Deus ex Machina

Summary: Percy accepts the choice offered and becomes a god. A very minor god, but still a god. Fragments from a life that never happened.

They offer him a choice.

A moment of hesitation. He feels his gaze drifting, drawn upwards to Annabeth—but their eyes don't meet.

In this world, a heartbeat away from familiar paths:

Percy says, yes.

Even demigods can't drink nectar without consequence; too much nectar, and the demigod burns up from within. The cup is fragant with the smells of home, of Mum's blue chocolate chip cookies, with a faint hint of something else that he can't possibly remember where he knows it from.

"Better drink up," the dark-eyed young man advises. "The longer you take, the more impatient they're going to get."

He can feel their eyes on him; Zeus, impatient, his father's, proud. He glances up to meet grey eyes; Athena's gaze is sharp, but she says nothing. He wonders if that is a warning, a sign of her displeasure.

"Oh, come on now," Mr D. growls.

His callused fingers close around the cup. Ganymede withdraws, returning to stand discreetly near Zeus.

Drink deep, he tells himself, and tilts the cup back.

Nectar burns him, hallows him, lights a fuse along his veins.

"I don't want to talk."

He takes a deep breath, and lets it out again. The campers in the Athena cabin have left the moment he'd come in through the door.

"I just came to say hi."

Tap-tap-tap go the laptop keys, as Annabeth studies the screen intently. "I'm supposed to get the preliminary sketches for the new section done by tomorrow morning," she announces, at last. "I don't have time for this."

Tap-tap-tap and beneath it, the undercurrent of silence, and the quiet sound of her breathing, Annabeth focused on her task. He glances around the cabin—well-maintained, except for the mess of papers where Annabeth sleeps. He notices the dark hollows beneath her eyes, the slump of her shoulders, and a crinkled brochure on top of a pile of statue sketches. No boys! Eternal youth!

"The Hunters of Artemis?"

Annabeth glances over at that pile and shrugs. "Yes."

"Don't," he blurts, before he can think it through. "I mean, are you thinking of signing up with them?"

"I want to be an architect," Annabeth says, grey gaze very cool. "And the choice is mine to make."

It had been his, back then. And he had looked only for a fraction of a second; long before he could have seen what she thought of it. He hadn't thought everything could change, but of course it would. Gods don't age. They don't die. That would always be the wedge, he realises, cracking apart any dream of a future relationship.

The silence stretches out between them, growing tauter with the passage of each moment.

"Don't you have places to be?"

"Yeah," he says. "I'll see you when…whenever."

Annabeth's farewell is more murmured than anything else, and her glance sidelong, before she returns to her work.

The gods, Percy, says Chiron, do not return their gifts. He adds, You may want to read the story of Tithonus.

He does. He understands.

Too late, he understands.

Aphrodite takes him aside, at one of the times he's on Mount Olympus, acting as his father's trusted lieutenant, "Perseus Jackson."

"Aphrodite," he says, in greeting.

She shakes her head, lightly. Her eyes are grey, as grey as the sea at first light. As grey, he thinks, as Annabeth's. "I'd better hopes for your story," she tells him. "It was to be a story of love, of how it overcomes all obstacles. Simply exciting! I'd high hopes for the two of you."

"And now?"

"The gods cannot tell you what is to be," Aphrodite says. "Perhaps the Fates could." She catches his gaze, holds it. "I could've told you what might have been," she says, her sigh wistful. "And what will now not come to pass."

Percy swallows. "I guess," he says, quietly. "Thank you."

Too much to think of hope, after all. He sees Hestia by the hearth, warming her hands, a jar in her hands. He knows the jar—he gave it into her keeping. A thin, hairline crack runs across it.

He keeps to his tasks, after that. Winning a war isn't just about defeating the enemy general—there are forces to clean up, and his dad is busy reclaiming control of the oceans. He helps, always serving as his father's right hand. Triton and Amphitrite speak to him only when they have to. He doesn't quite belong there, Percy learns, after a few months.

And he doesn't quite belong at home, either, even though he thinks he might like to give it a try. He could do graduation from high school and college for only long enough before they see he isn't growing any older.

