AN: Life + a case of writers block = horrible updating times. Sorry about that.

To HydraCourt: Ruining feels is one of my favorite pass times. :D

To gummy204: I know, right? All that pizza, wasted…So sad.

To seekerquaffle621: Ah, well, thanks. There's a lot of stories better than mine. Really. You've just gotta go look.

Warning: Cursing.

2015

"BIANCA! BIANCA!"

Police had quickly swarmed the scene at some pedestrian's shout of, "Oh my god someone died!" The closest mall cops had pushed everyone out of the way.

"BIANCA! BIANCA!"

Inconsiderate jerks crowded around the yellow police tape, standing on their tiptoes to get a better angle for their Twitter posts. They whispered and murmured eagerly, waiting to see the outcome of this gruesome ordeal.

"BIANCA! BI-ANCA!"

Annabeth drowns out everything except for one person's shouts.

"NO! NO! DON'T TAKE HER! SHE'S FINE!"

She plants her feet a little harder into the pavement to keep Percy from tackling the paramedics loading a stretcher, draped with a blue blanket, into an ambulance. Her arms are wrapped around his torso. She forces her limbs to become more solid, giving him no chance to escape.

"I SAID SHE'S FINE!"

She knows that Rachel is cradling a hysterically sobbing Hazel somewhere off to their right, but all she can focus on right now is Percy.

A police officer comes up, nodding at Annabeth, beckoning her over. She doesn't know what he wants from her–she's already answered all the questions–but she hands Percy over to Rachel and approaches the cop.

"Are you immediate family of" –he pauses to glance down at the notebook in his hand– "Ms. di Angelo?"

Instead of fulfilling the urge to wrap her hands around Mr. I'm-too-cool-to-learn-the-name-of-the-victim's neck, Annabeth shakes her head. "No, I'm–"

"LEAVE HER ALONE! Please."

She winces at Percy's broken voice, before continuing with her sentence. "I'm just a friend. Hazel Levesque–the one with the brown hair–is her half-sister, and, um, Percy Jackson is her cousin. On their father's side."

"And the redhead?"

"She's…Rachel's Percy's girlfriend. Bianca also has–had?–has a twin brother named Nico, and I can't remember her parent's names. Pluto, I think is their dad's name? Pluto di Angelo?"

The officer nods and tucks the pad in his pocket. "Thank you for answering questions. It would have been better if I could have asked the sister, but…you're the only one that isn't in hysterics." He cocks his head to the side. "Why is that?"

Annabeth sticks her hands in her pockets and scuffs the heel of her shoe against the dirty sidewalk. She stops her movement when she spots a piece of gum several centimeters away.

"I'm what you'd call 'broad-shouldered,'" she explains. "I've seen a lot worse than this."

"Tell me," the officer says, "what's worse than watching your friend die?"

She shrugs and looks him in the eye, letting him know that she's not afraid of what she's about to tell him. "Watching your brother kill."

;

The ambulance has long since drove off. Percy, Hazel, and Rachel group together in some kind of sobbing blob. Annabeth and the officer–Officer Reynolds–approach them.

"They–Um–They're taking the body to the precinct," Officer Reynolds says, obviously shaken up by what Annabeth had told him. She almost smirks. "The victim's parents are on their w-way. H-how about I give y-y-you kids a ride?"

Rachel sniffs, lifting her head to look at him. "Would you?" she whispers.

He smiles. "Of course. This way." His partner, Officer Wilden, is already seated in the driver's seat, and Reynolds climbs into the passenger, leaving the back three plastic seats to the four teenagers.

Annabeth ends up in the middle with Hazel on her lap. Percy and Rachel are still sobbing, while Hazel stares blankly ahead, fisting her hands tightly, grabbing at the material of her jeans. The officers chat back and forth, Annabeth catching words like "poor" and "kids" and "body," but the glass separating them keeps her from overhearing anything else.

Officer Wilden drives over an unexpected pothole, and Annabeth's forearm ends up connection with Hazel's face from the harsh jostle.

"Sorry," she mutters, taking her hand underneath her knee.

She doesn't get a response.

