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Before she had gone to bed the night before, just after one since she allowed herself to stay up later than normal working on her latest design for a new temple for one of the Gods, this one, in particular, was for Hephaestus but wouldn’t be used as a forge as many of his other sacred places were; but before Annabeth had gone to bed after her eyelids were just too heavy to allow her to keep tweaking and redesigning minor details on her blueprints that only Annabeth herself would notice, she checked the weather reports once again since there had been forecasted snowfall of nearly five feet of snow, at least. But, even when she checked the reports and out the window of her and Percy’s bedroom, there wasn’t a single snowflake that had fallen yet.
That was not the story when she’d woken up the following morning.
The very first thing Annabeth noticed when she woke up the following morning, at precisely 8 in the morning thanks to the alarm clock on the nightstand on her side of their bed, was just how freezing it was in their house.
The second thing she noticed was just how bright the light shining through the window was. And that was when she noticed the snow piled up so high outside that it nearly reached halfway up the side of their house and stretched on for as far as she could see.
Normally, even on the colder mornings of the New York winters, Annabeth at least had Percy’s typically still sleeping body next to her to keep her warm. But not this time. Percy was spending a few days over at his Mom’s place with Paul and Estelle since, in late December, it was entirely possible that they could be getting snowed in and wouldn't be able to make it over again for the holidays if that was the case.
As soon as her feet hit the wooden floorboards just beyond their carpeted bedroom, Annabeth wanted to do nothing more than crawl back into bed and wait until she felt warm enough to go about the rest of her day. But, Annabeth also knew that if she didn’t turn up the heat soon, or at the very least before she crawled back into bed for another hour or so, then the house wouldn’t get that much warmer with all the snow built up outside.
When Annabeth finally reached the thermostat on the wall of their living room, her uncovered feet still freezing from being directly on the wood floors she got a few surprises in quick succession. Her first surprise was that the thermostat was already set to 74° when it was typically only at about 66° when she woke up in the mornings. The house certainly didn’t feel to be around 74° that morning. Then Annabeth got her second surprise, which was that no matter the settings she changed on the thermostat, their vents weren’t blowing hot or cold air. Shit.
Their heat wasn’t working.
Which led to her third lovely surprise, when Annabeth tried to call an emergency repair service to set up some time for it to get fixed, hopefully before she completely froze her ass off. As soon as she lifted their landline’s phone off its hook, which was wired to the phone lines rather than the electricity in their house, and it didn't make a sound. Nor did it make any noise when she started clicking on the numbers of the phone number. When she wasn’t going to get anywhere with their landline, Annabeth powered on her cell phone, but she wasn’t able to get any kind of service there either.
Essentially, there wasn’t anything Annabeth could do other than wait.
Wait for either phone to get service and make her calls then. Wait until the heating system decided to start working again. Wait around and try to keep herself as warm as she possibly could.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
She hated waiting.
Resigned to the fact that there wasn’t anything she could do other than wait, as much as she hated it, Annabeth quickly changed out of the t-shirt and pajama shorts she’d worn to bed the night before and into a long-sleeved shirt, one of Percy’s hoodies and a pair of his sweatpants, and some of her fuzzy socks before crawling back into bed with just about every blanket in their house piled up on top of her.
At some point while under her pile of blankets, Annabeth had fallen back asleep despite how cold everything was. She wasn’t entirely sure when she’d fallen back asleep, but when she’d woke back up, the clock beside her head read that it was nearly ten. Despite being beneath a pile of blankets that were nearly half her weight collectively, or so they felt, somehow she was even colder than she’d been about two hours prior. Her toes, the tips of her fingers, and her nose all felt freezing cold without even needing to touch them.
Logically, Annabeth knew that if she got up out of bed and moved around a bit more, the room would warm up more, as would her body, than they were going to if she continued to lay about in bed all day. But she just couldn’t. Every muscle in her body felt like lead and painfully sore. It felt like she hadn’t slept at all in the past three days, as opposed to the nearly ten hours she’d just gotten.
Any other day, if Percy was around, he would’ve had to plead with her to ever take a day off from all her work and rest up. Her stubbornness and perfectionism would usually never let her take a break from anything until it was just right. But today, maybe it was because she was alone and super cold, feeling absolutely drained from doing nothing at all, Annabeth wouldn’t have needed much convincing from anyone, let alone from Percy or herself, to curl back up in bed and drift off to sleep for a third time.
Which was exactly what she did.
When Annabeth woke up for a third time that day, while she still didn’t feel like she’d slept all that much, one thing she did notice was that rather than feeling like a popsicle all wrapped up in their bed, it was like she’d been standing out in the strawberry fields all day back at Camp on the hottest day of the summer. The second thing she noticed was that the light beaming in from the snow outside the window didn’t seem to be burning into her eyes anymore. Once Annabeth mustered up enough energy to pull herself out from the mound of blankets that she’d piled up on top of herself, plucking the top one off the pile and wrapping herself up in it as she walked back out of their bedroom and into the living room, she socked feet walked across the still cold wood floors between the bedroom door and the thermostat.
To Annabeth’s surprise, when she checked the thermostat again, not really expecting anything to have changed in the however much time she’d been asleep, she found that, for some reason, the heating and cooling system miraculously seemed to have fixed itself as it was gradually warming up the house once again. Immediately after Annabeth was relieved by the fact that, for whatever reason, their heat was working again, she was scared by the front door slamming open and into the wall behind it.
Then she was just surprised to see, “Percy?” covered nearly head to toe in snow, standing just inside the doorway.
“Annabeth!” Was the first thing that Percy said back, hastily shutting and locking their front door to keep the cold air out before he tracked little mounds of snow across the floor between the door and her, “Are you, is everything, I tried calling and you, you didn’t answer.”
“Service went out earlier,” She offered, her entire focus split between their conversation and marveling at the fact that despite his clothes being completely covered in snow, his clothes and his hair were completely dry, like he’d just been out for a walk and not trekking through several feet of snow, “so did the heat. How are you completely dry yet covered in snow at the same time?”
At her question, Percy looked down at himself, feeling random spots of his clothes, seeming to be just as surprised about his dryness, before he replied, “Uh, benefits of being a son of Poseidon, maybe?” That made well enough sense, snow was just crystalized water anyhow. Percy’s weird water powers working on the snow as well, even unintentionally, made logical sense. There was a very cold hand pressed onto her forehead. “You’re burning up, Beth.”
“No, I’m not.” Annabeth immediately replied back, still feeling Percy’s freezing hand pressed against her forehead that was just making her that much colder, “You’re just a, you are just cold. That’s it.”
“Mhm.” Was the first noise that Percy made back at her, the concerned look that had been on his face from the very second he’d burst back into the door melted away enough with the snow that had still been clinging to his clothes, getting replaced with that impish grin he got before he did really stupid. And before Annabeth could realize what he was doing, maybe she was a little sick, Percy hooked one of his arms under both her knees, even with the blanket wrapped around her, and the other snaked its way around the small of her back, scooping her up in his arms in one quick motion, “How about, you go lay down in bed, and I will make us something for lunch, and dinner later?” Before she knew it, Percy was dropping her off back on their bed, pulling the covers up over her, planting a warm kiss on her forehead before heading off to the kitchen.