Annabeth's POV
Thankfully when we had left Elsie's house there hadn't been any monsters around, and we were able to hail a taxi back to Percy's apartment pretty quickly, despite the early hours. Making it up all those flights of stairs was difficult and after two flights Percy had made me climb on his back, and carried me up the rest of the stairs.
Entering his apartment, I caught a glimpse of the clock, which put the time as just before 7 am. We would be pushing it to get to school on time today if Paul had gone in early. As I slid off of Percy's back and landed softly on the floor Percy handed me the crutches, and gestured that he was gonna go and grab some ambrosia. We'd both been able to shower and get changed at my great aunt's place, so all we really needed to do here was to figure out lunches, swap out textbooks, and heal up a little bit.
Percy chose that moment to pad back through his door and over to where I was standing, handing me a square of ambrosia. "There is just enough for one bit for each of us now and one for you tomorrow if you need it. Will should be sending blackjack over with some more medical supplies today, so I've left my window open just enough that he can drop them onto my desk." I nodded, making my way into Percy's room to pick up the textbooks I needed.
"I think this'll be enough that I don't need to wear the brace today, I'll just take the crutches and say that I fell down the stairs and twisted my ankle or something. If we were still planning on taking part in that track meet next Friday then I can't make it out to be any worse than that I don't think. I'll pack the brace, but unless something goes horrifically wrong I'm probably not gonna wear it at school." Whilst talking to Percy I had been searching his room for my Psychology textbook, finally spotting a corner of it poking out from underneath his bed. "Yeah that makes sense," He replied. "I'm going to put some lunch together and see if my Mom or Paul can drop us at school."
As Percy walked out the room I flopped down onto his bed and began to swap out the textbooks in our school bags. It only took a couple of minutes, so I used the rest of my time to sort out some of the mess that had been piling up on Percy's floor. I filed our textbooks neatly into the basket they usually stayed in, and began to collect together dirty clothes to put in the laundry basket in the hall. Even five minutes after I'd started, when Percy walked back in with two lunches the room looked much bigger and cleaner - mostly because the floor was visible now. "Babe, Paul already left because he needed to attend an important meeting early this morning, but my Mom said that she can drop us off on her way to work. We have like five minutes before she was planning on leaving so we could have some breakfast." My stomach automatically rumbled at the mention of breakfast, making me blush a little.
"I take it that was a yes to breakfast then," Percy laughed, offering me a hand to help me get up from the floor. "We don't have time to cook anything, but I can pour a mean bowl of cereal." I grabbed one of my crutches and hobbled into the kitchen to see some bowls and cereal already laid out on the table. "What can I say," Percy joked from behind me. "I knew what your answer was going to be, I must be a prophet."
After a few quiet minutes of eating cereal Sally came out of her room, her car keys dangling from her hand. "Hey guys, I'm leaving in a second if you're still wanting to catch a lift." She paused as she caught sight of the crutches balanced next to me. "Oh Annabeth, I hope your knee is okay. Percy told me you got a little injured when he popped into my room this morning but he didn't say it was that bad." I shrugged, already rattling off my usual spiel about how it looked a lot worse than it actually was, and how the ambrosia was already helping tons. My words did little to change the slightly concerned expression that was plastered across Sally's face, but it did prompt her into continuing to move round the kitchen, grabbing her bits together.
Percy appeared next to me suddenly, holding both our school bags and his gym kit. "We don't really have a lot of time to get downstairs, and if we want to avoid the elevator, we should get started now, and meet my mom downstairs. Going down should be quicker anyway, especially now that you've had some ambrosia." Standing up I reached to grab my bag off of Percy but he stepped back to just out of my range, pointedly looking towards my crutches. I hated to admit it, but he wasn't necessarily wrong. Even though I didn't need my hands to carry my shoulder bag, it would certainly make using the crutches far more awkward than usual. I knew it would be pointless to argue with him, so I followed Percy out the door, and towards the stairs. I certainly wasn't moving slowly, having been on crutches multiple times before, but I could tell that Percy had slowed his pace to match mine.
