and the ship went down in sight of land

And I will die all alone
And when I arrive I won't know anyone

Well, Jesus Christ, I'm alone again
So what did you do those three days you were dead?
'cause this problem's gonna last more than the weekend.

Well, Jesus Christ, I'm not scared to die,
I'm a little bit scared of what comes after
Do I get the gold chariot?
Do I float through the ceiling?

The frustrated blonde tossed her body down onto the soft, blankets of her bed, her school bag falling next to her with a thud. She could hear her roommate laughing at her and she turned to glare at her, her blue eyes scathing. Her pretty roommate only shrugged, smirking.

"How was your first day in Ms. Chase's class? Latin and Greek History?" Her roommate's voice was mocking, her eyes sparkled with mirth stating obviously, I told you so.

"I hate you so much." She snarled into her pillow while her older roommate tipped her head back and let out a bell like laugh.

"I tried to warn you about Ms. Annabeth Chase and her freakishly, impossibly hard class." She stated smugly, "in fact everyone told you not to. But you didn't listen, no, you had to prove yourself." She rolled her eyes. "Even the nerdiest, smartest kids who take her class have a break down. It's like she expects us to be, like Athena, or something." Her roommate smacks her lips together.

The blonde groaned, "Please, no more Greek names…" The brunette across the room snorted before flipping her dark tresses over her shoulder and flipping the page to her magazine.

"Its no wonder the woman is single." She went on snottily. "I mean, God, how does she expect to have anyone like her, when she's, like, the devil." The blonde had to agree. Ms. Chase was pretty, she wasn't like, gorgeous or anything but she was all right, honey curls pulled into a tight bun and startling grey eyes lined with mascara. She was known for her professional, office-building style with lots of pencil skirts and blouses tucked in and stilettos.

But she had the personality of a board of wood. Like, seriously. She hardly smiled; her intense grey eyes were, like, made of steel or something. She was incredibly uptight and… well, it was well known on campus that Ms. Chase was the most hated and strictest teacher. Even fellow teachers left her alone; no one seemed really keen on getting to know the sullen and bitter woman.

"Do you think she's ever been laid?" The blonde spoke up a moment later, startling her roommate into a fit of laughter.

"I doubt it, Stacy." The brunette mocked. "I mean, I don't even think a drunk would want her. Besides, I doubt she's ever been in any kind of situation where a drunk guy wanted to get off." The two lapsed into laughter, Stacy's foul mood began to wear off.

"True enough…" Stacy paused, collecting herself. "I wonder if she's always been so… Ms. Chase-like." She wrinkled her nose. "What do you think, Courtney?" The brunette shrugged and flipped another page.

"Maybe. Probably." She then waved her hand. "I don't really care to know why the devil herself is the way she is. She's a sad, bitter woman who's never been loved and has never loved anyone. She's a heartless witch and she can die alone on the streets for all I care." Stacy was taken aback by the harsh words coming from her older roommate. It had certainly been unexpected, despite Stacy's previous knowledge about the rocky history between Courtney and Ms. Annabeth Chase.

"You're right…" She mumbled. "But I still wonder." Stacy muttered the last part to herself as she began to draw conclusions from air. Maybe she was raped, or an orphan or she was abused or… Or maybe Ms. Chase had always just been so bitter and despicable, just like campus gossip claimed.

Maybe some people were just born hateful, with scowls permanently painted onto their faces.

Somehow, in the back of her mind, Stacy doubted that was the case. Especially when dealing with a Ms. Annabeth Chase who taught Greek and Latin History.

Stacy felt like bursting into tears for the second time this week and the reason was the same. Ms. Chase's excruciating class. Already 15 kids had dropped the class, while a good 20 try-hards thought they could survive and kiss up to the blonde woman. Stacy, however, had no reason for staying her in class. Nothing more than an odd, driving curiosity to figure out her teacher. Somehow she had convinced herself that Ms. Chase really did have a reason for being so bitter.

