He sees her again for the first time in almost ten years at a mall in Massachusetts. He caught a lot of heat at a bank job in Kansas and he figured the East Coast was the best way to go- it's the farthest he could ever get from Topeka. He's been watching her for a while and she's noticed but he knows she's not going to say anything until she wants to, so he walks over and carefully sits down next to her.

"Why are you here Percy?" she asks, after a few minutes of silence. She sounds tired, he notes offhandedly.

"Window shopping," he says, cheerfully, "and to see the mall Santa of course. He's supposed to be especially jolly this year. You?"

She sardonically brandishes a bag of gingerbread cookies in the air, then turns to frown at him. "Why are you really here? They almost caught you in Kansas you shouldn't even be out," she snaps. He gets the feeling that she's supposed to sound like she cares.

"Lighten up, Annabeth! It's Christmas."

"Christmas is over." She tries to sound mad but she can't muster up enough vitriol and she sounds dejected instead, almost dissappointed. A Christmas tree is still set up under the skylight and all the poles and arches still have garland wrapped around them. The hired Santa is still in "The North Pole!" and that probably doesn't help.

He tsks at her, swiping a wallet as he pretends to pick something up off the ground. "Where's your holiday cheer?"

She scoffs. "Jesus' birthday was in March. Ask me around then."

He shrugs. "Fair enough." He nods at the mall Santa. "Guess who that is."

She laughs bitterly. "In case you hadn't noticed," she bites out, "I'm not in the mood."

"Just guess Annabeth."

She huffs, squinting. "Is it Leo?"

He laughs. "Remember when you were good at this?"

She glares at him. "Just tell me then. I'm not in the mood for your games."

"Jason," he says, grinning when she blinks.

"What? Jason wouldn't..." she squints again and then widens her eyes comically. "Holy shit." She starts to laugh and then stops abruptly, trying to inconspicuously press a hand to her ribs.

That's when he realizes that she's been hunched over the entire time he's been watching. "Annabeth?"

"I'm fine," she says, trying for a smile.

"No you're not."

"Yes, I am," she says glaring at him.

"Annabeth you can't even laugh properly."

She tries to get up, and then falls back onto the bench again. "It doesn't matter. I have to be fine."

He huffs angrily. "Why are you so fucking stubborn-"

"I'm sorry I'm stubborn?" She tries to stand up again and he has to grab her arm to keep her from falling on her face.

"Just...stay still and tell me what the fuck is going on!"

She laughs bitterly, wrenching her arm out of his hand. "I don't have to tell you anything," Annabeth snarls, "especially considering you sold me out to the FB-fucking-I."

He shrinks back. "Fair enough," he repeats, walking away. He doesn't see the tear she wipes away angrily, or the way she seems to deflate as soon as he isn't looking.

He comes back to the mall a week later to find her sitting in the exact same spot on the bench. She's staring hard at a jewelry store across from the bench over an ice cream cone. He knows she knows he's there, she's probably memorized the sound of his gait already, so he cuts to the chase. "I'm sorry."

She gives him a look and then nods once, short, perfunctory. "I'm not."

"When's the job?"

She answers around a mouthful of chocolate ice cream and waffle-cone. "Day after tomorrow."

Percy frowns. "You've only been casing the place for a week though."

"Jason's been getting antsy," Annabeth answers, shrugging.

Percy huffs. "You knew he was here."

The corners of her lips quirk up ever so slightly as she takes another bite out of the cone. "Know everything I do," she says trying for Yoda.

He makes a face. "That was terrible." She grins at him. "Seriously though. There's a thirty thousand in jewels there. Forty tops."

She shrugs again. "Work's been slow lately. Feds are getting smarter, if you can imagine that." His answering bark of laughter is cut short after a few seconds and she smiles in response. They're not at all ready to talk about everything that happened on that bridge but this is a start.

The next time Percy sees Annabeth it's because she finds him in the apartment that he decided to rent a couple miles away from the mall. The bathroom is the size of a broom closet, the only appliance he has is a small conduction stove he stole, and the small moth-eaten mattress in one corner is the only sizable piece of furniture in the three hundred square foot room, but he's okay with calling it home for now.

He buys groceries on a Friday and ends up getting chased by some old dude who thinks he's Leo which. (He's a thief but not that kind of thief and in what universe does he so much as resemble Leo?) When he finally does make it back to the apartment it's after dark, he's soaked to the bone and more exhausted than he's been in weeks so he doesn't really register the fact that his door is open until he turns and sees Annabeth slumped against the wall.

