A/N: So, this is a re-write of my two previous PJO stories—Story of my Life and Life, or Something Like it.

It'll be a blast from the past because this is going to take place from The Lightning Thief to The Last Olympian. I have yet to finish Heroes of Olympus and have been unable to keep up with that series thus far. This will change very soon, though.

Anyway, as I was saying, a re-write. Difference: this will be one story, no AUs to AUs or originals, one story, one AU (sort of; you'll see why), featuring Luke and the OC I created for the past two. This will also be a bit more angst-y and sound more mature because my OC is considerably older than Percy was in TLT. Not only was I a novice and a newb to writing fanfic, I think I was trying too much to write like Rick Riordan. Only problem, my OC isn't Percy and I'm not Rick Riordan.

I will be keeping the other stories up, for comparison, nostalgia, for my old readers and other reasons I wouldn't be able to put into words.

Hope you enjoy!

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stormy Sailing

I didn't want to be here.

But I didn't want to be anywhere else either.

It was loud and chaotic, but at least their voices were many. It had become an indistinct roar of twittering voices. I didn't have to hear individuals and I had no way of making out their words with so many talking at once.

I didn't want to hear about the half-blood that had slayed the Minotaur anymore. I was tired of it. It'd been a few days and still it was all the camp seemed to be able to talk about. Not only that, but they had, of course, started theorizing. We may have been half god, but that didn't make us any less human. And humans loved to talk, chatter, gossip and speculate.

If I heard this boy being the son of the "Big Three" one more time I swear I was going to—

Instead of preparing for my afternoon archery class with Chiron like I should've been doing, I was in the Hermes cabin, sitting on one of the bottom bunks (something I'd earned for being at Camp Half-Blood for so long), knees pulled up to my chest. I had to make a conscious effort not to rock back and forth, lest I look like a madwoman. I concentrated hard on this, staring at a spot on my bunk, my arms wrapped around my legs tightly.

In other words, I was trying to avoid the gossip as much as possible going on around camp. If that meant dealing with rowdy, noisy, mischievous children of Hermes and doing things to the last possible moment then so be it.

I heard the door open but paid no mind until I noticed the movement of a mass out of my peripherals. I inclined my head slightly to look around the cabin and noticed everyone bowing respectfully to Chiron, who was standing outside. I quickly slid off my bunk and bowed as well, before going back to it, only sitting on the edge instead of in the middle. My hands rested on either side of my legs on the edge of the bed, too, holding me up as I leaned forward, hunching my shoulders slightly, and I stared at a spot on the floor this time. I let my light blonde hair fall to partially hide my face.

Not that I really needed it. With it being so crowded in here, the rest of the kids would hide me in my little corner. Especially if they stood and I sat. Of course, that wasn't entirely the case. Some stood and some had sat back down since bowing to Chiron. Still, I had perfected becoming a wallflower.

"Well," I recognized Annabeth's voice. "Go on," she prompted. There was a moment of silence before the cabin broke out into a chorus of snickers and stifled chuckles. I didn't look up to see what had happened.

"Percy Jackson," Annabeth's voice rang through the cabin, as if she'd stepped inside, which in all fairness, she probably had. "Meet cabin eleven."

Another small moment of dead air.

"Regular or undetermined?" I called from my spot, not moving at all, not even my head to look up. I knew it was a question on everyone's minds and someone had to ask it. Since no one had yet, I decided I'd do us all a favor and ask.

"Undetermined," Annabeth answered, followed by a collective groan from the cabin. I suddenly recalled a small empty space having popped on the floor in here. That must've been for him.

Someone sat down next to me and gently bumped my shoulder. My hand came up to brush the hair I'd let fall in my face back behind my ear—stupid nervous tick—before I looked over to see who'd joined me and my eyes met with beautiful, glittering wintery blue eyes.

Luke.

Looking into his eyes now brought me back to the first time I really looked into his eyes. Before then, we'd barely talked to each other. He kept to himself and Annabeth. I kept to myself and my twin brother, Daniel.

Camp Half-Blood, gods, Greek mythology, real weapons and real monsters, all of it was almost too much at the time. It was overwhelming, having never been exposed to them before this. Save once. And it hadn't been a particularly good experience either. So I and my brother, with our mom gone and an absent godly father, used each other as a crutch to make it through those first few months without completely falling apart.

I'd seen Luke because he'd been living in the Hermes cabin. Dan and I hadn't been claimed, so we were put there, too. I didn't meet him my first day I was there seeing as the Hermes cabin was as crowded as ever and he hadn't been the head counselor. I didn't even officially meet him in the first week. He was just another face in the Hermes cabin. I saw him there, in passing and sometimes in activities. Other than that, we both went about our lives pretty separately.

It had been the end of the first week at Camp Half-Blood. Chiron told me, my brother and a few other half-bloods that had also shown up around the same time we came that after a week of training with a multitude of weapons, in his class, they held this little… test of sorts. Like a final exam.

