though I was plummeting to my death." She looked away, grabbing a floating piece of garbage floating by in the water. "I've never felt safe."
Percy didn't exactly know how to respond, but he simply just watched as she snatched an old cigarette lighter and flicked it, a tiny flame sparking at the bottom of the river.
"But, just so you know," Aurora extinguished the flame and threw the lighter at Percy. He tried to light it again, the flame growing bigger at his touch. "That's no way to make a friend."
Percy exhaled dejectedly. He would never give up trying to be Aurora's friend, no matter what. But when she looked at him, she gave him her lopsided smile that indicated that she was only mildly annoyed at him, and he took it.
"I'm not even mad." Aurora let out a brittle chuckle, which sounded watery from them being in the lake. "The fall was so harmless, I just acted mad to make you feel all guilty. It was funny."
"I'm still really sorry." He murmured, not meeting her eye. "I'm so sorry."
Aurora raised her eyebrows. "Apologize to your dad for wasting your precious prayer on me, Shark Boy." When he didn't meet her gaze, she took a step forward, her voice earnest and without a trace of lies. "I'm good. Really. I should be thanking you."
Percy did a double take, his brows furrowing. "But it wasn't wasted. I could never waste it if it's on you." He said, and he said it with complete honesty. Aurora was better at the whole demigod-thing than he was. It would be a waste to use a prayer on himself.
But Aurora was looking at him with a look that said "you still have to do this, dumbass," and he imagined a woman's voice, a voice that sounded a bit like his mother saying, Percy, what do you say?, so Percy sighed and thanked the river.
And like he expected, the river didn't respond. But then, there, not five feet in front of him, was his sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.
Percy heard that woman's voice again: Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you. This time, Percy knew the voice wasn't in his head, because Aurora's head whipped around. Within seconds, her bow was drawn and her face taught.
Although Percy didn't think the voice was of any harm, Percy wanted to appease Aurora, so he called aloud, "Where are you?"
Then, through the gloom, they saw her—a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like Percy's.
"Is that..." Aurora muttered, swallowing. "You have the same eyes."
A lump formed in Percy's throat, his mind going to the same place. "Mom?"
No, child, only a messenger, though your mother's fate is not as hopeless as you believe. Go to the beach in Santa Monica.
"What?" Percy asked, feeling ridiculous.
It is your father's will. Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. Please, Percy, I cannot stay long. The river here is too foul for my presence.
"But..." Percy was sure this woman was his mother, or a vision of her, anyway. "Who—how did you—"
There was so much he wanted to ask, the words jammed up in his throat.
I cannot stay, brave one, the woman said. She reached out, and he felt the current brush his face like a caress. You must go to Santa Monica! And, Percy, do not trust the gifts...
Her voice faded.
"Gifts?" Percy asked. "What gifts? Wait!"
She made one more attempt to speak, but the sound was gone. Her image melted away. If it was his mother, Percy had lost her again.
Percy felt like drowning himself, like Aurora had suggested previously. The only problem: he was immune to drowning.
Your father believes in you, she had said.
But his father was also a god. The same kind of god that sent monsters after a five year old child for being born.
She'd also called him brave... unless she was talking to the catfish. Percy thought that was very probable.
"Nuh uh," Aurora's voice made him jump at harshness. "No. You're going down that road. No one is allowed to go down that road but me."
Percy paused, halting as he bent down to grab Riptide by the hilt. He didn't even want to ask her what that meant, because her eyes had darkened and she looked ready to pounce on him.
"I won't go down that road." He answered quickly. She nodded firmly in approval.
Percy was worried, and not just because Aurora was basically threatening his life. The Chimera might still be up there with its snaky, terrifying mother, waiting to finish him off. At the very least, the mortal police would be arriving, trying to figure out who had blown a hole in the Arch. If they found him—and especially Aurora—they'd have some questions.
Percy capped his sword, stuck the ballpoint pen in his pocket. "Are you ready to become national terrorists, Flower Face?"
Aurora snorted, kicking up through the muck, already about a foot in front of him. "We've been national terrorists, Shark Boy."
She paused, looking down at him with a smirk as she floated in the water. "And you do know that I'm never letting the whole 'you pushing me off a 630 foot building' thing go for the rest of our lives, right?"
