653Charlie,
As always, Aiden wanted to fix everything, and he did all he could to make our sudden trip into Manhattan fun. But not even Aiden could make supervising movers after a morning from hell enjoyable, even if he did bring along my favorite pizza.
"So, we just watch them?" Emily-Rose whispered in my ear, motioning towards the movers who were shoving the last five years of Sam's life into boxes. Slowly but surely, their modern Manhattan loft emptied out, becoming hollow. Soccer balls were wrapped up. Paintings were put away carefully, and the contents of their overflowing closets were put on hangars and shoved into a truck.
"We have to follow them back, too," I shrugged, sipping at the last cup of coffee this apartment would see while it still belonged to Sam and Swift. I'd had to rush to get it done before the movers cleared out the rest of their kitchen, and they'd even tried to take the coffee maker away from me mid-brew.
"Awesome," Emily-Rose laughed softly, smirking as her boyfriend struggled to shove the last book into a box, "At least we got out of New Athens for a while. Dad's acting like we're relocating permanently, which means I won't be able to disappear into Brooklyn when the twins are driving me crazy. You wouldn't get it."
"I like New York, too," I protested.
"Yeah, but you'd be staying with Aiden, the guy you've had a crush on since you were thirteen," Emily-Rose smirked.
"And you'd be with August, your actual boyfriend."
Emily-Rose smirked, fully content in her relationship now that it was out in the open, and while I didn't want to admit it, I was jealous.
Before we continue our banter, Aiden interrupted to give us the big news. Just before the sun could fully set, the movers called it quits and started asking where they were supposed to drive the truck. In the interest of safety (and making this complicated for us), Sam set it up so that the movers would take everything to a rental house his dad owned outside of the city, and we would take it to New Athens from there. That way, they would get the truck out of the city for us and could create a false paper trail as to their whereabouts.
And Aiden was down for the logistics, "So, someone needs to drive out to the house to meet them there, and someone should ride behind them to make sure they're going the right way. If you guys want, someone can stay in the city," Aiden looked between me and Emily-Rose, probably thinking we needed girl time and a sleepover in New York.
"I should get back to check on my mom. I can drive on to the house," I held out a bottle of water for Aiden, who happily took it and leaned on the wall beside me.
"August and I can ride behind the truck," Emily-Rose suggested, nudging August to get him to agree, and he nodded.
"Okay then," Aiden shoved his phone in his pocket and fished out his keys, "You and I should get going," Aiden motioned towards me, "I'll go ahead and start the car."
As Aiden disappeared out of the front door to start the car, I started to collect my stuff and saw Emily-Rose dangling my demigod-approved smartphone in front of my face. "Now," Emily-Rose smirked, "If you don't do something with him tonight, I'll keep throwing you together until you do. It's my job as your best friend to interfere in your love life."
"We're friends," I grabbed my phone out of her hand.
As I waited for the elevator, I thought more about what Emily-Rose said. Yes, I had a crush on him, and I had since I was thirteen years old. But, considering how strong our friendship was and how dependent we were on each other, it had never been worth the risk. Even if it was now (which I wasn't saying it was), wasn't this the most inappropriate time possible? His sister's baby was being threatened, and my mom was in the hospital after an attack.
Once in the lobby, I took the stairs down to the parking garage two at a time, and I quickly walked to Aiden's car, jumping into the passenger's seat. Aiden cocked an eyebrow in a silent question, and I waved it off, unsure how to explain that I was thinking about my pathetic crush on him. Aiden took the hint and drove out of the parking garage in silence.
After a few blocks, I gave in and turned on the radio station, quickly turning it away from Aiden's preset list of alternative rock and jazz.
"I don't let many people change my radio station," Aiden smirked.
"I'm not many people," I reminded him.
"Fair point," Aiden smiled, pausing as we reached a red light, "How are you doing?"
I took a deep breath, considering the question, "Okay, I guess… Mom's up, and I've been talking to her while we're here. She's cleared to go home, but they're staying in New Athens…. She's worried about Sam and Swift."
