ੈ｡ﾟ  ･ׂׂ   ✩  RED ⌇˚ɞ act iii . . .
the dying breaths of hope

· 。ﾟ *. 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑  THIRTY
───── ❛ playing cops &
robbers with monsters ❜

       LAURIE WAS GRATEFUL that when the blinding glow that surrounded Lady Hera died down, the remaining light it cast around the room did not.

Now typically, the gods didn't tend to help heroes on their quests. Hera's presence should've raised a red flag or fifty, but when she was lighting up the room and feeding the teens sandwiches and lemonade, it was hard to worry about that.

After the goddess had offered out an array of sandwiches to the kids, they started asking their questions.

"Queen Hera," Annabeth said. "I— I can't believe it. What are you doing in the Labyrinth?"

Hera smiled that beautiful smile of hers. She flicked a finger and Annabeth's hair combed itself, rid of dust and knots. All the dirt and grime disappeared from her face as if it had never been there.

She had done the same to Laurie and the boys already, which Laurie didn't appreciate much since the magic stole away her hair tie.

"I came to see you, naturally," the goddess answered.

The demigods exchanged glances. Last time a goddess has "come to see them" was when Aphrodite got all prophetic with Percy about his love life and then stranded them in the middle of a ginormous junk yard.

Gods and goddesses didn't just visit heroes out of the sheer goodness of their hearts. There was always an ulterior motive. They always wanted something.

It didn't stop them from filling their hungry stomachs with sandwiches and lemonade, but it was some food for thought.

"I didn't think—" Annabeth faltered. "Well, I didn't think you liked heroes."

Hera smiled again. "Because of that little spat I had with Hercules? Honestly, I get so much bad press for one little disagreement."

"Didn't you try to kill him like, a lot of times?" Annabeth asked.

Hera waved her hand in dismissal, like murder was the same as a simple argument. "Water under the bridge, my dear. Besides, he was one of my loving husband's children by another woman. My patience wore thin, I'll admit it. But Zeus and I have had some excellent marriage counseling sessions since then. We've aired our feelings out and come to an understanding— especially after that last little accident."

That little accident just so happened to be named Thalia Grace.

"When he sired Thalia," Laurie asked, though it sounded more like an observation than a question.

Hera's gaze focused in on her frostily at the utterance of the name. "Laurie Hawthorne, isn't it? Persephone's girl?"

"That's mommy dearest," The girl remarked with a sarcastic jump of her brows and quick pursing of her lips.

Laurie had to admit, she found it almost ironic— and little funny— that she was being talked at by the goddess of family as someone who had no such thing.

"You shouldn't speak about your mother like that, Laurie. You don't know how much she does for you," Hera chided. Her calmness was slightly unsettling, like she was sharing a spot of tea with an old friend and waiting for the poison she'd laced it with to kick in.

"You were there when she told your husband he had the green light to kill me, right?" Laurie asked.

Hera shrugged. "All families have their quarrels."

She turned back to Annabeth and her sunny smile returned. "Anyways, I certainly bear you no ill will, my girl. I appreciate the difficulty of your quest, especially when you have troublemakers like Janus to deal with."

Annabeth lowered her gaze. "Why was he here? He was driving me crazy."

"Trying to, yes," The goddess agreed. "You must understand, the minor gods like Janus have always been frustrated by the small parts they play in the universe. Some, I fear, have little love for Olympus, and could easily be swayed to support the rise of my father."

"Your father?" Percy piped up, before realizing what she meant. "Oh, right."

He'd nearly forgotten that just like Zeus, Poseidon, and all the eldest gods, Kronos was Hera's father too.

"We must watch the minor gods," said Hera. "Janus. Hecate. Morpheus. They give lip service to Olympus, yet—"

"That's where Dionysus went," Percy butted in unapologetically, remembering. "He was checking on the minor gods."

