"Blackjack, can you take me to Percy's?"

The pegasus seemed to like the idea, since he sped up significantly. It didn't take long before they were at the fire escape they had departed from only a few hours previously. Annabeth jiggled the window open and slipped into Percy's bedroom. The lights in the apartment were off. It was early evening, so the rest of his family might have gone to dinner, or maybe the movies.

She felt uncomfortable hanging out in an empty apartment, so Annabeth wandered back to Percy's room to wait. She looked around his room at the band posters, the pictures, and sweatshirts scattered over the floor. What she wanted more than anything right now was a hug from Percy. They had the magical power of making her feel much better. She spotted a stuffed fish sitting on the desk and walked over to squeeze it.

She picked up one of the sweatshirts. Her head started to spin. It smelled so strongly of salt, the sea, and something that was unmistakably Percy. She shrugged her – his – jacket off her shoulders and pulled her shirt over her head, slipping the hoodie on in its place.

She stood still for a few minutes; hood pulled up. The physical and mental exhaustion overtook her like a freight train since she had stopped moving and the adrenaline stopped flowing.

She collapsed back onto the bed, falling asleep immediately.

Annabeth woke to someone shaking her shoulder. The light had completely faded from the square of sky visible through the window. She rolled over to see Sally standing next to the bed.

"Oh, sorry… I just."

"What's up, Annabeth?"

She sat up and pushed the hood back off her curls. "I needed someone to talk to and you're the only one I know that understands that Percy is…"

"Insufferably noble?" Sally suggested.

"I was going to phrase it differently but yeah. That's the one."

"Do you want some pizza?"

"What I want is for Percy to be less dense. But pizza sounds good too."

Sally gave her a sympathetic look and held out the box.

Annabeth picked up a slice and bit off the tip. "No offense, Sally, but your son is a dumbass."

"I'm perfectly aware. Did he ever tell you how he got that curse?"

"He just said that he took a bath in the Styx."

"Yes, but he had to get my blessing in order to do it. He disappeared from vacation to blow up a cruise ship, comes back with that kid Nico, do you know him?"

Annabeth nodded, though she hadn't actually met him.

"And says 'hey mom, I need your permission to go for a swim in the River Styx, which has a great chance of killing me, so that I'll be harder to kill on my sixteenth birthday when I'm prophesied to possibly destroy the world and definitely get killed in the process.' And he appeared in the middle of the apartment with his dog."

"That huge thing?"

"Yes. She took up the entire living room."

"She's bigger than the living room."

Sally shrugged and picked up her own piece of pizza. "My point is he's not going to change his mind easily. And the nobility complex is something that you're going to have to learn to deal with."

"And you suggest what?"

"Oh, I have no idea. I was just going to lock you two in a room until you manage to out-stubborn him."

Annabeth considered that. "It'll take a long time. And what if he gets mad and tries to jump out the window?"

"You stand in front of the window. What's he going to do? Try to stab his pillows?"

Annabeth smiled. "Fair point."

"He'll be around in the morning at the latest. He's supposed to watch Estelle tomorrow. You can stay over if you want."

Annabeth nodded. "Thanks." It was far too late to walk back to her dorm, and she wasn't thrilled about the idea of using the subway past midnight.

Annabeth tried to get some sleep without success. She was far too worried about what she was about to try to do. Despite Sally's jokes about him stabbing his pillows, part of her brain was afraid about what would happen if she pushed him too far. He had seemed genuinely mad that afternoon. And Percy was powerful. He could kill her purely by accident. And if he snapped, well, Annabeth wasn't sure that she wanted to see the result.

It was four in the morning when she gave up on sleeping and started pacing. She caught a glance at herself in the mirror. His sweatshirt was too big for her. Only her fingertips stuck out of the sleeves. She hated that. She didn't feel like she could win this battle by looking cute and pitiful, like a lost puppy. Looking intimidating would probably fit better with a stare down and argument.

She changed back into the shirt and the leather jacket. She tried sticking the knife in her belt, without success. She tried brushing her fingers through her hair, also without success. It looked like some small creature had made its home there, and Percy didn't seem to have a brush or a comb anywhere. That figured. He also seemed to be lacking in eyeliner, which wasn't surprising.

Eyeliner could be very useful right now. She knew exactly how to apply it in order to highlight her eyes, which were already unsettling. Piper had always made her do it for competitions when she had been on debate team her first year at school, and she had been undefeated, so there might have been something to the theory.

Annabeth wasted five minutes arguing with herself over whether she should try to find some. There was a 24-hour drug store on the corner. It would take her maybe ten minutes to get some, and maybe a hairbrush, and come back. And she knew that she would regret it if she did not.

She slid out the window and climbed down the fire escape. All the ladders had already been pushed down, probably Percy's doing. She looked carefully around the alley, but there were only dumpsters and some puddles of gods knew what.

