A one-shot cobbled together because of boredom, sadness, and shipping.

When Annabeth falls, she falls alone.

Percy's cries are muffled by distance and time and her own screams—not of fear, but of terrible, terrible pain.

He had been with her. She had been with him. For the briefest moment, they had held each other in a collapsing cave, drinking in the presence of the other and holding on to the promise that they would never be separated again.

And then that moment ended.

The fall should have have killed her.

As she sinks into the River of Lamentation she knows it would have been kinder to let her die. But now she is here—in tartarus—and she is drowning in liquid sorrow.

Let go, the voice murmur. Let go, for hope is gone.

Water sloshes over Annabeth's head.

He is not with you, the voices say. Where is your hero, Annabeth Chase? Where is Percy Jackson?

Annabeth screams again—this time a sound of pure rage.

The voices recede. The water swirls around her, currents forming from nothing, and push her body onto the black sand. There is too much fire raging through her for the River to dissolve.

But it had still saved her.

She clutches her bronze dagger and staggers to her feet.

Percy is above.

Annabeth is below.

And she will do whatever it takes to get back to him.

Arachne laughs when she sees the demigod.

"Hello, daughter of my enemy," she purrs. Her voice drips with honeyed venom. "The River must be disappointed. You carry so much sadness it could have devoured."

Annabeth merely clutches her knife tighter. "I'm still alive. And I'm going to stay that way."

Arachne cocks her head. "Are you so determined to fight, young one? I could end it for you: it would be painful, yes, but nothing compared to what faces you ahead. And you would die with a clear conscience."

Annabeth smiles. "You made a mistake."

The spider cocks her head. "What do you mean?"

Annabeth doesn't respond.

Arachne's face twists into a sneer. "No tapestry could ever depict the pain your death will cause," she promises. She scuttles forward, poisoned fangs bared in a horrible snarl.

"The world is beautiful this time of year."

Arachne pauses. "What?"

Annabeth sits down. One finger traces down the flat of her blade. "The world. It's beautiful in summertime." She cocks her head. "How long has it been since you've been outside?"

"A…a long time," Arachne admits. "But that does not matter. I must kill you!"

"The colors are prettier than anything a loom could create. Crimson as dark as blood. Gold brighter than the sun. A blue…" Annabeth's voice catches. "A blue as deep as the ocean."

Arachne has stopped moving. She stands, almost puzzled, as distant memories crowd her thousand-year-old mind. "I...I...remember."

Annabeth gets up slowly and approaches the spider. Just as a small, happy smile appears on Arachne's face, Annabeth slashes upward with her knife.

The smile vanishes in a cloud of golden dust.

Annabeth scoops up a handful the dust and lets it trickle through her fingers. "I'm not the daughter of your enemy," she tells it. "You should have feared me more than Athena."

The dust scatters as she walks through it.

She barely makes it to the lava.

It burns as it slides down her throat. She gasps as tears spill from her eyes, but her wounds are fading. The world is no longer spinning. Her ankle is healing.

She can go on.

A telkhine—small, curious—approaches the demigod. It flops forward, cocking its head and wondering at the small, hunched figure. Perhaps she would like to play.

Annabeth looks up.

Too late, the telkhine sees her eyes—murderous, steel gray orbs—and the glowing lava dripping from her mouth. It tries to escape. To propel its chubby body away from the threat.

An awful screech echos around the cavern. Then...silence.

Annabeth wears its skin as a cape.

I'm coming, Percy, she promises silently. I'm coming.

It takes hours for the empousai to notice the demigod following them.

They surround Annabeth, teeth bared, hair flaming, blood dripping from their mouths.

Kelli's smile is brighter that the sun. "Hello, Annabeth Chase. Do you know how long I've waited to kill you?"

The other empousai back up, forming a semi circle around the pair. They will wait for their leader to have her revenge.

"All alone in tartarus," Kelli says, shaking her head in mock sympathy. "Where is your hero, Annabeth Chase? Where is Luke? Where is Percy Jackson?" Her eyes glow with malice. "Did they leave you alone again?"

Fury like Annabeth has never known courses through her bones. But she's smart. She knows she must win this fight, and she knows she must be patient.

"Luke is dead, Kelli," she says flatly. "Percy is waiting for me. And you're in my way."

Kelli laughs. The other empousai shift uncomfortably when Annabeth draws her knife and addresses them. "Why are you following Kelli?"

A ripple runs through them, and they murmur among themselves. Kelli narrows her eyes.

Finally, a young empousai speaks up. "Because she is our leader."

Annabeth nods slowly. Her words are threads just waiting to be woven on a loom. "She failed," Annabeth says. "She couldn't keep Luke alive. She couldn't keep Kronos in power. She couldn't even kill a little girl and boy."

