Hello everyone! I'm so sorry for the delayed but this week has been extremely busy. This is chapter is the starting point to build their relationship once again, so be patient ;)

Thank you so much for your reviews. I adore reading them.

I do not own anything from Rick Riordan.

Chapter 26

"Whose idea was it to go to that club again?" Annabeth asked with her eyes closed, trying to ignore how the world was still spinning around her. She should have eaten something to diminish her drunken state.
"You've got to be kidding me," she heard Piper's voice from across the hallway.
Annabeth laughed weakly. "Relax. I'm trying to ease the situation." Although, usually, that's Percy's job, she thought. With her head still laying on his shoulder, Annabeth tried to peek at his face. Percy was on the same position he had been in when they sat on the waiting room, with his eyes focused on the small T.V on the corner (even if Annabeth was sure he wasn't really watching it), and his lips pressed in a thin line. "The club wasn't the problem anyway," She added, before focusing on Piper who was sitting in front of them with a magazine on her lap.
"You look horrible," she said, putting the magazine back on the small metal table.
"Thanks."
"Want some coffee?"
"Yes, please."
Piper stood up and shot a worried glance towards Percy. "And you?"
He shook his head. "I'm fine. But thanks."
Her eyes locked with Annabeth's for a second, before she nodded slightly and disappeared down the hallway that lead towards the cafeteria. Annabeth closed her eyes once again, and snuggled closer to Percy, welcoming his warmth.
She felt unusually cold, even while wearing Percy's heavy coat on top of her own. Piper said that she had spent a lot of time kneeling on the sidewalk under the cold night, before Percy showed up, but her cold was not superficial. She felt it deep on the inside. Like even her heart was frozen.
"Finally," she heard Percy whispering.
Annabeth slowly incorporated herself on her chair and followed Percy's gaze to a tired looking Will who was walking towards them, probably with her results on his hands. After her little crisis, Annabeth had forgotten almost everything about her. She didn't know where she lived, who her father was or where she was. Piper and Percy had taken her to the hospital, even if her memories started returning by the time they were on the car.
"I have good news and bad news," Will said, standing in front of them. "The good ones are that your brain is clear." He handed her the image. "Your memory loss was probably just your brain shutting down due to the abnormal amount of stress, and then it rebooted itself, which explains why you got your memories back fairly quick."
"And the bad ones?" she asked weakly.
Will raised an eyebrow. "That your brain shut down due to the abnormal amount of stress." He crossed his arms. "I thought you were seeing a therapist."
"I am," she said.
Percy cleared his throat dramatically loud.
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Maybe not as frequently as I should…" He cleared it again. "And maybe I haven't been regular in taking my meds. But I'm sure that today happened because I went to our old apartment, and it was bound to be stressful…" She saved for herself the part where she had talked to Ethan Nakamura. "It's not gonna happen again."
Will gave her a kind look, before saying, "You need rest. I'll give you a note for your sick leave…"
"That's not necessary," Annabeth said, earning a frown from both boys. "Will, I can't stay at home all the time. I'll end up losing my mind faster if I don't have anything else to do."
"You won't be doing nothing, Annabeth, you'll be taking care of yourself. That's work enough." He squeezed her shoulder. "You can leave now. I'll be in touch." He sent Percy a look before running back to work. Just then, Piper arrived with her coffee.
"What did he say?" she asked. Annabeth took a sip from the black nectar and sighed of relief.
"I need rest."
"That's it?" Piper asked. "Sounds easy."
"As if you didn't know her," Percy complained, and Annabeth shot him an annoyed look while Piper tried to suppress her smile. He sighed before standing up and saying, "Let's go. Piper, I'll drop you home."
HeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeyth
"I'm having a huge sense of Déjà vu." Annabeth said, as they drove quietly through the streets of Manhattan at dawn on a Saturday. "Partying at Kronos, spending the night on the hospital and you driving in the morning…It feels like it was a lifetime ago. Things were way different back then."
With her forehead pressed against the window, Annabeth wondered how everything had changed in so little time. She used to have her whole life planned, and she knew her priorities well. But now…she hadn't been so lost than it that moment. She smiled finding the whole thing funny.
She looked at Percy who was focused only on driving. "You're unusually quiet."
"And you unusually chatty." He answered, sarcastically.
"I'm trying to lighten the moment. It's been a tiresome night."
"There's no way to sugarcoat what happened, Annabeth. It was a serious thing."
"I know that" she argued.
"Do you really?" he asked, sourly. "Because your behavior in the last few weeks has said otherwise."
"What is your problem?!" Annabeth questioned him.
He shook his head. "I'm just mad."