"Indeed," Hera said, as she stared at the faded and worn mosaic of her family. "You see, in times of trouble, even gods can lose faith. They start putting their trust in the wrong things. They stop looking at the bigger picture and become selfish. But I'm the goddess of marriage, you see. I'm used to perseverance. You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind."

Laurie had just about one goal in mind right then: get the fuck out of this conversation.

Persevere this, keep believing that. She had lost faith in her family a long time ago, and one measly sermon from Hera wasn't going to change that.

Annabeth didn't seem to be on the same thought train, because she asked the goddess, "What are your goals?"

Hera smiled, pleased with the question. "To keep my family, the Olympians, together, of course. At the moment, the best way I can do that is by helping you. Zeus does not allow me to interfere much, I am afraid. But once every century or so, for a quest I care deeply about, he allows me to grant a wish."

"A wish?"

"Before you ask, let me give you a little advice, which I can do for free. I know you seek Daedalus. His Labyrinth is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. But if you want to know his fate, I would visit my son Hephaestus at his forge. Daedalus was a great inventor, a mortal after Hephaestus's own heart. There has never been a mortal Hephaestus admired more. If anyone would have kept up with Daedalus and could tell you his fate, it's Hephaestus."

"But how do we get there?" Annabeth asked. "That's my wish. I want a way to navigate the Labyrinth."

Hera sighed with disappointment, the look on her face reflecting her desire for the demigod to have chosen something else. "So be it. You wish for something, however, that you have already been given."

Annabeth's brows furrowed and her lips twisted into a frown. "I don't understand."

"The means is already within your grasps," She paused for a moment and layed her gaze on Percy. "Percy knows the answer."

"I do?"

"But that's not fair," Annabeth complained, as if she was new to this whole world and still expected life to be as fair as a corpse's complexion. "You're not telling me what it is!"

Hera shook her head like a mother that had been let down by her child. "Getting something and having the wits to use it . . . those are two different things. I'm sure your mother Athena would agree."

Above, the ceiling rumbled like it was the sky shaking with thunder from a brewing storm. Hera stood at the sound and looked down at the children.

"That would be my cue," she said. "Zeus grows impatient. Think on what I have said, Annabeth. Seek out Hephaestus. You will have to pass through the ranch, I imagine. But keep going. And use all means at your disposal, however common they may seem."

She pointed at the two doors that Annabeth would've been forced to choose between, and they melted away from the receiving end of her gesture. In their place appeared two dark, open corridors.

"One last thing, Annabeth," said the goddess. "I have postponed your day of choice, I have not prevented it. Soon, as Janus said, you will have to make a decision. Farewell!"

At the soft wave of her hand, her body evaporated into a white smoke. The food disappeared as well, and the fountain ran dry. The room fell into dimness again, aided only by the light of their flashlight. It was no longer a place for a picnic.

Annabeth stomped her foot in frustration, looking as if she wanted to scream up at the ceiling in hopes that all of Olympus could hear her.

"What sort of help was that? 'Here, have a sandwich. Make a wish. Oops, I can't help you!' Poof!"

"Poof," Tyson agreed sadly.

"Well," Grover sighed. "She said Percy knows the answer. At least that's something."

They all looked at the son of Poseidon. Laurie spoke before he could even respond to their expectant looks.

"Only problem with that is," She turned from facing Grover to facing Percy. "Percy, do you know the answer?"

"No," He said. "I have no idea what she's talking about."

Annabeth pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed in frustration. "All right. We'll just have to keep going then."

"Which way?"

At the same time, Tyson and Grover answered, "Left."

"How can you be sure?" Annabeth frowned.

"Because something is coming from the right," said Grover, casting a nervous glance at the right corridor.

"Something big," Tyson added. "In a hurry."

"Right is sounding pretty good." Percy agreed. Together, they forged ahead into the darkness past the left door.

They ran ahead for about one hundred feet before whatever was chasing them got closer, causing them to break out into a sprint for their lives.

