Archive of Our Own ^beta

Annabeth doesn’t remember when the dreams started. They’ve just always… been there. It’s like how her eyes are gray- a factual thing in her life. What she does remember is when she realized the dreams weren’t ordinary. Of course, Annabeth herself isn’t exactly ordinary (she’s the daughter of a goddess, and was basically conjured out of thin air. No, she most definitely is not ordinary), and most of the stuff she sees on a daily basis can’t really be described as ordinary, either, but apparently the limit for the word goes in weirdly patterned, almost prophetic dreams for someone who is not a child of Apollo.

She was seven, a fresh runaway and just lost her first baby tooth. Athena had started guiding her, her only weapon a rusty old hammer. The goddess had repeatedly told her to only trust her wit and intelligence, that her brain was a weapon itself and that it was the only thing one could rely on. At that point, Annabeth had seen so many dreams she’d forgotten most of them, dreams so vivid and real that her father had worried about if something was wrong with her - if it was normal for a five year-old to ramble on and on, day after day, about dreams with the same people and same places, almost like a storyline. “You won’t guess what happened in my dream today, dad!” “What, sweetie?” “I was climbing this really awesome rock wall thing, and I made it all the way to the top! I’ve never made it before! And then I got down and Luke told me he was really proud and gave me his dessert!” “That’s… great, honey!” He, of course, knew also that Annabeth was far from ordinary, but he still was continuously taken aback by just how odd of a daughter he really had. Not that the dreams ever bothered him, necessarily, they just… made him a bit anxious, so to speak. And when one day Annabeth started talking to him about a cyclops and how it had mutilated her into pieces, Frederick Chase had had enough and pulled his daughter aside, and as sternly as he could told her to just ignore the dreams. He felt a little bit bad, watching Annabeth’s face, her wide eyes and untamed curls, but she kept her mouth shut afterwards. And so, at the age of five, Annabeth learned how to hide things.

So, naturally, she doesn’t tell Athena of her dreams. They guide her to an extent, but it’s weird, because some of the dreams seem to overlap, the stories not matching. Annabeth knows that somewhere she could find a hammer to use as a weapon. She knows that somewhere there is a safe haven for her, somewhere she will belong. She knows that there are two people - Luke, a boy with blonde hair, and Thalia, a girl with electric blue eyes - somewhere, who are willing to be her friends. In some of the dreams she finds them, and in some she doesn’t. She knows that she’ll face monsters on her journey. In some of the dreams she dies, in some she survives. Annabeth might be young, but she’s determined - the dreams have prepared her, she has found the hammer at an old abandoned workshop and she has her wits, which Athena tells her are her greatest gift. They don’t stop her from almost freezing during her very first fight - she acquires a nasty scar down her forearm as punishment - but she’s tougher than that and bashes the monster with the hammer with all her might. It staggers back from the blow, and Annabeth strikes it again, this time aiming for it’s eye. The hammer goes through and the monster screeches before turning into dust. Athena doesn’t congratulate her - instead she gives her corrections on her technique, and Annabeth has to wipe the terror from her mind. She almost misses Luke and Thalia (she almost misses people she’s never met. How ridiculous is that? So she grits her teeth and focuses, relies only on herself, per her mother’s teachings. She’s young, not stupid, and knows that she can’t miss people she’s never met, who she might never meet. People she’s only ever seen in her dreams).

—

Luke and Thalia are real. Annabeth is relieved, because they are real, not just something her head’s made up as her father seemed to believe (Annabeth understood what the funny looks every morning meant), and she meets them. Luke gives her a bronze knife with promises of family (Annabeth knew that was a possibility, of course) and she can positively ditch the hammer. It’s almost sad, leaving the rusted thing at one of their hide-outs. Annabeth steels herself. The odds are in her favor, and she’s not going to waste them by being sentimental. That’s against everything she has ever learned.

It’s around that time that Annabeth understands that dreams like her’s are unusual, to say the least. Thalia is on night shift and Annabeth supposed to be sleeping, but she is awakened by Luke’s thrashing. She isn’t scared - she’s had her fair share of bad dreams (lying mutilated, slowly bleeding to death pops into her mind) - and instead watches silently as Thalia shakes the boy awake. Luke wakes up with a jolt, and after lieu of whispered curses under his breath, he gets up and walks to the riverbank, far enough to be considered away from their little camp. Thalia sighs and rubs her eyes. Annabeth rustles and Thalia’s gaze snaps to her, the nightly instincts of a fighter taking over. Her features soften as she sees Annabeth awake.

“I’m sorry, did we wake you?” she asks gently. Annabeth shakes her head. Thalia flops down next to her. Annabeth sits up straight, and Thalia slings an arm over her shoulder.

“He’s alright”, Thalia isn’t much older than Annabeth, but she tries to sound mature, in that steady sort of way as she talks. It comforts Annabeth, to some degree. “We all get bad dreams, don’t we?”

Annabeth doesn’t say anything, her silence is enough of a reply. Then, carefully:

“What do you think he saw?”

Thalia shrugs.

“Probably something neither you or me can imagine”, she replies. “We demigods have a pretty bad track record with horrible encounters.”

That made Annabeth frown. Her dreams were very rarely of things she had a ‘track record’ of.

“What do you mean?” she asks. “Don’t you mean what might happen?”

Thalia turns to look at Annabeth. Even though it’s dark, the cavern lit up with only a small, dying bunch of embers, she can she the look of confusion on Thalia’s face.

“What does that mean, Annabeth?” she asks, not as a question, but more as searching for confirmation on a guess. When Annabeth doesn’t answer, Thalia pushes:

“Are you telling me, Annabeth, that you’re dreams are… predictive?”

That’s, that’s when Annabeth realizes her dreams might not be so… ordinary.

—

Annabeth doesn’t let anyone see, but she cries into her pillow after… that night. Her throat feels rough as she tries to keep her tears as silent as possible. It’s quiet, all her siblings are already asleep. Just the quiet eeriness of the night. It feels scarier without Thalia.

Thalia, who died so Annabeth and Luke and Grover could live. Thalia, who died because of that stupid cyclops in Brooklyn. Thalia who died because… because…

Because Annabeth told her of her dreams.

That has to be it. Annabeth had done everything right - Luke hadn’t died in the hands of the empousa and Thalia hadn’t been decapitated by the laistrogynian. They’d made it so close Annabeth had almost been able to smell the smoke of the campfire, the pine trees and saltwater of the Atlantic. They’d been so close. It didn’t make sense that they would’ve failed, unless it was for Annabeth’s own stupidity.

How had she not realized that a power so strong, like her dreams, must’ve come with a cost? She was like Cassandra - the girl in Ancient Greece who Luke had told her about. She had been gifted with the ability to see into the future, yet cursed to be believed by none. Only Annabeth’s curse must’ve been that she couldn’t tell anyone - otherwise there would be consequences that could very well be lethal.

And it had taken Thalia. Thalia, who was more a sister than friend. Thalia who would hug her and let her get the best bits of food. Thalia, who would make up imaginary games to keep Annabeth’s mind occupied during their long voyages.

What would Thalia think of her if she knew what Annabeth had done? What would Luke think? What would Chiron think?

She could be sent away. Left in the wilderness once and for all. Goodbye Camp Half-Blood, warm beds and sing-alongs at the campfire. Goodbye orange t-shirts, all the diagrams on the walls and the big house. A part of her thinks that’s what she deserves, after what she’s done. Another part of her reminds the first part that she’s never seen a future of such spanning out. A third, the most reasonable part, reminds that dreams aren’t reliable - only one’s intelligence is.

Annabeth bites her lip. It hurts, and she focuses on that instead the hurt inside her. Physical pain is easy to fix, she knows that. Mental pain… not as much. She grips her fresh sheets and makes a promise to herself - she will never, ever speak of her dreams to anyone. Ever. She owes that much. To others. To Luke. To Thalia.

—

She’s eight when she manages to climb the rock climbing wall for the first time.

—

A half-blood of the eldest gods… Annabeth only barely manages to bite down the scream in her throat. It’s the middle of the night, her eyes far too unaccustomed to the dark, making her feel helplessly weak. She shivers as the warm blanket droops down from around her shoulders, and she wraps her hands around her torso. She feels stupid.

Annabeth’s always had dreams. Bad and good. After she’d come to Camp, sometimes the dreams were overswept by nightmares, filled with the disgustingly accurate imitations of Thalia and Luke, even her own father, of the cyclops in Brooklyn, watching Thalia dying as Grover drags her up towards the barrier. Even though she’s been able to feel her heart racing and her breathing hitching as she woke up from those, never has she experienced anything even remotely similar to this.

Shall reach sixteen against all odds. Sixteen? Sixteen was ages away. Annabeth was only ten. Six years wasn’t even half of what she’d lived. And for a demigod, six years was a long long time. She’d seen the mournful glances and silent prayers as too little people returned from their quests. Some, who weren’t even in their teens yet.

And see the world in endless sleep. Annabeth glances around the room, listens to the not so quiet snore of one of her brother’s. Was this what the prophecy meant? Or (Annabeth shudders) did it mean all of the world was dead? Frozen in time? Endless sleep reminds Annabeth of the tale of Sleeping Beauty, where a beautiful princess was cursed into a hundred year sleep, only to be awakened by a true love’s kiss. Wait - could the line refer to that? If someone loved someone enough for it to be true love, wouldn’t that make their significant other their world?

“You are going to play a part in the occurrence of the prophecy, Annabeth”, Chiron had told her. What if that was her part? To be that someone’s world, to be seen in endless sleep?

No, no, no, Annabeth refuses that. She is not going to be some Sleeping Beauty, stuck in a tower until some Prince Charming comes to kiss her awake. No. She wants her part to be a part that people in the future will admire. Someone, that without the prophecy would be left unfulfilled. A hero, just as much as the named one of the prophecy. Whose soul will be reaped by a cursed blade.

The thought gnaws in her stomach. Sitting there, in the dark, Annabeth lets herself wonder what it’ll be like, the world outside the camp borders. Her father sends her letters, talks about her half-brothers and step-mother, asks her to come home. Annabeth always tells him no. Home no longer is with her father. Home is Camp. Home is Camp, and everything else is a new adventure, just waiting to happen. And even though her mind still reminds her that she’s already had a good deal of adventures, her blood thrums and there’s a itch in her mind to see more, do more. And so this person, this person who’s soul will be reaped by a cursed blade, might be her best chance at it.

Annabeth lays her head back into her pillow and ignores the nightmares that have come with knowing the Great Prophecy. A single choice shall end his days, Olympos to preserve or raze. If Annabeth has any say in it, she’ll make sure he will make the right one and preserve Olympos. She will not let this person prevent her from being written in the books of history as a failure. Not when she’s already let down Thalia.

—

Athena gives her a birthday present. An actual, real, wonderful birthday present. Annabeth stands in front of the mirror, blue Yankees cap in her hands. She takes in breath and places the hat once more on her head. Her reflection disappears as does she.

She’s invisible. Invisible. Annabeth grins (although you can’t see it) and pulls the hat off. Her image in the mirror comes back, notably more giddy than before. She feels like a superhero (which, she supposes, she kind of is). Then her face falls, as she remembers the earlier events of the day.

The new demigod that one of the satyrs had brought to camp had been claimed. Son of Apollo. Not a Big Three kid. She carefully eyes herself, trying to hide and ignore the disappointment that’s eating her from the inside out. She feels like she’s going mad, questioning every person who comes back Camp. Is this the one I've been waiting for?

Annabeth sighs. Her dreams have become more… muddled as of recent. Before, they were very straight-forward - this happens or this happens - everything very contained. Now, the possibilities they show are more varying. Vaguely she thinks she knows that the person she’s supposedly waiting for has dark hair and sea-green eyes. But everything else is… a mess. She’s pretty sure she’ll head west with them. She’s not entirely sure where, though. In some dreams she’s recognized the cities - the bright and shiny lights of Las Vegas, the french quarters of New Orleans, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis - and in some, they’re just standing in the middle of a suburb or a random convenience store. It’s really a gamble, where they’ll end up in reality.

She stares at the cap in her hands. It feels like an honor, a responsibility bestowed upon her. Similar to her dreams. Her part in the prophecy. Annabeth looks up at the image of her in the mirror and nods. She’s is not going to let the Camp down, nor Luke or Thalia or Athena or this person in the prophecy. She’s going to do her part, and do it damn well.

—

The second Annabeth first sees the boy, everything in her head clicks into place. He has dark hair, and even though his eyes are closed, Annabeth is more than certain that they are the color of the sea. Her dreams gain a face and Annabeth knows, knows deep in her bones that this is her one. Who she’s been waiting.

—

She, Percy and Grover head west, as Annabeth already knew. They end up going from New York to New Jersey to St. Louis and Las Vegas and finally Los Angeles. No one dies. Ares gets his shield, Hades his helm, Zeus his bolt, Percy his mother and the world gets its peace (for now). And then there’s that wretched ending of the prophecy. You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.

Everyone gains something. Everyone except Annabeth, who loses Luke. Not that she wasn’t supposed to not get anything - she was finally going back to California to her family, for a fresh new start - but apparently she just… isn’t allowed that.

It’s shock, to say the least. Annabeth learns that she really has forgotten what it feels like, to have the rug be pulled from underneath one’s feet, so accustomed she has grown to her nightly premonitions. She goes and sits by Thalia’s tree later, mourning for the hand around her shoulder that would pull her close, whisper reassuring words. She longs to feel like she’s seven again, just for a moment, oblivious of so many things thanks to childlike innocence.