"Holy shit," he breathes dropping the bag. He hears the eggs crack in their carton. "Fuck fuck fuck-"

She laughs weakly, sliding down the wall in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a slasher flick, blood staining the dirty robin's-egg blue wall behind her. "If I'd have known you-"

"Don't," he says harshly. "Just...what happened?"

She coughs once, twice. "They caught me."

He frowns, kneeling next to her and almost driving his forehead into the wall. "Who is they? I-"

"They," she repeats, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. "His men."

"Right," he says "his men." He holds her gaze for a beat before looking down at her stomach. Her hands is pressed against a bullet wound and the blood has seeped into everything- her jacket, her shirt, the waistband of her pants. Her hands are covered in it, to the point that it would look like she was wearing gloves if he let his eyes cross. Annabeth takes her hand away for a minute and he thinks he might pass out once he sees the full extent of the wound.

"Okay so..." He swallows and walks toward his bathroom. "I'm just gonna get some stuff," he begins, nearly walking into the opposite wall in his haste to get away and was it always this claustrophobic here?

He has to lean against the sink for a few minutes and just breathe before he can bring himself to grab the first aid kit.

"Okay," he says kneeling down beside her again. His hands hover her stomach, but he can't seem to tear his gaze away from the blood seeping out of her wound and pooling on the cheap linoleum floor. He doesn't think he can do this (God he's going to kill her-)

"Percy," she says faintly. She looks him in the eyes, smiles like she knows exactly what he's thinking. "Focus. You have to do this."

"Okay." He inhales slowly, then exhales. "What do I do?" She talks him through as much as he needs to and then passes out from the pain as he cauterizes her wound. It's not until he finishes wrapping her torso that he realizes he's up to his elbows in Annabeth's blood and he can still smell her flesh burning. He barely makes it to the toilet before he starts heaving up his breakfast.

Annabeth wakes up five hours later in the middle of the night, coughing. He gets up of his mattress, locks the door so she can't make a run for it, then turns on the lights. "You're awake."

"Looks like it," she croaks, coughing once or twice then wincing as she feels her bruised ribs.

He hands her a bottle of water. "Tell me what happened."

That seems to really wake her up. She shifts so she's sitting in her blanket-mattress-sleeping bag cocoon and frowns. "No. I'm not putting you in anymore danger than I have to," she says launching into another violent coughing fit.

He scoffs. "As if getting shot, then running to my apartment hadn't done that already. Besides you stole my bed, the least you could do is explain why I may or may not be hunted down sometime in the foreseeable future."

She sighs and he know's he won. Try as she might to find a loophole or a way out, she's always been a slave to logic. "I stole the Faberge egg."

His brows furrow. "But the egg's with..." His eyes widen. "Holy shit. You stole from fucking Kronos?" She doesn't answer just runs a hand across her face and gives him a look as if to say duh. "Kronos, as in master thief, trained by Gaia herself?" He's nervous about Kronos for a reason that has nothing to do with his mother, but that's not something Annabeth needs to know.

"That's why you were at the mall, wasn't it?"

She nods, then winces as the motion pulls at her stitches. "The real egg was being transported through a civilian in backpack." She smiles. "It took some top-notch grifting to get that information."

He doesn't exactly know what to say to that. "But why fucking Kronos?"

"I don't know, Percy," she says. He figures that she's supposed to sound annoyed, but he can hear her amusement and she's half smiling at him so he's not exactly sure what to think.

"What?" he asks confusedly, trying to pick apart her expression.

"Nothing," she answers.

"That was not nothing," he says.

"You were saying?" she snaps.

He was going to say something, maybe something along the lines of are you fucking insane but he figures the answer is somewhat self explanatory considering she's sitting in his living room with a bullet wound, so instead he says, "There's no way you got through his private army, computer randomized laser grid, and state-of-the-art safe on your own."

"I didn't. Leo helped me with the safe, and Jason helped me case the place and build my rig, and Piper grifted her way in with me. I haven't been able to case any place properly by myself since the bridge," she says staring at him pointedly. There's an edge to her voice that she doesn't like, but he deserves whatever she's going to throw at him. (You turned me in-)

He clears his throat, looking away. "Then they're in danger. We have to go get them."

She opens her mouth, then realizes he's right and closes it. "When do we leave?"

