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“I, um, need to tell you something.”
Annabeth looked up from her book. Percy was sitting with his back against a tree by the strawberry fields while Annabeth’s head rested on his stretched legs. She was an absolute vision, with her blonde hair spread on his thighs and her grey eyes illuminated by the setting sun.
“Shoot”, she declared.
Percy sighed. They had been dating for three weeks, and he had been gathering the courage to tell her about his misadventures in Ogygia for just as long. He trusted her, and he knew she trusted him as well, which was a big deal. He didn’t want her to feel like he was intentionally keeping this from her, and he didn’t want her to be mad it took him that long to tell her. Truth was, he just didn’t know how to. He liked her too much to risk it all because of something that happened a year ago, something that wasn’t even his fault, and, ugh, why does everything have to be so complicated and messy?
He decided to start from the beginning.
“You know last year, after the volcano exploded and I was MIA for two weeks and everyone thought I was dead?”
Annabeth frowned and sat up, probably sensing this conversation wouldn’t be very casual.
“Yes. How could I forget?”
“Well, there’s something I haven’t really told you about that.”
Annabeth averted her eyes for a second. Percy sort of thought she already knew, or at least had her suspicions about his whereabouts during those two weeks. The way she avoided talking about it - or just avoided him in general - after he came back gave him that feeling.
“Is this about where you went?” Annabeth asked.
Percy nodded nervously.
“Do- do you already know?”
“It was Ogygia, right? You mentioned Calypso in Olympus the day the war ended. I just assumed.” Her voice was small.
“Yeah, it was Ogygia.”
Percy searched his girlfriend’s face for a reaction. She looked lost in thought, and he could almost hear the engines working in her brain, trying to figure out what to make of this information.
“I’m sorry I took this long to bring it up, I really wanted to tell you earlier but I didn’t know how, I don’t want you to think I was trying to keep this from you and-”
“Percy, it’s okay. I’m not mad at you.”
“You’re- you’re not?”
“No, Seaweed Brain” she smiled. “It’s kind of a lot, though, isn’t it? Everything that happened to you?”
Percy snorted.
“Tell me about it.”
They were silent for a few moments. Percy was relieved to get that weight off his chest, and he was happy Annabeth was okay too.
She eyed him for a second before asking him:
“Did… you love her back?”
That caught Percy off-guard. He had always thought Annabeth was so sure of everything, and she handled their brand new relationship with such confidence, not hesitating before taking his hand, hugging him from behind or kissing him. Now that they were together, and especially after the Rachel issue was gone, he didn’t think that kind of thing would make her concerned.
“I thought I did for a while, but now I know I didn’t.” Now that I know what it really feels like to love someone. “It was weird, because she has this, I don’t know, this aura, but I didn’t feel the same way about her.”
Annabeth nodded.
“Thanks for telling me, Percy.”
“I really meant to tell you earlier. I just didn’t want it to, you know. Change things between us.”
“Didn’t change things for me. At least, not in a bad way. You?”
“Ditto. And did you know you’re the best girlfriend in the world?”
“Of course I did.”
Percy kissed her because, wow , how could he not? He really did have the best girlfriend in the world, and no distant islands and ancient curses could change that.
Cabin 3 was quiet at four in the morning. Annabeth kind of wished she didn’t know that, because she had really hoped to have fallen asleep by then, but she had no such luck. Her mind was spinning way too fast and the moonlight coming in from the window seemed way too bright.
She looked at Percy, who was lying next to her. He was sleeping, but not for too long, because she could see his eyelids fluttering and his hand suddenly clutching the sheets. He jolted awake with a gasp and sat up. He looked around, breathing heavily, until he seemed to realize where he was. The boy ran a hand through his hair and sighed, then turned to Annabeth, who had also sat up next to him and held his hand.
Being woken up by nightmares was a regular occurance for both of them after coming back from Tartarus. When they did manage to fall asleep, rare were the nights when they managed to sleep through the night, without being haunted by the memories from the Giant War.
“Hey”, Annabeth called quietly, still clutching his hand. “You okay?”
Percy nodded.
“Wanna talk about it?” She asked.
“Just… the arai this time”, Percy explained, his voice low.
Talking about Tartarus was something they had started doing very recently. When they got back, Annabeth avoided it at all costs, instead trying to busy her mind with other things: the quest, Olympus, rebuilding Camp Half-Blood, sex, anything. For a while, Percy didn’t seem to mind, but he eventually started to bring it up more and more often. She realized she couldn’t avoid him or be mad at him every single time he did it, so she begrudgingly gave in. Eventually, though, Annabeth realized he was right. It helped to get things off her mind sometimes, it helped her make sense of things, even if she was terribly scared to relive those memories.
“Do you ever wonder who did it?” She asked suddenly, after a few seconds of silence.
“Who did what?”
“Who cursed you, I mean.”
“Honestly? Not really. There were so many curses, and most of them didn’t even make sense. One of them was just, like, an eye tic.”
That made sense. Percy had killed a considerable amount of arai, a lot more than she did - Annabeth had only killed two. She imagined he didn’t have time to consider who was it that had cast each of the multiple curses when he was busy fighting for both of their lives. She decided to leave it at that - Percy was already so angry at everything, it was better that he didn’t waste his time and energy remembering every monster he had ever killed to try and assign blame for his curses.
Annabeth, however, had received only two curses. And she’d had spent a lot of her time and energy thinking about them.
Apparently, Percy knew that.
“You’ve been thinking about yours, haven’t you?” He asked.
She nodded.
“I just don’t get it. I mean, I know Polyphemus was probably responsible for the blindness. But the other one? Who did I ever abandon?” Annabeth asked, and she could hear her own frustration creeping into her voice.
Percy’s body tensed beside her.
“You didn’t.”
She looked at him. He stared at the wall. Something was wrong.
“Percy?” She called.
“You didn’t abandon anyone. I did.”
“Percy, what are you talking about?”
He turned to face her. His green eyes were dark.
“It was Calypso who cursed you. I guess she wanted you to feel abandoned, like she did when I left.”
And just like that, it dawned on her. Gods, how could she have been so stupid? So blind? Besides Calypso’s involvement with Leo, she had never stopped for a second to think about the girl. Though she had clearly been thinking about Annabeth.
Annabeth was so angry. It wasn’t her fault Calypso was cursed, neither was it her fault that Percy was sent there, or that he had to leave. This girl didn’t even know her.
“How does she know I exist? How does she even know my name?”
Percy looked down.
“She said- I think I- I talked in my sleep.”
Annabeth immediately regretted asking. Percy sounded so sad, so guilty, and she knew he never meant for any of it to happen. She knew he blamed himself for everything, and here was one more thing he would add to the list.
But it wasn’t his fault. It was hers . It was Calypso’s fault that Annabeth was having nightmares, it was her fault that Percy felt like he owed her anything, and now it was her fault that Leo had made some stupid promise and gotten himself killed. Annabeth wished their paths had never crossed, even if indirectly.
“I’m sorry, Annabeth” Percy said, the pain evident in his tone.
“You don’t have to be.”
“I’m still sorry it had to happen to you. I never thought she- I didn’t think she’d be capable of that. I guess I was wrong.”
Annabeth didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t think there was anything either of them could say that could make things better right now.
She felt Percy take her hand. She just wanted things to be okay for both of them, wanted to snap her fingers and make all the pain go away, but she couldn’t. Instead, she squeezed his hand and pulled him to her.
Together, they watched the sun rise through the Cabin 3 windows, and held onto each other, relishing the warmth that could perhaps distract them from everything else.