Aiden nodded, "We all are."
I turned to him, "What about you? I mean, your world was rocked. too, and you're the one having to clean it all up and help us through it."
"I never want to be helpless. It was my job as praetor to help, and if I just sit there, I'll go crazy. So, anything I can do to help them is helping me," Aiden admitted, turning his eyes back to the road as the light shifted to green.
The rest of the ride, we took the opportunity to not talk about the hell going on around us. I will admit that it was hard to find a happy topic, but eventually, we did. And in the midst of Netflix shows, Emily-Rose's new relationship, and New York traffic, everything faded away. For a moment there, we were just two friends driving out of town.
Then again, with a drive this long, the moment would last a long time…
"We're only one block away," Aiden assured me as we rounded a corner, obviously noticing my impatience.
"You said that thirty minutes ago," I laughed.
"Well, I'm serious this time."
"And you said that forty minutes ago."
Aiden rolled his eyes, pointing to a street sign that matched the one we were supposed to be on, but I didn't admit defeat just yet. Aiden slowed the car as we reached a dirt road, moving closer to a house looming in the distance. It matched house plans Mom and Uncle Malcolm had worked on when they'd planned a large development outside of Manhattan.
"Told you," Aiden announced, stopping the car.
I grinned, happily jumping out of the car and stretching. "I can probably find a key out here. I'll be right back, okay?"
"I'll wait here," Aiden nodded, sitting on the hood of his car, and I walked around to the back, feeling for a key and finding one for a real estate agent hidden under the welcome mat.
I unlocked the back door and worked my way through the family-friendly, cookie-cutter layout. Luckily, water was running, and after using the bathroom, I washed my face and stared at myself in the mirror, still trying to process everything that was going on.
Knowing that I had time until Emily-Rose and August arrived, I took my time walking through the house and locking it back up. With my hands in my back pocket, I walked around the house and paused when I saw Aiden in the middle of the walkway. I was about to call out when I noticed his posture. He was tense, and his eyes were trained on something out of my eye.
I walked a bit closer, trying to find what he saw.
"WHERE IS THE BABE OF LEGEND?" an unknown voice boomed in the distance.
"I don't know who you are referring to," Aiden's voice was calm.
"THE SON OF THE SUN AND MIND. YOU KNOW WHERE HE IS, DEMIGOD."
"I think you have the wrong person," Aiden's hand moved towards his back pocket, where he typically kept his weapon.
Oh shit, I panicked, now knowing this was not a peaceful encounter. Still standing out of view, I reached for my own and started to move closer to the unknown entity, which was most likely a monster. I motioned for Aiden, hoping he could see me and call me over to back him up at the right time.
"Then I have no use of you," the monster bellowed, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine what would happen next.
Claws reached out where I could see them, stemming from large monster that had threatened Aiden. With one swift move, the claw ripped through Aiden's skin like a knife through butter, earning a blood curdling scream as Aiden fell to the ground. Aiden was silent when he landed on the ground, only making me worry further.
I covered my mouth, suppressing my scream, and watching in terror as Aiden's chest rose and fell slower and slower each time. His blood spilled crimson across the pavement, and my panic grew.
Oh my gods. Oh my gods. What do I do? What am I supposed to do?
Not even thinking, I scaled the wall, using the windows and decorative bricks as leverage. I scanned the ground, trying to gauge how many there were, and I nearly lost my footing as I caught sight of Aiden. I had to help him somehow… But… it wasn't there. The monster wasn't there. What the Hades?
"Where is the Son of the Sun and Mind?" the voice was behind me.
Carefully, I turned around and tried not to lose my footing.
"You killed my friend," I gasped for air, hating myself for saying it out loud.
"Do you know where the Babe of Legend is?" the monster asked again, and I knew that he tried to kill you after the second question, which meant that now was the time to do something.
"Yes," I lied, "It's right here." I shoved my sword to its stomach, but as it deflected, it merely grazed it's side. The monster's claw hooked on me, pulling away with my blood staining its claws, and I aimed again, landing in the middle of its ribcage. It disintegrated around my blade, disappearing as if it hadn't just terrorized us.
