HAPPY BLOOD OF OLYMPUS DAY! THIS OFFICIALLY MARKS THE END OF SHIPWEEK! NO TIME FOR MORE, I AM ILLEGALLY POSTING IN ENGLISH CLASS!

DISCLAIMER: I DONT OWN ANYTHING

nothing else makes sense

until you love somebody nothing else makes sense.

-e.e cummings

Annabeth ran her thumb up and down the line of Post-Its sticking out of Chiron's Big Book. The Big Book had been his way of stopping Annabeth from getting herself in trouble when she was new to camp- he used to give it to her and sit her down in a corner, and Annabeth would be engrossed with the millions of myths it contained for hours and hours. It even had some Egyptian ones in it! With this strategy, Annabeth had unknowingly memorised the entirety of the curriculum for the Ancient Mythology class Chiron taught. She could quote pages too! So Chiron had given her the job, and she was now confronted with a hoard of sleepy children of Aphrodite and combative children of Ares that put her teeth on edge just by walking in.

Annabeth sat on the desk and swung her feet, clicking her soles together as she thought.

"Okay," she said taking a deep breath and pulling the book onto her knees. She found the green post-it that Chiron had told her to look out for. "So today's story is-"

A child of Ares booed. His counsellor grabbed his arm and dragged him out.

"Right," Annabeth frowned. "Okay, it's about Hephaestus' birth and…"

"Ewe," a child of Aphrodite said. Silena shushed her.

"You guys are being difficult as if you have a clue what you want to talk about," Annabeth said. And then she realised that they did. So that's the story Annabeth should tell them.

She shut the book.

"Okay, fine," Annabeth said. "This week we're going to talk about love stories."

Half of the class screamed and the other walked out. But they would've walked out anyways. So Annabeth pretended they didn't and raked her brain for a decent love story to tell.

"So the Trojan War," Annabeth said.

Silena Beauregard gasped.

"The greatest love story ever!" She said.

"It's lust," Annabeth said.

"People say that about Romeo and Juliet too," Silena shrugged.

Annabeth scoffed and Silena narrowed her eyes at her.

"I'll have you know that love isn't to be defined by anybody but the people who share it," Silena said. "Nobody even knows why Shakespeare wrote the play, so how should we know what his characters feel other than what he says? How can we know that Helen didn't get saved of a miserable and loveless marriage to spend the next ten years with her true love?"

Annabeth shrugged.

"You're not into love stories, are you?" Mitchell asked. Annabeth shrugged again.

"There's always something wrong with them."

"What's your problem with Helen of Troy and Paris?"

"If something as strong and good as love brings on the death of thousands, both soldiers and civilians, then that's one objective version of good that you've got there," Annabeth said.

"I do," Silena said. "Okay, challenge accepted. Tell me every good love story you know until we find a good one that everyone likes."

"You know what's in that cavern," Percy said. "Does it have to do with spiders?"

"Yes," Annabeth said in a small voice.

"Then how can you even..?" He made himself stop.

Once Annabeth made up her mind, arguing with her wouldn't do any good. He remembered the night three and a half years ago, when they'd saved Nico and Bianca di Angelo in Maine. Annabeth had been captured by the Titan Atlas. For a while, Percy wasn't sure if she was alive or dead. He'd traveled across the country to save her from the Titans. It had been the hardest few days of his life- not just because of the fighting, but because of the worry.

How could he intentionally let her go now, knowing she was heading into something even more dangerous?

Then it dawned on him: the way he felt back then, for a few days, was probably how Annabeth had felt for the six months he had been missing with amnesia.

That made him feel guilty, and a little bit selfish, to be standing here arguing with her. She had to go on this quest. The fate of the world might depend on it. But part of him wanted to say: Forget the world. He didn't want to be without her."

"Medea's always the bad guy," Annabeth said. "But she's cool too. Like, did you know that the reason that she and Jason didn't just rule her kingdom after they got the fleece was because she got disowned? For helping Jason. Her dad didn't want her to, but Medea loved Jason. She didn't see any other choice but to abandon everything she knew."

"That's love," someone said admiringly.

"No it's not," Annabeth said. "Love shouldn't have to make you deny who you are and just screw over your parents. Plus you'll never guess what happened after that."

"Perseus Jackson," Athena said bitterly when the elevator doors opened.

"Lady Athena," he said politely.

"I believe you're lost," she said. "The ocean is that way. So is the playpen for children."

"I believe you're thinking of the wrong guy," Percy said. "I just came here looking for my girlfriend."

He never called Annabeth my girlfriend on account that she was so much more than that, but Athena was a fun goddess to piss off. Yes, Percy realised that that statement came with his safety as a play. But yeah, it was really fun…

Athena's jaw was set. "Is that so?"

