I came downstairs several minutes later to find Crystal with her head buried in the refrigerator. There was an odd-looking plastic contraption on the counter with a thin column of steam rising out of a small hole in the top and she’d already set out a plate, cup, and fork on the island where she’d eaten breakfast.

I walked up behind her and found her balancing two differently-sized tupperware containers in her left hand while she continued to rifle around the bottom shelf with her right looking for something else. She was kneeling on the floor, her butt pointed up into the air and wiggling back and forth as she moved. Her shirt had ridden up somewhat, revealing a band of smooth, pale skin and, even in baggy sweatpants, she made for quite a sight.

I admired the view for a moment, then made my presence known. “Anything I can do to help?” I asked softly.

Crystal yelped and jerked backwards, slamming the back of her head into the plastic shelf above her. “Fuck!” she swore loudly. The two containers she was holding went tumbling and I snatched them out of the air before they could burst open against the floor. “Percy!” she exclaimed, turning around to face me and raising a hand to rub the back of her head, “I didn’t hear you.”

“Sorry,” I apologized, setting the containers I’d caught down on the counter. I rubbed the back of my head awkwardly as well, remembering the pain of slamming my head into things before I’d gotten the Curse. “That looked painful.”

“It was,” she grouched. She finally pulled her other hand out of the fridge, revealing a bottle of blue gatorade held triumphantly in her fist. “I knew we had one here somewhere! I remember you said you liked blue foods and drinks, so…”

“I do. I really appreciate it.”

She stood up and handed me the bottle, still rubbing the back of her head. Feeling impulsive, I tilted her head down and planted a kiss on the top of her head like my mom used to do to me. “There, all better,” I told her jokingly.

Crystal snorted in amusement. “When Amy does that, it actually works, you know. That’s how she used to heal Vicky before Carol made her stop.”

I pouted. “Well, maybe my kisses don’t heal, but,” I leaned forward and gently kissed Crystal on the lips, then pulled back, “I hope they still make you feel better?”

Crystal stopped rubbing her head to grab my shoulders. “I don’t know, I think I need to run another experiment.” Our lips met in the middle and this time the kiss lasted significantly longer, our tongues dancing together and my heart pounding in my chest. This time it was Crystal’s turn to break the kiss. She pulled away, red faced and panting.

“So?” I asked, winking at her despite knowing that my face probably looked just as flustered as hers did.

She sighed dreamily. “I think it works, but I’ll need more trials to run a proper study.” My stomach growled and we both laughed. “But that can wait until later.”

I loaded a large portion of chicken, two eggs that were floating in the sauce, and the remaining tablespoon of rice onto my plate and Crystal put it in the microwave for me. It looked a little bit unfamiliar, but it smelled absolutely amazing. Crystal told me it was called adobo and it was a recipe her mom had learned from one of her coworkers.

While I waited for everything to warm up, I twisted the gatorade bottle open and took a drink. It was cold and refreshing, but tasted a bit different than the blue gatorade I was used to. I turned the bottle around and squinted at the label. “Huh.”

Crystal, who was standing beside me by the microwave, leaned over and peaked past my arm. “Is something wrong?”

“Nah, it's just…I don’t think we have this one back home.” It was called Raspberry Rime, or at least I was pretty sure that was what it said. There was a picture on the bottle; a lady in a dark blue visor and a skintight blue costume with fur around the collar.

“Oh, yeah, I guess you wouldn’t. Rime is a Protectorate hero over in Philly. It's pretty common for big brands to partner with big-name heroes, particularly if they’ve been around for a while, but I can’t imagine you have the same names in your world. ”

“Definitely not, no,” I said, distracted by studying the label on the bottle.

It was a weird thing to think about. At camp, sure we honored each other, but not like this. I imagined picking up a can of soda or a bag of chips and seeing the Stoll brothers grinning up at me from the packaging. Beckendorf’s broad shoulders and kind smile on some fancy brand-name power tools. Silena Beauregard looking all elegant on a magazine cover. Annabeth…maybe on a package of notebooks, or a fancy kit with three different protractors, two set squares, and a nice compass.

I squeezed my eyes shut. We’d saved Olympus. Saved the world, even. And barely anyone knew or cared. In a few years…we’d all just be stories, if that. Maybe, if we were really lucky, we’d end up in some new myths that Chiron could tell around the bonfire. Few demigods, even the best and brightest, lasted long. There was a reason that Camp Halfblood was a summer camp and not a town. No one really expected any of us to live long enough to need anything more than that.

I hadn’t been at camp for very long compared to some people, but even I’d noticed. There were new faces every year, and a lot fewer old faces. New head counselors were chosen not when the old ones retired, but when they just didn’t come back one day. Annabeth had once confided to me that she was the only person in her cabin left from when she’d arrived at camp. Four head counselors and nineteen of her other siblings had disappeared one-by-one, replaced by new gray-eyed boys and girls looking to their eldest surviving sister for guidance.

