A/N: Hey guys, I'm back with the last chapter of How We Could Have Met 2, I really hope you like it.
Five minutes ago:
It's been an interesting 48 hours. The most interesting it's been in a long while. She's got too many thoughts flooding her brain, each one overlapping the one before. The only one that stands out, though, is tiredness.
She treks towards her cabin under the light of the moon, dragging behind the rest. Malcolm slows down to walk beside her. "You've been busy."
She just nods. Too tired and too caught up in her own thoughts to give a proper reply. She understands that the statement is prompting her for more, but she doesn't really want to give more.
Because deep down she has an idea of something that even she's too afraid of saying out loud. All this feels like something…
Like a beginning.
-.-
Three hours ago:
She steps out of the shower, annoyed at her seemingly constant dripping-wet state. At least she's clean. Not that she's normally too picky about this kind of stuff, but she really just wants dry hair.
And, of course, that's when he finds her. It's just her luck after everything. At least she doesn't smell.
"Hey Annabeth!" he says with that small smile he seems to reserve for her. "I heard what happened, are you okay?"
It's just as, if not more, embarrassing to hear the words from him as it had been to hear them from Miranda.
"Yep." Then in an attempt to shift the conversation off of her, she focuses on the objects in his hand. "What do you have there?"
She nods towards the bag and he grins as he leans it towards her. "Loot."
Well, it depends on who you ask, but it's a nice gesture so she just smiles back.
Thankfully, he walks away with a smile and she focuses her attention on trying to will her hair dry. If only it was that easy.
-.-
Five hours ago:
"Is it true?" Katie asks in a hushed tone, stopping her on her way to the cabins. The big house looms behind them and she glances behind Annabeth as she asks.
The whisper, she feels, is unnecessary. It's not like it's some huge secret and not common knowledge at this point.
"What?"
The problem of being a daughter of Athena is that you can never play dumb. Katie shoots her a look.
"You know what I'm talking about."
She just shrugs, she doesn't really want to give anything away, especially if there's nothing to give.
Connor butts in. "How could you not know?"
She points her glare at him. "Listen, I'm not—"
"Oh please," he cuts her off (which just serves to annoy her even further), "you're not about to tell me you didn't at least try."
He's not wrong, which is annoying. But it hadn't yielded the results she wanted, so she wasn't about to admit her defeat in front of him.
"I've got a task to do from Chiron." She says firmly, continuing down the path.
"Not nice to keep secrets, Annabeth!" Connor teases after her.
Tell that to the people keeping them from her.
-.-
Five and a half hours ago:
He's…different like this. She can see small bits of her younger self in him, dazed, lost and confused.
And bringing the most excitement camp has seen in years. She winces internally at the memory she tries hard to avoid, but she can't help but glance over to the tree on the border.
Chiron is saying something, so she tries to zone back in as she's introduced.
He takes a step closer and she takes him in, shorter than her by an inch, messy and of course the elephant in the room.
Her eyes drift towards the object in his hands, physical proof of his feat. The one thing that made her think that maybe…
She snaps up to meet his eyes properly for the first time.
For a second, she's sucked into a dazzling pool of sea-green and for an even briefer second, she's drowning.
Pulling out of it, she hopes she was able to disguise that moment. That tug in her gut is back. Something is telling her that he is going to be a lot of trouble.
Ignoring the thought, she straightens her back and discards the words telling her he's the one.
"You drool when you sleep."
-.-
Bonus: 48 hours ago:
Her eyes open, there's something…maybe a dream? Or maybe just a feeling…something, telling her she needs to get up.
She gets out of bed and heads towards the lights that are still on at the Big House.
Something is happening.
Camp is as calm as ever, but as she nears the house and the border, there are crashes of thunder and lighting and…yelling?
Breaking out into a sprint she rushes towards the border, seeing the white of Chiron's tail.
She stops beside him, and he looks down in a way she knows means stay out of this.
But that feeling is getting stronger and there's no way she's leaving now.
The next thing she sees is something she wouldn't believe if it wasn't happening in front of her.
The Minotaur.
The actual freaking—and then it crumbles to dust right before her eyes, leaving nothing but the silhouette of a person, a kid, running towards them.
He gets closer and she can make out a soaked t-shirt and messy black hair, before he collapses before them, clutching a horn.
The horn of the Minotaur he just killed.
The pull in her gut is even stronger than before. Her heart is beating fast with…something. Adrenaline, fear, excitement? She can't tell.
But the words that leave her lips are true as she catches a glimpse of his dark eyes before they flutter closed in front of her.
"He's the one. He must be."
A/N: Following the tradition of ending How We Could Have Met on a canon note, I wrote this after hearing about this reverse time concept. (I did take some creative liberty with the canon, so I'm aware this doesn't fit perfectly.) Also, just wanted a reminder that 55 chapters in and Percy and Annabeth are meant to be no matter what world :)
I hope you guys liked this even though it was a bit shorter, I thought it a fitting end to the second installment of the series.
I thought I'd changed a lot from the beginning and end of the original but the same goes for this series, it's really expanded and grown in a different way and it's about time to transition it to something new.
Thank you to everyone who's ever read this series, I appreciate you! And I hope you follow me to HOW WE COULD HAVE MET 3 which is already up and has the last five chapters of this story cross-posted. This chapter is special though so it's only for here. I'll be picking up HWCHM3 next month with a brand new chapter.
It's really crazy to see that the first fanfic I ever wrote has turned into something this massive and is still going on. Seventeen year old me would have never thought this could happen. And now over the course of seven years and around 200,000 words later, it's still going.
Thank you guys again, so so much for reading the same two characters meet and fall in love over and over again, it's truly amazing :)
Please Review! On this last chapter I'd love to hear your thoughts about everything!
And as always, thanks for reading!
See ya in How We Could Have Met 3!