Chapter 10: The Mysterious Case of the Problem

Encounters

AN: I'm so sorry. I don't even know what to say. I know my absence was so long, but to be completely honest, I had the largest and most intense writer's block I've ever had. I had this story mapped out for forever, but then I wanted Thalia and Malcolm to be a thing, so I had to change the format up a bit, and let's just say that kind of impacted some other huge plot point for the story. I've also been so busy with marching season and debate, and trying to keep up my class rank. I'm just so sorry. But I swear I won't ever give up on this story, I have so many awesome ideas for it all. I'm sorry. I'll shut up now.

Percy

There was a problem. It was a special problem, which had many problems. The first problem with the problem, was that I didn't know what the problem was, I just knew it existed. It's kind of like believing in a place you've never been to. You can't prove its existence yourself, yet you just know it's there. For example, I've never been to Japan, yet I know of its existence. The problem was recognizable in the way that something familiar looks familiar, but the problem with the problem was that I couldn't tell the characteristics of it and if I could, I probably wouldn't be able to tell the characteristics of the characteristics.

The second problem with the problem, was that I didn't know what caused it, or how it even became a problem in the first place. Maybe there were signs that I ignored, or maybe I chose to ignore them, but it felt as if the problem just popped out of nowhere. I didn't understand how I could be so oblivious if there were signs that a problem was developing, but now any attempts at preventing the problem were futile, and I had to focus on getting rid of it instead.

That leads me to the third problem with the problem. Since I didn't really know what the problem was, I couldn't get rid of it. It just felt like a shift. It felt like someone had turned the world around and now everything was upside down and I couldn't figure out what was wrong or right. The problem was wreaking havoc on my life, and I didn't even know what it was.

The discovery of the problem was confusing to the highest degree. It was thanks to my urgently needing to go the bathroom that the problem was discovered. Annabeth and I had spent the night eating cookie dough and watching Supernatural on Netflix, with her asking who the characters were every five minutes, and posing questions about the logic of the show. At one point, she started falling asleep, and so with my help, we trudged over to my room and we crashed instantly. But, I'd had one too many , and so I woke up not even two hours later needing to go to the bathroom.

So, naturally, I turn to the person I'm handcuffed to because I kinda can't go to the bathroom if said person is completely unresponsive. And that's when the problem emerged. Annabeth Chase, this badass cheerleader, this headstrong debater, this stubborn girl who didn't take anybody's shit with open arms. Annabeth Chase, the girl who dumped coffee on my head because I was being an asshole. Annabeth Chase, little sister of my best friend, and the person who I was handcuffed to. She was lying there, resting on my shoulder, her hair in her face, her lips slightly ajar, with a small puddle of drool near her face. She was making a small noise that sounded distinctly like a snore, and she was well tucked into my side in the fetus position, her cheeks lightly flushed.

And I had never seen anything more utterly adorable in my entire life. She looked as harmless as a kitten, which was a paradox because kittens are some of the most precious things in life, yet piss them off and they'll scratch your eyes out. That was the picture I had of Annabeth. She looked so peaceful, and seeing her so relaxed made me realize that she wasn't usually like this. She was usually so stressed she had no time to take a breath. It was a breath a fresh air to see her curled into a little ball, care free and just adorable. That was the only word that could come to mind because it was the only way I could describe her. Adorable.

This was what led to the discovery of the problem. This was the shift. Something felt different, and something stirred inside me. But I didn't know what the fuck it was, all I knew was that it was there, and that whatever the problem was, it would cause more problems if I didn't get rid of it.

So now, fly to the present time. It's three in the morning, I'm lying here, still needing to go to the bathroom, but sacrificing because the adorable human being next to me is snoring away in a deep sleep, and it'd be pretty rude to wake her up. I'm running my thumb over the adorable human being's index finger, and thinking about the problem that I couldn't understand. And my mind is racing. The only thing comforting me is the aligned breaths that are being produced by the adorable human being.

