See No Evil

The liquid darkness encases him, oily as ever. He's reminded of Rome, and drowning in that nymphaeum with Jason and Piper. He was powerless then, and he feels powerless now.

He can't breathe. He sucks in tar.

He wakes, the sheets tangled round his legs. The darkness remains.

It happened when they'd thought they were safe. Tartarus quietened down for the evening (or the morning, or perhaps midday - it was impossible to tell). All was still. Annabeth lit a fire.

Then all hell broke loose.

It was a flurry of claws against celestial bronze, and Percy could feel the weight of the monster crushing him. He stabbed wildly, crying out in triumph as he felt the blade slide through muscle and break bone. Dust showered him and he backed away hastily, looking to find Annabeth before the monster could reform. They needed to get out of here.

She was battling a drakon. Her eyes flashed quicksilver and her dagger missed its heart by a hair's breadth. Percy ran to help. He took two steps, then two more, before a thrashing tail knocked him off his feet.

Oh, gods. There had been three. Three.

Riptide clattered away from him. He was caught beneath a monstrous claw. Pain erupted across his chest, and the world was blurry as he saw the drakon rearing back, preparing to strike again. The talons hurtled down like thunder and -

And then there was nothing. Numbness overtook agony and his father's tide pulled him swiftly out to sea.

There is a knocking on his door.

"Come in," he calls, his voice rasping like sandpaper.

A creak. Footsteps so light and fleeting he knows they're Annabeth's. "Seaweed Brain," she whispers by his ear, and he curls towards her touch, reaching up with shaking fingers to trace her eyes, her nose, her lips.

He feels the bumpiness of her scars, then tastes the warmth of her breath as she leans in and kisses him. "Love you," she says as they break apart, and he smiles. He thinks she's smiling too.

When he'd woken, he thought he was still dreaming. The darkness was absolute.

"Percy?"

"Annabeth." He sat up gingerly, groping for her hand. The wound on his chest pulled tight and he groaned. "Where are you?"

There was silence. "Percy, I'm right here." She sounded scared. He could smell something burning. "You're looking right at me."

Slowly and with a sinking heart, Percy reached up and brushed the heel of his hand against his eyes. The space where they had been felt dislocated and bruised, like it was no longer a part of him. His breathing became heavier. His hand came away sticky with blood.

"Annabeth." She approached; he felt her soft breaths warm against his cheek. "Annabeth, what's wrong with me?" He felt her touch his eyes carefully, then tremble. It was all the answer he needed.

"Annabeth," he said.

"I know." She curled up against him. The salt of her tears reached his nostrils.

"Annabeth," he said again.

"I'm here." She burrowed into his chest and even though it hurt, he stayed perfectly still.

"Annabeth." He didn't know why he kept saying her name. "Annabeth."

"I know, Percy," she whispered against his skin. He could hear sobs hitching her voice. "I know."

He held her as she cried, and even though he felt like crying too, nothing came out but blood.

Riptide feels foreign in his grip. It's heavy and cumbersome and he feels twelve all over again. Swinging it is a chore. Shielding with it is a challenge.

He knows people are watching. He can feel their stares on his back, making him break out into a sweat. He knows they think he's useless. He knows they're whispering "That used to be Percy Jackson."

It makes him mad.

The ground quakes beneath his feet. There are a few cries of fear from those surrounding him as they tumble about, but his footing stays firm. He slices through the air, again and again, trying to get in control.

His ankle twists. Riptide flies from his hand. He drops to his knees, the earth once again still.

The crowd whispers.

"Son of Poseidon -"

"Earthquakes -"

"A hero -"

"Such a shame -"

It's times like these he wishes he'd died in Tartarus. This humiliation, this degradation -

It burns like icy fire in a straight line to his heart.

The Doors had taken him by surprise. One minute he was holding Annabeth's hand, tripping and stumbling through the depths of hell, and the next there was a breeze caressing his cheek. A breeze.

Percy laughed out loud and Annabeth joined in. Their laughter sounded broken.

They ran a little further and then she yelled "Jump!" He did, could feel the wind whistling through his hair, and then he landed hard on the ground in a position that should've been painful but instead was one of the sweetest things he'd ever felt. He could hear commotion in the air, the rumblings of many pairs of feet, and then there was a great screaming as the Doors shuddered and swung closed.

He knew the Doors were locked when all the fear dripped from him in a rush. His skin felt warm, burning even, and he could almost taste the summery heat.

When they'd first entered Tartarus, he thought he'd never see sunlight again. He thought he'd be dead. He never imagined he'd just be blind, and that the only sunshine he would know would be that of his memories.

