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Annabeth is a dog person. Her family’s old Doberman had been borderline hostile—snarling and vicious around her father and step-mother—but with enough coaxing, would curl up next to her, breathing slowly underneath her hand stroking his thick fur. She remembers sneaking him food underneath the table, and in exchange, he would let her train him to do silly tricks. Nobody else, only her. Even her neighbour's dog, a noisy chihuahua, would remain calm in Annabeth's arms. She's a dog person—big and small, winning and losing—and they love her back.
She's thinking of dogs now, sitting on the cold tiles of the Poseidon cabin.
There’s a boy crying in her arms, she notes with some detachment. Annabeth feels like she’s watching the scene from far above. She sees herself pressed against him on his lap, legs wrapped around his hips, arms tightly wound around his neck. She sees him tremble against her, hands shaking on her back.
“I don’t want to die,” he says and Annabeth wants to scream.
Instead she tries to figure out what to do to make his hurt go away. She could go back in time to stop the oracle from spilling the words that spun him into this mess. Yes, that would have to work because the alternative would be to usher a young Sally Jackson to Nebraska before she gets the opportunity to confront a man with a trident. Annabeth thinks this possibility would be much, much worse. She could never deprive Sally of Percy, nor even Poseidon of Sally. She's selfish enough to not want that either. She settles for raising a hesitant hand to the back of his head, smoothing down his soft hair. It’s not enough, but it’s all she can offer.
“I’m sorry,” she hears herself whispering, lips brushing against the shell of his ear. “I’m so, so sorry.”
There’s more she’s sorry about, things she doesn't quite want to know, things she doesn't quite want to say. He doesn’t say anything, but he nods against her. He must understand what she doesn't want to.
They’re slowly drowning, rocking back and forth together. She remembers how he had loomed over everyone at the end of last summer, quick and fatal with his sword. Not her best friend, but a hurricane of a weapon the gods couldn’t hone. He's left in the aftermath, small and reeling from the weight of a soldier’s armour. Now, the ground is shaking beneath Annabeth, and so is the boy in her arms.
I’m sorry I can’t take away your pain, she thinks. If she could shoulder this weight for him, ease the load by even just a hair, she would a million times over. She’s held up bigger burdens for people with lesser hearts than Percy Jackson. With bitterness, she thinks of the island paradise he'd landed on. Calypso offered to help him in a way she never could, so Annabeth could never blame her. Now she wonders if he'd let her share the world's weight with him if she offered.
He raises his head to look at her. His cheeks are wet and his eyes puffy in a way that makes her chest ache.
There's no distance between them. She can’t cross her arms and look away, can't put up the barrier that’s been between them all summer. It doesn't seem like he can either.
“I’m sorry,” he says, earnest.
“Why?” She whispers, brushing her thumb against his cheek. He leans against her palm and she wishes she could feel butterflies in her stomach at his response. She wishes she could leave feeling giddy with the prospect of something new. She wishes she could gush about this moment under covers with Silena. Instead, she feels dread churn in her stomach, the feeling that has been brewing since she left him at Thalia's pine last summer.
“I’m dying,” he repeats, as if she needs a reminder.
“I know," she replies because she doesn't know what else she can say that won't hurt them both.
I'm trying to forget, or I wish things were different, or You don't have to, or I'm sorry I can't let go of Luke the words scramble around in her head. She isn't cruel enough to say any of them out loud; partially because nothing comes out of lamenting fate—of this, she is well aware—but also because it isn't anything he doesn't already know. They've fought over these unsaid words, time and time again, but it's easy to let go of the grievances that tied them down when they can count down the hours he has left.
"I don't know what to do," she whispers as she crumbles apart. She feels cruel, breaking down in the arms of a boy with bigger problems, but in the dark of the cabin, she can't find it within herself to hold herself back from him any longer.
"I know," he says. She feels his hand leave her back, resting hesitantly around the back of her neck. His fingertips are calloused and scratchy against her sensitive skin.
She looks at him and tries to remember what led her here. She had cabins to inspect, and shoved away her dread and fear and cowardice to knock on the door of Cabin Three. Her clipboard is now long forgotten, tossed onto one of the bunks when she'd found him on the ground, leaning against the large fountain, his head in his hands.
He had looked up at her, eyes wide and not yet red-rimmed, and said her name with enough despair for Annabeth to hate herself.
I'm sorry we drifted apart, she thinks. I'm sorry I was scared.
She doesn't know what she's doing now, she knows even less what she'll do when the dust settles. There are a million possibilities of how it will end, she has examined each of them carefully. Through all her thinking, she knows one truth; there isn't a single ending where she walks away unscathed.
He stays still in her hands. He doesn’t know where they go from this fragile place and neither does she.
She looks at him for a second. It’s strange looking at someone with an expiration date, with a countdown she can’t shut off in her mind.
He is here now, she thinks. He will not be here next week.
She buries her head into the crook of his neck, feeling the jump of his pulse beneath her cheek, the rise and fall of his chest under her. This could be the last time she's this close to him, the last time she can feel him.
She feels regret rush through her. She had known his days were numbered and let him act like he had all the time in the world.
He breathes in deeply, the hold around the back of her neck tightening.
“There’s an exhibition at the MET you’d like, on gothic architecture. There's even going to be some boring talk about it too, in a couple weeks," he says before swallowing heavily. Perhaps not looking at her makes the words easier to say. "I was going to ask you to go with me, the tickets are in my bedside table. I probably should’ve asked you first, but I don’t know, spots were filling up fast. Take Malcolm or Silena, or something,” he continues shakily and Annabeth is going to scream.
