35

He sighed. "And I am sorry, but I can't tell you anything else about it. At least not right now. It would ruin the surprise. Trust me, it wouldn't be as easy as it sounded, but it's for your own safety." The look on Annabeth's face said quite clearly that she didn't believe a word he had told her, but she was also curious about the answer to her previous question.

"Why is the rest of the team coming today?" She had hoped that the others would show up, so that she could talk to all of them, and perhaps get some sort of explanation from them. She needed it.

"Yeah, there's one thing I need to ask you about," the black haired boy agreed. "Since you apparently don't remember a thing, I want you to tell me everything about yourself. Every single detail, if it has anything to do with your life, or the dream you have. I'll be happy to listen as well, and I promise you that it'll be safe for you to talk about whatever you feel like talking about. But you're going to have to be careful, though. If you want to talk to someone who won't judge you or tell others about your secret, it' s best for you to talk to Frank about it first." He paused for a couple of seconds before continuing. "Frank knew what happened last night, and he doesn't blame you. I promise."

Before answering, Annabeth had to take another few deep breaths. "Fine," she eventually said. "But what are you going to do while I talk? Don't you have school soon? Isn't your sister expecting you?"

"Yeah, she is, but I promised to spend the rest of my time today taking care of her," Percy said. "My mother told me that she wants to see me off so we can have a talk. Since you're staying, I hope that you're not going to complain about being left alone," he added teasingly, making the redhead blush lightly, feeling a bit embarrassed by his words. The thought that he was so focused on taking care of his little sister, despite him not wanting to involve her in this, made her smile faintly, even if she couldn't understand why.

"I won't mind. Do whatever you want." The smile faded as she remembered her conversation with her father, and the dark shadow that appeared before the sun as she mentioned her father. Her frown returned. "Will..." she whispered sadly, "...will you ever forgive him? For killing me and leaving me to die?"

Percy froze for a second before giving her a small smile and nodding softly, as if he understood what she meant without her having to repeat any of what she'd said aloud. "Yeah. We can try to get through everything, but it will be hard," he said softly, causing Annabeth's brows furrow in confusion. "It will take us some time, but we can try to get through things together. We have to try to move past that. There's no other way."

The raven haired girl slowly nodded as she attempted to comprehend what he just said. She knew she would have trouble accepting that her father had died because of his actions and was never punished for it, but he did it to save her life. She had accepted that she would have to learn to move on eventually, but it didn't mean that she liked it at all. A small part of her wondered how different things would have been if he hadn't done what he did. Would she have still met Jason? Or Percy? Probably not; it would almost definitely have ended in disaster. She shook her head to remove those thoughts from her head; the most important thing now was getting through the days with her boyfriend.

She smiled softly. "Okay..."

Her tone seemed somewhat hesitant, so he decided to elaborate a little. "I know it's gonna sound strange." She raised her eyebrows. "I know that you probably aren't really prepared for this whole situation, but I promise that I'm going to be there for you all the way to the end. I don't care if I come across weird, I don't care if I mess up every single step, I just want to help you out of this mess. Okay? That includes not forcing anyone into a corner because I know how bad you hate that sort of thing. Please tell me if I make you uncomfortable. I won't force anyone, I promise. I'm just worried that if I do something wrong, you might leave again. Even though you're here, it doesn't really seem as if it makes it any less real for you. Do you understand?"

Annabeth stared into his brown eyes silently. She couldn't help but notice that they looked a lot more serious than usual. They almost looked deadlier somehow. She could only nod slowly before she felt the need to explain herself. "Of course I understand. And I completely agree – but I want to get through this whole thing." She took a deep breath. "And, if you really don't mind, you can join me. We can help each other. After all, we're both stuck with our parents now."

He blinked slightly as he processed her words, surprised that she hadn't reacted negatively. Then, he smiled softly at her before saying: "I guess that's fine too. I'll go change into more comfortable clothes after I brush my teeth and wash my face. You can choose some clothes too, since you've obviously worn them a lot recently."

They spent about 20 minutes in silence until she realized that the shower was starting, so she quickly jumped up and headed straight towards the bathroom. Once inside, she noticed that the shower head was turned up just the slightest, and she sighed inwardly to herself as she waited impatiently for the water to warm up a bit, although she still felt exhausted from the events of the previous night.

Percy walked back out a minute later wearing sweatpants and t-shirt, a towel thrown over his shoulder. He smirked as he caught sight of her, but he tried to hide his amusement behind a polite smile instead of laughing. When he noticed that Annabeth had already turned on the water and gotten undressed and under the spray of warm water, he cleared his throat nervously as he began walking towards the sink