Post by SisterGrimmErin on Apr 22, 2009 14:41:56 GMT -5
Postcards
A Percabeth One-Shot
I get photos or postcards from my true love every third Monday morning of the month with my coffee.
They all feature her with her arm wrapped around some statue she’s designed or monument she’s built. They bubble about this architectural fact or that and occasionally have a diagram attached.
She never asks how’s Grover or Juniper or Thalia. She never asks about me either. But she’s happy in all the photos, smiling like she hasn’t since we were twelve. Once she was kissing a lion in front of some foreign library. I remember being jealous of the lion.
I know it’s my fault she withdrew from the world of demigods. That she lost her friends.
I saved the world. But every single camper was killed except me and her.
So I take what I can get. I remember, though, what I told her when we were sixteen... the day after my birthday.
“I love you. I have always loved you.”
“I know. I just need some time.”
Ten years later, I’m still waiting.
I could be dating. I could be doing something besides teaching tenth grade biology.
But I can’t. I just can’t try to replace her, when she can’t be replaced. I can’t stop hoping.
I mean, I’ve still got my mom. Grover lives here part of the year. I love my work. It’s all good.
Her handwriting’s changed over the years. She makes little slashes over her ‘I’s, and doesn’t cross her T’s with a curve anymore.
I wonder if she’s changed.
I wonder if she still crinkles her nose when she smiles. I wonder if her gray eyes still light up when she laughs. I wonder if she still tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous.
I wonder if I’ll ever see her again. I wonder if she’ll ever want to be with me again. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to make up for my failure.
Maybe she has a mortal boyfriend. An architect or a painter who understands her diagrams. An engineering genius. Maybe they’re even married.
Maybe he’s better for her. Maybe he’s not haunted and he doesn’t wake up shaking like a coward in the middle of the night.
I hope she misses me.
I hope it so much it hurts. I hope she thinks of me, a little bit. I hope she sends the cards because she knows I care.
I just hope she believed me when I told her I loved her.
She sent a picture of her doing yoga once. It had a better view of her than usual. She looked strong and tall and like a warrior. Happy. Carefree. Relaxed.
I’m glad she’s happy. I really am. But being glad doesn’t make it okay for me.
I’m sure if we did meet, I would seem very boring after all she did.
I’m afraid. I could go after her and try to match her speed. But what would I say? “Hey, I’m still in love with you. How’s the past ten years been?” Besides, it’s what she wants.
I wish I knew so many things.
I wonder if she still does Russian ballet.
I wonder how Paris went.
120 little postcards.
It’s enough to keep me going.
Answers are never going to come. Why do I bother waiting?
Because it’s her.
Is there more I could have done to make her love me? To make it better?
Doesn’t any of that stuff we did mean anything to her? Those conversations? That last kiss? My only kiss?
Is she just sending these to rub them in my face?
No. Annabeth wouldn’t do that. She’s too good. Or, at least, she was...
She designed the greatest monument of the gods. She rebuilt the Pantheon.
I had the picture blown up to wallpaper.
It, like my heart, is still sitting in the attic of the Big House.
---
Chapter Two
The Scientific Method
Is it possible to be this nervous?, asked Annabeth Chase of herself. Was she physically capable of being this tense?
She was on the verge of tearing out my hair. Had she felt this way when she’d submitted the drawings for the new Pantheon?
No. She hadn’t felt this way in ten years.
Her heartbeat spiked and her footsteps echoed through the hallways of Hannah Kranium High School. The school was bright, and the tile new-looking. She checked her appearance again, in the front window of an empty classroom.
Her hair was loose in golden waves that she learned to tame around age twenty-one.
Annabeth’s thoughts babbled along in a non-reassuring way.
All right, the secretary said he had a study hall/extra help session right now, and that he’d probably be happy to be interrupted. Now just think of the worst that could happen. He says “Who are you again?”. Well, that would be embarassing. And likely... after all, he teaches now. And Juniper sounded so distant when I called her. Well, she hasn’t heard from me in ten years. That’s probably it.
It had always haunted her, that lost chance. “I just need time,” she remembered saying. Well, it wasn’t as though he’d been waiting. She’d wasted it all. The travel, the running across the world from anything Greek- it hadn’t helped. As time ticked by, she still saw the camp. She still remembered when she’d felt alive. And seeing him was just too painful.
I was weak. She’d pushed herself away from the only person who could have understood. Who could have made her happy.
Because, in the end, had it really been about Luke or saving the world or proving herself to her mother?
No. It had been about her friends and family, and most of all him.
She’d thought herself too full of ghosts to be good for him. Too wounded.
And then she had been afraid.
Lost in thought, she stopped to realize she was staring at his door.
Now or never, Wise Girl.
She knocked gently. A student, maybe fifteen, with red glasses and a bob of brown hair, let her in.
Percy was in mid-lecture, saying something about “procedure and multiple trials”, when he saw her.
His mouth dropped open. A nervous laugh was surpressed as she thought she’d never seen someone look so exactly like a live fish. His eyes bugged out. And he was turning blue.
He was wearing a pair of jeans. His hair flopped in front of his eyes the same as ever. He was wearing a long-sleeved crew neck. And he’d filled out, no longer a gangly teenager but grown into his height, but not hulking-ly so. He looked like a lean swimmer. Powerful currents through the water. It was all true, of course.
He had the same ocean-green eyes and long black lashes, and the same mouth she’d kissed so long ago. His face was free of cares or wrinkles, except for the scar that she knew traced under his jawbone. He looked exactly as she’d hoped he would.
She watched him again, carefully. He was breathing, but not easily, and he still had that expression.
Time to rescue him.
“Seaweed Brain, you okay?” she said gently.
He paused a moment to answer.