"Yeah," Percy said. "Doubt she's in the playpen. Have a good one,

"So Semele was Dionysus' mother?" One of the girls checked.

"By Zeus," Annabeth nodded.

"And what about Hermes? Mina?"

"Maia."

"Who's his dad?"

"Zeus."

"I thought that Athena was Maia?"

"Athena's mom is Metis," Annabeth said. She paused for a second. "Her dad is Zeus."

"Shit, did she die horribly too?"

"Metis is a titaness," Annabeth explained. "She can't die."

They looked at her for a second.

"She got eaten," Annabeth said.

Nodding around the table.

"I don't understand why anyone in the ancient world even wanted to be Zeus' girlfriend anymore," Annabeth said.

"It's easy to get really, really hopeful when you love someone," one of the daughters of Aphrodite said. She winked at her girlfriend across the room.

"So," the big dork said," you knew you liked me from that moment?"

Annabeth smirked. "I hated you at first. You annoyed me. Then I tolerated you for a few years. Then-"

"Okay, fine."

She leaned over and kissed him: a good, proper kiss without anyone watching.

"I missed you Percy," she said the second after.

He looked at her with that look he had when he knew what he wanted to say but couldn't find the right words or couldn't find words that were big enough. She leaned against him.

"Annabeth," he said instead. "In New Rome, demigods can live their whole lives in peace."

"Reyna explained it to me," Annabeth said cooly. "But, Percy, you belong at Camp Half-Blood. That other life-"

"I know," Percy said, which crashed on Annabeth like a wave of reassurance. "But while I was there, I saw so many demigods living without fear: kids going to college, couples getting married and raising families. There's nothing like that at Camp Half-Blood. I kept thinking about you and me… and maybe someday when this war with the giants is over…"

He stopped as if he lost his train of thought, his courage, or both.

"Oh," she said. It came over as a shock. Usually Annabeth made big plans, and Percy just followed or improvised. Even more shocking: usually Percy didn't have plans for the future.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I just… I had to think of that to keep going. To give me hope. Forget I mentioned-"

"No!" Annabeth said.

Annabeth kissed him again. She wanted to tell him never to dare be afraid of saying what he wanted, what he needed, what he thought. Percy was such an open book, and he would be with her even if she couldn't read him like one. It was one of the best things about him, this honesty, this way she could ask him what was wrong and get all the intel she needed to back him up. She wanted to tell him it was a reason he was so easy to love.

"Okay," Annabeth said. "So there was this princess- Psyche. And she had sisters but she was more beautiful. It made people jealous and it made people greedy. Psyche knew and she refused to get married until she found someone who was good enough to look past that. Her parents, who'd already married off her sisters, got worried and they consulted an oracle only to be told not to expect a mortal in-law.

"Anyways, they let Psyche be and the mystery just got thicker and thicker around her. Eventually, people started worshipping Psyche as a love goddess, instead of Aphrodite. So Aphrodite got jealous, of course. And she sent Eros to go use his magic love arrows on Psyche to make her fall in love with the grossest, biggest monster ever. So he snuck into Psyche's room one night but she was so beautiful… he pricked himself with the arrow and fell in love with her. Like, hard.

"Alright so then Eros introduced himself to Psyche and she introduced herself to him and I guess she was a bit creeped out at first, but, you know, they made it work. And she fell in love with him a bit too, and then when he came back the night after she fell completely in love with him. And so Eros came to Psyche over and over again, but it was always in the dark. Always at night. I mean, sure there are stars and moonlight but that's not good enough for anything right? I mean, you can't see in the dark, and Eros didn't want Psyche to see him. So Psyche didn't know that she was falling for the god of love. She just knew she was falling hard.

"Anyways, eventually they got married and moved into a palace with invisible palace together, but even then he remained invisible to her. She was happy, but it's kind of lonely never seeing for yourself how… you know, how much you know someone or mean to them. And Psyche's sisters knew that and they were jealous, so they convinced her to hide a knife under her pillow one night. So while Eros was sleeping next to Psyche, she armed herself and raised a candle. He was the most beautiful person she'd seen, and she knew right away who he was. But wax dripped down from the candle and Eros woke up. He panicked when he saw Psyche and disappeared, taking the beautiful palace and the invisible servants with him..." Annabeth said.

The Aphrodite girls didn't let Annabeth finish, or even get to the part where Psyche and Eros surprisingly did have a happily ever after. The awed. This was the one story that none of them had heard before, but it was Annabeth's favourite.

"So," Silena smiled. "Is this a love story for you, Annabeth?"

She'd made it a game now, to see what Annabeth would call a 'real love story'. Annabeth made a face and the Aphrodite girls all sighed.

