Chapter 11

To say things had been awkward at the Jackson house would be an understatement. Percy and I skirted around each other, coming down for breakfast at different times, doing chores when we knew the other one wasn't out there. His parents definitely noticed, but they didn't say much.

I spent most of my time in my room now, reading the three books I had brought with me over and over again. Silena came and went, promising to put in a good word for me with my mother.

"I'll tell her you were just in a bad mood the day she came." She had said, two days after the party. "Or, no, I'll tell her I whipped you into shape." Silena giggled, like that was a funny image.

I rolled my eyes, laughing. "Whatever works, S." She gave Sally a hug, and shook Poseidon's and Percy's hands.

I gave her a huge hug. "Thanks for coming." I said, pulling away.

"Of course!" She said with a grin. "I'll see you soon, ok?"

"Yeah." I said with a little nod. "Love you."

"Love you too, A." She said, one foot out the door already. "You guys get along, okay?" She looked pointedly at Percy and I, and we both blushed, but I wasn't able to get a word in before she was out the door completely, dust blowing from the force.

I came down for dinner that night, just to grab my plate and head right back to my room, but I was unfortunately stopped.

"Annabeth, sweetie." Sally said. "Hold on a second."

"What's up?" I asked, turning around and taking a bite of mac & cheese.

"Poseidon and I have to go into the city, we need some decorations for the Fourth of July party. Percy's in his room, can you let him know?" She asked.

I nodded. "Sure, anything else?"
Poseidon shook his head. "We'll be back in a couple hours."

I knocked on Percy's door, and heard a little grunt. I assumed that meant I could come in, so I

opened it up slightly. "Hey, you're parents are going into town, they'll be back in two."

I knew he knew I was there. I was loud, and he had looked up when I first came in, but he didn't respond, just went back to whatever he was doing. "Okay…" I trailed off, not sure what to say. He didn't even look up, and I started to get angry. "Look, I don't know what your problem is, but you have no right to be mad with me."

"No right?" He snapped, throwing his notebook down on the ground. "You're the one that just showed up here, flaunting your blonde hair and fancy clothes, and now my relationship's ruined."

"Ruined?" I sneered. "It was ruined long before I got here, and you know it. Jesus, Percy, you know, for two seconds there I thought you might be a good guy." I was yelling at this point, but I faltered. "Clearly, you're not." I said softly, and I could see Percy's shoulders relax. He sat back down on his bed, eyes filling with an emotion I couldn't place.

"Annabeth…" He trailed off, looking up at me with a pained expression.

"Save it." I snapped, and slammed the door shut, locking my own door so he couldn't come in.

Before I knew it, the tears started. I felt ridiculous, crying over him. He wasn't even a good guy. He had cheated on his girlfriend – given, a girlfriend there was no real connection with, but still – he played with my feelings constantly, he couldn't get his feelings straight. I stopped, shaking my head. I was pissed at him, sure, but maybe I should be a little more lenient. Relationships were tricky, especially when you were a teenager, and Percy was trying his best. That I believed. He may have been a stupid idiot 99% of the time, but he had a good heart. That's what mattered, right?

I hadn't realized how much time I had spent face down in my pillow, crying my mascara off. I heard a quiet knock, and checked the clock, realizing I had spent two hours locked in here.

"Come in." I said miserably, rubbing my irritated eyes.

"Uh, Annabeth?" Percy's voice came from the other side, and I internally groaned. "It's locked."

"Oh." I sniffled. "Right."

"Come on, let me in." He paused, but I didn't answer. "Please, Wise Girl." He said with a little whine, and I smiled despite myself at the sound of the nickname.

I got up, and unlocked the door, the little click it made sounding deathly loud.

"My, um-" He stopped short, taking notice of my red-rimmed eyes and puffy cheeks. "Are you, um, okay?" He asked, nervously running a hand through his hair. I snorted, but before I could say some smart comment back, he shook his head. "Stupid question, of course you aren't."

I nodded slowly, "So… what's wrong?"

"Oh, right." He said, a look of realization dawning on his face. "Um, there's a tornado warning, so my parents can't make the drive back. We know people in the city, so they're staying with them, but we're supposed to go in the basement to wait it out." He waited for me to respond, but I didn't say anything. I didn't trust myself to talk.

