Day 8 – January 1st
Percy
"Could you guys move any faster?"
"Percy, could you stop asking that of us? We are moving as fast as we can," Silena whined as she helped Beckendorf remove a large bookcase from the apartment.
"I know, I know, we are just so pressed for time. It's three thirty and we only have until six. Well, let me rephrase that, I have to be back here before six so she doesn't call the cops."
"Honestly, I am surprised that you have managed to pull off the last seven days without her killing you," Beckendorf replied, leaving me to the almost empty apartment.
"Ditto man, ditto."
I looked around, the apartment suddenly much larger than it had ever been when we were actually in here, and I sighed sadly. There were so many memories in this place and a small tear pushed free. I walked back into the bedroom to make sure we didn't miss anything and gasped as I noticed that her present from the night before was tucked up on the shelf in the closet.
Last night almost threw a complete wrench in my plans, but I realized just how much she needed to know that I actually wanted her in every way possible. No dates had to be debated, she just needed to know we would have that happy ever after, so I gave her that knowledge.
I pulled the box close to my chest and smiled, bidding the room farewell before making my way back into the living room.
"I am pretty sure we got it all in the truck, man."
"Thanks, Luke."
My friends and family gathered in the room, each doing quick once-overs on the rooms and gathered back around me, all with smiles on their face.
"You know, we all always thought that you and Annabeth would be the first to get married and the first to have kids but honestly, this is perfect. The craziness that you have managed to pull off so far is so completely you and perfectly Annabeth."
"I am just lucky enough to have each and every one of you in my life. You guys have no idea what you mean to me, let alone Annabeth. Now, let's get our asses in gear and get everything off the truck so I can get back before she calls the cops!"
I pulled into the driveway of our new home, making sure to leave enough room for Beckendorf to back the moving truck in next to me. My heart pounded in my chest. Part of me hated that everyone in our group had seen the new house but her and then I remember why I was doing this. All of this was for her. I wanted her to know just how much she was loved, just how much I needed her in my life and how much I wanted to share everything with her, even if I was being a sneaky little shit at the moment.
"So Perce, how do you want us to do this?" Jason asked as he was unloading furniture into the garage.
"So, you know Annabeth has this thing with design, and I want her to have that since I totally picked out the house without her and you guys have seen the place before her."
"Quit the jibber jabber and just tell us what to do with the stuff!"
A laugh escaped me as I tried to think, "Just leave the furniture in the rooms it all belongs in. Annabeth and I will put everything back together where she wants it. Sound good?"
Everyone nodded in agreement and quickly set about pulling furniture from the truck and moving it into the house and pieces we weren't exactly sure what to do with, went to the corner of the garage for the time being. It wasn't until I noticed it was incredibly dark outside that I realized I had made a terrible mistake.
Annabeth
The day had been insanely long. Thalia took it upon herself to help me go look for a dress for the Cinderella Ball and I nearly cried when the beautiful white dress I tried on with Silena and her earlier in the week was gone.
"Oh Annabeth, there are other dresses out there, we will find it!"
"Thalia, you don't get it. That was the dress."
"For your wedding, not the ball."
"Whatever, Thals. I just really wanted that dress."
"Okay, so I have a plan. There has to be another dress like that at one of the eight hundred dress shops in this city. Let's grab lunch and hit as many as we can until we find the dress."
I groaned at my friend and scooped up the insanely heavy car seat with my tiny little cousin inside when suddenly Thalia grabbed my left hand.
"What the hell, Annabeth?"
"What?"
"What the hell is this?" Thalia was in frantic mode as she pulled my hand to her face. "Like, when the hell did this happen and why wasn't I called and oh my god! Is this why you two didn't show up last night? You selfish little shit!"
"Okay, A. you seriously need to calm the eff down. B. no this isn't why we weren't there last night. I was having a massive melt down if you must know, but yes this happened during the meltdown. I didn't call you because I was going to tell you today at lunch, but here you are having a freaking breakdown. Oh, how about next time you decide to yank my hand off of something, make sure it's not your kid's car-seat! I almost dropped him!"
