#she stayed with peleus for one year and left. then achilles grew up and he fell in love with patroclus.

[thedevilsrain]

me reading the song of achilles: oh well thetis is a very complicated character, I can feel some sympathy for her, i'm sure at some point she'll come around and t—

[zerofarad]

The Judgment of Paris and other stories

[annabethwisegirl-chase]

250 Headcanons (Part 3)

Headcanons #101-150. These cover from the events of Battle of the Labyrinth through the entirety of the Heroes of Olympus series, into the beginnings of the Trials of Apollo and the Magnus Chase series, and even a little beyond.

101.  The night before Percy and Annabeth’s not-date (which was a date in her mind, let’s be real) she felt ridiculous, asking Silena for advice.  After all, they were just going to go see the Avengers and then goof off afterwards.  Yet, the older Aphrodite camper spent at least two hours restyling Annabeth’s hair in a way that she claimed looked the most flattering.  She even gave the younger Athena camper make up tips and little ways to flirt.  Which, Annabeth found completely ridiculous and not totally believable because it took Silena way too long to start officially dating Beckendorf.  So really, how good were these tips?  Silena had insisted that Annabeth find her the next day for help getting ready, but she felt too ridiculous.  So, she ended up convincing Peleus to give her a leg up into Thalia’s tree and hanging out there until Argus took her into the city.

102.  Speaking of the Avengers, Annabeth’s absolute favorite superhero in the world is Captain America.  Some people think he’s lame because he doesn’t have “real” powers or anything, but that’s part of the reason Annabeth loves him.  She grew up in a camp where she was surrounded by people with crazy abilities, and it was something she never had.  There were definitely times when she was jealous about the whole getting jipped on powers thing, but if Steve Rogers could become Captain America, then Annabeth could be a super awesome demigod.  Her dad also has a crazy insane Captain America comic book collection with several collector’s items that he swears is because of the “historical value” of the comics.  But Annabeth knows that her dad definitely loves the stories as well.  On the same note, she absolutely despises Spider-Man.  Anyone who insists on dressing up like a spider and uses webs to entrap people is seriously disturbed in the head.

103.  Annabeth’s dislike of Rachel stems from a deeper issue than the fact she believes Rachel likes Percy.  Rachel is mortal.  Even though she’s eccentric, she’s completely normal and not connected to their demigod world (at least, in BotL she’s not).  By the time the fourth book rolls around, Percy is clearly 500% done with the gods and is starting to get tired of this whole prophecy thing.  And Rachel provides him with a way to escape from the world of gods and monsters.  The world that Annabeth has always belonged to.  Because, honestly, even though she tries, Annabeth in the mortal world doesn’t really work.  Sure, she’s gotten better at playing the part, but she’s still drawn back to the world of fighting and quests because that’s how she grew up.  And she craves the adventure that comes with that world.  She always will.  With Rachel now in the picture, she gives Percy the opportunity to leave the world that’s constantly putting him in danger, and in the same length, to leave Annabeth.  By this point, Annabeth has already been left by her family, Luke, Thalia (twice), various campers, Grover, and is not about to add Percy to that list.  Which is why, during her quest and their time at camp, Annabeth pulled away from him.  It was just easier for her to put up her walls again so that when he did leave (because people always leave) it wouldn’t hurt so much.  Also, there’s the fact that both Percy and Annabeth are certain Percy’s not going to be alive come next year, and so it just gives her another reason to distance herself.

104.  When Annabeth goes back to Hephaestus’s workshop, she’s all alone.  When she starts looking for a way to get back to camp through the labyrinth, she constantly hits dead ends.  In some sick way, she figured that the maze was playing with her.  Her quest was a dead end, saving Luke was a dead end, and all her friends that came with her were dead.  At one point, she ends up hitting the wall and breaks her hand from it.  One ambrosia square and delta square later, she does manage to get out and make her way back to camp.

105.  Somehow, it always seems to fall to Annabeth to break bad news to Sally.  After Annabeth got back to camp, one of the first things Chiron had her do was to call the Jackson household and relate the tale of Percy’s explosion.  He claimed that it was because Annabeth was the only one who would be able to answer all of Sally’s questions.  She honestly believes it’s just because Chiron didn’t want to break any bad news to the actual angel that is Sally Jackson.  

