Impossible Year

by bananannabeth

Percy and Annabeth lean on each other to recover after Tartarus, but they start to realise that maybe they're holding each other back from healing. Scared of being too codependent and hurting in ways she doesn't want Percy to see, Annabeth makes the painful decision to take a break – a choice which impacts Percy, all of their friends and herself in ways she never imagined.

written for the pjohoobigbang over on tumblr
you can find it on my tumblr, bananannabeth
amazing companion art by hamabee exists, please go check it out

inspired by the song impossible year by panic! at the disco

---

this is technically a canon-divergent fic: rather than the canon 6 months between hoo and toa/mcga, there's 1 year and 6 months.
this entire thing is an exploration of annabeth's psyche post-tartarus, so there's depictions of ptsd, panic attacks and anxiety.

---

IMPOSSIBLE YEAR

It starts and ends with this: "Together."

Annabeth stares at Percy, and Percy stares at Annabeth.

They're searching for something that they aren't even sure exists anymore. They're so unrecognisable now that they've started to forget who they were, before.

She feels his fingers twitch in hers, registers that she's probably holding his hands too tightly but acknowledges that she doesn't want to let go just yet. She's sitting in his lap, their hands clasped between them, and both of them are crying.

She knows that he doesn't want to let go yet, either. Because once they let go, it's done. They are done.

Annabeth takes a deep breath, one that rattles her very bones, feels her heart beating wildly in her chest, feels her stomach churning and her mouth going dry. She licks her lips.

Percy watches, and she thinks about kissing him. You know, to say goodbye.

Instead, she closes her eyes. She counts to ten, and then she tells herself to be brave. She opens her eyes.

Gods, he looks as sad as she feels.

Which is part of the problem - maybe the whole problem, actually. Together was what had gotten them through Tartarus, what had given them the strength to claw their way out and then to keep on fighting through everything that had come after.

But they're out, now, back at camp and physically safe and yet all they seem to do is keep dragging each other back down there.

Together.

"Not anymore."

---

JANUARY

Piper's the first to notice that something is wrong, because of course she is. She's always been more in tune with Annabeth's emotions than she's been comfortable with.

Annabeth feels her eyes on the back of her neck as she crosses the dining pavilion, and when she glances over out of the corner of her eye she sees that the daughter of Aphrodite is frowning, seemingly oblivious to her siblings trying to get her attention. Annabeth's cheeks burn almost as hot as the sacrificial fire, which she promptly focuses on. She really doesn't want to talk about it, so she ignores Piper's staring and walks with her head held high over to the Athena table.

Malcolm starts when she sits down next to him. He pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth, comically frozen in place by shock. If she didn't feel like she was dying, Annabeth would laugh.

Instead, she snaps, "What?"

The half of the table that wasn't already looking at her is now, and she regrets not holding her tongue. She regrets even coming to breakfast in the first place, if she's honest. It's not like she's hungry. But she can't exactly get up and walk out, not after committing herself to continuing on with her daily routine as though everything is fine.

The longer she sits there, the more she thinks this was an idiotic decision.

It takes her half-brother a second to compose himself. "Annabeth. You're sitting with us."

She clenches her jaw and reminds herself that she is fine. Everything is completely fine. "Yes. This is the Athena table."

"Well, yeah, but…" Malcolm looks over to the Poseidon table. Annabeth's instincts scream at her to follow his gaze, but she keeps her eyes locked on her plate instead. Malcolm sighs. "Oh."

She snaps her head up, terrified beyond all reason of what he may have seen. "Oh what?"

"Percy's not here, that's why you're sitting with us," Malcolm says. His smile would suggest that's the end of it, mystery solved; but it doesn't quite meet his eyes and Annabeth knows he suspects something. Thankfully, he knows her well enough to not push it.

"Yeah," she mumbles, stabbing her breakfast with slightly more force than is necessary.

She feels equal parts relieved and distressed that Percy isn't there. The logical part of her insists that this is a good thing, because he's never been good at hiding his emotions (not that she's one to talk, really, but that's an introspection for another day) but the emotional part of her is positively frantic with worry not knowing where he is.

It's been six months since they crawled out of Tartarus, and Annabeth has known exactly where Percy has been at every hour of every day since they made it out. Realising that he's gone somewhere without telling her makes her stomach churn. She feels strangely unmoored, set adrift in the world, and - despite the fact that she's surrounded by friends - absolutely alone.

She wonders if he's thinking about her.

And then she berates herself, because it's that type of thinking that got them into this in the first place. Annabeth loves Percy, but she doesn't need him. She can look after herself. And she knows that he's perfectly capable of taking care of himself, too.

That doesn't stop her from worrying, though.

She violently cuts at her bacon, gripping the hilt of her knife like it's her old dagger.

Malcolm watches her for a moment before turning to one of their half-siblings and asking if they finished cleaning the stables that afternoon. The rest of the table goes back to their own conversations.

Annabeth breathes a small sigh of relief and lets her shoulders fall. For a second, she thinks that she might make it through breakfast relatively unscathed, after all. Maybe she can do this.

But then she feels someone watching her. For a second she thinks - wishes, even - that it's Percy. But when she glances over her shoulder she just sees Piper, still frowning.

What's wrong? Piper mouths, half-looking like she's about to get out of her seat and make her way over to the Athena table.

Annabeth shakes her head and turns back around, weighing up the pros and cons of leaving early. Pro: She avoids an interrogation, at least temporarily. Con: Keyword, temporarily. She can still feel Piper's eyes on her, and she knows she'll have to deal with her curiosity sooner or later.

Later seems like the better option.

Just as Annabeth pushes her plate away, Piper appears at her elbow. "You're not avoiding me."

Annabeth resists the urge to roll her eyes and instead forces her lips to twitch into a sort of smile. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"Hm." Piper sniffs imperiously. "That's funny, because from where I was sitting it looked an awful lot like you were about to run away."

Her sort of smile collapses. "I wasn't about to run away. I'm just… busy. I have heaps of things to do today." She pauses for a second, realises this may not be enough, and adds, "Nothing personal."

Piper tilts her head to the side, ducking it too low to be comfortable, and Annabeth's hands twitch in her lap.

"Where'd you get that bruise?" Piper asks, voice quiet.

She hates it, but Annabeth plays dumb. "What bruise?"

Piper is unimpressed. "That bruise, on your chin. A lot of my siblings use concealer like it's their life blood, Annabeth, I've learnt how to recognise it. And they blend it a lot better than you, too."

"Gee, thanks," Annabeth mutters, fluttering her fingers over the tender spot on her jaw. "It's nothing. One of the new campers had a messy hit yesterday at training."

"That definitely wasn't there at the campfire last night," Piper says, eyes travelling over Annabeth's face.

Annabeth finds herself dangerously close to a scowl. "Bruises take time to appear."

"Not like you to get in the way of a hit, your reflexes are normally pretty fast," Piper presses, voice firmer now. She looks over to the empty Poseidon table and then back to Annabeth, and when she speaks again her words are carefully measured. "The only person I've seen catch you off guard is Percy."

The few bites Annabeth took of breakfast threaten to come back up. She stands abruptly, almost pushing Piper off the bench seat in her haste to get away.

"Yeah, well," she says as she backs away, because she has to say something in response to that. What, exactly, that something should be, is unfortunately less clear. Her throat feels dry and her jaw is aching - from how she's clenching it or from the bruise, she can't tell. Neither are ideal.

"Annabeth," Piper says, reaching out to her. She looks absolutely horrified; The implication of Annabeth's reaction hasn't escaped her. "I'm sorry, I -"

"Are you okay?" Malcolm's turned back to her, peering up at her with obvious worry.

Annabeth feels trapped. Her face flushes again, and she clenches her hands into fists at her sides to stop them from shaking.

"Fine," she says with steely determination. If she keeps telling herself that, it might come true. "I'm perfectly fine. I'll see you later."

And then she turns on her heel and exits the dining pavilion, remaining dignified and waiting until she's out of sight before breaking into a run.

---

When one o'clock rolls around, Annabeth is waiting in the arena for her scheduled training session with the newer campers, hands on her hips and eyes stormy. She looks completely composed. Everything that happened at breakfast has been pushed to the back of her mind, and Annabeth Chase, Head Counsellor, Architect of Olympus, all round arse kicker, is back in control.

The new campers file in, jostling each other as they form a loose line in front of her. When they notice her expression, they still. The power she has over them provides Annabeth with a strange sort of comfort; if she can still terrify people into silence with nothing more than a look, then she can't appear as weak as she feels.

"Last week I gave you some new manoeuvres to practice," she says. One of the younger campers visibly gulps. Annabeth steps aside, gesturing for them to move further into the arena. "Pair up and show me what you've learned."

They do so, and she prowls between the pairs, observing them as they spar. She's harsher on them today than she normally is. She critiques every aspect of their technique, nit-picking issues with their stance and their grip.

When one boy, a scrawny son of Demeter named George, takes a particularly wide swing, she grabs his arm and roughly repositions it. "No, like this." She emphasises her point by shaking his arm a little. She's inexplicably angry over what is, really, just a stupid little mistake. But something about it feels important; Annabeth feels on edge, uncomfortable with any and all signs of weakness. "If you hold it out like that you're completely exposing your side. You're practically asking your enemy to kill you."

George is staring up at her, red flushing up his neck and across his cheeks. "You're – uh, you're hurting my arm," he squeaks.

Startled, Annabeth immediately lets him go. White indentations mark his forearm where her fingers had been, and her breath catches in her throat.

A memory of the night before flashes to the front of her mind - marks exactly like the ones on George's arm, branded onto Percy's skin where her hands hold him, trying to pin him down and push him away. He runs his fingertips over them later in the night, tracing the pattern of her hold on him. "We're never going to make it out, are we?"

"-beth. Annabeth!"

She comes back to herself just in time to dodge a strike from a spear. It flies past her left shoulder and imbeds itself in the dirt a few metres away, wobbling at the feet of two petrified looking campers. She stalks over and wrenches it from the ground before flipping it and pointing it back in the direction it came from. "Thanks for the warning, George."

George, for his part, looks absolutely stunned. Annabeth makes a mental note to go easier on him next week.

For now, she's got bigger things to deal with.

Clarisse saunters into the arena, grinning wolfishly at Annabeth's scowl. "You looked a little dazed there, Annabeth. Thought you could use a wake up call."

"Thanks, Clarisse. If your aim had been a bit better maybe it would have been something more than an inconvenience, interrupting my training session."

"My aim is fine. If daffodil there hadn't warned you," - She gestures to George, who turns white at the attention - "you would have been shish kabobed and your trainees might have learnt something worthwhile."

Annabeth laughs and lowers the spear, which definitely pisses Clarisse off. She knows that she's goading her, and this could all be resolved with a few clever words, but honestly she's just itching to punch something, and the smug little smirk Clarisse is wearing seems like a prime candidate. "You wish. My reflexes are far too fast for your throws."

Clarisse narrows her eyes, stalking forward and grabbing the end of the spear, just below the point. Annabeth doesn't let go of the other end. The two girls stare at each other as the trainees form a loose circle around them.

Clarisse's anger melts back into a sneer. "Not fast enough to avoid a hit to the chin, though." She pushes down on the spear, sending the handle jutting up towards Annabeth's chin.

But she's too fast. Annabeth lets go of the handle as soon as she feels Clarisse's hands tighten on the other end, and by the time the butt of it's in the air she's already stepped back and drawn her drakon bone sword.

Clarisse raises an eyebrow, intrigued by the display of aggression, and expertly flips the spear around to face Annabeth. Their audience oohs as the two of them drop into a fighting stance and begin circling each other.

"Feeling touchy today, Chase?" she goads, grinning. "What's that bruise from, anyway? Are you getting slow in your old age?"

Annabeth lazily parries an attack, clamping down on the anger she can feel building up. She will not let Clarisse La Rue, of all people, get under her skin. "You're older than me, genius. In fact, aren't you leaving for university soon? Arizona, right? You couldn't get just a little bit further away, could you? Like maybe somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?"

Clarisse draws back and hums, faux thoughtful. "Trying to send me off to stay with your boyfriend, Chase? Is there trouble in paradise? I thought that bruise was a hickey, at first, but -"

Annabeth's on her before she can say another word, sword cutting madly through the air and narrowly missing the front of her armour. Clarisse's spear isn't suited for this type of close range attack, so she's forced to abandon it in favour of the knives she has strapped to her belt. She blocks most of Annabeth's attacks, but they're coming in thick and fast, frenzied slashes at her arms and her legs and anywhere that's difficult for her to defend.

The circle of onlookers scatters as Annabeth forces Clarisse back. She feints an attack to the left and then, while Clarisse is distracted, uses the hilt of her sword to knock one of her knives from her grip. With only one knife left and backed into a corner, Clarisse actually looks almost scared.

"Surrender?" Annabeth growls, getting a hit in right on Clarisse's breastplate. It doesn't do any real damage, of course, but it knocks a bit of her breath from her.

Clarisse manages to muster some bravado, smiling and stabbing towards Annabeth's exposed armpit. Annabeth's forced to tuck her arms in and roll out of range, springing to her feet again off to Clarisse's side.

Clarisse steps away from the wall. She makes a bring it on gesture, curling her fingers up towards her palm, and Annabeth charges.

The wind picks up, and she catches the faint scent of ocean breeze just as she gets within striking distance. Her heart stutters, and that split second of distraction is all it takes for Clarisse to get in a cheap shot, hitting Annabeth in the jaw with the hilt of her knife.

For a second she's blinded, crumpling to the ground and clutching at the injury. Pain radiates out from the tender spot on her jaw, setting her nerve endings on fire. The world dims and then comes sharply back into focus. Annabeth can see every drop of sweat on Clarisse's brow, can see her pulse beating in her neck. The girl in front of her becomes nothing more than a series of parts, a catalogue of weaknesses.

Annabeth is hyper aware of her own body, her own breathing, her own heartbeat, echoing in her head loud enough to drown out everything else. Autopilot kicks in, a primal response to the attack, and Annabeth forgets about the crowd of onlookers right behind them, forgets about the fact that Clarisse is just another camper and this is just what she does, forgets that this isn't a real fight and that she's not really in any proper danger.

For all she knows, she's back down there, trapped in darkness and decay, surrounded by every monster she's ever heard of and every curse she's ever had levelled at her, stuck in a place where losing a fight means losing your life.

With a feral determination, she swings her foot out and sends Clarisse flat onto her back. Before she can get her bearings Annabeth launches herself at her, pressing the tip of her sword underneath her chin.

"What are you doing?" Clarisse asks, eyes wide. There's something endearingly human about her current expression.

Percy had asked Annabeth the exact same question last night, looking exponentially more terrified of the answer than Clarisse ever could. She hadn't answered him then, and she's not going to answer Clarisse now.

The truth is, Annabeth has no idea what she's doing.

She starts to come back to herself, breathing heavily. She can see sunlight, refracting off of Clarisse's armour. She can feel a breeze, tickling the hair at the nape of her neck. Her mind trips over these details, blurs them with the adrenaline of battle and the heart rending fear of an attack. The tip of her blade is still tucked under Clarisse's chin and Annabeth still doesn't know what she's doing.

"Stop! Annabeth!" She freezes as Chiron gallops into the arena. He holds a hand out towards her, although she can't tell if it's meant to be threatening or placating. One of her trainees jogs in after him, doubling over and panting from the effort of trying to keep up with a centaur. Chiron's expression is carefully blank as he takes a single step towards the two of them. "Lower your sword, Annabeth."

She doesn't appreciate the tone he's taking with her, as though she's a misbehaving child, but she removes her sword from beneath Clarisse's chin anyway. Her hand shakes as she does so, and she grips the hilt tighter to try and disguise it. Judging by the way Chiron's frown tightens, she doesn't succeed.

Clarisse scrambles to her feet and backs away.

Annabeth was going to apologise to her, but the expression on her face is too insulting. Instead, she snaps, "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Clarisse is visibly shaken, but she's trying to affect her usual gruff demeanor. "You weren't making any sense. You were talking about… Tartarus."

There's a collective intake of breath from the audience, which has grown since the fight started and then again since Chiron's arrival. But Annabeth instead feels like the wind has been knocked right out of her. She needs to do damage control. She needs to fix this.

"I -"

"It's okay, Annabeth. You're all right," Chiron says, in that same tone. He hesitates before asking, "Do you want someone to get Percy?"

"No!" She startles even herself with the force of her reply. Chiron is understandably confused, and she hopes to keep it that way, at least for now. "No, I'm fine. I just need -"

"Mental help," Clarisse mutters as she rubs at the spot on her neck where the point of Annabeth's sword had been pressed.

"I need to go." Annabeth drops her sword and pushes through the crowd, ignoring Chiron's attempts to get her attention.

This time, she doesn't wait until she's out of sight before she starts running.

---

She runs until every breath starts to sting, until the muscles in her legs are burning, until she can't focus on anything except for the steady rhythm of her feet pounding on the ground, until her mind is completely consumed by the task of keeping her body upright and moving forward. She doesn't even know where she's running; Just away. Away from Piper's knowing eyes, away from Malcolm's worry, away from the empty Poseidon table, away from Clarisse's goading and Chiron's disappointment.

Annabeth's so distracted by what she's running from that she doesn't register where she's going until she slams bodily into someone and the two of them topple down the dunes that border the beach in a tangle of limbs and curses.

The arms that envelope her are too familiar. The scent of ocean breeze overwhelms her. The ache that she's been feeling all day dulls, just for a moment, and Annabeth knows who she's hit before she even gets a look at them.

"Percy," she breathes.

She's lying half on his chest, his arms are around her back and their faces are hovering far too close together. Percy looks almost happy to have caught her, until his eyes drop to her lips and then her chin, and he pales.

Annabeth wants to move back, wants to look away from his terrified expression, but she can't move. Reality starts to bleed around her and suddenly she is somehow both here, lying with Percy on the beach, and simultaneously in his bed, sitting on his chest and begging him to wake up as he thrashes beneath her.

Her chin stings when he hits her, and his skin comes off under her fingernails as she fights to bring him back to himself, hands pushing his fists away from her face, clawing at his arms, cupping his cheeks and forcing him to look at her, can't he see that she's here? "I'm right here!"

"Annabeth," Percy says, gently grasping her arms and pushing her up and away from him.

The memory from the night before fades, and Annabeth is left sitting on the sand across from Percy, hands curled around her knees and eyes glassy.

"I'm sorry," he says, scooting further away from her. "I didn't mean to - I didn't see you coming around the corner, I'm so sorry -"

She shakes her head. "It's fine."

He sighs heavily and gets to his feet. He holds out a hand to help her up, but her eyes lock on the scratches that run the entire length of his forearm, directly over his SPQR tattoo. She hates that tattoo with every fibre of her being, and for a moment she marvels at her own accuracy. Bright red lines intersect the letters, running right over the forks of the trident. Even in a panicked frenzy, she'd managed to direct the majority of her attack to a target.

