A/N: Hey there again, guys. So yeah, this idea had been floating in my mind for a long time now. I finally settled down in front of my laptop and typed it down. Please tell me if I did okay. And no, I am not abandoning 'Of Cuts And Pills' and 'The Quest For The Cestus Apple'. I am trying this arduous task called 'multitasking' and I hope I'll make it out alive.

Enjoy!

Warning: Characters might be OOC. Please tell me whether I did okay with the characterization or not. Would gladly revise for you.

Title: Stuck In Between

Summary: When her plane to New York City crashes, Annabeth Chase halts in a comatose and now stands at the brink between life, love, courage and death.

Story Song Prompt:Courage by Orianthi feat. Lacey

"True strength is keeping everything together when everyone expects you to fall apart." ~ Sarah Ockler

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Stuck In Between

Part 1 – The Beginning Of A New End

Chapter 1: Stuck

"No, no, no. Don't you go anywhere, Thalia. Just stay with me," I say to my six-year-old niece, trying my best to win her attention against that clown selling juice boxes and cupcakes at the corner.

Thalia pouts. "But Annabeth! I want that fluffy thing with the chocolate icing!"

"It's called a cupcake," I sigh after she kicks me on the knee. "And no, you're not getting one."

She whines in that childlike voice of hers, and I do have to say that she sounds adorable. Adorably dangerous, as a matter of fact. It is much better if she goes all brutish on me because, if she did otherwise, she can surely snare even the Fuhrer's heart. She can be more or less like an angel if she wants to.

Much to my relief, I win this fight. I get little Thalia to behave in her seat while I wait for twenty-four minutes before we enter the plane.

"Annabeth," Thalia tugs on my sleeve as she points at the big smoothie a kid her age is holding. It may have sounded less ethical, but I taught her to call me by my first name. Auntie Annabeth and Aunt Annie are names I prefer not to be called.

She looks at the smoothie with such longing reflecting in her blue irises that I can do nothing but consent. I buy her a banana blitz flavored one and that gets her to shut up for the next ten minutes.

Thalia and I are flying from Detroit back to New York City – our favorite city in the world next to Seattle and Los Angeles. I happen to like the histories of all three cities; the number of rollerblade parks in each city makes Thalia all the more happy. We will be landing at JFK airport with a connecting bus trip to Thalia's drunkard but still capable mother, who is waiting for us back at Westchester. After I drop her off, I'll be settling in college with my job as a cashier in a fast food chain – it pays relatively well for my college expenses and that apartment my dad rented for me in the Upper East Side.

When it is announced that the tunnel is open, I take Thalia's hand and we surrender our tickets to the balding man at the counter. He seems to sneer as he peers at our tickets, and I discreetly roll my eyes. I'm sure it isn't in his job title to scoff at passengers with economy class tickets.

We board the plane together and Thalia claps her hands as if it is her first time to go, which is, of course, untrue. Thalia loves planes and flying as much as I do. It never ceases to amaze me how humans managed to invent a contraption for flying, how we are capable to make things real from our imagination... Though people might see more of the bad than the good, and there are times that even I feel like losing all of my faith in humanity. I figure that things can get better because, no matter how hard life may seem to be, we are versatile. Especially when Death tips the balance of all things; life seems to go on and be better than before.

Anyways, this is what I thought as I went inside the tunnel with Thalia beside me. I don't know how or why I am getting all these sentiments about life and death. I just feel this… stirring inside my stomach. And I can't pin point the exact emotion or whatever source… And I know that something might happen as I step on the plane and when I step away from it. Crazy, right?

I'm overanalyzing, I know.

The flight attendants greet us, all plastered with their half-hearted smiles. I do not try to smile back – trying to send them the right kind of sympathy. I know most of them would rather be lounging on their couches back home than waking up at two o' clock in the damn morning and be shrouded by old, loud, obnoxious couples squabbling about who gets to sit near the window.

I pull out my ticket to check our seats. It is slightly wrinkled but not as damaged as Thalia's – torn up and ragged at the edges. I walk down the aisles and find the place we were designated to. A girl about my age, or a few years older, smiles. I instruct Thalia to buckle up her seatbelt as I drag the baggage and stuff them in the upper compartment.

Thalia pokes the woman beside her then gains claim of the seat near the window. I try to hide the horror on my face as Thalia asks the lady in that unassailable tone of hers, but the lady only chuckles.

"Don't worry. She's a fighter. That I can see," she says to me when I tell Thalia to mind her manners.

I nod. "Thalia's a handful."

She watches as Thalia stares in awe at the workers loading the plane with cargo. "She reminds me of my little brother. I'm Bianca, by the way."

I shake hands. "Annabeth. And I'm guessing you already know Thalia."

Thalia turns to me. "Do you think mommy will be happy with those su… sube-"

"Souvenirs," I say. "You made that flower pot for her, right? Of course," I reassure her. "She'll like it."

A flight attendant –the senior flight attendant – announces an apology to the rest of the passengers for the delay and says that the plane will take off in a few minutes. The seatbelt marker then lights and I hear a seventy year old guy frolic up and down the place, making an excuse to a flight attendant who's obviously pissed, saying that he needs to use the lavatory.

The plane speeds up on the runway and lifts off. My eardrums pop at the sudden spike in altitude. The last thing I feel is the plane going across turbulence before I close my eyes shut.

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Panic easily oozes off the captain's voice as it rings in everyone's ears. Oxygen masks start dropping above us. Bianca and I settle that Thalia is our priority so I kept the mask on her, my gut suddenly weighing another ten pounds as we plummet downwards from the sky.

The lights start flickering again. A metal rack runs up and down the aisle, a pitcher falling from it and spilling water not far from us.

And the loud, hasty clang brings me to my resolve.

People start shrieking for their lives and I find myself innately calm. I can't even find the strength to be afraid as Thalia's eyes gaze at me, wondering why everyone else is swerving in madness while I keep my frown and wait for the end to come.

I turn to Bianca, telling her, that if she and Thalia ever come out alive, to please take care of my little niece. Bring her back to her mom at Westchester safe and sound. Do anything to keep my little fighter alive.

Bianca nods, tears in her eyes. "I promise." Hair sweeps over her face. "And if I don't make it, take this," she hands me with difficulty a roll of cash stuffed inside an envelope from her purse. Her hand bounces along the plane's wild shaking. "Give this to my family – the di Angelos. They're in Queens. I want them to know that I do think about them."

I take the envelope with me, knowing that this is her life's savings. The envelope is her life.

"I'll send your regards," I say.

I hope that at least Thalia and one of us will make it out alive. If God truly permits…

And to my alarm, Thalia's head bangs on the seat in front of her. I encase her around me, shielding her from any more harm. My futile attempt at my goal in keeping her alive.

I wonder how close to the ground we are. I wonder how close I am to never getting home. I wonder if time can slow down because I want to tell Thalia about why the ducks at Central Park leave during winter. She bugged me relentlessly about it when winter arrived in Michigan, for the ducks there never left during winter. I want to answer her now. Just now, I wish the watch on my wrist would stop ticking.

I hear a metallic crash in the front and Thalia screams.

Pain explodes on my spine and then a huge, bright light blinds me.

My mind swims at the nothingness in front of me.

And I know my time is up.

No, no, no. Don't you go anywhere, Thalia. Just stay with me.

Just stay with me…

Stay –

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A/N: So, is it okay? I promise I'll make my chapters shorter this time so that your eyes won't glaze from all that reading. I'm sorry if I didn't quite catch Annabeth's character, and please leave some reviews. I want to know if I did alright.

Flames are accepted.

Please review.