When Time Eludes You (Percabeth)

3 - Return

Percy's POV

I woke up to the glorious feeling of someone shaking me back to reality, hauling me upwards. I mean, come on. What's a little personal space? I groaned as I blindly threw a pillow at whoever had disturbed my much needed beauty sleep.

   "Sweetie. You have to get up! School starts in fifteen minutes. This is quite literally the third time I've had to wake you up. Breakfast's ready."

With that, I shot up. My mother was smiling mockingly at me.

   "Well that got you up. I'll remember that."

I ignored her scary statement.

   "Blue pancakes?"

   "Yep."

   "And bacon?"

She rolled her eyes at my persistence.

   "Of course! Now get dressed."

Breakfast was amazing- I'm not going to lie. Why would I, anyway? Frankly, it's the best.

After a year in London you might think I would have adopted a British accent.
Nope. I was, and I quote my friends, 'a hopelessly useless piece of syrup soaked waffle'.
As I crossed the street I spotted Sadie.

She's blonde with purple highlights in her hair. Honestly, she changes the color of the highlights every. Single. Week. Sadie's one of the people pestering me with questions like; 'why I haven't adopted their fine accent yet'.

I know, I know. Face palm.

Of course, though. I miss my old friends- it's not as though you could just forget people who potentially changed the course of your life. I missed Grover, Leo, Jason- I missed them all.

But most of all, I missed Annabeth.

We'd been best friends since we where about twelve. Six years. We'd been friends for six years.

I hadn't seen her for a year, though.
It broke me a little knowing just how long it'd been. I needed her wisdom. I needed my Wise Girl.

   "Hey Perce. Want to hang with us after school?"

I heard Sadie say, dragging me back to the situation. 'Us' pretty much consisted of Sadie, Matthew, the Stoll brothers, Hazel and Rachel. Not exactly a very big group, but the group was satisfied, and that was all that mattered, really.

   "Sure. Where to?" She shrugged.

   "I don't know. Pizza?" I smiled.

   "Fine. But I am not paying this time."

She laughed, holding up her hands in defeat.

   "Okay, okay grumpy pants. Chill."

I pouted.

   "I am chill."

She smiled.

   "If you say so."

After a day of work and general boredom and- well, more boredom, I finally got home to get the best and the worst news of my life.

I was going back to New York.

Annabeth's POV

I scampered down the stairs in a hurry, desperate to reach the last step before any unwanted pain twisted my mood into a fouler one.

The bruising hadn't been unwarranted for, anyway, but I was still more than pissed at the special someone who'd dared lay a finger on me. One of these days I'd get back at him for all of it. One day.

As I reached the last step and I felt no pain at all, I silently bit my lip, caught up in thought as to why that was. I plopped down on my informally assigned seat on the table, only now really remembering that I'd forgotten to greet my family properly today.

"Heyo guys. Anything new happening in your lives I should know about?" My step-mom's voice called out before I had a chance to say anything. I had to bite my tongue to stop a sarcastic remark from slipping past my otherwise sealed lips. My step-mom and I hadn't really gotten off on the right track- near constant fights plaguing the house for weeks. It didn't get any better when dad started working late hours again, catching up on paper work and whatnot. Muttering under ones breath, or simple disapproving glares- it varied. But that was more or less sorted now.

We, as a family, had all settled down. If I could, I would turn back time and reminded my younger self of the fact that I was supposed to live with this woman till I turned eighteen, and being enemies with her might not exactly have been the best of ideas.

The sound of my phone ringing from upstairs got my attention. I'd been completely zoned out, ignoring my two younger brothers as they talked over each other. I hurriedly ran up the stairs without another word.

I heard my mom shout something, but it was hard to differentiate her voice from the boys'. Although, by my best estimation, it was probable it was along the lines of telling me off for running off to my room in the middle of family dinner.

When I got to my room, I searched for my phone. It was under a pillow. I quickly checked who it was, and to my delight, the name 'Percy' lit up on the screen.

   "Hey!"

I shouted, all too aware of my family downstairs.

   "Ouch. My ear's bleeding."

I rolled my eyes, even if he couldn't see me.

   "Ha, ha. Hilarious. What's up?"

On the other end of the line, I heard him take a deep breath.

   "I wanted to tell you something..."

I closed my eyes. I really wasn't hoping for bad news. I'd had enough bad to last me a lifetime. As I awaited his reply I sat down on the bedside, crinkling up the bedspread.
    "I'm coming back to New York."

I blinked dazedly.

      "What?"

      "You heard me! I'm coming back!"

I jumped around the room like a total idiot, ignoring the shrieks downstairs.
   "When?!" I finally shouted through my ecstatic celebrating.

I heard him laugh under his breath.

   "Next week."

I practically shrieked with joy.

"Oh my God- Percy this is- this, I don't even know what to say! I- I've got to go and-" I hung up the phone, spending another ten minutes just skipping around my room, feeling perfectly content with the moment as it was.

I fell asleep, danced, sang, slept again, and to be honest, I'm not sure in which specific order they where in. In the end, I fell asleep with a wide smile on my face, disregarding any nagging thoughts about the rest of my life for a moment.

I was overjoyed that my ultimate best friend was coming back to live in the same city as I lived in, no surprise, but I couldn't help but frown with deeper analysis of the situation he'd truly put me in.

How on Earth could I keep the bad parts of my life hidden from him?

Sorry if this is somewhat short... I'll write more, don't worry!

I just had to get the first chapters out of the way so everything makes sense... Thank you!!

Hope you enjoyed—and vote/comment if you did!! It really makes my day

tie xx