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Percy wasn’t sure why Will wanted him in the infirmary.
Any injury he’d gotten in Tartarus had been healed by the Phlegethon. Any injury he sustained afterwards? They weren’t changing. The cut on his arm where Gaea had thrown a boulder at him wasn’t bleeding, but it wasn’t healing, either. It just was. Same with every other injury from that fight.
His body was frozen in that battle.
It wasn’t something Will could fix.
“—next to Percy,” the son of Apollo was saying as he walked back to where Percy was. “I’ll take a look at you when I’m done with him.”
“Thanks, man,” Leo replied. He wheeled the chair over and lifted himself onto the bed with minimal difficulty. He smiled and waved at Percy, and he nodded back.
“I figured we could just start with nectar and figure out where to go from there,” Will told Percy. “You just tried water, right?”
“Yeah,” Percy confirmed. “My attention was kind of elsewhere; I didn’t even notice, really.” He was too busy avoiding the mirror and scrubbing weeks worth of dust and blood from his hair and skin.
“I’m not quite worried,” Will mused, trickling nectar on the open wounds, “since you’re a god now, but it’s…it’s weird. Why wouldn’t they close?”
“Best guess?” Will nodded in encouragement, listening as he watched Percy’s wounds not change a bit. “Gaea did this to torment me. Why not leave the wounds forever? They’re reminders.”
Will sucked his lips in. “Wow.” He blinked. “Kind of…maudlin.”
“Sorry, next time I’ll sugarcoat it for you.”
Will gave him a look. “Well, nectar ain’t doing shit, but you’re gonna let me put on some disinfectant before you head out.”
“Yes, sir, Doctor Solace, sir,” Percy agreed with a salute.
Will scoffed and flipped him off. “One minute, let me go get it.” He left Leo and Percy in silence, broken only by the sounds of the Camp outside: swords clashing in the amphitheater, people laughing and shouting, hammers clanging in the forge.
Leo cleared his throat, and Percy glanced over. “It’s nice to see you kind of happier,” he offered.
Percy furrowed his brows. “Hmm?”
Leo shrugged. “Well, it’s just—you were scary, when you got back from—like, really terrifying.”
“I had to be.” He wet his lips and nodded. “But my war is over, for now. I can relax.”
It was Leo’s turn to furrow his brows. “It—it is? You won’t be yelling at the gods for Calypso?”
Calypso. That was a matter he’d been carefully avoiding. He didn’t know what happened to her, but he could probably hazard a pretty accurate guess. She was likely still stuck on her island, alone and bitter. Bitter enough to send curses after him, after Annabeth, because he’d put the world before her.
Percy turned to face Leo, green eyes meeting brown. “You met Calypso?”
Leo nodded. “Uh, Khione kind of…threw me to Ogygia.” He started drumming his fingers on his leg. “We didn’t get along, at first.” He smiled softly. “I promised to get her off the island.”
Percy’s heart sank. “That was a thoughtless promise to make.” Leo’s head shot up, anger blooming on his face, but Percy kept going. “I did, too. I promised to get the gods to free her. And I got them to promise that they would, but then this war happened, and…it took a back burner.”
“So what was so thoughtless about it?” Leo bit. “I promised to do what you couldn’t.”
“It was thoughtless,” Percy stressed, “because when I didn’t deliver, she sent a curse after me.” He could see it on Leo’s face: he didn’t get it. “In Tartarus, curses are alive. They’re called arai, and when you kill one, you take on that curse.”
“Gods, that sounds terrible.”
“It is. I killed one—or maybe Annabeth did, I can’t tell who it was she cursed, but—Annabeth couldn’t see me, even when I was right next to her. It was Calypso’s abandonment, and she put it on me. She blamed me,” Percy spat, voice shaking with anger, “for leaving her to the punishment the gods gave her.” He shook his head. “Or maybe she blamed the gods for her punishment, but couldn’t hurt them. But she could hurt me, so she did.”
Leo looked down at his lap, still drumming his fingers. “That’s awful,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. It’s just—I get it. She’s trapped. Like I was, at every foster home and halfway house and boarding school I was sent to, but she can’t run away. She can’t leave.” He sighed. “It doesn’t excuse what she did, but I get it. The system put me in these horrible houses, and I couldn’t get back at the system, but I could get back at the adults watching me. I could run away.”
Leo’s voice was quiet, but strong. Percy could hear his determination to help, to make things better for someone, because he couldn’t make them better for himself.
It was like looking at himself, a few years younger and less jaded.
Percy nodded. “I’ll be spaced out for a few minutes.”
“Wait, what do you mean—“ Leo cut off as the infirmary faded from view.
He could still see it, if he tried. But he was somewhere else, too.
The infirmary was replaced with a beach Percy never thought he’d see again. Pristine white sand, untarnished by litter and muck was met by crystal clear waters. The waves were knee-height, and Night, it had been so long since Percy had just stood and admired ocean. He wanted nothing more than to dive in, feel the water on his skin and in his bones.
But he couldn’t. Not yet. He was here for a reason.
He remembered how Ogygia worked—time went haywire around this place. If the island decided Percy would be here for a week, he’d be here for a week. It hadn’t been long—Will had just returned with disinfectant and bandages, so a few extra minutes just standing on the beach, breathing in the salty air, soaking in the sunlight and the view—it couldn’t hurt.