But Annabeth isn’t stupid. She knows that people like her can’t let down their guards to chase after bottomless fantasies. So she wipes away the tears before they fall and braces herself for the future, ready to fight and maybe, maybe bring Luke back with it. If he has once turned, he can turn again. She just has to focus on that.

—

Sinking ships. Tropical, beautiful islands. The smell of wool and sheep. Sirens. She drowns. She blows up. A cyclops gets to her. She dies. Percy dies. Grover dies. Clarisse dies.

Annabeth gasps as she wakes up from a collage of premonitions. She clutches her blanket and tries to gulp in breaths. There’s no way she longer can separate the different futures from one another. Annabeth feels dread setting in her stomach. She doesn’t go back to sleep, and instead spends the early hours of the morning finishing the sketch of her newest architectural idea. When her step-mother comes to wake her up for school she’s dozed off on her desk.

—

No one dies, again. It’s pretty close, though. Tyson nearly blew up, Grover got nearly eaten, and Annabeth almost died herself. She still can’t remember what happened between the time she was dropped on her head by Polyphemus and woke up on the ship. In fact, they… gain lives, if that makes sense?

Because of Thalia. Thalia is resurrected with the golden fleece and if Annabeth believed in miracles, she would think it one. It’s not too good for the whole picture, though, because now there’s another Big Three kid alive - someone older than Percy, too - and the day of Olympos’s doom might’ve jumped a couple of years forward. People all around are worrying, fussing, cursing Luke and his goddamn plan.

Luke and his goddamn plan. Annabeth doesn’t want to reminisce the Princess Andromeda, the look in Luke’s eyes, the golden sarcophagus with Kronos’s remains inside.

Annabeth watches as Thalia tries to bounce back from being a tree (seriously, what the hell?) and shakes her head. It doesn’t make sense - Thalia can’t be the person of the prophecy. She feels it in her bones, just like she when she first saw Percy and knew that he was the person she’d been waiting for. And even though her gut is unwavering, her mind is not, and it reminds her of Athena’s words. That one can only trust their wit and intelligence. What if Annabeth has always been wrong? What if the dreams are just that - silly, coincidental things, pieces of an over-active imagination?

Annabeth shakes her head and curses her messy mind.

—

Annabeth has never been in so much pain before. She is literally holding the entire sky on her shoulders. She grits her teeth so hard her jaw aches, her shoulder blades feel like they’ve been set on fire and she can no longer breathe unless she reminds herself to.

In. Out. In. Out.

She squeezes her eyes shut as the first tears fall. Behind her eyelids she sees flashes of her latest dreams - a huntress being bit by a snake in the Garden of Hesperides, a figurine in the middle of desert scrapyard, Artemis shackled in her place, Percy in her place, Grover in her place…

She tastes tears in the corner of her mouth. Her throat feels like sandpaper and her knees almost buckle underneath her. You can’t let Percy or Grover take your place, she tries to tell herself, but the words come out as incoherent mumble. You can’t fail them so badly.

So she holds the sky up so long her tears mix with the beads of sweat rolling down her temples, until she has gone so numb with the pain that she can’t remember what if feels like to not be, until she’s teetering so close to the ledge of unconsciousness that she’s terrified she’ll just straight fall and never get back up again. She holds the sky up until suddenly somebody takes it from her and she drops to the floor, every muscle in her body screaming bloody murder at the same time. She move, her lungs don’t know how to take deep breaths anymore so she shakes uncontrollably, eyes not seeing anything except an exploding whiteness.

And that’s when the real pain kicks in. Luke, Luke, had left her. Tricked her and left her underneath the crushing weight of the sky even as she begged him not to. Luke, who had given her her beloved bronze dagger and promises of family. Luke, who had ruffled her hair and told her to leave the worrying for him when he was only fourteen himself. Luke, who was in some form of cahoots with the wrong side except he couldn’t be, because he was Luke, and…

That’s when Annabeth’s mind finally falls of the edge.

—

Percy took the place she’d stood, much later. He came for her. Saved her. It makes her feel a little inadequate, that she couldn’t save herself, but she’s too glad he’s okay to care.

She finds him talking to her mother of all people. It’s been a hell of a day. Watching somebody die - actually die, not just seeing an imagination of someone dying in a dream - is up there in the worst things Annabeth has ever seen. Luke disappearing. Riding pegasi to Olympos. Watching the gods voting about whether or not to kill her sister and her best friend. Watching her mother voting yes. Thalia joining the hunters, leaving the burden of the prophecy to be born by Percy once more.

Seeing Athena makes her almost angry. How dare she support killing two of some of the most important people in her daughter’s life? Annabeth wants to lash out at her, scream and give her a piece of her mind.

Instead she swallows her feelings down and tries to remain as calm and collected as she can.

“Oh… Mom.”

“I will leave you. For now”, Athena says, barely acknowledging Annabeth and striding back into the crowds. Annabeth watches her go before turning to Percy.

Percy, who frankly looked like he’d been through hell. Percy, who Annabeth for some reason still found unfairly cute. Even good looking.

“Was she giving you hard time?” Annabeth asks, her voice gentler than it has been in ages.

“No, it’s fine”, Percy says. Annabeth doesn’t fully believe him.

She studies his face for a second. The childhood features he’s losing fast. The sea-green eyes she’s known for longer than she has him. Annabeth reaches up and touches the gray strand in his hair, the one she knows she has mirrored in her own curls, tucked behind her ear.

She thinks about his fate, her dreams, them as whole. Annabeth remembers how she felt when she first heard the prophecy, how terrified she was on those nights. She wonders how Percy would react, would he know the entirety of it.

Annabeth doesn’t want it to be him. She wants him to throw it away like Thalia did, leave the burden for somebody else to bear. She thinks about Zoë, Artemis, the hunter brochure somewhere in her bag. How much she doesn’t want him to leave her. How much she hopes he doesn’t want her to leave him, either.

“So”, Annabeth asks. “What did you want to tell me earlier?”

“I, uh”, Percy fumbles a little bit. It makes Annabeth almost smile. “Was thinking we got interrupted at Westover Hall. And… I think I owe you a dance.”

That makes Annabeth almost smile, too. This time she allows the grin to spread across her face.

“All right, Seaweed Brain.”

—

“Annabeth?” her father calls from downstairs. “There’s someone here to see you.”

Annabeth frowns. She doesn’t have too many friends at her school - atleast none who would just show up at her doorstep uninvited (or anyone she would invite to her home) - and all her friends from Camp live far away. She hopes it isn’t some relative who supposedly babysat her once when she was two. Annabeth has better things to do.

She abandones her puzzle and walks down the stairs, then freezes as she sees who’s standing in the doorway.

“Hey, Annabeth”, Luke says, casual as ever. “Could I talk to you?”

Luke, walking away, leaving Annabeth holding the sky up alone with the sour taste of betrayal in her mouth.

“What is he doing here?” Annabeth’s voice is icy. Her father glances from her to him.

“Annabeth-”, Luke tries.

“No”, Annabeth’s lip trembles. “Get out.”

“What’s going on?” her father asks, perplexed by the encounter. Annabeth turns her gaze to him, then stomps down the final steps.

“Go”, she tells Luke. He has to go, because she might start crying if he doesn’t, and she does not want to cry in front of him or her father.

“Annabeth, please”, Luke pleads as she grabs the doorknob, about to slam te door shut in his face. “I’m here for a truce. Please. Just five minutes.”

Annabeth’s hand shakes, and she’s glad she can steady it on the handle. She really should just close the door and forget this ever happened.

“Annabeth?” Frederick Chase asks. “What’s going on?”

She thinks for a moment. Then, with a sigh, says:

“Don’t worry, dad. We’ll step outside and sort it out, and you’ll never have to hear from this again.”

She doesn’t give him time to answer before she pushes Luke out and follows him, shutting the door behind her.

“You have five minutes”, Annabeth says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“I-”, Luke stammers. He looks scared, which is new. “Annabeth, this is really serious. Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.”

He pauses, as though expecting a reaction from Annabeth. She doesn’t give him one. He hasn’t brought forth any new information. What’s she supposed to say? Wow, really? I had no idea that’s what he was doing!

“And I was thinking…”, Luke fidgets with his hands. “I want to run away. Just like in the old days. And… I want you to come with me.”

Annabeth stares at him. Is he serious? Is he actually serious? Does he think she’s stupid? She’s the daughter of Athena, for the gods’s sake. He should know better.

“No”, Annabeth shakes her head. “You’re as dumb as they come if you think I’ll ever go with you.”

“Annabeth”, Luke repeats her name. “This is serious. Please.”

“I said no!” Annabeth’s voice rises. “Do you seriously think that after everything you pulled on Mount Othrys I’d just drop everything and run away with you? Do you know how humiliating it is that you think I’m that dumb? Huh?”

“No, I-.”

“No”, Annabeth scorns. “In case you forgot, you betrayed everyone, Luke. You betrayed me and Thalia and Percy and the whole Camp.”

“I know, but, if you just come with me-.”

“No!” Annabeth shouts. “There’s no way, Luke. No way.”

For a moment, he looks hurt. Actually hurt. But then all of it converts into anger.

“Fine”, Luke spits. “You might as well fight me right here, right now, then, because it’ll be the last chance you’ll ever get.”

He spreads his arms out.

“Well? Huh?”

Annabeth shakes her head, a disappointed scowl on her face.

“Go to hell, Luke”, she says, before turning her back on him and going back inside, ready to forget the encounter ever happened.

—

It was supposed to be Annabeth’s year. She’d seen so in her dreams - finally leading her very own quest, growing closer with Percy, all of which was supposed to make her happy. What she hadn’t realized to take into account - thoroughly stupid on her part, she knows that - was a certain red-headed mortal girl.

Annabeth has seen her in the dreams, of course. In the Labyrinth. In New York City. She’d always assumed she was some new demigod, daughter of Apollo or Demeter or something.

What she hadn’t assumed was that a) she was a mortal, b) she was a close friend of Percy’s.

Annabeth is not jealous. She is not jealous when she sees them together the day she’s supposed to go with Percy to the movies. She is not jealous when Percy keeps bringing her up. She is not jealous when Percy suggests taking her into the Labyrinth and lead the way on Annabeth’s quest. Annabeth is not jealous. Just… mildly irritated, that’s all. Irritated that Rachel has managed to wedge her way into Percy’s life quicker than Annabeth would’ve ever dared (and no, that was not a pun). Irritated that her quest is overtaken by some random girl who just to happens to be able to see through the mist (Annabeth is the daughter of the goddess of wisdom. She could’ve figured something out on her own).

And not helping the matter is the prophecy she’s given for her quest that has weaseled it’s way into her already alarmingly terrifying dreams.

You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze. A sphinx mauls her to death. And see the world in endless sleep. The dead, the traitor and the lost one raise. Pan in a cavern, lush with nature and life. You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand. Annabeth blows up as a volcano erupts. The child of Athena’s final stand. Percy blows up as a volcano erupts. Destroy with a hero’s final breath. Luke’s army floods the Camp. Slaughter, blood, screams, death, everywhere. A hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap. And lose a love to worse than death. Luke…

She thinks about San Franscisco, Luke pleading her to run away with him. The claims he made. Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world. Combined with her dreams...

No. Annabeth can’t focus on that. The future is uncertain. She can still fix it.

—

“Put your cap on. Get out!” Percy as much as orders.

They are at Mount St. Helens. Annabeth’s stomach had twisted in an ill manner the moment she’d seen where the Labyrinth had led them. She remembers the dreams - blowing up before charring to ash in a sea of lava.

Worst part is that it’s not even her biggest concern at the moment. There are telekhines everywhere, swarming, ready to kill.

“What?” Annabeth shrieks. There is no way she’s leaving Percy alone. Images of his mangled body flash in her mind. No thank you. “No! I’m not leaving you!”

“I’ve got a plan. I’ll distract them. You can use the metal spider - maybe it’ll lead you back to Hephaestus. You have to tell him what’s going on.”

“But you’ll be killed!” Annabeth shakes her head.

“I’ll be fine. Besides, we’ve got no other choice.”

Annabeth hates that he’s right. She hates that the future has brought this scenario upon her - hell, she would even prefer to be ambushed by a hundred sphinxes all wanting answers to questions that most definitely weren’t riddles - and she hates that she has to make a choice.

The child of Athena’s final stand.

Truth was Annabeth trusts Percy. She trusts him more than anyone else in the world. If he says he has a plan, he has a plan. Maybe this is her final stand, leaving him, trusting him, sacrificing herself over him. Because there’s no way she’ll let him get himself killed. Maybe this scenario is 50/50 for them. One could live only if the other died. Her final stand - saving the hero of the prophecy. Her part of the prophecy.

Better than being Sleeping Beauty, she thinks almost bitterly. She hopes Percy will find her sketchbooks. Continue her architectural legacy.

Annabeth stares at him for a few seconds. She wants to take him in in all his glory, if it is going to be the last time she sees him. Covered in dirt and ash, hair dishelved, stance solid, ready for battle, she thinks he looks good for the part. A hero.

Fuck it. She isn’t going to leave this world without kissing Percy Jackson.

She grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls him in. It’s brief, her lips on his for a second, and then it’s over, too soon, too quick for Annabeth’s liking.

