Okay, so, just in case I didn't express enough enthusiasm last chapter,

THANK YOU FOR GETTING ME TO 2000 REVIEWS! Y'ALL ARE AWESOME AND YOUR ACHIEVEMENTS SHOULD BE IMMORTALIZED IN SOME SORT OF FANFICTION ACHIEVEMENT MUSEUM!

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Chapter LXXXV

Percy

Almost as soon as Percy gets up the stairs, he has to steady himself against the wall, fighting off another wave of pain.

He didn't tell the whole truth when he told Leo about the nightmares-it's true that he's having trouble with them, but that's not the reason he can't sleep tonight. The reason he can't sleep is the continuous waves of pain that jolt him back awake every time he starts to slip off to sleep.

Of course, if he actually got to sleep, no doubt he'd soon be woken up by the nightmares. But at least he'd have gotten some sleep.

He sighs and takes his hand off of the wall, continuing down the hallway back to his room.

More like my and Annabeth's room, now, since she pretty much never goes into her room. Percy thinks. She even keeps most of her clothes in my room now.

He smiles happily, thinking of it, and quietly pushes open the door, careful not to wake Annabeth.

She's still fast asleep, her blonde hair spread out like a halo on the pillow under her head. The blanket is tangled around her bare legs-all she's wearing is an old t-shirt of his and a pair of work-out shorts.

Percy smiles broader and shuts the door quietly behind him, tiptoeing over to the bed and crawling in beside her. He doesn't bother with the blankets-she always steals them anyway, and it isn't worth risking waking her up to untangle them from her legs. Instead, he just lays on his side, propping his head on his hand, and just looking at her.

"You are so beautiful." He murmurs to her, even though she can't hear him.

Then he sighs again and kisses her on the forehead. "Love you, Wise Girl. Good night."

He rests his arm lightly across her stomach-just to know she's near-and closes his eyes, fully expecting a sleepless night. But soon, after only a few minutes, he feels himself slipping into sleep, and this time, the pain doesn't prevent it.

Of course, nothing prevents the nightmares, either.

"You aren't going to survive the final battle." Thalassa's whispered words echo in his ears, and he stabs her all over again.

"I have a secret to tell you too, Thalassa." He says, just as he did when it happened. He leans forward. "Neither will Gaea."

At this point, Percy can feel Thalassa's fear-he's defeated two Primordials, with almost laughable ease. Gaea is the oldest Primordial of all-but she doesn't scare him. He's willing to die to save his friends-if he doesn't survive the final battle, so be it. But he's taking Gaea with him.

The dream swirls into another, and Thalassa disappears.

Tartarus rises in physical form in front of him, and he drops Riptide on the membraneous ground of the pit.

Percy remembers Annabeth's words of warning-Tartarus is in a class all by himself. They can't defeat him. But she was still willing to try-and so was he.

Once again, his nightmare changes, and this time, he has no reassuring thoughts to counter it.

Annabeth is laying at his feet, blood pouring from a ragged wound in her chest.

"No." Percy whispers. "Annabeth, no." He collapses to his knees beside her, dropping Riptide, and pulls her head into his lap.

She opens her eyes and looks at him. "Seaweed Brain." She breathes, and her hand slides towards him, searching-he quickly grabs it and holds it tightly in his own. She coughs, and blood stains her lips.

Percy can see the pain in her eyes-not just from her wound, but from her thoughts. Her stormy eyes are filled with chaos, and it hurts.

"No, no, no." Percy chants. "Annabeth, come on. Stay with me. You're going to be okay."

Her eyes look past him and focus on the sky. "Look." She whispers faintly. "The stars are out. I can see the Huntress."

Percy looks up, and the painful reminder the sight of the constellation brings him just makes his heart ache more. This scene is so similar...except that there's no goddess here to try and save her.

"Annabeth, you can't-I can't-you can't die." Percy tells her, his voice breaking. "I can't live without you. You're the strong one-you always have been."

Suddenly, the dream changes a third time, and he's standing in front of Gaea, looking at her closed eyes and dreamy smile.

Yes. Her voice whispers. The daughter of Athena has always been the strong one, hasn't she?

Percy's anger bubbles up inside him, and he feels himself shaking with it, but before he can say anything, Gaea continues.

So angry. She says. Good...yes. Yes. Her dreamy voice ties him in place, freezes him there. It feels like she's dragging him down...

