#pre-tlo

This is a pretty long one! Set the spring before The Last Olympian. Some angst with a hopeful ending of Percy realizing Annabeth and him are drifting apart and getting some advice. Canon-compliant.

“Percy!” Silena and Beckendorf ran up Camp Half-Blood, Silena wrapping him in a hug while Beckendorf patted him on the back. “I’ve been waiting for you all day!”

“You have?” Percy gave Beckendorf a startled look as Silena grabbed his arm and led him down the hill. His friend just shrugged. 

“Charlie told me you were coming! And since Grover and Annabeth aren’t here, we figured we’d greet you to make sure you weren’t alone.”

“That’s nice...wait, Annabeth’s not here?” Percy looked around the camp. More kids than usual were there for the spring, sparring in full armor. It was weird to think his birthday was like a timer, and as it got closer, Camp became less and less like how he remembered.

Silena was right. Annabeth wasn’t there. The one person he could usually rely on to be at Camp at pretty much any time of year.

“Yeah. She had some big thing at school.”

“What?”

Silena gave Beckendorf a look, and he coughed, giving a strong one-armed hug to Percy as he began to walk away. “Um, I’m going to go. Michael Yew was screaming at me earlier about making some special arrow for the Apollo cabin. I dunno.” 

Percy watched as he jogged down the hill while Silena kept a hand on his arm. He liked Silena, she was one of his closer friends. But she was still a daughter of Aphrodite, and being alone with her wasn’t exactly promising with the topic of Annabeth.

The Aphrodite kids had taken interest in Percy soon after his trip to Mount Tam, and a lot of it was about him and Annabeth. They sometimes lurked when they were sparring together or whispered at campfire as Percy was trying to concentrate on some type of architecture Annabeth was explaining. Silena had never been as involved, only smiling at the two of them when they walked past, but that was also just her being her nice self. But still, asking Beckendorf to leave when they had seemed pretty inseparable the last time he’d seen them got his guard up.

“When’s the last time you talked to Annabeth?” Silena asked, leading them toward the fields where some campers were picking strawberries. Miranda and Katie waved to them, and Silena barely let Percy wave back as she dragged him under a tall tree, leading them out of the harsh sunbeams. 

“Uh, I don’t know. Last week I think. She was wondering what I could do with water if we needed to get somewhere quickly. How fast it would take to get somewhere at top speed I guess.”

Silena nodded. “Do you remember anything else she said?”

“No, why? Did something happen?” Percy sat up straight. “Is she hurt? Is she in the hospital or something?”

“No!” Silena said, grabbing his hand. “She’s alright, calm down. I just think it’s odd.”

“What is?”

“Annabeth won an award at her school’s design program. She had been bragging about it for weeks, and she had to fly back to California to go to some ceremony for the end of the year. I thought she would have told you.”

“She didn’t.” Percy picked at the grass. Normally Annabeth would have called him, or at least written a really hasty email with a lot of spelling mistakes telling him about it including at least three thinly veiled jabs. He knew she was giving him space. But he’d been kind of hoping this trip back to Camp would allow them to see each other again. And that things could maybe go back to normal.

“She also got asked out by two people in her design program,” Silena said. Her tone was casual, but Percy saw her looking at him as  she said it. 

And he hated it up, but he did tense up a little at the thought. But it wasn’t Annabeth dating someone. She’d been giving him shit for months just because he was friends with Rachel, a mortal, but she was allowed to date mortals? What the hell? 

They were supposed to be best friends, but she didn’t tell him the first time something good happened at school. They were supposed to be best friends, but she didn’t mention that two people had asked her out. He knew more about Grover’s life from the one message he’d received since he left on his mission as the Lord of the Wild! 

He sat there, fuming, uprooting grass at an increasingly fast rate as Silena just sat there looking out at the fields. “And so what? Why are you telling me this? She obviously didn’t want to tell me, so-” He huffed, throwing the blades until they landed only a few feet away. 

“I think she’d like you to know. Maybe there’s a reason she didn’t tell you.”

“Yeah, because she’s a hypocrite,” Percy muttered, then grimaced at Silena. “Sorry, I’m being a jerk. I’m not mad at you.”

“I know,” Silena said with a sad smile. “Maybe you should call her. The ceremony starts in an hour.”

Percy crossed and uncrossed his legs, looked around, fidgeted all around trying to sort out his thoughts. Gods, this grass was uncomfortable. Why did he have to be here? Why were they talking about this? What was even the point? Annabeth obviously hated him…

His head lurched up, and Silena’s did as well as she looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“Does she hate me?” he asked.

“What?” 

“Does Annabeth hate me? Obviously she’s talking to you way more than me, and she always seems angry at me lately! Did I do something wrong? I mean, she’s been angry at me before, but usually we fight about it. She’s just ignoring me now!”

“She doesn’t hate you!” Silena said quickly, ripping the blades of grass he kept ripping out of his hands. “And if you’re this stressed about it, I think you really should call her. Because I know she wants to talk to you too.”

Percy looked at Silena. She was a daughter of Aphrodite. And she was technically talking about him and Annabeth. But she wasn’t singing “Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid at him (true story, Annabeth almost throttled a ten year old), and everything in her voice just felt sincere. It was just a friend giving another friend advice.

“Beckendorf is really lucky to have you, Silena,” Percy said, giving her a hug.

“I’m lucky to have him. And you’re lucky to have Annabeth. I’m rooting for you guys, whatever happens.”

Percy smiled at her as he stood up. Whatever happens. He wasn’t sure about his feelings for Annabeth, or how things would go after this. But in his heart, he was rooting for them, too.

