May 20, 1918

Dear Annabeth,

It has been a month in the trenches and everything is fine. The war is honestly rather boring. I spend most of my time talking with Grover or my new friend Nico. He has told me about his family and life here in France. He has a sister our age and his home town is not far from our lines. I have tried to talk to him about why he is in the war especially since he is so young. He simply told me it is what was expected of him, what is expected of all of us. That we are really just the pawns of the gods. I asked about him to some of the other Frenchmen and they informed me he lost his mother in the war. I think there is more in his past then he lets onto.

There is almost nothing for us to do here. We have to spend the day in the trenches and away from the German snipers. As long as we keep our heads down and don't do anything stupid (rather difficult for me I know) we are perfectly fine. At night they do their best to scare us and fire shells at our lines but they are rarely accurate and we are too well protected. I'm not surprised this war has dragged on this long, with the way they fight they act like they don't want it to end.

At night the Frenchmen try and intimidate us Americans and tell us ghost stories of the fighting. They speak of spirits that haunt no-man's-land and clouds of chemical gas that the Germans have used. I never give hear to what they are saying. They have spent too much time away from home.

We also spend time drilling and practicing what skills we can in the tight space of our positions. One of the Frenchmen asked if we were any good 'in a real fight' and pointed to our bayonets. Several other Marines set up a hand-to-hand competition and Lieutenant Grace forced me into it. After having to fight nearly every man in our company and the French 167th I was the undefeated champion. Now the Company jokes that they only need to get me into the German lines and I'll win us the war. I hope it'll be that easy.

I keep wondering how you are. Things must be peaceful not having me around I guess. I hope you are still talking with your father. I'm glad to hear that he wrote you and proud of you for responding. Write him again, I know you haven't since that last letter. Give him a chance, maybe go visit him. He loves you Annabeth and you need someone to look after you, even if you don't want to admit it.

There are rumors of us being sent into action some time soon. I don't know where we will be sent or if it will just end up being more sitting in the mud but I hope not. I might as well do something if I came all the way out here. I'll write you and tell you what I can as soon as I find out. I also promise I'll stay safe (I know you were going to write that).

I hope everything is well, please write me soon. Your letters help the boredom more than anything else and I have to admit I miss talking to you. I'll be writing my mother a letter but I hope that you'll tell her I love her and miss her. Especially her cooking, I even miss your cooking as sad as that sounds. I hope to get a letter from you soon.

Take care,

Percy

Annabeth shook her head and tried not to think about Percy charging the German lines by himself, knife in hand. Percy was reckless and she knew he would do anything necessary to protect his friends and that made her worry. She read back over the letter and tried to hear his confident voice. If he was saying that everything was fine then she should believe him, he was an idiot at times but he never lied to her.

None of it kept the knot of worry in the pit of her stomach from finally blooming into a weed that wrapped its vines around her lungs. Percy was still joking and bragging about his skills but she knew he was in danger. She read the lists the news papers printed every day, all the men who wouldn't be coming home. She didn't want her friend to be one of those names.

It was the nights of cold sweat and the days thinking about where he was, wondering what he was doing, the stack of letters she wrote but never sent, the words of confession that cause her to crumple up the paper, that brought questions of what he was to her mind.

That last image of him never left her mind. His hand on hers and the smell of his skin, the wool of his uniform on her neck, the strength of his arm around her shoulders, these sensations warmed her at night.

They also filled the waking hours with dread.

Annabeth pulled a sheet of paper out and grabbed her fountain pen, she took some time to think out her letter and began to write.

She focused on filling him in. Telling him how her mother and his soon to be step father were doing. What she was doing, how she was doing. The little changes of the neighborhood.

She left out her questions. She never asked what they were, what she was to him, what these letters meant when he wouldn't write the other girls that asked.

She gave in to her own over bearing concern and worry and skirted the line of decency with the threat of what would happen to him if he charged German lines by himself, she also put in a warning to his commanding officer.

That was the only leeway she gave herself in that letter. The only time she let herself open up, even if just a little. She wouldn't put the rest on him. Wouldn't force him to read her admittance of deepening concern on piece of paper in some muddy hole in the ground in a field in France. No, she would write that in another letter. She would fill it's blank nakedness with her drabbles and babblings and then store it away. Maybe when he came home, maybe if he came home to her she would let him read it. She doubted it, most likely she would burn it.

Before she sealed the letter she stopped and thought it through. Ran through the implications and decided it could be done in a tactful manner. She still had time to do it. She took the letter with her, if she didn't leave it in the post as soon as the gift was inside the envelope she doubted it would ever make it to him. Far too great a chance of thinking over it too long.

Just before she dropped it in that steel box she lifted it to her lips and gave it a soft kiss, the one she should have given it's reader those months ago.

A/N: I'm hoping this will be a regularly updated story. I know what I want to do with it, I just need to actually write it. Please leave me a review and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!