She stares too long, and Percy drops his arm and his gaze. Annabeth stands unassisted. There's an awkward silence, where they both shuffle their feet in the sand and very pointedly avoid eye contact. She is acutely aware of how far apart they're standing.

"Well I guess I'll just-"

"How's your day been?" he asks just as she's gathered the courage to leave. Perfect timing, as always. "You had training, right?"

She sighs and runs a hand absentmindedly through her ponytail, working out a knot. "Yeah. It, uh. It was a bit of a disaster."

Percy narrows his eyes at her. They're the exact same colour as the water behind him, and she knows that going to the beach is an experience that has now been forever ruined for her. "What happened?"

Annabeth shrugs and folds her arms over her chest. "Clarisse goaded me into a fight and I got a bit carried away. It's not a big deal, really -"

"What do you mean by 'a bit carried away'?"

"Well, I may have almost stabbed her in the neck."

Percy winces. "Shit."

Annabeth nods, focusing on a point on the horizon just over his left shoulder.

He waits approximately thirty seconds before asking, "And what else?"

She snaps her gaze to his eyes. "What?"

"What else aren't you telling me?"

She considers telling him about Chiron, about how apparently she was speaking about Tartarus with no intent or recollection, about how she's only been away from him for a few hours and she already feels like she's going certifiably crazy.

Instead, she says, "Piper and Malcolm were suspicious at breakfast."

"How so?" Percy asks warily.

"They know me, I guess. And your absence didn't go unnoticed."

He swears under his breath, bowing his head and tugging at the hair at the nape of his neck. "I couldn't bring myself to go," he mutters. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't stand to sit there and act like everything is okay when it's so far from fine that it's not even funny."

"You don't have to apologise for that." She doesn't want to tell him that he made the right choice, that she wishes she'd skipped this entire day too, but he nods at her words and she thinks he catches her meaning anyway.

He's much better at reading her now than he used to be.

Case in point: Percy catches her shivering and shrugs his jacket off his shoulders, holding it out to her. Now that she's stopped running, Annabeth's starting to feel the cold. It's Winter, and even though Camp is protected from the worst of the weather and much more mild than the rest of New York, it's still cold enough to warrant a jacket. Which Annabeth was without, until Percy offered his.

"No," she says, stubbornly dropping her arms to her sides. "Thank you, though."

He frowns. "Take it. You're obviously cold."

"No," she says again, more firmly this time. "It's yours, I can't take it."

"You feel the cold worse than I do." He's getting impatient now, sort of shaking the jacket at her. "Take it."

She shouldn't be as annoyed as she is, and yet frustration clips her words and sharpens her tone when she replies, "I said, no. I don't want your jacket, Percy."

"Are you really too proud to take my jacket even though you're standing there shivering?" he says incredulously. He holds the jacket against his chest like a shield as she bristles. The waves start to roll into shore with a bit more force. "Just because we're fighting doesn't mean you need to be stupid -"

She reels backwards. "Did you just call me stupid?"

He blinks, glancing from her to the jacket in his arms and then back again. She expects him to back down, to apologise, to say that he didn't mean it. He surprises her by saying, "Yeah, I did."

This hurts worse than the punch to the jaw. Annabeth gasps. "What?"

"You're being stupid, Annabeth," he repeats. "You're going to let yourself freeze just to prove a point."

She draws herself up to her full height, glaring daggers at him. "Oh yeah? And what would that point be?"

Percy glares right back, meeting her frustration head on and matching it. "That you don't need me."

She inhales sharply. He watches her carefully, letting his words sink in, waiting patiently for her rebuttal. When she finally finds her voice, it is so much quieter than she wants it to be. "Percy…"

"I'm right, aren't I? Isn't that what you said last night - that you don't need me?" He's speaking faster now, putting more force behind his words, and the waves are coming in choppier and larger than before.

Annabeth shakes her head, reaches out to him, thinks better of it and instead grabs the jacket that he's still holding against his chest. "That's not what I said."

"That's what you meant, though."

He's not entirely wrong, but she's not going to admit that. "I meant that it's not healthy, Percy. This isn't healthy, for us to be so codependent and to fight like we do, all the damn time -"

"Of course it's not healthy!" He laughs, but it's a completely hollow, humourless sound that makes Annabeth flinch. "We went through Tartarus, Annabeth, nothing about this situation is healthy."

The sea is churning violently, but Annabeth seems to be the only one who's noticed. She squeezes his arm through the jacket. "I know, but -"

"Do you honestly think this will help? Breaking the one rule that got us through that place?" he asks desperately. He clasps both of her hands in one of his, and it takes every ounce of strength she has not to collapse into him.

"You fell into Tartarus for me, Percy!" She's almost hysterical now, almost shouting, because they're locked in their own small storm and Percy looks like he's about to cry and Annabeth just feels so completely and utterly overwhelmed by all of it. "I'm not good for you, I'm not."

"You are." He cups her face, calloused fingers avoiding the bruise on her chin, and holds her steady. The jacket slides from his arm and pools at their feet. "You are, you're the best thing for me -"

Annabeth's crying now, proper sobs, and it takes a few gasps before she has enough breath to say, "We're not good for each other, not anymore."

Percy's hands still. He shakes his head slowly, blinking back his own tears as he looks down at her. "I'm sorry, Annabeth, I'm so sorry."

She grabs his arm, curling her fingers tightly over the scratches she's given him. She's unsure whether she's trying to push him away or hold him closer. "I'm sorry, too, Percy."

Ultimately, he makes the decision for her. He steps back, out of her reach, and the atmosphere calms. He isn't looking at her when he says, "I can't stay here."

This, more than anything, makes her panic. "What?"

Percy meets her gaze, steady and serious, and Annabeth's stomach drops. "I can't stay here, I can't - I can't see you every day and know that I've hurt you, or that I'm making things worse for you."

She wants to scream at him to stay, but instead she hears herself asking flatly, "Where will you go?"

"Back to the apartment, with Mom and Paul." The way he says it makes her think this isn't the first time he's considered moving back home. "It's not like I really have to worry about monster attacks anymore."

She takes a deep breath. "Are you sure?"

Percy smiles at that, small and sad. "I'm not sure of anything anymore, Annabeth."

Six months after they crawled out of there alive, Tartarus wins anyway.

---

FEBRUARY

Annabeth is hunched over plans for a temple that Jason's organising for Camp Jupiter when he clears his throat and takes a breath.

"Don't," she says without even looking up.

He is appropriately flustered. "Don't what?"

"Don't try to convince me to come to the games night, I'm not doing it."

There's the sound of Jason scuffing the toe of his shoe against the floor and making some mildly offended and completely unconvincing utterings. "I wasn't -"

"Yes, you were." She measures an angle and jots down some notes. "And, like I've told Piper about a dozen times, I'm not going."

It's been a month since Percy left Camp Half Blood, which means it's been a month since Annabeth has had a conversation that lasted more than two minutes. Most campers are still assuming that she's just upset because he's had to leave and she's stuck behind, helping Chiron and finalising the rebuilding of Olympus.

Jason and Piper, however, know the truth. And no matter how many times Annabeth tries to explain to them that this is for the best, they refuse to listen. She's sat through so many lectures from Piper and been at the receiving end of so many pitying looks from Jason by this point that she's at a real risk of stabbing him with her compass.

He sighs and drops the act. "Everyone would love to see you."

Annabeth taps the end of her pencil against the desktop, agitated. "Not everyone."

"I don't think he's coming."

She swivels around in her seat. Jason is looking straight at her, expression earnest. She drapes an arm over the back of the chair and rests her head on her shoulder, looking up at him and waiting for him to crack. When he doesn't say anything more, she closes her eyes and rubs her temple. Gods, her head is killing her. "He loves games night. He wouldn't miss it."

She opens her eyes just in time to see Jason shrug. "I don't know, Annabeth. Apparently he's been spending most of his time with Sally and Paul, not really talking to anyone. I don't think he's up for it."

"If he's not really talking to anyone, how do you know what he's doing?"

In a very uncharacteristic gesture, Jason rolls his eyes. He replies tersely, "We're keeping an eye on him, just to make sure he's okay."

Annabeth is incredulous. She sits up straight, fingers curled over the back of the chair. "You're spying on him?"

Jason becomes flustered again, scrambling for a less creepy explanation. "No! We're not - it's not spying, it's just checking in. For his own good."

Something sickeningly close to jealousy pools in her stomach. Why should other campers get to know what Percy's doing if she doesn't? "If he doesn't know about these 'check ins', it's spying. And who's doing it, anyway?"

"Blackjack, mostly," Jason mumbles, as if he knows how ridiculous this is.

"You're trusting Percy's safety to a pegasus who'd sell his soul for a six pack of donuts?" Annabeth laughs at the thought, but Jason doesn't join her. She sobers up when he keeps his solemn expression, turning back to the plans on her desk and clearing her throat. "I'm too busy to go, anyway."

"You can take a night off. You're going to work yourself to death if you're not careful." He drops onto the bunk beside her, leaning forward so that he can better see her notes.

"Good," she mutters, violently erasing a measurement she'd miscalculated. She can't keep letting herself get distracted like this.

"Annabeth," Jason says warningly, but she's not in the mood for another lecture.

"There," she says, underlining a figure and sliding the paper over to him. "That should fix the stability problem. Everything else is good."

He splays his palm over the plans, but he doesn't look at them. "You really need to talk to us, Annabeth. You can't lock yourself away like this."

"Or what, you'll start spying on me?"

He leans back, dragging the plans across the desk with him. For a split second Annabeth sees the hurt in his eyes, but then it's gone, replaced by a mask of cool detachment. When Jason stands, he's not her friend - he's Jason Grace, Pontifex Maximus. "Thanks for going over the plans. I appreciate it."

She lets him get all the way to the door before calling out, "I'm sorry I can't make it to the games night."

She doesn't turn around to see his expression when he replies, "Yeah. Me too."

---

She skips dinner, staying in to go over some notes the gods have given her on the reconstruction of Olympus. It's moving along at a good pace now, mainly because Annabeth has thrown everything she has into the project in an effort to distract herself from the fact that, without Percy, her days are suddenly very empty. Regardless of the motivation, it's a satisfying feeling seeing something she's designed coming together before her eyes, and satisfaction is something that's been eluding Annabeth a lot lately.

She's so focused on sketching out some of the updates that she doesn't notice Malcolm's reentered the cabin until he's dropping down onto her bunk. She starts, almost snapping her pencil as her hand instinctively clenches. She manages to catch herself at the last second and ends up drawing a line across half the page instead.

Malcolm notices her over the top response, she can tell by the subtle arch of his eyebrow and the way his eyes flick across her desk, but all he says is, "I brought you some dinner."

He pushes some papers aside and puts the plate, filled with roast chicken and vegetables, on her desk. It smells amazing, and Annabeth's stomach audibly growls. She doesn't feel particularly hungry, though. She just feels sort of nauseous, all the time.

"Thanks," she says, slowly uncurling her fingers from the pencil and picking up the fork instead. Malcolm's watching her intently, so she stabs a potato and takes a pointed bite before putting it back on the plate. It doesn't taste as good as it smells. "I appreciate the thought, but I'm not really hungry."

He sighs and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers. "You know you can't think clearly if you don't eat."

She laughs, short and sharp. "It's one dinner, Malcolm. It's not like I've stopped eating -"

"You're not eating enough, Annabeth. I know this isn't the first dinner you've skipped. You need to start taking better care of yourself."

She forgets, sometimes, how stern her half-brother can be. They have that in common, she thinks as she surveys the set of his mouth, the way his eyes are narrowed and focused, the white showing around his knuckles as he keeps his hands interlocked with the deliberate effort to stay still.

She wonders how many times Malcolm had to sit like this, talking to one of their siblings while Annabeth was away on a quest. She wonders what it felt like, being left with that responsibility and then relinquishing the title of Head Counsellor when she returned. She wonders if he was relieved.

She picks up the fork and takes another bite of the potato. Her stomach roils, but she forces it down.

Malcolm closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Look, Annabeth, I know that Percy leaving has really taken a toll on you…"

She visibly winces. Taken a toll is in the running for understatement of the year; Annabeth feels like she is dying from the inside out, like Percy took something vital from her when they collided that day on the beach, and despite her words to the contrary, she really isn't functioning. Everywhere she looks she's reminded of Tartarus, and sometimes she feels just as smothered up here as she did down there. She thought that by distancing herself from Percy she'd be able to distance herself from some of the guilt, but it's not working yet.

"I'm fine," she says, trying to sound casual.

Malcolm gives her a disbelieving look. "You look like you did when you first got back to Camp."

"Gee, thanks. That's a real boost for my confidence." She falls back to sarcasm, a defense mechanism that she's so obviously inherited from Percy. Her heart twists as she realises what she's doing, and her fingers clench around the edge of the desk.

"Annabeth, I'm serious! You'd crawled through…" Malcolm pauses, censoring himself. Her relief must be pretty obvious, because he continues in a much softer tone. "When you got back here, you were emaciated and injured and sleep deprived. And I never want to see you like that again."

She swallows around the lump in her throat. Remembering those first few weeks after they escaped, the return to Camp… it was all very bittersweet, at the time, and she was running on almost pure adrenaline. It was when things slowed down that she and Percy began to fall apart. "I'm not going to get like that again."

"I hear you at night, crying," Malcolm says softly. "Half the time I can't tell if you're awake or asleep. That's not healthy, Annabeth."

"No, it's embarrassing," she says, narrowing her eyes. "And I'll get over it."

"Just…" Malcolm eyes her warily. He looks at the full plate of food and sighs. "Talk to me about your plans, then. What are you working on right now?"

"The gods have given me some notes for the redesigning of Olympus," she explains, so grateful for the change of topic she could cry. She turns a page around on the desk so he can see. "I'm re-doing the facade of Ares's temple. Not enough cannons, apparently."

Malcolm chuckles darkly. "Of course not. Speaking of Ares, did Clarisse say goodbye to you?"

Annabeth frowns, absentmindedly tracing a ring of perfect circles in the corner of her page. "Yeah, I caught her just before she left. Wished her luck."

"How'd she take it?"

Annabeth smiles wryly. "Said she'd absolutely kick my arse next Summer."

He laughs. "What a perfect send off."

She shrugs one shoulder and they lapse into an uncomfortable silence. Annabeth stabs a piece of chicken with her fork but makes no move to eat it.

Malcolm clears his throat. "Your jaw's looking better."

She flutters her fingers over her chin, where the angry purples and blues have mostly faded to yellow. It's still tender, but nowhere near as bad as it was. She could have had some ambrosia or nectar and it would have healed within a matter of hours, but she sort of likes having the physical ache there. It helps distract her from the emotional one, sometimes. A few more days and it'll probably be completely healed. "Thanks."

"You know you can talk to me about anything, right?" Malcolm asks quietly.

She mindlessly pushes the food around on the plate. "Of course."

"I mean it, Annabeth. Really, anything at all. I don't know what you went through, not really, but if you ever need someone to talk to about it -"

"Malcolm." She resists the urge to roll her eyes, because she's heard this exact line from almost everyone at camp at least once. "Thank you. I appreciate it."

There's another pause, even longer and more loaded than the last one.

Malcolm picks up a spare pencil and twirls it between his fingers, calm composure replaced by fidgety nerves. When he speaks, though, his voice is full of certainty. "You'll get back together, you know."

Annabeth drops her fork to the plate with a clatter. "What?"

He shrugs and continues twirling the pencil. "You and Percy. You'll be fine. You just need time."

She's stunned speechless for a second, because no one else has dared to be as blunt about it before. In fact, she's pretty sure Jason and Piper are still the only other people who properly know what's going on with Percy and her.

"That obvious, huh?"

"Oh, painfully. I knew as soon as you came to breakfast, the day he left. You had heartbreak written all over your face."

"You've been hanging out with the Aphrodite kids too much." Annabeth tries for a joke and comes up short, the words getting stuck around the lump in her throat.

Malcolm smiles sadly. "No. I just know you."

---

MARCH

Percy wasn't at the last games night. Which, apparently, is certifiable proof that he won't attend this one, either, so there's really no excuse for Annabeth not to come. Or so Piper says, anyway.

Annabeth rolls her eyes and gives the Aphrodite cabin a nine out of ten for their inspection.

"Hey, where's that point gone?" Piper says, reading over her shoulder.

"That's for the mess you're causing for me right now."

"Metaphorical messes don't count, that's totally unfair."

Annabeth rolls her eyes again, but she crosses out the nine and replaces it with a ten anyway.

Piper brightens, pushing her shoulders back and smiling wide. She follows Annabeth as she continues on with the inspections. "Thanks. Anyway, like I was saying, no one from the Argo II has heard from Percy in two months, so why would he come to the games night?"

"If no one's heard from him in two months, then games night is the perfect opportunity for him to catch up with everyone."

Piper scrunches up her nose. "Hmm, I disagree. I don't think he'd show up without telling us first."

"He's not great with RSVPs, he always forgets the date," Annabeth mutters, giving the Athena cabin a ten. Last inspection she'd been the sole cause of their low score, because she'd still been in bed and her desk had been hidden beneath a mountain of blueprints. She was sick of letting people down, so she'd made a deliberate effort that morning to tidy up her space, neatly making her bed and straightening everything at her desk. It was cathartic, in a sense, organising all of her stuff like that. "He'll probably only realise that it's games night an hour before it starts and make a last minute decision to go."

Demeter cabin gets a five, because someone's left a creeping vine to slowly devour an entire corner of the room, and then Annabeth power walks straight past the empty Hera cabin, barely resisting the urge to flip it off.

Piper hurries along after her, taking quick little steps to keep up with her long strides. "It'd be really nice for everyone else to see you," she says.

"I don't really feel like a big group thing. I'll just catch up with them one on one, sometime."

Piper peers over her shoulder into the Zeus cabin, which gets a ten. "But we're all so far away from each other and so busy, now, you know how hard it is to coordinate these things."

"Don't use charmspeak on me," Annabeth snaps.

Piper steps back, head bowed. "Sorry," she says, sincere. "I didn't mean to, it just - it just sort of happens, sometimes, when I really want something. Sorry."

Annabeth instantly feels bad. She lowers the clipboard and faces her friend. "I'll think about it, okay?"

"Okay." Even if it was accidental, Piper knows she's crossed a line by using charmspeak. She squeezes Annabeth's hand once before leaving.

Annabeth takes a moment to compose herself and then turns to the next cabin. Her heart sinks.

The Poseidon cabin stands empty and neglected, the door shut and no light coming from inside. Slowly, she approaches the entrance. With every step closer the smell of the sea gets stronger. She breathes it in and her mind is instantly flooded with memories of nights spent curled up in Percy's arms, stretched out beneath him in his bed as he moved above her and inside her and -

She stops with her hand hovering just above the door handle. What would she gain from opening it? A tangible reminder of the fact that Percy is gone, that she drove him out of Camp, pushed him away from all of their friends and essentially exiled him to the city? A glimpse into the room where they levelled physical and emotional blows at each other, the exact same place where she told him they couldn't keep going like they were?

