DISCLAIMER: All the characters belong to Rick Riordan.

The Titan's curse is up next. This chapter adds some angst and indecision to their journey. On Percy part atleast for now. Annabeth doesn't see any obstacles in her way, not yet. Next chapter perhaps.

Watch on how they come to similar conclusions at the end of the day and how they cope with obstacles on their journey. Even I didn't it see it coming until I finished this.


Annabeth is fourteen when her world changes for her.

At fourteen he visits her in her dreams. Sometimes it's the version of him she had seen last. The version that's still shorter than her, his hair a little longer than usual and even messier. His voice wasn't as squeaky as that first summer and his face had a few breakouts that she knew made him feel self-conscious.

She has them too, the breakouts, and while she had never cared about them before, she's starting to. She didn't understand why it mattered to her if Percy saw her like that or not but sometimes she looks at herself in the mirror and wished for another prettier version of herself, with shinier hair and defined curls, perfect skin and smile, a version that would make Percy do a double-take when he looked at her.

Thalia teases her everytime she finds herself before a mirror during her school year. She blushes and snaps at the older girl without any force behind it which makes it hard to accept it as a comeback. Thalia grins in response to leave it at that. They avoid talking about Luke completely, since it makes Thalia explode.

Sometimes the Percy in her dreams was a little bit out of focus. He's taller, definitely taller than her, and muscular, his tan skin shining under the sun. Those dreams filled Annabeth with despair. She know what the prophecy implied, she know that Percy was never going to be able to become the man in her dreams. After all, he's destined to die at sixteen. And she know that just like in her dreams, he would disappear before she reached him.

She feels giddy to dance with him, as awkward as it could get. She asks if he'd ever danced at his school and his expression tells her—no, he doesn't dance, nobody dance with him. She feels little light to know she's his first dance, even though she's painfully aware of the stubbed toes she's going to get later. It's worth it. She decides to mention the hunters invitation to him to see his proper reaction, but before any of that, she finds herself lunging at the manticore aiming at Percy, and plummeting over the cliff with Percy's scream as her last sound.

She doesn't see him just in her dreams, sometimes she's awake, and even though she know it's impossible for him to be there, that he's probably a hallucination her brain made to cope with the incredible pain she was suffering, she could see him as clear as day. She couldn't hear what Percy was saying, he's kneeling in front of her, his brows scrunched in worry. Annabeth yells in pain, the weight of the world is crushing her, the weight of Luke's betrayal is stabbing her heart. Annabeth started to sob, the weight is going to kill her. She is going to die there, alone in a cave with only a hallucination as her company.

"Just a little bit longer," Percy's voice is fading. "I'm gonna find you, I promise."

Next thing she knew she was on the floor, her body aching and her arms felt like they were on fire, behind her Artemis is now holding the world. "Percy," Annabeth sobbed before going unconcious.

But Percy has come for her, she had to blink a few times to make sure he was real, but they were still in danger so she couldn't focus much on him. She sees the stupid seaweed brain charge a Titan in all glory and loses his grip on his sword. She's painfully reminded of Ares' curse on their first quest. Panic claws at her as she struggles against her ropes. The next time she sees him is under the weight of the sky, just like her, struggling just to hold it in place. Tears threatened her as she stumbles towards him only to find her legs tied. She begs Thalia to let Luke redeem on Olympus before she kicks him off the cliff. She tells Percy that Luke's alive to convince herself more than him, only to see him turn away.

It wasn't until hours later in Olympus, after Thalia had joined the hunters (a bitter part of Annabeth told her she was being left behind again) and after Percy's weird outburst to her(a content part that he came for her more than anything) that Annabeth finally had the opportunity to really look at him.

The music in her ears was slow, hopeful, and talked about patience and love. Percy's hand gently rested on her waist and Annabeth could feel her skin burn under her clothes from where his hand was resting. His other hand was interlocked with hers, something that they had done a million times before. But this time it was different, this time there was a feeling in her belly that made her want to giggle and touch his hair. Speaking of his hair, she looked back to the grey streak in his black hair that mirrored hers, she couldn't help but touch it again.

"We match." Percy joked.

She smiled gently at him before moving her hand back to his shoulder. "I guess we do."

It wasn't until later, when after a few songs a minor goddess had asked Percy for a dance and he had half-heartedly accepted, that Annabeth understood what was going on in her heart. She watched him clumsily try to dance with the goddess, but he had a growth spurt that summer, they both had, and she was still a few inches taller than him, and Percy was still getting used to his new longish limbs. While they had danced together Annabeth hadn't noticed his awkwardness at all, part of her hoped it was because they fit together in a way they couldn't with someone else.

But now it was hard to hold back her laughter while seeing him trying to dance without hitting anyone in his proximity, something he wasn't being successful at and was currently being yelled at by a satyr and a nymph. He was a clumsy dork, who loved to say bad jokes and had stepped on her toes more than once. Percy had decided to ignore the satyr and instead he caught her eye, sticking his tongue out at her and rolling his eyes only to be yelled at louder by said satyr.

