we felt so far away but we were still in town: Okay, so I wrote the beginning part of this right after I read The Lost Hero and finished it after the sneak peek for Son of Neptune was released. Basically, in an angsty world where Percy loses his memory forever, this is what happens. In my head. So many sappy love stories lately, sincerest apologies for not offering more variation. Sorry, not a lot of proofreading, because my life is currently all wrapped up in law school applications and the shenanigans that entails. Thanks for reading.
Yet if you dropped the picked-up book,
To intercept my clockwork look —
Tell me, can love go on like that?
- Edna St. Vincent Millay
When he first returns to Camp, Annabeth feels as if some heavy weight has been removed from her ribcage and instead of walking, now she can fly. She flies all the way down the hill, swearing that if her toes were just a little bit lighter, she'd take off into the sky. She flies to him and her face finds the nook between his shoulder and his chin where she has rested so many times and waits for his arms to fall around her like they always do.
But this time, they don't, and that's when she realizes something is wrong.
..o..
So yeah, she's a counselor and everything, everyone just assumes she's this big tough girl who can handle her emotions. She took on titans, for gods sakes, so what could she possibly be afraid of? Nobody's ever seen her cry, not any of her campers since the war ended. And nobody saw her cry for failure when she was laying her head down another night without knowing where Percy was laying down his.
See, because up until Percy came back, she was sure the only thing she was afraid of was if he never returned. Barring death, she had been positive that everything else could be worked out, and even death was semi-negotiable. But this, this,she doesn't know what to do with, and it scares her more than anything.
The fact that he looks at her with blank eyes, the fact that he had to ask who she is, is the worst.
After Chiron delivers the news, he pauses briefly and says very quietly, "I know the two of you have been through tough times before, and I know that you'll be able to help each other out through this. He'll be a little different for a while, but I think you'll be able to see that he's still fundamentally Percy inside. Hera didn't take away his soul. Memories are funny things, but love and friendship don't come from memories." He squeezes her arm lightly. "They come from the soul."
She grips the couch so tightly her knuckles turn white, determined not to unleash a wave of tears in front of Chiron. She lets her bangs fall into her face. "I know," she says. "I know."
He sits across from her, so close that his knees, the fake human ones in his wheelchair, are touching hers. "It will be much easier for him if you expect a gradual recovery."
She looks up briefly, eyes flashing hard humor. "You mean, if I don't scare him off by treating him like he's the love of my life? Yeah, okay, I'll try not to do that, seeing as he looks the same, and talks the same, and pretty much is the same, except he can't remember a goddamn thing, can't remember his father, can't remember his address, can't remember any of his friends, or his elementary school, and damn it, Chiron, he didn't even know I existed until five fucking hours ago! How am I supposed to teach his soul that, huh? If he loved me, he should remember. If he loved me, he would remember." Blood rushes to her cheeks. She knows what she's saying is irrational and unfair, but she can't hold it back. There was that small hope in her mind when she first realized he had amnesia that it would be just like a fairy tale movie, like The Notebook, he would look up at her and suddenly, every bit of the past would come rushing back, and he'd kiss her, and they'd all be happy, so happy.
Instead, he looked at her and apologized for not knowing who she was, and asking, please, would you tell me your name? She will never forgive him for that. Never.
For a long while, Chiron doesn't speak. It's probably because he can't think of anything to say that will make it better. Annabeth hopes savagely that she's shoved all of his words of encouragement back into his throat where they belong, but at the same time, desperately needs him to tell her things will be okay again, one day. The clashing desires intermingle bitterly in her lungs and make it hard for her to breathe. Finally, what he does say is "Please, Annabeth. Think of how hard this is for everyone." He gets a strange look, almost as if he himself is about to cry. "I know he loves you. Don't ask things of him that he cannot give you right now. Try to be patient. And be hopeful. Things will work out."
Before she has a chance to raise her head and respond, he is gone, leaving her alone with nothing to hold onto but a promise.
..o..
