ch.9

Percy

I didn't say anything for a while. My father stood waiting, completely quiet. He was anticipating my reaction. It was too bad I couldn't seem to find one. I was numb. It seemed as if every nerve ending in my body had been singed off, leaving me with no way of knowing how I felt.

"No questions?" My father asked. His voiced remaining completely cavalier. He talked as if we were discussing the weather, not of the murder of a seventeen year old girl.

I ignored his question. "I won't do it. The Half-Bloods don't kill people."

I raised my eyes to his. I had his eyes, they were the same sea-foam green I saw every time I looked in the mirror. Which means that the flash of anger that passed through them was easy to spot. It was quite familiar.

"I wasn't asking, son. I was ordering you. I want this girl dead." He spoke carefully and slowly. There was no room for argument by the tone of his voice.

Just the thought of Annabeth dead made me sick, but the idea of being the cause of it was enough to make me want to vomit.

All this time I had been trying to figure out who had attacked Annabeth and never once did I even imagine it was my father. I strained to remember the night of the attack, when I walked in on my father on the phone. He had talked about something he had ordered done. He had been so sure that it would end the conflict between the The Titan's and The Half-Bloods. My father had thought the attack would scare away Athena, but it hadn't, it had only made it worse. It had been right in front of me the entire time and I never saw it. It also explained why The Titan's were protecting Annabeth, because her mother had wanted it. And she was the Titan's benefactor. What didn't make sense was that Annabeth had told me her mother was dead. Had she lied to me, or did she really not know?

It didn't matter if she had lied to me or not, I wasn't going to let anything happen to Annabeth.

"I won't do it."

My father clenched his jaw. He motioned to his bodyguard to move in front of the door, my only exit. I pressed down the wave of panic that threatened to surface.

"Do I have to remind you, that I can send you right back to juvie, whenever I want?"

I gulped. "No, you can't. I was pardoned of all of my crimes."

He smiled slightly, "Yes, but if I remember correctly, you've done some fairly illegal things for the Half-Bloods. How do you think the police would react if I gave them evidence that you've assisted in, let's see...a drug deal? I think they would be all too happy to arrest you."

I narrowed my eyes. "Everything I have ever done, I've done for you. It was your money that bought those drugs, and I can prove it. I have a list of every illegal transaction you've ever made for the Half-Bloods. I think they'd be quite interested in that, don't you think?" I said, matching his vindictive smile.

"Son, I have every cop in New York city on my payroll, no one is going to arrest me."

"Right of course. How about the FBI, do you have them paid off too? Because I'm pretty sure that money laundering is one of their specialties."

The smile on Poseidon's quickly diminished. He walked from around his desk to stand right in front of me. Poseidon was probably only an inch taller than me, but he was still intimidating.

"You're bluffing. You don't have any evidence." He said. trying to gouge my reaction.

For once, I wasn't. I alway kept track of the money he gave the Half-Bloods and where it ended it up. I had all the evidence I needed to lock my father in a federal prison for the rest of his life. I was just waiting for the right time to use the leverage I had gained over the years.

"Are you really willing to risk the rest of your life in prison, on a bluff?"

We were standing so close, our chests touched. I wondered what we would look like to a stranger, certainly not father and son. Enemies, maybe.

"Fine, I'll just have someone else take care of it." He resigned.

"No, no one touches her."

Poseidon tilted his head and a light sprang in his eyes.

"You know her, don't you?"

I swallowed the lump that was forming in my throat at the accusation. If he knew I was connected to Annabeth, he could use her against me.

"No."

"Really?" He questioned. He walked away from me and back to his desk. He picked up the file that he had given me, the one that contained the information on Annabeth.

"She is your age, isn't she? And, it seems she goes to your school, also. That is a lot of coincidences. Surely you've met before."

My eyes flickered to the pictures. How long had they been following her? Were there any pictures of me with her. If there was, there was no way I could deny that I knew her.

"Yes, she's goes to my school. I've seen her in the hall a few times, so what?" I did my best to keep my voice neutral.

"Well, it seems strange to care so much for the well-being of a girl you barely know?" Poseidon questioned.

"She doesn't deserve to die for her mother's mistakes. She's innocent in all of this."

Poseidon nodded slightly.

"One thing you should learn, son, is that no one is ever innocent."

I shook my head. "If you touch her, I will bring all the evidence I have against you to the FBI, and you will go to jail for the rest of your life." Controlling the anger in my voice was getting harder. I was practically shouting

"If you do that, I'll make sure you go back to prison as well."

"Do what you have to, I certainly will."

Poseidon didn't say anything. He was probably weighing his options. He didn't know if I was serious. He was probably trying to figure out why I was willing to go to jail for a girl I barely knew.

