I apparently inspired myself the moment I saved the original chapter on my computer. I had this want to continue that one-shot, but it landed on a perfect stopping point so I in no way could bring myself to interrupt that by throwing more into it. Now, I'm just throwing together another chapter, that'll hopefully grow into a full story that I'll actually manage to finish—I'll die if that happens. It'll be a first.

I don't want the characters to be OOC but I'll alter their personalities according to demand. For example, Octavian is the creepy kid, not the eloquent speaker and conniving auger we know him as.

Please read 'Burden Bright', the companion piece before diving into this. You might not be thoroughly lost but it's a tedious task not to.

My inner idiot showing through: I edited this chapter thoroughly and revised wording so that it flowed better and you know what I did next? Exited out of the page without saving. What was originally posted was my rough draft before I spent a half-an-hour revising with a clear mind. Whoo!

Quote: You never forget who you really are… no matter how many nights you stay awake trying to. -Unknown

Rating: T

Pairings: Percabeth (others will probably be thrown in)

Spoilers: None. This is AU. Well, I guess since I'll probably include every character thus far, the names and appearances will be spoiled.

BURDEN BRIGHT
Operation Restoration

"It's almost summer," she tells me as she ducks under the window; she has on an elegant grey sweater that matches her eyes. She had begun covering herself when she came out in her pajamas. I don't like thinking that her physical condition makes her uncomfortable but it does just that to me. I can't look at her thin pale arms and ignore the fact that they've been mutilated so gruesomely. I can't look at the outline of her tank top and pretend the insipid pink lines aren't there.

Her black eye has faded, leaving just an ugly green and yellow blotch under her bottom lashes. Normally she would have some sort of concealment thing that she'd rub into her skin so the tones matched, but when we're out on the fire escape, she can't bring herself to hide anything. I want progress reports and she doesn't have the strength to keep me posted verbally.

I blink as a first response and try to bring around the significance; this phrase has never and seems to still not have a negative connotation to it. "Thank God," I breathe with a slight smile.

Her lips don't even twitch and I know I'm wrong.

"What?"

"What?" I know she's frustrated with this little fact; it's almost time for school to end, which does generally mean happiness for all the children of the educational system. No homework, no whack-job teachers, no really freaking infuriating under or upper classmen. But this isn't good for her and I'm not exactly sure why. "You're such an idiot."

I stopped taking offense to her little side remarks the first week of school when she told me that half-wits were twice as smart as me. By now, I realize it was not only her coping mechanism but also her means of accusing. She was begging someone to notice her and I, the dumber-than-a-half-wit-who-pointed-out-the-obvious-signs, had yet to notice what she was trying to say. She had chosen me for some reason.

I think now about all of the empty seats she could've slid into, next to countless fellow peers, but something had made her choose my neighboring seat. She threw her book bag on my desk and hooked our two personal bubbles into one—the lab tables were itty-bitty with hardly any room for personal space. I couldn't shake her away, even if I wanted to.

"I know," I tell her, sitting on the stairs that lead up to a story just above me and leaning back onto another step. She slips her legs under the safety rails and lets them dangle, her chin resting on her arms that lounge on a higher bar.

"I can't," she sighs and her eyes flutter. A long moment passes and I slide down the silence she gives me into her mind, envisioning two months of hiding around her room, waiting for someone, probably me, to return from their summer vacation trip. Two months of dodging blows, of crying to and by herself. Two months of painful days passing. I can feel her fear, her anger ripen; see her smiling adoptive father transform into a spiteful, destructive, vicious, evil monster. I think of her trapped in that miniscule apartment with him all alone and I want to die.

"I cannot be alone with him all summer."

I don't know what to tell her. Run away? That got her into this mess in the first place. And she was far too terrified of him to even hiccup without his say-so.

Based off of months of conversation, I had gathered that when she was seven she had run away from her real father and her step-mother. I had at first assumed that it was a Cinderella situation or something because that would at least make since. But in reality, she had just felt abandoned when her half-brothers were born. She had lived on the streets for almost a year before she was found—the girl's pretty freaking smart and could definitely take care of herself—by police. When they asked why she had run—did they hurt her? Was she unhappy? Did they… touch her?—she flat-out lied. She hadn't realized the price.

She was placed into foster care along with her two brothers, who were adopted separately and now live on the other side of the country, one in New Orleans and the other back in San Francisco, and adopted by a Mr. M. Phisher. Phisher was a successful real estate agent growing more and more powerful—Annabeth estimated that they'd be moving into a nice neighborhood soon with neat little houses, next to neat little neighbors, and a neat little yard for her to stare at glumly from the living room window.

We hear a knock on her bedroom door and she scrambles inside, shutting the window without even so much as a goodnight. I try not to let my Spiderman powers activate so I won't swoop across the gap and tackle him, maybe shove his head onto the hot stove. I watch the window, unable to see anything but her flickering lamp, and wait until he closes her door. He didn't touch her tonight and I'm so grateful.

She leans across her desk and twists the knob. The light goes out, the curtains close, and I breathe a little easier.

Chem. class is quiet the next day. She doesn't wander through the door proudly and drop her books down next to me, pretending we're nothing more than acquaintances, and silently willing me to do the same.

Some exchange student slides into her seat next to me and I grab my pencil and tap it on the desk so I don't thrust my arm out and shove him out of her seat and onto his face. He pulls out a notebook, sleek and black like hers.

"Hey, dude, the seat's taken."

He blinks over at me, registers what I said, probably scrolling through his mental Italian-to-English dictionary, and glances around the room uneasily. There's no other empty seat. It's a battle of wills; either he's going to move of his own free will or I'll just will him to move myself.

"I don't—"

"Yeah, but the seat's taken."

"Mr. Jackson?"