"What's wrong with this one?" A boy named Brice asked.

"Well," Annabeth said. "Not much. I mean, it is nice. And it does have a happy ending which is, you know, a plus for a romance story."

"I've yet to see a problem," Drew said.

"Well, he never tells her who he is!" Annabeth said. "Like, how can you love someone who lies to you? Someone that you don't know? Someone that you can't follow through plans and improvisation and all that?"

Annabeth had no time for messing around, she was in freaking Tartarus and Percy was… well… she wouldn't want him to be in this kind of shape in the real world, when things were good and they were with people they trusted, with access to real medical supplies and nectar...

"- My friend is dying. Can you cure him or not?" Annabeth asked stubbornly.

Her voice caught on the word friend. Percy was a lot more than that. Even boyfriend really didn't cover it. They'd been through so much together, at this point Percy was part of her - sometimes a annoying part, sure, but definitely a part she could not live without.

"You know what goddess we never hear about in this class?" Silena said. "Artemis. And she's pretty cool."

"But you guys want to hear love stories," Annabeth said. "Artemis is an eternal virgin."

"Sure, but there had to be one exception. One guy. Or girl. Whatever," Silena said.

Annabeth chewed her lip.

"Orion tried flirting with Artemis once," she said. "He was a hunter-"

"Aww," one of the girls said. "Two hunters together… that's so cute! Think of the bonding!"

"But Artemis didn't want a relationship, she didn't want him!" Annabeth said. "It was a really bad idea, I don't know why he even went for her!"

"Love is blind," someone said whimsically.

"What if it lines up like it did in the Trojan War ... Athena versus Poseidon?" Percy asked nervously. She wanted to point out to him that the Trojan war was the least of the examples he could bring up, but she figured that if she was going to try educating Percy Jackson at some point, the particularities of mythology weren't her priority.
"I don't know. But I just know that I'll be fighting next to you," Annabeth admitted.
"Why?" He frowned.
"Because you're my friend, Seaweed Brain. Any more stupid questions?"

There had never been a debate like this in Annabeth's class.

Was Narcissus a love story?

"Okay, I think if you love someone as much as Narcissus loves himself, you have bigger problems than your upcoming unwitting suicide," Annabeth said.

"I don't know," Silena said chewing on the tip of her pen. "Wouldn't you give your life for someone?"

"Sure," Annabeth said. "But not for… for love. For stuff that lasts, and only that."

"Can't love last?" Silena asked. Annabeth flushed. "And what if everything happens fast and you don't have time to register that you're going to die, you just know that you're going to have to act?"

"That's not a sacrifice," Annabeth said, confused by all the questions. "And anyways, the story of Narcissus applies to love of the self, not love for others. Moving on!"

Silena drifted out of the room and Percy knelt next to Annabeth. He felt her forehead and she immediately wished that she hadn't. It'd throw him off. She knew that she was burning up.
"You're cute when you're worried," she muttered to him to try and change the subject. "Your eyebrows get all scrunched together."
"You are not going to die while I owe you a favor," Percy said fiercely. "Why did you take that knife?"
"You would've done the same for me," Annabeth blurted before she could think otherwise.
Percy nodded a bit, but he still didn't look impressed with her injury. He was shaking a bit.

Annabeth just took his hand.

"Orpheus willingly went to hell for Eurydice," Annabeth explained to the kids. "He loved her so much that he had to get her back, and so he struck a deal with Hades himself…"

"That's impressive," a son of Apollo said.

"That's hot," a daughter of Aphrodite said.

"No, it's romantic," her brother said dreamily.

"Not according to Annabeth it isn't," Silena said propping her chin on her knuckles. "Spill."

"I don't know," Annabeth said. "I'd hate to be the reason someone I loved was endangered."

"But Orpheus did it to himself," Silena said, dumbstruck.

"I know and that's chivalrous and everything, but I'd feel horrible," Annabeth said.

"What if you knew that they'd only done it because they loved you so much, because they knew that you could only go through something together?"

Annabeth frowned. "Yeah and what are the chances of that? Anyways, he played his lyres for Hades and Hades loved it sooo much, that he told Orpheus that he could walk his wife up to the surface, and if he didn't look back at her until they got there, she could live again."

Annabeth's leg felt like it was pulling free of her body. Pain washed everything in red. The force of the Underworld tugged at her like dark gravity. She didn't have the strength to fight. She knew she was too far down to be saved.

"Percy, let me go," she croaked. "You can't pull me up."

His face was white with effort. She could see in his eyes that he knew it was hopeless.

"Never," he said. He looked up at Nico, fifteen feet above. "The other side, Nico! We'll see you there. Understand?"

Nico's eyes widened. "But-"

"Lead them there!" Percy shouted. "Promise me!"

