Chapter 3

(hello, welcome home)

Two days. It had been two whole days since Annabeth arrived at Belt Buckle. As soon as she had stepped out of the train, her decision to move back finally settled in. What had she done? She had straight up told a big fuck you to her mother, to her job, to her life back in New York without ever caring about the consequences. It had been 7 years since the last time she walked these streets. 7 years since she left. People weren't going to just welcome her back with open arms. Heck, would they even remember her? So so fucking stupid.

So here she was, staring at the ceiling of the room of the local bread and breakfast. The receptionist was fairly young; she hadn't recognized Annabeth, maybe she was new to the town. She was really thankful for that. Annabeth was panicking, she had acted on impulse and now she was here, but what was supposed to be her next course of action? She couldn't just walk up to her old friend's door and say,

"Hi! I'm sorry I cut off all contact with you and this town but now I'm back because I'm unemployed and lonely as my best friend just died. Here's some candy I bought from New York as a peace offering, wanna play Monopoly"?

She wondered if she could hide in this room until she was old and wrinkly, then maybe no one would recognize her. She couldn't live at the BnB forever, her savings would give out at some point. Maybe she could go back to New York, apologize to Athena, write that apology letter and life would go back to normal. She hated normal, but it was predictable and she wouldn't have to face the past, she could just avoid it, just like she had been for the past 7 years. At that thought, Piper's voice chided her.

Go crazy for me! You are not alone Beth, you never were, just open those beautiful fucking eyes of yours and see.

Damn you, Piper!

She stared at the Instagram post and took a deep breath, "Okay, baby steps Annabeth, you can do this. The worst he can do is hang up on you, then you can start on that apology letter."

Bracing herself, she dialed the landline number to the house, knowing he wouldn't have changed that.

As soon as she heard a hello from the other side, Annabeth stopped breathing.

"Hey Grover, it's, uh, it's me...uh, Annabeth." She was met with silence.

As Annabeth looked around the new playground, the reality of just how much things had changed settled in. She missed the old slides, the swings, the wooden ship that used to be in the center of the playground on top of which she declared herself 'Queen of the Pirates'. There was nothing that seemed familiar here except the guilt that seemed to be seeping through her bones with every breath of air she took in the place she just couldn't seem to leave behind.

She was bouncing her leg up and down as she waited at the park bench. "Hey!" a voice said and as soon as she looked up, she wanted to cry. Grover had changed so much, he was no longer the scrawny kid people used to pick on, he was a man and a soon-to-be father.

"Hey, Grover!", she said, her voice shaky. She didn't know what else to say, she was nervous, guilty, scared .

"Oh, Annabeth, it's so good to see you!" Grover said with such happiness; she met his eyes and they weren't full of hatred or anger or confusion, they just held warmth, so much warmth and Annabeth rushed into his arms.

"Gods, Grover, it-it's great to see you too! I missed you so much, I-I'm so sorry Grover, I'm so sorry."

"Hey, it's okay Annabeth, let's sit and talk alright?" And so they did, they spoke for hours on that park bench. Annabeth told him everything that had happened since she had left, her mother, her job, Piper, her decision to not keep in contact with him, or anyone for that matter, and now her decision to come back. He was so patient, it made her feel all the more guilty for cutting him off.

Annabeth couldn't help the sob that escaped her mouth. "I really am sorry, I just-I just didn't know what to do anymore, you guys were my family and I abandoned you and now I'm back and you are being so sweet and not blaming me-"

"Annabeth, I'm not mad at you, You have no idea how happy I am that you are back, I just hope the circumstances were better, but I understand okay, I understand, we all do. I'll admit, we were a little hurt, but it's fine now, we moved forward from the hurt and just missed you."

"Are you- are you sure?"

"Of course."

"Thank you so much! Also congratulations Grover, I can't believe that you are going to be a father!" Annabeth sniffled while nudging him with her elbow, and a faint blush settled over his cheeks.

"Haha! I know, sometimes-, sometimes I can't believe it too, Juniper is really great, I got really lucky, you should come by and meet her."

Again Annabeth was stunned, "You want me to meet her?"

