22"Blonde" was just too broad of a description. Anyway, there were a lot of negative connotations associated with the word, and he had a feeling that none of them applied to her.
Like most things, it happened suddenly and without warning. Not that she wasn't used to it, of course. They'd won fairly easily-how could they not? A handful of Greek demigods and an entire camp of volatile Romans were a safe bet against most enemies.
No, her hair wasn't blonde. He didn't know how to describe it, but it wasn't blonde.
The brief battle had barely spanned seven minutes, and the only injury she had to show for it was a small scrape on her jawline. The monsters hadn't been an issue. No, it was almost funny, she thought. It was almost funny how an unexpected attack from a horde of mythological creatures was less upsetting than an anticipated encounter with a boy.
"Hey—" his own breath cut off whatever brilliantly stupid thing he was about to say. The girl had finally turned to face him, and it wasn't her hair that stole his voice.
Then again, Percy had always been a little bit more than that.
Something had flashed across her gray eyes, though he didn't have any idea what. It had come and gone so quickly, he probably imagined it. Still, there was something about her- something from a life that wasn't his. Something that, no matter how desperately he tried to hold on, kept slipping through his fingers.
"I… I think I've seen you before," he said.
"I've heard that one a few times."
The lighthearted remark felt foreign on her lips, the type of thing she would have said to another Percy, a Percy with bright green eyes that lit up every time he saw her. A Percy that didn't have to think twice about who she was, how she felt about him.
Annabeth knew it wasn't his fault. She had told herself time and time again that she didn't blame him for not knowing, not recognizing, not remembering.
Despite the cheeky response, her smirk only showing on the lower half of her face. Those gray eyes stayed the same—searching, wondering, hiding. His expression didn't change.
"You're Annabeth, right?" he asked, wondering how he already knew the answer.
The idea of a falling sky never scared her until she had been forced to hold it up. Everything felt heavy and dark and she wondered why the sun felt cold in the middle of August and the sky kept falling lower and lower until it threatened to swallow the earth and everything in it and there was Annabeth.
There was Annabeth, drowning in the middle of it all.
No longer the strong warrior she always pretended to be, but a broken seventeen-year-old girl who had felt too much and knew too little. Just for a moment.
"Yeah, I'm Annabeth."
"You're Percy Jackson?" The question sounded more like a statement—he nodded. Truth be told, he wasn't completely sure of that, but Annabeth seemed to be. She also seemed like the type of girl to be right more often than not, so he believed her.
"We've met before?"
Annabeth didn't know how to answer-of course she had met Percy Jackson. He knew her and understood her more than most people who bothered. This Percy didn't. Camp Half Blood held about as much significance in This Percy's mind as the smudge of dirt above his left eyebrow.
"Sort of," Annabeth muttered. She turned away from him and started walking. Not waiting for an invitation, Percy followed.
"What do you mean, 'sort of'?" he asked, falling into step with her. Annabeth shrugged.
It held about as much significance in This Percy's mind as she did.
"Not very much."
Someone in an orange T-Shirt called Annabeth's name. Before he could press for more clarification, she was jogging away in the direction of the faceless figure, leaving Percy in an uncomfortable mixture of emotion, confusion, and the foggy, half-forgotten memory of a gray-eyed shade who was so much more than just-a-girl.