"I know you're well aware of how Annabeth is feeling cause you're her friend. But...Percy...his emotions...well...they match with hers."
"So...their feelings are mutual huh.." Y/N sighed and quickly came back to her senses, "Anyways, we should go."
...
Catching a taxi to Percy's mom's apartment, they rang the doorbell, and there she was - his mother, smelling of peppermint and licorice, the weariness and worry evaporating from her face as soon as she saw him.
"Percy! Oh, thank goodness. Oh, my baby."
She crushed the air right out of him. They stood in the hallway as she cried and ran her hands through his hair.
Y/N let them have their moment and gave some space.
Percy's eyes were a little misty, too. He was shaking, and was so relieved to see her.
"Oh, is that your friend?" she asked looking at Y/N.
She offered her brightest smile and said, "Hello, yeah we met at the camp. It's so nice to meet you!"
"Oh! You've made a lot of..friends?" she looked at him questioningly, asking if she was more than that.
He blushed and said, "Uh yeah she's just a friend. There's someone else I want you to meet too."
Y/N's smile faltered at the comment but she tried her best to not let it show. Pretty soon, they're going to be seen together right? She needs to get used to this.
His mother told them she'd just appeared at the apartment that morning, scaring Gabe half out of his wits. She didn't remember anything since the Minotaur, and couldn't believe it when Gabe told her Percy was a wanted criminal, traveling across the country, blowing up national monuments. She'd been going out of her mind with worry all day because she hadn't heard the news. Gabe had forced her to go into work, saying she had a month's salary to make up and she'd better get started.
Percy swallowed back his anger and told her his own story. He tried to make it sound less scary than it had been, but that wasn't easy. He was just getting to the fight with Ares when Gabe's voice interrupted from the living room. "Hey, Sally! That meat loaf done yet or what?"
She closed her eyes. "He isn't going to be happy to see you, Percy. The store got half a million phone calls today from Los Angeles ... something about free appliances."
"Oh, yeah. About that..."
She managed a weak smile. "Just don't make him angrier, all right? Come on."
"Um, I'll just stand outside. Take your time. I don't think.." she looked at Percy and he came close to her as she said the next words, "..if i get angry i might scream and probably hurt your stepfather. He's already pissing me off. I don't want him to use it as another weapon against both of you."
Percy said, "Trust me I'll be more than happy if you did that."
"Exactly," she chuckled, "Take your time. I'm right outside. And try not to kill him okay?"
"I'll try."
When Percy came out after some time, he had a smirk on his face. He filled in on about what went on. It looked like his mother got the bag with Medusa's head.
The last thing he saw as the door swung closed was his mother staring at Gabe, as if she was contemplating how he would look as a garden statue.
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They were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated them as if they'd won some reality-TV contest. According to camp tradition, they wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where they got to burn the burial shrouds their cabins had made for them in their absence.
Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful-gray silk with embroidered owls-Percy told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched him and told him to shut up. He stared at her face, while she talked to her cabinmates oblivious to the way he was looking at her. The same way he was too oblivious to notice Y/N. But, atleast in his case there was a positive answer.
Y/N who's heart felt heavy at the scene, clutched her shroud tight and avoided looking at them. She burned her shroud which was beautifully made with golden silk with embroidered music notes and instruments. She hoped her feelings for that boy would burn away just like her shroud.
Being the son of Poseidon, Percy didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make his shroud. They'd taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle.
As Apollo's cabin led the sing-along and surrounded Y/N, praising her guts to question her father (she didn't really but they didn't need to know that) passing out s'mores, Percy was surrounded by his old Hermes cabinmates, Annabeth's friends from Athena, and Grover's satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand-new searcher's license he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover's performance on the quest "Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past."
The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told they'd never forgive Percy for disgracing their dad.
That was okay with him though.
Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen their spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday...."
When the Apollo kids were singing in the amphitheater, Harris approached Y/N with a huge smile.
"Oh I guess you should take it back," Y/N said as she took the necklace off from her neck and held it out.
Harris chuckled and said, "Consider it as a gift from all of us. It's because of you that so many of us are determined to work it out your way. We all want to question our parents but I guess there's some reason they didn't claim us all. We just have to figure it out ourselves."
He took it from her hand and walked behind her."What are you-" Y/N asked but stopped when she felt the necklace as Harris tied it around her neck. "Oh, um thanks."
"I'm..glad we talked before you left," he scratched the back of his head and asked, "We are friends now right?"
Y/N chuckled, turning around to face him and said, "Of course we are!"
"So?" he said sitting down, "how are you...feeling?"
"What?" Y/N asked sitting next to him.
"About them?" Harris saying looking across at the couple - the almost a new couple of the camp.
"I...don't feel particularly good about it. But as long as they're happy.." she sighed and looked down. Percy and Annabeth were holding hands and sitting very close to each other.
"You can vent if you want."
"There's nothing to vent. It was obvious. The weird atmosphere around them?"
"Annabeth's smart. How did she not catch on?"
"I hid it pretty good during the quest. Besides," she sighed smiling, "papa said I've a long life ahead."
"Aww, you call your father papa?!" Harris laughed and squeezed her cheeks.
"Argh, shut up."
Harris smiled and said, "Well, he's right though." He stared at her for some time and cleared his throat. "When do I get to experience your solo performance?"
