Too Late to Apologize

 

“Percy! Percy! Percy, please wake up!” she screamed.

 

Why was she yelling at him? She was always yelling at him. There was no point anyway. If he had a chance, she wouldn’t be yelling at him but trying to heal him enough for Apollo to come and heal him or try to turn him immortal herself.

 

Percy was dead.

 

Tears leaked out of her eyes as she gently pulled him out of the car and laid him on the ground. Darkness clouded the edge of her vision, but she couldn’t help but hover over the man that she had grown to love, but had let down and emotionally and verbally abused in the last arc of his life.

 

He had thought her an angel, when she was nothing but a demon.

 

Blood soaked the ground under him, spreading everywhere until she could even feel the lifeblood of her love seeping into her skin, drenching her knees as she continued to kneel by him. Even in death, he looked tired and anguished, as if pained and not even death had released him from the stress of her…from the pain he’d been quietly dealing and coping with in the last vestiges of his life. Not just of the car crash, but the pain she’d given him all this time…

 

He wasn’t even able to look like he had just fallen asleep in death, never in peace.

 

She heard a choked sound and she dazedly looked up, seeing Hermes staring blankly at the dead body, disbelief and brokenness coloring his face. He slowly looked up and their eyes met, with his gradually starting to fill with a burning fire of utter hatred directed towards her.

 

Like the coward she knew she was, she only let a sob escape her before she teleported away from there, although she only went a few paces away to hide in the shadows and watch the proceedings.

 

It was all a blur as they took him, declared him dead on impact, and everything else. She saw Sally Jackson being told her son was dead, the deafening cries of a mother for her lost son, and Paul Blofis comforting and yet clutching onto his wife, tears of grief on his own face. She was suddenly in her room, not even realizing how had she had gotten there or what had happened between finding Percy’s body and finding herself in her room.

 

But she didn’t further question it and went to her bed, curling into a ball and refusing to come out. She didn’t take part in Percy’s funeral preparations, both mortal and traditional Ancient Greek customs. She didn’t talk to anyone or do much other than lay there. When they were going to hold his mortal funeral, she decided she could attend that. A part of her felt too ashamed to want to go to his funeral pyre burning after.

 

It was beautiful. Sally truly did all she could for her son. It was a non-traditional setup, held at Montauk Beach in front of the cabin with white lilies gracing the scene, rosemary wrapping around them elegantly, though aloe dotted the places here and there. Sally must’ve been a fan of the language of flowers and was where Percy had gotten it from, for Athena understood the meanings all too well.

 

Lilies for purity and rosemary for remembrance. Aloe was for the grief.

 

It was fitting then, that she too chose to bring flowers of significance.

 

A marigold for the pain and grief that wounds her heart. A mallow for the very love she’d scorned and avoided from her part and his, and now consumed her in his death. A morning glory for their love in vain. A rue for regret.  A yellow chrysanthemum for his love she’d slighted, accompanied by a creeping willow for the love she’d forsook. And a mauve carnation to signify the dreams of fantasy she was left with, of things never to be, of things she’d wanted, of things she could never have again.

 

All of them surrounded an amaranth, showing her love for him was immortal and would last for eternity.

 

She swallowed harshly and blinked back tears, barely getting back into the service. She saw several of Percy’s friends and saw for the first time how many people were there. Percy had truly been really popular in school, and in general. Many had come to like him in life, and she was shamed to see that the other gods were there as well, and all of the camp. She had not been able to avoid them after all.

 

But they weren’t looking at her, and were busy minding the service and looking sorrowfully at the casket. Her eyes drew towards Sally Jackson unwillingly, and she could see the mortal woman trying vainly to pull herself together, even as tears ran down her face and the occasional sob escaped. Percy’s stepdad was bent over, holding his head in one hand and covering his face, his body slightly shaking from what she could assume were sobs. Poseidon sat with them, stoic faced and unnaturally still. Suddenly, he moved and caught her stare, gaze boring into her accusingly. He said nothing, mouthed nothing, did nothing other than stare at her intensely.

 

She averted her eyes, tensing up, but when she looked back he had gone back to gazing at his son, though the grief was more visible now.

 

The service ended and it was time for them to mingle around and reminiscence with each other about Percy, before the pyre burning. She chose to stay in her seat, shaking slightly and blankly staring out in front of her.  No one came to her and she didn’t seek them out, so she was surprised when someone sat next to her. She hesitantly looked over and found her daughter looking older and more worn out. She looked down unwittingly and saw her daughter’s own bouquet.