"Fine. Nothing will happen to the girl." Poseidon said, finally.

I didn't for one second trust my father, but it was the best I could do for now. I would have to keep a closer eye on Annabeth for a while. The Titan's were also watching her, or Athena was, I guess.

I had to get to the bottom of that as well. I wanted to make sure Athena Minerva was truly Annabeth's mother.

"Good." I said with a note of finality.

I got up to leave and I made it to the door before I turned back to look at my father.

"You know, all I had ever wanted my entire life, was to have a father. A real father. Someone to play catch with or to watch a game with. My mother never told me who you were. And when you showed up behind that plexiglass for the first time when I was arrested, I thought I would finally have everything I ever wanted. I would have a dad."

I don't know what possessed me to confess this to Poseidon. I think a part of me had always believed that there was some kind of morality in my father. If I learned anything that day, it was that there was no morality left in my father, or humanity for that matter. He had looked me straight in the eye and told me to kill an innocent girl. There was no remorse in his eyes, only the sick need for vengeance. I knew then that I would never have a father in Poseidon. He wasn't capable of love.

"But, I was wrong. Now, I wish you would have stayed a mystery, you were a better father that way."

Something close to hurt passed over his emerald eyes. As fast as the emotion came, it was gone, replaced by a steely wall of resolve he always used.

"I never wanted a son, Percy. When I came to you, it was always a business transaction."

I tried to ward off the sharp stab of pain in my chest at his words. I nodded my head stiffly and finally walked out of his office.


Annabeth

I awoke to the sound of the front door opening. I rubbed away the sleepiness in my eyes with fists. I hadn't slept that well in weeks. Not a single nightmare plagued me. As grateful as I was from the break in the nightmares, I found their sudden disappearance odd. I decided not to question it.

I rose from Percy's dark bed sheets and shivered. His apartment was cold so I grabbed the first sweatshirt I could find. It smelt like him. Like the sweet smell of cigarettes, his aftershave, and something that was completely Percy. I pulled the jacket closer to me.

I walked out from the living room expecting to see Percy, instead I found his mother, Sally.

"Oh, hello," I said rather sheepishly.

Sally's back had been turned away from me, so she hadn't known I was there. She turned around abruptly, startled.

"Oh, Annabeth. You scared me." She said with a hand over her heart.

Her dark hair was down and loose falling across her shoulders and her cheeks were still flushed from the weather. I'd seen Sally a few times over the previous weeks and she was always kind to me. She reminded me of my mother, so lovely and generous.

"I'm sorry, I thought you were Percy."

Sally raised a dark eyebrow.

"Percy's not here?" She asked, her eyes falling to the sweatshirt I was wearing.

Heat crept to me cheeks.

"I came over this morning and he said he had to see his father. He let me stay and I took a nap." I said, almost stumbling over my words. "I was cold." I added, lamely, fingering a loose string on the sweatshirt.

A smile crept up on Sally's face.

"It's alright Annabeth, I hope I didn't wake you."

"Oh, no."

She smiled slightly. "I'm going to make some tea, would you like any?"

I smiled in return, "Yes, please."

She nodded her head and moved to the kitchen. I followed her and sat at the island that separates the living room from the kitchen. She spoke as she busied herself with making the tea.

"You and Percy have been spending a lot of time together. I'm glad."

I didn't know what to say, so I just quietly murmured a yes.

Once she had the water starting to boil on the tea kettle, she turned around to look at me. Her blue eyes were soft, surrounded by small smile lines.

"You're good for him."

I frowned slightly. "I don't understand."

She sighed sadly, a melancholy look taking up her features.

"I've always known that there was goodness in my son. Always. Percy has a light in him that should have been extinguished a long time ago, considering everything he's had to go through in his short life. But, it's there and I take every chance I get to remind him of that. He's never believed me, he's always seen himself as someone who wasn't good enough."

My chest tightened at the thought of this Percy. A Percy who hated himself. Before today, I would have completely disagreed with her, because I had never met a person more confident in himself than Percy Jackson. But after everything Percy told me that morning, about killing his stepfather and working for Poseidon, I saw a deep self-loathing in him that I had never seen before.

"But with you, he's starting to see his goodness. You make him feel like he is worth something, and I can't tell you how thankful I am to you, for that." She said with such sincerity it made a tiny gasp escape me.

"I really appreciate that, but I don't think that has anything to do with me."

She walked over to me and placed a hand over mine.

"It does, trust me."

Her eyes burned with gratitude, and my throat ached with unsaid words. I couldn't tell her that I had nothing to do with her son finally realizing he was a good person. That was all him. The way she looked at me was so tender and motherly though, that I didn't have the heart tell her any differently. I missed those looks and I was too selfish to give them up.

