*clears throat awkwardly* Hello there everyone! ...it hasn't actually been a month since I've updated, has it? I sincerely apologize for the delay; this was a difficult chapter to write and due to homework and tests and the like I wasn't able to work on it for a while. But I have warned you already and will again: my updating is not regular in any way, shape, or form. But to make up for it this chapter is nearly twice as long as Indelible's usually are.
To clear up something that has been mentioned in reviews, about the Perachel in this story: Ultimately this story will follow canon pairings. I'm not going to say that the Perachel will remain completely one-sided throughout the whole story, because if you read BotL and TLO carefully, that's not the case. I'm trying to stick close to canon whenever possible. Hopefully that answers any questions.
Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed last chapter and also those who have commented on my other stories. Hearing your opinions makes my day :)
Unusually long AN aside, I disclaim the following. All dialogue is Rick's. Enjoy and review if you so desire.
Rachel Elizabeth Dare decides there are approximately three minutes and forty-five seconds until her and Percy's impending doom- honestly, he can't be expecting her to save his life again, and he doesn't seem to have brought that terrifying spear thing with him today. She also decides that if she is indeed going to die in three minutes and forty-five seconds, it's as good a time as any to get some answers.
First and foremost: how accurate is her estimated life span? "Did they follow you?" she asks Percy abruptly.
"You mean the cheerleaders?" he replies. If that's what you want to call them. She nods anxiously, awaiting his answer. "I don't think so," he says.
She breathes a short-lived sigh of relief, and the rapid pounding of her heart slows a bit, then realizes that the footsteps from outside the door have quieted- hopefully, the cheerleader-monsters are looking in all the wrong places. Perhaps it's more like six minutes and forty-five seconds of life remaining?
"What are they?" Percy's voice brings her back from her brief reverie. "What did you see?"
And her heart starts pounding again. Shouldn't he know? Shouldn't he be seeing what she sees, just like at Hoover Dam? Now she's unsure whether to answer, unsure if the black-haired green-eyed boy sitting next to her is the same black-haired green-eyed boy that's haunted her dreams since December.
She knows he won't believe her if she tells him what she saw. No one else ever has.
Then again, no one else ever has tried to kill her with a bronze weapon while sprinting away from zombie skeleton things at Hoover Dam.
"You…you wouldn't believe me," she finally mumbles out.
"Oh, yeah I would," Percy replies, unexpectedly. She grins, despite the clear and present danger. "I know you can see through the Mist."
Smile gone. Once again, she has no idea what he's talking about. "The what?" she asks, raising her eyebrows.
"The Mist. It's…" he struggles for an answer. She tries not to judge- he did just say he believes her-but those cheerleader-monsters could come in any minute, and he seems to be taking an awfully long time to answer what seems to her a very simple question.
"…well, it's like this veil that hides the way things really are," he finally concludes. "Some mortals are born with the ability to see through it. Like you."
Mortals. Strange word choice, unless…
"You did that at Hoover Dam. You called me a mortal." She takes him in, bright green eyes scanning over his rather scrawny frame. "Like you're not." Just who -or what- is this kid?
He stays silent. Rachel feels the first chance she's ever had at answers to her messed up life slowly slipping through her fingers.
"Tell me," she pleads. After seeing him again, she know she won't be able to convince herself a second time that he doesn't exist- not that it ever really worked to begin with. And she needs to know what these visions are that she sees, these monsters and forces that seem horribly strange but at the same time horribly familiar.
"You know what it means," she says, looking straight into his eyes, eyes that match her own. "All these horrible things I see?"
Percy hesitates, and she's about three seconds away from begging when he finally speaks up. "Look, this is going to sound weird." Try me, pal. "Do you know anything about the Greek myths?"
She feels comprehension start to settle in but all of a sudden she's terrified to let it, terrified to know if her worst nightmares aren't really nightmares at all. Her heart pounds in double-time and she struggles to keep her mind clear and calm. Surely he can't mean…
"Like…the Minotaur and the Hydra?" she asks, testing the waters.
"Yeah, just try not to say those names when I'm around, okay?" His green eyes dart nervously around the room, but thankfully there's no sign of the cheerleader…things yet.
"And the Furies," she continues. Her heart pounds in triplets now. Tri-puh-let trip-uh-let. "And the Sirens, and-"
"Okay!" He cuts her off, a look of panic on his face, but there's no time to wonder why. "All those monsters," Percy says, his voice dropped a few decibels, "all the Greek gods- they're real."
And the world stops.
She's heard it said that life is made of moments-moments that may or may not seem significant at the time, but somehow, someway, they alter life's course forever, and drastically. These are the moments that you reflect on years later, that always cause you to question "what if?", that shine ever brightly out of a lifetime of memories.
Right here, right now, she is living one of those moments. And from the moment Rachel Elizabeth Dare is told the truth by Perseus Jackson, she is halfway aware that her life will never be the same.
"I knew it!" she almost shrieks, embarrassed by her own surprise. Because now that she finally has her answer, she realizes she's known the truth all along. Perhaps she was scared of it; perhaps she hadn't fully registered the knowledge. Either way, she's suddenly aware that this is what she's been expecting.
The Greek myths. Real. It's a nightmare taking shape in reality, but from the way Percy talks, it seems like it could almost be a dream in reality too.
"You don't know how hard it's been," she tells him, recalling long childhood nights of terrifying dreams with parents she couldn't go to for comfort. For them to be comforting, they'd have to care. And they didn't. "For years I thought I was going crazy. I couldn't tell anybody. I couldn't-" The boy is giving her a strange look and all of a sudden she realizes there's one answer she's missing. "Wait. Who are you? I mean really?"
