I'm so sorry for the delay! I'll try to make it up to you guys! In the meantime, why don't you scroll down and read it? Even if it's a little too short, well, at least there is something in this that will really make you regret asking for updates. :)

Just joking; haven't been online for a while. Enjoy! (I do hope that the effort to type 2887 words would be appreciated, and I hope that this is worth the wait!

Percy tried to get up, but Annabeth forced him down, and instead of him she yelled:

"What do you want now?"

Oh, he thought; that was an obvious question that had an obvious answer. It was possible that Gaea had meant for them to fall into Tartarus so she could get what she wanted. She was one big, selfish, and very evil mother who liked killing. Percy felt rather glad about the fact that he was human, then realized he was still related to Dirt Face, if supernatural beings did have DNAs, that is.

But there was no answer from the Earth Mother. Annabeth yelled in frustration. But, as she picked up a rock and prepared to smash it and break it on the ground, a voice spoke, hauntingly like a human's and weirdly like a monster's, an unnaturally clever monster designed to fool humans, to them.

"Where is Percy Jackson?"

He couldn't believe his eyes. This was Gaea's answer.

"Percy Jackson?" he said, trying hard not to look guilty. "Oh, no, he's not here. Though you might want to try your luck over there; I've heard he likes the smell of burgers. I forgot; you and your cronies – sorry, your army – don't know what burgers are. You might want to try blueberry-scented perfume, though, 'cause I've heard from his friends that he loves blueberry. Not that," he amended, "I know him. I don't know him at all."

"You don't know him at all?" asked the monster haltingly, as if English was the third language it had learned.

"Not at all," replied Percy firmly. "Now, if you could excuse us…."

"Where is Percy Jackson?" the monster persisted. Behind him, Percy could see his army getting restless. He didn't want any part of his body getting near those sharp and wicked-looking spears in those monsters' hands, and he certainly didn't want Annabeth to get hurt by them, too.

"Over there! He's there; it's him; he's getting out with his, uh, poodle!" Percy shouted, pointing at the opposite direction with his quite-difficult-to-lift hand. He was getting really tired, and he swayed a little as he stood, but neither Annabeth nor the monsters noticed – Annabeth was too focused on trying to think of a way to get themselves out of this mess, and the monster was trying to think of what on earth – sorry, Tartarus – a poodle was. Whatever special abilities Gaea had given this monster; common sense partnered with cleverness clearly wasn't one of them.

"Run," he whispered as Annabeth looked at him, her gray eyes nearly black with worry. "Run when I tell you."

"I'm not leaving you," she said shakily. "Never again."

"Don't worry; I'm coming with you. Just wait and see," he muttered under his breath. Turning to face the leader of the army, he saw, out of the corner of his eyes, Annabeth nod twice and then resume her relentless staring at the ground.

"So hey, mind if we leave now?" asked Percy. Annabeth kicked him. "Shh," she hissed. "We were supposed to leave quietly!"

The leader of the army looked at them.

"And what do you mean by that? No Percy Jackson has appeared, which means that either you are lying because you want to or because you simply are…him."

Percy regretted thinking badly of the stupid monster.

"No, hey, look!" he said, trying to sound convincing. And it worked; the monsters all turned towards the place he was pointing at. And Percy pulled Annabeth and began to run, none too slow and quiet, and as they ran like the wind he heard what sounded like a, "AFTER THEM!" battle cry and thunderous footsteps behind them.

Percy's legs felt like they were made of lead. He stumbled, and caught himself just in time to prevent himself from landing facedown towards the ground.

"Quick!" Annabeth moaned. "Just a little bit further, Percy, a little bit farther, please!"

He stumbled again, this time very nearly landing on his face, but luckily Annabeth gripped his hand very tightly and yanked him towards her, and he struggled to breath. His head was beginning to ache. He needed more oxygen. Fast.

"In here! Go!" Annabeth yelled.

He heard her struggles with the rocks near the entrance to the dark and damp cave they were in. Struggling to get up to his feet, he staggered towards her and pushed the rocks, which immediately began to fall backwards and cover the entrance. He sank to his knees in agony as a rock hit him, hard, on the shoulder.

"Percy!" It was Annabeth. Her hand clasped tightly on his dislocated shoulder, and he yelled with pain. "Sorry!" she whispered, "but we have to get out of here! We'll be trapped and be dead and Gaea's not going to relent; she's going to try to kill us! Come on, Percy!"

"Just – just leave me here," he mumbled desperately; his shoulder was on fire. "I can hold them off. You can go and save the world; I'll hold them off for you! Just get out of here and save yourself!"

"Never! Remember what you said at the beginning – I'm not getting away from you!" Never!"

