A/N: This is going to be a novella. Kioko bullied me into it, so here it is. The story is loosely in response to the prompts at the Percy Jackson battle community: Percy/Annabeth, don't let the door hit you on the way out and Percy/Annabeth, hope is all we have. Look on my profile for more information. Really, this is just a fic I've been cooking up in my head for a long time. I hope to update at least once every two weeks (usually once a week), but be aware that I'm really bad at keeping my goals. Obviously, the story is Percy/Annabeth, and YES I used Cassie's name again. In my world, she is canon. Please enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson.

Chapter 1

Percy put the papers in front of him and stared at them as if he could will them to disappear. This was one problem he couldn't fix with Riptide. This was one problem he couldn't figure out how to fix. It pissed him off. There was nobody in the apartment, so he picked up a plastic cup and threw it at the wall. It made a loud clunk and fell to the floor intact. It left a tiny dent. He would have to pay for that. Wasn't throwing things supposed to give people some satisfaction? He still felt as if angry little ants were crawling under his skin.

He glanced at the handful of pens in the cup on the coffee table. He couldn't make himself go get one. If he put his signature on that bottom line, that was it. It meant he was really calling it quits. It meant everything he had worked for since he was twelve years old was a total waste.

She said something a long time ago that stuck with him, particularly right now. It seemed so ironic. They thought they could trump the statistics. They had beaten every Titan in the book, hadn't they? It turned out beating monsters wasn't the same thing as beating real life. Real life was harder, and real life didn't go away after you solved one thing. You woke up every day, and you had to work at it every day.

"Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce." She said it before they got married. "Do you think we can beat those odds?" she asked him then.

They were young and in love. Everything was easy. "Yeah," he told her. "I promise we will."

The stupid cuckoo clock on the wall struck six. It made the most obnoxious dings. He wanted to strike it down from its perch. "Damn it, Annabeth," he said out loud. "Why did we have to be in the wrong half of the fifty percent?" This was one more thing she was going to hold against him. Promises could be broken, and he broke the most important one.

He ran a hand through his hair. But it wasn't like he was the one who filed for divorce. She served him the papers. She had cried when he proposed. She didn't when she handed him the packet. "Sign them, please," she had said, adding "please" as almost an afterthought. They never spoke so formally, asked please and thank you. Those things were a given. She never said "please" to him their entire marriage, except in the context of "please don't die while slaying that monster." He wondered what changed so much that they talked as if they were strangers.

As if he wasn't the only person who knew that carrot cake was her least favorite food, and she couldn't eat it without puking. Or that she cried the whole night after her dad got married to her stepmother. Or that she secretly wanted to be an only child so badly it was part of the reason she ran away. Or that her favorite scent was pumpkin pie. Or that she knew how to play classical piano. A million different things only he knew about her. He knew her best. The only thing he didn't know was how to save this marriage. And that was the only thing he needed to know at this moment.

His cell phone rang discordantly. He fished it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. The call was from Annabeth. Why would she be calling him? He couldn't decide whether to pick it up or not. What if she was only calling to yell at him? It rang five times, almost to the end of the thread, before he picked up. "Hello?"

"Daddy." The voice on the other line was his daughter's.

"Yeah, sweetie?"

"When are you coming home?" The wheedling tone almost made him cry, more than the divorce papers in front of him. He blinked away the tears he never would have shed for anyone else. There was a rustling sound from the other side, maybe whispering. Maybe Annabeth telling their daughter that their home wasn't Daddy's anymore. That Daddy was moving away for good. "I mean," his daughter amended, "when can I visit?"

So Annabeth was there. Of course she was. Cassie was calling from Annabeth's phone.

"Soon," he told her. "Soon. This weekend?"

"That's in—four days! I want to see you now."

"Daddy has to work. He wouldn't be able to play with you until then," he said.

"Then, then, why don't you come home? We can play here."

"I can't." There was no way he could explain this situation to a six-year-old, no less his own. Her mother would be better with this. Annabeth, no matter what else could be said about her, was the best mother.

"Why?"

Why, indeed? He wished he could answer the question for himself. He wished he could tell her he was coming home. For a wild moment, he imagined saying he was moving back into the phone, packing up all his stuff, and showing up at the front doorstep—what used to be his front doorstep. Annabeth wouldn't turn him away if he stood at the door when she opened it. Well, maybe she would. She certainly had no problem ordering him out in the first place. Her stubbornness and no-nonsense attitude had been charming when it wasn't directed toward him.

He sighed into the phone. It made a crackling noise. "Daddy?"

"Mommy will drive you here this weekend, okay? You can call me every night until then."

Cassie snuffled a little bit. "Okay," she whispered. "'Bye, Daddy. I miss you."

"I miss you too—"

"Percy?"

He sat up straighter. Cassie had handed the phone to her mother. His wife—still his wife until he penned his signature, anyway. Her voice made his palms sweat. There was no trace of anything in the voice. She was pretty good at masking her feelings. When she didn't want you to know how she felt, you wouldn't know. If they were face-to-face, he felt sure he would be able to know whether or not she really wanted this. Maybe that's why she would only talk to him on the phone.

"Mm hmm?" He wasn't the best at shielding his emotions himself. He coughed to straighten out the lump in his throat from talking to Cassie.

"Have you signed the papers yet?"

He didn't answer.

"You have to sign them by next week. Please."

"Stop using the word, please," he snapped.

She fell silent on the other side. He couldn't even hear her breathe. Did she hang up? That would be just great. He couldn't even have a civil conversation with her anymore.

"Just sign them, Percy. Let's just get this over with as soon as possible. My lawyer—"

I don't want to talk about it, he thought. Can we talk about anything else? My lawyer, your lawyer, the papers, our daughter, custody, alimony, I'm so sick of this whole thing. Can we talk about the weather? The baseball game? Cassie's grades, gods, I don't fucking care. Anything. He listened to the traffic outside his window, the tick-tock of the cuckoo clock. He tapped his fingers on the desk. With a steady palm, he pushed the papers all the way to the edge until they scattered like feathers to the ground. He would have to put them back in order later. He didn't care. They could stay that way until Friday when she drove Cassie over. Chances were, Annabeth wouldn't even bother to step through the door. She'd drop Cassie off and leave, so the divorce papers would lay in a disorganized mess on the cold kitchen tiles until a lawyer called and made him pick them up.

"I've got to go now," she said.

"Okay," he answered woodenly.

There was an awkward pause. "I'll—talk to you later," she said finally. "I'm—I'm sorry." The line went dead before he could respond with, Me too, or I'm not, or Goodbye, Annabeth.

He didn't like saying goodbye. He suspected she didn't like it either.

What the hell was the sorry for? He really wanted to ask. Was she sorry that she had to go? That they were getting a divorce? Or was she sorry that they had ever gotten married in the first place, spent half their lives together, and had a kid, a beautiful girl who was undeniable evidence that they'd once loved each other? He couldn't decide.

A/N: Reviews are appreciated.