Work Text:
They could go to Alaska.
Annabeth wasn’t sure when she’d woken up. She’d been asleep at some point, of that she was certain, because Tartarus’s poisonous, suffocating air had been a heavy shroud on her senses, and for a moment she had borne it with a dreamlike paralysis before gasping awake to a sky full of glittering stars. Then she had lain there in one of Camp’s rolling fields, breathing in the sweet scent of strawberries. Safe , the scent said. Familiar. Safe. Just a nightmare like any other, and she could feel Percy sleeping next to her, warm and still.
They could go to Alaska.
They could. They totally could.
Percy rolled over in his sleep, hands pillowed under his head. Annabeth traced Andromeda in the stars. Bound and gagged and sacrificed by her parents.
“Percy?” Her voice came out a whisper. “Percy, do you want to go?”
Percy didn’t stir. She knew she only had to ask and he would wake, but she didn’t want to. Sleep was so hard to come by these days for both of them, and she could not rob him of it, no matter how viciously her throat burned with tears.
What would they do in Alaska? What would they not do in Alaska? The gods’ bidding for one.
They couldn’t get there by plane. Or boat, to be honest. It was okay. They’d drive, make a road trip out of it.
“Annabeth?” Fuck. There was a shifting noise next to her. Fuck . It seemed she had woken him, despite everything. She didn’t turn to look at him. “Hey, Annabeth, you okay?”
“Go back to sleep.”
“I could say the same thing to you,” Percy said, and now he was starting to sit up, hair adorably mussed. “Wouldn’t be an easy feat for you either.” True enough. Since Tartarus, once they were awake, they were awake.
“I’m okay,” she said. Hushed, she repeated, “Percy, do you want to go?”
Andromeda had probably screamed. When her parents had told her, she’d probably screamed. Begged. Fought.
Annabeth had never been able to place how the ancient heroes might have looked. She had stared at grainy old pictures in the mythology books, heroes of old rendered in colour, but Chiron had said the pictures were an imperfect likeness, and he had said this sadly. He had said he remembered them in crystal clarity—Achilles’s swift frown, and the sharp glint in Atlanta’s eyes and the sad slope of Heracles’s shoulders and Perseus with his bright smile—but he hadn’t volunteered any more than that. He had told her that it didn’t matter, how they had once looked, because he remembered them well enough in his mind. It was enough.
But Annabeth saw the photos in Chiron’s office, taken in careful focus, marking the end of every summer, meticulous in record. She saw it in his old eyes.
Annabeth had never been able to place how the ancient heroes might have looked. No mortal rendition did them justice.
There was one exception though, an ancient face who Annabeth had been unable to distinguish in her mind from a modern replica—Andromeda. Her face cleaved in sorrow and anguish, affixed on the mast of a monster infested cruise liner. A masthead that screamed through her gag, screamed through centuries.
Princess Andromeda. Let down by the gods, and her parents.
A stifled yawn. “Go where?”
Annabeth waited only a beat. “Alaska.”
It was a long, stilling moment in which Annabeth had thought Percy had fallen asleep, after all. Then—
“You?” Percy asked, lying back down. He blinked blearily at her. “You with the Yankee’s cap? You want to leave New York?”
“I just—“ Annabeth shrugged, a move made complicated by the grass and her lying down. “They can’t find us there.”
“Hm,” Percy said. He tugged her closer to him. His eyes were closed, but he was clearly very awake. He rested his chin on the top of her head, arms around her in a loose embrace. “The gods?”
Annabeth laughed. It sounded a little helpless. “Who else?”
“Alaska’s cold. And far.”
“We’d manage.”
Percy hummed in acknowledgment.
“We’d be leaving behind the gods,” Annabeth said.
“We’d be leaving behind a lot of people.”
“We could take them with us,” Annabeth said. “We could take them all with us. We’d grab Grover, and your Mom, and Paul and your baby sister and just go. We’d leave in the dead of night, but we’d write letters to everyone else, explaining. I know what I’d say to each person already.” Thank you , she’d scribble. I love you. I’m sorry.
I hope you understand. They’d understand. They’d wish they’d got the plan before, for themselves, but they’d say, in resigned commiseration, Well, that’s Annabeth. She’s always got a plan.
“Plane?”
“No. Car. We’d hammer out those Pegasus hoof prints from the Prius and drive. Take the long way.”
“And we’d go to school there?”
“If you want,” Annabeth said. “Or we could just—we could not. We could just live there. Live out the rest of the days. Send postcards to Thalia. It would be boring. Really boring. But we could go.”
“Sounds like you’ve thought about this a lot,” Percy mumbled into her hair.
She had. She had and she hadn’t. Her brain hadn’t put two and two together until tonight, but the pieces were always there, ripe for taking. Percy had told her about New Rome when he had told her about his quest to save Thanatos, breathless and disbelieving and triumphant, a life for us! Undeniable proof of a life for people like them, a whole life and death in peace. In happiness. With cafes and libraries and a University and a house and friends and old age. But Annabeth had paid attention to the wrong parts of the story, had caught herself on Alaska and land beyond the gods and escape .
In the Cocytus, miserable, she had thought about New Rome. At the Acheron, inconsolable, she had thought of New York. But with every unbearable sip of the Phlegethon she had thought to herself: stop. Stop. Stop.
Alaska was where it would stop.
Would Andromeda have run?
“New York’s a—“ Charnel house. My safe haven. A graveyard. The only land I’ve ever loved. Home and hollow, somehow both at once. “New York’s just a place . We’d be able to be happy anywhere.”