106.  Growing up in the south, it’s a common practice for people to be “Mr.” and “Ms.” all the time.  It took Annabeth three months when she first came to camp to stop calling Chiron “Mr. Chiron.”  And, although Sally’s told her dozens of times to refer to her by her first name, Annabeth can’t break the habit of “Ms. Jackson.”  It’s a respect thing and the amount of respect Annabeth has for that woman literally cannot be measured.  

107.  Annabeth’s pretty sure the smartest thing she’s ever seen Percy do was pull a finger gun on Briares during their game of rock, paper, scissors.  Even she wouldn’t have thought of that.

108.  After the Battle of the Labyrinth, Annabeth spends most of the rest of the summer staying in her cabin, studying the laptop Daedalus gave her.  Her and Malcolm work on devising various potential battle strategies, and Chiron has her working with him and Clarisse to develop mini missions to send people on in an attempt to weaken the Titan army.  She also finds herself spending a lot of time with Silena, listening to her drone on and on about Beckendorf.  It kind of makes the fact she’s avoiding Percy and that Luke’s no longer Luke a little harder to deal with.  But, it also somehow helps to hear about a relationship that isn’t completely falling to pieces.  The only time she truly makes it an effort to hang out with her best friend is for the Fourth of July fireworks.  After all, she’d already asked him, and it’d be kind of rude not to show.  The night’s still awkward and they don’t have quite as easy of a banter as they had years prior.

109.  Since she doesn’t go home for school that year, Annabeth spends the school term still working on mini missions.  She gets sent off on a couple of her own, usually teamed up with Clarisse, Connor Stoll, or one of her siblings.  It’s during these that she finds that Connor actually isn’t just another annoying Hermes camper, and they both find some strange common ground in missing the old Luke.  Often, to pass the time while they’re traveling, Annabeth tells old stories about her and Luke’s days on the run, while Connor tells her about plots and pranks Luke was the mastermind behind.  Each mission, it seemed strange that Silena would hug them a little tighter and a little longer.  But no one really asked her why.  They just figured it was some sort of emotional Aphrodite thing.

110.  For each of her missions, Chiron was extremely careful to make sure he sent Annabeth places where he knew Luke was not.  So, while she took out various parts of the army, or helped with gathering intel, she never saw Luke.  But she didn’t know about Chiron’s careful planning and educated guessing as to where Kronos currently was.  Every mission, she still looked for him, hoping that she might be able to bring him back.

111.  Also, since she doesn’t go home, Annabeth takes Sally up on her invitation to attend the Jackson-Blofis wedding.  She spends a solid week debating on whether or not to cancel and just send a nice card instead.  But, the day of, Annabeth just kind of goes for it and has Argus take her into the city.  She has her invisibility cap on her, and does her best to hide from the guests as often as possible.   Well, specifically, two of the guests that are her age, a girl with curly red hair and a boy who’s been stuffed into a suit because only it’s his mom’s wedding day.  She hugs Sally after the ceremony, and it’s the first time she meets Paul.  He makes some lame Shakespeare reference, and Annabeth decides then and there to adopt him as her newest father figure.

112.   Chiron does have Annabeth go home after Christmas break, insisting that she see her family.  She hugs her brothers a little too tightly before she leaves and kisses her dad on the cheek--something she hasn’t done since she was little--because she knows there’s a very real possibility it might be the last time she sees them.  Matthew and Bobby complain that she’s strangling them, and Frederick seems a little weary that something’s going on.  He knows that there is something stirring in the demigod world, but Annabeth’s been careful to try and keep all of them out of the dark as much as she can.  Otherwise, she’s afraid they might keep her from fighting.  And nothing would keep Annabeth from seeing this through until the end.  

113.   It’s Beckendorf’s death that makes Annabeth reconsider how she’s been treating Percy, so she does make an effort for them to fall back into their old routines.  They start working on chores together again, but her words still end up being completely measured and thought out.  The first time he brings up Rachel though, who she still views as his out, she decides that it’s too much.  She doesn’t speak to him again until right before the battle, when he calls her.  It actually ends with her moping most of the time, because she just knows that he’s not going to be around in a few days and they’re spending the rest of the time ignoring each other.  