Percy and Rachel soon run out of tears, and the ride to the precinct is silent. Percy's voice cuts through the air like a sharp knife. "Did you…Did you see who shot her, Annabeth?"

She squeezes her eyes shut, recounting the ordeal. The man pushing Bianca into the alleyway. The silver arrow with the heart-shaped arrowhead. Herself, looking around wildly for the culprit and seeing two red dots staring at her through the darkness, leaving vaporous comet's tails as he receded from the edge of the building.

"No," she says, shaking her head to clear the images. Of course she knows who shot Bianca, but she hadn't necessarily seen him. The red eyes could have easily been mistaken as plane lights for anyone else, and she hadn't caught sight of any body mass. So, no, it isn't entirely a lie.

No one else speaks until Officer Reynolds does, but he only tells them to go up the steps to the precinct when he opens the door. Officer Wilden offers Annabeth his hand, probably expecting her to have jelly legs after such a long ride with Hazel on her lap, but she stands up just fine and brushes past him.

They're seated in uncomfortable plastic chairs "until their parents show up", Percy strategically placed in between the girls and some crackhead handcuffed to his seat three chairs down. Personally, Annabeth thinks that it she would have been a better barrier, but. You know, boys are better fighters and all, says pretty much every one ever. Whatever.

Jason is the first one to arrive, along with an older man (probably his dad) that looks so much like Thalia, Annabeth has to do a double take. Jason tries to rush over to them when he spots them, but they're witnesses or something, and a few officers have to stop them.

Sally is allowed when she comes, though, since she is Percy's mom. Jason has to keep Tyson from following. She cups her son's face, fretting over him, then glances over Hazel, then Rachel, and then finally Annabeth.

"Are you four okay?" she asks worriedly.

"Peachy," Annabeth grunts. Percy gives her a bitter glare, and she slumps further into her seat. "Sorry."

Sally smiles at her. "It's fine, dear." She turns to Hazel after all has been forgiven, squeezing her niece's hand. "You father and brother and stepmother will be here in a couple minutes. You can hold out until then, yeah?"

"Are my…" Rachel starts, then licks her lips. "Are my parents coming?"

"No. Sorry, dear," Sally says with a sympathetic look. "Your father just called me from Chicago and told me to make sure that you're alright, though."

"Right," she says. "Don't you mean make sure that I hadn't committed murder?"

"WHERE IS MY SISTER?!" comes a voice that cuts off whatever Sally's response was before it started. "WHERE?! TELL ME!"

Annabeth cranes her neck to see Nico di Angelo, storming into the building to ask about his sister. Whether it be Bianca or Hazel, Annabeth doesn't know.

He starts to dissolve into a tantrum when no one answers him. "WHERE? WHERE?!" A cop rushes forward to contain the little ball of Italian rage.

Mr. di Angelo comes forward and sets his hand on Hazel's shoulder, murmuring words into her ear with a comforting voice. He claps her shoulder, tells her to be strong, and leaves with Sally to go talk with Jason's dad, Mr. Grace, and Mrs. di Angelo.

A detective moves to stand in front of Annabeth, Percy, Rachel, and Hazel. "You four." He jabs his finger at each of them individually. "Time to come in for questioning."

He gives a wicked grin that he's probably spent years perfecting to scare the bubs he's caught. "Better make sure your story is straight, or you're going to be in a lot of trouble."

;

1884

Annabeth always has to carry the dinner pail. Luke and Malcolm say it's because she's the youngest, but she thinks it's because they like watching her struggle. Boys like to do this kind of stuff, like pulling on girls' braids and stuffing spiders down their dresses.

Of course, she partakes in the fun, but it's not cool when they prod and poke at her.

Luke's a big boy; he's sixteen. He should be carrying the dinner pail, not her. She glares at her older brother, and he just grins impishly back.

Malcolm catches the glare and cheekily tells her that she needs to trudge through it, because it's tradition. Luke laughs and ruffles his curly brown hair.

Then, Christopher Sherman (Mr. Sherman's younger cousin, and Frederick and Athena's neighbor) comes rushing down the street, nearly ramming into Luke.

Christopher grasps his shoulders. "Ya'll need to get in your house right now," he stresses. "Your ma–" He cuts himself off.