“Be careful, Seaweed Brain”, she says, before pulling the cap onto her head and once more vanishing from view.

—

She doesn’t die. Again, she doesn’t die, but Percy does.

Annabeth wants to scream, shout at him. You were supposed to live! You were always there, in my dreams!

Two weeks, that’s how much the Camp gives him. Two short, too long weeks.

Annabeth has to hope. She has to. She thinks of all the dreams that she guesses couldn’t haven’t happened yet - Bridge, fighting, bleeding, falling against Kronos’s troops, Manhattan, too quiet to be Manhattan - the ones where Percy’s face is by her own.

But Percy doesn’t come back in two weeks, and Annabeth is ready to throw hands and give up hope for good. Her dreams - the one thing she’s always been able to count upon - have failed her. They’ve misled her, over and over again. She cries when Chiron asks her to be the one to burn his shroud. She cries before the ceremony. She just about manages to dry the tears for the burning.

The burial cloth has an embroidered trident on it. It’s green, but not the sea-green of Percy’s eyes. Annabeth watches as it catches aflame. She feels tears once more prickling behind her eyelids.

People turn to look at her. What even to say, about one’s dead best friend who you wished had been more? About the person who had somehow become such an essential part of one’s life it no longer felt like one’s own without them in it? About a person who was supposed to be the key to one’s troubles, the one who had managed to unlock parts about oneself one had no idea even existed? About a person Annabeth wasn’t entirely sure she even wanted to live without?

“He”, Annabeth manages to find some words, even though they feel bitter and heavy on her tongue. “He was probably the bravest friend I’ve ever had.”

She can see a few people nodding from the corners of her eyes.

“He…”, the sentence evaporates off her tongue as soon as her eyes lock with sea-green ones.

She can’t form any semblance of a thought for a moment. Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, is at a loss for words as the faith in her dreams, the trust she’s always had in Percy comes flooding back, drowning everything out as she falls under the tide. Faintly she registers something about saying he’s there, and only once the campers have swarmed around him like bees around honey does she snap back to her senses.

“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Annabeth almost roars as she pushes her way through the crowd to Percy. She wraps her arms around him and pulls him into a crushing hug. She’s so relieved. She’s so relieved she might as well burst out some wings from her back and float away without a care in the world. I was so worried, a tiny voice adds in the back of her mind. I was so worried you’d left me.

Truthfully, she doesn’t want to let go. She wants to hug her best… friend - why did that hurt so much to say? - breathe in his scent and just find a home with him, in his embrace for as long as she can. She wants to fall against him, have him catch her like the safe haven he’s become. She’s so tired of fighting everything all the goddamn time.

She realizes that the rest of the campers have gone silent around them. Annabeth is causing causing a scene, and that’s the the last thing she wants. So she pushes Percy away and asks, trying to reach for her normal, calm and collected, matter-of-fact stance:

“I- We thought you were dead, Seaweed Brain.”

There’s desparation in her voice. Annabeth might want to fall through the ground and into earth’s core weren’t for the fact she’s so relieved.

“I’m sorry”, Percy answers, looking a little bit… embarrassed? “I got lost.”

“LOST?” Annabeth has never heard a sorrier excuse. “Two weeks, Percy? Where in the world-.”

They’re promptly interrupted by Chiron, who takes them to the big house to discuss everything - Percy’s disappearance and reappearance - a bit more privately.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Calypso. Percy was two weeks with Calypso. Alone with her. On her island.

It hurts. It hurts like hell.

Sure, he came back. But it’s not about that. It’s about the fact that merely moments before he was sent off flying to Ogygia, Annabeth had kissed him. And still, he spent two weeks alone with a pretty girl, who quite literally is meant to fall in love with whoever falls on the ghost that is her island. Two weeks Percy spent with her. Two weeks it took for him to return back home. Back to Annabeth.

If Annabeth’s kiss would’ve meant something more for him, wouldn’t he have come back quicker? Was it that easy for him to forget, as soon as a new, pretty girl waltzed into the picture? And it’s not only that, because he suggests for Rachel to join Annabeth’s quest ten minutes after coming back from Calypso. Great. So he’s not only got one, but two pretty girls on his mind before even acknowledging the kiss with Annabeth.

Chiron stands by Percy’s idea.

“My dear, it is your quest. But you need help”, he says to Annabeth, and suddenly she feels like she’s seven again, just lost Thalia and terrified. You need help. No sir. Annabeth does not need help. She’s fended for herself longer than she can remember - she does not need help.

Her objections fall on deaf ears and she storms out of the room. Some people glance at her nervously as she runs from the Big House, away, to the barrier where Thalia’s tree still stands. She wants to scream, but instead resolves to loudly stomping her feet and punching the trunk. It’s childish, she knows that, but she has so much bottled up rage inside of her she feels like she’s going to explode.

You shall lose a love to worse than death. Annabeth lets out a pitiful sniffle and crumples down to the floor, leaning heavily on the tree. Her dreams have entangled into a knot, as though following the state of her mind, but there’s one clear picture she’s taken a hold of - one she desperately wishes she’ll never, ever have to see again, in dreams or reality.

Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophogus.

Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.

Annabeth almost winces simply at the thought. She has to fix it. She- she can’t, he can’t, it just isn’t… plausible. No. Annabeth has to fix it. It’s her quest, and she has to see it to a victorious end. Something no Rachel can ever take that from her.

Okay, so, main objective - save Luke. Save the Camp. Save the world. Receive some glory as a reward.

Annabeth gathers herself and returns to camp. Wallowing in her problems doesn’t help anyone. Doesn’t help Luke. If she wants to figure it out, she has to get out of her head.

Because she has to save Luke. She just has to. Failing is not an option.

—

She fails. She fails, and she fails and she fails and she’s never ever felt so inadequate.

—

Hera tells her quest was a success. A fucking success. Hera, who apparently sent Percy to Calypso in the first place.

At that point, Annabeth realizes that she’s never, ever felt real hatred for anyone before. Not in the way she does for Hera.

The Queen of the Gods vanishes after Annabeth tells her off, and the hilltop turns peaceful again. Suddenly Annabeth feels tired. So, so tired, even though she now has Daedalus’s laptop, which contents she has only barely scratched - something she should be excited about. And don’t get her wrong, she loves the laptop, and is more than happy to have it, but… she feels like the laptop is turning into her only true friend, the only thing she can trust. And that’s really fucking pathetic. She just can’t find herself to enjoy it as much as she could, not when she feels like she’s standing on the edge of a ravine, with Percy on the other side and no way to reach him.

“I’m sorry”, she says to Percy, eyeing Argus and his vehicle, waiting for him to get in and take him home. Saying goodbye to him somehow felt… different from the years before. A different that made Annabeth’s stomach twist with foul. She doesn't want to feel like she was reaching out to him from a million miles away.

“I- I should get back. I’ll keep in touch.”

“Listen, Annabeth…”, Percy starts. Annabeth looks at him, a spark of hope igniting in her brain. No, stop. Hope was dangerous. Especially for people like Annabeth. Even more dangerous for people like Percy, who were barely a year away from preserving or razing Olympos and basically destroying the world.

Say something, the selfish, no-good voice in her head tries to urge. Anything, just something. Tell me I’m not… inadequate. Tell me it’ll be alright. Tell me you’ll be alright. Tell me we’ll be alright.

Argus honks his horn and the moment is over. Annabeth is relieved. He indirectly stopped something that probably would’ve either way only caused harm.

“You’d better get going”, she nods towards the car, desperate to get him out of her way before she slips up. “Take care, Seaweed Brain.”

Percy doesn’t answer. It might be because Annabeth whirls around as fast as she can and jogs down the the hill, towards the cabins. She feels his gaze on her back, but she doesn’t turn around. She doesn’t turn around, even though she wants nothing more. She doesn’t turn around, because she’s no longer sure he would. Annabeth stiffens her neck and forces herself to keep going. She has to have that much restraint in herself. To stop herself from looking over at the guy who is kind of breaking her heart and in more ways than one. To stop herself from doing something stupid and pushing everything off-track. She swallows the lump in her throat and keeps going, until she’s knows she out of Percy’s sight. She leans against the Athena cabin for support and runs a hand through her curls as she lets out a deep breath.

Everything is falling apart, and it’s all her fault.

—

“Shut up!” Annabeth’s fork clatters onto her plate and she knocks over her chair as she springs to her feet. The homely buzz around the dinner table goes quiet as four pairs of eyes look at her, part worried, part almost scared.

“I’m sorry”, Annabeth mumbles and pulls her chair back up. She sits down, but steers her gaze down onto her plate. Her cheeks flush with hotness.

Annabeth’sstep-mother picks up the conversation from where it was left when it became clear Annabeth is not going to explain herself. She throws in a few comments, but only when she’s directly addressed. She excuses herself as quickly as she can, escaping back to her room before anyone gets around to ask questions.

Annabeth’s room has more or less looked the exact same as it did when they first moved. Her desk is cluttered, school books and notes flung around, her Yankees cap resting on her lamp. Her bed still has the same blue and white patterned sheets that she’d chosen when she was four. In one corner, there are boxes piled into a stack, all filled with her childhood things - stuff her father hadn’t really known whether or not to get rid of. He might as well have - they don’t move Annabeth much.

She flops down onto her desk chair and hunches over her work - a killer essay in english that has proven to be quite the challenge because of ADHD and dyslexia. She pretends not to hear the footsteps that cannot belong to anyone but her father coming up the stairs.

He knocks quietly on the door before she hears it creak open behind her.

“Annabeth?” her father asks, a little bit clumsily. She doesn’t turn around.

“Yeah?” she says, trying to focus on the words written on the page, and not the way her head hammers.

“Are you, um, okay?”

The pen stops at the corner of the page, her thought about how to formulate the idea she’d had into words vanishing into thin air.

No, she is not okay. She is not okay, because school is killing her, and thinking about anything to do with the non-mortal world is killing her, and on top of that, the dreams have started to invade her reality now, too.

She can explain the school thing to her father. Problem is it’s not enough of an excuse. Annabeth’s smart, a sharp student and quick learner. School might frustrate her - like the fucking essay she’s supposed to be writing - thanks to the mentioned ADHD and dyslexia, but not stress her. And even though she isn’t exactly close with her dad, it’s still something he knows.

But how does one explain to one’s mortal father that the Titan Lord is actively rising whilst having taken over the body of someone who was once their daughter’s dearest friend, considered nearly a family member by her? How does one explain to their father that their daughter’s current best friend (who she also might wish to be more) is kind of in a do or die situation, which conclusion might be the end of the world? How does one explain to their father that their daughter (who isn’t even sixteen yet) is going to have a part to play in the inevitable war that’s coming?

One doesn’t. One simply doesn’t.

“I’m fine, just a little bit on edge”, Annabeth answers, because it’s the truth. Well, it’s a very understated version of the truth, but still, it counts.

“Is there… anything I can help you with?” her father inquires further.

Annabeth thinks of her dreams from the previous night. Lying dead on a Manhattan street. The titan army making it’s way into Olympos. Dozens of demigods, sprawling dead amidst the rubble, their blood coloring the skyscrapers crimson. Involuntarily she squeezes her eyes shut, and a closer image of a demigod, beaten unrecognizable, flashes behind her eyelids. And see the world in endless sleep… a voice whispers in her ear.

Annabeth almost manages not to jump this time. Ever since a few weeks ago, she’s started seeing flashes of images when she’s awake, too. Whispers of the prophecy in her ears. It’s almost like everything is slowly coming together, the dreams culminating.

How do you explain that to your father? That the reason you’re all jumpy and on edge is because you’ve started seeing and hearing things? Hell, sometimes Annabeth herself wonders if she’s going mad. If she already has.

“Not really”, Annabeth bites the inside of her cheek. “Just… let me be and it’ll be alright.”

There’s silence for a moment. In her mind, Annabeth begs for her father to leave.

“Okay, well, you know that if you ever need me you can always come to me”, Frederick Chase finally says, a little bit awkward, before leaving the room. Annabeth listens to his fading footsteps, before turning back to her essay, the echo of sleep still ringing in her ears.

—

Beckendorf’s dead.

It’s not like Annabeth hasn’t seen or felt death in the Camp (just thinking about the previous summer, when Kronos’s forces had attacked from the Labyrinth makes her shudder). At this point, it’s almost an expectancy - most demigods don’t make it. They die on quests and in battle, too young, and it’s always heartbreaking, but… Beckendorf? Beckendorf, who’d almost always felt invincible. Beckendorf, who’d felt to Annabeth like a person that was always going to be there. Beckendorf, who’d become the victim of Princess Andromeda blowing instead of Percy, like in her dream.

Percy, who’s turning sixteen in one week.

Annabeth wipes a stray tear from her face as Chiron instructs her to finally show Percy the Great Prophecy, in all its might. They go together to the attic, to the Oracle, and Annabeth quickly retrieves the roll of parchment from one of the leather pouches hanging around the mummy’s neck.

"No way," Percy says. "You mean all these years, I've been asking about this stupid prophecy, and it's been right there around her neck?"

“The time wasn’t right”, the piece of parchment feels almost scalding in her hands. "Believe me, Percy, I read this when I was ten years old, and I still have nightmares about it.”

—

Of course, Annabeth knows the prophecy by heart. She could recite it in her sleep (she probably has). But hearing it from Percy’s mouth, it feels… imminent. It feels like a punch in the gut. “The Prophecy is real, and it’s happening right now”, and what not.

