Chapter Text
This time, Percy does get out of the car and goes into the house with her. Without saying anything, Annabeth goes to take a shower, and Percy gets lost in the kitchen. When she’s done and with her pajamas on, she goes downstairs, greeted with the smell of food. Percy is straining some noodles when she enters.
“I made some pasta and meatballs. You didn’t have any leftovers from lunch.” He plates her the food and hands it to her with a gentle smile, treating her carefully, like if he does some sudden move, she will run away.
They eat in silence and even though it is not awkward, there is tension hanging in the air, unspoken words, and Annabeth’s clear refusal to tell him what happened to her. They finish eating like that, in silence, he cleans the dishes, and Annabeth doesn’t feel any shame for not helping and just stays where she is and watches him.
When he is done with them, he turns around and rests against the sink, arms crossed, considering her, they are not far from each other, because she is sitting in the chair closest to the sink.
“Do you need anything else?” His voice is soft and barely above a whisper.
“I need…” Her throat hurts and she is probably going to get sick; her voice comes out hoarse likely because of the screaming she did before, and she really wants to sleep. “I need to take out my braids.” It’s what comes out, which is true, she is in desperate need of taking them out but at the same time, she is too tired to do it.
Percy, somehow surprised by her words, nods slowly. “I can help you with that.”
And she knew he would, maybe that’s why she said it even if she is tired, she doesn’t want Percy to leave, she doesn’t want to be alone in a big house that isn’t her home.
They end up sitting on the floor in her room, she teaches him how to disarm the braids and at first, she helps him but somewhere in the middle of the whole deal, he ends up doing it for her and does it so carefully not to tug or anything, that she could fall asleep, but he also takes a lot more time than she would.
“What time are your parent coming back?”
“They come back tomorrow; they went to see the twins’ grandparents.”
Annabeth leaves an oil treatment on her hair and rests her back against the side of her bed while she waits for Percy, who took all the hair to the trash. He stands at the door when he is back, looking at her too contemplative for her liking with his arm crossed over his chest, she wants to crawl under the bed and hide so he doesn’t try to see her and understand what’s going on with her.
She wishes she had all the other Annabeth’s memories right now, that she could understand better, and be more prepared. It’s hard to play a part with the script of another character and Annabeth is tired.
“Do you have to leave?” Her lamp on her bedside table is the only thing lighting up the room, with a warm light and Percy standing only two feet away from her, she feels like she’s in a jar, being looked at, like a specimen.
Percy shakes his head. “I called my mom; and told her I would stay over till tomorrow.”
She doesn’t comment on the fact he didn’t ask her if he could stay over or even if she wanted him to, but still, she feels a warmth in her chest to know he has the trust to decide that because he knows she needs it but won’t ask for it.
She stands up and arranges the bed to sleep.
“Where should I sleep?”
“Here.”
She looks at him to see if he is uncomfortable with this or embarrassed, but he doesn’t even blush and nods. She lends him a pair of pajama pants and doesn’t even tease him at the ridiculous way they fit, too short for him. He sleeps over the sheets next to her, both facing each other.
It’s so nice and the sound of an air vent is lulling her to sleep, Percy finds her hand and holds it.
“You smell nice, like lemons.” He slurs already half asleep and gets just a tiny bit closer and for the first time in the day, she smiles.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She dreams.
It’s not a memory from this life.
It’s not a memory from the other one.
She doesn’t know if this is solely a figment of her imagination or if it's other Annabeth and Percy from another life that got their happy ending.
She likes it either way.
She is sitting in the dock back at camp with her feet in the water, Percy is far from her but close enough that she can see his smile and notice he is not wet.
“Are they okay?” She yells at him.
“Yeah, two of her babies were stuck in something.” He yells back, still looking down at the water with a frown, and then smiles at her so carefree, that a happy laugh escapes her. “You should get in.”
“I don’t have a swimsuit on.”
“I can keep you dry.” He starts walking over to her with a crooked smile, one of his dimples is showing and his arms are stretched to reach her.
“No way, you always get distracted, and I end up drenched in my clothes.”
“That’s entirely your fault.” He finally is in front of her and gets a slap on the shoulder in indignation.
“How is that my fault?”
“You are too distracting.” Annabeth rolls her eyes but the smile that escapes her betrays any annoyance she was going for and lets out a nervous giggle when Percy kisses the side of her neck. His hands rest against each side where she is sitting, and they are at eye level.
He kisses her two more times and hides in the crook of her neck before making his way to her cheek and finally to her lips. It’s a slow, languid kiss that stops every so often to get air in their lungs to keep kissing but they still end up breathless.
Percy gazes at her face, deep into her eyes, and caresses her cheek and then her bottom lip.
“I love you.” He tells her earnestly, and it’s not the first time he says it, but it leaves her breathless just like the kiss did, before she can respond he speaks again. “I love you so much and it’s so cliche to say I love you so much it scares me, and it bothers me because it doesn’t scare me at all, I’m so in love with you and I want to be more and more in love with you each passing day.”
She feels her eyes weld up in tears and closes and opens her mouth like a fish, lost in what made him want to tell her all of this.
“I want to know every single thing about you, every part of you, I want to understand you in every way possible. I’ve trusted you since we were twelve and I will trust you for all my life and evermore. And the faiths haven’t always been kind to us, but I’ll forever be in debt to them for putting you into my life, into my destiny.” He kisses her running nose and wipes away her tears, kisses each undereye, then rests his forehead against hers. “I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while but today, I just needed you to know, to fathom how much you mean to me, ever since we’ve been back, and you wake up, calling for me thinking I’m gone again. I just need you to know I would never leave for my own choice and if we are ever separated again because of greater forces then you need to know I will crawl my way back to you if I need to.”
She kisses him three times and hugs him with her arms and legs tightly, biting back sobs. They stay in silence for a few minutes, she rests her cheek against his shoulder, and he looks at her.
“Evermore and fathom are some big words, Seaweed Brain.” A fond smile grows on his lips.
“I’ve been practicing.” He says calmly and pecks her lips.
“I would love to have your words in writing and do a whole essay about them.”
“I can put them in writing, I can say them again, all of it, every time you want me to.” Her sight gets blurry again and she lets out a wet laugh.
“I love you so much and I will prepare my speech of my undying love for you and how I feel it ten times more, I will catch you when you least expect it with it.” His holds tighten and his eyes get brighter.
“It was all the dreams you’ve been having that made me want to tell you all of this today.”
He tells her and Annabeth wants to know more about these dreams he is talking about, but she wakes up to the sound of a door opening. She opens her eyes to see Percy standing where he was last night, looking at her amused.
“What are you looking at, creep?” He chuckles.
“This creep made you breakfast, come downstairs.”
He leaves the door open, and Annabeth stretches. It’s pretty early from what she can see on her alarm clock, but they also fell asleep pretty early, or well, earlier than Annabeth is used to. She hasn’t been sleeping well ever since she started to see the blonde woman again, so she is pleasantly surprised to notice she isn’t tired and doesn’t want to stay in bed for the rest of the day, even if she could she doesn’t want to like she has wanted ever since waking up in this life.
As she gets up, she remembers the dream she just had clear as day, every word, and just like the Annabeth in the dream she kind of wants to write down every word Percy said and read it every time she is down, but those words were for another Annabeth because her imagination has never been so kind to her, she knows it must be them in another life, similar to hers probably, with gods and wars and love.
