When We Were 'Us'

An Interesting Conversation- Percy POV

"Knock knock."

I looked up from my suitcase and raised my eyebrows.

"Can I help you?" I wasn't being intentionally rude, I swear. Seeing Luke just made me very tense.

"I came to congratulate you." He said quietly. "Can I come in?"

I shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

Luke wheeled in and stopped next to the bed mine was next to.

"Did she give you the ring?" I asked casually as I packed another shirt.

He shook his head. "I told her I didn't want it."

I grunted and Luke sighed. "I just want it on the record that I was trying to convince her to do it quicker."

"I'm not pissed off at you, Luke."

He crossed his arms. "Coulda fooled me. I heard you actually decided to learn how to shoot a bow? And without collateral damage? From you, that's practically keying my car."

"You don't have a car."

He gestured to the wheelchair with a smirk and I looked away, suppressing a snort. Okay, that was kind of funny.

"So you're mad at me."

I sighed. "Okay look, I am upset about it, but I don't blame you for what happened. I'm not about that, blaming the person that was involved in the cheating but not the relationship. But just... we were dating for years. I literally walked through hell for her. And she didn't feel like she needed to tell me that she didn't want to be in the relationship anymore."

"She did," he said solemnly after a moment. "She just didn't know how."

I grunted and tossed a pair of socks into the bag. "Well, she should have figured it out before you two started making out."

Luke looked like he was about say something, but caught himself.

He cleared his throat instead. "So, swordsmaster. How are you gonna handle that?" Definitely not changing the subject at all.

I glanced up, then shrugged and kept tossing random items into the bag.

"Have you even thought about it?" he asked, almost sounding surprised. Then I could see him give another half second thought and he wasn't really all that surprised anymore, but still pretty perturbed. I had never been able to tell when he was winging it or when things were planned, but I did remember hearing that planning for lessons was something he did almost meticulously. That he found it comforting. But that was besides the point.

"Well obviously I'm starting with the basics, probably the first move you taught me. Then I'll get everyone into their basic stances and go from there, splitting up the kids who have different potentials. I'll put more thought in once I've actually gotten there."

"That's fair. But these are Romans. You're probably gonna be there to diversify their fighting style. Don't forget to credit where you learned everything. I'm still the best freaking sword fighter in this century," Luke claimed with a chuckle.

"You were the best sword fighter in the past three centuries." I shot back with a smirk. "Were."

"I could still kick you from here to Rome personally, spare the delegation the trouble," he challenged.

"That's if you can catch me. I'll just go sit in the middle of the lake... anyway, I will always, always tell people who I learned from... and who I surpassed... Any tips about first time teaching? I'm sure I've got to modify things, but any suggestions would be helpful."

"Well with first time teaching, you always want to have a plan, and make sure you don't underestimate your students, don't treat them like children. They may be young, but they're not ignorant. And they're Romans, so that's just an overall bad thing to do," he advised.

I nodded, filing that away. "Thanks, Luke... will you take care of people around here while I'm gone? I know I kind of took your place back when I got to the camp, I guess now is as good a time to pass the mantle back as ever."

"The mantle you stole," he pointed out. "And in true Hermes fashion, I'm stealing it back."

"What else was I supposed to do? You ran off to start an evil rebellion." I shot back, closing the first bag and reaching under my bed to grab another one that I had. "But you're welcome to it, it's a very stressful thing for me... Of course, it's my camp now, so I expect you to take care of it, and I will be back to check."

"I would expect nothing less."

[A/N shoutout to @LordOfThePen for (being a nerd) helping me write Luke because he thinks he IS Luke]