Hola! So because Rick Riordan has me wrapped around his little finger, I am SO EXCITED for The Trials of Apollo, which are coming out in April. I considered writing a fanfiction about the possible quest et cetera we'd find in that book, but I ended up writing this instead- which shows that no matter how excited I am, I am also terrified. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. You can pretty easily type in 'Trials of Apollo sneak peak' and find a snippet of the first chapter to read- which I recommend you do. That's where the characters of Meg and Apollo come from, more or less.

Show Me a Hero

Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.

-F Scott Fitzgerald

« Have you even tried doing anything on your own before coming to track me down? » Percy said. "Or is calling me and stalking my parents' apartment automatic now?"

"This is serious," Apollo said. "I need your help on this and it's the least you can do to repay me for everything I've done for you."

"Everything you-" Percy walked away, scratched the back of his head and took ten deep breaths, and turned back. "You're a god. You've been to Camp Half-Blood before, you know how to get there."

"Not without magic," Apollo said. "Though my powers will be fully restored in 7 days, if my father knows how to keep a promise…"

"Don't you have any drachma on you, or did you leave that in your spare toga? You could hail the Grey Sisters' cabs and-"

"Please," Apollo said, wrinkling his nose at the mention of that infernal taxi. "You said it yourself. I'm a god."

Percy Jackson looked discouraged. "My cousin's at Camp. Jason's a great guy, he can help you out and he's probably super bored without an entire legion to run anymore-"

"He's my brother," Apollo said. "That's just awkward."

"I can think of a few more awkward things," Percy mumbled to himself. His eyes landed on Meg, the terrified looking half-blood Apollo had picked up on the streets. Speaking as the guy whose mom had been kidnapped by a minotaur on his first day as a demigod… He couldn't just leave her at Apollo's delusional mercy before she was even claimed.

"Mom," Percy called out. "At what time is Paul getting home? Also do you think he'd let me borrow the car?"

"A car?" Apollo asked.

"What, do you think we all have sun chariots on demand?" Percy asked. "Besides. I washed that car last Saturday. It's the cleanest it's ever been."

Percy was going through his closet to find something small enough for Meg to wear -spare Camp shirts, outgrown baseball jersey, hoody shrunken in the dryer, leftovers from his girlfriend, that kind of thing- before setting her up for a shower. Apollo had been told that he could wait, and had been told to wait specifically on the living room couch and not to touch any of the books littering the living room, lest he lose someone's page or ripped out a Post-It.

"There's a lasagna in the oven."

A woman wandered out of the kitchen where she'd been hiding out since Apollo and Meg had crossed her threshold. She had changed from her smart work clothes to a pair of well-loved jeans and an enormous cardigan, though her hair was still elegantly pinned up, and she was nursing a cup of tea. It took a while for Apollo to associate her voice to the woman who'd buzzed him up, and even longer to associate this sweetheart of a woman to Sally Jackson. Sally Jackson, semi-legendary figure who periodically appeared in Olympian gossip to this day as the woman who enchanted Poseidon right out of his oaths before you could say doomsday prophecy. Woman who'd admirably raised a Child of the Big Three and lived to tell the tale.

"I have a lasagna in the oven," she said cautiously. "Were you and Meg going to need some food as well?"

"That won't be necessary," Apollo said. "Percy will be bringing us to camp as soon as the car arrives."

"I see," Sally said. "And after that?"

"I suppose he'll be coming home," Apollo said.

"No," Sally said grinning at her shoes before looking back up. "With all due respect, I've dealt with gods before. What's going on?"

Apollo didn't reply much. Mortals didn't often need answers from the gods.

"I never ask," Sally promised. "Percy tells me everything in his own time- it's better for him, it's healing in a way. If he can't control the things that happen to him over and over, he can control the conversation. But you talking him into bringing you to camp is going to lead a more, you wouldn't be here if it didn't and there's… there's something in the air."

"You're strangely perceptive," Apollo said.

