Him or her? (A Pipabeth story)

Chapter Thirteen

Annabeth's POV

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It had become clear to Annabeth, after a few days of Piper being released from the infirmary, that Piper was avoiding her. Focusing on Percy had become increasingly easier with the lack of Piper around and it was bothering Annabeth. Not that the focusing on Percy was what was bothering her — that was the main upside — but that she was talking to Piper less and less. Either they both kept having to do different things at the same time, highly unlikely since they normally kept finding ways to talk anyway, or Piper was purposefully avoiding her.

Whatever the reason — the quite obvious and confusing reason — Annabeth had to try her best to ignore it and focus on her own problems first. Piper ignoring her was Piper's problem for the time being, so Annabeth could focus on something else.

Ever since Percy had arrived back at Camp, Annabeth had been having mixed feelings. She was almost certain, unfortunately not completely certain, that she still loved Percy. After all, it was hard to stop loving someone you had had a crush on since you were 12 and had been to literal Hell and back with.

What had been rolling around in Annabeth's mind for a couple days, was how when they first talked and Percy had said he was staying at his moms house, Annabeth had felt like there was less of a connection between them. She had gone through the days, and had established that it wasn't until quite recently that she had started feeling more feelings towards Percy again. She had even spoken about it with Percy and they had agreed that there had been a point in which they both though their relationship had been dimming and now it wasn't.

The one thing she couldn't talk to Percy about was Piper. Over the days, their relationship had been growing. Piper and Annabeth's feelings for each other had been growing, whilst the actual relationship between Annabeth had been dimming. Annabeth would love to believe that her relationship with Percy had grown back up again on it's own, and that Piper had just chosen herself to ignore her. But she couldn't stop thinking about how weird of a coincidence it would be for one relationship to grow and one to dim, and then suddenly switch around like someone had flipped a switch and turned it back around.

What was really bugging Annabeth, was something she couldn't tell Percy and didn't want to have to tell Piper. The fact being, that the personification she had compared the situation too, seemed so unbelievable that it could be true. Someone could have effectively switched feelings around, to keep Percy and Annabeth together, and keep Annabeth and Piper as just friends.

And, of course, who had the power to do such a thing? Aphrodite.

The idea was such a stretch, and could very well just have been Annabeth's brain self-consciously trying to put the blame to anyone besides her, Percy, or Piper. And as much as Annabeth had put the idea through her mind again and again with the same conclusion, she didn't want to go around blaming an immortal Goddess that could kill her in seconds. Or worse, ruin her chances of love with both Percy and Piper in seconds.

Thinking about this, Annabeth decided that the best idea she had at the moment was to keep it to herself. She didn't have enough facts to go upon blaming someone other than Fate, and didn't want to try talking to someone and getting Aphrodite's attention. For now, she had to keep her thoughts in her mind, and hope that things would sort themselves out. And she desperately wished that Piper would just come talk to her.  

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