I hope there'll be no confusion after this chapter because this is the last one. If you have any questions, please ask and I will reply to it.

Read the author's note at the very bottom, it might concern you.

The Story of Us

Percy was woken up suddenly by the odd smell in the air, it smelled like smoke, when he was more awaken, he sniffed the air, it was some kind of tobacco or perhaps cigar, but he wasn't sure, he wasn't that experienced with drugs. Turning on to his back, he looked at his side, the other side of the bed was unoccupied. Sitting up, suddenly panic rushed through him.

Slipping on his bath robe and a pair of slippers, he made his way down stairs quietly. A sense of deja vu washed through him, he remembered the last time he walked down those stairs in the exact same state of mind, even the time was somewhat similar. It was two last time, this time, it was one. Same difference. Though, the last time he discovered the absence of his girlfriend next to him, he had found her in the kitchen with the lights on, but this time, when he reached the bottom of the stairs, everything was dark. He was standing in the middle of his living room in pitch black. Standing still, he could feel a movement around him, someone was moving, but he couldn't see the figure in the darkness.

Walking to the light switch, he was about to flick the lights on when he saw a dim orange light coming from the kitchen, it was moving. He removed his hand from the light switch in the living room and walked towards the kitchen. His eyes fixed on the dim red light, afraid that it would disappear any time. As he got closer to the light source, the smell of the smoke was getting stronger and stronger. Too strong that he could no longer identify the smell.

"Annabeth?" He found his voice, coming out cautious and small has he felt his way to the kitchen table.

There was no respond to his tentative questions. Instead, he saw the light moving towards the table and a speck of it dropped into the bowl beneath it. For a moment he feared that the person was not Annabeth. The longer she prolonged for not giving an answer, the more anxious he became. Striking up to the light switch for the kitchen, he flicked the lights on, this time without hesitation.

When he turned back, he recognized the person immediately, it was Annabeth, but everything seemed off with her. She flinched when the light was turned on, but there were no other movements. She looked stiff.

Her hands brought the burning stick to her mouth once again, her eyes stared at the wall in front of her blankly. They were hollow. Nothing on her, apart from that one hand with the stick, was moving. She didn't even blink when the lights were on.

"Hey," Percy walked to stand in front of her, but her eyes didn't move, they seemed to look right pass him as if he was transparent. "Annabeth." He called again, waving a hand in her face trying to make her eyes focus, but it was no use. "Are you smoking weed?" He asked after a thorough examination of the burning stick in her hand.

Without making a sound, she shook her head ever so slightly, but that was the only part of her that moved.

"Is that Riptide?" He gasped, pointing at the glass of liquid next to her hand, resting on the table.

Again, she shook her head using the same amount of energy and generating the same series of movements.

"Are you going back to sleep?" He then asked. He, himself, wasn't the most wide awake, he wasn't sure what kind of answer he wanted to get out of her, not that his brain was functioning in the correct mode either.

For the third time, she shook her head, but this time, she lifted her pair of hollow eyes and directed it at him. When he looked into them, he felt his eyes been sucked out of him and drawn into hers, they were too deep and void, it was hard for him to ever reach the bottom of them.

Sitting down, he decided to observe her for a while, just to make sure that she was alright, knowing that she wasn't going to get normality back to life because to her, it was her normalcy.

"Go back to sleep, Percy." The hoarse in her voice startled him. For too long, she wasn't talking, her voice came out drier and huskier. They were more rough than usual. He looked up to make sure that her lips were the ones that moved to speak the words that he had heard.

"What?" He whispered in disbelieve, there he thought she was half dead.

"You heard me." She said in the same tone of voice.

"Only if you come with me." Assuming that he didn't misheard her, he struck up the stubborn side of himself and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

To his surprise, she put out the stick and downed the gin in her glass and stood up. Extending her hand to him.

"Whatever makes you sleep at night." She muttered as she stared at him expectantly.

He thought there would be a bit of persuasion needed and a little bit of a fight involved if she was unstable, but this gesture had surprised him. Perhaps, after all, he still had a lot to learn about her. It only took him by surprise, shocking him even more than he thought he had been.

"Coming?" She asked, her voice brought him back.

Nodding, he took her hand and allowed her to drag them back to his room, now shared with her.

