Kiss Me You Idiot

by toe walker

7 years in the future; another war has started, and the obvious people to call are Percy and Annabeth. But Annabeth is captured along with a few friends and… you shall see if you read it! ;) VERY LONG ONE-SHOT! OVER 6000 WORDS It's rated T for torture (See what I did there? cause torture starts with T... never mind) If you don't like it, don't read it but i think you will soo... :D

Don't worry you all, it's just a one-shot, not another story that will just make my updates slower… this has been mulling around in my head for a while and I had been considering putting it into my other Percy Jackson fanfic, Praying to Mommy but then the stories both mutated in my mind and… I don't know… This one turned into a one shot while Praying to Mommy has kind of petered out (It is up for adoption now, PM me if you want it. Or don't, I don't really care.)

Most of the beginning is just set up for later, up until the baby is born will be mostly filler, and all of the time jumps are mostly so I don't bore you will too much torture which will get a bit repetitive after a while. After the first few time skips it will be mostly linier, I promise.

I apologize for any accidental tense switching, this was kinda a test for present tense writing and I hope caught all of my past tense stuff but I kinda doubt it.

Disclaimer:

I don't own Percy Jackson or any of the other characters; I only own Miria (the baby), Jack, Belle, and anyone else you do not recognize.

Enjoy!

-toe

~Annabeth's point of view (It will switch between her and Percy throughout)~

I creep up the stairs, the cut on my forehead is bleeding pretty badly now running into my eyes, but I ignore it, listening for any sound that might suggest that my friends are near. We did not know much about this new threat, but Percy and I just had to be called upon immediately. After two wars we just can't get a break can we?

I scold myself, this is not the time to be longing for normalcy, this is a time for focus.

I hear a small sound coming from a hallway to my left; I grip my knife tighter and move swiftly but silently down the corridor. I would be invisible but my idiot husband had borrowed my hat for the day last month and left it at his day job. We never had a chance to get it back before the quest.

One door is ajar on my right and I peer through the crack, someone's back is facing me and I nearly gasp when he moves aside to show a bloody Piper strapped to a table.

I ease the door open and am about to step inside when the door makes the faintest squeak. Immediately the man has a gun in his hand and has shot my left shoulder.

I gasp in pain but hold my knife steady. "Ah so this is the young daughter of Athena." The man says, almost casually. He walks backwards so that he does not take his eyes off of me and once he stands beside Piper's table, he spoke, "You told me that she had gone back to camp. There are punishments for lying, but I will deal with you later, first I need this one."

He grins and shoots again but I duck and lunge for him with my knife. He sidesteps me easily, but I strike again and hit his shoulder, but my blade passes right through. I gasp in surprise and drop my knife, he must be mortal. As I am bending over to pick it back up, suddenly he is in front of me and knees me in the gut. I hunch over in pain and he shoves me onto the table nearest us.

While I am trying to catch my breath he shoots me once in each leg and in my other arm. I groan in pain.

"Turn over." I vaguely hear beneath the pain. "Flip over onto your stomach now Annabeth Chase or suffer the consequences." So I'm trying to flip over, seeing as he does have a gun, but my arm keeps ending up being in the way, and I am telling you, bullet wounds really hurt. I fell back onto my back; panting from the pain and glance up at the man who has his arms crossed and is tapping his foot as though impatient.

Trying not to anger the man holding a gun, I once again attempt to flip over, slowly going over my other arm; but once again I fall back, breathing hard.

The man crosses the room and puts the gun to Frank's head, I gasp as I realize his obvious message. I desperately try once more to flip onto my stomach but was once more unsuccessful. I wince as I hear the bullet fired. The man crosses over to Piper's bedside and I groan, I heave over and am finally able to land painfully onto my stomach.

"That wasn't so hard now, was it?" I stay silent, tears prickling my eyes, I had killed Frank. I hear a knife slip out of a sheath and wince when I feel it pierce the skin of my back; the strength to scream however is not something that I have at the moment.

When he finishes and finally leaves, I allow my sobs to escape. I just found out about a week ago that I am pregnant. None of the others, not even Percy knows yet, but I have already grown so attached to this baby that if it dies I will never be the same. In short, this man had better not kill my baby.

