A/N: Well, here's the first chapter for my first long PJO fic.

Despite the title, this story starts at the end of TLO (timeline-wise, not story-wise). The title's just a coincidence. Really. (I think. I'm going off memory alone).

Also, I'm thinking about doing a 'Mark of Athena' story because all the ones I see are about ten thousand words long. Mine would be 80,000+.

Enjoy!

The Mark of Kronos

Chapter 1 – Prequel

Percy slowly walked through the night, the cold wind teasing his hair as it blew through Camp Half-Blood. He took a deep breath as he raised his hand to knock on the Athena cabin's door, the breath visible as he released it. He knocked and took a step back, looking around at the various stars while he waited for a child of Athena to answer.

The door opened and Percy smiled when he saw that it was Annabeth, who he drew into a hug. She hugged him back, but whispered in his ear, "What could possibly be so important that you come to my cabin and wake me up at two in the morning?"

"The most important thing in the world," he said seriously, grabbing her hand and leading her back to his cabin.

Once inside, Percy shut the door and faced her where she was sitting on his bed. He swallowed hard. "Alright Annabeth," he said. "Tomorrow is my sixteenth birthday. This is when it all goes down. It's going to be a hard battle. People will die. I might die."

"Percy, don't—" Annabeth started.

"Don't," Percy interjected. "Don't tell me not to say it. You know it's true. Hell, you might even die. It's part of being a demigod. So before we go into battle tomorrow, I have to tell you." He took a deep breath and released it slowly, releasing all of his tension. Then he smiled at her and said, "Annabeth Chase, oh beautiful daughter of Athena, I am completely and utterly in love with you."

Annabeth gasped, her eyes wide. She stuttered, "I…I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," Percy replied solemnly, his heart aching nonetheless. "I just wanted you to know before tomorrow."

Annabeth stared at Percy's chest for over a minute, her brain obviously working furiously. Finally, she opened her mouth and quietly said, "I love you too."

Percy gave her a sad smile. "You don't have to say it just because I did."

Annabeth rose her eyes to meet his, their clarity restored. "I'm not," she said happily. "I just needed to make sure this wasn't a dream."

Percy gave her a broad smile and walked up to her, offering her his hand. She took it and smiled up at him as he gently stroked her knuckles with his thumb. "This is completely real," he said quietly. "I'm right here."

Annabeth let him help her up, their noses only a hairsbreadth from touching. She opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, then closed her mouth again, the corners of her lips turning up into a smile. She wrapped her arms around his neck as she leaned forward and let their lips meet, Percy's hands coming around her waist to rest on the small of her back. She pulled him down on the bed so he was on top of her, the feeling of his weight on top of her amazing.

Percy grinned and kissed her harder, coaxing her lips open so he could explore her mouth with his tongue. But he stopped when he felt water on his cheeks, his eyes opening to see that she was crying, her shoulders quietly heaving with each concealed sob. Percy lingered as he pulled away, her eyes opening as she took shaky breaths.

"What's wrong?" Percy whispered, gently wiping the tears off her face, which was only a few inches away from his own.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and said, "I don't want to lose you tomorrow."

Percy grinned, stroking her soft cheek with the back of his hand. "Then I'll have to make sure I don't die, won't I?"

"You can't promise that, though," she whispered sadly.

"You're right," Percy said with conviction. "I can't promise what's going to happen tomorrow. I can't even promise what's going to happen twenty seconds from now. So why worry about it?" he said, brushing his nose against hers softly, making her eyes flutter closed. "Whatever the fates have planned for me is what's going to happen," he said. "So be happy now, while we know we still can."

Annabeth was silent for a few seconds, eyes still closed. When she spoke, her voice was shaking and almost inaudible. "M-Make love to me," she breathed.

Percy swallowed hard, his heart pounding a tattoo against his ribcage. "Annabeth, we're only sixteen."

Her eyes finally opened, pleading…needing. "But this might be the only chance we get," she said sadly. "Please, Percy, love me."

Percy smiled lovingly down at her and pushed a stray curl out of her face, deciding she was right. "I love you so much," he replied, leaning down to kiss her, his hands making their way to the hem of her shirt.

Percy stood on Mount Olympus, his skin and shirt covered in blood. Some of the blood was his, but most of it was from his enemies. He spit out a mouthful of it, his various cuts burning. Somehow that scythe of Luke's had managed to slice him as easily as a knife through butter despite him having been dipped in the River Styx. He could hear Annabeth moaning on the ground behind him, the sound reassuring. If she was moaning, she was alive.

Luke stood opposite him, panting, the scythe smoldering in the hearth. "Please, Percy," he pleaded, his eyes flickering gold. "Give me the knife…quickly," he said, struggling to hold Kronos back.

Percy gauged the situation quickly before deciding that giving Luke the knife was the best option, passing it over to his former mentor. He loosened the straps of his armor and plunged the knife into his body under his arm, wincing as it sank into his Achilles' heel. He looked over Percy's shoulder and quietly said, "Annabeth, I'm so sorry."