"Okay, so you're going to have to go slow with me," he says with that smile she has burned into the back of her mind. "And I'm going to do my best."
"That's all I can ask for," she replies, holding his hand in hers, knowing exactly where each callous is, and wondering if he thinks her hand is familiar too.
She is surprised at how easy it is to be friends again. She feared it would be impossible, when she already knew him so well and he knew nothing yet about her. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to catch him up. It's not so bad, though. Apparently, you don't need to know a lot about each other to hang out and do friend activities. Thinking back, she realizes they never really "became friends" the first time around. What really happened was he showed up at Camp, she pre-emptively decided to hate him, and it took an entire Quest to discover, hey, this kid's not so bad after all.
Then, of course, everything after that is history.
And they say history repeats itself.
But that's not really what's happening now. Since she doesn't hate him this time around, and the only thing he knows about her is that he used to love her with some kind of crazy, burning, death-defying love, they are basically skipping the Quest-to-discover-compatibility part. Still, she finds herself accidentally dropping inside jokes or referencing things he should know but doesn't all the time. It gets better every day. She usually catches herself now, but it's so hard, because she's reminding herself not to say those things, which makes her think about those things all the time.
For him, though, she can try. He is trying. She glances over at him and sees the little furrow in his brow indicating that he's attempting to dredge up something, anything at all about her, and she knows that he is trying. So how can she be angry with him if he's making the effort? It's not the easiest thing, being told, hey, this is the girl you were pretty much engaged to, please fall in love with her now.
She's giving him the tour of Camp Half-Blood, and it is so ridiculously déjà vu, that when she shows him the latrines, she has an insane urge to make Clarisse threaten to shove his head down the toilet again. She puts her hand over her mouth to hide the grin, and he asks, "What are you laughing at?"
"It's just, the first time you came here, you made the toilets explode," she tells him. "I remember because I smelled like sewage for two days."
"Oh. So I made a good impression then. Good to hear you forgave me for that."
She scoffs. "Whatever gave you that idea? I hated you because of that. Well, because of other things too, but drenching me in eau de toilet water didn't help a whole lot, if you can imagine."
"But you finished the tour, right?" he says with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Contractually obligated," she replies, marching forward and staring straight ahead.
He stops her with his deep laugh. It's so familiar she feels stinging in the corners of her eyes again. But one look and there's a creak in her chest and suddenly, she is laughing too right alongside him. It's a kind of delicious pain since she can't remember the last time she laughed with Percy but that hurt inside still doesn't completely go away. He touches the small of her back, and it sends electricity shooting up her spine.
Within the next two seconds, she finds herself kissing him, arms around his neck. He doesn't respond though, and it's like someone has dumped ice down her shirt. She pulls away, face burning, can't even muster up the courage to look him in the eye.
"Hey," he says, putting his hand under her chin and turning her face up to parallel his. "I would guess – I mean, judging from how I think my eleven-year-old self would react – no matter how sewage-scented you were, I'd still think you were the prettiest tour guide ever. You know, to be honest, I probably wasn't even paying attention to the tour if you were giving it."
"Shut up," she mutters, "you hated me too."
"You probably only thought that, but there's no way I would've hated you. I can promise you that." He looks at her with this intense admiration and a wild hope swells up within her, almost too big to contain. She realizes that he's holding both of her hands. "I want to learn to be that eleven-year-old boy," he says. "But you have to give me a little time."
"Okay," she says, looking at him and wishing.
..o..
When he does kiss her for the first time after the amnesia, he does it on a date.
He gets dressed up for it and actually shows up five minutes early to her door, sporting the kind of embarrassingly nervous grin boys get around their first real crushes. She laughs at the lengths he's gone to in order to impress her (she's gone out with him before, after all) and takes it all in stride.
Everything he does is perfect. He opens doors, pulls out chairs, and if there were puddles, he probably would've laid his jacket down over them to keep her feet from getting wet. If someone were grading his etiquette on this outing, he'd score an A+ for sure. She thinks a little wistfully, the Percy she remembers was never a gentleman by society's standards – the most graceful thing he ever did was maybe shield her from an explosion of monster goo after he gutted it with Riptide. But she never cared much for proper manners, and he was a gentleman in all the ways that really mattered. That's what was important.
