"No, I don't understand!" Percy turned the sink off before facing his wife. "You don't need to leave for that long."
"Yes, I do!" Annabeth held a paper close to her chest. "You know how nice of an opportunity this is?!"
"A year, Annabeth?!" Percy gestured around him. "We have a house, we have two kids!"
"Two kids that we need to provide for!" Annabeth defended. "This would provide so much money!"
"They need their mother as much as they need money." Percy grabbed a rag and began to wipe the counters off. "You can't just do this, Annabeth. You can't. Think about them."
"I have thought about them." Annabeth hissed. "That's why I'm doing this in the first place. To get them money."
"Do you have any idea how much you're going to miss?" Percy asked. "Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving..."
"We can video chat," Annabeth explained. "We can call each other all the time and-"
"They'll go a year without hugging their mother." Percy cut in. "A year without touching her. A year without-"
"Both of you!" Nico appeared between the two, his dark hair falling into his face. "You haven't been watching your children."
"We-"
"They went towards the fucking lake, Percy!" Nico clenched his fists. As soon as he finished his sentence, he could hear both adults charging outside. Shouts for the girls, shouts of fear and terror. They got quieter as they got farther, got quieter until they were nothing.
Nothing but an empty memory for Nico. He never saw them again. They never came back. Eventually, dust collected on their things. Annabeth's blueprints, Percy's clothes, the girls' toys. From ashes to ashes, from dust to dust.
AN: Last chapter. Prequel of the prequel thing up tomorrow: The Surface. Deals with Nico when he was still alive
