Chapter Text
“So?” Annabeth asks, on edge for more reasons than just being surrounded in an actual sea of purple NYU hoodie-wearing shitbags.
“As much as I would love to put my hand on your ass as many times as humanly possible in a single week while in view of your step-mom and her terrible extended family, I am tragically busy this holiday season,” Piper somehow manages to say in one breath. She leans back in her chair and kicks her legs up to rest on the table, ignoring the look of distaste a purple hoodie is giving her Pratt Institute t-shirt. “Why don’t you ask Percy?”
“Percy loves spending the holidays with his mom and Estelle,” Annabeth says. Even dirtier looks are sent her way when people clock the exact shade of Columbia baby blue she’s wearing, but their hatred just fuels her. She counts off her options on her fingers. “Jason’s going to see Thalia, Grover’s still in New Mexico, Frank’s with his grandma, Silena and Clarisse are still euphorically attached at the tonsils—”
“Finally,” Piper interjects.
”Right? Took them long enough. I’ve also thought about Connor, but he’d make things weird, and I guess Malcolm, but he’s practically my brother, and Leo…” She sighs.
“Leo’s not an option,” they say in unison.
Annabeth groans and puts her head down on the table, feeling thoroughly pathetic. She brought it up to Piper before the boys joined them for a reason, but even their combined brain power isn’t enough to navigate a way out of the labyrinth she’s found herself in.
“Speak of the Devil,” Piper warns.
“What’s wrong with you?” Leo asks from somewhere to her left. “Did you get an A- on a paper or something?” She looks up just in time to catch the complicated handshake he shares with Piper, but puts her head right back down again as Piper explains the situation to him. Traitor.
“I should be offended that you haven’t asked me,” Leo says, popping his soda open with a crack fizz, “but mostly I’m just relieved.” His grease-stained shirt and suspenders make him a bit of an oddity compared to those around them, but the royal purple beanie shoved over his curls gives Annabeth the same vague nausea the hoodies do. “Why aren’t you bringing Percy?”
“Oh my god.”
“Bringing me where?”
Annabeth whips her head to the side, where Percy and Jason have managed to sneak up on her. Jason, fitting effortlessly into the sea of purple hoodies around them, goes for the empty seat by Piper, but Percy stays standing, head tilted to one side. He’s holding an apple and nothing else, wearing one of his mom’s older sweaters, the one with the stretched out collar—Annabeth’s eyelids narrow into slits. Something’s up.
“Annabeth panic-lied to her step-mom about being in a quote ‘stable and emotionally available’ relationship, and now she has to bring her imaginary lover home for New Year’s,” Piper explains, bringing her hands up behind her head and looking thoroughly amused.
Jason nods, like this is a totally average occurrence, and opens the lid of his literal Teen Titans lunchbox. “You should bring Percy.”
“That’s what I said,” Leo interjects.
Annabeth buries her face into her hands as Piper cackles. Someone takes the seat next to her right; the familiar smell of chlorine and Old Spice deodorant wafts over her. She knows it’s Percy without opening her eyes.
“Did she call you before your exam last week?” he asks quietly, ignoring Jason demanding to be filled in on the joke.
Annabeth nods, face still hidden in her palms. Percy hums sympathetically and rubs between her shoulder-blades the way she likes. There’s the crunch of him beginning to devour his apple, but that’s all—he leaves her be. In that moment, Annabeth is positive that he is the very best friend that she has ever had and ever will have.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks him in a similarly quiet tone, turning her head and peaking at him from between her fingers.
He offers her a smile that’s more like a grimace, one cheek puffed out by a too-big bite. “After lunch? I’ll walk you to your train.”
She nods. They never end up spending as much time together as they mean to during the lead up to finals.
“Well, I’m just saying,” Jason continues, “he makes the most sense.”
“They do have that telepathy thing,” Leo chimes in.
“We don’t have a telepathy thing,” Annabeth and Percy chorus, joining the conversation again.
Jason gives them a flat look. “Sure.”
“Y’all just suck at charades,” Annabeth says. Sore losers. You guess Sharknado 5: Global Swarming in under seven seconds one time—
Piper perks up. “Oh, I love it when Annabeth’s Virginia girl comes out. Someone work Monsanto into the conversation, stat. I want to see her turn purple again.”
Annabeth presses her face to Percy’s shoulder, only mildly grossed out by the sound of him chewing his apple right by her ear. “I miss Grover,” she tells him. “Why couldn’t we make friends with another Grover?”
“Dude,” he responds. “You know he’s, like, irreplaceable?” The circles on her back stop as he sings an arm around her shoulders, jostling her a little. “We got spoiled by the GOAT.”
“Hey!”
“You’ve had his veggie burgers, Piper, you know we’re right.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Why can’t you just say that they’re busy for the holidays?” Jason cuts in, practical and problem-solvey as always. “I’m sure your step-mom would understand.”
There’s a beat, and then everyone else at the table cracks up.
“Dude, you have clearly never met Mrs. Dr. Chase,” Percy says. “She is a force.”
“She’s not that bad,” Annabeth feels compelled to protest through her smile, even though she often thinks that her step-mom is, in fact, that bad. “I must have agreed that they were coming somewhere in the conversation, even though I can’t remember it for shit.”
“You could always say they can’t come, though,” Leo suggests. “That something came up.”
Annabeth sighs, wishing very much that that was still possible. “My brothers said that she’s told everyone. Like, everyone, even the sister-in-law she hates, so I’m screwed if I show up alone. Maybe I should post a CraigsList ad.”
Percy’s shoulder stiffens under her head, but Piper beats him to it. “Veto,” she says. “That’s some serial-killer bullshit.”
Which—Annabeth could probably handle that, but still. Fair. She tilts her head to look up at Percy. “Is there anyone on your team who could do it?”
He snorts. “Uh, you’ve met them. Do you think they’d impress your step-mom’s nutty family?”
As generally harmless as his old high school swim team is, she understands his point. “I just need someone smart and charming who will pretend to be in love with me and talk about how brilliant and well-adjusted I turned out.” She pauses. “And will be able to handle my brothers. And be good at schmoozing old ladies.” She pauses again. “And isn’t doing anything for the holidays. Is that too much to ask?”
Silence. Leo takes a slow, slurping sip of his soda.
Annabeth groans. “That is too much to ask, isn’t it?”
Piper offers her a conciliatory grape. Annabeth accepts and lets the conversation move on to a topic that doesn’t make her want to smash her head against a wall. Percy stays similarly quiet, munching away and letting her use him as a pillow. They always mean to have these camp lunches more often than they actually do—when Jason, Piper, and Leo were all first year college students in a new city they happened like clockwork, every Saturday. With increasingly busy schedules for all of the ex-campers who ended up in New York, they’ve faded into a maybe-once-a-month kind of territory, and Annabeth, perpetually overworked and exhausted, can’t help but be relieved. They meet around NYU because it’s around halfway between Pratt and Columbia on the subway, but Annabeth technically has the longest commute and the most rigorous academic schedule.
Would it kill them to haul ass up to Columbia’s campus every once and a while? She even has a campus, unlike the sprawling mass that is NYU. Whatever. She’s not bitter.
She’s momentarily content to watch Piper’s face get more and more confused as Leo and Jason talk about their calculus final over her head. Percy lowers his apple to offer Annabeth a bite—like, don’t mind if she does, it’s a honeycrisp. She chews happily as Piper’s sour expression morphs into a glare.
“I know you did not just start talking about imaginary numbers, Jason Grace,” she says. “What kind of bullshit is that? Are you fucking with me?”
Annabeth snorts, perfectly fine with not getting in the middle of it. Art students. She’s thinking about bothering Percy for another bite when her phone buzzes on the table. She flips it around to read the much-awaited text from Grover:
Why don’t you bring Percy?
Annabeth is going to scream.
A few seconds pass, and then his next text comes in. Annabeth clocks the purple of little eggplant emojis and chucks her phone into the depths of her backpack.
//
A brief aside about Annabeth Chase, mildly recovered human disaster:
She spent most of her time from age seven to age seventeen being an actual mess. A brilliant mess, indisputably, but a mess all the same—a Problem Child with a capital P and capital C. With a high intellect and a low emotional intelligence, she was constantly, simultaneously, perpetually too-mature while still being not-mature-enough. She ran away often and did not play well with others.
They switched schools and child psychologists and even neighborhoods, but Annabeth stayed sullen and angry. Nothing worked. Her father and still new step-mother, trying so hard to understand, were eventually handed a pamphlet for a summer camp in Long Island. They looked at each other, shrugged—they had tried everything else, they thought. What did they have to lose?
When they came to pick her up in August, it took three hours and a written promise that she would be allowed to return next summer to get her in the car.
Camp didn’t fix her problems, but it offered warm strawberry fields and the crashing waves of Long Island Sound. It gave her Thalia and Grover, and eventually Percy. It was a haven she never truly wanted to leave.
In her most private moments, a decade and a half later, Annabeth can’t help but admit to herself that the feeling in her chest as she stood on the porch of the Big House, watching her dad and step-mom walk away—watching them leave her behind—is one that’s never truly faded. It just festered under the hot summer sun, was tended to carefully like every bonfire she roasted marshmallows over, until it was as much a part of her as muscle and bone.
//
Percy leads them through Washington Square Park on their way to the 1 train. Annabeth is by no means a native New Yorker, and updown is way more her comfort zone, but she knows enough by now to see the obvious detour. She can’t help but grin when she realizes why—Percy only has eyes for the newly renovated dog park. Still, something’s off about him, so she doesn’t try to tease. She just waits.
Percy leans his elbows against a section of the fence removed from the regular foot traffic and watches two corgis chase each other in circles. “Paul’s mom isn’t doing so well,” he finally says, steadfastly not looking in Annabeth’s direction. “She really can’t be traveling.”
“Oh, no,” Annabeth murmurs, squeezing his arm lightly. “So, she can’t come visit?”
He sighs. “Yeah, and it seems like this really might be her last Christmas, so he wants to spend it with her, obviously. You know how they’re, like,” he waves a hand around, “religious and stuff. And she’s Estelle’s grandma, of course, so they really should go.”
“Hold on,” Annabeth interrupts, “they should go? Doesn’t she, like, love you?”
“Yeah, but she lives in Ottawa. Ottawa, Canada.”
Annabeth blinks, confused. Then, “oh, shit. Still? That was a total misunderstanding.”
Percy finally looks at her, one eyebrow quirked up. “Well, we know that. The Canadian government, on the other hand, thinks that I’m responsible for destroying hundreds of acres of a protected habitat. I’m lucky they didn’t push to extradite me; who cares that I can’t go to Niagara Falls?”
“You were a minor,” Annabeth interrupts again, so used to the argument that it flows right out of her. She bites her tongue in favor of trying to get the thoroughly defeated look off of his face, pulling him into a hug. “That’s terrible, Percy. You won’t be able to see her?”
He sags in her arms, chin heavy on her shoulder, and doesn’t bother trying to hide the tremor in his voice. “Yeah. We’ll probably FaceTime most of Christmas if they can get service, though.”
That makes Annabeth’s chest ache harder, because Percy loves Christmas more than anyone she knows. “And Christmas alone? That’s…huh...” her voice trails off.
Percy pulls back from the hug, his facial expression nothing but suspicion. “Why are you using your plotting voice?”
“What ‘plotting voice?’ I don’t have a plotting voice.”
“You totally have a plotting voice, you used it just then!”
Annabeth gnaws at her lip, weighs her options. “Well,” she begins slowly, “what if you didn’t spend Christmas alone?”
Percy’s mouth twists into an almost-smile. “Do you have a plan to smuggle me into Canada?”
“No, but…” she shrugs. “I might have a plan to smuggle you to San Francisco?”
Percy blinks. She can practically hear the gears turning in his head. “Is this because everyone said you should take me?”
“No,” Annabeth rushes to say, except: “I mean, they have a point.”
Percy takes a full step back and crosses his arms. “What point is that, exactly?”
“My step-mom adores you, for one,” Annabeth begins, shoving at his shoulder. “And don’t even get me started on Bobby and Matthew, they’re obsessed. Have been ever since you showed them the skateboard twirl-thing.”
That makes him crack a real smile, finally. “Kickflip.”