It's funny, because this is the way people are supposed to fall in love. They go on dates, get to know each other, realize they enjoy each other's company. That's how it goes, isn't it? Maybe her concept of true love has been skewed from the unconventional lifestyle of Greek mythology. Boy meets girl. Monster shenanigans ensue. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy dies (optional). There's something about just going on a date that seems way too tame. She smiles at Percy over dessert, and it seems like she's hijacked some other girl's life, some normal high school girl who just wants a boy to pay for her movie tickets and kiss her in his car. She half hopes some monster will come charging in through the Olive Garden and ruin the evening; it's almost surprising that this doesn't happen.
But dinner passes without incident.
"You have to look at it this way," he says on the way home, walking through the neighborhood under the sleepy light of gas lamps. "For me, this is like winning the lottery."
"What are you talking about?"
He squeezes her hand gently. "Well, I came to Camp without any idea what I'd been doing for the past sixteen years, and when I show up, you come running up to me, and I had to pat my pre-amnesia self on the back. Clearly, I wasn't slacking off, because I landed this gorgeous, genius blonde who is worried about me and loves me. How lucky am I? And all this, without even having to work for it."
"Don't worry," she informs him. "You might not remember it, but I definitely made you work for it."
He chuckles, and the sound of it is enough to remind her why she sticks with it every day, why she can still wake up in the morning and get out of bed. So he leads her to the top of the steps to say goodnight, and this time, she doesn't have to remind herself to take it easy with him, because he leans in for the kiss.
And it's good, because it's always good, but there's still something different. He pulls away, thrilled and shy at the same time, searching her face with hope. "Thank you for being patient," he whispers. "You helped me create a whole new set of reasons why. I can say it now because I mean it. I love you."
"Me too," she tells him. "Always."
Watching him walk away from her apartment, she puts her finger on the difference. Everything they do, she's done before, but for him, it's all the first time. They used to grow together, and now, she's all grown up and waiting for him to catch up to her. It should make her feel overjoyed that he loves her again. Instead, it just makes her sad.
..o..
It gets better in some ways, worse in others. Annabeth finally has her boyfriend back, but the memories, they don't return. Love is supposed to conquer all, but it doesn't conquer the will of the gods. Whatever has happened is permanent. One day, she wakes up and realizes she has stopped hoping today is the day he will remember everything.
He will never remember everything.
It's like living with a ghost. Even though she cherishes him and the time they spend together, she feels as if she's dating another person. She is afraid, so afraid, that a day will come when she no longer thinks of their past as being the first five years they knew each other, that she will simply cut that part of their relationship out of her mind. After all, nobody cares to remember it except her. Everyone else sees that Percy has returned and they're dating and they're happy. That's what they want to see. Nobody wants to see how Percy has to re-meet people he knew from childhood. For some people, the reintroduction is easy. For others, it's hard. Of course, under the circumstances, Sally is the best at handling the transition. Percy will always be her son. Grover, not so much. Like with Annabeth, there is an element of the friendship that will never be returned, and she can see with the way Grover is guarded around Percy, a wall that was never there before.
Chiron said that Percy was fundamentally the same inside, which is true, but it isn't. Vaguely, Annabeth finds herself wondering whether missing memories of his childhood, his upbringing has made him more polite than he otherwise is. He is competitive, funny, and brave, but constantly, persistently polite. Sometimes, all she can think about is how on their first quest, he wrapped up Medusa's head and mailed it to the Olympians, scrawling WITH BEST WISHES in his brash way, how she scolded him for being impertinent. He catches her staring out into space when he's talking and asks her what she's thinking about, but all she can do is shake her head and keep silent. What can she say?
..o..
