When Annabeth wakes up, Percy's gone. First, she's glad that neither of her parents saw him. Then, she wonders if any of it even happened. A breeze floats through the room, and she nestles into her blankets a bit deeper.
What if she dreamed it all? As much as she hated to admit it—god, how she hated to admit it—it wasn't impossible for her to dream up something like that. It honestly seems more impossible for it to have been real. Annabeth shivers, pulling her comforter up to her neck.
Percy telling her she was beautiful? That he was scared of her? That he couldn't get her out of his head? Percy Jackson kissing her, sleeping in the same bed as her? Definitely impossible.
The wind gets more aggressive, and Annabeth casts a glance at her bedroom window. The window she always leaves closed at night.
It's open, just a crack.
"Shit."
By the time Annabeth's brushing her teeth, she's nearly come to terms with it. She made out with Percy Jackson. Not-so-Idiot Jackson. The dumbass in Greek Mythology. There's not enough there for it to be concrete, not yet, but the abstract is there. Maybe if she gives it a few hours—
Her phone lights up with a call from Piper, and she's grateful for the distraction.
"Hey, Pipes, what's u-"
"Oh my god, Annabeth, I know you just had your project with Idiot Jackson and you probably need three rants and a therapy session to get over it, but that has to wait because you need to get your ass over here right now!"
"What?" She almost has whiplash from Piper's manic words.
"Get over here!"
"Where is here, Piper? Have you taken your meds yet today?"
"Yes, actually." For an lone second, the girl on the other end is calm. "Here is Jason's house! Here is where you need to get right fucking now! Come on!"
"Okay, okay!" Annabeth can't help but laugh. "I'll be there in ten minutes."
.
As Annabeth knocks on the door to Jason's apartment, an odd feeling of nervousness settles over her.
The door swings open, and Thalia, Jason's older sister, is standing behind it. This must be the reason Piper was so excited over the phone. "Hey, kid!"
"Thals!" She wraps the older girl in a hug, smiling. "How've you been?"
"I've been good, punk."
Taking a second look at Thalia's dark hair, dark makeup, and dark…well, everything else, Annabeth laughs. "Yeah, I'm the punk here."
"Watch the attitude," She warns, grinning and gesturing Annabeth into through the door.
The entire apartment is a mess. Jason and Thalia's parents aren't around much, but Jason's quite possibly the neatest guy in human history; it only looks this bad when his sister's in town.
"So are you the reason that Piper was so hyper over the phone?"
"I don't think even god can claim to be responsible for how hyper that child is, but I'm not the spark that set her off this time."
"Well then what…" Annabeth dies off as she comes to the living room doorway.
He's sitting there. Right there, in Jason's living room, on the couch. Like nothing had happened. Like nothing had changed. If Annabeth didn't know how to feel this morning, if she thought what happened last night was unbelievable, if she thought everything was going to change before…this is where it gets a million times worse.
"Annabeth!" Luke grins, standing and wrapping her in a hug.
Is she hugging back? It's hard to tell. He smells the same, like metal and soap. He's still taller than her by about five inches, and his eyes are the exact same color she remembered—hyper-saturated, overwhelmingly blue. It doesn't matter that Annabeth's not hugging back. Luke holds her, and she feels small and contained. Like nothing had happened. Like nothing had changed.
"Luke! You're—you're back!" She can't keep the disbelief out of her voice. "God, I…why didn't you tell me you were coming back? How are you? Forget you, how's Oxford?"
"Calm it with the questions, officer," Piper calls. She's sitting on the same couch that Luke had been sitting on; so is Jason. Annabeth didn't even notice at first.
"It's been three years!" It's a bit overwhelming for the girl. "You've barely even called!"
"Gosh, Annabeth, so needy," Luke teases, still smiling. She blushes, and the other three laugh.
"I just figured you'd forgotten about me around all of those beautiful British girls," She shoots back, trying to recover, trying to keep herself from sounding like the whiny ex-
"How could I possibly forget about my gorgeously precocious girlfriend?"
Like nothing had happened. Like nothing had changed.
They'd started dating when Annabeth was in the seventh grade. Luke was a sophomore in high school, and she had been the luckiest (and coolest) girl in the entire middle school. It sounded like a joke—after all, he was the best friend of the sister of the boyfriend of the best friend—but to them, it never was. Maybe he got made fun of for dating a girl almost five years younger than he was, but Annabeth was never around when it happened. He always told her she was worth the jokes.
The two weren't perfect, but the best relationships weren't supposed to be. Fighting meant you cared about each other. Luke cared about her more than anybody ever did.
.
"I'm home!" Annabeth calls, walking through the door. They'd been at Jason's apartment for a few hours, but Thalia left for work, and the project still hangs over Piper's head.
Her stepmother's right by the entrance, lips pursed. "Well, you were out for quite a while."
"Hi, Mrs. Song-Chase," Luke smiles, passing through the doorway. He made the decision to come home with her in the interest of catching up. The frowns fades from the older woman's face when she notices him. She's always liked Luke— more, probably, than she'll ever like Annabeth.