"At me?"
"Yes," he said stopping at a read light. "At you, at me, at both of us."
"Why?" she asked softly.
He ran a hand through his hair. "This isn't the right time."
"Tell me," she begged.
"Why do you need to know everything now?" he asked, frustrated.
"Because I'm tired of keeping stuff from each other! I'm tired that we are always walking on thin ice, and I know that if I don't push you now, we'll keep going like this until we explode against the other."
"Okay, then yes. I am mad." He continued his voice full of irritation. "I'm mad at you for leaving me in Australia and deciding what was supposedly best for us without even letting me explain; I'm mad at me for letting you get away with it; and I'm mad at us for being so incredibly stupid, and for let all of this happen."
He took a deep breath and his grip on the wheel finally relaxed. Annabeth just continued to look outside the window, deciding it was best just to listen to him.
"I should have been there," He whispered. "If we hadn't been apart, none of these would have happened. But instead, you had the worst night of your entire life while I was in that stupid Christmas party, too angry at you for not calling sooner. So, I didn't pick up. And it rang and rang, and I just wanted you to feel what I had felt all those months away from you."
He took a shaky breath and Annabeth wanted to surround him with her arms. "It wasn't your fault…"
"I saw you had left me a voicemail when I woke up." He continued. "I was tempted to erase it, but I just wanted to hear your voice again on Christmas morning." His words died and he didn't need to continue for Annabeth to know what happened next.
"You had no way of knowing," she said. "You shouldn't blame yourself. I was the one who pushed you away."
"You know that's not how it works." He muttered taking the last turn to his home. "Or isn't that what you're feeling towards Luke's death?"
His words hit her right in her heart.
He was right.
He knew her well.
Neither of them said another word, as Percy parked in front of his home. They climbed the stairs at a slow pace, Annabeth walking a few steps behind him. They finally entered the place Annabeth had been also considering hers, and the first thing she decided was to take a hot bath.
For some reason, she left the bathroom door open, in case Percy didn't feel comfortable enough to leave her alone in a small room. Not that it mattered, since he went straight to bed to take a nap, but she still felt safer that way. Once her entire body was covered in hot water, she closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.
She must have had fallen asleep, because next time she opened them someone was shaking her shoulder slightly and the water was cold.
"You're gonna hurt your neck." Percy whispered.
She tried moving her head and winced. "Too late." Her fingers were like raisins and her body was a bit sore. Before getting up, Annabeth took a moment to fully wake herself, and hugged her knees before looking at Percy who had knelt on the floor beside her, his eyes surrounded by dark circles.
"How did you know?" she asked, softly.
He frowned. "You weren't in bed."
She laughed, "Not that, silly. That I was having a panic attack. How did you know?"
He grimaced. "Ah, that. I had a few of those when I was a kid. Not as severe as yours but they weren't nice."
"Was it because of Smelly Gabe?"
Percy chuckled and she felt instantly better. "Yeah."
"How did you deal with them? I bet you didn't go to a therapist."
He narrowed his eyes. "I didn't, but I dealt with it in a much less healthy way. I was always looking for fights and I was a very impulsive kid. I caused my mom a lot of heart attacks. At the end, I got better for her. We helped each other."
Annabeth nodded, the cold water starting to make her soreness worse. "Can you pass me a towel and some comfy clothes, please?" she asked.
Percy nodded. He gave her some privacy as she finished drying herself and then putting some comfortable clothes. She smiled when she noticed he had brought her one of his old rock shirts.
He was sitting on the bed when she finally got out, playing with the bracelet he had given her in her birthday. She always took it off before washing herself.
"You said you were tired of keeping stuff from each other." He said, his eyes connecting with hers.
She nodded.
"Did something happen in the club?" he asked, and Annabeth noticed he was desperate to know the truth. She knew that he just wanted to help. And he was Percy for gods sake. If she couldn't be honest with him, then with whom?
"I found one of Luke's friends. He told me some bad stuff about him." She swallowed. "Stuff that I already suspected, but I wanted so badly to be false. I guess, I wanted to believe he could change, and therefore people were able to change." She took a shaky breath. "Guess I'll never know the answer to that."
"You've changed." Percy said.
"For now. Who knows if one day I'll go back to my old-self?"
"You won't." He stated, putting her bracelet back in the nightstand and then he went to close the blinds. "You should rest," he said. "We both should."
Annabeth didn't want to. She was scared the visions would come back as nightmares. But she had already caused him too much trouble, and she probably needed the sleep.