She smiles back. “Yeah, whatever. Plus, you’re, like, very…” She gestures vaguely at him. “Percy.”
The smile grows wider. “I'm very Percy,” he echoes.
Annabeth sighs. Blunt it is, then. “You’re boyfriend material.”
The smile is a grin now, taking up the whole bottom half of his stupid, extended-family-charming face. “I am, aren’t I?”
“You’re enjoying this,” she accuses. “I’m suffering in a web of lies and you’re enjoying it.”
“Um, lies of your own creation.”
“Lies I said under duress! Right before the biggest exam of the semester! They shouldn’t even count.”
Percy looks unimpressed.
“Look, you know me better than anyone,” Annabeth says. It’s not an opinion, so Percy doesn’t try to disagree, leaving Annabeth on her path of having to kiss his ass, just a little. “I was pretty prepared for this break to majorly suck, either because my lie would blow up in my face or because I’d have to actually talk to whoever I dragged with me as my date, but if it’s you then we’ll actually have a fun holiday. Like, both of us. You won’t be miserable on Christmas and I’ll have someone to bring to the New Year's party.” She really feels like she’s on a roll, but Percy's face is (for once) unreadable to her. He’s probably just fishing for more compliments. Asshole.
“Not to mention…” Annabeth wasn’t going to play this card, back when she thought Percy had a perfectly normal Christmas at home planned, but now that she knows he’s going to be alone, “you owe me.”
Percy holds eye contact for a long moment, not blinking. “You’re cashing in? For this?”
Annabeth stares back with what’s probably more of a glare, then nods.
“You want me to be your fake boyfriend that bad?”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, shut up. I need someone who knows me well enough to convincingly be my fake boyfriend and I absolutely refuse to let you spend your favorite holiday mopey and alone.”
He considers her for an even longer moment. “We’d probably have to go fifty-fifty on my tickets,” he admits, his cheeks the tiniest bit pink.
“You won’t even have to pay for your plane ticket,” Annabeth reassures him, hoping to forego his usual reluctance to have anyone pay for things for him. “Elaine said she’d cover it. Both ways. Please let her.”
“Oh,” Percy says, smiling down at her as he slings an arm over her shoulders. “Wow, she really is desperate to get you a date, huh? Say no more!” With one last glance towards the scampering dogs, he leads them away.
“You’re the worst,” she grumbles, perfectly aware of how untrue that is.
“You have to admit,” Percy says, smirking even as her very pointedly doesn’t look at her, “it’s pretty funny.”
Annabeth steps on the back of his shoe. “What about this is funny?”
Percy grumbles and leans down to shove his heel back in, hopping along as Annabeth keeps walking. “I mean, you’ve normally planned for everything, you know? Especially when it comes to going home over breaks. Like, this is all very un-Annabeth. It’s funny.”
Annabeth gapes at him. “If you weren’t my only option I really would stop talking to you,” she says, more than happy to be the butt of the joke if it means it’ll keep that smile on his face.
“There goes nearly ten years of friendship,” Percy sighs. “Well, it was nice while it lasted.” He knocks his shoulder into hers.
She knocks him right back, a little harder than she intends, and then reaches out and grabs him to stop him from stumbling into the street. “Sorry, sorry, don’t actually want you dead.”
He slings his arm around her shoulders again once he’s upright. “Good to know,” he laughs, committing them to the difficulty of walking down the sidewalk two-by-two.
Annabeth feels relief hot in her chest, the near-constant anxiety she’s had over her break slowly dissolving as they walk through the West Village. It’s already in full holiday mode, even though December has barely begun.
Annabeth is constantly surprised by all the little ways she’s fallen in love with New York. She’ll always be a tiny bit San Francisco and a slightly larger part Richmond, but most of her is at home here, where a park can bleed effortlessly into high-rises—where more than just one building defines the skyline. This city has captured her in more ways than she can count, and it had right from the start. She doesn’t have to wonder how much of that has to do with the person by her side.
Percy’s complaining about his chlorine-hair again, and Annabeth is distracted by the paper candy canes stuck in the window of the DuaneReade they pass. The Christmas songs will start blaring in every store soon. Sally will start force feeding her gingerbread men soon. The entire Jackson family will insist she participate in the decoration of their tree soon. All the things that mean the holidays to her, all wrapped up in a little bow, all lingering on the east coast. She tunes back into Percy when he tugs on one of her stray curls.
“Ground control to Major Tom,” he says. It had become their shorthand for when their minds took them on little detours some time too long ago to pin down. She focuses on him with purpose, and her eye catches a few barely-there snowflakes stuck to his hair, tiny white pinpricks against black.
“Hey.” She nudges him, jerking her chin towards the cars parked up against the sidewalk. “It’s snowing.”
The tiniest film of white rests against the windshields. “It’s early for snow,” Percy muses. “December is usually just wet and cold.” He tilts his head back and sticks out his tongue, but has little success catching a snowflake in his mouth.
Annabeth navigates him around a trash-can. “It’s nice,” she insists. “Festive.”
“It’s not gonna stick,” he warns, looking down at her. “Not until January, at least.”
“I know,” Annabeth says, taking her turn to look up at the bright gray peaking through the buildings as Percy leads them to the 1. “It’s okay. Some things aren’t meant to be permanent.”
//
Annabeth checks her phone again waiting for the 1 to arrive. There’s a few Twitter notifications that she ignores, and somehow upwards of thirty new damn emails, but the most head-scratching thing is how Bobby and Matthew have blown up their sibling group-chat. She’s lucky if they respond to one out of every ten texts she sends their way. Annabeth opens it up and immediately wishes that she hadn’t.
yo Big Stinker
are you finally spilling on whos coming for xmas
cmon tell ussssss
also unrelated are they afraid of snakes/geckos????
is it someone we know already
UNRELATED but if they are afraid how bad is it/would they cry if one made its way into their bed
why are u being so hush hush about it
is it percy
lmao. Its totally percy
Annabeth resists the very powerful urge to throw her phone into the tracks as an offering to Pizza Rat himself.
//
The day before Annabeth Chase, born on July 12, 1994, had her criminal record expunged, it noted that she had been charged with (but not necessarily found guilty of) the following crimes:
-Loitering in the first degree
-Unauthorized use of a federal computer database
-Forgery of a vehicle identification number
-Grand larceny in the third degree
-Reckless endangerment in the second degree
-Criminal trespass in the first degree
-Criminal trespass in the second degree
-Aggravated cemetery desecration in the first degree
-Aggravated cemetery desecration in the second degree
-Criminal mischief in the third degree
When goaded about her criminal record later in life, usually by one Percy Jackson, Annabeth can be made to affect her worst New York accent in order to say, “six arrests, no convictions.”
It never fails to make him laugh. Annabeth doesn’t bother wondering how many of those arrests never would’ve happened if she wasn’t so taken with the exact sparkle in Percy’s eyes when he laughed.
//
Annabeth drafts an email to her step-mom on the train, one of Percy’s ‘Give Annabeth An Education In Good Music’ playlists blasting through her headphones. What’s wrong with Chopin and Carrie Underwood she’ll never know, but Percy keeps making the damn playlists so she keeps on listening to them.
A vaguely familiar Rihanna song gets her foot tapping as she agonizes over the phrasing in her email, trying to keep the tone light and casual. Annabeth’s sure to make up a few obligations for Percy so that they can only fly out on the 24th of December and have to return by the 2nd of January—that outcome is probably better for everyone involved. As the music changes to something drum heavy that she doesn’t know, she sets a reminder to text Percy, wanting to be sure to ask if he actually has some kind of obligation in the middle of the holidays before she reaches out to her step-mom.
Her phone gets carefully zipped into her pocket after that. She hitches a foot up on the bump below the window and gets comfortable. The seat next to her is blessedly empty. As the subway goes through the tunnel between stations, Annabeth can see her reflection in the window. She thinks she recognizes her father in the curve of her jaw.
She thinks about whether or not she should cc him on the email to her step-mom for the entirety of the way between 86th and 96th before she manages to pack him back into his little box in the corner of her mind.
//
An even more brief aside about Annabeth Chase, cancer sun and virgo moon:
She loves hard. It’s never made anything easier.
//
Just after three in the morning, in the middle of a war Annabeth has waged against her hot glue gun and meticulously cut pieces of foam core, she gets a text from Thalia.
awake? it reads.
Annabeth texts back yes with her left (and still unburned) hand. The call comes in moments later, and Annabeth’s glad she already has headphones in because she doesn’t need another passive aggressive note from her roommate about late night conversations. Annabeth can’t help her night owl tendencies, or that the walls are thin, and she does not want to have to buy another apology succulent.
“What’s up, Thals?” Annabeth greets, keeping her voice low as she adds a tiny dollop of hot glue to a piece of balsa wood.
“A little birdie named my brother Jason told me that Percy is pretending to be your boyfriend for Christmas,” Thalia says. There’s wind wherever she is. Knowing Thalia, it’s somewhere high up.
Annabeth closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. It’s barely been two days since Percy agreed to come to San Francisco with her. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Oh, it’s not his fault, he was raised by wolves,” Thalia says. “Cut him some slack. Tell me about your messy holidays.”
Annabeth sighs as loudly as she dares and goes with honesty—Thalia’s always been able to tell when she’s lying, anyway. “It’s more for New Year’s than for Christmas, honestly. That’s when they have their huge party.” She smacks the side of her glue gun, frowning down the barrel. “If it were just Dad and Elaine and the twins I would’ve admitted it, you know? Or staged a breakup or whatever. But…”
“But?”
“It’s her family,” Annabeth groans. “This isn’t even my step-kid complex, I swear, they’re just impossible. I’m never good enough for them. They're always picking apart how I look and what I’m studying as they praise Bobby for, like, setting the table after he’s been asked to six times. It’s infuriating.” She fist pumps as hot glue starts flowing again.
Thalia hums sympathetically, but goes right for the kill-shot. “And a man will save you?”
“That’s always their ace, Thals,” Annabeth nearly whines, attaching another pillar to her model with a steady hand. “How I’m single. How my eggs will shrivel up and die before I find a date. How I’ll die alone.” She tries to relax into the usually therapeutic process of model-making, but the serenity doesn’t arrive.
“Hey,” Thalia interjects, “you know how I feel about dying, kiddo.”
Annabeth lets out an only slightly lackluster laugh, doing her best not to jostle the column until the glue sets. “Yeah, yeah, it’s unfeminine and not in your plans.”
“Exactly,” she says, her voice smug.
“Well, unfortunately Elaine’s three billion aunts and cousins won’t die either.” Annabeth makes a face. “That was mean. I didn’t mean that.”
“You just wish they’d stop bullying you at New Year’s.”
“I just wish they’d stop bullying me at New Year’s.” She gestures a little uselessly with her glue gun, narrowly dodging the dollop of hot glue that goes flying. “If I say we broke up before the holidays that’ll just be more ammo against me. Can you imagine? Like, oh, Annabeth, I’m sure you’ll convince someone to settle down with you eventually. You know you could be pretty if you just tried. I think I’d actually expire under the tree. But if I succeed in all the ways they’ve always picked me apart, then I win.”
“Not to, like, therapize you or anything,” Thalia begins casually, “but you know their opinion of you isn’t reality, yeah? Like, their choices for you shouldn’t become your choices.”
“I know,” Annabeth says, so very close to believing it. “I know that. It’s just hard.”
“You’re a catch,” Thalia insists. “Scholarship-to-an-Ivy-League kind of catch, and dead hot on top of that. Fuck anyone who doesn’t see it, family included.”
“Right.” Annabeth’s voice comes out just a bit stronger. “I’m a catch.”
“And if you never want to date anyone that’s fucking fine, yeah? Your value isn’t determined by a relationship. You’ve been focusing on getting your ridiculously challenging degree and that rocks.”
“Yeah,” Annabeth wholeheartedly agrees. “Yeah, that’s—that’s…” She clears her throat. “Thalia?”
“Hmm?”
“What if I do want that?”
“What, a relationship?”
“Yeah. Yeah, with...yeah.”
Thalia huffs out a breath that turns to static in Annabeth’s ear. “Well, then I’m really not the person you should be talking to. The fuck do I know?”
There’s a brief moment of silence before they both burst into laughter. Annabeth burns her finger mid-giggle and gives up on her model for the time being, content to curl up in the feeling of Thalia’s protective love.
