Archive of Our Own ^beta

She won’t tell you why she does it the first time.

She can tell you, but she won’t. No use lying about it.

His armor wasn’t strapped on right, it needed fixing. 

Isn’t that reason enough?

It’s the end of the summer before she even thinks about it again. 

She’d been a little busy.

But it’s the end of the summer now, and her schedule’s free, so she can think about the fact that her new friend Percy Jackson has been to the Underworld and back, yet still doesn’t know how to get his armor to sit quite right.

“I have two questions.”

“I have two answers,” Annabeth starts, her footfalls light on the path that leads up to the Poseidon cabin. “Well, maybe. Depends on the questions.”

“Do you know where this belongs?” Percy’s fingers worry at the smooth edges of a bronze helmet with a blue plume, leftover from a game that feels like ages ago now.

“No one showed you?”

“Must have missed that part of the camp tour.”

“I can’t imagine anything you could have been doing that would be more important than armory storage.”

“Yeah me either, can’t think of a single thing,” Percy’s eyes are alight in the doorway now, trying to match her deadpan bit, but failing as an earnest smile erupts, “Uneventful summer, really.”

She is quick to cave with him, kicking at the bottom step and biting down a smile too now, “My most boring yet.”

He hugs the helmet to his chest, still grinning goofily.

“I’ll take you after lunch,” she nods up at him, “What’s the second question?”

“Let’s say, you don’t take me to where we store an absurd amount of child-size bronze plated armor, and I just keep it, take it home with me,” he gestures absently, his voice going up a guilty octave at the end cutely,  “What do you think the Mist would disguise it as?”

Annabeth’s lips twist to one side, and for a split-second, she hates that she really thinks about how to seriously answer that. But only a split-second, because she’s smiling again and she can’t really hate that this is what her summer has devolved into.

“I’m not sure.”

He gasps, abhorrently dramatic about it too, “Something Annabeth Chase doesn’t know? It’s a summer solstice miracle.”

“The summer solstice was weeks ago, idiot, and I warned you from the start I might not because I anticipated one, or both, of your questions being too dumb to dignify an answer.”

“C’mon, you’re always thinking. This had to have crossed your mind at some point.”

She crosses her arms, and really does hold out for a second or two, but then, gods, she’s grinning again. “I meant it, I’m not sure. I think it might just, stay looking like that.”

“No!”

“Armor exists in the real world, Percy.”

“Yeah, but only on like, movie sets and stuff.” He passes the helmet back and forth between his hands a couple times, then trains his eyes back on her, still a few feet between them, doorway to step, “You don’t think it might turn into like, a bike helmet or something? A top hat?”

“I’m tempted to let you take it just for the chance you might walk around New York in a top hat.”

“So I can? Keep it?” 

“I didn’t say that.”

“Almost!” Percy bounces on the balls of his feet, propping the helmet/possible top hat under one arm. “Alright, those were my two questions, your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Sure, didn’t think you’d come looking for me for no reason.”

There is a mortifying moment where Annabeth worries, somehow, that Percy can sense her face heat up. She doesn’t claim to really understand what the son of the sea god can and cannot do yet, and she’s getting dangerously close to sweating under his intensely earnest gaze, and sweat, Annabeth thinks, is dangerously close to water.

Because the truth is she did spend somewhere between two and twenty minutes pacing the length of her bunk trying to come up with any reason to seek Percy out, any reason at all. For all the things she had done this summer, marching up to cabin 3 and admitting she had just wanted to be in Percy’s presence this afternoon for no reason at all, just for the sake of being in his presence, seemed more daunting than anything. Friendship is weird. 

So she found a reason, and it’s burning a hole in her back pocket, and she’s glad Percy brought it up before she had to pull out one of her seven conversation starters she rehearsed in the two to twenty minutes right before she walked over here.

“I just had something to give you.”

“A gift? For me?” His eyes bug wide and he jumps forward, taking a seat on the step.

“Don’t get all excited,” she rolls her eyes, “It’s not a big deal or anything.”

The helmet is placed by his left hip, and his hands tap energetically and expectedly on his knees. So she sits on the other side of the helmet with him.

“It’s just your camp necklace,” her smile betrays her otherwise straightforward statement.

“What do you mean, not a big deal ? I’ve been waiting for this since the day I got here,” Percy twirls the lone sea-green bead around the leather string when he takes it from her excitedly. “I mean, as far as motivations for surviving a quest go…”

“Making it back for a necklace ranks somewhere above preventing all-out war?”

“Obviously.”

“ Obviously ,” she mimics him, teasingly.

“There should be a ceremony for this, or something,” he says, reaching up to get the string around his neck.

“Well, there was a good amount of applause when they announced what the bead was gonna be this morning,” Annabeth starts. “Not my fault no one realized the guy they were dedicating the bead to didn’t have a necklace yet to put it on when they did.”

He lets out a breathy chuckle, “Worth the wait. If you’d like to repeat the applause though, I wouldn’t object.”

“I’m not applauding if you can’t even get it on right, Seaweed Brain.” She can feel her nose crinkle delightfully as his fingers fumble over trying (and failing) to tie a knot.

“Stop laughing,” he grumbles, which is funny, because he’s still smiling, his eyes peeking over at her peripherally.

“I haven’t laughed once!”

And she hasn’t, really, but she thinks that’s the flutter she feels in her stomach. A laugh, on it’s way. Couldn’t be anything else, surely. 

“It’s not--I swear , I’m trying !” Percy spins the necklace halfway so the place for the knot is on the side, not behind him, and he ducks his chin at an awkward angle to try to look at where his hands fidget clumsily, and good gods, if he doesn’t put back the tongue peeking out between pursed lips in concentration right this second, Annabeth isn’t sure what she’s going to do, and she does not want to find out. There are some things she’s okay with not knowing. 

So she nods her head to his side, signaling for him to turn his body the opposite way, with a simple, “Back at camp and I’m still saving you, huh?”

He catches on and concedes, his back to her and his necklace in her hands now. “I think we broke even on the saving each other.”

“Really?”

“Well I mean, I didn’t keep a tally…” She watches his curls flop with the bop of his head as she reaches around him to put the necklace in place, before she hears a small wince, and, “I don’t know why I said that. You definitely kept a tally.”

(Annabeth pleads the fifth.)

“We can start one now,” she hums, “Point for me.”

He laughs, and it’s a miracle she stays steady enough to keep her knot together.

“So,” she starts again, softly, feeling brave only for the chance to speak to him without having to look at him, “You’re going home?”

“Hm?”

“Your question about the helmet and the Mist. Seemed to imply--”

His shoulders bounce with a shrug, cutting her off. She takes her time, knotting the slowest knot of her life, prolonging the moment.

“It’s the last day of camp, Percy.”

“Never been a fan of deadlines.” His sigh has a calm weight to it that Annabeth almost enjoys. This moment is, weirdly, nice . “Still deciding with the few hours I have left. Your answers were important in the decision-making process. I’m making a pros and cons list.”

“Is that so?”

He nods wordlessly. Rare, not unwelcome. 

Annabeth smooths the now tied necklace over the back of his neck with two feather-light fingers. 

“There you go, hero.”

He turns back, forward facing now, out towards the center of the camp, so she can see the way his eyes squint in a crinkled smile when he says, “Don’t like that one.”

“I was afraid another Seaweed Brain might put me on your cons list.”

Percy taps the top of his sneaker against hers, “Impossible.”

There’s the width of a helmet between them, which is too much and not enough, and silence save the ambient sounds of the last day of camp, which is also too much and not enough. 

And it’s wonderful. Annabeth thinks next time she might have the courage to just ask for this. No reason required.

After a long beat or two, she’s almost startled by Percy’s gentle voice, “I think I want your necklace back.”

She manages a “What?!” through giggles.

“I think I liked yours better. This one feels so lame.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I am, it felt better with more beads, almost tickles with just the one,” Percy flicks the one said bead with a finger, making it glide back and forth across his leather string.

“It does not, you’re so dramatic.”

“I should have never given it back to you,” he glares playfully at the necklace she had given to him on the beach, not so long ago. “One lousy bead.”

“I think you’re forgetting it’s your lousy bead!” And Annabeth is so busy fighting back another round of giggles that she doesn’t have the wherewithal to stop herself from reaching over and twirling the lousy bead in question, right over his collarbone, green trident almost shimmering on him like it had in the air by the lake. 

She swallows thickly when she comes to her senses, shoving her traitorous hand under her nervously bouncing knee, trapping it before it can do anything else embarrassing like that.

Mercifully, Percy speaks up, “It should be our lousy bead though.”

Annabeth really thinks the whole quest was easier than not beaming at him right now. 

“Something for all three of us, you know?” he continues.

“Like what?”

“I dunno,” Percy quirks his head to one side in contemplation, “A pink poodle.”

A hand flies over her face to try to hide her unabashed snort at that.

Percy looks very pleased with that reaction, and trudges on with his artistic suggestions, “The St Louis Arch. Cerberus. A record.”

“Medusa’s head,” Annabeth gleefully chimes in.

“Medusa’s cheeseburgers ,” he challenges.

“Colorado diner cheeseburgers.”

“Lotus hotel cheeseburgers.”

“Why did we eat so many cheeseburgers?” she laughs.

“Hey, we also had plenty of gift shop snacks.”

“And defunct gift shop snacks.”

“Zoo animal oreos.”

“Are these actually good bead suggestions or are we just hungry?”

“Both.” 

And Annabeth swears she will spend the whole year trying to find a way to bottle up the sound of Percy’s laughter so she can catch some and keep it when she sees him again next summer. 

With a full body sigh and much more effort than it should require, Annabeth regretfully pushes herself to standing. “C’mon, let's do the armor and then lunch.” She stretches out a hand to Percy, who responds with a dropped chin and a mournful groan.

“You said after.”

“Yeah well, we have time to kill, and I’m realizing there’s a lot of camp history I wanna talk about that the Hermes kids definitely didn’t on your initial tour.”

“Annabeth…” he pleads with a whine.

“C’mon,” she shakes her hand in front of him again, “Get up.”

“I can’t focus on history, like ever, but especially not when I’m hungry. Ask any of my history teachers,” Percy says, but takes her outstretched hand and the help in being pulled up to standing anyway. He grabs his helmet too, just before Annabeth starts them walking down the path, “Literally. You can ask him. Ask Chiron. This is going to be horrible for you.”