"Shut up," Kelli hisses.

"Why not choose a different leader?" Annabeth suggests, and points to an older empousai with a streak of silver in her hair. "Why not her?"

The chosen empousai locks eyes with Kelli. Silence. And then she lunges.

The fight lasts for hours. Annabeth settles herself on the ground to watch. Whenever Kelli defeats an opponent, another is always there to face her, spurred on by Annabeth's words—words that are spun with more manipulation and cunning than even Piper's charmspeak could dream of possessing.

She's the daughter of wisdom, after all. She's the most powerful of them all.

Finally, only Kelli remains. Her red dress is in tatters, her once beautiful curls torn from her head, her dark brown skin slashed in so many places it glows with golden ichor.

"I'll kill you," she screeches, but she stumbles when she tries to take a step.

Annabeth calmly gets up and faces the empousai. Kelli sways dangerously, her pupils dilating and shrinking with alarming speed. "Kill...you…" she says. "The River...saved you...for me…"

The knife enters just below her ribcage. Kelli stares at it, dumbfounded. She tilts forward and Annabeth catches her, driving the knife in deeper.

"You should stay dead this time," Annabeth says. She brushes her lips against Kelli's cheek. "Goodbye, Kelli."

Kelli collapses in a cloud of dust.

A clear conscience. That's what Arachne had said she would lose.

As Annabeth walks away, she knows she doesn't care.

Percy is one step closer.

She cries when she finds the shrine and Connor's waiting m&m package. She has no pen to write with, so she uses her own blood to scrawl a message on a half burned napkin. It goes up in flames and she collapses into dreams.

The arai curse her more times than she can count. Pain from dozens of stab wounds litter her body; her eyesight is stolen; the weight of the world is returned to her shoulders.

She collapses. A trickle of blood dribbles down her chin. The arai laugh. "The River has given us a gift," they say. "It gave us you."

Annabeth's fingers scrabble at the dirt.

"Where is your hero, Annabeth Chase?"

Silence.

"Where is Percy Jackson?"

Annabeth strains her head upward. "You give curses," she gasped. "You deliver them."

The arai pause. "Yes."

Annabeth still can't see. She still holds the weight of the world. But she manages fling one last defense. "I curse you," she said, "for all the pain you've given me. I curse you to return it tenfold if you touch me."

"You can't do that!" one howls. In a rage, it flies straight for her.

The moment its talons slide across her back, the arai falls to the ground screaming. It crumbles to dust moments later.

Other arai attack. Annabeth receives more wounds, but each time she is touched, another monster falls dead.

Her eyesight returns as the arai retreat. The weight of the world is lifted from her shoulders, and her body is wracked with a hacking cough. Blood sprays across the ground.

Percy, she thinks weakly. Make it...to Percy.

It's by accident that she stumbles across the giant's swamp. She helps Damasen kill the drakon, and in return, he agrees to help her.

"You can stay here," the giant says are he wraps bandages around her ribs. "I wouldn't mind the company. And it will be far easier than what awaits you outside these borders."

For a moment—a single, fleeting moment—Annabeth is tempted.

And then she shakes her head. "I have to get above," she says. "I have to get back him."

Damasen nods slowly. "I was in love once," he tells her.

"With who?"

Damasen smiles gently. "The daughter of a titan. An intelligent, kind, beautiful woman who has passed on. We loved each other as no one else had, but it wasn't meant to be. I was cast below and she remained above."

A pang strikes Annabeth's heart. Above and below. Below and above. "What was her name?"

Damasen finishes the bandages. "It is of no importance," he says heavily. "You will find Akhlys if you follow the River. Take this and may luck be with you." He presses a drakon bone sword into her hand.

At the border of the swamp, he calls to her. "Young one."

She turns to face him.

The giant's eyes are filled with tears. "Tell the stars hello for me."

Annabeth gives a single nod and leaves the one place she might have been safe.

Akhlys sobs when she sees Annabeth.

"So much misery," she cries. "I can perfect you. Happiness will never again haunt you."

"I don't want that," Annabeth says. "I want the Death Mist."

Tears flow freely down the goddess's cheeks. "The River saved you for a reason. It saw your pain and sorrow and knew you must be preserved. It saved you for me."

Annabeth grips her drakon sword. "If you're so powerful, then prove it. Give me the Death Mist."

The goddess wipes away her tear. "Very well, daughter of Athena. Your wish shall be granted." She waves her hand, and Annabeth's body turns to a corpse.

Annabeth looks down at herself: a mummy wrapped in mist instead of linen. She is practically dead. "Thank you," she chokes out.

Akhlys's smile is deranged. "You're welcome. Your pain in this form is so sad; I'm almost regret having to kill you."

