Hey, everyone!
So, I wasn't originally going to write an Epilogue, but I wanted to dabble with the aftermath! I hope you like this as much as I do!
Enjoy!
Epilogue
Luke couldn't help but stare. It was hard to believe that the Annabeth before him was the same Annabeth he had dated sixteen years ago.
The deli section was cold, and Luke had left his jacket in his car.
Maybe she was still available. Maybe…she would take him back.
He walked up to her casually and said, "Hey, Annabeth."
"Luke?" she asked. "I haven't seen you in so long."
"Yeah, I know. You still remember me, right?" he asked.
"Of course. You left me for some pregnant girl," Annabeth looked away from him then. "How's your marriage going?"
"We broke up," Luke said automatically.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Who has the baby?"
"She does."
Annabeth nodded. "What gender?"
"A baby girl. We named her Natalie."
"That's sweet," Annabeth said. "Girls are a hassle, aren't they?"
"They can be," Luke agreed. "How would you know-?"
"Mommy, Mommy!" a little voice squealed, cutting Luke off.
A little girl with dark brown hair, almost black, gray eyes and a pink little puffy tu-tu over her jeans ran over to Annabeth, and tugged on Annabeth's pants. She was holding a box.
"Mommy, can we get some Fruit Roll-Ups? Please?" she asked.
"Sure, sweetie, just go back over to your sister, okay?" Annabeth asked sweetly.
"Okay, Mommy!" the girl said cheerfully and ran back through the store to where she came from.
"Two little girls?" Luke asked. She could be a single mom, he thought hopefully.
"Actually, a fourteen year-old and a seven year-old. The combination is almost worse!" Annabeth said, smiling.
"Well, I was thinking that maybe we should have some lunch and catch up," Luke said.
The butcher came over at that second, and dropped a bag full of ham on the counter.
"Sorry, Luke, I really can't," Annabeth said and reached for the meat with her left hand.
Luke could see the gleam of the ring on her finger and she dropped the meat in the cart and said, "I have to get back to my girls now. Bye, Luke."
Luke left the store, defeated.
Rachel sat at her office in New York, filling out some papers on her desk when Grover walked in.
"Hey, Grover," Rachel said. "What do you need?"
"The report that's due tomorrow, I need to finalize it and make sure it matches the PowerPoint," Grover said.
"Sure." Rachel handed him a stack of four papers and he came over to receive it.
"I also came to talk to you," Grover said as he took the papers out of her hand. "You need a vacation."
"I hate vacations," Rachel said as she looked through some documents and news articles on her desktop.
"Well, you need one. You're lonely, and you need to try to find someone," Grover said. "I'm worried about you."
"I'll be fine, Grover," Rachel said.
"No, you won't be," Grover said. "Please, try a vacation, and go find love."
"You can't stop me from working, Grover," Rachel said smugly.
"I can foil the report piece," Grover said.
She looked at him. "You wouldn't."
"That would get you fired," Grover continued. "I don't want to do it, but I will if I have to. You're going to go on vacation today."
"I seriously hate you sometimes, Grover," Rachel grumbled. "But fine, I'll go on a stupid vacation."
"Thank you," Grover said and turned to leave. "Don't forget the finding love part!"
She threw her paper weight at him and he ducked out of her office, laughing.
Love…Percy, she thought miserably. Just sitting in the office made her think of him sometimes. It used to be his, after all.
"Maybe I should," Rachel told herself as she turned back to her computer.
She opened a Google page.
"I mean, what harm would it really do me, right? Less stress, more effective work," she started typing a "P" in the search box.
"And, plus, I never said how long the vacation would be. Just a couple days in a nice place and I could come back and continue working." She pressed search.
She was dumbstruck by the search results. What had she put in the box?
She looked up.
Percy Jackson.
She clicked on the first link that talked about his profession.
She saw a picture of Percy and started skimming the article.
"...currently working in San Francisco, Mr. Jackson has accomplished many feats. A gym teacher at Horace Mann Middle School, he also coaches…"
Rachel skimmed the article for an address. She found one for a nice little house.
"I guess I'm going back to San Francisco," Rachel sighed and locked her computer. "I miss him enough to Google him…"
Rachel was on that plane faster than she had ever gone anywhere before. Even to San Francisco the first time.
I hate this place, Rachel thought bitterly. San Francisco. But maybe this time…my luck will change?
Rachel booked a hotel room at a different hotel closer to the house and rented a car.
She drove off toward Percy's house just as the sun was halfway behind the Earth's horizon.
She pulled into his driveway when there was barely any sun left, and the majority of the sky was a grayish blue.
She rang the doorbell and waited.
The door opened, and a young girl sliding a cell phone into her back pocket was standing there staring at her.
