Bubbleleech, Bubbleleech21

she/her

Strings

Two unlikely people get linked by a string.

Sadie Kane x Annabeth Chase

No content warnings apply

Annabeth glanced at her watch. 11.59pm. One more minute till the New Year. She felt a rush of excitement. Piper grinned at her. "Excited to get your string?" she asked teasingly. Annabeth rolled her eyes and stared into the bright flames of the campfire. "Shut up, Pipes, I'm just hoping for, well, a miracle. After, you know, Percy..." Piper instantly looked guilty. "Oh Annabeth, I forgot! Gods I'm so stupid." She looked like she wanted to hit herself. Annabeth laughed slightly. "It's fine. It's just, you know, last year we were busy fighting off an evil goddess who wanted to take over the world and destroy everything, so this year's definitely been an improvement." Piper smacked her arm lightly. "Geez, Annie, don't say it like that!" Her expression softened. "But seriously, are you sure you're okay? You're not ending up soulmateless; I already spoke to my mother!" Annabeth gave her a look. "Don't call me Annie. It's been half a year since we broke up, I'm fine! It was mutual, remember?"

Just then, they heard the campers counting down. "5! 4! 3! 2! 1!" Instantly, everyone's eyes were on their wrists. Annabeth saw Piper's band turn pastel green, with a strand weaving through the crowd of demigods, travelling up and beyond Half-Blood Hill. It was joined by a few other colours, but the majority stayed within Camp. Annabeth raised her eyebrows in surprise. "A mortal, huh? All the demigods are already at camp; that wouldn't happen to be linked to your girlfriend, would it?" Piper went red as a tomato. She glanced down at Annabeth's wrist, and a smirk started to form on her face. "Clearly I'm not the only one with a mortal soulmate."

Annabeth looked down in surprise. Her band had turned honey bee yellow, the strand emanating from it going along a similar path to Piper's, except turning left at the top of the hill and heading gods knows where. She spluttered slightly and Piper burst out laughing. "Well- well maybe they're Roman! O- or Egyptian!" Piper looked at her as if to say seriously? "Egyptian? Annabeth, I don't even know if that's possible." Annabeth shrugged. "I wouldn't put it past Aphrodite to do something like that. She is the goddess of love after all!" Piper hesitated. "I suppose so. But if she puts you with someone whose goal is to break your heart, I will personally march to Olympus and curse her! You don't deserve someone like that, especially not after a breakup." Annabeth frowned. "I said I'm fine, Piper. But, speaking of Percy, who did he get?" Her grey eyes scanned the crowd, looking for her ex.

"There!" Piper pointed to Percy, who had an electric blue band around his wrist, the strand linked to the one on the person he was hugging. Annabeth's heart ached slightly as Jason and Percy leaned in to kiss each other, and she quickly turned away. She felt a hand on her arm. "Hey, I know that breakup was mutual, but so was mine and Jason's. It still hurts, but it happened almost a year ago!" Piper looked at her understandingly. Annabeth nodded and tried not to look too down.

"I'm tired, I think I'll go to bed. I'll probably start searching for my soulmate tomorrow... Goodnight." She let out a yawn and started heading for the Athena Cabin. Piper nodded again. "Night, Annabeth."

*Time Skip to next day*

At Brooklyn House

Sadie rubbed her eyes and opened them before yelping in surprise, smacking her pillow into the face of Carter, who was staring at her. "Ow! What was that for?" "Why are you staring at me while I'm asleep?" she yelled. Carter pointed nervously to her hand. "You uh, you've got some string on your hand." Sadie glanced down, puzzled. There was a yellow band on her left wrist, with a strand of string emanating from it and leading out the window. She yelped and tried to pull the band off, but it didn't budge. "It goes far, like really far. Take a look." Carter gestured to the window. Sadie cautiously headed over, trying not to touch the string, her mouth agape in shock. The string led off into the distance, winding around a building and vanishing. "I tried to follow it through the Duat, but it doesn't appear there for some reason. But I do remember Percy saying something about this," Carter mused.

