Camellia

2: "Knowledge isn't always good for you."

As he held Annabeth close in his arms, Pax cursed the Fates, questioning their decision to have him be born a child of Hephaestus, and not some useful god like Apollo. A child of Apollo could have healed Annabeth in an instant. A quick prayer to Apollo and the colour would return to her cheeks. All would then be right with the world. But Pax could only clutch Annabeth tightly, as if that would somehow miraculously bring her back, and watch helpless, as Tyson hurried towards them, triumphantly brandishing the Golden Fleece. 

Pax had been powerless this whole trip and he hated himself for it. He had been the weak link of the original trio-the amazingly intelligent always-have-a-plan Annabeth Chase, the insanely-strong-yet-sensitive Tyson, and then there had been Pax, who sort of just did what Tyson did but worse. And even though Tyson wasn't the most graceful, he, unlike Pax, at least knew how to fight. In a fashion. 

 It had actually been Annabeth's idea to go to the Sea of Monsters and track down the Golden Fleece. Despite the fact that it was Clarisse's quest, Annabeth had wanted to sneak out, find Luke in the process, and somehow save him from himself. She still believed that Luke, her 'brother', the one she'd fallen in love with, was somehow still in there. As if he hadn't murdered Percy Jackson in cold blood and been twisted by Kronos. So when Annabeth had come knocking on the door of Cabin Nine asking for armour and supplies, who had Pax been to refuse her? 

Much to his surprise though, she'd insisted that he come along too and told him when and where to meet. Pax compelled and followed her instructions, except for one major thing: he'd decided to bring along Tyson to their allocated meeting point too. The kid had shown up a few days ago, outside camp, and Chiron had let him in, just before he'd been replaced by Tantalus. A day later, Tyson had been claimed by Poseidon. Tantalus had laughed, expecting the campers to follow suit. But the campers, despite their apparent disregard for the living, respected the dead-even the Ares cabin, for all their violent ways. And out of respect for Percy Jackson, the deceased son of Poseidon, the campers had bowed and made Tyson welcome. Although he lived in the Poseidon cabin, Beckendorf had adopted him as one of the Hephaestus campers, and Pax had got quite close with the guy, working alongside him in the Forge. And since he was handy to have around, Pax had figured that there was no harm in bringing him along. 

By holy Hephaestus, had he been wrong. Upon seeing the Cyclops, Annabeth became irate; the angriest Pax had ever seen her. She shouted, calling Tyson a 'monster', a 'thing' and a handicap to the quest. But there was no time to simply abandon him: the Harpies would soon realise three campers were out of bed and escaping Camp Half-Blood, and Tyson would probably spill the whole story when questioned. 

It had been a strange trio to say the least and it had soon become apparent on the quest that Pax was their weakest link. He'd found himself almost killed by a Hydra, almost murdered by Clarisse after she'd discovered that they'd hijacked her quest (she evidently decided to go with the only one out of the three she could kill), and he also got taken captive by Circe. Who'd transformed him into a guinea pig. The only thing he'd been good at thus far was successfully tying Annabeth to the mast so that she didn't get killed by the Sirens. 

He'd also botched things on the main quest too. Or at least, the quest Annabeth had given herself-to find Luke and convince him to return to Camp Half-Blood. Apparently bringing a Cyclops along didn't exactly help with the diplomacy, and, of course, Annabeth had blamed Pax. So that one had been on him too. 

All in all, Pax had had a terrible time. They'd lost Tyson, and though he had thankfully shown up later, Pax had still spent a couple of days struggling through the grief. And in a moment of weakness, as Annabeth had clearly had too much on her plate, she had told Pax about this super secretive Prophecy, which only Chiron and her knew about: one of the children of the Big Three would either cause the end of the world, or save it when they reached age thirteen. Which sucked. Because the only child of the Big Three Pax knew about was Tyson. And he was fairly sure he didn't count. Hopefully. 

And now to top it all off: Annabeth was dying in his arms whilst Tyson appeared to run in slow-motion towards them with the Golden Fleece. (And yes, they'd found the Fleece: that had been one good thing about this trip. Oh, and Grover, who'd apparently been taken prisoner by a Cyclops on the island). 

Pax turned frantically to face Tyson, motioning for him to throw it. Tyson did so, the beautiful fleece shimmering in the air as in flew towards them. Pax reached out to catch it but, clumsy as usual, he missed. It landed a half a metre away from Annabeth. As Pax scooped it up and gently laid it on her, the Annabeth's colour immediately returned. Her breath came back in a gasp, and Pax could breath a sigh of relief. 

Her grey eyes flickered open, bright with life and Pax realised that had Tyson been seconds late with the Fleece, those eyes would have been stone cold and blank. He chocked back a sob as tears began to trickle down his cheeks. Annabeth glanced at him questioningly and he looked away abashed. He had not realised how much he'd loved her, until he almost lost her. And Pax would rather die than lose Annabeth. 

And that's the second part-what did you think? As always, feedback and constructive criticism are welcome :-)