II – About Time

In which Percy and Annabeth's friendship was rock solid, until the day that it wasn't.

Some Kind of AU | Third Person

Nine years, one-hundred and three days, and give or take fifteen minutes.

That's how long Percy and Annabeth lived the best years of their lives.

Exactly five years to the minute.

That's how long it's been since either one has said a word to the other.

Their once rock-solid friendship shouldn't have ended the way it did. If you asked those around them, they were not only inseparable, but a perfect pairing. Like peanut butter and jelly, cookies and milk, popcorn and melted butter. But better. Way better. They knew each other like the backs of their hands, they could not only finish but also start each other's sentences, and if telepathy were a thing, they'd definitely have it. In other words, they were the perfect pair of friends.

Until the day they fell in love with each other.

How, when, or why it happened doesn't matter. Not anymore. What does matter is what happened because of it.

And what exactly did happen?

Well, it wasn't pretty.

The rather sucky thing about falling in love with your best friend is that you immediately find yourself at a crossroads: you can either tell them, find out they don't feel the same way, and effectively ruin your friendship, or you can keep it a secret, and live with a constant desire for more that'll tear you apart and put a strain on the friendship. Obviously, there is another possibility in which in you confess your feelings and things work out beautifully, but there's too much risk.

For both Percy and Annabeth, the risk was not worth the reward.

And so they both kept silent, living their best lives with their best friends while simultaneously tearing themselves up over their feelings. With every act of friendship; every smile, every hug, every touch of the hand; they couldn't help but think about a future they could hope for but never get.

If only they knew what the other was thinking.

So much for telepathy, huh?

As you might have expected, Percy and Annabeth could only take the pain of suppressing their love for so long. In a perfect world, Percy would have awkwardly confessed with a bouquet of flowers, stumbling over his words. Or maybe Annabeth would have made some blue heart-shaped cookies. Or maybe they would just randomly start kissing each other. Who knows?

But the world isn't perfect, and so instead of coming closer together, they drifted apart. Percy found solitude in swimming; it was the one part of his life that seemed to go the way he wanted it to. He trained long and hard, and quickly became a rising prospect who not only could get a full-ride scholarship to a top university, but might also make it to the Olympics.

In the meantime, while Percy was living at the pool, Annabeth dove further into architecture. Her knowledge expanded exponentially, and her creative skills flourished. By the time she was a junior in high school, she'd already popped up on several big firms' radars; once she was in university, she was guaranteed a quality internship.

As they slowly started to separate from one another, they also began to meet other people. Percy's newfound athletic stardom led him to befriend Jason Grace, an all-around athlete who could go pro if he wanted to. Annabeth's connections in the architecture circuit led her to meet Luke Castellan, a popular student-body president with a secret love for building design.

At first, it was good that they found new people to take their mind off of each other.

And then it wasn't so good.

And then it sucked.

After being around Jason and his high-school sweetheart Piper for almost three straight years, Percy wasn't exactly feeling the love. Seeing the happiness between the two only reminded him of his love for Annabeth, and drifting apart from her in high school wasn't doing him any favours. Sure, they still hung out every Friday night, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't miss walking home with her after school, or spending every single lunch with her. And so, after years of hiding his feelings, he finally decided to do something. Finally, in their junior year of high school, after however many years of being in love with Annabeth Chase, Percy was finally going to tell her.

Around the same time, Annabeth also decided to do something about her feelings. Unfortunately, she had a much different idea: after years of pain from hiding her love, she decided to rewrite her story and ask out her next closest friend, Luke. Maybe she'd finally get past her feelings for Percy, and they could finally go back to being the close friends they had been years before.

I'll let you guess how this one turned out.

No one knows exactly what happened between Percy and Annabeth. They both wanted to tell each other something important one day, but it became the last day they ever spoke.

All Jason knows is that for a week Percy was preparing himself for the big reveal, and afterward, he was never the same. But not for the better.

Likewise, all Luke knows is that only a few days after being asked out by Annabeth, she canceled their date and retreated altogether. Something about her changed, but he never pressed further.

It didn't take long for everyone else to do the math. Soon, everybody realized that the new and unimproved Percy and Annabeth were products of each other, but to this day, no one knows what exactly what happened.

No one really wanted to know.

Because something that could split them up?

It had to have been really, really bad.

And so, for five straight years, Percy and Annabeth did not speak a single word to each other. The once dynamic duo now acted as if the other didn't exist. As a matter of fact, they acted as if the other had never existed. As if everything that had ever happened between them never did.

It sucked.

Secretly, both of them would give anything to go back to the slow-burning angst of being in love, because at least they would have their best friend back.

Instead, they had to live their lives alone.

When Annabeth was accepted into the best architecture program in the world, Percy wasn't there to congratulate her. And it hurt.

When, by some miracle, Percy had met the academic requirements for NYU and gotten a full swimming scholarship, Annabeth wasn't there to celebrate. And it hurt.

When Annabeth landed an internship at the biggest architectural firm in the country, Percy wasn't there to say he never doubted her. And it hurt.

When Percy made it to the Olympics and won a gold medal, Annabeth wasn't on the sidelines cheering him on. And it hurt.

