Archive of Our Own

Annabeth had always known she was different. 

She knew things the few other kids her age she met didn’t. It took her longer than nearly anyone else to read a single page, but once she did she would remember all of it. And despite her painful slowness, she read more books than anyone else in the class. But that wasn’t the problem. 

Once, she saw a line of spiders under her desk and screamed for so long that a teacher had to carry her out and hold her down. Another time, a slimy, hulking thing came after her and she attacked it with books and stools, all the weapons that a kindergarten classroom had to offer. By the time she drove it off, there was a gash along her arm and it looked like a hurricane had torn through the classroom. No one listened to her when she tried to explain. Her dad just told her that they would try a new school. She explained again and again what had happened, what she had done, that she hadn’t meant to cause anyone any trouble, until he shut his office door. 

Annabeth didn’t have any strong feelings about her father’s upcoming wedding. Elaine was extremely reserved, hands behind her pack, pinched smiles on her face. Her sons were annoying boys, always dirty and loud, but they were not mean. More careless. She was nice back, but was not expecting them to be friends. She was willing to be patient for that one. Sometimes, late at night, she would close her eyes and hold herself as tightly as she could, leaving red marks along her arms. She did not pray but, eyes on the silver moon, she hoped and hoped that one day she would have friends and laughter and ease. She felt it was inevitable. Every story she had ever read was about a main character and their very special friends—no one was ever alone in a story. Hers mustn’t have started yet.

The first time she ran away, she was gone for a few hours at most, but it felt like far longer to her chilled fingers. In all her lost ramblings, the only thing she remembered years later was a beautiful silver tree she never found again. She climbed it, all the way up into the clouds, and made it back down without injury. Climbing back into her window was much harder, but she made it with only a scrape on her knee. Annabeth collapsed onto her bed and laid there heart pounding, gasping, waiting for her father to come and yell at her. But he never came. She went down to breakfast with a twig in her hair, all defiant, but Bobby just asked her to pass the milk. The silence was louder than a beating drum. She left as soon as spring touched the grass. 

It was terribly difficult being lost in the city, scrounging for food and dry places to lie down. But she was no less lonely. She was terrified the first time she saw Luke and Thalia. She had thought they might be monsters themselves, so tall and powerful and self-assured. She hadn’t believed Luke’s promise that they would be a family, not until she got a chance to save them. 

Then she knew it would be okay. She had proven she could help them, that she wasn’t just a burden, and in time, she could get them to like her. 

The three of them made a bonfire. Luke had stolen some marshmallows and they shared them, burning their tongues and laughing. 

Thalia showed her how to braid her hair so it looked cool and didn’t get in her way, and how to carry Aegis properly. Luke found her a jacket, one with cool inside pockets this time, and let her spar with him again. She was annoyed by how much he was obviously holding back, but she knew she was getting better. 

She laid on the ground by the bonfire, and watched Thalia and Luke go at it. Thalia was stronger, but she couldn’t quite match his speed.

Thalia nodded at him, and he stepped back. Her spear lit up with crackling blue. It seemed to be a part of Thalia, lighting her up and revealing the real her: eyes glowing, hair shining, skin burning. She twisted the spear over her head then impaled the Earth. 

The ground scorched in a ring around her. 

“You’re showing off,” Luke said. It took him a moment, but then he was grinning, like himself again. “Too much flourish.”

Thalia shrugged, looking him up and down and smiling before bumping him with her shoulder and throwing herself down next to Annabeth. “Fighting should look good too. Otherwise how can someone paint me on a vase. Right, Beth?”

Annabeth let herself giggle. 

Annabeth didn’t understand, not really, but she knew what was going to happen. The Cyclops was too close. Camp was too far. She was terrified, but she was not afraid. Annabeth studied the certainty in Thalia’s face and was proud to know them. 

“Grover,” she said. “Do you know the way now?”

His voice was frantic. “Yes, yes, definitely, but it doesn’t matter now, it-”

They could see his head towering over the trees. 

“Luke, take Beth. Go now.”

“What?” Annabeth screamed as Luke swung her into his arms, holding her against his chest. “Thalia!” She called for her, lungs bursting, something in her skull ringing and ringing and it wouldn’t stop. 

Thalia smiled at her, mouthed something, and turned away, her shield springing to life on her wrist. 

Luke was already running, Grover at his heels then overtaking him, showing them the way through the forest. 

Annabeth’s sight was blurred by tears. She beat her fists against his chest. “Luke, we can’t leave her! Luke! We have to help her! THALIA!”

He shook his head, eyes forward, as they heard an almighty crash. 

“LUKE!” She hit him again and again. He grabbed her hand and held it to his chest. His grip was hurting, but she only noticed it dully. He wouldn’t stop running.

“Grover, which way!” Luke demanded. 

“We can’t leave her,” Annabeth said again, but it was a broken whisper, a dry sob. If Luke heard her, he didn’t respond.
Grover was shouting. “Right! Curve up along this hill, it’s here!”