"And the baby- she's almost 5 months pregnant, do you wanna see the sonogram?", he asked, taking out a picture from his wallet and showing it to Annabeth. Her voice was wobbly from the emotion she felt. She still couldn't believe that one of her closest friends with whom she had refused to keep contact because of her own pride had welcomed her so easily back into his life.

"Hey, where are you staying? Because I didn't see any stuff at Nana Sophie's house."

"Oh, I'm just crashing at the BnB at the moment, I really didn't give much thought to where I would be staying."

"Oh, oh that's okay, but you are staying, right?" There was a hesitancy in Grover's voice.

"Of course I'm staying, I'll think about my living arrangements soon enough, right now I'm just glad to be back, and don't worry, I'll be here to welcome my niece or nephew into the world."

The next hour was spent laughing, reminiscing the old days, they easily fell into their old routine as if the past seven years hadn't happened and Annabeth felt as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

"Oh shoot, I'm late, my lunch break is over, I gotta go Annabeth but I'll drop by the BnB at night?", Grover said, jumping up and giving her a quick goodbye hug.

"Oh don't worry, I can visit your house and meet Juniper too, just let me know when you are free."

"Okay, oh shit, Percy is gonna kill me". Perhaps Grover didn't realize what he just said but Annabeth's breath hitched. And just like that, the weight on her shoulders was back.

"Speaking of him, you can come with me right now, and we can head to the Blue Cookie. Even Thalia works there you know, you can meet them all!" Grover lit up with that thought and had already started dragging Annabeth by the sleeve.

"Uh Grover, I think one reunion is enough for today, I'll see you soon though, don't worry", Annabeth nudged him to a stop, praying he would buy into her excuse. She had forgotten though that Grover had known her since she was 12. His eyes softened.

"Annabeth, if you want to start afresh, you have to face him, trust me, his reaction won't be much different than mine. He misses you too you know, and let me just say this, this will be good for him too. Please come with me."

"Okay, I will, just not today please"

"Annabeth-"

"I will visit tomorrow, Grover, I promise!"

Grover narrowed his eyes at her," Do you swear by your intelligence, Wise Girl?"

Annabeth had eyes the size of saucers at the use of that promise. Grover and Percy always used to make her swear by her intelligence because she thought pinky promises were a thing only little kids did, whenever she accompanied them in any of their shenanigans.

"Oh shit! Sorry, I forgot I'm not allowed to call you that, but if I know you Annabeth, and judging by the hours I've spent with you right now, I know you want to hear this nickname from the person who gave it to you"

With tears in her eyes, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek and pushed him towards the exit, "I do, I definitely do! But not today. I'll surely see you tomorrow though Grover, I hope you remember how I used to take my coffee."

"You bet I do! Oh, I'm so excited, see you tomorrow Annabeth!", Grover shouted while jogging back and Annabeth laughed at his antics, maybe not much had changed. Maybe she could start over.

It was pretty late at night when she heard the knocking. Her first instinct was to jump in the bathroom, lock the door and call 911. Then she realized where she was. Maybe Grover had come to visit again. Rubbing off the pizza crumbs on her pajamas, she unlocked the door, stared at the person on the other side, and slammed it shut again. OH FUCK!.

"Open it up, you bitch, you can't hide forever!", the voice screamed, banging on the door.

She was gonna kill Grover, she told him she wasn't ready to face everyone just yet. Oh well, she didn't have much of a choice now, did she?

With some trepidation, she cracked the door open again and the person came into full view.

"Hello, Thalia!"Annabeth greeted sheepishly.

"Hello?! Hello?! That's what you have to say to me? Oh my god Annabeth ! I can't believe you are here and I can't believe you called Grover first! Girl I-"

"I know and I'm sorry, I'll explain everything, but would you please come in first before I end up getting thrown out of here for disturbing the other residents?", she interrupted Thalia, eyes darting around towards the annoyed guests who were peeking from their hotel rooms.

"You bet I'd like to come in!"

As soon as Annabeth locked the door and turned to Thalia, she was again overwhelmed with emotion, god she needed to get a hold of herself. She surged forward and almost tackled Thalia to the ground.

"I'm so so sorry for disappearing like that Thals. It was stupid of me to not call or visit. I'm so sorry."

