The Truth Behind The Myths

And Now Comes the Sad Stuff

Annabeth Chase was inconsolable.

As soon as she had woken up, she knew something was wrong.

For starters, the figure sitting in the chair next to her bed was not her boyfriend.

Of course, she knew the others had been forcing Percy to sleep in a real bed occasionally, but the tense, worried expression on Bucky's face made her think something else.

When she had shifted and realized something was in her hand, her heart had started to pound.

The scream woke half of the camp. Bucky jerked awake and his hand went to a knife strapped on his hip immediately.

"Where is he? What happened?" Annabeth sobbed, clutching the necklace to her chest.

Bucky sighed. "I don't.... I don't know. He told me he had to, and that you would figure it out."

She buried her face in her hands, sobbing so hard that her just healed side began to ache, as if stitches were being torn apart there.

Steve and Nico burst into the infirmary. Upon seeing Percy's camp necklace, which now lay at Annabeth's side, Nico pivoted and dashed back out the door.

Bucky pulled Steve aside and explained. His eyes filled with pain and sympathy for his sister, and he gingerly sat on the bed next to her. "Annabeth?"

She slumped against him, shaking rather violently. Steve chewed his lip. She was never this weak. Even when she felt like it, she always made a point of putting up a wall, creating a façade that no one could see through.

"I just got him back." She kept whispering over and over. "I just got him back."

Steve didn't know what to say.

Nico returned a few minutes later, visibly upset. When Bucky looked at him with a silent question, he shook his head sharply, dropping onto an empty cot.

Several Romans began to congregate in the room, but Bucky stood and they scattered at the look he gave them. Once the room was silent again (other than Annabeth's painful sounding sobs), the four grieved together.

It took almost two hours for Annabeth to run out of tears, but even then her body continued to shake and heave, as if still crying. Eventually she lurched out of the bed and stumbled weakly down the hall to the nearest garbage can and threw up.

"What was he thinking?" Nico asked weakly. "How are we going to find him?"

"We can't." Bucky said quietly. "He went voluntarily."

"How do you know that?" Nico and Steve looked up at him. Annabeth shuffled back to her bed and curled up against Steve's side, looking broken and defeated.

"He talked to me, before he left. He was saying something about it being the only way and...." Bucky trailed off, closing his eyes. "Gods, I should have stopped him. I knew he was going to do something and I just sat idly by-"

"You wouldn't have been able to stop him." Annabeth said weakly.

They looked at her as she sat up slowly, clutching the necklace to her chest.

"His fatal flaw is loyalty.... whatever he did...." she sniffled and coughed. Steve got up to get her a cup of water and a cold washcloth. "Whatever he did was something he saw as necessary to this war against.... whatever it was that attacked the camp today."

Nico nodded slowly. "She's right. All we can do now is wait and see what happens."

Bucky growled quietly, but sank back into his chair, clenching and unclenching his fists repeatedly.

Silence fell over the room again, barring the occasional sniffle from the understandably heartbroken daughter of Athena.

Someone knocked on the infirmary door. After a few moments of the three men glancing at each other, Nico finally called out, "come in."

Reyna stepped in. "There's someone here who would like to talk to you."

The other three looked at Annabeth, who sat up slowly and wiped her eyes with the cold washcloth once more before nodding to Reyna.

The praetor nodded back and stepped aside.

A tall woman wearing traditional Greek armor stepped inside. "I figured it was better to be announced." She said quietly.

Annabeth got up and ran over to her mother, hugging her. Athena hugged her daughter back, sighing.

"I lost him, Mom. I lost him again." She said weakly.

"I'm sorry, Annabeth." The goddess of wisdom replied quietly.

Nico narrowed his eyes. "Lady Athena...."

Bucky caught on too as Athena looked up. Annabeth looked at her friends, then up at her mother.

"Mom.... do you know something?"