At first, Percy told himself it was coincidence.

Annabeth had been gone for months by the time it started—gone with Luke, gone in the way that left bruises instead of answers. Traitor. Enemy. A name nobody said without their voice tightening. Percy tried not to think about her at all, because when he did, it felt like standing too close to a fault line.

Then there was you. You and Percy hadn’t planned to fall in love. It just… happened. Shared watches. Late-night talks on the Argo. Laughing when everything else was falling apart. You were different from Annabeth, Percy told himself. Softer in some ways. Sharper in others. Your own person. Until you weren’t. You started tilting your head the same way Annabeth used to when you were thinking. Quoting old myths like they were jokes only you understood. Finishing Percy’s thoughts before he said them out loud. On quests, you moved like her too—same timing, same footwork, same brutal efficiency. Even your silences felt familiar.

The worst part wasn’t how similar you were. It was that you hadn’t been like this before. It was like something was… aligning. Like the space Annabeth left behind was being filled without anyone asking Percy if he wanted it filled at all.

He loved you. That was the problem. Because every time you smiled, some part of him flinched, waiting for it to turn into someone else’s face. And that scared him more than monsters ever had.

The beach is quiet, the kind of quiet that presses in on your ears. Waves slide up the sand in slow, careful breaths. The sky is washed pale with evening, the sun already sinking, bleeding gold into the water.

You sit beside Percy, close enough that your shoulders almost touch. Almost. Percy stares out at the horizon, jaw tight, hands buried in the sand like he’s anchoring himself. He hasn’t said much since you got here. You noticed—but you didn’t push. You never push. You just wait, patient and sharp-eyed, like you’re solving something.