Luke's face becomes panicked, and Annabeth's heart thuds in her chest. "Ma what? Ma what?!" he asks again when Christopher doesn't answer.

"Ya'll might wanna go in an' find out for yourselves," Christopher Sherman replies, and Luke and Malcolm are down the street quicker than two shakes of a lamb's tail.

"Wait!" Annabeth cries, nearly falling over when she tries to hike the dinner pail onto her shoulder. Christopher opens his mouth, probably to suggest his assistance, but Annabeth makes it work. She wobbles toward her house and down the path leading to her porch, swinging open the door.

"Ma! Pa!" she yells into the empty house. "Where–"

"They're inside their bedroom, dear."

Her head whips around to find Mrs. Hecate–the sheriff's wife–scrubbing her hands in the basin next to the stove. She raises an eyebrow at the woman. "With all due respect, Missus, what are you doin' here?"

Mrs. Hecate laughs. "You might want to go in your parent's bedroom and find out, Annabeth."

With one last suspicious glance at the woman, she plops down the pail and scrambles to her parent's bedroom. Frederick, Luke, and Malcolm kneel at the edges of the bed, while Bobby and Matthew join Athena on top of the mattress. Athena herself is looking down watery at a blanket bundled in her arms, though Annabeth doesn't know why a pile of laundry would–Wait a second.

"Annabeth." Athena glances up and smiles kindly at the child in question. "Come and meet your new baby sister."

A strangled gasp escapes her throat, and she's up there in a moment. Athena tugs the blankets slightly for Annabeth to get a better look.

The baby is a little on the small side (for a Chase, at least. She remembers Matthew and Bobby being big babies, and also how Athena often joked that Annabeth had been so large, she nearly ripped the woman in half while being birthed) with fine brown hairs littering her head.

"She's so…" Annabeth reaches her pinky finger forward, letting the baby wrap her tiny chubby hand around it. "…perfect, Ma. She's perfect." She looks up at her mother, then glances at her father. "What are we namin' her?"

Frederick reaches over and takes Athena's hand. "Well," he says, "we were thinkin' of namin' her Sophia."

"Sophia." Annabeth tests out the name. She grins when it rolls off her tongue nicely. "Sounds wonderful." The boys nod in agreement.

Bobby shoves Annabeth out of the way, bouncing on his knees. "Can I hold 'er? Can I? Can I?"

Athena laughs and brushes some of his shaggy brown hair out of his face. "I'm sorry, Bobby, but you and Matthew are too little."

"But-but-but." Matthew comes forward, too. "But Annabet's the same size as us!"

The sentence makes Annabeth, Luke, and Malcolm raise an eyebrow at their brother. Annabeth clearly towers over the twins by at least four inches.

"Annabeth is different," Athena informs the twins. "She's a girl, and she won't play too rough with Sophia." Bobby and Matthew pout, and Annabeth sends a smug smile, remembering all those times they wouldn't let her play with them because she's a girl.

"Come on, children." Frederick ushers all the kids out of the room. "Let your mother and sister get some rest. Luke, you're in charge. Help Annabeth make dinner." And he disappears behind the door.

Everyone follows Luke into the main room. Mrs. Hecate is gone.

Annabeth can't keep the smile off her face as she drags around her stool, grabs potatoes, and handles raw meat. "A sister," she whispers to herself more than Luke–who is struggling with the simple task of peeling a potato. "I have a baby sister."

;

Annabeth brags to everyone at school the next day about Sophia. The boys brush it off, while the girls ask questions like, how cute is she, when was she born, etc. etc.

"I wish I had a baby sister," sighs Miranda, the youngest Gardner child.

"Oh, yes!" Silena agrees, clasping her hands together. "Wouldn't it be so grand? I could dress her up and play with her hair and teach her how to be a lady!"

"What would you name her?" Annabeth questions.

Silena presses a finger to her lips, thinking. "Somethin' interesting, not like your average Jane or Laura… Drew? Wait, no, Lacy. No no no! Piper!" She sighs dramatically. "I just can't decide! I have too many grand ideas!"

