Disclaimer: Characters belong to Rick Riordan. I hope you enjoy the story.

tw: abuse

Pinned Under the Sky

When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don't get to decide that you didn't.

-Louis C.K.

« How dare you, » were Annabeth's first words. The first thing she did when the shock melted away and oozed from her muscles was draw her knife.

"Get out of my family's house before you bring in something that could hurt them," was the second thing she told him.

"Annabeth," Luke said. "Annabeth I came alone- I'm unarmed- look…"

He was wearing white- like a flag of truce. There was something vulnerable and scrappy and a little desperate about the way that he pulled on the fabric of his shirt, as if he needed to show her.

"That doesn't matter," she said.

"No," Luke said. His hands were in the air. "Please, listen to me- I want things to change-"

"You want things to change?" Annabeth said. "Oh really? Oh, you do, do you? How about you try, umm, I don't know, running away and ripping apart my home and poisoning Thalia's tree, kidnapping me- just a few ideas to change things up."

Luke winced, and for a second Annabeth's stomach clenched. Then she remembered to be angry, because he wasn't allowed to be hurt when all she said was the truth, something he'd made all by himself.

"Annabeth, I've made mistakes," Luke said.

"A mistake is something that wasn't supposed to happen," Annabeth said. "You were deliberate. You knew exactly what you were doing, the fact that you regret it doesn't make it a mistake. Gods, do you know what you did to Thalia?"

"I know," Luke said. "And I know she joined the hunt so she's gone now, but you- you and I could run away together, like old times."

Annabeth looked at him for a second and blinked. There was so much wrong with what he said that her brain didn't even know where to begin, which loose thread to pull first and unravel this.

"No," Annabeth said. "We can't, actually. I've grown up."

"That's fine," Luke said. "I was always good with you."

"Until you pinned me under the sky," Annabeth said. She pulled the grey strand of hair from her ponytail. "Do you realise that I carried the heaviest weight in the world to try and spare you pain, and that's all you seem to have given me back? I was black and blue and sore for weeks."

Luke looked at his feet, taking long, deep, balanced breaths. "I'm not asking you to forgive me, I'm asking you to save me."

"From what?" Annabeth said. "From your army or your master? You hurt my friends, Luke. You hurt Percy."

Luke looked up again. "So Percy's not just a friend now?"

"You don't get to talk about Percy," Annabeth said. Angry, she made a rookie move and jabbed her knife at him. She took a deep breath to calm herself down, but the words of the prophecy swiveled around her head, reminding her of how doomed he was, and she knew that Luke knew as well.

Still, she managed to force out the words: "I'm not going to skin you alive because I recognize that you came here in peace. But my family lives here and I don't want trouble for them and I want to survive the tenth grade. It's time for you to leave."

"You have no idea what He's going to do to me," Luke said.

She wanted to tell him she didn't care, but bit it back- and she wasn't sure if it was because she didn't mean it, or because she simply didn't want to be cruel. Whatever the case, she closed the door, and he put his foot in the doorframe.

"Remember when you were seven, and it was your birthday, and we'd saved up enough change to buy you ice cream?"

"Stop," Annabeth said.

"Or what about- what about our first capture-the-flag game, after you became a counselor, when we sent the Ares Cabin packing after a two-month run?" Luke said. "Do you remember how your cabin picked you up and paraded you around camp with the flag and-"

"Stop it," Annabeth said. "I'm not a child anymore, Luke, and you're not as charming as you were. You don't get to - to hurt me, and manipulate me, and use me, but then come back when you get scared or you're alone or something goes wrong, as if nothing happened. And you definitely don't get to tell me how to feel."

"I know I don't. I know, all I want is to be family-"

"No," Annabeth said. "Family loves each other. Family doesn't break each other's hearts."

"You're breaking my heart," Luke said.

"You don't have one," Annabeth spat. "Now leave my house, or I'll tear up your flag and bring you back to camp myself."

Annabeth knocked on the door. Sally opened and smiled widely, a dish towel slung over her shoulder like whenever she was cooking. At the moment, the apartment smelled like chocolate chip oatmeal coconut cookies. Any other day, Annabeth's mouth would have watered like Pavlov's dog.

"Hi," Annabeth said nervously. She fiddled with the strap on her bag. "Can I talk to Percy?"

"Oh, not right now sweetheart," Sally said. And for no explicable reason, Annabeth burst into tears in the doorframe and hid her face in her hands and Sally, stunned but before anything else A Great Mother, shepherded her inside and to the couch. She gave Annabeth a pillow to squeeze and sat next to her and held her and drew circles on her back until Annabeth calmed down.