//
Annabeth’s favorite memory goes something like this:
It’s late. She’s on the dock at Camp, her head on Percy’s stomach and Grover’s head on her own. They’re fourteen and stargazing long after lights out. They’re fourteen and the world is filled with monsters, but the fields and trees and lakes and rivers between the lone pine tree on the hill and Long Island Sound is home-base in a complicated teenage game of tag.
Annabeth is fourteen. It doesn’t feel all too different from nine, or twenty one. She’s fourteen; the world is somehow both bigger and smaller than it ever has been.
“There’s the summer triangle,” she says, pointing and tracing it in midair. “It was used for navigation before GPS.”
“That’s a lame name,” Percy complains. His skin is particularly bad this week. Before his birthday, Silena will introduce him to a skincare routine.
“You can thank British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore for it,” Annabeth tells him. “He’s the one who popularized the term.”
“Tell us another Greek one,” Grover begs. His skin is even worse. It will not be fixed by the end of this summer, or the next.
“Well,” Annabeth muses. “That one’s kind of Greek, I guess. Altair,” she points at the lower right corner of the triangle, “is part of Aquila, or ‘the Eagle’ in Latin.”
Percy huffs, jostling Annabeth’s head. “Well, that’s not Greek at all, then.”
“Oh, it’s the same story.” Annabeth rolls her eyes even though she knows Percy probably can’t see her. “The Romans just stole it. Eudoxus wrote it down first, though. Fourth century BCE, I think.”
“You think,” Percy cuts in dubiously. “Come on, dude.”
Annabeth rolls her eyes again, just to make a point. “Okay, whatever, it was definitely fourth century. He was a student of Plato, it’s pretty much the only option.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then both Grover and Percy crack up. “Pretty much the only option,” Grover nearly howls.
“Shut up,” Annabeth hisses. “We’re gonna get caught and put on dish duty.”
They quiet down, but Annabeth’s head is still being jostled around by Percy’s trembling stomach. She reaches up to poke at his ribs. “I’m not the one who can list types of sharks alphabetically,” she says.
“Sharks are cool,” Percy insists.
“So is space,” Annabeth shoots back.
“The kids don’t like it when mom and dad fight,” Grover complains.
That sets all three of them off again, trying to muffle their giggles into a palm or the inside of an elbow before it can carry across the empty, wide expanse of the lake. It seems like it bubbles up all around her, the laughter, until she’s wrapped in a cocoon of it. Gazing up at the stars with a grin on her face, not sure at all what time it is, half a plan in her mind for capture the flag at the end of the week, Annabeth is so firmly herself that she doesn’t think she can ever be knocked off balance again.
//
Shifting the box of candy canes in her arms, Annabeth frees a hand to twist the little piece of brass on the Jackson-Blowfis door, the piece that looks a bit like the bow of a key. Percy’s family lives in an old apartment building with a rickety elevator, mostly-cracked tile, and heavy doors. Annabeth loves every inch of it, but the doorbells are probably her favorite—how she can feel the bell on the other side of the door ring by the way it vibrates up her arm. It’s so completely and utterly not a modern sound. It’s a sound that rings only in association with Percy and Sally, and now Estelle and Paul, which makes Annabeth all the more fond of it.
The ringing is still fading when the pattering of footsteps rush towards her from the other side of the door, followed quickly by Percy’s muffled voice.
“Don’t open the door by yourself,” he says. “Hold on, just…”
The lock clicks and the door swings open, revealing two heads of messy black hair, around three feet apart.
“Anana-beth,” Estelle nearly screams, launching herself at Annabeth’s waist.
Percy takes the box of candy canes before they fumble from Annabeth’s grasp, leaving her with arms free to return Estelle’s fierce hug. “Hey, Stell,” she says, running a hand over her curls. “Long time, huh?”
“So long,” she agrees, even though Annabeth had joined her and Percy at the Central Park Zoo a week and a half ago. She pulls her face out of Annabeth’s stomach and looks up at her, grinning. “We’re making cookies.”
Annabeth looks over at Percy, who’s still holding the door open for them, and takes in the white dusting of flour that covers his t-shirt. “I see that,” she says. “Did I make it in time to get my fingers blue?”
“‘Course,” Percy says, tugging Estelle back by her shirt so Annabeth can actually get through the doorway and begin shucking off layers. “We couldn’t start the party without you, mom would tell Santa to give us coal.”
Estelle gasps. Annabeth bites down on a grin. “Well, we can’t have that.”
Percy and Estelle nod solemnly. “Go tell Mom that Annabeth’s here,” Percy says, “she’s the warden of the food dye.”
Estelle scampers off down the hall at a controlled enough pace that Annabeth suspects she’s been warned about running inside a few times today already. “She’s in a mood,” Annabeth observes. “Sugar high?”
He groans. “No, Estelle has spent all week designing a house. I’m honestly surprised she didn’t shove it under your nose the moment you walked through the door.”
Annabeth’s hand snaps up to cover her mouth. Her words come out in mostly indistinct sounds. “That’s the cutest thing I ever heard.”
“She hasn’t shut up about being an architect since you explained it last week. When she comes back from Canada she’ll probably want to be a lumberjack or something, so enjoy the high while it lasts.”
“Don’t be jealous,” she teases him, making her way to the kitchen. “The twins haven’t thought that I’m cool in years, let me have this.”
“How are the twerps? Still skateboarding?”
“Much to Elaine’s dismay. They’re sophomores, if you can believe it.”
“I literally cannot. They stopped aging at, like, ten in my head.”
Annabeth wishes that were true, if only to escape the torment of now being shorter than both of them. She’s prevented from further bemoaning her fate when Estelle appears again, tugging a laughing Sally close behind her.
“Oh, there you are,” Sally gasps, disentangling herself from her daughter to wrap Annabeth up in one of her famous bear-hugs. It’s longer than usual, but Annabeth lets herself get rocked from side to side without complaint. She’s rarely the one to pull out of a Sally Jackson hug first.
“Hi, Sally,” she says into familiar, bushy, brown hair.
Estelle’s excited chatter fades as Percy leads her back to the kitchen, leaving Annabeth in his mother’s grasp. When Sally pulls back, it’s just to put her hands on either side of Annabeth’s face. “Annabeth. How on Earth can I thank you?”
Annabeth blinks, confused. She brings the candy canes every year. “Thank me for…”
Sally gives her an exasperated look. “For making sure Percy spends Christmas with family.”
Annabeth lets her face get tugged down to receive a kiss on the forehead, feeling a bit flushed. “Oh, yeah. Of course. Don’t mention it.”
Sally’s smile is small and looks, at least to Annabeth’s eye, a little sad. “He kept telling me to go,” she whispers, throwing a fleeting glance over Annabeth’s shoulder where her children are surely lurking, “but I couldn’t bear it. I was going to send Estelle up with Paul and try to find a flight up for myself on Christmas afternoon, but then he said that you’d invited him to San Francisco and it was like I could breathe again.” She tucks a strand of Annabeth’s hair behind her ear. “You’ve always taken such good care of him.”
Annabeth’s face might be on fire. “It’s nothing,” she tries again, feeling guilty. Percy is doing her a favor, after all. “Really.”
Sally lip does a little twist that Annabeth has seen on Percy’s face a thousand times. “I know, I know, you take care of each other.” She pulls Annabeth into another hug, a quick one this time. “The birthday cake you’re getting this year, honey…”
Annabeth grins. “Two tiers?”
“Four. Any color of the rainbow.” Sally throws her a wink. “I’ll even try to keep Estelle from blowing out your candles, this time.”
Annabeth lets out a low whistle as they make their way to join Percy and Estelle in the kitchen. “Now that’s a promise,” she says.
And promises from Sally Jackson are worth their weight in silver and gold and every precious material Annabeth can think of; that’s something she’s learned, over the years, first from Percy and then right from the source herself. It’s a certified Jackson promise that has her mixing blue food dye into ingredients that have been measured out by someone other than her, just like every year.
Estelle enthusiastically smacks at the dough with a rolling pin, though she’s eventually contained between Sally’s sturdy and practiced arms. Percy digs around one of the drawers for the cookie cutters, tossing them to Annabeth as he comes up with the holiday shapes: a tree, and then a reindeer, and then…
Annabeth frowns down at the cookie cutter. Blocking the view of her lips from both Sally and Estelle with one hand, she mouths her question at Percy, who squawks in indignation.
“That’s a carrot,” he hisses, “for the reindeer.”
Annabeth shrugs, snickering, and puts it with the rest. Looks like a buttplug to her.
Next comes a circle (“a wreath, Annabeth, honestly”), a stocking, a candy cane, and finally the beloved, generic person-shape. Personally, Annabeth has been pondering which architect will top her inspired decoration of Maya Lin from the year before—she’s been flipping back and forth between Frank Gehry and Antoni Gaudi all week.
Estelle takes her sweet time painstakingly cutting out each shape and placing the dough onto the baking tray, but she looks so cute doing it that none of them really mind. Percy, caught red handed eating handfuls of sprinkles when his mother had turned around at an inopportune moment, is relegated to doing the dishes.
While the cookies are in the oven, they decorate the tree. Estelle is mostly on candy cane duty as Percy and Annabeth handle the slightly more delicate ornaments, but she does get lifted up to put the star on top. Sally takes pictures to send to Paul, who’s already in Ottawa, and Annabeth feels warm to her toes at the way Sally insists all three of them get in the frame.
“Did you know,” Estelle says quietly as she carefully hangs a candy cane by a picture frame ornament of Percy’s high school graduation, cropped to feature just him and a stray blonde curl by his shoulder, “that we’re getting two Christmases this year?”
A glance over her shoulder tells her that Percy is occupied by twirling his mom around to the familiar sound of the Tito Puente album Sally always plays around the holidays. “Is that so?” She reaches into the box and picks out two identical candy canes. “Which one next?”
Estelle picks the one on the left and then frowns at the tree, trying to find the perfect spot for it. “I think,” Estelle explains in the same quiet tone, “Christmas is a different day in Canada. So we’re getting it twice.”
Annabeth bites a lip. She has no desire to attempt to out-stubborn Estelle Jackson Blowfis, so she just nods along and pivots the discussion. “I’m sure it’ll be lots of fun in Ottawa,” she says. “They’ll probably be snow.”
“That’s what Daddy said.” Estelle tests out a branch, but quickly removes her candy cane when it begins to droop under the weight. “Is Percy getting two Christmases?”
Annabeth points out a sturdy-looking bough by the trunk. “Well, he’s getting his regular Christmas with you guys a little early,” Annabeth explains, “and then he’s coming with me to spend Christmas with my family so I don’t have to go alone.”
Estelle places her candy cane, a huge frown on her face. “I only got him one gift,” she says.
“Well,” Annabeth muses, “I know he loves the pictures you draw. I can sneak one in my bag to give to him from you if you’d like?”
Estelle’s chest puffs out a bit at the praise. “Yeah!” She throws her arms around Annabeth’s shoulders. “You have the bestest ideas.”
“Duh,” Percy says, plopping down on Annabeth’s other side. He snags a candy cane and struggles to shuck off the wrapping. “Annabeth’s the smartest.” He gives up and snaps it in half, peeling the remaining plastic away and shoving one side into his mouth, the curl of it wrapping around to his cheek. “Other than Mom, of course. What’s going on over here?”
“Nothing,” Annabeth says, grunting as Estelle wiggles her way onto her lap. “Girl stuff. Nunya.”
Percy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Nunya?”
“Nunya business,” Annabeth says.
Estelle mimes zipping her lips closed and throwing away a key, which only makes Percy grin. He wiggles the candy cane in his mouth around with his tongue, which makes Annabeth have absolutely no inappropriate thoughts whatsoever.
“Well, can I get you both some hot chocolate for your top secret convo?”
Two scrawny arms shoot straight up in the air in pure excitement, narrowly missing Annabeth’s face and snapping her back to reality. “Yes!” Estelle yells.
“Estelle,” comes Sally’s gentle warning from the next room. “Indoor voice, please.”
Annabeth’s fingers poke at Estelle’s side in a gentle tickle right at the same time as Percy winks at them. “Marshmallows?” he asks.
“Duh,” Annabeth says.
