Never Be (Percabeth AU)✔️

>45<

Percy's POV

"He'll be fine," my mother reminded me. We had been in the hospital for nearly five hours.

All that we had learned was that Jason had taken two bullets, one in the shoulder and one in his lower abdomen, near his small intestine. The doctor said he was in critical condition, and that they needed to conduct a surgery to remove the bullets right away.

I looked around the room; my mom, to my right. Piper sat to the other side of the room, minding her own business, fidgeting with her fingers, jacket zipper, anything. She was nervous out of her mind, and I could see that she couldn't contain it. The feeling was familiar to me. Finally, Annabeth sat to my left, tense and glaring.

"Did you hear the story of it?" Annabeth looked over at me from her seat beside me, where she was leaning back on the chair, but I could see she was tense.

"What do you mean?" I looked back at her, my elbows propped up on my knees.

"A kid said that Jason was shot after he ran in front of her," she explained.

"Really?" I sat up, looking at her more closely.

"Yeah, it sounds like Jason." Her mouth pressed into a thin line, and her jaw clenched. Her eyes were dark, and her walls were up. Her leg bobbed up and down, just like it had at the skatepark, when I almost broke my hand. She was nervous.

"He'll be okay," I soothed, placing my hand on her knee, feeling the exposed skin from her ripped jeans.

"He better be," she mumbled.

"Are you okay?" I leaned my head forward, my eyebrows furrowing. I really hated seeing her so upset.

"I'm fine. I just..." She trailed off. I then her mumble something along the lines of, 'I can't do this again' which made me curious. I decided that now would be a bad time to ask her about it. I grabbed her hand, intertwining our fingers and kissing the back of her hand.

"It'll be okay." I kept my eyes on her as she looked up at me, giving me the slightest little smile. I kissed her hand again, then running circles on her smooth skin with my thumb.

"Annabeth?"

"Dad," Annabeth stood, letting go of my hand and walking over to her father, who stood in he doorway. I missed the warmth of her hand in mine.

They tightly embraced, before sitting down—Annabeth back next to me, and Frederick next to her. She began to explain the situation, and when Annabeth was finished, her father stood. He made is way to me first, which I stood and shook his hand, then to my mother.

What surprised me was when he said, "Sally, nice to see you again," before politely kissing her cheek. I was more appalled to see my mother respond, "Frederick, same here," and doing the same.

Annabeth and I exchanged a look, then looked at our parents.

My mom chuckled. "We went to high school together, don't look so surprised." She waved her hand.

"Um, what the fuck dad?" Annabeth gave her father a look. He shrugged. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I don't know." Frederick shrugged again.

"And, mom?" I asked as well. She just shrugged too. I shook my head.

"Anyways, are you alright? I got down here as soon as I could, I'm sorry I wasn't here before, I couldn't get out an—" Frederick began to explain, but Annabeth cut him off.

"It's fine. You're here now, right?"

"Of course," he hugged her again, kissing the top of her forehead. It was weird to think that I had done the same thing, a little earlier. For whatever reason, a caption that I saw once popped into my head; your daughter calls me daddy too. I shook the thought away, feeling weird and oddly embarrassed, even though no one knew what I was thinking.