The adorable human being moves and I hold my breath until I hear her collective snores again. And then I relax as I become assured that I haven't woken said person up. Repeat. I let out a quiet breath and glanced at the adorable human being and everything inside me just stops as I flash back to the night before, with the awkward moment we had after the shower.

Thinking about what had happened last night made the problem at hand just even more complicated. I didn't know how we ended up the way we did yesterday, but half of me thought that the time for that moment was cut too short, and the other half of me thanked everything that Mom called, or else I might've ended up doing something that I would've regretted, I just didn't know what. I was utterly confused, and I just didn't know what to do about anything, anymore, ever.

Suddenly, I was snapped out of my thoughts as the adorable human being next to me jerked haphazardly. At first I thought it might've just been a reflex, but when it happened again, I looked over at her and realized her face was scrunched up as if she was in pain and her breaths had become ragged and rough.

"Annabeth?" But the adorable human being didn't respond, instead she thrashed around even more, and a noise escaped the back of her throat that sounded like she was in pain. I shook her arm for response, but all I got was ragged breathing and mumbles. And then:

"No, no, no, please." And that's when it hit me. Adorable human being was going through a nightmare. I instantly grabbed her face with my free hand and gripped her hand with the other.

"Annabeth. Annabeth, wake up. Annabeth. Annabeth come on, please wake up. Annabeth." And then frantic bright eyes popped open and stared back at me. Some of her hair was stuck to her hair, and she was panting as hard as if she'd just run three miles straight. "Are you okay?"

"I don't- I can't, oh god." Her breaths were shallow, and she had sprung up as soon as her eyes had popped open. "I couldn't do anything, she just, I can't-"

"Shh, it's okay, calm down, calm down. You're okay, it was just a dream." I pushed her hair back with my hand as she shook her head frantically.

"No, you don't, you can't understand she was, she made me I didn't, it was the last thing." The panic and urgency in her voice made me wanna cringe.

"Hey. You'll be okay. Just breath, just slow down. Count to ten, take deep breaths, and calm down. Do you want some water?" She nodded quietly, but the quietness felt forced, like she was dying to say whatever she needed to, but instead was choking it down. I stretched over her and grabbed the water bottle on the night stand, not stopping to look down at her as I stretched back. I passed her the bottle and watched as she emptied it in a few gulps. Her breathing slowed, and instead of looking frantic, she just looked exhausted and worn down. I watched quietly as she tucked her knees into her chest and glanced at me.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" I asked tentatively because I knew that in these situations, some people were better left alone, and thought it was bad to be brought back to the place they were at. She hesitated, her teeth sinking into her lip as she fixed her hair around her head and tucked it behind her ear. I noticed the relaxed look she had while she was resting was gone, and she looked way tenser than she did before. Nevertheless, she was forever the adorable human being to me now because the mental image I had of her drooling cuteness was burned in my mind for the rest of time.

"It was just about Helen." She said vaguely after a while, and I gave her a confused look. She cleared her throat and looked away. "When Mom passed away, Dad wanted to cremate her body as a way for us to always be able to keep her near us, but we couldn't do that because when her body was found after the crash it was too broken up to recover, or at least that's what Dad told me. I wasn't allowed to see her remains, Dad said I was too young." She stopped and looked down, biting her lip so hard it looked like it could draw blood. I squeezed her hand reassuringly.
I totally related to the parent thing. When I found out my dad went down in his flight, my mom forbade me from seeing his body. She said I was too young, said it would just hurt me more, but I didn't care. I was so mad she wouldn't let me see him that after it happened, I didn't talk to her for weeks on end. It was like, I never really got closure.

I heard a breath being taken in and looked over at her. I knew this couldn't have been easy for her, talking about her mom. She obviously held her mom at high standards, and the way that Helen talked about her must've affected her a lot.

