#post-tlo

Though Percy’s air bubble keeps them dry underneath the water, breaking the surface and being drenched with the Long Island Sound feels like a rebirth.  The sun is warm on her skin, the birds are cawing in the sky, and it’s so intense she feels like she should close her eyes against it but all she wants to do is lean in. Other campers, soldiers, her family have all waded into the Sound and are laughing, crying, hugging. It’s a sight so beautiful she could cry, and when she looks over at Percy, watches as he gazes over the scene with his arm around her waist and his camp necklace shining in the light, she does. She buries her head in his shoulder and cries for everything they’ve lost but also everything she’s gained. The sound is buried beneath the rest of the noise, and she doesn’t know if he even notices since they’re in the water until he rests his hand on the side of her face.

“Annabeth, what’s wrong?” He asks, concerned, and pulls away just enough to look at her. Her eyes are red but they’re shining like stars, and his brow wrinkles as he tries to figure out why she’s crying. 

“I— nothing, Percy. For the first time in a long time, nothing is wrong. You’re here, I’m here, Grover’s here. The world isn’t ending. I’m happy.” Her smile is contagious and he can’t help but place a kiss on her cheek, pull her up higher on his waist and she loops her arm around his neck to match his eye level. 

(Because he’s taller than her now, and she remembers just last summer when that felt like the physical signifier of the end of their relationship. Now it’s just another thing she loves about him. She loved him when she was 13 and taller than him, and she loves him now that she’s 16 and shorter than him. She realizes that those changes only make more room for them to keep growing together.) 

The movement makes him laugh and she feels it reverberate through her, twisting around her veins until it concentrates in the middle of her back. He’s her anchor as much as she’s his, and surrounded by clear blue clear water she knows they won’t drown as long as they have each other. 

— 

The campfire burns warm and bright. The sun is just setting, painting Camp in strokes of periwinkle and peach as lightning bugs start to shine in the crisp air and campers, some who have been there for over a decade and others claimed only a month ago, file in. Annabeth looks across the fire, glad the sun is still light so she can see her friends’ faces in all of their detail. Everyone looks a little worse for wear, and it’s impossible not to notice the spots left open for those that won’t ever return, but spirits are still high and music is still playing. Tomorrow they can deal with the reality of winning a war, but today they’re teenagers. Not teenagers trying to save the world or fight monsters or figure out relationships (some of them), but just teenage campers sitting around a fire and singing songs and toasting marshmallows. 

Percy sits between her and Grover but she keeps leaning over his lap to talk to the Satyr. 

“We’re going for enchiladas one more time before you go off to be Savior of the Wild, okay? And you owe me one last dance to that Hillary Duff song.”

She struggles with her emotions, with vocalizing just how little she wants to see Grover go despite the work he’s doing in nature. He’s why she stayed sane through everything, why she’s even alive today, and she hopes that Grover can tell how much she loves him and how grateful she is that he’s her friend. She doesn’t share an empathy link with him, but if the crinkles by his eyes and the way his hand squeezes hers are any indication, he gets it. Warmth spreads throughout her chest from the feeling of being surrounded by people who know her so deeply words aren’t needed.

Then Percy’s marshmallow catches on fire and they both laugh as he desperately tries to blow it out and salvage the burnt sugar. All of their hands get sticky as they work together to build the s’more and it’s melty and messy and the most delicious thing she’s tasted in a while. (It tastes better on his lips later when she kisses him goodnight.) 

Over the fire she manages to catch Clarisse’s attention and beckon her over. The daughter of Ares squeezes Chris’s hand and whispers something in his ear before making her way over. 

“Take a picture for me?” Annabeth asks. 

Normally in that situation Clarisse would crack a joke about how they need something to remember each other by when they go back to school. But today isn’t normal, so she pulls out a disposable camera she got from a bet won with the Hephaestus kids, and snaps a picture of Percy and Annabeth, and then Annabeth and Grover, and then all three of them, and then she sits for a second beside them, turning the camera around and capturing a selfie. It’s a surprise to the boys, but Annabeth understands. The two of them have been at Camp a long time; they grew up together, and now they’re on a new precipice, one undefined by prophecy. These pictures ensure that they’ll all have a little part of home, the way it used to be, to take with them once they leave. 

“I’ll send ‘em to you when I have them developed.” She says gruffly, “But if you can ask your mom to send some cookies over I’ll make multiple copies and then you two can mush over each other everywhere you go.”

Percy nods, a smug smile on his face. 

“As long as you also send me a copy of the selfie. I’ll stick it in my binder so everyone can ask me about the beautiful girl, and I can tell them all about Annabeth.” 

“I’ll still beat your ass, Jackson.” Clarisse leaves them with that, walking back to Chris and her siblings with the camera in hand. Annabeth can’t help but smile. Some things will never change, gods or not. 

— 

“Will, stop. My shoulder is fine. If it isn’t, I’ll come see you.” She says with a tone that makes him stop in his tracks. He might be a son of Apollo, one of the best of this generation, but he still follows her commands when she gives them. 

“You’ve always been too stubborn for your own good, you know that, Annabeth?” He responds, setting down the ambrosia and bandages and signaling her to scooch so he can sit on the table next to her. She can still picture them in this exact position 7 years ago, after a training accident that left both of them in trouble but gave Annabeth the opportunity to iron out a strategy for capture the flag and Will a chance to practice his injury wrapping, so it wasn’t all for naught. 

“And you’ve always been too concerned for yours. I’ll heal, and if I don’t then I’ll make sure you never get into med school.” Her eyes are unwavering as she stares him down but she’s smiling. It’s only a minute until he breaks into a chuckle and slings an arm around her, watching her shoulder. He sighs, looking down at his lap.