“I’ll live,” she snarks, falling into step beside him as he starts on a ramble about something Chiron taught him and Grover in their old school, and she catches most of what he’s saying, really, she does.

But her mind is back to being stuck on Percy and his armor, and the silly way the helmet he’s decided to put on as they walk, probably just to make her laugh, tilts to the side too much, like it's suddenly too big, which is crazy, because she swears his head has only gotten more full of kelp since the start of the summer.

She uses her right hand to push it back upright and pretends not to notice the way he repeats whatever he was working on saying when she does.

And again, that’s reason enough, right?

Armor, Annabeth knows, serves more than one purpose. 

There is debate on who invented armor and where, which she decides she won’t get into right now, but there are, without a doubt, thousands of recorded uses for it, and she knows it goes beyond physical protection. 

When she was seven and getting ready for her first game of capture the flag, the armor made her feel so big. 

Nevermind how it was, literally, so big . She’d spent a whole afternoon trying to find armor that fit, that first summer. And in the end, she was still practically swimming in it. The chest plate hung closer to her knees and her shoulders had room to wiggle and she had to hold the tip of the helmet up with one hand so her eyes could make out the most infectious laughter coming from Luke—

She cuts off her own train of thought.

It used to be one of her favorite memories. The way he looked under her too big armor, laughing for the first time in weeks because nothing fit her. A large part of her is worried that it might still be. 

She swallows the thought and focuses on how big she felt instead, still does, six years grown into it. She is confident, assured. Always, but especially in her armor. There is something to be said for the protection that feeling provides, beyond the physicality of it. How many victories had she secured on that feeling alone?

Annabeth doesn’t wish she had armor right now. But she wishes Percy did.

“If you toss and turn one more time, I’m throwing you overboard,” she says, glaring at her friend from the other end of their little lifeboat-that-could, “I don’t care if that threat doesn’t work for you, I still mean it.”

He sits up on one hand, winks an eye over at her, “Why do you care how I spend your allotted keep-watch time?”

“Because I’m pretty sure every time you move, the water thinks you’re telling it to move too. It’s rocking the boat,” Annabeth explains, “And making me sick.”

“You? You get seasick?” is, unhelpfully, what Percy decides to focus on, “How’d I not know that until now?”

“No idea, considering how I’ve looked like I’m about ready to throw up since the moment I met you.”

And gods dammit, she smiles when she says it. She keeps getting worse at this.

“Sorry,” is all he answers with, sitting all the way up now, facing her, knees tucked to his chest. 

She could ask him why he can’t sleep. That seems like the next logical step. Maybe it was actually the first logical step, but her and Percy have always taken the long way around, and threatening to chuck him into the Sea of Monsters as a segue into expressing genuine concern seemed easier.

But she knows him, and why he can’t sleep, so she just gives him time instead. The waves lap, they drift hopefully not aimlessly, and Percy scrunches in on himself.

Armor. They need armor.

As if he can hear her thoughts, he picks at the singed end of his t-shirt where bronze shoulder caps should be.

“I’m so worried about Grover that I can’t fall asleep,” he admits softly, after how much time, she’s not sure. Time moves differently here, and whenever she’s with Percy, so she’s doubly at a loss. “Which is ridiculous, because if I fell asleep, I might see him.”

“Instead all you’re seeing is me,” she quirks, “Bummer.”

“I like seeing you too,” Percy responds, just as softly, “If there was a way I could do both, I would.”

“You could sleep with one eye open,” she suggests, this awful feeling in her chest when she does that only dissipates when he laughs at it. Weird .

“First quest was better.”

“This isn’t even really a quest for us,” she corrects on autopilot, but sinks back a little sheepishly just as quickly, “But yeah, I know what you mean.”

“As long as the three of us were together.”

Annabeth nods. She’s just racking her brain for something with equal parts intelligence and encouragement to say next, when Percy’s features screw up tight in that way she knows means he’s about to say something that will warrant another threat of mutiny, and out of nowhere, he blurts:

“This Pan guy better be the shit.”

“Percy!”

“I’m serious, he’s taken thousands of satyrs, worst of all he’s taken Grover from us. So I just think, for this to be worth it, he better like, vomit rainbows and poop four leaf clovers or something.”

“He’s the god of the wild, Percy, not a cartoon on a cereal box.”

He makes some unintelligible noise as he sinks his forearms onto the tops of his knees, his shoulder slouching down and his eyebrows furrowing.

“Searching is important to Grover.”

“I know,” he says, with little bite. She didn’t have to remind him at all, really, because she knows he knows. “But Grover’s important to me.”

“I know,” she echoes, so quietly she’s not sure if he hears her.

“He should at least have the decency to send Grover a wedding gift for his troubles when this is over.”

And it’s Annabeth’s turn to laugh, which is a feat that feels like a miracle, out here at sea, hours into looking for any land.

“You bring up a good point,” she says, because that laugh felt so good, that she selfishly craves another, “What are we getting him?”

Percy just raises an eyebrow at her.

“Our wedding gift, to Grover,” Annabeth nods resolutely, “ When we find him.”

It’s like nectar, the way his laughter slips through the air and rolls over her shoulder, and his unmoving smile at her assurance hidden in there that they’ll get to him safely, no matter what.

“We’ve got limited resources to pull something together right now,” Percy gestures around their meager belongings, the very little they managed to keep with them after being forcibly ejected from Clarisse’s ship earlier. 

“We’ll come up with something.”

“You know what he’d love, actually?” Percy smiles that glinting smile that she knows is trouble again, but she can’t seem to be bothered by it, “Wouldn’t require any material stuff.”

It’s her turn to raise him a brow.

But he answers her, not in words, but with a very slow clap of his hands, and another, and then faster, and a little faster, and—

“Oh golly—”

“Oh my gods, Percy!“

“The road’s gettin’ bumpy—”

Annabeth buries her face in her hands, but hopes her steady stream of laughter is still reaching him, so he can keep on smiling while her brain twists itself in dangerous knots.

Armor, Annabeth knows, serves more than one purpose. And the very worst one, Annabeth thinks, is how it hides things. 

Because if Percy were wearing armor right now, he would look bigger. In armor, he is a soldier. He has a task. He is strong and powerful, and has something to protect him.

If he had it on right now, he wouldn’t look like just some boy that maybe, in another universe, she could have met one day in a math class. 

Right now he is small, and singing, and smiling, and the weight of the prophecy she doesn’t fully understand sits on her like seven-year-old gear, and it’s hard to reconcile the two things, for the first time ever.

That this insurmountable looming thing about a powerful, forbidden child, is in fact, about a child .

A child who is singing silly songs to make her laugh while lost in a monstrous sea.

She feels seasick again.

“Are you done yet, Seaweed Brain?”

“Are you gonna let singing be our wedding gift?”

“If it’ll get you to stop, then sure.”

He shoots her a rare, toothy grin that she feels so immeasurably lucky to be on the receiving end of.

When their laughter has died down, Annabeth nudges Percy’s foot with her own, “Hey.”

Percy looks up at her brightly.

“Why don’t I sleep first?” 

“Yeah?” Annabeth can see his shoulders visibly relax at the thought, “That’d be good, I think. Would help.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Percy nods, then starts to make himself comfortable, sitting up, as Annabeth does the same, adjusting to find someplace to shut her eyes for a bit.

It’s not long before she realizes how literally Percy takes it, the need to see her to make up for not seeing Grover. Because she can feel his gaze so intently that she’s going to start tossing and turning and upsetting her stomach herself.

Without much thought, she sits up and extends a hand out to him, with her Yankees cap.

“What?”

“Take it, please,” Annabeth shakes it to emphasize her point, “I’m not gonna be able to sleep with you staring at me.”

“Maybe I couldn't fall asleep before because you were staring at me .”

She shakes her head, “You’ve done it before.”

When she realizes he’s not going to make any move to take the hat from her himself, she takes the matter in her own hand and reaches forward, to tug the hat over his messy curls and watch him fade out of view.

She can’t see him, but she can feel him, when her hand lingers there a second longer than it needs to.

Magic invisibility caps, like armor, also serve more than one purpose.

Her thoughts die down, and the boat rocks suspiciously gently all of a sudden, and her eyes are closed, and Percy is there and they’re on their way to Grover, so sleep, mercifully, comes easy.

“Scoot over, the sun’s in my eyes.”

“Well then it would be in my eyes.”

“Right, and you’re my protector, are you not?” Percy quips, his chin in the air and a hand over his eyes, making his elbow knock into Annabeth’s shoulder, “So protect my eyes from the sun.”

“Yeah, goat boy, protect us ,” Annabeth chimes in, a giddy laugh punctuating every syllable.

“If you two ever wanna go back to disagreeing on literally everything, please, be my guest,” Grover groans, but of course, he scoots over.

“We actually agree on everything now, isn’t that right, Annabeth?” 

Percy’s expression, directly and almost blindingly pointed just at Annabeth right now, looks brighter than the sun, just starting to set in the very, very late afternoon after their chariot race victory. 

She taps her toes in the sand dunes she and Grover had come to find Percy on after the news Tyson had left, and raises a questioning brow in response.

“We agreed, rather quickly and easily, really, on what we wanted to get you,” Percy starts up an explanation.

“Get me?”

“For your wedding,” Percy is grinning impishly at Grover now, “I know, I know , you didn’t technically go through with the marriage, but, Annabeth and I worked so hard on it, it’d be a shame not to just give it to you anyway.”

“Perseus Jackson…” Annabeth warns.

“Oh my gods, she full-named you,” Grover gasps behind a hand, “ What did you do?”

Grover’s sitting on Percy’s left, and she has his right, and despite the overwhelming urge to strangle him, they’re happy.

“Just so you know Grover, when Percy starts singing—”

“You’re gonna sing ?!”

“I want you to know I did not agree.”

“You so did.”

“I did not.”

“It kinda sounds like you did, Annabeth.”

“ Grover !”

“You guys…” Percy coos all sweet and mischievously, nudging Grover with one shoulder and Annabeth with a knee simultaneously, “It sounds like we really should go ahead with the gift.”

“Can we toss him in the water, you think, Annabeth?”

“I have tried before.”

“Very funny.”

