Chapter Text
“Annabeth!” Percy yelled at the sealed car window. She had to stare ahead at the hazy, humidity-speckled windshield otherwise she’d beg Argus to turn around. Tears stained her forced stoic expression as Argus sped down the gravel road leading to the highway, her head falling to her lap as she clutched her chest.
Argus had never once spoken to her on a ride to the city to meet her dad - until now. She heard a faint, “Annabeth?” from his driver’s seat. She managed an, “I’m fine.” in between sobs cut short by the bumps in the country road. Annabeth clawed at the handle to hold herself upright against the side door, gasping for air as she rolled down the window. She clutched the outside of the car, mind flashing back to how it felt to be in Percy’s embrace in the labyrinth, somehow bringing her warmth in the labyrinth’s unforgiving, barren cold.
It was such an easy fix. He could have left Rachel safely at camp and gone to their movie. She hated how he acted like this was so impossible. It was three hours and, for how cluelessly they meandered around the labyrinth for days, it was absolutely three hours he could spare. It had been 5 weeks and she still hadn’t seen Order of the Phoenix because she wanted to wait for him to see it with her. He could have come home from Calypso’s island sooner. He could have kissed her before the battle to reassure her they would recover from this, even if they both knew what Luke was about to do.
He could have talked to her. It was an offer she left on the table until it was too painful to bear, forcing her hand to end their communication for her own sanity.
Annabeth didn’t even notice her surroundings becoming more and more populated as the car inched closer to the cruel reminder of what she once had. Of course, her way home had to be in his hometown. The city she visited every month throughout the school year, and where he’d stay up with her all night so she wouldn’t have nightmares after Mount Tam. How could he live with himself for throwing it all away?
She peeled herself off the door and into the car, rolling up the window. Annabeth calmed herself down enough to gather her belongings. She spotted the “Monster Donut!” sticker he stuck on her trunk after breaking into the Hephaestus cabin last year. Gnawing her lip in anger, she dug her chipped, lavender fingernails into the edge of the sticker and ripped it off, leaving behind residue and a faint remnant of the “M.” Annabeth glared at the trunk in anger, oblivious to her father calling her name outside of the taxi.
He knocked on the window, her having a stomach-churning sense of deja vu to five weeks prior, when Percy greeted her excitedly outside of her airport taxi. She was at the airport again, but to escape this awful reality she would have to accept sooner rather than later.
She blinked and reality took hold again, her father’s concerned face twisting into a look of horror as he saw her state. He hastily flung the door open, her trunk teetering on the edge of the seat. Annabeth broke down again, as Frederick desperately tried to pull the trunk out as fast as he could to get to her. He gathered her into his arms immediately, Annabeth’s frail figure collapsing as soon as she was safely engulfed by her father’s embrace.
“Baby?” he asked, rubbing her back in an attempt to calm her down.
“They died,” she sobbed, “All of them. It’s my fault. And he -” she swallowed tears and coughed, “No. Please, can we go home?”
Annabeth felt her dad nod against the back of her neck. He reached behind her, propping the trunk on its wheels and haphazardly slinging her backpack over his shoulders as they walked into the airport. He cemented an arm around her, wheeling her trunk with the other, wobbling at its weight. Annabeth never complained about its weight and elected to overpack it, since a heavy trunk couldn’t hold a candle to what she had to bear the weight of last winter.
All throughout printing their boarding passes, security, boarding, and takeoff, Annabeth was silent. She hadn’t cried since she got out of the taxi, instead slowly and reluctantly swallowing the events that had unfolded over the last two hours. Frederick beckoned her to take the window seat in an attempt to make her feel better. He hadn’t asked her about Percy yet, which she was grateful of, truly. She smiled as she shuffled into the row, somberly stuffing her backpack underneath the seat in front of her.
She watched New York City dilate behind her as the plane took off, her eyes stinging as she abandoned the place and person she once called home.