A/N: Another chapter, as per request :)
(Fluff fluff fluff everywhere P: )
I do not own PJO/HOO.
"Are you okay?" she had asked him once, softly, as if any noise may startle him and set him into a frantic run. Perhaps it would have, at the time.
He hadn't answered then (not because he hadn't bothered to, no) but because he had had no answers. He still hasn't, but he knows for a fact that he is better. That they are better.
As they sat, bodies hunching with wear but hands latched together fiercely, the first rays of sunlight began blooming across the horizon, dyeing everything of a dreamy hue of the softest of yellows, and it almost seemed too surreal to be true.
He huffed and leaned back on Thalia's pine tree, and against her hair of gold he murmured, "Everything seems so frail now. It's almost as if the world was being born again, right in front of our eyes."
Annabeth chuckled, as if laughing at Percy's childish wonder, but then said, "I know. I feel like everything will fade away when morning comes. That's why I like mornings the most: It's like starting anew." She paused to look at the colorful bruises that adorned her pale, almost translucent skin. She sighed and opened her mouth to say more.
But instead of talking, she closed her mouth and just looked meaningfully at Percy, and he understood.
"A new beginning, huh?" He smiled, and his green eyes crinkled in amusement. "I could definitely use one."
Swaying with sleep, Annabeth slumped against Percy and nodded against his neck, too exhausted for words. Her mouth released a sigh that grazed his skin as she closed her eyes.
Their first sunrise since they fell into Tartarus.
The sun was just beginning to deliver color to the strawberry fields, and for his weary eyes the colors almost seemed aggressively intense, nearly exaggeratedly so. But he couldn't tear his gaze away from the scene that unfurled in front of him.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Annabeth murmured, making Percy jump slightly. He had thought she was asleep.
"What is?" Percy asked, because there were just too many beautiful things present in his life on that very second.
"Life," was her simple reply. She opened her eyes and peeked at him from under her lashes. "Everything." She resisted the pull of sleep once again and instead looked at the rise of a new day (of a new beginning), her eyes following the trail the sun left in its wake.
"It's breathtaking," he agreed, but he was not looking at the sky. He was looking at her.
Annabeth smiled softly and kissed his lips once, twice, thrice. Percy thought she tasted like the summers at Camp. She tasted like home.
"And it will continue to be so...," Percy murmured, now he, too, closing his eyes, warmth enveloping him and assuring he was safe at last. That they were safe at last.
"... for as long as we're together," Annabeth promised.
Forever and always.