Annabeth was choking on her tears when they finally, finally, crossed the line. There was nothing there, but she felt it the moment they crossed. Apparently look did too because he let go and dumped her on the grass.

At the same moment, she saw the lightning come down from the sky, a tongue of electric blue that made her hair stand on end and made her taste ash in her mouth. She staggered to her feet as a gargantuan tree sprouted from the same spot, forming impossibly fast. It was beautiful.

“We recognise Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus and thank her for her brave and noble sacrifice.” Annabeth squeaked at the sight of the massive man—no, the centaur, like in her book—as he strode forward. His voice was unspeakably sad. Ratty looking teenagers wearing orange t-shirts huddled behind him, cowed by the seriousness of the moment. None of them would meet her eye. A couple of them were crying, but that made her mad. They hadn’t known Thalia, they hadn’t known how cool and special and brave she was. This tragedy was as far removed as if it had happened in California. She wanted to scream and fight and hurt someone. She wrapped her arms around herself. “We thank the King of the Gods for his gift of protection to this camp, and his show of love for his daughter. Thalia’s tree will stand forever more, marking this camp’s boundary and protecting every half blood within it.” She thought his voice went wooden on love , but she believed his exhausted dismay more than the other kids’. Annabeth was still crying so hard she could barely see the centaur. Luke reached for her now, tried to hug her like he had when she had cut her hand open or fallen down those stairs, but she shoved him away. 

“I am Chiron,” The centaur began, but Annabeth was staring at Luke’s head. A glowing figure was fading into being, shining in the dim morning. It looked like a staff, but there was something moving around it. Luke saw her gaze and glared at the sky. 

She felt a tingling on the crown of her own head and looked up. An owl was glowing grey over her. 

She locked eyes with Chiron as something anciently sad passed over his face. “All hail Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, god of travellers, thieves, and invention. All hail Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, battle, and crafts.” Belatedly, the campers all dropped to one knee, eyes appraising their newest members.

Annabeth just cried harder.

Luke came to her again, and she tried to push him away, but she was too broken. She let him hug her, her tears soaking his shirt. 

The following weeks were hard. Annabeth felt life ease when camp thinned at the end of August. She was the only one in Cabin 6 and she felt like she could think. She started reading her books in the strawberry fields and by the lake instead of hiding under picnic benches, and she was less embarrassed to practice fighting and climbing when it was one person walking past and ignoring her instead of a dozen giggling in a group. 

When the snow started falling in flurries, and she felt like she could breathe without glass getting caught in her lungs, she realised that she missed the people who used to ask how she was and what she liked to eat. But they weren’t there anymore. So she made do. 

The whole time, though, Luke was there. He had been instantly popular that summer and he had usually included her, though he had let her sit quietly. His cabin was the biggest, even in the winter, with lots of kids who weren’t even his half-siblings. So he spent a lot of time in her cabin, fiddling with his sword or leafing through a book, scribbling words out intermittently. He would stop for a bit when she asked him to, but Luke said he knew what he was doing. She trusted him. 

Just when she had gotten used to the hectic nature of the cabin, the incredible volume of mess and rubbish and belongings, everyone vanished. She had dutifully learnt the names of all her half-siblings, though she had never spoken to most of them. It seemed strange to say that she had half-siblings now, but they were nothing like Matthew and Bobby. They were boisterous and stuck-up and clever and always talking about strategy and weapons. When she forgot herself, she was desperate to participate. 

Later, when she confided this in Luke as spring broke among the strawberry fields, he told her to try. To participate, if she really wanted to. But not to forget that she was better than them because of everything she and Luke had seen together that no one else had. 

The first time she took over a game of Capture the Flag, they won. The strategy had been hers from start to finish. She’d had to bully them into listening, but her plan had been promising enough that no one had really wanted to overrule her. For a moment there, they had all been one machine, one intent. It was the first time that she really appreciated how they were all children of Athena, all together. 

When Annabeth was nine, when the frost broke, Chiron told her why she couldn’t have a quest yet. Well, there were lots of reasons he had given her, from her age to… her age. Which she thought was completely, totally ridiculous. But Chiron said there was a prophecy of sorts, that one day someone unusual would come to camp and that’s who she would go on her first quest with. She would have to be patient.

Luke had also been asking for a quest. To him, Chiron said simply, soon. The timing wasn’t right yet.

Privately, Annabeth hated that she had to wait for someone else. She wanted to go with Luke. The more impatient Luke became, the more he railed at Chiron, the more she tried to hide her wish from him. 

When the three oldest members of her cabin retired from camp at the end of that summer, Annabeth took over as cabin head. It had been a hell of a fight to get the position, not least because she was not the oldest member of her cabin — in fact, she was the second youngest. But she argued her side until every other candidate conceded. 

That night, she fell asleep smiling. 