He didn't get to reply to her, though, because at that moment the monster army arrived, effectively making both of them reflexively turn.

"So," said a green monster whom Percy had no trouble locating, even among the swarm of sickly-green colored monsters, "we've heard you're Percy Jackson. Congratulations; you're about to be killed by the best monster army the world has ever seen."

"Yeah, I've heard," he answered them. "Only I don't think so." And when they looked at each other in puzzlement – maybe Gaea hadn't created them with fine and inquisitive minds simply because she didn't think it would matter or she forgot – Percy raised his hands, ignoring his protesting and screaming shoulder, and Riptide appeared in them; it was a huge surprise, because he'd thought that he'd lost it, but then he hurled it towards the monsters and, hands up, yelled, with all his might, for water to appear. Suddenly the cave was shaking; the rocks on the ceiling were beginning to land on the enemies' heads, and the ground was splitting into half. He could feel his hands shaking, but in a huge effort to control the water he willed himself to calm down and stop his hands from shaking, or the water would, too. Annabeth was nowhere to be seen. If she was fighting; if she was busy; if she was….No. Percy refused to think of it. She was going to appear any second from now. He just had to wait.

Among the chaos, he spotted something that seemed like blond hair to him and instinctively he made to run towards it, but something hit him so hard in the chest and the face that he keeled over, and for one horrible moment he thought the stickiness on his face was some sort of poison from a monster. Then he realized it was just blood. Good.

He stood up shakily, and realized that with his momentary collapse, his control over the water had ceased. The water was now sinking underneath the surface, and Annabeth was either at his side or fighting the monsters now; they were doomed. Unless…

Some monsters were falling into the abyss that was separating most of the army from Percy and Annabeth. He was just turning to look for her when another rock smacked him on the chest again so hard that he was winded, and by the feel of his ribs and breastbone, badly wounded. Still, he took some time to look for Annabeth and spotted her fighting a monster which Percy knew by sight and name; the hippalectryon; a half-horse, half-rooster monster which nonetheless looked dangerous despite its yellow feathers that looked almost like lumpy gold, at the other side. The other side…

Percy whirled around, but his attacker wasn't done yet. A one-eyed creature looked at him, with the brutal face of a villain but the stupidity of a monster. It raised its hands, which went towards Percy so fast that he had barely enough time to duck his head and avoid them. The creature's fists banged the air above him, and using one of his legs, Percy kicked out, tripping it. The good thing was that the monster was knocked out. Maybe it wasn't created to withstand so much. But the bad news was that it chose to land on his leg, causing the bones to break, with an excruciatingly painful sound, which he suspected later came from him. Another agonized sound escaped from his mouth, but he tried to clamp it shut and crawl towards the edge of the abyss he made, clenching his fist so tightly and gritting his teeth every moment of it, every time a searing pain shot up from his leg. He raised a hand and knew that, as son of the sea god, he had some control over the winds, but he wasn't sure if that would enable him to fly, but he had to try. To save Annabeth. To guarantee their safety. To kill the monsters.

He closed his eyes tightly and tried to imagine flying like there was no gravity on Earth, weightless and free. And then he felt himself move and every ounce of concentration he had turned to the direction of the winds, except maybe for those who still cried out for Annabeth.

With a THUMP! and another dose of pain from his leg, he opened his eyes, and found himself on the other side of the abyss. He crawled towards the place where his sword lay, abandoned and thrown into the enemy's face earlier by him. His hands were shaking, his face was sticky with blood still seeping out from him, but what else could he do? Better die fighting and protecting Annabeth than die for nothing. Trying to ignore the pain in his leg, Percy crawled as fast as he could towards the monster Annabeth was now trying to face – a Keres. As he fixed his eyes on her he saw the monster inexplicably move back and leave a slice on its companion's shoulder, and he saw the companion attempting to retaliate and slicing the Keres' head off. But the fight wasn't over yet. A Cyclops was creeping up behind Annabeth, fists ready, stupid but triumphant smile set. And he shouted out a warning that reached her just in time to dodge the dagger thrown at her, though in her haste she tripped on some corpses that looked eerily like a human's. Craning his head, he saw, with a mixture of swear words and relief, Annabeth's backpack, sitting on the ground just mere feet from him, which surely must contain something better than what Gaea gave him. With a lot of cursing and straining, his shaking hands found it, and with his fingers opened it and found the flask that must contain nectar. It was nearly gone by now; Percy wasn't sure if it was because of his shaking hands or because of something else.