"Luke!" She laughs. "When did you come back to the states?"
"Flew back in this morning," He responds. "I couldn't waste any more time away from your daughter."
"Step-daughter," Mrs. Song-Chase corrects, managing to keep her grin from fading too much. "Honestly, I'm not sure what you see in the little troublemaker."
They both laugh, but Annabeth casts her eyes down. She's not joking, not really, and everybody knows that.
"Well, I don't want to get in the way." As she leaves the room, Annabeth notices that she doesn't bother giving her a disparaging look. She didn't look at her at all, actually, but it's still a nice change.
They head to her room. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Annabeth laughs at the coincidence; two boys in her room in less than twelve hours. She pushes that away as fast as she can.
"So," Luke says, lying down on her bed, putting his hands behind his head. "Cheat on me much while I was in England? Different boy every night?"
She turns beet red. "Of course not."
He sits up against the wall, his expression falling just a bit. "Such a liar." A small smile rests on his face as he shakes his head. "You're too beautiful to have been alone all three years I was gone. And you're too smart to think you could convince me otherwise."
"I'm serious-" Annabeth protests.
"It's okay, I forgive you. Stop lying."
There's a beat of silence, and then she laughs, partly in disbelief and partly in relief.
"I mean, it's not like it matters, now that I've come back." His smile grows into a grin, and he holds out a hand. "C'mere."
Annabeth knows what this means, knows that she really has been forgiven, and she goes to sit with him on her bed. His embrace is familiar, and so is his kiss; overpowering and minty and not quite warm. She starts crying, just a little bit, but that's familiar, too.
.
"Annabeth, Percy, I'd…I'd like to s-speak with you after class." Miss Aella calls out right before the bell rings.
Annabeth curses under her breath. Her number one focus today—yesterday, too—has been to avoid eye contact with a certain Poseidon look-a-like, and thanks to a month of practice, she's been very good at it. In fact, she's yet to look at him.
Reluctantly, she walks towards the desk, careful to refrain from looking at Percy. Even though he's looking at her. Even though Annabeth can feel her cheeks heating up, even though she knows he can see the flush on her cheeks, even though she kind of wants to hear what joking comment he has about it.
"I…I read your assignment, y-yesterday." The teacher says once the classroom has emptied.
Was it too campy? Did she think it was plagiarized? Was it not what she wanted?
"It was—it was lovely. You two really, you really understood…what I was asking f-for here."
Percy nudges her gently with his elbow, and Annabeth would bet money he has a cocky expression on his face.
"Thank you, ma'am," She says, smiling. "It was really fun to write."
"It was actually all my idea," He adds, and Annabeth turns to shoot him a glare.
Shit.
Percy looks exactly the same. Not that it would make any sense for him to look different, but...still. A thousand things have changed—it's unfair that he doesn't. His grin is of the usual, sarcastic fare; his eyebrows are propped up in their usual arch; his eyes…
Never mind. Something has changed. Percy's eyes have some light behind them, but there's something else there. A bit of confusion, maybe. A question. It's enough to make her look away. "He's just kidding. Obviously, we worked together on it."
"A-alrighty, then." Miss Aella pushes up her glasses jumpily. "Well, I—I wanted to…to ask if you all would want to read it to the class."
"Oh, um-"
"We'd love to," Percy answers before she can get anything else out.
"Great! Th-that's, ah, great." She's clearly happy that there's no resistance. "You…you can go now."
Annabeth bolts as quickly as she can—that is, as quickly as she can while looking casual.
"Wise girl!" He calls out, but she keeps going. "Annabeth, wait up!"
He's not going to give up, so Annabeth decides to, in the interest of saving time. "What's up?"
"What's up?" Percy asks, the confusion finding its way into his voice. "You've looked at me, like, once in the past two days."
"I just," She bites her lip. "…does it matter?"
There's definitely some hurt in his eyes. "I mean, kind of. To me."
"Oh." Annabeth's caught off-guard by the honesty. It reminds her of Saturday night, which is disarming in itself.
"Shouldn't we, I don't know, talk?"
"Talk about what?"
"You know."
She bites her lip harder and casts a glance towards the cafeteria. It's full of people now, yelling and laughing, and Annabeth would give anything to disappear into the crowd right now.
"…my boyfriend came back to town. Yesterday."
Percy's eyes widen. "I didn't know you had a boyfriend."
To be honest, she didn't exactly, either, but now that he's back it doesn't matter. "He was in England for three years."
"Oh, I'm sorry. We can just—we can just act like nothing happened, then. You're really cool, and I don't want to make things weird." He says, giving a sheepish smile.
"That's really nice of you, actually. It would be great if we could do that. See you around," Annabeth smiles. "Seaweed brain."
She walks away before she can see him smile back.
It's shorter this time, but I think I have some solid ideas about plot going here. Also, it didn't take me six months to update this time, so that's good!