(A/N) Hey guys, I'm alive! *waves hands* So, how's it going? Again, I apologise if I haven't been updating, but things have been kinda hectic *not really* *smiles nervously*But I've abandoned this story for too long, so here is another chapter! (A/N)
Annabeth miserably lay in her bed, soaked in sweat and trembling. Her mother hadn't scolded her at all after discovering her daughter attempting to sneak into the house and pretend that she had not been late coming home at all. Instead, she had radiated waves of coldness and had kept her face impassive. She had muttered, "I'm disappointed in you, Annabeth." before disappearing into the gloom just outside her bedroom door.
She would have preferred it if her mother had yelled or screamed at her. Her awful coldness was ten times worse than what she had expected. Tears streaked their way through the slight layer of dust on her face as she curled into a ball and disappeared under her covers, seeking refuge in The Land of Sleep.
~oOo~
London, England, 1858
Annabeth Chase walked as fast as she could, huddled and shivering in a voluminous cloak. Green grass coated with dew was crushed under her feet as she rapidly scaled the small hill with her silent companion.
She panted, out of breath, as she let out an elated whoop and hugged her friend, a tall man similarly attired in a cloak. Green eyes twinkled at Annabeth as a she ran around in circles and savoured the fresh pre-dawn air of the countryside.
She sat down on the ground and pulled Percy down beside her. They sat together in comfortable silence and quietly watched the sun slowly emerge from the night sky, illuminating the sky and painting it a soft shade of orange. They sighed in content.
Annabeth mumbled, "Percy? I wish this moment could last for ever. I don't want to worry about getting married and all that tosh. I just want to stay here with you as long as I can. My mother has been getting more annoyed with me every day. I don't know what to do!"
In reply, Percy settled down in her lap to use it as a pillow and shut his eyes for a quick nap while mumbling something incoherent about blue pie.
Annabeth sighed in exasperation and suddenly got to her feet, sending Percy's head crashing to the ground. He burst out and jumped to his feet, waving wildly with his hands and yelling, "Not the monkeys! Please! Not the small blue monkeys-''He stopped and coloured a brilliant shade of red after seeing Annabeth unsuccessfully try and supress her giggles.
"Um, about that-" Annabeth cut him off and mimed zipping her mouth shut, locking it, and throwing away the key.
Percy visibly relaxed and let his shoulders droop for a moment. Annabeth put on the most innocent smile she could muster and squeaked loudly, "I had my fingers crossed!" Without further ado, Percy chased Annabeth down the hill, eventually tackling and falling down on her. They looked into each other's eyes, their faces literally centimetres apart.
Percy shut his eyes and slowly leaned down towards Annabeth, his lips puckered. Annabeth shut her eyes and slightly leaned towards Percy to kiss him. When their faces were just a centimetre apart, Percy cocked an eye open and yelled into her face, "Gotcha! Now how will you escape my clutches, Miss Chase?" And he quickly turned her on her stomach and tied her hands together with a little string he had kept in his pocket. Annabeth blushed deeply on being caught out like that, and felt afraid that Percy wouldn't want to be her friend anymore after watching Annabeth trying to kiss him.
Her fears were allayed after Percy chuckled into her ears all the way to the village and kept saying, "Wait 'til I show your trussed-up self to everybody in the village, Chase. Rachel won't let you hear the end of this for years!" He laughed loudly and clutched his stomach hard.
Annabeth paled and pleaded with Percy to let her go. She did NOT want Rachel Elizabeth Dare to see her like this. She did not want to even see her face.
~oOo~
Rachel Elizabeth Dare was the green-eyed, red-haired daughter of a noble who had decided to transfer his holdings from Sheffield to the outskirts of London. Ever since she had arrived a year ago, she had made Annabeth's life a living hell.
She flirted relentlessly with Percy. While generally the village girls disliked Annabeth on account of her being a noble, they were united with her in hating Rachel's attempts to steal Percy's heart. She gave no chance whatsoever to the other girls, taking Percy all for herself.
Even if the girls hated Rachel for trying to flirt with their sweetheart, on other matters they didn't dislike her at all. On the contrary, they actually liked talking to her on matters such as the local gossip, new clothes, flirting with so-and-so, and on and on. Annabeth couldn't see how a noble child, born and bred, could mix so easily with the locals until she found out that Rachel was just adopted and had grown up on the streets before being discovered by Lord Dare. Her innate empathy with the common man had enabled her to easily converse with anybody.
Percy seemed to like her too, and on occasion even flirted back. Afterwards he would chuckle with Annabeth on Rachel's antics and how she seemed to be a nice person. It hurt her like hell, but she didn't show it at all. She had to be strong.
Finally, Annabeth had tried to flirt with Percy, but he always misunderstood her attempts to flirt and thought she was teasing him, which would earn her a solid tickling for half an hour.
Over the past year, Annabeth had held out hope that Percy liked her. When she tried flirting with other boys she thought she could see a glint in his eyes that unnerved the guy she was flirting with. For reasons unknown, most boys now refused to even acknowledge her in the presence of Percy.
She didn't give a rat's fart about it.
When she had asked the village girls if they could help her in the matter, all of them except for a girl called Sally had refused to help. Sally was a cheerful, seventeen year old girl with curly brown hair and warm grey eyes. She was the one person apart from Percy whom Annabeth liked a lot. They had quickly become best friends, spending all their time together, relaxing in the meadows, with the sun shining high in the sky amongst the blue skies.