Percy sighed as he swam after her, nodding. "I'm fully aware." And he was willing to live with that consequence and constant annoyance, if it meant Aurora would continue to talk to him for the rest of their lives.
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Was it terrifying to face Annabeth's wrath? Yes. But the joy that was on Aurora's face as they washed up near a McDonald's and smelled fresh french fries was otherworldly.
As they approached the Arch, a news lady was talking for the camera: "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."
Survivors. Percy felt a surge of relief as Aurora stuffed her face with chicken nuggets. Maybe the civilians had survived. He hoped Annabeth and Grover were okay.
"An adolescent boy and girl," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras shown an adolescent boy going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. He then pushed an adolescent girl off—"
Aurora cut off Percy's eavesdropping, grumbling loudly, "Why am I always the sidekick in all of these stories? Stop being such a main character."
At that, Percy had to laugh. He felt a little more like a tragic character than a main one.
All of a sudden, Aurora let out a yelp as she got squeezed to death by Annabeth, dropping one of her french fries, and Percy got tackled by Grover's bear—or goat—hug. Annabeth was shrieking Ancient Greece threats at Aurora, who was smiling the biggest he'd ever seen her smile and hugging Annabeth back with relief.
Annabeth turned to Percy, trying to look angry, but even she seemed to be grateful he wasn't dead. "We can't leave you two alone for five minutes! What happened?"
"I sort of fell." Percy answered plainly.
"Percy sort of pushed me." Aurora added with the same simple tone.
Percy swiveled and turned to her as Annabeth's jaw dropped. Aurora's lips were twisted into a teasing smile, the one she used whenever she was playing with him. "I thought we were past that—"
"Like I said, never letting it go." Aurora retorted.
"Percy! Six hundred and thirty feet?" Annabeth's gray eyes turned accusatory, deadly and dangerous like a tumulus storm as she swiveled to glare at him. "You pushed her?"
Percy gulped. Before Annabeth could continue her rant, they passed another reporter. Percy almost froze in his tracks when he said, "Percy Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have murdered the young girl, his previous partner Aurora Miller, and caused this explosion fits the description of the young boy wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boy is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson."
Aurora groaned theatrically. "I'm sick of being your partner, Percy. And now I'm dead? Thanks a lot. I would've made a much prettier 'wanted' sign."
Percy shook his head at where her priorities were. He wasn't going to deny the fact that having Aurora's face on paper plastered across the country wouldn't have made him smile, but that wasn't important.
Annabeth opened her mouth to ask a billion questions, and Grover looked scared beyond belief.
"We'll tell you guys everything. But first things first, we've got to get out of town."
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Percy felt beyond disgusting as their train rolled into Denver one week before the solstice. He hadn't taken a shower since Half Blood Hill, and he was starving. It had been two days since "The Incident" and the horrid guilt-ridden feeling hadn't shaken him. The only thing that soothed him was Aurora's touch—though violent at times. A pat of the back, a brush of her pinky, a punch to his shoulder.
"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth started, her brain whizzing in a way that only the daughter of Athena's could. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."
"Can we leave out the whole 'Incident?'" Percy asked timidly.
"The Incident" referred to Aurora getting pushed out of the Arch, which she liked to bring up every single second of every single day. It was hilarious to her, but wracked his body with guilt at the mention.
Annabeth stared at Percy incredulously. "Of course not."
They wandered through downtown for about half an hour, looking for a source of water.
After an hour, they found an empty do-it-yourself car wash.
"What exactly are we doing?" Percy asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.
Grover ignored his friend, much to Percy's dismay and confusion. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."
Percy frowned. His eyebrows crinkled together and the skin between them scrunched. "What are you talking about?"
Again ignored, Grover fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."
"Instant messaging?"
"Iris-messaging," Annabeth corrected. "The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."
Percy's voice turned sardonic, which indicated that the conversation would be nothing less of sarcastic. "You summon the goddess with a spray gun?"
Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow."
The late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors.
Annabeth held her palm out to Percy. "Drachma, please."
Percy was too slow, and Aurora snatched it out of his hand and gave it to her best friend, bowing her head and kneeling, as if Annabeth was a goddess herself.
Annabeth rolled her eyes and raised the coin over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering." She threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer.