And she was going to figure it out. Even if it killed her.

Stacy stole her courage after class and headed over to the blonde's desk where papers and books and pens and pencils and binders and all kinds of other mayhem were stacked neatly and perfectly. She watched nervously as Ms. Chase fixed a stack of papers that was crooked while rapping one of her green pens against her desk. That was one of the weird little things about Ms. Chase that the campus had noticed, and later came to call the devil's mark, was her green pens. She only ever used green pens and it had become her signature. She graded papers, wrote notes, assignments, comments, and lessons in her green ink that reminded Stacy of a kind of sea green.

"Yes Ms. Keller?" Ms. Chase's shark voice broke her from her thoughts causing Stacy to jump. "Are you going to stand there all day and stare like an imbecile or are you going to put some meaning into all the time you're wasting?" Stacy regretted coming at all.

"Sorry." Bitch.

It's a week later and Stacy has just given up. She gone completely numb and yet… against what everyone tells her, she continues to go to Ms. Chase's class. There are only 25 students left. And once again the blonde finds herself in front of a wooden desk and a scowling History teacher.

"Back again I see." Ms. Chase snarks offhandedly, and Stacy resists the urge to pull her hair out. Why she's putting herself through the torture of this god-forsaken class and then trying to find something that makes Ms. Chase not the bad guy for once. She's gone insane she's decided. Absolutely insane.

But this time she fights back, her body too tired to care what the stiff woman has to say. "I'm going to figure you out." Stacy snaps bluntly and Ms. Chase only gives her a cool look. Annabeth felt her heart leap into her throat as the familiar words reach her ears. She remembered hearing them come from an infuriating and stubborn 13-year-old boy with beautiful ocean eyes, when she was only 12. She prides herself on keeping her cool, her poker face still intact.

"Oh?" She drawled as she began to grade one of her few student's papers. Stacy bristled, watching in frustration, as her teacher remained unperplexed as if she had been told these words before and the challenger had failed. What Stacy didn't know was that someone had challenged her, but he had won, succeeding in knocking down every single one of her walls.

Stacy huffed. "Yeah. I don't know why you're such a bitch to everyone. But I'm going to find out." Ms. Chase turned to stare at her, her steely grey eyes set into a deathly glare and Stacy had to stop herself from sweating under such heat.

"You've overstayed your welcome." Her teacher's voice was one that reminded her of an animal, getting ready to attack with a killing blow. Stacy heeded the warning and ducked away from the scorching gaze, her courage evaporating immediately.

Annabeth watches as the young girl fled the classroom, her blonde hair falling out behind her life a flag. Annabeth smirked and turned back to the papers at hand. Or at least, she tried too, but Stacy's voice rang like an echoing bell off of the wall of her skull. Somewhere along the way her voice began to melt into another's, a young teenage boy's voice. Annabeth felt a chill run up her spine as she thought of those haunting ocean eyes.

It had been years since she had seen them in person, it seemed almost a life time ago in a life she hardly recognized as her own, where a young prideful blonde girl smiled happily in the arms of a tanned, heartthrob with a trouble-maker smirk. He taught her more than she taught him, she believed. She could only teach him things about school and history and logic, whereas he taught her about people and art and love and life. Things that she considered far more valuable than grades and math, despite what her mother so desperately believed. Annabeth winced, wondering if he was disappointed in her for turning out like her mother.

She turned away from the papers and began to ruffle through her personal file before pulling out a fading photograph. The picture had captured a better time, a beautiful chapter in her life. The ocean crashed at their bare feet, sand in between their toes, and two bigger-than-life smiles adorned their faces, their eyes glowing in very obvious love.

She sighed and put the photo away, trading it for an old iPod, something he had left for her when she needed his arms and love when he wasn't around.

Letting music that Annabeth had grown to love flood her ears, calming her nerves, she went back to grading papers. Ms. Keller's threatening words could wait; she had a job to do.