Nico takes him to Camp Jupiter, to meet his half-sibling. This is important, a voice tells him in his dream, even if he can't exactly figure out how or why. The Roman demigods aren't so much hostile as indifferent. Sons of Neptune aren't particularly respectable by their lights, but he's now a god, and so they offer him something that might be respect, if you squint hard enough.

Back in Camp Half-Blood, Cabin Three is always open to him—he is his father's son, after all. He doesn't meet Annabeth on Mount Olympus, and Athena is decidedly frosty the next time they have occasion to speak.

But Camp Half-Blood is no real place for him, any more. He spars with Clarisse until her spear draws a line of burning golden ichor.

That's right, he thinks, cradling his side. He's not mortal anymore. He burned it away with a poisoned chalice.

There's no cutting the thread now, but the Fates neatly separate it from the others in the greater work taking shape in the loom. Patterns change, all the time. Some are changes so big that the entire work must be rewoven.

This is one of them.

They select another thread, carefully introduce it into the pattern, into the greater shape of things.

There's always going to be that weird guy on the bus you don't want to talk to, Jason Grace thinks, but who you end up sitting beside anyway.

His head pounds. He almost can't remember anything at all, and two people his mind says are his best friends (Piper McLean and Leo Valdez, but he can't remember anything about it at all) get to sit together while he's stuck almost at the back of the bus with some weird dude he doesn't even know.

He's playing with a pen, spinning it idly about in his fingers.

For some reason, it makes Jason feel pretty nervous.

Their eyes meet. For some reason, he breaks the cardinal rule of sitting next to weird people on buses and their eyes meet. They're the rich green of the seafoam, frothing when stirred and beaten and flung against a rocky coast by the wind.

"Do you believe in fixing your mistakes, Jason?" the other guy asks.

So maybe he knows him after all. "Yeah," Jason replies, slowly. Still cautious—something in his brain screams for caution even if he can't place why.

By the time he understands what is going on, and the class has gotten off at the Grand Canyon, he can't figure out where the dude went.

When the concealed Venti attack, he's forgotten about him, entirely.

The stone eyes of his father's statue seem to watch him, even though he's hiding in the alcove. Something else tugs at Jason; a sense of restlessness, as though there's somewhere else he should be. Instinctively, he reaches into his pocket, making sure Ivlivs is there before he stands up and leaves Cabin One.

The rough gray stone of Cabin Three calls to him, the seashells glimmering milky-pale in the moonlight. He hesitates at the door for a moment—it isn't his cabin, and he didn't know if it is even permitted. But then he overcomes his reluctance and gently pushes the door open, glancing around curiously.

Inside the cabin, the walls glow with a soft light, rippling like sunlight from underwater. He breathes in something his mind tells him is sea salt, hears the murmuring of water. There it is, at the back: a big basin of rock, with a fish-head spout.

He draws closer to it, holds out his hand and feels the spray mist his skin.

He shouldn't be here. And yet he is.

"Hello."

Jason turns around, hand moving for his pocket. The figure sits on one of the empty beds in the cabin, watching him. Has he been in the cabin all along?

"Sorry," he mutters, embarrassed.

"It's a pretty nice cabin," the other camper says, with a shrug. "There's always a breeze in here."

"This is your cabin?" Stupid question, Jason thinks, of course it had to be his cabin. The gods aren't known to permit trespassers, and anyone in Neptune's cabin who isn't actually Neptune's kid…

"Look, I'm sorry," Jason says. "I'll head back now." The strange feeling of restlessness hasn't dissipated; it seems to grow, needling him. It's a silly idea, wandering around camp at night. All the same…

"Wait."

Jason pauses, turns his head back. The other camper says, "I guess it must be pretty rough. You just show up, and don't remember anything. And Chiron and the spirits acting all weird around you."

"How do you know?" Jason demands.

He receives a faint smile in response. "Something pretty big is coming up, Jason. You forgot all those things for a reason. Best hang tight."

"What is it?"

He blinks. No, that can't be right. The camper is nowhere to be found; sea spray drifts throughout the cabin interior, and the breeze blows a crumpled piece of paper across the cabin floor. Jason steps cautiously towards it, and picks it up. It's crinkled everywhere, as if it'd been folded and unfolded repeatedly.

It read, Brace Yourself.