 

A daffodil for unrequited love. A yellow tulip for hopeless love. A heliotrope for devotion and a blue violet for faithfulness. And a forget-me-not for true love.

 

Her daughter was still in love with Percy and had never given up on him.

 

But she didn’t understand the two other flowers Annabeth had, though her daughter seemed to know her thoughts. She plucked the peach blossom and twirled it around in contemplation.

 

“For bridal hope,” she whispered. She looked over at her mother bitterly. “Percy was driving over to see me; when he got into that accident, he was driving over to come to me. He was going to give us another chance.” Then she held out the snowdrop. “Consolation or hope. I had hope for us and now I am left with the knowledge that we could’ve been together and we could’ve been happy. But it’s become a consolation in a way…because in the end, it was like he’d chosen me. A little bit of comfort, you know? That I was the one he had gone to. I guess that’s my consolation prize –that I was the girl Percy chose in the end, that he had been coming to see me, that he actually wanted to give us another try.”

 

Annabeth stood up and started to walk away.

 

“Some consolation. I didn’t get Percy, I got stuck with thoughts of almost and what could’ve been,” she muttered as she left Athena behind.

 

“At least you have some consolation,” Athena murmured, frozen from her daughter’s words as she clenched her hands around her flowers and stared teary at the ground. “You’re left with the consolation that there could’ve been hope for the two of you? I? I lost it all.”

 

She teleported back to her room and left her bouquet behind on her chair. She plucked a black rose in the middle of the air, placing it in the middle of the colorful arrange of dying roses.

 

“For your death, for hatred littered in our relationship, and for a farewell to you. And a hope for your rebirth in the years to come, and that I may be able to wait for it.”

 

Two hundred years was a long time, but she would gladly wait for them to pass if it meant seeing him again.

 

“I’m sorry. I’ll wait for you. I’ll make it up to you and pay my penance.”

 

She closed her eyes as she slightly bent, her hand going to cover her mouth as she began to sob to herself, letting the tears leak out once more.

 

It was too late to apologize in this lifetime.

 

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Athena kneeled in front of the grave, laying a pink carnation on top of the grave marker.

 

“Your body is burned, but I’m grateful that you have your own place here, so that I may visit you and try to reach out and speak to you,” the wisdom goddess murmured. “I have brought you a pink carnation from the Fields of Olympus. If you were here…you would tell me what I know. A pink carnation symbolizes a woman’s love, carrying a message that ‘I’ll never forget you’ and that ‘You are always on my mind.’ That is truth, Percy, but it is much too late, isn’t it?”

 

She started weeping and wondered when had her pride grown so much to have cost her everything.

 

She was left with regrets. She had nothing but regrets.

 

And the scornful glares of the gods and goddesses around Olympus, all of whom muttered things to each other as she passed them, when she actually got up the energy and will to venture out. The sneers and disgusted whispers, as well the clear disdain on their faces.

 

That was nothing to say of the other Olympians.

 

Ares was volatile, and tried to pick fights. He was increasingly angry with each meeting with her, and he took every opportunity to insult her and incite a conflict. It was clear he’d waged war on her, and she did not want to fight back. And the insults he threw at her…they were too eerie a likeness to many of the insults that she herself had thrown at Percy when he’d been alive, and it brought a chill to her immortal blood hearing them.

 

Hera had always been mocking towards her, but she’d become even more so these days. Zeus wouldn’t even look at her, though when he did, his gaze was heavy with disappointment and made her want to run back to her home and hide in her room again, wishing with all her might that Percy would be there to comb his hand through her hair. Demeter would avoid her presence, leaving whenever she was within the vicinity. Even kindhearted Hestia had joined ranks with Dionysus and Hephaestus in giving her a cool reception at any time they had to see her; the latter two usually abrasive anyway, had chilled their attitudes and laced them with dislike specifically for her.

 

Poseidon thankfully stayed holed up in his underwater palace, when he wasn’t with Sally and Paul in their home, trying to pull together or just grieving. On the rare times they came face to face, he spat ugly vitriol at her, and accused her of so many things regarding his son.

 

“Did you enjoy abusing him?”

 

“Did it make you feel better tearing him down?”

 

“Did you love making him so miserable?”

 

“Don’t deny it! You insulted him every day! You made him feel like this place was hell!”

 

“You did abuse him! Maybe you didn’t hit him, but you had your precious fucking words, didn’t you, you bitch!”

 

The accusations hurt, especially as she knew how truthful a lot them were. So she kept quiet and let Poseidon reel out whatever abusive retaliation he wanted to her, because she felt like she deserved it.

