They Return

The City

This is a sequel (kind of)! Okay, so I kind of really hate what I did with "the first installment" of this story so I am rejecting part of my own AU. I never fully planned the story, so it was very back and forth and 'cliffhangers' and was really just a lot of grasping at straws. So this is VERY IMPORTANT TO READ IF YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE STORY! Essentially, what I am doing is keeping the characters that I created (Addy, Zoe and Bianca, etc.) and keeping the part where Nico left camp because Will cheated, and returned years later with Addy, then they left again (last chapter). I am kind of trashing everything else, and it was now just 5 years of experience at camp. Will is alive, no murder attempts or confrontations. Percy and Annabeth's daughter, Zoe, is alive. This story takes place about 9 years after Addy and Nico left. Addy is 16 so Nico would be, like, 34 years old (damn). This will also be in third person omniscient instead of first person. I am sorry this has so many changes but I want to enjoy writing this and I have a genuine planned plot this time. Anyway, that is all, please enjoy!

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Addy is, by all accounts, a model teenager. She is respectful and well rounded, smart and kind, funny and outgoing. It's just that she has never spent more than 2 months in one place in the world. She has been on every continent, almost every country. When she was ten years old, she spent two weeks in a hotel across from the Eiffel Tower, and every few days she would go to get fresh bread from a bakery with her dad, and the Baker there gave her a croissant every morning she appeared. When she was twelve, she spent a few days in Australia, and after that, she immediately went to Namibia. Her Dad has always spoiled her a little bit, anywhere she had wanted to go, he had taken her. She went to Disney World ten times in one year when she was eight years old. It had been just them for most of her life, and the few years they spent in a secure home, she doesn't remember well at all. But she is okay with that, she has spent her life so far travelling the world, going anywhere she wants to. Well, except for New York City and San Francisco, those have been always been off limits. Places that when she mentioned them, her Dad would stiffen and shut her down, telling her that they weren't going. Well, until a few days ago.

She was awestruck by the city around her. She had seen cities before, seen the tall buildings and parks, the thousands of people milling or rushing off. It should have been nothing new, but it was. It was like the air around her was new and the city was just built. She was wrapped into the life flowing in this city. Addy's eyes were always moving, to look up at the structures and the people around her, but never really in front of her. That must have been why she slammed into the boy.

Addy fell back, catching herself on her palms, skinning and bruising them in the process. She looked up to see who she ran into it, but found them on the ground as well. Her eyes widened and she quickly stood, reaching her hand out for the boy to grab and pull himself up. He looked up at her, and he grinned, taking her hand. He got up, brushed off his hands on the sides of his jeans and looked back at her.

          "I'm so sorry-" Addy started.

          "No, no, it's okay. I wasn't paying any attention either, and hey, no harm done," he said to her.

          "Um, I'm Adeline, but call me Addy," she told him quickly, her face flushed.

The boy chuckled at her, his blonde hair covering his eyes as he looked down at her, "I'm Thomas."

Addy peers up at him, her gray eyes wide with nerves and curiosity. "Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?" she asks, her voice surprisingly confident for the situation. It's not often she knocks down boys that are a solid half-foot taller than her.

          He smirks, his eyes dancing, "You could let me buy you a coffee," he offers.

          She smiles timidly, "I think that might be okay."