•Chapter 11•
Hey guys!
Well … it seems like I might've accidentally shattered a lot of hearts in my last chapter. Oops?
Sorry I left you on that horrible cliffhanger and disappeared for like a whole month. I went to the States for a while in the summer and I had zero wifi (I was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, lol), and after I came back, school started, and with that came the piles and piles of homework. (Yay high school.)
Thank you all so much for the reviews, favourites, and follows! I GOT SO MANY REVIEWS AHHHHHHHH! :)
Happy reading!
2010
"So now that high school is over, what do you think of doing?" asked Reyna, fiddling with her long, thick braid.
I turned to face her. "What do you mean?"
"Well, what are your plans for the future?"
"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "My father was a marine biologist, as was his father before him, but I … I don't know. Being marine biologists has been a family profession for many generations, and I don't really want to fall into that, you know what I mean?" I brushed a lock of hair from my eyes before continuing. "I like to help people, too. I'm not too good at school though, so I don't really think university's the right thing for me. Really, with my dyslexia and ADHD, it's a miracle I passed all my classes. I mean, I think I did."
She smiled at me. "I'm sure you did fine. But you said you had, ah, dyslexia and ADHD?"
"Well, um, yes, but I'm not bringing that up at as excuse," I said quickly, stumbling over my words.
"Mhm."
We lapsed into silence for a while as we walked around the block.
When Reyna and I approached the front door of my building, she turned to me. "You know, I just thought of something. You said you like helping people, yes?" She didn't wait for me to nod before she continued. "My older sister, Hylla, is in the US Army. Because we've been in the United States of America for over eight years, she and I are legally American citizens because we've both been naturalized, which is why she's allowed in the US Army. And you said you like biology, and helping people. I don't know what kind of help you meant, but maybe the Marine Corps would be something that could potentially be your future career."
I shrugged, opening the building door with my remote. "It never crossed my mind before," I admitted. We stepped into the lush interior of the apartment and headed for the elevators. "I don't really know if it's my thing, if you get what I mean."
"I understand." She smiled again. "Just think about it."
I read Annabeth's letter again. "So, it's 'annabeth underscore chase at gmail dot com,'" I muttered under my breath, folding the letter. "Okay, here goes nothing."
From: Percy Jackson percylovesbluecoke at gmail . com
To: Annabeth Chase annabeth_chase at gmail . com
Date: 12 June 2010 at 16:06
Subject: [no subject]
Hey, is this Annabeth Chase? The girl from that school in San Francisco? (I totally forgot the name of the school lol … sorry.) It's Percy, your penpal. Or have you forgotten about me already? :D
Finger poised over the mouse pad, I looked over my message again. Seemed simple enough, and if it landed in the wrong hands, it wouldn't be too weird … I hoped. "Please please please tell me I copied the address right." Muttering a "good luck" to myself under my breath, I hit SEND.
A few hours later, I received her email. "Yes!" I exclaimed, punching the air. I eagerly opened her email, curious to see what she wrote back to me. (Only too bad it wasn't written in that weird handwriting of hers—they always made whatever she was writing about a hundred times more interesting.)
From: Annabeth Chase annabeth_chase at gmail . com
To: Percy Jackson percylovesbluecoke at gmail . com
Date: 12 June 2010 at 21:43
Subject: Re:
Hi, Percy. Cool. You accepted my offer—even though your email was sort of weird. If you sent that to some random stranger accidentally and they replied with "yes," you'd talk to them not knowing it wasn't me.
Now that I've made you paranoid that I am some random creepy stalker, I'll let you know that you told me a few weeks ago that you won gold in your racing tournament on your horse Blackjack. (Which, as I've said before, is a really cool name.)
Dude, when you said that your favorite color was blue, I didn't expect it to go thisfar. I can't believe you actually implemented that into your email.
Your obsession worries me a little.
I laughed when I read that last line. "Oh, Annabeth, you don't even know the worst of it."
"You know, Perce, we've been thinking about going to some waterpark or something for a day or two. Ya know, to beat heat," Rachel said a few weeks later to me, sitting on the end of my bed, twirling her shoelaces around her fingers.
"Which one?"
She shrugged. "We haven't decided yet. You in?"
"Not sure. Maybe."
She pouted a little. "Aw, Perce. C'mon, it'll be fun!"
"Wait, who's going?" I asked.