Percy invites her over to his mother's apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. Sally Jackson is as much a parent to Annabeth as anyone, so it's really like spending the holiday with her family. Nobody in the Chase family, including her, has even passable talent with food, so it's nice to have the meal with people who know what they're doing. She has to admit that Paul Blofis makes some pretty fantastic mashed potatoes.
Sally brings out this enormous, roasted turkey, enough to feed an army and perfectly golden brown to the point where it almost hurts to look at how beautifully cooked it is. "Almost overdid it," she says while carving it. "I don't think the meat is too dry, though."
"It looks delicious, Sally," Annabeth says. "Anyway, it's a better effort than either my dad or stepmom can put up, so I can guarantee that if it doesn't taste like sawdust, it's a massive improvement from what I'm usually having this time of year."
Sally bustles around with way too many side dishes for the four of them. "Eat up, then. My goodness, all this stress about college is making you lose weight. You're practically skeletal," she says, playing the part of a pushy, Italian mother. "How is that, by the way? Do you know where you're going yet?"
"I'm looking between Cornell and NYU right now," she says. "Both still close to Olympus, obviously. I want to be able to oversee the progress on the building there, of course."
Sally's look of admiration makes her so proud inside. "Yes, of course," Sally replies, smiling. "Well, I wish I could see what the final product is like. I'm sure it's wonderful, though. The gods are lucky they have you."
"And me," Percy says, putting his arm around her with a mouth full of turkey. "I'm lucky too."
Sally pats his knee and winks at Annabeth. "That's a given, dear."
Annabeth blushes.
They've talked about what to do after high school before. Percy isn't the kind of person who's particularly suited for college, but she's been trying to convince him to give it a try. So under her insistence, he's thinking about attending CUNY. Obviously, the whole Ivy League gig that she's bent on is not his thing, but he wants to stay in New York to be close to her. She doesn't say anything, but she's almost looking forward to going to different colleges. She's happy. Really. But lately, she's been getting more and more irritable, and it might be good for the two of them to take a break. Everything will work itself out, she reassures herself. It's not them. It's just stress and that lull all couples go through after awhile.
She forbids herself from thinking that this wouldn't be happening if it were the old Percy she was dating. There is no old Percy and new Percy. There's only Percy, the one she loved and loves even now.
After dinner, they stand on the rooftop and look up at the inky black sky. He puts his arms around her and rocks her gently from side to side. "Look," he says, pointing. "You can see some of the stars. It must be super clear out tonight."
"Hey, Percy," she says, sleepy and full of food.
"Yeah?" He kisses her temple.
"Do you ever think what it would've been like if you had stayed at the Roman camp? If we didn't take you away and tell you who you were before?"
She feels him stiffen behind her. "Why do you ask?"
"I don't know. I was just wondering. We've never talked about it. I guess you never had much of a choice, and maybe you would've chosen to stay if we didn't show up."
He lets her go. "Annabeth," he says, sounding pained, "why are you so wound up with the accident? Can't we just forget about it? We're here now, aren't we?"
That's the problem, she thinks. You forgot. She blinks back tears, doesn't want to start a fight on a holiday. "Yes," she hears herself saying. "Never mind. Let's just go to bed, okay?"
He relaxes. "Good idea. I'm wiped out. Good night. I love you."
"Me too," she says.
Before she locks herself in for the night, she goes out to the kitchen to get a glass of water and finds Sally sitting at the kitchen counter with a cup of tea and the kettle whistling. The older woman smiles and gestures to the stool across from her. "Can't sleep. Care to join me?"
Annabeth pours herself a mug of tea, stirs in a spoonful of honey, and sits down, elbows on the counter.
Without any sort of introduction and without even looking at her, Sally stares into her mug and says, "You're breaking up with Percy, aren't you?"
Annabeth almost chokes on her tea. "What?"
"You don't need to tell me. I already know. I can tell from seeing you together. I'm not that old yet. I think I can still see when it's over."
"I was never planning on breaking up with him," she says, her mouth dry as chalk. "I never thought about it."