"Luke, no!" she cried, struggling to her feet.

Luke let out a pained cry, then his eyes met Percy's. Luke's eyes flashed gold and he grinned, sending a shiver down Percy's spine. That had been Kronos…

Luke exploded outwards in a spectrum of colors that stopped just as quickly as they started, passing right through Percy's body as if he didn't exist. Then they exploded back inwards, drawing Percy in.

He turned around as Annabeth cried, "Percy!"

Everything went slow-motion as he reached a hand out to grab Annabeth's, their fingers just barely missing.

Percy felt strangely calm as he was sucked towards the center of the explosion, not hearing anything. He knew he was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it.

He looked at Annabeth, a sad smile on his face, a cry of despair on her lips and tears in her eyes as she flew through the air at what seemed to be a millimeter per second, getting farther and farther from him. He didn't hear anything but silence, though.

He opened his mouth. "I love you."

And he was gone.

Pelagia Gorgophone Jackson stood in the courtyard of Camp Half-Blood that displayed her father's statue, a fierce look in his lifeless eyes as he wielded Anaklusmos. The sun beat down on her as she read the inscription, which she knew by heart.

Perseus Jackson, 1993-2009

A hero who not only gave up his life for the sake of mankind, but had a smile on his face as he did so.

Pelagia reached her hand out and gently touched the base of it. "Why were you smiling?" she asked it, her eyes filling with tears. It was the seventeenth anniversary of the day Kronos and the Titans had been defeated by her father, which made it the sixteenth time she had visited this statue. She avoided it on every other day of the year. Her tears spilled over as her face contorted into a mask of rage. "Why were you smiling as you abandoned me and mom?" she yelled, her heart aching to see him in person so she could ask him why and actually receive an answer.

She pushed a long blond curl out of her face and stepped back from the statue. Why was it her father who had been required to give up his life to save them all? Why couldn't it have been somebody else's dad? Anyone else's dad?

The sound of crunching leaves made her whip her head around, her emerald-green eyes scanning the tree line of the forest, for what she did not know. A boy she had never seen before and was probably her age, just a couple inches taller than her, stumbled out of the forest, his right hand clutching his left bicep. Pelagia ran over to him, her mind racing as she saw how seriously he was injured. Just as she reached him his legs gave out, leaving him to collapse into her arms. "Are you alright?" she asked even though she could tell he wasn't.

But his eyes opened, dull, unfocused green eyes meeting sharp, aware green eyes.

His voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. "Annabeth?"

Then his eyes closed, leaving Pelagia's to widen. Annabeth. Then she took stock of the situation and realized that she needed to get this boy help. With great effort, she managed to pick him up and carry him to the infirmary, setting him gently on a bed as one of the Apollo boys who were always at hand came up and started hurriedly examining him. "Go get Chiron," the boy muttered distractedly, hurriedly pulling a square of ambrosia out of his pocket. When Pelagia didn't move, the Apollo boy whipped around and said, "Hurry!"

As Pelagia ran out of the infirmary, she heard the boy begin to sing a song of healing to his father. She should have paid more attention to where she was going, though, as she ran straight into something. "Ouch," she said, looking up to see that she had run into none other than the very centaur she had been seeking.

He didn't pay her any attention, though, not stopping or even slowing down. His eyes were fixated on the infirmary doors as he muttered to himself, "A presence…I feel…a presence I haven't felt in seventeen years."

Pelagia silently walked back into the infirmary with him, her eyes settling on the boy she had brought here. The blood was washed off of him and the cuts seemed to be completely healed. How he had healed that fast Pelagia didn't know, nectar and ambrosia or not.

He was shirtless, a blanket covering everything from his chest down. She noticed an odd tattoo on his right bicep, which appeared to be a cross with an arch over it.

"I have no idea how he healed so quickly," the Apollo boy said, giving his patient a wary glance out of the corner of his eyes.

"I do," Chiron said slowly, stepping up to the side of the bed and gently cupping the boy's face. "He was submerged in the River Styx."

"How do you know?" Pelagia asked. "I've never seen him at camp."

"That's because he was a camper here about twenty years ago," he said slowly, still studying the boy's face with open disbelief.

Pelagia and the Apollo boy met each other's eyes, both silently asking each other if Chiron had gone crazy. But then again, stranger things had happened at camp than a random teenager appearing who actually happened to be in his thirties.

"What's his name?" Pelagia inquired, looking back down at the boy's face.

Finally, Chiron looked at Pelagia, his eyes serious. "He's your father, Pelagia," he said, making Pelagia's heart stop for a moment and her eyes shoot back to the man's face.

"Perseus Jackson."

A/N: This chapter was a little under 2,000 words. Just to let you know, the rest of the chapters are going to be around 6,000 words each. This one was so short only because it was a prologue.

Please don't flame Pelagia's name (which is pronounced Puh-la-gee-ah). Everything (including the meaning behind her name) will be explained next chapter (or you can just google it if you really want to).

Thanks for reading and please review if you can spare a few seconds!