"I see through the mist," Sally said. "I know that something's wrong, and you're here acting like a god and making demands like a god, but without the aura of an Olympian. Not even a minor god, or a demigod. You look mortal to me. Something bigger is happening. Just tell me, is it dangerous?"

"We won't know how it will be until much later," Apollo said. Sally nodded anxiously and took a sip of tea.

"He made the swim team this year," Sally said. "Well, 'made'- that was never the hard part, it's just that he never cared enough to try out before. He got an 89% on a biology test the other day, it's on the fridge. He got a promotion at work, he's Head lifeguard on Monday nights and Saturday mornings. He took his girlfriend out to dinner the other day and they came back home without having to unsheathe a single weapon. He and his friends played lazer tag the other day and the sounds and lights didn't make him think of the war. He had a blast and his score card says that he was the top-ranked player of his game- that's on the fridge too."

"That's nice," Apollo said politely.

"It is," Sally said. "It's more than we have ever hoped for, for him. I know that it's all trivial, mortal things to you and that within a century you won't even remember him, much less me, but Percy's mortal life is still a life. And he's living it well; my son is so happy right now. Please… keep him safe. Bring him back to his biology tests and early morning shifts."

Though not all mortals with the sight could additionally see the future or manipulate the mist, they all seemed to border along the edges of all these skills. Once Apollo got Meg and himself to Camp it took about an hour for Chiron to declare a quest, unprecedently led by a god, and Apollo immediately said that he would bring Percy and Meg with him to look for the missing Oracle. Luckily they had a good, solid list of places they could check.

"They know about the missing oracle already," Apollo said. "And I mean, that's not news that I want going around."

"It's a school week," Percy grimaced. But Rachel Elizabeth Dare was his friend, and so he found a child of Hephaestus to drive the Prius back to New York, and said he had supplies in his cabin and if they left tomorrow, he might make it back in time for his shift that weekend- which was his way of saying "why yes, I would enjoy the unimaginable honour of questing with Lord Apollo!"

And so they were off!

A quest! How exciting! The poets were sure to commit this adventure of his to paper and create the newest epic!

"Just like the good old days," Apollo grinned. "Why, I haven't had a good quest since I led the Trojan armies!"

Meg mumbled under her breath: "And Homer said: 'Sing, O muse, of the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Trojans'…"

Apollo and Chiron looked at her both.

"Sorry," Meg said. "I read a lot, libraries never kick you out, and my memory's pretty good. I know lots of quotes."

Percy burst out laughing and Meg smiled shyly.

What a winning cast of heroes! What a thrilling task! It would be an instant classic, Apollo could tell.

The first day of questing had been disheartening, to say the least.

For starters they'd had to take the train like lowlifes, and the only reason they were off of it now was unfortunately not a happy turn of fate but because of a very, very large scorpion that had forced them to jump off in some sort of suburb. Who knew that it took only a few seconds for monsters to track down powerful half-bloods and blow up all their equipment? It was a good thing that Apollo had been holding onto his bow, and that Meg seemed particularly attached to the spear she'd woken up with at Camp- perhaps a gift from her unusually silent immortal parent? Apollo bet she was a child of Aphrodite, that lunatic always took forever to claim her offspring.

Questing was decisively funner in the good old days, when the only thing sneaking up on you were some good old Aecheans in those big wooden horses.

"Water," Percy said. "Dehydration is worst than going hungry."

Meg, veteran street kid that she was, nodded and pushed a strand of blond hair from her face.

"Water is the driving force of all nature," she said.

"Who said that, Meg?" Percy asked looking around.

"Leonardo di Vinci," Meg said.

"He was a child of Athena," Percy said. "I trust children of Athena, as a rule. Sure, sometimes they get obsessive and power-hungry and egotistical and they have a tendency for insanity or drug addiction, but they're always brilliant. My girlfriend's one."

"I thought Poseidon and Athena hated each other," Meg said.

"Did you read that at the library too?" Percy asked with a grin.

Meg looked incredibly different after showering- her eyes were clear, her hair shone, her features looked just as sharp but less… hungry? It made her look a lot less scared and a whole lot saner.