---
CRITICIZE ME! Tell me what's wrong with it!
A Percabeth One-Shot
I get photos or postcards from my true love every third Monday morning of the month with my coffee.
They all feature her with her arm wrapped around some statue she’s designed or monument she’s built. They bubble about this architectural fact or that and occasionally have a diagram attached.
She never asks how’s Grover or Juniper or Thalia. She never asks about me either. But she’s happy in all the photos, smiling like she hasn’t since we were twelve. Once she was kissing a lion in front of some foreign library. I remember being jealous of the lion.
I know it’s my fault she withdrew from the world of demigods. That she lost her friends.
I saved the world. But every single camper was killed except me and her.
So I take what I can get. I remember, though, what I told her when we were sixteen... the day after my birthday.
“I love you. I have always loved you.”
“I know. I just need some time.”
Ten years later, I’m still waiting.
I could be dating. I could be doing something besides teaching tenth grade biology.
But I can’t. I just can’t try to replace her, when she can’t be replaced. I can’t stop hoping.
I mean, I’ve still got my mom. Grover lives here part of the year. I love my work. It’s all good.
Her handwriting’s changed over the years. She makes little slashes over her ‘I’s, and doesn’t cross her T’s with a curve anymore.
I wonder if she’s changed.
I wonder if she still crinkles her nose when she smiles. I wonder if her gray eyes still light up when she laughs. I wonder if she still tucks her hair behind her ear when she’s nervous.
I wonder if I’ll ever see her again. I wonder if she’ll ever want to be with me again. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to make up for my failure.
Maybe she has a mortal boyfriend. An architect or a painter who understands her diagrams. An engineering genius. Maybe they’re even married.
Maybe he’s better for her. Maybe he’s not haunted and he doesn’t wake up shaking like a coward in the middle of the night.
I hope she misses me.
I hope it so much it hurts. I hope she thinks of me, a little bit. I hope she sends the cards because she knows I care.
I just hope she believed me when I told her I loved her.
She sent a picture of her doing yoga once. It had a better view of her than usual. She looked strong and tall and like a warrior. Happy. Carefree. Relaxed.
I’m glad she’s happy. I really am. But being glad doesn’t make it okay for me.
I’m sure if we did meet, I would seem very boring after all she did.
I’m afraid. I could go after her and try to match her speed. But what would I say? “Hey, I’m still in love with you. How’s the past ten years been?” Besides, it’s what she wants.
I wish I knew so many things.
I wonder if she still does Russian ballet.
I wonder how Paris went.
120 little postcards.
It’s enough to keep me going.
Answers are never going to come. Why do I bother waiting?
Because it’s her.
Is there more I could have done to make her love me? To make it better?
Doesn’t any of that stuff we did mean anything to her? Those conversations? That last kiss? My only kiss?
Is she just sending these to rub them in my face?
No. Annabeth wouldn’t do that. She’s too good. Or, at least, she was...
She designed the greatest monument of the gods. She rebuilt the Pantheon.
I had the picture blown up to wallpaper.
It, like my heart, is still sitting in the attic of the Big House.
---
Chapter Two
The Scientific Method
Is it possible to be this nervous?, asked Annabeth Chase of herself. Was she physically capable of being this tense?
She was on the verge of tearing out my hair. Had she felt this way when she’d submitted the drawings for the new Pantheon?
No. She hadn’t felt this way in ten years.
Her heartbeat spiked and her footsteps echoed through the hallways of Hannah Kranium High School. The school was bright, and the tile new-looking. She checked her appearance again, in the front window of an empty classroom.
Her hair was loose in golden waves that she learned to tame around age twenty-one.
Annabeth’s thoughts babbled along in a non-reassuring way.
All right, the secretary said he had a study hall/extra help session right now, and that he’d probably be happy to be interrupted. Now just think of the worst that could happen. He says “Who are you again?”. Well, that would be embarassing. And likely... after all, he teaches now. And Juniper sounded so distant when I called her. Well, she hasn’t heard from me in ten years. That’s probably it.
It had always haunted her, that lost chance. “I just need time,” she remembered saying. Well, it wasn’t as though he’d been waiting. She’d wasted it all. The travel, the running across the world from anything Greek- it hadn’t helped. As time ticked by, she still saw the camp. She still remembered when she’d felt alive. And seeing him was just too painful.
I was weak. She’d pushed herself away from the only person who could have understood. Who could have made her happy.
Because, in the end, had it really been about Luke or saving the world or proving herself to her mother?
No. It had been about her friends and family, and most of all him.
She’d thought herself too full of ghosts to be good for him. Too wounded.
And then she had been afraid.
Lost in thought, she stopped to realize she was staring at his door.
Now or never, Wise Girl.
She knocked gently. A student, maybe fifteen, with red glasses and a bob of brown hair, let her in.
Percy was in mid-lecture, saying something about “procedure and multiple trials”, when he saw her.
His mouth dropped open. A nervous laugh was surpressed as she thought she’d never seen someone look so exactly like a live fish. His eyes bugged out. And he was turning blue.
He was wearing a pair of jeans. His hair flopped in front of his eyes the same as ever. He was wearing a long-sleeved crew neck. And he’d filled out, no longer a gangly teenager but grown into his height, but not hulking-ly so. He looked like a lean swimmer. Powerful currents through the water. It was all true, of course.
He had the same ocean-green eyes and long black lashes, and the same mouth she’d kissed so long ago. His face was free of cares or wrinkles, except for the scar that she knew traced under his jawbone. He looked exactly as she’d hoped he would.
She watched him again, carefully. He was breathing, but not easily, and he still had that expression.
Time to rescue him.
“Seaweed Brain, you okay?” she said gently.
He paused a moment to answer.
---
CRITICIZE ME! Tell me what's wrong with it!