Percy remembers another nightmare, years ago...Kronos, using Percy to pull himself out of Tartarus...

He wrenches himself away, breaking whatever hold Gaea has over him, and pulls Riptide, slashing through her sleeping form.

She vanishes as soon as his blade makes contact, and he's alone in darkness.

Numerous other images start torturing-he fails to save his friends, over and over again. He sees Camp Half-Blood in ruins, the bodies of the campers scattered across the burning ground.

But mostly, he fails to save Annabeth.

His dream changes again-no longer just scattered vision-like images. An actual nightmare.

He's falling again-down, down, down into the eternal dark. Except that Annabeth isn't with him this time. He's alone.

Even as he realizes that, the area around him starts to lighten, taking on a reddish tinge, and he feels the air start to heat up, baking his skin. He sees the landscape of Tartarus-like a staircase leading down into darker, more dangerous territory. The rivers snake across it like open veins-the blood of Tartarus.

The river Cocytus erupts below him, and he's engulfed in the freezing water, immediately chilling him to the bone, filling him with cold feelings of despair.

He claws his way to the surface, gasping, his eyes drooping.

Annabeth, he thinks, Where are you?

He sinks back into the water, pulled down by the current, and no matter how hard he swims, he doesn't move forward.

He opens his mouth to breathe, and his lungs fill with the dark water-he's drowning, alone, in the River of Lamentation.

His movements slow, and the edges of his mind are ragged, fraying away, letting the darkness in. The cold is everywhere-all around him, inside him, down to his bones.

Life is pointless, the water whispers. Give up. There's no point.

His head breaks the surface of the water again, and he gasps, coughing up the water.

Pointless, the voices murmur.

Percy feels his eyes closing, and his heavy limbs start to drag him back under again. "Pointless." He repeats.

The despair fills him-why is he still fighting? No matter how many times he kills them, the monsters just keep coming back. There's nothing-nothing to fight for anymore.

"Annabeth," He mutters, through his chattering teeth, and makes another effort to stay above the water, clumsily kicking his feet and waving his arms.

But the voices are right-it's pointless, there's no use in fighting. He's going to die anyway-why is he still trying? There isn't any point to it. There's no reason to keep going.

Give up, the water urges, Give up.

Percy keeps swimming though-for Annabeth. But it's no use; the water drags him down, under the surface, and he can't fight his way back up. He holds his breath, refuses to let the water in, but the cold hurts, and his mind is ragged at the edges, losing the battle. His lungs feel like they're about to burst, and he keeps sinking, dragged down, deeper and deeper into the dark, freezing water...

"Percy!" Annabeth's voice calls, as if from far away. "Percy, it's okay, I'm here, we're out, you're okay!"

But no, he's drowning, sinking farther into darkness, the water pressing down on his lungs...everything is pointless, there's no reason to keep fighting...

"Percy, please, wake up!" Annabeth's voice begs him desperately.

His eyes shut, but he struggles to open them, for her, for Annabeth...she's his reason, she's why he has to keep fighting...

"Percy, it's okay, I promise, please, wake up!" Annabeth pleads.

Percy's eyes fly open, and he gasps, his chest heaving. Annabeth is leaning over him, clinging to his hand, her gray eyes desperate, worried. They're filled with tears.

"Annabeth." Percy gasps, and wraps his arms around her, sitting up and pulling her close.

"I-I woke up, and you were barely breathing, and you were so cold!" She whimpers into his shoulder, her voice muffled. "You were thrashing around and muttering things like in the River Cocytus-and-and-Percy, you wouldn't wake up, and I thought-I thought-"

"I'm-I'm okay." Percy mumbles, trying to reassure her, but it's not true, because a part of him is still stuck in the nightmare, drowning in the frigid waters of the River of Misery...

"Percy!" He hears Annabeth calling his name again. "Percy!"

His eyes refocus, and he realizes that he zoned out again, and Annabeth's holding his face between her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes.

"Percy, it's okay." She tells him firmly, and then kisses him on the lips when he doesn't respond. "Tell me about New Rome-what were your plans for us?"

Percy closes his eyes, remembering this conversation in Tartarus. "Architecture. I thought you'd like the houses, the parks. There's one street with all these cool fountains."

"College." Annabeth says. "Could we go there together?"

"Yeah." Percy whispers, his voice no louder than a breath.

"What would you study, Percy?" She asks. Percy almost smiles at the memory of what comes next, and it helps chase away the memories of misery.

