A/N: Okay, so I got this idea after reading a fic from a song title. This is not a song fic, but I got the idea from a song. The song is called In Another Life by The Veronicas.
The Lost Hero never happened, by the way.
Enjoy!
~In Another Life~
Chapter 1: A Double-Sided Friendship
"Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends." -Virginia Woolf
Cold water pressed against me, my whole world dark under the rough, salty waves of the sea. It didn't help that this was probably the biggest storm that I'd ever experienced.
I looked around frantically, somehow knowing that there should be someone with me. That's when I saw her.
Her blond curls were floating up in different directions in the water, drifting in front of her face. Her eyes were closed, which made her look like she was sleeping, but her lips were blue, letting me know that her body temperature had dropped and she was probably drowning.
I swam towards her quickly with a strong urge to save her. I reached out my hand, grabbing onto her stiff, cold arm, and then began to yank her towards the surface.
Our heads broke through the barrier of water, only to go under again as a wave slammed on top of us. I clung to the blond woman's arm, trying to pull her close to me and not let go of her. I kicked my feet hard, breaking through the surface again, and this time wasn't smacked down by a wave.
I swam hard, my legs and free arm pumping to get to a small piece of wood drifting over the rough waves. I soon grabbed onto it and pulled it closer, hoisting the blond woman onto it to get her out of the water.
"Hang on, guys!" a male voice called from the air.
I looked up at the dark sky, seeing the helicopter for the first time. A boy, no older than eighteen was hanging onto a rope ladder with one hand and the other latched onto the side, hanging on for dear life.
The copter came closer, the rope ladder swaying in the air as it did so. The boy was soon over top of us, the ladder right above my head. I reached for it, my hand clenching tightly to it as I hoisted myself on the board next to the woman. I grabbed onto her, holding her tightly against my chest with one arm. The rope ladder was pulled up slowly, and I was soon lying on the helicopter's floor, tired and breathing hard.
I reached for the woman, noticing for the first time the lack of breathing. Her lips seemed to be a darker shade of blue now, and I didn't really know what to do.
I felt hands grab at my jacket, pulling me out of the way. "Scoot," a voice commanded.
The same boy from before leaned down next to the woman, his hands pushing on her chest. I could tell that he was trying to get the woman to spit up the water and breathe, but that didn't seem to be happening. Eventually, the boy stopped, his shoulder shaking in what looked like sobs. It took me a moment to realize that he was laughing.
"Why are you laughing?" I screamed angrily. "She's dead, and you're laughing?"
The boy turned to me, his eyes a cold blue. He was smiling cruelly, and that just made me clench my fists in anger.
"You planned this, didn't you?" I demanded. "You planned all of this quest nonsense just to kill me and Annabeth."
"Give the guy a prize," the boy said.
With barely concealed anger, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pen. At first, I didn't know what to do with it, but then I uncapped it, and it grew into a sword. I lunged at the boy, not even thinking my plan through.
It was a quick battle. A battle which I was not the winner of. The boy had me pinned to the side of the copter, my sword laying five feet away from me.
"Nice try, Jackson," the boy sneered. "Maybe you should have stayed with your wife in you nice cozy apartment instead of come back to help that pathetic daughter of Athena."
"Why did you bring us up if you were just going to kill me anyway?" I demanded.
"Come on, you know the answer to that," the boy said. "You're a son of Poseidon, after all. You'd survive and somehow get word back to camp about us being the traitors."
I was thrown to the floor, landing painfully on my stomach. The eighteen-year-old girl driving the copter glanced back at me once, her light brown hair flicking back and a smirk etched onto her lips. There was a white hot pain in the small of my back, and I screamed.
"I'm sorry, Annabeth," I croaked.
And then everything turned black.
"Josh, Mom said to get your butt out of bed!" my little sister called.
My eyes snapped open. I looked around me, sighing in relief when I realized that I was in my room and not dead in a helicopter in the middle of the ocean.
