A/N: Thanks to my betas:: AlEmily360, SapphireTrafficker, tigerlilycorinne, AshenMoon42, Lesbian101, Shiuanc2, and LadyHW.
Percy. Percy. Percy. That name had been all throughout her mind since that day in the park. It resonated in her head like a constant rhythm, like a song on repeat. A reminder of what could have been. Of what could be.
Percy. Percy. Percy. She couldn't get sea green eyes and windswept, dark brown hair out of her mind. She was worried her chance was gone; worried that she'd never see him again- she'd only just met him for the first time and they had probably been living on the same campus for two years. She couldn't stand the thought that she might never see him again. That she might never see the numbers on her timer change again.
With his name constantly plaguing her thoughts, Annabeth had trouble concentrating in class. Even in her pre-modern architecture class, where they were studying her favorite building style, Greco-Roman, she felt her mind wander. She knew that if she didn't tell somebody soon, her grades would pay the price.
The perfect opportunity arose just two days later. Piper, who already had her own place, courtesy of her dad, had invited her over to stay over the next night. Annabeth now had two things on her mind: Percy, and how Piper would react when she told her what had happened.
The next day Annabeth packed a bag: toiletries, fuzzy socks, and a fresh pair of clothes for the next day. She walked over to Piper's apartment in her pajamas, trying hard to ignore the guys smoking in front of the complex. She knocked on the door and waited. She heard something inside crash and Piper opened the door. She grinned brightly at Annabeth, her hair put in a side braid that was already falling apart and her ratty Hello Kitty pajama shirt hanging off of one shoulder.
"You're here!" she said, panting slightly.
"Yes!" Annabeth peered past Piper's shoulder and into her apartment for the source of the crash. "Are you okay?"
"Oh, yeah, fine. Just a—" Piper gestured behind herself vaguely "—lamp. Come in!"
Piper's apartment looked no different than the last time Annabeth was here. It was pretty small, but not cramped. There was not a lot of natural lighting; not a lot of lighting at all, actually. The hall opened up into a small living room with a TV and a thrifted floral print couch. A kitchen attached to the living room had dishes piled up in the sink, like they had just been gathered up from other parts of the house and dumped there. A door from the living room led into a bathroom and another door led to Piper's bedroom.
Piper was not the cleanest person ever, so Annabeth had to step around a pile of clothes (Dirty? Clean? Annabeth couldn't tell) to reach the couch and collapse onto it.
"Tough week?" Piper asked, as she removed an empty plastic raspberry carton from the other end of the couch and sat down, pulling her feet up.
"You have no idea." Annabeth raised her head to look at Piper. She looked like she wanted to ask, eyebrows raised in a quizzical look. Annabeth was grateful when she didn't. She wasn't quite ready to tell Piper about Percy. She needed to build herself up to it.
Piper got back up and walked over to the TV and chose a DVD. She held it up. "Breakfast Club?"
Classic. "You know it." Annabeth settled into the couch as Piper slid the disk in. It was nice to watch something on an actual TV instead of just streaming it on her laptop.
As much as she wanted to, Annabeth couldn't really pay any attention to the movie. It didn't matter—she'd already seen it a million times. After the movie, during the scene where John Bender raises his fist in the air and "Don't You (Forget About Me)" was playing, Piper turned it off. Without taking the disk out, she faced Annabeth.
"Ok, what's up?" she asked. Her expression left no room for argument, but Annabeth tried anyway.
"What? Nothing…" she said, a rather pathetic attempt. Piper simply raised an eyebrow.
"Puh-lease. I know when you want to talk about something. It's like my seventh sense." So maybe Piper only invited her over because she had been hinting all week that she had something she wanted to talk about.
"Wait. Seventh sense?"
"Don't change the subject. You have been acting weirdly ever since that day at the park. Did that guy say something weird to you?" Piper said angrily.
"No, no… It's nothing like that," Annabeth hurried to tell her.