They rounded a corner and were met with a giant boulder that blocked the hall. One by one, they dove beneath it, just barely scraping by to get to the other side.

Down the hallway behind them, whatever was coming was coming fast and hard. Footsteps scratched against the ground, beating closer and closer.

"Tyson," Percy began. "can you—"

"Yes!" Tyson slammed his shoulder into the shoulder they'd just slid past and knocked it to the ground with an awful grinding noise.

A collective sigh fell from the group as they avoided the catastrophe of whatever it was chasing them, but the relief didn't last long.

Turning around, they found themselves in a cement room no bigger than twenty feet, the opposite wall covered in metal bars from ceiling to floor. The tunnel had lead them straight into a cell.

Annabeth lunged forward to the bars, pulling on them hard. "What in the hades?"

As suspected, the bars didn't budge. Through them, they could see rows of cells in a ring that went up three stories, all cast in darkness and grime.

"A prison," Percy observed. "Maybe Tyson can break—"

"Shh," Grover hushed him. "Listen."

They all fell quiet, clicked off their lights as to not draw attention to themselves, and listened, though it wasn't very hard to tell what Grover was talking about. Somewhere above, deep sobs echoed through the building, accompanied by a raspy voice muttering indecipherably.

"What language is that?" Percy whispered, looking at Annabeth.

Tyson's eyes widened. "Can't be."

"What?" His brother asked.

Without answering, Tyson grabbed onto two of the bars in front of them and pulled them apart, big enough to pass through, and was gone.

With no other choice, his friends followed after him, plunging into the darkness in pursuit.

"I know this place," Annabeth recalled. "This is Alcatraz."

"You mean that island that's near San Fransisco?" Percy asked, the look on his face asking the question that he wouldn't: how the hell did we get all the way to San Fransisco?

Annabeth nodded, "My school took a field trip here. It's like a museum."

"Freeze!" Grover warned.

Tyson tried to keep going anyways, but Grover grabbed his arm and pulled back with all his strength. "Stop, Tyson!" He whispered. "Can't you see it?"

Funny he should say that because no, they couldn't see fucking anything.

It was practically pitch black in the prison, and the stale, grimy air didn't help either. It was cold and it was dark and Laurie thought she just might die.

Even so, her friends kept talking.

Grover was pointing at something, but Laurie didn't look. She wouldn't have been able to see it anyways. Did her eyes just not adjust as well as theirs did, or were they stumbling around blindly too?

"It's her," whimpered Tyson, after Annabeth and Percy shared a silent gasp at whatever or whoever it was they'd seen.

"Get down!" Grover said.

They crouched down into the shadows, Annabeth dragging Laurie down by her shoulder when she didn't move as fast as the rest of them.

Whatever monster they'd seen wasn't paying them any attention though, for she was too busy talking to someone in a cell. That was where the sobbing and weird, rumbly language were coming from.

"What's she saying?" Percy muttered. "What's that language?"

"The tongue of the old times," shivered Tyson. "What Mother Earth spoke to the Titans and . . . her other children. Before the gods."

"You understand it?" Percy asked. "Can you translate?"

He could, and he did. Tyson imitated two voices and relayed the conversation happening to his friends. Laurie didn't hear much of it, too distracted by the pounding in her ears and the slightly alarming shallowness to her breathing.

She gained a sudden awareness when Annabeth clawed at her shoulder and pulled her further against the wall, deeper into the darkness.

The dragon-lady-monster below had leapt down from the catwalk above that she'd been standing on and went soaring across the courtyard, disappearing around the corner.

"Cyclops' worst nightmare," Tyson murmured. "Kampê."

"Who?"

"Every Cyclops knows about her. Stories about her scare us when we're babies,"  Tyson shuddered. "She was our jailer in the bad years."

"I remember now," Annabeth nodded with realization. "When the Titan's ruled, they imprisoned Gaea and Ouranos's earlier children— the Cyclopses and the Hekatonkheires."

