They met in the bus station. Percy, he wasn't even aware that bus stations existed anymore, until his sister Thalia told him about the one over on Mevale Avenue.
She knew that she shouldn't be telling him about it; she knew that it should be her responsibility to take care of him. But he was 23 now and she was 26. They were old enough. Zeus and Poseidon had been great parents; excellent, in fact. Oh, sure, there had been the stigma of being raised by a gay couple, but the fact of the matter was: Percy and Thalia got over it. It ceased to be such a big deal after the seventh grade. They were lucky that they got two loving, attentive parents, no matter what their sexual orientation was.
But it was time for them to escape the life that they were stuck in. It was like they were carved into a mural in a wall in Pompeii. Preserved, safe, but forever unchanging. He knew it; she felt it, too. And as much as both wished they were wrong, they knew that they had to leave. What they had was a half life, and both knew that they needed something bigger.
And so, on the 24th of December, they both left at the same time.
It was dark out, and cold. The crescent moon was beautiful, but not very practical; it didn't do much good by way of illumination. Both were wearing sweatshirts, with their hoods up. The fairy chorus of crickets could be heard from all over, and it was driving Percy nuts. Thalia ignored it; actually she didn't even mind it all that much.
They were sitting side by side on the hard bench at the station. Thalia was checking her cell phone for text messages, debating whether or not to leave a message for their parents. Percy was staring off into space, in his thoughts where Thalia had neither lot nor part.
"Mevale Avenue," Percy chuckled suddenly.
Thalia looked up from her cell phone. "What?"
"Me vale. It's Spanish for 'I don't care.'"
"Really?" she laughed. "I Don't Care Avenue?"
"Someone's imagination must have been either too big or too small…" Percy said. "It kind of fits right now, though."
Thalia nodded thoughtfully. "Well, not really," she disagreed. "It's not that we don't care…"
"…It's that we care more about...other things," Percy finished. Thalia sighed in agreement. Percy was about to say something, but just then, a blond girl collapsed on the bench next to them.
"Aah!" Percy screamed like a little girl. "What the hell?"
She'd crept out of the shadows, so neither of them had seen her until she was right next to them. He took a good look at her. She had wavy blond hair that was piled up messily on top of her head. She looked well dressed, in dark jeans, a blue collared shirt, and a jean jacket. Black tennis shoes completed the image.
"Oh, my god," she snapped her blue eyes at Percy and Thalia. "Have you guys ever tried running away? It's so much fun! I had to pack my stuff in a bag-and none of my stuff would fit! Then I had to bribe the neighbor to sneak it out and keep it at her house until I jumped out of my window at midnight. I sneaked around to her bedroom window and howled like a lone wolf. She dropped my bag from the window, wished me good luck, and went back inside. I ran like hell and I got here."
Percy blinked. Thalia stared.
"IGod, I'm so glad I'm not stuck in my old life anymore. I was starting to feel like I should kill everything that was moving-whoa!" She stopped talking. "I didn't mean to tell all those things to you. I didn't even introduce myself. I'm Silena. Silena Beauregard. Who are you guys?"
Percy hesitated, but Thalia laughed. "I'm Thalia Grace, and this is Percy Jackson."
"Oooh! Are you guys eloping? That's so romantic!"
"Ew!" Percy and Thalia screamed simultaneously. "No way in hell!" Percy screamed. "We're siblings. I mean, we were adopted. And I would kill myself before I married her. No, wait; I would sing like Justin Bieber before I married her!"
"Ew!" It was Silena's turn to say. "I hate Justin Bieber. I didn't know that they still emasculated poor, unsuspecting kids! But I believed it after I heard Justin sing."
Thalia laughed again. "So, where are you planning to go?"
Silena's eyes glowed. "I'm thinking New York City," she told them. "I would love to live there. It's amazing! I go every year, and I love it there. What about you guys?"
"We hadn't decided yet," Percy said hesitatingly. "We were thinking Chicago, though."
"Why don't we pool resources and escape together?" Thalia interrupted him. She was always the more daring, and she liked Silena. Percy was more hesitant, and he wasn't the most trusting of girls after what happened to him. "Only if it's okay with you, though."
