Death's dilemma chapter 2

“You just saw him. Nico de Angelo.”

The words rang in Percy’s ears as he gaped at the two goddesses.  As usual, he didn’t think before speaking.  “What are you insane or something?  Can’t you tell that the dude hates me?!  I bet he has a voodoo doll of me somewhere that he is currently sticking pins into!”   Athena looked at him angrily, rising to her full height of 25 feet and glowing with energy.
“I. Beg. Your. Pardon!?” She hissed through clenched teeth, looking ready to go full goddess form on Percy at any second.
“Sorry!!!  I didn’t mean it like that!  It’s just that he hates me!!  He was looking at me like he wanted me dead when he left!”  Percy deadpanned, trying to make up his mistake before the goddess decided to vaporize him, and damn the consequences.  Athena reluctantly sat down again, keeping the scornful look on that face, so like the girl he had lost.
“Any whoodles.” Said Aphrodite in order to keep the other goddess from killing Percy. “You have to keep Nico alive, even if he doesn’t want you to!”  She finished quickly seeing the ugly look on Percy’s face.  “Though you may not be able to see it,” she said softly, shrinking down to percy’s height, her black hair curling softly around her shoulders.
‘Wait, what?? Black hair? But annabeth had blonde hair..” His mind reminded him, looking at the goddess.
Her hair glittered back to the usual blonde, but the goddess smiled softly noticing his confusion.  “Percy… “ She started. “Nico…. nico…. has a little under 48 hours to live if you don’t help him.” Her concerned eyes were a darker shade than usual as she watched the teen’s face turn bone white and his mouth drop in surprise.
“But why??  I mean…..What?.... Is someone after him?” He finally managed to force out of his mouth, his face a mix shock, concern, and disbelief that anyone would want to hurt Nico beside him.  
Athena for once looked uncomfortable, and her grey eyes softened by mere degrees before answering in a voice tinged in sadness.  “Percy, Nico never killed Annabeth.  She….. Walked into a trap…. Its only from Nico that she even managed to make it out to you.  Now the person behind my daughter’s death is after Nico.”  Her voice hardened into hard shards of anger at the end of her sentence.  She surveyed the emotions flitting across Percy’s face.
“But…. What? He had her blood all over him, and there was…blood on his sword..”
“Not hers.”  Aphrodite finished for Percy.  “He fought their way out of the trap, and was very nearly killed himself in the process.. And for what?  To find that his only friends now believe that he was a trader and killed her? How do you think that it made him feel?!”  Aphrodite’s face was a hard mask for one as she looked at Percy.  His face registered shock, sadness, amazement, then settled into guilt.
“Oh…Holy hades underwear!  So he knew the truth all along, but never tried to change our minds??!  What the hell was he thinking?!” he looke from one goddess to the other incredulously.
Aphrodite, finally loosing her temper stood up, and answered him with flashing eyes and a voice cold enough to freeze over the depths of tartarus.  “Because, Perseus Jackson” he winced at his name as she continued.  “You wouldn’t hear any different!  You believed that he was responsible, and NEVER ALLOWED YOUR VEIW TO CHANGE!!” She yelled that last words at him, her voice rising shriller.  “YOU LET YOUR MIND BE SO CLOUDED BY GREIF THAT YOU COULDN’T BEAR TO HEAR ANY DIFFERENT!!”  She stood with her chest heaving and her fists clenched. Percy was slowly backing up incase she decided to attack.
Athena stood up too, and shrunk down before addressing Percy.  “Perseus. Please, I can’t let you keep grieving over my daughter.  You have to let her soul free.  Just let her make her way to the Elysium fields unburdened.  Please.”  Percy looked at the goddess of wisdom astonished.  She never showed emotion before.  He realized for the first time what Annabeth must have meant to her.  He looked at Athena for the first time.  Really looked at her.  Her proud shoulders were slumped and her face was haggard.  Breathing deeply, he looked at his former girl-friends mother.
“What do I have to do?”  his words had a sense of finality to them as they rang around the room.  
Aphrodite looked in his eyes and answered softly, her previous anger leaving her.  “Protect the son of Hades, try to keep him alive… we are ill prepared to loose another son or daughter so soon.”  And as Percy was about to move away she said, “Become his friend.  Let him know…. He’s not so alone.  That he doesn’t need to do it.  There is another way.”  With those words ringing in his ears, he turned away to go out the door, then Athena called out to him.
“And Percy, she loved you, and she wants you to know… Its ok.”  With tears misting over his eyes, Percy puzzled over what the last cryptic remark had meant.