I checked for injuries and found nothing until I saw her back, she was badly cut in more than one place, carrying her across the forest was the only choice, I put her arm around my neck and carries her on my back, she was not light, but even in her state she would have beat me up if I would have said anything, she must have been dazed but she still probably felt the movement of me walking with her on top of me
"P… Percy… why..?" I immediately felt all of the guilt, but at the same time I didn't know exactly what she was talking about, did she mean bringing Calypso to camp? Maybe admitting to almost leaving her forever even though she chose not to become a hunter of Artemis, I never knew if it was because of me, but I never really had the courage to ask her what had happened, Thalia was called to be Artemis lieutenant, I had been expecting Annabeth to be called for that… the point being I was confused to what she meant.
I needed to pick up the pace, she looked even more pale then when I found her, so I decided to look for even the smallest pond of water or the lake to travel just a bit faster, but of course, I didn´t find anything, but I finally reached the camp, just a bit further, since it was getting close to midnight no one was around, so I had no help.
When I finally reached the big house to look for Chiron, I was drenched in sweat, he finally opened the door and asked
"Percy, what are you doing here this late? Calypso came here to see if you had come back, she said…" then he notice I was carrying Annabeth on my back "What happened? Come inside, quickly" I hurried to place her the couch, then Calypso saw me "Percy? Where have you been? I was getting worried" then she saw the state Annabeth was in "What happened?"
"I… I don´t know, I went looking for her and I found her passed out with those cuts all over her"
Chiron came back with nectar and ambrosia to feed Annabeth to try to get her fixed up, after he did that Calypso started to sing, I remembered the first time I woke up on her island, her music, the feeling of everything good in the world, the way her melody seemed to be also healing me, then I noticed Annabeth´s cuts starting to get smaller, not quite healed, but she was clearly better.
"Percy, Help me take her to the bed in the other room"
"Yeah, sure thing Chiron, hey Calypso, just help me with the door ok?"
"Of course Percy"
After settling Annabeth down in the guest room of the big house, I decided to stay with her a while, and Calypso decided to stay just in case something happened
"Calypso, you´re amazing you know that?" that comment made her blush
"Not at all, I just did what I thought to be the correct thing, hopefully she´ll recover completely in no time"
"You should go back to the cabin, I'll stay here for a while longer, I tell Chiron if anything happens, but you should go get some rest" she didn't look to happy leaving me with Annabeth, but if she was not ok with it, she didn´t let on, she just gave me a kiss on the cheek
"Don´t take too long, you also need plenty of rest"
"Yeah, don´t worry" I left out that usually I prefer not to sleep to avoid any typical half-blood dreams of any kind
After she left I just sat there, thinking that I could have avoided all of this, but maybe something worse would happened to her had I stayed back on the island, and if I had chosen to leave without Calypso, she would have been alone for another couple hundred years, I thought this would be ok, but it wasn´t, even if we were demigods, we were still teens, we had feelings, but I still didn´t expect things to go the way they did. However, in the middle of that, I noticed Annabeth starting to open her eyes and try to get up.
"Where am I?"
"Hey come on, stay still you´re still not at 100% you´re in the big house guest room, I brought you here after I found you passed out in the woods, If I hadn´t found you… well… it´s just good that I did, and you´re ok now, but what happened?" before answering, she blushed at the idea of me saving her, even though I had already done that before and I hope she knew I would always try to protect her
"I… I don´t know, I just started walking and got jumped"
"By what? Was it a monster?"
"No, I felt something cold, it was a knife, maybe one of Luke's spies at camp"
I knew she didn´t like talking about it, she still felt something for him, and I hated that, she would always defend him even after everything he has been putting us through.
"So how do you feel?"
"I can move at least, so I guess it´s nothing to serious, ii should be fine by tomorrow, did Chiron heal me up?"
"Well he did part of the job"
"What do you mean?"
"You just missed her, Calypso also helped, actually I think she did most of the healing, even Chiron looked surprised"
I noticed right away that she didn´t like the mention of Calypso, but I had to try to make things straight with her
"Remind me to thank her later" she said sarcastically, but with a hint of truth.
"Why do you treat her like that?"
"You are so clueless, she nearly made you leave your friends, everything, you can´t seriously expect me to be nice to her, not only Rachel, but now her? I´ve seen the way both of them look at you… the way I look at you"
"Was it that hard to tell me how you feel? Besides, if you want to talk about looks, then how about the way you look at Luke, look at everything he´s done, because of this, many people have died, yet you still defend him, he might be taking orders from Kronos, but it was his choice to follow them or not"
"Are you kidding? Even after what happened 2 weeks ago you still bring this up, what I feel for you is different from what I feel for him, if you can´t understand that, then maybe you should just forget we kissed back then, just leave me alone"
"I didn´t say I didn´t already know how you felt for me, but the way you always look at Luke, even knowing what he´s done gives anyone the wrong idea, just like what you think about me and Calypso, even Rachel, if I came back it was because it was the right thing to do, and because even I don´t know how I feel about all of you, I mean, I know that I like you, but I like Calypso in another way too, I came back to try and figure out what it is I have to do, but I know that there are more important things right now, but just know that you played a huge part in me wanting to come back
"If you came back for me, then why did you bring her?" she said, tears starting to fall from her face.
"Annabeth, I know you, and if you would have been there, I know you would think the same as me about her, she´s a kind person, who didn´t deserve the punishment of being alone for the rest of her life, she was nice to me, she saved me, she deserves a chance to be happy, and I was starting to feel for her, I thought maybe I could make her happy"
"So that means you are choosing her over me?"
"not at all, I don´t know what will happen, but I decided to let things advance on their own and see what happens, that´s why I brought her here, so she could meet people, maybe she only loves me for being the only person she had seen in many years"
"So you want me to just accept the fact that you could leave me for her, that this is now a competition between me and her?"
"It´s not a competition! Why do you have to make this harder for us? Understand that I have really strong feelings for you, but, even I don´t know what to do in this situation, I just want you to know that even if I don´t end up with you, I will still be your friend, I'll always be there when you need me, whenever and wherever."
"Well I need you now, and always, and I can´t just stand by while someone could take you from me" then she came at me, full force, and kissed me, I was shocked, even thought she was still pretty weak, she got a tight hold of me, but I still felt like this was right, like if either choice made me happy, but would make the other person suffer, and that´s what I least wanted to happen, I didn´t like to hurt my friends.
I pulled away after a moment "What's wrong?" she asked
"It´s nothing, just rest up, I'll need you tomorrow, were gonna go look for Rachel to help us get to Daedalus" I quickly exited the house, not even bothering to tell Chiron that I had left, I just needed some alone time … Jeez, what did I get myself into now?