It was dangerous, but not so that anyone had died from it yet. Majorly injured, but not dead. I had wanted, at the time, to ask him what his definition of majorly injured was—in fact, I think I had—but he suddenly became hard of hearing.

The test was this: We were sent out into the forest, along different paths. In the forest were summoned monsters that we would encounter and fight. We were given the weapon that we'd been fairly good at throughout this first week to see if we could be moved up into the next class for that particular weapon.

Chiron said not to worry, though, because we'd have more skilled campers to help us if the need arose. They were also there to watch and give Chiron their evaluation after it was all over.

We were sent in, one at a time, periodically, so that our presence would be staggered and hopefully we wouldn't run into one another or into the same monster. I was third. Unlike the two before me, who seemed pretty amped to be doing this, I crept through the bushes and trees at a slow pace.

My senses had flared to hyper-alert mode. If a shadow moved, my head turned in that direction. I heard every little stir of bushes and rustle of leaves. I treaded carefully, trying to figure out where I was and where I was planning on heading, with an arrow nocked in my bow in case I needed to act fast.

Yes, I was given a bow and a quiver of arrows, because I'd shown an affinity for them during our initial training. So had my brother. No surprise there, we were twins.

This so-called test was insane. Everyone at this camp was insane. I was insane. Gods, monsters, centaurs, satyrs, naiads, wood nymphs, it was endless. And it was all real. You'd think I'd have accepted this fact, but apparently I hadn't. Not completely, anyway.

The rustle of leaves, followed by a low growl stopped me in my tracks. Chills rushed down my spine as I looked to my left out of my peripherals, but didn't dare move, didn't dare breath. I'd recognize the sound of that growl anywhere.

Hellhound.

My pulse pounded and I swallowed hard, trying to listen over the roar of blood in my ears. Breathing, I could hear it breathing. It was relatively large, then.

I took a deep, shaking breath, feeling my muscles coil ready to spring into action. I could do this. I could face my fear, my demon, literally and figuratively. I could do this.

Quick as lightning, I raised my bow and arrow as I turned, taking a few steps back, away where the rustle had come from.

At my movement, the thing leapt out from the bushes it had been hiding in, coal black lips pull back over its muzzle, revealing slimy, slobbery razor-sharp teeth. My heart stopped and so did my breath.

All hellhounds must've looked almost exactly the same. Ink-black fur, those sharp-as-knives teeth and its eyes—

I blinked hard and looked away from its eyes. No, I couldn't look at its eyes. I felt my world tilt slightly and my ears rung with echo-y, far away screams and I'd barely even glanced at them.

I raised my bow again, for my arms had somewhat dropped at the sight of the thing, keeping my eyes on the point on its forehead I was going to shoot.

I could do this. I was going to do this. I was going to overcome my fear.

It lunged at me and I was just about to let my arrow fly when I made the mistake of looking into its glowing, lava red eyes again.

My mind panicked. It all came flooding back to me, into my head, like a movie playing behind my eyes that I couldn't stop, couldn't escape from.

The image of the hellhound flying through the air at me blurred, replaced by horrifying flashbacks. Screams filled my ears. Moving, pulsing black covered my vision before being spattered with blood red.

The screams got louder.

A woman's voice, shrill and terrified. A name mixed in with her cries of agony, her cries of help.

"Please! Help me! Apollo, please! Please! Apollo, help me, please! Apollo!"

I sucked in a sharp breath as my vision snapped back into place. I was on the ground now, the hellhound hanging over me. I somehow had managed, through my haze, to put my hands around the hound's neck, keeping its now snapping jaws from anything vital.

It wasn't nearly as big as the one I'd seen before.

I didn't know where my arrow had ended up flying and my bow obviously wasn't in my hand. I was too busy trying to stay alive, though, to really care. I vaguely wondered where the camper who was supposed to be helping me was when the monster reminded me that its paws were still free.

It swiped at me and I turned my head away. A sharp pain blossomed in my neck, followed by a warmth that spilled down the cool skin of my neck and onto the forest floor. I don't know what I was thinking at the time, but my right hand suddenly came away from the hound to cover the wound on my neck. My other hand, not strong enough to hold up the monster alone, buckled, letting the monster fall fully on top of me.

Its previous flailing paws landed hard on either side of my head. Its face got right into mine and I thought for sure I was a goner, but it yelped suddenly before falling to its side, off of me, and melting into the shadows in the forest, just like the other one.

Meanwhile, blood continued to pour out, through my fingers, and the summer sky and trees above me spun. Light blue mixed in with spring green and dark brown.

My breathing became more erratic and I tried to blink away the watercolor sky.

An artery, I thought a little absentmindedly, though I didn't know where that information had come from. The hellhound's claw had only nicked my neck, but it had nicked an artery in my neck. I was going to bleed out in seconds.