She laid on the improvised bed, despite Percy's allegations, and closed her eyes ignoring the sunlight passing through the blinds. She felt the bed move, and pictured Percy's heavy body finally resting against the mattress.
She tried to sleep. She really did. But memories came flooding her head, like a current bringing down the weak dam she had tried to build in the last hours. Luke's memories were suffocating and extremely loud in her head.
You need to think about something else, she told herself.
But what?
The bed creaked as Percy shifted again.
An idea came to her. She had tried desperately to block any kind of potent memories about Percy and her, hoping not to make her heartache worse. But what if that was the solution?
She broke another dam, and this time new memories flooded her head. The way the bed would creak every time they share one of their many intimate moments. How they would cuddle up at night, trying to watch a movie, but they would both fell asleep. When she finally convinced him to play Monopoly with her on the bed, and he threw the board across the room when Annabeth got her first hotel and he fell on it. And how well he knew how to play with her body, making her both love him and hate him.
Her eyes opened.
She couldn't take it any longer.
Percy opened his eyes when he felt her standing up. "What's wrong?" he asked alarmed.
"Move," Annabeth said, grabbing his bed cover and crawling her way into his bed. Luckily, Percy didn't question her petition and quickly made room for her. Her heart warmed up as they were once again under the same sheets.
She found him cute as he kept a comfortable distance between them, but she was done feeling cold and awkward. She shimmied closer looking for his warmth, until her hands were practically touching his chest. She couldn't put into the words how incredible it felt to be back with him on his bed. Still, she was scared he wasn't as comfortable as her.
"Sorry," she whispered. "I'm tired of sleeping cold and alone. I missed your warmth"
He took a sharp breath, and Annabeth was scared for a moment that she had crossed a line. But was happily surprised when instead he opened his arms and she moved into his embrace.
"I missed it too," were the last words she heard before her body finally gave in to exhaustion.
HeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeyth
The warm weather finally arrived, and Annabeth couldn't be more excited about it. She had been waiting for the sun with so much passion, that she even agreed to have a closet make-over with Piper for the new season.
Annabeth was even scared of how much she was liking her pouf red dress as she walked through the busy streets of Manhattan, in search of the restaurant Malcolm had suggested they had lunch in.
Once she found it, they sat on a little corner with a busy view to the street and they ordered their favorite pasta.
"Gods, Annabeth. It's been so long." Malcom said, once they were alone.
"It has." she said smiling.
"You look great. And short hair suits you," he said, signaling Annabeth's new shoulder length hair cut.
"Thanks! I wanted to try something different." She said, gratefully accepting the compliment. It had been Piper's idea to cut her hair. She had been hesitant at the beginning, but her curls did stand up more. "You look nice too."
He chuckled. "Thanks."
"So," Annabeth started, after they got their drinks. "Tell me everything."
It felt good talking to Malcolm again. Both had lost connection for a long time after she had been fired from her old job, but two months ago, Annabeth had had the sudden urge of reconnecting with her old colleagues.
He told her about the big projects he had done in the last year and how Aurora had promoted him after scoring a big deal with a new hospital in Mississippi.
"You deserved it." Annabeth assured.
"Yeah, well…It's nice." He gave her a small smile. "We missed you, you know. The office almost fell apart the first few months without you. I was sure someone was going to set it on fire or something…"
She laughed. "I can imagine. I've missed you too. It's been a couple of rough months. I just wished Aurora made my sacrifice count, and got a good deal with Pallas…"
Malcolm finished his drink and said, "She didn't."
"What?"
"Athena decided not to continue with the project, once you were fired."
Annabeth blinked. "That doesn't make any sense. Did Aurora show her a design she didn't like?"
"As far as I know, she didn't give a reason why."
"Did she build it with someone else?"
Malcolm shrugged. "Don't know. The only thing I can tell you, is that she was more interested in you, than in the project. Don't ask me why."
Annabeth frowned. "That's weird."
"It is."
Why would she want to build something with them, and quit immediately after Annabeth was gone?
"Can you get me her number?" Annabeth asked Malcolm.
He joined his blond eyebrows. "Uh, maybe I can ask Meghan. Why?"
"I need to place a lawsuit, and she's the best lawyer in the country."
"Also, the most expensive one," He remarked.
"You said she was interested in me. Maybe we can both benefit from it."
Malcolm smiled. "Maybe. Why the lawsuit?"
"I worked for a couple of months in a horrible firm. I want to stop them before they can really hurt someone."
He whistled. "Well, if there's something I can do to help, count me in."
"I will, thanks."
"And what are you doing now?"
