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The ride back to Camp Jupiter from Alaska was not a pleasant one. Not only did the chauffeur have a vocabulary that could put a sailor to shame and the ride bumpy enough that he was fully lifted from the seat twice, but Percy was beginning to regain his memories as they got farther away from Alaska.
It started slow at first, but it didn’t stay that way for long. He didn’t even notice he was remembering something until after he was laying down on the chariot’s bench with Hazel and Frank looming above him, worried.
“Percy? Are you alright? You just slumped over randomly and didn't respond to us.” Hazel asked, her hands holding him up.
“Yeah man, it’s like you just passed out of nowhere. Did you get hit with something we didn't notice?” Frank got more worried the more he talked, now checking as well.
Percy batted away their hands, waving off their concern. “No, no, I’m fine. I just had this really weird dream. I barely remember any of it but it felt weirdly familiar. There was like some poker game going on and one of the guys said my name.”
Hazel and Frank exchanged looks. “Well, maybe it could be a memory and you actually knew him.” Frank asked.
“I don’t know, he looked vaguely familiar.” Percy hummed. “I was looking up at him too I think, so maybe sometime in my childhood? But why now?”
Hazel shrugged before handing him a bottle of water, which he took gratefully. He didn’t realize how dry his throat was until he finally took a sip. “We’re leaving Alaska, maybe the gods are giving you back your memories.”
Percy rolled his eyes. When have the gods ever decided to make things easy for him, giving him back his memories, just like that. He was going to voice these thoughts before he felt a headache coming on and the man’s face came back in his mind, and he was back in the apartment.
He was back in the apartment. The first thing he registered was the smell. Before anything else, his senses were immediately bombarded with the smell of rotten cheese, cigars, and the musky odor of sweat, scrunching his nose up in response. The same man was there again and he had a backpack.
With an eyebrow raised, the man talks around the cigar in his mouth. “You took a taxi from the bus station,” he said. “Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?”
Percy feels himself responding even though he doesn’t know what he could possibly say to this familiar stranger, a ghost in his own body. “Fine.” Distantly he throws some money on the table. “I hope you lose.”
“Your report card came, brain boy!” he shouted after me. “I wouldn’t act so snooty!”
He doesn’t know much about him, but just looking at the man brings up an uncomfortable cocktail of emotions, pain and anger being the two frontrunners. The pain is as new as it is old, and the anger is a constant venom he keeps at the back of his throat, almost choking on it. But he knows this man has hurt him before, and he faintly remembers something about a “guy secret” which has alarm bells ringing, so he swallows his anger and keeps it tucked away but not forgotten.
And with that comes a name–Smelly Gabe.
He startles awake, back on the chariot, with Hazel and Frank on either side of him exchanging quiet whispers before they see him blinking into awareness. He raises a hand to stop whatever they may say, rubbing at his forehead.
“They are memories. I just remembered my step dad. He was the one in the poker game, and it was my mom’s apartment.” He could slowly feel other memories trickling in, beginning to remember his face, warped in a way not entirely different to how monsters are pictured in a child’s imagination.
Frank furrowed his eyebrows, but Hazel perked up. “Step dad? Then was it a good memory? Maybe it’s better for you–”
Percy was already shaking his head, cutting her off. “No, nothing like that. He, ah, he wasn’t a very good guy.” He let out a weak chuckle, looking away but keeping his tone light. “He’d always hustled me out of all my money or pushed me around for fun or out of sheer boredom. But that’s how it is sometimes, he’s dead now in any case.” Yeah that’s right, his mom used Medusa’s head on him, selling his stone body and not looking back. But for some reason, the fact that he has a step dad he couldn’t stand doesn’t make much sense, like intrinsically he knows that’s wrong. Clearly not, if the sneer on Gabe’s sweaty face was anything to go by.
“Oh.” Hazel said meekly, but recovering, her eyes lit up with a righteous fire. “Then it’s good that he’s gone. He shouldn’t have abused you, and honestly death might have been too easy for him.”