Sadie's head snapped towards him. "What did he say? Is it some Greek thing?" Carter looked a bit embarrassed but replied, saying, "Do you remember when we first met him and Annabeth? They had these weird white bands around their wrists. When we had lunch that time after defeating Setne, I asked Annabeth about it. She said that it was something 'given to them by the love goddess'. They said that everyone from their pantheon got those on the day they were born, and when they turned 18, they would get a colour and a string leading to their soulmate. But if the band remained white, that meant that they didn't get a soulmate, so they could ask for one or choose to remain single. I also saw Percy a few weeks back, and he said that the age thing had changed since so few of them made it to 18 and above, so they and their friends who were 14 and above would be getting theirs at the end of the year, which was yesterday."

Sadie nodded slowly and started pacing. "But then why do I have one? Unless Mom or Dad or one of our relatives was Greek, which they clearly aren't, this shouldn't be possible!" Carter was quiet for a bit before saying, "Well, I'd hate to confirm the possibility, sis, but maybe—" "No." "—you have a soulmate and they're a Greek demigod. That's the only thing that makes sense." Sadie stopped pacing and threw her hands in the air exasperatedly. "Really? Cause that makes no sense to me! This entire 'soulmate' thing, it doesn't exist in our world! Next thing I know, you'll be saying I've been blessed by a Greek goddess!"

Carter looked like he was going to agree, but Sadie glared at him, effectively shutting him up. "I'm meeting Annabeth for tea today at our usual place, hopefully she'll know what's going on. In the meantime, I'll go to the library and do some reading. I'm also having lunch with Liz and Emma later. Don't wait for me." With that, she turned and stalked out of the room, heart pounding as she thought of Annabeth, secretly wondering if they could be soulmates.

*Time Skip*

Ding! The bell rang as someone entered the coffee shop. The coffee shop was a place Annabeth had chosen, since it also doubled as a bookstore. She went there as frequently as she could. It was conveniently located between Camp and the Empire State Building, so she could easily get to both in the event of an emergency. Its interior was large but cosy and had shelves upon shelves of books that Annabeth loved to browse through. Annabeth looked up, thinking that it might be Sadie. Gods, that girl was amazing. And good-looking, her mind thought.

Sadie had supported Annabeth through her breakup with Percy, listening to her rant incessantly about campers that got on her nerves. It felt like they had been friends since forever. Annabeth also expressed sympathy for Sadie, letting her talk through whatever troubles she might have. On a good day when there wasn't the occasional monster around, they could go on and on for hours on end. They also made sure to meet up at least once every two weeks, and those days felt like heaven. Annabeth would have never admitted it to Piper, or to anyone for that matter, but she had been slowly falling head-over-heels for Sadie Kane. Her personality was similar to Percy's, which only made Annabeth like her even more.

Maybe my string could somehow be attached to her, Annabeth thought before she shook it away. She did say it could be someone from another pantheon, but she was joking! Besides, Sadie clearly hadn't been born with a band on her wrist.

"Hey Annie! Annabeth! Helllooo?" Someone was snapping their fingers in front of her face. Annabeth blinked and realised she'd zoned out. Sadie stood there looking a bit miffed. "Oh, hey Sadie!" Gods of Olympus, she's hot, Annabeth thought. Sadie smirked. "Wow, nice way to start off a conversation. So you think I'm hot?"

Annabeth turned beet red. Shit, did I say that out loud? Sadie laughed, a bright, merry laugh that always lit up Annabeth's day. "Yes, you did. Glad to see I'm good-looking, even though this is the exact same outfit I wore last week," she said sarcastically. Annabeth chuckled as Sadie slipped into the seat opposite her. She had purple streaks in her hair that day. They exchanged pleasantries and started to talk about their day.

Sadie could hear her heart thumping in her chest, and she vaguely wondered if Annabeth could hear it too as she chatted on about her lunch with Liz and Emma, omitting the part where she'd woken up and found the string. Little did she know that Annabeth's heart was racing at a mile a minute as she went on and on about the new cabins that she'd designed and more stuff she was considering adding to Olympus.

