Okay this is embarrassing but... I forgot all my fanfiction logins for a hot minute. Literally went blank brain on all info. Couldn't even remember my email password.

Chapter 14

It wasn't often Percy was asked for identification. Normally bars and clubs. Sometimes the grocery clerk if they doubted his age while he bought alcohol.

Jack Manderson was written in block letters across his drivers license and health card. It was a good name, a strong one. He'd had it since he was eighteen or nineteen. Although he introduced himself as a million different other things, normally TV character names because he was shit in the creative fields. The name didn't hold anything for him anymore. He used to cringe at the sight of all those neat little letters lined up into words. He used to feel shame for the identity he stole. Shame for the pile of bones that were crumbling under an old ash tree out in a state protected park in connecticut.

The real Jack Manderson was only twenty three when Percy chiseled a hole through his skull with a screwdriver. Alcoholism and rage never did mix will. Add a dick to the mix and it was simply a recipe for murder.

But enough about the past. Percy was looking forward now. Forward to the moment the officer would find a hitch in the paperwork, or find something wrong with one of his answers. One of them was bound to find out about who he really was and what he did for a living.

The next thing they would do was question Annabeth about it. She would piece it all together in her clever little head and then it would be over for him. Jail? He didn't care about that. However, a betrayed look from Annabeth would decimate him, he was sure of it.

He tapped out a rhythm on the vinyl flooring with his sneaker. Still cursing himself over Nico. Another sinner was sleeping not twenty feet away from him, one who was out for his blood, and he didn't even realize it. Percy didn't want to admit it, but Nico had all the right elements to make a brutal assassin save for his lack of bloodlust.

It was easy to underestimate the kid. It was also easy to get angry with him.

"POISONED. ARROWS. YOU FUCKING IDIOT." He chewed him out on the phone the first chance he got.

Allegedly, the arrows were Bianca's and he wasn't aware they were poisoned.

But now what? Percy's foot tapping intensified.

It was a puzzling question. Now that he knew what lived in his house, now that he was aware of the enemy at hand, what could he do about it? He couldn't really kill Nico, Hades would skin him alive. He couldn't keep him on surveillance tasks forever but he had to keep him close. The ass knew too much. He wouldn't be surprised if he'd figured out his birth name.

Percy Jackson. With a huff, Percy clenched his hands together. He should've never given Annabeth that name. He should've kept it buried. He should've let that version of him die with his mother.

Are you sad?

The night sky wasn't even in sight. It was behind the flat of buildings crowding around the only window. It was hidden with clouds, with smoke stacks from the city, and a few tree branches that reached high enough to tickle at the third story window of the police station.

But he could still feel it. He could feel her, hovering about, constantly asking him the same two questions over and over. Why couldn't he just let go?

Can you change it?

No. He was in too deep. Hadn't he already explained this? Hadn't he gone through it a million times? Why was she still in his head anyways? Why didn't he have control over anything?

Flustered, Percy jumped to his feet and winced off the sting still radiating in his thigh. The waiting room was empty anyways, service hours were long since over. From the desk behind the plexiglass, the receptionist gave him a suspicious eye. To cover, Percy hobbled over to the vending machine glowing with a soft white light and browsed the rows of colourful off brand candies. Kittles, Venus Bars, Oh Stanley's, Milk Studs, Coffee Cripes, M and O's, Smarters, Sniders.

Where is she?

He'd been there all day. Questioned, filed, and kindly walked out. All he was sticking around for was Annabeth, but she still hadn't made a grande appearance. He still didn't know if she knew. All it would take was an officer to ask her about him, her friend Jack Manderson, and it was game over. It was such a simple downfall for him. One question. One line. One three second moment filled with earth shattering words. One realization for Annabeth. The anticipation was killing him.

A guillotine would've been a kinder downfall for him. Gentler at least. Swimming in and out of a state of complete anxiousness was exhausting. A sugar boost might help, he decided. He jangled around his pockets for the right amount of quarters.

But it's probably game over.

Sullenly he punched in the numbers for a Cat Kit bar. The buttons were sticky, the light in the vending machine flickered as if it were too delicate to handle a candy request. Mid-spin, the little metal spiral stopped. Suspending his chocolate bar right overtop of the drop zone. Groaning, Percy punched the machine.

"Sir, please refrain from using violence with the department equipment." The receptionist said without looking up from her screen.

