Submerged

~Sixteen~

"Percy?" Grover asked from the side of his best friends bed. "Percy, please wake up. I-I need to tell you something,"

Percy groaned and turned over, barely opening his eyes. "Why did you have to wake me up so early? It's only six,"

"PM, Percy. It's six PM,"

"You should've let me sleep in till eight," Percy mumbled, "you know what Nico always says. With great power—"

"—comes great need to take a nap. I know." Grover cut his friend off. "But I'm not joking, I have something I need to tell you,"

Percy sensed it was something Grover actually cared about and sat up, turning to face his best friend after his eyes adjusted to the light.

"I had a chef with your subconscious," Grover blurted out but upon seeming his friends face continued. "Let me finish before you get mad at me,"

"Okay," Percy said slowly.

"When I first came to camp to help you, I knew the problem immediately. You were trying to take everything on at once alone. I thought you needed a boat, that you needed to float and not touch the water,"

"And?" Percy asked.

"I tried to build that boat instead of doing what I should have done; teach you to swim," Grover explained.

"Great, I'm the son of Poseidon and I don't even know how to swim," Percy grumbled, sarcasm dripping in his voice.

"That's the thing, I think you learned how to swim a long time ago," Grover said. "I just didn't realize it because you were so far deep you were swimming down. You didn't need a boat, or swimming lessons, or a fishing pole, or—"

"Grover,"

Grover blushed, "sorry, I ramble a lot. My point is, you needed a compass. Someone to point you up and to the shore. And I think I want to be that compass,"

Percy gave a small smile. "I wouldn't have it be any other way. But you know I'm never going to be the same,"

"The tides change every day. You're the son of Poseidon, it only makes sense if you change too,"

~{•}~

It wouldn't be fair to anyone to say that Percy went to normal just like that. We all know thats not how it worked.

But he got better, he smiled and laughed and joked. It was still rare you would see him without Annabeth, but even rarer to see him without Grover.

Poseidon visited him a lot, father and son having bonding moments and whatnot. By far they were the closest demigod and god duo.

And of course, Jason was still annoying but Percy started just ignoring and rolling his eyes. Yes, there were still monster attacks, but for now, life was good.

I guess that's how you save a soul who's being submerged.