Disclaimer- Don't own.
Chapter Eleven
"Percy you have to go to bed," Nico said as he leaned in the doorway of Percy's music studio, yawning. They had finally gotten back from the masquerade at around two in the morning which wasn't unusual for one of Zeus's parties. But what was unusual was for Percy to not instantly collapse on his bed and pass out like a light.
Tonight or was it morning? He went straight for his studio and began playing, scrawling madly in his notebook.
"Not yet, I'm having a moment of brilliance and you know those don't happen much Nico," Percy said, not even looking up at his friend. Nico sighed as he watched Percy flip between different sheets of paper and his notebook. "I have to finish this."
He picked up a piece of paper and read over it. Nico recognized the cursive handwriting. It was a letter. Nico sighed again.
He was back to the letters.
"I found it!" Percy said triumphantly as he waved the letter around in the air. He cleared his throat and began to read: W4W- People wonder if it's worth it. If love is worth it, if everything in this crazy world is worth it. They wonder how many times they have to wish on a penny or a falling star to actually have something happen to them. Well sometimes you have to actually open your eyes to see what's happening around you. Sometimes you have to actually see around you, you have to see the miracles. You have to keep dreaming. You have to keep looking. You have to keep wondering.
Percy's lips twisted upwards with a smile. "It's the way she writes that moves me in a way no one else can," he whispered as he scrawled something down in his notebook.
"That's nice and all but Percy you have to go to bed," Nico insisted.
"I will… I will," he muttered, his sea green eyes focusing on his papers. Then his pencil stopped in mid stroke. "Did you see the way her grey eyes sparkled?" He said out of the blue. Nico looked at his friend curiously.
"What?" Nico asked. "Are you talking about Thalia's friend?" Percy nodded.
"She's unlike any other girl I've ever met," Percy said. "She didn't faint or scream or try and touch my face as if I wasn't real." He said, smiling at the thought of Annie. After he had kissed her, she had just sat there and smiled at him.
And he had smiled back.
"That's because she didn't know you were Percy Jackson," Nico said.
Percy shook his head, he refused to believe that was true. Annie's opinion of him wouldn't change depending on if his name was Percy or Perseus or Seaweed Brain.
"Why don't you remove your mask so I can see your face?" Percy asked as he reached up to take off the ornately shaped mask. Annie flinched backwards, her hands flying up to her mask and clutching in securely.
"Please don't," she whispered. Percy looked at her curiously.
"Why not?" He asked. "It's not as if you're hideously ugly under there… or are you?" Annie let out a laugh.
"No it's not that. Just please, tonight I want to be liked not for how I look underneath or what my name is. I want to be liked for who I am. So let's not remove the masks. You just be Seaweed Brain and I'll be Wise Girl? Okay?"
"Okay."
"Percy, you need to go to bed," Nico said, coming over. He picked up Percy's notebook as he stared off into space and closed it. "Come on."
Percy allowed himself to led away and to his room where he collapsed on his bed, not bothering to change out of his clothes.
That night he dreamed of grey eyes and stars smiling down on him.
"I'm going to take my lunch break okay Annabeth?" Malcolm said as he took his coat down from off the coat rack and pulled it on to protect himself from the frigid October air. Over night the weather had gone from calm to freezing cold.
Such was New York.
"Okay," Annabeth said as she looked down at her notebook which lay strewn out on the front counter, her fingers mindlessly twirling her pen as her grey eyes didn't seem to focus on anything.
"And afterwards I think I'll go to the Empire State Building and then maybe see a Broadway Show," Malcolm added.
"Uh huh."
"And then I think I'll take over the world…" Annabeth didn't even flinch. "And then I'll go and rob Fort Knox."
"Technically if you've already taken over the world you won't need to rob Fort Knox, it'll already be yours," she said absentmindedly.