¢.¢

The next morning, Percy had half expected to see Annabeth next to him, but again, he found himself laying in his huge bed alone with the blanket wrapped around him tightly. Sitting up, he glanced at his nightstand, it said eight in the morning. He was surprised that he could wake up at that hour.

"Morning, Chase." His greeted once he reached the bottom of the stairs, the exact same spot that he was at just merely seven hours ago.

"Hmm." Annabeth hummed a response, telling him that she had heard him, but made no move or indication that she was going to elaborate on her greetings.

Walking to take a better look at her, he opened the cabinet and took out a mug. When he turned around, he saw her stirring a cup of coffee in front of her, it was black and to him it looked just as bitter as her face.

"Hungover much?" He asked, only out of concern and not hinting anything. She nodded and pushed the coffee away from her to him.

"I'd better not drink that then." She muttered dully, still staring at something.

"Huh?" He wasn't understanding any of her behaviors lately, but he had always taken her past experiences and disorder into account, so he had never bothered to ask about it. But the curiosity was eating him. "Annabeth," so he decided to ask, "what happened last night?"

This caused her to look up, thought she said nothing, he got her attention nevertheless.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I had a nightmare." She spoke. He had already started to add milk into the warm coffee, thinking that he may not be getting anything from her.

"About?" He encouraged her to carry on.

"Suicide."

He dropped the spoon that he was holding which was about to enter the mug again.

"You committing it or…"

"Me."

The short answers were not what he wanted, but it was what he could get at this time and he'd have to live with it. From all the time that he had spent with her, he had learned that it would be extremely difficult for someone to get something out of her, even it was just a small piece of information that had nothing to do with her.

"I had drank a poison in my dream, and that was apparently too strong for me to bear, so I died." She elaborated, not knowing why she was saying it.

Percy didn't know what to think or how to react to her statement, so he just stayed still and waited for her to continue; and she did.

"I remembered vividly downing it when I thought no one could see me." She continued. "As the poison took effect, I heard people calling my name, and I can see some rushing towards me, but I'm immobilized. I remember trying to reach out or tell them that there's no use, yet something's just pulling me away, I am unable to do anything apart from witnessing everything. I was woken up after I closed my eyes in my dream."

"Was that Riptide? The poison that you drank." He asked quietly.

Annabeth thought for a moment, then shook her head. "It was something new."

"Who gave you that?"

"I don't know, I just remember it being placed on the table, someone telling me that I have to try it."

"Your parents?" He suggested.

"The voice doesn't sound like them." She shook her head, dismissing his idea.

"Someone working for your parents?" He tried again.

"No, I think..." She glanced up at him, hesitating on whether she should tell him her theory or not.

"Yes?" He ushered.

"I think it's me who told myself to drink it. I think it's my invention." She finished her thoughts quietly, looking at his face trying to register his reaction.

"What- are you talking about?" His mind drifted back to the lab the she had showed him when he visited HQ. All the chemicals and bottles on the shelves and on the table flashed in front of him, he tried his best to recognize the substances, but he couldn't read anything. That was one moment when he wished he was a better student in school.

"You've seen my lab, Percy, you know what I am." She sighed, shaking her head. To her, this suicide would be inevitable, she just felt it.

"What do you mean?"

"I've told you that I'm trying to find an antidote for Riptide, and I've found it once, but I've lost the document." She explained, her eyes didn't leave his face as she took in his reaction. "So while I'm trying to find that antidote again, I stumbled upon this new substance that has emerged from one of my multiple experiences, and I think that might be even more dangerous than Riptide. So while I'm trying to find a cure for Riptide, I'm also developing this new poison that kills faster than Riptide and has an even nastier effect on human body."

Percy was again, speechless.

"I'm not yet able to mend it with gin yet, so it's not the colorless or in the color of gin. I'm working on it though." She continued, getting more excited as she got carried away in talking about her new development and inventions. The nightmare completely forgotten, but he still remembered, as he was trying to think back to what exactly happened and analyze her actions. He had slowly become a great expert in ASPD, all because this woman in front of him.

"Oh, I remembered." She exclaimed excitedly suddenly, breaking the silence. "I recalled the color of liquid that I've intake in my dream. It's a beautiful color." She said dreamingly as if it was some pleasant memory to recount. "It's some where along the lines of the color of the pacific ocean, the center of it of course. What is it? Oh, yes, right, it's somewhat similar to the color of your eyes, Percy." She jumped up enthusiastically, grabbed his face and stared in to his eyes, observing the color.