"Then I'd like to report a theft," Percy replied dryly. "This machine stole six quarters from me and refuses to comply in delivering the agreed upon product of purchase."

"And you expect me to… ?" the receptionist lowered her glasses.

"Have it arrested of course."

The lady released one long pent up sigh. "Alright, beat up the damn thing. Just don't break the glass."

It was a very satisfying two minutes of electronic abuse before the thing finally yielded and dropped his chocolate into the pick up box. Just as Percy was reaching for it, a flash of blonde hair made him stand up straight again. A prickle of unease rolled down his esophagus.

Annabeth only stalled enough to lock eyes with him before she was rushing towards the elevator. Clutching her arms to her chest and keeping her gaze to the ground. When the elevator didn't arrive in the five seconds it took Percy to reach her, she made a beeline for the stairs. Flying down them two at a time.

"Annabeth!" he called after her. His heart in his throat. A splitting pain was raging against his skull, but he couldn't let her disappear from his life. Not yet.

She knows. She knows. She knows.

Percy pounded after her feeling like a rock was lodged in his lungs. Sputtering her name almost pathetically but never getting close enough to drag her to a stop. She didn't stop. Out through the bottom floor doorway, through the lobby and out into the wind, she ran hard. Fleeing almost. Her golden hair flew around her like a flag of surrender.

Why am I chasing her? Percy skidded to a stop on the sidewalk in front of the building. It took a moment to swallow back the fear that was threatening to choke him, but he managed. Panting, aching, and quietly chiding himself for running after her in the first place while he was still potentially nursing a concussion and severely bruised leg.

A little desolately, he watched her run to her car. A new thickness in his throat, a heaviness in his chest. Maybe he should just go back inside and confess his life story? Maybe she'd talk to him if he was in jail, behind a thick sheet of glass and communicating through a phone. Maybe a letter would be more apt, maybe he should just catch a cab to the airport and find the first flight to anywhere. Start new somewhere else, get Ethan to find him a new target. Forget she ever-

Annabeth beeped at him. Her car engine was on, her window was open. She was glaring at him through the side view mirror. With a start, Percy realized she wanted him to get in already and he staggered into a jog. Hopping in the passenger side warily.

Does she know?

"Contemplating life?" she hissed before they were screeching out of the parking lot. Percy barely had time to grab the sides of his seat to keep himself from face planting onto the dashboard. A new thrill in his throat as the streetlights and building signs were blurred past them in a canvas of warm yellows and neon smears.

"Seat belts?" Percy wheezed. Scrambling to get his on, but it was difficult with the way Annabeth kept snaking the car through traffic. A road menace, Percy believed the term was.

"Don't be a little bitch," Annabeth said.

It was that biting tone and that guarded look that was giving him alarm bells. Either she was taking him somewhere to kill him because she figured it out, or something terrible had happened in that interview room. The worst part was that he couldn't decide between the two.

"Annabeth-" Percy regretted sitting in the death seat. "Isn't your house in the opposite direction?"

"Wow. Were you Einstein in a past life? Did Sherlock Holmes bless you as a child?" she snarked.

He didn't like this. He didn't like any of this.

"Annabeth." He reached over to lay fingers over one of her hands still gripping the steering wheel.

Her jaw was grit, her eyes shone in the zipping light. But she was breaking under his touch. Softly, she let her palm slip away from the faux leather and she intertwined their fingers. Squeezing his hand with a strain.

"Where are we going?" he asked gently.

Annabeth shook her head. "I don't know. Anywhere."

"Why not go home?"

"No. Piper will be waiting for me there."

"But why-"

"I just can't talk to her right now okay? She'll know what's wrong, she'll try to make things better. I can't- I just can't, alright?"

"Alright," Percy said quietly. Squeezing her hand once more to reassure her.

She doesn't know. Not yet.

"Pull over." Percy pointed to the shoulder of the highway where a thicker stretch of gravel would work. "I'll drive."

"Why?"

"I know a place." He met her eyes. "And frankly, I'm scared for my life while you're driving like this."

.oOo.

He hadn't been back to the cliffs in months. They were ominously similar to the ones his mother would take him to as a child. Pale, ashy rock with tufts of ragged dead weeds and grass fluttering on the edge. But instead of a deep quarry home to a crystal blue lake, these rocky ledges looked over the vastness of the ocean.