When she was eleven, she was eternally grateful that she was the only person in Cabin 6 that winter so that no one witnessed her stripping and cleaning bloody sheets. She hadn’t been expecting it, exactly, but she had known roughly what to expect. The book Chiron had given her last year had been a bit short for her taste, but fascinatingly matter of fact. Each cabin had a communal supply of supplies in the bathroom, and it only took her a dozen tries to not feel like she was wearing a nappy, but she was nothing if not determined. She still felt all sore and tired and was desperately worried that she would bleed through her jeans and everyone would point and laugh, but she was proud of herself for handling it. All on her own. 

Somehow though–probably from the Harpys–Chiron found out, and had a very brief chat about whether she had what she needed and if she wanted to talk to him or to one of the older girls. She said she was fine, she thought.

Somehow, Luke found out too. That made her burn with shame for reasons she didn’t interrogate, but at least he was nice about it. He ruffled her hair, and just said “You’re growing up, Beth.”

But she misheard him and said, quite indignantly, “I’m not a grown-up, though.”

He chuckled. “You’re smarter than most of them, though.”

“Of course I am.”

They spent that evening whittling sticks into spears, and when Luke’s hand slipped and he sliced his palm open, he let her bandage it up. 

The night before Luke left on his quest, Annabeth helped him sharpen his sword. 

Luke was quiet, and she didn’t want to distract him, so she made herself useful by going through his backpack and adding extra ambrosia and a roll of duct tape and a map of New York, things she had scrounged but thought might save his life. 

She needed him to come back okay.
He sauntered out of camp grinning. 

When Luke came back, he wouldn’t talk to her. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. Once he got out of the infirmary, she took to hovering, following him around and parking herself with her book in the same room. He realised what she was doing immediately, of course, but she wouldn’t leave him be. 

When he started running off, she would let him have an hour or so for a head start before she hunted him down again. 

They were by the lake when Luke finally cracked. “What do you want?” His voice was cracked, so defeated. 

“I’m proud of you.” She said, voice tiny. 

He snorted, but softly enough she wondered if she wasn’t meant to hear. 

“Go away, Beth.”

She stuck out her chin. “I don’t want to.”

“Then I’ll go to the woods.”

“Good. I was thinking the shade would be nice.”

“Ugh!” He kicked at a picnic bench, overturning it onto a child of Hephaestus’ project, a complicated clump of metal that she was sure was supposed to do something clever. He walked around to kick the rubble of it, shattering it into two pieces.

“Hey! You shouldn’t do that.”

“What does it matter? He can fix it.”

Annabeth hunched over her knees and stared at him until he sighed. 

He didn’t stop yelling at her after that, but he stopped running away.

Olympus was breathtaking. The marble columns, the gold details, the towering shrines. She was in awe. She kept pointing buildings out to Luke, vibrating with excitement, but he just nodded, scratching at his newly healed scar. 

She panicked when Chiron led them to the throne room. The gods were massive, inhuman figures, towering over them all. She didn’t see a parent when she looked at Athena. She saw power, cunning and intention given form. 

Annabeth barely managed to stammer a “Thank you” when her mother gave her the hat. Her chest sank when she realised it would make her invisible. That was the opposite of what she wanted. She craved recognition, for people to recognise how smart and capable she could be. She didn’t want to disappear. 

When she realised how invaluable the gift might be on a quest, her gratitude intensified. Athena wasn’t telling her to give up. She was telling her to be smart.

Annabeth would make her mother proud. She would be the best child of Athena there ever was. 

The summer before Annabeth turned thirteen, she started getting desperate. She was going to combust if she didn’t get a quest soon. 

She knew she was getting obsessive about every new camper, following them around and spying from a distance. It became part of the welcome spiel: Give thanks to the gods at meals, Unclaimed kids go to the Hermes cabin, Keep your cabin clean if you want hot showers, and yeah, Annabeth is like that with all the new kids, don’t worry about it. 

She didn’t think Percy was special when she first saw him, all scrawny with cute messy black hair. But when she realised he had slayed a minotaur , and apparently by accident , she just knew. It was going to be him. 

Of course he was a goddamn son of Poseidon. 

Her first quest turned out to be hard, harder than she had anticipated, especially because of how often she was wrong. She hated being wrong. But somehow, when she was with Percy and Grover, it was okay. When she and Percy spoke in that truck, Annabeth meant it. If her mother asked her to hurt Percy now, she didn’t think she could do it. 

Everyone said her world would change on her first quest, but she hadn’t thought it would mean this–the doubt, the rage, gaining the audacity to question her mother. If the gods went to war now, and Athena asked her to serve, she would think about it before giving her answer. That was new. 

She hated to credit Seaweed Brain with anything, but he had a good heart. She had heard that phrase before, but it had never meant much to her. Percy wasn’t just more powerful than he realised, or pretty good with a sword, or occasionally had a good idea–he was kind. She had never realised how important that was before.

She couldn’t believe Luke was gone. She even went to his cabin and tore through his stuff. He had left most of it behind, the detritus of a life by someone completely unwanted, but he had taken his essentials. His notebook, some clothes, his sword. 

She couldn’t believe Percy’s story, but she knew Percy wouldn’t lie about something like this. She just did. It was an impossible puzzle, a Mobius loop. 