She doesn't say anything, he already knows she doesn’t want to take Malcolm or Silena. He knows she wants to watch him fall over his feet as he asks her properly. That she'll laugh before saying yes. They'll dress up, him in his nicest jeans and her in her new dark blue cardigan. She'll probably embarrass herself by blurting out something about what he means to her, but it would be fine because he'd make an even bigger fool of himself.
There are a million things left unsaid between them, but they're both too stubborn, and maybe too cowardly. If they could hate each other for it, they would just a little bit.
"You look tired," is what she says instead.
"Thanks, Annabeth." He lets out a wet-sounding laugh. It's unfair, she thinks, that there's only a week left in her life when she can hear her name from his lips.
She wrings herself out of his hold, standing up to extend a hand down to him. He looks even smaller as she gazes down at him.
He takes her hand and laces their fingers together hesitantly. He lets her guide him to his bed, lets her push him onto it unceremoniously.
"Get some sleep, you need it," she directs, hands brushing his dark hair back as she sits by his side.
"Stay," he murmurs, eyes wide.
If she stays, the chasm of guilt in her stomach will tear her apart. The delicate balance they hang in now will break down, then they'll end up raising their voices at each other like they always seem to. Annabeth knows she's a tough girl, but she doesn't think she could walk away with herself after wounding him. In Cabin Three, she doesn't have to pretend everything is okay.
“I have to finish cabin inspections." Her eyes flit over to the long abandoned clipboard.
"Please." He grabs hold of her hand, bringing it down to rest against his chest. In this moment, it's like he's twice his age. She wonders when he became so daring.
That's all it takes for her to nod. The exhale he lets out is loud enough to mask the thoughts running through her mind, a cycle of I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.
She lets him drag her down to face him on her side. The feel of him beside her, warm and real and tangible, is almost cruel. It makes her hurt for the time she wasted to stare at a drachma, the time they wasted fighting just to fall together anyways. It hurts to feel his gaze trained on her, his face so close, resting on the same pillow.
He takes a shaky breath. “I don’t know what I'm doing.”
"That’s what I’m here for. You need someone to tell you what to do." She tries to make her voice light.
He laughs softly for a second, a sound so tender Annabeth wants to cry
"Go to sleep, Percy," she directs.
He rolls his eyes at her and she smiles.
She can feel his breath begin to even out as she runs her thumb across his knuckles. It’s just a bit scary that he can trust her so wholly, let himself be vulnerable with her. But a part of her is relieved; he truly trusts she isn’t a spy.
She should leave, but with him vulnerable beneath her hand, she finds herself too selfish to let go.
Five minutes, then I'll leave, she convinces herself.
He's going to go back to Manhattan that evening, she remembers. He had wielded the words against her in an argument a couple days ago, and in response she had made some comment or another about his mortal girl. She pushes the memory away. There's no room for their arguments in his bed, no room for the weight of the world.
She stares at him. He's a silent sleeper without the nightmares. His brows are relaxed, breath steady. He's calm in a way Annabeth can't remember ever seeing. She just wishes she could get used to the feel of her hand over his heart, clasped in his.
She lets herself drift off with him. Ten minutes, she thinks.
It ends like this.
They're both standing by Thalia's pine now. The last time they stood here, he’d tried to tell her something. But when she looked at him, all Annabeth could see was a sickle held by familiar hands and all she could think was reap reap reap. She did the only thing she knew how. She could still feel how his gaze felt on her as she ran.
Now, the sunset is soft—always so kind to him. She doesn't think she could bear looking at him, knowing she let him cry in her arms then left him to wake up alone. She looks anyway.
It's the first time she has taken a proper look at him in the light—Cabin Three was too dark, and the other times they'd spoken, she'd been busy trying to stop herself from hurling verbal blows at him. His bronze skin glows and Annabeth feels like she’s burning. Something within her knows this will be their last moment of peace before he turns sixteen and nothing will ever be the same.
He needs a hair cut, she thinks, the dark mess he thinks looks good brushes past his furrowed brows. She's a bit shorter than him now. Every summer he’d return different—taller and stronger. She's never gotten used to the sight of him. She thinks it’s unfair that she never will, but it does no one any good to lament fate. Knowing this isn't enough to make her stop—not when she was seven, not when she was twelve, and especially not now. She's sure it isn't enough to stop Sally Jackson either, grieving her son as he sits across from her at their kitchen table. She thinks about Sally now—kind and strong—and wonders how she'll ever be able to face her after next week.
Percy—identical to Poseidon, but Sally's son in every way that matters—looks at her, his eyes mirroring something Annabeth can’t admit, else it tears her already fragile being apart. They're at a divergence, now. He will go back to the city, to his parents and to Rachel, and try pretending there’s even a second he isn’t sinking under the weight of the world. She will stay here, with her friends and siblings, and draft plans, trying to forget who the chess pieces she’s playing with are. They’ll pretend there’s no ache when they’re apart, then they’ll ignore the chasm when they’re together.
A fate worse than death, she remembers.
At least it will be her left in the aftermath—of this, she is grateful. She doesn’t know how Percy—always good, always guilt-ridden—would stand under the weight, if he would let her share it with him this time. If she had to lose him, it wouldn’t be like that.
She thinks about her Doberman, of how big and strong he had been when she left, of the urn she'd found in the basement when she first returned.
“Don’t die out there,” she says.
“I’ll try,” he promises.
It’s all he can offer, it’s all she’ll allow herself to take.