ANNABETH
"You look so beautiful!" Piper says.
I look at myself in the mirror. Half of my long, blonde hair is pulled up and the other half is down and curled. On my head is a flower crown with a veil attached. I'm wearing a long, flowing, white, Greek-style dress made of ivory silk (insisted upon by my mother) with a pearl necklace and pearl earrings, since they come from the sea. He does love the sea, after all.
"I think I'm getting teary eyed." Hazel says, as she fans her face. "You look so amazing."
"You really think so?" I ask.
"Uh, yes! Did you even look at yourself in the mirror?" Piper replies.
It's hard to feel beautiful when a daughter of Aphrodite is standing right next to you. Piper and Hazel are dressed in long, flowing, sea green dresses. Hazel's hair is curled, and Piper's hair is pulled pack into a long braid. Even like that, she still looks flawless.
I look at myself in the mirror again. And then it hits me.
I'm getting married. To Percy Jackson.
After today, I am no longer Annabeth Chase.
I'm Annabeth Jackson.
My dad comes into the dressing room and starts to tear up. "Are you ready, my beautiful daughter?" he asks me.
"I'm ready."
PERCY
I remember when I first met her.
I woke up at Camp Half-Blood and there she was, looking over me.
From that moment on, I just knew that someday this would happen.
And here we are.
I stand at the front of the altar.
Next to me is Jason, Leo, and Frank.
In the front row is my mom, her boyfriend, Paul, and my dad, Poseidon.
In the front row on the complete other side of the church is Athena. Thank goodness for the aisle.
I look to the second row and I see Grover. In the third I see Chiron. In the back I even see Mr. D, and on the other side of the church, I see Aphrodite. She smiles at me. She knew this would happen too.
A bell rings. Everyone in the church stands. The organ starts to play as the back doors open, but I can't even hear it because all I see is her. Annabeth.
She looks so beautiful, I swear she's glowing. She looks like an actual goddess.
Suddenly it all starts coming back to me. A flashback, kind of like what you see before you die, but all of the memories are of her. When I first met her. When I first discovered she was afraid of spiders. When we were sailing the sea of monsters, Annabeth listened to the Siren song, and I had to hold her down because of the hallucinations it gave her. When we held up the sky. When she kissed me for the first time. When we defeated Kronos together. When I was in New Rome, and the only memory I had was of her. When I accidentally fell asleep next to her in the horse stables on the Argo II. All of the traumatic time we spent in Tartarus together. The look on her face when I proposed to her at Camp Half Blood.
And then I come back to the present. And all I can see is her.
After all we've been through, it's hard to believe we've even made it this far.
But after looking at her, I wouldn't have it any other way.
She walks down the aisle and as she gets closer I can't help but tear up.
"Oh come on, Seaweed Brain." she says to me. "You're not going to cry over me, are you?"
I laugh. I pinch myself. This is all too good to be true.
We kneel in front of the altar. The priest starts talking. "You look beautiful." I whisper to her.
"You don't look too bad yourself." she whispers back. "Now pay attention to what he's saying!"
The vows.
I remember then that I didn't write any vows. Annabeth made me promise not to write them down, because she thinks it looks fake and superficial when couples read theirs.
How am I supposed to just wing it?
Time goes by. We stand, we kneel. We stand again, and then kneel some more. And then we get to the wedding vows.
Annabeth goes first.
"I, Annabeth, take you, Percy, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, or for worse, for richer, or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part."
Then it's my turn.
I don't know what to do. I try to remember her speech but all I can remember are bits of words like "sickness" and "death".
Not a very good way to start your wedding vows.
I take a deep breath in, and just say what comes from my heart.
"I, Percy, take you, Annabeth, to be my wife, from this day forward. I love, you, Annabeth, with all of my heart and soul and mind, and I will for as long as I live, no matter what happens. No matter where we go, what we do, where we end up, I will always love you. I love you, Annabeth."
Annabeth starts to tear up.
"Come on, Seaweed Brain," she says, "you're making me get all emotional."
We laugh.
After saying a bunch of "I dos", the priest looks to me and finally says,
"Percy, you may now kiss the bride."
And I kiss her. And at that moment, nothing else matters but her. And I love her.
We walk back to the back of the church hand in hand as everyone throws blue petals.
I can't believe my mom really decorated everything with blue decorations. I didn't notice it before, but even the aisle is covered with blue carpet and blue ribbons are hung on the aisles.
My observations are interrupted when Annabeth looks to me and says, "I love you, Percy."
"I love you too, Annabeth."
ANNABETH
We head to the reception held at a quiet beach nearby the church, and Percy's mom really did do a good job with this "everything blue and sea-like" theme. The tent is blue, the chairs and tables are blue, with blue and white flower centerpieces adorned with festive sea shells. Even the dance floor and the wedding cake is blue. The funny thing is, there's a statue of Percy and I on top of the wedding cake, but we aren't in our wedding attire. We're in our armor. My statue even has my bronze dagger hung loyally at my side.
In the corner of the room, there is a little table with two chairs and the biggest centerpiece I've ever seen. Next to the table, a sign is written is Greek-style writing, which reads, "Congrats Percy and Annabeth!"
I tug on Percy's arm and point to the table. "I think that's where we sit."
We walk over to the table and sit down.
Grover walks over to us. "Awe, the two lovebirds. I always knew you two had something."
I blush uncontrollably.
"Grover! It's so nice to see you! I swear I haven't seen you in ages." Percy says.
"Annabeth!" Piper whisper-yells to me.
"I'll let you two catch up while I go over and talk to them." I say as I leave the table.
