Once he had determined that we were out of sight of any disapproving gods, Percy took my hand in his. He turned to look at me and I did the same, and we both smiled at each other.
"I can't believe she hugged me," I said, now that my moment with Athena had finally sunk in. I really did wish that it had lasted longer; things like that do not happen. Percy didn't say anything. He just kept smiling as we walked. At first I wasn't sure where we were going, but then I started to recognize familiar things and realized Percy was taking me to a park I designed for people to look down at New York. How he knew that's where I wanted to be, I will never know, but I was glad he did.
There was a bench just far enough from the edge so that it was safe to sit down, but also close enough to see the city bustling beneath us. For a while we just sat next to each other until Percy put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned in to him and tried to relish in the moment. There were too many times I wished that something had lasted, and I didn't want this to be one of those times. I didn't want to regret not having experienced this with him.
Thankfully, Percy let us sit in silence. For once he wasn't being annoying by trying to talk to me. That would have ruined everything. All I wanted was for him to be there so he could experience this with me, because sometimes you don't need words, or there aren't any. I would remember this day as one of the best in my life.
But he was being a bit too quiet. I turned to look at him and saw that his eyes were closed and he was propping his head up with the arm that wasn't around my shoulder. Of course he was asleep. With a quiet sigh I pushed him not too gently in an effort to wake him up.
It was a successful effort. He woke with a start and flailed around, which was kind of funny, but he had just fallen asleep on me so I wasn't all that amused. And then he looked at me with that sad face that works on me too well and I crumbled a bit on the inside, though I would never outwardly show it.
"I'm sorry," he started, "I'm just really tired. You wore me down earlier." He had that mischievous grin back on his face and I considered punching him in the back again before thinking better of it.
"Go and get some sleep."
"What about you?" he asked, most likely because he wanted me to go with him.
"I want to stay out here for a little bit. I won't be long."
He got up and stretched before he bent down to kiss me goodnight. I could get used to that. And then he walked down to where our apartment was and I saw him disappear inside the building.
I turned my attention back to the skyline and remembered passing through New York on our way here. It filled me with so much purpose to look at everything man had created, demigods and mortals alike. After what was probably an hour I got up to go to bed as well.
The walk back to our apartment didn't take very long and I wasn't surprised to find that the lights were off and the rooms quiet. I walked to the room Percy and I were sharing and saw that the bed was untouched from before and Percy was nowhere to be found. Calling his name garnered no answer, and I went to look in the rest of the rooms to see if he had fallen asleep somewhere else. But he wasn't anywhere in the apartment.
Weird, I thought as I went back out into the new Olympus to see if he was walking around. I knew that he sometimes had nightmares; most demigods do. So maybe he went for a walk and didn't want to disturb me while I was still out. But after a while of not seeing anything, I began to think that maybe there was an emergency at camp or with his mom that had called him back down to New York.
Taking two drachmas out of my bag, I first sent an Iris-message to Sally. She and Paul were sitting in their living room, probably watching TV, but they both said they hadn't seen or heard from Percy. The next message I sent to Chiron, and he said the same thing. Percy wouldn't just up a leave without so much as a warning to any of us. The only logical conclusion I could deduce was that someone had taken him.