Chapter Text

Annabeth

After surviving the wars and everything that came with them, Annabeth and Percy each discovered two things about themselves:

1. They understood each other better than anyone on or below Earth and
2. they didn’t actually know each other that well.

Annabeth could predict what Percy was thinking when they were against a monster based on the tension in his shoulders, but hadn’t known if he cared about finishing high school.

Percy could tell when Annabeth was on the brink of having a panic attack and knew to get her someplace quiet, but to never leave her completely alone, but had no clue where she wanted to live if she wasn’t at Camp.

They’d had to learn to trust and depend on their intuition in order to survive and they had.

The conscious effort they had to put toward sharing their emotions with each other and “opening up” was something else entirely.

And it took time and the support of their friends and Sally, but eventually, “get to know you outside of near-death situations” became “tell me what you wish you” and “I want you to really know me.”

Percy described the absolute terror that had torn through his chest as he watched his mom disappear upon arriving at Camp. And years later, safe within Camp’s borders, lying by her side on the floor of his cabin that was never without light, Percy had confessed he hadn’t been sure he’d survive it if she were really gone and that it wouldn’t be the last time he thought heartbreak might killed him before any sword could.

Annabeth told him about the prayers she once offered the g-ds in the hope of getting assigned a quest. It was meant to make her life worth something—make her worth something. He’d squeezed her hand at the time, but she still hadn’t been able to meet his eyes. The desire for a quest had been ripped to shreds and left to die in Alaska, but she would never be able to take back her prayers. The shame of it had been so heavy that when they’d returned from the Land Beyond the G-ds, she had spent days vomiting behind the weapon’s shed. And sitting with him at the bottom of the lake to escape the day’s heat and curious eyes, she whispered that sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t spoken those prayers.

Processing their trauma-muddled memories together didn’t “cure” their PTSD, but the mental decluttering made more space for the good times. It allowed for some hope.

They were able to laugh over stories about times when some absurd strategy in Capture the Flag or regular training ended up working against all odds. There was no end to the stories about training, really, from the lava wall to the swordplay.

They helped each other remember the rush they both felt upon meeting other demigods for the first time and the deep sense of belonging that came with it.

It still took living outside of Camp without being on the run or constantly fearing for her life—they still returned to help out, but had their own apartment, and dare they say it, their own life outside of Camp—for years and many, many years of therapy for Annabeth to work up the nerve to tell Percy “the rest of the story.”

She’d told him pieces before that. After all, “I had a big house and a complicated family” was easy enough to say.

Easier than I had everything and it meant nothing. I ran like a coward. I ran and then I stood and watched Thalia sacrifice her life for me. I was welcomed to Camp, but all I could think about was that being turned into a tree didn’t sound like being saved to me.

Besides, she’d always believed that the first years of her life were more about everyone else than her. It’s not like she had any agency as a two-year-old. She wasn’t the one making decisions.

What more, really, was there to say?

And Percy understood. He didn’t bring up his childhood when he could avoid it, but he had told her bits and pieces about the hard parts, like getting in trouble in school, running from monsters without knowing what they were, and having to cater to Smelly G-be’s poker games, but also about better times, like watching his mom bring home blue food and the way she made it feel like magic.

But he had never heard about her one-and-a-half years in school. He didn’t know she remembered pulling crumpled papers out of her child-sized backpack to show her dad when she was picked up. Because even though he had a driver and important meetings to be in, he sat through the dreaded carpool almost every day, just to get those extra fifteen minutes with her.

It wasn’t like she was lying to Percy, she used to justify to herself.

Everyone at Camp knew Annabeth had run away from home when she was young—even by demigod standards.

Percy knew there were things about her past that he didn’t know. She was simply leaving a space blank. It was the opposite of a lie.

(Right?)

She didn’t go out of her way to hide it or misdirect him, either. Not that any amount of secrets would’ve kept him from figuring out there were things she wasn’t saying.

She had a father she no longer spoke to or about. And while she never asked for all that he deduced from that information, Percy was smart. It was one of the reasons the nickname Seaweed Brain had stuck around for so long. He wasn’t stupid, so why did he—the self-sacrificial piece of shit (affectionate)—throw himself into danger as if he were?

Was it so selfish of her to want her husband to put himself first, just once?

It wouldn’t have mattered if he had asked.

Stories of her first family had burrowed deep into her heart years before they’d met. The only people alive who knew the entirety of her story were Thalia, Chiron—he made sure to know everything about the demigods in his care—Malcolm, and Rachel.

