Forever- a Percabeth story.

Chapter 6

Percy

Piper used a remote to turn the lights on, but left the credits rolling. Everyone started to stand up and stretch.

Leo slow clapped just like he did after every movie. Him and Jason had begun talking about how far movie quality has come in the past five years, when I noticed Annabeth was starting to put her hair up. I reached over and gave her the hair tie on my wrist. When I checked my phone and saw the time, I knew I had to get going.

I told everyone I'd see them tomorrow, fist pumping Reyna, Jason, and Frank, then patting Hazel on the head, and waving to the rest.

"Are you riding with me?" I looked over to Annabeth. She seemed more tense than she had earlier, only Annabeth could find something to stress about during a relaxing movie night.

"Yeah, just let me find my phone." She mumbled, I had already started dialing it when I noticed her looking around.

A moment later she grabbed it off the floor.

"Bye, guys!"

They all waved us out.

—————

"Okay, I'm only going to say this once. Frank looked exactly like the triceratops. I can't even explain it, its just true." I said to Annabeth as soon as we were alone in the car. I thought she'd laugh. Instead she just smiled.

"You're ridiculous." She said to me like usual.

"I know, its my best quality." I joked like always.

She went quiet. I wondered if she was just tired, but when we got out to the main road she asked me a question.

"Percy, do you ever miss being kids?"

"Sure, I miss actually thinking I could grow up to be Sharkboy."

I was still trying to make her laugh. But she didn't seem too entertained. She looked away from me, and out the window.

"You're sad." I observed.

She still didn't look at me "No, Im Annabeth." She said quietly.

I smiled then "Annabeth Chase? The one and only? The smartest, funniest, coolest most brilliant and interesting person on the planet?"

She shook her head, but she was smiling now. "No, the other one" she giggled a bit when she said it.

I looked at her. In the dark her hair was still light, and the shadows of the streetlights danced across her cheeks. Her eyes were somehow darker, hiding something. I could tell she still wasn't okay.

"Percy, the light turned green!" She turned to me "Why are you looking at me?"

In that moment I made a decision, in hindsight it was probably a poor one.

I made a right hand turn.

—————-

"Where are we going?" She asked me, but I knew she'd figure it out in a minute.

I pulled into the state park, the back entrance they kept unlocked for maintenance. And Annabeth sat up in her seat. I couldn't help but smile at her.

We came here all the time as kids, when we started getting older we came at night. We liked not having to share the space with other people. It had a classic playground, a walking trail, and a dock that over looked the lake. It was built on some historical ground, so there were factual plaques all over the place, that was Annabeth's favorite part. In 6th grade we discovered they left the back gate unlocked, the rest is history.