It was a horrible thing to contemplate. Just horrible. I’d done my best to help, to change things, but I knew deep down that I was just sticking a bandaid on a gushing wound. No matter how many monsters I killed, they would always come back. No matter how much I tried to improve the conditions at camp, there was no changing the fact that, in the end, it was still just a summer camp for children. No matter how much I insisted that all children needed to get claimed, some slipped through the cracks or came to camp and died anyway.

I didn’t know the names of any of the nine campers that had once welcomed Annabeth into Cabin Six. I wasn’t sure that anyone at camp did, not anymore. Maybe Chiron. Maybe. I was closer than most campers to the ancient trainer of heroes, and I’d seen the way he would sometimes pause and look through a camper. No doubt seeing generations of their dead brothers and sisters whom he’d helped to the best of his abilities, but ultimately lost anyway.

Sure not everyone died. Some campers were strong, clever, or lucky enough to make it out in the world. I’d even met a few of them in the past few months. There were a good number in the army, for one. Even if you were the only one with Celestial Bronze, it was a lot safer to run into a monster surrounded by friends with guns and the wherewithal to back you up in a fight.

PMCs were another popular choice. Argus made sure to point older demigods with the right temperament towards Elysium or ARGOS, both demigod owned and run companies. That way, not only did you have plenty of armed demigods around you, but they also mostly took jobs in parts of the world that had never been the center of western civilization. America and the old world were both filled with all sorts of gods, monsters, and nasty dangers, but the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia were a lot safer. Most never looked back

But not everyone had the temperament for that. Lots of demigods wanted to go to college. Start a business. Get a job. Have a family. Leave all the violence and the danger behind. Some succeeded. We talked about those ones sometimes, gods bragging about their famous and successful children. Others though…

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Lots of demigods left for the mortal world and simply vanished.

“Percy?” Crystal asked, worry bleeding into her voice. She had her hand on my shoulder and a concerned frown on her face.

The microwave beeped, announcing that my food had long since been fully heated and that I should go get it. I shook myself and tried to smile reassuringly. “Sorry, I, uh. Got lost in thought.”

I opened the microwave and grabbed my plate, ignoring the feeling of the too-hot ceramic against my invulnerable skin. I was invulnerable, but so many others that I’d left behind weren’t. My hand was shaking slightly and I set my gatorade down and used both hands to carry my plate back to the table.

“Are you okay?” Crystal asked. I nodded. “Percy, you don’t look okay.”

I sat down and took a drink from the bottle. It was too salty and too sweet at the same time, but I still drained half the bottle.

Crystal pulled up a stool and settled down beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off her body. “You’re shaking,” she whispered, “Is it something I said?”

“No…no. I mean, yes. Sort of. But it's alright. I’m just thinking about…home.”

Crystal’s expression softened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I speared a piece of chicken on my fork and took a big bite in lieu of answering. It tasted just as good as it smelled, salty and tangy and just a little sweet and spicy.

“I know I already asked this morning, but…do you want to talk about it now?” Crystal asked after a moment.

I took another bite, chewed, swallowed, and then sighed heavily. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Then how about I just ask you some questions, and you can decide if you want to answer them? I won’t mind if you don’t want to say anything. I just hate to see you hurting like this.”

I considered her words as I cut an egg into three pieces with my fork and popped one in my mouth. I didn’t usually like boiled eggs much, but this was quite nice. Well done, but not dry at all and with a great flavor.

“Sure, I guess,” I decided. I smiled at Crystal tightly, my lips straining to make a familiar face. She looked so earnest, so open and welcoming. “Why not. I guess…it probably can’t hurt.” I ate another forkful, one with rice, chicken, and another piece of egg. I chewed slowly, appreciating the work that Mrs. Dallon, Sarah, had put into cooking the food. I wasn’t part of her family, but she’d welcomed me into her home as though I was.

She was a good woman. All the members of New Wave that I’d met so far were good people. Perhaps they had their flaws, but who didn’t? In a way, I was glad that they didn’t live in my world. I never could have stayed with them if they did. My presence would have attracted swarms of monsters, something no mortal family––not even one with superpowers––was prepared to deal with.

“So uh…” Crystal looked around, suddenly seeming unsure of herself. Her eyes landed on the gatorade bottle. “...what’s your favorite gatorade flavor?”

I snorted in amusement. “You know, that’s not really the question I was expecting you to start with.”

Crystal threw her hands up in the air. “Like it or not, I’m a finance major. I have no idea what I’m doing.”

