Percy and Annabeth-Their future

Au Revoir

Taylor sat outside on the grass. It had been hours since she'd moved, and now as the mail truck drove down our street, I watched her freeze even more than she already was frozen. The snow skirted down from the sky, covering her winter hat in white specks. The mail truck rumbled up to our house, and Taylor shot up.

It was here. Finally.

"Hello? Ms. Taylor Jackson?"

"Yes-" The mailman handed her a large envelope with her name on it and an emblem in the corner.

Julliard's letter.

Taylor tore inside like a bullet from a gun, grabbing the letter opener that had sat on the counter for days. When Percy had tried to put it away, she'd nearly bit his head off. Now, I watched as the color drained from her face, her hands carefully removing the paper from the envelope. Her eyes scanned the letter for a moment before she screamed.

"OHMYGODS OHMYGODS OHMYGODS OHMYGODS OHMYGODS," Her smile was bigger than I'd ever seen it before.

"What's wrong? Who died? Wha-" Percy rushed down the stairs, his face pink as he spotted the letter. "Oh. Oh, I guess you- you got in then?"

The fear drained from his face as the excitement bubbled in Taylor's.

"Congratulations, Taylor!" I smiled, wrapping my arms around her. She'd gotten in to her dream school. Her dream school.

It was December. Clearly, her early decision application was worth it, and her talent was well worthy of Julliard's polishing power.

Percy wrapped her in a hug, and kissed her forehead. "I can't believe you're already getting your acceptance letters, Taylor. You're so old!"

"This is the only acceptance letter I'm getting, remember? I have to withdraw all the other applications." Taylor pondered on that for a minute before running upstairs to post something on Instagram or something.

Percy walked up to me, putting his arms around me. "Can you believe they're already growing up? Sophia married, Lena and Rion adults, and now Taylor and Luke going to college? It's crazy."

"It is..." I said, looking up at him. His sea green eyes bore into mine as I moved closer to him, planting my lips on his. "At least I'll always have this."

~~~~~~~~~

"Oh my gods, Mom, this is delicious!" Taylor's mood had gone from completely over-stressed to bubbly and happy within the hour. She practically shoveled her lasagna into her mouth, and had already chugged three cans of sparking water. She couldn't stop talking about Julliard and everything she was planning on doing once she got there.

Luke just smiled as she listed the Broadway shows she was going to see, and laughed as she told another one of her music jokes, but I could tell something was bothering him. Really bugging him.

"And so the guy says, 'do you come to this bar often?' and the girl says, 'yes! I'm part of the staff!'" She burst out laughing as Luke stood up from his seat, excusing himself to the bathroom. Percy followed him, shooting me a worried look as he left the table.

"My joke wasn't that bad was it?" Taylor asked as she reached for another sparkling water.

"No, sweetie, it was cute, but you can't have any more carbonated water- you're officially cut off." I stood up, placing my napkin on my seat and following Percy's footsteps down the hall.

"Luke?" Percy asked quietly, knocking on the door. "C'mon, buddy..."

Slowly the door opened, revealing Luke's face. The pain in his face was only more apparent now, and he felt it too. Percy glanced at me, then back at Luke. "Dude, are you okay? What's up?"

"It's nothing, Dad. I'm fi-"

"Don't say that to me. I don't deserve that, Luke! I'm your dad- I'm not going to judge you."

I studied his face, hoping my assumption was wrong. "Luke..." I asked gently. "Did you... you know... get a girl pregnant?" I bit my lip, fear rising in my throat.

The redness shot to his face as I finished. "What?!" 

"Well, honey, all this beating around the bush... and the expression on your face..."

"Oh, so my face says I got a girl pregnant?"

"Well..." I looked at Percy, who was giving me a 'You're Not Helping' glare. "No. No, nothing like that."

"Luke, what is it then?"

His lip started quivering as he looked over my shoulder at Taylor. Slowly, he pushed past me and ran upstairs, the tears already streaming down his face. My heart started aching for him, because I had no idea what he was going through.

Percy didn't give up as easily. He followed him upstairs, knocking on the door. He didn't accept the 'fine' Luke managed between gasps for air, between sobs. Percy pursued the issue until Luke finally let him inside. I stood outside the door, listening as Percy sat next to Luke on the bed.

"Dad... I did something you'll probably... you'll probably be really mad about-" Luke began, and I could hear him choking back his tears. That was his flaw- he couldn't let his guard down. He was always the manly guy now.

"What?" Percy was patient as he spoke. He listened to Luke the way he listened to me. I never noticed how good of a listener Percy was until that night.

"I didn't... I didn't send out any college applications."

"That's not a big deal, Luke! There's still tons of time-"

"That's not what I mean, Dad. I'm not going."

I could hear the shock in Percy's breathing, but he kept his cool. "Luke, I don't know if you really want to do that-"

"Not that either, dad. I want to enlist. I want to be in the Marines."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hey guys! How are you? Are you all out of school? I still have 10 days left :( Ugh. So... Taylor's going to Julliard, and Luke- well, should Percy and Annabeth let him be a Marine? OR should they force him into college? Comment your thoughts!

I'm thinking about writing a young adult fiction piece on here for summer, in addition to this, as an easy summer read type of thing, but I'm not entirely sure if I'm going to do it. It would probably be a romance type of thing, because I'm writing a fantasy/sci-fi thing on the side already.

I really hope you enjoyed the chapter! I probably should have been studying for finals, but today was an I.P.S. study day, and that final is open book/note/lab notebook/binder/ everything so... I'm not studying that hard for it, in short.

I hope you're all having a great end of school, or beginning of summer!

QUESTION OF THE CHAPTER: LUKE? A MARINE?

Xoxo

~PercyAnnabeth20owl