The next time Stacy stumbled into Ms. Chase's torture chamber, ahem, classroom, she was surprisingly ready. Stacy then spent the entire class staring at her teacher, absorbing the words and different tones of her voice, her hand gestures, the way her eyes sparkled in some places and dimmed in others, she watched all of Ms. Chase's mannerisms in a desperate hope to catch something, she didn't know what she was looking for, but she was looking for something. Stacy wasn't stressed when she listened to Annabeth talk, in fact she found she understood what the professor was saying and she could actually appreciate the words and passion behind them.

After class Stacy popped in a new piece of gum and sat down at a desk in the front of the lecture room right by Ms. Chase's own. Annabeth just rolled her eyes, trying to squash the nervous excitement that had crawled into her stomach.

"Why are you the way you are?" She asked after a few minutes of silence. Annabeth didn't give any indication she had heard, only continuing to brutally rip apart someone's research paper. It's another few minutes later that Ms. Chase speaks up after letting the question marinate in her brain.

"There are a lot of reasons for a lot of different things about me." She answered offhandedly. "I could tell you my father was blonde but my mother has grey eyes, hence why I have the traits that I do. Or I could tell you I got this prestigious job at one of the top colleges in the US because I studied and powered my way through school and life." Ms. Chase listed. "So please, enlighten me as to why and what you mean by, who am I?"

Stacy bit her lip. "Why… why are you so bitter?"

Instead of being offended, Ms. Chase laughed airily. "When you've lived a life like mine, it's impossible to not become bitter."

"What's so bad about your life?" Stacy pressed.

Ms. Chase shrugged. "Nothing, really. I have a high paying job, doing something I love, I live in a beautiful neighborhood by the beach, and I have friends and family who care." Annabeth seemed to be mocking someone or something. "What's not to like?"

Stacy stopped herself from groaning. This woman was famous for her riddles and infuriating answers, but Stacy was determined. She was going to break through and figure out why.

Stacy shrugged, deciding to play the game Ms. Chase had set up in front of her. "I dunno, but if your life is all that great, then I don't see a reason for you to be so… hateful."

Annabeth pursed her lips. "I am not hateful. I don't hate anyone but death." Stacy filed that information away for later. "Why do you want a reason for my… disposition?" the professor inquired.

Stacy shrugged again. "No one is born with a thorn in their side." She licked her lips. "I want to know why you act the way you do."

Annabeth suppressed a smile and fixed the student in front of her with a blank look. "And how do you know I wasn't born with a thorn in my side?"

Stacy chuckled, "Maybe you were. Everyone here seems to think so." Annabeth snorted. "But I don't. There's more to you, Annabeth Chase, and I want to know." Annabeth had to stop herself from shuddering; Stacy's words were far too close to the words spoken to her all those years ago. There was a long silence as Annabeth went back to her work and Stacy sat, suddenly feeling awkward. As she got up to leave Annabeth's calm voice stopped her,

"If you want to hear my story, come back everyday after class." She turned to see her history teacher actually smiling, or at least the tips of her lips were curved slightly, "It's about time I told someone anyway."

Stacy was… well, for lack of a better word, blown away, when Annabeth (she insisted on Stacy calling her by her first name, claiming it was only fitting if she was to know her story) started their sessions by pulling out a picture of a 21-year-old guy. The picture was starting to fade, but it did nothing to mar or hide the man's beauty, Stacy was almost convinced she had ripped it from a magazine.

Annabeth had asked her for what she thought of the man in the picture and Stacy couldn't stop the words from bubbling from her lips, "He's a god." She breathed. "Like, one of the sexiest looking guys I've ever seen." She glanced at her teacher whose eyes sparkled in amusement. It was true too, with ebony locks that fell into his face and ocean eyes, framed by eyelashes any girl would kill for. His skin was flawlessly tan, his jaw was seemingly sculpted by a famous sculpture, a couple of tattoos littered his skin and across bulging, hard muscles. He was a real life Adonis.

"Who is he?"

