Percabeth One-shots (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

Heart-stopping sound

Based after the Percy Jackson series but before Heroes of Olympus.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson characters, they of course belong to the amazing Rick Riordan.

PERCY JACKSON
My fingers drum on the kitchen bench. I'm currently slumped down in the seat that is placed right up against the bench. My legs are slung over the corner of the speckled kitchen top, swinging slowly, my laces just touching the ground. My other arm is slung over my stomach, on top of the camp t-shirt. It's already starting to get too small, but I still wear it for the Orange colour comforts me, reminding me of my other home I've known since I was 12. It's been 5 weeks since I left there to come back to New York as summer came to an end. In the weekdays I attend Goode, the only school that has actually accepted me back after a year...even though I may have caused a mini fire. In my defense though I was trying to not die to the clutches of a cheerleader. But oh well, none of that matters anymore.
I hear the front door being opened after someone rattles with their keys. I watch as my mum comes inside, carrying at least a dozen grocery bags. She shuts the door with her foot and makes her way towards the kitchen where I currently am.
"Hey Percy, how was school?" She places the bags on the bench after gently pushing my legs off of it, they fall to the ground with a thud.
"Alright. I didn't start any fires today." I try to brighten my own mood. My mother notices immediately.
"Oh Perce, I'm sure she's fine. She can handle herself surely after that massive war that you guys handled. I'm sure she's just...forgotten to call or come by." She places her hand on top of mine. Her fingers are cold from the wind outside. I don't look up to meet her eyes.
"For 3 weeks?" I ask. I quickly sneak a glance at my mother, her eyes are filled with pity but her face isn't strained. Ever since she dumped that bastard Gabe for Paul her face seems to have lightened up. She looks a lot younger, no longer always stressed. I look down again at one particular stain to the right of the bench. It's a strange purple colour, with a small drag line being pulled from the fading blotch. I remember when I had accidentally spilled my juice there, only realizing after I had dragged my arm through it. I also remember Annabeth, my...girlfriend, laughing her head off when she saw my reaction. I had literally paled, believing my mum would kill me. She didn't, obviously, but she had scared me more than any Titan ever could.
"I'm sorry Percy...I don't know what to say." She begins to busy herself with the groceries after brushing my fringe out of my eyes. After getting back from Camp Half-Blood, Annabeth and I had spent 2 weeks barely apart from each other. We would have dinner together after school and do our homework together..or rather she would do my homework as I stared at her. Until one day when she just disappeared into thin air. I had walked over from my school to hers, to pick her up for dinner. She was to come over back to my place and have dinner with my mum, Paul and I, only when I got there she wasn't where she usually was, under the back tree reading. In fact, as I asked around, no one had seen her all day. Not even her roommate whom had said that she had woken up to find Annabeth's bed empty, the sheets pulled right back, with a couple books on her pillow. And what was weirder was that all of her belongings were still in her room. This was 3 weeks ago. There has been no word from her in 3 weeks and I've been worried sick. I hardly eat, always have nightmares but none giving me an idea of where she might be and I barely concentrate in any of my classes, even Greek, okay so I mean I didn't concentrate originally due to my ADHD and the fact that the classes bored me, but that was nothing compared to what I'm like now.
"What would you like for dinner?" Mum asks sweetly, her back still facing me as she stands on her tiptoes to put some food away in the cupboards.
"I'm not very hungry." I mumble.
She stops putting things away and turns to face me. Sighing, she leans back against the counter top, her hands grabbing the edges.
"You have to eat something Percy. I know that you're worried, I am too but do you really think Annabeth would be very proud of you not eating just because she was missing?"
I hang my head before putting my chin down on top of my hand.
"No she'd probably scold me." My lips slightly upturn, as I think of the way her eyes would turn even stormier when she was scolding me for acting childish, which was a lot of the time but she would always eventually soften and just laugh it off. Calling me seaweed brain. Oh how I ached to see her again. But not just see her, but hug her. Being able to hold her around the waist, with my chin resting on her head, as I slowly played with her sunshine curls was one of my favorite things.
