Being in the Netherlands makes Annabeth nervous.

Sure, the chomped tulips are bad, and the implications of having to fight the sacred boar of a maiden goddess when you yourself are not a maiden are ironic, but Annabeth's dealt with that kind of thing before. She deals with boars—literally and figuratively—every couple of days. That's nothing new.

She's nervous because there are Dutch windmills everywhere. They're cute; she can see herself hitting a golf ball through just about every one of them, but those visions are obscured by memories she should remember.

Spoiler alert: She doesn't remember much of anything, and what she does remember is a little hazy. Not being able to trust herself because the god of unfulfilled desires is tapping into her brain is more than a little daunting, and so is the fact that she seems to play a role in whatever plan the god in question has.

So in conclusion, the Dutch windmills dotting the path are a little unnerving, and sort of distracting her from hunting a goddamn copy of the Erymanthian Boar, which is inevitably going to ruin the outfit she wore especially to piss off Percy.

Plus, this shirt makes her boobs look fantastic, and she sort of needs the confidence boost right now because she has a feeling her dry spell could quite possibly last until the end of the summer. Damn, she is dryer than the Sahara Desert!

She chuckles to herself. Her confidence isn't the only thing her Hooters uniform boosts.

"Are you sure your shoes can't fit in your backpack?" Percy asks, frantically pedaling behind her. It's not that he can't ride a bicycle. He definitely can ride a bicycle, although Annabeth's not entirely sure where a kid from New York City would learn to do that. The problem is that there's something wrong with the chain in the bike, so while Annabeth glides along the road with ease on her roller skates, Percy is sweating profusely and pedaling way faster than should be necessary.

Her stinky beat-up Converse sneakers in the basket probably don't help either.

She turns around, skating backward so that she can see his reaction when she says, "No."

"You can skate backward?" he asks. And then Annabeth's pretty sure he mutters something along the lines of, "Why the hell didn't we have skating dates?"

Because I didn't have a void to fill with useless hobbies and an absurd lifestyle.

"Hell yeah, I can!" she says, topping off her cheeky twirl with a curtsey.

Percy slows the bicycle. "Hang on," he pants. "I need a water break." He puts the kickstand down and checks to make sure the bike is sturdy against the concrete.

The bicycle falls over, and the kickstand rolls into the grass.

"Well that just about sums up this trip," Annabeth says.

"I thought you were having a blast," he says. He sounds annoyed.

Truth be told, she'd love to be curled up on the couch watching shitty reality shows with Will, sharing pints of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and drinking sangria out of mugs because they're too lazy to wash the wine glasses. The I'm-having-a-blast facade is kind of her go-to when she's uncomfortable. It gets her out of one shitty situation and into a perhaps even shittier one.

They have a saying for that: out of the frying pan and into the fire. 

Right about now, the contents of Annabeth's metaphorical frying pan are charred to a crisp, what with her having no apartment to go back to and possibly no job either. She risked that for a quest with her ex-boyfriend who has this delusional vision of her, didn't she?

She opens her backpack to retrieve Percy's water bottle and something to occupy herself instead of speaking... Aha! A travel brochure she swiped from the ferry! Now she can look at all the fun things she isn't going to get to see while she's in the Netherlands.

Percy's still talking about plans and devious gods and water quality while she flips through the pamphlet. This really is a broad informational piece. How is somebody supposed to do canals and museums and tulips all in one day? Well, Annabeth supposes it might be easier now since there isn't much to see when it comes to tulips.

"Huh," she says, showing Percy a picture of one of the attractions. "Isn't this where the characters from The Fault in Our Stars have sex?"

Percy raises an eyebrow. "Did you hear anything I just said?"

"Nope!" She turns her attention back to the pamphlet. Yikes—more windmills. She'll be skipping those for sure. Oh, a national park with some badass leaves. She and Will could have an awesome Taylor Swift-esque photoshoot there, and it would be like the Evermore album...

Except Will isn't here, so there goes that idea. Percy doesn't seem like someone who would be into that sort of thing.