Annabeth sighed. "Nothing currently. I have a small job to pay rent, but places have been scarce in the architecture world. Plus, I'm taking some time to myself."
"I respect that," he said, nodding. Then he pursed his lips and looked for something in his wallet. "I went to an expo recently," He started saying. "And there were several incredible firms from all over the world. I met a guy who is becoming very famous in complex structures, and he was looking for people to assist him in his projects." He got a little business card and passed it to her. "I think you can achieve great things with him…if you're interested."
"Daedalus?" she read out loud.
"He's a bit crazy, but a good guy. Only thing is, his offices are not in New York. He has a bunch in Europe though."
Annabeth bit her lip. She had been designing a lot lately, to the point where Percy had to be careful where he put his cup of coffee in the morning, since their whole apartment was covered in sketches.
His, she corrected herself. His apartment.
"Right." She put the card on her own wallet. "I'll think about it. Thanks, anyway."
HeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeyth
Annabeth closed her eyes as a soft breeze crept through the open window, moving the windchimes slightly, and letting a sweet set of tones fill the room.
"What did Percy say when you turned his house into a hippie paradise?" Piper asked, sipping from her wine. They were both sitting on the floor with their legs crossed, enjoying an afternoon together.
"It's not hippie. I just tried for something a little more bohemian. And he didn't say anything," she smiled. "He barely noticed it. Besides, I don't know what you're complaining about, since you were the one who helped me choose the new decoration in the local market."
"That's because I am more bohemian, and you're more of a black, white and grey kind of person. That's why it was strange for me. Ugh," she said, as she tried to detangle the mess she had made with her threads of wool. She put the piece that was supposed to be a sweater down and grabbed her glass. "I give up. I can't weave, and I don't how you do it. You're a goddess at this."
Annabeth stopped weaving the colorful basket and looked at her friend with amusement. "It just takes a lot of practice."
"Well, I'm not patient enough, so I'll just call you next time one of my buttons comes off." She finished her glass of wine, before standing up and going to fetch another bottle from the fridge.
Annabeth sighed, before leaving her basket on her side and said, "How about you help me again in my search for a new place?"
"Have you told Percy you're planning to leave?" Piper asked as she took off the cork.
"Nop."
"Then no."
"Why?" Annabeth asked exasperated.
"Because what if Percy tells you he doesn't want you to leave? It'll be a total waste of time then."
"He's obviously not gonna tell me he wants me to leave! He's too kind for that. But I've been here for more than three months, Piper. I feel like I'm taking advantage of him."
Her friend filled her glass before walking back to their place on the floor with the bottle on her hand. She started filling Annabeth's.
"You know I can't drink more than one if I'm taking my meds." She said, sighing.
"Only this one time," Piper said, winking.
"Percy's gonna kill me," Annabeth joked, taking a big sip. "So, about getting a new place…"
"I know," she said. "I would feel like a parasite too."
"I didn't use those words, but okay…"
"It's just that things are going too well between you two, and I was kind of hoping you would agree on moving together. You've been so much better in the last months, and you even got your curves back." Annabeth laughed, and Piper continued, "He's good for you."
She raised an eyebrow. "Am I good for him though?"
"You can if you really want to."
Annabeth looked at the ship in the bottle, she had bought him for their first Christmas together.
"Maybe you're right. But we have just reached the point where we are good friends again, and I don't want to screw that up for being a bad girlfriend." She took a deep breath. "I want to prove to myself that I can be good for him, before going any further."
Piper played with her feather for a bit before nodding. "Makes sense, I guess."
"Besides, we don't know if he still likes me that way."
"Oh, please," she rolled her eyes. "Lately, I've caught him drooling just by looking at you." Piper squinted her eyes at the entrance door. "Where is he anyway? I thought he was working at home."
"Swimming," Annabeth answered looking at her watch. "He still meets with his ex-teammates to have friendly training sessions and small competitions."
"Good for him," she pursed her lips. "We should try a physical activity ourselves."
"Like what?"
"I thought you were boxing. Don't you want to go back? Maybe I can join you this time."
"That'd be nice." She took another sip. "I'll talk to my old trainer about it. But it has to be in the mornings, since I can't skip my therapy sessions and I have to work at night."
Annabeth looked at her watch once again. "And…talking about my job, I have to get ready now."
"Oh, come on." Piper protested. "They won't mind if you are late once in your life. You didn't even take the sick leave!"
"Because I didn't need it."
She picked up the empty glasses and went to put them in the sink. "You don't have time for me lately." Piper pouted.