"Oh. My. Gods. Annabeth, you looked like a goddess on the altar!" Hazel says to me.
"I know! You have to tell me where you got that flower crown. It looks so gorgeous on you!" Piper says to me.
"Hey, pretty soon it's going to be one of you getting married. Has Frank or Jason given any hints to popping the question?"
"Please, Frank is slower at this kind of stuff than a turtle. We haven't even talked about anything to do with our future yet. Sometimes I think he'll never pop the question." Hazel says.
"Piper?" I ask.
"Well," Piper grows a sly smile. "We might have talked about it once or twice."
"Oh my gods, Piper! Why didn't you tell us?" Hazel says.
"Well, he didn't get a ring or anything, we just talked about our future a little. I couldn't imagine being with anyone but him and he feels the same towards me. But Annabeth, this isn't the time to talk about my love life. This is your and Percy's special day. So, you can go back and sit with him now while Hazel and I go enthuse about how amazing you look."
I smile. "Thank you." I say and then walk back over to Percy.
PERCY
We are served traditional greek cuisine. As an appetizer, we're served spinach and feta pita bake and chicken souvlaki with tzatziki sauce. For our entree, we have garlic-oregano roasted chicken, vegetarian greek lentil casserole with bell peppers, and greek garbanzo stew.
Grover stands and taps his glass with his knife. "I think it is time for each guest who has a speech prepared to speak. I'll go first."
Grover walks next to our table and begins his speech. "For those of you who don't know me very well, I'm Grover, a satyr, assigned to Percy by Chiron when we first found out he was a demigod. I've been with these two since the beginning. We were the three always getting in trouble and doing things we weren't supposed to, like going on secret quests and going on adventures. And let me tell you, I'm surprised these two haven't given me a heart attack yet."
Everyone chuckles.
"They were so outgoing, always wanting to save everyone, always wanting to be everyone's heroes, always getting into so much trouble. They've always been so alike, and yet, so different. Percy is brave and heroic where Annabeth is logical and smart. Her intellect makes up for Percy's….uh…occasional blindness, let's put it at that. They balance each other out. And from the beginning, I knew this was going to happen. To Percabeth!"
"To Percabeth!" everyone echoes.
Percabeth. I like it.
Then, to my surprise, Athena gets up to speak.
"When I first met Percy, I thought he was this careless, little boy who had no sense of responsibility or logic. And my ongoing rivalry with Poseidon didn't help very much."
Well, shucks. I think.
"But, now that I've watched him grow and watched how well he takes care of my lovely, beautiful, smart, daughter, I've grown to like him, maybe just a little bit." She says with a sly smile.
"And if he is who Annabeth loves," she begins, "than I can learn to accept that." she says, and comes over and hugs Annabeth.
Surprisingly, she hugs me too. She must have been in a really good mood or something.
"To Percabeth!" she yells.
"To Percabeth!" everyone echoes back.
The deejay plays Annabeth's favorite song, and I ask her to dance. We make our way to the blue floor, and I look at the floor, awkwardly.
"What are you doing?" Annabeth asks. "You're supposed to dance with me, Seaweed Brain."
"I know." I respond. "I've just…never really danced before."
"Come on, it's easy," she says. "I'll teach you."
She stares back at me, and I can't even pay attention, because all I see is how beautiful. Now just how beautiful she looks, but how beautiful she is, in what she does and how she thinks. We're dancing, I think, and then I trip, and we're laughing.
"You're such a klutz, sometimes." she teases.
I eventually start to get the hang of it, and I dip her. We're laughing and talking and laughing some more.
When the song ends, I look at her and say, "Can I kiss you?"
"I don't know, can you?" she asks.
And I kiss her as Leo whistles and then yells, "Cake time!"
Annabeth and I hold the knife together, and I have my arms around her. She cuts the first piece and puts it on a plate. Just as I'm about to insist that she should get the first piece, she throws it in my face. She laughs as I kiss her cheeks and nose and forehead and lips and try to smear it all over her face as well.
ANNABETH
"I believe it's time to throw the bouquet!" my mom shouts.
All of the single girls present crowd behind me as I take a deep breath and throw it. I heard screams and then cheering and turn around to see who caught it.
Piper caught it. And Jason is making his way over to her.
That can only mean one thing.
I run over to Hazel and tell her, and then we start giggling excitedly as Jason says to Piper,
"It's a little ironic you caught that," he begins. "Because I was planning on asking you to marry me."
Piper gasps and outs her hand over her mouth as Jason gets down on one knee and pulls out a ring from his back pocket.
"Will you marry me, Piper McLean?"
Piper starts crying and says, "Yes!" as her and Jason embrace.
Everyone cheers. Hazel and I watch excitedly.
The deejay announces it will be the last dance of the night, and plays a slow song. Percy comes up to me and doesn't even ask.
"So, what's next?" Percy asks me.
"I don't know." I say.
"Remember when I told you about the neighborhoods they have at Camp Jupiter? How demigods can live there and raise families and have lives at the camp?"
"Percy, I don't want-"
"I know." He smiles. "We're not moving to Camp Jupiter."
"Then what are you saying?" I ask.
"I'm going to build a neighborhood for demigods at Camp Half-Blood."
"Percy," I laugh, "Do you even know how to build a house?"
"Hey, I've defeated giants and Titans before," he says, "I think I can figure something out. There's no other place I'd rather live than at camp. That way, we can move in together in a nice neighborhood away from harm, and maybe, I don't know, start a family?" he pleads.
"Don't push it." I smile, and then kiss him.