“Duh,” Estelle echoes.
Percy shakes his head a bit, a look almost like wonder on his face. “Okay, two world famous Percy Jackson hot chocolates coming right up.” He gets to his feat but leans down to deliver a stage-whisper that Estelle is clearly intended to hear. “Make sure you don’t tell ‘Stells about the broccoli I’m getting her for Christmas.” His breath smells like peppermint.
Annabeth laughs over Estelle’s exclamations of dismay. The rest of the afternoon passes in warm cookies and hot chocolate and the fresh smell of pine needles. It’s everything holiday traditions should be; Annabeth builds it into her future with stubborn determination.
//
The spring before her freshman year of high school, Annabeth looks into boarding schools in or around New York City. She’s a year into her new San Francisco school and beyond over it; she presents her dad and her step-mom with five meticulously researched options to discuss.
Her dad looks over to her step-mom, who rejects the idea outright without even glancing at what Annabeth’s put together. Annabeth’s disappointment boils into fury as June tumbles into July, and a plan stitches itself together inside her head. She doesn’t need to go back to California—she’s old enough that they aren’t coming to the east coast to personally take her there. She’ll just sneak home with Percy. The plan—admittedly one of her shakier ones—is soundly foiled when Argus drives her straight from Camp to JFK at the end of August, where she’s handed off to a stern looking flight attendant. As an unaccompanied minor, she isn’t left alone for a moment.
It’s fine. She spends the flight crying angry tears but by the time she lands, her face is impassive. It stays that way, stoic and uninterested, for nearly two straight months.
Her dad and Elaine crack around Halloween. Sally readily agrees to be Annabeth’s emergency contact and de facto parent in the city and Annabeth gets to transfer schools over winter break.
She cries the majority of the flight to New York.
She isn’t sure why.
//
“I don’t think you’ve thought this all the way through.”
Annabeth frowns and glances down at the ground. “I’m literally going up the same path we saw Malcolm do five minutes ago.”
“No,” Piper says, rolling her eyes, “not the rock climbing. Winter break. Percy.”
Annabeth hams up finding her next grip for the few moments of quiet it grants her. “I thought it was clear how much I hadn’t thought it through. I’ve kind of been bitching since my call with my step-mom.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Piper insists.
“Are you going to stay down there for the rest of the session?” Annabeth pulls herself up another foot using mostly the muscles in her left arm. There’s a smattering of applause around the gym.
“Show off,” Piper calls up.
Annabeth grins into the wall, panting slightly. “Afraid to come up without a harness? You know bouldering is where it’s at, McLean.”
“I’m mapping my route.” She sounds indignant.
“For five minutes?”
“Engage your back, Annabeth,” someone calls up to her. Probably Malcolm, the bastard. Annabeth scowls, but listens all the same. It relieves her elbows a bit as she starts on the overhang, but her admittedly show-off move has left her arm muscles trembling. She makes it two more grip changes before she drops back to the mat.
Her limbs go loose in the air, and when her toes touch the ground she rocks back, carried by her own momentum, and lets her butt take the brunt of the drop. Annabeth is no stranger to falling.
She catches her breath there with her eyes firmly closed. When she opens them, Piper is standing over her, hands on hips. Annabeth braces for the worst, but all Piper says is, “your braid’s coming loose.”
“You’re going to get chalk in my hair,” Annabeth complains even as she pushes up onto her knees, yanking the elastic off the end of her braid.
Piper snorts as she pulls the strands apart. “Oh, hun, that ship has sailed.” She starts a fresh french braid, this time a bit tighter. “So,” she says in a tone that makes Annabeth immediately wary, “about Percy.”
Annabeth groans, kicking herself for falling so easily into Piper’s trap, physically stuck as Piper takes her sweet time redoing her hair. She tries to play it off. “We’re helping each other out. It’s no big deal. You suggested him in the first place.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d actually listen. You two have more unresolved sexual tension than I’ve ever seen, and you’ve met my mother. You know what a claim that is.”
Annabeth feels her face flush and hopes that she just looks exerted from her climbing. “We don’t,” she tries to protest. It sounds feeble even to her own ears.
“Hey, there’s no shame in it.” Piper taps Annabeth’s shoulder and takes the hair-tie that gets handed back. “I have never met someone who had a post-puberty glow up like Percy Jackson.” She ties off Annabeth’s braid and steps away, no longer trapping her into the conversation.
Annabeth grins, accepting the hand offered to help haul herself up. “Remember the summer he came back after his growth spurt?”
Piper chalks up her hands, grinning through the small cloud of white she claps into existence. “Oh, you mean the summer every twelve year-old girl followed him around camp non-stop?”
Annabeth pushes her over to the bouldering wall and does not think about the way she had deeply empathized with those exact twelve year-old girls at the time. “Yeah, and the legit fight we had to break up over who got to be in his canoe for Water Wars?”
Laughing, Piper starts her way up the wall. She’s always been static to Annabeth’s dynamic—where Piper agonizes over each hand placement, Annabeth climbs faster, a little more recklessly, nearly jumping from one grip to the next. Pausing at a good foot rest, Piper glances over a shoulder back at Annabeth. “I don’t know why they bothered. He always picked you.”
Something about the way Piper says it, about the look in her eye, makes Annabeth squirm. Percy had always picked her for his Water Wars team, just like she’d always picked him for her relay race, his butterfingers be damned. Suddenly anxious, Annabeth bites the bullet. “You really think this’ll make things weird?”
Piper grunts as she pushes up with her leg to reach another hand hold. “Do you really think you don’t want to jump that boy’s bones?”
Annabeth gapes. “Piper.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to—to—” Annabeth glances around, but no one she knows is nearby. “To jump his bones.”
“What happened to no lies on the wall?” Piper’s breath is coming a little heavier now. Annabeth gives her ten more seconds before she drops.
“Well, I’m not on the wall,” Annabeth replies petulantly, annoyed with how easily she’s been caught. “You are.”
“Whatever, dude, don’t lie to me when I could fall to my death.”
Annabeth snorts. “Local pain in the ass plummets six feet to her death at Chelsea fucking Piers,” she says.
Piper lets out a harsh laugh, dropping back down to the mat. “That overhang’s a bitch,” she says. “You gonna try again?”
“Course.”
Annabeth starts her way up again, trying to use her legs more this time. She makes it up to her previous mark, not nearly as tired this time, and is nearly parallel to the ground below her when Piper calls up, “Percy likes you.”
Annabeth ignores her. She just makes her way to the top, taps victoriously on her last grip, and hangs out for a second, relishing a good climb. She goes part of the way back down and then jumps to the mat, where Piper is waiting with arms crossed, staring her straight in the face. “Of course he likes me,” Annabeth finally answers. “He’s my best friend.”
Piper’s look turns into a glare. “Oh, come on.”
“What?” she asks. “Percy’s not some, like—‘nice guy,’ or whatever, waiting around for his chance to get into my pants. Don’t talk about him like that.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“It better not be.”
“It’s not.” Piper takes a breath. “It’s not, I promise. I didn’t mean to—I know how close you both are. I’m not saying that friendship isn’t real.”
Annabeth nods. “Good. Because it is real.”
It is, Annabeth often thinks, the realest thing that she’s ever known.
“I know.” Shifting from one foot to the other, Piper cautiously begins again with, “he can be totally happy and content as your best friend and still have romantic feelings towards you, though. That doesn’t make him a creep or anything.”
“I know that, I—” Annabeth finds herself speeding along the highway to becoming legitimately pissed off, one foot heavy on the gas. “Look, did he tell you that?”
Piper’s mouth opens and then shuts before any sound can come out. “What do you mean?” she finally asks.
“Did Percy tell you that? Did he say:” Annabeth deepens her voice in an awful impersonation, “‘hey, Piper, I like Annabeth in a distinctly more-than-friends way and want to be more-than-friends, effective immediately?’ Don’t lie.”
“Not in so many words,” Piper admits through gritted teeth. “But—”
“No buts,” Annabeth interrupts. “Has he said that to anyone that you know of?”
Piper’s jaw clenches. “No,” she says. “Not that I know of.”
Annabeth stares her down. “That’s what I thought.” Her voice comes out soft, despite the way the blood in her veins feels hot with her anger.
“Can’t you trust me on this one? You know I’ve got a sixth-sense for this kind of stuff.”
“No, I really can’t,” Annabeth insists. Leaning in and lowering her voice, she says, “I can’t risk—look, Percy is...he’s the most important person in my life, I’m not going to lie about that.” Piper’s face softens, just the tiniest bit, and Annabeth plows forward while she has the advantage. “Disregarding your beliefs of his romantic inclinations, do you really think this winter break thing is going to mess with us?”
Piper’s eyes flick around her face as she considers. “I think it depends on how honest you are with him,” she answers. “And how honest he is with you.”
Annabeth steps back. “That’s the most annoying answer I’ve ever heard. I’ve never lied to him. He doesn’t lie to me. That’s not—we don’t do that.”
“There’s a difference between lying and being honest.”
Annabeth points a finger in her face, her temper flaring even hotter. “That’s some bull shit.”
The softness in Piper’s face disappears. “I know this kind of stuff isn’t easy for you, Annabeth, but I never thought you were a coward.”
And just like that Annabeth is newly sixteen, standing by a tether ball. Percy is in front of her instead of Piper, fresh off a weekend on Rachel’s literal yacht and somehow angry at her, a teenage boy turned earthquake shaking the foundation that she’s done everything to make invulnerable.
Much to her dismay, Annabeth’s eyes prickle with incoming tears, just like they had six years ago. As much as she’s tried to change, she has always been someone who cries easily, whether the cause be fury or sadness or joy.
She isn’t quite sure which one she’s feeling now, but she knows it isn’t joy.
“Don’t call me a coward,” she warns, keeping her voice low to prevent it from wavering.
“You are so strong,” Piper says with renewed intensity even as her own voice lowers to match Annabeth’s. “Sometimes I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met, Annabeth, and I mean that, but there’s this whole huge section of your life that you won’t even engage with. The closest you came was with Ben freshman year, but that was barely anything. You’ve gone on the odd date every once in a blue moon since then, but you shut yourself off from every real possibility, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. If you’re not scared, then why? Because you don’t do things without having a reason.”
Annabeth doesn’t have an answer. She’s sixteen and furious and twenty-one and confused and every age in between, still unsure of what she wants, what she really wants. She doesn’t have the energy to tell Piper that she often does things without reason—she most often operates on gut feelings and instinct alone, but that’s another can of worms she has no interest in opening. “You can be scared without being a coward,” Annabeth finally answers, her voice a little breathy.
“What are you scared of? Percy?”
“No,” Annabeth answers immediately, almost repulsed by the thought. “Not Percy, that’s—”
“Ridiculous. That’s ridiculous.”
“I know that. I know. I know there’s a lot there that I don’t—” Annabeth puffs out a breath and looks up at the ceiling. “I went to an all girls school, you know? And I went to Camp. I barely had time to sleep at school. I was up half the night trying to do the damn readings or trying to make the numbers stop swimming around the page, and I was running track, and Camp was…” Her voice trails off before she finds words again. “Camp was filled with people I’ve known since I was seven years old. That or people who know me as the girl who glared whenever anyone spoke to any of her friends. And then I was in college and—” She gestures towards Piper, whose eyes are wide. “You know what college has been like. You just said. And then there’s Percy.” Annabeth nibbles at her lip and then repeats, “and then there’s Percy. So, I know, alright? I know.”
Piper breathes with her for a long minute or a short hour or some amount of time in between before sighing deeply, like someone squeezed her lungs tight and forced all the air out. “Okay,” she says, “okay, I’m sorry for pushing.”
Annabeth nods her apology away, and before there’s time for the silence to turn awkward, Piper begins again.
“Forget about the UST between you and Percy, the real sexual tension is between you and talking about your fucking feelings,” she jokes, offering up a smile. “This shit is wack.”
Annabeth barks out a laugh. If only Piper could see the shit that goes on inside her head.
//
Some information about Annabeth Chase, whose father read her birth certificate three days after her birth and had no input on her name:
She isn’t a fucking coward.
She is so scared of a future without Percy by her side that sometimes it’s difficult to fall asleep or think or breathe.