She drops her hand back to her side.

But, gods, she misses him.

Annabeth moves on without giving Cabin 3 a mark, and that afternoon she tells Piper she'll come to games night.

---

"Annabeth! You're here!" Frank exclaims when he opens the door, and Annabeth knows instantly that she's made a mistake. Frank's smiling at her, but the crinkles in the corners of his eyes are from tension rather than joy, and he flicks a concerned glance at Piper and Jason, who stand beside her, before stepping aside to let them all in. "It's good to see you."

"You too," Annabeth says, mustering a smile even as every nerve in her body screams for her to turn around and flee. She's committed herself to this and she's going to see it through, because Annabeth Chase does not run away from a challenge.

This month's catch up is being held at Frank's new apartment in New Rome. He doesn't spend a lot of time here, busy with Praetor duties, but it was a gift from the people that he couldn't turn down. Annabeth had told him it was a good investment, when he'd IMed with the news. It's on the smaller side, but it's big enough for him, and when they push the couch in the lounge off to the side there's more than enough room for all of them to settle down on the soft carpeted floor.

Hazel squeals happily when she sees they've arrived, quickly dropping the bowl of popcorn she'd been carrying onto the coffee table so she can hug them each in turn. Annabeth's hug is brief, not a bracing squeeze like Piper's or Jason's, and she wonders when exactly Percy got in contact with Hazel and Frank, and how he explained it.

Because they obviously know. They're trying to act normal, and she knows they mean well, but it's completely insincere. She keeps catching them looking at her out of the corner of their eyes, and when they make eye contact across the room she clearly reads trouble in their silent exchange. This isn't wholly unexpected - they did go on a quest with Percy before they even met her, after all, so it makes sense for them to take his side.

What is she thinking? His side? There aren't any sides in this, it isn't a fight to see who their friends like more. This isn't that kind of break up.

"Annabeth, you okay?" Piper asks quietly, ten minutes later. She knocks their knees together, so there's no way Annabeth can ignore her.

They're sitting in a circle on the lounge room floor, bowl of popcorn between them and an empty Uno box off to the side. Jason is diligently reading the rules and instructions out loud, but Hazel seems to be the only one listening. Annabeth's too busy trying desperately to ignore the realisation that she is, in fact, going through a break up.

"What?" Annabeth blinks, trying to bring her breathing back under control, and focuses on Piper's voice.

"You're all right," Piper says soothingly, with a hint of charmspeak. Annabeth doesn't mind, this time. "Aren't you?"

She is definitely not all right. There's a layer of tension over the whole group, the air heavy with things unsaid, and she knows that it's all because of her. She wonders what they said about her the last time they all caught up.

"Of course." Annabeth plasters a smile on her face and takes a swig of the drink Piper hands her. There's no alcohol in it, but she wishes there was. She could use a break from thinking, right about now.

Piper smiles back, the expression probably about as convincing as Annabeth's own, and Hazel calls for them to pay attention because Frank's finally got the Uno cards shuffled.

Jason's just called Uno for the first time of the round when there's a knock on the door, and the entire group goes silent. The other four exchange looks, pointedly avoiding Annabeth, and she knows that it's Percy waiting outside.

Fuck, she isn't ready for this.

"I'll get it," Hazel says, delicately uncrossing her legs and almost sprinting for the door, leaving the rest of them sitting in silence.

Annabeth clears her throat. "Uh, I'm going to get a refill," she says, even though her cup is only half empty. "Anyone else need one?"

They shake their heads, mumble some polite no, thank yous, and Annabeth steps gingerly around them and into the kitchen. By the time she makes it to the bench her hands are shaking so badly her cup is at risk of spilling, so she drops it into the sink and grips the edge of the counter until her knuckles turn white. She counts her breaths, forces herself to remember to breathe, just breathe.

She can hear him talking to Hazel out in the hall. She's far enough away that she can't make out any actual words, but the cadence of his voice is as familiar to her as her own inner monologue.

It becomes clearer as he walks into the lounge, loud enough for her to hear over her racing heart. "Hey," he says, "Sorry I'm late, had to make a slight detour on the way here."

She wants to ask what happened, to check if he's okay, but Annabeth stays rooted to the spot, frozen in fear.

"Monsters?" Frank asks, obviously concerned.

Percy laughs, and Annabeth's breath catches around a sob, because it's been so long since she's heard that sound. "Nah, Blackjack desperately needed some donuts," he explains.

The others laugh, and Annabeth swears on a loop in her mind, because she was supposed to be stronger than this, damn it. All she's done is heard his voice, she hasn't even spoken to him, or seen his eyes or his smile or his hair, and she's already remembering every good time they ever had together. She got this same feeling when she considered taking the crinkled picture of the two of them from just after they started dating out of her wallet.

The picture's still there, and Percy is still talking in the lounge.

She realises that the longer she stays hiding out here the more awkward it's going to be when she eventually faces him. Annabeth straightens up and waits for her hands to steady before wiping her eyes. She calmly refills her cup and takes a deep breath. She arranges her features into an expression of polite surprise and steps out of the kitchen.

Percy's focus is on her before she's even completely rounded the corner. His smile melts away, eyes widening in surprise. He mouths her name, lips moving silently around the syllables, and she feels her carefully constructed facade cracking already.

Their friends have gone painfully silent, and if she could bring herself to look away from Percy she'd be glaring at them. As it is, she can't tear her eyes from him. Her memories haven't been doing him justice.

There are bags under his eyes, and his hair is messed up from the flight here, but otherwise he looks the same as the day he left her, and some deep rooted part of Annabeth must be hardwired for him, because it's taking every ounce of control she has not to run across the room and press herself against his side. His feet shuffle against the carpet, as though thinking about stepping towards her, but they both stay stuck where they are.

"Hi," she says eventually, because she can't stand the silence. She hopes she doesn't sound like she's just been crying.

"Hi," he says back, voice infinitely smaller than it was just moments ago. "I didn't -" He finally looks away from her, glancing quickly around at their very guilty looking friends. "- I didn't know you were coming."

She smiles, but it's shaky.

"Miss two games nights in a row?" Piper exclaims suddenly, the intrusion jarring. "Never!"

Percy ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck and laughing awkwardly. Annabeth debates turning around and walking back into the kitchen, but then Jason says, "Come on, I was just about to beat you all at Uno."

So she has no choice but to settle back into her spot on the floor, in between Piper and Frank, and ignore the fact that Percy is sitting less than a metre away from her, frowning down at his cards in a way that makes her think he's trying very hard to ignore her presence, too.

She thought she was prepared for this, to be in the same room as him, but at one point Frank leaves to refill the chip bowl, and suddenly there's a gaping, empty space between Annabeth and Percy with nothing to hide them from each other. She can smell him, a soft, ocean breeze, the same scent that lingers on the jacket he left behind at camp, the one her pride allowed her to take only after he'd walked away. She can see the curve of his lips, the constellation of freckles peeking out from under the neckline of his t-shirt, the knit of his brows as he focuses on not looking at her. He's sitting up uncharacteristically straight, poised to run at any moment, and her heart skips, because she wasn't prepared for this at all.

Gods, she's an idiot.

Frank returns, folding himself into the space between them, and Annabeth quickly refocuses on the pile of cards in the middle of their circle. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Percy steal a glance at her. It's just a single, fleeting look, but it's enough to render her practically useless for the rest of the round. She puts cards down on autopilot, too distracted with trying to ignore the pounding in her head.

Jason wins the first round, and so they deal another, and after that one the pizza comes out and they're juggling slices dripping with cheese in one hand and cards in the other when the conversation takes the inevitable turn towards quest memories.

It always happens, and it's always a strange mix of nostalgic and traumatic, filled with silences that Leo is supposed to fill. But over the months it's gotten somewhat easier. They can talk about him now with smiles instead of tears, or sometimes smiles through the tears. His memory is a bit softer around the edges now, more forgiving of the fact that they're all still here, and so they don't feel as guilty when they start talking about the rare moments of happiness they got on the quest.

Hazel has just finished telling a story about Leo fighting with Buford, and Piper is gasping out words through her laughter as she says, "No, no, I still think the weirdest thing that happened on board that ship was when Percy blew up all the toilets."

The rest of the group crack up laughing, but something goes cold inside Annabeth's chest. She feels Percy's eyes on her, and when she looks across at him she sees that he isn't laughing, either. His expression is painfully raw, and he only manages to hold her gaze for a few seconds before dropping his eyes to the ground.

He'd done that for her, she remembers. Because he was so worried about leaving her. He'd lost control over his powers and blown up their plumbing and their friends thought it was funny, now, but Annabeth could still feel his desperation and his fear, greater even than her own, at the thought of being separated like that. It wasn't funny at all.

Percy's hands curl into fists in his lap, and Annabeth hears pipes creaking distantly.

"Guys," she says, trying to warn them.

Before she can say any more, Percy shoots to his feet, nearly upending the bowl of popcorn kernels.

"Whoa, you okay, Perce?" Frank asks, staring up at him.

Percy waves a hand dismissively as he turns around, shaking his head. "Bathroom."

The others watch him leave, no longer laughing. Annabeth glares at each of them in turn before chasing after him.

"Percy! Percy, wait, are you -"

She finds him doubled over in the hallway outside the bathroom, hands on his knees and his shoulders shaking. The pipes are still creaking, and she can hear a faucet running.

She slows down, cautiously approaching him with an arm held out in front of herself, palm out. "Percy, hey. I'm going to come closer, okay?"

He nods, the movement stilted, and Annabeth falls back into their old routine with ease. She compartmentalises everything she's feeling, everything she's going through, because right now Percy needs her.

Two whole months, and she's right back to where she started.

"Percy," she says softly, standing right in front of him. His eyes flick up to meet hers and then back down to the ground. His breathing is still erratic and way too shallow. "Percy, you need to slow down your breathing. Slow it down."

He shakes his head, faster this time. "Can't," he gasps.

Without thinking about it, she grabs his right hand and pushes it against the side of her neck, right over her pulse point. He straightens slightly, shocked by the movement. Annabeth keeps her hand over his, holding him there. "Breathe with me, okay? Breathe with me."

His fingers twitch against her pulse. His arm rises and falls with the movement of her chest as she breathes, in and out, rise and fall, in and out.

"They keep…" Percy starts and then stops, squeezing his eyes shut and licking his lips.

"Just breathe, Percy," she repeats, bringing her other hand up to smooth his hair away from his forehead.

He inhales, holds it, exhales raggedly. "I keep losing you," he says, and he sounds broken. "I keep seeing it, I keep seeing the monsters taking you, Annabeth, and I - I try to stop it, I try to help you, but then I…"

Something stabs at Annabeth's heart, but she doesn't move away.

"I'm right here, Percy. It's not real," she says. "They're nightmares, hallucinations. They're not real."

He opens his eyes. "They feel real."

"I know," she whispers. Now that he's straightened up slightly, they're practically the same height, and he watches her say the words with an intense concentration that sends a spark down her spine. "I get them too, and I know they feel real, but they're not."

"Hearing them talk about that time on the Argo," he says, waving a limp hand towards the lounge, where their friends are probably talking in circles worrying about them right now, "It just brought it all back up. That fear of you getting hurt because I wasn't there to protect you."

"I can take care of myself." Annabeth moves his hand away from her neck.

Percy gently rests his hands on her shoulders. He sounds tired when he says, "I know you can, Annabeth."

The faucet in the bathroom stops running.

They're standing so close she can feel his breath against her mouth. He licks his lips again, and she watches the movement with morbid fascination. Spending two months apart hasn't lessened her attraction to him at all; if anything, it's made it ten times worse. She's barely keeping herself in check. One slip in concentration and she could be kissing him.

"Annabeth," he breathes. She angles her head to the side, and his eyes fall shut. "Thank you."

Just as her lips graze his, Annabeth pulls back. "What?"

Percy's eyes flutter open. "What?"

"What did you just say?" She feels blood rushing to her face, leaving a red flush up her neck and across her cheeks. "Did you just thank me?"

He frowns. "Uh… Yes?"

"Why are you thanking me?"

"Um, I don't know?" He shrugs his shoulders, clearly confused. "For helping me get through that panic attack, maybe?"

Annabeth shakes her head. "Don't thank me for that, Percy, my gods."

"Wait, wait, hold up." Percy's hold on her loosens, his hands slipping from her shoulders to her elbows. "Are you seriously getting mad at me because I thanked you for helping me?"

"Gods, Percy, don't you get it?" There's a ringing in Annabeth's head that she has to shout over, every mean thing she's ever said to this boy being thrown back at her by her own mind. She doesn't understand why he's still holding on to her. "If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even have panic attacks, you wouldn't have nightmares and hallucinations and any of the awful things you have to deal with!"

"Annabeth, it's not your fault -"

"Would you just get mad at me?!" she cries, pushing against his chest.

He blinks down at her, absolutely dumbfounded. "What?"

She fists his t-shirt with one hand and punches his chest with the other, not hard enough to hurt but enough to accentuate her point. "Get mad at me! Why aren't you mad at me?"

"Annabeth, I -"

"I've ruined your life, Percy!" She's positively feral by this point, vision blurred by tears and her whole body shaking. She feels desperate and inconsolable and uncontainable and yet he's still just holding her, green eyes earnest and fuck she can't do this, she can't. "I've ruined your life, stop looking at me like that!"

He leans back slightly. "Like what?"

"Like - like that!" She waves her hand in front of his face and then pushes back out of his grip, forcing his hands to fall to his sides. He lets her go, although he doesn't look happy about it. She takes three quick steps away from him and then two steps forward again, because she already misses the heat of him right there beneath her hands and it's instinctual, really, the way he draws her to him. "Stop. Looking. At me. Like that."

He shakes his head, but never once takes his eyes off her. "I can't help how I'm looking at you, Annabeth. I really don't know what you're talking about -"

"Percy," she says, outright pleading now, and the desperation in that one word stops him in his tracks. "Please."

"What?" And just like that, his desperation matches hers. He closes the distance between them in two quick strides and moves to grab her arms, stopping himself at the very last second. "What do you need, Annabeth? What do you need me to do?"

Annabeth is imploding, a supernova collapsing in on itself, and if Percy doesn't leave her right now he's going to be collateral damage. She wants desperately for him to hold her, and she wants desperately for him to step away.

Her voice is small when she asks, "Why don't you hate me?"

He inhales sharply. "Annabeth… I could never hate you."

"You should hate me," she says, shaking her head. "I've ruined everything."

"You haven't, you haven't ruined anything. I'm the one that punched you, remember?" He's trying for humour, tilting one side of his mouth up in a half-hearted attempt at a smirk, but all that does is remind Annabeth of how long it's been since she's seen him really smile.

"Percy, I dragged you into Tartarus -"

For the first time that night, he looks mad. For a terrifying second he is indistinguishable from the man who'd tried to drown Akhyls, and Annabeth freezes in fear. She can see the muscle in his jaw working, and he's obviously struggling to keep his tone controlled when he says, "You didn't drag me anywhere, Annabeth. I went with you willingly. How many times do I have to tell you that?"

She doesn't want to be afraid of him. Slowly, she brings her hand up and flattens her palm over his chest. She can feel his heartbeat racing, almost as fast as hers. "At least once more," she whispers.

When she doesn't move, he covers her hand with his. "I was mad at you, Annabeth. I've been mad at you, really mad at you, for the last two months. And I'm tired of it. It's exhausting."

"I know." She sobs.

There's an awful type of understanding in his eyes as he says, "We're never going to get over this, are we?"

She remembers the night they ended it, sitting curled up in the Poseidon cabin, covered in bruises both emotional and physical. He'd said to her, "We're never going to make it out, are we?" And she'd gotten the same sinking feeling then as she's getting now.

She isn't ready for this. They're still too volatile, too codependent and entirely too damaged.

"I don't know," she says honestly. "Maybe not."

He sobs, then, which hurts Annabeth more than anything he could have possibly said. She lets her forehead drop forward onto his chest and Percy curls his arm around the back of her head, holding her steady as the world crumbles beneath her feet.

---

APRIL

The news of Percy and Annabeth's break up spreads through Camp Half Blood like Greek fire.

She doesn't know if someone saw Percy drop her off at Half Blood Hill and say goodbye after the games night, or if someone overheard her fighting with Piper and Jason about it the next day, or if someone just finally figured out the real connection between Percy's move and Annabeth's foul mood.

Whatever the source, Annabeth steps out of Cabin 6 a few days after that disastrous night at Frank's and is immediately hit by a wall of pitying looks.

She scowls at every camper she makes eye contact with on the way to breakfast, and she's so distracted by glaring at an all-too-smug looking Drew Tanaka that she scrapes more than half of her meal into the sacrificial fire.

When she drops forcefully down at the Athena table, Malcolm scoots a few inches away from her. She sticks her elbow into the free space and levels her glare at him.

"It wasn't me," he says without preamble.

"Obviously," she replies, stirring her cereal violently.

The feeling of the entire camp watching her has Annabeth on edge. She straightens up and glares around the dining pavilion until they're all cowering and she can finally go back to her breakfast in relative peace.

Until, of course, Connor Stoll has to open his big mouth. "This is just like before the Battle of Manhattan," he says, voice carrying over the relative silence of the pavilion. He's not even looking at Annabeth, talking to one of his half-siblings on the other side of the Hermes table, and she can't figure out if he wants her to hear what he's saying or if he really is just that clueless. "Remember when they were fighting then? Dude, that sucked. Percy kept running off, they barely said a word to each other all Summer and the whole camp had to put up with Annabeth's temper -"

Will Solace smacks Connor upside the head as he walks past.

"Ow!" Connor says indignantly. "What was that for?"

Nico, walking right behind Will, levels a glare at him that rivals Annabeth's own, and he wisely shuts up.

She nods a thank you to each of them as they take their seats at the Hades and Apollo tables, respectively, and they both nod back. Nico holds her gaze, expression carefully blank, and Annabeth feels a fresh wave of guilt as she remembers that he went through Tartarus, too.

She should talk to him about it, to the only other person who might understand a degree of what she's going through - but she's not ready for that. She's not prepared to talk her way back down there, to put everything into words, to make it tangible. Judging by the bags under his eyes, maybe Nico's not ready for it, either.

They look away at the same time.

---

Annabeth is followed by pitying whispers everywhere she goes.

"It's so sad," a daughter of Apollo says when she walks by.

"I know, poor Annabeth," her friend murmurs.

"Poor Percy," a son of Dionysus chimes in.

Annabeth clenches her fists and keeps walking, head held high.

Her afternoon training session is a disaster, because even though the trainees are meant to be sparring with her and showing off all the skills they've acquired, they don't fight back.

When she disarms the fourth one in a row in less than five seconds, she growls. "What are you doing? If you're going to get anything from this exercise, you need to show me what you're capable of!"

The younger campers all shuffle their feet, scuffing their toes in the dirt and staring at their shoes.

"Well?" Annabeth snaps, completely out of patience.