"There," Percy said, leading them to a square house, smartly lathered in blue and white paint. He and Meg hopped the fence and wandered to the house. Percy twisted off a watering hose and turned on the spout, splashing cool water in Meg's cupped hands.

"Seriously?" Apollo laughed.

Percy swallowed his gulp of water. "You're mortal too, now. You've never had to interpret anything your body's ever told you, but you need water. Meg, pass the water bottle?"

"Is there not a maybe nicer -oh, I don't know- a fountain, perhaps?" Apollo said.

"'It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change'," Meg recited. "Leon C Megginson."

"You heard Leon C Megginson," Percy said. "Get over here or I'm bringing the water to your face myself."

Night drew nearer and they were set up in the basement of an abandoned farm house a long, long walk away from their farm house.

"You're sure you can handle first guard?" Percy asked Meg, like a big brother might ask his little sister if the sketchy boy holding flowers at the door was causing her any trouble.

"For sure," Meg said. "I mean, I've been sort of useless all day, you're the one who needs to sleep, I'm not much good at fighting…"

"Hey, it's your first day at being a demigod," Percy said. "We've all been there, and you're doing great. It'll get pretty dark though, your main job is to keep the fire going. That's not a fun one on your first night out…"

"'The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind isfear, and the oldest and strongest kind offearisfearof the unknown'," Meg said.

"H.P. Lovecraft said that," Apollo filled in.

"I mean, yeah, I'll be alright," Meg said. "I'm used to keeping fires going. I've got this. I'm just going to go outside for a second, double-check the locks on the door… You can go ahead and get to sleep."

"Wake us up if anything feels weird, okay?" Percy said.

"Wake him up," Apollo said. "If you have a very good reason."

Percy looked at him annoyed, and he turned back to Meg. "Anything. At all."

Meg nodded and hurried away. The basement was quiet and dark and the floor was uncomfortable. This all made Apollo fairly homesick, so far away from Olympus, and thus very lonely.

"So," Apollo said, tucking his arms under the backpack that was doubling as a pillow. "You and Annabeth Chase, right?"

"Right," Percy said. "That's not news. What about it?"

"Well, just wondering if I could get any details," Apollo said. "There are lots of rumours flying around Olympus. Daughter of Athena, Son of Poseidon, passionate arguments, fiery tempers, intense emotions, and all that alone-time on quests…"

Percy starred at him long and hard before turning on his other side, flipping up the hood of his Goode High Swim Team sweatshirt.

"I'm sorry, I can't do this. We are not having a conversation about my sex life," Percy said. "Goodnight."

"Is this the Labyrinth?" Meg asked excitedly as she looked around the tunnels in the ground. "There is no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one, Jorge Luis Borges…"

"I don't think so," Percy said. "We wrecked that a while ago."

"You wrecked the Labyrinth?" Meg asked, jaw dropped.

"I'll tell you later," Percy said looking around. "This feels like old sewers to me. Sometimes cities build new sewers and fill the new ones later, when they've got money in their budgets to pay for the infrastructure- and sometimes they never do at all. Sorry, my girlfriend's an architecture nerd."

"We should probably get out now," Meg said. "While we still can, you know?"

"Your fear of confinement and commitment is proving to be an invaluable tool for your demigod survival," Apollo noted. Meg made a face-funny how Percy Jackson was a corrupting feature in the absurd amount of devotion that she had initially allocated to him.

"I didn't mean just that," Meg said. "I mean, on the list of traditional sanctuaries or hiding places for oracles, wasn't there Colchis? King Minos' palace with all the tunnels and rooms with no doors built into it? You guys keep talking about things moving from country to country wherever Western civilisation lies, and wouldn't the closest thing we have to secret underground tunnels be sewers?"

"Way to make America sound like the most boring place on earth," Percy said. "But I think you're right, Meg."

