Chapter fifteen! I'm going to go out and say that I think I'm ending this ol' thing at chapter twenty. So, brace yourself…I guess I can't add some of the stuff I wanted to add. Well. We'll see at the epilogue, whenever that arrives… (a.k.a. December 24th, 20-20.)
BTW, the Jason Grace Wiki is made up, and does not exist.
Also, this chapter does include a spoiler for the Tower of Nero. I have kindly marked the spoiler zone in BLACK BOLD LETTERING much like that. You have been warned.
Daughter of Sally Jackson: Yep! That idea goes to the beta reading, the lovely Ellie.
Home Alone is great! I finally got my dad to let me watch it again...sigh.
SunBear: Lol. Your reviews are always weird. (In a good way.) Muteness...that part was very odd. Eh.
Yes, I do know who you're talking about, and I do know that they got together. Apparent Jasper wrenches make my beta reader want to cry, so I couldn't throw in anymore. Well. Except this next chapter hehehehehe.
Yep, those darned Se users... you should watch Home Alone. It's great. Yep. Christmas movie and all.
I'm glad it does, otherwise that would be...OOC behavior, and that's never good. We shall see...*cough cough* Mangora *cough cough*
Almost like Papavuri...sigh. If only someone knew what I was talking about.
Yes. Until later today or tomorrow, when you will review judging on your habits. :)
Poseidon1702: Percy is awesome. Yeah...I have two cats too, but they're practically in love. Yesterday they were chasing each other around and pulling the felt ornaments off my Christmas tree...sigh.
Thanks, you too.
Readingbooksforlife: Hmm...that's true. Mango is a god(dess.)
ThatGirlWithaCat: ...I sure hope so, you're the one who suggested the cat.
Percy's POV:
"So how was your evening?" Percy asked as his roommate and cousin unlocked the door. Jason shrugged.
"We found a stray. Piper is probably begging her roommate Annabeth to let her keep it. It went pretty well." Percy raised his eyebrows.
"So why don't you sound happy?" Jason almost walked into a cabinet. Percy smirked. "I thought you liked Piper."
"I do like Piper," Jason protested. "But she's not…"
"She's not a movie star or someone who's going to catapult your fame? Cause Jase, I don't think you need one. After all, what did you expect by going on a blind date in this place? I'm surprised you didn't get some fangirl."
"No…Piper's a fangirl. But she doesn't go crazy, and she's really cute about it. She'll say something about me, and I'll ask her how she knows, and she'll blush because I talked about it in an interview or she read it off my Wiki page."
"You have a Wiki page?" Jason flushed.
"Well, uh…the Jason Grace wiki." Percy rolled his eyes, reaching for his phone. "No, don't you dare-" Percy stared at a large picture of his cousin's face. "Seriously."
"So what's wrong with Piper, then?" Percy asked, having decided he'd seen enough of the creepiness on the Jason Grace wiki. "Is she just not good enough for you?" he wasn't sure about his opinion on Piper McLean- who was apparently Tristan McLean's daughter according to the world wide web and the guy who was dating her- but she didn't deserve some sort of celebrity standard if Jason had developed one.
"She's not…"
"What?" Percy prodded. Jason sighed.
"She's not Reyna." Percy stared. This? Of all the reasons Jason wasn't going to continue going out with his girlfriend, he wouldn't think it would be her.
"Man, you have to get over it."
"Reyna's my soulmate," Jason protested weakly.
"You don't love her, dude. You dated Reyna for four months before you broke it off with her because you couldn't find that spark and disappeared off the map for a while- which you never told me about by the way-, do you really see yourself marrying her?" Jason was silent. "How do you even know she's your soulmate?"
"I can feel it. And her eyes. And she felt it too, she told me. She could have loved me, she said, who am I to let that go and hurt her?"
"You already hurt Reyna. To go down that path again would just be cruel. You have to live a little. Let go. I see more happiness in your eyes with Piper than I ever saw with Reyna; what even brought this on?"
"…she called me," Jason admitted. "She wants to try things again." He paused. "I thought you believed in soulmates."
"I do," Percy said simply. "I just don't think Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano is the soulmate you've been looking for." Jason shrugged slowly, Percy could practically hear him thinking. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with Piper, is there?"
