The Lady In White

Do you, Perseus Jackson, take Annabeth Chase to be your lawful wedded wife?

I do.

Will you love, respect and honor her throughout your years together?

I will.

Do you, Annabeth Chase, take Perseus Jackson to be your lawful wedded husband?

I do.

Will you love, respect and honor him throughout your years together?

I will.

"And I'm afraid that's where you're wrong." The lady in white smirks with lips painted heavenly pink, then laughs girlishly.

Percy wakes up suddenly, his heart beating erratically. He sits up, and his hands fly to his face, feeling the features that hadn't aged for more than a year. His breathing is labored. He runs his hands through his black hair as he attempts to get up, but soft hands wind around his waist, stopping him. Those pale, beautiful hands stroke his chest and push him back down on the bed.

Percy doesn't protest as she slides on top of him, naked. "Did you dream of her again?"

Percy looks away. He tries to find something to stare at, to feign interest in, but there's nothing more interesting than the goddess on top of him. He tries to think of the girl he had once loved, the one with the princess curls and the wise grey eyes, but she's a distant memory by now. He has lived so much in the past year that even the pain of her departure means next to nothing now.

Dainty fingers stroke his chin. Percy makes the mistake of looking at her. She is gorgeous, pale but gorgeous, delicate but strong in a way only a goddess could be. She kisses the corner of his lip, her eyes boring into him in a way that makes him catch his breath. Every time he looks into those eyes, he understands why there are so many demigods roaming the streets. Immortals are intoxicating to mortals and demigods. The gods' beauty isn't easily matched. She tells him he is beautiful often, but he thinks it has more to do with what he has accomplished in his life than with his outward appearance. In that case, his beauty wouldn't be like hers.

"Percy, won't you answer me?" She nips at his earlobe, making him shiver. "Please?"

"Yes," He sighs.

She presses their bodies together. "Why?"

Percy knows she won't desist until he answers, so he does. "I don't know."

She's unsatisfied and she makes this known by kissing him harshly and biting his lip until she draws blood. "And now?" She licks her lips. Percy can taste some of his own blood. It excites him, which he finds odd. Percy finds odd that he finds that odd; everything she does excites him, from drawing his blood by biting his lip to killing his girlfriend slowly by freezing her blood.

"I'm supposed to love her."

Percy expected her to become angry at her answer, but she takes it in stride. "But you don't, do you?" She purrs.

"No." Strangely enough, he isn't lying. He doesn't love the girl she had thought he would one day marry. He feels responsible for her death, he feels as if he should love her, but he knows he doesn't. His heart belongs to the goddess draped in silk and diamonds, to the goddess that had broken his friends and kept him as a prize.

He wonders sometimes… "Do you love me?"

Percy's eyes widen by the smallest fraction. It's the most surprise he has felt in a while. He shouldn't have asked. He doesn't want to know the answer. He thinks he wouldn't stand it if she told him no, but he also thinks that the guilt would be too great if she answered yes.

"Please don't answer that."

She moves on top of him, creating fiction between their naked bodies. Percy wants nothing more than to slide his arms around her and bring her closer than she is, so he does. He moves on top as she buries her head on his shoulder, and he can feel her smile.

Percy finds her lips. They are soft, like all of her. "I feel about you the same way you feel about me." Right then, he wishes he didn't know what that was.

He has to say something. "I'm sorry to hear that." It's a stupid thing to say, he knows, and he isn't sure what he means, but Khione seems to find it amusing.

"So am I."

Percy, help!

It hurts! What's happening?

Is my blood—is that my blood?

I'm freezing, help me!

What are you doing, Pecry?

Why… aren't you helping me?

I love you.

Again, he awakes from a turbulent sleep. Unlike the million other times this has happened, Khione isn't here with him. Percy expects her hands to find him just before he has a chance to get up from the bed, but he does this successfully. He looks at the empty bed sadly. For once since… everything… he is without her, and he doesn't like how it feels. He has gotten used to her, but he doesn't want to go back to the way things were before she had swept him into a life with no sun; only winter.

There is no Annabeth to run back to.

No Olympus.