Percy let out a weak laugh. “Abused? He just did a little roughhousing, I mean, he never did anything that didn’t heal in a day. I might have even deserved some of–”
“That’s the point, Percy. It’s not ‘how it is sometimes.’ He shouldn’t have done anything to you that needed healing at all. Taking your money, which is really any independence you have, especially since he’s able to sustain himself, and doing it under the threat of physical harm, that’s abuse Percy.” Frank cut him off with a tentative hand on his arm. Percy’s eyebrows flitted up to his forehead, but Hazel was picking up after Frank before he could respond back.
“And you didn’t deserve anything he did to you Percy. You were only a child, of course you were going to act out, but he should have been the responsible adult and he wasn’t. The fault lies on him.” Hazel took his other hand in both of hers, her grip just as strong as the conviction in her voice.
“I–I see.” Percy felt at a loss for words. He never considered himself a victim of abuse, at least not by Gabe. His time with Gabe feels like a fever dream with how many other crazy shenanigans take up all his time and energy. Even back then, he doesn’t think he ever felt any sort of self-pity for his situation or considered it to be anything other than normal. The sky was blue, he was Sally Jackson’s son, and Gabe liked to hit him.
Maybe he should revisit what he thinks is normal. His mother’s face flashes in and out of sight. The constant bags under her eyes. The smile that now looks less serene and more tired and forced. The now distant but once constant tension in her shoulders and spine .
Maybe they both should revisit what’s normal to them.
“If you…if you want to keep talking about this, Percy, we’ll always listen, even if you don’t want us to say anything in response.” Hazel offered, her voice soft. “But if you want to wait, we can talk about other things.”
Frank was already nodding along. “We’re always going to be here for you, Percy, and nothing can change that.”
His throat felt oddly choked up, and he could only nod along with them. If he opened his mouth, he’s afraid he’d start denying he needs support, or start sobbing, both of which wouldn’t help in this case.
The constant ache isn’t nearly as bad to deal with as it once was. Maybe it could be easier to open up to them in time, without the reopened scar to hinder him, and while he knows they didn’t mean to, the idea that things were as bad as he always feared felt like rubbing salt on the wound.
It’s been easier, both on him and his mother. Her smile’s been brighter ever since–since his mother met Paul. Oh. He suddenly remembered salt and pepper hair and the new memory is uplifting. Percy lets out a relieved chuckle. Frank’s grip tightens as he says, “Are you alright? I know it wasn’t the most pleasant of memories to have remembered first but…” He lets the rest of the sentence hang in the air, but all Percy feels is happy.
“Actually I had another step dad too. No wonder Gabe’s memory felt wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“Yeah, after my mom turned him into stone, she met someone new.” Despite only having remembered his mom for a scant number of minutes, he’s overwhelmed with the fact that his mother has someone with her following his disappearance to support her when he couldn’t. It relieves a tension he didn’t know he carried.
“Wait, she turned him into stone?” Hazel asked incredulously, mouth opening in shock.
“Like stone, stone? Like fully without any sort of consciousness or internal organs, nothing?” Frank reels. If it weren’t for the fact they were on a chariot he might have had to get up and take a few paces.
Percy shrugs off their questions easily. “Yeah, she sold him to some museum in SoHo. I’m sure we could find it. Anyway, she met another guy, Paul Blowfis, whose name is surprisingly apt for someone dating a woman who was partners with the Sea God for a while.”
Hazel's shock quickly gave way to vindictive satisfaction. “Serves him right. Good for your mother. Maybe one day we’ll take a picture with it and hang it up as a trophy.”
That shocked a laugh out of Percy, who hasn’t felt this in touch with his own mind and body in months, and he couldn’t imagine a better place than here on the back of a chariot they looted, holding the hands of two of his best friends.
“I feel like we brushed past the fact that Percy and his mom have Medusa’s head and have used it way too quickly.” Frank interrupts, but Hazel only rolls her eyes and waves him off.