She goes to Percy.
He’s got a whole breakfast spread, scrambled eggs, bacon, granola, yogurt, coffee, orange juice, and blue pancakes that make the warmth in her heart grow more.
“How long have you been up?” She asks him, impressed at so many foods she wouldn’t be able to cook or had the patience to.
“About an hour.”
“Did you sleep badly?”
“Oh, no. I slept incredibly actually, your bed is really comfortable. Just had a weird dream and woke up.” She snorts because she knows a thing or two about weird dreams, but fake coughs so he doesn’t think she is mocking him.
“What was your dream about?” She asks him absentmindedly loading her plate, so when he doesn’t answer, and she notices he is red on the ear and also serving himself food, she wants to laugh. “Your silence and the blushing can be pretty incriminating, you know?”
“Oh my god, it’s not like that Annabeth.” He shrinks and she laughs at his panicked eyes and red face.
“What was it about then?” He diverges his eyes, everywhere but on her.
“You were there, we were sitting on a dock, sharing a blue cake, I think it was my birthday. I don’t remember well what we were saying, but then-“ He cuts himself short before saying what she knows happened next. “Then some people appeared, La Rue was there so that threw me off, she was a dick to me in middle school, so I wasn’t surprised when she and the rest of the people threw us into the water.”
“You woke up because you fell into the water?” She tries not to show any emotion about his dream because a bubble of excitement sits in her gut even though he doesn’t know is them in another life and she lived it, it makes her happy that he dreamt it.
She also wants to know if he has the privilege to experience the best underwater kiss in the world.
“Uhm… yes.” he hesitates and looks at his food. She knows he is lying, but doesn’t push it.
She asks him if he’s had any other weird dreams recently and he goes even redder, so she cuts him some slack and changes the subject.
“Are you staying for lunch?”
“Are you asking me if I’m going to make you lunch?” He smirks at her way too smug for someone who’s blushing. She rolls her eyes. “Yes, I’m staying over until your parents get home, or well I can leave a little before that, it would be suspicious if they found me here.”
“I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t care.”
They finish eating and this time she does help him with the dishes.
“I need to wash my hair.” She tells him when they finish cleaning the kitchen, taking her scarf down. “And it’s going to take me a while, so you’ll have to entertain yourself.”
He leans his hip on the counter and watches her start disarming the braids she has done to keep the treatment.
“Are you going to braid it again?”
“I might, for prom.”
“I like your hair.” He reaches to tug on a curl and stretch it, it's oily. “Hazel could braid it; she does her own and some other girls have paid her to do it.”
She goes to wash her hair and thinks she can afford to leave her hair natural, with no monsters here she can manage far better than at camp.
Hours later, after her hair was washed, they had lunch and her dad texted her to let her know they probably would be getting home pretty late, past midnight, they sit on the roof right outside her window watching the sunset. The sky is clear, and the wind is cool and crisp from the storm the night before, there is tranquility in the silence they share and she breathes in deeply.
“Were you mad with me, on Friday, after dinner?”
He turns to her and studies her, he knows what her question is getting at, and what conversation they will end up having depending on his answers.
It's his decision to make.
His eyes bore into her, and he understands. He nods slowly then looks to the sunset again.
“I got mad but not at you.” He doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, but Annabeth doesn’t ask him what he got mad at, he signs and looks at her like it pains him. “Over break, when Luke was back, his mother went over to my house and said I should talk with him, that way he can guide me into studying something better suited for a good lifestyle. She said that it was the only thing he could do because I should’ve done something about my grades before to end up in an Ivy League like him, like surely you would.”
“What a bitch.” Annabeth says almost in instinct and Percy smiles even though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “What did your mother tell her?”
“She didn’t hear. She made sure to say it when she wasn’t there.” Annabeth snorts.
“Well, she was being a bitch out of nowhere, Percy. NYU is a great university.”
“I almost didn’t get in though.” She frowns in confusion and this time doesn’t look at her. “My grades hadn’t been good last year and this one I tried really hard, but I was about to fail math if I got another C, and they were very interested in knowing why I had been in so many different schools when I was a kid. Coach Parker was old friends with the NYU coach, so he made me send him a letter, of how much I loved swimming and promising I wouldn’t let my grades slip this last semester, made me tell him my sob story about dyslexia and ADHD.” He snorts and completely turns his head in the opposite direction where she is sitting.
“Perce…”
“He talked with the admission committee and asked them to waitlist me until he could see progress and if then, they could reevaluate my situation.”
“It’s not less of an accomplishment.” Percy snorts in disbelief. “No, Percy stop. Look at me.” She demands and he immediately turns his head. “Not because you had to talk with a few people means you didn’t earn it. They waitlisted you first and then saw your progress. They could’ve easily rejected you anyway, but they didn’t. You are an amazing swimmer, Michael Phelps reincarnated.”
“He is not dead, Beth.”
“Whatever.” She knows he is not dead, but the smile she earns because of the silliness she just said calms her. “You are passionate about what you enjoy and work hard when you have a goal, they are lucky you chose their university.” He scrunches his nose, and a slight blush covers his cheeks cause the boy has never known how to take a compliment. “Okay?” Her hand goes to the side of his neck and feels his pulse, he nods.
“I got mad because she always will think you are better off with Luke, she always thought you were too smart for me.” He whispers, Annabeth almost forgot what they were talking about before, and she rolls her eyes.
“That woman needs to go check herself because, and I think it’s time for us to talk about this seriously, I’m not even eighteen yet, Luke is in his early twenties. He’s better off miles away from me.” His face becomes more serious, and his eyes go darker.
“When did you realize what he did was wrong?” Annabeth looks down and remembers her dreams.
The feeling she got when the flashes of the summer happened in quick sessions.
“That same summer.” She whispers. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t hear you, and you were right, it was weird he liked me when I was just fourteen and he was almost eighteen.”
“Yes, it was. But I was so mad and said everything wrong, I knew you were hurt by the things I said but I didn’t want to apologize, so I left. You didn’t deserve that.”
“You didn’t deserve for me to totally forget the kiss we had barely two days before and throw at you that I was considering going on a date with someone else.”
“You didn’t say anything about the kiss.”
“Neither did you.”
It’s funny how they take the blame and then throw it at the other, they stare into each other’s eyes for a moment and Annabeth didn’t think they would end up challenging each other with their eyes, daring the other to say something else and even though there is tension, that she knows Percy is agitated, she also knows they are not here to get mad at each other, they are in the same side now.
“After you left, I was so mad I accepted the date. We hung out all summer, and of course, it was so weird, and I missed you so much, because we basically did the same with did with you, but now alone and it was so boring.” Percy's right side of his mouth lifts in a smug smile. “So, I ended every possible thing with him and prepared myself to apologize to you and talk things out, and then you were all buddy-buddy with a random girl.” His smile disappears.
“You wanted to fix things?” He is so surprised.
“I wanted to fix things literally after I said yes to that stupid date, but I was too prideful and I hoped you would show up, wanting to talk, but you didn’t.” He stops for a second and then groans, his hands go to hold her shoulders and shake her, and a nervous laugh bubbles out of her.
“Don’t tell me that now.” He whines.
“But it’s the truth.”