"I'm sorry!" Emily, daughter of Hephaestus, finally cracks. "I just feel bad."

"Holy Hades," Annabeth mutters, rolling her eyes skywards. "If this is about -"

"I can't fight you when you've got a broken heart," interrupts Coby, a particularly dramatic son of Aphrodite.

Annabeth gives him a withering look and he takes half a step back. As she surveys the rest of the group, it becomes apparent that they're not going to get anything done today.

"Training's cancelled," she announces, undoing her breast plate. "You're dismissed."

Her trainees all share a look, as if unsure if they can really leave. "But -"

"Go!" Annabeth repeats, and they scurry away, muttering apologies as they pass.

Once the arena's empty she throws her sword at a training dummy, and it misses by a mile. She lets loose a string of swear words and kicks at the ground.

"Don't sweat it," Will Solace says, appearing in the entrance way. She rounds on him, eyes narrowed. He takes a few steps towards her. "It's perfectly normal for emotional trauma to impact combat skills."

"Do not psychoanalyse me, Will," she says warningly.

He stops walking and holds his hands up in the position for surrender. "Sorry. I was just -"

"Trying to help, I know," she says. "I've already had enough help, and I've already tried everything, and nothing's working, but thanks anyway."

Will doesn't look at her with the same pity as everyone else. "No, you haven't tried everything."

Annabeth stalks across the arena and picks her sword up from the ground. When she turns back around, Will's still there. She pushes her hair out of her eyes and purses her lips. "What are you talking about?"

Will shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "When you're ready to talk, I know a psychologist who specialises in this type of thing."

"Oh, I didn't realise that dealing with Post Traumatic Tartarus Disorder was something you could specialise in at university."

He actually smirks at that, rolling his eyes. "Gods, you're worse than Nico. Just. Keep it in mind, okay? When you're ready to talk about it."

She falters, bravado giving way to genuine fear. "What if I'm never ready to talk about it?"

"You will be. It might take a while, but you'll get there." Will offers her a small smile and then turns to leave.

"Will!" she calls after him.

He stops in the doorway and raises an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Thanks." She feels embarrassed, although she can't figure out why. "For this morning."

He laughs. "You're welcome. Take care of yourself, Annabeth."

She would, if she remembered how.

---

When she gets back to her cabin that night, there's a brochure sitting neatly on her pillow. 'A wise choice for your future!' is splayed across the front in capital, block letters, and a beautiful young maiden shooting an arrow smiles up at her.

A yellow sticky note covers the rest of the brochure's front page, but Annabeth already knows exactly what this is.

'You're not too old' is scrawled over the sticky note in Thalia's handwriting. And underneath that, much smaller but still in Thalia's hand; 'Sorry. Hope you're okay.'

A ball of white hot anger expands in Annabeth's chest, because she's already been here before and she doesn't want to do it again, damn it.

She remembers Percy's panic when he thought she was going to join the Hunters, remembers her own fear when Zeus offered him immortality, and she knows that she can't do it. Not when there's still a chance for them, no matter how small and remote it might be.

Besides, she barely even wants to live right now, let alone live forever.

Annabeth rips the brochure into tiny little pieces and dumps it in the trash.

---

Spring Break brings an influx of demigods back to Camp Half Blood, but Percy isn't one of them. Annabeth sits on the top of Half Blood Hill, her back against Thalia's tree, and watches for his Prius, hoping against hope that he'll appear. Piper and Jason, who are trying desperately to redeem themselves after the games night fiasco, usually keep her company.

She's on her way there on the third day of break when George comes running up, red in the face.

"Chiron wants to see you," he says, "in the Big House."

Hope must light up her features, because George hurriedly shakes his head.

"Sounded not good," he adds.

Annabeth deflates. "Okay. Thanks, George. Can you tell Jason and Piper where I've gone?"

He nods and heads off to Half Blood Hill, leaving Annabeth to make the trek to the Big House alone. She runs through a thousand possible reasons for why Chiron could have summoned her on the way, but isn't able to settle on any one in particular.

"Chiron?" She swings the front door open, and immediately has to duck out of the way of a projectile aimed right at her forehead. She glances over her shoulder to see a blue plastic hairbrush skid across the porch. Oh, no. She looks back inside the house, and sees a murderous Rachel Elizabeth Dare waiting for her. "Rachel."

"What are you thinking?"

"It's good to see you, too," Annabeth says, faux polite. "How's school?"

Rachel's wearing a bright yellow t-shirt and a ratty pair of jean shorts, her red hair frizzing out of a bun on the top of her head, but her anger is enough to actually be a bit intimidating. Or it would be, if she were dealing with anyone except for Annabeth. "Why have you broken up with Percy?"

In a way, Annabeth appreciates her bluntness. There's no dancing around the issue, no pity. However, Rachel is one of the last people on Earth she wants to talk about this with.

Annabeth folds her arms over her chest and says, "I don't see what our relationship has to do with you."

Rachel scoffs. "Oh, come off it. I've spent the last two days talking with Percy about this and I'm still not sure what you think you're doing, so an explanation would be appreciated -"

Two days? This whole time, while Annabeth's been sitting at Camp waiting for Percy to show up, he's been talking with Rachel?

All of her old jealousy wells back up, bitter on the back of her tongue. She feels herself scowling and digs her nails into her palms in an effort to calm herself down. "I don't know what you want me to explain, Rachel. We just didn't work out."

"That's bullshit, Annabeth, don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying to you! We just stopped working," she snaps, and it's the truth, honestly, there's nothing more she can think of to say.

Rachel rolls her eyes and spins on her heel, stalking off into the rarely used sitting room. Annabeth storms after her, because she's not going to let this conversation end with Rachel thinking she's got the upper hand.

Boxes of old weapons fill one of the couches, and a framed portrait of a much younger and fitter Dionysus hangs above the dusty fireplace. Rachel stands underneath it, a strange splash of colour in this musty old room, arms folded over her chest and green eyes flashing.

"Do you have any idea how cut up he is by this?" she asks.

"Yes, in fact, I do know how hurt he is by this," Annabeth counters, unable to stop herself from sounding a little smug.

Rachel ignores her. "He's heartbroken, Annabeth, absolutely shattered."

Annabeth presses her lips together until they form a thin, white line and counts to ten in her head. "I know that Percy is your friend, Rachel, so I don't blame you for taking his side, but I promise you this hasn't been easy on me either -"

"I know that," Rachel says, sounding very much like she doesn't have time for such obvious statements. "Because, like it or not, Annabeth, you're my friend, too. And I know that you're making a mistake."

She'd prefer Rachel's anger over her kindness, right now, so she says sarcastically, "Are your powers of prophecy telling you this?"

"No, my powers of 'being a human being with eyes and a brain' are telling me this. I don't think you get it, Percy is -"

"I get how Percy is perfectly, thank you very much! I don't need you to come in here telling me how the break up is affecting him when I saw it for myself just last month, and when I've been actually going through it myself since January!"

Rachel isn't deterred. "So what are you doing about it then?"

"What am I -? What are you even asking? There's nothing I can do about it." Annabeth's nails are probably drawing blood from her palms, at this point, but she can't unclench her hands.

"You can do plenty about it!" Rachel throws her hands in the air, exasperated. "You could try talking to him, for starters -"

"I have tried talking to him, and all we do is fight! Constantly!" Annabeth sighs, debating the best way to get Rachel off her case. "Shouldn't you be happy about this? You can finally have Percy all to yourself -"

"Oh, my gods, Annabeth, really?" Rachel laughs disbelievingly. "You're going to bring that up? After everything? You're going to fall back on that old crush?"

Annabeth huffs and looks away, because yes, damn it, she is going to bring up that old crush, because absolutely everything to do with Percy feels like poking an open wound right now, so why not add to it by ripping open that old injury.

"You need to get your shit together," Rachel mutters, clearly insulted.

"I'm trying!" Annabeth yells. "I am trying, every second of every day, to get my shit together, but it's hard, okay?"

Hard is the wrong word. Impossible, is more like it. She feels like she's unravelling, like any sudden noise or unexpected contact is going to send her to pieces. She constantly feels short of breath, she can still only sleep in three hour blocks, on the good nights, and even then she's plagued by nightmares… She's barely holding herself together.

"Annabeth -" Rachel says, softer now, but she's on a roll.

"I am trying to fix myself, because Percy deserves better!" Annabeth feels a trickle of blood run between her fingers, and she still doesn't unclench her fists. "Why can't anyone see that he deserves better than me? It's my fault that he's hurting, I know, you don't need to come here yelling at me about it, because I have known since the second he let go of that ledge exactly how badly I hurt him!"

Rachel is silent and still for the first time since Annabeth opened the Big House door. "Holy shit, Annabeth…"

Annabeth meets her stare, and her throat feels like it's about to close over. She shakes her head.

Rachel sighs, and it's like all of her fight leaves her in that breath. "I'm sorry for throwing the hairbrush at you, okay? I'm just… I used up all of my pity on Percy, and so you copped all the rage." When Annabeth doesn't respond, Rachel frowns tightly. "I'm worried about you."

Annabeth shakes her head with more force, because she can't cope with another person feeling sorry for her. "Don't."

Rachel raises an eyebrow. "You expect me to pretend like everything's fine after what you just said?"

"Everything is fine -"

"Stop." Rachel holds a hand up and, embarrassingly, Annabeth falls silent. "Everything is not fine, but that's okay. I think you're going about this in completely the wrong way, but at least you're doing it with good intentions."

Annabeth snorts, which makes Rachel smile.

"Do you really think being apart is going to help the two of you heal?" she asks.

Annabeth nods. "It can't be any worse than what we were doing to each other when we were together."

Rachel makes a small noise of disagreement but doesn't say any more on the matter. "Come on, I promised Chiron I'd deliver you to him alive and unharmed once I'd figured out what the hell you were thinking." She reaches out for Annabeth's hand, but pulls back when she sees the blood. "But let's get you some ambrosia first, so I can keep my word with the whole 'unharmed' part."

When she smiles, Annabeth smiles back. It feels an awful lot like a truce.

Later that night, they sit side by side at the campfire, roasting marshmallows on sticks. Annabeth twirls hers between her fingers, bites her lip and debates whether it's worth turning the conversation back to Percy. The longer she thinks about it, the more she realises she doesn't have a choice. If she doesn't say what's on her mind now, it's going to drive her mad.

"Hey, Rachel?"

The Oracle doesn't look up from her marshmallow, determined to toast it exactly right. "Mhmm?"

"Will you tell him that I miss him?"

Rachel turns her head, surprised. The firelight dances in her eyes as she scrutinises Annabeth. She's silent for a long time, but she eventually replies, "Yeah. When he's ready."

Annabeth takes a deep breath. "Okay."

Rachel nods determinedly and turns back to her marshmallow. "Okay."

---

MAY

Annabeth stands on the camp beach and watches the waves roll into shore. She wonders what it would feel like to walk underneath them. She wonders if Percy would sense that she was in trouble, like he did that time she threw her dagger into Charleston Harbor. She hadn't doubted, not even for a second, that he'd show up to help her then. They'd been so in sync, so completely in tune with each other that she knew, no matter where he was within that giant body of water, he'd sense her dagger and know exactly what it meant.

She feels out of sync with herself now; she can barely even imagine being in tune with another person.

Annabeth pulls her sweater tighter around herself, hugging her arms around her waist, and matches her breathing to the timing of the waves as they roll over the sand. Inhale, exhale, roll in, roll out, inhale, exhale.

She hears someone approaching behind her, heavy footsteps across the sand, but she doesn't turn away from the water. A strong arm wraps around her shoulders as Chiron pulls her against his side, his forelegs folded over as he kneels beside her. She lets herself lean into him, because she's so tired and so sick of having to support herself and it feels nice, for once, to have someone help hold her up.

They stay like that for a long time, until Chiron shifts, settling his Centaur form into the sand, and his arm falls from her shoulders. Annabeth shivers as the breeze seeks out the holes in her sweater, and he frowns at her.

"You've been out here for a long time," he says, but it's not accusatory.

She shrugs. "I needed some space."

Chiron doesn't say anything, but his silence prompts her more than any question could.

She sighs. "And I feel closer to him, when I'm out here."

Chiron nods. There's a long pause, where she can sense him debating whether or not he should tell her something important. Just as she opens her mouth to tell him to hurry up, he says, "Annabeth, you know that you're always going to feel a connection to Percy."

She rolls her eyes and kicks at the sand, sending a small spray of it up into the air. "Yeah, I know. First love, and all that."

Chiron smiles fondly. "It's more than that."

"We used to be best friends?"

Chiron shakes his head. "How much did Percy tell you about the Curse of Achilles?"

She thinks back to the Battle of Manhattan, when she'd taken that hit for Percy without any hesitation, potentially sacrificing herself just to keep him safe. She hadn't even known about his Achilles spot then, and yet when she'd seen that knife coming for him, all she'd been able to think about was protecting him.

Later, on the terrace of the Plaza Hotel, he'd asked why she'd done it, and she'd said, "You would've done the same for me." If she ever spoke to him again, she'd have to tell him that following her into Tartarus had been a bit of overkill in terms of getting even.

Her fingers twitch as she remembers him guiding her hand to the small of his back, to his lone weak spot. He'd trusted her with his life.

She draws her bottom lip up between her teeth, debating what to say to Chiron. She settles on, "Nothing that I didn't already know."

"Did he tell you what his tether to the mortal world was?"

Annabeth's breath catches in her throat. She turns to look at Chiron, but he keeps his gaze locked on the horizon. "Me," she says quietly.

Chiron nods.

Frustration bubbles inside Annabeth's chest. "But that - that doesn't matter, now, because the Curse was removed when he went to Camp Jupiter -"

"Something as strong as that bond can't be washed away by the River Tiber," Chiron says. "There's a reason Hera herself couldn't wipe you from Percy's memories."

"What are you saying?" Annabeth snaps, because if this is supposed to be a pep-talk, the centaur is doing a terrible job. "That I'm going to spend the rest of my life feeling like I'm missing something, like I've been unmoored and left to drift through the world like - like -" She's so upset she can't even think of a good simile. She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes and groans. "I don't want to feel like this anymore, Chiron."

"What I mean," he says slowly, waiting for her to drop her hands and open her eyes before continuing, "is that you and Percy have a near unbreakable bond."

"Yeah, well. If anyone could find a way to break an unbreakable bond, it'd be us."

Chiron has the nerve to laugh. "I don't pretend to know what your future holds, but I guarantee that Percy will feature in it, somehow. You're going to be okay, Annabeth. I know it doesn't seem like it right now, but I promise you -"

"Did any of the other heroes you trained go through Tartarus?"

Chiron's expression darkens to match the grey clouds that are rolling in in the distance. "No."

"Then how do you know?" Annabeth asks quietly. She's scared of the answer, but she pushes on anyway. "If no one else has gone through what we did, how do you know that we're not broken beyond repair?"

Chiron turns to face her, eyebrows knitted together in a frown. "How many so-called 'impossible' things have you already achieved, Annabeth?"

She's feeling petulant, so she just crosses her arms and shrugs.

"Think back over everything you've done, all that you've survived -"

"I'm sick of just surviving, Chiron." Gods, she sounds like a whiny teenager and she hates it with every fibre of her being, but she can't bring herself to stop. "I want to feel like I'm living."

"You are." Chiron gently cups her chin in his hand and tilts her head up so she's looking him in the eye. "And I'm so proud of you for it."

Annabeth throws herself forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. Chiron is the only stable parental figure she's had in her life, and right now, she could really use a hug. As usual, he doesn't let her down. He wraps his arms around her back and holds her tight.

When she pulls back, Annabeth is sniffling. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry that I haven't been helping out as much around the camp. When I decided to stay I know I said I'd take on more responsibility -"

"You don't need to worry about that," Chiron says, smiling softly. "Actually, that's what I came down here to talk to you about in the first place."

She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her sweater. "Oh?"

"I think it might be good for you to spend some time outside of Camp."

It takes a few seconds for his words to process. "What?"

"How long has it been since you left the Camp borders?"

"Well, I've been busy, being Head Counsellor and orienting the new campers and - and I went to Olympus, not that long ago…"

"It's been too long, Annabeth." Chiron straightens his legs, standing up and towering over the top of her. "You need a reminder that there is a whole wide world out there, and more in it than this camp can offer you."

She tilts her head back and looks up at him. "Is this your way of telling me to go back to school?"

"No, but I think rediscovering some of your own interests would be good for you."

"Okay, even for a centaur that was cliche," Annabeth says, deadpan.

Chiron smiles. "I've enrolled you in some art classes downtown, if you're interested."

Annabeth tugs her sleeves over her knuckles, stretching the material and scrunching it up in her fists. "But I haven't sketched anything except for Olympus designs for… for months."

"Exactly."

She chews her bottom lip and looks out at the horizon, where the dark clouds are gathering. It has been a long time since she's done something just for herself, and Rachel did say that art was cathartic.

Not that she's taking advice from Rachel Dare, now, but. You know. It's nice to seek outside opinions, sometimes.

Annabeth nods. "Okay. I'll try it."

"It runs Tuesdays and Thursdays, from four to six," Chiron says, sounding proud.

Annabeth immediately begins running through the logistics, how she's going to get there and what supplies she'll need, whether or not anyone from her old school might be in attendance, how far away the art studio is from Percy's house.

She squeezes her eyes shut and turns away from the water. She's doing this for herself.

She smiles up at Chiron. "Perfect."

He looks pleased as he leads her back into camp, away from the storm clouds rolling over the ocean.

---

Annabeth sees Percy before she sees the monster.

A single glimpse of the back of his head, hair curling against the collar of his blue t-shirt, the curve of his shoulders, the shape of his arse in those jeans, and Annabeth stops dead on the sidewalk. He's carrying two bags overflowing with groceries on each arm, which probably means either Sally or Paul aren't far away.

Her fight or flight response has gone into overdrive, and it seems it's chosen the third option of freeze. She can't decide whether to run after him or away from him, so instead she just watches him.

Someone hits her shoulder, knocking her slightly off balance, and when Annabeth looks back up Percy's stopped walking. His head is turned to the side, and for a single, heartrending second she thinks he's spotted her. But then he carefully slides the bags from his arms and hands them to Paul, who's appeared beside him, and gets Riptide out of his pocket.

Annabeth unsticks her feet from the pavement and runs after him as he darts down a side alley.

"Annabeth?" she hears Paul ask she runs by.

She waves back at him, a gesture he hopefully interprets as Hi, talk after we've killed this monster! and continues after Percy.

When she rounds the corner he's in a fighting stance, sword drawn and eyes zeroed in on the monster. It's a humanoid, female-looking, with leathery wings and a wide mouth full of pointed, razor sharp teeth. Annabeth's sure she's seen a picture of something similiar, in one of the books in Chiron's collection, but its name escapes her, because Percy's just spotted her and the look on his face has knocked her senseless.

His bottom lip drops and his eyes widen, surprise splayed across his features. "Annabeth? What are you doing here?"

