Heaven Knows

There's no time to waste, in this famous goodbye.

"Don't be silly, Wise Girl. You know I'll always come back to you," he pressed a chaste kiss into her cheek. "You're my better half, after all."

Annabeth scowled. This was stupid. And why couldn't she come along? Sure, Nico, Percy and Hazel were already going, but couldn't she...

No.

No, nevermind. It was a stupid idea. They were just going in and out of the monster encampment outside New York City, to retrieve those two demigods Grover's team had found.

It was fine. They were going to be fine.

But she couldn't shake the heavy feeling that settled in her gut like a stone.

There's angels landing on the shore.

Nico fell out of the shadows under Thalia's Pine, clutching the hands of a pair of preteens. He retched, sucked in a breath and murmured something to them, sending them in Annabeth's direction before he disappeared back into the shadow, heedless of the blood dripping down his arm and Will's cries for him to stop.

When he made it back with Percy and Hazel, crashing to his knees on the grass, Annabeth's hands flew up to her mouth.

Percy.

He and Hazel were supporting each other, leaning into each other equally and just barely standing upright.

And there was the small matter of the blood pooling at their feet and the low keening and soft moans of pain from both of them, from a gash on Hazel's right thigh, straight down through the flesh where the skin hung open, exposing what might have been muscle, and across Percy's... across Percy's everything, cutting a nasty line from his shoulder to his hip, shallow enough on the extremities but deep enough in the middle that Annabeth knew he was bleeding out where he stood.

"Percy?" The question was barely audible, even to her, but Percy tiredly met her gaze anyway, right before stumbling forward, down the hill, and falling to meet the grass in a crude parallel to his first arrival at camp.

"Ooh gods, that doesn't feel good," he managed to say through the mouthful mud and grass. Hazel let out a soft, delirious laugh, falling over backwards onto her ass and sobbing, tangling her fists in the grass as she bowed forward, crying near-silently.

"It's my fault." She whispered, to herself, to the ground, to the grass she was crushing under her fingers.

Not that the grass could do anything about it.

So lay down with me, let the river run dry.

Whenever Will dropped by Cabin Three to check up on Percy and change the bandages over the stitches, he'd see Annabeth curled up at Percy's hand while he soothingly ran a hand through her hair, murmuring soft somethings to her as they lay there.

On a seemingly rotating schedule, Nico or Hazel, or one of the other Seven still at camp would be in there, talking with the couple.

Hazel and Nico would apologise profusely, to both Percy and Annabeth. And while both would quickly wave off the apologies, neither of the Underworld's children would stop.

Hazel walked with a bad limp, careful not to tear the stitches in her leg as she went. Nico spent a fair amount of time lying in bed, a little huffy that Will had effectively banned him from participating in camp activities until he deemed the son of Hades fit to exercise again.

It's Sunday in the six-day war.

Annabeth could cry. She wanted to, and she did but she could still cry, even if she wasn't sure she had the tears left for grief.