Chapter Text
He’d been on the run for about a month now, mostly trying to survive. He didn’t have much time to think, spending most of his waking moments running or fighting whatever monster decided it wanted a piece of him.
Whatever time he didn’t spend fighting or running he spent thinking of how he was going to get back to wherever it was he was from before all this happened. All he could remember was Annabeth, his girlfriend. He knew she had to be out there somewhere, though he didn’t know whether she’d moved on or not.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been away from her, but he imagined it would’ve been long. Whatever happened next, he just knew he had to get back to her. She was his only lead at the moment either way, so it wasn’t like he had much of a choice.
He ran through California, reaching an area around San Francisco. For whatever reason, he felt something in his chest about it. Something relating to Annabeth. He’d been here with her before. Or because of her. He wasn’t sure which. All he knew was that he had to go into the city. Maybe he’d find her there, though given his luck he wasn’t about to hold his breath.
As he ran to the city, he tried to keep all the memories of Annabeth in his head. He couldn’t let himself forget anything about her, not at this stage.
He thought about her hair, golden and flowing, looking like she was a princess. He thought about her eyes, grey as thunderclouds, holding a softness behind a piercing gaze. He thought about her laugh, a soft melody that filled his heart with joy.
Most of all, he thought about how she kissed him whenever he’d do something dumb. He remembered a lot of kisses, and he figured he did all that on purpose. She probably knew he did but he doubted she cared.
He ran through the city, looking for anything that might jog his memory. So far, he found nothing, only streets that seemed to lead to nowhere. He felt a vague ache as he looked towards the mountain in the distance, but other than that he drew blanks.
He didn’t stop looking, however. He was sure something here would remind him. He could feel it within his soul.
He kept running through the city, hoping for anything to show up when he felt the vaguest familiarity with the neighborhood he was in. He could’ve sworn he’d been here before many years ago.
He looked around to see if anything could remind him, but he found nothing. Just more cars and houses that meant nothing to him. He was about to give up when he saw something that caught his eye.
He found a house that seemed familiar. A house he could’ve sworn he’d seen before. A house he’d been to before. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he couldn’t deny it. This house had something to do with Annabeth.
He approached the door cautiously, suddenly unsure of whether this was a good idea. Who knows who might be behind this door? She might not even be there.
Before he could psych himself out, he knocked on the door. He could hear footsteps shuffling on the inside and someone coming to the door. He just hoped he wasn’t making a big mistake.
To say Annabeth was having a bad time would be an understatement.
First, the post-war cleanup was rough. A part of her had hoped that things would settle down after Kronos was beaten, but it turned out to not be that simple. Finding the bodies was hard enough as is, with Michael’s being especially difficult. Then there was rebuilding after the war. Aside from the damages to the city that they had to try and subtly clean up, there was the campers’ morale they had to try and work on.
Gods, those had been a rough few weeks. Campers were lost and unsure of what to do next and it’d been up to her and Percy to try and keep them on track.
And if that hadn’t been bad enough, she then spent the next few months busy between school and her new job as Architect of Olympus. At first, she’d been incredibly excited, her dream of building a monument to last a thousand years finally coming true.
And then she got to work.
She was thrown left and right trying to keep up with demands for statues, palaces, improvements, and the like. She did her best but it was tiring.
It took so much time out of her life, which meant whatever time was left had to be spent on school, with the amount of time she had left not being enough as it was to properly manage her school work. She had to do it all in half the time it actually needed, which ended up cutting into her sleep time.
On top of all that, she had very little time to spend on herself. It was all work and school with little breaks in between. What breaks she did have, she spent with Percy. Those days were the best. Percy didn’t ask anything from her. He didn’t want more, didn’t ask for her to do the impossible.
She loved the time they’d spent together. Unfortunately, that time was far less than she would have liked. They made what time they could for each other - even without them dating, he was her best friend - but she wished it could’ve been more.
After that, Olympus had closed. On the one hand, she felt a massive weight lifted off her shoulders. She didn’t have to work on designing the new version of Olympus anymore. At least for the time being. This break did wonders for her stress as she could actually focus on school now without worrying about that.
On the other hand, it meant something big was coming, and Ananbeth didn’t like the thought of that. Percy had told her it might be nothing, but she could tell he didn’t believe that.
And worst of all, not long after that, Percy went missing. She’d spent days looking for him, hoping for a sign, until she found three new demigods at the Grand Canyon. She later learned what likely happened to him. That he’d been taken as an exchange for the Romans so that the two of them could work together against Gaea.
She understood the vague logic behind the move, but that didn’t mean she approved of it. Especially when she learned that it was very likely that Percy had no memories left.