“Gods, college. I can’t believe that it’s only a few years out. After— after everything it seems silly to be stressed out about the AP classes I’m taking next semester, you know? Really, it’s hard to imagine doing anything other than waking up tomorrow and going to War Council and then marching through Manhattan. I’m happy, of course, but it’s going to be an adjustment going back to normal.”

Next to him Annabeth hums. It’s a gentle, pensive sound as she looks around the infirmary before finally finding his eyes. 

“Can I be honest, Will?” She asks, continuing without waiting for an answer because there’s no other people in the world she can be more honest with than those at Camp. “I don’t think you should worry about going back to normal. Too much has changed, at least some of it for the better, so it might do you more good to think about how you’ll find a new normal. One filled with the things you really want, like getting into Northwestern and kissing a cute boy under the bleachers.” She winks, nudging him, and he leans his head against hers. 

“You’re also too wise for your own good sometimes. We’re all better off for it, though. Thank you, Annabeth.” She hums again, an agreement, and they sit in silence for a moment before Percy walks in, yelling something over his shoulder as he does and tripping over a loose roll of bandages on the floor. Despite how quickly he regains his composure and tries to play it off, he looks up to see both of them staring, doing everything in their power not to laugh. Annabeth squeezes Will’s shoulder one more time before hopping off the table. 

“Maybe hang back a little late tonight, you never know what kind of trouble we’ll get into with this one around.” Will huffs a laugh and smiles. She can tell he’s still confused, still grieving and wondering about what’s next. They all are, but looking at Will on the infirmary table, seeing him for the person he’s become in the past few years beneath all the stress and fighting, she’s confident he’ll figure it out. 

-

They walk along the beach, now only in the company of the nymphs and the stars. She runs her thumb over his knuckles and her mind wanders, wondering how he’s going to be okay after the events of the past few years. Traumatic as it was, Annabeth knew from a young age, asked for, even, to be a part of the godly world. Percy didn’t. He was thrust to the front of the line at age 12, and she knows that behind his smiles and the way he talks to all the other campers there must be a little bit of bitterness at the gods for what they did. As much as she hates to admit it, she gets it, but it worries her.

Luke was wrong, unequivocally; it repeats like a mantra in the back of her mind. But the issues the children of the gods have are very real, and she isn’t surprised that some defected when they could, grasping for any attention they could get from their apathetic parents. It hurts to think about the people she loved and the decisions they made, to try to figure out and rectify what went so wrong that it led to this. Her brain twists itself into knots trying to come up with an answer that isn’t there, will never be there. So she settles on thinking about how Luke sacrificed himself in the end, and how they’ve done their best to make sure this wasn't in vain for the campers who died and the ones who have yet to be born. 

“Annabeth, you okay?” Percy asks for the second time that day, bringing her out of her thoughts. “I asked if you wanted to—” 

“Are you going to be okay?” She blurts out before she even realizes what she’s saying. Percy’s face scrunches (she still thinks it’s cute) and he shakes his head a bit. 

“I’m fine, why do you ask?” He squeezes her hand and looks at her, the look she only gets when he’s trying to see through all the mazes and maps in her head and get to the core of what she’s thinking about. She looks down at their intertwined hands and becomes acutely aware of the water next to her. The water that’s not just where she swims and teaches canoeing and kissed her boyfriend earlier that day, but the water that is Percy Jackson. The proof that he’ll always be here, that there’s a permanence to him a millennia old. 

“I didn’t ask if you were okay now. I asked if you’re going to be okay later. After you go back home and start school and things get all rearranged? Sometimes you don’t ask for help when you need it. And I know you have the best mom on the planet and the link with Grover, but I don’t want you to feel like you’re lost or can’t reach them, or me, if you need someone. What happened… I can’t help but feel that part of why what happened did is because, as much as Chiron tries, there’s no support system here. It’s quests and scars and nothing to show for it and I don’t want you to think that now the prophecy’s over you’re just going to be cast off, and start to resent this.” To resent me, she finishes in her head, and searches his face for any minute expression. Their eyes meet and his are swirling with the entire depth of the sea as he pulls her in for a kiss. Of their own accord her hands find the small of his back, and he kisses her deeper when they do. A moment later he pulls back.

“Honestly, I don’t know if I’m going to be okay. Do any of us?” His tone is serious but has a soft edge that pulls a small smile out of her. “There’s one thing I am sure of, though, and it’s that I won’t, I couldn’t, do what happened. I have too much here to lose, and, yeah, I lost a lot over the past couple of years, but we all did. Being on the other side has just shown me all of the good things I have here, namely you, so I could never resent it or try to destroy it, okay? I promise.” He plants a kiss on her forehead and runs a hand through her hair, focusing for a second on the gray streak they both have, and smiling despite the cause behind it. 

“Is there anything else you want to talk about? I know you said I don’t always ask for support when I need it, but you’re kind of the captain of that ship.” He lets loose a laugh when she glares at him, but it softens to a smile as he continues, letting his hand rest gently at the nape of her neck, “I’m here for you, too. So is Grover, and my mom, and anyone else you need. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through all this it’s that letting others see your vulnerability gives them the ability to save you when you need it, and eventually we all need it.” 

The tears come, but only for a second before she takes a deep breath and composes herself. 

“Thank you, for saying that. For staying. I believe you’ll stay. I will, too.” She wraps her arms around him, fitting herself against him and letting herself relax, relishing in the sureness of his promise. 

“‘Course I’m staying,” he says, loud enough just for her to hear, “I couldn’t miss you building something permanent.”