“Annabeth, I wanted to talk to you literally as I stepped out of your house, but I thought you hated me, you never talked to me again over the summer and Luke was going out every other day, I didn’t even know if it was to hang out with you but in my mind it was, so it was a constant reminder of how you didn’t talk to me but still hung out with that dick.”
“It’s okay, we both messed up.”
“No, it’s not. I know how prideful you are, I always have known. I should’ve gone and talked to you; I would’ve begged Annabeth.” Annabeth is about to laugh at his joke, but he is so serious. “All of these years would’ve been so much easier.” He rests his forehead on her shoulder like he is defeated. And he sounds like it.
“I’m sorry.” She mumbles.
“I’m sorry too.”
Percy stays on her shoulder, all his face hidden and she gazes at the sun, now almost just a glimpse of it.
“You are still my best friend.” She doesn’t turn her head, but he feels his gaze on her and he twisted his head around on her shoulder to look at her. Her lips twitch fighting a smile.
“That’s nice.” He sits up fast, an indignant expression on his face.
“You’re supposed to say I’m your best friend too.”
“Rachel is my best friend.” His mouth falls open as Annabeth laughs at him.
“Forget it, Grover is my best friend now.”
“Nu-uh you already said I was your best friend, no takebacks.” She sing-songs smugly and shrinks in surprise when Percy grabs her face in his hands and brings them almost nose to nose.
“I was your friend first.” He says, like a petulant child, but at the same time so serious. “Before Rachel and Grover, before Luke. Fuck Luke.” His voice dropped an octave at the curse, they are so close and something in Annabeth’s stomach tightened. She could kiss him, they are so close that the only reasonable thing Annabeth thinks to do is kiss him and she is pretty sure that if she did, he wouldn’t complain at all, but she doesn’t. Her eyes shine with mirth as she looks up at him and nods with a smirk on her face. “Oh, and two kisses.” Annabeth frowns.
“What?”
“It was two kisses.” He says with a lazy smile and Annabeth thinks she should be given a price for the physical restrain she had when she could easily just lean in and kiss him when his eyes do a glance to her lips.
“Right.” She says, amused.
They stay there until night falls, but they end up going back in when Annabeth breaks in a fit of coughs.
“You are gonna get sick,” Percy tells her and even though she rolls her eyes, she knows he is right because her throat has been sore since she woke up.
He leaves at ten, declaring he is taking her to school in the morning, which is amazing cause her father was taking her otherwise.
She wakes up sick and Percy picks her up at seven fifteen with a thermos filled with lemon tea and some honey.
Over the week, she keeps an eye out for the blonde woman, she thought now that Percy and she had talked things out, maybe… but she doesn’t see her, doesn’t even get a glimpse of her, and doesn’t dream about anything since Sunday.
After two weeks she forgets about her altogether.
Things change between her and Percy in some ways. He picks her up every morning and every time she is alone at school for some reason or another, he finds her to keep her company, they study for finals, and she spends more than just a few afternoons at his house.
It’s nice and familiar.
What is not familiar to Annabeth is all the gossip her friendship with Percy started, cause apparently now that they are seen together more often than before, the news that Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase were back to being friends spread like fire, but with that it also came the speculations that they are actually dating, so Annabeth has over the curse of the week a few girls and boys, who she hasn’t seen in her life but must know her enough to greet her in the hallways and ask her if it was true her and Percy were dating.
Three weeks before prom, Grover asks Juniper to be his date, which includes a big sign held by Percy himself, a big bouquet, music coming from a speaker at a considerable volume that Annabeth is in charge of, and Rachel at the camera.
It’s cute, Annabeth just cringes the tiniest bit and she doesn’t laugh even though she wants to when Percy looks at her every time with a face like he is breaking the fourth wall, but Juniper is over the moon and says yes immediately and they are happy, so she doesn’t judge them.
A day later, she is fixing the last details of the decoration and Percy is bothering her under the excuse of helping, Rachel doesn’t scold him because she is trying, when she sees Rachel talking with Piper and laughing, she doesn’t think much of it and later, on the car ride back to her house, Rachel tells her how some kid called Lester asked her to prom.
“He is also in the art class I took this semester, and I kinda had like an innocent crush on him and didn’t think it was gonna be anything more, that’s why I didn’t tell you, but now he invited me to prom.” And it's great, Annabeth is happy for her and tells her so, but is a bit confused at the unsure tone in Rachel's voice. “It’s just, I don’t want to leave you alone, I know we go always together, but-“
“Oh, my gods, Rachel it doesn’t matter, is our last prom, you need to enjoy it and it’s not like we are not gonna spend time together there, we still will, but please tell me you said yes.”
“I told him I had to talk to you.”
“Rachel! Text him right now and say yes.”
She does and the next day, when it's lunchtime, Rachel texts her to let her know where they are sitting, and to Annabeth's surprise, when she gets there, Rachel isn’t alone, she is with Piper, Hazel, Leo, Jason, and Grover.
“We are sitting here.”
“I gather that.” She deadpans because sue her she’s lost, at her comment, the boys laugh, probably thinking she is just being sarcastic.
“Piper asked me yesterday if we would like to sit here, forgot to tell you.” At that, Piper smiles up at her and nods, Annabeth relaxes completely and sits next to Hazel.
“We were talking about Rachel’s date to prom,” Leo says teasing Rachel, who rolls her eyes.
“I didn’t know you guys hated him.”
“We don’t hate him, but he is just such an art snob, it's irritating.”
“I’m an art snob too.”
“Match made in hell then.”
“Whatever, let’s talk about Annabeth's date,” Rachel says, with a teasing smile, catching everyone off guard, she sees Jason sharing a look with Piper and Hazel, while Leo looks shocked. Grover side eyes Rachel.
“You have a date?” Leo asks, too loud and surprised, that’s when Percy and Frank get to the table.
“Who has a date?” Frank asks sitting in front of her, Percy sits next to Annabeth but doesn’t say anything.
“Annabeth.”
“What?” Percy whispers, not looking at her and she senses how tense he goes.
Years back, when she was younger and the thought of having Percy seemed impossible, all these kinds of reactions were never something Annabeth read into, out of fear of growing hope where nothing would blossom, now, that she knows the possibility of Percy liking her is much bigger than him not, she knows what his reactions mean.
“No one has asked me anything, Rach. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Oh, but someone will.” She scrunches her brows in confusion at her, and behind she can see Grover shake his head in disappointment. “A birdy told me Connor is planning on asking you to prom.”
Connor, as in Connor Stoll, which does surprise Annabeth because, yes he has talked with him, he is in charge of the audio and media part of prom, they talked every time they saw each other, and the other Annabeth might have considered him a friend, so does Annabeth, but he has always been that really, just a friend and he’s had many opportunities to ask her and hasn’t. So, now she is worried a sign is waiting for her somewhere and gets anxious.
But still, she doesn’t know how to react to the information, gobsmacked by it.
“Um.”
“Well, he hasn’t yet and someone else might just beat him to it,” Piper says loudly, reaching her neck to look at Annabeth over Hazel, but her eyes are set on Percy behind her.
And with that, Frank, bless him, changes the topic to something other than prom. Annabeth just listens to it while eating her food, until she feels a tug on her left arm.
“You are sitting here for lunch,” Percy utters.
“Amazing observation skills you have.” He rolls his eyes, but still, a smile appears.
“I’m just surprised.”
