Yeah...I really have no idea where this idea came from. AU.

Main Characters: Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, Nico, Luke, Piper, Jason, Leo, Reyna, Mr. and Mrs. Chase (prologue only)

Pairing(s): Um...vote. I'll take the first few suggestions and add an unofficial poll. It's starting out as canon, but I've always been okay with break-ups.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Rick Riordon. I'm just having a little fun. : D Enjoy!

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Prologue: Blur the Line of Now and Then

On the corner of Foster and Coney Island, a man struggles to light his cigarette, hating the small matchstick in his hand. It's late, some time around eleven at least, but this is Brooklyn and he's not the only one standing out on the cold. A little ways down Foster, a boy and girl stand close to each other, bracing the cold together. They remind the man of his first girlfriend, how they sneaked out of their houses in the middle of the night to meet up at the beach and sit on the wooden table. He smiles when the girl laughs, the sound small from so far down the street. Then cold December wind shakes her blonde curls and realization makes nostalgia sink in deeply.

His daughter had light blonde hair like the girl's and wide, wide grey eyes. He wonders briefly where she is now, if she's happy and well and safe. If she ever fell in love the way he did at seventeen, the way the couple down street are. If she still smiles with dimples on each cheek and if her nose scrunches when she gets angry. He loved his little girl, still does even after these years, and the two cuddling is painful to watch. Some nights he still dreams of her pale face fading into the darkness of the trees and when he wakes up, he thinks that if she'd just waited one more day - a few more hours - maybe this would've different. If she'd stayed, maybe it would've her picking him up for this board meeting, his Lucy in the seat supervising her first day with a permit.

Today is her sixteenth birthday.

From down the street, he hears the girl cry, "Percy!" before she breaks down laughing, holding the dark haired boy tightly around the middle. He can't see either of their faces very well, but her coat is the same color of his lost daughter's eyes. She says, "You're missing the point. It needs to be on time."

"Aw, c'mon," he says, "it's like fourteen minutes. All of you got me like six hours late."

"Percy, that's because it was six in the morning on a Saturday." Though he can't see his face, he imagines the boy smiles. "Noon was the first time all of us were coherent."

"And the year before that -"

Again, the girl laughs. "True, maybe ten at night was overkill."

He waits for five minutes, trying not to eavesdrop but failing terribly, and wonders for a moment if he should walk by, try to take a look at the girl's face. But he shoots that idea down because this is her birthday and the anniversary of her disappearance and the chances of her being his baby girl are slim. Today just makes him sad, that's all.

"The bus is late," the boy says. "Why's the bus always late?"

"Because this is Brooklyn at night," the girl answers, rocking back and forth on her feet. Neither notice him. "I promised Grover we'd be there on time."

The boy shrugs. "He was late to Luke's last year. And Leo almost completely missed mine."

"Yeah, but he's Leo. And I'm me."

"Oh, yes," says the boy with an edge of mocking, "Miss Punctual."

"Hey!"

The man finishes his cigarette and drops it to the ground, putting it out with his shoe. His Lucy is coming to pick him up, drive him back to Upper State, his boys most likely in the backseat. They'll be fighting, of course, because that's what all boys do, and his daughter was a fighter too because she had too much of his ex-girlfriend in her. Maybe that's where she is now, with her mother and new friends and possibly a boyfriend too, celebrating her sixteenth birthday in a way he never could've. If she still lived at home where she belonged, she'd go to high school in Hamminock Regional and take architecture classes. His memories of her now are faint after nine years and a head injury, her appearance solidified through photographs and his mental images blurry but real. But the books - he remembers those clearly. Seven-years-old and already reading Sullivan and Burnham and Wright. His little genius, he used to call her.

"Ten minutes," says the girl. "The bus better hurry up."

"Who's impatient now, wise girl?"

"Shut up, seaweed brain."

Then he whispers something to her and their voices lower to unintelligible murmurs. For nine minutes he stands there against the street lamp, listening and watching and trying to look as if he's doing neither before the little red car goes comes around the corner, stopping in front him. His boys are in the back arguing over who gets shotgun tomorrow morning on the way to basketball practice.

"Hello, Fred, dear," says his wife, giving him a kiss as he gets in. On the clock, the time changes from 11:17 to 11:18, and he pulls the car door shut tight behind him. Then she sees the couple down the street and says, "Oh, dear God! Is that -?"

As he shakes his head, his sons in the back fall silent, confused. "No," he says gently, "but she really does look an awful lot like her."

"But her -"

"Let's go, Lucky. I've had a hard day."