No safety guardrails lined these cliffs. They were open and free and allowed you to go straight to the edge and stare down into the frothy churn of dark water raging against the wall of stone. The breath of salty cold that came off the water's surface was enough to keep you wide awake.

"How did you manage to find this place?" Annabeth asked softly. Enraptured by the distance of the horizon, and the dapple of clouds blotting a few of the thousand stars from sight.

"I like to drive beside the ocean when I'm upset," Percy spoke quietly. "This just happened to be on one of my drives."

Annabeth squinted at him. "You don't have a car."

"Not anymore I don't."

Sold it in anticipation of the kill. In retrospect, it was a bit of a waste. To secure a quick sale, he'd sold it at half its value. Unconsciously, he found himself thinking about buying another car. A good investment potentially if he had to make a swift getaway.

With a sullied sigh, Annabeth sunk to the ground. Dangling her feet over the drop and letting her gaze drift from the horizon line to the smattering of rocks below. Rocks just like the ones under the bridge she almost fell from. The longer they sat in the ringing silence, the more Percy regretted bringing her there.

Finally he mustered up the courage to sit next to her. "I don't like that look in your eyes."

"Why, do I look crazy?"

"More… desperate." Percy fastened his hand around her arm. Keeping her still. "Like you want to make that coastline your eternal home."

Annabeth chortled a cloud of vapor into the air. "I don't like that you can read me like that."

"So… that's really what's going through your head right now?" Percy fought the tremor from his voice.

Why? Maybe she didn't know it, but she had so much. A real job, a home, a friend, an identity, and confidence in herself. Why was the water below suddenly tempting to her? What happened to her fear of death? What the hell happened in that interview?

"Do you… do you have depression?" he shouldn't be asking such a question. He knew he shouldn't be asking but he just wanted to know. How had he spent so long with her and still hadn't untangled her mystery? Why was every question he had answered, swarmed with six more he couldn't hide from?

The Ocean can never stopped being explored.

"Ha," Annabeth laughed sharply. "Thankfully no."

"But-"

"Suicidal thoughts go hand in hand with depression, that's true. But not always." Annabeth folded her arms closer to her body. Not for warmth. "You got it right the first time."

His heart was dragging at the way she was speaking. So lost, so empty, so painful.

"Desperate?" he breathed.

Because of her ex-fiance? Or was it something else.

Annabeth glared down at the rocks. Chewing on the corner of her lips slowly. She opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, but it took a minute for the words to actually form.

"I'm in trouble," she whispered hoarsely. "Deep trouble. There's no way I foresee coming out of this alive, Perce."

Nodding as if he completely understood, Percy processed her words.

"Can't you just disappear? If things are so bad, can't you just uproot and leave?"

He was good at hiding. He could hide her from her ex, he could keep her safe far away from her worries.

"I'd have to give up being an architect, I'd have to leave Piper behind." Annabeth muttered. "Maybe my pride is too big but… I can't do that. I… I can't let him win like that."

"So you do know who's called a hit on you."

"Yeah… something like that."

"Why don't you tell the police? Lock up his ass."

"Because… because…" The more she tried to say it, the thicker the desperation grew in her eyes. She grit her teeth and locked her arms so tightly around her body Percy doubted she could get a solid steady breath into her lungs.

He looped an arm around her, and pulled her close. "It's alright. You don't need to tell me why."

Annabeth leaned into his embrace. Shuddering fitful sigh out as she shook her head.

"If you knew why, you'd hate me."

"Now you're just being dramatic."

"No really. Trust me when I say that you wouldn't want to do anything with me if you knew everything about me."

"And if you knew some things about me, I'm sure you'd hate me," Percy offered. A little voice in the back of his brain was telling him to confess his sinner life to her. She deserved to know who she was leaning on; a rotten log about to cave in. "I think we need to come to terms with the fact that we're showing the best versions of ourselves to each other."

Annabeth scoffed softly. "What could you have hidden? A porn addiction? A foot fetish? A past of mistreating dogs? None of those things I would hate you for by the way."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "You wouldn't hate me if I mistreated dogs? I would hate myself if I mistreated dogs."

"A past. Reformed. Changed." Annabeth clarified. "Point is, I don't think you're capable of doing anything worth hating."

"And I don't think you're capable of doing anything worth hating." Percy said. "That's why I said we should just accept the fact that we present the best versions of ourselves to each other."