“What else is there to know? Now we know where Percy gets it from.”
“What, his murderous tendencies or the multitude of weapons he keeps on his person?”
“Both. Now, Percy, tell us about Paul. We’ll learn about him together.” Nudging him into speaking, Hazels hoots him a bright smile. Frank rolls his eyes but goes along with the little charade. It was done for his benefit, to get his mind off of Smelly Gabe, but knowing the fact doesn’t make him any less appreciative.
“We’ll be here to catch you when you remember something else, so you can talk about Blowfish as much as you want.”
“It’s Blowfis, Frank.”
“It’s okay, I call him Blowfish too sometimes.”
“Thank you, Percy.”
–
They had kept the conversation going for about an hour, interrupted by bouts of Percy’s recovering memories. Most of them were good, great even. He never knew how he could forget the feel of his mother’s candy-scented hugs but he resolved never to do so again.
(“It’s not like you could have prevented your amnesia Percy. I’m sure your mother would understand.”
“Still, it should be considered blasphemy, taking away all memory of her from me.”
“You forgot your mother, but you remembered your grudge against Mars?”
“...I can’t be blamed for that one. It was a grudge for the ages.”)
He remembers the evenings Paul stayed up with him, tutoring him in English, math, any subjects Percy struggled with, and how Paul never once got frustrated when Percy took a few hours to understand some concepts or to get through a passage.
“I’m sorry Paul. I don’t know why I can’t get through this.” Percy’s face flushed with shame and inadequacy. It’s been about three days since he's started Hamlet and he’s still struggling to understand the first act. Paul hadn’t said anything yet, but he’s been through this song and dance before. It’s only a matter of time before the other shoe drops and Paul gives up on him. He’s lasted the longest out of all his past teachers, but considering he stopped asking after the fifth grade, he’s not placing too much faith in that. Paul only just met him a few months ago, his patience is bound to run out, and unlike the other tutors, Percy’s dreading the day it does.
Paul only smiled, taking the book from him. “It’s not your fault, Percy. You didn’t choose to have a learning disability, and it’s not like you don’t try. You try harder than anyone else I know, believe me, some teachers really should not be in this field.”
Percy still feels a bit of apprehension despite Paul’s casual dismissal of his apology, and it wasn't enough to wipe away his fears. “That’s not what my previous teachers told me.”
“Yeah? Well maybe they should try reading Greek. See if they think you’re so stupid then. It’s not your fault that you’re a demigod and Greek comes easier to you than English. Why wouldn’t it be difficult in a curriculum that doesn’t accommodate you?” That gets a smile out of Percy, and Paul rifles through his bag before pulling out another book, this one a lot more legible than the last. “I’ve been thinking about it honestly, and we could try this instead.”
Percy took the book from his hands, the letters no longer floating off the page, mocking him for his difficulty in English. Belatedly, he realizes the whole thing is in Greek and he could actually read the script as he shuffles through the pages.
“Greek?” Looking up, he sees that Paul is fidgeting a bit before he continues.
“Well, if you’re not completely disillusioned with me just yet, maybe we can try reading it in Greek so when you take that test on Friday, you’ll already know the book and you just need to write you answers down in English. Still have to translate back and forth but it might be easier than struggling through the book in English.”
Percy was speechless, still stuck on the effort that Paul put into trying to help him that no one else had done. Paul was still talking, almost veering into nervous rambling.
“I know it’s not much, I really should have started with something like this sooner or tried to find other ways in helping you so I do apologize, but I can follow along with my copy and we’ll reconvene at different points throughout the book to discuss it together.”
“Paul, no don’t apologize, I should be thanking you! You didn’t need to do this, honestly, I just need to do well enough to graduate.”
Paul seemed to relax at that. “Why wouldn’t I? Not only are you Sally’s son, but you’re brilliant, son. It’s not your fault everyone else failed you. This is the least I could do, I don’t even know if it’ll help.”