"Malcolm wasn't allowed to see the remains either, even though he was older than me. Because we weren't ever allowed to really say goodbye, everything my mom owned was held at high standards. It was the only thing we really had left. When Helen married our Dad and found out Mom's possessions were still in the house, she demanded we throw them out, but I refused. So, one day, when Dad was at work, she made me choose between saving the possessions or letting Malcolm get tortured. She made me burn her clothing, tear up the pictures, destroy everything. The only things we had left were the ones that we'd hidden, which is why I have the jewelry box and some old sweaters. It was just so vivid. I feel like I completely betrayed her, I didn't mean to do it, I just-" I could hear her voice getting antsy again, and I pulled her closer into my side.

"It's not your fault, you had to choose, and you didn't have a choice. I'm sure if it were the other way around, Malcolm would've done the exact same thing." I said softly because at that point I knew there wasn't any right thing to say.

"I know, it's not like I regret it, I just feel like I lost a piece of my mom when I got rid of her things." She explained weakly as she pressed closer.

"It's okay. I understand. I'm sorry. But I'm sure if your mom were here, she'd be proud of who you've become. She would've understood what you did. I mean you love your brother." She didn't say anything for a while, and I just knew that she was thinking about what would've happened to Malcolm if she had saved the possessions. If she had thought selfishly for this one time. Minutes of silence went by, and then she laughed quietly and looked up at me with those eyes of her that could only belong to the adorable human being that she was. They were sad, yet held some light to them. Mostly she just looked tired.

"First of all, don't go spreading that around, I mean if everyone found out that I loved my brother people would think I've gone soft. Second of all, I find it funny that every time I've been in your bed, we've ended up talking about Malcolm."

"But you're soft already, Chase." Her eyes snapped to me and her eyebrow quirked, her mouth turning into a slight frown.
"No I'm not."

"Yes, yes you are." I said, smiling slightly, the image of the adorable human being, being in her most adorable state, drooling and breathing heavily, all flushed and curled into a ball. My smile faltered as the image brought the thought of the problem that I couldn't understand back into my mind.

"NO." She said sternly, her eyes flashing dangerously for a second before they softened and she smirked. "I mean look at these guns, don't mess with me, I'll pummel you to the ground." She continued, and then proceeded to show me her guns by raising both of her arms and flexing, which resulted in her punching me in the face with our handcuffed hands.

"I think you need to go back to sleep, before you end up knocking the shit out of me." I answered as I reached up and rubbed the spot where she hit me with my free hand, trying not to laugh at how she let out this small little yawn and then curled up next to me without any complains at all. I watched quietly as her mesmerizing eyes slowly disappeared from my view, and her snores once again filled the room as I tucked a stray hair out of her face.

Something in my gut pulled and instantly all I wanted to do was hurl. I didn't understand what was happening, but I honestly didn't want to. I felt like maybe, being in oblivion for this one instance, was better than understanding what the problem really was.

Breakfast seemed to have us looking up in the beginning. Mom made us a ginormous breakfast to compensate for our unfortunate situation, but then she caught Annabeth staring at the picture on the refrigerator again and then some awkwardness ensued once Mom asked her if she were related to Frederick Chase by any chance, and she'd quirked an eyebrow and said yep, I'm his daughter, to which mom responded by raising her eyebrows, and not even trying to hide her wide eyes. That led to an inquiry from Annabeth about how she knew her Dad, which led to my mom making up some lie about how they were old school chums.

Basically, Annabeth left my house extremely confused, which was really rare for someone who knows literally everything. The drive over to the school was mostly silent, since my mom was driving us in my truck, due to the fact that neither Annabeth nor I could drive because of our current situation.

You'd think that having Annabeth handcuffed to me, having to sleep in the same room, in the same bed, with your parents knowing, would be the most awkward thing that could happen. You'd think it couldn't get any worse.

But nothing was worse than having to walk into Goode that Monday, still handcuffed to each other, wearing our wrinkled pajamas because obviously we couldn't change out of our clothes because of the fact that our shirts would not come off unless they were sleeveless. Having to put on sleeveless shirts was hard enough already for the pair of us, so there was just a tacit agreement that we wouldn't even try to change out of our clothes until we got hand on the keys.