"No," Jason said.
"Then why consider dumping her for some other girl?"
"That other girl is my soulmate, Percy. Is it fair to give up on her?"
Percy looked at him- noticing a smudge of a woman's lipstick around his mouth and the happy look in his eyes. "I think you already have."
Annabeth's POV – One Week After:
"Annabeth, I have a problem!" Piper called, slamming the door of their apartment behind her as she came home, slinging her scarf at the nearest object, which happened to be the couch in their living room. Mango, curled up in a lump, blinked at her lazily, looking miffed.
The tuxedo hadn't really forgiven Piper for bringing a foreign cat into the house- much less a female- and wasn't really sure about Mango yet from what Annabeth had seen of their interactions- which were cautious and sometimes filled with Mango's hissing. Annabeth wasn't sure where the other cat was at the moment, but Pandora, from what Annabeth had seen, had not been a happy stray.
"Well, what is it?" Annabeth asked, clicking off of Nameberry's list of popular girl names and turning to her roommate and friend. There was an uncharacteristic worry in Piper's eyes, Annabeth didn't think she'd ever seen Piper like this. "What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything!" Piper defended herself, before deflating. "I met my soulmate." Annabeth stared at her for a moment. Here? New Pine Creek? Wow, what are the chances?
"What? Who? When? Where? How?" Annabeth asked. Piper held up her hands- a slow down gesture. Annabeth took a deep breath. "Tell me everything."
TOWER OF NERO SPOILER ZONE- READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Piper looked almost miserable. "I was shopping up in Portland for Christmas-"
"It's November," Annabeth told her.
"I was shopping up in Portland for Christmas," Piper said again, "to get an early start. I was at this department store looking for something for Jason-" Annabeth winced- "and I went to the checkout counter to buy him this sweater." She pulled it out of her bag and hugged it to her chest as if for support. "And I was writing out a check for it and my pen exploded." Looking closer, Annabeth could see faded ink smudges- as if Piper had washed them out before coming home. "And the ink stains on me appeared on…" Piper hesitated, "her."
Annabeth kept her face neutral. "So…what does this mean?" Piper was at a loss for words for a moment, keeping her eyes fixed on the sweater.
"I don't know," Piper said, "I have an amazing boyfriend, and he's Jason Grace, my celebrity crush, and he's so sweet and he treats me so well. I wasn't even looking for my soulmate, and now I found them and they're a she, which is so confusing, and now I don't know what to do. You know I always wanted to find that soulmate love, and it's the wrong time!" Piper went from miserable to frustrated in a blink. "Ugh, I just hate life sometimes." Annabeth didn't know what to say.
"What did you do after that?"
"I was just kinda in shock. And the girl kept staring at me and the ink and people were staring at us and whistling and I didn't know what to do, so I just paid for the stupid sweater with cash and ran."
Piper set down her bag, shoving the receipt at Annabeth. "And I totally overpaid for this thing." Annabeth took the receipt.
"Uh, I think she left you her phone number." Annabeth said, gazing at the digits smudged and scrawled at the bottom of the receipt. "Her name is Shel."
THE TOWER OF NERO SPOILER ZONE ENDS HERE.
Piper was a wreck. She hadn't left New Pine Creek since the week she met her soulmate and was debating talking to Jason about it. The way Annabeth saw it, how could she not? This was her soulmate. Jason deserved to know. And Annabeth knew Piper had always wanted a soulmate that loved her, more than anyone else ever could.
Even Jason Grace.
The knocking on the door startled Annabeth from her staring fixedly from her computer screen to Mango's and Pandora's staring match and back. Piper was in their room, working, she'd told Annabeth, on college work, though there was no music to be heard. She hadn't talked about the soulmate problem since the day the two had met, and Annabeth knew Piper was deliberating about meeting.
She'd talked to Percy a few times in the past two weeks since Pandora had come home; and while something in her still screamed for her to distance herself, she hadn't- she wasn't sure where she and Percy were, either. They hadn't had a second (or third if you counted the disaster date) date yet, either. She was beginning to think he'd lost interest.
"Oh! …Jason," Annabeth said weakly. "Are you here for Piper?" the blond man shook his head but glanced inside, noting Mango and Pandora's tentative staring match.