"Annabeth… are you okay?" Malcolm asked, looking at his coworker curiously. She hadn't seemed her usual sharp self today, she seemed to be more focused on something else, something that didn't involve work at all. "Are you sure I should take my break. I could stay here if it made you feel better."
Annabeth sat up straight at this. "Of course I'm fine!" She huffed. "Honestly Malcolm you don't have to worry about me. Go take your lunch break."
"What happened last night?" Malcolm asked. "You seem kind of… off."
Annabeth rubbed her eyes. "I went to a party with Thalia and didn't get back until really late," she said. Of course she didn't mention anything about Perseus.
"Maybe you should go home and sleep," Malcolm suggested. "I'll cover for you, it's not too busy today."
"Don't be silly Malcolm, I'm working today. Now go and take your lunch break already!" Annabeth said, shooing him out the door.
"Okay, okay I'm going," he said, opening the door. He turned to look at Annabeth as he knotted his scarf. "Call me if you need anything or if you need me to come back early."
Annabeth put her hands on her hips. "Honestly Malcolm, just go." Malcolm grinned and then closed the door behind him.
Annabeth went back to behind the counter. It was true, today hadn't been very busy and so she took the time to work on her story for Writer's Corner.
Hannah sat nervously at the doctor's office, clutching her bag close to her chest. She hated coming here, it was always bad news after bad news, nothing good.
But then again how good could it get when you had cancer?
Terminal Cancer.
"Hello Hannah," Doctor Tanner said as he entered into the small room where the nurse had told her to go into. She had become very familiar with this room as she sat there for thirty minutes waiting for Doctor Tanner. Four white walls with a very depressing picture of a wilting plant. A table for the patient to lie on, a counter for different medical supplies, a computer attached to the wall, a stool for the doctor, and of course the two chairs.
The two chairs that were staring at her right now.
The two chairs where her parents were supposed to be sitting.
Where they weren't sitting.
"Hi," Hannah replied, crossing her arms and leaning her head back against the boring, white walls. It reminded her of those movies which showed insane people in small rooms with white walls.
"How are you feeling?" Dr. Tanner asked, opening his thick folder and pulling out a pen.
"As well as you can feel when you're dying," she retorted haughtily. Dr. Tanner was her third doctor, two of them couldn't handle her attitude. Her parents had been shocked by the amount of sarcasm she had been hiding.
Or they assumed she had been hiding.
Really the just didn't understand her.
And they were running out of time if they wanted to start.
"Come on Hannah, that's no way to talk," Dr. Tanner scolded, his brown eyes looking at her.
"Well how do you expect me to talk? 'Oh I'm fine today! Just dandy! I'm feeling like I could run a marathon!' Would you prefer that?" Hannah said sarcastically.
"No. There's no use acting like a Disney Princess." Hannah snorted. "But I'm just trying to help you and you have to let me help you." He looked at her and she saw something in his eyes. It was pity, it wasn't sympathy.
It was something she saw in her own eyes.
It was a will to fight.
"Did you know that not many other doctors wanted to take you on as a patient no matter how much your parents offered," Dr. Tanner said. Hannah shrugged, she figured as much. "Do you know why I decided to do it?"
"Because the money was too good to pass up," Hannah said. It was all for the money usually, not about her.
"No. I did it because my daughter, Tara, had your same type of cancer. Thyroid. Terminal." Hannah's blood went cold as Dr. Tanner said this. "And you remind me of how she was. She was stubborn and sarcastic and didn't trust anyone."
"Did… did she die?" Hannah asked.
Dr. Tanner smiled. "No. She's happily married with two sons and a daughter. Hannah I know that you can do this, I know that we can do this. But you have to be willing to work with me. Can you do that?"
Hannah looked at Dr. Tanner with her forest green eyes, studying him. If her teachers could see her right now, down right glaring at a person older than her they would have been shocked… appalled even. If her friends could have seen the fire blazing in her eyes they would have wondered what had happened to their friend. If Jake could have seen the intensity she held, he would have wondered where his meek and timid girlfriend went, the girl who always seemed to agree with everything he said. If her parents would have seen the stubbornness they would have said she wasn't their daughter.
