The Aftermath

Percy seemed to relax after Piper left the room. Maybe because someone with power over love wasn’t someone he wanted to be around at that very moment. Or maybe, he so wanted to have her power over love but couldn’t that it hurt him to even be around Piper. Like she was flaunting her ability to control romantic affection in Percy’s face.

“I’m sorry—” Jason started, but Percy cut him off quickly,

“No, don’t be. C'mon, she’s your freaking wife, why are you sorry? I’m the one who barges into your home smelling like a dead dracaena and crying like a two-year-old. Besides, we’ve all been through so much, I could never stay mad at anyone one of you.”

“It’s okay, Percy,” Jason said walking over to the kitchen, “Hey, you want anything?”

“If you have anything blue, that’d be great, but I don’t need anything right now.”

“Besides the obvious, that is,” Jason replied. They both went silent after that.

Jason returned to the couch with a Coke and a bag of blue tortilla chips, which Percy contentedly started munching on.

“That’s the thing, isn’t it?” Percy said after they had sat there in awkward silence for a bit, “Love can change your life so much for the better that I never realized it could ruin it.”

“You’re not ruined,” Jason said, “you have to realize that. Annabeth is always going to want you back, especially now that you’ve explained the dream. The way I see it, you’re not mad at her, are you?”

“I just feel like she doesn’t deserve someone as low as me, especially considering the way I treated her. I mean, I just walked out, without even stopping to think. But she always did the thinking for me, I was just supposed to be the dumb protector.”

“Percy—” Jason warned. But Percy was all worked up now.

“I was supposed to protect her, to keep her happy, to always be there for her.” With every thing he mentioned that he was suppose to do, he slapped his hand down like a general giving orders.

“Percy, it’s not like—”

“Dammit, Jason, I was supposed to love her!”

They both went silent again. Percy’s eyes went blank, his mind a thousand miles away, or just short of however far away Annabeth was.

“You do love her!” Jason said, desperately trying to convice Percy of something he was supposed to know. “You love Annabeth more than anything in this world. You went to Tartarus because you knew you couldn’t pull her up the easy way. Don’t you see, Percy? Nothing in your relationship has been easy.”

Percy made a circling motion with his hand, his mind still far away.

“We were easy.”

“Think about it for a second. Percy, look at me.”

Percy looked up at his friend, tears almost spilling over his bottom eyelids and onto his cheeks.

“From all the stories I heard about you two, pretty much everything has been hard. You went on a cross-country road trip when you were twelve, fought Polyphemus when you were thirteen, you personally went across the country again to get her safely from Atlas, holding up the sky on the way. You fought through the Labyrinth, fought and killed Kronos, and then, after you lost all of your memory, you remembered her. Percy, I didn’t remember anything. Hell, I didn’t remember Reyna. Dude, my life would have been so much worse if I had remembered Reyna like you remembered Annabeth.”

Suddenly, there were a few creaks from the other room, like someone was jumping up and down. Jason said,

“Pipes, you okay?”

“Fine!” Piper answered, a slight hint of excitement in her voice.

“Watcha watching?” Jason asked, “Supernatural come out with the new season yet?”

“Uh…yeah. Sorry for sounding so excited there.”

Percy smiled to himself, but Jason didn’t see it.

“Okay!” Jason said as he turned back to his friend, “Anyways, Percy, you then proceeded to fall into Tartarus for her because you knew it wouldn’t be possible to pull her back up. You knew it wasn’t going to be easy, and yet you still did it. Percy, why is it that this one understanding is somehow ruining it?”

“Jason, how I wish you could be talking to Annabeth right now,” Percy grumbled, “Now that all of this has happened, I understand it. I’m now very worried that Annabeth won’t. I mean, how could she love me after how I treated her?”

Jason audibly growled in frustration, and almost called Piper in. But he restrained himself.

“Percy, you are admirably stubborn. I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.”

He grabbed Percy’s head and forced his friend to look directly at him.

“You will love Annabeth forever. It’s amazing that that statement is a fact and an order. Annabeth will always love you. Go out there and make that clear to her.”

“Yes, professor,” Percy said, grinning.

“Ugh, shut up, Jackson! Piper likes the glasses, so the matter no longer holds any grounds.”

“You still look funny,” Percy responded.

“Percy—” Jason started, but Percy just said,

“Thank you, Jason. Honestly. I just think I’m going crazy over here. I need Annabeth right now. I just don’t know where…oh, Gods.”

“What’s up?” Jason asked.

“I know where Annabeth is. I also just remembered that there’s a Fake Me walking around Manhattan, and he probably snuck into my parents’ apartment and read the note I left. Which means I need to get to—”

“GRAND CENTRAL!” Piper screamed from the other room, “Annabeth just called me and hung up abruptly, which was weird. But anyways, she’s at Grand Central, Percy! Something about a café…”

“Let’s go, then!” Jason said, “Come on, Percy, this is just another quest. Think of it that way.”

“Just another quest,” Percy murmured, “and I’m out to kill just another monster. Except my girlfriend’s involved.”

“Yep,” Piper said, walking out of the TV room in concealed battle armor (another invention of Leo’s that combined a hoodie and jeans with celestial bronze armor), her old dagger in a sheath concealed in her belt.

“C’mon, boys!” She urged, “Please don’t tell me an Aphrodite girl can dressed quicker than you can! We are legendary at taking forever. You guys should be ready in five minutes!”

So Jason and Percy rushed into the bedroom, where Jason lent Percy a set of concealed armor. They took three minutes to get ready, and in that amount of time, Piper replayed the conversation her favorite two boys had just had. She hadn’t been watching Supernatural, as much as she enjoyed drooling over the possible ships on that show. She had been listening intently to their discussion.

“My life would have been worse if I had remembered Reyna the way you remembered Annabeth,” Piper murmured. As much as she loved the former Praetor, she couldn’t help giggling like a little girl at that comment.

Piper quickly calmed herself and joined the two boys as they rushed down the stairs and out the door, speeding towards East Midtown as fast as they could without getting caught.

Notes

Enjoy,
Grafon