[ AN: Again, I am not Rick Riordan. None of these characters are mine :(
Except a few OCs that you'll meet in Chapter 3. But that's later. ]
Chapter 2: The Aftermath
Percy was dead. At least, that was what everyone believed, even though Chaos had suggested otherwise. Hades himself made the announcement that he had felt Percy's soul leave his body, although they searched for his soul all over the Underworld and never found it. But he was gone. Five months of every Olympian searching for him, and nobody could find him. Nobody had a clue whether he was actually dead.
They both praised him and cursed him, as the embodiment of the proverb, "He who fights monsters should look to it that he himself does not become one." They held a funeral for him. They made a tomb for him, and a monument.
The only one not present at any of these occasions was Annabeth. The only one who didn't believe any of it was Annabeth. They called her crazy. Even Thalia and Grover and Rachel and Nico and all her closest friends, though they never said it to her face.
But she was sure he was innocent, and she was sure he wasn't dead, for three reasons.
First, she had seen it with her own eyes. It really wasn't Percy that had killed Artemis. She was sure of it now. That look in his eyes, it reminded Annabeth of Kronos inhabiting Luke's body. But whatever had taken over Percy wasn't Kronos. It had been worse. Colder, more cruel. Evil.
Second reason: Percy hadn't died, he had disappeared. They never found the body or the soul. Besides, he had a habit of dodging certain death.
Third, and most importantly, he had promised. And Percy never, ever broke his promises.
Always together, Wise Girl.
Annabeth didn't protest when they granted her immortality, along with the rest of the Seven. She had one extra request, on Percy's behalf: to expand the reforms that he had begun and to grant partial immortality to the old campers from the Titan War.
Strangely, on the very day she made that request, a new constellation appeared in the sky. Though nobody had seen it before, they all somehow recognized the shape. It was a man holding a sword. It seemed as if the universe was on Percy's side. Annabeth sent a silent prayer of thanks to Chaos.
The Olympians agreed without much protest. What Annabeth suggested was, after all, what Percy would have asked. The old benevolent Titans, like Calypso, were truly freed. Demigod kids were claimed upon arrival to either Camp, and both camps were kept safe and stable by the small groups of immortal veteran demigods. A lasting peace was established throughout the Western world.
With Annabeth's tireless work, peace was also established between the Greeks and the Romans. Rome's political system was reformed, put under the supervision of two immortal Consuls—the gods chose Jason and Reyna. Camp Half-blood was expanded, and under Annabeth's guidance and planning, grew into a city as big as New Rome.
It was everything Percy had once dreamed of. A place for demigods to live and love in peace, safe from the bloody, cruel lives that their predecessors had led. A home. Aristos, they called it, the city of the best.
Annabeth became a sort of legend in both the Greek and Roman worlds. The Olympians even offered her godhood, as a minor god of intelligence. But she refused. The only reason she had accepted immortality in the first place was so that she could wait for him, until the end of time if necessary.
For many, many years, nothing would ever be the same. Not without him.