"Really?" Silena squealed. "Oh, my God! That's so nice of you! I'd love it. I can take care of myself-" she chuckled darkly before resuming her cheerful personality "-but it's just not the same traveling alone, right?"
"I know what you mean," Thalia said. "It's so weird-we're all running away together. Why are you?"
"You first," Silena requested.
"Well…" Thalia exchanged a look with Percy. "Well," she repeated. "We just thought...that is, we just felt that there was something more out there. We were stuck in a groove. Our lives were boring; they were the same, day to day thing. College, sleep, work, sleep, occasionally party. Nothing exciting. So…we decided to…"
"Go. I get it," Silena smiled. "I'm leaving because…well, my parents don't really care about me. Nobody really does, so I have no reason to be here. I don't want to be here. So I'm leaving. It's pretty simple, actually."
"So you have no regrets about running away?"
"I'm not running away, I'm just running," Silena corrected. "I have nothing to run away from, so, no…" she pointed to the street sign. "Me vale. I don't care."
"You speak Spanish?" Percy asked happily.
"My dad's Puerto Rican; I grew up multilingual."
"Oh; I took Spanish in high school," Percy replied.
"What about you, Thalia?" Silena asked.
Thalia shrugged. "I took German. Is that our bus?" she said, referring to the ozone-layer destroying monstrosity that was rumbling towards them.
"Yup," Silena said, checking. "Well, it's my bus…"
"Ours, too," Percy said. The three stood up together, and walked towards the doors.
"We were two and one, and now we are three," Silena said. Thalia gave her a questioning look. "Sorry; I say weird things like that all the time."
"That sounded good, actually; we were two and one, and now we are three," Thalia repeated.
"Well, there's powers in numbers. We can't get much more powerful," Percy said.
Incorrect.
Their traveling party was not complete yet.
A~H A L F~L I F E
Annabeth Chase stared out the filthy bus window. She was vaguely aware of the book in her lap, but chose to ignore it. Right now, for the first time in her life, she was happy to be where she was-a bump of the road town somewhere in New Mexico.
She imagined that the town had changed very little from the 1950s to the present day. The Connie Francis classics booming loudly in her ears from her iPod only added to the image.
A little house surrounded by a white fence passed by. A little dog yapped excitedly, and Annabeth's lips twitched. She bet that there was a mommy, a daddy, and two point five kids in the house, happily sleeping.
The diner passed by, too; it was illustrated by a neon sign reading "The Diner". She sighed and turned back to the well read edition of Anna Karenina. Just then, though, the bus stopped, the doors opened, and three people of around her age piled on. She wondered dimly what they were doing, getting on the bus at 2 in the morning.
The seats on the bus were almost all filled, except for the one behind Annabeth and the seats behind her. Altogether, there was space for only three more.
The girl and the boy with black hair sat behind Annabeth, leaving only the seat next to her open. The girl with blond hair and blue eyes sat down next to Annabeth, smiling in the process. Annabeth tried to smile back, but wasn't sure if she succeeded. The fact of the matter was: she wasn't in the mood for smiling.
"Hi," said the girl next to her.
"Hello," Annabeth replied, and immediately kicked herself. Hello. Who says that, you idiot? Annabeth berated herself.
The blond girl turned away, and Annabeth looked back, for a third time, at Anna Karenina. She cracked the spine open and began to read.
After six chapters, an argument behind her made her look up.
"Look, I'm telling you, we should all go to New York. We can pool our resources, maybe rent a car or something, and that way we won't be alone!" The girl was waving her arms around in tiny motions, mindful of the cramped area.
"And what happens if I don't want to go to New York?" The boy hissed. "I happen to hate the idea of living there."
Annabeth sighed to herself. To her, it was inconceivable to not want to live in New York City.
The black haired girl gave him a withering look. The black kohl liner around her eyes made her narrowed eyes even more threatening.
"Look here, Percy, I cannot count on a hundred hands how many times you've told me you'd like to go to New York City. Don't lie now."
