keep it together anyway: a world without percy [PIPABETH SCENES!]

four: cover up the pain

Annabeth stared at the golden drachma in her hand. One down, one to go, she thought. She had just had the worst conversation of her life with Sally Jackson- kind, loving Sally Jackson whom Annabeth thought would be her mother in law one day. One day.... The day she married Per-

Annabeth closed her eyes and pushed the thought away. His name hurt too much to think about, to say, to hear. Instead, she tossed the second golden drachma into the mist of the spray-fan, and concentrated on how she was going to get through this next part.

"O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering." she tossed the coin. "Show me Grover, at Camp Half-Blood."

Annabeth's voice cracked on Half-Blood. Just more memories of the life that she never got to have with Per-

Grover's face came into existence. "Annabeth!" he bleated. "How are things?"

Annabeth gazed at him blankly, not saying anything, not knowing where to even start. Grover's face fell. "Something happened, didn't it? Is there a delay? Do I need to get Chiron? Hang on, I'll-"

"Grover," Annabeth said. She fixed her sunken eyes to his. "Grover."

Grover froze. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. "No."

Annabeth held his gaze. "He's dead."

Grover brayed. "NO! You- there's no way." He looked at Annabeth pleadingly. "There's no way."

Annabeth closed her eyes again, willing herself not to cry. She had cried enough for twenty lifetimes. "He's dead," she repeated.

Grover's face was a mask of shock. "P-percy," he bleated. And then softly, "He can't be gone."

Annabeth looked back up at him. "Well, he is," she said abruptly. "He's gone. He left us. He left me. He's dead." Grover opened his mouth to say something, and then thought better of it. He sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Annabeth, I-"

"You know, I should probably go." In fact, Annabeth had nowhere to go. She hadn't come out of her cabin for twelve hours- but one more second looking at Grover's face would send her into a delirium. "Bye, Grover."

"Annab-" she waved her hand through the vapor and sank even lower into her bed. What do I do now? For the first time in her life, Annabeth had no will to go on. She remembered the day that she and Percy saw each other, at Camp Jupiter, for the first time in months. She remembered the blissful feeling of his arms around her, the salty taste of his lips, how she felt that even if an asteroid had hit earth and taken out all life she wouldn't have cared.

She wouldn't have cared now, either.

Someone knocked on her door.

Annabeth responded dully. "Yeah."

The door cracked open and Piper stuck her head into the room. "Can I come in?"

Annabeth stared at the opposite wall, not bothering to answer. Piper took that as a yes. She came in and sat down next to Annabeth on the bed.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

Annabeth turned to face Piper, her dark, gray eyes boring into Piper's. If she could raise the dead, then yes. But she had already had that conversation with a wrecked Nico. Apparently, he'd already asked his dad.

Piper seemed to get the message. "I'm sorry. That was stupid of me to ask. I- Annabeth, I don't know what I can do for you. And I'm really sorry about that. But what I do know is that we have to keep going. We can't stop now, we can't let Gaea rise. Otherwise his death will have been for nothing." Piper slid her hands on top of Annabeth's. "Percy would have wanted us to keep going."