And whether it actually is funny or not, it doesn’t stop them from all devolving into giggles, their heads huddled together.

Annabeth can’t remember the last time she did something like this. She’s had some friends at camp, sure, but none she liked so much she’d just, sit down and let them babble about nothing intelligent for a long stretch of time.

But that’s what she’s doing, her cheek resting on her knees she’s pulled up, looking at the boys at her side so fondly it’s almost like her eyes need to adjust. They talk about the world Grover’s seen so far this year, the classes Percy should have failed, Tantalus and Tyson, Percy asks something dumb about searchers deserving PTO because he wants the three of them, and his mom—the only person they know who can drive—to take a road trip to this building just outside Manhattan that reminded him of Annabeth. 

She’s not sure what topic they’ve moved on to now, but the sun hangs low and the lake ripples gently, and Annabeth, who loves to learn, learns that she really, really likes just sitting. She hums in the right places to remind them she’s there, and she’s listening, and she’s happy.

Belatedly, she thinks, she’s in nothing but a dirtied camp t-shirt and shorts, but she feels big. She has to be big. Her heart right now wouldn’t fit any other way. 

“What do you guys think’s for dinner tonight?”

“Of course you’re thinking about food.”

“At least he’s not thinking about singing anymore.”

“Why would you remind him?”

Unceremoniously, without any warning whatsoever, Annabeth is suddenly pulled to her left, her ear sandwiched somewhere between Percy’s neck and shoulder, his arm holding her in place, wrapped around the back with a little squeeze on her own shoulder.

She “oofs” with the force of it, and from what she can make out in her periphery, Grover’s her mirror on Percy’s other side.

“What’s going on?” Grover voices a concern without a hint of concern in his voice at all. He sounds, Annabeth thinks, exactly like she feels right now. Warm all over. Nothing to do with the sun that’s almost gone out of the sky.

“Nothing.” She feels Percy shrug just as much as she feels him smile, his cheek beside her head.

“You sure?” 

“Just really glad I’ve got you guys,” Percy says simply, “That you’re here.”

As long as the three of us are together.

“Even if we don’t appreciate real musical talent.”

“Yeah, especially that.”

Is this what it’s like, she wonders, to feel lucky? 

“Percy?”

“Yeah, Grover?”

“This is a really nice moment and all, but this thing you’re still wearing is really itchy.”

Grover bristles, his nose scrunching cutely, and Annabeth is beyond repair in the giggle department. Percy scoffs, but Annabeth is glad Grover brought it up so she didn’t have to, and much more nicely too.

Laurel wreaths had felt fun and unnecessary at the same time after the chariot race, and they’d clearly found Percy down here before he had a chance to divest his like Annabeth. And with the closeness of their new embrace, every time Percy moves even an inch, it tickles either one of them at his side.

“It’s fine, cut short my hard earned glory. I don’t even care,” he says, oddly enough, sounding like he’s trying to care, even a little bit. Annabeth knows there’s not a single scenario in which Percy is choosing anything over keeping his friends close to him, so his gasping at Grover is nothing more than a bit.

Maybe that’s why Annabeth does it. Reaches up, like it’s nothing, and gently starts to lift the wreath off his head for him.

He bows slightly towards her so she can reach better, her fingers itching to card through an unruly curl or two while she’s there, that close to him. She can see every fleck of the sea in his eyes like this, count each eyelash if she had the time, and already thinks about how the exact angle of his crooked grin will look mapped out in one of her architecture sketch pads when she heads back to her cabin for the night. 

“Thanks,” he whispers, for no real reason.

“Sure,” she whispers too, only then breaking eye contact.

She smells the ocean—on Percy as she gets tugged back to his side, or in the water in front of them, she’s not sure. She’s content to go back to absently listening to Grover and Percy, picking up their chatter like the world didn't just stand still for a moment there.

And she decides, the Sea of Monsters and her terrifying realizations so far behind her now, that this is the strongest Percy has ever looked.

Not an inch of armor on him. Nothing hard, nothing bronze, nothing heavy, or big.

Percy might have the weight of the world on his shoulders with this prophecy, but for now, as she indulges in settling in closer, Annabeth is there instead.

There’s a few different ways Annabeth saw this going, but she never expected Thalia, of all people, to be the first one to call her out on it.

Sure, it’s been brought up before. Malcom has gently hinted, gods forbid you get cornered by someone from Aphrodite, Grover’s middle name is practically “pointed look.” But this felt almost outright, and almost her own fault.

To be fair, she couldn’t have considered Thalia as an option more than a few months ago.

But she should have known. Thalia had always been her most straightforward friend.

(Definitely much more than someone else.)

“Hey, we’ll be okay.”

“Hm?” Annabeth turns at the sound of her friend's voice, sitting on the steps outside their dorm building.

“I’m sure they really don’t need three of us, Chiron’s just being cautious. Overprotective. Happens when—” Thalia cuts herself off, a muffled groan with her head dropped into her hands, “Sorry. I was never good at this part. Never my job.”

“What wasn’t?” Annabeth asks, perplexed.

“Making you feel better when you’re nervous,” Thalia explains.

“I’m not nervous,” Annabeth doesn’t even wait for more of that explanation before she rushes to defend, sitting up pin straight on the step.

“Yeah, you are,” Thalia says, the most ‘duh’ tone of voice ever uttered. “You get this crinkle between your eyebrows. And your bottom lip disappears. Cutest thing ever when you were little.”

Annabeth glares at her. With a scrunched brow and a worried bottom lip.

“See? Still cute.”

She kicks her in the shin.

Thalia’s laughter is the brightest thing on the street they’re perched on. It’s late into the afternoon, classes finished and their bags neatly packed, and it’s snowing, but that awful kind of snow Annabeth hates that looks like snow in the air and turns into rain the second it hits the ground. The streets are full of slush puddles, and cars kick them up, and she and Thalia are waiting on the steps under the awning, too restless to wait inside their room.

“I promise you, Thalia, I’m not nervous about the mission,” Annabeth tries to assure, even if her voice sounds wobbly, even to her, “I’ve been on worse.”

“I know, our little two time hero,” Thalia bumps her shoulder into Annabeth’s, in the way only a big sister can, “Which is why I’m worried. I’ve never seen you look so nervous, before we’ve even left the state.”

“Sorry,” she murmurs, unsure how to respond.

“Hey, no, no apologizing, I’m just trying to fix it,” Thalia’s feet tap erratically on the steps, “If it’s not the mission, then what—”

Whether Thalia’s sentence cuts off there or Annabeth tunes out the rest of it, she’s not sure. But she hears nothing else the second a familiar car rolls up to a stop in front of their building, messy blond curls in the passenger seat.

“Oh my gods.”

“What?” Annabeth asks absently. She’s too busy fidgeting with her braids, pushing some behind her ear.

“I knew Annabeth Chase would never let a little mission intimidate her,” Thalia is grinning, a little laughter on the edge of her voice, “But I didn’t think a boy would either.”

That gets her attention, and Annabeth directs her stare towards her best friend instead of where it had been so intensely fixed on the boy—okay, sure, she’s got her.

“It’s nothing,” Annabeth shrugs, worried about this little stain she’s just now seeing over her right knee that she swears wasn’t there when she was praying to Aphrodite and agonizing over what to wear before. 

“Yeah, still the cutest thing ever,” Thalia bites her lips together, and Annabeth’s stomach lurches at the sound of a car door shutting. “You look really pretty.”

“Shut up.”

“If you had told your dear, big sister about this sooner, I could have stolen some lipstick from the girls across the hall.”

“ Shut up. ”

“Hey, Percy!” Thalia waves, over-animatedly, standing up on the step as the boy in question stands just outside his car, head leaned in through the window, like he’s saying something to his mom. Annabeth, who is always scarily in tune to wherever he is, thinks she can half-make out his mom saying something like, “I think you should tell her—” before Thalia’s yell (and Percy’s embarrassed glare) cuts her off.

“Hi, you guys,” Percy says finally, making his way over to the steps, straight through the slush puddles. 

“Thanks for stopping to get us,” Thalia jumps up to standing and skips down the two steps to the sidewalk, “I don’t do well with cabs.”

“Oh of course, me neither. ‘Specially not the ones Annabeth picks,” Percy teases cutely, his troublemaker eyes flitting to her briefly. “You guys uh, have a good day? Good classes?”

“The best. We learned tons , isn’t that right Annabeth?”

“Get in the car, Thalia,” Annabeth glares, feeling bright red all over as her friend snickers gleefully.

“Fine, I’m dying to meet who I’m sure is going to be my favorite Jackson anyway,” she says, making her way to the car, and turns to them with a parting wink, “Don’t take too long, kids.”

Annabeth drops her head into her knees.

“She knows she’s like, only a year older than us, right?”

She peeks up, getting her first good look at Percy in months. She swears he’s a little taller, but that’s about all that’s new. Same messy hair and bright eyes and stupid smile. Annabeth and her heart aren’t on speaking terms currently, but she’s sure it’s a mess in there. Especially when, looking up, that stupid smile is directed right at her. 

“I’ve stopped trying to fight it,” Annabeth responds, probably flashing her own stupid smile back and giving herself away. Gods . She gives him another once-over and bites the inside of her cheek to keep in a giggle when, “Nice mittens.”

“Stop,” he flushes, sure she’s teasing him as usual (when really, everything he does makes her heart constrict three sizes, so he shouldn’t be worried.) “My mom’s worried about the snow.”

“I wasn’t teasing, I really do like them,” she says again, and he still doesn’t believe her, shoving his blue mitten hands into his jacket pockets.  

“Right. Well,” Percy starts lamely, rocking back on his heels, “Nice sweater.”

Annabeth quirks her head to one side.

“I mean—I like your sweater. Or—you look nice in it,” he stumbles over his words, like there’s too many in his brain, and settles on just, “Pretty.”

And, oh . Maybe being around her most straightforward friend makes her least straightforward friend a little more, well, straightforward . 

She’s not complaining, but her stomach might be, as it ties itself in knots in protest. 

“Thanks, Percy.”

“Yeah. Should we—?” Percy tilts a shoulder back towards his car, where Annabeth can see Thalia leaning up between the front two seats from the back, laughing hysterically in tandem with Sally already. 

