A/N: Hey guys! Um, alright, so i just wanted to let you all know that I won't be posting much on here anymore... I mean, yeah, I'll still upload stuff, but not faithfully or anything. You should all go follow me on tumblr and become my friend. (Link's on my profile page.)

Dedication goes to clarityofhatred on tumblr who requested this.

Disclaimer: not miiiiiineeeee.

"I need you so much closer."- Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism

The fall is long and hard.

There's nothing but sharp slices of wind against their flesh and emptiness all around them. Oblivion engulfs them in a cold second that freezes over so quickly that it ends up feeling like forever, and they just keep falling.

They don't hit the ground like they were expecting. Instead, there's a thin strip of water with a ring of fire peeling back the burnt ground by the banks. Annabeth's vision goes white—(of the blinding kind)—and suddenly she's pried from his grip and it feels like tar is filling up her lungs when she tries to breathe and she knows it's only water but it feels far too heavy in her chest to be just water, so she wonders if there isn't something else, something not in the water but inside of her already. She can't see past the explosion of bubbles, and Annabeth thinks that if bubbles are strong enough to keep Them apart then they really don't have any chances of making it out alive.

She sees a flash in the water like quicksilver and there's a tight pressure on her arm. Fear drips into her body slowly, as if she was hooked up to an IV full of it. She kicks and struggles, her broken ankle tightening painfully with every thrust.

When one is struggling to breathe and struggling to break free and just struggling, she often tends to think of the sky. She images what it might be like to breathe it in, to have the power to hold the universe in one hand. She desperately craves it, so she could change her fate with the swipe of a hand. And it's only when a pocket of air forms around her head does she spit it out and jerks back into her grey reality.

Annabeth's not sure where the light is coming from, but she doesn't have enough oxygen to think. Her heart feels cracked in her chest, but it might just be her ribs. Either way, when she hears Percy's voice, it's like a needle and thread sowing her back up, and she's grateful.

"Annabeth," he says, his voice scratching the air like sandpaper. "Annabeth."

She looks at him, her eyes trained on Percy's face. There, it's not so bad. A few bruises dotting his skin. A trickling gash on his cheek. And then it gets bad.

Percy's shoulder is shredded, weather by the wind or the impact, she isn't sure. The fabric of his blue tee-shirt hangs down in strips, and she desperately hopes none of it's his skin. She reaches forward, her trembling fingers tracing lines down his cheek, his neck, his arm, and, finally, braiding with his hand. His back is stiff but his eyes are melting and scared and she isn't really sure what to do.

"Are you alright?" she asks.

"Annabeth." He doesn't know why, but he can't stop saying her name. His voice is very small, almost limp in his throat. "Annabeth."

In that moment, something breaks and something heals, and Annabeth's not sure which one is worse. She's not sure of anything anymore, she realizes, except of how her head fits just right in the hollow of Percy's neck. And she thinks that maybe, just maybe, it might be enough.

"Percy," she says, "I know." And she does.

Percy's breathing is short and loud.

He's sitting next to her, and there's nothing between them but the thin ribbed fabric of their clothes. Annabeth tries hard not to count the layers between just him and just her. Only four, she thinks, tapping patterns beneath the cut on Percy's hip. And she feels drained, like a faucet that someone forgot to turn off all the way, and the hunger is knotting in her stomach, but there's nothing she can do about it so she nuzzles her head against Percy's cheek and closes her eyes, pretending that the flashes of light behind her eyelids are from streetlamps and not dizziness.

His breathing is hot on her neck—too hot, really; she should say something. But she can't, because even though his elbow is pressed sharply into her stomach and there's blood all over where her hand rests on his side, she's much too small to handle the weight of letting go.

The scars on her arm stretch white—(of the shimmery kind)—against her skin. Her hair falls down in dirty strips across her chest, smelling strongly of blood. Annabeth presses her cheek against Percy's shoulder and breathes in His Scent of sweat and blood and, even in Tartarus, a bit of the ocean. She's glad that's still there. Her fingers dash over the marks on Percy's palm.

"I miss you," she whispers, looking up at Percy, clumps of black hair framing his face. Bruises marked his cheeks, turning the skin around them a sickening shade of yellow. Percy blinked as if he was just stumbling into reality, which she didn't really doubt at four days and counting stuck in hell. He'd been doing that a lot lately, drifting off so deep inside himself that she couldn't possible reach him. She wished that she could rip him open and crawl inside and at least be with him in there if not bring him back, but she couldn't. All she could do was wait and watch as the light in his eyes faded and then blinked out altogether.

"You—what? I'm right here."

"No, you're not," Annabeth said in a breathy voice, her neck crooked at a nervous angle. Percy stared at her. She hoped that he'd read her like might a map, bending close so his warm breath skimmed her face, run his fingers down her spine, across the countries and over the seas and settling beyond the page with his hand pressed in hers. She wanted him to read her like that—like he used to—with her completely spread out and open like the steady words on a page.

"What are you talking about?"

He didn't, of course. He read her like a long, cursive script—all jumbled up and missing some of the most crucial parts. There was a dull aching in her chest, like something was breaking, or like she was missing something, as if she was starving for something other than food.

"Seriously, Annabeth."

"You are not right here. That's the problem; you're not really here. You're distracted. I can tell." She could feel him slipping away, and she searched for anything, anything that she could use to keep him from going.

Quickly, she braided words together like a rope and threw it towards him, praying to the gods that he'd catch it and listen. "You're everything to me. I can't lose you."

She repeated the words she'd told her mother, her head pounding and her eyes stinging. "Please," she said, though she wasn't quite sure what it was that she was asking for.

Percy was still for a moment, Annabeth's words finally wrapping around him, a rope pulling him back towards her. Percy tightened his arms around Annabeth and dropped his chin to the top of her head, his breath skimming her hair and brushing pieces away with every exhale.

He knew the moment probably called for some long-winded declaration of his burning love for her, but Percy's tongue felt too heavy in his mouth. He tried to say something, even something as simple as an I love you, or I need you, too, but "Okay," was all he said.