114.  She doesn’t officially know about the mark of Achilles on Percy, but there’s already a sneaky suspicion because he’s been way too good in the battle.  Even by Percy level standards.  Right before Ethan goes to stab him, there’s almost a cold chill that hits her in her own lower back.  It’s a strange warning, but it’s enough to get her to throw her in the way of the knife’s path, intercepting it with her own shoulder instead.  It’s still the most noticeable scar that she has, and she’s glad that it’s in a place that’s easy to cover it up.

115.  It’s almost creepy how much information she’s absorbed from listening to her dad through the years.  But, none of it really seems to matter until she’s in a helicopter, trying to keep it from crash landing.  She swears she hears her dad’s voice in her ears, coaching her through all the steps and she really regrets not taking him up on more rides in his Sopwith Camel.  Heck, she thinks she might even try for a pilot’s license after the experience since it did come so naturally.

116.  She hears Luke’s voice in her head whenever she fights, telling her to make sure that her footing’s correct, or walking her step by step through various maneuvers he taught her during their years together.  It definitely made for a chilling experience when she was fighting Kronos, and hearing a different voice coming out of Luke’s mouth, while the one in her head was his true one.

117.  Annabeth honestly is not sure whether or not she lied to Luke when she told him that she didn’t love him.  Some days, she feels like it’s a lie and it makes her feel extremely guilty, while other days, she’s sure she spoke the truth.  And it makes her feel better knowing that one of the last things Luke heard wasn’t another lie.  Because he had been told so many up to that point, and the last thing she’d want to do was add on to them.  She thinks it might be a lie, because even the Oracle spoke of losing a love to worse than death.  And it was a line that clearly pertained to Luke.  If the mummy even knew about her affection for him, then clearly there was something there.  And she was so certain to stick up for him every chance she got, certain that no one else would ever make her feel the way he did.  And really, no one has.  On the flip side, she thinks it was the truth because she’s not so sure it wasn’t just some sort of hero worship and infatuation.  By the time Luke asked her if she loved him, she had already fallen in love with someone else and knew what it truly meant to be in a much healthier and loving relationship (even if they weren’t together yet).  And what she felt for Percy was nothing like what she felt for Luke.  It honestly really frustrates her that she doesn’t even have a solid answer, and she spends way more time debating it than she probably should.

118.  Percy and Annabeth’s first date started out as awkward as it could get.  It was about a week after Percy’s birthday and they had both already started back to school.  They had agreed to just spend the day exploring the city, but they were both trying way too hard with one another, watching what they said and how they acted.  There were a lot of awkward silences, sweaty hand holding, and asking questions that they both already knew the answer to.  Eventually a monster showed up and the two fell into a regular routine to kill it.  Then, covered in monster guts, they decided to just go back to the Jackson-Blofis apartment and watch a movie.  Annabeth doesn’t remember what movie it was, just that they spent the whole time making fun of the ridiculous plot line going on, and substituting their own dialogue instead.

119.  The green dress that she wore on her one night trip to Paris still hangs in the back of her closet at her dad’s house.  She doesn’t ever think she’ll wear it again, because she doesn’t want anything to happen to it.

120.  During her sophomore year, there were several weekends where Annabeth would go on little expeditions with her roommate around the city.  They would venture to various landmarks in New York, as well as to various museums.  It was a way for them to feel “cultured,” and it was the perfect way for Annabeth to draw inspiration for her designs for Olympus.

121.  When Percy went missing, it once again fell to Annabeth to break the bad news to Sally.  This time, she chose to do it in person instead of over the phone.  Paul came back to find Annabeth, with her arms around Sally, whispering promises that they would find him.  That they were looking everywhere they could and she wasn’t going to stop until he was home.  For the next several weeks, she’d spend at least two nights a week at their apartment, going over any and all of the information they’d collected on Percy’s whereabouts--even if they did end up just being dead ends.  Sally would always have a fresh plate of blue cookies waiting for when Annabeth came over, and the two would sit at the counter, talking.  After the quick debriefing, Sally would relate stories about her youth and about Percy growing up.  Annabeth would talk about her family in California and how she kind of missed her brothers and her dad.  Paul would come home, and he and Annabeth would discuss various plays and historical events while Sally cooked dinner.  By the time all three felt that the evening was truly done, Sally would insist it was too late for Annabeth to venture back alone.  So, she’d end up crashing in Percy’s room.  It was comforting somehow, to be there, but it was also creepy.  Everything was just waiting for him to come back, and she was careful not to move anything around too much.  She wanted it to be just the same way for him as it was when he left.

