ice ; or, an au of sorts

summary: He is greeted by a cold girl with a cold ring upon her finger.

pairing(s): PercyAnnabeth; NicoAnnabeth; PercyNico (if you squint)

i. She looks powerful, Percy Jackson thinks as he is greeted with hostile stares from the side that is supposed to be his own. All eyes are upon him, though his are fixed to that of Annabeth Chase. His memory has returned - both gradually and quickly. She seems just as he remembers her - powerful, calculating, though the same naivety is gone; the thought that everything in the world will somehow work out.

—hi, Annabeth, he wants to say, but knows he cannot express such feelings. He settles with staring at the ring upon her finger, shiny in the sunlight. He wonders if the ring was from him.

—fat chance, whispers his subconscious.

ii. He looks devastated, Annabeth Chase thinks as she tells him the story.

—you've been away for a long time. I had to move on. I didn't – know if you were going to come back, and she almost cries right there, but a Chase doesn't cry.

And he again becomes the boy she fell in love with when he says, dumbstruck, —you're married?

She just walks away.

iii. Nico di Angelo is a replacement. Deep inside his stony heart, he knows this. And now that the original is back, what is he to do?

Annabeth Chase's head is resting on his chest, and he wonders what it would be like if her head was resting on a different man's chest.

—you don't have to do this, you know, he whispers, —be with me, I mean.

She looks up with a question in her eyes.

—you can divorce me, you know. I won't be mad. I know you want him back, and I won't stop that.

—he's not the same, she whispers so low he thinks he might've imagined it.

—i won't be mad if you divorce me, he says again.

Nico di Angelo, of course, is a liar.

iv. Percy Jackson is a desperate man. And desperate people do stupid things.

—please, Annabeth, marry me. I talked to Nico; he doesn't care.

She looks at him with broken eyes and looks for something besides the shell of a broken man. (she wonders whether or not to be disappointed when she finds nothing.) —i could never do that to him, you know that.

—you don't think that. There is nothing but resolve in his tone.

—there's still a war to be fought, anyways. If we defeat Gaea, I'll think about it. Promise me you'll live.

—promise, he says, but he's already thinking of ways to defeat the enemy.

v. When Annabeth Chase hears the news, she is torn between crying and cursing him in every language she knows.

—what an idiot, she chokes out.

It seems that, right when Percy Jackson came back, he danced right out again.

vi. annabeth,

hey, girl. i love you. been thinking about what you said. i'm going to do it. i'll come back alive, i promise.

nico,

sorry, bro. didn't want our lives to be screwed up.

i'm sorry, you two. i screwed up a lot, and i'm going to fix it.

percy

vii. —did he tell you anything? Annabeth Chase demands, —before he left?

—like what? Nico di Angelo is thoroughly confused.

—he left. He – he left this note. Do you know where he went?

He looks up. —do you? It mentions—

—oh, gods, she says, the pieces clicking into place.

—what?

—he's such an idiot. He's going to try to go fight Gaea.

viii. And the rest, they say, is history.

(which really means: no one knows what happened to Percy Jackson or Annabeth Chase or Nico di Angelo. They all disappeared forever. They became the stuff of legends and ghost stories and campfire tales. They twisted a tragedy and turned it into another Romeo&Juliet, just a story.

Perhaps they live together in peace; perhaps in chaos. Or perhaps they all just died.

The end.)