Percy had never been so tired in all his life, and that was saying something. He felt like his body could give out underneath him at any second; his muscles trembled and shook, the blood from various scratches and injuries had dried and now stuck to him like another layer of skin, and his lungs burned from the poisonous air, despite the water of the fiery river of healing that he was drinking.
He wasn't just physically tired either. He was mentally drained, completely just... done. He wanted to just curl up there on the ground in the deepest pits of hell and never wake up again, but he couldn't, that wasn't an option. His emotions had been all over the place for this entire trip, since he had been kidnapped and wiped of his memories by Hera actually. But right now, they were lasered in and focused on one thing and one thing only, his determination to get out alive, to get both of them out alive.
He had to admit, Annabeth, his Wise Girl, wasn't looking too good right now. She limped horribly from her broken ankle, the homemade cast she had had on it now reduced to tatters. He could only imagine how much it hurt. They had discovered pretty early on that you didn't heal in Tartarus. Like, at all. Even ambrosia and nectar did next to nothing for any injuries you might have. He supposed that was to be expected, though. After all, now they were really in the land beyond the gods.
She looked pale, too pale. Her usually perfect tan that gave her skin such a healthy glow was nowhere to be found, and by this point in what felt like an eternity's trek through the depths of hell, she was basically reduced to nothing more than skin stretched tight over bones. Neither of them had eaten in what felt like years, and just thinking about food made Percy's stomach growl so loudly he was sure every monster within a five mile radius could hear it. Like their concentrated scent in this giant cavern wasn't already like a glowing neon beacon saying 'Yummy demigod for the eating right over here!'. Of course, it didn't help that down here the monsters didn't even really die. It reminded him of his time on the run from the gorgon sisters, except faster. He would kill the monsters, they would crumble into dust, and not five minutes later that dust would start the vibrate and shake and come back together again forming the monster that he had just killed, perfectly fine, just even more pissed off than it already was. That left him with only one tactic, slash and kill, and then run like Hades and hope you get far enough away before the monster fully reforms and decides to chase you.
They had been walking with no interruptions for a while now, and it was making Percy feel uneasy. There was a tingling on the back of his neck and metaphorical alarm bells ringing in his head that told him that something bad was going to happen soon.
He just brushed them away, he didn't have the time or the energy to fall into a pit of self-pity, they had to get out of here.
They had finally crested the rather large hill of sharp glass rock that they had been carefully climbing for a while now, and just as he was about to turn to Annabeth and ask if she wanted to rest here, the thing that his brain had been trying to warn him about happened.
Annabeth, with her eyes half open and her sense practically non-existent, tripped on a larger-than-usual rock. No big deal right? Wrong.
She tripped, her eyes widened in fear and realisation, and she went tumbling roughly and blindly down a hill that was as sharp and deadly as some of the fancier failed prototypes in Hephaestus' junkyard.
"Annabeth!", he yelled, probably attracting the attention of every monster in Tartarus, but he didn't care. One wrong twist or turn was all it would take to leave him alone here. He wouldn't be able to stand that.
There was a sickening crack and Annabeth screamed out in pain before another loud crunch followed it and she crumpled to the ground like an abandoned rag doll at the bottom of the hill they had worked so hard to climb.
Percy skidded down after her, his descent only slightly safer than hers, and was kneeling at her side within minutes.
"Annabeth! Are you okay?!".
That was a ridiculous question. Of course she's not okay. You're in Tartarus! And she just fell down the hill from hell and his now practically covered in blood!
Without waiting for an answer he began scanning their surroundings before his eyes settled on a small outcropping in the hill behind them and he scooped her broken body up into his arms.
He knew for a fact that Annabeth hated looking and being so weak. She wanted to help! She wanted to prove to them all that she could do it, that she was strong! But after that fall, her pride, her last defense, too shattered completely and fell away, and dark reality began to set in. She was going to die. Right here, right now, with her Seaweed Brain in the middle of hell. And she was surprisingly calm about it.
She was sick of this constant pain, her fear, her slight anger at her parents for taking her Percy away from her just to reunite them again so that he could be the stupid idiot he was and sacrifice himself for her and fall into Tartarus with her. Something that she knew, even then, she wasn't going to survive.
Percy carried her over under a small ledge of rock jutting out from the side of the hill they had just fallen down and gently laid her on the ground, her back leaning against the hill behind her.
She could feel her life force and energy draining. It had been for the last few days or so (or what counted as days down there), it had just taken her this long to realise what it was and what was happening. She could hardly feel anything anymore, her entire body was numb and she sighed in relief as for the first time in days her body wasn't racked in complete agony. She knew she should feel pain, in fact, it should be even worse than it was if the jagged bone sticking out of her leg was anything to go by. But it wasn't, she didn't feel a thing. And that was the just more evidence of what was coming.
Percy lowered himself to the ground beside her and gently pulled her into his lap, his hands automatically running through her now completely matted and dirty blonde curls.
"Well I guess this is as good a place as any to take a rest", he said, his signature lop-sided grin gracing his features, "I mean—".
"Percy...", she cut him off gently but firmly. He knew what was coming too, and he was trying to avoid it. "Percy, you know I don't have much longer—".
"No! You can't die, Annabeth, you just can't! You can't leave me here...", he said, his voice cracking painfully. "I'll protect you".
"This isn't something that you can fight, Percy".
He shook his head, unshed tears forming in his eyes. "I don't care".
"Percy please... I'm so tired, so tired...", she trailed off brokenly and he met her eyes.
What he saw there she didn't know, but it was obviously enough to make him come to the same realisation she had.
"You can't fight death, Seaweed Brain. It doesn't matter if you rescued him after he was kidnapped".
