Chapter 9
A/N: 42 reviews? We are on a roll! I was overjoyed at all of the positive and occasional not-so-positive feedback so thanks so much everyone that reviewed! Also, I know that I'm really bad at remembering to do this, so this time, first time actually answering reviews! I know, surprising, right?
Guest (about age): I am 14 years old, and I know that there are a few swear words, so god forgive me for my language and upbringings. As for the mature writer comment… Thank you! I am much more immature in real life.
Bookloverforevah18: So am I! I just wanted to keep Percy his usual selfless self even with the… unexpected circumstances. As for Jasper/Jiper… I have a few near future plans for them.
Guest (about Athena): Yeah… but who knows? Maybe there would be an underlying reason as to why Athena had said that (wink, wink). I hope you like this chapter!
luv2read4reading: You'll just have to read and see! And thank you for being the 40th reviewer!
Special thanks to Hispanic Thug and Catsa123 for being a 3-time reviewer, and really making my day!
Also, for this chapter, since I am aiming for 50+, whoever is the 50th reviewer, Chapter 10, the big 1-0 will be dedicated to you! Don't roll your eyes and leave at my cheesy methods! Read and then you'll feel obligated to review! Let's get started after since this author's note is beyond long.
Also, I realized how long it has been since I last posted a chapter… Scream at me if you want, flames will be used to toast marshmallows.
Percy's POV.
Percy had slept well the last night, no nightmares or anything, which was surprising. He suspected it had to do with a certain daughter of Athena he had been forgiven by and while in the process, probably caused her to hate her own mother.
Percy sighed deeply, as much as he felt glad for clearing the air between him and Annabeth, he felt mentally unsettled. He remembered clearly the day Athena had come to him in person and ordered him to let go of Annabeth or die. There had been fear in her eyes then, almost as if she was scared that Annabeth being with him would kill her or something. Percy assumed that it had to do with their parent's rivalry, and tried his best to accept it for peace he had fought so hard for.
Now he began to suspect. It all started a few weeks ago when Rachel had called him in the middle of the night. She told him the prophecy in the raspy voice from Delphi, which had scared the shit out of Percy. He had proceeded to worry about it for about 3 days before mostly forgetting about it, until Poseidon brought it up again when he had visited Olympus that fateful day… He tried not to remember about that incident.
Apparently it wasn't about Piper, he recalled his dad had said. The only other girlfriend he'd had was Annabeth, could related to her? It was absurd, and Percy was sure of it until this morning. Maybe Athena was worried about the prophecy being about Percy and her daughter, mostly Percy potentially destroying the world.
Gah! This was definitely against his rules of keeping things simple. Besides, this was all hypothetical.
Percy sat up in his bed, and realized that he was still in the clothes he was wearing last night when he fought the little basilisks with Annabeth. His muscles should've been sore from a fight like that, but the 'curse of Achilles' wouldn't allow it. He was left untouched, though his clothes were in tatters.
He changed into a fresh shirt and jeans and hurried down to the dining hall, where'd they're surely all be missing him at breakfast, after all, who would finish the pancakes if he wasn't there?
Percy first saw Annabeth's unkempt curly blond hair, which she clearly hadn't bothered to fix after the fight. Then, he realized that Piper was sitting, facing her, next to a boy with military-cut blond hair and electric blue eyes, Percy felt unsettled looking at him, could it have been his godly parent? Those blue eyes looked too familiar.
Percy took a seat next to Piper, who appeared deep in a conversation with the guy next to her. Percy frowned. He didn't mean to eavesdrop, but it wasn't like it wasn't obvious to begin with. In fact, Piper barely acknowledged Percy when he sat down next to her; he had gone on a fairly dangerous trip the previous day!
"How long are you staying?" Piper asked.
"A week or so." The boy said. "What about you?"
"About that long." Piper said. Percy furrowed his brows at that. He and Piper hadn't planned the length of their stay yet.
"The party is tomorrow, isn't it?" the girlfriend thief (sort of) asked. "Are you going with anyone?"
"She's going with me." Percy cut in.
