A/N: In case you guys are wondering, this is vanelo159 ^^ username change :D I wrote this back in December for a Secret Santa thing, just thought I'd post it up here as an apology for just being gone in the PJO fandom.

Disclaimer: no~

Annabeth can't stand to see him give up.

It's hard to explain whenever Silena asks her what's wrong. Annabeth opens her mouth to say, "Percy's given up," but then she looks at him and he's smiling and encouraging everyone as they prepare for battle. She ends up opening and closing her mouth like a fish, and Silena cocks a brow at her actions.

"Sorry," Annabeth sighs. "Percy's just being confusing."

Silena laughs and Annabeth wonders why her eyes look so sad, but the child of Aphrodite flips her hair over her breastplate and says, "Boys will be boys," as she waves and walks away.

With the clatter of weapons and armor around her, Annabeth sighs and looks at Percy again. His armor is on and he's helping with the transfer of resources and he looks absolutely fine.

Annabeth knows better.

It started when Beckendorf died.

Annabeth sat with him after they looked at the prophecy in his cabin. He took off his shirt and changes in to a Camp one (it's no big deal; he's seen her practically shirtless after a close-call empousa battle), and as he throws his shirt on to his bed, he asked her, "Do you like guitar?"

She blinked, confused. "What?"

"Wait, you can't play the guitar," he shook his head. "Never mind."

"What kind of a question was that?" she laughed. "Why did you ask?"

He didn't answer her right away, and she waited impatiently for him to respond until he chuckled lightly and said, "I was just thinking of who would like my guitar."

"Why are you giving it away?" she asked. "I thought you loved playing guitar."

He gave her a lopsided smile. "I do, but I'm not gonna need it anymore, right?"

Percy continued at the look on her face. "You know... the prophecy and all..."

His words slowly sank in, and the first thing that came over her was a sense of dread and unhappiness in the pit of her stomach. She felt shocked and scared and worried and sad all at the same time.

"What?" she says, and his eyes widened at the tone of her voice.

"You heard the prophecy, Annabeth," he sighed, and he sounded so exasperated that it made Annabeth do a double take. "Sure, I've been hearing it for three years or something now, but think about it! I'm supposed to die soon. I can't just avoid that!"

She shook her head. "No."

"...What?" he asked, raising a brow.

Annabeth stood. "No," she repeated. "This- this isn't like you. Percy, what happened? You aren't like this."

Percy took a step towards her. "Annabeth, really, it's okay-"

Her laugh was more bitter than it should be. "No, Percy, it's not."

She left.

When Silena dies, Annabeth's already pensive and worried mood worsens.

Clarisse is crazy and she goes on a rampage, and that is the worst Annabeth has even seen her - striking down enemy after enemy with tears in her eyes. One of Annabeth's few actual friends dies and then she has her almost-boyfriend planning on his death happening soon.

Things aren't going good for her.

As Percy and Annabeth head towards Olympus, she stays quiet because everything hurts. Grover is carrying some plant and Connor and Travis are annoying and talkative as usual as they enter the Empire State Building.

Percy, Annabeth, and Grover get in the elevator, and Annabeth feels like the world is ending all at once. The two in the elevator beside her have been on so many quests and adventures with her, been in so many battles and predicaments, and here they are riding up an elevator to Olympus where Percy will most likely die.

To take her thoughts away from that, she stares at the blinking numbers in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Percy lean his head against the wall with a pained expression on his face.

Grover comforts him. "Percy, everything's gonna be fine," he says with a calm smile on his face despite how tense the air is.

Percy sighs. "No," he says quietly. "Everything's going wrong. Silena wasn't supposed to die."

"Everything happens for a reason," Grover says, and that doesn't help.

"And because the prophecy says so, I'm going to die too, right?" Percy says, his voice loud. Grover's eyes are wide and he doesn't know what to say.

Annabeth sighs. She is tired and halfway broken and she just needs it all to end. "Have you ever considered the impossible, Percy?" Her voice doesn't sound like her own. "That maybe you don't die? That you survive? Have you ever considered that?"

He doesn't reply.

She didn't expect him to.

Just like she wanted, everything is over, Luke's dead body was taken away, and Percy is miraculously still alive beside her.

She's a little sad because of Luke, but she's found closure after their little talk. He wasn't a pure soul, she knew, but she saw that hint of light when he died. But that doesn't really matter to her because she's been preparing for that moment for five years.

She hadn't been preparing for Percy to survive, however. She is ecstatic beneath her bruised and beaten state, blood that's not her own underneath her fingernails, hair frazzled and choppy. Percy still looks a little amazed as campers fill Olympus, people congratulating him and asking him if he's hurt (which if he is, it's not bad- he's invincible, she knows).

And after Percy gives her the shock of her life by turning down godhood, her chest is bursting because the guy she likes is alive despite all odds and wants to stick around with her for a while. And after they kiss for the first time, she feels genuinely happy because if only for a little bit, things in her life are going right.

Just as fast as it came, her luck disappears.

Percy goes missing. A strange new boy shows up at Camp with no memory. Everybody is buzzing and moving about her and she has no idea what's going on except that Percy is gone.

As she searches for nine months- nine long, hard months, she worries about him. She worries that he doesn't remember her and that he's thinking he's going to die again. So many tears of frustration, anger, and sadness are shed while she looks for him, and she prays to every god there is that he doesn't do something stupid like get himself hurt.

She wishes she could tell him what she told him in the elevator. She wishes to tell him to imagine him surviving everything.

Annabeth steps off of the Argo II, and she looks frantically for a tall guy with dark hair. There are so many people crowding her though, seeing as how Jason knows everybody and they're all greeting him rather enthusiastically. Annabeth knows Percy's alive and she's looking for him.

She can't find him until the crowd parts and a guy and a girl walk through, both wearing togas and laurel wreaths. She looks at the girl, who is rather intimidating, and then her eyes travel towards the other.

It's Percy, and the relief that washes over her body is indescribable. They're running for each other and they're hugging and saying all these things, but Annabeth doesn't even care because she had been so worried and to hear that he's fine and to see that he's fine is all that matters.

That night, as she's trying to take off his toga and his lips hover over her pulse point, she asks him with a breathy voice, "Did you stay strong?"

He pauses. "What do you mean?"

"Do you remember," she starts. "That one day in the elevator in the war? When I told you to imagine the impossible?"

Percy smiles. "Of course. Why would I forget that? You give the best advice, I swear," he says playfully.

That's all she needs. Annabeth relaxes.

And that night, they're finally together.

A/N: Review and tell me what you think~ :D Thanks for reading ^^