"Okay, fine," he admitted. "But-" he lowered his voice and Annabeth couldn't hear what he said next. She looked to her right, to see if the girl next to her was listening, too. She saw that the girl was asleep, and turned back to the conversation behind her.
Apparently the two had gone back to fighting. The girl was telling the one called Percy exactly why they should all go to New York. He kept turning down and countering her every point.
"Look, we've got about 900 dollars between the two of us. We'll stop and make a withdrawal somewhere soon, but we don't know when that might be possible. You know how much we'll need to get to Chicago, even, and New York is farther than that. If we try to go to Chicago alone, we probably wouldn't make it. If all three of us went to New York, we might have a chance of making it."
"It still wouldn't be enough, Thalia!" Percy argued. "I'd say we need another person, minimum, to make it to New York."
The time between Percy's saying "New York" and Thalia's response was 1.35 seconds.
In that time, Annabeth had the following thoughts:
They're running away.
They're short on funds.
New York is far away.
What the hell.
"Excuse me," she interrupted them. Thalia and Percy looked up at her, surprised. "I know you have no reason to trust me…but I was going to go to New York-" she wasn't, but a teeny white lie couldn't hurt, right? "-and I couldn't help but overhear your conversation.
"You said you need another person. I'm a person. Annabeth Chase."
Percy and Thalia exchanged uncertain glances. "Percy Jackson," he introduced himself, then Thalia. "Well, you see…"
She looked at them desperately. "I know that we haven't even talked to each other yet, really, but I need to get away from here. Far from here. It's not illegal or anything, but I really can't stay here any longer. I know I'm asking for a lot, but you guys are my last chance. Please," she pleaded.
Thalia looked uncertain, but Percy nodded hesitantly. "All right."
"Really?" Annabeth asked.
"We all-" he gestured to himself, Thalia, and Silena- "are running towards something. So are you. That makes us family. We're all on the same bus. That makes us neighbors. We all have some of the same characteristics-"
"Like hair color, for example," Thalia injected snarkily.
"-And that makes us friends. So…"
"You are two of the nicest people I have ever met," Annabeth said sincerely.
"We're just heroes, doing our job," Thalia laughed.
"What's that?" Annabeth looked up in surprise.
"It's just a joke between us siblings," Percy explained. "Our parents told us to behave the way Greek heroes would behave. I think it was their way of raising us to be decent human beings."
"Your parents should be commended then," Annabeth said. "You, like I said, are the nicest people I have ever met."
"Not really. Well, I am, but he isn't." Thalia said, pointing at Percy and grinning. He rolled his eyes and snapped back good naturedly.
Silena had woken up in the meantime. Percy and Thalia took turns filling her in about what happened. She welcomed Annabeth with open arms.
"The more the merrier," Thalia said, and Silena and Percy agreed.
"We should all get some sleep now," Annabeth suggested. "We'll make plans tomorrow?" she asked.
"That sounds good," Percy said. "Tomorrow, we'll decide what to do to get from New Mexico to New York."
Now, we have all the people we need, Percy thought.
Incorrect again, Percy.
Not yet.
Their traveling party was not yet complete.
A~H A L F~L I F E
A/N: I'm back! This time, I promise I won't go all weird and just leave on you…the issues in my life, I hope, are gone now. I've missed writing. I won't stop.
Please review, guys? Five reviews is my asking rate for another chapter. It has been since Accident began, like, a year ago.
**Songs:
I Don't Care by Ricky Martin, featuring Fat Joe and Amerie.
Break by Three Days Grace
Kudos to anyone who finds the line from I Don't Care in this chapter! :D Review and let me know what you thought. Feedback on Poseidon/Zeus? Please, guys?
xoxo Clara
P.S. Sorry if I butchered the Spanish. Blame Google translate. I took French in middle school. My Spanish speaking abilities are limited to counting to ten (Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez!) and singing along with Ricky Martin. Brokenly. And mispronouncing most words, probably. Sorry.
Correction! Thanks to Anna145 for correcting my Spanish. Thanks, Anna! :) :D
P.P.S Today (August 29) is Michael Jackson's birthday. I have no idea why I just typed that, but…whatever!
