Chapter Text
Save yourself.
Percy groaned as he woke up, reaching for Annabeth when—
His eyes shot open as he bolted upright, his hand in his pocket for Riptide before he finally registered his surroundings. He could have sworn he had fallen asleep in his cabin… so why was he in the Big House infirmary? Percy groaned and rubbed at his eyes.
A voice clearing his throat almost set Percy on edge again until he turned to see Chiron standing off to the side of the room. Percy relaxed. “Chiron, hey, sorry, I…” Percy frowned and looked around. “Where’s Annabeth?”
Chiron frowned, looking confused. “...Annabeth?”
“Yeah, usually when I pass out and wake up in the infirmary she’s here to tell me I sleep stupid, except…” Percy cast his eyes down to his own body as he wracked his memory, panic starting to build again. “I don’t remember a fight. I don’t remember how I got here. Chiron?” Percy’s heart was starting to race. Was this a nightmare? He had nightmares like this often, where Hera took his memory all over again except left him at Camp Half-Blood, surrounded by loved ones he had no memory of.
But he remembered Chiron. So why did it look like Chiron didn’t remember him?
“What’s going on?” Percy asked.
“I’m afraid I was about to ask you that.”
Percy waited for Chiron to break, but the centaur just kept staring at him. Percy shook his head. “Is this… Are the Stolls pulling some sick joke on me right now? Let’s make fun of the guy who lost his memories?”
“Memories?”
Percy was torn between confusion and anger. Why was Chiron looking at him like that? He stood up from the bed and rushed past Chiron. This had to be a Stolls prank and if it was then they had to be hiding somewhere. Percy just had to find them and make them regret it. The only thing he couldn’t understand was how in Hades they got Chiron to play along. Percy marched through the main hall of the Big House until—
He stopped. Took two steps backward to the window he had just passed, the one that looked out to the front porch and beyond it all of camp. It was dark out, but in the distance, he could just make out the cabins.
The twelve cabins.
“I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore,” Percy muttered.
Chiron had been following him and looked out the window as well, but clearly didn’t see anything wrong. He didn’t know that there were supposed to be half a dozen more cabins for minor gods. “What is going on?” Chiron demanded, more forcefully this time. “Who are you? Because you were on my doorstep this morning as if you’d just been dropped there.”
“Probably was,” Percy muttered. Then, “Oh fuck me, did I really get kidnapped in my sleep again?” Which meant he had left Annabeth, which meant Annabeth was going to wake up alone and discover he was missing again . Percy punched the wall in front of him and watched Chiron reach for the bow on his back.
“Sorry,” Percy said, running his hands through his hair, trying to calm himself down. These days, his anger was quick to trigger and just as quick to explode, but that wouldn’t serve him here. Especially when Chiron looked one wrong move away from shooting an arrow into him. “Sorry, I— I’m not a threat.” Percy reached into his pocket and pulled out the pen he kept there. Then he tossed it to Chiron. For half a second, Percy realized that he didn’t know how far back he was and if the pen would work as the ID card he wanted it to, but it only took Chiron a moment to recognize the weapon and his eyes widened. “...Percy?”
“So, I think we have a long talk ahead of us,” Percy said.
##
Chiron moved them to his office, which Percy had only been in a few times. The last time he had been there, two new photographs had hung on the wall. One of Percy, Annabeth, and Grover the day after the Titan War and one of the Seven (minus Leo, but plus Nico) the day after the Giant war and the battle at camp. Percy stared longingly at the empty space on the wall.
“How is this possible, Percy?” Chiron said his name like he still wasn’t quite sure whether he believed him.
Percy shrugged. “This is a new one for me. I mean… time travel. Fuck me.”
“Language.”
Percy smirked. “Right. Sorry.” Then, “Where’s Mr. D? Not that I generally consider him useful, but this does seem like a problem that maybe a god, even him, would have some insight on.”
“Ah…” Chiron looked uncomfortable. “Dionysus is out on business with the council of cloven elders.”
Wait, Percy remembered this week. He remembered how the camp had celebrated at the bonfire after learning they would have a week without Mr. D. He was seventy percent sure some of the older Hermes kids were drunk off booze they snuck in, which felt a bit ironic to Percy considering they were celebrating Dionysus’s absence. He definitely didn’t remember any future monsters or whatever coming to kill him that week.
“What is the last thing you remember?” Chiron asked him. “Before you woke up here, that is.”
Percy turned away from the blank space on the wall and finally sat down in the chair across from Chiron’s desk. “Not much. I was sleeping in my cabin with— uh…” Chiron raised an eyebrow and Percy felt his face redden. Back in his time (gods that was weird to think), it was a relatively unspoken thing that Annabeth and Percy would sleep in Percy’s cabin together to stave off nightmares. Well, it was unspoken to their face. There was rampant gossip they did their best to ignore. Especially because it wasn’t…. wholly untrue.
None of that he was about to admit to a Chiron who didn’t know his history (future?). “Just sleeping. Alone,” Percy poorly corrected. “Nothing weird happened before during the day and then I woke up— Wait. Right before I woke up, there had been a voice. A woman. She said save yourself .”
