The story is a one-shot and not very long. I highly suggest you listen to the song; it's great.

Terrible Love- Birdy

disclaimer-i don't own the characters

Walking With Spiders

The night is quiet and lonely without its stars and moon; overhead an endless, inky black that could have been mistaken for Tarturas itself.

It is near one in the morning and she can't sleep, which isn't a surprise for anyone. Unluckily, ever since his absence she hasn't had one evening where she has drifted off without trouble and, at the moment, not even all the luck Tyche could give her would be able to wipe out her fears for one night.

And I can't fall asleep without a little help.

Spiders, she had once imagined, would always be her worst fear but the older and wiser she becomes, the spiders grow more insignificant. Her fears become greater and darkness is at the edge of her mind every moment and only he could ever push that all away and make her laugh. But he is gone now, with that good-bye she is dying for.

She isn't sure if she is through-roughly scared of dying but death frightens her to the core. She can see Thalia dying and see Luke dying and everyone that was destined to die in front of her eyes over and over again. Then she imagines her father's death and her friend's deaths that have yet to happen; the last drop of life leaving their eyes forever.

But the worst is seeing him die. She never sees the light go out of his emerald eyes, because not even the farthest reaches of her imagination could create that. She watches as the sword cuts him open like a piñata and he bleeds out, his face turned to the side, so that, no matter how hard she tries, his last image isn't be of her but of the carnage that lays beyond him.

Those fears she carries with her every step.

It takes a while to settle down
my shivered bones
until the panic sets.

Her personal spiders are suffocating in the muggy evening and she can no longer stand staring at the bunk over her and the fading sheets sticking to her clammy skin. Sweeping aside the bedding she slips from her bed and slinks across the floor to the door, avoiding all the squeaky planks she has become aware of over the years. Even if she had stomped across the room, her siblings wouldn't have stirred; they had become accustomed to her leaving the room in the middle of the night and her return in the later morning hours-whether she came back or not.

Glowing softly from across the commons area, the coral of the Poseidon cabin calls to her but tonight she doesn't want to fall apart. Tonight she needs to hold herself together. She needs him, she always needs him, yet, she can't have him.

She makes her way towards the beach, walking with her spiders.

It's a terrible love and I'm walking with spiders,

The ocean breeze is refreshing and pushes against her but that only makes her eager to reach the surf. She takes a few steps into the cool water until it reaches mid-way up her calves, the salty smell fully hitting her.

The smell of the Atlantic has always comforted her because it is the smell of camp, the place she is safe, the place she knows better than the back of her hand, the place she calls home, but slowly that smell had become him. It had snuck up on her, the realization of purely him being there; her constant and that had made her happy for that little while he was there.

But now he has disappeared and, perhaps, if she wasn't so exhausted she would be angry, screaming her anguish out at the heavens, hoping Hera can hear the hate in her cry.

Now that ocean wind is shoving against her but it is also what holds her up, stopping her from pitching forward. Surging inland, the tide wraps itself around her legs and tries to pull her into the churning water as the shore rejects the sea. Silt slips from beneath the soles of her feet and drags her deeper into the shoreline. She lets it, believing that with every new wave that glides across her skin, it's tearing off her crawling spiders.

It takes an ocean not to break.

After a while, she breaks free from the sea's grip and sits down farther inshore, until only the highest of tides can brush the tips of her toes.

She sits there until daybreak, watching the summer sunrise and letting herself be caressed by the ocean's breeze.

Eventually, she hears the shifting of sand behind her as one of her half-sisters comes up to her, clutching a cell phone.

She stands and before she can say anything her sister says, "Your phone's been ringing all morning so I answered it. It was Ms. Jackson and she wants you to call her back as soon as you can."

Annabeth thanks her and wonders why sally Jackson would call so early in the morning, but she accepts her cellphone.

"Are you..." her sibling hesitates, "are you doing okay?"

"I… I'm actually doing fine," Annabeth replies and gives her a genuine smile that catches her sister off-guard.

It's not a full-on, care-free smile but her sister accepts it and grins back at Annabeth before turning heel and heading back to Cabin Six.

Annabeth dials Ms. Jackson's number and the first ring isn't over before the other end is picked up.

"Ms. Jackson?"

"Oh, Annabeth. You'll never believe it."

"Believe what?"

"He phoned; he phoned last night!"

Annabeth feels as if she's been pounded in the chest with a semi and her heart starts beating again for the first time in eight months.

If you have any comments or critism please inform me.

I might write more of another view from this scene.

Hope you have liked it.