Percy might be dying, and it killed Annabeth. His, his...coma. She could barely think it. The goddamn monsters. Sometimes Annabeth wished they were just regular mortals, with regular parents who had met on the off-chance. But...the hell they went through, literal hell in fact, had only made them stronger. And with the amount of bullshit Percy went through, he was bound to be one of the strongest people the world had ever known. He was definitely the strongest person Annabeth knew. He could wake up. But would he? It was unknown. So Annabeth sat by his side. For days She just sat there. Sometimes she'd work on Olympus, sometimes she'd eat, and very rarely she'd sleep. But most of the time she just sat, sat and talked to him. Stories of what they did, things she had never told him, what was happening in her life. Two weeks after the coma began, Annabeth told him the right thing. It wasn't the first time she had said it, not by a mile, but it was the most emotional. Annabeth was sobbing, clutching Percy's camp necklace. She might have just been so, so broken that it finally sunk through. She told him just how much, and why she loved him. How much she needed him.
"Please, please, please wake up, Percy. I need you more than anything. Damn I need you. If you died...I'd absolutely fall apart. I've never been a weak and pathetic person, I pride myself on that. But you've broken all my walls, and I love you for that. I love you, Seaweed Brain. Absolutely everything about you. I couldn't live without you. So just please, please, come back to me." She kissed him gently. And the most shockingly wonderful thing happened. Percy kissed her back. Barely, but just enough for her to know he was alive.
"Percy...don't ever do that to me again. Gods I was scared. I love you too much, I guess. You almost killed me." And she grabbed his hand.
He squeezed back and whispered so, so quietly, "I love you too, Annabeth."
The rest of their lives started there. Because they knew they'd always face it together.