So I just finished 'Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Poseidon' and now I'm emotionally distressed. Like crawling into bed, eating numerous cups of tea and rereading my favourite bits for days on end instead of going outside or doing any real work distressed. Because the END. We were so close. Maybe that's a tad dramatic but I'm a writer, what do you expect?
This picks up right after the end of the book and if you haven't read that book or begun on that particular branch of the series then GO AND READ IT. It's good. I basically just wrote this to appease myself but maybe you'll enjoy it too. But then again, you probably won't.
This was ridiculous.
It wasn't like I had never been in a stressful situation before. I had faced snarky Titans, watched a Minotaur crush my mother to golden baby powder, been turned into a guinea pig by a well-manicured goddess with an attitude problem, crept through a treacherous labyrinth with a new thing waiting to slice and dice me every few seconds and recently had my memory completely removed and sent off on a rescue mission to release Death – yes, Mr Death himself. This should have been cake.
I gulped hard and extracted my arms from Hazel and Frank, all my confidence from a few minutes ago suddenly gone. I began fidgeting, flicking my eyes up at the guarded faces of the Roman campers all around me, who would probably squish me into mush pretty quickly if anyone on the ship - that was descending fairly quickly from the air, getting closer and closer – stepped one toe out of line.
"Percy?" Hazel's nervous voice pulled me back to earth, "Are you okay?"
Frank was looking at me too but with less sympathy and more amusement than Hazel. He nudged me lightly in the ribs and grinned.
"Yeah, Percy, you've gone all white. You wouldn't be nervous by any chance?"
I glared at him for just a second; not wanting to look away from the ship for too long in case it disappeared in the sky altogether, and shook my head, trying to free myself of my nervous thoughts. They decided, instead of disappearing conveniently into the Underworld, that they'd come spilling out for all to hear.
"It's just, you know," I gulped. The ship was really close now. My hand went straight to the clay symbols around my neck. I could feel my face heating up. Great. One of the seven to save the gods, the demi gods and all the legacies before and after them; blushing.
"It's just, it's been 8 months. What if 8 months apart is too long to ever be the same again?"
My face felt even hotter after I blurted this out and I punched Frank's arm with a little more force than usual, rolling my eyes as he continued to grin at me. He'd been way too happy now that he and Hazel had sorted themselves out. Maybe Mr D would be on the ship. He might be able to wipe the grin of the lovesick demi-god for a while. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the two glance at each other behind my back and then down at the ground, smiling widely. Unlikely.
"Percy, it will be fine. Like you said: they're your family. And I'd wipe that nervous look off your face. You're going to be seeing your girlfriend for the first time in 8 months in about thirty seconds."
Sure enough the ship was docking, the guards were tensing and my heart was racing. Show time.
Grover was the first one to descend the steps of the 'warship' when it finally landed. I hadn't really expected the 'Lord of the Wild, chosen one of Pan' to be on the ship headed into battle against cruel giants and wild centaurs but I was happy to see the guy. His eyes widened and his footsteps faltered as he realised how many people were watching his descent off the ship, but he was quickly hurried along by the hiss of a familiar blonde girl, who was desperately trying to shove past. My heart jumped and I swallowed hard. I wanted so badly to rush forward but my feet seemed to have grown fond of the spot I was standing in and wouldn't budge. Apparently Hazel wasn't going to let me stand there and figure out the best course of action on my own, instead pushing me not too lightly in the direction of the new arrivals. I waded through the crowd of Roman campers, who parted easily for me, my heart in my throat. My words from earlier echoed in my head and I sucked in another deep breath: what if 8 months apart is too long to ever be the same again?
More people were filing out of the ship, their feet and hooves making a rhythmic sound that carried over the sea of silent, watching soldiers, but I didn't look away from my best friends once. I didn't really care. A better soldier than I would probably have been sizing up Jason Grace, introducing the Greek campers to Reyna and making sure the two camps didn't destroy each other for the billionth time in history.
But hey, I never claimed to be a good soldier.
"Percy!"
"Hey it's Jackson!"
Numerous people called out to me as I raced into view but the sounds of their voices quickly mixed together, meaningless noise in the background that faded quickly as Annabeth finally spoke.
"You absolute idiot!"
I paused just a few feet away from the scowling girl and put my hands up in mock surrender, grinning widely despite myself. Grover stepped forward to embrace me – in a super manly way – chuckling in my ear, sounding slightly delirious. He probably hadn't eaten in about an hour.
"Oh man, never do that again! The last few months have been hell; we've been so worried about you!"
"I missed you Grover."