"Jason, me, Piper, Leo, Frank, Reyna." She ticked each name off her fingers. "And maybe Nico and you," she added as an afterthought.
"Oh."
We lapsed into a comfortable silence. I closed my eyes and leaned back onto the pillows. This felt incredibly familiar. Since Rachel only lived less than two minutes away from me, we'd always go to each other's houses and do nothing but talk or sleep. Or steal each other's food when we were running low. Or do incredibly random things such as baking pear-shaped cookies. (Hey, my mom's a baker and she had the weirdest cookie cutters.) "Okay, can I just … randomly ask something?" asked Rachel after a while.
"Sure. Shoot."
She shifted in her seat. "It's just …"
I looked over at her. "Yeah?"
She bit her lip and looked away, not answering me. "I've been wondering about this for quite some time now," she said finally. "Like, wouldn't it be great to have someone you could love unconditionally? Not friend-to-friend love, or parent-to-child love, but romantic love. Girlfriend-and-boyfriend love. Spousal love, even." All this she said in one breath. Her eyes were wide. "Is it wrong to feel jealous, seeing couples everywhere, knowing, at the end of the day, that they're loved? Not just by their parents or siblings, either. Like someone who isn't your family or friends loves you."
I could tell where she was going with this. "You're thinking about Jason and Piper, aren't you? And Leo and Calypso? Because your parents never really were there for you went you were younger?"
"Yeah." Then, she blurted out, "Don't you wish you had someone like that?"
"Yeah." Immediately as I said that, a name and a face and a smile popped into my mind. As soon as it came, it disappeared. Louder, I repeated, "Yeah, I do."
"You do? she echoed, her tone one of wonder and ... amazement?
I nodded.
I didn't tell her about who I thought of.
She didn't need to know.
2015
The whole room is in chaos. Doctors and nurses are rushing in and out of the room, checking her pulse, bringing in the defibrillator, yelling commands at their assistants. All I can do is prop myself up in a corner of the room, watching numbly as stream after stream of people rush in and out of room 3579 as they try to save Annabeth.
"Sir," says one of the nurses to me, "we need you to step out of the room while we try to revive Ms. Chase."
I nod, not arguing. "Please save my fiancée," I whisper, more to myself than him.
His expression is grave. "We will do our best."
I sit in the waiting room, head in my hands, when Annabeth's parents and brothers come rushing in. "We heard," Mrs. Chase tells me, panting. "We got the call and immediately came here. What happened?"
Shaking my head, I say, "It's not good. I was with her this morning, talking to her, when suddenly her heart monitor went"—I make a downwards motion with my hand, like someone sledding down a hill, stop halfway, and move it horizontally, as if they reached the end of the hill—"and, well, yeah. I think her heart stopped. One of the nurses told me they were going to try to revive Annabeth." Placing my hands on my forehead so they won't see the tears pooling in my eyes, I tell them how, just days earlier, I felt her finger move, and let myself believe that she was going to wake up.
Mrs. Chase lays a hand on my shoulder. "Oh, Honey, it's going to be all right." Her voice chokes up. "She's going to make it. I didn't raise her to become a quitter, you know." I can hear the faint smile in her voice.
"Percy! Percy!" Piper and Jason sprint into the room and stop at my side, kneeling on the floor. "I'm so sorry," Piper whispers. "You really thought she was going to wake up, didn't you?"
I nod a little. "All of us did."
Just then, Doctor Fletcher strides into the room. "Mr. and Mrs. Chase?"
Annabeth's parents quickly stand up. "Here," says her father.
"I have good news and bad news. Good news is, Annabeth has been successfully revived and her heartbeat and breathing rate are both normal and steady." He pauses as we all breathe a sigh of relief. Well, almost everyone. Mrs. Chase and I stay quiet, awaiting the bad news. "Bad news is, her condition is currently quite unstable, and will be moved to the ICU."
"Um … Doctor Fletcher?" Piper pipes up. "The ICU only allows family to visit, correct?"
He nods.
"How about her fiancé?"
I quickly shoot a look at my Cherokee friend. I didn't expect her to ask for me. Thank you, I mouth to her. She returns with a tight-lipped smile and turns back to Doctor Fletcher for his answer.
He shakes his head. "He's not allowed. It's strictly family only. I'm sorry."
