Percy:
"Close your eyes," Annabeth instructed, and I was fast to do so.
"Is this going to hurt?"
Annabeth didn't answer, which was an answer in its self.
I felt a cold wipe touch my skin, which made me hiss as the peroxide met my wound. Annabeth's hand became gentler as she blotted the blood on my leg, and I could tell that she hated the fact that was in pain.
I wasn't sure why that made me smile, but it did.
Maybe it was the fact that she still cared about me.
I had never stopped loving Annabeth Chase, but, in the last week, it felt like I had fallen in love with her all over again. And, even better, I think Annabeth had fallen in love with me. Not Noah. She may be attracted to Noah, but I had let Perseus bleed through the facade of Noah Harrison. And she had fallen in love with him.
She hadn't told me or anything, but I knew Annabeth.
She had fallen in love with me once, and I had learned to know when she loved someone. And, in the last week, everything had pointed that way. From coming into my room and sleeping there, claiming she was having nightmares, to simply fixing my tie every morning before we went to work. I just knew.
I let out another hiss of pain, and Annabeth blotted it with a tissue.
"That all of the puss, Noah. It's just blood now," Annabeth smiled up at me, proud for me, and she reached for a gauze.
She started where my calf met my knee, and she wrapped it down to about an inch below the wound.
"Are you going to tell me how you got it yet?" Annabeth asked as she cut the gauze and used the special tape to hold it in place.
I hesitated.
Annabeth had been confined to finishing out our paperwork when Anna had given me an urgent call. I wasn't supposed to tell Annabeth, nor did I want to. I just told her the word Work, and she immediately understood what I had meant.
So, I went to where my rental SUV was waiting for me, and I did the old missions that I missed.
Simple. No great security systems. No blue-collar criminals. No rules that I had to abide by if I wanted to really catch the guy.
With these missions, I was free. I was off the books. No one knew me, which meant that no one cared. I didn't have to hesitate with my gun. And I did what I had to do.
I was once again a free agent.
That was what the Agency really was.
This high-up stuff was really a retirement for me, as a thanks for all the good I did. And I had to admit that I kind of liked not being on a hit list. I liked not having to arm myself all the time. I liked not having to be a lone wolf. And I loved not having to move a different apartment almost every three months.
But sometimes, it was fun to get back to my roots.
And, as part of these roots, I didn't speak.
I was supposed to be like it had never happened, I was supposed to even tell myself that it never happened.
But I couldn't help it.
I wanted to tell Annabeth the truth. For more than just how I got this cut. I wanted to tell her the entire truth.
"He got me pretty good," I smiled weakly at the gauze wrapped tightly around my leg, "But I got him worse."
Annabeth nodded, knowing what I meant by that.
"That's the only thing I don't miss about the front lines."
That was a saying that Agents before us had started generations ago.
"Yeah," I nodded, trying to block out all of the people's lives who had been taken by me.
The list was so long, until a point where I felt like I was drowning in it.
"You okay?" Annabeth asked as she stood up, leaving me to roll down the pant leg that she had pulled up when she noticed the awful cut.
"Do you think it's all worth it? The Agency? Giving up your life to become an agent?"
Annabeth hesitated.
"If you had a life ahead of you, no. But, if like me, you didn't, I'd say it was fine."
It was her place to judge, but she had never gotten the chance. Neither of us had made the choice to bring me to the Agency, changing our lives forever. But I had made the choice not to go home.
Not to tell Annabeth.
And I realized I had to tell her.
Tonight.
I had to tell her tonight.
Annabeth:
I smiled as I pulled my hair into what ponytail I could manage and watched Noah make his move in Parcheesi.
Tonight had been an event for Zeus Airlines.
I had spent about a thousand dollars on a grey dress, and, though I was wearing probably the least expensive dress there, I had looked the best. And I had skipped my straightening session to leave my hair in its curls.
Overall, I had spent about three hours getting ready for the event.
And Noah and I had spent less than half of that at the party.
After a few Champaign flutes and constant sucking up, Noah and I had both simultaneously whispered the code word to each other that told each other that we both couldn't take much more. We had taken up on the first excuse we could think of, and we rang for the valet to bring Noah's BMW around to take us home.
When we had gone home, I had shimmied out of my dress and into my pajamas. I had quickly wiped off some of my make-up, but I hadn't taken too much time with it. Instead, I had ran down the stairs and ordered Chinese food and got out board games..
The Chinese food was long gone, but the game just never seemed to end.
I'd win, then Percy would demand a rematch.
