Chapter Text
Percy knelt before the three graves. With a twist of his hand, four sand dollars materialized in his hands. They caught the fading light. As the sky transformed into a fiery palette of oranges and pinks, Percy placed each sand dollar before a grave. The wand tossed his hair into disarray. He closed his eyes, recalling the flames and the shrouds that burned alone. How he longed to have faded with those pyres. His form flickered, as if he were phasing in and out of reality, one moment as translucent as a ghost and the next solid as stone.
“Is this your choice then?” a familiar voice asked. The shadows grew around him, gaining strength in the diminishing light. Percy ignored Nico in favor of staring at his own hand, nearly transparent. He wondered if he closed his eyes and simply wished, would he disperse completely, disappearing like mist on the ocean? Freed from the ichor in his veins?
“Percy….” Nico placed a hand on Percy’s shoulder, “it wasn’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” Percy let out a bitter laugh, running a hand to pull at his hair. “What happened…was because of me. I doomed them all. My family, even my father’s kingdom. We’re far past the point of no return.”
“Not necessarily.”
Percy finally glanced up to Nico. For all that the other was shroud in darkness, a glimmer shown in Nico’s dark eyes. Their gazes met. Before Percy could even open his mouth to ask, Nico started talking again.
“I’ve been talking with Rachel. And…there is a way.” Nico offered a hand.
“To return?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Nico’s fingers curled around Percy’s hand, oddly warm against his own. “A chance to change things.”
Percy studied his hand, limped in Nico’s, it seemed more solid. Real. He finally grasped the other’s hand and stood. Standing at eye level with Nico, he searched the other’s expression and asked, “My mom?”
“Maybe.” Nico folded, taking a step back as he tapped at his ring. “It might be some time before you meet her again.”
“I’d have to remain like this.” Percy clenched and opened his hand, pulling at the ichor in his veins till a glowing swirling liquid ball of it appeared in his hand.
“There is another price to pay,” Nico warned.
“There always is.” Percy let go of his control, watching the ichor drip from his fingers. He bent down to run his fingers across the moon lace that grew at the foot of the graves. “And whatever it is. I would pay if it meant…”
“It won’t be precisely the same.” Nico knelt to his side, grasping Percy’s hands as if he could stop the other from bleeding ichor. “It’s sort of a parallel universe. So all of this,” Nico waved a hand, gesturing as if to encompass the world, “would remain. But you could find another version of those you lost.”
“I could see them alive?” Percy traced the letters of a name, Sally Jackson .
“Yes. Their souls would be the same. And you’ll have your bond with your father once more.”
“How far back?”
Nico’s mouth twitched into a half smile.
(So Death spoke to Life. “Why do you wish to fade?")