There was a soft sighing sound to his left. "Percy, Annabeth," someone sobbed. Maybe Hazel. Or Piper. "Oh, gods. You're okay."

Percy struggled to a sitting position and held his head as it throbbed. A hush descended. "Percy?" came Frank's voice. He sounded scared out of his mind. "What's wrong with him?" The question was echoed among the demigods, and Percy suppressed the desire to snort.

"I'm not deaf, Frank," he croaked. "Just blind."

The wind whistled.

For some reason, Percy could smell the sea.

Annabeth's hand found his and squeezed.

After a while, the colours fade. He doesn't remember the yellow of sunshine; only the feel of its warmth on his skin.

He asks for orange juice at breakfast one day, but when he tastes it, all that comes to mind is grey.

After a vigorous training session, Annabeth tells him his cheeks are pink. He can't find the words to say he doesn't know what pink looks like anymore.

When he bites his tongue, the blood that pours out is metallic and black in his mouth.

Katie Gardner comes to his cabin one day and tells him the flowers are in full bloom. She says she has never seen greener grass. He wonders what she means.

Then there comes a day when he cannot remember the colour of the sky, of the sea. That morning, he stays in his bunk, fighting the urge to scream as he desperately tries to recall the ocean, but though he can smell the brine and taste the salt and hear the crash of the waves, the colour blue slips from his mind as easily as water down a drain.

He'd felt like something a little kid had brought to show and tell that first day. Passed around, hand to hand, as if he were delicate. Fragile. The famous Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, hero of Olympus, was breakable.

He hated it.

After so many "I'm sorry"s that his head was about to explode, he finally found himself alone in his cabin on the Argo II. All he could hear was the hush of the sea. All he could feel was the swell of the ocean. Though better than the noise of the crowd outside, it was strangely and disconcertingly lonely.

He fiddled with the beads on his necklace. One, two, three, four. They felt heavy and unfamiliar.

"Percy?" He jumped. He hadn't heard Leo approaching. "Can I come in?"

"Sure."

There was the creaking of floorboards, and then the bed springs sunk as extra weight was added. Leo cleared his throat. Percy could feel the nervous energy pouring from him, reverberating through the air like a note on the piano. Sweat dripped down his spine. The smell of something burning pervaded the air, but maybe that was just a side effect of Leo being the fire guy.

"You did a good job of closing those Doors," he finally said. Leo seized upon the topic gratefully.

"Uh, thanks. They were, um, heavy."

"Figures."

Percy could hear Leo fumbling with something. There was a clink of metal. "So I guess this is permanent, huh?" Leo sounded apprehensive. Percy could picture his face: impish, blackened with grime and soot, scowling with awkwardness.

"That'd be right."

"Sucks to be you, man." Percy could hear the grin in Leo's voice, and maybe he should've been offended by that. Maybe he should've ninja-slapped (or tried to, anyway) Leo in the face with a fish. But he didn't. Because for the first time ever since he'd gone blind, he was being treated like a normal person, not like a box of china marked 'FRAGILE'. Even Annabeth had been skirting around him, shying away from the topic like it was contagious.

But not Leo.

Percy wondered why.

"Thanks," he said suddenly.

Leo was silent, contemplating. "Any time, your kelpiness." Percy snorted and felt the bed springs creak again as Leo stood. "See you round, Percy."

The burning smell lingered in the room for a long time after Leo had left, until it finally faded and all Percy could smell was the sea.

It's night. Or at least, he thinks it is. The air feels cooler, and he almost convinces himself he can feel the stars shining down on him. He thinks of Zoë Nightshade in the sky, and it makes him sad.

The sand is cool around Percy's feet. The waves curl around his toes. He can hear them whisper shh, shh. Son of the Sea God. When he bends down to sit the knotted scar across his chest stretches taut. He feels thinly spread, like he's in too many places at once, but that's silly since he's only here, nowhere else, because no-one needs him anymore.

Not after.

His head hurts. The waves keep whispering. Shh, shh.

His licks his lips. They taste like turpentine, like acid.

He thinks about this beach. When he was thirteen he first met Hermes here. Only last year Poseidon himself had visited in this very spot. (Percy doesn't know how he knows it was this spot, but something inside tells him so.)

Only last year.

When they'd thought the war was over. When everything was perfect. When he could still see the way Annabeth's hair glowed in the sunlight, or her eyes that sparkled whenever she kissed him.

Shh, shh, the waves murmur, washing over him like gentle fingers. Do not despair, Perseus Jackson. You are not alone.

