Hey so if you think you may have seen this story several times popup or called Mistakes Past my account was not showing that it was published for the past three days so I thought I deleted it and posted it on a new account. But I saw that it was finally showing up so this is the one and only version. Lemme know what y'all think and hope you guys like this chapter!
Annabeth's POV
"-and'en the…the baby turtles have to make it to the ocean or die" Diana explained to me as we drove to the grocery store. She apparently convinced the daycare teacher today to leave an ocean documentary on for free time today.
"Oh really? That's sad." I said, smiling as I quickly looked at her rambling through the rear view mirror.
We pulled into the store's parking lot and headed in. I was looking at the produce section as Diana was talking to me about sharks when I heard her go "Oooo" and then run off. I whipped around and dropped the tomato I was holding as I saw her run to a man with a shark mouth skeleton tattoo on his calf. I tried to quickly make my way over to her and apologize to him. She tugged on his shorts and when he looked down she pointed to his tattoo. He laughed and as he turned around and kneeled down to talk to her I saw that it was Percy. My heart felt like it skipped two beats and my stomach twisted into a giant knot. He had changed so much. He now had a short but thick beard, his hair was longer but tied into a little tail. His skin was darker from clearly being outside a lot. He also seemed much bigger as his biceps seemed to stretch the shirt he was wearing. As I slowly stepped forward and let out a quiet "Diana." He looked up and his eyes locked with mine. His once bright sea green eyes were now much darker. The smile he had on his face from talking to Diana changed into a look of shock.
"Annabeth?" He said, standing up and stepping forward next to Diana. Diana looked up at him and then at me confused.
"Percy." I said, nodding my head at him, trying to not show how scared and nervous I was seeing him.
"You know my mommy?" Diana asked, looking up at Percy. He was still looking at me and seemed too stunned to respond.
"Yes. He's an-" I paused, losing my train of thought as I noticed a scar running from the top of his neck down to his chest. His face also had some new scars on it and it was clear now from his eyes that there was a tiredness to them.
"An old friend. I'm an old friend of your…mom's?" He said, looking down at Diana now.
"Yeah. This is Percy, sweetie, he's an old friend of mine." I repeated to her, picking her up and putting her in the cart. " I didn't know you lived here, I assumed that you were in New York."
"I don't, I just got here today, my work transferred me here for a while."
"What do you do?" Diana and I accidentally asked together.
"I work for my dad and the aquarium/university, I'm running some field tests and research on sharks and seals in the area." He chuckled.
"Your dad? You mean?" I said, looking confused and pointing a finger up to the sky.
"Yup. He has this whole ocean wildlife and r&d company. I help run it with Tyson and some of my dad's other family." He said, grabbing his cart pointing it in the same direction as I was going.
We walked together as we shopped and tried to catch up a little, but it was hard as Diana was asking him a million questions about his job and working with sharks and fish.
"When do you go see the sharks?" Diana asked as we went down the Mac and cheese aisle.
"I am going Thursday with the university and Friday by myself." He said, as I felt his hand lightly touch my back and he moved in next to me and reached to get the box of mac and cheese I was struggling to get. He smelled of ocean and sandalwood , I looked over at him and noticed a few pieces of his ear were missing. "What has happened since I left?" I thought. He must've noticed a look on my face and stepped back to hand me the box.
"Thanks…" I muttered, looking down in embarrassment a little.
"I wish I could go see sharks." Diana blurted out of nowhere and looked sadly at the cans of soup on the other side of the aisle.
"Well if your mom says it's okay you both can join me Friday. I'm just going to be mostly just observing the sharks and seeing where they feed." He said, looking at Diana and then at me.
Diana was jumping up and down in her seat and saying "please" over and over. I looked at Percy and then at her again and sighed. I knew what he was trying to do, and while catching up was nice a little I was still very much wary of him, but Diana was excited and it was hard to disappoint her.
"Sure, we can go." I said, looking at Diana as she got even more excited.
"Great! Here lemme get your number and then I can text you about it." Percy said, whipping his phone out of his pocket. He handed me the phone and I typed my number into it. As I hit save I noticed that he had several calls to Piper.
As we finished our shopping, I let Diana talk his ear off about fish, whales, sharks, and whatever else she wanted to. He seemed to enjoy it all, not missing one thing and telling her even more facts about sea animals. I'll admit that his smile and focus on her as she explained everything in her own words was cute, even endearing. I thought briefly on whether I should just tell him here and now that she is his but quickly brushed that thought to the side. While I know he wouldn't do anything like take her away from me, but while I may still be hurt and think of this as some type of cruel punishment he deserves, he still was very much a stranger to me now. After we checked out and headed out of the store Diana asked if she could go onto the little rocket ship out at the front. I told her I didn't have any quarters but Percy said he did and pulled some out for her. She raced over and put them in herself.