“I invited them.” Piper jumps in, which is surprising considering Percy spoke so softly, with a knowing smirk at Percy, who only gives away that he is blushing, because of his ears and a sheepish smile. Annabeth offers him a baby carrot and he opens his mouth as an answer.
After that, Percy’s mood clearly increases and that makes Annabeth also be more at ease. They chat and eat, it’s fun and Annabeth missed them all so much she feels like crying at some point, but she doesn’t because it would’ve been weird.
“Hey, Haz.” Percy’s arm goes over Annabeth’s shoulder to tug at Hazel’s shirt, but instead of returning his arm to his side, he leaves it there. “Can you braid Annabeth's hair someday this weekend?” And she is not as surprised as she probably should be at Percy asking because last week, she told him she didn’t want to ask Hazel, because she felt weird about it cause they weren’t very close and Percy had accepted, reluctantly.
She’s glad he is stubborn enough to ask himself because Annabeth hasn’t been in the mood to spend hours braiding her hair by herself.
Hazel perks up and sits straighter, excited. “of course I can, you can come Friday after school. What are you thinking? I have everything because I made a huge order for prom.” At that, Piper turns to them and Rachel stands up too, to go stand behind them, she said she has to leave earlier today, so that might be it, she listens to their conversation anyway.
“You guys talking about prom?”
“I was asking Annabeth how she wanted to braid her hair.”
“Oh, my gods, you should do goddess braids, because Greek goddess and all,” Piper says.
“Or you could do the ones you did for your birthday last year; they were so pretty,” Rachel says from behind. She smiles at her, even though she doesn’t have a clue what were they.
“You could put golden jewelry on your braids, or something golden, it would go so well with your dress.”
“Do you have a photo of your dress?” Hazel asks Annabeth, but Piper is the one who answers.
“Yes, I do. It’s so pretty.” She takes out her phone and starts looking for it. Annabeth feels Percy’s hand go from her shoulder to the middle of her back and she turns to him. He is looking at her with a fond smile.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He mouths and starts a conversation with Frank.
They decide she is gonna do some flip-over Fulani braid with a boohoo style, which means it's gonna take a sweet ass time, but it’s fine. On Friday, Percy drives her to Hazel’s house and goes in with her, both girls tell him they are gonna be there for the rest of the afternoon and if he wants to go, it's fine.
“You need a ride home.”
“I can take an Uber.”
“No way.” He states and sits down on the floor, at her feet.
They take longer than what probably should’ve been because at some point Hazel and Annabeth start talking about Love Island US and decide to put it on so Percy understands what they are saying. He orders them food, and at some point, Hazel’s mom goes to see what they are up to, but nothing else.
“Girl, we are finally done,” Hazel announces at what must be almost midnight in the middle of an intense game of Uno that she and Percy were having.
She takes her to her bathroom and Annabeth loves the braids so much, she jumps excitedly.
“Haz they are fucking beautiful. What the fuck?” She turns in the mirrors and touches them. “I fucking love them.” They are different from what Annabeth usually does on herself and they reach to her waist, she loves them.
“They are really pretty, you’re gonna fit perfectly with the Greek goddess theme.” It takes her by surprise the sly comment Percy makes and her cheeks get warm instantly, she catches his eyes in the mirror where he is leaning against the right side of the door, his arms and legs crossed, he is the image of nonchalance, Hazel standing next to him smirking up, but he is looking right back at her with that troublemaker smirk that makes her weak in the knees, with what looks like pride on his face.
They don’t put the jewelry on, but she takes them with her to put them on the day of.
On Sunday, at the same time as the other one, they end up on the roof again, this time stretched out.
“Did you kiss him?” Percy asks her, eyes lost in the sky, Annabeth stares at his profile, his Adam’s apple bopping.
“No.” She whispers, and he turns to her and physically relaxes. “I’m still guarding my third kiss.” She says, sweetly with a cheeky grin.
“Very important.”
“Of course. The third time’s a charm.” She winks and wets her lips just to see how his eyes follow the movement.
Annabeth doesn’t get asked to prom by Connor, but she doesn’t think is for lack of trying.
It starts like this.
On Monday, Annabeth is by her locker before lunch, and she sees Connor walking by.
“Hey, Chase.”
“Hi, Stoll.”
“I like your hair; you look pretty.” He comments, going over to the locker that’s next to her, and resting his left shoulder, what is with boys complimenting her with smug smirks on their faces?
“Thank you.”
“Hey, actually I wanted to talk to you.” She hears him say from the back cause she is midway to leaving already, so she closes her eyes because she knows what is coming, but before turning around, someone calls her name from behind.
“Beth, wait up.” Percy is a bit out of breath and in general, he always walks fast, but he is almost jogging to her. His cheeks are slightly blushed and his hair is wet, she turns to him, so Connor looks at them by the side.
“Are you okay man? You look agitated.” Connor demeanor changes completely, going from carefree and confident to straightening up and a more serious face.
“I’m fine, came from P.E.” Percy’s tone is not bitter but also not friendly and Annabeth sees his jaw clench and doesn’t take his eyes away from Annabeth. “Let’s go eat.” Annabeth nods but turns to Connor.
“What did you want to talk about?” She hears Percy huff, and he walks and stands behind her, she feels how he tugs on a braid.
“I’m hungry.” He mumbles, just for her to listen but Connor hears it too, Annabeth can't blame Percy cause she is also hungry.
“I wanted to see if you wanted to review the prom music playlist with me.”
“Oh, sure you can send it to me.” She feels another tug. “And to Piper too, she wanted to see it.” Connor deflects a little, and she knows he probably wanted to do it in person, but she also would prefer not to.
“Sure, I’ll send it.”
“Cool.”
With that, Percy drags her to the table that now everybody has been sitting at since last week.
“That was a bit rude.” Annabeth chastises him when they are sitting.
“Right? I wanted to eat, and he kept talking.” She gives him a look, but he offers her a cookie, so she doesn’t comment about it any further.
He declares to all their friends asking for a cookie too that he will only share with Annabeth, and she forgets about it altogether.
The rest of the week, Percy appears out of thin air every time Connor and she are talking or when she is alone as if to not give the other boy any chance to even get closer to ask. At another moment in Annabeth’s life, she wouldn’t read into all of this, or well, she wouldn’t be so egotistical to think he is acting this way for her, but now Annabeth knows better, and also, he isn’t being very sneaky about it.
On Thursday Annabeth goes to Percy’s house to study and her father texts her that they are leaving to see the twins’ grandparents again.
“They are going to miss school to go?”
“I think their grandma is sick, probably not gonna be too long before…”
She stays over that day; cause Sally hears her tell this to Percy and gathers that she will be home alone.
“No, Annabeth. You stay here tonight; Percy can take you to get some things if you want.”
They don’t go to get anything because Annabeth has a pair of black Adidas shorts in her bag that she didn’t use in P.E. and she can wear the same shirt, she doesn’t mind, she innocently asks Percy for a hoody.
“Are you going to Rachel’s today?” He asks her, looking in his closet.
“Yeah, till four.”
“Why till four?”
“She needs to catch a plane, going to New York for the weekend.” Percy whistles, impressed.
“Are you doing anything after?”
“Nope.”
“Not reviewing playlists with Connor and Piper?” He says sarcastically and Annabeth thinks he is taking too much time looking for something so simple as any hoody, still, she looks at the back of his neck, like he will feel her stare.
