Fic: Eternity, Fandom: Percy Jackson, Pairing: Percy/Calypso, Rating: G
Title: Eternity
Author: in_excelsis_dea
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Characters: Calypso, Percy, OFC
Pairings: Past Percy/Annabeth, Percy/Calypso
Rating: G
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, I'm only borrowing them.
AN: This was written for a fic prompt at Christmas, I believe... finally getting around to cleaning up my Desktop and posting some fics. This takes place in the future. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.
It takes her many years, but she finally gets her happy end.
After her curse was lifted, she and Percy remained friends, though they did not see each other often. She had a new world to explore, gardens to plant, new animals to meet. He had a mortal life: a girlfriend, a family, schooling and later a job. She would randomly appear to him, though she kept her visits infrequent and short -- she knew his girlfriend and later wife never approved of her.
And then another great prophecy was set down. He was older, still young but definitely grown. She watched the final battle and the final gift -- a gift the gods this time would not let him turn down.
Oh, he tried. Immortality didn't sit well with him. He clung to his mortal life which caused problems for his family. His daughter joined the Hunt; his son married a daughter of Aphrodite, their son married a mortal, and the line dwindled.
His precious wife died eventually of old age.
Dionysus was freed from his duties to Camp Halfblood, and Percy stepped in to keep an eye on things. She watched from a distance at first, before she stepped in to comfort him, merely as a friend. She still loved him -- she still loved all her heroes, but they had long gone to Hades. All of them, except Percy.
She has eternity to wait for him, and she had learned to be very patient.
So she calls on him still, chats with him, tries her best to make him laugh and smile. She doesn't speak of love or desire or anything that would influence him, instead emphasizing their friendship.
It is a cool spring morning when a Hunter of Artemis comes calling. Calypso waters her flowers and hums a ditty, her thoughts on the honey she will make from the flowers and the need to refill the bird house with seeds. A knock on her gate surprises her -- she rarely has visitors. Mortals have a hard time finding her house and, well, demi-gods and immortals don't usually seek her out anymore. She lives a quiet existence, and she prefers it that way.
"Lady Calypso?" The caller steps into the garden. She is young, appearing to be around thirteen years of age, dressed in simple garments and wears a circlet around her arm displaying that she is the second lieutenant of Artemis. "May I have a word?"
Calypso motions to a stone bench nestled in an arbor full of honey suckle. "Please sit." The girl nods and takes a seat, her eyes roaming the garden. "Now what brings a Hunter of Artemis to me?"
"I -" The girl seems to falter for a moment. "Well, to be honest, I feel rather silly being here. I got permission from Thalia to come, because even she finally figures you might be a help, and I don't really know what else to do." She lifts up her eyes, a stormy green that morph into a stormy grey and back. "It's my father, Lady Calypso, and I was told you are friends with him."
Calypso nods. "I am friends with Percy, yes."
"Oh good, you know who I am." The girl looks relieved. "It was Thalia's idea, actually -- I mean, I seem to vaguely remember you once when I was really little, before the gods forced my father away. I think you brought us this lovely jam. And a couple of decades ago my dad mentioned you had visited him, because he was gardening and well, you know my dad -- the only plants he can keep alive are kelp. But when I was trying to come up with someone I could find to help and Uncle Nico wasn't being very helpful at all you know, and, well, Thalia mentioned you. So you can help?" Calandra Jackson is centuries old, yet her immortal youth makes her shine.
Calypso cannot help but smile. "My dear, I will help with what I can. What does Percy need?"
"I don't know, actually. No one does. I think -- we think there might have been another incarnation of her, or at least someone who reminded him, because he's been moping about for awhile now, and no one else seems to be able to do anything." Calandra lowers her eyes. "It's pathetic, really -- we're all immortal, and yet we're completely powerless in this case."
Calypso nods solemnly. "Well, Huntress, I will do what I can." Not that she expects there is much she can do. No one but the Lord of the Dead (and possibly the Ghost King) knows for sure whether the camper is actually a reincarnated Annabeth Jackson née Chase, or just a relative with lots of similarities, but regardless, it always throws the godly guardian of Camp Halfblood astray when she appears.
It doesn't happen often -- the first appeared over a hundred and fifty years after Annabeth's death, and Percy was luckily spending some time in the ocean and missed her except for a quick glance during a quest. It was a shock, but he didn't have time to do more because the poor girl died saving a friend.
