Annabeth

They had left her alone. After everything had happened, they helped her get to her room and then left. She sat down on her bed. It was soft, cushioning, comforting. She didn't deserve it. She stood up quickly. An hour ago, she hadn't been able to walk without help, now it no longer mattered. She would take one hundred more broken ankles go redue the last hour of her life. She started to walk out of the room when she caught a glimpse of her appearance. She startled herself. Gaunt cheeks, pale skin, and tear tracks down her face. But she wasn't crying anymore. Everything had just become numb. There was no emotion left in her now. She grabbed her sword and reached for the door knob.

There was something on the desk. She turned towards it. It was a photo of her and Percy sitting on the lake at Camp Half-Blood. He had his arm thrown around her, a big goofy grin plastered on his face. The Annabeth in the photo had a small smirk on her face. The smirk that said "I should be annoyed but I'm in love". Annabeth stared at the photo. The big sun made her hair look like gold. The lake behind them made Percy's eyes look greener. Annabeth should be crying. But there was nothing left in her. She grabbed the photo and left her room.

That's what she was supposed to do. Leave all emotion. She was a leader, she couldn't afford to be weak. She remembered Silena. She remembered the horror in realizing it wasn't Clairsse, and when she saw the acid. She remembered being there as she died. They mourned, but had to get back up and keep fighting. Clarisse, Silena's best friend, had gotten up and slayed the drakon. And when Beckendorph had died, they had mourned, but had to keep looking ahead, focus on the next thing. That's what leaders do. And that's what Annabeth had to learn to do.

No one noticed as Annabeth climbed down the rope ladder. Her sneakers touched the lush green grass. She was on a hillside over looking the ocean. It seemed like a personal attack to have this place be next to the ocean. Another reminder he was gone. Tears burned in her eyes, but she held them back. She had to do this. For him. She walked up the hill, wind blowing fiercely, messing up her already disastrous hair. The sun was sinking in the sky, catching the world on fire. The water reflected the burning sky in its crashing waves.

She knelt on the top of the hill, letting the wind whip her around. She closed her eyes and felt the world. The world. She was actually in the mortal world. After so long in Tartarus, seeing the blood red sky and dark landscape, it was unbelievable to be sitting on grass again. Just that simple thing: grass. It was damp from the waves, or maybe it had even rained. But it wasn't fair. That Annabeth was here and he was there. Maybe already a rotting corpse at the botton of Tartarus.

She sobbed. She couldn't help it. That image... she had to get it out of her head. She stared at the picture in her hands. He would never be there again. Never have his arms around her again. She'd never see his goofy smile again. Tears blurred the picture in her hand. She put it down. Then she dug a hole in the soft earth. She liked to think she was injuring Gaea by doing this, but she knew better. When it was deep enough, she placed the photo in the hole and poured dirt over top of it. After two handfuls, he was mostly covered, but she could still see his eyes. See green, crinkled with his sarcastic, troublemaker smile, she stared at them for a long time. This would be the last time she ever saw them. She dumped the last of the dir over top and sealed the tomb.

She noticed a piece of driftwood laying off to the side. She picked it up and started carving his name into it. It was difficult with a sword, it would have been better with her dagger. The dagger she'd had since she was seven years old, lost like so many other things in her life. Her dyslexia made it hard for her to write and the more upset she got, the worse the letters were. "Prcey Jkacosn" she had written. She gave a sad smile. She thought he would like it better that way. More of a description of who he was.

She laid the driftwood on top of the buried photo. Tears burned in her again. Two minutes she gave her self. Two minutes to completely loose herself. And she did just that. She sobbed over his makeshift grave. He deserved a palace, a white marble tomb, the entire world in attendance, paying their respects. She grabbed the sides of her head, almost pulling out her hair. She sobbed until her chest ached. She was sick. She laid down on the small pile of dirt, her tears watering the ground.

Finally she pulled herself to her feet. She kissed her dirt stained fingers and touched the mound. She slowly walked back towards the Argo II which was hovering nearby. She hardly remembered climbing the latter. She was walking back towards her room when she heard voiced murmuring in the common room.

"I-I guess we j-just have to keep going." Hazel. Her voice was trembling with tears. The door was cracked. Annabeth peered in. All of them were sitting at the table minus Nico. He left with Reyna and Coach Hedge shortly after she arrived. Hazel was sobbing into her hands, Frank had his arm around her, tears cascading off his own. Jason sat pale in the face, hands shaking on the table. Annabeth remembered how he held her back but felt no anger there. Even if he hadn't, there would be no stopping Percy. Leo had some sort of contraption in his hand, one he usually fiddled with, but it laid still in his palm. He just stared at it as if he too were confused as to why he wasn't building. Piper was curled in her chair like a cat. Her eyes reflected the single light hanging in the middle of the table. Annabeth was about to close the door when she saw something.

The map hung on the wall, their route marked up with push pins and yarn. She traced the path with her eyes and then a sudden realization hit her. The route, they were going straight into an ambush. Without thinking she pushed the door open and walked right in.

"A-annabeth. Where did... where did you come from?" Piper sat up and peered at her with alarm in her eyes. Annabeth ignored her and continued her path to the map on the opposite side of the room.

"Annabeth, I..." Jason started but lost his words.

"What're you doing?" Frank stood up.

Annabeth reached over to the map. It was all wrong. She started taking pins off and moving the path.

"Hey, what're you doing?" Jason ran over and tried to put it back. She turned sharply towards him with a look harsher than she meant. He backed off.

"What I'm doing is stopping you from heading straight into an ambush." It was the first time she'd spoken since the doors and even though it had only been two or three hours, her voice sounded strange to her.

"W-what do you mean?" Hazel pushed her hair out of her eyes. Annabeth turned towards them. This was it. This was where she needed to shut off her emotions and be the leaders she had once been.

"Look, when I was in... Tartarus," oh gods why was this already so hard. She cleared the grit from her voice and continued. "I wasn't just going to sit around and hope to get out." She was careful to say I. If she said we she didn't think she could recover.

"I was going to try to figure out as much as I could." Jason took another step back. Not in fear like before, Annabeth realized, but he was giving her the stage. She bit her lip and refused for her eyes to well up.

"You'd be surprised how much information people tend to give when they think you can't use it." She took a shaky breath.

"Like villains monologging." Leo piped up. She gave him a grateful smile. It was much easier to continue when she got lost in the senselessness of the humor.

"Exactly." She started pointing things out on the map. "There is a major cyclops army positioned here and can move to here in a moments notice. They knew this way would be easiest for the Argo II to go through, so they kept it almost impossible to go through. if we go there, we'll die or best case scenario get incredibly injured. In this path is a bunch of sea monsters and we don't have-" She froze. She closed her eyes for a second and pushed all hard thoughts out of her mind. Focus.

"We can't fight them." The words were hard to get out. "The only option is through this passage way through these mountain only inhabited by the typical mountain giants but since they're not specifically on Gaea's side I think we'll be fine. The reason Gaea doesn't think we'll go through is because it's a pretty tight fit. I think it's roughly 25 feet, but I'll need the measurements of the Argo II just to be sure. Leo can she fit?"

"Well the Argo II is about 20 feet across, so in theory, yes." Leo shrugged.

"Okay I'll have to calculate the best possible angle to enter it at just to make sure we're being careful." She realized they were all staring at her with odd looks on their faces.

"What?" She asked and Jason gave her a small smile.

"Welcome back, Annabeth."