When they're seventeen, Annabeth decides that she's going to steal the Hope Diamond. She doesn't even blink when she realizes how many hidden security measures there are protecting the thing, just grins. "It'll be fine," she says, "we'll be just like Ocean's Thirteen."

Nico snorts, and everyone pauses for a moment as the sound echoes through the abandoned theater they're in. "Hazel just turned thirteen." Annabeth glares and mutters something uncomplementary under her breath. Sometimes Percy wonders how those two ever get through a job.

"I'll be fine Nico," Hazel voices from where she sits behind Piper.

"Now that that's settled-" Annabeth reaches into her backpack to pull a blueprint onto the stage they're sitting on and unfurls it "-The National Museum of Natural History in D.C., home of the Hope Diamond."

She reaches into her backpack and pulls out what looks like a scale model. "It's sitting in a glass case, surrounded by sensors. We can't raise the place up, or cut the power to the alarms or change the temperature or else the diamond will retreat into the safe below the pedestal and we don't want to deal with that. So we're going in from above." She taps a section of the cardboard ceiling.

"We're going to have to disrupt the temperature sensors- it's colder outside than inside. Leo's working on a chip to slip in. Jason and I are gonna work on a rig so I can grab the thing off the pedestal at night, Piper and Percy are gonna put Leo's chip in the sensor controller thing and break the lock on the glass case, Hazel and Nico are distractions just in case, and Frank's our getaway man." She beams. "Any questions?"

Percy raises his hand with a smirk. Annabeth sighs and waves her hand as if to say go on, and the effect is somewhat ruined by the fact that she's still grinning, delirious with the thrill that comes with the wait. (And really, this is the downfall of a thief- the thrill, the need that comes with so much as planning another job. Everyone here can almost taste the euphoria that comes with cheating the system. Percy can see it in the gleam that appears in Annabeth's eyes every time she talks about a heist.) "If this is Ocean's Eleven, which one of us is George Clooney?"

"Neither of you, you're too young," Piper says, rolling her eyes.

Leo grins. "I knew you watched it!"

"Can I go home now? It's too early. I need ramen and a nap."

Jason gives her a sideways grin. "It's eleven a.m., Pipes."

"Whatever," she says grinning back.

Annabeth raises her eyes heavenward and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Holy Hera."

Percy always figured leaving a squat would be harder than it actually is; he's found that it never takes him more than twenty minutes to systematically dissolve any evidence of his staying someplace, and the ease with which he does it shocks him. He always figured it would be harder to let go.

"You good?" he asks Annabeth quietly, taking in her restricted movements and the numerous winces she tries to hide. It scares him more than he'd like to let on- Annabeth always moves like a ghost, as if the rest of the world is smoke and she's just passing through, and her injuries have never been this bad. Annabeth answers with a weak smile and a nod. The door echoes with a resounding finality and that almost makes him flinch.

"How are we gonna find them?" Annabeth asks, pulling her meager excuse of a coat closer to her lean frame.

"Beats me," he says, turning around with a nostalgic smile, "you're the girl with the plan."

He watches the gears turn as she adopts what the entire community has recognized as her scheming face. "Can't use normal phones."

"Burners?"

"Kronos' men probably have those tapped, and Jason, Piper and Leo wouldn't recognize any new numbers. We can't ask around or use Internet either- he's set up webcrawlers and he's got contacts everywhere."

"We're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way aren't we," he sighs, shuddering as he pulls on gloves.

"Nope. We can check the safe house."

He blinks. "I almost forgot about that."

She snorts. "That's kind of the point, Seaweed Brain," she teases. He huffs indignantly and reaches out to tap her side, then stops as she tenses. She must notice his crestfallen expression, because she stops. "I-"

He smiles. "It's okay." The condolence leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but he supposes he needed this- another reminder that they can never go back to what they were.

Naturally, everything goes wrong the day of the Hope Diamond job. Piper and Percy get made a minute after they get in, Nico and Hazel manage to set off one of her bombs but they get caught on camera, Leo's chip never makes it, but somehow (read: Annabeth) they manage to nab the diamond and trip most of the alarms and sensors on their way out. (Actually, they trip all of them. But who cares, right?)

All of this leads to a car chase that would be remniscient of a Mission Impossible movie, if not for the fact that they're all minors, and every hairpin turn or evasive maneuver they make is punctuated by loud cursing. Percy figures some of the words are imrpovised because there's no way holyshittingfuckmuffin is a word that anyone uses on a daily basis.