A century or two later, another girl appeared, and Percy seemed to intend to court her before Zeus put his foot down and Percy ended up stuck with Ares as a sparring partner for her lifespan. After Melanie died, Percy was warned and every time since, Percy kept his distance, though he tended to be depressed for the girl's entire life-span.
So far, there had been two more -- and now it appeared there was a third. Every time Percy's friends would try to distract him any way they knew how, and now it was her turn finally. For all their shared history on her island, and her visits since then, she knew that many of the immortals did not consider her and Percy friends. After all, her visits since he had been granted immortality were few and far between, and it made her feel validated and needed that Thalia Grace and Calandra had remembered her, regardless of how vaguely.
"That would be great." Calandra stands up. "I -- um, he's at Camp, as far as I know. He usually is. Tell him 'hi' from me."
Calypso nods and follows the girl out of her garden, waving good-bye as the Huntress leaves.
It is time to journey to Camp Halfblood.
As the camp was created after her imprisonment, she has never spent much time there. Yes, she had visited Percy there a few times, but she never stayed long. That said, it looks the same as it always has. The styles of the clothing have certainly changed over the centuries, but the campers themselves are the same as always. A few glance at her when she appears in front of the porch of the Big House, but they soon turn away and continue on. She is a relative nobody, but she doesn't mind.
"Lady Calypso." She turns and is greeted by the ancient centaur. "How may I be of service?"
"I'm looking for Percy," she says softly. "Calandra came to me."
"I had hoped you had another reason for coming here, but..." Chiron bows his head. "It is true our resident god is having problems again." He looks towards the bay. "Lord Perseus has taken to walking the shore lately."
"Thank you, Lord Centaur." Calypso smiles before disappearing, appearing on the beach of Camp Halfblood. At first she does not see Percy. There is a lone camper standing just where the waves hit the sand, but not the god she was expecting. Perhaps he wandered off? Or maybe Nico di Angelo, the Ghost King, had taken him somewhere. Lord Poseidon never liked seeing his son like this, maybe he had brought him to the sea?
The camper looks up, and suddenly Calypso knows. Instead of appearing as a man in his early thirties -- the age he was when immortality was forced upon him -- Percy is in the guise of a teenager, right down to the worn jeans, orange t-shirt and camp necklace with five beads. A look passes on his face before he comes towards her.
"Calypso." He smiles, and it touches her that it is genuine. "What are you doing here?"
"Your daughter said you had need of me." She sits in the sand and he joins her. "Care to talk?"
He shrugs, turns away to face the ocean. "I never wanted this, you know. I got offered immortality once and turned it down; I will never understand why they thought I'd accept it the second time. But the gods don't enjoy being turned down, I guess, so they wanted to teach me a lesson -- or something." He picks up a handful of sand and lets it seep through his fingers. "Lot of good it did them, making us all miserable. Mr. D appeared even though he hates Camp because he wanted to tell me how Ares was complaining to Zeus about me not battling him." Though he is a god, Percy will still refer to the former camp director as Mr. D, something Calypso found amusing.
"Can you give it up?" She questions, watching him closely. "Is it even possible to return to being mortal?"
"No. At least -- I don't think so. Though even if it were, fat lot of good it would do me now. Annabeth's been dead for, by Zeus, nearly a milennia now, my son has been dead for almost as long, my daughter is immortal. Returning to mortality, Calypso -- there's nothing for me anymore." He digs in the sand, comes up with a shell and tosses it. "Immortality is a curse I'm stuck with."
"Then you have to make the best of it." Calypso tries to be strong for him. She knows what it feels like to want something and not to be able to have it. She craved for companionship, for a way off of her island -- things she thought she'd never receive until Percy came along. For him, she must be strong and supportive. She owes it to him.
"I know." A wisp of a smile crosses his lips. "I'm trying. But it's so hard, sometimes. I see the campers and remember. And yet when I go away, when I'm not at camp -- it just makes me want to go back. Camp is home, more than Olympus or the sea even. It's where I truly belong. But..." He trails off, looking down. "She comes along, every century or decade or so -- I'm terrible with time now -- she comes along and it's like a knife in my mortal spot." The spot is no longer mortal, but it is the only place he could bleed or be wounded. Ares, of course, has never liked that fact.
"I understand." And she does.
