Not a very long chapter but something for any Percabeth fans : )

Thanks for reading

~Companion 17

Annabeth Chase

Never a dull day

Hanging above me, so close I felt her ice cold breath on the back of my bare neck. Her body swayed in the breeze, like an out of control child with the beams of moonlight shining off the dirty bandages, covering her decaying body. Her hysterical laughter echoing round my skull as I desperately tried to escape her.

But she stalked after me, following my movements with ghostly precision, laughing still as she flied easily amongst the branches, towering in the sky above me. Jumping from tree to tree in a never-ending circle that surrounded me, now reciting a haunting poem in her ghastly crumbling cackle:

"Seven half-bloods must answer the call,

To storm or fire the world must fall,

An oath to keep with a final breath,

And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death."

The last word fled from her lips as a branch a step away from me snapped from its tree and she plummeted towards the forest floor. On the floor she writhed in agony screaming and laughing with her face screwed up as if oblivious to the world around her. The fall didn't seem to have hurt her at all as she continued to laugh, while her eyes darted around in a frenzy of movement and she screamed and shrieked of the end of time.

I darted awake instantly, as the cackling laughter of the Rachael Elizabeth Dare in my dream continued to haunt my mind. I was covered in sweat, and breathing uncontrollably fast, trying to convince myself that I had escaped the enclosing forest of my nightmare and that I was back at camp. I was safe, relatively speaking.

I sat up in my bed, looking around at the other campers who were blissfully asleep, and then once again, as they had so many times during the evening, my eyes darted through the window just beside my bed to the Poseidon cabin outside.

The picture of Percy leaning against the wall and looking out of the window, an odd mirror of myself, wouldn't leave me. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about seeing him again, it didn't make sense, any of it.

A year ago I could've been certain I knew Percy better than anyone, even myself, but I hadn't imagined he would accept Zeus' offer. A refusal had been hovering above his lips, the words forming and then different words being said; a different future was written.

I shook the thought of Percy away, turning once more to the dark prospect of the prophecy. The obvious questions skirted through my mind…

Who were the half-bloods?

To answer what 'Call'?

What Oath?

And perhaps more worryingly of all, who's final breath…?

A creaking door snapped me back to reality. I darted around to stare at who had interrupted my thoughts. Percy. He stood there, his figure illuminated by the moonlight in the shadowy doorway. Just standing. No words filled the room, not from either of us.

In all the time since last summer I'd imagined seeing him again. each time the scene played out differently in my head. Sometimes there was screaming, fighting. Others there were tears, even enough to fill rivers. Occasionally I stormed out but right then I felt different.

It was like all my anger and sense of betrayal disappeared at that moment. I saw the real Percy. The god Percy had seemed selfish and arrogant and bitter and not really Percy. That had hurt the most, the feeling that the Percy I had known, the Percy I had loved, was gone, almost like he'd died.

But in that moment I realised that that Percy had never left. His dark frame hunched by the door revealed his true self. Fragile but brave. Fearful but ready to stand up and to fight when need be. And kind, insanely kind and caring.

I saw him again, my Percy. I gently gestured for him to join me by my bed. He walked towards me and I instinctively stepped into his arms. He wrapped his arms around me and the warmth surrounded me.

I felt completely comfortable and at peace. Percy smiled down at me, his eyes portraying his true happiness.

We made a silent pact in that moment. We didn't need to talk. There would be time for talking later, lots of time. Right then and there all we needed was each other, like we were in our own little bubble.

In the end Percy held me in his arms all night. We fell asleep lying next to each other with his arms still locked around my thin frame, like he never wanted to let me go again.

The night passed by indifferently. The sun ascended into the sky with unprecedented haste. The time for the talking and the prophecy were fast approaching.

Dark times lay ahead but for that moment we were truly happy.

Happiness is a mood, not a destination