Percy loved New York. With every fibre of his being, he loved it, she knew that. Of course she knew. She loved it just as much. But they had lost so much already, walked across minefields of loss anyway; losses far greater—the absence of innocence, the absence of family, the absence of the weight of the world on your shoulders, the phantom of a beloved knife gripped in your empty hand, the places in your heart where friends who you should have grown up with lingered, because they could no longer linger in the living world. So much they had lost already. Leaving behind a place was nothing in the face of that.
“Do you want to go?” Percy asked.
“Would you come, if I did?”
He’d followed her into hell. Alaska was nothing.
One more loss: a hand in hand, knuckles white with effort. The loss of land against foot, a weak ankle dragging you into hell. The loss of your grip on a ledge, a hand clawing at empty air.
“Yes,” Percy said simply. “I’d come.”
They didn’t need a car. She would run there, if she had to. Dead of night. Hand in hand.
“What do you think you’d be,” Annabeth asked, “if you weren’t a demigod?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Percy said, smiling dopily. “Untraumatized.”
They laughed. It wasn’t a funny joke, but there was a bitter edge to it that dug out a laugh from her.
“What would you want to be, if you weren’t a demigod?” Percy asked.
“I don’t know. An architect itself, maybe?” She didn’t know where her interests started becoming an Athena kid’s interest. She didn’t know how much of it was just her and her life experiences, and how much of it was her mother’s influence. “Or...oh god, I don’t know. Sky diver? Who knows .”
“I can actually see that,” Percy said. “See you, I mean. Skydiving.”
“Really?”
“Sure. You’ve fallen off enough cliffs.”
Annabeth let her head thud gently against his chest, laughing. “Oh, screw you.”
Percy grinned. “Hey, it’s true.”
“And you’d follow me then? As a skydiver?”
“Oh, you betcha. Zeus wouldn’t even be trying to kill me, so there’s like, zero danger.”
“Except diving to your death.”
“Right. Except that.”
Annabeth could feel her chest loosening, Tartarus’s phantom stench lifting. She smiled. “Do you think we’d have met each other?”
“If we weren’t demigods?”
“Mm.”
Percy frowned as he stared up at the sky; he was staring up at Andromeda too. “Well, I hope we would have.”
“Yeah, no duh.”
“I’d never have learnt about constellations otherwise,” Percy said. “Or appreciate how many times a person can get into an argument about gothic revival architecture.”
“It happened twice .”
“Well, it happened in the first place is the point. And I’m not complaining.”
“I’d never have been able to appreciate blue food,” Annabeth said. “No one to debate about orcas with.”
“Uh, no debating either way? It’s usually me just telling you facts, you arguing about them, and then me finding an orca to settle the score. So.”
“Fuck off,” Annabeth said, grinning, “you’ve been wrong about sea creatures before, too, and you’re literally related to most of them.”
“Well, you’re wrong about gothic revival architecture apparently, since you keep fighting about it with people.”
Annabeth shook her head, smiling. Percy laughed and laid his head back down, closing his eyes. They were like that for a while, content in a smiling silence.
“I don’t want to actually go to Alaska,” Annabeth said finally. “I just want to—I want to go to a land beyond the gods.”
Percy’s hand stroked her hair. It was cold, soft. “You had a bad dream.” It was not a question.
She sighed and closed her eyes, bundled against his chest. “It’s a good plan though. Alaska.” It was not an answer.
“Was it Tartarus?” This was not a question either.
She didn’t answer.
“You know,” Percy said. “I didn’t—I never wanted this. To be a demigod. I would come with you Annabeth, if you asked.”
“It was Tartarus,” Annabeth said. “It was a bad dream.”
Percy kissed her forehead. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Annabeth could feel tears trail down her cheeks, a burn like the Phlegethon.
“I wish we could go away,” Annabeth said. “I wish—I wish we could escape the gods.” She could not escape her mind. This was the next best thing.
“Tartarus,” Annabeth said. “Tartarus was beyond the gods too. I want to believe that beyond the gods can be good, too.”
Percy was quiet next to her. “We could do it too,” Percy said. “Together.”
It was tempting. There was no guarantee it would work, and there was no guarantee it would end with both of them happy, but it was tempting.
“I’m going to buy a postcard,” Annabeth said. “Of Alaska. Just to remind myself that there’s a place. Beyond them.”
“Print one off the net.”
“Hm. That’d be better. Cheaper.”
“Yeah.”
“It was a good plan, though,” Annabeth said, sighing. “Shame it’s never going to happen.”
“You’ll make a new one. A better plan.” Percy smiles at her, eyes crinkling in the corners. “Hey, you’re Annabeth Chase. You’ve always got a plan.”
It was a safety net, freely offered. So many losses, so many absences, in a short life, but Annabeth felt, at once, a thousand different presences: a life saving hold at the bottom of the Siren Sea, a hug in an empty cabin, a kiss in the swirling volcano of their youth, a squeeze of pain and prophecy, the sweet kiss of blue frosting, the pressure of a hand in hers, knuckles white with effort. A warm body tucked into her on a lazy night, the air sweet as strawberries.
“Okay, for now, Plan B,” Annabeth said. “I’ve got it. It’s temporary, but it’ll do.”
“So soon?” Percy looked curious. “What is it?”
Annabeth cupped his face and closed the distance between them. Grass tickled her cheek. “Kiss me.”