//Flash back to after the battle with Gaea//
"When you love someone so much you forget to breathe you can't stay conscious forever, Percy."
Aphrodite stared into Percy's sunken eyes.
He'd lived in a numb state for... however long it'd been since he had returned.
He didn't think he had eaten or slept since then. It was all blurred.
Aphrodite took Percy's shaking palms in her carefully manicured hands.
Her nails were bright red.
They almost looked like drops of blood rolling off of her fingertips.
But Percy had seen his hands after a battle often enough to know that blood was a darker shade. More sinister than the pinkish hue that adorned Aphrodite's pristine nails.
Percy pulled his bruised hands out of hers and turned away, closing his eyes, Wishing that he could just die in peace.
Aphrodite clicked her tongue.
"Percy," she purred, "I know you wish nothing more than to pass on to the underworld to be with your lover. But I came here for more than just comforting words. The gods have given Annabeth a lovely gift. She was reborn."
Percy spun around to face her.
"What?"
"Yes," Aphrodite cooed, "and I felt compelled to inform you that due to the...erm... involuntary nature of her situation it is unsure if she will remember anything of her past life, even when she does return to the underworld."
Aphrodite smirked, shook her head in mock pity, and vanished in a flash of light. Leaving bright spots in Percy's vision even though he hadn't been directly looking at her.
Reborn.
Annabeth was gone. Probably forever.
Percy broke.
For the first time since he returned from the battle he weeped. He mourned his love.
His life.
Hands grabbed him and he shook them off, pushing them away.
He began to panic. Where was he?
More hands grasped at him, strangling him as he struggled against their grip.
• • •
The doctors in the infirmary weren't mad at Percy Jackson. Sure, he was being a pain at the moment but nobody could blame him. He obviously wasn't in the same room as the rest of them.
It was clear Percy didn't feel the hands of the Apollo doctors and nurses in the infirmary pulling him from the floor and pushing him back into the bed, but instead some terrible monsters only seen by him.
He didn't hear his friends mummers of pity at his obvious insanity.
Didn't see his good friend, Rachel Dare's terrified look when she walked by the window and looked in to see him in a crumpled heap, sobbing.
He didn't see one of the nurses slip out to go tell Chiron that Percy needed to leave the camp, he was going to kill himself if he continued on like this, perhaps he needed the touch of a mother.
Percy Jackson didn't see Chiron sign the letters of dismissal from Camp Half Blood and sign Percy's name in red ink.
And honestly, after what he had seen, who could blame him?
/End of flash back./
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Percy Jackson: Gods' Bane (DARK PERCY)
FanfictionPercy Jackson is not a good person. At least, not anymore. Percy has been through a lot. Annabeth is dead and his few remaining friends are scattered across America. Percy's been loyal and heroic his whole life, he's always done what the gods ask...