"Percy Jackson." Annabeth answered simply. She hesitated before continuing, "He's the love of my life." If Stacy was surprised before, she was floored now. Annabeth was pretty, but she would've never guessed the two of them together, he seemed like he would never notice her while she would spend all her time in books too busy to notice him.

Annabeth passed her a humorous smile. "You'd never guess, huh?" Stacy could only nod, going back to stare at the godly man. "Neither did I, I'm sure he never saw himself settling down either." Annabeth's voice seemed to catch and Stacy's eyes looked over her critically.

"He never settled down, did he?" Annabeth took a shaky breath,

"Not in the way you think." She started. "He loved me, he truly did, I knew that, everyone knew, despite his looks he was quite the affectionate guy. We were engaged in my senior year of college, I was 23 and he was 24, we were supposed to be married in the summer on the beach with only our closest friends…" Annabeth shook her eyes, her eyes getting misty. "We had to postpone the wedding when my mother flew in and took me away to Greece to study. We didn't have much of a choice, she hated Percy, and the trip to Greece was too good to pass up. I attempted to, but Percy encouraged me to follow her back, visiting Greece had been a life-long dream for me. Percy knew that, he also knew I might never get the chance to go again. I knew he would be faithful to me like I would be to him.

Percy and I didn't have much money. We were barely getting by in a crappy apartment in New York, trying to pay off my student loans, with a newborn puppy. Percy was an artist, by every definition of the word. He lived in his head, only allowing others in through his art. He drew, he painted, and he wrote, but music and photography was his favorites. He had such a fondness for those two; often going off to record stores to find treasures or vintage shops to find things someone had thrown away. He loved to play guitar and piano and to sing, he had a beautiful voice. He wrote poetry and lyrics for me all the time.

He worked at a small time studio him and his best friends had built, where they recorded and produced young up and coming artists. Percy used to always record me songs, he'd send some to me in Greece, along with long poetic letters with far too many spelling errors. He'd send pictures, sketches, a book or two, CDs, movies, a recipe, and anything else he saw and thought of me." Annabeth smiled warmly at the memory.

"As far as boyfriends go, Percy was heaven-sent. He kept me sane and in check with reality. He reminded me to slow down sometimes and smell the roses. He taught me to paint and play piano and guitar, he taught me how to treasure the little things in life.

"In that shitty apartment, with his art and my books littering everywhere. With a crazy German Shepard puppy named Mrs. O'Leary and a nervous black cat we called Blackjack, with all his music and all my blueprints… I had never been happier in my life. My mother never understood, she wanted me to marry a lawyer or a doctor and live in a big house. I wanted Percy and our shitty apartment and our simple life." Stacy was shocked to see a small tear run down Annabeth's cheek.

"But all good things must come to an end." Annabeth sighed. "My mother… She… I don't hate is a strong enough word for how she felt against Percy. She threatened everything I loved; she forced me to stay in Greece until Percy proved himself. She sent him on a journey to nowhere, to prove himself to her. Percy knew how important my mother's approval was… So he did what she asked. My mother always mocked him, saying he was an idiot, a fool in love. She never believed in love, and if she did, she claimed it was useless and pathetic and that Percy was scum for being so foolish.

"He loved the ocean, he always had a way with it. But so had his father, who was lost at sea only months before Percy was born. And like father, like son Percy went out only to never return." Annabeth had many tears streaming down her face by now. "They never found his ship or his body. He just disappeared, much like his father years ago." Annabeth hiccupped and Stacy wrapped one of her hands in her own. "My mother was never sympathetic, she was smug actually, over the fact that she had sent the man I loved to his death. And then she tried to set me up with doctor after doctor, lawyer after lawyer, but I turned them all away, eventually choosing to run and never look back. Percy never came home and I never moved on, 30 years later." She shook her head.

"I never will."

I had no idea how I wanted to finish this one-shot. But I think I did all right for a story that wasn't supposed to happen. Whatever.

xo

Emma