When Annabeth had asked her about Percy's behaviour, she had squealed in delight and told Annabeth that this was a definite sign that Percy was in love with her. She had been delighted, and slowly but steadily it seemed that Percy was falling in love with her. Annabeth was ecstatic.
But there was still one major obstacle in her way apart from Rachel. Her blonde-haired, blue-eyed nightmare: Luke.
Luke was relentless in his efforts to win Annabeth's hand in marriage. He would come finely dressed in his blue-and-white cavalry uniform every other day and accompany Annabeth and a few of her friends on picnics and hunting expeditions. He was a perfect gentleman, and always behaved with the utmost courtesy with the girls. Of course, most of Annabeth's aristocratic friends had crushes on Luke, and would always try and mess around with him. Occasionally he responded, and the girls would be delighted, only to be let down gently as Luke only had eyes for Annabeth.
She hated his guts.
At first, Annabeth had been charmed by Luke, and had even responded in kind at his attempts to flirt. But soon she had begun to compare him with Percy, and had started noticing the cracks in his perfect façade. He was pale and washed out compared to Percy. While he wasn't too skinny or thin and wan, he wasn't entirely well-muscled either. On the other hand, Percy was at least six feet tall, well-muscled and was deeply tanned from hours working the fields. Luke was a creature of the indoors, a pale vampire-like creature who detested the outdoors.
And while Percy was kind, courteous and humble with everybody, whether it was Annabeth's mother Athena or the local street urchins, Luke tended to reserve his respect for the nobility and all associated with it.
Annabeth detested him. Luke was too fake, a washed-out cut out of a man; Percy was real, solid and dependable. He didn't cut deals with thugs in dirty and dark back rooms of places. He didn't gamble or smoke or kick any beggar who happened to be in his way. No, Percy was poles apart from Luke.
And of course, they hated each other as well.
They had found out about each other in a tense encounter in the market. A few vicious remarks on Luke behalf regarding Percy's monetary status had earned him a few solid blows. If Annabeth hadn't intervened, one of the two would have been killed. While Percy was physically superior to Luke, he always carried a small revolver in his trousers.
Annabeth had always tried to pretend the incident had never happened. It made her shudder to think how close one of them had come to death.
~oOo~
Percy walked into the village dragging a protesting Annabeth behind him. He paid no attention to her cries and instead took her to the village square.
Annabeth dreaded facing the other girls. They would end up teasing her for months, if not years. And she was worried Percy would join in, too, and she would be alone. But Annabeth knew that the one person who wouldn't tease her was Sally. She felt a little better thinking about her and decided to meet their teasing head-on.
On the way, Annabeth suddenly noticed a pale, blonde guy walking rapidly towards Percy. As usual, Seaweed Brain wasn't paying any attention to his surroundings, and before Annabeth could warn him Luke had struck out with his fists, landing two solid blows delivered in rapid succession to Percy's face and chest. He staggered, letting go of Annabeth, and fell in the dust. Percy stood up, blood trickling from his mouth and with a ferocious expression on his face.
Even Luke hesitated on seeing his opponent's expression but decided to press on and knock out his soon-to-be fiance's kidnapper.
"Leave Annabeth alone, or you'll have it from me!" Luke warned. Percy started to chuckle upon the realization that Luke thought he was kidnapping Annabeth, not teasing her. His smile dropped off of the face of the earth when Luke slowly pulled out a revolver, cocked it, and aimed it at Percy's face.
Instead of freaking out as most people would have done, Percy took a deep breath and calmed himself. Time slowed down as he analysed the situation and predicted every possible outcome to his every move.
They were in the middle of a circle of on-lookers and were lined with rows of shops and stores on one side and fields stretching out as far as the eye could see on the other. The sun was shining directly into Luke's eyes, and his face was beaded with sweat. Percy tensed slightly as Luke waved his gun again, "Let Annabeth go, or I'll shoot you in the face. I'll do it, I tell you!" Percy's eyes narrowed. Annabeth was directly behind him, and any shot at Percy had a chance of burying itself in her.
Just as Luke opened his mouth to speak and slightly waved his gun to the right, Percy sprinted towards Luke with incredible speed. Before he could even blink, Percy caught hold of Luke's gun arm and twisted it, making him drop it. He punched Luke in the face and kicked his shins, bringing him to his knees. He proceeded to flip Luke over his shoulder and brought him smashing into the ground. He rapidly punched him in the face, dislocated his shoulder and kicked him in the family jewels.
Percy stood up, panting slightly. The crowd, including the village girls, Annabeth, Sally, and Rachel was looking on in awe. Somebody started to clap, and soon the whole crowd was cheering and yelling for Percy. He looked on in pride and raised his arms, whooping. Annabeth took one look at the wild look in his eyes and ran away. Percy smile died as he started to push his way through the crowd.
"Annabeth! Annabeth, come back! Stop run-!" His voice was cut off as Rachel came from behind and grabbed him. Annabeth didn't look back as tears made their way down her face.
As the crowd moved on from Luke's broken form, everybody missed his gang swarming out of the shadows to help him off the ground. Everybody missed him swearing bloody revenge. And everybody missed him swearing to kill the infernal Percy Jackson and stamp him off the face of the earth if it was the last thing he did.