And he misses it when the boy breaks out into an off-key rendition of Happy Birthday to You and the whispered "Annabeth" that follows the song.

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Lucy Chase never loved her stepdaughter, but she loves her husband and can't get the image of the dark haired boy with the bright green eyes and his arms wrapped around the small waist of his girlfriend out of her mind. Now she sits across from a teary-eyed woman who clutches a few tissues tightly in her hands, too distracted to fell sympathy. She speaks with a slight Italian accent and looks younger than she stated. And her story hits a little too close to home.

She says, "Let me go over this again: you think you saw your dead son?"

"I know it sounds mad," answers the woman, sniffling and dabbing her eyes, "but it's true. I was in Central Park this morning for a walk -" She chokes and lets out a soft sob before continuing, "and I saw him with a group of other people - a few years older, yes, but he hasn't changed."

When she became a detective twenty years ago, she hadn't anticipated the sort of cases she'd get assigned would be prominently runaway related. It's because I'm a woman, she tells herself every time, and besides, those cop shows are glamorized anyway. Regardless, she finds her thoughts straying back to his husband's daughter and the young couple on the street and decides not for the first time that she needs a new job. "What's his name and how old would be be now?" she asks.

"Nico di Angelo," the woman says, and she writes this down. "He'd be fourteen now. He left seven years ago."

For a moment, she pauses, letting a shiver run through her because her her stepdaughter left at seven, too, and she doesn't like similarities. Though she may not love the girl, she doesn't like the idea of a child being out there all on her own, and unless the girl found her mom, she doubts she survived. "Right," she says and glances at the last known photograph of Nico and a girl. "His older sister?" she adds, pointing with the end of her pen.

The woman nods and lets out another small sob. "Bianca," she says. "She...Nico left after she died."

"And where's his father?"

"I'm not sure, but I've always hoped Nico found him somehow."

Her husband says the thing on the days he thinks of his daughter: I hope she found her mother, Lucy.

"Are you married?" she asks, and the woman shakes her head. "I'm sorry, but I have another appointment. I'll begin my search today, and call you when something comes up."

Again, the woman nods and stands, unsteady on her feet. Before she leaves, she adds, "Do you have children, Mrs. Chase?"

"Yes," she says and turns around the picture of the family so her client can see it, keeping her fast straight. "Matt and Bobby."

"I hope your luck is better than mine."

With a sad sort of smile, Maria di Angelo exits, shutting the door gently behind her. Sighing, Lucy pulls her stack of folders from her desk drawer and spreads them out, looking at the pictures clipped inside. Few of her cases are recent disappearances, and she can't understand it. If her sons ever disappeared, she'd start looking the moment she heard and search until she found them. Not like the May Castellan who waited nine years, or her husband who stopped looking before a search could really start. And as horrible as it is, she's glad he gave up so early because she can't stand the thought of seeing the poor girl again. If she came back, Lucy would need to hear again about how she looks so much like his ex-girlfriend, how she's so perfect because she's brilliant and beautiful and clever just like her -

Since she's the better the woman, the one who doesn't leave a child alone without explanation, who cared for this other mother's daughter despite how little she loved the girl, she has no reason to be jealous. In the end, she's Fred's wife, the one who sees him in when she wakes up and before she falls asleep and doesn't abandon her children without reason, and for that alone she shouldn't fault her lost stepdaughter. Everyone remembers their first love, and she was just unfortunate enough to marry a man with his own personal reminder.

Her eyes settle on a photo tucked inside the folder labeled Percy Jackson, filled with the findings of a two year long case submitted by the boy's stepfather years ago. The boy's young, only eleven, but age hadn't changed the color of his eyes. They're bright and green, shadowed by black bangs, and the frozen gaze goes straight through her. Behind him is the blurry outline of a girl with her head turned to the side, but the shirt she wears is a pajama shirt that went missing years ago from her stepdaughter's room without explanation. Numb with shock, she reaches for her cell phone on the table and dials her husband's number.

"What is it?" he asks, and she doesn't care that he's in class. "Is something the matter?"

She answers, "Last night...did you hear the boy's name at all?""

"I think the girl said Percy. Why?"

"Fred, dear," she says, voice shaking, "I think I found Annabeth."

The silence hurts.

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Written in an hour! Yay!

Anyway, so, this is really short, but it's the prologue, so I guess it makes sense, you know? Next chapters will be longer because more will be going on and whatnot. This is the only part of the story that'll be told in the point of view of any other character than the ones listened above (and I'm not even sure of them will be used, either). Hope you enjoyed!

Review please. They make me happy. ^^