Longing | Percy Jackson

of love and heartbreak

Who knew it was so easy for years of recovery to crash into tragedy?

Who knew it was so easy for a hard gained happiness to slip off into tense lines?

Who knew it was so easy to feel nothing after staring at a long-lost story of love?

Who knew it was so easy to live in the moment and forget thinking of the possibilities?

(Almost everyone got to know this at some point in their lives.)

(Sometimes people chose to ignore these times and enjoy being a little naive.)
.

It was like deja vu.

The palace was a quiet place. Because of course, only him, Reyna, Hazel and the gods who decided to pop up now and then lived there. His parents and Estelle visited sometimes, but that was it.

The guards were always standing like statues. Terminus had selected the best out of best, trained them to a degree where it was rare to mistake a sound of a footstep for them.

So, when screams echoed, it was the only warning needed.

The shouting had reached the palace, what must be happening was a question in everyone's mind.

(What had seemed impossible had come real. The cessation was reversed. Those who were gone, found.)

They hurried their way outside, the guards flanking their sides and the Senate members following them out like a wild crowd. Everything was a mess. Everyone was terrified.

He saw Frank, near the Roman university dorms. Hazel had her arms wrapped around his neck and Frank laughed as his picked her up.

The thought hit him only when Hazel and Frank sobered from the high happiness as crashed into the thoughts of the time they had lost together. They hugged and cried, and Hazel promised to explain everything Frank missed, whispering sweet nothings.

Percy went to join them, followed by his wife. Hazel pulled away from the embrace and stepped back, smiling and with tears shining in her eyes.

The son of Mars hugged him back with equal sense of happiness and relief, and gods, was Percy taller than Frank? He really had grown up.

But all along, there was an underlying bitterness. Annabeth. (She would be there, somewhere miles away at the moment. But alive. Breathing.) He was almost afraid to say her name. How was he supposed to face her?

.

(Jason, Piper, Leo, Nico, Will, Austin, Gracie, Thalia, Frank, Annabeth; they were all back, yet Percy had never felt so distant before.

Overwhelming. Too much. Daunting. He had some words to describe how he felt.

His mind flashed back to the last time he saw the moon goddess; grief stricken and too stubborn to let go. He remembered how her hands, covered in ichor, trembled as she handed him Thalia's shield.

If the turn of events could make the brave maiden goddess a mess, who was he- thinking he had the ability to bottle up all his feelings- in front of her tens of thousands of years of existence.

Aegis, in the form of a golden bracelet suddenly weighted heavier around his wrist.

Aegis was an anchor... when Thalia would stand before him, he would have to give that up.

Percy shuddered.)

He felt grateful, almost. Running a city like New Rome was no little task and with the new turn of events, everything was in chaos.