Not so shore- a mortals meet percabeth story

Chapter 12

A few weeks later mid semester exams were looming, and everyone was ridiculously stressed out. Kelly was so tired that she completely zoned out, for god knows how long, and only realised she'd been staring at Annabeth's necklace when Mark nudged her elbow.

"Wha-? Oh. Sorry," she muttered, looking down at her textbook.

Annabeth didn't seem to care, absorbed in her own study. She was frowning angrily, looking extremely frustrated, and if they hadn't been friends for so long there was no way Kelly would have even attempted to speak to her.

As it was, Kelly was so desperate for a distraction from study that risking Annabeth's wrath seemed an appropriate choice. "Hey, Annabeth."

"Mm?" Annabeth said without looking up.

"Where'd you get your necklace?"

That made her pause. Her fingers stilled on the colourful piece of coral she'd been twirling around the leather cord, and she flattened her palm over the beads. "It's from Camp," she said. "You get a bead every Summer."

"Ohhh, so that's why you and Percy have matching ones," Mark said.

Annabeth nodded.

"What's the other stuff on there?" Olivia asked, leaning forward to get a better look.

Annabeth dropped her hand but didn't lean forward at all to give her a better view. "My dad's class ring, and a piece of coral Percy gave me."

"A piece of coral?" Olivia and Kelly asked at the same time.

Annabeth clutched at the necklace protectively. "It's - it has special meaning, for us. Sort of hard to explain."

"Yeah, of course," Kelly said quickly, apologetically. "It's really cool."

Annabeth smiled fleetingly before returning her attention to her study.

Kelly sighed and slumped down in her seat, flipping through the pages and wondering how it was possible to be so bored and so stressed at the same time. Anything would be more interesting than revising, right now.

Olivia seemed to be feeling the same, because she was flipping mindlessly through her notes way too fast to actually be reading them. She stopped on a page that had been divided into columns, tilting it slightly so Kelly could see.

It was the list they'd started months ago, where Olivia had written all the weird stuff they'd noticed about Percy. Casting a furtive glance across the table, Kelly read over what they had.

When she got to the end, Olivia pulled the book back and started adding to the list. It went on, and on, and when she put her pen down Kelly got a strange feeling in her stomach, like they'd just cracked a problem that had seemed unsolvable.

Olivia seemed to feel the same, because after staring at Kelly with wide eyes she slammed the book shut and swept all of her notes and stationary into her bag.

Annabeth and Mark looked up as Kelly started packing up, too.

"Are you guys okay?" Mark asked. "Where are you going?"

"Oh, we totally forgot, I promised my mom we'd help her with... some stuff. Tonight," Olivia said lamely.

"Stuff?" Annabeth asked, eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Yeah," Kelly said, standing and tucking her chair in roughly. "So we'll see you guys tomorrow! Have fun studying, sorry, bye!"

The two of them practically ran out of the library, leaving a very confused Mark and Annabeth behind, and made their way to the little alcove behind the gym.

"Oh my god," Olivia said over and over as they dropped to the ground and she grabbed out the notebook. "Oh, my god. I can't believe it. It has to be impossible, but it all makes sense."

"No, this is impossible. It's ridiculous," Kelly said, but her mouth was dry and her hands felt shaky as she took the list from Olivia and read it over.

"He's freakishly good at swimming. He spends a suspicious amount of time staring into the fish tanks in bio. He always wears t-shirts with sea puns on them. He's getting one hundred percent in marine biology. He knows a lot about myths and his favourite god is the god of the sea. He eats a lot of blue food -" Kelly paused. "That one's weak, I don't know if that counts."

"It's weird, so it goes on the list," Olivia defended.

Kelly shrugged and kept reading, "He has sea green eyes -"

"Oh my god."

"- He shouldn't have been able to stop the water spilling out of the glass at games night, there's just no way that glass physically didn't spill. He drew sea creatures speaking a different language in the margins of his book. He keeps a conch shell on his bedside table. He gave Annabeth a piece of coral, which she said had special meaning, for them. And he is really, freakishly good at swimming."

"Annabeth calls him Seaweed Brain, have you noticed that?" Olivia asked.

Kelly nodded, chewing her thumbnail. This was crazy. "I swear I heard him ask Annabeth if she wanted him to dry her off once, and another time he called himself her anchor. Do you see a marine theme?"

"Kel -" Olivia's voice was quiet, almost reverential. "Do you really think...?"

"I don't know." Kelly re-read the list, looking for a fault. "It all adds up, though, it explains everything."

"Oh my god," Olivia said, growing more hysterical with every word. "Oh, my god. I can't believe it, I knew there was something weird about him, I told you, and now look! We have proof that he's a mermaid! Percy Jackson is a mermaid!"

Kelly shushed her. "First of all, this is impossible! Secondly, he would be a merman. And thirdly, this is impossible!"

"Why, why is it impossible?"

"Because - because merpeople don't exist!" Kelly searched frantically for a counter argument. "We met his mom! Mermen don't have human moms!"

"Maybe she's a mermaid, too!" Olivia exclaimed.

"And Annabeth, she's not -"

"She's from California, and look at her! She looks exactly like the type of girl to hang out on the beach and make a mysterious merman fall in love with her until he agreed to give up his tail and move to New York with her."

Kelly blinked. "But they said they met at summer camp, there's that photo of them there -"

"Summer camp. Summer. Prime season to meet a merman!"

"You're being absolutely serious, aren't you."

Olivia looked like she might faint. "No wonder I got a weird feeling about him, he's a freaking mythological aquatic creature!"

Kelly slumped back against the wall of the gym, blinking down at the list. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to think.

"Should we ask him?" she eventually said.

Olivia turned to her. "What? How do you even ask someone that?"

"I don't know," Kelly shrugged. "But. He's our friend. And if this is true - which it definitely is not, because it's impossible and insane and, and irrational - I don't think I'll be able to keep it a secret."

Olivia didn't respond for a long time. Eventually, though, she sighed and got to her feet. "Come on, then. Let's go find him."

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This is probably my favourite chapter so far. And I hope y'all like it to