Author's Note: I wrote this like, thirty minutes. I tried to make it better but I didn't know where to adjust things, so I'll just leave it like this. I really hope you guys like it. I got my Lukabeth feels after the Demigod Diaries so... Yeah. Review if you like it!
He betrayed her. He betrayed them all. He left her there to handle the weight of the sky all alone. He almost killed her. How could she forgive him?
Wrong question.
The right question is: How did she forgive him?
She felt like everyone hated her. She heard voices in her head, whispering, telling her things. 'Weak,' they said, 'stupid, how are you daughter of Athena? It must be a mistake'.
She cries to sleep every night for a whole year, not because of their words (because "Sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never get you", her father used to say when she was a child), but because she missed him. He was not only her friend; he was her best friend, her brother, her father, her… She loved him.
A year passes and her heart still aches. He's not there anymore, she can't hit him, and she can't kill him again. She just wants to know… She wants him to tell her there was nothing she could've done, that it was all out of her hands. And it has to be him, because if it's someone else (it happened), she won't believe.
She wants him back. He balanced everything; she just wanted her family back. Annabeth, Thalia, Luke. Like the three musketeers, fighting for each other. Thalia won't even talk to her like they used to; she's a huntress of Artemis, she doesn't have the time. (Annabeth suspects that even if Thalia had the time, she wouldn't).
She feels so alone. It's different from before, when Thalia died and her friendship with him wasn't the same anymore, but they still talked. He still gave her advice, he was still there when she needed; it was his arms that embraced her when she had no one to turn to. He was the one who kissed her tears away.
She knows she loves Percy and she knows he loves her back. But she loves Luke too. Their love was something they couldn't talk about; now more than ever. She was too young, or he was too old for her. Seven years apart.
Now, to add to the 'Why they shouldn't be together' list, there's also death.
Maybe she should move on, 'cause that's what smart, strong people do. Maybe she should wait for him, but that would be dumb, so she doesn't.
After a couple months, she puts herself together. Because that's what Luke would like her to do. That's what Percy wants her to do, and that's what she thinks she wants to do.
So she makes herself stronger than she ever was. She promises herself she won't break again. Unbroken, she says. She's unbroken. Maybe she'll trust life again and maybe, just maybe, she won't be scared of falling in love again.
(Sometimes she feels like he's there, watching her, checking on her. Thinking about it, it seems crazy. But maybe it's not crazy at all. Maybe he's there. Maybe he'll come to pay a visit someday to make sure she's ok.)