“Yeah, yeah sure,” Annabeth nods, mustering up some wobbly-knew strength to stand, when she sees— “How long have your shoes been untied?”

Percy’s smile should be illegal, as far as Annabeth’s concerned. At least as long as there’s no one else around to share the brilliance of it with. Son of Poseidon or not, he could stop the snow in its tracks and melt it in the air, smile alone.

He shrugs, “I didn’t even notice. C’mon, let’s—”

“You’re gonna leave it untied?”

He shrugs again, but this time, holds up his hands in defense, revealing his Sally Jackson-appointed blue knit mittens.

“Thank the gods you have me, Percy Jackson,” Annabeth laughs, reaching forward from her stoop, beckoning him towards her. He places the untied foot on the step next to her, and she gets to work.

“Yeah,” she feels his whisper and his gaze, but doesn’t dare to look up, in fear she might turn into a slush puddle herself, “Thank the gods.”

“How would I explain to Chiron we went all the way to this school and didn’t get the demigod because you tripped ? Over your own shoelace?”

“Such little faith in me, Wise Girl,” Percy laments, “You can tell him all about my irresponsibility when we get to camp. Us and the new campers.”

Annabeth smiles as she makes the knot.

“You don’t do bunny ears?”

“Huh?” Annabeth looks up at him.

“Bunny ears? To make your bow,” Percy gestures down to his now tied shoe, “One bunny ear, then two, and then you loop ‘em together.”

“What's wrong with how I tied it?”

“Nothing, it’s just,” he laughs softly, “That’s like, a really intense knot, Annabeth.”

“Gods forbid I keep you safe.”

“From tripping! Oh no!”

“I’ll untie it right now, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth stands, arms crossed over her chest, her mouth pinched into a straight line that’s threatening to grin stupidly.

“No, you won’t,” he smiles, elbowing her in the side.

She tries to resist it, to resist him , but she’s always been absolutely abysmal at it, and doesn’t see that changing now, not with his cheeks a dusty pink and snowflakes stuck on the curl that flops above his right eye and his adorable mittens.

“No,” she whispers her defeat, “I won’t.”

“Thank the gods I have you,” he repeats, picking up the bag of supplies she’d left on the steps and heading towards his mom’s car, “You want shotgun?”

“Um, no, I already have my knife?”

“No, no, like,” Percy giggles, literally giggles, oh Annabeth is screwed, “Do you wanna sit in the front? With mom?”

“You go ahead,” Annabeth already has a hand on the back door, “What does that have to do with a gun?”

“Nothing,” he shrugs, before sliding into his seat, and Annabeth follows behind.

“Percy, I love your mom,” Thalia says, the second their doors are shut, “I’m asking Chiron the second we get back if we can swap you for her at camp.”

“Of course,” Percy grumbles, “Can we go now?”

“Hi, Annabeth,” Sally twists in her seat, and she knows exactly where Percy gets his perfect, sunshine smile from. “That’s a nice sweater. You look very pretty.”

“Oh, thanks,” Annabeth tucks her chin to play with the hem of her sweater, “I really didn’t think it was anything special,” (a lie, she tried on seven different tops this afternoon trying to land on the most very special one), “But uh, Percy said the same thing.”

“He did, huh?” And Annabeth thinks she can tell where Percy gets that troublemaker grin from too, as Sally directs one that looks pretty similar at her son in the front seat.

“Mom, please, I’m begging you, drive .”

“Okay, okay, everyone buckled?” Sally asks around, the engine turning over. 

“Yes, and I’m putting music on before you say anything else,” Percy says.

“Oh good idea,” Sally nods, the car roaring to life and slowly pulling out of the spot, peeking up in the rearview mirror, “You girls like Olivia Rodrigo?”

Who invented armor?

Annabeth knows that she knows. It’s somewhere.

She’s too busy screaming right now to recall it, but she has a fleeting thought, in the middle of running her voice ragged and tugging at her wrists and twisting her heart into knots, to remember whoever invented armor when this whole thing is over and find a god willing to curse them for her.

For now, she screams. She screams at the sky and it’s Titan, she screams at Luke, she screams at the gods and she screams at whoever invented armor for giving her a reason to believe that her best friend could be protected. 

Her lungs can’t get air into them quick enough for her to keep screaming. He needs to get out of there. Someone needs to get him out of there. 

It should be her, she thinks. Holding up the sky. Getting him out of there. 

She can hate whoever invented armor, but she knows she’s really just angry at herself. 

Annabeth has drool on her shoulder.

She’s shoved in the middle seat with not enough room for her legs so one of them has definitely fallen asleep, Grover’s elbow is wedged into her left side, New York traffic is really doing its worst, Annabeth has drool on her right shoulder.

And she has never, ever been happier about it.

“Thank you guys for coming,” is the first thing she says. She’s been afraid to try her voice, sure it had only worked without shaking thanks to the adrenaline of going straight from the Mountain of Despair to Mount Olympus and seeing both her parents in between. But now they’re driving home, and Grover is with her, and Percy is drooling on her, which means he’s safe, for now. 

“Always,” Grover bumps his knee against hers, “I owed you, anyway.”

It gets a light smile out of her, and she replies, “Guess now we both owe Percy.”

“I think you’ve paid your debt,” he grins at where Percy has turned Annabeth’s shoulder into a pillow. 

“Yeah well, thanks, again.”

“You don’t have to keep thanking us, Annabeth.”

“Sure I do,” she nods, “It’s different, with you guys. Not some like, bureaucratic Olympus thing. I really need you guys to know how thankful I am.”

“I know, Annabeth,” Grover implores. And whether it’s a satyr thing or a seven years of knowing her thing, he catches her eye to add, “Percy knows that too.”

“I think I wish he didn’t.”

Grover raises an eyebrow at her sudden and low admission, urging her to continue.

“I wish he would think I’m the worst—that I don’t appreciate him and his stupid acts of blind faith and heroism, so that he’d stop doing them,” the words falling out before she can catch them, “I don’t know how—I can’t—”

Grover takes her hand in his, and she is so quickly grounded, even if her eyes still feel watery as she goes on.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to survive whatever’s gonna happen when he turns sixteen, Grover. It felt like the world was ending today, and it was only a couple minutes I saw him in danger.”

“I’m assuming you don’t need me to tell you there was nothing you could have done.”

“That’s the thing,” her voice is so low it’s almost a whisper, and she doesn’t know if she’s doing it to keep Percy asleep or like if it’s not spoken loud enough, what she’s saying can’t hurt her. “I keep replaying that fight in my head over and over and over. I’ve done it between the past three red lights we’ve been stopped at.”

As if on cue, Argus rolls their car to a stop.

“And?”

“And I can’t see a single thing I could have done differently. To have kept him out of there, or got him out sooner, or not even let him be there in the first place. There really was nothing I could have done,” Annabeth says, her hands worrying with nothing, the fray of her jacket, the beads on her necklace, and without realizing it, with Percy, any part of him she can reach. “But there were a million ways it could have ended differently. He could have been so hurt, he could have not survived it, the sky. I know you didn’t see him, Grover but—”

“I’m sorry you had to.”

“I feel so awful,” Annabeth says, a humorless chuckle, “You already knew that.”

“I like hearing you say it,” he starts, then chokes on air, dropping his head into his hand, “Oh my gods, I didn’t mean—I just—it’s good when you express yourself, not specifically you feeling—”

“I got it,” she again, thanks the gods for the little miracle of smiles at times like these. “Do you have any tips?”

“Hm?”

“For protecting,” Annabeth says, “I promised to protect Percy, and I’m just realizing I don’t know if I’m all that good at it. I don’t know how to protect him when I know there will be times that I can’t. I can’t do that.”

Grover is silent for a minute, maybe longer. The light turns green and Argus moves them at a snail's pace up another block, all while Grover seems to think of how to respond to that, and Annabeth wills her tears away. 

“Well first of all, I wanted to throw the whole question away the second you said you can’t do it,” Grover finally starts, twisting in his seat just a smidge to look at her better, “Because you’re Annabeth Chase. There isn’t anything you can’t do, even this. You’re the most powerful demigod I know.”

Annabeth lets out an uncharacteristic snort, “Maybe the most powerful demigod awake in this car.”

“No,” Grover is very firm. He is never firm. “You are the most powerful person I know.”

His gaze suddenly feels too much, and Annabeth tucks her chin, “Okay.”

“So you can do this, and if this is something you want to do, then I’ll help you,” he says, “I swore to protect him too. We’re not doing anything alone.”

“As long as the three of us are together,” she hushes it, like a silent prayer, that Annabeth is sure has kept them alive the past three years more than any godly magic.

“But I also…” Grover opens and closes his mouth like he’s trying to get the words right. His eyes are squinted shut and his knee is bouncing nervously. “I also want you to know you don’t have to do this.”

And well, not what she was expecting in the slightest.

She must show some sign of being absolutely outraged by even the insinuation she wouldn’t do everything in her power to try to keep Percy safe, because Grover is continuing with a quickness.

“I just mean, you were right, about it being different for us. Percy didn’t come to save you because he was told to. He actually was explicitly told not to, by several figures of authority.”

She doesn’t doubt it, that’s so Percy, but it still pricks at her insides that he’d do that for her.

“I don’t know who made you, a teenager, swear to protect someone else’s life with your own, but I don’t think that was ever fair to you. It’s not your job, and you deserve to be protected too,” Grover starts, determined, “So if you’re doing this, I don’t think it’s because you feel like you have to. Not for a prophecy, or some bureaucratic Olympus thing. But I wouldn;t be your best friend if I didn;t make sure.”

“That’s not why,” Annabeth shakes her head, without even a second thought, “I care about him.”

And at that, Grover lights up, “I like hearing you say that too.”

She’d try to shove Grover into the window for that, but thinks it might wake up Percy, so she decides against it. And that should really tell you all you need to know about Annabeth. 

He gets a swift kick in the hoof instead.

“Impossible as it may feel right now, we’re gonna be okay, Annabeth.”

They’re finally almost out of the city. Grover is smiling and immediately moving on to the topic of snacks, trying to see what he can force feed her now that she’s spilled her guts. Argus smiles at her through the rearview mirror after she refuses the candy Grover offers (or the plastic it’s wrapped in) for the third time. Even the setting sun seems to smile, as it lights everything on the road ahead of them a warm orange, and makes the new gray in Percy’s hair glint and glow.