~About 6 months later (Nico has been captured as well) ~

I gasp as another contraction takes hold of my body, why anyone would ever want to have a baby is beyond me.

(This is just me skipping the actual giving birth part because that may or may not make it actually rated M and I fear that you all will attack me on inaccuracies if I did do that part)

As I hold the baby girl in my arms for the first time, my questions are answered. Why would anyone not want a baby? I feel as though my entire world has been replaced with this child lying in my arms, perfect black curls still damp on her head.

I gasp and clutch my child to my chest as the door slams open, Piper and Hazel, who had been helping me give birth, scurry back to their tables and lay down.

Jack, the man who tortures us daily, walks into the room and stands in front of me, "So this is the daughter of sea and wisdom. I have a feeling that she will do great things, I hope she never makes her mother proud."

He sweeps out of the room and I sigh in relief. Piper wanders over, "May I hold her?" I nod and hand her my daughter. "What is her name?"

"Miria."

~Two years later, Percy Point of view (Percy and Annabeth would be 24ish while Miria would be 2) ~

I creep up a set of stairs, as silently as possible, listening for any sounds of disturbance, thus far the old house seemed to be just that, an old wooden house with an old lighting system and cobwebs lining the outdated television set.

I was not ready to give up on this location though; we have precious few leads regarding my wife and friends who had gone missing about two and a half years ago.

I heard a noise that could be a child crying to my left so I turned into that hallway. Most of the doors had been shut, but not locked and I had seen nothing suspicious thus far. To my right there was a door that was slightly ajar and seemed to have a light on inside it, although it could just be light from the sun.

As I glanced into the room from the crack that was opened, I saw that this room was made of all metal, a startling contrast to the wooden house that is around me. This seems a bit suspicious so I ease the door open to the sight of a man with his back to the door, standing over a bed with a knife in his hand, this alone would make me want to run at him, but the fact that telltale blonde curls were peeking out from behind him made me just want to strangle him. Before I could do anything however, the knife went down and there was a little shriek from the bed holding who I believed to be the wife that I have not seen for over two years.

I jump into the room and slash through the man but surprisingly, my blade goes right through him and my balance is thrown off because I had anticipated an impact.

I nearly fall because I really was expecting that impact, but I do regain my footing, just in time for the man to punch me hard in the jaw. I fall backwards and he grabs me and puts me on a sort of lab table, the one nearest the door, right next to the table where Annabeth is laying actually.

I am chained down to the bed, and the man stares down at me with a smirk sitting on his features, "Finally, We have been waiting for you for a while now. We only need two more now." And then he sweeps out of the room rather abruptly.

I look over to the bed holding my wife, "Annabeth?"

~Annabeth's POV~

I watch in dismay as Percy gets shoved onto the table next to mine and chained down.

After Jack leaves, Percy looks over at me, "Annabeth?"

I get up from my table because Percy is chained to his. I smile down at him and he frowns at me in return, "I am so sorry Annabeth, each time we got a lead as to where you were it ended up leading nowhere. I should have been faster, I'm so-"

I cut him off with a kiss, something that I have missed horribly for the past two and a half years. When I draw back we both grin wildly at each other, breathing heavily from the kiss.

Percy seemed like he was concentrating on something, "Are our powers dampened in here, I can't use the water in the air." I nod and we both sigh. Suddenly I remember something quite important that Percy might want to know about and jerk away. "One second Percy, I'll be right back."

I scurry over to Miria's table, and pick her up carefully, trying to avoid putting stress on the arm that Jack had stabbed earlier. She giggles and hangs onto my neck, her long black curls tickling my face.

I sit down on the edge of Percy's table and he sits up as best as he can with the chains and all. "Percy, I have someone very important that I want you to meet. Miria, stop hiding in my hair and say hello."

My beautiful daughter pokes her head out and stares at Percy with her huge grey eyes that had just a little bit more green tint than mine. Percy's eyes widen in realization, "Is she… I mean, she is right? Your, no, our… Oh gods, wow!"

I roll my eyes at my seaweed brain's characteristic inability to string together coherent sentences, but nod in assent, "I was about two months along when we got captured. I knew, but I didn't want to tell you until after the quest because I knew that you would be way too over protective at a time that I was needed. "

Percy scowls at that last part, but I stare smugly back at him. It is true and he knows it. "Jack apparently thinks that Miria has some huge fate later on that he cannot interfere with so he can't kill her which is great because he would otherwise." I trail off, remembering the first day, with Frank and everything else.

