Author's Note: I've been super busy this week, between basketball practice, homework, Halloween parties, family stuff, etc, so I really haven't had that much time to write. But here's something. It was inspired by one of my favorite old movies, "Barefoot in the Park" with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. While I was watching it for the hundredth time the other day, the idea came to me for this chapter. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Please tell me what you think. –Emmy
Warning: Chapter contains very mild spoiler for Mark of Athena, one which I'm sure that you already know even if you haven't read the book yet.
10. Pigeons
They sat side by side on the floor against the wall, bundled up in their warmest clothes, staring around the dark room in slight dismay. Boxes were everywhere, stacked up halfway to the ceiling in a cardboard maze that seemed to swallow up the entire, tiny apartment—all 300 square feet of it. The paint was peeling, most of the lights either burnt out or too dim to be of any use, and they didn't have any furniture—but that wasn't even the best part. No, the best part was that so far, they had no heat or plumbing, either; on a lovely, twenty-degree, February evening in Manhattan.
Home, sweet, home…
Annabeth exhaled slowly. She looked over at Percy, an expression of trepidation on her face. "So… Wow."
Percy smiled drily and without humor, sarcastically raising his eyebrows.
"'Wow' might be just a little bit of an understatement."
She winced, casting her eyes toward the floor and folding her arms around herself. Percy glanced at her, realizing that had sounded harsher than he had intended, and his expression softened as he reached for her hand.
"Hey…" he said gently. "It isn't that bad. We've slept in worst places—the example immediately coming to mind being Tartarus. This is definitely better than that, right? I mean, at least the birds seem warm."
They both automatically looked up to the skylight—which, of course, just had to have a hole the size of a softball in it, letting in the freezing night air—where a couple of pigeons had decided to roost to get out of the cold winter's wind, occasionally making soft cooing noises and fluttering around against the glass quietly.
As green eyes met stormy gray, Annabeth couldn't help but smile. Then, suddenly, they were both laughing, for no reason at all, and Percy put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. They laughed until they couldn't anymore, and then his lips were on hers, their arms wrapped around one another in the dark gloominess of the room. The setting was so not romantic it was almost funny, and yet everything suddenly seemed absolutely perfect. Their eyes sparked with something far deeper and more intense than humor as their embrace became more passionate.
They didn't really have any trouble keeping warm after that.
Quite a while later, bodies intertwined under several layers of blankets as they drifted off to sleep, Annabeth broke the comfortable, contented silence.
"Percy?" she whispered.
"Hmm?" he murmured drowsily.
"This isn't really how I imagined our first night living together."
He laughed weakly when he heard that, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.
"Personally, Wise Girl, I think it turned out alright."
And that was how their life together began: two insane college kids, curled up on the floor of a cold, dark New York City apartment, listening to the sound of pigeons up in the rafters. They didn't care about the apartment, really. They were together, and they had already proved that they could survive anything, get past even the most difficult rough patches, and escape from the darkest, most terrible places, as long as they were together.
They were going to be alright. A promise made turned out to be a promise kept.
"As long as we're together…"