He wouldn’t do this to her. 

She went to her dad’s mostly because she couldn’t go anywhere at camp without seeing Luke, and then remembering why he wasn’t there. Things at her dad’s weren’t any better than before she had left, but she was older, and that helped. Elaine was pretty afraid of her, she thought. Most seven-year-olds didn’t vanish because they were unhappy only to come back with a seven-inch blade.

They let her come to Washington, DC with them which was nice, because she had expected to have the house to herself. She had made Matthew take a picture of her with the Lincoln Memorial and she surprised herself by liking it. She hadn’t had pictures of herself in a long time. So when she wanted to talk to Percy, but she didn’t know what to say, she emailed him that picture and hoped he wouldn’t think she was weird. 

When they got back, the rest of her family mostly left her alone. When she mentioned boarding school, her dad asked when he needed to write the check. 

Annabeth knew Thalia’s tree like the back of her hand.

When she was younger, she used to sit under it and talk. About her feelings, about her training, anything she thought her second friend might like. She hadn’t wanted her to be lonely. 

When the leaves started to fall and the poison took effect, she found herself crying at stupid, random moments, like after breakfast and while she was washing her hands in the bathroom. She hadn’t been like this since it had first happened, when she was seven and the grief was too big for her small frame. She took watch under the tree, watching the monument to her friend’s sacrifice crumble, and grieved for her all over again. 

She wanted to kill Luke. She screamed at him. “How dare you? You coward. You coward! She died for us! Because she loved us!” Percy had his arms around her and was holding her back with all his might. Too many things flickered across Luke’s face for her to parse, anger and resentment and smugness. 

“I hate you,” she mouthed and the shine of his eyes told her he saw it. 

She let Percy drag her away. 

Hubris. It would always be hubris, wouldn’t it.

She should have known not to listen to the sirens, not to be tempted. She was sobbing so hard she couldn’t breathe. 

But Percy was there, holding on to her so tight in the water that she could actually feel his grip somehow and it was steadying, it was the only real thing in the world. She couldn’t understand why he was still there, why he wasn’t hiding on the boat, why he wasn’t pushing her away in disgust. She shoved him, trying to make him give up, but he wouldn’t let go. She started screaming. “My mother avoids me and my father doesn’t want me and my step-family hates me and none of my half-siblings stay with me and Thalia died and Chiron is gone and Luke betrayed everyone and everyone leaves me! What the hell is wrong with me?” The anger bled out of her by the end, leaving her drowning in hurt.

His throat was raw, his words soft. “Nothing. Nothing, Annabeth. I’m here. I’m with you. I won’t leave.”

She sobbed against his neck. 

When she came to, she felt completely at ease. She was lying on a camp roll, wrapped in the golden fleece. She turned and saw the campfire, and everyone sleeping in their bedrolls, and–she made eye contact with Percy. It was intense for a single moment until he smiled, lopsided and excited. “You’re awake,” He whispered, but his voice was rough so it sounded all scratchy. He smiled at himself. “How are you feeling?”

She wiped her eyes and sat up. “I’m great, actually. I think it fixed everything that’s ever been wrong with me.” He smiled. She wasn’t sure whether the joke landed. She tried to silently clear her throat. “Are you keeping watch?” He nodded, easing himself off his log to rest against it, legs pointed toward the fire. “Have there been any monsters?”

“No. But we can’t be too careful, right?”

She smiled to herself. She knew intellectually that Percy was smart, but seeing little pieces of evidence of it always made something swell in her chest. “Who’s on for next watch?”

Percy froze at that. “Uhh, we didn’t really organise anything. I just thought it was a good idea.”

She pulled herself up and took his former place on the log. She tapped his shoulder. “Go to sleep, Percy. I’m perfectly healed and I’ve slept all day. Go on.”

“Are you-“

“Sleep now. Night, Percy.”

He tried to argue, but eventually accepted it as futile. She never lost an argument. He took her offered bedroll, and slowly laid down in it. He was quiet for so long that she was sure she was alone with the embers.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” He asked, so quietly she wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it. She nodded again. “That was seriously crazy, you know that?”

She tried not to laugh and wake everyone. “Go to sleep, Seaweed Brain.” She let her hand brush his shoulder. “I’ll keep watch.”

“Thalia,” She said. Except this time, the girl was real and she was there. 

“Hey, Beth.” Her smile hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed for her—her time in the tree had passed in the blink of an eye. Annabeth was the one who had grown up. Thalia kissed her teeth. “You’re getting tall. That’s annoying.”

Annabeth tried not to frown. “I like being tall.”

Thalia stared at her for a moment, eyes intense, and Annabeth told herself she wasn’t afraid. This was her friend. She let her look. After a moment, after an eternity, Thalia nodded to herself. “Thank you for helping save me. I know it was Clarisse’s quest, but she told me what you did.”

She scuffed the toe of her trainer on the ground. “Percy and Grover helped a lot.”

