Percy opens his back door. It creaks, as always. He stands on the back porch he painted white many, many, many summers ago, and inhales the cool morning air.
He enters the garden. At eighty-five years old, he isn't exactly the handsome catch he was, nor as strong, but he can get down the four back steps without the use of a cane. He pushes open the gate to his garden.
Sixty-three years since it was planted. Sixty-three years since he moved into this house.
He ambles through his garden. He stops at the roses. His hand lingers over them, then draws back. They're not right.
In another part of the garden, Percy comes across some red carnations. As always, he's struck by their beauty, how intricate they are.
But they're not right either.
Percy rejects hydrangeas, tulips, and sunflowers before he comes to a halt at an unfamiliar part of the garden. It's covered in lilies. Snow-white ones. He smiles. They're the right flower.
He bends over and severs a few of the white flowers, along with part of their stems.
Carrying his small bouquet, Percy grabs his jacket. As he puts the flowers into his pocket, he feels something. Something long, with beads. A necklace, maybe?
He pulls it out. It is a necklace. A very familiar necklace.
Smiling, Percy replaces it in his pocket.
Percy strolls along the path that goes behind his house. He could, of course, get to his destination via road, but he prefers the woods.
A voice interrupts his thoughts. "Perce! Hey, Percy!"
"Rach!" says Percy. He hugs the redhead, not minding the fact that her clothes, as always, are splattered with paint. "What are you up to?"
"I was just painting. Couldn't you tell?" says Rachel, gesturing to her clothes.
Rachel's hair is graying, and she walks slower than she used to, but she's still the same Rachel, sarcasm, wit, and all. "Where are you going?"
Percy shows her his lilies.
Rachel's face takes on a more serious look. "Oh. Okay. Hey, come over afterwards, kay? I painted something about a week ago that will go well in your living room."
"Okay," says Percy. "Bye, Rach."
"Bye, Perce," says Rachel, and there's something in her tone that wasn't there before.
The sun is almost at the peak of its arc when Percy arrives. For September, it's fairly brisk. The sky is a clear blue, and cloudless. He remembers, it was just like this when—
Percy looks down from the sky, realizing he's here. He enters the cemetery.
He takes his time, strolling among the gravestones. He grins, remembering how when Leo "died," they were all devastated, and then when he came back they all wanted to kill him.
He glances at a gravestone. Drew Tanaka, it reads. He rolls his eyes contemptuously, but slightly fondly. All beauty and no brains, he thinks. But she did know how to do good makeup. And once Piper talked her out of breaking hearts, she actually gave good advice.
Here it is. The gravestone he wanted.
Percy sits down. "Hello," he whispers.
And he just sits there for a while, occasionally murmuring something like, "The sky was this color the day I met you," or "Remember how I made that one joke and you kicked me right in the crotch?"
He runs his hand along the white marble. He remembers, remembers the day he married her...the day he proposed...the day they met, seventy-three years ago.
He remembers the day she died, three years ago.
Sixty years. They had sixty beautiful years and three children and seven grandchildren.
She had lung cancer. There was no way to stop it. She died peacefully in her sleep.
Percy remembers all this, and brushes away a tear.
He's never really, truly cried for her. He knows he never will. Every time he feels he's on the verge of a breakdown, he remembers how she'd tease him, smile at him, make him laugh through his tears. And he forgets to be sad.
And when that doesn't work, he asks himself, Is this what she would want? Get a grip, Percy, stay strong for her.
He smiles. Yes, she's gone. Yes, she'll never come back. But their time together was sweet, sweet as ice cream on a hot summer day, and he'll always have the memories.
Before he rises to leave, he touches the name on the headstone.
Annabeth Jackson.
Percy smiles again. He places the lilies in front the gravestone. He blows a kiss as he walks away.