Man, she looks rough.

Will did a good job, Percy will be the first to hand it to him. The guy's gotten pretty good at his craft. She seems a lot better than she was when Nico dug her out of the minigolf windmill.

But still, Annabeth looks pretty rough.

Percy didn't like the look on Will's face. Is there something more to this that he doesn't know about? Because if there is, he should know about it.

Percy sits at the foot of the bed, watching as Annabeth dips in and out of consciousness. That's something that hasn't changed about her; even when sleeping, she's restless, lost in thought. She looks troubled, and Percy wishes for nothing more than to be able to offer her some sort of comfort.

He smiles, thinking of a time when that used to be his job. Anytime she was stressed out, he'd be right by her side, rubbing her shoulders and kissing her neck. She'd sigh and give in to Percy's goofy charm, putting her worries aside for another day.

Oh, how he misses it!

"Will?" she calls from under the covers.

Percy wouldn't dare complain, but he's jealous. He's so jealous that the first person Annabeth calls out to in need is Will Solace. Will freakin' Solace!

It's a good thing; he knows that deep down. After talking it out with his therapist, Cletus, he determined that she likely has serious issues with abandonment. It makes sense that she would want someone to cling to, but never be able to fully give in to that desire. So yeah, Percy's happy that she trusts Will enough to call out to him when she's high.

But there's this nagging feeling deep in Percy's gut that says, It should be you she's calling out to.

"It's me," Percy says. "Will's, uh, resting, so I'm here."

Annabeth slumps against the pillow in exasperation.

Although slightly wounded by her obvious disappointment, Percy offers aid. "Do you need something? Water? A snack?"

She groans. "Tattoo... stuff..." she reaches onto the nightstand. Oh yeah. She's supposed to apply the ointment in the evenings too, Percy guesses.

He stands up and reaches for where it was, but her sketchbook and the Aquiphor have both been put away elsewhere.

"It isn't on the nightstand. Could it be somewhere else?" Percy asks, trying to stay patient.

"Mmm..." Annabeth drifts off again.

He doesn't want to go digging through her things- gods, she was so mad when he took a peek into her sketchbook- but he can't be responsible for a bad skin infection or something, right?

He tries the bathroom. That's where someone would keep something like that, he guesses as he steps over a bra on the floor. Two toiletry bags sit on the countertop. He's taken a little aback at Annabeth's lack of organization. Percy, on the contrary, had tucked his things away in a drawer, and taken the time to set his toothbrush and hair product neatly on the counter.

Guess they're fair game if they're not put away. That does make Percy feel a little less guilty about rummaging through Annabeth's and Will's things.

Guessing that the grey bag is hers, he undoes the zipper and carefully looks through, only using two of his fingers to poke around. There's some sort of makeup, foundation, Percy remembers. One picture day back in middle school, he'd gotten a massive pimple and his mom used some to help him hide it.

There's a nail file, a red toothbrush, some shaving cream, a simple men's razor, and some condoms. How very Annabeth. Simple in regards to the girly stuff like makeup, but always prepared.

Then he sees that the other bag, the maroon one, has "ANNABETH" embroidered on it.

Yikes.

He's just rummaged through Will Solace's stuff.

He attempts to tuck everything back into place and then opens the correct bag. Everything is kind of tossed around like she'd needed something urgently and hadn't been able to put things back in their proper places.

Percy finds a small white bottle. Yes!

It's the solution for the piercings. No!

He sets that aside on the counter. Annabeth's toothbrush has a picture of Yoda from Star Wars on it, and her dental floss is cherry flavored.

Percy's not sure why these details mean so much to him. It's nice to see a glimpse into Annabeth's life.

Oh, there are more condoms. They're both prepared, it seems. Percy notes that Annabeth has a lot more than Will has in his bag.

And there's a lot more makeup than he thought there'd be. When did she start wearing this stuff? She'd never cared about that when they were teenagers. Now she has all sorts of stuff that Percy can't even begin to name.

Now he may not know that much about makeup, but there's something blue. Awesome. He wants to ask about it when she's sober, but she'd probably get mad at him for looking at everything.