"Actually, I wanted to ask a favor of you. Actually…two favors." Curious now, Annabeth closed the door quietly and stepped into the hall with Jason.
"Fire away."
"Well, I wanted to thank you- for setting Piper and I up. I admit I didn't expect it to go anywhere at first and thought about cancelling it, but it led to something great. I hoped I could return the favor by setting you up with a friend of mine. He's not a creep, or a famous dude, and I think you two would be a good match." Jason sensed Annabeth's hesitancy. "But if not, that's fine too." Annabeth wasn't hesitant about the idea- but she had a…sort of relationship? Was what she and Percy sort of had a relationship, anyway?
"Oh. Well…sure. I mean, it's just a blind date. Thank you." Jason seemed relieved. Annabeth gestured for him to go on. "You said there was something else…?"
"Oh. Right." Jason seemed more reluctant on this one. "I'm not sure if Piper's told you…but things between me and her have been…sort of strained." Annabeth tried to play surprised, but wasn't sure how well she was doing. "I'm not really sure what it is, and I'm not going to ask you if you know, but she's not really talking to me, and, well, you're her roommate. I hoped you'd ask her to meet me on the roof tonight. I think the two of us need to talk." Annabeth smiled at him, Jason blissfully unaware of the torment in his girlfriend's mind.
"Of course, I'll pass along the message. Thanks, Jason. Hopefully, Piper will be seeing you tonight."
"He wants to meet me tonight?!" Piper yelped. "On the roof? But-" Annabeth laid a hand on her friend's shoulder, quieting Piper's panicking. "But I don't know what to do!"
"You have to go talk to him, Pipes." Annabeth said firmly. "He told me he thought the two of you should talk…" Piper's face fell slightly.
"No, that's never good…did he say what about? Oh God, he's breaking up with me, Annabeth he's going to break up with me," Annabeth snapped her fingers in front of Piper's face.
"Get a grip on yourself. If he breaks up with you, he breaks up with you."
"But I don't want him to break up with me-" Piper started to say. Annabeth rolled her eyes.
"Then you're going to go onto the roof and show him why he shouldn't break up with Piper McLean." A fire shone in Piper's multi hued eyes.
"Alright." She gave Annabeth a weak smile. "Thanks, Beth. I'm sorry I've been so scattered lately, I just don't know what to do…" Annabeth gave her a smile she hoped was reassuring.
"I know."
In the background, Mango stepped forward and gave the new cat in the house a small lick on the top of her head as Annabeth gave Piper a hug.
Annabeth turned her head to stare at the cats and smile lightly, after all, if Mango could find it in herself to accept another cat into her home, then Annabeth could give Jason's friend a chance, and Piper could figure things out.
"Hey," one of the two people standing on the roof says softly, slowly. "Annabeth said you wanted to talk to me."
"Yeah. Uh…I think we should probably have the soulmate…conversation." The other looks vaguely uncomfortable.
"I think that would be best."
"Well…before I met you, I was with her for four months. Her name is Reyna. You may better know her as the governor."
"Annabeth talked about her once." One recalls. They pause. "Did you like her?"
"She was my soulmate." The other defends. "Of course I liked her." The silence overwhelms them both. "But not as much as I like you." One thinks- why is this so hard? Sweetness is all very well until one of them gets hurt. They give the other a smile, but it's too weak. The tilt of their lover's head brings them back to Earth. "You?"
"I don't…know." One says weakly. "We've…never met." It's a lie. But if they do meet…they won't know what to do.
"We're not soulmates," the other says uncomfortably. There's a sigh.
"I know."
There's a last squeeze of the hand and a small, tentative smile. The smaller of the two leans their head on the other's shoulder, and the two gaze up at the stars.
So. If you didn't read the Tower of Nero spoiler zone, because you haven't read Tower of Nero, here's what happened: Piper and Annabeth talked about Piper's soulmate.
It's kind of lame. Eh. What's that? I forgot to give you a song to listen to for this chapter? That's preposterous! :D Let's go with 'In These Crazy Times', written by John Lodge (formerly of the Moody Blues) during the 2020 quarantine.
Guten Tag!