Chapter Text
Seven years post-ascension
Settling into his new role at Camp Half-Blood was easier than Percy had anticipated. Annabeth and Lily came with him, of course - who was going to tell them they couldn’t? Percy was in charge now. It took a little while for Annabeth to move her work from New Rome over to New York, but it was made easier by the fact that they no longer needed her job to support the family. They lived in the Big House and all of their material needs were taken care of by Olympus. They didn’t really need money at all now, and on the rare occasions they did, there was a small provision in the camp’s budget that Percy was allowed to use for his personal expenses. Gradually Annabeth took on fewer and fewer paid jobs until eventually she had almost completely stopped working (in the traditional sense at least) and was able to dedicate pretty much all her time to leading the design and construction of New Greece. Percy spent most of his time with demigods, leading sword fighting classes and managing camp-wide activities. He made sure to visit Camp Jupiter as much as he could, too, but their praetors were capable of leading without the intervention or guidance of any gods. The routine was easy and comfortable.
At least until Lily turned eight.
Lily Jackson-Chase was alarmingly like her mother in many ways. She had Percy’s dark hair, but that was about it; the older she grew, the more her face resembled Annabeth’s and the more she expressed the same stubborn determination and absolute insistence that she could be just as good as everyone else. She was desperate to join the demigods as an official camper, to live in a cabin and play Capture the Flag and learn to fight monsters. Percy and Annabeth had both agreed they couldn’t refuse outright, but there had been a lot of discussions about an appropriate age to let her attend camp. Kids were getting to camp younger and younger these days as their godly parents were more invested in their continued survival and would move them out of dangerous mortal living situations and bring them to the safety of camp as early as they felt like. Percy and Annabeth, knowing that they had very young campers now, agreed eight was fine but that Percy would of course be supervising pretty much everything she did until she was a little older.
The next problem they had was what cabin to put her in. Percy had no cabin dedicated to himself since he had no intention of having any other children and didn’t need a symbolic cabin for the demigods to worship him or anything. It was already taking up a lot of energy at mealtimes to convince the campers to just sacrifice to their parents and not worry about giving offerings to him. Initially Percy had just offhandedly suggested Lily choose between Athena and Poseidon, but Annabeth had been very quick to remind him why that might actually be a really terrible idea. The solution, Percy eventually relented, was to build a cabin to him.
“So that would be… what, Cabin Twenty-Nine? Is that what we’re on now?” Annabeth counted the cabins to herself. “Should we just put yours next to Persephone?”
“I don’t know.” Percy frowned at the spot Annabeth was pointing to. “I mean, this will only be for Lily. Nobody’s going to really use the cabin otherwise. I’m not sure I need to take up a space in the order, you know what I mean? Can it just not have a number?”
“You’re the Olympian god here, Seaweed Brain. You get to make the executive decisions about your own cabin.”
“Right.” Seven years of godhood and Percy still wasn’t really used to the fact that he could just say stuff and make it happen. “Well, what do you think, Wise Girl? If my cabin doesn’t have a number, I’m not offending any other gods, right?”
Annabeth tipped her head to the side slightly as she considered. “I don’t think so? It just depends how you refer to it. Perseus cabin?”
Percy shuddered. “No, thanks. What if we called it… Cabin Zero?”
Annabeth considered. “Maybe. Lily might not love that, but she doesn’t really get a say. She’ll cope. Anyway, I’ll get it set up. I assume you don’t mind if I only use one module instead of four? It only needs to be big enough for Lily, no point taking up space if you’re not bothered about your cabin being as big as the others.”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
“Mom, Dad!”
Percy turned around to see his daughter running delightedly toward him, proudly showing off the armour that had been awkwardly fitted to her small body. He smiled fondly as Annabeth automatically walked over to fix the straps.
“How do I look, Dad?” Lily grinned up at Percy, eyes shining with the same look Annabeth always got when she was thinking about her latest great design.
“Like a real warrior,” Percy replied. “I’m sure everyone can tell you’re the daughter of a war god in that armour.”
She beamed proudly. “By the way, I heard you talking about your new cabin! I think you should make it bigger. I still want a little brother or sister.”
Percy exchanged a look with Annabeth, his pride fizzling out and turning into something closer to regret.
“Lily,” Annabeth said gently, crouching down to her level, “we’ve talked about this. I know you want a sibling, but Dad can’t have more children. If he did he would have to go away. You know about the ancient laws.”
It was a very simple way of explaining the impossible situation Percy was in when it came to his family. Lily pouted and crossed her arms over her chest, the gesture slightly awkward because of the too-big armour.