"But you're going to do it anyway," Sally says. "Aren't you? I notice you didn't say you weren't. Look, no, stop, don't leave yet. I'm not mad at you. I just want to talk to you, honey. You look so frightened and exhausted, and I care about you, okay? I want you to be happy, Annabeth. You of all people deserve it."
Annabeth blinks hard. "I just don't know why it had to be this way." Her voice is thick. "It's not fair. Why did it have to be us? Why did they choose to mess up our lives like this? Didn't we save Olympus? Wasn't that supposed to be the end of it all? I don't understand. What did we do wrong?" She takes a sip, and her hand shakes as she sets the mug on the counter. "We're still young, so I guess everyone else would say this is all hormones, just me being stupid and naïve – but he was the one. He was it. And now …" She trails off. "Now, I don't know."
"Sweetie, I don't know why it happened. All I can do is be happy that my only son came back to me alive. Every day he goes out, and I don't know if he's going to make it back in one piece or if I'll get a message saying he's been torn apart in Colorado or Alaska." She reaches across the table, and Annabeth takes her hand. "I know you did everything you could, sacrificed everything when he came back with his memory gone. I know, sweetie. Nobody could've asked for a better friend than you."
"I was selfish," Annabeth says, sounding small. "I wanted him back for myself."
"That's not selfish. You did it because you loved him," Sally says firmly. "I owe you everything, but I can't ask you to give forever."
"What are you saying?" she whispers.
Sally sighs and looks her square in the eye. "I'm saying that if you need to let him go, then I understand."
"Chiron told me that he's the same. But he's not. Or maybe I'm not. I don't know, but something is not right. For us."
"Nobody can blame you, least of all me, and least of all Percy. If you feel like this is it, it's okay. It's okay." She releases her hand and sits back. Under the kitchen light, it suddenly looks as if Sally is much older than she is, the shadows settling deep into the lines on her face. "No matter what, you have a home here."
The knot in Annabeth's throat is huge. She chokes out, "Thank you, Sally," and means it more than she has meant anything in her life. It feels like absolution.
..o..
NYU is perfect, and all thoughts of leaving the city have long since disappeared. As she packs her bag at the end of another architecture class and steps outside into the balmy spring air, she decides to walk back to her apartment. It's far, but the chance to enjoy the blossoming weather is brief before it's crushed mercilessly by the heat and stench of summer.
It's been almost six months since she broke up with Percy. It was, is, and is pretty certain to be forever the worst conversation she's ever had with another human being. All of the things she wanted to say and explain, none of it came out right. It sounded logical in her head, but when it reached her lips, it tangled up like threads of yarn and came out violently wrong. He didn't want to hear it. For a moment, the determination to keep her on his face reminded her of the expression he had going into battle during the Titan War; he wasn't going to lose. But it didn't matter, because she was already lost. He fought it. He asked her whether there was any part of her that felt like she was making a mistake, that she was giving up too soon. And she told him, I don't love you anymore. The second she said that, she knew she had won, because he gave in, stopped right there.
It really wasn't much of a victory. In hindsight, it felt more like a defeat. It's only afterwards she remembers to think, so it didn't end up being that permanent thing you wanted, after all, did it? and hates herself, hates everything.
She almost calls him at least eleven times in the following week, but terrified of what it might mean, hangs up before the dial tone can finish the first ring. She hopes none of those interrupted, haphazard calls ended up registering on his phone.
After a while, it just feels natural to be alone again. Soon, school started, and she had a whole different set of problems to deal with every day. Between doing the killer homework that keeps her at the workshop for hours and checking up on the Mount Olympus building plans, there's hardly time to take a breath, and that's exactly the way she likes it. From an outside perspective, it can be seen as dedicated avoidance, but that can't be helped.
She hasn't even gone half a block when a manticore comes raging down the perpendicular street. It holds up traffic at the intersection, takes a long, hungry sniff in the air, and zeroes in on her. She groans. "Really?" This is demigod luck at it's best; ironically, really nasty weather is the safest time to go out, because apparently monsters don't like hunting demigods in stifling heat or pouring rain either. Monster activity has been at a low since the war, but this spring, there must be some sort of resurgence. This is the fourth she's run into this month.