"Sweetheart, he'll be home soon, he has a basketball practice tonight," she said, wiping Annabeth's tears away. "You know that, it's a Wednesday. What's this for, love?"

"We got in a fight yesterday," Annabeth said. "For a- for a second I thought he'd told you not to let me talk to him."

"He would do no such thing and I would listen to no such craziness," Sally said. "Sweetheart, couples fight all the time…"

"It was my fault," Annabeth said. "It was all my fault, and it's been eating me all day."

"What happened?" Sally asked softly. And maybe it was a weird thing to tell her boyfriend's Mom, but it was also Sally, and so Annabeth spilled the beans.

"I was stupid," Annabeth said. "I- this is so crazy, I sound crazy. He felt so bad about forgetting to water half of the plants while you and Paul were away, and he felt especially bad about the moonlace outside, and that brought up Calypso, and I got mad at him for mentioning her and irrational and jealous. I'm a mess, Sally, I made a mess of everything."

"Hey," Sally said soothingly. "Sweetheart, you are one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. You scare Paul, a little bit, did you know? This didn't come out from nowhere, and you are not crazy, and I don't think you could ruin your relationship if you tried. Let's talk this out. Why did you get jealous?"

"I don't know," Annabeth said. "I mean, it makes no sense, Percy's my best friend. He's loyal to the core, he would never do anything like that."

"You're right, he wouldn't," Sally said. Her fingers drew calming figure eights on Annabeth's back.

"I guess it's that he wouldn't, but other people would- I mean, have," Annabeth said. "Gods, I'm a mess, Percy's nothing like Luke."

She said it without even knowing she'd been thinking it. Sally stopped for a second, and her hand moved up to play with Annabeth's hair relaxingly.

"He was the son of Hermes," Sally said, which was the sweetest way she could have described Luke, being Percy's mother and everything.

"Yes," Annabeth said. "We- we were friends once. We traveled together, he was with Thalia and I, when we got to camp. I used to venerate him. I had this huge crush on him, but, like…"

"Like you have a crush on your friend's older brother," Sally filled in. "It's not real, it's just that some people are bigger than life when you're little."

"Exactly," Annabeth said. "And he knew. He knew exactly how much he meant to me and how to get to me and how to… He used me. He came to me for help- to try and get out of Kronos' army the summer before he- before Kronos was reborn. I sent him away."

"Good for you, sweetheart," Sally said.

"I always wondered if it was my fault he was dead," Annabeth said quietly.

"No," Sally said. "No it is not. Some people make bad choices and do bad things, and it is not our faults when we are in the way."

Annabeth looked up. The look in Sally's eye was determined, a fire was lit in those eyes now, protective as could be.

"Have you ever noticed how Paul tugs on his hair?" Sally asked. "When he's bored, when he'd thinking, when he's overwhelmed because you and Percy just told him about a new monster in the city- all the time, really?"

"Yeah," Annabeth said, not sure where this was going.

"Well, he also does it when he's stressed or nervous. And the first time we got in a fight, he reached up to tug his hair, and I saw that hand go up and I flinched," Sally said. "I flinched so hard, there's no way he could have missed it. And he looked so surprised, and I was so surprised. I know -I know for a fact, and I've always known- that Paul is the gentlest man I've ever met. But there's something in me that's still programmed to flinch. I felt so bad, and he felt so bad, but the truth is, that wasn't anybody's fault. We don't get to choose what we carry over from one part of life to the next."

She squeezed Annabeth's hand.

"But take this and carry it with you and never forget it, Annabeth: love does not hurt," Sally said. Her eyes bore into Annabeth's. "Love is a lot of work. Love is challenging. But it doesn't hurt you. You are far too important and far too precious for that."

Annabeth took a deep breath and wiped her eyes.

And they sat on the couch like that until Percy did come home from basketball practice, sweaty and scruffy and surprised. Sally got up and rubbed Annabeth's shoulder.

"I'll go make some hot chocolate," she said. "That fixes everything."

Percy took her place on the couch.

"I'm sorry," Annabeth said automatically. "That one's on me, I was wrong. I don't do this on purpose, always assume the worst, and I promise I'm trying to stop."

"Hey," Percy said quietly. He took her hands. "I'm still your best friend. If I did something wrong as your boyfriend, as your best friend I would have to beat myself up, and that would be a mess, and I don't know which one of me would win, so there's that whole element of surprise, unaccounted for."

She laughed under her breath.

"Annabeth, I'm going to treat you well. You can expect that from me," Percy said. "I mean, I know Athena said to keep your standards for me low, but…"

Percy shrugged and her eyes filled up again, because tears was the order of the day, and he kissed her again. And she felt like the weight of the sky had been lifted off her shoulders.