"I ran into a pretty weird camper in Cabin Three," Jason says. He doesn't know if Annabeth can give him answers but something tells him to talk about it anyway.

Annabeth freezes. When she finally responds, her voice is chilly. "There is no camper in Cabin Three," she says, quietly. "The last camper was…lost in the war against Kronos and his Titans."

Jason has a sudden impression of a spear in his hand, and a gigantic man with ram's horns, but the moment he tries to pursue it, it turns to snatches of mist in his mind. "The war?"

"Yeah." She runs a hand through her blond hair. She looks more tired than ever, and Jason realises with a start that she looks dead on her feet. "Look, Jason. Ask Chiron to tell you about it?" The wind snatches some of the papers from her hands—she makes a startled grab for them, and Jason helps her with the rest. They're in Ancient Greek, he realises, and he's not very good with that.

It's as though his brain sees Latin first, and then the Greek, and so it takes him a while to realise the writing is mirrored.

Not that he's asking her about it. It's hers, and he doesn't really like to pry. "I will." A belated reply. He fidgets, finally settles for asking her to get some more rest.

She echoes his words; Jason gets the strangest feeling that there's something Annabeth's hiding.

He just doesn't have the right, really, to ask her what it is.

He doesn't actually end up asking Chiron about the war. Instead, he's leaving on a quest to free Hera from her foes.

In his dreams, there's a teenager there, dark-haired, with those sea-green eyes that have been haunting him since the encounter in Cabin Three.

"What do you want?" Jason wants to know.

"Are you ready?" the other counters, ignoring his question.

"For what?" Jason asks. He's growing suspicious of it: the silences, the questions, the things he can't be told, but Annabeth and Chiron have both insisted that they have their reasons, and an oath upon the Styx is a grave matter.

"The crap to hit the fan," the guy says. "What do you think?"

"I don't know," Jason counters. They're standing on a cliff, watching the waves crash onto the sand below. He can almost feel the power of the surf beneath his feet—the ocean stretches out towards the horizon. It's beautiful, maybe, but it's not where he feels at home.

"This is big. Very big. Could get a lot worse, depending on how things turn out. I'd be careful."

"Keep telling me that," Jason mutters, as the dream dissolves around him. It's something to keep in mind, but cryptic warnings in his sleep aren't particularly helpful right now.

"Who are you?" Jason demands. "You've been following me since I got to camp." His sword wavers, but he holds it on the defensive. The Titan isn't going to stay down for long. Already, the long slashes are starting to draw together, golden ichor clotting.

The teenager rolls his eyes. "Not the time for this. We take him together," he says, gesturing at the Giant. "Only a god and a hero working together, remember?"

"You're a god?"

"Yes," the god said. There's something sad in his sea-green eyes. "Stupidest decision I ever made, really." He uncaps something—is it a pen?—which grows into a bronze sword in his hand. "Together?"

"Fine," Jason says. "Together."

They charge.

Celestial bronze and imperial gold and lightning and seawater smash into Enceladus, all at once, bleeding him into the dust. Jason fights like he can't remember doing so, his body knowing what to do. The god fights like his twin in a silvered mirror—almost identical, but not quite. Their styles are drastically different, but it's clear they both know what to do. Their blades wreak destruction, and this time, Enceladus stays down.

Porphyrion, King of the Giants isn't dead. He's returned, and is regaining power. Ivlivs has been snapped by him—to Jason, that doesn't feel like a victory. Not particularly. But Hera's saved, and that night, after the celebratory feast at Camp Half-Blood, he isn't surprised to find himself in Cabin Three again, listening to the murmuring of the saltwater fountain.

"Here," the god says. He reverses his grip on the bronze sword, and holds it out. Pale, golden ichor drips between his fingers as the keen edge of the sword lightly grazes him. Jason stares at it. "Take it," the god orders, "Before I change my mind."

Jason reads the reluctance in his eyes. He wouldn't have wanted to give up Ivlivs to just anyone either. "It's your sword," he says, at last. "I can't do that."

"Take it," the god insists. "I'm not the one on a quest."

"Am I?" Jason wants to know.

The god snorts. "You think this is the end of it?" he asks. "It's just the beginning. You've got a lot of things to do."