She knows that something has got to give. She knows, but there’s a difference between a guy in her Byzantine Architecture class dragging his eyes up her legs and someone asking for the real reason why she can’t bear the questions that come on a first or second date.
//
Percy texts her a Spotify link right as she submits her last final. Annabeth opens it before it has the time to fully load, assuming it’s a new playlist, and finds herself rolling her eyes as the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” blasts from her phone. Another text from him comes in: getting into character, it says.
Ready for a movie night? she texts back. I just submitted my final.
She gets a plethora of emojis back that her years as Percy’s best friend gives her the ability to translate. In short, he’s ready to eat junk food and go hard with Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition.
& u can kwiz me on crazy fam!! He adds. lets goooooo. ill grab candy & be their soon
Annabeth blinks in shock, more than a little surprised that he’d actually looked at the basic Powerpoint she’d sent him. She figured he’d mostly wing it since she’d be with him to bail him out if things ever got sticky, but Percy seems determined to surprise her.
She halfheartedly cleans her room as she waits for him to arrive, knowing full well that he’s seen her at her messiest and she’s seen him at even worse. It’s the thought that counts, or something. Her brain still mostly feels like goo from trying to edit her term paper on Greek Tragedies, so who even knows if throwing some questionable smelling clothes in her hamper actually does anything. If time travel ever gets figured out, she’s going back and having words with herself for choosing a double major in Classics over a minor.
She’s so wrapped up in her thoughts that she nearly misses the buzzer going off, signaling Percy’s arrival. His eyes go wide when she opens the door, scanning over her whole body.
Annabeth looks down. She’s wearing an ancient flannel over a suspiciously stained Camp tank top, a pair of her high school track team’s shorts, and mismatched fuzzy socks.
“Why are you holding a piece of bread?”
Annabeth raises her left hand, which is in fact holding a slice of sandwich bread. “I honestly don’t know,” she says.
“Yeah, we’re getting some snacks into you ASAP.”
Percy braids her hair as they wait for a bag of popcorn to get all popped. He’s gotten good from practicing with Estelle, and Annabeth feels her brain mostly right itself again to the soothing pressure of his fingers carding through her curls.
The popcorn is still popping pretty frequently as the microwave counts down from five, so Annabeth hits the button to add thirty seconds, her heart rate calm in a way it hasn’t been since she chugged a large coffee two hours ago.
“I need to redo this,” Percy says, huffing. “I’m still ass at french braids. Stell keeps asking for pigtails, can you believe that? Spoiled little shit.”
“Take your time.” Annabeth leans a hip against her kitchen counter, perfectly content to give herself over to the free head massage. He doesn’t pull as harshly as Piper does, though her efficiency is hard to beat. Annabeth guesses that only ever really doing Estelle’s hair has him trying his best to always be gentle.
He’s halfway done with his second attempt when Annabeth counts three seconds between pops and takes the bag of popcorn out. She leaves it on the counter as she waits for Percy to finish, his reflection visible in the door of the microwave since the interior light is off. His eyebrows have that little crinkle between them, the one Annabeth loves, and she hardly even spares her own hair a glance.
“Still kind of wack,” he admits as he ties off the bottom of the braid, “but I don’t want the popcorn to get cold. Are we watching in your room?”
Annabeth nods as she grabs the popcorn and her water bottle, ready to chill the fuck out for the first time in weeks. Tradition dictates that they skip all of the Sam and Frodo scenes, which still leaves the runtime appallingly long, but since they’ve both seen this movie at least a dozen times Annabeth figures she can admit it isn’t so much about the movie itself but about the time spent shoveling sugar into their bodies and talking shit. Percy even lets her info dump about her final essay for a good ten minutes, nodding and humming along as he cracks into the Twizzlers.
“Well, congratulations on finishing,” he says once she runs out of things to agonize over. “Or συγχαρητήρια, I guess, Miss Classics.”
“Good pronunciation,” Annabeth praises. “Professor Filippardos would be proud.”
“I googled it when you texted it to me,” Percy confesses.
“What’s the Spanish again?” Annabeth asks, as though they’ve talked about the word ‘congratulations’ before. She has absolutely no ulterior motive for asking.
“Felicidades,” Percy answers, his tongue rolling over the d sound in a way that Annabeth definitely will not think about for the rest of the night.
“Are you going to take another semester of it?” This is an entirely selfless question, on her part. She, of course, would get nothing out of Percy speaking Spanish more often.
“Maybe,” Percy says, shrugging. “I could always understand mom pretty much, you know? Even if she couldn’t really speak it at home when I was a kid. And I’m really glad she’s teaching Estelle, so maybe getting better at speaking it myself would be cool.”
“Yeah,” Annabeth agrees, her chest aching with a strange sort of warmth. “I mean, you know your schedule best, obviously, but it might be nice. I’d take it if my accent wasn’t so appalling.”
Percy grins. “Aw, but I like it when you try. It’s funny. Try to say ‘waterproof’ again.”
“Shut up.” Annabeth hits him in the side of the face with a piece of popcorn. “Eowyn’s about to show up, don’t you want to moon over her?” She also has no ulterior motive in asking this, either, because there’s nothing for her to gain from Percy waxing poetic about long, blonde hair.
“I won’t be shamed,” Percy says, picking the piece up from where it fell on the bed and tossing it into his mouth. “Eowyn’s hot and badass.” He opens his second packet of Twizzlers.
Annabeth can’t disagree. Their attention is turned briefly to the movie, until Percy can’t seem to stand the silence any longer.
“Grima Wormtongue,” he says, a Twizzler sticking out of the corner of his mouth, “I diagnose you with fucking creep disease. It is terminal.”
Annabeth snorts and throws another piece of popcorn at him. On screen, Grima Wormtongue is being a creepy little shit, but Annabeth’s numerous viewings leave her unimpressed. “Okay, you want to get quizzed now? Enough sugar in your system?”
“Hit me, boss. I’m all studied up.”
“We’ll start easy—Aunt Rose.” She was the first slide on the hasty powerpoint she’d sent Percy’s way.
“Aunt Rose!” Percy finally bites down on the Twizzler and uses the remaining piece in his hand to point at Annabeth, as though preparing to let loose a deluge of information. Instead, all he says is, “she sucks.”
Annabeth lets loose a peal of laughter. “Yes,” she finally manages to get out. “She does.”
“And she’s not actually your aunt, right?”
“First cousin once removed,” Annabeth confirms. “That doesn’t matter, though. We all call her Aunt Rose. You will most definitely want to punch her at some point.”
The rest of the Twizzler disappears into his mouth. “Am I allowed?”
Annabeth hums in thought, munching on some popcorn as Legolas finally appears on screen. “Let’s wait and see what she does. If she calls me a delinquent again I might just let you.”
Percy winces. “We were kind of delinquents, though.”
“Well, she doesn’t get to call me one!” Annabeth protests.
“Shh,” Percy interrupts, smacking her cheek with a new Twizzler as he gestures towards her. “Wait, he’s about to say it. Do it with him, come on.”
Annabeth groans, but does her goblin impression as asked. “We’re not goin’ no further till we’ve had a breatha,” she growls out, much to Percy’s visible joy.
“It’s uncanny,” he manages to say between giggles. “You missed your calling.”
“Yeah, I’m really settling with architecture.”
“And then Grover always loved this part.” Percy points at the screen, where Merry is talking about legends of talking ents. “With the trees and shit.”
Annabeth grins. “Yeah, and he always cried at the end when they took down Isengard.”
“I wonder if that DVD is still in the Big House,” Percy muses.
“Probably. Not much changes at Camp.” Annabeth often thought that was the best part of it, right up until she realized that part of her fear of change probably stemmed from her happiest place being unchanging.
“Is that why we like this one so much, do you think? Since it was the only one of them Mr. D had?”
“Nah.” Annabeth shakes her head. “Aragorn’s hottest in this one.”
“That’s your reasoning?”
“What? He doesn’t look nearly as good once he takes a bath . Grimy is his peak hotness.” Percy doesn’t need to know how uncontrollably she cries at the end of Return of the King. She already gets too emotional at the end of this one, wrapped up in the fantasy of ordinary beings taking on extraordinary quests simply because someone has to shoulder the burden.
Percy squints at the screen, where Aragorn’s glorious stubble is on display. “You know, I think you’re right.”
“Oh, say that again.”
He refuses, but allows himself to be further tested on his knowledge of her step-mom’s extended family and friends, as well as the usual routines the Chase family goes about during the holidays. It’s almost relaxing, which is an alien feeling for Annabeth to have when discussing anything to do with her family.
But that’s Percy, she guesses.
“Okay, so soft no on blue pancakes Christmas morning,” Percy finally settles on saying after taking simply too long to process the lack of a Chase family Christmas breakfast tradition.
“You can make them if you want to,” Annabeth reassures. “I’m sure the twins would love it. We’ve just never really done stuff for Christmas. Not like you do, anyway.”
Percy shakes his head. “That’s a crime. You’ll never go back once you have my pancakes.”
“I’ve had your mom’s,” Annabeth counters, “and I bet those are better.”
“Fuck. You got me there.”
“Mmhmm.”
“You really don’t have any family traditions or something? Like, I don’t want to harsh the vibe.”
Annabeth rolls her eyes fondly. “The vibes will remain unharshed. We’re mostly just lazy all day. Last year we didn’t do presents until after lunch. Feel free to do what you’re used to, yeah? I know this year is going to kind of suck for you.”
“Hey, no,” Percy says, nudging his shoulder against hers. “No way, this is going to be awesome. Yeah, I’ll miss mom and the kid, but we’re doing our thing in two days. Christmas is quite literally coming early. I just want it to be fun for you, too.”
“It will be,” Annabeth insists. “I’ll take you downtown and stuff. Find some west coast weed. It’ll be awesome.”
Percy smiles at her and then steals the bowl of popcorn. “Cool. I love the Pacific.”
Which, like, predictable, but Annabeth has been banking on that, so. It’s all good. “We haven’t touched on Uncle Rob yet,” she says, steering the conversation back to something she can control.
“Oh, the one Bobby’s named after. He’s close with your step-mom?”
“Yeah, but she hates his wife and she hates Elaine right back.” Annabeth shrugs. “Honestly, it’s pretty entertaining, even though she’s kind of nasty to me. Remember her name?”
“It starts with a C?”
Annabeth’s impressed. “Yeah, Caroline. Their kids are Amelia and Chris. They’re around eight and ten, I think? I can never remember. They’re dead shy, probably won’t speak to anyone.”
“Even your brothers?”
“Well,” Annabeth says, thinking back, “Matthew dunked one of them in the ocean a few years ago and there was a whole thing, apparently. I’m sure you’ll hear about it, Caroline is sure it was my fault, somehow.”
“I didn’t know you went to the beach,” Percy says, sounding vaguely jealous.
“I didn’t. My spring break didn’t overlap with theirs.”
Percy turns his head to face her, fully ignoring the screen. For Percy and The Two Towers, that’s a pretty big deal. “What the fuck?”
Annabeth rolls her eyes. “I’m a bad influence on the twins, or whatever, so she blamed me. I get that one all the time.”
Percy’s still looking at her intently, that crease back between his eyebrows. “They just went on a trip without you? The four of them?”
Annabeth shrugs, looking back to the movie. It’s not all that rare; she spends most of her time in New York on purpose, these days. She shreds a Twizzler to give her hands something to do.
“That’s cold, boss,” Percy finally says. “What’s the protocol on pranking the shit out of your family?”
“It really depends on how terrible they are this time. I managed to skip out last year, so there’s really no telling what mood they’ll be in.” In her ideal world, every New Years would be like last year’s—with the Jackson-Blowfis’ wherever they ended up.
“That was fun,” Percy muses, tossing a piece of popcorn up and nearly falling off the bed in his attempts to catch it in his mouth. “Shut up.”
Annabeth holds her hands up in innocence. “I didn’t say shit.”
“Well, if you can get away next year we should totally go to Montauk to see the New Year’s fireworks again. It’s always too crowded in the city.”
“You know I want to see the ball drop eventually.”
Percy makes a face at her. “Tourist.”
“How would you know?” Annabeth asks. “You’ve never seen it in person.”
“Yeah, because I’m not a fucking tourist.”
“You’ll take me,” Annabeth declares confidently.
“Says who?”
