Leo walks into Annabeth's house. He shakes out his umbrella and hangs up his wet coat. He walks into the living room where Annabeth is lying on the couch watching TV.

"Hey you." He sits down next to her and looks at the TV. "African Queen….you thought a movie about repeated near death experiences followed by an attempted execution was a good choice."

"It seemed relevant."

Leo reaches for her hand and pulls quickly away. "Annabeth! Your hand is freezing." He looks at her more carefully. "Your hair is wet…" He pulls at the blanket she is wrapped in. "Sunshine, you're soaked. What the hell…"

"It's the thunder, I think."

"The what?"

"The thunder. I think my body is reacting to the thunder. This happens sometimes. I just have to let it pass."

Leo kneels down in front of the couch. "Annabeth, we have to get you warm."

"When the storm passes, Leo. It's the noise."

"It's torrential out. It's not going to stop. Come on. Let me help you." He starts to peel the blanket back.

"Leo! Stop. Just leave it."

"Sunshine, seriously, you are really cold. Just let me help you into a warm shower, okay?"

Annabeth sits up. Her hair is plastered to the back of her neck. Her legs are shaky as she tries to stand. She sits back down. "Just give me a minute."

Still kneeling in front of her, Leo puts his forehead against hers. "Why didn't you tell me this was happening?"

"Why didn't I tell you that I was sweating like some sort of a farm animal?"

"Annabeth…"

"Because this is not how I want to be, Leo. This is not…"

"This isn't weakness, Annabeth. You are human. Your body is reacting to the very real threat that you…"

"I don't want this."

"We promised each other no performances. The whole point was that we didn't need to perform for each other. I have no interest in people who try to impress me."

Annabeth laughs ruefully. "Jesus, Leo. You think this is for you?"

He sits back on his heels.

"This…I'm not performing for you. This is for me. I give into this and…and then what? What the fuck is on the other side of that, Leo?" Her hands are shaking and she puts them beneath her legs. "The other side of that is fear and paralysis and giving up everything I think matters in the world in order to barricade the doors."

She puts her hands on either side of her body and pushes herself to standing. "I'm going to go shower." She walks unsteadily towards the hallway.

Leo sits down on the couch and then gets up and follows Annabeth. He walks into her bedroom as she shuts the door to the bathroom. He stands, looking at the closed door, and then follows her in. He strips out of his clothes and opens the door to the shower.

"Leo!"

"Letting me help you is not the same thing as being helpless." Water beats down on both of them. "You aren't going to spin off into darkness if you admit that what happened was terrifying. I won't let you."

"I don't need you to do this, Leo. I don't want you to be my therapist or my protector."

"That's fine. But let me be your partner. Let me in and we can keep the darkness and the fear away together."

Annabeth looks at him. "I only want you to follow me into the shower because you want me, not because I need you."

"Annabeth, I know a lot of smart, sexy, accomplished women. If I was just looking to laugh and get laid, it wouldn't be that hard."

"I miss both of those things." She turns off the water and steps out of the shower. "I want them back. I want to stop having conversations about my physical and mental health. I just want things to get back to the way they were."

Leo grabs a towel and wraps it around his waist. "This is how relationships work. They don't stay one way forever. They widen, they deepen. I grant you that usually no one has to be shot in order for that to occur, but this is what happens."

Annabeth sits down on the bed. "What if this isn't a deepening but a change? What if we never get back to making each other laugh and tearing each other's clothes off?"

"Annabeth. There is no way that happens."

"Really? Because you haven't touched me in weeks."

"You almost died! Why do we have to act like that did not happen!"

"I am well aware that I was shot!"

"But you refuse to admit that it means something. That it does change things."

"What does it change? Why does it have to change anything? This is exactly what I'm talking about! I don't want to be Annabeth, the poor girl who got shot and who now needs special, tender loving care. I want to be exactly who I was in the seconds before a lunatic with a gun showed up."

"You can't be. And I'm not interested in playing pretend."

"So what, Leo? I can have you or I can have the filament thin line tethering me to sanity and a sense of self?"

"It's not one or the other."

"You want me to embrace the chaos and the fear. You want to ride into the whirlwind with me, my man on a horse. But you can just ride right out of the whirlwind whenever you want. So yes, Leo. It is one or the other. I can have you or I can hold onto who I was and who I must be if I am going to make it through this."

Leo shakes his head and stares at the ground. He picks his clothes up off the floor and starts getting dressed. "I want to be with you. The whole of you. The one who makes me laugh and the one who got shot and now sweats through her goddamn clothes because she almost died. I want all of it. If you only want to give me part of that, then…"

"Then you walk out, Leo? You walk out because I won't collapse for you? I won't curl up in a ball and ask you to save me?"

"This conversation is going nowhere."

"You want something I can't give."

"No. I want something you won't give. There's a big fucking difference."