It was the truth but I think he sensed my need to go and console the fuming girl behind him because he released me quickly, grinning knowingly from ear to ear as he did.
"We'll talk later. I want to hear about this battle! And where exactly you've been for 8 months. And also your mum has kind of been going out of her mind. So yeah, call her."
I nodded, only kind of taking in his words, and smiled back, laughing a little as he grabbed me by the shoulders and thrust me towards Annabeth. What was with people throwing me around like a rag doll these days?
She opened her mouth to say something as I stumbled forward, probably gearing up to take out 8 months' worth of frustration and anger out on me right there and then, when I kissed her.
I'm not exactly the romantic, sweeping girls off their feet until they can't speak kind of guy. I had been embarrassed when we were caught kissing last summer at Camp Half Blood and yet, here I was; kissing Annabeth in front of a good couple hundred people. And I wasn't blushing anymore! Much.
When we pulled apart to the catcalls and yells from my friends at Camp Half Blood, and Frank and Hazel of course, she opened her mouth again, still looking a bit ticked off; although the corners of her mouth were tugging upwards despite her glares. I kissed her again.
"Percy!" She drew out the last syllable of my name, punching me softly in the arm. I grabbed her hand and laughed. "Let me be mad at you!"
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." I said, barely containing my grin. I stepped back a little and stood up straight, looking as seriously at her as I could, "Be mad at me."
Her face softened; the corners of her lips drooping a little, her forehead wrinkling up. She looked so sad and lost. It made me want to go pick a fight with Hera for putting the two of us through this. Instead I just hugged her, dropping a kiss onto her forehead. She sniffed, murmuring angrily against my shoulder.
"I thought you'd forgotten about me."
She sounded so sulky, so un-Annabethish; and the implication was so absurd, that I had to laugh, although my voice cracked a little when I next spoke.
"It's going to take a lot more than a teeny weeny god to make me forget about you."
Hoping that no eavesdropping gods had taken that as a challenge I kissed her again, and again, and again, until she laughed. 8 months. 8 months of my life; gone. If I thought about it for too long my temper rose rapidly so I just concentrated on the kisses and the fact that she was here, they were all here.
"So now what? Another prophecy, another quest?" She murmured wearily when I had stopped kissing her, looking around for the first time. I followed her eye line as well, wondering how this would all work out in the end.
Jason had been swarmed from the moment he stepped off the ship by friends and admirers; Leo was introducing himself to a couple of wind nymphs – unaware of Hazel, just a few feet away, staring at him as if he were a ghost – he really did look exactly like Sammy; and Piper and Frank had already struck up tentative a conversation. A lot of the Greek campers who had come along and the Roman campers' attention were elsewhere but there was still a large enough number of both who were staring at the two of us, as if we were one of those awful soap opera shows.
Annabeth's eyes had roamed a little further than just to the demigods around us, her eyes taking in every bit of the camp that we could see; the armour everyone was wearing, the details of the buildings around us. She looked worried.
"It's no Camp Half-Blood…" She murmured, straightening up and moving a little away from me. She folded her arms and met the eyes of a few staring Roman demigods, who quickly diverted their eyes. I grinned.
There would be meetings in the senate room soon, angry shouts from Octavian – who I just knew Annabeth would hate as much as I did – about how the Greeks were all plotting against them, but I couldn't bring myself to care about all of that. I slung an arm around Annabeth and grinned as I steered her away from the watching crowd.
"So where do you want to explore first? I'm praetor now, you know, allowed to go wherever I want."
She scoffed and I grinned.
"Oh god, that sounds official. They didn't give you an official title did they?"
"I am totally worthy of an official title."
"People with official titles should not drool in their sleep."
"Let that go Chase."
She rolled her eyes, grabbing my hand as the other campers in the distance grew smaller. I let out a deep breath of relief. I hadn't felt this at home for 8 months. I squeezed her fingers.
"So, what's that city that I saw from the ship? Who lives there?"
I felt my face grow hot and had to remind myself that she couldn't read minds. She was just smart enough to constantly know what simple minded creatures like me were thinking but she couldn't read minds.
"Um, well," I tried to play it cool. It never worked when I tried to play it cool. It didn't work at Westover Hall when I was trying not to look like an idiot when dancing with her and it wouldn't work now. "It's this place where demigods or descendants of demigods can…live, safely, for their whole lives if they want."
"For their whole lives? But how…"
"It's a full blown city up there Annabeth," I met her calculating, grey eyes now, "You can go to college…get a job, get married, raise a family, live your life up there; we can be as safe from monsters as it's possible for us to be."
She paused now, tearing her eyes away from the campsite around them to stare at me in that way that Annabeth does, when she's trying to figure out if she's wrong about something or if I'm really that dumb.