"I- I will."

Below them, the voice laughed in the darkness. Sacrifices. Beautiful sacrifices to wake the goddess.

Percy tightened his grip on Annabeth's wrist. His face was gaunt, scraped and bloody, his hair dusted with cobwebs, but when he locked eyes with her, she thought he had never looked more handsome.

"We're staying together," he promised. "You're not getting away from me. Never again."

Only then did she understand what would happen. A one-way trip. A very hard fall.

"As long as we're together," she said.

She heard Nico and Hazel still screaming for help. She saw the sunlight far, far above- maybe the last sunlight she would ever see.

Then Percy let go of his tiny ledge, and together, holding hands, he and Annabeth fell into the endless darkness.

Annabeth was just supposed to teach Cabin 12, but some of the Aphrodite girls loved hearing Annabeth's stories so much that they came by on their own. Now they were angry that Annabeth was talking about Persephone getting kidnapped instead of love stories.

"You know, love stories in myths don't always have to be just love stories," Annabeth said. "Sometimes the people who fall in love do other stuff."

"Like who?" A girl called Tonie said, throwing it out there like a challenge.

"Ariadne," Annabeth said strengthening her chin. "You know, she saved Theseus' butt when he was facing the minotaur. But why'd she give him the yarn in the first place? Cause she loved him. And after that she helped him escape Thebes and she ran away with him."

"Annabelle," a cold voice said. Annabeth spun around to spot Mr D. "I suggest you tell the rest of that story very quickly or else I'll turn you into an oak like your little friend, to make your new

"Yeah," Annabeth swallowed. "Sometimes people fall in love with people that aren't being rooted for. And sometimes people get hurt when they're just trying to get love."

She chewed on her lip as she looked at the kids in the cabin and her eyes landed on Luke.

"Yeah, sometimes things get messed up," Annabeth said.

"Is that what's wrong with this love story? Annabeth?" Silena said quietly.

"It's what's wrong with all of them," Annabeth said after a while. "Okay, that's enough for today. Go to, like, archery or something. Leave."

Most of the people obliged since, in the few days of summer, everybody was always itching to be outside. Luke stayed behind and he walked up to Annabeth and pushed on her shoulders before she even got to hop off the desk.

"Question," Luke said. "No discussions, no bullshit, no big words- only answers from you. Kapiche?"

"Yeah," Annabeth said.

Luke swallowed.

"Why do you think that love gets messed up?" he asked.

Annabeth shrugged.

"Oh, please. I've known you since you were seven, and even before that, I wasn't dumb," Luke said. "Be honest with me."

Annabeth swallowed.

"The only people I watched fall in love when my cognitive abilities were developed enough to understand it were…"

She shouldn't be telling him this, but she'd already given him enough pieces.

"Me and Thalia?" Luke asked nodding and looking away.

"Don't get mad. I'm only saying the truth."

"Yes I know, Annabeth, I know," Luke sighed. "But… Annabeth, Thalia and I… I don't know if it was love kiddo, we never got real far with all of that."

Annabeth chewed on her lip and looked at Luke with big eyes.

"To me it was," Annabeth said.

"Okay," Luke said. "Well, perception before reality and stuff."

"I'm a child of Athena," Annabeth said. "My life isn't normal and it never will be. I live in a thousand worlds at once and know a thousand places in history and in the world today I'll never be in. My perception is everything."

"Annabeth, you… you're barely twelve, kid."

"I am twelve."

"Whatever, you just turned twelve," Luke said. "You can't… you can't go around saying things like that about love."

"Why? Because I'm not smart enough?" Annabeth asked.

"No, because you didn't even give it a chance," Luke sighed.

"I don't want to," Annabeth said.

"That's the most terrifying thing I've ever heard you say," Luke said.

She stuck her tongue out at him, but he didn't mean it as a joke.

Annabeth chewed on her lip. After the last few days of her life had flashed past her in a flurry of numbness and racing action, she felt everything around her too brightly. She felt the setting sun shining against her skin. She heard the lake gushing. She heard the fire in the torches crackling. She felt splinters from Cabin 3's worn bench digging into her thighs. She felt her t-shirt, sticky against her back. She tasted chocolate cake in her mouth. She felt her heart race and everything in her get stuck in her throat.

He was looking at her and she was looking at him and they both knew what was about to happen and they both knew who was going to have to say it first because who always said things first, here?

And she'd been scared so stiff for the last five days of her life- battle after battle, explosion after explosion, mission after mission- but part of her fear had also been the oh-so-palpable reality of losing him. And how could she ignore that bit? When she stopped being afraid of getting hurt and started being afraid of losing him…

She looped her arms around his neck.

"I will never make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it."