Disclaimer: I donot own PJatO, HoO, or ToA.

"I don't know Percy, I think you should just start working on your Masters after this." It was an argument that Percy and Annabeth had been having since the start of the last semester, and unlike most, it didn't seem to have an easy resolution.

"It's just been really hard Annie. I barely scraped by this year." He sighed, frustrated. "I kind of just need to take a break. Maybe a year, year and a half?" His breath curled around him in the frigid January evening as he made his way to their apartment.

"The sooner you start, the sooner it's over with." He huffed in exasperation, pulling his scarf up to cover his nose and picking up speed. "Besides, at this rate I'll graduate a year early, if you take a break you'll be even more behind."

"Hey! I'm not behind, you just skipped a grade. Overachiever." She giggled making him smile fondly. He could imagine her, feet in the air and covered in her favorite pair of fuzzy socks, as she worked on her Structural Design homework. A five page essay on what the strongest shape was.

"Alright, you caught me. Did you get the milk?" Percy was about to respond 'Of course I got the milk, it's the only reason I went out in -10 degree weather, so we could bake this cake,' but a sharp scream from the alley a few feet ahead of him distracted him. "What was that? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine. Hey, listen Annie, I'll call you right back." He hung up before she could respond, dashing to the source of the noise and accidentally dropping his phone. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but a mugging was not it. Maybe a chimera or a manticore, but the perpetrator was just a regular guy. Either way Percy's instincts kicked in and before he really knew what was happening he was attempting to wrestle a knife from the would be robber's hands.

The girl he saved ran as soon as she was able and Percy was pretty certain he could take the guy. He was smaller than him, and his eyes were panicked. He didn't seem to know what to do with his body. Percy finally got the knife away from him and granted himself a second to grin in victory.

His triumph didn't last for long. The stranger's face contorted, a mixture of fear and fury, and a crack sounded through the alleyway, reverberating off the brick. Percy looked down, surprised, and saw the blood blooming on his shirt before he felt the pain. And boy did it hurt. He dropped to his knees, unable to keep standing, as the shooter stood there, panicking.

Percy reached for him, trying to keep from falling on his face, but the man bolted leaving Percy to land like a sack of rocks. His head was getting a little fuzzy, but he was pretty sure he broke his nose. In the distance he could hear his phone ringing, that stupid Ed and Taylor collaboration that they always had to dance to. Their song. But his phone was a couple yards away and Percy was finding it harder and harder to keep from losing consciousness.

His last thought before everything went black was hoping that the cops got there soon.

"Hey, Jackson, wake up." He groaned, rolling over and finding a weird woman standing over him. She didn't look like a police officer or a paramedic, if anything she looked like one of those grungy kids that went to poetry clubs in the middle of the night. "Good morning sunshine, you look like crap."

"Well, I did get shot. I think." He pushed himself up, surprised to find that his chest didn't hurt and his nose was not throbbing.

"Yeah, and I mean, you did die." He blinked at her slowly, glanced down, and jumped away from his body still lying lifeless in a pool of his own blood.

"Shit!" She laughed, patting his shoulder gently.

"I get that a lot." She then pulled out an iPad, all business. "So, Perseus Jackson, 22, son of Poseidon, savior of the world," she paused, reading down a bit. "Twice. Good job." Percy scratched the back of his head, more than a little confused.

"Uh, thanks?" She chuckled, putting her tablet away.

"I'm pretty sure I should be thanking you silly. So, you definitely qualify for Elysium. I mean, you probably already knew that, but -"

"Isn't this Thanatos' job?" She tilted her head and Percy wondered vaguely if he had offended a goddess. Again. Because she was most certainly a goddess.

"For normal people. But I'm Makaria." Percy stared at her, unsure what that was supposed to mean to him. "Goddess of the Isle of the Blessed and the Blessed Death? I guide heroes to their resting place." He had never heard of her. Of course, if Percy knew anything about Greek mythology, it was that he didn't know much about it at all.

"Okay… And you're sure I'm dead?" She laughed again, like she thought he was joking. When he didn't join her she paused, a smile still playing on her lips.

"Well, you look pretty dead to me." He crossed his arms, brow raised and looking at her expectantly. She huffed, pulling her iPad back out and scrolling down furiously. "Honestly, save the world twice and he thinks death doesn't apply to him. Of all the ungrateful- Oh." She stopped, pursing her lips.

"Oh?" He asked, brow raising impossibly higher.

"If you must know, youshouldn'ttechnicallybedead." She wouldn't look at him, and he was starting to get a headache. Which he thought was a bit unfair since he was already dead.

"What was that?" She glared at him, huffing in annoyance as her golden eyes flashed.

"You shouldn't technically be dead." He wasn't really sure what to say to that.

"How does that even work?" She rolled her eyes, like this was all a huge inconvenience for her when he was the one lying dead on the ground and he wasn't even supposed to be dead.

"It says here that you were supposed to be so distracted by your conversation with one Annabeth Chase that you walked right past the mugging. Girl loses her wallet and suffers a non fatal stab to the shoulder." She put the device up again biting her lip. "So… Do you want to be dead?"