"What is it? What is wrong?" Percy asks me. I just look at him, not sure what to say to break the news of his friend's death.

"Percy… Look around the room. What is missing?" I decide on the letting him figure it out on his own strategy.

"Er, yes, where is Frank?"

I sigh and explain the incident with the bullets and the flipping over and… Frank.

Tears are in my eyes as I tell the story and I can see that they are in his as well.

"I'm sorry." I whisper.

He looks at me with a strange expression, "What do you have to be sorry for? From what you told me, none of what happened was your fault."

Jason spoke up from the other side of the room, "It wasn't but she has been blaming herself for it for the past two years. It is really tiring to continue to tell her that it really wasn't her fault."

"Well, I know." I say with a glare in Jason's direction, "But I feel like it was, you know?"

Percy nods, "Don't I. My fatal flaw is loyalty, remember? I've been blaming myself for this whole situation for the past two and a half years. But why are we here, what does he want from us, there must be a reason."

"There is. He is part of a clear-sighted mortal group that wants to raise Kronos from Tartarus again and have found a way to do it apparently. It is actually quite complicated, but basically, he needs two children of the big three each, but there needs to be one each of Roman and Greek as well as a girl and a boy for each god. He also needs a daughter of Athena because Athena was born of Metis, the goddess of prudence, who was foretold to bear a son more powerful than Zeus so I have something to do with that. He has Me, Nico, Hazel, Jason, and you and I believe that there is a daughter of Neptune who is about 4 but Jack has not been able to get his hands on her yet, and then he just needs Thalia."

Dead silence fills the room. Piper, Nico, Jason, Leo, and Hazel had all heard the situation before, but the gravity of it has really sunk in now I think, because it is so close to coming to pass.

Percy's eyebrows furrow, "But-" there was the sound of footsteps coming down a hallway and I looked down apologetically at my husband and hurried back to Miria's table and then mine, lying down just before the door opens.

Jack enters with a girl in his arms, the daughter of Neptune. Well this is crap…

~About a month later… ~

Belle, the daughter of Neptune quickly integrated into our little society, her and Miria got along famously. Jack had gotten into the practice of chaining one person at a time to their bed, I can only assume that he is attempting to discourage any escape attempts by making it impossible for one of us to leave while still giving the rest of us the mobility that some of his tortures required. Currently, the chained person is Jason, whose relationship with Piper has grown within our little room. Fortunately, they have been kind enough to not get too physical in their relationship while we are all together in this room.

He has taken to torturing Percy to try to get the location of Thalia out of him, but he soon realized that hurting me and the others is the easiest way to get information from him so I am stuck. Percy had some nectar in his pocket when he came here and that has been our saving grace recently. Piper got a really bad slash from Jack's knife the other day and might have bled to death if not for a few drops from that nectar, but we just ran out yesterday after a slash on Belle's arm got infected.

I am drawn out of my thoughts as that dreaded door opened once again. Leo flinched as Jack motioned for him to come to him, but he dutifully got up and walked towards the door. Jack talked quietly to Leo for a moment and his elfish-like features became more pronounced as he paled. Jack handed him something and Jack walked towards me, Leo walking with his head dipped, staring at his shoes. His fingers were rubbing together and I thought that I saw the flicker of flames for a moment, but that is impossible.

I was instructed to roll on my stomach and Jack ripped the back of the shirt I was wearing so that my back was exposed I turned my head so that I could see Leo and he was looking at me imploringly, as though apologizing.

Leo reached over towards me, and I felt his hands on my back, and suddenly there was a horrible burning. I think I screamed, but I don't remember. I am not sure if my eyes were opened or closed, but all I saw was red. Suddenly it was over and I sobbed in relief. After a moment, I was able to hear the door close and another person's sobs.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" The voice said. My vision began to clear and I saw Leo sobbing on the floor next to my bed.

"It's okay, I'm fine." I croak, and Leo looks up at me with the most heartbreaking look on his face. I can tell that he thinks that it isn't okay, but I smiled reassuringly at him and I think he relaxed a bit. "How did you have fire? All of our powers are dampened in here."