"Ha! So something did happen! This is just like you, Annabeth. You always wait forever to say something that you want to say." Piper leaned back into the arm of the couch after she had been leaning forward excitedly.
"Piper, do you want me to tell you or not?" Annabeth gave her a pointed look.
"Ok, ok. I'll shut up." Piper mimed zipping her lips closed. Annabeth rolled her eyes.
"Ok, so you know how my timer says I am supposed to die at 25?" she began. Piper nodded. "Well, the other day, at the park, after I talked to that guy, my timer said I was supposed to die at 84." Annabeth waited for a reaction.
"What?" Piper's eyes widened. Annabeth shook her head in a show of mutual disbelief.
"I know right! But as soon as he left it went back!"
Piper grabbed her wrist as if she needed confirmation. It shared the same information as it had for her whole life.
"I think it was him!" The words were coming out of Annabeth quickly now, as if someone was pulling them from her mouth. "I think he's supposed to save my life in the future."
Piper was silent for a moment. This was what Annabeth had been dreading. The reaction. Was her friend going to freak out and tell her to track Percy down? Would she even believe her? Annabeth could barely believe it herself.
Piper looked back down at Annabeth's timer, counting down the seconds. Then she looked at Annabeth's face, as if she was searching for something. Her shirt collar had fallen off of her shoulder again, so she pushed it back up and then wrapped her arms around herself in a tight embrace. At last she opened her mouth.
"Oh," she said. "Hmm."
"Oh?" Annabeth echoed. She hadn't known what to expect, but she had expected more than that.
"Oh," Piper confirmed, nodding.
"That's all you're going to say to me? Oh?"
Piper shrugged defensively. "What else do you want me to say?"
"I don't know!" Annabeth said, somewhat frantically. This was not going according to plan. "Maybe that you believe me? Or that it's wonderful that I have this chance to possibly extend my life?" she said, trying not to raise her voice. Maybe she didn't want a huge reaction, but she did want something.
"Well, I don't know what to believe! I've never heard of anything like this happening before!"
"So you don't trust me? You think I'm lying," Annabeth accused, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
"Of course I trust you! I just—I don't know. I believe you think that it happened." Piper said, then shook her head. "That came out wrong."
Annabeth opened her mouth and closed it again. "So you think I made it up. That it's all in my head," she remarked bitterly. Piper shrugged helplessly.
"Annabeth, I would love to believe that it happened, you know that, but I just think you're worried about dy—your birthday, and that made you—" Piper said. Annabeth was starting to get angry. She thought, if anything, Piper would trust her judgement.
"Don't psychoanalyze me," she snapped. "I don't know why you would think that, but I'm not that fucking desperate! I'm not blind to the truth! Christ, I thought you might be excited for me, but you're not even willing to listen."
"Annabeth." Piper pleaded frustratedly, but Annabeth was already too confused about everything and she didn't want to admit that she had her own doubts about what she saw. She stood up, looking around for her bag. She didn't want to deal with this right now.
"Piper, I have to go. I just can't right now. I just…" Annabeth picked up her stuff and headed for the door.
"Annabeth, please! Annabeth! I'm sorry! Annabe—''
Annabeth slammed the door behind her and took off running down the hall, past the elevators, to take the stairs. When she left the building, it was dark and the smokers that had been there before had left, cigarette butts littering the place where they'd stood. Tears streamed down her face as she sank to the floor of the stairwell.
Stupid. Stupid. She banged her head against the wall. She knew she was being foolish. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I shouldn't have told her. I shouldn't have done any of that. I should have stayed and tried to talk through it. Her phone dinged: a text from Piper.
Piper- Annabeth, I'm sorry.
Annabeth turned off her phone. Stupid stupid stupid…
:::
Annabeth hadn't talked to Piper for three days. There were nineteen text messages on her phone, five voicemails and even an email, all from Piper and all unopened. She finally opened the text messages and scrolled through them.