She's about to walk towards him to rescue him, she couldn't believe how much she loves that stupid idiot.

"Oh," she gasped.

She likes Percy, she loves him in a way she had never loved anyone before, not even Luke. She felt like someone had sucker-punched her and she could see Percy's brows starting to scrunch in that adorable way they did when he was worried about her, but that only made her feel worse. She's falling for her best friend, the one who's destined to die on his sixteenth birthday. The fates truly loved to laugh at her.

Try as they might, she's not going to give up on him as long as she stands next to him. Since Percy didn't believe she died for a fraction of second, she's going to make sure he survives too.


Percy is fourteen when he gets a vague idea of just how much Annabeth means to him.

He hopes to see her often since they're near to each other, but IM's are all he gets because of their schedules. He gets super excited to finally meet her in a rescue operation. He sees her atlast in five months, five freaking months.

His mother tells her all his embarrassing baby stories and she laughs, and she looks different, more grown up, and he feels like a doofus next to her. Her hair is longer and her eyes are more shimmer-y and she's still taller than him, and it's bothering him more than it should. How's he supposed to be a hero when he's so short and scrawny and stupid?

They share half a dance—which is awkward for him and weird and he feels nervous to be around her until his palms are sweaty. She tells him about her family once again, which makes him worry about her home life. He just don't want her to feel unwanted at her home. Then he screws up and Annabeth plummets down a cliff on the back of a manticore to save them.

Thalia lashes out at him and Nico asks silly questions and Grover sniffles on and on about her. Now that's she's gone it only leaves him with a sense of emptiness, cold and lonely—like he's stepped into a dark, damp cave, which closes itself behind and suffocates him. To top it all, they lose Bianca to the Hunters, which makes him feels like Annabeth's sacrifice was all in vain.

His dreams don't help matters. He sees her, thankfully alive, wandering aimlessly across a black, barren land. He sees Luke appeal to her better nature, he sees her succumb to his trickery. Luke leaves her there, pleading struggling against her burden. Percy reaches out to her, but his hands are made of shadow. He sees her face, dirty and sooty with clear paths; her tears are cutting through the grime. Her whole frame is hunched and rigid out of the sheer effort she's using to keep the thing from crushing her, and then he wakes up, aghast at what he's seen and firm in his resolve. He has to save her, he has to.

Grover tells him hesitantly that Annabeth may have wanted to join the Hunters, and once the deadened feeling ebbs away from him, Percy can't, for the life of him, understand why she would want to do something so stupid. He knows she's been through a lot. She's devastated about Luke, obviously, but she has him, doesn't she? She has him! Doesn't she want him then?

Why would she need him to begin with? The thought made him angry and miserable for the day. His bickering with Thalia turns into a full-blown fight and she electrifies him with a bolt of lightning. Even though he's scorched and his ears are ringing, he can see her lips form the words 'Seaweed Brain' and something snaps inside him, because that reminds him of Annabeth. That's her nickname from him, and she says it playfully; almost fondly, not the way Thalia uttered with pure disdain.

Her absence awakes his crazed state once again, with his whole body quivering like a tree in a storm as he lifts the entire creek into a massive swirl cloud. He feels elated to see Thalia's terrified face, but drenching her wouldn't prove anything for him, with Annabeth in trouble and he's losing his mind. The guilt weighs on him and he's about to let go when he sees something that makes him drop his whirlpool anyway.

Sure, there's a monster on the loose that needs to be caught and Artemis has been captured and two people are in danger of dying, according to the Oracle – but all of that can wait. He needs to make sure Annabeth is out of harm's way, and then they'll see about the rest. He wants to go look for her more than anything, but he's not allowed to. Grover is, Thalia is. Zoe Nightshade is and Bianca di Angelo is. But they're going on a quest to save Artemis. And even though Grover promises him that he'll look for Annabeth -if he can- Percy's not consoled. She's his compass and without her directing him, he feels utterly lost and empty about everything.

He just couldn't mope around camp or go back home without even trying. The simple thought itself is slipping him into madness. He can see it himself he's slowly losing it, but there's nothing he could do. When he's finally made the final member of the quest he feels slightly better. Now he can get some things done, he can find Annabeth and get out of here.

They get a few godly visits from Apollo and Aprhrodite—and he hates to say he liked the former better than the latter.

Aphrodite is so stunning he can't even manage to string two words together in her presence. She's the most beautiful person-goddess-whatever in the universe, but the first thing she resembles is Annabeth. She has blonde hair and gray eyes with sarcastic smile, twirling her dagger in her hands as to say—snap out of it, Seaweed Brain. Stop gawking.