Annabeth's eyes fell. The exhaustion from that day was settling beneath her lashes and with the way the corners of her mouth pouted downwards. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Percy readjusted his arm so it looped around her back and left his hand settled on her waist. A smidge more intimate, but not unwelcome. Annabeth lay her head back against his shoulder.

"So you can't leave," Percy said. "And you can't report him to the police. Sooo… why not just call a hit on him? Return the favor?"

I would do it. I would do it for free.

Annabeth shuddered. "No, I don't want to be that person. I can't just solve my problems with murder. It's uncreative and low and it's exactly what he's doing. I can't be like him."

Percy's heart sank a little. Yes. You would absolutely hate me.

"Besides," she continued. "I think he would expect that. He would never go down without taking me with him."

Blackmail? Money laundering? And how does Piper fit into all of this? Why doesn't she want to speak to Piper right now?

"This must be so much more serious than I can comprehend," Percy said. "If you, the girl who's afraid of death, are suddenly tempted to fall off a cliff… I can only imagine what kind of situation you're in right now."

"Yeah, it pretty much sucks."

"If you ever need me to do anything about it, just call. Alright?"

"I don't want to drag you into this."

"And I don't want you to die, so if you can think of anything, anything, call me. I'll do whatever you need me to do."

Annabeth chortled softly. "Alright. I'll call you and Piper the moment I need you guys."

"Uhhh no. Just me. Piper hates my guts." Percy coughed a laugh. "She'd probably find a way to kill me."

"Eh, she just thinks you're trying to have sex with me." Annabeth waved off. "I mean… I have had those types hover around me so her concerns aren't baseless…"

"Those types? What, I'm not one of those types? Do I radiate geek energy? Like I have an army of star trek toys in my basement?" Percy snickered.

"Why are you fighting what I'm saying?" Annabeth said. "Are you saying that Piper is right? All you want is to have sex with me?"

She turned to look at him, just them. Her eyes alight by the stars, her hair tumbling around her in a glory of golden curls. Under his fingers he could feel the curve of her waist and the slow even rhythm of her breathing. Despite all that lay before him, his eyes were drawn to her lips. Pink and soft and deliciously full, half parted in a little pout as she waited for his answer.

He couldn't say he hadn't thought about it. She was despicably gorgeous. The kind that was easy to objectify. But for any little dirty thought he had about her, his mind would pick up on a memory of her intelligence, or wit. He couldn't fantasize about her in that way when what he was drawn to was her personality, her life, her mysteries.

The Ocean is not just a landscape.

"No," Percy answered truthfully. "I mean… you're super hot and all but… I could never have meaningless sex with you. I like our friendship too much."

"Meaningless sex?" Annabeth raised an eyebrow at him teasingly. "Does that mean you would try to have meaningful sex with me?"

Percy felt a heat blossom on his face because yeah, in a perfect world where he wasn't an assassin, he probably would've tried to pursue Annabeth that way. A relationship kind of way.

Suddenly he wasn't feeling all too comfortable sitting so closely to her as they talked about sex.

"No- I just meant that friends with benefits situations always turn out wrong." But his face was steepening in colour. He could feel the flame of it seep down his neck.

"Then why're you blushing?" She cocked her head at him. A slight smile on her lips.

Uhhh Why were they talking about this?

"Because no girl I've ever met has ever asked me point blank if I'd wanted to fuck them." Percy turned away.

Annabeth swung her feet a little over the edge of the cliff with an airy laugh. The kind that told him she found him cute or endearing like a pet, or a little sibling. In silence he breathed his blush away and prayed the conversation would just die.

They'd been sitting there for awhile and Percy had started to feel the cold come biting through the ground and into his ass.

"Have there been many girls?" she asked quietly.

"What?"

"Have you… slept with a lot of women?"

Percy nibbled the corner of his lip. "Define a lot."

"Like ten."

"Definitely ten."

"Really?!"

Percy didn't know if she was slut shaming him or cheering him on. She looked intrigued and maybe a bit inquisitive.

"What about you? A lot of guys in your lifetime?" It was only fair that he returned the question.

"Not one." Annabeth said with high confidence.

"You're a virgin?!"

"Cliche, ain't it?"

"But-" She had a fiance at one point. She had a normal life, she had real relationships. She didn't have to skulk around bars and clubs to pick up strangers. To use and be used. She didn't have to seek the rush of happy chemicals, she had the opportunity to be loved. Truly loved. Not be slobbered with the desperate, the lonely. Not like him.