"He gave me a little device that let me use my fire for as long as I had it, but threatened to kill Piper if I used it against him or refused to do what he asked." Leo replied.

I assume that it is some kind of force field that blocks whatever is keeping us from using our powers, but I don't get time to voice my theory because Miria comes up to me and sits on my table thing. "Are you okay Mommy?" she asks me. She has the cutest look when she is concerned, almost identical to Percy's face; in fact he is wearing that same expression at the moment.

I smile reassuringly at the both of them, "I'm fine, just a bit singed around the edges." Percy looks at me like he knows I am lying, but doesn't say anything, for the sake of Miria more than anything I think.

Hazel walks over to Leo and persuades him to get up and back onto his table. I cannot help feeling that more than a little bit of romance is going on between the two of them now that Hazel doesn't have Frank to love and she has had time to come to terms with his death.

Nico, who usually sulks on his table in the corner and only interacts with us when necessary, speaks up for once, "Perce, just out of curiosity, do you know where pinecone face is?"

Percy looked up, startled but nodded, "I know where she was and what she was doing when I left to come here, but I don't know where she is now. Probably out trying to get to us like the idiot she is. Chiron knows where I went, but he will probably make anyone else who comes here plan a bit more than I did and bring a lot more people. You know how he is; it might take him a while to approve anyone. It hasn't been that long since I left camp anyway."

We all nod and slowly, one by one, we all fall to sleep.

~The next day. Percy's POV, just to shake things up :) ~

Annabeth shakes me awake, and I wake up to her beautiful face again, one of the only happy things this month that I have been here, "He will be here soon," Annabeth predicts as she leans down for a quick peck on the lips and I sigh and rub my face to wake myself up.

When Jack enters a few minutes later, he is carrying what looks like an IV machine as well as his usual entourage of knifes.

He walks over to Annabeth yet again and I sigh, I have come very close to just telling Jack what I know to get him to stop punishing Annabeth for me, but I have a feeling that if he gets his hands on Thalia, not one of us will have much survival chance.

Jack sets down his things next to Annabeth and turns to look at all of us. "We are very close to capturing the daughter of Zeus, so it is about the time to test out a few of the components of the ritual. One of the problems that we had to face in the process is that the people being sacrificed need to be close enough to death to go into a comatose state throughout the ritual.

"We had a hard time coming up with a natural way to do this without too many risks of death. We have come up with this heavily diluted water of the River Styx which will allow me to 'kill' each of you without actually killing you. Of course, this solution has never been tested before so I am going to test it on Annabeth here, because daughters of Athena are not that hard to come by in this world."

I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. If this doesn't work, Annabeth could die.

Before I have a chance to do anything heroic or stupid, Jack takes out a little bottle and more or less shoves it down Annabeth' s throat. Her response is immediate, screaming and writhing so much that she falls off of the bed, I don't blame her, from what I remember, swimming in the Styx was horribly painful. A minute later, my nerves were shot and Annabeth stopped screaming and just lay on the floor breathing heard. I sighed with relief that the initial intake of the Styx solution didn't kill her.

Jack kicked her in the stomach, "Get back up onto your table." When she made no move to get up, he kept kicking her again and again. I winced when I heard a few ribs crack. After a while he grabs her arm and heaves her up onto her table, "I told you to get back up onto your table." At that he pulled out his knife and slashed her back a few times, I expect that she would have screamed but she did not have the energy, the part of her face that I can see is contorted in pain.

Jack starts setting up the IV machine into Annabeth's thin arm, "Now, the premise of this serum is that it should keep our daughter of Athena here alive as long as she has the appropriate amount of blood in her veins, even if for all other intents and purposes she is dead. So this here machine will supply her with the blood she needs as well as a bit more of the Styx solution just for good measure."

And with that he took out his knife and stabbed Annabeth in the stomach. I let out a little yell and leapt off of my table. To my surprise, Jack allowed me to kneel beside my wife and hold her hand, "Hey wise girl." I say, tears prickling at my eyes.

"Hey Seaweed-Brain," Annabeth replies weakly, smiling up at me, "I'll be fine, have a little faith will you?" I chuckle despite myself, "Can you do me a favor real quick kelp head?"

