How Far We’ve Come

Summary: Sometimes, he wondered when things began to change. Sometimes, he wondered when he stopped being that scrawny, timid boy. Sometimes, he wondered when he had grown up. [Percabeth; introspective oneshot]

Note: I only quickly proofread this instead of my normal epic revision, simply due to the fact that I'm so busy with school. Also, sorry if it looks like I vomited a dictionary on here... as I said, PSATs are evil. 

By the way, I hope you enjoy the last part. :) 

…………..

When he first met her, he thought she was scary. And how could he not, with her pretty gray eyes, swirling around like hurricane clouds brewing in from the sea, with the way she snapped at him whenever he unintentionally did something stupid.  After all, she was the daughter of Athena, his dad’s rival. She was scarily smart, with all she knew about the monsters and how she had set him up with Capture the Flag.

He tried not to like her, in fact, he tried to hate her. After all, she was like those mean girls in school; a princess, perfect, and always telling him he was stupid because he had dyslexia and ADHD.

But that was impossible once she had volunteered to go on that quest with him, to find that Lightning Bolt… when she had shown him that vulnerability in her eyes; that need to prove her peers wrong, to make her mother proud. And he understood.

Maybe that’s when he started to think of her as a friend, or back in when they were forced to ride that Animal Slave transport thing Ares made them go on. Or maybe it was before that, when she had freaked out at the Water Park because of the spiders, or maybe it was back when he had blown that bus up because of the Furies.

He doesn’t know when he became her friend, actually. It just sort of happened over time, he guesses.

After he had managed to get his mom (to this day he was thankful about that) out of the Underworld, and got the Lighting Bolt back, Luke decided to reveal his true colors with that Scorpion, and his world was turned upside down again and the colors bled into gray. After all, Luke had been one of the few people to accept who he was. He hadn’t made fun of him when he did something stupid, unless he was just teasing him and he knew it was a joke. He hadn’t called him stupid. He had been his first mentor, the one who had taught him how to use a sword.

But life goes on, as it always does.

She made amends with her father (kind of), he went back to school, and for a whole year nothing bad happened. He was even doing semi-decently… no Fs. Mostly Cs, a few Ds, and even a B- once.

Then Grover, his first and best friend, sent him some weird telepathic dream, and to this day he was a mixture of bewildered and amused (more amused though) at the satyr being in a wedding dress. A male satyr. But of course, it was for a grave reason: Cyclopes.

The mist still semi-worked on him back then, and so he didn’t realize that his half brother, Tyson, was actually a Cyclopes himself, until they were attacked by Laistrygonians.  

And maybe, just maybe, he was cursed, because after that, she, Annabeth, had decided to hail the taxi of Eternal Torment (he doesn’t care about the proper name, whatever it was. It was the taxi of doom. Really, they could have died!) and the crazy ladies with only one eye gave him a nonsensical list of numbers he later figured out were nautical coordinates.

And wait, that’s only the beginning of their trouble! Thalia’s pine tree had been poisoned, Chiron was sacked, and (of course) they got a director who was an idiot. A self-centered idiot. And that was saying a lot, coming from him.

So, Tantalus gave Clarisse that quest (after the bird incident with the chariots) to find the Golden Fleece. And he really had tried to stay in line, they tried to not sneak out…

Fine, that was a lie.

After they snuck out of camp, he, and Tyson, and Annabeth, they managed to get on Luke’s ship… well, Yacht, technically. Things went from bad to worse, after they met Luke and he began to realize that maybe, just maybe, the reason she hated Tyson so much was because one of his kind had killed Thalia.

But then they escaped on one of the life boats, and they were heading down toward the Sea of Monsters.

After that, things blurred together after Clarisse decided to blow up the Hydra. Then there was the entrance and then Polyphemus and then they were saving Grover and Tyson and Annabeth almost died and then there was Thalia and things had just got so messed up….

Things changed, tensions rose, and people began to question if their neighbor, sibling, friend was truly on their side. Things between him and Annabeth changed as well, or, at least, that was how he felt. He would get nervous around her for no apparent reason, and yet at the same time he had never felt more relaxed.

Somehow, she had become more than just his friend; maybe even more than just his best friend, though he hadn’t realized it back then.

She called him, saying that Grover had found another powerful demigod and she and Thalia wanted him to go with them.

It made him feel kind of warm, in a good but weird way.

Then they met the demigods, Bianca and Nico, and… it happened.

That week passed as a desperate blur of save her, save her, save her, and he could remember the pain in his chest every time he thought about her and he couldn’t get any sleep, and then Bianca died and while he put on a smile, he was anything but okay. He was a wreck inside, and he hadn’t even realized it.

Maybe that was when his feelings for her had changed from platonic to something stepping into dangerous territory.

And when he found her, cuts and scrapes and all, he had never felt so damned relieved to see someone, not even his mother.

But he had no time to hug her, because he was holding the sky and all he was aware of was agony and then Zoe was dying and then there was that moment before Artemis offered Thalia a place in the hunters, and that made his heart stop for a moment, literally.

The idea of her being a hunter, it may have just hurt more than holding the sky. He did not want her to be a hunter, even though that was selfish. But loyalty was never selfless.

It wasn’t her though; she wasn’t offered a place to be a hunter. It was Thalia. And he never forgot that feeling of dizzy relief.

Later on, when things had slowed down, he managed to pull her in for that hug.

It was desperate, he would admit that. He had probably taken her by surprise, because he had suddenly pulled her into his body while they were dancing and wrapped his arms around her. He started to shudder as all the hidden emotions suddenly surged through him because, gods, she had almost died and there had been nothing he could do about it.

“Don’t do that again,” he demanded, pulling away from her so that she had to look into his eyes. Hers were wide. “Please, Annabeth…” it turned into a plea. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you like that again.”