"Even so, I sense nothing," Apollo said. "No signal from the oracle…"

He hesitated a bit. He wasn't a god anymore. He was human- terribly so. Was his faith that he'd still be able to sense his oracle warranted?

"We can move on to the next place, I guess. Whoa, Meg, are you bleeding?"

"Not much, I just cut myself going down," Meg said. Percy took off his sweater and wrapped it around Meg's arm after deciding that 'not much' was worrying enough.

"You have a tattoo," Apollo noticed. Percy looked over his own shoulder, peeking at the back of his arm, as if to confirm.

"Oh," Percy said. "Right. Yeah, after the Roman thing on my arm, I figured my Mom wouldn't care if I got a second one."

"What does it mean?" Meg, who did not speak, much less read, Ancient Greek yet asked.

"Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man," Percy said.

"That's Homer who said that," Meg quoted. Her mind was a bibliography.

"I got it after the summer. Annabeth helped me pick it out," Percy said. "It just felt… I'll never forget it, but just in case." A flash of darkness passed over his face, and Apollo wondered if it was even half as dark as Tartarus had been.

"What happened last summer?" Meg said. Percy grinned at her awkwardly.

"We probably shouldn't talk about it while on a quest," Percy said. "The fates don't like stuff that."

"Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like. Lemony Snicket," Meg said, pouting after being cheated out of a good story. "But just to be clear, I still get to hear about the Labyrinth tonight, right?"

Percy grinned. "Right."

Percy was examining the list of possible hiding places for the Oracle of Delphi that Meg had scribbled on a loose candy wrapper they'd found floating in the wind. Meg insisted that lists helped to trick your brain into making any amount of work seem simple and accomplishable, according to psychological studies. Apollo wished that they didn't need tricks to make this quest seem feasible…

"We're running out of easy answers," Percy said showing Apollo the paper. Big X's drawn in aggressive red sharpie dominated the list.

"What's left is what we feared most," Apollo said. "Kings and Queens often abducted the priestesses of Delphi- or Pythia. They fell in love with them and such nonsense."

"If someone had fallen in love with Rachel, she would have either fallen in love right back or given them a piece of her mind," Percy said. "That can't be it."

"The only other reason you would harm an oracle, an oracle that is overall neutral and seeks to enlighten the masses and work for the common good, would be for a political advantage."

"That doesn't make sense either," Percy said. "For starters, we don't have kings and queens in North America. I mean, even when this place just got discovered, the only kings and queens were in Europe. The Native Americans didn't have nobility like the Greeks did. What's our equivalent of royalty? How would they recreate the politics of Ancient Greece in a place that already has its own?"

"By changing everything," Apollo said. "We are regressing."

Percy put the list down. "We can't. We can't disintegrate into city-states, squabbling about everything and never communicating. That's how the Greeks did it and it didn't work. It made them weak whenever there was no common enemy to hate. They needed the League of Delphi or the Trojan War to band together, but that can't be true now. We need to be connected to each other. We need to work as one."

"I'm afraid that while they were here, the kings and queens that Gaia resurrected in her army may have poisoned naïve minds," Apollo said. "You have to admit it, Percy. Even your mortal senses can pick up on the fact that things are changing."

"Not if we stop it," Percy said. A light burned in his eyes.

"You're right," Apollo said. "Not if we stop it."

"The monsters literally smell us?" Meg asked Percy. They'd decided to have a Lesson in Mythology during their train ride, since Meg needed a break from her cartography and none of them could figure out the puzzle in front of them.

"They do," Percy said.

"That's… wicked," Meg said. "And you smell a lot?"

"I do," Percy grinned. "That's why they don't leave me alone. The more powerful you are, the more you smell."

"So what does Apollo smell like right now?" Meg asked. Apollo pretended to be sleeping because he was in no mood for this discussion.

"I don't know," Percy asked. "You could ask the harpies at camp, when we get back."

"Cool," Meg said. "Is there any way to hide your smell? You know, to go undercover?"

"Not really," Percy said. "You can stick around someplace safe, like Camp. Hang out with friendly monsters so their scent covers yours. If you move around, the monsters will have trouble tracking you down."