Ten agonisingly slow minutes later we had made it to the lobby, where Sally was just stepping out of an elevator. "See told you Wise Girl, we'd make it down before she did. When has my mom ever left when she said that she would?" I let out a quiet chuckle at that, but instead of answering him I started to make my way over to the doors, very ready to sit down in a car for a little bit. "I don't think it counts as beating her, if we both walked into the lobby at the same time Percy," I said. "But sure we beat her, thanks to my crutches-down-stairs proficiency; you're welcome."
Sally's car was roomy enough that if I sat up front I could keep my leg quite straight, which made the journey to school far easier. I stayed quiet for the short journey, listening to Percy update his mom on the events of the last few days. Sally stayed mostly silent, occasionally chipping in with some random facts about the people, and who they were - a group that were apparently called the Avengers, who saved the world. Guess we had more in common than I thought.
As Percy finished telling Sally about how Elsie had been treated, and how we would be checking on her more often from now on, I noticed that we had pulled up outside of our school. "Thank you for the lift Sally," I said, unbuckling my seatbelt, and swinging my legs out of the door. "Come on Perce we need to get to homeroom, the bell will be ringing in a few minutes." Within moments Percy was by the front passenger door, handing me the crutches that had been too bulky to fit in next to me. "Bye mom, love you," he called out to Sally, as we began to make our way over to the entrance. Lowering his voice slightly, he flashed me a grin. "Do you want to make a bet on how many times people will ask what you did to your leg? I reckon there'll be at least thirty people today."
"Percy I am not making that bet with you. We both know that everyone will be asking today - there'll be at least thirty people, but probably closer to fifty." Suddenly I stopped speaking, realising what I had just said. "That sounds like a bet to me!" A grin was plastered across Percy's face as he moved slightly so that he would be clearing a path for me as we walked through the halls. The first bell rang for homeroom, just as we reached the doorway. " Mi'lady" he joked, as he opened the door for me to go through first.
As I awkwardly manoeuvred myself into my usual seat, with Percy to my left, I heard the first person enquire about my leg. I let out a groan, letting my head fall down onto my desk. "One already, Annabeth, maybe your guess of fifty was more accurate then. I hope you're keeping count!"
Percy POV
By last period Gym the tally of people who had asked Annabeth what she had done to her leg had reached a whopping thirty seven. The tally went up to forty one in the five minutes I spent changing into my gym kit, something I whispered to Annabeth as I passed where she was sitting on the benches. Coach Hallard gestured for us to gather around him before explaining what he wanted us to do today in class.
"To start off today we need to do some more tests to check general levels of fitness, for the data I still need to put on the system. We'll start with the fitness gram pacer test, where you run 20m sprints in time with beeps that get progressively faster. After that we'll still have a significant amount of class time left so you can play a game of dodgeball. Everyone understand?" At the general affirmative answer everyone began to line up at one end of the gym and waited for the first beep on the recording. As soon as we heard that beep we began to run 20m in time to the beeps. For me, even though it had been years since I last had done this test, I remembered the timings, and forced myself to pace my running. People began to drop out to the side as the tape went on, and the intervals between beeps got shorter and shorter. By the time the test was nearly at the end, with the intervals being mere seconds apart, I was the only person left running. All the jocks and athletes had sprinted off at the start, and been forced to drop out towards the end as they struggled to catch their breath. I ran the last of the sprints, and slowed to a stop, knowing that the recording would then stop too, leaning over to rest my hands on my knees and make it seem like I was struggling to breath. In reality I was breathing heavier, but not by much, which would certainly raise red flags with Coach.