"Dunno." He says, continuing the conversation.

"Marine science," she suggests, worry still in her eyes as she watches him. "Oceanography?"

"Surfing?" He asks, and Annabeth laughs a little out of pure relief, but she starts crying too, and smiles sadly at him through the tears.

But it chases away the last fading affects of his nightmare, and he focuses completely on her, dragging his mind away from the cold, despairing misery of the River Cocytus. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Annabeth's, holding her hands.

"Percy," She finally says, her voice muffled by the tears. "Why didn't you tell me the nightmares were this bad?"

"They aren't-not always." He replies. "This one was...worse than usual. But I never told you, because I didn't want you to worry."

Annabeth withdraws from him a little, and he opens his eyes to look at her. "Percy, it's my job to worry. You worry about me-let me do the same for you."

"I didn't want to make your nightmares any worse." He whispers, and she smiles sadly at him again.

"The only thing that can make them worse is if you're not with me." She tells him.

Percy manages a wavery smile back at her, and rests his forehead back against hers-but then the pain comes back, worse than ever.

No, he thinks, not now. But he can't stop it, and he tenses his muscles in another futile attempt to ward it off, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut.

"Percy?" Annabeth asks. "Percy, what's wrong?"

Percy can't answer right away, because of the pain-if he opens his mouth, he won't be able to stop himself from making some sound of pain. And then it finally fades, and he relaxes, breathing heavily.

"Percy, what was that?" Annabeth asks him sternly, and he opens his eyes to find her glaring accusingly at him.

"Um...nothing?" He answers weakly.

"Percy." She says sternly, and he closes his eyes again.

"Um...okay. Remember when we got to the Doors of Death?" He reminds her. He feels her nod, and continues. "Remember that arai I had to kill?"

Annabeth goes rigid, and he opens his eyes back up to look at her.

She's frozen, staring at him, her mouth slightly open in surprise. "Percy." She finally breathes. "That's what this is?"

He nods. "It was-some sort of pain curse, and the pain keeps coming back. It wasn't too bad at first-it didn't happen very often, so I figured I could keep it hidden. But, today, it started happening more often than usual."

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asks angrily, then puts up her hand to forestall his answer. "Wait-let me guess. You didn't want me to worry more?"

Percy nods, a little sheepishly, and she shakes her head in exasperation at him.

"Okay, Percy, from now on, if you have a nightmare, and I don't wake up before you-wake me up." He opens his mouth to protest, but she stops him. "No, Percy-I don't care about losing sleep. You need to sleep just as much as I do, and if you're having nightmares, that doesn't work. The reason we're sleeping in the same room is so we can help each other through the nightmares and flashbacks-not so that you can help me. It goes both ways. Okay?"

She holds his gaze with her stormy gray eyes, and he knows better than to protest. "Okay."

"Okay." She repeats. Then she sighs, and looks out the window at the dark sky. "We still have a few hours before dawn-you want to try to get some more sleep."

Percy nods wearily-that nightmare took a lot more out of him than it should have. And then, the pain right after...that hadn't helped.

Annabeth reaches up and strokes his cheek with one hand, looking up into his eyes. "It's okay, Percy." She tells him. "We're together."

Percy smiles softly at her, and they lay back down on his bed, laying side by side, looking into each other's eyes.

"I love you, Wise Girl." He whispers, entwining their fingers and pulling her as close as possible.

"I love you too, Seaweed Brain." She whispers back, and their lips are so close that he feels her warm breath on his face.

He kisses her once on the lips, softly, and she nestles her head in the crook of his throat so that his chin is resting against the top of her head. Her legs tangle with his, and it isn't long before he finally falls into actual, peaceful, blessed sleep-with his Wise Girl laying right next to him.

I think I maybe wrote this chapter right after I finished TFIOS for the first time. I seem to be channeling some of its sadness. But, happy ending, so that's obviously me there, and not John Green.

Oh, and since some of you still like to insist I'm Rick Riordan:

DISCLAIMER: All characters and references to already published materials belong to Rick Riordan-who is not me. I'M A GIRL, PEOPLE.

And on that note,

I love you, make okay your always, never forget Augustus Waters, and immortalize Hazel Grace Lancaster in your hearts! Okay? Okay.

(P.S.: Yes, all of those were references to The Fault in Our Stars, not Percy Jackson. Get over it.)