A/N: So this is just a collection of drabbles that focus mostly on Percy and Annabeth. They're not all related or in any kind of order. I post them as I write them on my tumblr, suchastart. Hope you enjoy!
Mina :)
Prayers
The months that Percy is gone are spent in a kind of disbelieving, frenetic haze. Annabeth searches for him during the day, pouring over maps and books and pages upon pages that lie open on her laptop, waiting for updates, but there's no trace of a tall, ocean-eyed man-boy who can control the seas and talk to horses. She tosses drachma upon drachma into rainbows, speaks to people and creatures that she and Percy have helped on their quests, begs for news—any kind of news, good or bad—but there is nothing. He has vanished. Gone.
She doesn't believe it.
Percy and Grover have an empathy link, one that has grown dull and empty, one that has not been severed, so they know that something odd has happened. It's not surprising; something odd seems to happen to them every so often, something that forces them to save the world, over and over, something that makes them hate their parents a little bit more each time. And though she and Percy don't share any kind of link the way he and Grover do, she's convinced that she'd know. If something terrible had happened to Percy, she would know.
So she looks for him. She takes quests that allow her to go beyond the camp's borders, scours news stories that might have anything to do with demigods or monsters, loiters around the Big House in hopes that a messenger might deliver word of Percy, her stupid Seaweed Brain.
And at night, she sneaks into his cabin, slips under his sheets, and prays.
Her father has his God—singular He—despite knowing of her gods. He has a leather-bound Bible on his bookshelf, pages worn down, given to him by his grandfather. Annabeth isn't sure if it's a belief built from familiarity or something he holds on to in respect and remembrance, but she recalls times that she's seen him before meals or going to bed, head bowed, lips murmuring silent words she couldn't catch. Prayers, words sent up in thanks and appreciation and devotion.
There aren't any prayers that she knows, or gods that she might pray to that would help. She pulls Percy's covers up around her shoulders and rests her head on his pillow—his pillow, that smells more of her than it does him, now—and thinks of her mother, too wise, too knowing, too detached from the whipping fever of human emotion. Has her mother ever known the heartache of missing someone lost? Has she ever wished with all of her being to just have one person, one thing, with her again?
Annabeth doesn't cry. She closes her eyes and breathes deep the smell of sea water and worn wood and fraying, tested rope and thinks of him. She is going to find him. She just needs a little help. A clue, a hint, something that might guide her towards the right path. Something out in the world knows where Percy is—please, she thinks, wishes, please, help me bring him back.