"Hey, don't worry Annabeth, Grover filled me in and he's right, none of us hold any grudge against you. Well, I do, you called that goat boy before me, that hurt!"

Annabeth managed a laugh at that."I wanted to, trust me, but I was too damn scared of how you would react."

"Oh come on Annabeth, give our friendship some credit, you were my little sister and I couldn't have stayed mad at you for long." Annabeth did not know how to respond to that. Both Grover and now Thalia had welcomed her back with open arms, she regretted cutting off contact so much. Why had she made such a dumb decision?

"Hey, don't think too much okay, the whole point of you being here is to move forward, so we are going to do just that"

"Thalia it would actually make me feel better if you were mad at me, you know, I was so stupid to have just left like the way I did. God, you guys, I'm really not proud of the things I did."

"Babe, I know what it's like to make bad decisions, I have had first-hand experience, I understand Annie."

"What do you mean by first-hand experience? and don't call me that."

At that Thalia flopped onto the couch and opened the pizza box. Giving her an almost wistful smile, she said "C'mon , Bethie, we have a lot of catching up to do. "

With that Annabeth again found herself reminiscing and sharing every detail about her life, again. Thalia filled her in on whatever had been going on with her life as well as the other people Annabeth used to know. Annabeth snorted when she found out Leo had gotten engaged. She always thought he was the poster boy for a bachelor's life. She was shocked when Thalia confided that she had gone to rehab for a year for her alcohol addiction and when she was sober, Sally had generously offered her a job at the Cafè. Jason, Thalia's younger brother moved here to support her and got a job at the high school.

"He was in Percy's class back in grad school, you know; they are pretty close now. "

Annabeth had no idea how to respond to that. "Oh, cool! Great, that's cool. "

Thalia cackled like a maniac at Annabeth's pathetic reply. "Oh, it's like high school all over again, you guys are still pathetic. "

"Excuse me?" Annabeth knew for sure nothing was like High School anymore, at that time, she had a stupid crush, but now, she didn't even know what Percy was to her.

"Sorry, sorry, so you know you will have to see him right? "

"I do Thalia, Grover already gave me the lecture, I'll visit the cafe tomorrow"

"Oh my god, I literally cannot wait for tomorrow then, life is finally going to be interesting here. "

Annabeth wasn't sure interesting was the right word, awkward maybe but definitely not interesting.

Annabeth was wary of this town, why wouldn't she be? It was called Belt Buckle for heaven's sake. It was smaller than NY and there were no skyscrapers or taxis or people in expensive suits. It had been a week since she moved and Nana Sophie was taking her sightseeing. They had visited the local bookstore and Annabeth knew at once that was her favorite place.

The clerk, , had let her borrow the new Nancy Drew and she just wanted to go back to Nana's house and start reading it. But here she was, on Nana's insistence, making her way to the town bakery. When they reached it, she looked at the board and saw the sign The Blue Cookie. Was this some kind of tradition of the town- to have weird names? As they made their way to a table, a woman with kind brown eyes came towards them. She greeted Nana and knelt down to Annabeth's level.

"Hi sweetheart, you must be Annabeth, I'm Sally!"

"Good afternoon Miss Sally", she answered confidently.

"How are you adjusting to town? Are you enjoying it here?"

"It's alright, a little different from New York but I love living with Nana, it's too soon to say if I will enjoy it though."

"Any favorite place yet?"

"I really loved the bookstore, I plan on going there again soon."

"Wow, she's a smart one," Sally said, turning to Nana. Annabeth instantly straightened up in her seat. She decided that she liked Sally. Sally proceeded to ask Nana about her order and asked Annabeth if she would like to have some cake."Yes, please, thank you".

"It's quite a rush today, I hope you don't mind taking your orders from the counter itself"

"Not at all, dear," said Nana.

After a couple of minutes, Sally called their order from the counter and Nana directed Annabeth to go fetch it. Annabeth collected it from Sally and started making her way to the table. Suddenly, she heard a loud noise.

"Sally! Percy hid my reed pipes again! Please tell him to give them back."

As she turned towards the voice, she felt someone slam into her, tackling her to the ground and spilling the coffee on her. Oof!

She looked up to give the person a piece of her mind when she saw that they were covered in the cake she was carrying. Perfect, the cake looked so delicious and now it was ruined too along with her clothes. Annabeth was livid.