"Um, okay, so just come down when you're ready. Or, I mean, sooner rather than later, you know, since you don't want to die and you need to be safe and-" Percy took a deep breath, and I couldn't help but smile a little, happy that I could still make him nervous after everything. "Sorry, I'll just leave you alone. Come down soon." He said, and turned on his heels, basically running out of my room.

Gods, what a disaster. Not even one week since that… whatever it was, and I had to spend the night with him in a basement. Yay.

I was sulking in my room, trying desperately to avoid the inevitable. I was happily reading away – Pride and Prejudice for the fifth time since I got here – when the lights went out. It registered that this tornado was real, and I probably should listen to Percy and get downstairs. The wind howled, and I could hear the horses outside. Rain pounded my window, and I started to shiver, my little tank top suddenly not enough warmth even in the middle of summer.

I got up, but realized I really didn't know this house well enough to get around in the dark. "Percy?" I said timidly, and I heard his footsteps at the edge of the stairs.

"Annabeth? You okay?" He asked, his voice full of worry. "You should have come downstairs a long time ago."

I sighed, but didn't say anything.

"Can you make it down alone, or do you want me to come up?"

I balled my fists. "I'm fine alone." I said sharply, my pride getting in the way of what I really wanted. I stumbled down the stairs, gripping the railing so hard I felt my fingers turn purple. Percy was at the bottom waiting for me.

"Good?" He asked, and I looked up at him, as well as I could when I couldn't make out his face.

I nodded, but realized he couldn't see me. "Yeah." I said, but my voice was shaking.

"Come on, let's grab the flashlights." He said gently, taking my hand. I almost protested, but decided I wouldn't be able to even make it to the kitchen without his help, let alone find flashlights.

"I think…" He trailed off, thinking aloud. "They should be in this drawer, hold on." He let go of my hand to look, and I instinctively stepped closer to his body warmth. "Here we go." He said, lighting up the flashlight, revealing his face less than an inch away from me. My stomach melted, dropped to the floor, butterflies raced around, and I suddenly had intense flashbacks of my hands pinned on his truck, lips parted.

I jumped away, and Percy was blushing as he handed me my flashlight. "Sorry." He murmured.

"Not your fault." I said, and lit up my own flashlight as he went to go grab some candles for downstairs.

"It's kind of messy down here, but it's warm and we'll be safe." He said, and I didn't respond. What do you say to the guy that's breaking your heart? He led me down the stairs, candles and granola bars in hand.

The basement was cozy. There was a huge, dingy brown couch and a flat screen TV. A mini fridge sat in the corner, but the only thing in it was beer. There was a pool table and a foosball table in the corner, and a little dining table in the other corner, where some trash and empty beer bottles sat. It was warm, and there was a fireplace that could have been lit if there wasn't a raging storm going on outside.

"Um, sorry, it's a mess." Percy said, trying to dump the beer bottles into a trash can, but I could care less.

"Do you spend a lot of time down here?" I asked, taking a seat on the edge of the couch.

"In the winter, yeah, with the boys mostly." He said, running a hand through his hair. He set the candles he had brough down on the coffee table and lit them, his face beautiful and ghostly in the amber light.

"Getting drunk." I noted with a little laugh.

"And movies and football!" He protested, but he was laughing too. It didn't take long for the tension to set back in, as Percy took a seat on the couch as far away from me as possible.

"Want to play UNO?" He asked with a little smile a few minutes later.

"Sure." I grinned, deciding to make the best of our time down here. It would pass slower if I was miserable and bitchy the whole time. "Just so you know, though, I always win." I said as he got out the cards.

"I wouldn't be so sure." He promised, and I just laughed. Twenty minutes later, we found ourselves in the middle of a full on war, one that I was most definitely winning.

"How?" He whined as I won my seventh game out of the nine we had played.

I just laughed. "Luck." I shrugged, but that wasn't true. I knew how to count the cards, and the two times he had won, I had let him win so he wouldn't complain too much. Eventually, we ended, me with nine games won and him with four.

"You're awesome at like everything." He complained, leaning his head back on the couch.