But Hannah Aspen was going to fight.
She was sick of being meek and timid.
She was sick of hiding behind a mask.
No one would see her coming.
But damn it all Hannah Aspen wasn't one to be ruled by the opinions of others.
Slowly Hannah nodded at Dr. Tanner. "Dr. Tanner today I felt a really bad pain in my neck and yesterday I had a hard time at school and my lungs hurt," she said. Dr. Tanner smiled and wrote down what she said.
No matter what people might think, no matter what they might say.
Hannah Aspen wasn't going down without a fight.
Birch was in the library.
Again.
His friends were beginning to wonder about him. They didn't understand why he kept going to the place where he previously couldn't stand being in for more than five minutes without getting a rash. They didn't understand the importance of the library to him.
No one did.
Well except for her.
The book was exactly where the librarian had said it would be. She of course had given him that curious and slightly scary look that she always gave him. The one that said, "Birch Waters actually knows what a library is?"
He wasn't as dumb as he looked. Or acted.
He pulled out the book: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and then set it down. He'd check it out and read it. Birch had made a promise to whoever was writing these letters that he would read each of her favorite books so when he finally worked up the courage to talk to her, he'd have something to talk to her about.
Hands trembling like they did every time he found a letter, he broke the seal and pulled the neatly folded letter out.
My Dear Old Friend,
I suppose I can call you an old friend now, it has been at least two months. But then again I guess time can be considered relative. Maybe you're still a new friend. Or maybe you are one of my friends, one of my really old friends.
Maybe I know you.
Then again, maybe I don't.
I went to the doctor's yesterday. I have a new one, a Doctor Tanner. He and I made a pact… a deal per say. He would do everything in his power to get me well again as long as I didn't give up. As long as I kept fighting.
Seemed simple enough. I might not look like it at my grand height of 5 ft 4 in. but I am a fighter. I don't like giving up. In fact I hate it. The teachers always commend me on my perseverance, I just call it raw determination not to look weak.
I hate looking weak.
But for some strange, unknown reason, everyone thinks I'm weak. But I'm not. I swear I'm not. No one who goes through cancer in weak.
No one.
I start Chemo soon… which means that I get to start wearing cute hats to school. And then everyone will know that I'm the girl with cancer. And everyone will start looking at me like they're already thinking about things to say at my funeral.
I don't want their pity.
That's one of the things I like about Dr. Tanner. He doesn't look like he pities me, he doesn't ask me what type of flower I want at my funeral or where I want to be buried, he asks me if I'm ready. If I'm ready to fight. And I respond: Of course I'm ready.
I'm not giving in to cancer without a fight.
But I think I've told that to you already.
I'm praying that I can hold out until school ends and then I can start Chemo. I'll tell you another secret about me. I'm a senior. So once I'm done with school well… I'm actually done with school. Why waste my time in college if I'm not going to live to finish it?
No instead I'll do something grand. Maybe I'll climb glaciers in Alaska, or zipline through the Rainforest. I'm going to do something unexpected.
Care to join me?
Thoughts for the Humble: We all love the unexpected. The unexpected moments are the greatest things in life. It's when we're surprised, when we're shocked, when we can't help but grin at it that is when we're truly happy, when we're truly complete. Don't be afraid of the unexpected. Instead be ready for it. Welcome it.
Post Script- Jane Eyre
Birch looked at the letter and then slipped it into his jacket pocket and pulled the cuffs of his jacket down, making sure his tattoos were covered. The school would have a fit if they saw them, not to mention his father. Birch scoffed at his father-
"Excuse me I'm looking for a book on … Annabeth?" Annabeth looked up from her notebook. She knew that voice. Oh gods she knew that voice so well.