There was a mirror next to the makeup in the store, so Annabeth went ahead and applied the eyeliner and ran a comb through her hair right in the aisle. The employee at the counter looked up from his magazine to watch her with undisguised interest. Eyes popping and hair relatively unknotted she went to pay.

She did not look around the alley before walking into it, which was one huge fucking mistake. She had just walked past one of the dumpsters when something grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

She ripped her shoulder away when she spun around. She had no idea what she was staring at, but it was definitely not human. She threw the knife at it, sprinting towards the fire escape for all it was worth not daring to try to fight it. She didn't turn around to see if the knife had hit home or not. She scrambled up the ladders, missing several rungs. At one point, she slipped and was left hanging from her hand, three stories up.

She slammed the window behind her, hard enough to rattle the frame. She sank down against the wall on the opposite side of the room waiting for a shadow to appear outside the window.

It took a long time for her breathing to steady and an even longer time for her heart rate to slow. As the adrenaline left her body, she became aware of the throbbing of her shoulder. When she had yanked it away from the monster, something had been wrenched. And she had spent a few seconds dangling from that arm. She poked at it with her other hand and a hiss of air escaped from between her teeth.

The pattern of the twilight shadows in the room shifted. She glanced up in time to see a shadow rippled across the window glass. She stood up in a hurry, crossing her bad arm across the front of her body. Why was Percy's room not full of more weapons? She grabbed a ballpoint pen from the desk and clicked it open, but no dice.

The window slid up, and a pair of Converse followed by the bottoms of black jeans slid in. Annabeth let out the breath she had been holding. Compared to fighting monsters, a conversation with Percy seemed much less challenging. He turned around to close the window and froze in place. He turned back around slowly, sword appearing with a shink.

He held up his sword, the light of the bronze reflecting around the room.

"Oh." He pulled her knife out of the waistband of his jeans. "You're going to want this back, I presume." He sounded resigned, like he had just received bad news that he knew was coming. He held out the knife with two fingers.

Annabeth took three slow steps forward to grab it with her left hand. She passed it over to her right. Even though that side of her body was completely useless, she still trusted it more than her left hand.

Percy did not put his sword away. He fiddled with it between his hands. "Why are you here."

"You're a dumbass."

He scoffed.

"I realize that you're trying to be noble or whatever. But you're not listening to me."

He swished the sword in a spiral motion in front of him – not in a threatening way, more an absent-minded one – but Annabeth still backed up.

"Look, Percy, I know that there's something here." She gestured between them with her good hand. "I don't really know what. I really like you. And you are making a mistake. You shouldn't push people away because they might get hurt. God, I know what it's like, but it doesn't help anything. I'm not going to let you do this." Annabeth considered stomping her foot but thought that might have been overkill.

She stared at him, until he met her eyes. When he did, his expression softened and he took a step forward, only to immediately step backwards again.

"You know I'm right."

Percy swung the sword at nothing. It was more of an expressive gesture than anything, but it still made Annabeth nervous. He was obviously getting agitated.

Percy pushed his hair back with his hand. "If you stay, you're going to get hurt." He was almost pleading with her now.

"Well, genius, I tried to leave and immediately got attacked in the alley."

"What?" He stopped playing with the sword and stood stock still.

"Did you think I just dropped the knife because it was too heavy?"

Percy shook his head, his hair falling back over his face. "I don't know. I thought it was, like, a metaphorical middle finger or something."

"Percy, if I was going to flip you off, I'd do it to your face." She stuck her middle finger up to show him.

"Hah." Time seemed to slow down as he swung the sword at her. He hadn't intended to hit her, and Annabeth could have easily blocked if her arm had been functioning, but it wasn't. She tried to step back, but the sword still glancingly caught her wrist.

Percy dropped his sword, taking a step forward as Annabeth took a step back into the wall.

"Shit."

Was that really all he had to say? Shit? Not even an apology? That hadn't exactly felt pleasant.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit." Percy was staring at her hand in horror.

Then Annabeth realized. She wasn't supposed to get hurt by his sword. Mortals didn't get hurt by celestial bronze, which meant…

"Shit," she agreed.

Watching the blood run down her hand to her fingertips made her dizzy. A drop fell off her finger onto the carpet. Memories of weird things she had seen in her past were playing like a kaleidoscope in front of her eyes. She squeezed them shut to try to block it out, but she couldn't. Her vision narrowed around the dark droplets on the floor. The knife slipped out of her fingers and she felt herself sway forward.

Knowing that Greek gods and monsters existed was fine. Being able to see them was maybe bordering on unfortunate. But to actually be brought into this world, was something else entirely. Her world was being turned upside down and shaken a few times for good measure. She felt like she was spinning. Part of her knew that her feet weren't moving, but most of her was trying to fall over.

She felt Percy grab her shoulders to steady her and she let go, falling into him. His thumb dug into her bad shoulder and she bit the fabric of his flannel to keep from screaming out loud. This time her feet really did disappear from beneath her. Something soft was under her now.

