After the Battle

“I have to, Annabeth.”
The words echo like gunshots in her head, biting and scratching and squirming their way into her thoughts, seeping in and poisoning them like venom.
“No, Percy, no! Please, there has to be another way!”
She remembered this part. Most of it is hazy and morphed with her grief, but this part is clear as Iris-message.
“There is no other way,” he’d said, green eyes glinting, but not, she was shocked to find, with sadness. “Gaea wants me. This won’t stop otherwise.” He reached up and stroked her blood-splattered cheeks, a slight smile on his stupidly beautiful face. “I won’t have to fight anymore, Annabeth. But you have to promise me one thing.”
Her throat was in knots and she was so lost in the feeling of his thumb on her skin that she couldn’t respond.
“You never stop fighting,” he went on anyway. “Don’t do anything stupid. Be happy.” His voice cracked with the last word and that’s how she knew he was scared. For years, he’d been the brave one, the brick-wall, always fighting and cracking jokes and being kind. It was easy to forget that he was only a kid, as was she; they were only sixteen.
For most people, the fear would drive them away, drive them down. Percy pushes back. He faces it. He doesn’t let it destroy him.
Annabeth supposes he leaves that part for other things.
“No Percy!” she screams, finding her voice and clutching his hand. “Never again, remember? As long as we’re together.”
Another humorless smile. “Not this time, Wise Girl.” He lets his hand slide down the edge of her face, leaving it to hang limply at his side. She only notices she’s crying when she sees the glint of her tears on the side of his palm. “Tell my mom I love her,” he said. “And . . . think of something cool, tell her I said it.”
For a second, he hesitates and in Annabeth’s dazed state, hope begins to unfurl in her chest like a Pegasus taking flight. Maybe he’s doubting himself. Maybe he’ll stay with her.
Her hope is shattered when he grabs her by the back of the neck and smashes his mouth into hers, pouring all the things he can’t find words for into her lips through touch. The kiss tasted like ash and, per usual, sea salt, and blood, and goodbye.
Taking a step back, he nods behind her and she remembered suddenly that Jason and Frank had been there the whole time. They heard what Gaea said—only the most powerful half-blood could defeat her. But she would defeat him in turn.
Why weren’t they stopping Percy?
Percy nods at them again and in an instant she is on the cold, black ground, only being able to see the curling, boiling sky. She screams his name over and over again, sobs it until she can’t remember ever knowing any other word.
She sees his face one last time. The last words she hears before she knocks herself out kicking and screaming are in his lovely, ocean-wave voice.
“I love you. I’m sorry.”
The shadows melt around him, and he is gone.
That’s the last memory Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, will ever have of Percy Jackson, Hero of the Gods.

Notes

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