Annabeth drops her backpack by the curb and pulls out her bronze knife. Before she can take a step, however, a scruffy guy with a torn t-shirt stumbles into view behind the manticore with a golden sword drawn. Immediately, her stomach clenches. "Percy?"
He is just as surprised to see her. So surprised, in fact, that the manticore whips around and practically slices his head off with a swipe of its paw. With a yelp, he ducks just in time. "Hey," he says breathlessly. "Sorry about this. I was trying to take care of it quick – ran into it after I walked out of the movie theater, but this thing's pretty feisty." He takes in the environment in a sweep. "Shit. Causing way too much commotion."
In fact, the drivers all crammed into their lanes are starting to get impatient, and they're making it known. Some people are even getting out of their cars. "Hey," one of them says, waving his hands at them angrily, "get out of the intersection! Stupid kids."
The manticore roars and pounces on top of a taxi, where the top promptly caves in. "Uh," Percy says, looking sweaty and anxious. "You wanna, maybe give me a hand?"
"I am so way ahead of you," she says, refusing to look at him and charging. The manticore, she thinks. First things first. She leaps onto the hood of the taxi and tries to get its underbelly, but the creature is too quick for her. The taxi creaks, rocks, and starts to tip over, and she rolls away, barely missing getting smashed to a pancake. "You know," she shouts over the din of horns honking, monster screaming, and people yelling, "this would be a whole hell of a lot easier if it wasn't in the middle of New York." She never fully appreciated how Kronos made everyone sleep during his takeover. She imagines the chaos of an end of the world battle in the midst of New Yorkers and shudders.
"I wonder what they see," he muses. "Possibly a large squirrel? I hope they see something because otherwise it only makes us look like psycho, sword-waving maniacs, fighting thin air."
Despite the situation, she can't help but chuckle as she dodges the creature's sharp claws.
"Whoa!" he yells, feinting high and then diving low, "Watch out for that stinger!" The seven-foot scorpion tail arcs above them, whipping about dangerously and dripping venom that sizzles through the metal roofs of cars.
Okay, she thinks, compartmentalize each threat, that's what they teach you. She goes after the stinger, which is no easy feat as it sways back and forth like a drunken cobra. "I'll take care of the poison-y bits," she tells him. "You hit somewhere soft. Anywhere!"
"Strategy," he shouts back. "I like it. Look at that. We make a pretty good team."
"Less talking, more killing!"
"Right away, ma'am."
Percy tackles the front end, all teeth and claws. Annabeth sneaks around back, blocking out the fury of onlookers, and tries to climb on something to give herself some leverage. In the background, sirens start wailing. "Percy," she says, a note of warning in her voice. "We better get a move on. I hear the cops, and I'm really not in an explanatory mood today."
"Working on it," he grunts as he takes a hit.
Balancing on the edge of a car (she tries to ignore the driver inside that's shrieking and banging on the side for her to get off), she calculates for just the right moment, and leaps onto the manticore's back. The manticore is not particularly thrilled with its passenger. It starts bucking like a bull, and Annabeth starts to question the wisdom of her split-second decision-making. She grabs its golden scruff, turns around as far as she can, and in a wild swipe, hacks at the stinger. She misses the first time, but the second time, her knife sinks satisfyingly into the fleshy base. The manticore screams and writhes, shooting foamy saliva everywhere. Annabeth loses her grip and goes flying. In that terrifying midair blur, she braces herself, expecting to land on cement or metal. Instead, she slams into something relatively softer, something that goes, "ow!"
"Oops, sorry," she says, lying on top of Percy. "You broke the fall, though. Thanks."
"No problem. Anytime," he groans. "Oh crap—"
– before she can figure out what's going on, he's flipped her over and rolled on top of her. She hears tearing fabric and realizes the manticore almost clawed her, but Percy took the blow on the shoulder. "Goddamn it," Percy says, "and I missed again! Rusty, is what this is. Haven't been to camp in a while, and this is what happens."