I fumbled as I crawled down the building, falling down the last foot, and I rushed to Aiden. He was so… weak and pale and injured and… so un-Aiden that I didn't know what to do. Choking on my sob, I pulled off his ripped shirt to get a look at the injuries, and I found myself screaming in anguish. They were bad, worse than I'd ever seen. The cuts marred his perfect body and sat in a line of three. I didn't know what to do with one. What the Hades was I supposed to do with three?
"Aiden, please, just- just stay with me okay," I grasped his hand, thinking about everything I'd ever learned in first aid at Camp Half-Blood. Considering our constant risk level, the first aid had been pretty comprehensive, but they always took injuries like this directly to their center.
Aiden's car. I can take him back with Aiden's car.
"We need to get you to camp," my voice was frantic, "You're going to be okay, I promise you'll be okay."
"Charlie…" Aiden's voice was gravely and hardly audible.
"No," I shook my head, "We're not doing this. You're not going to say your last words. You're going to go home and get better, and we're going to sit at your damn breakfast table and argue about how unhealthy my breakfast is, okay? I need you to keep driving me crazy. You can't give up on me. You just can't."
Aiden's eyes flickered open, managing to maintain eye contact, and I squeezed his hand tighter, crying more as I stared into his ocean blue eyes, "Don't give up. There's so much we didn't do. I never told you I loved you, and I should have. I put it off because I thought we had so much time, and…" I wiped my tears, "We're-We're going to get you to the camp.
Aiden's breaths were labored, but he pulled everything together to whisper something I didn't think I'd ever hear from his lips.
"I love you, Charlotte Jackson."
His eyes were closing. No! They couldn't close. I couldn't let them close. I gripped his hand tighter, pulling him to lean on my shoulder, but even like this, I wasn't strong enough to get him all the way to his car and then drive to the camp. We'd run out of time… Oh my gods.
Honk. Honkkkkkk.
I heard the moving van long before I saw it, and when it came bumbling down the dirt road, I waved frantically, desperate for help. When they could clearly see me (and injured Aiden), the car stopped suddenly, and Emily-Rose and August jumped out of the van, sprinting toward us with increasingly worried expressions.
"He's hurt. We need to get him in the car. Help me," I was shaking by now, making me even less of a stable support for Aiden, but August quickly took up the other side, helping me to Aiden's sports car and putting him in the backseat.
Emily-Rose got Aiden's keys out of his pocket and started up the car, roaring through backroads and empty highways to the camp. I watched Aiden's chest, terrified that it would stop moving and that he would give up. The entire ride there, I just kept whispering, don't let go, don't let go.
Aiden,
When I closed my eyes, I was enveloped in chaos. Someone was driving erratically, but I couldn't really tell who. There was noise and commotion, but most importantly, there was Charlie. My head was in her lap, and we were awkwardly positioned in the back of my car. But through my pain, I couldn't a move a thing. She was whispering something I couldn't deceiver at first, but once I did, the words stuck with me.
Don't let go. Don't let go, Aiden.
But when I woke, the chaos was gone. I was surrounded by stillness and blanketed in sterile white. We weren't in a car anymore, and it wasn't even sunset. How much time had passed was a mystery, but clearly, it was enough to change my entire outlook. I tried to sit up and was surprised by searing pain in my abdomen. I winced and tried to pull the thin blankets back to get a good look at my injury, but there was a hand on my arm.
"You can't touch your stitches, Aiden," Charlie's hoarse whisper surprised me, and when I looked up, I was taken aback by how terrible she looked. Charlie was always beautiful, but now tears and blood stained her. Her ever-present warmth evaporated into leftover terror, and she obviously hadn't slept despite the late hour.
"Charlie…" I wasn't sure what to say.
"The doctors said you'll be okay," Charlie seemed to be still trying to convince herself of this, "It'll take time for your wounds to fully heal, but nothing permanent. They said… if you'd been here even thirty minutes later, you'd… you'd have probably bled out."