“No, we are doing that on a free period we have today at ten.” With that, he closes the doors of the closet, walks to the desk chair, and takes the hoody that was resting there.
“You can use this one.”
“Didn’t you use that one on Tuesday?”
“I washed it.” He goes to brush his teeth.
Annabeth is pretty sure he didn’t wash it even though it doesn’t smell bad, it smells like him, and she is far more used to it than anyone else. So, she puts his swim team hoody on, and because he is a senior, in the back is his surname and the year they are in, the year he is graduating.
She finds funny the absurdity of his action after she told him she would see Connor but also doesn’t say anything because she did far worse, once upon a time.
“Let’s go.” He calls out and waits for her with the door of the house open, expecting her to go out first. She doesn’t comment on his burning stare in her back but does throw him an incredulous grin.
Later, Percy appears when she is with Connor and Piper, she didn’t tell him where they would be, but Piper's amused smile and Percy’s refusal to meet her gaze, give her an idea of who he asked for. Piper laughs when Annabeth scolds Percy for skipping class.
He picks her up from Rachel's house because she is late to the airport and can't give Annabeth a ride. This time, he takes her to her house and walks her to the door, and before she can ask him if he wants to stay for the afternoon, he clears his throat as she tries to open the door.
“I wanted to ask you something.” He says, and Annabeth smiles because she knows what is coming. So, she doesn’t open the door, and rests her back against it, with what must be the most mocking smirk she has ever made.
“Go on.” Percy narrows his eyes at her.
“You are laughing at me.” He accuses and takes a step closer. “And I haven't even asked yet.”
“Then ask,” Annabeth says with a nervous laugh.
“Would you go to prom with me?” He asks and Annabeth, just to spike his nerves a little, makes a show of thinking about it. “In like, not like friends. I mean, yes, like friends, because we are friends but that night we don’t go as friends, it would be more like a date, a non-friends date, you know?” He rambles, explaining this and Annabeth must have moon eyes because it's been proven she is attracted to this moron in every possible life.
“So, we are going as super best friends?” She teases and for just a second, Percy looks panicked, as if he truly thought Annabeth didn’t get what he was trying to say, but then his demeanor changed.
“Super hyper mega best friends.” He gives her such a big smile, both his dimples appear, and he looks so happy even though Annabeth hasn’t accepted yet.
“Then, yes. I would love to.” She mirrors his smile and goes on her toes to get closer, he gets the memo and moves to, but before their lips touch, Annabeth brings her open hand to his face and covers it with it and a chuckle bubbles out of Percy. “Let’s go in.”
“Oh yeah, wait.” He turns around and goes to his trunk and takes out two boxes of pizza and a bouquet of three pink flowers that look very familiar. And when he is walking over to her, with the boxes in one hand and the flower in the other, Annabeth giggles excitedly.
When they are inside and Annabeth already put the flower in some water, Percy opens one of the boxes and shows it to her with a shy smile, and there is written with olives “Prom?” She’s sure somewhere her fourteen-year-old self is jumping up and down, so Annabeth walks over to Percy, grabs him by the shirt, and brings him down to kiss him because that’s what her fourteen-year-old self would want her to do and it’s what this Annabeth has wanted to do for a long time.
It takes him a second to understand what’s happening, but when he does, one of his hands goes to her waist and part of her back, and the other one goes to the back of her neck and into her hair to tilt her head up, he moves so Annabeth back is resting against the kitchen counter and slightly leaning over. What she thought was gonna be just a short kiss, ends up being something that leaves them breathless and more than a kiss, it’s a whole make out, Percy kisses her like is the only opportunity he’s got, and Annabeth holds to him like he is going to disappear.
After what feels like ages and just a few minutes, they separate their lips with a sound that makes Annabeth’s hazy mind go even hazier, and with Percy’s huff of breath hitting her on the lips with her eyes closed the only thing she can think is Percy, Percy and more Percy.
“I really hope that was worth the charm.” Percy’s voice is low and when Annabeth sees his eyes, the blue in them is just a ring, halfway opened. At first, her mind doesn’t catch what he is referring to.
“Huh?” She eloquently asks and Percy looks surprised at the rare situation.
“Your third kiss.” He smirks, smugly.
“Oh, yeah.” She blushes because her brain is taking too much to reconnect again. “It completely was the charm.” Percy’s smile gets bigger, and he seems like he is about to chuckle, but instead kisses her again, and again and again until their smiles are too big to keep kissing, and she thinks kisses four, five, and six are still very much the charm. Annabeth giggles like a drunk when Percy blushes at the sigh that leaves her mouth when he kisses her neck.
“Let’s eat.” His voice breaks and Annabeth’s cheeks hurt from so much smiling.
On Sunday, Percy comes to her house, and they lay on the roof like they have the last five Sundays, it is becoming a tradition, to be there and talk about what would have been, could have been, and should have been.
“Do you ever miss him?”
“I used to, as I missed you too.”
“If you could, would you go back, to be the three of us?” This time they are sitting with their backs against the wall of the side of the house, their pinkies touching, he looks at her, and she looks back.
“No,” she whispers. “I think it was always supposed to be just us.” His eyes run wild over her face, like he is going blind in an hour and needs to memorize every detail, there is a vulnerability in his eyes that she hadn’t seen until now.
He brings her face to his chest and hides his on the top of her hair, he takes a long breath and relaxes into the hug. After a few minutes of silence, he speaks again.
“Did you ever prefer him over me, when we were friends, there was a time I thought you liked hanging out with him more than with me?” he says against her hair.
“No.”
“Can you say it?” He whispers. “Please.”
And it hurts her that he thinks he wasn’t always her only choice, she thinks Percy, needing to hear this is not so different to what her other Percy needed at some other time, how if she had said those words, things would have been different.
He and Luke never equaled in her heart, but more like different chambers of it, and one was dying out while the other just claimed and claimed and left her aching for a boy who was destined to leave her.
She can do things differently now.
She gets out of his chest and takes his face into her hands.
“It’s been always you.” It's Percy’s time to hide his face, on her neck.
At lunch the next day, Percy pecks her on the lips briefly, but the whole table gasps, minus Grover and Rachel. Piper and Leo are talking over each other, Jason’s eyebrows get lost under his fringe, Hazel’s eyes look like saucers and Frank has a sweet smile on and nods at them.
“When did this happen?” it's Piper who wins the battle of who is going to be heard. It's more directed at Percy than her because she told her people.
He scratches the back of his neck and looks at her, asking for help, but she shrugs and eats a grape with an innocent grin. “On Friday.”
“You are telling me, you had all the weekend to update us over this very important detail that we have been following with you since way back, and you didn’t.” Piper seems very annoyed and ready to stand up, go to Percy, and swat him on the head.
Percy winces. “I’m sorry?”
“No dude, no cool, we have been pushing you to ask her over the last three weeks and when you do it, you don’t tell us. I’m hurt.” This time Leo, very dramatically, whines.
And lunch develops into what they call payback. As Leo puts it, Percy betrayed them (not telling them the most important detail of this love story that’s been in concoction for years, Leo’s words, nor hers) hence they expose him (telling Annabeth every juicy detail.)
“Did you know he wanted to ask you to prom since he invited you to his meet?”
“Forget prom, he wanted to ask you out, prom was a cheap excuse.”