I took a seat next to him, chuckling. "Not true." I said.

"Very true," He said, opening his eyes, and turning his head towards me. "I-" He stopped short, noticing how close we were for the second time today.

I could feel my breathing turn shallow, and it took everything in me not to lean up and kiss him, because no matter how he treated me, I still had feelings for him. That was the annoying thing about crushes, they never went away no matter what happened.

"Sorry." He murmured, his hot breath that smelled like hot cocoa fanning out over my face, making me blush.

"S'okay." I mumbled back, and tried to tear my eyes away from that intense gaze, but I couldn't find the will. Luckily, Percy did, jolting back up from the couch.

"I'll, um, sleep on the floor." He said, running to a closet and grabbing pillows and blankets. Too soon, there was an issue. There were two pillows, one huge comfy blanket, and one thin sheet. "I'll just grab some from upstairs."

I shook my head. "Too dangerous." I could see him starting to protest, but he stopped while I continued, a nervous wreck. "You can sleep up here, it's plenty big enough."

"Annabeth, I don't-" He shook his head wildly.

I rolled my eyes. "Look, we don't even have to touch if you don't want to, but you shouldn't have to sleep on the floor with no blankets."

Percy blushed. "It's not that I don't want to touch you, but I-" He shook his head again, probably trying to clear it from whatever dirty teenage boy idea popped up in his head. "I'm trying to be a gentleman."

I smiled. "Well, I appreciate the effort, but don't be ridiculous. Come on." I said, motioning towards the couch. "You sleep towards the back though, I hate when I touch the back of a couch."

Percy snorted. "You what?" He asked, pulling the blankets up over us.

I shrugged as I snuggled in, suddenly becoming acutely aware of how tiny this once huge couch seemed. "I'm weird." I said, my voice an octave higher than normal, but if Percy noticed he didn't say anything.

We were silent for a while, and I wasn't sure if Percy was still awake, until he said something so crazy I thought I might have been dreaming this whole night.

"You awake?" He asked quietly. We were laying on our backs, arms and legs touching slightly because of lack of room.

"Yeah." I said, nodding.

He paused for a second, then said. "I broke up with Rachel."

I almost laughed. "What?" I asked, turning on my side to face him. e He did the same, our faces inches from each other now. If I hadn't been in shock from what he had just said, I probably wouldn't be able to formulate a working sentence right now.

"Yeah." He whispered. "You said you thought I was a good guy, but you were wrong." He paused, and I nodded, wanting him to continue. "And I started thinking about how I've been towards you lately, and how I disregarded your feelings because I put my own ahead of yours, and I was so confused, and it wasn't fair to you, Annabeth. I don't want to be that guy you think I am. It's not me. So I… ended things. It hurt, but we both knew it was for the best."

I didn't talk at first, afraid of saying something I would regret. "Annabeth." He spoke up a few minutes later. "Say something." He pleaded, taking my hand.

"I-" I faltered, trying to find the right words. I settled on, "Okay." He looked confused, so I tried to clarify. "I mean… thank you. For telling me that, and apologizing. It's okay, Percy, honestly, I get it. Breakups are hard, especially when you've known each other forever. So… I guess I'm saying everything's okay. For now. But, we're just friends for now, okay?"

"Okay." He responded with a silly little smile. "I like being friends with you."

I rolled my eyes, but giggled. "Oh my goodness. Good night, Seaweed Brain."

He tapped my nose with a huge goofy grin. "Goodnight, Wise Girl." I rolled back over, facing the TV, and felt Percy's hand rest lightly on my hip, a warm little reminder that we were okay now.

Hey, I'm back! This was a fun chapter to write, one that I had pretty much planned on from the beginning. Let me know how it was, review!

My other story, Different Cities, will be updated hopefully by the weekend. I haven't started, but I know where I want to go with it so it should be pretty easy. If you haven't checked it out, please do! It's an office AU about Percy and Annabeth, and a little bit farther along than this one.

I'm also in the middle of writing a story set in the future, mostly focusing on Percy and Annabeth in high school, but also kind of a government control, science fiction thing, and I am uploading the prologue right after this, so please go check it out! Thanks!