Giggling behind her hand, Katie suggests, "Ya could just have three sisters. Or daughters."

Her blue eyes light up. "Yes! Three daughters! I might have a boy or two, if they're well behaved…"

Thalia shoves her shoulder lightly. "I don' think that's how it works, Silena," she informs her. "Once you have 'em, you can't give 'em back, no matter how un-behaved they are."

They five girls sit and chat about future husbands and children. Argus comes over to them when Annabeth is explaining her want of a fairer-haired husband, and he asks her if she wants to play with him and the boys.

She almost agrees, like any other time, but she thinks back to Silena's one line and turns him down. The other girls gape at her when he leaves.

"What?" she asks them, furrowing her eyebrows.

"You never turn down an offer to play wit' the boys," Miranda says.

Annabeth shrugs. "Silena's right. I gotta pack up my tomboy act an' start showin' Sophia how to be a proper lady."

;

After school, Annabeth rushes home to see Sophia, not caring as the dinner pail slams against the back of her shins.

Sophia lays awake in the cradle Annabeth had helped Luke and Malcolm get out of the attic. It was way too big for Sophia's tiny body–Frederick had just made one huge cradle for the twins, since they didn't have enough room for two, and they had thrown out the one that Luke, Malcolm, and Annabeth had slept in–but she'd grow into it.

"Hi, Sophia," Annabeth coos, letting her sister's tiny hand wrap around her pinky finger.

Annabeth runs home to see her sister every day for three months. Sometimes she's being held by Athena or Frederick; sometimes she's bawling her eyes out; sometimes she's getting changed. Most times, though, Sophia's awake, on the brink of a nap, but she never falls asleep until she's seen Annabeth.

That's why it's troubling when Annabeth approaches the cradle one day and Sophia has her eyes closed.

She's grinning when she opens the door, because Mr. Sherman had announced they are going to have a Spelling Bee on Saturday. They haven't had one for a long time, and she's the best speller in the class, so she's excited.

She rushes over to Sophia's cradle to gush all about it, but the baby's eyes are shut. Her brow furrows. Sophia's never asleep when she comes home.

"Sophia," she singsongs quietly, but gets no response. Not a stretch or a twitch or a coo: nothing. Annabeth offers Sophia her pinky finger, and she doesn't even blindly wrap her fingers around it, like she's done so many times before in her sleep.

Freaking out a little bit now, Annabeth lets her hand flutter over to Sophia's face, expecting to feel warm breath. Instead, nothing comes out of Sophia's mouth. Annabeth's eyes widen and her heart skips some beats when she realizes she's not breathing.

Sophia is not breathing.

"Mother!" is torn from her throat, and she scrambles away. She remembers seeing Frederick and Athena behind the house, chatting with Mr. and Mrs. Gardner: their neighbors. She scampers for the backdoor. "Ma! Pa!"

When she bursts out into the backyard, everyone turns to face her with startled expressions. She vaguely sees that Katie, Miranda, and their four other siblings got home sometime while she was checking on Sophia.

Frederick chuckles and scoops up is daughter when Annabeth comes running at them. "What's wrong, Annie?" he asks, ruffling her hair. "Ya look like ya've seen a ghost."

"Soph–" She tightens her fingers around his shirt, trying to calm her breath long enough to force that words out. "Sophia's not breathing!"

"What?" her mother demands, and she doesn't have enough time to answer, because Frederick is whisking them inside. Mr. and Mrs. Gardner tells their kids to wait here, and then they're on the Chases' heels.

Her father places her back on the ground, on the wood floor a few yards away from the cradle. He slowly steps forward, like Sophia is just asleep and he's scared that he might wake her.

Annabeth hides behind Athena's skirts as Frederick reaches a hand into the cradle. The world stills for a couple moments, no one daring to breathe.

He takes his hand out. Sucking in a deep, watery gasp, he announces grimly, "She's dead."

Later in life (or, well, afterlife), Annabeth wonders which daughter was harder for the Chases' to bury: Annabeth, or Sophia?

;

2015

Annabeth panics for a moment, because she isn't sure if the cops will separate her and Percy for questioning. They'd probably think she ran away when she fades, and that she's Bianca's killer, and then they'll send out an arrest warrant, and Percy will hate her forever.

