Annabeth didn't believe in destiny. How could one's future be predetermined in any way? After all, wasn't it your thoughts and actions that dictated where you would end up in life? If you didn't have control over that, your life wasn't even worth living, was it?

No, she believed you had to work for what you received. And if two people met, they did so out of necessity.

Ever since she was young, Annabeth had loved words. What wasn't to love about them? They could be molded into any shape or form: concise, clean comments cut cleanly through conversation like brisk breezes. Soft, rounded, gentle whispers fall tenderly from pink, plump lips. Harsh statements, like rocks, leave bloodied bruises on the mind's tissue, buffeting harder than physical punches. Words were power, persuasion, and emotion rolled up into little packages of sentences. The glimmering fabric is stitched delicately into a quilt, a story, a life.

When Annabeth first met Percy, she was fresh out of middle school, ready to take on the world of a teenager and shine brighter than anyone ever could. But, as usual, things didn't go to plan.

The first day of freshman year, she was seated next to a boy like any other, at least that's what she thought when she saw him for the first time. He was incredibly scrawny and had a mop of black hair and bright green eyes. He never said a word to her, and never took his eyes off the teacher. Curiously, and somewhat unsettlingly, he tended to look directly at someone speaking, staring at them until his eyes seemed to pierce through their very bones. She vowed never to speak to him; she didn't want him to look at her like that.

Of course, this didn't last very long. Annabeth was too curious for her own good, and she cracked in the second week of school. "How come you never talk to anyone?" she asked him a few minutes before class one day.

Surprise filled his expression, and Annabeth felt her heart twinge a little. He seemed so shocked that someone had even taken the time to talk to him. He yanked a piece of paper out of the notebook lying on his desk and scribbled in nearly illegible handwriting: I'm deaf and mute.

Annabeth didn't know what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn't that. Gods, she felt terrible for asking. "I-I'm sorry," she stuttered out.

He shook his head, gesturing "It's okay."

"So, um" – she cleared her throat – "do you communicate through sign language, or…"

He nodded. On the piece of paper, he jotted down, I read lips too.

Annabeth felt her lips curving into a tentative smile. He was certainly an interesting character, no denying it.

Over the next few days, she made sure to stop and talk to Percy, if only for a few seconds. He had a kind face, and seemed sweet enough.

One thing Annabeth really hated about books and movies is that they implied that two characters in love had an inexorable pull towards each other. She vehemently disagreed. Friendship was an ordeal to begin with: it consisted of awkward silences and awkward eye contact and awkward hand touches and stumbling over words like a baby bird on its first time out of the nest. The only way the friendship could survive was if both people really pushed to make it work.

It took about eight weeks, but the awkward gaps in conversation filled in easily, as if their friendship was a tangible, flowing entity that filled in gaps on stiff concrete. Their relationship became pliable,and they fit well, moved easily.

It was nearing March now, and the only thing that remained firmly wedged between the two of them was Annabeth's love of words. Of course, she still loved Percy as a friend, regardless of his condition, but she was so used to speech that it seemed strange to receive none from a friend. Sometimes, the silence reminded of the coldness from her father and stepmother – when she was young and went to them in the dead of night, her heart beating a rapid drumbeat in the cavernous auditorium of her chest, her words tripping over each other on the way out of her mouth as she described with a trembling voice the creature in her dreams that haunted her nightly.

She was met with silence.

She'd put off learning sign language for the longest time because she didn't know if she could handle speaking without speaking, the heavy quiet that came with the communication.

Annabeth tossed and turned in her bed one night, contemplating. There were different types of silence, she decided.

There was the heavy kind, the one that brought with it a cold, heavy tension that hung in the air like shards of ice. If you moved, you could pierce yourself. You had to stay still, you couldn't budge, all you had to do was sit and stay and wallow in your problems pathetically, because, as her stepmother said when she wasn't silent, Annabeth was pathetic, wasn't she? Like a pet, sit stay look pretty smile a tight little curve of a smile when you're told to but above all shut your mouth.

There was the natural kind, and this was the kind that came when she and Percy sat in a dust-filled bookshop where the light seemed to be so much more golden than it was outside. You could see the dust particles dance in the sunlight that streamed through the windows. The smell of old paper and leather and wood permeated the air, and Annabeth knew she could breathe that scent all day. There was a word for it: vellichor – the strange wistfulness of used bookshops. The silence that came with it was equally beautiful, and she could drown in that nostalgic, quiet beauty all day.

Then there was the Percy kind of silent, where he was so exuberant and lively even though he couldn't say or hear a single word. His eyes and motions and written scribbles spoke volumes to her, and her heart burst out of her chest every time she thought of it. Not from love, though, just from platonic love. The amazing feeling when you love your friend so much and you feel at peace because friendship is sturdy, but love? Love was a risk Annabeth was unwilling to take just then. And love didn't always have to mean constant kisses and sex and physical contact. The emotional foundation was so much more important to her, and Percy gave that to her. She loved to see his eyes twinkle, reflecting the sky like stained glass, loved to see his shoulders shake in soundless laughter.

So she decided to go for it. It took months and months of frustration, tying her fingers in knots, and pulling her hair out, but Annabeth was eventually able to learn several phrases in sign language by Christmas of her sophomore year.

She'd never forget the expression on Percy's face when she met him outside his house on Christmas morning, signing Merry Christmas, dork with a grin splitting her face open. He gathered her up in a hug, his eyes watering, the emotion from his heart overflowing onto his cheeks.

Annabeth had a love for words, but with words came silence, and she decided that she loved silence just as much.

There is a bird. It's really late/early. Why am I awake.

Hey everyone! So… I've been MIA for what, 5 months? Yeah, sorry about that. Not to offer excuses, but the main reason I couldn't write is because I'm taking some classes that are really kicking my butt right now. I've barely had enough energy to get up at 6 in the morning, get through school, get home, do another 6-7 hours of homework, and then just fall asleep immediately. I was so frustrated I couldn't write anything for Halloween or Thanksgiving! So to make it up, I wrote this for Christmas.

Which is today.

I hope you liked it! All feedback is very much appreciated.