Annabeth’s arms have a mind of their own, apparently, and before she can stop herself, her arm reaches up and around Percy, and her finger loops around the silvery strand that droops over his eyes.

There is a split second of abject terror that consumes her when Percy stirs, his body stretching and sliding and testing the little back seat’s limits.

But his eyes stay shut, and he burrows into Annabeth further, settling on another spot to start drooling. 

She swears she’s not imagining the slight uptick of his lips, but he stays asleep the entire rest of the ride home, as long as Annabeth keeps playing with his hair.

So Annabeth smiles too.

“So there’s this movie coming out soon.”

“Yeah?”

“Looks good.”

“The one with that one actor you like?”

“Specific, Percy.”

“You know which one I mean! He’s like, a dad, but he’s super ripped, and he makes movies that are incredibly historically inaccurate—which is so far off the kind of movies I thought you’d like, by the way—”

“Okay, okay, yes. I know who you’re talking about.”

“And it’s his new movie you wanna see?”

“Well, I didn’t say I wanted to see it—”

“You just wanted to inform me that it existed, then?”

“Maybe…”

“…”

“…”

“Annabeth…”

“Okay yes, fine ! I wanna go see it, and I wrote up this whole speech for Chiron and Mr D about why it’d make a good camp field trip—encourage history, boost morale, you know?”

“And?”

“I didn’t even get to point 3 sub-category B before they shut me down and told me to do cabin inspection—stop it, stop laughing!”

“I’m not laughing!”

“I can literally see you! That’s how Iris-messages work, Percy.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just—it’s cute when you’re all angry and defensive like that.”

“I’m not—“

“You’re not what ?”

“I hate you.”

“You won’t hate me when I get us tickets to this movie.”

“What?”

“Come into the city, one day next week. Chiron’ll let you. And then I’ll head back to camp with you for the summer.”

“How would we even—just us?”

“Yeah?”

“And you’re buying us the tickets?”

“Paul’s coming over for dinner tonight, and I think if I play my cards right and am on my best behavior, I can swing some ‘thank you for not blowing up the apartment when my boyfriend was over’ tickets from mom.”

“What about snacks?”

“Obviously we’ll get snacks, weird question.”

“You’re getting them for us? When we go see this movie? Just the two of us?”

“Yeah. Do you not wanna—”

“No! No, no, no, yes , I wanna go, yes. I’ll uh, talk to Chiron right after this.”

“Okay, cool.”

“Great.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Sounds like something else too.”

“Hm?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, weirdo. Here, before you go, does this outfit look nice? Suddenly got a lot riding on this dinner.”

“Oh my gods, Percy. Your shirt’s all buttoned wrong.”

“What? I didn’t—”

“You’re like, off a button.”

“No one will notice.”

“I notice, fix it. I’d reach through and do it myself if I could. It’s actually driving me crazy not to.”

“Can’t ever help yourself, huh?”

“It’s not my fault you’d be lost without me, Seaweed Brain…Oh, that’s much better.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, now smile. Lemme see your teeth.”

“I promise I brushed them, Annabeth.”

“Can never be too sure. But okay, looks good. This time.”

“Anything else, Aphrodite?”

“Percy, you can’t say that. But yes actually, fix your hair.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?”

“Nothing just like, put a hand through it, it needs a little… umph or something.”

“ Umph?? You really are going crazy, Annabeth. But here, hand through my hair. And for the record, it’s fine. I met Aphrodite, we’re friends.”

“So you’ve said.”

“You know? I thought she looked like you, but with how particular you’re being right now I’m really starting to see the resemblance..”

“She, uh—she looked like me?”

“Yeah. Is this better?”

“…”

“Annabeth?”

“Sorry, sorry, yes. Better. Good.”

“Why are you smiling like that?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, just… your gray fell in front. Looks cute.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, but uh, does Paul know? Should you like, tuck it in or something?”

“Nah, he thinks it’s cool, didnt ask a bunch of questions, but was very excited he got to point to his own gray and use the word ‘twinning’ a bajillion times.”

“That’s cute, you old man.”

“Watch it before I make you show off yours and say ‘twinning’ too.”

“I always show mine off. Honestly, I thought it might start fading by now, but…still gray as an old lady.”

“You’ll make a great old lady some day.”

“You really know how to impress a girl, Jackson.”

“I try.”

“Okay, stand up, let me give you one last look.”

“Good? Movies worthy?”

“In another life, maybe you could have been my favorite ripped middle aged historically inaccurate actor.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Don’t let it get to your head.”

“God knows I don’t need any more seaweed in there.”

“You said it, not me. Alright, I better let you go.”

“You’ll call me back after you talk to Chiron tonight, yeah?”

“I don’t wanna interrupt—”

“Mom’ll wanna say hi anyway. And Paul knows you.”

“He does?”

“You’re like 90% of my dinner-table friendly stories.”

“Weird, since we’re usually on the brink of war when we’re together.”

“To a teacher? That’s better than my seven expulsions.”

“Fair enough. But okay, I’ll call you back, if you’re sure it’s not—”

“I’m literally asking you to.”

“Alright, well. Have a nice dinner. Say hi to Sally and Mr Blowfish for me.”

“Gods, Annabeth, I practiced saying his name the right way all day , and you had to go and ruin it—hey, stop laughing!”

“I’m not!”

“You’re hysterical, I can see you too! Ugh!”

“See ya, Seaweed Brain.”

Annabeth throws her hand through the mist and then squeals into her pillow for 30 full seconds, probably making her Aunt Aphrodite very, very proud. 

This time she can’t.

It's not that she won’t tell you what happens at Mount St. Helens, or why she does it, right before she leaves. It’s that she really, truly can’t . 

Her throat closes up when she tries, the ground feels uneven enough to open up and swallow her whole.

It’s almost a preferable alternative.

She doesn't think there will ever be reason enough for losing him.

Annabeth always has about seven million things running through her mind, but she swears it’s been an empty void of nothingness since this afternoon. It would unsettle her if she had the mind to let it, but again. Empty. 

Most of the morning had been dread, deep seated dread that clung to her chest and made it impossible to breathe. From the second Chiron told her they shouldn’t hold out hope any longer, and if she’d like to say something about Percy when they burned his shroud.

The afternoon had been full of rage, laced with a little bit of confusion, because Percy was back and she knows, one of her seven million thoughts at a time definitely knows, where he was for two weeks.

The jealousy is the worst one to talk about, because it’s deeper than just the dumb crush kind that she’s sure half the camp suspects her wild scene of storming away from the Big House before was attributed to. But she doesn’t really feel like getting into the real root of it, not now, not ever, even when her seven million thoughts come back. 

So she can’t be blamed for missing it, for not registering anyone or anything in her cabin that night until her Yankees cap gets tossed on her bed.

She fixes Malcolm with a heavy stare.

“Thought you might need that,” he gestures towards the hat with one hand before shoving both into his pockets. When Annabeth doesn’t do anything else he eggs her on, “You’re supposed to ask me why.”

“Why?” she humors him, because it feels like what she’s supposed to do. She doesn’t have much of a relationship with her step-brothers in California, but this feels suspiciously like what it might be like.

He’s smiling at her so funnily, Annabeth wants to squirm and smile back simultaneously.

“To sneak out,” he says, truly, before she can even finish her syllable. He has an unusually eager smile on his face. “You gotta go talk to him.”

“I don’t have anything to talk about.”

“That’s not true,” Malcolm says again. Almost the entire camp has been giving Annabeth a wide berth since the afternoon, so it doesn’t surprise her that no one in the cabin is tuned-in to this interaction, but she does appreciate Malcolm being the only one to see her blush at the moment. Gods know he’s caught her before.

“C’mon, Annabeth. You’ve been staring at that window for the past hour.”

“I don’t wanna talk to him about it. It’s bad enough I know he’s right, that we need—” Annabeth starts, fisting her hands in her lap, criss-cross on her bunk, “You wouldn’t believe the plan he has to finish my quest.”

“You can’t be surprised he came up with a plan, all the time he spends with you .”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I,” Malcolm insists, pushing the hat at her again.

She supposes he’s not going to give this up, and if she does go find Percy, no one’s telling her to talk about things that are making her angry. There’s still a dull ache in her chest that she hypothesizes seeing him, without everything they had going on this afternoon, might help settle. 

So she grabs the hat and puts it on her head, tries not to let Malcolm’s growing smile make her smile too. If it does, at least he can’t see her now. 

“I left the door open a smidge. If it’s shut when you come back, use the window by me.”

“You planned this?” (This, in the Athena cabin, is like asking if the sky is blue. But Annabeth’s so off-kilter she asks anyway.) “Nevermind.”

“Should I wait up?” he gets in one last sibling tease, before Annabeth’s feet move of their own invisible accord, and she slips past the just-open-enough door.

The camp is a familiar calm and quiet, odd given all that’s happened, and is going to happen here, she knows, in the impending future. It’s almost nice to get to walk through it now, alone with her somewhere between none and seven billion thoughts. She enjoys the moment and sets her course towards the Poseidon cabin.

Or at least, that’s what she intends. 

Because she only makes it halfway, somewhere between cabins four and five, before she finds exactly who she was coming to see walking in her direction. 

Annabeth takes her cap off before he can walk straight into her.

“Percy.”

“Uh, hey, sorry,” Percy steps sideways awkwardly, gesturing a hand out as if to let her go ahead of him, “Didn’t mean to get in your way.”

Annabeth shakes her head, “You didn’t.”

“Oh, okay good.”

She tries to figure out how to approach this, and settles on a blunt, “Is something wrong?”

“No, ‘course not. You?”

“Never been better.”

“Great. Glad to hear it.”

“Same here.”

“Well, I better get back to uh, being great,” Percy’s lips are pressed into a thin line, and he takes one giant, tentative step forward, an arm over his chest and the other pointing behind her, “In that direction.”

“In the direction of my cabin,” she says, instead of asks. He nods, and she can practically hear the gears in his head turning to come up with an excuse.

“Can never get anything past you, huh?”

“Well, I was actually planning on never being better towards yours , so…”

His eyes catch hers for the first time the entire conversation.

“Just get over here,” she says, and no sooner than her arms are out at her sides, Percy is in them.

