I'm sorry, Annabeth

Annabeth XIII

Annabeth drove.

Well, she was the oldest. Thalia was stuck at the age of 16, and Nico was also 16, well, not counting the years (who knows how many?) he spent in the Lotus Hotel.

There was an eerie silence in the car.
Annabeth didn't dare to turn on the music. She didn't care anyways. Who would care about listening to music wen your boyfriend is most probably half-dead? She drove on, focusing on the road.

Thalia broke the silence.

"What do you think the gods would say?" She asked softly.

"I have a feeling Poseidon would be worried." Annabeth commented, her eyes still on the road. "Percy is his favourite demigod isn't he?"

Nico nodded curtly.

"Hey, how are we going to go up onto Olympus anyway? You need to have an appointment with the gods before you could go in, remember?" Thalia asked again.

Silence.

"I'm the architect of Olympus, right?" Annabeth answered unsurely. "We can say I need to check up on the process."

The chance of getting up in Olympus just because Annabeth is the architect is rather slim. Annabeth could hardly even go up there when she was designing Olympus, let alone check it.

Oh gods, how she hated being doubtful.

Annabeth drove on. Thalia had stopped asking questions, and Nico just stared out of the window, emotionless.

Surprisingly, this time, Nico broke the silence.

"I think someone else is on this car."

Annabeth slammed the breaks. The car skidded to a halt.

"Ow..." it was Nico. He bumped his head.

"What the Hell did you think you were doing?" Thalia looked enraged.

Annabeth put her index finger on her lips. Thalia's shoulders loosened, and quieted down.

There was a small grunt of pain from the bunk of the car.

Annabeth silently opened the vehicle door and noiselessly walked to the bunk of the car, and opened it, grabbing her knife.

"Jason?" Annabeth cried, almost dropping her knife.

Shock was written all over Thalia's face.

"What are you doing here?"

Nico was emotionless, only turning around to take a look at Jason.

Annabeth laughed.

"Come on in, take the seat next to Nico, in the passenger's seat." She motioned next to Nico, who was scowling.

Thalia was glaring at Jason.

"So much like Percy." she muttered.

Annabeth blinked.

"Sorry, what?"

Thalia scoffed.

"When you were captured by Luke and Atlas," she explained, "he wasn't invited to the rescue party, and he sneakily followed us."

Nico folded his arms and stared out of the window, winning sympathetic stares from Jason.

Annabeth had to fight back a sob.

Seaweed Brain. She thought.

Thalia hastily wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her oversized coat.

"Him. That kelp head. Always so slow, and always so loyal."

"So stupid sometimes. Never thinks about himself." Jason added.

"Hate him. Always puts others first." Even Nico joined.

Annabeth sniffed.

"I wish he were here."

Nobody spoke for the next hour.

Gradually, the other three demigods fell asleep. Even Annabeth was fighting the urge to close her eyes and drift off.
She looked around her. Wow. They were already in Manhattan. The Empire State building was just a few miles away.

Annabeth pulled over at a parking lot near the Empire State Building.

"Hey, wake up." she whispered to Thalia. Thalia groaned and just turned her back towards Annabeth.

"Wake up!" Annabeth said, a little louder this time. "Flying monsters! Invading our car!"

Thalia jumped up, and bumped her head.

"WHERE? COME AT ME, BRO!" she cried, waving her bow and arrow.

Annabeth was cracking up.

"We're at Manhattan, Miss Lieutenant of Artemis."

"Oh." Thalia sat down, rubbing her sore head.

"Help me wake up the others?" Annabeth felt like she was talking to a 5-year old kid.

"OY, ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!" Thalia yelled. Jason sat up almost immediately.

"Holy Hera, where?" he looked around, frightened.

Nico opened his eyes calmly and at the same time creepily, like he had never been asleep at the first place.

Did he even sleep at all?
The four demigods walked to the Empire State Building, blending in with the other busy New-Yorkers, some busy businessmen were bustling about, tapping on their smart-phones, some school-children were gossiping happily, walking in groups of three to seven.

The four slipped around the busy people, and finally got to the building.

"600th floor, please." Annabeth said to the counter. The man at the counter eyed Annabeth cautiously, then laughed.

"Kiddo, are you trying to play with me? There's no 600th floor."

Thalia stepped before Annabeth.

"We need to see the gods." she hissed.

The man at the counter shook his head.

"Nope. Nothing like that, run along to your parents."

Annabeth walked closer to the counter.

"I'm the architect of Olympus. Annabeth Chase. Look it up."

The man looked at Annabeth suspiciously, flipped open his huge contact book on the counter, and sighed.

"Okay, fine!" he sighed, holding his arms up in defeat. "You are demigods. Poseidon is a bit sulky these days, so mind you." He let them in.

"Thank you." Jason nodded to the man. The man shrugged.

"It's my job."

They stepped into the elevator. 'Stayin' alive' was playing loudly.

"Uh, seriously? That's like, so old school, Apollo!" Thalia yelled, exasperated.

"That's my favorite song." Jason said, offended.

"Jason, I can't believe you don't even have my music genes!"

"It doesn't mean I need to love everything you love!"

"It's also pretty ironic, you know, with Percy's situation..." Annabeth suddenly said. "Staying alive."

The two Grace siblings stopped arguing.

"Sorry." Jason muttered.

Ding

They were at Olympus.

The four demigods walked out of the elevator, reaching the shiny gold road, and to Annabeth's surprise, there was no one in sight.

"Where is everybody?" Jason asked.

Annabeth didn't answer. (Well, she didn't even know why, how could she?)

Thalia, surprisingly, didn't comment, and only adjusted her Hunter tiara uncomfortably.