No one knows if they were angry at the other, or angry at themselves for losing the other. But, even though they refused to acknowledge what happened between them, it was clear as day that they were in pain.

Finally, while they were both in their last year of university, Percy decided to make things right. He knew this was his last chance to do something before they both set off into their adult lives; if nothing happened now, they would be so caught up in vastly different careers that they'd likely never see each other again.

He wasn't sure if Annabeth would want to talk to him, but he didn't blame her. Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, he was the one who started the argument that ended their friendship. So he decided to write her a letter. It'd be better this way, since he was famous for stuttering and this was not something he'd want to stutter through.

Dear Annabeth,

I don't know if you'll get this letter. If you do, I don't know if you'll want to read it, but if you've made it this far, please keep going.

I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. For everything. I'm not asking for your forgiveness, because quite frankly I don't think I deserve it, but I need you to know that what happened between us wasn't your fault.

I guess I'll start from the beginning: I'm in love with you. Not "was," not "might have been," but am. Always have been, probably always will be. I'm not really sure when it started, but it definitely started long before what happened had happened.

As you very well know, I was a pretty stupid kid. I thought there was no way that you'd ever think of me that way, and even if you did, I thought you deserved better than me. And so I never told you, which was incredibly stupid. Eventually, hanging out with you became too much for me to handle, and so I drifted away.

In sophomore year, however, I decided to give it a shot. Honestly, I was sick and tired of Jason and Piper eating each other's faces every day at lunch. And so finally, I decided to tell you, but it happened to be the same day you told me about your date with Luke. You know the rest.

I'm sorry for getting so defensive. I should never have said what I said; you had and have every right to do whatever you want, and it was ridiculous of me to think that I should have a say. Unfortunately, by the time I realized that I figured it was too late to make amends, and so I kept my distance.

It sucked.

Not because I'm in love with you, but because you were my best friend. I lived these past few years feeling like I was missing a part of myself, and if you felt the same way, then please believe me when I say that I am so, so sorry. My feelings for you aside, you were and always will be the best friend I've ever had, and I hate myself for putting you through this.

If I could do it all over again, I would do whatever it takes to prevent this, because losing my best friend was the worst thing I've ever had to live through.

I've probably written more in this letter than I have for any essay I've handed in, so I'll end it here. If you want to talk to me, you know where to find me. Neither my number nor my address has changed. The choice is yours, of course; I won't ask you to come back into my life, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping that you will.

With love,

Seaweed Brain.

Percy wasn't sure if his letter got through. Thankfully, he was able to get an address from Piper, who had become one of Annabeth's better friends in the past few years, but he didn't have high hopes.

After a few weeks, he'd heard nothing. He was sad, but he felt a bit better knowing that he'd at least tried to do something.

One night, his doorbell rang. Finally, Percy thought. He had been waiting a long time for that pizza.

As you might expect, the person at the door was not holding his deep-dish pepperoni.

"Hi Percy. I got your letter." said the person, and Percy couldn't help but shiver at the sound of her voice. Gods, it had been so long since he'd heard it.

"Hey Annabeth. It's really nice to see-" Percy tried to reply, but he was cut off by something he'd never expected.

Annabeth had pulled him into a kiss.

And it was probably the best kiss of all time.

After what felt like hours, Percy pulled away from Annabeth and took a moment to take her in. While the both of them hadn't changed much since high school, he still found her to be more beautiful than he ever remembered.

"Seaweed Brain?" Annabeth said, breaking the silence. It had been a long time since she'd used that nickname.

"Yeah?"

"I love you too."

After a few hours of talking, they were able to hash everything out.

They laughed when they learned they had feelings for each other at the same time.

They shuffled nervously when they talked about what had happened between them.

They cried when they talked about their lives without each other.

And finally, they decided to try it again.

"Whatever happens, Wise Girl, I'll never let go of you again."

"As long as we're together, Seaweed Brain, I don't care what happens. As long as we're together."

Nine years, one-hundred and three days, and give or take fifteen minutes.

For five years, Percy and Annabeth thought that the best part of their lives had come and gone.

But now, the best part of their lives will be a lot longer.

No one knows what happened in the first place that broke them apart.

No one knows how they got back together, or how their friendship evolved into something beautiful.

But there is one thing that everybody knows:

It's about time.

Author's Notes:

- Hot diggity this was a long one. (I mean, 2k words aren't that much, but the first time I tried to write this I got stuck at 500, so)

- Something about the whole "they were friends, then they broke up, then they became friends again, then they started dating" plotline is really fun to write. Maybe one day I'll turn this one-shot into a longer story.

- I wrote this in about two hours, and I don't really know how I feel about the pacing. Like the first entry in this series, I think I rushed the ending too much.

- There's also, like, no dialogue in this story, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

- The super vague timeline is also a little weird, but I also like how it's open for interpretation.

- I probably could have either made more use out of Jason and Piper, or not included them entirely, but whatever.

- Hopefully, the next one-shot doesn't take two weeks of procrastinating to write. I guess we'll see.

Thanks for reading! – JRDD0904