A/N Hello all! Sorry for the long absence, been a little busy…but to make up for that, here's a little Percabeth! This is set a little bit after The Lost Hero…enjoy!
"Are you okay?"
It was an innocent enough question, asked by a friend of hers from that hellhole the called high school. It was a good question actually…but she didn't know what to say.
They were sitting in a small café about an hour away from Camp. Annabeth had been dragged there on one of her visits to the city by a friend she ran into, who had decided that she looked like hell and needed a latte and a pastry to fix things. Annabeth had resisted the urge to laugh. If only coffee could solve her problems.
Things had started off okay; gossip about pointless things that she honestly didn't care about, but then, the question had been dropped.
"Are you okay?"
She fell silent. Was she? Obviously, she wasn't good, because her boyfriend had been kidnapped by a deranged goddess and was now at a potentially hostile camp on the other side of the country, with no memory, and the only way to reach him was by building a mother warship, which a severely ADHD son of Hephaestus was in charge of, not to mention, Mother Earth, who was evil, was waking up soon and was dead set on annihilating all of Western civilization. No, she wasn't good, but was she okay?
She didn't know, but she was drinking a half and half mixture of coffee and hot chocolate, with a dash of vanilla and cinnamon, which was the only non-blue, non-water, drink he would consume. She always got coffee with vanilla and cinnamon and he would get hot chocolate, and they would mix their drinks, much to the chagrin of their server. She had a blueberry muffin in front of her, which he loved.
She hadn't brushed her hair in at least a week, the bags under her eyes had bags of their own, and she didn't even know what shirt she was wearing, but she wore a spritz of his deodorant on the inside of her wrist every day, because she was so used to smelling like him.
More often than not, she slept in that ratty old grey sweatshirt of his that she had stolen on some quest or the other, which had spent so long in her closet that she considered it hers. It was a bit messy, but she wouldn't wash it, because it smelled like sea salt and was as close to a hug from him that she'd get for a while.
Her flowered scarf was still in his dresser, in the second drawer from the bottom, on the left, and she wouldn't take it back, even when she wore the dress that she had bought it for in the first place to her second cousin's wedding, because, fashion be damned, he would want it there when her got back. At least, she hoped her would.
The only shampoo she would use, on the off chance that she had the time for personal hygiene, was that lemon scented one that he adored. She had almost strangled Kyla when she used the last of it, and had bought a new bottle within an hour.
She was broken, lost, worried, scared, horrified, exhausted, angry, hopeful, terrified, bitter, resentful…all at the same time. Was she okay? No, she didn't think so. How could she be, when her love, her life, her best friend, her very heart, was so far away and probably in mortal danger?
But Annabeth couldn't tell her friend that. She wouldn't understand, couldn't understand. She had never stood back to back with a boy, facing horrible danger and certain death. She had never journeyed into the depths of the Underworld, rode in a disgusting animal van, held the sky, faced the gods, watched friends die, run into hopeless battles, won unbelievable victories, all next to that boy. She had never seen that boy get turned into a guinea pig, seen him scared, hurt, confused and leaning on her for support. She had never broken down in front of that boy; let him see the worst of her, her doubts, her fears, her weaknesses. She had never willingly taken a knife for that boy. She didn't know what it was like, to honestly be prepared to die for that boy.
Annabeth knew she couldn't explain, and that there would be no point trying. So she forced a smile and answered her friend's question.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
A/N And there we have it! Let me know what you think guys. And, as always, prompts, requests, etc, etc, always welcome. Much love!