His body froze for a second and all he wanted to do is grab her and get out of there, get her out of Luke's clutches. Then she's gone, replaced by an actress he's had a crush on once. He prayed the goddess hasn't guessed what he saw before, but Aphrodite seems to know exactly what he's been seeing in her, so the rest of the conversation is about Annabeth. She twists his words for her liking and make him spill his real reason to be added on the quest. He blushes repeatedly throughout the conversation while Aphrodite leaves with a promise to make his love life full of anguish and indecision, and warns him about her husband's junkyard.

Great. That's all he needs. His non existent lovelife being complicated by lady love herself.

They almost made it out but things go out of the way, and Biance dies to save them from a crazy automaton, and her sudden death is something much more real and immediate than he'd realized. They've all been close to death's jaws more than once, but this is the first time he's seen someone die, someone that had been fairly close to him. Bianca dies a hero, leaving them all shattered. He watches as Zoe, who usually shows no human emotions as she's usually stoic and detached, bends down on ground to sob so hard her entire body quakes. Biance had only just found a place where she had belonged, she had a brother..

This strengthens his resolve to find Annabeth even more, his determination increases but when he sees Hoover Dam up ahead he's sure his heart froze, at least for a second. Annabeth'd told him all about the dam a few years ago, to the point he felt pleased when she's finally stopped. Now he's here and she isn't and his heart pangs against his chest as he curses himself.

Ofcourse they're ambushed by tracker skeletons and Percy has to run for it, almost killing a mortal girl with frizzy red hair. She's snarky and sarcastic but she saves his life. He doesn't get the chance to thank her properly. Rachel Elizabeth Dare. He really does owe her one.

They visit Annabeth's family and her stepmother says, Nice meeting you, Percy. And also, I've heard a lot about you.

He flushes. He wonders what exactly Annabeth might've said about him. Is he her friend or her fighting partner...or what? What did she describe him as? Heroic? Surely not. Stupid? Probably. A Seaweed Brain? Most likely. He speculates if he's an amusing topic when the family is eating dinner, a source of laughter when there isn't any. It's never really occurred to him, but maybe he means something to her too.

His body nearly fails him when he sees her again, because she's alive, she's okay, she's alright—banged up but alright. The fight hinges on his decision to take the curse for them to get out alive, so he took the sky from Artemis. He can't give up now because he's to make sure Annabeth is safe before his sure death. Her hallucination keeps him going for seconds, minutes before he's out alive. They all made it alive, except Zoe and Luke. Thalia pushed him off a cliff, but Annabeth doesn't believe it, not a tiny little bit.

He tells her that he'd never believed she was dead, not even for a minute, and she smiles and nods at him with an appreciative kind of look but that's all. And he looks at her with incredulous disbelief and her eyes are shining with a conviction he'd seen on his own face when she'd been captured because he'd always known she was alive, and something in him goes twang and it hurts. Because she's thinking of Luke, not him, even though Luke should be dead and he's held the sky for her.

Luke has fooled her too many times. Luke has played on her emotions and he's almost killed her. Why, is she still on his side? He feels like he knows the answer, but doesn't want admit it, even to himself. Admitting it will make it real, better leave it at doubt and hope for the best.

But he can't deny it hurts to see her place so much trust on a traitor who tried to kill them many times. He feels like he should stop bothering with all this. He didn't travel cross country, fighting eveything with death trailing his every step, with anxiety and stress, losing people only to get her moony-eyed over a traitor. He feels like he got her back only to lose her again.

His mind is muddled up again, on Olympus over the verdict on his death. Then Artemis stands to make an announcement and panic seizes him because she'd called Annabeth strong and oh no, oh no.

"Annabeth," he whispers frantically, "don't."

She looks at him like are you crazy? And maybe he is, but his whole body is pumping blood so hard into his heart it's clouding up his mind and he can't think, he can't form a complete sentence, he can't think of anything except that he's gone through all this trouble to get her back and he is not going to lose her again.

But she doesn't want to be a hunter and he doesn't lose her after all. They finish that dance, that they started in the military school, and they sway softly as the music tilts about them and he knows that people are staring and whispering and that Aphrodite is probably having the time of her life, but he closes his eyes and breathes in the lemon in her hair and wishes that they could just stay like that forever.

Athena's voice comes back to his head. He felt defiant about it. He can be friends with whoever he likes. Maybe Athena is worried about his fatal flaw harming her daughter, but she didn't warn her daughter to stay away from the traitor. So what if he will do anything to save the people he loves?

Love. Love is creepy and complicated and scary, to be honest, but simple, really. And he loves so many people, although in different ways, his mom, Tyson, Annabeth...

He loses his train of thought when Annabeth pulls back and smiles at him. She allows him to lead her on again. Hey, who cares about prophecy and danger, she'll always be there to make sure he doesn't die. Not yet, atleast.

As long as he's Annabeth with him, as his compass and north star, he couldn't lose his bearings and direction.

xXx

A/N: See something here people? Percy in TTC is Annabeth in BoTL. They reacted and coped differently that's all but didn't leave another behind. Percy hopes for better but Annabeth closes off and acts unreasonable. Their comparision about each other complement each other.

Another reason to be destined to be. Happy reading.