And as of the past two months: Nico.

All he had needed to confirm a death was a few names. He hadn’t asked for more and she’d had no plans on sharing giving it.

Until he returned with the answers to her question and she had shut down. Until he recognized something in her grief and offered to stay.

They had long been friends, at the very least. Ever since Percy took Nico under his wing—and Nico allowed it—they saw each other everywhere.

If it wasn’t Camp, he was crashing on their couch because he overdid it shadow-traveling or a hanging out few blocks over at Sally’s. Annabeth swore the woman invited him over every chance she got just to fuss over him until he was wearing at least one extra piece of clothing because “he ran so cold” and “never wore enough clothes.” Sally also liked to encourage “typical twenty-first-century American teenager mischief.”

As far as Annabeth could tell, it involved a lot of skateboarding.

With Sally’s guidance, Nico had also tried lots of different types of candy and other modern “junk food” and taken a couple of weekend beginner art classes in the city. He had, consequently, rediscovered caramel and realized he hated painting, but didn’t mind drawing and wouldn’t be against taking another class.

It wasn’t exactly what Annabeth would have considered “mischief” but Nico enjoyed skateboarding and Percy was happy to have someone to do it with, so no one was going to say anything against it on her watch.

For the most part, Annabeth would watch Nico from the sidelines and laugh, but, at the end of the day, she knew how it felt to be on the end of Sally’s love and be unsure as to how to handle it.

She had been in his place once.

Annabeth couldn’t say exactly when Sally, Paul, and Estella went from being her boyfriend’s family to being their family—well, Estella never quite grasped that she was any less related to Annabeth than Percy. Or, at the very least, she refused to recognize it out loud.

And who was Annabeth to argue?

It wasn’t just Estella. Sally had her moments, too.

“I bragged about my daughter today at work,” Sally told her once. “I guess the subject of college came up? I couldn’t help myself! I told them about some of the amazing things you were doing—I’m so proud of you—but I should have asked first. Was that… I can’t go back, but would you okay with me calling you my daughter in the future? I consider you one, of course, but don’t want to make you uncomfortable. It’s completely okay if you…” Annabeth had cut her off unintentionally, not thinking her plan all the way through before she was already clinging to her husband's mom’s side. Her hands were trembling and crying and it felt like a lot all at once, but every time she went to pull away, Sally whispered things like “it’s okay” and “I’ve got you.”

Even though Sally was an untrained mortal, there was a special safety in her arms. Sally might not be prepared to fight off Greek monsters, but her embrace felt like acceptance—of always having someone waiting for her to come home, no matter how dark and broken she felt.

Figuring out how to handle—learning to accept—Sally’s unconditional love (even when she didn’t deserve it) came with a steep learning curve.

Watching Nico breathe in every one of Sally Jackson’s hugs like it could be his last was… it was a grief she recognized.

“There are no expectations,” she said to him. “She loves you, Nico. We both do.”

And really, it was no hardship to take in another little brother.

Percy never pushed for her secrets.

It was her story to tell or not-tell, he said. “You don’t owe anyone anything—not your body or your energy or that big brain of yours. And sure as Nico’s dad not your story.”

When she had finally opened up, he hadn’t been surprised. He knew family was important to her, so he figured she’d want to share eventually, but also that family was important to her so it wasn’t going to be easy. He said he had known, on some level, that, for years, she couldn’t even imagine a world in which the pain of what happened, of what she lost, wasn’t the center of her life.

It took time for her to find a new center, which was to be expected, according to Ovidia Escárcega, daughter of Apollo and Annabeth’s therapist. Lots of things she did were expected, Annabeth learned. There were no normal reactions to abnormal situations, which her life was apparently full of, but there were patterns and Annabeth’s “trauma responses” supposedly “made sense.”

The first time Ovidia had said it, the words had felt like judgment and Annabeth had been ready to quit therapy, again. Thankfully, Percy talks to her first and was able to explain what his therapist had meant when she told him the same thing.

“I think they’re trying to say we’re not broken—no one with PTSD is. Responses to trauma are natural. They served us in the moment. They ‘make sense.’ It doesn’t mean it doesn’t such or that there isn’t anything we can do to find more peace, just that we aren’t abnormal or less than because we feel this way right now.”

(Was it possible for him to be better at therapy than her? Ovidia said no, but the jury was still out.)

