Impossible to Return

Old Photographs and a Rising War

"Annabeth? Are you okay?" Emmeline Vance asked hesitantly.

Annabeth viciously crumpled up another old essay. "Yes," she said, not sounding okay at all.

Emmeline raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? Do you want to talk—"

"No! I'm fine, so go away," Annabeth snapped. She crawled under her bed again, pulling out the rest of the loose papers that had made their way under there. When she came out, Emmeline was gone.

Annabeth felt slightly guilty for yelling at Emmeline. She should apologize. Later. Right now, she was going to clean. She needed to busy herself, or else she'd start thinking.

Only an hour ago Percy had confessed he wanted to get back together with her. And only an hour ago Annabeth had ran away, unsure what to do. She was still unsure, but she didn't want to ponder over it right now, so she was excessively cleaning.

Annabeth dropped the useless papers into the garbage and looked around for more stuff to clean. Closet, check. Trunk, check. Bed, check. Desk, check. Well, she hadn't done behind her desk yet.

Gripping the edges of the wood, Annabeth worked her biceps as she pulled the desk away from the wall. There indeed was a lot of junk behind the desk. Annabeth immediately knelt down and started to sort through the random assortment of things. There was a keychain, a broken quill and more.

She plunged her hand a ball of papers and yelped when her finger touched something sharp. Withdrawing her hand, she found her finger to be bleeding.

After putting a bandaid over the wound, Annabeth carefully pulled the papers away, one at a time, making sure not to cut herself again. She didn't understand what had injured her though. It was too big to be a paper cut. What else could be down here?

After tossing another paper in the garbage bin, Annabeth saw the corner of what looked like a picture frame. She carefully pulled it out, and understood what had caused her to bleed. The glass over the photograph was shattered, and so there probably was a lot of shards of glass back behind the desk.

But the glass wasn't what made Annabeth stand up. It was the photograph. It was dusty now, but her memory assisted her. She knew this picture. She loved this picture. It had stood on her nightstand for over a year.

It was her. She was sitting on the beach, her blonde curls frizzy from the sea water. The sky was baby blue in the background, a perfectly clear day. Annabeth remembered that day all too well. She was wearing her Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, and she was smiling. But not at the camera.

Percy was in the photograph too. He had one of his arms around her waist, and he was grinning just as much as she was. They were staring into each other's eyes, with that cheesy love that couples had.

Without thinking, Annabeth grabbed her wand and repaired the glass over the photo. The glass flew up from behind the desk and sealed itself in front of the happy ex-couple.

Why was this picture back there? A memory of Annabeth throwing the photo at Megan Redmayne flashed through her head. Oh.

Sighing, Annabeth placed the photograph back on her nightstand. She ran a gentle finger over it, recalling the emotional high of that day. Recalling Percy's lips on hers.

Percy wanted to get back together. And now, Annabeth was sure she still liked Percy.

But how did she know he still truly cared about her?

>>>•<<<

It was only the first period of the day, and Piper was already tired of everything. There had been an awful rainstorm last night that kept her tossing and turning, never truly drifting off to sleep. And Flitwick lecturing them about their NEWTs wasn't helping her sleepy situation.