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ANNABETH WAKES UP ON AUGUST 19TH, groggily experiencing the hustle and bustle of the early risers of cabin 6 with an annoyed disinterest before her brain reminds her what happened yesterday—then she's wide awake.
The war's over. The war is actually, finally over. Oh yeah and the small detail that Percy Jackson had actually finally kissed her. Part of her felt that if she moved an inch, if she disturbed the universe by getting out of bed that this insane happily ever after would shatter back into the chaos that had colored the summer so far. Part of her is terrified that despite yesterday she and Percy will fall right back into the distant barbs and discomfort that colored their summer. Annabeth isn't about avoiding confrontation, and she had never thought of herself as a daydreamer, but she just can't bring herself to get up.
Then Malcolm is calling for her, reminding her that breakfast is soon, and with it cabin inspection. She gets up, sets about getting herself and the cabin ready to face whatever life is with no war to fight.
Breakfast is an anxious affair where nothing at all has changed on the surface, but everything feels new and sharp. She keeps looking for Percy, then chastising herself. Temper your expectations, it was just a kiss, after all.
He's alone at the Poseidon table just like every meal every summer for the past four years. She wishes breakfast were over. She wishes she didn't feel so much. She wishes she hadn't been nursing a crush for four years.
After breakfast breaks up, with Chiron distributing activities schedules to all the head counselors, Annabeth passes hers off to her siblings and goes to find Percy. She's had enough sword fighting practice for a lifetime.
He's loitering near his table, staring at his schedule but not really reading it.
"Good morning, Seaweed Brain," she says.
He looks up, his features rearranging into a smile that's both overjoyed and self conscious. He runs a hand through his hair. Is he nervous?
"Hey. Did you get a schedule?"
"I passed it off," she says. "What do you have?"
"Apparently canoeing."
"Ah," she says, feeling like the thorny distance she was so afraid of is right on the doorstep and setting back in. "You want company? It's kinda hard to canoe by yourself."
Percy laughs at that, and they meander over to the canoe lake in the quickly warming morning sunlight. The only thing she's thinking about is the fact that yesterday they kissed at the bottom of this exact lake, and she wonders if Percy is thinking about the same thing. She wonders why neither of them is saying anything about it now.
They stop on the shore as Percy pulls one of the canoes down into the water. He hesitates when their hands touch as she takes an oar from him, and finally she can't take it anymore. They fought so much during the summer what's the worst that could happen? Once the canoe is out in the water, she turns around to face him and drops her oar in the bottom of the boat.
"Are we not going to talk about what happened yesterday?"
"You mean—"
"I mean when we kissed twice and got thrown in the lake."
"And not the part where we almost died?"
"And when you turned down godhood?"
"And when you got made architect of Olympus?"
She has to smile. Her life is impossible. "Gods..."
"But about...the other thing," His eyes flit to her then away, he runs his hand through his hair. "We didn't get to talk after. And I meant to ask you—"
"Yeah?" She feels a swoop in her stomach. The sunlight is so bright.
"Do you want to go out? Like—with me. Do you want to be my girlfriend?"
A quiet laugh escapes her—at how nervous he is, out of sheer relief, at the impossibility of it all. She grins down at her hands. "Yeah," she says, feeling like all the sunshine of the summer morning is also glowing, bright and warm in her chest.
"Yeah?" He's grinning now too.
"Yes, I do." She says again, because she does and she can. And just like that her expectations are no longer tempered. Because it wasn't just a kiss. It's something else. It's the start of...something.
Back on the dock Annabeth's pulse surges when she takes Percy's hand, he looks down at their hands and up into her eyes and smiles the same goofy smile that she's been crushing on for far too long.
"Can I kiss you?" he asks.
She nods and he does. His lips are warm, and they fit there, against her mouth. She thinks about the first time she kissed him, last summer in the heart of Mt St Helens, surrounded by boiling lava, both of them covered in sweat, lips cracked from the heat. It had been urgent and terrified and brave in a way she hadn't been able to match afterward. Not like yesterday, not like this—this slow kiss on the lake shore that revels in being alive and having not just a present but a future.
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