Percy waited for the annoyance, or shock to appear on his face – nothing.
"You must be Percy Jackson! I'm Jason Grace." He said, a small smile gracing his lips.
Before he could make a stupid pun, Annabeth spoke. "Grace? Do you know Thalia? Thalia Grace."
Jason's expressions changed over the course of 3 seconds: from confusion, to frustration, and finally realization.
"That's my sister!" He exclaimed, in an unusually surprised manner.
"Wow," Percy muttered sarcastically. "That took you a moment to figure out."
He didn't say it loud, but Piper heard him anyways. She glared at him before explaining. "Jason had amnesia. He doesn't remember anything about his past."
Percy turned to Annabeth, where they exchanged skeptical looks. Well, Annabeth seemed more curious than skeptical, but still. They were both thinking around the same thing. This random boy comes after all these years, claiming to be Thalia's brother with no memory, and looking nothing like Thalia either.
"Since when?" Annabeth wondered.
"Since 2 years ago, actually. But I was on a bus, on my way to MIT, where this guy named Leo, supposedly the son of Hephaestus, kind of explained the demigod world to me. But I had no recollection of what happened before. I've started to remember a few things recently, just as I see them. Little snippets of it all…" Jason frowned, as if it pained him to think about his blurry past.
Percy was still unconvinced, but Piper looked like she believed every word. "Wow, it must've been hard, adapting and all." She said calmingly, using her charmspeak.
Jason's shoulders relaxed, and Percy felt himself unravel a little bit too.
Jason smiled at her like she was the light in his world, something that made all of Percy's senses tingle. He hadn't seen that look in a long time. It made Percy feel so empty inside, irrationally so, and his cheeks reddened, feeling like he was intruding on something private, which was ridiculous. Piper was his girlfriend! But Percy couldn't bring himself to get angry. Just watching Jason and Piper look at each other like that, he knew that he had lost Piper.
Percy didn't eat too much for breakfast; his pancakes tasted bland, and his French toast tasted like sawdust. He couldn't wait for breakfast to be over, with Piper and Jason laughing and chatting like idiots. He looked at Annabeth, and she just pretended she didn't notice, cutting up her pancakes into miniscule, square pieces, which should've been impossible, but clearly wasn't for Annabeth. She then doused them with an appropriate amount of syrup – well, appropriate for Percy, probably much more than appropriate by normal standards, and chewed each bite thoughtfully. Percy watched amusedly, as eventually, she got impatient of eating them one by one, or just simply couldn't stab them with the fork anymore, and dumped the remaining pieces in her mouth with a spoon.
Percy laughed a little, and Annabeth snapped her head upwards, "What?"
"Just the eating habits." Percy smiled a little when Annabeth gave him the classic 'seaweed brain eye-roll', that Percy missed more than he'd ever admit.
"I was using them as little blocks to organize them into my architectural plans for this project." She said.
"Oh." Leave it to him not to notice anything. Generally, ADHD meant that he could take in many things at once. Oh, how he proved science wrong over and over again.
Percy didn't know what else to do, so he tried to start a conversation. "Still interested in architecture?"
The answer was obvious, duh, of course she was; what was she doing right now, idiot? But there weren't many other conversation starters that he could use at the moment.
"Yeah, while you've been swimming all over the place." She probably didn't mean to sound bitter, but she did.
"It can be tiring too." Percy sounded more defensive than sympathetic.
"I suppose, though your career isn't on the line or anything. You could get on just about any team without even trying." Annabeth said.
When it was said like that, nothing seemed very complicated. It seemed like he had the dream life for any demigod or mortal, which wasn't as accurate as he'd like it to be.
"I have my own troubles," Percy said slowly.
"Doesn't everyone?" Annabeth sighed, and Percy wanted nothing more but to comfort her. For a moment, he forgot completely about Piper and Jason.
"What kind of project are you working on?" Percy asked, anxious to change the subject. This was perhaps the most awkward conversation he'd ever had, and he'd had some pretty bad ones (well, this excluded 'the talk', which he'd gotten a lot earlier than he would've liked).