I glance over at the prim little man and slouch in my chair, muttering under my breath quietly, mimicking him in a way that would've made her laugh. The little meatball from Italy doesn't find me nearly so amusing and turns up his pointy nose at me, jotting down notes and carrying a slightly garbled conversation with the teacher about the complications of his grade and such.

My cousin's hovering around my locker, her feet spread like she's going to slip into a split, shifting her weight around and clutching the straps to her black backpack. I linger for a second by the trophy case filled with athletic awards and not but one academic trophy from 1994. She glances my way and moves aside while I work in my combination.

Her black, against-dress-code tank top accents her light tan. I smile at her blue eyes.

"Where are you going this summer? Montauk?"

My books huddle in the metal box, swallowing space, and press against the walls. I shut the door behind me. She walks along my side, us skimming the wall while people brush past us to get a glimpse of the doors at the end of the hall, ready to leave campus for lunch.

We lounge out under a tree, its skin gnarled and rough, and foliage curling up its trunk. I spread my feet and swish them, my hands tickled by the flattened grass under them. She sits atop the trash can lid and digs in her backpack until she finds a pretty green apple; she doesn't eat the red ones but rather passes them on to me or our mutual cousin, Nico.

Red skin, sticker-clad, falls in my lap.

I think of my secret and decide then that I won't go. My parents can go, they can take the annoying, curly-haired klepto from 3B if they want in my place—or a hamster, which is equally as infuriating—and they all can enjoy themselves. I wouldn't be attending this year.

"I'm staying home."

"All summer? You always go on vacation."

I look to her for a moment, inspecting her apple and not really paying me any mind, and I want to tell her about our secret. But she doesn't know Annabeth, just strongly believes I've got some sort of crush on her.

"Not this year."

"Are you hanging out with Annabeth?"

My eyes instinctively narrow and then relax because she casts scarier glares and I don't want one sent my way. I instead think that maybe that should happen. I should invite myself over, take her out, do something to keep her away from him.

"It's a strong possibility."

She smiles at green skin and sinks her teeth into it. "I thought you didn't like her."

"Not the way you think I like her. She's nice." That's what I usually tell people if they ask my opinion on her. Not to say that many people care for my opinion on her, especially not the tool that asked her out during the second quarter and then attempted to spread a rumor about her when she very publicly turned him down. Well, she rejected him quietly at first and then when he openly, during lunch and as loud as possible, asked her to be his girl she just as rudely told him she'd rather shove needles in her eyes.

I don't think she even said that to insult him, but she meant it.

She won't date, she'd said. Not anyone. And I believe her. Why would she want to get anyone mixed up in her life? She'd just have to keep half of her secret; otherwise they'd destroy the order of her universe. She likes order. She can deal with the way things are.

Anyway, I say she's nice but I'm not even sure that's entirely true. She's snarky and sarcastic, witty and funny, but not kind and sweet. She doesn't bat her eyelashes or try and spare anyone's feelings. But I am drawn to her as person, even still. She trusts me, lets me in, and I can never turn that down. I want her trust; she seems so above us all, that her choosing me is like I've gained the whole world.

"You're not sleeping with her, are you?"

"Who do you think I am?"

She knows better; I'm probably the only virginal guy left in the school and that's absolutely okay with me. I don't love any of these girls at this school, am hardly even attracted to them. They're all begging for it without the words and that just to me seems too desperate and shuts me off. Besides, I can't even imagine a girl without her clothes on without flushing with embarrassment and shutting my brain down completely. And her, so beyond all of our reaches, making love to me? It seems so unbearably impossible.

"Well, I was just making sure," she refutes with a 'sheesh' under her breath. She scans the campus and picks up on blond curls making their way towards us with such purpose, I sit up straight and fold my legs Indian-style.

I'm about to greet her with something I want to be witty when she reaches her hand out to me and makes a grabbing motion, hurrying me along. I grip her fingers in mine and pull myself up, knowing something's wrong. I nod back to my cousin and follow her, my fingers still curled around hers. She wasn't here just last period, but here she is, dragging me with efficient speed off to somewhere in the bowels of the school.

My mouth starts fumbling with the words Are you okay but she hushes me and pulls me into the ladies' restroom. She stands quiet for a minute, examining me in my embarrassment, and I start to speak only to be stopped by her hand. A girl exits the farthest stall and doesn't even look my way, her ears pink. I know what she thinks and can only hope this isn't the news around school by sixth period.

The girl washes her hands and hurries out, her fingers fishing in her pocket for her phone.

All of a sudden, her arms are around my shoulders and she's whimpering into my neck. Her whole body's shaking and she's muttering some mantra that is muffled wonderfully. I don't know what to do. My first physical contact with her was holding her hand on the trek here and now she's flush against me. It's so sudden, I'm fumbling with ideas of how to go about comforting her, but I can't process anything in such vicinity.

I think to pat her head or something. I don't.

"Annabeth, what's going on?"

She tells me she can't talk about it here or right now, just needs me to shut up and let her be weak. I consent to this because she feels nice so close to me.

I don't want to kiss her head or hold her—it's her. How would I even go about doing that?—so I lean awkwardly against the bathroom wall, carefully avoiding the green chewing gum stuck between the tiles. My hands press the wall behind my back and we stay there for a long while, until the bell rings and even still half way through fifth period.

I feel her breathe hard once or twice, count the different blotches on the ugly, light olive tiles, and try to decipher what shampoo she uses. All I know is that she smells clean, like she's been in the shower all morning, scrubbing everywhere. Her hair's still damp and a little frizzy.

She straightens and adjusts her shirt, her eyes no longer crying and her hands no longer shaking, then exits the bathroom quietly. I'm left pressed against the wall, watching her.

A/N: I'm gonna go write the next chapter now.