She had memorized the face that went with it. The white blond hair, the deep blue eyes, the smirk that ever graced the face, the long scar that ran on his cheek from his jaw from when he had slid into home plate in the State Championship Game, winning the game, yet shattering his jaw when he got hit by the ball.
"Luke."
"I just find shopping absolutely thrilling, don't you Percy?" Rachel Elizabeth Dare asked as she clutched tightly to Percy's arm as they walked down the busy streets of New York City, cameras flashing all around them as reports tried to catch a sight of the "it" couple "Perchel" as they'd been named.
Percy thought it was a terrible, stupid, gods awful name.
"Yeah… thrilling," Percy said. Almost as thrilling as a root canal. Or a six hour flight. He had forgotten all about his date with Rachel which was mainly a publicity stunt set up by Dionysus to get his star talent more publicity. It could have been with any pretty model.
But Rachel was more than willing to do it.
And of course she thought the whole thing was real.
How she thought so, Percy had no idea. He barely showed any attention to her. In fact most of the time he tried to keep his distance from her. She wasn't the type of girl he wanted to date. She might have been back in High School but that was a long time ago and he was very different than how he was now.
"I love how there are so many different colors to choose from, it's so hard sometimes and so taxing," Rachel said with a sigh as she flipped her red hair over her shoulder.
"It must be," Percy said. Really? Was this what she thought her problems were? This was one of the reasons he couldn't stand to be around her.
She was shallow.
She had just as much depth as an inflatable pool for toddlers. He knew that his letter writer, WiseGirl36, and Annie all had far more depth than Rachel could ever have over the course of her whole life. That was what happened when you grew up rich and stayed rich.
Percy agreed with what Annie had said last night. You need the trials to be strong. You need the pain to learn how to persevere, you need hurt to learn to be humble. It's what makes you a better person than the rich people. It's what made you special. It's what made you different from people like Rachel.
Maybe the reason that people like Annie weren't rich, was so that they could change the world in ways that Rachel and Percy couldn't. They could be strong. They could be brave.
Percy knew that he wasn't brave.
He was a coward.
That was why he had cut himself, why he had joined the gangs.
He was a coward. Flat out and simple. He was trying to run away from his problems.
In fact he still was.
"I tried to find you at the masquerade yesterday, baby," Rachel purred as she stroked his arm. He wanted to yanks away from her. He was not a cat. "But I couldn't. Why did everyone have to wear a mask?"
Maybe because it was called a MASQUERADE?
"I don't know," Percy sighed. He felt his phone buzz in his pant pocket. He pulled it out and looked at it. It was a text from Nico.
GhostKing- Hey ur 4 hrs w/ RED r up. Come back soon! Guys r here.
Percy sighed with relief. They had planned on four hours, no less, and certainly no more. He was getting out of here as fast as he could.
"Hey look Rachel, I've got to go," he said. "I've got to… work on some song lyrics."
"Okay," Rachel said, sticking her lip out in a pout. "I'll miss you though." And then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. Thankfully the one things Rachel respected was Percy's desire to never, ever, not in a million years, be kissed on the lips.
And as soon as he could, Percy got the hell out of there.
"Luke!" Annabeth said, shocked. "You… you look good," she said. Luke laughed.
"So do you Annie," he said, leaning over the counter and ruffling her hair. "I see you've grown up and got a job."
"Of course I have, did you think I'd still be living with my dad?" Annabeth said indignantly.
"No. I knew you'd get the heck out of there as soon as possible," Luke said with his crooked smile. "So you came back to New York City. And imagine it: us running into each other. It must be fate."
Fate. What a funny word. She'd never really given much thought to the idea of fate. She'd have to think about that one in detail. Was it fate? Or just luck? There was a very distinct difference between the two.
"When's your lunch break Annie?"
"In about an hour."
"Perfect, we'll meet up at the little diner at the end of the street. I'll see you then." And then Luke leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "It's great to see you again Annie," he said.
And then he turned and left, leaving Annabeth stunned in what had just happened in the last two minutes.
What the hell had just happened?