It didn’t help that with Jason, he just about started dating Piper as soon as he started getting his memories back. She didn’t believe Percy would do something like that, but it did create a bit of worry in her mind. What if Percy did choose to leave? What if without his memories he decided that he wanted someone else? She didn’t necessarily need a boyfriend to survive, but Percy was more than just that. He was her best friend of four years. He held more of her heart than anyone else had in her life. If she lost him, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.
She’d spent the last six months looking for any sign of him. She scoured the country hoping to find anything about him, but she turned up with nothing. She wasn’t sure what else she should do by this point.
She ended up going to her dad’s place in San Fransisco. From what Jason remembered, this was around where the Roman camp was, so she thought it’d be a good idea to figure out a plan from within. On top of that, Rachel had told her to go, saying she had a feeling that she needed to do that. So far, all Annabeth got was an awkward time with her dad and stepmom and admittedly a good time with her brothers.
She was jolted out of her thoughts by a knock on the door. Her dad was deep in his study so there was no way he’d hear it and her stepmom had taken her kids out so she had to answer the door. She briefly considered not answering before she got up. She decided she could use the distraction.
She made it to the door and opened it without much thought. As the door opened and she got a good look at who it was, she couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her.
Percy Jackson was standing in front of her, and he was looking at her with wide eyes.
“Are you real?”
Percy didn’t believe it. There she was, Annabeth, his girlfriend, standing right in front of him, looking at him like she didn’t believe he was there.
All this time he’d wondered whether he’d ever see her or whether she’d just stay as the only memory of his past. It didn’t seem real at all.
“Percy…” She managed to get out as her eyes teared up. He reached out to her hesitantly, half expecting his hand to go right through her. She brought her hand up to meet his, and as soon as their hands touched, he pulled her into his arms. She held him so tight she might have broken his ribs if he hadn’t been invulnerable. He didn’t mind as he held her back just as tight.
She was real. She was here.
“You’re real. You’re real.” He still couldn’t believe it. “Annabeth…”
“Percy.” She looked up at him through tear-filled eyes, hands coming to his face to hold him as though he were a precious artifact. She choked out a sob and then she kissed him.
Percy lost himself in the kiss. It was everything his memory told him it was. In short, it was perfect.
As they separated, he could see a small smile on her face.
“It really is you.” She sounded relieved. Just how long had he been gone?
“Annabeth…” He didn’t know what he wanted to say. What he wanted to ask. All he knew was that he might just get some answers now. And that things seemed to be looking up.
Her breath hitched as he said her name. “You remember me?” She looked hopeful.
Percy thought about how to answer that. “Yeah,” he settled on telling her whatever he could. “I remember you but nothing else. I don’t know where I’m from, where I need to go, nothing. Only you.”
She teared up more when she heard that and she pulled him into the house. They sat on the couch there and she threw herself at him again. He held her just as close, just because he could.
“You remembered me.” Her voice was slightly muffled in his shoulder, but he heard her clearly.
“Yeah,” he tightened his hold. “I remember you.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Annabeth, what’s going on?”
She pulled back slightly, making sure she didn’t go too far from him. She was looking at him like she was afraid he’d disappear if she let go. “How much do you know?”
He thought about it for a moment. He didn’t remember much truth be told, just a few vague feelings here and there when it came to anything that wasn’t Annabeth.
“Mostly things to do with you. I know that you’re important to me. That you’re my girlfriend.” She hugged him close again after he said that. “I remembered your hair, your eyes, your laugh. I remembered how you kissed me whenever I did something dumb. I figured you must’ve kissed me a lot.”
Her laugh was the best sound he’d heard since waking up. “Yeah, you could say I did.” Her voice was soft as she spoke.
“I remembered that you were very important to me.” He swallowed hard, not sure if he should say this next part. He decided it wouldn’t hurt either way. “And I remembered that I love you.”
She pulled back and stared at him closely. Whatever she was looking for she must have found it because she hugged him close, crying into his shoulder. “I love you too, Seaweed Brain. I love you too.”
That nickname sent a jolt through him. He tried to latch onto the memory it brought but it slipped right through his grasp. He couldn’t help a sigh of frustration.
Annabeth noticed and voiced her concerns. “What’s wrong?”
And so he told her. He told her about the months he spent on the run, the memories that seemed to pop into his head only for them to disappear, the worry that she’d just be a memory.
By the end of it, they were both crying. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore, Percy. We’ll figure this out. We’ll get your memories back. I promise.”
He believed her. After everything he’d seen in the past few months, after everything he’d gone through just to get to this moment. He knew they’d make it out of this. So long as they were together.