A Crown of Golden Leaves: A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Capvt XIV: When Stars Align

Capvt XIV: When Stars Align

IT was the fifth time in seven sunrises, and still Percy kept waking up to Annabeth's side of the bed either cooling off or cold, as if she had never slept in there in the first place.

He sighed softly and sat up, laying his hand against her side of the bed. It was cold, which meant she hadn't been here for a while. He bit his bottom lip, feeling a nervous, clenching feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he wriggled out from underneath the covers. This couldn't be good for her health, all these late nights . . . it definitely wasn't good for his. While the lacritations he got from the flogging had either scabbed or healed over and had stopped hurting every time he stretched himself, they were still visible and he was pretty sure all this worrying was not good for then.

"Typical," he grumbled, pulling his cloak across his shoulders and slipping his sandals on over his feet. He grabbed his favorite dagger out from beneath his pillow. "You hate her one moment, the next you're going out of your mind with worry. It's one extreme to another. What next? I'm going to confess my undying love for her?" He paused for a moment and considered that sentence. He liked Annabeth, but he doubted he would ever love her, and even if he did, he probably wouldn't tell her because she probably didn't like him in that way. Sometimes though, he wondered when she gave him a particularly deep look or when her touch sent scorching fire through his body . . .

He shook his head and chuckled at his thoughts, walking over to the door. "You're ridiculous, Percy. Thinking stuff like that? Yeah, when pigs fly or maybe when Hell freezes over."

He entertained an image of the black fire from the underworld slowly being covered by ice as a frost set in. He didn't really like that image, there was an undeniable sense of wrongness about it, even in his thoughts.

Great, he knew he was a little paranoid, but getting "feelings" from just thinking? That was a new level of paranoia altogether.

He placed his hand on the knob of the door and turned. A blast of chilly air came from the outside, a stark contrast with the pleasant warmth from the dying fire, and he tightened his cloak before he exited their chambers entirely. It had to be freezing . . . he wouldn't be surprised if it was cold enough for those white flake things to fall out of the sky the children loved to play in during the long winter months.

And it was summer . . . this had to be the oddest weather he had ever witnessed.

He walked pass a window, and he found his gaze being drawn to the night sky. The stars shone like little diamonds: sparkling, white and pure, clashing drastically against the inky night sky that reminded him of the tales his mater told him of, where sailors fell into black holes and were never seen again.

If I were Annabeth, he thought, leaning his head against the window. Where would I be?

That was the problem though. He didn't know Annabeth; he had no idea what she was doing with these late-night wanders or where she would go, he didn't know what her interests were. He didn't know who she was, not really. Sure, he knew she had a sense of sass, but that wasn't really anything. She was jumpier now than she had been on their wedding night, which made no sense either . . .

And then he thought back to when she gave him his spare dagger, saying a cryptic "thanks". He had put it on his desk as he always did, and how he had caught her fingering it a few times with a distant expression etched on her face.

Surely she wouldn't . . . he bit his bottom lip, absentmindedly brushing his fingers across the hilt of his dagger. She couldn't be cutting herself or something, right? Surely she couldn't be that unhappy here . . . he knew Roma wasn't her homeland, Greece, far from it, but she seemed relatively happy here. But, then again, she had been somewhat distant and from what he had gather, she wasn't on the best of terms with most of her friends because of that slave girl who had been executed.