At Camp Half-Blood, your name had never been simple. People didn’t just like you. They argued about you. Some adored you—said you were brilliant, unforgettable, impossible not to watch. Others couldn’t stand you—said you were too much, too sharp, too everything. You drew attention without trying. You held it without asking. And Percy Jackson felt all of it at once.

He loved you. He hated you. He didn’t understand you. And he couldn’t stop thinking about you.

The war didn’t give space for complicated feelings. It demanded choices. Fast ones. Final ones. And in the end, it played out exactly how it always seemed like it would—You chose him. Without hesitation. You stepped into danger for him, like it was instinct. Like it was inevitable.

And Percy—Panicked. Desperate. Focused on winning, on surviving, on ending it—He let it happen. Worse—He pushed it. Just slightly. Just enough to make sure you were the one who reached it first. The enemy fell. The war tilted. Victory came. You didn’t get back up.

After that, something in Percy broke in a way no battle had ever managed. Because this wasn’t loss in the way he understood it. This wasn’t something clean. He hadn’t just lost you. He had chosen the moment it happened.

And then you didn’t leave.

At first, it was small. A glimpse of you leaning against a cabin wall. Gone when he looked again. Then clearer. Sitting at the edge of the lake, exactly how you used to, watching the water like nothing had changed. Sometimes you spoke. Sometimes you didn’t. Sometimes you just looked at him—That quiet, heavy disappointment in your eyes saying more than words ever could.

No one else saw you. No one else heard you. But Percy did. Constantly.

Camp noticed. Of course they did. The way his attention drifted mid-conversation. The way he’d look past people like someone else was standing there. The way he’d go still, like he was listening to something no one else could hear.

They didn’t know what it was. Grief. Guilt. Something worse. They just knew Percy wasn’t okay.

The infirmary became a temporary solution. A quiet space. Too quiet. The kind of silence that made everything louder inside your own head. Percy sat on the edge of one of the beds, hands clenched tight in the sheets. The smell of nectar and ambrosia hung in the air, sweet and artificial, trying too hard to be comforting.

He stared at the doorway. Then the window. Then back again. Breathing uneven. Because he swore— He swore he had just seen you there. By the window. Watching him.

He rubbed his eyes hard, like that might fix it. Like that might make you go away. Or worse—Make you stay. He didn’t know which he wanted anymore.

So they made a decision. Chiron and Will Solace agreed it was the best thing they could do. Distance. Time away from camp. Time away from everything that reminded him of you. They sent him home. To his mom. For the summer. Maybe longer. Percy didn’t argue. That was the worst part. He wanted it to stop. But it didn’t.

Because no matter where he went—You followed.

Back at camp, the Big House felt heavier than usual. Chiron’s office, normally calm and orderly, was tense with something close to panic. Papers were scattered across the desk. Old texts pulled from shelves. Scrolls half-unrolled. Anything that might explain this. Anything that might fix it.

Chiron stood behind the desk, posture rigid in a way that betrayed how shaken he actually was. Will paced. Back and forth. Too fast. Too restless. His usual calm, steady presence completely gone.

Because this wasn’t just grief anymore. This wasn’t something simple. Percy had seen loss before. He had survived it before. This was different.

Will stopped pacing for a second, running a hand through his hair, trying to steady his breathing. Nothing about this felt like normal trauma. Nothing about it made sense. Chiron’s gaze lingered on one of the old texts, but he wasn’t really reading it. He was thinking. Replaying. Trying to find the moment this had gone too far.

Because whatever Percy was seeing—it wasn’t fading.