“I know. I’m going to thank them too.” Annabeth gave in and moved toward Thalia, all but throwing herself at her and hugging her tight. Thalia ruffled her hair. “I missed you too. It’s crazy you’re nearly older than me.”

“Gods, I’m not that old.”

Thalia cuffed the back of her head and she tried not to smile. “You twerp.”

Everything was going to be okay. 

Sometimes, by accident, she stared at Percy and thought about the Great Prophecy. She tried to think of ways he could survive it. She would list them, in her head, one by one. She knew prophecies were cruel, and they were never what you thought. 

She was banking on that saving him one day. After all, Thalia was back. It didn’t have to be him. 

If she joined the Hunt, she would never have to be alone. She would have friends, family, people who would stand with her for the rest of her life.

She could quest forever, devote herself to learning and strategies and cleverness.

Annabeth took the brochure, tucking it into her backpack like a teacher, because of how alluring that picture was. Everything would be so easy, so simple. Like Bianca, she could throw her life—everything that had ever been hard—away, and just have fun in the skies. 

Annabeth didn’t join because she knew there were other things she wanted. 

She wasn’t alone in the pavilion. They had dropped her here like rubbish, and she was angry and cold and scared until she heard Luke’s voice. He was calling out for her, begging her for help. She didn’t think. She just moved. 

He was on the ground, covered in dust, beaten and bruised. His arms were braced above him but she couldn’t see anything holding him down. 

When she ran to him, dropped to her knees at his side, she could feel the force of it though. There was an aura of power concentrated here and it tasted metallic, like bile. 

It didn’t matter what it was—she could see it was crushing him, so she braced her shoulder against the incredible weight and heaved. It was like trying to push over Thalia’s tree. 

Luke looked awful this close up, bloody and bruised, his hair lank against his neck. He was grimacing. 

She pushed again, and the invisible weight didn’t seem to be moving but Luke was able to roll towards her, which she took as a good sign. She heaved again, pushing more of her body under the weight to give Luke space to crawl out. 

She was so tired. 

The moment Luke rolled free, her back snapped to the ground, arms desperately covering her head, pushing up with all her might. 

The weight was crushing . There wasn’t space for anything else in her brain, her body. She could only push. 

“Oh, Annabeth.” His tone was performative, sharp as a pin. “Always so eager to help. I knew I could rely on you.”

“Luke. Don’t do this. Don’t leave me here.” She tried to push again, anything to get herself free, but she could feel the malice in it fixing her in place. All it was offering her was a crushing exhaustion. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. “ Luke .”

He only chuckled again. “Don’t worry. You won’t be here for too long.”

She thought about screaming his name, but she didn’t trust he would turn. She retreated inside herself. Everything fell away except the weight. 

After the battle, Annabeth saw Luke run off with the other dregs of Kronos’ forces. He had always loomed so large in her mind but now she thought he was as small as she was. 

The thought of him hurt now, like pressing on a bruise.

She had been angry with him since he betrayed Percy, since he betrayed Camp, since he betrayed Thalia. But she had always been able to believe that he meant well, that he was trying to do the right thing and she just didn’t understand yet.

But right now he was just being cruel. 

Her father had come for her. That’s all she could think. She knew Percy loved to poke his nose into things, but this was different. Deep down, she had always believed that if she went missing, no one would ever notice. But it had happened, and she had had a friend who came for her. 

She wasn’t alone. 

Her father was still awkward and taciturn and uncomfortable, but he had done something, he had come through for her. She had never thought he would be willing to do that either. 

She took his college ring when he offered it, and put it on her necklace, and whenever she  looked at it she remembered that when it really mattered he had done something. Many people over the years had said her dad meant well. Now she believed them. Even if their relationship didn’t change, that was worth a lot. It was to her, anyway. 

Annabeth felt hollow for the first few weeks after Thalia joined the Hunt. It was so twisted that after so long thinking she was gone she was going to leave her again, but she had to admit that it felt right. She really couldn’t think of anything that would make Thalia happier. 

Percy wouldn’t listen when she said that didn’t have to mean the prophecy was his. It was such a him thing to do that she wanted to be mad, but instead she found herself promising to stand by him. No matter what. Whatever it took. 

Slow-dancing with Percy on Olympus was wonderful. They didn’t talk, not really, even though she was bursting with things she wanted to tell him. Yet she couldn’t start a single sentence. She thought he was doing the same thing, opening his mouth to say something but letting nothing out but air. 

They were on the edge of something, standing on a cliff and looking down. They had made something, something beautiful, but it was fragile too. She didn’t want to be the one to break it. 

She took his hand. Their friendship was a certainty, as immutable as the gods. 

This time when she went off to school, she said goodbye to her dad. He waved her off as she got into the taxi. 

She thought this might be a good year. 

When Annabeth saw the white flag, her first reaction was fear, not sympathy or curiosity. 

She told Elaine that she needed to deal with something and to keep Matthew and Bobby inside.