"Half-Blood Hill," the blonde requested.
Percy squinted, and he was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. They seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandy haired boy.
Aurora's face broke into a large grin. Percy wanted to feel as happy as she did, but he couldn't. It wasn't his home like it was Aurora's. But he still felt a sense of comfort engulf his heart at the familiarity of the setting.
"Luke!" Percy called out.
"Percy! Rory!" His scarred face broke into a grin. "Is that Annabeth, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"
"We're... uh... fine," Annabeth stammered. She was madly straightening her dirty T-shirt, trying to comb the loose hair out of her face. "We thought—Chiron—I mean—"
"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile faded. "We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover all right?"
"I'm right here," Grover called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Luke's line of vision. "What kind of issues?"
Just then, a Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated, shaking the pavement.
"Chiron had to—what's that noise?" Luke yelled, squinting, trying see what was going on.
"I'll take care of it!" Annabeth yelled back, looking very relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight. Percy felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest at how enthusiastic she sounded. He'd only known Annabeth for a week, but she never sounded like that. "Grover, come on!"
"What?" Grover did a double take. "But—"
"Give Percy the nozzle and come on!" she ordered.
Grover muttered something about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi and handed Percy the spray gun, following Annabeth with dragging hooves.
"Chiron had to break up a fight," Luke shouted over the music. "Things are pretty tense here. Word leaked out about the Zeus-Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how—probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."
Percy could hear Annabeth yelling at some middle aged guy, but he was too baffled to think that Clarisse's cabin was backing his father.
"So what's your status?" Luke asked them. "Chiron will be sorry he missed you."
Percy told Luke everything, including the dreams that he had. Aurora interjected as much as possible, telling a very over-the-top explanation of "The Incident."
"I wish I could be there," Luke told them, glancing between the two with a sorrowful gaze. "We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him."
"But Chiron said the gods can't take each other's magic items directly."
"That's true," Luke said, looking troubled. Percy noted that Aurora shivered at the mention of her least favorite god. "Still... Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You'd have to be invisible."
Silence settled over Percy at the word "invisible," his mind going to Annabeth's invisibility cap as Aurora snorted, eyeing the boy suspiciously. "He didn't mean Annie, dipshit."
Behind them, a man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the Lincoln peeled out of the car wash at a speed that was much higher than the speed limit.
"You'd better go see what that was," Luke said. "Listen, Percy, are you wearing the flying shoes? I'll feel better if I know they've done you some good."
"Oh... yeah!" Percy was many things, but a liar was not one of them. "Yeah, they've come in handy."
"Really?" The older blond boy beamed. "They fit and everything?"
The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate.
"Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver," Luke called, his voice getting fainter. "And tell Grover it'll be better this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree—"
But the mist was gone, and Luke's image faded to nothing.
Unknowingly to Percy, Aurora glanced at him, who stared at what was Camp Half Blood. Although it was not his true home, the warm feeling he had gotten in his stomach was gone. Aurora looked away. Little did she know, Percy's eyes had settled on her grim, disappointed face as soon as hers left his. He wanted to know what she was thinking, and was extremely tempted to ask.
Annabeth and Grover came around the corner, laughing, but stopped when they saw the two's faces. You would've thought that Annabeth would have separated the two, given how much trouble they were together. Annabeth's smile faded. "What happened? What did Luke say?"
"Nothing, he was just Luke." Aurora was a much better liar than Percy. Percy didn't know what "just Luke" meant to the two girls, who were obviously closer than Percy could've imagined, but Annabeth seemed to accept her answer.
Percy nodded, desperate to change the subject. "Come on, let's find some dinner."
ೀ⋆｡🌷 notes ...
word count: 3719
date published: march 9, 2024
thoughts: a little change in the plot :) sorry for the long chapter. i'm trying to consolidate the amount of chapters so the book isn't 10000 parts at the end of the last olympian, so the chapters will be way longer :(
also this has been a WILD week THANK YOU ALL SO FUCKING MUCH FOR OVER 10K READS when i first published haven about a month ago i wasn't expecting this much love i love you all so much <3
also announcement!! i just published a sirius black x female oc fanfiction called RENEGADE if you want to check it out, for all the harry potter fans out there!