Percy is tired. He knows they had lost the moment Khione had succeeded in spilling Hazel's and Frank's blood over the marble steps of Mount Olympus. Gaea and Ouranos had awoken, and Percy hopes that sooner or later Ouranos betrayed Gaea and sent her back to sleep. He knows for certain the gods are lost.

Khione is cold and untouchable, decked in white silk, her hair perfectly styled in a fancy up-do despite having killed dozens of demigods already. "Percy Jackson, I finally have the pleasure of meeting you."

"I don't share the sentiment." He's more formal than he would usually be, more polite and detached than he is used to being. He thinks he's going into shock, and that's why he's so calm.

Khione cocks her head, but gives him a feline smile. "Yes, I like you."

The compliment catches him off guard, alarm bells ringing in his mind. He wants to ask what she means, but he know she wants him to do that and he doesn't want to give her the opening. If she wants someone to do what she wants all the time, asking the questions she wants to be asked so she can act high and mighty, she shouldn't have killed Octavian a few minutes ago. Percy won't give her what she wants even if it costs him his life, specially because she'll take it anyways.

Khione is in front of him in a flash. She fists her hand on his shredded shirt and yanks him up seemingly without effort. "So cautious. Not everything is a game." Percy smiles at her, not believing her. Of course everything is a game. He certainly doesn't understand most of it. Not even the children of Athena do, so how could he? Immortals would be immortals. They would scheme regardless of who was in power.

Khione smiles. She isn't smirking, but actually smiling. It's beautiful, but he chides himself for thinking such a thing as soon as he does. He smirks then, as if she'd heard his thoughts, which she probably had. "Yes, I like you."

Poseidon still rules the sea, which is something he has Percy to thank for. His father is looking down at Atlantis from one of the balconies in his palace. Percy stands besides him, observing the merpeople and oceanids milling about their days, so different from the state it was in a year ago, when Gaea's forces had destroyed it completely, or two years ago, when Oceanus had almost succeeded.

"Thank you." There's emotion in his dad's voice.

It's one of those times. Poseidon does it once every few weeks. Percy knows when to expect it, and he'd known it was coming for days now.

"I did the best I could."

Poseidon looks at him, kindness written across his face. "It was enough."

Percy disagrees. It isn't enough. Zeus is trapped in Tartarus, as are the majority of the gods. Poseidon, Aphrodite and Khione are the notable exceptions. Khione had always been on Gaea's side, and had been one of the key factors in the fall of Olympus. Aphrodite had been forgiven because she was technically the youngest daughter of Ouranos, and hadn't resisted once it had become clear that the Olympians would lose. Poseidon had retained his power because Percy had begged Khione and because Gaea had always had a soft spot for him, apparently.

Percy looks down at the abalone floor, then meets Poseidon's eyes when he looks up again. They agree to drop the subject with that glance.

"Percy, I would like you to meet—"

Percy cuts him off. "I can't, remember?"

Poseidon stares at him as if he was speaking a different language before realization dawns on him. It's always the same. Poseidon never remembers because he doesn't want to remember. He prefers to forget the lengths Percy had gone to achieve their freedom.

Percy has to tell him. "Don't blame yourself. It's not so bad."

Poseidon shakes his head. "What has the world come to?" A beat of silence when they both think about that. "My eighteen-year-old son giving me advice on how to lead my existence."

His lips quirk up, but he stops himself from smiling. "Dad," he says seriously, waiting for Poseidon to cease in his laughter. He sobers up at his tone. "I love her."

Poseidon doesn't understand at first. When he does, he says in a mourning tone of voice, "I'm sorry to hear that."

Percy stiffens. "Isn't everyone?"

She's hurting me!

Don't do it!

You know it's wrong!

You can't do this!

This isn't like you, Percy. Your fatal flaw is loyalty. You can't betray us!

You can't betray me!

Why are you doing this?

Percy visits Aphrodite next. At first he thinks she is Khione, but then he feels the heat of the sun on his back, and he knows it's not. By her very presence Khione brings snow, winter and cold. Percy finds he misses it as badly as he sometimes misses the sea. He has been away from Khione for five days, and now, looking into Aphrodite's coffee-brown eyes that are far less coy and mocking than Khione's will ever be, his time away from her comes back to haunt him with a vengeance.