"Do you think maybe we could have some pasta?....please." I say softly, before getting up to help mum put away the rest of the groceries.
I couldn't even begin to explain how much happiness was represented in her smile. It was like she was the goddess of happiness or something. The very essence of how glad she was that I was finally going to look after my health radiated off of her. I am so lucky to have a mother like her. Someone who cares more about my health than her own. She reminds me of Annabeth. Or rather Annabeth would always remind me of my mother, I guess that's probably why I would hang around her so much in the first place, wherever I went with Annabeth, made me feel like a part of myself was home. Because Annabeth reminded me of home. But these days, Annabeth is my home also. And I will never rest until she is safe.
After eating about half of my bowl of pasta, which was blue by the way, I went to sit down on the couch. Mum was with Paul in the Kitchen, I could hear their voices as they did the washing up. There would also be the occasional laugh as one splashed the other with water. I smiled, so happy that my mother finally had that twinkle back in her eyes. I grab for the remote and then turn the tv on, putting the volume down quite low. I then grabbed for a book Annabeth had let me borrow. It was called the Hunger Games, and although I was probably the slowest reader on the planet thanks to my dyslexia, I would still always at least attempt to read it, so I would have a better connection to Annabeth and her interests. I opened the book, with the TV as background noise, and began to read even with the letters swimming around the page.
About 20 minutes later, after being joined with Paul and mum, the doorbell rang. I closed my book after checking my page number to go answer it but my mother got up first, hurrying her pace after the person at the door began to knock urgently. I placed my book down on the coffee table and rubbed my eyes. I looked to the back of the couch in the direction of the door. My mother had just reached it, her hand on the handle. She twisted it open and slowly opened the door. Even though I was sitting a distance away, I could still hear her audibly gasp. She stepped forward quickly, now out of my view. I heard some murmuring...the other voice sounding familiar before hearing a clunk on the ground, as if someone had fallen. I raced to the door, groping for Riptide in my pocket, now scared for my mother. When I got to the door I stopped abruptly. Riptide fell out of my hand. The silence in the room made way for the sound of the pen hitting the ground, it began to echo down the hallways. Paul now joined me at the door and also stopped. There, on the ground was my mother but she wasn't hurt, well at least physically. She was holding up a girl's head, stopping it from hitting the ground. In her other hand was the girl's wrist, she was checking the pulse. But what shocked me the most was the fact that I knew this girl. It was Annabeth Chase, half-blood, daughter of Athena. It was my Annabeth, beaten and bloody but alive. I ran forward and sank to my knees, my eyes had glazed over with tears. I wiped them away so I could see her more clearly. Her usually bouncy curls were frizzy and 'dead', her blonde hair was caked with blood and sweat. Across her forehead was a long cut, the blood from it had dried along her face, in streaks around her eyes, as if she had attempted many times to keep the flow of blood out of her eyes. She was wearing her camp t-shirt but it wasn't a bright orange anymore, rather a greyish-brown with the occasional splash of red. Blood. Whether or not it was hers was unclear. She looked sickly pale, her arm seemed to be at an awkward angle. I took over my mum's job of holding up her head. I pulled her around gently, so it was resting against my shoulder.
"A-annabeth." I choked.
"Come on, let's get her inside." Said Mrs Jackson, her hand briefly on my face. She stood up and turned to Paul.
"Get some water and some extra blankets, I'll get the medicine."
I snaked my arm under her legs. And lifted her a little bit, positioning her arm so it won't hurt her. I keep her head against my shoulder, with my other arm under her back, I was holding her in a bridal-style sort of position. I put one knee up before the other so I would stand slowly. My breathing was quick as I stepped inside, closing the door with my foot. I noticed that Paul had turned on the lights and had out more blankets on the couch I had been sitting at. I walked over to it and gently laid her down, putting two pillows under her head just as she liked it. I pulled three blankets up to her torso. She seemed to be shivering but I couldn't fully cover her with the blankets just yet, we had to check what injuries she had first.
I pushed her curls behind her ear, before kissing her cheek gently, as if she was glass that would shatter at the slightest touch.
