DISCLAIMER: No, I don't own PJO, because, if I did, would I be writing fanfic? Didn't think so. This fic doesn't protect reader against sudden death, fainting, STDs or others of that sort. If any of these symptoms happen to you do not blame Po Tah Toe or her waffly ninja army or else she will sue you in the worst way possible.
I don't really know how to described it… it's kinda angluff.
_
Back to Back: A Percabeth One-shot
The first time she sees him, she wants to believe that he will be the person to lead her to a quest. After ten minutes of meeting him, she thinks he's kind of clueless, even for a new camper, then he attacks Clarisse with the toilet and she doesn't think he's too bad. She could use him on her team, maybe at a defensive position for Capture the Flag, from the looks of it he didn't seem too good at much, he'd probably lose a race against the dryads.
At the game he steps into the water and Annabeth decides that she, for once, doesn't know what to do. He could be the one that might get her a quest and she could go against what her mother would think by helping him, or she could uphold the tradition of rivalry between Poseidon and Athena.
Annabeth gave a wary glance at Luke who raised an eyebrow and shrugged in confusion. At least he has her back.
The quest comes and go, they stop a war from erupting and killing them all. Annabeth could point at the Seaweed Brain and call him her friend. The summer goes by all the same as before until Luke betrays them. She won't believe it, Thalia's a tree; Luke's a traitor; Grover is, well, he couldn't understand it. She has nothing left, giving her dad a second chance was already hard enough for her.
But Percy is there.
Annabeth ignores this fact for the next two years, Luke might not have been there to have her back, but she was all too ready to take his.
She was drowning.
Under the sea, she could hear the Sirens' song perfectly. It was a melancholy song, it was everything she wanted. Annabeth felt herself slowly sink as the song reached her ears. She thought about her dreams, in a world so permanent, no meteorological feat, no storm, no hurricane could destroy it. Her parents were there, her dad, with a smile on his face as he conversed happily with Athena who returned the smile, her clever gray eyes smiling quietly themselves. Most importantly, there was Luke, he was good this time, as he gestured at her to sit down by him and her parents. She knew this could never be, Annabeth felt the breath drained out of her.
Suddenly, hands secured her and pulled her towards the surface of the water. Annabeth feels breath come back to her; she looks up, seeing Percy swimming desperately towards the boat, bobbing in the sea. She looks back towards the Sirens, but she cannot hear the song. Her ears are clogged with seawater and Percy's left hand covers one of her ears. There is a sad, but determined expression on his face and Annabeth knows that he saw her dream. She decides not say anything, but let Percy carry her limp body back to the boat.
She calls herself a fool. Seeing him in pain holding up the sky, she knew it was a trick. Gray hairs at the age of thirteen, Annabeth thought darkly as she struggled under the weight of the sky, curse you Luke. But she doesn't mean it, she had heard enough of people telling her that Luke was evil, she knew him better than anyone else and he knew her like she knew the architectural structure of the Parthenon. "He was tricked," she always said, "You don't know him like I do."
She didn't put him up on a pedestal anymore, but Annabeth stayed firmly rooted to the idea that he wasn't evil. The reason was simple: He wasn't.
Annabeth thanks the gods when Percy, Thalia and a girl she recognized as one of the Hunters arrives. Holding up the sky, Annabeth saw literally her life before her eyes, it was as if the Fates had shown her the yarn of which her life was held. Annabeth hears Percy ask her to give him the weight. He takes it from her, gently at first, but in a few seconds she sees him struggling from the burden. But her eyes are turned towards her childhood friends, Luke fighting against Thalia and she doesn't look back because she just doesn't know how much Percy would take the load for her.
It's the year of the war and history repeats itself. She's given up on Luke, she couldn't change him now, and it was partially her fault. Her life is a confused series of triangles, one end pointing two different ways and the two ways pointing back where she started from. She decides that she isn't going to play anymore games. Luke was Kronos. Kronos is the freaking epitome of evil, golden eyes, thousand feet tall structure, creepy scythe and all. Sitting in the hotel couch/hospital bed of realization, she gently takes Percy's hands and for once in the past four years, she doesn't feel confusion of any sort.
Annabeth lets go after a while, because it'd be better no one ever saw that. As Percy leaves the couch, she begins to fall asleep, this time with a smile on her face.
It's so different now, Annabeth thinks as she watches the fire spread across Luke's shroud. It's only, her, Percy, Thalia, Grover, Hermes and a few of Luke's siblings there. Thalia is at the end, she looks down on the ground and Annabeth knows to not disturb her or comfort her. Grover is playing a soft lullaby on his reed pipes, Annabeth follows his forlorn gaze to outside the Empire State Building, and she saw the fallen trees and the yellowed grass. The dead flowers are thrown onto the road where cars mercilessly run over them. She puts her arm around him, saying nothing. Hermes looks at her, this time not with contempt, but hurt and loss. Annabeth takes in a breath and doesn't say anything.
She would have taken Percy's hands if Clarisse and Chris had not come over right then. But she gives him a faint smile and he returns it, before they look down at the ashes of Luke Castellan.
He's got her back, she's got his, and they both know it.
The last time she sees him, they're both twenty-four and fighting a Cetus somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It's been an even livelier year, with the birth of Andromeda, a giant crab attacking Maine and Nico diAngelo getting a girlfriend, but nothing could beat the fact that the invincible Percy was chained to a rock. Annabeth might have burst out laughing, but she was to busy fighting the monster, who looked suspiciously like a whale, while balancing on an extremely rocky lifeboat. In the end she manages to free Percy, who finally able to reach his back pocket, pulls out Riptide and leaps onto the Cetus stabbing him three times in the back. It doesn't help, it only makes the whale-monster stronger. The Cetus grabbed Annabeth my her ankles, biting forcefully into it and goes underwater for a long, long time as Percy in anger began to stab every single bit of the Cetus's body. Until it finally dies. Percy dives into the water and manages to find Annabeth still floating in the Cetus's teeth. He grabs her forcefully and brings her up to the lifeboat. Her legs are bleeding, she can't breathe, she's been under the water for too long.
"No use, Seaweed Brain," she finally manages to say after choked breathes, "I'm happy here." With that she dies.
Grover, Thalia, Nico, Rachel, Clarisse, Chiron and baby Andromeda are all there when he burns her shroud. It's plain white with designs of silver, metallic looking owls. They wrap it around her carefully, so that it still reveals her face. They lay her in the same lifeboat and Percy pushes it a few feet of the shore and into the sea. After a few seconds of hesitant silence. Percy lights the bobbing boat and it drifts off into the sea, smoke rising into the air forming the shape of an owl and a horse.
Percy looks at baby Andromeda and back at Annabeth's floating body. Most of her is all Percy, but the clever gray eyes were Annabeth's. It was like seeing her again.
Soon everyone leaves and it's just Percy and Andromeda there as they watch the boat go off into the distance. Percy looks down at his left hand and thinks he'll keep the ring there.