Elaine tried to question her, but Annabeth cut her off. “I won’t be long. Just stay here, listen to me for once, please.” She thinks it’s the please that did it, but really she doesn’t care. She doesn’t really believe that Luke would do anything, but not enough to avoid making precautions. If he knew he would never hurt a mortal, he wouldn’t have chosen Backbiter as his sword. She’s only here for the week, a quick spring break visit, and she’s angry that Luke would come for her here. 

She hesitated for one moment with her knife, fingering the grip, and then left it behind.

Luke was waiting by the picnic bench. Elaine had bought it when Annabeth had still been with them and Elaine had thought that family lunches might solve everything, but it just wasn’t quite big enough for five. Her stepbrothers had apparently outgrown it because it had been taken over by wild bushes and unruly shrubbery. Luke looked entirely out of place near her home, but somehow this evidence of something benign and mortal that had been ruined made the picture come into focus for her.

He turned, running a hand through his blond locks. “Annabeth.”

“Hi.” She said, stopping a good distance away. He looked unarmed. He looked—not good, actually. He was wearing nice clothes that hadn’t been ripped to shreds by monsters yet, but he looked harried, fidgety. His hands were shaking.

“You’re all right. You look good.”

She put her hands in her pockets, keeping her eyes on the ground. “What do you want, Luke?”

“I didn’t expect you to be here. I didn’t think you would come back. They don’t deserve you.”

She shook her head. “I have the relationship that I want to have with them. Why were you looking for me?”

His breath hitched. For one crazy second she thought he was crying but then she saw his hands were in fists. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”

“What?”

“I…” She focused on his hands. The vein looked like it was going to pop out. She remembered how calloused his fingers had been. There was a new scar on his wrist. “I think this is going too far. I know I’ve gone pretty far. But I want—I don’t want to make a mistake I can’t recover from. I want it to stop.”

Her head was utterly, wholly, roaringly silent. For once, she was completely empty. “Are you sure?”

He nodded, and she finally let him meet her eyes. There was so much swimming in them. “I want to leave, disappear. I want you to come with me.”

“Luke.” Her tone was stern, but she didn’t know what she meant. 

“Come with me. It’ll be like the old days. No one to tell us where to go, what to do. The war won’t happen, the Titans will stop. Everything will be good again.”

He stepped forward, arm out. Once upon a time she knew everything about him. But looking at him now was like opening a favourite book from her childhood and finding a different story inside. But she didn’t say anything, and he took that as a win.”

“Beth. Please.”

She exhaled, the softest wind. “I can’t.”

He shook his head, turning away. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I thought I could trust you.”

“Luke.” Her voice was hard. “I can’t trust you. You have to know that. How do I know this isn’t a trap? Or even if you mean it, how can I know you won’t change your mind in five miles? I can’t kill myself for you, no matter how much I care.”

“You’re just like everyone else.”

“Luke, you don’t have to do this. Go to Chiron. Go to Chiron and tell him you want it to stop, you want to fix it, and he will help you. I promise, you know he will.”

He paced towards her, chest to her chest, looking down at her. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.” He screamed, voice pitched low. He sounded so broken it pulled a sob from her throat. He stepped away, looking her up and down then turning away. “Forget it.”

“Luke, please, there are other ways. Please! Don’t do this. Luke! I know you can do the right thing! Luke! ” But he was already gone. She shouted for a little bit longer, but he was gone, and she couldn’t chase him without her knife. She sat down on that sad little bench and cried.

Annabeth knew how nervous Percy was about the labyrinth, how much he didn’t want to go near it again. But when she asked if he would be on her quest, he said yes. Percy was one of the best things in her life.

She knew she was breaking the rules by having four questers, but she had to do it. She needed them all. And she was so grateful they were willing to come with her. 

You can do anything when you think you’re going to die. He was there with her, flushed by the heat and looking at her like she meant something, like he was desperate for her to live.

She watched him. Then she stepped in and kissed Percy. It was short and sweet. 

There was a ghost of a smile on his lips when she stepped away. She wanted to touch it but his eyes were blown wide, bewildered. “Don’t die.” She said, forcefully. 

She threw her hat on before she did anything else embarrassing.

Her best friend was dead. And it was all her fault. 

She didn’t remember much that happened after that.

She sat on the couch in Percy’s apartment, arms crossed, and tried to hide from Sally’s perceptive gaze. She had… she had thought—well nevermind, clearly. Percy had spent two weeks off in paradise with a goddess while she was wallowing in the guilt of killing him, and now he wanted that mortal. Nevermind if his plan made sense and would probably work, but it wasn’t her plan. This was her quest and she had failed, completely and utterly, and he didn’t even want to talk to her before running off to her to fix it. 

“And lose a love to worse than death . That was it. That was the last line.”

Percy nodded. She hadn’t wanted anyone else to know—what it probably meant about Luke, or what it implied about how she saw him. When she looked up, finally, because Percy still hadn’t said anything, the look on his face made her want to break down. Percy wasn’t judging her. That was the worst part. 