And then her pamphlet is gone. "Hey! I didn't get to finish reading about the dikes!"

Percy spits out his water. "You didn't finish reading about the what now?"

"Kind of an architectural wonder, really. The least you can do is take me to see 'em now since I didn't get to go to the Hoover Dam," she says.

Percy puts the pamphlet in the basket of the bicycle. Shit, so while she was busy planning out a vacation she'll never be able to take, he was ready to track the boar.

She sighs, resigning herself to the stick still lodged up Percy's ass. "Alright, what's the plan?"

He points out into the field, and at first, Annabeth thinks he's teasing her with that windmill off in the distance. Then she sees the pink tulips. Then she sees... less... tulips. It's almost as if they're disappearing.

"Shit, that's where the boar is!" she yells, pointing to the rustling in the field.

Percy facepalms. "Yeah, that's what I was trying to-"

"Sorry, can't hear you over the sound of how awesome we're going to look wrangling this boar. Can you set up a camera?"

Unamused, he lays the bike down on the bloomless tulips and crouches down in the greenery, no doubt reaching for the pen in his pocket. "Be serious, Annabeth," he says. "How did this thing get killed in the myth?"

"Okay, don't take this out on me," Annabeth says, "but Hercules didn't actually kill the Erymanthian Boar."

"You're joking."

"No, he wrangled it more or less. He scared it into a deep pile of snow and chained it up from there," she explains. "He wasn't supposed to kill it. He just had to capture it and bring it to some king."

He finally looks up at her. "So now what?"

Annabeth purses her lips. They don't have a snow bank right now, or any chains to catch the thing with. There is, however, a windmill in the distance, Percy's rented bicycle, and of course, their weapons, but they'll have to catch the boar before they can even think about how to break its thick skin.

"Ooh, something cool is about to happen," Percy says.

"Huh?" she asks.

"You've got that planning face."

She can feel her cheeks heat up. "I do not have a planning face."

"Yeah, you do," he says. "It's similar to the-"

"Maybe if you'd shut up, I could come up with some kind of plan," she says.

Percy does as he's told, and Annabeth tries to reassess the situation. There's no snow, but if they can find some other way to trap the boar, scaring it into a trap should be no problem. Well, it should be no bigger problem than she'd expect it to be.

"Got it," she declares. "Think you can keep that thing busy?"

He uncaps his sword, Riptide, and tilts it in the sun, practically blinding Annabeth with the reflection.

"That's perfect," she says. "Save it for our friend out there."

"How much of a head start are you going to need?" he asks.

"I want to say thirty seconds, but it'll notice me right away..." she trails off.

Percy, having already caught onto the plan, smiles and says, "I'll start that way. That should give you enough time to rig the trap."

Maybe it's the ungodly amounts of ambrosia she's been eating to heal her ankle, or maybe it's the vote of confidence from Percy. This plan is going to work, not simply because it has to, but because it's a good plan.

"See you on the other side," Annabeth says. There's something that should happen here. Wishing him luck isn't enough.

She offers him her fist.

Percy stammers, "Uh, yeah, you too." He accepts the fistbump and they go their separate ways.

Skating in the middle of a tulip field is no easy feat. Annabeth isn't even sure she can call it skating since she's physically picking her feet off the ground. It's like the boss level of running.

Screw it; she should be running. She crouches down into the bed of dismembered tulips and scrambles to untie the laces on her skates. Her socks are going to be completely ruined from the muddy terrain, and it's going to be a hell of a time recovering the skates since they're all but buried in tulip stems, but she's not moving fast enough. There's only so long Percy can keep a boar distracted before it catches on to their plan.

"Hey, Ugly!" Percy shouts, waving his arms in the air.

The boar looks up, and finally, Annabeth gets a good look at its face. For a moment, she's struck with fear. Its tusks are about as thick as telephone poles, and it has these beady black eyes that make it look almost dead, even though she knows very well that it is not dead. It's at this moment that she realizes getting a sword through this creature is going to be hell.

