A/N: Hello friends! Many of you got pretty upset about that little cliffhanger. Or liferuiner because you know, no one was really in danger. I was surprised at how many people pleaded for Annabeth to not get angry and for her to understand. Do any of you even know me at all? Haha I'm kidding; I would feel the same way if a chapter ended that way while I was reading. Enjoy chapter 23! Next chapter is Christmas!
Even though his back was to her, Annabeth could tell it was Percy. His hair and the way he holds himself gave him away.
"What on earth do you think you're doing, Daniela?" Annabeth asked as Percy pushed Daniela away from him.
"Why, my dear Annabeth, that's where you must be confused. I'm not doing anything; Percy kissed me," Daniela said with an evil smirk, as if Annabeth hadn't seen anything.
"Why do I doubt that?" Annabeth questioned. "You are a horrible person."
"I'm not that terrible, Annie. After all, your boyfriend did kiss me. You should be mad at him. Mad enough to break up with him," Daniela said.
"Save it, Daniela. I saw you kiss him, and I saw him push you away. For some reason, you think that you can break us up, but you don't understand what we've been through together. This boy has been my best friend since we were twelve, and I love him with all of my being. I know exactly how he feels about me, too. If I can trust him with my life, then I can trust him in our relationship. It's time for you to stop these hopeless attempts at coming between us; it's honestly just getting sad," Annabeth replied.
"I'm not going to pretend like the two of you aren't in a happy relationship. But you don't deserve Percy. He deserves someone, well, pretty," Daniela laughed.
"How dare you?" Percy spoke up. "If anything, I don't deserve Annabeth. And she is beautiful. You're just jealous because she's pretty and smart while you only have a pretty face. True beauty requires more than just that."
"Well, my 'pretty face' will get me far in life. Trust me. Neither of you can handle the fact that I deserve to get everything I want. For now, I'll let you live in your stupid little fantasy, but when you inevitably break up, give me a call," Daniela said then turned on her heal to walk back into the dance.
Annabeth laughed. "She's the most ridiculous human being I have ever met. She thinks that just having a pretty face will get her far in life. Poor girl doesn't know what the real world has in store for her."
"Let's go back inside. I'm sure everyone's wondering where we are," Percy said, grabbing her hand.
"Where were you, Perce?" Shayne asked as they approached the table.
"I went outside to get some fresh air, and Daniela cornered me," Percy explained.
"Yikes. Is everything okay?" Jess asked.
"Yeah. She didn't have anything remotely clever to say at all. I think she may have realized that she can't really break us up," Annabeth replied.
"She's trying the 'waiting it out' method which will not work out in her favor," Percy added.
"You guys are so confident in your relationship," Gabby noted. "It makes me jealous."
"When you go through what we have, it's hard not to be. I'm not sure I could live without Percy," Annabeth replied.
It was almost something had hit a switch inside of her. Immediately, she felt just as she did in battle. The pressure of saving the world, the adrenaline pushing through her body, and one sole thought: If we win this, will Percy make it out alive?
The scream that never quite made it out of her during battle was coming out now. Percy had to live. If he didn't, then there was no point to her living.
She had an image cross her eyes that was sure actually hadn't happened. Right? Percy was laying lifeless on the ground next to a furious looking Poseidon and a victorious looking giant.
No, wait, that didn't happen. Percy didn't die. They won the war.
But the image couldn't possibly lie, and Annabeth couldn't keep back her sobs. Her entire purpose in life was gone, ripped away from her in a way that she couldn't prevent.
In her moment of despair, she distantly heard soothing words. "Annabeth, I'm right here. Shh, it's going to be okay. You aren't there anymore. We won. It's okay now."
It suddenly dawned on Annabeth where she was and who was around her. Percy was the closest, holding her tightly to him. Her friends were all kneeled in a circle surrounding them, and several of the chaperones were standing above them.
"Is she... okay now?" one of the chaperones asked.
"Maybe," Percy replied. "She stopped screaming and I think the crying is done now. Give her a minute."