122.  During the short amount of time that Jason, Piper and Leo are in camp, Annabeth really only hits it off with Jason.  Sure, she likes Piper, and thinks they’d make great siblings, but there’s not a lot of back and forth there.  Instead, once they make the connection that Jason and Thalia are connected, Annabeth spends almost an entire day relating stories about Thalia.  Some of them are hard, since so many involve Luke, but she manages to avoid bringing him into them too much.  It’s just easier to pretend he wasn’t really there and that Thalia was the hero Annabeth had growing up.

123.  During the time spent building the Argo II, Annabeth does use that time to bond with both Piper and Leo.  She spends hours with Leo in Bunker 9, looking over blueprints and helping him as much as she can with the actual construction of the ship.  She’s really the only one who half understands what it is that he’s talking about, and there are many late nights spent there.  In fact, both of them end up losing count of the number of times they have to wake the other one up in the morning, grease smeared on their faces, in order to make it to breakfast on time.  The running gag with Piper about the breakfast thing started out as a complete accident.  Still exhausted from working with Leo the night before, Annabeth was sitting with Piper and discussing the progress they were making.  However, because she was still half asleep, she ended up eating half of Piper’s food.  The next day, Piper returned the favor, and it just kept going.

124.  Arguing with Athena was one of the most frustrating experiences of Annabeth’s life.  Her mom wasn’t all there, which only made it harder to appeal to one of her logical senses.  And, whenever she’d switch into her Roman counterpart, it was harder, since the goddess wouldn’t even recognize Annabeth as her daughter.  When Athena stripped Annabeth’s cap of its powers, she didn’t know immediately.  Instead, she was in the middle of a fight with a monster on the way to visit Sally right before they left, and she had on her invisibility cap to try and surprise it.  But it swung right at her as though it could see her.  Instead of watching where the strike went, Annabeth looked down and realized she could see herself.  She ended up with a badly bruised arm and several cuts on her face and legs, and fled from the scene instead of fighting the monster.

125.  Annabeth first learned about hot chocolate being a universal drink from her father.  During one of her times living at home, there were many nights where she’d have trouble falling asleep.  She’d often end up downstairs in her dad’s living room, flipping through whatever was on television until she’d pass out on the sofa.  Once, her dad came down and saw her there and made her hot chocolate.  He explained all about the history of the drink, just trying to find something interesting to discuss with his daughter.  It was one of the first times they stayed up late, just talking, and it seemed like one of the first real truces between them.  The fact she was walking around New Rome, drinking it again with Reyna seemed almost symbolic.

126.  It was weird being that close to her home and not going to see her dad and brothers.  What was even weirder was the fact that she lived that close to Camp Jupiter for so long and never had an inkling that it existed.  Once, she saw a couple kids in purple t-shirts with swords while she was on a school field trip.  But, she just figured it was some weird group of re-enactors that accidentally ended up with actual swords.

127.  One of the worst parts of being on the Argo II was when the eidolons were on the ship, possessing Jason and Percy.  Seeing the boy she spent so long looking for, with golden eyes where sea green had once been, only reminded her of another young man she’d lost.  Another boy whose eyes she’d been forced to watch change from blue to gold, and his soul disappear with it.

128.  Growing up, Annabeth never felt like she was quite good enough.  After all, you grow up with Aphrodite kids, you watch the boys you like fawn over other girls, you really have issues with self image.  Meeting Aphrodite only made her insecurities about a hundred times worse.  She was literally everything Annabeth wished that she could be, and took bits and pieces from every other girl Annabeth had ever felt jealous of.  She had Rachel’s curls, Silena’s hair color, Scarlett Johansson’s body, and Emma Watson’s face structure.  It definitely left her feeling inadequate for the rest of the day.