Her expression softened and she wrapped her arms around his neck.

He was a little taller than her now.

“I won’t, I promise.”

And that was enough, because she never broke her promises.

.

The fourth year was a mess. With the Labyrinth, and then Calypso and Rachel, and then Annabeth actually kissed him and he kept noticing tiny things about her he had never before, but at the same time he had no idea what to feel toward her because of Calypso and Rachel.

Yeah. He was a mess alright.

.

At the time, he hadn’t realized what it meant—not truly—when Annabeth became his mortal spot when he took a dip in the River Styx. All that he knew at the time was pain and drowning and I am going to die.

But he didn’t die, and maybe, just maybe, he began to feel hope. Maybe he began to finally think they might just win this war.

But then hope squashed like a bug when he realized that New York, bloody New York City, the city that never sleeps, was silent. It was like Death had come and spread his icy grip on it, and he would never admit it to anyone except maybe her, but he was scared. No, he was terrified. Because it had just dawned on him that he was the hero of that prophecy, and they were fighting a practically unbeatable enemy.

After all, what could a few demigods do against Kronos?

He would put on a mask later, because he didn’t want the others to realize he had lost hope. After all, if their leader lost hope, then they would too, and he didn’t want to curse them with this strange emptiness.

For now, however, he would just stay put. He would stare out and wonder how things got this way, because Beckendorf was dead and Annabeth pretty much hated his guts right now.

She didn’t hate his guts.

Somehow, she must have sensed his turbulent emotions because she had come up to his side and leaned over the railing. She had smiled over her shoulder at him and said a simple sentence that he never would forget.

“Hope is like reaching out of the darkness when there is no light.”

He had probably looked like a fool, with the way his eyes had bugged out and his mouth had dropped. She had laughed a little, not in a mean way, and walked away from him.

He had smiled.

So, when time went by, and it was time to stop being Percy Jackson the Coward and Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon and Hero of the Prophecy, he hadn’t put on a mask.

Because, yes, while the chances of him of dying were probably in the nineties, he had felt hope; he knew he would be able to stop Kronos, and if he had to give his life up, then so be it.

Then she had took that dagger for him, and things had stopped.

He hadn’t even realized it at first, because of that bridge, but when Jake had come…

The fear he had felt, he hadn’t even realized it was that possible to fear that scared; it was worse than that time when she had went missing after finding Bianca and Nico. Everything had gone numb and blurred together, and somehow, in that moment, he knew if she had died… he might have just lost it.

But she hadn’t died, and he ended up telling her where his mortal spot was.

Things blurred together again, to when he gave Hestia Pandora’s Box, and then his mom and Paul had woke up (along with the rest of the mortals) and then he was talking to his dad and then… Luke.

Luke killed himself.

Well, it was more like he gave Luke Annabeth’s dagger, even though that went against his very nature. And, yes, if she hadn’t been there then he probably wouldn’t have done it. But now, he was glad.

At least he wasn’t the Hero of the prophecy.

.

He kissed her, finally, and the months after that were the best of his life.

But then Hera decided to kidnap him, and do a switch-a-roo with the demigod leader of the Roman camp.

Things were a blur of confusion after he left the Wolf House. He could not remember his past, except for her name, these crazy ladies kept chasing him and offering hot dog things, and then he met the Romans.

The ghosts didn’t help, what with them calling him Graecus. But, the funny thing was, there was a certain spark of familiarity…

Then he and Hazel and Frank went on a quest to Alaska, to save an eagle and Death, and the second Great Prophecy began, truly.

He got his memories back, and he could finally remember everything—especially Annabeth. But, he still wanted to wring Nico’s skinny neck.

And then Annabeth was there, back in his arms were she belonged, and he finally, finally felt complete again. Time seemed to stop when he kissed her, and he finally realized it.

You mean the world to me.

Of course, then she judo-flipped him and he couldn’t help but laugh even though she was angry at him. This was Annabeth, and, gods, he had missed her so much and, now that she was here again, he realized a deep part of him thought he would never see her again.

So, still laughing, he managed to say; “I missed you too.”

.

They were parting ways again, but this time willingly.

He felt miserable, and when she looked back at him over from that motorbike, he knew she did too. But he couldn’t be selfish, this was her quest and he wouldn’t hold her back. And, yes, he wanted to go over there and beg her not to go, but, in the end, he knew she would anyway.

So he managed to stay put, again, even though he hated it.

.

They were falling, and he had clutched at her like she was lifeline. All he could see was inky darkness, and he knew he would have gone insane if she wasn’t there with him.

But, it was the only thing he could do, because there was no way in Hades he would let her fall down this pit alone. They were staying together.

He curled into her a little more, inhaling her sweet-smelling hair that reminded him of flowers.

I will protect you.

.

Their kiss was desperate.

She had hugged him from behind when their battle against Gaea and the giants was over. He had touched her hand gently and then suddenly, an abrupt and random change of demeanor, he whirled her around into his arms and crushed her lips with his.

It was a fearsomely desperate kiss, with tongues clashing, her body crushed into his arms and he may have hurt her with how tightly he was clutching her, but he was just so relieved that they were alive that he couldn’t stop himself.

And his thoughts centered on one thing; we’re alive, we’re alive, we’re going to keep on being alive, we’re going to live, we’re going to be okay….

She pulled away for a moment to gasp for air, but then he pulled her back into his arms and gasped against her lips: “I love you so much.”

“I know, Percy,” she had replied, pulling away for a moment before crashing her lips against his again.

They may have gone further than just kissing if Coach Hedge hadn’t come with his baseball bat and threatened to kill them, and, while it was laughable for someone who had survived Tartarus to be afraid of an old satyr, they were.