And then she remembers this is part of the monster's shtick. It strikes paralyzing fear into its opponents so it can either get away or... not get away.

Across the field, Percy stares up at the boar's grimacing face, Riptide slack in one hand.

"Percy, get a move on!" she shouts, accidentally drawing attention to herself. As bad of an idea as that is, she can't have Percy getting mauled by a boar on her conscience. She also would rather not lose her traveling partner.

Annabeth swears under her breath and hauls her ass over toward the windmill. Unlike the one on the New Rome Resort's glow-in-the-dark minigolf course, this one is made more practical. It has no polka dots, instead sporting a plain coat of brown paint and a small window on the side. That's cool. If windmills didn't stir unhappy thoughts within her, Annabeth might think about going inside. She could move into one the way those internet influencers do with tiny houses. She'd call her reality show My Life in a Windmill or something stupid like that, and every week she and Will would have to navigate some challenge that's completely normal for people who live in regular houses, except in a windmill.

Except Will lives with Percy's mom and would probably only commit to a show like that if he could bring along his perfect boyfriend and his perfect boyfriend's perfect puppy.

On a more urgent note, Annabeth decides to ditch her socks by the time she gets to the windmill because they're completely soaked, and no amount of Tide PODS is going to turn those white again.

Besides, it's easier to climb with bare feet, and if she's going to get anywhere near the rotors, she's going to need to climb.

The chopsticks in her hair won't be tough enough to break through a windmill, which is fine by her because it's a little too windy to tolerate hair blowing in her face. Instead of her trusty silver steeds, she opts for the celestial bronze throwing knife she's started keeping in a holster on her leg. You can never have too many throwing knives.

Somewhere in the distance, Percy calls the Erymanthian boar something completely profane. His awkward swearing makes Annabeth chuckle and almost lose her balance, not that falling into a bed of tulips would be devastating. It would hurt the tulips more than they've already endured, but they'd make a great cushion.

Annabeth holds herself in place with a second throwing knife and stretches to reach the center of the rotors, and then she pulls something in her arm but chooses to power through because if she doesn't stop the rotors, this whole plan will be useless. The boar will get away and she and Percy will be back at square one: in the middle of a barren tulip field trying to track an animal that shouldn't exist.

With one expert throw, the throwing knife is wedged just where she wants it, and the rotors stop turning. "Shoutout to Will for entering every goddamn raffle he finds," she mutters to herself, recalling the time her best friend entered a UCLA campus activities raffle and earned a knife-throwing lesson for two. It's certainly more useful than the tango dancing lessons for two he won the next month.

She slides down the windmill and sticks her fingers in her mouth, whistling to Percy. "All set!"
She can't say she ever expected Percy to ride a boar on this fine but windy day, but here they are. He jabs Riptide into the monster's rear—not breaking the skin—and grasps onto its leg, hoisting himself on top.

The boar squeals in surprise and starts bucking wildly as Percy steers it toward the windmill, jabbing Riptide into its ass every time he needs to change direction. Annabeth purses her lips. Something about this is going too well. Things never work out this well for her.

Percy smiles—not at Annabeth, just in her general direction—but nevertheless, it's nice to see him on a little power trip. This has to be a boost to his ego.

And then the boar's bucking becomes frantic as if it knows it's approaching the trap Annabeth set. She should probably abandon her trap. She should trust that Percy can do this on his own, and dive into the tulip field so she doesn't get speared by a boar.

Just as she's ready to tuck and roll, one last buck of the monster's hips sends Percy flying in a perfect one-eighty-degree arc... and face-first into the windmill.

Annabeth raps on the side of the structure with her fist. "You wanna fucking go?"

It had better want to fucking go because she isn't sure what to do if it decides she's too much of a threat.

Her worries are quickly relieved as it comes barreling toward her, tusk ready to strike. If it hits her, she'll be a human shish-kabob. She can't say she'd like to be a human shish-kabob, so she turns to some good old-fashioned improvisation to alleviate her problems.