She had wavy light blonde hair that fell down to barely past the bottom of her shoulder blades and sea green eyes.
They seemed to be very familiar eyes…
She tucked a piece behind her ear and said, "Hi."
Rachel was dumbstruck, but she stuttered, "Um, I'm sorry, I must have the wrong address."
The girl smiled, she looked to be about fourteen, as if she enjoyed Rachel's discomfort, and asked, "Who you look'n for?"
"Um, Percy Jackson. Does he live on this street?" Rachel asked.
Suddenly, a little girl with dark brown, almost black wavy hair the barely fell past the bottom of her shoulder blades, gray eyes and a pink tu-tu over her jeans and a purple t-shirt with a light blue jean jacket, open, over it, came running over to the door saying, "Fizzy, who is it?"
She stopped when she came to the door and stared at Rachel.
She looked at the older girl, looked back at Rachel, and back at the other girl before whispering loudly, "Is that the girl that Mommy talks about?"
"I think so," the teen whispered loudly to the younger girl.
The little girl's eyes grew wide. "Is that also the girl you like to call a-"
The teen turned into the house and screamed, "DAD, THERE'S SOMEONE HERE TO SEE YOU!"
Then she turned back to the little girl and whispered, "Yes! Don't repeat that!"
The little girl nodded, but Rachel was offended.
"Remember your training," the teen said again. "We knew this day would come!"
Then the little girl started squealing with laughter and stuck her arms out and started running down the hallway screaming, "EVASIVE ACTION! EVASIVE ACTION!"
She passed a tall man with hair the same color as her's and the man turned to the teen. "What's that all about?"
The teen shrugged. "You can never tell with seven-year-olds, can you?"
The man shrugged. "I guess not. Izzy, make sure she doesn't hurt herself."
The teen, Izzy, nodded and ran after the little girl.
The man came to the door and said, "I'm sorry about them, it's just-" then he turned to look at her and stopped dead. "Rachel?"
"Percy," she whispered. "Hi."
"H-Hi," he stammered.
Maybe he's babysitting? Rachel thought, but that was quickly squashed. He lives here. Single dad?
"Um, why don't you come in? We're about to eat dinner, why don't you stay?"
Rachel nodded and followed Percy inside.
"Yeah, those are my daughters. They can be a handful sometimes, but they're usually worth it," Percy said as he lead her down the grayish blue painted hallway.
They turned into a room with a white painted doorway, and Percy said, "Everyone, this is Rachel."
There was a gray stained wood dining table with six chairs, stained gray as well. The little girl and the teen were sitting at the table.
The little girl gasped and started shrieking, "IT'S HER! IT'S HER, MOMMY, IT'S HER!"
Mommy? Rachel thought.
Percy shushed the little girl and said, "Don't share Mommy's stories."
The girl quieted suddenly, looking sad. "Sorry, Daddy."
"Anyway, Rachel, this is Erin," he pointed to the little girl, "and this is my other daughter, Isabel," he pointed to the blonde teen from earlier.
Isabel gave a small wave to Rachel and put her hand back under the table.
"I'll go and fix you a plate, Rachel," Percy said kindly. "Please, sit."
Rachel sat down at the closest chair to the doorway and looked at the kids in front of her.
"Hi," Erin squeaked suddenly, and Rachel jumped.
"Hello," she whispered.
"You have pretty eyes," Erin blurted. "I wish I green eyes sometimes."
"Don't," Rachel and Isabel said at the same time.
"If there's anything to be jealous of, it's your hair," Isabel said. "Blonde can he so…boring. Red makes a statement. And so blackish brown."
"Blonde is beautiful on you, Izzy," a woman's voice came from the doorway on the other side of the room, and a young woman was leaning against the door frame with one plate balanced on each of her hands.
She had blonde hair and gray eyes, something from her on each of the girls.
Rachel instantly knew they were her daughters, too.
Percy came out with two more plates. The young woman set her plates down, one in front of each girl.
There were big blobs of spaghetti with red sauce and some broccoli on each plate, and Percy put a plate in front of Annabeth, who sat down in the empty chair between the girls, directly across from Rachel, and the other in front of Rachel, and said, "Thanks, Annabeth, I'll be right back with mine."
Annabeth, Rachel thought. She thought about the woman from San Francisco.
When Percy walked past Annabeth, he leaned down and kissed her on the lips and then walked into the kitchen.
Annabeth turned to Isabel and said, "Put your phone away, Izzy, we're at the table."
Isabel sighed and bent over. She sat back up and placed her hands on the table.
She started drumming her fingers on the table and moving her head side to side slightly.
Rachel hadn't noticed the purple headphones around the girl's neck until now. She was wearing a teal tank top, despite the cold, and blue jeans. She was wearing black boots with a little bit of fuzz sticking out the top.