"The Heka-huh?" Percy asked.

"The Hundred-Handed Ones," she rephrased. "They called them that because . . . well, they had a hundred hands. They were elder brothers of the Cyclops."

"Kampê was their jailer," said Tyson. "She worked for Kronos. Kept our brothers locked up in Tartarus, tortured them always, until Zeus came. He killed Kampê and freed Cylcopses and Hundred-Handed Ones to help fight in the war against the Titans."

"And now Kampê is back," Percy observed.

"Bad." Nodded Tyson.

"So who's in that cell?" Percy asked. "You said a name—"

"Briares!" Tyson perked up. "He is a Hundred-Handed One."

"You know guys, as great as this history lesson is, can we maybe save it for later and try to figure out a way out of here?" Laurie interrupted.

She was wringing her hands over and over, her heart pounding at a heightened speed. This prison was the darkest place they'd been thus far on the quest, they'd turned their flashlights off, and she needed out.

"We can't leave Briares!" Tyson pouted in protest.

"Okay, then you have fun up there." She shot at him in a harsh tone. "But there's some manic monster down there and some of us can't even see far enough to tell where."

She didn't want to be mean to Tyson, she really didn't, and she felt bad about it the minute she did it, but panic was setting it and it was setting in quick.

"Are you okay?" Percy asked her, setting a hand on her shoulder that made her flinch because she hadn't seen it coming. It was a stupid question really, seeing as she was definitely not okay.

"I can't see straight and my heart feels like it's about to fucking explode," she bit. "So what do you think?"

Percy frowned, and she didn't even see it.

"Okay, we'll—we'll figure something out, just hang on. We can't just leave him in there though, he could help us." Annabeth resigned.

"Why? Why can't we just leave? It's not our problem!" Laurie argued.

Immediately, she could see the error in her words, the cruelty of them. This creature above them had been imprisoned for no telling how long, living in torment, and crying horrific, violent sobs. And here she was with the nerve to call it not their problem. What kind of hero was she?

"I'm sorry— I didn't . . ." She stuttered out. She ran her hands down her face, rubbing at her eyes. "Dear gods . ."

"I'll stay here with her, you guys go." Grover offered. They didn't have to know it was partially because he also didn't want to go make friends with another cyclops variant.

"What, are you crazy? We're not splitting up," Percy protested, sending his friends a bewildered look.

"It's either split up for a few minutes or we all get out of here now," Laurie told him pointedly.

A few more minutes of sitting there she could maybe take, as long as she could turn on a flashlight and distract herself for long enough. But going deeper into the prison and into a darker area was absolutely unthinkable.

Her friends agreed to splitting up with stifling reluctance and headed upstairs, towards the Hundred-Handed One.

When they were gone, Laurie mashed the pendant of her bracelet and was flooded with relief when a beam of light appeared in between her and Grover.

Together, they shuffled back up against the nearest wall, hoping they were far enough away from the ledge to prevent Kampê from noticing them should she return soon.

"Are . . . are you okay?" Grover asked after a moment of silence, only aided by the faint muffles of their friend's conversation above.

"Fine. I just need a minute," Laurie insisted, shaking her head as she kept her eyes trained on the floor. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them.

Grover nodded and left her be until her breaths were no longer coming out in deep, laborious heaves. Once she seemed to be some form of okay again, he spoke.

"Y'know . . I know it may not feel like it right now, but I think you're pretty brave for coming down here." He told her.

Laurie frowned in response.

"Grover, I just screamed at everyone for no reason, all because I'm scared of the dark like some little kid." She sighed.

She already felt so bad about it that her heart hurt. She didn't think she'd ever be able to get the image of Tyson's frown out of her memory.

"It's not your fault," Grover assured her. "Annabeth knew what she was asking of you when she brought you on this quest. The fact that you're even here is outstanding to me."