Once he pushes the tampons and the birth control pills to the side he finds it: The white jar with the blue lid!

"Eureka!" he says to nobody in particular.

He re-enters the bedroom to find Annabeth hanging upside down off the bed.

And wow, she is not okay.

He rushes to the side of the bed. "Hey, hey... Get back up; you're hurt."

It's true; he can see bruising where her oversized t-shirt- well, actually Percy's blue tye-dye shirt- is riding up.

She giggles. "I saw Pothos today."

Oh, shoot.

"Get back in bed and tell me about it then," Percy says. "Are you sure it was him? What did he look like?" It's not like he wants to talk about the god of unfulfilled desire, but he's not really in a situation where he can pick and choose.

He helps Annabeth back into bed and pulls the covers down so he can put the ointment on her tattoo.

"A lot of people," she answers. "Reyna, Harry Styles, you..."

Percy smirks and dips his finger into the jar. He thought it would have a smell. "Me?" he asks

"Yeah..."

"What was he doing?" Whether or not she actually met Pothos, this could give him a clue to what happened to her, right?

"He called me things," she said.

"Okay..." Percy trails off and rubs some lotion on her thigh. A little bit does not go a long way here.

"Mmm," she moans at the contact.

Percy ignores that.

"Marty was there too," she says.

Who? "Oh, how's he doing?" Percy asks.

"He has a doggy with three heads."

In his state of surprise, Percy sticks his finger way deeper into the bat of ointment than he intended. "What?"

"And then Pothos shot an arrow at me, but he missed, and then it was all pink..." Annabeth yawns.

That... doesn't sound totally made up, although it does sound more like something Eros would do.

"How did you get the bruises on your stomach?" Percy asks, rubbing the ointment on his finger down the side of the bronze knife on her leg.

"Oh, do that again," Annabeth flirts.

Percy sticks his arms in the air. "Okay, I can't do this anymore!"

"But what if it gets infected?" Annabeth pouts.

"Nope. Too intimate."

She smirks. "I like intimate."

"Well, I don't," says Percy. He doesn't even feel tempted. He is not about to sleep with his high ex.

Annabeth pats the covers next to her. "Snuggle? Please?"

"I can't sleep with you," Percy says. "I'm just watching you until Will comes back."

"He won't be back," Annabeth says.

"Yes, he will. He's worried sick about you," says Percy. He pulls the covers over her body.

"No, he won't. He's with Nico." She pulls down the covers on the other side of the bed, once again inviting him in.

"Yeah, his ex-boyfriend," Percy says.

Annabeth chuckles. Chuckling quickly turns into hysterical laughter. It's like she's in on this big inside joke.

"Hey!" Percy says. "What do you know?"

Annabeth leans forward, dropping the t-shirt enough to give Percy a view of her cleavage. He averts his eyes towards the ceiling.

"They're sleeping together," Annabeth says.

Percy laughs. "Okay, Wise Girl."

The nickname slips out. It's a huge mistake. Oh, gods, just when they're starting to get along again. This is bad. This is so bad.

"I mean it," she says, apparently not noticing Percy's accident. "Will's not coming back, and I'll be lonely."

Percy holds back a groan. He's shared a bed with an intoxicated Annabeth before- last night, actually- and he knows that she's like law enforcement. Anything he says can and will be held against him, especially anything that could be an innuendo.

"Fine. No touching, though." He pulls the covers over Annabeth's eyes so she can't see him strip out of his jeans. If Percy's going to share a bed with this crazy woman, he's at least going to be comfortable.

Annabeth peeks and attempts a catcall, but it doesn't work, probably because of how infected her piercings got.

"Shut up," he says. "I'm wearing underwear with sharks on them. That's not sexy." He crawls under the covers and puts a pillow between him and Annabeth.

Like a pillow will keep her at bay.

"Goodnight, Seaweed Brain."

Thank the gods for that pillow, because she can't see the stupid grin on his face when he says, "Goodnight, Wise Girl."