A few weeks pass. Annabeth is still in the ICU. I sit on the bed in what used to be Annabeth's bedroom, and rifle through an old album of pictures and videos stored on my computer. From random and hilarious text messages to the strangest of birthday videos, everything that Annabeth had sent to me over the years that was funny or heartwarming or … anything, really, of semi- to great importance, I kept. I couldn't keep everything, of course. That'd just clutter up my computer.
I point my mouse to click on a video of Annabeth trying to speak in a Christmas video she was planning to send to me while her cat kept climbing onto her and putting her paws on my fiancée's mouth, thus rendering her unable to speak.
(Oh, wow. I just used the word "rendering." Annabeth, you proud of me?)
Her cat was hilarious. It was just too unfortunate that her cat died a year ago.
I cross over to my desk to retrieve my earbuds and proceed to pop then into the earphone jack. As the video loads, I, for some reason unbeknownst to me, grab her favourite sweater and wrap it around me. I can still smell the perfume she loved to wear lingering on it, and, instantly, a rush of nostalgia and longing fills me again. "Please come home," I whisper, and, unwrapping it around my neck, place it where I found it.
"Percy." Mrs. Chase knocks on my door. "Open up!"
Reluctantly, I do so. "Hi," I say. "What's up?" Probably not the best thing to say to your future mother-in-law, but sleep deprivation causes people to do weird things.
I am no exception.
Annabeth's mother stands opposite of me, jacket hanging on her arm, her eyes bright. (I don't think she even processed what I said to her ten seconds ago.) "The hospital just called."
I eye her warily, not wanting my hopes to be crushed again. "And …?"
"And they said that Annabeth's going to be moved out of ICU tomorrow!" exclaimed she, excited. "You'll finally be able to see her again!" She looks up at me as she puts on her pink windbreaker.
I manage to crack a smile. "Yeah." Then, louder, "Yeah. That's awesome."
"Would you like me to drive you there tomorrow on my way to work?"
I smile again, a genuine, easy one this time. "Yeah. That'd be great," I tell her. "Thanks."
If this was a fairytale, I'd say that because comatose-Annabeth missed me so much in our weeks apart, the moment I walked into her hospital room at San Francisco General Hospital and sat next to her bed and kissed her, her eyes flew open, woke up from her now-natural coma (and escaped death weeks earlier), jumped into my arms, and we all lived happily ever after, due to my somehow magical kiss that broke the evil witch's spell.
But that is not the case. There is no fairytale story, no magical kiss, no evil witch—wait, I take that back. There is: the coma itself, which is perhaps keeping Annabeth alive, is also killing her. The worst paradox of all, perhaps. The coma happened because it needed to heal Annabeth, which will probably save her, but if she remains in her coma for too long because her body have been too damaged, the greater the chance that she'll never be able to wake up, and her family and I will be forced to agreed to take her off life-support.
That thought alone is much too bearable to imagine.
Yah … so sad *cries*
I made a promise to myself that I'll try to sleep for at least eight hours, and I'm cutting it pretty close right now, so I'll just get on with the reviews:
Average Canadian: Haha! "Nopiest nope to nope." XD Love this. Sorry for breaking your heart … :( Thanks though! :P
Cheorkee rememberer gamer98: New reviewer! Hope I got your username right :P Um … sorry, and I'll probably sound stupid for saying this, but I actually don't understand slang and stuff. Like the everyday, normal things, but after GG and Welp and stuff, I sort of get … lost? (Yup, embarrassing, I know.) Still confused, but … thanks? XD
WhyNotWriteFanfiction: Aw, it's okay. *pat pat* It'll get better … maybe ;) Thanks!
ShootingStarMuffin: *covers ears* OWWWWWW OKAY OKAY OKAY I GET YOUR POINT OW MY EARS! XD Thanks!
Angelthegenderconfusedcat: SORRY! At least you have wifi again now! :P Thanks!
Liz (Guest): Yay, another Star Wars fan! Thanks!
Rue (Guest): New reviewer! OW MY EARS! Yes, I get the idea … Thanks!
LuvPercabeth (Guest): (Chapters 10 and 11): New reviewer! Ha XD "WTFluff." Sorry, it had to happen. I hate them too! (YET I DO THEM A LOT! :P) You'll see in this chapter if she's dead :) As for Leo, his absence will be explained in the next few chapters.
writingmermaid: SORRY GIRLIE! I wanted it to be realistic. Please don't be mad *hides behind Festus* Haha "Great chapter. Except the end. No." XDDDDD Thanks!
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-K