"Are you okay?" He asked, letting her hold him.

"Yes!" She answered. "I'm more than fine. I think I've just found the most beautiful poison in world." She released him and did happy dance in the kitchen. Percy didn't know whether to feel happy for her or to be scared that she might use it on some innocent soul. "Are you not happy for me?" She asked him, dancing towards him, but he moved away.

"Who's in your dream, Annabeth?" He asked, diverting the subject back to what they were talking about earlier.

"Luke." She blurted out. "My grandma." She sat down, as if she was suddenly hit by an emotional memory. "My parents in a distance." She thought through the vivid images in her dream that she could still clearly remember. "That's basically it, I think." She said.

Percy's face fell a little, he had thought maybe, in the list of her loved ones, he would have a spot.

"What were they doing?" He asked. "What were each of them doing?"

"Luke was sitting in front me, just across the table." She recalled.

"But you said no one saw you."

"He didn't know what's in the glass and he didn't see me drinking from it." She shrugged as if it was supposed to be obvious. Percy nodded, accepting the explanation. "He was talking to me about something, and he looked troubled, but I don't remember anything that we've talked about. My mind was occupied with suicidal thoughts at that time already, so I didn't pay any attention to what he was saying." She paused, recalling the events in her dream. "Then there's my grandma. I heard her call when I slid down the chair that I was in. I heard my parents rushing to her, trying to pull her back and tell her that I was alright. I saw my parents smirking at me while they pinned my grandma back down in her seat. It's weird." She concluded. "My grandparents died long time ago, they loved me the most but they died when I was really young. None of them knew what my parents did to me. I loved them, I remember their faces clearly, but now its becoming vague and blurry." She said more to herself than to him, in spite this was supposed to be her informing him. "I think I gave myself the poison because I am just prepared to die, I didn't want to live anymore. Luke was my boyfriend in that dream, so it must've been when I'm still in high school." She deduced, not noticing Percy's pained expression as he wasn't included in any of them, not even represented. "Yes, I didn't dream of you, I'm surprised." She sighed, apparently, she was still conscious of his existence in the room. "Perhaps, that's because you didn't have much of an influence in my early life, maybe you're just not in my life for long enough." She mused. "Nonetheless," she decided, "I think you're more influential to me than any of the people that I've dreamt of."

His head perked up as the compliment rolled off her tongue, he doubt it was a sincere comment, but he took it as a genuine one anyway, knowing it would be hard for her to feel anything sentimental.

"Are all your nightmares like this?" He asked.

¢.¢

This time, Annabeth was back in jail; but it wasn't the one that she had served her sentences in, it was a mixed gender prison. She had found herself in a cell with several other inmates that were all male. Looking down, she found herself standing on top of a bunch of loose hay. To her, it looked more like a farm than a prison cell, but she couldn't make any verbal comments apart from just scowling at her surroundings.

She didn't know what she was doing, because all she could do was to move her hand to her mouth and take the mouthpiece in between her lips as she inhaled deeply to suck in the small particles that would make her feel better. She felt like she was hiding away from something, but she couldn't make out what. It was a feeling that she'd always get when she was in the middle of sneaking in to some places. When her eyes landed on the other inmates, they were all equipped with the same thing in their hand, a lit thin cigaret. Cheap but common in prison.

The feeling made adrenaline enter her blood as it carried it to her brain and muscles. She was excited for what was going to happen next, the only problem was, she didn't know what she was in for and what she was planning to do with the other people. She didn't recognize any of the inmates, and none of them had spoken so far. It was weird, even in a dream.

It was dark in the room, the only light that had made the room glow ever so slightly was the lit head of their cigaret in their hand. She didn't take notice of how many people she was with, but she definitely knew that there weren't much in there with her.

Just as she was about to move because her legs somehow felt a little numb from the crouching position that she was taking near the corner of the cell. The rumbling of an engine startled her, making her jump up as she fit herself into the corner better, trying to squeeze herself to a size as small as possible.