"The fact that you're here is outstanding, G," she countered. "Neither of us liked the idea of coming down here, but you were pretty adamant about it."

That provoked a sheepish shrug out of Grover. He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice was replaced by loud, echoing snarl.

Laurie slapped a hand over her bracelet; Grover slammed a hand over his mouth.

Down on the floor below, was Kampê, staring directly at them.

They scrambled up to their feet and took off down the hallway, darting past cells. They could hear Kampê growling in her ancient language, the sound of giant wings unfurling following as she took flight.

They could hear the sound of their friends's feet pounding down the stairs, the Hundred-Handed One following them.

"Laurie! Grover! Go left!" Shouted Annabeth's voice.

Laurie didn't feel very comforted by the advice considering there were about twenty different "lefts" she could've been referring to, but she turned sharply anyways.

She and Grover sprinted through another dark hallway, dodging open cell doors left and right. They came to a branched out hallway and went left again, because Annabeth said go left so they were going to keep going left until they met back up with their friends.

It seemed that Kampê had taken on the larger group of trespassers as her target, seeing as she'd disappeared after Percy and everyone a flight up.

They passed a guard's station and reached a door, which was promptly thrown open by Laurie.

Tumbling out the doorway, Grover and Laurie found themselves in the prison yard, ringed in by barbed wire and security towers.

But more importantly, in broad daylight.

They were nearly blinded by the sudden sun, but Laurie had never been so thankful to see it in her entire life.

The wall to their far right had a gaping hole in it, chunks of cement bricks still crumbling to the ground from the impact of whatever had burst through it. It became clear what made such a mess when they heard their friends voices.

"Laurie, there!" Grover pointed to the entrance back into the prison.

There stood Annabeth, Percy, Tyson, and Briares— the Hundred-Handed One— pushed up against a stone wall, Kampê in front, closing them in.

Annabeth and Percy were scrambling around the wall in search of the mark of Daedalus to reopen the entrance they'd came in from, while Tyson wielded a ripped-up lamppost against Kampê, who held a poisonous scimitar in each hand.

She was practically foaming at the mouth as she hissed at the demigods, eager for a new meal. Her blades gleamed menacingly, hungry for blood.

But Laurie and Grover were behind her, and she hadn't yet noticed.

Laurie extracted her sword, wielding it with purpose as fear and adrenaline pumped through her bloodstream.

Before she could charge forward, Grover grabbed her wrist. "Laurie, no. Her blades are poisonous. One touch and you'll drop dead."

"If she doesn't see me, she can't touch me." Laurie shrugged, rationalizing it out to herself as well as to Grover.

"This is a bad idea," he shuddered.

"Grover, she's about to eat our friends alive!" Laurie whisper-shouted, gesturing harshly in front of them. "I'm going."

She didn't wait for another reason why she shouldn't. She gripped tightly onto the handle of her sword and as quietly as she could, crept up behind the monster that was now dodging a swing from Tyson's lamp post.

She could hear Annabeth shouting for Percy to hurry, as if he needed to be told, along with the blabbers that were Kampê's ancient tongue.

Kampê lurched backwards and nearly stepped on top of Laurie, giving her the perfect place to strike. She drove her sword forward hard, straight through the abdomen of the monstress.

The creature exploded into golden dust, and Laurie heaved a sigh of relief. The swords the monster had previously held clattered to the ground.

The sigh was premature, as she let out a yelp as she had to quickly dodge a swinging lamppost that Tyson hadn't stopped wielding soon enough.

"Well," Laurie sighed. "maybe splitting up was a good idea after all."

"You killed her!" Tyson gaped.

"Um, she was trying to eat you guys," Laurie stated, before the breath was knocked out of her as Tyson picked her up in a hug that squeezed all the oxygen from her lungs.

"I'm uh— sorry for yelling at you, by the way." She wheezed out, her sword hanging limp in her hand. Over his shoulder, she could see Percy with a hand over his mouth, muffling the chuckle that shook his chest.