I sat up, stretching my arms above my head, full realization of what day it was finally sinking in. The last day of school. How awesome.
For me, the last day of school was the worst.
The last day of school was the last time that teachers would get a chance to make life miserable before the summer started. Making kids miserable was always my teacher's mission of the day. She was always irritable on the last day of school, and on the first day back after summer, she was some sweet old lady.
Can we say bipolar much?
I climbed out of bed, stretching my arms and legs as I did so. I dug around in my dresser, pulling out some ripped jean and a worn sweat shirt. As I waked out the door, I reached down and scooped up my sneakers and socks before getting into the hallway and heading towards the bathroom. I set everything down beside the counter and closed the door, changing quickly.
As I passed by my room to get to the stairs, I tossed my pajamas inside my room, staying just to make sure they landed on my bed. After making sure that my PJ's hit my target, I made my way down stairs toward the kitchen.
My little sister, Amy, sat on the counter with a pop-tart in her hand, her bare feet swinging below her as they hit the side with dull thuds. My mom sat at the table, her glasses perched on her nose as she read the paper. She looked up at me, flashing me a soft smile.
"Morning, Kiddo," she said.
"Hey, Mom," I replied, opening the refrigerator and taking out the jug of milk. I grabbed a bowl and a box of cereal from the cabinet, quickly fixing myself something to eat.
Phil, my mom's husband, glided into the room. With his suit and tie, mousy brown hair, and blue eyes, he was just like every other FBI agent that I'd ever met. Which, for the record, was only him.
Even though he wasn't exactly my real dad, Phil was the only father figure in my life. He was my step-dad, just to put it clearly. He was Amy's real father though, so Amy was more like my half-sister. Mom and Phil had gotten married when I was two, so I'd pretty much known my step-dad my whole life.
"Morning, Dad," Amy said around a mouth full of chocolate pop-tart.
"Good morning, Amy," Phil said. He winked at me. "Morning, Joshua."
That was it. For some reason, Phil had some little compulsion to call me by my full name. It was never Josh, like Amy and all of my friends, or Kiddo, like my mom. Joshua and nothing else.
I held up my hand in a sort-of wave and went back to crunching loudly on my cereal.
After finishing my breakfast, I washed out my bowl and headed back up to my room. After brushing my teeth and combing my messed up dark hair, I grabbed my backpack from its spot by my door, and then swung out to head back down to the kitchen.
Amy had slipped into her flip flops, and she was just starting to pull her hair up into a messy bun when I walked in. She was wearing a pink skirt along with a short sleeved pink shirt to match. I wrinkled my nose, remembering what Mom had told me about this. 'Amy is eleven. She's just going through her experimenting-girlie stage.'
Well, if this was an experiment, I didn't want to see the outcome.
My sister wrinkled her nose at me as I grabbed my hoodie. "It's like a thousand degrees outside, dork."
I rolled my eyes. "Ninety-three degrees, actually," I corrected, stuffing my hoodie into my backpack. "Everyone knows that I don't go anywhere without it."
Amy rolled her eyes as Mom got up from the table, reaching in her jean pocket for her car keys. She was a stay-at-home mom, I guess you could say, since she only worked weekends at Giant.
"Lets get you both to school," she said.
About ten minutes later, I was watching as my mom's car and my sister disappeared down the road, heading towards the middle school. I then turned and looked up at King High School.
As a freshmen, my year hadn't been too horrible. I wasn't the dweeb that the bigger, buffer kids picked on, but I wasn't Mr. Popular, either. I was normal, with a normal group of friends for proof.
To be honest, I'd always dreaded that thought of high school last year. My grades weren't high, and I've hardly ever gotten above a C in my life. That didn't matter, though. In high school, it was either do your best or get out. So, I did my best, trying to impress my parents. Amy always got straight A's or B's, so my grades usually didn't get me any interest in that department.
I pushed aside my bad-grade thoughts, and jumped right into my dreams of a lazy summer at the pool, hanging with Nate, Tiffany, and Carter, maybe even getting up the guts to talk to Kayla.