Hugging Percy feels like a privilege she’ll never deserve. It is a feat he’s here and even greater that he’s here , with her. 

She sinks into the feeling of it, of being wrapped around him, in a way she didn’t get to appreciate before. His surprise return, or ambush, depending how you viewed it, left little room for her to be, quite frankly, an emotional sap over it all. It was less a hug and more a shock back to life, a pounding on him and fists on his shirt and a pulse count. And then she was angry and sad and confused and elated and just staring at him.

This, Annabeth thinks, is what she was fated to do. To hold her favorite person in the universe, make sure they’re alright.

“I’m still so mad at you,” she says, as she screws up his t-shirt between her fingers and pulls him impossibly closer to her chest. Dumb redhead seeing mortal. Dumb prophecy. Dumb volcano. Dumb island. Dumb gods. Dumb everything. 

“I know.”

“I missed you so much,” she says, breathing in the scent of him. It becomes easier, for the first time in weeks, to do it. Breathing becomes thoughtless again, when it had just a few hours ago been a practiced chore. 

“I missed you more.”

Not possible , she thinks, not by a long shot . 

Because Percy stops missing Annabeth the second he sees her again. Annabeth is stuck missing Percy even when she can get their heartbeats to match up like this.

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“Yes you can.”

Annabeth would love to give him a glare, even though he’s right, even though it would mean loosening her iron grip.

She lets her hand find his streak of gray hair instead, and runs her fingers over it.

“Yeah, I can,” she repeats him, urging up on her tip-toes to squeeze every last available ounce of life out of him and surge it into her own bloodstream. “Doesn’t mean I’m happy about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Percy whispers, which is how she knows how much he means it, “I’ve made you not happy about a lot of things lately. Maybe that’s my destiny.”

“Worse ways to go, I think.” 

And that’s a statement that she can say and mean it too, because she’s sure she lived a very much worse way not a few hours ago.

She supposes it was supposed to be an honor, being the one chosen to burn someone’s burial shroud. But having to do it for your favorite person in the world is not a fate Annabeth would wish on anyone. 

She’s been pretty hard on herself the past few days, weeks, years , really. But she doesn’t think even she deserves it.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.

“I heard you the first time,” she says, “Stop it. There’s nothing—you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Feels like I did.”

“Well then I’m sorry. You shouldn’t feel like that,” Annabeth shakes her head, likes how it gently bumps into his, how neither of them make any move to be anywhere but here, still hugging, in the middle of camp, waiting to be found. She doesn’t mind much, and she doesn’t like the alternative of letting him go. Her cap won’t hide them both, and everyone’s supposed to be in their cabins by now anyway, and she’ll get Percy to use the ‘I was basically dead’ card if they have to. Her cheek presses against his pulse point as she has the thought, like she subconsciously needs the confirmation he’s alive.

She continues, “I messed up, Percy. I’m supposed to protect you, keep you safe, and I didn’t—I should have—”

“You don’t get to do that either, Annabeth.”

“Yes, I do,” she holds him impossibly tighter, “I swore.”

“Annabeth…”

He says her name like it’s one of those twelve they’re supposed to use very carefully. 

It feels like a prayer, and a promise, and an apology, and a plea all in one, and she’s just gotten back her breathing, but its already long and slow and shaky and gods dammit, she’s crying now, like a very good amount.

“I’m supposed to have another year, Percy.”

“Another year for what?”

“To learn how to exist without you,” she forces herself to choke out, “I need more time to plan. To figure it out, how to be just me again. I knew, but we’ve been so close now for so long, and I was—I thought I had more time, but that explosion, gods that explosion , Perce. How did you—”

“I have no idea.”

“Of course,” she giggles a wet laugh, “I would have waited much longer than two weeks to admit you were really gone, just so you know.”

“I know.”

“And I think I’m so mad because it doesn’t feel fair that I couldn’t figure out how to be without you, but you figured out how to be without me.”

“I absolutely did not do that—”

“You figured it out, on your own, how to finish the quest. And you won’t need me—you know what, this is dumb, forget—I wasn’t supposed to bring this up, or cry, I’m sorry, I didn’t—gods, this is so stupid, I don’t know why I’m—”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, keep ‘em coming,” Percy soothes gently, a hand up and down her back, “I love water.”

Annabeth laughs.

“It’s kinda my whole thing.”

She makes good on the offer and really lets the waterworks go after that. They’re bordering on full-body sobs, two weeks, maybe much more than that, of built up tension escaping her through him. She cries and cries and lets herself feel safe for the first time in a long time. 

He is like armor, the best kind.

The worry that maybe he doesn’t need her to fix his anymore still sits in the back of her mind, but everything feels better now, and she’s mostly assured.

Eventually, his voice rumbles by her ear softly, “I’m so sorry I made you feel that way, I really, really am.”

“I know.”

“But I’m not sorry I did it.”

“I know that too.”

“I would do absolutely anything for you, Annabeth.”

She is silent.

“You know that too, right?”

“You’d do anything for anyone,” Annabeth replies with a half-hearted shrug.

“No, I’d do lots of things for anyone,” he corrects, “But I’d do anything for you .”

That thought’s gonna be bouncing around alone in her head for a while, she thinks. 

But it’s late, and her head hurts from crying, and she’s human, so as good as she feels with him, she’s still angry, and scared, and jealous. So Annabeth hugs him tighter for one final second, before she regrettably lets go.

“We should—”

“Yeah.”

“I’m still mad at you.”

“I know.”

“And very mad at your dumb mortal girl idea making sense,” Annabeth untangles her arms from him so she doesn’t accidentally strangle him as she says it. 

“I wish it didn’t.”

“I know.” They should have, by all means, exhausted the phrase. But that seems to come with the territory of intimately knowing someone better than yourself, having them become a part of you. 

“Look, even if it makes sense, and I really do believe it’s the only way, I’ll always need you, pinky swear it, Annabeth.”

“Pinky swear?”

“I don’t feel like swearing on the other place right now,” Percy says, holding up his pinky between them. Annabeth can’t believe having a foot of space between her and Percy used to feel suffocatingly close. This inch right now feels like a gaping chasm. 

She closes the distance by looping her pinky around his.

“We should get to sleep. Leave first thing in the morning. You know where we’re getting her?”

Percy shakes his head, hands back at his sides, “Figured we could go home and figure it out from there.”

“I’d also be mad at that abysmal planning on your part if it didn’t involve seeing your mom.”

“I was totally not banking on that working in my favor,” Percy smirks, and gods, how good it is to see his smirk again, “You okay?”

“Sure,” she lies a little, studying his face. “Sorry I got tears all over you.”

“S’okay,” he shrugs, but Annabeth feels compelled to fix it anyway. She always has to, and besides, he pinky swore that he’d always need her to.

Her thumb brushes a featherlight touch over his cheekbones, glistening with her embarrassing tears, until just a little pink hue remains there instead. It requires all her strength to not let her hand linger there, and let it fall back down at her side.

“Better. Goodnight Percy.”

“Night, Annabeth.”

Annabeth puts her cap back on, wanders through the quiet campus and around the side of her cabin, climbs through the window.

She swears she only chucks her pillow at Malcom before going to sleep on it to prolong the inevitable nightmares, not because her stomach is doing an olympic gymnastics floor routine at her half-brother’s satisfied smirk.

She’s in the tent with the rest of the Athena cabin, trying to make some sort of sense out of how they’re going to fight Kronos and his army, just after coming back from the labyrinth. 

The impossible task somehow makes more sense than whatever her heart starts doing when Percy walks by, preparing himself.

“Percy,” she calls, before she can think better of it.

He looks at her, his ocean eyes wide and probing.

“Your armor’s crooked. Better fix it.”

His hands are on the buckle over his shoulder as he walks away, and it makes sense that her own armor’s not on yet, because she feels like she’s been stabbed.

Alright, Annabeth can tell you why she did it the first time. 

In her five years at camp, she continuously had to ask to be needed. For capture the flag strategy, for cabin leader, for quests, for any sort of acknowledgement from her parents.

And then Percy showed up. 

They were walking down that trail, and he needed her help. He was asking for a couple things, sure. He wanted to make an impression during capture the flag, and no one had really explained it to him (just another reason she should be allowed to do new camper tours, gods, she’s getting angry again just thinking about how many times she had that losing argument.)

But she saw his armor wasn’t strapped on right. And she didn’t want him to have to ask about fixing it.

So she just did.

It felt nice, to be something for someone.

He would be safe. Because of her. 

(Child of the prophecy he turned out to be or not, she was a lost cause from that very moment. The feeling was electric.)

And yes, strategically and physically, it was important too. No person in their right mind would let someone go out without armor. 

But maybe, the real reason she did it, was somehow, someway, she knew . That it would be important, that he would matter to her.

She could tell you she just liked him. Gut instinct.

And isn’t that reason enough?

How do you check armor you can’t see?

Because Annabeth has stupidly been staring at Percy ever since he said he bathed in the Styx trying to make sure he’s…she doesn’t know, wearing his curse of Achilles right? Or something?

Gods, can this boy get any more complicated? , she thinks, as they weave through all the stopped cars in the street, looking for one to borrow. She watches him peek through the window of a minivan, and then twist and check a taxi, and she’s supposed to be seeing if they can take this SUV on her right side, but she can’t stop looking at Percy.

He looks different. Nothing physical. Same hair, same eyes. Same scars. Same gray streak. Same shoulders. Same impossible smile in the middle of a bleak situation.

But something is definitely different.

If only she could see it. 

She’s a completely lost cause. Hopeless, she thinks, because here Percy is, standing in front of her with the most protection physically possible save literal godhood, and she still doesn’t feel good about it unless she can put her hands on him and double check it herself. Fit the strap on his shoulder into the buckle. Slide the beads on his camp necklace. Wipe the tears off his cheek. Run a hand through his hair. Tie his shoelaces. Push his helmet back on right. 

“How do you feel about a bike ride?” His voice snaps her out of her insane train of thought (she’s just Annabeth Chase, she thinks to herself, and she seriously thinks she has the authority to fact-check the curse of Achilles? Di immortales .)

Annabeth looks up from the SUV she didn’t even attempt checking the locks for them on, and finds Percy with his hand on the shoulder of a sleeping Vespa pilot, grinning at her.

“It's our only option, right?”

“Looks like it.”