"Of course," I respond hastily, "Anything."

She rolls her eyes weekly, "Kiss me you idiot."

I feel a tear escape my eye and roll its way down my cheek. I take the back of her head gently in one hand and her chin in the other and raise her face to mine. Our lips touch for a precious moment until I feel her go slack in my arms. I lay her head gently back onto the table and sit back on my heels, my head in my hands, tears dripping through my fingers. I hear Jack step towards the table where my wife is lying, and I look up, making sure that he wasn't going to mutilate my wife any more than he already had.

He rests his fingers on her neck, checking for a pulse. He steps back and smiles and I sigh in relief, the serum must have worked. Jack reaches into his pocket, and pulls out two sets of handcuffs, he chains Annabeth's hands to a little pole built into the wall and swept out of the room.

My tears begin once more, and I let out a little sob. Suddenly I felt a presence, a hand on my shoulder, but there wasn't one, then there was a breeze, and it was gone, along with my tears.

A minute later, the small head of my daughter popped up from behind the table, "Mommy?"

~Annabeth's POV~

It is a strange feeling, I felt Percy's lips on mine, and then there was no feeling at all. I look down at myself; I seem to be floating slightly above my old body, a glowing new one replacing it. The sounds of the regular world are distorted, as though I am underwater. I try to move, and discover, much to my surprise, that the slightest movement sends me flying, I feel as though a huge weight of life has been taken off of my shoulders.

I giggle and fly around the room a few times, but I look down towards my old body. There's Percy, his head in his hands, wait, is he crying? I float down to the floor and put my hand on his shoulder. He seems to look up a little, as though he can feel my presence. I sigh and brush his tears away.

There is a cough from across the room, not in the same distorted tone that the rest of the world is in. I look over sharply, a bit too sharply actually, and I twirled around a bit, but eventually I controlled my new 'body' and see Hermes sitting across the room from me in a track suit, caduceus laying casually across his lap, "Hi there, long time no see." He threw a sort of tablet thing at me, "I was told to give this to you before I took you down, put it around your neck."

After a second of trying to read through my dyslexia, I recognized the word going across as 'Visitor' I looked up at Hermes who was tapping his foot impatiently, I hastily slipped the string attached to the tablet around my neck and followed Hermes out of the room, through the door, (quite literally, we floated through the closed door.)

I have a sudden question that flew out of my mouth before I had time to think, "Did you know where we were this entire time?"

Hermes looked sharply at me, "If the Gods and I had known where you were before now do you think you would still be there? No, but it is my job to lead the dead to the underworld and thus I was led to you."

"So I am dead? I had guessed, but I still had hoped that the serum had worked." I sigh.

Hermes looks a bit annoyed, "The tablet, nobody reads the tablet…" he mumbled, "Visitor! You are technically dead and your mother wants you to go to the underworld until the hunters can get to you and Apollo can heal you. Athena said something about it making you wiser or something like that. Oh, and your mother also said to tell you that she is very proud of you for raising her granddaughter so well given the circumstances or something along those lines"

I smile, that is good news, people are on the way to save my family and I am not actually dead. Hermes touches my arm and I am suddenly in front of Charon, a gold drachma in my palm.

"You again?" Charon starts, "I still haven't gotten that raise!" I just smile and hand him my drachma. He sighs in defeat and leads me over to the elevator which is already stuffed with spirits.

"Charon," I say as his suit changes into a dark cloak and he suddenly holds a pole in his hand to push along the lonely vessel down the river Styx, "I was given this before I was sent here." I show him the tablet around my neck.

"Well that's just great, another high priority guest," He sighs, "Stick with me when we get onto land, I'll get you to the front of the lines."

A few minutes later, I stand in front of Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, and Thomas Jefferson. They seem to deliberate between themselves and finally Jefferson stands and smiles at me, "You will go to Elysium for your courage and compassion, however, you will not be in the Underworld for long so I suggest you get moving."

I smile and thank them before scurrying off to find my friends in Elysium.

I find them quickly, as Elysium is sorted by date of death. Each street represents a different month so I just find the street that corresponds with the war and walk until I see Silena sitting at a table along with Beckendorf, Michael Yew, and many others who I recognize died in the war. Some faces are missing and I assume that they chose to be reborn.

