He was bulletproof. Literally. The deadly flying slugs couldn't hurt him.
How did he get here in the first place? He did something to someone or someone did something to him. All he was sure about was the blonde in front of him shooting gunshot after gunshot at him, screaming at the top of her lungs in rage. He couldn't hear her. Nor was he really wanting to, but having someone you love who's yelling at you in rage but getting drown out by the sound the bullets that they're shooting at you, probably doesn't sound like good communication in a relationship.
Perhaps not listening was what got Percy here. That may have been it, but he also supposed that it could have been something else that happened. In fact in may have been a large sum of things that happened that got him here. Or a large sum of things that hadn't happened, now that he thought about it.
This situation was a mess.
Percy held his hand up at arm's length in front of his face, where the majority of the bullets were aimed at. They slid through or bounced off or missed the skin, somehow they didn't really hit. He waited. She would run out of bullets sooner or later. Hopefully later. That way she would be tired and most of the anger would hopefully have drained.
He looked at the dry ground at his feet. It was cracked and dusted; glowing orange in the desert's lowering sun. Miles away in the distance stood mountains. In the other direction, behind him, was civilization somewhere. They had driven for hours this way, only to end up deeper into the middle of nowhere than Percy ever thought possible.
He stood there and didn't move. Quietly waiting.
Then, the bullets stopped. And he looked.
Annabeth stood a little ways away. Her blonde hair pulled back, but stray pieces hung around her face. The clothes she wore were tied in places like her waist or around her knees, to prevent their bagginess from getting in the way of moving; they were ripped and frayed, showing bits of skin and dried scabs. She was panting, red in the face, and carried a split lip.
Percy himself didn't look very inviting either. His clothes fit, but they were just held together by threads. The bullets had done their job on the fabric of his shirt and jeans. His hair was matted with grime, and he sported his share of injuries.
It was Annabeth's eyes that he looked at. Something he normally wouldn't do. They blazed with a terrifying amount of fury. But Percy's anger just about matched hers.
She was the one who moved first. She chucked the gun at his face with alarming force. It hit the mark, and he flinched on impact. It fell harmlessly to the ground, the empty chamber echoing into the dead silence between.
Annabeth ran at him. She sent a punch to his stomach, but he caught the fist. He spun her so that it was behind her back.
"Annabeth," he growled, "Stop fighting me."
The answer didn't come in words, but with a blind elbow from her other arm which struck him in the side of the ribs. He stumbled but refused to let go of her.
"Where is she?" Annabeth grunted, before twisting painfully out of his grasp and pulling her dagger out from behind her. She swiped him of his feet but he catch himself, so she jumped down on his chest knee first.
He groaned under her weight and stared at the dagger positioned above his chest. "Can't," he gasped.
"This?" She shook the dagger, "No. But it will hurt. Where is she?"
Percy looked up at her gray eyes, feeling his anger seeping into the dirt. Gods, he had missed her. But this wasn't the way he wanted to be welcomed home, chasing her from one state to the next. Months on end he didn't sleep unless he accidentally dozed off while driving; months on end of running after her fleeting form through food markets, busy streets, hotel rooms, fast food joints; months on end of jumping city to city following her, trying to get her to even face him.
Finally he had her looking at him, and this was the setting. Annabeth sitting on him with a dagger over his heart, after chasing her on foot when his car ran out of fuel, then continuing to chase her on foot when her car ran out of fuel, and even sticking around when she started shooting at him.
Gods.
She bashed him on the head with the butt of the dagger. "Tell me."
She was so beautiful. The worst had happened. The worst was happening, but he kept on thinking that.
Percy reached up and touched her face. That was better.
"Don't touch me," she snapped, without trying to shake his hand off, "You're not answering my question."
"What are you asking?" Percy asked quietly, as if they were back in the library talking in calm tones.
Something flashed in her eyes. His hand was off her face in a matter of milliseconds. His arm stretched away from his body, his wrist under her foot.
"That was fast," he marveled.
"Where's Kody?" she growled, leaning close over him, applying more pressure to his chest.
He narrowed his eyes in confusion. He said, "I don't know a Kody."
She punched him without warning. Then punched him again. She pulled his face back so that they were eye to eye and only an inch away. He felt her short, heavy breathing on his face. "You know who she is. You're the one who took her! You probably fed her innocent little body to your fish!" She screamed, as her eyes filled with water, "My daughter, you imbecile! Where's my daughter?"
Percy's world froze. His heart and various other organs felt like they suddenly changed to helium. He was nothing for a moment, just a shell. Daughter. Daughter. Daughter.
"What?" he choked, his own eyes filling with stinging tears of their own.
She looked at him. She gave him the look. The look she used since their first summer together. The Percy-what-the-hell-are-you-really-this-stupid? look. Then her features shifted. She stared down at him. Then she gave him the second look. The wow-Percy-you-really-are-this-stupid look.
For the third time her features changed. They mirrored Percy's very own feelings of shock, surprise, and complete horror.
"Shit." She said, before jumping off him.
Percy glanced at the sky. Daughter. Who was the father? He had been gone for so long, she must have….
"Percy," she called from his far right.
Slowly and with regret he rolled his head to the side and looked at her. She had her hands in her hair and was chewing on her lip. She was blurred from the tears spilling over his cheeks. He was too defeated to say anything. A daughter?
"You didn't take Kody?" she hastily asked.
He stared at Annabeth. His beautiful Annabeth wasn't his anymore. She got tired of waiting and started a family. A family he wasn't invited into. He would find her husband and kill him. No. No, he probably wouldn't.
You should just leave, he told himself. He didn't want to be here with her suddenly. He felt sick, tired, and more like a loser than ever before in his life. All this chasing, and he didn't know she had a daughter.
Wait. That doesn't make sense. The tiny gears in his mind moved a bit. She had been running from him for months, where was her daughter? How come she was only bringing this up now if someone took her daughter months ago? Or did-
"Daughter…?" he wheezed, "You have a daughter?"
He needed to get out of there. Gods, he was so stupid.
"Percy, come on. We need to go save her, someone took her a few days ago…" she held her hand out for him, "Come on. We need go fast."
He ignored her hand. "You go."
"What?"
Yeah, this was better than him leaving in a rush. "You go," he grumbled, glaring at her, "Leave me here."
She gave him a look.
"No, really." Percy said, "Leave me here to die. Then the seagulls will come and eat my dead corpse-"
"When did you become a drama queen?" Annabeth said.
"King."
She sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "Seagulls aren't even native to Texas, stupid Seaweed Brain."
"What are you, like made of brain tissue?"
She smiled. His heart jumped. He hadn't seen that smile in years. But then it was gone and the worried look returned. Annabeth kneeled down next to his head, placing a hand on his brow.
"Percy," she started with a steady voice. She looked into his eyes, and he smiled. He could smell her. She smelled like wisdom, he had told her once. But now she smelled like a wet dog, not that he was complaining. She hadn't been this close to him voluntarily in ages, and he was soaking up every minute of it.
"Percy," she repeated, "I need you to help me find Kody, someone took her a few days ago. I thought it was you, but I guess you weren't aware of her existence."
Kody. He hated that child. The offspring of his fiancé and some other man. He wasn't going to help her look for the devil child that was now starting to form in his mind. She probably had fangs. Yeah. And brown hair. He hated brown hair.
"No." He stated.
Annabeth scrunched her face together, making Percy think for a horrified second that she would cry. Then in the smallest of voices-really, really small- she said, "Kody is your daughter, Percy."