"It's all okay," Tyson said, accepting her apology as he set her back on the ground, Laurie swatting away the hair that had fallen into her face. Damn Hera and her magical hair fixing.

"Guys!" Called Annabeth. "We've gotta go before the entrance closes again!"

She stood in the now open entrance to the Labyrinth, Briares already shoved in and taken off down the hallway. They didn't have to be told twice before Percy, Tyson, Laurie, and Grover filed in after them. When they got in, the Hundred-Handed One was gone.

The door sealed behind them, taking the glorious presence of light with it. Their flashlights were clicked on immediately, lighting up the dark hall.

They trudged on forward and didn't stop until they were out of the prison, finding themselves in a room full of waterfalls with a giant, gaping hole in the middle.

Upon seeing it, Annabeth decided it'd be better for them to find a better place to camp for the night.

Instead, they settled in a corridor made up of huge marble blocks that looked like it could've been apart of a Greek tomb. It had bronze torch holders fastened to the walls, which Annabeth had been quick to light.

She said it was an older part of the maze, which she'd decided was a good sign.

"We must be close to Daedalus's workshop," she said. "Get some rest, everybody. We'll keep going in the morning."

"How do we know when it's morning?" Grover asked, which was a good question because all of them had been thinking it.

"Just rest," she insisted through a sigh.

Grover and Tyson didn't need to be told again. The satyr pulled a handful of hay from his pack, ate a mouthful, tucked the rest beneath his head, and was out in no time.

Tyson was sad from the sudden and disappointing departure of Briares, so he curled up in a corner with his back facing his friends, and sniffled until he fell asleep and the sounds turned into snores.

Percy and Annabeth spread out bedrolls along different walls, lying down in hopes to get some sleep. Laurie settled herself  up against a wall, having offered to keep watch first.

Annabeth was out first, with her head laying on top of her backpack and dagger close to her hand, just in case it was needed. The stress of leading the quest had taken a clear toll on her, and it was a wonder she hadn't succumbed to exhaustion sooner.

Percy on the other hand, had no such luck. He tried his best, but with the adrenaline from being chased by a dragon lady with poison swords still coursing through him, he couldn't make himself relax.

He looked across to see Laurie sitting against the wall, holding three daisies in between her fingers. She'd grown them out of a crack in the floor, which he hadn't seen, but was now braiding them together into a chain.

Percy sat for only a minute and watched her with admiration. Then he decided that if she looked up, he'd look like a total creep, and decided to stop.

Defeated, he picked up his bedroll and dragged it over to where Laurie was.

Startled by his sudden movement, she jumped and the flowers in her hands wilted, bringing a sigh out of her.

"Uh, sorry," he said, sitting down next to her.

"You should sleep," she told him, brushing the wilted flower petals off of her lap.

"Can't. You doing okay?"

"Okay as I can be down here, I guess." She shrugged. "This place still freaks me out."

"Yeah," he sighed in agreement. "Definitely not in Kansas anymore."

Laurie's face scrunched up at his words, giving him a look of confusion. Weren't they last in San Francisco?

"What?"

"You know, like from The Wizard of Oz," he explained. She continued to stare at him in confusion. "Wait, have you never seen The Wizard of Oz?"

"I haven't seen a movie since like, the fourth grade," she told him. "Oh! Except that time at Yancy when we watched TinkerBell."

Percy gaped at her for a moment. Sometimes, he forgot that she had only left camp a handful of times in the past seven years.

"Are you serious?" He asked, and then before she could answer, "When we get out of here, I'm making you watch The Wizard of Oz."

Laurie rolled her eyes but let out a laugh nonetheless, though it quickly died in her throat when she noticed something about Percy.

"Percy, you're bleeding," she observed, looking at the bright red cut across his cheekbone.