“A half-blood of the eldgest dogs-.”

“Er, Percy? It’s gods, not dogs.”

Annabeth is familiar with dyslexia, but somehow Percy’s mishap manages to irritate her. It’s perfectly understandable, of course, but the stakes are so high - see Silena, sitting at the end of the table, hot chocolate in front of her and tears streaming down her eyes - it feels almost disrespectful.

“Oh, right”, Percy blushes in embarrassment. Suddenly Annabeth feels bad about her irritation. She knows that Percy’s reading gets worse when he’s nervous. He hasn’t really caught a break in a while, and will not be catching one in the next week. He probably watched Beckendorf die mere moments before. Cut him some slack, Annabeth, she scolds herself internally.

“A half-blood of the eldest gods… shall reach sixteen against all odds.”

Percy, riptide in hand, cutting up monsters.

“And see the world in endless sleep.”

Dead demigods, scattered around Manhattan like torn up ragdolls.

“

The hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap.”

Percy, dead, sprawled on the floor of the throne room in Olympos, Kronos standing over his body.

Percy’s stopped speaking, just staring at the paper, a worried expression on his face. Annabeth remembers the feeling all too well herself.

“Percy”, Chiron urges. “Read the rest.”

“A single choice shall end his days.”

A flash of multiple images, all merged into one.

“Olympos to per- pursue-.”

“Preserve”, Annabeth says gently. “It means to save.”

“I know what it means”, Percy mutters, and there’s no doubt in her mind after that that he’s not just scared, but outright terrified. Which is perfectly valid. Annabeth herself is terrified too. And she’s not even the one the prophecy’s about.

“Olympos to preserve or raze.”

Olympos, in all it’s glory with new architectural designs - choices Annabeth herself would’ve absolutely done, too - and buzzling with life. Then, Olympos in ruins, dried blood splattered around like paint.

Everyone is silent. Annabeth tries to catch Percy’s eye, to offer silent support, but he doesn’t even look at her. His gaze is firmly fixed on the little piece of paper.

“Raise is good, isn’t it?” Connor says, although the waver in his voice lets everyone know he’s unsure.

“Not raise”, Silena says, voice hollow, lifeless. “R-A-Z-E means destroy.”

“Obliterate”, Annabeth specifies. She finally catches Percy’s sea-green eyes. “Annihilate. Turn to rubble.”

“Got it”, Percy’s voice is strained. “Thanks.”

Annabeth tries not to let her concern, her worry, her fright seep onto her face. Percy had all that already himself, he didn’t need anymore of her’s. Still, it was kind of hard, when Annabeth’s heart was beating a hundred beats per minute, that annoying part of her head yelling at her to do something because she maybe only had a week left with him.

“You see now, Percy, why we thought it best not to tell you the whole prophecy. You've had enough on your shoulders-”, Chiron is interrupted by Percy:

“Without realizing I was going to die in the end anyway? Yeah, I get it.”

Annabeth felt her heart cracking.

“Percy”, she says. “You know prophecies always have double meanings. It might not literally mean you die.”

She’s had time to mull over it. The hero’s soul cursed blade shall reap and a single choice shall end his days definitely do not sound good. But if they focus on that… then what’s the point in even trying to fight? Prophecies are never straight-forward. The lines could very well be… something else.

“Sure. A single choice shall end his days. That has tons of meanings, right?” Percy says sarcastically. He catches onto Annabeth doubt as quickly as she could catch onto his.

No, no, don’t think that, she tries to find the courage to plead. But her counter is weak without an example to draw to, and Annabeth has none to spare. So instead she lets herself fall out of the discussion as Jake Mason offers the idea that maybe they could try and destroy the cursed blade before it has the chance to reap Percy’s soul.

“Perhaps we should let Percy think about these lines”, Chiron says. “He needs time-.”

“No. I don't need time. If I die, I die. I can't worry about that, right?” Percy folds the prophecy and tucks into his pocket with a little too much force. Percy, dead, sprawled on the floor of the throne room in Olympos, Kronos standing over his body. Annabeth can’t stop the shake of her hands. She doesn’t dare to look up from where her gaze is deeply rooted in the table.

She stays silent the rest of the discussion.

—

Yeah, the demigods are on their own. To defend Olympos. As the gods fight Typhon and Kronos has something up his sleeve for Manhattan.

Hermes shows up with Athena’s message, telling them as much.

“She said you should try plan twenty-three. She said you would know what that meant.”

Annabeth feels her cheeks growing cold. If Athena thinks they should use plan twenty-three, well, it’s not exactly good. Plan twenty-three is unreliable, not a safe, wise choice.

“Go on”, she gets out.

“Last thing”, Hermes turns to look at Percy. “She said to tell Percy: ‘Remember the rivers.’ And, um, something about staying away from her daughter.”

The blood rushes back to her cheeks.

“Thank you, Hermes”, Annabeth clears her throat to clear the air. She intends to leave it at that, but the guilt gnawing in her stomach is too much. Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.

“And I… I wanted to say… I’m sorry about Luke.”

She knows it’s a mistake the second Hermes takes in what she says. His face hardens and it just might be the scariest expression she’s ever seen.

“You should’ve left that subject alone”, he says and it sounds like a warning. Annabeth’s breath hitches in terror and she takes a nervous step backwards.

“Sorry?” she says with a gulp.

“SORRY doesn’t cut it!”

Hermes’s wrath is scary. Annabeth knows where the conversation is going, and tears brim her eyes.

“You should’ve saved him when you had the chance. You’re the only one who could’ve.”

Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophogus. Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.

“What are you talking about? Annabeth didn’t-.”

“Don’t defend her, Jackson! She knows exactly what I’m talking about!”

Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophogus. Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.

“Maybe you should blame yourself! Maybe if you hadn’t abandoned Luke and his mom!”

Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world. Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world. Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world. Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.

Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophagus. Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophagus. Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophagus. Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophagus.

You should’ve saved him when you had the chance. You’re the only one who could’ve. You should’ve saved him when you had the chance. You’re the only one who could’ve. You should’ve saved him when you had the chance. You’re the only one who could’ve. You should’ve saved him when you had the chance. You’re the only one who could’ve.

Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.

You should’ve saved him when you had the chance. You’re the only one who could’ve.

Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophagus.

Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.

You should’ve saved him when you had the chance. You’re the only one who could’ve.

Somebody grabs Annabeth by the shoulders and turns her away. She’s not really sure who. She can’t really see anything.

That’s when she feels the first hot tear slipping down her cheek.

—

She cries at the foot of her mother’s throne.

You should’ve saved him when you had the chance. You’re the only one who could’ve.

She cries, because it’s true. Because Hermes knows it’s true. Because everyone knows it’s true.

“Annabeth, it's not your fault. I've never seen Hermes act that way. I guess . . . I don't know . . . he probably feels guilty about Luke. He's looking for somebody to blame. I don't know why he lashed out at you. You didn't do anything to deserve that”, Percy sits down next to her. Annabeth doesn’t look at him.

“Um, you didn't, right?”

Of course I fucking did.

Naturally, she doesn’t say that. They have a city to protect, and in addition to Percy, Annabeth is one of the most respected campers and fighters there is. She can’t start arguing with him when he’s on the brink of death and the world is on the brink of destruction.

“Percy?” she instead asks, steering the conversation away from her inadequacy. “What did you mean about Luke’s mother? Did you meet her?”

Percy tells her about his and Nico’s little adventures. Oh, and drops the little, easily forgotten thing that he went and bathed in the River Styx. And that apparently, Luke did too. Annabeth gives him hell for it, of course (“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”), before reluctantly accepting that maybe there was no harm done.

The Stoll brothers burst in.

—

And see the world in endless sleep. Well, the world most certainly is asleep, as per the prophecy. Or, rather, all of New York City is asleep, and Kronos’s troops are surrounding the island. All hope might not be lost, though - they have a plan, one of their own as well as Daedalus’s one. The hunters have arrived. Everything is under control. Well, as under control as can be.

Annabeth doesn’t want to be too much a pessimist, but… what are they doing, really? A bunch of teens facing off against Kronos, the Titan Lord. It’s laughable. But… what’s the point in fighting if they can’t believe in victory?

So Annabeth decides that she’s going to give it her all. She’s either going to live or die, but she’s going to do it as a hero, for what she believes in, for all the people she believes in. Percy. Thalia. Grover. All of the other campers who’d shown her what it meant to belong.

—

“Don’t I get a kiss for good luck? It’s kind of a tradition, isn’t it?”

Annabeth doesn’t show it, but she’s pretty sure her heart stops beating for a second as she wonders if she heard Percy correctly. Or if she’s just hearing what she wants to. But as she glances at him, standing by her side in battle gear, tall and proud, there’s nothing but ingenuity in his posture, in his eyes.

And Annabeth believes him. She believes that he’s saying that because he wants to, and that he’s showing it to her like this - choosing to fight with her by his side.

That seals the deal, for her. With those words, Annabeth suddenly no longer cares about Rachel or Calypso or whoever else who might’ve been interested him. She draws her dagger and stares at the army marching towards the campers.

“Come back alive, Seaweed Brain. Then we’ll see.”

And she means it. Gods, she really really means it and Annabeth realizes that if she can have him alive, then she’ll be glad to fight any war with or without him by her side, too. Percy’s been through too much to die now. Annabeth isn’t about to let him get killed.

She snarls as she hacks up the first monster.

—

Percy doesn’t see one of Kronos’s demigod followers. He sneaks up behind him as Percy’s busy dealing with the dozen other enemy soldiers and monsters attacking him.

Percy, lying dead on the floor with a knife being pulled out of his lower back by a demigod in Kronos’s troops.

“No!” Annabeth hisses through her teeth in a panic. As the soldier prepares to bring the knife down on Percy’s back, she jumps forward hastily, desperate to stop the knife from sinking into his flesh.

The blade tears through her shirt and stabs straight into her shoulder. She lets out a cry of pain as the demigod yanks the knife from the wound. Annabeth clutches her arm as she collapses on the floor.

“Annabeth!” Percy shouts, and Annabeth grits her teeth. Shut up! Focus, there’s a battle going on!

“Get back!” Percy slices his sword through the air, driving the enemy soldiers away from Annabeth. “No one touches her!”

“Percy”, Annabeth tries, but it comes out too quiet, almost as a whimper. No one hears her.

“Interesting”, Kronos says, using Luke’s body as his own. Annabeth closes her eyes - a helicopter over the Manhattan skyline - she can’t bear watching his features being twisted into such… evil.

“Bravely fought, Percy Jackson. But it’s time to surrender… or the girl dies.”

“Percy, don’t”, Annabeth tries to push herself off the ground. She cannot. Don’t waste the victory over me.

“Blackjack!”

Blackjack flies down from somewhere and grabs Annabeth by her armor. Her wound stings and she can’t prevent the sound of pain she makes. Her eyes flutter shut - somebody falling through the floor of Olympos’s throne room - and let’s herself be carried by the pegasus.

“Where are we going?” Annabeth murmurs. Blackjack makes a sound. There’s a part of her that wants to let go. But she hasn’t let go before, and she doesn’t intend to start now. So she forces her eyes open and watches the Plaza Hotel slowly get bigger in size.

—

Shouts erupt from around the room when Blackjack carries her to the lobby. There are campers swirling all around her, and a couple of the kids grab her by her forearms and help her get to the elevator. She nearly collapses, and it takes all her might not to pass out immeaditely as she’s hoisted up on a lounge chair.

She screams as some of the Apollo kids bandage the wound. Their best healer, Will Solace, is with Percy at the moment, but they do the best they can.

“Poison”, Annabeth croaks. “On the blade… right?”

“Most likely”, one of the Apollo’s daughters says. Silena crouches down next to her and wipes her forehead with a cool cloth.

“I called Percy”, she says gently. Annabeth nods as her eyes involuntarily squeeze shut - Percy, standing almost godlike in the throne room as the Olympians watch - and asks:

“Is he alright?” biting down a scream as a wave of roaring pain hits her.

“Yes”, Silena reassures and strokes the back of Annabeth’s hand. “He’s bringing a healer with him. You’re going to be just fine.”

“Good”, Annabeth mumbles. She feels like she’s burning up - her body is aflame from the inside out. But she’s also absolutely freezing. It’s kind of a funny idea. Annabeth would laugh, except another wave of pain sweeps over her.

“Shh…”, Silena is there. “It’s alright.”

“Yeah”, Annabeth mutters. “Just got stabbed by a poisoned knife. It’s alright.”

Silena lets out a breath that sounds like a strained laugh. Annabeth tries to smile weakly.

“How is she?” someone else is by her bedside, now. Annabeth opens her eyes just the tiniest bit to make out blonde hair.

“Burning up, but shivering”, Silena says quietly. “The wound looks pretty bad, Will.”

Steady hands work around her shoulder to undo the bandaging. The wound stings as it comes to contact with air again and the blood coated fabrics peel off.

“Annabeth…”

Annabeth’s eyes crack open fully. Standing just behind Will, who is examining the wound carefully, is Percy, looking about to cry. Annabeth wants to reassure him, tell him it’ll all turn out well.

“Poison on the dagger”, Annabeth tries to explain through her painful state. “Pretty stupid of me, huh?”

