Her piercing scream is what wakes you, like every other night. Automatically you find your arms wound firmly around the body of the shaking woman. She sobs, horrible, heartbroken.
"I was there, I was there," Her shaking and sobbing and gasping is painful.
"Shhh," You try and soothe her. "You are in my apartment in New York. We got out a year and two months ago. We won. We closed the doors of death."
Her sobs get quieter. "And Hazel died." Her voice is no longer hysterical, but a soft whisper. And all you can do is hold tighter.
"I know. But we saw her. Remember? What did she tell us?"
"She saw her mom." She takes horrible, gasping breathes to try and stifle the new tears. "She said she was OK and, and-"
She breaks off and takes deep breaths. "I was back there. It was dark, one of the times when we couldn't find light. I couldn't feel your hand, I can always feel your hand when it's dark but I couldn't this time and I was scared,"
Your finger traces a pattern on her back, and all you can do is listen. For some reason, the nightmares don't come to disturb you. You wish you could take them away though. You would suffer through every nightmare if it would help Annabeth.
Instead, you suffer from the occasional hallucination. In the beginning, you couldn't stand it. But now you can walk around the city, even though images of burning people and monsters' mouths dripping with blood are flashing through your mind.
"I'm sorry, I keep waking you up."
"You don't have to apologize to me Annabeth."
Silence follows. Your finger traces a heart on her back and one hand runs through her hair soothingly.
"I love you, Wise Girl."
Very little things bring a smile to Annabeth's face now. But you think you may see a small one.
"Love you too, Seaweed Brain," Her faces is streaked with tears and her nose is red, but with that small, rare smile you see the most beautiful woman in the world.
You can't help but think that this is only a shell of what she used to be.
But that's ok, because you are a shell too. And it used to be worse. It is getting better. You have to convince yourself, that yes, it is.
Very little stops you from joining Hazel. You know that if you ever brought it up with Annabeth, she would agree. It sounds like a very good idea right now. But his little half-sister that was born when he was fighting and his mother's smile and the times when they just sit and talk to Chiron in the Big House because he understands make all the difference.
You can do it, living. Don't you deserve that at least? Isn't that what you always fought for?
This came out of the blue and I wrote it in thirty minutes (I think) but I absolutely love it and I almost cried.
I was originally inspired by the song "A Team" but this story ended winding a different way. I will probably write something else to go with that song…
About the Hazel dying thing… I am so sorry. But I thought her death would be the least traumatic, seeing as she already died and her mom was there and stuff.
Honestly? I wouldn't be surprised if Riordan killed Percy and Annabeth. In the words of CassJayTuck, THEY ARE TIRED. Go look at her review of MoA on Youtube because it is spot on. Percy and Annabeth are our old heroes who have been cleaning up the Gods' mess for so long. Their deaths sort of make sense in a horrible tear-my-heart-out sort of way.
Review and let me know what you think!