They're cornered at the end of a brige that's under feds move in just as Nico jumps out of the back of the van with little Hazel, diamond in hand. (Well. More like in bag in safe in hand but whatever.) Percy doesn't know whether to be flattered or afraid when he sees the literal army of agents swarming the van.

"Leo, throw the other bomb," Annabeth orders, staring out of the window in the back calculatingly. Leo obliges with a gleeful whoop. When the agents respond with a grenade and a volley of bullets, Percy settles on definitely afraid. In the end, the police manage to round them all up and Percy knows something terrible is going to happen as soon as he feels the cool aluminum of the van door against his face.

The interrogating room isn't very intimidating but that's okay, Percy muses, because the agents make up for it in spades. Agent Dubois, the agent in charge or whatever, is a steryotypical angry French dude, with a Chaplin moustache and a bald spot the size of one of those islands in the Florida Keys, but he's in top form regardless of his...inadequacies.

"We know you were involved, and really we know everyone else that was involved too so your cooperation isn't really needed, but would be much appreciated. By everyone involved," he says, eyeing Annabeth's picture pointedly.

Percy scoffs. "How many police procedurals have you watched, Dubois?"

Dubois laughs too. "Alright, here's something for you to chew on." He slaps a picture on to the table. "I presume you know this man."

Percy looks down and swallows. It's a mug shot, with KRONOS OLYMPUS printed underneath in big bold letters. He can almost see Annabeth wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Kronos Olympus? Could he get anymore pretentious?"

"This man has promised evidence tying your girlfriend not only to this job but also to the murder of one of his associates. So unless you want her to go away for life, or get put down..."

Needless to say, he talks.

He gets out of prison two years before Annabeth does. He negotiates with the feds (read: bribes) to move her out of the maximum security so he can visit; she won't so much as look at him when he tries.

He and Annabeth get slammed against a wall as soon as they set foot in the safe house. "It's me, it's me!" Percy shouts, throwing his hands in the air as he feels the barrel of a gun being pressed into his back.

"Oh." Piper steps back and lets Percy and Annabeth turn themselves around, casting a worried frown at Annabeth as she notices her wince. "Hey." Percy turns around to see Jason still pointing a gun at the two of them and Leo watching from the doorway.

"Where did we go after we finished our first job together?" Jason demands skeptically. His hands are shaking.

"...Pizza Hut," Percy answers, rolling his eyes. "Dude who the fuck would pretend to be me?" he asks exasperatedly.

"What the fuck is going on," Annabeth asks, her gaze flitting between the three of them.

"Thank God, it's you," Piper says, pulling her into a hug. "We weren't sure if you had..."

"If I had...?" Annabeth prompts.

Piper glances at Jason and then looks over at Leo before giving them an unecessarily bright smile. "What are you doing here? We were gonna find you after everything...died down." She gives them a crooked smile. "Pun not intended."

Percy can tell exactly when Annabeth puts two and two together. "Kronos found you too didn't he?" she asks, narrowing her eyes.

"Well-" Piper begins.

"He didn't exactly-" Jason starts affrontedly- he's got a reputation to uphold after all.

"Yes," Leo says, cutting them both off and rolling his eyes. He pulls out a slice of pizza from...Percy doesn't even know where. "Want one? You two look hungry."

"Where did-" Annabeth looks around, sounding just as confused as he must look. Then she shrugs and takes the slice. "Thanks..."

Leo grins. "So what happened?" he asks, pulling a paperclip out of his pocket and unwinding it.

"So, funny story, Kronos is kind of hunting down Annabeth and everyone who helped her steal the egg. You don't have anything to do with that though right?" Percy asks.

They scowl. "Fucking Kronos," the three of them say simultaneously. (Percy's never been able to understand how they do that. He thinks they're all psychic or something.)

They exchange one of their looks and then Piper steps aside, making a sweeping gesture in the general direction of the kitchen. "If we're gonna talk about this at all," she calls over her shoulder, walking towards the fridge, "we're doing it over cheap wine and mac n' cheese."

Leo whoops, pumping his fist in the air for whatever reason, and Jason gives them a mushy, fond look that Percy hopes he never has to see again and does something with his hands.

Percy shrugs. "Fair enough."

Annabeth just shakes her head. "You're about to walk into a door, Jason," she sighs, wincing as he walks into said door despite her warning.

"You sure you're alright?" Leo starts after they've all finished, his eyes flitting over Annabeth's leaner than usual frame with all the scrutiny of an engineer.