Regardless of Paul’s doubt at the new strategy, Percy feels hopeful and surprisingly excited to learn. “Well, only one way to find out then.” He smiled, opening to the first page.
“That was the first time he called me son.” Percy recalled. “We were still getting used to each other, and we both wanted to do right by the other since Mom loved us both, but he always tried his best. I don’t even think he realized, which is why I trusted he meant it.”
“I’m glad your mom was able to find someone new. She deserves it. You both do.” Frank smiled, knocking his shoulders with Percy’s. “When did you tell him you see him as a dad?”
Percy’s smile dimmed. “I didn’t get a chance to.”
His words hung in the air for a moment, before Hazel wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m sure he knew anyways. Our families usually have a way of knowing without saying it.” She sounded older than the teenage girl she was, and Percy was suddenly reminded of the fact that it wasn’t only his life that was thrust into something unknown without their consent, and he pulled her tighter.
–
Not all his memories were happy ones of course. Gabe appeared a few more times in between memories of beach days with his mom, or in between camp celebrations, but there were also a few deaths that left him silent with grief, reliving their deaths all over again. Hazel and Frank learned to distinguish between the different types of bad memories, and tried to talk about different topics in order to bring him back from the back-to-back deaths of his friends and campers. Experiencing them once was enough, but remembering them as if they were new within a span of two hours took a visibly heavy toll on him.
Still, they tried and oftentimes succeeded in either distracting him or getting him to open up depending on how comfortable he felt and how long ago the memory was. Soon, all of his remaining memories came at once, both a relief as he now feels whole again and the harbinger of a new fear. Because Percy remembered all of his memories, even the ones buried deep, so deep it doesn’t have the same ring of familiarity that all the others do, but it’s still a memory just the same.
He was running through the hallways. Distantly, he heard footsteps behind him.
The stomps echoed around him, spurring him on faster to get away, but it was no use.
Louder and louder and louder. He was short, barely above the doorknob to his mom’s room, but the person behind him was large.
He ran in, hoping to find his mother but instead greeted by an empty room.
Trapped. With nowhere to run, he looks to the door, the large shadow of the man–no, the monster blocking the frame, before suddenly he hears glass breaking.
The sound registered before the blood. His head was spinning, dazed, and his arm was covered in blood.
“Shit! Sally’s gonna be pissed–hey kid, wake up!” Another blow, before it went dark.
“Percy? Are you okay? You were out of it for nearly half an hour. None of the other ones took this long.” Hazel asked, Frank already handing over some water and ambrosia to Percy just in case.
Without responding, barely even aware of where he was, he pulled back the sleeve of his shirt to confirm–and there it was. A long forgotten scar that he could have sworn wasn’t there before he remembered this.
“I don’t–I never even remembered this scar before now.”
“What? But it looks old, you couldn’t have gotten it now, could you?” Frank asked, taking his arm in his hand to examine the scar, carefully like treating a wounded animal.
“No, but I don’t remember this one. Even before I lost my memories, I never remembered seeing this scar like I do all my other ones.”
Hazel scoots closer. “Is it related to the memory you just had now?”
“Yeah–yeah,” Percy chokes out, trying to clear his throat but he feels it closing up. “It was–it was Gabe but, I don’t remember this at all, he was–he chased after me with one of his belts, or was it a shoe… but then he pushed me into my mom’s mirror and that’s all I remember.”
No one said anything after that, letting his words sit between them, the tension heavy. It probably was with how little he remembered of it, even after he recovered the memory.
“You kept that memory buried for so long it didn’t resurface until now when you were rediscovering everything again.” Frank realized, his voice somehow sympathetic without any of the pity Percy hates.
His eyes were still glued to the pale, forgotten scar, Frank’s words and Hazel’s response afterwards went unheard, muffled like his head was underwater.
Frantic, he searches the rest of his body, looking for scars that he doesn't recognize.
A small mark on his knee that wrinkled like a burn. A cigar pressed onto his skin.