Thalia looked down at the sleeping angel and smiled at him and then back at me, "He's fine. I wouldn't have let you drop him. Now, lunch and I want to hear all about this," she exclaimed, holding my hand up again.
I pulled into the apartment complex, oblivious to the fact that Percy's car was missing. I had just spent the entire day with Thalia and Jasper, and Thalia had a tendency to drain my batteries without even really trying, and with the way I had been feeling lately, I was done by two today. Normally, I could make it until at least four!
She took me to lunch and then proceeded to drag me in and out of every dress shop we could find on the way home, where I spent more than I wanted to on a dress I really didn't want but I knew Percy would love.
I sighed, yanking the plastic covered dress out of my car and marched unhappily up to my front door. I wasn't even in the apartment yet and something felt off. I shoved the key in the lock, waiting for Mrs. O'Leary's bark, but heard nothing.
'Maybe Percy took her back to his place?'
I opened the door, stepping in quickly, dropping my keys on the table only to have them slam into the floor.
"What the . . ." I cried out, dropping everything in my arms to the floor. I ran quickly through the apartment, every room completely empty. Not even a roll of toilet paper remained. I ran back to my phone, frantically digging it out of my purse and dialed nine-one-one.
Percy
I pulled up to Annabeth's apartment at a quarter past six and realized I was too late. There was a cop car in my usual spot, lights flashing and Annabeth's front door was wide open.
'Shit!'
Running up to the apartment, I stopped outside the door and tried to gather my wits. She was in there, crying again, and my heart sank.
"I know there wasn't an eviction notice. I most definitely locked up when I left this morning, I just don't get what is going on," she sobbed as the officer wrote down notes on his little pad.
'This was definitely not how this was supposed to go.'
I crept into the home and stood next to the office and spoke quietly, "I can take it from here officer. Your services are not needed."
I almost wet myself as the officer next to me jumped and let out a squeal at the sound of my voice but the fact that Annabeth whipped around faster than a cheetah in hunt mode from her pacing rant scared me straight into submission.
"Perseus Jackson –"
"– I take that back officer, I might need you to stick around just in case she tries to murder me."
"What the hell did you do?"
"I . . . I . . . I have a surprise for you dammit! Officer, I beg of you, please, just hang out for a while. You know, just to make sure she doesn't try to beat me to death with her purse."
"This looks like a domestic issue, one I think you should be able to handle," he replied with a sly smile on his face as he watched us interact.
Annabeth glared at the cop, causing him to back up toward the door.
"Thank you officer. I think I can handle this from here," she replied, taking a step toward me which forced me to take a protective step toward the officer.
"Son, I wish you luck. Ma'am, please don't kill him. I'd hate to have to come back and arrest you for the death of your boyfriend."
"Fiancé," we replied in unison and he smiled wider.
"Good luck," he cried out, ducking out of the apartment quickly, leaving me lost in a state of shock, and allowing Annabeth to round on me.
"So, do you care to explain why the hell I came home to an empty apartment? Hell, not even empty, but bare ass apartment!"
"I bought you a house," I blurted out.
"A house is no excuse for me coming home to . . . wait, what the hell did you just say?"
"I bought you a house. It was supposed to be a surprise. I was supposed to be back here before you got home. I was going to intercept you and get you back into the car and have you follow me to the house. Of course, I wasn't going to tell you where we were going, but you get the idea."
"You. Bought. Me. A. House."
"Well us if you want to get technical."
"You bought me a house. You bought me a house?"
"Us babe, I bought us a house?"
"What the hell is wrong with you? You don't just go buy a house without talking to your partner first Percy!"
There were tears in her eyes and I swooped in, pulling her to my chest.
"You don't just go buy a house because my step-mother is an evil –"
"– for starters, buying a house takes time and lots of paperwork and I can't even begin to tell you how bad it made my head hurt, and back to the point! Helen had no bearing on me buying a house! I did this for us. Because I want us to be under one roof and not just crashing at whatever place is closer to where we ended our night."
"But . . . but Percy, it's a house!"
