Annabeth sat in Percy's old apartment and watched Jason and Piper interact; it was just innocent touches, Jason's hand brushing Piper's shoulder as he walked past, Piper leaning into Jason when he sat next to her, them smiling at each other like the rest of the world didn't exist. It was all innocent and they didn't mean to hurt her, obviously, but all of a sudden this wave of anger hit Annabeth and she had to excuse herself. Because it wasn't fair. That should have been her and Percy looking at each other like that, it should have been the two of them sitting on his little couch with their legs intertwined, it should have been them in theirhome but it was Piper and Jason instead and she'd never say anything but she couldn't help but hate them a little bit for that.

She came up with excuses to avoid the next three get togethers they hosted.

When she finally went back to Apartment 3 the anger was still simmering, but she braced herself on the frame of the kitchen door when no one else was around, counted to 10, and told herself to be brave.

She steadfastly avoided going anywhere near the bedroom. That was a hurt she was not ready to face.

Annabeth tried to invite Hazel and Frank over four times before she gathered enough courage to go through with making the call. When they arrived they sat in awkward silence for ten minutes before Frank finally said, "I really thought he was going to beat it, you know."

There were a lot of tears, but there was also a lot of laughter as they swapped memories about Percy. Annabeth thought it was hysterical when they told her how intimidating they found her that first night.

They told her how flustered Percy had been when she'd stomped off. They said he'd kept talking about her the whole way back up the apartment, saying she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen and how he never had a chance with her because she'd just think of him as her stupid, annoying neighbour who set of the fire alarm by blowing up his microwave and tried to use his shirt to put out the flames. She laughed through her tears, because he'd been right. For a while, anyway.

Annabeth changed the route of the walk she went on with Mrs O'Leary. It was longer, and it didn't go past the park down the road, because every time she saw that place she imagined a little Percy skateboarding by, or grown up Percy lying on a picnic rug with her and talking about their dream home. Both hurt.

She couldn't eat blueberries anymore, either. Just the sight of them made her nauseous.

Sally and Paul invited her over for dinner. She held herself together through the main course, but as soon as Sally brought out a plate of blue cookies for dessert, Annabeth burst into tears. She tried to explain how Percy had baked them for her when she had a bad day at work, but she was crying so hard the words were pretty much incomprehensible. Sally just folded her into a hug and held her until she calmed down. The hug was still the most comforting touch she'd had since Percy had gone, but it was different to before. Both of them felt harder, sharper, rougher around the edges.

Annabeth slept in Percy's childhood bed that night. The sheets didn't smell like him - they smelled like laundry detergent. But she remembered how he'd pulled her down on top of him when they'd visited one time, how she'd shrieked and tried to escape his clutches as he'd tickled her. How he'd flipped her over and kissed up and down her neck, how she'd sunk into the soft single mattress as he'd held himself above her. And how loud she'd yelled when he'd pushed her off the bed and onto the floor. He'd hung his head over the side of the bed and flashed his crooked, troublemaker smile, and she'd been too exasperated to do anything but roll her eyes at him.

She didn't remember crying, but when she woke up the pillow was wet with her tears.

Annabeth couldn't bring herself to go through the boxes of his stuff. She moved them around, put them into piles and tucked them away into cupboards and under her bed. But she couldn't open them. Every time she tried it felt like she was ripping open her own chest and poking at a raw wound, so she gave up.

Her boss's sympathy eventually ran out and she had to go back to work. She hated it, at first. Hated struggling through the nausea of getting up every morning, leaving Mrs O'Leary alone in the flat and trudging to work. But soon she found her rhythm, and soon she was glad to have something to fill her days. Throwing herself into a new project was a pleasant distraction from the gaping emptiness of the rest of her life. Sally had been right to tell her to keep the job.

In her breaks she worked on a separate project, something just for her. It took a long time, because she couldn't work on it as much as she wanted to, and also because she was a perfectionist and it had to be without fault. She felt like this was the most important thing she was ever going to design in her life, so she poured everything she had into it.

A year after Percy's passing, she finally went back to the park. Mrs O'Leary sat beside her in the long green grass, and Annabeth unfolded the picnic rug and perched herself in the middle of it. She smiled to herself and unrolled the blueprints in her hand.

"I did it, Percy," she said quietly. "I designed our dream home."

There was no answer, but she swore the breeze got a little warmer and the sun shone a little brighter. Annabeth felt like she was finally starting to heal.