we really wanted nothing more than to hold each other 'til our arms grew tired: Just mentioning again that there are MASSIVE SPOILERS for Mark of Athena. Please DO NOT read on, if you haven't finished. This is your last warning. (Do come back after you're done, though, yeah?) Okay. So, not gonna lie, what I really wanted to call this fic was "All we do is win, win, win, no matter what, what, what" but it probably wouldn't have fit the tone very well.

Endgame

Then waves came crashing down on me
and they tried to take me out to sea
You fought them off so gallantly and won
-Together by Kina Grannis

Annabeth hated losing.

She couldn't even stand it when she was little. Monopoly? She had to land on Broadway. Crazy Eights? She got really good at swiping the eights from the deck, to the point where nobody wanted to play with her anymore. She would even get competitive in the game of Life (it was the $160,000 house or nothing, as far as she was concerned).

Her family just put up with it, and Luke thought it was funny that she threw tantrums over games of rock-paper-scissors.

Thalia, the only one who would say it straight no matter what, once told her she was sore loser.

Yeah, okay. Whatever, losing was losing, whether you did it gracefully or not. Here was the key to being a sore loser: if you didn't lose, you had nothing to worry about.

And so, Annabeth always counted on winning.

She learned to dominate in Capture the Flag. There were some ugly bumps along the way, but her win-loss ratio was pretty awesome. She could spar like nobody's business. She could even give Luke a run for his money in the arena. She rarely won those matches, so she sort of stopped going up against him. It was a bit of a lost cause, honestly.

Everything was a competition to her, because that's how she could get herself to think her way through it. She kept telling herself that she had to win.

When her first quest came along, she was determined to succeed. It was harder than she thought. That Poseidon newbie kept ruining things because he didn't know what the hell he was doing, but she wasn't about to let him stop her from the ultimate prize. She was going to go home a hero, and that's exactly what she did. So maybe he helped a little.

He helped out some more when she got herself into the sky-holding mess. Hey, no mortal, not even a pretty powerful one, could keep the whole world on her shoulders forever.

Later, she had to convince Luke to come back to the right side. It was her task. It felt like a punch in the gut to watch him walk away from her in San Francisco after he told her he was going to give his body up to Kronos. For the first time, it felt like she had lost, and she had lost big. That was the worst feeling in the world, worse than running away from home. Worse than Thalia turning into a tree. So terrible, she couldn't tell Percy about it, even though she wanted to. That was a secret she had to keep. Because how she could she tell him that at the very moment when she might've prevented the whole war, she failed? She was the one with the key to Luke's past. She could have redeemed him. But she didn't.

People died in the war. Every time she saw a body fall, she kept thinking, I could have stopped that.

That's what happens when you lose. And that's why she couldn't let it happen.

When Percy disappeared because Hera took him away, Annabeth felt like laying in bed forever. She would've, except she was sure as fuck not going to let some stupid cow-goddess get the best of her, and that's what got her up in the morning after the worst day of her life. She wasn't going to let Percy go without a fight. She was going to get him back. She had to get him back. And so, even when everyone told her Percy was probably dead, or he didn't remember her, or maybe worst of all, he didn't want to come back, she kept searching. She kept going, because losing Percy would be the biggest loss of all, and one that she couldn't afford.

When she found him, it didn't feel like winning the lottery.

It felt better.

But she should have known that nothing keeps when you're a demigod. At some point, you end up in a situation that's truly hopeless, that cannot be avoided and cannot be beaten. She defeats Arachne, she saves the statue — oh yes, Annabeth has done everything that could be expected of a hero, but still, she can't have everything. Because that's not how it works. Because demigods win, and they keep winning. They can play the game, but the end comes when they lose, and eventually, everything comes to an end.

Here, at the edge of Tartarus, she has reached the end of the road. Staring into the abyss, she knows she is finally facing the thing she can't overcome. Even Percy, with his superhuman strength, will not be able to hold onto her for much longer.

Death is something everybody has to go through, and demigods usually sooner than others. She isn't afraid of dying, though. She's afraid of dying alone.

Her ankle hurts. She can hear Arachne down below, laughing at her, waiting for her to fall.

"Percy," she says, "let me go."

How silly she was to think she could keep him, to think that fighting one war was all it would take. She thought that was final battle, but she was wrong.

This is where her story ends.

Percy looks at her. He's done it a million times between the first time on Half-Blood Hill and now, but it's never been as sure or unafraid. Before he opens his mouth, she already knows what's going to happen. She should tell him not to. She should wrench her hand from his. But she doesn't fight it, doesn't say anything, actually. If there's anyone who's more stubborn than she is, it's him.

And in that moment, she's glad. Because if this is the end, she can think of worse ones. Somewhere between being six years old and stealing eights from the deck of cards and today, Percy's hand clasped firmly in her own, her definition of satisfaction changed. The gods, the titans, Gaea, and pretty much the entire damn universe have conspired to ruin their lives, but for once, there's a silver lining. For once, she thinks, she's proved them all wrong about how strong demigods can be. The littlest, most insignificant thing, maybe, to her enemies, but to her, it means the world.

Being together, instead of being apart.

Because when she starts the endless fall into Tartarus with Percy by her side, it doesn't feel like losing at all.

This is what it feels like to win.

author's note: Just kill me, RR. Seriously, just harvest my tears and go waterboard someone with them.