A/N: I don't even know. Hope someone likes it!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

It all started to sink in few days after the shrouds had been burned. I had been handling everything pretty well, but I think it was mostly the several day long adrenalin rush I had been on. Once that was gone, I felt horrible. I kept re-living the battle in my mind and dreaming about it in my sleep. I would go to call out for a camper only to remember that they were no longer anywhere where they could hear me.

Annabeth was worried about me, but I'm not sure if she could really tell that something was wrong or if she was just upset I was avoiding her. To be fair, I wasn't just avoiding her. I was avoiding everyone. I watched as some campers would occasionally break down crying and as others threw themselves into the new construction projects at camp to keep themselves busy. I couldn't do either of those.

What I did do was sit on the beach every morning until the sun rose. I felt slightly better being by the water, and the time alone was a bonus. No one else, not even Chiron, was up this early. It's not like I did any deep thinking there, or had any epiphany about what was going on. I just sat and stared at the waves. Sometimes I would close my eyes and let everything wash over me... It was easier to do when no one was around.

One day there was the crunching sound of sand behind me. I didn't bother turning around, there was only one person that would be up so ridiculously early to find me. Annabeth sat beside me, pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She didn't say anything for a while.

"It's going to be cloudy today." Great. She was trying to talk to me about the weather.

"Yeah. But it's not like it will rain here. Clouds are never as interesting here as they are everywhere else, you don't have to worry about what they'll bring." I was talking about the weather back! How unbelievably lame.

"Okay, I can't sit here and talk about the sky. Percy, how are you doing? I mean, how are you really doing? You've hardly spoken to anyone the past three days." She put her head onto her knees and looked over at me. Her grey eyes moved over my face, like she was wishing how I was feeling would be spelled out on my forehead.

"I'm sorry Annabeth. I shouldn't be ignoring you. It's just… It all hit me at once. I thought it would be better dealing with it on my own. I guess I was probably wrong."

"You've got that right, at least, seaweed brain." She gave me a small smile. "We were all there, and we're all dealing with it. Some better than others, but that's to be expected. But you don't have to feel singled out anymore, Percy. The prophecy is over, it happened. It's….It's time to move on." She unwrapped her arms and grabbed my hand. I squeezed it."

"Yeah, you're probably right, wise girl. I guess everything will seem easy after this, huh?"

"It better be. And if you just jinxed us by saying that, Percy Jackson, I will hand you over to the Hunters so they can use you as target practice."

She moved in closer to me. We sat there watching the ocean until it was time for breakfast.

The rest of the summer was the best I'd ever had.