129.  The first time Annabeth tells Percy that she loves him is a complete accident.  Granted, she’s known it for years, but always felt a little odd at the idea of saying it.  After all, it’s really one of the first times she’s ever actually vocalized the sentiment to anyway.  She doesn’t remember saying it to her father, or any of her friends, and Annabeth has it in her head that it’s supposed to be some big deal.  When he ends up drenching Octavian, it just sort of slips out and she’s not even sure that she’s said it until later.  She then spends the next day on deck debating with herself whether or not Percy heard her and that’s why he didn’t say it back.  She blames her recent encounter with Aphrodite for making her fret over something so stupid when she should be focused on getting the Athena Parthenos back.

130.  One of the things that she hated most about her solo quest (though there were so many) was that she wasn’t where the main fight was.  She’d always felt a responsibility to Nico di Angelo after he lost Bianca.  Not having any family was something she felt like she could definitely relate to.  So, the fact that she wasn’t there to help rescue him and assure him that everything was going to be okay--the way she was sure Bianca would have--almost seemed unfair.  And then, obviously, there’s the fact that she hated being alone, breaking her foot, fighting the mother of all spiders... The list went on, really.

131.  For years, Annabeth suspected that Nico had a crush on her.  It’s only when she sees the look in his eyes as he promises Percy to lead the others to the other side that she figures out what’s really going on.  She doesn’t say anything.  After all, it wasn’t her secret to tell.

132.  After her quest, Annabeth really, really hated owls.  There was also a time when she really wanted to go to Greece to see the Parthenon.  Not anymore.  She never wants to go back to Greece ever again.

133.  For Annabeth, the worst part about Tartarus are the arai.  She knew, of course, that no monster really likes to be torn down by a demigod.  But, they would always be reborn.  The fact that so many of them use their dying thoughts and wishes to curse her haunt her.  And it almost makes her feel guilty about all the pain she’s caused.  There are multiple knife wounds inflicted to her stomach, the blindness, and the feeling that she’s all alone again.  That’s the worst.  She already blames herself for dragging Percy down there with her, and feeling like he abandoned her (like everyone else in her life had) almost seems like poetic justice.  It’s why she doesn’t call for his return.  It’s why she calls for an answer to why he left.  She wants to know that it’s not resentment he feels towards her.

134.  There’s exactly one time in her life that Annabeth has ever been scared of Percy.  After all, he’s a Seaweed brain who would have been dead long ago if it weren’t for her.  And yet, the power he unleashes on Akhlys is enough to stop her dead in her tracks.  She’s always known that he’s a powerful demigod.  It was arguably the second thing she learned about him (after the fact he drooled and talked in his sleep).  But seeing him snap like that was enough to strike genuine fear in her heart.  And it scares her to think he was pushed that far in an attempt to protect her.  It’s enough to make her feel like she’s toxic for him, and has even led to her contemplating their break up more than once, if only to get him away from her for his own good.

135.  When they get back from the depths of hell, Annabeth spends the next several days feeling completely useless.  All she wants to do is sleep and catch up on the hours she was deprived while they were fighting for their lives.  Yet, every time she closes her eyes for too long, the terrible visions come back.  She wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, sleeps with the lights on, and has bags under her eyes that almost seem as if they threaten to swallow her entire face.  It makes her feel useless until the final battle with Gaea.  And even that’s just a brief moment of her former glory.  Her days at camp cause the nightmares to return and she pushes away anyone that tries to help her deal with what she experienced.  It’s too terrible to talk about, and it’ll take her well over a year before she ever does speak of it.

136.  She ends up striking a strange friendship with Nico during this time.  They had previously started to become friendly when Annabeth was working on designing the new cabins for camp and repeatedly went to him for input on the Hades cabin.  But now, they found ways to sit comfortably in silence, in a way that would often freak out the other campers.  After all, she still felt protective over him and had a strange sense of respect of all he had been able to handle.  They found the number of similarities between them shocking and eventually struck up almost a new brother and sister type of relationship.  He makes sure she doesn’t disappear for weeks at a time into her work and into her head and she makes sure that he always has something to eat and a warm sweater on when he goes shadow travelling or visits the Underworld.  Most of the other campers don’t really understand their friendship, but to them, it makes all the sense in the world.