Annabeth took a deep breath and pushed herself away from Percy.
"Excuse me," was all she said before pushing herself through the group of people surrounding her.
The music had stopped, and most people were talking in groups while occasionally looking in her direction.
Annabeth walked straight to the bathrooms where she thought that she could compose herself.
She couldn't.
She was beyond composing herself. The tears would not stop, but this time for a different reason.
"I'm so tired of this," Annabeth said softly to herself.
The bathroom door opened and Jess walked in.
"You okay?" she asked. "The chaperones wouldn't let Percy come see you, so they sent me."
"Yeah, I'm fine now. Just frustrated," Annabeth replied.
"You know, you've never really explained these flashbacks to me. You don't have to; I'm honestly very curious."
Annabeth sighed. "Remember when Percy referred to us as the Heroes of Olympus?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we've fought in two wars, winning both of them, but at a cost. The first war was against the titan Kronos. Even before the actual war, we went on many dangerous quests."
"Quests?" Jess questioned. "Like what?"
"Retrieving Zeus' lightning bolt, sailing the sea of monsters, one time I got kidnapped-"
"I think I get the idea. What happened during the war?"
"A lot of terrible things. We lost a lot of friends. People betrayed, and the first person to betray us ended up being the one to end it all."
Jess was confused by that statement, so Annabeth explained to her everything that happened with Luke the shortest way possible. This led into her explaining the war with Gaea.
"Not long after the Titan War, Percy was taken away by Hera, and he was switched with Jason Grace. Both of their memories were wiped. Jason was the praetor at the camp for Roman demigods, and Percy's our unofficial leader you could say. Hera was trying to unite our two camps that didn't know about each other for a good reason. However, we needed to take a group of seven demigods on a quest to the ancient lands, which is basically forbidden. When we found Percy, we united a some of the Greeks and Romans and took off towards Europe.
"When we were in Rome, I was sent on a quest to find the Mark of Athena. It was hard, and I ended up breaking my ankle. But I did it. That's when things went bad though, and Percy and I fell into Tartarus. Think of personifying hell then walking through his body. That's where all the monsters come from, and we probably shouldn't have made it out alive. Somehow we did, then we fought another war. This time with earth herself and the giants she had fighting for her. Some of our other friends were the big heroes, and the whole battle is still a big blur to me," Annabeth explained.
"Wow," Jess said after a moment. "No wonder you two have flashbacks. When you say that you've been through a lot together, I never would've imagined it being that much."
"Originally, I thought the flashbacks were just because of Tartarus, but now they're just taking every terrible thing that's happened to me and throwing them back in my face. Now, things are being made up too from past worries. I saw Percy dead tonight. It was during the Giant war. His dad was even in it. It was like my mind took my worst case scenario thoughts during the war and gave me a nice front row seat to the premiere."
"Well, even if you are starting to get worse flashbacks, if we can still call them that, consider the time between each flashback. When was your last one?"
Annabeth thought for a moment. "A few days ago. It wasn't terrible, though. Percy was able to calm me down pretty quickly. No tears, but at the same time, no trigger. I'm not sure that I'm getting any better while Percy hasn't had one for a while."
"Comparing your progress to Percy's won't get you anywhere. Maybe if you start recording your flashbacks in a journal then analyze them when you feel better, you might be able to see some improvement," Jess suggested.
"That's actually a really good idea." Annabeth looked at herself in the mirror. "Gabby isn't going to be too happy about the mess I've made on my face."
"You're probably better off just taking it off." Jess got her a wet paper towel, and Annabeth began to gently wipe the makeup off of her face.
"Ready to try to have an awkwardly good time?" Annabeth asked once her face was clean.
"You know it!" Jess replied.
The two girls laughed before walking back out into the gym.
Sorry for having basically a summary of the series, but Jess needed to find out eventually. Now she knows. QOTD: Who's excited for Christmas? I am! If you don't celebrate, are you excited for any other winter holidays?
Until next time!