"She's a cute kid, very talkative, but cute. You and her dad must be proud." He said, smiling while looking at her.
"Her dad doesn't know about her, he's not around." I said, coldly and probably more harsh than I meant to.
"I'm sorry, I just assumed-" he started, looking down at me.
"It's fine. It was my choice, he wasn't someone I wanted around my daughter." I said, watching Diana still.
"How old is she?" He asked, clearly prodding to see if she was his.
"She's gonna be 5 soon. She's not yours just so you know. It was someone after…you." I said, still watching Diana. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I noticed a look of what seemed to be disappointment and sorrow.
"Listen about what happened-" Percy started, looking back at Diana with me.
"No, not here Percy."
"Then when?" he said, turning to me. "Because I need to talk to you about it.
"I'll tell you when I'm ready to hear it." I calmly said before looking at my phone as it was buzzing a lot. As I looked down I saw several flirty texts from Lucas asking if I was getting ready for tonight and he could see a sneak peek.
"Shit!" I blurted out, Percy then looked at me and asked what was wrong. "Nothing. I just had this work dinner and now I don't have time to cook Diana dinner before dropping her off with my parents."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay. Diana, come on we gotta get home now" I said, waving her over to us.
"Can Percy come and have dinner with us tonight?" she asked as she ran up to hold my hand.
"Not tonight, I have that work thing and you're going to spend the night with grandma and grandpa." I told her as I picked up and put her back in the cart.
"Can he tomorrow night then?" she asked.
"Um…I'll think about it. He probably has plans already." I said, looking over at Percy who was clearly very hesitant to answer.
"Yeah, I'll have to check but I'll let your mom know tomorrow. But I'll see you Friday though, okay?" He said shakily, clearly not wanting to overstep or make me feel pressured into anything.
"Okay…" Diana said, pouting a little.
We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways, on our way to the car Diana looked up at me and then back over where Percy had split off from us.
"Mommy, do you hate Percy?" she asked, making me almost choke on my own spit.
"Um, no. Why do you ask that, Sweety?"
"You just looked mad at him when I axed if he could have dinner with us." she said, looking off into the parking lot.
"I wasn't mad, I just…well I just haven't seen him in a long time and it's like meeting someone new again and I didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable." I explained the best I could to her.
"I like him, he's nice and funny." she confidently said.
"Yes, he is nice and funny." I said, shaking my head at her cuteness and confidence.
After we got to the car I put her in her car seat and loaded up the groceries. We stopped by McDonald's on the way to my parents and then I rushed home to put the groceries away and get ready for the dinner party.
Percy's POV
Well shit, I didn't expect to find Annabeth so soon and I definitely did not expect her to have a child. It has been almost 5 years and while I knew she would be different, not just in looks but in personality, from the last time I saw her I still wasn't as ready as I thought I was. When I looked up and saw her making her way over to me and who I now know was Diana. I was shocked, she looked beautiful, the longer I looked at her as we went around the store the more she looked like Athena. Her hair was down and longer, she had a little more makeup on than she used to and a dark red lipstick on. She looked more mature but still young at the same time, her eyes were still a beautiful and fierce gray but I could tell that being a single mother takes it toll on her as they had an all too well familiar tiredness to them. Her daughter Diana was adorable and certainly had gotten her smartness from Annabeth. While I did start to suspect that she could be mine and Annabeth's I tried pushing that out of my mind because I knew Annabeth would've told me if she had been pregnant when we were together. Yet as we continued our shopping the suspicion kept coming up in my mind, and when I tried asking and she told me I wasn't I did feel a sense of disappointment, because something about Diana reminded me of myself.
As I got back to my new place I unloaded my car and started making some dinner for myself. My phone started ringing and I picked it up as I set my plate of food down on the bar side of the kitchen island. I looked down and saw that it was Piper trying to FaceTime me, I answered and Piper appeared on my screen sitting down in a towel doing her makeup.
"Hey Perce, how is the house? Do you like it?" she asked, looking at me through the screen smiling.
"Hey Pipe's, the place is beautiful and it's great. Thank you so much for letting me stay here, are you sure you don't need me to pay rent or anything?" I responded, smiling back and picking up my fork to take a bite of my food.
"Of course Percy and yes I'm sure, the place is as much yours as it is mine. You'll end up using it more than I ever have anyway, for all I care it's yours." She said, focusing back on doing her makeup. "So you better not be staying in that guest room."
"Okay, well thank you, and trust me as soon as I saw the master bedroom I moved right into it." I chuckled as I looked out the window. The storm finally decided to hit and it was hitting hard.
"Is it storming there?" she asked.
"Yeah…I may have pissed off Athena which in turn pissed off Zeus…" I said, looking out as I saw a flash of lightning hit the ocean.
