Disclaimer: Percy Jackson & The Olympians belongs to Rick Riordan. Title belonds to the song 'Love Like Woe' by The Ready Set.
Love is a tricky concept for her.
.
Her father tells her he loves her yet he doesn't always seem to enjoy her presence.
Her step-mother says she loves her but Annabeth doesn't take much stock in her step-mother Linda's (she's never liked that name) words.
One day, she asks her father why he loves her. He looks taken aback for a moment but then he answers that he loves her because she's his daughter and she's perfect. She pretends to accept this for an answer but on the inside, she isn't satisfied. It's too simple of answer.
That response made no sense! Surely, there must be reasons or some sort of formula to explain why you love someone. Even at age seven, she knows that everything in life has an explanation and if it can't be explained, then it isn't worth thinking about.
So she decides she'll ask him again and again until she gets a satisfying answer. She wakes up earlier than usual the next morning and sneaks over to where her father's office is. The door is slightly ajar. She can hear her father and step-mother's voices drifting over to her spot a few inches away from the door.
"So there isn't anything you can do about the monsters?" her step-mom (she refuses to think her name) says. She sounds exasperated and irritated. Annabeth feels a sting of annoyance.
"No. All we can do is live with it." her father answers. His tone of voice suggests that he's had this conversation before. Annabeth's irritation increases.
"Surely there must be something we can do, Frederick. Anything!" her step-mom insists. Annabeth doesn't enjoy being talked about like a plague. She pauses to analyze the situation. Obviously, her father must not love her if he allows his 'perfect' daughter to be talked about in such a way. She weighs her options. She could confront him about it but he'd only lie to her again. So she settles on another plan. It's not the best plan and it makes her heart hurt a little (what a silly notion, she thinks) but she executes it anyways the following day.
She runs away- doesn't look back.
(Well, maybe she risks one little glance back.)
.
She doesn't know what to think of the blonde teenage boy who just handed her a dagger of all things or of his stormy-eyed companion who looks like she belongs at a concert for one of those rock bands her father detests.
They take her in. They steal her an outfit from a clothes-line in someone's front yard to replace her tattered and torn clothes. The jeans are a little short on her and she's never cared for the sea-green shade that is her shirt but she appreciates it.
These teenagers that took her in (Thalia Grace and Luke Castellan), they're not exactly law-abiding. They shoplift necessities from convenience stores and they don't even flinch when it comes to beating up a couple of nosy mortal thugs (gang members pale in comparison to the monsters they've seen).
But they care about her. They always make sure she has a blanket and they're constantly asking her if she's hungry. They give her their undivided attention. They never get annoyed when she starts spewing random facts, mainly about architecture. They smile and nod and give her encouraging pats on the back.
She feels better with them than she ever did with her dad and stupid Linda. She feels a pang of guilt at leaving them alone but then she remembers that Linda's pregnant with twins and soon enough, they'll forget about her. But it doesn't bother her. No, not all. Why would it?
One night, as they settle down to fall asleep on the outskirts of a section of suburbs in New Jersey, she asks Thalia and Luke why they've kept her all this time. It's obvious to her that she's somewhat of a burden to them, that she holds them back.
"Because we're a family." Luke replies without missing a beat. Annabeth smiles. She really likes Luke.
"Don't worry, kiddo. You're stuck with us for a long time." Thalia says as she ruffles Annabeth's messy curls. Annabeth smiles. She lies down on the forest floor and Thalia lies down next to her. She feels safe and happy.
"I love you guys." she mumbles.
"We love you, too." she hears somebody whisper right before she falls asleep.
She still doesn't know what those words mean.
.
She doesn't like love.
She makes this decision as a centaur named Chiron leads her to a cabin full of kids with blonde hair and gray eyes just like her.
Love caused Thalia to risk her life and be turned into a pine tree. (It made Thalia leave her and now she and Luke are crying.)
Chiron comforts her. He says Thalia's actions were out of love.
If love causes all this heartbreak and tears, she doesn't want to know what it is.
.
(Fast-forward five years.)
.
She can't help but fall in love with Luke.
She still isn't sure of what love is (she won't that admit though). She just knows it makes fools out of people and it has the potential to make them happy. But it has a darker side; it causes people to do horrible things and it breaks them thus leaving behind scars that never quite fade.
All she knows is that maybe love is comprised of those butterflies in her stomach whenever Luke smiles at her or the surge of joy when he looks at her architectural blueprints and tells her they're great, that she'll be an amazing architect one day.
But she hears the daughters of Aphrodite (she's never really cared for them; they're a bunch of silly lovesick girls) talking about love and it doesn't sound like butterflies or joy, it sounds like something more intense, something inexplicable, very unlike what she feels for Luke.
It frustrates her to no end that she can't find the answer to what love really is no matter how many encyclopedias she checks or romance movies (ugh) she reluctantly watchees with Silena (who is the only 'okay' daughter of Aphrodite.)