“Poseidon?”
Percy turned. She hadn’t changed. Cinnamon brown hair, sun-kissed skin. Last time, they’d been the same height. Now, Percy towered over her.
She gasped as she saw him.
“Percy?”
“Calypso.” He didn’t greet her. He didn’t smile. “It’s been a while.”
Her voice was soft, quiet, like speaking louder would upset him. “How long?”
“Two years.” Percy shoved his hands in his pockets, so she couldn’t see him curl them into fists. In another room, in a different part of the world, he thanked Will and sat back on an infirmary bed. “No time at all, in comparison.”
She shook her head. “It really isn’t.”
“It wasn’t long enough.” He didn’t miss the hurt that crossed her face, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t finished. “You know why I had to leave.”
There was caution written on her face, in her body language, in her voice. “You had to fight the Titans.”
“I did. I had to save the world, for my mom, for my friends, for—“
She smiled sadly. “For Annabeth.”
“For Annabeth.” He took a step back. “And you understand?”
“I do.”
“You do. So why,” he growled, “was there a curse from you, when I fell into Tartarus?” Calypso’s breath hitched. “Why did I kill an ara, and immediately get separated from Annabeth? We might have been able to handle them together, but alone? I almost died, Calypso. We both could have died.”
The tears in her eyes did nothing to calm him. Percy had gotten used to feeling his anger in Tartarus, instead of tucking it away. And where better than to feel his anger, his rage, his wrath, than in a mostly-uninhabited island in the middle of the ocean?
The ocean was angry, too. He could taste its rage on the wind, that blew harder and stronger the longer he stood on the beach. He could sense it in the spray of the waves as they swelled and pummeled the shoreline. He could feel it in the rain, heavy with his rage and grief. He could hear it in the distant thunder that growled with him.
“I’m so sorry, Percy.” No excuses. Just an apology.
It wasn’t good enough.
“You cursed me for leaving you,” he continued. “But why? I left, Calypso, yes, but I’m not the one who trapped you here. I didn’t make the choice to support the Titans, you did. I didn’t decide to throw you away somewhere you couldn’t bother me, the gods did. So why was I the one you chose to blame? I was fourteen! I had no power to free you, and if I had stayed, I would be dumping all of the responsibility onto others. I couldn’t do that.”
He’d been focusing on his anger so he wouldn’t have to feel his hurt. He thought he’d left a friend behind, sad but understanding. The curse had been another betrayal, and it stung.
“I know, Percy, I just—I was hurt. I never meant for you to actually feel my curse—“
“That’s no excuse.” The rain stopped as suddenly as it began. The wind slowed, the waves calmed, the thunder no more than a whisper. “I made a promise. I’m here to get you off of Ogygia.”
Calypso’s eyes widened. “But I—“
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Leo.”
Her lips traced his name and her face softened. “He didn’t just promise to get me off my island, you know,” she smiled. “He promised to come get me himself. I told him it wasn’t possible, that no man could—“ She stopped, smile dropping. “No man can find Ogygia twice. Percy, how are you here?”
“I think you just answered your own question,” he told her. No man. No mortal, human man. That wasn’t him anymore.
Her gaze as she realized turned confused, curious. “You’re a god?”
“An impatient one. Before we leave, there are rules.”
“Rules?”
“I’m not letting you near my Camp without them. The first one is easy to remember: no cursing my campers.” She winced. “Second: we have bad blood with titans. You’re a titaness. If someone tells you to stay away from them, you listen.” Calypso nodded. “Just those, and the Camp rules. You’ll get your orientation when we arrive.”
“Thank you, Percy.
“One misstep, and you’re done.”
“I understand.”
“Do you? If I hear a single whisper that you’ve crossed the line, I will kill you. I’ll make it slow and painful, so that when I do finally let you die, you’ll thank me for my mercy. And once you’ve reformed? I’ll pick you up, and drop you right back off here, and I’ll happily forget you ever existed.” Percy took a deep breath. “This island won’t be a punishment from the Olympians, next time. It’ll be a punishment from me.”
Calypso nodded, fear and defiance warring in her eyes. She’d follow his rules, but she wouldn’t let herself be scared so easily.
That was fine with Percy. He didn’t need her fear. He needed her belief.
“I’ll get you off this island, Calypso,” Percy said. “Because Leo believes in you. He trusts you. Likes you, too. But I don’t. I will never trust you again; I’ll never believe in you or even like you again. You couldn’t punish the gods for trapping you here so you took it out on me, on Annabeth, and if you think that’s forgivable, you’ve gone insane in your exile.”
She nodded, averting her eyes from his hard, cold gaze. He held his hand out, and she took it.
Ogygia vanished around them. The Camp infirmary wasn’t meant for this many people. Will, who’d been examining Leo’s leg, swore as Percy disappeared from the bed and showed up standing behind him. Leo stared at him, then at Calypso, his jaw dropped. Percy ripped his hand from hers and backed up to give Will space.
”Thank you, Percy,” Calypso repeated.
She met his eyes, and he shook his head. “One misstep,” he promised. He turned to Leo and said, “I’d recommend keeping her away from Annabeth, if you don’t want to be the one burning the body.” With that, he left.
He only had to avoid her for a few weeks. Then, he and Grover were leaving for their road trip. For now, though, avoidance was easy—he had an ocean to dive into.