I lowered my spear when I saw Annabeth standing outside the door. "Can I come in?" she asked, with the same child-like voice as before. Seriously, what was up with that? And this time, I couldn't blame it on the pressure. Of course, this could still be a trick, maybe a monster shrouded in mist, but I decided to take that risk. I defeated the dam lord of time. I'd be able to handle a seven year old version of my girlfriend "Sure, come in" Annabeth ran towards me and jumped on my bed. She didn't just sound like a small child, she also acted like one. I had no idea why she did this, but I decided to roll with it, because why wouldn't I? I had seen stranger things.
"Percy, I'm scared" She told me "It's okay Annie. Just tell me what happened. If you want to" Usually, calling Annabeth 'Annie' would have resulted in at least a few bruises, but right now I thought it would fit her better than her normal, "big" name, and she seemed to like it too. Now that was weird. But maybe she was just too scraped to protest, but I honestly have no idea how the mind of a seven year old is wired. Annabeth told me about monsters attacking her, some of which I recognized as things that had happened in Tartarus, but there were also things from our other quests and things I didn't recognize at all. As she talked, she seemed less and less scared, but maybe she just got too tired to be scared. She also told me about the time when she had been searching for me. "And then, the scorpion stabbed me. Here" she pointed at her back, about the same spot where Ethan had stabbed her last summer. "I thought I would die. I had to protect the other three" She started crying, and I pulled her into a hug. By now, all worries of this being a trap were gone.
After I held her for a while, Annabeth continued talking. She told me about the spiders attacking her, how she had had to run away from home. "And I ran. Ran away. I knew that Percy was safe, Percy would be there for me, so I went here." I assumed that her trauma memories from when she ran away at seven years old were somehow mixing with her memories from a few minutes ago. It was good to hear that the first safe place Annabeth could think of, even as this 7 year old version of herself, was my cabin. I bet not many couples could make such a claim.
Annabeth let out a yawn, which just sounded so dam cute. A Small part of me wanted her to stay like this forever. "Can I sleep here?" she asked. "I don't want to go back" I saw no reason why she couldn't. And even if there was one, I just couldn't say no to her right now "yeah, sure. Do you want to take one of the empty beds or-" "I'll stay here, feels safer" she said and I could tell that she did feel safer with me, given that she was way calmer and less scared than when she had come into my cabin. We quickly fell asleep and I only woke up for a moment at around 2 AM to inform Annabeth that waffles were just pancakes with abs.
Well, that was the chapter. Tell me, was it surprising? And why do you think Annabeth behaved like that. Did the Stolls tell her to prank Percy? I doubt they could come up with something this strange. Tell my your theories in the comments.