I picked up the bottle and turned it over in my hands a few times. “Probably Frost Glacier Freeze,” I answered after a moment. “It's the bluest blue one.”

Crystal’s face fell slightly. “Oh. I don’t think we have that one here.”

“Cool Blue is also pretty good.”

Crystal snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “That one we definitely have.” She lowered her hands, resting both elbows on the table in front of her. “So, does Gatorade do any hero sponsorships back in your world?”

I shook my head. “No, definitely not. We uh, never really did anything like that.”

“Oh right, I remember you telling us that heroes in your world didn’t really go out in public much.”

“Something like that, yeah. We weren’t like, celebrities, not like heroes here are. Just ordinary people with slightly less ordinary lives.”

Crystal sighed softly. “That sounds kind of nice, actually. I know it's not like that for most heroes, but sometimes it's really exhausting to have random people recognize me when I’m just trying to get to class on time or get some coffee.”

I said nothing, just rolling the other egg around the outside of my plate with my fork. It wasn’t really a situation I could relate to. Most of the time, if someone (or something) recognized me in the mortal world, they were either another demigod from camp or they immediately started running.

Crystal quickly shifted tracks. “So you guys don’t have any sort of sponsorship deals and stuff?”

“No––well, not really. Maybe a little bit internally?” Didn’t Hephaestus TV sometimes use demigods to promote products? “But nothing like this, big and public.”

Before she could say anything else, the plastic contraption on the table beeped and Crystal stood up. She cracked the top open to reveal a big pot full of steaming white rice and used a matching plastic scoop to serve some into a bowl that she slid towards me.

“Thanks,” I murmured.

Crystal shrugged. “You made breakfast. And it's not like running the rice cooker is hard. Mom did all the real work.”

“Maybe,” I shrugged, “but I still appreciate it.”

Crystal walked back around the island and retook her seat, this time leaning on one elbow and facing towards me. She watched me silently for nearly a minute as I slowly ate. I was not a very quiet person by nature, but it was a comfortable silence. And I was very hungry.

“So…what was Camp like?” she asked finally, “That shirt you’re always wearing. It’s from your hero camp, right?”

It wasn’t the question I’d been expecting, but it was one I…probably could answer. “It was…it was nice. The last time I was there, a few weeks ago I guess even if it feels a lot longer, there was a lot of construction going on. We um,” I scrambled for a good way to phrase things. “We decided to expand a bit. When we live at camp, we have cabins based on…what sort of powers you have, but for a long time a bunch of people were just shoved into cabin eleven instead of having their own place to live. Now we are adding eight new ones so there’s more space and no one feels excluded.”

“Oh that’s cool. So did you like, live in the Brute cabin? Or I guess you’re also a shaker?”

I shook my head, “Uh, it's a bit more complicated than that. Powers here…capes are a lot more varied in what they can do. Back home, we’re a lot more like New Wave. You guys would all have your own cabin, then like there was the cabin with all the Thinkers with similar abilities, that sort of thing.”

“Oh. Huh. That’s pretty cool, I guess. So which cabin did you live in?”

“I spent a couple nights at eleven, most people do. Then I moved to cabin three.”

“Were there a lot of people living with you?”

I shook my head again. “No. No, it was just me…most of the time. There was another boy. Tyson. But he wasn’t around for very long.”

“I guess that makes sense. Hydrokinesis is a pretty rare power from what I’ve heard.”

I decided not to say anything there. There was no reason to get into the whole ‘A half-blood of the eldest gods’ thing.

After a moment, Crystal seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to respond and changed directions. “What about the other cabins? You said eleven was too packed so you needed more space, but it sounds like cabin three wasn’t very full.”

Our conversation progressed slowly. There were lulls and pauses, we jumped from topic to topic, but slowly I began to open up more and more about life at camp. I tried to stay away from the more unpleasant or divine details, but Crystal had been right. It was nice to talk to someone about how.

Eventually however, it suddenly veered in a direction I had been half expecting and half dreading. “So, I remember what you said last night,” Crystal teased, leaning towards me until she was almost pressed up against my arm. “I was surprised. Either all the girls at camp must have been blind or you had to have been beating them off with a stick.”

My slowly widening smile froze and I nearly bent the fork I’d been toying with in half. I dropped it before I could further destroy the piece of cutlery and it clattered down onto my empty plate.

Crystal leaned back, a soft ‘oh’ slipping from her lips.

I squeezed my eyes shut. “It's…complicated. There…there was someone.”

Crystal looked torn. “I’m…I’m so sorry, Percy. I didn’t realize. I should have asked before––”

“It's not that. She…I didn’t leave her behind. She…she isn’t around anymore.” I stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over the stool I’d been sitting on. “Thank you for dinner, Crystal. I think I’m going to go back to bed now.”