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Sure, she was lonely.

Being alone tended to do that to people. Moving across the country on scholarship wasn't something she regretted, but the emptiness of her apartment kept her restless some nights. The windows would creak in their panes, the walls were bare and vast, the rooms would shriek their silence. It was just something she had to deal with as someone chasing a dream, and that was that.

Besides, she was rarely home during the day and HGTV kept her company during the night.
   
So when she got home after the late shift on Thursday, she rolled through her routine with the reruns of Property Brothers. Briskly shower (the optional leg shave was foregone), jump into sweats (definitely not the ones she had worn the whole week), down a bowl of cereal (while blandly staring at the wall before her). It was a sigh well needed, her joints popping in all the right places and her body unwinding. The Academy had been rough physically the first couple months, but that soon faded once her real assignment began. Of course, it was replaced with mental fatigue, but at least she grew accustomed to the grunt work.
   
Sirens wailed below, far below. Her apartment was in a student zone. It was safe to a point, most of the tenants in and around her building too busy or exhausted too do anything dastardly. Still, she couldn't afford to trust anyone as far as she could throw them. There were two deadbolts on her front door and a chain. Real hassles when she was in a hurry but ultimately smart.
    
Right on time, her neighbor started his shower, the water pipes squeaking something terrible through the wall. Annabeth groaned, hefting herself off the couch. Training ached in her bones and she, as always, had an early morning to look forward to.

The lamp goes off before the TV, Drew and Jon saying goodnight in a flash of static. The darkness didn't hold much cover, orange streetlamps below spilling light across her barren living room. She folded her blanket over her arm and trudged to the gaping hole where her bedroom door should have been. There hadn't been a door there for three tenants, the landlord had shrugged, lopping off a decent portion of the rent because of it. If she looked hard enough, Annabeth could see where hinges used to be screwed into the frame.

She flopped on the bed with a huff, staring at the cracks in the ceiling as they faded through the dark. In her peripheral, the digital clock blinked midnight. She would be assisting a field test in the morning before turning back to the project, meaning she would be awake at way too early. Maybe she should have threw all her stuff together for the next day, maybe she should have checked her charms around the apartment. Her limbs, however, refused to move and that was all the convincing she needed. She laboriously rolled onto her stomach and groped around for a pillow.

And it was quiet.

Sure, she was lonely. It came with being alone. But at least she had the freedom to sprawl her legs as she pleased.

                                                                                             ✴

She was wrapped in the ocean's embrace.

It wasn't a bad thing, she liked how it smelled. Back in San Fransisco, her favorite days were the ones in which her father took her to the beach. They would fly kites and eat ice cream and it was generally a good time. Murmuring, she drowsily nuzzled into her pillow.

It awkwardly patted her arm in return.

Annabeth's eyes snapped open and the heartbeat within her pillow stuttered.

"Hey, don't freak out but-"

She lurched off mystery man's chest and roughly twisted his arm, flipping him on his stomach.