"Hi, Percy," she says lamely.

He frowns at her. "Were you following me?"

"What?! No, I was at an art class!"

His features smooth out. "Oh. Okay."

"Not one but two demigod morsels!" the monster cries gleefully, successfully drawing both their attention. "What a feast this shall be!"

"Oh, so you're that type of monster," Percy says, sounding bored. "The 'eating demigods for lunch' kind."

"First I drain your blood, then I eat you," the monster corrects, and a page turns in Annabeth's memory.

"Mormo," she says quickly.

Percy glances at her while the monster scowls. "Mormo?"

"She's Mormo - like a vampire," Annabeth explains.

"Oh, cool. So, a stake through the heart should do it then, right?" Percy twirls Riptide around once before levelling it right at Mormo's heart. "Or will Celestial Bronze do the trick?"

Mormo screeches. She sounds offended.

Annabeth slips her hat from her back pocket and Percy nods at her without taking his eyes off the monster. Annabeth feels like she's stepping back into her own skin. She jams the hat over her hair as Percy distracts their enemy, wisecracking about how he's definitely not an ideal meal - "I'm all elbows," he says, "Elbows and gristle."

She presses her lips together to stifle a laugh, which is absolutely ridiculous, but gods she hasn't felt this right for months. She draws her sword before circling around the back of Mormo.

The monster spreads its wings, blocking Percy from Annabeth's view, but she can still hear him. "There's a perfectly good grocery store right next door, if you're hungry you really should try some of the stuff from their deli -"

Mormo steps back towards Annabeth and slashes out at Percy with her claws. "I will feast on demigod today!"

"Are you sure? Their roast chicken is delicious," Percy says, stabbing at her.

She shields herself with a wing, so his hit glances off and cuts her leg instead of her chest. She howls in pain. "Where has your friend gone, little demigod? Has she left you to fight alone?"

Annabeth has to roll to the side to avoid being hit in the face with a wing, and when she springs back to her feet she has a perfect view of Percy. His expression is dark, lips twisted into a sneer and eyes narrowed. He looks angry, malicious and extremely dangerous. His eyes flicker in her direction, looking just as deadly, before settling back on Mormo. "Yeah, she has a bad habit of doing that."

Annabeth freezes. Her stomach drops, an uncomfortable lurch that leaves her feeling unsteady on her feet. She can't look away from Percy - from the muscle working in his jaw as he clenches his teeth, from the anger clouding his eyes, from the ferocity of his attack as he launches himself on Mormo.

He's relentless, slashing at the monster until she's got both wings held before her face. Annabeth's battle instincts kick in and she seizes the opportunity. She runs in from behind, jumping high into the air and landing, sword first, on Mormo's back. She stabs her right beside the spine, the one part she couldn't protect with her wings, and then quickly jumps down as the monster crumbles to golden dust.

Percy watches Annabeth as she removes her cap, and her heart races under his stare. She imagines stalking forward, pressing herself against his chest until he's backed up against the brick wall of the alley, kissing him until he can't see straight -

He says, "I can never tell if you're going to punch me or kiss me when you pull that face."

Annabeth blinks. She sheathes her sword and shrugs one shoulder, smirking. "Depends what you do next."

For a second, hope flickers across his face, followed closely by lust, and something pleasant and warm stirs deep inside Annabeth.

But then Percy closes his eyes and shakes his head, half-turning away from her. "Thanks for your help," he says coldly.

That was not the response she had been anticipating. "You're welcome?"

He recaps Riptide and puts it back in his pocket, glances around the alley to check that there aren't any more vampire-monsters lurking, and then makes to leave.

"What did you mean?" Annabeth says quickly, to get him to stop walking as much as to find out the truth, "What you said to Mormo?"

Percy's smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Their roast chicken really is delicious -"

Well, she's glad he finds this funny. "Percy."

He sighs and runs a hand roughly through his hair before walking back over to her. He's taller than her now, and she has to tilt her chin up slightly to look him in the eye. When he speaks, he's all business, words short and sharp and not at all like he usually talks to her. "It was strategy. If I could make her think I was the only one she had to worry about, you'd have more opportunities to attack from behind. And would ya look at that, it worked."

Percy turns to leave again, but Annabeth reaches out and gently brushes her fingertips over his old Achilles spot, stopping him in his tracks. A shiver runs up his spine, and the contact sets a flame alight, a small spark spreading from where they're touching and sweeping over Annabeth's entire body. Slowly, Percy turns around, trailing his eyes up her arm to her face. Once he's facing her, she moves her hand from his back to his arm, curling her fingers around his wrist, because she's scared to let him go after that.

Annabeth wants to ask if he felt it too, but the terror in Percy's eyes is all the answer she needs.

She swallows. "Do you really think that's what I'm doing? Leaving you to fight alone?"

He bows his head, laughing quietly, as if he can't believe what a joke she's become. "That's exactly what I think you're doing, Annabeth."

All the blood leaves her face. "Oh."

Percy fidgets, flexing his fingers. She feels the movement of his muscles and tendons beneath her hand, but she doesn't let go of his arm and he doesn't try to make her. "Look, this doesn't change anything. Winning one fight with a monster doesn't mean that suddenly everything between us is great again."

She opens her mouth to speak, realises she has nothing to say, and closes it again. Something stings at the back of her eyes. She doesn't let go of his arm.

Percy sighs. "Look, Annabeth, I'm not saying you're doing the wrong thing. In fact, you're probably right. Like always. But I'm seeing someone -"

The alley spins out of focus around them. Annabeth's entire consciousness narrows to her hand on Percy's arm, her pulse pounding in her own ears, and those three words. She feels like she's going to be sick. Four months? Is that all it took for him to get over her? She blinks up at him helplessly, trying to reconcile the hurt flooding her chest and making it hard to breathe with the crinkles in the corners of his eyes and the softness of his grip as his free hand comes up and grabs her shoulder.

He ducks his head slightly so they're eye to eye. "Annabeth, hey. I'm seeing a psychologist."

The spinning slows. She unsticks her mouth and asks, "What?"

"I'm seeing a psychologist," Percy repeats, and the beginnings of Annabeth's panic attack subside. "And she's said that working through our own stuff seperately is a good idea, before we try to work through all the stuff that's ours, together. But I - every time I see you, every time I'm near you, I just - it gets harder to stay away."

"I'm sorry," Annabeth whispers. "I didn't want you to have to fight it alone."

"Don't apologise," he says, rubbing his thumb in circles on her shoulder.

"We always fight so well together."

Percy laughs. "Pity it's the only thing we seem to do well together at the moment."

Annabeth considers a flirty response, a quip about how she's sure they can still kiss pretty damn well, but she knows that once they start down that path neither of them are going to have the strength to stop it at just a kiss, and that's far too dangerous.

So instead she says, "Say hi to Paul and your mom for me."

He might look a little disappointed, for just a second, but then again it could just be the shadows in the alley. "I will. Say hi to everyone at Camp for me."

"I will."

Percy straightens up and plants a kiss on her forehead, squeezing her shoulders one last time before leaving the alley.

Annabeth counts to fifty before following.

---

JUNE

The first class was a bit iffy, but by the fifth one Annabeth is absolutely convinced that signing her up for art class was one of Chiron's best ideas ever. For two hours, twice a week, she sits at an easel and practices drawing still lifes and figure drawings and loses herself in the movement of her pencil across the paper.

She's not the best artist in the class, not by a long shot, but for once she actually appreciates not having that sort of pressure on her shoulders. When she's sketching, there are no Camp duties to worry about, no well-meaning concern from her friends, no room in her head for anything except for the subject of her art.

She always leaves the classes feeling lighter and a little bit more like her old self, usually still wrapped up in thoughts of edits she could make and how she'd like to continue the project next class.

She's changed her route, so she doesn't have to go past the alley where she and Percy fought Mormo, and she hasn't seen him since. Sometimes she catches herself looking out for him in the crowd, and once she thought she spotted him and her heart just about jumped out of her chest (it turned out to just be a boy with the same hoodie), but for the most part she's okay.

It's taken a lot of practice, but Annabeth is starting to reforge her own identity, and she feels better for it.

So when she spots a familiar Prius, complete with pegasus hoof marks on the roof, parked on her usual route home, she stops dead in her tracks. The dilemma: to speed walk past it and hope that the owners are far enough away to miss her in the crowd, or to backtrack and hope that they went in entirely the opposite direction?

She takes two steps towards the car before someone calls her name. "Annabeth!"

Guilt pools in her stomach, and Annabeth turns around to see Sally Jackson hurrying towards her. She fixes her features into a smile, which Sally returns full force.

"Annabeth, oh my god, hello!" She sweeps her into a hug, squeezing her tight and smoothing a hand through her ponytail for extra mom-liness. When she pulls back, she keeps her hands on her shoulders and looks her up and down, eyes shining. "Oh, Annabeth, dear, we've missed you."

Annabeth's eyes dart over Sally's shoulder instinctively, searching for that familiar head of messy, dark hair.

Sally, ever perceptive, notices, and knows exactly what she's looking for. "Percy's at home," she explains, which just makes Annabeth feel even guiltier.

"I've missed you too," she says, and it's genuine.

When Percy went missing, Sally was the only one who had any idea what Annabeth was going through, and honestly, without those long nights she spent going over old memories and fresh clues at the Jackson-Blofis kitchen table, nibbling on a never-ending supply of blue cookies, Annabeth probably would have lost her mind before Percy even made it back.

Sally's still holding on to her hand, and when she squeezes gently, Annabeth squeezes back.

"What are you doing out this way?" Sally asks.

"I just finished art class," Annabeth explains, pointing over her shoulder to the studio.

"Art class, that's wonderful!" Sally's joy is genuine, and Annabeth's guilt over her radio silence hits her full force again. "I assume you're still practicing your architecture designs, too?"

Annabeth nods, and she wants to ask Sally how her latest book is coming along, how excited Paul is for Summer, whether they followed her advice about re-arranging the lounge room, but all of those questions seem to just be a lead up for How's Percy? and so she can't quite bring herself to ask any of them.

"What else have you been up to?" Sally asks.

Annabeth shoves her hands into the pockets of her shorts. "Oh, I'm still at Camp, just, you know, making sure everything's running smoothly, but -"

Sally interrupts, "Hang on, have you had dinner? Do you have plans for dinner?"

She feels a stab of fear at where this line of questioning is going. "Uh, no, but -"

"We're having dinner," Sally says decisively, pulling her phone from her pocket.

"What? No, Sally, really -"

But she's already dialed home, and holds a hand up to tell Annabeth to be quiet. Annabeth twists her fingers together nervously, waiting to hear Percy pick up the phone and trying to think of a polite way to get out of the most awkward dinner in the history of awkward dinners.

"Hello?" Annabeth has to look away when Percy answers, because the effect his voice has on her hasn't lessened over the months. Even through the distant speaker of someone else's phone, every inflection tugs on a different one of her heart strings.

"Percy, I'm going out for dinner," Sally says, flashing Annabeth an encouraging smile. Her heart returns to almost its normal rate as she realises that Sally isn't inviting her to dinner with Percy. Instead, it'll just be the two of them. Dinner with your ex's mom isn't as awkward as dinner with your ex's mom and your ex, is it? "You and Paul can cook whatever you'd like, or order in."

"Order in?" Percy asks hopefully, and Annabeth can just picture his dorky smile.

Sally laughs. "Yes, if you'd like. I'll call you when I'm on my way home, okay?"

"All right. Love you, Mom. Have fun." He stops talking, and Annabeth starts breathing again.

"Love you, too." Sally hangs up the call and turns to Annabeth, smile brighter than ever.

Annabeth is brutally reminded of the fact that although Percy inherited a lot of traits from Poseidon, his smile is all Sally.

"Now, Annabeth. What do you feel like eating?"

---

They end up at a little hole in the wall Thai noodle place that Sally recommends, because Annabeth isn't really sure what's good around here, anymore, and Paul isn't a fan of noodles so Sally's grateful for the opportunity.

"Sorry, I interrupted you before," she says once they're settled at a little corner booth, menus splayed on the table between them. "You're still at Camp…?"

"Yeah, I'm still there," Annabeth confirms, shifting awkwardly. She has no idea what Percy's told Sally about the whole situation, but she feels awfully guilty for practically running him out of Camp.

"Still Head Counsellor?"

Annabeth nods.

"Still working on that big architecture project?"

Annabeth nods again, bending the corner of her napkin over and tapping her foot against the leg of the table.

Sally leans forward and gently puts her hand over the top of Annabeth's, stilling her. She says softly, "I'm not mad at you, Annabeth."

Annabeth blinks. "You're not? But I -"

"You don't have any obligations to anyone but yourself, for starters," Sally says emphatically, and Annabeth is sort of stunned by that realisation. Sally must notice, because her lips twitch up at the corners as she continues, "But I know that you're doing what you think is best for both yourself and Percy."

Annabeth swallows thickly. "I'm trying to."

"I know." Sally pats her hand and draws back. "So, now that that's out of the way. What's really going on with you?"

Annabeth looks at this woman who was a pillar of strength for her while Percy was missing, who has been more of a mother figure than either her actual mother or her stepmom, who once told her that one of her greatest joys in life was teasing thirteen-year-old Percy about his 'dates' with Annabeth, and she thinks that it might be okay to be honest.

She takes a deep breath in. "Things aren't so great."

Sally nods knowingly. "Tell me everything."

Annabeth ends up crying into her Pad Thai while she talks about how Camp, the only place she's ever felt has earnt the title of Home, doesn't really feel like home at all now that Percy's gone. She wipes her eyes with her napkin and talks about how she feels ridiculous, because she's crying over pretty much everything these days, but she's trying, she's genuinely trying to fix things.

"You're doing great, Annabeth," Sally assures her. There's the briefest of pauses before she adds, "And Percy is, too."

There's an opening there, Annabeth senses, for her to ask a few more questions: how great is he doing, is he still seeing the psychologist, is he still having the night terrors, does he talk about her at all?

She runs through all of these questions, and she looks at Sally, slurping up a string of noodles, and she decides they can wait. "How's your new book coming along?"

---

It's dark by the time they leave the restaurant, so Sally insists on driving her back to Camp.

"Really, it's fine," Annabeth protests, "I can just call Argus, or a pegasus -"

"Mhmm, Blackjack's probably loitering somewhere within hearing range. That horse has practically taken up residence on our fire escape," Sally muses. "But no, I'm driving you. It'll be nice."

And she can't argue with that, so Annabeth climbs into the passenger seat of the Prius and tries to ignore Percy's hoodie thrown haphazardly over the back seat. Traffic isn't too bad, and it turns out she and Sally still have plenty to talk about even after the hours in the restaurant, so the drive goes by quickly.

When they pull up at the bottom of Half Blood Hill, Annabeth undoes her seatbelt and leans awkwardly over the centre console to pull Sally into a hug. "Thank you, Sally."

"No, thank you!" Sally exclaims. "It was so lovely to see you, Annabeth, really. I'm sorry that I haven't been in more contact."

"It's fine," Annabeth says, and for the first time all year she actually means it. "I'll write you."

"I'll send you a care package," Sally promises.

She waits until Annabeth has crested the hill and gotten safely through the borders of Camp before driving off, and Annabeth smiles all the way back to Cabin 6.

Two days later, when a box filled with blue cookies arrives for her, the entire camp shares a knowing smile. And Annabeth is too happy - and too busy keeping Connor Stoll's hand away from her cookies - to call them out on it.

---

JULY

If June felt like a step forward, July feels like twelve steps back. The first of the month is the anniversary of the fall, and from that date on Annabeth's symptoms just get worse. The glimmer of hope she'd started to feel is extinguished, replaced by absolute terror over what she's been through, what she had to do down there to survive.

She starts dreaming about Bob and Damasen, chasing after Percy and her, screaming for them to hold the doors of the elevator, but they're always just that little bit too slow.

She dreams about Percy staying down there, pushing her into the elevator and holding the button down with one hand and madly slashing at monsters with the other as she bangs on the door and screams at him to let her out.

She dreams about going blind, about suffocating darkness and no light, no hope, nothing but gaping emptiness before her and around her and inside her, forever and forever.

She dreams about Percy drowning Akhyls, sending a wave of poison and tears to clog her airways, and when the primordial being falls he turns to Annabeth, eyes glazed over with power, and she begs him to stop but he doesn't hear her, he doesn't stop -

She wakes up drenched in a cold sweat, shaking and crying and feeling more exhausted than she did when she fell asleep.

She blacks out in the middle of a dagger throwing lesson and comes to with her knife inches away from a petrified Kayla Knowles's face, because she'd been convinced that she was being attacked by an empousa.

She goes to sleep in her bunk and wakes up knee deep in Long Island Sound, freezing cold and with no recollection of how or why she ended up there.

Malcolm takes over Head Counsellor duties for the Athena Cabin, and, headed by Piper and Jason, the rest of the camp take it in turns guarding her, but if anything the constant surveillance just makes it worse. She barges into Chiron's office one day ranting about how she can't take it, she needs out, she needs to get out, and he holds her until she's screamed herself hoarse.

Another care package from Sally arrives, but she leaves this one in the dining pavilion with the note, 'For Everyone', because just the sight of a blue cookie makes her feel nauseous. She watches Nico di Angelo take the box and throw the entire thing into the fire, and she doesn't say a damn word.

She's pretty sure Will Solace has started keeping a checklist of her symptoms, but that may just be because Nico has become more and more elusive as the month wears on and he needs a new project to occupy his time. Nico keeps shadow travelling, gods know where, and while the rest of the camp worries about him, Annabeth envies him.

Until he shadow travels himself right next to the firepit one night and promptly passes out, almost landing face first in the flames. Will suggests that Nico stay in the infirmary for the rest of the month, and Chiron agrees. The look he sends Annabeth as he says it makes her blood run cold.

She runs through the symptoms of acute insomnia in her mind, ticking them off one by one, as she lies awake in her bunk, unable to close her eyes because she's scared if she does she'll never be able to see again.

She's wracked by phantom pains, shortness of breath, constant anxiety, and an overwhelming sense of loss, although she has no idea what she's grieving.

Her old self, maybe.

---

The night before her eighteenth birthday, completely at a loss as to what to do to make herself feel better, Annabeth shrugs on Percy's jacket and sneaks out to the Poseidon cabin. The path is well worn, so familiar even after all these months that she could take it with her eyes closed, and the handle on the door turns easily beneath her palm.

She almost calls out Percy's name, but logic overrides instinct and she simply shuts the door behind herself and steps gingerly into the cabin. This feels wrong in a way it didn't before.

Back when Percy was missing, Annabeth would come in here and lie on his bed, surround herself with everything that was his at the camp, and pray to all the gods to bring him back safe.

Her motives now are selfish: She just desperately wants to feel close to him. She pulls his jacket tighter around herself and climbs onto his bed. She buries her face in his pillows and breathes in deeply. They still smell like him.

Annabeth's chest tightens and she doesn't even try to stop the tears from falling. After all, she doesn't have to worry about waking someone up here.