With what little weight she has against the boar, she latches onto its tusk, pointing it into the windmill.

It isn't totally how she imagined her plan working out, but the boar is trapped in the windmill, and because it doesn't have hands, it can't get out.

"Alright, Killer, you're up," she says, unsheathing her drakon bone sword from Tartarus. Quickly, she dives into the poor trampled bed of tulips and slashes into the underbelly of the beast, except it's not as smooth as she anticipated. It's more like carving an overcooked turkey, which she knows all about because of that time Will won a free turkey in a raffle. They spent that Thanksgiving in the McDonald's drive-through line.

With each motion of the sword, black goo spurts from the boar and onto her. She closes her mouth to keep from swallowing because that has to be some kind of biohazard. Finally, the thing collapses, but there's no time for Annabeth to feel relief.

She's swallowed by darkness, and now the fear of death by suffocation is very real. Now would be a great time for Percy to regain consciousness and save her or something.

Got to do everything myself, she thinks as she crawls her way to the light—yes, that small spot of light!—just on the other side.

The light is too bright and the air is too fresh. The urge to pass out is strong, although she's not sure if it's from exhausting her body or because she's almost thirty years old and should have at least stretched before taking on something so huge.

"Shit, Percy!" she yells, hopefully to a very conscious, very alive Percy.

She stands up, stumbling a little as she does so.

Slumped against the windmill is her ex-boyfriend, completely passed out.

"Fuck. Fuck-fuck-fuck." She snatches his wrist and checks for a pulse. There's a pulse. He's not dead. Against all odds, he's not dead.

That spot on his head is going to turn into a nasty bruise though. There has to be something in his backpack; she opens the pouch and dumps the contents out into the flattened stems. Trident gum, loose change, his wallet, his cell phone, a package of gummy sharks... There it is.

Annabeth opens the familiar Ziploc bag from a bulk package that Chiron keeps in the Big House and tears a square of ambrosia off from the rest.

"Here," she says even though he can't hear her. Can unconscious people eat ambrosia? She forces a square into his mouth, recalling the time he wistfully told her that it tasted like his mother's cookies.

"Does it still taste like cookies?" she asks. You're supposed to talk to people when you're taking care of them. At least, that's what Will does when he takes care of her. Come to think of it, the roles aren't usually reversed. Even when Will's drunk, Annabeth can't do a decent job keeping the barf off his clothes. Hell, she can't even keep it in the toilet when she's rubbing circles on his back.

Circles. She could rub circles on Percy's back. That always makes her feel better.

"I'm sorry, Seaweed Brain," she says, her voice cracking. Shit, she's crying. Doctors don't cry. "I'm such a shitty doctor."

He smirks. He has the audacity to smirk, and normally, she'd be mad about that sort of thing, but she lets out this massive sigh of relief. Hell, she had no idea her lungs could hold so much air.

Percy's okay. He's going to be okay.

So she tells him. "You're okay. It's okay."

Carefully, she places his things back in his bag and adjusts the strap so she can carry his stuff for him.

"Can you stand?" Annabeth asks.

His jaw clenches. It moves.

"I'm going to, uh..." Certainly, she can't be crossing a boundary when medical needs are pressing. She laces an arm around Percy's back and hoists him onto his feet. "C'mon..." She needs to go back to lifting because this guy is all muscle, a fact she's trying to push out of her mind. Partially unconscious dudes with biceps the size of her head are not her type.

But they could be, says this invasive voice in her head.

Percy sighs, and his jaw goes slack. He's completely passed out.

Annabeth tilts her ear into his neck, intending to check for a pulse, but also wondering how a guy can manage to smell like cookies after fighting a boar.

And now she has to drag him back into town like this. Hopefully, New Rome won't be charged for the bike.

On her way back to the path, something catches her eye.

Amongst the havoc wreaked on the field, and against all odds, is a singular red tulip, standing proud. It taunts any passersby, like Hey, I'm still here motherfuckers.