Percy had always tried to hide how he felt about Luke and how he felt about how she felt about Luke, but he was never very good at it. His disapproval had been like the heat of the bonfire. Now he was the calm of an oasis

He was squinting like he was in pain, eyes on the strawberry field, still silent. 

“You were right. Okay? You were right. Luke can’t be saved. He has to die.”

His voice is shaky. He’s taller than her now. She was annoyed about that at the start of the summer, but now she doesn’t mind. “I don’t blame you for wanting to try.”

“It doesn’t matter. This is the end.”

“I hope not.” He’s trying for levity but his voice cracks on hope. 

She brushes her fingers over the back of his hand, light as a moth’s wings. “We’ll do what we have to. I’ll be there for you.”

His eyes are intense when he answers. He doesn’t pause to think about it. “Always.”

She spends the whole year on eggshells, waiting. 

Shall reach sixteen against all odds. 

Percy is fifteen. 

It’s October, then it’s January, then it’s April, then it’s June. 

It’s all going to happen soon. 

She feels like she’s living on pins and needles, like she’s dying. 

She’s going to be sixteen soon. When school breaks up, she practically runs to Camp. 

He spent the summer with her . That’s what she couldn’t get over. 

They were about to go to war, anything could happen to any of them. And there was the prophecy. Yet Percy couldn’t be bothered to be with them. He wanted to waste the last of his time with some mortal he didn’t even know. 

It felt like he was betraying camp.

It felt like he was betraying her.

She wanted to hurt him, but she didn’t know how. 

She wanted to save him, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to. 

“A kiss for luck. It’s a tradition, right?”

She wanted to hit him. She wanted to kiss him. 

She’s a little impressed by his audacity, but that’s an arena Percy has always excelled in.

And then isn’t this them, through and through? In the middle of a battle, in mortal danger, looking at him and thinking, wow ?

She looks him up and down. “Don’t die, and we’ll see.”

She catches the beginnings of his smile before he turns away. 

Annabeth wasn’t looking for them when she found the bodies. She took a wrong turn and there she was, confronted with shrouds of all colours. She knows this isn’t everyone, just the dead demigods they have been to let rest in safety. 

She tries not to catalogue height and hair colour and godly parent but she’s doing it before she can stop herself. 

Camp is her family. That’s what she has always said. She wishes she had known them better. She wishes this didn’t have to happen. She wishes no cold bodies were lying on the cold marble. 

Luke did not start this war alone but he is going to pay. 

It was so completely unbelievably stupid. She prided herself on her intelligence, her strategy, but she was foolish. This wasn’t hubris, it was idiocy. 

Percy was invulnerable. He didn’t need to be protected from a knife that would just bounce off. But she couldn’t convince herself to feel the shame that intellectually was roiling through her head. 

She had felt a spike of something, urgent and desperate and terrified. So she had moved, thinking only about guarding his back the way they had always done for each other. 

So when he asked her, “Why, why would you do that?”

All she could answer was “Because you would do the same for me.” That was as true as the sun, as the gods, as smores at camp. She didn’t have to think about it, be insecure about it.

And then he told her that she had saved him. That, somehow, she had known.

She didn’t know what to feel other than relief. 

When she sees Rachel Elizabeth Dare’s helicopter careening through the sky, all she can think is, Really?

Seriously?

Now?

She chooses not to let out a stream of expletives with a Herculean effort, and instead puts her fingers to her mouth and whistles. 

“Come on,” Annabeth says, pulling a panicking Percy toward Guido. He follows her on autopilot, climbing onto the pegasus and placing his hands at her waist. “We have to save your friend .” The words taste like coffee, dark and bitter, but she can’t help it even as they take off. She can hear Rachel screaming from here, the whine and crunch of mechanical equipment failing. 

She sees what she’s going to have to do and accepts it dumbly. Guiding Guido forward with her knees, she yells, “Duck!” and shoves Percy down onto the pegasus.

Then she jumps. The handle is a few metres away, thinner than her wrist, and gleaming smooth. Screw it , she thinks, catching it square with both hands. Her chest colliding with the side of the helicopter knocks any remaining breath from her lungs, and she pulls herself up just so she can choke to her death dangling over Manhattan.

To her credit, Rachel doesn’t wait for an invitation. She’s already at the door, arm out, doing her best to haul Annabeth bodily inside. Once she gets her knee over the lip, Annabeth is moving, already throwing herself towards the cockpit. “Get down!” Annabeth yells, pushing the unconscious pilot out of the way so she can get at the controls. “Hold on to something!”
“No shit !” Rachel screams. Annabeth spares one moment to look back, to check Rachel is strapping herself in, before she hyper focuses on the controls. This is on her now.

Unsurprisingly, she has never flown a helicopter before. But she has seen her father fly a plane. And she has read every book her father has ever published. And a couple of plane maintenance and flight regulation manuals.
She thanks the ADHD.

She grabs the stick and pulls up, sharp, anything to get them upright and stable. 

The helicopter doesn’t level off as much as jerk back and forth but the piece of metal and plastic in her grip is definitely responsible for the degree of jerking. There’s a sea of dials in front of her and she ignores them all until she sees the one that says altitude. This could make things nice and simple for Percy, she thinks meanly, before she grabs the throttle with her other hand. 

