annabeth didn’t exactly reject you — no, she carved out that heartbreak the surgeon’s way: precise, detached. not now, she said. maybe not ever, if you squinted between her lines. she was busy, after all, becoming the architect of olympus, etching her name into marble while you were still learning how to patch drywall with duct tape and hope.

and besides. you two? built from different elements. if you were sunshine, she was midnight rain. if you threw wildflowers at the world, she planted steel into the ground.

that was, until some pissed-off snowstorm straight from khione herself hammered camp half-blood stupid, gluing you and her inside the big house mid-christmas decoration spree. trapped between a half-hung wreath and a string of tangled lights.

“so.” annabeth’s voice cracked that silence, rough as sandpaper, her stormcloud eyes pinned onto you like you were some kind of map she couldn’t quite fold right.

“how… how are things going for you?”

it wasn’t casual. it wasn’t anything near casual. it sounded like her throat hadn’t decided yet if it wanted to be brave or scared shitless.

you could almost hear the tremor underneath, like thunder way, way off.