I was going to die.

It was then did I finally see Luke, really see him, for the first time.

I would find out later, Luke had sprinted from wherever he was to me, getting rid of the monster before kneeling down next to me, putting his hand over my bloodied one as more of that vital fluid poured from my substantially small wound. He had turned his head away and yelled something too, but I was too far gone already to know what he'd said. Then his eyes were back on me. His lips were moving, but no sound from what I could tell was coming out. So I focused on his eyes.

His blue eyes had been wide and concerned—for me, when we'd barely known each other?—and I wasn't sure if that's why I'd finally realized how lovely they were or because I was losing so much blood, my life slowly ebbing away as it did so.

They reminded me of winter, of crystal clear ice that's been frozen over a mineral blue lake.

"You have beautiful eyes," I remember myself saying before promptly passing out.

Luke suddenly gave my knee a reassuring squeeze—breaking me out of my memory—followed by a reassuring smile before standing up and making his way from my bunk and over to the newcomer.

"Now, now campers," he said loudly, knowing how annoyed and tired they felt to have even less space in this already crowded cabin. "That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy." Ah, so that was his name. "You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."

I looked over my shoulder and sure enough, there was the empty spot I'd noticed earlier. I then looked over at Luke.

He was nineteen years old. He was a tall, muscular guy with, as I said, wintery blue eyes and short-cropped sandy hair. He always had a smile for everyone, though I'd noticed after spending about a year with him (and after), it was very forced. He was a good actor, because no one else had seemed to notice, if they had, no one ever said anything. But I had and since then, made it my goal to make him genuinely smile. From our first meeting to now, I'd managed it a few dozen times or so, and counting.

After that whole encounter with the hellhound and almost dying, it was in the infirmary, where he came to visit and apologize for not getting there sooner, did we finally actually exchange names.

I was good with a bow, but I had also wanted to learn swordsmanship, and Luke had already become an assistant teacher in those classes. I realized, later, when sparing with him, that it was because he was good.

He was much better than I, for some obvious reasons and some not so, and it intrigued me. When he fought, he got a very determined, very concentrated look on his face. His technique was that of someone who'd been doing this before. It made me wonder what had happened before he came here.

He was a very mysterious character when I'd first met and got to know him. Now I knew him like the back of my hand.

My eyes slid over to Percy (a much younger, tanned boy with jet black hair and odd sea-green eyes) for a moment, just in time to see an unsettled look cross his face. At a guess it was probably due to Luke's scar. A scar that started just below his right eye and went all the down to his jaw, received from a dragon. It had taken a long time for me to get him to genuinely smile after that incident.

We had both arrived at Camp Half-Blood only a few weeks apart, so I'd known him before and after the scar. We were also both year-rounders. As was Annabeth.

"This is Luke," Annabeth introduced. My eyes strayed to her. She was blushing. I turned my head back to the spot on the floor, smiling and rolling my eyes. A lot of girls blushed when Luke was around. The Aphrodite girls (and some boys) wouldn't shut up about him.

We had shared intimate moments, exchanged secrets and confessed our deepest, darkest thoughts. We both had scars from our past, physical and mental and we'd grown close over the six years together. But, right now, we were just best friends. I wasn't sure if he wanted to make it something more and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to, either, so right now it was locked off in a room in the far recesses of my mind. I had more important things to be thinking about.

"He's your counselor for now," Annabeth finished, her voice harder than before. I suspected it was because Percy had looked at her. No doubt he'd noticed the change in her voice, too. He may have been young from a glance, but he wasn't that oblivious. Especially when Annabeth didn't exactly make her crush a secret. I'd bet you ten gold drachmas the whole camp knew.

"For now?" Percy asked.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained in a carefully crafted, practiced patient voice. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here." I unconsciously started mouthing along as Luke continued his little speech, having heard it so many time before. "Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

There was a long pause before Percy spoke.

"How long will I be here?" he asked.

"Good question," Luke replied as I scoffed under my breath. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The cabin broke out into laughter this time.

And I was late for my archery class.

Original story idea was formed from "Lost in Your Own Life" by Alexa Vega. The title and part of the summary is from the song "So They Say" from Dr. Horrible. I thought I'd stick with this "story and life" theme I had going on.

If you don't know Dr. Horrible and go listen to the song, it won't make too much sense, and it'll also sound really upbeat and happy, don't be fooled, though, because I find it has some very sad undertones. Which is also why I named this story after one of the song's lyrics.

Also, I now have a section on my profile page for in-progress story updates. If I miss a day (if I ever get on a schedule) or if I'm taking too long, you can go check that section out. It will be clearly labeled and so will the section for this story in particular.

Well, it's good to be back in the saddle. I haven't posted anything in so long, I forgot my sign off!

Thank you for reading,
TheBrightestNight