She still wasn’t sure she deserved him, much less his never-ending patience, even on the late nights when he told her that she deserved all of the best and more over and over until she fell asleep in his arms.

Percy was never anything but supportive when it came to her health, even when it meant he wasn’t taking care of himself, even if it hurt him—something they spent a lot of time talking about in therapy, both individually and together. Who knew constantly wearing themselves out in effort to protect each other, even when the monsters were ones they had to fight alone, wasn’t healthy or sustainable?

“Sustainable?” Annabeth had said, the first time Ovidia had mentioned it. “What’s the point of worrying about the future when we aren’t going to live long enough to see it?”

That had lead to a new thread of conversation that was still ongoing.

According to Ovidia, what Annabeth said was “concerning.” She reminded Annabeth that the wars were over. As if she didn’t know! (If there were still times she really didn’t, well, they didn’t count.)

Annabeth had known, objectively, that there was a future to be had. Her and Percy had fought for it. They had bled all around the world and under it. They had broken—been broken—and faced the worst the world had to offer in order to ensure there was one.

That never meant her and Percy that would live to see it. After all, predictions were based on patterns and the patterns in their lives made that very clear.

But when Annabeth had presented her argument, Ovidia had just gotten an irritatingly smug gleam in her eyes.

“When have the Fates ever been predictable?” she asked.

Annabeth protested, but, after going back and forth for way too long, she cautiously agreed to play along with Ovidia’s game.

Baby Annabeth had dreamt of the future and what she thought her life would be like as much as any child did. She could admit to that even if it meant facing the reality that after so many years of them being just that, dreams—not even the demigod kind which could be useful—the endless possibilities open to her felt like another mountain to climb. Another void to fall into.

Ovidia asked her to identify the people she wanted in her future.

“You don’t have to decide where you’ll be living or working, just focus on the people, for now,” she’d said. “When you imagine your future, five years from now, ten years, who is else is there? Who do you want to have by your side when you’re having bad days? Because there will always be bad days and that’s okay, that’s human. Who do you want to invite into your moments of joy? Perhaps create joy with? I think you’ll find you have a greater network than you think.”

Ovidia hadn’t been wrong. Because of course Annabeth couldn’t have a win.

The list had started out small. Percy, Thalia, Estella, and her nineteen younger siblings at Camp.

She knew that to most people’s measure, nineteen was an absurd number of siblings. Some days she agreed, remembering when she first joined the Athena cabin and got to claim a top bunk because she was only the fifth camper there. It had been quieter then. Definitely more orderly.

To have double the number of siblings now? Six year-round campers and eleven who came back every summer? And that was without mentioning the three that had grown up and spread their wings, but made sure to visit whenever they could.

The difference would have been unthinkable. But she couldn’t imagine her life without them.

Annabeth wasn’t Head Counselor anymore, but she was the eldest and they were her kids siblings. They were her responsibility and even if they hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have changed a thing.

She apologized to Percy once, for staying so tied to Camp which kept them from ever straying from New York for long.

He just kissed her until she forgot what she was saying, which he later swore was not his intention.

“Family comes first,” he had said. “You’re a good big sister. You know that, right?”

“Sometimes,” she replied, being honest. “It helps when you remind me.”

Percy’s mischievous smile had me laughing even before he said, “Aye aye, m’lady—”

“You mixed up—” but she couldn’t finish her sentence because he was still grinning and it was still making her laugh.

“Let me count the ways!” he went on, throwing his arm out theatrically.

The laugh grew warm in her chest.

“You know, that poem is about his lover being ugly.”

It wasn’t really, but she was curious what he’d do with the information.

He didn’t disappoint.

Switching from puppy-dog-energy to puppy-dog-eyes in a heartbeat, he asked if she was serious.

“I thought it was a love poem!”

“It is, I promise,” she laughed. “Shakespeare—Hermes kid, you know that?—I’m pretty sure Shakespeare was saying: I will love you forever, even if you turn ugly.”

Percy cracked up at that.

“But more poetically!” she insisted. “In a ‘I’ll love you no matter what’ kind of way.”

“Annabeth.” Percy fought hard to stop laughing long enough to cobble together something like a serious expression. “Annie, I promise to love you even when you’re ugly.”

He was doing a terrible job at hiding his smile, so she just rolled her eyes, but didn’t hide hers, either.

“I’ve already proven I’ll love you when you’re—”

Annabeth didn’t know who started running first, but as she laughed, she knew she wanted him to catch her.