"No complaining dammit! Now go get in the car and follow me home!"
Annabeth
I was still in shock, my heart pounding in my chest as I followed behind Percy's Explorer from the apartment complex to an adorable neighborhood full of colonial style homes. I knew the area; Thalia and Luke lived about five minutes from here and I couldn't help but wonder if they helped him look for a home.
We turned down another road, only this one wasn't paved, and I noticed it led to the backyard of every house on the street. Finally, Percy turned right into one of the larger driveways I had seen down this road and my mouth dropped.
Before me was a two-car driveway and detached garage that was placed to the far left in the yard. The backyard was closed off to me by a brand new privacy fence on the right as well as one on the left. I watched as Percy pressed a button on the visor in his vehicle and the garage door began to slide up.
He quickly jumped out of the car and ran to mine, opening the door and pulling me out into the cold night air. He pulled me through the garage that was filled with several of our larger pieces of furniture and I struggled against him for a moment as I wanted to see what hadn't made it into the house yet. He led me through a door which opened up to the backyard and my jaw dropped again. The yard wasn't massive by any means but it was perfect for Mrs. O'Leary, who came bounding from somewhere by the side of the garage toward us.
She quickly greeted us with a bark and then took off to do laps around two large trees evenly spaced apart that would provide amazing shade in the summer, though right now they were practically dead and frost covered, they were still beautiful. The lights on the back porch bounced off the frost and lit up the house. All of the lower story windows had flower boxes and were currently filled with poinsettias.
"Come with me," he whispered, pulling my hand and running me through the yard, through the house and out to the front door and out onto the front yard. "This would be better during the day but everyone still had their Christmas lights up, and I thought you would like it."
All of the homes around us were about the same size, two-story, colonials with pristine front yards and light displays. Percy was right, I did like it. It made my overly organized little heart happy to see such organized displays and then I turned around.
Our sweet little house was a stormy gray with stark white shutters and a large charcoal colored door. The pillars on the front porch were wrapped with bright white lights, and the house itself was trimmed in multicolored lights with white icicles underneath. In the front window on the left side of the house was the Christmas tree from my apartment. In the upstairs window on the right, the tree from Percy's.
My heart swelled as I took in the sight before me and then I took off. I ran back through the door and turned right and found myself hitting the staircase. As I got to the top of the stairs I noticed the Christmas lights from Percy's tree and I stepped into the room. It was a decent size, definitely bigger than the spare room in my apartment I tried to pass off as an office and this one came with a closet, unlike the apartment.
"I thought it would be the perfect office space for you."
I leaned back into the arms that wrapped around me and I smiled, "What else is up here?"
"Follow me."
I turned and followed him back into the short hallway, to find there was a small entertainment area, a full bathroom and the master bedroom set off to the left. Downstairs there was a small den, where Percy placed my Christmas tree, a huge living area, kitchen and dining area.
I was in complete heaven as I went back to the living room and took in the gravity of what had just happened. I had always imagined us going through the trouble of finding a house together, and signing all of the paperwork and getting the keys to our place together, but this was absolutely perfect. Percy knew my tastes so well that it didn't matter if I had been there or not.
"I can't believe you did this," I whispered as Percy walked up behind me.
He dropped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer, "All for you, love. All for you."
AN - SORRY! At least this chapter is a little longer than normal. I think. FF is screwed up again and I had to find another way around to get this updated! I am trying to rush the last few days for you guys but alas, school has started back up and MrsPercyJackson3 has gone back as well.
Anywho, thank you to my beautiful beta MrsPercyJackson3 for all your hard work! Love ya babe!
Thank you to the new followers, the favorites and reviews!
tinypurpledino : Thank you so much! I love such sweet words!
PJOIsDaBest : I'm not giving out any secrets and you can't get them out of my beta either! Bwahahahaha!
MrsPercyJackson3 : Lol thankfully that is all there has been and not the 400 word sentence again...though I think I just challenged myself! And totally in for adding another fluff ball to the mix but I am NOT on potty training duty this time! And our girl...poor thing is a freaking walking disaster right now. And dang it man she did!