“It’s not so bad, Annabeth”, Will’s voice is relieved. “A few more minutes and we would've been in trouble, but the venom hasn't gotten past the shoulder yet. Just lie still. Somebody hand me some nectar.”

Annabeth’s eyes flutter shut once more - Percy, Pandora’s box in his hands - and somebody grabs a hold of her hand. Will starts cleaning the wound with the godly drink and Annabeth’s fingers clamp tightly around the hand they’re holding.

“Ow!” she mutters through her gritted teeth. “Ow, ow, ow.”

Somewhere in her subconscious she comprehends Silena whispering to her words of encouragment, but Annabeth can’t make out what she’s saying. The pain hums in her head like white noise and her shoulder feels like it’s been doused in gasoline and then had a lit match thrown on it for completion. She barely registers that Will has already left her side, that she’s all bandaged up again and that they’re discussing something about raiding - visiting? - a drug store.

It becomes pretty quiet after that. The pain is starting to ease. Annabeth opens her eyes and this time has no trouble in doing so.

“This is all my fault”, Silena says, and she too looks like she’s about to cry.

“No”, Annabeth says, but her voice sounds weak, and she hates it. “Silena, how is it your fault?”

“I’ve never been any good at camp”, Silena shakes her head. “Not like you or Percy. If I was a better fighter…”

Annabeth knows what if feels like to feel ineadequate. But she also knows Silena is not inadequate. Far from it.

“You’re a great camper”, Percy says. “You’re the best pegasus rider we have. And you get along with people. Believe me, anyone who can make friends with Clarisse has talent.”

Silena’s face lights up. Annabeth recognizes the expression - she’s had an idea.

“That’s it!” she says, part to herself. “We need the Ares cabin. I can talk to Clarisse. I know I can convince her to help us.”

Annabeth doesn’t think the idea too bad. Percy, on the other hand…

“Whoa, Silena. Even if you could get off the island, Clarisse is pretty stubborn. Once she gets angry-.”

Annabeth knows that tone. Percy’s need to protect everyone from everything has walked in.

“Please”, Silena looks at Percy, almost desperate. “I can take a pegasus. I know I can make it back to camp. Let me try.”

Percy glances at Annabeth. What do you think? He asks with the look. Annabeth nods. Let her go. She answers without words.

“All right”, Percy says, although Annabeth can still hear the slight hesitance under his voice. “I can’t think of anybody better to try.”

Silena crushes Percy in a hug. Then, almost awkwardly, pushes him away. She glances Annabeth almost apologetically. Annabeth feels her cheeks heating up with the implication, glad that she can blame it on the stab wound.

“Um, sorry. Thank you, Percy! I won’t let you down!” she declares, before running off her merry way, leaving Annabeth alone with Percy.

He kneels down next to her chair, bringing a cool hand onto her forehead. He’s frowning so hard his eyebrows knit together.

“You’re cute when you’re worried”, Annabeth cringes at the words that slip out of her mouth. “Your eyebrows get all scrunched together.”

“You are not going to die when I owe you a favor”, Percy’s voice is serious. “Why did you take that knife?”

“You would’ve done the same for me.”

And Annabeth had realized it at just the right time.

“How did you know?” Percy’s voice dropped low.

“Know what?”

Percy glances around the room and leans closer. Annabeth’s breath hitches for just a second, and she hopes he doesn’t realize it. He’s so close Annabeth feels his breath on her skin, and suddenly everything seems terribly intimate.

“My Achilles spot”, he whispers. “If you hadn’t taken that knife, I would’ve died.”

Tell him, the little voice in her head urges. Tell him about the dreams.

But Annabeth remembers the fright she’d had once, when Thalia had died after learning of them. They’ve come too far now for Annabeth to fuck everything up for selfish reasons. Of course, she doesn’t know for certain it would fuck everything up (after all, Thalia did come back to life, too). Maybe he would die. Maybe he wouldn’t. But Annabeth isn’t going to risk it.

“I don’t know, Percy”, she answers him. “I just had this feeling you were in danger. Where… where is the spot?”

Percy looks at her, contemplating. You can trust me, Annabeth tries to convey with a slow blink, a small nod of her head. It’s alright.

“The small of my back.”

He trusts her. He trusts her. And that somehow feels more valuable than anything else.

Annabeth’s hand moves on its own accord, tracing the hem of Percy’s shirt, slipping underneath it and onto his spine.

“Where? Here?”

Percy’s hand finds her’s and moves it to slightly down. Annabeth’s fingertips tingle. Her heart feels like it’s jumping up and down in her chest, as though it’s being electrified. There’s something so vulnerable in the moment that Annabeth doesn’t dare to breathe.

“You saved me”, Percy’s words come out as a whisper. “Thanks.”

Annabeth removes her fingers from his back, but doesn’t let go of his hand.

“So you owe me”, she tries to crack a smile. “What else is new?”

Percy’s lips curve slightly upward, and oh gods Annabeth can’t breathe. They watch silently as the sun comes up and New York City continues it’s sleep. Looking over the skyscrapers, the people that look like ants on the street, Annabeth is reminded of how little they really are. How much they are trying to protect. How impossible it all seems on their part.

“You asked me why Hermes was mad at me”, Annabeth can’t offer Percy the whole truth. But she can offer bits, here and there.

“Hey, you need to rest-”, Percy, ever the protector.

“No, I want to tell you”, Annabeth interrupts. “It’s been bothering me for a while.”

She shifts her position and winces as it hurts her shoulder.

“Last year, Luke came to see me in San Francisco.”

“In person?” Percy’s eyebrows shoot up. “He came to your house?”

“This was before the Labyrinth, before…”, Luke, possessed by Kronos, rising from the golden sarcophagus. “He came under a flag of truce. He said he only wanted five minutes to talk.”

I’m here for a truce. Please. Just five minutes.

“He looked scared, Percy”, Annabeth says, guilt rising into her throat like vomit. “He told me Kronos was going to use him to take over the world. He said he wanted to run away, like the old days. He wanted me to come with him.”

Kronos, he’s… he’s going to use me as a stepping stone. Use me to take over the world.

“But you didn’t trust him.”

In case you forgot, you betrayed everyone, Luke. You betrayed me and Thalia and Percy and the whole Camp.

“Of course not. I thought it was a trick.” Do you know how humiliating it is that you think I’m that dumb? “Plus… well, a lot of things had changed since the old days. I told Luke there was no way. He got mad. He said… he said I might as well fight him right there, because it was the last chance I’d get.”

Annabeth is tired. She’s exhausted. It’s exhausting to even think about Luke. It’s exhausting to even think about dreams. It’s exhausting to feel so guilty all the damn time.

Percy notices.

“It’s okay, try to get some rest.”

“You don’t understand, Percy”, Annabeth shakes her head. “Hermes was right. Maybe if I’d gone with him, I could’ve changed his mind. Or- or I had a knife. Luke was unarmed. I could’ve-.”

“Killed him?” Percy asks. “You know that wouldn’t have been right.”

Yeah, Annabeth does. She has a knack for knowing what things are… right and wrong. In terms of them happening.

Yeah, she doesn’t sound crazy at all.

Still, she squeezes her eyes shut - being thrown into the lake with Percy - and - wait, what was that? - winces at the painful memory.

“Luke said Kronos would use him like like a stepping stone. Those were his exact words. Kronos would use Luke, and become even more powerful.”

“He did that”, Percy doesn’t get what she’s trying to say. “He possessed Luke’s body.”

“But what if Luke’s body is only a transition? What if Kronos has a plan to become even more powerful? I could’ve stopped him. This war is my fault.”

—

After Annabeth decides she’s had enough of resting, she gets up and puts on her battle gear. If they want to prevent Kronos from conquering Olympos, they need every demigod they can spare on the battle field. Her shoulder still hurts, but she’ll manage. Everyone else has to, and so does she.

She wakes Percy up, and they join the troops back on the battlefield. So much happens that it makes Annabeth dizzy. They fight with the other campers and hunters and the newly arrived satyrs, led by Leneus himself. They fight against dozens of monsters, demigods, even titans. Kronos’s army is huge. And even with everyone fighting, doing their best, they can’t hold them off. What they’re trying to do is buy time for the gods to defeat Typhon. With every passing minute, they inch closer and closer to the Empire State building. Annabeth puts on her cap and fights invisible as more and more demigods disappear or get hurt.

Chiron finds them and brings with him an army of Party Ponies. They scare Kronos’s troops away for a while. It buys the campers time to recover from their losses.

He also brings with him bad news. Dionysus is M.I.A, and Hephaestus out of the fight. Typhon is still slowly but surely making his way towards Manhattan. Annabeth wants to hope so badly, but… it feels like she’s trying to keep the sand in the hourglass from pouring out with her bare hands, grains slipping through her fingers.

She tells Percy as much. He tells her in return about visions that Hestia showed him, about herself and Luke and Thalia. Of her knife. The promises of family with which it was given to her.

“But there's something else you should know. Ethan Nakamura seemed to think Luke was still alive inside his body, maybe even fighting Kronos for control”, Percy says, hesitating only a little bit.

The wheels in Annabeth head start turning. She thinks of her meet with Luke in San Francisco, thinks of what Percy’s saying, of what she’s seen in the visions of her own. She’s missing something, something absolutely crucial and her mind can’t work around it. It frustrates her.

One can only ever rely on one’s wit and intelligence, Athena reminds in her head. Annabeth knows there’s a way for everything to turn out well - if you don’t want the sand to run out from the hourglass, you turn it around. She just has to figure it out.

“I didn’t want to tell you”, Percy admits, and Annabeth looks up at him from her dagger.

“Percy, for so much of my life, I felt like everything was changing, all the time. I didn't have anyone I could rely on.”

Because Annabeth’s hope is fading, she’s sincere with Percy. She tells him of her deepest insecurity, of how people are always going to let her down and how that has spiraled into just being afraid of disappointment in general. How she just for once wants to build something that’s going to last.

“I guess I understand how you feel”, Percy says after she’s finished speaking. “But Thalia's right. Luke has already betrayed you so many times. He was evil even before Kronos. I don't want him to hurt you anymore.”

Annabeth purses her lips in an attempt not to laugh out loud.

“And you'll understand if I keep hoping there's a chance you're wrong.”

Because there has to be. Luke couldn’t have been evil before Kronos. Not before Camp, at the very least. The Luke who gave Annabeth the dagger and a promise of family, even if he didn’t keep it couldn’t have been evil. The Luke who had brothered her in Camp, given her the final bits of his dessert and taught her the very first stories of Ancient Greek Mythology she’d heard. That Luke just couldn’t have been evil. That Luke couldn’t have let her down.

And if Ethan Nakamura thinks that Luke is still inside Kronos’s body, fighting for a way out… Annabeth has to take the chance. She has to know if there’s a way Luke never betrayed them. Never let her down.

She clutches the dagger and thinks about everything that has spanned. You are going to play a part in the occurrence of the prophecy, Annabeth, Chiron had said to her once, when she’d been ten and naïve, believed that everything was simpler than it really was. Janus had told her she would have to make a major choice. You will play a great role, though it may not be the role you imagined. Those had been Pan’s words. A single choice shall end his days. It couldn’t be… one of her choices, could it?

She doesn’t have to time to ponder on the thought, because Percy sees her mom and step-dad in one of the cars and bolts down the street like a madman. She tries her best to calm him down, whilst also pushing down the little piece of her own pain she feels. She’s never felt such emotion for anyone of her own blood, not in the way Percy does for his mother. It makes her long for something she’s never had, which is just.. weird. How can you miss something you never had?

Pandora’s jar is in the backseat, too - Annabeth remembers one of her visions - apparently following Percy in his weakest moments (Chiron’s words, not her’s). He just about calms down and makes up a plan, when…

Chop-chop-chop-chop.

A red civilian model helicopter with bright green letters DE painted on the side flies above them.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare knows how to make an entrance, that’s for sure.

And because she was stupid enough to fly into a bewitched warzone (okay, maybe Annabeth can’t give her a hard time for that because a) she probably didn’t know that it’s a warzone in advance, and b) she probably didn’t either know it was bewitched in advance), Annabeth learns how to steer a helicopter at a moment’s notice.

—

They’re fighting a drakon. A drakon that Rachel tells them is destined to be killed by an Ares child. Which, Annabeth thinks is fun, because a) why would Rachel know something like that, b) there are no Ares children in New York City and c) if she somehow would be right… then that means they’re screwed.

Except there are Ares children in New York.

Annabeth hears the rumble of their chariots and turns around to seem them charge towards the drakon.

“ARES!” a girl’s voice yells.

“The children of Ares”, Annabeth breaths out in amazement. “How did Rachel know?”

The Ares cabin gave the Party Ponies a slight advantage as the enemy troops were thrown into confusion by the sudden appearance of new troops. Together, Annabeth and Percy lunged back into battle to help with the drakon.

“You can do it!” Percy screams at Clarisse, whose staring at the monster with… fear?

Annabeth’s mind whirrs back for a moment, searching desperately for any sort of vision from her dreams, because that just doesn’t make sense. Something is wrong. A horrible feeling sets in Annabeth’s gut.

“An Ares child is destined to kill it!” Percy shouts.

“ARES!” Clarisse shouts back, and charges towards the monsters.

“No”, Percy says, he too realizing something’s not right, then raising his voice. “WAIT!”

The drakon opens it jaws and spits poison directly into Clarisse’s face. She screams and falls, spear rolling from her hand.

