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Part One: Heaven and Hell Were Words to Me
The pain was sharp.
As she laid on the edge of a rocky formation, peering down into the hellish hole below her, blood seeped through the tear in Annabeth’s shirt, right under her chest. Clutching the wound, she stared at the fire and the monsters and the blood that she had climbed out of. Her blood pooled onto the ledge, dripping off the side and into the abyss. Not only was her blood flowing out, but it felt as though the life she carried with her was being drained. She knew what was coming.
She was going to die.
There was screaming in the distance, maybe from the demons stuck in the depths of tartarus. Her senses were fading so quickly that she couldn’t hear most of what they said.
“Help!” She thought she could make out as her ears were failing her. She thought it must have been a soul she had left in the hellscape she had escaped. She had left innocent creatures down there to suffer, she deserved to hear their screams as she died.
It wasn’t until she felt pressure around her waist, muscles and fingers and the warmth of human skin, that she could piece together that what she was hearing weren’t the screams of the damned. She couldn’t fight the man dragging her limp form away from the edge of the cliff, although her thoughts were begging for him to drop her back into the pit where she belonged. She couldn’t even force his hand away to drop her on the ground where they were.
The screaming didn’t stop, it got louder. As the man pulled her away from the edge, she felt as if she was being surrounded by noise, by pleading spirits.
When the man placed her down, her back fell on top of what she could only imagine to be someone’s thighs. Through the blur in her vision, she could make out a tuft of blonde hair. Jason.
“Annabeth?” His voice crept low and raspy through the foggy air, his fingers gently shaking her shoulder. For a while, she thought about letting him think she was dead. No one should feel responsible for her death just because they couldn’t save her from her own foolish decisions. But a part of her knew she had to say goodbye to at least one person she loved before she slipped out of consciousness.
“Yeah?” She muscled. Her voice sounded like someone had run over her vocal chords with a mac truck.
“You’re bleeding.” He responded. His voice was worried, as if she didn’t know about the gaping hole in her stomach.
“No…” She coughed, struggling to make it through her sentence, “...Shit.”
“We’re here,” Jason continued, one hand grasping around her shoulder and the other examining her wound, “Me, and Nico, Piper and Will. Leo. We’re here to take you home.”
Annabeth mustered a smile. She knew she wasn’t going home.
Another voice, higher and sweeter, became intelligible as Jason transferred Annabeth from his lap to Will’s. It was distant, several feet away from her. The girl was frantic, her words punctuated with grunts as if she were trying to escape something. Annabeth let her head flop to the side to look. It was Piper, struggling to escape the grasp of Nico and Leo, who were attempting to hold her back.
“Is she ok?” Piper called, “Will, is she gonna be ok?”
Will didn’t answer her.
“Will!” She screamed, “Will!”
When Annabeth looked back up at Will, he looked mortified. His pupils had shrunk to the size of an atom, staring at her with tears coating his eyes.
“Jason,” Will started, “I can’t fix this.”
Piper’s screams hadn’t lulled. She had finally pulled herself free from Nico and Leo and had begun barrelling towards Jason, Will, and Annabeth.
“Will! Will answer-” She stopped. Before she had looked angry, scared, maybe even a bit eager to see her girlfriend alive. Now, she just looked mortified.
She shrieked
And then she started yelling again.
“Can’t you fix this!”
“She’s dying, stop standing there!”
“Help her!”
Annabeth heard Will take a deep breath, his body lifting hers with it. “Piper,” His voice rang soft and gentle, comforting almost, “I can’t heal a wound this big.”
She just started screaming again.
“Why?” She demanded. Annabeth knew she didn’t mean to be rude, in a few hours she wouldn’t blame this on Will.
“It would kill him, Piper.” Nico said as he defensively took a step closer to Will, “I cannot lose my sister and my boyfriend on the same day.”
Annabeth felt her lips curl upwards. When she had met the son of Hades he had an unmatched spirit, he was just a little boy. She had watched his spirit crumble when his biological sister, Bianca, was killed on a quest to rescue her from Atlas. In her final moments in the mortal world, it felt fulfilling to know that she helped rebuild his home and give him a family that loved him just as much as his sister did. Hopefully, she could share stories of him with Bianca soon.
Annabeth found the strength to cough out a response. “Couldn’t have asked for a better little brother.”
