Hello again! It's me, with the nineteenth chapter. Almost twenty! And this story has 28K views! So in the story, Annabeth just left for New York and hadn't told Mark, Amy, Joey and Laura anything before her departure, when they rushed to the airport in time to catch her and questioned her and she got mad at them and left. So now, Annabeth flew to New York to see Camp Half-Blood and Percy for Christmas/Winter Break and they are still in San Francisco.
I wasn't sure what to do so I'm going to do a little of what happens over break and then Annabeth will come back for school…but Percy is with Rachel…
Annabeth's POV:
Laura had nerve I'll give her that. For a mortal, at least, I knew it wouldn't have been easy to just watch me go. Percy hated it, at least. I'd wondered when I first met them whether they were all mortals, but that seemed to be the case. Of course, there had also been Tara and Jayden, the daughter of Aphrodite and her mortal brother, even though they were identical twins (don't ask me how it happened, maybe it was like the story of Heracles and his twin brother). I hadn't missed the fact that all the mortals except for Mark froze when Michael Yew manipulated the Mist but I knew he hadn't seen what was really there. Joey seemed like a regular mortal, with his (no offense to Joey) stupidity and comicalness. The only time Thalia, who had a knack for sensing this stuff, had met them, she'd commented that all of them were interesting and they were more than they seemed, more than I thought they were, at least.
Now I was wondering what they were if they were more than they seemed. A clear-sighted mortal, maybe, but four of them, all friends? That couldn't ever happen. I'd be surprised if they were all demigods, the Mist had manipulated them all in some way at least. They could all be just regular mortals.
"Annabeth, my dear…" Chiron looked the same as always, though a little older from the stress of managing a camp full of godly mortals that had many sons of Hermes. I knew why Mr. D was so bitter, if I was a goddess, I wouldn't want to be the patron of Camp Half-Blood no matter how much I love Camp.
"Chiron!"
"How have you been? Has San Francisco been treating you well?"
"Yes…I have some…mortal friends. Percy was in San Francisco with me until he had to move to await Luke's ship, and so it was good for a while there. Now he's gone, so…" Chiron nodded softly, he'd been like a second father to me while I lived at Camp Half-Blood after running away and losing Thalia to the monsters on Half-Blood Hill. Moving to San Francisco and leaving him had been hard, harder than leaving home when she was seven had been, because Chiron loved her and at that point, seven-year-old me thought I had no one, spiders plagued me at night while Helen watched.
And then I saw Percy. He approached warily, at a distance seeing as the last time they had actually spoken I had gotten mad at him and dissolved Percy's Iris-message and taken another of the few drachmas I knew he had, but I was happy to see him now. "Hey."
"Hi." I bit her lip, tasting the blood from her cracked lips. I hadn't put on chapstick and the cold San Francisco air had worn down the skin until it was dry and cracked. I tasted the metallic tang of what she knew to be blood but didn't spit it, choosing instead to swallow.
I didn't agree with her choice. There were many choices I had made in the past twenty-four hours that I didn't agree with now that the deeds were done. Laura probably hadn't deserved that rant, but she'd done that. They probably deserved to be told, not led on, but what was done, was done. I was in New York now I was at Camp Half-Blood on Long Island Sound and I was going to enjoy being home.
It would've been so much easier if my father hadn't taken the San Francisco job and yet he had, but New York had been my home since I went out on the streets and met a twelve-year-old girl with black hair and blue eyes and an older boy with sandy blond hair, who didn't yet have a scar marring what had been a handsome face.
I had fallen for that face once. It was all gone now, there was a scar running down the side and while I'd still liked him there wasn't a chance anymore now that I had chosen to stay with the gods and Olympus while Luke had kidnapped me and forced me to hold the sky and gone with the titans and Othrys. If I had wanted to stay with him, I'd missed my chance and I hadn't regretted it.
"I, uh…there was a phone call. To Camp, about you." Chiron said kindly. "From a young mortal girl named Laura Hansen." Her name hit me like a slap in the face. Percy shrugged. "Percy here picked it up, apparently she's one of your mortal friends?"
"Yeah." I nodded, and Percy pulled me aside. "I'm guessing Amy, Mark and Joey were still with her? Wait, how did she get Camp's only telephone number?"
"Laura called, she was pretty mad at you to be honest, when I picked up, she said that you'd fought with them and said they didn't care about you, she said you were wrong and that they were shocked that you didn't care enough to tell them you were leaving. She got the number from your dad, who I guess had it." I nodded, and Percy went on. "She said they only just caught you boarding the plane." I nodded again, my tongue seeking out the crack in my lip and the faint metallic taste clinging to it, and the pain.
"They were mad because I didn't want to tell them I was leaving, and I said I was going home to the people who cared about me because I might not have much time left." Percy frowned. He could be so clueless, but then again, he hadn't yet seen the prophecy- that terrifying prophecy that I'd had nightmares about since I first read it years ago.