Annabeth chewed here lower lip, like she did when she was nervous, "I want to get the job for redesigning the white house." She admitted.
Percy was momentarily speechless. Then, he uttered all that he could, "Wow."
Annabeth's cheeks started to redden, as if she was embarrassed to actually think that she might succeed, "It's just a hope, you know. It would be amazing, but I don't think they'll hire me; I probably don't have enough experience."
"But you're a great architect!" Percy exclaimed, a little louder than he meant to say. "You made mount Olympus look awesome." Percy winced at his own words. Their encounter at Mount Olympus was… rather unpleasant, shall we say.
Annabeth hid a smile, "Yes, but there are far better ones out there."
Percy shrugged. "You're a demigod, you could probably kick their asses without half trying."
"Right." She said amusedly.
Just then, Percy felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to so Piper, her expression grim. Uh-oh… Piper hardly ever got angry, but when she did, she was rather frightening. Though not as scary as Annabeth, he added as an afterthought.
He got out of his seat, and followed Piper to wherever she was going. It was behind a wall, where no one would probably find them. This could mean one of two things: Either she was ready to take their relationship to the next level, or… she was going to break up with him. Percy's throat constricted. The odds were not in his favor.
"Percy," She started. "I don't think that you've been feeling really into this relationship."
Uh-oh, he thought, here it comes. He braced himself for the words that would surely follow.
"And to be honest with you, I haven't been either." Piper admitted, and Percy blinked a few times. What?
"At the party a week ago or so that you didn't want to go to, I met a guy named Jason." She began.
"Wait, is he the guy who was sitting and chatting with you at breakfast?" Percy asked.
She nodded. "Yeah, that Jason." She paused, as if expecting him to suddenly go off, like a bomb. Percy remained calm. "So, anyways…" Piper trailed off awkwardly, clearly unsure how to end the statement without completely slaughtering anything left between the two of them.
"You think that your feeling for me have been replaced with feelings for him." Percy said, little emotion penetrating his voice. He was taking this breakup oddly well.
Piper nodded slowly, tears in her eyes.
Percy turned around to walk away, but Piper put a hand on his shoulder. "It's not that I hate you or anything, it's just, I think it's best for both of us if we simply move on… I can't cheat on you, and it would just be a disaster if we continued any longer."
Percy knew this to be true, but he didn't quite want to admit it. "Who says I didn't still have feelings for you, Piper? You are one cold woman."
When Percy arrived at his cabin, he felt, empty and angry; mostly angry. He had been so nice to Piper, and when she had downright told him that she didn't like him anymore, well, it hurt.
He sighed, rubbing his forehead. Piper seemed to have such an easy life, despite being a demigod. She was rich, beautiful, and could charm anyone to do basically anything. Percy had worked hard for everything and sacrificed so much.
And now he was pitying himself.
He heard footsteps leading to his cabin. He turned to see Annabeth there, a strange look on her face.
"Are you okay?" she asked. "You never returned to breakfast, and everyone was kind of worried."
Should he tell her? "Yeah, I'm fine, except Piper just –"
"Dumped you?" Annabeth interrupted, her gray eyes hard like steal. "Yeah, I understand, it can be hard."
There was an edge to her voice, and Percy couldn't help but flinch. "Yes." He finally said, since he had nothing else to say, really.
"You'll get over it." She said, her voice sounding tired.
Percy tried for a smile. Annabeth smiled back, and it seemed genuine, though she was a good actress, so Percy could never be too sure.
"See you at capture the flag!" She told him as she left.
"You too." Percy replied.
"I'm so going to beat you." She called.
"You wish!" Percy yelled back.
"That's what I would say to myself if I was going to lose too, seaweed brain." She laughed, and Percy was too stunned to reply.
"Wise girl." He whispered when she had long gone, Piper no longer on his mind.
A/N: Well, that's basically the end of this chapter! I basically wrote everything already, and just forgot to post it. Also, I lied about the prophecy being this chapter. It's next chapter (probably)!