"Hey! What is wrong with-"

"Oh my god, oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, oh my god, wow, your eyes are scary; Oh shit, I didn't mean to say that, I'm really sorry-"

"Perseus Jackson, what did I say about running around and swearing in the cafe?" Sally's voice boomed from behind them. So he was her son. Annabeth was shocked, Sally was so gentle and polite, while this kid seemed like a menace.

"Mom, I didn't mean to, Grover started playing his reed pipes so I snatched them and ran here." he haphazardly explained, gesturing to the kid who was slowly inching towards the exit.

She shook her head and motioned both the boys to go to the back and turned towards Annabeth.

"I'm so sorry sweetie, I hope you are not hurt?" Annabeth was too stunned by that kid's antics to reply.

"Oh she will be fine, kids are bound to cause trouble Sally, we will just head home now, don't be too hard on him though." As her Nana led her back she scowled to herself, if everyone here was so chaotic, Annabeth would never feel at home.

It was past sunset when she heard the knocking. Nana stood up and headed to the door. She came back to the living room with a gentle smile, "There's someone here to see you Cheriè."

"Me? But I don't know anyone."

"That's not really true, is it? You met so many people today, now go, it's not good manners to keep guests waiting."

Confused, Annabeth made her way to the porch and her confusion soon turned to annoyance.

The boy, Percy, who had knocked her down today was standing with a Tupperware in his hands. He looked up and gave her a guilty smile.

"Hi! Annabeth, right?"

"Yes, and you are Percy?"

"Yeah, so um, I'm really sorry for today and as a peace offering I bought you some cookies, my mom made them and they are really good."

He handed her the box. Though Annabeth was still annoyed, the sweet smell wafting out from the box felt intoxicating and she gingerly took it.

His face immediately brightened and she had to admit he looked pretty cute with those bright, shining eyes.

"So, does this mean I'm forgiven?"

Annabeth decided to let their first encounter slide, he looked really earnest at the moment and he had made an effort to apologize; she also didn't want to hold a petty grudge with one of the first people she met in the place that was going to be her home.

"Hmmm... maybe," She hummed. "It all depends on if these are actually as good as they smell."

He let out a laugh and gave a smirk, "Oh then I'm definitely forgiven, those cookies are heavenly."

Annabeth couldn't find a retort and an awkward silence descended upon them until he perked up again.

"Mom told me you will start school next week, right? We can show you around, Grover and I, he's actually the one who caused your coffee to spill, and he bailed out when it came to apologizing".

"You took his pipes Percy, it's not his fault." she teased.

He gave her a look and grumbled, "If you ever hear him play those, you will do the same. Believe me"

She tried to fight a laugh.

"Anyway, so what do you say? Can we show you around? "

"Okay but not because you tried to bribe me into forgiving you, I'm agreeing to it just because I wanna hear Grover play."

"Hey, at least you agreed, so you could meet us tomorrow at the park? And then we can go around the town?"

"Sure, I'm looking forward to it"

"Great!" he chirped but suddenly turned nervous. "And uh, your eyes aren't scary, they are actually really pretty, okay, bye good night!" he hurriedly mumbled those words and took off running.

She blushed at his rushed words and a smile crept across her face as she glanced at the tupperware in her hands. As she made her way back inside, Annabeth felt pretty amused at Percy's antics but glad too, hoping that maybe she could make friends, that maybe she could feel at home.

Annabeth laughed at the memory, they had all been so young and stupid. She longed to turn back time and relive those days again, she would take that chaotic encounter over the uncertainty she felt as she made her way to the cafe any day. You can do this. With one last shake of her head, she walked in.

It was a pretty slow day for Percy, so as soon as he heard the bell chime signaling a new customer, he looked up from the counter where he had been engrossed with calculating this month's finances, and it's safe to say his reaction was not out of the ordinary; his elbow slipped from its unstable position on the counter, causing him to almost face plant on it, the moment he gazed into those familiar grey eyes and that amused smirk.

"Hey, Percy."

A/N: We are finally getting to the interesting parts!. Do share your thoughts in the reviews and thanks everyone who has followed or favorited this story, you guys keep me motivated.