"What?" He asked, touching his cheek. He retracted his hand when a sting hit his face at the contact, finding remnants of his own blood smeared on his fingertips.

Laurie faced her back to him and began digging around in her backpack until she fished out a first-aid kit. She set the kit in her lap and popped open its lid, pulling out gauze, disinfectant, and a butterfly bandage.

"It's fine, you don't have to—"

"Shut up and let me fix your face, bubble brain."

He shut up.

Laurie cleaned his wound, applied the disinfectant ointment, (which he made sure to dramatically wince at, y'know, like a four year old) and applied the bandage across the cut, smoothing the edges out with her finger.

Percy found that he liked the feeling of her skin against his a little more than he should've, and he was disappointed when her hands left his face.

Her face was close to his and Percy was looking at her all stupid, making Laurie's head fuzzy. Her eyes wandered away from his face, lingering for a long moment on the grey streaked hair that fell over his forehead.

She hesitated before leaning away from him to pack up the first aid kit.

When she did, she cleared her throat and as a distraction, said, "I'm no doctor, but it should be better off than before."

"Thanks," he breathed out.

Laurie nodded and shoved her kit back into her pack, trying to be as quiet as possible so she didn't wake their friends. 

"You should try and get some sleep," she told him.

"Already told you, I can't." He shrugged, even though the adrenaline from the chase earlier had now been replaced by the kind that came from her touch. "You sleep, I'll watch out."

"You know I'm not good at sleeping on quests," she protested. Just as she spoke, a yawn crept up on her, shoving her lie of not being tired right in Percy's face.

He gave her a pointed look with a smug little smile that said I told you so.

"Here, I'll help," he said before scooting to the opposite end of his bedroll, sitting with his legs straight out and back against the wall, offering the space to her. "Lay down."

Laurie stared stubbornly at him for a minute before realizing that there was no winning this. She was tired, and as much as they argued, this one just wasn't worth it.

But because two could play at this game and she just wanted to get under his skin, when she layed down on the bedroll, she rested her head right on top of his legs.

"Great," she murmured. "Now I can stare at the ceiling from down here."

Percy's face was on fire, but yeah, that's what they should be talking about right now. The ceiling.

"Would you please get some sleep?" He sighed once he'd recovered from the momentary, mild panic in his chest.

"I can try, but it'll probably be no use," she complied, looking up at him with those big doe eyes of hers. "Talk to me."

"What?"

"Just talk to me. The silence will kill me otherwise."

"Uh, okay."

And so Percy talked and talked. He began with telling her about how his mom and her boyfriend, Paul, had been doing lately, followed by the full explanation of how he'd set a room on fire at the school Paul taught at.

They talked about their favorite colors (blue and pink), and Laurie told him that he needed a favorite flower when he said he didn't have one (her favorites were lilies). Percy went on a mild rant about how many movies he needed to show her when she claimed that her favorite to-date had to be TinkerBell (she knew she would kill it as a garden fairy).

Not long after the movie rant and halfway through his explanation of skateboarding, Laurie's murmured responses ceased, replaced by an even breathing pattern as she drifted off.

She didn't know exactly what they were doing, but she knew that Percy was the first person she'd ever felt safe enough around to trust him to watch out for monsters and make sure she made it to morning.

He looked down at his lap when it seemed safe to say that she was asleep, a smile pulling at his lips. She was sporting the most peaceful look he'd ever seen her wear.

He was supposed to wake her up eventually to take her real turn at watching before Annabeth went, but he wouldn't. He'd watch for the both of them, as long as she kept sleeping like this.

He knew she'd yell at him for it in the morning, but he didn't care. She could yell about being taken care of all she wanted, as long as it was at him.

early update bc i was on spring break & had some extra time to write!! 🤭 if the format at the top is effed up....its wp being stupid, ignore it, for my sanity

been excited to write that last scene for a while now tehe

also, laurie & rosetta would be besties if my girl lived in pixie hollow 🤞