"I think...I finally realized that I'm torturing myself. That even if she does get reincarnated again, it won't be my Annabeth. Her soul, yes. But not her memories, not her spirit. She won't remember me. Our time is long gone, and it's not fair of me to try to impose a vision of a dead woman onto an innocent girl."
"No, it isn't." Calypso doesn't know what else to say.
"There's this girl, she just came into camp. Thirteen, unclaimed, though I expect she'll get claimed soon. Daughter of Hecate, probably, since she accidentally turned a chair into a dog. I saw her, and I didn't know what to do. She thinks I'm a normal camper, because I was spying on the Hermes kids, since they were up to no good, and I really didn't feel like having to deal with an upset Aphrodite cabin again. She tries to talk to me and I just freeze and part of me is going 'this is Annabeth, you Seaweed Brain' while the other part is going 'Annabeth died centuries ago, get over it,' and I can't take it anymore and I just disappear. Ended up in the middle of the lake, startled a poor group of Ceres campers canoeing." He puts his head into his hands. "I felt like a fool. I am a fool. For all I know, this girl just happens to look like Annabeth. Or maybe she is a reincarnation, I don't know. All I do know is that this has to stop -- that I have to get over this somehow." He looks up at her, meets her eyes. His eyes are turbulent and stormy. "Help me, Calypso. How do I get over her? How did you get over... get over us?"
She doesn't know if he refers to the two of them as an 'us', or just the other heroes on his island. But she reaches for him, places a hand on his shoulder, still keeping her gaze locked with his. "I never did, you know. I never stopped loving you."
He doesn't kiss her then. They move slowly, talking things out. It takes time for him to accept his decision to move on, and even longer for him to feel comfortable doing so. But the first time they kiss, a few years down the road, it feels right and she's glad they waited. He courts her and woos her and when he finally asks for her to marry him, almost a century later, she accepts.
It takes another century for them to have a child of their own, and then they have another and another. He splits his time between camp and their cottage wherever they decide to have it. They have both been hurt, but time heals all wounds, and time is something they have in abundance. When Calandra kisses her on the cheek and calls her 'my step-mother' to a camper during a visit to Camp, Calypso can't help but smile. When she wraps her arms around her husband at night, she can't help but thank the gods -- including him -- for finally giving her a happy ending. He rolls over in his sleep and she kisses his lips softly, content in her love for him.
Author: in_excelsis_dea
Fandom: Percy Jackson
Characters: Calypso, Percy, OFC
Pairings: Past Percy/Annabeth, Percy/Calypso
Rating: G
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine, I'm only borrowing them.
AN: This was written for a fic prompt at Christmas, I believe... finally getting around to cleaning up my Desktop and posting some fics. This takes place in the future. Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome.
It takes her many years, but she finally gets her happy end.
After her curse was lifted, she and Percy remained friends, though they did not see each other often. She had a new world to explore, gardens to plant, new animals to meet. He had a mortal life: a girlfriend, a family, schooling and later a job. She would randomly appear to him, though she kept her visits infrequent and short -- she knew his girlfriend and later wife never approved of her.
And then another great prophecy was set down. He was older, still young but definitely grown. She watched the final battle and the final gift -- a gift the gods this time would not let him turn down.
Oh, he tried. Immortality didn't sit well with him. He clung to his mortal life which caused problems for his family. His daughter joined the Hunt; his son married a daughter of Aphrodite, their son married a mortal, and the line dwindled.
His precious wife died eventually of old age.
Dionysus was freed from his duties to Camp Halfblood, and Percy stepped in to keep an eye on things. She watched from a distance at first, before she stepped in to comfort him, merely as a friend. She still loved him -- she still loved all her heroes, but they had long gone to Hades. All of them, except Percy.
She has eternity to wait for him, and she had learned to be very patient.
So she calls on him still, chats with him, tries her best to make him laugh and smile. She doesn't speak of love or desire or anything that would influence him, instead emphasizing their friendship.
It is a cool spring morning when a Hunter of Artemis comes calling. Calypso waters her flowers and hums a ditty, her thoughts on the honey she will make from the flowers and the need to refill the bird house with seeds. A knock on her gate surprises her -- she rarely has visitors. Mortals have a hard time finding her house and, well, demi-gods and immortals don't usually seek her out anymore. She lives a quiet existence, and she prefers it that way.
"Lady Calypso?" The caller steps into the garden. She is young, appearing to be around thirteen years of age, dressed in simple garments and wears a circlet around her arm displaying that she is the second lieutenant of Artemis. "May I have a word?"
