𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐀𝐂𝐇, 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐊𝐄𝐑.

@greektides said    :    ☯ + percy falling into tartarus!!! you got me!!!! ⤷    accepting. 

thinking back later, she knew before it happened.    the feeling of dread that coalesced in the pit of her stomach, the cold and clammy sensation that washed over her body. she looked at percy standing at the railing of the argo ii and felt the pang of nausea. it was a familiar feeling    -    she used to get it before she became the oracle, the feeling that something was about to go sideways and she had no way to stop it. she’d felt it once for percy when she was on vacation.   (  and then she’d nearly crashed a helicopter getting to him.  )

she had stood up to go to him, to talk him down from the metaphorical ledge because she could tell how worried he was. annabeth had been gone for a while and the longer it took for them to find her, the worse her odds got. and rachel knew that    -    she wanted to remind him that annabeth was smart. she was strong. she would be fine. but rachel never got to him   (  because everything became a blur  ).   first it was the chaos of finding her, pinpointing her location from the air and hastening into a rapid descent. then it was the collapse of the ground as they hoisted the athena parthenos onto the ship.

(  and rachel’s head was spinning, because as much as she was trying to help, she wasn’t much. the demigods all worked so seamlessly together    ;    her presence on the ship had been nothing more than an accident. a desperate friend caught up in a quest because she’d needed to see someone she had    -    not lost, because she’d never had him. but she’d missed him. and her and her ego thought she’d be able to see them off, catch a flight home, and pretend she wasn’t agonizing over it    ...    but then leo had been possessed and that plan went out the window.  ) 

to her, it had become obvious that percy was going to fall when they saw the spiders’ silk that wrapped around annabeth’s leg.   (  he’d never let her go alone. percy would never let annabeth walk through hell alone, and rachel knew it better than anyone on the ship.  )   suddenly, the ground felt like it was shaking, but rachel didn’t know if anyone else felt it    -    if it was the crumbling support or the vertigo that slammed into her.    “  percy,  ”    had escaped her lips in a breath, but nobody heard her over the commotion of trying to free annabeth’s leg. especially not him.

(  she doesn’t remember the fall itself. in fact, the next thing she remembers is waking up in the med bay of the argo ii, unable to speak for the soreness that made it hard to swallow. she was alone. a hole in her chest seemed to grow with every breath, eating away at her until she remembered    -    until the shock broke and the tears, the hysteria all took ahold of her once more.  )