Chapter Text
There is this feeling of Time slipping through your hands that no being will ever forget.
Like sand cradled in a closed fist, it continues to slip, the tiny particles caught by the wind and blown away. The grains fly into the sea to be forgotten and into your eyes, blinding you. A toddler feels it, and the ancient grandmother feels it. It is the feeling of wishing to stay in one place while the pendulum swings. Life waits for nobody, and future plans become memories in the blink of an eye. Watching your child take their first steps on the day of their college graduation and burying your grandmother with smooth hands.
Rhea Jackson very much hated the feeling of Time.
It was the eternal clock ticking ever closer to that damned prophecy.
A single choice shall end his days .
Rhea had struggled for some time to figure out who ‘his’ was referring to. According to Annabeth, it was supposed to be Zeus or Kronos. According to Rhea, it felt like that was wrong and it belonged to someone else, but who? For a while, she even worried if it was her and that she would be making some discovery about herself soon, but she quickly dismissed that idea.
Honestly, it made so much sense now.
It was Luke.
She wasn’t the hero of this story, she was simply here to give him the opportunity to be one.
She passed the dagger to him and watched his lifeline snap.
And she felt Kronos’ revenge.
It was a force stronger than herself, stronger than any god, and it burned . Like stepping into the sun, it was a warmth that once embraced her, and now it burns her and bites into her like claws.
As she fell onto her knees next to Luke, her hands scrambled to cover her ears, her eyes, and any part of her that she could protect from the force of Time.
She felt the hand of Luke reach out to grab at her armor weakly, and in a moment of blindness, she reached back.
There is a curse that comes with Time, and Kronos knows how to wield it well. There is no way to return to what once was, even if you are standing right there.
When the heat burnt away and left them in what felt like a pile of sand and ashes, Rhea opened her eyes to see a place unfamiliar to her, definitely not Olympus.
But she couldn’t focus on that.
Luke was sprawled in front of her, the sand around him was charred and half molten into glass. The salty waves lapped around them, licking their wounds, and turning red.
His eyes were open—blue eyes, the way they used to be. His breath was a deep rattle.
"Good . . . blade," he croaked.
“Luke?” Her hand came to press down on his wound. “Hold on, Luke, just, just hold on.”
“Rhea–” Luke groaned, hissing through his teeth as she applied pressure onto his bleeding lifeline. “Don’t, I, let me go.”
“Like hades!” She cursed him, pulling saltwater to them. She didn’t know if she could heal others, but she was about to find out. “I don’t know where in Olympus’ name we are and I am not being left alone here!”
“He…” Luke tried to speak. “We’re back… he took us…”
Back. Kronos, titan of time, took us back somewhere. Some when .
Rhea did not like this.
He gritted his teeth, blue eyes flashing in agony. “New timeline… he threw us back… to where we can’t return…”
Her powers weren’t working, the saltwater was doing nothing to Luke’s wound, only hurting him more.
“Don’t you dare leave me, Luke,” she hissed. “This isn’t over. I’m dragging your ass back to your father, you hear me? Hold on.”
She opened her mouth to call out for help from the gods, only to see him cough and his lips glisten crimson. He gripped her sleeve, and she could feel the heat of his skin like a fire, like Kronos had not yet left his body. "Ethan. Me. All the unclaimed. Don't let it . . . Don't let it happen again. Don’t be bitter."
His eyes were angry, but pleading too.
He was so stupid. He was right about the gods. He should’ve never killed so many. He was a traitor. He was a hero. She hated him and she could never forgive him, but she would not deny him this.
"I won't," she said. "I promise."
Luke nodded, and his hand went slack. His eyes were glassy.
Rhea pulled away from where she was kneeling over him. Numbly, she stood up, squeezing her eyes shut for several moments before blinking them open, seeing the sky through blurry tears.
There’s nothing around them, the sand was the barely-there entrance to a cave and the tide was rising, the island seemed to be a jagged mountainous rock jutting up like an ugly blemish on the sea.
She burst into hysterical laughter, tears burning their way down her cheeks, and the waves crashed even louder and harder against the sand, missing her with a careful deliberation, almost like it was afraid of her.
Rhea has no idea where the fuck she is, and she has far fewer ideas of when she is.
Her mom is never going to see the Empire State Building light up blue.
She wanted to go home.