A sad smile broke out on his face as it always did whenever he talked about their friends on the surface. "Actually that was Frank, I just protected him, he was the one who burned his life away to free Thanatos from the chains".
She, too, smiled at the mention of their friends up on the surface, but it didn't reach her eyes completely, and the somber mood soon returned.
He hugs her close to him, bringing his lips to her forehead and giving her a kiss before burying his hair in her curls that still somehow smelled like lemons and strawberries.
"Percy, when I'm gone, I don't want you to break down, okay? Don't shut people out, they're your family and everybody's lost someone before. Especially Thalia and Nico. They're the closest to family you're ever going to get".
He nodded slightly and pulled her impossibly closer to him.
"And be happy? For me? I'll see you again in the Isles of the Blest. Move on, fall in love again, have a family. Do all the things that we were supposed to do okay? Live, and then die after a long happy life and I'll be there waiting for you.".
He vehemently shook his head.
"No. I won't fall in love again, Annabeth. You're my wise-girl, my world. You're the only person I could ever truly love. I won't cheat on you, even when you're... gone. I can't", his voice broke again when he spoke and Annabeth smiled up at him with a real genuine smile for the first time in months. His words warmed her heart, but at the same time they made her sad. He would never get to do all those wonderful things they talked about, with her, or anybody else.
Her throat hurt, and she could taste the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, though where it was coming from she didn't know.
"Okay... but first you have to get out of here. Escape, put Gaea back to sleep, and don't let me see you until your time, okay? I...love...you".
Her breaths were much shallower now, and no matter how many times her chest rose and fell she never felt like she was getting enough air.
"I will. I swear it on the Styx, Annabeth. I'll get out of here, and I will make Gaea pay for what she's done", he said, the dark anger in his eyes overshadowed only by his sadness when he felt her body slowly beginning to go limp.
Even in the depths of Tartarus thunder boomed loudly when the oath was made, and Annabeth's eyes widened.
"Percy, the prophecy...".
"Shh... It's okay, I know. I'll be seeing you soon, okay?".
Her beautiful stormy grey eyes lock onto his sea-green ones, and he stares into them deeply, knowing that this is the last time he will probably ever see them and wanting to preserve that image in his memory forever.
She gives one last hiccuping breath, and he locks his lips on hers, pouring all of his emotions and all of his love into that one kiss, preserving her last breath between them.
"I...love...you...Seaweed Brain", she gasps out as they pull apart. And then she goes limp, the ever-present spark of life in her eyes disappears, and her heartbeat that had always been able to calm him down and comfort him disappeared.
At first, he didn't know what to do. He stared, and waited for her to blink and her chest to rise again and for her to get to her feet and playfully yell at him for taking such a long break when they had so long left to walk. But she did none of those things. She stayed limp in his arms, her eyes continued to stare up at the ceiling, unseeing and clouded by death. And that's when he broke.
He had never allowed himself to cry so openly before. He had never been able to show such weakness when he was everybody's leader, the person that they looked up to. If he fell, everybody around him would fall with him.
But right here, and right now, he just didn't care. Horrible sobs worked their way past his lips, and he began rocking on his heels slowly back and forth while pulling her body closer to his. She remained limp in his arms, and when he buried his face in her curls again, he didn't smell lemons and strawberries, only the grime and blood from Tartarus. It was like it disappeared along with her life.
"Please no... please no...", he whispered, continuing to rock her body. "I love you too, Wise Girl", he said, despite the fact that she couldn't hear him anymore.
Tears pour down his cheeks and he lets them. What's the use in trying to be strong anymore if the one person he was trying to be strong for just died?
Dead. Annabeth is dead. You couldn't protect her. She died because of you.
"No!".
Gently, he laid her body back down on the ground in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest. He used two of his fingers to slowly close her eyelids and then scrambled away, as if her body burned him.
Her body. Her non-living, dead body.
She almost looked like she was sleeping peacefully, despite all the blood and grime, the muscles in her face were completely relaxed, no longer screwed up tight in pain like they had been ever since they had fallen down here. She wasn't in pain anymore. She wasn't suffering.
Emotion began to bubble up and over inside of him. He wanted to sob, and cry, and scream to the world and the Fates how unfair this was. He probably would have, too, if that wouldn't have completely torn his throat apart. He could feel the thick blood dripping down his throat already from just breathing and his brief conversation with Annabeth, and he knew that he would have to get back to the river soon.
But how could he just leave her? Leave her by herself, let her body be complete torn apart by monsters (because he had no doubt that they would do just that). No, he wouldn't just leave her.
Than what should he do?
All these thoughts ran through his mind and mixed with his total and complete emotional pain that had already begun to grow inside of him again.
He heard a spine tingling growl from somewhere in the darkness behind him and was immediately put on guard. He recognised the growl as a hellhound, and hellhounds never hunted alone. He had to leave before he was trapped here.
His muscles tingled and that sixth sense that all demigods seemed to have for danger was going crazy, telling him to move, to run away from there. But he couldn't. leave. Annabeth.
Suddenly, a breeze blew past in the darkness. He didn't know how that was possible considering that this was Tartarus, but it was unmistakable. A melodic tenor voice was carried on that breeze, it soothed his nerves and whispered into his ear.
Before his eyes, Annabeth's body dissolved into a golden light, and the voice that he now recognised as belonging to Thanatos whispered in his ear.
"Consider us even...".
More tears spilled down his cheeks but he wiped them away angrily.
"Thank you Thanatos", he croaked out. But the god of death was already gone.
The growl broke through the air again, closer this time, and Percy knew he had to move.
He had new motivation this time. And pain and revenge were oh so sweet.
A/N:
Did I make you cry? My goal in life as a writer of sad scenes is to make my readers cry.
Tell me if I succeeded!