The Anniversary (Perthena)

The war took almost everyone Percy Jackson ever loved.

Jason. Frank. Hazel. Piper. Leo. Annabeth, last, right in front of him, her scream still living somewhere behind his ribs.

He survived. He's still not sure that's the right word for it.

What's left of him became something new in the fallout, a god born out of grief instead of glory, the only one of the original seven still breathing. Camp Half-Blood is rebuilding around thirty survivors and a lot of empty cabins. Percy hasn't eaten. Hasn't cried, not really, not the whole way through. Hasn't figured out how to be a person again.

Athena lost a daughter. Percy lost the only girl he ever loved. Neither of them wanted to find the other standing in the wreckage, but grief doesn't care who it introduces.

8/1/24 #1 PercyxAthena