I swallowed, realizing the gravity of what had happened, but I struggled to remember what it was. I remembered everything with Swift's baby and Annabeth Jackson's time in the hospital. I remembered driving to New York with Charlie, Emily-Rose, and August. I remembered driving ahead of the moving van and talking with Charlie…
The monster.
It was a creature I'd never seen before, which was saying something. It had been asking questions about some babe or son or something, and when I didn't have the answer, he'd aimed his claws and sliced away. I thought that Charlie was still in the house, but I couldn't call out to her. I'd been there in a pool of blood, unable to move or really talk, imagining what could happen to her. She wouldn't know the answers either, and perhaps his aim would be better with her. For all I knew, she was already bleeding out in some builder-basic house in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn't help her.
But then she'd come over. Through desperate sobs and frantic efforts to help me, she'd tried to talk me into staying awake, and as she begged me to stay, I worried that I couldn't. I worried that this wouldn't be a narrow escape and that I could no longer cheat death. I wouldn't be able to protect Charlie anymore. She'd be all alone…
"You know I'd never leave you, right?" I blurted out, suddenly panicked that Charlie didn't know the depth of my devotion to her. I'd moved to New Rome for awhile and briefly dated other people, yes, but I never stopped caring for Charlie. Even though I knew she was capable of it herself, I needed to keep her safe.
Charlie wiped away a spare tear, leaning closer over my hospital bed, and she slowly nodded, "But… I could tell you'd given up. You… You were resigned to it."
"Charlie," I shook my head, reaching for her hand, "I will never leave you behind, and I should have done better. I'm supposed to protect you, and I didn't even fight that monster. I didn't even warn you. You could have died, and it would have been my fault."
"No, I didn't protect you. I saw you and the monster, and I just thought you had a plan. And I was so shocked that I just stood there," Charlie's voice shook, "I killed it too late, and I didn't know what to do. You were bleeding so much, and I couldn't carry you… You nearly died because of me," Charlie trailed off, holding back another round of tears, and I quickly squeezed her hand.
"Don't say that, Charlie. I am so proud of you. You killed it and saved me," I placed my hand on her cheek, pushing her tears aside. I could never stand to see her cry…
Charlie nodded hesitantly, staring at me like I was some miracle, but I couldn't narrow my vision to that. The blood that stained her shirt was concentrated near her hip, and there was a gash in the shirt. In this dim light, I couldn't make it out, but it looked like she hadn't walked away as freely as she let on.
"What's that?" I pointed to the edge of her shirt, and she pulled away to look at her hip.
"It got me… Turns out that my aim isn't that great when I'm crying and shaking like a leaf," Charlie laughed weakly, pulling up her shirt to show a long bandage on her hip. Undoubtedly, it concealed an injury much more gruesome than she'd admit, "You have a scar saving me, and now, I have a scar saving you."
"This isn't a twinsies moment," I narrowed my eyes, frustrated with her handling of her wound.
"Have you been on Instagram again, Aiden?" Charlie offered up her perfect smile, and all was right in the world. I loved her smile…
"You were hurt. Why aren't you getting care?" I inquired.
"I did, but I wanted to be here when you woke up," Charlie leaned on the side of my hospital bed, "The nurse comes in and checks on both of us. This isn't about my little cut."
"It isn't little," I protested, wanting Charlie to take care of herself instead of sitting around for me. Though part of me needed her here, I also needed her getting evaluated and treated before it escalated into something serious.
"Aiden, even in a hospital bed, you drive me crazy."
Drive me crazy… The phrase was naturally familiar, especially from Charlie's lips, but there was something more. Everything she'd told me on my near-death bed blurred together, but that phrase stuck out. There was something I was supposed to remember.
"There's so much we didn't do. I never told you I loved you, and I should have. I put it off because I thought we had so much time, and…" the words slowly found themselves in my mind, and I replayed them again and again until I remembered. She told me that. She said it in the middle of that driveway, convinced I was one breath away from the underworld.