It frustrates her even more that she can't help but question whether or not she actually is in love with Luke.
.
She hates Percy Jackson.
She does, she really does.
He's annoying, he's a Seaweed Brain, and his father's Poseidon so she's supposed to hate him. It's only logical.
But then they go on that quest together. He shows himself to be a loyal friend, someone who really loves (there's that word again) his mother, and he's funny. Kind of. (And she'll never admit it but she quite likes his smile.)
And so she becomes his friend. She's happy. She has Luke and Percy.
But then Luke turns out to be a traitor and it's like Thalia turning into a pine tree all over again.
So now, she hates Luke Castellan instead.
She does, she really-
(-she doesn't know, actually.)
.
She decides to go back home and give her father another chance.
She doesn't regret it.
She feels welcome now.
She actually likes it there.
She finds herself laughing at her new little brothers.
But she ends up running away again. The reason being that she has to help Seaweed Brain.
(She tries not to think about the her motives too often.)
.
Percy saves her from the sirens.
Luke is the vision that drew her to them.
.
Percy is the one who holds up the sky for her.
Luke is the one who trapped her there.
.
Percy is the one she almost loses.
Luke is the one she does lose.
.
She doesn't know whether she loves Percy or Luke or even what this 'love' thing is anyways.
She just doesn't seem to know anything important anymore, okay?
.
She's jealous of Rachel.
Rachel's so free and artsy and she seems to fall headfirst in love with Percy without any thought.
Meanwhile, she's trapped in a prison built out of logic and reason and she's mathematical and she can't let herself fall because she can't even figure out what means.
(Maybe, she does know what it means and she's too scared to find out. And maybe, she is falling but she's too afraid to admit it.)
.
She tries to tell herself it isn't love. At least, not romantic love. (The love she can't figure out.)
She says it's love for a friend. (The type she can kinda understand.)
She tries to convince herself she doesn't love Percy any differently than Thalia or Grover or even Luke.
(But then again, she's never been good at lying to herself.)
.
She distances herself from Percy over the school year.
She figures it's better to fall with a parachute.
.
She hates that Percy spends time with Rachel. They go to art museums together and the beach and everywhere without as she sits at home.
She's still trying to figure out love. (That love.)
She wishes that there was a formula for her to analyze, an encyclopedia entry that would satisfy her, a theorem or postulate for her to use as a reference point, anything.
But her life has never been that simple.
.
The war ends.
Percy survives.
(And because he survives, so does she.)
.
She kisses him.
He kisses her back.
They're thrown in a lake.
She kisses him again.
(And it all goes back to that 'love' thing.)
.
Nine months later, he says that he loves her. He blushes.
She says it back. She means it.
(And now she's kind of starting to get what those four letters mean.)
.
The night after high-school graduation, Sally invites her over for dinner. It's spaghetti dyed blue (Annabeth swears that Sally can dye anything blue so long as she has a bottle of blue food coloring) and meatballs dyed a darker shade of blue and Percy of course loves (that word pops up everywhere) it.
She notices how goofy and silly Sally and Paul's conversations get. She makes him laugh, he makes her laugh harder. They seem to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. They're genuinely happy.
She thinks that maybe love isn't so bad after all if it leads to that kind of happy ending.
.
A few years later, she wakes up to harsh sunlight streaming in through an open window. She yawns and shuffles out into the kitchen of her apartment that she lives in with Percy.
She enters the kitchen and Percy seems to be on his third cup of coffee. (He needs extreme amounts of caffeine to make through the day without collapsing in the middle of class.)
She pours herself a cup and sits down across from him. He smiles at her. She returns the gesture.
A blissful silence.
They reluctantly get up and prepare for their classes.
They head out the door together, textbooks in tow and Ananbeth thinks that this is definitely one of the components of that whole 'love' thing.
.
She has an epiphany a few days later.
Over the years, she's slowly been figuring out what love is. But she's only gotten bits and pieces. Or so she thought.
She realizes that the answer has been staring her in the face all this time. She can't believe she didn't realize it sooner.
Love is, quite simply, however she feels whenever she's with the green-eyed hero with messy black hair who has kelp permanently lodged in his skull.
.
Percy asks her later why she's been smiling all day as they're sitting on a couch, making fun of a movie based on Greek mythology. (Poseidon with reddish hair, Athena with a British accent; what were they thinking?)
"Love," she answers. Percy's eyebrows knit together in confusion.
"Love?" he asks as he slings an arm around her shoulder. It's clear in his tone of voice that he's perplexed. She chuckles.
"Yeah. It's that simple."
(A/N) Don't ask me what this was because I'm not sure. I don't even know how I feel about this. Ugh. I like it then I don't like it then I like it and then I don't like it and bleh. Constructive criticism much appreciated.