137.  One of the hardest things about returning to camp life is the sword fighting.  Once, it was an activity that she was good at.  After all, she’d been training to fight with a knife since she was seven years old.  For ten years, it had been a way to blow off steam and a great way to focus her attention.  But after her time in Tartarus, sword fighting becomes almost impossible.  The sounds of metal clanging and people trying to fight her is enough to send her right back down to that awful place.  Even though the logical part of her knows that it’s all controlled, her instincts take over, and she’s ended up with one too many close calls with her opponent screaming for help.  Annabeth just kind of blacks out and lets her body take over until the poor sap she’s sparring with is on the floor, broken and bloody, with her knife at their throat, ready to slice.  Then, when she doesn’t go full on warrior princess mode, she ends up collapsing into a puddle in the corner, crying and screaming for all the pain and terror to stop.  Her hands go straight to her ears and her eyes shut tight.  It usually takes Piper and her charmspeak to be able to pull her out of it, and Chiron basically sets up a new, “special” time for her defense training.  A time when she’s all alone in the arena and only has the practice dummies as targets.  It keeps everyone safer that way.

138.  Annabeth legitimately does not understand Carter Kane.  Like she thinks Sadie is awesome and is always trying to text her to get insight on some new idea.  Likewise, Sadie often is the one texting her.  Boy, if Annabeth thought she had boy drama, it is nothing compared to the things Sadie has to deal with what with one of her crushes hosting one of her other crushes.  But Carter?  He seems to have some weird sort of pissing contest continuously going one with Percy, which she doesn’t get at all.  Personally, she thinks both boys are being incredibly stupid--but that’s par for the course with Percy.  She almost expects more out of Carter, despite how little she knows him, and is almost disappointed in the fact he doesn’t put an end to the ridiculousness.  Also, as soon as she finds out the Egyptian gods are a thing, she ends up creating a really big bulletin board in her room at school, connecting all the gods together based on their area of power.  It makes her wonder exactly how it works having more than one pantheon, but thinking about it too much makes her brain hurt.  Which is a feat that is hard to achieve. 

139.  Finding out that Sally’s pregnant definitely comes with a weird mixture of feelings.  Granted, Annabeth knows that these people aren’t technically her family, but she’s definitely come to love them like they are.  Percy’s eyes sparkle when his mom tells her the news, and Paul seems extremely proud of the fact that his own child is on the way.  Sally looks tired, but Annabeth can’t deny there is some sort of glow around her.  It’s strange, really.  This is the first pregnancy that anyone has ever been excited to tell Annabeth about--well, she really only has one other to compare it to--and it makes her feel like they’re making some mistake in wanting to include her on this secret.  She’s always believed that she’s bad with babies and small children and chalks this up to the fact she won’t be invited around to the Jackson-Blofis household as much anymore.

140.  She spends the rest of year in New York, but opts to go home right before school starts back for her senior year.  It’s the first time she’s seen her dad, her step mom, or her brothers since falling into that horrible pit of despair.  Annabeth never called to talk to her dad about it, but he seems to know as she shows up at the airport.  He just puts his arm around her shoulder, takes her bags from her, and drives her home in silence.  When she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night, her dad’s always there to assure her that she’s okay, and they watch old movies on the couch until she falls asleep again.  Everything but Roman Holiday, she makes sure of that.  Emily tries to keep Matthew and Bobby away from Annabeth again, fearing what she might do after all she’s been through.  But, the boys are old enough now to ignore their mother’s wishes and they end up trying to stick with her closer than ever before.  It’s the first time they really learn about and understand the terrible things Annabeth has faced as a demigod and there’s almost a newfound respect earned from them.  Despite all the other turmoil going on in her life, it’s probably the nicest visit she has at her home, and she’s almost sad to return to New York.

141.  She ends up calling it the Chase curse.  After all, that’s exactly what it feels like.  When she sees her cousin basically emerge from the grave at his own funeral, it only seems to add another level of weirdness to her already strange life.  But, of course, another Chase sibling attracted the attention of a god.  Because not even the mortal side of her family could be completely normal.  Learning about Hotel Valhalla and the valkyries almost makes Annabeth feel as though she got the short end of the stick ending up as part of the Greek god world.  After all, being able to add the ability to fly to her power of invisibility seemed like a pretty sweet deal.  Though, the idea of having to find people about to die did seem a little graphic.  She starts researching the Norse gods as soon as she gets home and adds them to the bulletin board she made after meeting the Kanes.