"Percy!" she says, shocked.
"What? Oh, that. Invulnerable, remember? Don't get all worked up about it," he says, determinedly trying to keep it from being a big deal. Even then, he can't help flashing her a grin and adding on at the end, "But you owe me now."
"Oh yeah?" she retorts, a challenge rising in her voice. She goes center and ducks to the left, turning a full one-eighty, and finally, brings her arm down with punishing force and the blade goes deep. The manticore's howl echoes off the sides of buildings, bouncing all around, and it disappears with a sigh and a poof. Exhausted, dripping sweat, but fulfilled, she straightens. To her dismay, Percy faces her with his sword to his side. "Last hit's mine," he crows.
"No way! I totally got it first. I'm faster than you."
"In your dreams, Annabeth," he says, scoffing. "I nailed that thing. Credit's all mine."
She glares.
"Okay, maybe not all mine," he concedes. He shrinks Riptide back down to pen size and extends his hand. "Go team?"
The blare of the sirens catches their attention. "Let's split first, then we'll give credit where credit's due," she says, seizing her backpack off the side of the road. "Come on, I know a short cut through this alley. We'll be back on campus in no time, and we can play innocent college students until the brouhaha dies down."
"Brouhaha?" he says as they slip into the darkness of the alley and start running. "Big words, Wise Girl. Looks like that fancy university education is starting to rub off on you."
She elbows him. "Oh shut up, Seaweed Brain."
He stops in his tracks, and she almost smacks into him. "What was that for?" she demands.
"You stopped calling me that," he says softly.
"Oh," she says, making her best attempt to hide her face with her hair. "Well, I didn't mean to."
"I don't like it when you lie to me."
"So," she says. The darkness of the alley helps her hide her weaknesses, her insecurities, so she can face him. She couldn't bear confronting him in the open. "I guess it finally comes out. I suppose you want to talk about it." There's no saying the actual ugly words, but it doesn't matter, because they both know what she's referring to.
"You think?" He's unable to keep the biting sarcasm out, but maybe he doesn't want to. "You thought you were just going to give me the slip again, and we could just pretend like nothing ever happened. I get it. All right. You want this to be easy. The easiest thing is to walk away from everything, and that's exactly what you're ready to do, isn't it?"
She doesn't respond. Can't. His anger has shoved all of the words back into her belly.
"Well, if that's what you want, I can leave right now, and I'll promise you, you never have to see me again. If that's what makes it convenient for you." He turns on his heel.
"You know this was never about convenience," she cries. "Don't put words into my mouth."
"Wasn't it?" he says, and she's never seen him more furious. "It was easier for you to say goodbye, so you did it. That's cowardly, Annabeth. That's not you."
"You don't know. You have no idea what it was like. How hard I tried." She trembles, remembering how he looked at her when he returned: blank, empty, and unknowing.
He yells, kicks a wall. "So it was easy for me, then, huh? Is that how it is? I'm the one whose had my past life taken away from me, and all you can think about is how hard it is for you? Is this a joke? You're the one who has no idea. It was not all cruise control when I came back. Everything was terrible, but you know what was the worst? I went back to Manhattan, and somebody had to tell me who the brown-haired woman crying my name was. She was my mother, and I didn't even know. I mean, what kind of son doesn't know his own mother? All those childhood memories, boom, gone, just like that." He pauses to take a breath, and she almost begs him to stop there, but he keeps on. "And when it came to you, I thought things could be better. They were, in a way. You understood. You of all people, didn't try to fight the Fates, just navigated around them as only you could."
The wind whistled through the alley, swirling bits of paper and anguish around them.
He exhales hard. "Gods, Annabeth. I wanted so badly to remember you. I'd give anything to be able to remember when we first met, or our first kiss, or the first time I told you I loved you. All of this time wracking my brains for clues, and I only got one memory back. Just one."
Everything goes quiet. She leans against the brick wall, overwhelmed. "You – you remembered something?"
