Blue Toothbrush-A Percabeth One-Shot

Two years, she had been gone two years. Two years ago from yesterday to be exact, and since yesterday she had spent all her time thinking about a detail.

Annabeth paid attention to millions of tiny details about every little thing. What she'd worn to her graduation, what time it was when she finished her last exam, how her second cousin on her fathers side wore her hair at that party when she was fourteen.

But the detail that had lodged itself into her mind like a splinter was one she did not want to dwell on. The detail that had bothered her when she boarded a plane in New York to London exactly two years ago from yesterday, and it was a toothbrush.

A blue toothbrush to be exact, and now as she sat on her white polyester comforter smack dab in the middle of a London college architecture campus with her laptop beginning to heat her thighs, the detail seemed silly to her.

It was silly, actually but it wouldn't leave her mind and so she reluctantly opened up her hotmail account, which hadn't been touched in months, and began looking through the hoard of emails left unread in her inbox.

The names blurred in front of her as she scrolled through them:

Piper

Dad

Dad

Leo

Hazel

Frank

Reyna

Thalia

Thalia

Thalia

She replied to a few recent ones and deleted old ones, promising to send a text to her friends later and catch up. As she was beginning to feel like she should log out of her account and never touch it again a name caught Annabeth's eye.

Percy

It was the only one she had received from him since she told him it wouldn't work out anymore. The long distance relationship was putting a huge strain on her and Percy and so about a month after arriving to London, she broke it off, feeling it best to let them both live their lives.

She could have taken the easy way out and never even accepted the scholarship to her college but she would never, and Percy knew that too and respected it.

So she left, packing her bags in a small span of three days and then bought a plane ticket to London. She was gone a week after that, and that was the last time Annabeth saw Percy in person since she'd left.

With tremulous fingers, she opened up the email. Less than a second later though, without even having read the first word, she slammed her laptop shut and put it on the bedside table.

"Time for bed." Annabeth told herself fiercely as is she was a mother scolding her child for being up past their bedtime.

But as she lay back in her bed, sleeping on her side just the way she liked it, she couldn't help but let her mind wander and she wondered what could possibly be on the email. What was on the email though, was uncertain, it could be anything and so she fell back on memories. Things that were carved in stone simply because they had already happened. They were not uncertain like the contents of the email.

The first memory that flowed into her head was a simple one, there were many others like it, for it happened often, but she didn't mind because they were sweet and simple and it was a detail. A thread from a quilt of endless moments shared together and she would never forget any of them, because she noticed the details.

It was a usual morning, they were both awake yet not bothering to get up and just lying in a lazy sense of peacefulness, sunlight filtering through the cracks in the blinds, dappling the bed with beams of golden rays.

Had they both had the day off, they would have lied there for hours but as usual there was work and school to get to so they would get up and start the routine and Annabeth would hop in the shower while Percy put a cup of coffee to roast as he tried to pull on his jeans quickly. A coffee, a kiss, and raisin-bran, a hurried half hour and then they were ready to face the day.

And each time after she showered Annabeth would brush her teeth. The apartment in which they both woke up in was not hers, it was Percy's though she stayed over so many times that it was practically hers too. She couldn't even remember the last time she had been in her own apartment and over time most of her stuff would end up at Percy's place, and they would stay there.

As the plane took off from the New York airport though, she thought about that detail. The toothbrush. She'd forgotten it when she'd been packing all her things and now it would surely get thrown out now that it was sitting on Percy's bathroom sink, most likely never to be used again.

Annabeth had fallen asleep without noticing she did and when she awoke she laid in a tangled knot on her bed, her legs enter twined with the bed sheets. She pulled herself out of bed and turned on the shower, sliding in and letting the hot water wash away any grogginess she still had left.

Ready to face what she was about to do she turned off the shower and wrapped herself in a towel, leaving the bathroom, barely drying herself and grabbing her laptop, impatiently waiting for it to restart.

She logged back onto her Hotmail account and didn't bother going back to Percy's email. Instead, she composed her own letter.

Annabeth must have spent at least an hour trying to figure out what to write and then spent another hour retyping and deleting things until finally she decided enough was enough and wrote what first came to her mind.