The moment was broken with the sharp whistle of the teapot. She gave me one last smile and patted my folded hands before she turned around to grab the tea pot.

Sally had just gotten done pouring my tea when the front door slammed open. This time it was Percy. He looked awful. He was pale and his green eyes were hard and cold, lacking their general luster.

"Percy, are you alright?" Sally asked, walking around the island to walk closer to her son. It was the first time she had seen the damage Luke had done to Percy, only the night before. I could tell she had a hundred questions spinning in her head. She extended her hand out to his cheek, but he grabbed it gently and pulled it back down to her waist. He smiled weakly. "Yeah, Mom, I'm fine."

His gaze slid over to me and my stomach dropped. Something had happened. His father had to have done something to him. All I could do was stare back.

Percy cleared his throat, "Annabeth, you want to go for a walk?"

I bit my lip and looked to Sally, she nodded her head.

"Yeah, sure Percy."


We walked to a park close to Percy's apartment. As we walked along a pond, I watched as the ducks scrambled for the pieces of bread being thrown by a little girl on the other side of the pond. Percy hadn't said a word since we left the apartment. I was slowly growing uneasier with each deafeningly silent step we took.

I didn't want to bombard him with questions though, so I was forced to act like everything was fine. Percy finally led me over to a bench that overlooked the pond. It was the middle of winter in New York and the breeze was like ice. I pulled Percy's jacket closer to me and tucked my legs underneath me.

Percy sat beside me, silently. He was completely stoic as he sat on the bench hunched over with his folded hands between his legs. His cheek facing me should have been a pretty shade of pink like his other, instead it was a nasty mix of green, blue, and purple from where Luke had punched him. He stared ahead watching the pond, keeping his gaze away from me.

"Annabeth, there is something you should know."

I grabbed his arm so he would look at me. When he finally turned towards me, he had a sad smile on his face.

"You have to know, I had no idea." He started. He sounded desperate. My eyes instantly filled with concern. He was scared. I didn't know why though, was he scared of my reaction to what he was about to tell me.

"Percy,you know I trust you. Whatever it is, you can tell me."

He stayed quiet for a beat longer.

His eyes fell to the jacket I was all wrapped up in. It was huge and covered my legs that I had tucked underneath me.

"You're wearing my jacket?" He said it as more of a question than a statement.

I looked down. It was an old sweatshirt from his auto body shop, I didn't know if he'd be mad at me for wearing it.

"Yeah, sorry, I was cold when I woke. I grabbed the first thing I could find."

Something changed in his facial features. His eyes finally softened and a soft smile touched his red lips. I swallowed hard. When he looked at me like that my heart did stupid things. My lips upturned faintly in response.

"You wanted to tell me something?" I asked, trying to get him back to the matter at hand.

A shadow was cast over his features instantly. He turned away from me again.

"Annabeth," he started to say, mustering up the courage to face me again. He sighed deeply. It looked as if he were struggling for words, until finally he gave me a resolved look.

He clenched his jaw before he spoke.

"Your mother is alive."

My eyes widened to the size of saucers and my hand instantly dropped from Percy's arm.

"That's impossible! I watched her die. I was in the room when the heart monitor stopped beeping My mother is dead." I said forcefully.

He gave me a tender look. "What was your mother's name?"

My face scrunched up at the question. "Julie Chase."

Percy gave me a pained look.

"Annabeth, this isn't going to be easy to hear, but the women who raised you, she isn't your real mother. Athena Minerva, she is your birth mother. Your real mother."

It felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach, repeatedly. I couldn't breathe. My entire chest was tight and I started to gasp for air. I was having a panic attack, I was at least stable enough to realize that, and I guess so was Percy. He told me to put my head down and breathe slowly. Once I felt like my lungs were working properly again I looked back to Percy. Concern was riddled all across his features.

I didn't want to believe Percy, but he had never lied to me before. In fact, he had only ever told me the truth. I saw no trace of uncertainty in his eyes. What he said was the truth, he didn't want to tell me, but he did any way.

I swallowed thickly as tears pooled in my eyes. I was sobbing soon after that. Percy pulled me to him and I was left to cry into his chest. I couldn't think about anything other than the fact that my entire childhood was a lie. Or the fact that the woman I loved most in this world, had lied to me my entire life. Tears continued to wrack through me, each wave harder than the next.


A/N Well, it's been awhile, and I do apologize for that! Life, what can you do, right? But, anyway, I actually really like this chapter, so I hope you do too! If your confused why Percy didn't tell Annabeth that it's Poseidon who attacked Annabeth, I'll explain it in the next chapter. If you have any other questions about this chapter or any chapter just pm and I'll answer it there or ask in a review and I'll explain it in the next authors note. Thank you so much for reading! As always, let me know what you think!