“Oh my god, can you guys stop?”
“And good thing you said yes to tutor him, 'cause if not I don’t know for how long he would’ve sulked.”
“The way he wouldn’t stop talking about you when you guys started talking again.”
“The way he can’t stop talking about you, period. Well, except now apparently, that he couldn’t tell us about all of this.”
They keep going, at one moment even Grover and Rachel join in. Percy grabs her by the waist brings her back to his chest and hides his face on her neck, groaning in embarrassment. Annabeth giggles at the tingling sensation she gets when his lips brush her skin as he speaks.
“They are the worst, that’s why you are my best friend.”
And there, leaning on Percy with her hand caressing his curls and the warmth of his face on her neck and their friends fighting to say the most embarrassing thing about them to see who wins, she is completely at ease.
On Thursday, the day before prom, Annabeth stays at Percy’s house again because her parent left town, again.
They are stretched on the bed with their feet dangling on the side of the pillows, Annabeth is sketching a building per Percy's request.
“Do the craziest building you could imagine.”
He asked her, just to pass the time. He’s on his side, looking at her while talking about the day Estelle was born and the hecticness of it but after he is done with it, he stays silent for a bit too long and Annabeth notices he fell asleep, so she keeps drawing until she has to wake him up for dinner, but the plans change when suddenly he jumps on his spot and wakes up, big bright eyes staring at her with concern.
“Are you okay?”
Percy nods silently and reaches a hand to play with the hem of her shirt that had hidden up her back and decidedly looks at her chin and not her eyes.
“Bad dream?” She closes her notebook, turns her body to face him, and brings him closer to her, he scoots over and rests his forehead on her chin. He shakes his head.
“It wasn’t bad, just weird. I don’t understand what was going on.”
“Do you want to talk about, like, tell me what happened in it?” He stays silent and she assumes that’s a no, but then he starts speaking again.
There were two parts to it, in the first one I was under water I think, and the water was so hot, it almost felt like acid, and I couldn’t go back up, then I looked up and you were there, reaching for me and taking me out.” Annabeth doesn’t tense, but her breath catches just for a second and then she moves on.
“And the second one?”
“We were dangling over a cliff, it was so dark, and I was holding you, trying to pull you up but I couldn’t, I just… I just couldn’t. And it was you coming up, or both of us going down, there weren’t more options. I woke up because we fell.”
“Have you had other dreams like that before?”
They stay there until Sally calls them for dinner, Percy telling her all the dreams he’s had, telling her the memories of her other life, every dream is a memory she lived, and as they stand up to go eat, she notices how over the last few weeks, she hadn’t thought of that life.
Piper invited Annabeth to get ready for prom, partially because her dress was still there and because she wanted to help her, which caused Rachel to tell her they would be getting ready at her house, which ended with the four girls deciding to get ready at Piper’s house.
So that’s where they are, all of them in Piper’s enormous room, looking for inspiration for makeup and hairstyles.
Rachel made her dress, a floor-length, blue dress, lapis lazuli, and over it there is a beige draping that flows to the floor, Annabeth can see the inspiration of the representation of Cassandra of Troy, and Annabeth smiles at the irony of Rachel taking inspiration of the myth of a woman who could see the future but was not believed.
“I forgot my headpiece.” She says while looking in the mirror. “I’ll have to go back to my house; we can meet there.”
“Can you give me a ride to my house, please? Frank is gonna get me there.” Hazel is all ready, her hair is braided in micro braids that Annabeth knows must have taken her a whole day to braid, they are long, reaching her hips and they are parted in the middle, falling over the side of her face and to her chest. Her dress is a burgundy color, but still, with the representative draping of the Greek toga, the difference is her dress makes a hood over her head, and on her neck, there is a long necklace that imitates a snake, and up her arms strigs of gold, like vines.
After they leave, it’s just Annabeth and Piper, whose dress is as beautiful as she remembers the sketches were, silver with a v-neck and a cape going down her back, her hair up in an updo, she looks regal.
“Is Jason picking you up?”
“Oh, no, I’ll go and get him. That boy cannot drive to save his life.” They laugh, but Annabeth doesn’t laugh too hard at him.
“Percy must be here soon.”
“Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it. We talked about it.” And almost like he was summoned, her phone rings at the same time a honk sounds on the street. “That’s sounds like him.”
They both get out of the house, Piper two steps behind, Percy is closing his car door, when he sees her, he is gobsmacked for a millisecond, then he breaks into the most lovestruck smile and heart eyes ever possible, he takes both his hands over his heart and stumbles back like he was shot.
“I think I’m dead, is this heaven?” His eyes are so blue and shiny, he steps closer to her and puts his hands on her upper arms. He is wearing an all-black suit with a black shirt and tie, but on the forearms of the suit, there is a golden embroidery of what at first, she thinks are leaves, forming a vine, but looking closer she notices there are leaves and the fruit of an olive tree and she smiles at it. “You like it? I did it.”
He says smiling proudly, and Annabeth loves it even more.
“It’s beautiful.”
“You are beautiful.” He says because he is a cliche sometimes, takes her hand, and spins her around, Annabeth giggles. “And I love the dress, and the color, and the details, and your hair. You really look like a Greek goddess.” She looks up at him with a pleased smile and goes on her toes to kiss his cheek, and after all his words, he blushes all the same to the kiss.
Her dress is a very light blue, that in some light might appear white, some fabric of the skirt gathers on her right hip and is held there by a golden jewel of an oyster shell, there is another one on her left side over the strap that keeps going over her shoulder and to the floor, the right one falls off her shoulder. With her hair in a half-up half-down hairstyle and big golden bracelets, she feels every bit the half-goddess she is.
Piper clears her throat behind them. “I’m here too.”
“Oh, hi Piper. You look nice.”
“You haven’t even glanced at me.”
“I’m sure I don’t need to.” Annabeth rolls his eyes at him because he is being too besotted with her and his smile is making her want to giggle, so she turns to Piper.
“Thanks for everything, Piper.”
“Oh, it's nothing, come whenever you want, I get bored here.”
Percy does compliment Piper correctly and they talk about how they will meet at school, then Percy is dragging her to his car.
He takes her to an Italian restaurant, where he gives her a golden corsage with a single golden flower surrounded by branches of an olive tree that match not only his embroidery but the branch he’s got on the left lapel of his suit.
They finish the meal sharing a tiramisu and her stomach hurts from laughing so much, she is pretty sure Percy hasn’t stopped smiling since he saw her, Annabeth must be in a similar state.
Percy’s hand is always somewhere touching her, in her hand when they leave the restaurant, her thigh when he is driving them to school, and her lower back when he is leading her threw the people in line, so they can skip it (perks of organizing this thing), on her hand again, when she is trying to find Rachel and he is just following her around, on her waist when Connor comes over to her to inform her he is ready, it’s a bit intoxicating and Annabeth wants to drop every responsibility and just lean into him, instead Rachel gives her a thumbs up and she walks to the doors and opens them.
Some girl is checking people’s tickets and Annabeth hands laurels crowns to whoever wants to wear them, which are mostly the guys because it’s the most Greek they could get, Annabeth offers one to Percy and he lowers his head, so she can put it on. When he straightens up again, the crown stays a bit crooked, but he doesn’t fix it. He stands at her back and rests his hands on her waist while she hands the crowns.