Chiron leaned forward. “Do you know who the woman is?”
Percy did his best to concentrate. “Honestly? She sounded… a little familiar, like maybe I’ve met her or heard her? But I can’t… I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Someone with the power to send you here must be a goddess or someone of that strength at least.”
It took Percy a moment to realize what Chiron was waiting for. “Oh, uh, sorry to break it to you, but that super does not really narrow it down for me.”
“It could very likely be an ally of Kronos.”
Or Gaea. “Could be,” Percy said.
Chiron’s eyes narrowed. “Who else would have such resources and reasons to harm you?”
“I don’t know what time travel rules we’re dealing with here so let’s go with don’t worry about it .”
Chiron hesitated a moment. Then asked. “How old are you Percy?”
Percy leaned back in his seat. “Come on. Isn’t that a spoiler when we both know I’m supposed to die on my sixteenth birthday?”
“A fact you wouldn’t know until right before your sixteenth birthday.”
Shit. “Touche.”
Chiron’s face warmed. “It’s good to have some good news for once. Meanwhile, last I saw you, you were twelve and just a few weeks back from your quest.”
“Oh, right, the master bolt quest.”
Chiron raised an eyebrow.
“I mean, uh, the quest. The singular quest I have been on. Yes.”
“You’re not very good at this.”
Percy reached up to scratch his neck. “Well, forgive me, but this is my first time travel. I’ve done just about everything else, but this? This is new. And new things tend to want me dead so that doesn’t bode well for… What?” Chiron’s face blanched as he looked at Percy. Or, well, Percy’s arm. Percy turned to look, confused until he saw the SPQR tattoo. “Oh… Right.”
“How do you have that?”
“This feels like another one of those don’t worry about it moments.”
“Don’t worry about… Does that tattoo mean that Camp Half-Blood has… That the two…” He couldn’t even get himself to say it.
“Let’s just say that your little secret about the camp in the west doesn’t really stay a secret, but it’s okay. Mostly. I mean it’s really not okay for me specifically for a while there, shocker, and then it kind of sucks for everyone for a couple of months after that, but after it’s truly terrible for the entire world for a little bit, everything’s better.”
Chiron just stared, opening his mouth and closing it again. Percy waited as the centaur seemed to recenter himself, though his eyes would keep drifting back to Percy’s arm. A bit strained, Chiron finally changed topics. “You were told to save yourself. That’s what the voice in your dream said. So, it could be possible that the voice meant your younger self.”
Now it was Percy’s turn to recalibrate. “Wait, so I’m here to protect me? Other me, I mean? But that would mean the kidnapping voice was trying to help me?”
“It appears that is a distinct possibility. Otherwise, why else would you be sent back in time with those instructions?”
Percy groaned and dropped his face in his hands. “Which means something else also probably went back in time to kill young me because again. Why else would I be here? Di immortales , I would love to not be kidnapped for the greater good anymore.” Percy pulled himself upright. “Okay. What now? I mean… I can’t just… walk around camp? How am I supposed to keep an eye on myself without freaking everyone out?”
“I’ll keep an eye on you. That is to say, the younger you. A few trusted senior counselors can also be recruited, without telling them the full story of course.”
Percy did his best to remember who all were counselors when he was twelve. He didn’t think any of the others were traitors who wanted him dead and would eventually join Luke, but it was a little hard to keep track. “That— that should be okay, but I was sent back here for a reason. I have to save myself and I can’t exactly do that while hiding away in your office.”
“It’s possible just knowing that a threat is coming gives us sufficient ability to protect you, ah, that is to say him . And I imagine once the threat is handled, whatever force brought you here will send you back.”
“What if I can’t wait that long? Chiron I’ve— This isn’t the first time I’ve vanished on people. Annabeth—” Percy cut himself off, shaking his head.’
There was a look in Chiron’s eye, like he knew how their relationship had developed and he wasn’t at all surprised. “I’m not sure what else there is to be done, my boy. We must simply hope that it is how I said.”
“So I just do nothing? That’s our plan? That’s how I save myself? That doesn’t sound right.”
“For now, Percy, you should sleep. It’s rather early and, well, if you don’t mind me saying, you look like you still need some sleep.”
Percy almost laughed at that. He hadn’t slept well since… Well, at least not since the fall. And certainly not without Annabeth. He glanced nervously at Chiron. Annabeth . She wasn’t here. Was she having a nightmare with him gone? Or had she woken up to discover the nightmare was real?
Gods, he’s going to punch whoever decided to put her through that again.
“I’m not sure I can sleep,” Percy weakly answered.
Chiron’s eyes darkened and suddenly Percy remembered how old Chiron was and how many heroes he’s trained. “You must try. Take the infirmary. I’ll have it closed off for now so no one bothers you. We’ll discuss more in the morning after I’ve got counselors watching the other you, but for now I suppose I ought to take the first shift.”
Percy was tempted to put up a fight, even if just to be stubborn, but Percy was exhausted just a bit more than he was scared to sleep and he didn’t exactly know what else to do either. He didn’t have a monster to fight and he supposed he would have to wait until one showed up.