142.  Getting to see Magnus is hands down one of the best parts of Annabeth’s senior year.  For once, she gets to act as a sort of guide to another demigod.  This time though, it’s from a distance and she doesn’t necessarily have to get directly involved unless she wants to.  And, while she hates that Magnus does have to deal with it, he at least has some pretty awesome friends, as well as some sweet powers to deal with it.  But, even with his new abilities, she’s just glad to have her little cousin back in her life.  Growing up, he was more of a brother to her than Matthew and Bobby were and seeing him again brings back all sorts of fond memories.  In fact, most of the only fond memories of her childhood involve him in one shape or form.  She just hates that she didn’t know about his living situation earlier.  The idea of him living on the streets when she knew about half a dozen other people who would be willing to take him in does not sit well with her.  And it only makes her certain that the gods, no matter what pantheon they belong to, don’t really care about what happens to their demigod children.

143.  She’s working on Olympus when she gets a flustered call from Percy, telling her that his baby sister is on the way right now.  Her mother stood over her as she took it, and told her to go on, but Annabeth refused.  No matter how many times all three of them insisted that she was, in fact, a part of their family, it just seemed weird.  So instead, she waited until the next day to go to the hospital.  There, she saw the tiniest human she’d ever seen before.  Even when Matthew and Bobby were born, she didn’t them ever being that little.  They let Annabeth hold her, and it was the first time she ever actually got to hold a baby.  Her father barely let her hold her brothers when they were born, hovering near her the entire time.  But this time, the baby was placed in Annabeth’s arms and she absolutely melted as she swore that the little girl smiled up at her.  A nurse told her it was just gas, but Annabeth knew better.  Almost immediately, she fell in love with the baby and added her to her list of favorite people.

144.  It’s just a common understanding that whenever there’s a school thing or the Jackson-Blofis family has to go somewhere, that Annabeth is going to babysit the youngest member of that family.  They’ve given up inviting her to come along, because she insists that she would rather babysit.  So many afternoons she’ll end up with the baby crawling all over her, with Annabeth trying to tell her stories about American history or Grecian or Roman history.  After all, she is determined to make this baby a genius and feels that no age is too young to start.  She’s even gotten her those huge baby blocks in an attempt to cultivate an appreciation of architecture in her as well.

145.  Annabeth’s always loved the idea of prom.  When she was young and first experienced the excitement of people during the first camp prom, she wanted to go.  However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, Annabeth never got to make it to her junior prom.  Then, when her senior prom came around, it seemed like a great opportunity.  She was still going to school in New York, and there hadn’t been a severe crisis to take her away from the semi-normal life she was leading.  Even though she went to a private, all girls boarding school, there were still guys at their “sibling school” that they would be having a joint prom with.  A handful of them even asked her as their date, and she honestly wanted to say yes.  But, despite the fact that she could have gone, Annabeth ended up watching movies on the couch of the Blofis apartment.  She never even bothered asking Percy to go to prom with her, because she knew of his distaste for anything related to dancing.  And it wasn’t worth it for her to have a good time if he couldn’t enjoy it too.

146.  Annabeth’s senior year goes by in a dizzying whirlwind.  Between still working on and overseeing designs on Olympus, helping Magnus out with his demigodish-ness, babysitting baby Blofis, prepping to go to college, and volleyball and soccer games, it’s almost impossible to believe that she’s graduating until the cap and gown are officially on.  Everyone she knows that can come, does.  Her dad, step mom, Matthew, Bobby, Paul, Sally, Percy, and even Chiron make it out for that day.  Her dad’s gift to her is a new car, and it’s that car her and Percy end up packing to drive out cross country to their new home.

