Hullo there, new fanfiction! Well, hi to my beloved stalkers, I am back from my hiatus! Which means that The Land Built From Ashes will soon be updated! And I have a long list of one-shots to be typed up and posted soon. Aaaaanyways, here's chapter one of my version of House of Hades, to be updated every Friday! Hopefully. Happy almost Thanksgiving, American readers! Special shout out to the splendificent person who is now helping me out and beta-reading me stories: I am Bianca Daughter of Hades! You're awesome.
Disclaimer: Me no ownio anything in this except the plot and ideas. Characters and general stuff belongs to mastermind Rick Riordan, unless of course he decides to be nice and transfer them to me for Christmas?

I
Annabeth

Immediately, she was swathed in a load of great big... Guilt. How could she lead Percy into this with her? She felt selfish. Sure, having him with would be beyond useful, not to mention it would keep her sane for longer, but still. He didn't deserve this, and she almost certainly got him killed by letting him fall with her. That's when she realized, while she was making a sound more than a little bit similar to a dying cat, as they fell Percy was utterly silent. Nor was he moving much, outside of flopping uselessly through the air, yet his eyes were still open.

"Percy?" she called, and thank the gods his head turned towards her.

"Alright there, Annabeth?" he called back, and gave her a twisted sort of smile. She couldn't believe it, he was joking when they were falling into an almost certainly fatal pit? If the impact of an endless abyssal fall didn't kill them first, of course.

"Perseus Jackson how in gods' names are you kidding around when we're going to Tartarus the hard way?!" she yelled. Only then did she realize that he was just trying to be tough for her sake. He knew how scared she had been.

She couldn't begin to believe how lucky she was to have him, but just then his hand started slipping from her grasp as Tartarus pulled them down, causing them to continually pick up speed. She gripped his fingers harder, and with a lot of force, pulled him closer. No way was he getting way from her like that. He wrapped his arms around her, and she did the same, because just knowing someone else was there helped. With one last, big gust of suctioning air, they plummeted.

Annabeth had never thought there would be a floor to Tartarus, but apparently she was wrong. As they hurtled downwards at speeds that should have ripped them to shreds, a ghastly grey light illuminated a rocky base, some two miles below. Annabeth braced for the impact, and clenched onto Percy harder than was probably necessary, but in the one second that it took them to crash-land, her wonderful seaweed brained boyfriend somehow managed to spin so that he was underneath her, and took the full force of the impact.

She could only imagine how painful it was for him. As it was, every bone in her body rattled when they landed, and she nearly blacked out from the pain in her broken ankle. She rolled off of him, groaning as another wave of pain rippled through her. Once her vision cleared, she rolled her head to face him. Just that minor effort made every muscle in her neck ache, and caused her head to throb. It felt as though she had gone five years without moving, then one day decided to go out and commit to a twelve hour full body work-out, multiplied by one hundred on the pain scale.

Squinting through the gloom, she tried to make out his face. It took a while, but when she finally succeeded she saw that his eyes were closed, his mouth hung open, and his head was lolled to one side. A small pool of blood was forming around his head, which caused her to suspect he had banged it pretty hard when they landed. Oh gods, she hoped he was alright, and she swore that as soon as the pounding in her ears was gone and the feeling in her legs returned, the first thing she would do was making sure. She just hoped that wouldn't be too late; the pool of blood didn't look good.

"P-Percy?" she croaked, just to test out her voice and to make sure he really was unconscious. Her heart sank when a full minute went by without an answer. Thankfully though, it only took that one minute for the world to stand still, for her to be able to flex her hand, and for her to assure herself that she would not pass out. When all this happened, she rolled back onto her stomach, and crawled over to Percy as fast as she could at that moment. She lifted up his head, and gasped. The back of his head was soaked in dull red blood, warm and sticky to the touch. It was all she could do to not scream, and to remember what she had learned in her First Aid class at school. Head injuries always looked worse than they were, and when bleeds a lot, you have to press a clean cloth to it for a few minutes. Unfortunately, she didn't have a clean cloth... She ripped off the left sleeve of her shirt. That would have to do...

As she held the cloth against his head, and the blood began seeping onto her hand, she remembered the other tips from her class. If the patient was unconscious for even a minute (he had been, for several minutes) they may have a concussion. If the bleeding didn't stop after a few minutes (it wasn't) the wound could be serious and you should call a doctor. That seemed like such a cruel joke right then... Calling a doctor from Tartarus? If only.

Oh, how she hoped he would be alright! Annabeth dug out her small bag of ambrosia and canteen of nectar. She knew they should save it for emergencies, since they had no idea how long they would be trapped down there, but if this didn't qualify she shuddered to think of what would. Popping off the lid of the godly drink, it took all her willpower and common sense to not pour it all on the wound at once. Instead, she trickled it over the blood, and then poured a little bit down his throat. The blood slowly cleared as the wound healed, and di immortalis, he coughed and opened his eyes. As he stared around groggily, Annabeth laughed and pulled him in for a bone-crushing hug.

"Crushing... Me..." He half-croaked, half-wheezed, and she pulled away.

"You Seaweed Brain! I thought you promised to not leave me!" she yelled.

"Di'n't leave... you... Jus' u'con'ious?" he croaked, but gave her a tired smile.

"Don't ever try to save me like that again! You nearly died!" She scolded, but hugged him again, this time lighter. She was just glad that he was alright now...

"S'rry, An.. Annabeth."

"I forgive you, I guess. Just don't go to sleep, 'kay? You might have a concussion and I don't want it to turn into a coma..."

"Got it. I don't mean to put a drag on the situation or anything, but could we stay here for a little while? Just until I can see properly again and we figure out what we need to do. No use in aimless wandering, right?"

"Yeah, I was going to suggest that too. I don't think wandering around Tartarus without any hint of a plan will be any safer than it would be in the Labyrinth. Actually, it's almost certainly much more dangerous..."

"Thank you, little miss sunshine. All I needed was a 'yeah alright.' you didn't need to go all pessimistic on me."

"Percy?"

"Yeah, Annabeth?"

"Shut up."

He grinned, and though she would never tell him, it made her stomach flutter with butterflies. "I thought you would say that, Wise Girl."

She stuck her tongue out at him, and edged away a little. He didn't need to get all smart

"Aw come here Annabeth, I was just kidding around. Plus, it's really cold down here."

"You seaweed brain," she laughed, but went and cuddled with him anyways. Sharing body heat and whatnot really did work, and she found comfort in knowing he was nearby. Then again, it made her sad to think about how Coach Hedge would react to them, had he been there. She knew that they might never see their friends again, and that she should get used to being alone down here except for Percy, but that really didn't help the aching feeling in her chest. Well, really every part of her still ached but there was a figurative ache in her chest as well.

With that oh-so-happy thought, she snuggled up to Percy more and drifted off to sleep, him still awake and keeping watch.

Don't forget to review please! Make my lonely day much better?