"You love me," I blurted out.
Charlie gasped, taking a step back, "What?"
"You said that you never told me you love me," my voice was now a whisper, "So… you love me, and I said it back.
Charlie watched me silently. Unlike me, she remembered it clearly, but that didn't mean she was prepared to discuss it. Maybe it was something she just said on a deathbed. Perhaps there was no grand meaning. It could have been a platonic love even. While I was bleeding out, she could have been shoving me in the friendzone, and I didn't even know it.
But I meant it.
I loved Charlie.
I had since I was fifteen, and I knew that I always would.
"Well, do you?" I pushed her uncharacteristically.
"Do I what?" Charlie evaded the question.
"Do you love me?" I needed an answer. I'd waited for years, and if she hadn't said it, I might have waited even longer. But after knowing that there was a real possibility, how could I let it go? How could ignore the possibility of happiness, even if it carried the risk of heartbreak?
"Of course, I do," Charlie looked down as if studying her shoes was more important, "I fell in love with you when I was thirteen, and I've never worked up the courage to say it… It's okay though. If you… don't."
I wanted to get out of this bed and leap for joy or at least hold her close, but instead, I just said, "I love you, too."
Charlie's eyes darted to me in surprise, and I nodded, repeating it, "I. Love. You."
"You do?" Charlie stared at me incredulously.
"I thought you knew," I was just as shocked.
For a moment, I didn't know what either of us would do. In the romantic comedies, she'd forced me to watch, there was a climax where everything felt right. There was a big kiss and a magnificent soundtrack to accompany it, but in real life, it was messier. We were two people paralyzed in shock.
But then, just before I could say anything else, Charlie collapsed into my arms, hugging me so tightly around the neck that I worried I wouldn't be able to breath. Her face was buried in my neck, tickling me with her laughing. "I love you so much," she laughed the warmth of her voice on my throat.
I cupped her cheek, savoring the moment. We were both hurt and tired and scared, and had I paid attention, neither of us smelled remotely good. But it was Charlie. Charlotte Jackson, the girl I'd always loved. And for the first time in the three years I'd known her, she was really mine. She loved me, and I loved her. My lips brushed along hers, noting that they were just as soft as I dreamed they'd be, and slowly, I kissed her. And once I had her this close, I couldn't let her go.
"You really love me?" Charlie smiled into my lips, lowering herself to sit on the edge of my bed.
"Always," I assured her, tangling my fingers in her long blonde curls.
That night, I didn't have to let Charlie go. Though we both knew better, Charlie climbed into the oversized hospital bed beside me, and avoiding my bandages, snuggled as closely as she could. I fell asleep to the rising and falling of her chest, and it was everything I'd ever hoped it be…
It's been a really long time. Two years in fact.
As you know, I have been committed to a new story, Fifty Shades of Secrets (which you can find on my profile). It is a big departure from my old stories, and it may seem like I have completely abandoned my roots as a PJO fanfic writer. And honestly, I haven't.
The last two years have been so busy. I've moved. I've had a very ill grandmother I had to care for. I am about to graduate. I've started some original projects, and I've been figuring everything out as I went along.
This story has a special place in my heart, and I've even worked on adapting You've Got Mail to its own original work outside of the PJO universe. I hope to spend some more time on that soon.
On Saturday, I had surgery and was out of commission for everything for a few days. I'd planned on working on a new chapter for FSS, and then I got a review for this story. It has bothered me for over a year that I abandoned this story and didn't do it justice. But when I sat down to write, I was blocked and couldn't get it out.
But if anything, I want to make sure Charlie and Aiden are together. Along with Kate and Noah, they are OTP, and I realized I hadn't been fair to them. Today, I sat down with the intention of writing out the rest of this story and posting it every week until I gave it a satisfying ending, and I really hope that I can work through the writer's block and do that. But just in case, this had to be out there. It isn't perfect, and I wish the writing was better. But given my chronic writer's block with this story, I think it turned out okay.
To Aiden and Charlie, you deserve this, and we love you just as much as you love each other.