I walk up to them silently, unnoticed, "Hi guys," I say, drawing attention to myself when I get close enough. Everybody whirled around and looked toward my voice.

Silena looked up with a sad smile on her face, "Annabeth, it is great to see you, but I had hoped that it would be a few more years until I saw you here."

I shake my head and hold up my visitor's badge, "I'm only here for a little while. Some potion is allowing me to be brought back to life as soon as I am healed but my mother thought coming down here might make me wiser or something along those lines."

Silena smiled once again, all the sadness gone, "Come on then, we are just having a little barbeque get together, you can tell us the circumstances of your 'death.'"

The barbeque was some of the best I have had and I opened up my entire story to all of the people there. I saw Silena's eyes saddened when I mentioned the baby and I assumed it was because she would never get to have one.

~A week later, Percy's POV~

Annabeth never moves, never stirs. She just lies there, handcuffed to that pole next to her table, not even breathing, but her blood pumping through her veins. Jack has to change her IV bags with the blood in them twice a day, because they empty faster than you would think.

There has been less of the torturing for information thing recently, which is good. I think he has come to realize that I do not know where Thalia is now.

I am drawn from my thoughts as I hear a loud bang coming from downstairs. There is shouting and more bangs as a hoard of feet come ponding up the stairs. Someone jiggles the knob on the door before slamming into it several times. The door opens with a loud crash and Thalia is standing in the doorway, hands on her hips.

She has gotten a new tee-shirt I notice. As opposed to her usual 'Death to Barbie' this one says 'Don't Even Think About It' in bright neon yellow, blinding against the black solid material. "Hey Kelp Head," she smirks at me. Her face goes blank when she looks beyond me to Annabeth though. She runs to her best friend's side, checking her pulse.

Artemis now stands in the doorway, her nine year old face and thousands of years old eyes saddening as she takes in her surroundings. I cannot help but get a bit lost in those eyes. Not in the romantic way, just the way that the silver seems to fold in on itself, a constant melting swirl of the precious metal.

Thalia has by now undone the bonds on Annabeth and is going to lift her when Artemis's chime like voice rings out, "No, Thalia," the hunter in question turns abruptly, "I will flash her to Olympus, it may cause her more harm than good if we move her body from the position that it is currently in. I will call upon my brother to care for her as soon as we get there. Hermes will be back shortly to collect the rest of you, I left my chariot at home."

I slowly made my way over to Annabeth and kissed her forehead, "Do not take out the IV my Lady, it is part of her life support system at the moment," Piper puts in from where she had just stood up next to her bed. Artemis nods and puts her hand on Annabeth's shoulder. We all shield our eyes as she begins to glow. The air around me grows hot and then cool again as Artemis goes back to Olympus.

Hermes manages to get us all to Olympus a few minutes after Annabeth has. Apollo stands over her, not sure what to do. He had positioned her on her back, palms up on the bed that she was sitting on. I glanced at the bag of blood and river Styx solution that was probably the one thing keeping her alive at this moment. It was nearly empty, Jack had been due to come and change it soon. Apollo would have to heal her fast because I am almost positive that he doesn't have a bunch of the Styx solution lying around Olympus.

"Percy, I am going to need your help," Apollo calls without turning to look at me.

I hurry over to stand next to my wife. Miria follows me and giggles as she feels the bed holding Annabeth, "Daddy, why is the table so soft?" I supposed that she had never encountered a bed before.

Apollo looked up sharply at the word 'Daddy,' "Is she-"

"Mine" I cut him off. Apollo smiled sadly and turned back to Annabeth, I crouched down next to Miria, "Go ask Aunty Piper. I am sure she can tell you. Daddy needs to talk to this nice man about your mommy now." She nods and runs back to the group, still standing by the door.

After a few minutes more of examining Annabeth, the blood bag draining as fast as you can say chimera, He calls to his sister, "I'm going to need your help Arty." The Goddess in question hands the nearly 4 and a half year old Belle who she had been holding to Piper and hurries over to Apollo and I. Artemis and Apollo have a quiet conversation and I don't catch many words but Artemis nods in understanding and they turn back to the blonde haired love of my life, lying on the bed. "Your help would be well appreciated as well Percy." Apollo says softly.