“Clarisse!” Annabeth jumps off and rushes down next to the fallen camper as the other Ares children try swarm around to protect them. She tries to pull off the helmet that has melted around her face from the poison.

“Someone help!” she calls out, and a handful of Clarisse’s siblings run up to her, desperate to help their counselor. Somewhere in the background Annabeth hears the struggles of a battle, the terrifying growls of the drakon and the slashing of a sword.

And then, the sound of someone running.

“NO! Curse you, WHY?” somebody, who’s undoubtedly Clarisse, says. She kneels down next to Annabeth, who is still struggling to pull the helmet of off… Clarisse? Annabeth stares down at the now distorted face underneath the molten helmet, and she realizes she can make out one slightly cracked open blue eye.

“Oh no, no, no”, Annabeth says under her breath as the realization dawns on her. “No.”

“WHY?” Clarisse demands, pulling the girl into her arms as an Ares camper takes over Annabeth’s job. She can now see a strand of dark hair hanging from underneath the helmet. Annabeth thinks of the cool cloth against her forehead, the gentle words of reassurance from just… how long had it been?

“YOU WANT DEATH?” Clarisse screams at the drakon as she gets up, hands fisted to her sides. “WELL, COME ON!”

She grabs the spear from the floor and leaps towards the monster.

“Wait!” Annabeth sounds, her voice drowned out under the drakon’s roar. Clarisse has no armor, no shield, no nothing. Annabeth mentally prepares herself to watch another friend die.

She doesn’t need to. Clarisse jams the electric spear so hard into the creature’s eye it shatters and sends electric shocks all over the monster’s body. The drakon roars in pain, twisting around manically. It dies and dissolves into a shell. Annabeth stares at Clarisse in awe.

She runs back to the girl’s side and Annabeth finally manages to pull free the helmet. She feels sick to her stomach, staring at the features that once were so beautiful, now deformed and badly burned by the poison.

“What were you thinking?” Clarisse cradles Silena’s head in her lap.

“Wouldn’t… listen”, it became imminent even speaking was now difficult for her. Annabeth knows that there are some things even she can’t fix. She remembers a face from her dreams - the one beaten up so badly she had no idea who it was. That wasn’t… Silena’s face, was it?

Annabeth doesn’t remember what the demigod looked like.

“Cabin would… only follow you.”

“So you stole my armor? You waited until Chris and I went out on patrol; you stole my armor and you pretended to be me? And NONE of you noticed?”

Annabeth glances at the Ares campers staring down at the ground like there was suddenly something very interesting there.

“Don’t blame them”, Silena says, voice cracking. “They wanted to… believe I was you.”

“You stupid Aphrodite girl”, Clarisse says, but the insult doesn’t mean much when she’s sobbing. It’s heartbreaking. Annabeth feels grief building up in her chest. “You charged a drakon. Why?”

“All my fault”, Silena says, and a tear of her own slips down her poison-burned face. “The drakon, Charlie’s death… Camp endangered-.”

Annabeth doesn’t understand. Silena’s been saying that ever since Beckendorf’s death. Something’s…

Annabeth realizes.

“Stop it! That’s not true”, Clarisse shakes her head.

Silena opens her palm, and Annabeth knows what she’s holding even before she sees it. A silver bracelet with a scythe charm. Kronos’s mark.

“You were the spy”, Percy’s as taken aback as Annabeth is. She feels like she’s fallen of the side of a very tall building, trying to learn to breathe again with ten cracked ribs.

“Before . . . before I liked Charlie, Luke was nice to me. He was so . . . charming. Handsome. Later, I wanted to stop helping him, but he threatened to tell. He promised . . . he promised I was saving lives. Fewer people would get hurt. He told me he wouldn't hurt . . . Charlie. He lied to me.”

Annabeth pales. She stares at Silena, a girl who is dying and knows she should believe her. That Luke is evil, because he did this, but it feels like somebody is ripping her heart out of her chest. The dagger strapped to her arm suddenly feels very heavy.

“Go, help the centaurs. Protect the doors”, Clarisse orders her cabinmates. Nobody moves.

“GO!” she shouts and they all scramble as per her command. Silena draws in a shaky breath.

“Forgive me”, she pleads. A final request from a dying girl.

“You’re not dying”, Clarisse insist. Silena knows better, and Annabeth knows that.

“Charlie”, the gaze in her eyes turns glassy. “See Charlie…”

She says no more.

Clarisse cries. Chris shows his support by placing a hand on her shoulder. Percy stares, a sorrowful expression on her face. Annabeth lowers her gaze to the ground, trying to breathe through the let down of yet another person she trusted.

This time feels different, though. She’s not disappointed, per se. It’s feels more like… she should feel disappointed?

Silena Beauregard, daughter of Aphrodite. Spy for Kronos, turned to the right side. Died in pursuit of preserving Olympos. She’d righted her ways, and, well, what can Annabeth say? Luke was charming. Luke was good at being nice. He was also good at being manipulative, making people do what he wanted even though they didn’t.

And it strikes Annabeth there and there - isn’t that what he’s been doing to her all along? Manipulating her into believing in kind lies, promises of family and camaraderie? Tricking her into taking the sky from him, then leaving her alone to bear the burden?

Annabeth makes her decision and steps forward. She kneels down and closes Silena’s eyes.

“We have to fight”, her voice sounds brittle. “She gave her life to help us. We have to honor her.”

“She was a hero, understand? A hero”, Clarisse sniffles. Annabeth nods - she thinks so too.

“Come on, Clarisse”, Percy says. Clarisse picks up a sword and nods.

“Kronos is going to pay.”

—

They’re standing in the elevator, the three of them. Percy, Annabeth, Grover. It feels… sort of final.

“Percy”, Annabeth says. She’s kind of scared. “You were right about Luke.”

Her voice is quiet, and she doesn’t dare to look in his directions. She feels his eyes on her.

“Annabeth, I’m sorry-.”

“You tried to tell me”, Annabeth cuts him off, voice shaking. Oh, no, she doesn’t want to start crying. “Luke is no good. I didn’t believe you until… until I heard how he used Silena. Now I know. I hope you’re happy.”

“That doesn’t make me happy.”

Annabeth rests her head against the elevator wall, unsure whether or not she believes him.

—

“No!” Annabeth wails as Kronos throws Chiron into a wall that crumbles on top of him. She runs to the pile of debris with Thalia and Percy, and together they try to pull at the bricks and rubble.

“YOU!” Annabeth turns to Luke. She stares at him, and when she searches his face, his features that she knows like her own, she feels nothing but blind, hot rage.

How dare he abandon Annabeth, manipulate and hurt his fellow campers - his friends - his former mentor? How dare he let his own anger bring the world to the brink of war?

“To think that I… that I thought…”

She feels blinded by all her emotions, as if seeing him has triggered all that silent rage she’s built up over the years.

Annabeth draws her knife.

“Annabeth, don’t”, Percy tries to grab her arm. Annabeth shakes him off. It’s not about him, anymore. And then she attacks. Kronos/Luke (to be honest, she isn’t sure which she’s attacking in head) doesn’t expect it, and she’s feels strange satisfaction at seeing the smug smile disappearing off his face. She jams her knife right over his collarbone, desperate for once hurt him instead of being the one hurt.

The knife bounces right off his skin - oh, right, he bathed in the River Styx - and instead sends a shock of pain all through her body and right into her bad shoulder. She bites her cheek so hard she feels the skin breaking and the taste of metallic blood floods into her mouth. She realizes she’s doubled over, her arm clutched to her stomach.

Percy grabs a hold of her and drags her away as Kronos/Luke swings his Scythe. If he hadn’t, Annabeth’s torso would’ve been cut in half. Still, she tries to pull away with all her power, all that she has left in her body.

“I HATE you!” she screams, and she feels her throat going sore, tears wetting her cheeks. She isn’t sure when the crying started.

“I have to fight him”, Percy’s grip tightens, and he pulls her away, farther, which only fuels her anger.

“It’s my fight too, Percy!” she lets out a sob through her shouts. Please. I have to hurt him.

“So much spirit”, Kronos laughs with Luke’s mouth. It doesn’t sound like him at all. But… it also does.

And that frightens Annabeth to her core.

“I can see why Luke wanted to spare you”, Kronos continues. “Unfortunately, that won’t be possible.”

He didn’t have time to do that. Because Nico arrives with three gods, a hell-hound and an army of the dead.

Kronos isolates the Empire State Building from the rest of Manhattan, before escaping into the lobby. Oh no. He’s going for Olympos. And no one's there to try and stop him from doing so. Annabeth doesn’t have time to think about that, though, because a Hyperborean giant is trying to attack her, and her arm still isn’t right.

Percy’s mom and step-dad join the fight (how did that happen?) and they as well as Nico urge him to go and get Kronos.

“Come on, Seaweed Brain!” Annabeth’s hands shake. They need to get to Olympos. Get Kronos. This is it. This is it.

Percy tells mrs. O’Leary to find Chiron under the rubble, before nodding to Annabeth and racing to the elevator alongside her, Thalia and Grover.

—

“Shall I destroy you first, Jackson?” Kronos’s voice is taunting. “Is that the choice you will make - to fight me and die instead of bowing down? Prophecies never end well, you know.”

Annabeth tries to stand tall, look strong, even though her body is killing her.

“Luke would fight with a sword”, Percy says. “But I suppose you don't have his skill.”

Kronos sneers, and his scythe slowly changes into a sword. Luke’s sword. Backbiter. It’s a beautiful weapon, really, half steel, half celestial-bronze-

Wait.

“Percy, the blade”, Annabeth gasps. She pulls her knife out. “The hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap.”

Percy doesn’t get it. Kronos raises Backbiter.

“Wait!” Annabeth yells.

Kronos lunges. Percy dodges, the fighter in him kicking in. She registers Ethan going for Percy’s back, and Annabeth can’t have that, so she lunges at him. Shit. Annabeth knows what needs to happen. She just doesn’t know how yet, and she does not have the time to start figuring that out, because Ethan is swiping his sword at her.

“ARGH!” something from Hephaestues’s throne hits Kronos in the face and he crumples to the floor, dropping Backbiter.

“Luke, listen!” Annabeth yells, kicking Ethan out of the way and running towards Kronos. His hand flies up and Annabeth feels the force hitting her, and for a split second she’s flying across the room, and then her back smashes into something, knocking the wind out of her. She falls to the floor and can’t move.

“Annabeth!”

Her head is dizzy. She tries to open her eyes, but all she sees is a blur of colors and forms, and it feels like the room is twisting. Her body hurts to bad she’s not sure she’ll ever get up again.

This is it, she thinks as her ears ring. This is it. This is the end.

There was music coming from somewhere. Her skin tingles. She feels herself slipping away. It’s almost nice, letting go. It’s nicer to go before seeing everything they’ve done going to waste.

“Annabeth, Annabeth”, she makes out a voice from somewhere above. “You have to keep fighting.”

Why? She wants to ask. Why does she need to keep fighting? Kronos is in the throne room. Silena was dead, as was half the camp. Typhon was reaching New York. Luke was gone.

Luke. That’s right. Luke gave her the knife with a promise he didn’t keep. And Percy doesn’t know that.

“Annabeth”, she now recognizes the talker as Grover. “You have to hold on. I have ambrosia. You just have hold on that much.”

He’s right. Annabeth hasn’t let go for so long - and she’s promised not to let go now, either.

She opens her eyes, even though everything is engulfed in a blur of shades of white.

“Grover”, she croaks.

“Oh, thank the gods”, Grover breathes. “Don’t move, I’ll feed you the ambrosia.”

Annabeth opens weakly her mouth and Grover pushes the ambrosia into her mouth. Even chewing is hard for her. She manually tells herself to bite down and then swallow. She closes her eyes once more and breathes, desperate for the medicine to start working quicker.

“Percy?” Annabeth asks, not managing to say anything else.

“Fighting Kronos”, Grover says. “There’s still hope.”

Annabeth tries to nod.

“You just gather your energy”, Grover says as Annabeth falls back closer to unconsciousness. She feels the ambrosia starting to make its effect - she feels her limbs again.

The sounds of Percy and Kronos’s commotion reaches her ears. Where’s the dagger? She feels around with her hand, and finds the blade. It cuts her finger, and it hurts. That’s good. The ambrosia is working.

She pushes herself up slightly, and Grover is there to steady her. She curls her fingers around the hilt of the knife. She pulls the weapon close to her and stares at it. Luke’s promises of family echo in her head. The hero’s soul cursed blade shall reap.

“You’ve lost”, Percy’s voice is loud and proud. Grover gets up, worried.

“I haven’t even started.”

Kronos lunges quick. Grover tries to throw himself between the Titan Lord and Percy, only to be swiftly tossed to the side, just like Annabeth herself was.

She scrambles to her feet, weapon steady in her hand. Her grip tightens around the dagger. She takes a wary step forward.

“STOP!”

Kronos whirls around and tries to slash her with Backbiter. Too bad Annabeth is a great fighter with a knife, and even though she’s drained, she knows where to draw energy from. Her will is stronger than her body is weak.

She catches the blow with the handle of her dagger, and pushes forward a step. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, she just knows she needs Luke. He’s the only one who knows where to strike Kronos lethally.

“Luke”, she tries to keep the anger from her voice. “I understand now. You have to trust me.”

