Annabeth's Perspective of the Percy Jackson Books (Annabeth's POV)

Letter from my Dad

**End of the Lightning Thief when Annabeth is deciding to sent a letter to her dad ... I also have really looked but could not find a cannon name for Annabeth's stepmom so I used Tanya, let me know if she has an official name somewhere ** 

That night I couldn't fall asleep. I had been trying to sleep for at least an hour with absolutely no luck. I was thinking about the positive memories of my dad that I had shared with Percy that afternoon and about what he had suggested when we were talking in that disgusting animal transport vehicle. 'You shouldn't give up, you should write him a letter or something.'

At the time the suggestion had seemed laughable but now ... Well, I wasn't sure anymore. I thought back to when I had received the letter from my dad.

---

As we celebrated Luke's return there was an air of uncertainty intermingled with the normal proceedings. Normally when heroes return from a quest they have succeeded and done something amazing. We are happy they have returned but we are also celebrating their successes.

Luke had come back, and we were all happy about that, but he hadn't succeeded, not really. There had even been a question of whether we should have a celebration at all. But that idea had gotten squashed as quickly as it had been brought up. Of course, we were going to celebrate, Luke had come back. We weren't burying him and so that alone was reason to be excited. But he hadn't succeeded, and he knew it, everyone knew it.

The angry gash on his face almost laughed at us the whole evening. We ate a feast and did the procession to the fire pit. We burned the shroud, and everyone tried to stay upbeat and festive, but Luke just sat there glaring into the fire, silently reminding everyone that no matter how much we tried to ignore it, he had failed.

The evening wrapped up early and everyone started heading to their cabins, but Luke continued sitting there, staring into the dying fire. With the fire throwing weird shadows and the cut under his eye he didn't look anything like the teenager who had carried me down Half-Blood Hill all those years ago. He looked so much older and incredibly angry, almost dangerous.

"I'll be in, in a minute, I've got to ..." I told my cabin mates.

I didn't want to finish the sentence, but they seemed to get the idea and headed off to bed. As I walked towards Luke, he didn't move a muscle. In fact, I didn't think I'd seen him move at all since he sat down on that bench.

"Hey," I said as I sat down next to him. I didn't really know what else to say. I was never very good at making people feel better, but I had to try.

"You ever stop and ask yourself why we do this?" he started, "we go off and risk our lives for parents that barely even acknowledge our existence. Even if we succeed, they still barely acknowledge us, but if we fail..."

I wasn't really sure what he was talking about; it was almost like he wasn't even talking to me, just mumbling to himself.

"Our godly parent ignores us and even our mortal parent can't raise us because the gods destroyed their life," he finished and fell silent.

"My dad sent me a letter," I blurted out and immediately regretted it. This was definitely not the time to tell Luke.

When it had arrived all, I had wanted to do was ask Luke's opinion, but he had been on his quest. When he mentioned our mortal parents, I just immediately thought of that and now I deeply regretted it.

For the first time that night Luke looked me in the eyes.

"I am so sorry, I don't know why I just said that. We can discuss that later. You are back and this has nothing to do with that and I just need to figure out how to keep my mouth shut sometimes. I'm so sorry, please continue what you were saying," I rambled out and then shut my mouth tight, still worried if I didn't think about it, I might blurt out something else completely unhelpful.