“I just don’t wanna be the only one without siblings in my cabin.”
“I was alone in my cabin for pretty much the entire time I was at camp,” Percy pointed out, but from the wide-eyed look Annabeth shot him it had been the wrong thing to say.
“Not the whole time. Uncle Tyson came here sometimes and you got to share with him. I don’t get anyone at all.”
“We are sorry, baby.” Annabeth cupped Lily’s face in her hands and kissed her forehead. “There isn’t anything we can do.”
“Well…”
Annabeth’s head whipped around so she could direct her glare at Percy. “Do not make any promises you can’t keep.”
“I’m not, I’m not.” Percy threw his hands up in quick surrender. “I just… for reasons unrelated to anything we’ve just been discussing, I need to go talk to Hermes. Right now. I’ll be back in a sec.”
He had pretty much got the hang of teleporting himself up to Olympus now. It helped that his temple was mostly built so he had somewhere to anchor himself to. The building itself was pretty much done now, constructed perfectly to Annabeth’s specifications. All that was missing were the two statues Percy wanted to put by the entrance and the flowing water that would eventually pour down the channel cut into the floor and down the steps. Percy greeted the nature spirits who were at the temple dusting a few of the decorative features with powdered celestial bronze before heading across to where the temple to Hermes stood tall and crowded with visitors and workers.
“Yo, Hermes!” Percy called out as he stepped up to the entrance, not quite going inside. This was the one Olympian temple that was actually open to visitors since it also doubled as a sort of post office, but still out of respect Percy and most of the other gods liked to make their presence known before going in. There were about seven different Hermes’ running around carrying parcels and letters and popping in and out of existence. In the centre of the temple, though, one Hermes stood still with an iPad in hand, tapping periodically on the screen and mumbling to himself. Percy called out again and he finally turned around to see him.
“Ah, Perseus. Come in, come in. If you have something to send just leave it at the altar there, I’m rather busy…”
“I actually came to talk to you, big guy.” Percy clapped a hand on the messenger god’s shoulder. “Hi George, hi Martha.”
Hello, Perseus, George hissed delightedly from his place on Hermes’ caduceus.
Have you brought us any rats? Martha asked hopefully.
“Afraid not. Bit of a last minute decision to come up here. Next time!” Percy promised.
“If it’s about any of my children, I am planning to visit camp at some point in the near future.” Hermes did not take his eyes off the iPad for even a moment while he spoke.
“For once, it isn’t about them. Well, not really. I wanted to ask you something. You know how your cabin houses unclaimed demigods until they are assigned another cabin to live in? Is that something you’re, like, proud to do?”
“I am patron of unclaimed demigods only because none of the other Olympians had an appropriate domain,” Hermes replied, tapping away at his iPad. “Please get to the point sooner rather than later, it really is a busy time of year right now and I have a lot to do.”
“Would you be upset if I took that responsibility away from you?”
That got Hermes’ full attention. He lowered the iPad and turned his head to look at Percy, his face still like marble and completely expressionless. It was a little unnerving, even to Percy. “You would make yourself patron of the unclaimed instead?”
“I am patron of every single demigod that sets foot in my camp, regardless of their claiming status,” Percy replied seriously. “I would give them somewhere else to live, that’s all. Leave Cabin Eleven just for your children. I think they would appreciate that. Of course, you can say no. It’s been your responsibility for as long as camp has existed. I don’t wanna step on your toes or anything if you enjoy doing it.”
Hermes’s gaze sharpened as he continued to stare at Percy. The wings on his helmet fluttered slightly. “I do not see any issue with your proposal. You may house the unclaimed from now on, if you wish.”
“Yeah. I will. Thanks for letting me do this. Don’t forget to come see your kids sometime, they’d love to hang out with you.”
“Yes, I’ll be there.” Hermes turned back to his iPad and waved a dismissive hand at Percy. “If that’s all you wanted, you can leave now. I’m very busy right now.”
::
That night at dinner, Percy stood up to make an announcement. It was normal for new campers to be introduced to everyone at once like this on their first day, so nobody thought anything of it and most of the demigods didn’t pay too much attention at first, continuing their conversations with each other quietly enough that Percy could still be heard but not bothering to pretend they were listening.
“Campers! Listen up, please. I have a couple of pretty big announcements today. As I’m sure you’re all aware, we have a new camper starting today. Welcome to Lily Jackson-Chase, daughter of… well, me. I know you all know her already since she’s lived here longer than most of you but as of today, she is officially a camper.”
There were a couple of cheers from the crowd, and the kids sitting near Lily enthusiastically slapped her back.
