The Stories of Our Heroes

Over and Over

*Part of the previously mentioned high school series* 

Annabeth's POV

I woke up peacefully for once. No nightmares to jolt me awake, no alarm to rudely pull me out of my slumber, no mumbling or yelling from a still-asleep Percy. Just my eyes opening slowly to a dark and quiet room. I live for Saturday's. I continued to lay still for a while, listening to Percy's steady breathing beside me. His arm was draped over me and I grabbed his hand gently. I was about to scoot closer to him - he's such a blanket hog and I was freezing - but then there was a soft rapping on the open door.

"Hey kids," Paul called into the room. I sat up... or tried to sit up. Percy groaned in annoyance and, using the arm slung around me, pulled me back down to him.

"I don't want to go to school," he complained in my ear. I rolled my eyes and Paul laughed.

"Not a school day, son," Paul replied, flipping on the light. 

I shoved Percy off of me while he shielded his eyes and whined, "Why do I have to get up then?" I looked up at my boyfriend's step-dad, wondering the same thing.

"You're going to have to come in the kitchen to find out, sleepy head," he said. "Only way to get you up it seems." He winked at me and then walked out the door.

"C'mon Seaweed Brain." I nudged him. He grumpily obliged, and the two of us made our way to the kitchen. Sally and Paul were both dressed, sitting at the table with breakfast. Four slips of paper sat in the center of the table, covered in little print. When Sally saw us, she handed me one of the papers. It took me a minute to make out the words, but it was taking Percy, who was reading (trying to read) over my shoulder, longer. I actually realized what they were before I could read them, and I gasped in excitement.

"Whoa, whoa, don't tell me, I almost got it," Percy said, pulling the ticket out of my hand. Suddenly his eyes widened. "Yankee tickets!"

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I glanced over at my boyfriend in the back of Prius. I could feel the excited energy radiating off of him. He was tapping Riptide against his knee in a rhythm that was probably supposed to match the song on the radio, but that was a stretch. I laughed a little.

"What?" he asked me.

"Well, now we know that you could never be a drummer."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." He then preceded to tap his pen sword against my leg. "So Wise Girl, ever been to major league game? I haven't," he said the last part in a quieter voice, "but I always wanted to." His eyes flicked to the passenger seat where his mom was sitting, reading a book. An image of ten year-old Percy flashed into my head, asking his mom if they could go see a baseball game. I could see her sadly shaking her head, promising that one day they would. I shook my head slightly to clear the thought.

"Once when Magnus and I were really little. My dad and his mom took us to see the Red Sox-"

Everyone in the car erupted.

"You can't say that name on the way to a Yankees game!" Percy practically screamed at me. "Wow, betrayal hurts."

"Sorry!" I held my hands up in surrender.

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I'll admit, I was a bit on edge as we entered the stadium. People were everywhere, yelling, laughing, vendors waving around over-priced items, the loud speaker blaring. Different areas and staircases and concession stands at every turn. In other words, the perfect place to be attacked by monsters.

Percy must have been apprehensive too, because he grabbed my hand and squeezed. He took a deep breath and then smiled at me. "It'll be fine. Our biggest worry today is going to be foul balls. And if not, I'm taking it up with the fates."

Despite all of my  logic, I believed him, simply because I wanted to.

Sally and Paul handed the two of us our tickets with the seat numbers and told to go walk around for a bit or until the game started. The fir.st thing Percy wanted to do, of course, was  get something to eat.  He started dragging me to the nacho stand. He then proceeded to order something that was about two times the size of my head, with more toppings than chips. I made him promise to share. He begrudgingly agreed.

I found my mind wondering during the game. There's was plenty going on besides the what was on the field, and baseball was never really my favorite sport anyway. I was pretty occupied with one thing, though: Percy's excited demeanor. He jumped to his feet when the Yankees hit a grand slam. He sang terribly off-pitch with the rest of the stadium when "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" blasted through the speakers. We both laughed like crazy when the Kiss Cam was trained on Sally and Paul. A smile was plastered to my face the whole time, even when he kissed me as the last run was made to win the game.

"I could live this day over and over," I said softly to him that night as we sat on the couch together, cuddled up and watching a movie.

"Me too, Wise Girl. Me too."