After most of the people in line are inside, a girl Annabeth doesn’t remember the name of comes to take her place.
“Finally,” Percy whines. “I was gonna ask if we were supposed to stay there all night.”
“I told you to go inside and look for our friends.” Percy gives her an incredulous look, before offering his arm.
They walk in when the party is already well lived, people have gone from awkward standing to dancing in groups to a Dua Lipa song, and Annabeth is left amazed by the decoration, yeah she helped do everything but because the theme was so niche in a way, and Rachel wanted to pain full on murals that they couldn’t paint over the walls of the gym, they had to do it over some big wood planks that now, with help of people who weren’t her, are up over the actual walls.
“This looks amazing,” Percy says next to her, in awe.
In the entrance, there is an arch made out of columns that remind her of the gates of Olympus, but are covered in laurel and olive wreaths, and in the ceiling, the light is warm and minimal, and there is white, gold, and deep blue draping. On each side where the DJ is set to put the music, there are statues of Athena and Zeus, which are the only ones Rachel was able to find.
But what really takes the cake are the murals, Patroclus dying with Achilles armor on, Perseus killing Polyducts with Meduza’s head, Orpheus turning around, Odysseus tied to a boat and sirens around him, Jason styling the golden flee with the help of Medea.
“Oh, look, they are there. Let’s go.” Percy takes her hands and leads her to where their friends are dancing, they join them.
It is fun, and too warm that Annabeth is left sweating a bit, Leo at one point spins her around in the air laughing at her surprise shrink, joking she is the perfect size for it, she could get mad, but instead swats him laughing on the shoulder after she is back on the grown, and Frank goes and spins Leo in the air right after he puts her down, repeating his words to him, Percy gets her out of the way bringing her back to his chest with his arm around her waist, she looks up at him and he smiles down.
“Let’s take photos, and you guys better print every photo you take, because this photographer wasn’t cheap,” Hazel tells them and everyone gets determined to do exactly that.
The background for the photographs is the throne of the underworld that everyone compliments the guys on doing because it turned out pretty well, and a mural behind it is of Aphrodite’s being born out of sea foam, is the only painting of a god that is on the walls and Annabeth is very proud how it turned out. They have a few prompts that people can use for the photos, when is their time, Percy takes the trident that Annabeth made of paper mache, and she goes for a familiar owl helmet.
They take as many pictures as they can before Piper, who has already taken her photos, tells them they are taking too long.
Piper snorts from behind the photographer. “You guys realized Athena and Poseidon hate each other, right?”
Annabeth giggles nervously from all the eyes on them and feels Percy’s smile against her temple. “I guess the rivalry ends here.” And leaves the gosht of a kiss, before they separate and go see the photos in the computer.
She leaves Percy in charge of choosing what he is gonna print and goes over to Piper, who is now directing Grover and his date on how to pose.
“They are cute.” It’s what Piper tells her when she gets to her side.
“Yeah.”
“And everything turned out so cool, we did an amazing job.”
“We fucking did,” Rachel says as she gets there. “We should take photos too, like all of us.
“Oh, yeah. Percy!” Piper calls him over and he’s got a bunch of printed photos on his hand. “Take a photo of us.” Hazel gets there too, and they take multiple photos as Piper directs Percy to what angles he needs to take them from.
“Okay, that's enough.” He deadpans, walking to her.
“Send them to me.” It’s the last thing Piper says before she leaves to find Jason.
“She needs to stop bossing me around.” He rolls his eyes and takes her hand to lead her to the drinks.
“You got a lot of photos.” She says, taking them from him and starts looking threw them.
“I took Hazel’s words very seriously, plus my mom told me I had to bring back lots of them.” As he serves them some punch, she thinks there are some photos she would like to keep, and hang somewhere, in the future show them to new friends and tell them about this great night and this amazing boy. There is a particular one, the one where he is smiling with his lips over her temple and she is smiling with her eyes closed, it feels like they are just in their world. “He had so many options of sizes, look.” He hands her his phone and, in the back, on his case is exactly that photo, in the perfect size to fit there.
Annabeth glances up at him and then back at the photo, and something in her makes her want to cry, she feels a tug in her chest and the smell of ocean brise fills her lungs.
“I liked it, it’s my favorite.” He says, obvious to the effect all of this has on her.
“I like it too.” She takes a shaky breath, then swallows. She looks up and smiles shyly at him, giving him the phone back. She gets on her toes and kisses his cheek, then whispers. “Let’s go dance.”
In the middle of a song she is dancing with Grover and Percy, he tells her he is going to the bathroom and Rachel takes his place. But he takes longer than she expected, so after four songs, she goes to look after him. She finds him near the stage, in a more obscure place to the side where people are in the security of the dark full-on making out and griding, but Percy is standing in front of the wall, frozen, staring at something.
It’s a painting of a boy and a girl kissing in a bubble underwater.
“Hey.” She encircles his bicep and rests her cheek against it, looking at the wall too. She forgot she had painted it, it was weeks ago when she got melancholic and homesick for a life she isn’t sure she will see again.
“I like this one.”
“Yeah, I like it too.” She closes her eyes, and yes, she likes it a lot. She feels a kiss on the top of her head.
He doesn’t say anything else about it.
When the night is coming to an end and Connor already announced the last four songs, Percy takes Annabeth a bit further away from the space their group is using and leads her into a dance, resting his hands on her hips and bringing her closer.
“Did you have fun?”
“Of course I did.”
“Yeah, me too.” He rests his forehead against hers and closes his eyes, they sway to a song that makes her want to cry and Percy’s hands go to her lower back a bring her closer to him. After the song ends, and the last song starts, Percy speaks up without opening his eyes, but she does. “I’m really happy.”
She kisses his nose, and he gets this silly cute smile that scrunches his nose and eyes but still doesn’t open his eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says, breathlessly and she kisses his nose again. “I’m happy that we are here, together and with our friends. I’m so happy.”
“A bird told me you haven’t been this happy since Estelle was born.”
“Oh my god, I knew that you and Piper becoming friends was gonna come bite me in the ass.” He whines, but he still has the same smile and finally opens his eyes when she giggles at his comments and kisses her nose, then her lips. “Sometimes I think about you and how everything has changed these last two months and I can’t breathe, like I’m so happy and my chest does this weird thing, and I can’t breathe from how excited I get.”
“Well, we better fix that. I prefer you better breathing.” Percy kisses her, and ironically, leaves her breathless it’s a bit harsher than she expects at first, but catches up in no time. His hands go to her cheeks and she goes to hold the lapels of his suit. After she can get all the air back into her lungs, he leaves two more kisses on her lips.
They have to stay longer than the rest, more to make sure that everyone leaves than to clean up, but they still pretend that they do that. Percy follows her like a lost puppy with his hands everywhere he can have them without disrupting her, which is mostly her waist.
“Are we finally leaving?” He whines, with his chin resting on the top of her head, Piper glares at him.
“I swear I have enough with Jason's whining.”
“Wasn’t talking to you.”
“And he is my ride.” Annabeth backs him up, even though she has been scolding him for whining all this time. Percy sticks out his tongue to Piper.
“You guys are free to go,” Rachel tells them with the keys to the gym in her hand.
They all say goodbye to each other and walk over to their cars.
Percy puts on the playlist they share and it’s an unspoken fact that she will be staying in his house. The lights are all off when they get there.