"I do," she said while washing the cups.
"Then let's do something this weekend."
Annabeth grimaced. "I can't. I promised Percy I would accompany him in taking Estelle to the Brooklyn aquarium."
"I thought he hated aquariums."
"He does." She laughed. "But Estelle loves them, and he does anything for her. So…"
"Okay, fine. Just because I like Percy's little sister. She's a force to reckon with. I guess I'll ask Jason to do something with me."
"Why does it sound like you don't want to ask him?" Annabeth asked, with a grimace.
"Oh no, I do. He's just been really on his nerves lately, and he's not telling me why, which really bothers me."
"Ask him."
"I did, and he said it was work stuff. I didn't believe him, but I decided to let it go. Still, I don't if I wanna do something with him and his anxiety."
"Have you wondered that maybe that's what he needs? A fun night-out with his girlfriend?"
Piper took a deep breath. "Yeah, you're right. I'll ask him."
HeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeyth
"Annie look! That's a Cownose ray!" Estelle yelled, pushing aside other kids that were trying to watch the animals too.
"How do you know? Did Percy tell you?" Annabeth asked, watching the creature's route.
"Nah. Read it in a book."
"Ouch," she whispered to Percy who was also following the poor ray with his eyes. "Your whole career replaced by a book."
He sent her an annoyed look, but a small smirk was plastered on his lips. "Why can't I call you Annie?" he complained.
"Because when your sister says it, sounds cute. When you say it, sounds creepy."
He pouted. "No, it doesn't"
Annabeth shrugged. "Try it."
"Ann…"
"Nop." She grimaced. "Sounds horrible."
He frowned. "You didn't let me finish."
"It does sound bad." Estelle said, giggling at him.
"Whose side are you on?" Percy inquired.
"The winning side!"
Annabeth exploded in laughter as they moved to another exhibition. They had spent an amazing day, with Estelle blurting out random facts and Percy listening proudly while Annabeth tried hard not to get too used to the situation because, apparently, Estelle still thought they were a couple.
"You didn't tell her?" Annabeth had asked Percy on the car, while Estelle was distracted counting the red cars she saw on the street.
"I thought my mom had," he had explained. "I can tell her now, if you feel uncomfortable…"
"It's okay." She'd quickly said, avoiding his eyes. "In what would that help, anyway?"
Luckily, kids weren't too eager in seeing other people touching hands or kissing, so Estelle hadn't noticed anything wrong with their behavior as a 'couple'.
They continued upstairs to the reef room and Estelle quickly joined a group of children listening to a woman talk about seahorses. Annabeth slowly moved along the exhibition seeing every little detail. It was nice, but it didn't compare to a real one, now that she had seen it. She used to love aquariums, but now she was beginning to understand Percy.
Talking about the devil…
"You have your thinking face on." Percy said, appearing next to her as she stopped in front of the small fish tank.
She frowned. "I have one?"
"Oh, yeah. You scrunch up your eyebrows, bite your lip and play with whatever jewelry you have on." Annabeth paused, and noticed she was, indeed, doing all the things he had mentioned. He smiled. "So, what are you thinking?"
"I'm just wondering if you ever get bored in that tank," she commented, smiling at his confused face. She pointed to a bunch of seaweed poking off the ground, waiting for his confused expression to turn into an accomplice one. "Get it? Because you are a Seaweed Brain after all."
Percy chuckled and said, "It loses the point if you explain it, Wise Girl."
"According to whom?"
"Uh, to the universal laws of humor?" he said in an obvious tone.
"How would you know about that? Your jokes suck."
Instead of replying, Percy slowly narrowed his eyes at her and Annabeth's heart stopped. She knew that look.
"Don't you dare…" she started warning him, but it was too late. He attacked her by tickling her weaker spots, and Annabeth had no choice but to laugh and try to get away from him. "Stop…we're…causing…a scene." She said between laughs.
She tried to push him away, but he grabbed both her wrists and pulled her closer, realizing too late what he had just done. Their faces were too close to each other, their hearts beating loudly and their breathing quickened. She would only have to leaned forward a bit, and finally remember what his lips tasted like…
Instead, she cleared her throat and Percy reluctantly let her go. She fixed her clothes as they continued to stare at the swimming fish in silence.
"You ruined it," Annabeth blurted out, earning a look of panic from Percy. "I used to love aquariums, but now that you've shown me how beautiful the open ocean is, I just think about how sad and bored the poor fish must be."
His eyes softened. "Yeah, it's sad. But it's nice that you're thinking that way. Guess your trip to Australia wasn't a complete disaster."
"You kidding? I had such a great time. I finally understood what you saw in the ocean, and why you wanted so bad to study it." She sighed. "That's why I knew you belonged there, and that you would achieve a happiness you couldn't find here in New York. I didn't want to be the reason why you gave that up."
Percy kept staring at the little clownfish swimming close to its anemone.