She nods exaggeratedly, attempting to smile. She's been glancing around shiftily since they got here, like she knows they're going to have leave and it's getting to Percy- he's never seen her like this, fidgeting like a caged animal. Jason frowns, opening his mouth to protest before he sees Percy's glare and decides that probably wouldn't be such a good idea. He settles for, "When did he find you?" Jason doesn't mention a name but she knows who he's asking about regardless- they can all feel Kronos' presence like a dark cloud, and itch that they're going to have to scratch sooner or later.

Annabeth runs a hand down her messy braid. "A week ago," she answers uneasily, looking warily at the night sky through the window as if she expects him to break down the door, guns blazing.

Piper frowns as she sees Annabeth hunch over, subconciously making herself as small as possible. "Let's get you into the bathroom," Piper says gently.

"I'm fine," Annabeth insists, "I really don't know why-"

"For God's sake, Annabeth, I can see your stitches. Come on," Piper says exasperatedly, pulling Annabeth out of her chair gently and herding her into the bathroom.

Percy grins. "So," he prompts, looking between Jason and Leo.

"What?" Leo snaps, frowning.

"The three of you. When did that become a thing?" he asks, running his fork along the inside of the bowl.

"I...have no clue what you're talking about," Jason says, giving Leo a wide eyed look.

Percy rolls his eyes. "Cut the crap."

Jason and Leo look at each other. "You're not...you're okay with this?" Leo asks tentatively. His hands aren't moving at all and the paper clips he's been playing with since Percy and Annabeth got to the safe house have fallen to the floor.

Percy tilts his head. "Why wouldn't I be?" he asks. "You'll be like you usually are, except, you know, with kissing and hugging and...other relationship stuff," he finishes, cringing and running a hand through his hair.

"Right," Jason says, blinking once, twice in disbelief, and then staring into space. Leo elbows him in the side with an impish grin. Jason jolts out of his reverie, then directs a poorly concealed grin at Leo.

Percy snorts. "Have you told anyone else yet?"

"We told Sally," Piper says, walking over to perch on the table. He glances over at Annabeth, who looks much better than she did when he found her then blinks.

"Wait you told my mom before I did?" Percy asks becoming confused then indignant in short order.

"To be fair, you're not very good at tact, Percy," Annabeth offers with a small smile.

"I guess..." he says, trying to determine the cause of her sudden mood swing.

"That, and Sally did a pretty good job helping you deal with your bi awakening. And then Annabeth's right after." Leo says standing up and bending over to pick up his paper clips. Percy's like, ninety percent sure both Jason and Piper are checking out his ass.

The next morning Percy's wake up call is an elbow to the stomach. He immediately sits up and lands a left hook and a jab, effectively shoving his assailant off his bed before he turns on the light to see- "Jason?"

"Hey buddy!" Jason wheezes.

He rubs his eyes and groans, glancing at the clock. "Its four in the morning Jason. What the fuck are you doing?" He hears something crash on the other side of the wall seperating him from Annabeth.

"We gotta go."

Percy takes a good look at him then groans. "They found us didn't they.

"They didn't but it was close. Come on- up."

Percy glares. "He's got spies everywhere. Why would it be any different anywhere else?"

"We don't have time for you to argue with me, Percy. Are you coming or not?" Jason sighs.

Percy closes his eyes. "Fine," he says scowling petulantly. He packs his stuff, walks out of his room and finds Annabeth on the other side, frowning and clutching a cup of coffee so tightly that her knuckles are white. "Annabeth?"

She jumps. Some of her coffee spills over the side of her mug.

"When did you have time to make coffee?"

"I didn't make the coffee," she grumbles. "Piper did." She takes a sip and winces. "It's cold and sweet and decaf so it's not helping at all." She glares at the mug like it's somehow personally offended her, then huffs, stalking into the kitchen grumbling something about ungodly hours of the morning. Percy follows to make sure she doesn't do something impulsive like smash all the coffee mugs.

She pours the coffee into the sink. He lets out a sigh of relief. When she pours all of Piper's imported decaf coffee into the sink too and turns on the garbage disposal for dramatic flair he groans, letting his head hit the wall. Too soon.

(Piper doesn't realize until after she's packed her bags in the trunk of the minivan that her coffee is missing, thank the gods. The shootout that occurs half an hour after they hit the road probably helps her forget too.)

notes: second chapter coming soon

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