He gave Silena a high-five as he ran from the fields toward his cabin.

*****

He’d forgotten what a mess Cabin 3 was.

Gum wrappers and chips the Stolls had stolen for him last time he was at Camp were still littering the floors, and his bed was unmade. But the fountain was still running, probably thanks to Tyson, and he rushed toward it, fishing a drachma from his pocket.

He checked his watch. He still had forty five minutes until Annabeth’s ceremony. That should be plenty of time.

He dropped the coin in the water and said, “Show me Annabeth Chase.”

His voice shook a bit, and his whole body felt like it was vibrating so hard he had to keep opening and closing his fists, but then the water cleared and Annabeth was shown in a bathroom, combing her hair.

Percy just watched her for a second, smiling as she cursed when the brush hit a snag, but then saw the fancy blue dress she had on and remembered what was happening.

“Annabeth!” he said, and she jumped so hard the brush fell into the sink. 

And he couldn’t help it, he started cracking up as he watched her turn with a furious look on her face. It just kept coming as she took the brush and pointed it at him, continuing to curse loudly.

“What is it?” she finally said as he quieted down and she was done with the profanity.

Percy took a breath. She looked nice. The dress wasn’t really that fancy now that he looked at it. He was just so used to seeing her with mud on her face and in camp clothes anything was pretty unexpected when it came to her. And her hair was down. It looked like when they first met, curly and clean.

“I heard you got an award and wanted to congratulate you and stuff,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” Annabeth turned back to the mirror, combing the ends of her hair. “Who told you?”

“Silena.”

“Of course. She had this weird look on her face and asked me if I was bringing anyone.” She looked back at him, eyes narrowing. “Are you at Camp?”

“Yeah. I thought you’d be here.”

“Well, yeah. I have this.”

She turned away again, and for the first time since they met, Percy felt invisible. Annabeth always took care to notice every detail about him when they saw each other. She could probably tell you how much he’d grown close enough to the quarter inch. She was barely meeting his eyes now.

Maybe it was easier not looking at her. She always intimidated him anyway.

“Silena and I talked more after that.”

“Oh no.”

“Shut up, you like Silena.”

“I do, I’m just worried her brain melted after having to spend too much time with you. Especially when you seem so serious.”

He smiled a little bit at her. “Yeah, well, it was weird. Because I talked to her more than I talked to you lately.”

Annabeth finally turned from the mirror at this and met his eyes. She didn’t do anything for a few seconds, then slowly crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah. I thought you didn’t want to.”

“I thought you didn’t want to.”

Annabeth shrugged. “Well, you’re busy. Without other people.” The way she said the last word hinted enough, and Percy shut his eyes for a second to try and calm the annoyance building up in him.

It really wasn’t fair, what she was doing. Annabeth knew it, he was sure. He knew her well enough, and saw that there was hurt in her eyes whenever she mentioned Rachel like that. Something was bothering her, but she just wouldn’t tell him, and it sucked. 

He just shrugged it off, the frustration, anger, and everything else that was going on in his head. “Yeah, but so are you. Grover’s gone and I don’t have anyone to talk to.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Okay, I want to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you!”

“Fine!” Well, there it was. Thanks, Silena! Great idea, talk to the girl who likes to yell at him when he didn't do anything wrong! Percy raised his hand to strike it through the water but then Annabeth cried “Wait!”

He hovered over the fountain, then lowered his arm.

“I didn’t mean it,” she said, rubbing her eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was from jet lag or because she was crying. He really hoped she wasn’t crying. “I-it’s just been weird. Your birthday is soon, and the prophecy...it’s not…” She sighed. “I don’t. I-” She put a hand through her hair, then muttered something under her breath. “Gods!”

Percy stood there, watching, feeling numb. He still couldn’t tell if she was crying, or what she was doing. Finally, she just sat down on the ground and put her head in her hands.

“I didn’t tell you about my award because you’re the only person I cared about telling,” Annabeth said. “But things have felt so different, and I thought maybe you wouldn’t care.”

Percy looked at her. He didn’t really know how to respond. Annabeth didn’t usually talk to him like this after an argument. She would stomp away and then come back later and they would end up going on some quest that distracted them. But they couldn’t do this now.

It felt like when they were on the zoo truck, and it was dark, and it was just the two of them. When she finally told him something about herself, it felt so intimate and special he knew it meant something. He couldn’t forget what she told him then. His ADHD could make memory warped or hard to remember, but that moment was one of the clearest in his head.

Like that night, he paid close attention now. He noticed her irregular breaths and how miserable she looked. And he felt terrible for doing this to her. 

He still didn’t know what to say after watching her, so he just mumbled, “I’m happy for you.”

Annabeth looked at him. Her mouth tilted up slightly. “I know. I was stupid. I guess I’m just used to people walking out on me.” She looked at him a bit longer, then laughed, ducking her head. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.”

She was really smiling now. “I do miss you, Percy. And I know I’m not being super...great.” He knew how much saying that pained her. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about this thing.”

“It’s a big deal.”

“Yeah!” she grinned, and she got the sparkle in her eye that he knew meant she was about to begin ranting, but then her phone went off.

“Crap!” She reached up for it and silenced it. “That’s my alarm. I’ve got to go in five minutes.”

“Okay,” Percy said, feeling a bit disappointed as she picked up her brush. “Um, when will you be back?”

“Tomorrow morning. Will you still be there?”

“I think so.”

She smiled at him. “Cool. Don’t do anything stupid until then.”

“I won’t,” he promised, smirking.

Laughing, she said, “Bye, Seaweed Brain,” and the connection broke. Percy was alone in his cabin again.