For 9/11. My heart goes out to everyone who lost anyone. May the years only get easier from here on out. Nothing belongs to me.
Zero
As a New Yorker, Percy liked to pay his respects to the three thousand of his countrymen that died on that fateful morning of September 11, 2001 by going to ground zero and leaving an American flag, and in the more recent years, a few drachma. It was the kind of day in your life where you knew exactly where you were when it happened; for Percy, it was third grade, and he was just about to present the science project he didn't do, when the first plane hit.
It had devastated the whole country, the four US territories, their brothers in arms, and started a war that Percy was sure would never quite be finished, but for New Yorkers...it was something more personal. He would forever be amazed by the sense of community he had seen that day on the way home from school. Total strangers hugging each other, everyone covered in ash, people crying in the streets, skater boys helping old ladies to their feet.
To some towns, this may have seemed normal, but it an city as big as Manhattan, community was a rare occurrence.
Annabeth had come down with him today, and while standing with each other's hands in their back pockets, Percy breathed in the dirty, New York air that still somehow filled his lungs and calmed his mind.
He got a little emotional sometimes. In past years, his mother would come down with him, and hold him like he was little again, and whisper into his hair how lucky she was they'd both been all right when she thought he wasn't listening. He was.
Percy kissed the top of Annabeth's head. She was saying something about how the new Towers were going to be even more architecturally magnificent that the old ones, but Percy was too caught up in something else that had caught his eye.
A lone blond guy was standing at the very edge of the public part of ground zero about twenty yards. He was normal looking enough, dressed in a worn bomber jacket (of the same vintage quality as Nico di Angelo's, Percy noticed) and equally scruffy jeans and converse. For a moment Percy thought he was Apollo, with the blond hair and what Percy thought to be blue eyes, from this distance anyways, but this guy had a cowlick, and glasses, and was far too somber looking to be Apollo.
Now, as previously mentioned, New Yorkers weren't the friendliest people out there, but considering this guy was alone and what day it was, Percy's heart went out to the guy. "Hey, Wise Girl, do you mind getting us some coffees?" Annabeth gave him a strange look, but when she saw Percy's honest expression she just sighed and said, "Whatever you say, Seaweed Brain."
As he watched her retreating figure go around the corner, Percy jogged over to the blond guy, coming to stand beside him a few feet away. "Hell of a day, huh?" Percy said.
Blond Guy just looked over to him, not calculating and judgmental like the usual looks you got when talking to a stranger in NYC, but tired and truthful. "Yeah, tell me about it," Blond Guy said. Pausing, the stranger asked, "You lose anyone?"
Of course Percy'd lost something. Everyone lost someone. "Yeah, a neighbor. Old guy who walked down to buy a newspaper every morning at the stand in front of the north tower. Rubble killed him. You?"
"Lot a people," Blond Guy said, looking to the site again, and at the various momentos people had left, "whole lot a people."
Perched just nodded, a moment of faux silence in the never sleeping city washing over them. 9/11 was always a kind of day that made you want to be with someone, no matter your circumstances.
"Something 'bout this country never ceases to amaze me," Percy said, the words coming out before he really knew what he was saying, "is that in times of need, people really band together, ya know? And with all these shootings and bombings going on...well, maybe if people stressed the united part in the United States of America, we could finally resolve our differences and get along and just be a united people again. Before all this crazy political shit really took over and everyone got offended over anything. People forget that despite the outside, we're still just the same on the inside."
Blond Guy was looking at him strange, like he'd just been told Percy had 12 toes or something, but slowly nodded after a minute. "You're smarter than you look, man."
"I get that a lot," was Percy's reply.
They stood in silence for a few more minutes before Percy heard the familiar call of, "Percy!" and the less familiar call of, "Alfred!" Both Percy and Blond Guy, who must've been Alfred turned around. Percy was met with Annabeth jogging over, followed by a guy that could've been Alfred's twin, and probably was, sticking out like a sore thumb in a bright red sweatshirt with a maple leaf on it in a sea of New York gray and black.
"Thanks, Matt," Alfred said, and took a cup of coffee from his twin. Percy took his own cup of coffee from Annabeth.
"No problem. Papa and Dad called though. They made it to the apartment, and Papa's got dinner started. I see you've made a friend...?"
Alfred turned to Percy, and Annabeth was shooting him another one of those looks with the raised eyebrows and everything. "Yeah this is...um...?"
"Percy," Percy offered and shook Matt's hand. "Well," Alfred said, "we'd better get going. Nice talking to ya, Percy."
"You too."
Annabeth and Percy watched the two round the opposite corner. "What was that all about?" Annabeth asked. Percy said nothing for a moment, then raised Annabeth's wrist to tap their coffee cups together. "To a better year."
"One where no ones needs us to save the world." Annabeth said, taking a sip.
"And the world starts to save itself."