"I'm not having sex till I'm married," she said. Looking up into the sky, finding the constellations as she contemplated quietly. "I'm not into the whole 'exploring your sexuality' and being 'sexually free'. When the sexual revolution happened, people took it and ran and didn't know where to stop. I'm sick of being told that I can only lead a fulfilling life if I'm sexually active."

Annabeth Chase, impossible, crazy, mysterious Annabeth Chase. Why was she like this? What formed her?

"But what if you get married and you're not sexually compatible with your husband?" Percy asked.

"Oh please, I wouldn't marry someone for their dick. Sexual compatibility isn't an issue if you're truly in love with someone. Say you were totally head over heels in love with a girl, wouldn't you go out of your way to make sure she was sexually satisfied in bed?"

Percy had to shake away a few daydreams. "Yes?"

"And if this girl truly loved you, wouldn't she do the same?"

"I guess?"

"So if you're not a selfish twat and you understand that relationships and sex lives are supposed to be worked at by both partners you realize that even two virgins entering a marriage could probably be satisfied with just each other for the rest of their lives. So what if they need to put in effort? Everything needs effort."

It made sense, he guessed. He'd never considered it before. The relationship aspect of sex. All he really remembered about his sex education was that he was worthless if he was a virgin past eighteen.

He believed it. Like a dumbass. Cue his first one night stand, an awkward and terrible experience that ended with him alone on a dark street at four a.m barfing his guts out and struggling to breath. Then, once he got better at it, began the long tradition of catching a bus at five in the morning before the sun was up. Before his hookups knew he was gone. Anxious, on edge, already trying to distract himself.

It bothered him. He didn't wish he was still a virgin. It was the part where he was duped in the very beginning by a narrative sung by people claiming absolute freedom. This idea that sex completed you, showed your power, broke you out of the shell of your childhood and into your youth. Was he free? Did he feel free because he didn't put boundaries for himself when it came to sex?

Or was it a lie he fed to himself in hopes of feeling something of substance. To feel worth something to someone at least. Maybe at eighteen he thought of himself as mature for having sex. Maybe he was just trying to prove to himself that he was normal.

But here Annabeth was, a virgin and ten times more mature than he'd ever been. Eleven times more normal even.

"I imagine it's not easy telling that 'until marriage' tidbit to boyfriends," Percy chuckled.

Annabeth guffawed a sweet sound that carried out across the ocean. "Oh yeah, I've seen some insane mantrums in my time. Emotional manipulation, physical manipulation, psychological manipulation. Some guys have a one track mind."

"Yeah," Percy agreed. Thinking darkly about John S. Welter. His off-hand comments about Annabeth and his perception of her body. It was enough to make his blood boil. "Do you ever find yourself objectifying guys? Like if a particularly hot one passes are you turning around to stare at his butt?"

Annabeth pursed away her smile, a light blush glowed on the tops of her cheeks. "Staring? No. But I won't deny that I find someone attractive."

"Like me?" Percy teased, bobbing his eyebrows.

Annabeth wrinkled her face. "Not right now you aren't."

"But on a good day?" He leaned in closer. His heart jumped up to his throat when her face started turning scarlet.

"Yeah, on a good day you're pretty… hot." It sounded like she was suffering to say the words. Like admitting his physical physique was attractive to her made her want to vomit.

"AW YEAH!" Percy hooted over the waters. "YOU THINK I'M A HOTTIE."

"Not your personality." Annabeth shook her head. "You've got the muscles-"

"I GOT THE MUSCLES!"

"You have… an admittedly pretty face-"

"PROUD OWNER OF A PRETTY FACE!"

"But you act as if you talk to your belly button in the shower."

"I ACT- wait, what?!"

"You're a bizarre mix of stone faced and goofy and I can only assume that in the shower are some weird times."

"So… you've thought about what I'm like in the shower? Clothes off? Stark naked? Soaked skin?"

"I didn't say that-"

"You literally just did."
"Not in that way!" Annabeth huffed. Flustered.

A deep rumbling laugh came from Percy's chest and he pulled Annabeth closer to him. "I'm only teasing you, Wisegirl."

"Keep it up and I'll have half a mind to toss you off this cliff."

I am in desperate need of encouragement right now so if you drop a review I will literally love you forever.