"Of course not!" He sputtered, looking at her like she was an idiot. She sighed, looking dramatically off into the distance.

"Yeah, I figured." She plastered a too bright smile on her face, and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. "That leaves us with a couple of options then. How do you feel about chilling at the bank of the Styx till I get this figured out?"

He shrugged out of her grasp and frowned. "Can't you just, I don't know, undead me?"

"That's not how it works. I have to go through customer service."

"Customer service?" Percy was not impressed. Makaria scowled, pulling out her phone and hitting the three button. Percy couldn't help but think that she must not be very good at her job if customer service was on speed dial. It rang for a solid minute before a message picked up.

"Due to the amount of inbound calls, all of our lines are busy. Please expect a wait between thirty minutes and fifty years." Percy's jaw dropped.

"Oh, this keeps getting better." He eyed Makaria speculatively. "What's the other option. Besides waiting in the underworld for up to fifty years." He said it like a dirty word, voice dripping with irritation. Even in death the gods were messing with him.

"Well," she drawled, worrying Percy even more. "I know this guy. He'll probably let you crash with him till this gets sorted." She placed her phone, still ringing, in her bag and patted his shoulder gently.

"Can't I just go home?" She laughed and he was starting to hate that sound.

"No silly. If you aren't in your body and you aren't in the underworld, you need to stay attached to your soulstone." She held up a glowing blue gem that radiated warmth and drew him closer like a magnet. "And only someone from the underworld can keep it in the physical realm. So, you need a babysitter." This was all getting more and more exhausting, and Percy wasn't sure that just staying dead wasn't the easier option. His phone, still lying on the street behind him rang again and his resolve hardened.

"Alright, let's meet your guy." She nodded, grabbing his arm and melting both of them into the shadows. He should have expected this, having shadow traveled with Nico before, but it still left him surprised and nauseous. They landed outside of Birdbath Bakery on Spring and Lafayette.

"Sorry, just gotta pick something up real quick." Her form shimmered, dark skin and silver hair taking on a more solid state and making him realize how ghostly he really looked.

"Can't it wait?" She frowned, swatting him gently.

"No, it's a birthday cake. It has to be delivered on their birthday." He sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets as he followed her into the bakery. The clerk seemed to recognize her, waving excitedly before running into the back to bring out a huge cake. It was almost half as tall as him. Makaria thanked the clerk and handed him a card, a black visa.

She tipped two hundred percent and with that they were off, leaving a stuttering grateful mess in their wake. "Now, I think we can walk the rest of the way. It's just five minutes south, on Broome St." Percy shrugged, and they were on their way.

"I could hold that for you," he offered, noticing the way people were looking at her carrying the cake easily with one hand.

"It would be more suspicious since no one can see you," she waved him off. Makaria was right about the distance, they made it in three minutes flat. "Just wait out here till I talk to him. He can be a bit… cranky." Before Percy could tell her that maybe he did not in fact want to stay with her cranky friend she was gone.

Nico was still unpacking boxes when his big sister materialized in his living room, a giant box balancing in her left hand. He set the books on the shelf as she deposited her package on the counter and rushed to embrace him. "Happy Birthday Nico!" She was practically singing as she squeezed him close.

He returned the hug, wrinkling his nose. "You didn't have to get me anything, helping me with the new place was enough." She pulled away, pouting. He shook his head and pulled her back in for another hug. "Not that I don't appreciate it."

Makaria squealed, planting a loud kiss on his cheek before dragging him over to the confection. "It's your favorite. Dark chocolate." His eyes were wide as she opened the box, revealing the dessert. "Six layers."

"You are the best." She grinned, preening under the praise.

"The best enough to do me a tiny, itsy bitsy favor?" Nico was pulling down plates and serving two giant slices as his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"That depends. What's the favor?" She threw herself dramatically on the couch, sobbing as she did so.

"Oh, it's terrible Nico, just terrible." He sighed, chuckling a bit as he joined her on the leather sofa, handing her the piece of cake. She accepted it and stuffed a huge bite in her mouth, continuing her story. "I accidentally reaped someone a bit early, and now, I need a place to hide them." Nico fought to keep his face straight as she lamented around the cake, looking absolutely ridiculous as she did so.

"So, just let them stay by the Styx for a while. Problem solved." She batted her eyelashes and he knew it was not going to be that easy.

"Oh, but it gets worse. They don't want to wait in the underworld. They were so rude to me, as if it's my fault that they had to go and die before they were supposed to. Daddy will be so cross if he finds out, and I just know this person will march right up to him and complain. He's terribly rude like that." Nico was positive his dad couldn't be cross with Makaria if he tried, but then, neither could he.

"I guess I could help out," he hedged, not wanting to get dragged into this when he was finally out of the underworld and living on his own. "But only for a little while." She beamed at him, throwing herself at him and dropping her cake unceremoniously onto the floor.

"You are the best little brother a girl could ask for." He shook his head, exasperated.

"Well, let's see this terribly rude person." She went to the door and opened it, ushering in whoever had been waiting out there.

"Come on in, he's agreed to help." It was Percy fucking Jackson.