She sighs and heads towards him, and wordlessly starts to help the biker off his vehicle. 

“Sorry, dude,” Percy quirks, and Annabeth almost smiles at him for it. Before she even has time to think about how insane this all is again for the twenty seventh time this hour alone, Percy’s climbing onto the Vespa and nodding back for her to hop on behind him.

And sue her. It’s all already insane enough.

So there’s no harm, really, in her taking the Vespa owner’s helmet off, and placing it on Percy as she climbs aboard.

“No way.”

“Yes way,” Annabeth adjusts the strap under his chin, “Your brain isn't fully developed yet.”

“Neither is yours.”

“Sure it is.”

“You can’t just say it and make that true. You have a smarter brain, sure, but same kind as mine!”

“You’re gonna question a daughter of Athena?” She says unfairly, looking at the cute way his curls peek out from under the helmet.

“It’s not—I’m gonna go like, ten miles an hour, Annabeth.”

“And you’ll be safe,” she shrugs, placing her arms around his waist and ignoring the alarm bells that are making her head vibrate. If she hadn’t already been to the Underworld and back, she wouldn’t be positive she could survive this.

The little fire of their bickering is quickly gone once her arms are around him, and she doesn’t think she imagines the way he feels stronger, all of a sudden. Bigger, settled, assured. The way Annabeth used to think her capture the flag armor had the magic to make her feel. 

“I’m with you,” Percy replies softly, getting the bike to start, “Of course I will be.”

She puts her chin on his shoulder as he says it, and feels a little invincible too. 

Annabeth may not be able to see the invisible armor he's stupidly gone and gotten himself, but she can still do everything she can to protect him. As they drive off to the river, her body is pressed up to his back, and the helmet’s on her favorite seaweed brain. That’s like, 70% of him right?

She likes those odds.

Under different circumstances, Annabeth would have loved this place. 

I mean the history in the building, and gods, the architecture. They were in a room with a balcony. A balcony! She used to have this super unlike her and very romantic dream of sitting on a balcony at a fancy hotel like the Plaza, coming back after a long day of sightseeing and talking Percy’s ear off, ordering room service and watching the sunset while she ate expensive pancakes. Or something like that. She clearly has’;t thought it down to the details or anything. Of course. 

Right now she’s sitting on a chair right next to the balcony, the sun is rising, and Percy is here, and she had room service medical care.

Close enough.

“C’mere, you’re all crooked.”

Percy is perched on the side of her chair, right by her hip. It can’t be comfortable for him at all, but she’s not complaining—he’s close. 

“Annabeth…”

“Your necklace, lemme fix it,” she insists, reaching her good arm up and making a grabby motion with her hand, beckoning him closer.

He looks like he knows telling her not to do something she’s set her mind on is a lost cause, and in the middle of war, picking your battles is a luxury you can’t waste, so he pitches his torso towards her a smidge, “Can’t ever help yourself, huh?”

“Why should I let our hero go out there with his camp necklace looking funny?” she says, using an effort she doesn’t know if she has until she’s done it to reach up and twist his beads back into place, which were resting askew over his collarbones. 

“I don’t think anyone’s gonna notice.”

“When they draw you into history books one day—”

“I won’t be reading them.”

“ I will , so let me do my part.”

He lets her. Her fingers gently coax them back into line, and she feels hard pressed to find a reason to move her hand away. Her hand falls somewhere over his chest, and she can feel his heartbeat.

It does more than ambrosia could.

Before she has to find a reason to keep her hand there, Percy decides for them, and places his hand over hers.

His heartbeat is steady. He is alive. He is here.

It feels nothing short of a miracle to her, even though she was the one poisoned. It was like they were in a race to leave each other first, even though all either one of them wants to do is stay. It's like, Annabeth thinks, if you leave first you can’t get left. Dip in the Styx. Poisoned knife. Exploding volcanoes. Holding up the sky. Didn’t they used to have a list for this?

“What are you thinking about?” Percy whispers, pressing a hand to her forehead again, “I can see you thinking.”

“About our tally,” Annabeth offers, weakly, “On who’s saved the other more.”

Percy laughs once, tear glistening in the corner of his eyes. 

“Definitely you.”

“You’ve gotten so smart.”

“Spent too much time with you.”

Annabeth hums, “Malcolm said that to me once.”

“You were talking about me with Malcolm?”

“Maybe,” she gives a half-hearted shrug, “Said that's how you got so good at planning. And he was probably right. Besides me and my shoulder, this was a pretty good plan, Seaweed Brain.”

She means to get another laugh out of him with it, really, she does, but his expression gets stony instead, and his eyes cloudy and darting around to look at anything but her.

“I’m so sorry, Annabeth. You shouldn’t have—”

“Hey, hey,” she squeezes his hand, “Yes, I should have.”

Percy shakes his head. She wonders if she can explain to him how she’d stared at him for hours, trying to make sense of his new protection and feeling, insanely and for no reason whatsoever, weird about it, that she couldn't protect him like she used to. And how this now meant she could, and it made her happy, poisoned or not. But she doesn't know if she has the brain power to do it justice, and it might sound like a pile of meaningless mush if she tried, which wouldn’t be helpful.

So she settles on his own words to her, from what feels like a lifetime ago now, “I would do anything for you, Percy.”

“I don’t like that.”

“It’s okay for you to say it but not me?” She raises an unforgiving eyebrow, and he shrinks, “Because last I checked you said that before you went and Achilles-ed yourself, and you’ve been doing it since well before.”

He nods really slightly, not thrilled about admitting this defeat.

“And so have I, so you can’t play that card,” Annabeth adds, softly, “Since the day I met you. Or like, a few days after.”

That finally earns her a smile from him. It rivals the sun outside their balcony. 

“Capture the flag, right?” Percy mutters, corner of his lip turned up in a knowing smirk. He leans closer to her, “My first year. You fixed my armor.”

“You remember that?”

“Of course,” he admits easily, “It was really nice. It had been a long time since someone had done something really nice for me. At any of my old schools, if that had happened, no one would have done anything. The opposite actually, probably laugh, try to make it worse, find a way for me to trip.”

“I think you did trip and I didn’t help you up,” she remembers.

“Oh I definitely remember that too,” he smiles fully now, and Annabeth feels full and warm and safe again, “But you made up for it, I guess.”

“ You guess ,” Annabeth rolls her eyes, points a hand up to her shoulder, “Look at me.”

“Yeah,” Percy worries his bottom lip, but he’s still smiling, “Does it still hurt?”

“Just a little,” Annabeth says, not having to lie about it as much as she was planning to him. It really does feel better now. “Hey, Percy?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad I know,” she whispers. “Thank you.”

He seems to know exactly what she means, his back sitting up a little bit straighter.

“You were trying to figure it out all day, weren’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

They both laugh with that, and it is Annabeth’s favorite act of divinity. To laugh with the person you care about most in the world when joy should have been otherwise impossible. The gods have to play a hand in it. 

She’s not sure how many minutes pass, the comfortable quiet, but eventually, with a resigned sigh, Percy finally pushes her hand back into her space, and gestures absently, “You should probably get some rest.”

“Yeah,” she replies, but that’s all, “I probably should.”

She makes no motion to move, no blink, no nothing.

“You know, this is usually the part where you close your eyes.”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and winks just one eye.

(She has met the god of music, and she would still swear Percy’s laughter is the most beautiful sound in the world.)

Annabeth knows she should sleep. Gather any energy she can so she’s at the top of her game for the impending battle. But a larger irrational part of her can’t close her eyes because she will lose sight of Percy. Not when she just got him back. When she’s living the closest she’s ever going to get to her romantic balcony date dream with him.

Where will he go? What happens next? What if he doesn’t come back? Will this be the last she sees of him?

Closing her eyes on him now feels too risky a move to make. And she is a daughter of the goddess of strategy. So she knows.

As if reading her mind, which is something not entirely out of the question in their relationship, he says just above a whisper, resolutely, “I’m not gonna leave.”

“You don't have to stay,” she rushes to rationalize, even though that was exactly the answer she was hoping for. “You have things to do, thought I heard someone telling you they had reports, and didn’t Jake come by before, saying something about Grover—”

“On the brink of unconsciousness, and still listening out for me.”

“Someone’s gotta do it, that brain of yours.”

“Well, yes, I’m sure someone has something they want me to do, but I can do it from here.”

“Percy.”

“No way I’m leaving. Not a single place better to be.”

“That’s not true.”

“So is,” he huffs, like a petulant child, but there is little bite, “They gave you the best room in the place. It’s like you saved some Seaweed Brain’s life or something.”

“Mine.”

“Hm?”

“My nickname, you can’t use it.”

“Okay, Wise Girl.”

“Better.”

He holds his hand out to her, palm up, and when she reaches out to take it, her fingers fall over his wrist. She can count his heartbeat again. It’s steady. He is alive. He is here. 

“Gonna shut my eyes now.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

She counts ten heartbeats, shuts her eyes, counts ten more, and falls asleep. 

The world had started collapsing, and Percy was still here.

They had made their way to the elevator down and out of Olympus, the whole thing open, just the two of them in it, but they had filed in and crowded themselves in the corner anyway, Percy’s back on the side wall, shoulders squared towards her, Annabeth facing forward, but right up against him.

It was the slowest elevator ride she’d ever been on in her life. She can’t tell you what music was playing, or who pressed the button down, or how long it took the doors to close, or the people who waited outside the doors, deciding to just get the next one. 

But she can tell you this: Percy was here.

And he had dirt on his face. Tons of it.

So Annabeth reached up, and gently brushed it away. From under his eyes, over his cheekbones, on the tip of his nose, smudged across his forehead. He squirms a little, ticklish under her touch and her heavy gaze, and his smile makes it impossible to do anything about the dirt around there. 

She just gets to his chin when his eyes glint, and he looks like the boy she met when she was twelve, for the briefest second.

“Still thinking about those history books, huh?” he giggles.

“No,” she shakes her head.

“What about then? Can tell you’re thinking.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

Percy’s breath sounds like it gets caught in his throat for a second, but then he’s leaning towards her, resting his forehead against hers. His eyes have shut, and his cheeks are pink, and his smile is her favorite proof that gods exist.

“Annabeth…”

The elevator dings to signal their arrival back to Earth.

