Wherefore art thou, Perseus?
A Percy Jackson story
Written/edited by: Max/musiclover99
©-Rick Riordan

Set after Mt. St. Helens in The Battle of the Labyrinth. So basically, when Percy's missing.
I HATE VERBS. Have I mentioned that before? (Note: this is a RHETORICAL question—I seriously hope that I don't see reviews seriously answering yes. Though, I would be surprised people read these ANs at all.) But seriously, if you detect verb screw-ups, tell me, because I LOATHE verbs with a BURNING PASSION.
Gods, this ended up MUCH longer than I thought it would. Whatever—I suppose that means I'm getting either better or worse. Hopefully the former.

. . . Happy Valentine's day! (I guess . . .)

A few days had passed.

Those days turned into a week.

And that week was oh-so dangerously close to becoming two. It scared her, the incident did.

It had been approximately twelve days (one hour and thirty-two minutes) since she got back from the quest.

From the incident.

From Mt. St. Helens.

From that explosion, that assumedly took away another person in her life (one that was starting to look up, to look permanent and stable—but she won't believe that he's gone, it just seems impossible), from the . . . kiss.

It was embarrassing, to say the least. Annabeth hated it, but she could feel the heat rising up in her cheeks every time she thought about it. Percy was going off on a suicide mission, and . . . well, she didn't want to leave a bad memory of her for when he's in Elysium. (Because really, she knows that if he does end up dying—which he totally did not, she refuses to believe it—he'd be a shoo-in for Elysium, no doubt.)

Annabeth had long since run out of tears to shed over him, at least for the time being. Her eyes were losing some of its red tint, getting less puffy, whereas her other facial features looked perfectly normal. To try to get her mind off of him, she aspired to look at strategies, the plays, and, of course, read. (She attempted at deciphering a book in regular English but ended up giving up on page forty—she was getting a headache from all those letters spinning in her head, and had a Greek copy just waiting to be opened.)

After she had run out of books (which, sadly, wasn't too many, since she had plenty of time to read them when she was younger), she moved on to something a bit more challenging—Shakespeare.

Now that she had gone back to live with her father (successfully, for once), she had to attend school as well. Her interest had been piqued when learning about the famous playwright—but she never had the time to read his works until now. Unfortunately, the only copy of Shakespeare in Greek at the time was Romeo and Juliet.

It wasn't that she had anything against the story; no, it was just that, as a daughter of Athena, the concept of a love deep enough to go against family, kill this many people, and end up committing suicide? Preposterous. But she had to make do, and make do she did.

The balcony scene was what caught her attention. Her copy of the book had translations of what the Elizabethan words mean, and, much to her surprise, the word 'wherefore' did not mean when—it meant why. And it gave that balcony scene much more depth, and was less . . . well, stupid, for lack of a better word. It gave her something to ponder about.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? it read.

"Romeo, Romeo," Annabeth muttered under her breath. "Why are you Romeo?"

And her thoughts just traced back to Percy.

It fit, so perfectly well—she remembered a dream where she saw a beautiful woman, saying that she and Percy were, "just like Romeo and Juliet!" Which, frankly, was not a good thing at all. It implied that they were impertinent idiots—mindless children who believed that they were right, and the world was wrong. But reading the story herself—it scared her.

The Capulet's and the Montague's . . . Athena and Poseidon. While not as drastic, she supposed, it did fit.

Romeo and Juliet . . . obviously, Percy and Annabeth. Except, she added in her head, we're obviously not in love. Obviously.

Sure, it's not many—but it's the first ones off the top of her head. And she can't help but fill herself in Juliet's shoes sometimes.

"Perseus, Perseus," she started under her breath. "Wherefore art thou . . . Romeo?"

And it wasn't until that fateful birthday when it finally . . . clicked.

Okay, so in English, we were talking about Julius Caesar, the Shakespearean play. So we talked about Shakespeare. We talked about his tragedies. My teacher mentioned one line from the tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, on how Elizabethan words often get confused. Like the phrase, "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?" Most people think it means "where are you, Romeo?" But in reality, it is saying, "WHY are you Romeo?" Like, "why is the son of my family's sworn enemy my Romeo?" And, of course, I was just doodling away (while taking notes, of course), and got this blast of inspiration. So I hope you like! (This was the reason why I put that poll up on my profile page. Another tidbit of information for you!)

And the reason why THAT'S the last line? I may end up writing a sequel. Click. Nice title, isn't it? Anyway . . . we'll just have to see! Thanks for reading, drop a review please!