Her last thought before she finally gives in to the oblivion of sleep is of Percy. She wonders if he, too, is curled up in his bed, trying to force himself to stay awake because the threat of the nightmares is too much. She wonders if he's thinking about her.

She dreams of the fall, of her hand curled around Percy's as she pulls him down after her. But rather than landing in Tartarus, they land here, in Cabin 3. Annabeth is on the bed and Percy is pacing back and forth at the foot of it, and it feels wrong but she doesn't know why.

"Why did you do it?" he says, eyes wild and dark as he glares at her.

"Do what?" she asks, fear coiling in her stomach.

"Not cut the web? Or check for danger?" Cobwebs drop from the ceiling and drape themselves over Percy's shoulders, wind their way down his arms. He tries to brush them off but they reappear faster than his hands can move. "You're meant to be smarter than that, Annabeth, you should know better!"

Her mind feels foggy and she can't focus on anything except for Percy's anger. Her words come out slow and stuttery. "I don't - I didn't -"

Something scurries through the shadows in the corners of the cabin, and Annabeth flinches.

"Why did you take me with you, Annabeth?" In the blink of an eye Percy's on the bed with her, crowding her up against the headboard, strong hands on her thighs and breath hot on her lips. "I can't believe you were that selfish, that stupid."

"Stop." She whimpers as he squeezes her thighs hard enough to hurt. She closes her eyes against the pain. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please stop, stop -"

Annabeth wakes up screaming, and no one answers.

---

"Hey, Annabeth."

She turns around in the doorway, unsure which of her siblings has spoken. A lot of them are sitting up in their beds, watching her, worrying about her.

She can't keep going like this, with all of these eyes on her.

"Where are you going?" Malcolm asks.

She responds without thought, "For a walk."

"It's barely dawn, where are you walking to?"

She shrugs. "Just around the camp."

"Wait and I'll come with you." Malcolm moves to climb out of bed, but she's faster than him in her panic.

Annabeth quickly ducks out the door and darts away, running as fast as her tired muscles can carry her until she's sure she's out of sight of Cabin 6. Only then does she pause to catch her breath.

The sun is rising on the anniversary of their escape, casting an orange glow over the camp and lighting up the land in the same colour as their t-shirts. There was nothing as bright as this in Tartarus.

"There's no sun in Tartarus," she says firmly. "There's no sun in Tartarus. There's no sun in Tartarus. There's no sun -"

She comes to somewhere cold and wet, with too many arms around her and too many voices echoing in her ears.

"Someone get Piper!"

"What the Hades was she thinking?"

"She wasn't! Cut her some slack, she's been through hell this year…"

"Literally."

"Her pulse is thready, oh my gods."

"Where the fuck is Piper?!"

Annabeth blinks, and white tiles and white lights swim into focus above her. A bathroom, maybe.

"Annabeth!" Piper's face appears in front of her and warm hands come up to cup her cheeks. "Annabeth, you're going to be okay, just stay with us." When Piper pulls her hand back, it's covered in blood.

Annabeth feels tired. "Tired," she murmurs, eyelids fluttering.

"No, no! Annabeth you can't sleep, don't go to sleep! Stay awake," Piper pats her cheek and yells over her shoulder, "Someone run ahead to the infirmary and make sure Will's there!"

Annabeth can hear water running. Maybe Percy's blown up the plumbing again.

"Kayla, Emily, help me lift her. We have to carry her to the infirmary." Piper sounds as though she's talking from underwater.

Something solid and warm slides under Annabeth's arms and suddenly her centre of gravity shifts. A swirl of red circles the drain beneath her bare feet.

"I'm bleeding," Annabeth says, but the words slur and stick together. "You need to stop the bleeding."

"We're going to. Annabeth, you're going to be fine," Piper says.

Yeah, she's going to be fine. Once they stop the bleeding.

"Head wounds always bleed a lot," she says as they carry her outside. She squints against the sun and turns her head into Piper's shoulder. "'s probably not as bad as it looks."

"Definitely," Piper agrees, but her voice is shaky.

When they get to the infirmary, Will's waiting at the door. He takes Annabeth's arm from Emily and hoists her onto a bed.

"You need to stay awake, Annabeth," he instructs.

She's trying, but everything feels so heavy.

"Yeah," she says. "No nightmares that way."

Nico di Angelo is watching her from the next bed over. His eyes are dark and his skin is pale but he looks better than he did when he almost fell into the fire. He looks sad for her.

"Sorry," she says, and he swings his legs over the side of the bed and steps over to her.

"Nico, you need to stay back," Will snaps.

Nico ignores him. He starts when Annabeth brushes her pinky against his.

"Sorry you had to do it alone," she says.

His surprised face is the last thing she sees before everything goes black.

---

Annabeth's head is killing her. She has to blink a few times before the room comes into focus, and then a few more times before she can comprehend where she is. She's in the infirmary, with a bandage around her head.

"You're awake."

She turns her head to the side, gets a rush of vertigo and closes her eyes. When she slowly re-opens them, Nico is standing at her beside, watching her closely.

"What happened?" she asks, taking the ambrosia he offers and chewing slowly.

"You passed out in the bathroom, cracked your head on the sink," he explains without inflection.

"Shit."

"Yeah. How many days was it since you'd slept?"

"I'd gotten eight hours over the last week and a half."

Nico looks mildly impressed, which is sort of disturbing.

Annabeth winces. "How long was I out for?"

He checks his watch. "Fourteen hours, though some of that's probably the stuff Will gave you."

She gingerly tries to sit up, trying to rearrange her pillows so they better support her back. Nico watches her struggle for a few seconds before leaning over and helping. Once she's comfortable he steps back again, eyes downcast.

Annabeth picks at a loose thread on her blanket. "Ambrosia and nectar didn't help as much as usual?"

Nico grabs the bottle of nectar off her bedside table. "No, Will said that you weren't healing because the injury was, at least partly, -"

"- Somatoformic," they finish at the same time.

Annabeth sighs.

Nico nods. "Piper wanted to give you more nectar, but you were burning up, so they had to stop…"

"Nico," she says, and he stops turning the bottle over in his hands. "Do you… do you feel like you're getting better?"

He doesn't answer for a long time. When he eventually nods, his eyes are still far away. "Yeah, I do. I've been talking to Will about it and it… it's actually helping."

A tear runs down Annabeth's cheek and lands in the corner of her mouth. She licks her lips. "How can you stand it, though? How can you stand going back there?"

He refocuses on her face, and for a second she can see the scared little boy they rescued from Westover Hall. "The first time, when we were down there, everything was life or death. There was no time to process it, no time to properly comprehend what we were doing. We're never going to get over it unless we go back and properly think it through, and give our brains a chance to process it as a memory. Otherwise, it just feels like it's still happening, over and over and over again."

Annabeth nods. "I feel like I never really made it out."

Nico hands her the nectar, and when she takes a small sip it tastes like the cupcake she and Tyson made Percy for his sixteenth birthday.

When Will comes to check on her ten minutes later, Nico's still standing by her bed, and he nods at her before she speaks.

"I'm ready," she says, and Will smiles. "I'm ready to talk about it."

---

AUGUST

"It's Percy's birthday next week. He's turning eighteen."

The psychologist nods. She's a nice lady, a daughter of Apollo named Stacey, with a Masters degree from Yale and dark hair that she twists into a bun and holds in place with a pen. "That's a big milestone."

"Yeah… I never really thought we'd make it to eighteen."

"Are you going to contact him?"

"I don't know." Annabeth twists her hands together in her lap. "I've got him a present. It's wrapped and everything, sitting on my desk. But I can't bring myself to send it."

"What do you think will happen if you send it?"

Annabeth shrugs. "He might not want to hear from me. He didn't send me anything for my birthday last month, I don't want to make him feel like I'm pushing him towards something he's not ready for."

Stacey looks intrigued. "Something like…?"

"A friendship with me. Maybe he doesn't want that anymore."

Stacey makes a note on the writing pad she keeps in her lap and then tucks her feet up underneath herself on the couch. "You've still got time to decide, you're in no rush."

Annabeth nods. She takes a deep breath in through her nose and then straightens her spine. "Right. Can we move on to the assessment now?"

Stacey smiles. "You've done the readings on EMDR I gave you."

"Of course. My brain might be betraying me right now, but it's still good for some things."

"Okay, Annabeth, I want you to visualise Tartarus for me…"

---

Annabeth wakes up before the dawn on August eighteenth, with the memory of Percy's arms around her waist and his face nuzzled in her neck still lingering from her dream. She pushes her sheets down and swats at her skin until the sensation fades, but she can't get the dream-Percy's face out of her mind.

She'd woken him up with a kiss and he'd smiled at her, and Annabeth had felt so warm and content and loved…

His present is still sitting on her desk, a blue box wrapped in a blue bow and with a little tag with his name on it on the side. Before she can talk herself out of it, Annabeth scoops the box up and sneaks out of Cabin 6 and over to Cabin 3.

She rifles through Percy's drawers until she finds a drachma, stashed beside a box of condoms, which, honestly, isn't that just the greatest reminder on today of all days. She grabs the coin and slams the drawer shut, and her hand shakes as she tosses the drachma into the rainbow shining over the fountain at the end of the room, but she does it anyway. She asks for Percy so fast that she trips over the words, and it's too late to take it back now.

She's pretty sure that in the handbook of 'How to Deal with a Break Up', calling your ex on your anniversary is number one on the list of 'Things not to do'. Maybe she can just swipe her arm through it as soon as it appears. Maybe she can cancel it before he even notices that she's called.

"Shit," Annabeth says under her breath as she waits for the connection. "Shit, fuck, shit, what am I doing, what am I -"

"Annabeth?" Percy's voice is drowsy, deep and sort of rumbling with sleep, the same voice that he used to speak to her in when she woke him up by kissing from his neck all the way down to his -

"Percy!" she squeaks.

He squints at her, eyes bleary. "Are you okay?" His words become more urgent as they go, and it's obvious that he's genuinely concerned for her. "What's going on, are you in trouble?"

He sits up and blindly hits the touch-lamp on his bedside table, and Annabeth suddenly has a perfect view of his shirtless torso.

She can't stop herself from staring. "You're not wearing a shirt."

He glances down at himself and then back to her, although his eyes linger significantly lower this time. "And you're not wearing a bra."

She looks down at her thin tank top and quickly folds her arms over her chest. Embarrassment heats her cheeks, which is dumb, because Percy's seen her without a bra on plenty of times, both with and without a top on, but that's getting off topic -

"Sorry," Percy says. His cheeks have gone pink and he's pointedly not looking at her, and she hopes that he's remembering the same things she is because Annabeth doesn't want to be the only one to suffer through this. "That was - wow. Yeah. Are you okay? Is Camp all right?"

"I -" She forces her eyes to stay focused on his face, although that's not much better than his torso, really, because his hair is all ruffled from sleep and his lips are looking really soft. Annabeth feels woefully unprepared. "Happy birthday."

"Happy -?" He blinks at her and then brings a fist up to rub his eyes. "You IMed to wish me a happy birthday?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise the time…" She goes to run a hand through her hair but her fingers get tangled in a knot and she ends up just making it worse, which she feels is a perfect metaphor for this entire conversation. "I'll let you get back to sleep."

"Hey, no," Percy says just as she raises her arm. "I'm already awake, so we might as well, you know…"

Annabeth frowns. "Talk?"

"Yeah," he smiles bashfully, and her heart flips. "Talk."

But of course, as soon as they decide to talk, they both run out of things to say. There's a painfully long pause, where they both just take it in turns looking at each other and quickly looking away when the other one catches them.

Annabeth clears her throat and asks, "How's your Summer?"

At the exact same time, Percy says, "I'm sorry I didn't IM you -"

"You go," they say in unison, and then, "No, you."

They both fall silent. Annabeth bites her lip, and Percy laughs.

"Right," he says, very slowly. "I'm sorry I didn't IM you for your birthday."

"It's okay," she says. "July's a rough month."

"Yeah…"

Percy rubs the back of his neck, which makes his muscles flex deliciously, and Annabeth wriggles her hips to try and make her position of sitting cross legged on the floor more comfortable. He must notice, because his eyes dart down to her waist and then back up again, and his pupils are slightly blown. She promptly plants her hands palms down between her legs, providing slightly more coverage than her small pyjama shorts. He turns his head to the side, suddenly very interested in his wall, and she realises that this tank top, with her arms in this position, gives her great cleavage. There's a red flush up the side of Percy's neck and Annabeth's whole body feels warm. Gods, she didn't think this through.

"You're, uh, you're in my cabin," Percy says, looking everywhere but at her.

"Yeah, I - I'm not sure why, really. I guess I wanted some privacy?"

He smiles at a point just over her right shoulder. "I miss it there."

"You could - you could come back."

His eyes snap to hers. "Annabeth -"

"I'm gone every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, I could stay in the city after my art classes and you could stay here." She knows how ridiculous it is as soon as she says it, but she feels so bad that she doesn't stop talking. "Or I could just move into the city for a bit, so you could come back for the rest of Summer, or - or however long you need, I wouldn't mind."

"Where would you stay?" he asks softly, and it's a question that's designed to make her realise how unworkable her suggestion is, not a sign that he's considering the offer.

"A hotel," she says. "Or a motel, if that's too expensive."

He shakes his head. "No, Annabeth, I'm not going to make you live in a motel just so I can visit Camp."

"You can still come back, though," she says quietly, trying not to sound as desperate as she feels. "I promise I'd leave you alone."

His smile slips and he reaches for the Iris Message, curling his fingers back just before he touches the projection. "Annabeth." Her name sounds like a prayer on his lips, and she ducks her head so that he won't see her eyes watering. "You're not the only reason I haven't been back. Camp is like… It's like a symbol for my demigod life, I think, and I'm not ready to embrace that and everything that comes with it. Not yet, at least."

"I understand," she says, head still bowed.

"Hey." There's the sound of rustling sheets, and she looks up just in time to cop a perfect view of Percy's arse as he gets out of bed and walks behind the Iris Message. His disembodied voice floats back to her, "This'll cheer you up… I got you something."

Her heart rate picks up. "You did?"

"Yeah." Percy comes back into view holding a huge silver bag. When he settles back on the bed, it covers his entire lap. "For your birthday. I meant to send it, but I just…"

"I got you something, too." Annabeth holds up the blue box, and Percy grins.

"No way!"

She laughs. "Gods, we're ridiculous."

"Yes, yes we are." He fiddles with the rope handle of the bag. "Do you want me to just hold onto it until we catch up, or should I send it to Camp…?"

She tilts her head to the side and turns the box over in her hands. "Why don't we open them?"

He frowns. "Uh, last time I checked you couldn't transport physical objects through Iris Message."

"No, Seaweed Brain!" The old nickname rolls off her tongue without conscious thought, filled with all the usual fond exasperation, and both of them freeze. Annabeth stutters over the next few words, feeling like she's just crossed a barrier and is now on very on shaky ground. "I meant, why don't we open each other's presents?"

Graciously, Percy doesn't mention her slip. "What, so I open the present I got you, and you open the present you got me?"

"Yes, exactly," Annabeth says, overly formal in an attempt to compensate.

One side of his mouth twitches up and he shakes his head, but he undoes the string holding the bag shut anyway. "Okay. You first or me first? Oh, no, wait, I'll open yours first because your birthday was first!"

She laughs at his sudden enthusiasm. "All right, you go."

Before he can open it, the Iris Message calls for another drachma, and Annabeth scrambles up to search through his drawers as he calls out instructions on where to find them. She tosses another in just in time and gets herself a pillow to sit on.

"Right, are we ready now?" Percy asks, jokingly offended. He makes a show of completely undoing the rope, opening the bag right up and pulling out a white box. "Ta-da!" he says, holding it up for her to see.

"Wow!" she exclaims sarcastically. "You got me a white box! Thank you!"

"What? No, wait -" He frowns down at the box, and realisation quickly dawns over his features. He flips the box around, hiding the blank side and revealing a high res photo on the other side. "Oh, here you go! Much better."

"Percy, oh my gods…" Annabeth's hands fly up to cover her mouth. "You got me a new laptop?"

"I got you a new laptop!" he exclaims, shaking the box slightly. "Oh, no, don't shake the box, bad idea." He carefully sets it aside on the ground, popping back up and smiling at her. "I actually got it ages ago, like, in the Christmas sales, but I meant to give it to you for your eighteenth… What do you think?"

She's been struck speechless. She shakes her head. "You shouldn't have - You didn't have to - Oh, my gods."

He shrugs, but his smirk shows her just how pleased with himself he is. "Happy belated birthday."

Annabeth turns the blue box the right way up and sighs. "I don't really want to give you yours, now. It's so unimpressive compared to that."

"I bet it's amazing," Percy insists.

She feels terribly inadequate, but she undoes the bow and carefully lifts the lid off the box anyway. She reaches inside and pulls out the small bead, holding it up between her thumb and pointer finger for him to see.

"Is that a bead?" he asks, fingering the necklace around his neck.

Annabeth nods, swallowing down her nerves. "Yeah… you gave me something to wear on my necklace, so I thought I'd give you something to add to yours."

He leans forward, as close to the Iris Message as he can get without touching it. "Did you make that? What's on it?"

She nods and turns the bead around so he can see the whole design. She has to close her eyes when she answers, because this whole thing feels suddenly like a huge mistake. "It's an olive branch."

There's a long pause, and when she slowly cracks her eyes open Percy is staring at the bead intensely. "Your mom beat my dad by giving Athens an olive tree," he says, and she can't quite make out his tone.

"Yeah, but that's not - that's not what this means," she insists. She drops her arm to her lap, and when he looks back up at her face, his expression is guarded. "It's a symbol of peace. Both the Romans and the Greeks use the olive branch as a token of peace, like a - a sign for the unification of peoples and the beginning of a time of tranquility after war."

"So, by painting it on the bead, you're saying…?"

"I'm saying that I'm done fighting. I want peace with you, Percy." She feels as though she's dropping her shield in the middle of battle, as though she's thrown down her sword and is standing completely exposed in a war zone. She's terrified, but Percy is still looking at her, and she knows that even if he doesn't understand, she has to tell him how she feels. "I don't care if it's as your girlfriend, or your friend, or even just an acquaintance, but you used to be the only person in the world who made me feel peaceful, and I miss that."

There's a beat, and then Percy says, "I miss that, too."

Annabeth breathes out. "Oh, thank the gods."

"Did you think I was going to refuse your olive branch?" he asks, bemused.

She brushes some stray curls off her forehead with the back of her hand, smiling with relief. "I had no idea what you were going to do."

"That's a first, Annabeth Chase admitting she had no idea," he teases. His eyes go wide as he realises what he's said, and he stares at her, petrified that he's crossed a line.

She lets him sweat for a few seconds before laughing and saying, "Hey, in my defense, you've always been slightly unpredictable."

His smile makes her entire body feel warm. "Just slightly?"

