Awakened Memories

I Kill An Old Friend

I Kill An Old Friend

Percy

After about two hours of walking, I reached the Montauk beach. I found the same cabin my mom and I had stayed in every time we went there. I smiled at the sight of it. Now I knew exactly why my mom loved this place. Not just because she had met my dad here, but because it was by the sea. Both my mother and I felt connected to Poseidon when we were here. I had missed the place.

After exploring the cabin and reliving memories, I started towards Camp Half-Blood. A loud roar broke the serene quiet and I broke into a run. I recognized the roar. It was not one that I particularly liked.

Sure enough, I soon made it to the bottom of Half-Blood Hill and saw him chasing a demigod and satyr. The Minotaur was back. The satyr was desperately trying to keep the Minotaur's attention away from the demigod, who stumbled around in shock. I raced forward and pulled out Oblivion as I charged the Minotaur. He heard me and turned around.

His nostrils flared and he let out a roar of anger when he recognized me. "Hey, Beef Head! Ready to die again, for the third time from me?" I continued running towards him.

The Minotaur roared again and charged me. I waited until the last second and jumped up, doing what I had done when I first killed him and landed on his back. Not wasting any time, I drove Oblivion into his head and he disintegrated. I fell and landed kneeling on the ground, before dashing towards the satyr and demigod to see if they were okay.

As I reached them, I recognized the satyr. "Grover?"

"Perrrrcy!" Grover tackled me in a large goat hug. "What are you doing here?"

"I'll explain later. Let's get him to the infirmary. What happened?" I slung the demigod's arm over my shoulder and Grover did the same with his other arm.

"He tried to dodge the Minotaur and took a nasty fall." Grover grunted at the demigod's weight as we started down the hill and into the valley. "He might have a concussion."

"All right." Grover and I dragged the demigod into the infirmary and Will was on duty. He looked surprise to see me but he quickly focused on the demigod.

"He'll be fine. What are you doing here, Percy?" Will asked.

"You'll find out soon enough and I'd rather not explain over and over."

"Fair enough. It's good to see you." Will clapped me on the shoulder.

"It's good to see Camp again."

Grover and I exited the infirmary and I saw two new cabins with the rest of them. The cabin for the Amazons and the cabin for my team. Grover left to deal with a few things and I stopped to visit Daedalus, Silena, Beckendorf, and Luke and restore the powers they had gotten from their Primordial. Then I went to the Big House, knowing Chiron and Annabeth would be there. I was right.

"Hello, Chiron. It's nice to see you." I smiled when I saw him.

"Percy. Glad to have you here." Chiron returned my smile. "I've been meaning to ask, in the last few years, we've had a few demigods stumble into camp on their own, claiming a man matching your description led them here. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

Not realizing the trouble I could cause for myself by answering, I said, "Yeah. I've come here a few times and found demigods being chased by monsters, and I've helped them get here safely."

"We wondered how they had made it here without being harmed. Thank you, Percy." Chiron said.

"Wait, you were on Earth?" Annabeth jumped in.

I mentally winced. "I—Yeah."

"Then . . . why didn't you come visit me?"

"I was afraid I wouldn't leave. I'm sorry. Come take a walk with me. Please, Annabeth." I held out my hand to her.

She slowly placed her hand in mine and we laced our fingers together. "I'll talk to you more tomorrow, Chiron," I told him and he nodded.

Annabeth and I left the Big House and we started walking towards the beach. We reached the beach and were greeted with the sight of picnic set up, complete with rose petals, a checkered blanket and a basket.

"What?" Annabeth gasped.

Thank you, Aphrodite. "I used my free favor from Aphrodite. By the way, your mom says she's proud of you. Anyway, please, sit." I sat on  the blanket and Annabeth sat hesitantly next to me. "Before you say anything, or yell at me, let me explain. Will you?" Annabeth reluctantly nodded.

"Thank you. You're right. I was hiding something from you. I didn't want to get your hopes up.

"Chaos and I were trying to find a way to give him his powers back so that I wouldn't be Chaos anymore. We found a way, and we were going to do it. That was when I Iris-Messaged you. I wanted to talk to you just in case something went wrong and Chaos was supposed to show up later and we would do it. But, he appeared sooner than I wanted. He's the voice you heard. I guess other people besides me can hear him but not see him.

"It turns out what we were planning wouldn't work. But then we found something else, and it did work. It's not exactly what we wanted before. Chaos has his powers back, but so do I. The only thing that has changed regarding me is that I can come here a lot more frequently without worrying about becoming mortal. I can't stay here forever, but I can visit you whenever I want." I finished explaining and watched Annabeth's face as the information sunk in.

Finally, she spoke. "You . . . you were willing to give up being the most powerful being in the world, just so that you could visit me?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Your fatal flaw is hubris, not mine, remember?" I chuckled, hoping she would laugh too.

No such luck.

"And now, you're still Chaos, but you can visit me?"

"Yeah."

Tears of joy filled Annabeth's eyes. I felt them rise to mine too. At the same time, we crushed our bodies together and our lips connected. Our lips moved together and our salty tears mixed with them. Our arms were around each other as we held each other close and poured our love for each other into the kiss.

"I missed you so much, Annabeth." I said when we pulled apart for air.

"I missed you, too." Annabeth breathed and choked up. She pulled me back to her and cried into my shoulder. I buried my face into her hair and silently cried too.

Finally. I had fixed my mess up with Annabeth and I could hold her again. I could feel her and touch her and kiss her. I had my Wise Girl.

When we pulled away again, both of our faces were tear stained. We stayed close to each other, Annabeth was practically sitting in my lap. I reached into the picnic basket and touched frosting. I lifted the lid and pulled out a blue cake. Annabeth laughed and I smiled widely.

We shared the cake and held each other close, not ready to let the other go so soon. After we finished eating, we didn't talk. We just held each other and kissed softly. We fell asleep there on the beach, Annabeth safe in my grasp.

I had my Wise Girl and she had her Seaweed Brain.