Percy doesn't know he has wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her off her seat or that he has crushed their lips together until Aphrodite touches his shoulder gently and the illusion of Khione is broken. She still looks like Khione, but her hand is warm and unlike his lover's.

"No, Percy." Her voice is melodious and soothing, having the same almost-drugging effect Khione's has, but he figures that's a goddess thing and not a Khione-thing. "I think she'd be upset about this."

His hands are still wrapped around her waist. She moves her head to the side slightly, her hair brushing against his fingers. He runs his hand through it then wraps it around his fist, yanking her head to the side so that he's able to kiss her neck. Aphrodite smells like Khione. "Are you sure about this, Perseus?" There is no judgment in her voice. It's serves more like a statement, a final resistance before she can plead innocent to Khione when she inevitably finds out about this.

Percy wants to tell her to shut up. Her voice is like Khione's, but Khione wouldn't be saying those words to him. She wouldn't be asking for confirmation or giving him the choice to decide anything. When Percy does decide anything related to Khione, it's because he dares to challenge her and go against her wishes, which he does more often than he probably should and much less than he likes.

Aphrodite is a force of nature, a being he can't contend with at his age. He's a god now, but a young one and Gaea hasn't seen it fit to give him power to rival Aphrodite's. She completely dominates him in a way Khione hasn't been able to in a whole year. There's no escape even as there is time to think. By the end, Aphrodite probably comes to know his body much better than he does. He had hoped that it would calm the ache he had begun feeling for Khione in the past few days, but it's only more brutal now. Being with Aphrodite made him understand how much he doesn't fit with anyone as much as he does with Khione, including the goddess of love.

Percy comes up gasping for breath, his body shaking from the lack of oxygen. The water runs down his face and his black hair sticks to his forehead in that way he had always hated and hadn't had to deal with since he was twelve.

He is shoved down, his back hitting the floor. He almost thanks Zeus because at least that past of his torture was over when he remembers that Zeus had been fighting Typhon last time he'd checked, and that was a few hours ago. Percy coughs, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He blinks his eyes open and falls into chocolate and coffee.

"Have you had enough yet?"

He doesn't answer, glaring at her with red-rimmed eyes from the salty water. His eyes throb and his vision is blurry. She had done it on purpose, so that he could feel the difference with painful intensity. The sea, always his haven, no longer answered to him or Poseidon; the beautiful sea was Oceanus' and Percy wasn't welcome in it… Though he can barely see and the saltwater is mixing with his tears, he can make out her outline and the thought of her lustrous dark hair doesn't leave him alone.

Khione lets his silence be his answer. She grabs him by the neck and flips him so his face slams against the cold ground. "Is that enough, Percy?" She laughs cuelly.

His nose is bleeding. Perhaps it is broken.

He waits for her to hurt him again, determined to not beg her to stop. He doesn't want to sink that low. He doesn't have the energy to look around for her, especially because his eyes still weren't seeing properly. Slowly, he relaxes, his breathing slowing down to slightly above it's usual rate. Percy is contemplating mustering the energy to sit up and get somewhere safe when he feels feminine hands stroking his back.

Immediately, his muscles tense back again. He almost whimpers before he bites his lip so strongly that he bleeds.

"Don't be that way," she coos. She slides one hand beneath his shirt. Clucking, she does something he can't see and he feels his shirt disappear. "There, isn't that better?" Percy feels her weight on him, her breasts pressed against her back. It's a new feeling; Annabeth had never been direct. "Do you want me to heal your eyes?"

Percy wants that very badly. He feels vulnerable without his vision, and he has never been as good as Annabeth at listening for attacks. He relies on his vision more than anything else. He doesn't beg her, though, because that would be like admitting Olympus had fallen. Perhaps it is foolish of him, but he thinks that as long as he keeps on fighting, even if he is being tortured and is miserable and just wants to die… he thinks that if Percy Jackson keeps on living without submitting to Gaea that the Olympians would rise again. Isn't he the focal point in the fight against them?

"That's foolish."

Oh. She'd heard that.

"Of course."

Bitch, he thinks, and the world goes cold. Then hot. Then cold again. It's more than he can bear, and he succumbs to the darkness he has begun likening to the depth of the hostile ocean Poseidon no longer controls.

