•Chapter 7•

Hey!

I actually uploaded, like, what, twice, this month? Woo! Yay! Good job, me!

(Actually, I think this is the second time ...)

Thanks for all the follows, favourites, and reviews! :)

Okay, yeah, sorry for the late chapter. I had a bunch of applications, forms, projects, and tests to do. May and June are both pretty stressful months for high-schoolers. (Or at least for my district.) Also, I promised myself that I'd upload this chapter last week and look how that turned out XD

Happy reading!

2010

The first thing Mrs. Leer did when I walked up to her desk after class that day was scrutinize me. For whatever reason, I didn't know.

The second thing she did was say, "Well done, Mr. Jackson."

"Um, for what?"

She looked at me like I'd suddenly grown three heads. "Your grades for this English semester has improved greatly," she answered me, looking like she wanted to add, Duh. Probably whatever respect or admiration or liking of me she had earlier disappeared already.

"It has?" This was a surprise.

"Yes." She sounded pretty impatient. "How has your correspondence with Miss Chase been?" asked my teacher, changing the subject.

"Good?" I replied, my response coming out more like a question than an answer.

She beamed. "She is an absolutely wonderful girl," she said, clasping her hands together. "I just knew that she'd be a positive influence on you. She is such a nice girl, so smart and responsible…" She smiled again. "I take it that everything has been going fine between the two of you?"

I nodded. "Yup. But don't you read our letters?" I blurted out.

"Yes and no. It will be pretty hard to grade 30 letters in a day for both Mrs. Kerr and me. We both decided that if we paired our most trusted and responsible students with other, similar students, it'd be a pretty much guaranteed that those letters will have no problems.

Wait wait wait. Hold up. Hold up. I pointed to myself. "I'm considered trusted and responsible?"

Mrs. Leer sighed. "Mr. Jackson, surely you know you are not considered responsible among the staff here." Ouch. Thanks for the reminder. "However, I feel that you just have the bad habit of attracting trouble. So yes, to answer your question, I do read them, but I have stopped reading a select few a while back. Yours and Annabeth's are one of them. If you do something that makes me think that you cannot be trusted, I will read them again."

"Um, thanks," I mumbled. "It's, uh, sort of lunch right now. May I please go?"

But Mrs. Leer already had her back turned to me, and was humming some tune as she was graded some papers. I took that as my cue to leave. Ugh, was I just naturally bad at ending conversations with teachers, or was it a universal thing?

"What took you so long?" was how I was greeted when I finally got to the usual table in the cafeteria.

"Mrs. Leer told me to stay behind to talk about my grades," I explained as I sat down. "Apparently they're going up." I didn't mention anything about Mrs. Leer not reading my letters; they didn't need to know what. Besides, I figured our English teacher would appreciate that. I looked around the table, pulling out my lunch. "Where's Leo?"

"Detention. Possibly a meeting with an extremely angry science teacher and the principal." From the tone of voice Rachel said it, she didn't sound surprised. None of us were, actually.

"What did he do this time?" asked Jason, leaning forward in interest.

"He taped Mr. Bonsai's sandwich to the ceiling." We all burst out laughing at that part. "Well, technically, the Stolls did that," Rachel amended, "but Leo helped, so he's in trouble too."

"Connor and Travis got Leo to rig up some contraption where if someone else tried to get the sandwich from the ceiling, the fire alarm would ring until the correct passcode was entered into the keypad. Only Leo knows the code, of course," added Piper.

That explains the alarm during English class that rang for, like, a minute.

"Did Bonsai got Leo to stop the alarm by threatening his grades or something?" I asked.

Rachel shook her head. "Nope. He shut off all the power outages in his room. Because the alarm he made was connected to the PA system, ya know? Like even if it wasn't a real alarm, with the bell and everything, it was still really annoying."

"And since the power had to be shut off, Bonsai couldn't really teach, so, well, no homework for tomorrow."

"That was sorta obvious," I told Piper. She shrugged in response and bit into a corner of her sandwich.

We lapsed into silence as we all began focusing on the food in front of us—Greek salads, fruit, sandwiches, and pizza. Finally, a voice on my left broke the silence. "Don't you think it's weird that Mr. Bonsai's last name is Bonsai and he teaches all the Science subjects here?" Nico asked.

We all jumped, with Rachel choking on her salad. None of us heard him come. Piper, who was beside her, pounded her on the back until the coughing ceased. "Dude!" she exclaimed, recovering. "Quit sneaking up on us like that!"

Nico shrugged in response. "Not my fault you guys didn't hear me come."

"Not my fault you're a walking shadow," she shot back, half-joking, half-serious, and that was that.

The next week, I was the first one to get Annabeth's letter. Frank, who was right behind me, asked, "Your penpal's name is Annabelle, right?"

I shook my head, correcting him. "Annabeth." Mrs. Leer handed me her letter and I waited for Frank to get his.

"Oh. Right. Sorry. Anyways, my penpal's name is Hazel Something-or-the-other, and she wrote last week that Annabel—uh, I mean, Annabeth asked her if you were really as dense as she perceived you to be. I don't know how to answer her." He got his letter and shot a quick thank-you to Mrs. Leer, and we started walking over to our desks.

I groaned as I sat down on the orange chair. "She told me that she'd do it. I never thought she was serious. Can you, like, make up something really random and just send it?"