A cut above his forehead whose presence left him with an uneven hairline. A silver ring on his finger.
All of the marks just remind him of how often this had happened, and how many more memories he could have kept hidden away. These are just the ones with physical proof left behind, leaving the possibility for more.
He didn’t stop running his hands over his body, frantically patting himself down looking for any more clues to something he lost twice until he ran his fingers over the small of his back. He remembers now, her memory tucked away like a precious secret but intertwined within his very person.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for a quest, seaweed brain,” she said. “Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you’re going to save the world, I’m the best person to keep you from messing up.” He saw a determined scowl, and a Yankees cap stuffed in a back pocket.
"Don't I get a kiss for luck? It's kind of a tradition, right?"
"Come back alive, Seaweed Brain. Then, we'll see.” A knife and an army coming from afar but all he could see was the girl next to him.
“Why did you take that knife?”
“You would have done the same.” The ghost of a hand skimming over the small of his back.
Blonde hair. Gray eyes.
That’s her. That’s–
“Annabeth.” Her name comes out so clearly like nothing else and her image is seared in his mind. It must be her. The first and only thing he’s remembered and now the memory of her slots into place easily. She connects herself in a part of him that he doesn’t remember feeling quite so empty until her face finally became clear in his mind. The sight of her brought with it a steady confidence that he has someone out there searching for him. The confidence is almost staggering in its size because the faith he has in her is so great, he doesn’t question anymore why he worshiped her name like religion before he ever even thought to remember his own.
“Annabeth scarred you too?” Hazel gasped, alarmed, her sight still fixed on the scar like his was before the last piece of the messed up puzzle that was his life slot into place.
“What? No, no, I mean I finally remembered her. She was my girlfriend, we got together like right after we defeated Grandpa.” His heart feels weightless after saying the truth out loud, like it reaffirmed what he’d always wanted, letting out a small laugh. His smile came to him easily at just the thought of her, before his heart sank. “Oh no.”
Hazel and Frank flinched away, flummoxed by the abrupt change in conversation, and Percy’s voice did not bode well. “Oh no what?”
“She’s gonna kill me when she finally finds me! We had a whole trip planned out just for the two of us.” He groaned, finally putting down his sleeves and face-palming, the scar miraculously forgotten.
Frank recovered, and sighed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Well, you can count on us to pour sea salt over your grave when she finally catches up to you.”
“You won’t defend me? You’re fine with seeing me at the mercy of my girlfriend’s wrath?”
Hazel let out a surprised laugh, like it was punched out of her, glad for the rise in Percy’s mood. His mood had changed quickly, which she didn’t know if she should take it as a good sign or not, but at least he was smiling. “Well when you put it that way, I’ll try to reason with her, girl to girl.”
“Yeah you’re on your own man.”
“Thanks Frank,” Percy rolled his eyes. “And thank you Hazel, for being the only real one out of the two of you.”
Frank simply stuck out his tongue in response, while Hazel let out another twinkling laugh.
She looked over at Frank behind Percy’s head, who returned her cheerful grin before they dissolved into giggles. They’ll be okay. Come what may, she has her boys with her and they have her. Percy’s mood will inevitably dip again, and just like they are now, they’ll be there to help lift back up his spirits and carry some of the burden.
“Guys this isn’t funny.” Percy groaned, but his smile was evident even if his tone was playfully hurt. “She’s totally gonna team up with my mom. I’m practically a dead man already.”
“Maybe we can blame the whole thing on Juno instead.” Frank suggested in between giggles.
Percy snaps his fingers before pointing at him. “Frank, you’re a genius. Finally pulling your weight in this conundrum I’ve gotten myself into. They already have bad blood, just have to redirect her to another target.” He kept up the act before his laughter joined theirs, and weaving his arms behind their shoulders, he brought them in close for a hug.
“Thank you guys. Seriously.”
Hazel and Frank caught each other’s eyes.
“It was no problem.”
“Seriously.”