This is how it went down. We walked up to the front doors, looking like complete piles of shit- and by us I mean just me because the adorable human being was never capable of looking anything less than adorable-, and Annabeth just gave me this rock hard look like she was just tired of it all, and it was now or never. And I'd just like to give you the mental image.

It was both of us, in sleeveless shirts, and old pajama bottoms. Annabeth looked like she was swimming in my clothes because they were so overly large on her, and the pants were basically falling off of her. My hair was sticking up all sorts of directions, I'm pretty sure I only had one sock on, and if we didn't hurry up, all the books would fall out of my bag.

I think we were fearing the worst. You know, in the high school movies, where all the hallways are crowded and then these really popular people walk in and everyone just stops whatever they're doing to look at them. We were kind of expecting that, except that people would look at us because of the circumstances. I mean first of all, we looked like we'd crawled out of a hole- again, I mean just myself. And second, and the most important, it was Annabeth and I. A football player and a cheerleader. Two members of rivaling teams at the high school, coming in together, handcuffed to each other. I mean, rumors were bound to fly.

And then guess what happened. We pushed the doors open. We walked in. And the hallways were empty. Beautifully and completely empty. You could hear a pin drop, how quiet and barren everything was. It seemed like the coast was clear, we could walk down to Coach Hedge's, ask for the key, and be on our merry way. It almost seemed too easy. There was a moment when Annabeth and I looked at each other, sending the other looks like they were so relieved. And then the bell rung, and our luck ran out because that's when we knew we had to haul ass to the athletics hall because we were about to get caught in the 8:30.

The 8:30 was a monster. It would eat you up and spit you out if you weren't careful. It had no mercy, it was just blood thirsty, and trust me, it was not something to play around with.

Every day, at exactly 8:30, the warning bell would ring around the school, signifying that we had ten minutes to get to class before we were late. Of course, students waited till the warning bell rang before they started making their way anywhere. But, Goode is a huge school. It would take you a while to get somewhere if you didn't plan accordingly.

So came to be the 8:30, the most dangerous passing period there ever was in the history of passing periods. The 8:30 was the period of time in which every student in the entire school scurried away to their classes. The fact that every student in the school is trying to run through each other calls for an insane traffic jam. People get trampled, stomped on, and shoved against the walls if you get in the wrong person's way.

The 8:30 gets so intense, that people plan out methods to get through it. It's like the school version of black Friday, people will hurt you if you don't run fast enough. Some people liked to form backpack trains, to ensure that they never lose the group they're part of because if one person gets left behind, that person is dead. Your group abandons you, they don't turn back, people get left behind. You think you have friends? Sorry to tell you that your friends will drop you if you become a burden to them during the 8:30. No one is loyal to you for those ten horrible minutes, it's everyone for themselves. You may think you're part of an alliance, but that alliance can easily break if you start causing trouble.

Others like to form herds, with the shortest on the inside and the tallest on the outside of the herd, so the people who are more likely to get lost have a better chance. Then, there are always the people that decided to wait it out and be late to class.

The month before, a lowly freshman lost his backpack train in the crowd. That freshman was found approximately six minutes later, curled up by the side of a locker with a sprained wrist. That's what the 8:30 will do to you, and Annabeth and I were about to get caught in it.

As soon as we heard that bell ring, we wasted no time in breaking into a sprint. We ran so fast down the hall that I thought one of my lungs was about to instantly collapse. The hall behind us filled in less than thirty seconds, and suddenly it turned into Annabeth and me running away from a giant ass wave of students who were also trying to run away. My eyes snapped to my left and I cringed as I saw a girl get shoved into the lockers. A backpack train broke up next to me, and suddenly the train dispersed, the members of the train frantically trying to keep up the pace with everyone else to avoid being run over by the faster runners.

It was madness. If I wasn't a football player, I think I would've been passed out on the ground already. I looked over at Annabeth to find her hair flying wildly over her face, and her eyes looking as if they were about to pop out of her skull. And then we saw it. The turn for the athletics hall. The sweaty, smelly hallway looked like heaven, and suddenly, Annabeth yanked us to the side, stopping us at a teacher's classroom.

