Percy Jackson, Chaos Commander

CHAPTER 16- Friends.

Someone was knocking on my door.

I groaned and stuck my head out of the blanket. The door creaked open and they stepped inside.

Even by the soft light of the stars outside, I could tell who it was. She slipped inside and closed the door.

My thoughts about sleeping vanished completely from my mind.

I sat up in my bed hurriedly. "Annabeth!"

She smiled a bit. "You're- you're drooling."

I groaned and quickly wiped it away.

Her smile turned into a laugh and that made me smile too.

When she stopped, her eyes still held that same sparkle they had when I first looked at her years ago. The same beautiful light.

She walked forward and sat down close to me.

"You're didn't laugh before," I muttered, taking her tiny hand in mine. "When I was Omega, you hardly ever smiled."

"I missed you, Percy. I- I felt like, like a part of me left with you." A tear slid down her cheek. "And when you came, you weren't my Seaweed Brain anymore. You were Omega. Leader of the Chaos army. I didn't know it was you, then. If I had-" she was trying not to cry. I could tell.

I pulled her closer to me, like I had always done before and kissed her lemony hair.

She cried. And I held her.

"I love you, Percy."

I wanted to tell her he same thing. But it would've been a lie. I didn't love her. It was much more than just love. Something stronger. Something more powerful. Something evil couldn't withstand.

The last few eons, I had lived a life with a bottled up feeling of...something. Something that had made me feel incomplete. I only realised it now because it had left me.

And right there, in the middle of the night, out in some random galaxy in space, next to Annabeth, I felt whole- like is had been pieces back together with a really powerful superglue.

If only I had known how short it was really to be.

******

My dreams that night were so vivid, I felt like it was reality.

I saw Arial. But she looked different. She was around sixteen now and just as beautiful as her mother. The last time I had seen her in a vision, she had been ten. I didn't get that. How was she ageing so fast?

She was in a room, pacing the carpeted floor. It was the same room, she had been in before. She looked worn out and tired. She plonked down on her bed and started to fidget with the blanket.

The door to the room opened and someone walked in. The brown haired boy. He was still seventeen.

He was carrying a tray of food inside. Arial shot to her feet and scowled at him. Her eyes hardened when she realised who it was. "Oh. It's you. Came back to take me to that torture room, have you?"

The guy, Khris, sighed and left the food on the bedside table and went to close the door. "Look, I don't like what my father is doing okay? I tried to talk to him but he doesn't listen to me."

"Easy for you to say." Arial choked out, sitting back down. "You're not the one who... Doesn't matter. Boys are all the same. I swear, I'll join Artemis's Hunt if ever I got the chance."

Khris looked pained but he asked, "How do you know so much about your parents? You were only about five when we took you."

Arial glared at him murderously. "Dreams." She answered simply.

They didn't talk for a while and I realised that this Khris guy was staring at my daughter.

"Hey," he said finally. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Ariel asked viciously. "For locking me up in that devil of a room? For letting them try to kill me? For letting your father plague me with horrible, disgusting visions of my parents' death to try and get me to tell him everything I know? For-" tears were welling up in her eyes.

Khris sat down beside her and tried to take her hand but Arial pushed herself away. "Don't. Touch. Me."

"I'm sorry I couldn't do anything." He attempted. "I tried. I tried to stop him. I didn't want you hurt. When he took you, I made him promise not to hurt you. But he hardly ever listens to me. You can't reason with him."

Arial's eyes softened but only slightly.

Khris took up a plate from the tray he had brought and held it out to her. "My father ordered the servants not to give you any more food so I brought you this."

Arial spared a small glance at the plate and a very tiny smile appeared on her face. "Pancakes." She whispered. "And they're blue."

Khris blushed a little. "Yeah. Kind of a habit of mine. I like... blue."

She smiled at him. "Me too."

She took one hesitantly and bit it, relaxing immediately.

"Like it?" Khris asked.

Arial nodded mutely.

Khris grinned. "Don't cry again. You look more beautiful when you smile."

Arial smiled at him thankfully, but then a mischievous twinkle appeared in her eyes. She swallowed the last of her pancake ad took the plate from him.

"Want some?" She asked politely.

Khris smiled at her. But before he could take one himself, she took one for him and smeared it on his face.

Khris gasped, but laughed all the same. "What was that for!?" He spluttered out.

"For making me cry." Arial said playfully.

Khris took some more of the pancake and tackled her onto the bed, shoving it in her face.

"Idiot!" Arial screamed. Khris only laughed. And that made her start laughing too.

Khris held out his pinky. "Friends?" He asked.

Arial twined her tiny finger through his bigger one. "Friends."

* * *

And then I woke up.