𝑳𝑶𝑵𝑮 𝑳𝑰𝑽𝑬 || 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒚 𝒋𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒙 𝒐𝒄

welcome (back) to new york

"Gah! Why did I decide to do school again?" Maisie cried, hitting her head on the kitchen table.

"Because you care about education," Barbara said, as she sat folding laundry on the couch.

If someone had said that to Maisie a year ago, she would have laughed at them. But she came to the conclusion that that statement was true. At least partly. Because she did decide to not be a year-rounder at camp. It just felt like the right decision for her. She wasn't as smart as Annabeth. Taking a year off of school would probably have sent Maisie pretty far behind, while she was sure the daughter of Athena had easily entered seventh grade, despite not attending school for a couple years.

"Oh, Maisie, your friend is downstairs," Gale said, as she came up from the café kitchen.

"What friend?" Maisie asked. She had made a few acquaintances at school, but not good enough friends with anyone that she would hang out with them outside of school. So she didn't really have a guess as to who was here.

"Boy. Tan. Dark hair. Pretty eyes," Gale listed.

"Percy?" Maisie asked.

"Probably," Gale said, opening up the cabinet above the sink. "Just overheard him asking Darrell if you were here. And you better get down quick. Darrell was really laying into the boy."

"What?" Maisie said jumping to her feet. "Why didn't you tell Darrell to cool off?"

"It was entertaining," Gale shrugged.

Maisie disregarded her textbooks and ran down the stairs that led to the café's back kitchen. She pushed through the door and there, at the register, was Darrell, leaning over the counter slightly to get in her friend's face.

Percy looked a little perturbed, a little startled and a little angry. But he saw Maisie arrive and his face relaxed a bit. Though he looked a little shocked.

Due to Chiron's insistent nagging, the two weren't really allowed to see each other outside of camp. He said the two of them alone already posed a great chance of monster attacks. Together, disaster was sure to strike. They called eachother every once in a while, but hadn't seen one another in person for a few months, as it was already close to the spring season.

Maisie wanted to disobey the centaur, but the biggest thing keeping her from doing so was Percy's mom. She knew that if a monster followed Percy home, as a result of them being together, Sally wouldn't hesitate to defend her son, and she might get hurt again in the process. So, needless to say, Maisie was a little surprised to see him.

He didn't look too different, his hair was a bit longer and he might have gained some height. But that was hard to tell, because Maisie had also gotten a little taller, so they were still relatively the same height. She wondered if she looked any different.