I'll be honest, we didn't really do that right away. We do have some self-control. Juust a little bit. "Maybe I can go through some of the stuff we made when we were my age" Annie suddenly suggested as we were on our way from cabin thirteen to number three. "If nothing changed since I was last active for long times, all that stuff should be in a box under our bed" "And when was that?" "Just over nine years ago. But don't worry, Annabeth likes things to not change, especially when it's things she made" "Then you go check if it's still there. I'll be outside the cabin if you need me"
About a minute later, Annie came out with a cardbox box that would have been way too heavy for her if she had actually, biologically, been a seven year old, but for the current body, it was no problem at all. She carried the box to my cabin and Annie started going through them. "Okay, I should say that I am a trauma holder, I remember everything up to Thalia's death. Therefore, I'll probably not remember making any of this. That would probably be Annabeth. But maybe I'll still recognize some of this stuff" Annie carefully flipped the box upside down, putting the oldest paper on the top. Except it wasn't a paper, it was a paper towel like you'd find in public toilets. It had probably been wrinkled at some point, but 9 years at the bottom of the box had straightened it out. "I was wrong, I think I do remember this thing" She turned the paper towel over. On it was a drawing. It was very crude and lacked color, but you could still tell what it was. "That's you with Luke and Thalia, right?" "It is. I think I used the toilet in a gas station and decided to take some paper with me. That stuff isn't easy to get when you're on the run." We looked at the next picture. It was the skyline of New York City. "I drew this as we were heading into the city on our way to camp." Immediately, something seemed off. After a few seconds, I realized what it was. Annabeth had arrived in New York during the summer of 2001, meaning that in this picture, the twin towers were still standing. I began to wonder. If Thalia hadn't died, would she have been able to create winds powerful enough to divert the course of the airplane? It would have saved many lives. On the other hand, if she hadn't sacrificed herself, Annabeth wouldn't live which sounds really selfish so I'll shut up about it now. The picture reminded me of just how long Annabeth had been here, at camp for.
We looked at a few more drawings, most of them being on paper towels. "Annabeth is around" Annie told me. "I think she wants to come out. I'm tired so why not" She turned around, probably to avoid seeing the cardboard construction and being triggered again. The switch didn't take that long, only about a minute and a half. "Hey, it's Annabeth. Mostly. What happened? Weren't we just with Nico?" "He mentioned that he was homeless for a while and Annie wanted to share some experiences. The combination of her cuteness and Nico's not so good mental state actually led to him giving her a hug." "Nico hugged someone? No way" "Yes way. He kept talking about his life. We left when he got to the point where he'd tell us about his search for the doors of death." "I wouldn't want to hear about that. Now, what's going on with this paper" "That's just stuff you made as a kid. Annie felt like going through it" "That's a good idea in theory, but I'd say I'll digitalize all of this. That way I can also look at it when I'm not here" Annabeth spent about a minute setting something up on her computer, then collected the paper towels we had looked at and put them back on the stack. She pressed one last button and began flipping all the pages over one by one, without really looking at them. After about ten minutes, she was done. "All the drawings have been digitalized" "How exactly did you do that?" "It's really simple. It's a combination of slow-mo recording, motion tracking and the reconstruction of two dimensional surfaces based on angled 3D perspectives. Well, it's simple by my standards." "Exactly. I barely understand a thing" "It doesn't really matter how it works, but I can now look at everything on my computer screen" She showed me a folder of images, the first few being the drawings Annie and I had already taken a look at. "I guess we can continue now, where did you stop" "At this picture" Annabeth opened the next picture. It looked a lot like the first one, with three differences: It was drawn on actual paper rather than a paper towel, it had colors and Thalia was a tree. "And here we can see my first documented attempts at processing trauma" Annabeth announced like some sort of tour guide. We looked at a few more pictures. A lot of them showed Thalia's tree or monsters. "Can we stop?" Annabeth suddenly asked. "Why" "A lot of these were things I drew to process trauma, so looking at them now is triggering. I tried to suppress it, but it's not working." "That's fine. You don't have to suppress anything. If it triggers you, we'll simply stop" "Sure?" "Yeah, I mean, it was fun, delving into your childhood, but I wouldn't want to have fun on your expenses" "I know. It's just, sometimes I fall back into that old mindset. Maybe because I was looking at pictures from that time" "Makes sense. I sometimes expect severe punishments. But then I look at you and that reminds me that those times are over" "Thanks for the tip I guess. When you're there, my needs are respected" "Exactly." Someone knocked at the door. "Come in" I called. A boy entered the cabin. I recognized him as Harley, the youngest (but not smallest) Hephaistos kid. "I got the things you ordered" he gave me a small bag and explained to me how the light system worked, then left. I didn't really understand it, but luckily Annabeth had been listening and knew exactly how to install the lights. While we were doing so, I continued the conversation.