"So, you got your soulmate string thing yesterday, right?" Sadie asked. Annabeth laughed. "I'm surprised you remembered," "Only because of my dear brother, and something did come up this morning." Sadie's tone had switched and she sounded rather nervous. "Go on," Annabeth replied, hardly daring to hope that Sadie had a string. Sadie cautiously lifted her left hand and Annabeth gasped. Honeybee yellow band with a string that led downwards. Linking to mine, Annabeth knew.

Almost as if in a trance, Annabeth lifted her own hand, revealing the same band, and the string, which had shortened till it was the one thing connecting them together. "You-you're..." Sadie trailed off. "Your soulmate." "But-but how? Carter said this was a Greek thing!" "It is." Annabeth's tone hardened and she stood. "Which is why I'm going to find out how." Sadie stood up too. "How? The library doesn't have answers, I read as much as I could, but there's no record of such a thing ever happening." Annabeth rolled her eyes. "We're not going to the library, silly. Come on." She grabbed Sadie's wrist and dragged her out of the coffee shop in the direction of the Empire State Building, ignoring her protests.

Finally, they reached the Empire State Building, surprisingly without any monster mishaps. Annabeth went up to the doorman. "600th Floor, please," she said, handing him a drachma. He nodded, passing Annabeth a keycard and letting them through. Annabeth inserted it, pressed a button that had appeared, and the elevator started to move. "He's a demigod?" Sadie asked, curious. "Nope, clear-sighted mortal." She nodded but cringed when the music started playing. "Ugh, what is that?" Annabeth looked amused. "Courtesy of Apollo, aka the god of music, healing, the sun, archery and a bunch of other things I can't be bothered to name." Sadie grimaced slightly. "At least now I know why you complain," she said, turning to face Annabeth. Blue eyes met grey ones, and Sadie felt something stir within her chest. It felt like butterflies swirling around in a mix of emotions. Annabeth also felt something, yet it was more conflicted. She knew that she liked Sadie, and yet there was still a small part of her that liked Percy, that still wanted him to be her boyfriend, even though he had Jason.

The elevator doors opened, and Sadie's jaw dropped. Annabeth smiled and led her out of the lift. Sadie stared at Olympus in awe, her eyes hardly able to comprehend what she was seeing. A path in front of them led to a towering room that stood a little ways in front, its large marble doors intricately designed with swirling patterns. The path then branched off to the sides, with all sorts of what Sadie assumed were temples leading off to the sides, each looking like they'd been designed to suit each god perfectly. There was a silver one down a path on the left, not far off from the huge room, which Sadie guessed had to be the throne room. The temple shone like the moon, decorated with bows and stars with two distinct styles—Greek and Roman. There were golden deer at the base of the building. On the right was the exact opposite—a golden temple that was so bright that Sadie had to shield her eyes, also with bows but with a large sun disc at the top, also with distinct Greek and Roman styles. Laurels grew around the edges, a symbol of victory. More temples were scattered down the paths that Sadie could not make out. Most startling of all, they were literally on the clouds above everything else.

She turned to Annabeth, still in a state of shock, exclaiming, "You designed this? It's amazing!" Annabeth laughed. "Yes, now come on. I can show you around another time, but now we've gotta find Aphrodite." Sadie raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "You're allowed to just walk around up here?" Annabeth shrugged. "Perks of being one of the Seven, and I did help save Olympus twice." Without waiting for a response, she set off on the path towards the left. Sadie huffed. Wish my gods were that nice, she thought.

As they walked, Annabeth started explaining the layout. "I split it such that the gods had temples on the right while the goddesses had theirs on the left to try and avoid conflicts, considering how often the gods argue." She started pointing out temples. "That one is Lady Artemis's, or Lady Diana's, temple. See the two styles? It's arranged such that they both look good and don't clash, similarly to how we've made peace with the Romans."

They passed by a light grey temple, which was coincidentally the same colour as Annabeth's eyes, decorated with books and swords, as well as owls roosting in some trees. Annabeth's eyes sparkled as she pointed to the temple, saying, "This one is Athena's/Minerva's. She wanted to help me design it, but in the end she said it was worthy of her after she saw my plans." Sadie was too awestruck to say anything. She knew that Annabeth designed it, sure, but she'd only told Sadie about designs such as what to put for a water fountain.