 

And with the rest, she couldn’t keep herself from flinching in their presence. Hades, who merely looked at her with an amused smile and a cold look to his eye, but said nothing, even as his wife snapped whatever needed to be said to her with an angry tone. Apollo, who talked to her in short clipped tones and with icy blue eyes. And then Artemis who was absolutely furious and would argue against her on anything that she could, disagree on everything, and combat her on every issue.

 

And of course, the absolute hatred that Hermes had in his eyes whenever he saw her, just like at the scene of the accident. It was a burning, unforgivable hatred that held no mercy, no leniency, and any hint of compassion or care was wiped out. Towards everyone else, he was and just looked bitter. Percy had been his last link, his last anchor after Luke. Now Percy was gone.

 

Then there was Aphrodite. She ignored the very existence of Athena, as if she wasn’t there or alive in any way. Athena didn’t exist to Aphrodite, who acted like there was no wisdom goddess at all.

 

Athena wished she didn’t exist either.

 

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She stood before the council, but she wasn’t going to speak up. Whatever they decided, she would accept. Right now, she felt nothing but misery and remorse. She had lost him and there was nothing more to be said.

 

“Athena…perhaps I should’ve done this a long time ago,” Zeus ran a hand wearily down his face. “If I had, maybe it wouldn’t have led to this. I should’ve taught you humility alongside Apollo and Poseidon in the past, for surely it has worked for them. What do you have to say for yourself?”

 

She stayed quiet.

 

“You have lost him and you have nothing to say?” her father asked again.

 

“I –” her voice cracked, so she stopped and let her words die, tears gathering in her eyes and only two drops spilling one after the other down her lowered face. She was a strong woman and she had always prided herself as so, but there was no shame in shedding tears and even strong men and women suffer agonizing blows.

 

“A lesson must be taught,” Zeus spoke up again. “I hereby declare your punishment as the following –Sally Jackson has lost her son and only child. For her pain and for your arrogance, you are to serve her until the end of her days. Perhaps feeling the pain of loss twice over will humble you enough to know your words and actions have consequences, and can lead to more than one person being hurt. You are wise, Athena, but you are not all-knowing. Though I doubt the wisdom of your recent actions.”

 

“It’s not enough,” Poseidon’s quiet voice rang out in the room.

 

Athena forced herself to look at her former rival, inwardly flinching at the hollow look in the god’s eyes and his gaunt and older appearance.

 

“It’s not enough,” Poseidon repeated. “That may cover Sally’s pain, but of mine? He was my child too. I have lost him…and because of what? Because he loved her? It is not enough. It is not enough to humble her. It is not enough for him. He was the Hero of Olympus. After all he has done for us, that he’d saved us, and this is the way he dies. Not in honorable death, but a pointless accident that she was the cause of! I want her to suffer like Sally is suffering, like I am suffering. I want something more to be done!”

 

Zeus looked hesitant, “As much as I wish to honor your wishes, brother, I am not certain what more we can do.”

 

Poseidon stood up abruptly and stormed out of the meeting, refusing to stay a moment longer. Zeus sighed and looked around the room, seeing stoic faces that revealed nothing, and then he settled his gaze on his daughter.

 

“Furthermore,” he continued, thinking. “After your sentence with Sally Jackson, you will suffer a mortal’s fate and know how precious and possibly short life can be when you are as fragile, as helpless, as vulnerable and powerless as they. You will learn to treasure life. You will learn to appreciate your own life and of those around you. You will learn that he was mortal and as heroic and brave as he was, he was still mortal. And in his short life, he chose to live it by wasting it with you, you who didn’t value his choice and his life. You will live a mortal life, Athena, and you will face all the hardships they faced to learn to cling to life and treasure it so. Perhaps you too will cling to life and treasure it, and not take it for granted. For though you are immortal, the people we have come to love in life as we meet them may not be so.”

 

Athena bowed her head and accepted her fate.

 

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It wasn’t that Hades was keeping this to himself. Au contraire, he planned to tell his brother as soon as he managed to pull this through. But there was a difference between going through with something and actually succeeding. Why would he tell Poseidon that he’d planned to try to resurrect his son earlier than planned, when there was a chance that Hades might not be able to do it? He wasn’t cruel –heartless and uncaring and deceitful, yes, but not cruel. He didn’t delight in pain, especially not of this particular issue. And he, on some level, understood his brother’s pain more than the others could, though he knew they would want to disagree.

 

But did they have the probable chance of trying to reincarnate Perseus Jackson two hundred years earlier than was possible? Because if Hades succeeded, Percy Jackson would be back onto earth a year after his death.