Calypso motions to a stone bench nestled in an arbor full of honey suckle. "Please sit." The girl nods and takes a seat, her eyes roaming the garden. "Now what brings a Hunter of Artemis to me?"
"I -" The girl seems to falter for a moment. "Well, to be honest, I feel rather silly being here. I got permission from Thalia to come, because even she finally figures you might be a help, and I don't really know what else to do." She lifts up her eyes, a stormy green that morph into a stormy grey and back. "It's my father, Lady Calypso, and I was told you are friends with him."
Calypso nods. "I am friends with Percy, yes."
"Oh good, you know who I am." The girl looks relieved. "It was Thalia's idea, actually -- I mean, I seem to vaguely remember you once when I was really little, before the gods forced my father away. I think you brought us this lovely jam. And a couple of decades ago my dad mentioned you had visited him, because he was gardening and well, you know my dad -- the only plants he can keep alive are kelp. But when I was trying to come up with someone I could find to help and Uncle Nico wasn't being very helpful at all you know, and, well, Thalia mentioned you. So you can help?" Calandra Jackson is centuries old, yet her immortal youth makes her shine.
Calypso cannot help but smile. "My dear, I will help with what I can. What does Percy need?"
"I don't know, actually. No one does. I think -- we think there might have been another incarnation of her, or at least someone who reminded him, because he's been moping about for awhile now, and no one else seems to be able to do anything." Calandra lowers her eyes. "It's pathetic, really -- we're all immortal, and yet we're completely powerless in this case."
Calypso nods solemnly. "Well, Huntress, I will do what I can." Not that she expects there is much she can do. No one but the Lord of the Dead (and possibly the Ghost King) knows for sure whether the camper is actually a reincarnated Annabeth Jackson née Chase, or just a relative with lots of similarities, but regardless, it always throws the godly guardian of Camp Halfblood astray when she appears.
It doesn't happen often -- the first appeared over a hundred and fifty years after Annabeth's death, and Percy was luckily spending some time in the ocean and missed her except for a quick glance during a quest. It was a shock, but he didn't have time to do more because the poor girl died saving a friend.
A century or two later, another girl appeared, and Percy seemed to intend to court her before Zeus put his foot down and Percy ended up stuck with Ares as a sparring partner for her lifespan. After Melanie died, Percy was warned and every time since, Percy kept his distance, though he tended to be depressed for the girl's entire life-span.
So far, there had been two more -- and now it appeared there was a third. Every time Percy's friends would try to distract him any way they knew how, and now it was her turn finally. For all their shared history on her island, and her visits since then, she knew that many of the immortals did not consider her and Percy friends. After all, her visits since he had been granted immortality were few and far between, and it made her feel validated and needed that Thalia Grace and Calandra had remembered her, regardless of how vaguely.
"That would be great." Calandra stands up. "I -- um, he's at Camp, as far as I know. He usually is. Tell him 'hi' from me."
Calypso nods and follows the girl out of her garden, waving good-bye as the Huntress leaves.
It is time to journey to Camp Halfblood.
As the camp was created after her imprisonment, she has never spent much time there. Yes, she had visited Percy there a few times, but she never stayed long. That said, it looks the same as it always has. The styles of the clothing have certainly changed over the centuries, but the campers themselves are the same as always. A few glance at her when she appears in front of the porch of the Big House, but they soon turn away and continue on. She is a relative nobody, but she doesn't mind.
"Lady Calypso." She turns and is greeted by the ancient centaur. "How may I be of service?"
"I'm looking for Percy," she says softly. "Calandra came to me."
"I had hoped you had another reason for coming here, but..." Chiron bows his head. "It is true our resident god is having problems again." He looks towards the bay. "Lord Perseus has taken to walking the shore lately."
"Thank you, Lord Centaur." Calypso smiles before disappearing, appearing on the beach of Camp Halfblood. At first she does not see Percy. There is a lone camper standing just where the waves hit the sand, but not the god she was expecting. Perhaps he wandered off? Or maybe Nico di Angelo, the Ghost King, had taken him somewhere. Lord Poseidon never liked seeing his son like this, maybe he had brought him to the sea?
The camper looks up, and suddenly Calypso knows. Instead of appearing as a man in his early thirties -- the age he was when immortality was forced upon him -- Percy is in the guise of a teenager, right down to the worn jeans, orange t-shirt and camp necklace with five beads. A look passes on his face before he comes towards her.
