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Dear Annabeth,
It's been a year now, hasn't it? How are things on Olympus? Your mom treating you okay, Mr. D – well, I guess it's Dionysus now? – threaten to turn you into a rodent…?
Things here in New York are pretty quiet. Nothing much is going on, except I'm probably failing high school. It's just hard to concentrate…everything's normal again, and somehow I just can't believe it.
Never mind. It's nothing. I've never been much for letters, so, well, yeah.
Percy
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Dear Percy,
Yeah, it's been a year, Seaweed Brain. Things are fine, I really don't see why the gods needed mortal volunteers… but that's beside the point. Everyone's here besides you, Seaweed Brain. Thalia and the Hunters, Tyson and all his Cyclops friends, even the satyrs. Today was the mourning for everyone… you know. Bianca, Zoë, Clarisse, Grover, everyone. Luke too, but I think only Thalia and I would actually admit it.
Haha, you're failing high school? Maybe you can be the next Albert Einstein and invent a giant bomb instead of graduating or something.
Bomb jokes aside, take care not to get mobbed by the remnants of the Titan Lord's army. They're still out there, you know… just biding their time until the next time for them to rise. I hope that will be a long while later. I don't know if I can survive another war, you know?
Annabeth
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Dear Annabeth,
Ha, I'll try not to. Wouldn't be a very glorious ending, but Greek heroes don't get happy endings, now do they?
Yeah… what do people normally do for Greek-style mourning? I dunno. All I did was skip school. My mom told them I was sick.
Rachel (Elizabeth Dare, remember her?) came over today. She keeps insisting on trying to teach me math. She's way better at it than I am, anyway, and she doesn't believe I don't get it. Neither does Mr. Blowfish (I'm not allowed to call him that out loud, now that he's married to Mom and all… but still), and I do owe it to him to try, seeing as it's mostly thanks to him I haven't gotten kicked out of school yet. It's a record, seriously. The same school in three years!
And actually… it's kinda nice that math is the biggest of my problems nowadays. It does get kind of lonely, but… hey, lonely is better than being dead, right?
Don't answer that.
Percy
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Dear Percy,
Sorry I haven't written in a while. But it's your birthday today, right? Seventeen already, yeah? Sorry I can't come, but you know how Mom is about you. She doesn't care when I tell her everything's past after all. Guess she still doesn't like your dad.
Oh boy, this is turning into one long apology note. Sorry about that – did it again! – no one should get something like this on their birthday, right?
Anyway, I'm rambling again. Thalia tried to get her dad to let us come down to Camp Half-Blood for a day, but well, he doesn't like you either. You have a real talent for angering the wrong gods, have you noticed? Not that there's really a right god to anger, but still…
So we had to make do with pretending you were here and dropping cake off the edge of Mount Olympus to see where it would land. Thalia's idea, not mine. Didn't work, because we couldn't actually go down and look, but if you hear reports about slices of birthday cakes falling out of the air… haha. Now you know.
Anyway, happy birthday, from all of us. Yeah, everyone, Seaweed Brain.
Annabeth
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Dear Annabeth,
You seriously helped bombard innocent mortals with cake? Well, good for you!
Actually, I haven't really gone to Camp Half-Blood lately… Too many memories, you know? There's really no point any more. No one I know is there, really, besides Chiron and all… And he's great, but there's only so much thousand-year-wisdom a guy can take.
And Annabeth, you know you never told me when your birthday was.
Percy
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Dear Percy,
Ah, good point. It's September 18. A ways off, so no worries, right?
So there's this Hunter that's really into astrology. Her name's Stella, of all things. She told me I'm a Virgo or something, basically overly critical. Hah, since when am I "overly critical?" Just joking. Lots of other stuff too, but that's what it boiled down to. And a lot of other stuff that Thalia says sounds just like me. Astrology is creepy.
And then she (Stella, not Thalia) said since your birthday is July 7, you're a Cancer. Not the disease, Seaweed Brain, you're a crab. Which is kind of funny, actually, but the sign does describe you a lot. Overly protective, dedicated to friends and family, things like that.
Isn't astrology weird?
You should go back to camp sometime, Percy. Sure, none of us will be there, unless we get special permission (and we will eventually, I know we will), but come on, Seaweed Brain. Anyone can tell you're lonely. I bet that's why Rachel won't leave you alone. She's trying to help, you know. We all are.
Some of us are just better at it than others.
Annabeth
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Dear Annabeth,
September? Still have two months to go, then.
You know, I never really liked Septembers… because, well, they always meant a new school… more people who just thought I was the leading juvenile delinquent… more teachers who thought I wasn't paying attention…
But I think this September will be different.
Haha, sappy. But it's true, you know.
Last year of high school. If I can make it through one more year… well, one more shouldn't be a problem. I think.
Mom and Blowfish – fine, Paul – are a bit disappointed that I don't want to go to college. I told them I'd just end up dropping out anyway. Maybe I'll rethink it later.
Right now, though, I'm just going to relax the rest of the summer away. Tomorrow Rachel's coming over and she's demanding I go with her to some water park or other. I'll have to wake up at the crack of dawn, but that's okay because that's just like old times, yeah?
Only you're not here…
Oops, promised myself I wouldn't write anything too sappy. Sorry!
Percy
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Dear Percy,
You'll never believe what I'm about to tell you.
Can't guess? WE FINALLY GOT PERMISSION TO COME VISIT.
Isn't it awesome?
It's on September 17, Sunday. Thalia wouldn't let off until Zeus finally agreed so she'd stop pestering him.
We'll see you then, Seaweed Brain. Stay alive until then!
I wonder… how much have you changed? How much have I changed? Will we still be able to recognize each other?
Ha. Doesn't matter.
Because, you know, we'll always be friends. Maybe more, but right now…
Friends until the end. Remember? We swore that right before the last battle, us three.
We'll always be friends, Percy.
No matter what.
See ya,
Annabeth
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A/N: Ah, bit of clarification here. After the final battle of the war, there were quite a few deaths. Grover and Clarisse are some of them, as you may have guessed. The Olympians called up some half-blood volunteers to help them, and Annabeth was one of them. Pretty much all of Percy's friends are at Mount Olympus, the ones still alive. Mr. D has left Camp Half-Blood and returned to his life on Mount Olympus due to his involvement in the war (quite a bit) and the fact that he had "only" a couple of decades more, give or take a few years, so Zeus decided to pardon him completely. Also note this was written before Battle of the Labyrinth, when Percy's birthday (or at least the time period) wasn't confirmed. Seriously, Cancer and Virgo do fit Percy and Annabeth pretty well in my opinion.
EDIT: petvet341 has brought it to my attention that there actually is a mention of Percy's birthday (month) in Titan's Curse. Oops. OH WELL.