Okay, she can do this. She knows she can do this. Speed in one hand, direction in the other. She pulls hard; she tips all the maths out of her brain like an Aphrodite kid fleeing pre-calc and relies on her instincts. She has absolutely, utterly no idea what she’s doing, but that has never stopped her before

Easy does it, she tells herself.

Her iron grip keeping them still and level with the ground, she drags them to a mostly-stop over the concrete. Then she lets them drop. 

The helicopter around them rattles in a way that makes her glad certain feuds with Zeus mean she should probably never fly again and her heart is pounding out of her chest. They’re alive. They’re on the ground. They’re still breathing. They’re alive. She takes a second to say every swear word coming to mind out loud. 

She’s a candle, a bonfire, and she’s burning with rage. She throws herself out of the seat, checks the mortal pilot is still breathing, sleeping on the floor, and she has to get out. “You all right?” She asks Rachel as she ducks out of the cockpit. She looks blown over, hair over her face, lying sideways but unharmed. She’s pulling at her seatbelt when she squeaks out an affirmative so Annabeth doesn’t break her stride. 

There’s a cluster of demigods waiting outside, but all she sees is Percy, and he’s staring at her, mouth open. She can’t begin to parse his expression so she doesn’t try. She keeps walking until she calms down enough to head back to the base.

When she falls out of the elevator on the way up to Olympus she is sure she is going to die. It’s a certainty she has felt at least half a dozen times over the years, but none of them have been as visceral as the yanking in her chest as the ground fell out from under her feet.

She didn’t have time to close her eyes or think of anything coherent except, okay . 

Then she’s still, abruptly, suddenly still, and when she looks up she sees Percy and he looks like an avenging god. He’s smeared with blood and dirt but his eyes, gods, they don’t leave hers and his expression tells her he will never let her go. 

He manages to pull her up because of course he does, he always will, and somehow she ends up on top of him. They’re both on the ground now, amid the rubble and ash and all she can think is, It’s him . She’s glad it’s him. She’s glad they’re facing this together. 

Then she’s pulling him up because they have to move, they have to run or they really will die and all of that will be for nothing.

And she isn’t ready yet. She wants another shot at that—one where they get to have the next moment. 

Surprisingly, confronting Luke doesn’t feel like ripping her heart out. It feels like pulling a tooth, a necessary pain, one followed by slow rather than immediate relief.

She hates him a little bit when he asks if she loved him. But she knows him well enough to let it go. And she will not lie to him, not even on his deathbed.

“No.” She tells him. “There was a time… But no. You were my brother.” 

It’s the honesty they both deserve, and he takes it as well as he can.
“I had to ask.” She disagrees, but just holds his hand tightly. She doesn’t see the little boy in him anymore. He’s a tortured man, brought down by his own ego. 

She remembers how he was the first person to hand her a weapon, to believe in her. 

She forgives him, just enough. 

The moment his eyes turn glassy and his fingers let go, Annabeth’s entire chest goes numb. She heaves out, head bowed, and barely hears Percy’s firm words. “We need a shroud for a son of Hermes.”

She wants to thank him but her throat is clogged with everything she hasn’t told him.

Percy’s eyes meet hers for less than a moment. But it’s enough.

The knot of terror in her throat, her bones, her heart, pauses long enough for her to hear him tell Zeus no.

He wants to stay mortal. There are things he still wants. 

She wants to go to him right there. She doesn’t think she can stand. 

Percy’s birthday cake takes ages to make. She was at a loss of how to make the frosting blue until Tyson crept in, abashed, blue food colouring in hand. She just hugged him tight.

Pleased, he picked her up and twirled her around the room until she begged him to let her down so she could breathe.

They frost the cake together, laughing at nothing. 

They kiss underwater for an eternity. It should be gross, but she doesn’t want to stop, can’t imagine wanting anything else more. They kiss softly, lightly, adoringly. Teasingly, nipping at his bottom lip then murmuring challenges along his jaw. Desperately, nails along his scalp then pushing up under his t-shirt, tongue deep in his mouth, and gasping for air but more importantly, for him. They go through all of them somehow, again and again, a circle she knows she will never tire of. 

Eventually, somehow, they talk too. 

They have a million things they want to say to each other and a million things they don’t have time for.

But they will. They have a whole lifetime now. 

They don’t say the words, but she knows they will, she knows they don’t need to. 

She is grateful she knows him and proud of who she is. 

She retires from Cabin Six, giving Malcolm a hug and a handshake, and tells him to call if he needs anything. She’ll be back to help them win at Capture the Flag soon enough, anyway. 

Annabeth Chase, hero, daughter of Athena, former Head of Cabin Six, Architect of Olympus, girlfriend of one Percy Jackson, drives back to New York with Percy and Sally and Paul. She spends the ride holding hands with Percy, sketchbook of plans for Olympus on her lap.

She can’t stop smiling.