Percy and Annabeth spent the first few weeks of their marriage exploring Crete. During their travels, they discovered an abandoned fisherman's cottage near Matala Beach. They fell in love with the cottage at first sight.
Whenever they had a break from their royal duties, Percy and Annabeth would sneak off to their new love nest for a couple of days.  Together, they swept, dusted, and scrubbed until the cottage was fit for human habitation.
Annabeth whitewashed its stucco walls while Percy patched up the holes in the roof with new terra cotta shingles.

They kept a small fishing boat in the cottage's pokey courtyard. Every morning, Percy dragged the boat down to Matala Beach and returned in the afternoon with a net full of fish.

He used most of his catch to trade with the nearby villagers for grain, honey, repairs on iron tools, and other things they needed. They ate the rest for dinner.
Annabeth woke at dawn and gathered olives from a grove next to the cottage. After making a quick breakfast for her and Percy, she brought her olives to the village press to have them made into oil for the day's cooking and lighting.

She wore the simple clothing of a Cretan peasant woman with a scarf covering her hair and a straw hat shading her face. The other women at the olive press never guessed who she truly was. Though, they could tell by her taller build, lighter skin, and flaxen hair that she wasn't a native of Crete.
Annabeth passed the time until Percy returned by grinding barley and baking bread for them to eat when he came home. When they finished their dinner, they would ramble down to Matala Beach for a sunset swim. Percy always teased her that the ghost of the wicked Queen Pasiphaë haunted the caves burrowed into Matala's limestone caves.

They returned home before dark and sat by the fire. Annabeth spun and wove while Percy mended his nets. Pleasantly exhausted, they drifted off into a deep sleep wrapped in each other's arms.

The sweet, delicate scent of oranges mingled with the cool, salty morning breeze coming off of the Aegean. Barefoot, Annabeth glided through the wet grass leading to the orchard.

A strong wind whipped at the tiers of her skirt and threatened to blow her back to Athens, or at least knock the basket or oranges out of her arms.

This was her and Percy's last morning in the cottage before they needed to return to Knossos and she wanted to make a special breakfast. 
Annabeth always mourned a little when she and Percy had to leave their little love nest. Life there was so simple and pleasant. They were free from the fuss and ceremony of the court and passed their time together in useful and rewarding occupations.  The villagers were friendly and unaffected. To them, she and Percy were just an ordinary couple.
But perhaps such a life only seemed simple and pleasant if one had a palace to return to when they got bored?
Back at the cottage, Annabeth mixed up the batter to make tagenites and fried them in a pan on the fire. 

Percy got out of bed and kissed her forehead.
"Good morning."
He picked up the jar of petimezi and drowned his tagenites in grape syrup.

Annabeth brought a plate of orange slices drizzled in honey when someone knocked at the door.

Percy got up to answer it. A messenger from Knossos stood at the threshold. He bowed and handed Percy a parchment scroll.  "My Lord."
"Come in, " Percy said. "My wife's just made breakfast."
Annabeth whipped up another tagenites and brought it to the messenger along with a cup of wine.
"You must have had a long journey, " she said.
The messenger chugged down his cup of wine.
"I was dispatched from Pitsidia, " he said.
Pitsidia was one of the towns on the road running between Matala and Knossos. A system of relay runners carried messages throughout. Crete. The papyrus scroll had probably passed through several other runners before the one that sat at their table.
Annabeth recognized the McLean family seal on the scroll when she opened it.
"My dear Annabeth, " it read. "By the time you read it this, I will be in Macedonia. I thought I write you a quick note before I left Athens to let you know how I and all of our friends are doing. 
Frank and Hazel have moved into their new lodging at the palace and he has taken up his position as a captain in the royal guards.
Leo, at the instance of his mother and sister, gave Calypso her freedom. The two are getting married next month. And me?
King Zeus has invited me to stay in Thessaloniki until he knows if I'm carrying Jason's child. I have a strong suspicion that I am since I didn't bleed this month. An Egyptian slave girl told me a way to tell if I am: pour my urine into a bag of wheat and barley. If the grain sprouts, then I am carrying a child. If the wheat sprouts, it will be a girl, and if the barley sprouts, then it will be a boy. King Zeus says that if I have a son, then he will accept the boy as his heir and I will be the mother of a future king but I'm hoping for a girl. If I have a girl, I'll be able to return to Cyprus and live out the rest of my life in peace... "
"The baby will be a boy, " Percy said. "Piper is a woman favored by the gods."
Piper seemed like a darling of the Gods. She had the beauty of a nymph, won the love and hand of the greatest prince in Greece, and was now going to bear him a child. But the gods had heaped blessings and curses upon her in equal measure. The two were muddled up and indistinguishable.  As soon as Piper won her prince, she lost him to death and his child would have to grow up without him.

Annabeth and Percy bid goodbye to the messenger then finished closing up their cottage. Percy hitched up the donkey to a cart and helped her into it.  If they were lucky, then they would make it back to Knossos by nightfall.
The landscape of Crete took Annabeth's breath away. Rocky mountains with spectacular cliffs sloped down to fertile valleys filled with vineyards, olive groves, and wheat fields. Beyond pine tree-dotted foothills, she could see white beaches and the glittering, azure Aegean.
Annabeth soared over the island, from the highest mountain peak to the deepest valley, and watched the people and animals underneath her.  Herdsmen lead their flocks into the foothills. Cattle and horses grazed in the meadows and grain ripened in the fields. Youths and maidens gathered olives and grapes to be pressed into oil and wine and sang songs of love and longing to each other. Children played in the sand and darted in and out of the waves like dolphins. Crete danced to a timeless rhythm that it had kept up for thousands of years. It would probably still be dancing long after Knossos was a ruin and Annabeth, Percy, and everyone they knew and loved was dead and forgotten.
By the time the skyline of Knossos appeared on the horizon, Annabeth had started to nod off on Percy's shoulder. He tenderly shook her back to consciousness.
"Welcome home, Princess."