I nod hastily, "What can I do?"

"Well, before I can do anything heal-y to your wife, I have to get all of the Styx water out of her system. Arty here," he raps his arm around the afore mentioned goddess, "is going to do just that, but unfortunately the IV system, although keeping Annie alive, is pumping more and more of the stuff into her. Because of that, someone will have to unhook her from the machine as my loving sister removes the unwanted fluid from her body and I heal her stomach wound."

I stare at him as though he is insane, but decide after glancing at the ever emptying blood bag that a crazy, un-follow-able plan is better than none at this point. I nod and position myself next to my wife's arm. Artemis is standing at Annabeth's head, her hands cupped over her mouth, and Apollo is standing across from me with his hands cupped over Annabeth's stomach wound, all sense of playfulness gone.

"Percy, do it now."

~Annabeth's POV~

I sit around Silena's table with her and Beckendorf. There seems to be an abundance of barbeque here and I really love it after years of nothing more than a crust of bread and water. As I take another bite of my brisket, I feel my arm becoming heavy, my fork clattering back onto my plate. The arm is soon followed by the rest of my body and it is all I can do to not fall face first into my food. Suddenly the heaviness is added to by pain, and a lot of it, particularly in my stomach, although that pain is fading fast. I cry out, unaccustomed to any feeling, never mind pain.

Silena and Beckendorf look at me, concerned, but I realize what is going on and smile up at them, "I am being called back. I am so glad to have gotten to see you again. I will see you soon!" And with that, I feel myself being dragged back into reality.

Warm hands seem to be touching my arm, face and stomach, I am relieved to find that the blinding pain in my stomach is gone, less thrilled however to feel the aches and sharp pains that cover the rest of my body.

For a moment, I am content to just lay there, eyes closed, loving the feeling of a heart beating in my chest once more. But then I started to hear voices, anxious whispers all around me.

"Should she have woken up by now?"

"I don't know, this is kinda a first for me to you know."

"Oh shut up."

I know those voices, but I cannot place them. The first two are male and the last one is more feminine. Letting the curiosity take hold of me, I struggle to break through the darkness into the world of light which I know is only two eyelids away.

My eyes flicker open, and as soon as they are an eyelash width open, they slam shut and I groan at the pain the light brings to my eyes.

Suddenly there were these… feelings, as though… someone was touching her hand? Gosh, this feeling thing is so inexact, how am I supposed to remember what her hand feels like compared to the rest of her body? But I do think that it is someone touching my hand, and gods does it feel good.

"Annabeth? Honey? Can you hear me? Just squeeze my hand or… something, I need to know." Squeeze his hand, now what muscle would make that work? I feel my fingers clench, but there's nothing in them. Wrong hand? After a moment of concentration there is a gasp and happy laughter as I get the correct sequence of muscles to squeeze his hand. There is a twitch in my lips, is that a smile?

I open my eyes again and this time there is something blocking the bright light from stinging my eyes. A sea of green swirls, like the see, framed by messy black hair that I know from experience will never be tamed.

We beam at each other for a moment and I roll my eyes, "Kiss me you idiot."

WHEW! That took the longest time to write, you have no idea, I would write little bits at a time at first, just kinda using this as a vent for all my troubles. But the last… 2000 words or so came pouring out of me really fast.

SOMETHING THAT DID NOT MAKE IT INTO THIS STORY THAT MAY CLEAR UP A FEW QUESTIONS SO IF YOU ASK I WILL JUST DIRECT YOU BACK HERE SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST READ IT NOW: When Frank died, the gods and everyone else were in a panic, trying to find everyone, and so Frank's soul was wandering around aimlessly for a while until Hermes realized that he had died and went to pick him up, and so he did not know where he was when he died.

In other news… HAVE YOU SEEN THE HOUSE OF HADES COVER? Soooooooooooooooooooooo good, I am so excited for it to come out. (Only a few more months you guys!)

Raven WILL be updated soon for all of my readers who actually put up with my horrible updates, I was using this to procrastinate that (I am actually procrastinating on finals now so you might get raven sooner than you would think, I tend to be quite productive when I don't want to do something else)

Again, if anyone wants to adopt Praying to Mommy, just PM me!

R and R

~toe