"We?" She was smiling a little uncertainly, raising her eyebrows and blinking as I began to splutter. I elbowed her gently.
"Not we as in you and me, I mean, uh. Weas in we, the demigods, those related to the gods, well I suppose right now it's the Roman ones but after all of this the two camps will hopefully unite a bit more and then I guess, yeah, demigods of um, both." I swallowed and looked away, forcing on a painful smile as she started to laugh.
"So not funny."
"It's pretty funny Seaweed Brian, I'd forgotten how tongue tied you get sometimes. But yes, I get what you mean, we as in demigods."
"I thought it was a really good idea. A place to be safe, to survive longer than a couple decades with…whoever you wanted."
She stopped and looked at me as if I was one of those complicated blueprints she constantly read in her spare time.
"Yeah, that does sound like a wonderful place, for other people. But..."
Uh oh. I did not like the look of that look or the sound of that 'but.' I stepped a little closer to her, trying to rid myself of the uneasy feeling in my gut that was telling me to protect any vulnerable areas. Battle instincts worked just as well in a relationship, who knew.
"But…?"
She smiled softly at the worried look on my face and smoothed over my wrinkled forehead.
"You're cute when you're worried," she quirked her eyebrows and smiled wider as she recited herself, "your eyebrows get all scrunched together."
I grabbed her hand as it left my face and waited. She sighed.
"But I know you Percy, too well. And I know that you wouldn't want to sit in one city for the rest of your life, no matter how safe it was."
I shrugged.
"I might."
It sounded weak, even to my ears, but I did mean it, a little.
"You won't."
"I might," I argued with more force this time. I might! "If it meant the things that living in that city meant, then yeah, I would make do with living in one place,"
"What on earth would be worth giving up the things that you love so much? I've been around you since we were 12 Percy; regardless of all the pain and the fear, you love it all; you love your life. You love New York, you love fighting for what you think is right; you love the adventure-
"I love you more."
She faltered a little. Yeah, I hadn't actually said that before. It was implied! It was implied in the years of friendship and comradeship and fighting monsters and underwater kisses. But we'd only been together two months before my memory was ripped out from under me like some cheap party trick. Annabeth wouldn't exactly take kindly to me throwing around words like that if I didn't mean them. She'd probably thump me. Or sneak up on me with her baseball cap on and throw me in a lake. She didn't like being lied to.
But I did mean it, I realised with surprised certainty. I was bright red and I had just spluttered it out like an idiot and it was the least romantic way to do anything but I did mean it.
"I mean that," I blurted out. She widened her eyes in surprise and I turned a dark red. "In case, you know, you thought I didn't because I've never said that before. But I do, I really, really do."
"Really?"
"You're laughing at me."
"Well you're cute when you ramble."
I managed a smile but I knew my nerves were showing. I was really nervous. She was just standing there, biting her lip, trying not to smile; but her eyes were all screwed up. She was worried.
"Annabeth…" I wanted to go back in time and throttle myself before those three cursed words could slip through my lips. Stupid, stupid, stupid Percy Jackson.
She giggled and I felt my gut unclench a little. I'd faced Drakons less scary than Annabeth Chase.
"I love you too Seaweed Brain."
Past me could be spared a brutal death, for now.
"Don't do that! Don't pause; don't pause when I've said something like that."
She giggled and wrapped her arms around my middle and suddenly she was forgiven. Damn girls.
"Gods, I've missed you Percy," she mumbled against my chest and I realised how much I'd missed her too. How angry I was that it had all been taken from us. How desperate I was to make sure it never happened again.
I blinked away the sudden burning in my eyes and pressed my lips against her messy blonde hair.
"I'm not letting it happen again," I whispered, more to the eavesdropping gods then to Annabeth, who nodded in response, "So maybe I'd hate giving up New York or battles or adventure but none of that compares to how much I would love knowing that I was in the safest possible place. With you."
She looked up, rolled her eyes and smirked, arms still around my middle. She was so tiny. I didn't realise most of the time because she was so, well, scary and 'spirited,' and tough. I tried not to think about how easy it would be to crush someone so small if you were a god.
"Being safe isn't the most important thing in the world," I made to interrupt but she shushed me with a finger to the lips. Right. Shushing. "But let's just think about now please. Come on praetor, let's find me a burger and you can introduce me to your creepy Roman friends."
I grinned and chased after the girl, who had already strutted off as if she had any idea where she was going. Soldiers had started wandering around again, back to their day to day activities. I should probably have been with Reyna, figuring everything out.
But it had been 8 months.
They could live without me for a day.