I continued stroking her hair as my mother came into view with a cloth and the water that Paul had gotten. I shifted slightly so she could slowly dab the dried blood off of Annabeth's face.
"What did she say before she passed out?" I ask, I would love to say that I sounded confident and manly but in truth my voice some out quite shaky and squeaky.
"She said that she had finally escaped and that she couldn't think of anywhere else to go and that she is sorry." She answers, ringing out the cloth in the water again.
Escape? I thought. When I find out what kind of beast held my Annabeth for three weeks and hurt her like this, I'm going to get riptide and then decapitate its head from its body before sewing it back on so I can-
"P-Percy?" I hear a small voice and immediately look down at Annabeth. The sound seems to stop my heart from beating briefly. She is staring straight at me, but her eyes aren't stormy or bright, they're a dull and lifeless grey. The twinkle in her eyes is gone, just like it had been in my mothers.
"I'm here. You're safe now." I answer, holding her hands in mine. I bring my mouth down towards her hands and breathe on them to warm them up.
"Here sweetie, have this." My mother proceeds to give Annabeth classic half-blood medicine: nectar and ambrosia. Immediately a little color returns to her cheeks, her shoulders loosing tension.
"I'll go make the spare-bed" my mum says before handing me the wet cloth. She winks at me before disappearing down the corridor. I pull Annabeth's sheets up round her neck, leaving her broken arm out from under the covers though. I gently dab the end of the cloth around her cut, she winces slightly.
"Sorry."
"It's okay Seaweed brain...you never were the most gentle when it came to-" she winces.
"-helping those who are injured. But you're still pretty good." She smiles slightly, closing her eyes.
My heart seems to melt right there. Even if it was the smallest smile it still took my breath away. She was so perfect. Even now, when she's sweaty, bloody and tired, she's still beautiful to me. And all that matters is that she's safe.
"You know, when you get better...the first thing that we're going to do is track down those monsters that did this to you and send them to the Tartarus." I say with a little bit of a smile. I watch as her lips quirk up even higher, her dimples now visible.
"It's a date then." She says, her eyes still closed.
After completely getting rid of all the blood and wrapping her cuts and broken arm, I put my arm under hers and around her back, supporting her as she tried to stand.
"Are you sure you don't want me to just carry you to the spare bed?" I ask, looking down at her condition.
"I'm fine seaweed brain. I broke my arm not my leg." She swings her legs around slowly, her feet coming into contact with the ground. As she attempts to stand, she leans almost all her weight on me, as I steady her. I hold her around the waist as she grips my shirt with her uninjured arm. As soon as she is up completely, her face pales considerably. After she takes a couple stubborn steps, I can't stand to see her in so much pain so I grab under her knees and pick her up. She begins to protest but I kiss her to stop any arguments. She puts her arm around my neck to try to assist with me holding her easily. I pass my bedroom and enter the next one. The bed has been made, with the window beside the bed open slightly. Just the way she likes it. While still holding her, I pull back the covers before placing her down. I tuck her in and kiss her forehead, her eyes closing. I brush away any stray curls and whisper
"I missed you Wise Girl."
She opens her eyes and I catch sight of that familiar twinkle in the middle of the storm. She lifts her hand weakly and pushes my fringe over a little.
"I missed you too Seaweed Brain." Her hand falls back down on the cover. I give her one last kiss on the forehead before beginning to leave.
"Percy?" I hear Annabeth ask urgently.
"Yeah?"
She looks down awkwardly. Knowing what she wants, I walk over and lift back the covers. I clamber in next to her, thankful that it's a queen bed otherwise I would not fit without maybe accidentally hurting her.
"Wow, am I really that irresistible?" I joke in her ear. To which I get an elbow in the gut.
"Of course Seaweed Brain." She whispers before turning on her side, facing towards me. She is guarding her broken arm with her other arm, against her chest. I pull her towards me, so she is close to my chest. I feel her breath tickle my neck. She places one hand on my chest, the other still drawn to her own. I snake my arms around her, hugging her around the back. I kiss the top of her head before closing my eyes. I had no nightmares that night.