147.  Since using cell phones sends up a signal to monsters of their whereabouts, Percy and Annabeth end up having to rely on old school maps--that neither of them are very good at reading--and mapquest directions.  They end up getting lost at least twice a day, which leads to several arguments about them asking for directions.  Once, Annabeth even threatens to turn the car around right then and there.  But, they’re already over halfway across the country, so it wouldn’t make any sense for her to do that.  The car’s cramped with both of their belongings shoved everywhere there’s an ounce of free space and it doesn’t do anything to help the mood.  Both of them quip at least once during their trip that maybe, if they can’t survive a car ride together in such close quarters, they’ll never be able to survive living together.  When Annabeth says it, Percy knows it’s meant to just be something hurtful to say and that she doesn’t really mean it.  Still, he shuts her out and puts in his headphones for a solid half hour before emerging again to talk to her.  When Percy says it, Annabeth finds the nearest fast food restaurant and pulls off the road there.  She mutters things about how maybe he’s right and that no one else has been able to live with her for extended periods of time before.  He has to promise her that he didn’t mean it, buy her a vanilla milkshake, and that it’s just a side effect of being stuck in a car for way longer than anyone with ADHD should have to sit through a car ride.  It’s only when they finally get to New Rome and begin to unpack their car that they feel like they aren’t completely claustrophobic and closed in.  And it feels like they definitely made the right decision after all.

148.  The apartment they get in New Rome is honestly a piece of crap.  It was one of the first ones built in the city and Annabeth figured that it would be good for the historical aspect of it.  And online, it looked like it was pretty nice.  But it’s honestly the worst.  The door to the bedroom is too low, with Annabeth’s head just barely clearing it, and Percy having to duck every time he has to go under it.  There’s a patch of the ceiling that leaks when it rains, the water in the faucet has to run for five seconds until it turns clear, the dryer never works, and the back burner on the stove catches on fire if you try to use it.  They didn’t have room for a whole bed frame when they moved, so they sleep on a blow up air mattress in the floor and their furniture is just stuff they’ve bought at consignment shops, so it doesn’t match.  But, despite the fact that it’s the worst first place ever, it’s their first place, so it makes it pretty special.  They go all out decorating it at Halloween and Christmas, and it’s almost like it becomes a little less crappy after it’s all done up.  The longer they stay there, the more furniture they do accumulate until it does have a vague color scheme, more or less and they have an actual bed to sleep in.  The bare walls eventually become covered in pictures of their friends and a few paintings that Rachel sends them to “liven the place up.”  She’s almost sad when they move out of it.  Almost.

149.  Annabeth only makes it about three weeks before she has her first breakdown in college.  Sure, she’d done well in high school, but that took intense concentration, and most of the people she was around, she didn’t really like.  Readings could usually be ignored entirely, or she could find some sort of audiobook to listen to.  But college is a different beast altogether.  Suddenly, she’s staying up until four in the morning at least three days a week in order to get all her work done and stay on top of it.  That’s not including keeping an apartment clean, and helping Reyna and Frank out in Camp Jupiter.  It’s like her time isn’t her own anymore and she just starts to slowly lose it.  Since she is so sleep deprived, at one point, she ends up just crying midway through a paper, muttering how stupid she is, how she definitely made a mistake coming out to California, and how she just wants to go home.

150.  Their first Christmas in New Rome is actually the first time that Annabeth brings Percy to her dad’s house as her “boyfriend.”  Matthew and Bobby legitimately lose it, because they remember thinking Percy was super cool the few minutes they met him years prior and spend forever trying to get him to teach them how to sword fight.  They IM Paul, Sally, and baby Blofis and Percy’s little sister gets so excited to show them everything Santa brought, that one of the toys accidentally flies out of her hands and breaks the connection.  Annabeth and her dad get to continue their late night hot chocolate tradition.  He tells embarrassing stories about Annabeth when she was super small that she would have no hope of ever remembering during one of their late night drink sessions that Percy joins them for.  And she blushes and acts like she hates it, but it’s the first time she’s ever felt like her father was actually her dad.  And she chalks it up to the Christmas spirit thing.  Growing up, Matthew and Bobby would always get matching pajamas on Christmas Eve that they’d have to wear and take pictures in for the next year’s Christmas card.  When Annabeth moved in with her dad during her sophomore year of high school, she started having to do the matching thing.  That Christmas, Percy was added in to the matching pajama thing.  It felt all levels of ridiculous and dorky, and Annabeth promised that she’d tell them not to do it again next year.