He'd win, and I'd make him play again.
No one could win.
The winner was subjected to another round anyway, so it was like they were both losers.
I didn't care though.
I was having fun.
And fun was something I had missed for so long.
"And I win!" Noah smiled, "That's twenty. We said no more than twenty games!"
"Finally!"
Noah stood up and pulled me up with him.
"Do you know how to shag?"
"Depends on which country we're in."
"Pervert," Noah nudged me.
"I can do both actually," I hip-bumped him, and he continued to laugh.
"Alright, let's try," he pressed a button on the stereo and took my right hand, which made a buzz surge through me like an electric current. And he helped me along with the shag, a dance that I hadn't done since my all-girls boarding-school years where we had to take dance class.
And I went along with it.
I blamed it on the drinks, but I was thinking fine.
Maybe that was the weirdest part.
I let myself have fun and smile, something I hadn't done in years really.
But then Noah leaned in during the wrap-around, and I was shocked to feel his lips against mine.
The music faded out of my ears, and I could only focus on Noah.
When we separated, we stared at each other for a long time.
I hadn't been sure if I had really kissed him or if it was just my imagination, but that kiss couldn't of been fake. Not with how good it felt, not how it covered me in Goosebumps and made me want to go weak in the knees.
"Did I just…" Noah trailed off.
I nodded, barely able to breathe much less talk.
Noah's arms released the wrap around and pulled me closer, never taking his brown eyes away from mine. And then he leaned in again, and I surprised him by meeting him half way.
He smiled into my lips, and he continued to kiss me as I wrapped my arms around his neck.
The kiss never ended, or it felt like it never did.
I wasn't sure if I kissed him for seconds or hours, but I knew that I never wanted to separate from him.
I had only felt like this with one person, and I had missed it so much that I had forgotten how wonderful it was. I had forgotten how it felt to melt into someone, to fit perfectly in their arms.
Before I even knew that we were moving, Noah gently laid down on the couch, and I pulled him back down to keep kissing him.
While he tugged on my tee shirt, my fingers quickly moved to unbutton his shirt.
As I pulled his shirt off, I felt something on his arm.
An impression.
As soon as I felt it, my breathing stopped, and my lips went slack.
I tried to tell myself that it was something else, but I knew that impression anywhere.
Noah pulled away, and his brown eyes were full of confusion.
But then he looked at his arm, where I was staring.
And he knew.
And I knew, too.
I couldn't let myself accept it, but I knew what was really happening.
That tattoo, I knew it.
I had laughed at it when I had first seen it, and I had quickly told the owner that it was sexy and edgy. I had often just stood with him and felt the tattoo, trying to imagine the pain that had come with such an impression. And I had often counted on it, knowing that I'd be safe once I could feel that impression close to me when he wrapped his arms around me.
"Take out your contacts" my voice shook.
Noah sat up, moving away from me to sit near my feet, and he held his right hand to his eye.
He stared up at the ceiling as he took them out, and I kept telling myself that I would see what I wanted to see.
But, deep down, I knew I wouldn't.
And then Noah looked back at me.
No, Noah didn't look back at me.
Percy did.
Even when I hated him and thought that no one, especially not a Seaweed brain, could beat out Luke, I knew that his eyes were beautiful. No one had that shade of green. That beautiful color could never be recreated, no matter how hard someone tried.
It was impossible to get it all together.
The flecks of dark blue towards the pupil.
The mixture of sea green and dark, freshly-mowed grass.
And the way the light hit them like they were priceless jewels.
There was only one person in the world that could eyes like those.
Perseus Jackson.
"You're…!" I yelled, scrambling to get away from him but not able to finish the sentence.
"I was going to tell you," he tried, but I had already jumped off the couch.
"Everything," I ran my hand through my hair as I thought, "Everything! You played me! All this time, you played me!"
"It wasn't like that."
"Yes, it was! You knew! You-you," I felt myself hyperventilate.
I couldn't think.
I couldn't breathe.
I kept telling myself not to think about it, not to have a panic attack.
But it was beating on my heart like a jackhammer.
"Annabeth," Percy jumped up from the couch and tried to get closer, but I pushed him away, harder than I probably should of.
Percy's eyes filled with shock, like I had betrayed him by doing that.
But I didn't care.
Percy had done the worst to me.
I pushed away my tears and grabbed the first pair of keys I could find on the countertop before running out the door.
And I slammed the door, letting the sound of the heavy metal meeting echo through the house.
Well…he told her.
Check in next chapter to see what Annabeth does when driving away doesn't work anymore.