Annabeth shrugged. "But it wasn't my decision to make. It was yours, and I took it away from you."
It was the first time she had addressed the issue, since they had been reunited. For some reason, she wasn't scared or hurt anymore. She wanted to talk about with full honesty and normality. Why she had decided to do it in the middle of an aquarium? She had no idea. Those meds had really made her bold.
Once the orange fish was back into its anemone, Percy replied, "I always understood why you did it, Annabeth. And you were right about many things. We both have a different view of the future. I've always known that…"
Annabeth held her breath.
"But, unlike you, I was willing to build a third option of the future with you."
It was the truth, but that didn't prevent the feeling of being stabbed in her heart with a cold knife. She had screwed up. Percy had given her countless of opportunities and she had wasted them all.
"Percy, I…"
"Can we go see the otters now?" Estelle asked running back to them and grabbing Percy's hands.
His eyes locked with Annabeth's, and she gave him a little nod. That day was supposed to be about Estelle, not about her mistakes.
HeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeythereimalinebreakenjoyyourdayHeyth
"I think we read the instructions wrong…" Annabeth said, eyeing with suspicion the extremely dark blue color.
"There were instructions?" Percy said, licking the silicon spoon full of cookie mix. Annabeth noticed the almost empty container of food coloring by his side.
"Gods, you're such a Seaweed Brain. Yes, there were instructions. The ones you mother gave us, and you completely ignored?"
He shrugged. "I think it looks good."
"It seems radioactive." Annabeth said laughing. "We can't send a picture of this to your mom. She was hopeful we would be able to cook her famous recipe, and we have failed."
"Nah, we were never going to be able to do it. My mom is the only one capable of nailing blue food"
"Then why did you ask her to give us the recipe?"
After dropping a sleepy Estelle back at his parent's home, Percy had asked for some of her mom's famous cookies. Sally, however, had been too busy writing her new book, and had no time to bake. So, Percy had had the wonderful idea of trying to do them themselves.
But someone had poured the entire blue tint on the mix.
"It seemed fun." He said putting the clean spoon on his sink.
"Well, now it's a mess," she said, watching the color of her gloves.
"It's just a little color," he said chuckling, and Annabeth grimaced at his hands. He had decided to wear gloves himself, and now they looked like the ones of a Smurf.
"It's not gonna come off easily. You're lucky you're working at home, and your whole office is not gonna see your new Avatar hands." She said wrinkling her nose and starting to build the balls of dough.
He smirked, leaning against the counter. "You're just jealous that I got to live the full experience, while you hid behind your gloves."
She rolled her eyes. "Sure."
"C'mon, Annabeth! Take off your gloves, loose up a little."
"No, thanks. I rather remain uptight and color-free."
He pursed his lips and tried changing the song that was coming off the speaker with his elbows. Annabeth continued to make the shape of the cookies and she unconsciously started dancing at the beat of the music.
"What, in hades, are those moves?" Percy asked, amused.
"My trademark moves." She answered, without stopping.
"I never saw them before."
"They are new."
"No no no no," he said shaking his head. "Reyna would kill you if she saw you dancing like that." He took a step closer. "Let me remind you how's done."
Annabeth stepped back. "Keep your smurfy hands away from me."
He smiled mischievously. "Or what?"
"Or your hands are not gonna be the only blue thing today."
He laughed. "I think we can both play that game."
He lunged forward, and Annabeth managed to evade his grasp by just a bit. "Put that down." Annabeth said trying to suppress her smile when she saw Percy grabbing the blue coloring bottle. "If you ruin our furniture, Perseus Jackson…"
He cupped his hand around his right hear. "Excuse me, ours? Last time I checked this is my place, and I decide what turns blue tonight."
It was a messy war. Annabeth grabbed whatever she could to stop Percy from spraying blue coloring all over, but somehow, he always managed to get some drops on her. By the end of it, they were both laughing on the floor, full of blue spots all over their clothes and bodies.
"You're so annoying," Annabeth said, sitting up and watching with amusement the new blue spots on her hair.
He chuckled. "You love me for it."
Annabeth's heart stopped at his words, and Percy closed his eyes in frustration when he realized what he had just said. He also sat on the floor and said, "Sorry. Still a sensible word."
A true one though, she thought.
"It's okay. We need to start getting used to it anyway."
How she missed saying those words.
Percy began tapping his finger nervously on the floor and Annabeth smiled at the familiar gesture. "If you wanna ask me something, go ahead."
He smiled painfully, and cleared his throat while looking away. "I heard you're looking for a new place…"
Annabeth's eyes widened."Jason told me," he explained further. "Apparently, Piper has been complaining a lot about your decision."