"Percy." She sternly said, looking down at me with a "seriously" expression on her face. "Are you trying to die?"
"No. Athena just pissed me off…and I would even say she was more scared of me killing her." I defensively said back, smirking a little at the end. A strike of lightning then hit somewhere close and the power flickered.
"Percy you better not get that house destroyed by Zeus. Burn some of that food as an apologetic offering to Zeus and Athena. NOW!" She scolded me. I rolled my eyes and went to burn some food for them. I looked outside and saw lightning flash and the storm then seemed to let up some.
"There the house is safe."
"Thank you." She laughed a little and went back to putting makeup on.
"What are you getting ready for? A date?" I asked as I sat back down and started eating my food.
"Yes and she is taking me to this new place that just opened last week. Do my eyebrows look good?" she said, looking at the screen and showing off her eyebrows. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary besides them looking more defined.
"Yes they look amazing and ooo who is she?" I said, surprised that she finally has moved on from the last girl she dated…four years ago.
"She is from Spain, she's very hot, and I am her first girl date." She happily said, very clearly excited. She picked her phone up and moved it over to a higher place showing all of herself on the camera.
"Nice, are you nervous being her first?" I asked, looking oddly at her for moving her phone.
"Yes, very much so. Also I see that look, I need help picking what lingerie and dress I should wear last night." She explained dropping her towel. I felt my face get red and just slowly nodded okay to her and tried focusing on her face.
"Percy you have seen it all before, stop acting like that." She said, walking over to a drawer that I assumed was filled with lingerie. I stopped trying to focus so hard on her face and relaxed, she was right. I had seen her naked before, multiple times, but still her comfort with me still shocks me at times.
"Sorry, you know how I am, especially when you do this when you're seeing someone." I said, smiling a little bit out of awkwardness.
"It's the first date Percy, don't overthink it. Now should I do black or this maroon" she said, holding up the different colored lace bra and thong sets.
"The maroon one looks good, but the black one's lace is more see through so that one." I said, as I put a piece of the chicken I was eating in my mouth.
"Ugh men, you guys hate leaving anything to the imagination." She said, rolling her eyes and picking the maroon one and putting it on. She looked at herself in the mirror and kept turning, checking herself out at every angle she could think of.
"Are you just wearing the lingerie or do you need a-" I started to say before getting cut off.
"Ugh I don't like this maroon on me, here does this green one look any better?" She said, changing quickly into a dark green strapless lingerie set, completely ignoring the black set now.
"Yes it looks good, but do you plan on wearing red tonight? Because then you'll be a little bit Christmas themed." I said, cracking a smile at my stupid comment.
"Very funny, I was thinking of wearing this black dress. Which was why I didn't choose your see-through black set." She said, grabbing a dress off screen and putting up to her body. It was a strapless black dress with two slits on the side and looked like it went down to her knees.
"Then yes, the green looks good and you should wear that dress." I said, nodding my head hoping that she was almost done needing my help.
"Okay, and you know if you get me a set of that black lingerie you like but strapless, maybe I'll wear it for you some time." She casually said, as she zipped herself up in the dress and put on a pair of heels that she had thankfully already picked out.
"Piper, please. You're going on a date soon. Can you try and not assume it won't work out?" I asked, she always did this. She never stayed with someone for longer than a month or so and then she'd come and see me or I'd go and see her and we'd hook up for a couple of days. It wasn't anything serious and it still was as weird as the first time it had happened, well a little less weird but still.
"I'm just saying Percy, I always do like a nice pair of lingerie, or a dress, ooo or shoes." She said, now thinking of all of the things I could buy her.
This time I looked at her with a "seriously" face as I looked up from eating my food. She smiled as she picked her phone back up and took me over to her vanity again and started blow drying her hair. I rolled my eyes and turned my phone down so I wasn't listening to the sound of her hair dryer. She finished her hair as I finished my food and put my dishes away in the dishwasher.
"Where are you anyway? It's like seven now here." I asked, realizing that she was still getting ready for a dinner that would be very late in New York.
"Oh I'm in LA right now, I'll be here for the next couple of weeks." She said, putting her earrings on now and a necklace that I had gotten her for Christmas last year.
"Oh nice. Why didn't you tell me I would've stopped up there and I could've helped you get ready in person." I said, going back over to my room.
"Because I just got here as of…two hours ago. And now I gotta get going, my date is almost here. Stop pissing off Athena, she's trying to help! Love you." she smiled.
"Okay, have fun! I'll try, oh and I saw Annabeth and her kid today, we are going to all hang out Friday! Love you too!" I said, smiling back as I knew I just pissed her off for mentioning what happened so late.
Her eyes got wide as I pushed the hang up button. I then received a text from her stating that I better tell her everything tomorrow. I texted her back I will and to go have fun with her date. I then walked off to go take a shower.