Thankfully, though, the detective leads the four of them into a single room. It's exactly the way Annabeth imagined a 21st century questioning room to be; gray walls, gray floor, stainless steel table in the middle, one-way glass on the far wall.

The detective clicks the door shut behind them. Another detective–this one female, with blond hair pulled back into a tight bun–sits at the table, her back turned towards the one-way glass. She gestures to the four seats across from her. "Have a seat. We'll just be asking a few questions."

Hazel is the first one to sit. Not because she's complying; probably because she looks like she desperately needs to sit down, or else her legs will collapse out from under her. The other three follow suit.

"So…" the female detective–who Annabeth nicknames Jane, since they don't wear nametags–starts, licking her thumb to open the newly-printed file on the murder of Bianca di Angelo. "Which one of you is Annabeth Chase?"

Rachel juts her thumb in Annabeth's vague direction, Percy being seated between them. "Her."

"You, Annabeth, saw the collision of the arrow and Ms. di Angelo, correct?" Jane asks.

Annabeth nods. "Yes."

"And Ms. di Angelo had been pushed into the alleyway? Maybe by the murderer's accomplice?"

"Yes."

"Do you think Ms. di Angelo was targeted specifically, or could this have happened to you, the redhead, or the black, or even the boy?"

"I honestly don't know."

"Did you see who shot the arrow?"

"No."

And so on and so forth.

Percy, Rachel, and Hazel get asked some questions, too, but mainly Annabeth. Jane keeps calling them by their nicknames (redhead or heiress, boy, black, and blondie) instead of their real names. Probably to get under their skin.

It seems to work a couple times, too. Rachel flinches every time Jane says heiress, and everyone bristles with each racist comment toward Hazel. Annabeth's worried for a second that Percy might flip the table and launch himself at Jane during another xenophobic name-calling, but then Jane says that's all the questions they have for them today.

The male detective has them follow him back out to where everybody is waiting.

Jason tackles Hazel with a bear hug. She glances over at Nico, who is slumped in a chair and staring blankly into space, before burying herself in her cousin's shoulder. Sally approaches Rachel and Percy, checking them for injuries again before hugging the life out of the couple.

Annabeth stuffs her hands in her pockets and scuffs the heel of her shoe against the tile. Would her parents have come if they had lived in this time? Would Luke, Malcolm, Matthew, and Bobby come, too? Her friends?

Something small tugs at her pant leg, and she glances down. Tyson stares at her with earnest brown eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

She shrugs. "Yeah."

He shakes his head. "You don't look okay." His tiny arms circle her leg–barely wrapping fully around it–and he presses his cheek against her thigh, announcing, "You look like you could use a hug."

A little warm feeling in her chest causes her to give a small smile. She ruffles his hair before wrapping an arm around his shoulders. "Thanks, big guy."

"Do you think Bianca will need a hug when she comes out?" Tyson mumbles into her jeans. "Everyone's talking about her, and they sound kinda sad, so she'll probably be sad if everyone's talking sad about her, right?"

That warmth in her chest is extinguished; squeezed out. Her throat bobbles as she swallows, because this kid just lost his father and now he lost his cousin and he doesn't understand the latter yet and she wishes now, more than ever, that she could cry.

She crouches down to meet him at eyelevel, forcing his arms away from her and cupping his hands in her much bigger ones. She opens her mouth, prepared to tell him that he can't give Bianca a hug, but then he's staring at her with such innocent eyes that she clamps her mouth shut.

"Do you know who could really use a hug right now?" she says instead. He shakes his head. "Your brother Percy."

Tyson glances over his shoulder, where Percy is still locked in a tight embrace with Sally and Rachel, then back at her. "But…Percy's already being hugged. If I go hug him, then there will be no one to hug you."

"I'll be fine," Annabeth assures him, smoothing out the collar of his shirt. Sally probably had to hastily throw it on him. It's, like, midnight already.

His perks up slightly. "Are you're parents coming? Will they hug you?"

She shakes his head. "No, Tyson. They won't be coming."