"Calypso." He smiles, and it touches her that it is genuine. "What are you doing here?"
"Your daughter said you had need of me." She sits in the sand and he joins her. "Care to talk?"
He shrugs, turns away to face the ocean. "I never wanted this, you know. I got offered immortality once and turned it down; I will never understand why they thought I'd accept it the second time. But the gods don't enjoy being turned down, I guess, so they wanted to teach me a lesson -- or something." He picks up a handful of sand and lets it seep through his fingers. "Lot of good it did them, making us all miserable. Mr. D appeared even though he hates Camp because he wanted to tell me how Ares was complaining to Zeus about me not battling him." Though he is a god, Percy will still refer to the former camp director as Mr. D, something Calypso found amusing.
"Can you give it up?" She questions, watching him closely. "Is it even possible to return to being mortal?"
"No. At least -- I don't think so. Though even if it were, fat lot of good it would do me now. Annabeth's been dead for, by Zeus, nearly a milennia now, my son has been dead for almost as long, my daughter is immortal. Returning to mortality, Calypso -- there's nothing for me anymore." He digs in the sand, comes up with a shell and tosses it. "Immortality is a curse I'm stuck with."
"Then you have to make the best of it." Calypso tries to be strong for him. She knows what it feels like to want something and not to be able to have it. She craved for companionship, for a way off of her island -- things she thought she'd never receive until Percy came along. For him, she must be strong and supportive. She owes it to him.
"I know." A wisp of a smile crosses his lips. "I'm trying. But it's so hard, sometimes. I see the campers and remember. And yet when I go away, when I'm not at camp -- it just makes me want to go back. Camp is home, more than Olympus or the sea even. It's where I truly belong. But..." He trails off, looking down. "She comes along, every century or decade or so -- I'm terrible with time now -- she comes along and it's like a knife in my mortal spot." The spot is no longer mortal, but it is the only place he could bleed or be wounded. Ares, of course, has never liked that fact.
"I understand." And she does.
"I think...I finally realized that I'm torturing myself. That even if she does get reincarnated again, it won't be my Annabeth. Her soul, yes. But not her memories, not her spirit. She won't remember me. Our time is long gone, and it's not fair of me to try to impose a vision of a dead woman onto an innocent girl."
"No, it isn't." Calypso doesn't know what else to say.
"There's this girl, she just came into camp. Thirteen, unclaimed, though I expect she'll get claimed soon. Daughter of Hecate, probably, since she accidentally turned a chair into a dog. I saw her, and I didn't know what to do. She thinks I'm a normal camper, because I was spying on the Hermes kids, since they were up to no good, and I really didn't feel like having to deal with an upset Aphrodite cabin again. She tries to talk to me and I just freeze and part of me is going 'this is Annabeth, you Seaweed Brain' while the other part is going 'Annabeth died centuries ago, get over it,' and I can't take it anymore and I just disappear. Ended up in the middle of the lake, startled a poor group of Ceres campers canoeing." He puts his head into his hands. "I felt like a fool. I am a fool. For all I know, this girl just happens to look like Annabeth. Or maybe she is a reincarnation, I don't know. All I do know is that this has to stop -- that I have to get over this somehow." He looks up at her, meets her eyes. His eyes are turbulent and stormy. "Help me, Calypso. How do I get over her? How did you get over... get over us?"
She doesn't know if he refers to the two of them as an 'us', or just the other heroes on his island. But she reaches for him, places a hand on his shoulder, still keeping her gaze locked with his. "I never did, you know. I never stopped loving you."
He doesn't kiss her then. They move slowly, talking things out. It takes time for him to accept his decision to move on, and even longer for him to feel comfortable doing so. But the first time they kiss, a few years down the road, it feels right and she's glad they waited. He courts her and woos her and when he finally asks for her to marry him, almost a century later, she accepts.
It takes another century for them to have a child of their own, and then they have another and another. He splits his time between camp and their cottage wherever they decide to have it. They have both been hurt, but time heals all wounds, and time is something they have in abundance. When Calandra kisses her on the cheek and calls her 'my step-mother' to a camper during a visit to Camp, Calypso can't help but smile. When she wraps her arms around her husband at night, she can't help but thank the gods -- including him -- for finally giving her a happy ending. He rolls over in his sleep and she kisses his lips softly, content in her love for him.