For months and months and months, I have been searching. Tyson, Grover, and I have been looking, scouring the country looking for Percy. Grover and I sat on a train, we had word that Tyson might have a lead, but who knows. Percy could be dead. He could be dead and I did not even get to tell him I loved him. Even if he was alive, at this Roman camp, he probably does not even remember me. But Percy had to have lived. He is so strong. A fighter. He always tended to beat the odds. My seaweed brain, missing. But alive; I could feel it in my heart.
All of a sudden Grover gasped. "It worked!" he yelled as he jumped up and ran.
"What?" I asked him anxiously.
"The empathy link, it worked. Percy is alive!" Grover yelled, still running. He caught up to someone. It was Percy, asleep. It was like I could see Percy, asleep, but then at the same time I could see him clearly, talking.
"I don't have any spare change," Percy called.
His brain must have literally turned to seaweed. "What? No Percy. It's me Grover! Stay put! We're on our way to find you. Tyson is close, at least we think he's the closest. We're trying to get a lock on your position," Tyson said.
"What?" asked Percy.
I ran. I could see him. I reached out my hand, so willing to touch him. See that he was real, but as a daughter of Athena I should not be that foolish, this is only Grover's empathy link. Percy is only dreaming. "Thank the gods!" I said, I could feel the tears, but I blinked them back. "For months and months we couldn't see you! Are you alright?" I asked him desperately.
Percy looked like he was connecting something—he was remembering something. I could tell. He always got that face when he was working out something in his head.
"Are you real?" he asked me. It broke my heart, he sounded so hopeless. So brainwashed. I wanted to scream of course. But he remembered me, somehow he knew who I was, he had a vision of me in his head. He remembered me.
I had to warn him. "Stay put! It'll be easier for Tyson to find you! Stay where you are!" I said. There were a million other things I needed to say, but that's all I could say. The empathy link faded.
I looked to Grover, then collapsed on the floor and cried. "This is good Annabeth!" Grover said.
"I know, it's just he does not…remember," I told him.
"He remembers you, I could tell. He recognized you. Even Hera could not make him forget you," Grover said to her. "We'll find him. Look, Jason is gaining his memories, I bet Percy is too."
He was right, this was something. Percy was alive. This means everything.
That night, I sat on the train next to a snoring Grover. I took out one of Percy's t-shirts I took from his cabin a week after his disappearance. It smelt like him: salt water, the sweetness of candy, and the smell of freshly mown grass. "I'll find you Percy. I promise," I said as I threw his shirt over my head, the laid down. I fell asleep immediately. I dreamed about our first official date: the lilies Percy gave me, the dinner, and the monster that appeared out of nowhere, and the kiss goodnight. Most of all I remembered his smile when I said I would see him in the morning.