"Speaking of me making sure your needs are met, there was something I was insecure about: A few hours ago, I convinced you to do my homework in exchange for love and validation. This only worked because you very strongly crave those things. If I interpreted correctly, this craving is only so strong because of your trauma" "Correct" "So I was thinking that maybe this could be considered taking advantage of your trauma and I wanted to make sure that you were okay with it" Annabeth thought about it for a few seconds "I appreciate your concern. Usually, taking advantage of people's trauma is a horrible thing to do, but usually that involves using it to facilitate the process of harming them. In this case, that was never the intention. All you did was try to get a better deal. That's fine by me. And when I say fine, I don't mean I-am-severely-traumatized-so-I-have-low-standards-fine or it's-not-fine-but-I'm-a-girl-who-refuses-to-say-what-she-means-fine but actually, genuinely fine. You're giving me what I want. That is a good thing and has nothing to do with abuse of trauma, so why would requiring a service, and one I enjoy, from me change that. You can ask me for homework in exchange for cuddles any time you want" "Well, I also have this chemistry homework" I jokingly said "You can also have me do nothing in exchange for cuddles" "But then you wouldn't have deserved it" "Come on seaweed brain. Remember when I said that the pictures were triggering me? I think it's getting worse" I had a feeling that that was a lie, but I didn't want to take that risk (and I wanted to hug her) so I answered with "Fine, I'll do it. I gave her another hug and didn't let go until I was sure she was okay. I also moved my hands up and down along her back, knowing that the grounding sensation would help her avoid a potential flashback. It didn't really seem like one was actually coming up, but the chance was still there and I wanted to keep it as low as possible. After a few minutes, we pulled away. "Thanks for that" Annabeth said. "I genuinely mean it. This really helped. I should maybe leave those pictures alone for a while." "Good idea. Don't do anything you can't handle. And even if you think you are able to handle something, you might not so make sure to take care of yourself and don't push through things" "I'll try my best to do what I'm capable of and nothing more, but you know, hubris" "That's why it's so important to pay attention to yourself while doing stuff. As a general rule I'd say that if you notice something affecting you negatively, but you think you can still keep going, you probably can't" "I'll try to keep that in mind." I checked the clock. "If we want to be back in school in time for dinner, we still have almost an hour." "I'd say we go swimming in the lake. That definitely won't cause any flashbacks" "If it does, I'll be there. But if I'm there, you won't have one, or at least the specific chain of events that led from swimming to a flashback last time won't happen due to my presence." "I'd tell you how awesome and cute it is that we fit together to the point where your presence prevents me from having flashbacks, but that would sound a bit narcissistic" "And factually correct. Maybe Piper is somewhere around, if yes her Percabeth sensor is gonna go off any moment and she'll come in" We waited for a few seconds, but no one came. "I guess she's somewhere else. Well, I can't complain about being able to be cute in private. I wonder if her love radar would actually be useful in any situation" "Well, she did figure out my sexuality, maybe even faster than I did myself and when we were 'missing' a few weeks ago, she was the one to find us in the lake. Not necessarily useful for us, but for everyone else." "Speaking of the lake, do you want to go now or not" "Since I won't have a flashback, sure, why not? I'll see you there"
Annabeth left to get changed. I did so as well. Before I left for the lake, I grabbed some stuff I'd need later. I first went to the sound and pulled up the lifeboat we had used on our dam date. I transported it to the lake and prepared it. Then I waited for Annabeth who arrived just seconds later. She took a few steps into the water. "I'd say it's gotten colder since last time" "There's only one thing you can do in that situation." I made the water pull Annabeth deeper into the lake. Maybe it was a bit mean, but it was helping her after all and Annabeth was cool with it. How did I know? I didn't have a knife pointed at my face. Also, we knew each other so well that a quick glance back and forth was usually sufficient as consent. "That was mean" "If it were really that mean, you wouldn't have allowed it. If that counts as allowing" "You mean looking at you for half a second. I guess that is enough confirmation from me" What did I tell you? Of course whenever I did something that we hadn't done before or was otherwise unsure, I would get verbal consent from her. The eye contact thing was only for situation where I had reason to assume it was okay.
Once Annabeth was used to the cold water, we began swimming. Just like Piper had been last time, Annabeth was foolish enough to splash me in the face. I splashed back with a lot more water. Within seconds, the air was filled with water droplets from a not so even fight. Since it was so unfair, I only kept going for a few more seconds. We then began just swimming. I could have kept going for hours, if not days, but Annabeth got tired after a while. As per usual, she didn't really let it show, but I still noticed. Together, we swam away from the shoreline. Annabeth didn't hesitate to follow me, probably knowing that I'd be able to get her onto dry land easily in case she couldn't do it on her own. "Do you need a break?" I asked when we were around thirty meters out. "Yeah." Imagine a person who is constantly overworking themselves and then, after a long time, realizes that they can't keep going like this. That they need help, so they build up the courage to ask for it. Now decrease the intensity of it significantly and you'll approximately get the emotions behind that "yeah".
"One sec" I manipulated the currents to make the sunken lifeboat flip over and come up to the surface. While that was happening, I reached for Annabeth's hand and gently squeezed it. I had once established that it meant something like "I'm here, it's gonna be fine" Since then, I had done it often enough for Annabeth to always return the gesture, often subconsciously, as she did now.
The boat broke through the surface where it formed an easy to reach platform that Annabeth thankfully climbed onto. I followed her onto it. I saw she was shivering. Understandable, she was soaking wet and it wasn't exactly warm. "You cold?" I asked. "Obviously" "Well, I got just what you need. I untied the ropes on the bottom of the boat (I could will them to do that since they were part of a watercraft), releasing a blanket, and pulled it out of the water. I dried both Annabeth and the blanket and wrapped it around Annabeth. She motioned for me to join her "Well, you're the cold one but if you insist. I guess I can help warm you" I wrapped the blanket around both of us and began cuddling with Annabeth for the third time this afternoon while the boat slowly drifted back to shore.