Annabeth smooths her fingers over the bead and feels a weight lift off her shoulders. It's still awkward, and she doesn't doubt that they're going to make a few more mistakes along the way, but for the first time in a long time, she thinks that they might be okay.

They talk through another two drachmas, until the sun is coming full force through the windows of Cabin 3, until Percy hears his parents stirring down the hall, and real life beckons them back.

"Have a good birthday, Percy," Annabeth says sincerely.

"I will," he says with a smile. "Thanks for IMing me."

She snorts. "Sorry for waking you up so early. And for panicking you."

"It's okay. I'll get you back when you least expect it." There's a glint in his eye that makes it hard to tell if he's joking or being serious.

"I look forward to it." She raises her arm to swipe through the Iris Message, bringing it to a close.

Just before her hand makes contact, Percy says, "Happy anniversary, Annabeth."

The call disconnects before she can respond, and Annabeth is left sitting on the floor of the empty Poseidon cabin, absolutely stunned. She blinks at the spot where Percy's face had been just moments before and tries to memorise the way he'd smiled when he said her name. She feels just as lost as she did at the start of the call.

"Happy anniversary, Percy."

---

SEPTEMBER

Grover's so busy with his Lord of the Wild and Council of Cloven Elders duties that getting to spend any time with him is a rarity. So when he IMs to tell Annabeth that he's coming to town for a few days around his birthday, she immediately clears her schedule.

They arrange to meet at camp, because he has some stuff to discuss with Chiron and he wants to see Juniper, too, but Annabeth's planning on surprising him with a trip to his favourite Mexican restaurant for dinner.

"Why are you so nervous?" Jason asks as Annabeth paces along the porch of the Big House the day he's supposed to arrive. "It's just Grover."

Of course Jason doesn't understand that it's not 'just Grover' - he wasn't at Camp Half Blood when it was her and Percy and Grover who always did everything together. It was Grover who brought both of them to Camp in the first place, it was Grover who came on their first quest with them, and it's Grover who's Percy's best friend. Even when he started travelling more, even through the Second War, their core dynamic remained the same. But then Annabeth broke up with Percy, and she's scared that that's changed things with Grover, too.

"I haven't seen him in so long," she replies, shaking her hands out at her sides. It's not exactly a lie, so she doesn't feel too bad about it. "And he's so busy trying to save the world -"

"You know a little bit about saving the world, don't you?" Grover clops up the steps, grinning, and Annabeth launches herself on him before her nerves can get the best of her.

"Grover, you're here!" She squeezes him tightly.

He bleats happily. "It's so good to see you, Annabeth."

They pull back and survey each other, and Annabeth's pleased to see that, apart from his acne lessening, Grover looks the same as ever. He's not quite as happy with the state she's in, though, judging by the way his smile doesn't reach his eyes.

"Oh, before I forget!" Wanting to delay that conversation for as long as possible, Annabeth ducks inside the Big House and reemerges carrying a large, misshapen sack. "The whole camp chipped in for your birthday."

She drops it at Grover's feet, and he gasps. "Is that -?"

"An entire sack of cans? Yes, yes it is."

Grover wipes at his eyes, and Annabeth realises with a pang just how badly she's missed having him around.

"I've really missed this place," he says.

Juniper comes bolting out of the forest, arms outstretched and green eyes glassy, and Annabeth laughs. "This place has really missed you, too."

The weather is mild, despite the grey clouds lingering around the edges of Camp, so they take a rug and set up by the strawberry fields for a picnic. Annabeth nibbles on sandwiches cut into triangles while Grover makes a headstart on his bag of cans, and Juniper sits there and gazes at him happily.

Grover tells them all about his travels and the amazing stuff he's doing, spreading the word of Pan. He's learnt a new song on his reed pipes - Shake it Off by Taylor Swift, which sounds slightly better than Hilary Duff's So Yesterday does on the reed pipes, but not by much. Annabeth and Juniper applaud his rendition enthusiastically anyway, and then there's a lull in the conversation that she can tell is leading towards "and what's been going on with you, Annabeth?" She wants to cut off that line of questioning before it even starts.

"So." Annabeth crosses her legs and brushes some crumbs off her jacket. "I know you said not to make a big deal out of your birthday, but it's been so long since we've caught up, so I made reservations at that Mexican place in Greenwich that makes your favourite enchiladas."

Grover isn't as excited about this news as she'd expected. He bleats nervously and takes another bite of a can. "Oh, Annabeth, that's really thoughtful of you, but I sort of, actually, erm, already have dinner plans?"

Her stomach sinks, but she plasters on a smile. "Oh. That's okay, I knew you'd be busy catching up with everyone, only being here for such a short time and all…"

Juniper is giving Grover a meaningful look, and when Annabeth raises an eyebrow at him he admits, "I'm having dinner with Percy."

And it shouldn't feel like a stab to the gut, but it does.

"Oh. So you know about that, then."

Grover looks unbelievably sad as he explains, "I use our empathy link to check in with Percy, every now and again. I know things haven't been… well, they haven't been the best since you guys got back, but I felt something really bad happen in January. I couldn't get here myself, but I asked the naiads to check it out for me. When I heard what had happened, I didn't really believe it. I was hoping that by the time I made it back here, you'd have it all sorted out."

"Sorry to disappoint you." Annabeth tears the crust off a sandwich, piece by tiny piece.

"You could never disappoint me, Annabeth." Grover reaches over and puts a hand on her knee. "I'm just sorry I haven't been here."

She laughs derisively. "You should be grateful for that."

He shares another look with Juniper, and then he sighs and lifts his hand. "That bad, huh?"

She nods and tosses the crust out onto the grass, and then she makes a conscious decision to stop being bitter. Grover deserves better than that. "It's getting a bit better now, though. I've taken up art classes and I'm seeing a psychologist."

Juniper nods. "With all the stuff that's happened these past few years I'm really starting to think there should be one stationed in the Big House at all times."

Annabeth's lips quirk up in a smile. "We could clear out the attic and set them up up there."

"That chair the old Oracle used to sit in does look pretty comfy."

Grover bleats out a laugh, and just the sound of it makes Annabeth laugh, too, and Juniper joins in, and soon the three of them are lying on the picnic rug laughing themselves stupid over nothing.

"You know," Grover says carefully once they've calmed down. "You could come to dinner with us."

Annabeth watches his face, waits to see if there's a catch. "I don't know if that's a good idea…"

"He feels much better now," Grover says. "A lot of the pain has gone."

She almost surprises herself by smiling at that. "I'm glad to hear it," she says quietly. "But I still think it's best if we keep our distance, just for a little longer. I don't want to rush into anything without being one hundred percent ready."

"Can you ever be one hundred percent ready?" Grover asks gently.

"I can try."

There's a pause, and then Juniper says, "Can you play that song again? I feel like dancing."

---

By the time Grover's ready to leave, Annabeth is grinning and covered in grass stains from the dancing she'd done with Juniper, which involved a lot of dramatically collapsing to the ground after all the shaking. At a few points Grover had to stop playing because he was laughing so hard he couldn't get enough air through the reed pipes.

Annabeth walks him to the top of Half Blood Hill to say goodbye, and he reverently places a hand on Thalia's tree.

"I promise it won't be so long between visits this time," he says.

"Hey, don't stress. You're busy saving the world one tree at a time, it's a time consuming job," she says sincerely.

Grover smiles and ducks his head. "That's a nice way of putting it."

"It's the truth."

A familiar Prius pulls up on the road below, and Annabeth's heart starts to race. Grover obviously senses her shift in mood, because he glances at her worriedly.

"I'm fine," she says, taking a deep breath. "It's just… been a while since I've seen him."

Percy gets out of the car and walks around, obviously intending to climb the hill, but he stops when he sees the two of them standing there. She can just make out the surprise on his face, and a little bit of… longing?

"Oh," Grover says quietly, looking between the two of them.

She can feel an overwhelming amount of tension, like there's a rope stretched to it's breaking point tied between them, and it's either going to snap and send them flying apart, or they're going to stop digging their heels in and end up colliding together in the middle.

"This is just like when you were younger," Grover says, and it almost sounds like he's talking to himself. "You both felt this way before the first war, too."

Annabeth tears her eyes off Percy to gape at him. "What?"

Grover shakes his head and bleats nervously. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, it's - it's fine, I just…" Annabeth trails off, because maybe Grover's right. This dreadful mix of hurt and longing, it is familiar. But if she stops to think about that now she's going to lose all composure, so instead she just pulls him into a hug. "Thanks for today, Grover. It was great."

When he pulls back, his smile is genuine. "Thanks, Annabeth."

"Go on, then. You don't want to be late for those cheese enchiladas!" She playfully pushes him in the shoulder, sending him off down the hill.

Grover laughs. "You can never be late for enchiladas."

As he walks down the hill, Annabeth stays at the top and Percy stays at the bottom, but she can't quite keep her eyes off him.

When Percy raises a hand in a wave, she waves back instinctively. He smiles at that, bright enough for her to clearly see it even from this distance, and she bites her bottom lip to try and clamp down her own smile. She bets that he notices.

He greets Grover with a hug and a manly pat on the back, and Annabeth waves at the back of the Prius as it drives off.

Long after it's disappeared from view, she stays at Thalia's tree, Grover's revelation echoing around her head; they've felt this way before.

---

OCTOBER

The sessions with Stacey are going really well. They're doing something called EMDR, working through the numerous traumas Annabeth's experienced, identifying triggers and the emotions they provoke, and learning to associate positive thoughts with the negative experiences, so that the memories essentially lose their power.

It's hard work, and Annabeth leaves the weekly sessions feeling absolutely drained, but she knows that it's working because her panic attacks are becoming less and less frequent, and when she feels them coming on she's able to calm herself down using the techniques Stacey's taught her.

There are things she suggests Annabeth do in between sessions, too, and one of them is to clear out her physical possessions. She says that it might help Annabeth de-clutter her mind, so she sets aside an entire day to clean out her desk and her bunk and all of her worldly possessions.

Annabeth sorts through old blueprints, half-finished (or barely started) concepts, gets rid of pencils that have been sharpened so much they're too small to draw with, tidies up notebooks and organises her textbooks by subject, neatly stacking them with the spines facing out along the shelf on the top of her desk.

It's cathartic, sorting through all of this stuff and letting go of the things she no longer needs. As the discard pile grows higher, Annabeth's heart gets lighter. Her siblings tease her about the mess she's making by piling all of it on her bed, and she teases them back about how she's going to singlehandedly make sure they win cabin inspections for the rest of the year.

She's on to the last drawer when she finds the crumpled up photo, pressed beneath an old notebook filled with plans for the Battle of Manhattan. She gingerly lifts it out, smoothing her hand over the polaroid and staring down at the much younger faces of Percy and herself. They're fourteen, she thinks, because she's still slightly taller than him. She's got her arm thrown around his shoulders and his hand is visible resting on her hip, and they're both grinning like absolute dorks into the camera while Grover pulls a face and photobombs in the background.

This photo is one of her favourites, and it should have been up on her board with all of the other photos of her friends, but instead it was tucked away in a drawer, because she knew it was one of Percy's favourites, too.

There was a night, about a month after they got back to Camp, when everything blew up between them for the first time. She can't even remember what had started the fight, now; it was probably something stupid and insignificant, just a throwaway thing one of them had said. But whatever it was, it had set them off, and all of the hurt and anger and resentment they'd been harbouring since the war had come out in a series of accusations that were thrown with devastating accuracy.

Annabeth's pride had swelled at the same rate as her temper. It had made her slam Percy's cabin door in his face, made her tear the crumpled up picture she's holding now off of her wall, made her storm past him when he tried to catch her in the doorway of Cabin 6, him in sweatpants and no shirt, her in flannel pyjama pants and one of his t-shirts, a coat thrown haphazardly over the top as she declared that she was leaving and he yelled for her to come back, "Please, I'm sorry, come back!"

She'd made it halfway to the city before the sick feeling in her stomach intensified to the point of being unbearable, and she'd ordered the Gray Sister's Taxi to turn around and take her back.

Percy had been in the stables, just about to take Blackjack and go out looking for her, and he'd cried with relief when she threw her arms around him and apologised for being such an idiot.

She'd meant to get the photo out of her drawer and pin it back up, but she'd just never got around to it.

She pins the photo up now, right beside one of the whole crew on the deck of the Argo II, and sits on the edge of her bed, staring at it. She's hit by an overwhelming wave of want.

She fumbles through the papers covering her bed for her phone, the one that's reserved for emergencies and which she usually keeps tucked away in a drawer. She flicks through the sparse contacts and types out a message without really looking at the screen, scared that if she focuses on it she'll lose the small amount of bravery she's managed to salvage.

'I miss you'

Not that this all that brave, really, because Percy never has his phone on him, he never checks it, he's probably not even going to read it….

One minute and seventeen seconds after she pressed send, the phone buzzes with a reply.

'I miss you too'

Annabeth reads the message a total of twelve times before she forces herself to put the phone down and get back to cleaning.

She feels like the olive branch was a step in the right direction, but she has no idea where to go from here.

---

Thalia meets her in Central Park, silver circlet around her head and bow and quiver of arrows on her back. Mortals should be staring, but the crowds are walking right on by without even giving her a second glance. When she sees Annabeth approaching, she grins.

"Long time, no see," Thalia says, looping one arm around Annabeth's shoulders to pull her into a quick hug. "How have you been?"

"Fine," Annabeth says. "How's things with the Hunters?"

"Pretty good." Thalia removes her bow and quiver and settles on the grass, stretching her legs out in front of herself and leaning back on her elbows. "Working with the Amazons has been really helpful, we've got so much more reach now."

"Good strategy." Annabeth sits beside her, cross legged, and marvels at the fact that Thalia still looks so similar to the day they met. It feels longer than a lifetime ago, and in some respects it is.

Thalia smirks like she knows what Annabeth's thinking. "How's your strategy working out for you?"

"My strategy?"

"Yeah, breaking up with Seaweed Brain."

Hearing Thalia say the nickname is like a punch to the gut. Annabeth feels a wave of irrational anger, which she quickly tries to clamp down. She violently pulls at the grass, plucking up blades one at a time.

"Oh, yeah, thanks for the brochure," she says sarcastically in lieu of a proper answer.

Thalia laughs lowly. "Can you blame me?"

Annabeth gives her a look that very clearly says yes.

Thalia's smile melts away and she sighs. "I actually am sorry," she says, sounding sincere. "I know it must have been bad for you to make that call."

"It was," Annabeth says honestly, twisting a blade of grass around her ring finger. "It was awful. I was awful."

"You?" Thalia is clearly intrigued, rolling onto her side to better look at her.

"Yes, me. I was awful to him."

"And was he awful to you, too?"

"Well, yes, but -"

"There you have it," Thalia says, "You're not to blame."

Annabeth scowls. "I'm the one that landed us in Tartarus in the first place, so I think I am."

Thalia hums thoughtfully. "Do you really think there is any timeline in any universe in existence in which Percy wouldn't have followed you down there?"

"If you're going with the parallel universes theory -"

"The answer is no. The boy broke all the rules and travelled across the entire country to save you when he was thirteen, Annabeth. Back then he couldn't even admit he liked you! There's no way he was ever going to reach sixteen, be completely, madly in love with you, and not fall with you," Thalia says matter of factly. "So you might as well stop beating yourself up over it."

Annabeth thinks that she's missed the point, but all she says is, "And here I thought the hunters weren't romantics."

Thalia rolls her eyes. "Shut up. Are you okay, though?"

"I'm fine." At a pointed look from Thalia, Annabeth adds, "Really, I am. I'm seeing a therapist and taking art classes and training and looking after myself."

"Good."

"And last time I talked to Percy it didn't feel like I was being stabbed in the heart, so, you know, things are improving."

Thalia sits up and folds her legs so she's sitting cross legged. She looks Annabeth in the eye, wearing a serious expression that makes her look terrifyingly similar to Jason. "A lot of different circumstances aligned to that fall, Annabeth. You can't take all of the blame for what happened. The guilt will kill you."

"What if he's better off without me?"

Thalia looks almost bemused. "Does he think he's better off without you?"

"I don't know…" Annabeth thinks back to his face as he'd wished her a happy anniversary. "He said that we need to work through our stuff separately…."

"As much as it pains me to say, he's probably right. And that's what you're doing, aren't you?"

"Trying to," Annabeth murmurs.

Thalia purses her lips. "You really miss him, huh?"

Annabeth chews her bottom lip and twists a blade of grass around her finger until it snaps. "I held up the sky, once. I feel like I should have been better equipped for this."

"Maybe this takes a different kind of strength," Thalia suggests.

Annabeth inhales. A man rides past on a bicycle, a dog bounding happily alongside him. She watches them go and wonders how Mrs O'Leary is doing. "Maybe."

Thalia pats her knee before reclining again, folding her arms behind her head. "So, do you have any dirt on Jason for me?"

Annabeth sighs and lies down beside her. "Well, he's formed an unusual alliance with Blackjack…"

---

NOVEMBER

"Oh, my gods."

"What, what is it?"

Annabeth hands the letter over to Piper wordlessly, too stunned to speak.

"Dear Annabeth, so great to hear from you, blah blah, Paul's well, blah blah, exciting news… Oh my gods!" Piper throws her arms around Annabeth, pulling her into a tight hug. "Sally's having a baby!"

"Sally's having a baby," Annabeth repeats, but it still doesn't sink in. "Percy's going to have a little brother or sister."

"Holy Hera," Piper breathes, and then she gasps and grabs Annabeth's shoulders. "Hera! Oh, gods, Annabeth, you're going to have to be really nice to her."

"What?" Annabeth shrugs her hands off and grabs the letter, reading over it again. It's right there, in Sally's neat print, 'I'm pregnant! We're going to have a baby!' "Why would I have to be nice to her?"

"Because," Piper says as though it's the most obvious thing in the world, "she's the goddess of childbirth and stuff, right?"

It is the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh, damn it," Annabeth curses. "It's not actually Hera, it's her daughter, Eileithyia, but Hera's been known to meddle in her fair share of births."

"Yeah, just look at Apollo and Artemis…"

Annabeth glares at her, and Piper falls back on her bed.

She stretches her arms over her head and says, "I'm sure she wouldn't do anything to Sally, Poseidon would kill her."

"Mhmm."

"Hey," Piper lifts her head up, craning her neck to look down at where Annabeth sits on the end of her bed. "Are you going to go and visit them?"

"I'm sure she's being swamped with visitors right now, I might wait…" Annabeth re-folds and unfolds the letter, scanning over the words again. She definitely hasn't misread it, Sally is really having a baby.

"I'm sure Percy's really excited," Piper leads.

Annabeth swats at her ankles. "You've already done enough meddling there, thanks."

"Still not over that?"

She hits her harder.

"Sorry!" Piper tucks her knees up against her chest, so she's curled into a little ball. "I just think it'd be nice if you IMed or something. Sally obviously really wanted you to know, and it's big news."

"Yeah, it is." Annabeth sighs and curls up beside Piper. "I'll call her tonight."