I'm sorry.
Let's talk
Please
Annabeth
I'm worried about you.
Annabeth threw her phone under her mattress and planted her face into her pillow. She took a deep breath, taking in the smell of dryer sheets and the fancy citrus shampoo that she'd stolen from her mother the last time she had visited. It smelled like home, or something close to it. What she wouldn't give to be back there, or anywhere that wasn't here right now.
Even though her father was concerningly indifferent about her life, and her step mother ignored her and kicked her to the side like last week's laundry under the pretense that they didn't want "the pain that would come with losing her only daughter," she was still homesick. She hadn't been back to her father's house in San Francisco in years, but she still missed the ocean and being able to walk to the beach with her friends. She liked the dry heat in the middle of September and the chilly fog of the summers. She missed knowing where she stood and being in control of everything that went on in her life.
With the first semester of her last year of college starting, she wished more than ever for some stability. And more than anything, she wished for Piper to be her best friend again. She knew she wouldn't be able to get there without responding to Piper's texts and apologising, but she couldn't bring herself to do it yet. If she did, she knew she'd have to talk to Piper about her timer again.
So instead, she did what she did best: avoid her problems by burying herself in her schoolwork. She had completed her paper for her architecture-history class and was adding the finishing touches to a short story for her Creative Writing class, a course she only took to satisfy her English Language general requirement. With such a busy school schedule, she wanted to pick something that would be fun instead of frustrating.
Annabeth shook her head and closed her laptop. Nothing was coming to her tonight, just like nothing had come to her for the last three days. She knew she should get in touch with Piper, but her goddamn pride wouldn't let her. She chucked her laptop under her mattress with her phone—it seemed like that was the place she shoved all of her unwanted things. Maybe she should crawl under there as well.
:::
Annabeth turned in her short story for Intro to Creative Writing in the wire bin her teacher had set on a desk by the door. Professor Cavan had said she preferred hard copy to online files. Annabeth wasn't supremely happy with her story, but at least it was complete. Her professor smiled at her as she walked past. Annabeth pretended she didn't see it.
Professor Cavan stood at the front of the room, leaning back against her desk.
"First assignment done," she said, clasping her hands. She paused and a few people cheered half-heartedly. "Yes! It's official. The year has started. If you haven't turned in your assignment yet, please turn it in at the front of the room. For those who are not done yet, please see me after class. I also want to note, the add-drop period is ending this Friday, so you all have to decide if you want to stay in this class before then."
Annabeth looked around the room. Some people seemed to be paying attention to Professor Cavan while others were either lounging in the back or scrolling through their phones. A head of messy black hair caught her eye on the other side of the classroom. She squinted across the room, but the sound of chairs scraping broke her gaze as students began clearing out of the classroom.
Annabeth got up slowly and put her earbuds in. Maybe if she went slowly, she could catch that person on the other side of the room and see if it was really who she thought it was. Hoped it was. She hefted her bag onto her shoulder and started to leave, inching towards the door as she craned her neck.
"Annabeth." A voice from behind her captured her attention. Professor Cavan was the one who spoke. "Looking for someone?"
Annabeth startled. "No. I'm just... uh..."
The professor just nodded in understanding, smiling. "Of course," she said. "I look forward to reading your story. You seem like you have a very creative mind."
Annabeth smiled politely, as the rest of the students left and she realized she was alone in the room with Professor Cavan. "Thank you, I look forward to the rest of this class."
"I'm glad," Cavan said. "Now get going, I'm sure you have something else to be doing besides talking to an old lady like me." She waved Annabeth off smiling while Annabeth laughed awkwardly at her joke.
That Friday, Annabeth watched the Add/Drop period end and her class schedule solidify. She breathed out slowly in anticipation, but she wasn't thinking about Professor Cavan or even creative writing. Instead she was thinking about the shock of black hair she had seen out of the corner of her eye in the classroom. Like she had been for so many days before, she was thinking about Percy.