"But if you settle down and go to school and get married and have a bunch of kids and find a cool job…" Meg said. "What then? You're just a sitting duck. Out in the open!"

"Sort of," Percy said. "I mean, yeah. You are. That's why not a lot of demigods grow up. I mean, when we do, we're pretty kickass. We act and sing and dance and build and invent and create and lead and defend and pioneer shit left and right."

Even as he tried to tune them out, names and faces flashed in the back of Apollo's mind.

They were pretty kickass, these half-bloods. Apollo had only been mortal for a few days now and he admired how they managed to carve out little lives for themselves in the midst of all this nonsense.

"But how many of us get there?" Meg asked.

Percy didn't answer.

"We all try really hard," he said at last.

Apollo, Meg and Percy broke into Grey Towers Castle, Philadelphia- one of the oldest castles in North America. It just so happened that Philadelphia had also briefly been the capital of the United States.

This was where the pretend-king who held Rachel had set up shop, according to Meg's careful overlapping of an American map and a map of Ancient Greece, using key landmarks such as Olympus and the Underworld as points of reference. Thank goodness she was completely gaga about Percy's stories, and thank goodness she was clever and enough of a psychiatrist-in-training to put herself in an Evil Pseudo-King's shoes.

They could see it all from their hiding spot on a balcony in the library- women dressed in blazers and pencil skirts, men in pricey golfing clothes, business tycoons and starlets who'd married and retired filthy rich… He'd thought about demigods parading around the adult world on the train ride, and because of it Apollo noticed that all of the guests gathered in the study were adult demigods, all of them now out to divide North America up like their motherland had once been.

It was a sick kind of conference, and they were all about to sign some kind of contract to destroy Camps Jupiter and Half-Blood before they got in the way. They all boasted impressive monster or satyr bodyguards to try and throw their weight around, and Rachel Elizabeth Dare was in chains by one of the kings-to-be. The oracle of Delphi: the ultimate leverage. Everyone seemed to gravitate around Rachel's particular handler.

"We need backup," Meg said.

"We don't have it," Apollo said. "It's just us. We need to stop them from signing that contract- it's more binding than an oath on the Styx, it's an oath on the Earth. The second it's signed, they will not -can not- stop. They'll be unstoppable- powers greater than themselves will work through them to make sure that this coup d'état happens. Even if everyone in this room dies, the fates will find a way."

"Apollo," Percy said, "you think they're all demigods?"

"I recognise a few of them as, umm, as my own," Apollo nodded.

"Alright," Percy said. "And since they're still in-the-know about the godly world enough to orchestrate this plan, they should know about me, right?"

"Percy, you can't go in there!" Meg said. "You can't just pretend to want to be a king! I mean, it'd stall alright, but they'll eat you alive- those monsters alone will be all over you…"

"I'll be fine," Percy said. "I can take care of myself. I'll stall them just long enough. Apollo, your powers will be back in, what, five minutes?"

"Five minutes," Apollo said.

"Five minutes is nothing," Percy said. "I can stall for five minutes in my sleep. I'll be okay, Meg. Say something inspiring about greatness."

"A victory without danger is a triumph without glory," Meg said. "Corneille. He was a French playwright."

"I trust the French," Percy said. "Apollo, give me your jacket, it'll look more serious. Oh, and your sunglasses."

"Don't lose them."

"If we make it out of here alive, you owe me fifteen pairs of these," Percy said as they swapped clothes.

Meg adjusted Percy's collar. "The human eye is naturally attracted to movement- pace, use your hands, they'll pay attention to you more. Be confident. Keep your story simple so you don't mess it up, and try to include a half-lie if you can."

"I've lied before," Percy said. But Meg ploughed on.

"Liars turn their bodies away from the person they're lying to and they touch their face a lot, so don't do that or they'll all know. When you reply, make sure that your sentence structure doesn't echo the question, liars are psychologically predisposed to doing that."