Piper narrows her eyes and sticks out her tongue. "You better. I'll be checking."

"Whatever." Annabeth pushes her off the bed, and Piper squeals and grabs at her waist, pulling her down with her.

---

She calls from the Poseidon cabin and asks specifically for Sally, but when the Iris Message connects, Sally, Paul and Percy are all in frame.

Percy notices her first, dropping the knife he was using to cut up vegetables and exclaiming, "Annabeth?"

Sally and Paul both spin around, and when they see her their whole faces light up. "Annabeth!"

"Hi," she says, waving a hand awkwardly. "I, uh, I got your letter today."

"You did!" Sally exclaims.

"Yeah," Annabeth fights to keep her eyes on Sally, but Percy's fiddling with the knife, tapping the blade against the chopping board, and it's a little distracting. "Congratulations!"

"Oh, thank you!" Sally crows, and Paul presses a kiss to her temple. Percy pointedly looks away. "It's all very exciting. It still hasn't quite sunk in, but now that we're telling people it's feeling a bit more real."

"I can imagine," Annabeth replies. "Thank you for telling me."

"Of course we had to tell you!"

Percy's shoulders tighten slightly as he goes back to cutting the vegetables, but he doesn't say anything, a fact which Annabeth is very grateful for.

There's a pause, and she should have looked up questions to ask expecting parents before calling, because she's feeling a little out of her depth right now. "Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"Not yet, but we can find out at the next ultrasound, if we want to," Paul explains.

Annabeth nods. "That's - that's so great, I'm really happy for you. For all of you."

Percy looks up, and when she offers him a small smile he returns it.

"How are things at camp?" Paul asks.

"They're good," Annabeth says. "Connor went a little overboard with the Halloween tricks, but we've got most of that cleaned up now, so the place is still functional."

Percy laughs, and Annabeth's smile feels a little more genuine.

Sally looks between them with a knowing smile before asking, "And how's Olympus coming along?"

"Really good, thanks. It should be done before Christmas, hopefully, if I can really knuckle down and work on it this month."

"Oh, how exciting! Look at all this progress." Sally wipes her hands on her apron and turns to Paul. "Speaking of progress, dear, I just remembered I need you to look at that shelf in our room."

"Right now?" Paul asks, clueless as Percy's face turns red in the background.

"There's no time like the present, is there? Bye, Annabeth, it was lovely to talk to you! Take care of yourself and we'll talk soon, okay?" Sally grabs Paul by the shoulders and steers him out of the kitchen.

"Bye! Congratulations!" Annabeth calls after them, and then it's just her and Percy.

Having him standing in the middle of the kitchen, fully clothed, at a reasonable hour of the night, somehow makes this call feel more awkward than the last. He's scuffing his feet against the tiles and can't quite meet her eye, and Annabeth wishes she knew how to make things feel okay again.

"I'm wearing a bra this time," she says.

Percy's head snaps up, green eyes wide, and it takes a second before he bursts into laughter. She laughs with him, and it feels good to be able to laugh over their own stupidity again, rather than storing up their mistakes and tallying them against each other.

"I've got a shirt on," he says once they've calmed down.

Annabeth tuts. "I know, it's disappointing."

"Hey!" He stretches out the material and points to the image on the front. "Finding Nemo shirts are never disappointing."

"You're right, I'm so sorry. How could I insult one of your favourite movies like that?"

Percy's expression softens. "You remembered."

She rolls her eyes as if it's not a big deal, but suddenly she feels a little weak. A good sort of weak, though, because she can trust that Percy's not going to use it against her. "How could I forget? You requested it almost every time we had a movie night."

"Because it's a brilliant movie!"

She chuckles. "You'll have to make sure you show it to your little brother or sister."

"Oh, it'll be first on the list," he says, absolutely serious for just a second before he starts nervously fidgeting again, tapping his fingers against the bench top. "Maybe… maybe you could watch it with us?"

She can't remember the last time she smiled so wide. "I'd love to."

---

DECEMBER

Her dad has been trying really hard this year, been extra patient when she got distant, and he's even attended a few sessions with Stacey, so when he asks Annabeth to spend Christmas with him, her stepmom and the twins, she agrees.

He meets her at the airport on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, completely underdressed for the weather but armed with an old CD filled with all of the Christmas carols they used to listen to when she was little, back when they spent Christmas with his brother and sister, and the drive to his house is spent seeing who can belt them out the loudest.

Annabeth's nerves flare back up as they pull into the drive, but her stepmom, Kira, meets her at the door, pulls her into a hug and thanks her for coming. "It means a lot, Annabeth," she says sincerely.

Annabeth smiles and lets herself be almost bowled over by Matthew and Bobby, who have so much to tell her about how their year is going and all of the cool stuff they've been up to while she was away, and can she please teach them some more of those sick fighting moves because they showed them off at school and yeah it got them a detention but it was so worth it.

"Okay, okay!" she laughs, pulling them both into a loose headlock. "I will, after dinner."

"Yes!" they exclaim, high fiving and running off down the hall as soon as she lets them go.

She smiles after them, and her dad drapes an arm over her shoulders and pulls her in close. "It's good to have you here, sweetheart."

---

Superficially, everything is perfect. Annabeth has organised to catch up with all of her friends at Camp Jupiter over the next week, and Piper and Jason are flying over to meet them. Her family is happy to spend the holidays with her, singing carols and cooking a feast to celebrate. The house is decorated beautifully, and Annabeth even got to put the finishing touches up. Looking at how far she's come since last Christmas, she should be ecstatic.

But she feels incomplete.

There's a bough of mistletoe hanging in the doorway between the dining room and the lounge, and Annabeth stops beneath it. Percy had once joked with her that he was going to hang mistletoe in every doorway of their house every December, so that she'd always have to stop and kiss him. She likes the idea of that.

"Are you okay?" Kira asks, pausing opposite her.

Annabeth glances over and leans against the doorframe. "Yeah, I was just… Just thinking."

In the lounge, her dad and the twins are playing a round of Mario Kart. Frederick is doing surprisingly well, and the twins both yell out as he throws a banana back at Matthew's cart.

"I'm sorry we didn't have more Christmases like this," Kira says.

Annabeth turns to her, surprised. She's not sure how to respond to that, because this is completely uncharted territory, so she remains silent.

Kira crosses her arms over her waist and smiles sadly. "I wish… I wish I'd been able to handle it better, but the attacks scared me and I - I wasn't ready. I didn't understand what was happening to you, and it was easier to just believe that things weren't as bad as you said. I'm sorry for not listening to you sooner. I hope you can forgive me."

Annabeth counts her breaths. They've hedged around this conversation in the past, but Kira's never said it quite so bluntly before.

When Annabeth was little, when she ran away from home, she would have killed to hear her stepmom say those words - "I'm sorry for not listening to you." - but now, standing in this house with these people who are trying their best to make her feel like family, Annabeth realises maybe what she wanted for all those years wasn't actually what she needed.

"I'm sorry for putting you and the twins at risk," she says, every word carefully measured. "Now that I'm older, I get that you were just scared, but at the time I thought…"

Annabeth trails off, because something's just clicked into place in her mind. Memories from after the Second War flash before her eyes, a highlights reel of every single one of her fights with Percy, all the awful things they ever said and did to each other, and, gods, how could she have been so stupid?

"Oh my gods," she breathes, pushing off from the doorframe. "Oh, gods."

"Annabeth?" Kira asks, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

She meets her stepmom's eyes as a loud cheer comes up from the lounge.

"I thought you were mad at me," Annabeth says. "I knew that it was my fault, but I couldn't cope with the guilt. You were just angry at the circumstances, and understandably scared, but I thought you were blaming me. You never blamed me, though… I blamed me."

Kira's jaw drops. "I -"

Without warning, a man appears in the middle of the lounge room. Everyone except for Annabeth screams.

"Who the -"

"How did you -"

"What are you -"

Annabeth speaks over the top of her family's exclamations. "What are you doing here, Hermes?"

The god flashes her a closed mouth smile and pulls a large silver bag from thin air. "I'm here with a personal delivery."

"Is he Santa?" Bobby whispers.

Frederick shushes him.

Annabeth crosses the room in a trance and grabs the bag from Hermes's outstretched hand.

"He asked you…?" She trails off, because suddenly her throat feels tight and her eyes are stinging.

Hermes nods. "He tried the traditional method, first, but you know how unreliable mortal postal services are. It got returned to sender this afternoon, and he summoned me in a panic, asked me to make sure it got delivered to you tonight." Hermes's expression darkens. "He was very insistent."

Annabeth drops onto the couch, pushing Matthew out of the way, and slides the white box out of the bag. This time, the photo of the laptop is facing the right way up.

"Whoa!" Matthew gasps.

"Who's it from?" Bobby asks, bouncing on the arm of the couch.

Annabeth gingerly opens the box, revealing the sleek laptop inside. "It's from Percy, he got it for my birthday…"

Hermes rolls his eyes. "Typical Jackson, reusing a birthday gift at Christmas."

Annabeth ignores him and takes the laptop out of the box. When she opens the lid she runs her fingers over the touchpad, and the screen flickers to life. Staring back at her from the desktop picture is Percy's smiling face, pressed cheek to cheek with her own. They're much younger, wearing matching Camp Half Blood t-shirts. Annabeth's holding her Yankees cap in the hand that isn't wrapped around Percy's shoulders, and their happiness is almost tangible.

She remembers when this picture was taken. It was the day after they got back from their first quest, and Chiron had surprised them by taking some celebratory photos. This one had been part of a series, where they'd posed in progressively sillier ways until they were doubled over with laughter.

This was her favourite out of the lot, which was why a copy of it had pride of place on the wall of photos by her bunk. When they'd started dating, Percy had copied it and added it to his own collection on his bedroom wall at home. And now he's uploaded it onto the laptop he got her, taking an extremely practical gift and turning it into one of the most sentimental presents she's ever received.

"Annabeth," Frederick says, because she's gone absolutely still and silent, staring at the screen in shock. "Annabeth, sweetheart, are you okay?"

"No," she says, slowly shaking her head. "No, I'm not okay. I need to go to New York."

"Uh… What?"

She turns to Hermes. "I need you to take me to Percy's apartment."

Hermes absently studies his nails. "It's a busy night tonight, I don't know if I have time in my schedule…"

Annabeth carefully places the laptop on the coffee table and gets to her feet. She draws herself up to her full height and channels her mother, making herself as intimidating as possible. "Hermes, I need you to take me to Percy's apartment right now."

He reels back, looking offended, and for a second she thinks he's going to blast her for her impudence. Apparently her dad thinks the same, because he grabs her arm and subtly steps in front of her.

But then Hermes sighs. "Demigods, so demanding these days. Fine, I'll take you to Percy's apartment."

Kira has been standing frozen behind the couch this entire time. Annabeth turns to her and says, "I'm really sorry. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise. But I really need to do this."

Her stepmom nods, and Frederick squeezes Annabeth's arm and smiles encouragingly. "Do what you have to do."

She shrugs on her coat, pulls on her boots and nods to Hermes. "I'm ready."

"About time." He holds out his arm, and as she grabs hold of his elbow, he smirks and says, "Don't let go."

There's an awful lurching sensation in Annabeth's stomach as the world disappears in a swirl of colour, and then she's standing in the hallway outside Percy's apartment. She stumbles forward and knocks loudly on the door before the world's even stopped spinning.

There's no answer, and Annabeth rounds on Hermes. "Why did you bring us to the hallway?"

"Don't want to scare a pregnant woman by teleporting into her lounge," Hermes says. "I don't particularly want to be responsible for that mess."

"But where are they?" Annabeth turns back to the door and knocks again, a little more desperately this time. "They spend every Christmas Eve here, I don't understand…"

She turns around to an empty hallway.

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" She spins in a circle, hands in her hair, desperately trying to figure out what to do. "Damn it, Hermes, you couldn't just take me to him? You sneaky little…!"

She isn't instantly incinerated for insulting a god, but Hermes doesn't reappear, either, so she's not sure whether to count it as a win.

What was she thinking, dropping everything to come here? She's left her family back in San Francisco and ended up alone in a cold hallway, locked out of Percy's apartment, with no drachmas for an Iris Message, no mortal money for a cab to Camp, and no clue if Percy is even here.

Suddenly very tired, Annabeth rests her back against the door to the Jackson-Blofis apartment and slides down until she's sitting on the dirty hallway ground with her head between her knees. This, she imagines, is a sufficiently sorry state for someone who's managed to fuck everything up on Christmas eve.

Now that the initial adrenaline of the trip has worn off, now that's she's started to get over the awe of Percy's gift, Annabeth is starting to second guess herself.

The trouble is that she always thinks she's more clever than she actually is. She thought that she knew exactly what was going on with Luke, she thought that she knew the terror that Percy had been through when he had his memories stolen, she thought that she could work her way out of her mental illness alone, she thought that she knew how Percy felt about her when really she didn't even have a clue how she felt about herself, and she thought that she was doing the right thing by following her heart and turning up here unannounced, but apparently she doesn't know a damn thing.

She sits there for a long time before the elevator dings. She lifts her head out of instinct, but all she sees is a Christmas tree with legs. The tree waddles forward, out of the elevator and down the hall, stopping at Annabeth's feet. She recognizes the Christmas tree's shoes.

"Percy?"

"Annabeth?" He tilts the tree to the side and slowly looks down at her. "What are you doing sitting outside my apartment? Have you been crying?"

"Yes." She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her coat, but doesn't move to stand.

She feels like she did the first time she landed in New Rome, when Percy emerged from the crowd and her entire world shrank to him, only him. After spending so long apart, being this close is almost more excruciating than being on the other side of the country and completely out of his reach. She's scared that if she gets any closer to him, all of the molecules in her body might combust.

Percy leans the tree against the wall and holds out a hand to help her up. He doesn't let go once she's on her feet.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, voice quiet. "I thought you were in San Francisco, with your -"

"I was."

"But you -"

"I got your present."

Neither of them move to go inside. Percy's thumb strokes a pattern on the back of her palm and Annabeth's pulse matches itself to the rhythm.

"Oh. Did you like it?" he asks. He sounds tense, as though he still can't quite trust that she's actually here.

"I love it." Her voice cracks on the word love. She clears her throat and plunges the hand he isn't holding into her pocket, feeling around until she finds something small and round at the bottom of it. "I brought you your present."

He holds out a hand and she drops the bead with the olive branch painted on it into his palm. He stares at it for a moment, rolling it over, before he lets go of her hand and unclasps his camp necklace. He slides the bead onto it and then re-clasps it, and Annabeth runs her eyes over his collection, every bead a reminder of all the things he's achieved… All the things they've achieved.

Together.

Annabeth takes a deep breath and speaks before she can think herself out of it. "I've been an idiot, Percy. I took everything that I was feeling and projected it onto you, I pretended that I knew best when I don't really know anything, and I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that I didn't listen to you, I'm sorry that I couldn't just let you be angry and scared when you had every right to be, I'm sorry that I pushed you away. It wasn't you that kept dragging me down there, it was me, it was just me and my stupid stubbornness, and I'm sorry that it took me so long to realise it. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me and I completely understand if you want me to leave, but I just had to tell you, I had to come here and tell you…"

Until now the words have been coming out before she could stop them, a great flood of everything Annabeth's been bottling up for the last year, but here, she pauses. Percy doesn't interrupt. He just squeezes her hand, and that simple gesture gives her the courage to keep going.

Keeping her eyes locked on his, she says, "You're my friend, Seaweed Brain. And I love you."

Percy's expression shifts to something she doesn't recognise.

When did she stop being able to read his emotions? When did she lose the ability to know what he was thinking at nothing more than a glance?

The realisation hits Annabeth like a freight train, a heavy weight settling against her chest, and her throat constricts around the knowledge that a year of fighting might be enough to undo five years of friendship. Maybe she's too late. Maybe the damage runs too deep.

"You're impossible," he says, and for one horrible, gut wrenching, heart breaking second, she's convinced that they're done.

But then he surges forward, and suddenly his lips are on hers and his arms are wrapped around her shoulders and her waist and oh, Annabeth feels all of the little, cracked pieces of herself settling into place for the first time in a year.

It's been so long since she's kissed Percy and yet his mouth still feels the same under hers, lips chapped but soft, smelling of an ocean breeze and tasting ever so slightly of salt, and gods she's missed this.

The entire world could end right now and Annabeth would not care, so long as Percy kept kissing her like this.

When he pulls back she chases him, but he ducks his head and nuzzles his nose against that sensitive spot beneath her ear so that she can't recapture his lips. Desire curls hot and low in Annabeth's stomach, makes her spine arch and her breath come in needy little gasps.

"I love you," Percy says, and it sounds like a prayer. "Gods, Annabeth, I love you so much."

He pushes her up against the apartment door, fumbles to get his key in the lock with one hand while the other tenderly cradles the back of her head and she moans into his mouth.

The door swings open and they stumble inside, almost completely losing their footing before Percy manages to kick the door shut behind them. Annabeth's so preoccupied with touching every single inch of Percy that she almost misses the fact that Sally and Paul did take her advice in rearranging the lounge room.

Before she can get a good look at it, Percy hoists her into the air and every thought that doesn't involve his hands on her is dashed from Annabeth's mind. She wraps her legs around his waist, looping her arms around his neck and holding herself up. He gently bites at her neck and she moans again, louder this time, and scrambles to push his jacket off his shoulders. She lifts the hem of his shirt, lets her fingers dance along the waistband of his jeans until he's bucking against her hips, and then leans back just long enough to pull the thin material over his head and throw it to the floor before diving back in for a kiss.

He gets her coat and sweater off in the lounge, her shirt off in the hallway, and she kicks her boots off just outside his bedroom door. He carefully lays her on his bed, looking down at her with reverence, and Annabeth's heart swells.

The photo from her laptop is up on his wall, and as she curls her hands around his shoulders and pulls him down to her, Percy smiles that same smile - the one that means he's completely, blissfully happy.

"What about the tree?" Annabeth asks between peppering kisses across his cheeks, his nose, his chin, his eyelashes.

"It can stay out there," he says, tilting his head to the side and catching her in a kiss. "I've waited all year for this."

---

It starts and ends with this: "Together."

Annabeth stares at Percy, and Percy stares at Annabeth.

They're almost unrecognisable from who they were when they met, or when they started dating, or from a year ago. But that's okay. Because a lot has changed in that time, so it makes sense that they've changed, too.

She feels his fingers twitch in hers, registers that she's probably holding his hands too tightly but acknowledges that she doesn't want to let go just yet. She's sitting in his lap, their hands clasped between them, and both of them are crying.

She knows that he doesn't want to let go yet, either. It's nice to be anchored together again.

Annabeth takes a deep breath, one that rattles her very bones, feels her heart beating wildly in her chest, feels her stomach fluttering and her mouth going dry. She licks her lips.

Percy watches, and she thinks about kissing him. So she does.

They've still got a long way to go, but Percy and Annabeth have made it through Tartarus and everything that comes after, and they're going to keep going.

Together.