This story was the outcome of my quest to accept Jasper as a couple (I still like Liper better, but…yeah) and is based on two books and a movie: Bird by Angela Johnson, Runaway Twin by Peg Kehret, and Remembering Sunday, a Hallmark movie that I fell in love with during the summer.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the Heroes of Olympus series, or the title Forget-Me-Not. Rights go to Rick Riordan for the characters, and Coleen Murtagh Paratore for the title. Thank you. :)

PIPER

Piper McLean was having a pretty rotten day.

She had finally ran out of money. All the trashcans on this side of town were empty. Everything she found on the ground that was edible wasn't necessarily good for consumption. Piper was running out of options.

Piper ignored her grumbling stomach as she gazed at her reflection in the glass of a store window. She fixed her hair, or at least tried to. That choppy brown mess of hers was beginning to look like a pigsty. She had bags under her eyes due to a lack of sleep. She hadn't slept in days, but she knew deep down that she had to keep moving.

She walked along the sidewalk for half an hour or so, picking up the change she saw and eyeing the diner across the street all the while. She could smell the pancakes. The bacon. The egg omelets with the cheese and peppers on top. It was hard to be a vegetarian with smells like that coming out of a building.

The smell of pancakes reminded Piper of the time her and her father had tried to make some. The two of them had failed pretty epically. Piper's dad had joked around when he had put the un-cracked eggs into the mixer and turned it on. She remembered how funny it was to smell like egg yolk for a week. They had sat down on the couch, eating the pancakes their chef had made them afterward, and her dad had teasingly admitted that he had hired so many personal chefs, he had forgotten how to cook.

Thinking of her dad and home, Piper soon discovered, made her even hungrier. She looked down at the money in her hand. So far she had found three dollars and twenty-four cent's worth of change. Her tummy grumbled again. Maybe today was half-off day at the diner. Maybe today would be Piper's lucky day when everything on the menu was free.

She casually strolled into the diner.

The little bell over the door 'dinged'. A wave of smells hit Piper as soon as she walked in. Coffee, toast, jam…she could smell it all. Piper was almost dizzy with hunger.

She wistfully slid into a booth in the back and picked up a menu. The place was small. There was an old ceiling fan that whirred around in lazy circles that didn't do much to stifle the heat. There was a little TV in the corner of one wall that a bunch of big, burly guys were gathered around watching sports. The wallpaper was equally drab and peeling off the walls. The tabletop of Piper's booth was slanted, and she had to hold the salt and pepper to keep them from falling onto the floor. She found the place pleasant anyways.

A lady with big hair came to take her order. Her name tag read "Darla". Piper liked Darla. She smelled like cigarettes and reminded her of an old washed up movie star her dad had once worked with. Piper looked up from her menu.

"What's the special today?" Piper asked.

"Chef's Grilled chicken sandwich," said Darla with a Southern accent. "It's got tomaters, onions, lettuce, cheese – "

"I'll have that," interrupted Piper. "But no chicken. And if you have any tofu that you can fry up like eggs, that would be great," she told Darla. "Thank you."

Darla stalked away. Once again, Piper stared at the change in her hand. How was she going to pay for all of this? She wasn't fond of the idea of leaving without paying. She also wasn't very fond of the police. For some unknown reason, Piper found herself staring at the diner's front door, as if the answer to her problems would walk through any minute now.

Darla came back with her food.

"You know," she said thoughtfully as she set Piper's plate down on the table. "You remind me of someone. Movie star, maybe. Ya' got the looks fer' one," she told Piper. Piper forced a smile, but her thoughts were really on her food.

"Been in any movies lately?" joked Darla. Piper smiled and shook her head, and Darla left, chuckling all the way back to the kitchen. Piper's smile faded as she slid down into her chair, and put both hands up to rub her temples. Oh gosh. If only she knew.

She picked at her sandwich, breaking it up into little pieces and slowly eating each piece one by one. She didn't want to shove the meal down and look like she was hungry. People would get suspicious.

Piper hadn't really been paying attention to the TV, but she heard something that grabbed her attention.

" – Piper McLean, daughter of Hollywood actor Tristan McLean has been reported missing. The fifteen-year-old was last seen going to school on the morning of Wednesday, June 18. Authorities have searched several areas including downtown Los Angeles, Long Beach, South Valley, and San Diego. The search has recently been expanded all the way from southern California to Oklahoma. Please be on the lookout for – "

Not the picture, thought Piper. But her face appeared on the screen anyway. A picture Piper's father had taken of her when they were vacationing in the Hamptons last year.

" – Piper McLean. Back to you, Fred."

Piper pulled her hood over her head and continued to pick at her food. She gave a big sigh as she put a hand up to hide her face.

Piper had to leave, and quick. If anyone recognized her, she'd be in big trouble. She unzipped her backpack and wrapped the sandwich in a napkin, and stuffed it inside. Piper took her fork and knife, too. She quickly stood and shouldered her backpack, glanced around the diner to see if anyone was watching, and made her way towards the door.

Darla was just walking out of the kitchen when Piper opened the front door.