"Meg, I'm glad you're a psychology nut," Percy said. "Thanks. Just keep an eye out on me. Apollo, as soon as you're back to 100%, you need to send Meg, Rachel and I back to Camp and blow up these idiots. But not before- we can't afford you getting hurt or dying when you're human. If you come fight, I'm going to kill you myself."

"Use your true form," Meg advised. "Like Zeus and Seleme."

"I think I'm the expert here on blowing up humans, here," Apollo said.

"Okay, so do it," Percy said. "If I get in trouble down there… nah, don't worry about it."

And with that, he disappeared.

All credit for their survival went to Meg.

Percy strode in confidently, suave and cocky and witty. He deplored not having been invited and having to find this 'little family reunion' through the grapevine. When he was questioned, he rattled off his list of titles and quests (which should have taken up five minutes all on its own, honestly) and said; "If anyone deserves something from the gods, if anyone wants to change what the gods have given us- you bet your fancy titles that it's me".

Just like that, thanks to some great acting, practise and the fact that he hadn't touched his face or turned his body away from his audience- Percy was absorbed into the discussion. He asked questions and bullshited something or other about geography that was actually vaguely impressive to Apollo (and totally his girlfriend speaking through him). He followed Meg's tips perfectly. What gave Percy away?

Why, one of the dracanae guarding the political science professor from Harvard had been on the Princess Andromeda, and she chose to voice her concerns just as Percy was making a bid for New York City. No doubt, the boy wanted to make sure that his home city would be safe with him even if their crazy plan did fail.

"The boy liesssssss. The Olympianssssss offered him immortality after the war with Kronossss and he declined. His ssssservice to them is limitlessss," she piped up. "To thissss day he hasss friendsss on the Mountain. They guide him even now."

All hell broke loose that moment. Apollo fired an arrow at the dracanae and she went down, though the damage had already been done. Percy drew Riptide and hopped onto the conference room table, ripping the sunglasses from his face. There were just two short minutes left before Apollo's powers came back.

"Who are you going to believe?" Percy asked. "Me or the dragon lady? I mean, I got an 89% in biology the other day, whereas Dragon Lady is all about this crazy plan of yours to turn everything we've fought and bled and cried for into a warring mass of city-states and civil wars…"

The first hellhound to pounce at Percy was sliced in two.

"Dragon Lady it is, then," Percy said. "Come on. We're all half-bloods here. I don't want to hurt anyone, just listen…"

The second hellhound was also sliced in two, and after that there was no more talking but that one, crucial piece of information had come out already: We're all half-bloods here. I don't want to hurt anyone.

Apollo managed to shoot most of the demigods who tried to step up on the table and confront Percy, though most stepped back and let their monsters leap and bounce at him. Apollo shot at those too, but it wasn't enough. Meg took off her watch and gave it to Apollo.

"Don't take your eyes off the timer! You need to get us out as soon as you can! I'm going down there to help!"

"Meg-" Apollo said. But he couldn't shoot and stop her at the same time, so Meg jumped down from the balcony and charged into battle. She wielded her spear with unmatched speed and wickedness, and even those who were simply grazed and not injured seemed to wither at the spear's touch- their eyes went blank, their mouths hung open, they seemed to lose all perception and knowledge of the world around them…

Meg's party trick was holding up. A good discovery, that one.

Apollo kept shooting, but the monsters kept coming and the clock wouldn't just hurry up and tick. That's when he was grabbed from behind and hauled off his shooting crouch. He kicked wildly and roared in anger as he watched one of the henchmen snap his bow in two. His bow.

"Well, well," the hopeful Queen of Washington said. "Shooting from the darkness, are we?"

"PERCY!"

Apollo flopped like a fish out of water and managed to crane his neck to look down at the conference table. Percy had dropped his sword. Blood blossomed on his Swim Team sweatshirt- on an ambiguous spot that may have been his arm or his chest, Apollo prayed to whoever gods were meant to pray too that it was his arm.