“I think everyone is asleep.” He whispers while opening the front door.
The air mattress is still on the floor next to his bed, where he slept the night before, he lends her his swimming team shirt to sleep on and then he gets on the bed, and she crawls after him.
“Your mom is gonna be mad in the morning if she sees you here.” She whispers on his neck and feels him shrug.
“I can get down before she wakes up.”
“Sure.” He probably won’t, but that’s a problem for tomorrow, for an Annabeth who’s gonna be more rested. “I’m happy too.” She says, and for a second, she thinks Percy fell asleep, but then one of his hands that is on her waist, squishes for her to continue. “I wasn’t, it took me a time to get used to, but I am so happy I want to cry every time you say these lovely things to me, and I missed you so much.”
Percy takes her face out of his neck to look at her, the only light coming from the streetlight that is right outside his window.
“I’m really glad we stopped missing each other.” He kisses her forehead and Annabeth's heart contracts at his words.
She turns around and holds his hands that rest over her stomach and he hides his face between her shoulder blades. They are quiet for a while, and Annabeth thinks he finally fell asleep, but he speaks up again.
“That painting you did, of us kissing underwater in a bubble.” He mumbles, like he is fighting falling asleep. “I didn't tell you but I dreamt about that, the first time I slept over at your house.”
“I know.” She says, not thinking much of it because she is also in the brick of sleep.
“How?”
“Cause I lived it.” Then she falls asleep.
She wakes up to the sound of a door closing, it’s still early enough that the light coming from the crack of the blinds is cool and the sun is not out all the way yet. She hears the steps against the floor and the water from the fountain in the Poseidon cabin.
“For summer to have started, the morning is fucking freezing.” Percy gets in bed; Annabeth turns around and hugs his waist to hide her face in his chest.
“Your feet are cold.” She mumbles into his shirt; he sighs and hugs her back.
“Sorry for wakin’ ya.” He speaks, half asleep already.
“Don’t worry, weird dream.” He doesn’t tense up like he usually does every time she has said those words the last couple of weeks. He turns to his back and brings her with him, basically having her lay on top of him.
“What kind of weird dream?”
“Oh, like so weird, didn’t make any sense. But not bad.”
“Tell me about.”
“Later, let’s go back to sleep.”
That’s exactly what they do, and she dreams. She is on a beach and a woman she knows all too well is standing in front of her, looking at the sea.
“Hello, Annabeth. I would ask how’ve you been, but it would be useless, cause I’ve been watching you closely this last time.” The woman doesn’t turn around, and Annabeth doesn’t remember walking over to her, all the same, she is standing next to her.
“What happened?”
“You must be confused.” At this point, confused is an understatement.
“Where am I?”
“Right now, you are in a dreaming state.”
“So, this is a dream.”
“Not quite.” That is everything she says, before going quiet again, but Annabeth is getting annoyed because she was with her boyfriend, then she was not, and he hated her, then he didn’t hate her anymore, then she was back with said boyfriend and everything was what? A dream?
“Was everything a dream?”
“No, nothing you have been dreaming of is actually a dream.” Aphrodite is so calm and peaceful, taking her time, that makes Annabeth anxious.
“Can you explain further?”
“What do you want to know exactly, dear.” Annabeth sighs, to get her ideas in order and to not scream at this goddess.
“Was everything that I just lived a dream? If not, what was it?”
“Everything that has happened to you in the last few weeks, or what you felt was a few weeks, has not been a dream. It was your life, in another universe, much different than yours, but it was still you.”
“What do you mean what I felt was a few weeks?” At that, the woman finally looks at her, probably sensing her distress, and smiles sadly at her, like she pities her.
“You see, you spent weeks there, in that life, but here, in your actual life, it was just a couple hours, that why you woke up on the same day, in the same place you were.”
“And what happened to…” She stops and thinks because she doesn’t know what she wants to ask, what happened to the other Annabeth? What happened with the other Percy? What happened with her Percy? But apparently, even if is not a dream, it must work just like one, because the woman starts talking again, even though she never finishes her question.
“The other Annabeth was sent here, to your life, but because you were both sleeping, she didn’t wake up in your life, as for your Percy, he was asleep too, it was good that he woke up to go to the bathroom, if not you’ve been in the other life a bit longer. And well, the other Percy is back on the other life, as he always back, sleeping with her own Annabeth.”
The goddess looks very pleased with her explanation, but Annabeth is still very much full of holes and missed parts.
“Wait, but why did I wake up just now and think everything was a dream? And how is the other Annabeth gonna know everything I did?”
“That’s an important part that you have to decide, not much for the other Annabeth, she is going to wake up and all that you lived and did, except for a few mishaps that will be fixed with a bit of mist, she will remember all as if she lived them and made every decision you did.” Okay, that makes sense to her, because the other Annabeth wouldn’t have had the meltdowns of missing her other life and following a mysterious lady around. “as for you my dear, you have two options, you can go back to your life remembering everything that happened or go back and think that everything was just a weird dream, your choice.”
She ponders this for a moment. “Why did you send me there?”
“Well, I think is obvious, to fix things.”
“No, I know why you sent me there, but I mean, why did you care to send me? why did you take all this effort to fix the life of two mortal versions of me and Percy in a word that your presence isn’t as important as is here and their fight was so trivial as a misunderstanding?” Aphrodite looks surprised by this question and for a second, Annabeth thinks she overstepped, but before she can panic, a beautiful smile appears on her face, one that she is used to.
“They were the only ones, in all those lives that you and your boy get, they were the only ones that weren’t going to get their happy ending.”
“But why do you care?”
“When I said you two had a special place in my plans, I wasn’t joking but is not one of my many whims. You two, Annabeth, have fought, cried, and grieved, have grown together and apart and gotten back to each other, you have suffered and healed. But most importantly you two have learned, and accepted love, for each other, for your friends, for your families, and for all of those you lost.” The woman takes her hand, and Annabeth is filled with a shocking emotion that closes her throat and fills her eyes with tears. “You deserve to know, after all the doubts you had at such a young age and all the insecurities both of you have suffered, that you two have each other in every life, in every universe. So, to answer your question, I sent you there because I live forever Annabeth, but have only a limited span of life, and so do they, I sent you there because it was a little effort for you to fix it and a big difference for them to live forever better than they once would have.”
Annabeth feels tears running down her face and she understands, she nods and gazes over at the sea, the brise runs over her face and the smell of Percy invades her.
“So, I ask you again dear, do you want to remember?”
“No.” There is a silence, and Annabeth knows the goddess is taken back.
“May I ask why?”
“It’s their story to live and remember, even if I had to help, it’s still theirs, I have mine and I wouldn’t change it for anything, I don’t regret a single thing of it. So let them have theirs just for themselves, I can have mine with the love of my life and only let it be ours.”
“Okay then.”
“But can I still remember the meant for each other in every life part?” She turns to look at Aphrodite and she smiles, softly.
“Of course you can.”
The woman squishes her hand, and Annabeth wakes up to a hand mapping her backbone up and down under her shirt and the sound of water.
Over breakfast, she tells Percy about her weird dream and later into the afternoon when they are sitting at the dock, she tells him about what Aphrodite’s said to her in her dream. A crab comes over to them and asks Percy for his help, he goes a little further into the lake and helps him, he yells at her about how his babies were stuck and invites her into the water.
It feels like deja vu.