“Says me,” Annabeth laughs, “or I’ll tell Sally about what really put the dent in the roof of Paul’s Prius.”
Percy shakes his head at her, his expression all soft. “You’re never going to make anything easy for me, huh?”
“Nope.” Annabeth pops the ‘p’ sound and turns her attention back to Aragorn in all his grimy glory. “Not a chance, Jackson. Not a chance.”
//
Hi, Annabeth, the text from her dad reads. I’m so glad you can make it to Christmas and New Year’s this time around. We are all so excited to see you. I’m also happy that Percy can join us, and that you have such a committed young man in your corner. Please let me know if there’s anything in particular you would like to do while you are home (it has been a while since we went to the AAM together). See you in a few days. Love from Dad.
Annabeth reads it somewhere between three and twenty-seven times. She doesn’t know how to respond, so she doesn’t.
//
Annabeth is doing a lot of things that aren’t packing when her phone starts blasting “So Yesterday” by Hilary Duff. She launches herself across the room to accept Grover’s call, unused to him having enough cell service to send anything other than the odd text or Snapchat.
“Grover,” she greets, throwing the phone on speaker so she can continue to reorganize her bookshelf. “How’s New Mexico?”
“Filled with glorious, untouched desert ecosystems,” he answers. “I call with a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Do I want to open the email I got from Piper with the subject line ‘Annabeth’s emotional constipation?’” Grover asks. “Or should I mark it as spam?”
Annabeth groans, covering her face with both hands. Grover’s familiar, endearing laughter floats through the speaker of the phone, his mediocre service making it sound even more goat-bleaty than usual.
“I knew Piper was going to tattle to someone,” she complains. “I just thought it would be Thalia.”
“Who do you think Thalia goes to with her emotional constipation?” Grover counters. “Piper just skipped the chain of command.”
Annabeth snorts. “When Juniper agreed to go out with you, you cried for twenty minutes. Gimme a break, Groves.”
Grover makes an indignant noise. “I barely cried,” he objects, “and all that shows is that I’m actually willing to feel and process my emotions. Unlike some.”
“Percy is terrible at that,” Annabeth says, knowing full well that Grover meant her.
“Don’t make me conference call him in,” Grover threatens. “I’m two enchiladas in and drunk on power.”
“No,” Annabeth says a little too quickly. “That’s not—don’t do that.”
Grover falls quiet. “Okay,” he agrees, his voice a little more even. “Should I ask?”
“I don’t know,” Annabeth groans. “Tell me about the desert.”
“Lots of lizards. Great cactuses. Fantastic Mexican food. I’m in paradise.”
“And Juniper?”
“Well, she drinks approximately twenty gallons of water a day,” Grover jokes, “but she’s managing. It feels really good to get our hands dirty, you know? Do conservation work instead of just constantly protesting things. It was getting really draining.”
“That’s great,” Annabeth says, meaning it. “I’m proud of you, you know?”
“Thanks, Annabeth. Is it time to ask yet?”
Annabeth sighs, reshelving Basketball for Dummies next to a biography of Jacques Cousteau. “Yeah, okay.”
“Why didn’t Piper go to Percy with this?”
Annabeth taps her fingers along the spines of her books. “I’m not Piper,” she deflects. “I don’t know.”
“Deflecting.”
“Whatever,” Annabeth mutters. “It’s, um—because it’s kind of about Percy, I guess. Like, that’s what we talked about. Me and Piper.”
There’s some kind of muffled sound from her phone, like Grover had covered the mic on his end to do something, but when he speaks again his voice is pretty normal. “About him coming to San Fran?”
Annabeth frowns suspiciously at the phone. Grover certainly would not have put the phone down to scream and then resumed talking normally—she focuses again. “Did he tell you about that?”
“Uh, yeah,” Grover says, his tone of voice indicating that he wanted to say duh. “We’ve barely talked about anything else in two weeks.”
“Oh.” Annabeth finds an issue of National Geographic with a glossy picture of an octopus on the cover and slots it carefully between two hardcovers. “Did he, um...what’s he been saying?”
“Annabeth,” Grover warns.
“Come on,” she whines.
“I’m not going to do that.” Grover’s voice is firm. Annabeth’s so unused to hearing him sound so unyielding that she shuts up quick. “If you want to ask Percy something then ask him. I’m fine being your perpetual third wheel but I won’t do the whole ‘talk to each other about each other’ thing.”
“Yeah, okay,” Annabeth agrees, trying not to sound as petulant as she feels. “He’s not going to back out, though, right?”
“No, Annabeth, Percy is not going to back out on you last minute when you asked for help,” Grover says, his tone making it clear how dumb he thinks Annabeth’s question is. “Aren’t you leaving in the morning? What is up with you?”
Annabeth slumps over, resting her chin on one palm. “I’m a mess,” she admits.
“You can’t see it, but I’m making a face of shock right now. Total shock. I’m shocked.”
“Shut up,” she says, smiling against her will. “I’m admitting my problems. Isn’t that the first step?”
“If you’re admitting to alcoholism, maybe. Talk to Mama Grover, Annabeth. Explain the problem.”
Annabeth takes a deep breath as she chooses where to start. “I’m reshelving my bookcase to avoid packing,” she finally says. “I wasn’t really doing it with a system in mind. Before it was kind of by color, but I’ve been moving stuff around with no pattern and as I’ve been talking to you I realized exactly what I did.”
“Which is?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“Homie, I saw you get covered in sewage when the bathroom at Camp blew up. C’mon.”
“This is worse,” she claims. “I’ve just made a Percy section on my bookcase.”
Grover is quiet for a moment, and when he speaks Annabeth swears she can hear a stupid, obnoxious grin on his face. “What?”
“Like, I put all the books he flips through when he’s here in one section of the bookcase together. A Percy section. That’s what I’m doing with my Friday night.”
“Oh my... Annabeth.”
“I know, alright?”
“You don’t know! This is excruciating!”
Annabeth frowns, looking down at her phone as though the black screen holds answers. “What’s excruciating?”
“I have never met two people who think about each other as constantly as you and Percy,” Grover says. “Or two people who seem so oblivious of it.”
“I’m not oblivious,” Annabeth’s quick to say. “I know I think about him. He’s my best friend.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” At Annabeth’s scoff, he continues, “no, really, I’m only so strong. You two are excruciating.”
“Grover—”
“I never understood what the hold up was. Seriously, I’ve spent years trying to figure this one out, dude, and you two legit should’ve happened ages ago.”
“It’s me.”
“What?”
“I’m the holdup,” Annabeth admits, flopping onto her back. The ceiling fan circles lazily above her. “It’s me. I can’t—I can’t figure my head out.”
Grover goes very quiet. There’s the sound of rustling, and then the general background noise she’d become used to goes away. Annabeth assumes that he’s moved to somewhere more secluded. “Okay,” he finally says. “Let’s unpack that.”
Annabeth groans and accepts her fate.
//
“Take your time, Annabeth.”
“I’m taking my time,” she seethes.
Chiron laughs and leans back in his wheelchair. “Alright.” He hums a happy little sound as the CD he’s playing changes to the next song: Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 in E Flat Major.
She’s in check. She fiddles with the pawn in her hands, one she’d captured from Chiron early in the game. The board is sparse, so she doesn’t truly have that many options, but she’s still stuck. Still unsure where to go from here.
“Do you want to talk through it?” Chiron asks.
“It’s your rook,” Annabeth says. “And the bishop. I don’t—I’m not sure. I don’t know.” She glares at the checkerboard before her, clenching her fist around the pawn. She hates this stupid game, and Chiron’s stupid calm voice, and most of all stupid San Francisco and her stupid new school.
“Annabeth. It’s alright to not know things.”
She clenches her jaw. “I know that.”
Chiron laughs lightly, but there’s nothing mocking in it. Just the reflection of a sticky late-July afternoon. “Well, what do we do next?”
She glares at him. She just said—
“When we don’t know things,” he continues. “When we don’t have enough information to know as much as we want to. What do we do next?”
Annabeth takes a deep breath. “We make a move,” she says quietly, “and we see where that takes us.”
“And then?”
“And then we know more. For next time.”
Chiron winks at her as Chopin’s Nocturne resolves to its final chord.
//
“How do you feel about Paul?”
Percy looks up from the bag of sour patch kids he’s been determinedly picking the blue ones out of. “Sorry?”
Annabeth asks again, even though she’s pretty sure Percy heard her the first time. It’s the kind of question that comes from half curiosity and half Annabeth having too much time with her thoughts. Given that both Sally and Elaine instructed they get to their gate hours before their flight, she’s had a lot of time.
“I mean, he’s Paul,” Percy says, still looking confused. “You were at the wedding, dude.”
“Yeah, I know,” Annabeth replies, “but how do you feel about him?”
Percy pops another sour patch kid in his mouth. It’s a red one, so Annabeth highly suspects it’s to delay answering. “Well, we’re not friends,” Percy finally answers. “We’re never really going to be, I don’t think. But he’s Estelle’s dad and mom’s husband, so,” he shrugs, “we get along fine. I don’t need to go on fishing trips with him or anything.”
“He’s nice, though,” Annabeth says, half a question.
Percy quirks an eyebrow. “He is when I’m around. Mom says he is when I’m not, too, but it’s not not like I’m ever not going to be around, so I don’t worry about it too much. He knows I’m watching.”
Annabeth puts a hand on his knee and squeezes lightly. “You’re a good son,” she tells him. “A good brother.”
“Thanks.” They sit in silence for a long moment, Annabeth’s fingers lingering against his patella, before Percy sighs. “Honestly, he’s kind of...boring?”
Annabeth snorts and then slaps a hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m not laughing. You were saying?”
Percy cracks a smile. “Like, if I had to imagine someone named Paul he is exactly what I would picture. He drives a Prius. He’s so... Canadian.”
Annabeth lets loose the wild kind of giggle she has that really only Percy ever hears. “He really is, isn’t he?”
“I mean,” Percy shrugs, his smile fading a little, “sometimes I think that’s what mom wanted, you know? After everything. A little boring. Consistent.” He considers for a moment. “Safe,” he finally adds. “If that makes her happy then I’m all for it.”
Her laughter vanishes just as quickly as it had shown up. Percy doesn’t talk much about his late step-father, and when he does it’s usually to Grover, but Annabeth knows the bare basics. She knows enough to hate him.
“Do you remember when it was just you and your dad?” Percy asks.
Annabeth sucks in a breath, straining to think back. “I’m not sure,” she admits with a sigh. “I don’t think I actually remember him spending that much time with me, although logically I know he must have, you know? Because I definitely remember wondering why he stopped. That’s most of what I remember, actually. That feeling.”
Percy hooks his left foot around her right. Annabeth takes the silent invitation to lean into his side.
“How do you do that?” She asks him.
“Do what?”
“Know when I need a hug.”
Percy laughs lightly, his breath ruffling the flyaway hairs by her temple. “Your love language is physical touch. It’s not that hard.”
It hasn’t become less staggering, being known so fully, even though Percy has probably had her figured out since they were fifteen. Maybe even before then—maybe that second summer they spent in the strawberry fields, eating until their stomachs hurt. Is that when the hugs started, the little touches? She doesn’t remember, exactly. It has always been natural with him, seamless, like the ocean morphing slowly into a wave.
Had she started it? Had he? Either way, she puts her head on his shoulder. Percy is closed off to so many people, but never her. To her, he’s only ever one gentle touch away.
Annabeth can see right into his bag of sour patch kids from her new point of view on his shoulder, so she can see him grab a handful of miscellaneous colors and shove them all in his mouth at once. “Ew, Percy.”
He says something back that might be “what?” but his mouth is so full it comes out more like “huart?”
“You’re going to choke,” she warns him.
After a few long moments of struggle, he finally manages to free his air flow. “I never choke, I can swallow a lot.”
“Permission to kink shame?”
“Permission denied. Want the green ones?”
Annabeth peeks back into the bag, noticing for the first time that her preferred flavor has been sorted into one corner. Silently, she reaches for one and eats it.
Percy holds the bag open with the hand not trapped between the seat and Annabeth’s back, his leg shaking the entire row of flimsy airport chairs as it bounces rapidly up and down. His sweater is soft against Annabeth’s cheek.