She thinks of May Castellan, who knows her son’s fate. She thinks of the dagger in her hand and tries to keep her stance as Kronos pushes his sword lower, dangerously close to her neck.

“Your mother”, she tries to reach out to him, the boy who she has to believe is still fighting against Kronos in his own body. “She saw your fate.”

“Service to Kronos!” he roars. “This is my fate!”

“No!” Annabeth insists. If she can’t believe in this, then what can she? “That's not the end, Luke. The prophecy: she saw what you would do. It applies to you!”

The hero’s soul, cursed blade shall reap. That’s you Luke, and you know it. You’re the hero. Show me, you’re the hero.

“I will crush you, child!”

“You won’t”, Annabeth knows it. “You promised. You’re holding Kronos back even now.”

Please, Luke. You’ve let me down too many times. Show me my hope wasn’t pointless.

“LIES!” Kronos pushes again, and harder this time. Annabeth body isn’t prepared for it, and she loses her balance. Kronos’s palm makes contact with her face, and she falls, sliding across the floor. She feels her arm cracking.

The wound inside her cheek opens on the impact, and Annabeth splutters as blood flows into her mouth. She feels it trickling down from the corner of her lip. Kronos raises his sword.

“Family, Luke”, Annabeth’s voice breaks. “You promised.”

You promised, you asshole. You promised and broke my trust. You promised and then left. You promised and got my friends killed. You promised, and the least you can do now is keep it and die as the hero the prophecy says you are.

“Promise”, Annabeth urges as Kronos staggers.

And then he gasps.

“Annabeth…”, Luke says, stumbling forwards. “You’re bleeding…”

He needs her knife. He needs her knife, because he has to kill Kronos.

“My knife”, she tries to raise it, but it’s the hand that cracked and she can’t. It clatters onto the floor. She can’t do it. Her eyes find Percy, staring at the exchange with wide eyes, concern and confusion plastered on his face.

“Percy, please”, she says. Please understand. Give it to him for me.

Percy leaps forward and grabs the knife off the floor, before knocking Backbiter out of Luke’s hands. He doesn’t even seem to notice, because he has taken another step towards Annabeth, like a baby deer learning to walk for the first time. Percy dashes between them. Annabeth’s head falls back against the floor.

“Don’t touch her”, he says.

“Jackson…”, Kronos’s voice is back. It looks like there is a golden aura around him, glowing, radiating. That can’t be too good.

Another gasp.

“He’s changing”, Luke’s voice. “Help. He's . . . he's almost ready. He won't need my body anymore. Please-.”

"NO!” Kronos’s voice. He stumbles towards his sword, now in the hearth, and Percy tries to stop him, only to end up next to Annabeth on the floor.

“The knife, Percy”, Annabeth tries, but the fight in her is dying. She feels like she’s back on that edge from three years ago, on the verge of falling off. “Hero… cursed blade…”

It’s not you.

Luke collapses, trying to retrieve the sword from the hearth.

“Please, Percy…”, he pleads.

A single choice shall end his days.

Trust him, Percy. You have to. Give him the knife.

Grover crawls next to her and pulls her into an embrace.

“Hold on, Annabeth”, he says. “We’re going to make it.”

“You… don’t”, know that. The final words are silent.

“You can't . . . can't do it yourself. He'll break my control. He'll defend himself. Only my hand. I know where. I can . . . can keep him controlled”, Luke pleads. Annabeth tries to open her eyes. She has to tell Percy…

“Please”, Luke says, begging. “No time.”

Give it to him, Percy.

Grover yelps.

“Percy? Are you… um…?”

Annabeth finally gets his eyes open at the implication of Grover’s words. She sees as Luke takes the knife. Relief floods through her body, sparking through her veins like adrenaline.

We’ve won.

She watches Luke take off his armor, grasping her knife - the cursed blade - with difficulty. He lifts the dagger after exposing a piece of skin just by his armpit, before sinking it into his own flesh.

Luke howls in pain, and the sound was one of the worst sounds Annabeth’s ever heard. It a sound of pure pain, pure agony, and it on itself is powerful enough to bring tears into her eyes.

Annabeth closes her eyes as Luke is engulfed in an aura of bright light.

Then it’s silent.

Carefully, Annabeth opens her eyes. Percy’s standing there, Riptide hanging loosely in his hand. And Luke’s sprawled on the floor, shallow breaths wrecking his frame.

Annabeth tries to get to her feet, but can’t without Grover’s support. Together they limp over to where Percy’s already kneeling. Luke’s blue eyes find her face.

“You knew. I almost killed you, but you knew…”

Annabeth nods, a lump in her throat.

“Shh…”, her voice is shaking. “You were a hero at the end, Luke. You’ll go to Elysium."

He shakes his head.

“Think . . . rebirth. Try for three times. Isles of the Blest.”

Annabeth sniffles. It’s her best attempt at a small laugh.

“You always pushed yourself too hard.”

“Did you…”, Luke coughs, lips turning unnaturally red. “Did you love me?”

There had been a long time in Annabeth’s life when she would’ve answered yes.

“There was a time I thought… well, I thought…”, Annabeth trails off, and instinctively she looks up and meets Percy’s eyes.

That time no longer was. Because there never had been a time of such.

Annabeth doesn’t know much about love. She’s never been spared too much of it. But looking at Percy, bloodied, ashen from the fight, looking at her like that, she knows that now she does.

Love meant that you stayed together through thick and thin. That even through separation, it never wavered. Annabeth thinks of how Percy came for her when she was trapped on Mount Othrys, even though he knew how dangerous it was. How she would’ve done anything to keep him alive through the prophecy.

And he did. And it’s the only thing Annabeth finds herself caring about.

“You were like a brother to me”, Annabeth says softly. “But I didn’t love you.”

Luke nods, and Annabeth knows it’s what he expected to hear. The motion makes him wince.

“We can get ambrosia”, Grover offers. “We can-.”

“Grover”, Luke gulps. “You're the bravest satyr I ever knew. But no. There's no healing…”

He coughs and Annabeth wants to cry.

“Ethan. Me. All the unclaimed. Don't let it… Don't let it happen again”, Luke grips Percy’s sleeve.

“I won’t. I promise”, Percy promises. It’s a promise Annabeth knows she can trust.

Luke nods, and his head falls back against the floor. His final breath escapes from his chest and his body goes slack. A sob escapes Annabeth’s throat. Grover wipes the tears from his eyes and stands up. She and Percy follow his example. They don’t say anything.

Thank you, she quietly whispers in her mind. Thank you for not letting me down in the end.

The Olympians barge in a few minutes later, ready for a battle of the millenia. They only find three teens and the body of traitor turned hero.

“Percy?” Poseidon calls out. “What… what is this?”

Percy turns to face the gods. Annabeth does not.

“We need a shroud”, he says, voice breaking. “A shroud for the son of Hermes.”

One more silent tear slips down her face.

—

Annabeth watches as Hermes kisses his son’s forehead a final time. She feels numb. Her knees buckle underneath her.

Percy catches her. She cries out, because he grabs her arm and it hurts. Funny, how after everything that has spanned, not only in the past days, but in the past years, she still feels hurt.

“Oh gods”, Percy says. “Annabeth, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright”, she says, because it’s true, before everything blacks out.

—

Annabeth feels light-headed. Was she just…? Did her mother just…? Is she going to re-design Olympos?

Frankly, she’s never been the type to show off her excitement, but right now she could go to the viewing deck of the Empire State building and shout for everybody in all of New York City to hear.

“PERCY JACKSON!” Poseidon announces. Annabeth watches nervously as Percy makes his way to the thrones, first kneeling at Zeus’s feet and then his father’s.

“Rise, my son”, Poseidon says. Percy does. Annabeth sees the unease in him, the way his shoulders tense.

“A great hero must be rewarded. Is there anyone here who would deny that my son is deserving?” Poseidon’s voice echoes around the room, answered only by silence.

“The Council agrees”, Zeus says. “Percy Jackson, you will have one gift from the gods.”

“Any gift?” there’s uncertainty in Percy’s voice.

“I know what you will ask. The greatest gift of all. Yes, if you want it, it shall be yours. The gods have not bestowed this gift on a mortal hero in many centuries, but, Perseus Jackson - if you wish it - you shall be made a god. Immortal. Undying. You shall serve as your father's lieutenant for all time”, Zeus looks joyless.

Annabeth’s heart jumps into her throat. No. No no no no. They can’t have come this far for it to end like this. She finds breathing to have turned kind of difficult.

“Um… a god?”

Annabeth can’t read the tone of his voice. Is he excited? Surprised? Taken aback?

Zeus rolls his eyes.

“A dimwitted god, apparently. But yes. With the consensus of the entire Council, I can make you immortal. Then I will have to put up with you forever.”

"Hmm”, Ares considers. “That means I can smash him to a pulp as often as I want, and he'll just keep coming back for more. I like this idea.”

“I approve as well”, Athena says, staring pointedly at Annabeth. It feels like salt in the wound. One can only rely on one’s wit and intelligence. Athena thinks that Annabeth’s feelings make her weak. And maybe she’s right. But Annabeth no longer cares. Her mother’s the one holding onto a stupid grudge against Poseidon. How wise does she think that is? Annabeth ready to stop fighting, to have a truce and have it with the feelings she’s been playing an endless game of tug and war with.

Only she might not be able to. Because Percy is being offered godhood. Immortality. And who’s going to refuse that?

No one. So Annabeth doesn’t look at him when he glances back, because she can’t. Because everyone always leaves her, and she should’ve known Percy would, too.

“No.”

The room is silent. Annabeth eyes widen and she stares at the back of Percy’s head. Had… had she heard him correctly?

“No?” Zeus asks, frowning. “You are… turning down our generous gift?”

“I’m honored and everything”, Percy says quickly. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s just… I’ve got a lot of life left to live. I’d hate to peak in my sophmore year.”

Okay, she’d definitely heard him correctly. She clamps a hand over her mouth, trying to comprehend it as tears once more rise into her eyes. Percy’s not leaving her. He’s not leaving her. He’s not… leaving her?

It’s a strange new feeling that Annabeth revels in.

“I do want a gift, though”, Percy continues. “Do you promise to grant my wish?”

“If it is within our power”, Zeus says carefully.

“It is”, Percy says. “And it's not even difficult. But I need your promise on the River Styx.”

“What?” Dionysus cries out. “You don’t trust us?”

You left us to fend for all of New York City and Olympos by ourselves. Do you know how many of the campers are even of age?

“Someone once told me”, Percy says. “You should always get a solemn oath.”

Hades shrugs.

“Guilty.”

“Very well”, Zeus grumbles. “In the name of the Council, we swear by the River Styx to grant your reasonable request as long as it is within our power.”

As the other gods mutter their assent, thunder booms all around as the deal is made.

“From now on, I want to you properly recognize the children of the gods”, Percy says. “All the children… of all the gods.”

There’s uncomfortable silence.

“Percy”, Poseidon asks. “What exactly do you mean?”

“Kronos couldn't have risen if it hadn't been for a lot of demigods who felt abandoned by their parents”, he clears. “They felt angry, resentful, and unloved, and they had a good reason."

“You dare accuse-”, it’s safe to say that doesn’t sit well with Zeus.

“No more undetermined children”, Percy ignores Zeus. “I want you to promise to claim your children - all your demigod children - by the time they turn thirteen. They won't be left out in the world on their own at the mercy of monsters. I want them claimed and brought to camp so they can be trained right, and survive.”

“Now, wait just a moment”, Apollo says, but Percy didn’t stop.

“And the minor gods”, he says. “Nemesis, Hecate, Morpheus, Janus, Hebe - they all deserve a general amnesty and a place at Camp Half-Blood. Their children shouldn't be ignored. Calypso and the other peaceful Titan-kind should be pardoned too. And Hades-.”

“Are you calling me a minor god?” Hades hollered.

“No, my lord”, Percy answers. “But your children should not be left out. They should have a cabin at camp. Nico has proven that. No unclaimed demigods will be crammed into the Hermes cabin anymore, wondering who their parents are. They'll have their own cabins, for all the gods. And no more pact of the Big Three. That didn't work anyway. You've got to stop trying to get rid of powerful demigods. We're going to train them and accept them instead. All children of the gods will be welcome and treated with respect. That is my wish.”

Annabeth is just about on the verge of just running up to Percy and kissing him, the gods - and their parents - be damned. She’s so goddamn proud she’s certain she’s going to burst.

“Is that all?” Zeus asks with a snort.

“Percy”, Poseidon says, a little bit concerned. “You ask much. You presume much.”

“I hold you to your oath”, he concludes. “All of you.”

Annabeth would be lying if she was to say that she wasn’t surprised when Athena speaks up.

“The boy is correct. We have been unwise to ignore our children. It proved a strategic weakness in this war and almost caused our destruction. Percy Jackson, I have had my doubts about you, but perhaps… perhaps I was mistaken. I move that we accept the boy's plan.”

She spares Annabeth a quick glance, even though it's perfectly clear she isn't happy with her own words.

“Humph”, Zeus says. “Being told what to do by a mere child. But I suppose…”

“All in favor”, Hermes chimes in.

All gods raise their hands and Annabeth smiles. Olympos to preserve or raze. They did it. They preserved Olympos. And she gets to do however she likes.

"Um, thanks”, Percy says.

“Honor guards!” Poseidon calls, and a bunch of cyclopes walk forward.