"Do you like music?" Rachel asked Isabel.
Isabel nodded. "I want to be a DJ."
Rachel nodded.
"I want to be a drawer!" Erin said. "I like paints and pencils and creating stuff."
"That sounds beautiful," Rachel told her.
"It is," Annabeth said. "Isabel is really good with music, and Erin can draw fairly well for a seven-year-old girl."
Erin nodded, and Isabel said, "Thanks, Mom."
She turned back to Rachel and said, "I do mostly mash-ups. Combining songs with other songs to make a unique sound. I don't want to make my own music, I just want to make other people's music different, or better."
Rachel nodded.
"She has a sound board thing up in her room," Annabeth said.
Isabel just sighed and went back to tapping on the table.
Percy came out and sat down at the table with his plate. They ate in mostly silence. Annabeth asked the girls about their days at school, and Isabel's answer was simply, "Still single." But Erin's was more elaborate.
"In Art today, a boy finger painted on my finger painting," Erin said as she stuffed some spaghetti into her mouth.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Percy said.
"Don't be! He painted a little rainbow on the corner of the page and it looked really cool! And he was cute," Erin said.
"Was he really?" Percy asked.
"I'm cute, right?" Erin said suddenly, looking at Percy, who was across the table from her.
"Of course, sweetheart," Percy said.
"Then he can be cute, too!" Erin said and went back to eating her spaghetti.
Erin and Isabel finished their dinner and Isabel took the plates into the kitchen.
Erin was fidgeting in her seat, and when Isabel came back in, Isabel said, "Come on, Erin, let's go play with Barbies!"
The girls were out of the room in an instant, Erin laughing and giggling.
Now it was just the three adults at the table, and Rachel couldn't have felt more nervous.
She felt Annabeth was watching her.
"I'll go take the plates in," Percy offered, and got up, stacked the mostly empty, saucy places and walked into the kitchen.
"Why did you come here, exactly?" Annabeth asked quietly.
Rachel couldn't answer truthfully. "I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd stop by."
"You live in New York. And how would you know where we live?" Annabeth asked. She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. "You came to get Percy back."
"I didn't think-" Rachel started, but Annabeth cut her off.
"I don't know what you thought, but we're married. We have two beautiful children, and we love each other. Percy told me how you two met, and although that may have been courageous on his part, it didn't make him love you. It made you love him. So, you should just get over your loss and find someone else, because Honey, you're wasting your time." Annabeth leaned back in her seat again after her small confrontation.
Rachel's mouth was hanging open in shock and anger. How dare this bubbly blonde insult her like that? Percy loved her! She knew he did!
Of course he doesn't, Rachel thought. He left you for her, and then married her. He really loves her.
The front door opened and a woman with a brown paper bag poked her head in the room.
"Hey," she said, then she saw Rachel.
Rachel recognized her right away; Thalia, Percy's twisted cousin.
"Thalia's the girls' godmother," Annabeth said.
"AUNTIE THALIA!" Erin squealed. "Come play with us! We saved a Barbie for you!"
"On my way!" Thalia called up to them, and left Rachel alone with Annabeth once more.
Percy came back in the room and asked Annabeth, "Did Thalia just come in?"
"I don't know what gave it away, the door or the screaming kids, but yes."
Percy nodded.
"I'm going to go," Rachel said. "Thank you so much for having me, but I've over-stayed my welcome."
She stood up and left. She reached the front door, then called back to them, "Percy, Grover says hi."
She slammed the door shut behind her and walked down the street. She totally ditched her rental car and found her way to a bar nearby.
She came in and ordered a drink at the bar and slammed her head down on the counter.
"On me," a male voice said behind her, and she picked her head up and turned around.
A blonde man with blue eyes looked down at her before sitting down next to her.
"Thanks," Rachel said.
"I'm Luke," was his reply.
"Rachel," she said cautiously.
"You know," Luke reached out and touched a bit of her red hair, "I've always liked red heads."
He leaned forward and kissed her.
She kissed back, and before she knew it, she was sitting on his lap in his bar stool.
The kissed for a while, non-stop lips on lips for what seemed like all time, before she broke away and said, "I live in New York."
"Then let's make this night last," Luke whispered to her, and they kissed again.
Rachel finally left the bar feeling rather bubbly herself, realizing she never drank the drink she ordered.
She left on a plane for New York the next morning, leaving Luke behind, leaving Percy behind, and leaving Evil Annabeth behind forever. She knew she could never go back to that state. Never again would she see Luke, or think of Percy.
Not until he came to her after this divorce.
But that would never happen. He loved her, and she would just have to deal with that.
Aw, sad ending for Rachel, but hey, who really cares anyway, right? ;P!
Sorry if you're a PercyxRachel, but I am NOT!
Thanks for Reading!
