Sunburn- phoebus apollo

--ii. loving him was red

PERCY JACKSON

The most terrible part about this summer was that Rhea had told him to expect the worst, and yet Percy still found himself stunned by just how quickly everything went wrong.

Beckendorf was dead.

It wasn't something he could wrap his head around. Beckendorf had been the backbone of camp, and now he was gone—just like that. 'Some deaths aren't preventable,' Rhea had told him once. But he was sure she hadn't seen this one coming. If she had, he couldn't imagine her staying back and letting it happen, fated or not, because while Rhea wasn't exactly close with Beckendorf, she was with Silena—and Percy knew what lengths Rhea would go to for her friends. She wouldn't have let Beckendorf go on this mission if she'd known he would have blown up with the Princess Andromeda.

But that almost made the entire thing more heartbreaking, because it meant Percy hadn't had any chance of saving him. Beckendorf was always going to die, and it wasn't fair.

'The Fates are cruel, Percy,' Calypso had warned him. Rhea knew that best. Now he was learning that lesson.

He almost couldn't stomach the grief. He didn't know how Rhea withstood it everyday.

Although he was reluctant, he knew he had to make his way back to camp with the bad news, especially after the dream he'd had and the conversation he'd finished with his father. All of it just added up to one ominous fact: they were running out of time. So while he still felt pretty queasy, he had to go and face the music.

Word of his arrival spread as soon as he walked out of the ocean, and when Connor Stoll from the Hermes cabin spotted him, he got so excited he fell out of his tree. Then, he blew the conch horn to signal the camp and ran to greet him.

"Percy!" he yelled, delighted. "What happened? Where's Beckendorf?"

His mood instantly plummeted when he saw his expression, and his smile melted. "Oh, no. Poor Silena. Holy Zeus, when she finds out..."

As if Percy didn't feel bad enough without the reminder.

Together, they climbed the sand dunes. A few hundred yards away, people were already streaming toward them, smiling and eager. Percy's back, they were probably thinking. He's saved the day! Maybe he brought souvenirs! But he knew Rhea, at least, wouldn't be surprised by the reality. For once, she would be expecting the worst case scenario and getting it.

Percy stopped at the dining pavilion and waited for everyone else to reach him. He didn't think there was any sense in rushing down there to tell the whole camp what a loser he was when the atmosphere was already so tense with everything going on.

Chiron galloped into the pavilion first. His beard had grown wilder over the summer, and he wore a green shirt that said MY OTHER CAR IS A CENTAUR. Unlike usual, the humor didn't cheer Percy up at all.

"Percy!" he said, looking relieved. "Thank the gods. But where..."

Annabeth ran in right behind him, and his heart did a little relay race at the sight of her. It wasn't that she tried to look good—they'd been doing so many combat missions with Rhea lately that she hardly brushed her curly blonde hair anymore, and she didn't care what clothes she was wearing—but her presence still made him feel fuzzy in the head. If this was what Rhea felt like around Apollo all the time, then Percy could get why she didn't really like talking about feelings much.

"What happened?" Annabeth asked urgently, grabbing his arm and bringing him back down to Earth. "Is Luke—"

"The ship blew up," Percy replied, grimacing. "He wasn't destroyed. I don't know where—"