"I'm not a monster," Percy answers. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
"Well, I know that. I could see if you were. You look like…you." And a very cute 'you', she refrains from adding. "But you're not human, are you?"
"I'm a half-blood," he replies, and she wishes she know what he meant but once again she has no clue. "I'm half-human."
"And half what?" she asks, genuinely curious. Percy opens his mouth to reply, but not soon enough, because the monster cheerleaders are bursting into the room, the doors are slamming shut and locking Rachel and Percy inside, and suddenly Rachel realizes she's been so wrapped up in talking to the "half-blood" that she hasn't been listening for footsteps and oh, how dearly she's about to pay for her lack of focus.
Her three minutes and forty-five seconds are up, she realizes, and the impending doom is rapidly approaching.
"They're horrible!" she gasps, taking in their terrifying forms once gain. She's almost wishing she had never talked to Percy and could just write them off as a crazy vision, accepting her own insanity.
But now, she has to face the fact that this is her new reality, and from this moment on Rachel Elizabeth Dare realizes just how hard that's going to be.
Ten minutes later, the monsters are gone but she's covered in some sort of sawdust and standing in the middle of a burning school. She hears a teacher yell at Percy- "What have you done?" Kids are screaming, the fire alarm is wailing, and the ceiling sprinkles spring into action and she finds herself not only smothered in sawdust but also soaking wet. Freaking fantastic, this new life of hers is.
But once again her instincts to protect Percy kicks in and she realizes he could be blamed for all of this and even expelled, so she tugs on the singed sleeve of his T-shirt and hisses, "You have to get out of here!"
He nods, then sprints across the room and jumps out of the now-broken window. Then, registering she too could be expelled for this mess- setting the school on fire is generally frowned upon- she decides to make a run for it too. She squeezes her way through the crowds trying to remain unnoticed and heads for a more civilized form of exit, the back door.
She charges out, sprinting down the back alley, and her hair is flying behind her and she's gulping in the fresh air, thankful for the lack of smoke, and her lime green Converse are pounding against the sidewalk, when suddenly-
There's Percy. Safe and alive, thank God- gods?- but with a girl. A cute, blonde girl. A girl he's hugging.
Rachel feels a split second of jealousy, followed by a split second of anger at herself. What is she doing? She barely knows him! She has no right to be jealous of a girl she's never met, a girl who for all she knows could be his girlfriend- but she shudders at the thought and that annoys her. She should be grateful to be alive, grateful to him that she's alive, not viewing this unknown blonde as competition for the affections of someone she's hardly talked to, regardless of whether or not he's changed her life and Rachel can't get him out of her head no matter how hard she tries. Because that's her problem. Not Blondie's.
Still, she chases him down, shouting "Percy, wait up!" Because Rachel Elizabeth Dare has never been one to give up easily.
Blondie frowns as Rachel approaches, and she tries not to be intimidated by the girl's steely-eyed glare that's ten times more terrifying than the cheerleader monsters or the zombie-things from the Dam.
Percy hastily makes an introduction: "Oh, Rachel- Annabeth." Annabeth, she mentally files away on her "People That Annoy Me Simply By Existing" list, giving her the spot below her parents and right above Justin Bieber.
"Annabeth-Rachel. Um, she's a friend. I guess," he finishes, and for the first time Rachel fully appreciates the irony that though she and Percy haven't even really be introduced, they've been in two life-or-death situations together. And she can't stop thinking about him. But again, that's her problem. Not anyone else's
"Hi," Rachel says to Annabeth, giving her the smile she reserves for friends of her parents and other people she really can't stand. By the ever-unrelenting grey-eyed glare, she can tell that Annabeth sees right through it. But she chooses not to care and instead turns to Percy.
"You are in so much trouble," she says to him, verging on the line between annoyed and amused. "And you still owe me an explanation!"
Police sirens are wailing in the background and Annabeth tries to drag Percy away, but she plows on. "I want to know more about half-bloods!" Here she is thinking she's got all her answers at last, when she doesn't even fully understand what exactly Percy is. "And monsters. And this stuff about the gods."
In a split-second decision, she digs a Sharpie out of her back pocket and etches her phone number onto Percy's hand, almost relishing Annabeth's irate expression then once again becoming annoyed with her own inexplicable jealousy. "You're going to call me and explain, okay? You owe me that," she demands. "Now get going."
She turns to leave, and when Percy calls out, she replies, 'I'll make up some story." Because somehow she will. "I'll tell them it wasn't you're fault." Because really, it wasn't. "Just go!" she yells, finally, because as much as this Annabeth girl annoys her and as much as she hates to see him go, his safety is more important and her instincts tell her he won't be safe here much longer.
She jogs away and doesn't let herself look back until she's sure Percy and his- his friend-are long gone. It's then that she turns around and stares at the empty sidewalk.
It's strange, this sudden emptiness she feels.
But the emptiness is gone, almost as soon as it appeared, as she replays their brief conversation in her head.
The Greek gods. Real. Someone who can explain them to her. Also real.
She turns back towards the school and begins to walk back inside what remains of the band room- she has to explain this to the administration somehow. She misses him beside her but smiles when she remembers the smell of Sharpie and the feel of his hand in hers.
Because Rachel has given him her number, and in return this black-haired green-eyed boy has given her hope, a real, genuine, indelible hope that she hasn't felt in far too long.