The next thing she knew, her cigaret was gone. That was when she understood why she was in such a rush to finish it off earlier. When she scanned the room, she realized that she was in pitch black and there were no additional sounds apart from the roaring engine coming from outside that seemed to be nearing her location. The cell started to shake, and she could hear everyone's breath hitched audibly. Thinking that she would faint just by all the excitement and nervousness that the situation was putting her under, she felt her heartbeat starting to grow steady, she was starting to calm down. She felt the blood rushing out of her brain and started to flow towards her body.

The cell was dark. It was soon lit up again, this time, with a much stronger light source. It came from the cell door. Lit up by the front light of the car that was approaching. A strong thick beam of yellow light shone through the bars and hit the concrete wall across it. Annabeth and the others lined themselves up against the wall adjacent to the cell door, making sure that the light wouldn't hit them. With the light source, she could see some people trying to extinguish their roll using their shaking hand by pressing the head against the wall. None of them were in any condition better than hers.

Staring at the dry hay beneath her feet, something in her told her that those would catch fire with a single overheat. She knew it would eventually, it was only a matter of time. Looking around her, she could see that most of the cigarets were put out, there were only one, in the hand of a guy who was already slipping in to unconsciousness, fainting from all the overwhelming pressure that came suddenly without warning. The others stopped paying attention to each other and all stared at the door with their breath hitched. It was only then, she noticed the butt of the roll in the man's hand, it was still lit and burning.

Pushing herself off the wall, she didn't know if it was good for her to just expose herself to the light that she didn't even know the meaning off, or to get rid of the potential fire source. As she hesitated, the cigaret butt slipped away from between the man's fingers.

"Shit!" She cursed loudly, but no one heard her because she was not able to make a sound.

The hay quickly caught fire. In a split second, everything in the cell was lit and on fire. She could hear the inmates yelling and screaming as the fire touched them and some tried to escape but couldn't make it to the door.

Annabeth just stood in the middle, a mad smile tugging on her lips as she watch every man fall to their knees as they die. Suddenly, she felt short of breath, feeling like every oxygen had been sucked out of her lung by a vacuum cleaner. Panic didn't arise in her, she could only feel her throat constrict as her smile faded.

"Baby," She was shaken awake by an outside force, "hey, baby. Annabeth." The voice called soothingly, a little bit of worry laced within. "Wake up. Wake up." He whispered I gently in her ear. "I'm here, you're safe okay? You're fine. I'm here for you, it's just a bad dream." Her eyes refocused, adjusting the dim lights, her eyes cleared, and she was now staring at Percy's handsome face.

She reached out her hand, cupping his cheek, touching him and feeling him, as if he would disappear or he wasn't real. He covered her hand with his. Leaning down, he planted a kiss on her lips, light but reassuring.

"What did I say this time?" She whispered, looking in his eyes, searching for an answer.

He shook his head. "Nothing." He leaned up and planted kiss on her forehead.

She didn't believe a thing he was telling her, she must've said something, maybe everything she wasn't able to yell out was actually the sound that woke him. She only realized that he was indeed telling the truth when he wiped away a tear under her eyes with his thumb.

"It's just another nightmare, baby." He told her, reassuringly. "Do you want to talk about it?" He whispered, gently and soothingly, though sleepily too.

Annabeth shook her head, still gazing at him lovingly and adoringly.

"I'll tell you in the morning if that will make you feel better." She said, knowing that it wouldn't be the first nightmare that she'd have, and the ones she got would just get worse each time.

He nodded, pulling her closer to him and closed his eyes once again. Not long after, soft snores could be heard from him.

It was only her that was left awake now.

Only her and her nightmares.

But, she was getting better.

END

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who finished this story! I really appreciate your support and love (even if you don't).

So, I want to try something with you guys:

You all know that the writer can only reply to registered users with PMs and the guest users cannot right? And if it's the last chapter of a story, it's pointless to just post another chapter with all the response to the reviews because there will be more in the future. Hence, I came up with this plan.

With every registered user that reviewed in my story, last chapter or not, I will reply to you via PM. For every non-registered user that reviewed - doesn't matter where - you can see my reply to your review on my profile (you'll know which one you are, I'll make sure of it).

I will only stick to the plan if you people support me because if you don't then, needless to say, everything is a waste. It's a simple tryout plan, so if you agree to it, start by commenting here.

If you don't know what to review but want a shoutout on my profile page (or simply a reply), ask me something (literally anything, I won't be offended even its personal questions or rude critics). For example, 'do you know you sound pathetic?' I'm very laidback, just spill.