Annabeth pointed up ahead. "That's Aphrodite's one," she said, picking up the pace. Sadie quickly followed her towards another temple, feeling as though she was more aware of the string that bound them together. It glowed brighter as they approached the goddess's temple, the colour becoming more pronounced. They hurried up the steps of a light pink temple, doves fluttering around it. Annabeth knocked on the door.

"Come in!" They heard a melodic voice call. Annabeth slowly pushed open the door. Sadie was instantly stunned by what she saw. The interior had various shades of colour, Greek and Roman designs on the walls, depicting scenes of love and war. Various coloured strings danced and glowed in the hands of whom Sadie assumed was Aphrodite. The goddess in question looked up at them with a smile on her face, the strings vanishing as she took them in. Her features were changing but eventually settled. To Sadie, her hair was blonde and wavy like Annabeth's, and her eyes had settled on the exact shade of Annabeth's eyes. She looked breathtaking. Next to Sadie, Annabeth scowled slightly as Aphrodite's appearance changed, sometimes flickering between looking like Sadie and a female version of Percy, although it mostly stayed on the goddess looking like Sadie.

"Close the door behind you, won't you dear?" she said, directing this at Sadie. Sadie knew it wasn't a question and hurriedly shut the door. "Lady Aphrodite," Annabeth began, quickly bowing to the goddess. "I came here with my soulmate. I was wondering-" "why I would give you someone who isn't Greek, or isn't a boy? Or isn't someone you think is your soulmate? Or perhaps you're thinking I wanted to give you another nice, exciting story?" Aphrodite finished. Annabeth was at a loss for words, and simply nodded.

Aphrodite threw back her head and laughed. "Why, my dear! You can't possibly think I would want to ruin your relationship with Isis's former host here, now do you?" Sadie gave a start. "How did you-" "Please, dearie, I met Isis a long time ago. Trust me, I know what she's like."

Turning back to Annabeth, she continued, "Anyways, considering what I said to you when we met some time back, I did say you'd have an interesting story with that Jackson boy, no?" Annabeth clenched her fists. "Your idea of interesting is clearly breaking us up and letting him get together with Jason." Sadie worried that she would get smited for speaking so rudely, yet Aphrodite simply laughed again. "I do things for a reason, dear. Obviously I saw the chemistry between you and your lovely girlfriend here, so why not do what's better for you?" She winked at Annabeth. "And clearly you're both aware of your feelings, although you should really talk it out, and let my ship sail! But Annabeth dear, try not to be so conflicted. Look in your heart and ask yourself what you want."

Annabeth spluttered slightly, her face turning red. Sadie could feel herself blushing as well, yet she wondered if there was any chance that Annabeth still liked Percy, though she quickly pushed it away. "I- thank you, Lady Aphrodite," Annabeth stammered out. The goddess waved her hand in a shooing motion. "You're welcome, dear, and don't hesitate to drop by again! Don't worry, your story won't be too rough, I'll make sure of that," she said, her expression softening slightly. Annabeth nodded. She and Sadie quickly bowed to the goddess. Aphrodite smiled, and there was a sudden poof! of pink smoke as they were teleported to the coffee shop, sitting at the same table as if nothing had happened.

"So..." began Annabeth. They sat there awkwardly for a bit, before Sadie thought, Screw it, I might as well just tell her. "I like you," she blurted out. Wow, how smooth, she thought, wanting to bang her head into the table. Annabeth's face turned bright red. "I like you too," she replied. And it was true. Looking into her heart, like what Aphrodite had said, Annabeth only saw a future with Sadie, without Percy in her life. Well, now's as good a time as any, Sadie thought. "Annabeth Chase, will you do me the honour of being my girlfriend?" "Yes! Yes, a million times yes." Annabeth said, jumping up and embracing Sadie before she could react. Annabeth laughed, a happy, carefree laugh, knowing that everything would turn out fine. Even if they did live far, they would make it work. She knew that. Sadie knew that. They would be alright.