My lungs burned, and I rested my head on the first thing it could find, which just happened to be Annabeth's forehead. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I couldn't even comprehend what was happening. All I knew was that we'd made it through the 8:30 safely.

"Holy shit." Annabeth whispered, and I looked down at her. She ran her hands over her eyes and blinked. Her breathing had slowed, but she still looked exhausted. "That was one of the worst ones by far." I nodded and let out a slow breath as I lifted my head.

"Yeah. Definitely a bad one. Come on, the faster we get to the locker room, the faster we can get these cuffs off." And then we were off. We swerved through the hallways quickly, knowing that it was only a matter of time until the hallway was crowded once again. We slowed down our sprint to a fast pace, power walking through the athletics department. Finally, Coach Hedge's office came to light, and we wasted no time in marching straight in.

The sight before us confused me just as much as Annabeth. Coach Hedge was standing next to Ms. Valor, with Thalia and Malcolm sitting in the seats in front of Coach's desk. Malcolm's mouth was half open, but it snapped shut as soon as we walked in. There were at least five seconds of silence in which no words were said, and we all just stared at each other. Thalia was wearing a fearful look for the first time in her entire life, and her eyes instantly snapped away from Annabeth as she finally asked what was on her mind.

"Thalia? What are you doing here?" Thalia's mouth opened and closed like a fish until Ms. Valor spoke up for her.

"Thalia here was just expressing interest in the gymnastics team." Ms. Valor answered as she got up and dug in the drawer of Coach's desk, producing a key and then walking around and over to us.

"The gymnastics team? But Thalia-"

"Here, let me unlock the cuffs. I'm really sorry about this whole thing, really I don't know where the key went." Ms. Valor said as she unlocked our cuffs and our hands were freed.

"But-"

"If you'll excuse us, we have a conversation to finish. Your friend seems like she has tons of potential." And then we were pushed out of the door. Annabeth and I stood side by side, staring at the door for what seemed like forever. At least I had an idea of what they were talking about. Obviously it had something to do with Thalia's pregnancy, although why the coaches had to know about it was beyond me. Annabeth, however, knew nothing at all.

"Thalia hates anything physical though, there's no way she was looking into the gymnastics team." Annabeth announced out loud, as we rounded the corner towards the girl's locker room. I opted to say nothing because anything I could potentially say would end up with her more confused. When we reached the door, she walked in without a word and came back wearing the last things that were in her locker, which just happened to be my extra football shirt, and some random basketball shorts. She looked like she could kill the first person who said something stupid to her.

"You look-"

"Don't even try to tell me I look great." She said, cutting me off as she pulled her hair up. I held back my laughter as her eyebrows came together in frustration.

"But you do look great." I said as my laughter just poured out of me, and she shot me this look like she didn't believe a word that was coming out of my mouth.

"Do you want to die a slow and painful death, Jackson?" And as I looked up at her, I took the time to admire the way that she actually did look great. She looked comfortable, and ready to get through this bullshit day, and just like Annabeth should look. She looked like that girl who kicked my ass at my own video games weeks ago, sitting there with the controller in her hands, a determined look on her face, and her hair tied up like she didn't give a fuck about what anyone else said as long as she got to the next level. She looked like herself, and that's the only way I'd ever want her to look.

"If that means I get to compliment you again, then sure. But I wasn't lying. You look great, as always." And I watched her face go slack, turning a dull red as she registered my words, before I turned around quickly and tried not to hit myself upside the head for worsening the problem that I knew nothing about.

AN: I'm really disappointed in myself, this chapter isn't good enough for you guys. I'm sorry, I know it's not the best, but I had to get this chapter in for Percy because the next chapter is gonna be revolving around the stuff in this chapter kind of. Anyway, I hope this was okay. I'm so so so sorry I've been gone, I promise I'll try to make the next couple updates better and faster. Anyway, drop a review, it'd be greatly appreciated. Till next time (which will be sooner I'm sorry)- ShyGal