The crying woke Annabeth less than an hour after her head hit the pillow.
She shouldn't have been surprised—she and the universe had never been on particularly good terms, and sleep was especially scarce with a newborn, but she'd finished her work before 3 a.m. for the first time in weeks and had hoped for more than four hours of sleep. The fumes she was running on weren't strong enough to keep her going like this forever.
Slowly getting to her feet, she approached the secondhand playpen, gently lifting her son. His sobs quieted, but didn't stop, and after checking to make sure he wasn't hungry and didn't need to be changed, she set him down just long enough to slip a hoodie over her head and wrap a soft blanket around his tiny two-month-old body. It was going to be one of those nights—the ones where nothing would calm him but walking, her voice soothing him with stories, for at least an hour. She might as well do the meandering outside.
She slipped her phone and pepper spray into her hoodie pocket before locking the apartment door behind her, looking around the building warily. They'd finally been able to move to a better part of town when her lease at the former apartment building (where her inability to sleep hadn't been helped by constant fear for her and Nikolas's safety), and while all of her research indicated that their new residence was a much less worrisome place to live, she couldn't help but feel on edge.
Unsurprising. She hadn't been safe since her father had died ten years prior.
She stilled for a moment, wondering about whether or not stepping just outside at night would be a terrible idea, but as soon as her movement paused Nik let out a screech, and she rushed downstairs for fear of pissing off the neighbors on their first night in the building.
She shivered from her first step into the brisk air that constituted January in New York. The street was by no means quiet, and she began to meander along the dimly lit sidewalk while whispering to her baby about Nefertiti, needing a new subject for her son's bedtime stories now that she'd run through the tales of Odyssesus.
She worried about him being in the cold, but hopefully they wouldn't be out for too long, and she had him well bundled. Taxis pulled up to the curb as loud passengers staggered from their seats loudly, perhaps belatedly celebrating the new year. Her new apartment building housed many college students, so she caught wind of many drunken words of dreading class hungover the coming morning. She had a shift at the diner in merely three hours now, so she could sympathize with their exhaustion.
Had things worked out a bit differently, she would likely be in their shoes too.
Under half an hour later, Nik was sound asleep and her eyes revolted, attempting to flutter closed. She went back inside, pushing the elevator call button with more force than necessary at the thought of her bed all the way on the fourteenth floor, and heard rapid footsteps approaching just as she stepped through the elevator doors.
"Wait, hold it, please!"
Her heart sped up at the deep male voice, but the last thing she wanted was an enemy in the building, and she stuck the button to keep the doors open.
At the sight of the broad shouldered young man who'd called after her, however, fear spiked within her and she regretted the attempt to be neighborly. He's dressed all in black, a worn leather jacket thrown over a tight v-neck and black pants; his hair is pitch too, the only brightness to him the tanned skin of his face surrounding bright sea-green eyes that keep jumping around like his line of sight can't stay still.
"Thanks," he mumbled, pressing the button for the seventh floor himself. "I know it wouldn't have been much longer to wait, but I have an eight a.m. class and I just got off work, and those few extra minutes of sleep just sound so perfect."
She remained tense, hoping not responding would encourage him to leave her alone, but felt his gaze shift on to her.
"I don't think I've seen you around—I'm Percy, Percy Jackson. 15F." He starts to reach a hand out, but stops himself, blushing. "Your hands are obviously full, sorry."
His easy tone relaxes her somewhat. "Nice to meet you. I'm Annabeth—we just moved in today." She's pretty sure he notices that she doesn't give him her own apartment number, but the light smile he responds with doesn't seem to mind.
"And who's this little one?"
"This is Nik."
"Short for Nicholas?"
She nods, clarifying, "Yes, but with a k—I wanted to name him for Tesla, but I figured naming a kid Nikola in the twenty-first century is probably a death sentence."
Percy snorts. "Wish my mom thought like that. She sic-ed me with Perseus without a care in the world as to how that would go over in middle school." He makes eye contact again, pulling that smile right back out. Being in such close quarters with him has her shaking like a leaf, but that smile is almost infectious. "So, Tesla, huh? Isn't that the pigeon guy?"
A laugh escapes her. "You could call him that. Personally, I remember him by his inventions and philosophies—but yes, he did quite like pigeons."
The elevator light blinks just before the doors open, and as nice as Percy seems, she's relieved to be on her floor—safety, space, and sleep all just a few yards away. "This is me."
Percy waves as she steps into the hallway. "It was nice to meet you, Annabeth. If you or Nik need anything, feel free to come by. A friend, a cousin, and I all room together, and someone's normally around if you need a hand."
"Thanks, Percy. Have a good night." The word 'night' is clipped by the elevator doors sliding shut, and she takes her first deep breath since getting on the elevator, the hand not on Nik sliding from her its instinctive place on her pepper spray to her keys inside her pocket.
She double and triple checks the locks before carefully laying Nik back in the playpen, silently begging him not to wake back up as she climbs into the twin bed in the corner of the studio apartment.
The conversation with Percy has rattled her; he seems genuine, and it's promising to have an acquaintance in the building so soon. She won't go to his apartment, of course—but maybe the next time she sees Piper, the only friend she's made since running full speed from Virginia eight months ago, she can ask if she's ever seen him around campus.
The easygoing boy with the bright, tired eyes is the last thing running through her overworked mind before she falls right back into REM, her body too desperate for the two and a half hours she might still squeeze in to worry about tomorrow.