Collapsing As It Sees The Pain (Percy Jackson)

It Wasn't Black And White

Alex

Sally seemed to be in a good mood, seeing us again. Which was nice, because we all missed her over the years.

After her and Percy were asleep, we decided to snoop around. Just to see what we've missed and to just... You know? She's happy. She has three kids. Her life must have been going amazing over the last almost 20 years.

Everything was on a USB, so we put it in my laptop and started to look at everything. There was photos from when she gave birth, with Percy and Peter. It was bittersweet, though. Poseidon wasn't there when they were born. Sally was alone.

So there's that and then watching Percy grow up... Peter wasn't there. For a while, she was a single mother. Then she found Gabe, who she already knew from school. But they got together and he moved in and the photos and videos weren't very happy for quite a while. In every video just about, Percy and Gabe had some sort of disagreement. Gabe got on him for grades a lot.

It just got really depressing until probably a couple years ago. Percys fifteenth birthday party he was at their apartment and they got this sweet family photo with who must've been Sally's boyfriend of the time. Which turned into fiance.

Then they got married and their life got better. Percy wasn't in as many photos. But he was there, I'm sure.

But they get married and she gets pregnant and Susan was born and it was amazing. They seemed really happy.

So where the hell is Paul?

We took the USB out and put it back where it belonged not long before Percy came back out. Apparently not asleep.

"Hey, Percy," my brother in law, Steve remarked. "Just out of curiosity, where's Paul? I thought I heard something about him."

Percy shrugged.

"I don't know." He told us. "According to Mom, he freaked out yesterday and left. I stay out of it."

So he isn't stupid. He knows not to get too involved in his mom's love life.

"Sounds about right," I remarked, the others leaving to discourse to their own rooms. "Why are you up? It's past midnight."

"Can't sleep," he tells me. "I have stuff to work on anyways. Crap to do tomorrow that... I don't want to."

Percy looked down for a minute. Like he recalled something. And like that something wasn't good.

"What?" I questioned. "Are you okay? Did I say something or...?"

"No! Percy insisted. "You're fine. And yeah, I'm okay, I guess. I just, um... I have to go to a funeral tomorrow and I still haven't touched my speech and I have no choice, I have to talk. I planned on doing it earlier today, but I wasn't exactly able to do that. I'm first and last to talk, so I have no idea what's going to end up coming out of my mouth."

Having gone through this before, I said I would help him out and we both sat down. And I made the mistake of asking who they were and how they died.

"Annabeth Chase was her name, she was the daughter of Athena." Percy explained to me. "Against what our parents urged for, we were best friends."

"So how... How did she die?"

Because now I'm assuming they're the same age.

"She uh..." You could tell that it was rough for him to admit what had happened. "We were at camp and I was on trial for having disappeared for about a week without notice. No big deal, my parents knew. But afterwards she walked out and walked to camp borders and she shot herself. By the time anyone realized what had happened, by the time that anyone that could do anything got there... She... Yeah."