“Alright, thanks.” Percy called out over the noise. “Now, I’m sure you all noticed a new cabin has been put up. Those of you who have paid attention in your Ancient Greek history classes will no doubt understand why she couldn’t just pick between Cabin Three and Cabin Six. It’s probably no surprise that a new cabin has been built to house her. However, it probably will be a surprise to hear that Lily will not be the only resident.”
A murmur went up. Percy could hear kids whispering to each other, wondering if maybe Percy had some other secret children somewhere that they didn’t know about. Percy chuckled to himself.
“No, I’m not having any demigod children. I made an oath and I’m not going back on it. Our new cabin has a purpose, though. Starting today, any unclaimed campers that arrive in camp will spend their time in the new Cabin Zero instead of Cabin Eleven.”
The murmur turned into an explosion of chatter. Even Chiron turned to look at Percy with concern.
“Percy… while it’s a wonderful idea, and surely the children of Hermes will be glad to have their cabin to themselves, I wonder if it might be best to get permission from Olympus first…?”
Percy shrugged. “I am an Olympian god. I say it’s fine. Besides, I asked Hermes and he was chill with it. I can’t think of any other gods we would need to ask.”
He could, of course, and he knew exactly what Chiron wanted to say. Thing was, he’d die a slow and painful death before he asked Zeus permission to fulfill his own godly duties.
“Okay!” Percy yelled above the noise. “We changed another thing, yeah, I know. Lots to discuss. Obviously we have a couple of demigods here who haven’t been claimed yet; you will be moving into Cabin Zero tomorrow morning.” Though, he thought to himself, you won’t be there much longer. Both of them were starting to take on the essence of their godly parents, just enough that Percy could probably guess their heritage fairly accurately if he tried, so he figured a formal claiming was a week away at most.
Somewhere near the back of the crowd, a younger boy around ten years old or so raised his hand. “Um, how come you get unclaimed demigods now instead of Hermes?”
“That’s a good question,” Percy replied, giving him a smile. “When I first came to camp as a demigod, there were only twelve cabins for the original twelve Olympians. Demigods who were unclaimed or who belonged to gods that didn’t have cabins would be assigned to Hermes because he is the god of travellers. He was able to extend protection to those who didn’t have their own cabin or didn’t know which one was theirs. Since I got here, my domain of Heroes has been a lot more appropriate for sheltering the unclaimed. I’m the patron god for all of you by default anyway, so you all carry my claim regardless of your parentage. The only reason I haven’t had an actual cabin built and dedicated to me is because, well…” Percy shrugged. “You all know how I feel about being worshipped. Not really my thing.”
“What’s it mean that you’re our patron?”
“It means you’re all mine.” Percy looked straight at the kid who’d asked the question. “I don’t care who your parents are or what you have and haven’t accomplished. Every single demigod that comes into this camp is under my protection until the day you die. It means I look out for you, I defend you when you can’t defend yourself. When you need me, I’ll come for you.” He glanced over the crowd of gathered demigods and realised he might have been a bit too serious. For someone who wasn’t technically a sea god, he sure was possessive enough for one. The demigods were his, yes, but they were also their own people. He carefully withdrew the heavy weight of his protection that he’d unconsciously extended over all the kids and clapped his hands together. “Alright, well, it’s coming up on curfew time. Schedule says Cabin Nine is on dishes tonight, everyone else has downtime until lights out. Off you go, clear out.”
::
For the years that she was at camp, Lily acted as counselor for Cabin Zero. Percy and Annabeth stayed in the Big House, letting her have her own space to grow and have the same freedoms as other campers who lived away from their parents. She grew into a warrior worthy of a war god, and to Percy’s great pride, was always sweet and welcoming to new demigods when they arrived. It was extremely rare that a new camper would stay in Cabin Zero for more than one summer, but Lily took the constant movement in stride and before long was considered a friend to almost everyone in camp. It helped, too, that she had the quickest and easiest access to Percy when he was needed to step in.
After Lily left camp at nineteen, Percy quietly took over her inherited responsibilities towards new campers. He and Annabeth worked together to build a sort of attic space above the main cabin area, accessed by a separate door, which was constructed like a self-contained studio apartment. Percy lived there (and Annabeth too, who preferred to be in a small space with Percy than a larger space without him) whenever Cabin Zero was occupied. Better to be close to the new kids than far.
If Olympus (read: Zeus) was mad that Percy went ahead and made a major change to camp without going through bureaucracy first, then Olympus (again, read: Zeus) could, disrespectfully, kiss his ass.