Suddenly, I felt a presence to my right, and when I glanced over, I saw Nate panting as if he'd just run all the way from the parking lot just to catch up to me.
"Dude, breathe evenly," I commanded.
Nate cracked a grin. "I am breathing evenly."
He had a point there. Nate was always looking hyper, as if he had coffee, soda, and chocolate for breakfast every morning. He was always breathing kind of fast, in his own hyper non-scary way. With the way he is, you'd think him to be kind of slow, but he's the fastest goofball in gym class. When he runs, that's when I have to try to keep up, panting the entire time.
"So," Nate said, "ready for the last day?"
"Oh God, yes!" I breathed. "Summer vacation sounds really good right now."
My friend nodded his agreement.
"Josh, Nate!" a new voice called, sounding out of breath.
We turned, watching as Carter hobbled his way through the crowd, his gallop-y way passing of some sort of running. Even though Carter had this weird kind of disease in his legs, the guy was still pretty fast, almost better than Nate.
Almost.
As Carter skidded to a halt in front of us, I could see a new face weaving through the crowd. It was hard to miss Tiffany with her flame red hair, and it was even harder to pretend that she wasn't there. It was the thing that got me to talk to her in the first place. I remember a time in kindergarten when I'd asked her why her hair was like that. She said she didn't know the reason, but her mom had the same exact thing.
We'd been buds, along with Nate, ever since. Carter had only met us two years ago in eighth grade, but we'd all become friends pretty quickly.
"Hey guys," Tiffany said, stopping beside us.
"Hi," we all said simultaneously.
The halls became quiet, and when I looked up, I knew exactly why. My heart thudded in my chest as I watched Kayla walk down the halls, the people parting before her to let her walk.
I backed out of the way to let her by, Nate and Carter following my lead as they gaped at the pretty blond. Tiffany, on the other hand, stood where she was but turned out way, opening her mouth to talk.
"Excuse you," Kayla said snidely as she got in front of Tiffany.
Tiffany looked at her evenly. "More like excuse you," she said.
"That's what I said, dumb bell," Kayla growled.
"No, that's not what I meant," Tiffany snapped, rolling her eyes. "I mean, excuse you, as in not me, you ditzy blond bimbo."
My mouth almost dropped open. Sure, Kayla and Tiffany hated each other, and Kayla could be a brat, but they were always at each others throats, just itching to get in a fight or something.
"Look," Kayla said, flashing a forced white-toothed smile. "You need to get out of my way."
"There's this thing called walking around someone politely instead of tromping down the hall like you own them," Tiffany said evenly. "You should try it some time."
"I'll say it one more time," Kayla said sweetly. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way."
Tiffany opened her mouth to speak again, but Nate slapped his hand over her mouth and pulled her back. He smiled all goofy at Kayla, who only walked past him as if he never existed.
"Ow!" Nate yelped, letting go of Tiffany and pulling his hand to his chest. "You bit me!"
"You grabbed me," Tiffany pointed out.
Nate was silent. "You bit me!" he repeated incredulously.
"It's not like I wanted to bite you." Tiffany stuck her tongue out. "Do you even wash your hands?"
"Yes," Nate said, his cheeks turning pink with embarrassment.
Tiffany glared at Nate, and then at me. "What the heck do you see in her?"
"Probably just her face," Carter suggested.
"Among other things," Nate said, his grin getting even goofier.
Tiffany rolled her eyes. "You disgust me," she sighed, turning sharply on her heal and walking off.
"What's her deal?" Nate grumbled.
"Typical Ares," I heard Carter mutter.
"What?" Nate and I asked at once.
"Nothing," Carter replied hastily, running through the halls towards his first class as the bell rang.
Well, at least today was the last day of school. Nothing could go wrong.
Wow. I just realized how much of a complete understatement that was.
See the pretty blue button? Well, I think you should click on it!
Review?
~Hero