He drank it until he could feel his insides boiling and a new sense of energy surging through his veins, quickly replaced by prickly-hot bursts of pain. He remembered dimly about demigods burning when ingesting too much nectar and/or ambrosia. Come to think of it, he thought, maybe he'd ingested more nectar and ambrosia in the past few days than all those years he spent fighting monsters aboveground. His eyes were dry and hot, his face feeling warm and uncomfortably red, and his mouth parched. He felt horrible, but at least he could move his leg a bit.

Lunging towards Annabeth to save her without actually harming her was difficult enough without an injured leg. But he had to try.

With a shock, he saw Annabeth on the ground, her hair a mess of blond and soot mixed and her face white as bone. Then he saw the wound on her side, and he wanted to yell her name, to shake her as he should never do to an injured person, to hold her hand and offer his life for hers, to kill the Fury Alecto, who was shimmering in the air beside her, looking at Annabeth. To kill the monster who wanted to claim Annabeth.

His brain seemed fevered, but rage took possession of him. His sword appeared in his hand. He threw himself forwards and positioned himself beside his fallen girlfriend.

"Anyone come near her; I'll skewer you."

And they did come, his sword dooming some, but suddenly he felt hands touch the sides of his face, heard a very familiar whisper of "Percyyy…" and a wave of coldness and darkness snatched him away, bringing with it the heavy blankets of unconsciousness.

"Percyyy!"

His very head seemed to be filled with water; it hurt so much and seemed to weigh a ton. His mouth felt like a gaping hole. Then he realized, in his groggy state, that his mouth really was open, because he was gasping frantically for breath and his chest burned and felt like a one-legged man was jumping on it. He opened his eyes a fraction and saw nothing. He might have just imagined it. He might have just dreamt it.

Because if there was one thing that would haunt him forever, it was the memory of his girlfriend falling and dying at his feet.

He knew she was dead; that was for sure. In better times Percy would have let a tear or two escape from the darkness and chaos inside him, but now his exhaustion was apparently dominant, because no tear fell and no sobs escaped out of his mouth because he was too tired to. All he could do was lie on the ground and try to banish the feeling of being alone.

"Percy?" This time it was clearer.

Percy reflected, through the heavy blankets of unconsciousness threatening to envelop him, that it would be great to die with the memory of Annabeth's voice calling out for him. He wanted so much to stroke her golden locks, smile at her, and receive a smile in return, feel the warm touch of her body against his as he hugged her, and have their lips touch each other's in a final and sweet kiss, before he died. But he would never get as much as a feeling of warmth when they held hands. Because she was gone.

"Percy, you idiot; it's me!"

Surely he could not imagine her saying that to him. Or maybe he could. He opened his eyes, and realized they were open already, and his eyes met a pair of stunningly attractive and familiar gray eyes.

He barely had time to brace himself before she threw herself onto him, hands wrapping around his body, and if he were standing, he would have toppled over, but as it was, his head hit the ground with a nauseating CONK! He yelled – or tried to; all the breath was knocked out of him and he could not utter even her name.

"You're alive," she murmured into his ear. "You're really, really alive."

Percy inhaled, and air rushed to his grateful lungs. "I seem to be," he admitted, a hoarse whisper escaping his mouth. "Though I wasn't so sure about you."

She smiled, the kind of smile that normally made Percy want to kiss her, but now he held back. "Of course I'm alive," she said. "What made you think I wasn't?"

He gasped for breath again. If Annabeth noticed his breathing predicament, she didn't voice it out. "If you hadn't noticed, you died."

She laughed. "I didn't. It was just the Mist interfering with your ability to distinguish between reality and dreams."

"You mean – you mean I was just dreaming?"

His ribs were feeling uncomfortably bruised now. Some part of him wished that she would get off him, but a major part of him yelled at the former part to shut up.

"Yeah, you were. You needn't have taken the nectar and ambrosia. I could have handled them myself, if only my ankle didn't choose that moment to flare painfully. Oh, I really thought you were dead!" She hugged him even tighter, and he could feel the last remaining (precious) oxygen leave his lungs.

"Annabeth!" he rasped out. "You're killing me!" But the last words came out as a puff of breath.

She smiled at him sweetly. "I'm sorry, Percy; I have to do this," – and then she was hugging him tighter and tighter until he stopped resisting and gave up. Just as he looked at her one last time – for a chance to see an angelic face before he went to the realm of the Lord of the Dead, he saw a blade protrude out of her chest, and the dark blood spilling on to the clothes she wore; a fashionable white dress and corduroy jeans. Her blood splattered him, too. It burned and sizzled his flesh where it touched it. She looked at him one last time – a crumpled, betrayed and hurt look – with large gray eyes. Then she seemed to fall into him, and the pressure and impact pulled him under and he was senseless to the world, but not before he heard a voice as familiar as home whispering.

Percy.