Percy collapsed and Meg swept her spear around dramatically, her eyes panicked. Still, she managed to hit Percy's attacker and reduce him to the blubbering, vegetative state. He was a demigod, the first demigod to climb on the table. Percy Jackson had faltered when it came to hurting a demigod, and now there was blood on his sweatshirt. It was his first year on the Swim Team.

There was a tiny little beep from the ground beneath Apollo. Meg's watch-the timer had beeped. Apollo suddenly felt as if he'd woken up from a hundred years of beauty sleep. He had forgotten that no matter how tired and hungry and weary and thirsty and sick mortals could get, being a god was the epitome of being alive. Forever.

"Not for long!" Apollo told the crook holding onto him. They immediately screamed and let go of him; their hands seared beyond repair by a fraction of the sun's heat. Apollo landed in an elegant crouch, and he yelled out; "MEG! Grab Percy!"

Meg stabbed a Cyclops in the chest before falling to her knees and wrapping her arms around Percy. Apollo sent them away, and Rachel too. And then…

Well, Meg was a smart girl. Like Zeus and Seleme, Apollo revealed his true form and just like that, an entire plot to take over North America and reduce it to a primal set of kingdoms… Well, it was reduced to ashes.

Apollo didn't stick around long after the fire department reported for duty before popping himself back to Camp. Or at least, he didn't think he did. But when he barged into the Big House, he found a sweaty, pinkish, battered Meg sitting in the hallway and crying her eyes out. She was obviously drained after using so much power, but something... something else was wrong.

"Meg, what-"

She looked up at him and shook her head. "He was badly hurt from the fight. They nicked an artery, he was bleeding so much, and he lost so much blood on the way here, he's… Percy…"

Not to be careless, but Apollo pushed past Meg and went to the infirmary.

But like he said, Meg was a smart girl. Percy had lost too much blood. Even the healing god couldn't do anything for him.

He sat on the porch, waiting to talk to Chiron once he finished talking to Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood, Jason Grace, Piper McLean and a handful of others who were having quite a bad day. A shadow passed over the Big House- as if Nico di Angelo had decided not to put up with this kind of bullshit news and shadow-travel away.

Meg sat on the porch too. Will had treated her for shock put a cold press against the back of her neck and had tended to her smaller cuts and scrapes, but when he'd recognised his father he'd left Meg alone with a glass of nectar with a bendy straw in it. Apollo was starving, but he could wait instead of spoiling Camp's stash.

"Meg, what's wrong with your eye?" Apollo asked her.

"Just a cut," Meg said miserably. "Will took care of it."

"No, I mean… Your eyes aren't green?"

Meg touched her eye. "Oh. I guess I lost a contact lens."

"You wear contacts?" Apollo said.

Meg nodded. "My family may have left me on the streets, but the last thing my Father said to me was that I always needed to hide my eyes. It's the only advice, the only thing, he ever gave me. I figured I had to follow it."

It wasn't a hard puzzle. Her memory, her knack with quotes, the way she'd spotted patterns between the Ancient World and maps of the USA, her obsessive fascination with psychology…

"That's because your eyes are grey, Meg," Apollo said. "There's only one goddess known for her grey eyes, and that's Athena."

"The goddess of wisdom?" Meg asked. "That's my mother?"

Apollo nodded. Suddenly he realised why Meg hadn't been claimed the second she'd walked into Camp. Athena always knew these things…

"Meg, Percy's girlfriend -Annabeth, you know how he always talked about her? Annabeth's a daughter of Athena too."

That made Meg cry even harder. Apollo put his hand on her knee.

"She's going to miss him so much Meg, and you will too. You're going to have to take care of each other. Talk to each other. Miss him together," Apollo said. "You were Percy's friend, he died for you- but he had other friends here. Go to Chiron and the others. Go grieve with them."

Meg did, and Apollo sat on the porch alone.

Meg knew the story as well as he did, and she had her place at Camp much more definitely than he did. Chiron knew where to find him if he needed to know more.

And so Apollo left. He didn't go to Olympus quite yet, but he didn't stay at Camp for long.