"Well Percy," I heard Coach Hallard say from my side. "I definitely hope that you're considering running in the track meet next Friday, if you can beat the fitness gram pacer test without being flat on the floor by the end of it." Straightening up a little I felt, from the heat in my face, that blood had rushed to my cheeks, hopefully leaving me with a red and slightly breathless look. "Annabeth and I both thought that we'd do the meet next week, her leg should be fine after a few more days." There was a slight look of shock on Coach's as he registered that Annabeth would be taking part too, before he swiftly disguised it.
Turning, he raised his voice to address the whole gym. "Divide yourself into two equal groups whilst I grab the dodgeballs, and situate yourselves on either side of the gym." With that I jogged over to my friend Sam, and swung a sweaty arm round his shoulder. "I nominate Sam as a team captain," I called out, getting everyone's attention. Sam wrinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of me, before firing back, "And I nominate Percy as the other." After a few moments of no objections Sam and I separated before taking it in turns to choose our teams.
After a few minutes the entire gym was separated into two teams, with a roughly equal spread of jocks, athletes and people who were neither on each team. Coach Hallard returned with the dodgeballs to find us quietly waiting for him. "You all know the rules," he called out, another slight look of surprise on his face at how orderly we were. "Anyone who doesn't follow them will be called out of the game - and please don't throw the balls as if they were missiles, I really don't want anymore injuries because people are taking a game of dodgeball so seriously."
He chucked the balls into the middle of the gym and blew his whistle, signalling that the game had started. Strategically I always hung back at the start and let everyone else fight over the balls. By the time my team had stepped back from the line, I had already caught two people out as they had tried to get rid of me at the start. The other team grew steadily smaller, till Sam yelled out to aim at other people. As the other team began to take out the other people on my team I began to fire back some shots of my own. I very quickly took out the non athletes on Sam's team, with accurate but less forceful shots. Many looked glad that they had been gotten out, including Louisa who flashed me a quick grin as she ran off the court to join Annabeth on the benches.
By this point both Sam and I had teams with limited members, with only the most agile of the athletes left on each team. As our teams continued to dwindle one of the people on Sam's team flung a ball at me, but it went wide. A quick glance over my shoulder told me it was heading towards the benches where Louisa and at speed. "WATCH OUT," I yelled, hoping that Annabeth would be able to catch the ball before it hit either of them. It was too far for me to be able to do anything about it, but thankfully Annabeth heard my warning and shot up in time to grab the ball, mere inches away from Louisa's head. I raised an eyebrow at Annabeth, who responded with a barely noticeable dip of her head. At her signal that she was fine, I felt my heart rate slow a little from the frantic pace it had suddenly adjusted to. Turning back to the court, everyone else was frozen in shock, likely having thought that the ball was definitely going to have hit them.
"Well, technically she caught it, so I think that means you're out Joe." My attempt at humour prompted the court back into action, and with a little relief on his face Joe traipsed off the court towards the benches, presumable to apologise. Joe was a genuine person, and I was sure he felt really bad about the fact he had nearly hit the girls. It wasn't like he had purposefully aimed at them in an attempt to distract me, I had no reason to be upset with him. However Annabeth's quick response was sure to raise questions from Coach Hallard so as soon as our game was over I made sure to make my way over to where Annabeth and Louisa were sat.
"You guys okay?" I asked, gently resting my hand on Annabeth's uninjured knee. They both nodded at me, Annabeth resting her hand on top of mine. "Thanks for the warning, I wouldn't have had enough time to react if you hadn't yelled out first." Louisa chimed in after that. We're both fine thanks to you Percy. And I insist that you come to the coffee shop with me after school so that we can catch up, and there'll be a round of cookies on me." I'd never heard an offer as tempting as that before and after a quick non verbal conversation with Annabeth, I decided that I could squeeze it in to my schedule.
"Is 4 good for you?"
Bit of a filler chapter, there should be a little more action in the next one. I kind of just wanted there to be a bit more out there where Percy and Annabeth get to just exist without fighting monsters & get to do normal/boring things like go to school, do the fitness gram pacer test (which I know by its name the bleep/beep test) and joke about like normal teens.
Finished (31/08/2018)