Summary: What if after Percy disappeared, he never came back to Annabeth?

Snow. It's everywhere: on trees, bushes, the once green grass, and crunching under her foot as she walks to the top of the hill. It's been a year. An entire year, and she wonders where it all went wrong: what they did to deserve this.

But she knows that it's never fair for their kind; no happy endings, no fairytales, no light at the end of the tunnel; only darkness and despair.

As she nears the top of the white hill, she starts to remember. Usually when she comes here they're all bad memories; but these are pleasant ones.

Like when he spent a month learning guitar so he could serenade her at three in the morning (much to her father's amusement and annoyance).

When they were eating ice cream and he went cross-eyed to look at the chocolate plastered across his nose.

After reaching the top, she continues on into the shack commemorated to him. Well, it's not a shack. It's beautiful—because she built it for him. The sun gleams from the golden lining of the door and windows, light blue-tinted brick covered the rest of the building; the door a simple dark cherry oak.

She opens the door and walks in, closing it behind her. She kneels in front of the picture and special Greek fire that, sworn by Zeus himself, would burn for the rest of eternity.

"Hey. I know it's been a while but I couldn't get away this week, you know? Mom has been trying to keep me busy to keep my mind off of things. Like that could get me to forget what this week is."

She stares at his picture, which doesn't give his dark, unruly hair, and stunning sea green eyes justice.

"Malcolm was trying to cheer me up yesterday and Thalia thought he was being stupid so she shocked him."

She chuckles at this because she knows he would have, too. As she does, a tear slips down her cheek. She kisses his picture, lays down the flowers from Demeter, and quickly escapes, not wanting to cry in front of him.

She does wait to get a few feet down the hill before she collapses onto the ground, sobbing.

"WHY? WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?" She screams, sobbing harder now.

She feels the air shift around her and knows that they're there, giving her sympathetic glances, but she doesn't care. She can't, she's finally given up and broken down.

She feels the arms of her mother, Athena, wrap around her to comfort her.

"Mother, I just want to be alone right now, okay?"

She wasn't expecting the deep, smooth voice that answered her:

"Well then. Good thing I'm not your mom, huh?"

She looks up in shock. All around her are the Olympians, campers, and hunters. But instead of the sympathetic looks she was expecting, they are smiling at her.

And how can they not? Because holding her in his arms, was Perseus Allen Jackson.

She screams and throws her arms around him, crying and murmuring incoherent things.

Percy stays in her ear, whispering reassurances that this is actually happening.

His embrace tightens as he whispers: "I missed you Wise Girl."

She laughs as tear escape her, the first genuine laugh in a whole year, as she whispers back:

"I missed you too, Seaweed Brain."