Percy had managed to keep a wide enough part of his existence mortal, admirable; so once he was dead, the need for a mortal funeral could not be ignored.

It was a closed casket funeral, partially because the opposite was beyond morbid, and partially because the casket was technically empty due to the previous traditional Greek funeral. But as school children, distant Blofis relatives with guilt complexes, shifty and nervous half-bloods, and family friends clustered around the grave, there was still a sense that something very important was being tucked away, into the earth. The thunder rumbling in the distance was Percy Jackson's last lullaby.

The crowd cleared slowly, but Apollo watched for a long time. He watched Jason Grace put his arm around Annabeth and say "Let's go back to Camp, the satyrs smell monsters coming and nobody wants to fight today" before leading her away to a camp van. He saw Sally Jackson unwrap her scarf and use it as a blanket as she sat on the ground, by the gravestone. He saw Paul Blofis drape his coat around her shoulders and shiver and wipe his eyes at her side for a long, long time until the thunder got too close and he told her that she couldn't stay out in the rain and that he was going to go get the car, so she didn't get sick. Then there was just Sally Jackson's small black outline, alone in the cemetery until Apollo joined her. She heard him coming and was mostly uninterested.

"I told you," she said looking at the stone. "I told you my son had a mortal life. I gave you so many good reasons to keep him alive."

"He died a hero," Apollo said. The poets seemed to like to say that, about demigods.

"That's because he lived a hero since nobody would let him be a boy," Sally said. She wiped at her eyes. "I am so proud of him. I always was. He was a good person, but I wish… There were so many good things about him other than the powers and the swordplay and the prophecies. If only that would have been enough for you gods-"

"For us gods?" Apollo interrupted.

"Percy had a happy life and now, because of you gods pushing and pushing, he has nothing at all!"

Paul chose a good moment to make his reappearance.

"Sally, I have the car," Paul said, touching her arm lightly. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but we have to go. I don't want you to get caught in the rain."

"In the rain," Sally echoed. "That storm- it must be Poseidon. He was so angry when he heard. You are walking right into the eye of that storm by going back to the Council, My Lord. Your quest worked, didn't it? You are going back?"

"I am," Apollo said.

"Good," Sally said. "Good. So you can walk back in there like the god that you are and deal with the politics and the chaos and the backlash which is so huge that there is a storm even if Percy hated storms and now there's a storm on the day of his funeral-"

Paul caught her at a good time, and Sally Jackson fell apart before the sky even broke.

"Ma'am," Apollo said. Paul turned around, shooting Apollo a venomous look.

"Look, I can't see through the mist at all, so I don't know who you are and what you want, but leave her alone," Paul said. "This is the worst day of our lives. Leave."

And that was the last that Apollo ever saw of Percy Jackson's family. A woman whose tears poured through her closed eyes as her husband gently buckled her into the car, and rain spattering against a blue car with a Pegasus dent in the roof.

"I made you mortal so that you'd learn a lesson," Zeus said, joining Apollo at the balconies overlooking New York City. "Not so that you'd make such a mess."

"I didn't try to make the mess," Apollo said. "And I did learn something."

"Seeing as I doubt it, please share," Zeus said.

"When you are mortal, time… you feel it. When you're a god, you walk through it. When you're mortal, you swim against the current. It's harder. It's difficult. Days feel like forever when you're hungry or sick, the nights come too soon when you know you need to keep going. But at the same time… Those few days of questing went by quickly."

"So what did you learn?" Zeus said. "Those are facts, Apollo. Not lessons."

"Who are you, Zeus or Athena?" Apollo said. He looked back to New York City; the city that never slept.

"Here's the lesson," he said. "Time is so fickle for mortals; they can't afford to waste any of it. And they have so little of it, in this world, we need to keep it good. For them. For their little lives to go well."

Zeus nodded.

"Now, here's your homework," Zeus said. "Was Percy Jackson's death enough of a lesson for you to remember that, or will he be another senseless tragedy? Heroes are good at being both. Chose wisely."