"Yeah," he says. "I don't have any context, and I never told you about it, because I thought it would only give you false hope. I'm not getting anything else back, okay. I've tried, I've waited, and I've prayed. It's over. This is me now. But I did get one thing, maybe some twisted token of appreciation. We're pretty young; I think you looked, I dunno, eleven or twelve. We're in the back of a stuffy, dark van, and we're splitting Double Stuf Oreos."
She can't breathe.
"You told me you were my friend. And you called me Seaweed Brain." Very carefully, he takes her hand, and she doesn't resist. "So you see? I knew that no matter what, you would be there for me. It wasn't me that changed, was it? It was you."
His eyes are all green and blue and trusting – all of a sudden to her horror, tears are running down her face, and there's nothing she can do to stop them. "You couldn't remember, but I couldn't forget," she says simply. "Everything, everything was a reminder to me. And sometimes, I don't know why, you still acted like a stranger, and I had to call you back from wherever you were. It killed me to do it."
"I was always careful," he says. "How could I not be? You were always looking for confirmation that I was not the Percy you wanted me to be, so I couldn't mess up. I felt like I was walking on eggshells, balancing on a tightrope, afraid that you would see through me one day and realize I wasn't him after all." He manages a wry smile. "I guess it was for nothing, because it happened anyway."
It dawns on her that this would be the correct time to apologize, since she hasn't yet. So she does, even though it seems fairly obvious that sorry isn't going to make up for half a year of cold shouldering. The memory, she realizes, although seemingly not important in the scheme of all they've gone through, is important in other ways.
"Stay with me," he says, and it's not a question.
The fear creeps back into her heart, stealthy as any thief.
"What are you afraid of? Tell me."
He knows her too well. "D'you ever think you would've looked twice at me if you didn't know that's what you were supposed to do?"
"What are you talking about?" His brows furrow.
"You know," she mumbles, almost ashamed.
"Hey," he says, lifting her chin. "Seriously, spit it out."
"You didn't get a choice. Everyone said you were supposed to love me – okay, guilty – and so you did. You love, Percy. That's what makes you a great hero. You love everyone and everything. But I wanted you to choose, for it to be a choice, and it was like a foregone decision. Did you ever stop and think, is this what you really want or only what you were told you're supposed to want? Think about it. Really consider it."
"Annabeth—"
"No, I'm serious."
He waits for her to stop interrupting. "Okay, are you done yet? Good. I thought we already figured this out, made peace with it, whatever. We're walking examples of Greek mythology, yeah? If I've learned anything, it's that everything happens for a reason, and you can't consider the possibilities that never happened, the what ifs, as it were. Once you go down one path, the other ones disappear as if they never existed."
"What are you saying?"
He grabs her shoulders very deliberately, gazes intently into her eyes. "What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter. I don't care. We can play this game all day. If I weren't the prophecy kid, would you have given me the time of day?" Annabeth makes a small, strangled noise in the back of her throat but doesn't follow up. "See? What does it matter? Here's what I can tell you. I lost everything, literally, after the swap. I'm never going to get it back, all of it. But we're here, right now, you and me. I really could give a flying fuck how we got here; the important thing is, we're here. You can choose to dwell on the things that already happened we can't change, or you can stand here with me, live in this moment with me, and choose to believe me when I say, even if I lose my memory a hundred more times, I will learn to love you again, a hundred more times. And I swear, every time will be just as good as the first."
Then, he kisses her, and this time, this time, she finally realizes that she hasn't lost anything at all. Or to be more precise – everything that has been lost can be found, if only she is brave enough to keep looking.
"Don't be afraid," he tells her, when they break apart for air.
"You'll find me," she says.
"I'll always find you. I never gave up."
He holds out his hand, she takes it, and they begin again. When they emerge from the alley, the sun is out, the police are gone, and the city ushers them into the spring afternoon. Pale, streaming light splinters against the glass windows high above, turning the panes into shimmering mirrors, and Annabeth has to shield her eyes, because everything is bright, so bright.