Jason's fingers close around the leather-wrapped grip of the sword. It's longer than Ivlivs in its sword form, and leaf-shaped. He swings it, once, twice, testing it. It's perfectly balanced in his hand.

And yet it isn't Ivlivs. Something about the blade feels foreign to him, as if it isn't quite meant for him to wield. "Its name is Anaklusmos," the god adds.

Riptide, Jason thinks, translating from Ancient Greek to English. He offers the god a nod. "I will bring it back when…all this is over."

"Good luck."

"I suppose you can't really do anything about that?"

"No," the god says, with that tired smile. "I'm only a minor god of the sea. Luck, miracles—I don't do any of those."

By the next visitation, he knows enough to know who the god is. And then, it all makes sense. "Percy Jackson," he murmurs, in greeting. The lost camper, the one everyone doesn't like to talk about.

"In the flesh," Percy acknowledges, "So as to speak."

"Why are you helping us?"

"People are going to die," Percy says, quietly. "And some of them are my friends. There's only so much we minor gods can do, but that means that the gods don't watch what we're doing as closely. And…" he hesitates. "You remind me…of who I was."

"I heard. You were the demigod son of Neptune. Everyone talks about you, you know. But they say you left Camp Half-Blood. Most of them don't say why."

Percy nods. He has to know the next, obvious question. Still, he says nothing, waiting for Jason to ask.

"What happened?"

"They offered me godhood." Percy's voice is bitter. "I took it."

They fight, back to back, against Ephialtes and Otis; Jason wielding Riptide, Percy with a blade that ripples to the vision, as though it's made from seawater. A trident-shaped blast of water skewers and pins Ephialtes, hampering him for the moment, while Jason carves and slashes, forcing Otis into a corner so Percy can deal the death blow.

Working with a god, Jason thinks, even a very minor one, has never been so strange. So natural.

And then, Ephialtes parts Jason from Riptide. It's only temporary, Jason thinks, his head ringing as he slams into a pillar of the arena, but Ephialtes isn't willing to give him that moment of space to recover and attacks again and—

The earth shudders beneath his feet.

He slips. He's falling. He catches himself on a stream of winds, rights himself and holds out his hand. Riptide appears in it, borne by the wind, as lightly as though it were a feather. He struggles with all his might to call it, and finally, finally, the storm answers.

Jagged, forked lightning smashes down in the arena, drawn towards Ephialtes and Otis, coruscating white-hot. He breathes ozone, and the bars of white light leave spots on his vision for moments after. Percy, he realises, is still kneeling, sword pressed to the trembling earth.

The Earthshaker, he thinks, for no particular reason. Neptune is called the Earthshaker by the Greeks.

He lunges forward to deliver the coup de Grace.

Ariadne's death throes would bring down Annabeth, drag her into the yawning maw of Tartarus, except that the loop of spider silk misses. Or rather, it's severed, neatly sliced by a seafoam blade and Annabeth manages to right herself in time.

Percy clings to the ledge, just barely. He's overreached and lost his balance, in his bid to save her. He doesn't look particularly troubled by this.

"Percy, hang on," Annabeth exclaims. "Jason, do you—" But the javelin, Ivlivs, has long been snapped by a King of Giants and there's no way they can fish him out. He's too far down and for some reason, he's smiling.

"It's what Ares said," Percy tells them, matter-of-factly. "They'll kill me. And I'll come back again and again. You need someone on the other side to shut the doors of death. This is the only way."

But it's Tartarus. No one survives, or comes back from Tartarus, the place of punishment. Not even a minor god of the sea.

Annabeth's face is stricken. Too late, too late as always, and now everything is out of shape, everything changed forever.

"I love you, Seaweed Brain."

"I know," Percy says, simply. "See you from the other side, Wise Girl."

He sees it, for a moment: what he'd seen the first time he'd looked into the eyes of one of the Fates. Himself, growing old, the rattle of dirt on his coffin. It's too late to take back that choice now.

He lets go.

N.B. This is somewhat fragmentary, in part because I rescued it from the bowels of my hard drive. I think I intended to flesh it out into a proper fic but never had the chance/time/inclination. So here it remains, in somewhat skeletal form. I've taken the liberty of filling things out a bit.

-Ammar.