He grinned, shaking his head. "Nope. I've made up my mind. Too bad." Frank was seated across the aisle from me, and shot a smirk in my direction as Mrs. Leer handed the last kid their letter and told the class to start writing.

Actually, she went, "Alright, class! Stop talking, stop reading other things; it's time to start writing to your friends!"

I slammed my face on the wooden desk once and started wrestling with the envelope flap.

Dear Percy,

No, I'm not. I'm just stating the truth. :P

For once, I totally agree with you. Well, I half-agree, at least. Animals are so much better than most of the idiots in my class. At my school, really. And my neighborhood. Basically, they're better than pretty much everyone I know.

Well, of course I have! My mom has been very adamant about this topic. "No, Annabeth. Absolutely no horseback riding. Nor are you allowed to have anything associated with them either," she'd say whenever I'd ask her. "They're bloodthirsty beasts who will trample you whenever they have the whim to." I try to tell her that horses have different personalities, just like dogs and cats (AND HUMANS!), but she won't listen to my reasoning. At all.

I honestly don't know why. Maybe it's because my mom's "warnings" about them instilled fear into me. I'm working on getting rid of that fear, though :)

I was going to make a joke about you being a banana, but I decided against it. It's probably for the better, anyways. ;)

By the way, Jackson, if you want to just get things off your chest (your problems, worries, anything), feel free to talk to me. I'm a better listener than most people think. I give horrible advice though. Sort of. Depends on what you define as "horrible." My advice is more practical and analytical than emotional. But seriously, if you need to, you can talk to me about anything. I won't judge you or laugh at you, I promise.

Sincerely,

Annabeth Chase

I smiled at the last part. That was nice of her.

Dear Annabeth,

-_- … I have no words. You are so mean to me, Annabeth.

… Either you're being really picky when it comes to classmates (or people in general), or you're not exaggerating and they're really that bad. I'm leaning towards the first one. People aren't that bad. The people at my school are awesome! :)

Geez, what did those poor, innocent, awesome horses do to Mrs. Chase to piss her off like that and be horse-haters for the rest of her life?

*Gasps dramatically* Did little Miss Perfect Annabeth Chase make a joke? A dirty one at that? I never knew you had it in you! *Claps* Welcome to the real world, Miss Annabeth!

Okay. You give horrible advice. Got it. Noted. I'll make sure to never go to you for advice.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

Thanks for the offer. I'll keep that in mind. (Or for as long I can remember, which is, I regret to say (not really), not that long …)

For once I have no weird or random letter closing. This is sad.

Sincerely,

Percy Jackson

2015

"Welcome home, Wise Girl," I say, starting at her still body. I look around at the expressions on her family's faces. It's the first time they see her face to face after she left, I remember. Seeing her like this must be extremely shocking for them. "I'll leave you guys alone," I say to no one in particular.

As I turn to leave, a man with brownish-blonde hair opens the door. "Hello. I'm Doctor Fletcher. Here is the latest update on Miss Chase's condition. It's improving, which is definitely a good thing. I believe we'll be able to take her out of the coma soon." He smiles at the last part, his grin mirroring everyone's in this room, save for my fiancée's.

"When will that be?" Mr. Chase asks, his joy evident in his voice. "Next week, maybe?"

"Next week at the latest, Saturday at the earliest." It's Thursday today. "Mr. and Mrs. Chase," he continues, turning to Annabeth's parents, "I'd like to go over some information …"

I take that as my cue to leave, and I do so, quietly shutting the door behind me.

A few days later, the twins, Mr. and Mrs. Chase, and I are surrounding her bed, watching as Doctor Fletcher does the stuff he needs to do to terminate the medically-induced coma Annabeth is currently in right now. He walks around her bed, purpose in his stride, and, carefully avoiding the machines, inspects all the dials. "Alright, here goes," he mutters, and then he—actually, I don't even know what he does. His back obscures us from observing.

After a moment, he straightens up and looks at us. "Annabeth should be coming out of her coma anytime in the next few days," he tells us. "You may watch her, of course, but if she wakes up when none of you are around, I'll be sure to notify you."

"Thank you," Mrs. Chase says gratefully, and we part ways.

I find myself by her bedside again at the end of the day, even though I know she won't be out of it yet. "Hi, Bethie," I say, using the nickname she despises so much. "You're not going to kill me for calling you 'Bethie,' are you?" I manage a weak smile.

I glance around the room. Once of the nurses had opened the curtains so sunlight spilled in from outside, and another had placed flowers next to the bed, on the table. "Doctor Fletcher brought you out of the coma. Says you should be waking up soon."

I place my hand on her arm, then slowly move it down until it reaches her hand, playing with the fingers on her right hand.

Suddenly, I feel her index finger twitch a little. Once. Just once.

But once is already enough.

"Annabeth?"

Nothing moves this time, but I already know: She's going to wake up.

Sooner or later, whether a day or a week, it doesn't matter—she's going to live.

As much as I want to wake her up, right now, I know it doesn't work like that. I have to let her wake up on her own.

There's nothing else to do but sit there and wait.

And that is exactly what I do for the rest of the day.

DUN DUN DUN. Yup. That happened. Yay! Annabeth's gonna wake up! :)

Reviews:

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Angelthegenderconfusedcat: Oh man, every time I write your penname, I'm always scared that I'll spell it wrong :P Wait … lemme get this straight. Your dog is named Kevin Angel Fish but he is not a fish nor an angel but your penname is a cat who's named Angel. Got it. Okay. Thanks!

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-K