Reading is Fundamental

XV - Annabeth - Onward

ik i said i'd put out a bloopers thing with 15 but it's not put together yet, and it's not exactly vital to the story so i wasn't worried lol

Warning: Discussion of major character death. Brief discussion of hypothetical torture and gore. Discussion of small animal death. Crass language

"What we deeply love we can never lose, for all that we love becomes a part of us," she said, whispering in the quiet.

Percy paused. Then he pulled away to look at her curiously. "What?"

Annabeth huffed, not sure why she was blushing. "I heard it in a podcast, okay? I've kind of been needing them lately...." It finally clicked. The last question unfurled itself. "Oh my gods," she said, subconsciously alerting Percy to keep him on the same page.

"What is it?" he asked.

Annabeth smiled, relishing in the feeling of finally figuring it out. "I know why you brought the me from when you were missing, instead of the one closer to your time."

"Why?"

"Because right now I'm living without you, and you need to learn how to live without me," she explained. "We both need to figure out how to cope without the other."

Percy looked remarkably surprised for someone being told about something he did. "Okay," he said, "what do you do?"

It'd only been two weeks for her, but at the same time it felt like months. "I just spend most of my time trying to find you, but that's not really something you can do," she answered honestly. "Other than that.... I guess I just train a lot."

He smiled. "Yeah, I do that too."

"And talk about it," she said knowingly.

It faded. "Not a huge fan of that one though."

"It helps," she said. "It honestly does."

He blew a raspberry. "Any other ideas?"

Humming, Annabeth stood up. She got off his lap and settled more comfortably into the couch beside him. "Umm... architecture?"

He laughed.

"Seriously though," she insisted. "Talk about it. Like you are with me, right now. Does New Rome have therapists?"

"Yeah, they do," he said, like that was the only thing shesaid. He very clearly was trying to end the thread of conversation, and for once, she let it go. This was an important issue, but Annabeth knew how to choose her battles. They'd come back to it.

"Fine," she said. "Then tell me more about what happened with Poseidon." She was wary of poking the bear, but if Percy was going to ostracize his own father like this he better have a damn good reason.

Percy was clearly relieved by the change in topic. "After we defeated Gaia, the olympians decided to have a party. And I don't have a problem with that; "we killed mother earth, let's celebrate" - that's cool. But it lasted like two years. When Pallus came and attacked, no one came. I don't know if they were too wasted or what. Hades came, but he's not even part of the council half the time. I don't think he'd been there for months at that point."

"Poseidon?" she prompted, trying to get him back on track.

"Yeah, um, me and him had already been having problems for like months at that point. After the second war, I started to kind of apprentice under him during the summer. It was his idea mostly. I thought I was going to get to learn about cool ocean stuff; different dialects of blordish- which is the language of the fish, meeting mermaids or whatever, but really," he shook his head bitterly, "he just wanted me to be some sort of underwater politician. One of his lackeys. He- he kept sending me out on these bullshit diplomatic missions. I didn't know why, but I went along with it. Maybe I'd see something cool there. I learned after the fact that some of those he sent me specifically as a threat. Apparently people had heard what I'd accomplished or whatever," he made a sour face at the word, "and didn't want to get on my bad side. He sent me so they were too scared to disagree. I mean I'm not gonna lie it made my job a hell of a lot easier, but still the principal, you know?"