"Hey!" but Piper was too fast for Darla. She heard the jingle of the little bell as the diner door swung open behind her as she ran down the street. She ran past the alley she had slept in the night before and the "Welcome to Enterprise, Alabama" sign she had passed earlier yesterday morning. Then she ran into the woods.

Piper did not know how long she had been running. She watched as the world zoomed by as she ran faster and faster, crashing through the woods. She jumped over a brook and ducked under some branches, not glancing behind her. Piper had to put as much distance between her and Enterprise as she could manage. If someone from the diner called the authorities – and they probably would – the police would take their description and match it with her picture. The authorities would probably extend their search to Alabama. With that happy thought, Piper ran a little faster, her heart pounding in her ears.

Piper did not know how long she had been hiding out in Alabama, and she did not know where she would be sleeping that night. She still didn't have any money on her, but at least she had her sandwich. So Piper sat down on a log for a while and unzipped her backpack. She sat, nibbling on a piece of her sandwich, and stared out into space.

Four days. It had taken her father four days to notice that she was missing. How insane was that? In four days, Piper had used her cash to get her from southern California all the way to Mississippi. Piper thought that dads were supposed to love their daughters and keep them safe, not go on vacation for three weeks and leave them at home alone. He gave Piper the perfect opportunity to run away – what with her having no supervision, tons of emergency money, and a passport he got her for quick trips to the Caribbean – so she took it. She packed up her bags and left, and now she didn't know where to go or what to do. Piper continued to stare straight ahead as she slowly chewed on her sandwich.

After a while, Piper felt restless and started moving again. She walked through the woods until she came to an old, dirt road, and followed it until she came upon a town. The old dirt road eventually gave way to pavement, and Piper followed the street to a gated community. Through the gate, Piper saw white picket fences surrounding most of the properties, and grass much greener than the stuff at home. She climbed the fence that scaled the area and strolled through someone's backyard.

The houses in Alabama looked a lot older than the houses in California, Piper noted. The sides of the walls of the houses before her were covered in vines and shrubbery. Upon closer inspection, Piper noticed that the white paint on the picket fences was chipped and faded. The trees were huge and foreign to Piper, and she heard cicadas buzzing somewhere off to her right. There was an odd, sweet smell in the air, like flowers and rain mixed together, even though it hadn't rained in days. It was getting chillier; night was quickly approaching. Piper had to find somewhere to crash, and fast.

Piper ambled through the neighborhood, passing more old houses and a few drugstores like 7-Eleven and CVS Pharmacy. She picked up any change she saw as she walked along the road, and she was right about to pocket a dollar when she heard a "Meow" not so far from where she was standing. Piper looked up to see a black cat sitting a foot away.

"My luck," she muttered to herself sarcastically. Then the cat walked up to her and rubbed itself on her leg, purring. Surprised, Piper dropped the dollar. Then the cat grabbed the cash in its mouth, stalked away, and disappeared off into some bushes. Seeing as she had nowhere to be and was not necessarily in her right mind, Piper walked over to the bush, got down on her knees, and crawled through the hedge after the cat, grumbling complaints all the way.

Piper stood on the other side of the shrubbery, looking around in awe.

There was a big, brick house, with a porch that went all the way around. Vines grew up the side of the house, much similar to the other houses in the area. It looked like one of those Civil War houses from Gone With The Wind. The only thing that really stood out to Piper was the immense tree that was taking up one section of the yard. It had a tire swing hanging down from one the lower branches, and as Piper observed the tire sway in the wind, she noticed a pond behind the tree. Piper held on to one strap of her backpack as she walked over to examine it.

The air became cooler as she got closer to the water. Piper, whose throat had gone dry with thirst, quickly knelt down to drink, but stopped herself short. The water was probably full of bacteria and germs and other nasties. Piper quickly stood up and recomposed herself, habitually fingering the little braid in her hair in embarrassment. She almost let her thirst get the best of her. She would have to find water elsewhere. Maybe I'll go back to 7-Eleven and get some, Piper thought.

Piper turned around to go when she noticed something else that caught her eye. There was an old, rickety shed leaning to the side on the opposite end of the yard. The cat, which Piper had nearly forgotten about, was making its way through the door, and Piper saw its tail disappear inside. She walked over, glanced at the back of the house to see if anyone was watching, and opened the door to the shed.

All that was inside the shed were a couple of rusty rakes, a wheelbarrow with no wheel to speak of, and a bag of dirt. There were little hooks on the side of the shed, which Piper assumed were once used to hold more tools. The dirt underfoot was hard and packed, probably from many years of being trod upon. The cat sat in a corner and stared up at Piper.

"Okay," said Piper to the cat. "Now you've brought me here. What now?" The cat blinked, walked around in a circle, and then lied down and fell asleep, much like a dog. Piper rolled her eyes and huffed.

"I'm going now," she said aloud as she turned to go. As soon as she put a hand on the shed door, though, thunder rumbled outside. Piper backed away from the door. She couldn't stay outside in a storm, and especially not at night.

"Guess I'm staying here, then," she muttered to herself. Then she put down her backpack and leaned against it, listening to the thunder. She would find out where she was in the morning, she decided. Then it began to rain, and Piper's eyes slid closed, and she fell asleep to the sound of thunder.