“It’s not hard for me to forgive people I love,” Annabeth says quite suddenly between her third and fourth green sour patch kid. “Most of the time.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, I can get plenty angry, but I’ve always been able to forgive. I like that about myself.”
“I like it too,” Percy says, and Annabeth knows they’re both thinking of the same summer. “Though sometimes I worry that you give out too many chances to people who will just hurt you.”
She nods against his shoulder. “I know.”
“This is about your dad, right?” Percy asks. “Am I reading that right?”
One side of Annabeth’s mouth quirks up. “Yeah, Percy, this is about my dad. Elaine too, I guess.”
Percy’s foot shifts over and tap tap taps against her own. “Are you still trying to forgive them?”
“Yeah,” she whispers.
“Do you want to forgive them?”
“I think so,” she admits. “Some days I think I’ll forgive them eventually.” She snags another sour patch kid from the green corner. “That’s the same as forgiving them in a lot of ways, I think.”
That hangs in the air between them, until Percy breaks the quiet with, “you know, you’re pretty smart.”
“I’m not giving up my aisle seat, Percy, so you can cool it with the ass kissing.”
“Annabeth,” Percy whines, “you know I’m scared of heights.”
“Suck it up, buttercup.”
Twenty minutes later, when they board the plane, Annabeth silently slides into the window seat.
//
On her fourteenth birthday, Annabeth finds something covered in blue and white menorah wrapping paper waiting for her at her breakfast table. It would be generous to call it ‘wrapped,’ although the particular creative interpretation of a ‘wrapped’ gift does technically include wrapping paper and tape, so. She supposes it’s a wrapped gift.
Percy and Grover are sitting across the table in an incredibly forced nonchalant fashion. Percy’s eyes flick between the gift and Annabeth and his plate at least four times in the space it takes her to sit down.
“What’s this?” she asks, a small smile making its home on her face.
“Happy birthday,” Grover says, the words bursting out of him. He’s practically vibrating.
Annabeth picks at the wrapping paper. “And...Happy Hanukkah?”
“It was the only wrapping paper in the Big House,” Percy says, his face pink. He blushes so easily these days. “Come on, open it. It’s from both of us.”
As Annabeth peels off the haphazardly folded paper, they both talk over each other to explain.
“We did some research—”
“Actually, I did some research, but Percy had the idea, so…”
“So, exactly,” Percy jumps in again, rolling his eyes. “We did some research on the Big House computer, and found out that spiders really hate citrus.”
“And mint,” Grover adds.
“Right, and mint. But you hate mint.”
Annabeth stares down at the spray bottle in her hands. Her thrum drags over the words All Natural Spider Repellent.
“You can also rub lemon or orange peels along doorways, apparently,” Grover says when Annabeth remains silent. “But we didn’t want to get you something that would rot.”
“Or something that you can just grab at breakfast every day, anyway.” Percy taps his fingers against his glass of water. His leg is bouncing so hard that it shakes the whole table. “You can spray that stuff on your clothes or bed or whatever. The reviews are really good.”
Annabeth finally manages to find her voice. “Thank you guys,” she says. “This is perfect.”
Both Grover and Percy smile and share a relieved look. “Happy birthday, Annabeth,” Percy says. “Our other gift to you is not singing.”
“And I’m very grateful.” Laughing, she carefully flattens out and then folds up the Hanukkah wrapping paper. “Think I can beg my way into some birthday pancakes?”
Two teenage boys in the midst of one of their many growth spurts look at her as though she’s given them the gift. Annabeth spends the rest of her birthday laughing.
//
“So,” Percy says, shredding the little napkin that came with his Coke as Annabeth carefully uses her own to make a little origami shark for him. “So.”
Annabeth quirks an eyebrow but doesn’t look up from her almost-shark. “So?”
“We’re dating. Snookums.”
“We are, babycakes.”
“You desire my body...carnally.”
“Okay, please stop,” Annabeth interrupts, giggling. She’s incredibly grateful that there’s no seat on Percy’s other side. “You’re making me forget which fold comes next.”
“Do you have a—”
“To draw—”
“Yeah.”
“Yep.” The pen she has in her bag under the seat will work to draw little eyes on Percy’s shark. Probably gills and a smile, too, if she knows him at all.
Percy leans over the armrest and props his chin on her shoulder. “Is that a new one?”
“Yeah, I watched a video at, like, 2AM last night while I was packing.” Percy usually has a pen in his pocket, though. “Why don’t you have a—”
“I put it in my bag when we went through security.”
Annabeth hums, creasing her last fold. It flops back part of the way, but she lets it go—paper napkins aren’t her usual medium. “Here you go, Sharkboy.”
“Gimme that pen, Lavagirl.”
The tray table goes up and Annabeth digs through her backpack for the blue pen she knows is hiding somewhere between her drafting pencils. When she finally locates it, she grabs a piece of paper as well, hoping that doodling will make her feel a little less stir-crazy.
The little dots Percy makes on his new airplane napkin origami shark bleed into blobs. The gills are even worse, and the smile turns into a terrifying grimace.
“Name?” Annabeth asks.
“She looks kind of like a Gertrude, no?” Percy says, capping the pen and handing it back over.
“‘Do not forever with thy vailed lids,’” Annabeth murmurs.
“What?”
“It’s Shakespeare. Hamlet.”
Percy makes a face of exaggerated disgust. “Gross, dude.”
“A character named Gertrude says it, is all. And then something about dust and not mourning forever, I don’t know.”
“How do you remember all that stuff?”
Annabeth shrugs as she draws a tic-tac-toe board and marks an x in the middle. “I don’t try to. Some stuff just sticks.”
Percy takes the pen and marks an o right next to her x, leaving the four corners blank. “You’re a terrible dyslexic, Ivy League.”
“I’m just stubborn,” she jokes, putting her next x in one of those empty corners. “I’ve already won, by the way.”
“What? No you haven’t.”
Annabeth just smirks, handing him the pen. She wins in two turns, trapping him between two ways she’ll get three in a row. “Always go in the corner,” she tells him.
“Whatever.” He sticks out his tongue and takes the pen back, flipping it around in his fingers. “Are we Uber-ing to your house?”
“Um, Elaine said she’d pick us up,” Annabeth recalls a bit haltingly. Her fingers tap at the armrest. “But we might have to Uber anyway, you know how it is.”
“Hard no on hot-wiring a convertible from the airport garage?”
“I guess.” Annabeth shrugs, playful disappointment on her face. “Not really worth pissing off those Silicon Valley fucks.”
“Bummer.” Percy taps the pen against the paper. “Wanna play MASH?” he asks suddenly.
Annabeth barks out a laugh. “Oh, come on, didn’t Silena make us play that enough times to last a lifetime?” It was never much fun with her cheating wildly to end up married to Beckendorf, anyway.
“Don’t be salty because you always ended up in a shack, married to Justin Bieber with twelve kids. I’ll draw the spiral,” he says, moving the piece of paper to his own tray table, “you just say stop.”
“We don’t even have categories,” Annabeth protests. Percy always ended up married to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and living in a mansion.
“Relax.” He starts doing the stupid spiral. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“Stop,” Annabeth says, playing along for reasons that absolutely do not have to do with the way Percy’s hair is ruffled up in the back from where he’s been leaning against the headrest.
“Alright,” Percy begins with excitement, marking along the spiral with unnecessary flourishes and then holding the paper between them, as though keeping Annabeth from seeing something.
“There’s nothing on the paper.”
“Shh. I’m calculating your future.”
Annabeth rolls her eyes, smiling almost against her will. “Well? Shack?”
“No, apartment.”
“Oh, lucky me. Nice neighborhood? Rent control?”
“I don’t think MASH tells us that.”
Annabeth quirks an eyebrow. “Right, because the categories are so iron-clad right now.”
“Okay, well, as your MASH fortune teller, I’ll bend the rules. Just for you.”
“So gracious.”
“I know, right? Looks like no dice on the rent control, but it’s a nice neighborhood. Close to a park and some museums, you know.”
“Hope I’ll marry rich.”
“No need; MASH says you’re gonna be a big-shot architect.”
Annabeth sighs, still trying to resist the smile on her face, annoyed with how easily she’s been charmed. “Okay, I know what you’re doing.”
“I’m just reading the signs, Annabeth. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m on the edge of my seat to see what car I’ll drive.”
“A soft top jeep, though you won’t need it because you’ll live in New York. Lucky you get paid the big bucks to cover parking.”
“Wow, my dream car,” Annabeth deadpans. “I’m so surprised.”
“And your dream city,” Percy cuts in, his eyes startlingly green where he peeks at her from above the paper. Something about his voice sounds almost insecure.
“Right,” Annabeth agrees. “Where else would I want to be?”
“Doesn’t matter, because MASH is inevitable. Sorry.”
Annabeth shifts in her seat, pulling a leg up so she can twist and face Percy more fully. “Well, let’s hear it. How many kids?”
Percy clears his throat. “Two. Three? Two.” His gaze falls back to the piece of paper. “The results are unclear.”
“Two or three sounds good,” Annabeth whispers.
Two green eyes look back up. “Cool.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhmm.”
“What does MASH say about my love life?”
“Married.”
Annabeth raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, but to who? If you say Justin B—”
“No, it’s—looks like it’s censored.” Percy interrupts a bit haltingly, his voice strangely loud. “So. There’s that.”
The rest of the plane might as well disappear, for all Annabeth is paying attention. The two of them could be the only two seats in the sky and Annabeth wouldn’t be able to tell anything was wrong. “Right,” she manages to say. “Censored.”
“It’s probably because I’m your boyfriend now. I’m not allowed to see the results.”
Annabeth leans back against the closed window. The rest of the plane fades into her vision again. “What can you see, then, boyfriend?”
“A lot of stuff,” Percy mumbles, finally putting the piece of paper back down. Annabeth thinks his cheeks might be a little pink, but it’s hard to tell with the terrible plane lighting. “Fun vacations, definitely. Athens. That cathedral in Prague.”
“St. Vitus,” Annabeth interjects gently.
“Right. With the stained glass window that’s funky.”
“One of the only integrations of an art-deco design into a period Gothic—you know what? Yeah, it’s funky.”
Percy grins. “And the temple in Kyoto,” he goads.
“Kiyomizudera,” Annabeth says, compelled to fill in the blanks he’s leaving. “I’ll see them all?”
“MASH doesn’t lie, Annabeth.”
“Does it say who my best friend will be in the future?”
Percy flicks her knee. “Yeah, nice try, but that’s not changing.”
“Damn.” She snaps her fingers. “Guess I’m stuck.”
“How terrible,” he drawls.
Annabeth just laughs in response, enamored with Percy’s ridiculous game and his stubborn goal of making her feel better even when she’s been just slightly rocked off balance. “I have a question about the future,” she says, her voice coming out a little softer than she intends.
“Ask away. I am but a vessel for the Gods of MASH.”
“Am I happy?” Annabeth asks. “In my apartment in New York City with my unnecessary car and high paying dream-job?”
“The happiest,” Percy promises. “And Grover and Thalia and me and Mom are there to fuck up anyone who threatens that.” He pauses, musing something over. “And probably Estelle, too.”
“Oh, definitely Stells. I’ve attended her tea parties.”
Percy wraps a hand around her calf. “I mean it, though.”
“I know you do, Percy,” Annabeth says, resting her hand on top of his.
“We can hitchhike back to New York. We’ve done it before, so just say the word. At any moment.”
“Even if it’s right after we land?” Annabeth asks, a bit unsure.
“Even if we have to hotwire that convertible from the airport parking lot right after we land,” he swears. “I’m on your team, Ivy League. Number one draft pick.”
“That’s Thalia, I picked you in the third round,” Annabeth counters.
“Shut up.” He rolls his eyes, hard, just the way that Estelle is starting to try and mimic. “I’m totally the MVP, right? That one can be mine?”
She squeezes his hand. “You’re already the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.”
“That isn’t so impressive, though, ‘cuz I’m also the worst boyfriend you’ve ever had. How long have we been dating, by the way?”
Annabeth shrugs, looking down at their hands and resisting the sarcastic quip of almost a few hours now. She fiddles with his fingers instead. “I don’t know, since the fall? Your birthday?”
“My birthday works. You gave me the gift of a kiss as a cop-out.”