A half-blood of the eldest gods,
Shall reach sixteen against all odds
And see the world in endless sleep
The hero's soul cursed blade shall reap
A single choice shall end his days
Olympus to preserve or raze
For a while, I had been hopeful that Thalia would turn out to still be alive and she'd be freed and be the child of the prophecy, now though I knew it was definitely Percy, he was turning sixteen this year and there was nothing that could manage to kill him in between this winter and this summer.
"You're going to get through this, Annabeth. You've been training at camp for years- since you were seven, and now you're fifteen. And besides-" there was a dark shadow on his face now, and my stomach dropped uncomfortably- "Luke won't kill you unless it's really, really necessary."
Cue the awkward silence. I knew he was right, but it didn't make it hurt any less that Luke, after betraying me, decided it would be no good to kill me because I'd been like the little sister he never had, even though my feelings for him had gone past that. It had all been no good as soon as Percy started to speak, still pale from a pit scorpion's sting on his hand, given as much nectar as we could risk on him.
"Yeah, well, they were already kind of mad because you left with little to no warning and so they'd already lost you, and then I didn't want to tell them because I knew they'd get all 'why do you have to go to that camp? Why can't we go? Why won't you tell us anything?' because they always do, you know, and then I got mad at them so…"
What you don't know is the prophecy, because if you really are the hero, you're going to die…and I want to stay with you as long as I can before because this is your prophecy, you must be the one who's going to die…Percy looked at me, he smiled a little.
"Well, you have two and a half weeks, right? I suppose we should make the most of Winter Break before Paul transfers me to Goode, officially." I tried to not make my smile waver. I remembered how happy I'd been, I was, or at least I fancied, going on a 'date' with Percy, and I'd been so happy when he ran into me. And then, this red-haired, kinda pretty girl just, ran out behind him, shouting his name and saying she wanted answers, and she was definitely a mortal. I was angry enough that I skipped out on the movie, because why in the world would I go on a date with someone when they already had their new girlfriend or whatever? And then, he had the nerve to bring Rachel along on my quest. Where she almost got Percy killed with a giant and was basically a big pain for me.
I was mostly done with it now, I knew he'd had reasons because Rachel was clear-sighted or whatever, but I'd still hated it even though Rachel had probably been essential to the quest. It had been a horrible one, though. First Rachel, then I kissed him, then Calypso, then Rachel again. At least he probably knew now that I liked him as I was sure he still remembered that kiss.
Or at least, I hoped so.
Percy and I, as cabin counselors, had to plan out our cabins' activities but didn't necessarily have to do them, but it was fun to test myself against Percy on the lava rock wall- I won- though when Percy got a third-degree-burn from the lava that was over really quick.
He still sucked at archery, like, a colossal amount, and didn't even try. I wasn't sure how the gods had managed to guide him with the arrow that slew Geryon. Unfortunately, Apollo's kids came along and started being downright obnoxious so we left.
Percy's favorite part of the whole day, you could tell, was when we went down to the beach and he started playing in the water like a two-year-old. I half-expected him to drown in the water because of the way he acted like a child in it, but he couldn't drown, he could literally breathe water if he needed to.
"Ack!" I narrowed my eyes. "You're going down, Water Boy." Percy looked scared and tried to run, but the water, fortunately, pulled at his legs and I followed him, already wet from the splashes he'd made.
Laura's POV:
After making a call to the 'Camp' place, a man picked up.
"Hello? Who is it?"
"My name's Laura Hansen, I'm looking for a girl named Annabeth Chase." There was quiet muttering in the background. "Hello?" Amy, Joey, and Mark crowded around me as I'd put the phone on speaker.
"Percy- some mortal named Laura Hansen…yes, yes, looking for our beloved Athena counselor…"
"Annabeth's flight doesn't get here for a while, Chiron…" someone started talking again, to us.
"Laura?" Percy's voice. Percy? He must've already been at Camp, then.
"Hey, Percy, is Annabeth here?"
"Her flight won't arrive for a few more hours. I can…take a message." He sounded tired, and when he spoke again, it wasn't to me. "Hey, Connor, Travis, for capture-the-flag tomorrow do you want an alliance?"
"Sure!"
"Well, tell Annabeth that her little stunt disappearing off to where-ever-you-are was not appreciated and when she comes back to New York she has a lot of explaining to do." I hung up. Mr. Chase looked over at us.
"Annabeth has her reasons, Laura, Amy, Joey, Mark. You might not understand them, I don't understand them, but we're just not part of their world."
"What world?" I was hoping he'd tell me, but he just shrugged and turned back to a coffee.
Annabeth is still going to have a lot of explaining to do…
P.S.:
JoeBob, I know you are waiting. I also know that my cat killed my sleep last night, and I have other Fanfictions that I also write! Just read those or other things.
I will try to do another one in a few days :P