"Why not?"

"Because…" She sighs, almost pinching the bridge of her nose, but Tyson seems like a sensitive kid, and she doesn't want him to think she's annoyed with him. "Just go hug you're brother, okay? For me."

Tyson hesitates for a moment, then nods and rushes off to go cuddle Percy's leg.

Annabeth stands, glancing over to Nico. He's still unresponsive. Then, her eyes flutter over to Hazel. Jason rubs a comforting hand over her shoulder, while Mr. and Mrs. di Angelo offer comforting words and advice.

She already knows Percy, Sally, Tyson, and Rachel are wrapped up with each other, and she slips out of the precinct, undetected.

;

She sits on the edge of a building, right leg dangling over, the other one propped up so she can sling her elbow over her knee. Below, ambulances swarm an intersection.

A sharp, cold snap of wind tugs at her clothes and hair. She can see the red glow out of the corner of her eye, so she doesn't jump when a deep voice sounds next to her ear, "Death is a beautiful thing, is it not?"

"You bastard," she mutters, giving him the answer to his question.

He doesn't seem phased by her name-calling, though. "Love and Death go hand in hand. A death without someone that loves the deceased has no impact, and therefore, doesn't matter," he lectures. "You out of all people should know, Annabeth."

She whirls around to face him. She obviously surprises him with how quick she moves, because she manages to get her hands twisted in his white tailored suit and slam him against the wall behind them before he disappears.

"My, my." She turns around as he materializes again, a couple yards away, brushing off his clothes. He makes a tsk noise at the back of his throat. "Someone's in quite the mood tonight."

Annabeth glowers at him. "Are you sure you're not the one having the fit, or do you just shoot people when you feel like it?"

"Technically, I didn't kill Bianca di Angelo. I am Love, not Death. It's against the rules for me to directly take a life."

"Then who did, huh, Cupid?" she bites out. "Some broken fool that just got kicked out of their fiancée's apartment?"

He shrugs. "Death owed me a favor, and I called it in."

"What was even the point of it?" she demands, waving her arms around. "Was it just to prove you're a sick bastard that needs to go back to the insane asylum you crawled out from?!"

He covers his heart dramatically, like she wounded him. "I'm hurt, Annabeth. Really," he says with mock innocence. "Why, I'm just trying to help you, and you make it seem like I'm the bad guy."

"HELP ME?!" Annabeth screeches, finally losing it. "HOW CAN YOU CALL KILLING BIANCA HELPING ME?!"

"I should probably rephrase my earlier sentence, eh?" Cupid suggests with a slimy eyebrow raise. "For those with Love, Death breeds grief for them. In grief, mortals are more susceptible to falling in love, like they're trying to replace the love they lost. It's pathetic, really."

She clenches her fists, digging her nails into her palms so tight they break skin. No blood comes out, though. "So by killing Bianca, you're putting Percy into grief to up the chance that he'll fall in love. With me."

He gives an award winning smile. "I knew you'd catch on! You were always so smart."

She takes a step back, shaking her head. Leveling her gaze to his, she repeats, "You bastard. You absolute sick son of a bitch."

Cupid clambers onto the edge of the building. Annabeth follows him with her gaze, wondering how satisfying it would be if she pushed him off.

He takes another step, his white dress shoe connecting with nothing, but seemingly something, before he looks over his shoulder at her. His eyes are glowing brighter, it seems, after Bianca's death.

"Just so you know," he says, "Death owes me a couple more favors, and I intend to collect every two weeks until Percy falls in love with you. Just to give him–and you–that extra boost."

He takes another step, and his form is whisked away by the air, leaving Annabeth alone on the rooftop, feeling hollower than she ever has before.

AN: I wonder how many people are going to review "Ohmigods poor Niiiiico! How could you do that to hiiiiim?" I already made bets with myself.

You already took the time to read through seven long chapters, so why not go read more of my stuff? Hashtag shameless promotion!

This was not beta'd, so all mistakes are mine. If you see any errors, please inform me so I can correct them.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or anything else I might have mentioned. I am also not responsible for anything that has/will happen to your feels.

Constructive criticisms welcome, and reviews makes my day!