Percabeth One-shots (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

Chasms and Hearts

Words: 1750+

ANNABETH CHASE

Tartarus had changed her.

Physically. Mentally. Emotionally...

She knew that it had changed Percy as well...and that he was there for her.

But she had a strange, awful feeling that she had to deal with this herself.
I guess you could track this feeling back to her fatal flaw. Pride.
But it could also be defined as fear.
If she was weak, her mother would feel ashamed.
But I guess that counts as a sort of pride as well.

It was a raining in New York.

Annabeth was staying with Percy's family.
They had been there for a few days now, escaping the pain from the Great War.
Well at least...that's what they were supposed to be doing.

Annabeth's pain wasn't brought with her being certain places. Objects and people don't remind her of pain...no.

Her pain was always there.

Lingering like an ugly scar.

Except this scar was hidden in a place no one would ever see. This scar was on her heart.

A jagged, long, twisted, fleshy pink scar, embedded deep within the roots of her very being.

I guess you could say it was a pain and fear that ran deep into her soul.
And unlike all scars...this one would not fade.

Forever the deaths, curses, tribulations, quests and memories would remain with her, slowly adding droplets of weight to her sinking heart.

Each step she took through her demigod life, three little droplets of pain would burn through her skin.

She didn't share this pain with anyone.

Not even Percy.

Maybe it was because she didn't want to burden him with her troubles, or maybe it was because he wasn't there when the first droplet fell.

When she ran away from home, at the age of seven, a big gaping hole was torn through her heart by an acidic drop of pain.

No one was there for her when the chasm in her heart was first formed...so maybe that's why she kept it to herself.

~

And even now, at 4am on a rainy New York morning, acidic droplets still trickle down the stalactites of her chasm-filled heart.

Annabeth sat on the floor behind the glass door that lead to the Jackson's (or Blofis') apartment verandah.

She watched as the rain splattered against the tiles, splashing droplets up at the glass door.

She hugged her knees to her chest when another aching feeling washed through her body.

She rested her chin on her knees, closing her eyes and letting out a shaky breath.

Immediately she regretted closing her eyes. The images of Tartarus burn brighter in the darkness...and the images flicker fiercely when she's in the dark...when she's vulnerable. When she's mentally back in hell.

When she's about to tip over the side of insanity.

From which there is no assured return.

Faces flashed through her mind as quickly as lightning flashes across the sky.
Luke. Silena. Charles. Leo. The demigod who saved her from a hellhound. The demigod who served her lunch that one time. The pale face of a daughter of Aphrodite who ended up being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the singing faces of the demigods around the campfire.