He can smell strawberries, the late bloomers wafting over on the breeze. He lifts his hands to his face, to the scarred sockets where his eyes used to be. "I had green eyes once," he says aloud to Zoë in the stars.

She doesn't answer.

He doesn't know how long he sits there for. Perhaps evening has long bled into dawn, or perhaps it is barely past midnight. Only when the tide recedes from lapping at his ankles does Percy stumble to his feet and wander back to Cabin Three. Objects trip him up at every turn. He marvels at how foreign a place can become when you no longer have the eyes to recognise it with.

When they'd gotten back to camp, Annabeth had taken him straight to his cabin and stood watching as he tried desperately to remember it. He felt disconnected bits and pieces: the Minotaur's horn under his bunk that seemed strange and waxy in his hands; the sweatshirt he'd thought he'd lost once upon a time but which was actually just stuffed behind the cabinet; the tightly wrapped present he'd bought Annabeth for Christmas last year and had hidden away in his drawers.

He paused at the last item and turned to look at Annabeth. He always knew where she was; the faint smell of her perfume combined with something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was almost an innate action, swivelling and knowing exactly where she was standing.

He held out the gift to her and felt her take it gingerly. Her nails brushed against his palm, cool and blunt.

He listened to her untying the ribbon and sliding off the tissue paper. Then there was silence.

He heard the yells of the other demigods outside.

Suddenly Annabeth's arms were around his neck and she was kissing him like they were the only two people in the world. He breathed in her lemon soap and perfume, magnified a hundredfold by their proximity.

She tasted like life itself.

They broke apart, but Percy could still taste Annabeth on his lips, almost as if a bit of her had broken off and slipped beneath the membrane of his skin. He felt all shivery.

"I love you," she breathed. "It's beautiful."

He heard her fasten the chain around her neck, and the snick of the catch as she reopened the locket to stare at the photos inside. Percy had trouble remembering which pictures he'd actually put inside; the memory was blurred and burnt around the edges now.

"I love you," Annabeth said again, and a small cobweb spun between them. It was sticky and loose and a little thin, but it was there, and it meant that maybe, just maybe, things were going to be all right again.

Her hand is sweaty inside his but he doesn't care. When he asked her before, she said she was wearing the locket, and that's really all that matters. At least he can still do some things right.

He can feel the weight of Riptide in its pen form in his pocket. It's useless now, just an unfamiliar extension of an unfamiliar life he once led, because there's no such thing as a blind hero. How can someone save the world when they can't even see what they're fighting?

Percy sighs and tilts his head up to face the sky. He's going home today. His mom and Paul are going to try and integrate him back into school, give him a normal life. Not that anyone who looks at him anymore will think of him as normal. Though he can't see the scars, he can feel them, heavy against his skin. He knows people will stare. He knows they'll talk.

But he doesn't really care about all that. How can he, when the only colour he recognises is black, and the only person who can even understand minutely what he's going through is Annabeth?

Being blind really puts things into perspective.

Annabeth kisses his cheek. "I'll come visit you every weekend," she promises, repeating what she's said a million times before.

"I'll call you every night," he says in response, his line in the dialogue they have practiced many times over.

"I love you," she says, kissing the places where his eyes used to be. He loves her for that; for not flinching when she looks at him, for telling him he's still handsome even though he knows he's far from it.

"You too."

Percy stands and follows where Annabeth leads him. She tells him to turn left, to watch his step, to double back when someone wants to say goodbye. He obeys wordlessly. There's nothing else he can do, because he is no longer Perseus Jackson, hero of Olympus, but merely Percy.

He can no longer save a world that needs saving, or even fix something that's broken.

And it hurts.

Author's Note: I'm not overly happy with the way this ended, but I'm sort of lost for ideas on how to wrap it up. My favourite section was the part with Zoë, so hopefully you liked that too…? Anyway. I'd love it if you reviewed. I'm aiming for at least ten here! Thanks. xx

OH YEAH, and I pretty much skirted around the whole end of the war. I have absolutely no idea how RR is going to handle the prophecy, and I didn't really want to get my hands messy in it. So sorry if it's a little unclear or overly broad, but I did that intentionally.

ALSO, IMPORTANT. My story a love affair, of sorts has been nominated for a Phoenix Award in the Best Romance category. Voting period begins on February 10, 2013, at Fanmortals (fanmortals . weebly .com {forward slash} votingcategories . html). Thank you to infinity and beyond whoever nominated me. My heart would explode if you all voted for me, or even if you just thought about voting, just a little. Thank you. xx