“All hail Perseus Jackson”, Tyson says, standing in the frontlines. “Hero of Olympos… And my big brother!”

—

Apollo grins as he says:

“Ladies and gentleman, may I introduce the new Oracle of Delphi.”

"You’re kidding”, Annabeth says, not entirely sure what to even think.

“It's a little surprising to me too, but this is my fate. I saw it when I was in New York. I know why I was born with true sight. I was meant to become the Oracle”, Rachel smiles weakly. And Annabeth knows she’s right.

“You mean you can tell the future now?” Percy asks.

“Not all the time”, Rachel explains. “But there are visions, images, words in my mind. When someone asks me a question, I… Oh no-.”

Rachel doubles over. Annabeth takes a step back.

“It’s starting”, Apollo announces like it’s the most exciting thing in the universe.

Rachel stands back up straight. Her eyes are glowing green, just like the mist that had surrounded her mere moments before. She stares at nothing. It’s creepy, to say the least.

“Seven half-bloods shall answer the call”, she says, her voice distorted. Annabeth feels her blood running cold.

“To storm or fire the world must fall”, Rachel’s voice stays even. Annabeth closes her eyes - this time there’s no vision - and curses in her mind.

“An oath to keep with a final breath, And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death.”

Rachel collapses as the final syllable leaves her mouth. Annabeth can’t do anything but stare as Percy and Nico help her up to the porch. She’s frozen in place.

“I’m all right”, Rachel says, voice back to normal.

“What was that?” Percy’s eyes are wide as saucers.

“I believe”, Apollo says. “That we just heard the next Great Prophecy.”

No. Annabeth feels like she’s ten again and just heard the previous Great Prophecy for the first time. The feeling she’d had all the way to her core is back.

I am going to play a part in this.

“What does it mean?” Percy demands, clearly himself over Great Prophecies. Annabeth doesn’t blame him.

“I don’t even remember what I said”, Rachel says, clearly confused.

“No”, Apollo muses. “The spirit will only speak through you occasionally. The rest of the time, our Rachel will be much as she's always been. There's no point in grilling her, even if she has just issued the next big prediction for the future of the world.”

“What?” Percy looks exactly as he probably feels. We literally an hour ago beat the first Great Prophecy, and now you’re telling me there’s already another? “But-.”

“Percy”, Apollo says, rhythmically tapping his fingers against the railing of the porch like the god of music he is. “I wouldn't worry too much. The last Great Prophecy about you took almost seventy years to complete. This one may not even happen in your lifetime.”

Oh, but it will. Annabeth wants to scream. It will, because she feels so in her bones. Because she can already feel the new dreams creeping into her head, whispering lines about storms and fire and oaths as sweet lullabies.

“Maybe”, Percy says hesitantly. “But it didn't sound so good.”

“No”, Apollo says cheerfully. “It certainly didn't. She's going to make a wonderful Oracle!”

And Annabeth thinks, realizes - maybe in another life that would’ve been her, standing on the porch as the newest Oracle of Delphi.

Nevertheless, swhen he glances at Percy, she thinks quite glad it’s not this one.

—

Annabeth is a terrible cook and baker (she’s spent most of her life either on the run or in the camp, can you blame her?). Thank the gods she manages to enlist Tyson for help, and the cupcakes turn out alright instead of terrible. The blue icing gets everywhere, and the dye is even messier, but in the end it ends up on the cupcakes and that’s a victory in Annabeth’s book.

After the campers started to trickle away for the night - go to the campfire for sing-alongs or just in general enjoy the night without having to worry about defending something from destruction - Annabeth sneaks back into the kitchen and finds a single candle to put on the cupcake and lights it with a lighter she finds laying in a drawer.

There was no one else left in the dining pavilion but Percy. He is sitting at the Poseidon table, staring out at the sea illuminated by the moonlight. It’s beautiful, truly.

“Hey”, Annabeth sits down next to him. “Happy birthday.”

She holds the cupcake out to him.

“What?” Percy looks genuinely confused. It’s cute.

“It’s August 18th”, Annabeth reminds him. “Your birthday, right?”

His mouth makes a silent oh and he takes the cupcake from her hands. His fingers brush against hers and Annabeth feels an electric jolt going through her body.

“Make a wish”, she says.

“Did you bake this yourself?” Percy asks, turning the cupcake over in his hands. Oh come on. It’s not that bad.

“Tyson helped.”

“That explains why it looks like a chocolate brick. With extra blue cement.”

Annabeth laughs.

Percy stares into the distance for a moment, a pondering look in his eyes, before finally blowing out the candle. He pulls it out of the cupcake and sets it on the table, before splitting the cake in two.

“For you”, he tries to hand the slightly bigger piece to Annabeth. She raises her eyebrows and grabs the smaller one from the table.

“Hey, rude, I offered!” Percy points out.

“It’s your birthday, Seaweed Brain”, Annabeth takes a bite. Chocolate-y heaven spreads into her mouth. “Deal with it.”

Percy grumbles something about unfairness, but takes his half gladly. They eat in comfortable silence, watching the small ripple of the nightly sea. Annabeth feels a strange, comforting peace. She’s just found out that she’s going to be a part of also the next big prophecy, and she’s lost a big chunk of her fellow campers in the last few days, and it makes her a little bit guilty.

But she survived, and Percy survived, and even if it’s just for this moment, they don’t need to fight. So Annabeth grabs onto it with both hands and holds tightly, and for once doesn’t think about how she should and shouldn’t feel.

“You saved the world”, Annabeth says.

“We saved the world”, Percy corrects. Annabeth rolls her eyes.

“And Rachel is the new Oracle, which means she won't be dating anybody”, Annabeth is feeling bold. She thinks of Percy’s words to her at the bridge - “Don’t I get a kiss for luck? It’s kind of tradition, right?” - and her own promise that she’ll hold onto his word as long as he makes it out.

“You don’t sound disappointed”, Percy notes.

“Oh, I don’t care”, Annabeth says truthfully. She hadn’t since the bridge. (Okay, maybe a little, but much less than before, that’s for sure.)

“Uh-huh.”

Annabeth raises an eyebrow.

“You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?” Annabeth challenges.

“You’d probably kick my butt.”

“You know I’d kick your butt.”

Percy brushes the crumbs of the cake from his hands.

“When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable… Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal.”

Annabeth’s heart skips a beat. She doesn’t dare to turn and look at Percy again.

“Yeah?”

“Then up on Olympus, when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking-.”

“Oh, you so wanted to”, Annabeth comments, amused.

“Well, maybe a little. But I didn't, because I thought - I didn't want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking …”

“Anyone in particular?” Annabeth asks softly, and this time she can’t help smiling. Percy turns to look at her, his demeanor fidgety.

“You’re laughing at me”, Percy complains with a nervous chuckle.

“I am not!” Annabeth laughs.

“You are so not making this easy."

And just like that, Annabeth knows. That’s how easy it is. And she laughs at how ridiculous they are.

“I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain”, Annabeth says, wrapping her hands around Percy’s neck. He looks like he might faint on the spot. “Get used to it.”

She doesn’t hesitate when she kisses him.

And he kisses her back, and it beats getting to re-design Olympos.

“Well, it’s about time!” somebody yells out behind them. Annabeth breaks the kiss and turns to see an army of campers, led by Clarisse, only to be swiftly hoisted up on their shoulders.

“Oh come on, is there no privacy?” Percy complains, and Annabeth laughs because he’s beet red.

“The lovebirds need to cool off!” Clarisse says with a glint in her eye.

“The canoe lake!” Connor shouts.

And so the campers carry them to the docks and toss them in. Annabeth’s laughs turn into splutters as she inhales water, but Percy holds her hand and makes an air bubble in the bottom the lake for them. She coughs out the water and then laughs, because she feels absolutely giddy, and Percy kisses her again and it’s perfect, everything is perfect, he’s perfect and she doesn’t want to ever let go.

—

Annabeth’s eyes fly open as she’s stabbed to death as a sacrifice in her dream. … bear arms to the Doors of Death rings in her ears as she blinks away the sleepiness from her eyes, trying to steady her breath.

She’s in her bed in the Athena cabin, the first early rays of morning sunlight streaming through the curtains. The small digital clock on her nightstand reads 4.43.

It’s happening all over again. The dreams. Nightmares. The prophecy. Annabeth feels stupid for not thinking it wasn’t going to.

For some reason, she’d never seen the dreams past the war. She’d never really paid close attention to it before, but now she realizes she’d always assumed that’s where the dreams would end. As though everything was going to finish there, as if it was the final chapter of the book.

And now somebody has decided to write a sequel.

Annabeth is quiet when she pushes herself out of the bed. She pulls on her shoes and grabs her cap. Placing it on her head and going incognito, she sneaks out of the cabin, managing to do so without any of her surviving siblings waking up.

Annabeth loves mornings. The crisp, cool air, the drowsiness of it all. You could count on mornings. They always followed the cold nights, shed light on what felt insurmountable in the dark. She stands in the middle of the Camp, watches the sun rise slowly but surely over the sea, before making her way towards the cabin with the number three over its head.

She knows that the other campers will raise their eyebrows, even after she tells them she simply went on an early morning stroll. She and Percy won’t be spared next day of the knowing, teasing glances thrown in their direction by mischievous campers. Annabeth chuckles softly to herself. She doesn’t care - they saved the world, they can have this little thing just for themselves.

Annabeth knocks quietly on the cabin door, four times in quick succession, before quietly cracking it open and sneaking in.

“Annabeth?” Percy mumbles from somewhere underneath the pile of covers on his bed.

“Yeah”, Annabeth whispers, pulling off the cap and tossing it onto his nightstand. “Did I wake you?”

“No”, Percy sighs, pulling the covers slightly off. Annabeth takes it as an invitation to climb into the bed next to him.

“Nightmare?” Annabeth asks as Percy drapes the cover over both of them, his hand settling over her waist.

“Mhm”, Percy’s voice is sleepy. “You?”

Tell him.

“Sort of”, Annabeth says, her eyes finally starting to adjust to the dark of the cabin. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Percy shifts his position slightly.

“Same stuff as always”, he simply says. “You too?”

Tell him. Annabeth stares at his face, his features that she can just about make out in the darkness. It’s been a week since Kronos was defeated, and the small cuts and bruises had healed nicely after rounds of nectar and ambrosia, but Annabeth can still imagine them on his face as clear as day.

Tell him. Yes, she probably should. She should tell him because that’s what you do to people you love. You show them your mind. You show them all parts of yourself, even the ones you’re terrified of, and you let them accept them.

Tell him. Yes, because Annabeth loves Percy Jackson. Let people call her crazy, too young, too naïve to know such things yet, but she does. Annabeth Chase loves Percy Jackson. It’s something factual about, just like the fact that her eyes are gray. Or that his are sea-green.

Tell him. Because for Annabeth, honesty is key, one of her most trusted principals. Truths don’t let you down. Truths are cold and harsh, but you can depend on them. And if Annabeth wants to respect that, she needs to tell him that she’s crazy and sees visions of possible future events and knows things when she shouldn’t. She should tell him that she’s terrified of the future because she knows they’re going to play a part in the next Great Prophecy, and because someone is going to keep an oath with a final breath.

“Annabeth?” Percy nudges her. “You okay?”

“Yeah”, Annabeth snaps out of her thoughts. Percy’s eyes are concerned. “Same stuff as always.”

Percy nods.

Annabeth doesn’t tell him. Annabeth doesn’t tell him, because Percy deserves some peace, even for just a while. She doesn’t tell him, because she loves him and wants him to have a moment where instead of being Percy Jackson, Hero of Olympos, he can just be Percy. Annabeth doesn’t tell him, because Percy is already dozing off back to sleep, and he deserves to rest easy for once, with no burden of a prophecy on his shoulders. Annabeth doesn’t tell him for the same exact reason she someday will - because she loves him.

Percy’s breaths come easier now, and Annabeth knows he’s drifted off. She smiles softly and brushes a lock of hair that has fallen over his eyes away. He looks… sound. It warms her heart.

In a few hours they’ll wake up to a new day at Camp, drink in the final days of the summer and get teased by the other campers. He’ll be silly and she’ll pretend to hate it, and they’ll be like any other fresh teenage couple. Maybe they’ll get a new demigod in - he gods have held their oath to Percy, and they’d gotten a bunch of new half-bloods, some younger, some older, sent to the Camp, already claimed just within the first week. She’ll greet them like the leading figure she has become, teach them their ways and help them to adjust.

Annabeth can worry about the future then. She can worry about who Piper and Frank and Jason are, and try to find explanations for what foes bear arms to the Doors of Death means when she’s up and awake, ready to take on the day as another battle. But right now, laying in bed with Percy, she is perfectly content to just stay there and listen to the quiet buzz of the morning and his even breaths, for once waiting for absolutely nothing.

Because that’s how she feels - as though she’s spent her entire life waiting and fighting. She knows she’ll be doing that in the morning, too. But maybe she as well can let go, just for a few hours, and be a girl in love with a boy at the end of the summer instead of Annabeth Chase, demigod and daughter of Athena.

One can only count on one’s wit and intelligence. Annabeth knows her mother is wrong. She can count on this, too. She can count on the boy she’s sharing his bed with, on his sea-green eyes and embrace. And so Annabeth draws in a deep, shaky breath and closes her eyes, not holding herself back from falling over the edge to unconsciousness.

And for the first time in the gods know how long, she doesn’t dream.