Percy,

I know we haven't talked in a while but I just wanted to say how are you? And how are things going back at home? Sorry we left off at kind of a rough patch and that we haven't talked in a while. I miss hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Annabeth

She hit send, before she could change her mind and sat back, regretting what she'd just done. Busying herself with school studies she opened her internet browser and took notes on the basics of structuring a solid base. She of course already knew everything about architecture but she had an exam next week and she wouldn't accept anything lower than a 100% grade.

A notification popped up in the corner of her screen and she froze, her pen halfway through writing a sentence and her reading glasses sliding down her nose slowly. Dropping the pen and pushing her glasses up, she opened up her email and looked at her notifications.

1 new message from Percy Jackson

Annabeth clicked it hesitantly and began reading.

Dear Annabeth,

Holy shit I can't believe I just got a message from you. Long time no see, wise girl. Things are good, busy with school, everyone's great. Mom says hi by the way. Anyways, how's London? The food any better than New York's pizza?

Percy.

Annabeth couldn't help it, she laughed and immediately began typing a reply. It felt natural speaking like this to Percy again or well speaking to Percy at all. She'd missed his dorky sense of humor and his stomach too.

Over the next couple weeks Percy and Annabeth continued speaking via email and she looked forward to replying to his messages. She smiled more often now that Percy and her were speaking again or so her friends said. As the time had passed she hadn't forgotten because she never forgot, but the blue toothbrush had been pushed to the back of her mind. Now though, she remembered it. Maybe it was because blue was Percy's favorite color or because her professor had worn a blue button down shirt today, maybe it was her friend Lindsay's blue Coach bag.

She didn't know why she was reminded of that detail today but she was and she decided to finally say something about it.

Hey Percy? Quick question. Have you seen my blue toothbrush? I left it near the bathroom sink, its been a couple years I think. If you kept my blue toothbrush I don't mean to push or rush, but you sure have a real nice place, a toothbrush wouldn't take much space. Maybe you could keep it there? I should be back in May of next year. I don't know if this is wrong or right but you should know that toothbrush keeps me up at night. If you don't want my blue toothbrush, I'll take it back when we next meet. Just trying to help you keep things neat.

Annabeth

She hit send and pulled her hair back into a bun, not realizing the small sheen of sweat that had built up on her forehead. She wiped it away and patiently waited for a reply. She had lied of course. Percy was never neat and she knew that. Maybe she just wanted her toothbrush back, maybe she just missed Percy.

He never answered her back.

Next May

Annabeth stepped out of the busy airport, her rolling carry on bag parked next to her as she waited patiently for her Dad's car to pull up in front of the waiting area. New York was just like she remembered, busy people all with their own places to be and things to see, not bothering to pay attention to anyone else. Too busy concerned with their lives or cell phones to bother with anyone else.

She looked down at her watch and sighed. They were late, her flight had gotten off at least twenty minutes ago and she hadn't even seen the slightest trace of them.

She checked her phone for any new messages and when she looked there was nothing but a No new messages screen staring back at her. A car honking distracted her and she looked up from her phone annoyed until she recognized a familiar blue Prius and the driver who was waving at her and stepping out of the car.

Percy Jackson stood less than twenty feet away from, looking practically identical since the last time she saw him. His hair was a little shaggier now that no one was around to tell him to cut it but he still had the same lean body and rugged look to him, the same sea green eyes looked back at her.

Annabeth smiled and waved, walking up to him slowly, legs trembling ever so slightly. "What are you doing here?" She asked, incredulously.

"Your parents let me know you were coming back today so I offered to pick you up. Sorry I'm late though, traffic was killer." He said, a sheepish grin on his face.

"I should have known something was wrong when my parents showed up late." She laughed, putting one hand on her hip and shaking her head at him playfully,

They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, unsure of what to say or what to do. Annabeth was confused, Percy had never answered her last email to him or any other email she had sent after that and simply ignored everything she'd tried to say to him. Why had he suddenly shown up to pick her up from the airport without even a words notice in advance?

She tried to think about it when Percy cleared his throat and she looked up at him.

"We should go now I guess." He said, one hand scratching his head and the other stuffed into the front pocket of his ripped skinny jeans. Annabeth nodded at him and helped him load her bags into the trunk of Paul's Prius, which Percy informed was officially his now.

As she clipped her seat belt and sat back in the passenger seat, Percy began fumbling for something in the glove compartment. She stared at him curiously as he pulled out something in a clear Ziploc baggy. He handed it to her and looked down at his feet, cheeks flushed red as Annabeth looked down at what he'd given her.

It was a blue toothbrush.