For the first time ever, he understands why some people hate the sea.

Percy hadn't known why he had come to Aphrodite, and a day later he doesn't know why he ever felt the need. He is going back to what was once Alaska. He is going back to Khione.

"Aphrodite?" Percy whispers in her ear, hoping she was awake.

"Go to sleep, Perseus." He tightens his arms around her. She snuggles closer to him.

Percy ignores her order, just like he does to Khione's. "Do I love her?" He doesn't know what would be worse: to love Khione and be loyal to Gaea or to love Annabeth and be stuck in the past.

"But of course you do, silly." Aphordite nips at his neck, and Percy can only think that perhaps yearning for blonde hair and grey eyes would have been the kinder fate.

For the first time ever, he's reliving the events leading up to her death. Sleep is his enemy now.

"Make a choice. Make the choice." Khione snarls, shaking him furiously. When he doesn't respond, she slaps him and the blow is so strong his head snaps back

"I can't." He feels ashamed of the way his voice quivers.

He is expecting harsh words veiled behind a soothing, sweet tone. Khione doesn't bother. Instead, she yanks him up into the air, her hand gripping his throat all the tighter. Percy gasps for breath, but doesn't even have the energy to raise his hands and try to claw her fingers off.

"Son of Poseidon, Gaea won't wait much longer."

He wants to tell her that it won't matter in the end, but he knows it will. I will matter.

Khione sinks her nails into his neck. Percy's body convulses, but she doesn't loosen her grip. "Fine. I didn't want to do this." She throws him a few feet in front of her, then kicks him down a hill. His head bumps against the ground again and again, then hits it one last time with a crack. He's disoriented, but Khione's merciless hands yank him up and forces him in front of a blurry scene. His vision clears, and Percy shuts his eyes tightly, loath to see whatever she considered would break him. He knew it would, if she thought it would be worth the trouble of fixing his eyesight.

"Oh, that won't save you, Percy." He experiences the drastic changes that seemed so common to the goddess of snow. Now she's cruel to others but not to him. She's flirty. She's dangerous and that's what Percy likes the most about her; that she isn't good for him. He had seen her like this before, and in his mind he sees the smirk she had given him when she told him he liked him for the very first time, though he will later find that the cruel smirk's Khione's, but the flirty innocent is someone else.

Chione's hands run up his back to rest on his shoulders then down his arms. She's behind him. He feels her flick back her hair and set her chin by his neck. "Those are some terrible marks, Percy. Let me heal them and… a little surprise." She giggles, tracing a finger by the bruises she'd left on his neck. At the same time, Percy registers a shrill scream coming from nearby, familiar in its pain, and he almost throws up. He's getting seduced by a mad goddess, but his girlfriend was in pain, and he'd completely forgotten about her.

"I'm upset."

Percy freezes mid-step. Not literally, but he stops and turns back to face a very angry goddess. He's been expecting her to blow up when he saw her again, but he hadn't wanted to talk to her yet, afraid of what she might do to him once she got him alone.

"I didn't mean to." He hope that it's enough to calm her down.

"Like I should believe that."

"She looked like you."

There's a brief pause. Then she's in front of him, her arms wrapped around his neck, her body fast against his. "Really?" There's something almost childish in her eyes. Her face is flushed slightly, and she looks gorgeous but untouchable. This is Chione. Not Khione, but he loves her anyways. It's still her. He loves her desperately. It doesn't matter if she's Khione or Chione. He would love her one way or another, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

Even if Annabeth's screams haunt him at night.

A/N: This is unedited, and perhaps I shouldn't have published this quite this soon, but I wanted to publish something. If you're waiting for me to update one of my other stories, go look at my profile for updates. I update it so that people know why I'm not updating my other stories. Also, vote on my poll, please. If you voted on it before, vote again. I took the other one down and added the plethora of new stories I'll hopefully write over the holidays.

Anyways, this was supposed to be a challenge response for both of the prompts on FanMortals but it didn't work out that way. I'm going to be judging Best Romance for the Phoenix Awards Round Nine, and noms are going to open in a while, so go nominate! Go vote when voting opens up!