Annabeth moves too late. The goddess's claws rake across her back, leaving behind five deep gashes that burn with poison. "So much misery!" she cackles. "So much pain and sorrow!"

Deadly plants ensnare Annabeth; she's pulled to the ground, lashed to the surface, helpless as Akhlys approaches. Dozens of liquid poisons flow from the goddess, lazily tracking through the ground to where Annabeth is chained.

"Stop!" Annabeth yells. She has to think of a way to survive, to keep going, to make it back to Percy.

Akhlys merely grins. "Suffer," she says. "The River saved you for a reason. So suffer."

"I will," Annabeth promises. "I'll suffer you let me go!"

The poison halts. "What?"

Annabeth takes a deep breath. "If you let me go—if I make it back above—then I promise I will be yours. Misery. Sorrow. Forever."

Akhlys stares at her. "What do you mean, child?"

"I mean…" Annabeth closes her eyes. A tear trickles down her face. "If you let me go, I swear on the River Styx to cause misery and suffering more powerful than anything you've ever felt."

The goddess cocks her head curiously. "What will you do?"

I'm sorry, Percy, Annabeth thinks. I'm so, so sorry.

She tells the goddess her plan.

Nyx and her children surround her. Annabeth uses her words again, twisting and weaving them through the monster's ears. It takes less than five minutes before monsters are attacking the goddess.

And Annabeth jumps into the Mansion of Night.

The River Acheron begs her to jump in. She refuses. Percy is waiting.

Annabeth has almost made it to the doors when Tartarus appears.

His dark laughter fills her entire being, shaking her to the core, and almost making her wish she were already dead. She knows that she can do nothing but wait to be killed.

She doesn't die.

Damason provides the perfect distraction, riding in on the drakon he was cursed to kill. Behind him, several dozen drakons screech a battle cry. "Get to the Doors!" he shouts to her.

Annabeth's body moves of its own accord, running, pushing, stumbling through the confused monsters to the Doors of Death. Damason joins her as the battle rages.

"How?" she asks the giant, who has just finished killing the titan guards. "Why?"

Damasen's eyes are soft. "I could not be with my true love. But you deserve to have a life with yours. Go. My friends and I will hold them off."

The doors slam shut.

Tears course down Annabeth's face—misery, sorrow, pain, loss, anguish—as she throws her shoulder against the doors to keep them shut.

It's a long way up.

Her promise to Akhlys replays in her mind over and over again, but she doesn't have time to doubt her decision.

Percy is only minutes away.

He's waiting for her—her wonderful, beautiful, annoying, kind, amazing best friend. Comrade in arms. Boyfriend. Lover. There isn't a word to describe what he is to her.

Percy catches her as she collapses, clinging to him, half standing, fingers gripping the back of his jacket so hard the fabric tears. The other demigods battle on, but she doesn't care, because he's here, and she's here, and they're never leaving each other again.

Akhlys' triumphant laughter rings in her ears.

They defeat the giants. They defeat Gaea. Romans and Greeks are united as one.

And they are together—Percy and Annabeth, Annabeth and Percy—as one.

Three years pass. They're filled with nightmares and panic attacks and memories replaying themselves over and over, but Percy is always there to hold her shaking body, and she to hold his.

They're always together. They laugh and joke and make memories that are more powerful than the ones that haunt them. Happiness like Annabeth has never known fills her.

And then those three years are up.

Three years, bargained for and given by the goddess of misery.

When those three years are up, Annabeth knows why the River saved her.

Annabeth slips quietly out of bed. Percy doesn't stir. She brushes a hand against his face and presses her lips against his.

I'm sorry.

She doesn't take her knife. She doesn't take her drakon bone sword. She leaves them behind, sitting on the bedside table, right beside the handwritten note stained with saltwater.

I'm sorry.

Annabeth repeats the words over and over as she climbs down the steps to the Underworld. She passes the gates, Elysium, the Isles of the Blest, before finally coming to a stop at the pit where she and Percy had first heard Tartarus's call.

I'm sorry.

Three years. A deal struck for three precious, beautiful years with him, before she would return and pay her debt. She had agreed to it. And so had Akhlys. After all, lamentation only becomes stronger over time.

And Percy's sorrow will be enough to feed the goddess for eons.

I'm sorry.

The River rushes beneath her, miles and miles below. "I know why you saved me," Annabeth whispers to it. "I know that you are selfish, and cruel, and will feed on me for eternity." Annabeth closes her eyes. "And I thank you," she croaks, "for the time you gave me."

Her eyes still closed, Annabeth steps into thin air and begins the fall once again.

I'm sorry.

It's a long way down.

And this time, it's a one-way trip.

Sorry if it sucked. I didn't really go through the whole Freewrite-Rewrite-Second Draft-Edit process I usually do.