Funny, Annabeth still feels like she’s floating.

“Let’s go,” she says, nodding towards the open doors.

So Percy pulls her out behind him, hands locked together, and he only lets go for the full minute Sally Jackson spends squeezing the life out of her son. And then Annabeth is corralled into the hug too, and Sally is whispering “ You’re home, you’re safe ,” over and over again in their ears, and nothing else really matters. 

Annabeth Chase is one of the smartest people she knows. 

If anyone was going to know what word to use to describe this, it’d be her.

But she is expertly at a loss.

When Percy kisses her cheek after his best attempt yet at spelling her name in the ripples of the lake water, she really can’t be bothered to care too much about words.

“That one was good.”

“I think that one said banana.”

“Close enough,” Percy shrugs, and Annabeth splashes at the water under her feet giddily.

It’s probably too late to be out, but there are perks to saving the world. No one feels the need to remind you about curfew. They’re sitting on the small dock out on the edge of the canoe lake. It’s where Percy had dropped them after they’d come up from underwater, and at first she had suggested he give her a minute to dry off before having to face everyone in the camp again, but somewhere between that minute and the moon peeking out, it had turned into them sitting in another kind of perfect bubble. They’d been here, just enjoying each other’s company, for she doesn’t know how long. And again, she doesn’t care. 

“I give up,” Percy flops backwards onto the dock, his hands resting on his stomach, feet still dangling over the edge.

“About an hour earlier than I thought you would.”

“Shut up,” he teases, throwing a light elbow into her side, and she leans back into her palm slightly to look down at him.

“I appreciate the gesture.”

“I’m gonna get it eventually.”

“Sure,” she nods, “We’ve got the time.”

“Heck yeah we do,” Percy smiles, eyes contentedly shut, up at the sky, and takes a big, deep breath. Maybe his first in years, Annabeth thinks. 

“Definitely enough time for you to finally take me to the movies.”

“Oh my gods,” Percy slides his hands down his face as Annabeth giggles at him, dying to see the blush on his cheeks when he’s done being slightly mortified, “Did you think that was a date too? Because my mom did.”

“Oh,you mean the time you invited me alone to come to the city from camp so you could take me—again, alone —to the movie I wanted to see? Yeah, Percy, it sounded a little like one,” she shakes her head, “Not to mention you casually bringing up that the goddess of love looked like me when you met her in the middle of the conversation.”

“I can’t believe you remember that.”

“It’s not something you forget.”’

“Well sorry I blew up a school. I’ll try to keep all the buildings around me intact before the next one,” Percy grits, still flushed with embarrassment, “You still like that one old guy?”

“He’s not old.”

“He’s ancient.”

“ You’re ancient.”

“I’m sixteen,” Percy says, and then like its just hitting him, he sighs, “ I’m sixteen .”

Annabeth leans in to him, propped up on one elbow, skewed to the side, and places one of her hands over both of his. 

She used to think she was waiting her whole life for Percy to show up at camp for a quest. For adventure. For a chance to do something meaningful with her life. To prove herself. To fight.

But that was all wrong, she thinks, looking at him here, right now.

She was waiting for this .

“Hey, Percy.”

“Yeah?”

“I think I like you a lot.”

“You think?” Percy smirks, “That’s new.”

Annabeth collapses over him in laughter, butterflies in her stomach, and touches her nose to his. And just because she can, not a single other thing on her plate, she kisses his cheek, and then smiles before pressing her lips to his.

“I like you so much too,” Percy whispers, and it almost tickles, when he says it with their faces still so close. 

“I don’t know if I said so much …”

“You said a lot , same thing.”

There’s a version of this where she fights him on it, because she thinks by definition, so much is more than a lot. But neither of them really do her feelings for him justice. Even combined, they might not be enough, her heart so big it overflowed. 

So she lets it be, “Alright. You can’t tell anyone I’m using this made up phrase because it’ll ruin my reputation, but I like you so much a lot.”

“Wow,” he gazes up at her, his eyes sparkling under the moonlight, “So much a lot.”

“So much a lot,” she manages to squeak out just before he kisses her again (and again, and again.)

They’re somewhere between kiss four and six and a half when they’re finally caught.

“Gods, you guys, is this how I’m doomed to find you every time I wanna hang out from now on?”

Annabeth’s stomach plummets for a second, but when her head snaps up, all she finds is Grover. She props herself back up on an elbow by Percy’s ear, and her dumb boy tilts his own head back, still laying down, to look at Grover upside down.

“G-man! We were looking for you!”

“Yeah, you were looking real hard,” Grover mumbles, but he’s smiling as he trods over to them down the dock, “You know, when I told you guys to try getting along when we were twelve, I didn’t really have this in mind.”

“When we were twelve, you were twenty-four, man,” Percy grins, shifting over in his spot a little so Grover has room to lay down with them. He turns to Annabeth, “And you called me ancient.”

“ Ancient ?”

“Hi Grover, glad you could join us,” Annabeth ignores them, gives Grover’s hair a ruffle before he settles beside them, and she gets comfortable too.

“You make any extra cupcakes?” he asks hopefully.

“Yeah, but I’m like, 90% sure Tyson ate them all as soon as I left,” Annabeth admits.

“Hmph,” Grover bleats, “He’s lucky I like him now.”

“I’ll bake you whatever you want, Grover,” Annabeth answers, “I’ll find a tin can cookie recipe.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite.”

She’s surprised Grover doesn’t end up tossed in the water.

As her laughter peters out and Grover reassures Percy he was only kidding and he loves both of them equally, the calm of camp at night washes over them, and Annabeth smiles up at the sky when she spots Zoe’s star. 

“This is nice,” Percy hums, his hand hovering around Annabeth’s like he’s trying to decide if he’s allowed to hold it. She takes the leap for him. 

“It really is,” she answers softly.

“You guys,” Grover says, as they all stare up at the sky, “We made it.”

“All three of us.”

“Together.”

She really does rack her brain trying to come up with the word for it, for this feeling, this moment, but she is still at a loss for it. It is the perfect kind of happiness. It’s the kind of thing you fight for, because prophecies are dumb and it's exhausting doing everything for the gods only and you don’t fight and claw your way to some technicality, some sort of bureaucratic ending. 

You do all of it for this.

Without warning, Grover lets out a bleaty laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing I just—” Grover wheezes out, “Remember when Percy said he picked Annabeth for his quest because they’d never be friends?”

Annabeth full belly laughs at that, in harmony with Grover, and to Percy’s abject mortification. 

“And I was right!” Percy defends, “We’re not just friends.”

“Oh really? What are we then, Seaweed Brain?”

“You walked yourself right into that one, man,” Grover says, still laughing, head turned towards Percy.

Percy grumbles to himself for a second, just before kissing Annabeth quickly, probably to shut both of them up, but she doesn’t really mind. 

“I can’t believe we went on a quest when we were twelve,” she says. Twelve had felt too late, when she was younger. Now, she can;t believe how young they’d been, “And Percy sent Medusa’s head to Olympus.”

“And if that wasn’t bad enough, then he fought a god,” Grover replies.

“Is it point out Percy’s insane decisions day, or something?” Percy crosses his arms over his chest.

“Oh, if that’s what we’re doing,” Annabeth quips, “Grover, I have to tell you about when Percy said to me ‘that Pan guy better be the shit’.”

“Again, I don’t know what your goal is in bringing this up, because I was right! He was the shit!”

“He didn’t get Grover a wedding gift though.”

“Oh gods, please don’t encourage him to start singing again, Annabeth.”

“I hate you both.”

“Yeah, really believable,” Annabeth says, as she tucks her head up and onto Percy’s shoulder, and whispers a ‘so much a lot’ into his ear.

With that, Percy settles a hand on Annabeth’s lower back, and hooks Grover in around his shoulder with the other, gets back to idly talking about their night, and Annabeth thinks maybe she’s found the closest word yet.

Peace.

Peace looks good on them. 

“I can’t believe you don’t have a key.”

“Sorry, I wasn’t stopping to double check what I grabbed as I jumped out the door and headed into war.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Annabeth clenches and unclenches her hands at her side, before running them over her face, like she can push away the worry wrinkles, “I’m just nervous.”

“Why? You know mom,” Percy shrugs, rocking back on his heels, staring at the Jackson-Blofis apartment door, as they wait for it to open. “And Paul.”

“I don’t think the thirty seconds after I prevented war outside the Empire State Building counts, Percy,” she says, and moves onto nervously pulling at her sleeves. She consulted every person in her cabin and at least four from others on her outfit before they left camp this afternoon, to come have dinner with Percy’s parents.

For the first time since they started dating.

She’s handling it well.

“I told you, he used to teach ancient history. He thinks you’re like, a warrior goddess badass.”

Annabeth glares at her boyfriend.

“Okay, I think you’re a warrior goddess badass, but Paul also thinks you’re cool. He loves this stuff. I think he wrote a paper on your mom in grad school or something.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“That felt sarcastic, but I mean it. He loves you,” Percy insists, knocking on the door again. Downside to not having phones to let either of his parents know they’re waiting to be let in. “And again, my mom is literally going to ask why you don’t build a shrine to yourself on Olympus in your designs.”

“That’s nice,” she grits, even though she means it. Nerves are on high alert. “But it’s different, now, you know?”

“Annabeth…”

She turns to look at him, eyes glazed with worry, and his shining with unfiltered admiration.

But in a surprising turn of events, without saying anything else, he reaches over and tucks a stray braid behind her ear. Adjusts the hem of her shirt. Straightens out the beads on her camp necklace.

“You look really pretty,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“Stop worrying,” he kisses her temple, just as she hears the lock click on the other side of the door, “We’re gonna eat blue cookies. Nothing bad can happen when we’re eating blue cookies.”

It's the right sentiment, and probably true. Sally’s cookies are delicious. 

But Annabeth feels, impossibly, and contrary to what the history books might say one day, that everything good happened after she met Percy.

She doesn’t need anything else. 

She can tell you why she does it. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last.

His armor wasn’t strapped on right, it needed fixing.

And there happened to be a tree they could duck behind.

No one was going to come looking for them. She was the daughter of the goddess of strategy, after all. She knew the best hiding spots, and that during this game, they weren’t really needed. 

Percy’s lips however, looked like they needed hers.

And isn’t that reason enough?