Think. She told herself sternly. Soft. Probably the bed. Percy had picked her up and put her here. Okay. Her wrist was stinging, and her hand was sticky with blood. Her shoulder was probably sprained. All that she could deal with fine. But she was bleeding, which meant that she was what? A half-blood? Which god was she related to? What was happening. She had grown up with two parents. Neither of them had ever mentioned anything remotely Greek. Never mind that. Deal with the immediate injuries first. That made sense. She could do that. She forced her eyes open.

Percy was leaning over her. He let out a breath when he saw her eyes open. His eyebrows were drawn together in worry. She reached out to try to smooth out the lines on his forehead. It didn't work. It did smear blood over his face though. Oops.

"You bit me." Was that really his chief worry?

"Sorry?"

"No, it's fine. What's wrong?"

Annabeth wanted to say that everything was wrong. Nothing seemed right anymore. "Shoulder," she managed to grunt. She closed her eyes again. She felt Percy kneel down next to her.

He pushed the jacket off her shoulders. His fingers fluttered around the hem of her shirt. He cleared his throat. "Umm, can I…?"

Annabeth nodded her head once. Percy pulled her shirt over her head and past her bad shoulder. Annabeth heard him suck in his breath. An explosion echoed down the hallway, but Percy ignored it completely.

"What?" she asked, squinting through her eyelids.

"Oh, nothing, everything's great," he said in a false airy tone. His reassuring smile looked more like a grimace than anything remotely reassuring. "Look what you did to me!" He unbuttoned the top quarter of his shirt and then pulled it over his head. In the center of his chest there was a massive bruise.

"I did not bite you that hard," she protested.

He twisted her shirt into a cord and held it in front of her face. "Bite this." Annabeth did. He leaned backward to the table next to the bed. He pulled the top drawer open.

Someone knocked on the door and opened it. "I heard the toilet explode and figured I should check… Sally trailed off as she scanned the scene. "What in the world… Percy…"

"What?" he asked, hand still in the drawer.

"Percy…"

"What?" He pulled a blue plastic container out of the drawer and moved back over to Annabeth.

"Percy, that's going to kill her."

Annabeth spit the shirt out. "I'm sorry, what?"

"No, it won't." He pushed the shirt back into her mouth. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. I think." He ran his hand over her shoulder, palpitating the muscle. He pushed his fingers in and Annabeth clenched her teeth around the shirt. He lifted her arm by the wrist and turned it around. She felt the blood leave her face. He tucked her arm back across her chest.

Annabeth spit the shirt out again. "Oww," she complained.

"The good news is that your shoulder is just sprained. Here," he opened the box, "eat this."

"The stuff that'll kill me?"

"It probably won't cause you to spontaneously combust. But it will fix your shoulder and your wrist."

Sally didn't try to counter him, but she looked like she was watching a car accident in slow motion.

He pulled a small piece of the golden cake off and held it out to her.

She took it and rolled it between two fingers. "What is it?"

"Ambrosia. God food."

"And it'll fix me?"

"Theoretically."

Sally opened her mouth and closed it again, unable to form the words that she obviously desperately wanted to.

"What does it taste like?"

Percy shook his head. "Couldn't tell you. Happy memories."

Annabeth put it in her mouth and chewed. A feeling of contentedness rose in her chest. It tasted like pancakes, from the dining hall. Early mornings before class spent laughing with Piper. She swallowed.

Sally unfroze. "I CAN'T believe you just let her do that."

"She's not dead, is she?" Percy asked, though he looked plenty worried.

Annabeth held up her wrist, which had still been bleeding heavily. That was unusual. Annabeth typically healed quickly. The bleeding slowed as she watched and the cut healed to just a scar, and even that was slowly disappearing. She flexed her shoulder. "It still hurts."

"Be patient."

"But if you gave me…"

"No." Percy closed the container and put it back in the drawer. "Give it an hour."

Sally let out a shaky breath. Left the doorframe, turned around, and shook her head in a distinct I'll deal with this in the morning gesture.

"Here." Percy passed her one of his sweatshirts. "Try to get some sleep. It'll make more sense in the morning."

Annabeth pulled the sweatshirt on but couldn't find the hole for her head. "It is the morning."

Percy pulled the sweatshirt down and her head emerged. "Besides," she continued, "I don't think I could stop thinking long enough to fall asleep. My thoughts are on a rampage."

Percy popped the hood over her head and pulled the drawstrings tight. "Now the thoughts can't get in."

He lay down and held out his arms. Annabeth rested her head on his chest and traced the bruise with her fingertip. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry? I should be the one that's apologizing."

"Yeah, you should."

Annabeth's head rose up and back down as he took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for almost cutting your hand off." He played with a curl by her ear. "And I'm sorry for trying to kick you out."

"You'd better be."

Percy didn't respond, he just hugged her tighter.

Sorry for the gap between updates, but life you know. Thanks for reading!