She saw the tears start to swell in his eyes, and just like she was being transferred from the care of Will and her head landed on Leo’s lap. Will stepped back to hold Nico while he sobbed. Every part of her hoped Will knew that she didn’t blame him, he didn’t kill her. The last thing she wanted was for Will to die just to try to save her.
Leo began to talk, words spilling out of his mouth like vomit.
“I know I don’t say this enough,” He started, “Or at all really. But I love you, you’re the strongest girl I know mi carnala . You can take a break now, just rest.”
“I love you too, Leo.” She responded. She felt herself getting weaker by the second by the time Leo had placed a kiss on her forehead and handed her off to Piper.
At this point, she kind of felt like the potato in a game of ‘Hot Potato.’
Even when she was bleeding out, Piper’s touch still felt like pure joy to Annabeth.
“You’re not going anywhere,” The daughter of Aphrodite started, “You’re gonna be ok, we’re going to find-”
Annbeth cut her off by using the last bit of strength she hand left to lift her hand up to Piper’s heart.
“My love,” Annabeth spoke, clear as day, “I have to go.”
“No,” Piper cried, her tears spilling onto Annabeth, “I can’t lose you. I can’t”
“You’re not losing me, I’ll always be here. And when it’s your time, I’ll see you again.”
Silence.
Darkness.
Everything was gone.
Part Two: I’ll Crawl Home to Her
Death was relatively painless.
Besides getting stabbed by a monstrously huge scorpion through the heart, Piper barely felt a thing.
For a long while, she was alone with her thoughts.
Is this a weird dream?
Is this what Annabeth felt
I should’ve brought a jacket.
Piper accepted that it was not a dream when she reached the Judgment Pavillion. Lines of dead heroes, authors, musicians, politicians, surrounded her, waiting to decide her fate.
On one hand, she was prone to theft and her power involved forced manipulation.
On the other, she saved the goddam world.
The decision didn’t take very long for the jury to decide. She would be off to Elysium.
~~~
Elysium was the most stunning place she had ever seen. Sure, Camp Jupiter was gorgeous, but that place was nowhere near perfect.
Here, rows of houses of different styles and historical influences surrounded a glimmering lake. The air smelled of flowers and wine. As she waded further through the streets, she was met with small neighborhoods filled with culture. It wasn’t perfect there because of how it looked, however. It was perfect because everyone she passed seemed content.
After exploring the entirety of Elysium, which Piper decided had to at least be the size of Manhattan, she came across a patch of woods with a small clearing in the center.
Young people were sitting on top of tables, playing basketball, roasting marshmallows on a bursting bonfire. Some of the kids were wearing bright orange shirts, some had on pedestrian clothes, some had on the wackiest looking outfits. Log cabins were weaved between the trees, homely, small, buildings with different personalities decorating each one.
Demigods . Piper finally put it together. These were the kids of the gods who died too young. Kids who died before they had a chance to lead a normal life. Looking closely, she recognized a few.
Some, like a couple sitting at a picnic table eating strawberries, she had seen in pictures from survivors of The Battle of Manhattan. Her sister, Silena, and Charlie Beckendorf.
Another boy sat by the fire, passionately rambling to another boy and girl. Piper recognized him by his eye patch, Ethan Nakamura. And the boy he was with, built, blonde, and scarred, had to have been Luke Castellan. And the girl, gorgeous, tan, and kind-looking, Piper recognized as Bianca Di’Angelo, Nico’s sister,
It was only when Luke shifted slightly that she caught a glimpse of a girl laying on the grass behind him. Her blonde hair layed wildly across the lush green, parted in every direction. Her light-blue ‘Counselor’ shirt was so loose on her body that the excess fabric pooled into the grass. Piper noticed her stark, gray eyes, so beautifully focused on the book in her hand. She looked like she hadn’t aged a day since Piper held her lifeless body on that cliff 5-years ago.
Piper started towards her, rushing past the people who’s stories she would get to know later.
“Annabeth!” She called, watching as the daughter of Athena noticed her. She watched the biggest grin form on Annabeth’s lips.
They crashed into each other, but it wasn’t painful. It was tight, and intense, but everything that could’ve caused her pain with another person couldn’t happen with Annabeth.
“What are you doing here?” Annabeth asked, her hands feeling up and down the small of Piper’s back up to her neck and into her hair, making sure she was really there.
“I died,” Piper spoke, giggling into Annabeth’s hair.
“See, my love.” Annabeth whispered, “I told you I would see you soon.”