“It’s not my fault that I’m terrible at gifts,” she grumbles.
“By definition, yes it is. But I love you anyway.”
Annabeth glares. “Thanks, babe.”
“See?” Percy shakes their hands, now tangled together, back and forth. “We’re already naturals.”
“Well, dating is basically just being best friends who suck face and bang, right?”
Percy looks at her for a moment that might be three months long. “Sure,” he says, his voice a little strange. “I mean—what do we know?”
Annabeth laughs, feeling incredibly awkward. “Right.” She clears her throat. “Thank you.”
He looks confused, so Annabeth nods towards the piece of paper and the remnants of her fantasy future. “Don’t mention it,” he says, shrugging.
Annabeth shakes her head, a little in awe. To him, it really is nothing; he would do something like this for her every day and never expect a thank you. “You’re gonna save the world one day, Percy Jackson,” she whispers, her lighthearted tone hiding how deeply she means it.
“I don’t know,” he whispers back. “I feel like any world you build won’t need saving.”
And Annabeth can’t breathe right. Percy’s hand is warm in her own, his gaze unyielding. There are no tools in her arsenal to deal with how she’s feeling; she has no words to toss back at him.
She’s saved by the speakers overhead crackling and informing them of their imminent descent into San Francisco. Annabeth takes the paper from Percy’s tray table and folds it into a smaller square that goes into her sweater pocket. It only has a game of tic-tac-toe and a spiral on it, but she feels compelled to save it. There’s something about this moment she wants to keep for herself.
“That went by fast,” Percy says, digging his wallet out of his pants and carefully sliding the napkin origami shark inside before putting his tray into the ‘upright and locked position.’ The gentle way he handles his wallet afterwards makes her think, momentarily, that he might be trying to preserve something, too.
“Yeah,” Annabeth agrees with a smile on her face. Her heart thumps almost painfully quickly as she un-reclines her chair. “It did.”
//
Here’s something that might make Annabeth Chase just the tiniest bit easier to understand: the summer she turns twelve, she spends a lot of time reading comic books. Their plots are rarely complex—she can figure out a lot by looking at the page before she even has to try to start reading the text. Some characters are evil, and some characters are good. There are heroes who make their worlds tangibly better places; they have the power in their hands to enact true change.
Annabeth reads a lot of comic books. She daydreams about worlds where it’s always easy to tell what’s right and what’s wrong.
Hawkgirl is her favorite. The Silver Age Hawkgirl specifically, the one from the alien planet of Thanagar, not the Golden Age reincarnation of—well, she’s a little picky. On afternoons where she isn’t busy, she stacks her comic books half a foot high in the strawberry fields, careful not to get the pages sticky as she flips through them. Over the sound of some campers laughing by the basketball court, she can faintly hear Luke screaming at Chiron from just inside the Big House.
His voice floats above her as she bites down on a freshly picked strawberry. “Do you think this hokey bullshit has helped me? When you’re just going to kick me out on my ass so I can get some minimum wage job and live in poverty until I fucking die? You’re kidding yourself if you think you help any of these kids. You’re setting them all up to fail!”
Annabeth stares down at the page and focuses on a speech bubble, reads it through three times until the words make sense.
“No, you’re only human,” it reads. “You are still human. Don’t be ashamed of it; rejoice in it. Because it means your spirit—as flawed or as selfish as our spirits can sometimes be—is still alive.”
Annabeth closes her comic book and adds it back onto her pile. It’s easy to flip over and settle between the vines, to try and focus in on only the blue of the sky above her, marred by the occasional cumulus cloud. It’s there that Percy finds her, his hair still wet from swimming in the lake, and plops down in the patch of dirt by her side.
It’s early August, so he knows better by now than to try and touch her comic books, but he gives them a considerate look. “What would you pick?”
Annabeth squints back up at the sky. His gaze is too green and intense for her at the moment. “What?”
“As a superpower.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I like the alien superheroes.” After a moment of consideration, she adds, “not Superman, though.”
Superman can suck it.
“Come on, really think about it. Don’t give some lame answer like flying.”
“I don’t know,” Annabeth repeats, trying to find a fun shape in the clouds above. “Flying could be kind of cool.” She isn’t sure why she says that—flying sucks. Flying sucks almost as much as Aquaman’s dumb powers.
Percy groans. “No, Annabeth, come on. You wouldn’t want like—like, the ability to fill your pockets with whatever you wanted? Like, you forgot a pen and walk into a test and bam, no issue? That’s right up your alley.”
Annabeth laughs loudly and freely. “That’s so lame,” she giggles. Even lamer than flying. “Points for creativity, though.”
Percy’s foot nudges against her leg. “Ask me what I’d pick.”
Annabeth rolls her eyes, but plays along. “What superpower would you pick, Percy?”
Aquaman, she thinks immediately.
“Aquaman,” Percy answers immediately.
“Aquaman sucks,” Annabeth says, well prepared for the answer.
“He can communicate with any aquatic animal, and breathe underwater. I’d finally be able to prove that megalodon is still alive in the deep ocean.”
Annabeth mouths the last part along with him, well versed in his niche conspiracy theory after only a few short months. The smack that comes against her arm tells her that she’s been caught.
“Whatever,” he says, his voice a bit petulant. “I still haven’t heard your brilliant idea.”
“I mean, there’s a difference between having a cool superpower and choosing the power that would make you the most effective superhero.”
“Lame,” Percy complains. “You’re making this lame, it’s supposed to be fun. Scrap the superhero idea, just pick what excites you most. Teleportation? Invisibility?”
“Not invisibility,” Annabeth answers quickly. “That’s not—that would suck, I think.”
“Yeah?”
“It doesn’t strike me as fun, is all. Not being seen.”
“You could sneak into all sorts of museums, though. Trip people you don’t like.”
Annabeth smiles, leaning up onto an elbow, and looks over at Percy for the first time since he laid down. “You’re right. Have you thought about this? What I’d like as a superpower?”
She watches the flush spread across his cheeks. “No,” he says, “no, why would I do that?”
Annabeth feels a little guilty, in the moment, for putting him on the spot. “Can I invent my own?”
“Duh. I came up with the pocket filler.”
“Okay.” Annabeth flops onto her back again after snagging a strawberry from the vine and taking a bite. “Absorbing skills and thoughts through touch would be cool, I think.” She tosses the stem away. Composting, hell yeah.
“What do you mean?”
“Like, imagine I shook hands with a sharpshooter, or something. Then I’d have the ability to shoot with crazy accuracy, too. And if I brushed against an astrophysicist I could suddenly do crazy math and stuff.”
Percy whistles, softly enough that it’s almost lost in the breeze. “That’s pretty sick, actually.”
“If it was in a comic there’d probably be a cap on it,” Annabeth muses. “It would be too easy to be overpowered. Maybe it only lasts for so long.” She shrugs. “Still. I think that’s my choice.” Smirking a bit, she adds, “I could even go to the ocean floor with you if we held hands.”
“If two people saw megalodon then they’d have to believe us.”
Annabeth doesn’t tune back into Luke’s raving for the rest of the afternoon, distracted by conversations about superpowers and the deep ocean and her most steadfast attempts to eat as many strawberries as is physically possible. She eats until her stomach aches and rejoices in it—the sun beats down on them as they laugh themselves silly and Annabeth feels alive.
//
“Elaine’s waiting for us by the baggage claim,” Annabeth says, focusing on her phone as they wait for the passengers ahead of them to de-plane.
Percy, standing like he has been since the moment the seatbelt sign was turned off, hunches back over the chairs. “What?”
Annabeth shakes her phone. “Elaine’s here.”
He nods and straightens back up—Annabeth winces a second before he smacks his head into the low ceiling over the seats. “Ouch,” he says a little halfheartedly.
Annabeth stands too, slinging her backpack on in the confined space of the window seat. Percy’s already stacked their carry-ons next to her, and grabs both of them when it’s their turn to walk off the plane.
“I can take that,” she tells him once they make it to the terminal.
He looks at her, eyebrows scrunched together in a way that does not distract her at all. “Don’t you have to pee? You didn’t go the whole flight.”
“Um, sure,” she says, realizing just how bad an idea it would be to try and hold it until she got to her dad’s house. “Wait here?”
He waves her away, pulling out his phone as she speed walks to the bathroom, trying to beat most of the crowd coming off the plane. By the time she’s washing her hands, a line has formed; it gives her only the tiniest amount of time to frown at her travel-bedraggled self in the mirror. She pulls out her braid and redoes it in a bun she hopes looks intentionally messy. It’s a hairstyle Elaine has never liked—Annabeth agonizes over it until a woman trying to corral three small kids comes up to the sink behind her and Annabeth is ethically obligated to leave.
Percy is waiting where she left him, making faces at his phone. She smiles as she approaches, slowing her footsteps to watch him for a moment longer. “Snapchatting Grover?”
His head jerks up and he smiles at the sight of her. “Can't let our streak die. We made it to twenty again. Ready?”
She nods, taking her bag. “Do you have to go?”
“Nah, I’m good. Nice save on the hair.”
She swings her duffel into his side. “Asshole.”
“I was gonna say something if you came back from the bathroom with your braid all crazy!”
“Sure you were.” She takes off towards baggage claim, not bothering to try and decode the anti-dyslexics font the airport uses. She’s been here enough times to know where to go, and Percy follows with a hand on her shoulder, still staring down at his phone, as though she’s his seeing eye dog.
“Mom says hi,” he says as they pass the last Starbucks and second to last Hudson News. “She also says she’s sure we’ll have an amazing time.”
Annabeth finds herself slightly calmer. That’s the beauty of Sally Jackson, she figures. “Well, if Sally’s sure.”
The last Hudson News comes and goes and then they’re on the escalator, heading towards what may be the longest week of her life. Percy, one step above her, moves the hand on her shoulder to wrap it around her in a lazy kind of hug. “Is your step-mom a hugger?” he asks right into her ear. “I don’t remember.”
Annabeth shivers, overwhelmed by the many different emotions clamoring for attention inside of her chest and stomach. “Um, I let her decide the pace with that, usually,” she answers, far more honestly than she had been expecting to. Shit fucking ass fuck goddamn, you know? Whatever, she’s fine.
They slowly descend past a sign welcoming them to San Francisco. Maybe they’re descending into hell, who can say. Annabeth feels as though she’s swallowed a bowling ball. “This was a terrible idea,” she gasps out.
She feels Percy’s laugh against her back just as much as she hears it, warm and lovely. “This idea rocks,” he says, just as Annabeth picks out her step-mom waiting for them across the room. “I’m going to win over your whole family with blue pancakes and stories about how much you make New York your bitch.”
They step off the escalator. Annabeth is oddly centered again. Those damn Jacksons. With their—words, and smiles, and big soft eyes. Ridiculous. “Let’s go,” she says.
Annabeth takes a step towards her step-mom. Percy’s arm slides off her shoulders so that he can lace his fingers with her own. Elaine slowly grows larger, until she’s only an arm’s length away. She’s in one of her ‘day off’ outfits, a pair of jeans and sneakers dressed up with a nicer blouse, and the streak of red in her hair looks freshly dyed. She looks the same as always, in short. Annabeth tries to find some sort of comfort in that.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she says. Her arms open and Annabeth falls right into them, ignoring the awkwardness of her own limbs as much as she can. Elaine’s attention turns to Percy as soon as Annabeth steps back again, and finds him ready and waiting with his most polished smile.
He sticks a hand out. “It’s good to see you again, Mrs. Dr. Chase,” he says.
Elaine laughs as she shakes his hand. “Same to you, Percy. Frederick and I were so happy when Annabeth told us you’d be joining us for the holidays.”
Annabeth twists her fingers together, heart rate still cruising around a hundred and fifty BPM. Elaine is smiling, and so is Percy, and Annabeth makes sure she’s got a smile on, too, just before they both turn their attention back to her, to show how perfectly okay and happy and well-adjusted she is.
“All set?” Elaine asks. “Any checked bags?”
“Nope,” Annabeth answers, her voice just the tiniest bit too loud. She turns to Percy. “Good to go, right?”
He gives her a thumbs up, and they follow Elaine to where she’s parked the trusty family minivan. Once she’s in front of them, Percy rubs a comforting circle between Annabeth’s shoulder blades.
This is going to be fine.
..