"Dammit, Piper," she muttered. "Sorry, but I was waiting for the right moment to tell you."

"You're not a prisoner, Annabeth. You can leave whenever you want, and more so if you're feeling better."

She smiled gratefully. "I am feeling better. You took great care of me."

To be honest, Annabeth didn't want to move. Percy had been the only constant thing in her life for the last few months, and she felt centered and warm while he was around. However, their conversation in the aquarium had made it clear for her that Percy was tired of waiting for her to decide if he was important enough in her life and continuing to stay in his place would only make him feel played.

Even if he was one of the most important things in her life; Even if she had regretted not staying with him in Australia: Even if he told her to move to the north pole with him, she would start packing her bags immediately.

But it was too late, and Annabeth was sure he wouldn't believe her if she confessed all that.

"I'm gonna take a shower," Percy stated, standing up and then grabbing a few things from his closet, before disappearing behind the bathroom door.

To distract herself, Annabeth started cleaning up the mess they had left. She laughed at the now ruined bohemian pillows and decided to leave them just for the sake of the memory. She suspected her precious moments with Percy would disappear if she moved out, since both of them would start living in different worlds, and she would stop being one of his priorities.

She stopped for one moment and looked at the ship on his desk. Okay, maybe she had screwed up her changes of having Percy as her significant other, but she could still have him as a close friend.

And she was going to make sure it stayed that way.